[ Page 7177 ]

CONTENTS

Ministerial Statement

Expo 86. Hon. Mr. Richmond –– 7177

Mr. MacWilliam

Workers Compensation Amendment Act (No. 2), 1985 (Bill 68). Hon. Mr. Segarty

Introduction and first reading –– 7178

An Act Respecting Pacific Bible College (Bill PR403). Second Reading

Mrs. Johnston –– 7179

Mr. Rose –– 7179

Mrs. Johnston –– 7180

Division

Attorney General Statutes Amendment Act (No. 2), 1985 (Bill 55). Hon. Mr. Smith.

Committee stage –– 7180

Mr. Parks

Mr. Lauk

Mr. Blencoe

Mr. Cocke

Mr. Lea

Mr. MacWilliam

Appendix –– 7189

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 28, 1985

The House met at 10:03 a.m.

Prayers.

Ministerial Statement

EXPO 86

HON. MR. RICHMOND: Since there are no introductions, I would like to take this time to make a ministerial statement. It has been some time since I have been able to bring news of our world exposition, Expo 86, to this House and to bring the members and the people of British Columbia up to date. So I would like to take this opportunity to just briefly let the House know where we are with Expo 86.

First of all, let me start by talking about ticket sales. To date, the total number of prepaid visits to Expo is 6.3 million, which represents 46 percent of the budgeted figure of 13.75 million. So 46 percent of all the visits projected for Expo are money in the bank.

We have now heard from and sold tickets to every state of the union and every province of Canada. I can tell you that even before California announced that they were officially participating, the second highest number of inquiries were coming from that state. I think it bodes well for the attendance at Expo, as that is such an important market to us.

Secondly, about two and a half months ago the Premier announced the B.C. Invites the World program. I can tell you that over 827,000 people have invited friends, relatives and associates from all over Canada and the world. The number is over 827,000. The response to the program has been incredible, and I thank the people of British Columbia for responding. It shows the enthusiasm that the people of British Columbia have for Expo 86.

At the moment there are over 93 community committees working on planning festivals and events during Expo. International participation now stands at 45 countries, with more yet to come if we can find room for them on the site. We are now to the point where the site is virtually full. More want to come to the exhibition, and we are having difficulty accommodating them.

I am pleased to say that Norway is one of the latest countries to participate with their exhibition of the great explorers. I am sure that everyone will find that one of the more interesting exhibits on the site.

To date, there have been over 20,000 applications received for jobs on site at Expo. I am pleased to report that over 15,000 will be hired, and the applications are running at just over 20,000 from all over British Columbia and from other parts of Canada.

We are now into the turnover phase — and have been since November 1 — where we are turning the modules over to the foreign participants so that they have a full six months to prepare their exhibitory, which will guarantee us a first-class exhibition. I know the Leader of the Opposition is not interested in this because it is mainly good news, and it's difficult for him to assimilate this good news; but I will press on regardless.

The construction phase is 98 percent complete; we are 98 percent complete on construction. I'm pleased to say that 74 percent of the workers on site have been union workers and 26 percent non-union, and the project is on schedule and on budget. The total amount of construction being provided to the building trades in Vancouver by Expo alone is over $400 million. Many professional organizations and people who really have nothing to gain specifically from Expo are, I am pleased to say, getting behind the fair and purchasing tickets. I have just received word, for example, that the professional engineers' association — and I commend them — have purchased 1,100 adult season passes and 2,500 three-day passes. That's an example of the organizations that are getting behind Expo 86.

Finally, the amateur entertainers that have been invited to the fair are responding very favourably to date. We have booked 78,000 amateur entertainers from across Canada to perform at Expo, 60 percent of which will come from British Columbia. I can tell you, in wrapping up, that....

Interjections.

HON. MR. RICHMOND: I'm sure the people of British Columbia, because of their response to Expo, will be interested in hearing this. The response to the exhibition, worldwide, has been incredible, and we couldn't be more pleased with where it is at this time. We have had the opportunity to preview Expo to world leaders, provincial leaders and journalists from around the world, and the response has been overwhelming. I just want to assure the people of British Columbia that we will put on a first-class world exposition of which all Canadians, and especially all British Columbians, can be extremely proud.

MR. MacWILLIAM: Well, Mr. Speaker, we've heard the good news a number of times, we've read it all before in the paper, and I'm not about to dignify the comments by making any response to them. Everybody knows what has been said a number of times. The point I'd like to make is: is that all there is in this Legislature? Is that why we've been called back — to listen to these ministers make repeated statements that we've read 100 times before in the press? We're wasting our time here, costing taxpayers good money, while everybody over on the other side of the House waits for the boss to come home, because they were told to keep the House open while he is gone on his 11-day sojourn.

I want to know why we're sitting here, Mr. Speaker. We should be discussing more important information.

[Mr. Speaker rose.]

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. Hon. members, while a response is in order to a ministerial statement, it must deal with the ministerial statement, and it is not an excuse or an opportunity to launch into any kind of other debate. I would commend that to members.

[Mr. Speaker resumed his seat.]

MR. MacWILLIAM: Mr. Speaker, the point I was making was that these matters have been discussed a number of times in the House before. I responded in a very positive manner to Expo during previous debates, and I feel that we should, at this time, be discussing more pertinent debates, such as the number of jobs....

Interjections.

[ Page 7178 ]

[Mr. Speaker rose.]

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

Hon. member, the Chair has just advised the member of the requirements he must fulfill in responding to a ministerial statement. If the member chooses to ignore the advice of the Chair, the Chair will have no alternative but to deal with him accordingly.

[Mr. Speaker resumed his seat.]

MR. HOWARD: Mr. Speaker, point of order. My point of order relates to that segment of the standing orders dealing with relevance in debate and to the comments of the Minister of Tourism (Hon. Mr. Richmond), when he said, in the course of his remarks, that the Leader of the Opposition is not interested in Expo. That is an incorrect statement. It's an accusation that is false, and the minister should not be permitted to make those types of extraneous, irrelevant and totally....

Interjections.

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

Interjections.

MR. SPEAKER: Well, hon. members, if the Chair were to rule on every different opinion that was expressed in the House, we'd be constantly hearing from the Chair and not the members.

Interjections.

[Mr. Speaker rose.]

MR. SPEAKER: The members have an opportunity, during the course of debate, to express their views and opinions. But to gain the floor by a means other than by which they are entitled is contrary to the standing orders, the rules, the traditions and the practices of this House, and they will be dealt with by the Chair.

[Mr. Speaker resumed his seat.]

MR. SKELLY: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Would the Speaker advise what rules govern ministerial statements in the House? Can they simply be used as filler and to waste the time of the Legislature on information that's already been presented to the public through other means? I'm simply asking the Speaker for a ruling as to the content of ministerial statements.

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. members, the content of ministerial statements has been handed down on numerous occasions in this House, and I would commend to all members the perusal of those particular opinions by the Chair. It would be impossible for the Chair to rule on the content of ministerial statements. That, of course, is what we face every few years in this province.

[10:15]

Introduction of Bills

WORKERS COMPENSATION AMENDMENT
ACT (NO. 2), 1985

Hon. Mr. Segarty presented a message from His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor: a bill intituled Workers Compensation Amendment Act (No. 2), 1985.

HON. MR. SEGARTY: Mr. Speaker, just to briefly outline what this legislation is all about, today we want to send a strong message of support to industrial health and safety committees across British Columbia and to send the message, too, that safety pays in British Columbia.

To begin with, we're substantially improving workers' compensation benefits in our province by increasing, effective January 1, 1986, the maximum annual ceiling on which coverage is based from the current ceiling of $32,400 to $40,000. Under the WCB act an injured worker receives, tax-free, 75 percent of wages lost up to a ceiling set by the act. Accordingly, this change will mean substantial improvement in workers' compensation benefits for British Columbia workers. This is in addition to the pension benefits, which will be indexed annually as of January 1986.

