[ Page 2151 ]

CONTENTS

Routine Proceedings

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

Mr. Mitchell –– 2151

Hon. Mr. Brummet –– 2154

Mr. Lea –– 2155

Mr. Rose –– 2159

Mr. D'Arcy –– 2164

The House met at 10:05 a.m.

Prayers.

Orders of the Day

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

Leave granted.

HON. MR. GARDOM: I call adjourned debate on second reading of Bill 4.

INCOME TAX AMENDMENT ACT, 1983
(continued)

MR. MITCHELL: As I rise in this debate today, I really believe that it's symbolic. What we are going to debate has already taken place. When I was getting prepared this morning, I thought that I should really wear a black tie to symbolize what this government really feels about those who are unfortunate enough to be on a low income. I think this bill, this debate and the attitude of this government show deep hate for those who are unfortunate enough to be in an income bracket where they qualify for the personal tax and renter's tax credits. I think this decision was made deliberately by the government.

I often can't help but wonder.... When this discussion and debate took place in the Social Credit caucus, there must have been certain members of that caucus who were opposed to this legislation, who had compassion and who could remember friends, relatives or loved ones who were in the position that the extra money they got each year, either as a tax credit or as a renter's grant, was the difference between eating and not eating, the difference between one small, frivolous piece of entertainment and not having any.

Every one of us, in our constituency offices, in our day-to-day life, runs across people who are in that position. I know my constituency office is no different than the constituency offices of the members who make up the government. But somewhere they made a decision that they would rather take $91 million from those who need it and use it for the $160 million a year that they are paying to cover the interest alone on such projects as northeast coal...

AN HON. MEMBER: Job creation.

MR. MITCHELL: It's the most expensive job creation this province has ever seen.

...or the $26 million a year that it has taken to pay the interest on B.C. Place, so the cabinet ministers can entertain their friends in the manufacturing business in their $60,000 suites. This was a decision that was made deliberately by each and every one of the 35 members who make up the government, and this was a decision that this province is faced with for the next four years.

I think we should review some of the statements that were made when the personal income tax credit was brought into this House. Let us remember, Mr. Speaker, that the income tax credit grants came in following the 50 percent increase in sales tax that was foisted onto the population of British Columbia after the 1979 election. The Minister of Finance (Hon. Mr. Curtis) stated in this House that he realized and understood that sales tax increases hit those in the lowest income-tax bracket harder than those of us who are in the $40,000 tax bracket. He realized that those low-income senior citizens, single parents and those on unemployment still buy the same amount of toothpaste, shaving cream and necessities, in order to maintain some dignity, as those who are in the millionaire class. Because of that he felt that there must be something in the legislation that gives back a small benefit from this 50 percent increase in the sales tax.

Since that 50 percent increase, the sales tax in this province has been increased 75 percent over the 1979 level, which hits those in the low-income bracket far more devastatingly than those of us who manage to earn a sufficient wage to live with a little bit of hope and dignity. This is a decision that 35 people in British Columbia made –– 35 MLAs who sit in the Social Credit caucus — and I know they didn't make it easily or unanimously. I know there are people with compassion in that group, but they jumped into line behind their leader and ran out into the public and said: "Yes, we must follow our leader and deny those people those small tax credits."

When you look at the history of British Columbia, you cannot take it out of the context of the world economy and the economy of Canada. We must look seriously at what a tax credit is. The tax credit is in the same sphere as the medical insurance and the old age pension. A tax credit is income distribution. There is nothing in this world that's free. The only resources we have are the resources that are being produced by the working people of this country. Those benefits which are the results of those efforts must be redistributed in some way or other so that each one of us has a fair share of our production. I say this very seriously, because we have gone through, as life and economics evolved, a time when everything was owned by the kings and lords of a country, and the small benefits which trickled down to society were just handouts. There was a time when, once your life expectancy of production was finished, people were thrown out on the scrap-heaps. In many parts of this world that still exists, because life is not considered something to be cherished in some countries.

[10:15]

But we are in British Columbia, and we have compassion. I know my party represents 45 percent of the voting people, and I know that 45 percent do have compassion, understanding and the realization that the economy will not — and I say this again — survive if you keep allowing one group to accumulate wealth and deny that to the other. I say this not because I am predicting any great change in the attitude of the government. The government is locked into an attitude that they are going to push this legislation through if they have to do it by exhaustion or by closure. As I said when I started, this debate is very symbolic. It's going to go through. It's going to go through because certain people would lose face if they had the guts to stand up and say: "I disagree." If one or two or seven or eight of those sitting in that caucus had the guts and integrity, I know that the people of British Columbia would admire them, They would admire them because of the fight that we in the NDP are putting up against this legislation — the fight of the trade union movement, the churches, the community groups, the activists. All of those people are today becoming politically organized and politically motivated to do something positive.

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The only positive action is to defeat the Social Credit government. It'll take time, but what is time in the political history of this province? Three or four years will come, and I know in that time there will be many people, senior citizens, who will go without. There will be many children of single parents who will be denied some small pleasures. I also know, Mr. Speaker, as you well know, that there are many fathers, breadwinners, of families who will unfortunately be on unemployment and may lose their homes and their dignity. For the next three or four years they will lose what little bit of hope we in Canada believe we should share.

[Mr. Pelton in the chair.]

I think it's interesting to study the attitudes that took place in this province when the voting patterns were 47 percent NDP and 49 percent Social Credit, when there was a 2 percent difference, and this government was attempting to establish the idea that they were a feeling government, that they understood the problems of those who are unfortunate. When you read back over the speeches that the present Minister of Finance (Hon. Mr. Curtis) made.... I know the Minister of Finance is a very honourable and highly respected citizen of the Victoria area. I know that he and I share a lot of friends, and I know that our friends are of many political stripes, and those same friends share different economic lifestyles, but they are friends. When the Minister of Finance back in 1981 laid out for the benefit of all of us in this House what the income tax credit was going to do to those who needed the money, the reason he said that was a very political reason: because the votes of this province were divided very closely, 47 to 49, and the government was attempting to establish some credibility. In the spring of 1979 they had cut the sales tax from 7 percent to 4 percent, and that was very political, because they were going into an election. We came back in 1980 and '81 and those promises that were made in 1979, when the Premier of this province said that the sales tax was going down from 7 to 4 percent and not going to go up, were forgotten.

My official critics down at the far end of the Social Credit back benches keep saying: "People forget." That was three years ago. They forgot. There was a hue and cry, but there were no demonstrations when they broke the promise of 1979 and raised the income tax from 4 to 6 percent.

This continual erosion of the purchasing power of a large group of our community was supplemented by the income tax credit. The Minister of Finance said:

For example: the maximum credit for a single tax-filer will be $95; for a single pensioner it will be $155; for a married tax-filer it will be $178; for a married tax-filer with two children under 18 years of age it will be $214; for a married tax-filer with four children under 18 it will be $246; and for married pensioners it will be $235.

I believe that the Minister of Finance, supported by a lot of people within his own caucus, felt this was a humanitarian outlook on the distribution of the wealth of British Columbia. I know he believed it. He said:

To illustrate the importance of this new tax credit, I would like to point out that the credit will not be reduced to zero until certain income levels are reached: for a single tax-filer approximately $10,500, for a single pensioner approximately $16,500, for a married tax-filer about $18,500, for a married pensioner approximately $24,000 and for a married tax-filer with two children under 18 approximately $22,500.

The Minister of Finance at that time established that there were certain poverty levels that the community must not be forced to go below without receiving some redistribution of the wealth of this province. He established figures that had a lot of merit. The Minister of Human Resources (Hon. Mrs. McCarthy) does not use these figures as a criterion. This was a progressive step that had come out of the cabinet because of political fear; if they didn't make some drastic changes in their outlook, there would be a different result in the election that came in 1983.

As I've said before, I do believe in the laws of this country. I do believe in the need for legislation that is going to give the direction that the government is going. I do believe in the need for parliament to sit at regular times. But what happened? In all credit to the Minister of Finance, he did announce in 1982 that the tax credits for that year were going to be denied to those who qualified under the existing laws. I think this is very interesting. He stated in his speech on May 19, 1981 that part of this bill gives more money back to the lower-income tax-filers — this is the part that's interesting — though it doesn't affect government revenues until the 1982-83 fiscal period.

[10:30]

You know, this was a commitment given by this House, not only by the government but by every one of us who sat in the Legislature in 1981 when it came in. We gave a commitment that the tax revenue — I believe it was estimated at about $70 million — would be given to those who qualified under the laws that we passed. As an MLA and as a British Columbian, I think this commitment is one we should have at least lived up to. In a democracy we cannot afford a government able to sit back and from its ivory tower issue press releases that a commitment given by this House and endorsed in legislation can be summarily dismissed, without first calling this House back into session, without doing what we are doing now and passing this legislation, making it law.

What happened just prior to that particular announcement? We all received press releases from the Minister of Finance. I remember reading one of those press releases, advocating that each one of us as MLAs, in writing out our weekly columns or when meeting senior citizens, those who qualified for the income tax credit, advise them to file that application to get that tax credit back. In my riding I have three senior citizens' activity centres. I know it is political, but I do go around and visit them, and I do talk to them. I took the Minister of Finance's advice and recommended to many people who normally did not file an income tax return because they didn't have to pay income tax.... I explained the legislation that was passed by the government, and gave credit to the Minister of Finance. I explained why that particular piece of legislation was on our books. I compared it to a type of income redistribution, saying that it was our method of sharing some of the wealth of this country with those in different economic circumstances. Many, on my recommendation, filed for that income tax credit. I had confidence that the laws of this country would be upheld.

I know that if it was a large corporation and they had any tax loopholes.... This government and the Liberal government in Ottawa would grant every tax loophole to those with money. The courts of the country would have upheld any appeal against a government trying to collect money when there wasn't the legislation to demand it. We all know the tax loopholes that have been created, and the tax benefits that have been granted to people and companies because of a mistaken period or comma. You read the court records.

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Millions and millions of dollars have been returned to companies because of a misprinted word in legislation. But there was no misprinting in this particular piece of legislation when it was passed in 1981. It was even stated in Hansard that the people would start to benefit, or the government would start to lose revenue in 1982-83. We actually believed it. But for some unknown reason the need to subsidize B.C. Place or northeast coal was far more beneficial to the government than the promises they had made to other people and their needs.

