[ Page 7385 ]

CONTENTS

Oral Questions

Nuclear power in B.C. Mr. Gabelmann –– 7385

Canadian Commercial Bank. Mr. Stupich –– 7386

Gifts to pharmacists. Mr. Cocke –– 7386

Social assistance rates. Mr. Barnes –– 7386

Sparwood Library board. Mr. MacWilliam –– 7387

Ministerial Statement

Native land claims. Hon. Mr. Smith –– 7387

Mr. Skelly

Throne Speech Debate

Hon. Mr. Nielsen –– 7388

Mr. Lea –– 7391

Mr. Mitchell –– 7395

Hon. Mr. Pelton –– 7397

Mr. Lockstead –– 7400

Mr. Strachan –– 7403

Mr. MacWilliam –– 7406

Hon. Mr. Kempf –– 7409

TUESDAY, MARCH 18, 1986

The House met at 2:11 p.m.

HON. MR. GARDOM: Mr. Speaker, the day after the wearing of the green, it gives me great pleasure and joy indeed to welcome to British Columbia, which we consider to be the best part of Canada, His Excellency the Ambassador for Ireland, Mr. Sean Gaynor, and his wife, Mrs. Gaynor.

MR. COCKE: Mr. Speaker, I would like the House to welcome to this chamber 26 students of the community social service program at Douglas College, that great college in New Westminster, the Royal City, along with their instructors: Loma Kirkham, Sally Nordman and Bob Shibib.

HON. MR. SMITH: Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure today to welcome to the House the members of the University of Victoria Vikings Canadian basketball champions. The team is here, and I am going to read out the names of each of the members here today so they can stand up individually. As the House acknowledged yesterday, they have won their seventh straight national Canadian basketball title.

So would the members just stand in the gallery as they are recognized: Vito Pasquale, Graham Taylor, Geoff McKay, David Sheehan –– who has had five seasons with the team –– Rob Kreke, Sean Kalmovich, Wade Loukes, the famous centre Cord Clemens, Jerry Divoky, assistant coach Joe Weisbrodt, manager Allen Duddridge and, last but not least, Ken Shields, the coach –– and honorary mascot Pat McGeer.

MR. HOWARD: Mr. Speaker, today we have visiting with us five interns from the House of Commons in the Parliament of Canada: Michel Sarra-Bournet, Denis Robert, Leslie Toope, Shelly Gilmour, and Barbara Arneil. I'd like the House to bid them welcome.

[2:15]

MR. LEA: I would suppose that you understand, Mr. Speaker, that a great many of us in this House are a little jealous about not having any sports teams in here from our tidings. I'd like to introduce to you from the gallery a senior citizen from Prince Rupert, who is down here to see the Minister of Housing. He played great basketball in Prince Rupert years ago, I can tell you that. I'd like you to join with me to welcome a former alderman from Prince Rupert, a long-time small-business person, Mr. Art Murray.

MR. STRACHAN: I join with my colleague the Minister of Agriculture and Food (Hon. Mr. Waterland), the other buddy MLA for Comox, in welcoming 18 students, and Donna, from the Comox-Parksville-Courtenay area. They are sponsored by the Comox Socred constituency association. Would the House please give them a nice warm welcome.

MR. PARKS: Perhaps my colleagues in the House are jealous that they don't have very successful amateur teams to bring to the House's acknowledgement, but in Coquitlam we happen to have an extremely gifted athlete. This past weekend a constituent of mine, one Andrew Lenton, a student at Centennial high school, competed at the North American invitational track meet for high school athletes, in New Haven, Connecticut. Andrew won the 3,000-metre race and was but one second off the world record. That's an extremely fine accomplishment for one of our B.C. students.

But not only did we have Andrew winning that race, but a young fellow from Port Moody, one Allan Lewis, came third, and a young fellow from Prince George, Kevin Robinson, came sixth. So B.C. athletes are excelling throughout this North American continent.

MRS. JOHNSTON: I'm very pleased to stand up in the House today and introduce a group of real winners, members of the British Columbia Social Credit Women's Auxiliary: Lillian Winter, Crofton; Pat Guest, Duncan; Mary Milino, Duncan; Rita Kipot, Saanich; Barb Anshelm, Saanich; Clasiena Atsma and Harmine Wikkerink, Duncan; Annette Hawrylenko, Victoria; Aggie Flett, Nanaimo; Helene Aagaard, Crofton; Rhoda Scott and Dorothy Gray, Esquimalt; Jean Kinney, Duncan; Betty Raye, Ladysmith; Doris Andrews, Crofton; Jean Valcourt, Nanaimo; Pam Dyke, Crofton; Evelyn Allen, Duncan; Kay Wiersma, Crofton; Etta Murray, Victoria; Barbara York, Victoria; Sheila Owen, Duncan; Johanna Frumento, Duncan; Flo Anslow and Inez Ridley, Esquimalt; and Donny Redding, Duncan. Would the House please give them a warm welcome.

Oral Questions

NUCLEAR POWER IN B.C.

MR. GABELMANN: I have a question for the Minister of Labour. Just over six years ago the government declared a moratorium on uranium exploration and mining, and for many years British Columbia has had public policy opposed to the development of nuclear power in British Columbia. On December 27 last, under the Power Engineers and Boiler and Pressure Vessel Safety Act –– the Minister of Labour's jurisdiction –– cabinet signed a new set of regulations. In those regulations the following words are included: "Nuclear power plant component means a nuclear power plant component, etc." Further on in the regulations is the fee schedule for inspection of nuclear power plants in British Columbia: "Class I inspections are $3,100 per inspection." My question to the Minister of Labour is: why has the policy in British Columbia changed from being a non-nuclear province to one which is now prepared to develop nuclear power?

HON. MR. SEGARTY: I want to thank the member for North Island for his question. The regulations are regulations governing boiler vessel safety in British Columbia. The fact that they're in regulations has not changed the government's policy with respect to nuclear mining and development.

MR. GABELMANN: I want to be more specific then. Why would it be necessary to go to the extent of including in these regulations schedule C3, nuclear power plant component minimum construction inspection fee: class I components, $3,100 each; class 2, $1,850 each; class 3, $800 each? If the policy of the government is to continue to have British Columbia a non-nuclear province, why would it be necessary to develop regulations, which are now the law of this province, which govern the inspection of construction of nuclear power plants in British Columbia?

HON. MR. SEGARTY: I did answer the question earlier on. There is currently a moratorium on nuclear mining in

[ Page 7386 ]

British Columbia, and that question would be more appropriately addressed by the Minister of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources (Hon. Mr. Brummet). But I do sense a typical approach on the part of the NDP in British Columbia –– to instil fear in the minds of British Columbians with respect to the regulations that have been developed.

CANADIAN COMMERCIAL BANK

MR. STUPICH: I have a question for the Minister of Finance. Sometime early in 1985 the British Columbia government participated, on behalf of the taxpayers, in the ill-fated bailout of the Canadian Commercial Bank. Some months after that the minister said he was still hoping to get that money back. I'm just wondering whether he's had any success in his negotiations with Ottawa.

HON. MR. CURTIS: Not as yet. However, I have had ongoing discussions with the Minister of State for Finance, the Hon. Barbara McDougall –– as recently as a few weeks ago –– with respect to the money which was placed by the province of British Columbia, along with the province of Alberta and the government of Canada. The position which I stated to the member the last time he asked the question remains. I think Hansard would show that I indicated I did not expect an early resolution, but certainly I have not abandoned that quest.

GIFTS TO PHARMACISTS

MR. COCKE: Mr. Speaker, I would like to direct a question to the Minister of Human Resources. It has been brought to our attention that B.C. pharmacists are getting subsidized trips to Paris, getting silver ingots as gifts....

MR. CHABOT: You read the paper, too.

MR. COCKE: I read the paper, too.

Mr. Speaker, these gifts cost a lot of money, and the people of British Columbia reflect...having to pay that money. I'm just wondering if the minister has decided to intercede using the muscle of Pharmacare to do something about this.

HON. MR. NIELSEN: Mr. Speaker, I'm quite concerned about the report and article in the Vancouver Sun today. The first thing I would like to ascertain is if it is correct. I've been in contact and will be in contact again with Pat Tidball, who is responsible for the Pharmacare program, to have him determine the validity of the stories and what part of this is correct and how extensive it may be throughout British Columbia.

Furthermore, Mr. Speaker, I will attempt to ascertain if we're speaking of illegal activities or whether we're speaking of activities which are not of a criminal nature. I would also want to determine, most importantly, whether it is having a detrimental effect on the Pharmacare program or is costing the people of British Columbia greater costs through Pharmacare because of these alleged incidents. If such proves to be the case, then I will instruct Mr. Tidball to take such action as may be required through suasion or other methods if necessary to see that we are receiving the greatest cost benefit for our Pharmacare program for the taxpayers of the province.

MR. COCKE: Mr. Speaker, we're not suggesting that this may be an illegal act; we are suggesting that it's costing the government money because the government pays much of the pharmaceutical bills in this province. It strikes me that even if the government had to resort to legislation, it would be worth it with respect to this question. Mr. Speaker, the people have been quoted as admitting that they're doing it. Is the minister prepared to go the full length of his office and put a stop to this?

HON. MR. NIELSEN: Mr. Speaker, I have no hesitation in saying that if action is occurring in the province which is detrimental to our Pharmacare program, and which is detrimental to the taxpayers' capacity to fund that program, yes, I will recommend such action that brings about a cessation of that activity. I will ask the people who will be able to get the answers –– including the college, if they're involved in any way –– if they are aware of that. I expect them to play a role as well. If this type of performance is having a negative effect upon the Pharmacare program, I will take such action as we are capable of doing to see that it does not.

SOCIAL ASSISTANCE RATES

MR. BARNES: I have a question to the Minister of Human Resources. Mr. Speaker, it has been well established that social assistance rates paid by the Bennett government are insufficient to provide the minimum needs of recipients. Has the government decided to increase income assistance rates to adequate levels?

HON. MR. NIELSEN: Mr. Speaker, the member has, I guess, carefully constructed his question. I simply cannot agree with his conclusions, because he has not provided me with the necessary information. He said "well established" and used words such as "insufficient" and "certain standards." I'm not sure who has developed those standards. He made no reference to that. He's offering, I presume, a personal opinion, which may be very valid.

Mr. Speaker, we have a variety of amounts which are paid to people under social assistance. The most common is that paid to a single employable mate under 30, or whatever the age may be. That's the money that the member who asked the question attempted to survive on during a well-publicized article in a few newspapers in Vancouver. That's what is often mentioned as the income assistance level, and I'm sure that's what you're speaking of. But there are a variety of levels of income assistance. The member has not mentioned that there is a modification for that individual as time goes on, should he stay on. There are different amounts for family units and others in different circumstances.

The base level is as it is at this moment, and I have not made an announcement, nor has the government made an announcement, that that is about to be changed. Obviously, when the government considers that matter, and if a decision is made, everyone will be notified. But at the moment that decision has not been made.

[2:30]

MR. BARNES: Thank you, Mr. Minister, for your response. Just a brief supplementary. I wonder if the minister is familiar with the Social Planning and Review Council of B.C.'s study that was recently issued –– this month, in fact ––

[ Page 7387 ]

which deals with the question of the inadequacy of the ministry's rates. If not, I would suggest that he review that. It has also been well established by the greater Vancouver regional United Appeal. Stats Canada, for instance, has suggested that the minimum poverty level is twice as high as what people receive on income assistance in this province.

So I am just wondering if the minister is suggesting that the rates are adequate. I presume that if he has no knowledge of the problem, he is suggesting that the rates are adequate. Are the present rates adequate as you know them, Mr. Minister?

HON. MR. NIELSEN: Mr. Speaker, I would think that there are many people earning considerably more than that paid to a person on income assistance who do not feel they have an adequate income. So that's very subjective. What is adequate? There are many people who feel they can survive reasonably well for a short period of time, which is the intent of that type of assistance. There could be a magic number. You can look across the country and see the different rates province to province, and they vary.

It's easy for SPARC to come up with idea of increasing the cost of social assistance by $400 million a year, because they don't have to come up with the money. Why they exist I'm not quite sure and who funds them I'm not quite sure, although I think it's still the federal government. But it's easy for them to make these recommendations based on their own internal inquiry. One of the terms they apparently use is to determine the average rent paid in Vancouver, and they use that as what should be paid for rent. Well, that takes in a lot of rental situations that you normally would not associate with people on income assistance. The Ministry of Human Resources has reviewed SPARC's latest report and has issued comments, including comments such as that we simply do not agree with their base formula. At one time the United Appeal handled this. There were some negative comments about them being involved, so the same person apparently went somewhere else and produces the same report each year, and has certain attitudes about it; but they have never been able to work with Human Resources in developing some type of formula base for these projections.

So it's an independent report. It's their opinion. They don't have to come up with any money so it's easy for them to be very generous. But to call for a $400 million increase in one year doesn't seem to be terribly practical.

SPARWOOD LIBRARY BOARD

MR. MacWILLIAM: My question is to the Premier. The members of the Sparwood Library board were told recently by the member for Kootenay that he will not recommend who gets Expo legacy funds until after the election, and only in the areas where he's elected. What action has the Premier taken to stop the abuse of taxpayers' money to coerce citizens in terms of how they should vote?

HON. MR. BENNETT: The statement attributed to the Minister of Labour, the member for Kootenay, isn't true.

HON. MR. SMITH: Mr. Speaker, I wish to make a ministerial statement.

MR. SPEAKER: Proceed.

NATIVE LAND CLAIMS

HON. MR. SMITH: I'm going to make a short statement on the native land claims issue, and at the end of the statement seek leave to table constitutional correspondence between myself and Mr. Crombie.

Just prior to Christmas I commenced correspondence with Mr. David Crombie, the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, on the question of who has the responsibility in the field of native land claims, and what the position of the federal government is in respect of the number of issues. Mr. Crombie's response to me was received last week, on March 6. In his response he said, among other things, that there likely were in British Columbia.... "Aboriginal title likely exists in various areas in British Columbia," number one; number two, he urged the province of British Columbia to negotiate those claims; and number three, he said that the federal government did not have the constitutional responsibility under the terms of union or the British North America Act for compensation and costs involved in settling Indian claims in British Columbia. That was the summary of his letter.

I sent to him this afternoon the following reply. It was sent by a FAX machine, not by Canada Post; we want it to get there before Expo.

"First of all I must tell you that at the time of receipt of your letter we had not received copies or details of the comprehensive land claims which have been submitted to your department. These were finally delivered to us on March 14.

"Secondly, and more important, your letter acknowledges on behalf of the government of Canada that claims of aboriginal title likely exist in this province. The government of British Columbia, in keeping with all previous governments of this province, takes the opposite view. The question therefore will be up to the courts to decide.

"Finally I come to the issue of financial responsibility: that is, who has the obligation under our constitution to satisfy aboriginal land claims, should they be found to exist. You appear to take the position that the federal government is not responsible for the compensation and costs involved in settling Indian claims in British Columbia. At the same time you wish British Columbia to be involved in a process of negotiation on native land claims. Our original constitution provides specifically in section 91(24) that the federal parliament has exclusive authority over 'Indians and lands reserved for the Indians.'