The Workers' Compensation Board has been successful in reducing its unfunded liability and improving its return on investments over the past few years. And the success of worker-management cooperation at the shop floor or plant committee level has resulted in a reduction in the number of accidents in British Columbia by a full 21 percent. This is a tribute to the joint committees, many of which I've had the pleasure and the privilege to visit in recent months. In keeping with that record of success, and our commitment to eliminate and alleviate, where possible, human health and suffering to injured workers and their families, I'm very pleased to be able to take this very concrete step in expanding workers' compensation coverage at this time.

At the same time members will realize that employers fund the workers' compensation system through their assessments, and over time their financial contribution shows the performance of the system. Good safety pays in British Columbia, and accordingly we're also giving the Workers' Compensation Board the authority to impose additional assessments on employers who violate industrial health and safety regulations. The changes will reflect the need that has been requested of me by industrial health and safety committees in our province. The changes in assessments will give the Workers' Compensation Board the authority to impose additional assessments on violators of industrial health and safety regulations that could exceed last year's total assessment.

I move that the bill be placed on the orders of the day for second reading at the next sitting of the House after today.

Motion approved.

Bill 68 introduced, read a first time and ordered to be placed on orders of the day for second reading at the next sitting of the House after today.

Orders of the Day

HON. MR. GARDOM: Second reading of Bill PR403.

[ Page 7179 ]

AN ACT RESPECTING PACIFIC BIBLE COLLEGE

MRS. JOHNSTON: In moving second reading of the Pacific Bible College act, I would like to explain a few things about the bill. First, the purpose of this bill is to incorporate the Pacific Bible College Society as a college with the power to grant theological degrees and honorary theological degrees. I would add that the college is nondenominational and open to all members of the public. The college and the people and churches which have come together to form this new institution are committed to the spirit of Christian ecumenical unity. Simply put, they strive to include, not to exclude.

The Pacific Bible College offers the people of British Columbia, and more specifically those of the lower mainland, additional educational opportunities. It broadens their choices. It does so along the lines of the Okanagan Bible College formed in 1983. My good colleague, Don Campbell, introduced the act incorporating it, and I note, having examined Hansard, that the bill received the unanimous support of this House. If people can take the time and money to create a new educational option for themselves, such initiative should be applauded. It reflects well on B.C.'s spirit of self-determination.

Mr. Speaker, the new Pacific Bible College will supplement, not compete with, the excellent post-secondary education system we have in place. One should note that the Regent College of the University of British Columbia grants only advanced degrees in theological studies and not those of the type offered at the Pacific Bible College.

Mr. Speaker, I commend that this bill be passed, believing as I do that this government and this province should encourage private initiatives such as we see in the bible colleges appearing in this province and in Pacific Bible College in particular.

I move the bill be now read a second time.

MR. ROSE: It's been some time since we had the committee hearings on this bill, as a private member's bill, so some of the details of it have dimmed in my memory. I remember being somewhat uneasy during the passage of this bill because of the amount of forgiveness by the municipality of Surrey in terms of taxes going back a number of years, I think to 1979. I was also concerned about the difficult financial state in which the college found itself as a result of this. However, they did go into this enterprise with their eyes open, I assume.

But I'm concerned about the retroactivity of the tax forgiveness, amounting to some $50,000 for schools, $3,000 for hospitals and $600 for the GVRD. It really amounts to a subsidy to Pacific Bible College. It means that the people of Surrey will replace that money that would have been granted in taxes had they been levied at the time. That part of it, as long as the school district and the council agree.... I understand they have. I don't know about the GVRD. That is fine for the past, because it isn't a large amount in terms of taxation, in any event. But there's no doubt about it: a tax forgiveness, to any institution, amounts to a subsidy. While we're quite accustomed to having the schools taxed, or private schools assessed; we don't in terms of churches. That is the problem.

I'd like to quote the Minister of Agriculture (Hon. Mr. Schroeder), who was there at the committee. He had this to say about it:

"Mr. Chairman, I think it quite likely that if you look at the history which is before you, you'll find out not only that this is an exemption to which they would otherwise have been entitled; you'll further find that this is a unique situation. This is not like Okanagan Bible College exactly."

[Mr. Veitch in the chair.]

This is in contrast to what the first member for Surrey (Mrs. Johnston) just told us. According to Mr. Schroeder it is not like Okanagan Bible College. He continues:

"This is a college, yes, but it is also a grade school, as I understand it. Please correct me if I'm wrong, because I've never visited the place. It's also a kindergarten through grade 12 school. In addition to that it is a church and its congregation, and each of those is eligible for certain exemptions."

Anyway, this is kind of an interesting cross-breed between a college, a school, a church and a degree-granting institution. I'm not quite certain what kinds of degrees are contemplated to be granted, but in my experience a degree has always been offered at the end of a three- or four- or five-year post-secondary program. I don't know whether the college is in any position to do this.

The past of the college is one thing. It seems to have the support of the municipality, and presumably, by extension, of the people who live in that municipality. What concerns me somewhat and makes me uneasy, as I said in my opening remarks, is that this also commits future councils to similar exemptions. It is not an act or a resolution of the Surrey council or future Surrey councils; it is an act of the Legislature. So it is enshrined forever, unless amended by some future Legislature.

They have tremendous powers, Mr. Speaker. They could buy oodles of property if they wanted to, provided it was used for either school or religious purposes. I suppose it could be a mountain retreat, for that matter, and they could dispose of that property as well.

MR. REID: We had one of those in Oregon; we don't need any more of those.

MR. ROSE: I know. That's exactly what I'm concerned about. Under the guise of the freedom from taxation or assessment of religious institutions, we have many horror stories in the United States of that precise thing happening. That's what I'm concerned about.

Interjection.

MR. ROSE: Now the Minister of Intergovernmental Relations (Hon. Mr. Gardom) applauds. He was at the committee hearings. I would like to hear his views on the subject as well.

By extension, you could buy a large part of Surrey under the powers granted to this college.

Interjection.

MR. ROSE: Somebody says no. I'll read....

Interjections.

[ Page 7180 ]

MR. ROSE: I think it's our job not to put blind faith in everything we are told. I think it's our job to....

HON. MR. GARDOM: Maybe you're in the wrong party.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, please.

MR. ROSE: It commits future councils to a decision made by the current council, plus the buttressing of that decision by this Legislature. The powers are immense: "The college shall have perpetual succession and a common seal and has power to acquire, by purchase, gift, devise, bequest or otherwise, real and personal property within and without the province, and may hold, sell, dispose of, exchange, mortgage...and deal with any and all such property as empowered to do by this section."

I think that it's important that we recognize that these powers have been granted and recognize that certain institutions — not any that I can think of, but certainly in our neighbour to the south — have taken these privileges and powers and used them to the disadvantage of the rest of the community to enrich themselves.

I think we should be aware of the possibility here. The public should be aware of the wide powers granted to the college. We should also know that the president of that college — or at least the person who appeared on its behalf — is also a member of the Surrey School Board, so it's hardly an arm's length decision for the school board to grant permission to excuse the back taxes. It's hardly one of those instances.

[10:30]

I think that most of us were satisfied during a lengthy and detailed hearing that Surrey was behind us. I wanted to raise these concerns because I think it's important that we don't just let these matters slip through the Legislature without any kind of debate. I feel that at this point on second reading I've had my say, and I will close with that.

MRS. JOHNSTON: I can understand the member's concerns. If he will look in the Orders of the Day, I think he will understand that there is an amendment proposed that I think will partially answer his concerns. But I personally have no problem with this bill at all. It does have the support of the municipality, the support of the school board. The operation itself is worthy of our support, and I would ask that this be given.

