[ Page 4469 ]

CONTENTS

Routine Proceedings

Human Rights Act (Bill 11). Second reading

On the amendment

Mr. Barnes –– 4469

Mrs. Wallace –– 4473

Mr. Mitchell –– 4476

THURSDAY, MAY 3, 1984

The House met at 10:07 a.m.

Prayers.

Orders of the Day

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

Leave granted.

HON. MR. GARDOM: Mr. Speaker, I call adjourned debate on second reading of Bill 11.

HUMAN RIGHTS ACT
(continued)

MR. COCKE: I yield to the first member for Vancouver Centre (Mr. Barnes).

[Mr. Strachan in the chair.]

On the amendment.

MR. BARNES: This being the first opportunity I've had to address the assembly since my absence due to health problems, I would like to acknowledge the comments made the other day by the member for Boundary-Similkameen (Hon. Mr. Hewitt), who welcomed me back. I would like to thank him for his generous consideration, and say that it is my pleasure to be back. For a while I was a little worried about how long it was going to take.

I would like to comment to some extent on Bill 11, the new Human Rights Act that the government proposes to enact in the province as a replacement for another piece of legislation, Bill 27. That bill was protested quite vigorously by the community, which was a result of the government's move last July to eliminate the existing human rights enforcement legislation in the province.

Over the years — nearly 13 years now — I've stood in this House and tried to appeal to the members on a moral basis, on a sense of human concern and regard for our neighbours and friends of different colours, races, religions, beliefs and backgrounds in this province, because I sincerely felt that by whatever means possible we would be not only obliged but enthusiastic in trying to find ways in which we could improve the confidence that people have in their government. If you go back prior to the days of 1972, when the New Democratic Party was first elected, and consider the legal remedies that people of the province had to address their grievances as a result of offences against them for various discriminatory motivations by persons, there wasn't very much. We had a branch of the Labour department with one person in charge who, from time to time, could call upon inspectors to assist in pursuing complaints. I believe the one-man human rights commission back in the old days of W.A.C. Bennett was Mr. Jack Sherlock. Obviously that wasn't a sufficient system. It is a mystery to this day why the Labour ministry should have been authorized to be responsible for enforcing human rights. If there was any connection as a result of unfair labour practices, that certainly should not have been the sole basis for that ministry to have that responsibility.

[10:15]

Nonetheless, in this province it has remained that way to this day. Unfortunately, even under our administration we still had that responsibility under the minister. But we did introduce the Human Rights Code soon after being elected in 1972 and, for the first time in this province, recognized that all citizens should have equal rights and opportunities to pursue their lives in whatever way they wished, with the full protection of the law, on an equal basis with everyone else. We created two branches that would achieve that. One was the human rights branch, employing professional people who were skilled in taking complaints and attempting to resolve them in an ameliorative way, and we had a commission with the responsibility to promote understanding through education by various means. Although the budget wasn't sufficient, there was a serious attempt in those days to try to enlighten the public, recognizing that discrimination means different things to different people at different times. It is not a simple matter of on-the-job problems. It is certainly not a job that can be carried out by politicians.

So over the years we have attempted to make the case that the government should not be directly involved in the pursuit of human rights, other than to create the vehicle, just as we've done by creating the ombudsman's office in order to be arm's length from decisions that could compromise the government and just as we've done with the auditor-general's office to give credibility to the scrutiny that must take place with respect to government accounts.

What we're saying is that human rights in this province still remains primarily the purview of a political party — the one that happens to be in office. As a result, they are able to decide the extent to which people will be able to pursue remedies for their complaints.

Quite frankly, when I came back a day or so ago I thought: "What can I really say on Bill 11, when I consider the efforts that have been made by so many people already?" The government itself encouraged a body of advisers to collect information and deliver it to the government as a means of having input into their revised human rights legislation that was attacked so vigorously last fall — Bill 27 — when the government realized that had it pursued that course of action, it would have been at great political peril. So it allowed that bill to die on the order paper, suggesting to the public that they in fact did have some influence when they demonstrated and when they protested — that they could in fact reach the government. This was beginning to be encouraging, because the official opposition was not the main antagonist in this case. It was the public. It was the people on the streets — those who are in the community — saying to the government: "Withdraw this bill." So the government was able to save face, so to speak, by not having to relent to the opposition, which is an unfortunate situation, but that's the way it is in this House. Unfortunately, it seems that when the opposition makes a recommendation it is dismissed out of hand no matter how good it is. But in this case the public coalitions, the clergy, schoolteachers, social workers and various societies and multicultural groups from all over the province collectively condemned Bill 27. They requested that the government reconsider its decision to fire the people at the human rights branch and to disband the Human Rights Commission.

[ Page 4470 ]

Now we're back again, and we find that the government seems to have got back onto the track it was on before. Those people who were encouraged to organize in order to make recommendations for reasonable amendments to Bill 11 were denied that; although they were involved in considerable deliberations, their input has been ignored. So now we have confrontation, Mr. Speaker, when we should have cooperation. This is the part that is difficult for me, because I realize that as I speak the government refuses to take seriously any of the things we are saying. We have a hoist motion at the moment to delay this bill for six months to allow input and to allow some serious study. But as I look across the floor, and I see the Minister of Labour sitting there in a rather comfortable state, I realize that he is not seriously concerned about this legislation. He is going to proceed as he has planned. That's the tragedy of it all.

We have to wonder: what are the motives behind the government's actions? Why would the Minister of Labour order the termination of human rights workers who were engaged in investigating complaints? Why would he terminate the Human Rights Commission, which was involved in educating the public and providing information and support in order to have some influence on the attitudes of the people of the province? Why would he eliminate that program without having another program in place? Why is it today that, although the Human Rights Code is still the law, we are not able to follow through on human rights complaints? There is a backlog of human rights complaints that has been building up in this province for months. The minister shakes his head. He says: "No, there's not." But I would like to ask the minister to advise the House who are taking the complaints today and what actions are being taken.