"In the terms of union between Canada and British Columbia which are now entrenched as part of the schedule to the Constitution Act, federal responsibility was confirmed for the 'charge of Indians and the trusteeship and management of lands reserved for their use and benefit.' In turn, the province was required to set aside reserve lands, which obligation was faithfully carried out. Acknowledgement of the fulfilment of this obligation was made by the federal government in 1924.

"If the courts were ever to hold –– as we sincerely believe that they should not –– that aboriginal title was not extinguished but still exists in parts of British Columbia, they can only come to such a conclusion

[ Page 7388 ]

by finding that Indian title existed when British Columbia entered Canada in 1871. That being the case, aboriginal title represented a liability or charge upon the colonial government to which the government of Canada alone is responsible.

"Term I of the terms of union reads as follows: 'Canada shall be liable for the debts and liabilities of British Columbia existing at the time of union.' We are therefore both amazed and shocked to read in your letter what amounts to an attempt by the government of Canada to abrogate its responsibility to deal with the native land question; or, to put it in your language, you deny responsibility '...for compensation and costs involved in settling Indian claims in British Columbia.' We know of no instance during our 115-year history as part of Confederation that a federal minister has made such a statement.

"In conclusion, we must urge you and your colleagues to reconsider this matter and to assume your proper constitutional responsibility in relation to Indians. Negotiation meetings at this time would be pointless until such time as the federal government acknowledges its sole responsibility to satisfy Indian claims in this province, just as in every other province."

That was signed and sent today. I would ask leave to file the three letters of constitutional correspondence.

Leave granted.

MR. SKELLY: Unfortunately we did not have the courtesy of receiving the documents in advance, nor were we aware that the minister was planning on making a statement, as I suppose is typical of the way the government operates in this House. The manner in which the minister has been dealing with his federal counterpart, and in which he has been dealing with this correspondence, I suppose is indicative of a deeper problem with this government and their seeming inability to negotiate in good faith with anybody in the province of B.C.

When it comes to negotiating with the government's own employees, they seem to be unable to do that in good faith across the bargaining table. When it comes....

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. The member will take his seat. Hon. members, while we have not spelled out in detail the rules that guide us in response to ministerial statements, clearly when a person goes beyond the ministerial statement and reflects upon other matters that are currently under debate in this House, then the Chair has no alternative but to remind the member that he must at least stick to the parameters that are mentioned in the ministerial statement. Otherwise, hon. member, we go into a very lengthy debate on a variety of subjects. I would commend that to the Leader of the Opposition.

MR. SKELLY: Thank you, Mr. Speaker, but the minister seems to be having a bit of difficulty negotiating with his Tory counterpart in Ottawa, when it would seem a much better approach to these types of policies.... It's no wonder that it has taken 150 years to deal with this issue. We're sending letters back and forth between ministers rather than sitting at the table and negotiating these kinds of issues and reaching solutions –– rather than to exploit the failure of communication for political reasons.

Interjections.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please.

MR. SKELLY: Mr. Speaker, we're looking forward to an opportunity to review this correspondence, and we will undertake to comment after we've seen the contents of the letters.

MR. LEA: I ask leave to reply to the ministerial statement.

Leave not granted.

MR. HOWARD: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, one Social Credit member is enough discussing this question.

MR. REYNOLDS: Mr. Speaker, I rise under standing order 35. In view of the fact that the letter from David Crombie, the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, is full of untruths and misleading statements, and in view of the fact that the matter of Indian land claims is an important issue in British Columbia, I would move under standing order 35 that the House adjourn for the purpose of discussing this definite matter of urgent public importance.

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. members, as is the usual practice, the Chair will undertake a review of the matter and bring an opinion back to the House at the earliest opportunity.

MR. LAUK: On a point of order. Not that I particularly care how we reflect upon Tory members in the House, but there is a rule of practice in legislatures that that kind of statement, unless put in the form of a substantive motion, should not be made on the floor of any House, reflecting upon the honour and motives of Members of Parliament.

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. member, our standing orders do not permit the Chair the same latitude in dealing with our federal counterparts as we have with our provincial. That is spelled out in standing order 40(l) and (2) on page 13 of your little green book, hon. member.

[2:45]

Orders of the Day

SPEECH FROM THE THRONE

(continued debate)

HON. MR. NIELSEN: Mr. Speaker, with respect to the throne speech, I'd like to make a few comments, much in line with many of the comments we've heard in the past few days.

[Mr. Ree in the chair.]

The theme of the throne speech offered to the House this year is based on the word "renewal," particularly with respect to renewal in the economy. Without renewal in the economy, of course, we simply do not have the opportunity for renewal in other areas, particularly in areas of services to people. We've had comments from the opposition with respect to the throne speech and the economy, and they have

[ Page 7389 ]

acknowledged that the economy is improving, not necessarily to the extent or with the speed all would like to see; nonetheless, it is improving. When an economy is improving, it's good news, and good news is bad news for an opposition party.

We expect to hear emphasis placed on the negatives by the opposition, it being their role to do so and them being so familiar with negatives. But I think, Mr. Speaker, you will find that the people of the province of British Columbia are seeing the positive effects in B.C. They are proud of the positive effects in our province and are looking to the future with a very positive attitude. It's fine to talk about generalities, with references to certain attitudes, theories, policies. When we come down to it, we're talking about individual citizens of British Columbia and how they are viewing the province.

It's been pointed out recently by a certain number of surveys, and by other authors, that a problem with British Columbia seems to be one of attitude, for whatever reasons may be common to our society. Mr. Speaker, if there were some possible way of getting all people to develop a more positive attitude, many of our economic problems would be far less than they are. Nonetheless, the economy is improving, and we are in a period of renewal.

I'm very distressed when I hear comments from the opposition and some of their folks who work in various parts of the media –– some of them –– when they talk about these various projects, which are megaprojects, for want of a better term. They speak about these projects as though they have no benefit to our economy.

We were on the Annacis bridge the other day, and it was amazing to see all of the workers there who apparently are not working, according to the critics. According to them, the Annacis bridge hasn't created any employment; it's of no value; it's a megaproject. Well, the people who are working there apparently haven't heard about that. You drive down to downtown Vancouver or other cities, and you see construction projects underway –– new construction, new development –– and you see people working there. But according to the critics, they're unemployed; they're not working. Someone sure is, and a lot of people have been working for a long time in the new developments in British Columbia.

We had some mild chuckling from the opposite side yesterday when one of the members was speaking about the municipal partnership program and the effects it's having in municipalities. I believe the member for Coquitlam mentioned a couple of specific projects which have come on line since that partnership program was introduced, and there was some chuckling. I can't understand why it's funny that suddenly 50 people who were not working yesterday are now employed. It certainly isn't funny to them. They're very pleased.

Remember B.C. Place. Remember, we weren't supposed to go ahead with the stadium. We weren't supposed to go ahead with the ALRT. We weren't supposed to go ahead with the Annacis bridge. We weren't supposed to go ahead with the Coquihalla Highway. We weren't supposed to go ahead with northeast coal. We weren't supposed to go ahead with all of these various programs because they were megaprojects, and megaprojects meant bad.... I remember the former leader of the NDP in the last election said were they elected, there would be no further megaprojects. I suppose later it could be defined as to what a megaproject is.

Mr. Speaker, I have seen the people working on the Coquihalla Highway, and I've talked to those who supply, the contractors. They're all working. these people. That's the nature of their employment: they have to have such projects. The Annacis bridge is the same thing.

The ALRT. With great pride the people in Richmond manufactured the great majority of those concrete beams for the ALRT. That was a megaproject, and the people working in Richmond producing those concrete forms and beams were very thankful that there was a project capable of utilizing their skill and expertise. They developed a whole new technology. Those people were working. They still are working. They don't worry about megaprojects.

When I was in Tumbler Ridge and Chetwynd speaking to the people there about northeast coal, they told me that 40 percent of the economy in Chetwynd is directly attributed to Tumbler Ridge and the coal deposits in that area. But according to these.... The MLA over there used to call it a rat's hole. Another MLA runs around and says the hole is in the wrong place and they're not getting any coal out of there. They're getting coal. People are working there. Thousands of people are employed in that area of the province. That wouldn't have gone ahead, according to our critics. Neither would the Coquihalla Highway, the Annacis bridge, the ALRT, B.C. Place. or even Expo. None of it would have gone ahead. They had some vision of people being employed doing nothing, apparently: probably advising each other how to continue working but doing nothing,

The opposition has never said what they would do other than bow to a person who one day could be their leader –– the mayor of Vancouver, Mike Harcourt. His idea of renewal is to get the city off the hook and have provincial and federal funds put forward to take care of the infrastructure within the major cities. The cities have not kept that up, so bail them out with hundreds of millions of dollars to clean up their infrastructure. That goes over very well in Kamloops, Prince George, Penticton, Cranbrook and other cities, where they're not even being considered. Oh, no. You'd take care of your own, but if you're in a major city –– Vancouver, Montreal, Toronto and so on –– then bailout from the federal and provincial governments. That'll get everyone working, apparently. According to them, everyone who's out of a job is suitable for working in that type of endeavour.

AN HON. MEMBER: What did CUPE have to say about that?

HON. MR. NIELSEN: Don't talk.... CUPE or Kube?

AN HON. MEMBER: CUPE.

HON. MR. NIELSEN: Oh, I thought you were talking about my neighbour, Mr. Kube.

In the last two or three years in the municipality of Richmond, with a population of approximately 105,000, there has been an immense transformation in the economy. A very large section of what is referred to as the downtown core has been completely redeveloped, with new projects, new retail outlets; thousands of jobs in construction, and employment now. But in the industrial sector of my municipality of Richmond, over the last few years....

A state-of-the-art electronics company, one which employs 600 people, was not even in existence four years ago.

[ Page 7390 ]

It's an international supplier of digital equipment and all that fancy electronic stuff. Industry upon industry has been locating in Richmond. One company produces international standard high-speed boats –– inflatable craft. They're used by the Canada Coast Guard, the U.S. Coast Guard, the RCMP, the U.S. Navy, and they're exporting them around the world –– a company which has been assisted by the government of B.C. Another company in Richmond is producing heart valves, which are exported around the world. They produce a couple of hundred a week. All of this so-called high-tech industry is happily located in Richmond, being encouraged by the ministries within this government, receiving some assistance when circumstances require and permit.

When I speak about the economy, particularly as it is associated with Richmond, one company that always gets a big laugh is Health Care Diaper Inc. They're producing 150,000 articles a day. People think it's kind of funny, but the 65 people working there, who were not working there a few months ago, think it's marvellous. It's a $50 million market in the province of British Columbia, and until that plant started we were importing every one of those articles. Sixty-five people are now employed at that plant, and doing extremely well. And yes, Mr. Speaker, they've been assisted by the provincial government, and they look toward expansion.

I know Richmond is not typical of every area of the province. It has a certain number of features which make it very attractive for certain levels of industry, including climate, access to transportation and some other benefits. Nonetheless, Mr. Speaker, the economy has changed dramatically in the past few years in my municipality of Richmond. We hear about high-tech technology. We hear about these various new ideas. In Richmond you see them, and they're looking to expand throughout British Columbia. Some of the investors who come to our province can feel some reluctance when they pay too much attention to some of the rumours or myths about British Columbia.

I understand information was released recently –– last year, I believe –– that said we had the lowest number of lost employee days in 21 years. People are talking about the problems, for some reason, in British Columbia as though it's true about labour management discord. There is a lot of sabre rattling, a lot of noise and a lot of words exchanged between parties. But at this moment, I don't believe there are any major strikes at all in British Columbia or work disruptions none that I am aware of.

AN HON. MEMBER: What about Canadian Tire?

HON. MR. NIELSEN: That's an ongoing thing. It has been going on for five years, I believe. It's an ongoing thing from Prince George, I believe. PWA was on strike, and it has been settled, thankfully, but I believe that really is more of a federal situation, being an airline. Sure, there are going to be some disruptions, but B.C. does not in fact have this reputation that we seem to have around the world, that we have an unstable labour force. The facts would suggest otherwise, but the myths and rumours certainly are there.

A major investor visited British Columbia a few years back, and they were looking at Vancouver as a possible site for a pretty extensive investment development. He arrived on the day the buses were on strike. He turned on the television and found out how bad everything was in B.C. He couldn't get a taxi in Vancouver. When he got back to Los Angeles, his recommendation was it may not be the most suitable site for investment because of the impression he got simply being here. That's unfortunate, because the truth does not suggest those conclusions should be reached.

Mr. Speaker, the throne speech speaks of renewal, not only economic renewal but I would suggest a renewal of positive attitude in our province. I was speaking with some people last Friday evening in Langley. One was a bus driver with B.C. Transit. Another fellow worked as a truck driver for a company supplying the Coquihalla Highway. Another fellow was a mechanic and one was unemployed. He had been working on a Highways project. These were relatively young people, and it was most interesting to hear their comments about B.C. One said: "We should be far more proud of our province than we are. We have everything going for us in our province." The mechanic said: "If you want a job, you can get a job." He said: "I've never been out of work." The other fellow said: "Well, you're a first-class mechanic." He said: "That's not the point. I go and I find a job."

[3:00]

All of them suggested that one of the great missing factors in our society is a positive attitude about what we have, instead of all of the attention paid to what could be, what might be and what never was. We heard opposition critics saying: "Well, what's going to happen after Expo?" Why don't we ask ourselves: "What would have happened without Expo?" We're always talking about what we're going to do next time. Sure, that's a fair question, but it's not the only part of life. We pay attention to the past. We have to pay attention to the future. We can't forget today. There is tremendous activity taking place in our province, all of it intended to give us a better opportunity for the future, not something unto itself and the game is over after that.

Critics to the government understand that. We're getting far less criticism about some of these major projects now than before, because all the surveys indicate the people are very positively behind them. Going throughout the province we see proof of renewal. Some events may not seem to be too important to those from the major metropolitan areas, but in the interior and other parts of B.C., where you see airport expansion or even lights for night flights, you see new construction in hospitals and other treatment centres, a very important part of a small community, and an important part of a community not only for the service it renders but for the service it provides for those who may wish to settle there and improve the economy by establishing some type of operation.

This is happening throughout the province. We are servicing the people very well in B.C. If we are to continue to maintain that type of program, we must continue to see our economy grow. I was most pleased in reflecting upon the message from the Lieutenant-Governor when he spoke of what has happened and what will happen, and he made reference to some of the modifications made in tax laws in B.C. to give people the opportunity of getting something started by permitting them some relaxation from this onerous burden of taxes, particularly property taxes under certain circumstances.

Mr. Speaker, it is not a new idea, but it's an idea that came around once more in the cycle and was the right idea for the right time. People are shopping around the world when it comes to investment. Capital is international. They are looking for the best deal. We are looking for employers. We want them to locate in B.C., provided they are not going to do damage to our province. But we need that employment; we

[ Page 7391 ]

need that investment. We must welcome these people to our province. What is the point of not collecting taxes from a nonexisting industry when you might be able to get the industry and provide the employment simply by relinquishing a portion of those taxes for a specific period of time as an inducement to get the factory in gear. We have all those beautiful bureaucratic words, the buzzwords that are used, like "forgone revenue" –– revenue that's forgone but never existed and never will. And then we have people complaining: "Why didn't we get that plant? Why is it located in Washington state?" –– or Alberta or Ontario or wherever it might be. Some people have a very strange attitude about what it takes to encourage people to invest their capital at any location. We're trying to get them to do it in B.C. We've had some success. We've had many disappointments, because sometimes we're simply outbid by other jurisdictions who can either respond more quickly or already have their tackle and gear ready to get that person immediately. That's the competition we face worldwide. We are dependent to a very large degree upon that which is permitted in Canada and that which we permit in British Columbia.

