[ Page 4151 ]

CONTENTS

Routine Proceedings

Oral Questions

Unemployment levels in B.C. Mr. Stupich –– 4151

Sale of B.C. Systems Corporation. Mr. Nicolson –– 4152

Sale of Pacific Coach Lines. Mr. Passarell –– 4152

Serving of court documents. Mr. Macdonald –– 4152

Investment incentives. Mr. Nicolson –– 4152

Education for the disabled. Mr. Rose –– 4152

RCMP report on Ministry of Tourism. Mr. Macdonald –– 4153

Pulp And Paper Collective Bargaining Assistance Act (Bill IS). Second reading.

Hon. Mr. McClelland –– 4153

Mr. Barrett –– 4154

Hon. Mr. Bennett –– 4157

Mr. Gabelmann –– 4159

Hon. Mr. McGeer –– 4164

Mr. Stupich –– 4167

Mr. Campbell –– 4170

Mr. Lockstead –– 4172

Mr. Segarty –– 4174

MONDAY, APRIL 2, 1984

The House met at 2:04 p.m.

Prayers.

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: Today in the gallery we have a British Columbia builder. I am pleased to welcome a friend, and on behalf of the member for North Vancouver–Seymour (Mr. Davis) and myself I would like to ask all of the House to welcome Mr. Guildo Vit.

MR. REID: Mr. Speaker, in your gallery today you have a young aggressive businessman rep from your constituency of Delta, Mr. Bill Sullivan, and accompanying him is one of my most gorgeous daughters, Gail Reid.

HON. MR. RITCHIE: Would the House please extend a welcome to Mayor James Rabbitt and his counsel and clerk, Leo den Boer, from Merritt.

MR. MOWAT: In the gallery this afternoon I have two special friends, Mr. Robert Morritt, who was with the federal Department of Indian Affairs but now is employed with the school board in Surrey, and his wife Brenda Morritt, who has just completed and obtained a government homemaker's certificate. I'd ask the House to make them both welcome.

MR. KEMPF: Mr. Speaker, in the members' gallery this afternoon from the Municipality of Fort St. James, that jewel of the north, are Mayor Russ Gingrich, Aldermen Alex Mitchell, Sandra Kovacs, Phil Lawrence and Frank Schroeder, and their clerk, Gary Williams. I would ask the House to make them all welcome.

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: Mr. Speaker, I'd like the House to help me welcome to our Legislature today a group of about 36 students from the Langley Secondary School in Langley. They are accompanied by two of their teachers, Mr. Charles McGill and Mr. Peter Good. Please make them welcome.

Oral Questions

UNEMPLOYMENT LEVELS IN B.C.

MR. STUPICH: Mr. Speaker, a question to the Minister of Finance. B.C. Central Credit Union published a report stating that the major deficiency in the budget — that's the February '84 budget — was the lack of any proposal to reduce record levels of unemployment. In the face of this further concern about the failure of this year's budget to deal with the number one economic and social problem in B.C., has the minister now decided to reconsider his budget proposals?

HON. MR. CURTIS: Mr. Speaker, to the hon. member for Nanaimo — and I say kindly that I know he has been absent from the House on a number of occasions — that question was pretty thoroughly canvassed in the course of the budget debate and in my remarks at the close of the debate, and in addition during debate on my estimates in Committee of Supply. The answer to the question is no; the budget which was prepared for and presented at the start of the fiscal year just now underway is one which I believe will prove to be worthy through the entire fiscal year for which it was designed.

MR. STUPICH: Mr. Speaker, in spite of the fact that I have been absent on other business, I've been well aware, having participated for several hours in the budget debate and in the debate on the minister's estimates; however, the minister produced a budget speech which failed to mention unemployment, let alone to deal with it. Is the minister at least prepared to examine reinstatement of the few pre-election job programs which were cynically chopped from the Social Credit program after May 5, 1983?

HON. MR. CURTIS: Mr. Speaker, I think the member is misinformed on some aspects of that question.

MR. STUPICH: Mr. Speaker, the election was on May 5? That's not one of the aspects on which I'm misinformed? I'd like to ask the minister, if I may, Mr. Speaker, on what items am I misinformed?

HON. MR. CURTIS: Mr. Speaker, that is for the member to determine. not me. If the member is misinformed on certain aspects of the budget, then any one of a number of us can be of assistance to him should his research staff be failing him again.

MR. STUPICH: Mr. Speaker, certainly one of the urgent questions in the province right now is unemployment. If I'm misinformed with respect to the minister's failure to mention unemployment in the budget speech, then I would appreciate some reference from him to where he did, indeed, deal with the problem of unemployment in the budget speech.

HON. MR. CURTIS: Mr. Speaker, I'm not sure that there was a question there.

MR. STUPICH: Do I have the minister's attention, Mr. Speaker?

HON. MR. CURTIS: Yes.

MR. STUPICH: One of the points I made was that unemployment is a serious problem.

HON. MR. CURTIS: Yes.

MR. STUPICH: And one of my statements was to the effect that the minister did not even mention the word, let alone deal with the problem. I ask him for a reference to the budget speech where indeed he did deal with the problem, or mention the word, so that I will know where I'm misinformed.

HON. MR. CURTIS: Mr. Speaker, it is....

MR. STUPICH: What page?

HON. MR. CURTIS: Mr. Speaker, do I have the member's full attention?

MR. STUPICH: I'm listening — rapt.

HON. MR. CURTIS: Okay. Great.

[ Page 4152 ]

Earlier I indicated that it is correct: the word "unemployment" was not mentioned in the budget speech. That's a matter of record for that member and for anyone who reads the budget. Nonetheless, I suggest that the member and others who have focused on that one omission of one word have overlooked the fact that the whole thrust of the budget for 1984-85 and indeed for 1983-84 — we've had two budgets since the last election, Mr. Speaker, as you well know — has been to create jobs in British Columbia and to ensure that jobs will remain for the future in British Columbia. I can be faulted for the omission of the word, but the thrust, the whole purpose, of the budget activities which this government has undertaken in the past two budgets has been to create the kind of employment climate which I believe the majority of British Columbians seek and which can be achieved as a result of our initiatives.

[2:15]

MR. STUPICH: Mr. Speaker, with an unemployment rate worse only in the province of Newfoundland, as far as Canada is concerned, I think it's well that the minister now says that he dealt with it.

May I ask how many new jobs were created in the province of British Columbia when he gave $470 million to BCR to pay for old debts, some of which are so old they'll not be due until the year 2005? How many jobs were created by what was one of the major proposals in the budget?

HON. MR. CURTIS: Mr. Speaker, I suggest, with respect, that that question is really a refighting of a debate which occurred in relation to the resource revenue stabilization fund bill, which has been given royal assent. If the member wants to separate the question, I'll be happy to assist. But I'm not going to refight a debate which has already been dealt with at length in this House.

SALE OF B.C. SYSTEMS CORPORATION

MR. NICOLSON: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Finance. Last Saturday, March 31, was the minister's deadline for the sale and liquidation of the B.C. Systems Corporation. Has the minister decided whom the government will award the contract to, and will he so advise the House?

HON. MR. CURTIS: Mr. Speaker, I have not yet decided, nor have I advised the government in that regard.

MR. NICOLSON: Has the minister decided whether he will be able to recover all of the current and long-term liabilities — some $80 million?

HON. MR. CURTIS: Mr. Speaker, the question is with respect to the B.C. Systems Corporation. Quite clearly, any recommendation that I carry to the Premier and my colleagues — and indeed, any recommendation which I'm sure they look favourably upon — would take into account the security of a public investment.

MR. NICOLSON: Is the minister giving assurance to the House that the B.C. taxpayers will not continue to be liable for mortgage payments, lease payments and other payables following the sale or liquidation of the B.C. Systems Corporation?

HON. MR. CURTIS: At this particular point in time that question is hypothetical. It may not be in a matter of weeks, but it is so now,

MR. NICOLSON: Has the minister decided to undertake a commitment to table in the House all contracts and agreements related to the sale of the B.C. Systems Corporation, on an urgent basis?

HON. MR. CURTIS: No, Mr. Speaker, I have not.

SALE OF PACIFIC COACH LINES

MR. PASSARELL: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Human Resources, who is responsible for transit in the province. The month before last the minister was asked to table contracts and other agreements pertaining to the sale of Pacific Coach Lines assets. Has the minister now located these documents, and is she prepared to table them in this House?

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: Mr. Speaker, as I responded the last time this question was brought to the House: when all the business surrounding the sale of the Pacific Coach Lines is completed, I will be pleased to file all documents pertaining to same in the House.

SERVING OF COURT DOCUMENTS

MR. MACDONALD: Mr. Speaker, I want to ask the Attorney-General about summonses and subpoenas out of the provincial court, because I am a little out of touch. Who is serving them today?

HON. MR. SMITH: You are occasionally out of touch, hon. member, but on this matter the reports that I have from across the province are that the police are serving the documents. The RCMP, which police parts of the province, were directed late last week to serve the documents and are doing so. The chiefs of police in areas that are served by municipal police boards were directed by me on Friday afternoon to commence serving those documents on April 1. That was done following a meeting with the mayors of the lower mainland in Vancouver, which the Minister of Municipal Affairs (Hon. Mr. Ritchie) and myself attended. At that meeting some of the mayors indicated that to have that course followed in their municipalities we would have to give a formal direction, so that direction was given by telex on Friday and the mayors were notified that same day. In every instance that has been reported to me, hon. member, today the serving of subpoenas and summonses is being done by the police.

INVESTMENT INCENTIVES

MR. NICOLSON: To the Minister of Universities, Science and Communications, Mr. Speaker. Dynatek Electronics Corporation announced last week that it could not find a major investor to participate in the proposed manufacturing in Victoria. This project seems to have fulfilled one purpose and that was to get people all excited about employment prospects during an election, but it has been a single failure in terms of the government strategy of attracting offshore dollars to invest in high-tech. What steps has the government taken

[ Page 4153 ]

to reconsider its approach to attracting qualified investment in view of the complete lack of positive results in this case?

HON. MR. McGEER: Mr. Speaker, what the government has done is to cooperate with the federal government to extend the deadline for Dynatek in the hope that they would be able to come up with the necessary capital investment to get this project underway. I think it's a great disappointment to the member opposite as well as to all people in this area of high unemployment that this project has not yet got underway, but we remain optimistic, and I think the best course one could take at the present time is one of patience.

EDUCATION FOR THE DISABLED

MR. ROSE: I have a question for the Minister of Education. It has to do with the termination of the provincial coordinator for services to disabled adults, effective August 1984. I'd like to ask the minister whether this indicates a lower priority in his department for such people as disabled adults.

HON. MR. HEINRICH: I would like to know the name of the person to whom the member refers, because there are more than one in the area of people who are disabled. But I might point out that if it's a gentleman to whom he refers, he was seconded to the Ministry of Education. He had fulfilled his contract, and I believe he has been employed by a school district — which shall remain nameless; it's no help now — within the province. This is certainly not at all any indication that we are not spending a great deal of time and money and involving a lot of personnel in that particular area.

MR. ROSE: For clarification for the minister, the person I'm speaking of is Dr. Cassidy, and he is probably unparalleled in terms of qualifications, acting as coordinator and coordinating the whole province for post-secondary education for disabled adults. That's why I wanted to know whether or not his mission is finished. It would certainly be regrettable if that were the case and there's no one else to take over his work.

HON. MR. HEINRICH: That's the gentleman to whom I was referring, and my understanding is that his contract had expired and he wished to be employed by a school district. That being the case, I think the member is entitled to an answer in greater detail, and I'd be quite prepared to seek further information and bring it back to the House.

MR. ROSE: I'm pleased that the minister has agreed to look into this, because it would be a shame either to consider the work finished or unnecessary again, or to feel that all progress towards this very important end will cease. This concern has been expressed by the B.C. Coalition of Disabled Persons. I don't think they would make that frivolously.

RCMP REPORT ON MINISTRY OF TOURISM

MR. MACDONALD: I have another question to the Attorney-General, to see if I can't do any better. The auditor-general's report on the Tourism ministry was referred to the RCMP for investigation. Has the Attorney-General made a decision as to when that report or its contents will be released to the public?

HON. MR. SMITH: Very soon, Mr. Speaker.

Orders of the Day

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

Leave granted.

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: Mr. Speaker, second reading of Bill 18.

PULP AND PAPER COLLECTIVE
BARGAINING ASSISTANCE ACT

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: Mr. Speaker, I stand in my place today to move second reading of the Pulp and Paper Collective Bargaining Assistance Act with very mixed feelings. I'm not going to take a long time in introducing seconding reading, because I know that many members in the Legislature wish to make their views known on both this piece of legislation and on the dispute itself.

I said that I have mixed feelings. All of us in this House, I'm sure, regret that tens of thousands of workers have been thrown out of work by the recent lockout in the pulp industry. As well, I'm sure we are all saddened by a labour relations climate that ultimately relies on the exceedingly blunt and exceedingly damaging weapons of lockouts or strikes. I am also disheartened that the opponents in this dispute have become so entrenched in their respective positions that they resisted, and in fact even rejected, the assistance offered privately by myself and by respected and experienced members of the labour relations community. It is not — and never will become — the policy of this government to legislate resumption of work in labour disputes.

I feel proud today to be part of a government that takes its responsibility seriously. I feel proud to be part of a government that can move to protect the public interest. I can assure you that the decision was taken with full knowledge of the impact of the action we are taking. We agonized over this decision, preferring always — and still preferring — that the parties themselves seek their own resolution. However, Mr. Speaker, we could not in the end escape the fact that the dispute was having a devastating effect on the economy of our province, especially in those communities heavily dependent upon the forest industry. Twelve thousand pulp workers were idled by management's decision to shut down its operations. Almost immediately thousands of woodworkers were also put out of work by secondary picketing. More workers were thrown off the job, as their woodchip supplies ballooned and clogged their sawmills. The towboat industry was nearly idled. Hundreds of companies providing service to the forest industry, in almost every community in British Columbia, were forced to lay off employees — many perhaps coming close to having to close their doors.

Mr. Speaker. all of this happened when many of these workers were enjoying their first work in months. Some hadn't worked in two years. As the forest industry is just now beginning to climb out of what we all know was a crippling recession, entire communities were thrust back to the brink of disaster. Port Alberni, Powell River and Mackenzie, to name just a few, are almost entirely dependent upon the forest industry, and they had just barely begun to recover from the devastating effects of the recession. The government made

[ Page 4154 ]

the hard choice and came down on the side of protecting those workers and those communities from further damage. There was no end in sight for this dispute, and we saw no hope that collective bargaining was going to achieve a resolution in any kind of reasonable time-frame. Meanwhile irreparable damage was being inflicted on workers, on communities and on our provincial economy.

