[ Page 1903 ]

CONTENTS

Routine Proceedings

Property Tax Reform Act (No. 1), 1983 (Bill 7). Committee stage. (Hon. Mr. Ritchie).

On Section 1 –– 1903

Mr. Nicolson

Mr. Rose

On the amendment to section 2 –– 1907

Mr. Nicolson

Ms. Brown

On section 6 –– 1909

Mr. Blencoe

Ms. Brown

Employment Standards Amendment Act, 1983 (Bill 26). Second reading.

Mr. Mitchell –– 1911

Mr. Lea –– 1912

Royal assent to bills –– 1916

Appendix –– 1917

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 23, 1983

The House met at 10:06 a.m.

Prayers.

MRS. JOHNSTON: Mr. Speaker, I'd like to introduce a very active community worker from Surrey who is in the gallery today. Not only is she an active community worker, she's one of the hardest workers in the Surrey Social Credit constituency. I would like to ask the House to welcome Joy Fisher.

HON. MR. GARDOM: Mr. Speaker, I would like all members to bid a very cordial welcome to Mr. James Midwinter, who is the ambassador designate to Venezuela. Mr. Midwinter has had a very long and distinguished record in Canadian public affairs, and we would like not only to welcome him to B.C. but to wish him the very best in his new posting.

MS. BROWN: I guess what I'm about to do is quite unusual, Mr. Speaker, but I would just like to issue a very special thanks to the person who led us in prayer and to say that I really was moved by that prayer.

Orders of the Day

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

Leave granted.

HON. MR. GARDOM: Committee on Bill 7.

PROPERTY TAX REFORM ACT (NO. 1), 1983

The House in committee on Bill 7; Mr. Strachan in the chair.

On section 1.

MR. NICOLSON: This bill amends many different statutes. Section 1 amends the Assessment Act

"…by repealing subsection (7) and substituting the following: (7) Land and improvements shall, for other than general municipal purposes, be assessed at the percentage of actual value fixed by the Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council under subsection (8), and by repealing subsections (11) to (20) and substituting the following: (11) Land and improvements shall, for general municipal purposes, be assessed at their actual value."

Mr. Chairman, in theory this would be the law; in fact, many classes of property are not assessed at actual value. An old hotel in Ainsworth, the first mining town in the Kootenays, has been assessed. First of all they wrote down the replacement value. If this building which was constructed in 1896 were to be reconstructed today, there would be a replacement value, I believe, of $147,000. The assessment is not $147,000; in fact the building portion of that improvement is assessed at about $33,000. Mr. Chairman, I was rather curious to find out how they had come up with the so-called "actual value," which is referred to here in section 1.

[10:15]

Mr. Chairman, for many classes of property there is no such thing as actual value. So while the explanatory note to section 1 says that this amendment establishes actual value as the tax base for municipal purposes while retaining the present system of establishing assessed value for other purposes, Mr. Chairman, there is de facto for many types of unusual properties no such a thing as actual value; so that for municipal purposes there are people that are being taxed on the base of a WAG. I won't explain the acronym, because it might not be quite parliamentary, but I think that most erudite members of this House would know what a WAG is. Sometimes a WAG is used in scientific investigation in coming up with a conclusion. I will give you some clues, however. W stands for "wild" and G stands for "guess," but I will leave up to the imagination of hon. members what A stands for because, Mr. Chairman, it could be ruled as unparliamentary if I were to....

I would submit what they call the actual value in this case is a WAG because there aren't many hotels of frame construction in somewhat remote areas — not even presently being used as hotels — up for sale with a willing buyer and willing seller.

That is the basis of property assessment and the way in which one arrives at actual value. In fact the assessment process is one whereby you look at comparable sales which have taken place recently, hopefully in areas close by the subject property. The other thing is that you make some correction factors for the square footage of the two properties, especially when you are looking at the buildings. It is not so difficult to find what the market value of a piece of land is worth and thereby come up with an actual value, but finding out what some of these old and historic buildings are worth does create quite a conundrum.

I am convinced that on the assessment rolls of our province there are many — and this is just one example of how this can come about — WAGs that are really not true or actual values. It isn't too often that a building constructed prior to the turn of the century for the purpose of being a hotel, no longer qualifying as a hotel because it would be almost impossible to bring such a building up to standard, yet the owners are almost compelled by any sort of moral decency and consideration to preserve the heritage of these buildings.... But people who would undertake this responsibility on behalf of all British Columbians find themselves in the position of being discriminated against, or at least paying for the privilege of preserving the heritage of British Columbia.

So that is something that I feel is missing in this particular amendment to the Assessment Act. Here we're going to be establishing actual value as the tax base for municipal purposes. I know exactly what that does. Instead of the assessed value — because, of course, we have assessed values which are sometimes percentages of actual values for other purposes, like hospitals and other functions.... This whole business is really quite a bit of flimflam because it goes back to the days when we suppressed the concept of a true evaluation when we froze assessments for years and years, and assessments got so out of line with actual value that people got used to the concept of perhaps being able to sell their property for three, four or five times what the assessed value was. So while we have an assessment which comes down from time to time, we note on our actual tax form, or even on our assessment form, that while the actual value is rated at

[ Page 1904 ]

one thing, maybe $125,000, we'll see that the assessment for school tax, and now for municipal purposes, will be at actual value.

So, Mr. Chairman, once again we are tinkering with the system, which is not on the whole a very healthy system. It needs a lot more fundamental examination. We've had this system in effect now for seven years or so — going to the 100 percent evaluation as the basis of computing all the different assessment values for taxation purposes. We're tinkering around with this. It's really a companion piece of legislation with another piece that was passed in the House, allowing flexibility, I suppose, to municipalities in other parts of this bill.

But the whole concept contained in Section 1 is simply, in fact, changing a base. But it's a factor of another thing. Really, it isn't going to alter municipal taxation in any substantial way. What we've been doing, and what we're now going to do, is say that, well, the value with a willing buyer and a willing seller is a certain figure. We have then factored this down and set a regulation. We factor it down by maybe 20 percent, 15 percent or 22.5 percent — some figure like that — so it doesn't look quite as high, quite as imposing. So people think: "Gee whiz, I'm getting quite a break. My house is really worth about $150,000 and the Assessment Authority, after I went, say, to the court of revision, knocked it down to maybe $125,000. So I really got away with something there. Now I'm getting a real break because they're scaling and factoring this down. While I know it's worth that, I'm only assessed for these purposes at the rate of $30,000." People are being a little, supposedly, conned. I don't think they are being conned.

What we should be doing is not adjusting the assessment value or the actual value, making this kind of change. We should be adjusting the mill rates. Because what you come up with is: you have a budget and the budget has to be met. What you do is you look at what that assessment will raise in terms of a budget, and from that you compute your mill rate. For a mathematician this whole process is absolutely ridiculous. This particular amendment is absolutely unnecessary. You have an equation in which you pump this into the equation in order.... In other words, you divide this assessment into the budget, and you come up with the mill rate. Then you apply the mill rate to people by taking their actual value and then determining whether it's going to be a percentage of the actual value or the straight actual value. You multiply the actual value by the mill rate, and come up with what the local property owner's tax bill is to be. So we've taken a constant A, put it into the first formula, and multiplied the factor A by the total assessment to the district; in the second instance we then divide by A. If you multiply by A and then divide by A, as long as A does not equal zero you come out with the answer 1. To multiply something by 1 is the most futile, most useless and most unnecessary thing in terms of mathematics, and that is really what we've been doing. What this amendment proposes is that we stop dealing with A in this instance. We're not eliminating that factor in other areas, just in the case of municipal taxation.

MR. ROSE: What about A plus B?

MR. NICOLSON: Well, that goes beyond my realm of competence.

Mr. Chairman, with those comments I had hoped the minister would actually explain section 1 from his point of view.

MR. ROSE: Mr. Chairman, I'm delighted to take part in this committee stage today, because property taxation has long been of particular interest to me. Anyone who regards the whole matter of a property taxation system that is fair, equitable and reasonable, and that is based on something which I think all taxes should rest on — that is, the ability to pay — has got to be aware that no system or formula is going to be fair to everyone. There is no end to the number of proposals, some particularly exotic, that have been put forward to solve particular problems. The variable mill rate is only one of many approaches to taxation and assessment policy. We thought that when we moved into the assessment authority system we would remove a lot of anomalies from the system; that through the assessment authority system we would have a province-wide system of equity, and not the kind of economic distortions which had occurred previously — in other words, where some of the rural property tended to be underassessed and the cities bore a greater burden. Anyone who thinks or believes the whole matter is a simple one is certainly going to be misled on that score.