[Mr. Strachan in the chair.]

Unemployment is, I'm sure, the number one concern of most people in the province, and if you as an individual are unemployed, obviously it's the number one important problem. There is no point in attempting to suggest there is any better form of income assistance than employment. There are those on income assistance who simply cannot be employed –– cannot function –– and they are categorized as such and there is assistance available. But for those who can work, who are employable, there is no better form of assistance than finding them a job or working on conditions which will allow them to find a job. And most of them do. Most of them eventually find employment of some kind. Most of them after a couple of months, on average, find some form of employment.

But what better way to offer a person income assistance than to set the scene so the economy is such that people are going to be employed, whether it's full time, part time, seasonal or whatever? The construction workers are a great example. We hear that they work on a major project. Then the project is over, and they're unemployed. That doesn't come as a surprise to the construction workers. That's the nature of their job. It always has been. Many of them move great distances as well –– project to project. That's not new.

Mr. Speaker, we have had the opportunity of developing parts of British Columbia, and we could do more. We could do a great deal more if we had a little more cooperation from certain segments as well. We could do a great deal more, and I think British Columbia's record is very, very good. And more must be done, of course. With a positive attitude we can do a great deal more.

One comment I'd like to mention, because I don't think British Columbia is fairly treated by the federal government with respect to procurement. The federal government spends an enormous amount of Canadian tax dollars in providing themselves with supplies, goods and services, some of it for military but also for many other areas of federal government. British Columbia represents approximately 10 percent of Canada in land size, population, economy and so on –– approximately 10 percent. We receive about 3 percent of the federal government's expenditure for goods, supplies and services. That is simply not fair. We have shipyards in British Columbia. There is no reason why we cannot receive a fair amount of whatever federal work is done and whatever vessels they may have. I know we get the opportunity once in a while to build a ship, but we should be receiving our fair share. And if we can't do it with shipyards then we can do it in some other area, but there is no reason in the world why, other than Ontario and Quebec, the balance of Canada receives about 19 percent –– B.C. about 3 percent. It's not a matter of calculation. It's a matter of fairness. The people of British Columbia through their taxes are supplying the money to the government of Canada. It's only reasonable that we get a reasonable return. It doesn't have to be precise, but double from three would be a good start. We can provide those services in British Columbia. We can provide the goods and the materials. We have the expertise. We should not have to relocate an industry closer to Ottawa simply to receive what would be a reasonable benefit for the taxpayers of British Columbia. But, Mr. Speaker, it's difficult sometimes working with other levels of government to achieve what you might feel is an equitable and fair arrangement, but we will continue to do so.

I'm very encouraged by the attitude of the people of our province –– the positive attitude of so many people in B.C., the attitude of those people who have come forward and taken on challenges such as I mentioned: the new technology necessary for those concrete beams for the ALRT SkyTrain and the Annacis Island bridge –– a massive undertaking. In fact, some of them said, "You simply can't produce a beam that size out of concrete," which they did. This is what people in B.C. can do. We have to have investors, we have to have confidence, and I think we have to have a very positive attitude.

I look forward to 1986 as being a great year for British Columbia. I do not share for one minute the attitude that when Expo is finished, B.C. Is going to go down the tube. I think Expo is going to be a tremendous boost to our economy and to our people. It will give the people of B.C. –– more particularly, I'm sure, the people of Vancouver –– great pride in their city and their province and their country. That is an intangible that is extremely valuable. So I think 1986 is great. I think the throne speech is excellent, and I'm certainly going to vote for it.

MR. LEA: The throne speech is not what you could call a great document, but then they never are, regardless of government. Throne speeches are basically, as we all know, written by the government and read by His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor. But they are written by the government, and the government in its throne speech says: "Boy, we have been good. We have been a good government." The Lieutenant-Governor says "my government and my ministers," but we all know that speech was written for him by the government.

The throne speech has very little in it that's new. It's a public relations document. But there is one good thing about the throne speech.

AN. HON. MEMBER: You weren't listening.

MR. LEA: I was listening. Look. I've got it memorized; I've heard it before.

The throne speech does do one thing. It allows members of this House a wide-ranging latitude in the topics discussed

[ Page 7392 ]

during debate. In other words, it gives back-benchers on both the government and opposition side the opportunity to talk about concerns of British Columbia that they wouldn't normally have any access to during legislative debate or budget debate.

Today we started out by talking about one of the issues that affects us in British Columbia, and that's Indian land claims. The Attorney-General (Hon. Mr. Smith) rose in his place and read correspondence from Mr. Crombie of the federal government and replies from this government to the federal government. The Attorney-General is correct in saying that every government preceding this one has taken the same position on compensation for Indian land claims, should they be negotiated, and that is that it is the responsibility of the federal government. This is not a time for this House to divide into parties. This is a time for all British Columbians, regardless of political party, to say to the federal government: "We will not accept that kind of a deal." It's not a time to go after the government or to go after the opposition, as I saw in the House here today. This is not a time to divide ourselves; this is a time to join together as British Columbians against the federal government on this issue.

Let's talk about the federal government because it, in many ways, is not our government. It is the government of central Canada, and it doesn't matter whether it's Liberal, NDP or Conservative. We all know where they get their marching orders from. It's where all the seats are –– in Toronto and Quebec –– and they are going to do as they are told. During the last federal election campaign we had three federal leaders of three political parties talking about alienation in western Canada. Not one of them, though, had the intestinal fortitude to talk about what we're alienated about, because if they even talk about it they're afraid they could lose votes in central Canada. They didn't mention the tariffs that plague us in the west; they didn't talk about the freight rates that plague us in the west.

A few moments ago the Minister of Human Resources, the member for Richmond (Hon. Mr. Nielsen), was talking about the unfairness of not getting our share of supplying the federal government with the material they buy. Well, it goes further than that. I'm not sure we could supply many of those items, because federal policy in the past has made sure that we don't have an industrial complex in western Canada. Let me explain one brief thing, and that's about freight rates. A great portion of the freight rate between western Canada and central Canada is not based on weight or volume of goods. It's based on whether that product is finished or unfinished. You can ship an unfinished product from western Canada to central Canada much more cheaply than you can a finished product.

[3:15]

So you can see what happens. The cheaper freight rate takes those raw commodities from western Canada down to central Canada, where they go into their industrial complex. It's designed to do that. To add insult to injury, not only do we ship our raw goods to central Canada to be processed, we send them the energy to do it. And if you just look at the plain economics of it, if you're going to ship your raw material and energy to central Canada, which is an expense that has to be added onto the final product, how can we turn products out that are going to be competitive in the world when we have artificial impediments put in by the federal government, at the behest of central Canada and the Canadian Manufacturers' Association, who want to keep it all down there, and the banking community of central Canada? No matter how you face it, we are poor cousins to central Canada.

[Mrs. Johnston in the chair.]

Are we finally going to say we want full partnership in Canada or no partnership? Because that's what it seems to take. When Quebec says it, they get everything they want. We're out here acting like Goody Twoshoes. We watch our first minister and our Minister of Finance go to the table, sitting down with first ministers and Finance ministers –– never a word about the freight rates, never a word about tariffs. It's always some airy-fairy thing that'll look good –– they hope –– to the press back home.

But when are we going to put it on the table that we in western Canada are getting a raw deal from the federal government because of the distribution of votes in this country? Those are the kinds of things that British Columbia should be taking to the federal-provincial conferences. If we don't do that, there will be no industrial development to speak of, and we will be a dying economy instead of a growing economy. The problems the federal government and central Canada give us are not the only problems we have, but they're a big part of it.

We've also had in this throne speech some arguing back and forth about who has the best public works program going. When I listen to the New Democratic Party talk about economic renewal, I hear about public works programs. I hear about taking taxpayers' dollars and spending those dollars to build water and sewer lines and infrastructure throughout our province. The only party I hear that does more of that than the NDP say they would do is the Social Credit. When it comes to public works programs and spending the taxpayers' dollar, nobody has to take a back seat to the Social Credit. Whatever dreams they had of anything resembling free enterprise have gone by the board a long time ago.

That's what the argument is every election. The Social Credit says: "Vote for us because we're free enterprise." And the NDP say: "No, vote for us because we like people better than they do." Now I know some people in the NDP who don't love anybody. I know some people in the Social Credit who are humanitarian. I don't think it goes by party who are nice, humanitarian people. However, on the other side of the House these free-enterprisers....

Interjection.

MR. LEA: The ex-Minister of Agriculture is speaking now. How in God's name can you be a free-enterpriser and keep the agricultural marketing boards –– the supply managing boards –– here? How can you be a free-enterpriser and keep the liquor control board passing out licences creating monopolies? How can you be free enterprise with a Motor Carrier Commission that won't let the little guy take a crack at the big guy? There are members over there who applaud that; they just don't have the will to change it. They like the ring of it, because it sounds good. It's sort of cliché conservatism. However, they don't practise it. Have you ever seen a more regulated economy than that in British Columbia?

The hon. member for Richmond (Hon. Mr. Nielsen) was talking earlier about not getting our fair share of government spending out of Ottawa. Well, I'll have him know that his government, through the Minister of Agriculture, just signed

[ Page 7393 ]

a new agreement on industrial milk that pretty much cuts us out. We signed that. We're up to about 5.5 or 6 percent of the industrial supply of milk, when we have 11 percent of the population.

MR. SCHROEDER: You didn't read it, Graham.

MR. LEA: I read it, and I know where the farmers are in this province, and I know where your seat is situated. We got a raw deal on industrial milk. I know who asked you to do it. It was those farmers already with quotas, who had their licence for monopoly already in place: they were the ones who asked you to do it. But don't try to compete with them, because they'll take your milk and dump it in the ditch. They won't even let you give it to the food bank, because they say it's part of marketing. I'm going to tell you that if we had our fair share of supply of industrial milk in this province....

Interjection.

MR. LEA: That's right. I don't blame you, Harvey. You signed an agreement with the federal government that did British Columbia in on industrial milk. Do you know we could put about 300 farms into production in this province if we only were allowed to produce the industrial milk that we consume? We could do that, but no, we decided not to. Why? We decided not to because the two major political parties in this province cater to vested interests instead of catering to the province as a whole. You've both got your pet vested interests. What we have to ask ourselves is: are we going to be legislators and a government for all of the province, or just our friends –– the ones who pay money for our election campaigns, the ones we owe, the ones we're afraid of? They may have too much clout.

Take the milk marketing board. Last year the consumers of this country paid over $1 billion in subsidy on milk alone. That's taxation. That's giving people monopolies by licence, to have a non-competitive system of supplying commodities. Every time you buy a litre of milk, you're paying 25 cents towards quota, and that goes to pay the interest to the bank. We talk about single mothers. When they have to go out and buy milk for their children, they're subsidizing a litre of milk a quarter, and it's going directly –– not directly, but in two easy steps –– into the coffers of the banks.

Talk to the banks. They don't want to get rid of the quota system in milk, or the agricultural boards, because they make a lot of money on it. You can't go to the bank, with all your equipment from your farm and your land, and get a loan. They'll only lend money on the quota.

MR. SCHROEDER: Thank God for forgiveness.

MR. LEA: I'll tell you, you signed a bad deal.

This government talks about free trade. We don't even have free trade across our own interprovincial borders when it comes to things like cheese and milk products. We don't even have free trade with Alberta, never mind with Ronald Reagan. Who signed the agreement stopping free trade between provinces? That government. Who is free enterprise around here and who isn't?

The liquor control board is another beauty. It seems to me that if you want to have competitiveness in the liquor industry in this province, you would say: "Here's some requirements you have to meet if you want to sell booze. You have to meet the health standards, you have to meet the building code standards, and the community that you're going to operate in has to give you a licence to run that kind of business in the community. If you meet all of those requirements, then you should be able to go into business." Not in this province. Who pays to make sure that the monopoly is maintained? We'd have to open up the books of certain political parties to see who they pay to make sure that monopoly stays in place.

It's the same with the Motor Carrier Commission. When I was in cabinet and sat on the review panel of cabinet for motor carrier decisions.... Here would come some poor little guy who saw a niche, with a truck; he could make a few dollars by hauling some freight, maybe around Surrey. The business opportunity was there. He had the equipment. If he could get the licence, he'd have the financing. So he'd apply to the Motor Carrier Commission to haul some freight. The Motor Carrier Commission would say no. They'd say: "Here's how we operate it, folks. Here's a geographic area, and within that geographic area there's only so much freight to be handled. Once we've issued enough licences to handle that volume of freight, then we'll quit issuing licences." Thereby you arrive at a monopoly.

What would happen when this small businessman from Surrey wanted to get a chunk of the action and compete with the big boys? They'd finally come to cabinet on an appeal, and in would come Canadian Freightways with a battery of lawyers and advisers –– Charlie Locke, QC; they'd all be there. Nothing but the best hired against this poor little guy who wanted to do nothing more than compete with Canadian Freightways.

AN HON. MEMBER: He's gone to his reward now. He's a judge.

MR. LEA: He's a judge? I hope Canadian Freightways don't come up there.

They came into that cabinet room, with all their lawyers and their help –– to do what? To stop competition.

While we're at it, let's take a look at the Canadian Standards Association. What are they?

AN HON. MEMBER: You're against everyone.

MR. LEA: I'm not against everyone, but I'm sure against people who form monopolies, by licence, to gouge the consumer.

The Canadian Manufacturers' Association owns Canadian Standards. Did you know that? There's provincial legislation that says that before you can sell an electrical item, for instance, in the marketplace, you must have a CSA sticker, Canadian Standards Association.

[Mr. Strachan in the chair.]

I had always assumed that that merely meant safety, that somehow or other if I had that sticker on there, I was guaranteeing the people of the province that they weren't going to be electrocuted by the electrical gadget. So now I and some other people were in a manufacturing business, and we were making lamps. So we took the lamp to the Canadian Standards Association in Richmond, the subsidiary of central Canada. So we applied to get a licence for a sticker. We wanted the lamps tested to see whether they were safe, and, boy, the red tape. It went on and on, and every time there was more red

[ Page 7394 ]

tape, you had to pay more money, and still no sticker. So finally I went in there one day really angry, and the guy said: "Look, you may be angry at us now, but you get your sticker and you'll love it." I said: "Why is that?" He said: "It stops competition."

So I thought, who are these birds? I started checking. Sure enough, they're a wholly owned subsidiary of the Canadian Manufacturers' Association of central Canada. Now there is something this government can do something about: take us out of that system and have our own under B.C. Hydro, or farm it out. I don't care how you do it, but let's have something in B.C. so that we test new products to make sure they're safe but we don't stop competition by using that tool. That's what they're doing.

