[ Page 7539 ]

CONTENTS

Budget debate

Hon. Mr. Rogers –– 7539

Mr. Nicolson –– 7540

Hon. Mr. McGeer –– 7542

Mr. Lockstead –– 7546

Hon. A. Fraser –– 7549

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 26, 1986

The House met at 10:07 a.m.

[Mr. Strachan in the chair.]

Prayers.

MR. NICOLSON: I notice in the members' gallery today Mr. George Cady, chairman of the Regional District of Central Kootenay, and also the administrator, Mr. Reid Henderson. I wish the House would bid them welcome.

Hon. Mr. Pelton tabled the report of the Ministry of Environment for the year 1984-85.

Orders of the Day

ON THE BUDGET

(continued debate)

HON. MR. ROGERS: I am sorry that the member for Prince Rupert (Mr. Lea) isn't in the House. I thought, to the tune of "Who's Sorry Now," we could all sing a few bars of "Who's Tory Now." In fact, based on the peripatetic nature of the leader of the Progressive Conservative Party in British Columbia, I suspect they'll be moving to yet another political party before the end of the year.

Mr. Speaker, on this gorgeous morning, on this unusual sitting morning, I have the opportunity to reconvene where I left off yesterday, in saying goodbye to some old friends, and perhaps also having an opportunity to look to the future for British Columbia. I think enough has been said about the numbers of people that are going to come to British Columbia this year, but perhaps what has not been said is where people will be coming from, and what influence that will have on the future of our province. We like to think that we are well known by the rest of the world; that we are well understood by the rest of the world; but by and large we are a quiet backwater in terms of the international tourism. For the first time the nations of the ASEAN countries will be coming to British Columbia en masse. Indonesia, being the fifth-largest country in the world, will be making its first appearance in North America. For the first time ever all of the countries, whether it's Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei or the others, will be coming to British Columbia to see what it is we have to offer, and many of these countries have a great deal of wealth — Malaysia in particular. They will be looking for places to invest; they'll be looking for places in which to create new jobs and in some cases looking for a place to live. The quality of life in British Columbia — something I wish to discuss — is something that will come as quite a surprise to the people from some of the visiting nations which will come to see us.

As I look forward into the future to 1987 and beyond, I think that British Columbia will have its traditional roles in terms of forestry, mining and agriculture, but even those traditional industries will be a great deal changed by technology. We're not dealing with sunset industries, but we're dealing with industries that will change a great deal. Our forest-tending will be done more on an agricultural basis than a clear-cutting harvesting basis, as has been done in the past. Mining becomes more sophisticated and agriculture becomes much more high-tech. British Columbia's ability to produce more and more of its own requirements for food will grow with or without the marketing boards between now and the end of the century.

One of the things that's going to happen for people living in this province — young people who are currently leaving school, university or college — is that they're not going to close the door behind them, because if they do they're closing the door in their own faces, because almost every type of job will require retraining. There is no profession in this province — in fact no job in this province — that hasn't changed radically in the last five to ten years and won't change radically in the next ten years. So our emphasis will be on education, and no longer will people be able to finish school with some kind of trade or expertise and think they have seen the last of the classroom. It will be up to us and our educators to stay current and move people ahead. The employer will have some obligation to retrain employees, but for those people who are out of the workforce the major emphasis will be to be retrained for something that is more current.

One of the other things I look forward to and see in the future is that with Expo and the SkyTrain and the other changes that have been made in the lower mainland, the lower mainland of British Columbia will become like a city state. It will remain separate and distinct in its own particular political divisions, which I think is a good and healthy thing to do, but the changes that will be made to our province by Expo and by the SkyTrain — very significant changes by the SkyTrain — will radically change how British Columbia develops in the future. We will see much more growth in light manufacturing, high-tech manufacturing, manufacturing for the medical industry and others. Expo will bring people from around the world. One of the things they're going to see in British Columbia that we all enjoy is our quality of life. The fact is that no one can hold a candle to us in health care, housing or education, the quality of our water, our recreational facilities and amenities — and most of all for our physical beauty.

[10:15]

I think that many countries and many businesses will for the first time discover British Columbia on a positive vein and choose to run their North American or their international operations out of here. We don't have to go very far away to realize how lucky we are in this province in terms of all of those above-mentioned qualities, including the qualities that are so silent. The fact is that you can walk anywhere you like in this province in the evening without fear, and there are not many places that you can say that about.

That's not necessarily due to the quality of our police force, or the quality of enforcement by the courts; that's just to do with the attitude of the people of the province. It's a very positive attitude, and one which is the envy of people around the world. If you were looking to locate a business in the western half of North America, one of the most important considerations is the quality of life. It's something we should all be incredibly proud of.

We have a very bright future in British Columbia. There are a lot of opportunities which will come forward as a result of the world having come to see us. If I had one hope in this next year, I would hope that two people particularly would come to British Columbia for Expo. Out of all the millions I would only hope that two come and spend a week here, travel around and see a little of British Columbia and maybe chat to each other. We'd all be better off. So I personally invite Mr. Gorbachev and Mr. Reagan to come and see what it's like to live in a beautiful part of the world, and to understand why

[ Page 7540 ]

they should make some efforts to make sure the rest of the world stays like British Columbia.

MR. NICOLSON: Mr. Speaker, this budget, for the — oh, I guess, first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh — eighth time running is a deficit budget, in the terms and in the sense that the government is spending more than they have collected in revenue, and that once again the government has created in the past year and will no doubt continue to create a sense of having done a little bit better financially than is the actual case. We look at the deficit that was projected last year of several hundreds of millions of dollars, and we talk about the revised estimate of last year, and we said that this year our deficit will be only $875 million and down $73 million from the revised deficit of $948 million for the past fiscal year. But last year's budget was for a deficit of not $948 million but $890 million. Mr. Speaker, even those figures are not true figures. In fact, the deficit last year would have been over $1 billion had it not been for the B.C. Ferry Corporation purchasing, at a price of $55 million, the ferry fleet from the Ministry of Highways, the saltwater ferry fleet.

We have been going on and on in this direction. It is not something that has just been taken since the recession hit in 1982, but it has been the trend ever since the current Minister of Finance took over from the former Minister of Finance, who happened to be Mr. Evan Wolfe. It's been a very long time with this very same kind of fiscal thrust in this province, and it has been a series of eating away first of all at the surplus that had been accumulated by previous Social Credit, NDP and then Social Credit governments to the point that when this minister took over there was a balance, in terms of special funds and surpluses, of $1.961 billion. That money was reduced in the 1980-81 fiscal year by $256.7 million. It was reduced the following year by $184 million. That was almost a record economic year. It was the last year in which our unemployment figures were tolerable. Even that year we managed to spend more than we actually collected in revenue. In 1982-83 we spent $984.2 million more than we collected in revenue. Our balance, our savings, our hoardings from decades of good fiscal management in this provinces were reduced to $536 million. In 1983-84 we had a deficit of over $1 billion. We went into direct debt to the tune of $483.5 million, and that trend has continued. With the projections of this current budget, notwithstanding the sleight of hand that goes on in terms of buying things like the saltwater ferry fleet from the Ministry of Highways and putting $55 million into revenue, into the hands of the Crown, and selling off properties, buildings and all of these other things — if there were a true accounting, it would be even more.... By the government's own figures it has reduced us from a balance of $1.961 billion to a debt of $3.408 billion.

That has been the record of the current Minister of Finance, and that is a very sorry record indeed. That is the long-term story, the long-term plan, and if this government has any plan, it is to continue to borrow and borrow and indebt our children and our grandchildren, so that they may continue to hold the trappings of political office and political power in this province. I say that a deficit in excess of $5 billion is too great a price to pay.

