[ Page 1219 ]

CONTENTS

Ministerial statement

Visit of Korean industrialist. Hon. Mr. Bennett –– 1220

Oral Questions

Committee on operations of ICBC. Mr. Macdonald –– 1220

McKim Advertising. Mr. Cocke –– 1220

Tariffs on imported fruit. Ms. Sanford –– 1221

Farm income insurance for orchardists. Ms. Sanford –– 1221

Mr. Stupich

B.C. Systems Corporation. Mr. Nicolson –– 1222

Orders of the Day

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

Ms. Sanford –– 1222

Mr. Stupich –– 1226

Mr. Mitchell –– 1231

Mrs. Wallace –– 1234

Mr. Howard –– 1238

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 7, 1983

The House met at 2:06 p.m.

Prayers.

HON. MR. BENNETT: Mr. Speaker, as members of this House will know, our neighbour, Washington state, lost one of its greatest sons last week. I refer, of course, to the late Senator Henry "Scoop" Jackson, who passed away last Thursday night at his home in Everett, Washington, at the age of 71.

Senator Jackson served his state and his country well during his 45 years of public service, the last 31 of which were in the United States Senate, where he became its third-ranking senator. He was a dominant member of the Senate Armed Services Committee and chairman of its Energy Committee. In this latter capacity he handled much of the major American energy and environmental legislation of the past two decades, and he counted a number of environmental protection laws among his greatest achievements. Perhaps British Columbia, as well as his home state, helped influence his concerns for the environment.

Senator Jackson was a familiar figure in our province. He came here from time to time to fish and hunt and to enjoy our natural beauty. The senator was a great friend of Canada over the years. Indeed, besides having an interest in Canada, he understood us and was a good neighbour.

Senator Jackson backed the recently concluded draft agreement on the Skagit Valley between British Columbia and Seattle City Light Co. He also put his support behind the recent draft salmon interception agreement between the United States and Canada, which is of great importance to this province.

British Columbia and Canada have lost a good friend and neighbour, and I would ask my fellow members of this House to join with me in offering British Columbia's deepest sympathies and condolences to the American people, to our neighbours in Washington state, and most of all to Mrs. Helen Jackson and her family on the loss of Senator "Scoop" Jackson.

MR. BARRETT: Mr. Speaker, I want to add a few words to those expressed by the Premier.

It was my fortune to have known Senator Jackson both politically and also as a participant in an international panel on terrorism in Tel Aviv some three years ago.

Senator Jackson came out of the roots of the working force of the Pacific Northwest. He was part and parcel of the early Democratic Party reform movement during the latter years of the Roosevelt administration's influence. During and after the war Senator Jackson was always a close friend of British Columbia and Canada. He shared the same sense of regionalism that all of us in this part of the continent have. In his disputes with his own central government he always took a broader view of the region, and in that sense his interests in Washington coincided with British Columbia spokespersons in Ottawa.

W.A.C. Bennett and Senator Jackson found themselves on the same side on many points of view affecting the region that became regional interests rather than having an international border be a hindrance to those regional interests.

Senator Jackson was alive, alert and concerned about the changes in society, and gave of himself throughout all those years to those changes. He served through difficult years. His loss was swift and tragic and it is felt, as the Premier has said, as much here on this side of the border as in his home state. It is true we have lost a friend of Canada. It is true we have lost a good fighter for this region. But it is more true that we have lost a neighbour, because that indeed has always been our relationship with the Pacific Northwest and the American representatives of that area. We too wish to extend our condolences to his family and to the citizens of Washington state. May his successor, whoever that person is, remember the spirit and commitment that Senator Jackson had to this region, albeit sometimes in disagreement but never without his eye on a common goal for this area.

MR. SPEAKER: If it is the wish of the House, we will undertake to send the appropriate message.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Agreed.

HON. MR. GARDOM: We have four United States neighbours visiting us from the great state of Florida: Mr. Ralph Clayton, a former state senator from Florida, and his wife Clara; also "Red" and Virginia Bell, who are on their way to Alaska. I would like all members to pay them a very cordial welcome.

MR. HANSON: There are four representatives of the building trades unions of the Victoria area here today: Mr. Rick Ferrill from the carpenters' union; Mr. Madeley with the labourers' union; Mr. Roy of the sheet metal workers; and Chris Jones with the B.C. and Yukon building trades. Would you join me in making them welcome.

MR. MOWAT: In our gallery today we have a very personal friend of mine, Mr. Tom Anderson. He is from that great constituency of enlightened Surrey.

[2:15]

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: On behalf of my colleague in Vancouver–Little Mountain I would like to ask the House to welcome one of the hardest-working executive members of our constituency, who is also the vice-president of the British Columbia Social Credit Party, Mrs. Hope Wotherspoon.

Mr. Speaker, I also ask the House to welcome Mr. Hector Politeski and a group of people whom he is hosting as visitors to the House today.

HON. MR. HEWITT: In the gallery today is the mayor of the recently designated town of Osoyoos, who graduated, you might say, from village to town: Mayor Bob Frost. I would ask the House to welcome him.

HON. MR. PHILLIPS: This is a very special day in the history of British Columbia. because it was ten years ago today that our Premier was first elected to represent the people of Okanagan South. During that ten years he has given outstanding leadership to the people of British Columbia, I'm sure that all members of the House on both sides would like to wish him well in his next ten years.

[ Page 1220 ]

VISIT OF KOREAN INDUSTRIALIST

HON. MR. BENNETT: Mr. Speaker, I wish to make a statement.

I wish to advise the House that I will be meeting today with the president of Pohang Iron and Steel Co. of Korea, General Park. The reason for General Park's visit to British Columbia is to honour the opening tomorrow of the Greenhills coal-mine near Elkford in the Kootenay district, a joint venture between Westar and Pohang Iron and Steel. I'm pleased to say that both the Minister of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources (Hon. Mr. Rogers) and the Minister of Industry and Small Business Development (Hon. Mr. Phillips) will be attending the official opening tomorrow.

Korea is British Columbia's second most important coal customer, after Japan, and Pohang is the major steel company in Korea. Of its coke and coal requirements, 35 percent is provided by British Columbia coal producers, namely Fording and Westar. I first met General Park in Seoul, Korea, in October 1979, and I'm pleased to see that efforts to attract the Korean market have come to fruition in the opening of the joint venture between Westar and Pohang.

During my meeting with General Park this evening, I know all members of this House will want me to take the opportunity to extend to the people of Korea the profound outrage of the government and the people of British Columbia at the tragic events and loss of life surrounding the shooting of a Korean commercial airliner last week by a U.S.S.R. military pilot.

MR. LEA: Mr. Speaker, the official opposition offers the Premier and his two colleagues our best wishes in talking with the South Koreans, potential coal customers for British Columbia. Obviously, we all want better markets for both our raw and our finished resources, and we wish the government luck.

Also, the official opposition would ask that the Premier include us in his remarks in terms of the shooting down of the Korean aircraft.

Oral Questions

COMMITTEE ON OPERATIONS OF ICBC

MR. MACDONALD: Mr. Speaker, a question to the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs — more corporate than consumer; the minister in charge of ICBC. Has the minister a task force or committee, one including his own deputy and the deputy of another department, and Mr. Holmes and the ministers looking in, that has as one of the subjects of its agenda the privatization of ICBC, and ways and means to carry that out? Is any such committee or task force holding meetings?

HON. MR. HEWITT: Yes, there is a committee reviewing all operations of the corporation that I'm responsible for. That has been public knowledge for some time. Since the May 5 election we have advised that we would be reviewing Crown corporations and their operations. My responsibility is ICBC, and we're evaluating the services it provides to the public, and where efficiencies can be achieved.

MR. MACDONALD: Would the minister then give us the personnel of the committee and who is chairing it?

HON. MR. HEWITT: Mr. Speaker, my deputy minister is chairing that committee. At this time I'm afraid that I can't give you in detail all the members who sit on that committee.

MR. MACDONALD: A supplementary question. My information is that the committee has a proposal before it to turn the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia over to the private sector — to take us back to 1971 and the 105 private companies and the insurance dollar never seeing the light of day in the province of British Columbia in terms of investment. I'm asking the minister: has there been a decision to allow that committee to consider the privatization, the carving up of ICBC like a turkey and giving it away to the private sector? Are they allowed to consider that point?

HON. MR. HEWITT: Mr. Speaker, the member opposite knows that it is a Crown corporation and that any decision made with regard to future policy will be made by government and not by a committee.

MR. MACDONALD: Has the minister given that committee instructions that ICBC is to remain a public corporation, owned and controlled by the people of British Columbia selling insurance at cost? Have you instructed them that that is your policy?

HON. MR. HEWITT: Mr. Speaker, as I mentioned previously, the role of the committee is to review the operations of the corporation. Any change to that corporation will be made by government.

MR. MACDONALD: I ask the minister specifically: is this committee not considering ways and means of privatizing ICBC generally and the rest of the insurance as well? Is it or not?

HON. MR. HEWITT: Mr. Speaker, this committee is reviewing the operations and policies, et cetera, of the Insurance Corporation. When a change in the status quo of the corporation is made, it will be made by government and an announcement will be made to the opposition.

McKIM ADVERTISING

MR. COCKE: If the Premier had a string, it would have been even more interesting to watch.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to direct a question to the Minister of Tourism. The Tourism Industry Association of B.C. has been complaining for 18 months about the failure of the provincial government to market B.C. tourism. Can the minister confirm that McKim Advertising continues to handle the Tourism ministry's advertising account?

HON. MR. RICHMOND: The answer is yes.

MR. COCKE: Why has the minister failed or neglected to respond to resolutions passed at the Tourism Industry Association of B.C. annual general meeting, requesting new policy initiatives?

HON. MR. RICHMOND: I'm pleased to report that, contrary to comments made by the vice-president of the organization mentioned by that member, this ministry is very

[ Page 1221 ]

cognizant of the value of tourism to this province, and because of that we have initiated several programs that will enhance tourism in the fall season in British Columbia. I would like to enunciate some of those programs for that member.

One of the programs that will be spearheaded by the ministry, but made up largely of those in the private sector — and we'll be travelling to our neighbouring tourism markets of Washington state, Alberta and Saskatchewan — will offer British Columbia to those people at a time when the crowds are less, the prices are better and the occupancy not quite so high. In addition to that, we are encouraging British Columbians to travel within British Columbia by extending through the province our vacation road program on the radio with the assistance of the B.C. Association of Broadcasters. That will commence this week and continue into October.

For the first time, we're initiating television to promote the fall and winter in the Toronto area, and as well will be promoting the fall season of British Columbia in the states of Oregon and Washington — something that has never been done before. I hope that this summarizes some of the additional activity being undertaken by this ministry and refutes the statements that the member is referring to.

MR. COCKE: It looks to me as if they had a very quick meeting this morning to decide on what they're going to do, not what they are doing or have done.

Anyway, the minister has told the media that he has asked the cabinet to increase the budget of his ministry. Will the minister confirm…? When the Minister of Forests (Hon. Mr. Waterland) is ready to settle down, will the minister confirm that these additional funds are also slated to pass through McKim Advertising?

HON. MR. RICHMOND: The answer is no,

TARIFFS ON IMPORTED FRUIT

MS. SANFORD: I have a question for the Minister of Intergovernmental Relations. In view of the devastating effect of imported fruit on B.C. farmers, has the minister contacted the federal government to request, on an emergency basis, a seasonal tariff on market products?

HON. MR. GARDOM: No.

MS. SANFORD: That's unfortunate, because the farmers up there are sawing down the fruit trees at this point. I'm wondering if the minister has initiated discussions with the federal government and the U.S. government to develop flexible seasonal tariffs that will encourage domestic production while still allowing reasonable foreign competition and enable B.C. farmers to earn a reasonable return on their investment.

HON. MR. GARDOM: The question is best directed to my colleague the Minister of Agriculture.

FARM INCOME INSURANCE FOR ORCHARDISTS

MS. SANFORD: I have a question for the Minister of Agriculture on this issue as well. As the minister well knows, the farmers are now cutting down their fruit trees rather than take the severe losses they are currently undergoing. Part of the problem is the fact that the government has not yet paid the farm income assurance payment for last year's crop. Some advances have been made to the farmers, but the payments are still not made. Will the minister assure the House that those payments will be made immediately, to ensure that more farmers are not driven into bankruptcy?

[2:30]

HON. MR. SCHROEDER: This government has a strong commitment to the support of agriculture. Indeed, I believe it was one of the first times in the history of agriculture in British Columbia that advance payments were made to tree-fruit producers, and it happened this year. The reason final payments are not yet made is because of the nature of the fruit industry itself: we must wait until the fruit is sold so we can determine the market returns before final payments can be made. As soon as that can be determined, the final payment will be made.

MS. SANFORD: The delays are causing great hardship to the farmers in the Okanagan area. In view of the fact that the farmers are suffering so severely this year, will the minister…?

HON. MR. PHILLIPS: Question.

MS. SANFORD: Would you mind bringing him to order, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: It is difficult to do, hon. member.

MS. SANFORD: I agree with that.

Will the minister assure the House that the premiums that the farmers will be paying will be reduced for this year in order to avoid further bankruptcies?

HON. MR. SCHROEDER: The farm income insurance program, which this government has a strong commitment to, is a program in which the premium structure is designed by agreement through the B.C. Fedexation of Agriculture and the tree-fruit people themselves. It is a program whereby the premium is shared 50-50. with the producer paying 50 percent and the government paying 50 percent. That premium enters a fund which provides the sinking fund from which all draws are made.

Over the years the provincial government has made additional contributions to that fund to the tune of some $10 million and will continue to support that program again this year.

MS. SANFORD: The minister has mentioned a contribution by the government of $10 million. Does that mean that they are underwriting the deficit that exists in that fund?

HON. MR. SCHROEDER: That means that the draw from the fund has exceeded the total deposit by some $10 million.

[ Page 1222 ]

MR. STUPICH: I have a supplementary to the Minister of Agriculture. When the minister said that the final payment can't be calculated until the crop is sold, is the minister telling us that the 1982 crop is not yet sold? If so, how much is left?

HON. MR. SCHROEDER: What I did pass on to you was the fact that the returns for the sale of the 1982 crop are not yet in, and therefore the final payment has not yet been made. I understand it will be made within a short time. But anticipating the kind of difficulty which these delays cause, advance was paid this year.