[2:30]

In summary, this bill provides for the following: lifting of the lockout and recall of the workers, with resumption of operations within 72 hours; and the appointment of a special mediator, who will report on progress directly to me as Minister of Labour. All of us felt that this dispute was of sufficient severity and the resolution of sufficient importance that we named the chief mediator in the province to mediate this dispute — Mr. Clark Gilmour, who is the executive director of mediation services. Finally, it provides for the imposition of a settlement, should there be any further work stoppages or disruptions, whatever their origins — or should collective bargaining fail — following reports from Mr. Gilmour as mediator.

I feet extremely sad, Mr. Speaker, that the pulp unions in this dispute have chosen to ignore this law. The bill is very clear in that its responsibility came into force on March 30, 1984, and the workers should be back at work today. It's hard for me, I'm sure it's hard for members of this Legislative Assembly — and it sure is hard for members of the public — to understand how the pulp unions could be continuing to put their own members continually at risk and out of work. I am told that in membership votes at the various pulp union locals some of them are voting not to return to work, but some are voting overwhelmingly — as much as 90 percent — in favour of going back to work. And their union is not letting them go back. I don't understand that. I'm sure that the public doesn't understand that either.

Interjections.

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: Yes, I'm telling the truth. Mr. Speaker, I'm very surprised at some of the members opposite, especially the member for Mackenzie (Mr. Lockstead), whose constituency has more workers out of work, perhaps, than any other part of this province. And he doesn't care. I don't understand that. I can't understand it.

Interjections.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. All members will have an opportunity to take part in the debate.

MR. HANSON: Continue your provocation.

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: Mr. Speaker, the first member for Victoria says: "Continue your provocation." The kind of provocation that I've been talking about over the past several weeks has been: "Get back to the bargaining table. Get back to work." If you call that provocation, Mr. Member, then there is a warped sense of your own reality as well.

In this bill we appeal to the parties to settle their own differences, and we make the opportunity available for those parties to settle their own differences with the help of the top mediator in this province. Again now, in moving second reading, I appeal to the parties to get back to the table; I appeal to the leaders of the unions to remember their responsibility and where it lies. And where does it lie? It lies in their duty to their members; it doesn't lie in some hide-bound and outdated philosophy or in inter-union jealousy at the expense of the work of their members. I urge both sides in this dispute to think of their responsibilities: the employers to the employees, the union leaders to their union members. Think of those members and take the action that will find them back at work providing sustenance for their families.

In closing and in moving second reading of this bill, Mr. Speaker, I say: "Go back to work, and go back to the table."

MR. BARRETT: Mr. Speaker, is the minister leaving the impression with this House that at the moment we're debating this, the ordinary rank and file, men and women who are members of the unions involved, have completed a vote and have voted against this order? Is that what you're trying to leave with this chamber?

Mr. Speaker, at this very moment free citizens, men and women of this province who are members of the unions involved in the walkout, are meeting all over the province of British Columbia to determine, as free citizens in true conscience, what their response to this potential bill will be. But to leave the impression....

MR. REID: It's a bill.

MR. BARRETT: It's not a bill, my good friend. You may have a majority, but you must go through democratic form in this House. When a back-bencher thinks that just because a government introduces a bill it's law, that back-bencher doesn't understand what British parliamentary democracy is all about.

A bill was introduced Friday. The minister said that they agonized about the bill, and I believe that. I believe it too when the minister says that he has mixed feelings about it. But all of that argument disappears in a puff of illogic when that minister attempts to leave the impression at this moment in this chamber that an overwhelming vote has taken place by the men and women in that union to go back. Why? Yes, you did. Mr. Speaker, he deliberately left the impression in this House that a vote had been taken and that 90 percent of them wanted to go back to work.

I know of no vote taken place overall for the whole union. The meeting is taking place now. How does he know what the vote is? They haven't even voted yet. He says they're breaking the law. Has anybody seen the L-G come in here and tip his hat to this bill yet? The anxiety that the minister has and the mixed feelings he has are because he's worried that the unions may vote to go back to work, and this bill won't be necessary, and the political clout won't be used. That's what's going on over there.

AN HON. MEMBER: That would be great.

MR. BARRETT: If that would be great, then adjourn the debate and wait six hours for them to vote. You stalled and dilly-dallied and fudged and hummed around and beat around the bush for eight weeks. Mr. Speaker, I've been around here a long time. If this were a strike, they'd be up screaming about the terrible, dangerous trade-union leaders. I haven't heard one word of irresponsibility against the companies who brought in the lockout that we're dealing with

[ Page 4155 ]

here — not one murmur from the minister about the companies making the immoral decision to go with a lockout when negotiations were still going on. I think it should be clear, to record the history of this government, the circumstances and where we are today — exactly today. I think you have to understand that on February 2, when that lockout was imposed, there were negotiation meetings set up and ready to go. The company made the decision to lock out; it's not a strike. I have never yet heard the rhetoric about company boards of directors not giving the poor little shareholders the right to vote.

Interjection.

MR. BARRETT: Not on your life. The attitudes of that government are schizophrenic. When the lockout was imposed, there was no director-bashing, as there is union leader-bashing when there's a strike. So let's put that in perspective.

Number two: two solid months went by. Can the minister tell this House when the last time was that he met with both sides? Was it within the last ten days? Was it within the last five days? What efforts were made by that minister up to the final minute? Did the minister have both parties in his office the day before this bill was introduced? Not to my knowledge. Did he have them in his office two days before it was introduced? Not to my knowledge. Did he have them in within a week? Not to my knowledge. Mr. Speaker, I find it almost unbelievable that at 18 minutes to 3 o'clock this afternoon, while the meetings are going on all over this province, while the men and women concerned are attempting democratically, within the membership of their union, to make a decision, the government would bring the bill in and attempt to play politics, because that's all that's going on right now.

I want to tell you, Mr. Speaker, I believe in the right of free citizens in a free society to make up their own minds freely when faced with a choice. That choice is in front of them now.

Interjections.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. All members will have an opportunity to speak in this debate. At the present time the Leader of the Opposition has the floor and, as such, is entitled to speak uninterrupted.

MR. BARRETT: Mr. Speaker, we were left with the impression by the minister that he has been working day and night to get a solution on this. Now, when a solution is in sight, he has decided to use the hammer for political purposes. Is the minister not aware that the meetings are going on now?

HON. MR. BRUMMET: What prompted them?

MR. BARRETT: I understand what prompted them. I mentioned what prompted them. The threat of this bill prompted those meetings. No one disputes that. Now that the meetings are starting, and now that the threat — if that was its purpose — has worked, why are you going ahead with the bill? If you had anxiety, if you said you had mixed feelings and you used the bill Friday to prompt this, then why don't you wait another few hours for the vote? The only reason you're not waiting for the vote, Mr. Speaker, is now you're playing politics with it rather than letting democracy function.

If this government were sincere, if this government were serious, the minister would get up and say: "I will wait three hours for the results of that vote that is now taking place around this province." Mr. Speaker, after eight weeks, what is the urgency of these last three hours, other than straight politics. from the government's point of view? Surely to goodness another three hours, after eight weeks, isn't that crucial — except that it's crucial politically. It's crucial politically because the government has decided that it will make a decision before ordinary citizens of this province have a chance to make the decision based on the threat that was given them on Friday.

There's a minister who admits publicly that it was used as a threat — what brought them together. Fair enough. If that's the course the government wishes to take, fair enough. I appreciate the frank admission that you didn't call the bill on Friday. You hoped they'd get their act together. That's fair enough. Three hours to go and now you call the bill. It's illogical, unless you're playing politics. And I think you're playing politics. If those men and women are meeting in every corner of this province to vote now, what is it...?

[2:45]

Interjection.

MR. BARRETT: Let them speak in a free society and say what they feel before you bring in this bill.

Mr. Speaker, I find it really interesting that the minister is saying: "Vote on what?" Does he mean to say that he hasn't met with both sides over the weekend to clarify this? Has he made an effort to find out what they intend to do? Instead, he came into this House and said: "Vote on what?" He's the one who said in this House that 90 percent had voted to go back to work. If he's asking me what they vote on, how come he announced the results before they've even finished voting?

"What are they voting on?" It's right there in Hansard, Mr. Speaker. Anxiety? Mixed feelings? It's all politics.

Let no citizen in this province misunderstand the sequence of events and what is going on at this moment. The companies imposed a lockout. The unions wanted to negotiate. Two months went by, the companies were threatened with a bill, they lifted the lockout, the unions are meeting today to discuss the bill, and before the rank-and-file union members can have a vote to decide in the same way that the companies voted, the minister is attacking the trade union leaders and not even giving the members the right to vote in their communities. Think about that. You would think about it if you were a doctor, a lawyer, a teacher or an old-age pensioner. This is 1984, and this is the first Orwellian bill that we're going to deal with — and it happens here in Victoria, British Columbia. It's 12 minutes to 3, the meetings are going on out there in those communities, and you still want this bill debated now without working men and women having the right to make up their own minds first.

Interjection.

MR. BARRETT: "What about the soup lines?" The first time you mention the soup line is because you missed lunch. That's exactly what they're voting on. Mr. Speaker, I will not call any back-bencher a dumbbell, but if I could, it would be appropriate to point out to a certain member that that's exactly

[ Page 4156 ]

what they're voting on now. Let free people vote the way they want to vote out there in the community.

Interjection.

MR. BARRETT: The minister himself announced it — that's how I know. Are you saying that the minister is a liar? Shame on you! You're in enough trouble as it is. Don't go around calling the minister a liar on top of it. You should have your hand spanked, if not anything else, but don't you call the minister a liar. I won't stand for that.

MR. SPEAKER: Nor will the Chair, hon. member.

MR. BARRETT: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

AN HON. MEMBER: Try speaking on the bill.

MR. BARRETT: I am speaking on the bill. In this bill there's no cooling-off period, which I've always believed in and spoken for. Mr. Member, I believe people should have the right to vote — right when they're meeting now — and not have something rammed down their throats.

Interjections.

MR. BARRETT: I appeal to you, Mr. Speaker.

Interjection.

MR. BARRETT: What did the Liberal Party tell you before you joined the Socreds, or do you remember? When I get interruptions from people who have principles that change on the basis of polls, that doesn't bother me too much. But one principle that is immutable in democracy is that people have the right to vote in face of the law. Why isn't that taking place now? Sure, they've got a majority....

Interjection.

MR. BARRETT: Oh, I don't mind the interruptions; I don't mind the pettiness. You're a Dynatek supporter, aren't you? Did you buy shares in it?

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please, hon. members.

MR. BARRETT: Mr. Speaker, I prefer to believe that when the minister said that he had mixed feelings about this, that they had agonized about this, he'd give an explanation why he couldn't wait until 6 o'clock tonight to hear what the vote was. What are you afraid of? Are you afraid that the men and women involved will vote to go back to work and to the bargaining table? I believe that is exactly what this government is afraid of, and that is why they're trying to ram this bill through this afternoon. This government doesn't want the problem solved this afternoon; as a matter of fact, the problem may be solved before they get this vote through, and that will be very embarrassing to them.

MRS. JOHNSTON: Call the vote and see, then.

MR. BARRETT: They're very anxious to call the vote, aren't they? Their biggest concern over there is that the men and women involved may go back to work before this bill is passed.

Interjection.

MR. BARRETT: Where was I for the last eight weeks? I've been on television and radio asking what the government was stalling for? If this were a strike, there'd be inflammatory statements from the government the length and breadth of this province. This was lockout.

Interjections.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. Hon. members, we will continue with orderly debate in this chamber.

MR. BARRETT: I've never seen such aroused passion at such a high level of intelligence from the government in a long time. Their overwhelming interjections lead one to believe that they have an impassioned commitment to get this through before 6 o'clock, before the problem resolves itself. That would ruin the whole public relations gambit of last week if the workers went back to work on their own. The problem would be solved. They'd be going back to voluntary negotiation under the threat of this bill. That's not what they want. They want to be in a position to say that politics overwhelmed the free vote of working men and working women. That's what they want. Absolutely. Why else won't you wait another three hours?

I ask you, Mr. Minister: are another three hours going to make all that difference to you, except for politics? Is there a crucial three hours that this government is going to stand or fall on, that you can't wait for that vote? If you have really agonized.... If you really have mixed feelings, then get up and say: "We'll wait until the vote is over." Get up and say that.

Interjections.

MR. BARRETT: Mr. Speaker, if I may interrupt the meeting that is going on down there.... All I can do is advise the members to watch out from being clipped.

Interjection.

MR. BARRETT: If you think this is such a funny matter, then get out of the chamber. If you're not prepared to sit in silence, then you should be ashamed of yourself. If you think this kind of legislation is some kind of joke, you simply don't understand what we're dealing with here. What you're saying in this legislation is Orwellian. What you're saying is: "We will tell you what to say or do or think, even though you're in the midst of a vote." Three hours doesn't make a tinker's damn of difference in terms of what's already been lost. But as a matter of principle, three hours makes the difference as to whether or not people are going to obey the law and behave themselves in an orderly, rational fashion because they believe due process has taken place. But when you come in and deny due process, you create hypocrisy and cynicism about the very system that we govern ourselves by, and that does more damage in the long run than even this labour-management dispute. If you create an atmosphere out there where people as free citizens are irrelevant, if you deliberately create an atmosphere that somehow how they feel or how they

[ Page 4157 ]

vote or what they want doesn't matter, then you destroy the very system that we hope will bring law and order to the rest of society. This is a very serious issue. There is no imperative that this government has that they shouldn't wait another three hours.

I believe that some members of this chamber simply do not understand the history, the logic and the reason for the parliamentary democracy we have. It stems back to the vote. People are voting now in face of the threat of this law that the minister said was there. Certainly it's threatened them into the vote. Let them vote, and let's see the results before we go ahead with that.

Interjection.

MR. BARRETT: Do I believe what I say? Is it a fact that those members are now meeting all over this province taking a vote? Is it a fact that the minister left the impression in this House that they were voting 90 percent to go back to work? Is it a fact that the minister left the impression with this House in his opening remarks that they were voting to go back to work? That's what he said. If he knows that, then why is he ramming the bill through? Because he's in a hurry. For political purposes.

What is the import of this bill if we're still debating it at 6 o'clock and they decide to go back to work? Then what? Then are you going to go ahead with it? That's a good question. If they vote to go back to work, and they go back to the bargaining table under the mediator and this bill is still rammed through, then the purpose is to threaten the negotiating situation that they set up in the first place. That can be a terrible misinterpretation, but if this haste is pursued, that will be the interpretation by many citizens in this province. Three hours until the 6 o'clock adjournment to prove whether or not your statement of having anxiety or mixed feelings about it is actually a fact. Three hours after eight weeks is hardly the end of the world, but three hours makes the difference between whether or not a significant number of men and women in this province believe in this parliamentary system or will end up believing they've been used politically by a government that is cynical, and who announced today that they were already voting to go back to work, even in your opening remarks. Mr. Speaker, has any effort been made to find out when those results will be made available? Does the minister have a network available and waiting at the end of the telephone to get him the information so that he knows whether to proceed with the bill?