Mr. Speaker, if we were to give each and every one of these ministers $5 million to just get out of politics, we would be serving the people. It would be the best money that was ever spent in this province.

Mr. Speaker, if we look at the growth of the gross domestic product by province, we can see there has been a widening gap between British Columbia and the other western provinces and Ontario. During this decade, and under the current Minister of Finance, we saw negative growth in this province, the only province to go into negative growth. Now that our economy is projected to recover a little bit, even if we meet the figures projected for this year, British Columbia will see an accumulated growth of some 7.5 percent since 1980 — over this entire first half of the 1980s — whereas Ontario's economy will have grown 18.7 percent; Manitoba, 15.9 percent; Saskatchewan, 20.8 percent. And British Columbia, 7.5 percent — the worst performance of any province this side of Quebec. Probably Quebec has done better as well. I just haven't compared it because it isn't traditionally viewed as a comparative figure.

The Minister of Health, who just concluded his remarks, talked about all of the people we're going to bring into this province, and his hopes that they will be running their international operations out of British Columbia when they see our lifestyle. Well, I hope that happens, but you know, that is the same promise this government has been holding out ever since they first took office in 1975: that they were going to create the correct atmosphere, the climate, for investment opportunity in British Columbia. They've had ten years, and I say again we've had the worst performance in terms of gross domestic product growth of any province this side of Quebec. We also have the worst unemployment record, the only double-digit unemployment of any province this side of Quebec. Something has to be done.

The Minister of Health was talking about how we can bring in outsiders to create jobs in British Columbia and do things for us. Certainly there are some outside companies that have done that. I know of one company, I think with head offices in Norway, that many years ago chose Victoria as a place for their high-tech type of development — creating special sensing devices for measuring very sensitive differences in pressure and remote measurements of tidal variations and so on. Their order board goes all over the world, to South American countries, European countries, Asiatic countries and North America.

We have so much talent here in this province. On the front page of the business section of Monday's Vancouver Sun there was an article which covered some entrepreneurship in British Columbia. These entrepreneurs came to me about a year ago. They asked for some advice. I suggested some ways in which they could get venture capital. In fact, I think they went to other sources. I could say that maybe I didn't help them directly, but one thing I did do was keep their confidence. I did not go blabbing about it. I did not try to make some short-term political gain out of it. They knew that I would keep their confidence, because this idea was so simple.

The idea was for a night clerk, electronically-managed, so that in a Ma and Pa motel operation it would no longer be necessary to get up at 3 o'clock in the morning to receive a guest into the motel and register them. This can be done electronically. A charge card is read, a bill is prepared, a key is dispensed, and all the rest of the details can be taken care of in the morning. This very simple idea is affordable, and it has caught the imagination of the motel industry. It is something whose time has come. Now they are in a very short race, before others who see this very simple idea start to manufacture clones, start to invade their copyrights and their patents, as has been done so many times in the computer industry. We

[ Page 7541 ]

know that those protections are not nearly as good as simply having the lead time in the industry.

But they did come to me for help. I can say today that I have two other groups that have been talking with me with similar kinds of innovative technology, and these are British Columbians. In fact, Mr. Speaker, you know, whenever you see a headline about Doukhobors you know automatically that it's going to be something to do with burning or parading nude, or something like this. As a matter of fact, I think two of these principals happen to be of Doukhobor origin. But of course they're more typical of the average Doukhobor. They are very skilled, very energetic, very gifted technologically, and they are providing leadership in the community. Two of the principals are from the West Kootenays and have currently created about 15 jobs. When they get into manufacturing, it could be one of the greatest success stories in British Columbia.

Contrast that with the incentives that this government and the federal government held out to some offshore company that they said was going to produce microchips here in Victoria, and all of the inducements and so on that were said to them. Could we not create a real instrument for entrepreneurship here in British Columbia, one in which people know that they can have confidence that their ideas will not be ripped off and made public to other people?

I think that we, instead of concentrating offshore, should be looking at the people who are here in British Columbia. I know by my experience — I dealt with these people over a year ago. I have two others that are similarly exciting and imaginative; simple, simple ideas applying today's technology. What could have been more needed than an automatic night clerk to look after that problem of whether or not you're going to put up your "No Vacancy" sign when you want to get a decent night's sleep?

[10:30]

There are lots of ideas like that in British Columbia. I say, as I have said in the past, that this is the way in which we will truly bring British Columbia out of the Socred-created depression. It is only through real free enterprise, real entrepreneurship and those ideals that are espoused by the New Democratic Party that we will emerge from this — not looking for magic solutions, not working through a very close network but looking and saying that all people in British Columbia can make a contribution. Economic development is a do-it-yourself process. Nobody else is going to do it for us. We've got to do it here in British Columbia.

[Mr. Ree in the chair.]

Mr. Speaker, one of the ways in which we can do this would be by looking at this government's attitude to science and to post-secondary education. Listening to the Minister of International Trade claim great credit for the evolution of the high-technology industry in this province, I was reminded of the unscrupulous tailor selling the Emperor a new and invisible suit of clothes. As the story goes, the suit was only visible to those of great intelligence, which certainly would include the honourable minister. However, marketing was defeated, so the story goes, by the common sense of a small boy who pointed out that the Emperor was stark naked. In this case the minister has helped make a fig leaf for the industry and is promoting it as the last word in sartorial splendour. Like everything this government does, the image is nowhere near the truth. You cannot trust a government which claims such credit while spending so little on science. This budget provides slightly less than $20 million in a budget with projected expenditures in excess of $9.6 billion. That is 0.2 percent of the budget, or slightly less than 4 cents of every $100 of the province's gross domestic product.

We think this is a scandalous state of affairs. I was happy to find someone in the Bennett government who agreed. He once wrote: "It is difficult for me to understand how any cabinet minister, any civil servant, any industrialist or any average citizen thinks Canada can wind up anything but a loser with such an approach. It is like sending a hockey team of players who hardly know the game to compete in the Olympics." The writer was complaining about our national prospects when the national research budget was 50 percent bigger in real terms than British Columbia's is today. And who was he? None other than the Minister of International Trade and Investment (Hon. Mr. McGeer) in his famous book Politics in Paradise. However, that was written in 1971. Since then the minister has been in government; and if he believed it then or believed it yesterday, he certainly does not believe it today.

The problem for the government is to manipulate the ordinary British Columbian into accepting the status quo. The public of British Columbia know that they cannot trust the current government, because it is unresponsive to people's needs for jobs, education and health care. It depends on its ability, to quote Mr. Patrick Kinsella, "to move you, the voters, from one side of the ledger to another" to get out of this trouble. For that the government needs the support of an enhanced propaganda machine, which has increased by over 27 percent in this budget. We're spending more money on propaganda than we are on scientific research in this province in this age of the 1980s.

The current government's comprehension of excellence in education is limited to its special fund of $110 million for special projects under direct cabinet control. The NDP view is very different. Basic levels of service must be maintained in all parts of the education system — schools, colleges and universities. If not, our institutions will only be able to deliver a mediocre education. The legacy of our young people will be lost, missed and wasted.

The government claims that times are tough all over, and that's true. But other provinces decided to protect their young people in tough times, and they have maintained their public schools, their colleges and their universities. Here in British Columbia the current government decided that children in schools and students in our colleges and universities should make sacrifices to get British Columbia through the lean times.

Statistics Canada reports that B.C. Is the only province spending less on students in school than it did in 1982-83. Other provinces have increased their spending per student by 6 to 7 percent a year for each of the last three years. B.C. has cut its spending per student by I to 2 percent each year. There has been 17 percent inflation since 1982, making for a cut of around 23 percent in school services over four years in B.C., compared to a 7 percent increase in services everywhere else in real economic terms.

