[ Page 1255 ]

CONTENTS

Routine Proceedings

Oral Questions

Rent controls. Mr. Blencoe –– 1255

Termination of volunteer coordinators. Mr. Barnes –– 1255

Dangerous toys. Mr. Campbell –– 1256

Insurance Corporation. Mr. Howard –– 1256

Mr. Cocke

Estate Administration Act Amendment Act, 1983 (Bill M201). Committee stage. (Mr. Ree).

On the amendment –– 1257

Mr. Ree

Mr. Cocke

Ms. Brown

Division

On Section 1 –– 1258

Mr. Cocke

Report –– 1259

An Act to Provide for No Smoking Areas in Public Places (Bill M205). Second reading.

Mrs. Wallace –– 1259

Property Tax Reform Act (No –– 2), 1983 (Bill 12). Second reading,

Hon. Mr. Ritchie –– 1259

Mr. Stupich –– 1260

Mr. Lea –– 1265

Mr. Nicolson –– 1269

Ms. Brown –– 1272

Ms. Sanford –– 1276

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 8, 1983

The House met at 2:09 p.m.

HON. MR. CHABOT: Mr. Speaker, in your gallery we have this afternoon Mrs. Minnie Wilder from Fairmont Hot Springs and Mrs. Roe Gasper of California. I'd like the House to join me in welcoming them.

MR. LEA: Mr. Speaker, I'd like to ask the House to join me in welcoming two guests who are in the members' gallery this afternoon. They are two visitors from St. Paul, Minnesota, who have been touring British Columbia for the past couple of weeks. Our geography impressed them; I hope that we will impress them somewhat today. Keep your fingers crossed. We have Larry and Deborah Barsden from St. Paul, Minnesota. I'd ask you to welcome them and wish them a safe journey home.

Oral Questions

RENT CONTROLS

MR. BLENCOE: I have a question for the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs. Since July 7, when the government abolished rent controls by the stroke of a cabinet pen, rental increases have skyrocketed. For example, Mr. Speaker, landlords have issued rent increases of 62 percent at 809 Denman in Vancouver. At 1956 Haro they have gone up 37 to 50 percent, and at 843 Cardero they have gone up 25 to 35 percent. In view of the response to the government's initiatives, has the minister decided to reconsider the decision to abolish rent controls in the province of British Columbia?

MR. SPEAKER: Clearly, hon. member, we are anticipating legislation that is before the House. The minister may wish to answer, but I would....

MR. BLENCOE: Mr. Speaker, the abolition of rent controls has nothing to do with business before this House. It was an order-in-cabinet. That is business that could be answered.

MR. SPEAKER: There is an argument made.

HON. MR. HEWITT: The member opposite comments on some rental increases that he has examples of. I would appreciate receiving copies of any correspondence he may have. I can advise him that I met last Friday in Vancouver with the Rental Housing Council, the association that represents the majority of landlords in the province. They are cooperating with my ministry and have advised me that rental increases are certainly not in excess. In many cases the average that they are talking about is 5 percent. In some cases an annual anniversary date of a rent increase has gone by and the landlord has not made an increase, mainly because of the high vacancy rates that they are experiencing at the present time, and there is competition out there for rental occupancy at this time.

MR. BLENCOE: Then how, Mr. Speaker, does the minister explain these increases of 62 percent, 37 to 50 percent and 35 percent?

HON. MR. HEWITT: I have no intention of attempting o explain increases and examples that the member refers to. As I said at the beginning of my remarks, I would be very pleased if he would send that information to me. I am in communication with the Rental Housing Council, and I am sure they want to make this competition in the marketplace work as well as I want to see it work. I would like him to send hat material to me, if he would be so kind as to do so.

MR. BLENCOE: I will indeed pass on the source of that information.

On a supplementary, Mr. Speaker, the government has proposed eviction without cause as part of the new Residential Tenancy Act. Under the current legislation tenants can complain to the rentalsman. Many tenants now say they are afraid to complain to the office of the rentalsman because of the imminent power of arbitrary eviction. Has the minister decided to reconsider this proposal?

MR. SPEAKER: Clearly, hon. member, this question is out of order.

MR. BLENCOE: It is a matter of urgent government business that should be dealt with because tenants will not go to the office of the rentalsman. They are scared to go to the office of the rentalsman.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. Hon. member, I don't make the rules; I only enforce them.

MR. BLENCOE: On a further supplementary, Mr. Speaker, rent increases are also a major problem in Victoria. I have been advised of a 47 percent increase at 1233 Fairfield, a 50 percent increase at 314 Cook Street and a 20 to 50 percent increase at 2330 Cook Street. Is the minister prepared to consider that this reaction to the new legislation was not anticipated by the government and cannot be afforded by tenants in British Columbia? Is he prepared to reconsider his actions?

[2:15]

HON. MR. HEWITT: I appreciate the concern of the member opposite and I will repeat my request. Would he be so kind as to provide me with the material in order that I can evaluate it and possibly look to see whether or not his comments are valid.

TERMINATION OF VOLUNTEER COORDINATORS

MR. BARNES: I would like to ask the Minister of Human Resources a question. The minister has stated that the government will rely on volunteer agencies and church groups to provide essential public services which have been slashed by the government. Will the minister explain why she has fired all ministry volunteer coordinators without cause?

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: The question is based on an inference and false premise, because it leans on the assumption that we have cut out essential services. The fact of the matter is that in order to preserve the most essential services for people in need of assistance from the government — those people who are needing assistance or income assistance, or seniors who need help with their Pharmacare bills, which we've preserved in full.... All of the programs that we

[ Page 1256 ]

have for those people in real need have been preserved. The essential services of my ministry have not only been preserved but increased this year in order to meet the demands on the Ministry of Human Resources, which has a larger budget this year than it had last year.

MR. BARNES: I'm not sure what criteria the minister uses when she defines "essential." I would hope that she will provide information for the House as well on what criteria she uses to determine what is essential and what is not, because many of the programs that have been cut are considered essential by those people who no longer have them.

But the minister did not address my specific question with respect to terminating the services of the volunteer coordinators within her ministry. Does she not feel that there is a contradiction with respect to her philosophy about the support for volunteerism and the use of community resources? How do these people receive the training and support they need as volunteers, especially in certain specialized programs?

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: The member asked the question regarding the volunteer coordinators who have received notices of termination. We have given them about four and a half months' notice, which is a very much longer time than the private sector has been given in this province when they have had to have their jobs terminated. I want to relate to the concern that the member seems to be expressing on behalf of these volunteer coordinators. One can relate the job that they did and continue to do today and will until October 31 with some of the other services. Choices had to be made. This is a service that can be and has been well taken up by the private sector in many other areas. The burden of training volunteers was not totally on the few coordinators we have had in the Ministry of Human Resources; indeed, many service clubs and social services organizations have historically done a tremendously good job of that. We are very proud of the job they have done.

I'm also very proud of the job that the regional coordinators have done in the past, but if I were to make a choice of terminating their employment above perhaps a social worker, who addresses on a daily basis some of the problems that we need to address in this ministry in this province.... I suggest to you that their efforts can be taken up in the private sector quite adequately.

I thank you for the question.

MR. BARNES: A supplementary, Mr. Speaker. The Victoria Volunteer Bureau has suffered a cutback of 21.5 percent this year and has been told that next year's grant will be cut by a further 21.5 percent. Will the minister explain the contradiction between her policy of greater use of volunteers and the slashing of Volunteer Bureau funding?

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: Mr. Speaker, I can't specifically address that because I am not aware.... The member should know that community grants are based on decisions that are made in the regions; regional managers make the decisions. I am surprised to hear that someone has said that there will be a further cut in the following year, as I don't think the regional managers know, nor do I, what will be available next year. So I'm further surprised. I'll be pleased to check into that. Those decisions are made on a regional basis; they're based on needs and on changing social concerns.

Very often we'll have a community grant that will be cancelled altogether, but the moneys spent will be placed in another area of greatest need. That's the responsibility that we give to the regional managers, and they carry that rather well.

MR. BARNES: Obviously I'm not in a position to debate what the minister's information is, but I would be happy to supply a document that points out the number of agencies that have had to cut back as a result of shortages from your grants. I'll provide those for you.

I have another question. The ministry has also cut back funding for volunteer agencies in Delta, Coquitlam, Richmond, Surrey and White Rock. Is the minister now prepared to admit that the policy of volunteerism is simply a smokescreen for the elimination of programs to assist and advocate the interests of the disadvantaged in our society? Did you understand the question? I'll repeat it.

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: You don't need to. I understand the question.

On the broad question of financing for organizations, and all organizations across the province, the community grants have been cut 20 percent across the board. Some have been retained at the same level, some have been reduced 10 percent and some have been given more. It depends on the service they do in the community. So the member should know that throughout the province that's 20 percent on a general across-the-board basis. Even though some are getting more, some are also getting less.

The answer to the last part of the question is no.

DANGEROUS TOYS

MR. CAMPBELL: A question to the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs. There is a water-snake on the market in British Columbia today, and headlines in the Sheffield Evening Star are saying that these toys may contain typhoid and cholera, Has the minister investigated these?

AN HON. MEMBER: That's serious.

HON. MR. HEWITT: To the members opposite, it is a serious question. I'm aware of the news article and the toys that have come into the country. There is some concern about the contents if those toys are punctured, and I appreciate the comment and the concern raised by the member for Okanagan North. I'd be pleased to investigate, with my consumer offices, and find out whether or not some action should be taken. However, I think a reference has to be made — and I will take it up with the appropriate authorities in Ottawa with regard to the importation of those toys.

INSURANCE CORPORATION

MR. HOWARD: I have a question I'd like to pose to the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs. Hopefully I'll be as fortunate as the member who just asked a question. Can the minister tell the House whether the former president of ICBC, Robbie Sherrell, has met with the minister or with his secret task force, or has made any proposals with respect to acquiring the general insurance portion of ICBC?

HON. MR. HEWITT: No, Mr. Speaker.

[ Page 1257 ]

MR. HOWARD: Can I ask the minister whether any group, consortium or corporation that involves Mr. Robbie Sherrell has made any proposals to the minister regarding the general insurance portion of ICBC?

HON. MR. HEWITT: No, Mr. Speaker.

MR. COCKE: Mr. Speaker, I'd like to ask the minister another question along the same lines. You told us yesterday who was on your special task force. May I ask you whether or not Patrick Kinsella is a member of your task force looking at ICBC and how best to dismantle it?

HON. MR. HEWITT: Mr. Speaker, in order for my committee to evaluate the policies and operations of the corporation, I've asked them to proceed. I'm not about to divulge the names of the members of that committee, other than to advise the opposition that it is headed by my deputy minister.

I would like to clarify one response I made a moment ago, so that the opposition are fully aware of my response with regard to Robbie Sherrell. If the member for Skeena (Mr. Howard) is referring to the present time, my committee at the present time and myself at the present time, the answer is no, I have not heard from Mr. Sherrell for, I would think, at least two years.

MR. HOWARD: That's the answer I was looking for.

Orders of the Day

HON. MR. GARDOM: I ask leave to proceed to public bills in the hands of private members.

Leave granted.

HON. MR. GARDOM: Committee on Bill M201, Mr. Speaker.

ESTATE ADMINISTRATION ACT
AMENDMENT ACT, 1983

The House in committee on Bill M201; Mr. Strachan in the chair.

On section 1.

MR. COCKE: Mr. Chairman, I would move the amendment to Bill M201 standing in my name on the order paper. [See appendix.]

On the amendment.

MR. REE: I would like to speak on the amendment, Mr. Chairman, in that the amendment increases what was proposed from $65,000 to $100,000 –– I think the member who has moved this amendment had best read the bill and read the legislation that the bill is amending. The particular amendment that he is talking about is to amend only section 18 of the bill. Section 18 deals with the authority of a court to dispense with a bond in the administration of an estate.

The practicality behind the quantum is that where the estate is of a lesser value than that to which a spouse is entitled under section 96, the court will normally dispense with bond. The proposed amendment is increasing the amount that a spouse would be entitled to as a first gift under section 96. So it will be $35,000 higher. Where the sum is higher a court should not dispense with a bond, because there are people other than the spouse who would be entitled to that sum in excess of $65,000 — that is, the $35,000 up to $100,000.

If the member had looked at the legislation and at this amendment in particular, he would have also proposed an amendment to section 4 of this bill. Since he has not done that, I cannot possibly recommend approval of his proposed amendment at this time, and certainly no notice has been filed of an amendment to section 4.

MR. COCKE: This is the first of two amendments, If this were acceptable.... I don't understand why the member himself wouldn't support this. It's reasonable. I was talking about the increase over the last number of years with respect to inflation. I said that the $65,000 didn't really reflect the increase necessary for a spouse as first charge on an estate. What I really said that day was that many spouses are stuck by virtue of the fact that they have children. The husband dies without a will, and she has first....

MR. REE: Mr. Chairman, on a point of order, may we have debate relevant to the section? I believe the member is talking about sections 4 and 96 of the original legislation. Section 1 of this bill is before us, is it not?

MR. CHAIRMAN: We're on the amendment to section 1. I ask the member for New Westminster to relate his remarks to the amendment to section 1.

MR. COCKE: Mr. Chairman, that's exactly what I'm doing. If it requires an attendant amendment to section 4, we can amend section 4. I'm saying that this amendment would have to carry first in order to establish that principle. If you accept it, fine, then we can amend the other section; but this has to be amended first. We can't amend section 4 and then come back and amend section 1. If the government is going to accept it — and we can move the amendment without notice — they're going to accept it. If they're not going to accept it, I argue that they're wrong, and that's all there is to it.

[2:30]

MS. BROWN: Mr. Chairman, he was about to rise to accept the amendment. He was just stretching?

Well, I just want to echo the words of my colleague that one has to be realistic about a surviving spouse, who, coincidentally, can be male. Not all surviving spouses are female; a surviving spouse has been known to be male, once in a while.

Interjection.

MS. BROWN: Not very often, that's true. All that bad living catches up with you guys sooner or later. Everyone knows that the stress and strain of being a male in a man's world kills men off much faster. We're trying to change the world so they will live a bit longer.

Interjection.