B.C. SYSTEMS CORPORATION

MR. NICOLSON: I have a question to the Minister of Finance. The minister has announced the government's decision to sell B.C. Systems Corporation. I would like to know what assurance he can give that this decision will not result in confidential income tax, medical and other confidential personal information going into the wrong hands.

HON. MR. CURTIS: With respect to the proposal to privatize British Columbia Systems Corporation and the specific point which he has raised, the answer is that every assurance can be offered. Should that not be the case, then, of course, a particular proposal would not be accepted.

MR. NICOLSON: Mr. Speaker, presumably the government hopes to make or save money on the sale of the B.C. Systems Corporation. In view of the fact that the B.C. Systems Corporation has a long-term debt and minimum lease obligations totalling some $80 million, has the minister set a minimum price for the sale of the B.C. Systems Corporation?

HON. MR. CURTIS: No, I have not set a minimum price with respect to capital assets or contractual arrangements undertaken by the Systems Corporation. The member will know that I have followed a route which has been used very successfully once before in British Columbia, in the latter part of the seventies, and that is to employ a sales advisory committee. This committee is to be chaired by Mallory Smith, the chairman of the Systems Corporation, with other expertise to be assigned very quickly. Not only will the sales advisory committee make recommendations after proposals are received, but indeed, Mr. Speaker, I would also expect and quite clearly anticipate that proposals regarding so-called minimum price and other aspects of the fairly complicated process of sale would be discussed with me, and then I could discuss them with government at that time.

Orders of the Day

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

Leave granted.

HON. MR. GARDOM: Adjourned debate on second reading of Bill 9.

MUNICIPAL AMENDMENT ACT, 1983
(continued)

[Mr. Strachan in the chair.]

MS. SANFORD: I see we've had a change of Speakers very quickly — before we get underway this afternoon.

Bill 9 is now under debate. As a matter of fact, we are debating a hoist motion on this particular bill. We are asking that the government come to its senses, that it rethink Bill 9 because it eliminates planning in the regional areas of the province. It is an example of centralization of authority so that the Minister of Municipal Affairs, sitting in his office in Victoria, can direct the planning and development of the province.

Of course, in the process it is also the Spetifore amendment, because this particular bill enables the Spetifore development to go ahead. The regional district of greater Vancouver has opposed the development of the particular Spetifore lands for housing purposes because they think the transportation corridors will be adversely affected by a massive development to accommodate some 15,000 people on that particular land. They also do not want that kind of development to take place at this time because there is already ample space, according to all of the studies that have been done, for the development of housing, commercial and industrial properties within that Greater Vancouver Regional District area.

It is not necessary to have the Spetifore development go ahead at this time. This is why we say the minister, the government, should hoist the bill for a period of six months: so they can go back and look at what they're doing to some of the best farmland in the area. They are allowing their friends to develop. We know that the developers in this particular case are their friends. We know all of that. The term that has been applied to this particular piece of legislation — and rightly so — is the Spetifore amendment, because it eliminates planning on a regional basis. There is no community of that size anywhere in Canada, no area in Canada with that kind of population, that does not provide for regional planning. This bill eliminates that kind of regional planning.

If we are going to have any orderly development in terms of commercial, industrial, residential or farm properties, then experienced people who are concerned about orderly development must give advice to elected bodies such as the GVRD. People who serve on municipal councils and regional boards are very often busy, busy people. They run their own businesses or teach in the schools, or act as doctors or lawyers. They are busy people who serve in some capacity within their communities in order to earn a living. They also have a family, for which they must allot some time, so they cannot be expected on their own to make the kinds of decisions that are going to affect an area as large as the GVRD — as a matter of fact, an area anywhere in this province. I know that within the constituency of Comox the people who serve on the regional board, and on the five councils within that constituency, are busy people. They cannot possibly, when they are faced with the volume of material that they must digest before every meeting, the volume of material that comes in from people who are writing and phoning them, from reports that are filed to keep up with the work of the UBCM, and, in addition to that, spend the kind of time necessary to determine the best way in which their area can develop. They need expertise, planners, advisers and people

[ Page 1223 ]

who have done the necessary work at colleges or universities to have an understanding about development and how communities should develop.

One of the best things that happened to ensure that development was done in an orderly way was the development of the Islands Trust. Those Gulf Islanders are very happy with the fact that they are able, with the assistance of planners and people who have expertise about the Gulf Islands — and the need to preserve their unique nature…. They have that expertise to advise them as to how best to proceed as an Islands Trust to protect those valuable Gulf Islands. This government, of course, tried to eliminate the Islands Trust. They were not successful, because people realize the value of orderly development, of planning and of ensuring that areas are not destroyed by the kind of helter-skelter development that unfortunately we allowed all those years ago.

[2:45]

We cannot at this stage afford to allow the kind of development that has taken place in the past to be repeated. We need to have people who understand, who are planners and who are trained in order to ensure that we have a community that serves us best, not one that develops helter-skelter. Without the kind of planning that is provided by the planners within the regional districts of this province, we are not going to have that orderly development; we are not going to have a province of which we can be proud.

Fortunately, years ago there were a few people who had enough foresight and perhaps some planning training to enable them to set aside areas like Stanley Park in Vancouver. If we didn't have that park in Vancouver now, the people in that whole GVRD area would not have the opportunities they have. If we did not have that kind of concern for orderly development, for development which takes care not only of industrial, commercial and residential needs but also of some of the other more aesthetic needs, then the people of Vancouver and that GVRD would indeed be much poorer because of an omission of that type.

If we have the development of the Spetifore land, for instance, which this amendment will allow, then we will lose forever that agricultural land which is in the community of Delta. That Spetifore land — mistakenly, in my view, Mr. Speaker — was taken out of the agricultural land reserve by cabinet a couple of years ago. It's been a very controversial piece of land. We know there are friends of government who want that land developed. We know that there are government members sitting right here in this Legislature who want that land developed for housing purposes, because their vision is narrow. They are looking only at today and next year; they are not looking down the road. They are not looking at the reports coming in from the federal government; we have just had another report come in from the federal government about the tragic loss of farmland in this country of Canada.

AN HON. MEMBER: That's in Ontario.

MS. SANFORD: It certainly is in Ontario. Ontario, I thought, was part of Canada; maybe I'm wrong.

Obviously, if we do not have a government that has the concern for the farmland…. It was quite a laugh when the Minister of Agriculture (Hon. Mr. Schroeder) got up today and spoke about the commitment of this government to farmers, farmland, farm income assurance and the whole agricultural community, When they take a piece of land like the Spetifore property out of the agricultural land reserve, they do not have the commitment to agriculture that a government in this day and age should have. They took that land out against the recommendations of the entire Land Commission. They overruled them. They said, "We have friends who need to develop that property so they can make their millions," and they removed that land. In spite of the fact that the cabinet has removed that agricultural land from the agricultural land reserve. the GVRD voted within the last couple of months or so not to proceed with the housing development on that land at this time, partly because it is good agricultural land. Now that they have made that decision, the government brings in this piece of legislation, Bill 9, in order to ensure that that development can go ahead and that their friends can be taken care of.

That's why we're saying, take this bill and hoist it for six months. Reconsider and come back with the commitment that the Minister of Agriculture today said you have to agriculture. If they had a commitment to agriculture, Mr. Speaker, they would hoist this bill immediately and take it back to ensure that that land is not developed for housing purposes at this stage.

MR. REID: What's the municipal council of the area say?

MS. SANFORD: By a vote of five to four the municipal council voted to go ahead with the….

MR. REID: You don't know what a majority is — that's your problem. You don't know what democracy is.

MS. SANFORD: I do know what farmland is and I do know what is going to happen to agriculture in this province.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to read to you — and this is for the benefit of all of the MLAs — a letter that has come from the Lower Mainland Planning Review Panel in relation to Bill 9, which is a Municipal Amendment Act. This is addressed to the members of the lower mainland regional district boards, the Capital Regional District board, mayors and councils in the lower mainland and MLAs. "Dear Colleagues: re the Municipal Amendment Act, Bill 9. Regional board chairmen in the lower mainland and capital region have been working closely with the UBCM" — meaning the Union of B.C. Municipalities — "to develop alternative proposals to Bill 9, since the latter would remove regional planning authority from regional districts."

It's a disgrace in itself that they would remove regional planning authority from regional districts. Do they think down here, sitting in the ivory towers, that they can plan for the constituency of Comox better than the regional planners who are hired by the elected officials up in that area? Does the minister think that somehow he has some major insight, that he can sit here and draw little squares and circles on a map that says how this province should develop, without any consideration at all for the people who live in the various parts of the province? Does the minister think that somehow he has some brilliant insight into the way the province should develop? Of course, he wants to protect his friends; the government wants to protect their friends. They want to make sure those developments take place and that there isn't anything that might hamper their friends developing real estate in various parts of this province. They don't want any of this planning to go on. Let's just have helter-skelter development — the faster the better!

[ Page 1224 ]

Back to the letter. It states very clearly that Bill 9 would remove regional planning authority from regional districts. Of course. this is what they want over there. They don't want any planning; just helter-skelter development and no planning whatsoever — and no regional districts, I suppose.

MRS. JOHNSTON: That might be a good idea, too.

MS. SANFORD: Remove regional districts. I wonder if the Minister of Municipal Affairs (Hon. Mr. Ritchie) knows about that.

MRS. JOHNSTON: We'll tell him.

MS. SANFORD: The first member for Surrey, Mr. Speaker, would like to remove regional districts. I understand that another thing she would also like to get rid of is marketing boards. I don't know if the Minister of Agriculture approves of that.

MR. REID: Talk about the Bill 9 hoist.

MS. SANFORD: Well, I'm just wondering whether that might be part of her opinion as well. They have such outrageous opinions. I'm keeping a list, Mr. Speaker, of what their opinions are.

Interjections.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I'll ask the hon. members not to interject, and then perhaps we can allow the hon. member for Comox to return to the bill.

MS. SANFORD: To get back to the letter, the government….

Interjection.

MS. SANFORD: Oh, I was asking a question; I wasn't putting words in your mouth.

MR. REID: Question period is over. You're supposed to be speaking.

MS. SANFORD: But she must like marketing boards because she's not denying that.

"The government has not proposed any alternatives, and as a result two meetings have now been held with the Minister of Municipal Affairs. The first was on July 28, and it resulted in an agreement that alternative proposals to Bill 9 should be prepared for consideration. The second meeting was held on August 18 for the purpose of checking with the minister to see if the alternatives being prepared were headed in the right direction and should be finalized for further discussion."

Well, we're still discussing the fact that this bill should be hoisted. Right in that first paragraph there's reason enough to hoist this bill for a period of six months, but the government won't listen; they don't care. They're trampling over everybody's rights in this province, taking care of their friends and ensuring that their particular extreme philosophy is implemented. That's what they're up to, and we can see that by the fact that we're debating this bill this afternoon. We're trying to convince the government that they should hoist it. I've given them enough reason right there to hoist the bill, but the minister hasn't indicated yet that he's prepared to entertain our motion to hoist the bill for a period of six months to give them a chance to reconsider.

To continue quoting, Mr. Speaker:

"The thrust of the ideas — a copy of the complete presentation is attached — presented to the minister suggests there is a role for regional boards in development coordination, development strategy, preparation and development services, and that if this role is not exercised the following will result:

" 1. Many more local land use issues will end up on the minister's desk."

Maybe he doesn't have anything to do and needs that kind of work and feeling of authority and security in that job.

"2. Costly public investment mistakes will be made, because there will be no shared understanding of the amount and location of new development to be expected."

So investors won't be able to go into a region and go to the planners of a regional district to determine what is being planned in terms of a given industrial development. They then will go ahead and invest while somebody else that they don't know about is investing in another community, as a result of the fact that Bill 9 is going to pass through this House — at least I assume it will. As a result of their not knowing, we're going to have costly investment mistakes. That alone should alarm this government enough to have them hoist the bill for six months.

"3. In municipalities without official community plans, private risk will be increased because the rules governing development can be changed." If there's no official community plan, the private risk will be increased, because rules can be changed back and forth without notice, and there's no overall plan. That's another reason why they should hoist this bill for a period of six months.

"4. Inefficient urban development patterns will proliferate, leading to additional public costs and taxes for provision of water, sewer, road and transit services." This government has been talking about saving the taxpayers money. We've been trying to figure out how much money they're going to save with this package of bills and this budget and all that sort of thing, and we've been asking questions day after day to try to find out how much we're going to save. But this bill, according to the letter which we have all received, signed by the mainland planning review panel, says that there will be inefficient urban development as a result of this bill and that it's going to cost people more.

[3:00]

Almost every bill and program that the government has introduced is going to end up costing the taxpayer more. Here we have not the official opposition, but the planning review panel, addressing a letter to the GVRD, the Capital Regional District and MLAs, saying that this bill is going to result in additional costs to the taxpayers. "Inefficient urban development patterns will proliferate." We've had them before, and they will proliferate.

Interjection.

MS. SANFORD: The minister says that won't happen again. "It happened before but it will never happen again." Is that because he thinks that he, sitting in his office, is such a

[ Page 1225 ]

sharp planner that he's going to plan for the entire province so there won't be any proliferation of these inefficient urban development patterns, and that it's going to reduce the cost to the taxpayer? That's nonsense.

There are going to be "additional public costs and taxes for provision of water, sewer, road and transit services." That's in addition to the fact that they've already changed the formula for financing of sewer and water projects in this province, so that the taxpayer is going to have to pay more. Then when you have inefficient development as a result of this bill it's going to cost them more again. This is a very costly government. Their debt has gone from $4 billion to about $13 billion in the last eight years, and this is going to cost the taxpayer more money yet.

"5. The liveability of communities will be lower because public services are not provided in a coordinated way by the complex array of provincial, regional and municipal agencies and public utilities responsible." Liveability: that's a very good term. That's the term I was looking for earlier when I was talking about Stanley Park in Vancouver. It adds to the liveability of a community. People who are involved in planning the future of communities are very concerned about the liveability of that particular community. That's going to be lowered because the minister, sitting in his office, can't possibly think of the liveability of every square inch of this province when he does his planning.