I have seen people go back and forth on the floor of this chamber on the basis of political principles that have wavered, day by day, according to the political party they intend to belong to. A significant number of those members used to belong to the Liberal and Conservative Parties, but even when they were Liberals and Conservatives they still believed that free citizens had the right to make the choice. They believed in the principle of subsidiarity: least government as possible at the bottom level; let democracy function. But today for three hours they are playing politics for their own unknown purposes, pushing this bill before the vote is taken.

AN HON. MEMBER: Why are they doing that?

MR. BARRETT: I don't know why they're doing it, but three hours is not going to make the end of the world.

I'd like to test the government's sincerity. I'd like to test whether or not you really have mixed feelings, and whether or not you really agonized over this. I move adjournment of this debate until the next sitting of the House so that free men and women can vote before this goes through.

[3:00]

Motion negatived on the following division:

YEAS — 18

NAYS — 29

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

HON. MR. BENNETT: I was hoping the Leader of the Opposition would remain, because I have some remarks to address to his statement, which I consider to be one which is not only wrong but evasive, hardly in keeping with their own history in government, and hardly one which will help ease the industrial relations climate in this province or get our people back to work.

The Leader of the Opposition would persuade you that somehow there is a vote going on amongst the pulp and paper workers which relates to this bill or to their industrial dispute. He also would suggest that somehow it would be conventional practice when government, after not weeks but months, steps in to help resolve a dispute in which both parties appear unable to come to any contractual agreement for the benefit of the employees, the companies, the province or the country. I look back to when I was in opposition. The Leader of the Opposition was then Premier. He had also been Minister of Finance for most of that period, and as Minister of Finance was used to bringing in bills that were retrospective in nature and had a fixed date. Tax measures that he introduced — and that any Finance minister introduces — carried such wording. The bill introduced last Friday has as its commencement that "this act shall be deemed to have come into force on March 30. 1984," which is no different than many other bills that have been introduced in this House, and that were supported by the members opposite from time to time.

Let me go back to a bill that was introduced by Bill King on October 7, 1975, called the Collective Bargaining Continuation Act. In Journals for that date we find: "The Hon.

[ Page 4158 ]

W.S. King presented to Mr. Speaker a message from His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor, which read as follows: The Lieutenant-Governor...transmits herewith Bill (No. 146) intituled Collective Bargaining Continuation Act and recommends the same to the Legislative Assembly." In effect, it ordered an end to a dispute in the forest industry. There was a 30-minute recess and it was then asked that the House advance and move that bill — not after a weekend, but that very day — through all three stages. We passed that bill, all three stages, the very day it was introduced. It was at that time.... In introducing that bill or requesting the cooperation of the opposition, I don't recall them suggesting that the bill that ended the dispute must be voted on by the companies or unions in the forest industry, and such was not the case. There was no vote dealing with this bill. The bill ended the dispute. This Legislature, by an act of this Legislature, ended the dispute.

MR. SKELLY: It did not end the dispute.

HON. MR. BENNETT: You're right, it didn't end it. It only suspended the dispute for the term of the election, which you lost anyhow. I can remember the resolution being effectively handled after there was a new government in this province.

This bill was introduced because these members in the pulp industry have been negotiating — or not negotiating on both sides or at least negotiating where there is some chance of a success — since last year. During that period the IWA and the forest companies representing that side of the forest industry came to an agreement without disruption, concluded that agreement to the satisfaction of both management and labour, and yes, when there was an agreement to vote on, the members voted and they voted in favour of that agreement. All during that period and through the winter and now into spring an agreement could not be achieved with this side of the forest industry. A number of weeks ago, after a long time, the employers locked out. I do not support them in their lockout, as I don't support people when I think that there is a better way rather than an industrial disruption. Strikes and lockouts hurt everyone. Strikes and lockouts are nothing more than self-interest. They are not in the public interest. They're not in society's interest. They are part of the collective bargaining process and part of the hammer, but see them for what they are. A penalty is paid by more than those involved in the dispute. Today we see society, our province, all of our people, communities hurting as a result of this lockout and this lack of resolution after many, many months and plenty of opportunity to settle it. The other side of the forest industry was able to come to terms. This bill ends the lockout. It ends the shutdown. This bill must be passed, whether votes taken within the union membership — on whether they're going to obey this law or not — are yes or no.

The Leader of the Opposition in his statements clearly shows two things: he either doesn't understand the bill or the situation or his caucus is so completely divided in having to deal with this matter that they'll seek the slimmest of threads in order to prevent this legislation from being discussed and being voted on in this Legislature.

This legislation is to be passed whether or not the employers have lifted their lockout. This legislation must and will be passed whether or not there is a vote to obey it. This legislation provides that the people and the plants in those communities will be working again. They will stop penalizing themselves, the companies to the tune of $8 million a day, earnings into this province that don't stick just with them but get spread around this province to suppliers, to government — local, provincial and federal — and into the retail and service industries. They can stop denying themselves $2 million in wages and benefits a day. They can stop, and this bill will stop, the penalties being suffered by the communities in which the forest industry is perhaps the only economic base they have. The Minister of Labour made a partial list of some of them. Everybody in British Columbia is impacted in some way by this industrial dispute — strike or lockout, it's a shutdown.

[3:15]

That shutdown not only affects us now but has the ability to affect our economic recovery or how we grow in the future. Customers for British Columbia pulp are interested in reliability of supply and long-term contracts. The international market is competitive, not just from pulp suppliers within Canada and the United States but from around the world, in which there is plenty of competition and in which British Columbia and Canada have to earn the right to maintain the market share we already have, let alone try to increase that market share as we must in the future if we are to increase employment in this province, as we wish to do. All of that is important. That's why it's important that this dispute be resolved.

The Minister of Labour said that reluctantly the government brought in this bill. It was with reluctance. In all the years since we've been government we have not brought in a bill of this manner. That's getting on to the completion of nine years.

I heard a snort from the member for New Westminster (Mr. Cocke). In the three and a half years that they were government — or 1,200 days, whatever it works out to — they introduced a number of bills that they say brought resolution or ended disputes. To suggest that we've used it lightly once in nine years, when they used it many times in three and a half, is a little bit ridiculous when one considers that the Leader of the Opposition is the person making that suggestion. It is used lightly because the Legislature and parliament should not become the tool or the final resolution to industrial disputes.

But quite frankly, as much as we couldn't, the economy has difficulty dealing with industrial shutdowns of our most basic resource in good times or moderate times. In these times — these tough times — when the market is more competitive, when people have hurt and have been hurting enough, it becomes absolutely necessary that the government step in when the parties have clearly demonstrated that they do not have the ability to end the dispute themselves. Both management of the companies and the labour union leaders almost publicly confessed that they could not come to resolution. Certainly they demonstrated it by their actions or lack of an agreement. But obviously, as I said the other day, tactics had become more important than matters of substance. The unwilling victims of all of this dispute or lack of resolution were the people of British Columbia, now and perhaps well into the future.

[ Page 4159 ]

This bill ends the dispute. It says that within 72 hours of March 30, 1984, the companies must have ended their lockout and the workers gone back to work, and that the government will introduce a mediator — our chief of mediation services — to assist them in that resolution. The bill provides that that mediator shall work with those parties to end that dispute by agreement, and at the same time end the punitive actions that this industrial dispute — a lockout; now perhaps, at least for today, a strike — has inflicted on members and communities in this province. It ends that and sets the stage and the mechanism for a resolution. It doesn't wait on any vote of members out there now. It is this bill that forced the companies to end their lockout. The same ruling applies to the members, that they must go to work. Any vote they may be conducting today is not on a settlement. It's not on an offer and a settlement that will end the dispute, or settle the matter; it's only whether they will obey this law. The factories are open for them to go to work because the companies have obeyed the law. They should be advised that they are only penalizing themselves by taking bad advice not to go to work today. They penalize themselves another day's pay. They penalize their communities a little bit more. You ask if they set out to bloody the nose of the companies and say that $8 million today is going to teach them. That $8 million is important to every British Columbian, because it spreads out across this province and touches everyone.

The Leader of the Opposition was quite wrong. I was disappointed. I had thought that in his leaving he could be straightforward and use the same rationale he used when he was Premier of this province and tried to end industrial disputes which in his judgment had got out of hand and could not be resolved by the parties and were becoming unacceptable to British Columbia. He could have done that. He isn't on the horns of a dilemma, as the leadership candidates in that party are now. He isn't the one, such as the member for Prince Rupert (Mr. Lea), who is saying that that party has been held captive too long by organized labour and a few union leaders and they should divorce themselves. It will be interesting to hear what he has to say. He doesn't have that problem. He doesn't have the problem of the member for Alberni (Mr. Skelly), who is taking a different line but will have to justify anything he says to a community that's been very hard-hit because of the shutdown and the lack of jobs that affects that whole community. It will be interesting to hear his remarks and those of a number of other opposition members — but not the Leader of the Opposition, who is leaving.

When he was Premier I listened to the Leader of the Opposition as he made arguments to end a dispute. As Leader of the Opposition I could have squirmed like the members on the other side are doing, and I could have opposed for opposition's sake; but we chose to support the government of that day, because it was just as unacceptable to us to see those people hurting and to see what was happening in the communities. If it was important and desirable then, today it is a necessity. The recession has hurt enough. It hurt in 1982 and in 1983. Do we want to make that hurt a permanent condition in this province? If we do, then all we have to do is get a reputation as unreliable international suppliers, and people won't buy our products. If we get a reputation for being industrially unstable, they won't do business with us. They don't need to. We've got to earn our position. If we get a reputation for instability and radicalism....and you can help with your self-fulfilling prophecy over there. You might think it's your one way back to power if things will continue to be tough in British Columbia, and you're darned right. If you agree with that as a strategy, then in fact you're right. We can have a permanent recession in this province. And if you support that, then I've got to say there are more than philosophical differences between you and me.

Make no mistake about the issue, Mr. Speaker. It is not a matter of delaying the vote or the bill; the bill must pass. The bill is what has brought the promise of an end to the dispute. The bill is what has ended the lockout and given the opportunity for those communities to get going again, to start selling our product, in what may be a short space of time. We see once again that the failure of the U.S. and Canadian federal governments to end their deficits is causing interest rates to rise again. The housing boom may end in the U.S., and we may have a very short respite indeed for our workers in the forest industry in all its aspects.

Mr. Speaker, I urge all members to support this bill. I urge all members — who may have been led a little astray by the Leader of the Opposition saying what he thinks the bill says — to now take the time to read and understand what the bill is all about. If that bill isn't enough for members opposite, I will send them the Collective Bargaining Continuance Act of 1975 to give them some of the similarities, and the type of mood in the Legislature that day when they wanted to push the bill through all three stages in just a few hours on the day of introduction. I would say to all members on both sides of this House that British Columbia is watching to see if you are going to vote for people to be able to go to work, for companies to be able to produce, and for prosperity to start edging upwards again in our province. They will be watching to see whether or not you are in favour of that. Mr. Speaker, I support this bill.

Interjections.

MR. GABELMANN: Perhaps if I speak quietly, people might listen. In my comments today I want to outline in some detail what the official opposition thinks about this bill. I also want to respond to a number of the comments made by both the Minister of Labour and the Premier. I will begin by saying to the Legislature that the official opposition finds unacceptable three matters of principle that are contained in this bill, and as a result of the provision of those three principles in this legislation the official opposition will be voting against Bill 18.

[Mr. Pelton in the chair.]

The first of those principles is the imposition by legislation of the termination of, in this case, a lockout — it could have been a strike; the principle is the same — when clearly all other remedies that might have been available, short of legislative interference, had not been attempted. Later in my comments I want to discuss at least four specific initiatives that the government failed to take, which, in mv view, any government must take prior to the imposition of legislation to end a work stoppage when there is no threat, as in this case, to life.

[3:30]

The second principle that the official opposition finds reprehensible is contained in section 9 of the bill, which we'll deal with in some detail when we go to committee. That principle is that the cabinet is permitted, in fact authorized, to

[ Page 4160 ]

write the terms and conditions of the collective agreement. That, Mr. Speaker, is unprecedented in this province. It is unprecedented to have contained in legislation a provision whereby the cabinet could, if it chose — I'm not suggesting it will — impose a 20-year agreement on the pulp industry, with a zero percent increase in each of those 20 years.

Interjections.

MR. GABELMANN: I didn't say the government would do it; but the legislation allows it. When we debate legislation in this House, Mr. Member for Shuswap-Revelstoke (Mr. Michael), we have to understand what the legislation can allow a government to do, or any other agency that might be empowered to do something as a result of the legislation. I'm going to go into more detail later on those specific issues.

The third principle in this bill that is unacceptable to the official opposition is contained in section 14, in the retroactivity component of the bill. In effect, the government is saying that because they introduced a bill and it passed first reading on Friday, therefore it is the law of the land. Parliaments in the British parliamentary system have always accepted the principle that when it comes to tax measures — some, not all — there needs to be a retroactivity clause in order to prevent people's ability to profit from decisions ahead of time. In that respect no parliamentarian that I know of in the British parliamentary system disagrees with retroactivity for those specific tax measures. This is not a tax measure. There is no cause whatsoever for retroactive legislation of this kind, except in the narrow scope of those tax measures.

Later in my comments I intend to expand on each of those three components of the legislation, not in the detail that we'll do in committee when we go through each section, but in some detail about the principle involved in each of those issues.

Before going into that, I want to react to some of the comments made by both the Premier and the Minister of Labour. I will not do it in its logical order, because I haven't had time to prepare it in logical order; rather, I'll do it in the order in which they presented it, which, in both cases, was not logical.

The Premier talked about retroactivity in terms of tax measures. I've already mentioned that. He talked about a comparison with Bill 146. Everyone in this House and in this province who follows these matters closely knows that in 1975 I took a different position from my colleagues in the New Democratic Party on the introduction of Bill 146. Nevertheless, whatever my views are or were on Bill 146, there are no comparisons to be made between Bill 146 and Bill 18. Whatever one thinks of Bill 146 in 1975 — I'm not going to get into that discussion — it was legislation to impose a cooling-off period during which time bargaining could presumably take place and settlements could be reached. There was no imposition of a collective agreement by the Legislature in that case. The Premier talked about the fact that we introduced that bill on October 7, and while not naming the date, he said that they were elected on December 11 and were in power, I guess, by about December 22, and then they solved the problem. Mr. Speaker, under parliamentary rules I'm not allowed to say what that statement is, but it's certainly not factual. What solved the problem in each of the four different areas under the legislation — it was not just the forest industry as the Premier seems to think; it was much broader than that — was that in one industry they almost had an agreement anyway. In another industry.... In one industry the negotiations were within a few weeks of a settlement, and they achieved it. A settlement was reached in the pulp industry as a result of the introduction of the AIB by the federal government. In fact, the pulp workers had to go — the Premier forgets this — and make a special presentation to the AIB to be asked to be exempted from the guidelines that were imposed by those rules, because if they were to be included in the AIB, they would not then have had a settlement comparable to what was agreed to in the rest of the woods industry. For the Premier to say that it was his government, following their election in December 1975, which solved that dispute is, as I say, a word that I can't use in this House.