I say it is symbolic that the debate we're having today will not change this misuse of parliament, this misuse of the power of the cabinet, whereby they can — and I say this to the Premier, who is sitting here — misuse and confuse and deceive.... I know that's wrong and withdraw the word "deceive." But that they would take that power they have and not call this Legislature together in the traditional manner that it should have been called back in in January or February of 1983 and not bring out the budget and the legislation that was going to take these tax credits back, the legislation that made up the budget package of 26 that this bill is one of — now we have cut it down to one of the dirty dozen.... When you look back at the need and the right that the people of this province had of having that budget debate in January-February — any time before the end of the fiscal year.... When the election came in May, we wouldn't have had the circumstances in which the government and the Social Credit Party were saying, "We are going to withdraw the tax credits and take away your renter's grants," while at the same time Social Credit candidates were running around saying that if they got elected, that legislation would be continued. I know that the phone banks and the canvassers out on the doorsteps representing Social Credit were spreading two stories. They were saying: "Yes, I know there are certain pieces of our legislation that the Minister of Finance has said will be taken away from you." They were also saying to those who were going to collect that tax credit that if they got elected, or the candidate represented got elected, they were going to make sure that that legislation continued. This is the problem we have, Mr. Speaker: the two stories that were told out in the community, the inference....

I believe in laws, I believe in legislation, I do believe in constructive debate. I believe that each one of us has an obligation, after being elected, to get up and participate — participate in the debates on each piece of legislation that comes in that is going to affect our constituents. I believe we have that responsibility. I believe that if we don't participate, we are missing the opportunity to establish, once and for all, where we personally stand on it. If that debate had taken place in January, February, March, before the end of the fiscal year, prior to the May 5 election, Mr. Speaker, you know as well as the thousands and thousands of people who supported the government that the mandate — the election of the 35 members who are sitting here today — would not have taken place. It would not have taken place if the facts had been there. I say in all honesty that it is a politically astute method of deceiving the public. I say this honestly, as a politician.

MR. KEMPF: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, not only is this member constantly out of order in respect to relevant debate in this House, but also he has done nothing for the last 10 or 15 minutes but cast aspersions, not only upon hon. members of this House but also on members of the public who campaigned diligently on behalf of this party. In order to adhere to standing order 43, I'd ask you to bring that member to order.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hon. members, the matter of relevancy is a very difficult one. As hon. members will appreciate, the Chair has a very real responsibility not only to appear to be fair, but to be fair. I have been listening intently to the hon. member's discourse, and I must say that there has been a tendency to waver from relevancy here and there and a certain amount of repetition. So I would ask the hon. member if he would bear these things in mind, being a parliamentarian of long standing and appreciating the requirements of our standing orders. Will you proceed, please — in a relevant way, hon. member.

MR. MITCHELL: Mr. Speaker, in answer to that point of order, the member for Omineca is doing what I have said — by the back door. He hasn't the integrity to stand up in this House and participate in the debate in the ordinary way, but he brings it up on a point of order.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: We shouldn't be speaking to the point of order now. I would much prefer you to speak to Bill 4, and I would ask that you do so.

MR. REYNOLDS: Mr. Speaker, on the same point of order as the member for Omineca's — and I have stood up and spoken on this bill, so the member can't make those comments — he is not speaking to the bill. I would ask that you warn him again, under the standing orders, that he must stay within the principle of the bill.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hon. member, the matter of relevancy has been raised again. and I would ask the member to continue in a relevant way. Let us not proceed by speaking to the point of order that was stood on, but rather, go ahead with the bill, please.

MR. MITCHELL: Mr. Speaker, as you said in your summation, I have been sticking to the bill. It's all part of taking away the income tax credits of this province. It is all in the discussion, freely debated in this House, that the income tax credits were part of the income redistribution that is taking place in this nation.

[10:45]

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

I know that my official critic from Omineca likes to get up on these foolish points of order, that he likes to make his points and his jabs, but that he won't get up and speak.

AN HON. MEMBER: There's no such thing as a foolish point of order.

MR. MITCHELL: There might not be a foolish point of order, but there are a lot of points of order that come up in this House that are not points of order, and the majority of the points of order brought up by my official critic....

In summing up, now that my green light is on, I say that the idea of denying the income tax credit is wrong, that the policy of withholding the renter's tax grant is wrong. If I was making any predictions.... The renter's tax credit is comparable to the homeowner grant, and when you take away, before the laws are passed, the benefits that are laid down in

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our legislation because of so-called restraint, I say that it's wrong. Though this bill is under the guise of restraint, this bill represents seven years of mismanagement by this government. It represents the choices that they made to spend money foolishly on buildings and production that at this time is not needed, although it may be something that B.C. will need in the future. These were choices that were made to the detriment of the legislation on the books. I am going to vote against this bill because I think that if I didn't, the 57 percent of the voters in my riding would not return me in the next election.

HON. MR. BRUMMET: I would like to make a few remarks in this debate, but first I would like to make an introduction. I would like to introduce Mayor Dick Neufeld from Fort Nelson, who is in the gallery today along with the village clerk, Colin Griffith. I would like the members to make them welcome.

I would like to address a few remarks saying that I support this bill. The problem we've been facing here for many hours is the apparent effort of the socialists opposite to try, somehow or other, to sound as though they have been, all of a sudden, selective on this particular bill. I think we have to recognize that very early in the session they came out completely against anything that this government is attempting to do. They have tried to go out and remobilize the forces that they mobilized last spring, and say: "Hey, we got whumped then, but we've got another chance now, because we can stir up some issues for you."

We've been accused of many things in this bill and in the other bills as well. We've been accused of deliberately trying to foment dissent and strife and chaos. I think that if you really look at what's been happening here.... This government and this party went to the people of this province and said: "We think we can run government with 25 percent fewer people than we had over a year ago." And the people said: "We believe you. Go to it." We said that strong measures would have to be taken in the name of restraint, that we believed we had to restrain government spending. And the people said: "Yes, we feel that is the way to go." We certainly indicated there would have to be some strong measures: some biting of the bullet, some tax measures. And the people still said, in effect: "Well, whatever you feel is necessary." So in this budget and in this legislation we have set out to do what we felt was necessary to bring this province back to economic recovery. And we put that into legislation.

Without exception, the opposition and their friends jumped on that and said: "You must withdraw every bill, and then we will cooperate." That's some way to negotiate! So we're in the position on this bill.... This bill happens to be a tax measure to regain some $91 million in revenue which would have been forgone had the measure not been taken. Other bills are trying to implement the other steps. Every step of the way the NDP has tried to misrepresent these intentions to the public. They have been the ones who, again, have been trying to mislead some of the people out there by misrepresenting the intent and by actually misrepresenting some of the facts in trying to convert people to their cause. They constantly accuse us of not listening to the people. Do they, somehow or other, feel that they are the only ones who talk to their constituents, that they are the only ones who get letters, that somehow or other they have a blessed status, that they represent the people, that we do not talk to the people, that we do not listen to our people? How ridiculous that is, when you analyze it. We have talked to the people. We have listened to the people. We have got the message. They tried to accuse us of having a dictatorial approach because we got a mandate. No, we got a mandate from the people because we said this is what we stand for: we stand for restraint; we stand for less government; we stand for economic recovery through the private sector. And the people have supported us in that. That's why we say that we have a mandate. We told the people what we stood for. They are trying to represent to the people that somehow or other this is a dictatorial move by this party, by one man directing us. Certainly not. The direction which this party has been getting and the direction the Premier has been getting are from the elected representatives, the people who represent the majority of people in this province.

The NDP might have had some credibility left had they not attacked everything this government has done. They just said: "We won't even look at it carefully. Whatever they do is wrong. Whatever they plan to do is somehow or other evil." They have attacked every tax measure, including the sales tax. They say they are for restraint. They say we should not get into great deficit financing — at least, they imply that. Yet every tax measure that has been put in and every restraint measure that has been put in and every program change.... When they come up for debate they attack each one of them in isolation. They attack all of them in general and say that nothing must be done, that nothing of what the Socreds proposed must be allowed to happen in this province, despite what the people said. Just remember that: despite what the people of this province said, which was: "What the Socreds proposed is what we want to see happen in British Columbia." These people immediately said, in blanket terms: "Nothing of what the Socreds are trying to propose or of what they plan to institute in this province should be allowed to happen. We will use every technical rule of this House and every tactical method we possibly can to block that, to stop it." I think they should consider that.

As each issue comes up, they pretend to be the great saviours of every person who loses a job because of restraint, of every dollar that's saved because of restraint, of every additional tax that is imposed to try to keep that deficit down. And they say: "What have you saved?" Well, had we gone along with all of the measures, which in listening to the debate on the various bills in this House.... They said: "You can't cut this. You can't cut that program. You mustn't cut any staff. You mustn't do this. You've got to increase your spending here. You've got to do all of these things." If we listened to them, the amount of spending by this government would be up by another $2 billion. And where would it come from in these times? We're saying that we have to get back to living within our means. Many people are saying: "We may not like it, but we certainly accept that it has to be done." They accuse us of not speaking against a party line, against what the Premier says and so on. Has one member on that side stood up and said: "Hey, there is one thing out of those 27 bills that the Socreds have done that might be a good thing"? No. If you're going to make those kinds of accusations, I think you should remember that when you point one finger there are three pointing back at you.

They have said a great deal about the rights of the minority. What they seem to neglect entirely is that the minority also has a responsibility, not just rights. Certainly in a democracy the minority does have the right to express their wishes, to demand what they need, to be looked after. But I don't think that minority has the right to hold a government to

[ Page 2155 ]

ransom or to hold the people of this province to ransom, as some of them are proposing to do through methods in this House, through general strikes, through all of that sort of thing. I think that for far too long we have been influenced by the loud and vociferous minorities, and by the threats and intimidation that they give. A lot of people are fed up with that and are certainly supporting this government in that respect.

