[ Page 7303 ]

CONTENTS

Oral Questions

B.C. Rail shares. Mr. Macdonald –– 7303

Westcoast Savings Credit Union. Mr. Macdonald –– 7303

Superhost program. Mr. Lea –– 7304

Hotel evictions. Mr. Barnes –– 7304

Social housing. Mr. Blencoe –– 7305

Mr. Hanson

Throne Speech Debate

Mr. Michael –– 7305

Mr. Macdonald –– 7309

Mr. Schroeder –– 7311

Mr. Lauk –– 7314

Mr. Mowat –– 7317

Mr. Stupich –– 7320

Hon. Mr. Veitch –– 7324

THURSDAY, MARCH 13, 1986

The House met at 2:06 p.m.

HON. MR. GARDOM: Mr. Speaker, I do know that each and every member of this assembly this afternoon would like to join with me in an extremely warm welcome, an especial welcome, to the newly appointed consul-general for France, M. Rene Delille. Accompanying him today is his wife, Mme. Elyane Delille, and his daughter, Mlle. Vanessa.

HON. MR. RITCHIE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I wish the house to welcome the Pacific Mennonite Children's Choir. They're in the Speaker's gallery today, and I would like them very much all to stand. I'd like you to recognize the uniform. This does not signify the member as being Scottish himself, but rather that this is the B.C. tartan. They are accompanied by Mr. Fred Hall and some proud parents, and are under the direction of choir leader Nancy Dyck. This choir, Mr. Speaker and colleagues, is world-renowned. They have just recently accepted an invitation to perform in the seventeenth world conference of the International Society for Music Education which is being held in Innsbruck, Austria, in July of this year, and they are the only choir representing Canada at that event.

HON. MR. PELTON: In the gallery today is His Worship John Agnew, mayor of the corporation of the district of Mission, and Dr. Norman Cook, the administrator for that same municipality, and Mr. John Gaims, who is the administrator for the Dewdney-Alouette regional district. I would appreciate the House making them all welcome.

MR. MOWAT: I take great pleasure today in introducing to you the 1986 interns assigned to the Social Credit caucus. We are very impressed with their fine attitude and their excellent work habits, and we know this will be a great learning experience for them for this year and for their future. Mr. Speaker, may I present: Laurie Boucher from Simon Fraser University, from the constituency of Dewdney; Nancy Peck from the University of British Columbia, from Vancouver South; Brian Young from the University of Victoria, from Oak Bay-Gordon Head; and Diana MacGibbon from the University of Victoria, from Oak Bay-Gordon Head. I'd ask the House to make them welcome.

HON. MR. GARDOM: Mr. Speaker, following a very pleasant earlier meeting with you today, I would like to introduce to members of the assembly Mr. Rich Jones of the National Conference of State Legislatures, and Miss Susan Cribbs from the office of my colleague, the equivalent minister in Alberta, Mr. Jim Horsman. Welcome, indeed.

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. members, also visiting with us today are 120 grade 11 students from Delta Secondary School with their teacher Mr. E Sawatsky. I would ask the House to join me in welcoming them.

Oral Questions

B.C. RAIL SHARES

MR. MACDONALD: Mr. Speaker, wearing the B.C. tartan also, I have a question for the Minister of Finance. He brought down a budget in 1984 that advanced $470 million from general revenue to B.C. Rail — a subsidiary of the railway company — and on June 13 of that year he signed the order-in-council guaranteeing, on behalf of all of us, the repayment of the first preferred share issue. He made that share issue, which he admits he took full part in, retractable, which means, in part, that it's a tax deduction. I don't mean it's a tax shelter, like the one the Minister of Lands, Parks and Housing (Hon. Mr. Kempf) is living in. When did the minister buy these shares and how much did he pay for them? They fluctuate, you know. When did he sell them, and at what price did he sell them?

HON. MR. CURTIS: In order to be completely accurate in responding to the member's question, I will take part of it as notice — that is, the precise date of purchase and the precise date of sale. I will tell the member that the preferred shares I purchased were sold prior to the end of June 1985. The balance of the question I'll take on notice. I'm sorry, I don't have the precise date of purchase.

MR. MACDONALD: In taking this on notice, I hope the minister heard my whole question. I also asked at what price you bought and at what price you sold.

I'll ask another question, because I'm glad the minister's in a forthcoming mood today.

WESTCOAST SAVINGS CREDIT UNION

In 1981 the minister, as Minister of Finance, deposited $36 million — well above the usual deposit guidelines — in the Westcoast Savings Credit Union. That credit union had the mortgage on his house, and he was a depositor and borrower from that particular credit union. Will the minister confirm that that is basically what took place?

HON. MR. CURTIS: Yes. I am a member of Westcoast Savings Credit Union and have been for a number of years.

MR. MACDONALD: Supplementary, Mr. Speaker. Why did the government suddenly invest $36 million in a credit union in which you were personally interested?

HON. MR. CURTIS: Mr. Speaker, I suggest to the member, before he pursues this questioning, that he might refresh his memory with respect to what membership in a credit union means in this province.

MR. MACDONALD: I ask again: will the minister give an explanation of why suddenly $36 million, which is far above the $5 million limit for investments in credit unions, was advanced to a credit union in which he had a personal interest at that particular time? We want a full explanation.

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. members, the Chair does not wish to rule out of order questions, but we must remember that questions must not evoke argument and be questions.

HON. MR. CURTIS: The member shakes in righteous indignation as he asks the question. I want to assure this House that the two matters which he has raised in the question are not related.

[ Page 7304 ]

MR. MACDONALD: Just a final supplementary. Does the minister not think that they are related in the sense that it's improper for a minister, who in his official capacity can affect the value of shares or the savings of a credit union, to do something in his official capacity which has all the appearances of being something that might benefit himself?

HON. MR. CURTIS: It would be very difficult to reside in British Columbia, regardless of what portfolio one holds — but let us deal with the Ministry of Finance as a portfolio — and not deal with some financial institution which does not have a relationship with the government of British Columbia. Is the member suggesting that I should transfer my debts and my assets to another province? If that is the case, then I reject the thesis.

[2:15]

SUPERHOST PROGRAM

MR. LEA: I have a question for the Minister of Tourism in regard to the SuperHost program. It's my understanding that the SuperHost program not only puts on seminars for employees in the private sector but is also putting on seminars for employees who work for the province of British Columbia in Crown corporations and government ministries.

Some 4,000 B.C. Transit employees have either taken or are scheduled to take the one-day seminar. Each employee who takes it has a day that he or she is paid to take the seminar, plus there's the day of the seminar, plus a dinner that night supplied by the program. I think a conservative estimate would be that it would cost about $150 an employee at least, including the wages, so you're looking at approximately $600,000 for that one program for B.C. Transit employees. When talking with one of those employees I said: "What did you learn?" They said: "We learned how to smile."

Interjections.

MR. SPEAKER: And the question is, hon. member?

MR. LEA: Mr. Speaker, my question is: how many other public employees, either from Crown corporations or directly employed by a ministry, have taken the course, how many are scheduled to take the course and what is the estimate of the cost of teaching public employees to smile?

HON. MR. RICHMOND: Mr. Speaker, it's impossible for me to answer how many government employees or Crown corporation employees are scheduled to take the course. I can ascertain that information for the member and find out. I would point out to him that the cost of the employee's wages are not borne by my ministry, so I have no knowledge of what that cost is. But I can tell you, Mr. Member, that over 30,000 people in this province have taken the course, and we have had nothing but good remarks from all of them. They say that it was very much worthwhile, including some large taxi fleets, private transportation companies and service industry employees. They find the course very much worthwhile, and the employers feel it is very worthwhile that they pay their employees' wages for the one day they do take the course. By the time Expo opens we will have put some 75,000 people through the course.

MR. LEA: Mr. Speaker, to the minister, I don't believe that it's really any of my business or anybody else's business if a private corporation wants to spend money to take the course. However, when we're spending those kinds of taxpayers' dollars to take people in.... Sure they say they like it; they get a day off and a dinner paid for by the taxpayer to teach them how to smile.

I'd like the minister, if he would, to come back to the House and tell us exactly how many government-paid employees are going to have that eight-hour, one-day course, plus a dinner supplied, and what the estimated cost is.

HON. MR. RICHMOND: First of all, Mr. Speaker, the course is not mandatory for anyone, private or public sector, so I can't really tell you how many are going to take the course. It's offered to them; it's not mandatory.

AN HON. MEMBER: Are you a graduate?

HON. MR. RICHMOND: I'm not only a graduate, I am one of the authors of the course, I will have you know.

I will only be able to tell the member how many public sector employees have taken the course once they have completed the course. It's certainly not mandatory.

MR. LEA: The minister said that it's voluntary. Having checked with ministerial staff this morning, I can say that's absolutely correct. In the private sector it is voluntary. But it's my understanding that in B.C. Transit it was not voluntary, that the decision was made by the board of directors at the top and passed down. Did I get incorrect information from the ministry?

HON. MR. RICHMOND: To the best of my knowledge, Mr. Speaker- and I asked this very same question — it is on a voluntary basis by members of the transit union. There's nothing mandatory about the course.

HOTEL EVICTIONS

MR. BARNES: Mr. Speaker, after yesterday's diversion by the government to avoid dealing with the serious problems seniors are facing in the downtown east side due to the evictions occurring there, I will give the Premier a rest this afternoon and address my question to the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs. Has the minister responsible for residential tenancies now decided to take action to prevent these unfair evictions?

HON. MR. VEITCH: I'm sure the member was here yesterday and heard the action that the government is taking. I'm also willing to tell the member that I've received no representation from anyone whatsoever in this area.

MR. BARNES: I think the minister should enlighten himself about the seriousness of the situation, because the issue that we are concerned about is directly under the responsibility of the minister, who should be responsible for the protection of consumers in this province — especially senior citizens who are attempting to find accommodation that is simply not available within their budgets.

Has the minister decided to redefine the difference between hotels and residential properties with respect to these problems? Clearly hotels in the downtown east side are

[ Page 7305 ]

having it both ways. They're able to operate as hotels on the one hand, renting by the day, and on the other hand they are able to rent by the week, the month, the year, and benefit as though they are residences. This is one of the problems we're telling that side of the House all the time. Something has to happen.

Is the minister going to recognize this problem, and what action does he intend to take?

HON. MR. VEITCH: Mr. Speaker, if the member wants action on a particular area, clearly he ought to direct that to the minister responsible. I would think that in this case it's the Minister of Municipal Affairs.

MR. BARNES: Am I to take it that the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs is saying these evictions of people who are long-term tenants in those hotels in the downtown east side do not come under his responsibility?

SOCIAL HOUSING

MR. BLENCOE: Mr. Speaker, yesterday we were provided with an attack on social housing by the Minister of Municipal Affairs (Hon. Mr. Ritchie) — somewhat of a cheap ploy to avoid dealing with the tenants in Vancouver.

Interjections.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please, hon. members. The Chair tries to be as fair as possible during question period, and if we enforced the very specific rules that guide us, very few questions would be in order; certainly not the amount of preamble that we're seeing develop in the last two days. I would ask the members to bear that in mind and place their questions before the House.

MR. BLENCOE: I have a question for the real Minister of Housing. Yesterday the minister said he had been ordered by the Minister of Municipal Affairs to conduct yet another study on social housing in British Columbia. Has the minister not read the report submitted to his ministry on January 22, 1986 entitled, "A Social Housing Report for British Columbia"? Why do we need more studies? When is the government going to start building some affordable housing in the province of British Columbia?

HON. MR. KEMPF: Mr. Speaker, the investigation that was suggested yesterday by the Minister of Municipal Affairs, one which I agree wholeheartedly should take place is an investigation to be conducted on the social housing situation in the city of Vancouver.

MR. BLENCOE: This minister and this government, instead of being on a search- and-rescue mission, are on a search- and- destroy mission in Vancouver. That's what they're up to.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please.

MR. BLENCOE: You've done your studies, spent your money. Why do you need to do another study? What are you covering up, Mr. Minister?

MR. HANSON: I have a question to the Premier. The recent focus on the social housing crisis in British Columbia, resulting from the under-funding over the last number of years.... Last year it was $15.5 million. My question is with respect to the amount of money spent on political advertising in this province. Last year it was $18 million. Given the fact that we have a crisis in housing, have you decided in your upcoming budget to cut the political advertising — which no one believes anyway — and have those funds, and the $33 million in government travel, diverted to social housing?

HON. MR. BENNETT: I'm surprised that the member would call the government information program political advertising. The people's right to know must be met by a strong government information program. Other than that, the rest of the premise as to dollar amounts and others contained in his question are wrong.

Orders of the Day

SPEECH FROM THE THRONE

(continued debate)

MR. MICHAEL: It gives me a great deal of pleasure to enter this throne speech debate. I have several areas I would like to cover, the first one having to do with some comments made by the Leader of the Opposition regarding northeast coal. He continues to make reference to the current member for Kootenay (Hon. Mr. Segarty), who was elected, I believe, in 1979, as one who supported northeast coal. While I am sure that the current member does support northeast coal, it is interesting to go back to the dates when northeast coal was first discussed in the province of British Columbia.

[Mr. Ree in the chair ]

The sitting member from the Kootenays during those years in the early 1970s, through to 1975, whose name was Leo Nimsick.... It is interesting to look at some clippings on the original discussion of northeast coal, going back to December 1975, just a few days before the election that was called by the then Premier of the day, Dave Barrett of the NDP, and the announcement that was made by a member sitting in this House today, the second member for Vancouver Centre (Mr. Lauk). This particular clipping from the Prince George Citizen refers to Mr. Gary Lauk, the economic development minister, and is headed "Northern Program Applauded." The first paragraph in that clipping says:

"Alf Nunweiler, Minister of Northern Affairs, has hailed Tuesday's announcement of a $1 billion coal development program in northeastern British Columbia as great news for northerners of British Columbia.

"Nunweiler, incumbent NDP Fort George MLA, said today: 'The development will have a lot of positive economic effects, including, for example, an expansion of rail facilities in Prince George. With the increased traffic, both CNR and BCR are going to need expanded switching yards, and they might even explore the possibility of establishing a joint switching yard here. Elsewhere in the north, ' Nunweiler noted, 'some $95 million will be spent to expand facility in Dawson Creek and Chetwynd and to establish a new townsite about 60 miles southeast of Chetwynd."'

[ Page 7306 ]

It had not yet been named, Mr. Speaker, but it has since been named Tumbler Ridge.

"'About $20 million will be needed to improve the existing infrastructure in Dawson Creek and Chetwynd and about $75 million to develop the infrastructure for a new townsite. Expansion of this kind, based on coal development, will have a very healthy effect. It will help diversify our economy in northern British Columbia."'

That is from the Prince George Citizen of December 1975, while the opposition party was the government of the day, and the sitting member for Kootenay was none other than Leo Nimsick. And the Premier of the province when northeast coal was first discussed in the province of British Columbia was none other than Dave Barrett.