The government has to pay attention to what happens elsewhere. Our children are being put at a disadvantage for life because the current government refuses to protect their education during a temporary economic downturn. Jobs and investments are being lost because of this government's anti-education policies.

[ Page 7542 ]

Statistics Canada reports that post-secondary education participation rates have gone up everywhere since 1983, even in British Columbia. That would be good news except for two points. First, participation rates were already substantially higher everywhere else — 24.27 percent in Canada and 17.03 percent in British Columbia; and second, the participation rates were increasing nearly 17 times as fast everywhere else as they were in British Columbia. In two years the national post-secondary participation rate increased by 1.34 percent, while in B.C. It was just 0.08 percent. If B.C. had the same proportion of its young people going to college and universities as other provinces, there would be over 24,400 more full-time students in attendance.

Finally, consider this. The participation rate in post-secondary education in the United States is twice that of British Columbia, and that of Japan is four times the B.C. rate. There is nothing in this budget that suggests things will improve under the black-hole system of college funding. If enrolments fail to increase by 5 percent, the colleges will actually receive less money than they did this year.

Since 1982 the current government has inflicted severe damage on the college system, which directly touches the lives of more British Columbians than do the universities. The government has centralized the system and given economic and political objectives priority over educational ones. A case in point is the campaign by the member for Surrey for a permanent campus at Kwantlen College. The college was created in 1981 when Douglas College was divided, but the college has been around since the early seventies. Kwantlen is the only college that does not have its own permanent campus. The 140th Street campus is a collection of portables that leak when it rains. The Socreds have been in government for ten years and consistently denied college administration requests for a new permanent campus. Certainly Kwantlen should have a new permanent campus as soon as possible. We should also ask why it has not got one now, when this government has been in power for over ten years. The answer illustrates the current government's attitude to education: use it for short-term political advantage, as the member for Surrey is doing with the petition campaign.

Facilities are potential photo opportunities for candidates. Last year this government cut college operating budgets by $7.1 million and then created a special capital fund of $5.8 million, the local economic renewal development fund, around which they could issue press statements — and there were 42 of them.

The same approach is being taken with the educational excellence fund. On March 6 the hon. minister announced $4.7 million in loans for students; that $4.7 million generated 16 press releases from the government's propaganda machine. The press headlines screamed "Student Aid Funds Doubled," which was not true; in reality, students had been given additional opportunities to go deeper into debt, with no clear idea of how they would repay it on graduation.

The federal government announced in the 1985 budget that they will cap the transfer of cash and tax credits to the provinces for post-secondary education and health. This will save the federal government about $6 billion by 1991. British Columbia's share of the cut is $640 million, $31 million more than the current government allocated for the entire post-secondary sector in this budget. The Premier supported this move by the federal government. The Premier's government's failure to spend on education those federal funds earmarked for education was a large factor in the federal government's decision to cap transfers. While Ottawa has increased its funding of post-secondary education each year, British Columbia reduced its provision. This closely parallels the situation in the schools, where the homeowners have been handed $13 million in property tax hikes through to 1985-86 so that the province could actively reduce its allocation and reduce the services in real terms by 25 percent.

In conclusion, the current government sends three messages to the public. First, our young people are expendable; their opportunities can be sacrificed by the Bennett government. Second, the Bennett government will not stand up for the ordinary British Columbian against Ottawa. Third, you cannot trust this government to keep its word. They have undermined the 1977 federal-provincial fiscal arrangements, and the price to the B.C. taxpayer is $640 million over the next five years. For the student in school, it's a permanent legacy of lost, missed and wasted opportunities. For them the damage will last until we elect a government that cares about them in British Columbia; that means an NDP government.

Mr. Speaker, to come back to this good-news story. This entrepreneur was educated, I think, at BCIT in one of our B.C. Institutions. He was educated in, I believe, hotel management. It's native-trained people, people who've been given an educational opportunity in this province, who can lead us out of the problems that we're in, but only if they're given the tools to do the job. Not only do they need venture capital, not only do they need an agency to which they can go with confidence, so that their ideas and their ingenuity are not going to be ripped off and loosely bantered about at a cocktail party or something, to the point where someone else gets the idea and runs with it.... We have to give them those opportunities, starting from kindergarten, and through a good elementary and secondary education system and finally finishing off and honing those skills in a good-quality post-secondary system that meets the needs, whether it be in the arts or in specific areas of training and technology. If we are shortchanging them, we are not only mortgaging our future, as we've been doing by these budgetary measures for the past seven years, but we are going to be mortgaging the human capital, and that is an even greater travesty. We must start to reinvest and rebuild and renew the educational priorities of this province.

[10:45]

HON. MR. McGEER: Good morning, Mr. Speaker. It's nice to see members opposite this morning, and it's nice to have the government in their place. I see the fourth estate is taking a vacation this morning, which disappoints me a little, because one of the items which I would like to deal with briefly is a letter I received — first ever — from the editor of the Vancouver Sun, our daily afternoon disaster. I'll tell you what provoked — can you believe it — that great powerful organ, the Vancouver Sun to write this letter. Basically it was my defence of the member opposite, following one of his speeches in the House. Here he is smiling out from the microphones on page I of the Sun, Gary Lauk, NDP's bull terrier, making sheepish retraction, looking a little younger, I might say, in this particular picture.

What I had to say in that throne speech was that even though the member was correct he sheepishly withdrew his statements, because it amounted to calling "Fire!" in a crowded theatre. I'm not going to rehearse all of the circumstances, but I did note it was the Sun which drew attention to the jittery state of our financial system in an article by Der

[ Page 7543 ]

Hoi-Yin. Then I went on in that particular speech to describe what later took place with the B.C. teachers' housing and cooperative authority, where precisely the same thing was done, but this time with disastrous results to that cooperative. Now we have the Vancouver Sun with the daily opportunity to publicly display its opinions and its disinformation to a large segment of the British Columbia public, asking that a letter be read in its entirety to the House. I'm not going to take up the time of the Legislature, when I should be speaking on behalf of my constituents, to speak on behalf of the Vancouver Sun and its lawyers, who I'm sure were consulted in preparing this particular draft.

MR. LAUK: The same lawyers....

HON. MR. McGEER: I would tell you, Mr. Speaker — to the member who is worried about how the legal business is distributed in British Columbia — don't go for the ICBC account; go for the Vancouver Sun account. That's the big, rich account. And go for the CBC account. They're the most sued corporation in Canadian history. And I'll tell you this: you don't have to give money to the Social Credit government to be in favour with the CBC and the Sun. So that's where the young lawyers of British Columbia should set their sights. Get part of that legal business.

In any event, Mr. Speaker, I can't abuse my constituents by taking limited time of the House to offer the opinions of the editor of the Sun and the Sun's battery of lawyers. But I do say in quoting parts of their letter to me that they pointed out in the Der Hoi-Yin story that there had been recent public jitters about financial institutions. That was the whole point, because if people aren't jittery, then if you scream "Fire!" in the crowded theatre, nothing happens. That's the very point about legislative and reporting responsibility: the damage can quite clearly be quantitatively assessed. All one has to do is to compare the withdrawals before these remarks were made and then look at the withdrawals after the remarks were made, to recognize exactly what was responsible for this particular cooperative getting into the difficulties that it did.

Again they say: "In our article we pointed out that these people had been complaining that they didn't have insurance to Mr. David Edgar, an Assistant Deputy Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs." But members who know the statutes of our B.C. Legislature recognize that a civil servant doesn't have the power under the act which we passed, which sets up among the credit unions themselves their own insurance fund. We don't use taxpayers' money in British Columbia to protect members of credit unions. They protect themselves.