Motion approved on division.

Bill PR403, An Act Respecting Pacific Bible College, read a second time and referred to a Committee of the Whole House for consideration at the next sitting of the House after today.

HON. MR. NIELSEN: Committee on Bill 55.

ATTORNEY GENERAL STATUTES
AMENDMENT ACT (NO. 2), 1985

The House in committee on Bill 55; Mr. Strachan in the chain

On section 1.

MR. PARKS: Mr. Chairman, before we're in a position to vote on this matter, I would appreciate having the hon. Attorney explain to the House just exactly what a family law mediator would be doing. It seems to me it's a very broad extension of sanctioning by the Law Society. I wonder if he might clarify just briefly what that function would be.

Interjection.

HON. MR. SMITH: Despite the generous offer from the member for Vancouver Centre (Mr. Lauk) to answer it — he's got his best courtroom chambers garb on today — I'll ask the member for Maillardville-Coquitlam if he would please repeat the question, because I inadvertently had my attention elsewhere.

MR. PARKS: I was noting that the section would extend — in my opinion, significantly — the authority to the Law Society. I'm wondering if, for the benefit of the House, the hon. Attorney might give us some explanation of this anticipated role of the family law mediator.

HON. MR. SMITH: The Law Society is most anxious to have better standards of specialization, and has been — I think cautiously and sensibly — moving in that direction. One of the new things they have done recently is to put on some excellent seminars and courses in the area of family law mediation. As a result, a number of practitioners have taken family law mediation training, given by some of the best people in North America, I might add. There is a team of Americans that does family law mediation. I'm sure the member for Burnaby is aware of this excellent program of family law mediation.

The certifications have been obtained already by a number of practitioners, and the Law Society wishes to be able to prescribe some qualifications in that field. It's a field, because it's a field, I think, that requires some special expertise. It's also a growing field.

As the new Canada Divorce Act finally wends its way through final approval of Parliament, and the establishment of rules in the various provinces, it is going to, I hope, set a new tone in the field of divorce law — that is, a non-confrontational, non-adversarial approach, stressing the working out of agreements and arrangements and not having evidence given in a courtroom and going through the awful litany that litigants in the divorce field have had to endure for years and, indeed, for decades. One of the keys to making the new Divorce Act work and getting confrontation in the domestic field out of the courts is the presence in the bar of good family law mediators, people who can make the ugly process of separation and divorce at least easier and more palatable. It's never going to be palatable. It's never going to be easy. But they can make it easier and ease the strain on families.

So I think it's a good direction. I thank the member for drawing it to my attention.

MR. PARKS: I wonder if the Attorney-General might clarify whether only lawyers are going to be family law mediators. Or will there be — to use the lawyers' jargon — "layperson" family law mediators?

HON. MR. SMITH: This section would deal only with lawyers because, of course, the Law Society doesn't have authority over laymen. But it's certainly my experience that

[ Page 7181 ]

the role in this field for non-legally trained people — people who are not barristers and solicitors — is virtually endless. You can never find in any community — even in Victoria and, indeed, Vancouver — enough good family law counsellors. They just don't exist. It's a field that I think has got to be one of the growth industries. There's no attempt in this section, hon. member, to regulate anybody other than lawyers. But I would say there's a tremendous role for non-lawyer professionals and para-professionals.

MR. LAUK: I thank the hon. member for Maillardville-Coquitlam for raising the issue, because I have concerns that the Law Society is approaching this problem too much from the financial point of view. The seminars that I've attended on the question of family mediation indicate, Mr. Chairman, that they're primarily concerned with financial settlements. The whole issue of custody and access is not being properly addressed. Nor, in my view, are the lawyers who are putting themselves up as mediators properly trained — apart from the question of legal training — to deal as mediators with the question of custody and access. But they're certainly very highly trained in the field of financial settlement.

AN HON. MEMBER: That comes naturally.

MR. LAUK: It comes naturally, yes.

But I'm satisfied, as is the Attorney-General, that the bar is looking at it very closely and monitoring it very carefully.

Sections 1 and 2 approved.

On section 3.

MR. LAUK: This is a section that has been requested very recently by the Law Society of British Columbia for the purpose of expanding income to the Law Foundation through interest payments on the trust funds of lawyers. This section will enable lawyers, through the Law Society, to get the best interest rate from savings institutions that we can get, to maximize the income of the Law Foundation.

Mr. Chairman, you know very well that the Law Foundation has had to pick up the responsibility of the government for funding a portion of the legal aid costs for British Columbia. Legal aid in British Columbia is the worst in Canada. It has been undermined by this government, it has been undermined by the wanton and reckless neglect of the Attorney-General, and the funds of the Law Foundation which should be for legal education of the general public are being used to fund legal aid in the province.

Nevertheless, it seems to me that this section is a good one. It should be passed because the Law Society can then have a pooled trust account situation, with all lawyers depositing their trust accounts, and be able to have financial institutions compete for the highest interest rate. There was a time — and some of my colleagues may not know this — when banks and other financial institutions didn't pay any interest on trust funds. You all know what trust funds are: when a client comes in and conducts business with a lawyer, quite often moneys have to be deposited with the lawyer, and they're deposited in a trust fund, usually with one financial institution — usually with a chartered bank.

There was a time when chartered banks didn't pay anything in the way of interest. They re-lent the money at a profit without paying any interest to either the client or the law firm.

They couldn't pay the law firm interest, because lawyers are not allowed to make money from their clients' trust funds — that's illegal. You couldn't pay the money to the client, because trust funds are in one pool of each firm, and you couldn't identify the funds unless you set up a separate account every time a client came in; and sometimes moneys only stay in your account for hours. Sometimes it's a few days and sometimes in unusual situations it's two or three weeks. But always the minimum balance of a lawyer's trust account is quite high because the moneys are flowing through, and the banks were profiting on this for years and paying no interest rate.

A few years ago — 10 or 15 — the banks started paying a minimum interest rate, but the Law Society could not force these financial institutions to pay higher or more competitive interest rates because they had no power to manipulate those funds. This will give them the power to treat the trust funds of all lawyers as a pooled trust fund and get the various financial institutions to bid and come up with the highest interest rate. It's usually well below prime, as you might expect — sometimes five, six, seven points below prime. The Law Society is now looking for something like three to four points below prime to increase the revenue.

Now that revenue, it must be realized, does not go to the Law Society; it goes to an organization called the Law Foundation. The Law Foundation funds the People's Law School in part, it funds legal education programs to the general public and it funds legal aid. As I say, it's a crime that almost half of its revenue last year, or more than half of its revenue, had to go to pick up some of the slack in legal aid funding, which is a direct responsibility of the government of British Columbia. But they have negligently handed that hall over to the Law Foundation.

[10:45]

In addition, the Attorney-General has the audacity to suggest that we return to the nineteenth century and that various lawyers out of the goodness of the hearts should defend people for nothing. We have a situation where the Attorney-General, à la Charles Dickens, wants the defence of persons charged with offences to be left to the charitable instincts of the bar. If they were left to the charitable instincts of a person like the Attorney-General, very few people would go defended.

Now I would argue that the committee pass this section. My colleague the hon. member for Victoria has an inquiry about the question of whether or not credit unions and smaller savings institutions will not be at the mercy of the benchers. I'm aware that some benchers have close associations with credit unions, and so if there is any politics involved they will be hard pressed to not consider the competitive nature of this process.

MR. BLENCOE: May I ask my own question?

MR. LAUK: I could just say to him through you, Mr. Chairman, that this is an old lawyer's trick of precluding you and foreclosing you.

