[ Page 3349 ]

CONTENTS

Routine Proceedings

Budget Debate

Mr. Stupich –– 3349

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 1984

The House met at 10:06 a.m.

Prayers.

MR. HOWARD: Mr. Speaker, once again it's my extreme pleasure to ask the House to join me in appreciating the fact that a former constituent of mine, the Reverend Father Keith Young, led us in prayer again this morning. We're pleased to see him once more.

MR. STUPICH: I have three constituents who came down today to keep a critical eye on their MLA: Betty Marlow, Betty Kennedy and John Bradley. I think there are others on the way. They are probably looking for a parking place. I ask the House to greet them.

Orders of the Day

ON THE BUDGET

(continued debate)

MR. STUPICH: Mr. Speaker. I'd like to say a word of thanks to some very dedicated government employees. It has been the habit of the government in office over the past few years to attack government employees generally, to try to leave the impression abroad that they really aren't doing their jobs and we'd be better off without them; we should get rid of as many as we can and the public service will improve. I'd like to mention by name my own secretary Gloria Cox, Karen Caesar, Beth MacDonald and our director of research, John McInnis. These four people arrived at work yesterday morning at the usual time and are still here, still trying to complete the work of helping me prepare my response to the budget. It used to be, in ancient times, that a weekend was provided to the opposition to prepare its response. We're now down to a matter of hours, and while I don't mind for myself.... In my total career as an MLA I have always found government employees generally, and the ones I mentioned in particular, to be very helpful and very anxious to serve the public in every way they can. While there may be individuals who are not pulling their weight, as there are in every sphere of employment, in general I've always found them to be doing their job in the best way possible. I do want to recognize all of them — in particular the four who stayed up with me all night.

Part of the problem — and associated with that I want to apologize to the MLAs, Mr. Speaker.... The relatively short time allowed, as has been the case in the last few years, means that I didn't have time to prepare a short speech. The Minister of Finance asked me how long it would be and I really haven't had time to find that out, either. Had I had more time, it would have been shorter, more concise, more hitting, more to the point. But together we'll find out just how long it takes.

To say that the Social Credit government of B.C. has been taken over by the pollsters, the propagandists and the advertisers has become a truism. Yesterday's budget was described by one of my colleagues as one put out by public relations artists, rather than by a Ministry of Finance. Every old concept now has a new name. Every such name is predetermined to be a virtue according to the latest public opinion surveys. Every government policy statement is predetermined to contain virtuous properties as a result of the language employed. Obviously the current budget is no exception. The budget says we are pioneers. Of course. the budget promises economic recovery. The language of the budget is full of virtuous words such as initiative, responsibility, realistic, modest, etc, etc. These words are all part of the Social Credit newspeak, behind which lurk important changes in public policy, which I propose to unravel in my remarks this morning. Not the least of these is the concept of recovery.

Economic recovery is the most important political issue in B.C. today. The approach of this budget and of this government is that somehow recovery will follow from the redistribution of advantages in this budget. The concept of recovery we in the New Democratic Party have involves a future that is worth having. It offers jobs and careers and incomes — not the unemployment and the underemployment promised and threatened in this budget. Our concept of recovery involves shared goals and dialogues about the means of achieving them. This budget offers a redistribution of advantages in favour of those who already have them. It involves a vague promise that we shall one day look back and see that something has been forged through our suffering. The premise and the reckless gamble of this budget was made explicit by the Finance minister. I quote from page 8: "The current phase of the business cycle is the best time for government expenditure reductions.... Private sector activity is picking up and will absorb resources released by the reduction of public spending." The Minister of Finance gambles with the future of the province that a major reduction of spending will have no effect on the economy. He does so despite readily available and obvious evidence that his latest budget — more modest in scope — had severe economic effects.

[10:15]

Last year I suggested that the government may have been heeding Machiavelli's favourite dictum when it composed its budget. I wish hereby to withdraw any imputation that the government opposite understands history.

There is an even more basic lesson in Machiavelli which the government has missed completely and which bears quoting on this occasion. He wrote: "There are three classes of intellects: one which comprehends by itself; another which appreciates what others comprehend; and a third which neither comprehends by itself nor by the showing of others. The first is most excellent, the second is good, the third is useless." That's from The Prince, chapter 22. A new direction was launched July 7 last year. If the government does not comprehend of its intellect the saddening effect of its budget policy and its budget process on our society it has plenty of others to whom it can turn. If it does not appreciate from all its available sources, then it has failed in the exercise of power.

In my remarks today, I will first examine the underpinnings of the last budget and then of this one. I will then turn to the important lessons of the 1983 budget. This is by way of a prelude to the third section, which is an analysis of the budget introduced yesterday. Finally, I intend to conclude with some remarks in a positive vein about policies which can and ought to be pursued toward a real economic recovery.

First to review the 1983-84 budget, major trends and developments. It has been easy for many commentators to be wrong about the Finance minister's budget tabled in this House on July 7, 1983 –– I admit to being one of those who

[ Page 3350 ]

were wrong about the 1983-84 budget. At that time I said the net effect of B.C.'s fourth consecutive deficit budget would be a recovery without jobs. In fact, the minister's budget of last July left the province of B.C. not only without jobs but also without recovery.

It is important that we in this Legislature clearly understand the nature of the policies of this government and their effect on our economy, our people and our society in British Columbia. Since the 1984-85 budget so clearly carries on with the philosophy and program the government launched in the style of the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbour, we must examine these policies and their underpinnings very clearly. The place to begin this process is with a straightforward inventory of the July 7, 1983, provincial budget.

Downsizing government, it is fair to say, was and is a cornerstone of the Pearl Harbour attack on British Columbia society. Downsizing must be understood with its own specialized Social Credit meaning. Downsizing means firing civil servants. The Social Credit theory has it that if you hang civil servants by the yardarm on a regular basis, then international investment capital will arrive carrying bags packed with investment dollars; or, put another way, this purely sadistic spectacle of families without incomes and dedicated employees without reward will drive investment capital into a frenzy of British Columbia development.

In this spirit the government claims to have eliminated some 7,000 jobs in the past year. Of course, they haven't fired quite that many. Many of them are simply vacant positions which were not refilled and were declared redundant by the government over the past 12 months. So if you have the bad luck to be a government FTE — full-time equivalent — you obviously move into a higher risk occupational capacity. On this basis banks are reluctant to lend mortgages to FTEs, as are others reluctant to enter into long-term contracts with such marked beings. On the other hand, if one has the good fortune to be performing a government function under contract or through a funded agency, one does not experience the same risk. This is the superficiality and shallowness of the government's policy.

This is one of the many goal displacements inherent in the budget; that is, the goal of efficient, sound management of the public sector has been displaced by another goal. Firing FTEs, however, is the consequence of this goal displacement. It's not so humorous. It is referred to as the FTE fetish. In this regard I would like to quote a study by Professors Rosenbluth and Schworm of the UBC economics faculty, published in February 1984, which states: "The proposed downsizing amounts to a large reduction of the province's provision of government services, with the resulting increase in unemployment and no assurance of an offsetting increase in privately produced goods and services." Under Social Credit, all of this is supposed to be good for the province.

"Privatization. The second — and clearly related — aspect of last year's budget is the notion of transferring jobs from the public sector to the private sector. A related development is the renaming of the private sector as the productive sector, as was done in the throne speech. This piece of propaganda is designed to fool people into believing that work completed by overpaid Socred hacks provided with government contracts is productive, while work performed by qualified public servants is not.

Privatization began last July with a list of commercial operations on the part of the government which were to be sold to the private sector. This I call privatization, phase one.Phase one is off to a good start with the sale of Beautiful British Columbia magazine to Jim Pattison of the Social Credit cheering section in Vancouver. This contract is a reward to the friend of government. The government may choose to argue that the Pattison award was based on competitive bidding and therefore could not be subject to any degree of favouritism. This argument is a lie, and a pernicious lie at that. This government has no comprehensive policy for contracting out, a subject I will deal with further later in my remarks. The bidders are invited to submit proposals; not every bidder is necessarily bidding on the same thing. Then follows a period of negotiation with the parties, and with the successful party in particular, and a deal is struck, potentially on a different basis than any other bid submitted. It is a clever ruse, and masks the bequest of public assets for private gain well enough that the government is getting away with it.

Some smaller publications were also sold last year, along with some key facilities and the livestock of Colony Farm. The big ones, of course, are still on the block. Pacific Coach Lines provides necessary bus transportation on Vancouver Island, across Georgia Strait and in the Fraser Valley. The government's hand-picked liquidator has on his desk proposals from such luminary operators as Conmac Stages of Victoria and a variety of asset strippers from eastern Canada. While all British Columbians value any jobs that can be created during the recession, we clearly need jobs with a long-term economic viability. The minister responsible, of course, pretends to know nothing of this. All the cleverly coached ministers over there pretend to know nothing of the consequences of their actions. They simply fall back on the clichés and the buzzwords, the abstract images which the manipulators and the posters have sold to the unsuspecting public.

B.C. Systems Corporation is also on the block. Here we have an interesting case. The government-built service utility, which has the government itself as its sole client, is to become part of the private sector. Of course, the authors of Social Credit newspeak would have us believe that it will become productive in private hands when moved outside the unproductive and, to quote a previous throne speech, "intrusive weight of the public sector." The minister responsible — in this case the Finance minister — pretends to know nothing of the serious public concern over the most confidential information in existence in the hands of the private sector operators, who may have other interests than the government account at stake. More seriously in this case, what is the Minister of Finance going to do with the millions of Canada Pension dollars he has ploughed into that great mausoleum on Blanshard Street? I am told there is well in excess of $40 million of working people's Canada Pension Plan money invested in the spanking new corporate headquarters of the soon-to-be-sold operation. I guess the taxpayers will be stuck owing themselves their own pension dollars as the minister transfers this white elephant to the government and sells the cream of the Systems Corporation operation. This package of fun and games is called privatization.