Interjection.

MR. GABELMANN: It was highly inaccurate.

The Premier spent some time talking about the necessity for this kind of legislation because of the economy. He tried to set up a false dichotomy between the government and the opposition, implying that if you weren't in favour of this legislation, you were therefore axiomatically in favour of having further bad economic times in British Columbia. One of the things — I'll get into this in some detail a bit later — that the Premier doesn't understand is that while it's possible there may be some short-term economic good as a result of the pulp mills being forced to go back, he doesn't seem to understand that there will undoubtedly, unfortunately, be some long-term economic troubles and bad economic times. When I say "long-term," I'm talking about the next 10 or 15 years. Negotiations between the pulp industry and the pulp unions in this province have been poisoned for a variety of reasons — some to do with government, some to do with internal problems and many to do with other factors, which I don't intend to go into. Those relations have been difficult, to put it mildly, in recent years. I predict, with immense sorrow, that this bill will entrench that situation. It will create more strikes and lockouts in future years, which may well have been prevented without this kind of action. It's the kind of comment I made in 1975. I believed it then, I think my predictions were borne out subsequently and I make the same prediction today. For the Premier to try to establish that this debate is about whether we want to repair the economy of this province — if you are in favour of repairing the economy you vote for the bill; if you aren't you vote against it — is a false issue, not from any political rhetoric, but simply from a careful analysis of what happens in collective bargaining. When one party or the other comes to expect that they can have their interests protected, or they can have their position bailed out by expecting government interference, then you never have true collective bargaining.

I believe that's what has happened this time. The companies imposed their lockout on February 2. The price of pulp was low. While I don't assume that it was an unanimous vote among the Pulp and Paper Bureau, nevertheless it became unanimous because it was a majority. Some companies benefited greatly initially, because of some competitive factors between those companies in terms of the ability to market certain of their products, which in some cases were being produced outside of British Columbia during the lockout. So there were a lot of politics being played inside the pulp bureau over this issue, but they all had one common interest: to drive up the price of pulp, which they've succeeded in doing. I am

[ Page 4161 ]

not suggesting that the price of pulp has gone up simply because there has been a lack of supply. There are other factors. But it's a major component. And now, when the price has gone up effective April 1, and the companies know a few days or weeks before that it is going to go up, what do they do? They send their lobbyists to the government, and say: "Please bail us out of this situation, will you?" We all saw the lobbyists around the buildings. I talked to some of them, and they were honest enough to tell me what they wanted. They wanted an end to the lockout because there was $1 million a day in additional revenue starting April 1 that they were not going to receive — on top of their normal revenue. Now that's what happened, but the problem in this case is that the pulp bureau knew that they could initiate a lockout and wouldn't have to go through the embarrassing or difficult procedure of lifting that lockout when the time was appropriate. They could count on the government. That has become the tradition in this industry, and now that it's been done again it will become even more entrenched and even more the tradition in the industry.

I'm not suggesting that it is one-sided. I suggest to you that the unions will feel the same way: they will expect government intervention. What motivation then exists for bargaining through to a conclusion of the collective agreement? Not very much, particularly when the issues are difficult, as they are at the moment. So I make those comments in response to the Premier's attempts to make this debate over an issue which it really isn't. If he wants to engage in that kind of debate, I would argue that not introducing this legislation is better for the economy — not in April 1984, maybe; maybe not even for the rest of 1984; but unquestionably for the long-term economic interests of that industry and this province. Unquestionably the introduction of this legislation will have long-term impacts detrimental to the economy of this province, and I don't think the Premier understands that.

The Premier talked about the fact that in 1975 the NDP government introduced and passed the legislation all in one day under section 81, I think it was, of the rules of order. I'm not very happy about legislation being passed all in one day. I agreed to it in 1975, and so did the opposition of the day; we all agreed and it was done by leave. But debating a bill in three stages in one day is a lot preferable to debating legislation after it is deemed to become law. I would choose the one day debate any time over any issue before I would choose the route whereby this Legislature, on Monday afternoon, is debating a bill which is presumed to have been in place on Friday, March 30, and presumed to have gone into effect in terms of its specific application at midnight, Sunday, April 1.

What happens if the Legislature doesn't agree to this bill or changes the dates? I thought legislatures made laws, not cabinets. I thought legislatures made them.

MRS. WALLACE: Not any more in B.C.

MR. GABELMANN: Then the Premier said — this is the last of the comments that I want to pick up from the Premier — with feigned seriousness.... I have forgotten his exact words, but using my words: "We do this with a heavy heart. We don't do it happily. We don't like to do this kind of thing. We have only done it once in nine years. The opposition did it many times in their three and a half years." The opposition did it twice in their three and a half years, and on both occasions the Premier voted for those bills. If he thought what the NDP was doing when it sent the firefighters back to work in 1974 or what the NDP did in 1975 was so wrong, why did he vote for those bills?

[3:45]

Those are my reactions to what the Premier said. Now to the Minister of Labour's statements. This won't take so long.

My first comment is that I was absolutely astounded that the minister did not present a rationalization for the bill. He gave no history of the dispute; he gave no history of his involvements in efforts to resolve the dispute. He took ten minutes — the first five minutes to say, in effect, "I don't like doing this kind of thing, but we have to," and the last five minutes to attack the unions. That was not a reasonable presentation of a bill, especially a bill of such import as this one. There's no doubt in my mind whatsoever that if the Minister of Education (Hon. Mr. Heinrich) were still Minister of Labour, he would at least have spent 20 or 25 minutes giving a rationalization for it.

AN HON. MEMBER: You understand the rationalization; it's pretty straightforward.

MR. GABELMANN: I do, but people in the province have a right to expect an explanation from the Minister of Labour as to why he found it necessary to resort to the final and ultimate weapon in labour relations, and he did not give that.

I must say that I was not at all pleased, and I don't think any member of this House should be pleased, by the references to the two unions and 26 locals involved having voted — in some cases by 90 percent — to go back to work. There are still votes being taken. There are some meetings; the last of them may now be in progress, at ten minutes to four. The results of the vote will likely be known at around five o'clock. Not one of us has any crystal ball. I'm sure we can all make guesses, but none of us know what the result of that vote will be. It will be announced when it's counted. I know the government would prefer to have the announcement before they count. To go into that kind of diatribe and attack against the trade union movement, which is involved in what is, I think, a responsible activity — having its membership vote on their reaction to this legislation — does nothing whatsoever to improve labour relations in this province.

I've always thought that one of the primary and most fundamental responsibilities that the Minister of Labour has is to attempt to improve labour relations, not to set himself up as a guy who clearly chooses one side over the other. We saw no ringing attacks on the boards of directors or the Pulp and Paper Bureau, but we saw an attack against trade unionists who are involved in the democratic process of having meetings.

His final rhetorical statements in his conclusion urged both sides to think of their responsibilities and appealed to the parties to get back to the table: "Go back to work; go back to the table." I think one needs to ask the minister: short of that kind of ringing declaration, what did he do?

At this point I leave the subject of my reaction to the minister's comments and deal with the principles in the bill that I outlined at the beginning of my comments. In beginning his debate, the minister said that he introduced the bill with "mixed feelings, saddened by labour relations which rely on strikes or lockouts." I'm not quoting precisely, but I'm quoting my notes on what I heard him say. It's not policy, he said, to legislate an end to strikes and lockouts — the implication being that the government has violated its policy

[ Page 4162 ]

— but he was proud nevertheless. I found that curious, because legislative intervention to end a strike or lockout is not a principle so high that you can take a position on it which is your position in every situation. It's not that kind of issue. I personally find legislative intervention most objectionable, but I voted for it once in this House, in August 1974. So I'm not standing up here trying to proclaim some high and mighty principles from which I will not deviate, because I understand, as does everyone in this House, that parliament is supreme, that legislators have a responsibility to govern, and that that can on occasion lead to a requirement for legislative intervention in a strike or lockout or in a collective bargaining process. So I want to make it clear that I'm not coming at this from some unbending, mindlessly principled position.

MR. REID: Oh, you've changed.

MR. GABELMANN: The member for Surrey should listen, Mr. Speaker. I just finished saying to him that I voted in favour of back-to-work legislation in 1974; I voted against it in 1975. Let me say why I voted for it in 1974. I voted for it because there was a threat, in my view, of the possibility of the loss of life in a couple of suburban municipalities in the greater Vancouver area, where a firefighters' strike was in progress. I voted against it in 1975 because I didn't believe that in all instances every remedy had been taken advantage of. That's where I make the distinction on this legislation.

The minister did not at any stage take advantage of section 69 of the Labour Code and appoint a mediator in this dispute. He gave an answer which anticipated that kind of criticism, and the implication was that the parties didn't want a mediator. And for most stages of the dispute, that's true. Interestingly, though, there were various stages when each of them would have. Maybe they didn't coincide exactly, but there were times when each of them would have. If the minister reads the Code, he will learn that the minister can introduce into that process a mediator. Often that's not a good idea, because a mediator can't accomplish something if there's no will for something to be accomplished. But clearly, two or three weeks ago in this dispute, there was a mood for something to be accomplished. It might have been possible — I'm not saying it would have — that at that time the assistance of a mediator, whether from within the ministry or without, could have possibly assisted the parties in achieving a resolution. The minister failed to take that option.

Under the Labour Code there is another section he could have chosen, which is the industrial inquiry commission section — section 122. In my view that's a section that has to be used rarely and at a very late stage in the game. To my knowledge the minister never proposed the use of that section of the Labour Code.

So there were two built-in opportunities in the Code for possible resolution of the dispute that weren't taken. I'm not saying that those would necessarily have worked. If they hadn't, there were other things the minister could have done. When did the minister have the parties bargaining in one of the committee rooms here with the minister and his deputy present? There is a lot of moral authority in the office of the Minister of Labour. As a previous Minister of Labour, the now Minister of Education (Hon. Mr. Heinrich) will remember that he took advantage of that kind of procedure at least once, in my memory, and no doubt other times. That is a valid and appropriate response for the Minister of Labour to take. Call the parties into a committee room over in Victoria and say, "Okay, my schedule is such that I'm not going to sit in here all the time, but I'm going to be in and out when it's appropriate, and my deputy's going to be here all the time. Now get to it." If that hadn't worked, there is still the authority of the office of the Premier, an authority which was used on many occasions by W.A.C. Bennett — successfully, I might say, more often than not — in the resolution of labour disputes. I remember many an occasion before 1972 when W.A.C. Bennett would call the parties into his office and knock heads. People didn't like it, but more often than not it resulted in a settlement. The Premier's office, no matter who occupies it, has some moral authority. When a bargaining committee on either side of the table is summoned to come to meet with the Premier, having failed perhaps earlier in their meetings with the Minister of Labour, they treat that seriously. I've been around a little bit; I've talked to bargaining committees and people in that situation. I know how they respond. They treat it as being very serious indeed. Why didn't those things happen?

If they had all happened, and we still had no resolution of this dispute and we still had the parties steadfastly clinging to their respective positions, there might then be — might then be; I'm not saying there would be — some moral authority for the government to bring in legislation, not to set the terms and conditions of the the collective agreement, like this bill does, but to put an end to the dispute while bargaining continues in some other form— and possibly, again, using an IIC.

There are a variety of possibilities. There is the possibility of asking the parties to voluntarily accept compulsory arbitration, with the parties themselves jointly choosing an arbitrator. In labour relations there are innumerable alternatives for dispute resolution. I promised myself I wouldn't speak long, and I feel I am already beginning to break that promise. I don't intend to go through the whole variety of mechanisms that exist for dispute resolution. The point I want to make is that the government did not take advantage of any number of the options and alternatives it had. Instead, it chose to introduce into this Legislature a bill ending the lockout, preventing a strike, imposing a collective agreement and doing it retroactively. In terms of the first issue — the question of when does a Legislature intervene — the Minister of Labour did not, in his introduction, satisfy me or, I assume, other members on this side of the House that he had exhausted every other possible remedy that might exist. Worse than that, it appears as if he didn't even try to use any of them, much less all of them. Between the time of the dropping of the secondary picketing on, I believe, March 19 — I'm doing this by memory — and the announcement of the Premier's television address, the minister didn't meet with the parties, with one exception — to mildly correct the Leader of the Opposition — and that was on the night of the television address, Thursday, March 29, an hour or two before. That wasn't an attempt to find a resolution to the dispute; it was simply to advise the parties that at 7 o'clock that evening the Premier would be going on television to announce that the legislation would be introduced. In the preceding days and weeks the minister made no effort to use any of the many options open to him. He certainly didn't use any of the four that I've suggested, two of which are in the Code and two of which are in practice in this province.

[4:00]

The most odious feature of the legislation is contained in section 9, the principle that a cabinet can impose a collective

[ Page 4163 ]

agreement. On this one there is a matter of principle that I doubt could ever find an occasion when you'd find a reason to take a different position. This is not to argue against compulsory arbitration, although I have argued over the years in opposition to compulsory arbitration; I've even argued against voluntary arbitration, but I admit to losing that argument with time. While I wouldn't like it, the next step down for the government would be to appoint someone to arbitrate a particular dispute. I wouldn't have been happy with that unless every effort had been made and unless the parties had made it clear that they would not voluntarily take that course. That, at least, is preferable to having the cabinet set the terms and conditions. What does the cabinet know about a pipefitter's job at Elk Falls and the impact of that collective agreement on that pipefitter or on the papermaker at number 5 machine? What does the cabinet know about the implications of the contract to that particular worker? On the other hand, what does the cabinet know about the personnel manager's particular problems in relation to various aspects of a collective agreement? That's why we have collective bargaining. The parties involved do know. They sit with the knowledge of the industry, the workplace and the specific problems faced both by the manager and the worker. More often than not they arrive at a collective agreement through that process of bargaining fully knowledgeable about the workplace.