"The optimum solution described to the minister would be to improve on the present arrangements through a three-way partnership between the ministry, the municipalities and the regional districts. Possible improvements include replacing the official regional plan with a development strategy prepared by regional districts that would form the basis for regional board review of local plans as recommended by the minister. Also, provision could be made for an automatic ORP amendment within 180 days of an ALR exclusion, as agreed to previously by Mr. Heinrich. A third improvement would be promulgating a provincial policy statement on the lower mainland development strategy and enacting the legislative changes to streamline plan amendment procedures as requested by the four mainland regional boards in the fall of 1980."

One of the excuses that this government is using in order to make the kind of changes that they're making in Bill 9 is to streamline the process. The GVRD and the other regional districts have been asking for streamlining since 1980, according to this letter, and probably before that. There are lots of ways of streamlining without taking away the planning authority of the regional boards in the process, allowing development helter-skelter and ensuring that the liveability of these communities will be lowered and the cost to the taxpayer raised.

The letter goes on to say:

"A fruitful discussion took place following presentation of our ideas. The minister indicated there is ample time for discussions to result in a satisfactory solution to everyone, although the precise timing for passage of Bill 9 is unknown at present."

We're suggesting that they hoist the bill right now, and then they've got ample time to go through all the problems, recommendations and suggestions that are being made in this letter and come in with a new piece of legislation that would ensure that taxes don't go up, that the communities have a livable plan, and that the interests and needs of people are taken into account, as well as the need for commercial and industrial development by the friends of government, Why don't they hoist it? They make all these sensible recommendations in this letter. We have been arguing on this side of the House for days that this bill should not proceed at this time.

The letter goes on:

"The minister stated he has an interest in seeing that a regional development strategy is maintained in the lower mainland and capital region that reflects the benefits of regional planning undertaken to date. Mr. Ritchie is particularly interested in transportation corridor planning being done at a regional level, and he complimented Mayor Ross of Surrey on that municipality's draft plan in this regard. He went on to stress his support for the regional district concept and provision of regional services."

Does the first member for Surrey (Mrs. Johnston) know that you support the regional district concept, Mr. Minister? I wonder if, when you're winding up debate on this, you could make reference to that, because there seems to be….

MR. REID: The second member for Surrey does.

MS. SANFORD: Oh, he supports it. The first and the second members for Surrey can't seem to agree on regional district concepts. No wonder the people in Surrey are confused.

The letter goes on to say:

"Mr. Ritchie emphasized his support for official community plans and official settlement plans and suggested they should fit in with an overall regional development strategy. This could be achieved by forwarding official community plans to regional boards for review. Mr. Ritchie also said municipalities and regional districts should not be involved in ALR appeals and that the provincial Agricultural Land Commission should not be involved in zoning."

That's an interesting statement. I don't know whether they are quoting the minister correctly here, but he is suggesting that the Land Commission should not be involved in zoning. If a piece of land is in the agricultural land reserve, its zoning is automatic. It means that land must be utilized for the production of food; it must be used in an agricultural way. It cannot be used to build a pulp mill on: it can't be used for any other commercial development; it can't be used to build a big housing development. The zoning is automatic when land is in the agricultural land reserve. The Land Commission's job is to ensure that that zoning remain in place, and that no other changes to that land be permitted. According to this letter, he's suggesting that the Agricultural Land Commission should not be involved in zoning. Does the minister want to determine what land is agricultural and what isn't? Do they feel that the Land Commission should be abolished? If the zoning as agricultural is determined by the capability of that land, and if the Land Commission is not involved in zoning, then it doesn't have the authority to ensure that the agricultural land remain zoned as agricultural.

This letter then goes on to make further points. I think I should read the whole thing into the record, because the planners here are making some important points and are in

[ Page 1226 ]

fact reinforcing our arguments to hoist this bill for six months.

"The minister explained that it is his desire to eliminate unnecessary government and expense, and expressed his opposition to regulatory land use designations at a regional level."

If he wants to eliminate unnecessary government and expense, then we've got to have planning to ensure orderly development, to ensure that land is developed in such a way as to provide the cheapest possible services in terms of water, sewers and other services required by the population. That's not going to happen now, and the planners point that out in this letter.

"The meeting of August 18 ended with the following conclusions for followup action: (1) The Minister of Municipal Affairs agreed that the proposals prepared by local government for the meeting are headed in the right direction."

Unfortunately, this bill is not, and that's why it needs to be hoisted.

"He appears to support a development coordination, development strategy, development services role for regional boards in the capital region and lower mainland.

" (2) A position paper should be finalized by local government for discussion at a meeting between the minister, private sector representatives and local government on September 9, 1983. From this meeting legislative proposals could be prepared."

Here we are on September 7, again debating this bill, and the meeting hasn't even taken place. They're slating a meeting for September 9 in order to figure out the best thing to do with this piece of legislation. Here we are again, two days before the meeting is to take place, discussing this bill and trying to convince the minister to hoist the bill. Have all these discussions and determine the direction, make sure everyone agrees, and bring back the bill. Number (2) also mentions that from this meeting legislative proposals could be prepared. That's the meeting that's going to be held two days from now. They're not going to wait for any meeting. They're not concerned about what people think, or they wouldn't have brought this bill forward today for debate. Why don't they have their meetings? Why don't they get their legislative proposals in place before they bring the bill before us again? By bringing the bill forward today, is the minister telling us that it doesn't matter how many meetings they have, it doesn't matter who attends those meetings and what the concerns are? "Here is the bill, and any legislative proposals you make aren't worth considering." If they were worth considering, we would not be debating this bill today. We would have waited, the minister would have waited and the government would have waited to find out what legislative proposals might come out of these meetings.

The minister goes and talks very nicely to the people at the GVRD and the planners and everybody else. He speaks very nicely to them, but he says by his actions: "I don't really care what you say, because we have before us a piece of legislation that's going to go through this House. It doesn't matter what you people say, what proposals you might bring forward. We don't care." That's very obvious or we would not be debating this bill today. They're going to meet three days from now.

[3:15]

Interjection.

MS. SANFORD: Well, the minister says if we let the bill through today, then he can meet three days from now and tell them all: "Well, too late, the bill's gone through. Any legislative proposals that you might determine now are too late. The bill's already passed."

Mr. Speaker, if the government was serious about accepting legislative proposals from a group of people who are concerned about the development of this province, then he would not bring this bill forward today. He would accept our motion, and he would say to his colleagues: "You know, they're right. Let's hoist this bill for a period of six months. Let's go out and have these meetings. Let's see what kinds of proposals might come forward that will make the system better and will take into account the pocket books of the taxpayers and the liveability of a region and regional corridors and regional development." The minister has no choice. It's very clear. Accept our motion today, hoist the bill for six months, have all of these meetings, come back with the legislative proposals that they're talking about in this particular letter, and then we'll debate the bill. What's the point, Mr. Speaker, of debating here when he's going to meet three days from now in order to get legislative proposals when the legislative proposals are already before us? Our arguments make perfect sense. Hoist the bill. Have your meetings. Bring back new proposals. Listen to what the people are saying out there.

Interjection.

MS. SANFORD: Why are you debating a bill, then, if you're going to listen to them? Why are you debating a bill? Why are you bringing it forward in this Legislature if you're just playing games? Mr. Speaker, they're playing games by bringing forward a bill that they say they don't intend to pass anyway because they're waiting for legislative proposals as a result of a meeting to be held three days from now. They're playing games with us. It's time that they accepted our motion, hoisted the bill, and brought it back six months hence.

MR. STUPICH: Mr. Speaker, the opposition has proposed an amendment to this second reading of Bill 9 that would provide for the hoist for a six-month period. We believe it to be a very reasonable and very responsible position to take with respect to the legislation before us now.

I was a member in the Legislature when the then Minister of Municipal Affairs, Hon. Dan Campbell, introduced legislation establishing regional districts in the province. At that time there was one function that was common to all regional districts in the regions where they were set up, and that was to provide for planning. With the legislation before us we are disturbing — to a very great degree — the most important function of regional districts, the one for which they were originally established. Certainly regional districts have grown a lot since then, and have taken unto themselves many more functions — not taken unto themselves because they've had to have support from the government before they could do any of that — but nevertheless, the importance of regional districts in our scheme of government has grown immeasurably since they were first brought into being by Hon. Dan Campbell.

That same minister, in 1972, made an attempt to interfere with the process of planning that was provided for in the legislation that he brought in himself. I suspect, Mr. Speaker, that the member who just took her seat in this debate, the

[ Page 1227 ]

current member for Comox (Ms. Sanford), defeated Mr. Campbell in that election because he tried to interfere with the planning process being implemented by the Nanaimo Regional District in a proposition to carve up a great chunk of Gabriola Island. I suspect that it contributed to his defeat and the election of the current member for Comox, and also to the defeat of the then cabinet member who represented Nanaimo and to my election. The Hon. Earle Westwood was the minister who was defeated in 1963. There was support at the local level for local input into planning at that time, and I believe there still is.

In asking the House to consider this motion before us now that we postpone consideration of this for six months — we are simply saying, let's give those who feel there is a good argument to be made, that there are sound reasons for postponing a decision on this…. The minister is saying to different organizations that he would meet with them, that he would discuss the importance of Bill 9, discuss the provisions, discuss the very existence of regional districts with different organizations before proceeding with this legislation. Let's give him the time to actually have those meetings, to listen to people and to come back to the House either with the same legislation in six months' time or some substantially amended legislation that might effect some improvements, that might make it possible to proceed with some of the work that often is delayed, sometimes unduly delayed because of the present legislation.

All we are asking is that the government consider a sixmonth hoist so that there will be time for discussions, time for representations, an opportunity for the government to take these representations into account and be able to come into the House with legislation that will better serve the needs of the people of the province and that will be more acceptable to those people in our community who have been raising objections to the taking away from regional districts of the authority to plan development within regional districts, particularly where it applies to regional districts that have a number of municipalities within their borders.

There has been discussion for some time about the need to make some changes. Some of this has been raised in the House already, perhaps most of it. Up to this point in time it would seem as though the government has not beard the arguments, at least hasn't taken them into account and is not prepared to change its position with respect to Bill 9 as it is before us now.

I have a paper in my hands dated April 29, 1982: "A Proposed Legislative Framework for Intermunicipal Planning in Metropolitan Economic Areas." This legislation before us, Bill 9, has been called the Spetifore amendment, and some of the government members by their interjections this afternoon admit that indeed the legislation is aimed primarily at that one particular problem. I noticed the second member for Surrey (Mr. Reid), for example, interjecting when the hon. member for Comox (Ms. Sanford) was speaking, and he said: "You haven't even seen the land in question." By that admission alone, I took from his remark the fact that the caucus has discussed the legislation and how it would affect the Spetifore land situation.

MR. REID: Don't forget I spent five years on the council there, so I should know what it's all about.

MR. STUPICH: Some people can spend five years somewhere and learn very little, it would appear, and it would appear that the second member from Surrey is one of those. Perhaps he should go back to that council and spend another 15 years there and maybe he would learn something. There's some hope. Perhaps it is possible that in the four years he can look forward to being the second member for Surrey he may even learn something here. It's possible but not likely, I grant, you Mr. Speaker. From the interjections he has been making since this session has started, it seems unlikely that he will ever learn anything with his closed mind, his open mouth, his closed ears….

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hon. member, I think this has gone quite far enough. I will ask the hon. second member for Surrey not to interject and the hon. member for Nanaimo to avoid making personal reflections.

MR. STUPICH: Mr. Speaker, sometimes there are some members who seem to invite that kind of unparliamentary response from members who are speaking. I do appreciate your caution.

I would like to read further from this "A Proposed Legislative Framework for Intermunicipal Planning in Metropolitan Economic Areas." It is a summary of the recommendations.

"Recommendation 1. An intermunicipal planning function should be provided in legislation for metropolitan economic areas such as the lower mainland and greater Victoria which have large and growing populations and numerous local government jurisdictions." It is that particular recommendation that concerns us most in the legislation before us now. The legislation before us now is running completely contradictory to that recommendation. We believe there is a real need for that recommendation to be enforced in legislation. It works; it has worked. Certainly there have been problems; we appreciate that. That's why we say that if the minister were prepared to take the six-month period that we're proposing in this amendment the House is now considering to go out and listen to people, he might learn something that would prompt him to bring in legislation that would find acceptance in the House.

With respect to the particular land in question, the Spetifore land, there's a long history to that, and certainly I have some concern for it. I have some concern because of the role that I played in bringing the Land Commission Act into being in the first place. One of the areas about which I was most concerned at the time I was working on that legislation was the Fraser River Valley, including the Delta area, the area wherein the Spetifore land is situated.

MR. REID: What about Tilbury?

MR. STUPICH: The Tilbury land is not included in Bill 9. I'm quite prepared to discuss the Tilbury land at another opportunity. If legislation comes in putting that back in, I'd certainly be quite prepared to discuss that with the second member for Surrey. But if he feels that the decision made by the government of that day to take the Tilbury land out of the land reserve was a bad decision, then we're not improving that decision by taking further land out of the land reserve as the government is attempting to do with Bill 9. Certainly Bill 9….

Interjection.

[ Page 1228 ]

MR. STUPICH: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member interjects that the Tilbury land was better land. I don't know the comparative qualities of those two parcels of land, but I say again that if that land was better and should have stayed in the agricultural land reserve, that of itself is no reason for agreeing to legislation today that will take further good agricultural land out of the agricultural land reserve. If the….

MR. REID: It just proves you are a hypocrite.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, please. I'll ask the hon. member to withdraw that remark. That is unparliamentary.

MR. REID: I withdraw the remark.

MR. STUPICH: I certainly wasn't going to react; I just consider the source and let it go at that.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: That's also unparliamentary. Could we please return to the bill and avoid personal references. That includes all members here.

[3:30]

MR. STUPICH: But, Mr. Speaker, I really do appreciate his interjections. As I say, if the Tilbury land was good land, then it should not have come out of the agricultural land reserve, all things being equal. There were reasons advanced at the time for taking it out. I'm not saying I supported those reasons or opposed them, but I'm saying we lost a good parcel of agricultural land.

