[ Page 1397 ]

CONTENTS

Routine Proceedings

Oral Questions.

Repainting of buses. Mr. Macdonald –– 1397

Govier report. Mr. Lauk –– 1397

Beautiful British Columbia magazine. Mr. Cocke –– 1398

Transfer of Sunmask shares prior to presentation of budget. Mr. Howard –– 1398

Increase in log exports. Mr. Skelly –– 1398

Estate Administration Amendment Act, 1983 (Bill M201). Third reading.

Division –– 1399

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

Hon. Mr. Nielsen –– 1399

An Act Respecting Okanagan Bible College (Bill 401). Second reading.

Mr. Campbell –– 1399

Mr. D'Arcy –– 1399

College and Institute Amendment Act, 1983 (Bill 20). Committee stage. (Hon. Mr.

Heinrich)

On Section 1 –– 1400

Mr. Veitch

Mrs. Dailly

On section 3 –– 1401

Mr. Rose

On section 4 –– 1403

Mr. Rose

On the amendment to section 4 –– 1405

Mr. D'Arcy

Mr. Cocke

On section 4 –– 1408

Mr. Howard

Mr. Rose

On section 5 –– 1410

Mr. Rose

On the amendment to section 5 –– 1410

Mrs. Dailly

Mr. Cocke

Ms. Brown

Mr. Hanson

On section 15 –– 1412

Mr. Howard

Ms. Brown

Ms. Sanford

Pension (Public Service) Amendment Act, 1983 (Bill 18). Committee stage. (Hon. Mr.

Chabot)

On section 3 –– 1413

Mr. Cocke

On section 7 –– 1414

Mr. Cocke

Third reading –– 1414

Income Tax Amendment Act, 1983 (Bill 4). Second reading.

Mr. Cocke –– 1415

Mrs. Dailly –– 1418

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 1983

The House met at 2:06 p.m.

MR. REYNOLDS: Mr. Speaker, I would like the House to make welcome today one of my constituents from West Vancouver–Howe Sound, and also the wife of the member for North Vancouver–Capilano, Cheri Ree.

Also in the gallery today, as a very pleasant surprise to me, are my aunt and uncle, Mary and Steve Osachuk, who arrived from Barrie, Ontario, today. I'd like the House to make them and my cousin Paul and his girlfriend Mary, who are now living in Burnaby, welcome.

MR. COCKE: Mr. Speaker, sitting in the members' gallery today is the vice-president of the New Democratic Party of B.C., Johanna den Hertog. I would like the House to welcome her.

Oral Questions

REPAINTING OF BUSES

MR. MACDONALD: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Human Resources. B.C. Transit, red, white and blue — Socred colours. Don't miss the bus! Penticton, for example, just let a tender in July to have their fleet repainted red, white and blue. How many buses are being repainted in those Socred colours? I'll forget that part if you want me to. The minister takes umbrage so easily, I almost daren't say it. How many are you doing? And what's the cost per bus? You've had a lot of tenders — Prince George, Penticton.... How much?

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: Mr. Speaker, I'd be very pleased to bring that information back to the House. I'm not aware of the Penticton contract, but any contract by any of the member bus services of B.C. Transit will be painted and repainted on an as-needs basis for maintenance, just as all bus systems would have to do. I'd be very pleased to bring the answer to the member's question back. I understand it to be the cost of the Penticton contract, plus the cost of per-bus repaint job. I would be pleased to bring that back to the House.

MR. MACDONALD: I have a supplementary, Mr. Speaker. Also, how many B.C. Transit buses are due for repainting? The Penticton fleet is almost new, so that business.... In Prince George $32,000 was spent for 11 buses, which means over $3,000 a bus.

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: Mr. Speaker, I would not be able to confirm the figures, because I am not privy to the details of each of the systems. But we are very pleased with the fact that in the past four years almost 25 systems have been produced by this government throughout the province to ensure that people will have an excellent bus service, and not just one that is confined to the lower mainland. We are also pleased that the handicapped bus service is probably the best in this nation. I will bring back the information.

MR. MACDONALD: Would the minister confirm that you're spending more than $1 million on this, and that B.C. Transit, in the various centres, is raising bus fares which could very well be held down if you weren't wasting this money on political propaganda?

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: Mr. Speaker, I will not take the assumption that the member wishes to put on the repainting of buses. I would think that even the maintenance of his own personal automobile would include repainting once in a while.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: No way!

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: Mind you, I don't know the state of the member's car.

I am very happy to bring back the information that the member wishes; I would he pleased to do so.

GOVIER REPORT

MR. LAUK: Mr. Speaker, a question to the Prime Minister. Last February the first minister was at a first ministers' conference on native rights. On his return he stopped off in Calgary and had a secret meeting with oil and gas producers there. Now we see the revelations in the Govier report, and the Prime Minister's steadfast denials that he was going to privatize the gas industry in British Columbia. The propositions under the Govier report are going to substantially increase the cost to the domestic user in B.C. and taxation to the general public. Is it now government policy to introduce a royalty system in all resource industries?

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. member, if the question is on policy, it must be....

MR. LAUK: Is it now government policy?

MS. SANFORD: Current policy should be known.

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. members, questions regarding policy sometimes elicit very long answers. If we are going to ask open-ended questions, we must be prepared for open-ended answers. I advise the member accordingly.

HON. MR. BENNETT: Yes, Mr. Speaker, it is true that last February 1 was at the first ministers' conference on native rights in Ottawa. Yes, I did come back via Calgary where I spoke to the chamber of commerce. I held a number of meetings regarding investment in British Columbia — something that this government is continually doing in a search to create jobs for our people in the private sector.

In part of the question the member was asking me about the Govier report, which is a report that has been submitted to the government, after being commissioned, by Dr. Govier. That report has been released today and the information in his report to the government, which will be given serious consideration, will be made available and shared with the public.

MR. LAUK: Just so the public and this House could get a perspective on government policy, could the Premier indicate how many of the major oil and gas firms were contributors to the Social Credit Party's campaign funds in the last election?

HON. MR. BENNETT: I would probably say about the same number that contributed to the NDP.

[ Page 1398 ]

MR. LAUK: I take it that the Premier is saying that no oil and gas companies contributed to the Social Credit campaign funds. Is he standing by that answer?

HON. MR. BENNETT: You got my answer.

MR. SPEAKER: Further questions, hon. members?

MR. LAUK: Is he going to answer the question? I think it's important that the public of the province of British Columbia.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please.

MR. LAUK: I'm asking the Premier if he thinks it important that the public of British Columbia should know whether or not these oil and gas companies that stand to profit immensely from the Govier report contributed to the Social Credit Party.

[2:15]

HON. MR. BENNETT: Mr. Speaker, the member is once again being frivolous. There is only one party in this province that has apparently been up for sale, and that's the NDP. You saw who they sold out to.

BEAUTIFUL BRITISH COLUMBIA MAGAZINE

MR. COCKE: You can depend on the Premier. Let's hope we can direct a question to the Minister of Tourism. Will the minister advise why a commercial distributor of magazines in British Columbia has been awarded the right to publish Beautiful British Columbia magazine?

HON. MR. RICHMOND: The answer to the member's question is: simply because that company submitted the best bid of all that were filed with the government.

MR. COCKE: Will the minister advise what role the Jim Pattison group will play in relation to the promotion of tourism in B.C.?

HON. MR. RICHMOND: The answer is none, Mr. Speaker.

MR. COCKE: Good heavens, what abrogation! The minister has said none, and yet they sold our best magazine promoting tourism in B.C. to that group.

HON. MR. CURTIS: Question.

MR. COCKE: Don't get in a rush, Mr. Treasurer.

The promotion of tourism events in B.C. and abroad and publication of special editions of Beautiful British Columbia in foreign languages have been a major part of the role of the magazine in the Ministry of Tourism. Is Jim Pattison now in charge of this aspect? The variance in language is the major role that magazine has played. What part will this Pattison group play in that aspect of tourism?

HON. MR. RICHMOND: The successful bidders for that magazine made it very clear that they do not intend to change the direction or the integrity of Beautiful British Columbia magazine; in fact, that it would continue on the very successful path that it has had in the past in promoting the province and that it would not contain any advertising in the foreseeable future. But there was never intent by that company or by this government to have them set the marketing strategy for tourism in British Columbia.

MR. COCKE: Is it a condition of sale, if in fact what the minister has told us today...? Is it a condition of sale that the government will take back that magazine?

HON. MR. RICHMOND: The answer is no.

TRANSFER OF SUNMASK SHARES
PRIOR TO PRESENTATION OF BUDGET

MR. HOWARD: Mr. Speaker, I'd like to direct a question to the Minister of Finance. Has the minister decided to conduct an investigation into the issuance by Sunmask Petroleum Corp. of some 525,000 shares from its treasury in the days immediately preceding the introduction of the budget?

HON. MR. CURTIS: No.

MR. HOWARD: I'd like to ask the Attorney-General a question of a similar nature. Has he made any decision to conduct an investigation into whether or not there was a budget leak that had an effect upon the issuance of those particular shares, 175,000 of which were issued to two Swiss banking institutions, in order to determine what interest the gnomes of Zurich have in a company which holds an option on the Spetifore property?

HON. MR. SMITH: The short answer to that convoluted argumentative question is no.

INCREASE IN LOG EXPORTS

MR. SKELLY: My question is to the Minister of Forests, who has been absent from the House for most of this week. The Ministry of Forests recently reported a 67 percent increase in log exports for the first seven months of 1983, as compared to the same period last year. Will the minister advise us why he continues to approve the loss of forest jobs through log exports?

HON. MR. WATERLAND: It's an argumentative question.

MR. SKELLY: Perhaps the minister didn't hear the question. Again, a supplementary to the Minister of Forests. During the January-July period of 1982 this province authorized the export of 523,000 cubic metres. In the same period, January 1 to July 31, 1983, we are authorizing the export of 874,000 cubic metres of logs. And yet jobs go wanting in the province of British Columbia. What action has the minister decided to take to curb log exports and to use those logs in manufacturing industry here in British Columbia?

HON. MR. WATERLAND: Well, Mr. Speaker, I think the conclusions reached by the member are quite incorrect. There is no evidence that the export of small volumes of logs from British Columbia has a detrimental effect on manufacturing activity in lumber or plywood manufacturing, or in pulp and paper manufacturing in this province. So as a result,

[ Page 1399 ]

we will continue to follow those procedures which have been in place for many years regarding the control of exports of raw logs from the province of British Columbia.

As the member well knows, there is a procedure required whereby logs have to be offered for sale in the province. If there are no purchasers or manufacturing concerns in the province that need them, then they are recommended for the possibility of export by the log export advisory committee, after which the normal procedure is that an order-in-council is required. If the volume of logs is above 15,000 cubic metres, that generally flows, provided there is indeed no need in British Columbia. If the volume of logs is less than 15,000 cubic metres, that can be authorized by an order of the minister.

Orders of the Day

HON. MR. GARDOM: Leave to proceed to public bills in the hands of private members.

Leave granted.

HON. MR. GARDOM: I call third reading of Bill M201.

ESTATE ADMINISTRATION
AMENDMENT ACT, 1983

MR. REE: It is now my pleasure to move third reading of this bill.

Motion approved unanimously on a division.

Bill M201, Estate Administration Amendment Act, 1983, reported complete without amendment, read a third time and passed.

HON. MR. GARDOM: I ask leave to proceed to second reading of Bill 401, Mr. Speaker.

MR. HOWARD: On a point of order, the House Leader has asked leave to do that, but I would submit that it would be more appropriate, Mr. Speaker, if you would proceed to deal with the adjourned debate on second reading of Bill M205, standing in the name of my colleague for Cowichan-Malahat (Mrs. Wallace).

[2:30]

MR. SPEAKER: The point of order is valid.

MR. HOWARD: It was adjourned on behalf of the Minister of Health (Hon. Mr. Nielsen), and I think it would be most appropriate for us to discuss that today.

HON. MR. GARDOM: It is a very valid point. My apologies to the lady member. It's marked second in my book.

MRS. WALLACE: Do I get to close debate?

HON. MR. GARDOM: Not yet.

Adjourned debate on second reading of Bill M205, Mr. Speaker.

AN ACT TO PROVIDE FOR
NO SMOKING AREAS IN PUBLIC PLACES

(continued)

HON. MR. NIELSEN: Mr. Speaker, the member for Cowichan-Malahat apparently spoke on this bill when I was back east, and I would like the opportunity of looking through Hansard to see what her remarks were. Until I can do that, I would move adjournment of this debate until the next sitting of the House.

Motion approved.

HON. MR. GARDOM: Leave to proceed to second reading of Bill 401, Mr. Speaker.

Leave granted.

AN ACT RESPECTING OKANAGAN BIBLE COLLEGE

MR. CAMPBELL: I wish to advise that this bill passed in committee with the unanimous consent of both sides of the House. It will give the Okanagan Bible College the power to grant theological and honorary theological degrees. This college is interdenominational and will accept students from other religious backgrounds. I move second reading of the bill.

MR. D'ARCY: Mr. Speaker. on behalf of the opposition members who sat on the committee. I wish to add our support. I have just one or two comments. This is a non-denominational, degree-granting institution. It's in the spirit of ecumenical unity, which I think goes right through the Christian church in British Columbia today.

I want to make the point, in case any members are wondering, that this will not be an institution that competes for students with, let's say, Regent College at UBC, which is a publicly supported institution. That UBC operation is basically a postgraduate theological college. What we're looking at here is a post-secondary degree-granting theological institution. It's open to the public and, as has been mentioned, is non-denominational. It's open to everyone of any Christian faith. I congratulate the people throughout B.C., particularly the people and the churches in the Okanagan area, who have gotten together to establish this institution.