Last night we heard somebody ask why we are being so stringent in our budget when the Royal Bank and other reports are saying that British Columbia is on the road to recovery. For heaven's sake, that recovery only started happening since this government took the position that we're going to have less government and therefore less taxation to the people. That's what brought about that recovery. Those people never seem to understand that. They do not seem to appreciate that spending by government is spending the taxpayers' money. I don't think they will ever understand that without restraint the deficit would be higher. Without some difficult tax measures we would certainly be in a far worse position. Even without their suggestions, which I indicated would probably raise the spending by about $2 billion with no further source of revenue, and even had we not taken the stringent measures that we did to pare at least a half a billion dollars off the expenditures of government last year, the deficit this year could well have been in the neighbourhood of $2.5 billion instead of the $1.6 billion estimated. So, yes, there have been some restraints.

They ask what we are saving. Well, there are so many ways. It's simple arithmetic. If in two years you end up with 10,000 fewer employees at an average salary of $23,000 per year and with 30 percent benefits, you really are looking at about $30,000 per year in total, so you've got $300 million every year that those 10,000 people aren't in the force. We and many of our public sector servants believe that it can be done and that we can give better service with a reduced and refined and more productive public sector. So we need to remember that it's not just the dollar that you save this year, it's the dollars that we save by not having some employees on next year.

They say we have skills, we have resources, we have all of the ingredients to help our economy. The skills are no good if there are no jobs. There are no jobs if you cannot market the products of your resources, so I think they might well remember that.

The NDP will accuse us of spending on B.C. Place, highways and roads and things of that nature — these one-time capital expenditures that then end up in revenue-producing facilities in this province that attract more tourists and more revenue to the province. I don't think they will ever understand that the way you continue the services in this province is by generating some revenue on a continuing basis. That revenue can only be generated if you invest some money as well as just collect it and spend it, because expenditures go on indefinitely. You have to invest. B.C. Place, for example, will attract much money to British Columbia and has provided many jobs and will continue to provide many jobs and much revenue to the province.

[11:00]

[Mr. Strachan in the chair.]

Because of their socialist philosophies, they seem to feel that government is made to collect money and to spend money, not to invest money, not to generate revenue. You can only distribute what is generated. Maybe some day they will catch on to that, instead of looking at the short term where they can say: "We've got to help this group now, we've got to increase the salaries for these people now, we've got to maintain every job and somehow government has a responsibility to hire on everybody who loses his job in the private sector." If you follow it to its illogical conclusion, that can only be done if government taxes the producers in the economy to the extent that they destroy them. So their philosophy is self-defeating. The people of this province, I believe, have recognized that and certainly have indicated very clearly that they've had enough of it.

MR. LEA: I'd like to congratulate the minister who has just taken his place for speaking in the debate. I don't disagree with everything he said, and I don't agree with everything he said, but I do congratulate him for having said it. That's what this place should be all about — the two opposing parties giving their points of view. That is not happening enough. I thank the minister for his remarks.

I don't think we would be doing our job if we didn't talk about the kind of people who are going to be affected by this legislation. I'm talking about the elderly. I had what I consider the good fortune of being raised in the early part of my life in a setting that could only be described as nineteenth-century. I was raised in the Arrow Lakes in a small place called Graham Landing, named after my grandfather on my mother's side, one valley over from the hon. member for Okanagan North (Mr. Campbell) and the Premier. My parents, my aunt and uncle, their friends — the people I saw when I was growing up — had a hard life. We didn't have any electricity. We had very little running water in those days. We had horses. It was a hard life.

Who are the people we are asking now to take a slice off their income when they have very little income in the first place? I can remember my mother, my aunt and the other women in the farming community on washing day. It was an ordeal just to go through washday — pulling water from the well or from the creek, hour after hour, gallon after gallon, chopping the wood, keeping the fire going. The women were bent over from hard work and probably would never completely straighten up again. It was back-breaking, mentally-breaking, hard work that the pioneers of this province put in. I can remember, before I was ten years old, having to go out into the fields and not being big enough to lift the harness on the horses and having to take the harness apart and put it on the horse one part at a time and hook it up when it was on the horse. That was, of course, after I went out to get the cows, milked the cows, brought the milk in and separated it. My parents were up even before me, doing other things. It was hard, back-breaking work.

Those are the pioneers to whom we are saying now: "We don't appreciate that kind of life, that kind of work. We're going to treat you as second-class citizens. We're not going to do for you what we could do." We are not willing to take the affluent in this society and ask them to pay a little more so that those people who did all the work that had to be done to bring this society to where it is could have just a little bit of comfort in their old age. What kind of people are we that we would take a look at those pioneers — and I think many of us in this room remember those days.... We were probably mostly rural people in our youth, and we watched and we felt the kind of hardship that took place. It was not an easy life. It was a hard life. In your area, Mr. Speaker, it was the same

[ Page 2156 ]

way in those years. Not that long ago I remember working out of Prince George, when the population there was only about 5,000. There were about 300 gyppo loggers around Prince George at that time — hard-working pioneers. What are we saying to those people now? That we are not willing to tax the affluent a little bit more money so that we can bring some comfort to their old age? Is that what we're saying?

We see $24 billion in savings accounts in this province — money that is inactive — money that isn't producing. We see the affluent making so much money that they can bank money every month, every year. They are still doing that. There are still people in this society who are making a great deal of money. To allow those people to bank money, not even to invest it in new jobs and in new enterprise but to put it in savings accounts and collect interest on it and maybe take their trip to Hawaii at Christmas.... If they can take a trip to Hawaii at Christmas and we still have people who cannot live up to a decent standard of living, then we are not doing our duty to the people of this province.

Why is the government saying that the only solution to making sure that these people have money is one of two things? They are saying that either we have to borrow some more money, which none of us want to do, or we have to change our priorities of spending the money that we've already gathered. I think we have two options — maybe a combination of the two options. We could tax and we could shift our priorities of spending, based on the money and the revenue that we already have. We're looking at the sum of $91 million to make these programs continue. Has the Minister of Finance come in and given us any options to consider? Has he said: "Here are people making a certain amount of money; if we were to apply a surtax to these people in the high-income bracket then possibly we wouldn't have to take this away"? Maybe the surtax would only raise half of the money needed, and a shift of priority for the other half....

MR. REID: That's what CSP does.

MR. LEA: No, CSP does not do that. CSP is an instrument that will cut back the wages of the civil service, but obviously the Minister of Finance is admitting that that cut alone is not enough to allow us to make sure that this program that we're discussing still goes ahead. So we're not doing that. What we're doing is playing with figures: $91 million.

Mr. Speaker, I don't think that it would really hurt the people of this province if we were to cut back entirely on publications, except for those that have pertinent information.

I think one of the things we could do is take a look at the kind.... There are two different kinds of advertising. There is institutional advertising and there is specific advertising. Institutional advertising — and I'll use private sector examples — is where a company comes on and says.... We see it with B.C. Tel: we see children running up the steps to see their grandmother; the long-distance telephone call has been made. They're not selling anything specific. It's an institutional kind of advertising that says: "This is a nice thing that this company's all about." They're not advertising to tell you there's going to be a rate change or a different kind of service. It's called institutional advertising.

This government does a great deal of institutional advertising, where onto the television screen comes the ad and it's by the British Columbia Development Corporation. It doesn't tell you anything specific about a program in B.C. Development Corporation; basically all the ad does is say that the British Columbia Development Corporation is a nice institution for you people to have. And I think it is, if used properly. But I don't think we should be spending money to tell people that the BCDC is nice when we're not going to spend money for the people who are going to be affected by this bill.

The government has an obligation to do advertising that tells people specific things: the road is closed, don't drive on it, it's dangerous; there's a new program coming out where you can apply for some money for something. That kind of advertising the government has not only an obligation but a duty to do, to let people know what's available to them from government. But institutional advertising — and I submit that's the bulk of government advertising — is immoral when we are doing it at the expense of the elderly and a standard of living that would give them a decent lifestyle. How can a government justify institutional government advertising when we're going to take away from the elderly a renter's tax credit? It just doesn't make sense. And the member for Little Mountain agrees with me.

AN HON. MEMBER: We have to advertise to let people know what's available, what's happening....

MR. LEA: I agree with the member, but that is not institutional advertising, that is called specific-to-the-point advertising. Institutional advertising is when there's no information other than the fact that we're nice. You see companies doing it; you see governments doing it. But for governments to do institutional advertising at a time when there are citizens of this province suffering, and when those people are elderly and the kind of work that those elderly people did in their youth....

Today, I complain myself; I say: "I've got to do the washing. I've got to go upstairs, get the basket, carry it to the basement, put it in the washing machine, plug a button, and away it goes." I consider that to be a bit of a hardship; it takes me away from my book or from the television set. But the washing that the pioneers did — and I mentioned it earlier — was a back-breaking job that took all day for the family wash and all the next day and into the night to do the ironing. And ironing in those days wasn't plugging an iron in; it was a flatiron that heated up on the stove, and I've seen blisters all over my mother's hands from the handle slipping. We are going to say to people like my mother, my aunt, and all the other women who worked themselves to the bone in the Arrow Lakes district, who are still living and who still need a little bit of nourishment from their government: "We're going to do institutional advertising but we're not going to give you the tax credit." Mr. Speaker, that's immoral. Canning: we go to the store now and buy a can of peaches. There are people in this room who remember what it was like to do canning in the old days — the chopping of wood to keep that fire going, the heat and the back-breaking work. We're going to say to those women: "From now on we're going to do institutional advertising but you're out."

[11:15]

Mr. Speaker, we are playing political games in this Legislature with people who gave us what we have today through back-breaking labour. It's wrong. And do you know what they got for their effort? One of the first slaps in Arrow Lakes.... In my riding I ran into a guy, Herb Hampton, from Arrow Lakes. I knocked on the door in 1972; I didn't

[ Page 2157 ]

know he was there. A lot of people, I found out, moved to the Queen Charlottes because the lifestyle was comparable to what it had been in the Arrow Lakes before the High Arrow Dam. The first thing those people remember about government.... Herb Hampton described to me riding across the Arrow Lake ferry at dusk, looking up and down the valley, and the only thing you could see were fires burning where we used to live. That was almost our first contact with government. Up until then the only thing we knew about government was that when the Liberals were in, Herb Roberts was the road foreman; when the Conservatives were in, it was Harold Williams. Our first real contact with government was when they came in and razed our valley. I suppose the last contact that many of those people will have with government will be to have this tax credit taken away.