Well, I'm not in a vindictive mood and certainly not in a vitriolic mood, and I don't wish to yell and scream at the minister, but it seems to me that whatever his motives were for disbanding the Human Rights Commission and firing all of those human rights workers, he has never satisfactorily explained it not only to the members of the Legislature but to the public. It seems to have been a personal decision on the part of the minister to simply disband an organization that was duly constituted to function in this province. How would it be, Mr. Speaker, if the government decided to just terminate other agencies and organizations in the community without any replacement? Mind you, I realize that they're doing that with legal services; access to the courts is becoming less and less a possibility for people who have no economic means. But is it responsible government to terminate a program that is providing a vital service without creating a new one, as we have done in the province today?

We've talked to the minister from time to time — sometimes informally — about his attitudes about human rights, and I recall the minister having indicated that if you make it more difficult or stop making it so easy for people to complain, all of those so-called frivolous, rather unsubstantiated, ridiculous concerns that people have will just go away. But the problem with that reasoning.... Even though there may be some frivolous, vexatious complaints by individuals — I can see that sometimes that happens; all of us in public life know that from time to time we have to deal with complaints that people themselves perceive to be substantial or to be ones in which a legislator can get involved, when in fact this may not be the case — is it the place of the Minister of Labour, who has his own political biases and ideologies about what is right and wrong ? Is it his right or his responsibility to pass judgment on the citizens who feel that they have a complaint and should have an opportunity to due process of law, the same as anyone else? That is the problem.

Bill 11 attempts to give the impression that it is a far better instrument for individuals to pursue their rights than the previous bill, when in fact the Minister of Labour remains the key figure in the whole process. No matter what the council may try to do, the council is really no more than an extension of the minister. Those so-called five council people who will act as investigators and who will attempt to resolve disputes between individuals do not have the authority to act independently. They are bound by a very restrictive set of prohibited acts that are specified. And because it seems to be a fairly long schedule, the impression, Mr. Speaker, is that more things are now possible, more grievances can now be pursued under the new legislation than the old. It is now prohibited to discriminate with respect to publications, public facilities of any sort, the purchase of property, tenancy, employment and wages, and certain union organizations have to operate more democratically, according to this.

But, you know, the government did one thing that undermines this visually impressive piece of legislation. They took out the concept of reasonableness. "Reasonableness" is a term that, in a democratic society, relies on cooperation between individuals. It relies on people to use common sense, to consider in a very fundamental way that what is right for you should be right for me, and vice versa. This is relying on the individual, Mr. Speaker, as the government has said in the past, to regulate themselves, so the government doesn't have to get involved. This is allowing that possibility, because as long as there is a possibility for people to make a judgment on their own, or there is hope for common sense to have some relevancy in a situation, then it's possible for people to regulate on their own — for them to go home and sleep on an idea, think it over, hear the arguments, and come back and reconsider and to be fair. But when you take out the "reasonable cause" and put in a whole bunch of specific acts and a whole lot of " howevers" and " provisos," what you are doing, in effect, is reducing the concept of accessibility to due process to nothing more than a sham.

[10:30]

I should point out that "reasonableness" was used in the legislation, but in a different context. Under "discrimination in wages," the minister found it convenient to suggest that where wages were concerned and it was necessary for discrimination to take place between two individuals, not necessarily on a sexual basis — because of male or female — but for some reason that the employer found to be reasonably justified. This is a reverse use of reason; this is a bias for one of the parties. It is suggested that in that respect it is okay.

Just for the record, section 7, under "discrimination in wages," states: "No employer shall discriminate between his male or female employees by employing an employee of one sex for work at a rate of pay that is less than the rate of pay at which an employee of the other sex is employed by that employer for similar or substantially similar work." But then subsection (3) states: "A difference in the rate of pay between employees of different sexes based on a factor other than sex does not constitute a failure to comply with this section where the factor on which the difference is based would reasonably justify the difference." I am just suggesting that you can apply the terms to suit yourself, but clearly this is recognizing

[ Page 4471 ]

the need of an employer to have some latitude to make a judgment. I can't argue with the need for that latitude. But why not, on the converse, recognize the need of the aggrieved to be able to make a case where it is not specified in this legislation? We have removed through a process of terminology the rights to all those things that no politician could conceivably imagine.... No matter how bright you are or how many researchers you have or how much time you put in, you cannot be expected to put all the possibilities that could take place into a piece of legislation. This is why reasonable cause was so important. It allowed rational people, those people who were attempting to be fair, to have some way by which they could remedy the situation, some flexibility, some options. They were not bound by rigid — strangely rigid, I might add, to the point that one has to wonder, despite the desire to refrain from being cynical and thinking of ulterior motives, why the government would restrict the scope of the legislation to the point that it does not allow those people who are in fact the parties in the situation an opportunity to resolve the thing with some scope.

There is no hope in this situation, no trust. The government says it does not want to involve itself in the morals of society; it wants to leave it to the so-called private citizen, to the so-called independence of the public. The government's role is to provide the means, the vehicle, the access, to give direction and encouragement and to stay at arm's length, so it says. But the minister, as the key administrator in human rights, is closer than ever. Why? We still can't have boards of inquiry in this province without the express permission of the minister. The minister is able to decide the merits of the case. He's able to decide whether or not a case will go forward. There is no appeal against to that decision. The human rights council have a similar power. They too can arbitrarily decide to what extent a complaint is to be pursued, whether it is to be denied or not.

[Mr. Pelton in the chair.]

As I say, none of us can pretend to have the answers to the problem. That's why our justice system prides itself on being free of political influence. That is why we don't pick up the telephone and call the judge and say: "You've got a case coming up. My friend is going to be there. You should keep that in mind if you want to be reappointed — or for any reason. If you expect a good deal in the future, you come up with the right decision." Clearly we have a parallel with respect to the minister having made himself the key factor, as the key administrator of human rights in this province. I cannot understand why a minister would take that responsibility if he were sincerely interested in encouraging people to participate, to deal rationally with the concerns of society, and in being believable. How can there be any credibility?

