[ Page 7289 ]

CONTENTS

Compensation Stabilization Amendment Act, 1986 (Bill 3). Hon. Mr. Curtis

Introduction and first reading –– 7289

Throne Speech Debate

Mr. Skelly –– 7289

Appendix –– 7302

THURSDAY, MARCH 13, 1986

The House met at 10:05 a.m.

Prayers.

MR. SKELLY: I just want to introduce a few folks. I'd like to introduce my wife Alexandra, who is in the gallery today, and Marlene Dietrich, who is down from Port Alberni — no relation to the movie star, but in fact the leader of the next successful NDP election campaign in Port Alberni and her friend Louise Skirrow.

MR. CHABOT: Mr. Speaker, I'd like to take this opportunity to introduce a former member of this assembly, and a minister of a former government, Bill Hartley.

MRS. WALLACE: Journeying from the far-distant Duncan is one of my active supporters, who has come down to hear the Leader of the Opposition speak today, Henk Klawer. I'd like the House to make him welcome.

Introduction of Bills

COMPENSATION STABILIZATION
AMENDMENT ACT, 1986

Hon. Mr. Curtis presented a message from His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor: a bill intituled Compensation Stabilization Amendment Act, 1986.

HON. MR. CURTIS: I have a few brief remarks. The act presented to this assembly today includes four amendments to the Compensation Stabilization Act. The first involves an amendment to allow the commissioner to provide provisional approval for an increase in compensation. Other changes make it clear that the commissioner can refer a compensation plan which results from an arbitration award back either to the arbitrator or directly back to the parties. Additionally we amend the definition of "compensation plan" and make it clear that the act applies to compensation increases which result from the implementation of an arbitration award.

Fourth and finally, we add two public sector companies under the act: the British Columbia Rapid Transit Company Ltd. and the British Columbia Lottery Corporation.

Mr. Speaker, in addition to the introduction of this bill, I shall be announcing changes to the CSP guidelines this afternoon.

Bill 3, Compensation Stabilization Amendment Act, 1986, introduced, read a first time and ordered to be placed on orders of the day for second reading at the next sitting of the House after today.

HON. MR. GARDOM: Mr. Speaker, I have two items of business that I would like to deal with, following consultation with the official opposition and their agreement.

Firstly, I would ask leave that the Committee of Selection may sit during the sittings, and short notice may be given of the meeting.

Leave granted.

HON. MR. GARDOM: Secondly, Mr. Speaker, I move Motion 3 in its entirety standing in my name on the order paper, dealing with the ombudsman committee. [See appendix.]

Motion approved.

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: May I ask leave to make an introduction, Mr. Speaker?

Leave granted.

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: Mr. Speaker, the new president of the B.C. Truck Loggers' Association just walked into the gallery, and I'd like to introduce him. His name is Dan Hanuse, and he is with a number of his colleagues in the gallery.

Orders of the Day

SPEECH FROM THE THRONE

(continued debate)

MR. SKELLY: Mr. Speaker, I'd also like to join in welcoming a former minister of the B.C. Legislature under the NDP government, who did a terrific job, especially in refurbishing the legislative buildings and making them a tourist attraction that has attracted people from throughout the world. I'd like to join in welcoming Bill Hartley.

I also welcome Dan Hanuse, of course, who is not only a new president of the Truck Loggers' Association, but also, I understand, an old president of the Truck Loggers' Association.

It's a pleasure to lead off the throne speech debate, Mr. Speaker, for the official opposition. Before I do that, I would like to acknowledge the loss of two great leaders in our movement: Tommy Douglas, who served as Premier of Saskatchewan from 1944 until 1960 or 196 1; and Olof Palme, who served as Prime Minister of Sweden from 1969 to 1979 and then from 1982 until his tragic assassination a few days ago. I know that the House has already expressed its sorrow at the loss of these two leaders, but I do want to add my personal comments.

[Mr. Ree in the chair.]

I first met Tommy Douglas when I became president of the Parksville New Democratic Party Club in 1970, and he was the person who talked me into running for the Legislature back in 1972. It was my privilege, Mr. Speaker, to work with him as representative for the Parksville-Qualicum Beach area of Vancouver Island from 1972 until his retirement in 1979. He was a man who pioneered social policy in Canada, especially in the area of health care and hospital insurance, and under Tommy Douglas's leadership that small province of Saskatchewan, with a very small population, became a diversified economy through the development of its energy, agriculture, manufacturing, transportation and communications sectors. Tommy was a brilliant orator and competent administrator, and yet a meticulous representative, always insisting on maintaining contact with the people he served. He fought the banks on behalf of farmers in his province and won the respect of the farm community. Although they're defiant free enterprisers, they know that their interests lie with the NDP

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rather than with the old-line parties and the interests that they served.

Tommy's name will not appear on dams or on monuments. He was always uncomfortable with the kind of recognition that lesser leaders crave. But he will be recognized in Canada and around the world as a pioneer of health care and hospitalization programs which will be there to enhance the quality of millions of lives in generations beyond ours.

[10:15]

Although I never had an opportunity to meet Olof Palme, I have read and admired a great deal about him. He perfected a model of social policy which has served Swedes well and has been adopted in other countries around the world. The model is based on what one economic writer calls a positive sum social bargain between trade unions, business organizations and government. It is a model we in British Columbia could take some lessons from as we strive for what the Premier now calls a growing consensus. Although Olof Palme was the leader of a country with less than half the population of Canada and half the area of British Columbia, he was a major player on the world stage. He opposed great power intervention in such areas as Vietnam, Czechoslovakia, Afghanistan and Central America, and he was a strong advocate of non-military aid programs to the third world. In fact his country, Mr. Speaker, set the standard for Third World peaceful aid. He fought for world disarmament and conversion of weapons industries to peaceful developments. Our children will thank him for their lives, and I am sure that for Olof Palme, that will be monument enough.

I've reviewed the Premier's throne speech a number of times during the last few days in an attempt to find some coherent principle, but there doesn't seem to be one. I notice that all the buzzwords are them in fact, I want to note that the Premier in his discussion on Tuesday called this "the Lieutenant-Governor's throne speech" or "His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor's throne speech." But I think it should be made perfectly clear to the Legislature and to the people of this province that this is the Premier's throne speech. Like he does elsewhere, he shouldn't blame this throne speech on anybody else. It should be his exclusive responsibility.

The buzzwords are there. The Premier now talks about his plan for the province, and he uses the words "growing consensus." He has also started to say positive things about employment and about government services. But there is very little indication that he intends to go beyond saying positive things to actually do something worthwhile.

He has even revived a few old things, such as the property rights resolution that this Legislature passed unanimously some years ago. But I suppose it can't do any harm to revive the old things. When he takes it to the first ministers' conference, the same Tory governments of Alberta, Newfoundland and Prince Edward Island who have opposed its inclusion in the constitution will probably do the same thing at the next first ministers' conference that deals with it.

I was pleased to see that he is continuing to press the federal government for funds for the Vancouver Island pipeline, Mr. Speaker. As my colleague for New Westminster (Mr. Cocke) has been known to say: "There's no pipe like an old pipe." But I guess it depends on what you're smoking.

But I had to admit I was surprised to see the Premier include the gas pipeline in the throne speech again. The energy industry says the pipeline doesn't make sense. The forest industry doesn't want it, and the Association of Vancouver Island Municipalities voted against it at their last annual meeting in 1984. This year, in fact, they voted for an NDP proposal to reduce electricity rates on the Island to the equivalent of natural gas heating costs. Now it appears, Mr. Speaker, that the Vancouver Island mayors and municipalities are making a mistake on the Vancouver Island highway. Instead of asking for the highway, they should be voting against it, and then the Premier will start promising it.

I'm surprised, actually, that the Premier didn't get funding for the Vancouver Island gas pipe for this pet project. When he went to the meeting of first ministers in Halifax last fall, I'm surprised that they didn't give him the money that he needed for the gas pipe. He supported Mulroney's proposal to cut EPF funds for the province, which will result in a loss of $642 million to this province from the federal government for health care and post-secondary education.