I'm saying now that the government is proposing that we shall once again lose a good parcel of agricultural land, and the way they are accomplishing this is to remove from the regional districts the right to plan development within these large regional districts that contain several municipalities. I say that the cure is worse than the disease. To take that power away from these regional districts is worse than allowing that particular parcel of land to stay within the agricultural land reserve, even though Delta municipality and two other municipalities, I believe, within the Greater Vancouver Regional District agreed that it should come out. Certainly the Greater Vancouver Regional District did determine in a vote that the land should stay in the agricultural land reserve. Certainly the Land Commission did everything within its power, and tried to do further things that it found were outside of its power, to make sure that that land stayed within the agricultural land reserve. That was not an Agricultural Land Commission established by the NDP government; it was a Land Commission established by the present administration. They heard the arguments. They had every opportunity to see the land and every opportunity to read the reports on that land from their own staff in order to consider all of the problems and to consider not just the importance of keeping that particular parcel of agricultural land in the land reserve but also to consider all of the other needs of the total community. There might be needs for housing and for commercial and industrial development. They had an opportunity to look at all of those problems, and they still recommended unanimously that the land stay within the agricultural land reserve. It took an order-in-council to defeat the intention of the Land Commission and to take that land out. It took action by the Greater Vancouver Regional District to stop that land from being used for purposes other than agricultural.

Now the government is stepping in and taking away certain powers from all regional districts so that it can get its way. In a fit of pique, the government is saying: "We'll show you who's running the show. You don't really have that kind of control. It is the government that gave regional districts the legal right to plan, and it is the government that can take away from regional districts that same right."

There is other legislation before us now by which the government is proposing to take away rights from individuals and from various organizations to centralize the power here in Victoria, here in the cabinet room and, in some legislation, in smaller groups than that. We're very much opposed to this attempt by the government in the legislation before us now, and in many other pieces of legislation, to centralize power within the rooms of the cabinet meetings. This is another grab for power.

The authority to plan is now in the hands of regional districts. The regional district representatives are elected by people at the local level, and those at the local level have the right to hire people and put them on a planning staff. With respect to the kind of planning we're talking about now, they have the right to come up with and to approve, subject to ministerial approval, plans that provide for what they hope will be orderly development within those regional districts. They will make mistakes; there's no question about that. Every government will make mistakes, whether it be the provincial, municipal or regional district government. Mistakes will be made; but that's what democracy is all about. If we can decentralize, it would seem to me we are achieving a greater level of democracy than by following the present administration's predilection to centralize power more and more, with bill after bill before us. Bill 9 is just one example, and one more reason why we urge the House to postpone discussion of this legislation for six months.

The Land Commission has cooperated with regional districts. Agricultural land reserves were first established in complete cooperation and consultation with the regional districts. It was the regional districts that were given the opportunity in the first place to come up with the plans for the agricultural land reserves; it was the regional districts that had the opportunity, and indeed the obligation, to hold public hearings; and it was the regional districts that held those public hearings, and that reacted to them in regional district after regional district by amending the proposed plans, and then by sending those plans to the Land Commission. The Land Commission then took it upon itself to meet with regional districts — I believe there were 27 at the time — all over the province, and to discuss with those regional districts one by one, and to meet publicly on occasions when there seemed to be a demand for that; to look at the plans proposed by the regional districts with respect to the preservation of farmland, and to come up with plans that they could then submit to the Environment and Land Use Committee of cabinet; and, after a further process of examination, to submit them finally to the cabinet itself, where an order-in-Council was ultimately produced which established the agricultural land reserve.

There was always the possibility of changing it. There was provision for change, but it was not the kind of possibility that we now have. Now it I relatively easy, as was proven in the case of the Spetifore land. One simply had to get the ear of cabinet and one could get cabinet to overrule what the Land Commission had decided by a unanimous vote. Again I have to emphasize that it wasn't a partisan Land

[ Page 1229 ]

Commission, from the point of view of being NDP-appointed. As a matter of fact, we did not appoint NDP members to the Land Commission when we were in office. Out of six members, one person was a member of the NDP, and he was there not because of his membership in the party, but because of his expertise in a completely different area. It was a good commission and they made good recommendations. We didn't always adopt all of its recommendations, and I admit that; but neither did we go against unanimous recommendations of the Land Commission. In this instance the government is determined to go against a unanimous recommendation of the Land Commission.

The 1982 Land Commission report talks about commission planning activities: "The commission, through the assistance of its planning staff, reviews official plans as well as zoning bylaws prepared by local government." So whenever local, municipal or regional district governments do come up with these plans, they don't do so in a vacuum. It's something that is discussed and done locally by local planners. At least, that has been the case up to now. It appears, though, that the government has some plans in mind with respect to planners totally. But in this instance the planners produce plans that are considered and discussed in public meetings by the regional district representatives. They then have an opportunity to have these plans reviewed by the Land Commission with respect to input from the point of view of agricultural land. So nothing is done in a vacuum. There isn't any opportunity for the public to take part in what we discuss in the House today. They may listen or read Hansard if they like, but they have no input, no opportunity to ask questions or to speak to regional district representatives, and to put forth a point of view that the regional district representative might voice at those meetings.

"As most communities within the province have historically developed in valley bottoms or on river deltas, they are often on or immediately adjacent to some of the most valued agricultural lands." That's not talking just about the delta or the Fraser River Valley, or even about B.C.; it's talking about the whole world. That's the way settlements have started. In every instance, it is the most valuable agricultural land that is settled first. When we brought in the Land Commission Act in the spring of 1973, the figures I had available then were to the effect that B.C. was losing its best agricultural land — particularly in three areas: the Saanich Peninsula, the Fraser River Valley, and the Okanagan Valley — at the rate of 20,000 acres a year. We have precious little of that kind of land. The government has boasted, on different occasions, that we have more agricultural land in B.C. now than we had when the land reserves were first established in 1973 and 1974. Mr. Speaker, that's a physical impossibility. I'm trying to remember the name of the American humourist who said the reason agricultural land is so important is that "they ain't makin' any more of it." Mr. Speaker, the government has not created more agricultural land; it has changed the definition. It has said land that was previously not considered as agricultural land, with respect to the definition of the boundaries of agricultural land reserves, from here on shall be considered agricultural land and shall be within those reserves; but they didn't create any more agricultural land. Yet year by year — month by month, in some instances — by actions such as the bill before us now, the government is taking out of the agricultural land reserve some of the very precious top quality agricultural land, a minimum of which we have in the province of British Columbia.

That's the way settlement has occurred. One need only look at any of the civilizations, whether current or as far back as recorded history goes, and the settlements have always been, as the commission says here, "historically developed in valley bottoms or on river deltas. They are often on or immediately adjacent to some of the most valued agricultural lands." Going on from the report: "During its review of these planning documents, the commission ensures that the intent of the agricultural land commission act is supported and that plans for local community growth minimize the loss of agricultural lands, " Because the communities have historically developed on valley bottoms and in areas where we have the best agricultural lands, there has been conflict. From the time development first started there has been erosion of the agricultural land base. It's unfortunate, but it has happened. The role of the Land Commission has been to make sure, to the best of its ability, that plans for local community growth would minimize the loss of agricultural lands.

When we first established the agricultural land reserves, it was the intent of the Environment and Land Use Committee of cabinet not to interfere with plans for growth of existing communities, any more than was absolutely necessary, with a view to saving agricultural lands. At that time, in discussion with these various communities, not directly with the Environment and Land Use Committee, but through the staffs of the ELUC and the Land Commission, and through the staff and representatives on the regional district boards, discussions went on to ensure that there would be orderly growth and to ensure that there would be enough land to provide for that orderly growth over a period of five years. It was hoped that within that five-year period the direction of growth could be changed so that there would no longer be a need to encroach upon what the commission called the best agricultural land. That's one of the planning functions that Bill 9 is taking away from regional districts. Regional districts have been very cognizant of this. They have had it in mind from the time they were first established and from the time that planning was their first function. The legislation before us now would take away from them a significant part of their authority with respect to planning.

[Mr. Veitch in the chair.]

Mr. Speaker. we are opposed to it, naturally. We set up the Land Commission. We do believe, philosophically, in the idea of preserving agricultural land. We'd like to believe that there are some members even on the government side of the House who believe philosophically in the idea of preserving agricultural land. Some of them have said so on different occasions; others have attacked the Land Commission from its very inception. But there are some who will give at least lip-service to the idea of preserving agricultural land for future generations. It is important. We support it philosophically. We want to do everything we can to save it, and we want to give regional districts the opportunity to amend their plans as necessary, but always subject to review by the Land Commission. The Land Commission stands ever ready — even the commission appointed by the Social Credit administration — to sit down and discuss with these regional districts, as it has done, as it is doing, and currently to continue with the process of fine-tuning. There's a lot of work to be done. Some of that work is ongoing.

[ Page 1230 ]

"Through its history of participation in the planning process, not only has the commission witnessed the entrenchment of provincial agricultural land protection policy at the local level, but it has also seen the establishment of a cooperative process of positive communication with local government." Mr. Speaker, progress has been made. When we brought in the Land Commission legislation in the spring of 1973 there was a lot of misunderstanding, a lot of suspicion, a lot of concern. There was very little support by local governments and very little support by the community generally. But as they came to understand the need for it, as they came to see what the effects could be, the importance of saving agricultural land and how this could be done with a maximum of local input, as they saw that the local input was directed through the Land Commission, who were prepared to sit down and meet with them publicly at public hearings, the boundaries were finally established by agreement. When the plans went on to the Environment and Land Use Committee of cabinet, the agricultural land reserves indeed were generally cut down in size. I can recall just a few examples of the reserves actually being made larger, always because of representations from some particular agricultural group who felt that a larger area of land should be included, and there was no objection. So the Environment and Land Use Committee of cabinet did indeed add to a few of the reserves, mainly rangeland. But with respect to the good agricultural land, it was their main responsibility to try to save that….

[3:45]

[Mr. Strachan in the chair.]

Mr. Speaker, the minister indicates that he has to step out. I can certainly understand that. He may read my remarks in Hansard if he chooses. I do hope that even if he doesn't read the remarks he will pay some attention to the argument that he should support this amendment that's before us: that is, that he take another six months not just to consider it himself but to listen to the community to see what they have to say.

A cooperative process of positive communication between local government and the Land Commission has developed, and it has been accepted by all concerned. Why upset it now by bringing in the kind of legislation that we're doing?

"The official planning process also provides a vehicle for the development of a strong information base for each regional district planning area, thereby providing the commission with clear insight into local issues and priorities, insight which is particularly helpful when considering individual applications."

Mr. Speaker, perhaps not in…. I was thinking of the member for Burnaby-Willingdon (Mr. Veitch) being in the chair, and I was going to say that perhaps he doesn't have much difficulty in his riding with people making application to get land out of the agricultural land reserve. But I would think that in the constituency of Prince George South there are many applications from people wanting to get relatively small parcels out of the agricultural land reserve. I think it happens to most of us who have any rural areas within our ridings. It's been my practice to take no part in those particular discussions. I feel that as an MLA I should not be interfering in the process that has been well established by legislation. Certainly I will take up a case by referring a person to the chairman of the Land Commission, who happens to reside in my constituency, or to someone on the Land Commission staff, thereby opening the door for him so that that person wanting to get land out of the reserve knows how to proceed with his application, and suggesting to him that he try to get the support of the regional district first, but not trying to influence anyone at the regional district level, or at the Land Commission level, and certainly not above that, in any way at all. I believe these decisions should be made, firstly, by the regional district planning staff; secondly, by the regional district representatives; thirdly, by the Land Commission; and ultimately, if the land is indeed to come out, then it has to come out by order-in-council.

Most of us have applications to get relatively small parcels out of the reserve, and that process is going to continue as long as the fine-tuning is going on. I had hoped, when the legislation came in in 1973, that the fine-tuning would have proceeded to the point that there would be very few applications after five years were up, that by then the boundaries would have been clearly established and clearly accepted.

People look at a piece of agricultural land in a community and think: "Isn't that a great place on which we can build or develop something or convert it to some higher use?" If there is a building of any kind sitting on it, particularly if it's a large building, even if it's a blacktopped parking lot in a shopping centre, they look upon it as already being developed and they know that it isn't available. But if there's a farm next door they say: "That's available. Let's build something on it."

I can recall one application, from south Okanagan, I think, where the only place in the whole area in which they could build this church was a parcel of prime agricultural land right in the community. It was fruit-growing land, and there was a good orchard on that land. Yet because it had nothing on it except agricultural products, it was available. There was a lot of other land around there, but that land had houses, stores or business enterprises on it. It was no longer available for development.

The kind of planning that should be done by regional districts would not only look at agricultural land as a land bank that could be used for purposes other than agriculture but would look at the total land inventory. In cases like that where there is a need for some development of any kind, whatever that development is, they could look at other areas and look at the possibility of saving agricultural land. That's the kind of discussion that has been going on between the regional district representatives and the Land Commission, and it has been working. There has been an opportunity for regional district representatives to make the case for local issues and priorities. They have been listened to.

In the instance before us now, the Spetifore amendment, they had that opportunity. The owners of the land had the opportunity to appear before the regional district. They did get the support of the municipality; they did not get the support of the regional district or the Land Commission.

Interjection.

MR. STUPICH: Mr. Speaker, I'm persuaded that at one point they did, and that it was appealed. Yes, and that's proper too. There should be processes….

MR. REID: Tell the truth.

MR. STUPICH: I'm being urged to tell the truth. I hope that I am telling the truth. If I should err…. I recall some years ago a cabinet minister on the Social Credit side of the House saying: "Even when I'm not telling the truth, it's still

[ Page 1231 ]

the truth, because I think it's the truth, and I'm not lying." It's hard to follow that bit of circumlocution. But he was a minister, and not just a cabinet minister, he was another kind of minister as well. So we had to believe him when he said that.

I'll go on with the Land Commission report. "During the last year the commission jointly published, along with the Minister of Municipal Affairs, a document entitled 'A Guide to the Relationship Between Agricultural Land Reserves and Local Government Plans and Bylaws.'" It is an evolving process. Only one other government in Canada has followed the lead established in the province of British Columbia by setting up the Land Commission, the legislation to provide for the Land Commission, and the agricultural land reserves, and that is the government of Quebec. It took them some years to do it.