[12:30]

Now going from there and talking about the very important issue of jobs in the province of British Columbia, if there is one particular area that we certainly all agree on in this House — all members, opposition and government — it is the need to create new jobs throughout the length and breadth of British Columbia. But we also know that we have had some very serious problems in British Columbia in the last four or five years with the international economic downturn. We've lost a lot of jobs in forestry. As a matter of fact, from the most recent figures I've been able to obtain from the forestry association, it looks like British Columbia has lost somewhere between 17,000 and 20,000 jobs in the forest sector alone. We all know what this means. We know there is a multiplier effect from raw resource industries of about six to one. So it could be said that British Columbia has lost somewhere between 110,000 and 120,000 workers in the forest sector alone.

Along with that, we know that we've had a very difficult time in our mining industry. As a result of the devaluation of international currency, there have been thousands of jobs lost in the mining sector in the province of British Columbia — again, with the multiplier effect. These are very difficult times, and it's a very difficult challenge for the government of the day to meet those kinds of economic downturns.

The Leader of the Opposition is well aware, if he checks his research, why the province of Ontario is doing somewhat better than the province of British Columbia at the present time. He should know that approximately 90 percent of Ontario's export sales go into the United States marketplace, where the seller's dollar receives a bonus of about 40 percent. In British Columbia, the Leader of the Opposition should know, only about 35 percent of our exports go into the United States market. The other 65 percent are offshore, and he knows full well that in that 65 percent the Canadian dollar has fared much better than other international currencies. Therefore, when we sell into those marketplaces, we are getting less value back for our dollar than we did six, seven or eight years ago.

Despite those downturns in the resource industries, despite the fact that in our offshore markets devaluation of the international currency has hurt the province of British Columbia, the fact remains that through the aggressive action of this government — the fact that this government has taken the bull by the horns and put our financial house in order — there have been 50,000 new jobs created in the province of British Columbia in the last 12 months. That comes from the Dominion Bureau of Statistics. I'm the first to admit that of those 50,000 jobs there are a number that are part-time. There's no question about that. But while we look at those figures, the same ground rules apply in British Columbia as apply in all other provinces in Canada. If you want to do some comparison, go and look at what happened in Manitoba in the last 12 months, because I can tell you that the figures show 14,000 new jobs in the last 12 months there, as compared to 50,000 in the province of British Columbia, and they too include part-time workers.

The private sector in British Columbia is doing its job. The government is doing its job. The one area in British Columbia that I have heard is cutting back in the last couple of weeks is the B.C. Federation of Labour. What has the B.C. Federation of Labour announced in the last couple of weeks? They're shutting down unemployment action centres. I say shame on them. Of all the times to be throwing people out on the unemployment heap, this is not the time. This is a time of growth and positive action. The private sector is doing the job, the government is doing the job, and the B.C. Fed are throwing laid-off workers out on the unemployment heap; and I think it's a disgrace. The Federation of Labour has the ability to raise all the money it wants. It has a couple of hundred thousand affiliated members in British Columbia, and the easy ability to go out and add on a little bit of assessments. Local unions in this province have got hundreds of thousands of dollars in reserves in their trust accounts, and it's shameful that they should be laying people off in unemployment action centres at this critical point in our history. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that they feel an election is coming along fairly soon and they wish to strengthen the coffers somewhat and cut down on the outflow of money in an attempt to once again defeat the Social Credit government in this province.

Mr. Speaker, I would ask the member of the opposition to perhaps look in Hansard in Ottawa. Try to do some examinations of what the NDP federal MPs have done for British Columbia in the way of arguing a better deal. How many times have they stood up on the floor of the House of Commons and argued a better deal for British Columbia, whether it be balance of payments, island pipeline or the many other issues that are needed in the province of British Columbia? Check to find out the last time one of the federal NDP MPs pointed out to the federal government that the population of British Columbia represents 11 percent of the population of Canada and yet if you look at the Purchasing Commission in Ottawa, they are spending 4 percent of their dollars in British Columbia, whereas we contribute and represent 11 percent of the population of this dominion.

Mr. Speaker, I can tell you that if you want to talk about getting your financial house in order, all the member of the opposition has to do is take the nine-month statement put out by our Ministry of Finance here about three weeks ago and look at the operating expenditure consolidated revenue statement for the nine months ending December 31, 1985. If he would analyze that statement, here's what he would find. He would find that expenditure in that nine-month period has risen by 3.03 percent. He would note that if you took out the forest fire costs — the extra money spent on forest fires in 1985 — that figure would have been down to 1.49 percent. If you took out the extra money spent on the Coquihalla you would find that the province of British Columbia in that nine-month period would have had an expenditure less than the similar nine-month period in 1984 — I suggest to you that that is a clear signal that the province of British Columbia has got its house in order. We know where we're going. The private

[ Page 7307 ]

sector has confidence in investing in the province of British Columbia, and we're seeing it in very meaningful terms.

Talking about having the provincial treasury financial house in order is not good enough, because we must look at Crown corporations and other signals in the province of British Columbia. It's interesting to note that through the efforts of the minister in charge of ICBC, administration costs are down and premiums are going to be reduced in this current year by 6.5 percent.

Positive things are happening. Sales taxes in the last twelve months have gone up 8.8 percent. A clear signal that British Columbia is on the road to recovery. You can have a look at the business incorporations — the figures over the last while — to see that the trend is going up. In 1983 there were 13,787 new businesses incorporated in the province of British Columbia. In 1984 that figure rose slightly to 14,052. But in the twelve months ending December 31, 1985, there have been 15, 581 firms incorporated in the province of British Columbia. That's an 11 percent increase.

During that period I can tell you that other good signals are in the forefront. Have a look at the export sales of hydro in the last 12 months. Look at the calendar year ending 1985 as compared to the calendar year ending in 1984. In 1984 export sales were $123 million; in 1985, $283 million, a 130 percent increase. I would suggest to you this is another clear signal that the province of British Columbia knows where it's going.

While the Leader of the Opposition is in the chamber, Mr. Speaker, I would like to suggest to him that the next time he visits my constituency he please do a little bit more research than he did on his last visit. A couple of months ago he was up there in a little place called Sicamous as a guest speaker at a nominating convention. He happened to make a remark up there that the lower mainland was getting all the money; nothing was happening in Shuswap-Revelstoke. This is what he was quoted on the radio and in the newspapers as having said: "All the money is going down to the lower mainland."

Mr. Speaker, let me tell you a few things about Shuswap-Revelstoke while the Leader of the Opposition is in the chamber. He didn't do very good research, nor did he look around while he was travelling through my constituency. He was about three blocks away from a brand-new Sicamous seniors' drop-in centre, partially financed by the provincial government. Had he walked two more blocks to the south he would have found a little subdivision there that had a very serious flooding problem; $100,000 was put into that subdivision by the Minister of Highways to cure that problem, and he says no money is going into Shuswap-Revelstoke. He must have had some information from some of the people attending that nominating convention. Some $300,000 has been put into the Revelstoke ski hill by the Lotteries Corporation, and he's saying no money is being spent in Shuswap-Revelstoke. Also in Revelstoke, a brand-new Rotary seniors' housing project opened since my election as MLA for Shuswap-Revelstoke.

He must have driven down the Trans-Canada Highway, Mr. Speaker, because he stopped in at the Chase newspaper and introduced himself. He must have looked to the north as he was travelling along the Trans-Canada Highway and noticed a new bridge there at Pritchard — an $800,000 bridge, compliments of the provincial government. Also improvements to the Pritchard Hall are evident for any of those who chose to look. He must have been in Chase, because he visited the Chase weekly paper, and he must have noticed the big sign on a vacant lot: "Chase liquor store to start construction soon." While he was travelling down the Trans-Canada Highway I'd be surprised, Mr. Speaker, if he didn't notice the many signs of people working — activity because of the Inland Natural Gas extension line that's being put into Chase, Blind Bay, Sorrento, Tappen, Skimikin and Silver Creek — a $6.3 million project, Mr. Speaker, the only one in the province of British Columbia, happening in Shuswap-Revelstoke, made possible by the provincial government's contribution of $1.3 million as announced in the Minister of Finance's address in March 1985.

Mr. Speaker, he must have been aware of the Salmon Arm community centre construction: a new $2.5 million centre started a few months ago, completion May or June 1986, made possible by a $400,000 lottery grant. He must have had some insight, Mr. Speaker, having talked to the people in the community, into the Salmon Arm wharf project — a $400,000 legacy grant that's going to stimulate $1.2 million in economic activity. A new fire hall has been announced in the city of Salmon Arm. Chase is getting a new museum made possible by provincial funding. The new Armstrong museum has been opened, made possible by contributions from the provincial government. New fire halls in Enderby, Lee Creek, Deep Creek and White Lake, a new health centre and a new bridge in Enderby. Major renovations to the Armstrong arena. New horse-barns for the Interior Provincial Exhibition at Armstrong. Downtown revitalization projects in Enderby, Armstrong, Salmon Arm and Revelstoke. Armstrong Kinsmen ball park.

Had he checked with his members from the Enderby-Mabel Lake area he would have found that that road is completed — fully paved. A new seniors' housing project right on the Trans-Canada Highway. He drove right by it — 16 units started construction four months ago, and it's going to be completed in the month of June.

Mr. Speaker, I would appeal to the leader of the Opposition that next time he comes to the great constituency of Shuswap-Revelstoke, please ask some questions of research. Don't make a fool of yourself by making statements that nothing's happening in that constituency, because you hurt my feelings when you say things like that.

[2:45]

Now, Mr. Speaker, if I may, in discussing the Speech from the Throne, make some remarks about some of the highlights in there that are going to be good for my particular area and also perhaps offer the government some suggestions. I think that all members of the House will agree that the critical industries commissioner has done a very good job in the province of British Columbia. No one will refute the fact that he has probably saved the jobs of 1,500 to 1,800 workers and has been successful in keeping open six forest industry and mining related industries in the province of British Columbia. It would be my suggestion to the government that in this session they give some consideration to slightly expanding the terms of reference of the commissioner of critical industries to consider including manufacturing and processing rather than just mining- and forestry-related firms under the jurisdiction of the commissioner of critical industries. I have just had personal experience in working with a manufacturing firm that was in receivership in my constituency. I think we have got the situation under control and are going to see that firm reopen in the next week or ten days. But it would have been a lot easier and we could have actioned the thing much more swiftly had we had the assistance of a person of

[ Page 7308 ]

the stature of the commissioner of critical industries to assist the MLA and the firm in resolving this problem

Another point I would like to talk to the government about.... I know it's been somewhat controversial over the years, but I'm putting a suggestion forward in a very positive manner. It is the question of the Sunday opening of pubs during Expo in 1986. If a tourist wants a cold beer, I don't think he really cares whether it's Wednesday, Friday or Sunday, and I would suggest to the government that they give serious consideration to permitting the opening of pubs during Expo for 1986. I'm convinced that we would see an additional 1,500 to 2,000 part-time or full-time jobs. Without any question, it would certainly result in an increase in volume for all these owners and entrepreneurs of somewhere between 16 percent to 16.5 percent by going from six days a week to seven days a week: lots of jobs, more income tax, more liquor tax and more sales tax — more money to be spent by the government on social services and jobs.

One of the other factors would be to cut down on the outflow of Canadians going across the line on Sundays. I think we're losing a lot of hard dollars every Sunday. Thousands of people are going across the border to get a cold beer on Sunday. I think we should keep them at home in British Columbia where we need the jobs and the tax revenue. While they're over there, besides having a cold beer they gas up their car, do a little bit of shopping and buy a few groceries. All those dollars could be spent in British Columbia.

Further than that, Mr. Speaker, I would say the vast majority of tourists coming to Expo during 1986, the hundreds of thousands of people coming to British Columbia.... You will find it is the tradition in their countries that if they wanted a cold beer on a Sunday they could get a cold beer on a Sunday.

In looking at the throne speech I notice there's mention of some further things to be done in forestry. I'm very proud of the progress that's been made in reforestation and silviculture commitment by this government since I've been an MLA. I know that in the past year there's been something in the neighbourhood of 130 million seedlings planted, and I know that the plans are in place and contracts have been let to the nurseries so that by the year 1987-88 British Columbia will be hitting 200 million seedlings a year. I think that's very good, positive action in that particular area. I'm pleased because that is one of the things that caused me to enter politics. I want to see a better job done on our forests. I think the action has been good. I'm not saying it's good enough yet, but the trend line is certainly in the right direction.

I also congratulate the government on the efforts, coordination and assistance they've given the movie picture industry. It's gratifying to see $70 million spent by that industry in the province of British Columbia in 1985, and I know and we know that there are bigger and better things in the future.

I am also happy in looking at page 10 of the throne speech, where it says: "My government will assist in efforts to extend natural gas service to rural areas of the province Mr. Speaker, that's a very good signal, and I would just encourage the minister: please, on that list, don't forget the community of Sicamous. I have been working on that for about two and a half years now. I am very happy with the progress made in Blind Bay, Chase, Sorrento, Silver Creek, Gleneden and Skimikin, but I would ask the minister to please not forget Sicamous when he's looking at those extensions.

Another very important thing, Mr. Speaker, something that is going to mean a lot of jobs in my constituency in the coming year, is the signal that there is going to be quite a bit of money spent on bridge replacement. The sentence is located on page 12, and it reads: "In the spending plans to be tabled by my Minister of Finance, you will be asked to approve a major program for small bridge replacement throughout the province." That too is something that I have been pressing the government on for a couple of years now, and it is an excellent signal that things will happen in that regard.

Mr. Speaker, another exciting thing that I would Re to comment on while I am on my feet is the tremendous growth in the aquaculture industry. We in British Columbia are fortunate to have a shoreline such as we have, and it gives the indication here that we are now at the level of $3 million and are expected to hit $150 million by 1995. That's a lot of jobs, a lot of activity and a lot of things happening in British Columbia in that particular area.

Mr. Speaker, we should perhaps look at some of the programs that we have. The Leader of the Opposition was talking about what British Columbia is doing: look what the provincial government is doing in regard to encouraging small business and encouraging development by the private sector to create more jobs.

I would suggest to him that he get some copies of some data from Industry and Small Business Development. There are lots of brochures available in that office. I can name a few of the financial assistance programs for his clarification — just the headings only. There are many of them here. The first one is the resource industries modernization program. Another one is the resource industries value-added program. Another one is the industrial diversification program. Reading on, we have the small manufacturers incentive program. We have the aquaculture incentive program, the industrial development assistance program, the low-interest loan assistance program, the venture capital program and the tourism incentive program.

Mr. Speaker, there are programs after programs. We have the management assistance program, the management development program, the assistance to associations program, the student venture capital loan program and the technical assistance program. Mr. Speaker, in conjunction with all of those programs we have the Partners in Enterprise program — well over 100 municipalities have signed that already. We have the signing of the ERDA agreement. We have the activities of the Purchasing Commission, attempting to get more jobs in British Columbia, more purchasing done in the province of British Columbia. We have $500 million that goes through the B.C. Purchasing Commission every year. There is some $2 billion of activity in all levels of Crown corporations in the government in the province of British Columbia: lots of opportunities, a good program in creating more jobs, more economic activity in the province of British Columbia.

Along with that, I think that we have the team in government: we have the leader in our Premier, we have an excellent track record over these last couple of years in job creation. We have Expo at the forefront. We are going to pass the 13.75 million figure before Expo opens; I can see it coming. Over 11 million passes have already been signed and 54 countries are signed up. I think we are going to have a great year ahead of us, and I just hope that the opposition members will give full support to Expo and the tremendous programs laid out by the provincial government in working towards what we all

[ Page 7309 ]

desire, and that's more jobs for British Columbians in the province of B.C.

