[ Page 3573 ]

CONTENTS

Routine Proceedings

British Columbia Transit Amendment Act, 1984 (Bill 10). Hon. Mrs. McCarthy

Introduction and first reading –– 3573

Tabling Documents –– 3573

Oral Questions

Reforestation program. Mr. Mitchell –– 3573

Mr. Nicolson

B.C. Place Stadium VIP facilities. Mr. Howard –– 3573

Transfer of funds to BCR. Mr. Stupich –– 3574

Taxation authority in Bill 2. Mr. Stupich –– 3575

UBC expenditures. Hon. Mr. McGeer replies –– 3575

Security programs division. Hon. Mr. Smith replies –– 3575

Budget debate

Ms. Sanford –– 3575

Mr. Campbell –– 3576

Ms. Brown –– 3578

Mr. Pelton –– 3582

Mr. Lea –– 3584

Hon. Mrs. McCarthy –– 3587

Mr. Lauk –– 3590

Hon. Mr. Schroeder –– 3594

The House met at 2:06 p.m.

MR. VEITCH: From that great riding of Burnaby-Willingdon and from a very fine post-secondary educational institute, the British Columbia Institute of Technology, we have three very fine people in the gallery: Antoine Van Dierendonck, Toni Clark and Melanie Mahlman. I would ask this House to bid them welcome.

MR. MOWAT: Mr. Speaker, in your gallery today we have a personal friend of mine, Mr. Gordon Cox, who is the former inspector of the Vancouver city police force. I would ask the House to welcome him.

We also have three members who addressed our caucus today from the Institute of Accredited Public Accountants: Dr. Bert Dartnell, Mr. Fred McBride, the executive director, and Commander Peter Gardner. I'd ask the House to make them welcome.

Introduction of Bills

BRITISH COLUMBIA TRANSIT
AMENDMENT ACT, 1984

Hon. Mrs. McCarthy presented a message from His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor: a bill intituled British Columbia Transit Amendment Act, 1984.

Bill 10 introduced, read a first time and ordered to be placed on orders of the day for second reading at the next sitting of the House after today.

Hon. Mr. Hewitt tabled the annual report of the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia for the period ended December 31, 1983.

Oral Questions

REFORESTATION PROGRAM

MR. MITCHELL: Mr. Speaker, to the Minister of Finance. This morning I met with 250 to 300 unemployed youths who had been working with the federal Canada Works program doing much-needed work in forestry such as spacing, planting, etc. This program has run out of funds. When will this government release the $37 million that the Minister of Forests says is available, and when will they successfully negotiate the federal-provincial agreement to continue this much-needed work in the forests and to keep people employed and not on welfare?

MR. SPEAKER: The first part of the question is in order.

HON. MR. CURTIS: Mr. Speaker, I would refer the member for Esquimalt–Port Renfrew to the Minister of Forests (Hon. Mr. Waterland) and, in his absence, the acting Minister of Forests, if that is his wish, or the Minister of Labour (Hon. Mr. McClelland.) I have taken the position before that with respect to individual portfolios where expenditures are approved within that ministry or portfolio, the question is more appropriately directed to the minister responsible.

MR. MITCHELL: Mr. Speaker, I don't know if you're going to send me to the Black Forest in Germany to talk to the Minister of Forests, but as I am not aware of who the acting Minister of Forests is, will he please rise, or will the Minister of Finance please identify this person who can answer the question about the much-needed work for the people who are unemployed now because of this government's inaction?

HON. MR. CURTIS: Mr. Speaker, I would expect all members would know the acting ministers for each portfolio in government. I will take the question as notice for the Minister of Forests.

MR. NICOLSON: Would the Minister of Finance enumerate the acting ministers for the all of the cabinet benches?

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. members, that would be a somewhat lengthy process, but if it's....

MR. NICOLSON: I think it would be pretty short.

MR. SPEAKER: It could be very lengthy, but the Minister of Finance wishes to respond.

HON. MR. CURTIS: Mr. Speaker, if it is the member's wish, I will provide him with a copy of the list of the various acting ministers, information which is readily available. The acting Minister of Forests is present, if the member for Esquimalt–Port Renfrew is permitted to redirect his question, but I have taken the specific question as notice for the Minister of Forests.

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. members, the Chair has a copy of that if it would be of interest to the members.

B.C. PLACE STADIUM VIP FACILITIES

MR. HOWARD: I can certainly agree that there are a number of bad actors over there, Mr. Speaker. I would like to direct a question to one of them. No. I withdraw that. I would like to direct a question to the Minister of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources in his capacity as the person responsible to this House for B.C. Place Stadium.

Inasmuch as guidelines for the use of the VIP lounge and the box-seat in an area at B.C. Place stadium were tabled in this House on August 11, 1983, stating that the facility is available to government members or B.C. Place directors — and I quote — "when conducting government or Crown corporation business," is the minister aware of any specific occasion when this policy has been violated?

HON. MR. ROGERS: Mr. Speaker, I believe that in the preamble he said I had tabled some guidelines. I just answered a question that was put on the order paper. No, I don't have any occasion to know when the guidelines, as you have called them — they're actually rules which we have applied to the box — have been violated. However, I am going to qualify that by saying that I don't determine what the member's business may be when the member is attending.

MR. HOWARD: For the minister's edification, the question that he referred to had within it the reference point guidelines, and he responded to that question. Inasmuch as the Social Credit Party has a private club known as the "top

[ Page 3574 ]

20," whose members donate a minimum of $3,500 per year for certain privileges, including access to the Premier over the heads of cabinet ministers, is that...?

HON. MR. PHILLIPS: Somebody should go over your head. It would be a long trip.

MR. SPEAKER: And the question is?

MR. HOWARD: Is the minister aware that members of this top 20 club, having paid their money, had use and enjoyment of the VIP lounge for the B.C. Lions football game on Saturday, October 22, 1983?

[2:15]

HON. MR. ROGERS: Perhaps the member could review the purpose of question period, which is to deal with urgency. I think that what happened last year during a football season hardly qualifies as urgency. The same rules apply if a member of the House wishes to take people to the private box at their.... All I am involved in is the member requesting a number of seats. I do not question who a member takes and what the business that they conduct is. Those are not my guidelines, whether it involves people who are members of the foreign service, the diplomatic corps or members of either side of the House.

MR. HOWARD: The urgency arose because I have just been provided with a memorandum and a telephone message wherein one Mr. Kinsella, working for the Premier, invited the Minister of Transportation and Highways (Hon. A. Fraser) to join the "top 20" last year. Now who is running the show — the "top 20"? They paid their dues; maybe Alex didn't pay his — I don't know.

HON. MR. ROGERS: I don't detect a question that could be directed to me, but perhaps I detect a question that may be answered by my colleague.

TRANSFER OF FUNDS TO BCR

MR. STUPICH: My question is for the Minister of Finance. I've been trying for a few days to get an apparent discrepancy straightened out between the budget and BCR's financial statements. A couple of days ago the minister suggested that I was mixing apples and apples, and I would like a little more explanation.

MR. REID: He said apples and oranges.

MR. STUPICH: You take it your way, I'll take it my way.

His second answer, Mr. Speaker, was to the effect that he had answered this previously on the Monday when I wasn't here. If he did, the Blues are deficient in that they didn't record the answer. I'll try again. The budget speech, on page 6, quite clearly states: "This debt was incurred to finance construction costs, mainly on the Dease Lake extension, which cost more than $200 million." The statements for BCR — the latest ones available — show the Dease Lake extension, note 5, as $98,020,000." I won't read the whole thing, but it makes it quite clear this includes all of the costs up to that point in time, including legal costs and settlements with contractors. There's a discrepancy of at least $103 million. Mr. Speaker, I again ask: will the minister explain?

HON. MR. CURTIS: I believe that I have already dealt with that. He has described the issue of being "apples and apples." Apples and apples are very much the same. The proposition which he advanced the other day is clearly a question of apples and oranges.

MR. STUPICH: Mr. Speaker, once again the minister says he has answered the question. I presume he is referring to the answer he gave on Monday of this week. If you would let me, Mr. Speaker, I'll read from Hansard and show quite clearly that while he did deal with several questions about BCR, he did not deal specifically with this question about the real discrepancy between the figures used in the budget speech and the figures used by B.C. Rail in their financial statements, as signed by the auditors, Peat Marwick Mitchell and Co.

HON. MR. CURTIS: Mr. Speaker, I'm not sure there is a question there. However, quite clearly there is no discrepancy between that on which the budget was based and those statements which have been placed before this House. That is my point. When the member has sorted out with his research staff precisely what he wants to ask, then I will attempt to answer the question for him. But he's not dealing with the same dollars. It's that simple, Mr. Member.

MR. STUPICH: Mr. Speaker, I suppose it's seek and ye shall find. I'll keep trying. Do I have to repeat? The budget quite clearly says the Dease Lake extension cost in excess of $200 million. Let's say they're Canadian dollars; he says they may be different kinds of dollars. B.C. Railway's financial statements quite clearly state that the total cost of the Dease Lake extension is $98,020,000. Now I don't know what could be clearer. Can the minister tell me what makes up the difference of in excess of $102 million?

MR. HOWARD: Imaginative bookkeeping.

HON. MR. CURTIS: Mr. Speaker, the interjection "imaginative bookkeeping" is a remark that you may have heard but a remark that I think should not have much attention placed on it. I trust that the member is not suggesting that the figures are inaccurate.

Interjections.

HON. MR. CURTIS: The interjection, little member from Victoria....

Until such time as the member for Nanaimo has understood the discrepancy in his question, I can't assist him with the answer.

MR. STUPICH: Mr. Speaker, I'll try a different question. Will the Minister of Finance tell the member for Nanaimo wherein lies the discrepancy in the question?

HON. MR. PHILLIPS: There is no discrepancy.

HON. MR. CURTIS: Mr. Speaker, I shall render every possible assistance to my good friend the honourable member for Nanaimo — and that doesn't mean I'm supporting him for leadership — in reviewing details with respect to the British Columbia Railway. But I have to tell the hon. member

[ Page 3575 ]

that he is asking a question that is based on an incorrect premise.

AN HON. MEMBER: What is it? Tell us/

HON. MR. CURTIS: Mr. Speaker, it is not my duty to point out the deficiency in the review of the B.C. Rail finances as conducted by that opposition and its research staff.

MR. STUPICH: Mr. Speaker, may I say I take full responsibility for this question. It's mine; it's not research staff's. I listened to the minister speak in the budget speech, and I've read the BCR statements. I say we're getting a better answer out of the Minister of Industry and Small Business Development when he said there was no discrepancy in the figures that I've used. Yes, these are the figures. Why doesn't the minister just say he doesn't know the answer? We'll get back to him again when there's more opportunity. I'll try another one.

TAXATION AUTHORITY IN BILL 2

The government has tabled legislation in Bill 2 which contemplates further tax increases not contained in the budget at the discretion of cabinet. Has the minister decided to table a correct reference, or at least a legal opinion, on the validity of this form of delegated authority to tax prior to the debate of this bill in the Legislature?

HON. MR. CURTIS: Mr. Speaker, I think that we have seen some hyperbole with respect to the interpretation of the authority proposed in a bill which is now before this Legislature. I want to assure the House, through you, Mr. Speaker, that there is nothing in the bill, or in anything that would be associated with the bill, which would contravene the supremacy of this House. I will leave the balance of the answer until we enter into second reading debate of the bill which is now on the order paper.

MR. STUPICH: Just one more question — a separate question, Mr. Speaker. Will the minister tell us why there was no reference to this special tax in the budget?

HON. MR. CURTIS: I may be at fault in that regard. I believed that in the budget document, which is still being debated, in terms of the total issue of health care costs in British Columbia, and federally, for that matter, that I had spelled it out completely, and then a piece of legislation was introduced on that same day. If there is a shortcoming in that respect, then it is mine.

UBC EXPENDITURES

HON. MR. McGEER: Mr. Speaker, a few days ago I undertook, on behalf of a question placed by the member for West Vancouver–Howe Sound, to make some indiscreet inquiries of expenditures at the University of British Columbia. I can now report on the outcome of that exercise. The Faculty Club members will be very keen to know that the downstairs premises aren't the only ones to provide subsidized meals in British Columbia. The university provides to the Faculty Club the annual sum of $25,000. It is used to cover staff costs and special services required for particular functions in the social suite of the upper floor of the club, when official visitors attend the university.

On the tennis bubble. The university entered into a contract with the Canadian tennis association. It provided for the university to build the courts and to erect and maintain the bubble. The bubble was donated by Tennis Canada. The cost of constructing the courts and erecting the bubble is estimated at $100,000, which will be recovered through user fees over a three-year period.

It seems to me that these expenditures are quite proper and certainly within what one might expect at a university of that size. I would think, however, that the difficulty remains, when organizations like the Crane Library anticipate being funded by the government twice, once through the university and once directly from the government. It does show the embarrassment that can occasionally arise when you have organizations that anticipate being funded twice by the government. In a time of restraint, I think any organization should be funded by the government once and once only.

SECURITY PROGRAMS DIVISION

HON. MR. SMITH: Mr. Speaker, I took a Leap Year question as notice from the member for Burnaby-Edmonds (Ms. Brown), who had an abiding interest in something called the security programs branch of this ministry, and asked me in question period yesterday why we needed a securities program branch. With a little wisp of gendarme paranoia she suggested it might be some special security private police force that was being funded under that vote. I undertook to bring back to the House an explanation as to why we need a security programs division.

The security programs division is simply a recast nomenclature for something that used to be called the firearms and special services division. So the diligent member has uncovered a change of name. I'm happy to tell her that this name change came into effect in 1983-84 — it was a momentous event — as a result of the passage of the Private Investigators and Security Agencies Act, which broadened the early Private Investigators Act. This division is responsible for policy direction to police agencies, who enforce the Private Investigators and Security Agencies Act. This branch licenses private investigators, security agencies and employees of security agencies — that is, patrol firms and so on — people who contract to do airport security and locksmiths. It also administers firearms policy under the Criminal Code, including the licensing of firearms businesses and the issue of firearms acquisition certificates. In addition, it enforces the above legislation through a continuing program of inspections and licence suspensions, and it collects licence fees.

Orders of the Day

ON THE BUDGET
(continued debate)

MS. SANFORD: I was pleased to have that explanation today from the Attorney-General with respect to small arms and what that particular vote in his ministry was all about. The only thing that worries me is that in the meantime the Minister of Human Resources (Hon. Mrs. McCarthy) left the chamber I had expected that she would stay, in order to apologize to this Legislature and to the people of the province for the misinformation she was distributing throughout the province between 1972 and 1975, when she talked about this great cache of arms we had hidden, secret police forces and all that sort of thing. Now that the Minister of Human Resources knows, as explained to her by the Attorney-General in her government, Fin sure she will come back into this Legislature, get upon her feet and apologize to this side of the House and to the people of the province for misleading them so badly during that period. She's never done it before.