When you take the Canadian Standards Association, you take all of the monopolies that are set up in our economy by licence, and you take the freight rates and you take the tariffs. You know, we in western Canada should be proud that we survived and continue to survive, because they're all in there. Everything you can do to stop economic growth we have done by regulation and licence one way or the other. We've done it all.

AN HON. MEMBER: The CSA are worse than you say.

[3:30]

MR. LEA: I know they are, but if I say it, I'm afraid even this House won't protect me. But you have the authority, Mr. Minister, to do something. It's provincial legislation that sets up the Canadian Standards Association to practise in this province. Throw them out. Get rid of them, because they're holding us back. But are we trying to deal with the real problems in this province, or aren't we? I don't think we really are.

Let's talk about education and health care for a minute, which are real problems. I get the feeling –– and I'll probably be answered before we get out of this session –– that on this side of the House, the New Democratic side, they feel that it's a problem that money could solve. More money would solve the problem. I get a feeling on the other side of the House that if only they got less money, it would solve the problem. I don't think either is the correct way to look at it. Obviously, we need a good, sound, appropriate education system in this province, and it's a need that I think is different than it was a few years ago.

So what do we have to do before we fund anything? We have to first of all come to a consensus of what is the appropriateness of the educational system we're going to fund. That's what we have to do, and you can't play musical chairs with the ministers because that just means another study. So more money or less money isn't necessarily the answer. What is the answer is that by talking with one another as British Columbians, we have to establish the correct, appropriate educational system for now and to take us into the future. I'll tell you, Mr. Speaker, when that appropriateness is found, we can't afford not to fund it because our future depends on it, both socially and economically.

I get the feeling that we are playing games with education –– one side promising more because there's a constituency out there that says we should have more; another side saying no, it should be less because there is that other constituency that says it should be less. But it doesn't matter whether you put less money into an inappropriate educational system or more money, it will still be inappropriate, and that's what we have to look for. We have to start talking about process. If we're going to find the appropriate health care system and educational system, then we have to talk with one another about the appropriate process by which we, if we are lucky, might find the answers. I say if we're lucky, but we sure have to try. That's a process that has to happen.

Health care –– we don't have a Ministry of Health in this province. We have a ministry of sickness. That's its sole function. When people get sick, that's when you see the health care system, but preventive health care is almost nonexistent. Again, we have not taken a look at health care to see what the appropriate health care system would be for now and to take us into the foreseeable future. So we end up talking about nothing more than funding –– the restraint side and the spend side. But when are the issues going to get discussed? When are we going to talk about the need for a changing education system and a changing health care system? You know, we give it lip service. We talk about our economic future being more proportionately tied to education today than at any time before in our history, yet we don't seem to take that lip service and put it into a process where we can come up with appropriateness.

I guess the question comes down to: are we all playing games at everybody's expense? Is everybody in this House a person who wants a better British Columbia? I think so. Is everybody in this House willing to work with others in order to bring it about? I think so. But then what stops us? Is it merely the quest for power, Mr. Speaker? Is it that the Social Credit want to hang on to power so badly that they can't see the forest for the trees. They look across to this side and they see evil people sitting here? Because if that's the case –– and conversely, if it's the case on this side of the House to look over there and see evil people –– then we are in real trouble, because surely in a democracy the fundamentals of it are that we can differ in our opinion of how we reach a better British Columbia, but surely there must be respect for each other's ideas and there must be a way that we can communicate with one another and sift the best of ideas from each other. But do we do that?

I'll tell you the real danger of polarization: it all becomes a system of evil. You see, if you're in government and you think that the opposition represents evil, then it allows you to do things you wouldn't normally do –– even immoral things, because even that's better than letting the evil in. And it's the same on this side. View each other as evil and you make this province evil. I don't believe citizens out there think of each other as evil.

It might surprise people to know that when you sit in Margaret's Cafe in Queen Charlotte City, Socreds and NDPers can sit down and have coffee, go out and tow each other out of the ditch if that's necessary. They have to get along in a community. They would probably be shocked to find out that you people hate each other so much and that you think each other is so evil. But that evil starts to go through society, if in your legislature or your parliament it's the order of the day.

That is the evil of polarization. You start to see each other as evil. Pretty soon your followers in your political parties start to see each other as evil, neighbours start to see each other as evil, brothers and sisters in the same family start to see each other as evil, and all for what? Surely to god not a pension. Is that what it's all about –– a paycheque and a pension? If it is, we're in real rough shape in this province. If it's retaining a cabinet seat at all costs regardless of your own

[ Page 7395 ]

personal morality, that's evil. If you want to seek cabinet with that in mind, that's evil. But, you know, one of the biggest evils in this House is the fact that the back-benchers of the Social Credit do not speak up. That is evil.

AN HON. MEMBER: Oh, you haven't heard us?

MR. LEA: No, I have not heard you. The only time I hear back-benchers talk is to tell the government how good they are and to say they agree. Even when they don't agree, like the member for North Vancouver-Seymour (Mr. Davis), they vote with them. And our whole system is predicated on the fact that every back-bencher in this House, whether it's government or opposition, is here in a sense to keep the government on its toes and honest. When that breaks down, Mr. Speaker, you have dictatorship –– you have one man who will ruin the whole caucus by using whether you go into cabinet or whether you don't as a lever of power. You shut back-benchers up that way. You shut cabinet ministers up that way.

Mr. Speaker, if that's where we've ended up in this province, then we've got a long way to go. I listen to the platitudes in this House, but I'll tell you, actions do speak louder than words. When you are in the back bench of a government and you don't speak up and then act on it, you're not doing your job for the people who elected you.

On the other hand, and in conclusion, I think it's just as bad to stand up in the House as the Leader of the Opposition and not take a stand for British Columbia against what the federal government has just told us about land claims. That's just as bad. That was not a time to attack the government. That was a time to say: " What can we do together to bring this federal government to its senses?" But I guess it just ain't politics in this province.

MR. MITCHELL: It's interesting when you go through the throne speech –– which I have numerous times –– trying to pick out something that I feel should be in a throne speech and that has been laid down by the traditions: that a throne speech indicates to the Legislature and to the public in general the particular direction the government is going to go for this coming year. The throne speech should contain the new ideas, the new programs, that are coming in. But when I go through this throne speech, and when I talked to some of the veteran reporters who work around the parliament buildings, they all said that this throne speech, in the majority, is just a rehash of press releases, of announcements that have been made over and over and over again.

I think the one that leads the pack as far as being repetitious is the proposal that we are now going to embark again on a natural gas pipeline to Vancouver Island. I believe it was in the late 1960s that it first appeared, and at least once or twice between elections and at election times we continue to get: "We're going to have a natural gas pipeline to Vancouver Island." Maybe there is some validity and natural gas should be on the island, but all those who have studied it –– those in the energy business, those in the federal government, all the municipalities of Vancouver Island –– have said there is a better and more economical way than building a natural gas pipeline, which I don't believe this government really intends to start on. If the electricity that we claim to have a surplus of in British Columbia is made available to people living on Vancouver Island, or to other people in British Columbia who are not in the natural gas network, at the cost to the Americans when we export it out of the country, we could heat homes on Vancouver Island at the same cost, or a comparable cost, that the people on the lower mainland are paying for natural gas.

These are the facts that have come out of various studies, and I think this is the important part we should be looking at from a Legislature and a government position. We should be looking at how all issues are going to affect the community, the region that we live in, and not use throne speeches, political announcements or press releases to hand out another carrot if we do not intend to make that a solemn commitment.

I think it's important that we review what the Leader of the Opposition proposed last year: that we look at economic development not solely on the basis of megaprojects that the government seems to like rehashing and rehashing, but look at the economic investment that this government and this community can involve itself in. Look at it throughout British Columbia; look at how it will affect the various regions so that people will not have to continue to pull up roots and move somewhere else, hoping to find a job at the next megaproject. We should look at it on a general principle that British Columbians do live in every part of B.C., and in every part of B.C. there are resources, people, energy. Let's develop the best out of that region to build in some kind of a stability, which each one of us as an individual, and each one of us who represents a constituency, really wants.

[3:45]

I would like to go over some of the issues that affect my own riding. When I go through the throne speech I read the great work that the critical industries commissioner did with one particular mill in my riding, Sooke Forest Products. The critical industries commissioner did put it together to get the jobs and the mill back in operation. If you go over the Hansards and the many speeches that I've made in the last seven years, you will see where I predicted that if the government, the banks and the Ministry of Forests did not take a positive look at the situation that was developing in Sooke, that mill would go under. There were two main reasons. They weren't a secret to anybody. They weren't a secret to the Ministry of Forests. They weren't a secret to the banks. That mill did not have an assured log supply. That mill was overcapitalized, and paying 19 percent interest. These are simple facts.

I feel, Mr. Speaker, that if we are going to have a critical industries commissioner, he should be looking at the facts as they are right now and should not continue to wait until companies go broke and cause an awful lot of unemployment. When you have one community like I had in Sooke, with 200 people out of work, that community suffered. Everything that the critical industries commissioner did.... He restructured it. Unfortunately the Toronto-Dominion bank took a bath on it. But these facts were known. That situation could have been corrected three years before it went under. The government should have sat down with the banks and said: "Okay, what is the situation to date? How can this company continue to operate and be viable?" We can't afford the pleasure of waiting to see companies go down. We can't afford the pleasure –– if some groups feel there is a certain amount of satisfaction in it –– of seeing people unemployed. We can't afford it. Governments, society and communities must be looking at how we can preserve the economics within the region. The surplus power that is now being made available to that company could have been made available three years ago. The tax deferments that were made could have been made three years ago. The financial restructuring could

[ Page 7396 ]

have been done three years ago, and we would not have had a community suffering economically, with 200 people out of work.

All we in the opposition have been trying to get the government to do is take off their rose-coloured glasses and look at the hard facts locally and at how we can maintain jobs.

I can't help but think that we had another situation, when Victoria Plywood went down. It was restructured as a co-op. I say to you, Mr. Speaker, that all the information that went into making that a viable operation that created jobs again should not be made a political gimmick to throw around. When a company realizes that they are having mechanical problems with a mill, or economical problems with a mill, or that there is going to be a dislocation of employment, a hard, serious look should take place before it happens.

Right now we have the VMD in Victoria. It's not for me to make comment on how Frank Hertel ripped off the federal government in some tax scheme and then put the money and bought the VMD and then mortgaged it. I'm not interested in that situation. But I am interested to know that VMD has all the equipment. It has the technology; it has the people who can go to work. But today we have a series of lawsuits, we have a series of liens, we have a federal government saying they won't renew an agreement on a piece of land that the company has built on and has a lot of their equipment on. In the meantime what happens? There are 50 to 100 people out of work, there are jobs that are not being done, and the government is doing nothing. Both federal and provincial, they continue to wait until it's an opportune time that we can dangle some piece of legislation out and make political Brownie points.

We must start looking at jobs that we have. We have an internal economy; we have the equipment. We can't keep talking about foreign money coming in. A lot of the problems we have right now could be dealt with locally. They could be dealt with immediately instead of continuing to wait for some opportune time. In the meantime there are a lot of unemployed. There are a lot of businesses that are not getting the spinoff that you get when people are working and spending. If we're going to look at employment, if we're going to look eventually to full employment, we have to deal with it on a regional, local basis, and there has to be input from all levels –– from the municipal governments, the provincial government, and the unions and the businessites continue to take a positive look at it.

I go through the budget and see statements: "We're going to minimize the tax burden on the citizen." But, Mr. Speaker, you know as I know that each year the taxes of the provincial government.... They have them all indexed so gasoline prices go up. They're all indexed: cigarettes, tobacco. The taxes go up. But still we have this.... I would say it's kind of stretching the truth a little bit on a lot of it when they have in the throne speech that we're going to cut taxes. We're not. The statement that we have the second-lowest income tax in Canada.... If we're going to make statements like that, then we've got to compare apples with apples. It has been pointed out by a good friend of the government, Michael Walker, when he says that if you look at what happens in our tax system.... In every other province except for three the health care is added in as part of your income tax. When you add in our personal income tax and what we pay in health care and premiums and co-insurance, we are the second-highest payers of personal income tax.

Now I believe that the throne speech should have facts. It shouldn't have a rerun of a lot of political propaganda that is not really altogether true.

Another thing that it did say in the throne speech is that we must be working together. I've said time after time in this House that we must work together not only at the local level but at the business level and at the workers' level. We must work together to continue full employment, or work toward it. If we don't do that, if we don't take that positive approach, we're going to have the continued ups and downs within our province.

When I was on a forestry conference up in Nelson before Christmas.... The same problem that I'm faced with continuously in some of the local mills, getting an assured timber supply, is faced by small mills, small worker groups that are trying to put together new businesses up in the interior. The government does not look at the small industry that is trying to get established. They don't make some of the timber available. Up in the interior Westar has large areas of timber that they are not using. One of the small companies that I talked to had a small job where they were salvaging wood and making beanpoles for the agricultural industries. There was timber going to waste in stands, and the availability was denied to that company. It was allowed to rot.

[Mrs. Johnston in the chair.]

I feel that if we going to have projects, we have to have a lot of small projects. We have to keep people working in the areas where they have their homes, where they have their investments, where we have the schools, the libraries and the hospitals. We can't keep allowing areas to go down without any input.

I have another area in my own riding, Port Renfrew. For years Port Renfrew was a kind of a centre of the forestry industry, but because of overcutting and changes in the logging operations, the main centre of that industry has moved farther north. Port Renfrew does have the ability to produce more jobs, but it takes a little bit of cooperation with the government and with the local community to start these operations up. One of the needs of that particular community is a good access road.

Madam Speaker, we need some input from the government. One attraction that is in every brochure put out by the tourist industry and by other private companies is that people should go out to Port Renfrew to the botanical marine gardens, which is under park status through the government. It is an ecological reserve. But what happens to the road going down to it? You know, you put out all these brochures, and people get in their cars, and they drive the 40 miles over those logging roads, and they have about three miles to drive down to the beach. The original road was a logging road, but for many years the government maintained that road. They graded it and ditched it and put in the important things like culverts, and they looked after it.

But the last few years they have shut down the Highways yard in Port Renfrew because they said it was going to be more efficient to move it out of Port Renfrew. That road has deteriorated to the state that last week when I went in there with a heavy-duty, four-wheel truck, we still couldn't get within a quarter mile of that particular site.

Of all the millions of dollars that are spent in Highways, the government is not listening to the local people. All they want is a secure, safe road so people can encourage tourists to

[ Page 7397 ]

come out there. That is a potential tourist destination area. It has a potential for commercial fishing that is going to be unsurpassed for an area that you can drive to. You drive out to Port Renfrew, you're just inside the blue line of Juan de Fuca Strait, and it has a potential for commercial and recreation salmon fishing second to none.

[4:00]

The people who live there know the potential is there. People are starting up little guide services. They are starting up bed and breakfasts, but you can't keep encouraging people to come out there, because once you travel the road, you'll never come back. A few of us who have a kind of vested interest in going out to some of these areas do it. But with tourists, not only foreign tourists but tourists from the rest of B.C. who are spending money in all the communities they travel through.... When a government gets a plea for help from an area, they should look at it from what it is going to be able to do to that region.

