[ Page 3223 ]

CONTENTS

Routine Proceedings

Point of Privilege –– 3223

Tabling Documents –– 3223

Oral Questions

Abortion. Mrs. Boone –– 3223

Mr. Cashore

Mr. Sihota

Mr. Harcourt

Ministerial Statement

Vanderhoof pulp and paper mill. Hon. Mr. Parker –– 3225

Mr. Miller

Presenting Petitions –– 3226

Guaranteed Available Income For Need Amendment Act, 1987 (Bill 72). Second reading

Mr. Cashore –– 3226

Mr. R. Fraser –– 3227

Mr. Barnes –– 3227

Mrs. Boone –– 3231

Mr. Harcourt –– 3231

Ms. A. Hagen –– 3233

Hon. Mr. Richmond –– 3235

Cooperative Association Amendment Act, 1987 (Bill 65). Committee stage. (Hon. Mr. Couvelier) –– 3235

Mr. Stupich

Hon. Mr. Strachan

Hon. B.R. Smith

Election Amendment Act, 1987 (Bill 28). Second reading

Ms. A. Hagen –– 3238

Mr. Stupich –– 3240

Mr. Jones –– 3243

Mr. Blencoe –– 3246

Appendix –– 3248

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 2, 1988

The House met at 2:12 p.m.

Prayers.

HON. MR. VANDER ZALM: We have with us today a very fine gentleman. He's my Member of Parliament — and an excellent representative at that — also the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans and a good friend of British Columbia, Hon. Tom Siddon. I would ask the House to welcome him.

MR. HARCOURT: Mr. Speaker, I have some bad news. One of our most distinguished British Columbians, George Clutesi, passed away on Saturday at the age of 83 –– I think we're all aware that this outstanding artist, writer and actor, who was also a fisherman, a fish buyer and a pile driver, is the author of Son of Raven, Son of Deer, which he published in 1967, and Potlatch, which he published in 1969. He was an actor in I Heard the Owl Call My Name and Dreamspeaker. He received an honorary doctorate at the University of Victoria and the Order of Canada in 1971. He was a patron of the arts who received Emily Carr's painting equipment.

It is a terrible loss to the people of British Columbia, and I'm sure we will send a unanimous message of condolence to his family. The ceremony, which takes place today at 1 o'clock in Port Alberni, is being attended by Bob Skelly.

HON. S. HAGEN: I certainly would agree 100 percent with what the Leader of the Opposition has said, noting that the doctor was a writer in residence at the University of British Columbia. I guess the positive aspect is that all of these writings are left with us and will be of benefit to us and our children, and to our children's children. I would like to pass on the condolences of the government to his family and note his passing with a great deal of respect.

[2:15]

MR. SPEAKER: I will forward to the family the proper condolences.

MR. PELTON: On your behalf, Mr. Speaker, I would like the House to welcome two gentlemen here this afternoon, Mr. Mark Edmonds and Mr. Barry Hooper. They're here representing Alley Estates for Coquitlam, British Columbia. Can we welcome them, please.

MR. BARNES: I'm very pleased to have present in the gallery this afternoon my wife and fairly recent bride, Janet, with our friend from Toronto, Peter Roberts, who is employed with the Department of Immigration as an adjudicator. I would ask the House to make them both welcome.

MRS. GRAN: In the House today we have Dr. James Hitchman and the Canadian-American studies class from Western Washington University in Bellingham. Would the House please make them welcome.

HON. MR. RICHMOND: I rise on a matter of privilege at the earliest opportunity available to me. Yesterday in question period the Leader of the Opposition I believe misinterpreted an order-in-council, and I refer to the Blues, Mr. Speaker, of Tuesday, March 1, afternoon sitting. I would like to quote the Leader of the Opposition from yesterday's Blues:

"Yesterday the Premier told this House: 'We certainly don't dictate to people what it is they do with the moneys we provide them for welfare or such other assistance.' Mr. Speaker, last week through order-in-council his government restricted British Columbians on social assistance from paying for an abortion. Is the policy of the government the one that was adopted by order-in-council last week, or is it that which the Premier articulated yesterday?"

The Premier answered the Leader of the Opposition:

"Either he hasn't read the order, or he's taken this from some misquote in one of the newspapers, perhaps. I can't tell where he got the information, but that's certainly not what it was."

Mr. Speaker, having been told by the Premier that he was incorrect, and I indicated to him across the floor that he was incorrect, he proceeded, upon leaving the House, to say to the news media — specifically the 6 o'clock news hour on BCTV last night, which is seen provincewide — and I quote from that news hour, taken from the videotape:

"It's clear that the Premier and the minister of human services today were misleading the House and the people of British Columbia when they said that people who are on GAIN can do what they want to with their funds to receive funding for an abortion. Clearly they can't."

I realize that in the heat of the debate — and this debate does get heated and emotional at times — people are liable to say things that they may not mean, and that's understandable. But accusing another member or members of misleading this House is a very serious charge.

I look to you, Mr. Speaker, for direction, as I am not sure of the technicalities of a motion of privilege; I will take your counsel in that regard. It would seem to me that the Leader of the Opposition, if he feels he is correct, should stand in this House now and repeat the charge that the Premier and I deliberately misled this chamber. Alternatively he should stand in his place here and now and apologize.

MR. SPEAKER: Hearing no further representations, I can only say to the member that, although the member may well have a grievance, there really is no question of privilege.

Hon. L. Hanson tabled the annual report of the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia for the fiscal year 1987.

Oral Questions

ABORTION

MRS. BOONE: A question to the Premier. In light of the expert legal advice received by the B.C. Health Association advising it to carry out its public responsibilities found in section 4 of the Hospital Act, is it still the policy of this government to penalize publicly funded hospitals by withholding funds for therapeutic abortions, unless the service is paid for in advance?

HON. MR. VANDER ZALM: If it's a question of policy with respect to matters of health, I'll defer to the Minister of Health.

HON. MR. DUECK: Mr. Speaker, where it involves non-medical procedures such that aren't covered by the medical plan — and these may cover a number of items, also

[ Page 3224 ]

foreigners that come in, where perhaps cash upfront or cash receivable is required — we leave that up to the hospital. Our policy is that we do not fund out of government funding from MSP for abortions.

MRS. BOONE: Supplementary to the minister. Mr. Minister, you stated in this House that hospitals would have their global budgets reduced by the amount of therapeutic abortions, and yet the Hospital Act clearly states that no hospitals shall refuse to admit a person on account of his indigent circumstances. This is a vital law. British Columbians all over require proper health care, including abortions, and this says that they cannot be denied those services. How does this minister reconcile this law with the government's policy as you have stated before this House?

HON. MR. DUECK: Mr. Speaker, we're asking the hospitals to in fact put all these moneys that they collect for these services that are not covered under the MSP into a special fund, and they can deal with that as they desire or as they see fit. So in other words, we are not putting that into the global budget at all; it will be a separate account. If they feel that they want to collect as a receivable rather than collect upfront — and there are many items that come under this category — that's up to the hospital.

MRS. BOONE: Mr. Minister, has your policy then changed? Because you stated in this House that hospitals that were acting on the basis that they were not collecting the money upfront would have that money deducted from their global budget. You stated that in this House. Have you now changed that policy?

HON. MR. DUECK: To deal with it more effectively, we have told the hospitals that we will not fund for abortions. That's our policy. However, to make it easier for them, they perhaps could keep that fund separate and then deal with it as they would like, because they're an autonomous body.

MR. CASHORE: My question is to the Premier. The Premier and the Minister of Social Services have both indicated to the House the importance of the independent role of the superintendent of child welfare as lawful parent of children in care. Will the Premier confirm that the superintendent of child welfare has an arm's-length relationship with this government — that the interests of a child in care are of paramount consideration and are not to be tampered with by the government?

HON. MR. VANDER ZALM: Mr. Speaker, the superintendent of child welfare works independently of government.

MR. CASHORE: Supplementary to the Premier, Mr. Speaker. Has the government issued a directive to the superintendent of child welfare stating that no abortion-related expenses can be met via the GAIN act and regulations for children in care?

HON. MR. VANDER ZALM: I'll defer to the Minister of Social Services.

HON. MR. RICHMOND: Mr. Speaker, it seems that the member for Maillardville-Coquitlam has the same problem as his leader in interpreting order-in-council 266. If you will read the order, Mr. Member and Mr. Leader of the Opposition, it does not mention the superintendent of family and child services, nor does it mention children in care.

MR. CASHORE: I want to point out that I have order-in-council 266, and I also have operational directive number 59, which relates to order-in-council 266. I bring to the attention of this House that I also have a February 1988 government directive — I have it in my hand — which went to the superintendent of child welfare, among others. I quote from it: "No abortion-related expenses can be met via the GAIN act and regulations. This includes both income assistance recipients and children in care."

Mr. Speaker, my question is: how can the Premier reconcile his earlier denial that no directive exists with the facts just presented?

HON. MR. VANDER ZALM: Mr. Speaker, I had deferred it to the Minister of Social Services, and I'll do so again.

HON. MR. RICHMOND: Mr. Speaker, what I said was — and I'll still stand by it — was that the order-in-council does not mention the superintendent of family and child service. The order specifically states.... I'll read it so that the House and everyone is aware of the order:

"1. Section 29 is amended by adding the following subsection: (4) Notwithstanding any other provision of this regulation, the director shall not authorize payment for health care services under section 2 (a) or (b) of schedule F, or for health benefits under subsection (3) or section 4 of schedule F, unless the payment is for (a) a service that is an insured service under the Medical Service Act, or (b) a service that would qualify the recipient for benefits under the Hospital Insurance Act."

MR. SPEAKER: I just might suggest to both members — I guess the member's not going to answer — that I allowed the minister and the member to extend the question and extend the answer. I think some of these points you're bringing up would be better served in a committee somewhere or in estimates, rather than in question period.

MR. SIHOTA: Again to the minister — because it's obvious the Premier doesn't want to answer these questions. The directive that we have says: "No abortion-related expenses can be met via the GAIN act and regulations. This includes both income assistance recipients and children in care." It's small wonder that there's confusion over what's happening with the government on its policy on this issue. My question to the minister is whether he is denying that this directive exists.

HON. MR. RICHMOND: What I'm denying is that we have interfered with the superintendent of family and child service and her responsibilities as the guardian of these children. We have merely said in the directive that such procedures will not be funded under the GAIN act.

MR. HARCOURT: Does it exist? Yes or no.

HON. MR. RICHMOND: To the Leader of the Opposition, only he would look at a piece of paper and ask me if it exists.

[ Page 3225 ]

[2:30]

MR. SIHOTA: First of all, let me make it clear to the minister.... He knows of this directive; the directive has been sent to the superintendent of family and child service. It's very clear from the directive. The purpose of this directive, obviously, is to deny abortion coverage to those people who are on GAIN and who are covered under the GAIN act and regulations. Is the minister denying that that's the intent of this directive?

HON. MR. RICHMOND: It's quite plain that the directive is to spell out what can be paid for under the GAIN act as this order-in-council amends that act. It's quite clear. It's clear to me that the directive is that abortions cannot be funded under the GAIN act, and that's why I read the order to you. It's very plain to me. The opposition seems to have trouble interpreting plain English.

MR. SIHOTA: If anyone's having trouble, it's the minister who's having trouble defending his government's policies. That's what is happening.

Let's ask something of the minister that might be a little easier. If it's the government's position that the superintendent is at arm's length and independent of government, then why send this directive to the superintendent?

HON. MR. RICHMOND: As I said yesterday in the hallway, and I'll say again today, the people on income assistance are entitled to exactly the same health care as everyone else in this province. Every necessary medical procedure will be funded by the GAIN act, and they are entitled to no more and no less health coverage than anyone else. It's very plain, and the order-in-council spells it out.

MRS. BOONE: A question to the Minister of Health. Last week the Minister of Health said that his personal views on abortion are not the views of the government, and the Premier has publicly said that it is not his personal views at issue here. Will the minister tell the House — given that it's not his or the Premier's views that have influenced the government's policy on abortion — who in the government has decided on a cash-up-front abortion policy for women in this province?

HON. MR. DUECK: Mr. Speaker, the point I made was that the views expressed by government are not necessarily the views of individual members. The policy of this government is that we do not fund abortions. That was the point I was making.

MR. HARCOURT: Yesterday the Premier told this House that his government's order-in-council of February 16, 1988, which takes away medical coverage for abortions from British Columbians on GAIN, would not restrict these women from paying for an abortion. Would the Premier confirm that this order-in-council and the directive we've just discussed take away medical coverage for women on social assistance seeking an abortion?

HON. MR. VANDER ZALM: No, it doesn't.

MR. HARCOURT: I'd like a repeat of that answer. It does not take it away?

HON. MR. VANDER ZALM: The order does not take it away.

MR. HARCOURT: Would the Premier then explain why, after removing medical coverage for women on social assistance, he believes that he hasn't restricted access to an abortion?

HON. MR. VANDER ZALM: We did not remove medical coverage, Mr. Speaker, and this has been explained a number of times. I would again urge the Leader of the Opposition to read the order or have someone read it to him and explain it.