MR. MACDONALD: Mr. Speaker, I enjoyed the speech very much of the Leader of the Opposition this morning. I wish that the Premier of the province of British Columbia had the grace and sense to have been sitting in his place, listening to the constructive ideas that were contained in that speech. But unfortunately, at times there was one cabinet minister present and at times they just showed their contempt for listening to a good message here.

The speaker from Salmon Arm who has just taken his place attacks the B.C. Federation of Labour for not keeping open action centres to look after the unemployed. One of my colleagues gave another quote from him about a year ago where he said that "unemployment is high in B.C." — he's trying to apologize — "due to our better weather and better soup-kitchens." Governments are responsible for giving our people an opportunity to work and to build and create. To blame the soup-kitchens and the B.C. Federation of Labour is a pretty lame excuse.

I get the impression, Mr. Speaker, that this government is tired, smug, arrogant — like extinct volcanoes, occasionally a puff of smoke, but for the most part it's just mediocrity occasionally relieved by rascality and by farce. Where else but among that government would you have the Minister of Municipal Affairs (Hon. Mr. Ritchie) getting up one afternoon and saying that he was very concerned about people who were in social housing who didn't have to be there, and then we read the papers in the morning, and one of the people there is the Minister of Housing (Hon. Mr. Kempf), with his $71,000 a year. Where else but in British Columbia could you possibly run into anything like that?

MR. SKELLY: He said he was living in Omineca.

MR. MACDONALD: He said he was doing his investigative work, you see. I hope he's not going to be like that minister of the cabinet in Alberta who resigned suddenly after they discovered that he'd — as he said himself — been doing some investigative work on the streets of Edmonton.

Some of them resign in other provinces, some of them resign in England, but they don't resign here. What have you got to fill the spaces with? You do musical chairs.

Our new Minister of Lands, Parks and Housing — there's a man who knows a rip-or from a rip-ee. He says: "I know firsthand the ripoff that's going on." He ought to write a book and tell us how you tell a rip-or from a rip-ee. You could call it, modestly, Mein Kempf. Then he goes on comfortably ensconced in his subsidized housing at $475 a month, while ordinary people are paying far more, and he says this: "This is taxpayers' money we are talking about." Mr. Speaker, it was taxpayers' money, but some of it has now ended up with the minister who has had subsidized housing.

[Mr. Strachan in the chair.]

I think there's been a little change of tactics, and maybe we should welcome that. Even the Minister of Finance, when he was questioned about any of his conflicts — I call them conflicts; that's my opinion — said: "I'm going to see a lawyer, and the first one who says a word, he's going to get sued." Three or four of the ministers have already done that, you know. They've got a gaggle of lawyers working, ready to issue writs and try to shut off the people of British Columbia from criticizing or knowing what's going on in this government. It's good work for the legal profession. The Premier was going to sue. One of them, I think, did sue. It'll never see court. It's just a dodge, just an attempt to gag.

The Premier was going to sue. The truth of the matter is that the Leader of the Opposition said some pretty terrible things about Marcos, comparing him to the Premier of the province of British Columbia. The poor guy must have felt awful. As a matter of fact, he went completely to pieces. I don't know where he is now. I think he's in Hawaii.

We've got to get out of this business of trying to cut back free speech and free expression by the people of British Columbia by running to libel lawyers and threatening people — Broadway Bob over there knows what I'm talking about — that we'll put you in bankruptcy if you say anything, you bring anything to light, and so forth. That is surely the last refuge and defence of a discredited government.

So what do they do? They play musical chairs, The minister who is shorn of his universities.... Maybe being Minister of Universities wasn't going down too well electorally in the constituency of Point Grey for that particular member, but he and the other senator from Point Grey have held their positions. Why weren't they demoted? They haven't done anything. Why was the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Schroeder) demoted? He hasn't done anything.

They now have, though, I'm glad to say, two in the back bench — a pretty strong backfield now. They've got the member for South Peace River (Mr. Phillips) and the member for North Vancouver- Seymour (Mr. Davis). Pretty strong bench: the Larynx and the Cranium. The hon. member for North Vancouver- Seymour has been exempted from the cares of cabinet duty because he happens to possess some brains. He's been very badly left out, but whatever slings and arrows of outrageous fortune this government dumps on his head year after year, somewhere he doesn't seem to have the fortitude to do anything about it.

[3:00]

Even the turncoats are getting looked after. The member for Atlin (Mr. Passarell) is now bodyguard to the former Minister of Health. Mr. Speaker, what do you have to do in this government to retain your cabinet position? Do you have to jump out of a bedroom window into a flower pot and break your ankle? They've had their musical chairs, and here we are.

They still run a little bit too much to their lawyers, but not as badly. The Minister of Finance (Hon. Mr. Curtis) has promised the House - and I'm glad about this — that he will give an account of the shares he bought and the loan he guaranteed. The public are entitled to that information. His first reaction was: "It's none of your business."

Just as the NDP is doing for Expo — because we heard a lot about Expo — making the thing a success through positive criticism, it's doing in other fields too, as a responsible opposition. What's it today for Expo? The thirty-fifth? The member for Vernon can tell me. I think it's the thirty-fifth executive who has either resigned or been fired. And the government has never said how much. You know, the NDP is going to make Expo a success because of their hard-hitting criticism that has tried to save this government time after time from unbelievable blunders, some of which are still going on.

At this point I've got to criticize the Attorney-General (Hon. Mr. Smith). I'm talking about conflict of interest. We have, with respect to a member of cabinet, a situation where

[ Page 7310 ]

there might have been an offence. To investigate whether or not there was an offence, the Attorney-General says: "I won't handle that particular question" — which is fair enough — "I will go outside the department and get an independent opinion." So he goes out and sets up an inquiry under a man who's a very good lawyer, by the way, called Leonard Doust. Doust is a Vancouver lawyer of the firm of Doust and Smith. But the Attorney-General had just given Mr. Doust the work of counsel in the Norman Fox inquiry, which is a very considerable inquiry. And I looked back into the public accounts to see how the Attorney-General is really operating. Is he really trying for an independent opinion? In 1981-82 Mr. Doust's firm received $206,146 from the provincial government, in 1982-83, $262,221 — that's a lot of money — and in 1983-84, $200,067. And the work goes on. And last year the Attorney-General gave him a QC. Is that an attempt to be fair? Is that an attempt to have justice not only being done but being seen to be done, in the best traditions of the law? You don't appoint as an independent a person who has that kind of string between himself and the government. It's totally ridiculous.

The former Minister of Forests said in Princeton that anyone who has done anything or invested in anything is disqualified from holding public office. That's not the case; the opposition have never said that. I wouldn't say that now or at any other time. But there are pretty clear conflict-of-interest guidelines that have been established through centuries of British parliamentary tradition and history. They're summed up in the most recent book on the British constitution by Harvey and Bather, who say this regarding integrity: "It is not sufficient that the minister be honest. It is vital that he should appear to be so, and to remove any suspicion that his official position may be used for personal gain." The suspicion is there. In some cases it's more than a suspicion.

When you have a Western Pulp Partnership that has a financial interest in logs in a disputed portion of South Moresby, and the minister, or another minister on an environmental committee, makes a decision, or gives them a break in electricity rates, that is a conflict of interest. That is something that is entirely unacceptable in other jurisdictions where British justice and parliamentary tradition prevails. It's quite contrary to what Sir Erskine May says in his eighteenth edition when he talks about personal interests and votes on questions of public policy.

Yet I don't detect that this government is repentant. Everybody in the cabinet shuffle who got into trouble was either shuffled sideways or promoted by the Premier. That's a contempt for the traditions of parliament, and I think it's contemptuous of the people of the province of British Columbia. I think the government has become so satisfied with themselves, so plush in their own circumstances. Sam Johnson said, "The insolence of wealth will creep out," and I think it is. The Minister of Finance destroys the B.C. Housing Corporation, and we talk about a crisis in social housing. That corporation was making money for the public treasury. The Minister of Finance would never admit that, but it certainly was. But it was destroyed.

And the Minister of Finance ought to answer fully to this House — I'm not sure that he's committed himself to do this — why it was that $36 million was suddenly invested in the Westcoast Savings Credit Union, of which he was a member and financially interested, contrary to everything we know about the traditions that bind cabinet ministers.

You know, I'm asked sometimes: "What about our laws? What about the laws that we have — are they adequate?" The Speech from the Throne says: "Oh, we'll bring down some new conflict-of-interest guidelines." What we have are adequate laws, but they're not being lived up to by that government. We have the Financial Disclosure Act of 1974; we have rule 18 of the standing orders of this House, where a member cannot vote on a matter in which he has a direct pecuniary interest.

The Minister of Finance signed the order-in-council. He couldn't have voted in this House on that question where he had an interest, and he still gets away with it in cabinet. The disclosure statements.... I'll just finish what I'm saying. The disclosure act and the conventions of parliament and the rules of this House are perfectly adequate if they were lived up to, but what we see opposite, Mr. Speaker, are scamps and scofflaws who are not living up the traditions of parliamentary democracy.

The member for Maillardville-Coquitlam (Mr. Parks) has a company called Tish Holdings, and after being questioned about it because he didn't put it on his disclosure statement he said that it was a family holding company. And you know — tish-tish — he didn't disclose it, and he didn't disclose what it holds, as the act clearly requires if you own 30 percent of it.

Now here's a man, a member of this Legislature, who is a lawyer. I presume he can read; I presume he's a good lawyer. If he'a good lawyer, if he can read, he was violating the disclosure act in not even putting in his holding company. Others who put in a holding company, like the Premier himself.... He puts in W.R. Bennett Holdings Ltd. But if he owns 30 percent of that company, he's got to go further and live up to the laws of the province.

There are ordinary citizens out there who have to live up to the laws or they're prosecuted, or they're fined, or they're sued in civil court. What kind of an example are we setting in the governmental regions of the province of British Columbia? The Minister of Intergovernmental Relations (Hon. Mr. Gardom), in his disclosure form, treats it as a big joke. He says, "not applicable," and "these stocks are dogs," and "same as before," and "the paper war continues." The paper war does continue for ordinary British Columbians if they fill out an application for, say, a licence for a party that they're having and want the liquor administration to grant it, or if they fill out an application to do with their driving — they've got to do it properly. They can't treat it as a joke. They can't be arrogant about it, or they won't get their permit. They can't make false statements or not answer all of the questions, or they will be in trouble.

[3:15]

Yet all through the list of the disclosures filed by this government.... Not all of them. The former Minister of Health: "Nielsen Investments Ltd." That's all he says. The Attorney-General (Hon. Mr. Smith): "Just my law practice." Nothing else declared. Well, maybe that's all. It's very hard to believe. The Minister of Tourism (Hon. Mr. Richmond) puts down: "I have my things in a blind trust with the firm of Mair Janowsky Blair." Well, that rings a bell with me, because Janowsky, Rafe Mair's former partner, was the one who got that neighbourhood pub. Do you remember Gramma's up at Gibsons? On the Thursday it was unavailable to the six applicants up in the Sunshine Coast because it was too close to a highway and too close to the Legion. But on the weekend the regulations were changed to make something called a marina pub, and by Tuesday of the next week, while the other

[ Page 7311 ]

applicants, five of them, were rubbing their eyes and hadn't heard what had happened at all, Janowsky from Kamloops had that neighbourhood pub licence. And the Minister of Tourism says: "I've got mine in a blind trust with that well-known Socred firm." But he's broken the law. There's nothing about putting your things in trust allowed in the disclosure act. You're supposed to declare them.

The former Minister of Agriculture over there puts "NA" — not applicable. I don't know why it's not applicable; perhaps he'll get up and tell us sometime why, in his case, the farm wasn't applicable. I don't know. The former Minister of Energy is engaged now in a tango with Peter Pollen, so you can't discuss his particular case, but he should have declared. He says: "I put my finger up in cabinet and I declared there." But he had a Socred memory and when it came to the form he forgot. I say no more about that particular case, because Peter Pollen is seized with it.

Here we have a government that is not doing what it should be in terms of services, in terms of the rates of assistance. We're still using starvation rates out there in terms of job creation, particularly for young people at decent wages. They killed the B.C. Housing Corporation, and they take as a point of pride the investment, over a three-year period, of $100 million under the Equity Investment Plan Act, to be handed out at up to $2,500 per person to the people who invest in the penny stocks on Howe Street. What a sieve! The trickle-down theory is bad enough, but this is ridiculous — with all of the other needs of this province, to take $100 million, almost all of which will end up in the hands of the promoters.

AN HON. MEMBER: Peter Brown.

MR. MACDONALD: Call it the Peter Brown benefit bill — The Rabbit, as he is known. Quoting from Peter Newman: "Not yet 40, Peter Brown is the single most important player on the Vancouver Stock Exchange, underwriting nearly three-quarters of its new issues, worth a projected $225 million in 1985 alone. Having earned well over 100 percent of his firm's invested capital...." He gave $6,500 to hear Jim Pattison and the Minister of Tourism (Hon. Mr. Richmond) play the cornet. He's part of a top-20 club contributing to Social Credit. He comes to Victoria and says: "Do something for us" — the Howe Street hucksters. I can't believe they would pass that kind of a bill. A little while ago I asked the Attorney-General (Hon. Mr. Smith) — he was with Peter Hyndman, the Pouilly-Fuisse Kid.... An incredible waste of government money.

You know, Peter Brown and Canarim, which dominate the main player in the thing.... I've never heard from the Attorney-General about New Cinch. You had the Cheratex lab down in El Paso — which was owned by two of the main players, Applegarth and White, who are on the Vancouver Stock Exchange — which salted the mine. The employee was killed by an assailant who kicked down his door after the thing had come to light. They never found out who the murderer was. The employee's girl friend vanished — God knows what happened to her. The stock went up when Canarim.... Peter Brown underwrote it and it went from $2.50 to $29. Lac, a big Ontario firm, put in $25 million themselves, and then they sued to recover it on the basis that they had acted on a statement of material fact signed by Peter Brown. There was no mention of three assays by reputable B.C. firms — I could name them — saying that the gold-silver complex of that mine was practically nil. Instead, they acted on one by this fraudulent lab, Cheratex, owned by Applegarth and company, and the statement of material facts was obviously false.

So the suit is on, and Lac, the Toronto company, gets a settlement of $4 million or something of that kind. Peter Brown has to pay part of it and the Vancouver Stock Exchange has to pay part of it, and it's sealed up. The records are sealed in court, and as part of the settlement all of the participants are sworn to secrecy. A false statement of material fact.

How much of the $100 million that this government is going to ladle out to Howe Street welfare burns will really result in productive work or employment? Very little. This government, Mr. Speaker, is tired, smug and arrogant. It has sat there, if I can remember Cromwell's words, too long for any good that it has been doing. And with Cromwell I say: in the name of God, go.