Mr. Speaker, is it any wonder people feel alienated from the people they've elected to serve them, when we do that kind of thing to them? They burned it from one end to the other, that's what they did. And do you know what? The Minister of Universities, Science and Communications (Hon. Mr. McGeer) said after he joined the Social Credit, even after he was made a minister in the Social Credit cabinet, that the burning and the flooding of that valley was really for nought. That's the kinds of contact citizens in this province have had with the government of British Columbia.

We're going to do it to them again. Are we not here to do things for them? We're not here to do things to them; but that's what we're doing. Surely we can find the money, $91 million, for what this bill has been doing for people. I know that the Minister of Finance could sharpen his pencil, go to the ministry and say: "I want you to go through these spending estimates with a fine-tooth comb. I don't care how you do it, but you're going to find $91 million so the pioneers can have a little succour in their old age." Surely we can do that. If we don't do it then what kind of Legislature are we? What kind of government is it? The Minister of Lands, Parks and Housing (Hon. Mr. Brummet) stands up and says: "Those socialists opposite don't seem to understand that in order to have economic recovery we'll probably have to put a few old people on dog food. Those socialists just don't understand what a buck is all about. All they are is soft on people." Mr. Speaker, we plead guilty to the charges you make: we are soft on people and we're not ashamed of it. The whole role of government should be soft on people. That's what we're all about. If it weren't for government the people themselves would be hard on one another. We should be the catalyst in human affairs. We should be the facilitators. We should be the area, the people and the institution that brings people together, not that tears them apart. That is our job. Our job is not to be mean; our job is to be generous.

If anyone votes for this piece of legislation, to take away from the pioneers of this province some last days of having a bit of comfort, then what are we? If all else fails, if the Minister of Finance cannot sharpen his pencil to the point where he can find $91 million, if he can't see his way clear to taxing the affluent, then I for one, if it had to be, would vote to borrow $91 million for these people.

AN HON. MEMBER: We already have.

MR. LEA: If we borrowed it for these people then let's spend it on these people. But what have we borrowed money for? We borrowed $125 million for a stadium, and what are we saying? We're saying it is more important to watch a football game than it is to make sure that people can live in homes in comfort? What kind of priorities does this government have? The Minister of Lands, Parks and Housing, in his address, said: "Don't the socialists ever understand that we have to invest money in our future so that we can have a future?" Yes, we understand that, but at what cost? Is the buck always the bottom line, or can the bottom line sometimes be compassion? My hon. friend the member for Coquitlam–Moody (Mr. Rose) said earlier in the debate: "Has compassion gone out of fashion?" It seems that that is what is happening. The government seems to be caught up in clichés and jingoism. "The bottom line." The bottom line is just a current expression. It's been around for a long time, meaning what you have left in the company after you've paid all the bills and all the operating costs. It means that you have a little bit of profit at the bottom line. But there is a difference between private enterprise and government. You cannot run government on the same principles as those of MacMillan-Bloedel. Government cannot be run like a business, though government must be run in a businesslike way. There is a difference, but the principle of the private-sector companies cannot be applied to government.

If I were really cynical and asked why the government is laying off civil servants. I would say it’s to transfer the responsibility to the federal government. You lay them off and they go on unemployment insurance, and who pays that? The federal government. Then they have the nerve to take their place in this House and bemoan the federal deficit after they load more expenditures onto the federal government. They're always there with their hand out, wanting more and more from the federal government, and yet when the people of this province, the elderly, ask that their tax credit remain in place, they say: "What are you doing with your hand out?"

What are the elderly supposed to do? Pull up their socks and go out and get a job when they're 65 and 70 and 75 years old — maybe with no training to make a living? They could be out there training to do the kind of work that I talked about earlier: pick fruit, can it and break their backs chopping wood and hauling water, dye their hands in lye and be absolutely scarred for the rest of their lives. They're trained to do that, but they're not trained to go out into the modern world and make a living when they're 75 years old. They are trained for hard, laborious work in the fields and in the homes of the farms. The elderly that we're talking about are, for the most part, people who were not raised in cities. I'll bet you there are people who aren't living that much differently in Omineca today than the way my family and my relations lived in the Arrow Lakes when I was being raised. They may have some electricity, but I'll bet there are even places without electricity. I'll bet they're living the same way.

It's all too easy to sit in the cosy, new life of urban Canada with washing machines, electric stoves and lights, and no chopping of wood or none of the chores that we had in those days. It's all too easy to sit back and forget that the very people that we are asking to pick up the slack during this recession are the last people in the world that we should be asking. We should hang our heads in shame that we're going to do it. Ninety-one million dollars out of an $8.5 billion budget, and we're building a new liquor store in Kelowna.

Interjection.

MR. LEA: That's right, Mr. Member, paying rent for an empty store for two years, and we won't help people to pay

[ Page 2158 ]

for an apartment that they live in. There's something wrong. I suppose the reason we are building a new liquor store is that there's a new Safeway store. Show me a Safeway store and I'll show you a liquor store. Sometimes you wonder how all that happens.

AN HON. MEMBER: Just the breaks.

MR. LEA: "Just the breaks." Just a coinkidink.

We've got a brand-new building out here called the Systems Corporation Building. Do you know that the fourth floor hasn't had anybody in it since the day it was opened, and they don't know who to put in it? They've been negotiating with the Minister of Labour (Hon. Mr. McClelland) and his ministry. They're trying to get Labour in there just so that they can fill the building up. We're going to pay for a full floor of emptiness. It cost $30 million. You know what they did? They built a $30 million building, and the building that they were in is empty. Does that make any sense? Now that they've done that, they're going to sell the building. What are we looking at over here, the wizards of finance and planning?

One of the things that they don't do is plan, because they're absolutely against it. I can't understand it, because there isn't one of them in their own business who wouldn't plan. When it comes to government planning, they say: "Oh, government planning. Isn't that socialism?" So they go the opposite of planning. It's called no planning. That no planning is costing us dearly — empty space, buildings that we didn't need and liquor stores that we really don't need. In times of restraint, do we really need another liquor store in Kelowna? Is that mandatory? Is it something we can't do without? Is that essential or is it just desirable?

Let's go back to the throne speech, Mr. Speaker. The whole essence of the throne speech centred around three words: cooperation, desirability and essential. Those were the three words. I have to ask: is it desirable or essential that we treat the elderly with respect and dignity? To me it is essential. To my party it is essential because we do plead guilty to being soft on people, especially the elderly. Is it desirable or essential that we build a new liquor store in Kelowna when elderly people don't have enough? The answer is obvious, isn't it? And yet this government is making a choice that is against the obvious — against reason. What is lacking from this government and one word that did not appear in the throne speech was the word "reasonable," because it is not reasonable that this government would be taking the course of action it is. If you can't find $91 million out of an $8.5 billion budget by cutting some of the things that I would consider frills.... One of the biggest frills is institutional advertising, which is nothing more than saying: "Gee, aren't we great?"

This legislation is going to be rubber-stamped by the back bench. I remember when we were in government and had government back-benchers vote against us. We were annoyed, because we are human and we wanted everybody to fall in line. But there was another part of me that was proud that our party had actually put people in the field and people had been elected to this House who had the intestinal fortitude and the principle to stand up and say: "I don't agree with my government. I don't agree with my political party on this point, and I feel so strongly about it on principle that I will take the chance of not going in cabinet ever." I don't think they took that chance by voting against it. As a matter of fact, if you have back-benchers showing that kind of spunk and that kind of integrity, I would suggest to you that when you are looking for the next replacement, that might be the very place you look — unless, of course, you want trained dogs. If you want trained dogs that isn't the place you look.

We do have that one final obligation. It is not an obligation to our own political party, and it isn't even an obligation to this Legislature. Our one obligation is to make sure that people in our own constituencies do not suffer needlessly. People will suffer voluntarily if they can see the common good of all at the end of the road. But surely those who we are going to ask to suffer, to restrain themselves, to take a little bit less, shouldn't be the senior citizens of this province.

[11:30]

The government cannot argue that what this bill does will not cause discomfort to many. What they are saying is that the discomfort is worth it because of the end goal. I don't know of anybody here who wouldn't shoulder just a little bit more of a tax burden if it meant that our parents and our grandparents could live a decent life in their final years. We could all do it. Look at our own personal expenditures. Could we not cut back in our own personal life? We know there are some areas we could cut back in. Even today we probably go out to eat at least once a week. We don't go to the same kind of restaurants we went to a year ago, but we are still going out to eat about once a week in my family. Would it be such a hardship to give that one night up to make sure that the elderly can eat at all?

AN HON. MEMBER: Oh!

MR. LEA: The member for Okanagan North (Mr. Campbell) groaned when I said that. Maybe in his experience he hasn't met the people I am referring to. We don't see them every day, because they're not normally that active out in the community anymore. Some of the elderly who are more affluent are the ones we meet. But go into the heart of downtown Vancouver and look around. I don't mean just on the surface, but really strip off the gauze. Look underneath that superficiality of society. Look underneath and take a look at those human beings.

You cannot love humanity; you can only love people. We cannot deal with people in a broad spectrum and break it down into statistics. We can't do that. Behind every statistic is a living, breathing, human, needy person. That's what's there, and we know that. We know as surely as we sit and stand here that that's true. It's so easy to label. It's easy for us to label all Socreds as rats, and easy for the Socreds to label all of us as rats, but, boy, Mr. Speaker, I'd just like you to take a look at this Legislature itself and how we change once we get here. You come in here hating everybody from the political party that you're opposed to, and when you get here you find out that it's not that way. It's easy to hate a statistic, but it's very difficult to dislike and hate human beings that you work with and come into contact with every day. That's difficult. That's why, if you're really determined to hate, you shouldn't ever meet them, because once you meet them you find out that we're not much different from one another. When you strip it all away, we're the same people, with the same desires, the same instincts, the same needs and the same wants. Why would we deal, as this budget and its accompanying legislation do, with people as if they were statistics? Why wouldn't we look past those statistics and see people who are suffering, and who we're going to make suffer more?

[ Page 2159 ]

[Mr. Kempf in the chair.]