For the Vancouver Sun to suggest it carried out its responsibilities by saying that the government should do something through a civil servant, when the legislative authority is not there, is, to me, misunderstanding the Legislature itself and its statutes, misunderstanding the responsibilities of members to represent their constituents, and misunderstanding, even after the fact, the consequences of their style of reporting. But in any event, that great newspaper will have adequate opportunity to express its opinions about itself, and I'm sure it won't hesitate to express its opinions about me.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: On the budget, hon. minister.

HON. MR. McGEER: Nonetheless, I won't be muzzled by the Vancouver Sun. No, sir. The Vancouver Sun isn't going to shut up members of this Legislature.

Interjection.

HON. MR. McGEER: Well, you see, all I say to budding young lawyers is: go after some of that business.

Mr. Speaker, the member opposite said: "Get on with international trade." I'm sure I heard the member opposite say that, and I would like to do that, because that is my major responsibility, not defending the Vancouver Sun.

We live by trade, we live by export. Our biggest customers, the four big customers for British Columbia, are the United States, Japan, the United Kingdom and Korea, in this order. We export to the U.S. about $5.5 billion; to Japan, $2.9 billion; to the United Kingdom, $463 million; and to Korea, $320 million. Our most rapidly growing major export is coal, and I want to say just a word or two about that, because it perfectly illustrates the difference between this side of the House and that side of the House.

There could be no greater handicap in life than to put on a pair of socialist glasses early in one's career and go through life with tunnel vision. What an unfortunate handicap to carry. I'm happy to say that we've got a member over here, coming from the north, who pulled those glasses off and for the first time saw society, saw government responsibility in its full perspective.

Every budget — this is why I support our particular budget — has to show that balance between responsibility to people who cannot help themselves, to the less fortunate in our society, to all of those things that cannot be looked after by business.... Governments must do that as their first and major responsibility. In order to do that, governments must, as well, be prepared to invest in industry, so that the wealth will eventually come in to distribute.

Our friends opposite have always understood the spending side. They have never understood the earning side. They have never recognized the responsibility of government to an economy. They have never understood the necessity for investing in the future, and there could be no better demonstration of this than the very statements that they make about the economy of the province.

I want to start with northeast coal.

MR. LAUK: Disaster.

HON. MR. MCGEER: Here's a project which.... The member opposite — perfect — says: "Disaster." That's the NDP recognition of the project before it took place, while it was taking place. Now that it is earning and providing jobs it is still to them a disaster, notwithstanding the fact that there are 5,000 people at work in the northeast of British Columbia, that our coal contracts from that part of British Columbia are bringing in over $500 million a year, all of which is being distributed to the workers and producers in that northeast coalfield. He says that's wrong.

Mr. Speaker, here you have in that region of the province a supply of coal at current rates of production that will last over a thousand years on the basis of what has been discovered just so far, and they're against building a railroad in so you can get the coal out. They're against building a townsite there so that people can mine the coal. They're against the B.C. Hydro building powerlines in so that the people who dig the coal will

[ Page 7544 ]

have lights to read by and to work by. They're against the schools and the hospitals. They say it's all a disaster.

If you cannot basically understand that if you've got over a thousand years' supply of coal and a demand for that coal by steel mills around the world, it makes some sense to build a railroad so you can get the coal out.... You know, something that the NDP haven't yet recognized is that after that railroad has been paid for, which will be in about 20 years, it will still be there.

I suppose the people who built the railroad across Canada 100 years ago, and I suppose the people who built a railroad down to Fernie and Cranbrook and into the southeast coalfields 75 years ago, were silly. I can tell you this: if there had been socialists in Ottawa and if there had been socialists in British Columbia, it certainly never would have taken place, and there would never be southeast coal or northeast coal, because people in that side of the House simply cannot understand.

Here we have the Leader of the Opposition — not here this morning, I'm sorry to say.... We would be more satisfied in the government if he were out on the hustings making more speeches of this kind. Let me tell you what he said just last week: "Northeast coal was a terrible mistake and another example of their lack of economic intelligence."

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Who said that?

HON. MR. McGEER: The Leader of the Opposition, Robert Skelly. Yes, he said that in Cranbrook just last week. So you see, here we've got a project bringing in half a billion dollars a year to British Columbia, putting 5,000 people to work, a railroad going into eight billion tonnes of coal, a thousand years' supply, a town that will last because of that coal supply — not a few years, like some of the mining towns where the supply ran out. It's not going to be like Barkerville when the gold ran out; it's not going to be like Dawson City when the gold ran out; it's not going to be like Britannia when the copper ran out, because there's over a thousand years' supply of coal.

I tell you, the town of Tumbler Ridge is going to be around for a long time because there's a government that had some vision. There's a government that didn't have socialist blinders on. But look, even now when it's so obvious, they're still against it. I'll tell you what the Leader of the Opposition's former guru.... Remember when they sat on this side? Who was Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy then?

HON. MR. CURTIS: Mason Gaffney?

HON. MR. McGEER: Well, I think even Mason Gaffney could give better advice than they're getting today. No, this was on the Jack Webster show in which the hon. Mr. Williams described northeast coal as "a monumental failure." He described it here in the House as "the biggest lemon ever produced in British Columbia." He said: "It's the wrong project in the wrong place at the wrong time."

AN. HON. MEMBER: Who said that?

[11:00]

[Mr. Strachan in the chair.]

HON. MR. McGEER: The member for Vancouver East (Mr. Williams) said that. He's not here today, but I hope he's out telling the people of British Columbia that it was a monumental mistake, because the people of British Columbia don't have the kind of economic blinders on that our people opposite have. How can it be wrong to build a railroad to a thousand years' supply of coal? How can this be done when world capacity, world demand, is going up and while the steel mills of Japan, which are one of our major purchasers of coal, are currently running at two-thirds of their capacity? If the demand for steel increases, where else can the steel mills turn for their coking coal but to British Columbia? The reason why you build more than one railroad, the reason why you develop more than one pit, is because when world demand increases, you need to be able to supply. That's what capacity is all about. That's what planning is all about. That's what vision is all about. And that's what investment is all about. But that's not what socialism is all about. Socialism is spending. Socialism is economic irresponsibility. Socialism is the road to perfidy.

I want to talk about another export that is important but, like northeast coal, takes a little bit of vision and a little bit of courage. I speak about electricity and hydroelectric power. When the former Leader of the Opposition was the Premier of British Columbia, he said: "We'll build no more damn dams."

Interjections.

HON. MR. McGEER: Yes, still criticizing. "No more damn dams." Well, another dam has been built since Social Credit was returned as government. We were here. I was a director of B.C. Hydro, listening to all the criticism of that particular project. Totally wasted, water over the dam, bad investment, lack of planning — all of the things that the NDP say about every project. Before, water was running from the Mica Dam down the Columbia River and out to sea, without any wealth or energy being extracted between the Mica Dam and the Canadian border.

Now that the dam is in place, with one of the largest capacity power projects in British Columbia, that water, instead of being wasted, is being turned into productive energy and wealth. Far from the predictions of the NDP, who in the first instance said, "No more damn dams," that renewable source of energy, coming back every year forever, is not wasted, but is being sold to the United States at an average of one million dollars a day. That's what planning is all about. And when the former Leader of the Opposition — and former Premier of British Columbia — was saying, "No more damn dams," somebody else with a different vision of British Columbia said in speeches and to the government that electricity was the most reliable export British Columbia would have for years to come. He looked at the markets in the United States and the fact that we had developed less than a third of our power capacity in British Columbia, and said: "This is where an investment in the future of this province will bring a return now and forever."