Interjection.

[2:30]

[ Page 3576 ]

MS. SANFORD: I don't know whether or not she's going to do that. I would hope that as an honourable member of this House she would do that.

One of the programs this government is talking about a lot these days is the issue of privatization — that's one of their favourite terms. Between one and two o'clock today I witnessed an example of what happens under this privatization which sent shivers up my spine. I felt so disturbed at what I saw that I decided I would bring to the attention of this House this example of the government's privatization.

Years ago the windows in this particular building were cleaned by people who belonged to the Ministry of Public Works. That's no longer the case. Employees for the Ministry of Public Works in those days, who were members of the B.C. Government Employees Union, did their job under the auspices of that ministry and were under the jurisdiction of the Workers' Compensation Board. We had ensured at that time that the workers who performed jobs such as cleaning the windows in this building followed the Workers' Compensation Board safety precautions. Mr. Speaker, I wish those people on the cabinet benches would listen to this, because I am sure that once they hear what I'm about to tell them, they will take immediate action.

Between the hours of 1 and 2 today we were in the Birch Room attending the caucus meeting, and looking out the window I noticed that a window cleaner was standing at the top of a ladder three floors up without any safety harness at all. Don't forget, we are now privatizing a service for government. When he had finished cleaning one window he moved onto the ledge of the windowsill in order to assist whoever was below him in moving the ladder over to the next window. No matter how agile that particular worker is, no matter how confident he is on a ladder three floors above cement sidewalks....

Interjection.

MS. SANFORD: This has a lot to do with this budget. It's part of your privatization scheme that results in lack of safety, a situation that I don't know how you people can tolerate. How can you sit there and know that the money you are administering through the taxes of the province is going to pay window cleaners who work without any safety harness whatsoever? You people are outrageous. How can the Minister of Labour (Hon. Mr. McClelland), who is responsible for the WCB in this province, sit there knowing that the Workers' Compensation Board minimum provisions do not apply when you people are contracting out, privatizing services and ensuring that the basic provisions that people should be working under in this province do not apply? Does it matter to you that you're jeopardizing lives through this procedure? How can you possibly allow taxpayers' money to be used for those purposes, knowing that that window cleaner is out there without any protection whatsoever?

We have already approached the various people within the government about this particular situation.

Interjection.

MS. SANFORD: I beg your pardon, I have already contacted the people within this government about this particular situation, and Mr. Speaker, they don't care. They do not care or they would have taken action before now.

MR. MOWAT: Don't do anything positive; just complain.

MS. SANFORD: Why do you think I'm bringing it to your attention today?

Mr. Speaker, we have tried to bring this situation to the attention of the government and they have not paid any attention. They obviously are not concerned enough or they would have taken action before now. This is what happens when you have situations like this — people take shortcuts. They use it as the most.... They proceed, when they are in a company that is not under the regulations and the jurisdiction of the provisions of trade unionism, under a government that does not care and is trying to cut comers wherever it can, to provide a service of this type, risking the lives of people in the process. That's what's happening. That man's life is at risk when he is three floors up above the cement sidewalk down there. He knows it, Mr. Speaker, and doesn't want to admit it at this stage, because it's his government. They're the ones who are cutting comers, and this is the kind of thing that happens when they cut corners. They're cutting corners all over the place — or think they're cutting comers. But in the long run most of the action that they're taking is going to cost us more money.

For instance, they want to privatize the food services in the prisons. The preliminary figures that we have there indicate that it's going to cost the taxpayers far more money after privatizing this service to provide food for prisoners than it does under the present system. But oh, no, their philosophy is such that it must be privatized. They're going to privatize the nursing services in the prisons. What's that going to cost us? They're going to privatize the services that are provided through group homes for juveniles who have problems. Privatize the service and set up a little business. See if you can cut corners here, there and everywhere. What kind of control is there over the services that are being provided? The government doesn't care too much — that's obvious by the way in which they behaved with this small service provided here to wash windows. What kind of services are we going to get, and how much is it going to cost us?

These people are adhering to a philosophy which is damaging to the province in terms of the economy, damaging to the people in terms of services, and in the long run is going to cost us far more money. When are they going to change their ways? When are they going to understand the damage that they are creating out there in the province of British Columbia? I hope it's soon, because the people of the province can't afford them anymore.

MR. CAMPBELL: Mr. Speaker, I rise in this House to speak in favour of the budget. This is the first budget in 31 years, as we've said before, in which there has been a decrease in government expenditures in any province in Canada.

I'm pleased there are a lot of people in the gallery up here today to listen to the debate that's going on in this House on both sides so they can be the judges of what is really going on within this parliament. I'm pleased that there are a lot of people here. They can read the newspapers and they can watch television, but right here is where they get the firsthand view of what's going on. Here is where they get the view of the different philosophies of these two parties — the party on the left and the party on the right. This is where they hear

[ Page 3577 ]

exactly what the people in the NDP propose. They're opposed to privatization, they're opposed to this, they're opposed to that. Whatever it is, they are opposed to it. They're opposed when the government cuts services, they're opposed when the government raises taxes, and they're opposed if the government doesn't have enough money to pay for the services they're demanding.

AN HON. MEMBER: Negative Nellies.

MR. CAMPBELL: That is right. They keep on opposing and opposing. They tell truths, part truths and some even worse than that. I would like to quote from the Victoria Times-Colonist of today, where the member for Vancouver East, who stated, about cabinet ministers travelling firstclass on planes.... I have contacted the Minister of Finance and one more minister to check out if this in fact is the case, and it is not the case. The government policy is that no minister can travel first-class, and if he does travel first-class, the government will pay the regular fare, and the minister, out of his own pocket, pays the difference. When I read the paper: "They've got so much money, they go first-class up there, drinking the cocktails and the martinis, telling the folks how they cut the budget...." That's part of the half truths. That's why I'm so pleased to see people up here today listening to this. When they go back to their constituencies, Mr. Speaker, they will realize the half-truths that have been told. They'll have a better understanding and a better grasp of the budget that was presented by our minister last week, so when they go back they can tell the people back home — their friends and their neighbours — what is going on.

This government has been continuously criticized about the restraint program. As you're well aware, Mr. Speaker, the restraint program started in February 1982, which is just two years ago. Our Premier was the first Premier in Canada to recognize.... He went back to try to sell it to the first ministers' conference and the Prime Minister, and they said: "No, we don't require that. It's not saleable." But less than five months later the federal government came in, and they decided to go for their 6 and 5 — not because they wanted it but because they realized that as revenues dropped across Canada, there weren't the funds to keep on funding all the programs that there had been in the prosperous times.

I look at the paper this morning, and here is Newfoundland.... It took them two years, but they have finally implemented a restraint program on their public sector and have put a two-year freeze on. They said if they didn't put this two-year freeze on, they would have to increase the sales tax from 12 percent to 14 percent. Here we are paying 7 percent for the best health care in the country, and they're already paying 12 percent and saying that if they didn't put the restraint on, they would be paying 14 percent. That shows what this government has done to try to correct the expenditures of this province. They have taken measures that may have been unpopular to start with but were absolutely necessary, measures that they fully realized would bring about these changes and bring confidence back into our economy so the business sector could come back in and invest in this province and could create the jobs.

[Mr. Strachan in the chair.]

We hear about a consumer recovery. That may be so in Ontario and, to a degree, in Quebec. Certainly that's absolutely correct in the United States. The recovery is to a great extent fired by consumer purchases. In British Columbia 75 percent of the consumer purchases are of goods manufactured outside our province, so when we have the consumer purchase of these goods, it's not to make employment for the people of British Columbia. It creates employment for the people of Japan, Taiwan, our Asian friends, Europe, the United States, Quebec or Ontario — wherever the products are manufactured. Our economy is resource-based, not consumer-manufacturer based. Therefore we have to have our costs aligned to exports rather than promote the idea that our economy is going to be enhanced by the consumer spending more on imported products.

[2:45]

There's one more thing I would like to mention here, and that is that every day we see one union back to work and two unions still on strike. I refer to the IWA, which settled for a three-year contract, and the two unions which have not gone back, the pulp and paper workers and the other pulp union. I would have thought that the opposition would have attempted to get these unions back to work so that our people wouldn't be unemployed, so that there wouldn't be harassment at their workplace and these people could go back to work. A lot of them have been laid off for three months, six months or up to a year or fifteen months, and then they go back to work and sign the three-year contract. They want to go back to work and produce, and here we have the next two unions not prepared to accept the same contract as the first union did. I think this is very unfortunate and very disruptive to the marketplace.

As the NDP is the party of the unions, I would suggest that their leader ought to intervene with the union leaders and suggest that this be changed so that there wouldn't be this secondary picketing so that they wouldn't be going around with flying pickets trying to close mills and disrupt the people who do wish to go to work. Surely these people are entitled to work. These people have been unemployed long enough, and they're entitled to go back to work. I'm sure that the people sitting up there in the gallery, if they had been unemployed for six months or a year and had gone back to work for a few weeks and then found out that another union, which was not affiliated with them but was in the same industry, came down to picket them, they would be most upset, as the people have been in Fort St. James, Mackenzie and many of those places in the north.

When I think about human rights.... We heard the cry last fall about how this government was opposed to human rights. Then I read the newspaper this morning about the man running the SeaBus and the union saying: "If you don't take your uniform off and break the law, you'll be fined $100 a day." Those are the types of people who were protesting out here in September and talking about human rights for the people of British Columbia. That's the type of justice they wanted to deal out. That's kangaroo justice.

MR. REID: Kangaroo courts.

MR. CAMPBELL: That's right, kangaroo courts.

I look at the bus runs in Vancouver and the transportation system there, and here are these....

MR. REID: Best in North America.

[ Page 3578 ]

MR. CAMPBELL: It is the best system, Mr. Speaker. Are they going to deny the citizens of Vancouver the right to ride that bus? They talk about changing uniforms and going to work in other clothes, that they're not going to change bus routes to try and harass the people. I would hope that these people, who are being very well paid today, with a great subsidy coming out of the taxpayers of the province.... I might add that that subsidy comes out of the taxes paid by the people of the member for Atlin. They don't have many buses up there but his people are paying the subsidy. They come out of the area of Omineca, where this member in front sits, going out to Terrace. They pay the subsidy, Mr. Speaker, but there ain't no buses running through there.

The people in Vancouver are fortunate enough to have a great bus system, subsidized by the whole province. I think they are entitled to better service and better treatment than they are presently receiving.

Going back to human rights in the unions, Mr. Munro has been told that he is not supposed to speak anymore; that Mr. Kube will now do the speaking. This government has never told the people they couldn't at least talk. They could consult, and they could talk. We never tried to muzzle the people. But the people who criticized human rights, Mr. Speaker, are the same people who are saying: "Don't say anything. Muzzle them. That's going to be our philosophy."

I would like to move on to Okanagan North, which is my riding. This region has lumber and milling and agriculture. For a few moments I would like to concentrate on agriculture.

As you are no doubt aware, the income insurance program was implemented in the early '70s. It was a guaranteed income insurance program for the farmers, which was a companion bill to the agricultural land reserve. It compensated farmers who had their land frozen within the agricultural land reserve, ensuring that they could receive fair monetary value for their farming endeavours. Over the years this program was implemented and has grown, and certainly today it would be very difficult for the farmers in my area to survive without it. But I believe there are a couple of things that this government is going to have to look at within this program. One area is that subsidies are paid on all classes of fruit — extra fancy and fancy, C-grade, juice apples that go to the juice plant and the peelers which go for apple sauce; all are entitled to this subsidy. I believe this has been to the detriment of the quality of fruit grown, because today if the farmer is paid for 50 tonnes of apples, he is paid the subsidy regardless of the grade. It is perhaps more feasible and more economically advantageous to produce 50 tonnes of apples of lesser grades than it is to produce 35 tonnes of a better-grade product that could be sold on the export market.

I believe this government needs to take a look at that program. Perhaps the lower-grade fruits need to be removed from the income insurance program and a greater emphasis put on the quality fruit so that these can be exported into the Pacific Rim countries and Europe, where the markets are. One exporter that I spoke to just last week, who had a market for apples in Asia, talked to a packer in the Okanagan who had sold out of all the fancies and extras, which are the apples we normally export to these countries. They still have a few C-grade left which are not saleable to these countries. I do believe that this government will need to take a look at this program.

Another area in the valley that concerns me is the program of direct sales from farm roadside stands, which equals approximately $30 million a year. These enterprises are being jeopardized by the program of a straight subsidy across the board. I believe this program could also be enhanced if this subsidy was only on the better grades, and the rest of the grades were not subject to the program.

In closing, I would like to say that I support this budget. I believe it will do for British Columbia what they hope the budget they are going to bring down in Newfoundland will do three years down the road. This province is now getting the advantage of what was done here two years ago.

MS. BROWN: Mr. Speaker, I too would like to talk about the fact that in this budget the government is decreasing its expenditures, and specifically I want to talk about one expenditure, one ministry — the Ministry of the Attorney-General — and one particular service which is going to have its budget decreased, the legal services society, which provides legal aid, or which is supposed to be the one means through which people who cannot afford to hire legal counsel....

Interjection.

MS. BROWN: A means. That's right. It's certainly the most effective and cost-effective means of doing this so that people who cannot afford to hire legal counsel have access to the justice system. That is one of the services that the government, in its wisdom, has seen fit to cut, which the member who just took his seat is bragging about, saying: "Isn't it wonderful that we have a government which can decrease its expenditures?" The problem we have is that there isn't the concern or analysis on that side of the House about the human impact of these kinds of cost-cutting actions on the part of the government. It's wonderful to brag about the fact that your expenses are down. All of us like to do that. I'm always happy when I can cut my expenses too. But the thing that has to be taken into account is the impact of cutting these expenses.

What I would like to do during the minutes that I have to speak against this budget, Mr. Speaker, is to talk a little bit about what this government is doing to people through this decision to cut the budget of the legal services society. I wouldn't want to leave the impression that this is the first budget which has seen fit to do so, nor that this is the first Attorney-General to do that. But this certainly is the government which started to cut back on these services. It actually began in 1982 under the previous Attorney-General, who is no longer with us — the then Hon. Allan Williams. It started with him. I must say, although we were all very upset at the time he introduced his cuts in legal services, we realize now that what he did was nothing; it was a tea party compared to what the present Attorney-General is doing to the delivery of legal services to people who can't afford to hire their own legal counsel.

