[ Page 8713 ]

CONTENTS

Oral Questions

South African food imports. Ms. Sanford –– 8713

Mr. Barnes

Ms. Brown

Mr. Williams

Mr. Michael

Mr. Rose

Riverview Hospital. Mr. Rose –– 8714

Fibreco Export Inc. Mr. Howard –– 8715

South African food imports. Ms. Sanford –– 8715

Private Members' Statements

Coal. Mr. Reid –– 8715

Hon. Mr. Brummet

Mr. Cocke

Pesticide control. Mrs. Wallace –– 8718

Hon. Mr. Pelton

Mount Pleasant neighbourhood. Mr. Barnes –– 8719

Hon. Mr. Smith

Mr. Cocke

Value-added tax. Mr. Nicolson –– 8721

Hon. Mr. Curtis

Mr. Cocke

Committee of Supply: Ministry of Tourism estimates. (Hon. Mr. Richmond)

On vote 71: ministry operations –– 8722

Mr. Cocke

Hon. Mr. Bennett

Mr. Lauk

Hon. Mr. Hewitt

Mr. Skelly

Hon. Mr. Curtis

Hon. R. Fraser

Ms. Brown

Tabling Documents –– 8733

FRIDAY, JUNE 13, 1986

The House met at 10:05 a.m.

Prayers.

HON. MR. GARDOM: Mr. Speaker, I would inform the House that I have filed a notice of motion to restore vote 70, and it will be called for debate next week.

MR. REID: Mr. Speaker, in your gallery is Mr. George Williamson from Coquitlam. Would the House make him welcome.

HON. MR. SEGARTY: In the gallery this morning is a group of young British Columbians who are visiting the Legislature today. I'm sure they'll have an opportunity to see that former school teacher and have a good game of hide-and-go-seek in the Legislature. I'd like to give them all a good welcome.

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. members, also visiting with us this morning are 48 grade 6 and grade 7 students and their chaperones and teacher from Sacred Heart School in Delta. I would ask all members to give them a warm welcome.

Oral Questions

SOUTH AFRICAN FOOD IMPORTS

MS. SANFORD: Mr. Speaker, we have a situation in South Africa in which a state of emergency has been declared and in which....

AN HON. MEMBER: Is your question to a minister?

Interjections.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please, hon. members. The Chair will allow a preamble to a question. It is only fair that a short preamble or a preamble be allowed so that the question may be explained. The member will continue without interruption.

MS. SANFORD: They're very edgy this morning, Mr. Speaker.

To the Minister of Agriculture and Food. We have a situation in South Africa in which a state of emergency has been declared. We have requests from around the world at this stage for an imposition of sanctions against South Africa. What action has the minister taken to ensure that no food products are imported into this province from South Africa?

HON. MR. WATERLAND: I haven't taken any such action, Mr. Speaker.

MS. SANFORD: Mr. Speaker, I'm wondering at this stage whether or not the minister is even aware of the situation. If so, does he intend to take action against the products that are now being imported from South Africa into this province?

HON. MR. WATERLAND: Mr. Speaker, the member's talking about future policy of government, and I have no such plans.

MR. BARNES: To the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs on the same subject, could the minister indicate to the House the government's policy with respect to stocking of South African products in its liquor outlets?

HON. MR. VEITCH: Mr. Speaker, insofar as the Minister of External Affairs for Canada does not deal with financial institutions or liquor products in this province, I think I'll leave external affairs up to him.

MR. SPEAKER: The member for Burnaby-Edmonds.

MS. BROWN: Are you going to supplement it? He hasn't answered.

MR. BARNES: Quite frankly, I'm really just so shocked by the government's attitude on this serious situation. It's been many, many years. The difficulty that I have in trying to pose a question to that side of the House is the lack of seriousness with which they take the issue. I'd like to ask the minister this. This is a matter of principle. As a personal view of the situation, does the minister not have any concern whatsoever about the situation that is happening in South Africa? Does the minister have nothing to say on behalf of the government of British Columbia, notwithstanding the position of the federal government?

HON. MR. VEITCH: Well, Mr. Speaker, I have a lot of concern about what's happening in South Africa. In fact, one of my very best friends in the world lives right in that area of South Africa. I intend to, as the government of British Columbia does, leave external affairs up to the government of Canada, and I would suggest that it would be better if the hon. member would do the same thing.

MR. WILLIAMS: To the Minister of Consumer Affairs: the minister is saying he will not boycott South African goods, no matter what happens in South Africa. Is the minister buying other goods from other liquor administrations in Canada where they have boycotted South African goods?

HON. MR. VEITCH: Mr. Speaker, we import South African wines. We import Russian vodka. We import a lot of things. We import Polish products, even though the people in the government of Poland have certainly mitigated against the citizens in that particular province.

I don't see the hon. member up standing and talking about those things. The hon. member is asking for future policy, and I am not going to offend the rules of the House.

MR. WILLIAMS: Is the minister saying he is waiting for a bloodbath before he will do anything?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Shame!

MR. WILLIAMS: No shame at all. None whatsoever. The shame is over....

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please.

[ Page 8714 ]

MR. MICHAEL: I have a question to the same minister. If indeed the opposition wishes the minister to have a look at the situation in South Africa, may I also ask that he have a look at the situation in Hungary over the past years; the situation in Czechoslovakia; the situation in Russia where tens of thousands of people were slaughtered in previous years.

MR. SPEAKER: Order!

MR. MICHAEL: Have a look at the situation in China, where millions were slaughtered through their revolutionary tactics.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please.

MR. MICHAEL: Have a look at the situation in East Germany, where legitimate protests were put down by that....

[Mr. Speaker rose.]

Interjections.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please.

Hon. member, when the Chair calls the member to order, take a seat. For heaven's sake, man!

[Mr. Speaker resumed his seat.]

MR. ROSE: I had a supplementary, but I have been talking so I haven't got it perhaps worded correctly. But I believe our federal government has instituted certain kinds of sanctions against South Africa and has asked for the cooperation of the provinces. In what manner is British Columbia prepared to cooperate with the federal government on this very serious racist matter?

HON. MR. VEITCH: Mr. Speaker, if the hon. member would check his facts, or perhaps he could talk to some of his colleagues in Ottawa, he would find that wine is not included in those sanctions.

MR. ROSE: I know that imports and exports are a federal matter, but wine isn't a particular concern of the federal government, because wine is distributed provincially.

What are you going to do about it?

Interjections.

MR. ROSE: What are you going to do about it? No reply.

Has the minister decided to stop buying South African wines?

HON. MR. VEITCH: Mr. Speaker, at this point in time we have not decided to stop buying Polish vodka, we have not decided to stop buying Russian vodka, and we have not decided to stop buying South African wines.

[10:15]

RIVERVIEW HOSPITAL

MR. ROSE: I have a new question, a totally new question. It's a question to the Minister of Health. There are ongoing discussions now about a new mental health model for the province. It affects people all over the province, but particularly concerned are government employees working at Riverview in my riding. I want to know whether or not there are any discussions between the department and the government employees' union regarding the retraining of those who may be considered redundant once the new model is implemented.

HON. MR. NIELSEN: The question of modifications to Riverview, whether it be by way of a new unit on site or perhaps units elsewhere in the province, has been discussed with many, many groups, including union representatives.

With respect to retraining, I would think that would be a matter for the union and those with whom they negotiate in government to discuss, to determine what process would be required to see that retraining could take place. That's not an unusual aspect of a collective agreement, to look at a retraining program for certain specific units. That would be a matter for the union negotiators or their representatives to discuss with the government negotiators or representatives in reflection on their collective agreement.

MR. ROSE: The reason I asked the question is that the ministers staff indicated that discussions are taking place. The union says they aren't, so they're trying to get at the truth. I would like to know, if they aren't, when will they begin? The union desires them.

HON. MR. NIELSEN: The discussions have been going on for quite a period of time. This is not a recent development.

Interjection.

HON. MR. NIELSEN: Yes. The unions have been involved in earlier discussions. This has been going on for some time. If you're speaking specifically of retraining, then perhaps those discussions have not taken place. However, I would think it is not the Ministry of Health officials who should be discussing the question of retraining; it should be the public service aspect of the government in accordance with the collective agreement. I don't think the ministry should be independently negotiating with the employees' union for one aspect. They would have input, of course, but I think the directive must come from those responsible for the entire contract with the BCGEU. I'm not suggesting for a moment that I would be opposed to that. Of course, that is a normal part of collective agreements.

MR. ROSE: Has the minister decided to urge his officials to begin discussions about retraining for those who may be considered redundant or may be made redundant by any new model implemented?

HON. MR. NIELSEN: I would suggest that those employees would have the same opportunity and rights under their collective agreement as any other employee in government with respect to redundancy or retraining. I have no problem in perhaps recommending that officials within the ministry raise that matter with those people who have that responsibility. I would consider that to be routine, normal and quite proper.

[ Page 8715 ]

FIBRECO EXPORT INC.

MR. HOWARD: In the continued absence of the Minister of Forests (Hon. Mr. Heinrich), I'd like to ask the acting minister a question relating to a decision on May 28 by the government to approve the export of 300,000 bone-dry units of wood chips annually over a ten-year period in the name of Fibreco Export Inc. Can I ask the minister if he will confirm that this is the same company which entered into negotiations with the B.C. Development Corporation for a $70 million loan to construct a pulp mill using wood chips?

HON. MR. WATERLAND: I'd be pleased to take that question as notice and pass it on to the Minister of Forests.

MR. HOWARD: A question to the acting minister then. Inasmuch as the Chip Export Advisory Committee, which approved this export proposal, consists of five representatives each from companies which produce chips and companies which consume them and use them, could I ask the minister whether there is any plan or whether the government has decided to restructure that wood-chip advisory committee so that it does not become self-serving, in serving its own self-interest?

HON. MR. WATERLAND: I'd be very happy to take that question as notice for the Minister of Forests.

SOUTH AFRICAN FOOD IMPORTS

MS. SANFORD: A report that has been submitted by the Eminent Persons Group regarding South Africa — Mr. Speaker, this goes to the Minister of Agriculture and Food — indicates that sanctions should be taken against that country. Even the government of Prime Minister Thatcher is reconsidering its position regarding sanctions against that country at this time. Will the minister not undertake to ensure that food that is produced in South Africa is prohibited from sale in British Columbia?

HON. MR. WATERLAND: It's hardly the function of the Minister of Forests for the province of British Columbia to....

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Forests?

MR. SPEAKER: Correction duly noted, hon. member. The bell terminates question period.

Private Members' Statements

COAL

MR. REID: Mr. Speaker, I'll try to get through my comments early so I can go out and make my announcement.

It's quite appropriate that I rise today to speak on the subject of coal, because coal comes from pits and as of last night I sure felt like the pits. The other thing that's appropriate when we deal with coal is that coal also comes from tunnels and yesterday I learned a lesson about tunnels. But in the two years I've served as Whip in this House I want to tell you that for the first time yesterday the trust and confidence that I had experienced with the opposition in dealing with hours of the day and business of the day.... I was lied to by the acting Whip. I was lied to.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. On a point of order....

MR. REID: And it's appropriate, Mr. Speaker, that the reason I was lied....

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. The second member for Vancouver Centre is rising on a point of order.

MR. LAUK: Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Surrey is using the guise of member's statements which....

Interjection.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. I will ask the member for Mackenzie to come to order immediately.

MR. LAUK: He submitted titles or themes for his talk. It is my submission, Your Honour, that hon. members who use members' statements as a guise for attacking the credibility of other hon. members in this House should be looked at with repugnance by the Chair. It is like obtaining the floor of the House on a phony point of order or point of privilege. If the hon. member feels aggrieved, he has an opportunity to raise it as a point of privilege, and answers by other members can be given. He is now giving a statement that was published in the orders of the day, and he should stick to it.