Bill 401, An Act Respecting Okanagan Bible College, read a second time and referred to a Committee of the Whole House for consideration at the next sitting of the House after today.

MR. PARKS: I ask leave to make an introduction.

Leave granted.

MR. PARKS: Mr. Speaker. I noticed a constituent has just arrived in the House to observe the proceedings this afternoon. She happens to be a friend and staunch supporter. I would ask the House to join me in welcoming Miss Monica Woldring.

HON. MR. GARDOM: Committee on Bill 20, Mr. Speaker.

[ Page 1400 ]

COLLEGE AND INSTITUTE AMENDMENT ACT, 1983

The House in committee on Bill 20; Mr. Strachan in the chair.

On section 1.

MR. VEITCH: Mr. Chairman, when speaking on section 1 of this act prior to the lunch hour, I believe we agreed that in repealing the definitions, we were repealing the councils themselves. The hon. member for Coquitlam-Moody (Mr. Rose) said that in repealing the councils we would help the administration of the colleges and institutes throughout the province. Well, I want to tell the hon. member that it will help the students of British Columbia and the potential students that will follow in the future even more than it will help the administration.

Prior to the adjournment I said that it was a network of inequal opportunities. That's precisely what it is throughout the province. Speaking directly to this section, I don't know if all the hon. members are cognizant of what this network represents. This relates directly to these councils that are being eliminated by this section. First of all, under the old Adult Occupational Training Act — the new federal National Training Act — we have a system that launders money through a cost-sharing agreement between the provincial and the federal governments. It's passed out, supposedly, through the college....

MR. NICOLSON: On a point of order, Mr. Chairman. We've just heard a very serious criminal charge made in this House: that members of these councils have been laundering money. I would like to know what action is being taken by the government in this matter, because that is a very serious criminal charge.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Every member in this House is responsible for his own statements.

MR. VEITCH: Hon. member, it's neither criminal nor ethnic; anyone can launder, even the NDP. Anyone can be engaged in the process of laundering. Even the federal government and Mr. Kube know something about that.

Mr. Chairman, these councils that are being eliminated directly cost the province about $30 million to administer through all the machinations. I'm going to go very quickly through what these councils represented. Under the two acts that I mentioned previously, we have a tie-in between the Ministry of Education, the College and Institute Act and schedules (a) and (b) of the Apprenticeship Act. We have a joint paper that runs through the Ministry of Labour and the Ministry of Education. Under that we have the apprenticeship branch with 56 trade advisory committees directly attendant to the training of individuals in this province. Under the Ministry of Education, we have the ministry and departments. We had the Management Advisory Council, with seven subcommittees. The Academic Council had between seven and nine subcommittees, with executive directors and staffs. In the Occupational Training Council we had, I think, nine consultative and articulation committees. Mr. Kube was a representative of several of them.

We have 19 joint boards that are tied into this situation, that receive money through the various construction labour contracts being negotiated in the province, ostensibly for the purposes of training. Most of them have received their funding one way or another through the Ministry of Labour and the Ministry of Education. We have construction advisory committees and 14 consultant advisory committees. I think this makes 86 or 87 committees that are tied directly to the training of one individual before an individual could be admitted to training in this province. So I think this is one of the best moves that this government and this minister have made as far as post-secondary education goes. I applaud him loudly for taking away these redundant councils and giving the students of British Columbia an opportunity for training.

I think it's one of the most significant moves that we can ever make. Now what we have to do in regard to these is make sure that we don't replace these councils with something even more onerous.

I commend the minister. I think that the opposition should, especially on this section of this bill, give it 100 percent support, if they are in favour — and I know they are — of education and training of individuals in this province.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Prior to recognizing the hon. member for Burnaby North on section 1, I'll remind hon. members that the topic of this section is also discussed in section 24. We will presume that discussion under section 1 will preclude further debate, at least on subsections (a), (b) and (c) of section 24.

With that said, the Chair recognizes the hon. member for Burnaby North.

MRS. DAILLY: Mr. Chairman, I'm very anxious to speak on this, but I wonder if you could clarify your last remarks to the House.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Councils are mentioned quite clearly in section 1 and also in section 24, so we can presume that all debate on the councils themselves will be taken care of. There is more to section 24 as well that can be discussed, of course.

MRS. DAILLY: That's fine. Thank you very much.

Mr. Chairman, I want to thank the last speaker for his speech because he has pointed out to this House and to the people of British Columbia that the government he belongs to has wasted $30 million by the establishment of these ridiculous councils. He just spent the last five minutes telling this House what a disaster these councils were. He was so pleased that the new minister was eliminating them; they cost the taxpayers of British Columbia $30 million and even with all that money they did not serve the students. That member left out one little basic point in his speech. He regretted to tell the people of B.C. and of this Legislature that it was the Social Credit government which brought in those councils. I really don't have to speak any more because that minister, by his own words, has condemned his own government and the past Minister of Education, who is now the Minister of Universities, Science and Communications (Hon. Mr. McGeer), who manages somehow or other to get everything he wants for this government. The only thing he didn't get, by the way, was the tunnel under the Georgia Strait, but that may yet come.

Mr. Chairman, this government, as the NDP has pointed out to the people of British Columbia for a number of years, has wasted the taxpayers' money, has not served the educational system well. Now we have one of their own members conceding that. So there is nothing more for the opposition to

[ Page 1401 ]

do at this particular time except say that it is most unfortunate that that truth about the Social Credit government was not expressed during the campaign by those members.

MR. VEITCH: Through you, Mr. Chairman, I'd just like to point out to the hon. member that at the outset the three council idea was not a bad concept: the Management Advisory Council, the Academic Council and the Occupational Training Council. Unfortunately these councils were taken over by people such as Mr. Art Kube, who was a prime mover in that. At his urging all of these other things fell into place and they grew like topsy. It just shows that when a socialist gets involved with something, it costs the people of British Columbia a lot of money, and even good ideas can be turned sour.

Sections 1 and 2 approved.

On section 3.

MR. ROSE: Mr. Chairman, I just hope that the content of section 3 doesn't also occur further down in the bill. I think that we are entitled to debate each section, regardless of its content. I think you would agree with me and defend my right to do that, even if it....

[2:45]

Interjection.

MR. ROSE: And so would the Provincial Secretary (Hon. Mr. Chabot). Although I can't promise the Provincial Secretary that I will be brief, I will try to be to the point and positive. Brief is not something you ask readily of a politician, especially on a Thursday afternoon.

I rise with particular reference to section 3(k), lines 9 and 10 of clause 3. For the benefit of those who tuned in late, 3(k) allows the minister to require institutions to avoid unnecessary duplications in courses offered. I don't know whether that means between institutions, among institutions, or duplication even in the same institution. That has not been specified and it is not clear to me, but I will assume that it means in a region. If there tends to be a proliferation of what the minister or the department feels might be defined as the same course, it gives the minister the power — ultimately, I guess, through an articulation committee — to whip in there and tell the college that they may or may not offer that program. This is a rather violent and revolutionary departure, and a diminution of the powers of college boards. For the first time, the minister and his department are allowed, through this bill, to determine course offerings — not the local needs, nothing to do with the interests of the students or the interests of the people who live in that community. The minister alone, I suppose as a cost-cutting measure, is to determine what courses are to be offered by what colleges. That assumes that there may be alternatives; that a student wishing a certain kind of program may get it somewhere else. I don't view it as that, and I don't think we know enough yet about how it will work. But we do know that it is an assumption of power by the minister to determine the course offerings of a community college, and to my knowledge this is the first time that has ever happened.

Interjection.

MR. ROSE: I said it was to my knowledge. How can I be wrong about that? It provides the minister with the authority.... If it hasn't happened before, he doesn't need the clause, as far as I am concerned. It is a simple proposition.

In the urge to cut course offerings, it will eventually — or could possibly, maybe even probably — allow the minister to cut the number of academic courses offered if, in the minister's view, the academic courses offered didn't necessarily.... There are studies to show that this has not happened, that people who take academic transfer programs do not always transfer. They may take these courses for their own interest, their own well-being, their own broadening and education. I think one of the things we have prided ourselves on in British Columbia is that education isn't considered to be a one-shot thing anymore, nor should it be in a modern technological society, but is something to which a person has continuous access during his lifetime.

I am saying that under (k) the minister potentially has the power to determine whether or not courses will be offered, or the power to close down courses and no longer offer them, or to order them to be offered. I don't think that is an appropriate power for a central authority. It may be a power desired by a central authority, but it isn't necessarily justified just because the central authority may wish the power. Some people have concerned themselves about this problem by suggesting that if these course offerings are duplications or whatever, it gives the minister the power to avoid duplications. It sounds only reasonable if these courses are offered and there is nobody in them, if nobody really wants them but they are offered. I don't know if there is any proof for that, any statistics to back this up. I think what will happen is that the number of course offerings will be reduced. They are not going to be increased. The minister isn't going to go in there and add anything. Under (k) the minister has the power to take away. The Lord will taketh away if he feels like it, whatever the pressures of restraint upon him at the moment and how he reacts to those pressures.

There is a trend to this centralized control, which I think can have serious effects on accessibility, and also on quality of post-secondary institutions. Perhaps some things might be said about what these effects could possible be. Professor John Dennison of UBC, who has addressed himself to this problem, makes a number of rather profound and intelligent comments. His major point is that "allocation and reallocation of programs by the ministry on a provincial and-or regional basis will effectively eliminate participation for a large number of students, particularly mature students." Why? you ask. Well, Prof. Dennison says that recent studies indicate that the vast majority of these individuals are not geographically mobile. So it follows — as night follows day, as they say — that if someone who is not geographically mobile wants a particular kind of course to provide himself with the prerequisites, or for whatever reason, and that course is denied in that region, if he's stuck housebound in a particular place, he doesn't have the course. Which means your access is limited. I don't think I need to pound that one any further. It's pretty clear. I think that's one of the things that concern people when the minister gives himself or takes unto himself the power, as he does under 3(k), "to require institutions to avoid unnecessary duplication of courses."

In the past we've had satellite campuses, which even improve the opportunities for people to have access. Satellite campuses given in the various high schools provide that kind

[ Page 1402 ]

of access in areas that may not have highly advanced transportation systems. A member of my own family is now working in Vancouver, and it takes about an hour to get there by bus. That's about 30 miles away from where that family lives. She was offered another job about 5 or 10 miles away from where she lives, and it's going to take her two and a half hours, because it's not on a bus route. So if you eliminate a satellite campus or a course offering, what you're doing is cutting down on access for housebound people, or people who do not have the transportation facilities that they might need.

There are other ways, I suppose, that that problem might be addressed. There's distance learning. There's the Knowledge Network and other matters such as that. But this doesn't always work for all students. I think a student has to be highly motivated in order to have the discipline to put himself down to work without personal attention. Knowledge coming from the television set or some other package such as correspondence courses will certainly work for the highly disciplined mature student, but certainly does not meet the psychologicai needs of some others, and students who need that personal attention by an instructor. They're stopgaps. They may have some remarkable successes. Nobody would suggest that the Open Learning Institute of Britain wasn't a remarkable success; it met the needs of many. But nobody suggested that they should shut down the schools and universities merely because they had it. That was the frosting on the cake.

A further example of how this form of learning may not be the be-all and end-all, but only a cheap compromise.... Not that you shouldn't use high technology, but about 10 or 15 years ago in education we had a real trendy thing: it was called a teaching machine. It was based on the work of one psychologist by the name of Skinner, who worked with pigeons. Mr. Skinner's efforts with pigeons worked out very well. He could teach pigeons to peck for grain all over the place in very intricate patterns. Various kinds of pecking pigeons were on display at such places as the Seattle World's Fair. Naturally the pecking pigeons had a profound effect upon professors. Some of these professors thought if you could get immediate feedback — and I don't use that as a pun — from pecking certain patterns.... If you could do that with pigeons, you could gratify a student learner in a similar way through a teaching machine.

AN HON. MEMBER: Pigeon-hole them.

MR. ROSE: As my friend says, this wouldn't necessarily pigeon-hole them as failures. It might actually help them. It would do a lot of things, Mr. Chairman, that were educationally very satisfying, and also valid. It would provide for individual instruction, because all pigeons don't learn to peck at the same time, and it was considered that humans wouldn't either. But we don't even hear of teaching machines any more. They were elaborate things. They came in little boxes. Some of them came in books. Some of them were on television and looked a little bit like these video games. But the point is that they were impersonal. The people didn't peck them with the same enthusiasm as did the pigeons.

So here's another example where if you try to provide a substitute that is impersonal, in spite of all its theoretical validity, it may not be very effective. So I leave that one with you, and an elaboration of Prof. Dennison's observation number two: the point that many students need personal attention to overcome psychological factors formulates an effective barrier — not an educational advantage, says Prof. Dennison, but a barrier — to further education.

The third point he makes is: "Colleges will be unable to respond to the unique and urgent needs of their own communities." If a community decides it needs a particular kind of course desperately, that might be convincing to the minister. But he need not pay any further attention, because recall this as well, Mr. Chairman. The minister has also seen to it in this bill — a little bit further down, and I'll have more to say about that later — that those people who are placed on the board who are likely to raise Cain with the minister and demand local autonomy and local control may not be there. I'm quite sure that the minister is not going to appoint many mavericks to that board. So we may not have that happen. What will happen is the eventual disintegration of community learning, which was traditionally provided by community colleges. That is a serious thing, and that's why we treat the bill very seriously. It doesn't mean we're going to talk on it forever; it may only seem like forever. But it does mean that we treat the matter with extreme seriousness. We think the minister is barking up the wrong tree. We've been wrong before. It's hard to say this, but the Social Credit government has been wrong before. The five councils are perfect examples of the rethinking since 1979. We hope our words will have some effect, although we don't have a great deal of faith that they're going to move mountains, even though the minister is always willing to consult — especially after the legislation is in place.