On April 23, 1982, a flurry of memoranda hit the people who serve the legal services society and the community legal offices in this province. The memoranda talked about things like the Family and Child Service Act. This is the legislation which presumably is supposed to protect the children of British Columbia who find themselves, through no fault of their own, wards of the Superintendent of Child Welfare. What this memorandum said — and it went out to all counsel who are supposed to defend these children in the courts — is that there would have to be a cutback not only in the quantity but presumably also in the quality of services they were offering these children. It said, for example, that social workers were not permitted to spend more than a maximum

[ Page 3579 ]

of one and a half hours with each case prior to its going to court. Regardless of how much time they might need, they were not going to be paid for more than one and a half hours. Presumably that was the guideline they were supposed to follow. It also said that not more than two hours were to be spent in consultation with witnesses who had anything at all to do with the cases dealing with these children. Incidentally, I want to remind you that a lot of these kids who were being taken into custody were the victims of either physical or sexual abuse, among other things.

Nonetheless, as of April 23, 1982, a memo went out from the Attorney-General's ministry to all of the counsel who served these kids, saying that as of then there were going to be these cutbacks, and stating the hours to be spent — one hour of preparation time for every four hours spent in court. Now I'm not a lawyer, but people who are part of the legal system tell me that the preparation time — in most instances is much more important than the time spent in court and that the more time you spend in preparation, the less time you have to spend in court because you do a better job once you get there. Nonetheless, that was one of the memos which went through on April 23, 1982.

The other memo, Mr. Speaker, which again went through on April 23, went out to the family advocates. These are the people who are supposed to be working on behalf of families who find themselves in a crisis situation and need the services of the courts. They were given the same kinds of guidelines: not more than a maximum of eight hours was to be spent with any case, not more than one hour preparation for every four hours that they were to be in court. Again the cutbacks in terms of number of hours that social workers or psychologists could spend with these families.

Interjection.

MS. BROWN: Well, it's wonderful that the Attorney-General before the present Attorney-General before the other Attorney-General is saying that in fact they could spend as much time as they wanted. They were to be conscientious and give all of this free time.

[3:00]

HON. MR. GARDOM: People do that in life.

MS. BROWN: Sure people do that in life, but what we are saying is that the people being asked to do it are the people who serve children and families. For example, people not being asked to do it are the people at B.C. Forest Products, who can get away without having to pay the full tariff in terms of scaling their logs. Your government is very selective.

Interjection.

MS. BROWN: If that is the case, why do we need a memo saying that after April 30 there are going to be no advocates appointed to defend children over the age of 12 who appear in the courts of our land — those who cannot afford to pay for legal counsel themselves and whose parents cannot afford to hire legal counsel to defend them? That's what's happening as a result of the kinds of cutbacks that the previous member was bragging about.

A memo went out again on April 23, 1982 — I don't think there are many poor people in this province who are ever going to forget that date — that had to do with the Family Relations Act. It said that people who had to go before the courts as a direct result of family breakdown were no longer going to be represented by legal counsel, unless there was proof of physical violence involved; in other words, in order to have legal counsel representation in court you have to be sure you get beaten up first. Unless the family has physical violence or unless there is a threat of imminent physical violence, legal counsel, which normally is supplied by the government, is no longer going to be in effect.

It also says that there will no longer be legal counsel for enforcement of maintenance orders — this at the same time that the Ministry of Human Resources was introducing legislation and a program saying that now the ministry was going to be handling the enforcement of maintenance orders, and people in receipt of welfare weren't going to get it unless they saw to it that those maintenance orders were being enforced. So you can't get welfare unless you enforce your maintenance orders, and you can’t get legal counsel to help you enforce a maintenance order unless you get beaten up first by your spouse. They brag about the fact they are cutting back in terms of the cost of the delivery of legal services in this province.

The Juvenile Delinquents Act — another memo went out on April 23. If we count, I think that we will find something in the nature of five memos went out on that fateful day affecting the most vulnerable segment of our community — the people who least can afford to defend themselves were under direct attack from this government. The Juvenile Delinquents Act and the Criminal Code of Canada: counsel who normally represent these young people when they go through the courts.... The memo now said to them that they were not to do that, except in an instance where there was violence involved or the theft of a motor vehicle. Our obsession with material things.... If it were a custody case or some other kind of case — shoplifting or whatever — there would be no legal counsel. But if it was the theft of a motor vehicle or if there was violence involved, then legal counsel would come into effect.

Look at the sum total of all of those memos, Mr. Speaker, which went out on April 23: the Juvenile Delinquents Act, the family advocates, the Family Relations Act and the act covering services to children who are wards of the Superintendent of Child Welfare. I missed one: April 23, the Child Paternity and Support Act. This one again says the same thing: consultation time of witnesses is not to go beyond two hours, and preparation time for counsel is not to go beyond one hour for every four hours in court. So we have the Child Paternity and Support Act, the Family Relations Act, the Family and Child Service Act, the Juvenile Delinquents Act and the family advocate service act. All of these services, which are part of the legal services provided by government to people who cannot afford their own legal counsel, were cut on April 23, 1982.

We thought that was the end, but of course we were wrong. The Attorney-General changed, but the policy toward people in need in this province certainly didn't change. When the new Attorney-General (Hon. Mr. Smith) took over, the cuts continued. We were told by the Legal Services Society that something like 7,000 people were going to lose legal aid that year. Legal Services submitted a report which said that as a direct result of the government's cut in funding to their society, and as a direct result of these memos, there was going to be somewhere between 1,000 and 2,000 people who would no longer have access to free legal representation, due to

[ Page 3580 ]

tighter eligibility rules. There were going to be 2,500 people who would not be represented in summary conviction cases, and 2,100 who would not be represented in divorce action. There were going to be 500 people going into family court without legal counsel, and there were going to be 500 people going to court on civil matters without any legal assistance. They estimated that 7,000 people, as a direct result of the provincial government's severe cutback in funding to the Legal Services Society, would be going before the courts without legal counsel. It is not possible, as the judges themselves will say — and as time goes on I'll quote from some of them — to have the quality of justice, which we should all accept as our right, when you go before the courts without legal counsel.

The Legal Aid Society and the Legal Services Society, which are the instruments through which these legal counsels give their services to people, were going through trying times in terms of their funding. In August of 1982, halfway through the budget year, they were told that their funding was going to be reduced by $625,000. They projected that for the year 1982-83 they would end up in a deficit position of something like $2.2 million. So they were forced to introduce these very stringent eligibility criteria on the people who use their services. At the same time they were forced to introduce user fees. If you were a welfare recipient, it would cost $10. Everyone knows that welfare recipients can barely survive on the welfare rates paid to them, but if in fact it turns out that they also need to go before the courts, they were going to have dip into the meagre income they got from the Ministry of Human Resources to pay $10 to get legal services. If they were not on welfare, they would have to pay a user fee of $30.

The Legal Services Society was quite concerned about this and tried to negotiate with the then Attorney-General to do something about dealing with the deficit. They met in December and explained that even after their budget cuts and the cuts to their services, they were not doing a good job and they were not whittling away at the deficit; as a matter of fact, it was going to rise to something like $3.5 million by March 1984 unless they got some financial assistance from the government. The board had a meeting with the previous Attorney-General, who gave them a commitment to go to Treasury Board to see whether it would be possible to pick up an extra $2.4 million for them.

I want to explain to you that the Legal Services Society started out in 1981-82 with $13 million, and I want you to keep that figure in mind, Mr. Speaker, because by the time we get around to the 1984-85 budget, which we are now debating, we are going to find that legal services has been allotted $12 million. We are talking about increased unemployment and increased pressure on the Legal Services Society at the same time as their budget is going down. When the pressure on them is increasing, their budget from the government is decreasing, as well as their budget from everywhere else. The commitment was made in December to go to Treasury Board to try to pick up another $2.4 million. They got something in the neighbourhood of $800,000, and ended that year in a deficit situation.

What we heard from the legal services people is that during a recession, which we were going through at that time, they found that the demand for legal services increased. There were more poor people who were eligible for legal aid and these people have more legal problems which demand assistance. In the first six months, for example, they found that there was an increase in their caseload in family matters of 20.2 percent; an increase in civil matters, mostly to do with debt, of 54 percent; and an increase in criminal matters of 22 percent. They said it was illogical and unfair to impose restraint on legal aid at this particular time. From any perspective, in terms of human rights, democratic rights or even fiscal policies, these costs cannot be justified, they said. We cannot avoid inevitable social and monetary costs by simply reducing the budget for legal aid. It couldn't come at a worse time. The great majority of clients will no longer be assisted with cases before family court, dealing with child maintenance and all those other things which I mentioned to you earlier. Yet more and more people were finding themselves in a situation where they needed that.

In '83 the cutbacks to legal aid were escalated even further than in 1982. The new Attorney-General said that now there had to be a priority: only those people who were coming into the justice system for the first time were going to be covered by any sort of assistance from legal aid. I want to use a quotation. It says: "A person who defends himself in court has a fool for a client." This newspaper column of March 29, 1983, goes on to say: "But that appears to be the only option for adults and children who come to the Victoria Law Centre charged with summary convictions under the Criminal Code or under the Juvenile Delinquents Act, a legal aid spokesperson said on Monday. The Legal Services Society of B.C. announced last week that effective April 15, 1983, no lawyers will be provided to juveniles, and that effective May 15 to August 15 no cases will be referred to lawyers in private practice," which is how many of the cases were handled up until that time. At that time the Legal Services Society gave as their reason that their deficit of $2.4 million was still in effect because Treasury Board had turned down the previous Attorney-General when he asked for that additional $2.4 million to deal with them.

[3:15]

In 1982-83 they talked about the Legal Services Society having had 55,000 requests for assistance. This was at a time when they were finding that there was not enough money in their budget to deal with that, and despite the fact that they had introduced stricter income standards, restricted eligibility and had limited the coverage of family matters to only the most severe.

"In September 1983 the new Attorney- General, Mr. Smith" — I'm quoting, Mr. Speaker; that's the only reason I use his name — "said that the money which the legal services had should be used to defend those who have not been in the justice system before and who are likely to go to jail if convicted."

That's the only criterion he thinks they should use.

I have here the annual report of the Legal Services Society for 1981-82. It showed that in those years the largest number of cases they dealt with had to do with matrimonial matters. They dealt with 4,528 cases to do with matrimonial matters. The annual report for 1982-83 showed that that figure had dropped; instead, the largest number of cases had to do with criminal matters. It also showed that in 1981-82 matters dealing with debt were number 5 on the list; matters dealing with debt had moved up to third. Instead of it being as it was in 1981-82 — matrimonial, criminal, landlord and tenants, consumers and then debt — we found that criminal is now number 1, matrimonial is number 2, and debt is number 3. We also found that they dealt with 864 social assistance and welfare cases in 1981-82; in 1983-84 they actually dealt with 1,101 such cases. We find that not just were caseloads

[ Page 3581 ]

increasing, but different things were becoming priorities. Bear in mind that at the same time the budget for legal services for 1982-83 was frozen. For 1983-84 it was frozen at the same level that it had been at for 1981-82. In 1981-82 it was $13 million; in 1982-83 it was $13 million; in 1983-84 it was $13 million. This was despite the fact that their caseloads were increasing; that the pressure on them for their service was escalating; and their debt was increasing. Bear in mind that the present budget which we are now debating, to which I am opposed, shows that the money budgeted for legal services is going to drop to $12 million. It's going down as the caseloads are going up — from $13,743,125 down to $12 million.

Well, it had to end somewhere, and what happened was that somebody took legal services to court. Someone by the name of Richard David Mountain decided that he was denied justice because at age 24, with no assets and no income of any kind, legal services said that he was not eligible for free legal counsel when he had to go before the courts. So he sued the Legal Services Society of British Columbia. The judges involved were Mr. Justice Nemetz, Mr. Justice Lambert and Mr. Justice McFarlane, and they ruled against the Legal Services Society. In other words, they ruled against the government. They decided that with no assets and no income of any kind this young man, regardless of whether this was his first or his second offence or whatever, under the Legal Services Act passed by this House, was eligible for legal counsel. I think their decision is kind of interesting, so I'd just like to read into the record a couple of the things they said. It says:

"The Legal Services Society has been forced to reduce coverage in the criminal law area because of a shortage of funds from the province and the Law Foundation."

They place the blame squarely where it belongs: not with the Legal Services Society, but with the province and the Law Foundation.

"The accused, if convicted, will probably be sentenced to a jail term or will lose his means of livelihood.

"The accused has no record, or has a record which is unrelated to the current charge."

For that reason, therefore, he should be entitled to legal counsel.

"The objects of the Legal Services Society are to ensure that (a) services ordinarily provided by a lawyer are afforded to individuals who would not otherwise receive them because of financial or other reasons" — that's what the act states, and the court is repeating it — "(b) education, advice and information about law are provided for the people of British Columbia.

"The society shall ensure, for the purposes of subsection (1)(a), that legal services are available for a qualifying individual who (a) is a defendant in criminal proceedings that could lead to his imprisonment; (b) may be imprisoned or confined through civil proceedings....

"The society has authority to determine the priorities and criteria for the services it or a funded agency provides under this act.

"The society is given the power to ensure that services ordinarily provided by a lawyer are afforded to individuals who would not otherwise receive them.

"In short, if a person's liberty, safety, health or livelihood are in real jeopardy, the society is required to make legal services available. It must do so."

In my own words, I am saying there is the element of compulsion there. It's not it "may"; it's that it "must."

"But if liberty, safety, health or livelihood are not in jeopardy, then the society may allocate its resources as it thinks best."

In the final page of the judgment, the court rules that:

"The possibility that funds may not be provided to the society to enable it to carry out its statutory duties does not repeal the statute or revoke the duties."

I think that's the crucial thing in this decision: that the society cannot use, as a reason for not giving service or not supplying counsel to someone in need, the fact that it doesn't have the money to do that. It says quite clearly that it cannot use the argument that funds are not provided to carry out its statutory duties; that does not repeal the statute or revoke the duties. In other words. they have to do it. The Government has to come up with the funding whether they like it or not.

How did the present Attorney-General respond, Mr. Speaker, to the court's ruling? He responded by saying that at the first opportunity legislation would be introduced on the floor of this House which would amend the Legal Services Act so that this kind of decision would not be possible in the future. In other words, legislation would be introduced which would say that the society would not have to carry out its statutory duties if it didn't have the funds to do that. That's what the Attorney-General promised in public statements after that decision came down.

What do we find when we read the budget speech, Mr. Speaker? He is going to honour that commitment. I haven't got my copy of the budget right here with me; I guess it has fallen on the floor. But what he said in the budget speech was that legislation was going to be introduced which would prevent the Legal Services Society from being taken to court under those circumstances again. In the meantime, however, he is picking up the tab so that they can carry on their job until the end of the fiscal year, which will be March 31, 1984.

I don't know. The Attorney-General is not all bad. I wouldn't like to leave that impression. In November of last year he announced that he was going to put into place a task force that was going to travel around the province. This task force was going to be giving the public and everyone an opportunity to look at a number of things. It was going to look at the nature, range and priority of legal services which ought properly to be provided at public expense. It was also going to be looking at the appropriate eligibility requirements for recipients of publicly funded legal services. It also was going to look at the method of delivery of legal services, as well as the appropriate alternative for the funding of such services. The task force, as I said, is going to Nelson, Terrace, Cranbrook, Prince Rupert, Kelowna, Kamloops, Fort St. John, Prince George and Campbell River as well as to Victoria and the lower mainland. Wonderful. I think it's a great idea, and I'm certainly encouraging everyone everywhere to prepare submissions to present to the task force, because I think that the delivery of public legal services is crucial to the justice system in this province; I believe that.