MR. HARCOURT: I have read the order; I have understood the order. I have understood the directive; and it's very clear from the minister's answer that you are excluding women from abortions in this province. Why can't you just say yes? Have the courage to say yes, you are restricting.

Would the Premier tell this House which necessity, out of those sparse funds that people on GAIN receive. he is going to advise women on social assistance to go without: housing, food, clothing for the children — or an abortion?

HON. MR. VANDER ZALM: I will defer to the Minister of Social Services, but we do not in any way advise people on social assistance how they must handle their funds. If they seek advice in that regard, it'll be at their request, and we would certainly be ready to assist. I would like the Minister of Social Services to expand on that.

HON. MR. RICHMOND: Mr. Speaker, I concur with what the Premier said, but I still find it hard to believe that the Leader of the Opposition cannot comprehend order-in-council No. 266. I would repeat to him my challenge earlier. If he is so convinced that he is right, then let him stand in this House right here and now and repeat the charge he made in the hallway last night that we are deliberately misleading this House.

Ministerial Statement

VANDERHOOF PULP AND PAPER MILL

HON. MR. PARKER: I rise today to make a ministerial statement to the members of the Legislative Assembly.

I'm pleased to advise you of an initiative which will lead to more jobs for British Columbians, the development of provincial resources not presently being used in the area which provides those resources and a tremendous boost to the local economy of the Vanderhoof area. Alcan has announced today that it will be encouraging forest products companies to pursue an opportunity to establish a pulp and paper mill in the Vanderhoof area. A recently completed study has indicated that the company can supply long-term power at an attractive cost from the present surplus being generated at Kemano. This fact, along with the region's supply of high quality wood chips, could lead to a world-class TMP newsprint mill in the area. Such a mill would represent an investment of some $350 million and would create about 200 direct jobs and another 250 indirect jobs.

MR. MILLER: I certainly had no advance notice of the statement to be given today by the minister. I would say, as a

[ Page 3226 ]

general statement, since I don't know the details of this particular initiative, that the members of this side of the House always welcome economic development initiatives that will be beneficial to this province — and that goes without saying.

Having said that, I think there are a number of things that must be considered in terms of looking at this area, particularly — and the minister is aware of this — given the high level of concern for environmental issues in that area. I would certainly hope that there is adequate time for those issues to be considered prior to approval being given to the construction of a TMP mill. There is a general concern expressed in the province with regard to the consistent supply of wood fibre to the pulp mills. We see a situation in the lower mainland, for example, where a company is asking the government to stop wood-chip exports so that they can be redirected to a domestic mill. There is some uncertainty in terms of the long-term availability of fibre in the province. Certainly that's a question that has to be looked into as well. I'll conclude by saying, as I did at the outset, that we do generally welcome economic development initiatives.

Presenting Petitions

MR. LOENEN: Mr. Speaker, with your permission, I'd like to present a petition. The petition is on behalf of my constituents to the Minister of Tourism, Recreation and Culture (Hon. Mr. Reid). This particular petition was put together by the Richmond Community Concert Association. It pertains to the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra. I'd like to read it out. It's a brief statement:

"We, the undersigned members of the Richmond Community Concert Association, heartily support the musicians of the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra in their efforts to get the music started again. We acknowledge the fact that the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra is vital to the cultural life of not only the city of Vancouver but the province as a whole. We deserve a well-funded, full-strength symphony orchestra. We therefore urge you to do everything in your power to support the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra."

This is signed by some 159 Richmond residents who belong to the association.

MR. SPEAKER: I suggest to hon. members, when they're presenting petitions, that it might be very worthwhile to check the standing orders, and also maybe consult with the table, to make sure that the proper form is instituted.

Orders of the Day

HON. MR. STRACHAN: I call adjourned debate on Bill 72 in the name of the Minister of Social Services and Housing (Hon. Mr. Richmond).

GUARANTEED AVAILABLE INCOME FOR NEED
AMENDMENT ACT, 1987

(continued)

MR. CASHORE: Just to recap, when I adjourned debate yesterday, I think the gist of the comments on second reading of both Bill 71 and Bill 72 was that this is very welcome legislation. We see this legislation coming forward in a very open spirit on the part of the government, a spirit that invites input not only from the opposition but from the entire community.

In that spirit we are offering comments on this legislation, which fundamentally we believe to be very appropriate in its intent and which we very much wish to support. We do see some problems, and yesterday we did canvass the problems that we see with Bill 71. But the major problem that I have with Bill 72, which is enabling legislation with regard to the GAIN act, is that I am concerned it will not deliver the effect or the consequence that the government hopes it will deliver — or, as indicated, that it believes it will deliver — once it is implemented.

In order to put that into some kind of focus, I would like to refer to the three points that the Minister of Social Services made in introducing the bill, which he expanded on in some detail to indicate the purpose of the bill: number one, to ensure that family breakdown does not impoverish dependent family members; number two, it would relieve single parents on income assistance of the struggle to secure what is rightfully theirs; number three, it would promote financial independence.

Looking at those purposes and the way in which the legislation is drafted, if I were giving marks for those three assignments, I would have to give number one, to ensure that family breakdown does not impoverish dependent family members, a C-minus; the matter of relieving single parents on income assistance of the struggle to secure what is rightfully theirs, I would give that a B. And to promote financial independence I would give a D — I do not think it's going to achieve that goal. I say this in the context of remarks made yesterday by some members of the House when we were trying to make the connection between the good intent of this bill and the reality of poverty in our society, a reality that on both sides of this House we wish to address. I suppose that unless we have experienced hardship and poverty, it is difficult to know exactly what is being experienced out there.

[2:45]

We often see, as the tip of the iceberg, those people who, under the stress of poverty and with other problems, are breaking down and burning out and turning to substance abuse and other tragic consequences. I think it has been statistically demonstrated that people who grow up within the crucible of poverty are more likely to be having very severe problems in later life: problems in getting off the welfare syndrome, for instance; problems in motivation; problems in dealing with those crutches that are unfortunately available such as substances that can be abused when people need to escape from it all.

But that is only the tip of the iceberg, Mr. Speaker. I think that the vast majority of people growing up in single-parent families benefit from some very positive values which are shown in the sacrifice, often of the mother, in those family circumstances — and, indeed, on occasion the sacrifice of the single-parent father who has responsibility for a family. And it's unfortunate that so often all we see is the tip of the iceberg and not those really heroic and worthwhile efforts that are taking place on behalf of those in our society who are getting by on very little.

In my own childhood, my mother was left with three children between the ages of two and eight — and it was not through a family breakup; it was as a result of death in the family. But having seen in retrospect the kinds of circumstances she had to deal with during those years and the impact that that made on her life — and recognizing the contribution

[ Page 3227 ]

she was able to make because of the kind of person she was — I think that there's a real affirmation within the intent of this bill that persons in those circumstances do require the kind of support that enables them to enable that character existing within them that can raise and care for their children to be manifested in a way that helps them come to terms with the complexities of the world that we're living in. And it's a much more complex and difficult world than the world that I grew up in. Because of that, we look upon this legislation as extremely important.

We have made the point that there is a very fine line between those single parents who are heads of households who are on income assistance and those single parents who are heads of households who are the working poor — people of very limited means but who do not qualify for income assistance. This bill needs some amendment, some assistance in being able to — deal with people who are on that borderline.

Just to give you an example, the Minister of Social Services and Housing is quoted in the Friday, December 18, 1987, Times-Colonist with regard to his enthusiasm for this bill. I'll just quote a bit from the article that leads up to a statement that the minister made:

"'Single parents on welfare who are missing support payments can turn the struggle over to the director and be assured of support,' said Social Services Minister" — and then it names the minister. "'It does relieve that single mother on welfare from having to worry about where that extra $200, $300 or $400 is coming from."'

When I first saw this bill, I made some rather hasty interpretations of its meaning — generally positive — but on reading it more carefully, I have realized that really, unless I can have an explanation to the contrary, the bill does not provide for payments of $200, $300 and $400. What it provides for is a payment of $100.

To its credit the bill provides that, for instance, for a woman on income assistance, should the partner who has departed and who owes money default, that mother would not lose that $100 support payment each month. That is commendable.

But one thing that it does not do, which I think is extremely bothersome and I'm extremely concerned about, is if, for instance, a mother finds herself in the situation of being a member of the working poor and a period of 12 months has gone by without any support payments coming thorough, and then that woman, say in her second month on welfare, is entitled to the benefit of perhaps a lump sum payment of $2,000, the fact is she will not receive $200 or $300 or $400. What she will receive is $100. She will not have the benefit of that cumulative payment that should be rightfully hers.

Mr. Speaker, I say it should be rightfully hers — and I really do hope the minister can hear the point that I'm making here — because during the time prior to coming on to social assistance, presumably in anticipation that this court-ordered payment is going to come through, she has perhaps bought a used washing machine for $200, gone into debt in order to get some clothing for her children, etc., finds herself on income assistance, and the second month the money comes through, but she can only receive $100 because of the way in which the GAIN act and this amendment are administered.

I think that is a real concern. As a matter of fact, if it's a person who is a parent and has dependents, the entitlement is to keep $100. If it's a person who is left alone but has no dependents, the entitlement is to keep $50.

I think when we get into the committee stage we will also want to seek further clarification with regard to the earnings exemption. I think we'll need some explanation with regard to whether or not that earnings exemption will provide any benefit, should such additional payments come through. My understanding is that it will not, that the parent would have to be employed.

I must say too that I do not expect the minister to be able to give a full response to some of these points at this time. I know that we will have the opportunity to canvass them in more detail during the committee stage.

In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, I believe this legislation, as I said yesterday, is very much a step in the right direction. I think it can be so much better, and I look forward to participating in the process that will enable it to be precisely that.

MR. R. FRASER: Mr. Speaker, it's my great pleasure to address this bill and to commend the government for coming forward with a bill of this nature. I thank the member opposite for reminding us of the purposes of the bill, and I would like to stress in a philosophical way my complete support for the direction that the government is taking with respect to this very important social question.

There is simply no doubt that spouses abandoned with children entitled to support should get it, and if they're not able to get it with means of their own, the government should provide some assistance: or the taxpayers through the government should provide assistance to people in this circumstance. There's simply no question.

Rather than just talk about the $100 or $200 that the minister talked about, it strikes me that if the award to a spouse is $1,500 or $2,000 or whatever and she doesn't get it, we will still take her case as well. So not only will the taxpayers be relieved of an enormous financial burden which we now accept; the families who are entitled to support and who have been awarded support by the courts will get it, and those who are supposed to pay maintenance costs will pay them.

I think the direction of the bill is philosophically correct. I think the move of the minister in this case is correct. Certainly, when it comes to society's obligation to help those who need help, there is no question in my mind that we should do it.

I would hope that as a result of bills like this one and Bill 71, the access that some non-custodial parents complain about will be addressed by those receiving maintenance payments and that there will be a great relief of stress between the two disagreeing former spouses on the question of access because of the maintenance payments being assured. If that takes place as an extra benefit to the bill, then I will not complain about what might be minor shortcomings, and I will not complain about the purpose of the bill whatsoever. I commend the minister and the government for putting forward this bill and the accompanying bill.

MR. BARNES: Yesterday on Bill 71 I was commending the Attorney-General (Hon. B.R. Smith) for introducing the maintenance enforcement act, because clearly those of us who have to address our constituents daily know that the problem of errant spouses, male or female — usually men — not assuming responsibility for their offspring in instances where there has been a separation or a divorce is a very

[ Page 3228 ]

serious problem. Although there are those men who are not indifferent toward this responsibility, they do have difficulty getting redress through any existing system with respect to access, the kinds of privileges that one who loves his children would expect, like visiting time and opportunities to share in a loving way.

Quite often what happens when there is a breakup is that there is a lot of bitterness, anger and vindictiveness and a host of other emotions and irrationality that happen between two people, leaving the child at an extreme disadvantage. Because of this difficulty between the adults, it was necessary for the legislators to realize that we had to be concerned about other parties besides the parents: the children. Because of this, the opposition critic agreed that there was a need for more enforcement in terms of the administration being able to effectively ensure that the errant spouse was contributing to the maintenance of his offspring.

So we were happy about that. We know the difficulties with a mother, for instance, attempting to use the court system in order to pursue a husband who uses every means at his disposal to disguise wealth, to give the appearance that he can't afford to make contributions, etc.

[3:00]

However, having expressed support for the government's initiative, Bill 72 makes one wonder about the government's motives, because the GAIN act is now going to become a take-it-away piece of legislation. On the one hand we have the Attorney-General diligently pursuing the spouse who refuses to accept responsibility for the maintenance of his offspring, which is the Attorney-General's department — enforcing a maintenance order through the court system. On the other hand we have another minister, the Minister of Social Services, who is out there ready to grab the dollars as soon as they come in under some concept of repayment to the Crown for, moneys expended during the time when a person on social assistance may have been unable to get maintenance payments from a spouse.