The Danish system of assessment is kind of intriguing. They had an experiment in Denmark a number of years ago — I don't know if it still persists — in which there was a system of self-assessment. In other words, everybody decided the value of their own property: what value would it bring to the market? They assigned the equivalent in krone — or whatever the currency is — of particular value on their land or their house or their general real property. That had certain risks, though, because rather than have some assessor from the outside come in and make a judgment about the value of that property based on the sales of neighbouring property, and no other reason.... Oh, I know, you could put in a few little sophistications, like square footage and whether you had bricks up, shingles on your roof or a tar-and-gravel roof. Those are all minor adjustments. The Danish approach was to allow that property to be assessed by its owner. The owner was responsible for telling the assessment authority what he regarded as a fair price for his property. He would then be taxed on that property according to what he regarded as a fair price. If the state didn't like that assessment, they had the option of purchasing it at that price, or putting it up for auction. That is the real true test of market value. If someone under assessed his property in the hopes of avoiding some kind of taxes — and there are many ways to avoid even property taxes if you have the right kind of property — then he risked his property through that underassessment. If the true market value of that property was much more than its owner had assessed it at, he ran the risk of having it sold at auction for a value higher than he assessed it at. Therefore it put the onus on the owner rather than on somebody from the outside, no matter how skilled that person was at comparing numbers and figures, how skilled in that particular field.

[10:30]

There have been other attempts to find equity in property taxation. There's the famous single-tax proposal, sometimes considered rather exotic, by one Henry George. His idea was to tax on the basis of the economic rent; not what the thing could be sold for, but what it would bring if it were put up for rent. That has certain appeals, a certain allure. Henry George is considered a sinister figure. We had a tax expert in the

[ Page 1905 ]

ministry of lands and forests for a number of years who tended to be a Georgist. He was considered a very threatening person. I've forgotten his name; it doesn't really matter because he's gone now. I think a lot of these things are a sincere attempt by people to achieve equity in taxation. It doesn't take very long to see that there are many anomalies in the taxation process. If that weren't the case, we would have no need at all for courts of revision. Courts of revision were established to deal with that sort of an amenity that occurs constantly in our taxation system.

A fair-minded approach to taxation is one that has eluded us in North America, and also in Europe, not just for years but for centuries. There's another proposal that some people make. They say it really doesn't matter what a lot sells for, what its market value is, but what the property is used for. That should determine its taxation, not what you could get for it if you stripped away all your rights of ownership. Often people are forced to sell because they can't afford to pay the taxes; they have a higher assessment that would be justified by its use. If you use only market value, you run into a number of severe limitations. If you use your property as a home, says this theory, you should pay less taxes than someone who holds the property as an investment. That principle is established in the Assessment Authority now. Unused property, property that is not being used for some purpose, including farm purposes or a residence, is taxed at a higher rate than property for which there is a particular use. Idle land for speculation is taxed higher.

There are many sound arguments against that one as well. Economic value assessment, which is what I'm talking about, should be an underlying principle. The distinction between that and market value as the basis for taxation has the fairness associated with it that its use determines its value. The assessment is not based just on what would be received if it were sold on the open market. That has a built-in speculation side to it. For instance, if you're lucky enough to own a piece of property next to a large urban centre, and you're using it for a particular purpose, then that should be the basis for its market value.

[Mr. Pelton in the chair.]

I'll give you an example. Suppose someone from the member for Dewdney's riding happens to have a farm, or some property that he's used all his life perhaps a home and an acre; it doesn't need to be a farm and that land is located close to what we used to call Haney — beautiful downtown Maple Ridge. Because of the contiguity, the proximity to a large urban centre.... He may have lived there for 50 years. His father might have homesteaded the land before him. But because that land is close to that urban centre, it follows that it's worth a great deal more than an equivalent piece of property with an identical use which is perhaps four, five or ten miles away from an urban centre on a poor road system. So there is some justification for that.

Similarly, if you only judge the value of land on the basis of its current market value, then you run into other anomalies. Let's take that old farmer who lives in Matsqui. The minister points to himself. I wonder that he didn't get up on a question of privilege when I used the term "old." A mature farmer. He's not an immigrant attracted to this country because of its social welfare schemes and a number of other things that weren't available to him in Ireland or some other place. He came to this land of opportunity where we not only have opportunity for people to be enterprising, but we also have safety nets in case they get into difficulty and need the help of the state. Let's go back to the example of someone who lives in an area in Matsqui. That person has lived there all his life. He may be retired; he may not. He may have children living on the land. It becomes an area that's highly desirable for hobby farms. This pioneering landholder is not particularly interested in a hobby farm; he's interested in operating his land economically, within whatever use he determines. Maybe he's a pre-zoning auto-wrecker. He could establish that. He might be able to do it again right next to Chilliwack, right on the border. on this rural land between Matsqui and Chilliwack. Let's suppose this is the case, and suppose around him are a lot of professional men: you know, highly paid school teachers, perhaps, or doctors who make a similar amount each year. Or MLAs or some other professionals or semi-professionals, or those pseudo-professionals who have the kind of presumption, who have aspirations to become professionals. But suppose this becomes attractive to rich businessmen who own seed and feed companies, and they want to get in there, not to farm, but simply to use that land and enjoy all of the benefits, the allure of rural living, and they're willing to pay almost anything for that property. It may have a nice stream on it. You could make a pond, have a few horses, get yourself a little old tractor and maybe a straw hat and say "Oh shucks" a lot, or "Aw shucks," depending on whether you live in Matsqui or Abbotsford. The point is that this is a piece of property that has been used in its traditional sense, and because a professional man, or several professional and successful business people, want to purchase that land, it kites the assessed value of that man's property. He hasn't changed its use one iota. He may not even want to sell that property, but he's going to be affected anyway.

So I'm putting forward the idea that under equal value assessment you should be assessing it on the basis not merely of its market value, but its particular use, how it might be employed, and how its use might be changed. Then I think you can change its assessment. In the meantime, a traditional landholder who has done nothing at all to change the value, the nature or the use of his property, is affected because some doctor, or several doctors or lawyers, bought hobby farms of five and ten acres in his immediate vicinity. It affects his assessment, and therefore his taxes. It also affects his ability to pay. Someone who is accustomed to an income at perhaps the level of, say, $13,000 or $14,000 a year, which is really the poverty line for a family, may be quite happy with that in perpetuity. But if his assessment is kited, if his assessment....

In addition to this skewing of land values, and therefore of assessed values and ultimately taxes. you also have the other concept which I hold dear, and many other people hold dear: that taxes should be based not on what you own, or what theoretically you could sell your property for, but on your ability to pay. This kind of approach to taxation ignores the ability to pay. That is one of the basic faults with all property value systems based solely on market value. There are sometimes attempts to overcome this. Suppose we force this man off his land. I'd like it understood that I believe in the concept of private property, and so do all social democrats. Look all over northern Europe, look at Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Britain. Regardless of whether or not they've had social democratic institutions and governments in the past, or may have them now or will in the future, they still believe in the

[ Page 1906 ]

sanctity of private ownership. That is what people by the millions came to this country for. They came from all over the world, and what were they looking for besides freedom and opportunity? The big allure was land, and land they could own. So anything that distorts....

Mr. Chairman, the member over there who is in the wrong chair is shaking his head. I don't know whether he disagrees that people come for that purpose. Certainly they did originally, those people who were serfs on the large feudal holdings of Europe.

[Mr. Strachan in the chair.]

But let me get back to the point, which is that if a person is forced off the land because he's unable to pay his taxes, then he has a problem — not because of anything he did, but because some rich doctors, lawyers, teachers, businessmen established hobby farms near his land and raised his assessment. He can't pay his taxes, he has to sell his farm, so where's he going to go and live? You give him no alternative.

There is some attempt to protect people like that if they happen to live in rural areas. It doesn't help them if they live in urban areas, because if you're forced off your family property in urban areas — even if you get a terrific price for it — you've got very little option but to go somewhere and buy or rent some other dwelling. That works extremely well, provided that those dwellings are available and provided that whatever rent you are charged is within your means. What I am saying is that the use has changed.

[10:45]

No direct benefit accrues to a property once it is sold or used for speculation. I think that if property is used for speculation.... If you want to find some speculators, most of us have only to look in the mirror. It's impossible not to have been a speculator over the last ten years. The very fact that you held and lived on property didn't determine its value at all. The very fact that you didn't even improve your property didn't determine its value and didn't determine its assessment. Property which I owned in Maillardville-Coquitlam 10 or 15 years ago, and which I purchased for $12,000, is probably worth $100,000 now. I'm sorry to say that I don't own it anymore, but I didn't do anything to deserve that. Whatever happened there was beyond my control.