I don't have that list of advisers. I haven't seen the list. The minister refuses to provide us with that information. As I understand it, he refuses to even name names. Or those people who were involved are sworn to secrecy. We don't yet know the content of the so-called recommendations provided to the minister before Bill 11 was introduced into the House. People are suspicious. They claim that as the committee was submitting its recommendations to the minister, the minister was in fact getting approval from the cabinet to introduce Bill 11 in the final draft — the final print, the finished product, the glossy stuff. It was all done. It takes days to get these documents together. How could it possibly be that the night before, the recommendations were being presented to the minister? He claims that he considered these. He claims as well that as an ongoing process, input from these people was taking place as they went along, but he refuses to give any specifics. He does not say in what ways they recommended changes and amendments to Bill 27. He's not talking in specific terms. He's only specific in expressing his own attitude about what the scope of human rights should be in the province of British Columbia. Himself the czar of human rights, himself fully qualified to know all things about the rights of people, himself a person who has to make political judgments in order to keep himself elected, is telling us that he is a fair-minded, benevolent, loving politician.

Notwithstanding all these virtues, Mr. Speaker, I contend that he should not try to impose those values or that impression upon us, because that is not his place. His place as an administrator and as a politician is to provide the means. If he really means what he says about letting people regulate themselves, he should give them some hope and some way in which they can do that. I realize it's probably quite in character to have that kind of display. Some people call it arrogance, indifference, insensitivity — ignorance perhaps. Whatever it is, it seems to be in great abundance among certain of those people on that side of the House.

It was not that long ago, in fact just a few months after the last election, which was May 5.... We are almost to the day celebrating that first year, and it seems like 10 years because of the bludgeoning that we have experienced from this government. On July 7 or thereabouts, when this government brought in its infamous dirty-dozen bills — plus another dozen or so — and began to run roughshod over people, we had 26,000 people standing out on the lawn. They were coming to Premier Bennett and his cabinet and reminding them that just a few months earlier, when we were discussing things like the Compensation Stabilization Act, when we were saying in the campaign that we wanted to give people the opportunity to cooperate.... Bill Bennett himself was using those words: "We want to give the people the opportunity to cooperate." But 26,000 or so of them stood out there on the lawn, and I recall the Premier sitting in here.... In fact, we had discussions several times as the debate was going on in here. The people out there were asking him to please come out and listen, to give them an opportunity to share and say a few things about what the government was doing. To this day those people are still waiting for the Premier to give them the so-called audience that he felt they should have.

This is exactly what's happening with this legislation. Some people have become very angry. Here is a statement by the Solidarity Coalition, which was published recently — April 12; a statement by Father Jim Roberts, one of the co-chairmen with Solidarity on human rights. He says that the coalition refuses to call Bill 11 a human rights bill; they have named it the "Licence to Discriminate Act." He goes on to deride it and to describe it in uncomplimentary terms. What those people are saying — and there are quite a few people in that coalition — is: "What can we do? What can we say that's going to make any difference?"

Who are the members of the coalition? There probably are quite a few more but here are the ones that are listed, the people who are trying to reach the government: the Human Rights Coalition itself, the Organization to Fight Racism, the Coalition of the Disabled, the Federation of Labour, the Civil Liberties Association, the Association of Social Workers, the

[ Page 4472 ]

Sikh Solidarity Association, Vancouver Status of Women, the Gay Rights Union, the Vancouver Gay Community Centre, the Solidarity coalition, the Committee for Racial Justice, Black Solidarity, Vancouver Rape Relief, gay men in Solidarity, the lower mainland Solidarity coalition, Lesbians Against the Budget, the Canadian Farmworkers' Union, former chairman of the Human Rights Commission, Dr. Charles Paris, who is presently director of the Canadian Council of Christians and Jews, and Loui Rudland of Vancouver Status of Women — just to mention a few. I'm sure there are many more people because I know others are making similar statements. But I must say, I don't know what good it's going to do them.

I had a phone call from a lawyer the other day who has spent most of his life struggling to assist people in the Legal Services Society. He said: "I would like to lobby some of the MLAs who might be able to reverse the decisions of the Attorney-General to cut back on legal aid funding." I said: "Good luck. I don't know who you can lobby. You can lobby me as you're doing, and I can promise you that I'll tell my colleagues that go into the legislature to demand of the Attorney-General that they reinstate the funding to give those people who have no means themselves...." Some 20 percent of the population of British Columbia are unemployed in various forms or on fixed incomes. People find themselves trapped, and they do not have access to the justice system. No matter how much the government may claim that if they want to they can pull themselves up by their bootstraps, it's just not possible. It is not a reality. It may be the government's "new" reality, which the Premier has expressed, but it's not the old reality. The old reality says that if you don't have access or means and you're pushed into a comer, you pick up a baseball bat and find your way by beating somebody over the head.

What are we saying when we tell people that we are going to take access away from them and not give them the opportunity that they are asking for and have a right to in a society such as ours where we are centralized to such a point that we have taken away the access to means of survival for most people who are living in highly populated areas? They are very vulnerable; they are very dependent. Sometimes they don't realize themselves how bad it is until they are up against the wall. We have people in this province who for the first time are drawing social assistance and unemployment insurance. People who have raised their families who themselves are becoming contributors to society through the tax system and who are pursuing educations and trying to give input to society are finding that they themselves are feeling ashamed and embarrassed to ask someone for temporary assistance. They are finding it very difficult. They are horrified at what's going on. We've said this before, time and time again, as I told the lawyer.