HON. MR. NIELSEN: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order. The member for Surrey has risen in his place to make a private member's statement. Orders of the Day indicated that the member's topic for his statement was coal. I think it is presumptuous for any member of the House to presume they know what his topic relative to coal is.

The member may make a statement on whichever subject he chooses. It is only a matter of form that there is an indication on the order paper as to what the topic is. The member's statement will not be determined because of its subject content. The member has the right to make the statement, and I think it is presumptuous for that member to presume what the content of the statement may be.

Interjections.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. Hon. members, one moment, please. Order, please. I will have order or I will have an empty chamber.

Hon. members, the Chair is not now nor at any time going to undertake what a member may or may not say in this chamber. That is the prerogative of a member. The Chair will undertake, however, to ensure that the rules under which we debate in this chamber are followed. When a member reflects upon another member in one form or another, he's doing something by one means which he cannot do by another. In that respect, the point of order raised by the member, the second member for Vancouver Centre, is in order.

Also the statement by the Minister of Health is in order. A member has an obligation to follow the rules of debate in this

[ Page 8716 ]

chamber. The Chair, on the other hand, does not have an obligation to determine what a member may or may not say.

We have a wide-open statement on members' statements. The Chair is not now nor ever going to undertake what that scope of debate will be. The member will, however, follow the rules of the House.

Now I will ask the second member for Surrey to continue on the debate.

Interjections.

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. members, are we going to enter into a debate?

HON. MR. GARDOM: I just think the intervention could be subtracted from his time, so he may have his full time.

MR. ROSE: I reflect back, Mr. Speaker, on the intentions of this particular new rule. The intention of the new rule was to give private members an opportunity to talk about things relating to their constituency, and an opportunity for the minister or whomever on the other side to reply.

It was not — and I support the ruling of the Chair — for the purpose of assuming the floor to discuss one topic, and then using that ruling or that opportunity to speak to attack another member and suggest that the other member has told some kind of an untruth.

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. member, clearly the member is reflecting on what the Chair has just stated, and I think I made very clear what the rules are and what the obligation of the Chair is.

MR. NICOLSON: Mr. Speaker, with respect, I think you concurred with a remark made by the government House Leader. Having worked long and very difficult hours, as did the hon. member, on these rules, I cannot for the life of me see how, when a person puts down an item for debate on Tuesday, they could have preconceived the events of yesterday, and how that could possibly be in good faith and in the spirit of the intention of these statements when obviously the member did not expect the events of yesterday.

MR. SPEAKER: On the same point, I would call members' attention to the second matter on the order paper for debate. I would ask the members to try to gauge the content of the second notice for debate in this House, entitled "P.A. N. and the Dirty Dozen." I defy members to try to inform the Chair what the context of that debate would be.

For heaven's sakes, hon. members, let's behave as legislators. If we have other matters that are pressing, then let us use the appropriate forum and not invent a situation which is not called for at this time in debate.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: Mr. Speaker, if my hearing was correct, I understood the second member for Surrey (Mr. Reid) to refer to either myself or the caucus Whip as liars. I don't think that term is permissible in this House and I ask for a withdrawal.

MR. SPEAKER: The Chair did not hear that statement; if it had, it would have asked for a withdrawal. I ask the second member for Surrey, if such a statement was made, to withdraw that statement.

MR. REID: Mr. Speaker, in recognition of the House, I did make that statement. I do withdraw it, but I'll make it outside of the House after.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. members, what a member does outside the chamber is on the member's own conscience, but a categorical withdrawal is necessary. I would ask the member to so withdraw.

MR. REID: I categorically withdraw, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: Thank you. I will now ask the member for Mackenzie for the same withdrawal.

[10:30]

MR. LOCKSTEAD: What did I say? I withdraw my withdrawal?

MR. SPEAKER: No, hon. member, the statement regarding the same reference that the member just withdrew.

MR. LOCKSTEAD About turning back odometers? I'm sorry, I can't remember what statement it was.

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. member, you must........

Interjections.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: I withdraw.

MR. SPEAKER: Thank you, hon. members.

Now, hon. members, with the greatest of respect, may we continue under private members' statements, Friday only. Number one, entitled "Coal, " the second member for Surrey.

MR. REID: Mr. Speaker, may I tie both first and second together? I can probably talk about the Dirty Dozen while I'm at it.

AN HON. MEMBER: Hear, hear!

Interjections.

MR. REID: Mr. Speaker, I guess we're talking about how you get tunnels. The subject that I intended to raise, starting last Monday — I intend to follow through with it today — is coal. I guess it relates to some trust and cooperation between countries, partners and companies.

The northeast coal project was based on firm contracts with the Japanese steel industries for 6.7 million tonnes of metallurgical coal, which is used in the steel industry, and 1.3 million tonnes of thermal coal, which is used for generating electricity. The metallurgical coal contracts are for 15 years, extendible to 20 years. Sales of this coal will generate about $650 million to $700 million per year, and $13 billion to $14 billion revenue over the next 20 years.

These firm contracts for long-term mine development are providing the regional economy with firm commitments to

[ Page 8717 ]

their ongoing needs for stability. In 1984, 4.7 million tonnes were shipped from the two mines in the north. Direct northeast coal employment: Quintette Coal employs 1,520 people; Bullmoose mine, 450. B.C. Rail, as a result of those developments, employs an extra 60 people. CN Rail employs 250 people as a result of that development. Ridley Terminals employs 100 people, and the tugboats servicing those terminals employ 30 people. Total: 2,410 people employed.

The construction phase of that project created 13,000 direct and 44,000 indirect man-years of employment. Annual estimated gross salaries from direct operations employment are $96 million; annual estimated royalty payments to the province, $16.5 million; annual estimated surcharge to be collected, $23 million; annual estimated payments to B.C. Rail, $53 million; annual estimated payments to CN Rail, $106 million; annual estimated personal income tax payments, $74 million; annual estimated port charges payments, $28 million. There are 4,800 indirect jobs created in total, 7,200 in the area of Tumbler Ridge and the two mine sites.

MR. PARKS: Where are all the NDPers?

MR. REID: I guess they've gone back to the tunnel. Speaking of tunnels, I guess they've got to keep an eye on the tunnel that's down here in Victoria.

The Greenhills and Balmer mines in the southeast, Mr. Speaker, currently employ 1,400 people, but the interesting result of the northeast coal is that it has had no effect on the sales and production of the coal of the southeast. The same volume of coal was shipped from the southeast during 1985 as was shipped in 1984: some 18.1 million tonnes.

Mr. Speaker, the total shipments from both are generating fantastic income to all areas of the province, including those areas which are being serviced. The generation of $650 million in sales from the southeast alone during 1985.... The company expenditures in those mining communities alone would be in the millions and millions of dollars. The personal income taxes as a result of that, Mr. Speaker, are phenomenal. The unemployment insurance savings to the province and to the government of Canada are also phenomenal. Coal royalties in the last three years as a result of the 3.5 percent tax on the minehead value: in 1983 the revenue was $8.9 million, in '84 it was $8.9 million, and in '85 it was $21.5 million.

Mr. Speaker, coal is a positive product of productivity and incentive in this province.

HON. MR. BRUMMET: Mr. Speaker, without going over the figures, which I think make a self-evident case for the value of the coal developments in the province, I'd just like to respond briefly to the member's statement. Yes, there's no question about the economic benefits to the province, the direct and indirect revenues to the people of British Columbia, the many jobs that were created, both during the construction and during the continuing operation. Try to tell some of those 3,500 people or whatever number that coal mining is bad, as some of the members opposite have tried to present the case.

As the member has pointed out, during the recession, which was pretty well worldwide, the coal development in British Columbia.... Sales remained up in the southeast as well as the northeast. I think we've found in our coal development programs, in our mining development program, that the different areas of the province complement each other, and despite the efforts of some people to try to pit one area against the other, both areas have succeeded, and the province and Canada have benefited. So certainly our citizens have benefited and will continue to benefit. There's a lot of coal there. The world will keep using coal; the world is going to need energy. A lot of the infrastructure is in place.

[Mr. Rogers in the chair]

There is no question about the present and continuing value of this industry to British Columbia. Even though the Japanese are very tough negotiators on contracts and on prices and that sort of thing, they are honourable people, and they do not just willy-nilly throw away contracts and throw away long-term planning. So I have complete faith that as the negotiations go on tough and to making adjustments in today's world prices, those people are not going to do what some other people say they're going to do — abandon them. They try to modify contracts, they negotiate very toughly, but they will certainly honour their contracts, and I expect that to go on and I expect the province to continue to benefit.

MR. COCKE: Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to the Minister of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources. I wish he would deal with what the members in the opposition have said right from the outset. What the members of the opposition have said has been that the northeast coal proposition has been a disaster.

AN HON. MEMBER: Keep it in the ground.

MR. COCKE: Keep it in the ground, my foot! The fact of the matter is that northeast coal has been a disaster for two reasons. One is that very bad decisions have been made. I hope, for example, that Denison isn't going to pull the pin. Denison is losing $50 million a year. They've already written off a quarter....

MR. REID: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, can you tell me how much time the member has?

MR. COCKE: You're taking up my time. Sit down.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, please. Excuse me. The Chair will extend the time, and the Chair will record the time, and the Chair will tell the member when he's out of order. Standing orders are quite clear, and if you refer to page 8, you can see how much time is available for a reply. Three minutes are available in the reply. When I'm advised by Hansard that that time is complete, then I will ask the member to sit.

MR. REID: On a point of order, the proponent has three minutes in reply.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Any other member has up to a maximum of five minutes.

MR. REID: He must be speaking in the minister's reply within that five-minute time limit. That's all he's got. I have three minutes to respond.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: That's correct. You'll have time when it's available. The Speaker has some other business to

[ Page 8718 ]

attend to. I'm assisting in the chair, and will try to do the job appropriately.

MR. COCKE: The member is obviously not used to debating in the House, and therefore gets lost in the nuances.

Getting back to the Minister of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources, he talks about the opposition's complaining and so on and so forth. The fact of the matter is, the opposition is very concerned about a real potential loser. As I said, when a company the size of Denison writes off $250 million and goes on to say that they're losing $50 million a year, how long can we expect them to go? Negotiations with the Japanese are coming up within a year. If those negotiations go the way negotiations often do when there's a great supply, then we have great concerns. We've never heard answers from the minister.

MR. REID: I'd like to sum up by saying some positive things about the northeast and the southeast, and about the positive responses of effective companies who have come and invested millions of their dollars to put mines on site in the northeast of the province and who have hired, directly and indirectly, 4,800 people for the community in the area. Those people are currently employed. The mines are working full out, shipping 200 railcars of coal per day to the Ridley port. The operations phase created 2,400 permanent and 4,800 indirect jobs. Estimated annual gross salaries from direct employment are $96 million; estimated annual royalty payments to the province are $16.5 million; the estimated annual surcharge to be collected by us is $23 million; the estimated annual payment to B.C. Rail is $53 million — much needed support for a rail line that needed some industry in the north to help pay its bills; it's getting an additional $53 million a year it wasn't getting before. The estimated annual payment to CN Rail — surprise, surprise — is another $106 million, as a result of the northeast coal project. Estimated annual personal income tax payments are $74 million. Estimated annual port charge payments are another $28 million. These are all factual numbers, positive numbers, talking about a successful project.

Whether or not Denison and Teck have some problems with their financing, the project is still operating. If the NDP opposition had their way, they'd close it down and put 7,400 people down on the breadline in Vancouver. They'd love that. But this province is on the move. Those projects are propping up this province. We want more of them; we're proud of them; we're going to keep them here.

[10:45]

PESTICIDE CONTROL

MRS. WALLACE: I'm sorry that the Speaker who was in the chair earlier is not here, because he indicated he didn't know what I was going to be talking about. For his edification and that of the member for Surrey, PAN is the acronym that stands for Pesticide Action Network. It's an international organization, and its first founding meeting was held in 1981 in Malaysia. At that time there were 16 countries involved, and they began to look at some of the pesticides and herbicides used around the world that obviously had the greatest danger, both human and environmental. They continued their meetings and their growth continued. They are now up to 22 nations. In 1985 they identified 12 chemicals which they felt were the most harmful, and they termed them the Dirty Dozen. During the past year they have really spearheaded and pinpointed their campaign around the world to try to have those 12 pesticides banned.