The implementation of the variable mill rate is really only tinkering away at it, as is the farm exemption. If we're talking about rural property, it used to be the case that you could run a few animals — usually a cow per acre — and you could get your taxes lowered immeasurably. My guess would be that it came out to about 10 percent of the value. Who paid for that in the case of Langley, Maple Ridge, Pitt Meadows or any other area? Supposing that this person had a farm exemption — and I know people who had farm exemptions, because I was one of them. I had cattle on the property I paid for....

So has doctor so-and-so; so has mister so-and-so, who owns the law firm; lots of people do. If I should have been paying about $800 a year and was only paying $150 because I had a few old cows scampering around on the property, somebody else paid the share that I got away with. I don't think that's fair, because all the other residents of Langley had to make up the $600 or so that I didn't pay.

If it's important to the general well-being of British Columbia to have food produced on these rural properties, even though they may only marginally meet the test, then I don't think the rest of the residents of Langley should have to make up the $600 that I got as an indirect benefit because the right number of my cows happened to be running around that field. Somebody is going to stand up — and I imagine the minister's got an expert there — and say: "Well, that's not true. We have to have so much money produced out of that property each year." I know that. But the principle is the same. If I, as a member of a community, am benefiting by a $600 tax exemption, it means that somebody else is making that up. If the province allows a tax exemption, as it does, through its legislation, then I don't think it should be the municipalities of Langley, Maple Ridge or Pitt Meadows that make up the difference. The $600 that I got is going to be made up by the other residents of Langley.

If it's of general benefit to the whole province to have me produce food on my farm — and I suggest that it is — then I think the total amount of exemption given for farming by a municipality should be spread over all the taxpayers in the province. It shouldn't be up to Maple Ridge or Langley to finance and provide food for members of New Westminster or some other urban area in which there are no farms or farm exemptions. What I'm saying is that the residents of New Westminster, Vancouver and other urban areas shouldn't make up the difference. The total amount of exemption given by a particular municipality should be made up out of general revenue from the province. That, I think, will take a lot of distortion out of municipal financing.

I see the member for Dewdney (Mr. Pelton) listening very intently. He is a former mayor and chief magistrate. He knows that what happens in the case of his municipality and every other municipality which allows and permits a farm exemption is that they've got to tax the people in apartments and in beautiful downtown metropolitan Haney a lot more than if they didn't have to make up this incentive for providing food. I don't object to the farm exemption, but I do object to the municipality, simply because it happens to be a rural municipality and hasn't got as large a tax base, because it doesn't have the commerce and industry and all the rest of the things which generate far higher taxes....

I know his industrial development committee has been concerned about this. The money given away by the farm exemption should continue, but not at the expense of Haney, Langley or any other rural area. It should be spread equally to all the population in the province and then returned to the producers and those municipalities that are active in the production of food. I make that assertion, and I don't make it frivolously. I think it is extremely important.

The variable mill rate works fine. Everybody who is a speculator who looks in the mirror and finds that his house is now worth $100,000 to $125,000, when he bought it for $10,000, is going to be really happy. But what happens when values go down? What we've been used to all the time is values going up every year. What happens when they go down?

I understand that there is a three-year clause, if not in this bill then the other bill, which will base the taxes over three years. I think taking the peaks and valleys out of taxation is not a bad idea. If you can justify a five-year income tax formula for certain kinds of businesses and farms, it is a reasonable thing in terms of rapidly escalating or de-escalating land values also to spread those over a period. The only trouble is that if you happen to get nicked at the peak, like the guy who has the mortgage.... You've got a particular

[ Page 1907 ]

five-year mortgage, and you're stuck with it for five years. There has to be some way to rule those out.

But the concept of basing assessments over a period is not a bad one. I know it's in Bill 22, but it certainly bears on this bill, because they tend to be companion bills. But it is not a bad idea. I think, as a matter of fact, it could be said that it's a good idea; it is a progressive idea, from that point of view. But I insist, in case some of my other friends get up and say it's a bad idea, on saying that you've got to have an escape clause, because everybody thinks it's a good idea if they happen to have a particular date on which their assessment is placed when market values are like they are now. Nobody is buying anything and nobody is selling anything, particularly in real estate, so market values are going to tumble. If you get your assessment fixed at a low period such as now and it goes for three or five years, as in Bill 22, that's good. But if you had had your market value fixed when everything was going crazy two or three years ago, and you are stuck for five years, then that's bad. I think you either have to be lucky and pick a time for your assessment — take your assessing officer out to lunch or something....

Interjection.

MR. ROSE: My friend says maybe I'm out to lunch. Again, I say that I'm always more nervous about my friends than I am about my enemies.

Those are some of the concerns that I have. The other one is rezoning. If my municipal council — and I don't even ask for this — rezones my property by fiat, then I can be in terrible trouble in some circumstances. I can recall, when I was a councillor in Coquitlam.... I don't remember whether it actually occurred while I was on council, but I remember many horror stories of rezoning in advance of use. You've got to, but you've also got to be aware that people need to be compensated somehow for that if they are frozen into a particular kind of rezoning, even though they may ultimately benefit. I'll give you a prime example, Mr. Chairman.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Three minutes.

MR. ROSE: Three minutes? I haven't finished my introduction.

Let me conclude with this. If, in a particular municipality, you have to zone in advance of use — because if you don't, by the time you get around to it you've got another Kingsway or urban sprawl like they had in Surrey, and they couldn't even meet their services or anything like that....

Oh, you don't recall how difficult you were 10 or 15 years ago with your ribbon development and your little developments all over the place? You don't remember that?

MR. REID: New politicians fixed that up.

MR. ROSE: I know you fixed it up.

MRS. JOHNSTON: We cleaned it all up.

MR. ROSE: That's terrific.

Anyway, Mr. Chairman, I've only got three minutes, and I don't want to sing about the joys and the beauties of Surrey or its representatives in this House. What I would like to finish is the point where Coquitlam zoned a lot of land "light industrial," "industrial-commercial" or some such figure along the Barnet Highway and we had people who had been living there for years and who used their property for agriculture and all the rest of it. We froze them into a particular zoning, but it was in advance of use, and they couldn't sell it. They couldn't sell it for the use which the council prescribed, so they were there for 10 or 15 years waiting for the warehouses and the Kentucky Fried Chicken places to come along so they could sell it at its new higher- and better-use value.

I don't think that I'm a particular expert on taxation, and I don't have all the solutions on this, but I think I've given you enough to let you know that these are incredibly complex things. The best we'll do, no matter what we do, is give it the old college try. But we should constantly be looking for better ways to make taxation more equitable. My view is not market value per se, but market value combined with a formula that considers use and also the owner's ability to pay.

Section 1 approved.

On section 2.

HON. MR. RITCHIE: Mr. Chairman, I move the amendment standing in my name on the order paper. [See appendix.]

On the amendment.

MR. NICOLSON: Mr. Chairman, it's my understanding that the amendments were introduced in the House last night at approximately 6 o'clock. Hon. members have had some opportunity, I suppose.... Although it's normal that we would look at the order paper, normally we don't go to the Clerk's desk and ask to see if something has been put in in the way of an amendment. But let's say it's still our job to....

HON. MR. RITCHIE: You should have been in the House.

MR. NICOLSON: The first time I saw these amendments was this morning on the order paper.

Interjection.

MR. NICOLSON: Please, Mr. Minister, I don't want to get into some kind of heated debate about the propriety of this, but I'd like to have a cool and reasoned debate. While we in the House have had a good 17 hours to consider these amendments, only by virtue of the fact that we’ve been up all night, what about the Union of B.C. Municipalities, Mr. Chairman? This amendment makes some very substantive changes, and others further down on the list will make even further changes. I would ask the minister for his response to the notion that because of these amendments being brought in, might it not be prudent in terms of trying to.... Well, we've had pretty heated exchanges on other bills in this House. Maybe we're in disagreement on this bill, but I don't know that we were in strident disagreement on it. I suppose we're against many parts of it in principle.

[11:00]

In order that at least the Union of B.C. Municipalities might have some opportunity, I would ask the minister whether he is prepared to accept an adjournment on this, so at least they could have more than 17 hours. Would the minister respond to that?

[ Page 1908 ]

HON. MR. RITCHIE: I wouldn't consider that, Mr. Chairman. However, I think the member has pointed out quite clearly how time has been wasted in this House. I was saying to myself, right along, that there are other things that would be much more important, not only to the House but to the people whom we represent. It would seem to me, as one who sat through all of the last 17 hours, that had a lot of that time been used to study the amendments introduced yesterday evening, rather than what was done, you would be well prepared. No, I wouldn't be prepared to accept that.