The point I tried to make yesterday is also touched on by Prof. Dennison in his paper. He talked about how colleges and institutes will provide educational services to an increasingly selective segment of the population: that is, those who are young, mobile and financially comfortable. I thought that the whole raison d'etre for the community college was that it was not just for the young but also for the mature, for the immobile and not just the mobile, and for those people who may not have the financial resources to go out of their own communities for further education. To me that seems to strike at the very heart of universality, on which we in this country and also in America have prided ouselves: that our education system is available to all and, hopefully, without major regard — although it's been an objective and an ideal, we've never made it yet — to a person's income. We have believed in free, universal education, certainly in the elementary and secondary schools, and we were moving towards it by relatively low fees in the post-secondary schools, providing a less expensive form of education.

[3:00]

If, through the reduction of courses, the only people able to take advantage of those courses are those who are able to move throughout the region and pay board somewhere, then you're restricting access to education. We look upon this with some regret, because we think it is a reversal of the direction we've been taking over the past 150 years that we've had public education in this country — free, universal, community public education. If it's taken to its illogical extreme — and I know it's illogical — I'm afraid that a kind of elitism will develop, where you teach the best and shoot the rest. We want as many people as possible to take advantage of these offerings, whether vocational or academic, and to be able to have an opportunity to do so.

Another point raised here is that community and continuing education tend to be given lower priority under a

[ Page 1403 ]

centralized, cost-effective structure. The quality-of-life argument probably....

MR. CHAIRMAN: Hon. member, the Chair really hates to interrupt at this point, but section 3 is quite specific. Although the member's debate is relevant to education, perhaps it might be better canvassed during the estimates. We seem to be going beyond the scope of the section before us.

MR. ROSE: I'll be guided by your words, Mr. Chairman. I certainly don't agree totally with them. I'm trying to make the point that if we pass (k) — which I intend to amend here pretty soon — we will restrict access to and the universality of education. I'm trying to support my argument by asking: what happens if we pass (k)? I thought that perhaps I hadn't strayed too far from the major point, but I'll certainly be guided by your admonition and will proceed with your words in mind.

I'm suggesting here that we want to make certain that colleges continue to offer quality-of-life courses, not just occupational training, because lots of people take advantage of those courses. They don't necessarily want them either for a job or as a prerequisite to something else; they want it because it makes their lives more civilized and decent. In our mania to cut costs, we may deny people that kind of access to a very meaningful thing. Ultimately what really counts in this world is how we get along and how we survive as civilized individuals, rather than how much money we make or spend. The final point is that learner groups have unique needs. The whole purpose of a college or school or anything else is to provide some kind of learning. If you don't have a learning focused on the needs of the students, learning doesn't take place.

Finally, if post-secondary education is going to be independent of outside authorities, it seems to me that the thrust of centralism will act against the best needs of individuals within the community. But I can speak to that one at greater length another time.

Let me just finish up this debate on (k) with a couple of quotes that I think are relatively important to this before I put my amendment. This is the Frank Beinder monograph again, and he says, on page 21:

"College people today are sharing concerns about the relative emphasis on general and technical-vocational education. It becomes fairly obvious that some liberal arts people are suffering deep depression. However, it can be legitimately argued that the current emphasis on technical-vocational education is a quite proper response to the very difficult economic situation...the western world is striving at the present time.

"It is a demonstration of the flexibility and responsiveness to the community and societal need that is the fundamental characteristic of the comprehensive community college. Nevertheless, it is important to recognize that there are those in positions of influence who are ready to initiate a new feudal society, the components of which would be a corporate aristocracy served by a technologically trained but otherwise uneducated peasantry."

Those are pretty lofty remarks, and somebody might ask what I mean by all....

Interjection.

MR. ROSE: I would say the concern about what might happen is that we are going to so emphasize the technical or high-tech aspect of education — vocational and occupational — and be so lured, tantalized and enchanted by that, that we will forget that there are other aspects in life that are important to the development of a human being other than his capacity to earn a living. The business about the technological world is that there would be technological serfs, probably doing very repetitive jobs, if they had jobs at all, of low skill, managed by a group of highly skilled people who have the opportunity for education, and the disappearance of the middle-class, who are the consumers of society. That kind of thinking is not unique. There are lots of other people besides Frank Beinder who make arguments along those lines.

All the futurists in the world are sometimes considered loonies. We don't know what's going to happen, really, and that's why we have to be flexible in terms of our education. I don't think it hurts to read a bit of that stuff, even if it does sound a little bit other-worldly.

On this question I'd like to move the following amendment. I would like to add to (k) the words "but no change shall be made in the courses as a result of the minister exercising his power under this section until consultation, as defined in this act, has taken place." So part (k) reads now — and I therefore so move, Mr. Chairman: — (k) require institutions to avoid unnecessary duplication in the courses offered, but no change shall be made in the courses as a result of the minister exercising his powers under this section until consultation, as defined in this act, has taken place." I would like to leave that out, because when this was proposed, we had added an amendment defining "consultation." So I'd like it to end at this point, Mr. Chairman: "...but no change shall be made in the courses as a result of the minister exercising this power under this section, until consultation has taken place." I’ll go back and discuss that in greater depth for the information of the Minister of Finance during the next amendment.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The amendment fails, as the Chair rules that it goes beyond the scope of the intent. Please proceed with section 3.

Section 3 approved.

On section 4.

MR. ROSE: I didn't expect it to come up that quickly, Mr. Chairman. I thought there would be other speakers on section 3, so it came as a bit of a surprise to me that I would have to be prepared to speak again so quickly.

However, never at a loss for words, I would like now to proceed to a little bit of a discussion on what I believe to be probably the greatest fault in the bill: the absolute removal of any kind of elected representation on college boards. I and my colleagues feel extremely strongly about that. We've said this on a number of occasions, and it just so happens that I have here in my hand an amendment that deals with that. I know that you will certainly be anxious to hear what that is, but before I move to that I think there is time for fair comment.

Mr. Chairman, the part of the section to which I refer and which I intend to amend is this: "The board of a college shall consist of 5 or more members appointed by the Lieutenant Governor-in-Council." Section 5 does something else along

[ Page 1404 ]

the same lines, but I don't wish to get into that. I don't wish to speak at any great length on this, because I know some of my other colleagues are anxious to get in on this debate. But I would like to quote from the colleges themselves, because I think it's important that those people who are going to be affected by this legislation should have an opportunity to express themselves. And they have.

I don't know whether the minister, in his introductory remarks, gave an indication that somehow these changes that he is proposing in Bill 20 have met with the enthusiastic, unanimous approval of all the college associations. I'm surprised there hasn't been more noise about it, but if you have enough members appointed by the government in your association, you are probably not going to have a violent outcry. I don't think that anybody should let this measure go without at least some reference to the British Columbia Association of Colleges. This group represents board members and others — administrators of these colleges. They wrote the minister on July 25, 1983, giving him their views on what they think of section 4. I know the minister has read this, and I apologize, but I think it's important that this matter be read into the record, because I wouldn't want anybody to be confused about how the college board members feel about this.

"Our members view the above-quoted amendment...." That is the amendment to section 4 making all board members appointed instead of being elected, as some of them were in the past, through the school board. From now on the boards will be smaller and all will be appointed. People have talked, probably disparagingly, about the possibility that puppets will be appointed there. They may not be broadly representative of the community. They may be from one particular group. They will probably be just from business interests; they probably will not represent labour or women's groups, homemakers, the professions. They may, on the other hand. It is certainly to be hoped that they will be broadly based and community-representative groups. Nevertheless, we've seen the end of the indirect election of school board members who've been elected by the public, and they are now going to be replaced entirely by political appointments.

I'll go on to read the letter:

"Our members view the above-quoted amendment revising the provisions for appointment of members of boards of colleges as being incompatible with the community mandate of our institutions. We appreciate that one of the factors in the decision to remove appointees of school boards from college boards was a perceived need to reduce the size of certain of those governing bodies."

They're costly. They get paid if they go there. They get their transportation and probably money for cookies and that sort of thing.

[3:15]

"Nevertheless it is noted with regret that the mechanism chosen has eliminated any source of members who are and can be seen to be independent of the government of the day."

That is a crucial point. That's the point that concerns us. This section removes the possibility that these board members can be seen as independent of the government of the day. The point is made here that the possibility strongly exists that the minister could be appointing his pals to these jobs, and that's the kind of views we'll get. We won't get any opposition views. We won't get any contradictory views. Those are not my words at this time; those are the words of the members of this particular association. It's signed by the president, Mr. Abe H. Unruh: "We believe that about half of the members of any board should have that independence." Well, I believe they all should, because presumably we come in here that way, and act as a board for the province.

"Also, in the matter of the appropriate minimum numbers of members to be appointed to a college board, our membership has stated clearly its doubt of the adequacy of the five member boards in both the maintenance of the interests of the local community and in the efficient management of the colleges." The boards are too small, they say.

"Where there is an insufficient number of board members to perform necessary committee duties, the public interest in colleges tends to be surrendered to the control of employed administrators." In other words, the bureaucrats are running the policy-makers. What happens is that we have a legislative role by the board members getting all mixed up in the executive role. So it's the job of the board to determine what is to be done, and it is the job of the executive or the administrative to do it. If the administrative starts making policy, you have confusion in the lines, and this can't be good in any kind of a management scheme, let alone one that purports to run an institution of higher education. "It is the considered opinion of my association that to be efficient, a board should consist of not less than nine members."

"We have observed that the school trustees and other appointees of school boards who have been members of college boards have made significant contributions to the development of their institutions and to the system in general. It is perhaps significant that of the past 11 elected presidents of the B.C. Association of Colleges, eight have been school board appointees."

Well, where are they going to come from now? They're not going to come from school board appointees, because there won't be any. Maybe there won't be any British Columbia Association of Colleges. I understand that certain kinds of threats and questions about the validity of the B.C. School Trustees Association have been made, and as to whether or not school boards will be able to pay their dues to that august body which has served us so well. Maybe this will be the same here. I'm not quite finished with this letter, Mr. Chairman.

"In virtually all the college regions there is an extensive interaction between the college and local school districts — an articulation if you like. This has been particularly evident in the matter of articulation of courses and programs, emphasized by your government in 1979 as an important exercise in cost effectiveness. This activity has been greatly facilitated by the direct involvement of school board appointees on college boards."

This, we remind ourselves, is what the minister seeks to eliminate.

"Inasmuch as the school board appointees have continued to be trustees or ex-trustees, the colleges have been assured of representation which is not only independent of the government of the day but is a demonstrated interest and has become knowledgable in specifically the educational requirements of the community.

[ Page 1405 ]

"While there may be other ways of achieving these objectives, the appointment of a significant proportion of members of college boards by school boards is the method which has been used. It has been productive."

Mr. Unruh closes by saying: "We submit that until another equally effective way of selecting independent community representatives for appointment to college boards is found, the current procedure should be continued." They want the thing to remain as it is. They don't want the end of the school board appointees, for all the reasons Fve given. These are the people who are going to be affected by it.

Therefore, Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment. In section 4, line 2, after "Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council," I move the following words be added: "But the majority of members shall be elected school trustees from areas served by the college, selected on the recommendations of their boards."

MR. CHAIRMAN: The member may proceed.

On the amendment.

MR. D'ARCY: In support of the amendment, I doubt seriously that the minister — the neutron bomb of the Social Credit debating society over there — is going to agree with the amendment, but I think it really embodies the principle of the entire bill. Yesterday the Minister of Education, the member for Prince George North (Hon. Mr. Heinrich), in attempting to justify the actions that he is taking in this bill, used the argument that since the local school boards no longer put up or shared in either capital funding or in operating funds for community colleges, they really have no input into what those community colleges did.

Mr. Chairman, this is a specious argument. Coming from a resource-producing area of this province, the minister knows full well that the funding that goes into the College of New Caledonia comes from the people of Prince George and the surrounding regions. The investors, the working people, the businessmen and the professionals produce the money which is channelled through this government in Victoria to provide post-secondary training in the community that he represents in the Legislature. Similarly Selkirk College in the West Kootenay is funded with money which comes from the resource industries, the people, the businessmen and the workers of that area. The minister knows that. To use his specious argument, I suppose, we could say we should even do away with the provincial government and let Ottawa decide everything. After all, they're elected to take responsibility.

I could give the minister a tiny bit of a history lesson in this because I was personally involved when Selkirk College, which was the first self-contained campus of any community college that was built.... The fact remains that there were referenda, Mr. Chairman. There were referenda passed for both capital and operating funds on a sharing basis, using the formula set up under the auspices of my honourable predecessor, Mr. Donald Brothers, who was the MLA at the time for Rossland-Trail and Minister of Education. He worked very well with many people, one of whom was chairman of the school board at that time. Yesterday the member for Coquitlam-Moody (Mr. Rose) alluded to Mr. Frank Beinder. He was the chairman of the Trail school board district 9 and was a resident of Rossland at the time.

The fact is that there were local referenda. There were people in no fewer than six school districts. There's been some reorganization, but I'll read them off now: Arrow Lakes, Nelson, Castlegar, Kaslo-Creston, Trail and Grand Forks participated, by their democratic vote, Mr. Chairman, in both capital and operating costs because they wanted post-secondary education, technologies and occupational training in the West Kootenay. They wanted it for themselves as adults; they wanted it for their children.

Mr. Chairman, to suggest that because a process that started under my colleague from Burnaby North when she was minister, where the province started taking 100 percent of capital costs, and continued under the present government, where the province took over 100 percent of operating costs as well, which was a good thing.... To suggest that is a reason why there should be no more elected — I want to emphasize "elected" — community involvement in community colleges is getting into some kind of newspeak here where we call them community colleges but, in fact, there's a centralized, authoritarian control from the minister's office in Victoria over the operations of community colleges. The fact is, Mr. Chairman, that you know and I'm sure every member of this House knows that the broad policy and educational goals are still — and will remain — under the control of the ministry and the government in Victoria. So what has the minister to fear that there may be some locally elected people as a countervailing influence on the people that the minister arbitrarily appoints?