Money is spent on TV advertising saying what great projects we have in tourism and great projects we have in Partners in Enterprise. If just some of the millions of dollars that is spent were spent on real work, then you would impress far more people than you would impress by TV propaganda. I'll put it straight, Madam Speaker: these are the things that we have to look at, because we have to build toward an economy of full employment, and it's only going to be built if we look at it at the smaller level, not at something that looks great on TV. We have to look at every part of British Columbia to build on our internal economy, because as the Minister of Human Resources stated, the most important thing that people want is a job. They don't want welfare. They don't want handouts. They want to be able to do something meaningful and they want to be able to know that when they build a home, when they work, they are going to produce something and they're going to have some security. It takes cooperation from all levels of a society.

You talk about the proposals that have been made by the opposition. Last year the Leader of the Opposition filed with this House an Act to Rebuild the British Columbia Economy Through a "Jobs First" Employment Strategy. You go through that bill. I know, Madam Speaker, you have read it all and you have maybe added some amendments that you know from your own community could create some positive work in your area or that could give an opportunity to secure the continuity of some company that is working and maybe having some financial problems or needs some restructuring and some tax breaks or cheap electricity –– I don't know what it is. But every one of us who represents British Columbia.... We all have our individual suggestions, and I feel that if the government had given that particular bill serious thought and if they'd written that bill into the throne speech, that throne speech would have been something that all of us could have had some confidence in and felt was going to be positive.

You go through the bill.... And I keep hearing this repetition from the government side that the opposition never says anything. There's one here: number 6, "A program of regular highway maintenance and construction" –– just a simple thing like that, regular maintenance and construction in every part of the area, and a few million here and a few million there to maintain the roads that we need to give access to potential tourist destinations. It's a simple thing, but maybe it's not political. Maybe it doesn't show up on some TV ad as some great project. It's basic, it's simple, it's logical and it's common sense, but I guess the unfortunate part is that it was brought in by the Leader of the Opposition, and the government immediately rejected it.

The second one: "Jobs through energy development." There is a potential of developing new work, new uses of energy. It's laid out –– some of the suggestions that are going to create employment and are going to create a better community, a better society and give us some stability in our country.

Rail electrification. It's easy to say: "Oh, we can't do that. We've always burned either coal or oil or diesel or something." But there are many modern countries in this world that don't have the surplus electricity that British Columbia has. That type of utilization of the resources we have would make British Columbia a richer province.

We've talked about housing. We've talked about a housing development program, and I know the first member for Vancouver Centre (Mr. Barnes) has gone through the problems in his riding of the mismanagement of the government. I think that can be pointed out in 1972 to '75, when the NDP established in British Columbia the Housing Corporation that was going to look at social housing, housing for seniors, housing for the various sections of our community. The one thing that they had was providing the housing for senior citizens. In 1977 the present Social Credit government wiped out the Housing Corporation. The only thing they kept solely in their jurisdiction was housing for senior citizens, and they didn't even accept that one job. If they had provided the housing for senior citizens that is needed in the Vancouver area, they wouldn't have forced people to live in those flea-trap hotels that they are now getting evicted from.

That is our responsibility as members of the Legislature. It's a bigger responsibility for those who sit in the government that they never looked at providing the needed housing. In 1977 the minister, who is now Minister of Finance, said: "The private sector will always provide sufficient housing. We have vacant rental accommodation available." What it was in that centre part of Vancouver was a lot of cheap, flea-ridden hotels that were the only ones they could afford, and we never provided homes that people can live in, in the area they have chosen, in some kind of dignity.

I know it's easy to say, "Well, it's too late to do that," but if we're going to build a better British Columbia, we have to build for the future all the time. Today is the beginning of the future for the next five years. I know we can't go back to 1977 and redo the mistakes that we made then, but we can't keep defending those mistakes. We must look at it, and I know I will be discussing a lot of these issues in the estimates. I thank you very much.

HON. MR. PELTON: It's always a pleasure to stand and take my place on the floor of this House in response to the Speech from the Throne. Even though this is the third time I have undertaken to do this, I do remember very clearly that very first time in 1983 when so many of us were new at the job and stood up and did our best to respond to the Speech from the Throne. Believe it or not, I can even remember the things that I talked about at that time, when I was all starry-eyed and new at the job. I remember talking about cooperation, and about my belief that cooperation throughout our society was a thing that is intensely to be desired. So my first reaction on hearing this year's throne speech was to sue somebody for plagiarism, because they took all my lines. But I don't mind, really.

[ Page 7398 ]

Even the Leader of the Opposition managed to say some nice things about Art Phillips and the Minister of Intergovernmental Relations (Hon. Mr. Gardom), showing that cooperation can and does work. I must say, however, that the Leader of the Opposition did spend an inordinate amount of time being quite critical of our government's efforts. I would have hoped that at this particular time he would have tried rather harder to add more constructive suggestions for additions to His Honour's speech. But on reflection, I recognized that, obviously, he must have shared my belief that it was an excellent speech, expressing a very positive vision which would be exceedingly hard to improve upon.

Some people would hold all politicians in relatively low regard. These people may be surprised to learn that I do listen to the opposition. I listened very carefully to the previous speaker, and I have listened to many of the others, and I don't just listen to them to find a way to criticize them. In fact, while I have less and less time to read for pleasure, I did read the book written by the first member for Vancouver East (Mr. Macdonald), and I must say that I enjoyed it. It was a pleasure to read it. You know, institutional memory is something which I believe in, and I certainly commend the member for North Vancouver–Seymour (Mr. Davis) as well as the member for Vancouver East, for they both wrote what I consider splendid books. I must say that in reading them I could more clearly understand why, with the greatest of respect, I could never embrace the politics of those sitting in the official opposition. Mind you, I do not believe I have any less compassion for people than they do. Tommy Douglas was a great man of the people, and he was a pioneer of medicare. But so was W.A.C. Bennett. I believe the difference which separates these people is one of philosophy, and it comes right down to their views of human nature.

[4:15]

In my view, unlimited paternalism towards adults is no favour. The notion that people should bear no personal responsibility whatsoever for their own poor decisions is not going to help society in the long run. Perhaps a few people are born winners and a few born losers, but I suspect, Madam Speaker, that the vast majority of us are neither. We can be encouraged or we can be discouraged. We react to incentive and so do we react to the lack of it. If we remove, through the state, every penalty for failure, we cannot help but multiply failure, whatever our intentions may be.

To argue otherwise is to be like those who petitioned an old English king by the name of Canute to resolve all their ills. They thought he could resolve everything, and he had to prove to them that not even a great king could alter nature. To prove this to them, he had his throne moved out onto the seashore. When the tide was coming in he told the tide not to come in, but of course it came in anyway. This is how he proved his point.

I say that the great king couldn't alter nature, and no more can we alter human nature. The socialists see us all as social animals. The laissez-faire capitalists see us as naked individuals. Social Crediters, I hope, take a broader view, Madam Speaker, recognizing that we are far more complex than either of these simplistic notions would suggest.

Every man is an island, yet all men are brothers, or sisters –– I wouldn't want to be accused of being sexist. From this paradoxical reality, we must adopt a set of rules and conventions or customs which allow us to live together without robbing anyone of his uniqueness or precious identity. Like the skins of an onion, each of us has many identities: ethnic, religious, cultural, professional, physical and spiritual. We are remarkably complex beings, and our society is too complex by far for any one theory to be universally applicable or sufficient to explain us or to govern us. Neither the marketplace nor Marx is satisfactory to encompass man.

Some of the great changes in our lives have come deliberately as a matter of collective decision-making: extension of the franchise, development of the social safety net. These are clear and salutary cases. But others have not –– whether economic change flowing from inventions such as the automobile, or social change flowing from inventions such as the pill, or sheer population change flowing from the discovery of antibiotics. We must learn to accept, as politicians, that we are not the font of all benevolence on this earth, and that we would be pathetically foolish if we pretended to be so, whether as a big brother or a big uncle. We are only a few dozen individuals out of millions.

Grant us the humility to accord to our fellow man the right to be different from us and the opportunity to achieve great things in free and voluntary association and in natural association through the family, the community, the trade union or the small business enterprise.

I was very pleased, Madam Speaker, that the throne speech recognized that it is the people and not the politicians who will ultimately make life better in the future. With us, we hope; but in spite of us if we fail to see the handwriting on the wall and adapt to the real world around us. Even with the best of intentions, this is often difficult.

As Minister of the Environment, I have been given a particularly good opportunity to see the truth of this. The capitalist United States and the communist Soviet Union have both been equally wed to ideas of the supremacy of heavy industry and, indeed, much of it heavy military industry. Yet people all over this world are questioning those priorities and looking towards a future of different priorities: clean air and water, respect for nature and a desire to banish nuclear arms in a secure and a balanced way. British Columbians are in the forefront of those whose agenda is different from the Cold War, and increasingly, I believe, from the class war model which we inherited from Great Britain. We are not looking at events or issues or ourselves in isolation any more. That is why the government appointed the Wilderness Advisory Committee to look at the broad range of environmentally sensitive areas in our province, rather than single issues in fragmented isolation.

We understand too that money resolves some problems but not others. Few people seriously believe any more that our deliberate efforts to solve all social problems through the infusion of cash are necessarily appropriate. I wish that the members of this House could read a little more science fiction. Madam Speaker, there is a lady named Ursula LeGuin, and she wrote a book. It was a good book, and it's called The Lathe of Heaven. This book has been shown a number of times on the public television broadcasting systems. It deals with a psychiatrist who tries to use the unique power of a patient to change reality to match his dreams, in an effort to eliminate all of the world's problems. Unfortunately, in the end the psychiatrist ends up himself in a straitjacket, because try as he will, he manages only to solve one problem by making other problems very much worse. The dreamer survives with the reassurance of an old Beatles' song, "I get by with a little help from my friends." We have to recognize, I think, Madam Speaker, that sometimes that's the best we can do.

[ Page 7399 ]

I think that the parallel to government is a striking one. As modern researchers in the field of physics now suspect: "Everything is part of everything else." Ecology and economy are intertwined in innumerable ways, some obvious and some much less so. Cutting down trees has a whole range of impacts, and so, too, does not cutting them down. Making it easier to be unemployed may also make it easier to stay unemployed. Government houses built for the homeless may not be the homes that those people want, and there may be cheaper ways of providing them with the housing they desire.

Regulations which make the marketplace a fairer place can add to its strength, far from weakening it; yet, on the other hand, Madam Speaker, we have seen how rental increase ceilings have often become rental increase floors. What I'm getting at is that in government the obvious answer is frequently wrong.

People calculate to their advantage and act accordingly. Some of that advantage is economic and some is not. Some of their motivation is wholesome and some is not. I believe that the doctrine of the golden mean is applicable: "Be moderate, encourage the best in people, and provide also for the worst."

Some people would accuse me of standing in the middle of the road, and I don't mind that a bit. But I also know that if all you do is stand in the middle of the road, you're likely to get run over. I believe, rather, in building bridges, both literally and figuratively, and I believe that the Speech from the Throne provides for just that. I was very impressed with the member for Atlin's (Mr. Passarell's) observation that Expo is a positive statement we are making to the world, both economically and in terms of international understanding and world peace.

We understand that the world is changing and that new approaches are possible, and I notice with great pleasure a press report that the Reagan administration is expected to endorse the call of the International Joint Commission for action on acid rain. That would be a terrific breakthrough, and I must say that it is instances such as this which so richly reward the efforts of all of those concerned citizens who worked so hard and so idealistically to make our world a better place and a safer one in which to live.

I don't believe that human beings are beyond changing for the better. I take pride in the successes and I'm not put off by the difficulties. In my own constituency of Dewdney, Madam Speaker, I'm pleased with the initiatives that have been undertaken, such things as improvements to the Albion ferry system and complementary highway improvements in that area. Eventually, of course, we hope to see a bridge across the river in that area, and I happen to know that the land has already been acquired, at least on one side of the river, so this is not too far down the road.

The recent establishment of the Mission Heritage Park has preserved these historical lands for the enjoyment of those in our community. There have been municipal and school building improvements that have been undertaken, and a major diking improvement to control the flooding problems, which annually plague this area, has been provided for.

Last, but certainly not least, we've seen the establishment of Moli Energy in Dewdney, a project which will provide needed jobs for our citizens.

We all recognize, Madam Speaker, that while our duties in Victoria are of prime importance, we must never forget our responsibilities to our constituents. I listen to them when they tell me that their first priority is job creation, not make-work projects but lasting job creation, primarily through the private sector, but with the encouragement of government, which is precisely what this government does.

I listen to them, Madam Speaker, when they tell me that they want continued progress in providing new and improved health care facilities and programs. I listen to them when they tell me that they want adequate funding and efficient programming in our education system. I listen to them when they ask for increased emphasis on reforestation and on our small business potential. I hear them when they praise our partnership with municipalities and with the federal government. They want to see cooperation between governments, management and labour.

The Leader of the Opposition told us the other day that this throne speech has something for everyone; that the Premier was going to cooperate with everyone in sight. Then he turned around and was trying to find some way of being critical. In essence, he said he didn't believe us. He also said it was –– and I quote –– "all too good to be true." I prefer to take the opposite approach, Madam Speaker: not to fear the worst, but to work for the best. Fear and suspicion are self-fulfilling prophecies. Those who trust no one are trusted by no one. Those who, head down, continually stare at the mud, never see the sky above. This is a blue sky throne speech, and that is what we need in British Columbia today.

I'd like to congratulate Mike Pearce, the mayor of Quesnel, who recently declared a "Good News Day" in his city. We all need a lot of good news days. That is my annual challenge to the opposition. Let's have some good news, some good news days from the opposition. Enthusiasm can be contagious. Reasoning together would be far more productive than squabbling together, and I'm sure everyone in the House is aware of that. We have our own environmental problem in this chamber, and we are the only ones who can do anything about it. I'm going to continue to do my share, as critical politicians commissioner, and I hope my remarks can provide an incentive to some preventive mediation of our own.

I'm delighted that a high priority is being given to more cooperative labour-management relations in our province, as it's vital to our efforts in attracting new job-creating investment. I welcome too the improvements being made to our workers' compensation system, which is a vital social program in our province.

[Mr. Strachan in the chair.]

I confess to being a movie fan, and I'm very much pleased to hear that recognition is being afforded to our arts community and our domestic film industry. "Hollywood North," once a term of derision, is increasingly an emblem of pride and of international standing. We are even in competition for the Oscars, believe it or not. Who would have believed that, even five years ago?

[4:30]

This is going to be an extremely important year in our history. Indeed, we will never be the same again. The opportunity for self-confidence on the world stage is unparalleled; let us use it well. Let us recognize the talents we have, whether young or not so young, male or female, native or immigrant. Let us accept the vision of the throne speech in good faith, and work and reason together for the common good. This year will be remembered as an opportunity lost or as a future gained. The choice is ours.

[ Page 7400 ]

MR. REYNOLDS: Mr. Speaker, I ask leave to make an introduction.

Leave granted.

MR. REYNOLDS: In the galleries and the precincts this afternoon is a former member of this Legislature, a former mayor of Nanaimo, the man who started the world-famous bathtub races. I'd ask the House to welcome Mr. Frank Ney.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: It's indeed a pleasure to once again take my place in this throne speech debate. I think it's a pleasure.