MR. NICOLSON: Mr. Chairman, I guess this is an example of what happens when an olive branch is extended in this House. It would seem to me that there are people who are going to be very much affected by these amendments. The amendments to section 2 might not be the most substantive of these amendments. We have had a bill before us since July 7 — the bill to which the UBCM has reacted. Now, by virtue of this amendment and amendments to section 7, the whole tone of this particular motion might really prompt the official opposition to consider a baker's dozen. As a member of the opposition, I would certainly be most interested in hearing the reaction of the UBCM. It was only last week that the minister would have had a very good opportunity to signal the introduction of these amendments. If they were amendments he was proud of, he could have actually given some indication of it to the UBCM.

A government that is in conflict with the opposition is one thing, but a government that comes in conflict with all forms of local government and seems to want to wage war with the entire professional class, the middle class, the blue-collar workers, the unemployed, the poor, the senior citizens and everyone else in this province should really start — and I think a good positive step, right now, would be for the minister to.... In a way, Mr. Chairman, I'm suppressing the urge to get too carried away on this point, but I honestly feel that if the minister wants to make a positive step for the province.... Maybe we could pass even section 2, and show some progress, and maybe even sections 3 and 4 and 5, and maybe even get through section 6 today, but then section 7 has some very substantial parts in it, and I would really.... I see the minister is going to respond.

HON. MR. RITCHIE: I want to draw to the member's attention, Mr. Chairman, that, first of all, the variable tax rate is in operation and was very well received and, I thought, widely supported by your party. It has been introduced very smoothly, and only one municipality is not on the new system now. The amendment is a very simple amendment, and if I could explain it to you I'm sure you wouldn't have any fears of it. The amendment merely converts the 1982 from the old percentage of assessed value to the current and full market value for.... It gives them a base. You see, the variable tax rate is now in, but it was in by making that conversion. Now it's necessary to make that conversion by law, and that's why this amendment is a very simple one, and I hope that having explained it that way we can carry on with the....

MR. NICOLSON: The official opposition recognizes that the taxation system is in effect and was in effect and was announced prior to the election, and that we are now ratifying — and it's quite legal to do so.... I rise on this first section because it is the first amendment that was introduced.

I might agree with the minister that this particular amendment, of itself, is maybe not so much of a concern, although I don't know that that's my decision to make. Perhaps people from the UBCM, given time, might show a great deal of concern even about this one. Myself, I would say that I don't see in this particular amendment grave cause for concern. But looking ahead — and it's kind of out of order — to section 7, I really do see where there could be very legitimate cause for concern. Therefore I've risen on this particular one to test the minister's will, and I would think maybe we could skip along and maybe pass.... I'm not our municipal affairs critic, who is still here, but maybe we could skip along and pass certainly probably 2, 3, 4, and 5, but then there might be some debate on 6, and then.... But on 7 there is a very substantive amendment, and that is really my area of concern.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Shall the amendment pass?

MS. BROWN: No. If the minister isn't going to respond....

MR. NICOLSON: Maybe if the minister would respond it would....

HON. MR. RITCHIE: To the member through you, Mr. Chairman, I think that really we'd be wasting everyone's time to postpone this. I think we do have all of today, possibly — and I don't know how long we may go — but the thing is that should we decide to have this go back, as you suggest, to the UBCM for consideration, and assuming that the decision came back that no, this amendment shouldn't go through, can you just imagine the chaos that would be created? It's a very simple amendment. It's something that you mention yourself, Mr. Member, ratifies what is already in place, and I would prefer to proceed as far as we can, today anyway, and if we do come to the section that you've just suggested might become a very contentious one, we can deal with that in that light.

MS. BROWN: Mr. Chairman, what I just want to say is that there's a principle at work here which I'm in opposition to. The bill has been on the floor for some time; it was introduced in July. The minister has had a lot of opportunity to put his amendment on the order paper. Instead, what we find is that the amendments were placed on our desks last night, and we're expected to come in this morning and approve them. We're not here on our whim and fancy and because we decide we'd like to be here. We were elected to come here and represent our constituencies. When a bill comes down that affects any part of the constituency which you represent, you have to have some consultation. That's something that we've been trying to get across to the minister. He's brought in a package of legislation which affects the municipal level of government, and we are going to speak on that legislation based on our consultation with the municipally elected representatives whom we represent. It has not been possible — and I have tried — for me to get these amendments into the hands of my municipally elected representatives, to have their response and advice in terms of whether these amendments are in the best interest of Burnaby, or in fact in the best interest of municipal governments. The member is saying: "Trust me." That is hilarious, because if that were possible, you wouldn't need elected members.

[ Page 1909 ]

All you would need is the cabinet to bring in bills and tell the community at large to trust them, and that would be that.

The opposition has a role to operate as watchdogs, and it's not possible to do that job when the minister deliberately waits until the last minute. These amendments were not on our desks prior to 8 o'clock last night. The House has been sitting all evening and through the night, through this morning. It has not been possible for us to consult with our local representatives and be able either to support or to oppose these amendments with any knowledge. It seems to me that if the government is serious about really trying to do what is in the best interest of the people of British Columbia, the minister would agree that we should be given time to take back the amendments that were introduced to the House last night. I'm not taking mine to the UBCM. The critic is dealing with the UCBM; I'm dealing with Burnaby municipal council. I've been on the phone all morning trying to get some sense of what the amendment is going to mean to us in Burnaby. I'm trying to speak to Vic Stusiak, who is the chairperson of this particular committee for Burnaby Council, and to our municipal manager, Mr. Shelley, and various and sundry people.

It just doesn't make sense that now we are told that if I understand the amendment, then it's okay. I don't think that's good enough. I'm not here representing myself. If I'm to do a good job of representing Burnaby, then the people who understand what this means in terms of that level of government have to have some input. Clearly, they're not having their input directly with the minister. So they have to have it through the three Burnaby MLAs who sit on the floor of this House. While I'm standing here speaking, my colleague from Burnaby North (Mrs. Dailly) is also frantically trying to contact the municipal politicians. Have you ever tried to read the amendment to the legislation and then the act which it is amending, which itself is amending another act? We're dealing with three pieces of amendments going on here. Surely the minister can understand what we're trying to do. We're only trying to do a good job. That's the reason we're asking that this be put aside until at least we have the time.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Shall the amendment pass?

MS. BROWN: Mr. Speaker, I would appreciate a response from the minister.

HON. MR. RITCHIE: I can only respond by repeating what I said: that the amendment simply ratifies what is already in force. I'm quite sure that the administrators at the municipal hall in Burnaby fully understand that it is necessary to ratify something that has already taken place, such as changing the 1982 methods to match the 1983, that being a percentage of assessed values which were used in 1982 to full market value in 1983. So it's a very simple one. I can fully appreciate that possibly the next amendment that I have on the order paper could be a little more difficult for you to understand and you would want to have a little time on it. So I have suggested that if this one, which is already operating — and it is a very simple one in spite of the way it is written up in all the legal jargon — goes through and we proceed on to Bill 7, then we will deal with that when we come to it.

Amendment approved.

Section 2 as amended approved.

Sections 3 to 5 inclusive approved.

On section 6.

MR. BLENCOE: First, I want to say that section 6 gives the opposition some deep concerns. This particular section and other similar ones really impact upon local governments' ability to set their own course in collecting taxes and setting their own priorities.

[11:15]

"The Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council may, under subsection (1), prescribe different tax limits, relationships or formulas for each class of property, different municipalities or different classes of municipality." Clearly there was a deep resentment expressed by the UBCM last week, particularly by people like Mayor Thom who said that they felt it was inappropriate for senior government to be making such drastic inroads into local autonomy and local decision-making.

Local governments have always felt that they know all about restraint and they are quite capable of determining how much they want to tax their own people. They have serious reservations about a government deciding to make those decisions for them. Indeed, this particular section is a violation of that long-standing autonomy of local government, and the UBCM, in a very strong resolution, asked the minister and the provincial government to please retain that kind of autonomy and not make such serious inroads into their ability to collect their own taxes or set their own levels of taxation. They are elected to do that. That's our position. That has been a long-standing tradition. I would, among other things, ask the minister why he feels that it is so important — given the degree of restraint that local government has been able to utilize over the years, given that they don't run deficits and are not allowed to do so, and given the provincial government's financial record in terms of over a 12 percent increase in their budget — to say that local government cannot establish their own taxation levels, their own rates, or how much taxes they will charge. If the local taxpayer feels that taxes are too high, then there is a process for the local taxpayers to indicate their concern. That's at the polls.

I would like the minister, if this government believes in autonomy of local government, to say why he feels so strongly that he wants to take over something that virtually all local governments have said they don't support and to centralize that kind of decision-making in the hands of the provincial government.

HON. MR. RITCHIE: Mr. Chairman, I hope you will forgive me when I say that I am terribly surprised that that member, who over the past few days has been ruthless in his criticism of my lack of knowledge of municipal affairs.... Let me read section 274 of the mill rate limitations as it used to apply when you served on council, sir. "A rate shall not be levied under section 273 exceeding in a city or district 50 mills, in a town 40 mills, and in a village 30 mills, except with the approval of the inspector or in a municipality for which a commissioner has been appointed by the supreme court under this act."