We're going to make them suffer more if we vote yes for this piece of legislation. Why would we do that? Would we do it consciously? That's hard to believe. I can't believe that anybody who has enough community spirit and enough caring about making the system work — who would actually care enough to go through the hell of getting elected, of having to do the back-breaking work you have to do to get elected, of having to put yourself in the position of being on the firing-line.... It's not an easy thing to do. You don't make that kind of decision lightly; you have to have some bigger meaning in order to run for a political party and put yourself out on the firing-line. As we know here. when it comes right down to it not many people, in the final analysis, will take that step. A lot think about it, but when it comes to the final decision of putting yourself on the firing-line, most people won't do it.

So we have that in common here. We have a commonality that we are not willing to sit back; we are willing to take and play our part in society, and actually be social beings instead of antisocial beings. Once we have taken that first step, why would we stop? Why wouldn't we carry that desire and that drive into the Legislature itself? Why wouldn't we carry that desire and that hard work into dealing with legislation that will actually benefit our neighbours, instead of doing something to them? Why wouldn't we bring into this House that spirit that drove us into politics in the first place?

I don't think there's one member in this House who would act the same way in his own constituency as here. We deal with it differently. When we go into our own ridings we all act very reasonably, because we know that, when it comes right down to it, those constituents whom we have to deal with face to face wouldn't put up with us in our unreasonableness. But when we get here, we seem to.... When we leave our riding, get into our car or climb on the plane, we come down here and take unreasonable attitudes. It's almost a group thing.

Would it be such a bad political thing for Social Credit to handle? Would it, do they think, appear to be a sign of weakness that they had given in to the elderly? Do they think it would be a sign of weakness that they'd given in to the poor and needy in our society, if they voted against this legislation? Now I understand that I'm pretty much asking the impossible, especially of a newly elected back bench, when I ask them to vote against the government that they are here to support, but I do make my appeal to the Minister of Finance. I do make my appeal to the Premier, and I do make my appeal to the cabinet. Take this piece of legislation away. Let it die on the order paper. Let the legislation die and let the people that it affects live in a style that we in this Legislature know they deserve to have. It is not to anyone's advantage — the cabinet, the Social Credit, the opposition, the New Democratic Party — to carry this legislation through and hurt people who have made the life here in this province one of great joy for most of us. We will not be doing our duty to the people who elected us if we pass this legislation; we will be doing them a disservice. I will not be voting for this legislation; neither will any member of my caucus.

MR. ROSE: Again, since I came to this House I seem to be speaking more and enjoying it less, but nevertheless that is the role we take when we take on these duties. I don't know whether my friends who have to listen to this constantly are enjoying it less or more. I would certainly like to congratulate the member who just spoke. I certainly enjoyed his historical....

MR. MOWAT: Lecture.

MR. ROSE: I wouldn't call it a lecture. I would suggest that what he did was to try to put some of our traditions in focus for us. He is the kind of person, I think, that has a view of the sweep of history and how things have developed over the years and how some of us forget how lucky we really are. For those people who made those sacrifices.... We are among the luckiest people in the world, because we are Canadians and British Columbians, and compared to the rest of the world, we live in a paradise. One member of the Legislature wrote a book one time called Politics in Paradise.

MR. REID: Is it for sale? Can a guy buy a copy?

MR. ROSE: I haven't seen it lately, but if I ever get hold of it, I am surely going to quote it back to him. But I understand that that has been done thousands of times.

I see the Minister of Finance over there, and I know that frequently — some people would say almost always — the NDP comes across as a bit self-righteous about these things. But it is very difficult, if you are righteous, not to come across as self-righteous — occasionally, anyway.

MR. MOWAT: When do you see the light?

MR. ROSE: I couldn't see it there, because somebody just moved in front of me. I couldn't see anything there for a second; I felt like I was the sun that went behind the mountain.

It is a measure of our society as to how we treat those people who are less strong and less able to fight for themselves. I know it is trite to say that. It is a cliché that out-clichés most clichés and has probably been used by many self-righteous speakers from my side over the years. It is nevertheless one of these trite things that tend to be true. If we are not able to summon enough compassion or capacity to reorder our priorities so that those people who are the most vulnerable are looked after in our society, then I don't really know what the role of government is or what our job is here.

How we treat the weak is, I think, extremely important to all of us. I think it is fair to say also that very few of us have any idea what it is like to be poor. Damned few of us in this chamber have any real idea of what it is like. I have a glimpse of it occasionally, because the office I share is in the same building as a thrift shop, and there are a lot of people who come and go there purchasing material. There are a lot of people whom I see from day to day that I know are suffering, but it really doesn't reach me, because I don't have to suffer. I am well paid for what I do. I am one of the privileged people. I had an education, and I am lucky for it.

Interjection.

MR. ROSE: I am not quite as well off as I was six or eight months ago — that's true.

AN HON. MEMBER: You know you couldn't win again.

[ Page 2160 ]

MR. ROSE: Somebody is suggesting that I couldn't win it back; I don't know about that. The thought has tempted me. As a matter of fact, I said on the night of the election, when our party lost and I was fortunate enough to be elected by the electors of Coquitlam–Moody, that I felt so depressed I damn near demanded a recount.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, please — to the bill.

MR. ROSE: I am sorry. The minister who has been away for weeks — I don't know where he has been — is attempting again to distract me, and you know how that works, how easily I am distracted by people who make interjections into my speech. I am extremely distracted by people over here at my left who are carrying on their own private conversation. It is very difficult for me to operate under those.... If you heckle me I am okay.

[11:45]

Mr. Speaker, I want this tax credit restored. It is about 1 percent — $91 million — of the total budget. What is that to a big, affluent, fat-cat government? If the Minister of Finance needs to tax me more to pay that $91 million, I'll gladly give it. As a matter of fact, I think that in this House there are so many affluent people that if you went around with a hat you could probably collect $91 million — perhaps not from this side of the House, but I'm sure that there are some on the other side that could make a healthy contribution. Why can't we, if we have to, raise that tax by $91 million to restore this for the people who are old, sick, handicapped and discriminated against, or who are members of visible minorities or are students — people who really need that kind of money?

Why do they need it? Do you think that people rent voluntarily? The North American dream is to own your own home. Of course it is. Fewer of us are going to do that, because in spite of the fact that people came here from all over the western and eastern world to find land in a big, open continent, land is being concentrated into fewer and fewer hands. We don't have a sort of agrarian democracy any longer. Fewer and fewer people own land. In spite of North America and its dream, fewer and fewer people are going to be owning homes. So can we perhaps see here a decline in the need for the homeowner's grant and more of a need for the renter's grant? People, including members of my own family, are paying up to $600 per month, or 40 percent of their income — or more — on rent. That is unacceptable.

When I first started out, I rented a house from a very prominent politician in this province. I paid $40 a month, and I was earning roughly $2,000 or $2,400 a year. I paid my rent, because that kind of "social credit" wasn't available to me in those days.

Interjection.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, please.

MR. ROSE: Anyway, I paid approximately 20 percent of my income on rent. My own daughter pays 40 percent of her income on rent. I went around looking for a place for her to rent. In my riding, we found that anything adequate for a husband and two children was going to cost between $500 and $600. If your income is $16,000, which is about average, or is a little lower than average — and I shouldn't be giving away family secrets, but if it were only that.... If she had been — and she isn't — a single parent, that is over 40 percent. Add that to transportation.... People need this money. This isn't just nonsense. They need it desperately. If you have to tax MLAs more for this kind of assistance to people, then I think we should be prepared to accept that. I am, and I don't see why others wouldn't as well.

People are hurting. I got a letter from a constituent which says:

"Dear Sir:

"Could you please tell me why us senior citizens did not get our rental grant this year? Is it because our provincial government is so far in debt? What disturbs me is that every property owner gets a large property grant."

She is suggesting here that there might be a little smidgen of unfairness here. Because she's an old age pensioner and lives in an apartment in Maple Ridge in that beautiful riding of Dewdney, she is somehow being discriminated against while someone else.... I won't take her words out of her mouth; I'll go on.

"I know well-to-do senior citizens who pay only $1 per year so they sit back and laugh at us poorer class who pay rent.

"Please be kind enough to reply and tell me why. I, like many other senior citizens, live on GIS, pension, pay rent, buy food — which is high here in B.C. I've been a widow for nearly three years and find things quite difficult at times. The reason I have written to Ottawa about this" — this was sent to me because she hadn't realized that I had suddenly changed my role — "is because our rental grant always came from Ottawa. Thank you."

The reason the lady was confused was that the renter's tax credit came off the income tax.

It came in, Mr. Speaker, with tremendous fanfare.

I see the minister is there. I don't know whether he's bent over in prayer, in contemplation, or whether he's got cramps or is just reading, but there he is anyway. Last summer — February 1982, which is hardly last summer, but a year and a half ago — in a news release, "Personal Income Tax Credit Reminder, " he said, in his mellifluous tones:

"I urge British Columbia residents filling out their 1981 tax return forms to remember the personal income tax credit introduced in the budget last March. The tax credit is intended to offset the impact of several necessary tax measures, and is equal to 3 percent of total personal exemptions less 1.5 percent of taxable income."

I don't understand that myself, but the minister obviously does because he's a whiz with numbers.

"While a significant number of British Columbia citizens will benefit from this tax credit, I am pleased that it will aid both elderly and lower-income families."

Now, wasn't that a tremendously thoughtful approach at that time, in the winter of discontent — February 1982? What has happened to him since? I don't know whether we have the same minister, or how he's changed his mind.

"This measure will effectively bring relief to those who need it most, since the credit increases with family size and as income decreases."

So it's a little bit like the progressive income tax — reciprocally. Instead of paying more tax as you add more income, or a larger percentage of your income, this does just the opposite. It increases as your income decreases, which I

[ Page 2161 ]

think is eminently fair. It's not me saying this; it's not some wild-eyed radical moderate. It says here: "This measure will effectively bring relief to those who need it most, since the credit increases with family size" — the larger your family is "and as income decreases."

Interjection.

MR. ROSE: Is the Speaker all right?

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The Speaker is fine, hon. member.

MR. ROSE: Mr. Speaker, I hope you didn't break your watch when you dropped that. And if you were reaching for the phone to call your bookie, I want to remind you that the phone in that Speaker's chair is far too dignified to be used for such a purpose.

He goes on to say: "There is a space provided on the 1981 income tax return forms distributed by Revenue Canada to claim the new B.C. tax credit." So the minister has given us chapter and verse in what we're supposed to do and why we're offered this kind of relief. For my constituents' confusion about the nature of the tax credit and why it came from the federal government, as if it were a gift from the federal government.... Of course, federal government forms were sent to everybody, and they include the provincial portion of income tax, or any tax credit.