I was fortunate enough to be able to attend their recent conference in Ottawa, where they reported back on some of the things that had happened around the world. It was a very fascinating and interesting conference. As I say, there were delegates there from 22 countries. I would say that they were probably divided equally between the so-called developed and developing countries. There were delegates from, of course, Canada and the U.S.; and delegates from Britain, Italy, New Zealand, Brazil, Kenya, Indonesia and Ecuador. That's just a few, but it gives you an idea of the range of people and the kind of expertise that was there, and the broad base of information that came into that conference.

Of the 12 chemicals which are included in the Dirty Dozen, five are still registered for use in Canada. Parathion is one that is registered for use. It's an organophosphate, and it has a very high rating as far as a poison on the LD, the lethal dose.... A Very small amount of parathion is...well, it means certain death. The delegate from Senegal, I think it was, was a very dark-skinned man in a beautiful, long ivory robe. He said he wanted to take us to his country and imagine a family out working in the fields. The wife and mother was preparing the evening meal over the little charcoal cooker. She puts the food in and pours in some oil out of a bottle, prepares the food. The family comes in and eats it. Within two hours they are vomiting. Within 24 hours the family is dead, the reason being that that bottle that had the oil in it had contained parathion.

We saw pictures taken — I think this was from Uganda on the shelf in a store, a plastic bottle, and written in felt pen on it was "termite control concentrate." There was nothing to say what it was or how to use it. Those were some of the fascinating things that we learned. But to know that parathion, such a deadly poison, is still registered in Canada causes me a great deal of concern.

Also registered in Canada is Paraquat. Paraquat is a bipyridyl. Again, it is very poisonous. Its acute poisoning........ Most severe symptoms of paraquat poisoning come from ingestion and don't appear for several days. Paraquat is the second one. Aldrin is another one. Aldrin is an organochlorine; again this is a very hazardous poison. Lindane, which is an organophosphate, I believe, and PCP, which is of course high in dioxins and used very extensively here in British Columbia.... Those are the five chemicals that are still used in Canada that are included on that Dirty Dozen list.

I think that really it's time that Canada moved to take some action. We have had in B.C. In the last little while quite an outbreak of incidents that involved illness and poisoning with chemicals. I am making this statement in the hope that I can gain support for putting pressure on the Canadian government through British Columbia to take action to at least get rid of these five chemicals that are on the Dirty Dozen list.

HON. MR. PELTON: Thanks to my opposition critic for the very informative talk that she gave us. I could go into a lot of detail on all of those chemicals which were included in that list known as the Dirty Dozen, but I know that my time will not allow it. So perhaps I could just remind the House once again of what my ministry's program is with respect to pesticide control. I would tell you, to try to put it as succinctly as possible, that the goal of the pesticide control

[ Page 8719 ]

program within the ministry is basically to protect health and to maintain environmental quality by ensuring that pesticides are used safely in British Columbia.

We try to achieve this goal in four different ways. I'll try to very briefly cover each of them. The first one is by encouraging the prudent use of pesticides according to label directions and regulations. This is very important, Mr. Speaker. There are more than 500 pesticide licences issued each year in British Columbia, and about 1,100 vendor sites. These would be the various shops through which pesticides are sold. There are 250 permit sites and there are 740 pest control service sites, and all of these sites are inspected annually by the pesticide control branch of the ministry.

The second way of trying to achieve this goal is by trying to minimize the impact of pesticides on public health. To do this, we maintain through the ministry direct liaison with other agencies who not only monitor the use of pesticides but who also analyze the results of such use. We have also become involved in the preparation of the curricula which have developed for agricultural pesticide courses that are given.

The third way that we try to control this is by minimizing the impact of the pesticides on environmental quality. Pesticide residues in water, soil, fish and marine organisms are monitored for a minimum number of permit sites, and the pesticide program is involved in the development of monitoring programs for what we refer to as non-point sources of pollution. Approximately 150 pesticide-abuse complaints are investigated annually.

The fourth and final way is that we try to improve the public understanding of pesticide use in the province. To do this, about 200 inquiries from the public about pesticides are answered through the program each year. Some 65 adult extension courses are offered every year on the use and the handling of pesticides.

We certainly are aware — and unfortunately I wasn't able to attend the same conference that the member attended — of the campaign that was launched by the Pesticide Action Network, and certainly we applaud it. We would be prepared to support these matters with the federal government. As I said before, I have information of the 12 bad ones — the Dirty Dozen, so-called — which I would be quite prepared to share with anyone in the House. But I won't speak any further on that, except to say that I think that in British Columbia pesticide use is carefully controlled and very tightly monitored. Most problems that have arisen, and I think maybe we all remember the famous cucumber one, have involved the misuse of pesticides, people not reading what it says on the label and how they are to be used.

Having said that, I would just say once again that the Ministry of Environment tries very hard to ensure that all applications of pesticides are consistent with the labelling, and that problems with accidental use are, to say the least, minimized. I might finish by saying that in my opinion British Columbia probably has one of the toughest pesticide control systems in Canada.

MRS. WALLACE: Well, I thank the minister for his comments. I think it has been a valuable discussion today.

I recognize that certainly in British Columbia we are far ahead of a lot of places, but my concern is that the one thing we aren't doing, and the one thing that the minister didn't mention because we are not doing it, is research and development into alternatives. That was one of the outstanding parts of this conference, where we were looking at alternatives and came up with some excellent information relative to alternatives. There still is a long way to go, though, particularly in the commercial area, the large-scale area. But there are some things there, and we need to start some kind of government programs to encourage the agricultural community to use those alternatives. Maybe it has to be some kind of crop insurance so that if they do happen to lose a crop because of failure to use pesticide, they will still get some reimbursement, because we have to encourage getting away from those pesticides.

You talked about testing. I'll bet what you are finding in your testing is that more and more chemicals are showing up in ground water. Certainly in eastern Canada that is now the case. Pesticides are in water. They are in the drinking water. They are in the water that you are putting on your vegetables when you water your garden, so it is into the food chain. Here in British Columbia we don't want that to get any worse than it is.

I think just the one thing that I would like to conclude with is another anecdote from the conference. This was the woman from Ecuador — a very well-spoken woman with excellent English, a very attractive woman — and she told about what had happened in Ecuador. She said they had built up a large lobbying group that was very representative of lots of citizens in Ecuador over the years from 1981. So when they got the list of the Dirty Dozen, it gave them something to work with. They went and they lobbied their elected people, and they talked to the President, who has the authority there. He banned not only the Dirty Dozen but in total 23 chemicals, all chemicals that are banned in any other country around the world. They've done it in Ecuador; I think we can do it in Canada.

MOUNT PLEASANT NEIGHBOURHOOD

MR. BARNES: I am going to speak briefly on a subject of concern in the riding of Vancouver Centre: it's the Mount Pleasant community. I met two days ago with a number of concerned citizens in the Mount Pleasant district who were wondering when some action was going to be taken concerning a condition of disruption of serious proportions in many parts of the area that has been highlighted considerably in the media, as a result of congregations of people who are involved in the sex trade. My comments, however, are not specifically to do with the sex trade, although it's quite obvious that in this particular instance that's believed to be the main reason that the disruptions are taking place in the community.

[11:00]

In Mount Pleasant there are some 22,000 people, Mr. Speaker, and about five geographical areas. The majority of the people who live in that area are between the ages of 20 and 34. There is a trend toward single individuals, as opposed to families. It's not an area that's as well organized as some in terms of political power and decision-making, in terms of influencing the decisions that affect their community and their lives. Perhaps this is one of the reasons for me wanting to talk about community rights.

In any event, when I met with these people, I wasn't sure if I could say anything that was going to be new or different, or would help them come away more enlightened. I have discussed the question of prostitution, not only in the community but here in the Legislature quite recently with the

[ Page 8720 ]

Attorney-General (Hon. Mr. Smith). I attempted to describe the problem as one of general neglect and lack of services for individuals, or cutbacks. All of the major policies of the government have had a negative effect on the lives of the people, and therefore many of them were turning to prostitution as a desperate attempt to maintain some economic survival. I still believe that a great deal of it has to do with that, but that debate is one that is not going to be resolved.... At least no solutions are going to come from that debate overnight.

One of the main things that we've got to look at is the duty of the government, the local government and the federal government to ensure that community integrity, safety and security are maintained. This is the message that I got when I sat and talked for two and a half hours with these people two days ago: what rights do the citizens have? The Attorney-General and I were discussing this to the point that I wanted to challenge the government to clarify its duty. The Attorney-General stated quite clearly that although he respected my compassion and sincerity and concern for the individuals, when it comes to community rights, the integrity of the community, the government must act; I do not challenge that.

But I would say. that so far the evidence of this being really a successful approach to the problem has yet to be that convincing. For instance, the new C49 bill, the federal bill dealing with the apprehension of people who are causing a disturbance in the community, is a very cumbersome one. It involved anywhere from three months or more before you can have a trial, and quite often those are delayed due to adjournments, etc. It's cumbersome. It's not an efficient system. In the meantime, we have a community under siege.

My concern as a legislator and as a representative for that area is that we protect people, we protect families, we protect businesses. What is beginning to happen is that families are finding themselves being offended, are finding that people are destroying their neighbourhoods, keeping them up all night. In some cases you find hypodermic needles in people's yards and on their property, condoms, defecation, noise all night, and insults, bad language — the kinds of things that could happen for reasons other than prostitution. It could be just youths that are being neglected, like in Surrey. It's not necessarily prostitution, but in this case this seems to be the business that is taking place and causing the problem.

My concern is the Mount Pleasant residents, the taxpayers of the community. I do believe that we have to begin to address this from the standpoint of the rights of the residents in those communities and not confuse that issue with the right to move about in the community. I believe that's the other side. There has to be a two-pronged approach to the solution. Good programs have to be in place; options, alternatives, have to be made available for all parties involved. In the meantime, I don't believe it is responsible for public officials to turn their backs on people who are asking for help and asking for their rights to be protected.

HON. MR. SMITH: Mr. Speaker, the statement from the member I think is a good one. I'm delighted that he has had that meeting. I'm having a similar meeting which I've been trying to arrange for a short while.

The concerns he expresses are the same concerns that both our members from that area of Little Mountain have expressed to me as well. I know that the people of Mount Pleasant are most concerned with the enforcement of the new Criminal Code provisions on prostitution. The police are now, as a result of Mr. Justice McKay's decision, able to enforce the law, I think in a swift and even way. Our prosecutors are making strong representations to the courts. Wherever possible, of course, the main targets are pimps, if you can get evidence against them. The customer is number two and the prostitutes number three.

The major concern is to help that community; to allow people who live in that community to enjoy the neighbourhood and their streets in a tranquil way and not have it turned into some kind of a sexual bazaar, as occurred in the West End. Only two years ago the West End had between 300 and 400 prostitutes in about four city blocks, day and night, with all the attendant problems that that brings. Those problems involved young children who lived there being harassed on their way to school; elderly people being pushed off the pavement; residents finding that their parking bays were service areas; noises and screaming and shouting and hectoring from pimps and from customers; screeching tires from customers day and night. I'll tell you, it was just a disgrace. Some of that has been also the burden of the Mount Pleasant residents.

We will enforce the criminal law with vigour and do everything we can to give the community of Mount Pleasant the sort of support that the member spoke of. Working with the two members from Little Mountain, who have been very active in this regard as well, we'll do what we can.