MR. BLENCOE: Are you talking about the same section?

HON. MR. RITCHIE: Why on earth would you be critical of a change in the system that gives the municipal council

[ Page 1910 ]

the full freedom to set the variable tax rate whenever you have had those limitations in the past? Why is it, Mr. Chairman, that this member, with all his experience, should pick on this? The reason for this section in this amendment is simply put to protect the taxpayer. It is there in the event that there should be some flagrant abuse....

Interjection.

HON. MR. RITCHIE: You asked for an answer, but you don't pay any attention when you are getting it. I would like you to pay attention. Otherwise you'll never learn. I don't want you to waste my time by asking a question and then wandering off.

The system that is now in place gives the council the full....

Interjection.

HON. MR. RITCHIE: Do you want further explanation? Did you get any of it? Through you, Mr. Chairman, do you understand that there were limitations in the old system when you were on council? Under the new system there are no limitations. I don't know how you get your argument. However, we do say that as these rates are being set by councils in order to give us the opportunity to protect the taxpayer, should there be any flagrant abuse of the system we do have the authority, under this legislation, to correct it. I might add that this hasn't been necessary. All municipalities have acted very wisely indeed in applying this new system. Rather than trying to throw out some scare tactics we should give credit to all municipalities, and recognize that we are not putting more controls on, we're taking controls off.

MR. BLENCOE: I wonder if the minister could then explain subsection (2): "The Lieutenant-Governor- in-Council may, under subsection (1), prescribe different tax limits, relationships or formulas for each class of property, different municipalities or different classes of municipality." Is that not indeed the provincial government determining the formulas, the relationships and the tax limits of local government?

HON. MR. RITCHIE: You are difficult to get through to — through you, Mr. Chairman. The member seems determined not to learn the new system. If there is flagrant abuse of the system, then a move could be made under this to correct that. But no limits.

MS. BROWN: I'm going to see, Mr. Chairman, if I can get into this discussion without having to suffer the insults of the minister.

I think the problem we're having, Mr. Minister, is that the bill does not say, "in the event of an abuse by a municipality, the Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council may, under subsection (1), prescribe different tax limits, relationships, formulas," and so forth and so on. That is not what the bill says. That's the difficulty we're having.

Now is the minister suggesting that maybe he is willing to introduce a further amendment that will say this is a safeguard section which will come into effect only when the Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council recognizes that a municipality is abusing its powers? As it now stands, that is not what this section says.

HON. MR. RITCHIE: Only if the council abuse the system.

MS. BROWN: I understand what the minister is saying. All I am saying is that that is not in this section of the bill; it does not say that. The bill says, "The Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council may, under subsection (1), prescribe different tax limits, relationships or formulas for each class of property, different municipalities or different classes of municipality." It does not say that this section comes into effect upon the recognition by the Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council that a municipality is abusing its powers. As it now stands, Mr. Chairman, if you will forgive me, it appears to be an erosion of the autonomy of municipalities and a usurpation of their rights in his area.

I believe the minister when he says that the only time the cabinet is going to intervene is when a council abuses these powers. All I am suggesting is that it is not in the legislation. No one who isn't here and doesn't hear the minister making that commitment, no one who doesn't read Hansard to know that the minister has made that commitment, will understand that the only time this section kicks into force is on the occurrence of an abuse by a municipality.

This section is not well written if it is to do what the minister says it is to do. As the section is written, we have the cabinet usurping the powers and eroding the autonomy of the municipalities. That is how it is also written here.

MR. BLENCOE: The minister has said he believes in the autonomy of local government, and that this particular section indeed enhances that. I would like the minister to indicate to us how free he believes local government should be to set their own tax rates.

HON. MR. RITCHIE: The act clearly states just how free we think they should be. They have those classifications to work within. They have the freedom to set the tax rate. The amendment itself answers your question.

MR. BLENCOE: If the minister believes that local councils should be autonomous in this area, then why does the bill say that the Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council may make regulations, and then go on to say in subsection (1)(a): "prescribing limits on tax rates"? Why should you have that power, if you believe they should be free to set their own tax rates?

HON. MR. RITCHIE: They have the freedom to vary it within the classification.

Let's pick a municipality. Let's assume that Terrace decides they're really going to sock it to industry, which we feel would not be in the interests of the taxpayers and those in need of jobs. It may be necessary to ask for an adjustment there. That's one example. They do have tremendous freedom to set those tax rates, more freedom than they had under the old act.

You're shaking your head no, and that really surprises me, not only in view of your experience in municipal affairs, which you think highly of, but also in the face of the abuse and criticism that I get for not having experience in municipal affairs. I read out the section in the old act which says there was a 50, 40 and 30 mill limit. The limit has been taken away, and they'll now set it according to their requirements within

[ Page 1911 ]

the classification; and only if they abuse that is there going to be a change.

I can't understand what the member is trying to do, Mr. Chairman.

MR. BLENCOE: Mr. Chairman, I would like the minister to tell us — because this particular section does take a high amount of decision-making away from municipalities in terms of setting tax levels — which particular municipalities were a problem and created the need for the centralization of decision-making, taking away the power of local government.

HON. MR. RITCHIE: Again, it was already said here, Mr. Chairman. The member was told that all municipalities, with the exception of one, have put the new system into place. It has been smooth; they have been cooperative. There have been absolutely no problems. I don't know how to get through to that member. He seems to have his mind locked up and you can't enter it. I repeat, there are none. It has gone smoothly; we have no reason to look at any changes.

[11:30]

MR. BLENCOE: The minister is not answering the question. He is referring to the concept of a variable mill rate, which we don't have any particular problems with. It does indeed give some degree of flexibility, Mr. Chairman. I'm asking the minister why he feels it's appropriate that the provincial government have such wide-sweeping powers in terms of limits on tax rates that municipalities can establish. I ask him again: which municipalities have spurred the government to introduce such sweeping changes and control on tax rates, which those people were elected to perform? They are the board of directors for their electorate.

HON. MR. RITCHIE: Mr. Member, I put you on notice that I don't intend to try another time to answer you. None.

MS. BROWN: I just wondered if the regulations were around. Can we see them? No? This is precisely what the member for Victoria is saying. We're being asked to pass a section which gives the cabinet unlimited tax rate powers. Whereas under the present system the municipalities have to stay within certain defined limits, the cabinet can go to any extent they want. We're told that the council — meaning the cabinet — may make regulations. Where are the regulations? We keep getting all these pieces of legislation that are based on regulations, we're approving them, and no one knows what's in the regulations. How far along are the regulations? Are they ready? Can we see them?

HON. MR. RITCHIE: At this point we don't intend to have any regulations. It's quite specific as it's written.

Section 6 approved.

On section 7.

HON. MR. RITCHIE: There was some discussion earlier about my amendment to this section on the order paper. It was suggested then that in order to give UBCM and other interested parties an opportunity to study the amendment, we would hold this one back at this time.

Mr. Chairman, I move the committee rise and 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: Mr. Speaker, I call adjourned debate on second reading of Bill 26.

EMPLOYMENT STANDARDS AMENDMENT ACT,
1983

(continued)

MR. MITCHELL: Mr. Speaker, in trying to sum up, some of the concerns that we in the opposition have on this particular bill are the dangers to the weaker unions and those who are unfortunate enough to work in many of the service industries that are not unionized at all. I think we all know of experiences in dealing with employees and employers, that when you get into either.... The first contract is sometimes rushed into without the detailed knowledge of employees on the job. All the intricacies of various statutes that are available in the past, especially dealing with such things as maternity benefits, statutory holidays — holidays with pay.... The agreements that have been written in the past, especially among the weaker unions, have not been as strong as those of the larger and the more militant unions.

By changing the wording in this bill.... In the past where the senior part of the agreement or the statutes provided better benefits for the workers than some of the wording in some of the agreements, then the statutes would prevail. There was one section at that time dealing with statutory holidays. For those who work in shiftwork, with rotating days off, in many cases your Saturday and Sunday may fall on Tuesday and Wednesday. They are your normal two days off. For those who worked a regular Monday to Friday job, if by chance Christmas landed on a Saturday or a Sunday, it was common practice that the employer under the existing holiday schedule would give Monday off as the statutory holiday. So the employee who normally received his Saturday and Sunday off also received the Monday as a statutory holiday. This worked very well for those who worked on a regular shift. But for those who worked on the rotating shift whose days off happened to fall in that particular case on Thursday and Friday and Christmas happened to land on the Friday, then they felt that they should get that additional day off. This was the standard practice. If a statutory holiday landed on your normal days off as a posted shift schedule, then you got an additional day off. This led to a lot of problems in some of the interpretation.