HON. MR. SMITH: I'll respond to the remarks that the member has made. First of all, the Law Foundation is not divorced from public money. All trust moneys that are generated from the banks and the financial institutions are public money. At one time, those moneys were enjoyed by the financial institutions, and it was the legislative changes of

[ Page 7182 ]

this government that brought those funds under the control of the Law Foundation. One of the purposes for doing that was to support legal education and legal aid.

So, I don't feel, by doing that and by encouraging more revenue in the hands of that body, that somehow government is shirking its responsibilities. Quite the opposite; government is assuming its responsibilities for legal aid by making available those funds from the financial institutions which they are going to pay and should have been paying for some time. If that can go into legal aid, so much the better. I have assured the Law Society this year that the increased funds that will be obtained under this amendment, if it passes, are not going to replace government spending; those increased funds will be in addition to government spending for legal aid. I have given them that assurance, and the legal aid spending overall this year is up over last year; it will probably be in the neighbourhood of $17 million. While we've had very straitened times on legal aid, we have managed to give reasonably good service under the circumstances.

To deal now with the query that the member for Victoria made through the member for Vancouver Centre.... And he made it so well for that member for Victoria, I thought; he said all that could be said on behalf of that point of view. A concern that I had when I saw the proposed section was that it might be employed by the benchers to discriminate between classes of lending institutions, so that they would say, "We're only going to invest these funds with gilt-edged banks, and we're going to cut out the trust companies," or "We're going to cut out the credit unions." I have been assured that they are not going to do that; that they are not going to preclude investment of these funds from trust companies and from credit unions. Indeed, I would not stand by and permit that.

Interjection.

HON. MR. SMITH: I'm sorry, I don't agree. There can be investments with trust companies — and should be. Many of these trust companies have extremely high financial ratings. But the benchers, I think, are mindful of two things: one is to increase the revenues into this fund by proper rates of interest — exactly as the member says — getting it from 5 or 6 below prime, up to something around 3, 3½, 4; secondly, ensuring that the investments take place in institutions that are financially sound.

MR. BLENCOE: I appreciate my colleague's questions to the minister. I would, however, like to follow them up on my own.

Despite what the Attorney-General says, the B.C. Central Credit Union and the association of trust companies are indeed concerned. They may get the assurance of the minister here — and we heard it — that the benchers won't limit it to certain financial institutions, but they certainly don't see it in the legislation. It's quite specific in terms of what the benchers may be able to do. Those smaller institutions, particularly credit unions and trust companies that have insurance.... They may, indeed, limit trust fund deposits to the chartered banks.

What the credit unions and the trust company associations would like to suggest to the Attorney-General is that maybe a formula for designation in regulation should be laid out; that the power, and therefore the concern, left to those credit unions.... The power as to where those funds can be placed should be clearly laid out, not simply handed to a committee of the benchers. I think it is a valid concern.

I know we heard the Attorney-General say this morning that he doesn't understand that they will limit, but there is no assurance, as far as I can see in this legislation.... Smaller financial institutions may indeed suffer — particularly regional institutions. Indeed, if this is not cleared up, it does to some degree undermine the confidence in those smaller institutions, particularly if these large trust funds.... We see a history building up where those trust funds start to be placed in chartered banks, and smaller financial institutions don't acquire those trust funds.

Perhaps the minister can answer those questions and concerns.

HON. MR. SMITH: I don't think, though, that the member who just spoke, or his predecessor, would want to suggest that the Law Society ought not to be cautious of investing pool trust accounts in an institution which was financially in any way at risk. On the other hand, I certainly agree with him that the credit unions and trust companies of this province — most of them — are indeed sound and established, and should participate in this investment and should be assured that they will. I have raised the matter with the benchers directly, and I most certainly will do so in writing. I have been assured that they're not going to use their authority in that way.

The reason for seeking the legislation, of course, is to very basically force particularly some of the chartered banks to come to a decent rate of interest. I know that I have your support on that point. But I'm most mindful of the comments that you've raised; they're identical to comments that I have raised with the benchers.

MR. BLENCOE: I thank the Attorney-General for those comments. He didn't comment about the idea of specifying a formula for designation — to be safe rather than sorry. Has he considered that?

HON. MR. SMITH: I have not, because to do so would directly interfere with the self-governing authority of the society. There are limits to that authority. If the society were to do what the member suggested they could theoretically do, I would be prepared to interfere on that.

MR. BLENCOE: The last question to the Attorney-General. If we do see a trend, and I'm glad to hear that the Attorney-General is concerned, whereby these trust funds are slowly but surely being allocated to the larger financial institutions and chartered banks at the expense of the regional or smaller institutions, can we look toward some action, on his behalf, if that happens?

HON. MR. SMITH: Most assuredly, yes.

MR. LAUK: Just to clarify something that the Attorney-General said, Mr. Chairman, with respect to legal aid, the funds that come from pooled trust accounts can hardly be characterized as public funds in the sense that they're out of the public purse. Trust accounts are the funds that belong to clients of lawyers. They belong to clients; they belong to citizens; they don't belong to the government. Really, in a sense, because of the difficulty in having these profits, the interest from such trust accounts goes to each individual client. These pooled trust accounts yield revenues, and the

[ Page 7183 ]

bar has decided that these revenues should go for legal education.

The idea that it would go to legal aid, in the original instance, was not to fund legal aid in this sense. The funding of legal aid is a primary responsibility of the government through taxpayers' moneys, and it's not incumbent upon the Law Society or the lawyers to start funding legal aid. It's like paying themselves to take cases. This is the idea that the Attorney-General has.

I should also point out that it should go to $17 million.... The minimum budget this year for legal aid is $18 million to provide what they statutorily must provide. A lot of that money — probably at least $1.7 million to $2 million — will be coming from the Law Foundation. The Law Foundation only makes...I guess it was $4 million or something last year. Last year it was $3 million, so it's not a huge profit-making operation.

Large trust deposits are designated in separate accounts, and the interest flows into that account to the benefit of the client. We're talking about the pooled trust accounts of firms, where $30,000 to $40,000 to $50,000 over a period of a few days is in and out of a trust account, and it's unrealistic to designate a separate trust account for that client. Large deposits benefit the client directly. The benefit to the Law Foundation, for all the lawyers in British Columbia, is about $3 million a year, or a little more.

Eighteen million dollars for legal aid. We've got the lowest tariff in the country. The old tariff in Ontario is substantially higher than the tariff here. The cost of living in Ontario is lower, the cost of overhead for law firms in Ontario is lower, but lawyers who do legal aid in Ontario make substantially more on the tariff than in British Columbia. They made substantially more on the old tariff — I think it was last year or the year before that they changed the tariff in Ontario. It's not comparable. Already 300 or 400 young lawyers.... And they're usually young lawyers; they're not the fat cats in the big firms that do the legal aid. These are young people operating out of small offices, whose secretaries are making less than they should, and these lawyers are taking home less than anybody in most other professions.

Interjection.

MR. LAUK: My friend mentions Edward Greenspan. Edward Greenspan is the most senior criminal lawyer in Canada. He does legal aid, and he does pro bono work, but he also.... When he gets a fee for one of his murder defences, it's substantially more than, I'm sure, the legal aid tariff.

The Attorney-General raises these issues in a flippant manner, but this year's budget for legal aid in Ontario is in excess, if you include all the moneys that are going to go into the legal aid pot, of $80 million. In B.C. do you know the amount that will bring legal aid up to a standard, including family law representation for women who are battered, for women who are deserted, who are not now receiving legal representation in family court? Do you want to know how much this province would have to spend to bring up the standards to the old tariff standards of Ontario? Less than $15 million.