One of the problems with arbitration itself is that quite often an arbitrator will establish a term or a condition in the contract that neither party likes; it's not workable. Sometimes they don't like it because they just don't like it. But often they don't like it because it doesn't work. Sometimes, if you get a particularly good arbitrator, you can avoid that because the arbitrator will spend enough time with the parties to make certain he or she understands what the issues are, and will attempt, through discussions with the parties, to arrive at the appropriate language. The cabinet does not have time for that. Obviously the cabinet will take advice, but from whom? It then becomes a private process — private to the parties, because the parties aren't in the cabinet room when the terms and conditions are finally agreed upon. It may be that the recommendation to cabinet is being made by someone the parties have a lot of confidence in, but the parties will never know whether the full report and the full recommendations of that particular person were included.

The parties will never know whether or not cabinet accepted in full the proposals put to them by their advisers. They won't even necessarily know who those advisers are. I say "necessarily, " because in this case the obvious implication is that that would be Clark Gilmour. It's an implication and nothing more, because that has never been said.

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: I've said it a thousand times.

MR. GABELMANN: The minister has never said who will come to cabinet with the words and conditions of the collective agreement. That's what I said. If the minister would listen.... The minister has said that Clark Gilmour, the head of mediation services, will be a mediator....

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: I will. I will.

MR. GABELMANN: Then my argument is sound, Mr. Speaker. If the Minister of Labour is going to be the one who recommends to cabinet, without advice....

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: I didn't say that.

MR. GABELMANN: I said who will your advisers be, and the minister said: "I will."

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: No, I didn't. You said: "Who will bring it to cabinet?"

MR. GABELMANN: Thirty seconds ago....

Interjections.

MR. GABELMANN: Let me go through this again, Mr. Speaker, perhaps a little slower. I thought speaking in a normal voice would enable the minister to understand, but clearly he is too thick.

What I'm trying to point out to this House, Mr. Speaker, is that to be workable the terms and conditions of a collective agreement must take into account the workplace. Unless the parties are involved in determining what those collective agreement wordings will be, they can often be inappropriate. Then I said the cabinet is obviously going to have to take some advice as to what the terms and conditions of the collective agreement will be, because if they don't take any advice, then all of my comments are doubly true. They will have to take some advice. Will the parties know from whom that advice is sought and taken? Will they know that they have had full input into it? All I'm suggesting is that they won't, because nobody knows what goes on in the cabinet room.

I suggested that voluntary arbitration is an alternative. I don't believe the minister asked the parties to consider voluntary arbitration. If all of the steps that I've been outlining in my comments and the appeal for voluntary arbitration have been rejected, and everything has failed, then there might be some cause for compulsory arbitration, although I would argue against it. But at least I think the minister could make a justifiable argument. Why wasn't that, or any of those other alternatives. chosen? Why give the authority to establish the terms and conditions of a collective agreement to cabinet?

In my introduction I mentioned an obviously wild and unlikely scenario, but one that's possible within and not prevented by the legislation. That is that the terms and conditions of the collective agreement could include absolutely anything. It is not likely to happen, because the government would find it had a revolution on its hands, but the fact that cabinet would be authorized by legislation of this kind to do that is morally, politically and ethically reprehensible. It is wrong, wrong, wrong.

The minister did not explain in his introduction why it was necessary for the legislation to contain a provision giving cabinet the authority to set the terms and conditions. That is something that has never been done in this province in the private sector. It has been done in the public sector, prior to public service bargaining, and done regularly. Until 1973 it was always done in the public sector, but it has never been done in the private sector. What are private sector unions and employers to think from here on in? That if their strike or lockout reaches 60 days they can expect to have the terms and conditions of their collective agreement imposed by cabinet? If that's what they think as a result of this legislation, we are

[ Page 4164 ]

going to have so many strikes and lockouts in this province that no one will believe it. There will always be one party which says to itself: "Aha, if we just wait this one out, the government will come in and bail us out, and they'll give us the terms and conditions we like." That's what the pulp companies think in this case. They are pretty confident they will get the kind of collective agreement they want. Don't you think that's going to encourage other people in the private sector to say to themselves: "Why bargain? We'll go through the pretence, get to a certain point.... We won't give up as much." The gulf between the parties being broad, the government would either come in on one side or down the middle.

[Mr. Strachan in the chair.]

All this kind of legislation will do is add to the industrial turmoil in this province, add to the number of strikes and lockouts and detract from the economy of this province. If the government can't see that, then I think perhaps they should enrol in a course in industrial relations. Anybody — on either side of the table — with a fair amount of experience in private sector bargaining will tell them that.

The final thing I want to talk about is retroactivity. In a sense, this is a different issue, a different debate, that I hope, quite frankly, is taken to the courts. The paramountcy of the Legislature is, in my view, an important principle. While the cabinet may be the government — and it is — the cabinet does not make law. That, Mr. Speaker, is an important distinction that should be remembered, not only by all of us in this House but by all people in this province. Cabinets — or the government, if you will — governs. It does not make law; the Legislature makes the law. Friday afternoon, this morning, and again this afternoon in his comments on this bill the Minister of Labour talked about people violating the law. In this matter there is no law, because the Lieutenant-Governor has not yet walked down to this Legislature to give royal assent. It's not a proclamation bill, so until he does that it is not law. It is law when he does that and not before. So for the minister to talk about any violation of the "law" is wrong. He may think that because he is the Hon. Minister of Labour — a member of cabinet — that therefore enables him to make a law. It does not. The mere introduction and receipt of first reading does not make a law.

[4:15]

Earlier I talked about the principle of retroactivity. As I said before, no one disagrees that there needs to be retroactivity on certain tax measures. We all understand why, and nobody quarrels with that. But in this parliament we have seen an increasing use of what I would simply call "retroactivity" — the principle that once a bill is introduced, it becomes the law. It can contain a provision that says that some days ago — March 30 in this case — this bill came into force. That is wrong, Mr. Speaker. If we parliamentarians cannot remember the history and traditions of the British parliamentary system, which don't allow for that kind of activity, I hope some private citizen or some group in the community or some organization will consider having that question pursued at the supreme court level. I think that while we may be paramount as legislators, we do not give to a minister or his cabinet the right to make a law. In effect, that is what the Minister of Labour takes from this bill, because in section 14 it contains the date March 30. He is wrong legally and morally, and in every other way, to tell anybody that they're in violation of the law, because it is not the law and will not be the law until the Lieutenant-Governor comes to this Legislature to give his consent.

Mr. Speaker, I've said enough. Just to repeat, the official opposition is opposed to this legislation not only because of the three principles contained in it that we find to be wrong but also on economic grounds, because we believe that this kind of legislative interference — when all remedies haven't been pursued — will poison the relationships between labour and management in that industry and also encourage other industries in the private sector in this province to hold out, hoping that the government will bail them out.

HON. MR. McGEER: There are not too many occasions in the lifetime of a parliament where the issues are so outstanding that the fitness of every member to serve the public is revealed by the stand that that member takes. That those very rare occasions come when the public interest stands so far above whatever special interest may have led to a crisis might dictate that there is no doubt as to where every member should stand on that particular debate and occasion. We're in that circumstance today, where as people representing the public there is absolutely no doubt where our duty lies: that is, to serve the public.

I find it rather tragic that this afternoon we heard the Leader of the Opposition abdicating his responsibility to the public of British Columbia, squirming through a half-hour of debate and then begging that the Legislature postpone the vote. Then we moved on to the official spokesman for the opposition, supported in his debate by only two members of that party, the rest running from the chamber, as did the Leader of the Opposition when his begging of the Legislature to postpone the vote had failed. It says that we have an opposition so captured by the special interests of British Columbia that when the moment demands it, they cannot stand up for the public.

MR. HOWARD: That's a lie. An outright falsehood.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, please.

HON. MR. McGEER: Don't ask him to withdraw. Merely place that comment on the record, because I'm going to come back to that.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, please. I'll ask all hon. members to maintain parliamentary dignity.

HON. MR. McGEER: I want to take the members back to a former parliament, nearly ten years ago now, when the Legislature met to consider a situation that had many parallels to what we face in British Columbia today. I'm going to quote from one of the members of that Legislature, because I wish to associate myself with the remarks he made.

MR. SKELLY: Were you a Liberal then?

MR. HOWARD: He still is.

HON. MR. McGEER: What I am this afternoon is an elected representative of the public, here to serve the public.

This former member of the assembly said that no rights are absolute, that no one has the absolute right to indulge in economic warfare that in many cases jeopardizes the safety,

[ Page 4165 ]

health, comfort and welfare of the people of the province. Do the members opposite disagree with those sentiments? Not a peep out of them. They're silent. But those words were uttered by one of their former members, Mr. Bill King, a former Minister of Labour.

We can't say what happened after those words were uttered, but we do know this: when the test of public responsibility came and the government of that day introduced legislation for the health, comfort, safety and welfare of the people of the province, the then opposition, made up of Social Credit, Liberal and Conservative members, to a member supported that legislation. They saw that legislation pass in a single day. Yes, there was some dissent in that time of crisis, Mr. Speaker. That dissent came from the member who has just spoken, the member for North Island. That member is now the designated critic of the Labour portfolio and presumably wishes — and I take it the caucus would endorse this — to be the Minister of Labour for the province of British Columbia one day. You heard him this afternoon declare his unfitness for that job, because he cannot serve the public of British Columbia; he can only serve his union masters. That's the problem with the loyal opposition opposite. They're not loyal to the public of British Columbia; they're loyal to the trade union movement in British Columbia. That's the dilemma.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, please. One moment. The member for Skeena has interjected quite inappropriately a couple of times now, and I'll ask the hon. member to....

MR. HOWARD: Every time the minister tells a lie it needs to be brought to the attention of this House, and that's a lie.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, please. I will now ask the hon. member to withdraw that remark made to another hon. member of the House. The member for Skeena will withdraw the remark, please.

MR. HOWARD: Certainly. And every time the minister stands up and says the same kind of hogwash, he'll get the same kind of answer.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, please. Thank you. The minister continues.

HON. MR. McGEER: I presume, from what the member for Skeena says, that he does not think the welfare of the people of the province has been affected by this dispute. I would suggest that if the member believes that, he must be in that small minority that includes the two union leaders in British Columbia who are calling the tune for the opposition in this province.

MR. HOWARD: You're wrong again.

HON. MR. McGEER: Why else would we have a situation where, when the public welfare is as evident as it is today and the Legislature is compelled to take a step which all legislators feel to be an odious one, these people on the opposite side cannot speak for the public of British Columbia? What kind of hold do the union leaders of this province have over the New Democratic Party?

MR. HOWARD: None.

HON. MR. McGEER: This is a time for courage and responsibility. Anybody who has served in high office in British Columbia, now or in the past, recognizes that there are uncomfortable moments. It is impossible to govern in a democracy and please all of the people all of the time. But when the moment comes that the public interest must be served, and those who have responsibility do not have the backbone to serve the public, that's when they must be unmasked as unfit to serve as legislators in British Columbia. It isn't here a question of the leadership of the opposition. The leader's leaving. He's leaving because on three occasions the public of British Columbia considered him unfit to be the Premier of our province.

AN HON. MEMBER: When was that?

HON. MR. McGEER: In 1983, 1979 and 1974. That's when he was considered unfit to be the Premier of the province. His predecessor was considered unfit in 1969, and his predecessor was considered unfit in 1953, 1956, 1960, 1963 and 1966. Why did the public of British Columbia find that leader unfit on five occasions, another leader unfit on one occasion, and yet another leader unfit on three occasions? Always, Mr. Speaker, for the same reason: when the time comes, when the chips are down and the public interest must be served, they were there to serve the special interests. Mr. Speaker, as far as the New Democratic Party is concerned, we can see it today. The union bosses are dictating how that party should vote.

MR. HOWARD: That's another lie.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Just a moment, please. I've already cautioned the hon. member for Skeena (Mr. Howard) not to use that type of language. It is quite unparliamentary. I will now ask the member for Skeena to withdraw that last comment.

MR. HOWARD: Yes, I will, Mr. Speaker. This minister persists in saying the same thing, and he deserves the same answer.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hon. members, we may be of contrary opinions in this House, which is to be expected. But we cannot at any time use language which is offensive or unparliamentary. The minister continues. The member for Skeena is advised that any further interjections of that unparliamentary nature will be dealt with forcefully.

[4:30]

MR. HOWARD: Well, tell McGeer to keep it true.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, please.

MR. HOWARD: Tell McGeer to tell it the way it is, too.

HON. MR. McGEER: You see, Mr. Speaker, what the problem is. We recognize the dilemma of the members opposite all seeking support — those who would be leader — from the union bosses in British Columbia. It is a difficult time for those people who later will seek support to say: now we must stand up for the public and not for you. That's a

[ Page 4166 ]

difficult thing to do. It does require a little bit of courage, but that's a quality, I would submit, that is essential for those who would lead and those who would be government. There are those difficult decisions. There are those days when things must be done which will not receive universal praise. That's when the test of leadership is here. The reason this party is government today is that the Premier meets that test of leadership. When the moment comes to take strong action, to tell it like it is to the public of British Columbia, there is no shirking at all. That is leadership. That's what we had on Thursday evening, when the Premier said that we must come to our senses in British Columbia. In effect, the damage is so extensive that now, however much it may be against the wishes of the elected members, is the time to take action and to bring an end to something which has so conspicuously damaged the welfare of the people of British Columbia. The problem is that the members opposite, while they can see it just as clearly as any other British Columbian, are paralyzed. They are paralyzed because of the affiliation that party has with the union bosses in British Columbia. They are not free MLAs; they're captive. That's the problem.

May I quote for a second time, in the hope that the members just might reconsider and say: "If it comes to this situation or the dictates of the union, what should I do?" This is what one of your former MLAs said: "No rights are absolute." Do you agree with that?

MR. REID: Sure, they agree.

HON. MR. McGEER: No, they don't agree with that. They believe some rights are absolute. I suppose the rights enshrined in the Labour Code of British Columbia would be the ones that were absolute. No one has the absolute right to indulge in economic warfare that in many cases jeopardizes the safety, health, comfort and welfare of the people of the province. Do you agree or disagree?.

MR. COCKE: It has nothing to do with this bill.

HON. MR. McGEER: Nothing to do with it? Let me give some further quotes, then you tell me if you agree with this. This is a quotation from a well-known British Columbian: "Morally, the pulp pickets should not be there." Do you agree with that?

Interjections.

HON. MR. McGEER: The member for New Westminster (Mr. Cocke) agrees with that. "Morally, the pulp pickets shouldn't be there."

MR. SKELLY: Do you agree with it?

HON. MR. McGEER: Yes, I agree with that. Do you?

MR. SKELLY: You're on your feet.

Interjection.

HON. MR. McGEER: He doesn't want to answer that question. Good for the member for New Westminster.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Perhaps if the minister will address the Chair, the other members will not interject.

HON. MR. McGEER: I'm going to give another quote, Mr. Speaker, to you. "Secondary picketing should be dispersed with some common sense." Do you agree with that?