I have read through the document delivered by His Honour but written in the cabinet chambers, of course, or in the office of the Premier, and the comment I want to make is that there is absolutely nothing new. In fact, all of the items mentioned in this document had been announced previously by the Premier or various government ministers. In all my years in this Legislature, this is probably the thinnest throne speech I have seen.

By the way, Mr. Speaker, this document offers no hope whatsoever, in my view, for the state of the economy, for the unemployed, for the people on social assistance in this province. To reiterate very briefly, at the moment we have 237,000 people on social assistance in this province. That figure has been used quite frequently in this Legislature. And as pointed out again yesterday by our leader, 83,000 of the people receiving social assistance are children. We have 192,000 people on UIC in this province, after 10 years of Social Credit government–– employable unemployed. We have the highest rate of business failures in all of Canada. Business failures increased by 166 percent over the last five years, as opposed to the rest of Canada, where business failures decreased by about 9 percent, according to our statistics.

However, as I say, we can go through statistics and figures for hours and hours –– I might just do that –– but this really doesn't tell the whole story. All of us, at least most of us, have had the opportunity over the past several years, but particularly in the last year, to travel to many smaller communities throughout British Columbia. There is where the mismanagement of this government can really be seen: empty storefronts, small businesses closing down, more people becoming unemployed....

Interjection.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: The member says "businesses starting up," and I ask him: where?

AN HON. MEMBER: Mowing lawns.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: Yes, and selling hot dogs.

But as I started to say, in these small communities is where we can really see the devastation that has taken place –– even in your own community, Mr. Speaker, as in mine; as in Port Alberni, Campbell River, Kamloops, anywhere we've been throughout the province. It's very easy to see when you're talking with the local residents what is happening to the employment situation in these communities under this government.

In my constituency, and I'm going to talk a bit about my constituency, it has been estimated overall that about 22 percent –– and I think that figure may even be a little low for the district of Powell River –– of employable people are currently out of work. This includes employables on social assistance, of course. It includes people on UIC, young people not included on anybody's statistics but living at home, women living at home but who would like to find a job, women who would ordinarily be in the workforce, and last, but certainly not least, the unemployed native Indian people in my riding, who comprise, by the way, nearly 10 percent of the total population of my riding. These are not included in the federal government statistics.

Our party –– our caucus members and leader –– have put forward numerous proposals that would create 50,000 new jobs a year over the next ten years. These programs include –– and I think the previous speaker mentioned some of them –– jobs in the forest industry, particularly in silviculture and added value to our forest products; jobs in municipal infrastructure, much needed; jobs in road and highway projects to be carried out all over the province and to employ local people.

On that topic, I was going to briefly discuss the megaprojects in terms of highways that this government has initiated. Perhaps these projects are needed and were needed, and some of these projects are still under construction. But what I'm telling you, Mr. Speaker, is that the government, in terms of the Coquihalla, for example –– let's just use that one example for the moment –– passed a bill in this House some two years ago.... First of all they announced the project and put the project on hold for about two years. But they decided, for whatever purpose –– and the reason given by the minister was, I believe, Expo –– that the project would proceed, and it did proceed. A bill was passed in this House authorizing the ministry to spend $375 million on that project.

Now I'm making two points here: first, if that particular project was postponed for two years by the ministry and the government as it was, why could it not have been postponed perhaps another two years? That $375 million could have been spread around the province to create employment all over the province on the badly neglected major highways and roads all over this province.

Interjections.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: Roads and highways have been neglected by this government, and you know that. Part of your riding is rural, Mr. Speaker, so you know that. I'm thinking of Highway 101 in my riding, where no real reconstruction has taken place since 1975 –– just band-aid work. We could have employed hundreds of people in my own riding just on that reconstruction job alone. We have the Vancouver Island bypass. Certainly a portion of that highway from Parksville to Campbell River required improvement. I know –– I travel it every weekend, as many of the other members here do as well. But the Vancouver Island bypass must be a priority project with this government.

But the other thing about the Coquihalla, and I know that we'll get into this topic in estimates.... It's my information, Mr. Speaker –– and I wish the Minister of Transportation and Highways (Hon. A. Fraser) were in the House today, but I'll certainly be talking about this matter in detail in estimates –– that it is going to cost considerably more than the $375 million allocated by this House for that project, for the following couple of reasons. The minister is aware of this. First of all, some of the construction, it is my information,

[ Page 7401 ]

was not carried out properly. Some of the bed for that new highway was built when the highway was frozen, and the paving was improperly applied. It's very likely that much of that paving is going to have to be redone within the next two or three years. I have this from a very reliable source.

[Mrs. Johnston in the chair.]

Interjection.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: The member for Columbia River (Mr. Chabot) asked me if I am an engineer. Well, what kind of an engineer is he talking about? But I want to tell you that that project could end up costing the people of this province $500 million, and perhaps more. Remember, you heard it here first.

Other positive proposals that have been put forward by our caucus and our leader, aside from the projects I mentioned, were new home construction, older home remodelling and upgrading....

Interjection.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: Well, that government scrapped the programs that were in place, and now he says one of them was our idea.

This government has abandoned local and community projects, care for local people and job creation, and has decided to go the megaproject route. And what are they? Northeast coal? That's $700 million of taxpayers' money down the tube. Right? Light rapid transit in Vancouver. The Annacis Island bridge in the lower mainland. Expo, a monster project which may be a good thing for British Columbia in the long run. I hope it is a success, and I am going to attend; I am going to take my children. I hope it is a success, but nonetheless we're looking at $400 million to $500 million of taxpayers' money going into that project at a time when this government cut back on education programs, health programs and what have you.

Guess what, Mr. Speaker. Guess what we find in this document. Once again, since 1960 another megaproject, the Vancouver Island natural gas pipeline. I cannot believe it. Here we go again.

AN HON. MEMBER: It's the twenty-fifth anniversary.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: Yes, we should have a celebration.

In the last provincial election, Mr. Speaker, you may recall that nine cabinet ministers came into my riding during the campaign. Nine –– count 'em. Oh yes, there they are, and at every meeting, every gathering, to every little community newspaper. What did they say? "Vote for us and you've got the pipeline. But right now, of course, we have a commission looking at it." So the commission did look at the viability of a natural gas pipeline to Vancouver Island. They did, and they brought in a report after the election. Guess what they finally recommended, after hearings all over the coast of British Columbia? That the gas pipeline go the southern route. Thanks a lot. So there we were. No fertilizer plant that would have created some 500 to 600 direct new jobs in Powell River and a number of new jobs on Vancouver Island. But here we go again: natural gas line mentioned in this document, throne speech debate. It will be an issue in the next election. They'll come in there, the cabinet ministers, whoever is left in cabinet –– some are out, some are in –– and promise: "Vote for us and you've got the pipeline." Nonsense. People don't believe it any more. It's just incredible.

[4:45]

One final item on this. I'll just quote this one line out of the throne speech: "My government will assist in efforts to extend natural gas service into rural areas of the province, and efforts will continue to have the federal government fulfill its commitment for the Vancouver Island natural gas pipeline." Well, I want to tell you, Madam Speaker, that the federal government, as far as I am aware, has never made a commitment to finance that $553 million natural gas line to Vancouver Island. Well, he says he should, but this document says that the federal government had made that commitment. We called an all-candidates meeting on the Sunshine Coast during the last provincial election, and the candidate got up and quoted the present government as saying that the federal government had in fact made a commitment. Luckily I had a document in my pocket, signed by the then Minister of Energy under the Liberal government, Mr. Jean Chretien, who stated to me in that letter that there had been no commitment made to finance that natural gas line to Vancouver Island.

Over and above that, just two weeks ago the present Minister of Energy, the Hon. Pat Carney –– with the Conservative government, of course –– stated very clearly and publicly while here in British Columbia that, yes, the federal government believed that all people in all parts of the country should have access to natural gas, but that the asking price by this current provincial government was far too rich. In other words, they wanted the federal government to pay the whole $553 million, and the federal government could not consider that proposal.

They haven't changed from their position, but they'll go out in the next provincial election and say: "It's the feds' fault. We're all for it; we want you to have natural gas" –– and so on and so on. If they're re-elected, which I doubt, once again we'll probably have a line in the next throne speech: "Natural gas line to Vancouver Island." What utter nonsense! Well, they're not going to win an election this next time on that one, I can tell you that.

AN. HON. MEMBER: We want Gargrave.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: You can have him. No, I don't mean that. I withdraw that. Mr. Gargrave was a very fine MLA for 14 years, and he represented the riding that I now represent very well.

However, back to business. Another item that I want to.... I'm sorry to see that the Minister of Lands, Parks and Housing (Hon. Mr. Kempf) is not in the House at the moment. He was here a short....

Interjections.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: He's back in the co-op, right.

What I'm on about is quite a new and budding industry all over my riding, and that's the aquaculture and mariculture industry. I don't intend to go into a lot of detail on this during the throne speech debate, but there is one.... That industry is facing a number of problems and causing a number of problems for residents, particularly in the Sunshine Coast area of my riding. One of the major problems.... I should inform you that there is a major meeting taking place on this

[ Page 7402 ]

subject tomorrow in Sechelt on the Sunshine Coast. I expect about 200 people will be there. The major problem is the way this government is issuing these leases to these people applying for mariculture and aquaculture sites –– particularly for fish-farming, to put it in a nutshell. What this government is doing and has done over the heads of regional districts, and against the recommendations of the local regional district –– over the heads of local ratepayers' and citizens' groups, and without consultation with these groups –– is issue I don't know how many leases. I would guess that throughout the riding it's by the hundred, without consultation and against the recommendation of local governments.

I want to tell you that this is causing a great deal of grief in the area. Two sites that come to mind very quickly are the operation called Scantech at Halfmoon Bay –– more specifically, Woods Bay –– where a ten-acre fish farm is now in operation in a residential area, part of it on land....

Interjection.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: Yes, believe that or not, the processing end of that ten-acre site is on land in a residential area. That minister laughs. He doesn't know what he is laughing at; he hasn't been there. If he owned a home next to that processing plant and next to that fish farm, the value of his home –– he has probably got a $500,000 home, or more –– would drop by about half.

People are selling their homes, or have their homes up for sale, in these areas. Another area is an area up in my riding called Earls Cove, where the very same thing is happening. This is when we have literally thousands of miles throughout that whole Jervis Inlet and Porpoise Bay area which would be just as suitable. But this government, against the recommendations of locally elected governments, is arbitrarily issuing these licences here from Victoria.

Rumour has it –– and it's only rumour, but if I can ever pin this down, believe me, you'll hear from me in this House –– that some of these leases are going to friends of the government. At least, that's the people who are making these accusations are saying. I'm very upset about it.

AN. HON. MEMBER: You have a right to be.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: You're darned right.

Interjection.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: Would you like a fish-processing plant on your front lawn? I wouldn't.

Anyway, I am serving the minister who is responsible for issuing these leases — and I hope to meet with the minister responsible, and with the Minister of Agriculture (Hon. Mr. Waterland), as well, who is responsible for administering funds to these operations...to look at this matter. There have been petitions. Letters have gone to the minister and to the previous minister responsible for issuing these leases, the Minister of Lands, Parks and Housing. I'm now serving notice that hopefully, before that minister's estimates come up, he will address his staff to this issue and that he will meet with members of the regional board when they come to Victoria very shortly, and also with the Minister of Municipal Affairs (Hon. Mr. Ritchie) to hopefully change the zoning for some of these areas.

Another serious item — and I'll be brief on this one, Madam Speaker — involves, I suppose, mainly the Minister of Finance (Hon. Mr. Curtis) and the Minister of Municipal Affairs. A court decision was handed down some three or so months ago in favour of the large pulp and paper mill in Powell River, stating that the municipality would have to rebate $10.9 million to the government or to the company. In other words, the B.C. Assessment Authority has said, on appeal and by court order, that the property was overassessed by the Assessment Authority. That small community of some 14,000 residents, more or less, will have to repay $10.9 million of that assessment back to the company, even though the company itself pays nearly 90 percent of the assessment in that community. In my view, the province should be liable for that money. The municipality made its tax decisions based on assessments provided to them by the B.C. Assessment Authority. If the Assessment Authority was wrong, as a B.C. Crown corporation, then it was not the municipality that wasn't operating in good faith; the error was on the part of the government, and they should address the problem.

I understand that the mayors, the councillors and others may be having further discussions with the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Municipal Affairs on this matter. But if the matter is not resolved, approximately $6.4 million in that small community, with high unemployment, is going to have to be raised by the local taxpayers in that community; and that, Madam Speaker, is totally unfair, in a situation that the municipality and the council were not themselves responsible for. We'll probably talk about that later too in estimates.

I had a few words to say about native Indian land claims and things, but in view of the ministerial announcement, and the possibility of court cases and these kinds of things — I don't know all of this yet — I think I'll not dwell on this too much, except to say that the Speech from the Throne mentions the village of Sechelt, which is a very progressive native village in my riding. Just this past Saturday there was a vote on the reservate. The federal government has allowed that band to be the first band, I believe, in Canada to have self-government. The vote at the Sechelt Indian reserve was overwhelmingly in favour of proceeding with self-government. They have a large number of properties, which would effectively take that band out from under the jurisdiction of the federal Department of Indian Affairs. And I wish them well.

Once again, however, this may be a way that the Sechelt band wants to go, and perhaps many other bands in the province; I don't know that yet. It may not be the way other bands in this province wish to proceed with their own business. However, one of the things that is going to have to happen — and I know I'm going to be directly involved, as the Minister of Municipal Affairs, the Minister of Finance, and many other cabinet ministers will be — is that because of this federal legislation this band will now be coming to the provincial government for fair treatment. There will have to be changes, and certainly municipal legislation, in terms of taxation and all of these kinds of things. But I believe this band to be perfectly competent. I'm asking in this speech for the full cooperation of the government in working as close as they can with that particular band to see that their proposal and their new idea works. This idea, by the way, has been going on nine years in the planning, with countless meetings with the federal government.

I was going to talk a bit about things like the small bridge program, which we approve of, by the way. I don't know what

[ Page 7403 ]

the minister is going to do, what his plans are; but that's mentioned in this document, as well — a much-needed program. I had the pleasure of visiting the minister's own riding just four or five weeks ago now — whenever. I spent a number of days and met a lot of good people. However, one of their major complaints was the small bridge program. All I'm suggesting is that I hope all the money under the small bridge program doesn't go into Cariboo, because we have other areas of the province such as Bella Coola where for years on a major highway link right from Bella Coola to Williams Lake — the only highway link, I might add — after a flood a temporary one-way Bailey bridge was installed and that was temporary and it's still there. I will be writing the minister very shortly asking that at least that one bridge in that valley be replaced.

[5:00]

To sum up, it is my view that this is a government that has developed arrogance and incompetence in power, a government that no longer is trusted by the people of this province, and I will not be supporting the vote on this Speech from the Throne when it is presented to this House.

MR. STRACHAN: Thank you, Madam Speaker, for taking the Chair's duties this afternoon. As Deputy Speaker this is my annual kick at the cat and chance to express my opinions to the Legislative Assembly, and it's normally the only time you get to hear me outside of my of course normally brilliant rulings.