This is the issue, and I haven't heard the minister mention this term that I'm about to talk about once in all the months and years that he's been Minister of Social Services and Housing. He has yet to say one word about what the bottom line should be with respect to these people that he is concerned about and has a duty to ensure receive adequate maintenance support. There should be a piece of legislation before us as well, perhaps another bill....

As far as they go, these bills make sense. It's understandable that the Crown would want to recover any moneys due, but these moneys that the Crown wants to recover should be based on certain limitations: "provided that a, b, c and d...." For instance, provided that the subject who is the objective of the action in the first place is receiving at least a minimum standard — something we call a poverty line; in other words, that line below which no one under the responsibility of Social Services and Housing should fall. This government has deliberately avoided discussing the poverty line. It has deliberately avoided seriously discussing the implications that recipients face when they don't have sufficient economic resources to function adequately in society.

I wonder if members of the House really address this issue seriously and have any idea what the numbers look like. We talk about the poverty line. What are we really talking about? The poverty line, I'm sure, represents amounts of money.... For instance, the maximum basic income assistance rate for a single person is $430. The poverty line suggests that under normal circumstances a person living in a metropolitan area — in the lower mainland, for instance — would need $754. It does vary from region to region, but only slightly; probably plus or minus 1 percent. Not a significant amount. The maximum amount is $430 for a single person. That isn't the amount you receive when you first start out; it's probably after three months or so.

The minister can clarify that. Is that right off the bat?

HON. MR. RICHMOND: Yes.

MR. BARNES: Okay, right off the bat. I recall that a few years ago it was $350. You've raised it a bit.

Still, the target should be the poverty line. Now there's the Stats Canada poverty line, the Social Planning and Research Council of B.C. poverty line. There are a number of poverty lines all over the province. We all realize they're only guides, but they are actuarially and experimentally based on substantive fact, an experience that has been measured over a long period of time. So it's not like we're talking about some airy-fairy idea. We know just as much as a business person knows. Anybody who is venturing into any business whatsoever, including the privatization program that the government is talking about, wants a certain amount of return on their dollar. It's called margin of profit, the amount of money you want before you'll make an investment. We know how important that is.

We've been talking a lot about the quality of life and the value of life and the sanctity of life. But when we get down to this government program called a GAIN act and we're looking at $430 for an individual, when right across this country it's recommended that it be $754 for one person, how do they manage? What happens to that person? That's a valid, reasonable question. What are we doing? We don't get answers to that. It's sort of like when we ask the minister: "What is your policy with respect to the superintendent of child welfare?" It's arm's length; we have nothing to do with it. Yet we're sending out directives telling them what they can't do, but we don't tell them what they can do or how they can effectively achieve their objectives, which we as members of this Legislature should be duty-bound to ensure are met: goals, services to people.

[Mr. Pelton in the chair.]

Two people receive $732. The poverty line suggests that those two people should receive $1,257. Three people receive $871 from this government. The poverty line suggests it should be $1,509. Four people receive $973 from this government. The poverty line says it should be $1,760. I know some of those people out there are going to say: "$1,760 being given away by the taxpayers? Those people should be out working. What is this? We can't afford this. There's got to be some end to this." Be that as it may, the point is, where do they go? I would far rather see the government have strategies that would allow people to participate in the economy with some hope of being able to raise these moneys through their own initiatives, but we don't see those programs in place. Let's deal with the reality. The reality is that X number of people continue to be unemployed, to be underemployable and, for whatever reasons, not to be able to fit into the market and the workplace — be it a question of training, education, skills; you go on and name it. We've generally hovered around 12 to 15 percent in this province for

[ Page 3229 ]

years, and it will continue, based on the fiscal strategies of this government.

So there's no reason for optimism, but there is some need for us to recognize the problem. I'd like the minister, when he speaks, to stand up and say,"Yes, you're quite right; this is desirable; this should be the goal; these should be the objectives," and to try to recognize the realities of what it takes for a person to live on welfare.

We've been over this a thousand times, what is involved in living on welfare. We know what it's like when you don't have sufficient funds. We've talked about the hungry children. I must say, I hesitate to talk about the hungry children in the schools, because I don't want to be accused of playing politics on the backs of these young people and their families. But the reality is that these people are in fact hungry; they are without the resources they need. We are not addressing this issue, and this is what makes it such a despicable disgrace when the Premier stands up and talks about the sanctity of life and doesn't even address those who are alive — let alone that we haven't heard a word from him about militarism and spending money on warfare and just about every other thing you can imagine. Where are those people, the freedom fighters there?

We've got people alive who are selling their bodies on the streets, trying to survive. Many of these are mothers, the ones we're concerned about with this legislation. We're not addressing these issues. We're playing games; we're cynical; we're shameful.

Social workers in this province know that these are the facts, but where are they? Handcuffed, afraid to speak out, worried about their jobs, worried about being privatized and sold off to the highest bidder. Child abuse teams have been destroyed in this province. Hundreds of social workers have been laid off. Support programs have become a thing of the past, yet this government says it can't afford it, it doesn't have the money to give these people, this meagre money. What do you think they're going to do — put it in one of those banks in Hong Kong? They're going to spend it on food, clothing and shelter, to try to give their children an education, and they're going to try to spend it on some amenities and on letting them know that this is a bigger world than just a parochial community. They are concerned about tomorrow, the twenty-first century.

We've got to begin to enlighten our people and to care. This legislation doesn't address that. It addresses maintaining those people in their state of poverty forever. It's a generational thing, a hard-core thing that never, ever changes. When we consider the government's policies and the direction it's going in, we know that they are perpetuating a situation of classism in this province. I think it's about time we stopped it.

The poverty line should be the bottom line, and any good business person knows that. The bottom line for business people is the margin of profit. They know that unless they can get a good deal on a particular scheme, there will be no deal, and the government knows that. In fact, the government is so anxious to negotiate, it is usually willing to write off, to forgive, to give away community resources, to let the resources go at fire-sale prices, to forgive taxes for ten years, or any number of things like that. They do all kinds of things to negotiate a deal, because they know that's the way it is with business people. They want profit. No altruism, no nice guys: "We want a return." What about these people? What about these British Columbians? What about these citizens? What about their rights?

I can assure you that we in the opposition will not accept these double standards any longer, and I can tell you personally — since it's becoming more and more appropriate to speak personally these days — that I certainly will not rest until this government begins to recognize its responsibilities to these people. The poverty line has to become the bottom line; it is going to have to be recognized.

I don't want the minister to dare stand up and tell us: "We can't afford it. As soon as things get better, we'll do something about it." Please don't do that, because I'll have to ask you to talk about the Coquihalla. I'll have to ask you to talk about the construction of the Coquihalla and that half a billion dollars that you guys spent without authority and that nobody knows what happened with. Not even the Minister of Finance knows anything about it. Hundreds of millions of dollars, and it still isn’t over. They're still talking about more.

Well, we don't want to get away from the subject. I just want to tell you: don't talk to me about what we can afford and what we can't afford, because we know better than that, don't we, Mr. Speaker? We also know that the budget deficit in this province has gone from — what? — $4.4 billion, or something, in 1975 to well over $22 billion or $23 billion, and it's going up all the time. Look at that minister; he has a lot of fun in this House. But he knows we're being bankrupted. He knows we're going in the wrong direction. I'm not going to try to cast any aspersions, because I'm sure all those members are doing their very best. Despite the handicaps that they are working under, they're doing their best — starting right at the top.

[3:15]

The poverty line means a lot to those people. I must say that it was with some reluctance but with some enthusiasm that I accepted the challenge in the beginning of 1986, when I went down and experienced the poverty line with those people in the city of Vancouver in the downtown east side. I was asked to do it as a legislator, because about 18 or 20 or so adversarial community organizations were desperately trying to find a way to communicate to the provincial government, to the politicians, that they were simply insensitive and didn't understand what they were saying, and that they for some reason had just become so used to dismissing their demands and appeals and representations that they just threw up their hands and didn't want to hear it. So this ELP, the End Legislated Poverty organization, a coalition of some 18 or 20 community groups, challenged the legislators in this province to go down and live on welfare. They said: "Please come down. Try it for just one month. We'll give you" — in my case — "$350. We will indicate to you what normally happens when a person on social assistance is granted these moneys, and what they have to do with it."

They didn't get anything other than an acknowledgment from the government, as I'm sure Mr. Speaker will recall. The government did thank them for their challenge, and I think they indicated that they would get back to them. To this day, some two years later, they haven't gotten back to them. I still don't think it's too late, Mr. Minister of Social Services. I know you have at least gone down on a few short excursions. But it's not too late for you yet to go down there and experience personally what it's like. Go through the steps, day by day, hour by hour; live with it. Meet the people. Find out what the reality really is. Find out what you can get in the way of accommodation for $200. See what you can do. In this case, now that you've raised it for a single person to $430, you have $230 left. But see what you can do by the time you

[ Page 3230 ]

buy some transportation, budget for your food — three meals a day — try to buy some clothes if you need them. Maybe see if you can afford to find out what's going on in the news by buying a paper, to pay for the telephone, be able to take in a movie or maybe entertain a couple of friends for coffee or tea or give your kids a treat on their birthday or have them go to their friend's birthday party. If there's something going on locally or if it's across town, it involves another expenditure. Take a look at all these day-to-day things that a person has to address when they're living on a budget — a budget, remember, which in the first place is generally about 50 percent of what it should be. Twice $430 would be $860. The poverty line is $754. So that's less than $100 from being 100 percent short. It should be doubled. That's generally the way it is. These rates that we provide for people on social assistance in this province are about half of what they should be.

Here is the sinister point that I'm making about giving with one hand and taking away with the other. The A-G goes out; he apprehends; he corners; he enforces. He uses the courts in order to get the errant parent, the spouse, to come forward with the amount of moneys that have been deemed his duty, through the courts. What does the Minister of Social Services do? He says: "Under our guidelines and rules, although you may have received through the maintenance program something like $400 or $500, we can't let you keep all that money. We can only let you keep $100." I want you to stand up and correct me if I'm wrong. If I'm wrong, stand up and say: "No, that is not correct."

Until a person reaches the poverty line.... I agree with you, Mr. Opposition Member. In a case, for instance, Mr. Member, say a mother and her child are receiving $732 a month, and there's a maintenance order which would bring her upwards to the $1,257 that she requires — perhaps not all the way, but let's say she gets $300 which would bring her to $1,032, still $257 short. Stand up and tell us on this side of the House why, in a case that, recognizing the fact that there's not enough money in the first place, the Crown would not invoke the rule of keeping $100, and all the rest of that goes into general revenue? We would recognize that for whatever reason we can't afford to pay, 100 percent, all of the maintenance that a person requires.

That is one of the issues that the voters are concerned about. We don't want to stay paying 100 percent of what a person requires. You destroy their incentive. You take away the motivation to help themselves. We heard all those arguments and you know they're good arguments; but why not take the enterprising spirit? That's where they make free enterprise, as we call it, work. Why not show a little enterprising spirit when it comes to these people? Why not say: "Look, we're going to help you out and give you a couple of bucks" — which is about what it amounts to in reality — "but we're not going to put any restrictions on you. We know that the target should be a minimum standard. We'll give you startup money like we do with businesses and tell you to run for it. Go for it yourselves."

Give them a chance to go out and get a job and make up the difference. Then if you want to penalize, do it after they get to the poverty line but not before. Don't take away this money that the A-G has gone through all this effort to try to raise to help these people, and say: "All you can keep is $100." It looks like the government is becoming a pimp through the back door. It doesn't look right and it isn't right.

One of the things that I found out down there on the welfare thing was something that I had difficulty discerning for years listening to the former Minister of Human Resources, the Hon. Grace McCarthy, now minister of trade, when she used to stand up in this House and say: "We're going to get the investigators down there. We're going to find all those crooks and people who are cheating and stealing money from the government."

It hadn't really ticked on to me how bad off those people were in the first place, but now that I've come to understand what is happening, sure, the hon. minister was right. The only thing is, she wasn't interpreting the horrible reality that a lot of them have to live under. Anybody with any sense at all can see that they aren't getting enough money.

I don't have to mention the fact that the only place you could ever find shelter, based on the shelter allowances that this government provides, would be in a certain section of the city and certain sections of the community. You are predestined to live a certain way. Everything is predetermined for you because these dollars force you into a category, and that's where you stay unless you get an awful lot of help or get lucky and can maybe take a few of those dollars and buy yourself a lottery ticket or two and hope. That is the government's main carrot: buy lottery tickets. They get all the money back anyway and maybe one out of a thousand or so will win a couple of bucks.

I still haven't said to you what I really want to say about the fraud thing that the minister used to talk about. I happen to agree that something's got to go on. There's no way you can tell me that all these people are living within the regulations of the GAIN act. You can't tell me that everybody's reporting to their social worker and saying,"Look, I just made a couple of extra bucks beyond what is allowed and I thought I'd report it," when they're 100 percent short of what they need.