Assault on wage bargaining. The government's new program is in many ways built around, and may even be considered an excuse for, reducing the ability of wage employees to bargain for salaries and working conditions. Even a Social Credit government realizes that it cannot accomplish the end of collective bargaining and the development of a low-wage policy for B.C. overnight. For this reason the government is

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proceeding in stages. Doubtless this Legislature will be dealing with the next small steps in this direction during the present session.

Concentration of power. The 1983 budget concentrates power several ways. First, it concentrates power within government in the hands of the Premier's office and Treasury Board. This has a rather pathetic aspect, as cabinet ministers scurry to explain the most horrifying failures in their administrations with the claim: "I'm just following government policy." In many ways it is paradoxical to hear this sort of evasion of responsibility from a party which had a once proud tradition of individual responsibility and accountability. We are producing a whole generation of cabinet ministers and senior officials who know nothing and say nothing, except "I am just following orders." Secondly, power is being shifted from local government to the provincial government. It is particularly true of regional districts, municipalities, hospital boards and school trustees. Again, these agencies have no choice but to follow government orders.

Finally and most seriously, power over citizens is being concentrated in the hands of government and those who control government. There is no other way to interpret smashing the human rights enforcement apparatus. There is no other way to describe Ministry of Health proposals to greater control the practice of medicine by physicians. There is no other way to describe the surreptitious and secret information gathering by the office of the Premier through highly political survey research. This is particularly true of B.C. today, when such survey results are used to manipulate voters through partisan political advertising, paid for with millions of precious and hard-earned tax dollars. There is no other way to describe the failure of government to develop any serious proposals on freedom of information and protection of individual privacy.

Downgrading education. The steady erosion of provincial educational opportunities has taken a sharp turn for the worse in the last year. This will be a critical theme of my remarks today. Suffice it to say at this juncture that downgrading of educational opportunity appears to be an essential component in the low-wage strategy of this government. The government clearly does not want a population which is educated to the point of questioning government policies which stifle economic growth, promote low wages and achieve only stagnation. Education and training at all levels are under attack in a way which has not been experienced in this province before. This is a critical factor, in understanding the budget of last year and of this year as well.

Deregulation. Actions of the government in deregulating automobile inspections, human rights and consumer protection present dangers to the public which the government has failed to acknowledge, let alone deal with. It is regrettable that it took the death of two young people on a highway at Mount Washington to bring to the public, through the media, the consequences of ending motor vehicle inspection. The government may protest that it only intends to privatize this service; but the fact is that a grave danger exists to the public today because of this action by the government, and the government refuses to deal with it.

As for the proposition that people should take care of their own human rights, would the government have all citizens police all transgressions on their own? Are they really prepared for vigilante justice?

The 1984-85 budget reviews the state of government finances. The government, of course, refuses to deal with the seven pillars of its budget policy before the public. Instead, it lies awash in the comfortable backwater rhetoric of reducing government spending, reducing the burden of government costs on the economy, etc. This side of the House has repeatedly put the lie to Socred claims of parsimony in relation to the public purse. The record needs reviewing and I shall do so quickly. I fear that, as in past years, not many on that side are listening in any event. But I would like to remind hon. members that this government came to office early in 1976 with a bank account in excess of $552 million in special purpose funds. In its first four years in office it was able to enjoy tremendous increases in public spending, which it was all too willing to indulge in. It did so and racked up continuous budget surpluses. On a public accounts basis, the consolidated surpluses were impressive: in 1976-77, $96.6 million; 1977-78, $204.5 million: 1978-79, $179.9 million; 1979-80, $466.9 million: for a total in that period of $947.9 million — an impressive total. Practically $1 billion in surpluses were racked up in their first four years in office. At this point the province had cash reserves of $1.5 billion and a robust economy.

[10:30]

Then the member for Saanich and the Islands (Hon. Mr. Curtis) was appointed Minister of Finance. Suddenly the accounts of the province started to seep red ink. In his first fiscal year as Minister of Finance, 1980-81, despite claims to the contrary, the province racked up a deficit of $313 million. Then there was 1981-82, the year in which the minister loaded $625.2 million of tax increases on an economy teetering on the brink of recession. The result was economic disaster and a further deficit of $184 million. The minister's third budget, he thought, was a pre-election budget, so he deliberately overestimated revenue by almost $1 billion. It was supposed to be a balanced budget. I said at that time that revenues were grossly overstated. In particular, the clue was the increased revenue expected from forest exploitation. It was so obvious, and revenues indeed proved to be almost $1 billion overstated. When the smoke cleared and the minister's manipulations were exposed. there was a deficit of $978.2 million, made up entirely of overstated revenue. There was the minister's July 1983 budget. This social engineering budget forecast a deficit of $1.6 billion. At the time that budget was presented, within hours I said that the deficit was grossly overstated. During the past eight months one columnist after another, one analyst after another and one economist after another has come to the conclusion entirely on his or her own. None of them heard me, none of them read my remarks, but they came to the conclusion during the course of eight months that what I said within eight hours of the budget speech was correct: the deficit was overstated. The minister himself confirmed it yesterday by saying that the deficit was overstated by some $300 million. Mr. Speaker, he's wrong again. It's still overstated, I made the forecast last July, and I made it the previous year when the budget came out; I was proven right on both occasions. I'm going to try once more. I'm saying that he's overstating the deficit for the year ending March 31, 1984, by some $200 million. It will come in very close to $1 billion when we see the final figures.

I recall.... The Minister of Intergovernmental Relations (Hon. Mr. Gardom) isn't here, but I'll let that go for now; I'll have another opportunity.

[ Page 3352 ]

So we see that this Finance minister has managed to date, in the space of four short years, to rack up nearly $3 billion in budgetary deficits. The $1.5 billion that was left when the Social Credit resumed office — the $1 billion that was piled up by his predecessor in that post, a total of $1.5 billion — twice that amount in deficits within a period of four years. It's a record to be proud of, Mr. Speaker. It took some doing to accomplish that in such a short period. This, of course, has been more than enough to wipe out the savings of 108 years of successive B.C. administrations since our entry into Confederation.

Many people were shocked by the minister's press release last July saying that his budget would increase 12.3 percent, despite the hatchet jobs proposed for the public sector. The increase was really in excess of 16 percent, Mr. Speaker, between you and me. Comparing budget estimates with the previous year's original budget estimates — that is, on a basis which compares apples with apples — the increase was 16.3 percent.

Now why, the public asks, does the budget increase so much when services are cut and people are fired? I think a quick glance at last year's spending estimates answers part of this question. Together with subsequent special warrants, the income assistance program has increased by some $300 million. That's $300 million to people receiving social assistance. This has a great deal to do with the so-called "productive sector" that the government talks about. Can you imagine anything more unproductive and degrading than placing such a high proportion of our population, especially young people, on welfare? I can't. I defy members opposite to see whether they can come up with a less productive deployment of human resources.

The second major item is accelerated health capital programs, amounting to some $170 million. We're still talking about the last budget, Mr. Speaker. It is wonderful to build new health facilities, but only if the government is prepared to operate them. Building new hospital beds to sit empty alongside old hospital beds for lack of funding for staff represents a certain kind of economic policy priority. In my view, it is not a sensible one. The good people of Coquitlam and Port Moody who are awaiting the opening of Eagle Ridge Hospital perhaps will agree with me.

A third major item is interest on public debt. At $162.7 million, this was a major expenditure increase. I doubt that this is one the minister is proud of. Again, it reflects past use of the credit of British Columbians by this debt-prone government in order to squeeze by and through another election.

Finally, last year we had the employment development account, the last hangover from the 1983 provincial election where the Social Credit government still pretended to be interested in providing jobs for citizens.

These, then, were the government's priorities for expenditure growth last year: welfare, interest on debt and pork-barrel construction projects in swing political ridings. Remember the Premier travelling through some of these ridings, Mr. Speaker, and announcing new capital projects as he travelled?

Meanwhile the manipulation of public accounts for the greater goal of manipulating the voter continues unabated. The government, in 1983-84, will have borrowed very nearly $4 billion for public purposes. The public debt, as my colleague the Leader of the Opposition so ably said on February 17, today stands in excess of $15.3 billion, including all the guarantees. This is a debt of $5,400 per capita, very close to the $6,000 per capita federal debt about which the minister is so concerned.

The open house of the Minister of Finance has arrived. When we open the door and look inside, we see that this government has already pushed its borrowing capacity to near exhaustion. Again I contrast this to the day when this government was elected in December 1975. At that point the total debt of the province was slightly more than $4.4 billion, or some $1,800 per capita. Now the debt very clearly reflects certain economic and political endeavours on the part of the government. The government has, for example, borrowed more than $2 billion, much of it at high interest rates, to construct the Revelstoke Dam. Some $250 million in interest costs are associated with this debt, and there is no market for the power. We're trying to give it away. This is an excellent example of Socred planning as practised by that government opposite. Now we're trying to sell our power on a long-term basis to the United States. This, in the language of newspeak, is called "the energy advantage." Meanwhile, Alcan wants to build a new hydro dam to generate electricity for their purposes in the Kitimat area. Is it unthinkable that our idle capacity could be used to supply Alcan's electrical needs in respect of an aluminium smelter? Or does it make more sense for B.C. Hydro to borrow additional funds to pay the interest on the Revelstoke dam while Alcan goes ahead with its own power project? We shall have to see which makes more sense to this government.