I know that in the police contracts it has caused a lot of concern. In Saanich it has been before the courts for two years because of that interpretion. Central Saanich police, for one reason or another, have been forced to lay off a number of employees to cover up a deficiency in their budget. When you start tampering with sections in the statutes, the wording of the agreement shall take precedence over the statutes even when the statute is more beneficial. You're reversing the role of providing a minimum standard.

The second major concern of a lot of people on our side of the House.... I think every one of us has seen employees

[ Page 1912 ]

and employers in our own constituencies attempting to negotiate an agreement or a standard of work system, and they have bogged down on one or two particular sections of the agreement. Many times a lawyer gets into it and a few of the employer councils get in and they go into a holding system where it's negotiation by confrontation. We all look at negotiations across the board between employer and employees, but when you get into the third party, especially employer councils or people who have been hired as bargaining agents.... That also can work on both sides, whether you have a strong union negotiator working with a smaller contractor.... You go into a holding pattern and the date of the agreement runs out. You're going one and two and more months before you sign an agreement, and negotiations continue. Sometimes they break down. Within the past, and especially in essential services, the agreement that is presently in effect stays in effect. The conditions do not change. There is a certain amount of security and continuity of conditions on the job. I think the section that is coming into the agreement provides that after an appropriate time has passed, an application could be made to the director to have the minimum standards of this act applied. I think this is going to be abused. I think if you leave these loopholes in labour negotiations, you are going to allow these particular power plays for unscrupulous negotiators. Basically, that is what it is: a power play that you either sign up or we are going to reduce the wages to the minimum wage of the province. This is a danger, especially in a time when we are....

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: It has nothing to do with wages.

MR. MITCHELL: It has all conditions: wages, conditions....

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: Not with wages.

MR. MITCHELL: Wages and conditions, health benefits and holidays are all part of a package. The Minister of Labour knows that more than anyone. He is trying to change the power play. If you're going to have free collective bargaining, you shouldn't give one side an opportunity to drag out negotiations, so that this particular threat can be brought into it. I think one of the dangers — and I deal with it on a regular basis as a constituency MLA — is that you have to deal with the collection of back wages, especially with companies that are having in this particular economic time a cash flow problem. With the particular section which says that it is going to be limited to six months, there are a lot of people who feel a certain amount of trust that they have money coming in the way of holiday pay and severance pay. They are in danger of losing it. I realize we are in economic times, but once sections like this get into the statutes, they are hard to get out again. In the restraint era that we're living in now, we have to protect employees. As I said earlier on, you are literally stealing money from employees who in the past had been guaranteed, and felt assured that money they had earned is money that they are going to receive. To have that six-month limit put in there now under the guise of restraint is, I think, wrong.

These are the three major parts — eroding of conditions, the minimum standards — putting those who are in the weakest condition — the service industries that, with the new technology, are going to be our biggest employer — those in the service industry in the next few years.... I think this bill is going to endanger that particular group, and I think the minister should give serious consideration to put this bill before a legislative committee which would sit down and listen to briefs and discussions from those people who are going to be affected in the trade union movement and the employers organizations, because it's going to cause confrontation, and I'm convinced that we do not need additional confrontation in the workforce, and it should be stopped.

[11:45]

MR. LEA: This piece of legislation is part of the government's program to set a climate for economic recovery in the province. In fact, a great deal of the legislation that we've been dealing with is to do what the Social Credit calls "setting the climate for investment in the province." That has been the theme of this Social Credit government, and of the previous two governments, since 1976. They say we have to set a climate in British Columbia so that we can bring in investment. Only this session do we fully understand what that climate is all about. "The winter of our discontent." The climate they want to set, to make sure that investment comes into this province, will probably result in a society that most British Columbians won't be particularly fond of living in. How do we set the climate? Do we signal to investors outside of our country: "Come on in, the weather's fine. We've broken the trade union movement. We've made sure that people don't have any access to consumer protection. We're going to make sure that renters will have to take what they get." We're going to take away all of those protections in society that help the ordinary citizen fight people who have more power than themselves.

Go around the province — I'm sure you've all heard it and you'll hear that trade unions are too strong. They don't tell you why they're too strong; they just mouth the expression. If you want to counteract that, don't go to the next place and argue that trade unions are not too strong. What you do is go to the other end of town and start a rumour that they're too weak; then come back in seven days, and you'll find that that is what is being said.

The government is taking advantage, in my opinion, of misery, of a recession. If you read back in history — and I don't think it takes too much imagination to figure it out — you'll find that any time economies are in the downturn, people feel vulnerable and threatened and insecure about the future. When they feel that way, they are vulnerable, they are frightened, and they have good reason to be. But it isn't just any ordinary recession that we're going through now, waiting for good times to roll again. What we're looking at is a complete change in the economies of the nations of the western world, if not the whole world.

Let's deal with British Columbia, where we're going to be feeling the same kind of changes. We can get into some industries such as the minister of technology has talked about. We can get into the production of electronic microchips, that sort of thing, but how do we compete with those other production centres of the world that are producing the same thing? How are we going to compete with South-East Asia in the production of those commodities? There's only one way: you have to meet the wages of South-East Asia in order to compete with South-East Asia. What we have to ask ourselves is whether that's the kind of climate we want. Do we want to match the lifestyle and living standard of South-East Asia in order to compete? I think not. I don't think it's too big

[ Page 1913 ]

a secret that one of the things we feel frightened of is that we see the traditional jobs going down the tube. Blue-collar jobs are not going to be available in any great numbers in the future. The demand is going to decline. The kind of jobs we've needed, the kind of jobs we've produced during the industrial era — which era, in my opinion, we're just finishing — those jobs will no longer be around.

The proper climate, Social Credit say. But it is not looking to the future and asking what we can do to maintain the lifestyle that I think we all want to maintain, without ruining the environment and without becoming too greedy. How can we just maintain what we have? How can you hold on to your house? How can you hold on to your job? How can you feel secure that you're going to be able to pay your hydro bill? It's going to take a bit more imagination than returning to the nineteenth century.

What does this bill do? Section 2 states in part that when a collective agreement is running out, after what is called an appropriate time has passed without progress towards a new agreement, an interested party can make application to have that collective agreement made null and void and the provisions of the Employment Standards Act would come into effect. An interested party could be the employer. What incentive would there be for an employer to go to the bargaining table to try to negotiate a new collective agreement when that employer knows that all he has to do is wait the appropriate time — whatever that is; I suppose it will be determined — until there's no collective agreement, it's out the window, and you are now back to the basic protections under the Employment Standards Act? What employer wouldn't love that? I have to remind the House, Mr. Speaker, that to a entrepreneur, wages are an unfortunate part of production, but to the entire economy they are the stuff of social and economic stability.

I think it was Steven Leacock, economist and humorist, who said that money is like manure: it doesn't work unless you spread it around. We're going to see money concentrated in the hands of the few; we're going to see quite a number of people working for very low wages, and there'll be nobody between the high paid and the low paid; the middle class is going to disappear. The blue-collar worker, for all intents and purposes, is going to disappear rapidly in our society. I'm reminded of my uncle, who said, "Do away with the middle class in a democratic society and you end up in revolution, finally, of some kind or the other," because the middle class is a social and economic buffer in our society that helps keep peace, and surely we do want peace.

Probably the very thing that the Social Credit are trying to establish — that is, the proper climate for investment — is in fact going to do exactly the opposite. Imagine you are an investor thinking about investing in British Columbia, and you say to one of your senior people: "Bring me a report on what it's like to invest in British Columbia these days." Can you just imagine the report? Let's think what the guy would say. He comes back two weeks later and says: "Well, from where we sit, certain favourable things are happening in British Columbia in terms of investment. If we go there, the workers are not protected very well, and that's good for us. If we go there, we're almost guaranteed that we'll be able to pay very low wages, so that makes it a good place to invest. There's a government that is very favourable to big business and not too favourable to small business, and that makes it a good place to invest, from our point of view. But, chief, we've got some real problems. Even though we have the sorts of things that may enhance investment in British Columbia, I think we're probably looking at a lot of industrial unrest. I think we're going to see a lot of problems between the trade union movement and management. There are some things that are favourable, but overall I think I'd have to say that it's a risky bet to invest in British Columbia. When a government seems determined to set one area of the population against another, surely that can only end in chaos; surely that can only end in a place that's going to be, in the long run, a risky place to invest our money."

Mr. Speaker, the government has always said that they wanted to set the proper climate, and we used to ask what that meant. It's easy to say: "We 're going to have a proper climate for investment." They could never tell us, but I think they finally have. They've brought in this package of legislation, and that's what they mean by proper climate — that they're going to take the protection away from ordinary citizens at a time when they should have even more protection.