MRS. JOHNSTON: Who said that?

HON. MR. McGEER: Who said that? Jack Munro said that on the Jack Webster program. In effect what was he saying? He was saying common sense has gone when one union turns on another, having been out of work, as the Premier said, in some cases for two years, and forces those people out of work again. Their families are without income. They are ignoring the situation of their own families, ignoring the wealth and welfare of the people of British Columbia. What purpose did those secondary pickets serve?

We'll never recover the lost economic opportunities, not just for the workers who were denied their opportunity to work by this insane move....

AN HON. MEMBER: How about the communities?

HON. MR. McGEER: The communities will never recover. The general welfare of the province will never recover, and it's one more bruise on the reputation of British Columbia.

We've heard this afternoon from the man who would be Labour minister in this province — a former director of research for the B.C. Federation of Labour, no doubt providing them with the ideas that they have about the economy of British Columbia — telling us that it's going to do damage to settle this dispute. I don't know how much damage needs to be done before that member would say, "Enough." But the people of British Columbia long ago said, "Enough." It's only enormous patience and good will that has prevented action being taken long before it was.

The members opposite said: "Why doesn't somebody say something against management for locking out the trade unions?" I will. I think it was a very foolish thing to do, and I suspect there isn't a single person on the management side who doesn't agree with that. But here the Legislature of British Columbia is prepared to give everybody an opportunity to end this self-inflicted wound, and what happens? The people who were locked out said: "No, we'll go on strike." Immediately the intention was brought forward to settle this once and for all, the ones who are supposed to be abused immediately moved to go on strike. Who turned not on management but on their own union members with secondary pickets? So whatever one might say about the foolishness of management, we've certainly seen that matched on the other side.

It's not for the members of this Legislature to try to pass judgment on the rights or wrongs, whatever mistakes may have been made, but instead to provide a solution — an opportunity to end the economic haemorrhage, which does no one any good. There is absolutely no way that the workers giving up $3,000 a month can hope to recover their lost wages, probably in a lifetime of work. There's no way that management can recover, in the eyes of its customers, the degree of reliability that it may have enjoyed before this lockout took place. But what we can do is to say that there are saner heads in British Columbia, and those saner heads are the legislators who are elected by the voters. They're the ones who, when common sense has departed the people who are directly involved, must step forward and supply the common

[ Page 4167 ]

sense and I suppose the salve to the province, so we won't have this kind of thing happening again in the future. The situation has not been helped by the members opposite. I would have thought that the opposition would have been immediately responsive to the initiative the government had taken. Perhaps the opposition might have criticized the government and achieved some measure of respect from the public at large if they had said: "Why did you wait so long?" Maybe the opposition could have gained some respect, but when the moment of truth came, what did the opposition say? The Leader of the Opposition said: "Please adjourn the House; we're afraid to vote." What did the Labour critic, the member for North Island (Mr. Gabelmann), say? He said: "You're wrong; we're against this legislation." Then he left. You see, Mr. Speaker, when the moment of responsibility is there, when the time comes to vote, the New Democratic Party is the same as they have always been — unable to serve the interests of the public at large.

It started in 1933, because the party never came to serve the public; they came to serve the special interests. It continued in 1937, 1941, 1945, 1949, 1952, 1953, 1956 and in 1960. On all those occasions they were not there to serve the public at large, and the public knew it. It continued in 1963, 1966 and 1969; the public knew that the NDP was not there to serve the public at large. And then came 1972, and they proved it. And that's why in 1975, 1979 and 1983 the public decided that the NDP was not there to serve the public at large, but only to serve the vested interests.

Now another opportunity has come to cast aside this history of failure, an opportunity, with a new leader being picked, to say: "Yes, we will for once put the public interest ahead of the vested interest of the people we represent. We're going to represent everybody." They've had that opportunity, and again this afternoon six leadership candidates on the line all said: "No, we won't serve the public at large." We know what's going to happen in 1988, 1992, 1996 and in 2000. The people will say the same thing: "We want to stick with members who will serve us when times of crisis come." That's why I'll be supporting this bill, Mr. Speaker.

MR. STUPICH: Mr. Speaker, I'd like to deal first with a few of the remarks from the previous speaker, the Minister of Universities, Science and Communications. It was with some concern that I saw him rise in his place, because I recalled that in several decades he's the first one ever to have introduced closure to this Legislature, and I wondered if once again he was doing the bidding of the people to whom he sold his soul some eight years ago.

The Minister of Universities, Science and Communications....

HON. MR. McGEER: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. That member opposite said that I was the first member ever to introduce closure into this House, and that is incorrect. The first person ever to do so was the leader of the CCF....

[4:45]

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Just a moment, please. That is not a point of order. A member may speak....

Interjection.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Nevertheless, a member may rise under standing order 42 to explain a part of his own speech which may have been misquoted by a following speaker, but that was not the case in this instance. It is not a point of order.

MR. STUPICH: Not only is it not a point of order, but it's not the truth. That wasn't what I said, and the minister may want to look it up in Hansard. I was very careful about how I phrased that remark.

The second point I'd like to make with respect to his remarks is that he said that the opposition, when we introduced the cooling-off-period legislation, supported the NDP legislation. I'd like to ask that particular minister whether he would have supported the NDP legislation had that legislation included a clause to the effect that cabinet was taking unto itself the authority to draft a settlement. I challenge him to say he would have supported that kind of legislation.

AN HON. MEMBER: He would today.

MR. STUPICH: He would today, yes. It's the price of being a cabinet minister in a Social Credit government. He'd do anything for that. But he would not have done it when we introduced that legislation in 1975.

[Mr. Ree in the chair.]

Unfortunately that member has a very jaundiced opinion of political leaders and people aspiring to political leadership, perhaps because of his own experience. You'll recall, Mr. Speaker, that he sought the leadership of a once glorious party in this province. When he talks about the way people are prepared to sell themselves to attain leadership, is he telling us about his own experiences, without the details? Is he telling us that he approached many people and offered anything for their support in his campaign for the leadership? Indeed, he became the leader of that party. He talks about the leader of the NDP. Did that member, as leader of the Liberal Party, offer to sell his soul to organization after organization in the province of British Columbia, to anyone, to buy it — for more than it was worth — if they would give him the support he thought he needed to attain the position of Premier in the province of British Columbia? It would seem to me that he has a very jaundiced idea of leaders and potential leaders, and I suggest that he has that because of his own experience as a candidate and as leader rather than because of anything he knows about us.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, please. You're not implying anything untoward as far as the first member for Vancouver-Point Grey (Hon. Mr. McGeer) is concerned, are you?

MR. STUPICH: I'm asking questions. I'm waiting for him to answer me.

Mr. Speaker, 1984 has arrived with a vengeance in the province of British Columbia. Big Brother is certainly on the scene. This isn't the first example. Ever since the May 5 election, after which we were called into session at the end of June, the budget came in on July 7, and 26 pieces of legislation.... I've used this remark with respect to other bills, but it is the truth. Almost every bill introduced since the May 5 election concentrates more power in the hands of cabinet and takes authority from the Legislature. One wonders, if this goes on further and further, whether one day, just as was done in Hitler's Nazi Germany, legislation will come in saying we don't need the Legislature any more.

[ Page 4168 ]

Interjections.

MR. STUPICH: Mr. Speaker, help!

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, please. Each member will have his opportunity to stand in his place and debate on this bill. Would you please allow the member to carry on in, I hope, a responsible manner.

MR. STUPICH: Mr. Speaker, I have been responsible. With respect to that last remark, may I remind you that this government is led by a man who stood up on TV calling us national socialists — by inference, Nazis — and when he was invited by several members of the media to say that he didn't mean to suggest that we were Nazis, declined every invitation that was so offered to him, thereby attempting to leave the implication that he considered us Nazis. When I suggested in the Legislature that anyone who would do that to a socialist party.... The socialists were the first to fight Hitler and Mussolini. Anyone who would suggest that socialists would be a part of that, as I said in 1976 in the Legislature, could walk upright under the belly of a snake without any problem at all.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, please.

MR. STUPICH: This party and this government is led by such an individual, so it's not going too far to suggest that he might bring in legislation to wipe out the Legislature. We've been moving in that direction for eight months now. We've been moving in the direction of taking more and more power away from the Legislature and giving it to cabinet. Of course, that's what this bill is all about. It's not about resolving a dispute; it's about concentrating power in the hands of cabinet.

The Minister of Labour expressed concern about labour relations in the province of British Columbia. To the extent that they're bad, we all have to be concerned. But I can recall, up until two years ago, this government taking the credit for the several days lost through disputes between labour and management, and saying that it was because of their administration that things were going along so well in the province. What has happened in the last two years? One of the things that has happened is that the Socreds got re-elected. One of the things that happened before that is that the Premier went on television and said he was going to take more control of the situation. From then on, labour-management relations deteriorated.

What did the Premier have to say? He said that this was the first time the Social Credit administration has had to use such legislation to put people back to work. I'm not going to suggest that he was misleading the House. I don't mean that for one moment, Mr. Speaker, but he did forget the first time. The first time was when he put the CUPE workers back to work in the Kootenay School District dispute. I'm sure he just forgot about that time. The thing I remember about that, Mr. Speaker, is that the Minister of Labour, less than 24 hours before bringing the legislation into the House, said that he as Minister of Labour never would bring in that kind of legislation putting those workers back. You'll have to look in the records, but I can remember him assuring the public that he as Minister of Labour would not bring in legislation forcing those workers back to work.

What changed the situation? The present Leader of the Opposition contacted the school districts and the employees concerned. He got them to agree to go back to work and to try to negotiate an end to the dispute. The government had to show that it was in control, and it brought that legislation in in a hurry.

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: Not me.

MR. STUPICH: Not you. No, he used to be the member for West Vancouver–Howe Sound.

They had to politically. They wanted to show that they were in control, that the Leader of the Opposition wasn't bringing us out of an impossible situation. So they brought in legislation in spite of the assurance from the then Minister of Labour that he would never do that kind of thing. It's politics, just as this bill is politics. It's not to deal with a situation.

The Premier made much of the argument that the legislation we introduced went through three readings in one day, and it was dealt with. Yes, leave was granted by the opposition all the way through. Yes, closure was not required at any stage. There was cooperation from the opposition, because they recognized that it was good legislation for that particular point in time, and they supported it. I suggest that the opposition would not have supported the kind of legislation that we have before us today.

The Minister of Labour expressed concern that workers have chosen to ignore the law. The argument has already been made that it isn't law yet. It is a bill before the House. It does have an effective date. Mr. Speaker, you will recall that several bills were introduced in last year's session that were left to die on the order paper. It's not beyond the realms of possibility that this one will be left to die on the order paper. At this point in time the government is determined to proceed with it, but that doesn't mean that even this government might not change its mind in the next hour, the next 24 hours or whatever and let the legislation die on the order paper. It's quite possible. It isn't law yet, Mr. Speaker, in spite of the fact that it does have an effective time.

Interjection.

MR. STUPICH: Mr. Speaker, should I listen to him or...?

The Provincial Secretary (Hon. Mr. Chabot) himself has said that this bill may never become law, that there is a possibility that it will not become law. I welcome his support for that part of my argument.

Interjection.

MR. STUPICH: I'm not going to sign anything, but I am saying that the Provincial Secretary himself is suggesting conditions which might lead to this bill being dropped. He has suggested one, and there may be others as well. If the Provincial Secretary and I sat down together, between us we might come up with one or two more. In any case, the bill is not law yet. In spite of the fact that it has an effective date, it may never become law. We just don't know at this point.

Workers are voting on whether or not to obey the law. I find the timing that the government has adopted to be something more than curious. I see the minister is frowning. The bill was introduced on Friday for first reading. There was no time for any discussion in the Legislature before the point in

[ Page 4169 ]

time that was designated as it being effective. There was time, however, for the legislation to be considered by the employers, and they did get together. I saw the chief negotiator on TV saying that they had met and had agreed to reopen the mills. There was time for them to meet, Mr. Speaker. They are so few in number, they could meet in a Jacuzzi bathtub. There's no problem in getting that kind of a group together for a meeting. But to say to 12,000 workers in the province: "You've got 72 hours to call a meeting," they need something bigger than a bathtub. Some of them need very large halls in which to hold their meetings. Those halls are not sitting idly by waiting for the government to do something so that they can call a meeting. We didn't know it was going to be a nice day; they could have met in the open today. But it needn't necessarily be that way. There was time for the government to do what it wanted to do. It deliberately wanted the time to pass before the Legislature could discuss this legislation. It deliberately arranged it so that the employers could sit down and talk about it and agree. And it deliberately arranged it, I suggest, so that the employees would have no opportunity at all to have their meetings in advance of the cutoff date, the date at which this was going to become effective. I would welcome the minister's response to that point.

Most of all.... Not most of all; there's one other point, which I believe I took down the way he said it. I sincerely hope not, but perhaps he can comment. I believe he said that he has been saying for weeks to get back to work. If indeed that was his message, he could have been talking only to the employers. There was never a strike. The employees never said they wouldn't work. The ones who said there shall be no work were the employers. Was the minister indeed saying that for weeks he has been trying to get the employers to reopen those mills and they decided not to, they declined, until he paid the price by bringing in legislation that the employers themselves wanted, legislation that would give the government — the cabinet — the authority to impose a settlement? Is that really what he was telling us, Mr. Speaker? The employers insisted that the government be responsible for drafting a settlement — the contract terms — before they would reopen the mills, and only after he agreed to draft the legislation that way did he bring it in. There was no discussion in the House, no discussion among the union members, only time for the employers to review the legislation and ensure that it gave them everything they wanted.

Is that what he meant, Mr. Speaker, by saying that for weeks he's been trying to get the employers to reopen the mills and he's finally found a way to do it? I welcome your comment.

[5:00]

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: That's not what I said. I said let's get back to the table.

MR. STUPICH: Mr. Speaker, the minister is saying that he urged them to get back to the table. I think he and I will both be very interested in seeing Hansard when it's ready, because I'm positive that I took that down correctly. If not, I'll certainly apologize to the minister.

There is one other thing. I'm particularly impressed — or depressed — with the crocodile tears expressed by the Minister of Labour and the Premier about 12,000 employees who have been out of work for some eight weeks, and about the effect on those communities. That's important. The effect on the 12,000 employees is extremely important. Many of those employees are in my own riding. They have been coming to my constituency office, hoping that the government would do something to get the mills reopened. It is a serious problem, one that I appreciate. I appreciate all of those things. I appreciate also the loss in government revenue. The shareholders of the company are losing as well. There are a lot of losers and no winners in this situation. I appreciate all of this. But those have to be crocodile tears from the Premier who, on July 7 last year, said: "We are going to lay off 25 percent of 300,000 people working in the public sector, " That's 75,000 people, six times as many as are affected by this legislation.