During 1983-84 the government borrowed $500 million to complete construction of the Tumbler Ridge railway line. I shall have more to say about this later. The point is that more and more people are wondering what they get in return for the billions of tax dollars they send to Victoria, and for the billions more borrowed in their name in foreign markets. The government responds by slashing services, although never those enjoyed by the rich, the upper middle class, the Socred supporters. The answer for the poor people is that they should cut back. They must lose educational services. They are abused verbally by the government for being victims. This government is not without waste and not without mismanagement. Public dollars today are going to help people who don't need it, while tax breaks are going to those who don't need them.

The effect of the economy on B.C.'s current economic position. Arguments pro and con about the government's program could continue forever. The government is of course happy with an intellectual debate because it happily ignores intellectual arguments. Safe behind a protective cocoon of public relation hacks and equipped with the best that modern media manipulation has to offer, the government always believes it can tough it through and campaign its way to re-election. Moreover, the government's media manipulators are good at their jobs. To a fair degree they have succeeded in promoting confusion and goal displacement among the population. Thus the government likes to be associated with such positive concepts as entrepreneurship, strong commitments, initiative, personal freedom and competition. These are powerful concepts, and the government's media and advertising manipulators are more than pleased to substitute them for real economic achievement.

But real economic achievement is the test of government in the 1980s. The proof of the pudding is not in the salesmanship but in the product itself. It either does the job it is claimed to do, or it does not. The product in this case is the peculiar mix of policies dreamed up by the group opposite,

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and the claim we have all heard ad nauseum is that the product promotes recovery. Put simply, the proof of this pudding must be in its eating. Unfortunately a lot of people in British Columbia are not eating very well and there can now be no doubt that the July 7, 1983, budget is to blame. The economic effects of this budget are staggering and they are negative. Sixty three thousand jobs have been eliminated in B.C. British Columbia has, over the cycle of the recession, experienced the largest increase in unemployment of any province in the country. The 15.2 percent unemployment rate in B.C. in January, 1984, is even higher than that in such economically depressed areas as Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia and Quebec. It is a shame; it is a disaster; it is proof of the failure of the July 7 budget. The economic growth which was promising in the first half of 1983 has sputtered, coughed and died.

The Conference Board of Canada reported this month that the public sector restraint program — so-called — has caused consumer and business service activity to lag. Confidence is missing in the economy at a crucial time in the upside of the business cycle. We in B.C. have experienced the downside without the upside. To take a further example, Statistics Canada reported again this month that retail sales in British Columbia increased a mere 2.838 percent in 1983, in what was supposed to be a year of recovery. This is the weakest performance in all of Canada; it doesn't even keep up with inflation. The forecasts now available show that B.C. will not reach even the 1981 levels of production by the end of 1984. I hope the members opposite appreciate the importance of this. If we do not achieve historical levels by even the end of this year, what prospects are in place for our people? The bankruptcy problem continues to plague British Columbia long after it has reversed in the rest of the country. While bankruptcies are dropping in the rest of Canada, there was a further increase of 26 percent in personal and business bankruptcies last year. People are hurting, Mr. Speaker, and the government refuses to recognize it.

The most significant determining factor of future prosperity is investment, but again, in the investment field we have seen large drops over the past two years. This is true of our resource industries as well as in manufacturing. People with money are not investing in B.C. It appears that neither they nor the victims of Social Credit policy appreciate its economic merit. I do not claim that the Social Credit government caused the recession; I do claim, however, that it has prolonged it and made it worse. Perhaps it is not guilty of creating a recession, but it is guilty of making it hurt.

It doesn't matter whether one looks at job losses, retail sales, investor confidence, bankruptcies or growth forecasting; the indication is the same. The July 7, 1983, budget successfully killed the economic recovery, which at that time the Premier said was in a fragile state. The irony is that Social Credit rode to re-election on the back of that recovery. I suppose it is fortunate for the members opposite that people did not discover that Social Credit had plans to kill the recovery — at least did not discover it until after votes were cast.

In politics there are certain things that one has to accept. That one's opponent is capable of fooling the people in this regard is one of those things. It is our job as an opposition to see that it doesn't happen again. It is our job to see that the economic voodoo practised by this government will never again have its wretched way on the working people in the province of British Columbia. It will be our job to tell the people what they are doing and to show that there is — as I shall outline — a better way for British Columbians.

[10:45]

The Finance minister made fleeting reference in the introduction to his budget to the period since his last budget, "one of intense activity in carrying out last year's initiative in preparing this year's goals and objectives." It's a pity for all of us that he did not add that it was a period for reflecting upon the changes proposed last year and their effect on the economy. For reasons of its own the Social Credit has chosen not to reflect on its actions. In bull-headed, almost Stalinist or Hitlerite fashion, the government is pursuing policies which have demonstrated flaws and hardships for our citizens. They believe their own rhetoric and slogans to the extent that the Socred government of 1984-85 is guilty of truly massive goal substitution. Sociologists define goal substitution or goal displacement as a state where secondary considerations become more important than primary objectives. The pursuit of the god or goddess of restraint has supplanted all other goals in B.C. This is as unfortunate as it is wrong for the time.

I submit that there are at least three important lessons to be learned from the experience since July 7, 1983. These concern the role of the neo-conservative ideology of restraint, best exemplified by the Fraser Institute, the lessons of economic strategy — what it takes to promote growth in B.C. — and the lessons of restraint as practised in B.C. so far.

The Fraser Institute. Many people are wondering today why Social Credit continues to cling to its favourite slogans and passwords of the past, despite the consequences for B.C. The answer is a political one: political choices and commitments have been made, and the consequences are secondary. I intend to deal with these consequences in some detail.

It seems appropriate to reflect upon the source from which the present Socred government draws the inspiration for its callous budgetary and legislative programs. The Fraser Institute, which flatters itself as a think-tank, is nothing more than the mouthpiece for large corporate interests in this country and abroad. The Fraser Institute advocates the repeal of all legislative protection for citizens of this province whether it be human rights, fair and adequate housing, employment standards, health care or education. The so-called brains behind the government's policy, which has been eager to characterize the weaker segments of our society as receiving a free lunch from government social programs, has also encouraged the government to prepare for the corporate sector a feast at the expense of those most in need of assistance.

Its registration as a charity under the federal Income Tax Act entitles its supporters to write off their donations and to exempt itself from income tax payment on its operations. Who are the financial supporters of this charity — this so-called independent Fraser Institute? We have the eight largest banks in Canada, the top eight insurance companies, 20 of the 25 largest companies headquartered in British Columbia, 65 of the largest companies in Canada and the top ten forest companies in British Columbia, companies controlling 24 of the 29 largest mines in British Columbia. Then we have BCRIC, including B.C. Coal and B.C. Timber. The Fraser Institute funding and personnel also have links to Reagan's ruling elite and to Richard Nixon's inner circle during his term in office. For the Fraser Institute to claim to be independent is like the government claiming to be independent of its taxpayers. The Fraser Institute professes to be independent because it receives no government funding.

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The government claims not to rely on the Fraser Institute. The Premier has said that Michael Walker was invited to challenge the cabinet when they met to prepare last year's budget. There must not have been much of a challenge, because Michael Walker carried the day. The Walker-Fraser Institute corporate elite philosophy thoroughly drenched the budget and the legislative package of 1983, a package that threatens basic principles of justice and equity which have long been struggled for by the people of this province and elsewhere. No, the Bennett government cannot hide its close relationship with the Fraser Institute, which has advocated the removal of rent controls, the relaxation of all zoning controls, the dismantling of universal medicare and public dental services, the dismantling of human rights legislation, the reallocation of expenditures regardless of social costs. Does that sound familiar? The institute's publication, Unions and the Public Interest, bears a strong resemblance to the government's labour relations policy, and you can bet that the proposed establishment of duty-free zones in British Columbia relies on the Fraser Institute's proposal for the establishment of free economic activity zones in British Columbia — making British Columbia the Switzerland of North America.

Now that the Socred government is firmly on the Fraser Institute bandwagon, we can only ask if they are going to go all the way, and where will the Fraser Institute's vision lead us? Let's reflect on a few ideas put forth by Walter Block, a senior economist at the Fraser Institute. In a book published in 1976 Mr. Block describes the "basically heroic nature of the slum landlord," blames unemployment on the minimum wage — for example, if handicapped people were paid $2 per hour they wouldn't be unemployed — and describes the institution of child labour as an honourable one with a "long and glorious history of good works." In the area of sexual harassment Block states that "the pinching the secretary receives from her employers is not a coercive action, but part of a package deal in which the secretary agrees to all aspects of the job." Because the boss owns the office he owns the people who work there. Is this the type of society we really want to build in British Columbia? Can there be doubt that this is where the free-market philosophy of the right may lead us? Completely divorced from the reality of the economic system, these policies attempt to create a society in which there are no personal safeguards and in which greed and ruthlessness are elevated to virtues.

There are people who received a contract from the Ministry of Education to design a new compulsory course in consumer education for B.C. high school students. If consumers ever needed protection it is from the new right, the Fraser Institute and its emanations. The cold, calculating approach which the Fraser Institute preaches, and which the Social Credit government implements in the name of restraint, will destroy social harmony by forcing confrontation between sectors of society who must work together if a true recovery is to be achieved. There can be no recovery without the maintenance of principles honoured by a democratic society.