Why has the Social Credit become the defenders of Big? They've always attacked big government, big unions, big companies, but now they're becoming the defender of one of those bigs, and it's big business. At one time, if you'd asked anybody in this province who was the friend of the small businessman, they would have said: "Social Credit." Probably even our supporters.

AN HON. MEMBER: That's still true.

[12:00]

MR. LEA: No, it is not true; they do not say it today. The Social Credit is not viewed in this province as the friend of small business; it is viewed as the lackey of big business. They've sold out, Mr. Speaker, in order to run the kind of political campaigns they've had to run in the last few years, where they've had to reach down in that bag and get lots of money. Because they're not running a grassroots kind of campaign anymore; they're running the kind of campaign that takes millions of dollars to run, and they're not going to get that kind of money from the small business community. They've got to go to the big business people, and the fact of the matter is that when you pay you call the tune.

AN HON. MEMBER: There was a family of volunteers out there.

MR. LEA: Mr. Speaker, the volunteers out there were nothing compared with the money spent to soften people up. That election campaign cost millions of dollars. Some of it — a great deal of it — was taxpayers', but the majority of the money that financed the Social Credit campaign came out of the coffers of big business.

AN HON. MEMBER: Prove it.

MR. LEA: I don't have to prove it. You prove it isn't happening.

Interjection.

MR. LEA: Yes, they did. They stayed up all night and all day just to wait for you to come back, Mr. Leader.

Can I prove it? Yes. Can I bring in a witness? No. But I can present circumstantial evidence that can lead you to only

[ Page 1914 ]

one conclusion. People are hanged on circumstantial evidence, Mr. Speaker.

MR. R. FRASER: That doesn't make it right, though, does it?

MR. LEA: That doesn't make it right. I'm glad you agree with me. If you take money from the big corporations, you pretty much have to believe that they aren't giving that money to a political party because of some altruistic motivation.

MR. CAMPBELL: How about big unions?

MR. LEA: Big unions the same. I would not be opposed to seeing companies and trade unions not able to give money to political parties — but only if both come under the same rules. The Social Credit are always talking about trade unions giving money to political parties without the consent of their membership; how there are Socreds and Liberals and Conservatives in the trade union movement, and whether it is morally right for a trade union to give money to a political party. Why is it any more moral for a company to give money to a political party when shareholders, which are the same as the rank and file of a trade union, may not agree with the party politics of the officers of that corporation?

You can't have it both ways. You bring in a piece of legislation that says the shareholders have to have the final say in political contributions, and I'll go along with a piece of legislation that makes it okay to have the rank and file of a trade union okay it. That would be fair, and we're not going to see it. But it is definitely hypocritical to say that it's happening in the trade union movement and it isn't happening in the corporate world — it is. Also, I'd be willing to bet a dollar to a doughnut that much of the campaign funds spent by Social Credit came from foreign companies. I don't think there's anybody naive enough to think that that didn't happen.

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: Does that have to do with this bill?

MR. LEA: It has to do with this bill, because the major corporations want to break a number of people: small business people, trade unions, consumer protection, tenant protection — all of them. It's to their benefit to break and discredit those agencies and institutions in society that protect the ordinary person from powers larger than themselves. What other reason is there for government? If it were not to protect the weak from the strong, there would be no point to government whatsoever. We could have absolute, crazy anarchy. Everybody for himself; the strong will survive, the weak will perish, and that's the way of Darwin. That's what the Social Credit really believe. They believe that if you cut people off — $50 a month for the handicapped — the mere fact that that money has been cut off from them will give them the drive and incentive to pull themselves up by their bootstraps and claw their way out of that to reach success.

Interjections.

MR. LEA: It is the truth, and if the Social Credit members were honest they would get up and say: "Yes, we believe that." Then we could at least deal with a bit of honesty on both sides of the House. Don't you believe, Mr. Speaker, in the trickle-down effect? Isn't that what you're all about? That's the theory they believe. They think they can separate their economics from the social structure of the country, or the province. They don't think the two are related. What they say is: "If we will give companies the unfettered right to make profit over every other consideration, that will be the best thing for the poor. Because if that happens — if we allow the companies to make all that money — they will reinvest in the economy, and there will be more jobs. And the best way to help the poor, of course, is to create jobs and give them a job." It's kind of a twisted argument.

If the hon. members on the other side are not conservatives, then stand up and tell us. But I had assumed that the members on the other side believed that they are a conservative party. You can't be a conservative and not believe in the conservative economic theory, and that is the trickle-down. The conservatives believe that there are only two kinds of protection that government should afford its citizens. One is that private property is sacrosanct; that you should be able to do what you wish and what you will with your own private property regardless of your neighbours. Private property is just that. That's why they really would like to do away with zoning. That's why they want to do away with planners. That's why they really want to take away powers of municipal government and local school boards, because private property is the essence of it all.

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. member, the Chair has listened very carefully to the remarks of the member, and I must confess, with all deference to the member, that I'm having some difficulty in relating the member's remarks to the bill before us. Possibly, hon. member, you might narrow....

MR. LEA: Yes, I can understand that. I think when I was describing how it all fits in you nodded off, Mr. Speaker.

It fits because what I'm talking about is the Employment Standards Act and what the principle behind the Employment Standards Act is all about. It just isn't an act to do certain things. This is part of a package to set the climate for investment in the province that the government is always talking about. They've talked about it for years but they never said how they were going to get the weather to change, how this new climate was going to come into effect. We now know. You do away with all the institutions in society that protect ordinary people from power — power they have no control over. Then you have the proper climate for the investor. That's what it's all about. This act, the Employment Standards Act, is a large part of that package for setting the climate.

AN HON. MEMBER: Nonsense!

MR. LEA: Mr. Speaker, how can they say "nonsense" to something they believe in? All you have to do is look at, read or listen to the statements of the minister of technology from Point Grey. He says it. Don't the back-benchers and the other cabinet ministers agree with the minister? When he was challenged on it he said: "Well, I'm a maverick minister." In other words, he says what the rest of you believe but haven't got the nerve to say. I'll give the minister credit for that. He's got the nerve to say it.

A couple of years ago, Mr. Speaker, when the Minister of Finance brought his budget in, the member for North Vancouver–Seymour (Mr. Davis) took his place, looked at the Minister of Finance and said: "Well, I see you're a Keynesian now."

[ Page 1915 ]

AN HON. MEMBER: And still is.

MR. LEA: He still is, the member says. Well, I think you're right. I think he's a combination of the classic economist and the Keynesian. The only problem is, as the member for North Vancouver–Seymour knows, that we need a little bit more than that now. You might take a look at some of the pos-tKeynesian theories that are around if you're going to come up with any answers that will work in today's world. So when the former minister says he is still a Keynesian, he's actually condemning him to an old-fashioned world. He's trying to present solutions to problems in an old-fashioned way, when in fact we're trying to look for new solutions to new problems. So the member for North Vancouver–Seymour has, in his own way, condemned the present policies of the government as much as anybody else.

So what we're going to be doing with the Employment Standards Act is helping to pave the way to set the proper climate. I suppose if you believe that the best way to have a society move forward is by making sure that the ones at the bottom are literally starved to death so that the incentive will be there to climb up the ladder of success, then the government is indeed setting the proper climate.

Mr. Speaker, nobody's going to deny that there have to be certain incentives in society for people to achieve. But can you tell me what advantage there is in the long run to allow the employer, in an industry that has traditionally been paying high wages, to put them back to the minimum wage, to allow the employer to take away their fringe benefits and take away their statutory holidays that aren't set out by law in other sections in other acts? That's what this piece of legislation is doing. I don't think anybody thinks we can take any more than small, faltering steps into the future, because we're not certain exactly which way we want to go. But I don't see why a government would want to take giant strides into our past, running with big long strides almost frantically trying to get back into the laissez-faire capitalist world of nineteenth century Great Britain. What for? Was it good then? How soon we forget, Mr. Speaker, the reasons for this act — not this one, but the one it's amending. It's not that long ago. My grandmother was part of the child labour scene in Great Britain. Ten years old and working in the cotton mills. My grandmother! Your father, Mr. Speaker. That's right. And how soon we forget and think that it's always been like this. We think that we've always had the eight-hour day. There are people in our history right in Canada who gave their lives trying to achieve the eight-hour day for themselves and for their fellow workers. Do people really forget that easily? How long ago is it that workers in a peaceful demonstration were walking down the street in Saskatchewan and the RCMP put a machine gun up on the steps of the post office and shot them down? Not that long ago.

[12:15]

[Mr. Pelton in the chair]

AN HON. MEMBER: Farmers don't have an eight-hour day.