MR. COCKE: Mr. Speaker, I am delighted, as far as that goes, with the answer from the Attorney-General, particularly with respect to the priorizing; that is, priorizing the unfortunate prostitute last, pimps first. They are an absolute drag on any community where they exist. They're leeches, they're predators, everything nasty that you can say about people. And the customers! In our town it's not too bad at the moment, but still it's beginning to build in New Westminster too. I have seen what the Attorney-General describes in the West End — as a politician and a legislator I felt I should have a first-hand glimpse — and it's just an absolutely shocking environment to expect people to live in. And those customers are just dreadful in terms of their behaviour: the way they drive their cars, the way they bully and push people around. It's a very sad situation, and I'm pleased we're going to do something. The problem has been, of course, that the Attorney-General pushed them out of the West End and then they zipped in to Little Mountain. I guess if you push them out of Little Mountain, they're going to go somewhere else.

It's a pretty sad state of affairs. If we could just get those first two groups, then maybe something can happen with respect to the future, but it's a very sad and unfortunate situation. Sad for us this year particularly, because we've got visitors coming from all over the world. They take a look at something like that and say: "Wow!" Anyway, I do hope this can be ameliorated and dealt with. I know it's an ongoing problem, one that we're no doubt going to have for generations to come, but at least to keep it under control is really what I think should happen.

MR. BARNES: I want to thank the two previous speakers for their contribution. I would just emphasize, however, that there is an urgency in this matter. In other words, it is of emergent consequence that something be done fairly soon to make this system work. Violence is beginning to escalate. I do not intend to appear as an alarmist, but it is my understanding that people are beginning to feel that they must

[ Page 8721 ]

become aggressive because many of them are of the opinion that the authorities do not feel aggressive enough about addressing the problem.

Police are beginning to have second thoughts about their ability to do their jobs because of the cumbersomeness of the system. There are suggestions that the Attorney-General should look into a method of expediting the court process, in order to deal with the problem in a much more effective, more broadly based way, so that there isn't the long waiting period that is involved. I concur with those because I believe right now we have something like 300 people who have been charged, but the process involved in getting them through the court system could take months. In the meantime, many of these people are back on the streets doing the same thing. They are not under any restraint. In most cases, they have a non-financial bail in the sense that it's not that costly for them to appear back on the scene.

It's not sufficient just to say that we now have a law; that law has to be given primacy somehow. There has to be some system whereby this is a very special and unique problem, and it should not be treated in the usual way that we may deal with other matters where the court is involved.

I would like to make a point as well regarding the Ministry of Human Resources. I believe that the Ministry of Human Resources has not been as good a parent as it should be in this situation, especially where young people are concerned. There are far too many young people who are involved in this activity, and I think that the Ministry of Human Resources is certainly not as credible as it should be in this. I would like to see something done with that as well.

My final point is that the people are saying to me that they want an injunction. Now I know the Attorney-General has said there was no law in place prior to the injunction in the West End, but in Mount Pleasant, now that there is a law, the injunction is not a consideration. I do believe he should treat this as an emergent matter and act in order to avoid the violence that seems to be building in Mount Pleasant.

VALUE-ADDED TAX

MR. NICOLSON: The topic I've chosen today, I must confess, is one that I don't know a great deal about, and I don't think Canadians or the federal or provincial governments really know a great deal about it. I would like to talk about the value-added tax or, in its more recent incarnation, the business transfer tax — the VAT.

[11:15]

I think that the value-added tax has one purpose in mind, and that is to raise more money than ever before and ultimately to lead to bigger government, a bigger grab out of people's wallets. It's attractive to governments. It's been very attractive in the European Economic Community. It's been adopted by Mexico and other countries. It is an invisible and insidious tax that is added on at every stage.

If you were to look at what might happen, for instance, in the manufacture of a computer, one of the components of a computer would probably be a power supply. Various parts for that power supply would be purchased, mostly imported, although one or two things might be manufactured in Canada. You would look at the cost of the goods required to produce that product, and you would look at the selling price and the value, take the difference, and that's the value added. Then there would be a point difference. In Canada one point of value-added tax is estimated to raise $2.5 billion. Depending on what that tax rate might be, there will be a value extracted; a cost will be added to the product. Then that product is taken and assembled, perhaps into a computer as one of the component parts, along with other things. The purchase price of it and other parts, such as the housing, the board, the various chips, the disk drives, etc., again are recomputed, and the cost there is recomputed as the base value. Then the selling price is computed and then value-added tax is assessed.

It sounds very simple, except that products are not sold all at the same price. Even the same product is not sold at the same price. If there is a customer who buys them one unit at a time, in quantities of one, they pay one price. If there's a customer who buys in larger volume quantities, they pay a second price. You know who's going to pay more tax, of course. Is it going to be the large-volume buyer? In terms of, say, buying stereo parts, is it going to be A & B Sound? Or is it going to be the small, independent retailer who's going to pay the higher value-added — you know, in addition to everything else? Currently that small retail dealer pays the same manufacturing tax as the large-volume discount houses do. But under this system they're going to have to pay more.

Mr. Speaker, it's not without good reason that people like John Bulloch are concerned about this kind of a departure. This kind of tax is going to lead, I believe, to more bureaucracy. When it is introduced, there's the question of how far it's going to go. Is it going to extend to services as well as manufactured goods? Are there going to be changes and adjustments made in order to try to create some kind of equity? Is that in itself not going to lead to more bureaucracy, as has been the European experience? Is this really the way that Canada wants to go? Is this the way that British Columbia wants to go?

I think that because this is such an esoteric subject, we have ignored it. And yet it is, I think, a very great threat to Canada and to British Columbia, which is trying to undergo some economic recovery, and yet we are being assailed by all kinds of ill-conceived political notions. This one, which was being considered by the former Liberal government and is now being considered by the present Conservative government, do you know what it means, Mr. Speaker? It means that this is the creation of a bureaucracy, and I want to tell you that, if I've learned anything in 14 years, it is that when ideas are brought up through the bureaucracy and put forward to government as good solutions, it is something we have a responsibility as politicians to look at very carefully. My purpose in bringing this up today is to try to create some dialogue and debate on this matter which is just rolling on rather inexorably.

HON. MR. CURTIS: I wish to commend the member for raising this matter. It is something which should be discussed in this chamber. Frankly, I expected that it might have been raised in my estimates.

The proposition relative to value-added tax or its children has been before us in my ministry for quite some time. Noticing Orders of the Day, I pulled some material which has been in my file. Certainly since early last year, 1985, I have expressed grave concern to the federal Minister of Finance relative to the possibility of introducing value-added tax in Canada.

[ Page 8722 ]

The member has made a telling point up to one point, and that is that this is a creature of the bureaucracy in the government of Canada. I believe, however, that the elected officials in the federal government are aware of its complication and ramifications. Let there be no doubt that, on behalf of the government of British Columbia, I have expressed on more than one occasion in writing, by telephone and in meetings to the Minister of Finance, Mr. Wilson, and to others, my opposition to any form of value-added tax or one of its emanations.

I did this in fact in March in a lengthy letter to Mr. Wilson March of this year — indicating that, quite apart from any other consideration, i.e. higher prices for a variety of goods, it could return us to the tax jungle which existed in the 1930s. I think Mr. Wilson has been listening, not only to me — and I take no more credit than as one provincial Minister of Finance, or treasurer. Others have spoken in the same context in the same vein at meetings of the federal and provincial ministers on more than one occasion.

There are several elements, quite apart from the additional cost which Canadians would face, should VAT come into place. There is, from our point of view, the very real risk of a loss of fiscal policy autonomy. The member and the House will know, Mr. Speaker, that the introduction of VAT would really interfere with, if not completely neutralize, the social policy side of sales tax in British Columbia, with all our exemptions. And it is not often mentioned by those who pay sales tax that there are literally thousands of items which are exempt from sales tax. All that would be gone. So a province — British Columbia, Ontario, Nova Scotia, it matters not — would lose that fiscal policy autonomy.

There is also the concern of the bias against primary producing provinces, and the member alluded to that. That's a very real threat. Multiple rates, exemptions difficult to resist, more and more exemptions, but perhaps applied without an even hand, and a tendency to increase a VAT rate — whatever percentage it might be — to generate additional revenue.

I said quite candidly to Mr. Wilson on more than one occasion that he should be addressing the complete cost of government rather than seeking additional revenue sources. I think Mr. Wilson has, with his cabinet colleagues in Ottawa, understood the complications and the negatives associated with the introduction of VAT.

The business transfer tax is another matter. I cannot report to the House at this moment as to where that stands with the federal bureaucracy or indeed the executive council of Canada. But you can be assured that it will be raised again one week today when Mr. Wilson and our provincial counterparts meet in Victoria for one of a series of meetings between federal and provincial ministers of finance.

I don't have the concern that I did about the possibility of VAT being introduced in this country, but it may surface again in a slightly different form. We must be vigilant. Certainly the government of British Columbia will speak against it for the reasons I have outlined and many others.

MR. COCKE: I'm delighted that there is an accord on this. The Minister of Finance has indicated that he understands. One of the chief arguments that I listened to from the member for Nelson-Creston was the fact that it's dreadfully biased against small business vis-à-vis large business. I think that in and of itself is sufficient reason; but as the Minister of Finance pointed out, there are a lot of other reasons.

MR. NICOLSON: I very much welcome most of the remarks of the minister, except that I would hope that the business transfer tax will be seen for what it is. In the Globe and Mail on February 2, 1986, there is this quote: "Instead Mr. Wilson may introduce a business transfer tax" — this was predicting the budget — "as an intermediate step, giving the government substantially more tax revenue on the road to a full value-added tax." I think that is the way in which the business transfer tax has to be seen. That was by Christopher Waddell in the Globe and Mail, and, of course, this thing is so tempting.

The minister did make reference to letters and documents during his speech, and I would hope that in a spirit where we might be able to make some contribution — and we might be on side with the government to some extent in its position — in order that we may be able to perhaps use it in our MLAs' columns and things like that, so as to bring people's attention to it, I would certainly appreciate it if the minister could file those documents upon the conclusion of this debate.

Orders of the Day

HON. MR. GARDOM: I call Committee of Supply, Mr. Speaker.

The House in Committee of Supply; Mr. Ree in the chair.

ESTIMATES: MINISTRY OF TOURISM

(continued)

On vote 71: ministry operations, $17,193,217.

HON. MR. RICHMOND: I just rise to make a very few remarks this morning on this second and final vote in my ministry. I notice the member for Okanagan North (Mr. MacWilliam), who was so interested in my estimates yesterday, is not in the House. But he may be in the precincts hiding somewhere in a tunnel, so I wish that one of his members would go out and find him and drag him into the House to hear all this good stuff.

Interjections.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please, hon. members. The Minister of Tourism has been recognized. All other members will have their opportunity to stand in debate.

HON. MR. RICHMOND: That's a good idea.

Mr. Chairman, I'm quite certain that the members opposite are really not interested in talking about tourism, as they indicated yesterday. My estimates had just barely gotten underway when the vote to reduce my salary came about — and not only my salary, but the operation of my office. I really don't know what they have against the good people in my office who work very hard to accomplish a task. As I said yesterday, they're a very lean and efficient operation, and I can't for the life of me understand why they are against the people in my office.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please, hon. minister. The member for Nelson-Creston on a point of order.

[11:30]

[ Page 8723 ]

MR. NICOLSON: Mr. Chairman, the minister is reflecting on a vote that has been duly passed and reported to the House unanimously.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Good point of order. The minister continues.

HON. MR. RICHMOND: Mr. Chairman, I was really attempting to reflect on the behaviour of the opposition yesterday, pointing out that they were not in the least interested in the operations of the Ministry of Tourism, which, I might add, has had probably the most successful year in its history.

The member for Okanagan North contradicted himself, when in one statement he said there was not enough money allocated to my ministry, and then in the next breath made a motion to reduce the amount of money allotted to my ministry. So I don't really think he knows where he stands. He obviously....