The minister of the day may, in some respects, be a well-intentioned and responsible person. He may know a great deal about the community that he comes from, and he may reflect the educational needs and desires for post-secondary, technological and academic training in his community. But, Mr. Chairman, he would have to be some kind of superman to know all of the needs of West Kootenay, Langley, greater Victoria and the northern part of Vancouver Island. The best way of meeting those needs is with people who are duly elected by the ratepayers, the taxpayers and the property owners of those areas.

Going back once more to one of the reasons community colleges were established, because there was a recognition that the educational institutions of B.C., including BCIT, were not necessarily always providing training that was useful to the employers of B.C., whether they were large or small industries, retail businesses or various elements of the public sector and Crown corporations.... There were people being graduated from educational institutions in B.C., with a large public subsidy, who in fact, unfortunately, Mr. Chairman, were not employable. It had nothing to do with the quality of their training. The fact is that they simply were not being channelled into occupations and trades that were necessarily needed. I blame the private sector as well as government in this.

One of the things that community colleges did — again I can relate to my own area — was to go out to employers in those communities, large and small, and say: "What kind of positions and qualifications are you having trouble filling? What things are you having to go to other parts of Canada to find people who are qualified for? In what areas are you having to advertise in Great Britain and in Europe to fill positions?" As much as possible, those local boards and councils established technologies and occupational training to meet those requirements of employers in British Columbia, to use B.C. taxpayers' dollars to train not just young

[ Page 1406 ]

people but adults as well, and retrain adults who maybe want to improve themselves, in some cases where they may have had some economic adversity and found themselves on welfare or UIC, to train them for jobs that were waiting for them, with employers in both the private and the public sector. The minister is turning his back on the practical and obvious lessons that have taken place in British Columbia and in other jurisdictions, both to the south of us, in the lower 48 as they are called, and to the east of us in the rest of Canada. Sure, it is a good idea to streamline the cost of boards and councils in this day and age. There may be some valid argument for reducing the total number of board members. But looking at Selkirk College in particular, we still have six different school districts involved, and he proposes to reduce that board to five, and possibly as many as five members all appointed arbitrarily by Victoria.

Many speeches have been given over the past three months about not only the evils of authoritarian centralism but the impracticality of it in terms of being cost-effective, of delivering services that the public of B.C. want and need and are prepared to pay for, even and especially in times of economic adversity. One of the major areas of service that the public of B.C. have time and time again shown their willingness to pay for is post-secondary, occupational, academic and technological training. In fact, the Minister of Universities, Science and Communications (Hon. Mr. McGeer) constantly likes to give speeches about how this is the great future for the province of British Columbia. If we don't have this kind of input from the local level, how is the public of B.C. going to receive these kinds of services, and how is the public going to have programs designed to meet the employment needs of employers? We often talk about the employment needs of people; I would like to talk a bit about the employment needs of employers who in many cases simply cannot find, within all of the training in B.C., people trained for the positions they have openings for.

I sincerely hope that the minister will consider accepting this amendment. There will be no cost to the government, but it will allow that all-important local community input into the management, operation and, perhaps most importantly, the academic, technological and occupational programs of the community colleges throughout the province.

[3:30]

HON. MR. HEINRICH: I am rising to speak against the amendment. It seems strange that appointments made from people within the community are precluded from having input, and the only criteria which the members opposite seem to be attaching to school board appointees, or trustees in particular, is that they happen to be elected to a school board. I would venture to say — and my experience tells me, in the area with which I am particularly familiar — is that the appointees on the board of the College of New Caledonia are extraordinarily active. As a matter of fact, this is the function which they have taken unto themselves, and they have done a very good job. Why is it necessary, when we have a college serving a large geographic area...? As my nemesis over there, the member for Rossland-Trail, says, he has six school districts. So suddenly what do we have? Six school districts in the area, and everybody in each district is going to want to have someone appointed. So suddenly we look at the legislation, and what do we find? A minimum of 13. One of the big arguments which has been put before me constantly is that the size of college boards is too large. Do you know how many are sitting on the board of Okanagan College? Twenty-two.

Interjection.

HON. MR. HEINRICH: Then you are faced with the other problem, and that is.... I am in order, am I not, Mr. Chairman?

MR. CHAIRMAN: Sure.

HON. MR. HEINRICH: The point is, you have districts competing for representation. We get into the Kootenays and somebody says: "Well, it should come from Cranbrook and not from another area, because we have only got room for so many." One of the things is the presumption in the remarks made by some members of the opposition. You seem to think you have got the corner on the market of people who are prepared to make a contribution in the community where they live. There are lots of people who support us in what we are doing. There are lots of people in labour, and homemakers. A valid point was made yesterday by the member for Burnaby North (Mrs. Dailly), and you can rest assured it is something I am going to examine: that is, there apparently is a deficiency of women on college boards throughout the province. There are 22 colleges, and I think it is something that must be examined. The legislation makes reference to five-plus. Many of the boards themselves have been advocating something in the area of seven or nine. In one case I have a request made for 11.

I'd like to just refresh the memory of some of the members with respect to some of the comments made yesterday. I advised the House yesterday of the number of other jurisdictions — particularly Alberta and Ontario, which in fact have colleges comparable to those in British Columbia — which do not have school board appointees or trustees on the college boards. But I advised the House, in fairness, as well that those colleges do not have the history that those in British Columbia have with respect to the way the funding started with respect to operating capital, the use of facilities and shared administration. I also advised the House yesterday that many colleges in the United States are operating on the same basis — they are government or state appointees; I think I said state appointees.

The next example I gave was Pacific Vocational Institute. PVI has entered into a liaison contract with six school districts, which I named yesterday, all of which are in the Fraser Valley. There is a seventh one coming in and that is the Vancouver School Board. That's something. I would also mention — and I don't think I'm being facetious in any way in saying this — that I believe school trustees right now have their plates full, and we are well aware of what is going on.

Interjection.

HON. MR. HEINRICH: All right, fair enough. They've got a lot of work to do.

Interjection.

HON. MR. HEINRICH: You bet, but there are tough times here right now and we're going to come through this everybody will.

Another item which I raised with you is the matter of liaison with school districts. I gave an example yesterday

[ Page 1407 ]

which involved a problem in Quesnel, and Quesnel is served by the College of New Caledonia. It was felt that if a committee was set up to resolve the problem, it could be handled and it was.

I think when we add up all of these items and the comments which were made yesterday.... I don't accept the fact that it's a specious argument. The fact that the government now totally funds colleges, the fact that school boards were integral parts of the college system when it first came into existence and through its development period when they shared facilities.... The school district was used as a vehicle for raising not only operating money but also capital for development. The colleges are now fully established with their own facilities — reasonably well-established; they are always looking for more. I think the members continually ignore the statement which I repeatedly make, and that is: the objective which we have is to really ensure that the colleges are autonomous bodies. What we want is to shrink, as much as possible, the administration in Victoria — I can assure you of that — and put out into the colleges the funds which are available as far as course curriculum and articulation is concerned. You can't just put out $300-plus million and not have something to say about it. I don't think the members opposite are really asking that.

I will start to stray, Mr. Chairman, if we get into that other matter, but as far as the school trustees are concerned, I raised another point. That is that a number of college employees in British Columbia are serving on school boards. It seems to me that when we have the college board meeting and somebody is sitting on the school board who is an elected trustee and is involved with certain confidential meetings in camera which then suddenly come back in and the school boards says, "We want to know what's going on," we're placing those people in a conflict-of-interest position, which I don't think we have the right to do.

It also seems to me that we make the commitment as a government that those people appointed to college boards are in fact from the community. I recognize the allegations which were made with respect to everything being business-oriented. But when I turn around and look at the composition of the boards now, excluding the trustees or school board appointees, I find that there is a wide variation in the vocational or professional backgrounds of those people on the boards. I have a little bit more faith in human nature and in the commitment of those individuals in the communities where the colleges are located. I think you're right. I think the opposition is correct: it's incumbent on government to ensure — and I mean this sincerely — that there is representation on those college boards, not just to cover vocational work but to look at the academic side as well. There's no question about that. I feel that this will all come to pass.

Mr. Chairman, I cannot, nor can the government, support the amendment which the member for Coquitlam-Moody (Mr. Rose) has placed before the House.

MR. COCKE: I expected that, but I didn't expect the weak argument that the minister produced. The minister is telling the House that he and his government colleagues can make all the appointments from Victoria by order-in-council and not involve the community at large. In his convoluted argument, he is saying that he is somehow involving the community. He made a very weak argument about the fact that sometime somewhere in some historical situation there was an employee, or more, of the college on the school board who wound up on the college board. That situation need not occur. Those people can be exempted from service in that particular situation. It's not a strong argument.

We're saying that the people in a community should have the right to elect just the majority of the trustees — and this is what we're asking for here — not the board of directors and not the entire board. The government can have its input. The government is doing the financing, although sometimes I wonder where they're getting their money.

MR. REID: You don't know? You don 't know where they get the money from?

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. The member will come to order.

MR. COCKE: Nor does he. You get it off the backs of property owners and off the backs of people who should not be taxed for these particular purposes, if the letter of intent was to be followed.

In any event, when the minister suggests that we have a corner on the market of community involvement — at least, he suggests that that's the way we feel — I don't think he's far from the truth. I believe that an elected person has a direct responsibility to that community, and part of that responsibility is to see that the community's needs are reflected.

The minister apologized to the member for Burnaby-Edmonds (Ms. Brown) that there weren't enough women on college boards. There's a dearth of women on college boards, and we've all seen that under the old seven situation. That happens by virtue of the fact that the minister appoints. How come it didn't come to his attention sooner? He says he's going to do something about it. Don't hold your breath. The fact of the matter is that the majority of the people on the college board should be elected; therefore this proposed amendment is an excellent one.

[3:45]

He talks about autonomy. Where? Autonomy in his office: that's the kind of autonomy he's looking for. Once his amendment passes, he appoints every college board person in the province of B.C. He's reduced it to five or more. That's a nice, tight little organization. So he pulls all the strings, gives all the directions, and the community aspect of colleges is taken away. They will be run from the minister's office. That's what we're talking about here. Let's bring a little bit of daylight into this whole thing. Let's bring a little bit of democracy into it, as much and all as he doesn't like it. I believe that an elected person who is responsible to the community plays a very large part.

One last word, Mr. Chairman. He said that they have enough on their plate now — that is, the school board. He's given them an awful lot of trouble, there's no question about that. He's taken a lot of their autonomy and decision-making away too. As a representative of New Westminster who has watched Douglas College from the very beginning and has seen the hard work that those school trustees who served on the board right from its inception have put into that college, I would say that anybody bringing in a new bill like this which will eliminate all that — all orders-in-council, all appointed by the minister — is doing a real injustice to the college system in our province.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Hon. members, in the matter of the amendment as presented by the hon. member for Coquitlam-

[ Page 1408 ]

Moody (Mrs. Wallace), this amendment simply restates the principle of section 6 of the College and Institute Act, which section 4 of the bill before us is amending. Therefore the amendment as proposed by the member fails, as it does not amend the motion but negates it, which can be done simply by voting against the Section in question. I so rule.

On section 4.

MR. HOWARD: I must say that I'm absolutely astounded, Mr. Chairman — and I'm not being critical of the Chair — at the manner in which it's possible to seek out reasons for ruling things out of order, rather than trying to find reasons for their being in order.

I listened to the minister's remarks, and he was permitted to debate extensively on the amendment, as was the member for Rossland-Trail (Mr. D'Arcy), and then the Chair decided after it had been debated that it could not be debated any longer, because for some obscure reason it's out of order.

In any event....

MR. CHAIRMAN: Please proceed, hon. member.

MR. HOWARD: Well, the House has a bit of a problem now, Mr. Chairman. While you were busily engaged with your proper work, the Minister of Education skipped out, and now he's not available to answer questions. How can he answer questions when he's outside the door? I think we need to have a space of time here, awaiting the return of the absent Minister of Education.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Other hon. members may wish to participate in the debate on this section.

MR. HOWARD: Here he is, Mr. Chairman. Welcome back. Now the Minister of Education has decided to attend to his duties in the chamber with respect to this bill.

HON. MR. HEINRICH: You're a generous soul.

MR. HOWARD: I am awfully generous. So much so that I'm going to indicate to the minister that I don't think the arguments which he put forward were specious. He has said himself that he didn't think they were specious and neither do I. I just think the minister was obtuse enough to miss the entire point of what we're discussing on this particular section, or what was proposed in the amendment which is no longer before us.

The fundamental question here is one of centralization and authoritarianism; of a mad desire on the part of this government to run everybody's life in this province as this government sees fit. The central question is domination by the Minister of Education and the cabinet of anything that it can get its hands on to dominate. That's the fundamental question before us now: control over college boards, as there is to be control with respect to school boards, hospital boards and with a number of other institutions in this province which are considered to be levels of government. That's what is at issue here.

The minister is a pleasant person and one to whom I enjoy listening, whether he's in order or not at any given time, one who is, I'm sure, committed to his concepts of what is decent and correct. But he is trying to put his own character in the forefront of this particular piece of legislation and attempting thereby to convince the House and the general public that because he, the Minister of Education, is a nice and a decent guy, all is well. As he knows — I don't know how many cabinet posts he's had since he's been in the cabinet, but he's hopped, skipped and jumped from one to the other — there may well come a time when he will not be the Minister of Education. Somebody else may hold that post who does not have the generous view of this minister. I think it's highly incorrect and highly improper for a minister to draw upon his own personality and say: "Because I'm a nice guy and this is a good thing, I won't abuse it." That is the wrong way to approach things.