Our main power, strength and means of communicating with the government is through words. We don't have very much more than that. We're not even authorized to sit on standing committees in this province's Legislature — on committees that have the statutory right and responsibility to have an impact on what is going on in this place. It's a sham; we're outvoted; we may be given the chairmanship of the Public Accounts Committee, but when you get right down to it, nothing that we pursue can be realized, as by the time we get documentation it's out of date; the statute of limitations is over by the time we get anything. It is a stonewalling system, one which the government is using to its political advantage at the expense of the democratic system that the public relies on. When you get 26,000 people on the lawns of the Legislature and another 50,000 to 60,000 of them in Sunset Beach in Vancouver demanding that we become more sensitive to the world situation and pursue peace, how can you conceivably expect those people to have faith in the system that won't even listen to them on something like human rights?

[10:45]

We are talking about only a $1.2 million budget that they had last year which seems to have been reduced to about half that amount this year. The government spends that kind of money on its excursions, on its political gambits around the province riding back and forth on Lear jets. And you mean to tell me that we cannot invest that kind of money to encourage people in this province to work together, to cooperate, by leaving in a simple thing like "reasonable cause"? What's wrong with it? How did reasonable cause get to be such a dirty word? That should be the first thing the government should say: "Reasonable cause, by all means. As long as it's reasonable we'll go for it, because you the people have decided. We'll give you the opportunity to be reasonable yourselves and get off our backs because we're politicians and we cannot be expected to be unbiased. We have our own interests, as we should have in our society. We have our own ideologies, as we will have in this society. We have different religions, different concerns and different constituencies, but we know what's right, and we know that you the people should have an opportunity to do these things yourselves, and we're going to set up a commission that's independent. I'm not going to sit there as the Minister of Labour and play games with people's lives. How can I make a judgment on what should be pursued and not be pursued, what's frivolous and what isn't?" What gall! What self-aggrandizement! It's incredible the way a person can think.

Interjection.

MR. BARNES: It may be in my legislation, my friend, but I can tell you right now, I'm not beyond mending my ways. If I discover that I've made a mistake, I will admit it. I would say that I made a mistake. That's called the evolution of intelligence. That's called growing up. That's called developing yourself.

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: Why didn't you vote against it?

MR. BARNES: Mr. Speaker, the minister is attempting to protest from his seat. He will have an opportunity to do that.

I'm suggesting to you that in this Legislature in 1984 we certainly can't expect to be perfect, but we've got to learn from each other. We don't need to defend the mistakes of the past. We've got to learn by them. This is what the people are telling us. We're not interested in fighting the past. We're telling you that we've got to make progress, and you're going backwards.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I'm sorry, hon. member, your time under standing orders has expired. Are you the designated speaker?

[ Page 4473 ]

MR. BARNES: Well, Mr. Speaker, that might be a worthwhile question. I'm not the designated speaker, but I haven't actually finished.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I'm sorry, hon. member, but time has expired under standing orders.

MR. ROSE: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. It is possible, since the member has a passionate interest in this subject and was just launching into the important part of his speech, that by unanimous consent this Legislature can permit extended time. This courtesy is not unknown in other legislatures. Why can't we, through unanimous consent, permit the member to speak for another five minutes or so?

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: On the same point of order, Mr. Speaker. We have rules in this House which are the same for everybody, and each of us knows exactly the time that we are allowed to speak on certain parts of the procedures in this House. We all have the same rules.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Thank you, Mr. Minister. Just a moment please, hon. members. First of all, I should apologize. The Chair did err: there is no designated speaker on a hoisting motion, as we all realize. In the circumstances I would suggest that if unanimous leave can be granted, the member may continue.

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: On the same point of order, again, Mr. Speaker. We all have the same rules in this House, and we should live up to them. Secondly, this is an amendment, and the member has a full opportunity to speak again during the debate on second reading of the bill.

MR. COCKE: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. The minister is wasting a lot of time. All he has to do, if he wishes, is deny consent. The first member for Vancouver Centre has every right to ask for consent, and if the minister wishes to deny it.... These points of order are ridiculous.

MR. ROSE: If the first member for Vancouver Centre intends to seek unanimous consent, that's fine. If he doesn't, then I will move that he be given extended time.

MRS. WALLACE: On the same point of order, Mr. Speaker. I am referring to standing order 49, under which it states that a motion may be made by unanimous consent without any previous notice having been given. It would seem to me that my colleague the member for Coquitlam-Moody has made this motion asking for unanimous consent, and I would ask that the Speaker take this under serious consideration, and ask the House that unanimous consent be given for my colleague to continue.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hon. member, the Chair was just about to proceed in that manner. So I would call the question: shall leave be granted for the member to continue?

Leave not granted.

MR. BARNES: Mr. Speaker, I regret that. Just two or three years ago we commissioned Mr. John McAlpine to investigate a problem of the KKK. Recommendations were made that I wanted to share with the minister. Perhaps he hasn't read the report yet.

MRS. WALLACE: I regret that my colleague was not able to continue his eloquence. His very sincere and personal interest in this subject that we're discussing today is second to none. It's unfortunate that some members of the government saw fit to refuse him the permission required to make those statements in the eloquent way that only he can do, because of that heartfelt experience and personal feeling about this particular bill.

We're discussing today a motion to hoist for six months. I think when we look ahead for the reasons why, we also have to look back. In commending to the minister the need for further consideration, it is important that he does review, in his own mind, the history of human rights in Canada and in British Columbia. I don't believe that minister has done that, because if he had, prior to introducing Bill 27 and again prior to introducing Bill 11, he would have not proceeded. I think it is very crucial that some of these concerns be brought to the minister's attention — some of the reasons, some of the history as to why it is so important that we have a strong and viable form of human rights legislation.

[11:00]

[Mr. Passarell in the chair.]

I think if that minister will just go down the road with me a bit through the past history of British Columbia and Canada as to how we arrived at where we are today and how tenuous is our position, even in 1984, he will recognize that this proposed Bill 11 does not meet the criteria, does not deal with the situation, does not go far enough to ensure the protection of human rights in British Columbia and in Canada.