So what do they do? They keep their mouths shut. If they get an extra 50 bucks, they probably need ten times that much. What are they going to do? Tell it to the social worker so the social worker can keep it? I know they've raised it up now so they get the first $100 or so and they go out and work. The minister will clarify that when you go out and work the government gets some and you get some and there's a kind of a convoluted formula that they use. But the point is, I'm saying they shouldn't be taking money away from people until they reach the poverty line. When they reach the poverty line, then you start to sell off the dollars. Let's give people a chance to get out of the situation they're in.

Another thing is that the government has another screwed up policy about shelter allowances for these people. It says: "You are allowed X number of dollars from your welfare cheque for housing. You spend anything less than that amount of money on your housing and we'll take it." You can't go out and negotiate and say: "Well, I found a place that is as good as a $300 facility for $150, so I can keep the difference." The government says: "Oh no, shelter allowance is X; if you don't need it, we'll take it." What kind of enterprising spirit are you encouraging there, if a person is willing to go and shop around and put pressure on these landlords and make them smarten up? Landlords know that the thing is fixed. They know they can get that money for any old kind of shack and run-down facility.

The point I want to make, in closing, about fraud is that it is a term that I think the minister and the members of this Legislature should come to realize is very real. Yes, technically, people are probably misrepresenting income. They are probably receiving gifts and doing a number of things,

[ Page 3231 ]

like some other people we know will do, and they don't always come out in the public disclosures or whatever. We don't want to name any names, but we just know how it is.

But when it comes to people on welfare — who I have shown very clearly are living on far below the amount of money they need — fraud has to be thought of in terms of survival. And that's a term that I found was being used by the anti-poverty federation. This is a term that they came up with right across the country. They began to acknowledge that yes, indeed, there was probably a lot of technical fraud. It's called survival fraud — people trying to make ends meet.

What kind of psychology do you create by forcing people into an untenable situation where they know they can't make it, you know they can't make it, we all know they can't make it, and we just say: "Well, that's just too bad." It's sort of like saying: "Well, you know, our policies.... We don't want to fund abortions, and I don't care what your problem is. Good luck. We just aren't going to deal with it." It's irresponsible. And I think that the government has to take some responsibility for the consequences.

Ignorance is one thing; not knowing is another. But when you know, when we're presenting the case — we've presented the case time after time to this government — when people are lobbying the government, coming out with the facts, showing the consequences of what happens to young people who do not have sufficient nutrition in order to live.... It goes on and on. This government's policies are crippling people, are crippling society, and when the minister talks about a crumbling society, piece by piece, he should think of what he's doing with his own hands by his own legislation through his own cabinet.

MRS. BOONE: This bill, from what I can gather from it, is basically backing up Bill 71, which we agree is a long overdue bill and has been required by this province for many years to try to ensure that women receive adequate income from spouses, that they have the necessary assistance so that they can survive and live decent lives. For far too long there's been a situation where people have not lived up to their expectations or to their commitments, and they have, gotten off virtually scot-free.

This section here applies to those people on GAIN, and we don't see a very large problem with this bill. However, there is a problem in that it takes away from the person who is the sufferer. If somebody is receiving perhaps $1,000 in back pay, they will only be receiving $100, because the rest of it will be going to the province to make up. It seems to me, at a time when people are trying to survive, when people are trying to live decent lives, to feed their children, to put clothes on their back, that we are once again punishing those people who can least afford it.

It's similar to the situation that we had recently with the handicapped allowance, where handicaps were given a pension by the federal government, and then the provincial government turned around and took it back and said: "Well, that's fine. We don't want you to have any of this extra amount. We will just take that back, put it into our coffers and deduct it." So their basic standard of living doesn't rise. That is the main problem with this section, because it does put some responsibility onto the Crown, and it does put the responsibility onto people to assume the responsibilities. But it takes away again from the family, from the woman who is responsible, who is trying to live with a family under very meagre means.

[3:30]

If you'd listened to the second member for Vancouver Centre (Mr. Barnes), you would have heard the stories that people go through and the problems that people have. I think we all see those people in our constituencies in our daily lives — women who are struggling, trying to put together a life, not just for themselves but for their families, and who find at every turn some kind of blockage. When every sign of glimmer at the end of the tunnel comes through, they suddenly find that that glimmer is in fact the train that's coming and bearing down on them.

We constantly find that women are not able to receive the proper funding, so they aren't able to increase their standard of living so that they are not able to develop as a family unit. I have some really grave concerns as to what's happening. I am glad to see that the government is addressing some of these problems, that people will be given some assistance and will be made to live up to their responsibilities.

I would dearly like to see some of this money that is coming into their hands going back into the families of those people who are having such a rough time out there. Women throughout this province constantly have a difficult time in obtaining a proper education for their kids and, in my area, sometimes in obtaining such basic things as clothing.

I've asked the Minister of Social Services and Housing to address this. I sincerely hope that he does address this in the estimates and that we do see some differences, so that people in my area are allowed some differentiation so that they can provide proper winter clothing, which, as you know, children grow out of on a yearly basis. There is no provision for that.

Such meagre things as these are big problems to people who are living on GAIN. I am happy to see this legislation, which will help them out, but I would dearly love to see legislation that would allow the windfall that will be coming back by way of picking up this money from somebody who was not making their payments able to be held back, to be kept by the woman in question so that she could provide some added things for her family, so that she might be able to go out and purchase a new winter coat for herself or her kids, so that she would be able to provide some little extras.

Those extras aren't there for people who are living on GAIN. It's hard for me to imagine, although I see them in my constituency a lot of times, what it would be like to have to determine whether you were going to spend money on clothing or to pay for food for lunches. Those are the realities of people out there who are living on GAIN. I would really like to see the government addressing those problems, addressing the problems of people who are living in poverty in this province, and dealing with this act not on the basis of merely filling the government's coffers and taking up the payments there, but also putting money back into the pockets of the lower-income people, who can least defend themselves.

MR. HARCOURT: I would like to make a few remarks on Bill 72. I may say that making spouses accountable for the maintenance of their families is an issue that I have felt strongly about ever since I was called to the bar as a lawyer in 1969 and operated a storefront lawyer program and helped set up the legal aid system in this province. In that sense, as you have heard from our very able human services critic, the member for Maillardville-Coquitlam, that accountability is something that we don't disagree with as the caucus of the New Democratic Party.

[ Page 3232 ]

The feeling is that it's a small step, but only that. In the right direction, which should encompass a broad range of programs, initiatives and attitudes that are supportive and positive in bringing about something that is very near and dear to New Democrats: that is, the equality of women. That is what I would like to talk about in regard to this particular bill, because it's unfortunate that it's not part of a broader package of programs, initiatives and attitudes that could help tens of thousands of women and their families to have the dignified life that we all would hope for in British Columbia.

There are a number of barriers that the ministry has not taken action on to bring about that equality for women and a dignified way of life for women and their families. So we find it difficult to give more than lukewarm support for the bill, because it hasn't come forward as part of an exciting, broadly-based package to assist the many women throughout this province who could do with those initiatives to help them become self-sufficient and productive members of our society.

In particular, I would like to talk about the GAIN rates that in this province are well below the poverty line — 50 percent below the poverty line. They're far too low — among the lowest in the country — and have not kept up with the cost of living since 1982, Mr. Speaker. So it's very difficult for women with families to be able to carry out their financial responsibilities to themselves and their families.

This doesn't create the sort of incentive to do that at all. I note that the minister, when he first commented on this initiative — and I quote from the Times-Colonist of Friday, December 18 — said: "It does relieve that single mother on welfare from having to worry about where the extra $200, $300 or $400 is coming from."

If you read the act, Mr. Speaker, it limits women with dependents to $100 — which they're already entitled to in terms of extra income. So it really doesn't advance women's economic situation at all. As a matter of fact, it may act as a disincentive because once those women, through signing over their rights on the maintenance agreements, do that and supply information about their spouse, the funds go directly to the ministry under that assignment. They may keep the $100, but then there's no incentive for them to go out to part-time jobs or to makework programs that can help them learn job skills or other skills. We think that's a retrograde step, because we want to see people working. We believe that people want to work and should work, that it's innately within us to want to work. The vast majority of people, except a few, feel the same way.

The funds should be available to cover the extra cost of clothes, transportation, cosmetics — all the extra costs of going out and seeking work and maintaining that work. So we think that is something the ministry has not addressed and which we would hope to see in the estimates coming forward in the near future.

The other area we don't see addressed is the question of training and educational programs for women. We have a smattering of programs, little pilot projects here and there, but nothing of real substance where we see reports back to this Legislature of tremendous gains for women through a whole series of initiatives like increasing the support payments, the ability to get to and from job interviews and jobs. We don't see a comprehensive program to get the tens of thousands of women who are in this situation of being on social assistance into the job market.

The lack of support programs in terms of training and education and a proper child care system in this province are tremendous impediments to women who want to leave the home and go to work. There's a shortage of properly licensed and available child care facilities — way behind the demands of the women of British Columbia. We don't see anything there so far for the women of British Columbia, and again we hope the minister would be addressing that in his budget estimates coming up in the near future.

We see a disappointing program coming from the federal government, nowhere near what's required for women. It's just a shuffling around of existing tax systems and incentives, rather than a bold move to help bring about equality for women finally in this country and this province.

The question of transportation: this government has made it more difficult for women — and it's mostly women workers, schoolchildren and seniors who use our bus transportation systems — to afford transportation. With the transportation system that I happened to be one of the directors of in greater Vancouver for a number of years, because the government cut its funding 35 percent over a three-year period, from 1983 to 1985, we had to take the totally unpalatable step of cutting back service, particularly late service mostly for women who work in restaurant and service industries, making it even more difficult for them, and more expensive because we then also had to increase fares from 75 cents to $1.25 per ride. That made it even more difficult for the very women and children that we feel should have a dignified way of life and equality.

Even if a lot of the women on social assistance do get off of GAIN and off of social assistance, the minimum wage in this province is among the lowest in the country and hasn't changed for years. We think that that should be addressed, because we think that the imbalance between people on GAIN and the working poor is a great cause of social dissension, and we don't like to see that. We like to see people receiving a fair day's wage for a fair day's work.

Even more important, we have a situation where women in this country and province have been discriminated against as a class in terms of pay. We don't see anything coming forward from the minister in terms of a pay equity bill. We would hope that he or the Attorney-General (Hon. B.R. Smith) or the Minister of Labour (Hon. L. Hanson) would be coming forward finally with a pay equity bill that guarantees equal pay for work of equal value — and not one that just sets out an altruistic principle, but that backs it up with the resources required to help bring about equal pay for work of equal value in this province.

So those are a number of the positive, practical reforms that could be brought about to help the women of British Columbia who are on GAIN and social assistance to become what I would hope we would all desire in this House: productive members of society working in jobs that they enjoy and that contribute to society, paying taxes to our society and enriching our society and their children and their families by having those kinds of opportunities.

When I look back 20 years to when I came out of law school in 1968 and started the first storefront lawyer program in this country, I worked with mostly women — because it's mostly women and children who are on social assistance — and I saw the degrading bureaucracies, the regulations, the orders-in-council that the minister and I were talking about yesterday and earlier today in question period. When I see the barriers that we place in the way of the poor, it seems almost

[ Page 3233 ]

that people are worse off today than when I was a storefront lawyer 20 years ago. We've gone backwards in our treatment of the poor, and poor women in particular. I think that's a shame.

[3:45]

I would hope that we would, in a rich and bountiful province like British Columbia, be able to advance the standard of living for our people, and particularly poor people. I would hope that we would be able to see coming from the minister, instead of this very small step to make spouses more responsible for the maintenance of their families, a whole range of these very exciting and positive initiatives that we would be prepared to give bipartisan support to in order to bring about a very important principle, true equality for women and children in this province.

MS. A. HAGEN: I've just been reminded that the Minister of Social Services and Housing has a time-frame for this afternoon and that he may wish to make some comments, so I had intended that my comments would be brief and I will certainly keep that agenda in mind.

The minister himself and members on this side of the House have spoken at considerable length about this initiative. The bill was tabled in December and, in the opening of second reading, the Minister of Social Services and Housing and the Attorney-General have expressed an apparent willingness to be open to amendments and improvements to this bill. I would hope that in the discussions we are having under second reading, some of the suggestions that have come from members of this House might in fact be leading in that direction.

No matter who we are — lawyer, social worker, ordinary person — we know people who have been affected by the experience of families breaking up, having to deal with the care of families under single parenting and, in the case of many people, having to rely on social assistance, but this is, for families in our province, a tremendously frustrating and difficult and often very unhealthy experience. These bills address our need for one of the ingredients of dealing with people's financial security — namely, the maintenance that comes from the absent spouse — to be an orderly and reliable process. I think we have to look at both bills, Bill 71 and Bill 72, in that regard, although we are at this time discussing Bill 72,

There are just two points that I want to make this afternoon, and I will try to do them very briefly.

There is no question, statistically, that single parents are terribly poor. Single-parent families make up 40 percent of the social assistance roll. Sixty percent of single-parent families across the country are poor, many of them working poor, many of them moving in and out of social assistance. They may have a job for a time. They may be on unemployment insurance for a time. In fact, a number of the government's programs around what is called JobTrac are cognizant of that kind of rolling status of people who are single parents. They have training. They have some jobs, maybe jobs that are assisted with wage subsidies. They may have some permanent employment for a while. They may very likely at times be in and out of a need for social assistance.