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please, hon. Minister of Tourism. It is not relevant to reflect on a vote that has previously been taken in committee, and if you would try to avoid such references to a vote, it would be appreciated.

HON. MR. RICHMOND: Mr. Chairman, I appreciate your admonition, but I was reflecting on the behaviour of the member for Okanagan North, where in one breath he says I don't have enough money to carry out the business of the Ministry of Tourism and in the next makes a motion to reduce the amount that's allocated to my ministry.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. The member for Vancouver Centre on a point of order.

MR. LAUK: Mr. Chairman, you have admonished the minister twice. He continues to reflect upon the previous vote in committee. He's in contempt of the rules of this House, and I ask the Chair to act accordingly.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The hon. minister will refrain from discussing the vote that was taken previously in committee, or any other vote taken previously in committee.

HON. MR. RICHMOND: With all due respect, Mr. Chairman, I didn't mention the vote in my last dissertation, I just mentioned the comments of the member for Okanagan North, and he distinctly said that I was not being given enough money to operate my ministry. We're on the vote of ministry operations, Mr. Chairman, with all due respect. He made the comment that I was not being given enough money to operate my ministry, and here he was yesterday being so concerned about the Ministry of Tourism, the third-largest generator of money in this province, and today he's not in his place in this chamber. So then with the help of his colleagues across the way he concocts a little scheme where they hide behind garbage cans and in tunnels and in offices and who knows where, to come in and, in a purely trumped up situation, try to discredit my office and the staff in my office, and I take umbrage with that.

So I will conclude, Mr. Chairman, by saying that the Ministry of Tourism, in the busiest year in our history, is doing very well, thank you, not only in '86, because of Expo, but post-'86, as I outlined yesterday, only nobody over there was listening. We have tremendous plans for '87, '88 and '89 and are very actively putting those plans in place, and the vote of somewhat over $17 million that we are debating will enable us to do just that. We have sufficient funds in this vote to carry on a very efficient Ministry of Tourism for the balance of this year and up to the end of this fiscal year, which happens March '87.

So I will close, because I am certain that the members opposite, by their absence.... I see they have five members in the House today: that's all they could muster to hear the very important....

Interjections.

HON. MR. RICHMOND: The rest may be in the precincts, Mr. Chairman, in a tunnel somewhere, but they only have five members in the House to debate the estimates of the Ministry of Tourism, so I am certain they are not in the least interested in anything more I have to say about this wonderful ministry.

MR. COCKE: I've been listening very carefully to the words of wisdom from a non-minister. I'm surprised, as a matter of fact, that they called vote 71. It's a vote that talks about ministry operations. As a matter of fact, I'm surprised that the deputy wasn't speaking, as opposed to this non-minister. In any event, it struck me as passing strange that he should....

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. The Minister of Tourism on a point of order.

HON. MR. RICHMOND: I take exception to the term non-minister. I may be working for less money than that member, but I'm still the Minister of Tourism.

AN HON. MEMBER: And you're worth every dollar.

MR. COCKE: I agree he's worth every cent that we're paying him — one dollar. With respect to his position, he is telling us, for an example, that he's just so sad that there aren't more of us here to debate his estimates. Who would have thought that anybody would have brought this estimate forward? Naturally we weren't informed. Who would have thought that they would have taken a second vote from the Ministry of Tourism and put that forward?

MR. SKELLY: We could have voted on this yesterday if you had called a vote.

MR. COCKE: That's right. Mr. Chairman, we're only too delighted. The member for North Okanagan is doing the business of the caucus and the business of the people of his constituency. He embarrassed the member for Kamloops yesterday beyond a shadow of a doubt.

AN HON. MEMBER: Where is he?

MR. SKELLY: Opening a highway in the Okanagan.

MR. COCKE: Right. What I gather from the fact that we're discussing this vote is that the government House Leader has decided, somehow or another, to slip this stuff through while the minister's position is in doubt.

[ Page 8724 ]

I listened to the minister take a good deal of credit for his operation, saying that it's the largest in the country and that they've had a very successful year. Well, they have had a very successful year and will go on having a successful year. It has cost us some multi-millions of dollars in order to have it. I'm happy that Expo is going along nicely, but I don't think that the minister can take all the credit for something that happened even before he was a member, let alone a minister.

MR. SKELLY: Jimmy Pattison, and he works for less than a buck.

MR. COCKE: Jimmy Pattison, as it's pointed out, works for a dollar, and he put the thing together. He didn't have a motion of confidence, or non-confidence, either.

Interjection.

MR. COCKE: No, I'm not attacking old Jimmy; I think old Jimmy has done a good job.

Interjection.

MR. COCKE: Oh, is he? Anyway, I would ask the minister to tell us, in terms of vote 71, how much of this tourism marketing, the dollars that he estimates for 1986-87 — it's up less than $1 million.... How come, if we're so intent upon marketing, there has been a rise in the next year after Expo of an insignificant sum, a very insignificant sum? It's going from $11.8 million to $12 million almost flat. Now that's only a $200,000 increase in marketing. It strikes me that if you want to build on Expo, the way to do that would be to budget something more than that for next year, because I think we're going to have to really do some heavy-duty marketing next year. Can the minister tell me why the very insignificant increase? The minister is not only incompetent, he's deaf. I asked him a question.

Interjection.

MR. COCKE: I like my mother.

How come a $200,000 increase, or slightly less? What are you going to be doing next year?

HON. MR. BENNETT: Well, Mr. Chairman, it's difficult, after the years I've watched that opposition in this House and outside, to hear them talk as if they weren't attacking Expo, as if they've always supported it. Yet at the one chance they have to give recognition in the only vote, the minister's vote — and he is the government's representative on the Expo corporation.... At the only chance they have to show where they stand, they introduce a motion that votes clearly against Expo. That's the one place that.... Therefore, Mr. Chairman, I want to talk about Expo under this vote of administration. I want to talk about....

MR. CHAIRMAN: Hon. Premier, on ministry operations. But no reflection should be made on a previous vote that has been taken.

HON. MR. BENNETT: Right, Mr. Chairman. Let me talk about the position on Expo.

Interjection.

HON. MR. BENNETT: I'm glad the second member for Vancouver Centre (Mr. Lauk) calls me a has-been. I thought I dealt with that about....

Interjections.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please, hon. members. You will all have your opportunity to stand.

HON. MR. BENNETT: Mr. Chairman, those members are calling me a has-been. Those never-wases and never-will-bes are calling me....

Interjection.

HON. MR. BENNETT: Well, that's not only my opinion; it's the opinion of the voters.

If you want to talk about has-beens, just look down to the member's left. Look at the resurrected has-been sitting just two seats down from you, the member from Vancouver East.

Mr. Chairman, to very seriously talk about the history of Expo and those who supported it and built it, quite frankly, I am offended when the member for New Westminster talks about the great support....

MR. COCKE: On a point of order, Mr. Chairman, it strikes me that Expo comes under vote 70, not vote 71. This is purely ministry operations. Let me enunciate: general administration, tourism marketing and tourism development. As the minister responsible....

[11:45]

Interjection.

MR. COCKE: Nothing to do with it.

HON. MR. BENNETT: It disturbed me when the member for New Westminster.... I see his leader has left the House. The whole question of Expo is embarrassing to him, having had his party oppose it, having called it a circus, having had candidates for the New Democratic Party show up and picket Expo meetings in communities around this province. NDP candidates praise Jim Pattison today. When I went to meetings with Jim Pattison to talk about Expo, your supporters were there with a fence of signs directed against Jim Pattison, the chairman of Expo. Your national leader has recommended that the people boycott Expo. The federal member for Vancouver East has recommended on television that the people boycott Expo. Your fellow-traveler, the would-be mayor of Vancouver, Harry Rankin, says he will only go to Expo if it's an official occasion. Your leader calls it a circus. Your members picketed the meetings. You opposed all of the years of hard work of making Expo a success. You opposed it, and like every other policy of this government, once you find out it works and the people support it, you say: "Oh, we supported it all along." Yet your every statement, your every action, your very envy that some government that is positive, that likes to get things done, can initiate and carry through over eight years of political opposition the greatest international exposition the world has ever seen....

Now at the last chance you have had to express support for it in a real way, we have the events that have taken place around this Legislature recently.

Interjections.

[ Page 8725 ]

HON. MR. BENNETT: Mr. Speaker, I'm sometimes concerned by the childish behaviour that takes place surrounding the Legislature. It reminds me that last week I was home and watching some young people playing. The leader's name was Bobby. He said: "What will we do today?" And the other children said: "Let's play a game. Let's play hide and seek." So Bobby took his friends and they all played hide and seek. They hid on their mothers and their parents. The people wondered whether they were doing something useful. When it came time for the decision to be made, they all came out of their hiding places, and little Bobby said: "Surprise! We've been hiding!"

AN HON. MEMBER: Peek-a-boo!

HON. MR. BENNETT: What a game it was, because little Bobby said: "This will impress all the people in the community. Although I do not know what to do, nor do I have policies that will work, it certainly shows that at games I'm very, very clever." I watched these children play and laugh and sing and dance, Mr. Chairman, and it was interesting to watch, because those of us who have grown older and....

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please, hon. Premier. The member for Vancouver Centre on a point of order.

MR. LAUK: Mr. Chairman, there are two people standing.

Interjections.

MR. LAUK: Mr. Chairman has ruled, in relation to the comments of the Minister of Tourism, not to reflect on a previous vote in this committee. The Premier is now flaunting the rule of the Chair. If the Chair will allow that kind of latitude, I expect the Chair will allow that latitude to the members of the opposition.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The Chair might point out that it's having great difficulty picking out any particular speech in this chamber this morning, with the din and noise being carried on by all members. The Chair would be able to listen to each member if the remainder would remain silent. The only opportunity the Chair is having at the moment is to recognize people standing. When someone else stands on a point of order the Chair will recognize that person, but the Chair is having trouble hearing.

If the hon. Premier would continue on vote 71 and others would remain quiet, the Chair would then be able to understand if the Premier is reflecting on another vote.

Interjections.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The Chair's comments reflect on all members of the House — both sides — at the moment.

HON. MR. BENNETT: I was enjoying it, Mr. Chairman. It's not often we really get to see the true side of the opposition. Quite often they show their true selves when they're speaking from their seats; therefore I was trying to give them every opportunity to give us an indication of how they would conduct government, how they would act, should they ever get the opportunity.

I was talking about the benefits of Expo and how it's of benefit in every community. Not only would young people enjoy it, but the little children of this province would enjoy it and carry on the Expo activities in each of the communities. Of course, to make that point I was illustrating watching some little children play in my community when I was home on the weekend and the games they played because of the excitement of Expo, which is very positive for the people of the province.

Let me tell you about Expo and what it will do for this province. The critics who have opposed Expo all of these years, the same critics who opposed this Minister of Tourism, the most outstanding Minister of Tourism this province has ever seen, a minister who brought us Expo.... Despite the dire warnings that it was going to be a financial mess, despite the dire warnings that we wouldn't get enough people, do you know what the critics are saying today? "Oh, we're going to get too many people at Expo. It's going to be too crowded. We're going to crowd the parking in Vancouver. Oh, we'll never be able to handle the crowds" — the same people who used to attack this poor little Minister of Tourism, who stood alone against the onslaught of opposition from the New Democrats and their fellow travelers all of these many years. He said he would make Expo work, and he put together a team of volunteers, starting with Jimmy Pattison and others.

I'd hate the member for New Westminster (Mr. Cocke) to incorrectly state the salary of the chairman of Expo. Quite frankly. the chairman of Expo is not getting a dollar a year; he's getting nothing. The trouble is, every time you say that, Jim Pattison sends us a bill for a dollar. I want you to know he's getting nothing per year. It's just as incorrect as when the member for Victoria, who should be supporting tourism.... He has always opposed the greatest tourist event and awareness that this province has ever had, and that is Expo. Expo is making not only other Canadians, not only the people of the United States, but people from around the world aware of Canada and aware of British Columbia — not just Vancouver; it is helping Victoria and Vancouver Island.