The other provinces have yet to do it, some of them to their sorrow. Certainly the government of Ontario wishes, I believe, that it had had the intestinal fortitude to have adopted similar legislation when we did, or even much earlier, because their land…. A very small proportion of that province is good farmland, and it is still being lost at a tremendous rate.

The government of Quebec did move. It took them some years, and my understanding at the time was that it wasn't a case of whether or not they wanted to do it — and that was the Liberal government led by Premier Bourassa. The concern in cabinet was which minister would have the privilege of bringing in this Land Commission legislation. The Minister of Agriculture wanted to do it because the Minister of Agriculture in B.C. had done it. They felt that had set the pattern. The Minister of Municipal Affairs had a little higher pecking order in cabinet, and he thought it was such good stuff that he wanted to bring it in. They were still arguing about it when they lost the election. The Parti Québécois were successful, and within two years brought in legislation that protects their agricultural land — of course, not the whole province.

If we made one mistake, maybe it was in trying to do a total job all over the province, going into some regional districts where it wasn't as vital as it was in the ones that I mentioned — the three areas of the province where it's most important. In Quebec they concentrated on the areas where it was most important and brought in legislation that is very effective in preserving the agricultural land they have in those areas. In B.C. it has been an evolving process.

There have been increasing cooperation and increasing opportunity for discussion, and this guide that was prepared by the commission during the last year — this was the 1982 report, so it was prepared during 1982 — is a good guide. It's something that the Minister of Municipal Affairs should refer to, something he should read, and something that he should consider in listening to the arguments raised in the House as to just why we should defer consideration of this for six months. Let him listen to some of the groups that are urging the minister to get out and let people come to him, and to attend some of the meetings that he promised to attend before proceeding with this legislation. He did promise to meet with people. He didn't meet with people. He promised to meet with people before he brought in this legislation.

HON. MR. RITCHIE: I meet with people all the time.

MR. STUPICH: The minister says he meets with people all the time. I'm not talking about meeting with his Social Credit executive in his own riding. I'm talking about him listening to the people who are making representations about Bill 9. He has not listened to the people making representations. If he has listened, he certainly hasn't heard.

What we're asking him now is: what difference will it make? It may slow up only the exclusion of the Spetifore land from the land reserve. It will only slow that up. If the minister will only take six months to let people make all the representations — to perhaps bring in legislation that will achieve most of what he wants without upsetting the regional districts in the way that he is doing — then government will be doing a better service,

I recall again…. I can't repeat them from memory, but paraphrasing the words of the Lieutenant-Governor in the opening speech, we have to be concerned about the needs of the people of the province. If the government would take the time and spend six months listening to arguments being made by people who are working in the field against the legislation in its present form, then the government will be better serving the needs of the province of British Columbia. I do urge the Minister of Municipal Affairs to listen to these arguments, to listen to these people and to take the time to consider this, because nothing will be lost and much could be gained if we do take that six-month period.

MR. MITCHELL: Mr. Speaker, I hesitated in getting up because I felt that there might be some government members who would like to get in on the debate. I was wondering what kind of laxity in debate you are going to allow. I believe we in the opposition have nicknamed this particular bill the "Spetifore amendment," and some of the debate did cover the agricultural land freeze. Looking at my notes, I was wondering whether that should come up in the Agriculture estimates when we get around to estimates. I would like to follow my colleague and go into some of the reasons that I feel the fine tuning of that particular piece of legislation should have continued after the original land freeze. I say this openly: in my own area a lot of land that was not really agricultural was brought in under the initial land freeze. You should compare some of the gravel pits in my area to the Spetifore property with its potential. I feel maybe there is a lot of land, had we looked at the need for housing…. This particular so-called Spetifore property is being developed for housing. I say this advisedly: there are pieces of property that are less needed for agriculture than that particular piece of property.

Getting back to the bill and my support for it to be hoisted, I have to relate this particular bill to how it's going to affect my constituency. I know it was brought in in haste to take the Spetifore property out of the land freeze — to allow it to go ahead because, as the members of the government said, five out of nine members of the council in Delta have supported its being allowed to be developed for housing.

MR. REID: That's called democracy.

[4:00]

MR. MITCHELL: That is definitely part of democracy. When you look at democracy, let's face it, it swings from one side of the spectrum to the other, and it's still democracy. Ideas that are promoted today will be laughed at 20 years from now. If we look back at some of the legislation that has come through this House in the last 50 years, a lot of us would have a hard time standing up and supporting it. I look at what

[ Page 1232 ]

effect this amendment is going to have on my area. I look at it very selfishly, because I have to relate to my constituents and answer to them. I feel that to destroy the concept of regional planning is dangerous, and I don't think we can afford it. We're going to be living here; our families are going to be living here. The decisions that we make as a community — provincial, regional or municipal — are going to stay with us.

One particular shopping centre that was going to be built in my riding depended on the type of shopping centre being built in Saanich. Because we had the need for regional planning, the Tillicum Mall Saanich shopping centre in Saanich, in its original application, was to be a large urban development. Not knowing all the terminology of the various sizes of shopping malls, there are community malls, some are classed as regional and the larger ones are basically a city-type development. The financial viability of the Langford shopping mall in my riding depended on the size of the Tillicum Mall in Saanich. Many presentations were made by citizens of my riding. The owner of the property that was going to build the mall in Langford, the Canwest development, said he could build a viable shopping mall in Langford that would bring to the residents of that particular area a lot of the amenities of a larger shopping mall, but it would not be financially viable if a super-large one were built in Saanich.

That debate raged through the Capital Regional District meeting after meeting and committee meeting after committee meeting. The Saanich delegates to the CRD were split on it. Some wanted to have a regional size; some wanted a larger one. Elected municipal officials from the particular municipality where I live within my constituency were supporting a larger one because it was closer to their constituency and their voters. I would say saner heads prevailed because there was input from elected officials from all municipalities in the greater Victoria district. There was input from the North Saanich areas and some from Oak Bay.

If we want to develop the greater Victoria area that we know, it has to be developed with some foresight. We have to look at it as a whole community. We can't look at it solely from our simple little regional constituency. The population shifts depend on the way the area develops. If we are going to preserve certain farmlands in the Saanich area, then as the population grows it is going to shift to other areas. In my particular area the predicted population shift was to the Westem Community — the View Royal, Colwood, Metchosin, Sooke and Langford areas.

If that predicted shift is going to be there, then the need for a shopping centre is very important, and that planning had to go ahead before it all took place. If it was going to be viable, we had to have the shopping centre in place approximately the same time as the population arrived. This is the important part. When developers or business people make their plans, they have to be able to plan knowing there is going to be some long-term security in what they are proposing.

Bill 9 opened the door to destroying some of the longterm planning that has been going on for seven years. I know I can't hold this up, but one of the local weekly papers talked about a particular shopping centre in the Langford area: the Canwest shopping mall. It has been in the planning process for seven years. They have assembled the land, secured the type of people who are going to rent space in the mall, and gone through all the regional and APC hearings and public meetings. They are hurdles; you can call them red tape; but they are part of the way our society evolves under the legislation that has been put in place by 30 years of Social Credit. It is all in there — 30 years of hurdles. Actually they are not all hurdles; they are the necessary part of developing a community. They have started the development in Langford, they have started the foundation, they are going ahead and they are building that particular shopping centre.

Because Bill 9 is before this Legislature, and we are going to wipe out regional plans, the Tillicum shopping mall then made another application to the Capital Regional District board to amend the regional plan they had brought in within the last two years after three or four years of fighting at the regional level. Because, when they did eventually establish the size for the Tillicum Mall, they had established that particular shopping centre as a mid-sized shopping mall, it made the one in Langford a viable development.

After this particular bill appeared in the House here, the company that owns the Tillicum Mall then made an application under the guise that the only reason they were making this application was that it would be a better method of financing the debentures or bonds on that particular development. Everyone knows that this was a smokescreen. If this bill goes through — and with the majority of 35 that sit on the government side, they will jam it through — they will endanger the economic viability of a particular shopping centre in Langford. I say very candidly that the owner of that shopping centre is not one of my supporters; he is one of the gold-plated Social Credit card holders of that area. That is his political belief. He is a very strong right-wing Social Credit supporter. It is quite ironical that his development is going to be in danger because Bill 9 is being jammed right through the province of British Columbia for one reason, and one reason only: that is, to satisfy certain political promises made to develop the Spetifore land.

As I said in my earlier debate on this bill, before the motion to hoist this bill, if the government is determined to pay off the so-called political promises for that particular piece of property, they could bring in legislation similar to the legislation they brought in when they pushed through the Ganges sewer project — they could bring it in and they could take that one piece of property out of the zoning and could allow housing to go on it. They could do that if this is what the government is determined to do. But in doing it, let's not tear down…. This is really what we're doing: tearing down the development that has taken place within any community…. I wouldn't say so much the development, but the steps that a community must take to development in a logical, straightforward and viable manner.

MR. REID: It's called red tape.

MR. MITCHELL: Red tape is only something that we have tied to planning. When I built my home I had to conform to a lot of red tape. But the person developing next door to me has to build something compatible with the investment that I have made in my home. That is exactly the same outlook that we have to use in our community. If we are going to invest millions of dollars in a particular shopping centre, we are going to be making those investments knowing that the investment is not going to be endangered because of the whim of some particular politician to change the ground rules that everyone else has to conform to.

[ Page 1233 ]

[4:15]

In any society we have ground rules, laws, traditions. Any time any one of us feels that we can run roughshod over something that has developed over many years, that has been accepted in certain times…. Every one of us may find that we are not happy with the restrictions that we have on us. Sometimes when we are travelling along the highway we're quite convinced that the speed limit — though it's a good speed limit for everyone else — is really not necessary for us at that particular time. And within our own selves we rationalize that it's all right for us to fudge a little bit. But we don't stand up and say that we should eliminate the speed limits, that we should eliminate good driving practices, or that we should eliminate the attitudes of drivers. This is what this government is doing in Bill 9. They are jamming something through this House without going out to the community.

Those who are most concerned with this bill are the municipally elected councils in the cities throughout British Columbia. These are the people who are going to have to develop their areas under the pressure of developers and local people who will use the Spetifore precedent as something that they should be allowed to do. They will say that in Delta, because a bare majority of that particular council — five for and four against, a majority of one; and we all know that a majority of one in one particular council can be a majority of five or six in the next council, or it can be a complete reversal of the opinions of the community….

In my own experience with municipal governments and aldermen I have watched the swing go from pro-development of anything to get a higher density on a piece of property…. We had nothing but a series of crackerbox-style apartments, which, the developers said, were going to solve the rental problems of the community.

Interjection.

MR. MITCHELL: The first member for Surrey (Mrs. Johnston) asked if there was low-cost housing. No, there was no low-cost housing based on the ability to pay. They built cheap and they charged whatever the traffic would bear. There was no development of senior citizens' housing. A whole area was developed without any community-based, senior citizens' housing. There was no development of co-op housing with a mixed community, in which each person has his rent based on his ability to pay, on 25 percent of his income. There was no socially needed housing. It wasn't developed, because we had a series of elected aldermen who believed that if someone had a piece of property, it didn't matter how he bought it; if he bought it as a residential property he should be allowed to spot-zone that property and put up a long narrow objectionable apartment building because he had the right and he owned that property. The effect which that building would have on the rest of the block was not taken into consideration.

I remember when they wanted to build a large apartment on one block which wasn't historically a part of the apartment-building blocks, but was property that was bought because it was zoned residential. So what did they do? And I know this from very hard experience as a police officer. At that time in the late sixties we had a lot of transients, commonly called hippies, and they'd move them into a particular area. What with motorcycle gangs running up and down the road and the hippies, you would have a transient population coming and going. The people living between these two houses would sell out to the developer, not because they were unhappy with their home or with their neighbours, but because they were forced by the manipulation of developers and real estate people to spot-zone a community.

This is the type of development that I, as one who lives in the community, am personally opposed to. If we are going to have any long-range community development, we must have some long-range planning. We do need that long-range local planning, and it must also be tied into the regional development. If we are going to shift the centre of population, or if the predicted population growth is going to be in one area, then we must look at proper higher-density development. We can't live in a world of all single-family housing, but we can't afford to have the spot-zoning that goes on in the quickflipping market of the real estate developers and certain unscrupulous builders. They want to go out and buy property at the cheapest single-family dwelling rate — residential zoning — and they want to then force through their particular upzoning.

This is exactly what the Spetifore program is. The Spetifore bill, as we call it — Bill 9 — is allowing a type of spot-zoning in an agricultural area that is not necessary.

MRS. JOHNSTON: Have you read Bill 9?

MR. MITCHELL: Yes, I have read Bill 9, and I have read all the other legislation that goes with it. If you've only read Bill 9 and you haven't read it in the context of the other legislation on the statute books, Bill 9 doesn't mean a damn. You can't only read Bill 9, Mr. Speaker. You must read Bill 9 as to how it affects all other statutes it is amending, how it affects the development of a community, how it affects the development of a regional district. This is the important part, that this type of legislation jammed in here — and they have two pages of amendments to this and amendments to that…. They don't mean anything. It's not a bill; it's an amendment to a number of bills. You have to take that particular bill, Bill 9, and fit it into how it's going to affect the cities, the municipalities, the unincorporated regions of my area. And you can't always look at it from your own selfish position; you have to realize that Bill 9 is going to affect all of British Columbia.

What is Bill 9 going to do? We all in this House, and the few people up in the gallery and the press who come to the House, know that Bill 9 is to allow the Spetifore land to be developed for housing. But in doing that, they are destroying the community development of many areas in B.C. They are allowing businesses….

I use as an example one particular shopping centre in my area. It had conformed with every one of the pieces of legislation the 30 years of Social Credit had brought in. They had gone through all the hoops and red tape, appeared at all the hearings, taken all the flak from those who opposed it and gone out into the business community and made deals or leases with large companies who wanted to build in that particular shopping centre. They had done all the paperwork that was needed, based on a set of rules and a type of development that the regional plans in the past had put into place. And then out of nowhere this new minister….