In looking at Bill 72, we know that the maintenance payments that are now going to be mandatorily collected by the provincial government on behalf of social assistance recipients are in fact intended to offset the cost of social assistance, with one exception, and that is what I think is called the prescribed amount: the $100 that may be retained over and above social assistance rates. As this bill goes into operation, I think we're going to find that by virtue of this orderly and reliable process the director of maintenance payments may very well have available to him arrears which have been owing to the single-parent mother, who has in fact been seeking to have a delinquent spouse pay up those amounts. It's my understanding that those arrears, when they come in a lump sum, will simply go into the ministry's pot rather than being available in any way to the social assistance recipient, except for the $100.

The first proposal that I want to make in this second reading debate is that there be some consideration for retroactivity; a recognition, for example, that people who have been without that resource — to which they are entitled by law and which they have been expecting — very often have had to incur expenses, perhaps debts, in pursuit of the delinquent spouse in the courts and in having to deal with less money than they are entitled to. If the ministry were able to have some retroactivity in that lump sum payment, I think it would be very helpful to the social assistance recipient. One of the things that I know, from statements he has made in the House, is very much a concern is the minister's desire to move people who are relying on social assistance off that particular roll. The Leader of the Opposition has just outlined many of the things that are necessary for that to happen: child care, adequate income, all of those kinds of things. But the arrears money that is coming in clearly belongs to that family, and I think some means of dealing with retroactivity would be a "good faith" addition to the legislation.

The other point I want to make is around the difference between the mandatory program under Bill 72 and the voluntary program under Bill 71. Under Bill 72, a social assistance recipient is required, as I understand it, to have the director of maintenance payments handle all matters related to that person's maintenance payments. Under Bill 71, single parents who are not on social assistance are able to do that voluntarily. Again, because we are going to see people who do move in and out of a social assistance situation, I think there is a great deal of merit in making the program mandatory. Other members have noted that jurisdictions which have successful programs have indeed worked with a mandatory program. In the spirit of assisting people to have a continuity of maintenance as they move out of social service, perhaps into a job, get themselves established economically, the continuity of having those assistance payments under the director of maintenance, without any necessary additional process for the person to voluntarily undertake to go forward and ask that this be registered and those maintenance payments come to her under the director, would improve these companion pieces of legislation.

To sum up, newly enrolled people in the program who are receiving social assistance are not going to get the kind of benefit that they should from the arrears that may come to the ministry, and I would urge the minister to give some consideration to retroactivity. And the idea of the program being mandatory is one that I, along with colleagues, would again commend to the minister. I would hope that some of those amendments might come forward as we move into committee stage of the bill.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The Chair advises all hon. members that pursuant to standing order 42, the minister will close debate on second reading.

[ Page 3234 ]

HON. MR. RICHMOND: Mr. Speaker, I'll be as brief as possible in my comments, but I want to try to address some of the points raised by some of the members opposite. Some of them are very good points. We seemed to cover the full range of debate on family and child services and welfare. We got into hungry children; we even got into warfare with the second member for Vancouver Centre. I don't believe we have a Minister of Defence, but if we do, I think you should refer your comments to him or her. We got into every possible subject and a lot of things that should be covered in my estimates rather than in this bill, which is really a subrogation of maintenance payments to the ministry.

The member for Vancouver Centre made me promise not to talk about affordability, and I said: "Okay, I won't." But I think I should extract a similar promise that since he covered all these subjects here, he won't bring them up again in my estimates. Maybe that's fair; I don't know. He dwelt for a long time on welfare rates, and I know that member feels very passionately about this. It's a subject that's very close to his heart, and I understand that, and I sympathize with that. It's a subject that's very close to me as well: the well-being of people in this province, no matter what age and what circumstance.

He mentioned many of the welfare rates. I would just like to point out, Mr. Member, that you always mention the lowest amount on the scale, which is the single employable — a person who we hope won't be on welfare for very long. We don't want him or her to be there for a long period of time. You may make a good point that their payments should be higher, but when I compare what we pay with the rest of the country, we are somewhere around the median. We are not the highest, and we are a long way from the lowest in the country. The case could always be made that we should pay more, and others might make a case that it's too high. We could argue that forever and probably never agree on it.

I want to address a point brought up by the member for Prince George and the Leader of the Opposition and others, and that is allowing this welfare recipient, whose errant spouse we go after and collect the maintenance payment that's due.... Several of you have tried to make the point that the woman should be allowed to keep that amount of money. If we did that, then we run into the point of where to cut off that amount. I know the member has a number fixed in his mind that is some poverty line which really doesn't exist, but it's a matter of opinion.

If we started doing that, then where do you cut that off? If the person started receiving $1,000 a month in support payments, and you kept the single parent on income assistance, it would put her well above the income of many thousands of people who are working. So what we do is set an amount that a person should receive on income assistance. As you point out, a single parent with one child gets $732; a single parent with two gets around the $900 mark. I haven't got the exact amount.

What we do is allow that person to keep $100, and that will not change. The remainder of the money goes back into general revenue, and we guarantee to maintain that person at that income level. We could do it another way. We could allow her to keep the support payments — let's say they were $400 a month — then just give her the difference to bring her up to what a single mother on welfare would be making. Whichever way you look at it, it's the same thing. If we start allowing her to rise above the other people on welfare, then to me that is equally as unfair as what you say we're doing is unfair.

One thing that we lose sight of sometimes — and I know a lot of you over there lose sight of — is that we hope, if these people are employable, that sooner or later they will get themselves off welfare. But the support payments will still be there, so that if this person gets even a low-paying job, or the take-home pay of $1,000 or $1,100 a month, and has the $400 maintenance that her spouse is being forced to pay, she has that as additional income. We must remember that this person, hopefully, will not be on income assistance forever. Should she get a job, she will then have support payments which she would not have had before. It gets a little complicated.

The member for New Westminster (Ms. A. Hagen) said: "Why not make it mandatory?" Well, for the purposes of this bill it is mandatory. This bill deals only with those on income assistance, and this is the only bill I can address. You are speaking of Bill 71, which is the Attorney's bill. Your recommendation that it be mandatory is taken in the spirit in which it is intended, but I can't deal with it under this bill. It's not my act. The suggestion was made to the Attorney yesterday that it be made mandatory, but all I can respond to is this bill, and for the purposes of this bill it is mandatory.

The Leader of the Opposition talked about child care. Two points on child care just for the record. I have to speak in round numbers; I don't have the exact figure. But we spend about $33 million a year supplementing child care for single mothers. That was increased by quite a bit last year, but the total now is in the area of $33 million. A great deal of money is put into supplementing child care for single parents to encourage that single mother to get back into the workforce, so if she does have to take a low-paying job she doesn't have to worry about child care.

Secondly, to address another comment made by the Leader of the Opposition, we are at this moment in negotiations with the federal government regarding child care and the child care act for the whole country. As a matter of fact, my deputy is in Ottawa right now trying to finalize the negotiations vis-à-vis the federal government child care scheme. Again, that is a very complex bill, but we are getting very close to coming to an agreement with the federal government which, when enacted, will increase the number of child care spaces in this province over the next seven years up to, I believe, 22,000. So we should end up with about 22,000 spaces.

One member over there mentioned that social workers were being laid off. That is not true. We are not cutting back on the number of social workers. We have moved a few social workers from one territory to another as needed, but I don't want to leave the comment out there that social workers are being laid off.

[4:00]

I also don't want to leave the comment out there, Mr. Member for Vancouver Centre, that social workers fear for their jobs if they speak up on the subject. Nothing could be further from the truth. I have had social workers ask to come and talk to me personally. I invite them into my office, and they can talk freely; I encourage them to do so, and none of them have been reprimanded or have the threat of losing their employment if they come and talk to me about subjects. And they have come — not in great numbers, but a few have come freely and spoken to me.

[ Page 3235 ]

The member mentioned going down and living on welfare. I commend him for doing that. I know it wasn't easy. It's a tough way to lose weight. I'm not making light of it; it was quite a gesture.

MR. BARNES: Emotionally too.

HON. MR. RICHMOND: Yes, I understand that. I personally just don't have the time where I can take a month out of my life and go and do it, but I did go down on the street two or three times and spent some real time down there, not in a grandstanding fashion but anonymously, and really found out what it was like. It's rotten out there, there's no question about it. One way to find out is to go down and see it firsthand with the probation officers, as I did, and with the street workers. I commend those who are down there every night working with these people. It's a job that I doubt many of us could do, and it requires a tremendous amount of dedication.

But also, I'm doing something about it. We have a new program in place, the first phase of it. It's not a be-all and end-all, and it won't wipe out street crime, prostitution, dope pushing, etc., but it will give these people another avenue, another place to go, and we may save a few lives because we're out there and putting more people on the street working with these very young teenagers, who are in probably the most unfortunate circumstance of anyone in the province.

I'll give you full marks, Mr. Member, for being very concerned about that. You and I talked about it in the hallway one day, and I appreciate the remarks because they had an effect on me. They helped me realize the severity of the problem, and as I looked into it deeper I realized it was a terrible problem. We won't solve all the problems overnight, but we're working on it.

I also called a meeting here with the people concerned about the area you mentioned, the Main and Hastings area, and the Welfare Wednesday syndrome — Mardi Gras, as it's called. We are already starting to see some positive results. We've pulled in all the people who really know that area: the Salvation Army, DERA, the Vancouver police, May Gutteridge and her St. James home people, and the native Indian people. The mayor of Vancouver came, as did Ald. Carole Taylor. We are already starting to solve some of those problems down there. I only bring these into this debate. Mr. Speaker, because they were brought up by the member. I'm pleased that you're allowing me the same latitude to address them.

I want to make a couple of closing remarks on this bill, and to come back to the principle of it. What it really is is a matter of responsibility, and making people in this province face up to their responsibilities. I'm talking about those who have been ordered by the courts to pay maintenance to children and are not doing so. This bill will force them to face up to their responsibilities. We will have reciprocal agreements with other provinces. We will have to, of course, work through the Attorney-General and Bill 71. But we will ensure that people on GAIN are receiving those maintenance payments either through our ministry or, if they're not on GAIN, on their own. Moreover, to repeat, when they get themselves off welfare and off GAIN, those maintenance payments will still be there.

As a side effect — and this is not the principal purpose of the bill — as a bonus, if you like, we will save the taxpayers of this province a lot of money. I can't give you an accurate figure, because it's impossible to pin one down, but millions of dollars will be saved for the taxpayers, who are footing the bill for welfare recipients. I might add that the bill for this past year just for GAIN was $903 million — nearly a billion dollars; an awful lot of money. So the taxpayer will be saved several million dollars by this.

There are many more things I could say about it, but I think I've covered most of the points that were brought up by the opposition. I'm pleased to see the support from the opposition, although some of it was kind of back-door support. I've never before seen so much negative comment for a bill you supported. But I appreciate that support.

As I said earlier, there are some House amendments that I will bring in when we go to committee. They will be tabled with the Clerk. They are minor amendments, but I want you to be aware of them. After second reading is closed, I will table them with the Clerk, so that you are aware of the amendments.

With that, I move second reading of Bill 72.

Motion approved.

Bill 72, Guaranteed Available Income For Need Amendment Act, 1987, read a second time and referred to a Committee of the Whole House for consideration at the next sitting of the House after today.

HON. MR. STRACHAN: Mr. Speaker, I call committee on Bill 65.

COOPERATIVE ASSOCIATION
AMENDMENT ACT, 1987

The House in committee on Bill 65; Mr. Weisgerber in the chair.

Sections 1 to 4 inclusive approved.

On section 5.

HON. MR. COUVELIER: I move the amendment standing in my name on the order paper. [See appendix.]

Amendment approved.

On section 6.

HON. MR. COUVELIER: Mr. Chairman, I move the amendment standing in my name on the order paper. [See appendix.]

On the amendment.

MR. STUPICH: The effect of this amendment is to delete the requirement that there be filed a statement of the purpose of the association. That's what 6(c) required. I'm just wondering, whether there's some reason for deleting that or whether it was thought to be redundant or just.... I don't know that it has any profound effect, but I thought there must be some reason for deleting it, and I'm trying to give the minister a bit of time to catch up.

HON. MR. COUVELIER: The House amendment has been recommended to us by the members of the cooperative movement themselves, and we found it acceptable. I might

[ Page 3236 ]

point out that companies are not required to have a statement of purpose either.

MR. STUPICH: There's a difference between companies and cooperative associations and societies. Cooperative associations and societies and organizations like that all have a statement of purpose in their constitution, but companies don't under the Company Act. The minister apparently saw fit to put it in Bill 65 before us, and I'm wondering why the co-ops feel that they don't want to have a statement of purpose. Maybe it's there already in some other form, but I think the minister must have been won over by the persuasive arguments of the cooperative association when they said: "We don't want to have to include a statement of purpose."