MR. SCHROEDER: Mr. Speaker, I trust that now we can get to the throne speech. On page 11 of the printed copy of the throne speech, toward the bottom of the page, is a statement, contained in a couple of sentences, that I am keenly interested in. It comes under the marginal notation "Park Visitors," which by its designation would nearly obscure, in my humble opinion, the excitement of the sentences that follow. It says:

The year ahead promises to be an exciting one for our province's agriculture and food sector, whose strength lies in its diversity. The important food production industry will be spotlighted during Food Pacific '86, an international trade show to be held in early autumn at B.C. Place Stadium. It is those two sentences that I'd like to address my remarks around.

In 1982 when I was asked to take on the responsibility for Agriculture and Food in the province, the year afforded me an opportunity to mingle with agricultural producers. In the early hours of my appointment I went to see who they were, how many they were, what their status was, what they needed, what they wanted and how they would put in a very few words, in succinct form.... If they had their druthers, what would they rather have than anything else? They said: "We would sooner have a more reliable, more predictable, more equitable return from the market, which would allow us to be more independent and less dependent on government programs which in themselves do not have sufficient continuity to anticipate the needs of the farm community."

In the first place, when government programs are drafted, they are drafted with the wisdom that is available at the time. Conditions change. Dynamics change. As a result, what looked like wisdom at the time of drafting may become entirely inadequate just because of the passage of time. So the farm community said: "My, it would be nice if somehow we could gain a more predictable return from the marketplace, rather than depend on injections which are only defined by that clumsy and embarrassing phrase 'subsidy."'

I suggested that perhaps the only way we could determine what an equitable and sufficient return from the marketplace was was to go and do some analytical work in the marketplace itself. Early analysis indicated that we as producers did not have sufficient feedback from the marketplace itself to help us determine what shape and what size the product that we were producing should best be in order to meet the demands of a changing marketplace.

[ Page 7312 ]

I've told often — and I'm almost reticent about repeating it here — the story of the apples. It is as great an indicator as can be of what I'm trying to say to you. We clapped ourselves on the back as producers and said: "We are the greatest." We were. As long as we only compared ourselves with ourselves, we were the greatest. We said we had the finest apples in the world. It was great, as long as you never looked outside the provincial boundaries of British Columbia. But when we actually went out into the world — and, by the way, we were dependent upon the world for a major share of our market in that particular commodity — to find out how our product was being received at the loading docks or unloading docks of those countries out there who are our international trading partners, we found out that our product, in their opinions, was not number one. It wasn't even number two. It was scarcely number three.

[Mr. Ree in the chair.]

I stood at some of those loading docks to watch the containers of our own product being unloaded and opened. I stood with pride as I saw the boxes and the big green B.C. label. It fills you with pride when you're over there if you're British Columbian. I waited to see what the people would do as they loaded the boxes and took them over to their cubicles in Hong Kong. I waited to see how eagerly our product would be received. When they opened the boxes, the commodity looked good. It looked good to me. I thought it was number one. Beautiful, graded, sized, Red, Delicious apples. They were all red, all the same size and fairly good quality. They opened the boxes and put the lids back on the boxes and put them back in the stack. I watched as competitors' fruit was unloaded, taken to the cubicles, opened up and left opened with boxes tilted beautifully so that they would appeal to the buyer's eye. I watched our competitors' boxes move at $129 a box Hong Kong, and I watched our boxes priced at $89 a box Hong Kong remain in the cubicle.

[3:30]

I said: "Something is wrong." I went to the merchandiser, and I said: "These are good apples?" He said: "Yes, they are good apples." I said: "Why aren't they selling?" Do you know, the Chinese are very gracious people. They wish not to embarrass you if at all possible, but I pressed for an answer. He finally said to me: "The apples are not the kind of apples that our consumers believe are good apples." I said: "Why not?" He said: "Because they're the wrong colour." Mr. Speaker, they're the wrong colour!

I said: "Hold the phone" — well, I said words other than that, but I can't use them right here — "you're telling me that we're shipping millions of boxes of apples to this market and we are shipping them the wrong colour? How could this be?" The answer was that we were not getting sufficient informational returns from the marketplace so that the producer could select the proper root-stock so that he could grow the right apples so that they would have nice stripes all the way down their side so that the market in China and in Hong Kong would say, together with us: "These are number one."

What we saw in China looked completely different when we were in the U.K. We took our number one apples over there, as I just defined them for you — all the same size, all with the five little nubblies at the bottom, all red all the way around, stacked in beautiful boxes. They opened them up over there and did exactly the same thing. They took the lid off the box, put the lid along the side, took a look at the apples and put the lid back on.

The apples remained in the stack while the competitor's apples sold. And I asked again the very same question. Are you interested in the answer? "In the U.K. we don't expect that all apples will be the same size. We want some little ones and some medium-sized ones and some big ones, We want little ones when we're putting them into the lunch-pail of the youngster who's going to school. We don't want a big apple. What are you talking about?"

They said: "When we're peeling apples to make apple pie, they have to be just exactly the right size for peeling. They should be different from the ones that go to the lunchpail. When we're having guests in and we want to impress them with our taste in fruit, we want a nice huge apple. We don't care if it's red. As a matter of fact, we like them when they're red and green, and saints preserve us, some of us like them totally green."

What I'm trying to say, Mr. Speaker, is that there wasn't sufficient information returning from the marketplace to help our producers make the decisions that they needed to make in order to maximize their returns from the marketplace. So I said: "How do we do this? Let's change the attitude. Let's give our guys the break." How best to do it? Why not bring our marketplace to our doorstep so that we could compare our product with the product from around the world, so that we could see how our product compared. Where we were number one, we ought to know that we were number one and press hard for those markets, and where we were not number one, we ought to know why we weren't number one and by how much we weren't and make those adjustments so that we could become competitive in the market.

I went to Europe to find out how they did it there. They have a common market there, and the competitors virtually work out of the same selling desk. And at ANUGA in West Germany I watched food being presented to the world in a marketplace under one roof. I'd like to tell you it was all in one building, but there were as many as 14 buildings, each the size of our agridome. Each had two floors. That was the size of the food marketplace in West Germany. I asked a few questions about it: "Who's here?" They said: "Eighty-eight countries are here." I said: "Who's going to buy?" They said: "From around the world there are 160,000 buyers visiting this trade show in six days."

I said: "Fantastic. Do we have anything like this on the Pacific Rim?" The answer was no. I said: "Shouldn't there be something like this on the Pacific Rim?" The answer was yes. I said: "If it should be on the Pacific Rim, and it was to maximize the market returns for our producers, then where should this take place?" They said: "In Canada, naturally." "If in Canada, then where?" Well, what part of Canada is on the Pacific Rim? If it was to be taking place in British Columbia, when should it take place?

I'm not too smart, but I've got this figured out: if you're going to reach people, the best time to reach them is when there are lots of them around. In 1986 some 13.75 million are going to visit our province from all around the world. I'm very conservative. It might be more than that, but nobody's going to accuse me of stretching the truth. Thirteen and three-quarter million of them are already going to be here. You know what I did? This was back in 1983. I called down to find out whether there was any space on a convention floor available any time during 1986 when I could invite the world to come and trade food with us. The people who were down at

[ Page 7313 ]

B.C. Place said: "In 1986? Have you got your head on straight? Everybody's coming here. There's no room. There's no time."

I said: "That wasn't my question. Is there any time?" They looked in their calendar and sure enough there were two periods of time that would allow us five days. Why five days? Because five days happens to be the ideal length of time for a food show. One of the five-day periods was in May, and the other five days were the last three days of August and the first two days of September. I said: "Just a second. Let me pray about this." I wanted to know when the British Columbia producers would have their best foot forward in the food business. Would it be in May or would it be in early or mid fall?" If I'm selling apples, I don't want to sell them in May. I want to sell them in the last three days of August and the first couple of days of September. I said, "Book the time," and from that day forward planning took place for this food fair which is mentioned in the throne speech we heard a couple of days ago.

Now we say it was a good idea; how is it happening? May I just report to you what has happened? We invited the countries of the world to come. In our fondest dreams we thought we could compete with ANUGA — perhaps not in the first year, but eventually. So we asked whether or not we shouldn't do this more than once. If we should do this more than once, how often should we do it? Ask ANUGA; they are successful. They said: "We do it once every two years. Biennially." So the commitment had to be made as to whether or not we could do this more often than once, and if once every two years was the right interval, then why not do it in '86, '88, '90, '92 and '94? Good idea. We said to the people of the world: "Would you come?" They said: "By all means."

We haven't seen anything like this on the Pacific Rim, and on the Pacific Rim we have over two billion people — more than they have on the Atlantic Rim. Every year we sell $1.2 trillion worth of food in the Pacific Rim alone. We're not talking small potatoes here. This is big business. Every year $1.2 trillion worth of food exchanges hands and is consumed on the Pacific Rim. We happen to produce the kinds of food which most nearly satisfy the appetites of the inhabitors of the Pacific Rim — fish being one of them; can you believe it.?

We invited the world to come. They said: "Who's sponsoring this thing?" Because, you know, over the past number of years the countries of the Pacific Rim have been trained to believe that governments lead the way in things like this. I came back home and suggested to my colleagues that if this was going to happen it was going to have to happen under the imprimatur of the provincial government. The idea was sold — better I should say that they bought the idea — and the first show will take place in August of this year, spilling over into September.

We said: "Being Canadian, let's at least involve all of Canada." We went out to see whether or not the rest of the folk in Canada were as interested in developing a food market as we were in British Columbia, and were they ever! The federal government came onside immediately. The other provinces came onside in step — not all together. But are you interested in knowing that these are the provinces that are coming to display their food products in British Columbia for these five days? Listen to them; here they are: Alberta, Manitoba, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, Ontario, Prince Edward Island, Quebec and Saskatchewan. As far as I know, none are left out.

We have put together a major pavilion for the province of British Columbia. We wanted to have a major share of the floor. By the way, it's going to take place in B.C. Place, which affords room for some 800 exhibitors on the main floor itself. We thought that perhaps we, as British Columbians, should occupy the nicest, most convenient, most accessible and biggest space. So we reserved 40 of those exhibit spaces for ourselves and built a little bit of a pavilion that would have two floors rather than one so that we could have a major pavilion in this exhibit.

The producers, the processors, the distributors and the retailers were caught up in the excitement of the opportunity, and can you believe that our pavilion is much too small? We've had to spill over both sides and either end, and it looks to me like we in British Columbia will have caught the vision of this opportunity. We will have our best foot for-ward, and we will have our foodstuffs out in the forefront to make our comparisons with the rest of the world. They are bringing their products to us.

And who will be the chief beneficiary? I asked them that in West Germany, and they looked at me like I wasn't thinking clearly. They said: "Would we have done this every two years for years and years without the chief beneficiary being the host? Not to worry; the chief beneficiary is the host." I said: "Why is this?" They said: "Because the host country is the only country that has their producers close enough to the show so that they can become participators and observers. And they can take an education in five days because it is being hosted by their own country." In our case, it's our own province. The chief beneficiary will be the province of British Columbia.

Who have allowed their names to stand as major supporters for this trade show? Are you interested? We have the Retail Council of Canada, the Canadian Export Association, the Canadian Importers' Association, the Meat Packers' Council of Canada. the National Dairy Council, the Canadian Horticultural Council, the Canadian Frozen Food Industries Association, the Canadian Manufacturers' Association, the Canadian Grocery Distributors' Institute, the Canadian Federation of Chefs de Cuisine, the Canadian Restaurant and Food Services Association, the Canadian Food Processors' Association and the Canadian meat industry. All of them have put their imprimatur on this show, and they are going to be here.... The world is coming to help my producers realize their goal, which is an adequate return from the marketplace.

How many countries? It was supposed to be only for the Pacific Rim, Mr. Speaker, and we tried to be exclusive. But the people from Europe, who understand the value of this kind of a trade show, insisted that they be included. Little countries like Italy made application for 90 exhibits. There are only 800 spaces in all of the floor of B.C. Place and Italy wanted 90 of them. Do you believe it? They were insistent. We couldn't possibly accommodate them with 90, but they are taking 66 exhibit spaces for Italy — not even on the Pacific Rim.

Who all is going to be there? Austria insisted. Australia would naturally be there; they're on the rim. Belgium insisted. Finland insisted. The U.K. Insisted. Hungary will be there; Italy, Jamaica, Mexico, Morocco, Holland, New Zealand, Norway....

[3:45]

AN HON. MEMBER: Are they spelled right?

[ Page 7314 ]

MR. SCHROEDER: It doesn't matter. I said them right. didn't I?

The People's Republic of China will be there. Peru, the Philippines, Singapore, South Pacific Islands, Sri Lanka. These are not the ones that had intimated an interest, but the ones already signed up at the time of printing of this brochure. One hundred and twenty-six countries have been invited; 25,000 buyers have expressed their interest. They will be here. Major food distributors like Safeway, Nalley's, Weston Foods — these are the kinds of people who are going to be here. As a matter of fact, in British Columbia alone 54 major corporate exhibitors are going to be there.

I think you would excuse me, Mr. Speaker, if I get a little excited when, on page 11 of the throne speech, I read these words: "The year ahead promises to be an exciting one for our province's agriculture and food sector, whose strength lies in its diversity. The important food production industry will be spotlighted during Food Pacific '86, an international trade show to be held in early autumn at B.C. Place Stadium."

Thank you for suffering with me these many minutes while I let you in on my excitement for the producers of British Columbia.

MR. LAUK: I will take up the debate, after hearing the commercial by the former Minister of Agriculture. It's interesting, actually, the way those things develop; how an idea becomes reality, such as the disclosure act in the province of British Columbia. We knew what the idea was, and we're rather startled with the reality. I am more disturbed than anything, and not at....

I'm very disturbed at the conflict-of-interest situation in British Columbia. I think it's compounded by the, not complete perhaps, but substantial misunderstanding of what conflict of interest means. Some weeks ago I was reading an article by Vaughn Palmer, the Sun columnist, describing the difficulty in coming to a proper definition of what conflict of interest really is. If the media in this province and the public generally don't know what conflict of interest is, no wonder this government is having a relatively easy time not doing anything about their actions with respect to it.

The definition of conflict of interest is very clear. Mr. Vaughn Palmer describes conflict of interest as being an umbrella type of thing. He's talking about MLAs owning shares, about ministers of the Crown owning shares and investments, as if they were the same thing.

Interjection.

MR. LAUK: No, it's not just Vaughn Palmer. A Sun editorial on February 3 was constantly referring to.... "There is no doubt, " they say in part, "that some ministers and MLAs have been careless, wilfully or not." Then it refers to three ministers — Waterland, Rogers and Curtis — several MLAs....

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, please. Hon. member, I would draw your attention to Sir Erskine May, sixteenth edition, page 400: "Certain matters cannot be debated, save upon a substantive motion which admits of a distinct vote of the House." Members of either House of the Parliament and their personal actions.... So possibly I draw that to your attention, and the debate on the throne speech will continue accordingly.

MR. LAUK: Mr. Speaker, I have no intention of raising a substantive motion against any particular member of the chamber. I wish to discuss the public's understanding of the definition of conflict of interest and how it may apply to our jurisdiction.

In the Vancouver Sun editorial, it refers to ministers and MLAs. In the body of decisions in the House of Commons of Westminster and Ottawa, and in the development of — I'll loosely term it — jurisprudence on the matter of conflict of interest, there has always been a clear distinction between conflict of interest and personal interests with respect to members voting in the chamber. There are two separate and distinct categories of personal interest. The standards for cabinet ministers are, as you might expect, considerably higher than they are for other publicly elected officials. I'll point to some of those statements in due course.