You know, Mr. Speaker, in Canada we have been very smug and very proud that we have been much better than our neighbours to the south in dealing with human rights. In the United States, of course, back in the 1800s, people were bought and sold. Ads were placed in papers or mounted on billboards, buying and selling human beings. We're very proud in Canada and very smug that we never did that.

When the Americans moved away from that, they attempted to go the route of a melting pot, to absorb their racial minorities, to try and assimilate them all as Americans, to destroy their ethnic backgrounds and to come out as one great similar, assimilated type of people. Here in Canada we again were smug. We said: "No, we will not go that route. We will go the route of allowing those ethnic groups to thrive and to become part of a whole mosaic." That was our Canadian culture. We pretended to be very proud about that, and we thought we didn't have discrimination. But that was not correct; we did have discrimination.

I think that it is necessary that we recognize that people can be prejudiced without really realizing that they are prejudiced, without it being up front. Because of that, it is necessary that discrimination as a result of those prejudices be regulated by legislation. It's a very tenuous thing; it's very difficult to isolate what is a prejudice and what is discrimination. Because of that it is very necessary that any code or legislation dealing with it be very explicit and definite. This bill is not.

In its Declaration of Human Rights, the United Nations has stated: "All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. Everyone is entitled to all the rights and

[ Page 4474 ]

freedoms set forth in this declaration without distinction of any kind such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status." That's a very broad, critical and important statement. How have we stacked up in Canada? Are we an unprejudiced nation? Not so, and fairly recently not so.

Looking back.... And we have to look back, because we're talking about something that has spanned generations, decades and centuries; great periods of time. Toronto is probably the most racially mixed city in Canada, and there we had the neo-fascist Western Guard Party in the headlines in the 1970s. In 1973, again in Toronto, at a hockey game a black youth became involved in a fight with a white young person, which ended in the death of the white youth. Why? That black youth had had racial slurs; he'd been called, in fact, a "nigger" and other racial slurs. This led to a fight that led to a death. Under Bill 11 there would have been no problem with that because you would have had to prove that there was intent, and I'm sure that all the white people at that hockey game would have said there was no intent to slur that boy.

Interjection.

MRS. WALLACE: I'm trying to teach you a history lesson, Mr. Minister, so please just listen.

There was another instance in Toronto where a 15-year-old black youth was shot. When they were holding the funeral for that black youth, on the side of the church was written: "No more nigger meetings." These things were occurring in Canada in 1973. And it's not just the blacks and the Asians: "Paki-busting" was a favorite sport in the late 1970s. In 1976 on New Year's Eve a white man who tried to stop two youngsters from harassing some Asians on a bus was thrown off, and both his legs were broken, so that he was crippled for life.

As Canadians, we may be smug. We may say that we do not practise racial prejudice and that it's a small problem here in Canada and B.C. The history of our country tells us that that is not so. You can go from Nova Scotia, through Ontario, Quebec and Alberta, and right into British Columbia, and there are continuing signs that racial prejudice exists. Native people certainly have not been excluded, and I know you, Mr. Speaker, will agree with me on that one. The historic wounds that we've effected on native people here in Canada have been detailed at great length. I'm certainly aware of the situation in my own area. As a result of that we saw the militant American Indian Movement — AIM — rise in its popularity and strength among native people in Canada. If you do not provide a democratic and peaceful way of resolving those kinds of problems, you're going to have strife. You're going to have it resolved in other ways. You can't just squelch it forever. It's going to come out. That's what happened with AIM in Canada.

One thing that has been demonstrated in no uncertain terms by the Economic Council of Canada is the shocking disparity, from an economic point of view, between native Indians and other residents of Canada. They first made their proclamation in 1965, when they found that 80 percent of Indian families had annual incomes of less than $3,000; 50 percent had less than $2,000; and 25 percent of native Indian families were living on less than $1,000. In 1965 the life expectancy of Indians was 36 years, and the infant mortality rate among the Inuit was more than one in four, ten times higher than the general Canadian rate. Over successive years those figures have been updated, but basically there has been little change in the ratio.

That kind of economic discrimination is just as truly a problem for human rights as is any other kind of discrimination. It leads to all sorts of problems. It leads to racial prejudice becoming more prominent, more vocal, more belligerent. If a group or class of people is not treated fairly economically, if they do not have equal economic advantages, neither do they have equality in the field of human rights. Bill 11 is certainly not going to achieve the kind of basic studies, education and all of the things so drastically needed if we are to get away from that kind of discrimination.

James Wah-Shee, from the Northwest Territories — you may know him, Mr. Speaker — is with the Native Brotherhood. He defines the link between racism and conditions affecting natives in this way: "A racist society is known by its works. The poor housing, health and economic situation of Canada's Indians is as good an indication of a racist society as an openly avowed policy of racial supremacy on the part of the federal government" — or, in this instance, the provincial government.

What has happened in B.C.? The minister wants to say over and over: "Well, it's your Code. You're saying that happened under your Code. You're the ones that brought it in." Yes, the Code was brought in 10 or 12 years ago. Sure, it needs amending; it needs changing. Very often a piece of legislation.... It could be the Human Rights Code, the Workers' Compensation Board or a Crown corporation such as B.C. Hydro or ICBC. The works of those Crown corporations or the interpretation of any given act is influenced far more than you or I realize, Mr. Speaker, by the attitude of the minister responsible for that piece of legislation or that Crown corporation. He has a great influence on the direction that it goes. I think that's been true of all those Crown corporations and pieces of legislation I've named. It's been particularly true of the Human Rights Code.

If you go back in history.... I'm sorry the minister isn't here. He was not the minister at the time. The minister who was responsible at the time is not in the House any longer. But you will remember that there was a lot of concern about the people who were appointed by this government and the then Minister of Labour to serve on the Human Rights Commission. You will recall some of the statements that were made by some of the members of that commission, relative basically to women. One of the less abusive remarks was that they didn't really need a woman on the commission because they could always talk things over with their wives. The other remarks were far more slanderous.