The Fraser Institute is performing a very definite service for the big business which funds it. The anticipated result is a climate where investment by large corporations can thrive unfettered by the need for human rights, dignity or freedom.

[Mr. Strachan in the chair.]

The government would have it that the reorganization of spending priorities under the 1983 budget is an economic development strategy. Last year I referred to this proposition as the big lie. I said that restraint is, of course, many things to many people, but it is not a formula for economic recovery. I do not wish to extend this claim to suggest that government restraint is the entire economic policy of the government; this is, unfortunately, far too optimistic a view. The economic strategy of this government has two basic elements. The first of these is what I call industrial strategy; the second is resource management. Both elements impact heavily on the economy. Unfortunately, the impact is negative in both directions, which explains the prolonged recession in B.C.

First, on the subject of industrial policy, there are two aspects: public subsidy and free-trade zones. The elements of public subsidy are well documented in respect to the three major economic projects the government has touted over the past year. The first of these is northeast coal. Yesterday's budget proposes to throw some 70 percent of resource revenue during this year into the northeast coal project through a $470 million grant to the BCR. There has been public discussion of this issue and I don't intend to repeat all of it here. Suffice it to say there is no prospect of recovering this investment, let alone making a return under present contracts. The minister admitted as much in consideration of the estimates, and to newspaper reporters outside. To be more specific, he said that annual export of 7.7 million tonnes of coal a year won't be enough to justify multibillion-dollar coal field developments. The situation now is that the 7.7 million tonnes are shaky. Even that represents just slightly over 3 percent annual return on the total investment.

There is no other explanation for Ron Basford, the minister's coal coordinator, making public speeches in which dire threats are visited upon the Japanese if they cut these contract volumes. The Japanese do not have to negotiate volume cutbacks. They control the shipping; they can simply stop sending ships. I'm afraid our earlier estimates of a $1 billion loss on the northeast coal deal are far too low. The $470 million paid in subsidy in yesterday's budget is only the beginning. Yesterday, when I spoke briefly, I described this $470 million as a subsidy to BCR. There was some negative reaction from across the way. I'd like to make a couple of points with respect to this $470 million, just to point out some coincidences.

The minister was talking about the problems of BCR. We all appreciate the problems of BCR and recognize the importance of it. But there is one thing that concerns me. In his speech, in the very bottom line on page 6, he talks about the contribution to the accumulated deficit of the BCR as a result of the Dease Lake extension: "This debt was incurred to finance construction costs, mainly on the Dease Lake extension which cost more than $200 million...."  In the latest financial statements for British Columbia Railway Company, on page G124 of Public Accounts, which was handed to us yesterday, I read: "Dease Lake Extension, $98,020,000" — which is a difference of $102 million. I read note 5, which talks about the Dease Lake Extension: "These costs consist of charges related to the uncompleted Dease Lake Extension prior to suspension of construction in 1977, and legal and other costs incurred subsequently in connection with litigation...." There are no commitments to continue construction. It would appear as though that figure of $98 million includes everything that is known about the cost of the Dease Lake Extension. Where in the budget did the figure of $200 million come from? It's a more than 100 percent increase over the figure included in B.C. Railway's financial statement.

[ Page 3355 ]

That's one question on which I hope someday to get an answer from the minister.

Now we come to Tumbler Ridge. In the same set of financial statements, in note 4, we see that the Tumbler Ridge line, while it hadn't cost that much at this date.... They do say that the construction, excluding capitalizing of finance charges — that is, leaving aside all the interest that the government is paying — is currently projected at $455 million. This statement is dated December 31, 1982; in all likelihood the figure is up. But let's say $455 million. By some strange coincidence, although the money has nothing at all to do with the Tumbler Ridge line, the amount we're giving to BCR is $470 million, which is a difference of very close to $15 million. The minister said that none of it is for the Tumbler Ridge line. Once the money has gone to BCR, how does he keep a tag on it and say that this dollar came from the $470 million and this other dollar came from hauling a load of freight? How can he say that the dollars will not be used for the Tumbler Ridge line? Beyond that, what is the responsibility of the government? Looking at the BCR financial statements, it's very clear on page G130, note 4, with respect to the Tumbler Ridge branch line, that the government has accepted total responsibility for this line. It's going to be a charge against the public purse; it says that right in BCR's audited financial statement. They had evidence, or the auditors would never have included that note, to prove to them that the government had accepted a financial responsibility. If this $470 million that we're now giving to BCR is not for Tumbler Ridge, then it would indicate that another $470 million is to be transferred to BCR at some later date.

But we're reducing debt. I'm sure every one of us here would like to be able to reduce his or her debt. So we're going to reduce debt by $470 million. Do you know how we're going to do it? We're going to do it in part by borrowing $2.62 billion. If we weren't going to reduce debt, we wouldn't have to borrow quite as much. We could get by by borrowing $2.1 billion. But there's another way of looking at it. It's great to be out of debt. We'd all like to be out of debt. I'm sure the government would like to be out of debt. I suggest that if it's that easy to be out of debt, why don't we go out and borrow $15 billion and pay off all our debts — all cleared with one stroke of the pen? That makes just as much sense as going out now and borrowing $2.6 billion in order to spend $470 million to pay off a little bit of our debt. Why stop at $470 million if we could get rid of the whole $15 billion in debt? They're shovelling it from one pocket to another. It's a shell game. It's a subsidy for the export of coal to Japan. That's BCR.

[11:00]

How about Dynatek? The provincial and federal governments have offered a subsidy package worth a minimum of $19 million. This includes an $8 million grant from the province, providing some $5 million for financing on the building premises and leasehold improvements and $3 million for equipment. The federal government has offered a $7 million grant and a $4 million interest-free loan. All this is subject only to $16 million worth of equity from the promoters and a further $16 million in loan capital. In other words, the two levels of government are prepared to provide the building and the manufacturing equipment, and the promoters have to provide operating capital only. Still the promoters are having difficulty raising the funds. One has to ask whether this is really the sort of economic development strategy that British Columbia needs. Yet it is entirely representative of the economic development strategy of Social Credit.

A third example is Toyota Canada Inc. The federal and provincial governments have provided $5.5 million to Toyota, interest-free, to build an aluminium wheel plant. Toyota has made it clear that it has no plans to build an auto assembly plant in Canada. The attraction of B.C. is the availability of aluminium, producer-cheap electricity and taxpayer subsidies. Toyota has made it clear that it expects tariff concessions to accompany the interest-free financing provided by the two levels of government. In other words, further tariff concessions will be part of the deal as well. Cost of the interest on the $5.5 million loan is estimated at $3 million. The plant will produce 100 jobs: a subsidy of $30,000 per job created from the taxpayers. Yet, Mr. Speaker, we are firing people in the government service who are providing needed services to people and earning much less than that $30,000 each. The heavy subsidization of a few showpiece projects is intended to mask and hide the lack of economic development under Socred economic policies. The second major area of industrial policy is the free trade zones advocated in the throne speech. Social Credit now wishes to join those jurisdictions that have opted to attract a certain kind of capital by offering better and better breaks in labour costs, on taxes, on duties, on health and safety and on environmental standards. This much we know. We can only hope that they hold this view out of ignorance. In that hope, I offer these illustrations of other jurisdictions advertising their free trade zones, so that you will have some appreciation of what the competition is.

In a brochure entitled "Malaysia: Opportunities for European Investments," the federal development authority of Malaysia is trying to attract high-tech investors with the following arguments.

"Labour rates in Malaysia are among the lowest in the region, and female factory workers can be hired for approximately $1.50 (U.S.) a day. The labour force is generally English speaking, and the literacy rate is extremely high. Large multinational U.S. corporations like Hewlett-Packard, Motorola and National Semiconductor, which have invested in labour intensive manufacturing projects in Malaysia, have found labour so easy to train and so productive that within less than a year they have not only expanded their operations in Malaysia, but also set up new factories to produce more sophisticated products than their original investment."

Can we compete with that, Mr. Speaker? Should we?

In a full-page advertisement placed by the government of the Philippines in the Times under the headline, "Seven Good Reasons Why You Should be Looking to the Philippines Now," the following appeared:

"Our labour force speaks your language, whether you are talking electric components, garments or car manufacturing. National literacy was placed at 83.4 per cent in 1973. English is the medium of instruction, which brings the Philippines closest to the Japanese standard among all the Asian countries. The generally high level of education of the Philippino worker makes him highly adaptable, easy to train in new skills. You might even find that the government has pretrained your workers for you in one of its skill centres."

[ Page 3356 ]

Wonder what the Minister of Universities and Science has in mind.

The board of investment of Thailand advertises in a brochure: "15 powerful reasons why you should invest in Thailand."

"One of the major factors which recommends Thailand to the investors over other countries in the region is its abundant supply of cheap and trainable labour. The minimum wage for unskilled labour in Bangkok metropolis and the six surrounding industrial provinces was fixed at 20 baht per day (approx. $1 U.S. funds a day) as of late 1974. Although this is still an extremely low wage, it is 20 per cent higher than in late 1973, showing that public and private sectors are aware of the rising cost of living facing Thai workers. Outside Bangkok the minimum wage has recently been set at 16 baht per day in the north and northeast, and 18 in the south of Thailand.