Now if the cost of the pipeline is $500 million to the federal government, they got that and more from the provincial government at the last first ministers' meetings. They could have given us the $500 million and kept $142 million in change. No wonder the Japanese and the Californians love to negotiate with this guy. It's like taking candy from a baby.

The Premier's throne speech touches all the right buttons. It promises something for everyone: for the unemployed, for the environmentalists, for Indians, for cultural groups, for young people and for women — the groups that this government has ignored over the past ten years or has attacked as interest groups, and now he's touching all of the buttons in the throne speech. Now they get a mention. This government wants to be partners with everything and everybody that moves, right up until election day: partners to the ballot box.

But what really bothers me about this speech is its attempt to describe a British Columbia that isn't the real British Columbia. In the Premier's province, everything looks rosy. Unemployment is on the way out, food banks don't exist, evictions from hotels and boarding houses in downtown Vancouver don't get a mention. Perhaps this is the way the Premier sees British Columbia from his seat in the government jet or from his retreat in Palm Springs. Maybe this is what the province does look like from the deck of the Queen of Tsawwassen during a publicly financed cocktail cruise for the Premier and his political cronies. But it isn't the real province that ordinary people in this province experience day after day and wake up to every morning of their working lives.

The Premier's view of the state of the province just does not mesh with reality. What I see in my travels around the province, and what I hear from the people who I talk to — ordinary British Columbians — is something completely different. I talk to miners and forest industry workers, teachers and students, people in chambers of commerce and small business people. I meet with municipal councils and school trustees, hospital boards and Indian bands. I meet with chief executive officers in the business community and with welfare recipients, professionals and unemployed people — and sometimes professionals and unemployed are the same group. These people know that there is another world out there, a world that through some defect of vision this Premier simply doesn't seem to be able to see.

Let me say something about the state of the province that ordinary people see from day to day. The highest level of unemployment ever experienced in this province: 198,000 people out of work in British Columbia today, the highest ever experienced in this province. Last month twice as many British Columbians were out of work as were out of work

[ Page 7291 ]

back in 1981. And the Premier seems to dismiss the problem of unemployment in his throne speech as something that doesn't count.

When you look through the newspapers in the province of B.C. you see it day after day. From the Kamloops newspaper: one-quarter in Kamloops are jobless. From the Prince George newspapers: according to the Statistics Canada labour survey, the labour force in the Prince George region shrank in December to 93,000 from 96,000 in the same month of 1984. Family allowance transfers show that people have been voting with their feet by leaving the province in record numbers. In the Fraser–Fort George Regional District there was a net out-migration of 1,000 people in the 1983-84 period, according to the family allowance numbers alone, and according to StatsCan.

Yet under this Premier the problem of unemployment in the province of British Columbia doesn't get a mention. When you compare the statistics.... The Premier compares this February over last February. It's bound to look good, and that's why he chose the figures of 50,000 new jobs between February of this year and February of last year. But the simple fact — and as a more reasonable base to choose — is that when you look at employment levels in 1981, when the recession began, and in 1985, which is our last complete year for employment figures, the number of jobs lost in British Columbia over the space of four years is 42,000. And this Premier claims to have created 50,000 jobs since February. Who is he going to pin with the responsibility for the number of jobs lost? It's his responsibility.

People don't believe all the doctoring of figures and bases. They don't believe this Premier anymore, Mr. Speaker, when he talks about these rosy job creation statistics. The statistics don't cover the real story, and, as I said a few days ago, the real story is even more serious. The jobs that have been lost in British Columbia are full time; 19 000 full-time jobs have been lost in the province. All of the new jobs that have been created are part-time jobs, some of those only two days a week, some of them at very low rates of pay.

What's been happening in the province under this Premier is that good, solid, family-supporting, full-time jobs in industries that have a decent level of wages and decent unionized protection are being lost, and they're substituted with part-time jobs at very low rates of pay. When this Premier talks about unemployment, about job creation, people don't believe him anymore, Mr. Speaker.

A recent quote from a Canada Employment and Immigration economist, who was asked: "Where are the jobs in British Columbia " She replied, "When we're answering the question, 'Where are the jobs?' a one-word answer is 'Ontario."' People are being told in British Columbia that if they're looking for employment opportunities, if they want to work again, what they have to do is leave this province and go to Manitoba, to Ontario, to other provinces in Canada. Under this government, the employment opportunities aren't in British Columbia anymore.

As I pointed out a few days ago, Mr. Speaker, jobs are being drained out of regions of this province — out of the Interior, out of Vancouver Island, out of the North — and being created on the lower mainland and Vancouver Island. It's universally recognized that this government has no consistent policy to stimulate economic growth fairly in order to reduce unemployment in all regions of British Columbia.

[10:30]

One thing the Premier's throne speech did not talk about, Mr. Speaker, is poverty. Not because it doesn't exist; because it's not part of the Premier's world. He doesn't want to believe that it exists. When the Royal Family, Prince Charles and Princess Diana, expressed an interest in seeing the problem areas of British Columbia — the poverty, the food banks — they were denied the right to see them. The Premier doesn't want us to believe that poverty exists, and you won't see it in the throne speech or any of his discussions around the province, but according to the government's own figures, 237,000 people in British Columbia today rely on social assistance for their income; 83,000 of those people are children. The Social Planning and Review Council of B.C. report released this month found that social assistance payments failed to meet even the most basic needs for welfare recipients. Depending on family size and composition, welfare rates fall short by 30 to 60 percent in providing basic assistance necessary to cover food, clothing, shelter, personal care and transportation items. It's tragic in a province as rich as ours, a province that can afford to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on ALRT Expo, Coquihalla, Annacis crossing.

Interjections.

MR. SKELLY: I think we hit home, Mr. Speaker. It's tragic in a province like ours that when there is money available for all of these projects, there is no money available...in fact, no concern is expressed for the fact that 237,000 people in this province are forced to live at half the poverty line. We read in the Vancouver Sun and the Province and other newspapers that hundreds of men and women living in low-rent hotels in Vancouver's east side are facing eviction and a desperate future because this government refuses to take strong action to protect their tenancies.

A recent Vancouver Sun letter called Vancouver the suicide capital of Canada. The writer of this letter decried the attitude of this government towards those among us who are destitute. I'd like to read this letter because it had an impact on many of my correspondents; many drew my attention to it. It's entitled: "Too Many Suicides in British Columbia."

"Vancouver is the suicide capital of Canada. My son's body was discovered under the Burrard Bridge by the Vancouver city police, close to Canada's only large indoor stadium and close to Expo 86. He had been born in British Columbia.

"He was unemployed. He was epileptic. He needed medication that had a street value. He applied for welfare in Vancouver. The welfare wasn't enough for him to have secure housing to protect his medication. At hostel housing his medication was insecure. British Columbia welfare would not take that into account. He could not find a place to sleep one night at a time, so he decided to sleep forever.

"I received from Bill Bennett an invitation to go to Expo 86. I do not want to go to an extravaganza so near where my son died.

"While British Columbia can spend hundreds of millions of dollars on Canada's only large-domed stadium and on Expo, and have the highest unemployment rate in western Canada, it shows the attitude of British Columbia's politicians to their destitute fellow men.

"There are many suicides in British Columbia among the poor, and the statistics are hidden. Of all

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the provinces in Canada, British Columbia treats its destitute people the worst. When a person murders another person, it is a crime. When the head of a bureaucracy neglects his responsibility and allows people to die from neglect, that is supposed to be a crime. To me it's the same thing.

"I will not be going to Expo 86.

Bernard E. Vanden
Ottawa"

This government has kept welfare rates frozen since 1982, even though the cost of living has increased steadily since then. Rather than help people who are poor because they are on a fixed income, the Premier and his government have pursued a policy of cutbacks and elimination of services. Over the past decade this government has systematically destroyed a comprehensive social service system by abandoning its responsibility to provide for and to protect those who need help the most.