[11:15]

One of the commissioners was reported as saying: "Let's establish a 'take a gay to lunch' day." This was because gays were being refused admission to certain restaurants. They talked about having a meeting in one of the downtown hotels and one of the commissioners remarked: "Good, that's where all the girls are." Those were the kinds of people appointed to the commission by that government. That, to me, demonstrates the attitude of that government toward human rights in British Columbia.

Eventually we had a change, and we had a Human Rights Commission appointed in November 1981 which prepared a report. I'll just read briefly from the preamble:

"It would hardly be an exaggeration to say that we were shaken and surprised by the degree of frustration

[ Page 4475 ]

and anger we encountered. In failing to act on the previous commission's recommendations and allowing more than three months to elapse before naming new commissioners, the government seemed to many to be signaling their indifference. Some people were openly suspicious that the commission hearings were simply a means of diffusing concern or merely a sop to reformist groups. It will soon be two years since those original recommendations, themselves based on hearings and lengthy deliberations, were put forward. To date there has been no official positive reaction from government to indicate a move toward implementation."

The report, of course, goes on to deal with specifies: farmworkers, domestics, and so on.

Interjection.

MRS. WALLACE: It's a report apparently signed by the human rights commissioners in November.... It says: "When we were appointed ...in November 1981, we inherited from the outgoing commission 31 recommendations for changes to the Human Rights Code."

Interjection.

MRS. WALLACE: No, it's provincial, I'm sure, because it deals with the 31 recommendations: no-name racism, farmworkers, domestic workers and briefs presented and written briefs received. I only have the one copy, so I will send it to you later.

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: You should read page 34 too.

MRS. WALLACE: I'm looking for page 34. "Briefs presented by," is page 34. It lists the farmworkers, the Workers' Compensation Board and the Canadian Farmworkers' Union.

What I'm suggesting is that there has been a long history of problems in the area of human rights. It's a problem that is very much with us today. It's a problem that worsens with a downturn in the economy, because difficulties always occur. Both this report — which the minister seems to think is so complimentary on page 34, but I can't see anything complimentary — and the one dealing with this on a federal level again deal with the past history and how in fact our Asian population, and other visible minorities, were actually brought into the country to ensure a supply of cheap labour. Page 12 of the report that I have points out that in 1906 the Fraser River Canners' Association and the Kootenay Fruit Growers' Association, complaining that labour costs had tripled, petitioned the government to demand free entry for all immigrants who wished to work as servants or agricultural workers. The government responded, and 15,000 new Asian immigrants — 5,000 East Indians and 10,000 Japanese — came to B.C. Immediately there was an oversupply. Historically, this has been a method for governments to put pressure on working people, to keep wages down and working conditions down, in order to ensure a pool of cheap labour. It's interesting to note that because the Chinese came in for heavy manual labour, only males were allowed; Chinese women were not allowed entry to the country.

Also, those immigrants brought in for cheap labour were denied the protection of many of our pieces of legislation. They were not allowed to vote provincially, and as a result, because of the federal legislation, they were not allowed to vote federally. Yet they were taxed. The Chinese even had a head tax placed on them. Some of the pieces of legislation that didn't cover these imported low-cost workers were things like the Coal Mines Regulation Act, which denied Chinese the right to work in coal mines. That was simply because they were threatening the jobs of non-invisible minorities — in effect we are almost all minorities in this country; we're all immigrants, apart from the native Indians. The metalliferous mines regulations barred Chinese and Japanese workers from all mines, quarries and metallurgical works other than coal mines. So they were out of mining.

The laws excluded Chinese and Japanese employment on Crown-granted land. They were prevented from obtaining hand-loggers' licences. Asians were banned from becoming lawyers or pharmacists. The standard contracts of the Department of Public Works required private contractors not to hire Asians. Municipal and provincial government policy effectively barred Asians from public service jobs. Amendments to the Fisheries Act — that's federal, of course — reduced the number of Japanese holding fishing licences. The Trade Licences Act was designed to limit the number of businesses that Asians could operate. And there was a gentleman's agreement between Canada and Japan designating that Japanese could enter Canada only to become farm labourers, domestic servants and contract labourers. We brought these people in and then by our very laws made them second-class citizens; yet we are smug enough to pride ourselves as not exhibiting discrimination. No, Mr. Speaker, we're a long way from perfect in Canada, and we're a long way from perfect in British Columbia. This government is a long way from perfect in designing human rights legislation that will even hold the line, let alone move ahead. Education has to be the cornerstone. That was one of the things that was undertaken with a great deal of interest, fervour and dedication by the Human Rights Commission. That's gone under this bill.

I urge the minister to take some more time to think about what he is really doing to minority groups in British Columbia — to the native Indians, the East Indians, the Chinese and the Japanese, particularly to those visible minorities, but also to those not so visible and not so much in the minority, women. That's certainly one group about which a great deal of prejudice still exists in the field of employment, law and the court system, health care, and in so many other areas for which the provincial government is responsible. That minister, as the minister responsible for human rights in this province, has a very definite responsibility not only to bring in legislation which is more meaningful, more enforceable and broader, but also to work with his colleagues in an educational program to change attitudes.

We talk about freedom. I keep using this quote, but it is so appropriate. It almost paraphrases some of the stuff out of the UN. "Everyone is entitled to complete and absolute freedom as long as it doesn't interfere with the complete and absolute freedom of anyone else." That's a tall order. That's what human rights is all about, Mr. Speaker. That's not what Bill 11 is all about.