MS. BROWN: It is a man's world. We're trying to change that, but it's still a man's world. It is killing off the men faster;

[ Page 1258 ]

that's one of the reasons we're trying to change that. We don't like them dying so young.

In any event, when they do die.... The amendment on the order paper to increase the sum of the estate which goes to the surviving spouse from $20,000 to $100,000 is about as reasonable an amendment as possible under these circumstances. We just have to look at the inflation factor, the cost of living — housing, health, eating, raising kids, if the surviving spouse happens to have children, and those kinds of things. I don't understand where the government got that strange figure from anyway. Maybe, in addressing this bill, he could explain why the amount is $65,000. Sixty-five thousand dollars is not adequate in a world in which we are dealing with inflation, where the cost of housing is as high as it is, where the cost of living is as high as it is. I don't understand the reluctance to accept the amendment to raise it to $100,000. It's still going to leave the surviving spouse living pretty close to the poverty line if that spouse has children to support at the same time. What is this major concern in terms of other people who may have claims on the estate? Why should they have first preference over the surviving spouse? I think our responsibility is to see to it that the surviving spouse gets a decent settlement first of all, and then take care of those claims after. So I'm hoping that the member will accept this amendment.

MR. REE: To answer the member's question, Mr. Chairman, in 1966, the last time it was amended, it was $20,000. The CPI on $20,000 till the end of 1982 brings it up to $62,960. So $65,000 is equivalent, with the increase. I might also mention our western provinces: in Manitoba it's $50,000, in Saskatchewan it's $40,000 and in Alberta it's also $40,000 at this time. So we're going to be the highest province in the four western provinces with this sum.

MS. BROWN: Well, it was inadequate to start with. It shouldn't have started at $20,000. The Attorney-General is mumbling under his breath, Mr. Chairman, after wiping out all of the legal aid services that would make surviving spouses have the kind of legal representation to fight this. However, what we're doing is entrenching the poverty which existed in 1966. It was inadequate in 1966. Now that it has been opened up to be amended, let us at least be realistic about it. To tell us that Alberta is $40,000 and therefore we should be proud of ourselves for raising it to $65,000 is nonsense. Everyone knows that Alberta has the worst social legislation anywhere in Canada, for Pete's sake. Now they have the second worst, because British Columbia has the worst.

I'm not accepting his response. I am again asking him to seriously consider accepting the amendment, which would be to raise it to $100,000.

MR. COCKE: Mr. Chairman, the reason I stand here now is to say that they're wrong, which is not unusual. They've been wrong before; they'll be wrong again. As a matter of fact, they're wrong most of the time.

To use 1966 as the base when everybody in 1966 knew that it was inadequate.... It's interesting to me that the Attorney-General says: "Why didn't you change it?" I ask him: why didn't you change it? You're not changing it now. You haven't changed it in the last eight years, and it should be changed so that at least it's going to meet the needs of the future for a little while, in any event. You have an opportunity to do it now. Why don't you do it to $100,000? Using Alberta as a base, for goodness' sake! And Manitoba. What difference does it make? Why don't you use your brains for a change, instead of using examples that are typical lawyers' examples. Keep the dammed stuff in a mixed-up situation so lawyers are going to make their bucks out of an estate. And the Minister of Forests is supportive of that proposition! I'm surprised at you. I'll bet your wife will also be surprised at you when she reads Hansard on this issue.

Amendment negatived on the following division:

YEAS — 19

NAYS — 27

An hon. member requested that leave be asked to record the division in the Journals of the House.

[2:45]

On section 1.

MR. COCKE: At this juncture, I would ask a question, and I would like to be asking it of a minister. Why was this put forward by a back-bencher if in fact the government is going to instruct on what would otherwise have been a very good idea? I said at the very outset that it was a step forward, but obviously the government have told him that they were not going to accept the increase to $100,000. I just wonder why the Attorney-General (Hon. Mr. Smith) didn't put this up in the first place. He is calling the shot on it, and I think it is a shame.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Hon. member, the question might have been better addressed during second reading. You are reflecting on a previous vote.

Sections 1 to 5 inclusive approved.

Title approved.

MR. REE: Mr. Chairman, I move that the committee rise and report the bill complete without amendment.

The House resumed; Mr. Speaker in the chair.

[ Page 1259 ]

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

Bill 201, Estate Administration Act Amendment Act, 1983, reported complete without amendment to be considered at the next sitting of the House after today.

HON. MR. GARDOM: Second reading of Bill M205, Mr. Speaker.

AN ACT TO PROVIDE FOR
NO-SMOKING AREAS IN PUBLIC PLACES

MRS. WALLACE: Here we are again. It is somewhat of a record that a private member's bill comes up for discussion in this House at all, and it's certainly a record to have two bills with the same principle discussed in the same session.

The principle of this bill is very clear; it is to ensure that people who do not smoke are protected from breathing smoke from other people's cigarettes or other smoking material in public places. I have spoken on this, at least in five-minute spasms, over the last eight years, but one of the things that I haven't gone into too deeply are specifics as to second-hand smoke. Certainly there is controversy over whether or not second-hand smoke is as hazardous as is first-hand smoke. I think that it has been proven without much question that that is the case. I would like to read a few excerpts from an article that was printed some time ago on second-hand smoke and to cite some of the statistics that they came up with. This article indicates that breathing someone else's stale cigarette smoke is a lot more than a nuisance. It can pose serious health problems even for healthy individuals. It goes on to talk about a U.S. medical research program which indicated that non-smoking women whose husbands smoked regularly — and therefore the wives breathed that second-hand smoke on a regular basis — die four years earlier on an average than those whose husbands did not smoke.

HON. MR. WATERLAND: What about non-smoking husbands whose wives smoke?

MRS. WALLACE: The same thing would be the case, I would imagine. This particular study was done on non-smoking women. It was done by a Dr. G. H. Miller in Pennsylvania. He studied the deaths of some 8,000 women and interviewed the survivors about their husbands' smoking habits. He excluded women whose life expectancy was altered by alcoholism, obesity or accidental death. What he found was that the average age of death for wives of non-smoking men was 78.8 years, compared with 74.7 years for women married to regular smokers. Therefore there is a four-year difference. In 1979 the World Health Organization put out a report on the effects of second-hand smoke. They said that they didn't feel that it had much effect on healthy individuals, but it was nevertheless the cause of considerable distress to individuals and may result in a loss of efficiency in the workplace. This United Nations agency called on employers and governments to restrict places where non-smokers may be exposed to second-hand smoke. That was from the United Nations World Health Organization.

Dr. Roy Shephard, who is a professor at the University of Toronto in the department of preventive medicine, did a study and noted that frequent and long-term exposure to cigarette smoke can exaggerate reactions to air contaminants, turning a harmless level of exposure into an unacceptable one. In California, two United States Surgeons-General.... Dr. Luther Terry, who did a report back in 1964, was one of the initiators of the idea that second-hand smoke was hazardous. He reported that second-hand tobacco smoke can cause discomfort and disease in healthy non-smokers and is particularly dangerous to those with heart or lung diseases. I'm sure you would be interested in this statistic. Children whose parents smoke have one and a half to two times as much lung disease as children of non-smoking parents. That's a shocking statistic.

So I think the time has come, the time is now, that we in British Columbia should let it be known that we recognize these statistics and that we are prepared to do something about them. I'm sure that the hon. House Leader will recognize that this bill, which has had many attempts in this Legislature, has been revised to remove any possible area of being out of order. There is no impost upon the Crown. It is completely and absolutely in order so far as I and the worthy advisers of this Legislative Assembly can ascertain.

I would certainly hope that the members on the other side of the House who have expressed a lot of support for this particular position will follow the precedent that has just been set.... I know I can't reflect on a bill that has just been dealt with, but we did set a bit of a precedent when we accepted a private member's bill just recently. I hope that the government sees fit to accept this bill and that we can start down the road toward preventing this positively proven health hazard, and not having our citizens required to be exposed to that health hazard by ensuring that we do provide no-smoking areas in public places.

I move second reading.

HON. MR. GARDOM: Mr. Speaker, on behalf of my colleague the Minister of Health (Hon. Mr. Nielsen), who is not present today, I adjourn debate until the next sitting.

Motion approved.

HON. MR. GARDOM: Second reading of Bill 12, Mr. Speaker.

PROPERTY TAX REFORM ACT (NO. 2), 1983

HON. MR. RITCHIE: Mr. Speaker, I'm pleased to move that the bill be read a second time, but before doing so I have a few comments I would like to make.

This bill is part of the government's major property tax reform package. It extends the twin principles of actual-value base and variable tax rates into all of the non-municipal property tax systems. We are striving to achieve in both bills a simpler and more responsible property tax system. For this reason we are establishing a uniform tax-base concept for every type of property taxation. The concept is actual or market value, free from any manipulation or mathematical conversion.

The old concepts of assessed value with its accompanying apparatus of ratios and options are gone. Besides being consistent in principle with the rest of the package, this bill is the product of the same consultative process headed by my colleague the Minister of Finance (Hon. Mr. Curtis) and my predecessor, the present Minister of Education (Hon. Mr. Heinrich). Once again, I want to commend those two ministers as well as the many local government officials, private-sector

[ Page 1260 ]

representatives and members of the general public whose contributions helped to shape this legislation.

As I said initially, Mr. Speaker, this bill extends the major provisions of the Property Tax Reform Act (No. 1) into all of the non-municipal property tax systems. The actual-value tax base and variable tax rates will be used for the levies under each of these statutes being amended by this bill. This list includes the property tax levies for the following purposes: education, hospitals, rural, regional district, Assessment Authority, Municipal Finance Authority and B.C. Transit. Hon. members may be aware of some other minor levies which may not appear to be on the list. These are usually run on a requisition basis and will in fact be accommodated by the new system.

Mr. Speaker, this bill makes necessary provisions for smooth transition to the new system. This is most apparent in the case of regional district finance. Under the old system, costs were distributed on the basis of assessed value. Plunging directly into a distribution based on actual value would cause severe shifts in tax burdens. Accordingly, we will use the regulations to introduce transition formulas aimed at preventing unintended tax shifts.

Some members may be struck by the apparent volume of regulations required under this bill and its companion, but there is less there than meets the eye. My comments about regulations applies to both bills. The first and most important reason for the regulations is technical. We want a reasonable level of consistency among the non-municipal levies. We want to avoid the trap of distributing the hospital burden in a significantly different way from the education burden. This responsibility could not be delegated to municipal councils because they are not accountable for spending non-municipal property taxes. The only solution was to proceed with parallel regulations under each of the taxing statutes. The second reason for the regulations is taxpayer protection. Under a variety of statutes, letters patent and agreements there were mill rate limits. Under the new system the old approach to limitation no longer works. We will, therefore, be using regulations to introduce comparable types of production.

Mr. Speaker, I am indeed pleased to move that the bill be now read a second time.

[3:00]

MR. STUPICH: Mr. Speaker, without intending to, I suppose that the most damning thing that the minister said about the legislation before us right now is that it is part of the total package that was introduced on July 7 — budget day. He described it, indeed, as part of the package that was introduced then, a package that has been universally criticized — apart from the government itself and some of its supporters — within the province, within the country and, indeed, internationally. Unfortunately the bill before us now, while it may help in some instances, has to be resisted since it is part of that total package. Standing on its own, one might find some merit in the legislation, but introduced as part of a package one has to treat it as one would hope to treat the whole package, and endorse the requests, pleas and arguments that have been made in so many circles as well as in the Legislature asking that the government go back to square one and withdraw the whole package.

It was described as a companion bill to other legislation the minister presented at an earlier date, which is in the process of second reading. For some reason or other the government decided not to go further with it. We can speculate that the government is having second thoughts about that particular bill — I don't recall the number now. In deciding not to proceed any further with debate, having heard the arguments advanced by the members of the opposition and outside this Legislature, one can hope the government is taking a second look at that particular piece of legislation, as it may be at a number of pieces of legislation that have been introduced for second reading only to be abandoned after a discussion in some cases lengthy, in some cases relatively short. Certainly some of the principles in the legislation before us now that are appropriate in the other legislation that brings this total picture into line with what we discussed earlier.... Some of those principles, being part of that other legislation, are sitting on the table waiting, wondering: is the government going to proceed or is it going to change its mind?

As he did in the other instance, the minister talked today about the difference between actual value and the value that has been assigned to properties in the past by appraisers. The arguments that we raised then are just as appropriate now. What is actual value? Market value is defined as what the property is worth when there is a willing buyer and a willing seller. What is actual value? I have a lot that I will not sell for any price, because to me that lot is worth far more than anything the minister would consider if he were to look at the words "actual value" as they stand; and certainly far more, I would hope, than the assessor will value the property at when he comes to take a look at it. I'm not going to suggest any figures; I will simply count on the fair judgment of the assessor and hope for the best, and that's really all we can do.

But to talk about "actual value" and "market value" and to say that we're doing something different now.... From now on, instead of depending upon actual and market value and then applying some kind of formula to them to get the assessed value, we're going to deal simply with actual value. In the end we have to come down to what the assessor thinks the property should be assessed at, having in mind the kind of property it is, the use to which it is being put, the use to which the neighbouring properties are being put, the uses to which it might be put, whether or not it's being held off the market artificially, or whatever. There are so many factors that enter into it that it's really speaking nonsense to say that there is a real difference between actual value, market value and any of these values when you apply a formula to them. When it comes down to it in the end, the assessor has to apply judgment, and it makes no difference whether we bring in the kind of legislation we have before us today, or whether we look at the situation as it has existed in the past. Ultimately it comes down to some person to take a look at it.

Legislation previously discussed — I think it was Bill 22, where we talked about having a look at it every second year instead of every year.... This legislation ties in with that.

[Mr. Strachan in the chair.]

Bill 12, I believe, is the other legislation we discussed, where the situation....

AN HON. MEMBER: Bill 12 is this one.

MR. STUPICH: Bill 12 is this one, companion to Bill 7, then; Bill 7 must have been the one we discussed earlier.