I think the new minister is learning his way through the cabinet, and has his hangups that we all know. It's a change to have a bill and have him talk on the bill and not on the other stuff he used to ramble on about. But now he's out there

[ Page 1234 ]

working within that 35 or 20…. He is working in that particular area now that he has to bring in legislation. But I don't think, in all fairness to this new minister, that he has looked at it in the light and with the openness that I believe and hope he has. He hasn't met with municipal officials throughout British Columbia. We do have a tradition in our British parliamentary system, and part of that tradition is to set up legislative committees. Members from all sides of this House can go out…. I should say members from all parties in this House. There was a time when this side of the House was opposition and that side was government, but these government people are sneaking over here, and they keep on….

Interjection.

MR. MITCHELL: Maybe for a short period they'll be there.

We should have this legislative committee, and some major changes should be brought to the Municipal Act. Although the Municipal Act has grown over these many years that B.C. has been incorporated, there are changes that I think the municipal constituency out there, the elected people, would like to see. I know that at their conventions they bring in, like any other organization, a lot of resolutions. These resolutions are typed up, debated, sent in. They appear in the resolution book of the convention, and maybe about one-tenth of them are ever debated. But if you did have a legislative committee with our new minister of municipalities, I think he would have an opportunity to go throughout British Columbia and to meet and speak with the municipal officials, to meet and speak with the business communities and the developers, to meet and speak with such organizations as HUDAC, who must make long-range plans: the type of land that is available so they can keep their businesses in operation, knowing there are building lots available. We make some long-range developments and programs — should we go into certain types of multiple dwellings, apartments, in different areas? For that long-range development, those long-range programs, we must look at such things as sewer development, water supply, schools. Should we have higher densities in the core communities where we already have schools in operation, where we already have library services and recreation facilities? There are many ideas, and I believe that in the province, in the community, people are just waiting for the opportunity to express them.

[4:30]

Within that context, Mr. Speaker, is why I support the motion to hoist for six months. It's not so much that it's going to help my particular constituency solely on the protection of one shopping centre, or that it may be endangered because Bill 9 opens the doors and allows the Tillicum shopping centre to make an application. The permit they had was to build a certain size shopping centre, and now, because of Bill 9, they're making application to change it. I'm not looking at it just from the point of view of those few selfish, self-centred constituency problems. We in this House can't afford the pleasure of jamming something through to carry out a political promise to take the Spetifore property not only out of the land freeze, but to allow housing development in that area when the majority of the community is opposed to it.

Interjection.

MR. MITCHELL: Maybe after the next regional elections the majority of the regional people will be voting for the Spetifore amendment, and maybe after the next particular municipal elections the majority of the Delta council will be opposed to it. But this is democracy. I've watched governments at all levels change during the 57 years that I have been alive and the 30-some odd years that I've been involved in different levels of political development. I've watched these changes, and I know they are going to change. I know that when we all go, other amendments, other bills, other crises will arise and the councils and the Legislature will be faced with them and they will be branded as political promises the same as we are branding Bill 9, commonly called the Spetifore amendment.

We can't use this Legislature solely for band-aid small-time corrections. We must do some long-range planning. We need the regional boards and the regional plans. We need the input from the province for changes to the Municipal Act. I think that jamming this one small bill that destroys the regional planning is wrong. To help save this government from their own destruction I am supporting that we hoist it, that we give it a second thought, that we look at it, that we bring in something that is going to preserve planning in my area and the rest of British Columbia.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The Chair recognizes the member for Shuswap-Revelstoke on the amendment.

MR. MICHAEL: I rise on a point of order. We have had today three speakers from the opposition. All have taken the maximum allotted time according to the rules: a full 40 minutes. We have had 18 speakers prior to today on this bill, each of them taking the maximum 40 minutes allocated to each speaker. Mr. Speaker, I have listened to a tremendous amount of repetition here today. We all know that the job of the opposition is to oppose, but I would suggest to you, Mr. Speaker, it's not to obstruct. I would ask you, according to the rules, to ask the speakers to stay on the subject, that being an amendment to the bill in question.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Points of order relating to standing order 43 are always well taken. I will ask all members to relate their remarks to the amendment before us, the amendment to hoist.

MRS. WALLACE: I am pleased to take my place in debate and to support the motion to hoist, for a great many very good reasons which I will try to outline clearly enough that even the member for Shuswap-Revelstoke will be able to understand them.

MR. REID: That would be a first.

MRS. WALLACE: Yes, that would be a first.

Mr. Speaker, why are we suggesting that this bill be hoisted? Certainly not just because the opposition thinks it should be hoisted. I would suggest that you can pick up any paper or almost any brief that has come from almost any organization concerned about municipal politics and you will see nothing but requests to back off, to withdraw, to delay, not to pass this in the form it is in.

When I spoke previously, I read into the record a letter from the city of Duncan, in my constituency, urging the government to back off on this bill. "I would urge you to

[ Page 1235 ]

review this legislation, " says the mayor of Duncan, "The effect in this community could be to completely destroy the economy of the city of Duncan and those forward-looking businessmen who have invested their time and money in the city." The city of Duncan was certainly concerned.

I have a letter dated August 3 from the Cowichan Valley Regional Board to the Premier and Members of the Legislative Assembly. All of us received a copy of this, from the administrator, Mr. Ralph Keir, asking that the government reconsider several bills that are listed, and Bill 9 is certainly one of them. That is in line with the idea to hoist.

One group after the other, even HUDAC, a group noted for its interest in getting rid of red tape and streamlining, has said: "We have looked at this and have had second thoughts about it, and we recognize that regional planning must be maintained."

AN. HON. MEMBER: Who said it?

MRS. WALLACE: Who said it? It is included in a brief that was presented by HUDAC to the…. This is the introduction: "The responsibility for land use decisions rests with the municipal level of government, but there must also be a coordination of municipal land use decisions with those other levels of government responsible for the development of infrastructures." Later on in the brief, they come up with the idea that they are now convinced that there will be some major disadvantages associated with the loss of regional plans within the lower mainland and CRD regions.

So certainly HUDAC is looking at some changes and looking at the need to have some overall provision for general planning. I want to speak to these members of the government in a language that they seem to understand better than any other, and that is the language of economics. Is it an economically viable thing to get rid of regional planning? I suggest that it isn't. Certainly this bill proposes many false economies. The lack of intermunicipal coordination and planning will cause long-term problems that will be very expensive. Without that general coordination and regional concept, we're going to find that our dollars are not well invested. The costs down the road are going to be much greater than any saving that may be accomplished in the immediate future.

It should be realized that a great proportion of the investment that goes into capital investment in municipalities is public sector investment, in the way of roads, sewage, water facilities, parks — the whole gamut. It's been estimated that between 25 and 50 percent of the cost is public investment. Without some regional comprehensive planning, that investment is not going to be wisely carried out. We're going to have duplication. We're going to have omissions. We're going to have many problems down the road.

Municipalities simply cannot assume those responsibilities on an individual basis. So how is it going to be handled if regional boards do not do it? We've heard some rather scary statements from the minister just recently that he is going to privatize it. That certainly is frightening to me. I think that certainly he has to take a longer look. If this is the sort of thing that he has in mind, then he better have a lot of heart-to-heart talks with the people that will be affected by this: the municipal and regional people, and the citizens themselves. I don't think that he will find that that is a popular concept. Neither is it an economic concept, because dollar for dollar we have had a very good return in the planning functions that have been carried out by regional boards. I'll get to some specifics later.

[Mr. Pelton in the chair.]

They have done a good job from an economic point of view. To do away with regional planning and just leave an empty void is something that has no precedent in Canada or North America, particularly in Canada. That is what's happening with this bill, because there is nothing to fill the gap that is left by the regional plans.

[4:45]

I mentioned groups that have supported the concept of regional planning. The Planning Institute of British Columbia submitted a brief last July to the Minister of Municipal Affairs regarding Bill 9, and what do they say? They said they would like him to consider what he's doing. They say:

"We're glad there's a desire to make improvements, but we caution that the simple elimination of all coordination at the regional level will probably cause more problems than it will solve."

I think that we have another group that is indicating that they can see problems with this approach. They go on:

"How will neighbouring communities in metropolitan areas resolve differences on land use issues that affect areas beyond the boundaries of individual municipalities? Who will be responsible for anticipating and alleviating the impacts that actions in one part of a region will have on other parts of the region? Questions like these should he answered before all existing regional planning programs are eliminated, not after."

Mr. Speaker, I think the motion to hoist is a very proper one. It's one that should be considered in all seriousness. Take it back to the drawing board and review exactly what kind of difficult and unworkable result we will have if this plan goes ahead.

We must remember that in the past, regional planning has dealt with land use, servicing, transportation — issues that cross municipal boundaries. Nowhere is that truer than in the lower mainland, or in the Capital Regional District, for that matter. It’s even true in the Cowichan Valley. We must remember that we do not live an isolated existence; we don't stay within the boundaries of our own municipalities anymore. There is a need to travel outside of those boundaries, which means that development within a given area has a very real impact on transportation. Has that been reviewed? Have we thought about that? I doubt it, Mr. Speaker. It's another good reason to hoist this bill.

If you build a shopping centre in one area, you can well devastate another area. That's what the city of Duncan was talking about. They spoke about merchants putting money into the downtown revitalization program in order to build up a commercial zone in the heart of downtown Duncan. Now that's completely overshadowed by allowing the municipality of North Cowichan to proceed with shopping centres in other areas, contrary to the regional plan which did not include that. Of course, it's a natural thing to happen, because each municipality is looking at increasing its tax base. This is going to be their prime consideration, without thinking about all the implications it may have on another area or jurisdiction. That's another problem that I don't think has really been considered. It takes an overall plan and only a regional body can produce such a plan, one that will take into account the

[ Page 1236 ]

best interests of all the area and of the people living in that area.

Regional plans have a very definite value insofar as provincial programs are also affected. I've spoken of the downtown revitalization program and how it applied so specifically to my own area. Provincial taxpayers' dollars were poured into that plan and now, by a stroke of the provincial pen, that whole community may well find itself devastated and at the mercy of a larger, newer shopping centre out along the main thoroughfare. Certainly it doesn't bode well for the use of taxpayers' dollars if we allow these kinds of things to happen, and in the best economic sense it's not the way we should be proceeding. When we put an investment into something then we must ensure that that investment is protected, not just throw it away with the stroke of a pen.

As I said before, if this act passes there is really no provision for all those things that relate to the greater community. As a result we find that the public planning institute of British Columbia — for some of the reasons that I have outlined — is recommending that Bill 9 be withdrawn. Certainly that's in line with what we're talking about. We're suggesting that it be hoisted for six months — time to reconsider. They go on to say that the Minister of Municipal Affairs should consult with many of the groups affected to discuss in a positive way something that would not just eliminate the regional plan. I don't think anybody thinks that everything is perfect the way it is, but certainly you don't throw out the baby with the bathwater. Those of us who can recall the situation back in the 1960s, before we had regional plans, will know what some of those problems were. I have always lived in a rural area, and I well remember the difficulties we had. There was absolutely no protection or input to local government. We lived in what was known as unorganized territories or areas, and everything was dealt with from the provincial level. So as far as planning goes, this is going to put us right back in that same category.

Howard Sturrock, the chairman of the Capital Regional Board, has said it very well in an article that he has written. At the risk of being repetitive, if I read this I'm going to talk about Spetifore, because certainly that's what Howard Sturrock talked about. I don't think there's any question that that's had a lot to do with this motion coming in. Howard Sturtock says:

"This has been called the Spetifore amendment because of wide speculation that it arises from the refusal of the Greater Vancouver Regional District to approve an amendment to the regional plan which would have permitted a housing development on the former Spetifore property in South Delta. Those who follow such controversies will know that the Spetifore farm was refused exclusion from the agriculture land reserve by the Socred appointed Land Commission but was later removed from the ALR by cabinet order."

This really begins to deal with the need for a much broader perspective when you're looking at any local zoning, and is the reason why we on this side of the House believe that this bill should be hoisted. It goes on:

"Anyone who lives south of the George Massey–Deas Island Tunnel in Delta, and faces the long wait for passage through it, both in the morning rush hour going north and in the evening rush hour travelling south, must recognize that there is more than a local interest and a local responsibility in the urban development which takes place south of that bottleneck. There is a regional stake in limiting the amount of urban development in that area. The overriding reason is that the province cannot afford to build another $100 million tunnel or bridge under or across the Fraser River just to meet the demands of commuter traffic. Surely this is one of the items that regional planning is all about: to use our resources in a way in which we get maximum advantage; to spend our limited tax dollars in ways which provide the maximum benefit for the largest number of people; to discourage private decisions which have adverse effects on taxpayers at large; to encourage proposals which more fully use the public assets we have already acquired." Certainly that is what regional planning is all about. I couldn't agree with Mr. Sturrock more, because he certainly has pointed out very clearly and concisely the economic difficulties you face if you allow urbanization and the urban sprawl, development uncontrolled, to just land wherever some small individual local body decides it wants it.

Interjection.

MRS. WALLACE: Elected body? True, but so are regional boards elected and so is the provincial government elected. Municipal councils act under a Municipal Act which is a provincial piece of legislation. Does anybody say that that's not democratic? Nobody says that's not democratic. Surely we have to look beyond the borders of our own back forty, Mr. Speaker, to be able to comprehend today's twentieth century needs.

MR. REID: In cooperation with the local elected officials.

MRS. WALLACE: That's exactly what was going on.

MR. REID: There's no cooperation. The regional board isn't listening.

MRS. WALLACE: The little member from Surrey — the number two member (Mr. Reid) somehow seems to think that regional boards are not elected. I've got news for him: regional boards are elected. They form part of the greater whole of the province, just as municipalities form part of the greater whole of the regional districts. Certainly it's all part and parcel of the democratic process. Just because his municipality happens to be short-sighted, and in this instance I personally believe them to be wrong…. A lot of people believe they're wrong, obviously, or we wouldn't have all this furor, and we wouldn't have this special amendment trying to circumvent general public opinion.

Interjection.