Needless to say, Madam Speaker, I will be voting in favour of the throne speech — His Honour's address. I think it addresses the concerns of our government, it addresses the statement that we wish to make, it gives detail, it has some meat and as a matter of fact I think it's meatier than most throne speeches are.

I'd be remiss, of course, if I didn't acknowledge the tremendous contribution that was acknowledged by His Honour in terms of British Columbians who have served us well over the years: Dr. Gordon Shrum, Dr. Norman MacKenzie and, of course, Tommy Douglas. You'll note that I'm saving one name till the last, and that's Chief Justice Jack Wilson, and the reason I did that is that the chief justice practised law in Prince George for many years, and the firm of Wilson King, which is still an operating law firm in town, bears his name. But as His Honour indicates, Judge Wilson was one of the most respected judges and chief justices in Canada. I'm proud to point out that he practised for many years in Prince George.

Madam Speaker, the throne speech as we see it, and the budget address as I'm sure we're going to see it on Thursday — and I won't refer too much to that, because of course we don't have it — really culminates a plan that our Premier put in place in February 1982. In February 1982, we were struck with the fact that the international recession had struck in 1981, with its most severe impact on our country and our province. In February 1982, our Premier put together a program of restraint and recovery and realized, as the Premier of this beautiful province, that we could not continue to spend, spend, spend. We had to curtail our own spending. We couldn't ask the taxpayers to spend more money promoting government services, and we could not, above all, leave a legacy of unmanageable debt for the future generations of our province. So on the basis of that we began our restraint program in 1982. We went to the polls with that issue in mind, and it seemed that no one liked us except the voters, because it was eminently successful.

We have been able to recover. Much of it is detailed in the throne speech that we have today, but we only have to recap what we saw in the budget address of 1985: tax credits to small business, tax reductions amounting to $136 million in '85-86 and rising to $480 million by the third year. From the benefit of the restraint program — from the plan of the restraint program — we've been able to in fact increase services to British Columbians as well as decrease taxes that impact upon our citizens in the business and industry of our province. It's far-ranging.

At this time I'd like to get a bit more parochial and speak of the benefits that restraint, in terms of getting our own economic house in order, has given Prince George and particularly the riding of Prince George South.

MR. REID: Good news.

MR. STRACHAN: There is good news. There's lots of good news. I'm amazed to hear people continually criticize megaprojects, as if it's some sort of a dirty word. Madam Speaker, it's clear that this province, in its history since W.A.C. Bennett was elected in 1952, has been a series of megaprojects, if you will. I don't particularly care for the word; it just means big — really big. Nevertheless, we've had a series of megaprojects, and this has benefited our province to some considerable degree. Good lord, all the highways work that Phil Gaglardi did during the W.A.C. Bennett government was a megaproject. So was the British Columbia Railway, the way it opened up the central interior and the northern part of our province. So was the hydroelectric development — Bennett Dam and all that. If it weren't for those megaprojects, which I think no one criticized at that time, Prince George and the central interior certainly wouldn't be what it is today. It's an incredible city. Since the mid-'60s it has tripled in size, not only because of so-called megaprojects, but through sound fiscal planning by the government of W.A.C. Bennett and the sound fiscal planning and development that's being carried on by the current government.

I'm amazed when I hear so many people being negative about what we're doing. I really think there's a new Dinosaur Party out there. Megaprojects and industrial development have been beneficial to our province. They're certainly nothing new. I can't understand why the critics are continually upset about what we're trying to do as a government, what we're trying to accomplish in our province.

One that's continually criticized by just about everyone who wants to talk about it is northeast coal. The fact of the matter is, northeast coal has been an incredible boon to the mining industry of British Columbia. We only have to look at the mining figures to indicate that they're up considerably for 1985, and most of that increase has come from northeast coal. With the exception of the village of Tumbler Ridge itself, the major benefactor of northeast coal and that wonderful development has been the city of Prince George. It's the infrastructure that had to be developed by the Canadian National railroad, by the British Columbia Railway and by goods and supplies and services to that community.

Interjection.

[ Page 7404 ]

MR. STRACHAN: The coal trains are still running, hon. member; nine a day.

The benefit from the railroad has been of incredible benefit to Prince George. In terms of CNR, they're laying off people all across the system, from the Atlantic provinces right up to the province of Alberta. In our case they're still doing extremely well. So I really can't accept any argument that we shouldn't continue development in our province and that northeast coal is a bad thing.

Getting back to the fact that we did have planning in 1981 — we had the foresight to understand that we were really on a slide unless we did something about our escalating costs — I'd like to talk about some of the things that have happened in my riding because we were able to save money where we could, because we were able to enact sound fiscal policy. Now we can realize the benefits of those tough decisions made in 1982 and 1983. We went through a little bit of short-term pain for what I would consider long-term gain.

Getting into one of the smaller communities in my riding, I note that the Ministry of Highways is upgrading its maintenance garage.

There's a comment in the throne speech with respect to critical industries. I and the Minister of Tourism, who represents the village of Clearwater in his case, and in my case the village of Valemount, were pleased that the commissioner of critical industries worked out a major restructuring and an agreement affecting Clearwater Forest Products. One mill is in Clearwater in the Minister of Tourism's riding; the other mill is in Valemount in my riding. Clearwater Forest Products was the major employer, and critical to the economic well-being of the communities of Clearwater and Valemount. The agreement produced by the critical industries commissioner — Art Phillips — saved more than 400 sawmill and logging jobs in the area, jobs that would have been lost without this agreement.

In terms of the details of the agreement, the Toronto Dominion Bank converted most of its loan to the company into preferred and common shares, and freed $500,000 in security which the company will reinvest in its operations. The company also invited the IWA to nominate a representative to sit on its board and establish a profit-sharing plan for all of its employees. In addition, the union held a membership meeting to consider the recommendation of its executive that there be a freeze on certain employee benefits, which would result in a saving for the company of $750,000 over two years. The company also received a reduction from government of more than $309,000 in property taxes, and there was a further write-down of interest costs, I understand, from the British Columbia Development Corporation.

That's one success story attributable to the commissioner of critical industries, and something I'm sure we can all be proud of. It's something that does indicate that the plans of the current government are in place and working, and are helping all British Columbians.

Further, and staying in the eastern part of my riding.... The riding goes all the way out to the Alberta border, a beautiful part; it's the Highway 16 gateway to our province. Just a few more words on the village of Valemount. For many years the village operated a small clinic. It essentially operated it on its own, and it was staffed by doctors who came daily from Jasper, Alberta, and from time to time a resident doctor from McBride or Valemount would come and provide services there. However, it soon became apparent to the government and to the Ministry of Health that the village-operated Valemount clinic would have to increase in scope and budgeting. I was pleased last fall to learn that the Ministry of Health, after some negotiations with me, the mayor of Valemount and ministry officials, was able to designate the Valemount clinic as a diagnostic and treatment centre. This allows for minor renovations and essential equipment upgrading, to convert the present health centre in Valemount to a diagnostic and treatment centre. Costs are estimated at $100,000 for renovations and approximately $150,000 for equipment, particularly replacement of the x-ray machine. The clinic, before conversion and designation, operated 5 hours a day, 25 hours per week, with a part-time receptionist and a part-time nurse who also ran the laboratory and x-ray.

It is initiatives like that, Madam Speaker, initiatives that come from our government and affect the little people, that indicate that, as I said, our plan, our program of restraint, has been beneficial, will benefit all British Columbians and in fact is reaching out not just from the major Vancouver centre but all over the province. It's that type of thing that Members of the Legislative Assembly, particularly government members, I would presume, are very happy about, because that's what we're all about: a grass-roots government and a government that reaches out to the people, all the people, not just the people of Vancouver, as has so often been argued.

Another program again affecting the health sciences is the establishment of a dental hygiene program at the College of New Caledonia. As a former college employee, Madam Speaker, I can advise you that for many years there was a dental assisting program at the college. It served some of the dental service needs of the central interior and the north, but hygienists were in short supply. Of course we are all familiar with the decision made by the University of British Columbia last year to halt their program at the UBC dental school, and obviously it was up to government to leap into the breach. The College of New Caledonia in Prince George became the second post-secondary institution to offer the dental hygiene program, and that is a real boon to the community, not just for the dental community but of course for all of us. I am sure all members are aware that a good majority of dental hygienists graduate from American universities. They come up here, and about as far as they want to go, I guess, if they're from Oregon or Washington or those states, is Vancouver. It is increasingly difficult to get them into the central interior area. However, if they are central interior natives who have lived in Prince George or the area all their lives, they can take the dental hygiene program at CNC now, and because they are from the area there is a good tendency that they will stay.

[5:15]

There are 38 dentists in Prince George. It's quite a good-sized referral centre for people coming from all over. This is a very good thing, and I applaud the Ministry of Education for their decision to do this.

As well, I also applaud the Ministry of Health and the new minister, by the way, for his decision to offer $5,000 per year for bursaries to students who wish to pursue disciplines in the health sciences. These will include pathologists, audiologists, psychologists, dental hygienists and all the ancillary trades that are needed to augment the professional health delivery system in the north. That's a commendable program and will do much to ensure that the provision of quality of health care services is carried out in my riding and in the northern part of our area of the province.

[ Page 7405 ]

Further to education and to the rural and remote areas, I am pleased to read in the throne speech that the Open Learning Institute and the Knowledge Network have joined together to form the Open Learning Consortium of British Columbia and that there will be legislation creating an open learning authority of British Columbia to plan, coordinate and direct all open learning in the province. Madam Speaker, that is a critical decision to make, and one that will benefit the north. Far too often we don't have the access to communication in the central interior. Far too often our students just can't find an easy way to get that education or to even get interested in it. The Open Learning Institute has been an incredible success in our province, and one that I think we can all applaud. This initiative contained in the throne speech will of course have the effect of even improving the educational delivery system to those residents who live in the rural and remote areas.

One of the most significant things to be happening in my riding this year is the B.C. Festival of the Arts, which will be held in Prince George from May 4 to May 8. That announcement was made last fall by the Premier, and I can assure you we were all delighted. The artistic and cultural community of Prince George had lobbied long and hard for this type of decision. They were at Penticton in 1984, Kamloops in 1982, and they reckoned it was their turn; they were right. Through the efforts of my colleague the current Minister of Forests (Hon. Mr. Heinrich), and myself, and working with the Provincial Secretary ministry and the cultural community of Prince George, we were able to demonstrate to the decision-makers — at that point the member for Columbia River (Mr. Chabot), when he was in cabinet — that Prince George was the logical place to hold such an event, and we did get the decision.

For the information of members who might not be familiar with the artistic community in my city, it's quite substantial, and there's a good reason for it. We're 500 miles from Vancouver,500 miles from Edmonton — the two major cultural centres of Alberta and British Columbia, I guess — and when you're that remote from the big-time action you have a tendency to develop it yourself. Because of that, an incredibly good cultural and artistic community has developed in Prince George. There's Little Theatre; there's quite a few excellent vocal groups — the Cantata Singers. There's a good gallery, and many people support the gallery. The Prince George Symphony Orchestra has a subscription list of 1,100 people, which may not sound really large to someone from the lower mainland, but in terms of our population it is good. In fact, the Prince George Symphony outsells hockey, and that says something for a central interior community. Vanier Hall, our largest auditorium, can only hold 800 people at one sitting. As a result, there are always two performances by the orchestra, and they're always sellouts.

Back to the Festival of the Arts. As I said earlier, I was extremely pleased to learn that the decision was made to have the 1986 festival in our community. For those of you who aren't aware of the B.C. Festival of the Arts and the way it works, it essentially is sort of a playdown series and features five organizations: the Association of British Columbia Drama Educators — that's school theatre groups; the Assembly of B.C. Arts Councils; the B.C. Performing Arts Festival Association; Theatre B.C.; and the smallest, but certainly not the least, the B.C. Student Film Festival.

Competitions are held by the various organizations. In the case of ABCDE, the drama educators, there are ten regional drama festivals involving approximately 100 plays. In the case of the Assembly of B.C. Arts Councils, there are 12 regional shows — drawing, painting, fibre arts, photography, ceramics, sculpture and other medium. In the case of the B.C. Association of Performing Arts Festivals, there are 27 regional festivals — music, dance and speech arts. In the case of Theatre B.C., there are ten regional drama festivals involving approximately 50 plays. In the case of the young B.C. student film-makers, there are about 40 film students, who really don't compete. They just come and show what they've done.

After the playdown system of the various organizations throughout the province, the groups are selected to attend the B.C. Festival of Arts. In other words, we take the various organizations and their respective festivals, draw their winners together and bring them into one host community — in this case Prince George — and have one week of superb artistic presentation in the community. Members who were present at Kamloops in 1982 and Penticton in 1984 I'm sure will agree with what I've said. Of course, I can assure you that the 1986 Festival of the Arts in Prince George will be the biggest and best yet.

One of the interesting things about the B.C. Festival of the Arts — not the most significant; I'll get to that at the end — has been the establishment, by the minister's committee, of an arts train. It was decided, since we were having many participants travel from many miles, that to provide a focus, to provide some sort of excitement in travelling, we would negotiate with the British Columbia Railway and put as many of the students as we could on a train. That has been achieved, and they're going to use the Royal Hudson coaches. Regrettably, we couldn't use the Royal Hudson steam engine, but we'll use the coaches and standard B.C. diesel-electric mode of power. It's a very good way of getting all the participants together on the way in, and does solve a serious transportation problem. As I'm sure many of you are aware, this year being Expo, there's not a charter bus left, I think in North America, that's available for hire. They've already gone.

So the arts train has been a superb idea. It's going to bring those participants together, bring them into Prince George, and I'm sure will make for a very happy week for all those participants attending the 1986 Festival of the Arts in Prince George.

I come to the kicker now. I don't know how much time I've got. Could you advise me?

Interjections.

MR. STRACHAN: It's like watching paint dry.

With the B.C. Festival of the Arts, of course, is the big announcement. It's alluded to in His Honour's throne speech, but it's one that I want to specifically highlight. Of course, by saying this, I invite all members here to attend in Prince George the official opening May 4, because attending the official opening in Prince George of the B.C. Festival of the Arts, May 4, 1986, will be their Royal Highnesses the Prince and Princess of Wales.

That our town should be so honoured is indeed much appreciated. My best wishes go to the people on the Provincial Secretary's staff whom we worked with in arranging this and the federal government officials; and, of course, a lot of negotiations went on with Buckingham Palace. I can assure

[ Page 7406 ]

you, on behalf of our constituents and the constituents of the Minister of Forests (Hon. Mr. Heinrich), that we're indeed delighted, as I'm sure everyone in the central interior is, with the royal couple being in Prince George two days following the great opening of Expo.

Now everybody has talked about post-Expo syndrome and how it's going to fall down. Don't worry, my friends. You know, I'll tell you something....

AN HON. MEMBER: Chopsticks.