[ Page 1261 ]

They're so similar. If the government is, indeed, reconsidering Bill 7, then why not let Bill 12 wait until they've decided what to do with Bill 7? I might raise the same arguments with respect to all the other legislation. Are they really reconsidering their position with respect to Bill 3? One would hope so. I can mention that in this instance and be in order, because the minister himself said it's part of the total package. I can mention Bill 4, which has been discussed at some length in the House and is part of the total package that the minister said was introduced. This is one small part of that package of 26 pieces of legislation and a budget that were introduced in the House on July 7. Bill 4 is sitting for further discussion. Bill 6: once again, one can hope that the government listened to the arguments being advanced by the members of the opposition, the arguments raised by people outside of this House, the rallies that have been held when many of the principles included in the 26 pieces of legislation — of which this particular bill is part of the package....

One can hope that government is listening to the objections being raised to this total package and is considering withdrawing them one by one as they hear the arguments, and maybe with respect to Bill 6 as well.

Bill 7, the minister's own legislation. He listened to the arguments, but the House Leader or somebody did not proceed, and we're certainly not discussing Bill 7 any more. Is it because they're listening to the arguments and paying some attention to them? Are they wondering whether the principles included in Bill 12, before us now, which are so similar to the ones in Bill 7, may very well be discussed briefly? The minister may listen and then let it sit on the table alongside Bill 7 while he makes up his mind what to do with Bill 7 — part of the total package.

Bill 9 is not so closely tied in, yet it's part of the package that the minister talked about in his opening remarks.

MS. SANFORD: He is playing games with us.

MR. STUPICH: Mr. Speaker, it has been suggested that this minister is playing games with us. Actually this minister isn't. He has two pieces of legislation before us. It would seem to me that the government is playing games with somebody in bringing forward one piece of legislation after another; having them debated in the House, listening to the members of the opposition, certainly not listening to government members. That's no reflection on them. Perhaps they, too, are listening, absorbing the arguments, and for all we know there may be heated discussions in caucus to the effect that some of these bills should be changed in light of the arguments, concerns and apprehensions raised both inside and outside the House.

What are we waiting for on Bill 13? Have we given up on it? Are we going to abandon it? Are we going to bring it in in its present form or are we going to change it?

Bill 17: the minister talked about this bill being part of the package. Bill 12. Bill 22. Bill 25. Bill 30.

AN HON. MEMBER: Bingo!

MR. STUPICH: The member made more of a contribution than he's made in the House so far since he entered it on June 27.

All of these pieces of legislation are part of the same package, Mr. Speaker. I would remind you that when the government did bring into this House a piece of legislation that made some sense, it was passed fairly quickly. Even then there was some concern in our minds as to why we were dealing with a supply bill that provided nine months' supply. Nevertheless, the idea, the concept and the principle of voting supply won support in the House. There was some discussion, but it was all done in one day. There was cooperation, because that Supply Act is a reasonable approach, and it's accepted and done fairly regularly. We knew that had to be done, and we supported it. But we have been opposed, from the beginning, to what the minister called the "package" that was introduced in this House on July 7. We've expressed that opposition here, and the opposition has been expressed in many areas.

I've talked about the minister trying to say there's a difference between actual and market value. What is market value? If I have a piece of property and the minister wants to buy it, I may have one figure and he'll have quite a different one. It's only when we meet that we arrive at an actual figure. You can't determine the actual figure until you have the willing buyer and seller. You can't appraise property on that basis. How can you determine that it exists until you find a buyer and a seller and they make a deal? From that day on there is an actual value. But if the next day somebody builds a feed store next to that property, it may have quite an effect on the value of that property.

AN. HON. MEMBER: Why pick on the feed stores? Why pick on the farmers?

MR. STUPICH: I was going to say something other than that, but I thought of a feed store because perhaps the minister knows a little more about them.

He says it is consistent with the principle in other legislation included in the package, and that again is a very disturbing feature of the legislation. This legislation, as we read it, concentrates power, more than ever, in the cabinet room, taking the power away from the Legislature and giving the cabinet the authority to make regulations that will actually determine how the legislation is going to work. Where are the regulations? Even if the regulations were tabled today, and we knew exactly what the minister had in mind, we wouldn't know whether that minister would still be there tomorrow. Even if he were there tomorrow we wouldn't know whether he might change those regulations — not by himself but with cabinet support — at a meeting of the cabinet the following week. There's no stability in regulations and no confidence that the regulations are actually going to stay the way they are. There is no confidence in the minds of the opposition that we can trust this particular administration, particularly in view of the package that they introduced to the people of B.C. on July 27. How can we rest assured that the regulations that will be produced, attendant upon this legislation, will actually work in the interests of the people of the province?

The minister said that he has discussed it with many local government officials. I reminded him on the other occasion — and since he has referred to the other bill and spoken about the comparability, I think it's reasonable that I do — that there was no hurry to deal with this particular situation. When we were government, we recognized the need to do something. The Assessment Authority was established; that was a beginning. But we also appointed a royal commission, because we know that there is no tax that bothers people quite as much as property tax — at least the ones who own property. The ones who don't own any don't spend too much time thinking about

[ Page 1262 ]

it, but certainly the people paying it know that it isn't fair. They know that their next-door neighbour is getting a break, or is paying too much. They know the system is wrong in every instance. I'm not saying it is wrong, Mr. Speaker; I'm simply saying that people know that it isn't right that property should be appraised at the figure it is compared to other properties. They can all do a better job than the poor assessor who's stuck with doing it. Often I've found myself trying to stand between the person who had to go out and do the assessing and the person who owned the property that was being assessed. There is that difficulty. But for the minister to say that he has discussed it with many local government officials....

[3:15]

As I suggested to him on an earlier occasion, rather than having him alone do that work, why not take the approach that the NDP administration took and have a committee travel around and listen to some of the real concerns? One person, the minister, has so many responsibilities that he doesn't have the opportunity to listen to any more than what he calls "many" local government officials. I don't doubt that he may very well have spoken to many local government officials, but I would doubt very much that he spoke to 25 percent of the local government officials in the province, let alone a majority. He may have spoken to the ones who came to him and offered advice on this particular legislation. He may have gone out to them. In either case there is a process of selection; either people volunteered their information or the minister chose the people to whom he would go, or it happened by chance. There was no government effort to actually go out and make an approach to local government officials all over the province. A committee could have done that. A committee could have gone out and listened to local government officials.

Interjection.

MR. STUPICH: Mr. Speaker, the minister is suggesting that I talk to another minister and that he would know more about this. That's quite possible. There have been several changes in that cabinet and there may well be more changes before that cabinet is voted out of office. But for the present time I'll have to speak to him, through you, Mr. Speaker, and let him deal with what I expect other members of the opposition will have to say about this as well.

The variable rates are being extended from the other legislation, Bill 7 to Bill 12. I've expressed my concern about the variable mill rate in the past. I know that this did get a good deal of support from municipalities which are wrestling with the problem of how they are going to deal with their political situation.

Interjection.

MR. STUPICH: I think the minister said: "It's working." Mr. Speaker, three years ago the minister would have said the existing system was working, but two years ago he wouldn't have said it was working. Last year he wouldn't have said it, and this year he can't. Next year the system that he brings in may be appropriate to that particular year, but if we have another year any time down the road when property values — and I use the word "values" with quotation marks around it — change markedly up or down in a relatively short period, no existing system will work. The minister says the variable mill rate will protect us from that. All that that means is that in the judgment of the particular municipality, they may be able to say: "Well, this year, because it's election year, the residential properties will have a lower rate as opposed to the commercial and the industrial." The minister shrugs his shoulders. He says: "That may well happen." Previously it was up to the cabinet to set those percentages. We raised the same objections to that — leaving it up to the cabinet to make decisions like that, purely political decisions. Those percentages might very well be changed from one year to the next by the provincial cabinet or by any municipality, depending upon a strictly local condition that might have nothing at all to do with the economy of that particular community at that point in time, but purely for political reasons.

Now the regulations can't....

Interjection.

MR. STUPICH: Mr. Speaker, the minister says: "That's up to the council."

Interjection.

MR. STUPICH: I'm having trouble. I can't respond to the interjections unless I hear them. My concern....

Interjection.

MR. STUPICH: If I sit down, Mr. Speaker, I suspect that someone else will stand up.

Everything passed by the council has to be approved by the minister. The variable mill rate has to be approved by the minister. If the minister thinks the variable mill rate adopted by a particular municipality is not achieving what the minister wants to achieve in line with his political purposes or his government's political purposes, that mill rate will not be implemented. The minister knows that. He's accepting that.

Interjection.

MR. STUPICH: That's the worry about the variable mill rate. It is flexible. It gives us that. But it's flexible to the point that the minister has control, ultimately, as to whether or not it will be imposed, implemented, changed or whatever. The municipality will have to fall in line with what the minister wants, or it simply won't be able to get its tax notices out on time. So in the end, the real authority, as I've said with respect to this legislation.... I've spoken on some 12 pieces of legislation so far. As the minister has said, this is part of the package. In every one of those bills that is part of the package — and I think even in the budget — power is taken away from the Legislature. Power is taken away from regional district officials. Power is taken away from municipalities. Power is taken away from every level of government and from Crown corporation boards of directors and centralized in the cabinet room. Power in the whole province is being drawn into the cabinet room. It's part of the package.

HON. MR. RITCHIE: We're giving it.

MR. STUPICH: The minister says he's giving it. I thought that he and I had reached agreement — he from his seat and I from my feet — that the municipality has the right to adjust the variable mill rate. But the minister has the right

[ Page 1263 ]

to say whether or not it's the right figure. That's not giving the municipality any authority.

HON. MR. RITCHIE: I wouldn't do that. You're being suspicious.

MR. STUPICH: This minister says he wouldn't do that. I knew that minister long before he was a minister. I'll have to accept his word that he wouldn't do it.

Interjections.

MR. STUPICH: On an earlier occasion, as I've said before and as the minister said, we were discussing Bill 7. This is Bill 12, a companion to Bill 7. Yes, the minister agrees with me. He's listening to me; the rest are not. They're simply interjecting. We were discussing Bill 7. There was a good case made for proceeding with Bill 7 in that it has already been implemented. I talked to someone recently who said we're holding up the government program. We're holding up nothing. The government is proceeding with everything that it wanted to proceed with as if the legislation had all been passed. Bill 7 was implemented in May 1983. The municipalities have all acted upon it. So I suppose they could have said: "Let's get Bill 7 through the House, since it's already in effect. Let's get it through and make it legal retroactively." There could have been some argument there. But there's no argument for proceeding with Bill 12 today. Bill 12 is not intended to be implemented until next year, 1984. Why have we abandoned discussion of the rest of the government's legislative package, which the minister talked about, and started discussion of a bill that really is of no particular interest to anyone until 1984?

Interjections.

MR. STUPICH: Members are wondering whether or not it's in the bill. I would commend to them that they read the bill and see what is in there. They will find out in the bill that it is not to be implemented until 1984. That's part of it. That's why I'm asking why we aren't dealing with things like Bill 7, which has already been implemented, and other pieces of legislation that have been implemented. One particular piece of legislation that raises a couple of hundred million dollars in extra revenue has, I think, not been discussed at all yet. The cigarette tax act, which is in effect, was discussed and abandoned, and yet today we started discussion of a bill that is not going to be implemented until 1984. If the government knew what it was doing and were prepared to tell the opposition its plans, perhaps there might be more progress than there has been in the past. But the minister, by saying that this is part of the package that they want to get through, is telling us that, indeed, they do intend to proceed with the total package, including Bill 12. For that reason we have to say: "No, we're not prepared to adopt this package", which we believe is running counter to the advice given the House by the Lieutenant-Governor on June 27 when he invited us to serve the interests of the people of the province.

There are various sections in the legislation — sections 5, 12, 15, 20, 33 and 35 — which entrench this variable mill rate approach and variable tax rate system in the Assessment Authority Act, the British Columbia Transit Act, the Education (Interim) Finance Act, the Hospital District Act, the Municipal Finance Authority Act and the Taxation (Rural Area) Act. The minister said there may even be others not included in that list. He's not sure himself just exactly what will be the total effect of this particular legislation — what other changes might be effected. But he did say that that was, if not a complete list, at least a partial list of the other acts upon which this particular legislation would have an effect.

The common feature in all of these sections is the power of cabinet by regulation to prescribe limits on tax rates, to prescribe relationships between tax rates, and to prescribe formulae for calculating the limits or relationships between tax rates for any or all classes of property. It gives the cabinet the authority to do all that. The cabinet is the organization that deals with the regulations. We don't know what the regulations are. At this point in time I expect the minister has given little thought to the actual drafting of those regulations, knowing that it is not going to be implemented until 1984. I invite the minister to tell us, in closing second reading, whether or not he has given thought to those regulations, and if he has, to tell us something about the nature of those regulations. During his opening remarks in second reading of this legislation, he didn't really tell us anything about that. We'd like to know. We know that's no assurance that the regulations will stand as though cast in stone, but it would at least give us a better idea of the direction of the government with respect to this legislation.

New powers are even more specific in some sections. Section 12, which entrenches the variable mill rate in the British Columbia Transit Act, allows the minister "under prescribed circumstances" — which are not defined in the bill, but which may be defined in regulations; we don't know — "to vary by order the limits, relationships or formulae established under the above section." Furthermore, cabinet has the power under this amendment to establish geographical regions within which different limits, relationships or formulae may be prescribed. In every instance it gives cabinet more and more power.

That's the party that used to complain about the power that the NDP wanted to concentrate in the hands of government. We were pikers compared with them. We had no idea of what kind of power the Social Crediters really had in mind when they formed their cabinet, the kind of power they wanted to concentrate in the hands of cabinet. We were prepared to have these things discussed in the Legislature. We were prepared to send select standing committees into the community, where people could have some input into the legislation, into the regulations, and give us some advice and express their concerns. We were prepared to give more authority to regional districts and municipalities; and we did, after listening to arguments and representations made to us by many people all over the province. We moved in the direction of giving people more power, and getting some of that authority out of the cabinet room. Since December 1975 the Social Credit administration has been working in the opposite direction.

Interjection.

MR. STUPICH: The minister is saying that we gave it all away in '75. Yes, we lost the power. And from then on they've been trying to make sure that cabinet has absolute control over the lives of all the citizens of British Columbia so that never again will they do anything other than vote for Social Credit. That's part of the package.

[ Page 1264 ]

[3:30]

The budget that was introduced and the 26 pieces of legislation, of which this bill is one.... It is part of the package, as the minister said. The purpose of that package is to hit the people so hard in 1983 that never again will they be able to get rid of that particular machine that got that government re-elected in May 1983. That's why the package includes legislation that does away with human rights and puts....