Let's turn again to the former guru of the current Leader of the Opposition, the second member for Vancouver East (Mr. Williams), talking about the Revelstoke Dam. "There wasn't the work done ahead of time in terms of handling that. It tells you volumes about the competence of management when you've got a $2 billion facility at Revelstoke, you've got the billions we put into our own transmission lines, and then you don't have a market. In the meantime we've got water spilling over the dam." A million dollars a day, not a drop of electricity wasted, the project on stream and doing all

[ Page 7545 ]

of that — and here is the member for Vancouver East, during the period when this is happening, saying all of this.

Here's the same year, and the member opposite, who was talking about science.... I'll come to that in a minute. "As an oversupply of hydroelectricity, one need not inform me.... I delivered a little monograph to the government in 1978 and said there would be a 10-year surplus when the Revelstoke Dam was completed, and I regretfully was somewhat accurate." I want to put that member's mind to rest. He doesn't need to regret it at all. He couldn't have been more inaccurate. Every kilowatt is being sold, bringing wealth into British Columbia and building security for our future.

The problem is that these projects cannot be achieved overnight. One has to invest the money, and then one has to be patient. During all of this period one has to withstand all the criticism, all the attempts to discredit progress that go routinely with members of the NDP opposite — and, I regret to say, all their friends in the media. We read about it every morning in the Vancouver Daily Disappointment and in the afternoon in the Vancouver Daily Disaster. That's what the public is told as these investments take place. Even after they're in place and working, they still don't realize it.

They still haven't figured it out, and that's the difference between this side of the House and that side of the House. Over time the public of British Columbia have come to recognize that there is no thought about the economic future among the socialists, because they put these blinders on, and they can't see. That's why they were defeated in 1933, 1937, 1941, 1945, 1949, 1952, 1953, 1956, 1960, 1963, 1966 and 1969. Then we come to 1972. What happened in 1972? My gosh, let's think about that: 38 percent of the vote and they became government. How could those who didn't have economic blinders on have permitted that event to take place? No, sir, people understand now that either you have the economic blinders on, in which case you're a disaster for the province, or you don't have economic blinders on, in which case you vote for Social Credit. But they figured it out again in 1975, 1979 and 1983; and in 1986, 1987...sometime. We know the result; we just don't know the timing.

But I'll tell you this. I think somebody ought to hang up in that NDP caucus room the won-lost record. It makes the Vancouver Canucks look good. Looking at that election record, you should begin to look at the reasons for that election record. There is something wrong with the general manager. As I have just explained to you, he has economic blinders. But even he looks broad in his vision compared with the captain of the team, the member for Vancouver East.

I can only say to the more responsible members of the New Democratic Party, one of whom has done absolutely the correct thing — and others, I understand, are giving up — that they're going to hang those socialist glasses on the wall forever. No, don't do that. Take your party, get a new leader, develop a new outlook, and recognize the need to invest in order to have wealth. Recognize that all of these good things in British Columbia, like northeast coal, the hydroelectric development and all the scientific developments that we have taking place in our province, didn't happen by accident. You don't just sit in the Premier's chair and on the front benches across here and have it happen. No, sir, that takes planning; it takes vision; it takes courage; and it takes persistence. With the kind of media we've got in British Columbia, it takes a hide like leather too, I'll tell you that. But that's all right — we're not going to be silenced by the Vancouver Sun, no, sir.

Mr. Speaker, I'd just like to say in conclusion, having given this good advice to my socialist friends opposite, that I recommend timing in putting their new program into effect, because this is the year when the world comes to British Columbia — not, I might add, because of the New Democratic Party, its members here or future candidates. My uncle was the mayor of Vancouver during our fiftieth anniversary, and as a little tot I went around to many of the celebrations. That was done entirely by the city of Vancouver. We are now coming up to our hundredth birthday party, and it's being entirely done by the provincial government. The mayor of Vancouver, who is going to run in Vancouver Centre, I understand, as a socialist, displayed his true socialist colours. He went all the way to Paris to try to get the celebration for the city of Vancouver and our magnificent world's fair cancelled. That was the contribution of the mayor of Vancouver.

I suppose you could say that that qualifies him to be a socialist candidate, but I say this: tell that mayor of Vancouver that you don't want him as a candidate, because you're going to reform. What you're going to do is welcome the world to our province. What you're going to do is to say: "See what people with imagination and courage and vision can do. And I want to be part of the team building this province instead of tearing it down." We would be worried if we had that kind of opposition, but as long as they continue with this socialist philosophy, what we're going to have to do when the world comes to British Columbia this summer is to say: "Watch where you look, because there are two kinds of people in this province: there are those with courage and vision who believe in the economy and development, and there are those on the opposite side who are against it."

Mr. Speaker, I'll be voting for the budget, but I say the first move of repentance for the NDP would be for them to vote in favour of this budget rather than against it, like they always do, when it comes up tomorrow.

[11:15]

MR. REID: Mr. Speaker, can I have leave to make an introduction?

Leave granted.

MR. REID: I'd like to introduce to the House today one of the hardest-working Socreds from the south Surrey–White Rock area, an alderman from the city of White Rock, Jim Coleridge.

HON. MR. McGEER: Mr. Speaker, I did quote from a document, and I think that in following the rules of the House the least I could do — you'll find it fascinating reading....

DEPUTY SPEAKER: You're asking leave to table...?

HON. MR. McGEER: It's a letter from the editor of the Vancouver Sun.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Is the minister asking leave to table a document?

HON. MR. McGEER: Leave to table, yes.

Leave granted.

[ Page 7546 ]

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Continuing the budget debate, the Chair recognizes the member for Mackenzie.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: Mr. Speaker, this is my 14th year in the Legislature and 14th year of listening to that Minister of International Trade and Investment. However, that minister has had only one speech — maybe one and a half. I used to enjoy it when that member was a Liberal and would annually bring down his own budget at about this time every spring.

AN HON. MEMBER: He used to be very thoughtful.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: Yes, some of it was thoughtful and some of it useful. But I can't figure out what happens when these people cross the floor. They change. I heard very little about the budget in that speech. No new ideas — ideas that that member used to espouse to this House at great length. What happens to them when they cross the floor? All of a sudden they become very quiet, they take their orders directly from the Premier. I'm told that that member has never earned a free enterprise dollar in his life, has always....

MR. LAUK: On the backs of the taxpayers.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: On the backs of the taxpayers, with his tenure at the university and his government jobs and things like that.

Before I get into my short presentation here, Mr. Speaker, I remember 1976 when that minister was responsible for ICBC in this Legislature. I remember he had a lot of ear trouble. I saw burnper stickers all over the province suggesting what that minister should have done with his ears. He still has ear trouble, because from this side of the House every one of our members has come up with positive policies to decrease the deficit, increase the welfare and well-being of our citizens in British Columbia, to improve the economy in speech after speech — particularly the very fine speeches made by our leader — but that member hasn't heard them. So I'm suggesting he's still having problem with his ears.

Mr. Speaker, I wanted to briefly discuss this budget that is before us — and that's the only way it can be discussed. It isn't till you get to page 14 in this document that the government has something to say about the budget. Up to page 14 it was sheer rhetoric and government propaganda. So I'm suggesting to anyone who may want to read this budget, you may as well start on page 13 or 14, because everything prior to that is sheer rhetoric. It doesn't mean a thing, but it tells us what a good job the government has done.

AN HON. MEMBER: And what we're getting now is the straight record.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: Well sure, but that's what they pay me for.

Interjection.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: We do have a new Tory member coming into the House shortly, I understand.

HON. MR. GARDOM: He's an NDP mole.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: What are you? Where did the Minister of Intergovernmental Relations start out? He started out as a Tory, then a Liberal. Now he's a Socred.