So the program was good. It was valid. It was worthwhile. It was needed, according to the minister. And now all of a sudden, for a piddling little 1 percent of the budget we've got to take it away. What the Lord giveth, he taketh away. Over here we think the priorities that caused such a thing are wrong-headed, that they're headed in the wrong direction.

So we've got a crisis, Mr. Speaker, in the whole welfare system, the whole welfare state. Some of us, I think, have forgotten.... I was interested in the pioneer story offered by the member for Prince Rupert (Mr. Lea); some of us forget that the welfare state really started in about 1933 with Roosevelt. Of course, we'd gone through a very terrible time. We had a lot of people then who felt that....

Interjection.

MR. ROSE: Well, we had the R.B. Bennetts who were going to blast their way into the markets of the world. He was a real blast. He ended up boiling himself in a bathtub in Britain, but at least he died an earl.

Then we had Herbert Hoover, who felt the same way. The first guy to come along and say, "Hey, listen, we need some safety nets here; we need some government intervention," was Roosevelt. Roosevelt wasn't the fastest off the mark that I've ever heard about. Because of Roosevelt's great programs for a particular need — there was immense suffering — even America was forced by its government to intervene on behalf of people. People didn't like it. Hoover didn’t like it. People thought.... Where is the Provincial Secretary (Hon. Mr. Chabot)? He called Remi de Roo a pinko. You should have heard what they called Roosevelt. The Republicans termed him everything. He wasn't just a pinko, he was screaming scarlet, that boy. And all he wanted to do, 50 years after Bismarck did it and 30 years after Lloyd George did it, was to bring in social security. That's what he did. He thought we should have some security in our lives.

Interjections.

MR. ROSE: I'm tempted, Mr. Speaker, but I know you'd rule me out of order. I was going to say that Hannibal crossed the Alps on an elephant, and I was going to relate that to the House Leader. But it was kind of rude so I won't do it.

HON. MR. GARDOM: You were one of his troops.

MR. ROSE: You've got a long memory.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, please. To Bill 4, hon. member. Would you continue, please.

MR. ROSE: Mr. Speaker, we have in our society various kinds of social security measures not because anybody felt compassion about them but because there was such immense suffering in those years and there were no governments on the backs of the people. There wasn't any government at all, and we thought that everything would work out if we just left it up to the marketplace, and it didn't. It developed there right up until World War II. So I would suggest to you that the second stage, in which we developed a whole host of others, went from about 1946 to the sixties. Massive increases of the GNP; everybody had money to spend. We had fourfold employment increases, fourfold GNP increases in North America — the United States as well as Canada.

Unemployment, though, continued to be a far greater problem in North America than it did in Europe, because social democratic governments in Europe found things for people to do. They worked. They had a little productivity. West Germany, Sweden and other countries like that blasted England right out of the markets of the world, with the kind of planned government that we're talking about.

It didn't go on forever. By the seventies we had the technological revolution and a number of other things that intervened, such as the Arab oil prices, and we found that the party was over. So now we're faced with the reality that today we're going to cut back $91 million on a rental tax credit because we can't afford it any longer. To me that's just ludicrous. What we're seeing is the failure of the system to deliver, and that's why we have to cut down things that are essential to many people.

I don't know whether the House Leader is ready to get up and move adjournment for noon-hour, but if he is I'd like to know that before I go into the best part of my speech, which is coming up.

Interjections.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Would the House please come to order.

MR. ROSE: I don't know whether everybody realizes the state of the elderly in Canada. There are approximately two million elderly, many of whom were going to benefit from this renter's tax credit. But to give you an idea of the state of affluence of the elderly: of the two million elderly, over 1.2 million qualify — and the former Minister of Health, who brought in such things as the SAFER grant, knows; the treasury benches know — for OAS and GIS. So the old age pensioners are broke.

[ Page 2162 ]

[12:00]

MR. BARRETT: Mr. Speaker, I draw your attention to the clock.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Thank you, hon. member. The government House Leader.

MR. BARRETT: What do you mean, the government House Leader? It's a standing order. You don't go to him.

HON. MR. GARDOM: Yes, you do. He can establish times: that great ruling of Speaker Dowding — D-o-w-d-i-n-g.

I move the House at its rising do stand adjourned for one minute.

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

Motion approved on the following division:

YEAS — 29

NAYS — 10

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

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Point of order.

MR. SPEAKER: The Minister of Finance.

HON. MR. CURTIS: Well, Mr. Speaker, I think several of us wanted to make the same observation. I believe that the name Mitchell was not read, and the member for Esquimalt–Port Renfrew was present.

MR. SPEAKER: The recording will be amended and corrected, hon. members.

MR. ROSE: I'd like to thank the members of the government for supporting me in my right to speak, while my own party voted against me. It's almost tempting to cross the floor. The problem is that I'm probably too right-wing to be over there. I think that the government House Leader has effectively arranged what the member for Prince Rupert (Mr. Lea) proposed earlier: that each one of us should at least once a week give up one meal and not go out and eat. I was going to refer to Hannibal and the elephants. Perhaps the House Leader should give up a couple.

[Mr. Parks in the chair.]

When I was interrupted by the the motion of my leader — or saved by the bell — I was attempting to explain to the House, during the hubbub that ensued, that there were two million old age pensioners in Canada, and of course they all get the old age pension of roughly $250 a month. If that's all you got, that's roughing it. But of those, the supplement goes to 1.2 million of them. If you are eligible for the supplement, you're broke. So, of the two million people over 65 years of age, 1.2 million have no other income. These are the very people that the Minister of Finance was talking about on February 11, 1982, when he said: "While a significant number of British Columbia citizens will benefit from this tax credit" — the one we're abolishing now by the stroke of a pen — "I am pleased that it will aid both elderly and lower-income families."

You might ask how. I think that people should learn what this tax credit did. If you got a personal tax credit because you were an old age pensioner, you got $266.70 for being over 65. There was $150 added to that, which gave you a total tax credit — by the way, the $150 was the renter's tax credit — of $416.70. That's a pretty sizeable income assistance program. A single mother with two children — other people who rent dwellings of one kind or another — got $147 personal tax credit added to the $150, totalling $297, or roughly a month's rent. Not very good rent, not very good accommodation, but certainly a month's rent. A head of a household with two children: $390 total. And single people, $95.

Who are those people? Maybe they're students. What are we doing to the students now? The students are renters. We're saying if they get $600 from their parents, they don't even qualify for student loans anymore. We see everywhere that rents are likely to go through the roof. I'll get into greater detail on that later on. We've got fees going up all the time, about 15 or 20 percent. I can give you the various breakdowns — not today, but I know they'll average just about that much. We've got no lid on those things, but what we're doing is removing the renter's tax credit, which would give $95 per year to a student going back to school and who cannot find a job, whose student loan eligibility has been severely distressed, who faces student fee hikes and doesn't have the option anymore of his parents' assisting him, or else he's not qualified any longer even if he lives at home.

These are the kinds of people you're socking it to when you change or abolish the rental tax credit. For $91 million. What nonsense! What meanness! Is that the B.C. Spirit? Is that the mean spirit? That's not acceptable to this side. I don't think we're all dewy-eyed over here, but I think the reason for government is to make sure that those people who are weak and need the help have some protection — protection perhaps that we don't need anymore, those of us who have achieved this dizzy eminence. Nevertheless, that's what the government is proposing that it do.

[12:15]

It isn't much different in the United States, you know, the economic package. The system has delivered better than any in the world. There's no question about that. Relatively, we're better off than most of the world. Last night I saw on television that the average annual income in Portugal is not as high as what we were giving to the elderly through the rental

[ Page 2163 ]

tax credit. The average annual income for people, including craftsmen, in Portugal, which is part of the NATO alliance, is not as high as we were prepared to give the elderly through the old age pension and the GIS. So compared to the rest of the world we're infinitely better off. We have infinitely higher expenses, but we're infinitely better off than those citizens who happen to live in Kenya, whose income per year is not even half that and whose greatest energy crisis is not gasoline at all but fuel-wood to heat their homes. They have chopped down the trees to the point where 15 years from now there won't be any more trees to make charcoal out of. So we're not in that kind of situation; no one is suggesting that. While we try to make things better for more people, we should never fail to remind ourselves that compared to most of the world we're infinitely better off.

But the system hasn't delivered fairly to everybody. Some would argue that it can't, nor should it. I don't believe those arguments. I think that certainly you can't have everybody precisely at the same level in society, but there shouldn't be great gulfs between those people who have everything and those people who have very little or nothing. That's what we're trying to do when we talk about equity, about fairness, about all these things that we're trying to do with our society.

In 1976 in the United States — probably the world's greatest example of the mixed economy in which various kinds of welfare measures have combined with entrepreneurship to provide the richest society the world has ever known — of 200 million people 10 percent of the families, 21 million people, were below the poverty line. Now, the poverty line isn't what it is in Portugal or in Kenya, but they were below the poverty line. Somebody one time described being poor, rather facetiously, as being that if your neighbour has two Cadillacs and you've only got one then you've got to be poor by comparison. That's ludicrous, but at the same time these things are relative. If you can't afford decent housing, if you have to live in a rat-hole, it's probably a little easier if everybody else is living in a rat-hole. But if you see somebody who has no more ability than you, perhaps, but has the good fortune to have been provided with an education or a father that provided them with a start, then you can't help being a bit envious if you, for instance, cannot afford to do certain things you would like to do or to have certain kinds of accoutrements, whether it amounts to clothing or automobiles or whatever. However, it's all relative.

All the social measures that we've developed over the last 25 years both in Canada and the United States have been fought viciously. All the unemployment insurance, the medicares, the hospitalizations were all fought by the same kind of conservative, Tory, right-wing mentality that said: "It's going to teach people to be lazy." If you look after your grandmother, it's going to make her lazy. We certainly don't want to give my grandmother a renter's grant, because I don't want her slacking off at all. I want her to keep right on the ball. Ten percent of the American population — that's 20 million — are below their poverty line. Another ten million people are assisted by government. If it hadn't been for such things as food-stamp programs and the like — and it's the same here — we'd be in a similar position. Thirty million out of 200 million are at or below the poverty line in the best example, I guess, that we could think of of a successful, mixed economy, with the welfare measures putting a human face on capitalism.