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hon. member, some latitude has been allowed in relating one bill to another, but I think we're stretching it a bit now. We should at least deal with municipal affairs legislation. On Bill 12, please.

MR. STUPICH: Under this legislation before us, the Minister of Municipal Affairs would be empowered to vary the limits, relationships or formulas for calculating the limits or relationships between classes of properties under section 20, the Hospital District Act amendment. The minister would have the authority to make those changes at any time he chose. The minister didn't have that power before. It is new. It is concentrating more power in the hands of the minister and in the hands of cabinet; that's the reason we're opposed to this and to the whole package that the minister talked about. In every instance it puts more power in the hands of cabinet.

Interjection.

MR. STUPICH: The minister is suggesting that I supported it. I think he said I supported it.

In the case of amendments to the Municipal Finance Authority Act, it would be the inspector of municipalities who, under "prescribed circumstances" again.... What circumstances? What do they have in mind? The minister had an opportunity, when he opened second reading of this, to tell us just what he had in mind with respect to "prescribed circumstances." Under what circumstances would he exercise his authority? He must have been thinking of something. Somebody must have been thinking of something when they put that in there. Is it to cover any eventuality at all, or do they have something specific in mind when they say that the inspector of municipalities, under prescribed circumstances, would be empowered to make these adjustments to tax limits, relationships between tax rates or the formulae for calculating the limits or relationships?

The minister said it gives more authority to the municipalities, yet as you read the legislation you see in section after section, line after line, that it's the minister who really has the authority. In this instance it's the inspector of municipalities who really has the authority. The regulations are referred to.

HON. MR. RITCHIE: Do you trust him?

MR. STUPICH: The minister is asking, I think, whether or not I trust "him," meaning the inspector of municipalities. It may well be that I might trust the person who is the inspector of municipalities today, but there is other legislation before us that allows the government to fire him without warning or notice. I might very well trust the person who is the inspector today, and have grave reservations about who that minister would appoint the next day. We can't leave such things to trust. We can't write legislation that gives the inspector of municipalities the right under prescribed circumstances to do what is right for the people of the province simply because the person who is the inspector today is one whom we can all trust. I agree with the minister, with respect to the person who's there today. We can trust the person who's there. We've known him; we know him well. But we don't know whether or not he'll be there tomorrow. We can't pass legislation that is going to be on the statute books until another government takes office.... Because I don't expect that this government will want to change it. They've concentrated all the power into the cabinet already, so there's no need to go any further....

Interjection.

MR. STUPICH: It's not a case of being suspicious; it's a case of expressing concerns. Legislation should not be drafted in a way that the members of the Legislature, in voting for that legislation, have to count upon the kind of person who is in a particular position of authority to know that that legislation is going to act in the interests of the people of the province. That's not legislation. If we were going to trust people that much, why not go all the way and simply bring in one bill that says all power in the province to do everything shall be in the hands of the cabinet, who shall appoint one person who shall have all the authority of cabinet. We've done that in some legislation; some of the phrasing of some of the legislation would indicate that the power of the minister, even, has been turned over to one individual not even in that minister's own ministry in some instances.

As with Bill 7 — and the minister said that this is simply extending Bill 7 — there's a tremendous reliance on the attendant regulations. I have to say again that we just don't know anything about them, and we don't know whether the minister knows anything about them. I think in one of his asides the minister says that he has done some work on the regulations. If so, I would invite him to tell us about that work when he is ready to wind up debate on second reading. Given the lack of information regarding the regulations and the scope of the proposed regulations, it's impossible for us to vote in favour of this legislation. We have to know something about what the government really has in mind.

Legislation that depends upon us trusting the inspector of municipalities and trusting this cabinet to draft regulations is not legislation that anyone should be asked to vote for. Even government back-benchers should have some question about legislation that's going to be put on the books and that will still be there on the day there is a change in administration. Whenever that may be, the day will come when there will be a change in administration, so even government back-benchers should have some concern for legislation that concentrates power so much in the hands of the inspector of municipalities, or the Minister of Municipal Affairs, or the cabinet. Is that really how they see democracy working: that all they have to do is find the right person to trust? If that person were like the ombudsman or the auditor-general and were to be appointed by unanimous recommendation from an all-party committee, then I think there is some obligation upon all of us to trust that person. But in this instance the person is being appointed by a member of cabinet with cabinet support, and we can't be asked to trust anyone, any day, whoever might be put in that position.

HON. MR. RITCHIE: We were elected to govern.

[ Page 1265 ]

AN HON. MEMBER: Hear, hear!

MR. STUPICH: The minister says: "We were elected to govern." And there is "Hear, hear!"

The minister said that it would be more convenient. I suggest, Mr. Speaker, that it would be; there's no question about that. I suggested that legislation could be brought in that would make everything so much more convenient for cabinet, and cabinet members wouldn't have to sit in the Legislature and discuss this legislation; it could all be done in the cabinet. That in itself would be far more convenient. It may well be done. Maybe the government is thinking about doing something like that.

Mr. Speaker, it's part of a package that has been debated in this House since the day after it was introduced. It was introduced on July 7, and on July 8 we started attacking the government's package. The minister said this is part of the package. He has listened to arguments in the House as to why the whole package is running contrary to the interests of the people in this province — the interests that the throne speech urged him to serve. There have been arguments that the whole package should be withdrawn. This is one of the bills that the minister said himself is part of this package, a package that is designed to concentrate power in the province of British Columbia in the hands of the cabinet, the minister and the inspector of municipalities. This is part of the package that has been criticized in this House as no government legislation ever before in the history of the province or Canada has been criticized — within the province, within the country and internationally. This whole package has been universally criticized. The minister himself, by saying that this is part of the package, is giving us the best argument of all for voting against this legislation and urging the government to let it sit on the table, along with the other 25 pieces of legislation that were part of that package, and proceed no further with that package, to withdraw it all and to bring in some legislation that will, as the Lieutenant-Governor urged us, serve the needs of the people of the province rather than the needs of the Social Credit Party of British Columbia.

MR. LEA: At one time when the late W.A.C. Bennett was Premier of the province, he got up to introduce second reading of a bill. As all members know, second reading is where you discuss the broad principles of the bill. The then Premier said, "The principle to this bill is whether you're for it or whether you're against it," and he sat down.

Mr. Speaker, this bill is pretty much that kind of bill. The real principle in this bill that we're discussing is whether we want to centralize or decentralize power. The Social Credit Party are for centralization; the New Democratic Party is against it. It really is quite that simple.

It's even more frightening when you look at the history of these two great parties. Both had their beginnings in the populism that came out of the 1930s and the big Depression; populism that grew out of a fear of centralized authority, and a feeling of people wanting to take control of their own lives, to make decisions affecting themselves immediately and personally. That's when the great cooperative and populist movements of this country and the United States began in the 1930s. I'm proud to say that my party, the New Democratic Party, still has that populist feeling and populist movement, the desire for cooperatives and for people to have control over their own lives. I think it's a sad day that the Social Credit have taken themselves away from populism and have joined the interests.

Social Credit today is no longer the party that represents the cooperatives. It is no longer the party that represents people making decisions on the ground. It no longer represents local communities and autonomies making decisions that are going to affect them personally and immediately.

Interjections.

MR. LEA: Mr. Speaker, I know it hurts, because any time you start to mention something that they feel just a twinge of guilt about, the heckling starts, then the guilt, then the heckling, then the guilt, and it goes on and on and on. I don't expect those people who belonged to the Liberal Party....

Interjections.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hon. member, we could probably avoid some of the heckling if in fact we could relate our comments to the bill before us. I'm sure the member can do that.

MR. LEA: Mr. Speaker, the principle here is whether or not we're going to have a more centralized bureaucracy. That's the principle, and I don't see how you can speak about the principle of this bill without talking about a centralized or decentralized system. You have to. It is always the case, I believe, that political parties that feel they're absolutely right start to take absolute power, because there is no other course for them to go. The need for power doesn't happen on its own. First of all, there is the must of feeling that you're absolutely correct and that everyone else is absolutely wrong, that you're within the group, everybody within the group's okay and everyone without the group should be met with suspicion and ridicule — take powers away from everyone outside the group that you happen to belong to.

[3:45]

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

Mr. Speaker, I happen to know members of the Social Credit caucus who have been members of the Social Credit Party for some time — not many of you, but some. I don't find it surprising that people who up to a short time ago, who were Conservatives — and possibly still are federally — would find no fault with this bill. The Conservative Party has always represented the interests.... The Conservative Party has never been interested in cooperation and cooperative movements. It's not surprising to me that people who a short time ago were Liberals would go for centralized bureaucracy. We've sure seen a good dose of that at the federal level. One of the reasons, I think, the Liberals lost so badly in Port Moody was the fact that they have become synonymous with centralized bureaucratic power.

MRS. JOHNSTON: They're not the only ones who lost.

MR. LEA: We lost also, but I also think there is still a feeling in the community that those people who are Conservative and those people who are social democrats do not want the power taken away from local autonomy. And so, although the Liberals only received 5 percent of the vote, the

[ Page 1266 ]

rest of the votes were divided between the Conservatives and the New Democrats, basically.

Surely, Mr. Speaker, those members of the Social Credit caucus who are indeed Social Crediters, those people who have a background in the cooperative and credit union movements, of wishing that the community itself would make the decisions that are going to affect them, are not going to stand by for political expediency's sake and watch the power of the people being eroded. Every once in a while we hear a minister or a back-bencher from the other side say: "We were elected to govern." And that's very true. What the members over there seem to forget is that this side of the House is called Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition. In other words, we are part of the system, we are dedicated to the system, and we are a part of the process. That really hurts Social Credit, because they resent the fact that there is an opposition. They don't like it. They don't feel it's part of the game. They feel that once they have the election over with, then all voices of opposition should be stilled until the next 30 days of an election campaign three, four or five years down the road.

AN HON. MEMBER: Does this have anything to do with the bill?

MR. LEA: It has everything to do with the bill, because bill after bill after bill that comes into this House removes power from the people, removes power from the Legislature, and concentrates that power in the cabinet — not, I might add, a concentration of power in that back bench; they are merely willing lackeys.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Not true.

HON. MR. RITCHIE: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, I just can't in any way, shape or form relate the debate to the bill. It would help me if the member would do so, so that I could make some meaningful response when I rise to close the debate shortly.

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. members, clearly, when interjections cross the floor, it tends to distract the attention of those who are involved from second reading, which is very specific. On that basis, could I ask all members to keep their comments....

MR. MOWAT: On a point of order, I take very strong exception to the guy from Prince Rupert calling me, as a back-bencher, a willing lackey. I'd ask him to withdraw that remark.

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. members, a term has been indicated that an hon. member finds offensive. Would the member withdraw.

MR. LEA: I sure do. I don't think anyone would like to have that sort of thing public. I do withdraw it.

MRS. JOHNSTON: Clean up your act.

MR. LEA: You're the one who doesn't take a shower, by your own admission. What do you mean "clean up my act?" She always wants to raise a point of odour.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please, hon. members. The Chair has allowed some latitude and some cross-comments from members of one side to the other, but if we are to have orderly debate and act in the parliamentary tradition, then it shall be my responsibility to ensure that those rules are obeyed, or I will have to take the necessary action. I would again commend to all members the rules of this House.

MR. LEA: Mr. Speaker, I think that we would be remiss if we didn't relate this piece of legislation to the feelings that especially rural members — but I don't think it's exclusively rural members — pick up from our constituents. There is a feeling of alienation between the ordinary citizens of this province and their government. That feeling of alienation probably reaches its zenith when they think of the federal government — that unreachable, unfeeling government. At least that's their opinion of that government, which is often three or four thousand miles away from them in Ottawa. That feeling is not nearly as severe when people think of their provincial government. I think they feel a little closer to it than they do the federal government, because we are physically closer and we administer a great many more of the programs that touch people in their everyday lives. But I don't think there's any doubt that the government that people feel most closely united with is local government — their local school board, hospital board and municipal government. I feel the people of this province have a much closer feeling of mutual trust with those governments; it even affects them more closely than the two senior governments.

This bill takes power away from local government. It takes power away from the decision-making process that allows people to make decisions for their neighbours. I think there's a great, growing feeling of dissatisfaction among Canadians and British Columbians about representative government. I think they're starting to feel that representative government is not serving them the way they had been taught that it would, or the way that their experience had led them to believe that it would always do. There is a feeling of alienation. I don't think that this centralizing process that's going on is merely unhealthy for the New Democratic Party or for the Social Credit Party. I think the feeling of alienation is going to be a dangerous societal problem unless we start to deal with it.

[Mr. Pelton in the chair.]

For our two parties to make political points against one another to see which one of us is going to be in power is, I think, going to bring social unrest to our province in the long run. If you are a small logger on the Queen Charlotte Islands and you go to the forestry department for a decision and you can't get the decision because nobody local is able to make the decision that affects you, you'll oftentimes see business slip by, never to be regained, waiting for the bureaucracy. When you go to almost any federal government department and try to get some immediate satisfaction, it is almost unheard of that you get that satisfaction.

I'd like to use an example, Mr. Speaker. In the airport in Prince Rupert, the restaurant that served the people of the region has been closed for approximately four years. No one that I know of has even bothered to complain to the federal government: it seems too remote. They are dissatisfied with the closure of the restaurant, but they feel that it would be

[ Page 1267 ]

pointless to bring their case to the federal government, because they feel too alienated from them. If that were a provincial government, I guarantee you that we would all be hearing about it. I, as the MLA, would be hearing about it, as the government of British Columbia would be hearing about it, and probably there would be some action taken. But if it were local, that problem would have been solved a long time ago. A solution would have been found because it would be neighbour helping neighbour. It would not be going to a representative; it would be going to their neighbour to get some satisfaction. I think that unless we move to neighbour helping neighbour in government, peple who really understand and share the problem, then more alienation is going to come about.

I believe that this piece of legislation, Bill 12, is going to lead to further alienation. It is not going to be the end of the world. It is not a piece of legislation that is going to make the world of British Columbia come to a grinding halt, but it is another straw on the camel's back — further alienation through a more centralized authority. I am not surprised that the Social Credit caucus as a whole is going to back up this piece of legislation. I am surprised that some people on the other side whom I consider to be personal friends are going to back it, because I know offstage — and this is the stage in here — some of those people have great reservations about the kind of powers that are being concentrated in this province in the hands of the cabinet.