"The Thai people are naturally clever with their hands, and they are very quick to learn new processes, even when they require considerable concentration, adaptability and initiative. The managers of two firms which require high-precision work — Cosmo Watch Dials and National Semiconductor — have praised the dexterity as well as the quick trainability of their Thai workers. National Semiconductor sent a group of workers to learn electronic skills in Penang. The workers were all able to complete the six-month course in three months' time. Thai women are every bit as skilful as the men, and are often preferred to men due to their perseverance. Women work side by side with men on the job where sex discrimination might be made in other countries. They are given equal pay for equal work as a general rule. Foreign investors should realize that the Buddhist religion and Thailand's social history have ensured that the relationship between the employer and employee is normally more that of guardian and ward than of master and serf. In other words, it is easy to win and maintain the loyalty of the workforce as long as they are treated with kindness and due courtesy."

The Economic Planning Board in South Korea — similar advertisements, Mr. Speaker. And there are many other examples — examples of low wages, deregulated enclaves for cheap manufacturing and processing. There are dangers in this concept for the quality of life in our province. In a Vancouver Sun story of February 14, Michael Walker said: "Export processing zones would be a first step towards a deregulated free market system and would help promote high-technology industries." It is fervently to be hoped that the government has, since last May, learned to pause and reflect a little before accepting these so-called ideas from the Fraser Institute.

Resources. The 1983 budget offers a second area of instruction in Socred economic planning strategy, that of resource management. I wish to refer in some detail to our most important resource industry: forestry. Perhaps the place to begin is with the Pacific Forest Research Centre report published last week. Federal researchers have estimated that a minimal backlog reforestation and current spacing-fertilization program would generate something in the order of 250,000 person-years of employment. The report is so important to B.C. that it bears quoting over and over again in detail:

"Another consideration which cannot be captured within a strict accounting framework relates to the long-term implications of failing to proceed with improved forest management. In the absence of improved forest management the long-run harvest of timber in British Columbia will decline by as much as one-third from present levels. Within a benefit-cost framework there is an implicit assumption of a costless and easy adjustment to lower levels of economic activity. However, this is unlikely to be the case. Neither the extent of the falldown in timber supplies, its timing nor, for that matter, the geographic distribution of future timber shortages is known with precision. Also, the implications of falldown are not well understood by the public. In general, long-run decisions are being made to invest in plant and equipment and regarding location of residences, etc., on the assumption of future continuity of timber supplies. Given this fact, future timber shortages could result in substantial social and economic costs being imposed on future generations of British Columbians.

"On a minor scale there are a number of instances which provide illustrations of the type of effects which can be expected. For example, Ocean Falls, a community which was developed on the basis of assumed adequate long-run supplies of wood. The closure of the mill entailed and is entailing high unemployment rates and dislocation of workers and their families. This has involved substantial private and public financial costs. The value of residences declined dramatically, and this has presented exceptional difficulties for individuals whose major form of saving has been home ownership. In many cases, substantial relocation costs have been incurred in order to obtain alternative employment. Unemployment itself has resulted in financial losses to individuals, as well as to government through the unemployment insurance program. Also, large social investments in schools, hospitals, transportation and communication systems have been made redundant.

"Events at Ocean Falls pale to insignificance compared to the potential effects of the projected falldown on the British Columbia economy. A one-third decline in the timber supply from current levels would multiply the Ocean Falls experience many times, and would have massive and pervasive effects throughout the British Columbia economy. Based upon current employment figures such a contraction would throw 31,000 British Columbians out of work in both logging and wood-based manufacturing industries. Due to the central importance of the forest industry to B.C., at least an equivalent number of jobs would be lost in other sectors, including the transportation industry, the capital repair and construction industry, the material and supply industry, and most significantly, the retail and personal service industry. The major effects would be largely localized in forestry-dependent communities, but every major settlement in British Columbia would be impacted.

"It is estimated that one in four jobs in British Columbia owes its existence to the forest industry. It is unlikely that this dependence will change dramatically in the near future. In the final analysis, a major decline in the forest industry may require massive

[ Page 3357 ]

out-migration of workers from the province, and this type of adjustment can extend over lengthy time periods. Also, the major burden of adjustment is likely to fall on senior government, as the financial ability of the province to respond would be seriously impaired.

"Clearly, avoidance or at least reduction of these social costs may be a principal benefit of investment in improved forest management. The potential jobs saved in the long term varies from forest region to forest region. Based upon current employment levels, harvesting and processing employment generated per hectare of backlog reforestation ranks from a high of 0.8 person-years in the Vancouver forest region to a low of 0.2 person-years in the Cariboo forest region. Complete reforestation of all good- and medium-backlog sites throughout the province could generate total employment of approximately 200,000 person-years. Per-hectare employment generated by an integrated spacing fertilization program could range from 25 percent to 50 percent of that generated by backlog reforestation."

Mr. Speaker, these words speak for themselves.

The point has been underlined by John Walters, director of UBC's experimental forest, who had this to say, as quoted in the Vancouver Sun on February 18:

"'As we know it today, the forest industry is dying,' Walters told the delegates. 'Action is required urgently if the forest industry and all it means to B.C. is to survive.

"'We are kidding ourselves if we think we can sustain forestry with $2 to $3 per-hectare annual expenditures. A harassed and depleted ministry staff, working with inadequate data, starvation budgets and uncertain funding, is expected to water half of B.C. with a watering can.'"

In a document dated February 1984 the Association of B.C. Professional Foresters recommended a minimum allocation of $90 million for current NSR and an additional $70 million for backlog. They go on to say that that $160 million — in 1983 dollars; it would be $168 in 1984 — will have to increase by at least 25 percent. The vote this year for silviculture was $57,247,537 — 34 percent or one-third of the amount required.

In a brief presented to the Minister of Finance dated January 24, 1984 — one of the groups the Minister of Finance met with but apparently didn't listen to — the association pointed out that 1984 sowing requests were for 236 million trees, compared with current nursery capacity of 120 million — just half of the needed amount. They also urged a focus on the forest research programs, pointing out that we are two generations behind our competitors in genetic improvement. What they got is a 15 percent reduction in real terms. This is the background against which we have to judge the Minister of Finance's capacity to lecture foreign governments — page 4 of the budget — and to caution all British Columbians against complacency — page 8.

[11:15]

This lecturing and cautioning comes from a man who is presiding over the ruination — the rape, as John Walters called it — of this province's economic base. Together with the Minister of Forests (Hon. Mr. Waterland), this Minister of Finance has chief responsibility for devising and administering those precious assets, our forests. He has major responsibility for the problems at Shoal Island. They are jointly responsible for what department officials describe as a 90 percent reduction in goals relating to intensive silviculture. They are, in brief, jointly responsible for utter chaos and ruin in our economic base. The Minister of Forests does not have the interest of the land-owning public in focus.

The Forest Act, as revised in 1978 by the present administration, took control of the legislation from the Legislature, from the cabinet and the Minister of Forests. In the crucial areas of revenue from timber sales there are four elements in the Forest Act. These are: allowable annual cut, which is determined under sections 7 and 28; stumpage rate, determined by the regional manager under section 84; scaling, controlled variously by a committee of the regional manager, the area manager, the chief forester and the supervisor of scalers, under part 6; and rebates of stumpages, rebates for projects done to the satisfaction of the chief forester in respect to forest nurseries or seed orchards and the regional manager in respect to logging access roads and reforestation under section 88. The first three elements determine the amount of revenue. The fourth forgoes that revenue. There is no arm's-length scrutiny, audit or evidence to guarantee a public interest focus. Decisions involving hundreds of millions of dollars of revenue and rebate of huge sums are made in smoke-filled rooms by bureaucrats from government and industry, without scrutiny by legislative watchdogs. Is it any wonder that in the fiscal year 1981-82 before the recession had full impact, Forest Service income before section 88 was $172 million — from page 28 of the Forest Service Annual Report. Expenditures after rebates were $297 million — page 24 of the same report — for a deficit taken from the public treasury of $125 million. Yes, the landowner — the public of British Columbia — subsidized forestry by $125 million drained from essential services.

Major leakage in revenue is visible in stumpage payments. Small business that competes for timber pays 368 percent of stumpage as appraised under the Forest Service formula. In the Vancouver region, small business pays $11.30 per cubic metre and big business pays $4.29. Over the entire province, small business paid $6.20 per cubic metre and big business paid $2.17. Had big industry paid stumpage based upon competitive prices for timber, the public treasury would have been enriched by $400 million in that one year. Scaling is a critical factor, as the ombudsman's report has shown. The ability of the conglomerates to abuse the system is now revealed as a major leakage of public revenue.

The people of British Columbia should be grateful for an ombudsman who has ferreted out this breach of public trust and exposed it.

Interjection.

MR. STUPICH: I've been asked who appointed him, and I give the government full marks for appointing him. I do hope that they'll continue to support him to the extent that he needs it in order to continue the good job he's doing on behalf of the people of British Columbia.

Section 88. Rebates of stumpages are about 50 percent of gross stumpage, rising so fast as to soon preempt all timber sales revenue. Section 88 is wasteful. When less than 60 percent of trees planted survive....

MRS. DAILLY: Not one cabinet minister is here.

[ Page 3358 ]

MR. STUPICH: The Minister of Universities, Science and Communications (Hon. Mr. McGeer) is fond of attending the House occasionally, briefly, and pointing out that some members from the opposition side are absent. He's not here often enough to see how many are here as a rule. It's been pointed out by my colleagues that for a few moments there wasn't a single cabinet minister in the House, at a time when we're talking about the most important resource in the province of British Columbia. However, as was suggested by someone, perhaps they're listening on their speakers in the office. I say that, Mr. Speaker, with a smile.