Mr. Speaker, I want to talk a little bit about investment in the province of British Columbia. We all know that investment is the key to new jobs in this province; it's the key to economic growth. In his speech the Premier said that future investments will be smaller in dollar terms but more numerous. People don't believe the Premier on that one either. The Statistics Canada survey of investment intentions shows investment in British Columbia is expected to drop next year by 6.7 percent in real terms. Investment in this province has dropped dramatically since 1981, and none of the Premier's economic measures have been successful in stopping the collapse of investor confidence in this province — not tax concessions, changes to labour policies or elimination of government programs. Much of the money which is being invested in British Columbia now is being used to replace labour rather than to increase employment. When you look at investment dollars in this province, you see that they've declined from $11,729,000,000 in 1981 to investment intentions of $8, 270,000,000 this year. That's a dramatic decline: a 44 percent decline in real terms over the last five years. Mr. Speaker, you know as well as I, as well as other members in this House, and as well as people out there in British Columbia, that when that investment goes down, then jobs in this province go down, the economy of this province goes down and economic growth stagnates or declines. A major concern in the news recently is the move of Mitsubishi's Canadian president, Arthur Hara, from Vancouver to Toronto, and the statement by Japanese Consul-General Katakura that Japanese business interests....

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: You're wrong.

MR. SKELLY: To quote, Mr. Speaker, Japanese Consul-General Katakura: "Japanese business interests are moving the weight of their activities to the east."

MRS. WALLACE: So you're wrong.

MR. SKELLY: Is the minister suggesting that that quote is wrong?

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: Yes.

MR. SKELLY: The reason investors are avoiding British Columbia has nothing to do with the resource economy or what the Premier likes to call the international recession — what was the international recession but which now seems to be confined to British Columbia. Investment intentions are showing an increase in the rest of Canada, except in British Columbia, the maritime provinces and the Northwest Territories. The reason is that investors seek policy stability and an atmosphere of cooperation between government and labour. Under the current Premier that seems to be almost impossible.

We appreciate the Premier's statement that 32,000 business and investment leaders from around the world have been invited to Expo. We hope that some of these people will be persuaded to invest here in British Columbia. But investors are not as unsophisticated as the Premier would like to believe the electorate is. They see beyond the lights on the Lions Gate Bridge and the glitzy cocktail parties around Expo. Among their briefing notes they are going to find some headline stories about the firing of school boards, food bank lineups, Expo evictions and the censure by the ILO of British Columbia violations of international conventions on free collective bargaining. And they're going to find headline stories about the conflicts in the Queen Charlottes and elsewhere in the province over Indian land claims.

As long as the government takes no effective action to resolve these problems, British Columbia is not going to be considered a secure and stable investment destination. The economy of British Columbia will continue to stagnate while economic recovery takes place elsewhere in the world and elsewhere in the country around us.

In the Premier's throne speech he used some new words to describe two of our natural resource industries, forestry and mining. He is now calling these industries vital — which is a relief, because some of his ministers over the last little while have been calling them sunset industries — and he is now calling them the backbone of the economy. He has even promised to set up yet another fund to provide financial stability to reforestation and silviculture. What is this, Mr. Speaker — fund No. 10? These are fine promises, but after so many years, can this Premier be trusted to keep his promises?

I look back to the Premier's statement about mining in 1975 when he talked about mine closures and how mineral royalties had killed the goose that laid the golden egg. The facts are, Mr. Speaker, that no mines closed down in British Columbia between 1972 and 1975 except for the fact that they had worked out of ore. Yet look at the difference under this Premier and this government between 1982 and 1985: Northair mine closed in Squamish, Craigmont mine closed in Merritt, Boss Mountain mine closed at Hendrix Lake, Bell copper-mine closed at Babine Lake, Endako mine closed at Endako, Kitsault mine closed at Alice Arm, Baker mine at Black Lake, Westroc at Tasu, Goldstream at Revelstoke, Highmont mine in Logan Lake, Granduc mine in Stewart, Scottie mine in Stewart. Hundreds more jobs have been lost in curtailments, layoffs, speed-ups and technological change in the mines that remain open. Now you can't blame these closures entirely on the provincial government, but there's no question that a regime of punitive and rapacious water taxes has forced some mines to close which otherwise might have remained marginally profitable.

In addition, the Premier's ill-advised northeast coal project has caused contracts to be curtailed in the Kootenay, while the northeast is shipping more than 100 percent of contracted volume over a government subsidized rail system. Jobs are being taken from the East Kootenays, and taxpayers in the Kootenays are being forced to subsidize the cost of

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having those jobs removed from their region. The Premier's mining policy has been a complete flop, and as a result the people of British Columbia don't trust his judgments on other projects like the Vancouver Island gas pipeline and the Site C Dam.

Mr. Speaker, I do want to congratulate Art Phillips for the work that he has done to preserve 1,500 jobs in mining and forest operations around this province. He has been successful in doing one thing, and that is in bringing government, unions and companies to the bargaining table to achieve agreements which benefit all British Columbians. If this process of consultation and cooperation were to become provincewide policy, then industries on the critical list would be the exception rather than the rule.

Forestry is the main industry in my constituency, as it is in most constituencies around the province, and especially in the coast forest industry thousands of jobs have been lost. Mills have been shut down or modernized, technologies in logging and processing have changed and operations have been speeded up. In spite of the job losses, shipments of finished products have reached record levels, and as hundreds of forest industry workers are forced onto the welfare rolls, we continue to export the highest volume of raw logs ever to be processed by foreign workers in foreign plants overseas.

The Premier now claims to recognize the significance of the forest and the mining industries. Why didn't he do that five years ago when the layoffs began? Why didn't he bring in legislation to require adequate consultation prior to technological change or mass layoffs? Why didn't he facilitate measures such as restrictions on overtime, early retirement without penalty and retraining programs to maintain employment in the resource industries? Why didn't he provide leadership when we first asked for it to encourage the kinds of research and development and product innovation that were reported and suggested by the Woodbridge Reed or Nilsson reports?

It's going to take more than words in a throne speech, Mr. Speaker, to convince the workers in the forestry and mining industries that this Premier is serious about their industry, especially when he has taken steps to undermine the limited job protection that is provided to workers in those industries by their union agreements and by the Labour Code.

I'd like to talk a little bit about the third-quarter report, because there seems to be some difference, Mr. Speaker, in the picture that's presented in the press releases around the third-quarter report and the actual figures in that report. As I've said before, people in British Columbia just don't seem to be able to believe the Premier anymore or to believe the things that the Premier is saying about the state of the province, the state of the provincial economy and the state of the provincial finances. As I said before, people in British Columbia are willing to accept spending cuts, they're willing to accept service cuts and they're willing to moderate their wage demands, provided the sacrifices they make are shared equally and provided the sacrifices are designed to achieve some legitimate social and economic objectives — and also, provided they're consulted.

[10:45]

Working people in British Columbia do not believe this Premier's restraint program has worked, nor do they believe it was done to serve any useful social or economic ends. Most believe, and rightly so, that this government hasn't practised any restraint at all. The Premier has lavished money on huge projects of questionable viability, like northeast coal. Thank God the people of this province were able to prevent others, such as the Hat Creek development or the Vancouver Island tunnel. He has spent billions of dollars on ALRT, Expo, the Annacis crossing and the Coquihalla. He and his cabinet have been spending money like lords at the court of Louis XVI, while forcing ordinary workers and those on fixed incomes to reduce their standard of living, in some cases far below the poverty line.

After that orgy of public spending, the Premier is telling us that because of restraint we are now in a much better position to spend more on services and job creation. His own third quarter report puts the lie to that statement. The deficit this year is now expected to be higher than the $890 million originally forecast in the budget, and the province has accumulated a deficit over the past five or six years of $4,304,000,000.