But what do we find? The Attorney-General is not waiting for the task force to complete its task. He is not waiting for a report to be tabled in this House, or even to be delivered to him. The Attorney-General is not even waiting for a rough draft. He has decided that he's going to amend the Legal

[ Page 3582 ]

Services Act even while the task force is travelling around the province accepting input from the community at large. This is the great consultation process that the government talked about, that there was going to be consultation between the community and the government from now on and everybody's going to work together and legislation is going to be introduced in the spirit of cooperation and all this kind of thing. The task force has been given a mandate. The task force is sent around the province to talk to the people. But the Attorney-General proceeds with his fixed agenda, which is to amend the legislation in such a way that it will diminish the quality of service which the Legal Services Society is able to offer the people of British Columbia.

The chairperson and the members of the board of the Legal Services Society have asked the Attorney-General to postpone the amendment to the legislation until at least the task force has prepared a rough draft — just some little notes; at least an interim report — and presented it to him so that he'll have some idea of what people in the community think the level of public legal service should be. Not only did the Attorney-General not acquiesce to the request of the board, he fired the board. One day the board got "Dear John" letters saying, "Your services are no longer needed, " and he appointed himself a whole new board, Mr. Speaker, presumably in the hope that they will be more pliant and not quite as willing to criticize him as the previous board was.

[3:30]

[Mr. Ree in the chair.]

One of the things that we often forget is why we have public legal services in this province and where they come from, so if time permits I just want to do a little bit of a historical thing on the birth, growth and development of legal aid, and certainly the delivery of public legal services in this province. It actually goes back to 1932; it's almost as old as I am.

Interjection.

MS. BROWN: Yes, not quite as old as you are, but almost as old as I am. In 1932 the first mention of legal aid anywhere in Canada was made, except that in 1858 there was an advertisement in the Victoria Gazette that used the word. The first province to debate the concept of legal aid was Alberta in 1932. This was followed, however, by experiments in two other provinces, Ontario and Manitoba.

It is unfortunate that my green light is on, Mr. Speaker, because the history of how legal aid came to British Columbia is really interesting, and if I get an opportunity I'm certainly going to share it with this Legislature at some other time.

Since I only have two minutes left I am going to be forced to put the history aside and instead issue a plea to the Attorney-General, by way of this budget debate, that he do two things. First of all, he should look at the way in which Ontario is dealing with the delivery of public legal services during its period of recession. Ontario, in fact, is increasing its legal services as it recognizes that the pressure on its legal services society is increasing. It is increasing its budget for legal services and increasing its staff. It is also making easier the eligibility requirements and expanding the areas covered by free legal services, for fiscal reasons as well as others.

What they've done in Ontario is what we should have done here: that is, to recognize that it is cheaper to keep people on the streets than to put them in jail. It makes much more sense to give people good legal counsel when they go before the courts, because when they don't have good legal counsel a lot of people end up in our corrections system who shouldn't be there. The cost to us as a society is therefore increased, and that becomes a real burden on us. I would like to suggest that the Attorney-General look at the Ontario system.

The other thing I would like to suggest is that before making any amendments or introducing his legislation he once again take a look at the memorandum of agreement dealing with the federal and provincial funding for the delivery of legal services, as well as for the criteria or definition of who should be eligible for legal aid, and the quality of service that should be offered to them. Finally, he should at least wait until the task force has brought down an interim report and he has some idea about the quality of service that the people of British Columbia think should be delivered by a public legal system.

MR. PELTON: Mr. Speaker, as I listened with great attention — as I usually do — to the previous speaker, and cast my eyes about this wonderful chamber, I couldn't help but think that if someone who had the task of speaking in here today, or on any one of the last few days, had to have a large audience to be inspired, there certainly wouldn't be a great deal of inspiration. Nonetheless, I suppose we have to be satisfied with the quality as opposed to the quantity, and on that basis.... Then on the other hand, Mr. Speaker, it's possible — and this gives me cause for concern — that all we're doing is paying lip-service to a requirement in our standing orders which states that a budget will be debated for so many days and hours, and that we would be doing the people's business much better if we got through the thing and got down to committee of supply. That might be the case as well, but I'm just not sure of that either. That's up to individuals, I suppose.

I'm not going to take a great deal of this House's time today. I haven't got a great deal to say; most of the things have been said. First of all, I would suggest that it probably comes as no surprise to most everybody here that I stand in support of the budget that we've been presented with. I'll tell you why I stand in support of that budget, Mr. Speaker. It's because the people who sent me to this chamber did so, more than for any other single reason, out of a belief in the need to restore a measure of responsibility to individuals by moderating the ambitions and appetites of the state in their daily lives. This is a clear thrust of this budget, and I welcome it.

Mr. Speaker, we speak of a budget, but I would suggest that this is, in a sense, a misnomer. The nearly $8.4 billion in question is what I would call a sum of many mini-budgets. It's budgets from various ministries and budgets that relate to various programs that are presented. So it's really a sum of hundreds of decisions. Only a madman or a fool would be equally pleased or equally displeased with each of these hundreds of decisions. However, at this stage in our parliamentary process it is a unit, a single package, so we must generalize our feelings about it.

It has been suggested that some might support the budget out of a sense of loyalty. This is said as if loyalty were somehow shirking a responsibility. I can't support that thinking, Mr. Speaker. I would only have to direct the attention of our members to those portraits of the winners of the Victoria Cross which hang in our legislative corridor to appreciate the

[ Page 3583 ]

much deeper meaning of the word "loyalty" than what, as is suggested in some quarters, is considered an unfashionable human trait. My support for the budget is out of loyalty, Mr. Speaker, and I'm proud of that. But it is also out of a conviction.

Let me reflect for just a moment on two key aspects of the budget which I think are symbolic and which unfortunately, I think, have been dismissed by some as being just that — nothing more than symbols. First of all, the budget has been reduced for the first time in 31 years. I think that that is important. I think, as a matter of fact, it's unique in contemporary Canada and possibly even in North America as a whole. It is not just the accidental result of the compilation of many mini-budget decisions; I say it is a declaration of direction and, I would suggest, of principle and philosophy. It is a declaration that our fate is not out of our hands — that perpetual government growth is not inevitable, but a matter of conscience and free choice.

Speaking of inevitabilities, recently — just a few days ago, as a matter of fact — we saw the inevitability of Mr. Mondale evaporate in the face of a conscious and free choice by the Democrats in the state of New Hampshire. I'm sure that our colleagues in this House who are not rated as the favourites in their leadership race will be "taking Hart"from this result.

The second major point that I'd like to make which has been under appreciated, I think, is the British Columbia Railway historic debt repayment. This is a move which is consistent with royal commission recommendations, with Crown Corporations Committee recommendations and with our own Auditor-General's recommendations. There is a great deal of cynicism, I suppose, regarding the response of governments to such bodies as I have just mentioned. I believe that the opposition should be joining me in congratulating the Minister of Finance, and in praising the government for showing the responsibility to act on these recommendations even when it is not especially politically convenient to do so.

MR. LEA: But very popular.

MR. PELTON: Could be.

But, Mr. Speaker, speaking of political convenience, or inconvenience, whatever, I don't like the 8 percent surtax on provincial income tax to support the medical plan. I don't really think that anybody in this House likes this surtax. I don't think the Minister of Finance, perhaps in particular, likes the idea of the surtax. But the critics can't have it both ways. They cannot say, "Get rid of it, " unless they have a better alternative for what is required to make up the deficiency of Ottawa as against the historic commitment that they have made to cost-sharing in the health care field. What do these people propose instead? Higher user fees? Lower wages for nurses and orderlies in hospitals? Smaller health care budgets? Cuts in services? Or just more debt and higher interest rates? I think we have to have answers to those questions before we can criticize.

Mr. Speaker, when I had the privilege of standing before this House and responding to the Speech from the Throne, which is the one time, really, I suppose, when we do get the opportunity to speak about our riding and the particular problems we have in our riding, I mentioned — not at great length, but just in passing and so that it would be recorded in the Journals of this House — the fact that my riding of Dewdney was about to become involved in a real problem which related to the sale of Pacific Coach Lines.

This has been mentioned in this House over the last couple of days. As a matter of fact, it was mentioned this morning by the member for Comox (Ms. Sanford), and it was either yesterday or the day before that, in his inimitable style, mentioned at some length by the second member for Vancouver Centre (Mr. Lauk). He's a very eloquent gentleman, and I always listen carefully to what he has to say. He spoke about government involvement in transportation systems in Canada, North America and throughout the world, and suggested, as I recall — and I'm not quoting from Hansard, so I put this in my own words — that it certainly wasn't unique that governments should be involved in some kind of subsidization in transportation; anything but. I say he was absolutely right. You find me a large city or state or other jurisdiction around the world where transportation, which is a public service, isn't subsidized to some degree. I just don't think you'll find one.

As a matter of fact, within this budget — and I support this: I'll perhaps be speaking a little more about it as we go along.... I've spoken about the B.C. Railway debt being repaid, and I do support that; I think that's probably just a heck of an idea. But this is, in a sense, a subsidy, and when we talk about the railway and about other things as well, we talk about infrastructure, which is a word I know that most members are well aware of and appreciate the meaning of. We talk about the support that's required to accommodate our natural resource production, manufacturing, and so on and so forth, and that is correct. I don't question that transportation is an integral part of an infrastructure system to support the British Columbia economy. But I don't think that the transportation infrastructure relates only to the movement of products. I think it relates to the movement of people as well, and that's why I bring up this point of subsidy not really being all that bad when it comes to moving people.

[3:45]

The second member for Vancouver Centre also mentioned tile fact that the bids came in and parts of the system have been sold. The parts that have been disposed of are those parts which were attractive to the bidders, because obviously — if you're going into the free enterprise thing — they offered the opportunity for some of the megadollars. In the riding of Dewdney, on the north side of the Fraser River — and I think this might apply to some degree on the south side as well — nobody bid. There was no bid that came in, and the reason there was no bid was that the one major operator in that area couldn't bring himself to put in a bid to buy a bus service which was going to cost him money. I think that's readily understandable to everybody. I don't think anybody in this chamber would be prepared to do that.

But this matter of the bus service into Dewdney affects literally hundreds of people. It really does. There are a lot of people involved. I've been working very closely with the minister responsible for transit to try to resolve the problem, and I think we're making progress, but I feel compelled to mention it in this House today on behalf of the several hundred people who rely on that interurban transit system to get to and from work on a daily basis. One of the people who contacted me, a lady who supports a family, has been using this bus service for many years to get back and forth to her job, and if that bus service is taken away, she just hasn't got the wherewithal to go out and buy an automobile, and she really doesn't know what she's going to do.

[ Page 3584 ]

Mr. Speaker, this is a very serious problem. It's one of those situations where I know everyone is going to do their best, but it's one of those situations where it's possible — and I pray that this doesn't happen — where the best will not be good enough. Something has to be done to ensure that some method of transit is available to the people on the north side of the Fraser River to get them into Vancouver to work.

Mr. Speaker, may I suggest to this House that the people of British Columbia have heard enough about unemployment? They're up to here in unemployment.

MRS. WALLACE: They sure are!

MR. PELTON: Despite what we hear from our friends opposite, I think the people want to hear about employment, not unemployment, and about how it will be generated. Those initiatives in export development, in Expo 86, youth jobs, free ports and so on, are positives words addressing employment. Let those members opposite continue to speak of unemployment, if they must, but I am going to join the Minister of Finance in talking about employment.

When I started out, I mentioned that I wasn't going to speak at any length today. On many occasions I have thought that Parkinson's law is quite often applied when speaking in this chamber: that is, that speeches are often expanded to fill the time made available for them. I don't think we should ever confuse how long we speak with how much we say. Perhaps the timely reform of the rules of our House will move us in this direction.

Mr. Speaker, there are no perfect people. Even if there were, I would defy them to draft a budget which would please everyone in this province; it is inherently impossible. This budget is an important contribution to returning to a more balanced and realistic position of government in our society and, as such, encourages private initiative to create real, sustainable, permanent jobs in our economy — the necessary base for both our future prosperity and the financial wherewithal to be effectively compassionate. For that reason I would ask all members to sustain this budget.

MR. LEA: Mr. Speaker, it's always a pleasure to listen to the hon. member for Dewdney, because whether you agree with him on every point or not is hardly the point. He always speaks well. He says what he means and means what he says. That's always a pleasure in this House.

During this budget speech and the throne speech is a time when individual members in the House are given a great deal of latitude to talk about how they see the problems in the province: in a general way during the throne speech, and in the budget speech also very much in a general way, but more tied into the economic problems that we see, or the economic problems that we don't see and should talk about. When speaking to the amendment yesterday, I spoke about the lack of direction in the budget. It's a direction that would take us into the new economic order that I see we must start travelling toward, or we will start to decline.

Today I would like to touch on a number of subjects — one of them brought to mind in listening to and observing the member for Dewdney speak. I think what we have to do in this House is to start thinking about parliamentary reform. I know it's almost akin to being a heretic to talk about any departure from the British parliamentary system, but after 12 years of watching in the House and following votes of individual members, I find that almost never will a back-bencher on that side of the House ever vote differently than the government they represent, and on this side of the House almost never does an individual member stand up and vote against the rest of the caucus. Either we're very much alike, on both sides of the House, or we have no minds of our own. Mr. Speaker, we are really sent here to use our own minds and to vote with our conscience as we see it. If our conscience does not allow us to vote with the party we represent on a particular issue, it is our obligation to vote with our conscience. How often, Mr. Speaker, do you see that?

So when we're talking about parliamentary reform, I think we should keep in mind that we may not be a perfect democratic model. It's a model that has served us until now, and served us rather well, but I do have a concern personally as a member of this House about the lack of.... To me, a perfect democratic system, or one that is as near perfect as you can get, is where there is a distinction between the administration, the legislature and the judiciary. After 12 years in this House I do get concerned in a general way about the lack of distinction between the Legislature and the administration, which are only the members of government. I'm not suggesting we throw it out. I am suggesting that as members of this Legislature we have a far bigger duty than we have to our own particular party. That duty is to democracy itself. As legislators, I think we must all share that concern. I think we should share it even more at this particular time than during normal times.