[11:00]

The Legal Services Society says that they could do it for $13 million. I say less than $15 million. But let's take the figure of $13 million to bring up legal defences under the legal aid tariff in British Columbia. How much a day is the government spending in the northeast coal project? How much deficit do we have? We're going to have hundreds of millions of dollars of deficit on Expo.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hon. member, at this point I must advise the member and also the committee that we are in committee on section 3. We are dealing specifically with pooled trust funds. I think maybe the member's comments might have been appropriate in second reading; however, in committee we must be specific to the clause or section before us. Please proceed.

MR. LAUK: As you will recall, in second reading it was agreed that debate would be deferred to committee.

I'll just close my remarks in any event, but debate on this point should be made. It is not rational for the government to say it is saving money by cutting back to the bone on legal aid tariffs in this province. It is just not rational, because the long-term cost is immense. For example, let's take the logical sequence of events. An undefended person is more likely, let's say, to go to jail on some offence than a defended person, a person represented by a lawyer. If that is the case, the percentage of likelihood that that person will go to jail is increasing the cost to the province by $90 a day. That's how much it costs to keep a person in jail, $90 a day. If they get a six-month, three-month or two-year sentence, that's a lot of money to the province. If a certain percentage of those are acquitted because they had a full and fair defence with proper legal representation, it pays the taxpayer and the government to properly fund legal aid.

I won't get into the tremendous costs in the family law situation where people are going undefended, but a paltry $13 million will bring us up to the minimum standards in Ontario. The Ontario budget is over $80 million for the fiscal year 1986-87. Pardon me, that's this year's budget, and next year it will probably be a little bit more.

So this section has been brought about, and the Attorney-General is very happy on behalf of the government to support the Law Society's request, because the Law Society, like the food banks, is taking the heat off the government, and it's just not right. Little lefties in the food banks are feeding little lefties, and that just pleases the Attorney-General, the nineteenth-century Dickensian Attorney-General, to no end. He likes little lefties feeding little lefties at the food banks. "Give them a grocery hamper, " he says in his perfect Upper Canadian accent. He is doing the same thing here with the Law Foundation funds. He says: "Oh, yes, if you people want to take care of that thing, that's fine. We'll pass a law."

[Mr. Ree in the chair.]

MR. PARKS: Mr. Chairman, as a member of the Law Society of British Columbia, as is the hon. member for Vancouver Centre, I would not like to have the wrong impression left in the House. I wonder if the hon. Attorney-General might clarify if there is any anticipated financial impact by the statutory amendment, or is this rather just an administrative set of amendments to bring about greater security for the pooled concept?

HON. MR. SMITH: No, the reason for the amendment basically is to negotiate higher interest returns on pooled trust accounts, which will mean more money in the hands of the Law Foundation. Of course as interest rates increase, as they

[ Page 7184 ]

probably will at some time, the funds will be more. But even if interest rates stay down — as I personally hope that they will, for many reasons — the gradual increase in real estate sales that we are starting to see now, particularly in parts of the lower mainland, is going to be the big factor in increasing the interest from pooled trust accounts. As you know from your own practices, hon. members, it is the booming real estate business that really yields the revenue. It is that money that is in there for a very short term, client's money, that is not really advantageous to put into separate investments. That short-term money in large real estate practices yields a great deal more money to the Law Society.

So the net result will be more revenue over a period of years in the hands of the Law Foundation.

MR. PARKS: I appreciate how inexact is the science of forecasting what potential revenue might well come to the Law Foundation. But I wonder if the hon. Attorney-General has received such indication from the Law Society and whether or not that increased revenue might, to some degree at least, allay the fears of the hon. member for Vancouver Centre.

HON. MR. SMITH: I know that it is very hard to be accurate in those projections. But when the negotiations are complete with the financial institutions.... The Law Society certainly expected that the foundation's revenues would double over the course of a few years. But you have to measure that, of course, against the possibility of falling interest rates.

MR. COCKE: Mr. Chairman, I certainly would like to subscribe to what my colleague from Vancouver Centre said about this new innovation. Certainly the government.... Whenever and however they can off-load, that's the way they like to do it.

However, there's another aspect to this whole question that occurs to me, and that's the benchers calling the shots. I haven't an up-to-date list of the benchers, but I'll tell you right now, Mr. Chairman, that regional disparity could very well grow out of this because there's a concentration on the benches of people from the lower mainland. I'm not sure that people in the outback, say, are going to be quite so happy about their proportion if in fact they feel it's not being fairly handled. I think there could be regional disparity as a result of giving the benchers this kind of trust.

I just feel that had he been thinking about it, maybe the minister might have looked at it in a different way. Benchers really have been a disciplinary body for the Law Society, and I'm not sure this isn't going to be sort of a new thing to them. I just worry that the old-boy network might grow as a result of this, giving bias to certain areas.

HON. MR. SMITH: I guess that's always a problem of any provincial body: that it may, if you're not careful, end up having a particularly lower mainland bias. You just try to ensure it by the breakdown, the representation. My off-the-cuff recollection of the constitution of the benchers is that approximately half of them come from the lower mainland and the rest from around the province. They now, I'm pleased to say, elect their members by county, not overall, so that the weight of the large Vancouver law firms is not brought to bear on electing their friends from around the hinterland, which used to be the case. As a practising lawyer in Victoria, I didn't like that practise. Now the county of Westminster elects its own benchers, as does the county of Victoria and the county of Cariboo.

Interjection.

HON. MR. SMITH: It's about fifty-fifty. The Law Foundation is constituted differently. The Law Society appoints half those members, I appoint some, and some are there by reason of the statute. There is, as I recall, a fairly good balance around the province in that body, but it's always a problem with any provincial organization to ensure there isn't regional disparity.

Section 3 approved.

On section 4.

HON. MR. SMITH: I move the amendment standing in my name on the order paper. [See appendix.]

On the amendment.

MR. LAUK: Can I have a moment to see the amendment?

AN HON. MEMBER: It's a simple one: an MLA cannot practise law.

MR. LAUK: I don't need a legislative amendment to tell me that. I'm convinced the Premier of the province checks the trial lists to see when I've got a long trial set down, and then he calls a legislative session.

Amendment approved.

On section 4 as amended.

MR. LAUK: This is a section that will prevent law firms in British Columbia, usually larger law firms, from joining into national and sometimes international law firms like the chartered accountants have. These chartered accountants have gotten so large and powerful that they're like an international corporation and cartel. Good friends of mine are senior partners in these huge cartels, and they are wheeling and dealing in business to the extent where the average little CA who just got called to the charter — or whatever they're called to in CA language — can't....

Interjection.

MR. LAUK: The institute, or whatever. They're into the institute. That's the Minister of Health's problem: they're institutionalized.

These CAs, young people, really don't have much of a hope of starting in their own business and getting some decent clients unless they join these huge cartels. It's totally unrealistic for lawyers to do that kind of thing. First of all, who disciplines a national law firm? The Ontario Bar Association? The British Columbia Bar Association? And what rules and codes of ethics apply — Ontario's or B.C.'s? We happen to be very proud of our code of ethics in British Columbia. This is just another way to cut out the little law firms once again. I'm absolutely happy....

[ Page 7185 ]

Interjections.

MR. LAUK: Would you wait until I get my subject connected to a predicate?

National law firms are another way of cutting out the small law firms and the little practitioner, and absorbing more power unto themselves. I am glad that the Attorney-General has decided to support the Law Society's decision and support this section, and I hope wherever national and international law firms rear their ugly heads, this Legislature will pounce upon them and wipe them out.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The member for Maillardville-Coquitlam.

AN HON. MEMBER: Let's hear it for the national law firms.

MR. PARKS: No, Mr. Chairman, I'm not exactly in favour of the national law firms. However, I find somewhat repugnant the thought of prohibiting that from occurring should law firms wish that to occur.