I'm a bit curious as to what sort of logic they used — I don't want to say pressure but what kind of persuasion they used — on the minister to persuade him that cooperative associations, which do have a statement of purpose in their constitution, should not include that statement of purpose in this instance. The answer is obviously a little more involved than the question. It takes a bit of digging and it makes me feel it was worthwhile asking it.

HON. MR. COUVELIER: As I understand it, the movement was concerned that they might find themselves subject to legal misinterpretations and confusions. We felt that insofar as the superintendent himself was going to have some say in the approval process, this would be a simplification. We don't think the amendment presents any risk to ourselves as regulators or to the public so affected.

MR. STUPICH: I was all ready to let it pass until the minister said: "We don't think it presents any risk." When I think of the many situations in which government regulatory bodies have let people get into a lot of trouble because there wasn't sufficient supervision — because they perhaps didn't think there was risk enough to be any more persistent than they were — I wonder a little bit whether I should press this further; but right now I won't.

Amendment approved.

Section 6 as amended approved.

Sections 7 and 8 approved.

On section 9.

HON. MR. COUVELIER: I move an amendment standing in my name on the order paper. [See appendix.]

Amendment approved.

Section 9 as amended approved.

On section 10.

HON. MR. COUVELIER: I move an amendment standing in my name on the order paper. [See appendix.]

On the amendment.

MR. STUPICH: As I read it, section 10 is dealing with whether or not a co-op is insolvent. It uses the words "if it is insolvent" — that's the amendment — and previously "if it was unable to meet its obligations."

I'm not sure which is putting more of a responsibility on the co-op. It seems to me that a co-op or any organization might be in the position of being unable to meet its obligations long before it became insolvent, and if it was having trouble meeting its obligations, that would run a red flag up the mast. Now it appears that they're going to be able to get to the point in their business that they're actually insolvent before anyone is aware that there's any problem at all. I just wonder, is this making it easier for the co-ops? Did the co-ops ask for this too because they wanted a bit more time to get into more trouble before the government got after them?

[4:15]

HON. MR. COUVELIER: This was an attempt to clarify. The word insolvent is a commonly used word in bankruptcies and so it was recommended to us that we clarify that matter, and we took no offence at the suggestion. I might add that it then remains consistent throughout the act in terms of the wording used.

Amendment approved.

Section 10 as amended approved.

Section 11 approved.

On section 12.

HON. MR. COUVELIER: I move the amendment standing in my name on the order paper. [See appendix.]

Amendment approved.

Section 12 as amended approved.

Sections 13 to 19 inclusive approved.

On section 20.

HON. MR. COUVELIER: I move the amendment standing in my name on the order paper. [See appendix.]

On the amendment.

MR. STUPICH: Mr. Chairman, I'm just a bit intrigued with this. It reads: "by deleting the proposed marginal note." The marginal note is not part of the legislation, and I'm wondering at an amendment to the legislation saying that we're dealing with a marginal note, which in terms of the legislation doesn't even exist. Maybe there is something wrong with my interpretation.

HON. MR. COUVELIER: We take the advice of our professional legal counsel on this.

Interjection.

HON. MR. COUVELIER: No, the individual I have with me this afternoon is the director of corporate affairs, Mr. Dan Perrin. He is not a solicitor.

[ Page 3237 ]

MR. STUPICH: I thought that would be the case, that the minister would be taking advice, and I'm wondering whether the House Leader or the Attorney-General might.... The amendment we're dealing with right now reads: "by deleting the proposed marginal note."

Interjection.

MR. STUPICH: No, a note is not part of the legislation. It's put there for explanatory purposes and sometimes to mislead MLAs, but it's not part of the legislation. How can we be moving an amendment that deletes something that, as far as the legislation is concerned, doesn't even exist? Maybe I'm way out.

We do have a lawyer on the scene. Right now I'd take advice from anybody. The House Leader....

HON. MR. STRACHAN: The marginal note referred to in the bill as printed says, "Directors: duties; conflict disclosure; and cessation" as a title — at least that's the way I read it.

The amendment deletes that and substitutes: "Directors: certain Company Act provisions...." Now maybe I've got that totally wrong, but that's the way I'm looking at it now. We could actually stand this down, Mr. Member, and get some.... Does the Attorney have a comment? No. We could get some comment later, unless we have further advice.

HON. MR. COUVELIER: On consultation, we have determined that it probably is a typing error in the description. What is meant there is the heading, so rather than "marginal note," it should be "heading" — which is what is changed. So I am grateful to the hon. member for pointing out that oversight.

HON. B.R. SMITH: The heading is part of the bill; the marginal notes are not. The heading, as I understand it, can be taken into account by the courts when interpreting a bill, because it's in the body, but marginal notes are not. They are simply the explanation that legislative draftsmen put in for reference and the convenience of members. If it's amended to "heading," then it will be effective and will accurately describe what's being done.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Can we accept that, then, as a subamendment to the bill?

MR. STUPICH: I think what we're doing is simply changing the wording and saying: "by deleting the heading." Is that what it is? All right, that's fine.

Subamendment approved.

Amendment approved.

Section 20 as amended approved.

Section 21 approved.

On section 22.

HON. MR. COUVELIER: I move the amendment standing in my name on the order paper. [See appendix.]

On the amendment.

MR. STUPICH: Mr. Chairman, looking at the last two lines of section 22.1 of the amendment: " ... by striking out 'copy of the balance sheet' and substituting 'certified copies of the financial document placed before the annual general meeting'...." I suppose, again, it was the cooperatives that persuaded the minister that it wasn't necessary that there be a copy of the balance sheet. But that seems a little strange to me that we would delete the requirement that a copy of the balance sheet be included in the financial documents.

HON. MR. COUVELIER: Mr. Chairman, this amendment is consequential to new auditing and financial reporting requirements provided in the new section 39 of the act. Cooperatives, like companies, will no longer file copies of their audited statements with the registrar. Cooperatives will continue to file financial statements with the superintendent. This requirement is clarified so that it no longer refers just to the balance sheet but to all financial statements.

MR. STUPICH: This section also refers to certified copies. Can they be certified by anyone? I note in the legislation they cannot be audited by directors, but is there any requirement that an auditor be anything other than not a director? Can anybody be an auditor other than a director, and can those persons then certify the material that's being presented?

HON. MR. COUVELIER: The statements would be approved by an auditor, Mr. Chairman.

MR. STUPICH: So that means that anybody can be named at an annual meeting: they could pick you up and say you're elected as an auditor, or anyone else could be elected as a member of the organization, anyone other than a director. I just want to make sure that there's no requirement that there be anything other than — somebody other than a director.

HON. MR. COUVELIER: For a reporting company, the auditor required must have a professional status. For a non-reporting company, the hon. member is correct.

Section 22.1 approved.

Sections 22 to 24 inclusive approved.

On section 25.

HON. MR. COUVELIER: I move the amendment standing in my name on the order paper. [See appendix.]

Amendment approved.

Section 25 as amended approved.

Sections 26 to 30 inclusive approved.

On section 31.

HON. MR. COUVELIER: I move the amendment standing in my name on the order paper. [See appendix.]

Amendment approved.

[ Page 3238 ]

Section 31 as amended approved.

Sections 32 to 34 inclusive approved.

On section 35.

HON. MR. COUVELIER: I move the amendment standing in my name on the order paper. [See appendix.]

Amendment approved.

Section 35 as amended approved.

Section 36 approved.

On section 37.

HON. MR. COUVELIER: I move the amendment standing in my name on the order paper. [See appendix.]

Amendment approved.

Section 37 as amended approved.

On section 38.

HON. MR. COUVELIER: I move the amendment standing in my name on the order paper. [See appendix.]

Amendment approved.

HON. MR. COUVELIER: I move the second amendment standing in my name on the order paper. [See appendix.]

Amendment approved.

Section 38 as amended approved.

Sections 39 to 41 inclusive approved.

On the title.

MR. STUPICH: Just once again and very briefly, I compliment the minister on the way in which he has developed this bill, bringing it forward as a discussion paper almost in December, listening to the co-ops. My only concern is, as we discussed in committee, that maybe in some cases he listened a little bit too easily. Nevertheless, the process has been good and very worthwhile. The co-ops appreciate it, I know. I think the minister is to be commended for this.

HON. MR. COUVELIER: I appreciate the kind words spoken by the hon. first member for Nanaimo.

I move the committee rise and report the bill complete with amendments.

The House resumed; Mr. Pelton in the chair.

Bill 65, Cooperative Association Amendment Act, 1987, reported complete with amendments to be considered at the next sitting of the House after today.

HON. MR. STRACHAN: Second reading of Bill 28, Mr. Speaker. The member for Prince Rupert (Mr. Miller) adjourned debate, but I note that another member is going to continue.

[4:30]

ELECTION AMENDMENT ACT, 1987

(continued)

MS. A. HAGEN: Now that we have dealt with the hoist motion and have not been successful in persuading the other side of the House that it would be very timely to withdraw this bill from the floor of the House to enable us to do a more comprehensive review associated with the election boundaries issue and a revision, in a non-partisan or bipartisan way, of election practices, we're back to looking at the bill which the Provincial Secretary (Hon. Mr. Veitch) has had on the floor since sometime last spring.

In fact we've looked at a number of bills today that have been in this House for some time. Unfortunately, in the case of this bill, I don't feel that there has been the same responsiveness to public input and debate that has been shown in respect to other bills, where consultation has been an integral fact. This is a bill that is going forward on the part of this government in a ramming way. That's another part of the comment that I made the other day when I was speaking to the hoist motion, when I called it a tinkering bill.

It's a bill that is ramming its way in the direction of many voters in this province and, for the convenience that seems to sit with the Provincial Secretary's perspective on how votes should be available to people in the province, is there perhaps for administrative convenience, perhaps for political reasons, but certainly not in the interest of the voters of B.C. I don't think the Provincial Secretary, if he is successful in shepherding this bill through the House, will have a very comfortable time in the next election as he faces electors in his campaign office, as we will, and has to claim that he is the author of their difficulty if they're not able to exercise their franchise.

It can't be stated too often that the right of people to vote should be unabridged. Clearly, other jurisdictions, other provinces across this land, have recognized that right. They have in fact recognized the problems that people face in getting on the voters list, in spite of all the efforts that many of us make to ensure that voters lists are as comprehensive as possible. As in so many of the bills that come before this House, there is little evidence that the Provincial Secretary and the authors of the bill have looked at the kind of research that would provide them with some up-to-date information about the nature of the problem.

I would imagine that at various times jurisdictions have possibly done some studies about voters lists. I'm not aware of studies that have been done in this province, but there is one that was done in respect to federal election law reform which looked at ways of maintaining voters lists — either permanent lists, quasi-permanent lists or lists that are prepared as the federal lists are presently, through enumeration.

There's one particular paragraph in this study that I think gives us some idea of the dimensions of the problems that we have with our present list creation, with an enumeration that currently follows two years after an election and which, if one of the amendments is put into place, will follow three years after the election. This particular document is an excerpt from the federal Conservative government's "White Paper on Election Law Reform," released in June of 1986 — a very current study. It comments about permanent lists, and our list is in some way or other a kind of permanent list. It states:

[ Page 3239 ]

"One major problem with permanent lists, therefore, is how to keep the information current. This could be a particular problem in Canada, where there are no fixed election dates at the federal and provincial levels, plus a high level of population mobility. The chief electoral officer's 1975 report indicates that more than three million changes of address would have to be recorded annually, in addition to about one million other entries concerning new electors, changes in names, deaths, emigration and so on."

Taking a very simple proportion of those numbers of changes that are predicted across Canada and assuming, let's say, a 10 percent population figure for B.C. — that might be on the low side, but it makes the arithmetic easy — it means that with the lists we presently have we're looking at something like 300,000 changes annually for people who are moving around, plus another 10,000 changes with people coming of voting age, people dying, or other sort of technical changes that need to occur. So no matter what we do with the lists that are developed, we're going to have problems having a list that's up to date.

I want to comment too that although this amendment does move the date of the annual enumeration to the third spring after an election, it still leaves us very readily with 18 months that could follow on that enumeration and an election date. I just take the date of the enumeration that would occur at this particular cycle. The third spring would, I presume, be the spring of 1989. We could very well not be into an election until the fall of 1990, which is four years after the last election. The minister shakes his head. In fact, although the pattern in this particular province has been three-year elections, there did seem to be a move to go with the pattern that is more consistent across the land of four-year elections. So that kind of spacing between election writs and the last enumeration could easily be 18 months, which would simply expand the number of out-of-date registrations.

Let's face it, no matter what we do with the kind of list-making that we currently are involved with, we're going to have lists that are out of date. Because the enumeration doesn't take place at the time of an election, we're going to continue to have a lot of confusion on the part of the electorate about whether or not they are registered. In the election period the onus is on individuals to go somewhere to register, rather than having someone call at their door to ensure that their names are on the list. That situation simply again serves to disfranchise voters.