If I sense the population correctly, I sense fear and a feeling of anxiety about the future, and insecurity. Whenever there is a population who feel fear and are anxious about the future, there is a danger of simple demagoguery taking over that population, and you start slipping down the road away from democracy and towards a kind of government that maybe none of us would want. I caution you, unless we in this Legislature and in every legislature, not just in Canada but throughout the western world, start to take notice of that fear and insecurity in our people, then we could get what Machiavelli called a very dangerous situation. He said that there have been three forms of somewhat acceptable government: monarchy, aristocracy and democracy, each with its inherent evil built in. Tyranny to monarchy, oligarchy to aristocracy; and the built-in danger to democracy is the licentiousness of the majority.

Interjection.

MR. LEA: I'll give it over and over, because I believe it's a speech that we should well remember these days, Mr. Member and Mr. Minister. When you have the minority in a population who do not pay any mind whatsoever to the majority, you have a very dangerous situation. And that brings us to this budget. It's a budget that only pleases those who are working, at the expense of those who are not. To speak only about employment — and leave out the unemployed — could very well be appealing to the licentiousness of the majority. It is not the object of a democracy to only have democracy on the social side. Democracy must all so be an economic democracy, or there's no point at all.

[Mr. Strachan in the chair.]

We are in trouble in our economy. We all agree on that. But if we don't share during our time of adversity, then we are flirting with the very democratic system that we all want to

[ Page 3585 ]

share. We are flirting with taking it away from ourselves. Democracy only works when the minority has as big a say as the majority — and only then. For the majority to say "We're all right, Jack, " and "It's all right for me to make $90,000 a year," while others are making $9,000, is not economic democracy. Democracy can only be whole when you have democracy socially and economically. It has to be a whole to work. To appeal to those who have at the expense of those who have not is not only wrong, it is undemocratic. For instance, as individuals in our society we are protected. If we are weak, we don't allow a bully to come into the room and beat us up. There's a law against it. On the social side we say the weak should be protected from the strong if that strong is a bully. Shouldn't the weak in the economy be protected from the strong bully economically? Wouldn't that be making democracy complete?

[4:00]

For this government, in their budget, to say "We'd like to do something about those people who are suffering in our economy, but at the moment it's not economic to do it," they are flirting with danger. If you do not look after the minorities in a democracy, whether socially or economically, you have no democracy at all. You can't take away democracy in the name of economy. The government would have us believe that we are here in society to serve the economy. We are not. We are here to design an economy that serves the people. That's what we're here for, pure and simple. The government would have us believe that the economy is something separate from people, that it is some sort of abstraction which has its own rules. I remember when the bishops made their statement on the economy. Federal government leaders said the church had no business talking about the economy. The church has every right to talk about the economy. Every citizen, no matter what they do, has a right to talk about the economy. It is here to serve us, or should be.

The problems we are facing are great, and no matter how you slice it, this budget does not address those problems. When we have a need for a more highly skilled, highly trained and more technical workforce to take us into the future, to put $470 million into a sinking fund to pay off debt on the BCR is not the best way to spend the money. The Minister of Finance, Mr. Curtis, is wrong. To invest in the future is the correct way to go, not to invest in the past at this point. If the BCR debt was going to break us or put us into trouble, then by all means address the problem. There is no indication — and the government hasn't given us any reason to suggest — that it is true. But we have every indication that unless we invest heavily in capital, human capital and technology, our economy will not survive. It will not grow; wealth will not be created. Everyone in this House would like to redistribute wealth, but first of all, Mr. Speaker, you have to make it. This budget does not apply itself to the creation of wealth. This budget is nothing more than "let's hold the line." The government would have us believe that by holding the line, somehow this would bring economic recovery.

Name one thing in the budget that is aimed at bringing around economic recovery. I have looked at it. I can't find one.

MR. PARKS: You don't understand export-oriented economy then.

MR. LEA: I think, Mr. Member, you understand it only too well, and if you are going to have a healthy economy, one of the things that you must always look at is import replacement — not just export, because an economy that relies solely on export over time will decline. What you must do in an economy is take a look at it to see what kind of export you are bringing in and look for export replacements, because that creates wealth and trade and commerce within your own economy.

MR. PARKS: We're too small for that.

MR. LEA: I'm glad to hear, finally, the government members admit that. You do think too small. We are a completely open economy in this province. Almost everything we produce we export. Everything we consume we import. That's what makes us so vulnerable in a downturned world economy. If we are going to make sure that we don't always face that vulnerability, then we must look for export, yes. But we must also look for import replacement, and that is taking a look at the things we import to see whether we can make them here for ourselves, whether we are small or whether we are large or whether we are medium. We will always remain small if we only concern ourselves with exports.

In this budget there is not one indication the government has any concern about the future. What is seems to say is this: "If we hold the line on government spending, everything will be all right." Is there any other thing that you can derive from the budget? Isn't that what it really says? If government holds the line in spending, everything will be all right. It's not right. It's not true. It is absolutely not true.

Yesterday I talked about a sawmill in Port Alberni — a new one replacing an old one. It has the same output as the old one but with half of the workforce, because of modern technology being applied. But, Mr. Speaker, has this government paid any attention to the kind of technology that is being applied? If you take a close look at the mill in Alberni you will find out that technology only does one thing. It does away with jobs, but it doesn't do a dammed thing for better utilization of the wood that goes through the mill.

I see the member for Omineca (Mr. Kempf) looking up. Do I catch a hint of agreement there? Yes, I think so, because I think that's true. If you take a close look at the new technology applied in the Port Alberni sawmill, you will find that the new technology was designed to do only one thing: do away with workers, to make it more productive to compete in the world market. But the new technology does not utilize that wood to any greater degree than the old mill did. We have one big problem in forestry: the original first growth is the most valuable wood we're ever going to have. The second growth won't be as valuable. We have to make sure that we get every bit of utilization out of that first growth that we possibly can. That means that when the private sector is putting in new technology, government must insist that that new technology is the kind that will better utilize the wood in the sawmills. We have to make sure that we better utilize the wood in the forests, and not do as the government is allowing on the Queen Charlotte Islands on tree licence No. 24, where per hectare there are 700 cunits of total wood and they're allowing companies to go in there and cream 300 off the top and leave 400 on the ground to rot or to be burned. That is a waste of first growth. It is a waste of first growth to allow that high cellulose content, high fibre content wood to go through pulp mills when it's good sawlogs. It is improper to put it through mills that do not utilize that wood to the highest

[ Page 3586 ]

possible technological standard. We are cutting off our noses to spite the future if we continue to do that.

This budget and this government are in a quagmire of mediocrity. They do not understand that the economy is changing rapidly and that we must change rapidly to keep up with that rapidly changing economy or be left behind. We cannot just be an exporter of goods; we must go for import replacement; we must try to close our economy from a completely open economy. We must try to do more things for ourselves. We must try to produce more things for ourselves, both in goods and services, and we must try to become self-sufficient as much as possible. Nothing in this budget indicates that we're heading in that direction.

As I mentioned yesterday, if it wasn't bad enough that the budget doesn't apply itself to the future, equally bad is the fact that it doesn't apply itself to the present and the problems that our citizens are having as we go through this economic revolution.

Mr. Speaker, I would suggest to you that if the administration were not elected members of this House but something else — like, say, the state of Washington, or in the republican system — and that budget were sent to a legislature independent of that administration, this budget would not pass. Every person in this House could be exactly the same individuals, but this budget wouldn't pass; I'd be willing to bet on it. I'd be willing to bet that if this budget came from an administration outside this chamber, every cabinet minister in this House would vote against it, not with it, because it does not meet the needs of our citizens. And if this Legislature had to stand up and face our people and say they voted for this budget, and they were not tied in with the administration, they would be voted out of office. This entire Legislature would stand united against a budget that doesn't help our people in their time of trouble or deal with the future in any recognizable or effective way.

Mr. Speaker, we as legislators, if we vote for this budget, should be ashamed of ourselves. If we didn't belong to the Social Credit and the New Democratic parties in this House, this budget wouldn't pass. I know that there are members on the other side of the House who don't agree with it. They'll vote for it because it's party politics.

AN HON. MEMBER: It's a good budget.

MR. LEA: It is a lousy budget. How can any member of this House say that the budget is good when it doesn't address the problems of our people? It doesn't address the problems that we're going to have in the future in any way. Why is it good? Because it holds the line? Is that why it's good? Mr. Speaker, this budget does not address the problems of our people, either the problems they are having now or the problems we're going to have in the future and that are recognizable. Why would any legislator vote for a budget like that unless party politics were part of it? They wouldn't. Why would any member vote to put $470 million into the sinking fund of the BCR when our education system is a very important ticket we should be spending money on if we want to have an economic future? Why would any member vote for $470 million going to the sinking fund of the BCR when we're cutting people under 25 off of social assistance and telling them to go to Dawson Creek to get a job? Why would any legislator vote for that, unless they were tied into a political party and it was politically opportune? The member for Dewdney implied — and I'm not going to say he said it — that it was sort of courageous of the minister to bring in this budget at this time. It is not courageous. What the minister is doing, in my opinion, is saying to those people who are better off: "This budget won't hurt you." It's part of the tacit agreement to make sure that a small minority in our society take it all on their shoulders.

MR. REID: The Auditor-General recommended it.

MR. LEA: Oh, well, fine. If that's true, then let's go.... The Auditor-General does not recommend budgets to this House. Don't be so silly! It's absolutely silly.

If we were to have backbench legislators on the government side and on this side of the House who voted with conscience, as I began this speech, this budget would not pass.

[4:15]

MR. PARKS: You'd take wishy-washy....

MR. LEA: Mr. Boot deserves at least one shot. I'm always impressed with the novice, with the person who comes in with all the answers, with these lawyers from the suburbs who come into the House with all the answers, aren't you? All of a sudden he's the head parliamentarian. He kicks the Leader of the Opposition out, and then sells the boot at a public auction. Yes, there's a man I should listen to. There's a man of integrity. There's a man who brings intelligence and sensitivity into the House. I wonder if he's going to be a one-termer, because we've seen them come and go. I'll make a prophesy right now: that member for Maillardville-Coquitlam is going to be a one-termer in this House, and we'll never see him again after the next election. You know what? I wouldn't care what party he ran for. We won't see him after the next election.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, please. Perhaps if we can avoid the heckling, then the member who's now speaking might return to the budget.

MR. LEA: I'd just like to conclude by saying that this government is taking the most cynical point of view that a government can take. It knows better than to bring in the budget it has, and yet has brought it in anyway. To imply that the minister is courageous while pandering to the greed of people.... That's not courageous; it's corrupt. How can we back that? To say to those who have, "We're not going to ask you to share with your neighbours during times of trouble," is corrupt. It's not democratic. To say to those people who have, "We're going to say to you that you can have what you already have, but we're going to make those who have less suffer even more," isn't brave. It's democratically corrupt. When I hear people who are taking part in the democratic process say that sharing is not part of democracy, then I have to wonder.

MR. REID: Who said that? That sounds like a quote. Who would say something like that?

MR. LEA: The budget says that. The document says that. When the document says that, and people vote for that document, they are saying that.

I notice that the member for Dewdney did speak up on one issue. That was one that affected his riding. So he should. But

[ Page 3587 ]

what about my riding? What about the riding of the member for Vancouver Centre? What about the riding of the member for Little Mountain? Shouldn't we, as British Columbia legislators, be as concerned for each other's ridings as we are for our own? Is that not our duty? To ask for a special favour for Dewdney out of the budget, which hurts 49 other tidings, is not the way to go, in my opinion. Just because people are hurting in the member for Dewdney's riding is no reason that everybody else in the province should be hurting also. The point is that if you're going to share, you share what you have and you share it equally. You don't share it on a political basis; you share it on a need basis. That's democracy, Mr. Speaker. This budget is not democratic, because it does not take into account the principle of protecting the weak in times of trouble. As we do on the social side in democracy we should do on the economic side, and this budget does not do it at all.

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased indeed to take my place in this budget debate. I do say that this rather historic week in Canada is an interesting time to address a budget. Leap year only comes once every four years, and in this particular leap year we had the notice of the Prime Minister's resignation from public office. I won't add to any of the responses across the country; I thought our Minister of Intergovernmental Relations (Hon. Mr. Gardom) did a good job in that regard yesterday on behalf of this House, and I would certainly associate myself with those remarks.

But I also believe that as we discuss the budget today we should understand that we are living in a time when all Canadians are having difficulties across this nation. Indeed, we have see a recession take its toll in every area in the world. British Columbia certainly has not been able to withstand the buffeting of that world recession. I would say that my ministry has probably felt the effects of that recession as much as, if not more than, most.

I think today I would like to put the record straight on a couple of things. First of all, I was keenly disappointed that earlier in this debate — it was on the amendment debate pertaining to the budget.... I'm very glad that the member who is now coming into the House is here to hear my remarks in that regard. I was really keenly disappointed, in terms of the whole position of child abuse in this province, and the war on child abuse, that the member for Burnaby North (Mrs. Dailly) took some recent news story and seemed to intimate that it was because of cuts in services that some blame be placed on ministry staff, if not the ministry in total, or the minister responsible, and I really want to set that record straight. I think all of us in this House have a responsibility to clearly state, with or without the protection of the House.... I think anything we say inside this House should be able to be said outside the House, and I would like to say that in regard to the child abuse program.

First of all, let me put the record very clearly. It is interesting that in these last few weeks we've had an attack on the Ministry of Human Resources for interfering in one case — it has been given a lot of publicity, yet that story has not been fully explained in the press — and taking children from one foster family. There was a lot of criticism of my staff over that, a lot of open-line talk and a lot of discussion in the press. Within the same month we had a very tragic case — and I'm not going to refer to names, although the member for Burnaby North did. The publicity brought a fair amount of comment regarding the death of a child and an allegation of child abuse, parent neglect, many things.

I want the members of the House to truly understand what I'm trying to get at when I bring this to the House. Our responsibility in the Ministry of Human Resources is to protect children. It is the court that decides whether or not that child should be taken away from the family and placed in another home for their own protection. We do not make that decision. This House debated an act which took the place of the Protection of Children Act, which we have debated on the floor in the last two or three years. It gives all the checks and balances so that we in the ministry do not have that capability of keeping children out of their own home, but it does give us the capability of removing a child for a few hours for his own protection.

I really want to make that clear, because in the two cases that I mentioned I want you to know that there are two opposing views in the province, let alone in this Legislature. On the one hand the provincial government or the ministry gets quite a bit of criticism because we are removing a child from a home. On the other hand our ministry gets all the criticism in the world because we didn't remove a child from the home. I just want to make it clear where our ministry stands in that regard. It is very easy to say in retrospect what should or could have been done. I want you to know that in this past year, at the time of the one case to which the member for Burnaby North referred, there were two whole weeks when the Ministry of Human Resources was monitoring no case anywhere, and that was when there was a province-wide BCGEU strike. We could well have been accused of not monitoring a case and of not being on the job. I didn't hear anybody in the opposition or in the province say at that time: "Where are all the social workers now, who should be looking after and monitoring all those youngsters who are at risk in the province of British Columbia?" There weren't any, and I just want everyone here to realize that it's a very, very difficult line that the Ministry of Human Resources walks, because if anything had happened in those two weeks, I wonder where the blame would have been passed to in that case.