Someone has to ask the Premier where the money is coming from to pay for the programs he's talking about. If we're running a deficit of $890 million or more a year, and if the accumulated deficit is now well over $4 billion and approaching $5 billion, where is the money coming from that the Premier is talking about? How can the Premier justify the statement he made — that as a result of the restraint program this government is far better off and is now more able to spend money than they were in the past?

As I said, the third quarter financial report puts the lie to the Premier's statements. This government is overspending. It spent $35 million more this year than last year on welfare. It spent $100 million more on forests to put fires out that burned our forests down in this province. It spent a couple of hundred million more on highways. Maybe that's because it's an election year; certainly it's because the Premier wanted to accelerate his two pet highway projects in order to have them completed in time for Expo.

But also, where are the cuts taking place in the provincial expenditures? I'll tell you: it says right here that the cuts are taking place in ERDA — economic and regional development agreement. Instead of spending the forecast amount of $38 million, this province spent only $13.6 million in ERDA programs that were designed to create jobs in tourism and forestry — replanting and silviculture. The Premier has underspent those programs, whereas he's going over his budget on welfare.

He has cut back on student employment programs. While one in five young people in this province is out of work, the Premier has cut back on anticipated spending for student employment programs; in fact, this government spent less in 1985 than it did in 1984.

Interest on the public debt. Here's where we see the kinds of increases that the Premier likes. Interest on the public debt, actual for the three quarters of 1984, was $194 million; this year it has gone up to $248 million. They've increased payments on the public debt by $53 million. In every area where the budget provides for new industries, for new job creation or for new development that will he of long-term economic benefit to the province, the budget has been cut back.

I was looking for the Minister of Industry and Small Business, whose budget was $48 million last year. The forecast expenditure for the three quarters up to December 31 was supposed to be $27 million; he underspent his budget by $12 million. Those are budgetary programs that are designed to provide assistance to small businesses. Instead of providing

[ Page 7294 ]

that assistance, instead of creating jobs and assisting businesses, this government is forced to spend any money it has left on welfare payments for the people it has put out of work.

This Premier talks about the rosy condition of the province. This Premier talks about the great conditions and the growth that is going to be taking place in the province over the next year. The people of this province don't believe the Premier anymore. They simply don't believe the Premier of British Columbia is either capable of analyzing the true facts about this province or, if he knows the true facts, they don't believe that he is representing them to the people in British Columbia.

Anyone who spends any time at all travelling around this province and talking to real people, working in real communities and in real situations around British Columbia, knows that British Columbians are fed up with this government. They're fed up with the confrontation, and they're fed up with scapegoatings and the attempts by this government to set one group against another for its own political advantage.

Loggers are tired of the way this government exploits resource conflicts and uses loggers as pawns in a game between environmentalists and Indians. Rather than developing mechanisms to resolve problems over resource conflicts, this government tends to exploit those conflicts for its own political benefit. Native people are getting tired of having this government misrepresent their claims and misrepresent the process of negotiation in order to divide this province on racial lines for their own political advantage. Native Indian people, environmentalists and loggers are tired of having this government exploit their differences in order to achieve some political benefit. Miners are tired of the insecurity that this government has visited on their profession and on their labour.

As this government lurches from one megaproject to the next, as this government thinks that they're smarter than the world market and they go out and build a huge subsidized coal project in the northeast part of this province, against the best advice that was available on world markets.... But this Premier felt that he was smarter than the market. Isn't that strange from a so-called free-enterprise government? The Premier thought that he was smarter than the world market, went out and built a coal project, and the result of that coal project is that they're stealing jobs from the Minister of Labour's constituency. In fact he backed the program, and as a result his constituency now has an unemployment rate higher than any province in Canada, higher than Newfoundland, because this minister supported that ill-advised megaproject of the Premier.

Miners in British Columbia. I visited Kimberley a few days ago, Mr. Speaker; 92 miners were laid off in the community. They're uncertain about the future of that community. They're uncertain about the future of Cominco itself, because they don't know how many further layoffs are going to take place in Kimberley as a result of this government's punitive and rapacious water taxes that have been imposed against the mining industry. Yet this government has done absolutely nothing to go to the community of Kimberley, to go to the miners who are working there, and to provide them with some concrete reassurance that their jobs are of value to the province of B.C., or to provide them with some method of determining other economic activities in the Kimberley region so that there will be an orderly transition between their jobs in the mining industry and other jobs in that area.

This government doesn't seem to have any ideas at all. In particular, the Minister of Labour, who should be responsible for these kinds of projects and for protecting the jobs of the citizens of British Columbia, seems to have absolutely no ideas at all. Now he's out in Sparwood talking to the library board. They asked him for $400,000 in order to set up a library in Sparwood, because people in Sparwood have a lot of spare time on their hands these days and there's very little in the way of opportunities for education, for people looking to develop other skills. What they're looking at is to put a library together in Sparwood, and they asked for $400,000 from that huge Expo legacy fund that the Premier talks about whenever he travels around the province. So the Minister of Labour went to the library board and said: "I'm prepared to look at it, but first I'm going to look at the voting results in Sparwood after the next election." They asked him: "Does this mean that you're telling us that if we're not voting for you you're not going to give us the grant?" He said: "Do I have to hit you over the head with a plank?"

Mr. Speaker, The people in communities and mining communities around this province are tired of this dishonest patronage-ridden government, and they want to get rid of it at the earliest opportunity.

Construction workers have been told that they have a friend in Bill Bennett. Remember the Social Credit convention, Alex? I don't think he was there. They were told that at the last Social Credit convention. I don't think any of them showed up, but they read about it in the newspapers. As a result of Mr. Bennett's friendship, 26,000 construction workers have lost their jobs in the province of British Columbia since 1981. More are going to join the rolls of the unemployed after they've completed Expo and the ALRT and the Annacis Island bridge, because there's nothing on the drawing-board after Expo. Some friend!

HON. A. FRASER: Mr. Leader, tell us why you've lost 30 percent of your caucus.

MR. SKELLY: Because some of them are almost as old as you.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, please.

Interjections.

[Deputy Speaker rose.]

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Would the hon. leader please sit down?

MR. LAUK: Why doesn't the Speaker use his mike, so we can hear what the orders are?

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The Speaker did use the mike, hon. member, but some members were making too much noise, and that's why order was called. The Leader of the Opposition has the floor and all other members will have an opportunity to rise in their place after the leader is finished.

[Deputy Speaker resumed his seat.]

Interjections.

[ Page 7295 ]

MR. SKELLY: Mr. Speaker, I didn't intend any negative comments about the minister or the age of some of my caucus members. In fact, I apologize. At their age, they're a heck of a lot more energetic and active in intelligence than half of the younger members of your back benches, and because of the lack of data we can't compare them to the rest.

MR. LAUK: What do you mean, "half"?

MR. SKELLY: As I said, because of the lack of measurable data, we can't compare them to the rest.

Mr. Speaker, public sector workers in this province are tired of being labelled "greedy" and tired of being told that their jobs are recession-proof. They're tired of being compared to workers in the industry whom this Premier chooses to call "the productive sector, " which is a direct attack on public sector workers in this province. Thousands of them have lost their jobs since 1981, and these are people who have committed their lives to the service of individuals and to communities in British Columbia. To be told by this provincial government that they are non-productive or that their jobs are wasteful of the public treasury is an insult to those people who have committed their lives to the service of people in B.C. To be told that they cannot bargain responsibly and to have a program which enforces certain wage rates upon them is, they feel, an insult to their integrity and to their understanding of the economic situation in the province. It's strange that throughout Canada, governments that are more consultative and more cooperative in their approach to workers and less ideologically motivated are able to negotiate with their public sector workers and to strike the same kind of modest agreements that have been imposed on workers here through coercion.

[11:00]

HON. MR. RITCHIE: What about jobs in Manitoba?