MRS. WALLACE: You're circumventing the elected officials on a much broader base by passing this legislation. I wanted to give some of the figures that have been quoted by Mr. Sturrock. He says: "In many of the 28 regional districts across the province, regional planning does not have a high profile." I don't know where those areas are. Regional planning certainly has a high profile in any of the districts that I know anything about, but I imagine that in some of the more

[ Page 1237 ]

outlying areas, where there hasn't been the need or the amount of people facing the problems that we face in the more highly populated areas, that may be the case. He goes on to say: "It is in fact one of the reasons why regional districts were formed in the mid-1960s. The regional planning staff of seven is small" — and he's talking about the Capital Regional District board — "in relation to the 370 full-time staff of the Capital Regional District which manage the 52 other functions of the region." So what he's saying is that out of a staff of 52 in the Capital Regional District, only seven are employed in the planning process, and their work is of vital importance to the citizens of the area. In the long run the cost is small, relative to the enduring economic and aesthetic benefits to the community.

[5:00]

He goes on to talk about their objectives, which certainly, from a regional point of view, bear quite a parallel to the situation in the Greater Vancouver Regional District where they have been attempting to preserve the good agricultural land on the Saanich Peninsula to protect the commercial core of greater Victoria from commercial developments in the suburban areas, and to encourage the urban development to take place in the Western Community, where there is not the need to erode agricultural land for this development. Certainly it seems to me that this is a function which is not just specific to the GVRD; it's a function that is specific to regional districts generally in trying to get the greater good for the greater number and in looking at the long term. When you do that, sure, you override selfish plans of selfish individuals in certain areas, but in the long term you are getting the greater good for the greater number.

He makes a very interesting comparison here; again he's talking about Saanich Peninsula and he is relating it to the Spetifore situation. He says:

"It must be obvious that a proposal to subdivide a 500-acre parcel of farmland in Central Saanich, if such a proposal existed, would have implications for more than just the citizens of Central Saanich."

I hope the member for Delta (Hon. Mr. Davidson) is listening to this.

"There would be a regional responsibility here, not just in protecting farmland, but also in the provision of sewer and water services and access roads to such an imaginary proposal. There might well be a provincial involvement because of the impact on provincial highways."

Under the provisions of this bill that we're now trying to hoist, Mr. Speaker, the region would have no opportunity even to raise its voice and draw attention to such implications, because the regional planning function would have ceased to exist. Certainly that points out the need to reconsider. When you look at that hypothetical case — which is not so hypothetical when you go to the mainland — in a different setting, I think it points out very clearly to those of us who drive up and down the Saanich Peninsula the kind of general overall problems that would occur if, in fact, a 500-acre parcel of agricultural land in Saanich was removed and turned into urban development. That is the same kind of proposal we are facing on the lower mainland.

The Lower Mainland Planning Review Panel has written to various councils and to all MLAs, looking at some of the problems that they see will occur with Bill 9. Again, they have economic implications. They are saying that if this bill goes forward and regional planning powers are eroded, many more local land use issues will end up on the minister's desk. Again, we have more centralization, and higher costs at the provincial level in trying to deal with these situations because the regional authorities will no longer have the authority. By the time they get to the minister's desk, we are already going to be facing costly public investment mistakes that have been made because of lack of overall planning — more dollars down the drain and no understanding of what the general overall plan is going to be. We will also find investment being made where the private risk is taken without the overall plan, and then because of change of plan or lack of plan at all, that risk capital that has been put up to establish an elitist type of housing development will wind up in the middle of an industrial area because of the change of zoning.

Those are the things that happened before the sixties, before we had regional plans, when there was no control. Those are the things that will happen again. There is another economic risk. Certainly indiscriminate urban development is going to create much higher public costs in the way of providing services, transit, schools, water, sewage, transportation, the whole thing. The Lower Mainland Planning Review Panel's fifth point is that the liveability of communities will be lower because public services are not provided in a coordinated way by the complex array of provincial, regional and municipal agents and public utilities responsible. Without a coordinating body to ensure that we don't have duplication or gaps, we are going to find that our lifestyle is not quite as good.

Interjection.

MS. WALLACE: Municipalities can only deal with their own immediate needs, Mr. Minister. They cannot deal with things beyond their borders, and you should know that: you are the minister responsible for administering the act. Without that ability to coordinate and allowing helter-skelter development within these smaller areas, we are going to revert to the 1960s, when there was no effective planning, no economic viability in the type of things we were doing, much higher costs and just a mess of inherited problems, many of which we still have under grandfather clauses in these areas. I would like to talk about one of the municipalities. We hear so much about Delta you would think it was the only municipality in the greater Vancouver regional area. This happens to be from the municipality of Surrey. It is their official community plan — final draft, May 1983. They talk about regional plans, and they say….

Interjection.

MRS. WALLACE: This is the Surrey municipality, one of the municipalities which is just as bound as Delta by the Greater Vancouver Regional District. What do they say about the regional plan? They say:

"The livable region plan of 1975 assessed the greater Vancouver region in terms of liveability and growth, put forward a strategy for dealing with growth, and outlined policies and targets for each part of the region to implement the plan. The report found that, while the region was growing rapidly, there was limited room for future growth and the residents were concerned about growth-related issues such as crowding, pollution, inadequate services, loss of natural amenities, congestion and expensive housing.

[ Page 1238 ]

" It proposed a region of town centres, each providing housing, jobs and many of the opportunities offered by a metropolis. Travel in the region would partly depend on a public transportation system based on light rapid transit, commuter trains and buses. The plan recommended that Surrey develop a regional town centre in the Whalley area. Surrey's population target was to reach 209,000 by 1986…. "

Interjections.

MRS. WALLACE: There's a little conversation going on here on the side, Mr. Speaker, but I don't mind; it's all of general interest.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I noticed that, hon. member. You're doing very well with the heckling, but it would be much better if we didn't have any.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: No!

MRS. WALLACE: No, that would be pretty dull, I'm afraid. When we allow the reading of well-known poets in this Legislature, I think we should also allow a bit of heckling too. We have to have some other distractions, I think.

What I'm saying is that here is a municipality, part of the Greater Vancouver Regional Board area, that is going along and saying: "This is great. We're going to develop our town centre. This is a general plan that's going to relate to all of us."

It goes on to say:

"The official regional plan puts forward a number of policies regarding regional development in order to achieve the regional goals. To achieve the goal of decentralization recommended in the livable region plan, the location of five regional town centres is proposed, one of which is in the North Surrey area. The centre is to be the focus of growth in office, employment, shopping and cultural facilities for Surrey."

Now how could you possibly have the development of such an overall plan without having a coordinating body to do it?

MRS. JOHNSTON: Very simple, because that one's obsolete already. We're doing our own new one.

MRS. WALLACE: The first member for Surrey says they're doing another plan. Sure, these plans have to be updated, but there is no way they can be updated individually by each municipality and still coordinate all the various general needs we've been talking about, without somebody there to ensure that that happens.

I have quoted this before, and because I'm dealing with the economic aspects of this particular bill, I think that I should it mention again.

"The capital investment programs of the municipalities in the GVRD has been averaging $100 million, or about $95 per capita. That's what municipalities are investing. To this we add the regional expenses. All of these investments will be linked to the economy by generating employment, providing development opportunities, encouraging trade" — and so on. "In contrast, the total amount invested directly in regional planning is in the order of $1.3 million, or $1.08 per capita."

The regional planning, which gets you all these other things — the water, the sewage, the transit, the hospitals, the general needs of all those communities — is costing just over a dollar per capita, while the municipal investments amount to $95 per capita. I think that's something we really need to bear in mind. We talk about the bureaucracy and the high cost of regional planning. It's really not that high.

[Mr. Strachan in the chair.]

I just very recently received a book entitled Building for the Future: Guide to the Plan for the Lower Mainland — and I'm looking on it for a date. It just came into my hands very recently. For the benefit of the member across the way, I would like to find the date on it, but I don't see it. It's a very interesting document. I'm sure it has put together a lot of material that should be reviewed in debating the hoisting of this bill.

[5:15]

We need to look at the diversity. In the case of the Greater Vancouver Regional District, it encompasses a great variety of areas. We have the flat, fertile farmland, the concentrated downtown metropolitan area, and the urban areas. So the diversity is important; the growth is important.

Interjection.

MRS. WALLACE: Somebody mentioned cooperation. Yes, cooperation is important, but you can't have cooperation if you don't have the vehicle in which to cooperate. Regional boards and regional planning provide that opportunity. Certainly the achievement of the Greater Vancouver Regional District is good. What they have accomplished while working with a very difficult situation has been good.

Grandfather developments are a great diversity. And so they go on. They have set out their objectives, dealing with each particular area, and a general plan which, in fact, was accepted in principle by the municipalities concerned. Now, for reasons best known to themselves, Delta wants to opt out of that particular plan.

In my last minute or two perhaps I could read some excerpts from an editorial in the Times-Colonist.

"Bill Vander Zalm is long gone from Municipal Affairs, but in the provincial cabinet his spirit lingers on, continuing the task he began of sterilizing the regional districts….

"The present minister claims the move will streamline the development process and strengthen the autonomy of local government. No doubt, but it will also turn the clock back 30 years to an era of uncontrolled growth, when municipalities did their own thing regardless of the impact on neighbouring municipalities or the region as a whole."

MR. HOWARD: One of the things that concern me about the bill, the hoist motion and the action of the minister with respect to the bill is that the UBCM convention will be held very shortly. Almost on the eve of the convention of people who will be directly affected by this bill, the government and the minister persist in bringing it forward again and again. In other circumstances I could appreciate that it is a normal course to proceed with a bill and try to have it passed as soon

[ Page 1239 ]

as possible, but not in the face of the meeting of the UBCM within a very short period of time. I don't say that critically; I just say that it's a matter that doesn't seem to agree with the minister's statement when he opened second reading of the bill and said that there needs to be an atmosphere of cooperation, and that he believed in that; that we can make further progress towards the goal of effective, efficient programs and so on.

But in the context of his belief that you can do these things in an atmosphere of cooperation, it seems to me that the minister is running directly contrary to his own declarations. It is very difficult to say to the UBCM, who have an interest in this…. Basically what he is saying is: "I believe in cooperation. I believe in cooperating with you, but not to the extent of holding up further progress on this particular bill until you, the UBCM, have had an opportunity to examine it in convention or within your executive structure." I use "convention" because that is very close.

It would seem to me too that the earlier argument put forward about instituting the operation of our committee on municipal affairs and housing would be a very appropriate way to proceed — to give the subject matter of this bill to that committee in order that it could listen to representations by both regional districts that are directly affected, and municipalities that are indirectly affected, and by representatives of the UBCM. We have had the Municipal Affairs and Housing Committee of the Legislature in existence for over a month now, and to my knowledge the committee has not been called together even for the pro forma purpose of electing a chairman. It still has just a convener, namely the first member for Vancouver South (Mr. R. Fraser), who has not got around to convening the committee in order that it could be constituted with a Chairman and a Secretary, which is the normal organizational preliminary to having something referred to it., namely this particular bill.

That's the reason for the six-month hoist, as well: to say that it is desirable to permit the government to have available to it all possible representations from all groups interested in and affected by this particular bill. One of the mechanisms — in fact, I would submit probably the most effective mechanism — is to draw all the members of the Legislature into the consultative process. It's not possible to do that under our structure by having representatives come and appear in the House itself and make a presentation. That's the reason for having committees: to establish as an extension of the Legislature a smaller group of people called a committee who can meet in another part of this building, in one of the committee rooms, and have representatives appear and say: "This is what we think about the bill with respect to regional districts" — or whatever. But it seems not to be the interest of the government to follow that particular course of action.

The six-month hoist proposal is founded, to a great extent, upon the minister's own statements in his opening remarks on the bill. If I could just make one or two brief references to them to indicate why it is necessary to have that extra time available, perhaps the House will see the necessity of supporting what we are putting forward. He said: "The legislation is based on parts of the previously proposed Land Use Act." Now, we all know that that had a very disastrous conclusion resulting in the preceding Minister of Municipal Affairs calling his colleagues, many of whom are with us today in the House, "gutless" for not dealing with that particular bill. I would not use those words, Mr. Speaker, in referring to hon. members in this House. I'm only saying what Mr. Vander Zalm said. That's the way he felt at that time about his colleagues' disposition of the Land Use Act, which he, the then minister, had spent some years working on and developing. This bill before us is, as the minister said, based on parts of the previously proposed Land Use Act.

The minister also said in Part 2 — and this is all the more reason why the House should support the six-month hoist — that the legislation provides for the removal of the power of regional districts to enact and enforce official regional plans.

During the period of public examination preliminary to the introduction in this Legislature of the regional district concept, I had the opportunity to attend a number of meetings in the northern part of the province where examination was made, public hearings were held and people made representations. One of the fundamental reasons for the establishment of regional districts, as advanced then, was the very concept of the power of regional districts to enact and enforce official regional plans, because prior to that time — as you, Mr. Speaker, and other members of this House know — areas which we identified as unorganized territory — that is, areas of the province outside of the bounds of a municipality — had no coordination, plan or regional concept. They just operated on a helter-skelter, hit-and-miss basis — sometimes under the Water Act if they wanted to put in a water system, and sometimes under the Hospital Act if they wanted to do something else. The purpose was to establish the very concept of regionalism and regional planning and to involve municipalities in that, which may — and I submit does — have a different and probably a more beneficial aspect in northern interior rural parts of this province than, say, does a regional district concept within the lower mainland or capital region, where, as I understand it in any event, there is no territory specifically under the domain of the regional district. There is one municipality contiguous with the other all the way across the board. But in rural areas that is not so.

In my own constituency there are 30 or 40 miles between municipalities. In some cases there are longer distances of territory completely under the domain of the regional district. The necessity of having those regional districts involved in that overall planning and in the coordination of activities that involves both the area that was previously unorganized and the area of municipalities is different than in the lower mainland. That's all the more reason, I submit, for an examination of this in a broader context. While the origin of this particular bill may have been in the lower mainland, the application of it is universal, and the application of it is inappropriate on a universal basis. It cannot apply to the constituencies of Prince Rupert, Atlin, Skeena, Mackenzie and, I would think, to certain parts of Prince George South and Prince George North, where there's a lot of rural area. It cannot apply there in the same way it would apply in the lower mainland. That's all the more reason to postpone the implementation of it on that broad across-the-board basis — because it will affect different areas in a different way.