In the case that the member for Burnaby North referred to in the previous discussion, to this day we do not have the coroner's report, and therefore I cannot comment on it. I will comment on it when I have the coroner's report.

I do hope that members on each side of this House will understand that out there in the community are a group of people who are dedicated to keeping children in their own homes until it is proven that a child must be removed for his or her own protection. But we are not there 24 hours of every day. Above and beyond everything else, I hope this House will have the sense of security that in this province we have led the nation in the fight against child abuse. We have absolutely led the nation, if not North America. The provinces of Alberta and Ontario have copied our Helpline for Children. Across this nation we are looked to as having the very best program for training our staff in child abuse.

With the awareness that we have and with the tools at our disposal, with the intelligence of our people and the level of education in this province, I just can't believe that we still have to have a war against child abuse or that there should be child abuse in the province of British Columbia; but there is.

[4:30]

Interjection.

[ Page 3588 ]

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: The very kind of comment that the member has just made leads me to bring the subject up on the floor of this House in the budget debate today. This member is trying, again, the same tactics that were used by the member for Burnaby North. I'm trying to respond to it in the clearest and in the fairest way I can. But when you take a tragedy and try to put it on cuts in government I'm going to tell you that that's a very cheap political shot which is not deserving of a member of this Legislature. That anyone in public life in this province or any social worker is responsible for the death of a child through abuse and child neglect is something that I won't accept from either of those two members on that side of the House or any member in this House. My staff do a very good job; they do the best job in the country. For the opposition to try to bring the elimination of 12 people — the child abuse team, some of which are secretarial help — in the city of Vancouver and try to parlay that into the fact that we are now cutting out the war against child abuse in this province.... We have over 900 social workers who work daily, not 12, Mr. Speaker.

The child abuse team did not give direct services, but the opposition tries to sell the fact across this province that because of downsizing of government that team is no longer there. All of a sudden everything is gone. The war against child abuse and the moneys for the war against child abuse are gone. That is just not correct. I repeat again: I think that is a cheap political shot, and it is using the tragedies that happen. It's not your fault; it's not our fault. It's because of the times in which we live, and it is using it for a political purpose. I don't think it is really something that any member of this House should do. I want you to understand that, because I want you to know that we could well have in the province of British Columbia — as a matter of fact, I really do believe we have — the very best child abuse program in North America. I would like these members of the Legislature to go out and educate people even more, because that is what is needed, not that kind of political one-upmanship. Surely we don't have to use child abuse as a political tool.

[Mr. Pelton in the chair.]

I'm going to also respond to something that is in the budget, because I believe it is very important to this House. We've talked on the floor of this House before about children, wives and in a few cases husbands who are left and do not have the support of their spouse. Sometimes they are forced onto welfare because of desertion, family breakup, marital difficulties or marriage breakdown. Embodied in this budget is the program for the enforcement of maintenance orders. After a very long time, I am pleased that we are definitely going to have — this year, in this budget — a program for the enforcement of maintenance orders in this province, which will be the kind of enforcement that will give a sense of security to families. It will take the harassment out of the whole enforcement-of-maintenance problem. As you know, people are breaking up their marriages and leaving families and wives to try to sustain themselves on income assistance. And yes, the taxpayer picks up the bill. This program will make those who have left their families responsible rather than the taxpayer.

MR. LAUK: How?

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: If the member had been here on another occasion when I suggested that we were going to have a better program of followup, that we were going to have a better program of getting court and enforcing orders, then he would know what I am talking about.

I'm really happy to know that we are going to have the funds to do it this year, Mr. Speaker. Many will say that part of it will be because we're going to save money on welfare. Let me tell you that we may save money. We may not pay welfare to some families if those who were to pay or could take the responsibility pay. I don't think that's the important part. We're talking budget, and I suppose we should be talking about saving money as well as spending it. I don't think the saving of money in that case is the important part. I think the important part is the whole harassment, the whole argument over a dollar bill: "You are late in sending the cheque," or "Your father didn't send the cheque," or "You can't go to the ball-game" or "We're going to have to have beans tonight because your dad didn't send the cheque." I think all that harassment, vindictiveness and venom will be taken out. For couples in this province who have decided to make the break in their marriage, at last we will not have all their problems, vengeance and vindictiveness visited upon the children. Thank goodness, in the months and years to come, we will be cleaning up that act in the province of British Columbia. I think that's the important part.

I want to speak a bit about transition houses. I think it's important. Again, I notice a tremendous amount of publicity over one of the 22 transition houses. This is a place where battered wives can go with their families and have some kind of security and serenity away from the abusing spouse. It's not a pleasant subject to talk about, but it's very much with us in our society. It's not a very happy thing to bring before the House. But, again, there are people in this House who would take that particular subject and say that because we are not any longer directly hiring the staff in a transition house — in the one that is staff-oriented, the one we have had in the city of Vancouver.... We are going out of that business. We are going to make the city of Vancouver service like all the rest — like the ones in Prince Rupert, Prince George and Chilliwack, on Vancouver Island, all over the province. Only the city of Vancouver was unique. From reading the newspapers and all the letters to the editor, you would think that we're not having any transition houses at all, that even the one in Vancouver is going to be wiped out entirely. That is not so. May I say clearly that the service will remain. There will be a transition house or even transition houses in the city of Vancouver. They will be like all the transition houses: a place of serenity and security, with counselling for those people who come to them for help — the battered wives and their children. They will be there in the city of Vancouver, just like they are all over the province of British Columbia.

It's interesting that we never hear that there were only a handful of those transition homes four years ago — something like eight. There are now 22, in four years' time. That's not a bad record. I know there will be more because of the encouragement this government gives to societies and organizations that wish to start one in their own community. I hope there will be more. I know there will be more. Let it not be said that we're taking the transitions houses out of the city of Vancouver. We decided to go out of the business of us providing the service. It will be provided in the community, and the Ministry of Human Resources will finance it, like we do all the others. I think that's an important point.

[ Page 3589 ]

About the point of the good service being done by transition houses and by the different volunteer groups and others within the province, it's interesting that in all the talk about cuts in services.... What a tremendous lift it has been and what a good exercise it has been, as the Minister of Human Resources, to receive letters from people saying what a good service we have had. There really is something to be said for us having to clean up our house in terms of what kind of services our taxpayers can afford. You see, it really makes people think about what they have enjoyed for a very long time. As a matter of fact, the other day I was surprised. I had never heard anything good about the child-care workers in the school system. We didn't have letters come in saying that it was the best system across the country. We'd never heard that before. I never received from a teacher, a parent or members of the opposition.... I have to say that members from our own side of the House didn't get up in this House and laud us for that kind of service.

Mr. Speaker, do you know that we are continuing that service in the secondary schools? But the 15, which were an anomaly within the whole school system in the province of British Columbia, are now going to have to be found with local financing. There wasn't any other service like that anywhere else in the province. We are simply not going to be able to carry it on. It's a very good service. It's one of the few that are being cut out, and I'm sorry they are. It would have been nice this year to have expanded it right through the province in every school; it would have been great. But the taxpayers can't afford that. They can't afford a new service like that in the province of British Columbia. If we're going to provide the necessities that we have to for the growing income assistance rolls, all the other services that we need and the core services of this ministry, we have to lose that program. The letter I received from the school board lauding that program was so glowing that I really think they'll find the money. I really do think they'll find the money, because they really feel it is a service that they really can't live without. So I'm rather confident that that will happen, and I hope it will, because that's what's happening in other schools across the province, and they're doing it at the local level.

Let me also mention a couple of other things perhaps a little misunderstood about the Ministry of Human Resources. I think that we have services across this province which are second to none in the nation. But in terms of isolating two or three items which we've had to take out — and I speak of the child abuse team of 12 people, the post-partum counselling services, which was a very small group.... That was about eight people. It only took place in the city of Vancouver. That service can be provided in the private sector, and will be. If someone needs post-partum counselling in Campbell River, they can't go to Vancouver for it. Some of these things which were at another time a very good thing to have, perhaps in the city of Vancouver and perhaps in another city, if they couldn't be province-wide and if they were just a few services here and there.... I think we can live without some of those and let the private sector and the volunteers pick it up, because what is important to the ministry is that we retain the core services that we have built our reputation on and which we continue to do each and every day.

I want you to know that we have success stories each and every day in this province. Those are the things that never get the headlines in the paper. When we are dealing with perhaps each and every family in this province in one way or another — be it a senior citizen, someone on income assistance, somebody who needs counselling, somebody who needs a service for Pharmacare, somebody who needs service in any one of our areas such as the job action program or our individual opportunity plan — the success stories that we have are truly remarkable. They don't make headlines. They go each and every day. We have a ministry that's out there on the front line helping people each and every day and, I think, doing a terrific job.

[4:45]

Mr. Speaker, if I may just end my remarks in terms of where we are going in the Ministry of Human Resources, I may say this to you. I think that those of us in this House who have to deal at a community level and a constituency level from day to day can be very proud of the services offered. Let's start to be positive about those things, because you see, as long as we are negative and isolate those small things.... I say small, because in the great picture, in the huge picture of the service of Ministry of Human Resources, the over $1.2 billion expenditure, the over 5,000 staff, serving probably every family in this province, I can tell you that the positives far outweigh the picky little and sometimes politically motivated criticisms which I don't really think the ministry or the people of B. C.... We can't help them if we concentrate on those kinds of things.

Before I sit down let me just give a reference in the budget speech to another area of my responsibility. I want to, because I feel sometimes when we discuss things that have to be done in servicing people who are in need, we forget those things which really create the dollars that make it possible. I'm speaking about things like job creation; I'm thinking of those things that this government decided to do before the world recession was truly on this nation. We made some decisions a few years ago, and I can tell you that had anybody in this room been clairvoyant they would have said: "Wow, isn't that an exciting economic plan to meet the early 1980s?" I'm speaking of such things as planning for Expo 86, planning for a stadium, building a rapid transit system for the whole lower mainland, promoting a trade and convention centre, Lonsdale Quay, the redevelopment of New Westminster and that remarkable program out in New Westminster that we've been responsible for, northeast coal and Duke Point. I can tell you that had those things not been planned in the few years past, we wouldn't have the money to spend on the Ministry of Human Resources today. We wouldn't be discussing a budget today, because we wouldn't have those people working on the stadium, wearing hardhats and building a stadium under-budget and on time. We wouldn't have the people working on the rapid transit system. The other day I was out on Kingsway in Burnaby where we opened a demonstration program, and let me tell you what that public spending is doing. I really would recommend the member to go and take a look at that demonstration project out there, and I'd love you to see the transit system. You recall the transit system; it's the one that.... There was a member who used to sit in this House as he NDP Minister of Municipal Affairs. and last May he said he would cancel the whole rapid transit system. That's the NDP stance.

Interjection.

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: Your candidate said that as clear as could be, and I heard him on the radio, so I know. That's a matter of record, Mr. Speaker.

[ Page 3590 ]

Just a week ago I was out in Burnaby as we opened the demonstration project, and there was someone there from the municipality — as a matter of fact, the mayor of Burnaby. He tells me that on the drawing board now — and I hope the members will listen to this — in Metrotown Station in Burnaby, there is over $1 billion worth of new construction — private sector activity — because of our rapid transit. Just one station. That's what it all means. We wouldn't be standing here with that kind of expenditure if we did not have that kind of pre-planning. So may I just say this: I give to our Minister of Finance, who has presented this budget to us, and to the Premier of this province, the best credit in the world for looking ahead. During these times of difficulties, recession and hard times for the people of British Columbia, the planning that we have done has not only resulted in a better price for such things as ALRT — rapid transit, the spirit of B.C. — and for the stadium but it has been giving us a much better, clearer and more purposeful reason for building in these times, which is to create jobs and to create the dollars we will use in the year to come to help those people in need — in the Ministry of Human Resources for social services, in Education and in Health. All three of those ministries take the greater part of the budget we're debating today.

So may I say that I support this budget with the greatest of enthusiasm, and I hope that all members of this House will. I'm sure they'll see the light, on the opposition side of the House, and will join us, because I have faith that they will stand with us to keep this province going, to provide the services and to look ahead so that we can do great things for the people we serve.

MR. LAUK: Well, I want to thank Aimee Semple McPherson for the fine speech.

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: For you I would have worn white.

MR. LAUK: I don't think you can find a $2,500 dress in white these days, can you? The minister did mention that she was offended by some of the remarks by one or more hon. members on this side of the House with respect to a matter directly concerning her ministry. I am informed that the minister has misinterpreted those remarks — I would think inadvertently — as a result of her very sensitive defensiveness with respect to the cuts that have affected her ministry. I think that the overly sensitive minister has misinterpreted the remarks on this side of the House, and built up a bogeyman to attack in her speech. However, I think for anybody in this chamber who may be misled by that kind of an interpretation, we should set the record straight. The kind of tragedy we have seen develop in the situation the minister referred to in the interior is the kind of tragedy that occurs from time to time and, yes, it is irresponsible to suggest that that kind of situation can occur because of government policy one way or the other. I think it should be laid to rest that there is no suggestion that current government policy or short-term government policy causes that kind of a situation.

The question that has to be asked in the long-term, however, is the one that the minister herself posed with respect to that situation of child abuse. These people have an opportunity for education, they should know better and so on. I think we should rationally reflect on whether or not a lot of parents in the province of British Columbia have had an opportunity to learn about parenthood. I think the kind of reprehensible situation we've heard about.... Remember, these are allegations, and the less said about them the better right now, but we know that these kinds of things do happen. They may be rare enough. I should rephrase that — they may not be rare enough but they are rare. But it seems to me that we should be concentrating on educating people in terms of parenthood. That's a responsibility of the Ministries of Education, Health and and Human Resources. People are not trained in parent skills. They simply aren't. Mr. Speaker, I wouldn't be telling tales out of school if I said that you and I and others who were parents rather young in life had to struggle to learn rather rapidly what to do. We just don't have the kind of skills and training — except what we learned from our own parents, who may not have had them either, until through hit and miss they developed them by the time you were out of school. I'm speaking for myself and many others. I wouldn't want to include the hon. member for North Vancouver–Seymour (Mr. Davis), who I know is a perfect parent. He's a perfect many things.

But in all seriousness, the state does have a role to provide an opportunity for those who need or want to learn parent skills, and they are skills. I think we all realize now, in 1984, that you have to develop skills. You have to develop an ability to cooperate with your spouse as the other parent and create a situation where the kind of bizarre hostility between parents and children and each other can be diminished. I'm certainly not referring to this extreme case that was mentioned earlier, but it is something to reflect upon when you're drafting budgets and dealing with education. It is a question of education and a question of supporting, and I'm talking long term. If you cut down on education now or if you don't develop the parent skill education courses that, for instance, the Greater Vancouver School Board was developing in workshop form over the past eight years — they are still continuing piecemeal; they're not being continued — then you've got to ask yourself the question, and not just point the finger at the Greater Vancouver School Board — and one can do that, of course; they have their own priorities to set — as to the funding of public education in this province.