He knows full well that when this House passes legislation it is the law for all time to come until a subsequent legislature changes it. Ministers come and ministers go, and you might have a bad guy at some time in the office of the Minister of Education who will want to use this particular provision to make his own crass, rotten political appointments to college boards and intrude upon them. That was the purpose of part of the amendment that the minister talked against. It was to ensure that there would be some kind of counterbalance against the potential abuse of a provision of this nature.

In addition to that, it is not the minister who makes the appointments; it's the cabinet. The minister may make recommendations internally within the cabinet. He may say, "I'd like these persons to be appointed by the Lieutenant-Governor," but the Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council is the cabinet. It's not the minister. So to drag himself out as the saviour of bad doings and unfair practices is an improper way to attempt to lead this House to support his provisions. That was done before.

The origin of what the minister is seeking to do now — that is, to centralize control and authority in the hands of the cabinet in Victoria — was two years ago. He was the minister of something else at that time — Labour, if my memory serves me correctly — when his colleague the Attorney-General, the then Minister of Education (Hon. Mr. Smith), brought in an amendment to the College and Institute Act. That amendment, brought in in 1980, said that the Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council will have the authority to appoint members to the college board so that there will always be one more person appointed by government than there would be chosen by school boards. In other words, the government would always have majority control by its appointments on any particular college board.

The argument put forward at that time by the former Minister of Education — and I submit that it was a highly misleading argument — is exactly the same argument the minister is using now. The minister is now saying that this is because college boards are funded 100 percent by the provincial treasury. Of course, that disregards the very valid point made by my colleague for Rossland-Trail (Mr. D'Arcy) that people who live and work in those communities and areas served by colleges pay the taxes that come to the provincial treasury here and go back to the college board. The argument that the provincial treasury funds colleges 100 percent is exactly the same argument that his predecessor, the now Attorney-General, made in 1980 in support of the provision to ensure that the cabinet always had the final authority in controlling and in dominating college boards.

The former Minister of Education, I submit, not only misled this House with respect to intentions, but he also misled the school trustees. When that particular amendment

[ Page 1409 ]

of 1980 to which I referred was being dealt with in this House, the former Minister of Education on June 4, 1980, in support of his desire to have one additional person appointed by cabinet on college boards, pointed out that there had been a resolution passed at the B.C. School Trustees' Association convention objecting to that course of action. I will quote Hon. Mr. Smith from page 2803 of Hansard, June 4, 1980: "I was questioned at that convention on this proposed amendment. I gave my answer and rationale.... " His answer and rationale is exactly what the minister is advancing now in support of his desires here. "I gave my answer and rationale, just as I did in this House, and I got a very good applause and reception after that. They disagreed with me and passed a resolution. I accept that." Then he goes on further to discuss this point about school districts.

Their concern then, as it is now, was local control — local opportunity — for people to participate in and have a say in the college board serving their particular community. The former Minister of Education, the now Attorney-General — and I want the minister to pay attention to this — in attempting to get passed through this House the bill to ensure that the cabinet would always have the right to appoint one more person to college boards than there were elected school trustees said, in his request for support for the provision, and this is a commitment: "Every school district in a college region will have the right still to appoint one trustee to the board, and that will provide local flavour and local decision making from each of those regions." That was the commitment of the former Minister of Education when he dealt with an earlier amendment. His commitment was unequivocally that every school district will have the right. Now the minister he doesn't care what he said.

[4:00]

In 1980 the minister was in the cabinet which made that decision, and he supported it at that time. The minister is now flying in the face of his own support of three years ago, saying: "I don't care what I committed myself to then; I now want to control it completely. I now want to run the show, I now want to see the cabinet dominate exclusively and entirely," potentially without regard for any desire of local people to have a say in who will be on that college board, except perhaps by coming in a very pleading sort of way and saying to the cabinet: "Will you appoint me to the college board? I am a good Social Crediter." They will ask him to drag out his card, and they may appoint him. That's the potential involved in this particular piece of legislation. No, I don't think the minister's earlier arguments were specious; I just think they were obstinately missing the point. This Minister of Education knows very well that his position in 1980 I on this self-same matter flies in the face of it. Maybe that means he has completely sold out his principles to the domination within the cabinet.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Hon. member, that remark isn't parliamentary. I will ask the hon. member to withdraw the reference to the hon. minister.

MR. HOWARD: What reference?

MR. CHAIRMAN: The reference in the last statement made by the member for Skeena was deemed to be unparliamentary, and I will ask him, in the tradition of parliament, to withdraw the reference to another hon. member.

MR. HOWARD: I wouldn't mind knowing what the reference is that I am supposed to withdraw. I said a number of things about the minister — about his activities three years ago, about his flying in the face of his own decision.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The Chair finds the reference to the selling out principles to he unparliamentary. Will the member please withdraw that?

MR. HOWARD: Will I withdraw the reference that the minister sold out his principles?

MR. CHAIRMAN: I think an unqualified withdrawal is sufficient.

MR. HOWARD: I am asking if that's what you are asking me to withdraw.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Yes.

MR. HOWARD: I will withdraw the reference that the minister sold out his principles.

MR. CHAIRMAN: That is fine, hon. member.

MR. HOWARD: But I did not say that; I said maybe he did; I will withdraw the maybe part as well.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The withdrawal has been made.

The hon. member for Coquitlam-Moody.

MR. ROSE: Just a few remarks, because I would like to address myself to some of the things said by the minister when he got up to debate what we had to say about this amendment. I don't think it need take very long but I would like to clarify a few things.

We argued for the election of people to these boards, as has been done in the past. Not that we charge that all people appointed to the boards were either unrepresentative or didn't do a good job. We are not saying that appointed people do not do a good job. The amendment I put forward suggested that at least half should be elected because they tend to be more representative. We want them to be elected because they are accountable and can be much more accountable than if they are appointed. There is always the fear that the government in power is likely to appoint to boards of various kinds its own supporters.

I can give you a very interesting example. I was defeated in 1974. I had been very active on the broadcast committee, and I got to know a lot of film-makers. We have in this country an agency called the Canadian Film Development Corporation, which funds feature films, advancing money to develop a Canadian film industry. I got to know some of those people, including the director. It has a board equivalent to a college board. I was asked by the film-makers themself if I would accept their recommendation for appointment to the Canadian Film Development Corporation. I said: "Sure, go ahead, that's terrific, but I will never be appointed." They said, "Why not?" and I said: "Because I am not a Liberal." We are concerned about the same thing here. Not that able people are not appointed to these boards, but it's more likely that those who are appointed will be people known to the government, friends of the government, and we are concerned about a broadly based board.

[ Page 1410 ]

We are also concerned about a board that is accountable. If a school board person doesn't do his job, or an MLA or MP, the option always exists to toss him out at the next election. He's not there at the pleasure of the Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council; he's there at the pleasure of the people. We happen to think that this is a good principle. Why not appoint all your school boards, Mr. Minister? Are you planning to do that next? Why not appoint the school boards if you are going to appoint the college boards? Certainly you might have a multiple jurisdiction in school boards that overlap a number of municipalities, but you don't use the argument there and it makes little or no sense to use it in the other place as well.

Another thing that the minister said that bothers me a bit is a suggestion that people employed as college teachers shouldn't have the option or the right of a citizen to run for or be appointed to or be a member of a college board. The minister is certainly going to fix that now. There is no question of that happening now, but to justify what he's doing because some college teachers happen to sit on college boards is to me the public denial of the rights of an individual — an adult in our society — to run for office regardless of his job.

Mr. Chairman, has anybody ever suggested that, for instance, the people involved in the real estate industry should not run for office, such as municipal council where rezonings take place?

AN HON. MEMBER: They don't work....

MR. ROSE: They do. People in certain industries, such as the real estate industry, have an opportunity to influence the zoning if they are members of council. There are obvious chances for conflict of interest there, and the member knows it as well as I do.

What I'm saying is that you can have geographical representation. Another straw-man argument is that because you have several jurisdictions feeding Selkirk College you couldn't appoint.... All the school boards would be jealous of one another. Aren't the communities going to be the same if you appoint them from one community rather than another? Presumably they are going to be geographically representative and hopefully they will be occupationally representative. What we're saying here is that we feel that it is a step backwards to do what you're doing in its entirety. We're not quarrelling with the fact that there could be some appointed people to look after the province's interests. But we think that it is the people in those areas who need the representation and the opportunity, if they don't like an appointment, to vote him out of office — throw the bum out at the next election.

Section 4 approved.

On section 5.

MR. ROSE: Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment to make to section 5, and it follows along the same line. I'll read you the amendment before I actually hand it in. Unfortunately, although I thought my previous amendment was acceptable, I found that after the Chairman had another thought or two, it was suddenly no longer acceptable. I imagine that this might suffer from the same problem.

What I would like to say is that this amendment add to section 5, after "Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council," the following words: "But the majority of members" — and I had hoped that we would have elected members on these college boards, five or more in number — "shall be broadly representative of the public at large and shall include at least one representative of the faculty, " — that might be considered a conflict of interest, but it also gives faculty input — "the student body and the support staff. Representatives of the faculty, student body and the support staff shall be appointed only after consultation with the appropriate representative groups." In other words, they become delegates to the groups they represent, whether it's faculty or student or staff.

The reason we're suggesting that is we are concerned that in a number of cases you have a kind of single-mindedness develop where you don't have certain kinds of occupational groups or when certain people who are affected by the decisions have no voice in the decisions being made about them. We don't want them to form a majority on those councils. We don't want them to be able to vote themselves huge raises, as municipal councils or MLAs or MPs are able to do. We want them there as representatives. We think that on councils there should be working people, professionals, business persons, farmers, firemen, homemakers or whatever, provided we have an occupational professional representation which is vertically long, I guess, and broad in terms of geographical representation from the area the college serves.

Mr. Chairman, I am not going to proceed unduly with this. I am concerned that the students, those who are the consumers of the services of a college, and the people who do the work there have an opportunity to have a real voice in how the institution is to be run, in the same way that MLAs and MPs have a real voice in how this institution is run. For instance, I don't believe what John Diefenbaker said about the federal parliament one time: "This institution is the only institution in Canada run entirely by its inmates."

MR. REID: Do you want to bet?

MR. ROSE: Well, I suggest that it's not the only one.

What we are concerned about, Mr. Chairman, is centralization. We want to see the representation on the policy-making bodies broadened. We want to make certain that some informed criticism comes out of these councils. We don't want them mugged or silenced; we think we can achieve this by the amendment which I have just proposed.

On the amendment.

MRS. DAILLY: Mr. Chairman, I recall that during a number of campaigns, the Premier — who is now with us in the House — was very emphatic about local control. The opposition members are giving the Social Credit government the opportunity to ensure that there is more true, local control and a broad spectrum of representation. I think that the member who just spoke has outlined all the reasons for this. When we spoke yesterday, we emphasized our grave concern that under the past ministers — and I'm not referring to the present minister — and particularly the Minister of Universities, Science and Communications, we found a very elitist approach to control of governance in our institutions. So I would hope that the new minister, starting off freshly, would not take that elitist approach; that he will ensure by accepting

[ Page 1411 ]

this amendment, that the public will truly be represented in a regional college district.

MR. COCKE: Mr. Chairman, the problem with this government is that they buck trends. They're going against trends.

For a long time, centralization became a part of the whole western world. It's about time that they started thinking forward instead of backward. It's a backward-thinking government that goes the route that they're going in terms of this proposed legislation. Centralized authority has not worked. As a matter of fact, if the minister would like to go to the library sometime, he can pick up Megatrends and read passages such as: "We've stolen a lot of our legislation from the States" — that's federally they're talking about here. "All through the system the failure of centralized top-down solutions has been accompanied by a huge upsurge in grassroots political activity everywhere in that country. Some 20 million Americans are now organized under issues and local concerns." What they are saying is that the public out there, who pay for everything, feel entitled to have direct representation. Mr. Chairman, that's really all we're talking about here.

[4:15]

MS. BROWN: Mr. Chairman, I think the minister owes it to us to explain the reason why he's not prepared to amend this section. Surely he must have had some unfortunate experience in his past with democratically elected members to the board or something. He wouldn't just decide, out of the blue, that everyone on the board should be appointed by the cabinet or by the minister unless he's had some experience with elected people which was not a very happy one. He should share that with us. I think we'd like to know why the minister is not willing to amend this section.

The whole point of committee stage is to ask questions of the minister and to get a response. This is not second reading; this is not a debate. This is a period during which the minister defends the legislation. Can the minister explain to us why he has written into the legislation that all the members are to be appointed by the cabinet? What is the reason for that?

For the third time, Mr. Chairman, I'm asking the minister to give an explanation as to why all of the members of the board have to be appointed. If the Premier would stop talking to the minister, maybe the minister would be able to listen to my question and prepare a response. Through you, Mr. Chairman, to the minister, can I have an explanation as to why the decision was made that all the members of the board should be appointed by cabinet?

MR. HOWARD: Well, the government wants to control college boards. Their authoritarianism is what's involved. That's the answer.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Hon. member, we're now on section 5, which deals with provincial institutes.

MS. BROWN: I'll reword my question: can the minister confirm that the explanation given by the hon. member for Skeena (Mr. Howard) is correct?

MR. HANSON: I'd like to answer the question. I think that if the government has the opportunity to appoint their friends, then they're going to Tozerize all these boards. All the prominent Social Credit people throughout the province will be occupying these positions. They will be taking their instructions directly from the minister. There won't be any sensitivity to local concerns, or something broad-based and reflecting the interests and concerns of the community at large. We'll just have that myopic Social Credit view of the world. Social Credit shouldn't be in the textbooks of the nation. I wanted to offer my colleague one answer, but perhaps she'd like to put it for the fourth or fifth time.