[5:30]

The minister also said in his opening remarks: "I'm sure this legislation will be greeted constructively by local governments." I am assuming that he means municipalities other than regional districts. Even if he meant it in the broad sense of a municipality, including a regional district within its concept........ It doesn't matter about what I'm going to say following this. When the second member for Surrey (Mr. Reid) had the opportunity to speak the following day — and I want to quote his remarks as well, because they are germane

[ Page 1240 ]

to what I want to put forward — he had this to say: "The municipalities wish to have this authority in their own hands. They are the elected officials answerable to their own communities" — quite right, Mr. Speaker — "and that's important." He said further: "They have matured as a form of local government." By that, I hope the second member for Surrey was not denigrating or passing unfair comment, for argument's sake, on a particular municipality that would not greet this with open arms. I hope the member for Surrey was not saying that a municipality which did not wish to have this authority in its own hands, and passed a motion to that effect, was not mature as a form of government. If that's what he was saying, he's casting aspersions on a municipality, the mayor of which is also the president of the UBCM. I'm talking about the mayor of Kitimat, who is a well-respected gentleman, active in municipal affairs. You don't become the president of the Union of B.C. Municipalities except by the process of acceptance within that organization over a period of time.

Let me tell you what the municipality of Kitimat did with this particular resolution. These are the minutes of council of July 11, 1983. That was prior to the introduction, by way of second reading of this bill on July 26. So some two weeks before the bill was even introduced in the House, the district municipality of Kitimat, having in attendance — and this is important — Mayor George Thom, and Aldermen Brady, Brown, Corbeil, J. Monaghan and Burnett, passed the following emergency resolution: "That the Kitimat council send an emergency resolution to the UBCM urging the provincial government not to enact legislation that would take away the planning rights of regional districts." That's a municipality contrary to the minister's expectation two weeks later, when he said: "I'm sure this legislation will be greeted constructively by local governments." Two weeks before, a local government, the district municipality of Kitimat, with Mayor George Thom in the chair, passed a motion that did not greet it constructively. It was also contrary to the views expressed the following day — that is July 26 — by the second member for Surrey that they passed that particular resolution.

Now then, Mr. Speaker, I want to draw this to the attention of…. Not that it gives any more credence or importance to what the municipality of Kitimat did in dealing with the proposed removal of planning authority for regional districts.

But one of the aldermen, Mrs. Joanne Monaghan, who was the Social Credit candidate in Skeena during the last provincial election, saw fit, along with the others, to support the proposal put before that council that this particular legislation should not be enacted. There was one dissenting vote. It was not a unanimous decision, and that one dissenting vote was registered by Alderman Ron Burnett.

To get back to what I started to say earlier about proceeding with this bill in the face of, first, the minister's own declarations about cooperation — and that, I believe, is the correct way to go; I support that concept of cooperation far more than the concept of imposition, which this government seems to think is the way to go…. I want to make reference to a communication from a group called the Lower Mainland Planning Review Panel. This is a letter that was sent to members of the lower mainland regional district boards, the Capital Regional District board, mayors and councils of the lower mainland and capital region, and MLAs. Admittedly this group has a specific interest, and I submit that their specific interest does not encompass the interest of rural areas. The bill, though it had its foundation and origin in the lower mainland, has an application across the province. That, I submit, was not taken into consideration. Nonetheless, the Lower Mainland Planning Review Panel sent this letter and this report to a number of people there and to MLAs. They talked about having had a meeting. They have been working closely with UBCM to develop alternative proposals to Bill 9, and I quote from the first page of the letter: "The government has not proposed any alternatives, and as a result two meetings have now been held with the Minister of Municipal Affairs. The first was on July 28, and it resulted in an agreement that alternative proposals to Bill 9 should be prepared for consideration." "It resulted" — this is the July 28 meeting with the minister — "in an agreement" — presumably an agreement between the members who met with the minister and the minister himself; an agreement that involved the two parties, undoubtedly — "that alternative proposals to Bill 9 should be prepared for consideration." Consideration by whom? Obviously, consideration by the government, the second party to the agreement. In the face of that, we still find the government intent on ramming the bill through without taking into account what those alternatives might be.

It goes on to say that the second meeting was held on August 18 for the purpose of checking with the minister to see if the alternatives being prepared were headed in the right direction and should be finalized for further discussion. That's what they were doing when they set out the alternatives and solutions and proposals to the minister. That August 18 meeting was the one that sort of confirmed with the minister that the agreement they'd reached on July 28 was being put into effect; that they were developing the alternatives to the bill that is before the House.

They go further to say: "A fruitful discussion took place following presentation of our ideas. The minister indicated" — that's the Minister of Municipal Affairs — "there is ample time for discussions to result in a satisfactory solution to everyone, although the precise timing for passage of Bill 9 is unknown at present." "The present" was the date of that letter, which was August 19. But here they say — and I think that if the minister would take the opportunity to either confirm or not confirm that this letter is an accurate reflection of what took place there, because we certainly want to put on the record and advance thoughts and expressions which have an accurate foundation…. They say in the letter that a fruitful discussion took place and "the minister indicated that there is ample time for discussions to result in a satisfactory solution to everyone."

We still are faced with the bill. Has a satisfactory solution been reached? Has the Lower Mainland Planning Review Panel, in its presentation of alternatives, had any of those alternatives accepted by the minister? Are they going to show up in amendments to this particular bill? Are they going to show up in another bill later on, or what? All the more reason, on the face of this, to postpone or put off the passage of this bill for some period of time in order that those ideas, whatever they are, may be able to be examined. I think it would have been more appropriate to have them examined before a committee of this Legislature specifically struck for the purpose of dealing by its very name with municipal affairs.

They go further in this letter about the meeting of August 18 and end it with the following conclusions for followup action: "The Minister of Municipal Affairs agreed the proposals prepared by local government for the meeting are

[ Page 1241 ]

headed in the right direction." Is that an accurate reflection of what took place? Did the Minister of Municipal Affairs say to the group that met him: "Yes, the alternatives that you are preparing and the proposals that you are developing are headed in the right direction"? That is what is said in the letter.

Further, the letter says: "He appears to support a development coordination, development strategy, development services role for regional boards in the capital region and lower mainland." I started off earlier by saying this was a group that had a specific interest, naturally that which was within its authority and jurisdiction. They say that the minister appeared to support certain development coordination, strategies and services' role for regional districts in the lower mainland and in the capital region. It doesn't say that he did support it. It just said that he appeared to, or appears to. That kind of information needs, I think, Mr. Minister, through you, Your Honor, to be advanced to the House. We're not going to be able to deal with this matter before the Municipal Affairs Committee of the Legislature. Those questions need to be answered here because otherwise there's a beclouding of the whole issue.

The second conclusion reached for followup action, as a result of that August 18 meeting, was that a position paper should be finalized by local government for discussion at a meeting between the minister, private sector representatives and local government on September 9, 1983. Today is September 7. The 9th is Friday.

Interjection.

MR. HOWARD: I see I got some applause from the Minister of Intergovernmental Relations (Hon. Mr. Gardom) on being able to calculate accurately — that's if today is the 7th.

[5:45]

But if it is correct that as a result of the August 18 meeting…. I want to qualify again that this is a group with a particular urban orientation and does not speak for how this bill may affect rural areas. If that is accurate that the meeting of August 18 ended with the following conclusions and followup actions, namely, that a position paper should be finalized for discussion at a meeting between the minister, private sector representatives and local government on September 9, 1983, then why are we proceeding with the bill and seeking to have it passed two days before there appears to be an agreed upon meeting to examine proposals for alternatives to it? That doesn't strike me, Mr. Minister, as being in any way agreeable with the minister's comments on opening day in which he said cooperation is the way to go. It would seem to me that cooperation would certainly encompass holding off any attempt to ram the bill through the House when there is a meeting scheduled two days hence to talk about alternative legislative proposals, or alternative proposals. The word "legislative" escaped my lips because it's contained in the next sentence in this particular letter.

After they talk about the meeting scheduled for September 9, 1983, they say this: "From this meeting" — that is the one scheduled presumably for Friday — "legislative proposals could be prepared." Now we have a bill before us and they presumably want to have some changes made to it. They've developed a set of alternatives — some other options and proposals — which, according to the letter, appear to have the support of the minister and appears to have come from an agreement between the minister and the representatives that they would meet on September 9 to consider those things.

The third conclusion that they make is a reiteration, in a little different form, of the comments which they say the minister indicated to them earlier. I read their follow-up comment number three: "Regional districts and municipalities will have ample time to present their views, since there is no intent for immediate passage of the legislation." That's what the Lower Mainland Planning Review Panel is saying to members of the lower mainland regional district boards, the Capital Regional District board, and mayors and councils in the lower mainland and capital region. The Lower Mainland Planning Review Panel, in a letter signed by Mr. John Cooper, who's the chairman of the Capital Regional District Planning Committee; by a Don Ross, who's chairman of the Greater Vancouver Regional District; by A.C. Gold, who's chairman of the Dewdney-Alouette Regional District — and I must mention that the member for Dewdney (Mr. Pelton) is a member also, Mr. Speaker, of the Legislature's committee on municipal affairs and housing, the committee which his seatmate two seats down from him hasn't bothered to call a meeting about, even to elect a chairman, but that's the Dewdney-Alouette Regional District that signed it; Fred Bryant, chairman of the Lower Mainland Planning Review Panel; E. Pretty, chairman of the regional district of Fraser-Cheam; and H. Harry DeJong, chairman of the Central Fraser Valley Regional District. Central Fraser Valley is represented in this House by the Minister of Municipal Affairs.

So here's this group of dedicated, committed, concerned local government people who, in a letter distributed very broadly and very widely, are passing on information which indicates on the face of it that the minister is reneging on his agreement that he made with them, that the minister is not honouring the agreement he made with this group of people at two meetings: one on July 28 and the other on August 18, I believe it was. If the contents of that particular letter are in any way reflective — and I'm not questioning that they're not — of the agreement reached at those particular meetings, then the minister owes this House a very thorough, complete and detailed explanation as to why he is proceeding with this bill in the face of the coming meeting of the Union of B.C. Municipalities, which will be held next weekend some time, and in the face of an agreement for a meeting to be held, so the letter says, "two days hence, " on Friday, August 9. The minister will have an opportunity on the motion before us to speak to those subject matters; I really do hope he takes it and will be able to explain thoroughly whether the contents of that particular letter, which was sent to all MLAs, are accurate or not.

Oh, I know, I know. The minister's gone through this before. Perhaps for the benefit of those souls who may engage in the reading of Hansard from time to time, wondering what's going on here, I should indicate for the record that the Minister of Intergovernmental Relations (Hon. Mr. Gardom) sought just now to entice the Minister of Municipal Affairs (Hon. Mr. Ritchie) to get up and speak, but he declined the invitation. Maybe he will have….

Interjection.

MR. HOWARD: Yes, sit down. I know the standard practice about sitting down, as well.

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Secondly, Mr. Speaker, there is correspondence from the office of the chairman of the Greater Vancouver Regional District which I'm sure was sent to all members, although it doesn't say so on the particular letter. But I did receive a copy of it, so I just assume…. They list there certain municipal response to the letter from Mayor Ross with respect to Bill 9. These are municipalities, not regional districts. One could assume that a regional district might be opposed to it, because its authority is being taken away, but these are municipalities. Some of them supported ten recommendations that were contained in it, but Burnaby, North Vancouver district and West Vancouver are indicated here as being opposed to Bill 9. I had said earlier that the municipality of Kitimat in my own constituency, even before the bill came up for second reading, passed the motion that I read out. So there is a body of opposition to the bill among local governments. It may not be universal, but I think our purpose in this Legislature is not to determine whether something is universally accepted or universally rejected; if there is sufficiently clear indication given, as, I submit, in the case of concern about the proposed course of action that legislation is supposed to take…. If, as some correspondence indicates, there were agreements or misunderstandings about those agreements as a result of certain meetings with the minister, and the minister appears to be going in a different direction than the agreements or the understanding about the agreements would seem to indicate, then I think this Legislature is obliged to postpone consideration of a matter as important as this until the difficulties, misunderstandings or concerns can be cleared up. I do not believe that the Legislature should run roughshod over the opinions of people in the community, especially when the minister himself said in his opening remarks that he believes in cooperation, that it is the avenue to follow in developing legislation or in developing anything. Let me read his words precisely: "I believe that in an atmosphere of cooperation and goodwill we can make even further progress towards the goal of effective, efficient and low-cost government." Exactly where I want to go is in the direction of progress by way of cooperation, progress by way of experience, not by way of experimentation, as this government seems to be intent on doing; progress by way of involving the people affected by legislation in the process of developing it; progress by way of seeking and accepting, where possible, alternative proposals.

As I said earlier there is probably no more valid reason to postpone the consideration of this bill than my earlier and original contention that its origin was in the urban southern metropolitan part of this province, the lower mainland, but is applied universally throughout the province, and will work to the detriment of municipalities and regional districts in large rural areas.

I give you an example of where it will work to the detriment, Mr. Speaker. Between Kitimat and Terrace is a distance of some 35 to 40 miles, depending on where you start from and when you determine you get to the other place, but it's roughly that distance between the two. The distance between those two communities is under the aegis of the regional district of Kitimat-Stikine. If, for argument's sake, and I'm not suggesting they would do this, the regional district of Kitimat-Stikine determined that it was necessary to establish a garbage dump…. I see somebody shaking his head in a negative fashion, which, I submit, is the proper direction for that hon. member and reflects truly what his views are about a lot of things.

If a regional district sought to establish a garbage dump area for people living in rural areas alongside or close to the boundary of a municipality, that would interfere with the legitimate, proper rights of the municipality to zone that area for something more aesthetic than garbage dump purposes. The only way that can be prevented from happening is by the process and through the concept of planning on a regional basis which encompasses the interests of the municipalities as well as the interests of the regional district. The vice-versa situation is possible as well.

Interjection.

MR. HOWARD: I see the light, Mr. Minister — don't be impatient. The only thing the Provincial Secretary (Hon. Mr. Chabot) is not impatient about, Mr. Speaker, is getting answers to questions asked of him in this House. He has no patience with that whatever.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, please, hon. member. The time under standing orders has expired.

MR. HOWARD: I see that my time has expired, Mr. Speaker. May I move adjournment of the debate until the next sitting of the House?

Motion approved.

Hon. Mr. Gardom moved adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

The House adjourned at 5:59 p.m.