I cannot help but think, though, that the editorial in the Vancouver Sun, which at first reading is calling upon the government to take some action.... When they lump together MLAs and cabinet ministers, it's clear to me that it's softening the impact of what has happened with respect to some ministers who have failed to disclose or have improperly disclosed their holdings. It is softening the impact, and after 14 years in this Legislature I am scandalized by the fact of the nondisclosure or reckless indisclosure and the way it has been handled publicly. I am scandalized by the Premier's inaction in dealing with cabinet ministers who have flouted the law, flouted convention and disregarded the honourable standards which have been established in the British parliamentary system and in other democracies throughout history.

Is the Vancouver Sun editorial a deliberate attempt to soften the impact of this conflict-of-interest controversy? They are sort of saying, "Oh, well, they all do it," as if my owning shares in some company doing business with the government has any impact at all. If there was a direct bill dealing with the company in this chamber, then standing order 18, as my colleague from Vancouver East (Mr. Macdonald) points out, would apply to me. That's the only issue of conflict or personal interest during a vote in the chamber.

The standards for cabinet ministers are extremely high. The press, or some members of the press, are either deliberately or inexcusably ignorant of convention, parliamentary practice and the law when they do not differentiate between the heavy and high duties of a cabinet minister and those of the rest of the chamber.

In the book Politics and Money by Drew, there's an interesting quotation that I wish to share with the chamber. It says, in part:

"A number of senators say they fear that some great scandal about money and conflict of interest may be about to explode. In fact, that scandal may already be occurring. It takes the form not of one explosive event but of many, often everyday, events. The search for one particular scandal misses the point. It is analogous to the search for the 'smoking gun' during the Watergate — the one clear example of criminality in a landscape strewn with evidence of abuse of power."

That's the issue that I want to talk about today, Mr. Speaker, abuse of power. The high office of cabinet and the Premiership of the government of a very wealthy province must have standards that are higher than those standards of this current administration. They cannot be any lower; they

[ Page 7315 ]

simply cannot. There is no example anywhere in the Commonwealth where this kind of conflict-of-interest situation has surfaced with so little action on the part of the government of the day and so little public outcry.

[Mr. Strachan in the chair.]

What is conflict of interest? Let me refer to some definitions that reflect.... In Conflict of Interest by Sandra Williams, recently referred to in the press, on page 48 there is a question of what conflict of interest should include.

"The question of shareholding arose in the Marconi affair in 1913, when three government ministers were rumoured to have been involved in share transactions for a profit, based on knowledge acquired in their official capacities in the government. During debate on this affair, the Prime Minister, Mr. Asquith, doubted the wisdom of trying to lay down an exhaustive code of conduct for ministers with regard to pecuniary matters, but set out certain rules which he felt were beyond dispute: that ministers should not enter private transactions where a conflict of interest may arise, should not use official information for private gain and should avoid speculative investments in securities which their position and access to early or confidential information may give, or appear to give, them an advantage over others.

"These principles governing both ministers' directorships and shareholdings were further consolidated by Winston Churchill in 1952... and were reiterated by R.A. Butler on 28 January 1960, when questioned in the House about allegations that the Minister of Transport held shares in a firm contracting with the government."

Nothing could be clearer than that. That is conflict of interest. It goes on to say that the current practice, which this book argues should be improved, is that ministers should avoid speculative investments and securities about which they have or may be thought to have early or confidential information likely to affect the price of those securities. It says "ministers" for a reason. Why should ministers have a higher standard? The best expression of why they should is in the report of the committee of inquiry on public duty and private interest for the parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia. It is dated July 1979, and this is on page 9:

"Ministers, in sharp contrast, can exercise power. Individually they do this by directing the activities of their departments, and collectively through the decisions of cabinet. Because they have direct access to the means of power — the preparation of legislation, the allocation of funds in the budget, and the application of general policies to particular cases — ministers' public duty makes demands upon them of a higher order than is the case with members. This difference is such as to justify a distinction being made between members and ministers" — which is the tradition of the British parliamentary system.

Why is it that the press cannot understand those distinctions? Everybody else does.

I might say that while dealing with the duties of ministers, there is not only an argument for disclosure, which is now imposed upon almost every jurisdiction — full and complete disclosure — but that those disclosures should not mask the real holdings of the cabinet minister or the elected public official.

"The ministers should disclose in their register of interests" — as it's called in this case — "the beneficial interest of the minister, or a member of his immediate family, under any trust, and in any nominee company, with a statement of the nature of operations of the trust or company; any trust of which the minister is a trustee, with a statement of the beneficiaries and the nature of the operations of the trust; partnerships and joint venture interests...liabilities; shareholdings under procedures which will disclose the ultimate interests in circumstances where private companies are used as a screen to mask holdings directly or indirectly in other companies."

[4:00]

The parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia thought those were minimal standards for ministers of the Crown, Mr. Speaker. That is conflict of interest, and that is what we're talking about. When was conflict of interest a major issue? The administration of the New Democratic Party government introduced the disclosure act. I remember the debates. I remember the member for South Peace River (Mr. Phillips) and others standing up and saying: "Good people will not run for public office if they have to disclose their holdings. We're not going to get businessmen" — heaven forbid! — "running for public office if they have to disclose their interests." We were not talking divestment; we were talking about disclosing their interests. There was a tremendous debate trying to force the government to take some of the teeth out of the disclosure act. I wonder why that debate took place then. It was the the foreboding — the foreshadowing of what has taken place today.

The Social Credit Party formed a government in 1976 and in that same year, through heavy debate in this House, conflict of interest and improper activity on the part of ministers were charged in this chamber with respect to mining legislation.

I'll read from a press report of June 1976: "Members of the opposition have disclosed that a Vancouver mining company director helped draft the Socred government's new mining tax bill and have charged that 16 Socred MLAs stand to gain financially from it, including cabinet ministers." They were named: the Attorney-General, the Education minister of the day, Consumer Services.... They were all there. All had interests in mining companies with respect to the mining legislation which was drafted. The minister of the day at first denied that this particular lawyer, who was prominent in the mining industry and representing several mining companies listed by the very cabinet ministers of the day, had anything to do with it. And then after vigorous questioning by the former Minister of Economic Development, the minister of the day admitted that this man had indeed drafted the bill. At first he denied it in this chamber, and then admitted that a paid gun for the mining industry had drafted the bill to decrease taxes for the mining industry. The minister of the day is the current minister.... What is Waterland minister Of?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Agriculture.

[ Page 7316 ]

MR. LAUK: The current Minister of Agriculture. Excuse me, you need a program to notice the change in players from day to day.

In June 1976 we had our first warning of the sloppiness of attitude of this government, and in particular of that individual. They did not take it seriously then, and do not take it seriously even today after the scandal has surfaced. The minister said he knew no reason why the funny little group of opposition MLAs should object to a member of the mining industry drafting government legislation. That was his attitude then; it's his attitude today.

In a democratic system we must have a fundamental reliance on the integrity and the honour of people who are Crown ministers. They hold in their hands the powers that the commission in Australia has very clearly set out, the highest powers in our democratic system. They do not own them; it's not given to them as a gift. They are charged with the responsibility of carrying out a trust. There is no proprietary interest in being a cabinet minister, and if you choose to be a cabinet minister you must choose not to personally profit from your office, because the decisions that you make must be for the public good and not for your personal interest. The decisions that you make must appear also to be in the public good, and there must be no appearance, no suggestion whatsoever, that those decisions are being made for your personal interest. Those are the issues surrounding this very serious question. Those are the issues that give rise to the suggestion by people everywhere in British Columbia these days that this government has been on the road to corruption — that the inability of this cabinet to recognize their solemn and high duty of trust, of a fiduciary relationship between them and the public answerable to the representatives in this chamber, is the road to corruption.

The way in which cabinet ministers have filed their declarations, as the hon. first member for Vancouver East (Mr. Macdonald) has pointed out, reveals an attitude that the law, as it applies to cabinet ministers, is somewhat different than for everyone else in British Columbia. They looked upon the disclosure act as really regulating the penguins on top of the tip of the iceberg. They did not feel it necessary to reveal their holdings and their private interests so they can take their office with the appearance to the public, so the public can be satisfied, that their decisions were being made in their good and not out of personal interest.

I wish to reinforce the criticism of the member for Vancouver East in the appointment of a member of the bar who has received substantial fees from the Crown, through the Attorney-General's office. It can only appear to be a charade; it cannot appear to be an independent inquiry. I cast no reflection on Mr. Doust, but surely he, in all his eloquence and understanding of the law and practice, knows that no matter how independent he may be, he is not independent in appearance, having regard for the fact that he has been on retainer continuously with the government. You can't have a hired gun masquerade as an independent inquirer. He does not have the independence of a judge; he has been, as my friend has pointed out, in the employ of the Attorney-General.

I never thought I'd see the day, to be fair to the press, that I'd be using the Province as a standard of what the press should be saying about conflict of interest. However, in their story of January 19, this statement appears: "When ministers make these kinds of investments, they put themselves in a position to be influenced by the companies" — in which they have shares; I interpolate my own words. "Any minister who doesn't understand that can hardly serve the public any longer." Amen, I say to that. At least some members of the press understand the gravity of the allegations that have been made and the issues involved.

What is the effect of the disclosure act? To some extent I agree with my friend from Vancouver East. The law is there to be obeyed, and the spirit and intention of the law is full disclosure, and the attempt of members of the cabinet has been to avoid the spirit and intent of the legislation.

You know, people always ask us lawyers: "Why are there so many laws drafted by lawyers? It's to increase their income; it's to increase litigation so lawyers will have work to do." No, the laws have to be redrafted and made more particular, examining for loopholes, because of people who are steadfastly and relentlessly trying to avoid- the consequences of obeying the law. That's why we constantly have to expand legislation. It can be argued that honourable elected members do not need a disclosure law. Honourable members of this House and of the cabinet do not need laws. People who tend to obey the laws don't need laws. That's true. The laws are written to capture those who, as I say, spend 24 hours a day trying to find ways to get around them.

This case would be bad enough if merely the holdings were disclosed — as they should have been in the first place — and the ministers had been reassigned.... They most certainly should have resigned. In the case of the Minister of Forests it was the fastest rehabilitation period in the history of the British Commonwealth. He walked out one office and into the other. While he was in the hall walking down to the second ministerial office, he was going through a period of rehabilitation. I think the department of corrections could learn something from the Premier. That's the fastest reformation I think we've ever seen in the history of corrections in the province of British Columbia. His road to Damascus was the hallway between the Minister of Forests' office and the Minister of Agriculture's office.

If that's not bad enough, the appearance of conflict of interest was not the only problem. There has been actual conflict of interest. Where have you seen an incident of actual conflict of interest in the British parliamentary system where those who have committed the breach of convention, in honour, go unpunished? I say nowhere except in British Columbia. The former Energy minister, with a $100,000 investment, secured a deal for electric power last fall from B.C. Hydro — a Crown corporation for which that minister was responsible; he was a member of the board of directors as well — and the only comment that we had, the only action that we saw surfacing, the only defence of the minister in this actual conflict of interest, was that a corporation spokesman, Peter McMullen, said Monday that there is nothing special about Hydro supplying power to such a mill. There is a direct conflict of interest.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Once again I will remind hon. members, quoting from Sir Erskine May, that "certain matters cannot be debated, save upon a substantive motion," and those certain matters include the conduct of a member of the Legislative Assembly. A substantive motion would be required.

MR. LAUK: I'm not going to debate what the House should do, or put to the House any suggestion of what they

[ Page 7317 ]

should do with the erring ministers involved, Mr. Speaker. I have no intention of putting a substantive motion.

"Western Pulp Ltd. Partnership's Port Alice pulp mill on northern Vancouver Island began powering its turbines with electricity October 28, 1985, under an agreement reached with B.C. Hydro. The firm was given the normal electricity rate available for factories using electricity rather than oil or waste wood products. A review of orders-in-council signed by former Forests Minister Tom Waterland meanwhile showed he signed two orders allowing Western Pulp Ltd. Partnership, in which he holds a $20,000 interest, exemption from a section of the Forest Act so it could export wood chips."

These are two blatant, outspoken, actual conflicts of interest. It's an abuse of power. Is there any repentance? Is there any desire to reform? Do we see any indication at all, from anyone on the government side, that something has gone amiss? Well, the Minister of Forests was asked to resign. He spent, as I say, a fraction of the usual period of time in rehabilitation.

[4:15]

The former Minister of Energy wonders what us little people are talking about. Why are we bothering him with these things? Don't we know that he was born to rule? Don't we know that because of family background and connections he has every right to do what he's doing? Don't we know that there are two laws, applicable to two different classes of people in this province, that he is above...? How could we have the audacity to attack him?

The Premier promises full disclosure rules and guidelines the same thing he promised in his pamphlet in 1975, when he was running for the Social Credit Party.... He also said, on August 24, 1977, when the opposition was pressing him:

With all deference, it's the very fact of dealing with conflict of interest, the fact that poorly drafted bills would not be acceptable in such a sensitive area, and the fact that the first attempts made by the last government in what they called the Disclosure Act have been so inadequate that it is giving some difficulty in the drafting. I can't assure the member when those charged with the responsibility of dealing with this sensitive area will make the legislation available to the government or deal with what has been a problem for the government.

The Premier indicated that the disclosure act was inadequate. Could the Premier indicate to the House what loopholes he has found in the act? "No, but I am sure some lawyers have probably tried to find loopholes" — and some ministers, Mr. Speaker. This was August 24, 1977. In closing, I wish to point out that adequate disclosure legislation is there, that there should be divestment. Both the committee of inquiry in Australia and the commission of inquiry in the United Kingdom call for divestment of shares by cabinet ministers in most situations. They don't fear that it will give a disincentive to anyone running for public office in any activity.

Mr. Speaker, in 14 years I have not seen the double events take place — such a clear example of conflict of interest and complete inaction on the part of the government.

MR. MOWAT: Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to sit in the House today as the second member for Vancouver–Little Mountain to speak to the throne speech.

I want to say how much I enjoyed my colleague for West Vancouver-Howe Sound (Mr. Reynolds) when he moved the throne speech. I enjoyed the positive way in which he spoke about the speech, and how my colleague for Atlin (Mr. Passarell) spoke about the positive things that were happening in Atlin. Obviously his approach to the government and his move from that side of the House to our side of the House has certainly shown a great deal of activity in Atlin, and he has seen the positive side of what is happening in Atlin.

I would like to talk about the positive things, Mr. Speaker, that are happening in B.C. I don't want to take the approach that I hear coming from the opposition, from the Leader of the Opposition, the doom and gloom, but to talk about the positive things that are happening.

I noticed in the speech this morning from the Leader of the Opposition that he could see no future in British Columbia. He spoke yesterday about travelling again through British Columbia and having a bunch of MLAs touring the province and gathering more information. I think the people of British Columbia realize that enough information has been gathered. It's time for action. It's time for partnership. It's time for the citizens to get together with the government and move forward. I think we've already seen a number of very positive programs coming forth in British Columbia.