I can also understand their reluctance to take their own government on. It is never nice. It is never pleasant — that's for sure, as I found out when I was in the back bench. It is necessary, because in our system of government we do not have recall. In our system of government there is no impeachment process. In our system of government we rely on honour. We rely on the honour of the individual Members of Parliament and the Legislature to make sure that justice is done. When a government becomes overbearing, when a government takes powers unto itself that it should not have, when a government acts immorally, we in the British parliamentary system rely on the integrity, the honesty and the intestinal fortitude of the individual members of our legislatures and parliaments, regardless of political stripe.

[4:00]

To me, Bill 12 points out, as other pieces of legislation in this package have pointed out, that that system of honour, integrity and intestinal fortitude has broken down, and that's a shame. In our system of checks and balances, that is a very necessary check to bring around a balance of power and a balance of justice. When that goes, Mr. Speaker, the British parliamentary system then becomes a dictatorship for the length of office. Yes, the people will have a democratic choice to make the next time there is an election writ dropped, but surely that isn't all there is to democracy in our system. Surely the only time people have a voice will not be at election time; surely the people of this province have the right to demand individual integrity, individual honesty and individual guts...

MR. REID: And action.

MR. LEA: ...and action from the people they elect. I would welcome some action from government supporters in this House who would see, along with us, as individual members representing the good people of this province, a danger in the centralization of power. Surely none of us want it. Surely none of us, deep down where we live, as individuals, want to see the powers in this province centralized into a small group of people who make decisions behind closed doors. Surely we do not want the power stripped from our municipal officials, our hospital boards or our school boards. If we do, vote and pass this legislation; if we don't, vote against it. That's our choice.

It is not our choice to back a government that is becoming autocratic. It is our duty and our right to vote against it — our duty and our right as individual members of this House. I think the government back-benchers would be surprised at the power they hold in their hands. They would be surprised at what that government will do if only that government back bench will get themselves together and start demanding some justice and fair play and put an end to the arrogant display being put on by the Minister of Municipal Affairs. It is arrogance. It's not even based upon intellectual arrogance. It's based on the arrogance of ignorance. I am convinced that the Minister of Municipal Affairs sees nothing wrong with Bill 12 and Bill 7. The pity of it all is that if they don't see the danger of this legislation and of government's taking away and stripping power from legislatures and municipal councils and school boards, then, my God, we're in worse trouble than even we thought.

We are in trouble in this province, because without the traditional check and balance of a government back bench being willing to take on its own government, there is no check and there is no balance within the British parliamentary system. It is gone.

Interjection.

MR. LEA: The new member for West Vancouver–Howe Sound (Mr. Reynolds) says he likes what they're doing. The member says he actually wants to see the power stripped away from the people he represents, because the power that the people in that constituency of West Vancouver–Howe Sound have in this system is embodied in that member. It's the only power they have.

MR. REID: Losership, that's NDP.

MR. LEA: I would rather lose on principle than win without it. We have come to a sorry state when we actually have members of this House yelling out that they are in favour of a centralized system of government. It seems strange that that particular member would do it, because in reading his record in Ottawa, he was opposed to this sort of thing. Every time the Liberal government took power unto themselves, he squawked like a stuck hen.

MR. REYNOLDS: Quote one.

MR. LEA: I'll bring a whole pile in for you. Over and over again, the Conservatives have been talking in Ottawa about the terrible, awesome centralization of power and how they're against it. I guess they are when it's not them doing it. That's when they're against it.

Interjection.

MR. LEA: I'll tell you, if you bring a pile of that in, you'll probably be the quickest to recognize it.

[ Page 1268 ]

Interjection.

MR. LEA: I wish you'd speak to Bill. Ask Bill to withdraw this bill. Raw, naked desire for power is a funny thing. When Premiers keep their back bench in line by always dangling that little cabinet post out there, it really seems to work. Even the old maverick would settle right down and sock it....

MR. KEMPF: Don't you believe it.

MR. LEA: Come on, maverick, sure you would. You'd run up there with your tongue hanging out. You'd vote for this bill if it said that it would get rid of your whole riding if it could just get him in the cabinet.

MR. REID: No, he has integrity.

MR. LEA: He has integrity, has he? In that case, I'll bring in an editorial from his hometown newspaper which talks about the kind of integrity he has. I'll bring that in along with your quotes from Ottawa.

What we're doing with Bill 12 is saying to municipalities: "You're a bunch of dumb-bells. You don't know how to run your own municipality. You don't know what to tax. You don't know how much to tax it. You don't know whether to tax the commercial sector more than the residential sector, and you don't know what to do with the industrial sector." We're saying that to regional districts and hospital boards. What a presumption! We're going to sit down here on Fantasy Island, in the crazy house, and we're going to say to people sitting at the local level, who have to live and work with the problems: "You dumb-bells don't know what you're talking about. Listen to us. We're even going further than that. We're not even going to listen to the representatives you sent to Victoria. We're going to do away with them also, because they're dumb-bells too. We're going to take it into cabinet and there are going to be 20 people in this province who are going to make the decisions."

I have to admit that I'm fibbing a bit on that one, because the Premier has made it very clear that even the cabinet ministers are no longer responsible for their own ministries and that deputy ministers will answer directly to the Premier's deputy. And puppets have been made out of even the cabinet members and ministers themselves. So really the power that's been concentrated isn't even concentrated in anyone who has been elected in this province; it has been concentrated into the powers of a political hack appointed by the Premier. That's where it has been concentrated. Who is happy with that? Are the elected members on either side of the House happy with that?

Interjection.

MR. LEA: [Whistles.] "Come on, boys. Come on, boys. Let's all come down here and talk to the deputy minister and see whether it's okay for us elected representatives to do anything, or should we just go back to our offices and hide until Mr. Spector calls us down and tells us what's up?" Everybody knows that's the way it is. We know that if there are regulations that are going to be around Bill 12, those regulations will not go anywhere until they've been approved by Norman Spector.

Interjections.

MR. LEA: Oh, they don't like that, Mr. Speaker, do they? When there's no answer, then go on the counter-attack. The fact of the matter is that we all know that it's true. If there's going to be a regulation to Bill 12 passed, that regulation will only be approved or disapproved by an appointed public servant: Norman Spector. Deputy ministers are told: "You no longer report to your minister." Deputy ministers and their staffs will draw up the regulations surrounding Bill 12. They have been told in no uncertain words: "You bring those to the Deputy Premier. Bypass those lame-ducks who call themselves cabinet ministers." Mr. Speaker, it would be laughable if it weren't such a bitter and cruel joke upon the people who send us here.

We know that those people who have come to the conclusion that they're always right and never wrong hate opposition; they can't stand it. They call us obstructionists. They call us negatives. Walking down the corridor today, a present cabinet minister says: "I know how tough it is for you guys over there. When we were in opposition they sent me in there on an education bill and said: 'Talk for three days. We don't care what you talk about, but hold it up.'" Why? I'm not saying it was wrong for that now Social Credit cabinet minister to have done that. That's part of the process. But we never denied the other side of the House the right to do that. We never said they didn't have the right; they did and still do. That's part of the process.

Bill 12 isn't the most frightening thing to me; it's the removal of a time-honoured, tested and found-true process: the British parliamentary system. If we are not going to go by the traditional rules that hold us together as a nation, then let's go to republicanism; let's go to the American system. I don't care what kind of a system it is as long as it works democratically on behalf of the citizens. But if this movement towards centralization continues and the British parliamentary system, with its checks and balances of honesty and integrity and intestinal fortitude within individual members, breaks down, and I suggest it has, then the British parliamentary system is no longer in force. It's gone. You can't keep just a bit of it. It's like being a little bit pregnant, Mr. Speaker. You can't be a little bit pregnant, and you can't have a little bit of the British parliamentary system. You can't do away with part of it and expect the whole to still operate. The only check that we have against an aggressive government, grasping and drawing power to itself, is the power of its individual members regardless of which side of the House they sit on.

Mr. Speaker, there is one real test on a piece of legislation when you're government. The test is the kinds of powers that you're bringing in. Would you be happy if the opposition had those powers? Would the government and its supporters be happy with Bill 12 if, after the next election, the New Democratic Party was the government?

MRS. JOHNSTON: Absolutely.

MR. LEA: Oh, Mr. Speaker! Do you think she's really being completely honest with us?

MRS. JOHNSTON: Absolutely.

MR. LEA: Well, that's not what the government said when they were in opposition, Madam Member. We used to have a saying in this House about the Gaglardi test: if you

[ Page 1269 ]

didn't want Phil Gaglardi to be in charge of it, then don't pass it. I think we should have some kind of test in this House. That's the real test. Do you want to leave a piece of legislation for the opposition to administer should they become government? I can tell you, Mr. Speaker, we don't want it. We don't want this kind of power. If we were in government we would do away with it.

[4:15]

When we were in government, we moved to decentralize the system like it had never been decentralized before — resource boards.... An example of decentralization is the Health and Human Resources Medical Clinic of the Queen Charlotte Islands, in my riding, on an experimental basis. I'll give this government credit. It has continued to this day, although funding hasn't been up to scratch. The whole idea behind that was that the per capita funding for health and human resources in the Queen Charlotte Islands would continue, but that a locally elected board would administer the policy of the government and be responsible for the staff — hiring and firing, administration, personnel matters. It has been an absolute success.

When that program began about ten years ago, we couldn't get doctors, but we have doctors now; we didn't have any physiotherapists, but we have physiotherapists now; we didn't have pharmaceutical services, but we have that now. Do you know how effective that local control was? The hospital itself was endangered because it didn't have the funds to carry on, because the preventive health measures carried out by the local group that was administering Health and Human Resources was so effective that the hospital was in danger of not having proper funding. That's how effective they were at the local level. I am convinced that if we were to leave it in the hands....

MRS. JOHNSTON: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, I have attempted to catch the hon. member's eye by waving this book around, but obviously to no avail. I would suggest that the history lesson we've been receiving is very interesting, but it really doesn't relate to the bill. Could I bring to your attention standing order 43, and would you please ask the speaker to adhere to it.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The speaker is dwelling at some length on the matter of centralization or decentralization. It might be construed as becoming somewhat repetitious, but it certainly relates to the bill. Perhaps the hon. member could continue, and be more directly concerned with the bill itself.

MR. LEA: You have it exactly. What I'm trying to do is to point out that whether or not it's Bill 12, the principle of centralization or decentralization is something we have to discuss in order to know whether we want to centralize more power, as suggested in Bill 12.

Mr. Speaker, it's always been the practice of the House, as you've so ably pointed out, that we are allowed to use examples. I am using the example of how a decentralized system is more effective in delivering health care and human resources on the Queen Charlotte Islands. Not only is it more cost-effective; it is delivering the kind of services those people want, because local people are making the decisions.

I'd like to close by saying that as long as a piece of legislation comes into this House that would centralize power evermore, on behalf of the people I represent in Prince Rupert, I will personally speak out and vote against such legislation.

MR. NICOLSON: Mr. Speaker, once again we're given a piece of illusory legislation. It's something that is meant to create fireworks, sparkles, gossamer and various other types of deterrents to the attention of people who are concerned with the ever-increasing burden of property taxation in this province, which has been inexorably increasing since Social Credit took office in 1976. We have gone from a province which used to supply more than 50 percent of the local services in terms of unconditional grants to local government from provincial government, particularly in the school tax field, to a province that provides about 30 percent in the school tax field. We have the most sorry record of any province in western Canada and including Ontario.

We have seen various bits of flimflam. The government has confiscated industrial and commercial property tax for education purposes and then given it back to the municipalities. Now they claim that they're contributing some 60-odd percent. In fact, on a comparable basis, which is always something that's written in on the letter of transmittal by an auditor's report.... They always put in that the books were compared on a comparable basis with the previous years and that the accounting practices and so on are the same. This is another bill to change the accounting practices of this province and to create more confusion about the way in which we're being taxed. It is really sad that people have been subjected to this sort of future shock — this accelerated rate of change. Every year there is a new wrinkle brought in, and this is the culmination. It is, I suppose, the second shoe dropping, the first step having been taken with municipal taxation. This is a companion bill, which includes property taxes collected under the British Columbia Transit Act, property taxes collected under the Education (Interim) Finance Amendment Act, property taxes collected under the Hospital District Act and, indeed, some changes under the Municipal Finance Authority Act and the Taxation (Rural Area) Act.

I would first like to speak about this bill as a person who resides in a rural area. I think that this is one area in which the House could divide on a different basis than the political one that we see here. I am sorry that my friend, the member for Omineca (Mr. Kempf), is not in the House.

The first house I ever bought and still own and reside in is not in a municipality. It is outside of a village, town or city. It falls under the Taxation (Rural Area) Act. For years and years rural property owners paid a tax of a fixed rate of 10 mills, which has been increased in small increments over the most recent years to 13 mills. Under this act, because there'll be the ability to switch various classifications of property and manipulate rates among various classifications of property, I see in this Bill 12 the temptation of people.... This bill is in the hands of the Minister of Municipal Affairs (Hon. Mr. Ritchie). Normally people appointed to that portfolio come from the ranks of people who have had some experience in local municipal government. I believe that there is a prejudice and a very profound ignorance on behalf of people who represent cities in looking at what they see as people of rural areas getting away without paying a fair share of tax, as they would have to do in municipalities. Contrary to the cliché, I don't say that ignorance is no excuse; I just say it is quite understandable when a person's life is wrapped up in the problems of one area, and that is looking after the organized areas — the villages, towns, cities and municipalities of this province.

There has been this trend in recent years to start to look at rural property owners as an untapped source. Rural property

[ Page 1270 ]

owners bear and carry their own weight. They invest thousands of dollars sometimes just to get water for their properties. A 10-, 12- or 13-mill rate is something that they will bear. But they should not be looked upon as an untapped source. This piece of legislation will take the lid off, and it will allow what I see to be property tax increases to be set by regulations. I believe that any kind of tax increase should be imposed in the Legislature. I have spoken against indexation of taxes. I have heard from both sides that the indexing of taxes — that flexibility in the imposition of taxes — is part of modern government. I think that is a very odious intrusion into the democratic process; it erodes democracy.