Interjection.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: You were never a Tory? Well, you sure act like a Tory. You've always acted like.... You must have been a pretty right-wing Liberal.

HON. MR. GARDOM: Come on outside and say that.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: Oh, I will. Any time.

Anyway, Mr. Speaker, I think the Rhinoceros Party is all that's left for the member for Prince Rupert after he bolts from the Tories.

This government has once again overestimated revenues....

Interjection.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: Well, you have. You've overestimated revenues, underestimated expenditure, as you've done in previous budgets. Even business groups in British Columbia tell us there's no way in the world that consumer spending will possibly increase as predicted and forecast in the budget before us — no way in the world. So what we're going to have once again.... As a matter of fact, the government is forecasting an $875 million deficit in this budget. I can predict that the actual deficit could be $300 million to $400 million more than in this past year.

This budget contains absolutely nothing for ordinary British Columbians — nothing.

Interjection.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: It doesn't. What tax decreases are in here? Are there tax decreases on petroleum resources? The price of a barrel of oil may reach as low as $5 or $6. Have you reduced the taxes on...? You've put a cap on it. The minister has put a cap on the taxes, which is great; but the fact is, taxes on petroleum products in this province should, and could, have been reduced, particularly with the price of oil. I know the government has a problem with the national energy program, which they supported — turning over those multi-billions of dollars to the oil companies when those revenues should have gone to the federal and provincial governments.

AN HON. MEMBER: You've got the wrong research. You're reading from the wrong stuff.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: Am I? No. I just wrote it half an hour ago. I know it's right.

So taxes on petroleum and fuel should have been reduced in this province.

The other thing the government hasn't done is reduce the sales tax. They did reduce the sales tax prior to the election in 1979. Yes, they reduced it for two months, or possibly three months. The government was re-elected and, of course, immediately jacked up the sales tax to where it was previously. Not only that, but in 1981 this government brought in legislation that automatically increases the tax — and this is a regressive tax — on tobacco and alcohol. Every six months the tax goes up by this government. That tax wasn't

[ Page 7547 ]

capped, and that's a regressive tax. We all agree that people shouldn't smoke or drink too heavily, but a lot of people do. The fact is that the poor people, people on welfare and in the low-income category — and there are a lot of them in British Columbia today — have to pay the same price for these products as do those rich people sitting over there, What do they care if they have to pay up to $5 for a pack of smokes? They don't care. It doesn't mean anything to them. They're rich. They're selling used cars, and they have their investments and tax shelters; sometimes they even declare them and sometimes they don't.

Interjections.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: They don't trust you. The people out there don't trust you. I'm going to get to you, Mr. Minister of Highways. We'll get to you shortly.

HON. A. FRASER: Tell us about Harry Rankin.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: Well, what do you want to know?

HON. A. FRASER: Tell us about him. Is he a capitalist?

MR. LOCKSTEAD: Well, ask him yourself. I don't know. I know what party he belongs to though, and it isn't ours.

In any event, there are a number of items that I want to talk about and discuss here, and very quickly. First of all, because we are discussing finances and the budget, I'm once again very briefly going to call on the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Municipal Affairs (Hon. Mr. Ritchie) to take full responsibility for the $10.9 million that the B.C. Assessment Authority — a Crown corporation — has ordered to be paid back to a large forest company in my riding. The government must take responsibility for the repayment of that debt.

AN HON. MEMBER: No way.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: Well, they must, because it was strictly a government corporation that provided the municipality with the figures on which they based their taxes in that area. The company went to court and won its case — at least partially. The government has already paid back $4.5 million of that, but the remaining $6.4 million has to be borne ultimately, if the government doesn't take action, by the local taxpayer. I'm suggesting to you, Mr. Speaker, that the government must take responsibility. If they don't, what is going to happen is that other communities around the province — Prince George, Kamloops, Campbell River, Port Alberni, Nanaimo, perhaps — are going to be faced with the same situation. The government must take action to rectify that situation, in my view.

What do we have in special funds? We have quite a bit of information, and it has been debated in this House at some length, Mr. Speaker. In this budget the government has created three major categories of special funds. Do you remember, Mr. Speaker, the special funds under W.A. C. Bennett, who also created special funds for various purposes? I recall a couple: funds for our native Indian people.... They were relatively small funds. What that allowed the government to do at that time was never to show a deficit with the creation of these special funds over at the side. Those special funds were done away with in 1973, 1 believe, and those programs that those special funds were funding were properly funded under the budget.

What we have here now is a government that has created special funds, particularly in three categories: forestry, education and health. Let's just talk about forestry for a couple of minutes; not too long, because presumably we will be debating the spending estimates of the various ministers sometime this spring or next summer or next fall or whenever, possibly even before an election.

Under this government, Mr. Speaker, forestry has been treated as an industry on its way out. The Bennett government has ignored plant closures, has neglected to replant the forests, placing thousands of jobs at risk. I believe that there are some 20,000 fewer people working in the industry now than there were in 1981. We in our party have proposed setting up a permanent fund to replant and tend our forests, to increase available timber supply. The government initiative is neither permanent nor adequate; but even worse: the only person who can authorize those funds to be expended out of consolidated revenue is the Minister of Finance, not people in the Forest Service, not the technicians, not the people who know what should be happening.

I suggest that the way this government has performed, perhaps if an area votes Social Credit they would have better access to those funds than other electoral areas. However, after the next election, I would expect our government, our party, to hold 42 to 43 seats in this House, and a lot of those people sitting there will be long gone, some of them collecting their pensions.

[11:30]

[Mr. Ree in the chair.]

So there you go. Oh, yes, we're in good shape. We have some of the finest candidates running in the field that this party has ever had, good candidates running all over the province.

Interjection.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: I'll bet with you.

Interjection.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: I don't know, how much you got? Do you take cheques?

Anyway, Mr. Speaker, the same applies to the slush fund in education. Everybody knows that is a farce; everybody knows that is a complete farce. Once again, this money for Excellence in Education — $110 million this year, I understand — will be issued by the government and the Minister of Education (Hon. Mr. Hewitt) totally on a political basis.

If a school board and a school district don't agree with the Ministry of Education and the government on its financing policies, or don't knuckle under, the government simply will withhold those funds. It's as simple as that. That's what they're going to do. That has been their pattern in the past, and that's what they are going to continue to do in the future.

Oh, I should mention that just the day before yesterday 750 high-school children in my riding in the district of Powell River walked out of school. In other words, they boycotted the education process for one day on their own initiative, not egged on by the school board, not egged on by the teachers, but on their own initiative.

[ Page 7548 ]

The reason for that — and I spoke with several of them yesterday by phone, and they want to meet with me when I return to Powell River, which I will do.... I was surprised that they understood the situation. They weren't blaming the teachers because the teachers were withholding extracurricular services after school. They weren't blaming the school board. Those young people, aged anywhere from 11, 12, 13, 14, 15 up to 16 years old in the senior grades, understood very well when I was speaking with them that the fault lies here in Victoria. They've been shortchanged. They have been shortchanged, and they understand that. They're not blaming the school boards and the teachers and their parents. They're blaming the present government of British Columbia. I was very pleased to see that, that the students at this age are taking this kind of interest in the activities of this government.

The same applies to health care. The government has announced a plus-$700 million fund — nothing for salaries, mind you, or wages — and I think the government is purposely leading some of its employees, goading its employees, into a strike situation — purposely, for its own political ends. That's not what I'm talking about here at the moment. What I'm talking about is $700 million-plus for health care over the next five years. Once again, it is a slush fund. Only the Minister of Health (Hon. Mr. Rogers) and the cabinet can authorize those funds to be spent in any single location.