We do pay the price for underfunding public education. We pay the price in family disruptions and abuse. We do pay the price in economic disruption. We do pay the price in terms of our young people not being adequately trained to take their place in a prosperous and highly technological economy of the future. I think it's short-sighted indeed that the government of the day, for a short-term monetarist view, cuts back on education in particular. I can forgive the government anything else, practically speaking, except cutbacks in education. I'm quite disturbed at the attitude of.... We can take partisan views, we can take political shots at each other, but really, for the future of our province, that is a very short-sighted view. I really urge members on that side of the House to try to reach the cabinet, the government, the Ministers of Finance (Hon. Mr. Curtis) and Education (Hon. Mr. Heinrich) and so on. For heaven sake, what you're doing now in cutting back education may exact a very, very harsh price on the people of British Columbia in the next generation, and even more short term than that.

It's little wonder that the minister is overly sensitive about these kinds of things, because she is a person of intelligence and experience and knows the result of long-term policies.

[5:00]

The minister also mentioned that she's not getting enough praise, and she was plaintive in her appeals to the chamber

[ Page 3591 ]

and to the people of British Columbia to compliment her, and I would like to say, as I would say to anyone in public life, that I praise her and compliment her in the job that she's doing if for no other reason than that as any other person in public life, she is making a tremendous sacrifice. However, she has been at it a long time, Mr. Speaker, and she knows it is no job for the faint-hearted. I have a feeling that her plaintive complaints about lack of compliments from the public at large should be taken with a grain of salt.

And now for something completely different, let's talk about the budget. The Minister of Human Resources said that $1 billion of new construction — I think she is quite in orbit talking about $1 billion — is on the books for Metrotown Station. I think that's quite an exaggeration, but let's not quibble. Metrotown Station, other construction as a result of the transit system, construction as a result of B.C. Place and construction as a result of the exposition in 1986 are beneficial projects. They are positive for the economy, and they should be supported by all sides of the House. It is a perfect example of how government investment can be a catalyst that will create private investment. It is a perfect example of a mixed British Columbia economy. It is the kind of project that this side of the House can support, because we have argued for years.... Indeed, during our term of office we implemented such a policy on a much broader scale than the one implemented by the current administration. We think such projects should be supported. ALRT has been the catalyst to create construction at Metrotown and to some extent in the downtown areas; it would do more except that we are already highly developed in the core of the city. But it is doing some, and that's good too.

We have a very serious criticism of the wisdom of the former minister of transit, who is no longer in this chamber, in choosing the type of transit that he chose and urged upon his colleagues in cabinet. But we are not going to exhume him and give him 20 lashes in absentia either. That is all water under the bridge. But from time to time we cannot help but reflect upon the lack of caution and the lack of an intelligent and rational approach in choosing the proper transit system for the city and the lower mainland.

Interjection.

MR. LAUK: We have the member for North Vancouver–Seymour (Mr. Davis) — have gun will travel — who has been asked to take a position with respect to transit. Of course, he will take any position: if you don't like this position, he'll reach into his briefcase and pull out another one for you.

The GVRD had already presented the plans to Mr. Vander Zalm, the completed package for a conventional transit system for the lower mainland.

AN HON. MEMBER: Streetcars.

MR. LAUK: He calls it streetcars. He knows different. He is using a slogan to try and distract me from the flow and precision of my speech, and I'm not going to let him do it. He knows differently. He knows that the package presented by the GVRD would have been at the very least 40 percent cheaper than the ALRT, but we can't run out there now and rip down the cement buttresses and send the cars back to Ontario. In spite of Mr. Lorimer's remarks, it can't be done. So we'll live with it. We support the kind of government investment that creates these kinds of jobs in construction and industry in our province for people who vote Social Credit or NDP. We are all going to benefit from them.

I want to go into the past to get some examples for the future to show where this government has missed the boat during the current recession and why this budget — being a stand-pat or hold-the-line budget — is a mistake. On the amendment, Mr. Speaker, I brought to the attention of the House, because it is not well publicized in this predominantly capitalist continent of North America, that the Oxford group, which boasts no less than two Nobel laureates in economics, has severed Mr. Friedman's magnum opus on monetarism. They have proved that not only was he wrong but that he fabricated evidence to support his beliefs that inflation is caused by too many dollars chasing too few goods. Money supply has not ever been, is not now, nor is it likely to be, an inflation-causing situation in the economy.

Interjection.

MR. LAUK: The hon. member for North Vancouver–Seymour, educated far beyond his capacity to understand, has just cross-commented: "You're kidding." If only the hon. member for North Vancouver-Seymour would come out of that shell of his and expand his knowledge, he would realize that the evidence is clear that that is not the case. If he could produce evidence — not fabricated, as Milton Friedman has done — to prove that monetarist theory, I'd be glad to concede. But so far the evidence is contrary. Inflation is caused by the fact that total productivity in society is lessened in relation to debt and equity. To make it a little more simple, what that means is, in some cases, high interest rates and large profit-taking in areas of our economy that are nonproductive in terms of goods and services.

Now I've gotten a little bit of good humour over a remark I made in passing about the Bank of Commerce. In a good spirit, I've taken it in the spirit in which it's been given — that is, the spirit of partisan poison. No, I won't accuse you of that. But I think it might be useful for me, in case no one else is listening, to canvass that situation and the situation that's been developing in Canada for some time. At the risk of sounding immodest, I did say in 1979 that we owed ten times more than we owned and that if governments in the western world did not act soon we would have a major recession. The recession has been partly contributed to from 1974 on by increased energy costs, but also by an attitude of unrestricted credit and debt in all levels of our economy — not just the public sector, government deficits, but private debt is horrendous, particularly in the North American economy. It's somewhat less so in Europe, but just as alarming, and in the Third World completely beyond the capacity of those economies to maintain and repay and service that kind of debt. It's the exponential growth of debt that was predictable in 1979 and 1980.... The motors for the economies of the western world were running at 95 and 100 miles an hour 24 hours a day, and we couldn't maintain the pace.

This kind of profit-taking is the worst evil of capitalism. It's the kind of profit-taking that undermines the strength of an economy. A dollar does not represent anything more or less than goods and services. We can quibble about what else it may represent, but certainly that's the basic monetary measure of an economy. If you don't wash a window or shell a pea, or do something productive, it becomes non-productive wealth. In other words, if I sell for $310,000 my home that I purchased for $10,000, someone has to bring about the

[ Page 3592 ]

goods and services to pay me that tremendous profit I've had. If I take rental units and convert them to condominiums and my profit increases by 30, 40 and 120 percent, as in some cases, who is going to pay me that wealth that's come as a windfall, or just come to me through that tremendous profit-taking? Who's going to pay me for that? Are you listening? Who's going to pay me for that?

AN HON. MEMBER: Everybody.

MR. LAUK: That's right; everybody's going to pay: the farmers in the fields, the loggers in the forests, the people in the mills and the shops and the factories, the professionals and the white-collar workers. The productive workforce of our economy has to pay for that profit. I hear the Conference Board of Canada and the economic councils and the Fraser Institutes, and all of the collection of academics who always give a back of the hand to organized labour, or to labour generally, say: "You've lost your productivity, and as a result we're in a terrible situation. You're forcing wage costs very high. You're causing inflation. You're causing our savings to be undermined and eroded. You're eating into our profits. You're the cause of inflation, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera." It's a bum rap, and you all should know it. It is not a valid charge to make.

If you want to include labour and say they've got a responsibility to help fight inflation, that's one thing, but do not scapegoat labour; do not make labour the only villain in the piece. That is the fair way to govern and to lead people out of a recession, This government has failed to do so, because of their fanaticism and beliefs that inflation is fuelled by the unproductivity of labour and too much money chasing too few goods. Both are false statements, made by people with little or no understanding of the way our economy works, and they create division, rancour and polarization in a society that should be working together in cooperation to get us out of this recession — indeed, to have us prevail once again in a prosperous economy.

Let us look back at the time when we had a prosperous economy. The government of the day, between 1972 and 1975.... I use this not to defend the administration, to praise it or anything else; I use it as an example of what I would like to see this government or a new NDP government do in terms of British Columbia's economy. We were interested in a mixed economy. We took public money and used it as a catalyst to create private investment, and we built the Railwest car plant.

We sent a judge.... I'm the first to concede, as a lawyer, don't send a lawyer out to find out whether something is a good economic deal or not. Can we concede that right now? If you want to hire a lawyer, it's already too late for you anyway. It's like coming to your mortician. Just pay his fee, send him to court and think of better days. But don't send a judge out to decide whether a railcar plant is going to be profitable, because he's black and white in that sense. He's going to sharpen his pencil and look at it. It's like going to a restaurant and saying: "Well, how many sales did you make today? Three hundred dollars? That pays nothing; I'm sorry, we're shutting you down." That's what McKenzie did during the commission. He said: "How much did the Railwest make in a day? You had to subsidize it by $150 a car? Forget it. You're losing money."

[5:15]

What they didn't investigate in the McKenzie commission was the opportunity to manufacture cars.... Yes, the cost was higher than in the eastern plants to start up with, but the difference per car was minuscule. The McKenzie recommendation was short-sighted enough; it was even more short-sighted for people who should know better in private business, accepting the recommendation and shutting down the car plant, missing a tremendous opportunity to supply 250-plus hopper cars for potash for the Saskatchewan Potash Corp. Was it some philosophical problem there? Someone a little bit sensitive to supplying hopper cars to a Crown corporation in Saskatchewan? NDP? Was that the problem? I think so.

Interjection.

MR. LAUK: The member for North Vancouver–Seymour says yes, that was the problem. If their money is good....

Do you sell cars to NDPers?

MR. REID: I will any day.

MR. LAUK: Any day! He's not as dumb as he looks, Mr. Speaker.

Interjections.

MR. LAUK: He's not as smart as he looks, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, the opportunity was missed. We also understood the advantage of our primary resources. Now remember, place yourself in the context of 1973 and 1974, not 1983 and 1984. Ten years ago we had the best metallurgical coal in the world, because the W.A.C. Bennett government had, with some cleverness, committed a segment of the Japanese steel industry to purchasing our coal. We also had some leverage, some dependence by Japan on us. It was for that reason we felt the possibility that a steel mill of a variable size, depending upon the economics, could be built in British Columbia to give the province a reasonably priced domestic supply of steel. Now don't check with the economists. You've got to talk to the Japanese businessmen and the engineers in Canada and work out something a little bit more feasible than economic theory.

I'll tell you what happened. I was the minister of the day and I went to Simon Fraser. I said to the economists there: "You said in a news report that a steel mill is just not economical for British Columbia." He said: "Well, Gary, I'll tell you something. It's not, because we've got a small population and we're not going to use enough steel domestically to make it pay." I said: "What do you think we would have to do with our population to make a medium-sized steel mill pay?" He said: "Well, you would have to have something like a ship-building industry." So we did a little feasibility study on a ship-building industry. I went to UBC and presented this to the economists at UBC. They scratched their head, and they said: "Well, ship-building is not economical in B.C." I said: "Can you give me some major reason that you consider it uneconomical?" He said: "The only way ship-building in B.C. would be reasonably economical would be if B.C. had a reasonably priced domestic supply of steel."

Do you see what I am talking about by the narrow view and lack of imagination of some economists — shared, I'm sorry to say, by this fanatical cultist government on the other

[ Page 3593 ]

side of the chamber? A steel mill was cancelled by the new minister — he didn't even look at it. We were looking at an oil refinery. It would have given the people of British Columbia a fair view and a window into the industry to see whether or not the major oil companies were doing us justice or not. I think we all know what we would have found — a coal gasification plant for the new minister of economic development's own riding. He just tabled that. He says it's in my basement, but he's got it in his office. He won't admit to seeing it.

HON. MR. SCHROEDER: It was a real winner.

MR. LAUK: We decided it was quid pro quo — if we're going to put a museum in Skidegate, we will put a beehive plant in Peace River.

We also recognized that import replacement, as my friend from Prince Rupert (Mr. Lea) has suggested, was the way in which we could buffer the inevitable erosion of our strong foreign markets for our primary resources of timber and metals. Import replacement is very important. One of the things we could do — and I'm so glad that the Minister of Agriculture and Food (Hon. Mr. Schroeder) is here — is at least process and supply our own food to the people of British Columbia. At the time we raised.... Someone from the business community downtown asked me: "Why should we spend government money at Panco Poultry or Swan Valley Foods? For heavens' sake, this is just food processing. That's not real productivity. What's going on here?" I'm saying that you don't understand the economy. I said to them: you've got to understand that it's not taking in each other's washing; it's creating the jobs and the wealth domestically for the goods and services — in this case poultry; in other cases, food in Swan Valley — for our own purposes and our own needs. To say that it is going to cost a little bit more to produce in this jurisdiction does not in any way take into consideration the jobs created here. The wealth and the investment are all here. Now we buy poultry that's processed in the United States. It's a complete loss, a vacation of our money outside the country. It's gone forever. It's not coming back unless somebody who works at the poultry plant down in the States comes up here for a visit in their camper. They may pay the exorbitant price at a provincial campsite now, and we'll make an extra three or four bucks on them, but that's it. You've got to understand the way the economy works. You can't make silly decisions based on isolated instances. Swan Valley Foods was developing a new technology that's now used all over the United States.

Interjection.

MR. LAUK: Okay, politically they're going to argue this. They know it's not true, but they're going to argue it.

They used Panco Poultry and Swan Valley Foods as a political stick to beat us with. The truth of the matter is that there was a day in this province when the kinds of ideas, some of which may not have worked but most of which I contend did or would if they were tried, would have been the buffer that was necessary during the current recession to supply more jobs. The Railwest car plant would have doubled in size. The steel mill would be producing steel today for our own domestic needs, and the coal gasification plant would have been operating today. Shipbuilding would have been going on. To use the same argument as the Minister of Human Resources, shipbuilding is best done during a recession: you get lower prices for material, you can build ships on a longterm contract basis. As a matter of fact, customers for ships and barges will place their orders during economic down periods precisely for that reason. Panco Poultry would be producing turkeys and chickens today in B.C. for British Columbians, and Swan Valley Foods would be producing food for British Columbia. It is this junior teller — now that he's back in the House — from a local credit union who comes up as the expert on economics and shuts them down.

MR. NICOLSON: He had to go to his superior for anything over $2,000.

HON. MR. CURTIS: Oh, you had to go to Bob Williams.

MR. LAUK: As unsatisfactory as you think that is, it was still better than going to a teller who had to get permission to change a $5 entry.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Perhaps we can avoid the personal references.

MR. LAUK: All right, it was $100.