MR. SKELLY: I would like to talk about Manitoba just for a second. Manitoba has a policy of working with its private business people and with trade unions in Manitoba very much along the lines of what I suggested is taking place in Sweden and elsewhere in the world. It's called a positive sum social bargain, where people work together to achieve a common goal. Now Manitoba.... Because I phoned Manitoba when the announcement came out that they weren't coming to Expo, and I said: "You should come to Expo." I told the Premier of Manitoba that he should come to Expo, and he said: "Bob, I'd like to, but it's not a priority of the private sector." I said: "You should come to Expo to show the people in British Columbia how a good government operates, because they won't have a chance to see it at the B.C. Pavilion." Mr. Speaker, he said: "It's not considered a priority of the private sector. We want to come, but industries in Manitoba don't consider Expo as one of their priorities." I even tried to get Manitoba to go to the Canada Place pavilion.

MR. MOWAT: You don't carry that weight, do you?

MR. SKELLY: In this regard, the Premier and I are equal — and Jimmy Pattison, because he even talked to the private industry in Manitoba, and he couldn't persuade them.

But public sector workers, as I said, are tired of being insulted by this government and by being treated as second-class citizens.

This government has attempted to blame teachers for the problems that they've caused in education, and they've attempted to blame school trustees for the problems that they've caused in education. But the crisis in education is a direct result of this government's own attack on education and their attack on education funding. People are tired of this government accusing them of being selfish and of acting against the best quality of education in the province.

These are people who chose their profession, chose to serve children and the education system in this province. All they've received from this government for the past ten years are insults. I talked to the head of the B.C. School Trustees' Association recently. He said that consultation has improved over the time when the member for Prince George North (Hon. Mr. Heinrich) was the Minister of Education. But school trustees now do not believe the Premier of this province. They say his figures are not true figures and don't represent the facts of what's going on in the education system. They resent the sham process of consultation that he put them through prior to the announcement of the Excellence in Education fund.

People no longer believe this Premier anymore, Mr. Speaker. When he makes announcements about the economy, they don't believe that that represents the real world. When he makes an analysis of the state of the province, people in British Columbia don't believe that his analysis represents the real world. When he talks about his concern for jobs and his concern for education and government services, people do not believe this Premier. They don't believe him. People are getting tired of being abused by this Premier and receiving misinformation from this government. They're getting tired of the kind of economy that we have here in British Columbia when the rest of the economy across Canada is improving. They're getting tired of this government.

If there's one thing that comes out in the polls and in the information that we receive from people all over the province of British Columbia, it's that people don't believe the Premier. They don't believe he has the best interests of British Columbians at heart. They don't believe he's even capable of understanding the concerns that they have. The one line that comes out over and over again is that it's time for a change.

People like Expo, but they don't like the Premier. They don't like to be humiliated by the fact that they see in the headlines every day that people are being evicted from their homes. Old people and sick people are being evicted from their homes while the Premier focuses on this huge and expensive project. Even the money dribbling off that project could help those people get decent housing under decent conditions. But the Premier won't even prevent the evictions from taking place. If you look out the wires at the Expo project you can almost see to the Vancouver food bank. You can see the fact that hundreds of people are turned away every month; in fact, thousands of people are turned away every month. I watched the Premier the day that they turned the lights on on the Lions Gate Bridge. People in the province like to see lights on the Lions Gate Bridge, but they don't like to see the Premier, at public expense, having a cocktail party with 400 of his cronies on the decks of the Queen of Tsawwassen — a publicly financed cocktail party — to celebrate turning on the lights of the Lions Gate Bridge, at the same time when thousands of people were turned away and deprived of food at the Vancouver food bank.

[Mr. Strachan in the chair.]

[ Page 7296 ]

Interjections.

MR. SKELLY: It's typical. Mr. Speaker, I admire this government, because whenever they're under attack in the newspapers they respond with an attack. It's a way of trying to divert the blame away from themselves. I guess it's the only excuse and the only thing that they have to excuse their behaviour in this province.

People are getting tired of them, Mr. Speaker. They're tired of seeing ministers entertain themselves lavishly in Victoria. They're tired of seeing ministers involved in conflict of interest scandals in the headlines across this province. They're tired of seeing the guilty promoted in cabinet while the innocent get fired. I suspect even the member for Shuswap is tired of that.

They're tired of seeing the Premier paralysed and unable to deal with the scandals in his own cabinet. They're tired of having a cabinet that doesn't seem to be capable of preserving the kind of integrity and the high standard of behaviour that has been expected of cabinet ministers throughout the Commonwealth. They're tired of ministers who don't subscribe to the honour system that binds every parliamentarian in the Commonwealth — that is, when you are an embarrassment to the government, when your behaviour is an embarrassment to the government and when it casts doubt on the integrity of parliament and on the integrity of cabinet, then you are honour bound and obliged to resign. They're tired of ministers who do not feel honour bound.

As I said, it's time for a change in British Columbia. We've looked at some of the problems that people have experienced in this province, problems that the Premier unfortunately does not seem to understand or be aware of. People in this province want to see a change. They don't want very much. They don't demand very much. All they want is a fair chance to get a good job, to earn a decent living, to put money away for the future for themselves and their families.

It's becoming more and more clear to British Columbians that once the election gimmicks are gone, this Bennett government has nothing to offer. New Democrats in this Legislature have been working hard to develop alternatives to what the current government is doing. The one criticism that the government has levelled at us over and over again over the years is that we do not bring up positive options and alternatives in the Legislature. I challenge the ministers and the members of this Legislature to go through the private members' bills, the resolutions and the speeches that have been made in this House. I challenge them to look at the hundreds of positive options that have been presented by this opposition caucus and to at least give them some consideration in the debates of this legislative session. But one of the problems with this government, Mr. Speaker, is that they absolutely refuse to listen. There's an old sign that they used to have on the walls in some people's offices that said: "None of us is as smart as all of us." Yet for some reason this Premier and his government seem to think that they're smarter than all of the rest of the people in British Columbia and that they don't have to listen to the people of this province.

During the fall session of the Legislature I presented a private member's bill which I called a "Jobs First Employment Strategy for British Columbia." It's based on a program that has been adopted both in Australia and Manitoba, and in other countries around the world. I intend to present that bill again during this session, and I would hope that the government would bring that bill up for debate and, in fact, support that bill. It's based on a fairly simple principle, one that has been fairly successful in its application. It recognizes that one of the most serious problems we're experiencing here in British Columbia is lack of employment. The bill proposes that we employ 150,000 people over the next three years in the province of British Columbia. That's not beyond the capability of this province. All it means is that 50,000 jobs would be created annually for three years. For two of the three years of the NDP government this province created more than 50 000 jobs. To give this government credit, in three years out of its last ten more than 50,000 jobs were created. So it's possible to do — 150,000 jobs over a three year period.

Now the Socreds always ask me, Mr. Speaker: "Where is the money going to come from for those 50,000 jobs a year for three years?" I tell them that in every year that more than 50,000 jobs were created this province declared a surplus — not a deficit, but a surplus. It's not employment that creates deficits; it's unemployment. Where will the money come from? Where did the money come from for the Coquihalla Highway? He borrowed every nickel of it. Where did the money come from for northeast coal? Every nickel borrowed. Where did the money come from for the other projects that this government has developed? Every nickel borrowed. And some of them are investments that will never be paid back, because they were ill-advised investments in the first place.

Mr. Pattison estimates that Expo will lose somewhere between $400 million and $500 million. That's going to have to be made up by taxes or by some other means on the backs of the people of British Columbia.

[11:15]

What we're talking about are projects that create real wealth and expand the economic base of the province of British Columbia. We're talking about projects in housing. The Premier mentioned that housing starts in British Columbia increased by 11 percent last year. But housing starts in British Columbia have dropped to half of their ten-year average, and thousands of people throughout the province are in desperate need of high-quality housing. Low-income people, handicapped people and senior citizens are looking for good quality housing around the province. They're not able to get it, because this government has pulled out of housing programs. They don't attach a priority to housing for people who can't afford to be in the market. We're saying that those needs should be met and that housing should be created to meet those needs. It will create real wealth. It will create real jobs. It will create long-term jobs satisfying a legitimate need, a legitimate requirement of citizens of this province. It will create 7,800 jobs annually. It's a program that could mobilize private savings and the savings that are held in deposit institutions around this province. With government leadership — the kind of leadership that has been displayed in other provinces — we can put those housing programs together with very little expenditure of public moneys.