We've had examples over there of government members actually threatening people in their ridings, telling them that if they don't vote Social Credit these kinds of funds may not be available. Some of these examples have been duty recorded in the daily press, and we're all aware of the examples. So what I'm telling you.... The reason I voted for the amendment of non-confidence yesterday was strictly because of this situation that we have with this present budget.

Now the Minister of Transportation and Highways (Hon. A. Fraser): I was going to say some nice things about him, but he's giving me a bad time here this morning, so maybe I'll rethink that. The fact is that some blunders have been made.

First of all, very briefly — and we'll get into this under spending debate of the estimates — I want to tell you that the spring/summer schedule that was published a short time ago is quite an improvement. There's no question about it. It's generally acceptable, I think, to the people of the coast of British Columbia; it certainly will help Expo; and I'm pleased to see for my own riding that we're finally going to get some late sailings at least over the summer. However, that's not what I'm on about. There are some problems in that particular route three, but we'll discuss those under estimates.

What I want to talk about is the government's massive spending on megaprojects such as the Coquihalla, northeast coal, Expo, SkyTrain, the Annacis Bridge. Now the government seems to find a lot of money for these monster projects, but....

MRS. JOHNSTON: Jobs.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: Well, where are the jobs, Madam Member? Unemployment in this province has increased over the past 10 years under this government to 229,000 people receiving welfare from Human Resources, and I believe it's 192, 000 people on UIC at the present time. There are 41,000 fewer people working now than in 1981. A lot of the new jobs that the government is so fond of discussing are part-time jobs, as has been explained in this House on many an occasion. I won't go through it all, but they are part-time and the lowest-paying jobs that you can find. So there you have it. That's part of the record of this government. The highest rates of business failures in all of Canada are in British Columbia, under this government.

However, what I started to say was that the government seems to be able to find funds for these megaprojects. They have thrust the province into debt. Over ten years they have increased the provincial debt, including Crown corporations, by about $14 billion.

HON. MR. GARDOM: Which would you cancel?

MR. LOCKSTEAD: Well, these projects.... What the government should....

Interjections.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: In terms of highways, what the government may have considered.... They did cancel the Coquihalla after it was announced two or three times by the minister, Mr. Speaker. That project was cancelled for two years. And it's a needed project, and perhaps when the economy picked up would have been a good project. The money that was expended on that $500 million-plus project.... And there are going to be overruns; we know that. What the government could have done.... The roads and highways in other parts of this province are in a state of disrepair, and they could have expended that money in smaller communities all over this province, providing employment in these smaller communities, some of which have up to 28 percent unemployment. My own riding has an average of 22 percent throughout the whole riding at the present time. They could have provided jobs in much-needed road improvements.

HON. A. FRASER: When you were the government, you filled the potholes.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: When we were the government, we did something useful. We expended those dollars wisely and provided job opportunities for people in local communities. The Minister of Highways and Transportation knows it.

Interjections.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, please.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: That's okay, Mr. Speaker. I don't mind the interjections because people reading the record, if Hansard is picking up those remarks, will know that you can't trust these guys. They're not telling the truth again today with their interjections across the floor. You're not being factual. You're not telling the truth. You don't do your research.

AN HON. MEMBER: Who's Tory now?

MR. LOCKSTEAD: Who's Tory now. I think it's the member from Prince Rupert.

AN HON. MEMBER: Bring back John Woods.

[ Page 7549 ]

MR. LOCKSTEAD: You're going to get your turn in a few minutes, Mr. Minister. In about four.

AN HON. MEMBER: Your time is up.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: Not really. One more election at least. Come on, give me a break.

Back to the budget. I have a list.... Well, before I go into that list, I doubt that I'll have time today; but I'll have time in future sessions. One of the things I wanted to discuss very quickly, and I'm getting back to forests.... Is the Minister of Forests in the House? No, he's not, but I know he's listening somewhere.

We have a problem on the coast of British Columbia particularly. This problem may exist in the interior; I'm not really sure. But what I do know is that the Minister of Forests, under the small business program — which took him four years to get off the ground, by the way.... He finally got it off the ground, so what is happening as a result? The large companies are undercutting their TFLs in many cases. They have no end of timber. They get whatever they want from that government. But people under the small business enterprise program.... These are the small logging and mill operators. I have people in my riding who haven't been able to purchase a piece of timber in over two years. They provide employment for people throughout these areas, and they haven't been able to purchase a piece of timber in over two years.

AN HON. MEMBER: They're not big enough.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: And they don't have enough polls; they don't have lobbyists here talking to the government every day.

Furthermore, these people have to bid — not like the large companies — on any timber that is available and that they do get, and they bid quite high just to keep in operation and attempt to make the payments to the bank on their equipment and machinery and pay some wages. Furthermore, as a rule of thumb the government is receiving four times more in stumpage fees from people under the small business enterprise program than they are from the large, integrated companies here on the coast of British Columbia. That's scandalous, for starters, but worse than that. the government does not even see fit to remove at least part of those large, large holdings of these large companies and turn that resource over to the small loggers and give them a break. They do provide employment for the people of this province. I just wanted to get that on record, Mr. Speaker. I'm sure we'll get into that more as the session progresses.

I have a list in front of me — I have about three minutes left or so, I can see — of what the government has done to us lately.

Interjection.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: Oh, the roads. Well Highway 101 in my riding hasn't been touched for gosh knows how long.

Interjection.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: We'll hear. I don't want to be too negative all the time, but once in a while it's good to remind the government and the people of this province what the government has done to us. Let's start with the Attorney-General. Legal aid programs, already the least generous in Canada, have been reduced by $1.7 million. Training programs for police and firefighters have been severely....

Interjection.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: Well, at least double it so that people have a chance in court against that government.

lnterjection.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: Sure. Throw them in jail, that's the attitude of that government. Throw them in jail. That's all. They're considering building two or three more jails around the province, I understand. Just throw them in jail. That's the solution.

The consumer mediation service, which helped consumers obtain satisfactory settlements in cases of poor quality merchandise, has been eliminated. Education services available through the public school districts have been reduced by 22 percent in real terms, but I think we spoke about that earlier.

The provincial student assistance program has been terminated under the program. I know that there is some increased funding for this purpose, but $20 million for the whole province is not nearly enough. Who's going to be eligible to receive that money anyway? Read the budget, Mr. Member.

[11:45]

When the government took office there were 128,000 welfare recipients. Today there are 239,000; 83,000 of those people are children. Since 1982 social assistance rates have been frozen by the government, even though the cost of living has risen by some 15 percent during that freeze.

Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources. What have they done? Under our government not one single operating mine in British Columbia shut down. Under the Social Credit government 12 operating mines in British Columbia have shut down, with about 7,600 direct jobs lost to the people of this province.

I see the green light is on; I'll take my place. I'm looking forward to debating in detail with the members, under the debate on the spending estimates, the various issues that we have to discuss in this province.

Last but not least, I just want to remind the member sitting over there: the people of the province have lost confidence in you, government members. They've lost confidence in you. It's time for a change, and you know it. That's why you're afraid to call the election. That's why the Premier didn't call the election this spring. That's why he's not going to call the election now, until the summer or early fall. He's going to spend another $20 million on government advertising, all taxpayers' money, to try to build up his image. Maybe he could get Mr. Kinsella back out here to do the image-building job for him. Who knows? But I'll tell you, whenever that election is called, those people sitting over there will no longer be the government of this province.

HON. A. FRASER: I enjoyed the remarks of the member for Mackenzie. I don't want to really dwell on the intricacies of the budget, but before I do.... You wound up talking about an election. I'll lead off with that, and get some facts on the sheets here.