What has this government done? It has spent money on transit, and I'm not going to criticize that. It has built the stadium, and it's going into B.C. Place. It's into construction, housing and commercial.... The thing that kills me is that if there is anything the private sector can do, they can build commercial office space. Here the government is now in the commercial office-space business. I just opened a law office downtown. I'm very grateful that the hint of commercial office space in B.C. Place has lowered my rent by about 15 to 20 percent. It's beautiful.

AN HON. MEMBER: They shouldn't listen to rumours.

MR. LAUK: Don't tell my landlord that. We're got him believing one thing right now.

In terms of the interest of the province, why are we building so much office space? Okay, we're doing it, and it's fine. It means jobs and so on. But in the meantime, the only thing we've got left is coal. The forest industry is on its knees. Metal prices are somewhere up in the arctic some place, or down — wherever. We're getting beaten to death, as far as mining in the world marketplace is concerned.

We had an opportunity to sell coal to — Japan. What happened? These tremendous used-car and used-parts salesmen went to Tokyo. It took them three weeks and $35,000 to find the right cab. They lose our coal sales to Australia. Now in 1984 Australia is beating the pants off us and selling coal to Japan. Little China hasn't even got the proper rail line link-up to their coalfields, and it's starting to increase its percentage of metallurgical and thermal coal to Japan. We're getting the can kicked off us in Japan. These great salesmen from Boundary-Similkameen, from Air Canada, from the Ford Motor parts and service department and from Bennett's Hardware are still standing there, wondering what happened to them. Their watch is missing; their wallet is gone; the two gold inlays are missing. What happened?

MR. NICOLSON: They got mugged.

MR. LAUK: These poor little Aussies down there. Boy, are they ever dumb. They're hicks, aren't they? They don't

[ Page 3594 ]

know how to sell coal. They're a bunch of socialists, anyway. Bob Hawke — I hear he likes beer. What would he know about coal? They beat the pants off us, Mr. Speaker. They're closing us out of the market, while we're spending billions of dollars of British Columbia taxpayers' money in the northeast coal project. It's going to be a white elephant if we can't sell more coal to the Japanese. What does the Minister of Energy (Hon. Mr. Rogers) do? What else do you do when you have no answer for your lack of salesmanship, lack of foresight, lack of competence and ability? You do what you always do: you attack Ottawa. Today, or yesterday, I heard the Minister of Energy attack Ottawa. He said: "You're subsidizing the maritime coal producers and you're undercutting us to Japan." It's their fault again. That's why God has sent that blizzard to central Canada. He's convinced of it. Look at him: he's not laughing. He's convinced. He's consulted the Minister of Agriculture (Hon. Mr. Schroeder)....

MR. REID: Did he get any help from the pope?

[5:30]

MR. LAUK: You leave my religion out of this.

He's consulted the Minister of Agriculture, and he's convinced that the blizzard is a direct result of subsidizing maritime coal. It's not the fault of the minister of small business and economics. I must say, when he changed from the Minister of Economic Development to the minister of small business, he sure knew what he was talking about. He fulfilled a promise: he made large businesses small all over this province. His motto is "small is beautiful." Do you know how you create a small business in B.C.? You start a big one and wait six months. The minister of small business will come and get you with his magic wand and poof — you're small!

Mr. Speaker, coal sales are getting smaller and smaller every day. That townsite up in the northeast coal project — I visited it last spring. I walked through there and saw all kinds of Alberta licence plates. These are the 3,000 construction jobs, the 1,500 jobs here, 5,000 jobs here. The northeast coal project is the best thing that's happened to Edmonton in 25 years. But I'm a Canadian with a national vision, and if we can supply a few jobs to Edmontonians, that's just fine. But for heaven's sake, is there something we can do to convince the Japanese to buy our coal? What have they got against these guys over there? They're supposed to be a free enterprise government. What have they got against this cabinet? We even got them to invest in the coalfields in the northeast and they still won't buy their own coal. What did you do to them? That's what I'd like to know. It's the kind of attitude....

The Minister of Human Resources (Hon. Mrs. McCarthy) said, "Cheap political tricks, " accusing us of the same thing. I'll tell you what's partisan and political, what's really unforgivable: taking a narrow, political view, a partisan view, of your role as a government, no matter what. Even when you know it's going to bring harm economically to your own province you persist in it because you've already committed yourself to taking a line — like against Panco Poultry or something. It sounds good — pinko-Panco. Great political stuff, right? Except that they're wrong and they cause economic harm.

I started my speech by complimenting the Minister of Human Resources and the government because they're using public money as a catalyst to encourage private investment, at least in transit and B.C. Place. We're looking forward to the exposition in 1986 to create more jobs. But if they are placing their bets on that one little spot on the table, then we're all going to lose. We're all going to go down with them, I'm afraid, because it's the narrow view that they have. If they want to bring this province out of its recession they've got to go into a cooperative attitude toward the economy. They've got to draw to the table all aspects of our economy. Instead of taking a stick and beating labour over the head, taking another stick and beating other people over the head, bring people together in a cooperative fashion, use the public power and resource as a catalyst, as the previous NDP administration did. Mr. Speaker, I'm voting against this budget.

HON. MR. SCHROEDER: Mr. Speaker, I rise to support the budget. In the few moments that are left and at my disposal, I'd like to discuss two words. One of them is "responsible" and the other one is "irresponsible." We'll try to get everybody out in time for dinner this evening.

In order to define the word "responsible, " we have to find some words to which we can attach the word "responsible." If we are able to do that then the understanding of the word "responsible" perhaps will become clear in the minds of those nearby, particularly those across the way.

This is a responsible budget. What does that mean? That means that in a year such as 1984 — and by the way, also in a year such as 1983 — you have to reduce expenditure.

MR. NICOLSON: It means more money for ministers' travel.

HON. MR. SCHROEDER: Thanks for reminding me of that, because that comes right under point number 5 here, and I'll get to it.

You have to have reduced expenditure. Is reduced expenditure in a budget such as this, in a year such as 1984, a responsible thing to do? I heard those across the way say "no." As a matter of fact, I've listened to several as they stood in their places and demanded that this government review....

Interjection.

HON. MR. SCHROEDER: Requested. Right. By the way, if you want to heckle, go to your own chair.

Is it a responsible thing to reduce expenditure? I've heard them say across the way — as a matter of fact, I'll use the word "requested" — that expenditures under various categories be increased. I understand that's what they say when they say that this is not enough; we don't think you're spending enough money on hospitals or on medical care or on education or on home care. I'm sure that what they're suggesting, Mr. Speaker, is that we spend more. What is the responsible thing to do? Do they believe that in a year such as 1984 it would not be the responsible thing to reduce expenditure because we have in the province a reduced tax base?

I was listening to the member for Prince Rupert (Mr. Lea) saying that whenever you want recovery you have to have those who have sharing with those who have not. Sounds like good socialist stuff. And whenever there is a have around, it even makes good sense. But let me ask you: if you have a reduced tax base and you have those who used to have but who have sent you the message loud and clear that they no longer have what they used to have and that the tax base is

[ Page 3595 ]

reduced so that they can no longer send the dollars that used to come, what are you going to do then? I suggest that in order to follow the philosophy that's spewed out from across the floor, if you're going to share what you have with those who have not, then at a time when you have not you must share then. That's the responsible thing to do. So as a result, in 1984, at a time when there is a reduced tax base, you must have reduced expenditure. That is responsible. In 1984 you have reduced cash flow. You have not only a reduced tax base — those are the people who have — but you have also the income which we tax, which is cash in progress, and the cash flow has been reduced. How many IWA workers were not earning this past year or two years?

MR. HANSON: How many raw logs did you export?

HON. MR. SCHROEDER: Thanks for reminding me; I'm coming to that.

How many IWA workers were not earning these past two years? What kind of effect does that have on budgetary planning? You have reduced cash flow, reduced income, reduced revenue to the province as well as the federal government, and you have to reduce expenditure.

I think that a budget that is responsible is a budget that has to be determined on the basis of a province's financial strength and not on wish lists, which I've been hearing a lot of in the last few days. Not on wish lists. Not even on former levels of expenditure. Not even on desirability, because some of the suggestions.... By the way, I want to commend the opposition, because there have been suggestions coming from there. Various members have said: "Why not this, why not this?" It's good stuff. But even on the basis of desirability you cannot create a budget in a year like 1984 when your revenues are drastically reduced. Desirable as those expenditures may have been, they must be deferred until such time as financial strength can be demonstrated. I've got to go one step further, and this part hurts even me: you cannot even let the basis of budgetary design be need. If you determine your expenditure for the following year based on need, without regard to financial strength, then you are destined to do to a greater degree what we had to do last year, and will be doing to our shame this year: deficit budgeting.

Mr. Speaker, why do we have a shortage of cash? Why is there a downturn? Why is the cash flow short of our expectation? Why do we have a reduced tax base? I think all of us on both sides of the House agree that when economic plans are changed in the middle of a fiscal period, whether that be a one-year or a five-year or a thirty-year period, whenever the plans are changed and unanticipated demand is made on our earning ability, you simply don't have enough dollars left over to do the things you did before and to pay the taxes you paid before, because — here it comes — you're in some instances paying twice as much interest as in the preceding year, just because somebody made a decision that you can control inflation by increasing interest rates. If you change the interest rate level on an agreed contract in the middle of that contract, then it distorts not just the terms of the contract but the cash that is available for you to buy the things you bought before and cannot now buy. If the interest rate on your home mortgage changes from 9 percent to 18 percent — as some did, I understand — your house payments are simply twice as big as they were before. If they were $500 before, now it's $1,000. It doesn't take too much time or too much intelligence to figure out that you now have $500 less to spend in any given month than you had before and, as a result, a shortage of cash flow.

I've said several times that I think there are other ways to control inflation than to affect contracts that are already in progress. If you wanted to put an impingement on the dollars available in order to control inflation — if you subscribe to the idea that too many dollars chasing too few goods is inflation — you could simply say that all new contracts will be let at an interest rate of 18 percent rather than 9 percent. What would be the end result of that? The purchaser would make the decision at that point as to whether or not purchasing would be done at that price, and you would have the control that you desire on inflation. But no, we had a federal government who saw fit to try to put the brakes on spending in Canada, who distorted the entire credit structure of our country, and we in British Columbia, along with everybody else in Canada, along with everybody else who traded with us, suffered to the same degree. And then we had a neighbour to the south of us who subscribed to the same theory: lo and behold, by raising their interest rates they slowed down their cash flow. and those on whom we depended for our export markets now said: "Wait till next year." It was the old Vancouver Canucks syndrome.

Interjections.

HON. MR. SCHROEDER: Well, they are a few points out of the basement anyway.

Mr. Speaker, if we want to have a responsible budget in a year like 1984, we have to have a budget that demonstrates a strong hand in control of expenditures so that we can contain the deficits. I want to tell you, it's not popular. It's tough to go to the farming community and say: "Some of the programs that we wish were in place for this year will have to be deferred until next year." You go to the farming community and say: "The ARDSA agreement, which ran out in July of last year. cannot be put in place for this year. There'll have to be a hiatus. Although the dollars will be spent during this fiscal year which were approved in the last fiscal year, there is no new program in place for this year. We'll have to wait until April 1985." That's not fun to say, but it's responsible. It's not a good feeling to go to people — who already fell into the category under point number 2, of having reduced cash flows in their own experience — and say to them: "We have to find ways to be food producers on a more efficient basis. It's not fun to say: "Instead of there being $400,000 in weed-control programs there can only be $200,000. Let's put our heads together and find out how for S200,000 we can put as much chemical on weeds as we used to do for $400,000. Let's see if we can find a way." That's not fun, but it's responsible.

[5:45]

The member for Prince Rupert said he decried the fact that this budget was a hold-the-line budget. He said holding the line is not a factor in a recovering economy. I suggest that holding the line is a factor in a recovering economy. You cannot, by paying no heed at all to economic facts, continue to spend yourself into a deficit position from which you cannot recover. There is a point of no return — even in provincial budgets. To say that holding the line is not a factor in a recovering economy is the same as the potato farmer making the decision that because he's got a shortage in cash flow he's going to have to sell his seed potatoes now so that he can support his habits now, and in spring find that the very

[ Page 3596 ]

seed potatoes that he needed for recovery are shot; they're gone.

There is a point of no return, and I want you to know that even the members opposite know what the point of no return was. In October 1975 those members opposite — some of them were here then — had to make the decision that there was a point of no return, even in expenditures. We recall that in October 1975 the memo went out: "We must reduce expenditures in the rest of this fiscal year..." — you remember it, Dennis — "...by 10 to 15 percent. We have gone beyond the point of no return." It even happened then.

Interjection.

HON. MR. SCHROEDER: Good stuff, Dennis.

If we wish to have responsible recovery, we must hold the line — yes. We must put a strong hand of control on expenditure — yes. But we must develop the market upon which our economy depends, on a competitive basis. We can't continually use tax dollars to pick up the shortfall between our cost of production and the market return. We can do it for a short while, and we have been doing it for a short while, and we've been doing it happily for a short while. But some commodity groups, to their embarrassment, are in the place now where they are in a deficit position, and they wonder whether or not they can recover. They are now questioning the concept that we can go on forever, selling for less than it cost us to produce, because the government will come along and pick up the shortfall.

In the short term it is possible, but in the long term we have to develop our markets on a competitive basis, and that's responsible. What's irresponsible? I don't have many minutes left. Let me tell you what's irresponsible. I have heard it in this House in the last few days. Somebody asked me about the logs. Are you ready? Here it comes.

The Ombudsman said: "It looks like there is a discrepancy of about $1.2 million between the report of one scaler and the report of another." Guess what I heard this exaggerated to? It was exaggerated from the $1.2 million over a number of years and debated in this House and represented to be $750 million, based on an alleged $1.2 million deficit over a short period. That shortfall is sent over a long enough period, and lo and behold: $750 million. It is a little like saying to my good buddy over here: "You made love last night between 11 o'clock and 12 o'clock. Now if you extended that for every hour for 24 hours, that means that you are now a 24-hour-a-day lover, and you made love 24 times in one day. If you can extend that over a long enough period, a full year, you have 365 days at this 25-times-a-day stuff. You have been a lover 8,760 times. My word, you're a sex maniac." I kid you not.

That's exactly the kind of extension which led to a $750 million shortfall. I'm sorry if it's interesting, but there it is. That is irresponsibility. Irresponsibility continues when somebody who is here as a scribe and who believes someone with as much credibility as the Leader of the Opposition prints it in the newspaper as though it were a fact. The press sucked that stuff up just like a calf at feeding time and printed it. That is irresponsible.

I had a few more points, but I think I'll leave them until tomorrow morning. I think, Mr. House Leader, if you'd give me permission, I would move adjournment of this debate until the next sitting of the House.

Motion approved.

Hon. Mr. Gardom moved adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

The House adjourned at 5:53 p.m.