I want to emphasize again the voters who are disfranchised. We all know who these people are; we’ve all talked to them in our campaign offices during elections. Let's not fool ourselves; we are in fact disfranchising people who are at a disadvantage already in the electoral process. I'll just list them again, because we can't say too often that the people most likely to lose their opportunity to vote are people who are socially, economically, educationally, linguistically not in the mainstream of society, who are moving into that mainstream, who are undergoing difficulty or stress. These people are the new voters, the young person coming in to vote for the first time; new citizens whose language capability is still very limited; people who are mobile, very often because of economic circumstances that have put them under stress and at difficulty; renters, the classic mobile population; and the many, many people who simply cannot read.

I would also like to comment at this time that one of the things I have noted about the provincial election process, as compared with the federal election process, is that the quality of advertising about the whole process of voter registration is simply not as great. The ads are smaller; they don't use colour or things that draw the eye; they tend to be in small print rather than large print. They have not recognized the need for good communication around that pre-election registration process after the writ is dropped. So even where we do have processes in place, many people are not going to see those ads or use them or read them well.

I would certainly recommend that the Provincial Secretary and the people who administer the Election Act look at the quality of advertising we have in this province. The minister is nodding his head and acknowledging that it is not of the quality we need to ensure that people can carry out an orderly registration process.

We are going to be cutting off from the right to vote people who are already not always able to participate fully in this process. The minister shakes his head, but he can shake his head from now until doomsday, and he will not change the veracity of that particular statement: there will be people not able to vote by virtue of the amendment that will cut out registration on election day.

We have talked about the numbers of people who fall into this category, and it is interesting that those numbers increased significantly in 1986 over 1983. I think they increased for a number of reasons. They increased because we are seeing a province where people are increasingly mobile, where there is an increasing ethnic mix and where language and knowledge of custom is still a growing part of the citizenship education of our new citizens. We are seeing it because the enumeration is so out of sync with people's expectations. We are seeing it because the process remains a complicated process of every single one of the millions of electors having to sign an election registration form whenever an enumeration occurs. All of these factors — no matter how we look at how those lists are created — mean that there will be people not registered to vote on election day.

The average in most ridings, I think, was something like 8 or 9 percent of the people casting ballots. It went as high as 16 or 17 percent in some of the inner-city tidings where the mobility and nature of the communities is such that it's very hard for people to find voters, and it's very hard for the communication to get to those people — by vigorous campaign workers, by whatever advertising there is and by people knowing where to go and how to exercise their franchise. What section 80 provided was that safeguard, and what section 80 should continue to provide is that safeguard.

There is concern — and I think we've dealt with that concern — about the misuse of section 80. I want to put it to rest just one more time: there has been no indication of abuse. We have an electorate we can rely on to exercise their franchise with a conscientious and careful consideration of who they want to vote for. All they want is to be sure that they have the opportunity to vote.

I've done a bit of speculating about what section 80 will mean in terms of people being able to vote in my own riding. I would assume that we are going to see, as a result of this legislation, something in the order of several hundred people who will not have an opportunity to cast a vote on election day. Those people are not the same people who didn't register last time. What tends to happen is that once people find out about the process, they are more careful, next time around, to be sure they get on the list. There is a learning process that occurs here, and it's a learning process that we want to

[ Page 3240 ]

encourage. I would submit, Mr. Speaker, that what we're going to see is a whole new group of people who are caught in the situation this time around; only this time there will be no remedy for them on election day. They will not have an opportunity to exercise a franchise.

It is inherent in the whole election process, in the setting up of the administration through the chief electoral officer and in the awareness we have that this is a democratic right, not a political right, that the process should be a non-partisan one. I think we're all aware that in 1972-74 the federal government set up a process that involved all-party work on election reform and processes that were extra-parliamentary, where recommendations came back to that House for their action.

I think it's time, in the spirit of progressive reform, for this House to take a move in that direction. We have now a good deal of the machinery in place for that to happen. We've come a long way — I think, having worked in elections for many years — to a more mature approach to elections as a non-partisan process. We still have a way to go, and I think that the Provincial Secretary would serve this House and this province well if he were to move in consultation with all parties in the House to set up such a process for dealing with election reform.

If that were in fact an open and consultative process, we would find on both sides of the House — including the government side — many people who are not very enthusiastic about the reform in section 80 that is proposed by the minister. In fact, in conversations with members opposite, I have shared some of my concerns on this amendment and have heard back their concerns as well. I have no doubt that party solidarity will prevail when the vote comes to the House, but we do know that in certain issues it is important for us to have opportunities to discuss ways in which we can arrive at the very best legislation, the very best policy, that will serve the voters of the province.

Once again, I want to urge the minister to move from what I consider to be a very political agenda, an agenda that is, in fact, aimed at disfranchising people and possibly affecting the election result. But the most important issue is not the electoral result; it is that right and ability of people to exercise their franchise without limit and without any kind of abrogation of that availability.

In looking at the bill, there are a couple of other points which I am sure would come out of a non-partisan and perhaps somewhat extra-parliamentary consultation. One of them would be a reform that is not addressed in this bill, a reform that would put the age at which people have a right to vote in line with the federal legislation and in line with the legislation in every other jurisdiction in Canada at this time, and would give to people, then, the right to vote at 18 years. There are also, I think, other matters that could come before such a commission or committee of the House that would give advice to the Provincial Secretary on the ways in which the administration of the election procedures could be improved.

It is really sad to have before us at this time, however, a bill so contrary to the progressive reforms we have seen and so contrary to the spirit of some of the amendments that are proposed concerning the ease with which disabled people will be able to vote and the opening up of the vote to people who have left the prison system and are on parole. It is sad for us to be in a retrogressive mood in the debate of this particular bill, and the concentration has been on the determined intent of the government to take away a right which, when it was accorded, was accorded with the agreement and enthusiasm of all sides of the House.

[4:45]

I would commend, then, to the minister his responsibility to the voters of the province. I would remind him that all of us on both sides of the House would welcome the continuing opportunity to be able to advise people on election day that should they have been missed in the enumeration procedures as they are proposed, there is still a means for them to exercise their right to vote. I once again urge all members of the House to recognize that we have a primary responsibility to voters, not to a political agenda, not to an administrative agenda, not to a regulatory agenda; a primary responsibility to voters to ensure that they can choose the person that they would wish to represent them by exercising their right at the ballot box.

One of the most progressive moves that could occur in these closing days of this first session of the new parliament would be to see that the Provincial Secretary had been struck with second sight, that the road had been illumined for him, and that he would agree to change his mind, perhaps to let this bill die, not to be resurrected without processes that would allow for a more comprehensive and bipartisan approach. The Provincial Secretary has the potential to be the author of continuing reform. I would once again urge upon him to take that leadership role in his position as a key administrator in this government, and look to a change in the proposed bill that we have before us today.

MR. STUPICH: I'm not going to repeat anything I said in speaking on the hoist with respect to this bill. You can be quite sure of that, because I didn't speak on the hoist motion. So everything I say will be new for me, but probably everything that I say will have been said before by someone, perhaps not in exactly the same way.

Most of the discussion has been about the proposed changes to section 80. If the legislation proceeds as the minister has put it forward, and with the amendments, we'll have a section 80 such as it was before the most recent changes. Section 80 was part of the Election Act machinery in the days when I first started running. One had the opportunity of voting under section 80 if one was prepared to swear that he or she was registered and that it was some fault on the part of the machinery that he or she was not on the voters list; in that case, there was a mechanism for that person to vote. I think that's about what we're coming down to in this case — much the same; well, similar. There won't be many more people able to take advantage of it.

In those days it was used mainly not because it was believed that anyone had registered and wasn't on the voters list, but it was used as a way of dealing with people who insisted that they were registered, even though their names couldn't be found on the list. They were told: "Go and vote under section 80, and then it will be checked." And generally there was very little checking of those hundreds of ballots under section 80. I know that was my own experience in several elections. In some elections we did look at them very closely to try to find a registration card somewhere, and in some cases they turned up in some quite unusual places. It was a different system then.

In the one election that I lost, in 1953, the difference between me and the winner was ten votes, so you can imagine that we all looked for those section 80 envelopes, and tried to

[ Page 3241 ]

have some of them qualify — and some of them did; there were always six or eight, or something like that. Generally they didn't make much difference, because they were distributed in proportion to the vote.

When I won in 1963, again we looked at them very closely, because my margin then was 19 votes, and it was still important to look at those 400 to 500 ballots cast under section 80.

In 1966 it wasn't much different. There was a tremendous increase proportionately — two and a half times. I had a lead of 45 votes that time, and it was still important to look at the section 80 ballots. But very few of them were ever counted; some were, but very few.

Now we have a situation where some 150,000 — I think that was the figure you used — ballots were counted under section 80.

HON. MR. VEITCH: Two ballots to a riding.

MR. STUPICH: I didn't say voters, I said ballots. Yes, that's right, sometimes two. But 150,000 ballots. Even if you say that's only 100,000 voters, it is a very significant number.

It did create havoc on election day. In some polls there was no opportunity for section 80 voting, but there was a polling table in larger stations, where you could vote that way. There were very long lineups. In some cases they ran out of ballots. In some cases, I know, people turned back rather than wait in a long lineup. I know of people who did that — not many, but I know of some. As I said, it created havoc on election day. The use — or the abuse, if you like — not abuse from the point of doing anything wrong, but people who weren't enumerated for whatever reason, who weren't on the voters list in that constituency at least, took advantage of the change in section 80 to vote on election day by registering at that time. It did work in the main part, for those people did get an opportunity to vote. But something better has to be done.

The Minister of Finance (Hon. Mr. Couvelier).... I hope I'm not misquoting him now, but I read a story about what he said when talking about what he conceived to be the abuse of emergency hospital rooms, the emergency area in hospitals, especially with the change imposed by the federal government when people didn't have to pay to go to an emergency room in a hospital — that this was cluttering up the hospitals and interfering with a hospital's ability to give medical service. So the Minister of Finance suggested the way to correct this would be to close down the emergency rooms in some hospitals so there wouldn't be that nuisance and the people could go somewhere else for their emergency problems.

It seems to me that the Provincial Secretary is doing much the same thing here. He can't think of a good way of dealing with this tremendous number of people who want to come and vote at the last minute, for whatever reason, so we're going to say: "You can't do it anymore. We're going to have a different way. You're no longer going to be able to register on election day. There will be alternatives." That's great.

You and I, Mr. Speaker, and even the minister, are very conscious of the fact that we have to be on the voters list. If we aren't there on the day of the official nomination, well then, we just aren't nominated. So we get enumerated. People like us will be enumerated, we'll make sure of that. There are other people who take their politics very seriously and a lot of them will make a real point of being enumerated. But in election after election there are people who don't get around to being enumerated, and there are many reasons.

Some of them, I know, aren't terribly interested until they get caught up in the heat of a campaign, and the closer and closer it gets to election day, there's more and more publicity. They can't escape the advertising and the campaigns, and by election day they are determined to vote. But up to that point they may not have been interested enough to bother getting registered. That's some of them, and you may say: "Well, it serves them right; they shouldn't vote." But that's not the point of this system. We're trying to get as many people to vote as should vote. I think we all want that. We want the democracy to be as complete as possible.

The way to get it, I would think, is to make some changes before you withdraw the right to vote under section 80. Now the minister has said we are making changes in the legislation before us now, and I say to the minister that we all knew the hoist motion wasn't going to pass. But there were opportunities there to make arguments that the minister might listen to and might decide that it's worth going back to the drawing table and making some changes.

The bill doesn't have to be passed in this session. According to the newspapers there'll be a new session starting later on this month. There would be an opportunity for the minister, if he felt that there were good arguments made to make some changes, to bring in a new bill just a matter of three weeks from now at the most. So there is a way for the minister to respond without losing face by agreeing to a hoist motion.

But to withdraw the right to vote under section 80 and not to have convinced us, the opposition, and not to have convinced the voting public, who are not really interested in this right now — and many of them won't be interested until election day is announced, and some of them not until much later.... They aren't that interested in this debate. Nobody's paying any attention to us here on this issue, I'm sure. I'm sure the voters aren’t, or the prospective voters. The people who aren't enumerated now are not really concerned about what's going to happen some day in the future when there's going to be an election day. So they aren't caught up in it.

If we made the other changes with respect to enumeration, saw how they worked, left the section 80 provision there, and if it's proven that there's no need for that provision in the legislation, then get rid of it — but not get rid of it and say you're going to force people to act as you think they should, you in your supreme wisdom.... I'm not being sarcastic and I'm not being nasty. I’m just saying now that the government, in its wisdom, thinks that there's a right way to go and people have to go down that road no matter how they feel about it. That's one of the things that may get some of their backs up.

I challenge the minister to come up with the solutions before he takes away from potential voters the opportunity that they now have to vote at the last minute, if for some reason of their own doing or undoing, or if for some flaw in the system, whatever, they aren't registered to vote come 8 o'clock in the morning on election day. It's a challenge and one that the minister should be able to rise to, rather than saying that he's going to take the hard line and they're going to be cut off if they aren't on that list at 8 o'clock in the morning of election day. It's just hard to believe that we couldn't come up with a system that would work.