We must also remember that it was this province that said back in 1982 that there were tough times coming in the world, tough times coming in Canada and particularly in British Columbia where we rely so much on our natural resources.

If we look at what is happening in Canada today, we note that the federal government will run up a debt of $38.5 million. That will be the exact debt this year. Oh, I must say that it's not million, but it's billion. It's a staggering amount. The total debt that is now in Canada is $233.4 billion.

I am not sure how many of us realize what that means in our pocketbook. Of every dollar that a Canadian pays in income tax, 31 cents of that goes to service that debt. The average adult in Canada now owes over $10,000 in federal debt. So we are in a very difficult financial position in Canada, but I am pleased to say that our government, the Social Credit Party of British Columbia, is looking at minimizing the provincial debt that we have in British Columbia and eliminating that provincial debt.

There are three specific areas that I would like to speak on from the throne speech. One deals with economic development. I would like to limit my remarks not just to the provincial area but to the lower mainland. I would like to talk about tourism and the effect that it is having on our province and also the high-tech industry.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to talk specifically on economic renewal in the lower mainland. Economic renewal in British Columbia is happening today not only in the lower mainland but throughout British Columbia. A total of 50,000 new jobs have been created during the period of February 1985 to February 1986. Most of this job creation has come from small- and medium-sized companies entering or expanding n our economy. We feel very strongly that it is going to be the small- and medium-sized businesses that are going to create he jobs that are so needed in our province.

The lower mainland, I know, particularly demonstrates he confidence that individuals and companies have in the future of the economy of British Columbia. Vancouver and he surrounding area has many examples of innovative entrepreneurs who are creating new economic growth and employment opportunities in British Columbia. These resourceful individuals are achieving great success in a variety of new endeavours. We in government are proud to have been

[ Page 7318 ]

able to participate with them in our Partners in Enterprise program to give them the assistance and the hand they require.

Small business people and entrepreneurs are creatively making the most of new opportunities available. They are taking the initiative and diversifying the economy of the lower mainland. Industries such as high-technology manufacturing and the service sector are very active with new business opportunities arising constantly. Over 90 percent of all high-technology industry in British Columbia is located in the lower mainland. I'd like to deal with that in more detail later. The large population base, the superb advanced educational opportunities and facilities such as discovery parks are some of the factors contributing to this phenomenon. In such a climate of opportunity the high-technology sector can work with the academic community to create an industry that is on the leading edge of new scientific breakthroughs and developments.

I'd like to point out, Mr. Speaker, if I may, one company that epitomizes this kind of achievement: Mobile Data International Inc. of Richmond, known as MDI. Established in 1979, MDI developed a state-of-the-art mobile digital terminal suitable for use in, among other things, fire, ambulance and police services. The company lists among its customers such diversified organizations as Federal Express, the New York police department, the Hong Kong harbour patrol, Norwegian Telecom, the great Johnson Wax Company, North York Hydro in Toronto, the Ottawa police and, I'm pleased to inform the Leader of the Opposition, the Australian National Roads and Motorists' Association. They have seen the advantage of purchasing this equipment. MDI has achieved sales in excess of $27 million in 1984 and employs more than 250 people, making it one of the largest technological companies in the west. In 1985 the company won a gold medal for excellence in marketing in the Canadian awards of excellence — the so-called Oscars.

Another high-technology company that has shown tremendous success is NEXUS Engineering of Burnaby. Founded in 1982, the company, which manufactures television receiving equipment, has an average growth rate of over 100 percent per year. The 1985 sales were $3 million, an increase of 50 percent over the previous year's figures. Employment in the company has jumped from 25 to 100 jobs in just four years. NEXUS also has the distinction of being a finalist in the 1985 Canadian awards of excellence for its achievement in entrepreneurship.

High technology is not the only field in which the lower mainland entrepreneurs are excelling. The manufacturing industry also boasts many other noteworthy successes. A good example of a manufacturing firm accomplishing great economic achievements is the Fitz-Wright company of Surrey. They produce scuba suits, survival suits and safety equipment and sportswear for windsurfing. Fitz-Wright manufactures a full line of water-oriented products. The company, which was founded in 1972, employs up to 140 people during its peak season. In 1985 sales were $8 million, up 25 percent over 1984. Canada comprises 60 percent of the company's market, while the United States make up the remaining 40 percent. As well, Fitz-Wright anticipates a future Pacific Rim market for its product, especially in survival suits, which could be used in the oil rigs off Korea.

Another different type of manufacturing company that has ties with the Pacific Rim and is located in the lower mainland, in Vancouver, is Cheena B.C. Ltd. It was established in 1979. Its major market is a Japanese market where the company has Cheena Japan Ltd. as its subsidiary. The company's $1 million worth of sales exports are made up of diversified seafood products such as smoked salmon, salmon caviar, herring roe on kelp and smoked or sushi geoduck. Nearly all the ingredients are of British Columbian origin, and Cheena's salmon processing and packaging adds considerably to their market value. The company employment tends to peak during the tourist season, and the company president, Mr. Wayne Lytton, expresses great enthusiasm regarding the increased business that Expo 86 will bring to British Columbia.

[4:30]

Expo 86 has provided the lower mainland businesses with the opportunity to shine on a global audience. Expo 86 has already inspired investor confidence to the degree that there's now a billion-dollar building boom in the lower mainland. I must emphasize that we talk about what is happening with Expo, but there is a billion-dollar boom in building in the lower mainland. On Monday we were out to the final laying of the section that will join the Annacis Island bridge. We see great expansion in four-laning the Squamish highway. The improvements to the Expo site are almost completed. Ninety-nine percent of construction is completed. We see B.C. Place, which has been an outstanding success, on budget, on time. We'll host the next two Grey Cups in 1986 and '87. SkyTrain will be a major contribution to the traffic and transportation to Expo.

All of these are economic climate growth supporters to the lower mainland. As well as SkyTrain, it has prompted the development of a major building project at Metrotown in the city of Burnaby. Construction of Station Square at Metrotown is slated to begin on September 1. This project will be $140 million and will create up to 500 construction jobs over the next 14-month period. Upon its completion, Station Square alone will generate over 1,000 new full-time and part-time jobs for citizens of the lower mainland. These developments have contributed to a more positive climate in this region and will indeed create a great number of jobs.

Expo 86 will especially benefit tourism in British Columbia. In 1985 tourism revenue stood at $2.5 billion; in 1986 revenues are projected at over $3 billion. We know Expo will generate up to 20 million visitors, and it has been a driving force behind the increase in the revenue of tourism. During the operation of the fair, Expo will create 34,800 person-years of employment at Expo for the lower mainland. After Expo the region will enjoy a heritage of future jobs created through the presence of Expo. For example, the Pan Pacific Hotel at Canada Place will maintain the 500 jobs created by the opening of this facility for Expo. The new $91 million Hotel Meridien will also create many new and long-lasting jobs for the tourist industry. These motels and hotels will be a major part in attracting a share of the national and international convention business. This will further sustain the tourist industry of the lower mainland.

Again, Mr. Speaker, as a member from Vancouver I must read into the record not only how positive Expo B.C. Is going to be for the Vancouver lower mainland, but I must read the telegram that was sent by the then alderman of the city of Vancouver to the International Bureau of Expositions that deals with Expo. We were then calling it Transpo '86. The telegram was sent on June 6, 1980 to Mr. Patrick Reid, the

[ Page 7319 ]

commissioner, who is now the commissioner-general for Expo 86. It states:

PLEASE STOP TRANSPO '86 ON NORTH SIDE OF FALSE CREEK IN THE DOWNTOWN AREA. MOST VANCOUVER CITIZENS DO NOT WANT TRANSPO '86 TO PROCEED ON THIS SITE. INSTEAD, FIVE OUT OF TEN ALDERMEN, 26 OUT OF 57 MEMBERS OF THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA, A SIGNIFICANT NUMBER OF CONCERNED VANCOUVERITES AND MEMBERS OF THE MEDIA FEEL THAT HOUSING, PUBLIC AMENITIES AND TRANSPORTATION SHOULD RECEIVE A GREATER PRIORITY. A LETTER DATED JUNE 5 IS ON ITS WAY TO YOU WITH BACKUP MATERIAL. DO NOT MAKE A DECISION UNTIL YOU HAVE READ THE MATERIAL, HAVE INVESTIGATED FURTHER. MICHAEL HARCOURT, ALDERMAN, CITY OF VANCOUVER.

Mikey likes it. He's now our mayor.

AN HON. MEMBER: He may be your mayor, but not mine.

MR. MOWAT: He's a mayor of some of the citizens of Vancouver. You're right, Mr. Minister of Tourism.

I would like to read into the record the followup letter. It's from Alderman Harcourt to Patrick Reid:

"Before your committee makes a decision on Transpo '86, I felt it appropriate that you be aware of the following. Most people in Vancouver do not want Expo '86 to take place on the north side of False Creek in downtown Vancouver. As evidence of this, you should know that five out of ten Vancouver aldermen, including myself, want housing and public amenities now for ordinary Vancouverites on the proposed site, not a six-month Transpo fair to happen just in 1986. Twenty-six of the 57 provincial members of the Legislative Assembly are opposed to Transpo 86, of which 26 were the Leader of the Opposition" — then Dave Barrett — "and the members of the New Democratic Party."

In a May 19 speech he stated the following: "Vancouver needs and wants low-cost housing, a park and other special amenities on False Creek. Instead the Socreds are foisting a flag-draped pavilion for sightseers. You should also be aware, Mr. Reid, that a significant number of rural Social Credit members are very unhappy with the spending of millions of dollars on Transpo 86." I must go on record as saying that the citizens of Vancouver really want Expo, and a recent poll shows that the members of our province want Expo. All the citizens are now strongly in favour of it.

We note that a significant number of housing and transportation developments have taken place, because not only has Transpo/Expo now become Expo 86 but we do have up to 20 million visitors coming. We have created a great deal of jobs in construction, a great deal of jobs onsite. We will show to the world that Vancouver is a good host city and a designation city and a place to come to following our fair.

I've got to compare what has happened with Expo under the leadership of the government of the province of British Columbia to Vancouver's centennial bash. The Vancouver centennial bash will cost the citizens of Vancouver over $3 million and climbing. And I've got to say that we're now in our third month and I, as a citizen, have yet to see anything significant happen with our centennial program. The program is budgeted at $3 million; $2 million of it will go to centennial administration. I've got to repeat that. Of the $3 million, $2 million is being spent on administration, so the citizens will get very little.

In one area that is very significant, they have magnanimously granted $200,000 to assist Vancouver's 1,400 community groups to hold "small-scale centennial celebrations for grass roots." The limit on the funding is a maximum of $1,000 for each group. As we know in the city of Vancouver, we have many community organizations, we have community centres and we have many multicultural organizations, and they have a grant in total of $200,000 to apply to. I have grave concerns about the city centennial.

I would like to now discuss the economic development that is happening in B.C. tourism. Tourism in British Columbia is shaping up as a strong force in the ongoing renewal of British Columbia's economy. Already it creates the most revenue after forestry and mining. It is not difficult to see why the 1985 revenues for tourism, as I've all ready stated, were $2.5 billion. They're up from $2.3 billion the year before. Over that same period, the number of visitors to our province grew from 12.2 million to 12.6 million, and these visitors came from all parts of the world, an increase of over 8 percent.

This is the highest and best record in Canada in the past year. We talk of 12.6 million coming. We know there will be up to, and probably over, 20 million coming just to Vancouver and Expo and throughout the province next year. To develop an aggressive tourism industry in B.C., we have announced an innovative Partners in Tourism program. We will be working closely with local governments and the private sector, and this program will bring them into a partnership with the provincial government which will maintain B.C.'s leadership in the tourism industry.

In August 1985 the provincial government signed an important tourism subagreement with the federal government, which further demonstrates our strong commitment to tourism marketing and development.

Other examples of our government's leadership through partnership with local government and the private sector would include the waterfront quay in New Westminster and the expansion of the Pacific Centre mall in Vancouver. On Vancouver Island the provincial government has pledged $7.25 million for a much-needed Victoria convention centre. I'd like to note that this convention centre is being done in a riding not held by Social Credit members. This will be matched by a federal grant in the same amount and supplemented by municipal and private investment. It will become a focus for the tourist and convention trade on Vancouver Island.

In recent years the number of visitors to British Columbia has spread outward from the lower mainland. The B.C. skiing industry has been partially responsible for attracting tourists into the interior and northern regions. The skiing industry and winter sports continue to grow in British Columbia. It was only a couple of years ago that Whistler was no more than a twinkle in the eye, and today it stands as a thriving year-round resort renowned throughout North America. This only came about because this government was very positive in setting up the Whistler land commission. They invested $27 million in the Whistler municipality when it was on the verge of bankruptcy, and the success story of Whistler has shown how the ski industry has taken off in British Columbia and how the Social Credit government has contributed to the growth of the skiing industry through the building

[ Page 7320 ]

of roads, giving skiers and wintertime recreation visitors access to the new and varied winter slopes.

Investment in the skiing industry is creating jobs. In 1985 $12 million was invested in over 25 ski centres throughout B.C. For example, the Silver Star Mountain resort has just this year opened up three new hotels and now employs over 100 people, and it's growing daily.

[4:45]

Private sector initiatives are helping to develop the Okanagan as a year-round tourist and resort destination. Other major projects are anticipated — Tod Mountain, Black Mountain, Apex Alpine and Powder King — thus signifying the industry's confidence in our future in British Columbia.

The hotel and resort industry as a whole continues to generate economic activity throughout British Columbia. The Hills Health and Guest Ranch at 108 Mile House and Deer Trail Development of Sooke, which now remains open all year round, employ 25 and 38 people respectively. These are just two examples. In Vancouver alone, Tokyu Corp.'s Pan Pacific Hotel created 500 jobs.

The outlook is particularly encouraging for small-scale resorts. Many entrepreneurs are opening small operations in very remote areas. These entrepreneurs, having created their own small businesses, are working hard to promote economic development in their own times. The northwest boasts many of these examples, such as Langara Fishing Lodge, which has opened recently and has already had bookings in excess of 200 for this coming year.

Mr. Speaker, I could go on. I have not even touched on the high-tech development which is happening in the lower mainland. I'd like to talk about many things the government is doing in the health and human resources field with their program of deinstitutionalizing individuals confined to institutions. For example, in False Creek, Creekview 202 has taken six high-lesion quads, who were costing $227 a day in Pearson Hospital. They're now living independently at a cost of only $117 a day. Their lifestyle is totally different from their experience in Pearson Hospital. The great progress that was made in the closing down of the Tranquille hospital in Kamloops and moving them into group homes....

There have been many positive programs going on within this government — I could list them on and on. I can say that it's no wonder 50 percent of the front row of the New Democratic Party are leaving. They're having trouble matching the positive, dynamic approach that this government is taking in very difficult times.

Mr. Speaker, I'm proud that our government is going out and working with such a positive approach to getting this province moving again on its renewal program. The jobs are coming. We are committed to more jobs. We're looking forward to the continued partnership with the people of British Columbia, and I am pleased to be part of this government.

MR. STUPICH: I'd like to take the time at my disposal this afternoon to talk about the Speech from the Throne and some of the things that are in it and some of the things that I had hoped would be in it and are unfortunately missing.