I have always been surprised that the second member for Victoria (Mr. Blencoe) has in the past opposed Expo, along with his party. He is certainly quick to try to stand up and take credit for some of the benefits that Expo is bringing, not only to Vancouver but around this province. It has been a long, difficult time for this Minister of Tourism to fight off the doubters, to fight off the blind political opposition. It has taken a lot to face the picketers in the various communities who were politically inspired and picketed all of the Expo meetings as late as early this year. They were identified, many of them — in Williams Lake, as the candidate for the New Democratic Party. The signs and the wording were offensive, offensive to Jim Pattison, offensive to decent people in the communities in which those signs were raised. Many of them were slanderous, but all of them were politically inspired.

I find it then somewhat cynical that this opposition would play childish games and attack the Minister of Tourism, who has fought off, over many difficult times, that type of mindless partisan political opposition. I find it somewhat cynical that you try to run from the facts of history in which these people have been seen. They have acted, the slogans were there, the opposition was there, statements in Hansard over the eight years, there from the opposition. And to try to pretend somehow that you've always been a supporter and that your party and your people love Jim Pattison, and he's

[ Page 8726 ]

done a great job — well, it's just a little late. But you are always too late.

Interjection.

HON. MR. BENNETT: You're right. I am retiring, and I am doing that voluntarily. But let me tell you, in the next election those of you over there who don't retire will be retired by the voters of the province of British Columbia.

Irresponsible, cynical, childish: all of those words with which people have described your actions and lack of policies, your lack of alternatives, your opposition to anything positive.... Couldn't you just once in this year of Expo 86 have got up during this minister's estimates and said: "Yes, you've done a darn good job"? Do you always have to be so silly and negative? You can't stop. You can never stop. You oppose, you oppose. You attack the one area that everybody in British Columbia now is proud of. They see success. Can't you get away from the mindless opposition that drives every action and every speech you make? Can't there be one time in this province of British Columbia that the people say: "There is news today. The New Democratic Party was positive about something that was taking place in British Columbia." If you want to make headlines, that would make headlines because it would be something that has never happened in this province before. The headlines would say: "Today the New Democratic Party did not oppose something that created jobs and building the future in British Columbia." They would say: "Today the New Democratic Party did not undertake a childish, political trick in the Legislature of British Columbia." The headlines would....

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. The member for Vancouver Centre on a point of order.

The Chair cannot recognize the member for Vancouver Centre if he is not rising on a point of order.

MR. LAUK: I want to speak on this vote. The red light was on. I'm entitled to take my place in debate.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The standing orders provide that a leader or designated member may speak for 30 minutes in Committee of Supply. No leader or designated speaker on the government side has spoken for 30 minutes, so the hon. Premier may continue if he wishes, although he should have notified the Chair under practice order No. 9.

Is the hon. Premier going to be taking the 30-minute allowance? If not, it would be incumbent to give up the floor.

HON. MR. BENNETT: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. No, I'll take.... I didn't intend to speak but just a few minutes.

[12:00]

MR. LAUK: I think it would be....

Interjections.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order! The Chair is having difficulty listening to those who have been recognized. Would you please maintain order.

MR. LAUK: I wonder if the Premier will be speaking as long on his own estimates, Mr. Chairman. Hit and run. Or as the Premier has said in many days past, miss and run.

I'd like to get back to the former Tourism minister's estimates.

Interjections.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order!

MR. LAUK: Here is that Whip with the steel-trap mind back into the House. If he did his whipping duties as good as he shouts in this House, Mr. Chairman....

I listened carefully to the Minister of Tourism's remarks and I'd like to comment upon them, Mr. Chairman. Nothing I heard from the Premier made any sense whatsoever in relation to these estimates. It was full of rhetoric, self-apology. He says: "I'm retiring." We know that he's been retired. He's been retired by the business community in Vancouver who have forced him out of office because they knew he couldn't win.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please, hon. member. We are on the ministry operations estimates of the Ministry of Tourism.

MR. LAUK: Well, the suggestion has been made, Mr. Chairman, about childish games. Let me point out to you, Mr. Chairman, that it wasn't anybody on this side of the House that forced a leadership convention on the Social Credit Party in the middle of a legislative session, causing complete disarray on the part of the Socreds. The proper forum to do it, Mr. Chairman....

Interjections.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please.

MR. LAUK: Mr. Chairman, you allowed latitude to the Premier. Why am I not given the same latitude? Is that not even-handedness?

MR. CHAIRMAN: If you will come to order, hon. member, you will have the same latitude. The hon. Premier was referring to tourism and Expo, and...

MR. LAUK: And childish games.

MR. CHAIRMAN: ...if the hon. member will do the same, it would be appreciated.

MR. LAUK: Thank you. In the middle of Expo, in the middle of a legislative session, it was the absolute petulance and selfishness of a certain member of this House that has caused the disarray that resulted in the vote last day.

Now about Expo. We've heard the Minister of Tourism. Everybody else.... They're congratulating themselves for Expo. They've been congratulating themselves ever since. All they have done is cut ribbons. All they have done is walk around, patting themselves on the back. It is the people of this province with hard-earned taxpayers' dollars who have paid for these megaprojects, who have invested in these things. They never give credit to the ordinary people of British Columbia for their Expo. They take all the credit themselves. And boy, they reluctantly give credit to Jim Pattison for the organization of the thing — very reluctantly.

[ Page 8727 ]

Interjections.

MR. LAUK: Oh, how the tiny have fallen, Mr. Chairman.

Let's do a little history on Expo. Here we have the Provincial Secretary, as she then was and is now, and the former mayor of Vancouver, Mr. Volrich, appointed to a trade and convention centre project. They were so disastrous that they had to be removed immediately. It would never have succeeded. And the Premier appoints certain people to start Expo — a total disaster. They had to be removed from office. They had to get somebody to save the day. Expo is a success because of the people of British Columbia, and it's a success in spite of the Premier of British Columbia and in spite of this government. And everybody knows it. That's why he's being forced from public office. He's being thrown out of public office.

MR. REYNOLDS: Mr. Chairman, just leave to make an introduction.

Leave granted.

Interjection.

MR. REYNOLDS: Another insulting comment from the lady down here, I'm sure, Mr. Chairman. I'll make my introduction.

In the galleries this afternoon we have a number of students from Gleneagles Elementary School in West Vancouver who I hope won't take the debate that's been going on here in this House for the last few minutes as what normally happens here. I think, to explain it to the students, what's been going on here in the last few hours is more like how they feel on the last day of school. I wish the House would make all these students welcome.

HON. MR. HEWITT: I'm pleased to rise and speak on the estimates of the Ministry of Tourism, and first of all in regards to the operations of the ministry and how it relates to Expo. If the opposition stopped and thought for a minute about the total success of Expo and the dedication of the ministry staff — right from the minister to the minister's office staff and through the ministry — and how they've all worked together as a team with the Expo officials to ensure that this world's fair will be the greatest world's fair ever experienced in this century....

Taking the leadership of the Premier of this province, who is retiring, and working from his initiative to achieve the success of Expo, which, if we all look back and try to evaluate how successful it is, not just with the activity in the pavilions and the tourism, but starting at day one when we decided to go with Expo.... I think in 1978 a decision was made to go with Expo. Remember, those were good times. In 1978 inflation was going, everybody was getting an increase every time they turned around. Things were great; things were rosy. We made a decision to go with Expo because we were proud of British Columbia, Canada, and we wanted to invite the world to show them what we had to offer in this province and in this country. The initiative was there to prove to the world that British Columbia was a great place to live, a great place to invest. But times changed, and in 1982, when the economy went down and there was high unemployment, has anybody on that side of the House ever thought of the number of workers who had a job and received a paycheque because of the decision that was made by the leader of the government to go with Expo back that far?

Those members, to a man, opposed Expo. They will deny it now because they can see that it gains them no favour with the public. They wouldn't dare stand up and say they were against Expo or are against Expo. Not now, but in the first days when the tough decisions had to be made, the leader of this party made them and gave guidance to the directorship, the chairmanship of Expo. It was the leader of this government who will go down in history as the greatest Premier this province has ever known.

If you take those employees who are working, and you take the opportunity for investment by people coming to British Columbia to meet with government officials and business officials, and you take the opportunity for us to export offshore our products to generate further activity, and you take SkyTrain, which gives transportation from New Westminster into downtown Vancouver.... That member for New Westminster didn't want Expo; he wanted rail lines running across intersections, he wanted buses, he wanted street cars. He is so far behind the scenes he's still thinking the 1930s. I haven't heard him get up and say what benefit to his constituents Expo has been. Because of Expo, the catalyst that brought together SkyTrain at this time, opened up a new transportation corridor called the Coquihalla, B.C. Place........ On top of that, because we have a number of members in the opposition from Vancouver, think for a minute about the rehabilitation of False Creek. Think about False Creek and how it was — derelict warehouses, dirty, a terrible mess — and how because of Expo False Creek is renovated 21st-century within a city: park, residential properties, commercial properties in the future. You were all against it. You should all resign.

Interjections.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please, just for a moment. The Chair keeps hearing what sounds like a broken record. I don't know if something could be done about it, but with all the voices the Chair does hear it sounds like we'll be here for the next three months on this vote. Possibly, to allow a member to speak, those that stand.... Any others that wish to speak will have their opportunity to stand also at that time without speaking from their chairs. Would the hon. minister continue.

HON. MR. HEWITT: Just to finally comment on Expo, we, under the guidance of the man who is retiring, have to give a legacy from Expo, not just to Vancouver and the lower mainland with regards to SkyTrain and to B.C. Place. We want to touch everybody in the province with the legacy; and under the Premier's guidance we developed the Expo legacy fund. There will be parks, recreation facilities, aquatic centres, museums etc. built throughout this province. Some are being built right now from the Expo legacy fund so that we can remember for years to come that Expo was a success and Expo welcomed the world to British Columbia, and gave us world stature as a province and as a country. The member over here — the little member, the little mouse from Victoria, Mr. Chairman....

Interjections.

[ Page 8728 ]

HON. MR. HEWITT: I just called him a mouse.

Interjections.

MR. NICOLSON: When you hear those unparliamentary references, get in the game.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. When the hon. member, who wishes to rise on a point of order.... The Chair is trying to maintain order, but it is up to the members to conduct themselves in an orderly manner.

MR. NICOLSON: On a point of order, Mr. Chairman, if I got up and down to call attention to every unparliamentary reference by that member, I'd have cramps in my thighs.

MR. CHAIRMAN: And if the Chair interrupted every person who's making noise around here, no one else would have a chance to speak.

Now would the hon. member continue, and would the other members conduct themselves in an orderly manner.

HON. MR. HEWITT: Mr. Chairman, I just want to point out, with regard to Victoria and the remarks that the member for Victoria made, that the largest Expo legacy application, which was approved for $7,275,000, is in downtown Victoria: a convention centre which is going to benefit this community that sends two opposition members to this House. The Expo legacy fund and the government recognized the need for a convention centre to attract tourism and to attract conventions to this city, Mr. Chairman, and yet all those members across the way opposed Expo from day one, and then they jumped on the bandwagon when they found out they couldn't win with that argument.

Mr. Chairman, before I sit down, let me say that the vote that we are on, dealing with the ministry operations, the promotion of tourism for this province, which basically I think is almost getting to the point of being the number one industry as we go into the twenty-first century, because we were blessed with the mountains, the lakes, the oceans, the weather.... We were blessed in British Columbia with this, so we should promote it and have people enjoy it. The Ministry of Tourism has that challenge to ensure that we promote our product. Yet not only do they attack Expo, but they attack the ministry itself.