I see this particular piece of legislation as creating a very dangerous temptation for governments to look for a new source of revenue, and this sort of untapped source is rural property owners. Rural property owners provide their own water. They either have wells of their own or are members of water improvement districts in which they participate. In our water improvement district we don't have hired people to go out and look after us; we don't have to pay them. But we — and I myself, for instance — take the responsibility upon ourselves from time to time to do our share of work, to go up to the diversion box, to clear out ice and obstructions in the middle of winter, to make sure that the 80 water users in our system are well looked after. We aren't paying the same mill rates as are paid in organized municipalities, because instead of contracting for these services we are going out and doing it ourselves.

[4:30]

Whereas communities such as Victoria, Oak Bay and other municipalities dump untreated effluent into the ocean, and whereas Vancouver did that for many many years, until the Iona plant was installed, we who live in rural areas have our own sewage treatment plants. They are called septic tanks most often, but they are sewage treatment plants. There is a bacteriological process that goes on in those things, and from time to time they act up. Again, rural people don't pay taxes to have somebody come out and dig up the field or the tank to locate the problem. We do some of the work ourselves, or else we hire somebody to come in and do it. That isn't part of our taxes, and that's why for years and years rural taxes were nominally at 10 mills.

When it comes to things like improvements, talk about the highways. The highway that I live on hasn't had to be repaved for years and years. The only reason that our highway might ever have to be repaved would be if for some reason or other logging trucks or heavy traffic were routed over it. It isn't the rural residents who are requiring an inordinate amount of investment in terms of maintaining roads and highways; it is the general commerce, and it is paid for out of motor vehicle licences for the heavy equipment.

Snow removal is another area where very often local people undertake, and even do a lot of their own, snow removal. A lot of areas are served by roads which are just easements. The clearing of those roads in winter is not paid for by the taxpayer; the cost is borne by the residents on those roads.

I see in this piece of legislation the temptation for a government, when it looks at the mill rates in places like Surrey or Nelson or Creston or other areas, to supposedly equalize the mill rates. The people who live in rural areas are already paying very high rates for the maintenance of these various necessary services.

The principle embodied in this bill is that we are going to see the raising of taxes not by bringing in special acts of the Legislature but through regulation. Mr. Speaker, the principle embodied there certainly was the principle of Magna Carta: that the Crown could not impose upon the people without coming to the House of Commons, and in this case, coming to the Legislature. But we are seeing that erosion. This is all supposedly under the guise of modernity, flexibility and being more responsive.

The real problem that this bill is trying to address is that the people feel they are overburdened by property taxation as opposed to other forms and avenues for government to raise funds for its own purposes. The reason is, by and large, that the government has imposed some of the burden of transit, certainly the increased burden of local education, and also a tremendous increase in hospital tax onto property owners, instead of looking at other means, and a more equitable means, of imposing. We are not within the norms here in British Columbia, in terms of the burden shouldered by property owners.

The amount of property a person owns is not a very good indicator of wealth and ability to pay. So we have this system, which is going to enable us maybe to remove for a while the burden on commercial property. It's going to have to go somewhere. Under this scheme it's going to have to go onto residential or industrial properties. But if you're also going to remove a tax burden from industrial and commercial properties, then it's going to have to fall on the backs of residential property owners.

[Mr. Strachan in the chair.]

This is a very small, closed look at one aspect of government and the raising of taxes, which are really inextricably combined with both the municipal and provincial levels of government, because the more money that's raised locally, quite honestly, the less money has to be provided through the other provincial government means and abilities to pay. This flexibility, then, is not doing a doggone thing to help the average person who probably comes into your constituency office and mine. Some of them come there when they see their assessments. Others come to the office after they actually get their tax bill and see how much the dollar value has increased. We all know, in this House, or we soon will know, that many of these people could bear some level of inequity in the system as long as the total tax bill is not that great. We can't expect property taxes to be fair and equitable among all people. But when property tax becomes one of the largest tax bills that people face, when it starts to approach the magnitude of the income tax, in terms of their tax load, instead of being something which is noticeably less, then that inequity is magnified, and can't be fixed by some simple tinkering.

On the optimistic side of this, I think I read in this bill the possibility of some special classes of property being created which might address the problems — for instance, one which I mentioned the other day about a privately owned museum, a building built in 1898, I believe, an old hotel in Ainsworth, and a tremendous tax being paid on it, when one considers that the total revenues of that property last year were $800. That was the gross revenues, not the net. Maybe, under all this flexibility, the minister or the inspector of municipalities will be able to look at very odd situations like this and make some judgments in terms of varying tax rates. It may also be that in the case of a private school built on a person's private

[ Page 1271 ]

land, on a $1-a-year lease kind of business for the use of the land, there will be that kind of flexibility. So I will look at this bill. I see a lot in it that I very much fear. At the same time, I would hope — maybe against hope, but hope against hope — that there may be some flexibility here which would allow some discretion in some of the very difficult and very unfair impositions of property tax.

This bill is introducing new powers. This bill is about new cabinet power. We have the power right now in this Legislature to set rates and classifications. By this bill we are giving up that power to the cabinet. We are giving the cabinet the power which we have in this Legislature, and that is the power to exercise certain controls over local governments if we wish to pass certain regulations. We are now giving that power to the cabinet. This legislation is centralist. It is centralizing more power.

It is one little piece of legislation. This piece of legislation by itself is not a world-beater. It's not of the magnitude of other steps that have been taken in this House, like when the government reorganization act was brought in — that was a very major step — or when the Agricultural Land Commission Act was brought in; that was a very major step. This does not rank in that league all by itself. But this bill — Bill 12 — taken in conjunction with the Education (Interim) Finance Amendment Act, 1983, Bill 7 and a whole bunch of other things.... When you put all the pieces together, then it does start to take on the magnitude of a very major piece of legislation. It is only by putting all these pieces together that we see the move towards centralization of power.

We have the ultimate power in this Legislature. I don't believe that this Legislature should give up the power to the cabinet to set classifications of property, to set rates for the taxation of various classes of property, to take the lid off taxation of rural property which has been set in this House. We have come into this House and we have decided as a whole Legislature when the mill rate would go from 10 to 11 mills. We decide this year whether it will go up another percentage point. But this will end that.

We are just allowing the cabinet now to start to look at a new source of revenue, because all that money goes to the provincial cabinet. That money from rural property tax does not go back to the local areas; it is provincial government revenue. It goes into the same sock as do logging taxes, stumpage taxes, income taxes, tobacco taxes — and revenues from the sale of liquor, for that matter. It goes into consolidated revenue. It is lost. It is not earmarked to go back into the community. I dare say that if that current 10 mills were to go to maintain certain services in certain little geographical areas, it certainly would do a heck of a lot for those areas.

Interjection.

[4:45]

MR. NICOLSON: I hear an interjection here from one of the big-city members, who does represent some rural areas.

MR. REE: Big city!

MR. NICOLSON: North Vancouver. Certainly we in the primary producing part of the province look upon North Vancouver as a big city.

On one hand government is controlling expenditures of local government under other pieces of legislation before the House, and now it is going to be controlling revenues. This government and this cabinet are taking over everything unto themselves, which is an unmanageable task. They're taking over the control of expenditures, and by this bill they're taking over the control of revenues and how revenues shall be raised.

When a minister is asked a question about student loans, we're told: "We'll give the information to the minister." The minister becomes the university and colleges super loans officer for the whole province. Similarly, if a problem about health is brought up, of maybe somebody getting a bed in a hospital, the Minister of Health (Hon. Mr. Nielsen) says: "Well, don't talk hypothetically. Give me the specific case and I'll see that that person gets admitted to hospital." So we have a Minister of Health who is now the chief admissions officer of all the hospitals of British Columbia. Now we have a government and ministers that control admissions to hospitals and individual student loan applications. The ministers are controlling the expenditures in the province and the way in which revenue is to be raised.

Bill 12, when put in context with all these other actions that are taking place, shows the degree to which this government is centralizing control. Mr. Speaker, there was a day.... If you looked back at some of the old estimates of expenditures in the years of 1910 or 1920, you would have seen that in those days the government did control a whole bunch of educational areas — rural schools. The actual salaries of every teacher in those rural schools were published in the estimates of expenditure. Well, we've gotten away from that. We created local governments and school boards to look after that. We've seen the creation of local villages, town and cities to look after those things in local areas. Today we are going back to that day.... We're trying to go back to a time when this province only had a population of 150,000 or 200,000 people. Now with 2.5 million people we think that we can go back to a day when a centralized government in Victoria could run everything that's going on. Well, it can't be done, Mr. Speaker.

This piece of legislation.... As an opposition member whose intentions toward the success of the government might not be honourable, sometimes when I see the government make a mistake, in spite of the fact that I know it's going to hurt a lot of good British Columbian people, I must confess that I do take some devilish delight in seeing some of the mistakes that government is making. I'm not proud of doing that; I shouldn't do that. I should always hope for the best, but this piece of legislation is going to be the devil's own temptation. When the government starts trying to set up all of these different classifications and it's got all these things going, don't they know...? They're already overburdened with their own incompetence, and adding another monumental task like this to their list is going to be tough for them. They've already taken on much, much more than they're capable of.

Mr. Speaker, it's going to be awfully tough on me. I feel the temptation is going to get the best of me, and I would wish that this temptation could be taken away from me. Right now I have those instincts under control. It's for that reason that I'm speaking against this legislation, and I hope I can keep that way long enough to vote against it. But if I were to succumb to temptation, I would say to the government: "Go ahead. Do it. This is really good stuff." I would say that, oh, it's just fantastic that the minister can manipulate tax rates and try to fool the people by taking the burden of taxation of the commercial and industrial people and shoving it onto the backs of residential owners by raising the rural property tax,

[ Page 1272 ]

and then try to pull the quick shuffle at election time and take it off the residential owners, because residential owners are the people who vote. Cominco does not have a vote. It's the employees of Cominco that have votes, and they are the ones who pay property tax. If one were to be selfish in their interest about this piece of legislation, I would say yes, stay the course and let's see lots more like it. But if I were a member of an executive council and another member of that council were to bring in this kind of a minefield, I would fight against it with every resource at my disposal. I don't think that this is in the interest of the government; it certainly isn't in the interest of the people of British Columbia.

I think with those few thousand well-chosen words I will conclude my speech and thank you for your attention.

[Mr. Pelton in the chair.]

MS. BROWN: First of all, I would like to express my disappointment that the government is not really participating in this debate, because there are a number of municipal politicians sitting over there in the back bench, some of whom have been sitting throughout this entire debate. I would have anticipated that the reason they were there would be to stand up and say something on behalf of the councils which they used to be members of. I'm sure in caucus they tried to get this piece of legislation amended or even withdrawn, and clearly they have failed. But they certainly have an opportunity as elected people to stand on the floor of this House, get on the record and let the voters back home know exactly how they feel about this particular piece of legislation.

You can't look at Bill 12 in isolation. It's exactly the same as Bill 7, Bill 22 and some of the sections of the miscellaneous statutes amendments of Bill 17. It's part of a package that my colleague the member for Nelson-Creston (Mr. Nicolson) and for Prince Rupert (Mr. Lea), in speaking earlier pointed out, gives the government all kinds of power which used to belong to municipal politicians and used to be the responsibility of municipal governments. I want to start out by saying that not everything in Bill 12 is absolutely bad. I want to spend a couple of seconds talking about one of the things that is quite interesting about the bill, and that is without dealing with it section by section, but just to mention it in passing. The idea of a property class taxation is a good one, if in fact they were saying through this piece of legislation that the municipalities could look at the different types of property and decide to assess them and tax them in terms of the use that the property is put to. I don't see anything wrong with that. I think that municipal governments, operating and elected at the local level, have a pretty good understanding about the various uses that a property is being put to. They're right there. They can monitor it. They can see if someone says that this property is being used as light industrial or commercial. They can see whether that is true or not, unlike bureaucrats or politicians in Victoria, who have to take a person's word for it. If in fact they were given those kinds of powers, I think the municipal governments would be very pleased. They would have no complaints if that were exactly what was happening.

But we find that there's a catcher in the rye, that in fact after saying that this variable system is going to be put into place, what the act then goes on to say is that the cabinet — Lieutenant-Governor-in-council — keeps for itself, or gives unto itself, the power to override these decisions anyway.

They make a mockery of the whole system: municipal governments, municipal politicians and the voters who voted those people into power. They are saying that they are going to take unto themselves the right to change any of those decisions. They're going to decide limits on tax rates. Cabinet is going to decide the relationship between tax rates. Cabinet is going to prescribe the formulas for calculating the limits or relationships referred to in the same paragraph which says it can vary based on the class of property that it is, or the use to which a property is put.

So having said it's no longer necessary for all property right across the province to be taxed the same, based on whether it's commercial, residential or whatever — you can vary it; it can be varied based on the class of property it is — then the province goes around and says: "But you don't make those decisions. You can decide what class of property it is, but we, the cabinet, the Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council, are going to take unto ourselves the power to change your decision; to decide that the decision you've made in this respect is not a correct one, not a good one." Now that is really a Pandora's box. That is placing all kinds of temptation before the minister and his colleagues in the cabinet. And if we look at the record, at the way in which this government has dealt with that kind of power in the past, it's not been a good record. All we have to do is look at the agricultural land reserve and what happens when a municipal government or a regional district makes a decision that land is farmland and should not be taken out of the reserve. The first thing those people do who want to take it out of the reserve is to go to the minister and appeal the decision, and invariably the people of British Columbia lose that decision and the developers win it.

[5:00]

Now we find that the power to actually zone — this is what they are doing, they're now going to decide the zoning — is going to be resting with them. At any time, in any place, they can override the decision of any municipal council, of any regional district. We even have the Minister of Municipal Affairs thinking aloud in public about whether we need planners at the municipal level. His understanding of a good and well-planned community, and one that is a pleasure and a joy to live and work in, is a place where you bring outsiders in and say, "Draw me a plan, " and then you put it on a shelf and every five or ten years you bring it down, dust it off, and say to the outsiders: "What do you think? Is it okay if we put another park here, a service station there, a used-car lot there, or whatever?" It's absolute nonsense. And this is the minister who is now going to have the responsibility — alone or in consultation with his cabinet — to override the collective thinking of municipal governments.