Near the beginning, and I think it's proper that it should be here, we recognized the contribution of a couple of "magnificent young Canadians," as they are described in the throne speech. They are Steve Fonyo and Rick Hansen, and, of course, before that there was Terry Fox. They did a magnificent effort on the part of all of us. But I have to say that as a member of this Legislature I don't feel particularly proud of the contribution that the government has made — the tangible contribution — to medical research in honour of the splendid efforts of these three particular British Columbians.

When I think of it, Terry Fox is the one who started it, and the contribution from the government was some 11 million shares in BCRIC that were really worth nothing to the government. They certainly couldn't go out and flog them on the market. Legally they could, but they wouldn't dare dump them on the market. They turned them over to the Terry Fox Foundation that was specifically limited in that it could not sell those shares, couldn't realize anything on them in the market, and they can't really honestly look forward to the day when they'll ever get any dividends from those shares.

Mr. Speaker, at best it was an empty gesture, almost an insult. What have we done in recognition of the exploits of the other two? Precious little, as a government. All we've really done is to say that we're going to do our best in the province of British Columbia to persuade people to buy raffle tickets so that we can use some of the funds out of the proceeds of those raffle ticket sales to assist in medical research. As a government that's all we've contributed. I think it's well to recognize what the individuals have done, but I think we should also recall that as a government little has been done to emulate — to reward them, if you like; not that they want that kind of a reward — and recognize the efforts and contribution they have made. There's been nothing done of any importance by the government.

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

Interjection.

MR. STUPICH: As I said, we do sell lottery tickets. Out of the proceeds of those lottery tickets, some funds are made available for medical research. I think it's a pretty small effort on the part of government.

Then to page 2 of the throne speech, where we get into social assistance programs right at the top of the page. I said there were some things missing from the opening speech that I would have liked to have seen here. While we welcome social assistance, we don't welcome it if it's limited to those who have. "We're going to be extending our program of social assistance to business." But there's no mention at all in the opening speech of extending it to those really needy people in our community.

The throne speech is full of references to government programs to assist business. There is mention of what was done last year and the fact that this year it's actually going to cost some money. The programs that were announced last year cost nothing last year to speak of, but this year they're going to start costing something. They're going to help business.

I recall a national leader of our party once talking about corporate welfare burns. I can also recall on another occasion standing in this Legislature when the then Attorney-General of the day.... Unfortunately we didn't have Hansard then; it was before the New Democrats were in office and there was no Hansard. The then Attorney-General never used written speeches. He simply spoke, so there's no written record. There's only the recollection of some of us, and perhaps some sparse newspaper reports as to what Robert Bonner said then about corporate welfare, indirectly. He said that in the province of British Columbia we were way ahead of the rest of

[ Page 7321 ]

Canada. Our industry is way ahead. Our technology is much further ahead than anywhere else in the rest of Canada. The reason that he gave for that was that we had the most active and the best organized trade union movement in the whole of Canada. That trade union movement, in their bargaining, obliged the employers to be efficient or they would not be able to compete within British Columbia or internationally.

Apparently the days of urging business to compete by pulling up their own socks has gone. We're now saying you don't have to do it. The government has lots of social assistance programs available for business. "You don't have to do your own thing. Rely on us and we'll look after you." It's so different from the days under W.A. C. Bennett when industry was obliged to be efficient or to go under. Now they're rewarded by government for being inefficient. That's mentioned several times in this program.

I recognize that under some circumstances there has to be help. But in those days the forest industry in particular had to keep up to date. They didn't as much as they should have, but they did keep up to date to some extent because they were competing without any social assistance programs from government. I can recall on one occasion, in the short time that I was the Minister of Finance, representatives from the forest industry coming to my office and saying that they wanted some help from government. They were having tough times. They wanted help to pay their WCB rates. It was costing them too much for workers' compensation.

Well, there were two answers to that. One was to improve their safety programs so that their accident record would be better, and the other was to proceed with their modernization programs so that they would be able to compete. Well, they said at the time they would like to do it but they couldn't borrow the money. They didn't ask; they simply said they couldn't borrow it. They just wanted to talk about WCB rates, whereas I wanted to talk about my concern for B.C. being able to compete in international markets in selling the products of its forests.

Well, Mr. Speaker, other nations did. Other nations did spend money on improving their technology. The reason now that the forest industry in this province has to come to government and ask for handouts, and the reason the government is giving those handouts, is because the forest industry chose to coast. It chose not to proceed with the modernization program which was being proceeded with in other places, particularly the Scandinavian countries.

Some companies in British Columbia did make substantial efforts, but as a whole the forest industry left it to government to help them, and government is bailing them out. But government apparently has nothing for the people in our community who need it most — nothing, not even a mention. It has not even a mention of the fact that social assistance rates were established at a level in 1981 and have been adjusted downward somewhat since, but not in any instance have they been adjusted upward. The value of the dollar since 1981 has decreased by 25 percent, so in effect they are getting 25 percent less today than they were five years ago — and that for the people who need it most.

Certainly the cost of social assistance programs is going up, because this government's actions — and inactions, to some extent — have meant that there are a lot more people drawing social assistance. So in that way the cost has gone up. But that again is directly attributable to what the government has done and also in some instances to what it hasn't done.

There's nothing for them, nothing for the 270,000 people who are unemployed, except vague promises that we're going to give more handouts to industry in the hope that they will create more employment. There are no direct employment initiatives by government. That's lacking totally. There is some recognition of the fact that there is unemployment in the province, and at least that's something new. It has not been in the throne speeches in the last few years.

Welfare for the corporations. There's nothing for the people who are living on 25 percent less than they were trying to live on some five years ago. I had hoped there would be something in the throne speech saying there would be some recognition of the plight of all of these people, some recognition as there is in other instances — they're talking about what's going to happen in the budget — that the government was concerned about the plight of these people who are unable to find employment and unable in many instances to look after themselves.

On the next page, the government's program of discount prices for surplus electricity. Then, further on I think it is, there's a reference to some $300 million in sales of surplus electricity. Well, Mr. Speaker, that's great. Cheap electricity rates for industry — another form of corporate welfare, if you like — are needed because the industry did not keep up with improvements in technology and is not able to compete within B.C., let alone internationally. So we have to do something, so we're giving them cheap electricity. We're selling some more of our cheap electricity to far places, and we boast about B.C. Hydro earning $300 million from electricity exports. We've got so much that we can afford to sell it cheaply somewhere else and compete with electricity, to compete with sources of energy that are available in those other communities, but we are prepared to cut the prices to meet the competition. In that way we can compete. Government will compete. Government doesn't insist on industry competing, but government is prepared to tell Hydro that we must be competitive in selling this surplus electricity.

[5:00]

[Mrs. Johnston in the chair.]

What about the proposal for Vancouver Island and for other areas of B.C. where natural gas is not available, Mr. Speaker? A proposal advanced by the Leader of the Opposition that in those areas where natural gas is not available, particularly on Vancouver Island, which are now once again.... At least in this area, Vancouver Island, we're being told that the negotiations with the federal government.... There's some reference to continue to appeal to the federal government to assist with the construction of a natural gas pipeline. It's strange that that was in, of course, but it's been there ever since 1966, so why not keep it coming? As we used to say about some government promises, why ruin them by implementing them? They'd have to quit talking about the gas pipeline if it were ever built. However, there seems to be little danger that that will happen too soon, from the point of view of writing additional throne speeches.

However, there is an alternative. The people of Vancouver Island have been persuaded that cheap energy is going to be available to them momentarily, It's going to be made available to them by the provision of a natural gas pipeline. It's cheap only in the sense that we would be paying the same for that kind of energy as would the people in the rest of the province. So we would be getting a fair deal as far as the rest

[ Page 7322 ]

of the people in the province are concerned when it comes to heating costs at least. Now that's fair. It's not asking for anything special. It's not asking for the kind of welfare that is being made available to corporations. It is simply asking for fair treatment for the people of Vancouver Island. There's no mention of that at all. There's simply this vague promise again that the government is going to keep on talking to the federal government about someday building a gas pipeline. I don't know that the government even wants to do it, but it's fodder for the throne speech.

The suggestion is advanced by the Leader of the Opposition that since our surplus of electricity exists, since we're prepared to sell it at giveaway prices to people as far away as California, let's make it available on a similar basis here in British Columbia to those areas not served with natural gas, and make it available for heating purposes at the natural gas equivalent price. That's a reasonable proposal, and it's putting into action the promise that the government has been holding in front of us since 1966. If they really mean it, if they really mean that the people of Vancouver Island should get fair treatment compared to the people in the rest of the province, it can be done immediately by putting into effect the same kind of program that the government is ready, willing and able to offer to the people and industry in California. That's all we ask: to be treated the same as the rest of the people in the province, to be treated not quite as well as, but comparable to, the people in California. A reasonable request, but nothing is in the throne speech to indicate that the government is thinking seriously about correcting that inequity.

"My Minister of Education will announce soon the formation of committees to review and modernize the School Act." Well, that's something like promising a natural gas pipeline. In every throne speech in recent years — I think in every throne speech of the present parliament, and certainly the one before that — there have been promises that we were going to revise the School Act. We're going to set up another committee; we keep changing ministers and each minister that comes in has to have a new committee. Six committees in ten years, I'm informed, and certainly no one can quarrel with that figure.

But what are we seeing? Another committee? Another committee will meet, will travel around the province, will talk to the minister. By then, there will be an election and there will be a new minister anyway. But if there isn't, there will be a new minister and then a new committee. They don't really want to do anything about education; they simply want to talk about it. They want to keep talking about it in the throne speech and hold out the carrot.

Working together with the school boards of the province — well, that really is a laugh, isn't it? Have you heard from the school boards as to how they feel about the government working with them? Has any school board, to your knowledge, expressed its satisfaction with the way in which they are being consulted about what's happening? I have yet to see one. I have a pile of newspaper clippings that I didn't bring in for this debate, listing one school board after another decrying the way in which the government is arriving at its totals, the figures, the money that's going to be available to them, and complaining about the lack of cooperation, complaining about the lack of knowledge, complaining about the total lack of consultation.

The government is going to continue its consultation. Well, at the level they're doing it, it certainly doesn't cost them very much to continue it. And even if they promise to do better, can anyone trust this government's promise? Because that's a very old promise. It's a promise that has been repeated time after time, year after year It is a promise that has never been implemented. In fact, as you well know, Mr. Speaker, education has taken the short end of the stick when it comes to drawing up the budget. Education has been cut; education has suffered.

We talk about the need for high technology in this province, and there are even some over there who will give lip-service to the idea that the way to get it is to improve the delivery of education services. Yet they do everything they can to cut back on education. No consultation with school boards, no consultations with the teachers themselves, simply going their own route, cutting back on the dollars. I went into some detail on this when I spoke last year, I believe on the education estimates. If you consider that the inflation rate in this period has been 25 percent.... Those are the actual figures, from 1981, really. But in the last four budgets, the dollars allotted to education have gone up by 12 percent, as against the inflation rate of some 25. So they've only kept up to half of the inflation rate. The dollars on health have gone up only 19 percent. But they've kept down the total cost of the budget. It's gone up only 25 percent. The total expenditures have gone up 25 percent in the last three budgets. The budget for 1985-1986 was $9,056 million; the budget for 1982-1983 was $7,232 million. That's an increase over the space of three budgets of 25 percent in total expenditures.

In that same period, the amount spent on health has gone up by 19 percent, less than the inflation rate; the amount spent on education has gone up by only 12 percent, significantly less. Yet they talk in the throne speech about continuing their efforts to improve education and health services. Would you believe a promise from that kind of a government, a government that promises year after year to improve its education service, to improve its health service, and year after year reduces the amount being spent, reduces the attention being paid to these very important services?

However, we're going to help Expo some more. I've no objection to helping Expo. I talked again last year, when Expo was being discussed.... There was a bill to relieve Expo of the requirement to pay property taxes. Now that's another donation to Expo. It's not going to show up as part of the cost. I have no objection, as I say, to this kind of a handout to Expo. But my objection was: why not charge them property taxes and then make a grant to cover it? At least we would know the total cost of Expo. But of course the government chose not to do that. They would rather hide that information in the hope that people wouldn't ever know the total cost of Expo. Why not be honest about it, Mr. Speaker? You can't trust them; they don't want to be honest about it.

There are two more gifts here. They're going to make sure the students get there. "My government will provide increased travel funds to assist students all across our province to visit Expo 86 and benefit from its vast educational potential." I think it's good; the students should have that opportunity to visit Expo. I certainly hope it won't come out of the Education budget. I don't know where else it's going to come from, unless the lottery funds will pick that up too.

Not only that. We were told that because it was a — no, that wasn't the reason; not because it was an election year — but the ferry rates are not going to go up in 1986. They're

[ Page 7323 ]

expecting increased traffic and there will be increased sailings because of Expo, but they don't expect to recover the costs of those increased sailings from the passengers. They're going to recover it by making more money available from government, it says here in the throne speech. Another donation to Expo. Once again, Mr. Speaker, they're trying to hide the total cost of Expo. They're going to bring in thousands of students. They're going to use the ferries to transport people back and forth to Expo at a cost to the government. That cost will never be determined in terms of dollars. We'll never be able to find out just how much it has cost for these additional subsidies for Expo.

I'm going to go to Expo. I've got a ticket and I'll certainly be going, but as a Member of the Legislature I would also like to know how much it's costing in total. Why hide it? Why not be honest? But we can't expect this government to be honest. They'd rather find ways of hiding these figures in the hope that people won't ever find out.

Interjection.

MR. STUPICH: I think it is. It is shameful. I agree with you.

More promises. This is funny — the forests. They've certainly got a lot of gall, saying they're going to increase reforestation, they're going to do something about silviculture. They've cut that out of the program entirely. For the last two or three years there's been nothing on silviculture except for the reforestation aspect of it. But now they're promising....

AN HON. MEMBER: What did you do in '73?

MR. STUPICH: Mr. Speaker, the question before us right now is not what anybody did in '73. The question before us today is, what is this government promising to do, and can you believe any of their promises when you look at their history of broken promises? Remember the forest and range resource fund that was established? One hundred and forty-eight million dollars. It was going to be a perpetual thing, a five-year program, but they were going to keep adding to it each year. They were going to take a portion of the revenue from all of the resource industries and keep dumping it in there so that there would be all kinds of money available to continue a real silviculture program in the province. Those were promises. Three years later the fund was gone totally. They brought it back into general revenue to use for something else. They weren't building the Coquihalla then. I'm not sure what they were doing. Can you trust a government like that to protect our resources? I think it's quite obvious and well known.

Nobody, not even the members on the other side of the House, can possibly really believe that this administration has done a good job of husbanding the forestry resource, of all of the resources that we should be looking after. The one that's renewable, the one that will be important to us throughout all our lives and generations to follow, and we're simply raping that resource, providing nothing for the future compared to what we should be doing. Yet the government.... "My government's determination to sustain and increase the resource." Every time they talk about the natural gas pipeline, over there people sort of smile with a little bit of embarrassment. I noticed some yesterday when it was in the opening speech. They should also be smiling in embarrassment when they talk about the forest resource and the way in which they have neglected it.