Amendment negatived.

MR. ROSE: Mr. Chairman, you accepted that amendment.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The Chair had not ruled on that amendment, hon. member.

MR. ROSE: Therefore it was accepted.

MR. CHAIRMAN: No, it was not. The Chair had just reserved ruling.

MR. ROSE: I know it was voted down, but you accepted the amendment.

MR. CHAIRMAN: No, hon. member, the Chair did not make a statement of acceptance or non-acceptance, and then I called the question.

MR. HOWARD: You obviously called the question on the amendment.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Yes. The amendment was accepted. The amendment was defeated on a voice vote, and the Chair so ruled. We're now on section 5.

MR. ROSE: On a point of order, Mr. Chairman, under what grounds was the amendment to section 5 accepted and the amendment to section 4 rejected? They're both the same, and the same ruling would be contrary to the intent of the bill.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The amendment proposed in section 5 dealt with elected school trustees, which section 4 had the principle of repealing. The amendment under section 5 of the bill before us dealt with section 9 of the Institute Act, which deals not with elected officials, but rather with appointed officials. The amendment set forward simply covered further appointed officials. So it's the principle of elected versus nonelected members. That is why the first amendment failed and the second amendment did not.

MR. HOWARD: Mr. Chairman, that's the most lucid explanation the Chair has ever given of anything in this House.

MS. BROWN: Mr. Chairman, actually I had risen to ask you to repeat your explanation, as I didn't understand it the first time, but I won't do that.

I would like the record to show that when the minister was asked a straightforward question about the decision to appoint all the members to the board, he refused to answer. That is the height of arrogance. I'm not imputing an motives; I'm simply stating a fact. Our role here is to question on behalf of the

[ Page 1412 ]

community at large; that's our responsibility. The government has a responsibility to respond to those questions. I would just like the record to show that on four separate occasions the question was put to the minister and he refused to respond.

Sections 5 to 14 inclusive approved.

On section 15.

MR. HOWARD: Can the minister give the committee an explanation of the reason for this section?

HON. MR. HEINRICH: The existing section is updated to coincide with Ministry of Finance policy. The present section reads, "direct the Comptroller General," rather than, "designate a person." I presume that this is something which has come out as a result of a request made by the auditor-general. That's what I'm informed, and I really can't advise the House any further.

MR. HOWARD: That's the first time I've ever heard, in a matter of this significance, of the minister responding by using the words "apparently it's for this reason" and he "assumes" it was for some purpose. Doesn't the minister know why? That's what I asked him. I didn't ask him if it's a change from the current situation which talks about designating the comptroller-general. I asked him: why the change? All I get back is that apparently somebody wanted it that way.

When the minister replied that "apparently" the Minister of Finance or somebody else wanted it that way, he was clearly revealing that he's not in charge of his own legislative destiny in this House. Somebody else is telling him what needs to be done in this act, just as somebody told him what needed to be done with respect to section 6 and the cabinet appointments to the college board. The minister is just a pawn in this whole game. He is dominated by cabinet and unable to make up his own mind about anything. He just revealed that very clearly now and also when he refused to answer questions put by the member for Burnaby earlier; the Premier turned around and whispered things to him, and the minister sat silently in his seat — indicating, obviously, that somebody else is running the show with respect to education. It sure isn't the Minister of Education.

MS. BROWN: Mr. Chairman, I wouldn't like to see the minister saddled with legislation which may not be in his own best interest or that of the community at large, so I think we should call a recess and let the minister go and find out what the section means, and come back and explain it to the House. "Apparently," "maybe," "I believe" and "I think" are not good enough. Clearly the minister needs some time, Mr. Chairman.

Would the minister like me to move...?

HON. MR. BENNETT: Aye.

MS. BROWN: No, the minister is going to get the information. The Premier seems to think that this is his legislation. I'm dealing with the minister, not with the Premier. Have you got the answer now?

MR. CHAIRMAN: The debate must continue, hon. members.

MS. BROWN: I was just giving the minister a chance to get the answer to my colleague's question, Mr. Chairman, as to the meaning of section 59 being repealed and the substitution put in about the Minister of Finance designating a person to examine the reports. Is the minister ready to respond now?

HON. MR. HEINRICH: Mr. Chairman, I don't understand the difficulty the members are having. I would ask them to look at the particular section. Section 59: "The Minister of Finance may, at any time, direct the Comptroller General of the Province to examine and report...." All we're asking now is to designate a person other than the comptroller-general. It seems abundantly clear, and I don't understand what the problem is.

MR. HOWARD: All the minister is proving to the House is that he can read. He's not proving that he can answer a "why." He can simply say what's proposed to happen. I'm asking why. Is the purpose that the Minister of Finance may designate a person, meaning that you're out to privatize the examination and report on financial and accounting operations of a college? Is that the purpose? You're going to reach out into the private community and say: "We want you to examine these accounts." Maybe that's the purpose. I don't know. I simply asked why. The minister doesn't know why. He just proved that he could read the act as it is now, and read what it says here. That's simple enough. Maybe that just proves that the minister's not his own man. That's the conclusion. He does what he's ordered.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please.

MS. BROWN: Has the comptroller-general been incompetent? Has he not been doing a good job? Is that the reason why the decision has now been made to no longer use the services of that particular person? What is the minister planning to do? Is he planning to go to the Fraser Institute and ask Michael Walker to check the books? Is that the decision? Is he planning to go into the community at large, or maybe to go to some other ministry?

The comptroller-general had responsibility for doing this job. It is now being taken away from that particular person, and we're told that the Minister of Finance can designate anyone. Why? Is it because the comptroller-general wasn't doing a good job? Or is this a complete change of thinking, in terms of the ministry wanting an outsider to do the auditing and the monitoring of the finances? Is that the reason why it's happening?

MS. SANFORD: Mr. Chairman, I'm rather concerned about the fact that the minister is not able to answer our questions in this particular debate on committee stage of this bill. This minister should be able to tell the opposition. These are legitimate questions. If the minister doesn't know the answers, why does he not, as he did a couple of years ago when he didn't know the answers to the questions that were being posed at that time — when he had responsibility for another ministry, namely the Ministry of Labour.... At that time, when the minister reached the stage where it was quite obvious he didn't know the answers to the questions, he quite readily asked us if we would please make the suitable motion, because there was no one in the House at that time to make the motion for him and he couldn't remember what it was. So I think that in view of the fact that he once, when he

[ Page 1413 ]

realized he couldn't answer the questions, was prepared to accept a motion from us to adjourn the debate, or to move that the committee rise in order that he could get the answers he required.... I don't understand why the minister, at this stage.... Are you ready to accept that motion at this point?

[4:30]

Interjection.

MS. SANFORD: You're not ready to accept that motion at this point. All of the cabinet ministers, the House Leader, the Premier and everybody else is giving the minister advice, and yet it seems that he's just going to sit there, even though we have these legitimate questions about this particular section of this bill. It's quite understandable, Mr. Chairman, that there are times when ministers are not able to answer questions posed by the opposition; that shouldn't be some big embarrassing deal. It shouldn't mean that the government digs in its heels and refuses to answer and just ensures that the issue is passed over without getting any questions answered. If the minister is not able to answer the question, I'd be quite willing to move that the committee rise, report progress and ask leave to sit again.

Now the minister is getting more advice. Perhaps in a minute or so we'll be able to get....

Interjection.

MS. SANFORD: Well, I'm wondering if the government is ready for that motion at this time. Oh, the minister has his mike up. Maybe he's going to make the motion.

HON. MR. HEINRICH: Mr. Chairman, I recognize the concerns which the members of the opposition have for my welfare. I've also got a plane to catch to go to the UBCM meeting, which I'm running late on now. I understood that it was going to be 4:30 by my critic. So I think what we'll do, Mr. Chairman, is move that we rise, report progress and ask leave to sit again.

The House resumed; Mr. Speaker in the chair.

The committee, having reported progress, was granted leave to sit again.

HON. MR. NIELSEN: Committee on Bill 18, Mr. Speaker

PENSION (PUBLIC SERVICE)
AMENDMENT ACT, 1983

The House in committee on Bill 18; Mr. Strachan in the chair.

Sections 1 and 2 approved.

On section 3.

MR. COCKE: Yesterday I found the minister confused.

HON. MR. CHABOT: Oh, no!

MR. COCKE: Well, you know, that's not unusual, but I found him just a trifle confused yesterday. I was talking in terms of the impact the employer's contribution has and in terms of terminal funding, and so on and so forth. He and I had a bit of an argument.

HON. MR. CHABOT: We clarified it in the corridor.

MR. COCKE: Some of my colleagues even had some difficulty in following us, because he was saying something in terms of 10 percent — when you multiply five by two it's 10 percent — and we were talking at that point about a certain deputy who left and took an opportunity to purchase himself an additional 50 percent of pension. Let me tell you how it works.

HON. MR. CHABOT: I'll tell you after.

MR. COCKE: I'm going to tell you now in the language that people understand.

If, for example, that minister's average income over a period of five years was $70,000 — we're just using that as a figure from the blue — that $70,000 is multiplied by a figure of 2 percent, which brings us to a figure of $1,400. That's the figure that the pension is based upon. The next factor is a figure of 10 years. You multiply that by a figure of 10 years and you come up with $14,000 per year pension. That's the way pensions are built. The minister says an increase of 10 percent is what that additional five years bought him. Let me tell you how it works. The additional five years means that the 10 is no longer 10; it’s 15, and the 15 multiplied by the $1,400 factor produces $21,000.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh!

MR. COCKE: Oh! Now is that the 10 percent increase? I ask my dear colleagues and friends whether or not that is a 10 percent increase. If it is, I'm looking at 10 percent increases from here on in.

Mr. Chairman, we said yesterday that most aspects of this bill were okay as far as we were concerned. There is one aspect that I'm going to talk to the minister about in section 7, but as far as I'm concerned, I just wanted to explain to the minister so that he can go back to his department and explain to the people in his department precisely what he has done for some of his good and valued servants.

[Mr. Pelton in the chair.]

HON. MR. CHABOT: Really, I'm surprised at the confusion that exists in the mind of the member for New Westminster. He's attempting to confuse the people in the gallery about pensions. Let me tell you how a 2 percent formula pension works. If you were entitled to take a pension after five years of service, you would get 10 percent of your average salary if it's based on a 5 percent averaging formula. The maximum in the public service pension, if you've worked for the public service for 35 years, is that you can get 70 percent of that average over your best five years. So five years on a 2 percent formula means 10 percent of the average salary over five years. Now, I'm sure that the member for New Westminster is not going to deny that fact. That is the fact. That would be the entitlement for an individual if an individual were able to secure pension after only five years of service. So if you have ten years it means 20 percent, and 35 years means 70 percent.

[ Page 1414 ]

So I don't want you to attempt to confuse the people in the gallery on how pensions work. Thank you very much.

MR. COCKE: A vote for Chabot and leave your principles rot.

I want to say this: the minister is quite right.

HON. MR. CHABOT: Anti-French.

MR. COCKE: No, not anti-French at all. As a matter of fact, I understand that your dialect is perfect.

Mr. Chairman, I said yesterday that there was an increase of 50 percent in that pension. That's all. The minister said no, 10 percent. I know perfectly well that it's based on a 2 percent formula. There's no problem there. But I say this: if we were dealing with a person with 35 years' service it would be an entirely different proposition. But we're dealing with a person who had nine years and 11 months — not even ten years. Ten years to vest: you and I know what that means. That happy wanderer walks away from our service with a locked-in pension worth 50 percent more than a ten-year pension would have given him. I said to you that if that were based upon a $70,000 income, that young fellow would be looking forward to a pension of not only $21,000 a year, because of its increase, but because it's indexed, it could be an awful lot more than that by the time that good fellow walks to the promised land.

That's all. I have no further quarrel with the minister. I know perfectly well that he now understands pensions a lot better than he did when he walked in here.

Sections 3 to 6 inclusive approved.

On section 7.

MR. COCKE: Mr. Chairman, we are having trouble with this section. It says that in the future, instead of general revenue paying the administrative costs, we'll be pushing the administrative costs onto the plans. I would first ask the minister why that is necessary. It's been going on for an awfully long time. Some time ago the Minister of Finance (Hon. Mr. Curtis) — or maybe it was that minister — suggested that this would be the way to handle the proposition: let all the pensions look after themselves and charge them a fee. I don't think it's necessary at all that that occur, because the provincial government, by virtue of the fact that they run these plans, are enriched, having access to huge sums of money for investment purposes.

[4:45]

AN HON. MEMBER: Low-interest money.

MR. COCKE: A lot of it is low-interest money, as my colleague suggests. On that basis, I don't think they should have a second kick at the cat by charging an administrative charge. Certainly an administrative charge on our own public servants directly serving the province is just taking out of one pocket and putting it into the other. That's not of great significance. But you're dealing here with Crown corporations, municipalities, teachers' pensions, college pensions and so on. It strikes me that the access to those funds through the administration of those plans is sufficient bounty for this government. I ask, therefore, why we're making this move. It seems to me petty, and I think it's pilfering.

HON. MR. CHABOT: The member uses some very shocking terms when he talks about pilfering and so forth. First of all, I want to say that any investments made by these funds accrue to the funds. I don't think he's attempting to suggest otherwise. The purpose of this amendment is to bring uniformity to the public sector pension plans. At the moment the municipal and teachers' pension plans pay the costs of administration. We're saying there should be uniformity across the board for public servants; each plan should bear its own administration costs. That should be extended to Crown corporations and other agencies which enjoy the sound fiscal management of these pension plans by the government of British Columbia.