Interjections.

MR. STUPICH: It was in the budget. The Provincial Secretary said there are 300,000 employees working in the public sector, and the Premier and his government, in their budget speech and in legislation, said they were going to lay off 25 percent of them. To compound it, Mr. Speaker, they said in the budget in February that in some branches 25 percent wasn't enough: they were going to go as high as 50 percent. Mr. Speaker, we could be talking about 100,000 unemployed. Crocodile tears about 12,000 people, while they are deliberately proceeding with a policy to wipe out employment for some 100,000 direct employees in the province of British Columbia. What about all the indirect employees?

Mr. Speaker, the mills should be reopened. The employers should have been obliged long ago. The Minister of Labour knew they were going to close. I can't believe for one moment that the employers did not keep the Premier and perhaps even the Minister of Labour informed of their plans, and that the Premier didn't know in advance that the employers were at the point of saying they were going to close the mills. I can't believe the Premier didn't know that. If that is the case, then he should be dealing differently with those employers. But I believe the Premier knew in advance. For the sake of all those people who are directly involved, for the sake of the economy, for the sake of the communities, I believe the Premier should then have let the employers know that he would not look benignly upon employers who, at this time in the history of our province, would shut the gates to some 12,000 pulp workers, knowing the total effect of that. I just can't believe it. I think the time for action was then, not after the mills were shut down. It's so much harder to get them reopened after they've shut down.

Mr. Speaker, the Premier chose not to take action at that time. Action should have been taken then. We should never have gotten into the position that we're in. Something has to be done now to get the mills reopened, but I can’t support any legislation that gives the cabinet the authority to draft regulations or draft a settlement. What it says to the rest of the corporations operating in the public sector is: "You impose a lockout, and when there's enough public support for the government to take action, we'll bring in legislation making you reopen your doors. And we'll bring in legislation that follows our guidelines. No increase this year. Perhaps some deterioration in working conditions, in safety conditions, in the same way that we look after our own government employees. You leave it to us, we'll draft the agreement that you want; you simply help us by locking out and waiting until the public is upset and the employees are concerned. Then we'll bring in an agreement in line with what we have done to the

[ Page 4170 ]

people operating the public sector, and then won't things be great in the province of British Columbia?"

I can't support that kind of legislation — giving the cabinet the authority to draft agreements. I'm even surprised that the particular member who asked that question would support it. No, I'm not surprised at that member, but there are some members on the government side of the House that I am surprised at, who would support giving that much authority to cabinet. That is in itself reason enough for everyone in the opposition and — if they hadn't sold their souls — for others on the government side of the House to vote against this particular bill.

MR. CAMPBELL: I believe that when the Legislature met on Friday and the Minister of Labour introduced the bill to end the labour strife within the pulp mills, he did this with all conscience, thinking of the working people who have been on strike for eight weeks, thinking about management and the companies who are going to have to export on the export markets in the years to come, and the problem that they are going to have when they have to convince their buyers that they are reliable suppliers of products and services this province is producing. I don't believe the Minister of Labour had any alternative but to intervene in this long, dragged-out program. I was pleased when the Premier went on TV Thursday night and suggested that this province would take a look at the legislation for the pulp workers and would get the workers back on the job. He showed leadership, he showed responsibility, and he showed conviction to govern this province.

When I look at some of the members from across the way who aspire to the leadership of this province, and they talk here today — particularly the first member who spoke, the present leader of the party — and asked the Chair to hold this legislation for three hours so that the people out there could vote, knowing full well that this act had effect as of midnight last Friday, knowing full well that it is costing the province $8 million a day in lost revenue, knowing full well that the three hours that he was talking about is going to cost the people of this province $1 million, while he would deliberate and stall and try to procrastinate.... I suppose he is stepping down from the leadership of the party because he can't make a decision any more.

What is even worse is the people who are aspiring to the leadership of the party. In Port Alberni the pulp mills have been on strike for eight weeks, the people are laid off and people have been out of jobs. When this government is attempting to restore the marketplace in labour and in production, where does the member for Port Alberni (Mr. Skelly) stand? He hasn't got his orders yet from the power brokers at the union hall, so he doesn't know what to say. I'm amazed that these power brokers can influence the leaders from the union halls.

The member for Nanaimo (Mr. Stupich) and the member for Prince Rupert (Mr. Lea) apparently don't have their orders yet, but I wonder what the other three lost sheep who are out there in the public are saying today. They're also aspiring to the leadership. They're all split; they don't know which way to go because they don't want to stand up for the people who elected them — the working men and ladies of this province who are without jobs today. Do they want to stand up for them? No, they've got to wait for orders from the power brokers.

MR. REID: They're not here.

MR. CAMPBELL: That's right. Mr. Kube may be in Hawaii, but he ought to be back here so he can give some advice to these members across here so that they can make a decision that is going to affect their people.

Back in 1975, when the NDP called a special session to legislate the strikers back to work, one of the gentlemen said: "I don't really care very much, quite frankly, if the public is overwhelmingly in favour of this bill; I cannot support it. I will not stand up in this Legislature performing my responsibility based on what the public wants us to do." Imagine — "based on what the public wants us to do." "I don't believe we should be responsive, because quite often the public is wrong." Who said that? Mr. Gabelmann said that on page 21 of Hansard, October 7, 1975.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. CAMPBELL: Yes, that's what he said. He opposed the legislation of his own party on that date. Shame on him. When they brought in the legislation, they were divided. They were divided in 1975, and they're still divided.

What did the other member say? He said: "The people of British Columbia can be proud that the Premier of British Columbia and the Minister of Labour of British Columbia have no intention of abdicating the responsibilities of leadership in a difficult period for this province." Who said that? The member for Vancouver East said that on page 19 of Hansard, October 7, 1975.

AN HON. MEMBER: Which one?

MR. CAMPBELL: The second member for Vancouver East (Mr. Macdonald); not the leader of that day, the other member.

There is a member sitting across there today who comes from Powell River, up in the Mackenzie riding. I wonder what he is thinking as he sits there, when his people out there are unemployed because of this labour strife. And now there's an opportunity to get them back to work. I wonder where he stands today. How much are we losing? We're losing $8 million a day. That's only a portion of what we're losing. Look at Hydro, which is losing $500,000 a day on hydro sales. How is that going to be picked up? By all the working people of this province, whom these people are sworn to uphold and protect. That's who's going to have to pick it up. The working people of this province are going to have to pick up that $500,000 a day being lost by Hydro. Who's going to pick up the cost of all the spinoffs of the other jobs? The working people and the business community of this province are going to have to pick up the losses for that.

I would hope that when the member for Prince Rupert (Mr. Lea), who is going to aspire to the leadership, gets up to speak he will show some leadership to that party over there, and say to those people....

Interjections.

MR. CAMPBELL: Yes, that member for Prince Rupert. I'm sure he will. He supported this legislation back in those days. They need a leader. I believe that he's the leader that will stand up and say: "The people want to go back to work. They've had enough." He's the one who said they're going to

[ Page 4171 ]

have new policies. He said they're going to get back to the grass roots. He said there are going to be changes, so that the working people of this province are going to be back to work; they're going to have jobs; they're going to have employment. We've listened to this party over here talking about employment for the past two months, but today they don't talk about employment. They don't want the people to go back to work. Imagine, after two months of talking about unemployment, today they don't want the people back at work. It is amazing that when it comes time to make a decision, they're like a shadow: they're here today, and they're gone. They can't stand to make a decision, because they haven't had their answers from the power brokers at the union halls.

I would hope that when he gets up to speak he will make a decision; that he will stand up for the unemployed people in his area who have been out of work for eight weeks and say: "Yes, go back to work so production can commence in these mills, so the province can be back to exporting again, so we will have people out there who have faith in this province. Ever since last summer, when this party started advocating this concept of fear, the promotion of Solidarity, the labour unrest and so on, right through to now, they have opposed whatever this government has been trying to do to get the economy going. As we're trying to get the economy going, they either stand up and oppose it or they hide from their responsibility. They look for the answer.... If their leader isn't here, they don't know which way to vote.

[5:15]

AN HON. MEMBER: Negative, doubting.

MR. CAMPBELL: They may be negative, but they're not always negative. Mr. Bill King said in Hansard: "It'll be a very strong conviction and organized strikes should be prohibited." I wonder what Mr. King is going to say when he speaks to his members on May 18, 19 and 20. What's he going to say about this strike? Is he going to end this lockout? Is he going to say, "I supported the government, and you people should've too"? Or is he going to be like the rest of them and say, "Wait until we get our instructions from the power brokers"?

Again I quote: "You take a strike if you have to." Who said that? That was said by Mr. Gabelmann in Hansard, on May 4, 1982.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: Been doing some reading, Don?

MR. CAMPBELL: Yes, we've been doing some research. I'm glad that member for Mackenzie asked about the research. We don't make decisions on this side of the House until full research has been done. We don't shoot from the hip like them, trying to get the decision from the shadows. Research is done by our Premier and our ministers before they make decisions, and that's why this government makes the right decisions. I hope and I wish that the member sitting across there would do some research. Talk to your people back there in the constituency. Talk to your people who are unemployed, talk to the people who have suffered from secondary picketing. You talk to your people back there. I talk to my people and they say: "How long are you going to let this prevail? How long are you people in Victoria going to allow this to go on before you stand up and say, 'Enough is enough'? This province has to get back to work. We can't stand this any more." That's what the people are saying. That member over there from Mackenzie knows that's what the people are saying, but when he comes down here he gets influenced by this pack of leaders who don't know which way they should be leading.

I'm glad the member for Atlin (Mr. Passarell) is here, because he's probably the only member here who understands what all these leaders are going through. That man from Atlin, I'm sure, has had a dog team, and he knows what happens when there are three lead dogs going three different ways. He understands the problem these leaders have. I'm glad he's here. That member from Atlin does understand.

Interjections.

MR. CAMPBELL: Some of these leaders don't even want to agree with what their own member over there says. Their own member may agree, but they don't want to agree, because they're divided leaders. Imagine: six leaders all divided. What an image to put before the public of this province, trying to convince the public that they know what they're doing.

I'm pleased that this minister took this decision. Maybe he should have taken it earlier because of the huge loss. Maybe he should have; I don't know. But he knew that when the time was right he would move, and he did move, and he moved decisively. He said: "72 hours from midnight of Friday, March 30." Did those people obey? No. They're not back today. You know the reason they're not back? Not because the people out there don't want to go back....

[Mr. Strachan in the chair.]

AN HON. MEMBER: Not because they don't want to go back.

MR. CAMPBELL: That's right. Not because they don't want to go back, but because the labour leaders have influenced them. The labour leaders have influenced them in the past and they're influencing them today. Unfortunately, Mr. Speaker, they're trying to excite the public to defy the law. I would think that these aspiring leaders over here would stand up and be counted and say: "Listen, we don't want our citizens to disobey the law. We stand for law and order." What kind of a leadership will stand and not encourage their citizens to stand for law and order? Is that the kind of leadership we're going to have in the future? I would certainly hope that's not the leadership we're going to get out of one of these six aspiring leaders over here on May 20.

Interjection.

MR. CAMPBELL: Maybe the member for Atlin should be reconsidered, because the member for Atlin certainly does at times speak with sense. I would implore him to speak to his aspiring leaders and ask them to reconsider their position, to realize that law and order must prevail; that common sense must prevail; that the people must get back to work so the province can prosper.

I certainly do support this bill. I implore the leaders over there and the rest to support it. When it comes up to a vote, they may say: "This is a bit hard, but yes, we will support it. We do agree with this."

[ Page 4172 ]

MRS. JOHNSTON: Try to follow that one!

MR. LOCKSTEAD: No problem.

I'm pleased to have this opportunity to say a few words on behalf of all of my constituents. I always enjoy following the member for Okanagan North, who's an entertaining speaker. He's rather new to this House, but entertaining and a gentleman.

Interjection.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: And sincere; yes, I think he's sincere. I think he's a sincere right-wing fascist, but misled.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! That must be withdrawn.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: I'll withdraw "right-wing." No, I'll withdraw it. "Sincere" stays.

The member obviously did not do his own research, unfortunately, and the standard speech that.... Somebody in the Social Credit caucus writes one speech, has it mimeographed and all the members get it; so we get the same speech something like.... How many members have you got? Thirty-two or whatever it is? That's how many times we get the same speech. I want to tell you that that member....

Interjection.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: I'll tell you in a minute. I'm getting to that. Just listen for a minute. I'll tell you in about two minutes what the unemployment rate is in my riding. Just hang on.

The member referred several times to our party and our members here taking direction from the union leadership. That is, of course, entirely incorrect. We as a party, as a caucus and as individuals make our own decisions. But I would rather take direction from and consult with the working people of this province than with the people who sit in the boardrooms of the corporate institutions, and that's where those people take their direction from — Mr. Zimmerman and people of his ilk. As far as I'm concerned, money talks with that crowd.

As for unemployment in my riding, which the member referred to on several occasions, in the lower part of my riding it's 36 percent. That's the real unemployment rate, excluding the locked-out pulp workers. I want to get the record straight. I should tell you as well, Mr. Speaker, that within the last 16 months we've had a doubling in number of people applying for welfare throughout the Sunshine Coast–Powell River area of my riding, a direct result of government fiscal policy. That's why we have this horrendously high unemployment rate in my riding. If you look through your sheet of government statistics on the unemployment rate....

MR. MOWAT: They could have had work this morning.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: We'll get to that in a second. I just want to correct a couple of statements made in this House regarding my riding. As I said, the real unemployment rate in my riding, the Sunshine Coast and Powell River, is 36 percent. The figures you get from Statistics Canada, which lump that portion of my riding into the lower mainland, indicate 15.5 percent unemployment, but that is not correct. First of all, they exclude the people who are not eligible for welfare; young people living at home; people whose UIC benefits have run out. A large proportion of native Indian people in my riding are not included in those figures. The real unemployment rate, confirmed by people in Canada Manpower and other sources — some of whom, if I named them, would likely get fired — and excluding the locked-out workers in my riding, is presently 36 percent because of government fiscal policies over the last two years.

Interjection.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: I'm getting to the bill. I'm taking almost as much leeway, Mr. Member, as did the member for Okanagan North (Mr. Campbell).

One other correction. The member for Okanagan North referred to this bill as being law. I'd like someone to explain to me how we can have proposed legislation....

AN HON. MEMBER: Sit down. We'll make it law.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: Eventually you will. You'll use all the tactics that you're used to using and that people use in a dictatorship. You'll use closure. You'll use all-night sittings. You'll use intimidation and whatever else is necessary, as is the practice in dictatorships or totalitarian states. You'll use those tactics.