[ Page 7550 ]

We were elected with the biggest majority we ever had on May 5, 1983, and that gave us a legal mandate to govern until May 1988. Art Kube and the NDP have been trying to get us out of office since May 6, 1983. We haven't even served three years of our mandate and we're only in the middle of that. So, you know, don't talk about elections and what we're going to do prior to elections, Mr. Member. You just should be in tune with the facts of life that elections come and go, but your timing is out. As a matter of fact, that NDP rump group that got elected as opposition in 1983 never to this day have realized that they are the opposition. They've always pretended that they won the election. But the facts of life are you lost, and the facts of life are you're going to get a real cleaning the next time too.

While on the subject of elections, you're sure brave. Mr. Speaker, they're really brave. This Legislature passed legislation to increase the seats in British Columbia from 57 to 69 and, you know, there wasn't much debate about that. Rep by pop is what governs things. We've got other problems with less population with more members in this province. Anyway, it's the law of the land. So what does the NDP do about it? Runs to lawyers to challenge the law. Why don't you fight the election and don't be so damned nervous about it? You've got just as much chance of winning as we have. What are you frightened of? What are you going after the Charter of Rights for, and everything? To avoid an election.

AN HON. MEMBER: Gerrymandering.

HON. A. FRASER: It's you, Mr. Speaker, that does the gerrymandering. Don't fool me. That was passed in this democratic assembly, and we'll fight the election on that basis. I don't what you're frightened about.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, please. The minister on the budget.

HON. A. FRASER: Oh, yes, I've got a lot of research here, too, on the budget, but, you know, I've got a lot of copious notes and now I can't read them. But I'll try, Mr. Speaker.

First of all, this is a great budget. I want to thank my colleague, the Minister of Finance, for bringing it in — a lot of hard work. But it is a great budget. There are no tax increases in this budget, but there are tax decreases. Why didn't you say that? Because you didn't know it. You believe your researchers who are all mixed up.

It's a job-creating budget. There's extra money for forestry in here. There's extra money in the budget for student employment, revenue-sharing is up 9 percent and if the municipal councils spend it properly, that should create jobs.

Now dealing with Highways, which I have a little to do with, we have a billion dollar budget. We had one in '85-86. We've got another one for '86-87, and with that kind of budget the Highways ministry alone will create 5,000 extra jobs in the private sector — that's nothing to do with our own staff. And what is wrong with that? People want to go to work, and we're going to give them work starting April 1, 1986. This isn't ad hockery. All the work that will be done is to improve our transportation system so we have a better base so our economy can flourish under it. We will have better roads and so on and so forth. And railroads: there's money in this budget of Transportation and Highways to improve the great British Columbia Railway. That will create jobs and make a more efficient transportation system.

Now dealing with the people from Vancouver Island. There's further money in here for B.C. Ferries, Mr. Speaker. As the ministry responsible, we're going to give them a lot more service this year starting right now. And we're going to have boats out of Nanaimo and out of Swartz Bay and out of Tsawwassen at 11:30 at night — never before in the history of the ferry system. The service to the public is what we're concerned with, and that additional service that that fine ferry fleet has to put on creates an additional 400 or 500 jobs.

Expo: another project that those negative Nellies over there have been against for all time. Expo is going to be a great success. And those negative Nellies have opposed it from 1980 on.

Another project that they oppose completely has created all kinds of jobs and is nearing completion. It will open in 1986, and I refer to the Annacis bridge. You don't give us credit for the jobs that that created during that time. What do we end up with — a permanent improvement to our transportation system. They'll be able to go all the way from Surrey into downtown Vancouver in about eight minutes. What's wrong with that? As long as they stay on the right side of the centre line.

Mr. Speaker, the Coquihalla Highway. These negative Nellies are against that. It created thousands of jobs, and it's still creating jobs, bringing a whole new transportation link to the province of British Columbia. They're calling it a highway to nowhere. The Leader of the Opposition said that the day he got elected — God forbid the day that he will ever get elected — he'd shut her down. Do you know what they said in the 1983 election? They said they'd shut down the Annacis bridge that we'd already started. He said that they'd shut that down, and for the link in between, they'd get planes for the cars so they could jump across it. But they'd shut the bridge down. That's their record. That's all in the record.

I'm a little biased, Mr. Speaker, talking about transportation creating jobs, but in here there are more jobs for education, more jobs for health. They're mad about that because it's in special funds. They're mad about it because I guess they want the bureaucrats to dish it out. They don't want the elected people to have anything to do with that. What a bunch of garbage!

I was here when they were government. They chased every miner out of the country. They wouldn't invest five cents in this country.

Interjection.

HON. A. FRASER: You're talking about mines that close. Well, I'll talk about them too. World metal markets have a lot to do....

Interjections.

HON. A. FRASER: Now wait a minute. Listen. I'll bring you up to date on what's going on. You're all so isolated. You don't get around B.C., you know, to know what's going on anyway.

But there are three new mines opening in my riding this year, Cariboo. You didn't say anything about it, did you? A new mine opening, an addition to Gibraltar, Black Dome is opening and now they think they've got another Hemlo 20

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miles from my home town. Why don't you talk about the optimistic instead of always talking about the pessimistic? I don't want to say too much about my riding, but dealing with the economy generally in the province, I want to quote from a little paper — I just forget the name of it; I think they call it the Times-Colonist — dated today. Among a lot of things — I won't quote all of the stuff — there is some negativism in here. I'll just use the positive stuff. This is what it says right in the article:

"'Hey, the economy is starting to move again.... Parker" — this is one of the good managers of the Bank of B.C., Mr. Parker — "thought interest rates would decline and inflation was under control. 'I think the economy is on the upturn,' he said. 'I don't think there is to be a tremendous drop-off after Expo, but there will be a slight tourist drop-off.' He said development of Vancouver's seaport and airport, aquaculture, tourism, sports fishing, Expo 86 and establishing Vancouver as an international banking centre all represented 'tremendous opportunities' for business."

I didn't say that. One of our prominent bankers in the province said that. So things don't look that bad.

You know, Mr. Speaker, all we get from those negative Nellies over there is words that I don't think should be used in this Legislature, such as deceitful, disgraceful and so on. I think it's a disgraceful performance. You get worse every year, you people over there. I don't know where you think you're going. Can you imagine anybody voting you people into government? When you use that kind of language you get down in the ditch so low you're going to drown down there. It worries me that you'll drown in the bottom of the ditch.

[12:00]

You know, Mr. Speaker, since a new Leader of the Opposition was elected in'84, the whole outfit is falling apart — the NDP. You've got eight or nine members who have taken off. One went to the United Party, and we're glad of the one who came to us, but you know you're falling apart literally from inside. I'm not too unhappy about that.

But one thing that I want to mention, Mr. Speaker, is this....

AN HON. MEMBER: Hey, Alex, it's lunch hour.

HON. A. FRASER: Yeah, right. You fellows can wait.

One thing, they're really cruel to their own, too. A very veteran member of this House was absolutely thrown out on the street. That's the kind of ethics you've got. I refer to the first member for Vancouver East (Mr. Macdonald). You made it so that he couldn't get a nomination. A great public person for 25 years, and that's how you treat him. The second member for Vancouver East (Mr. Williams) made sure that he couldn't get back, and that's absolutely disgraceful. That first member for Vancouver East.... His father sat in this Legislature during the First World War. How do I know? Because my dad did. They were sitting on opposite sides. That's how you treat a family like that for their service of public life. Shame on you, the whole bunch of you.

Anyway, Mr. Speaker, I've got copious notes here and everybody seems to be hungry. I'll be back, so I adjourn debate until the next sitting.

Motion approved.

Hon. Mr. Gardom moved adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

The House adjourned at 12:02 p.m.