MR. LEA: That's absolutely correct. I was raised on a farm. I know that. The eight-hour day, though, signifies a movement away from the 14-hour day and the 16-hour day for no overtime for people like my grandmother, Mr. Speaker, and your grandfather, who had to work in factories for hardly any money. Ask my uncle. He says: "You know what it was like? I remember getting up in the morning and living in the rotten tenements in Great Britain and having rats biting at my mother's feet when she was trying to get breakfast." Is that the good old day that we want to go back to? Just what were those good old days that we're all trying to get back to? Were they so great? I can remember my uncle and my dad during the last depression when they went out to get the dole and they had to shovel dirt out of one place and put it in another, and the next day go back and shovel it somewhere else. It's not that long ago. Do we honestly think that we've evolved so much that those days couldn't come back? Do we think we can take away the protection for consumers, that they don't need it anymore? Do we think we can take away the protection for workers and health and safety and all of a sudden the employer has turned over a new leaf and won't see that the maximization of profit can be made on the backs of unhealthy and unsafe workplaces? Do we really believe that human nature has changed to such a degree that we don't need protections in our society for the weak against the strong? Do we think we've evolved to a place where those are no longer needed, Mr. Speaker? How long would it take to take away the protections provided by government, that the population would once again be subjected to it all?

The right-wingers are fond of saying — and probably it's true: "If you were to divvy everything up equally, it wouldn't be too long before it's all distributed unequally again, that some would have more than others, some with more ability, some with more drive, some with more greed." And it's true. But, Mr. Speaker, the only reason for government is to offer the kind of protection that was offered and that this bill is going to take away. The job of government is to bring around a distribution, whether it's in the social areas.... For instance, who would think it was okay if we should get some guy who's fairly frail, obviously not a big tough fighter, and along came a big strapping guy and was bullying him around, slapping him around? If it was happening out in the hall, we'd all rush out there to help the little guy protect himself against the unwarranted power and unwarranted use of power that was being used. We would see that as our job as citizens. Do we not see it as our job as citizens to protect an old-age pensioner who is getting unconscionable rent increases from a power beyond his control? Is that not the role of government? Is it not the role of government to protect ordinary citizens against the power of big wealth? It is our job. If it is not our job, then we do not have one. There is no job for us. I reject the conservative philosophy that only three things should be protected: property and body and character. Your body should have protection and your property should have protection. After that, she's just Darwin crazy. The strong take. In economics, conservatives believe there should be no protection, because if you protect the weak in economics, they feel, then the strong won't be able to provide the things that we all want. It's a convoluted theory.

One of the things that has brought about the redistribution of wealth in our society to a great degree has been the trade union movement. It has also been acts of legislatures like this one. Every piece of legislation that I pick up would heartily be approved by the Fraser Institute: Walter Block, its chief economist, and Mr. Walker, its director. They don't think that there should be a Human Rights Commission. They state it in black and white. They don't think there should be a minimum wage. They state it in black and white. They don't think that the consumers should be artificially protected, as they put it, by government. They don't think that tenants should be

[ Page 1916 ]

protected. They think that the marketplace takes care of all that sort of thing. I said I would present some circumstantial evidence. When you see the Fraser Institute and its director sitting in at the planning of the budget with the cabinet, and then you see everything that the Fraser Institute believes in coming into the Legislature in legislative form, you have to believe that there is some connection.

I think it's barbaric.

MR. REID: Talk about the powers of the trade union movement.

MR. LEA: Sure, I'll talk about it.

MR. REID: That's the problem of today.

MR. LEA: It's one of them. You see, there is the difference. There's no doubt about it. There are warts on the trade union movement. It isn't perfect. But what it does is play the same game as everyone else. What it does is take out of the economy everything it has the power to take out. There comes a time when the government has to temper it too, and we did it when we were in government. But you can't point to one group in society and say: "That's the problem."

MR. REID: You have to start somewhere.

MR. LEA: Then why don't we start with MacMillan Bloedel? A company gets the union it deserves. There's a bit of truth in that. It takes two to fight. In many ways I look at the trade union movement and the corporate world as a bit of a marriage. When they're fighting, you put your head in there and they might both clobber you. But if you're going to deal with the problems between the trade union and the employers, you have to come in with an understanding that there's a bit of blame on both sides, there's a bit of good will on both sides, and you have to be the buffer in between, as government. You can't just pick up and attack one side. That's what this government is doing, and it's a divisive thing in society. They believe that the companies are wonderful and the trade unions are terrible.

MR. REID: That's not true.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hon. members, there is to be no debate on the floor of this House. The speaker has the floor. The second member for Surrey and others are interrupting the speaker. I would ask you to let him continue, and perhaps if the speaker would try to address the Chair a little more, it might help likewise.

MR. LEA: I am addressing the Chair; I'm only looking at them. I'll look at you too, Mr. Speaker. You're a much more receptive audience anyway.

I think that's the problem. All the labour legislation we've seen so far — and the labour legislation that's coming in — is directed at the workers of the province, because Social Credit believes that the workers are 95 percent to blame, and the companies are 5 percent. They won't understand that the problem between unions and management has to be equally shared by both.

MRS. JOHNSTON: Why don't you go tell that to your friends?

MR. LEA: I tell my friends that; why don't you tell yours?

Interjections.

MR. LEA: I think I've touched a nerve, Mr. Speaker. They honestly do believe it. Do you know why I think the problem is here?

Interjections.

MR. LEA: Mr. Speaker, will I have more time? Will this be added onto my time? No? Then would you stop them? No? At least there's an honest Speaker.

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

I'd just like to conclude by saying that I think the problem is that most of the Social Credit MLAs are from the small business community, and they've got no experience in dealing with trade unions. They believe their own myths after a while and they think that trade union people are terrible, greedy, divisive, rotten, stinking people and that if we could only get rid of them, life would be wonderful. For political purposes they say: "Well, the companies are not all right either." But if you get them in the privacy of a little conversation, it all comes out. They really think that the trade unions are the worst thing in society and that big corporations are really the good thing, and they see it as their everlasting duty to destroy and cut that evil cancer, called the trade unions, out of our society.

It hasn't got to the point yet where they won't take the trade unions' money in their stores, because they haven't reached that moral plateau yet, but they do think that they are very evil things in society and they're out to destroy them. And, Mr. Speaker, in their desire and haste to destroy the trade union movement, they may very well destroy all of society — no harmony, no peace, just chaos. The climate that the government has been trying to establish will just not be the climate we get. They're looking for blue, sunny skies; I think we're heading toward stormy weather. Thank you, Mr. Speaker

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, I wonder if the Speaker would consider allowing that member to speak again in the debate on this bill, because he just spoke for 40 minutes and never spoke to the bill once.

Hon. Mr. Gardom moved adjournment of the debate.

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. members, I am informed that His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor is in the precinct. If we could possibly just keep our places for a few moments, we will have him join us.

[12:30]

His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor entered the chamber and took his place in the chair.

CLERK-ASSISTANT:

Tobacco Tax Amendment Act, 1983

Miscellaneous Statutes (Finance Measures) Amendment Act, 1983

Pension (Public Service) Amendment Act, 1983

[ Page 1917 ]

College and Institute Amendment Act, 1983

Harbour Board Repeal Act

British Columbia Cellulose Company Repeal Act

Ocean Falls Corporation Repeal Act

Regulations Act

Estate Administration Amendment Act, 1983

An Act Respecting Okanagan Bible College

CLERK OF THE HOUSE: In Her Majesty's name, His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor doth thank Her Majesty's loyal subjects, accept their benevolence and assent to these bills.

His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor retired from the chamber.

HON. MR. ROGERS: Mr. Speaker, I ask leave to make an introduction.

Leave granted.

HON. MR. ROGERS: Mr. Speaker, I ask leave to make an introduction.

Leave granted.

HON. MR. ROGERS: Would the members please welcome Pat Carney, MP for Vancouver Centre and the next Minister of Energy for Canada.

Hon. Mr. Gardom moved adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

The House adjourned at 12:37 p.m.

Appendix

AMENDMENTS TO BILLS

7 The Hon. W.S. Ritchie to move, in Committee of the Whole on Bill (No. 7) intituled Property Tax Reform Act (No. 1), 1983 to amend as follows:

SECTION 2, by deleting paragraph (b) and substituting the following:

"(b) by repealing subsection (8) and substituting the following:

"(8) For the purposes of subsection (7), in determining the assessed value

(a) for general municipal purposes for the 1983 taxation year, "the assessed value for the preceding year" means the assessed value shown on the assessment roll for other than general municipal purposes for the 1982 taxation year multiplied by 10, and

(b) for other than general municipal purposes for the 1984 taxation year, ''the assessed value for the preceding year" means the assessed value shown on the assessment roll for other than general municipal purposes for the 1983 taxation year multiplied by 10."