MR. COCKE: Mr. Chairman, the minister omitted to say that part of this administration is deciding where those funds are to be invested, They're to be invested at the convenience of the Minister of Finance. Under those circumstances, I feel that's where the government is making a good win on the administration of the plans. The administration of this fantastic amount of money is a tremendous amount of power. I don't know whether most of you know this or not, but by the year 1990 Wall Street is very likely to be controlled by pension plans. This is a phenomenal amount of investment capital that provides the government with a tremendous bonus, and a lot of this money is money that is not particularly high interest rate.

I would therefore move the following amendment: that Bill 7 be amended by deleting section 7. I'm sure the minister will accept that amendment.

HON. MR. CHABOT: The Chairman will determine that, not the minister. First of all, he'll determine whether it is in order, and I suggest it is not.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The Chair rules that the amendment is not in order inasmuch as it is a direct negative to the section in the bill.

Sections 7 to 16 inclusive approved.

Title approved.

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

Motion approved.

The House resumed; Mr. Strachan in the chair.

Bill 18, Pension (Public Service) Amendment Act, 1983, reported complete without amendment, read a third time and passed.

HON. MR. NIELSEN: Adjourned debate on second reading of Bill 4.

INCOME TAX AMENDMENT ACT, 1983

(continued)

MR. HANSON: How much time do I have, Mr. Speaker?

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The Chair has been advised that although you adjourned debate you also had spoken for your

[ Page 1415 ]

time limit. The time under standing orders on the main motion has expired, hon. member.

MR. HANSON: Could I have another go, Mr. Speaker?

DEPUTY SPEAKER: It would require leave or that you be a designated speaker.

MR. HANSON: May I ask for leave, Mr. Speaker?

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The member has asked for leave to speak further on Bill 4.

Leave not granted.

MR. COCKE: We're back to random, pull-'em-out-of-a-hat, bringing up of legislation not in the order that we've been presented. So it's very difficult for one to be quite as ready as one would like to be. However, on this bill it's very easy to suggest that when the government removed the renter's tax credit and the seniors' grants, they made a tremendously large mistake.

In this province thousands upon thousands of people have been injured by this government withdrawing assistance to those who are most needy and increasing taxation on the same people.

Interjection.

MR. COCKE: My colleague, the Leader of the Opposition, says: "The only one."

As I see this bill, what it does again is tax the poor by taking away the very sustenance that keeps them in their dwelling place. I don't want to discuss a previous vote, but in this House this very day we talked of other initiatives that have done exactly that. I'm talking in terms of the homeowner's grant, and now here we are, hitting tenants in virtually the same way, only harder than we were hitting those homeowners that we talked about. Mr. Speaker, that's precisely the situation we're in. It's help the greedy and hurt the needy, as the member points out.

Earlier today a paper carried the following headline: "Sky-High Rents Forecast." And who are these sky-high rents going to be visited upon? Those people who are now in rent-controlled accommodation. That accommodation is rent-controlled because it's the lower-costing accommodation. That's where we find our senior citizens — not to every extent, but to a large extent — and where we find the needy who qualified for renter's grants. Now they are faced with this proposition. And who proposed these sky-high rents? Not the Minister of Housing, interestingly enough. His staff did, in his annual report. Once the controls are removed, the rents are going to go sky high. That's precisely what we're seeing. We heard the second member for Victoria (Mr. Blencoe) just the other day in this House question the minister about this whole question of rents going up. The minister bowed his head and said: "We know nothing about it; haven't heard about it." We went to the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs (Hon. Mr. Hewitt) and asked him about it. He didn't know anything about it. Everything would be fine. The outcome would be that there would be no problem.

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

Well, Mr. Speaker, there is a problem. And the very people who need the assistance are now, by virtue of the government's concern about a deficit, being put in a very prejudicial situation. This government, if it were so terribly concerned about debt, would not have put this province into the most confounded debt situation ever seen. This province's Crown corporations — and they are not at arm's length, no matter what the Premier would like us to believe; they are totally controlled by the government — have gone from an indebtedness of some $4 billion in 1976 to an indebtedness now of over $12 billion. They make the feds, those spendthrifts in Ottawa, look almost frugal. A $12 billion debt and an increase of $8 billion in the last seven years. It took us a hundred and some-odd years to get to $4 billion, then it took us another seven and a half or eight years to get to $12 billion. Therefore how can they come into this House with Bill 4 and say: "Because we're concerned about the finances of the province, we’re going to deny those renters and seniors the grants that they once had"? The House Leader whispers. I'll turn up my hearing aid when I get around to it.

[5:00]

Mr. Speaker, we all know that people have not been served well by this piece of legislation. There is one thing I will give them credit for that they telegraphed prior to the election. I don't think that many people were listening. If they were, Mr. Speaker, maybe some of them didn't understand. But the consequences are as follows: many in my constituency — and I'm sure in every other constituency in the province — are saying: "How are we going to continue to live where we're living? How can we go on? Some of these grants, while insignificant to the finances of the province, are highly significant to the people that are renting those accommodations. I have talked to people in the last while who have been placed in this position prior to the enactment of this piece of legislation. They were placed in this position by virtue of a letter from this government to the federal government telling them to ignore any requests that people make in their income tax forms because they are bringing in legislation — not that it's enacted, but this is a new form of legislation. It's retroactive not only in terms of the commencement date, but also in terms of being put in place before the legislation was ever put before this Legislature. Imagine a government with that kind of arrogance. Maybe it was shortsighted and maybe there was no planning, but I wonder. I think it's something worse than that; I think it's a lack of concern at all about that constituency of needy people out there who were benefiting from the fact that there had been some refuge, some assistance, with their rents. They haven't got it any longer. They haven't had it since before the budget. They haven't had it since before the election. Yet now we're debating it in this House.

[Mr. Strachan in the chair.]

I go home virtually every weekend to my home in New Westminster where I talk to my constituency office and people. One of the real hurts that people are enduring is as a result of this policy. It's not a result of this legislation, because the legislation is just being debated now in second reading. It was never a priority for the government to bring it forward immediately they were elected. It wasn't priority enough, Mr. Speaker, for them to bring this House back into session so that this piece of policy could have been debated before an

[ Page 1416 ]

election. It was treated in exactly the same way as the budget: let it just sit there and smoulder. Here we are on September 15 debating a piece of legislation that became policy on April 1.

Mr. Speaker, I believe that the whole question of hitting the small, defenceless people is one that we should all be up fighting against. We should be fighting against the intolerable policy that says to the seniors in our province who paid the price, who paid their taxes and worked for the development of B.C. through a depression and through wars.... If this parliament votes for this bill, it turns its back on those people. That is a lot to take. It's an insult to the pioneers of our province who helped build it as much as those who are wealthy and as much as any politician or any educator. Those hard-working people who put their shoulders to the wheel didn't have access to pensions the way we do now, and they didn't have access to the higher incomes we do now so they could build their savings. Those seniors, who went through a depression and lost all their savings, are now asked to look kindly upon a parliament that would pass a bill denying them this pittance of help. The bottom line, when it strikes at the poor and the aged, is the kind of bottom line I don't understand.

The minister is back, of course, and even he is not particularly interested in the debate on his own bill.

This piece of legislation will turn its back on the disabled and the working poor, many of whom are unable to make a great deal of progress in terms of income — unlike some of the luckier members of our society. Those people have no access to increased income.

If it were only this, but those same people are faced with increased health costs as a result of this government's policy. They're faced with increased transit costs and all the increased user fees that are put on by this government. Having been so handicapped, they are therefore faced with a reduction, really, in their net income.

Beyond that, we read in the Minister of Housing's own report that rents will go sky-high. It's not a report that was put out by the credit unions or labour unions or any other group of people, but a report that was done in the Ministry of Housing, in the minister's own office. Now we are asked to sit back and agree to taking away some of the increased net income. For that matter, it's a privilege that up until now has been provided to those people who are less fortunate than ourselves.

I would agree if we were to say, "Let's give less help to the wealthy," but this very day we saw this government sell out to the wealthy. The same government that is depriving the aged and the poor a pittance of a grant sold out the B.C. Petroleum Corporation to the oil companies to provide them with millions upon millions of dollars. Where are their friends, Mr. Speaker? They are tough and they are big. They fight dirty.

MR. R. FRASER: And you are small.

MR. COCKE: No, I am not small. I am standing here representing 40,000 people in New Westminster. I am lucky — as you are.

HON. MR. BENNETT: You wouldn't win today.

MR. COCKE: You have been saying that for 14 years, and your father said it before you. You have never made an impact yet in New Westminster, and you are getting worse off all the time, Mr. Premier. If you think I am wrong, I invite us both to resign our seats and you can run against me in New Westminster. How would you like to try that? I defy you to do it. Yes, sir, he is so confident, but I will tell you right now he is not going to do that one.

HON. MR. BENNETT: You flatter yourself.

MS. BROWN: He couldn't even win in Kelowna now.

MR. COCKE: Insults from you are flattery as far as I'm concerned. Coming from anybody else I might listen to them.

There is the architect of this legislation...

MR. MOWAT: It's progressive.

MR. COCKE: ...and there is a person who should understand it better than anybody else, and he says it's progressive.

We're taking away grants from the aged and from those less fortunate than ourselves, in terms of assisting in their rent, assisting them to keep a roof over their heads. It's going to be tough enough for these people to keep a roof over their heads under the circumstances of taking away rent control.

MS. BROWN: Look at the headline in the Province.

MR. COCKE: I've alluded to that on two or three occasions, and here it is. In the face of taking away these grants, and of sky-high rents forecast by the Ministry of Lands, Parks and Housing, not from some outside group....

MR. R. FRASER: You read it wrong.

MR. COCKE: The member says I read it wrong. If I read it wrong....

AN HON. MEMBER: What riding is he from?

MR. COCKE: Nobody knows what riding he's from. He never says anything from a standing position with a microphone. It's always sitting there, Mr. Member.

When the first member for Vancouver South goes home he better have some good arguments for his constituents, and while he formulates those arguments, I would suggest that he should put them forward in this House. If he and his colleague the member for Vancouver–Little Mountain are confident that this legislation is good, humane, decent legislation, let them stand in their place and defend it.

We will see as the debate on this legislation ensues that there will be a dearth of response from the government side. We will not see those great defenders of freedom and whatever up defending this legislation, because it's indefensible, particularly in the face of providing huge sums to the oil companies — to their friends. The Premier says: "PetroCan, our friend." Yes, I deal with PetroCan anytime I can, because I prefer PetroCan to Exxon. If you ever read the history of some of those oil companies, Standard of New Jersey, and all the rest....

[5:15]

Interjection.

MR. COCKE: Class warfare, my foot! Mr. Speaker, if there's any person who knows about class warfare it's that Premier, because his class warfare is against the poor, the

[ Page 1417 ]

aged and those who cannot defend themselves. And he stands in the halo light of the oil companies today. For crying out loud!

It's interesting to me this year....

AN HON. MEMBER: He was right about the university hospital, wasn't he?

MR. COCKE: Certainly was.

Interjection.

MR. COCKE: I'm interested in the Premier's remarks. He keeps making them from his seat. I suggest that all the forecasts I made came true in terms of the sick. We know that now.

HON. MR. CURTIS: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, we are discussing Bill 4, which deals with amendments to income tax measures.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The point is well taken, hon. minister. But might I suggest that the speaker was perhaps provoked to stray a little bit from the bill. Perhaps if you would speak directly to the bill, hon. member....

MR. COCKE: I certainly will, Mr. Speaker. But on that point of order, I would like to raise the point that the Minister of Finance did not get up on a point of order when the Premier was continually interrupting. So that's where his heart is.

That minister, whether it's his policy or the policy of the entire government, has gone astray on this question by virtue of the fact that this amendment to the Income Tax Act adversely affects those people in our society who should not be adversely affected. Governments are here for one purpose, in my view, and that is to protect ordinary people. Oil companies don't need the protection of governments; they're strong, powerful and have all the protection that wealth can provide. But the people who are being adversely affected here are the very people who have no defence whatsoever, except the defence raised in the Legislature of the province of British Columbia. If that's what I'm elected for, then I would be proud to be elected for that purpose alone. So no argument from one's seat with respect to my position is going to impress me a great deal. I know this, Mr. Speaker: this amendment to the Income Tax Act has adversely affected a lot of people.

There is one other element that I want to put forward. We are in a situation in this province where, instead of following the Canadian direction in the last few months, we have been an aberration in Canada. As opposed to an improved economy and an improved employment situation, we've had a worsening employment situation — worsening because of the policies of this government. Among other very bad pieces of policy is this. What does this do? It reduces, among other things, the spending power of the group of people we are talking about.

If consumers cannot consume, then secondary industry cannot manufacture and commercial industry cannot sell. That's why we had 10,000 more people out of work last August, rather than what had been predicted to be an improvement in our unemployment rate. With those 10,000, in addition to the others, who would now — some of them — many of them, qualify for some of these grants, comes a decrease in the tax payable to the government. So what we are doing with all of these retrogressive policies coming forward has been to hurt our economy instead of to enhance it. We have hurt our economy instead of enhancing it. That is the way that our government has been carrying us. No amount of their bold statements can convince us that it's not the government's policy that has carried us this far down the tube.

There was a time when B.C. was viewed as a rich province in this country, but it is getting poorer and poorer by the minute because of the policies of this government. In this bill, under the circumstances, we're poorer in two ways: (1) a group of people who have a right to expect help are denied a certain amount of spending ability; (2) beyond that, we're poorer in spirit by virtue of the way we're treating people. So it's a double whammy. I suggest that none of us should sit idly by and let this bill pass without giving it a good deal of thought.