We've talked about some of the things that were in the throne speech — some of the things that I had hoped would be in there. There is another reference here. Others of my colleagues have spoken about it; I won't say much. "You will he asked to approve measures to maintain the highest possible standards on the part of all members of this assembly, and others, in conducting public business." That's laudable, I suppose; certainly members should be that way. But I must say.... Others have said all kinds of things about this. The second member for Vancouver Centre (Mr. Lauk): honourable members don't need disclosure legislation. But even beyond that, Mr. Speaker, you can't legislate morality. The legislation is there now. I've never been in any doubt as to what I should put in my disclosure statement.

One of the members on the other side, speaking yesterday, made some reference to something in one of mine. He didn't name me. but it was my statement. The point is, Mr. Speaker, it was there. We are supposed to believe that an hon. member of this House, a member of the cabinet, forgot a petty cash fund of $100,000 — forgot that he had invested that in a particular investment. One hundred thousand dollars he forgot about? Not only that; he invested in it as a tax shelter manoeuvre. He forgot, when he filled in his income tax return, that he had $100,000 available to use as a tax shelter? Mr. Speaker, that certainly strains the bounds of credibility.

What kind of legislation would ever control that kind of an attitude? Anybody who feels that way about disclosure, anybody that feels that way about morality.... You can't solve it with legislation; you have to deal with people as honourable members.

Interjection.

MR. STUPICH: I don't know what deal he made in 1976. That's not my concern right now.

I just say you can't legislate morality. If you're going to have immoral people as cabinet ministers, they're going to conduct themselves immorally. That's just the way it is. There is an answer, of course: if they were immoral, once they were caught they'd resign as ministers. That's the only answer. You have to catch them. If you're going to put immoral people in the cabinet, once they're caught they should get out. There's no other way of dealing with the question.

[5:15]

Unfortunately the positive things were absent from the throne speech. One of them is the need for job creation initiatives. In the throne speech debate last year the Leader of the Opposition talked about the Postwar Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Committee, a committee of MLAs that travelled around the province during the war to make ready for the time after the war. This year the Leader of the Opposition talked about another legislative committee, an all-party committee that would travel around the province to deal with what is an emergency but what is also a long-range problem. The Premier responded to the effect that all we want to do is waste time. We want to set up another committee that will travel around the province and listen to people and discuss with them; to him that was a waste of time. So then we're dealing with an emergent situation, not something that can wait one month, two months or six months. We're dealing with people

[ Page 7324 ]

who are being put out of their homes to make room for Expo visitors.

What is the government going to do? They're going to set up a committee to investigate in the hope that by the time that committee reports there'll be no more problem because Expo will be over. They can wait for something like that. It's an emergent situation, but it's poor people that are being dealt with, people that cannot help themselves, It's all right to put them off with a committee, a committee that, as I heard the minister describe it, was actually going to look at the victims and find out what they're doing wrong. That certainly isn't going to help them with their immediate need for accommodation, yet that's the only answer we have for them: a committee to look at their problem.

When it comes to dealing with a real problem, the unemployment situation in the province, the rate of bankruptcies I the province, the rate at which businesses are failing as well as individuals, the real problems of the people of British Columbia, the fact that our resources are being raped and exploited and nothing done to provide for the future.... Promises are made to do something for education, to improve health services. All these promises are made year after year by this Premier, the Minister of Finance and the government. All those promises have been broken year after year. I recall one promise by the Premier that no civil servant need worry about his job if they won the election in 1983. How many of them are still around to worry? Those kinds of promises aren't worth the paper they're written on, and we're having them again today — promises only.

It's nice to have the words, but it's not words we want, it's action. This committee was proposed by the Leader of the Opposition to travel around the province and get some concrete ideas, some real suggestions and some positive methods of bringing our economy back to the level of some of the other poorer provinces in the country. In many instances we're down worse than the lowest. Figures have been produced in the Legislature to show that in most areas of British Columbia, aside from the lower mainland, B.C. Is worse off than Newfoundland, which has always had the record for that.

We should be doing something. The Premier promises only that he has some plans, and there's some reference in here that they have plans. He told us that in 1983 before election day too: that he had plans to deal with the problems facing the province. He wouldn't tell us what those plans were until after the voting was over, and we found out to our shock and horror what those plans were when that budget was introduced on June 27, 1983. If those are the kinds of plans he's holding to his chest now, hiding and withholding from the people of British Columbia, it's not good enough. There are ways of dealing with our problem. Every other province in Canada is working to find those ways. Every other part of Canada is meeting with more success than is British Columbia.

Madam Speaker, B.C. can be better. It is indeed time for a change.

HON. MR. VEITCH: First I would like to thank the Premier of the province of British Columbia for giving me the opportunity to serve once again on Her Majesty's executive council and congratulate my predecessor, who has done and is doing a very fine job. He's got a very demanding portfolio now in Education, and I wish him very well in it.

Madam Speaker, I'm pleased to take my place in this throne speech debate, and I'd like to begin by saying that I believe it's the most comprehensive and optimistic I've heard in many years.

I would like to congratulate the members who've spoken previously. I'd like to congratulate the member for West Vancouver–Howe Sound (Mr. Reynolds), and I'd particularly like to congratulate the member for Atlin (Mr. Passarell) for his excellent contribution to the debate.

If there's any single reason that I support this government it is that I have an inclination to favour the individual and the notion that people should be dealt with more as individuals than as members of herds or collectives of whatever kind that might be. But more than a little individualism is displayed by members of this House on both sides, Madam Speaker, and I believe that it is a very positive and reassuring statement about the health of our democracy and the open-mindedness of our people, and I would like to congratulate the member for Atlin for his great courage.

If I have a quarrel with the opposition, I would say that it's this. I've come to know some of them, and I believe that as individuals — and I cannot for the life of me believe that they would really enjoy, any of them, living in a truly socialistic state....

Interjection.

HON. MR. VEITCH: I don't think that the second member for Vancouver Centre (Mr. Lauk) would say that grey is his favourite colour.

The greatest problem with socialism is not that it doesn't work, although Mitterrand has proven that it doesn't, but what it does to the human spirit when it's forced to work. Socialism is not cooperation; it's not even common ownership; it's state control. It's the imposition of the plans of a few on the lives of too many. You and I and anyone else can choose to cooperate or share our prosperity any day of the week we want.

Interjection.

HON. MR. VEITCH: That's the hallmark of a free society, but socialism is something very different, hon. member, and perhaps that's why you're getting out of this place. Socialism is the imposition of a particular kind of sharing and a particular kind of activity or non-activity on people who do not consent and are forced to do so by the force of law.

Interjection.

HON. MR. VEITCH: We do this all the time in society. Certainly we do, but what separates the sheep from the goats — if I may borrow an analog from the speech of the Leader of the Opposition — is whether you habitually view the natural life of society as healthy or whether you don't view it that way. If you basically have faith in people and in the ecology of society, then you don't relish imposing on them the heavy hand of the state. You may do it often, and you may indeed often need to do it, but you should never relish it. That's where we part company with socialism, and that is the very core of a doctrine of a narrow, pseudo-intellectually elite imposing its values on the rest of us that socialism tries to bring to us.

[ Page 7325 ]

So when I listen to the very sincere criticisms — and there are some of them — from the opposition, along with those which are very clearly tongue in cheek, I have to try to imagine these individuals living in a society that would be visited upon us under real socialism. It just doesn't work. Can you imagine the MLA for Vancouver Centre, who just left, living in a society designed by Bruce Yorke and Hilda Thomas? Can you imagine that?

They know what kind of people would come to positions of power and influence under an NDP government — the same kind of people who make their political bids with the mayor of Vancouver; the same kind who think that all the problems of life are a result of U.S. capitalist imperialism. If only the Khmer Rouge had a chance, they could fix things up some way or other in our society. The members of the NDP caucus will gradually come to the realization that they've been sold down the river to the pseudo-intellectuals and the professional protesters and the social planners and the social engineers of our society.

They should understand that when the Leader of the Opposition says, "I'm the voice of the people," they'd better inquire exactly what the Leader of the Opposition means. The member for Mackenzie (Mr. Lockstead) doesn't want to dictate to anyone; the member for Rossland-Trail (Mr. D'Arcy), who is not in his seat, is no more a socialist than I am. The first member for Victoria (Mr. Hanson) would be affronted by the suggestion that he is an elitist. The member for Esquimalt–Port Renfrew (Mr. Mitchell) is just an honest, good cop.

I look around the opposition benches and I have trouble finding half a dozen hard-line socialists, but then I remember what happened in the Barrett government, and I have to wonder if I would see a more moderate regime in British Columbia under the leadership of the member for Alberni (Mr. Skelly). I don't think so. The Leader of the Opposition works hard, and I believe he believes in his cause, but when I examine the cause of the Leader of the Opposition in detail, I'm rather horrified at what I find. It's a blueprint for chaos.

To get elected, the NDP has implicitly promised more than 100 percent of the budget to everyone in sight. The Leader of the Opposition actually criticized our Premier for wanting to cooperate with everyone in sight. I find that truly amazing. All I can say is that it's a lot less expensive than what the Leader of the Opposition suggests. The Leader of the Opposition's priority is election, not looking at what is realistic or what is indeed achievable — just what sounds good on the 6 o'clock news in the evening.

The people's priorities are the priorities of the Social Credit government — priorities for real long-term private sector job creation in tourism, in small business, in high tech, in forestry, in innovative manufacturing, and value added in mining and oil and aquaculture, in agriculture and in international finance. Unlike the opposition leader, we believe that we can have both the clean environment and economic growth through intelligent balancing of these competing interests and through marrying them wherever possible.

We look to development property, in small business particularly. We understand that good environment is good business, and that our tourism industry needs a healthy environment to grow.

Our social priorities — once again, Madam Speaker, the people's priorities are our priorities: hospitals, CAT scan, innovative processes in the Burnaby hospital, health care facilities, improved job skills, training and retraining, enhanced environmental protection, reforestation and upgrading of teacher training, computer and language skills in our public schools, job creation and opportunities for those people who need jobs. For all those able to work, the very best social program that you will ever find is a new job, for what the opposition continue not to understand is that it's a rising tide that lifts all ships in an economy. That's our challenge: not to create or to expand the constituencies of dependence, but to build strategic beachheads of excellence in a rapidly changing world economy, in a new economy.

We entirely believe in the future of the province of British Columbia — all of our province, not just part of it. I'm sorry indeed that the Leader of the Opposition has chosen to attack the faith that we have shown in British Columbia and to try to divide this province, to try to balkanize it into different sections.

The greater Vancouver area....

Interjection.

HON. MR. VEITCH: That's right. I believe that every voter in greater Vancouver should understand that the Leader of the Opposition has no faith in greater Vancouver whatsoever, and that he would abandon it absolutely and abandon its potential and abandon its greatness for whatever political cause he may happen to expound.

[5:30]

Madam Speaker, he did at one stage compliment the Minister of Intergovernmental Relations (Hon. Mr. Gardom) on his success, and he was right in doing so, even sarcastically. He was quick to point out that he didn't want a natural gas pipeline to Vancouver Island or the thousands of new jobs that that would mean on Vancouver Island, but he did recognize that we are working with Canada, not working against it, and I congratulate him on that respect.

An important success in that field has been the recent recognition accorded to our initiative to develop Vancouver's potential as an international financial centre. Through a whole number of initiatives, including a strengthening of the Securities Act, creation of a venture capital program, the equity program and the business visitors program. We've been working hard to build investor confidence in our province as an important facet of that development, It's absolutely imperative that all of our financial institutions operate under legislation which is flexible but which at the same time is fair to investors and protective of the public interest. We do not believe in regulation for the sake of regulation, but we do want to be able to step in when there's a demonstrated need.

My own personal preference has always been for dialogue, for constructive discussion with all of those who might be affected, before a new set of regulations is put in place. That is why I was very pleased, Madam Speaker, by the reference in the throne speech to the initiative which I will be undertaking in a consultative approach aimed at strengthening the confidence of the public in our province and our financial institutions.

I believe that Canada's financial institutions and British Columbia's financial institutions are fundamentally sound. Make no mistake about that. But while problems are marginal to the overall health of the system, they are extremely serious to the individuals directly affected. Government has a

[ Page 7326 ]

responsibility to develop rules which will ensure that individuals can have a reasonable idea of what is and what is not a relatively low-risk investment before allocating their savings in that particular area. I do not believe that people should be absolved of all responsibility for monitoring the actions of those institutions they select to manage funds on their behalf, but I recognize that most people do not have the financial expertise and that there must be some reasonable balance in the interests of the investor and, indeed, of all of us who are affected in a very sweeping way by the well-being of our financial institutions.

It is from this perspective of public interest, and with a recognition of the pitfalls of overregulation, that I will be consulting with a broad range of groups and individuals in order to ensure that our regulatory framework is both protective and effective for investors, the general public and the very worthwhile institutions which operate in this field in our province.

I referred to priorities, and I've emphasized that our priorities flow from the desires and aspirations of the people of British Columbia. The Chinese have an interesting expression for the people. They call them the bai xing — the hundred names — which at the same time emphasizes both the family nature of Chinese society and the diversity of its various clans, which, like the Frasers and the Campbells and the Witches and the Macdonalds and the McLeods of Scottish history, each enjoyed their unique traditions and their sense of identity. In our very diverse community of British Columbia we might more easily refer to the hundred thousand names.

I must say I was delighted to see a reference to cultural heritage in the throne speech, just as I was delighted to see a reference to Asian language instruction and to English as a second language. These were priorities in the Excellence in Education fund announcement.

We are not insular. Even on Vancouver Island our people see the importance of reaching out to the world through Expo and through our marketing opportunities in Asia, California, eastern Canada, the United States and Europe. The vision of the future which our people have is one of worldwide cooperation in a peaceful and mutually beneficial way. Enhancing prosperity and understanding — these things flow in tandem. It's a vision which brings together energy, transportation, education and skills training, sound environmental policies, encouragement for diversification and innovative small business for new technologies, especially those which build on strategic areas of comparative advantage in transportation and communications, and of course in natural resources.

All of our people will have to be involved — young, medium and old. All of our institutions, both public and private, or large, medium or small, must shake off the ideologies of class conflict that the opposition is trying to foist on us. The scales of dinosaurs who are lumbering off into the swamps must be taken away. We must work smarter. We must spend smarter along the way. We've reached the point of diminishing returns as far as the growth of government and the state is concerned in this country.

Those valuable insights of social critics of capitalism have been and should be incorporated into our system. But there is no substitute for the engine of personal freedom. There is no government-hatched plan that can dictate the future and shape society in a better way than can be determined by planning and by working together as people. There's room and promise and hope in British Columbia for all of us — for the hundred thousand names. There are dreams to be fulfilled, and His Honour's speech shows clearly that his government has kept the faith with the people of British Columbia and has an unlimited faith in the people of British Columbia — from Burnaby to Atlin, from Cranbrook to Dawson Creek.

This year of all years, let's work together so that our people can realize those dreams, can profit from their efforts and their sacrifices, and can truly say we have prevailed over our differences, we've built strength out of our diversity and we have overcome.

MR. WILLIAMS: I move adjournment of this debate until the next sitting of the House.

[Mr. Strachan in the chair.]

Motion approved.

HON. MR. NIELSEN: I move the House do now adjourn.

Motion approved.

The House adjourned at 5:39 p.m.