Let us continue to look, for example, at the kinds of things it can do. I want to quote from an article in this morning's Province, written by Jack Clarke. He's talking about farmland and the fact that its loss threatens our future. I know you may be wondering what the relationship is between the loss of farmland and Bill 12 but let me tell you, Mr. Speaker, that Bill 12 is going to herald the loss of a lot more farmland that we've seen to date. However, Jack Clarke talks about the really scary statistics that have come down about the loss of farmland in Canada between 1961 and 1976, something in the neighbourhood of 3.5 million acres of good, arable land that has disappeared from farming. It's being used for a number of other uses. Some of that land is right here in British Columbia.

[ Page 1273 ]

He says: "B.C. is the biggest sinner of all the provinces. Not because it's alienating more farmland than anywhere else but because it was the first to recognize the need for legislation to preserve it and has been backsliding like a former convert." You will remember, of course, that the legislation to protect farmland was introduced during the NDP government's term of office.

Interjection.

MS. BROWN: I am quoting the figures that were used by Mr. Clarke, and his figures came from the federal task force. It is quite possible, Mr. Speaker, that the member from North Peace River (Hon. Mr. Brummet) is wiser than the federal task force. I for one doubt that very much.

In Canada, between 1961....

Interjection.

MRS. WALLACE: Why don't you listen?

MS. BROWN: He has a hearing impediment.

In Canada, between 1961 and 1976, 3.5 million acres were lost. Then he went on to say that British Columbia, which we are debating, is the biggest sinner of all.

What this legislation does is make it possible for that to continue and to escalate. In fact, what can happen is that a municipality can decide that land should be taxed and assessed as farmland and the Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council or the cabinet or the minister can change that decision, can decide that is not farmland and that it shouldn't be assessed as farmland, that it shouldn't be taxed as farmland, but that it should be something else, that it should be rezoned commercial or residential or industrial. That's possible under this piece of legislation. The kind of power which the government takes unto itself with this bill, and with Bill 7 and Bill 22 and parts of Bill 17, as I said before, Mr. Speaker, really makes a mockery of the municipal level of government.

Look at the other thing about this bill. It goes further than entrenching the variable tax rate system just in terms of municipal assessment and municipal taxes. It also does so in terms of the Assessment Authority Act, the B.C. transit act, the Education (Interim) Finance Act, the Hospital District Act, taxation acts that cover rural areas and the Municipal Finance Authority Act. Nothing is safe, nothing has been excluded. Under this legislation everything is now under this umbrella of the Lieutenant- Governor-in- Council and the cabinet.

What happened, of course, is that in 1978 the then Minister of Finance, Mr. Evan Wolfe, the member from Little Mountain who is no longer with us, introduced.... This is a press release of his I'm reading, dated September 1977. He introduced this market value assessment, an actual value assessment in terms of residential properties. At that time he told us that in that way taxation was going to be fair, it would be equitable: people's taxes wouldn't be increased; all that would happen is that the assessment would go up but the mill rate would go down. Taxes would pretty much remain the same. He said that those people who had been homeowners and overassessed, incorrectly assessed and taxed in recent years.... "This new legislation is designed to ensure that properties of equal value and equal use are assessed and taxed on the same basis throughout the province."

They were the ones who introduced that. Now in 1983 they are changing that. Now they are going to the variable things — more flexibility, and things can change. As I said, he said: "Not to worry. The only thing that would happen is that assessments would go up for some properties, down for others. But the mill rate would be adjusted in such a way that people would not be alarmed, because there wouldn't be an alarming increase in terms of their taxes." That's not what happened. The reality of the situation is that when the tax notices went out, people were in an absolute panic because some of the increases were absolutely unbelievable, so much so that my colleague the member for Cowichan-Malahat (Mrs. Wallace) wrote a column in her newspaper, suggesting to people that, now that they had their tax notices in their hands and they found that the promise made by the government — that assessments going up meant mill rates coming down, and that taxes would remain the same — did not prove to be fact, and now that they were being hit with these incredible increases, they were to bring these increases to her attention and she would plead their case on the floor of the Legislature. This was in her column of June 8, 1978. She said: "It seems, now that the tax notices are in hand, the much-feared increases have become a fact of life."

My own experience — and I have my Burnaby file with me — is that....

HON. MR. BRUMMET: Is that the $900,000 house?

MS. BROWN: I wish those were the only ones complaining to me. In fact, I was getting complaints from all the small businesses — the little commercial Kawasaki motorcycle shops — about their horrendous increases. As a matter of fact, the minister himself had to intervene. Here's one from Fibermold FM Products Mfg. Ltd. They had their taxes increased by 82 percent. At a time when the government decided to make taxes equitable, it said: "Assessments are going to go up, but mill rates are going to go down. Everything is going to be just fine; you have nothing to worry about." The end result was that they were literally driving people out of business; they were increasing the rate of bankruptcies in the small business community.

These are the people who are now taking it unto themselves to decide that they can overrule decisions made by municipal councils as to the class of property, the limits of the tax rate, the relationships between tax rates and the formula for calculating the limits or relationships in terms of the tax rates. Too much power is given to a cabinet and a government which has proven itself to be inept and incompetent in dealing with taxation in the past.

That's the only reason I raise the amendment to this same legislation which was introduced by the Minister of Finance of the day in 1977: to point out to you, Mr. Speaker, that the government started out by doing everything universally. They found that that didn't work. There was absolute chaos in the land. More damage than good was the result, so they decided to change it. Clearly there must have been some discussion with the municipalities, because I think a number of municipalities have indicated that they are not unhappy with the concept of the variable mill rate. But they are certainly unhappy with the government taking unto itself the power to overrule and override their decisions.

One thing about municipal governments, aside from the fact that they are more accessible than either provincial or federal governments, is that they are more accountable too.

[ Page 1274 ]

Municipal politicians have to go before the voters at a set time every two years. For example, in Burnaby all of our municipal politicians are up for scrutiny in November this year. At that time the voters of the municipality of Burnaby are going to decide whether they are satisfied or dissatisfied with the way in which those local politicians have conducted Burnaby's business. So they are much more accountable than the provincially elected members — even their own elected members. Certainly they are much more accountable than the cabinet, the Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council. Why is the responsibility for making decisions about assessment and taxes at the municipal level being taken away from them?

[5:15]

The government is taking over control of expenditures, which it always had provincially. It's doing that through Bill 3, but I'm not reflecting on that bill; I'm just mentioning it. Through that bill it takes over provincial control of expenditures. It now rests with the cabinet — the Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council. With this other collection of bills — Bills 7, 12, 22 and 17 — it is now taking over control of revenue as well — ongoing, indirect expenditure control. It's not really leaving anything for the duly elected municipal councillors to be responsible for. This is frightening, because it is not in isolation.

First, the school boards lost their power over making decisions that were in the best interests of the people who elected them. That was the first thing that happened. Their responsibilities were eroded, and their power was gutted. They are now just there.

I see you are getting a bit restless, Mr. Speaker, so I'm going to put this in context with Bill 12, which is the bill that we're discussing. I wouldn't want the back-benchers, who are listening so intently, to think that it's just the municipal politicians who are under attack. I think they should know that the school board also went through this same experience.

Now through Bill 12, the municipal councillors are finding the very same thing happening to them. What is the government trying to do? Is the ultimate plan to wipe out the municipal level of government altogether? What can we conclude in terms of the government's plan for the future of municipal-level government when the Minister of Municipal Affairs talks about there being no need for municipal planners, when we hear discussions about there being no need for regional districts and when we see what's happening to the school boards and municipal councils? Are they a shell or a window dressing? Do you know what they are, or what they are going to be once Bill 12, Bill 7, Bill 22, parts of Bill 17, Bill 3 and all those other bills are implemented? They are just going to be there to take the flak, that's all. When people are unhappy with the schools, they are going to get angry and upset with the school boards, even though the decisions and the power to do anything about their complaints has been wrested from them by the government.

They won't be going to the Minister of Education (Hon. Mr. Heinrich) or to the Premier or to cabinet to complain. They're going to complain to the school boards they elected. When they're unhappy about assessments, mill rates, their taxes, zoning, the class of their property, or whatever, they're not going to go to the Minister of Municipal Affairs or to the Premier or to the cabinet. They're going to go to their local politicians whom they elected and whom they thought had the power to make these decisions, and they're going to get really angry with them. So what the government is doing is creating sitting ducks. That's what municipal politicians, school boards, regional districts, planners and all of those people are going to be. They're going to be on the firing-line protecting the government from the people. So when the people in Burnaby are upset and angry about something at the local level, instead of going straight to the provincial government and complaining and venting their wrath at that level...

[Mr. Pelton in the chair.]

How nice to see you again.

...they're going to attack their local councillors. When they're not attacking them, they're going to ignore them, because they're going to say: "Why should I waste my time with you? You have no power anyway."

Let us take an example. I keep coming back to farmland, and probably one of the reasons I do is that in my own constituency of Burnaby-Edmonds there is the richest farmland in all of British Columbia; I'm talking about the Flats, which grows the vegetables for all of British Columbia really. It's such rich land, and there is a continual battle to protect it. We never stop fighting to protect the Flats and to protect that very rich land which produces so many crops of fresh vegetables almost all year around for the markets in the lower mainland and maybe even for some of the interior, too. A developer can come along and decide that that land is the ideal place to put in townhouses or a shopping centre or — I don't know — a trailer court, a mobile-home park, anything of that nature. The council would say: "No, you can't do that. This is the richest, most arable land in all of British Columbia. There's a continual crop of vegetables being harvested almost all year around. This land has to be protected for that use."

Interjection.

MS. BROWN: I'm talking about the Flats in Burnaby: the richest, most arable land in all of British Columbia. Mr. Speaker, that member for Omineca (Mr. Kempf), who is not even sitting in his chair, asks me if I'm referring to California. He actually believes that California has better land than we have here in British Columbia. Now what kind of British Columbian is that?

Interjection.

MS. BROWN: So what good did it do you? He said at least he was born here. What good did it do him if he still thinks California is better? I am not here by accident of birth; I'm here by choice.

Interjection.

MS. BROWN: That's right. I'm not here just because my mother happened to be here when I was born. I was in full control of my senses when I decided to make this my home.

I'm talking about the Flats in Burnaby, the richest and most arable in all of British Columbia, and that member for Omineca wants to compare it with California. What kind of British Columbian is he?

Interjection.

[ Page 1275 ]

MS. BROWN: I came to British Columbia in 1954. The next thing he's going to want to know is what year I was born. I was born in 1930. I have no secrets. I don't care. It doesn't make any difference to me.

But anyway, they're intruding. Every time I try to talk about Burnaby and its wealth and the major contributions it makes to the quality of life in this province, I get all of this flak from the member for Omineca.

In the event that a developer would want to use that land for something else, Burnaby council, without exception, would say no, regardless of their politics — BVA, BCA or whatever. But do you know what those developers could do, the ones who would want to make a shopping centre, a mobile-home park or townhouses on that land? They could ignore Burnaby. They could go straight to the Minister of Municipal Affairs, or they could go to the Premier, or I would imagine to any member of cabinet, and say: "We want you to use your powers to change the designated property class of that land." And it could be done, despite the fact that the local democratically elected members of Burnaby council said no. The government could override that.

MRS. WALLACE: That's okay, but not regional boards.

MS. BROWN: That's right. As my colleague the member for Cowichan-Malahat said, not regional boards, but it's okay for them.

What this means, Mr. Speaker, is that we have a predator loose in the land. This is the predator bill. When this legislation goes through, we've got a predator loose in the land. Nothing is safe. No land is safe; certainly no farmland is safe, not when one looks at that government's record. There will be a predator loose in the land once this bill, Bill 7, Bill 22 and parts of Bill 17, all of which are a part of the companion legislation, become law. Then the game is over.

Mr. Speaker, one of the things that this bill tells us is what is going to happen under regulations. Where are the regulations? We are supposed to vote on a piece of legislation which says: "This is going to be dealt with by regulations. That is going to be handled by regulations — not to worry." Regulations are going to do this; regulations are going to do that. At the same time that we're being told not to worry, that the regulations are going to take care of things, sitting on the order paper is another piece of legislation that I'm not going to reflect on — Bill 31, the Regulations Act — which actually takes away the final power from the Lieutenant-Governor to stop something if he decides that it is not in the best interests of the people of British Columbia for such an act or regulation to go through.

So again the regulations are going to be designed and controlled by the cabinet. They're going to be the final word on it. Yet we are told not to worry — the regulations are going to take care of everything. There is no avenue of appeal. Who are you going to appeal to when the same person who is violating the act is the person that you are going to go and appeal to? If a municipal government disagrees with a decision made by the cabinet to override and overrule one of its decisions, who are they going to appeal to? The cabinet? But the cabinet were the ones guilty of the offence. It's the cabinet that took onto itself the power and is overruling their wishes.

To whom then should they appeal? To the people? What's the point of that? Although they go before the electorate every two years and have to be accountable more often than this provincial government has to be accountable, the provincial government has taken away all of their power. There is no one for them to appeal to. They can't appeal to the Lieutenant-Governor, because the Regulations Act says that the Lieutenant-Governor loses the power to proclaim. That is now being done by cabinet. There's nowhere to turn.

[5:30]

Then the government members wonder why we are in opposition to this package of legislation. Very slowly, but very deliberately and very clearly, this government is eroding the power of the local level of governments on all fronts, whether it's the school boards, which are losing their responsibility and having their powers eroded and gutted, or regional districts — the planning sections at the local or regional district level — or their councils. The government is taking away all their power and centralizing and concentrating it here in Victoria. Do you know what happens when it gets here? It does not even remain with the minister responsible, because the Premier has said that the deputy ministers do not report to their minister, but directly to him. So it is the Premier and the top bureaucrats who have the final word and are finally in control of what happens at the local level.

Now the UBCM, as I mentioned earlier, will be meeting at its annual convention next week. At that time, I know that the Minister of Municipal Affairs will be there. I am hoping that the Minister of Finance (Hon. Mr. Curtis) will also attend. At that time they will have an opportunity to defend these pieces of legislation to those municipally elected politicians. I know that the Minister of Municipal Affairs will be there. I'm not sure whether his colleague the Minister of Finance will attend, but I think he should attend as well. You can't separate these pieces of legislation. The assessment legislation is part of the overall package of centralization and concentration of power.