I hope many of the backbenchers will read this bill carefully and think about what it does to all those defenceless people out there. I would hope that they think about that particular category of person, and having done so, put away some of their biases and say: "For once, we're going to ask the Treasury Board to change direction." Let this bill die on the order paper, and call Ottawa and say: "Don't amend the Income Tax Act. There's nothing much we can do about it this year, but we sure can next year." Go back to where we were in 1981. That would be the first sign of a government taking some responsibility for the people they were elected to serve. I suggest to you, Mr. Speaker, very clearly that that is the job of government. The job of government is to protect the defenceless. We know, for example, that governments employ police to protect people from criminals. That's one of their duties, because the ordinary citizen cannot protect himself or herself. But there is no way that people can protect themselves from this kind of policy. It's a policy that is shortsighted and inhumane, and I would wish that some members of the back bench and-or the Treasury Board would ask that there be a change of policy.

We heard the minister, in introducing the bill, say very little other than that it had been an announced policy. Well, that's no great argument. He didn't tell us how those people are going to manage. He didn't tell us, at that time, how those people will be again cursed by the sky-high rents that are forecast. All he indicated was that here it is, an announced policy, and that's no argument. We have heard no other argument at all from the government side on Bill 4, not a word in defence of this bill — a bill that I think anybody should be prepared to go to the mat on, a bill that singles out people who are the least able to defend themselves.

Let's describe some of those people. We have an area in New Westminster where the number of single parents, most of them female, is something in the order of 75 percent of that particular area. That 75 percent are single parents trying to get by — women working and having to have their children cared for, or hoping the children will care for themselves. They were helped because virtually all of them are on low incomes, and low income was one of the entitlements for the renter's grant and the renter's tax credit.

I suggest very strongly that it's time the government took another look at this bill. Obviously it hasn't been a great priority as far as they're concerned. It's a bill they decided to leave sitting on the order paper from when it was introduced, which I believe was July 7 or 8, until September 15. On September 15 suddenly.... Well, it has been debated

[ Page 1418 ]

very briefly — introduced and one speaker — but it hasn't been put to the test of this House. It is a piece of very bad policy that should have been discussed much more.

[5:30]

As pointed out by my colleague, this was introduced as policy in conjunction with the announcements made prior to the election. But it was actually introduced because of some changes this government wanted to make in terms of assisting the elderly and those people on low incomes, in conjunction with the March 1981 provincial budget; that is, the original grants. It was the same minister.... Well, I'm not sure if it was. Yes, I guess it was the same minister who introduced it at that time. It was targeted for senior citizens, large families and low-income British Columbians, as I pointed out. At that time, what did the minister say? Proudly he said: "This measure will effectively bring relief to those who need it most." What's changed? A government which in 1981 did bring in relief for those who needed it most says now, in 1983, that they are denying relief to those who need it most. How can you argue? In March 1981 the minister said they were bringing relief to those who needed it most, and then in 1983 he brings in Bill 4 to wipe out that relief for those who need it most.

What was his reason for making that statement in 1981 and not being able to keep that promise? Has the province become so utterly poor and destitute that it cannot help those who need it most? That's a shame, because I have noted that they sure can take care of their friends. I see that Mr. Matkin got a 50 percent increase in his pension for a very low price.

AN HON. MEMBER: What's it going to cost the province?

MR. COCKE: It's going to cost the province plenty over the years.

We can assist the oil companies. We can even assist Jimmy Pattison by selling him Beautiful B.C. magazine.

MS. BROWN: At a firesale price.

MR. COCKE: At a firesale price. It can therefore go in with the rest of the papers and magazines that those people have on their newstands: Penthouse, Hustler.

Mr. Speaker, I suggest to you that this government has its priorities all wrong now. The minister said in 1981 that this was to bring relief to those who need it most. He said 40 percent of B.C. families would receive some benefit, and what has he done? He's gone against his very promise. We will vote against Bill 4.

MRS. DAILLY: Mr. Speaker, may I say that the original act allowed for the tax credit exemption. In 1981 the minister who introduced this bill brought in with much fanfare the Income Tax Amendment Act, which we are now being asked to eliminate. At that time the Finance minister very proudly told the B.C. Legislature: "It is estimated that at least 40 percent of all British Columbia's families and 75 percent of the elderly will benefit from this credit" — in that year. Since 1981, when the amendment was brought in, I think we all know that the economy, if anything, has worsened. Therefore it is beyond my comprehension why, at a time when the low-income people, senior citizens and the poor of this province are suffering even more than they were, I am sure, in 1981, because of the increased difficulties with the economy, the Social Credit government would decide at this crucial time in a recession period to bring in an amendment to remove something which we all know was a great benefit to the poor, the low-income people and the senior citizens.

If the minister proclaimed in 1981 that this was going to be of great assistance to the low-income people and the senior citizens of our province, it is quite beyond my comprehension that he could possibly stand up here in the year 1983 and withdraw what he brought forward in 1981 because he felt that it was needed at that time. There is no logic or rationale for the reasoning behind the amendment which the minister has brought forward today. Even more important than the fact that there is no logic or rationale is that it's obvious there's no compassion and apparently not even an ounce of humanity left in a government which, faced with a recession, can turn around and remove some of the things which were helping to alleviate that for the people of our province who are suffering the most. It almost enrages me when I read in the paper — and we hope that in time this will be explained to us by the Social Credit government — that it is considering yet another edifice to itself along the site of B.C. Place. As we have said, they must have an edifice complex. I don't understand how the government could even consider building something of the value of $30 million, as quoted in the press.

HON. MR. BENNETT: Nobody believes the press.

MRS. DAILLY: In answer to the interjection by the Premier that I shouldn't believe this, nobody in the Social Credit government has refuted that statement since it appeared in the press, and said that they will not be spending $30 million of the taxpayers' money on an edifice to themselves at this crucial time.

Interjections.

MRS. DAILLY: We have to call it an edifice because it is not benefiting the senior citizens or those in the low-income bracket. I'm attempting to ignore the comments being made by the Premier and a colleague at this time — although it is difficult.

The point is that a government which puts more priority and emphasis on buildings such as.... This thing that they are even considering building looked ridiculous to me. I don't know what good it's going to do for the senior citizens, the unemployed and the poor of this province. That is why I say that this is a government without any compassion or humanity today. They can consider the thought of building something else on the site of B.C. Place for $30 million, yet at the same time they present us a with bill to approve that is going to take away from the poor, the low-income and the underprivileged.

There is no way the official opposition will sit here silently without saying anything and let this bill go through, I can assure you. After I read the notes on what the minister said in 1981, I noted carefully — and I was here when he brought it in in 1983.... It was interesting the way he ran over it very quickly. He said: "We all know that there has been little significant improvement in the fortunes of the province in the interval." That was his main reason for bringing in the removal of the tax credit and the renter's tax credit. Well, we're all aware of that, Mr. Speaker.

I opened my remarks to you and to this Legislature this afternoon by saying that we're all aware that there has been

[ Page 1419 ]

little improvement. I'm glad the minister is here, because I have been quoting him. I would prefer to quote his own words when he's right here in the Legislature. I was just referring to the minister's basic statement in introducing this bill, where he skipped very quickly over the feature of the removal of the income tax and rental tax credits. He stated — and I quote again — that "there has been little significant improvement in the fortunes of the province in the interval." Well, nobody denies that. But the point I was making — and I will repeat it for the minister, if I may — is that because there's been no improvement, surely it would follow that if there was ever a time when the poor and the low-income and the senior citizens needed assistance, it is now. That is why I've said there's no logic to this removal. Beyond that, and even worse, there is no compassion and no humanity behind a government which can present us with a bill like this today.

Interjection.

MRS. DAILLY: I heard the Premier say all right. I hope that means okay, and that he's going to accept our argument.

Interjection.

MRS. DAILLY: Well, we can always hope, but we should perhaps learn.

I do believe that here is a bill which shows a very....

Again, there are a number of bills here which show a very basic philosophic difference between that side and this side of the House. Some people may accuse the NDP of being bleeding hearts and liberals and progressives and worrying about people, whereas it has been said that the Social Credit are the government of business and they know how to handle money. The interesting thing is that compassion, humanity and fiscal responsibility can go hand in hand. It does not have to be separated. Somehow or other the Social Credit Party seem to think that if they're going to bring about fiscal responsibility, the only way they can do it is by following the Reagan economic theory, which is to protect and look after the upper middle class and those who have it, but to sock it to the middle class, right down to the low class.

That's exactly what's happening here in the province of British Columbia, and that is the basic difference between the NDP and the Social Credit. We repudiate that theory. We do not say that everybody has to pull in their belts and then only make a certain sector of society pull in their belts. If it is necessary to pull in our belts, let everyone pull them in. But when you're starting with the senior citizen and the poor to begin with, my god, why do you have to squeeze their belts even further? That is what this kind of legislation is doing, and that is why there is no way the members of the New Democratic Party can support this.

I'm sure that the members on the opposite side of the House must know these facts I'm going to give you, but somehow or other they don't seem to mean very much.

[5:45]

Interjection.

MRS. DAILLY: The Minister of Forests (Hon. Mr. Waterland) yawns through all this. I don't think the poor and the people who are going to lose these grants are sitting out there yawning. What they're worrying about is how they are going to survive with a government that every day seems to think the only way to get out of a recession is to keep penalizing the poor. We see it in everything that's coming forward.

Interjection.

MRS. DAILLY: Well, you keep bringing in this legislation, and it does not show any compassion.

For example, do you know what you are actually removing by this legislation? This is what you'll be doing. Do you know what this means for an old-age pensioner couple today who could get the personal tax credit and the renter's credit? They would get $266.70 for the personal tax credit plus $150 for the renter's tax credit, for a total of $416.70. The single mother with two children: $147 personal tax credit; renter's credit, $150; a total of $297. The head of a household on UIC with two children: personal tax credit, $240.30; renter's credit, $150; a total of $390.30. Now these are just a few examples of the money that British Columbians will lose once this legislation goes through. If those people were in the income bracket of the MLAs in this Legislature or of the cabinet ministers or of those who have a steady job today with a fairly good income, I don't think any of us would weep for them. But do you realize what you're doing? You're taking this away from the ones who have the least. I think that the Social Credit government is going to have this hanging over their heads for many years. Even Social Credit members who are not out of work and still believe in the Social Credit dogma and their doctrinaire approach to economics are, I think, a little queasy, a little uncomfortable, about hitting the poor of this province in this very mean and unnecessary way. The United Church of Canada sent letters to all the members of the Legislature when they first heard this was coming out. If I may, Mr. Speaker, I would like to read into the record what the British Columbia conference of the United Church of Canada said re the renter's and the personal income tax credits. It is very short. At the fifty-eighth annual meeting of the B.C. conference of the United Church of Canada — to save time, I won't go through all the details of where it was held — they passed the following resolution:

"Whereas the program of renter's and personal income tax credits helps to address the severe restrictions faced by persons on low or fixed incomes; and whereas the tax credits are the only allowable revenue for persons on social assistance, except for the $50 a month for individuals and the $100 a month for families...."

Isn't that ironic? At the time they were protesting this removal, saying it was all that was able to give extra assistance to the poor, they still had the $50 monthly. Now that's being taken away too. I ask you, Mr. Speaker: what kind of government thinks it can get out of a recession by riding on the backs of the poor? Only a Social Credit government, obviously.

They went on to say:

"Therefore, be it resolved that this fifty-eighth annual meeting of the B.C. Conference of the United Church of Canada urge the Minister of Finance of the government of British Columbia to retain the renter's and personal tax credits as government policy. The health, housing and social services working unit, the initiator of this resolution, urge you, as a member of the Legislature, to support the retention of these credits and to vote against any legislation for their removal."

That's exactly what the NDP members are doing.

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Mr. Speaker, I know that during the campaign the NDP certainly did their best to inform the public and the ones affected about this. But in the middle of all that propaganda — "Happy days are going to be here again; vote for us; we'll take you out of the recession...." Unfortunately, it's rather hard to compete against all that. We did our best. Do you know what I think is one of the reasons why this did not become a big issue in the election? Nobody really believed that any government could be this hard-hearted. I know when people came in to see me about it they said: "We cannot believe that the government will do this." Many of the senior citizens really did not believe it. But unfortunately that has come true, and it's going to become a nightmare for some of the citizens of our province, with the amount that they have lost over this.

The income tax credit was introduced, as I said, by the Minister of Finance with the 1981 provincial budget. It was supposed to offset other major tax increases imposed by the province. At that time, if I may go back to what the minister said — and he's still the Finance minister: "This measure will effectively bring relief to those who need it most." Well, those same people, as I said earlier in the debate, are still the ones who need it the most. What has changed the mind of the Social Credit government that they have decided that, in their own wisdom, those people no longer need it?

Well, Mr. Speaker, they may have some facts before them that the members of the NDP do not have. We do not see any positive change in the economy. We do not see that the lot of the senior citizens has been increased; instead, if we really examine the senior citizens' situation today, we find that they are being faced ' with increased user fees in hospitals. Obviously now they will be faced with increased utility prices, because the freeze has been taken off. They are going to be faced with increased rents. The member who preceded me read the headlines in the paper this morning which pointed out that rents are going higher.

The point I'm trying to make is that, again, because of government policy.... At the time the minister introduced it he said that this would alleviate the problems of the poor and the senior citizens. Now we're in 1983, and because of this government's policies in allowing utilities and rents to go up, and doing very little about attempting to control prices in this areas that they might be able to....

MS. BROWN: Bus passes.

MRS. DAILLY: You name it. Everything is going up. Maybe the people here in the Legislature are in an income bracket in which most of us can survive with these increases, but I want to assure you that the senior citizens and the low-income people cannot survive. You've thrown a bill at us which will increase their problems and their suffering.

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

Mr. Speaker, the House Leader has asked me if at this time I would adjourn this debate until the next sitting of the House.

Motion approved.

Hon. Mr. Nielsen moved adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

The House adjourned at 5:54 p.m.