I think we would be optimistic if we felt we were going to get out of this thing quickly. We are not going to see, as we did before, the automobile industry or the steel industry, after the previous recessions, return to the same vigour and employ the same people. We're just not going to do it anymore. We're not going to have that kind of return, so we have to seek some other kinds of avenues. But let's seek them at the sacrifice of people like me and my friend over here, the second member for Surrey (Mr. Reid), but not those people like the students or the poor or the elderly who need our help. We should be putting those people at the top of our priorities.

Significantly, in spite of this, I've got to be intellectually honest enough to admit that it has been the elderly in society who have probably gained more than any other segment of society over the past 25 years. We have protected them more; we have helped them more. But we're not talking just about the elderly. We're talking about other people as well as the elderly. People say: "We can't do this; we've got a staggering debt level." Well, it was estimated that just the change — this is not considered the greatest achievement of the Minister of Finance — from a triple-A to a double-A rating probably cost us $200 million increase in interest rates per year. Is that wrong, Mr. Speaker? What is the proper number? How much extra will it cost if you add in all the Crown corporations?

Interjection.

MR. ROSE: You've got a chance now. You never had a better chance in your life. My estimate....

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hon. member, I'm sure you're well aware that the rules of debate do not include carrying on a personal conversation with the minister. If you wish to ask questions, I'm sure you know the rule that provides for question period as the afternoon sitting commences. Please speak to the motion before the House and address your comments to the Chair.

MR. ROSE: I'm certain you're perceptive enough to know that my questions were really rhetorical. I asserted that probably the cost of all borrowing for the province would be around $200 million. That was the estimate. That was the extra cost per year, right? The minister denies that. He says it's going to be less. I merely suggested rhetorically. He said he would answer that at the appropriate time. I'll ask him that during the question period after lunch — if we have any lunch. We can do it in estimates. We'll find some time.

We've got a tremendous debt level in this country, and so does the United States. The corporate debt level has reached a half a trillion dollars in the United States alone. It's far too much, right? But in the past 30 years — at least from 1950 to 1980 — I can't get the same information in Canada as I can in the United States — the debt level of all governments went up 340 percent. But the corporate or private debt was up 1,642 percent — up to one-half a trillion dollars. If it's inflationary, who's to blame? Is it the public debt that has gone up such a staggering amount, or has it been the kind of short-term borrowing that corporations do for such useful things as takeovers because they want to dominate? They've got so much money they want to dominate more and more. We've had an example of that. We heard about a year ago that B.C. was not for sale. But I don't know. Noranda bought Mac-Blo. So something is for sale around here.

[ Page 2164 ]

What I'm saying is that you cannot scapegoat and get away with it in Canada or in any other place, saying that really the responsibility for inflation — the reason we have inflation, and therefore the reason we have high interest rates — is the high level of public debt. It's not just the high level of public debt — 340 percent in 30 years. Probably it's little more than the inflation rate. So it isn't necessarily government that is causing inflation and high interest rates. It's all kinds of useless efforts.... The minister says: "Oh, yeah, but...." I would like to hear....

Interjection.

MR. ROSE: "Governments produce no wealth. Only the private sector produces wealth." I'm not so sure that that's true. Who owns the resources? Noranda in the forest industry is producing wealth from resources that are owned by me, as a citizen. They're using my resources to produce their wealth so that they can invest in Brazil. Oh, I'm getting the rabbit sign.

I can go through all the kinds of things that I'm concerned about. Why do we need the renter's grant, for instance? There's a government report indicating that there will be sharp hikes in rent. Rents are likely to go through the roof. Here's a story in the Province of September 15. It says: "Rents will go through the roof in the next two years because rent controls have been lifted." At the same time we lift rent controls, we abolish the rental tax credit. The quarterly report of the Minister of Housing says that the most immediate effect of the removal of controls will be the upward pressure on rents in units previously under controls. Which were the units that were previously under controls? They were the cheaper units — or the less costly units. I don't know what the level was, whether it was $600 or $700 on new units. It doesn't really matter. Those people who we need to protect are not living in the highrises or the penthouses. They're often struggling along in some sort of tenement. Even if they aren't, they're taking an increasingly large chunk of their income for rent. As I mentioned earlier, right in my own family, up to 40 percent goes on rent alone. To whose benefit? We would like to say the developers, the big bad developers. The developers are in a similar spot. A recent study has also shown that unless you can get at least $600 a month rent, then you're stupid in view of land, labour and financing costs, interest charges, to produce any kind of rentals at all that will rent for less than $600 a month. So here we have catch-22.

Let me sum up. The poor, the weak, the handicapped and the students rent. The people who tend to be from minority groups rent. People who do not yet have, or have lost their homes, rent. They are not, by and large, the high-incomers. This is the worst time we could think of to abolish this, when rents are likely to go up and when there's a housing shortage. So we're voting against this.

MR. D'ARCY: Mr. Speaker....

Interjection.

MR. D'ARCY: Yes, and, Mr. House Leader, we are going to continue to speak on this bill until such time as, we hope, some people on the treasury benches, being reasonable, will agree to have a second look at this particular piece of legislation.

[12:30]

Mr. Speaker, the minister decided that he was not going to be interested in delaying this bill for six months, but we're still hoping that the minister will consider delaying this bill for three months, because, due to the pro forma aspects of a taxation year, he has until January to reconsider on this legislation. As mentioned earlier, it is retroactive legislation and it's retroactive legislation that, by the minister's own admission, takes money from the people who need it most.

We have noted in this country that studies by the Conference Board of Canada, the Hudson Institute, the C.D. Howe Institute.... Regardless of one's political point of view, I think, reasonably independent — in many cases, business- and growth-oriented — economic policy review committees have shown that, contrary to a popular belief that a great many of us had, the real income gap in our society has not been narrowing in the last few decades. In fact, it's been widening. We were raised with this notion in school — at least I was; I think most people were — that the days of fabulous riches for a few people and grinding poverty for others were hopefully coming to a close as we developed a larger and larger middle-income group in society. One of the distressing phenomena of the 1970s and the 1980s is that that income gap, whether one measures it in actual dollars or in real terms, in constant dollars, has in fact been widening.

There is no question, as the minister — who has stepped out for lunch or a cigarette, as the case may be — well knows, that when low-income people.... I want to emphasize this, especially for the member for Columbia River (Hon. Mr. Chabot), who we are so delighted to see back in the House, because so much of this legislation pertains to his portfolio. Low-income people are not merely the elderly, although they are a major and important component and at least two-thirds of the elderly, by the government's own estimation, are affected by this legislation. Not only underemployed or unemployed people, or people receiving some sort of social assistance due to either unavoidable adversity or handicaps, mental or physical, are affected by this bill. Perhaps the largest single group, certainly a group rivalling the elderly in numbers, are what can honestly be called the working poor. Due to the structural changes that we have seen in our economy over the last few years, there are more and more working poor as a percentage of the population than ever before. These are people who do not want to receive UIC; they do not want to receive social assistance. They simply want the opportunity to work hard and support themselves and raise their families and be contributing members of society, for the sake of their own self-respect.

This is definitely a kick in the solar plexus for those people. A family — regardless of whether it's one person, several persons, or one having one or more children — in the $10,000-$11,000 gross income category.... That may seem like a pittance in this day and age, but there are a number of working-poor families who are in exactly that situation — in some cases, even working full time, not just part time. A family in that situation will lose, due to this legislation, nearly $500 — in the neighbourhood of $460. Now that is approaching 5 percent of their gross income. If one considers their disposable income, it's an even larger figure out of the total amount of money they have to support themselves, to maintain that important feeling of contributing to society, of being independent, of standing on their own two feet without having to ask for or receive assistance from

[ Page 2165 ]

the state. I think it's important that that principle, that incentive be recognized.

Once more, we don't need to quote expensive PhDs in the economics field to know that people of low income.... There is a defined amount of what the poverty line is in this country; I may be wrong, but I believe for most families it is certainly not less than $16,000 a year. We know very well that people in this situation, regardless of their age group, spend all of their disposable income on necessities. They do not have discretionary income to spend going to football games, going off to Reno, eating in restaurants, travelling on sightseeing tours. Not only that, but they spend all of that disposable income on necessities in the province of British Columbia. They have neither the desire or the ability to whip across the border, go down to Bellingham on a Sunday or something of that nature; in my part of the province it would be a quick trip to Colville or Spokane. They don't have that opportunity.

This denial of up to $450 or $460, perhaps in many cases as much as 10 percent of disposable income of a family, whether they be elderly or working poor or unemployed, is directly taken out of the retail trade in this province. The minister and the treasury benches may say: "What's $90 or $100 million out of the entire retail trade of the province of British Columbia?" Well, Mr. Speaker, in the kind of economic hiatus that we have today — which I am going to talk about briefly, because it is relevant to this bill — $100 million in retail spending is very, very significant. It adds to the velocity of the economy. The government, if we are to believe their own taxation people, would recover through sales taxes and various other taxes perhaps as much as 30 cents on the dollar out of that amount. Not only that, but the confidence level and the enthusiasm of continuing to be productive members of society would go up among a significant proportion of the population. I don't have a personal opinion of how significant that proportion is, but the minister talked about how significant it was when he was introducing these measures and reminding people that they should not forget about them. In fact he estimated — and I have no reason to disbelieve his estimate, since it was no doubt based on sound professional advice — that while not everybody would receive all of the benefit through the renter's tax credit or the low-income income tax credit.... As I mentioned, it could, by my calculation, run as high as $460 per taxpayer. Even so, the minister himself estimated that as many as 40 percent of all British Columbia families would receive some benefit. It may be only a few dollars or it could be several hundred dollars.

This verifies and underscores what I've been saying to this point in my remarks: that the minister knows full well that this restructuring of society into a widening of the gap between the middle classes and the higher-income people and the working poor and low-income people and seniors living on very, very modest fixed incomes.... That gap has been widening, and I believe it has been widening at an even faster rate in British Columbia than in the rest of Canada. I think that even two and a half years ago, for the Finance minister to estimate that these very modest assistances to low-income people would affect 40 percent of British Columbians, underscores that statistic.