I understand the concern that the hon. member for Vancouver Centre has just advised the House of, and that is with respect to disciplinary actions in a national or international law firm. Unless I'm misreading the amended legislation here, what in fact is occurring is that we are allowing law firms to merge or form agreements with other law firms outside our province, the only proviso being that they have to ensure that all members of the enlarged partnership are members of our Law Society. As long as that is the case, Mr. Chairman, and any members of a partnership practising law in this province have to answer to the Law Society of British Columbia, I feel that the legislation is consistent with very good principles.

HON. MR. SMITH: What the amendment will do is to clarify the practice of the act before it was amended, which was supposed to be to allow agency relationships that have been long-standing to continue or new agency relationships to be formed. There's no thought that the Law Society of British Columbia should control or regulate a principal in Ontario or Quebec who retains a firm in British Columbia on an agency basis, but it is thought that if mergers are to take place or equity control of any kind were to pass, you couldn't have a law firm in British Columbia whose members were accountable run by a law firm in another province or jurisdiction whose members were not accountable. That's the purport of the amendment and the section as amended.

The Law Society would have preferred.... They asked me not to pass the amendment in precisely these terms, but to delegate the authority to them to make rules to do this. But I must say that that gave me concern. I felt that that should not be delegated; that the responsibility for this policy should be taken in the Legislature and not in the corridors of the Law Society, and that it was desirable as a matter of public policy to have these mergers or equity arrangements with law firms outside the jurisdiction subject to the control of the Law Society of British Columbia.

I should also add that there is nothing here to stop a member of the Law Society of British Columbia from entering into an equity arrangement to practise law in another jurisdiction, so that you can go and have a branch office in Hong Kong, Singapore or Montreal if you wish — or Gull Lake. But the reverse requires control by the Law Society.

Section 4 as amended approved.

On section 5.

HON. MR. SMITH: I move the first amendment standing under my name on the order paper. [See appendix.]

Amendment approved.

HON. MR. SMITH: I move the second amendment standing under my name on the order paper. [See appendix.]

On the amendment.

MR. LAUK: I think the Attorney-General should be explaining why he has made such substantial amendments to the original bill.

HON. MR. SMITH: The amendments really are simply recasting the protections to the peer review committee which deliberates in hospitals, and to ensure that their deliberations are not compellable — that they can operate without judicial review of their deliberations. It does not preclude any of the medical evidence that may have given rise to the peer review from being receivable in a court. It simply protects the sanctity of a peer review process in the hospitals so that we'll get adequate and proper peer review without people looking over their shoulders.

MR. LAUK: There's been some suggestion, Mr. Chairman, that this is going to be used to unduly protect the medical profession and allied professions from the strict and precise review of the courts through the process of malpractice lawsuits.

I'll wait for the Attorney-General to finish.

The fear has been expressed — and I hope without reason or too much basis in fact — that these amendments are going to be used to unduly protect the medical profession and allied professions from malpractice lawsuits and delimit the capacity for plaintiff's counsel to obtain the necessary information to prosecute a claim for malpractice on behalf of the plaintiff in the courts. Has the Attorney-General any comment on that fear?

HON. MR. SMITH: Well, I guess one of the reasons why the amendments are here is to clarify that that was not the intention, because under the amendments the member will see that the information of the review committee can be shared within the hospital environment, and therefore if the doctor allegedly is malpractising, and if that is the opinion of the review committee, that then becomes shareable within the hospital confines, and the malpractising doctor isn't able to hide behind privileges within the hospital setting.

MR. LAUK: The plaintiffs counsel will have available to him or her all the information as a result of such an inquiry, so he or she may ground a case, or not, with respect to malpractice. Is that what the Attorney-General is suggesting: that the plaintiff's counsel has access to all of this information?

[ Page 7186 ]

HON. MR. SMITH: No, the plaintiffs counsel does not have access to the information that arises from the peer committee review and findings, but the plaintiff's counsel would be able to subpoena the records of the hospital and those would be produceable in court, just as doctors would be subpoenable as to what the physician allegedly malpractising actually did, not what the committee found he did or meted out to him.

MR. LAUK: Well, the Attorney-General knows that viva voce evidence is extremely important, and prior inconsistent statements are much more important in most cases like this than the clinical or hospital records. This is shutting the door, it seems to me, in the area of an investigation by plaintiff's counsel. What assurances can the Attorney-General give that these sections will not be interpreted so as to prevent justice being done in such cases?

HON. MR. SMITH: It doesn't affect direct viva voce evidence whatsoever as to what occurs. As I take the observation, he finds it distressing, perhaps, that in a damage suit for malpractice it would not be possible to put to a witness in the civil action some allegedly prior inconsistent statement that he may have made during a peer review committee hearing. Well, I certainly plead guilty to that; that's precisely what he won't be able to do. But he'll be able to put to any witness what that witness said at the time in the hospital, or is alleged to have said, or what has been written in the charts by that witness or initialled by that witness, or what has been duly recorded by the medical practitioner. The only thing he won't be able to put to him is statements that that witness may have made at the peer review committee proceedings.

MR. LAUK: Having argued that tack, I'm going to take an exactly opposite approach on another issue related to the same sections. Doctors are reporting more and more how upset they are that the confidentiality of their records is being exposed in lawsuits every day. Now, courts are automatically ordering the production of clinical records. They're ordering the production of clinical records years prior to any personal injury that may have occurred and is the subject matter of the court, on the proposition: if there was a previous existing injury, has that been exacerbated, and wouldn't the defendant in this case pay less damages? On that basis, the relevance of those previous documents has just been accepted by chambers judges, and orders are going out to hospitals and to doctors, and they're having to reproduce clinical records daily — particularly psychiatrists. If you put the usual statement in a statement of claim, that the plaintiff suffered emotional stress, you're not claiming post-traumatic stress disorder; you're not claiming that the person suffered a psychological problem directly as a result of the accident; you're simply saying the plaintiff has suffered emotional distress. Chambers judges are using that now to produce all the records of the Medical Services Plan, Pharmacare records, WCB records, all of the doctors' records. Half the doctors' staff these days are at the Xerox machine for their eight-hour shifts, producing these records. I'm cautioning doctors all the time that they are not to produce anything except, strictly speaking, their clinical records and nothing else. But judges are ordering the Medical Services Plan to produce the doctors who you see — and what for — and all those little slips, where the diagnosis must be on the right side of the slip.

The confidentiality of the Medical Services Plan is at risk here. It's not dealt with in any way by this amendment, and it should be. The integrity of the Pharmacare plan, for example, is built into the statute. So courts, most of the time, if that's brought to their attention, will not order the Pharmacare plan records to be produced, but they are ordering the Medical Services Plan records to be produced. That's a total betrayal of the confidentiality promised by this Legislature, by previous governments, with respect to that plan; and patients are, quite rightly, worried.

This is the tremendous, encroaching tentacles of power of the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia. They are eating into confidentiality. They are eating into everything, to try and defend their cases, desperately, from plaintiffs' actions.

I wonder if the Attorney-General has anything in mind, along the lines of amending the Evidence Act, that will protect people from this widespread disclosure that has so little to do with the relevance of an action before the courts.

HON. MR. SMITH: If I knew a way to protect people from the requirement that evidence sought from them had to be relevant, I'd indeed be remembered and enshrined in legal history as some kind of Solomon. We frequently have requested, by people who have the formal qualifications to practise law, documents and evidence that have absolutely no bearing on the case before them. You can do whatever you want with evidence acts or rules; you have to have firm counsel resisting on the other side, and you have to have chambers judges who will show restraint in the orders.

This is really a much broader and different issue than we're dealing with here. I can only say that I will look into the abuses that the member....

Interjection.