Bill 11 is a Milquetoast bill, with a politically appointed council. We've seen the kinds of things that have happened, even with the old commission, with appointments by ministers who were not particularly concerned. At the time when

[ Page 4476 ]

we saw the problems that I've outlined — with the remarks some of the members of the commission made — the minister of the day simply refused to make any changes in the commission at that time. In fact, some of the people who worked in other areas of human rights were simply instructed to keep quiet. I'm going back to 1979. That's not very long ago. It wasn't that minister in charge, but it was his government. That government had been in office then for a matter of four or five years. That's a relatively very short time in a struggle such as the struggle for human rights. Yet in that very short time there had been a complete turnaround in the intent and direction of the Human Rights Commission. There had been a political vibration sent out to that commission. Certainly the appointees had come from a background that wasn't really knowledgeable about immigrant East Indian or native Indian populations. They saw things from a particular perspective — the same perspective as this government sees things. That's how the political influence works. But there were some protections in the old code; under Bill 11 they're gone.

[11:30]

There's no opportunity for education anymore. There's no ability to do many of the basic groundwork type of things that are essential if human rights are to be protected in British Columbia.

Intent. How do you prove intent to discriminate? Impossible.

You must take more time, Mr. Minister. We hoped you had had that time, but perhaps you've been busy. Take another six months. Take another look. Take time to look at those 35 recommendations from the Human Rights Commission. Take time to read some of the briefs presented, some of the reports that you have, some of the letters that I know you have received, because I have received copies. Think about it a little more deeply. Think about British Columbia as a colourful mosaic, where we can be so enriched through the heritage of the many groups that have come to this province, if we treat them fairly, if their human rights are protected. Think too about the fact that if British Columbia does not go in that direction, what we will see instead is more confrontation, more difficulty, more hardship and a quick return to the kinds of things recorded in this report back in the seventies, sixties and fifties. Let us not go backwards in British Columbia; let us go ahead. Take time and think about it, Mr. Minister.

MR. MITCHELL: Before I get into this request for the government to take a second thought and hoist this particular piece of legislation for another six months, I cannot help thinking that last night I attended a meeting in my riding. All of us MLAs here have to go back and report to our constituents. They ask a lot of questions. The first question that a lot of them ask is: what are you doing in the House? What kind of debates are taking place? What type of legislation is coming down? I try to explain the atmosphere of this particular Legislature and the attitude of the government and their supporters. I advise that group that we are in the midst of debating one of the most important pieces of legislation, Bill 11, and we've gone through a number of estimates such as Forests, and the one thing that has been so remarkable in this House is that all the debate, discussion and input has come from the Opposition.

I was surprised. They were a mixed age group from different ways of life. They were quite shocked that in British Columbia we are having legislation by decree. I guess it started here two years ago in 1982 when the Minister of Finance wiped out the renter's grant, wiped out the income tax credits, not by being passed or withdrawn in this House but by press release. It took one election and another session of the Legislature to do it legally.

What has happened in Bill 11? Last July 7 the government brought down, as my colleague from Vancouver Centre said, the dirty dozen, 26 bills that changed the life of British Columbians.

AN HON. MEMBER: Is this on the hoist?

MR. MITCHELL: Yes, this is why I'm speaking on the hoist. I think this government should give some serious thought to the way they are going and how our democratic rights are being eroded in this Legislature. This is what I am talking about, and the member for Surrey should listen to what is happening in this House with the intent of this piece of legislation.

We had Bill 27; now we have Bill 11. What really bothers me is that the legislation or the changes were brought in, but the Human Rights Code, which is the law of this province, has not been changed. What has been changed is that the enforcement section of the Human Rights Code were fired on July 7. Last year the whole staff that did the investigation of legislation that is giving protection to people of all minorities — and we're all a minority at one time or another — was wiped out. If I could get through to the minister, if he would only listen to what we are doing, we are bringing in a piece of legislation, or he's proposing to bring in a piece of legislation, but he's already got rid of the present Code that is still law. It's like bringing in a Criminal Code that gave the people of our province the protection against murder, theft or fraud and then wiping out the police departments and the prosecutors and all we have left is the Supreme Court judges. The most dangerous part of this legislation is that he has replaced all the staff that did the groundwork, did the digging, the investigation, the follow-ups, gathering the evidence of discrimination that was then presented to a higher body. But you cannot expect the judges to go out and investigate a murder or a theft or someone being defrauded, to go out and gather that evidence and then take that evidence back and make an unbiased judgment on the evidence that they have gathered.

You can talk about all the platitudes that I hear some of the members of the government saying, that this is going to be the greatest piece of legislation that ever came in in Canada. Everyone who is concerned with human rights, be they religious rights, political rights or ethnic rights, and everyone from the religious communities has condemned this legislation. They have condemned the gutting of the investigation staff that is needed to protect people's rights.

If some family enters the lobby of some hotel in Peace River, Prince George or Vancouver and they ask for rooms and they are turned down, they are turned down maybe because of their colour, their ethnic background, the language they are speaking or even a political button they may have on their lapel. They are turned down and are sent back out on the street, and they realize maybe the next day that they have been discriminated against. By the time they are prepared to put this complaint in writing before a board — a commission of five people who are going to be investigating all the many, many complaints that take place in British Columbia — do you really believe that any one of those five judges is going to

[ Page 4477 ]

have the time to go to Prince George, Williams Lake or Vancouver and interview the clerk who happened to be on that night and try to establish if there is any discrimination...

MRS. WALLACE: Or intent.

[11:45]

MR. MITCHELL: ...or intent to discriminate, as my colleague says? They will not have the time to do it. Even if they did do it — I say as one who has investigated many complaints — you'd get a denial immediately. But if you are doing an investigation, you do some background investigation. You'd check if there was a vacancy in that particular time. You'd check if there were other discrepancies. Maybe in that particular issue you will find that you failed to have sufficient evidence for a prosecution or a complaint, but then it would become a series of complaints that may come in on that particular hotel or restaurant or employer. If you do not have a staff of people who are familiar with the intent of the legislation and you do not have a staff of competent investigators who can follow up and can ask the right questions, you cannot expect five people, no matter how well-meaning they are, to do the investigation that is needed to uphold what rights there are in this particular legislation.