We've proposed a municipal infrastructure program. My colleague, Mike Harcourt, a tremendous leader in his own right, a respected mayor of Vancouver.... Any government would be happy to have Mike Harcourt in its caucus.

AN HON. MEMBER: Speak for yourself.

[ Page 7297 ]

MR. SKELLY: I'm speaking for myself. Our government would be happy to have Mike Harcourt in its government.

AN HON. MEMBER: They'd probably be happy to have him as leader.

MR. SKELLY: We're all leaders on this side. What's always impressed me about Social Credit, Mr. Speaker, with the possible exception of you, is that there's one leader and a bunch of submissive followers, a bunch of yes-men and — women. The one thing that we're proud of in this NDP caucus, the one thing that we're proud of in this party, is that they're all leaders, they're all capable, they're all respected in their communities. When you look at the material that's presented to this House, the quality of the alternatives that are being presented, the quality of the programs that are being debated.... In fact, when you compare the quality of what I don't wish to characterize as debate on the part of the member for West Vancouver–Howe Sound (Mr. Reynolds) yesterday with the quality of debate from any of the members on this side of the House, there's absolutely no comparison.

What this province needs are more of the leaders that we have on this side of the House, and less of the sheep that they have on that side.

Interjections.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, please. Every member will have adequate opportunity to.... Please continue.

MR. SKELLY: Mr. Speaker, before I was so rudely interrupted by the members opposite, I was talking about the municipal infrastructure component of our jobs-first employment strategy.

AN. HON. MEMBER: Have you got CUPE approval?

MR. SKELLY: I think it's worthwhile to go and talk to all of the people involved, Mr. Member, and I know that this government chooses not to because they like to spring programs on people and take all the credit for it. Was it Jimmy Pattison who said: "There's no limit to where a man can go if he doesn't seek the credit"? He got that line from Lao-Tzu, a great Chinese philosopher. But this guy wants his name on everything. He won't plant a tree unless there's some opportunity to clip a ribbon or put a plaque on it. He won't do the things that people-oriented governments around the world and across North America are currently doing to get people back to work, because he can't take the credit for it. It's a defect of personality on the part of this government, that they cannot get involved in jobs that put people back to work without having the government get the credit. I took at something like the Excellence in Education fund. Now every disbursement from that fund has to be approved at cabinet level, so that some minister or the Premier himself can take credit for that grant being made to a particular school board, a college or a university. Everything has been reduced to a patronage system, and that's a problem in British Columbia.

But I want to talk about the municipal infrastructure program that Mike Harcourt — and I'll give Mike Harcourt credit for that — has worked with the Federation of Canadian Municipalities and the UBCM to put together. That infrastructure program has been adopted in eight of ten provinces in Canada; it's been supported in eight of ten provinces. Alberta has even indicated it will fund its portion of the program under Alberta heritage funds. Only British Columbia, only this minister, has said there is absolutely no way this government will assist municipalities in upgrading their infrastructure, in putting hundreds....

Interjection.

MR. SKELLY: Mr. Speaker, I know that Mike Harcourt is that kind of a guy that if his name is holding back the program, he'd be prepared to take it off to allow those municipalities to go ahead. That's the kind of person he is. But this minister has vetoed that program on the part of your government only because Mike Harcourt is a strong advocate of that program. That's the only reason.

I was out meeting with the municipality of Surrey recently. They say that they have 800 miles of road in Surrey that are reaching their serviceable age and are going to have to be rebuilt. They don't have sufficient funds in that municipality because of the restraint program to upgrade those roads and to maintain them at an appropriate level.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Not true.

MR. SKELLY: Harmony. Maybe I wasn't talking to the Surrey municipality. But they said they had 800 miles of road that were deteriorating quickly and they needed to upgrade those roads, and that if they did so it was going to cost a tremendous amount of provincial money.

Those are the kinds of programs that need a joint municipal infrastructure program for federal, provincial and municipal financing. Those are the kinds of infrastructure developments that will improve the services that are available in municipalities, employ construction workers, get municipalities back up to a standard where they're attracting business, attracting residential development and providing the quality of services that those developments require.

This minister has vetoed it. I believe that we should involve ourselves in a program like that. We could put more construction workers back to work, replacing municipal infrastructure, than could ever be put to work on the Site C dam. I don't mind going around the province telling people that under an NDP government construction workers would be so busy they wouldn't have time to build the Site C dam.

Interjection.

MR. SKELLY: I'll tell municipal council in Surrey that their member doesn't want it.

MR. REID: You can spend it on Vancouver Island.

MR. SKELLY: He would rather have it spent on Vancouver Island instead. My understanding of the way things are going in Surrey is that that member will be happy for the work after the next election.

MR. REID: Don't bet your seat on it.

MR. SKELLY: He may not have a seat to bet.

Mr. Speaker, the other components of this program involve sensible energy projects and reforestation and silvicultural projects. We estimate that using those projects we

[ Page 7298 ]

can get back to work 50,000 people a year and begin to deal with the unemployment problem that we have experienced in this province.

What does that do for small business? Well, I'll tell you, Mr. Speaker, small business in British Columbia has heard all about this government's programs, and they've heard it over and over and over again. They've heard about the tax concessions, and they've heard about the tax concessions for employing new workers. But employment remains stagnant in spite of all of this government's economic stunts.

The one thing that small business in this province needs is a little economic stimulation. Those businesses operate more in a free market than any other business in the large business sector operating in British Columbia. What they need....

MR. REID: They want positive thinkers.

MR. SKELLY: You're right. But they need thinkers with money in their pockets, because without money in their pockets, without disposable income, small business in British Columbia is dead, and they know it. With all the tax concessions in the world, it's not going to help them if they don't have customers coming through the door with disposable income in their pockets.

We would like to see the economy of British Columbia improved in such a way by expanding the employment base, the revenue base, producing new wealth, stimulating demand, so that those workers can go through the doors of small business and have money in their pockets to buy the goods and services small businesses provide. Economists, business people, local governments, trade unions agree that what we have to do is get people off welfare, off unemployment insurance, where they themselves feel they're a net drag on the economy; get them back to work so they can stimulate small business and cause small business in this province to grow and thrive.

We in this party also believe there should be some stimulus provided to the natural resource sector in B.C. We should assist those companies that are currently operating in the province to diversify their product lines and aggressively market their products into a new range of markets, rather than the very limited range of markets that we currently trade into. We feel this government has done an inadequate job in that area.

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

In addition, we believe a new priority should be given to silvicultural projects and tree planting in British Columbia — not the kind of lip service this Premier has paid to the issue over and over again, not a constant setting up of new funds and then eliminating the funds and using the money to pay off the historic debt of B.C. Rail. We want to see a government in British Columbia that has as its priority the replacing of our forests, the returning of our forests to sustainability. It's going to cost money.

I'd like to congratulate the mayors on Vancouver Island for developing, basically out of NDP policy, the strategy for survival which would put hundreds of people on Vancouver Island back to work planting trees, managing forest lands through intensive silvicultural techniques, so that we can guarantee to workers on Vancouver Island that there will be a future in the forest industry. The NDP would like to see that kind of program in every region of the province, because there's a demand for that kind of work to be done.