HON. MR. SMITH: The member has asked why it wouldn't be possible to protect the records of the Medical Services Plan. I guess that could be done by a statutory amendment to the Evidence Act. But you'd certainly have to weigh against doing that the legitimate need of a person, in some cases, to be able to prove from records that particular treatment for particular purposes was given at a particular time. Also, of course, the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia simply defends cases and protects the liability of the public through that Crown corporation, and through the premiums that you and I and everyone else pay — it protects those by trying to ensure that claims are reasonable and that exorbitant amounts aren't paid out. They do their job.

[11:30]

Interjection.

HON. MR. SMITH: Well, they diligently pursue their task.

But if you threw the baby out with the bathwater, as you might well do by passing an amendment of that kind, you could preclude plaintiffs from getting information corroborative of their own evidence as to the kind of treatment that they gave.

All I can say to the member is that he has raised a litigation problem which he has more current familiarity with than I do, because he's fortunate in being able to maintain his prowess in the civil courts in this field. So I'll hear what he says and look into it.

[ Page 7187 ]

Amendment approved.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Shall the third amendment to section 5 pass?

Third amendment approved.

Section 5 as amended approved.

On section 6.

MR. LEA: Mr. Chairman, I have to tell you that I have been impressed with the debate this morning. It's sort of lawyery. There's not a raised voice, you know, and a very commonsense, reasonable kind of approach — sort of parvum astra librium ad nauseam. It really does impress me that they're the only ones who can take part in this debate. It's the training, you know. But I would like to raise our voices a little under section 6. I'd like to talk about the transfer of land under the Land Title Act and the cost of conveyance. It's my yearly speech about the ripoff that's happening in the law profession with conveyance.

I've come around on marketing boards for the former Attorney-General. Are they all leaving?

One of the highest costs when you're transferring land today, or when you're purchasing a house, is the cost of the lawyers — the cost of going to a lawyer and actually having him do a piece of work for you, of transferring the land under the Land Title Act.

AN HON. MEMBER: It's expensive.

MR. LEA: Expensive? It's a ripoff. They even charge you on a percentage basis. There's no more work transferring a piece of land whether it's $50,000 or $100,000, but they charge you twice as much. You know, the truth is that there aren't that many lawyers around that would know how to do it anyway. They have clerks that they pay $10.50 an hour to do it. There are probably only three lawyers in the whole province — maybe I'm exaggerating — that would know how to do a conveyance if they saw one sitting on their desk. But they take their cut. They take their cut every time, on a percentage basis. When this Legislature....

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please.

MR. LEA: You're not a lawyer, are you, Mr. Chairman? Then let me go.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Although I can't participate in debate, I totally agree with what you're saying. However, I must remind you that we are in section 6, and that specifically deals with the ability of a municipality to appoint an approving officer under contract. Really, that's as far as we can go.

MR. LEA: I agree with your technical statement, Mr. Chairman. Just in closing, I wonder if it would be possible for people from all sides of the House and all political parties who aren't lawyers to have a special meeting, so that we can get together and draft some amendments to current legislation that would allow people who are not lawyers to transfer land and conveyance, and not based on a percentage.

It's okay to ask for that, isn't it, under this section? Somehow, if we could just get the lawyers out of the meeting, have our own meeting of all non-lawyer legislators, we could come in here and just overwhelm them, so that we could get some justice out there for people who are buying homes. Oftentimes, the thing that holds you back from making that home purchase is the cost of the lawyers. They take a cut every step of the way.

MR. PARKS: In defence of the Law Society of British Columbia and all its members, which obviously....

MR. LEA: There is no defence.

MR. PARKS: It is not required, because although I understand the sentimental concerns raised by my learned friend here....

The reason I rise, Mr. Chairman, has actually nothing to do with that comment at all, but is relevant to what's in the bill: the permissive legislation that would enable municipalities to appoint approving officers. It seems to me that we are going a great distance in speeding up the development process, because time and again, with my tenure at the municipal level, I had complaint after complaint that developers were not able to get their development projects and plans processed through the development process, because a single, or if it was a larger municipality, the two approving officers were just too busy to analyse.

I trust that the tenor of this legislative amendment will be to enable municipalities, when they get busy, to contract out, if you will, the approving officer work, which will enable the development process not to be unnecessarily impeded by blips in the economy.

I commend the Attorney-General for bringing forth this amendment. I think it'll have a very positive affect, particularly here in British Columbia when we see our economy turning around and can expect development to increase at a tremendous pace. I support the amendment.

Section 6 approved.

On section 7.

MR. PARKS: I recognize that the explanatory note indicates that this is more or less an administrative amendment in light of earlier amendments to the Company Act. I wish, however, that the Attorney-General would confirm to the House that it doesn't lessen any of the notice provisions so that if anyone searched either at the land titles office, the office of the registrar of companies or the records office, he would find that charges of this nature would be clearly recorded.

HON. MR. SMITH: I would confirm that. I would also remind the member that section 75 of the Company Act was amended in the last session to permit registration of executed or certified copies of debentures in the companies office. This section will provide that a mortgage granted by a corporation on land and other assets may be registered in the land titles office without proof of filing in the companies office, and also that a debenture created by a corporation may be registered in the land titles office by tendering an executed copy of the debenture.

Section 7 approved.

[ Page 7188 ]

On section 8.

MR. MacWILLIAM: Under section 8, which pertains to the Law and Equity Act, I'm disappointed to see that there have been no changes regarding the problem with assumable mortgages. I realize that this bill was drafted a while back, but if the minister can remember, we did have discussions in the House pertaining to the problem in the past few years of liability with regard to assumable mortgages. I think the question of the renewal of a mortgage and the modification of its terms, absolving the original mortgagor of liability, is one that hasn't been resolved, and it is certainly not addressed in these changes.

I might point out to the Attorney-General that the judicial treatment of this issue is still clouded. Over a four-month period in 1983, for example, the Supreme Court of B.C. heard nine cases dealing with the liability of assumable mortgages and basically came to substantially different conclusions each time. I cited a number of these cases, and the Attorney-General has a copy of that information available to him. Can the Attorney-General enlighten us on any movement in regard to resolving this problem of the liability of assumable mortgages, which is obviously not addressed in this particular amendment?

HON. MR. SMITH: That matter, which the member for North Okanagan raised in the last sitting, is one that appeals to me, and one we have been examining. We have not reached a conclusion on it. It's not without complexities, but I hope we'll reach some conclusion before the next session.

In any event, the amendment that we have here really is just to achieve greater certainty in registering and securing financial transactions involving land, and will eliminate a fair amount of private sector frustration in meeting registration requirements under two statutes. A number of major lending institutions made representations on this, as did senior members of the bar, so we're trying to streamline a bit. But to the other issue: yes, we are very interested in addressing it.

Section 8 approved.

On section 9.

HON. MR. SMITH: I move the amendment standing in my name on the order paper. [See appendix.)

Amendment approved.

On section 9 as amended.

MR. PARKS: Mr. Chairman, I wonder if the Attorney might describe to the House the rationale for this amendment. It appears that it clearly will spread the work around to the various counties, but my immediate concern is that where there might well be more experienced and more qualified solicitors in one. or two counties, this may preclude them from dealing in their home counties and necessitate additional costs. If I'm misinterpreting this amendment, I wonder if the Attorney might address those issues.

HON. MR. SMITH: I take it that that's a comment not on the amendment but on the original section that we proposed. I think you would understand that the amendment on the order paper simply takes debentures, which are usually done at the instruction of a head office and by the overall corporate solicitor for the debenture holder, out of the local venue rule for closures. The local venue rule for closures I think will have a couple of good aspects to it. The first will be that the public themselves — and I'm thinking particularly of residential homeowners who have suffered adversity and are being foreclosed — not find that a lawsuit has been commenced against them in Vancouver when they live in Salmo, and they have to hire somebody in Vancouver to enter an appearance, or have to journey down there.