HON. MR. CHABOT: Your light is red.

MS. BROWN: Are you colour-blind? That light is not red. That's the problem we run into, Mr. Speaker. The Provincial Secretary is colour-blind.

This concentration of power and this control is wrested from the municipal level and placed here in Victoria with the cabinet and deputy ministers. We have to continue to fight against that. I'm hoping that the minister will attend the UBCM meeting next week with an open mind and that he will go there prepared to listen to what the locally elected representatives, not just from Burnaby or the lower mainland but from right across the province, will have to say about this package of legislation which the minister and his colleague the Minister of Finance have brought down.

At that time, if the minister has an open mind, I know that he will agree that these pieces of legislation should be withdrawn and, in fact, should be introduced in the form of a discussion paper.

Mr. Speaker, I notice that my light is red. Do you think it is time to move adjournment of the House?

Interjections.

MS. BROWN: Oh, you're not ready to move adjournment of the House. Fair enough, Mr. Speaker. The Provincial Secretary (Hon. Mr. Chabot) forgets that cricket is my game, not golf.

[ Page 1276 ]

MS. SANFORD: I thought for a minute there the Provincial Secretary was going to speak on this particular bill. If there's going to be a point of order from the Provincial Secretary, Mr. Speaker, I want you to make sure that no time is deducted from my 40 minutes on this speech.

HON. MR. CHABOT: Have you spoken before? You can answer that honestly, I hope.

MS. SANFORD: Most of the comments that that minister makes, Mr. Speaker, I find are not really worth responding to, and I won't.

I don't know what it takes to convince this government that they are on the wrong track with this package of 26 bills and a budget that is having such an adverse impact on the people of British Columbia. We have been up here, each one of us, taking our turn to point out to, in this case, the Minister of Municipal Affairs that this legislation.... There are three bills in particular tied together in this particular minipackage under the major package the government dropped in this House on July 7. I spoke yesterday on another bill that is somewhat tied in with this one, and indicated to the minister that if he is serious about listening to locally elected officials.... As my colleague the MLA for Burnaby-Edmonds just pointed out, there is a UBCM convention coming up very shortly. If the minister is genuine in saying he's prepared to listen to those officials — and presumably that means that not only is he willing to listen but he is willing to incorporate the suggestions, ideas and recommendations they make with respect to improving legislation....

HON. MR. RITCHIE: You're putting words in my mouth; you're going too far.

MS. SANFORD: That's a very interesting comment for the Minister of Municipal Affairs to make, and I hope that he makes that point when he addresses the UBCM convention, because what the minister has just told us across the floor of this House is that he's very genuine. He will go up there and listen to those municipally elected officials, to their criticism, to their objections and to their suggestions, but he will do absolutely nothing about it in terms of incorporating any of their suggestions, ideas or recommendations in legislation.

Interjections.

MS. SANFORD: The minister just finished saying, across the floor of the House, that for me to suggest that any recommendations that the UBCM officials might make to him at the convention coming up.... For me to expect that he would incorporate within legislation any of those recommendations was going too far. Those were his words: that was going too far. And now the poor back-benchers back here, who obviously didn't hear that comment, are saying that I'm going too far in criticizing the minister because he says he's genuine, he will listen, he will hear all of their recommendations, but he will not — it's going too far, he said — incorporate those suggestions into any legislation before this House. If the minister were genuine in terms of listening to the officials and bringing the best possible legislation to this House, we would not be debating these bills today. Instead we would have these bills set aside, and we would have the....

Interjections.

MS. SANFORD: Does the Provincial Secretary want me to adjourn the debate? Is that what he says?

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hon. member, could we please get to Bill 12.

MS. SANFORD: Well, Mr. Speaker, these people over there are interrupting me, and I really don't know what he is saying. I thought maybe he is the House Leader and he wants me to adjourn the debate until the next sitting of the House, but I am not sure if that is what he means or not. I don't know. I thought he was pointing to the clock up there and indicating that it was time to move adjournment of debate until the next sitting of the House.

What government that is trying to convince the people out there that it is genuine and concerned and willing to listen would bring before the Legislature, just before a UBCM convention, this kind of legislation, which takes away the authority of the locally elected officials and places it in the hands of the minister and the government?

We all know that this is centralization of authority. It is part and parcel of the whole approach taken by the government since they were returned to office at the May 5 election. That is all they are interested in. If you follow the bills that have been put through this House, you will find that their main interest in changing all these pieces of legislation is that they want more power for themselves. That, Mr. Speaker, is frightening.

If we are to have a democratic system, a legislature that functions and any confidence at all by the people of British Columbia in a parliamentary system, then we cannot allow this kind of legislation — one piece after the other — to pass through this Legislature placing more and more authority into the hands of that cabinet. Those decisions are then taken behind closed doors, in secret, without any reference to the Legislature, without any debate in this Legislature, and as a result we are moving more and more towards the kind of government that we see in countries such as Chile....

Interjection.

MS. SANFORD: We do. That's what happens. Centralization of authority is one of the first indications that a government is moving towards a dictatorship kind of approach to government. When we also understand that deputy ministers now are to report not to their own ministers but through the Premier's office, then you can understand the centralization of authority. It's no wonder that people out in the community are prepared to demonstrate and to write letters by the thousands in order to let this government know that they are not happy with the approach that is being taken. The government even refuses to accept that this is more centralization of authority. Every time that term is used the government minister responsible for this particular bill shakes his head. And yet, if you look at the bill, it says: "The Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council may make regulations in respect of the variable tax rate system (a) prescribing limits on tax rates...." This is done by cabinet. It's not debated in the Legislature. It's done behind closed doors, in secret. And the minister says it's not more centralization.

"The Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council may make regulations...(a) prescribing limits on tax rates,

[ Page 1277 ]

(b) prescribing relationships between tax rates, (c) prescribing formulas for calculating the limits or relationships referred to in paragraphs (a) and (b), and (d) allowing" the minister "under prescribed circumstances to vary, by order, the limits, relationships or formulas established under paragraphs (a), (b) or (c)."

And finally, he may establish regions within which different limits, relationships or formulas may be prescribed. They can do all of that now, Mr. Speaker, behind closed doors, in secret, without any reference to the Legislature whatever. They're trying to convince us in this Legislature that that is decentralization and not more centralization.

They use these fancy terms. For instance, they've introduced so much of the legislation under that so-called restraint. It's a fancy term, a good catchword, one that will appeal to the public. And here in this legislation they are trying the same kind of thing.

They are trying to convince us that the local authority, whether it's at municipal government level or, in this case, at regional board level, is to set and to vary the mill rate between the classes of property. But what they don't tell the public, and one of the reasons that I'm standing here opposing this legislation, is that the minister approves the tax rates that are set by these regional districts. If the government, based on its right-wing philosophy, doesn't like the way in which a given regional district has set up the variable mill rate, it simply does not approve it. Now that's centralization, Mr. Speaker. That is authority in the hands of a minister and a government. That is not local control and local decision-making. They have used the same approach with regional boards, municipal councils and school boards. Even the Islands Trust people are affected by this particular piece of legislation.

[5:45]

This legislation represents yet more tinkering with the tax system, a tax system which they have been following for years and years and ends up every year costing the taxpayer more. The taxpayer is paying a larger proportion of the education tax. This kind of tinkering — and we have been tinkering with the tax system for many, many years in this province — is another example of the tinkering that goes on with municipal and regional board taxation that always ends up hurting the taxpayer more.

Some years ago the former member for Comox, Dan Campbell, was successfully promoting a ceiling on the assessment levels within the province. Everybody thought this was a grand idea, where you could increase the assessment level by only 10 percent. First it was 5 percent, then it became 10 percent — a little more tinkering here and there. It didn't take too long to determine that that kind of tinkering....

No doubt it was very politically popular because a 10 percent limitation in assessment sounded great as far as the taxpayers were concerned. The taxpayer generally does not understand property taxation or how the mill rates are applied, how the assessments are arrived at or the tinkering that went on last year and the year before by this government, where they applied various percentage rates such as the 11 percent to residential property, then dropped it down to 10 percent the following year. People didn't understand that.

MR. REID: They trusted us.

MS. SANFORD: They did not trust you, I can assure you. I attended meetings in my constituency where the taxpayers were so outraged that they would have attacked any minister responsible for the tinkering and legislation that was presented to them before that.

Interjections.

MS. SANFORD: Oh, Mr. Speaker!

So what we have is a further tinkering with the system through this particular piece of legislation. When you apply a 10 percent limitation on assessments, that's fine, for the first year. But after that the assessment rolls become very inequitable, because when the new homes are built.... That's why the 10 percent limitation was finally removed. The whole assessment system was in such disarray that we had to go out into the community, travelling with the municipal affairs committee to try to determine the best way to overcome the tinkering that was done in those days by that previous Social Credit government. It was a colossal mess, because the government wished to place a limitation on assessments in an attempt to convince the public that they were doing something in their best interest. That's not what happened at all. Here in this piece of legislation they are trying to convince us and the public that by allowing locally elected governments to impose a variable mill rate they are somehow going to assist the poor beleaguered taxpayer who, under this Social Credit government, has been paying an increasing proportion of the load of the educational tax, year after year....

Interjection.

MS. SANFORD: The government members are agitated about that, because they don't like to hear about it. That's their government and their system. That's their way of handling property taxation in this province.

When you have a variable mill rate, where the minister can prescribe the limitation on the tax rate, prescribe the relationship between the tax rate and prescribe the formulas for calculating the limits or relationships referred to in paragraphs (a) and (b), it means that the government is the one that will determine the mill rate and what the taxpayers are going to pay. That's bad news for the taxpayers. When that power goes into the hands of that minister and that government, you can rest assured that the taxpayers of this province are going to suffer again.

Why doesn't the government utilize some of the recommendations that have been made over the years? Why doesn't the government ensure that taxation for educational purposes is reduced to the homeowners of the province and that the government will assume more of that responsibility?

What's happening here is that a variable system is being introduced in the name of decentralization on behalf of this government. In fact, it's nothing more than more centralization.

One specific issue that I would like to deal with relates to farmland and taxation under Bill 12, under this government. As you know, the variable tax rate can be applied by the regional boards, and they may determine that a given tax rate should be applied to farmland. They then would determine that another tax rate would be for residential purposes, another one for commercial purposes, another one for industrial purposes and so on, through all the categories of land that are available to the regional board. If the regional board in a given area determines that the tax rate — through their ability to vary that tax rate — on farmland should be significantly

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reduced, particularly in view of the fact that farmers are having such a difficult time in this province at this time.... We all know that they're sawing down the trees in their orchards. We know that they're ploughing under the crops on the Saanich Peninsula. We know that the farmers are having a very difficult time.

If the regional district understands the problems of the farmer within their particular regional district and decides that a much lower mill rate should be applied to them and submits this proposal to the minister, the minister can say: "I'm not going to approve that. There is no way that I'm going to approve that." You see, that is quite likely to happen, because this government pretends that it supports the preservation of farmland. If this government could get away with it, it would have removed the Land Commission and the agricultural land reserve some time ago. But it's not politically acceptable, and so they have to find other ways to eliminate farmland in this province. They're doing it. If they were genuinely concerned about the preservation of farmland, they would not have altered the Land Commission Act a few years ago in order to allow them to overrule the Land Commission. That in itself is an example of their attitude towards the preservation of farmland in this province.

Let's assume then....

Interjections.

MS. SANFORD: Mr. Speaker, is there a House Leader? Do you wish me to move adjournment of this debate until the next sitting of the House?

Interjection.

MS. SANFORD: All right.

Through various devious means, this government is ensuring that agricultural land is taken out of the agricultural land reserve. If the government knows that the farmers are having a difficult time and if the government knows that the taxation on farmland is low, based on a decision made by the regional district to tax farmland at a lower rate, and it decides that it wants that farmland out so that their developer friends can develop it, it simply will not approve the tax rate that is presented by the regional board. I can foresee this happening, because this government has been trying through every means that it possibly can to have farmland taken out of the agricultural land reserve for their developer friends. We've seen other examples of that, Mr. Speaker. We've seen the Spetifore amendment, another bill we've been debating in this House, which enables the government without any more direct interference from the Agricultural Land Commission to remove farmland to ensure that that farmland is developed. They've already taken it out of the agricultural land reserve and thought that would be the end of it. But since that wasn't the end of it, they then had to bring in other legislation.

I see this particular piece of legislation as being yet another means whereby the government can circumvent the intentions of the Land Commission and the agricultural land reserve, because the only thing they have to do is say: "We won't approve the mill rate that you have set for farmland in this particular area." It then gets sent back and the people at the regional board level have to increase that mill rate. There are so many farmers right now who are in such financial difficulty that an increase in the taxation they have to pay as a result of the minister's refusal to approve a lower rate will mean that they go out of business, that the farmers no longer are able to survive on the farms. That will give the minister the best excuse possible to allow more of his friends to develop the agricultural land in this province.

Interjections.

MS. SANFORD: It's very true. It's very simple. They have been trying every other means they can to circumvent the agricultural land reserve and to ensure that the Land Commission is ineffective, and here's yet another way that the minister can....

Interjection.

MS. SANFORD: Well, if they don't understand that, then all they have to do is read the bill, because that is quite possible under this piece of legislation. The minister doesn't have to approve any of the tax rates set at the regional board level. It's an absolutely perfect way for them to get out of preserving farmland in this province without ever changing the act, without ever taking the powers away....

Are they ready now, Mr. Speaker, to move adjournment of this debate? I think I'd like that assurance from the House Leader.

AN HON. MEMBER: Yes.

MS. SANFORD: You're not the House Leader.

Mr. House Leader, will you accept a motion that I adjourn this debate until the next sitting of the House?

MR. HOWARD: On a point of order, if Your Honour would look at the clock, I'm sure you'll see that it is 6 o'clock and the hour of adjournment.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Thank you, hon. member. My attention has been drawn to the clock, and I will defer to the hon. House Leader.

Hon. Mr. Gardom moved adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

The House adjourned at 6:01 p.m.