I'm not going to reflect on a previous vote, Mr. Chairman, but I would say that their actions....They attack the one industry that gives us the greatest opportunities in the next decade for promoting this province and gaining jobs for our people, and revenue from our taxation in the area of sales tax, etc., which will generate revenue for social programs, for education, for social assistance, for health, because the economy is what pays for those things. Yet they're down on the Tourism portfolio, and as a result they don't want to pay the staff. They're opposed to its operation, the promotion of the province. As the Premier said, just for once this side of the House would hope that the NDP wouldn't be so negative and so opposed and impact on such a good year for British Columbia — 1986.

Mr. Chairman, we have a great Tourism ministry, and in spite of the NDP it will achieve greater success as the years go on.

MR. SKELLY: Mr. Chairman, I just want to make it clear to the House that the NDP plans to support this vote. We think the staff of the Ministry of Tourism is doing a terrific job, and that they are doing it much better now that they don't have this minister in charge. I'm also interested in the fact that the two people who have stood up to speak in defence of this minister are people whose names do not appear in the list of those who voted in favour of this minister's salary yesterday.

[12:15]

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. The Chair appreciates your not reflecting on a vote of yesterday. That wouldn't come from the opposition side.

MR. SKELLY: I don't know how appropriate that comment is, Mr. Chairman...

MR. CHAIRMAN: The hon. Leader of the Opposition will continue.

MR. SKELLY: ...from a neutral Chairman. I don't think that's an appropriate comment. I'm just reading from the Blues, Mr. Chairman, that the two people who have just spoken were not here to express their confidence in the minister yesterday, and had they been, the outcome would have been different.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. The Minister of Education on a point of order.

HON. MR. HEWITT: The Leader of the Opposition, in his weak defence, is reflecting on a vote that was taken in this House. Would you bring him to order?

Interjections.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The Minister of Education brings up a valid point of order. Would the hon. Leader of the Opposition...?

MR. SKELLY: That's fine.

HON. MR. CURTIS: Mr. Chairman, I wish to speak in support of this vote. The operation of the Ministry of Tourism....

Interjection.

HON. MR. CURTIS: Young man, you will have a chance if you wish to stand up to speak, but I am quiet when you speak — which is infrequently, I agree.

Mr. Chairman, I would just like to make a couple of points. We have a schizophrenic opposition. That's really what we have in this Legislature with respect to tourism because they speak against it.... It is actually a pattern of the NDP. Others pointed out not too many days ago that a former member of the opposition caucus, when he was Minister of Highways for the province, didn't want tourists in British Columbia. He said it. He said: "Go home." That is an underlying theme with many of the members opposite. They do not like tourism, and that will be their downfall. It has been their downfall thus far, Mr. Chairman, and will continue to be their downfall.

[ Page 8729 ]

I would venture to say that it is entirely possible that a Ministry of Tourism would have disappeared if the NDP had remained in power. It would have disappeared gradually, slowly — not in a direct fashion but gradually. And there would have been no Expo.

Mr. Chairman, this is the first time I have spoken about the Harcourt telex in this chamber. I was sent pre-Expo, when it was still called Transpo, by the government to the Paris headquarters of the International Bureau of Expositions, a very prestigious organization — a mini-UN, if you wish, with representatives from around the world. In the interests of tourism, the vote before us now, we were attempting to gain sanction by the BIE for what is now Expo, which is now such a great success, thanks to this minister and this ministry. In all my years of elected office, I have never felt so embarrassed, so off guard, so humiliated as a British Columbian and as a Canadian as I did when the Harcourt telex arrived in the care of the BIE, saying: "We don't want it." We had a small delegation. We had prepared for months. We had the support of the majority of people in British Columbia who, in the interests of tourism, not just that year but in succeeding years and into the next century, wanted a world-class exposition sanctioned by the BIE.

Mr. Chairman, what a terrible thing to do! What a careless, thoughtless, damaging thing to do! This was a man who now wants to sit in this chamber on behalf of the people of B.C., and may indeed want to be the leader. That was a black day for the NDP. What did they say? It wasn't just one man sending a telex. That sort of telex can be sent by all sorts of individuals. The telex actually....

Interjection.

HON. MR. CURTIS: Mr. Member, I got sunburned last weekend — that's what happened.

Mr. Chairman, the reference....

Interjection.

HON. MR. CURTIS: And that member can also take her place, if she chooses, instead of chirping from her seat as she always does.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I concur. Order, please. The Chair has many times reflected on the noise level in this chamber, which is such that the Chair can not even hear the member who has been recognized. If all members would remain silent in their seats, they will have an opportunity to stand and speak in the debate.

HON. MR. CURTIS: Mr. Chairman, to conclude, the Harcourt telex alluded to members of Vancouver city council of that day. He sent it as an alderman of the city of Vancouver. It also referred specifically, without any doubt whatsoever, to opposition NDP members in this chamber, saying that both organizations were opposed to what has become Expo. That's a black mark the NDP will have to live with for many, many years. You were against it. You remain against it. You say all sorts of things outside, but we know you're unhappy that it has proven to be the great success it is.

MR. COCKE: Mr. Chairman, I take great delight in hearing history being made on the floor of this chamber. We remember the beginning. As a matter of fact, the beginning happened long before the present minister whose estimates we're supposed to be reviewing. Transpo was the original proposition. One of the problems that Transpo had was the fact that disorganization was the name of the game. They couldn't quite make up their minds whether they were going to be small, large or somewhere in between.

One of the problems that the Minister of Finance has....

Interjections.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Just one moment, hon. member. The Chair had to intercede to maintain order when the Minister of Finance was up. Would the Minister of Finance and others on that side extend the same courtesy when members of the opposition are up on their feet.

Would you please carry on, hon. member.

MR. COCKE: Mr. Chairman, one of the problems the Minister of Finance has.... I believe he has been here long enough that he should understand the duty of the loyal opposition. The duty of the loyal opposition is to oppose. Opposition means oppose.

Interjections.

MR. COCKE: Just a minute. I happen to have been a minister of the government that preceded yours. I remember very much the opposition of that day, so don't give us this holier-than-thou stuff. The fact is, a critic in the British parliamentary system is supposed to criticize, to bring the best out of the government. Unfortunately, this government has very little best to bring out anywhere.

AN HON. MEMBER: Are you still opposed to Expo? Yes or no.

MR. COCKE: I'm not opposed to Expo. That's stupidity. Once something.... I perceived yesterday a part of the government House Leader that I suspected was there, but I really saw it yesterday. In defeat he went to pieces, and he's doing it today. In defeat he just flew apart. I've never seen anything like it in all of my life.

That's just to conclude my remarks about the Minister of Intergovernmental Relations (Hon. Mr. Gardom). Getting back to this Expo proposition, I sincerely believe that had it not been for an opposition that would keep this government on its toes, keep this government really looking towards producing something....

Interjections.

MR. COCKE: I can't understand what they're talking about, Mr. Chairman. I never ever said to cancel it.

Interjections.

MR. COCKE: That's right. The hon. Premier of this province, taking advice, changed his mind two or three times and finally decided to go ahead. I remember conversations that I've had with a number of people involved in Expo. There was a tremendous amount of doubt in everybody's mind. Everybody was worried about another New Orleans.

[ Page 8730 ]

Anyway, the Minister of Tourism knows so much about everything. But the fact of the matter is, it's there. The proposition is there.

AN HON. MEMBER: With no help from you.

MR. COCKE: There is no place for an opposition to be helpful in these sorts of things. I will say this, Mr. Chairman, with respect: these people very shortly will be sitting in the opposition, and I will be watching them from afar. But I will be watching, and I will be wondering the very first time that they are going to give any support to the NDP government, which is actually going to happen whether you like it or not. The fact of the matter is, it has happened already. There is nothing you can do now, with a leadership contest or anything else, to stop the tide that has happened in British Columbia. British Columbia wants you out, with or without Expo, with or without SkyTrain, with or without anything. They want you out. The person who knows that best of all is the person who's leaving the sinking ship. The Premier of this province is taking off. He's abandoning the ship. He's leaving the Titanic. He's leaving the Lusitania. He's leaving because he knows that they are finished, with or without SkyTrain or with or without Expo.

MR. CHAIRMAN: We are on vote 71, hon. member.

MR. COCKE: I am getting very tired of listening to this historical comment that's being made from minister to minister to minister. The fact of the matter is, there is no question in my mind that an opposition's duty.... Nobody knows that better, the duty of the opposition, than when the Minister of Finance was there.... I can remember having conversations with him, a holier-than-thou.... Everything that occurred then was opposed. This little "not a dime without debate" stuff went around the province and went on and on.

Anyway, let's just see how we do with Expo. I'm going to give you a couple of thoughts that occur to me. In Victoria there was a tremendous increase in rates for certain facilities. I find those facilities anything but full. I've talked to people in Vancouver, Gastown, down 10 to 30 percent, because people are going to Expo. No question.

Interjection.

MR. COCKE: I'm not blaming anything. I'm just saying that it is not the great tourism attraction that is going to set our economy straight.

Interjections.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. Allow the member for New Westminster to proceed uninterrupted.

[12:30]

MR. COCKE: The fact of the matter is that the Minister of Intergovernmental Relations (Hon. Mr. Gardom), the House Leader of the Social Credit Party, makes a lot of noise and not very much sense. Why are people saying their business is down? There is no question that there are people coming to this province, and there is no question that they're going to Expo. Who's denying that? I'm just saying that it is not the great adjunct that we had hoped it would be.

In and of itself, it's drawing great crowds. In Vancouver they are drawing great crowds to their hotels and motels and all the rest of it. In New Westminster, of course.... New Westminster is the gateway to Expo because of the SkyTrain. I have not talked to the business community about how they're doing, except those that are very close to the SkyTrain — whether or not businesses elsewhere are gaining. I do know that it is not the end of the world.

All of this blustering and all of this hollering about what Expo is doing is just great, but don't expect that an opposition member is going to get up and make every mistake that the government makes look good. That's not our job. Our job is to pick out your mistakes — and you make lots of them; mostly with your mouths, but you make lots of them — and to notify the people of British Columbia precisely what you're doing and how you're doing it. Now if you don't like that, if you're thin-skinned like the Minister of Finance (Hon. Mr. Curtis), who can take no criticism.... Yet he was one of those marvellous ones, when we were government.... Oh, I'll tell you, he was so holier-than-thou....

MRS. JOHNSTON: What are we on, Mr. Chairman?

MR. COCKE: I'm giving you some history under vote 71. It's a vote, Mr. Chairman, that's obviously open to history and parliamentary procedure.

Anyway, I am delighted that we have drawn attention and I want you to remember this — to the fact that this ministry, whether it's the fault of their operations or not, has not done what the statute called for. That statute said that there has to be a financial accounting, and there never has been one word of financial accounting from Expo. And that's what it has all been about. That's still what it's about. They're not even governed by their own statutes. If we were remiss enough to let a government get away with that, then we should be booted. But it's not going to be us. It's going to be the Socreds — booted right out of power, to disassemble and never again emerge.

HON. R. FRASER: Mr. Chairman, I certainly want to support vote 71, and I'll tell you why. How much time have I got? Have I got a lot of time here? Good.

Interjection.

HON. R. FRASER: No, he has only 25 minutes.

When we come to Expo, and the great job the minister has done.... I wasn't here at the beginning of Expo either. But I remember, as a private citizen, the kind of criticism the government was getting at the time, and the hard work that was done, and all the totally misleading information that was coming out. I remember all that.

Actually, of all the Expo sights I've seen — and there are a lot of beautiful sights there and a lot of beautiful expositions and pavilions and a lot of beautiful people — one of the most beautiful I saw was the leader of the national NDP and the leader of the provincial NDP getting VIP treatment at one of the pavilions, going around the entire lineup getting in the special VIP door one day after the federal leader of the NDP said: "We should boycott it." Well, this little leader here actually told him he was wrong. That's one of the right things you have done; you told your national leader that he was wrong. One day after. Actually, it took him longer than it should have. He should have done it in the next 20 minutes.

[ Page 8731 ]

And then the federal leader went down with Mr. Pattison because he liked it all of a sudden.