We don't feel that people who are working in the silviculture industry — tree planting and maintaining stands — should be treated as virtual wage slaves. This government wants them to bid on jobs, and awards tree-planting contracts to the absolute lowest bidder. It doesn't make sense. What you get is restaurateurs coming into the business, hiring a few people who they think might be good tree planters, and then they do an inadequate job because of lack of working capital, inadequate training, inadequate camp facilities for their workers. Many tree-planting contracts have been audited and rejected three and four times over as a result of that low-bid system. We believe silviculturalists and tree planters should be respected workers in the community, that they should work under decent working conditions and be paid decent wages, because they're doing a service that is of intense value to the people and the province of British Columbia. They're guaranteeing thousands of jobs now and in the future, and we believe they should be paid a decent wage accordingly.

[11:30]

There are many things that can be done by this government — things that haven't been done, that have been totally ignored. One of those areas is education. We tie education and educational facilities to the attraction of jobs. You can't separate them. Education means jobs in the province of B.C. Without a high-quality system of education, you cannot deliver the jobs that this province requires. Oh yes, you can do what this government wants to do: that is, bring in people who have been trained elsewhere at somebody else's expense. But that's not the way to go about it, because what happens is that our children go without a quality education and end up sitting on the unemployment and welfare rolls while people from out of province get the jobs in B.C. We don't want to see that kind of thing happening.

In the last five years this government has put school boards in B.C. through 15 different budget processes. They spend so much time producing new budgets in response to new provincial demands that they don't even have the time to manage the budgets they have to produce the best possible educational quality in their districts. In addition, this government has jerry-rigged the school districts' financing system by stealing the industrial and commercial tax base, so that now school boards can only levy money against the residential tax base, creating an even worse burden on residential taxpayers. This government has generated conflicts between school trustees, teachers and the provincial government over methods of teacher salary awards and payments.

Mr. Speaker, we would like to see some certainty and some stability restored to the education system in the province of British Columbia, instead of constantly changing the policy and creating uncertainty, which drives teachers away from the province, drives students away from the province and drives dedicated school trustees and teachers to distraction. We would like to see some stability restored to the education system.

How do you do it? Firstly, I think you have to take immediate remedial action to apply money and resources on a consultative basis to those areas which have suffered the most dramatically as a result of the government cutbacks. We need to put money and personnel in those areas that have suffered so much. We also need to restore to school boards the authority to determine and to meet local needs. We also want to

[ Page 7299 ]

restore the ability of community colleges to deliver a comprehensive range of programs, including university transfer, vocational and continuing education programs. We'd like to restore the independence of universities and guarantees for academic freedom. What we have to do in British Columbia is indicate to the education community that we attach a high value to the services they provide to ourselves and to our children, and also to the employment-generating potential of that service, which is one of the most important services that can be carried out by a government under our constitutional system.

There has been a great deal of debate about young people in the province of British Columbia recently. The Minister of Labour (Hon. Mr. Segarty) talks about his Youth Advisory Council. That council wasn't selected in consultation with the members of this Legislature. We don't know if it represents all of the young people in British Columbia or in all of the regions of British Columbia. We don't know when it meets and what it discusses or what it's paid. We have been advised of none of those things. It's another one of those secretive bodies that has been hired to advise the Minister of Labour. Many young people in this province feel that they're left out of the process.

They've also seen in the Conservative government in Ottawa an attack on programs that were designed specifically to support youth, to provide employment experiences and employment opportunities for youth, the Katimavik program, which is the subject of a sit-in and a hunger strike in Ottawa right now. Unemployment among young people has been between 20 percent and 24 percent in this province for the last five years. Many young people have never worked, and many have no hope of ever working during their working lives. Those who are able to get work do so at very low rates of pay, in fact lower than the minimum wage in some cases in British Columbia, which is the lowest minimum wage in Canada.

We're told that in most cases young people who go to work at Expo for $4.20 an hour will not be able to pay their tuition at university because they're not getting enough money by working at Expo to provide for their tuition and their living expenses after Expo is over. I'd like to congratulate the government of Norway for ignoring the Expo wage guidelines and paying Norwegian students in British Columbia above the Expo recommended rate, so that their students can afford to go back to university when Expo is over. If it's good enough for Norwegian students, it's good enough for our own kids right here in British Columbia.

I'd like to congratulate the B.C. Central Credit Union, which is operating the United Nations pavilion at Expo during the International Year of Peace.

AN HON. MEMBER: All of the credit unions.

MR. SKELLY: All of the credit unions — with the possible exception of one here in Victoria.

I would like to congratulate the credit unions who are sponsoring the United Nations pavilion at Expo for paying to the students working in that pavilion more than the Expo recommended guidelines so that those students can afford to go back to university and to college when Expo is over.

I don't think I should be congratulating the provincial government for establishing wage rates on the Expo site that are so low that students who work on that site will not have sufficient funds at the end of the year to carry on their studies at universities and colleges around the province unless they borrow the money. Students in this province work hard, and they do good work, and yet this government refuses to pay them sufficiently to give them the money, the savings they need, to get back to school.

Mr. Speaker, what we need in this province, what we need with this government, is much more concern on the part of government for the plight of young people in this province. When I talk about 22 percent unemployment, very low wages, few job opportunities, the problems of education — young people going to school and to colleges and universities have access to fewer programs than they had in the past as a result of this government's cutbacks. Young people now going to school experience larger classes with less personal attention to their particular education concerns. Young people going to colleges and universities in British Columbia pay higher tuition fees than people elsewhere in Canada and have fewer loan and grant programs.

When we were government in British Columbia, back in 1972 to 1975, my colleague the member for Burnaby North (Mrs. Dailly) set up the student grant program to allow students to get access to colleges and universities. I'd like to congratulate her and the government for that program. It was axed by the current Social Credit government, and as a result our students going to universities and colleges are now being saddled with debts in the range of $10,000 and $20,000 before they finish school. They're faced with the problem of having to pay off those debts when they go out into the labour force, and they're finding fewer and fewer jobs available to them as a result of the problems in the B.C. economy. They're going to New Zealand; they're going to Australia; they're going to Ontario.

In fact, I want to tell you about a new organization that's been set up in Ontario, Mr. Speaker, It's an organization of British Columbian students living in Ontario who are currently raising money to get this government defeated and to elect an NDP government so that they can return home to school.

We believe that government and people in British Columbia have an obligation to their young people, an obligation to make the world a little better for them than it was for us. That's why we're here in this Legislature, Mr. Speaker. I believe that what we should do for these young people is similar to the kind of guarantees that have been offered in the state of Victoria in Australia and also in the province of Ontario. If it's good enough for Ontario, it's good enough for our people here in B.C.

We're talking about a program that will make available to our young people a guarantee of high-quality education, high-quality training, a decent job, or some reasonable combination of the three. We would like to spell out this guarantee in legislation. We value our young people and our children so much, on this side of the House at least, that we're prepared to offer that kind of guarantee for our young people. It's done in the state of Victoria, it's done in Australia, and we can do it here.

Health care. Now the throne speech did make some mention of health care. What they forgot to say is that medical premiums in this province have increased by 260 percent since 1975. There was a little line in the throne speech where the Premier said that our workers here in British Columbia.... In fact, he called them ordinary British Columbians. How did he know they existed? Dr. Spector must have told the Premier that some ordinary British Columbians exist.

[ Page 7300 ]

He couldn't find out in the circles where he travels. One of them may have got on the ambulance while he was on the government jet. Maybe there's an ordinary British Columbian who passed through Palm Springs. Maybe there's an ordinary British Columbian who lives in the penthouse at the Harbour Towers. I don't know where the Premier found this ordinary British Columbian.

But he said these ordinary British Columbians pay less personal income taxes than people in any other province but one. What the Premier forgot to calculate into the whole equation was the cost of medicare premiums which in all of the other provinces except three are included in your income tax, and we pay those separately here. Now I'm not a fan of Michael Walker, who is an adviser of the Minister of Finance, but Michael Walker has analyzed the tax system in the province of B.C. and in the other provinces across Canada. As you know, the Fraser Institute has worked out what they call "the tax-free day." The tax-free day is the day that you stop working for the government and you stop paying taxes and you start working for yourself.

Interjections.