MR. STRACHAN: Oh, chopsticks. I'll get to that next time. I'll do that in the budget speech. We have a chopstick factory, Canaspen in Prince George. It uses aspen. It peels it off like veneer at a plywood plant, pumps it out — about one and a half million chopsticks a day. By the way, the Japanese and Korean restaurant market for chopsticks is 150 million a day, and it's a disposable item, as you're probably all aware. So we're into about I percent of that market, and it's going very, very well. As a matter of fact, they started hiring people and training them a week ago Monday....

AN HON. MEMBER: One hundred and twelve people.

MR. STRACHAN: Is that what it is? Good for you.

Anyway, where was I? I was getting back to Expo and what will happen. The interesting thing is that all the doom-and-gloomers say there will be this post-Expo syndrome and all sorts of awful things will happen to you and the economy and everybody will be down. The interesting thing is that I talk to people in the tourist industry — people who know, hotel chains and the people who've studied this type of thing — and they tell me that in terms of tourism the year following an international exhibition is even better. That comes from the Montreal experience and from the Seattle experience, and that is a fact. Apparently what happens....

Interjections.

MR. STRACHAN: Well, New Orleans was not a.... Good lord, the Calgary Stampede is bigger than the New Orleans fair.

Interjections.

MR. REID: The PNE is even better than the New Orleans fair.

MR. STRACHAN: It's my turn.

Everyone always questioned the attendance at Expo 86, and I could never understand what they were getting at. Everyone was so negative. But you know I'm from Calgary and I visit Calgary at least once a year and always during Stampede week. It's sort of my little summer break. The Calgary Stampede for years and years has done a million people in ten days without fail. It just happens that way. If it can do that attendance annually — the world's biggest outdoor show, but nevertheless it doesn't have the drawing card that an international exposition does — surely to goodness we can do more than 13 million visits in five and a half months for a world exposition the likes of which won't be seen in North America until the turn of the century. So I've never considered that Expo was not going to be a success. I've always doubted.... As a matter of fact I think all of us consider Mr. Pattison to be pretty clever and pretty correct, but I've always doubted his 13.8 million and I think we can all feel reassured now that the 13.8 million visits is going to be surpassed in no time at all, if it already hasn't. The way the pre-sale announcements are coming in, it really is sensational.

AN HON. MEMBER: Twelve million....

[5:30]

MR. STRACHAN: Twelve million today. There we go. We're just about there. I predict 20 million, Madam Speaker, easy. There's no way it can't do that.

But again I will get back to what my hotel friends tell me, and that is the fact that there is always a post-Expo-year resurgence, continuation, even a climb in the tourism industry. What happens is that visitors will come from all over North America and from all over the world, and of course the focus will be Vancouver, because that's where the trade fair is. But once they've been to Vancouver, to Canada, to the province, they'll decide: "Let's go back, but this time let's travel a little further." And the smart hotelmen in Prince George, who have talked to me about this and who have been around for a long time and have seen the experience in Seattle and in Montreal, tell me that that in fact has been the case. They're expecting a bigger year in 1987 from Expo, but they wouldn't have any year unless we have Expo. That's what the hotel people tell me.

With that, dear friends, I would like to thank you ever so much for your kind attention. The light is on, and far be it for me to abuse the rules and go over at all.

AN HON. MEMBER: More! Speech!

MR. STRACHAN: I am not finished yet, Mr. Member. I am just dying to listen to the comments of my good friend from Okanagan North. By the way, the member for Prince Rupert (Mr. Lea) spoke about hatred in the House and all that sort of stuff. I'd like to tell you that that doesn't exist. As a matter of fact, the hon. member who is going to follow me in this debate gave me a ride from the airport last Monday. Now isn't that nice? That shows legislative congeniality. And I should also tell you that from time to time I drive the hon. House Leader of the opposition into the buildings on Monday morning, as we are normally on the same airplane — although he tells me to go slow because he doesn't want to make it to caucus.

But in any event, Madam Speaker and hon. members, I certainly will be voting in favor of His Honour's address, the Speech from the Throne.

MR. MacWILLIAM: I truly am pleased to have the opportunity to respond to the recent throne speech, and I am going to make some very positive comments about the throne speech. I positively know just where I am going to go with it.

You know, the speech that was made recently at the beginning of this session reminds me very much of the Premier's latest television address that was made only a few weeks back. I think it demonstrates very amply his continued failure to grapple with reality in this province.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

[ Page 7407 ]

MR. MacWILLIAM: I am very positive about what I am going to say.

You know, as has been said before, the buzzwords are there. The message, the positive rosy image, is there but the substance is missing. I am very positive. The Premier talks about his plan. He repeatedly talks about his plan, and yet there is no coherent principle inside that speech. The message pulls all the right strings, promises something for everyone, and yet when it comes right down to it, it fails to deliver the goods.

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

I think that the portrait that the Premier painted of this province is a kind of Alice-in-Wonderland fairy-tale. It's a fantasy. It describes a British Columbia that simply doesn't exist out there. It doesn't mesh with reality, because the real world, Madam.... There was a change of guard there; Mr. Speaker, my apologies. The real difference is shown very clearly. We've got a world of high unemployment. We've got a province full of soup-lines and uncertainty. We've got a world full of broken dreams and lost opportunities, where families in British Columbia on welfare are living at half the level of the poverty line, where working people have been victimized and punished by a government whose modus operandi has been confrontation. It's a province where basic human rights have been subverted to serve a political agenda.

This is a world where people have quite literally become exhausted. They've exhausted their outrage. There's numbness out there. They can no longer respond to the meanness and hypocrisy that has been the trademark of this government over the last few years. They've become numb and lost faith. They've lost faith in this government, and they've lost any semblance of respect. Mr. Speaker, I want to give you a taste of the reality in the interior of this province, because the economy of the interior of this province puts the lie to the Premier's upbeat message.

At this point I'd like to table a document that I prepared in December, 1985, entitled "The Economic Profile of the North Okanagan: A Strategy for Reconstruction." In so tabling this document I want to bring out some salient facts, some realities here that we have to deal with.

In the north Okanagan, between 1971 and 1981, the average population growth rate was 4.6 percent. Between 1981 and 1983, after the restraint program was imposed, that rate fell to 2.2 percent. In 1985 the estimated growth rate was only 0.86 percent. When we look at the enrolment projections in School District 22, we find that students are continually leaving that school district.

What that means is that people are leaving the valley. As a matter of fact, a local mover up in the Vernon area estimated that for every individual family he moves into the Okanagan area, three of them move out. We have an exodus of people. That, Mr. Speaker, reflects the provincial trends throughout British Columbia. In 1980 we had an in-migration, people coming into this province, of over 56,000 people a year. The first half of 1985 showed a net loss of over 1,400 residents to British Columbia. Where are they going? They're largely going back to Ontario, where they can find work. Mr. Speaker, the people of British Columbia are already voting for this government; they're voting with their feet, and they're leaving this province in droves.

Let me give you some more information. Housing — in provincial perspective, first of all. Throughout Canada housing starts are up about 7 percent in the last fiscal year. In the Vernon area the 1984 level showed a 37 percent drop since the previous year. The 1985 level shows a further drop, above and beyond that 37 percent, of 26 percent. In Vernon there were no industrial building permits issued for 1985, despite the glowing, upbeat message of the municipal partnership program. No building permits were issued.

Construction occupations in the Okanagan region showed the largest group of individuals registered for unemployment insurance. In the Vernon area, Mr. Speaker, 18.7 percent. Now the members over on the other side might argue that that's because there's an opposition member in that area. Well, I want to tell you, Mr. Speaker, that in the Revelstoke area, whose member sits on the other side of the House, unemployment in the construction occupations is at 32 percent; a third of the construction workforce is out of work. In Salmon Arm, 17 percent. So that argument just doesn't hold water. But I want to tell you, Mr. Speaker, the carpenters' union, Local 1346, throughout the Okanagan region, reports that 93 percent of its members are currently unemployed. And this government says it's the friend of the construction workforce in British Columbia. It should be ashamed of itself for such misleading information.

Unemployment levels in the Okanagan-Boundary, which includes from the Revelstoke area all the way down to the border, in 1981 were 7.7 percent; in 1983 they had doubled to 14.2 percent; February 1986, unemployment levels in that area now sit at 17.7 percent, and this government says it's creating jobs. If there is so much job creation going on, why is the employment level still in the double-digit figures?

Let me read a statement that comes directly from Employment and Immigration Canada in the February 1986 market information report of the Canada employment centre in Vernon. It reads as follows: "British Columbia ended 1985 with a modest 2.2 percent growth in employment, adding some 26,000 new jobs to the economy." That doesn't sound bad, but let's go further. "It's important to remember that all the employment growth occurred in metro Vancouver area. In the outlying communities there was zero employment growth." Zero employment growth.

The Premier of this province has turned his back on the interior of British Columbia. The rest of this province has become a region of sacrifice for the Premier's dazzled concept of beautiful downtown British Columbia. I want to tell the Premier that if he continues to ignore the people in the interior and the northern regions of this province to their detriment, it will be at the peril of himself and his government.

Welfare recipients in the Okanagan region: 1982, 4,900 claimants, for a total number of people receiving welfare of over 10,000; in 1984 that number had jumped to over 8,300 claimants, with the total number of people in receipt of welfare at almost 20,000 people. The estimated levels for 1985, which weren't available at the time that I prepared the report, show that the welfare levels for the Okanagan region will be double the 1982 levels.

I think those local trends reflect what has been happening throughout the province. Provincially the level of unemployment has increased from 1981 levels by about 134 percent. Welfare has increased about 93 percent, and this government says we're on the way to recovery. I don't believe that statement, and I don't think anyone out there in British Columbia

[ Page 7408 ]

in the real world.... I don't think any normal and ordinary British Columbians believe that statement.

Bankruptcies: between '81 and '85 the total number of bankruptcies throughout this province climbed 127 percent. Business bankruptcies were up 124 percent. In the North Okanagan, business bankruptcies climbed 214 percent between the years '81 and '84. Recovery? Come on. Get serious. Consumer bankruptcies climbed 213 percent in the same period. The city of Vernon showed a 260 percent increase in consumer bankruptcies. I could go on and on with the figures. When you look at the figures, when you see what's going on out there in the real world, you realize that the Premier's glowing accolades have no sense of reality whatsoever.

Mr. Speaker, the real world out there — the world in the interior, the world throughout the province of British Columbia — is not so rosy. Like the provincial economy, we've not recovered from government-imposed recessions. The economy, simply put, has refused to respond to the empty rhetoric of this government. It defies the Premier's blissful misrepresentation of reality.

[5:45]

As I mentioned earlier, like the recent state-of-the-province address, the present throne speech is, I think, a classic example of the failure of this government to deal with the real situation, and it also represents a continued attempt by the Premier of this province not to confuse the issue with facts. When the Premier came on television a few weeks back with his address, I really think the people out there were looking for something that they could grab onto, something that they could believe in. They were looking for something that held promise, something that gave them faith in the future, but instead what they were fed was the same thing we got here in this House just recently: vague generalizations with no substance, no solid proposals for job creation, no blueprint for a new industrial era and no bold initiatives to salvage the future of an entire generation of young people whose futures have been compromised by the past policies of this government. Instead of a message of hope, what we got was a feature-length Bill Bennett commercial, and a bad one at that, because I think the author of that commercial didn't believe in the very words he was mouthing. You know, the Vernon Daily News, after the television address of the Premier, in an editorial said that British Columbia Television should send Mr. Bennett a bill for the air time. That's how impressed they were about it.

Well, I have to admit that my spirits soared briefly when the Premier was mentioning new funds for health care and education; but then I had to think back and remember that this is the same government that impoverished and demoralized our schools, our colleges and our universities and that seriously impaired our health care delivery system in the past few years. And in light of this reality, the overtures that the Premier has made seemed hollow indeed, a simple attempt to patch up the damage that has already been done largely as a result of the policies of his own government.

The question has been asked: what comes after Expo? It will continue to be asked until this government comes up with some solid proposals for long-term planning, and I mean that in a positive manner. We need some solid proposals, some long-term guidelines for where this province should be going. I don't see any of that. Where is the master plan that the Premier has been talking about? Show it to us. I don't think there is a plan. This government has been lurching from one project to the next in a desperate attempt to reach its next election agenda. There is no master plan.

You know, Mr. Speaker, I am not surprised by the lack of substance in the Premier's television address, nor in the recent throne speech address. I am not surprised, because sound planning has never been a priority of this government. I think that the television address and the throne speech purposely were weak on substance because the real message lay hidden underneath, subliminal. I think what is happening is that the Premier has been trying on a new political image, a new marketing strategy, because gone is the tough guy of the restraint era. The new line that he's trying out is one of partnership and renewal. They're nice buzzwords, but there's nothing behind them.

It's plain to me, and I think to many people throughout this province, that the Premier has aborted the legacy of restraint for very good reasons: because it's a legacy of failure, and it's a legacy of sacrifice for political expediency. I think the Premier is admitting that his restraint program, the Bennett-style restraint program, was a complete and unmitigated failure, a failure that left this province with one of the worst records of economic growth not only in Canada but in North America.

This government has failed to manage the province's economy. It has failed to get people back to work. It's failed to solicit the trust of ordinary British Columbians. The Bennett-style restraint program was a legacy of failure. It was the wrong medicine at the wrong time. It took an ailing economy and literally drove it to its knees.

I think that the Premier's failure to deliver has cost ordinary British Columbians dearly. Working people throughout this province have shouldered the burdens of his mistakes, and those of this government and the problems it has created. Such failures have cast serious doubt on the Premier's credibility. Such failures have cast serious doubt on the ability of this Premier and this government to resolve the many serious problems that they themselves have helped create.

I want to say one thing and make it perfectly clear: trust is the issue we're dealing with out there. Trust is the issue, and it's the only issue. Working British Columbians have lost faith in this government. They no longer trust its leader. They no longer trust the government. The question is being asked: why should we believe him again?

In summarizing, I want to quote the words of a former parliamentarian who came a few years before my time. That's Sir Oliver Cromwell. He said to the government of that day: "You are no longer fit to govern. You shall step aside and make way for better men." I want to add one thing: better men and women.

I can only summarize by saying that I cannot support the throne speech address of this government and this Premier. To me, it is clearly time for a change.

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. members, before recognizing the minister, today the hon. member for West Vancouver–Howe Sound (Mr. Reynolds) sought to move adjournment of the House under standing order 35 to discuss a matter of urgent public importance. Briefly stated, the matter related to Indian land claims and federal-provincial fiscal responsibility. We are currently embarked on the throne speech debate, a time

[ Page 7409 ]

affording a normal parliamentary opportunity to discuss matters of broad scope, such as the matter suggested. Accordingly, standing order 35 does not apply as the vehicle for such debate, as requested.

HON. MR. KEMPF: After listening for 20 minutes to the speaker who just took his place, I think possibly this House is in need of a rest. There are so many positive things, so many good things happening in British Columbia that I couldn't possibly talk about them in seven minutes, so I would move adjournment of this debate until the next sitting of the House.

Motion approved.

HON. MR. GARDOM: I would advise the House that we shall meet tomorrow, being Wednesday, and at 2 o'clock thereof.

MR. MacWILLIAM: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. In the presentation, inadvertently when summarizing I neglected to ask leave to table the document, and I would do so now.

Leave granted.

Hon. Mr. Gardom moved adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

The House adjourned at 5:53 p.m.