That's the number one advantage. The number two advantage is that lawyers who practise outside of Victoria and Vancouver in smaller communities will end up doing some of this work, instead of the work all emanating from major law firms in the lower mainland.

But the prime reason for the amendment is to convenience the public. In any case, it will be possible to depart from the local venue rule by order of the court or by agreement between the parties. So you will be able to move foreclosures to a forum more convenient than the registry nearest to where the property is located.

This proposed amendment, you know, is not without its critics. It went through committees of the Canadian bar and the benchers, and there were differences on it. In the last couple of months I have been testing it out in what I call the hinterland bar — I would include Coquitlam and Victoria in that; I consider us hinterland bar — and I found very good support from it there. You don't have quite the same volume of cheers in Vancouver for it, but those of us that always practised in the hinterland rather like it.

[11:45]

Section 9 as amended approved.

Sections 10 and 11 approved.

On section 12.

MR. PARKS: Just for clarification, I take it, Mr. Attorney-General, that we are doing away with the supernumerary appointments with respect to provincial court judges, and that it's now a uniform 70-years-of-age mandatory retirement.

[Mr. Ree in the chair.)

HON. MR. SMITH: No, that's not what we're doing. The act currently provides that if a judge was appointed before September 15, 1975, he must retire at the age of 70, but a judge appointed after that date — that is, during the last ten years — must retire at the age of 65, unless he elects supernumerary status before he reaches 65. If he elects supernumerary status now, he can sit until he is 70 as a supernumerary. The amendment provides for a uniform retirement age of 70 for provincial court judges. Section 10 of the act will continue to provide that after 20 years of service or at the age of 60, whichever happens first, a judge can elect to serve as a supernumerary judge, in which case he retires five years after making the election, or at age 70. In any event, you end up with the uniform retirement of all judges at 70, whether they have had a supernumerary period or not.

The amendments are going to strengthen the provincial court bench in this way: to allow for the continued practice of more experienced senior judges; and for those judges who are

[ Page 7189 ]

appointed to the bench later in their careers, a mandatory retirement age of 70 will alleviate their difficulties in meeting the pensionable service requirements of the superannuation plan. So I think those are the reasons for it. It's a better break for those who go to the bench later in life and in practice.

Although there has always been an enormous penchant in this province — and in the country — in recent years to try to appoint young judges, I don't wholly subscribe to that. I think that there is merit in appointing people who have had 20 or 25 years' experience in practice and in life as well. We shouldn't be mesmerized by the beauty of youth alone when we're appointing judges. I know, of course, that the member for Vancouver Centre wouldn't be ruled out by those comments, because he's both very old and he looks extremely youthful.

Sections 12 to 14 inclusive approved.

Title approved.

HON. MR. SMITH: Mr. Chairman, I move the committee rise and report the bill complete with amendments.

Motion approved.

The House resumed; Mr. Speaker in the chair.

Bill 55, Attorney-General Statutes Amendment Act (No. 2), 1985, reported complete with amendments to be considered at the next sitting of the House after today.

Hon. Mr. Nielsen moved adjournment of the House.

The House adjourned at 11:49 a.m.

Appendix

AMENDMENTS TO BILLS

BILL 55

The Hon. B. R. D. Smith to move, in Committee of the Whole on Bill (No. 55) intituled Attorney General Statutes Amendment Act (No. 2), 1985 to amend as follows:

SECTION 4,

(a) in the proposed section 78(2), by deleting ", through partnership or in any other similar manner, ", and

(b) by adding the following subsection after the proposed section 78(2):

(2.1) In subsection (2), "associated" means bound by an agreement or arrangement whereby the member or partnership of members form a partnership with the non-resident person or enter into a similar arrangement to carry on business together with a view to a profit.

SECTION 5, in the proposed section 57(1) of the Evidence Act

(a) by striking out the definition of "committee" and substituting the following:

"committee" means any of the following:

(a) a medical staff committee within the meaning of section 31 of the Hospital Act;

(b) a committee that is established or approved by the board of management of a hospital, that includes health care professionals employed by or practising in that hospital, and that for the purpose of improving medical or hospital care or practice in the hospital either

(i) carries out or is charged with the function of studying, investigating or evaluating the hospital practice of or hospital care provided by health care professionals in the hospital, or

(ii) studies, investigates or carries on medical research or a program;

(c) a group of persons who carry out medical research and are designated by the minister by regulation;

(d) a group of persons who carry out investigations of medical practice in hospitals and who are designated by the minister by regulation;,

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(b) by adding the following definitions:

"health care professional" means

(a) a medical practitioner,

(b) a person qualified and permitted under the Dentists Act to practise dentistry or dental surgery,

(c) a registered nurse as defined in the Nurses (Registered) Act,

(d) a person registered under the Nurses (Psychiatric) Act as a member of the Registered Psychiatric Nurses Association of British Columbia,

(e) a person licensed as a practical nurse under the Nurses (Practical) Act,

(f) a massage practitioner, medical physical therapist, chartered physiotherapist or registered therapist as defined in the Physiotherapists Act, or

(g) a pharmacist as defined in the Pharmacists Act;

"organization of health care professionals" means

(a) the British Columbia Medical Association,

(b) the College of Physicians and Surgeons of British Columbia,

(c) the College of Dental Surgeons of British Columbia,

(d) the Registered Nurses Association of British Columbia,

(e) The Registered Psychiatric Nurses Association of British Columbia,

(f) the Council of Licensed Practical Nurses,

(g) the Association of Physiotherapists and Massage Practitioners of British Columbia, or

(h) the College of Pharmacists of British Columbia;, and

(c) by deleting the proposed definition of "legal proceedings" and substituting the following:

"legal proceedings" means an inquiry, arbitration, inquest or civil proceeding in which evidence is or may be given, and includes a proceeding before a tribunal, board or commission, but does not include any of the following proceedings:

(a) a proceeding before a board of management;

(b) a proceeding before a board or body connected with an organization of health care professionals, by way of a hearing or appeal respecting the conduct or competence of a member of the profession represented by the organization of health care professionals;

(c) a proceeding in a court that is an appeal, review or trial de novo of any matter referred to in paragraphs (a) or (b) ;.

SECTION 5, in the proposed section 57(2)(b) of the Evidence Act by deleting paragraph (b) and substituting the following:

(b) shall not be asked to produce nor be permitted to produce, in the course of legal proceedings, a record that was used in the course of or arose out of the study, investigation, evaluation or program carried on by a committee, where the record

(i) was compiled or made by the witness for the purpose of producing or submitting it to a committee,

(ii) was submitted to or compiled or made for the committee at the direction or request of a committee,

(iii) consists of a transcript of proceedings before a committee, or

(iv) consists of a report or summary, whether interim or final, of the findings of a committee;.

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SECTION 5, in the proposed section 57(5) of the Evidence Act by adding the following paragraph before paragraph (b):

(a.1) in circumstances the committee considers appropriate, to an organization of health care professionals, or.

SECTION 9,

(a) in the proposed section 18.3(1) by deleting the definition of "foreclosure" and substituting the following:

"foreclosure"

(a) does not include a proceeding to enforce or realize a security under a debenture where that security is land, and

(b) in respect of an agreement for sale, as defined in section 16.1(1), means a foreclosure as defined in that section;,

(b) in the proposed section 18.3 (2) by adding ", subject to the rules of court," after "all applications in the proceedings shall", and

(c) by adding the following subsection:

(5) This section does not apply where, after an allegation of a default under the mortgage, the person proposing to commence the foreclosure proceeding agrees with the registered owner of the land that is to be the subject of the proceeding, that the proceeding may be commenced at a registry other than the registry referred to in subsection (2) or (4).