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: You haven't any idea what you're talking about.

MR. MITCHELL: Yes, I have. When you have wiped out the staff that would be doing the investigation for human rights, that group who would receive the complaints, and you have said that the complainant must do his own investigation and provide his own facts and his legal....

AN HON. MEMBER: You're crazy.

MR. MITCHELL: I am not crazy. Mr. Speaker, what I am saying to the minister is that you cannot have a piece of legislation that cannot be enforced and that cannot be investigated. You are going to leave five people to do the following up and to decide if it's a legitimate complaint, or frivolous or vexatious. You can't have that, because the amount of work, people and investigation involved is immense.

The minister sits over there and makes these snide remarks. I say don't take my word for it. Go out to the religious communities, to the ethnic groups, to the groups who are being trampled on and who are going to suffer because we are eroding some of the rights that we have gained very, very slowly over the years.

[Mr. Strachan in the chair.]

Discrimination is not something that the other person practises. I say that each one of us, if we honestly look back over our past and our particular actions, in one way or another has practised discrimination, be it by our humorous remarks about women or about ethnic groups — our humorous remarks or our mistakes.

AN HON. MEMBER: About Scots.

MR. MITCHELL: About Scots, about Jews, about native Indians, about the marital selections some people have made.

We have all practised that discrimination. I know some of our holier-than-thou ministers say: "Not I." As I said before, when I stand over here, I don't see any halos above anyone over there. If we are slowly going to change our attitudes towards discrimination, it is going to come about only by a lot of education and a lot of exposure. The things we have been practising are discriminatory.

I say this as a person who has worked mostly in male-oriented occupations. When I first entered the workforce, how many people really understood the problems of a pregnant woman on the job? We didn't. We thought it was a joke. I look back at some of the attitudes of me and my friends at some of the things that we took as being quite humorous: the mental capacities of people, the handicapped. It was a joke. I believe that the Human Rights Code brought in by the NDP — the group, the education and publicity.... That piece of legislation changed a lot of people's attitudes. It exposed things that we had taken as not being important and put them in their proper perspective. For those of us who had given it thought, we were trying to push, in our own jobs and our own communities, the attitude that we could not discriminate or continue to carry on the snide remarks and the off-colour jokes that took place.

I say this very humbly. When we look at how our society has gained momentum.... The previous speaker said that it wasn't that far back in our own North American history when we did practise slavery. Those who practised it didn't think they were doing something "with intent." It was the way of life of the community. We see that certain people are given jobs. Maybe they get the promotion because they are white or they are of the religious denomination of the boss. It has nothing with their qualifications. That has been accepted on many job sites. But all of a sudden, when it was brought to the attention of unions — and unions were a part of the community that practised discrimination.... The Canadian army practises discrimination. All kinds of organizations out in our community have practised discrimination. But because of the publicity and education that has taken place over the last ten years we have made great changes, and we have rattled a few of the sacred cows of our society. We have to continue to do that.

We can't think that the changes are going to come automatically. It's just like an airplane that is up in the air doing 800 miles an hour, and all of a sudden you say that now we're going at a good speed we can shut off the motors and we'll continue to fly. We cannot. We must continue the investigation and the effective prosecution of the blatant discrimination that takes place, has taken place and will continue to take place if enforcement or investigation is not allowed.

When I worked on the street as a policeman, I saw some of the raw hatred that drunks and people under stress or pressure blurt out. Until you are part of that you fail to understand the hurt felt by people to whom those hateful remarks are made. I say this because I know a lot of the people in this House have lived a very quiet life in a nice community, working in certain occupations and going to nice, quiet churches, and they haven't seen the hate of the drunks on the street or domestic.... They haven't experienced the problems that take place when people are under attack. There you see some of the true discrimination that exists in our community.

We cannot afford to stop the continual education given by the previous commission — the publications, the speeches made in the schools and service clubs, and the presentations

[ Page 4478 ]

they made to the Police Academy. Many times I was ashamed of some of the bigots that wore a uniform at one time or another, but the attitude and the education that came out of the police academy from the Human Rights Code workers did change the attitude of a lot of younger people and a lot of more experienced policemen who should have known better but went back on retraining courses — upgrading — and had an opportunity to really see themselves as they are. You can't afford to ever shut any of this down, to take an attitude that we've gone so far and everyone is going to act in a nice, friendly, happy manner, because we don't work that way. I think if you wiped out the police forces and the prosecutors and you left all the investigation that is needed in the Criminal Code to the judges, the protection out on the street to the community would be nil.

You could have an ad in the paper that says: "Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt not murder." But if you don't have someone to go out there and investigate it, gather the evidence, enforce it and monitor the changes in our society and community and job sites, that hatred that especially comes up in a time of economic crisis when there is a lot of unemployment, when there are a million and a half people fighting for jobs.... The bitterness and the snide and racist and religious remarks taking place in that community of people who are fighting to survive will spread like a grassfire, unless we continue as a decent society and keep on pointing out that there are hardships because of a downturn in the economy.

There are hardships because people who also want to survive are working, and someone else of a different religion or a different colour of skin or a different ethnic group is working. He has those rights.

I ask the government to give serious consideration to going back to the religious groups, back to the groups who are most blatantly affected because of colour, because of the history of the discrimination, because of their ethnic group or religious beliefs. Go back to them and say: "Fine. We have discussed this in the House, we have listened to the opposition, we have read your briefs. And you have stated time after time that there is a lot missing in what should come into a human rights act." I ask them to do that study, or if not, to turn it over to a legislative committee and have that committee go out in the province and listen, and then bring in the changes that are needed.

Mr. Speaker, I have finished most of the information that I have to say.

Mr. Mitchell moved adjournment of the debate.

Motion approved.

Hon. Mr. Schroeder moved adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

The House adjourned at 12:01 p.m.