Mr. Speaker, we know that the minister, in his rationale for this bill and other pieces of legislation, has talked a great deal, as have other apologists for the government, about ability to pay. If we are concerned about the ability to pay, once again it seems a strange set of priorities that the government would continue to borrow $1.1 billion at the AAA credit rating for our largest single power utility, the British Columbia Hydro and Power Authority, at a time when that Crown corporation's own estimates of growth, for the first time in that corporation's history, are more modest than the provincial government’s expectations of the technologists who advise the Minister of Energy. I know a great deal has been said over the years about the way Hydro has overestimated the load growth in B.C. and has overbuilt — with, I might point out, government approval, both of Social Credit and of the New Democratic Party, when it was in office — premature construction that saddled this province with massive interest payments for facilities that could only sell very minimal amounts of power for four or five years after they were completed, while the interest and the very tiny sinking fund contributions that have been traditional for government to make went on.

Interjection.

MR. D'ARCY: The minister is listening to me, I know. I certainly do appreciate that, Mr. Speaker, and we know very well that he is going to have an opportunity to rebut. I will challenge the minister on that point at any time. The point that he has just raised is that in his view there are adequate sinking funds to retire the principal of the Hydro debt. I want to advise this chamber that if B.C. Hydro never borrowed another penny from this day forth, but continued to put sinking fund contributions aside at the same rate that they have for the last 23 or 24 years, it would take more than 300 years to pay off that debt. I will challenge the minister any time on that point.

The minister can deal with that when he closes. Mr. Speaker, he is doing a fine job. Before and during his speech he allowed a lot of economic factors to come into discussion as to why the government feels persuaded that it must have Bill 4 at this time and why the opposition is persuaded that the minister should have a good took, cancel the bill right now and reconsider over the next few months before people begin filing their 1983 income tax returns.

The point I was making is the government's limited ability to pay, and I would agree that the government has a very limited ability to pay for anything with the $16 billion debt and nearly $4 billion worth of additional borrowing in this fiscal year alone. The major reason for the government's very limited ability to pay has been discretionary spending and interest charges piled up by the government under decisions made not just in the last four years but primarily in the last four years. It has been the real growth of borrowing and the real growth of profligacy in the last few years that has mainly contributed to the deficit and the debt situation that we find in the province.

I want to note in passing, without spending too much time on the retroactivity clauses, which I find reprehensible.... The minister, when he was in opposition and in civic government, found retroactivity clauses in taxation legislation to be reprehensible when brought in by provincial and federal governments, and he knows I feel that way. I simply want to make an additional point that in many jurisdictions — not in Canada or in British Columbia, but in many democratic jurisdictions of the western world, the United States in particular — you cannot have retroactivity. A tax bill is not law until approved by both levels of Congress and

[ Page 2166 ]

approved by the presidential seal, Mr. Speaker, and even then I suppose certain tax bills have been challenged through the courts, which play a far more major function in establishing and approving legislation in the U.S. than they do in Canada. I am not advocating, Mr. Speaker, that we go to the U.S. system; I am simply stating that there are aspects of the United States government which we, and other free democratic jurisdictions on the continent of Europe, perhaps could learn something about.

[12:45]

While the minister is in the House — and I realize he is going to need to stretch his legs a little bit — one part of this bill which has not been dealt with extensively, at least not within my hearing, has been the amendment relating to the deductibility of contributions for political parties by individuals who wish to make contributions to political parties at the provincial level. Perhaps the minister when he closes debate can expand upon this. It would appear to me that this section is increasing permissive. It would seem to allow virtually anyone, if one takes it at face value, to set up a political party over his kitchen table and use it as a way of getting a provincial tax deduction. We have seen in the United States in particular that it is very easy for new religions, not necessarily Christian ones, to be set up. People who have opposed tax deductibility for legitimate religions, in order simply to make fun of the law, have set themselves up as religious organizations which really consisted of themselves and perhaps their mother-in-law. I would hope that the minister is going to give us some indication that somebody who considers himself the Left Bank of the Fraser River Party cannot simply set himself up and use this section of the provincial Income Tax Act as amended by Bill 4 to take advantage of this legislation. By the way, I'm certainly not asking the Minister of Finance to consider making it difficult for minor political parties to get that kind of tax deduction. I simply want to make sure that it's not open to abuse — for people to avoid taxes.

The minister knows full well that in actions taken before this Legislature — in some cases, yet to be debated.... Rent controls have been lifted, and we do know that a portion of this — not the major portion, but a significant portion — relates to people asking for assistance, particularly the elderly with their rental costs. We know the SAFER program is still in effect, but there was some major assistance. And I'm sure the minister would agree — he may not say so in the House, but he knows full well — that the two actions taken together are really a double whammy, especially for the elderly. We have a substantial elderly population in this province, who have contributed mightily to the growth of the economy in British Columbia, to the standard of living and quality of life that all of us in the House enjoy. Even in this time of depression, life in British Columbia is very good for most people. For those for whom life in British Columbia is not very good, I believe this chamber and that government over there can and should be able to make some concessions — at least to leave in place those tax provisions, like the ones that will be repealed by Bill 4, which make life just a little more bearable for that segment of the population which finds itself as working poor or as elderly and on a fixed income which is not keeping up with inflation.

I reiterate while the minister is here that that money has an immediate multiplier effect, because it's not discretionary spending. It's immediately returned to the economy and recycled through the small business field and through the retail trade of this province.

We know that the minister, when he brought these provisions in.... They were in effect only briefly, although I don't think he planned it that way; perhaps he got an idea of balancing the books when he found out that he had badly overestimated revenue and underestimated the responsibilities of government. They were, by his own statement, at least in part.... I'll dispense with whether there was a political motivation; it's probably irrelevant at this point, because what we're wanting him to do is restore these measures. He proclaimed to this Legislature and to the people of the province that these were in major part to offset the impact of increased tax measures which he felt were going to be necessary to balance the budget. We found out that, due in many ways to his own government's lack of restraint in such things as ministerial spending on travel and advertising and new office space — at a time, three years ago, when government should have been downsizing.... Even at that time, because of the lack of restraint in these regards, adding in that fiscal year alone $80 million in those areas of ministerial discretionary spending which we felt should be restrained — that the gross should be restrained — but the government members did not.... It's notable that restraint in those areas alone in fiscal '81-82, or even in fiscal '82-83, would have very nearly made up for the amounts lost through these tax changes that affect exclusively the people with low incomes.

In any event, the minister said then: "The impact of these tax measures" — and he was speaking about the tax increases, particularly the sales tax increase — "will be felt by lower-income families." He knows and admits therefore that sales taxes are regressive — that is, affect more the disposable income of lower-income people than of middle- or upperincome. To quote further: "Therefore I'm announcing today a provincial personal income tax credit to offset the impact of these increases." He talks about about how the credit will be administered in a similar fashion to the renter's tax credit, which was originally brought in by W.A.C. Bennett. I'm sure the minister would remember that. He wasn't in this Legislature, but he was perhaps considering it. I don't know exactly what party he was with, whether he was a Tory, a Liberal or a Hellyerite. In any event, being a political butterfly, he eventually settled on Social Credit, and it's been good for him; he's been successful.

He brought this in because he felt — and he was correct, and this side of the House supported him — that this was needed. He was going to give an additional personal income tax exemption equal to 3 percent of personal exemptions, less 1.5 percent of taxable income, in order to make sure — and he was quite correct in this — that there was no abuse of the system by people who really didn't need this kind of tax credit. In patting himself on the back — quite correctly at that time — he said: "I believe that this credit will effectively bring tax relief to those who need it most." Clearly, in removing these provisions, he is hurting the people who would be hurt the most by the changes. He went on to say: "The larger the family the larger the credit; the smaller the income the larger the credit. The elderly in particular will benefit from this measure. It is estimated that 75 percent of elderly tax-filers will receive the credit. This important measure will be implemented in the 1981 taxation year." I think

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the minister was speaking in the main about his own constitutuency, because he knows full well that Saanich and the Islands has a substantial population of seniors.

Mr. Speaker, we now find that the minister, even though this low-income tax credit is only $70 million.... I say "only" because it is smaller per annum than the increases which we saw in those discretionary aspects of ministerial spending, such as new office furniture and new rental accommodation at a time when government should have been downsized. We on this side of the House were asking if the government could be downsized and additional funds for travel and advertising.... He knows full well that in the 1982-83 budget year the government could have afforded this if they had exercised some restraint. But he also should take into account that while we know that government cutbacks.... It's not just our political opinion. The information-gatherers at the national level that the taxpayer pays for have noted that one of the reasons consumer demand has not sprung back the way it should have in British Columbia in particular and in Canada generally is that government cutbacks have depressed consumer demand. There's no question about that, as well as apprehension among those who are still involved in earning a living.

I would ask that the minister, hopefully, in accepting our opposition to this bill, consider the aspect that over the next three months.... We on this side of the House would hope that the Royal Bank is correct when it predicts that British Columbia is going to recover at least some of the losses of last year.

Interjection.

MR. D'ARCY: Mr. Speaker, I know I'm not supposed to be addressing points made across the way, but even if we accept that most optimistic forecast we still know that it's less than half — in fact, only about 40 percent — of what we need for this province to recover to where we were in 1981. We also note that the Conference Board of Canada, which has a slightly broader base than the Royal Bank — it's not as successful commercially — is much more pessimistic in its estimate of British Columbia's recovery this year and next year. I sincerely hope the Royal Bank is right and the Conference Board is wrong. But let's remember that these self-proclaimed experts have all been very wrong before. We're going to have to look on the upside. But the important point is that we are not going to get back in 1983, even by the most generous estimate, half of what we lost in 1982 in this province.

Interjection.

MR. D'ARCY: Mr. Speaker, am I allowed to proceed?

DEPUTY SPEAKER: You do have the floor, hon. member.

[1:00]

MR. D'ARCY: If any member of the House wishes to send me a message, I would pay attention to that. I'm getting wild windmilling from the member for Burnaby–Willingdon (Mr. Veitch), who is interfering from his own seat. But I know he is a fine fellow and I can trust him. I move adjournment of this debate until later today.

Motion approved.

Hon. Mr. Gardom moved adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

The House adjourned at 1:01 p.m.