Section 88 is wasteful. When less than 60 percent of trees planted survive, when trees in the slow-growth areas and on mountaintops are planted in priority over high-yield lands at low elevations close to communities, and when 13 percent of B.C.'s previously denuded forest land — equal to the area of Holland — does not support tree crops, the economic waste committed to the future is enormous. Section 88 rebates are the greatest political pork-barrel in the history of British Columbia. They pay the salaries of a substantial number of bureaucrats on the staff of the conglomerates and are, no doubt, a source of Social Credit political funds.

As a result of the 1978 Forest Act, the Ministry of Forests is in partnership with the conglomerates and is obligated to protect and pamper them in order to keep alive. It is a partnership with a twist, which causes the ministry to work against the public interest; against economic expansion of new, vigorous, entrepreneurial energy; against economic expansion through modernized technology; against job expansion through full use of an annual allowable cut; and against collective realistic full value for timber sales from one of the world's greatest heritages of long-fibred northern coniferous forests. Instead, the minister protects, subsidizes and pampers conglomerates that are worn out, technological derelicts that for 30 years have withdrawn profits and capital cost allowances to invest the world over in everything from roller skates to hamburger emporia — literally a dissipation of capital and jobs, caused by an egomaniacal urge of management to make acquisitions and the stupidity of boards of directors in forgetting the roots of the company in British Columbia. In just 30 years almost all coastal companies awarded tree-farm licences have become economic cripples and corporate welfare bums, consuming our heritage resource at subsidized prices.

In 1978 the Forest Service was decentralized and a proliferation of staff added. It is leadership without a line of command. There is a committee churning out policy manuals that are vague, confused and purposeless. It has a staff that is confused, disheartened and so manipulated by the conglomerates on the one hand and senior officials of the ministry on the other that useful competence is destroyed. Never in the 72-year history of the Forest Service has there been such a body of professional foresters, with such world-class educational competence, so misused by a statute so wrong and ministerial management so inept.

I mentioned the four crucial areas of public interest revenue collection. The Minister of Forests has presided over the downfall of a once-vibrant public-interest-oriented Forest Service. He has allowed it to devour itself with incompetence. He's presiding over the harvest of our most important renewable resource as though he were still the Minister of Mines disposing of a depleting resource.

Now let me return to discussing the byproducts of this partnership of the ministry with the conglomerates. The minister was the midwife who gave birth to debt-ridden western forest industries. He allowed ITT-Rayonier to sell its tree-farm licences for $420 million cash. ITT threw in a gaggle of worn-out, technologically defunct pulp mills and sawmills, then disappeared in retreat with the money to the telephone business. Instead of shuffling tree-farm licences in smoke-filled rooms, Mr. Waterland should bring the action out in the open for public scrutiny.

A further example of the duplicity of the Socred policy is the sad demise of Ocean Falls. The NDP government purchased that operation at $1 million to set up a midcoast development project to supply timber to Bella Coola and Ocean Falls. The plan, completed and documented, involved the construction of a forest-access road from South Bentinck Arm to the head of Owikeno Lake. Among other things the transportation of logs through the salmon-rich lake would be avoided. The Socreds came to power, tore up the mid-coast development project and allocated the unused allowable cut to three foreign-controlled multinationals already with more timber than they could use. They abandoned the mid-coast road development and dealt Ocean Falls a mortal blow by depriving it of its timber supply. The only timber supply was that which the conglomerates would sell at usurious prices.

Kruger Inc. of Quebec, anxious to invest in British Columbia, was given the green light to purchase Ocean Falls. Kruger had a newsprint machine on order in the factory and capital to invest to bring a powerline to utilize excess power from Kemano. As a byproduct communities in the mid-coast would be electrified with other than diesel generators. Ultimately a link to the northern Vancouver Island power grid could have resulted. Ocean Falls would have been modernized with world-class technology and would be selling high quality, low-cost newsprint into markets long served by Ocean Falls. The new Ocean Falls would have competed with Crown Zellerbach, B.C. Forest Products and MacMillan Bloedel in the California market. Kruger is a private enterprise, competitive entrepreneur — a dead species among B.C.'s conglomerates. The free-enterprisers did not want a Kruger in their midst. At the final meeting of a long negotiation, when all the bricks were in place and senior executives of Kruger were in attendance, Ministry of Forests officials — without any warning — announced they had reviewed their previously published annual allowable cut scheduled for the mid-coast on which negotiations were based. The ministry explained that a major reduction in the timber supply was necessary. Eight weeks from the date Kruger arrived and announced its objectives, the Minister of Forests — with the stroke of a pen, again in the back room — wiped out the entire future of Ocean Falls. Kruger abruptly departed from the meeting and the member for North Peace River (Hon. Mr. Brummet) was left with an empty bag. Ocean Falls was dealt a second, and this time mortal, blow as a pulp and paper centre.

It seems obvious that the Minister of Forests responded to an appeal from the conglomerates to bar the door against a potential competitor. The Minister of Forests prevented the survival and growth of a mid-coast community. It remains among the Socred castaways, the disused flotsam of their lifeboat ethics.

It is Socred forest policy which protects and conceals the plunder of every British Columbian's birthright for the proverbial mess of pottage. Mr. Waterland now advocates privatizing forest management. This is the policy of 40 years

[ Page 3359 ]

ago by another coalition government of Liberals, Conservatives and opportunists, and the public inherited a derelict industry in the coastal sector. The Chemainus problem of technological obsolescence is marching northwards, step by step, on Vancouver Island, propelled by a dead-end forest policy, the wrong legislation and a worse-than-useless Minister of Forests.

The Forests ministry needs to be put under trusteeship. The trustee should be given the responsibility of reorganizing scaling and the joint supervision of harvesting and reforestation in a fashion which gives first priority to the public interest. The trustee should deal simultaneously with expediting the recommendations of the ombudsman with respect to the Shoal Island situation. Further, he should conduct an audit of stumpage rates under section 88. Forestry is our most important natural resource, and it needs the attention of someone who, rather than treating it as an ore body to be exploited and abandoned, will husband and manage it so that it will produce an ever-increasing supply of products for present residents and for generations yet unborn.

[Mr. Pelton in the chair.]

The third and perhaps most important lesson concerns the essence of the last two budgets: restraint. Restraint in many people's minds is synonymous with self-discipline. One restrains one's expenditures in order to save or simply to make ends meet. One restrains one's passions in order to be well-behaved. Restraint in the use of force is a precondition for peace and so on. Thus Social Credit newspeak adopts a perfectly good word and perverts it for its own political purposes. Restraint in B.C. means privatization and contracting out. It does not mean a lack of self-indulgence. Government ministers still enjoy the same high salaries, perks and pension plans as before, only now they enjoy more global travel. In this province it means the specific measures of privatization and contracting out.

[11:30]

1 want to deal at some length with the second of these ideas; that is, contracting out. The government has made it clear that many of the full-time equivalent employees delivering programs will be replaced with contracted services. Thus a vastly expanding army of paid consultants is replacing a diminishing army of employees. This tool is not new to government or unique to Social Credit; however, the wholesale application of the policy and absence of proper guidelines leads to a clear-cut potential for abuse. The abuse I'm talking about was sumarized recently by Professor Rodney Dobell, respected dean of the school of administrative studies at UVIC, as "jobs and money for the boys." It is no secret that in B.C. there are no jobs to be had in government. It is, however, less known that there are no shortages of contracts to be had if you know the right people in government.

Recently, without any announcement, the Minister of Finance brought forward Treasury Board order 2/84. This order doubles the maximum consulting contract which may be entered into without Treasury Board approval from $25,000 to $50,000. There is, in fact, a slackening of government control over spending in this area. I might add that any government manager worth his salt knows how to break up consultant contracts to get around Treasury Board approval or guidelines. What is the difference between two $45,000 consultant contracts to one contractor and one $90,000 consulting contract?

So the question has to be asked whether this process saves the taxpayer any money. In fact, the displacing of a non-partisan public servant appointed through competition and merit with a consultant does not save money; it generates income for supporters of the Social Credit Party. To the additional costs associated with consultants over government employees must be added the costs of unemployment and welfare benefits for government employees who are displaced. Every non-partisan employee replaced with a Socred consultant will have a problem of income loss which will be reflected in government spending sooner or later.

Government employees are understandably upset at seeing their jobs turned over on the gravy train to the Socred party machine. In one such case a complaint has been laid before the Labour Relations Board. It has been alleged that a consultant is being paid $290 per day to peruse two to four complex files or six to eight simple files per day in the Ministry of Lands, Parks and Housing. This work, the employees say, is normally done by a clerk 5 who is paid approximately $80 per day. It will be interesting to see whether the government allows a full hearing at the LRB. Perhaps it will be more interesting to see whether the LRB will survive long enough to conduct hearings on issues such as this.

In addition to those privatization contracts which end up costing taxpayers more money, there are those which cost specific members more money. This is clearly true of the privatization of court stenographer services. It is becoming true of the privatization of sheriff services. The approaching experiment with private sector sheriffs will be interesting from another perspective. The days of private law enforcement were once thought long-gone in North America; they are returning in B.C. Among their many functions, sheriffs have a critical role in carrying out court judgments, particularly of a civil nature. In what fashion would various private sector sheriffs undertake to enforce court orders? What control will exist over the way in which the law in the province is carried out on the doorsteps?