AN HON. MEMBER: Terrorism.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: Yes, terrorism — sure you will. You'll use those tactics. We know that. But we're prepared to fight you — now, tomorrow, next month, next year and in the next election. Wherever your type of people exist on this earth, I'm prepared to fight.

Interjection.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: Right after dinner.

Interjections.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: What's Quebec got to do with this bill, Mr. Speaker?

This proposed bill is not law until the Lieutenant-Governor comes into this House and gives royal assent to it. When I hear from people over there that the workers are not complying with the law.... They are complying with the law. There was a legal lockout for two solid months — a lockout, not a strike; a lockout — a management and industry lockout. Now we have a legal strike in this province, Mr. Minister of Labour. This bill has not passed. It may be tested in the supreme court some day, but it hasn't yet. Retroactive legislation has been tested in the courts before, and usually because — the member for North Island (Mr. Gabelmann) explained this quite carefully, and I'm not going to go through that again.... Retroactive legislation, particularly concerning certain tax measures, is desirable and part of the British parliamentary system that we operate under — which is quickly being eroded, by the way, here in this province. In any event, as far as I'm aware, retroactive legislation of this type, dealing with non-monetary items....

[ Page 4173 ]

HON. MR. CHABOT: Retroactive to what?

MR. LOCKSTEAD: Well, read the bill; it's in front of you.

[5:30]

Interjection.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: Retrospective? Well, blow me down and call me Shorty.

Anyway, Mr. Speaker, this bill is not law. In my opinion, those workers — 20,000 pulp workers? — are not breaking the law at this time, until this bill receives royal assent. And I guess it will, eventually. The government has the power. They certainly have the will to trample on working people all over this province. This bill is a further attack on all working people of this province. I want to tell you — and the workers in the pulp industry are very much aware of it.... Let me explain.

Interjections.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: Just hang on a second and listen.

Over the past month I have met and discussed the matter of the lockout with literally hundreds and hundreds of people directly affected — pulp workers, people working in the various pulp mills. I've been asked by a number of them: "Is the government going to intervene? What action will be taken? The industry is quite obviously not interested in settling this dispute. They're not bargaining in good faith. We're hurting financially." Many of them are hurting financially. I don't disagree with that; we all know that. Not only people directly involved in the industry — the actual workers on site — but small local business people in the community, people in the towboat industry, stevedores and IWA people who produce the logs and timber are affected.

[Interruption.]

DEPUTY SPEAKER: We have a little problem here. With respect to standing order 36, if you would like to take the next desk and use that mike it's fine by me.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Sorry for the short delay due to a technical problem. We have a bigger problem in the House this evening, tonight and tomorrow morning — as long as we go on this bill. We shall see.

Yes, those people are hurting. But I want to tell you what I picked up this weekend. I spent most of this weekend, except for a very successful fund-raising dinner on Texada Island, talking with people in Powell River and employees of Port Mellon — people living in Gibsons and Sechelt.

Interjection.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: I always appreciate a good interjection, but that was not too good. Come on! You can do better than that. No, you can't do better than that?

Anyway, with the exception of that very successful fundraising dinner for the New Democratic Party on Texada Island on Saturday night, I spent all of the weekend.... By the way, we had an excellent guest speaker at that dinner. He had them in stitches and probably raised us an extra couple of hundred dollars. My colleague for Coquitlam-Moody (Mr. Rose) made an excellent speech. I was leading up to making a point here. Mr. Speaker, with regard to the many conversations I had with people all over my community this past weekend. Even those people asked me: "When are we going to get back to work? Is the government going to do something, because we know this is an industry lockout. They don't want us back at work, for their own reasons." I may or may not get into that later. They came up after this legislation was introduced, after the Premier's non-speech on Thursday night and the legislation introduced last Friday.... They understand what this legislation means, not only to them but to all of the working people in this province. No one expected that the government would take unto itself the right to impose a settlement which will be an industry settlement — and I want to talk about that in a minute — and not in the best interests of the working people of the province. This is only the tip of the iceberg. I think I said that somewhere before in another speech. What the government will do — and you can bet your boots on this — when they bring in amendments to the Labour Code is make provision in those amendments that they can step into any dispute at any time, anywhere in this province, and impose a cabinet settlement in that dispute. Those people at Powell River, Port Mellon, Gibsons and Sechelt understand that. Those people who said, "Look, we're hurting, legislate us back," are now saying: "Darn, don't let this bill go through. It's an insult and an attack on every working person in British Columbia — union or non-union." That's what this bill implies, Mr. Speaker.

When I go back to Powell River, I will have the support of the majority of people — except a few of your toadies; there are a few left around there. I will have the support of the electorate, and I will win that riding in the next provincial election. I can win it on this issue hands down. I'm prepared to run at any time on this bill. If the Premier decided to call an election today, I'd be prepared to go the polls on this bill, period. No problem on my part.

MRS. JOHNSTON: Are you for it or against it?

MR. LOCKSTEAD: You must know by now. You're not very perceptive, are you? Any person in British Columbia who would support or vote for a piece of legislation like this deserves to be living in a totalitarian state, either Russia or Nazi Germany. That's where they deserve to be. It's true. This is incredible legislation.

The speakers on the government side referred in all of their speeches to 1975 and Bill 146.

Interjection.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: Why don't you look it up? The member for Okanagan North (Mr. Campbell) claims to do his research. Why don't you do some of your own for a change, instead of letting everybody else do it?" You never even stand up and speak in this House, and when you do you don't say anything anyway. Whenever he does get up to speak on an estimate, the member says: "The wonderful, beautiful, lovely minister over there filled another pothole. That lovely, beautiful minister over there — could he just fill three more potholes? That wonderful, lovely, beautiful minister — he's just so great — could he just make a little trail for me? He's just so wonderful and lovely." Suck, suck, suck.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hon. member, please, parliamentary language.

[ Page 4174 ]

MR. LOCKSTEAD: Mr. Speaker, the members over there, in every one of their speeches....

Interjection.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: Who am I supporting? Oh, I thought we were going to get back onto the leadership. It seems a large part of your rhetoric over there, your undue concern over our internal party affairs.... None of your business. We'll look after our party affairs and you look after yours. You've got members there who want to defect right now. You've got members over there.... And you can't find anybody to run for you anywhere.

Interjection.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: Well, they're well oiled.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, please. To the bill.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: Mr. Speaker, I wanted to discuss very briefly and quietly the difference between now and 1975. The major obvious difference is that in 1975 we had a strike which went on for some months prior to that legislation being introduced. The difference is that in 1984 we had a lockout. Okay, there's quite a difference. Before the legislation was introduced in 1975 a number of steps were taken. I'm not going to go through this chapter and verse, because once again the member for North Island, (Mr. Gabelmann), our Labour critic, explained the situation very well. In a nutshell, in 1975 a number of steps were taken by the government — a government of which I was not a part. I was on the back bench, come to think of it. But I had a voice in caucus and I used it often, didn't I, Dennis?

Interjection.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: I know. I'll tell you, in 1972 they used to call me "Don Lockjaw, " and now they can't shut me up.

Interjection.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: Oh, Mr. Premier, that's unbecoming of a Premier of the province.

Interjection.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: No, I'm having fun here.

Interjection.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: It's very serious. It's just that some of their interjections are so foolish it just indicates to the House and to me where they're coming from, Mr. Member, from a philosophical point of view, and it's nowhere — legislation that has not been thought out.

In 1975 steps were taken. The then Minister of Labour had both parties here in Victoria for more than two weeks, meeting with him in his office, sometimes separately, sometimes together. An honest and serious attempt was made at that time to settle the dispute. At a later stage of that same dispute, prior to legislation coming in, the then Premier of the province entered into negotiations — discussions is the proper term — with the parties affected by the dispute.

None of these things happened with this government. They brought in this legislation quickly and arbitrarily for purely political reasons. A major difference between that bill in 1975 and the bill we're debating here today, tonight, tomorrow, whenever, as long as we hear.... Well, we shall see. A major difference, among other major differences, was that that bill did not contain a clause to allow the government, i.e. the cabinet, i.e. the Premier, to arbitrarily impose a settlement that will favour the industry. It will be an unfair settlement. That bill in 1975 did not contain that kind of a clause detracting from the fine labour legislation we had in this province prior to the Social Credit government coming back into power. They've been eroding that Labour Code and other labour legislation in this province ever since 1976, when they first took office. This year I expect to see in this session amendments to the Labour Code which will be essentially right-to-work laws brought into this province, but we'll discuss that when that legislation is brought in. They want to do it, and they probably will. They've got their huge, overwhelming, jackboot majority. They push through and ram through this House whatever they wish.

Interjections.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: You know, Mr. Speaker, I listen to these interjections.... The member says I shouldn't, but they're interesting. If Czechoslovakia or Poland or Russia or some fascist, right-wing dictatorship down in South America or Central America had brought in this legislation, it would have been immediately branded as totalitarian, fascist legislation. Legislation that gives the government the right to impose settlements....

Interjection.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: Well, I don't care. You should have a look at yourselves. I want to tell you that tomorrow I won't be a broken record, but you'll still be you, and you've got a real problem.

I'm talking about this legislation, which is obviously one of the worst pieces of legislation that have ever been brought down in this House. I am not going to be supporting it. There's no way I could support this type of legislation. As long as it served the purpose of industry, the government did not interfere in that dispute. But now it serves the purpose of the industry, not the working people of this province, to bring in this type of legislation, and so they brought it in. So who's calling the shots around this province? I'll tell you who's calling the shots. It's a few people sitting in the corporate boardrooms of this province. The Premier believes that he is going to make some political Brownie points by bringing in this type of legislation, but I want to tell you that this legislation and other legislation that the government has already announced they are going to be bringing down is going to spell the end of that government sitting over there today.

[5:45]

MR. SEGARTY: I am pleased to have an opportunity to get up and speak for a few moments on this bill. I am really disappointed in the level of debate from the opposition, because all that we're hearing again today is a repeat of the

[ Page 4175 ]

emotional rhetoric that took place in this House during the last sitting of the Legislature — basically calling our little Social Credit government fascists and Nazis and communists and all sorts of things which really have no relevance with respect to the issue at hand.

The issue at hand is a very serious situation in our province. I'm sad today that this Legislature has had to meet to bring in a bill of this kind. I'm sad that the collective bargaining system has not worked in the case of the two pulp unions as it did with the International Woodworkers of America over seven weeks ago. I'm also pleased that our Minister of Labour has been able to keep our caucus informed on the developments taking place in the collective bargaining system, and basically has been able to stay out of it for this long.

The time has come for all of us to come to terms with the issue at hand. You know the same as we do that we've all had people in our constituency offices, people who are concerned about their access to the workplace, about having an opportunity to go out and earn some money to be able to put bread and butter on the family table. All of those people have been coming to our constituency offices over the past seven to eight weeks with various serious concerns. Some of them have not had an opportunity to work for many months, in fact some of them may have only worked as much as six months in 1983. We have had concerns too from the individuals who are responsible for putting bread and butter on the family table: the housewife who is responsible all along for putting shoes on the children and bread and butter on the family table. She too is concerned because she doesn't have a paycheque with which to operate her family home. That basically is the issue at hand today. It's not a question of deciding which elephant you're going to support — whether it's going to be industry or the union. I'm a former union member, and I was pleased to death in the 1970s when the New Democratic Party government at that time legislated me back to work. I was pleased, too, that our party, though in opposition at that time, supported that legislation. I was pleased that there was that degree of cooperation on a very serious issue. I had hoped today that we would have been able to bring in this bill and get second and third reading today. But no, the NDP seems entrenched in their emotional rhetoric, again calling us socialists, fascists, Nazis and dictators.

Mr. Speaker, we've all had people in our constituency offices — small business people in the community, many of them with 30 years invested in a small business — who are in a very serious situation. When a dispute of this kind starts affecting the community at large, then government has a responsibility to take action. So I watched our Premier on television the other evening and was pleased to be part of a government that had the courage, dedication and leadership to be able to say: "Okay, the time for the games are over. In 72 hours there's an opportunity for everybody to go back to work. There's an opportunity for the continuance of the collective bargaining system, and there's an opportunity for all the parties in the dispute to come down, with some degree of maturity and statesmanship, and solve this very serious situation."

As you know, Mr. Speaker, our province cannot continue to withstand the losses that we're incurring on a daily basis. New pulp contracts are basically negotiated on an ongoing basis. We have companies abroad that are saying: "Look, we don't want to do business with British Columbia any more, because we never know whether or not we're going to be able to get the products."

I'd just like to touch for a few minutes on some of the very serious competitive situations that exist in the world today in terms of our pulp industry. I particularly want to draw the attention of all members of this assembly to the third international pulp symposium which was held in April 1982 in Brussels. All of the representatives at that meeting heard in no uncertain terms of the challenge to the traditional pulp producers of the world. Nations such as Canada, Norway, Sweden, Finland and the United States — known as the Norcan pulp producers — are facing unprecedented competition from their rivals, known as the non-Norcan pulp-producing countries. They have gained significant growth in the world market over the past 15 years.

For example, in 1982 their combined pulp production was 9.5 million tonnes of pulp or 35 percent of the world's pulp supply. In 1984 the anticipated non-Norcan producing countries will have gained another 2 percent of the world's share. Clearly, there's increased competition and that 2 percent will represent 570,000 tonnes or the equivalent to 12 percent of Canada's total pulp production in 1982. In 1990 and beyond, the world demand for pulp is expected to increase greatly and competition from the non-Norcan producing countries is expected to become fierce.

More specific examples may be of interest to members of this House. For example, Brazil opened up new pulp mills in 1978 and 1979, with combined tonnage in the amount of 900,000 tonnes beyond their domestic requirements. Brazil has export markets in Europe, Japan, the United States, and nearby Chile exports pulp in the amount of 750,000 tonnes. By 1990 an additional 1.5 million tonnes is expected to come from that supply. They're currently finding markets for their products in China and Korea. Argentina is also looking at expanding their pulp capacity by about 40 percent. So there is an ongoing need for all of us to come to the realization that we are not in this world alone, and that we're not the only supplier of this material.

The time has come for government to face this seriously, and I am pleased that the government has taken the initiative that they have. Clearly, it's only those people who have the courage and the dedication necessary to make the tough decisions in the 1980s necessary for our survival that will pull us through the tough and challenging period of time.

With that, I would like to pay particular tribute to the leader of the International Woodworkers of America. Though I’m a former member of the International Woodworkers of America, I would like to pay particular tribute to Jack Munro for sitting down — in 1984 terms — and negotiating a collective agreement that basically meets the needs of 35,000 International Woodworkers of America members. It's interestingly to note too that the pulp unions have never led the way in a negotiated settlement in that industry throughout its total history.

Mr. Segarty moved adjournment of the debate.

Motion approved.

Hon. Mr. Nielsen moved adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

The House adjourned at 5:55 p.m.