You are right, the people of British Columbia did build Expo. They built it because this government had the will and the resources and the thought to go ahead with it. That's why they had the work at all. They had leadership. They had vision. The government has courage, and now the people have work. All those 54 countries like Russia and China and the USA and the other 5 I nations that came — the biggest one in history — and General Motors and Canadian Pacific and the other 38 corporate sponsors of Expo have spent at least $1.2 billion or $1.3 billion in the province of British Columbia that would never have been spent here otherwise. Yes, we did very well with that decision, and if there is a shortfall, which is predicted, it will come out of lottery money — the gamblers' money, not the taxpayers' money. It is just going to be wonderful. But can you believe it — the leader of the NDP here and the leader of the NDP getting VIP treatment, going around all the people? And all those jobs and all the millions of dollars in income that they earned and all the families that that money supported.

Now we talk about little things afterwards; what after Expo? How about the cruise ships which will probably bring in about $200 million a year in the province of B.C. which would not have happened? You know that little mayor of Vancouver, the beautiful city with the little mayor, honestly, who said: "No, we don't want a convention centre. We want no part of it." So once again the provincial government stepped in and took over the cruise facility. That's courage, that's vision. Oh, the chances they have had to do something, and they won't because they can't think big enough. They've got tunnel minds, tunnel vision, tunnel hearing, tunnel everything. It's unbelievable. And now what about after Expo? We couldn't have an after Expo unless there was an Expo, correct? Now after Expo, what do we get? We get Whistler convention centres and B.C. convention centres and Victoria convention centres and Okanagan convention centres, all coordinated, all different sizes, a huge program for tourism. The restaurateurs will be happy, the hotel people will be happy, the taxi drivers will be happy, the store owners will be happy. Everybody will be happy, because we're bringing hundreds of thousands of people here who would not have come unless we had the facilities, and we do have them.

What about B.C. Place? What a fantastic opportunity. The development of the lands of Coquitlam, the development of the lands of Vancouver, the development of the lands in Victoria — hundreds of thousands of jobs all over the province. You know, when we talk about cutting off people, who does the cutting off but the members over there, because they can't think big enough. They never can do it, never. It's unbelievable.

I tell you, Mr. Chairman, when you really want something to happen, if you're just a minute ahead of the opposition, they can't come along. The member over there says it's the job of the opposition to oppose. It's the job of every MLA to represent his riding, which is what every member on this side of the House does, and that's why we're here. It's the job of every MLA to create jobs, and that's why we're here. We're here to help you in every way we can. But no. I came along in '83. I was one of the lucky ones who will always sit on this side of the House. I came along Johnny-come-lately, and I remember the opposition to Expo that you created out there which almost caused it to go down; and if it hadn't been for the courage of the government, it might have. But there was courage there, so it's there.

AN HON. MEMBER: That's leadership.

HON. R. FRASER: Leadership. Oh, and after Expo, that beautiful site. When you think about B.C. Place, when you think about the opportunity of that B. C. Place Corporation — hundreds of housing units, thousands of housing units, retail stores, accommodation for those who need help, waterfront opportunities and waterfront development. When you think of it, Mr. Chairman, it goes on and on and on, and the major thing, what you have to get across, is that Expo is not the end. Expo is the beginning of a tremendous tourist trade. We're going to bring thousands of people to British Columbia from here on, people who have never been here. And they're all smiling. Have you see them all smiling out there, everybody at Expo, everybody going around the streets, all those licence plates from other places, all....

Interjection.

HON. R. FRASER: Right. You know that....

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. The Hon. Minister of Labour (Hon. Mr. Segarty) will have his opportunity to stand.

HON. R. FRASER: Oh, yes, that tourist business, Mr. Chairman. Oh my, I could go on and on forever, but I want to give everybody else in the room another chance.

MS. BROWN: I don't know whether anyone else in the House knows or not, but today is Friday the thirteenth. It's wonderful to watch that dying, gasping breath from that bunch over there who yesterday deliberately stayed out of this House to orchestrate and design the defeat of that minister, deliberately did that, and come in here today on Friday the thirteenth....

HON. MR. CURTIS: On a point of order, I think the member is reflecting on a vote. We are dealing with ministry operations, vote 71.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, hon. minister, but I don't think we can presume a member's comments until the member has made the comments, and I'm quite confident the hon. member would not reflect on a previous vote.

MS. BROWN: Not at all. To quote the words of the Premier — the soon to be ex-Premier — when he was speaking and reflecting on the behaviour of the members, those members who deliberately stayed out of the House, who, aided and abetted by their incompetent Whip, were the architects of the defeat of that little minister whom they're now rushing to defend....

HON. R. FRASER: On a point of order, I think the member is straying far too far from the vote and should be brought to order.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The hon. member for Burnaby-Edmonds on vote 71.

[ Page 8732 ]

MS. BROWN: On vote 71, the operations of the Ministry of Tourism, which we almost did not have an opportunity to debate as a direct result of the deliberate actions of that minister's colleagues, who deliberately stayed out of this House, aided and abetted by their incompetent Whip, and engineered the defeat of that government yesterday.

HON. MR. VEITCH: On a point of order, the hon. member is reflecting upon deliberate actions. The deliberate action was the people that stayed in the tunnel. That's another vote.

HON. MR. CURTIS: With all due respect to the Chair, the member who has just taken her seat is clearly reflecting on a vote yesterday.

Interjection.

HON. MR. CURTIS: The ineffectual Leader of the Opposition interrupts. I have been speaking about tourism, vote 71, and I intend to do so again in a few moments.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The member for Burnaby-Edmonds on vote 71.

MS. BROWN: That's right. We cannot debate vote 70, because the deliberate actions of the ministers and other members over there engineered the defeat of that government yesterday.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Hon. member, you're referring to actions which took place yesterday, not today.

[12:45]

MS. BROWN: I'm quoting the Premier. You permitted him to say that he was reflecting on the actions of the members. I am merely quoting a statement which you ruled earlier was in order; that's all I'm doing.

MR. CHAIRMAN: It was brought to the attention of the Premier also that no reflection should be made on a previous vote.

MS. BROWN: Sure. And like the Premier, I will not reflect on the vote. I'm merely saying that I'm grateful, Mr. Chairman, for the opportunity to discuss the operations of this ministry; that I was afraid I would not have that opportunity as a direct result of the defeat of this government, which it engineered itself yesterday when it deliberately stayed out of this House, aided and abetted by its incompetent Whip. It resulted in the defeat of the Minister of Tourism, and just about the defeat of the entire ministry.

I see the Minister for Consumer Affairs (Hon. Mr. Veitch), who believes that South Africa is exactly the same as Poland....

HON. MR. VEITCH: Mr. Chairman, this member is continually abusing the rules of this committee in reflecting upon a vote. I ask that you bring her to order, please.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The Chair draws to the attention of all hon. members a section on Committee of Supply in Sir Erskine May, sixteenth edition, page 739: "A member cannot discuss a grant on which the committee have resolved or a grant not yet brought forward." Would the hon. member confine her remarks to vote 71, not any action which took place on a preceding day.

MS. BROWN: I will confine my comments to what is happening on Friday the thirteenth. Because the government is unwilling and unable to deal with this particular vote, I would like to move that the committee rise, report progress and ask leave to sit again.

Motion negatived on the following division:

YEAS — 12

NAYS — 26

HON. MR. CURTIS: I was interested in the remarks made by the member for New Westminster (Mr. Cocke), the former Minister of Health, who, when it's convenient in debate, reaches back into history, but does not like others to reach back into history. It was a convoluted argument at best, because he referred, speaking of tourism, to New Orleans. He may — I didn't hear — have referred to Knoxville as well. Mr. Chairman, he has his history out of whack in terms of Expo 86, the most important thing to have happened in tourism in the history of this province, and he has forgotten certain other things. With regard to Expo, then called Transpo, he has forgotten that it was in 1980 — before Knoxville, before New Orleans, well before those two fairs — that the opposition was raised. It was in 1980 that the Harcourt telex was sent. In fact, it was just....

MR. BLENCOE: Are you back on that?

HON. MR. CURTIS: The member for Victoria chirps that I'm back on that. Yes, I'm back on that because it is a source of continuing embarrassment to the NDP. Just over six years ago, the Harcourt telex — I can tell that they're upset because they're chirping — of June 6, 1980, said, "Please stop Expo," then called Transpo. But it went on further. I have a Harcourt press release when he was seeking the mayoralty. May I first, Mr. Government House Leader, tell you that this is dated October 20, 1980 — before New Orleans, before Knoxville — and what does it say? It speaks about a number of Vancouver issues which are not relevant to discussing vote 71, but I think this is relevant: "On the topic of Transpo '86, there should be little doubt as to Mike Harcourt's position. The well-publicized telegram and accompanying message he sent to the Bureau of International

[ Page 8733 ]

Expositions in Paris was not simply a gesture of opposition by a concerned council member. It was a statement of philosophy and policy, one which enjoys the support of half of city council and half of the provincial legislature." The member for New Westminster says, weakly, sadly: "I'm not opposed to Expo." He, they, were opposed to Expo.

There's another delightful little section, and I won't take the committee's time in reading a lot of it, but this is continuing with the Harcourt campaign press release of October 1980. It could be called the Harcourt manifesto. Again, we were still speaking then of Transpo. I'm quoting from page 4:

"As for tourist dollars, Transpo's own studies show a remarkable faith in the gullibility of British Columbians and our neighbours to the immediate south. Their reports and leaflets estimate that nine million visitors will come from within 100 kilometres of the site. This, of course, is calculated on the basis of repeat visits. But let's put these figures into perspective. Within 100  kilometres of Vancouver, the only other major cities are Victoria and Nanaimo. Seattle is about 200 kilometres away, and Kamloops considerably farther. At the risk of overstating the matter, even Hope is beyond the 100-kilometre radius. That means that those nine million visits must be" — Mr. Chairman, this is beautiful stuff — "wrung from the purses of significantly less than two million British Columbians living in the greater Vancouver area, Victoria, Esquimalt and Nanaimo."

It continues — absurdly, but it continues.

"How many Victorians are going to visit Transpo once a month during its five and a half month run? That is the sort of figuring upon which this 'exposition' rests its candy-floss foundation."

[1:00]

Mr. Chairman, they were opposed to Expo. They have always been opposed to Expo, and they continue to be distressed, as I said earlier, by its overwhelming success. Nothing they say in this chamber, nothing they say outside, can change that. The record stays. You were opposed to it, you are opposed to it, you will continue to be opposed to it. Later the Harcourt press release refers to a five and a half month version of the PNE. What nonsense! Mr. Chairman, if the Leader of the Opposition, who is not in the chamber, now had any sense at all, he would stand in his place and would say: "We were wrong. We should have supported Expo. It is a success. It remains a success." They are locked in the past. They are locked with that commitment they made so long ago. They didn't want it. They are sorry that it is the success it is.

HON. MR. VEITCH: Just on reflection on vote 71....

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. The member for New Westminster rises on a point of order.

MR. COCKE: My point of order is that I draw your attention to the clock.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Closure!

HON. MR. GARDOM: In view of the fact, Mr. Chairman, that the hon. member has drawn attention to the clock to attempt to stifle debate, I am forced to move that the committee rise, report progress and ask leave to sit again.

Motion approved on the following division:

YEAS — 38

NAYS — I

The House resumed; Mr. Speaker in the Chair.

The committee, having reported progress, was granted leave to sit again.

Hon. Mr. Curtis tabled statutory reports, a statement of borrowings and off-lending, as required under section 41(6) of the Financial Administration Act; a statement of temporary borrowing, as required under section 43(2) of the Financial Administration Act; a statement of amounts borrowed in a currency of a country other than Canada or the United States of America, as required under section 45(3) of the Financial Administration Act.

Hon. Mr. Gardom moved adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

The House adjourned at 1:08 p.m.