Of course, the privatization scam is being extended broadly through the corrections system. Under Social Credit I suppose we would call it the corrections industry. This is how corrections will join the "productive" and escape the tainted public sector. I am informed B.C. is going to privatize chaplain and nursing services in jails. Most recently the Ministry of Human Resources advertised a variety of juvenile and family treatment facilities for private contractors, and I understand that interest has been keen. Some feel there is gold to be made among those who have serious personal problems; others feel their own private religious or philosophical methods should have great sway among those of our own troubled youth and families who are at risk.

Government should realize that a full-time equivalent doing the same job is economically similar in all sectors. A Social Credit consultant is no more valuable to society than a non-partisan government employee. Getting rid of thousands of full-time equivalents on the payroll, the way the minister and the government have done, is relatively easy. There is nothing new or different about a government handing out contracts. The only difference is the use of fancy words such as "privatization." This is called lubrication, which, as we all know, is what makes machinery work smoothly. In this case the machinery is the Social Credit Party. From now on, when

[ Page 3360 ]

the members opposite use big words like "privatization," "invitations for proposals," or even "contracting out," we on this side must remind the public that we are talking about lubrication. It is, in a word, a scam. Worse, it has now I become a smokescreen to hide some serious cutbacks. I shall return to this point in reviewing the current year's budget proposals.

There are those who had hoped that the experience of the past seven and a half months would bear heavily on the considerations of the Finance minister in preparing the 1984 budget. There are those who felt that, politics and ideology aside, the government would see that British Columbia's unique failure to enter a recovery phase during 1983 should cause a certain re-evaluation. There are those who felt that the Finance minister and the government would take a more pragmatic and a less ideological stance. There are those who had hoped that economic reality was more compelling than adolescent competition to determine who practises the toughest restraint. Perhaps Social Credit will go down in the annals of the political history of the 1980s as flexing its governmental muscles and cutting the most machismo figure among western democratic governments. If so, it will be as an example of ideological and political excess, of blind political faith over evidence, and of a government having been sold a bill of goods by corporate backers who have no real interest in the long-term future of this province. Remember, Mr. Speaker, that the corporate backers of the Fraser Institute, who are behind this budget in philosophy and in detail, are known to be investing their dollars outside B.C. They want low wages and low taxes for as long as they can get them, and once the time comes they'll move on. The government of this province is supposed to view this province in the long term, but never before has the B.C. government been so completely in the grasp of and so beholden to a group of special interests.

Economic initiatives. Let it never be said that the corporate elite in this province does not know on which side its bread is buttered. It is no accident that the corporate elite — the stock promoters and the people who buy and sell real estate in this province — support Social Credit. They know on which side of the political landscape they will get favours. They know Social Credit will force working people to pay the bills while they receive the benefits. That is why boom periods in this province are defined as those periods when real estate sells for the large dollar. Every real estate boom has its financial winners. The present Premier made his start in life by buying and selling the land of this province during a real estate boom. It's small wonder, then, that the government showcases as an economic initiative a study of the tax burden on various types of businesses in several jurisdictions, to be followed by a consultative process. This is to be done in conjunction with a thorough review of the impact of taxation on economic development. The result of all of this is to be innovative tax measures for stimulating new investment by large and small business. There is to be no study of the high impact of taxation and user fees on working people in the province. There is to be no consultative process through which innovative approaches to making ends meet on the part of our citizens will be developed.

It is interesting that the net effect of eight years of the Bill Bennett Social Credit government is a youth unemployment rate of 24.2 percent.

Interjection

MR. STUPICH: I haven't come to that page, but it's in here; I don't think it's in the budget.

That is, one in four able-bodied young persons under 25 is not just unemployed but actively pounding the pavement in search of a job and unable to find one. Rather than study the shattering life prospects of people in this category, the solution of the Minister of Human Resources (Hon. Mrs. McCarthy) is to introduce age discrimination in the paltry allowance under the legislation for unemployed persons and to penalize the under-25s for economic circumstances which the government has created for them.

What about the situation of those who are still lucky enough to have a paycheque under Social Credit? The Minister of Finance does not propose to study their lot, either. He has slapped on an 8 percent tax hike to ensure that the paycheque will be smaller, starting in July. The clever Minister of Finance opposite has produced tables on pages 42 and 43 of the budget showing precisely half the impact of this tax. The fact is that there will be $10 to $14 less in every pay packet as a result of the tax increase imposed yesterday by the Minister of Finance.

Interjection.

MR. STUPICH: Mr. Speaker, I'm told that I can thank the federal government for that. I thought it was the provincial Minister of Finance whom I was listening to yesterday. Like all good Social Credit budgets, this one blames all the problems on someone else, and that member is falling into the same trap. It's so easy to point to someone outside this House and say it's all their fault, rather than to look in the mirror. Whether it is world economic conditions or the federal government or the weather or what have you, every Social Credit budget has an external scapegoat upon which all tribulations and tax increases can be visited. This budget is of course no exception. It is for this reason that the public relations staff have coined the phrase: "health care maintenance surtax." The minister is obviously aware of how this charade was orchestrated, but for the benefit of other members and those in the public who may be interested, I think a little background is in order.

Among other ways your Social Credit government squanders your tax dollar is that they conduct political opinion surveys at taxpayers' expense. The most recent of these, conducted by Goldfarb in January 1984, asks respondents to rate a series of proposed tax increases for health care. This was pointed out in the House a short time ago by my colleague the member for Burnaby North (Mrs. Dailly). Among the list is a variety of user fees and — surprise! — "an increase in general income tax to provide the additional funds." This is as close as we come to finding out the truth about the intelligence gathered by the government, at taxpayers' expense, about the voters. Now we know what Mr. Goldfarb told the government. It is left to the Doug Heals of this world, in their taxpayer-financed dream world, to invent "health care maintenance surtax." But wait! There is a further dimension added to muddy the waters. This tax is a "temporary" one, until such time as federal-provincial funding issues are ironed out on medicare. Remember when income tax was introduced as a temporary tax?

Let me deal with this argument for what it is — a demonstrable lie designed to fool the public. Members opposite must surely be aware that this side of the House fought strenuously to oppose the end of joint funding in health care.

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While the NDP was fighting the end of cost-sharing, this government, with dollar signs in its eyes, leaped onto the block-funding bandwagon. Social Credit thought it could skim money out of the system for political propaganda, polling, subsidized resource development and all of its other favourite projects. The fact is that the dollar signs in your eyes blinded you to the potential for reduction in federal contributions once the fifty-fifty proposition was abandoned. Now you've been caught by your own greed and lack of principle, and you're taking it out on the taxpayer.

Let me put one proposition clearly: the only basis upon which you could sell this tax increase as a health care measure is by also eliminating user fees. That is, the so-called health care maintenance surtax would be credible were it to at least replace hospital user fees. Hospital user fees raise some $40 million a year, compared to the minister's heath care surtax which will raise $166 million, according to the minister's estimate. While on this subject, I'd like to point out that the total reductions in federal health contributions are closer to $185 million over the five-year period and not the $364 million noted in the budget. Over the same five-year period the minister's surtax would yield $830 million. All of this is by way of pointing out that the tax increase has nothing to do with health care. Health care is really a smokescreen to mask a tax hike. Moreover, because of the way our tax system works, this is a tax hike which applies to those who are on a paycheque, rather to those who earn their incomes through property transactions and other means which are not taxable under present income tax rules. To repeat, the Minister of Finance gives every indication of making the situation worse by proposing to study even more tax gimmicks for tax avoidance by those who have the means to qualify.

[11:45]

I had hoped to dwell in some further detail with economic initiatives in the budget. Unfortunately, Mr. Speaker, there are none. In fact, the 1984 budget is one of economic inertia. It's amazing how the passing of these months under the present watchword of restraint could have led to the kind of paralysis on the economic front that we see on the part of this government today. With the exception of the tax-fiddling I've just referred to, there is nothing which indicates that Social Credit has a clear idea of where it wants to go, how to get there, and what means it will require along the way.

Certainly it is easy to deny that Social Credit has any lingering desire to deal with the serious social problems it has wrought over the past 30 years. Any of the legacy of social conscience that the Social Credit Party inherited from its predecessors in the 1930s has gone and is sadly forgotten. Representatives of that party have grabbed onto a single idea, that of fiscal restraint, and transformed it into a complete philosophy and program. The illogic of this extreme can be seen with simple reference to Webster's dictionary, which defines restrain as: "To prevent from doing, exhibiting or expressing something; to limit, restrict, or keep under control; to limit development or full exercise of." I think anyone with sense can see the limitations of this concept. Yet the government expects congratulations for applying it in an indiscriminate fashion.

Thus the Socreds have successfully prevented the economy from exhibiting or expressing economic recovery. Are we supposed to say thank you? It has successfully limited the development of the economy by clamping a lid on a major portion of it. Tax hikes for ordinary people and tax breaks for the wealthy do not make it as an economic policy for B.C. in 1984. We can argue in this chamber whether or not it might have worked at another time. But it will be difficult for members opposite to lay aside their usual insults and argue its merit as an economic strategy. I shall deal with this in depth in my conclusion.

The budget speech contains an incredible prophesy, one, I am sad to say, that may be self-fulfilling. One page 4 the minister says: "...we may be forced to undergo another painful recession without having fully recovered from the last one." I think everyone who follows this debate should remember those words, Mr. Speaker. This is precisely the course that this government has set us upon. I don't have to go beyond the paper tabled by the minister yesterday to make my point. It takes five minutes, a book of labour force statistics and a calculator to determine from the data on pages 36 and 37 of the budget that our economy is in deep trouble. Even if everything goes exactly as Social Credit hopes, fewer people will be employed in B.C. in 1985 than in 1981. We are going to come through the entire cycle of recession and so-called recovery and wind up with fewer employed and a great many more unemployed. Production in the economy has not yet recovered to 1981 levels, and may not do so by 1985. There has been a doubling of the unemployment rate, and no employment strategies in sight. The economic policy of the government has nothing to do with initiative and everything to do with inertia.