MR. SKELLY: Well, if you've got a hundred thousand dollars, you could buy a few pulp partnership units and stop paying any taxes at all.

Interjections.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. Hon. members, I would ask the two members for Surrey to afford the Leader of the Opposition an uninterrupted opportunity to complete his remarks.

MR. SKELLY: Mr. Speaker, the Premier said that ordinary people in B.C. have the lowest rate of personal income tax of any province in Canada. But you can't believe this Premier, because in other provinces medicare premiums are calculated in, and they're paid under the income tax system. So he's comparing apples and oranges. I think the Premier of British Columbia owes the people of B.C. the truth.

[11:45]

In this particular case we were able to get it from Michael Walker because, as I was saying, he calculates in that tax-free day the day you stop paying taxes to the government and start working for yourself. In my case it's December 31. But in the case of British Columbia.... British Columbians work longer to pay their taxes than people in any other province except Quebec. That's what the Fraser Institute says. British Columbia has the second-highest tax rate of any province in Canada. British Columbians get less for their taxes than people in other provinces because this government doesn't provide services at a decent level. It doesn't provide high quality services that people in British Columbia deserve because of the amount of money they pay in their taxes. In this province we pay the second-highest rate of tax of any province in Canada.

We would like to see British Columbians get a higher quality health care system. Maybe this is the point where I should talk a little bit about this government's abilities. It might be time to talk about the report card given provincial governments across Canada by the Decima polling organization. Now I want to say that Decima hardly ever phones us and gives us this information. But I can vouch for its accuracy. Decima has what they call a performance rating for provincial governments. They ask people if they're very dissatisfied, somewhat dissatisfied, somewhat satisfied or very satisfied. I want you to know that 5 percent of the people in this province are very satisfied with this government.

MR. REID: They'll probably find that nobody's ever satisfied.

MR. SKELLY: I'm emphasizing the positive.

MR. REID: You learn that in life, man.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please.

MR. SKELLY: He asked me to emphasize the positive, Mr. Speaker.

Five percent are very satisfied, 28 percent are somewhat satisfied, 35 percent are very dissatisfied and 30 percent are somewhat dissatisfied, for a grand total of 65 percent of the people in this province who feel that this government is doing a poor job. But that's just the overall assessment of the government's performance, Mr. Speaker; it's not the line-by-line fine analysis of this government's performance.

MR. REID: If you paid for the results, you might get the factual ones.

MR. SKELLY: I paid for the results, and so did every taxpayer in the province of British Columbia — and I paid for the Premier's trip to California, and I paid for the Premier's trip to the Grey Cup game, just like every other taxpayer in the province of British Columbia; and I paid for his cocktail party on the deck of the Queen of Tsawwassen for the opening of the lights of the Lions Gate Bridge, and for the cocktails for 400 of his cronies, at the same time as they were cutting back on the food available at the food bank in Vancouver.

But let me tell you, Mr. Speaker, there is a line-by-line analysis of this government's performance in various areas of its jurisdiction, and they have what they call the satisfaction index. Do you know what that is?

Interjections.

MR. SKELLY: You'd better ask Jim Nielsen.

Mr. Speaker, the satisfaction index is the balance between the people who were satisfied with the government's performance and those who were dissatisfied — when you subtract them from each other they equal zero. That means people are neither satisfied nor dissatisfied. If you get a positive figure it means that on the balance people are satisfied with your performance. If you get a negative figure, they're not happy, right?

Here they are. Here's the ratings on the provincial government. Here's the report card on this government's ability in managing certain jobs within its jurisdiction. In the third quarter of 1985, which is the last Decima poll available, for managing natural resources this government gets a mark of minus 35. A passing mark is zero and a good mark is anywhere above that — they get a failing mark in terms of managing natural resources.

Creating more jobs. Now a passing mark, Mr. Speaker, is zero, a good mark is anything above zero; failure is anything

[ Page 7301 ]

below zero. In creating more jobs this government gets a rating of minus 63.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh.

MR. SKELLY: No, it established the record in the first quarter of 1985 of minus 70. You're improving. Providing a sound education system. Now here's where you guys like to excel. The rating given by the people of the province of British Columbia, in terms of providing a sound education system — they don't even demand high quality; all they ask is if you can provide a sound education system — is minus 50.

MR. LAUK: Sound. Is that non-written, or...?

MR. SKELLY: Non-literate.

Controlling spending. Here's where you guys supposedly have it all over those socialists, right? This is where Social Credit has consistently excelled. In the second quarter of 1983: minus 13; in the fourth quarter of 1983: minus 8; second quarter of '84: minus 15; fourth quarter of '84: minus 16; second quarter of '85: minus 18; in the fourth quarter of 1985, on the public's assessment of this government's ability to control spending: minus 33. They're out of control — lavish projects, lavish cocktail parties, lavish trips, while the rest of the people in British Columbia are living in fear of losing their jobs, living in poverty. They are victimized by unemployment and by a low level of services.

Delivering health care: minus 12.

The Minister of Intergovernmental Relations (Hon. Mr. Gardom) is in the House, Mr. Speaker, and I have to say that this government got a plus 6 on federal-provincial relations.

Interjections.

MR. SKELLY: I want the Minister of Intergovernmental Relations to go to the head of the class, because the rest of them, according to the report card, are doing poorly. But why did he get a plus 6 for federal — provincial relations? Anybody can get along with a Tory government. I think it's because the Premier of this province went back there during the last first ministers' conference and gave the Tories $642 million in EPF funding. He said: "You guys are doing the right thing by cutting back the increase in EPF funding transfers to the province. Here's my pockets; dig in." That's what he did. No wonder he gets a plus 6; Tories must have been filling out this poll.

The people of British Columbia have rated this government among the poorest performers in Canada in terms of those key responsibilities of provincial governments: health care, education, managing natural resources, controlling spending, delivering health services. This government has failed in all of those services that are the primary obligations of the provincial government. Creating jobs is the worst. In creating jobs they rank the lowest of all, a record low for this government in terms of its job-creating ability.

The hour is approaching 12 and I think I should summarize my speech, if I may. I've indicated that the people of British Columbia no longer believe this government. They cannot believe the announcements of the Premier; they cannot believe the analysis of the state of the economy and the state of the province that he's presented in the throne speech. They don't believe the advertising they see on television about partners in municipality and health, partners in everything that moves. They don't believe that stuff anymore; it's not believable because it doesn't mesh with the day-to-day reality that they see around the province. They're tired of a government that insults their intelligence, their contribution, the work they do and the careers they've committed their lives to. This is a government that insults public participation and the public contribution people have made to school boards and hospital boards, Indian bands and municipal councils. Their efforts, and the quality of their efforts, are being insulted by this government. They're tired of cutbacks in programs that serve people while this government lives lavishly and satisfies its own desires and personal interests at public expense.

One thing that comes out of the polls and the information from people all over the province of British Columbia: it's time for a change. People want to change this government. They want to throw them out and put in a government that does care about this province, a government that does serve their needs, a government that is interested in listening and consulting and cooperating with them in the best interests of British Columbians all over the province.

Mr. Michael moved adjournment of the debate.

Motion approved.

Hon. Mr. Gardom moved adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

The House adjourned at 11:58 a.m.

[ Page 7302 ]

Appendix

MOTIONS

3 The Hon. G. B. Gardom to move-

That the Special Committee of Selection, appointed on March 11, 1986, be empowered to appoint a Special Committee to select and unanimously recommend the appointment of an Ombudsman, pursuant to section 2 (2) of the Ombudsman Act, and that the Special Committee so appointed shall have the following powers:

(a) to appoint of their number one or more subcommittees and to refer to such subcommittees any of the matters referred to the committee;

(b) to sit

(i) during any period in which the House is adjourned and during any sitting of the House and

(ii) to adjourn from place to place as may be convenient; and shall report to the House on the matter referred to it during this Session, or following any adjournment of the House, or at the next following Session, as the case may be.