I can't close this brief examination of the budget economics without commenting again on the $470 million grant to the B.C. Railway. The minister has appropriated almost 70 percent of all resource revenues for the coming year to subsidize the northeast coal project. The minister claims that these funds cannot be used for northeast coal. I say he has gone to clever lengths to make his point, but in so doing makes distinctions with no real difference. Consider, for example, the minister's clarification that funds paid to BCR will not reduce debt but be added to the sinking funds of the railway's prehistoric debt. For those intimidated by the term "sinking fund," these are simply investments, the interest from which is dedicated to meet loan repayment instalments. Very clearly, these funds will remain as an investment portfolio in the hands of B.C. Railway. This is far from the same thing as paying off historic debt; this is actually a provision of investment capital to the railway.

The minister doesn't say what these funds will be invested in, but the BCR has indicated its past investment practice. If one examines the 1982 annual report of the BCR, at page F10 it says that during the year bonds issued by a related provincial Crown corporation were acquired to be held as assets in the sinking fund. Let me repeat: bonds issued by a related Crown corporation — we're talking about B.C. Railway now — are considered as an investment in the sinking fund.

MR. HOWARD: They could have been invested in B.C. government bonds.

MR. STUPICH: B.C. government bonds are not related to B.C. Railway.

I submit that there is nothing to prevent some or all of the $470 million finding its way into purchasing such bonds or bank paper, or some other device for financing the Tumbler Ridge railway. It is even possible that the bonds could be issued by a direct subsidiary of the B.C. Railway. Far stranger things have already happened in the wonderful,

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wacky world of Social Credit Crown corporation finance. Who says the A plus B theorem is dead?

The government plainly has huge financial losses in northeast coal to hide. The $470 million is just the beginning. Less money for education, less money for health — in terms of real dollars — less money for child care and protection of public safety in the future, because future tax dollars are committed to this project. I think the minister himself has gone as far as a Socred cabinet member could in admitting it. He announced yesterday that natural resource revenues will no longer be available for any purpose in terms of budgetary expenditure. It is going to take the entire resource heritage of every British Columbian to take care of the losses, subsidies and debts on Social Credit economic failures already committed. It is a poor legacy, one the members opposite cannot be proud of.

The minister no longer talks of saving for a rainy day. The best he now musters is: "...revenue derived from our resource endowment will be used to build the financial strength of the provincial government in preparation for any future economic downturns." It is pale stuff, Mr. Speaker, and the minister is a pale imitation of himself imitating a Minister of Finance.

All that can be done by Social Credit is to cover up for the mistakes of the past, using the people's resource heritage as hush money. The miscalculations of government and the greed of the few have their price. The price is now to be paid. It is a far cry from economic strategy. It is economic inertia which is dragging our province down and away from our remaining opportunities.

Expenditure priorities. I had hoped to deal with the government's expenditure priorities in some detail. However, I see that the Minister of Finance has not let this opportunity slip to once again reorganize the spending estimates, in particular the supplement containing details of ministry expenditures. The annual reorganization of the estimates under this minister has reached the point where it is impossible to determine expenditure shifts from year to year. Not only are figures not presented in a manner consistent with prior years but the prior year's expenditures are themselves recalculated on the basis of complicated transfers of funding and accounts. The net effect is that it will be impossible, save for examination of each vote in detail, to determine exactly what he has done.

This is a clever approach to presentation of budget estimates. Unfortunately, while clever is what we have come to expect of this minister, it is far from fulfilling the role of a budget in the British parliamentary system. It is no accident that people have a great pride in the British parliamentary system. There are many in this chamber, present and past, who have risked much in its defence. The budget is, or ought to be, the centrepiece of parliamentary democracy and the principle of accountability in government. It is supposed to be the chief mechanism for people and their representatives to maintain a handle on what the government is doing. I say you cannot continue to shuffle and reshuffle the estimate book to disguise and to hide and to deceive people about what you are doing. It is time that we returned to some sense of honour and honesty in the reporting of financial information to this House in the estimates, in the public accounts and in the examination thereof.

In the fiscal year just completed the government chose to operate for four months in the absence of any supply from the Legislative Assembly. During this time the government operated under the very margin of constitutionality. Government employees were reduced to seeking pencils on requisitions marked as "urgent and public necessity" to deal with the fact that this government chose to operate without legislative supply. At the same time, a budget is the central document of the government's program. It reconciles public demands and needs with available public money supply.

Well, we must be pleased that the government has finally chosen to introduce a budget in advance of the period for which funds are required — and we are pleased about that. The budget fails miserably as an attempt to state government priorities. We know, for example, that the government intends to penalize young unemployed persons for being unemployed. It should be noted that the proposed reduction for under-25s leaves them as individuals with the grand total of some $5 per day for food, clothing, cleanliness and transportation. For a couple, the comparable figure is $8.50 per day. The Minister of Human Resources (Hon. Mrs. McCarthy) held a press conference yesterday and suggested, of the new age-discrimination policy, that unemployed young people could go home or could go to Fort St. John. There's lots of room there, Mr. Speaker — a 30 percent vacancy rate in Fort St. John. The Minister of Human Resources ought to be aware, but the Minister of Finance certainly is, that there are more than 70,000 young people officially registered as unemployed in B.C. They are heavily among the 35,000 British Columbians who go through food banks and soup kitchens every week in this province. I realize that the Minister of Finance has been generous in the $470 million granted to the benefit of the northeast coal project resource revenue yesterday. How on earth are we going to employ 70,000 young British Columbians in northeast B.C.? As the ombudsman asked in his 1980 report to the Legislative Assembly, does a young person on income assistance need less money for food than an older person? How many calories per day can they get by on? Surely there must be a better solution for unemployment than starving them out.

I note with interest that provincial Pharmacare spending is down. Members may recall documents presented by the NDP during the election campaign which showed that Pharmacare deductibles would be increased. These were vehemently denied by all and sundry, especially the Minister of Health, the hon. member for Richmond (Hon. Mr. Nielsen), and by the Premier. British Columbia electors will have to learn how to approach Social Credit denials. Unfortunately they just have to learn to ignore them.

It should be noted that education spending is again on the skids. British Columbians started this year at the absolute bottom of the heap in terms of education spending. That tight-fisted government opposite spends fewer dollars per capita on education than any other province in the country. The same is true relative to personal income.

On the university side we're not quite last. We tie for last with Prince Edward Island. The government has often defended its spending policies, in particular the allegation that fewer British Columbians are able to attend universities than the national average, by saying that universities are not for our people. We prefer to send them to other post-secondary institutions. The evidence is now in. With the exception of Newfoundland, B.C. has the lowest post-secondary education participation rate in the country. If you were unlucky enough to be born in British Columbia, you have a smaller chance of obtaining any sort of post-secondary education

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than almost anyone else in the country. But if you can't get an education, you can go into the labour market, where you will not get a job. In this case you will not be able to obtain full social assistance and will begin your life by attempting to survive on $5 per day. This is what the Socred government offers our young people. Is this really what the people voted for last May?

If you study hard and get by on your provincial exams in grades 10 and 11, you can shop around for a post-secondary education. If you try technical school — let's say BCIT — they will tell you they are not sure which courses they will be offering and since all staff are on general notice of layoff, who will be offering them. If you go to a community college, you will find that most have been ordered by the province to cut out business administration courses. This is called privatization. The same courses are available from private schools for two or three times the price — not much hope there. You could try going to university. The government has announced that it will cut back university operating budgets by only 5 percent instead of 6 percent. This, they argue, should result in a major reduction in tuition fees. That's Social Credit financing. Suppose the Minister of Finance is right in this; the prospective student can expect an $18 discount on a tuition bill approaching $1,000 per year.

Meanwhile our prospective student has discovered that Walter Block has advised the government to eliminate rent controls. The average student hovel will cost $50 or $60 a month more than it did last year. If, however, he or she is lucky enough to find a place removed from campus with a lower rent, there are the transit costs, which are bound to increase as a result of further cuts in the transit budget. Two years ago the provincial budget provided more than $91 million in subsidies to the Urban Transit Authority. In this budget these sums have been reduced to $74 million. Of course, the provincial government was prepared to loan money to those who qualified under the student aid program, but now the Minister of Finance has announced that student aid is gone. To quote the minister's words exactly: "Effective April 1, 1984, student aid will be provided primarily in the form of loans, rather than grants as in the past." So the prospective student is facing a debt load of some $30,000 after graduation, or a $400 monthly payment for ten years. One can, of course, take summer employment to subsidize one's education, but unfortunately this area has been cut back as well. The only comfort offered by the Finance minister was a proposal to lend money to students to create their own jobs. Just what we need — another way to get into debt. Is it any wonder, then, that many of our young people choose to join the 70,000 others who are actively seeking jobs in the labour force. If young people without post-secondary education are lucky enough to obtain employment, this is a blessing. If they are lucky enough to maintain that employment in an increasingly complex and specialized world, more power to them.

Mr. Speaker, I move adjournment of the debate until the next sitting.

Motion approved.

Hon. Mr. Gardom moved adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

The House adjourned at 12:01 p.m.