[5:00]

[ Page 3242 ]

Others have spoken about systems in other communities. I don't know the details and I haven't examined any of them, but it would seem to me that we are being enumerated for so many different purposes. We have computers. I know drivers' licences were mentioned. I expect that Hydro customers were mentioned; I expect that telephone customers were mentioned; I expect that real estate transactions and the banks.... Many organizations and institutions have our names and addresses, and if there could be one master file that was the voters file, it would be very useful maybe for all these other people. The government might even make some money selling editions of that voters registration.

But it should be possible for every person in the province to be registered on one master register, so that when it came to election day there would be none of this question: "Well, did you register?" You don't have any choice; you're already registered. You're still calling on people to be registered. I'm saying not for voting purposes, not for election purposes, but a list that could be used for election purposes. It could be used for other purposes as well.

HON. MR. VEITCH: Read the first amendment.

MR. STUPICH: The minister has asked me to read the first amendment. I'm saying to him that if it's really going to be as good as he believes it is, why is he not prepared to let section 80 sit there as a safeguard just in case some prospective voter slipped through the net?

HON. MR. VEITCH: They are — five more days.

MR. STUPICH: The minister says five more days. I said the critical time is 8 a.m. on election day. If the minister's system works, then it will not hurt him, it will not clutter up the system one whit, to leave section 80 in there as is. Everybody will be enumerated. It won't matter that this provision is in there. There will be no long lineups, because everybody will be registered. If the minister really believes that, why is he not prepared to show that he has that much faith in the system and say: "Yes, we'll leave section 80"? You'll see. There will be no lineups, nobody making use of it. And then we'll get rid of it. We're positive. If the minister is that positive that his system will work, well then it would seem to me there is no cost to him in leaving section 80 in there as it is.

During the discussion, I know that other members have proposed other changes to parts of the legislation, but I thought the minister might look at, given the time.... That's another reason why I would hope that he would let this bill fall. He's heard the discussion; he's sat in on most of it — not quite all but most of it; certainly far more than I have — and has been listening to a lot of people.

There are other changes, such as with respect to election contributions, election standing. There are some moves that could be made on that, and I'm not one for changing everything all at once, but I think there are some moves that could be made that would reassure people that the system is more democratic. After all, one should not be able to get elected by buying it — and I'm not suggesting that anybody in this Legislature bought his or her way in or that that has ever happened. Nevertheless, such provisions have been included in other jurisdictions, because there was the potential for something like that happening. I think there have been examples where some outrageous amounts of money have been spent to get elected.

Why not make a start in that direction of limiting election spending, of revealing the source of funding? That's one of the proposals that have been made by several members on the opposition side of the House and, for all I know, by some on the other side. I haven't heard that many from the other side, but they may have made some suggestions as well.

I recall the first day that the first member for Victoria (Mr. G. Hanson), I think, spoke on this legislation. He said that in the time he's been here he has seen changes in the Election Act after every election. I don't know if they've been quite that numerous, but I've been here a lot longer than he has, a lot longer than the minister or the Speaker has, and I've seen many more changes, and we never seem to arrive at the right solution for anything. Because if we did, then we wouldn't have to keep changing it every time.

I hope that the minister has arrived at a solution that will work in what I believe is to be the most important feature of this legislation, and that is voter enumeration. I wish I could think that I was getting through to him on this. If he is so positive it's going to work, then why will he not leave section 80 there until he has proven to his own satisfaction, as well as to us and to everyone else, that the new system of enumeration will work?

I have seen Provincial Secretaries over the years tell us of changes they were making. Sometimes they took the advice of people who were working in election systems. I'm not sure that the minister did in this instance, apart from his own knowledge. But always when they made these changes it seemed that they didn't quite work the way they were supposed to, so some three or four years later they'd be back making more changes.

Enumeration has been one of the things that have been changed many times. The most recent change we had certainly didn't work, or else there would not have been the very long lineups on election day that we experienced.

I have another concern about doing away with section 80 entirely, and that is that with these, say, 120,000 voters — whatever the figure is — who did vote by that method on election day, some of them got shaken up a bit and will get registered. Others who weren't terribly interested until they got caught up in the election campaign will go to the polls on election day. They won't know about this debate. It'll be as I said: nobody will particularly listen, except the minister — he's about the only one in the Legislature who's listening to the debate. They won't know about that; they won't be aware of it. There'll be advertising. How many ads do you read, Mr. Speaker? I go through a newspaper, and my eye catches the stories I want to read, and people have mentioned an ad, and I've never seen it. I've had the same experience with ads on TV. So they won't see the ads. In spite of the minister's confidence, I fear a lot of people will turn up at polling stations on election day wanting to vote, and will find out they're not enumerated, and there'll be no opportunity for them to do so.

Mr. Speaker, there is a way. The minister wants to test his enumeration system because he has confidence in it, as have many Provincial Secretaries before him had confidence in what they were proposing. So I challenge him again: bring in your new system; show us how it works; and prove to us on election day that there is no necessity to have provision for voting under section 80.

[ Page 3243 ]

MR. JONES: It's a pleasure to rise and respond in second reading, the debate in principle, because I think this is a very important piece of legislation. I don't think it's really being given the kind of importance it deserves, and I wish we could have a real debate on this issue. By a real debate, I mean the kind of debate where there is an adjudicator, and somebody wins the debate based upon the kind of evidence presented in that debate. I'm quite convinced that if we did have that kind of operation in this Legislature, on this particular bill it would be very clear who would win that debate, and it would be the opposition in this case that would win.

Not that it would be a shut-out. Very clearly, the government has made some points that in a modest way improve our electoral system. Certainly permitting the shut-ins, disabled voters, to mail in their ballots is an improvement. And that was an improvement suggested by the first member for Victoria in his bill. Certainly we applaud that move. The elimination of the 12-month residency, to get this Legislature and this province in line with other provinces in Canada, is clearly another modest improvement. To allow individuals on parole — and I doubt they could be denied the vote under the Charter of Rights — to vote in the next election is an improvement, and I think we should be going a lot further there. To increase the amount of registration time is certainly another improvement; it was two weeks, before, and then the government moved it back to ten days, and now it's back up to 16 days.

These would be points in the government's favour in that debate, but they pale by comparison so tremendously with what's being done with the affidavit voters — the section 80 votes, those voters who register on election day — that the government side in that argument would be destined to lose the debate. They would have to lose any debate on this bill as it stands. Were the government to remove that one part of it — but that all-important part — I'm sure this side of the House would applaud the other changes and would certainly support the bill.

The loss of the debate on this bill would be because there's no real motive for the government to pursue this legislation, in terms of the section 80 aspect. There was no abuse of those provisions of the Election Act. It is inconsistent with the Canadian experience in other elections. And it is an affront to democracy and an affront to eligible voters in this province to bring in this piece of legislation. Why I say there is no motive I tried to clarify in my previous remarks, and I'd like to do so again. I think there is a perception on both sides of this Legislature that there was somehow some advantage to one side in permitting voters to register on election day. I think this was magnified by the fact that the votes under section 80 were not counted until several weeks after the election, or certainly after a period of time that was an inconvenience to the government.

I can certainly sympathize with a Premier who has won an election, who wants to name his cabinet and is prevented from doing so until at least 14 days after because of the slowness in the counting of those ballots. My view is that that long wait, which doesn't occur in other parts of Canada, was unnecessary, but if this government wants to check and doublecheck those affidavits, then I think that's clearly their right and that they're doing it in a sense of fairness. The delay is unfortunate but I think the delay is the price of that doublechecking.

The perception was that the outcome of those section 80 votes resulted in an increase of two seats on this side of the House. The Provincial Secretary nods and agrees, but that was not the case. What we had on section 80 votes was no real change in the outcome of the election.

In my riding, did the section 80 votes change the outcome of the election? Some 9 percent of the population that voted registered on election day. That's a high percentage, 9 percent. Nine percent of people that wanted to vote, that were eligible to vote, were willing to submit two pieces of ID, were willing to sign an affidavit that they were eligible. They cast their vote and there was no change to the outcome.

[5:15]

In the Provincial Secretary's riding we had about the same percentage, about 9 percent. Granted, one of the persons who was competing for that job with the current Provincial Secretary did receive 100 more votes than the Provincial Secretary. But the Provincial Secretary won that election by over 900 votes. It did not affect the outcome.

It did not affect the outcome in Burnaby North, it did not affect the outcome in Burnaby-Willingdon, and it virtually did not affect the outcome in the entire province of British Columbia. In the entire province of British Columbia there were 26 ridings where a majority vote went to the NDP; in 25 ridings, one difference that went to the Social Credit; and there was one that was split.

Out of all those 150,000 votes that were cast, the difference between the two parties was 5,000 votes, virtually negligible. If my calculations are correct, 5,000 votes out of the 1.7 million that were cast is something like 0.003 percent of the population difference. So it was really a sawoff; it was really fifty-fifty.

It appeared, because of the slowness in counting, that we did have a difference in Surrey-Guildford-Whalley and we did have a difference in Point Grey. The other one that nobody seems to remember is Nelson-Creston. In Nelson-Creston section 80 votes did make the difference to give that riding to Social Credit.

That member is here as a result of section 80, you could say. As some people have said, the second member for Vancouver–Point Grey (Ms. Marzari) and the member for Surrey-Guildford-Whalley (Ms. Smallwood) are here because of section 80 votes. But that's nonsense. So what we're talking about throughout the entire province, throughout the 1.7 million votes, is a difference of one seat.

My point is that there is no partisan motive for this legislation that makes any sense at all, and there is no real reason, no real motive, that makes any sense. I think a lot of people believe that this is partisan on the government's part, but if it is motivated by partisanship — and that seems to be the perception in the province of British Columbia — it's not warranted and it does not make the government of British Columbia look good. It makes the government look stupid, because there are no partisan reasons.

If there are no partisan reasons, then what other reasons could there be? Well, the government suggests that we want to clean up the procedure; we want to stop the abuse. Again the Provincial Secretary agrees. I don't know where the abuse was, and I wish the minister would tell me. I would like to know: of those 9 percent of the voters who voted on election day for the Provincial Secretary, which ones were the abusers? We haven't heard any evidence of any abuse. No evidence has been brought forward to this Legislature by the Provincial Secretary or by the chief electoral officer, who, to my understanding, as an officer of this Legislature, is required, if there is abuse, to bring forward a report on that abuse. I would like to know from the minister why that report

[ Page 3244 ]

has not been there. I'd like it tabled, Mr. Minister. I'd like to see that report. The minister quite proudly from time to time tables documents from his ministry, and I would like to see the documentation of the abuse of section 80 votes.

Now I presume that when the minister talks of abuse he's talking about the percentage of people who registered on election day and were double-registered. We had some 8 percent of the entire voting population, some 150,000 votes — certainly greater than 100,000 voters — register on election day. Eleven percent — and the Provincial Secretary is right, there were some people that double-registered — of those 150,000 votes were cast by people who were double-registered. So what we're talking about is 15,000 section 80 voters who were double-registered, out of roughly 157,000. What that means is that in the next election 135,000 votes will be rejected, based on the '86 outcome, that were cast legitimately.

Even if double-registering was a crime, then why are we disfranchising all those section 80 voters? Maybe we will have a chat outside this Legislature, and perhaps you can explain it to me.

Let's have a look at the arithmetic again. Say 150,000 section 80 votes, 15,000 cast by double-registered voters; that's 135,000 votes that will be discounted next time.

Interjection.

MR. JONES: But let's assume they behave the way they did last time. I've already granted in my opening remarks....

HON. MR. VEITCH: I have more faith in people than you have.

MR. JONES: Well, we didn't see in 1986 that that faith can be borne out.

I've already given the government credit for improving the registration process to some degree so that it will assist this process. But let's just assume people behave the way they did in 1986. Then 135,000 votes are going to be disallowed in the next election.

Not only that, if it's double registration that is the crime, then some 3,000 voters who didn't vote under section 80 also double-registered. This legislation is not going to affect those people. They are going to double-register again, and they are going to vote again. And there has been no evidence of abuse.

I've asked the minister to table instances when we could see evidence of people voting twice. I think there are images in the minds of members opposite of busloads and truckloads of people being bused from one constituency to the other. Those members know it's nonsense. The member for Yale-Lillooet (Mr. Rabbitt) knows that that's nonsense: that not one voter from Yale-Lillooet voted twice, and there were not truckloads of people being bused from constituency to constituency. If there were such truckloads, I think the evidence of the history of this province indicates which party they would be from.

We've not seen any instances of abuse. Double registration is not an abuse. We've seen a letter to the Provincial Secretary from the chief electoral officer, prior to the last election, that legitimized those people who, in good conscience, accidentally double-registered.

We see legislation before us that has some minor points that are improvements, and a horrendous aspect which I think is a disservice to our democratic system. It makes no sense in terms of partisanship. The government has made a mistake. I think the assumption was that it would assist the government side of the Legislature. But that's not the case. I think the argument put up was that there was abuse, but there was no abuse, and there has not been any evidence of abuse.

If this section passes — and I'm convinced that even though the debate will be won on this side, the actual count, when we see this bill brought forward, will be on the government side — I think there's a fundamental point that the government is missing. Let's assume that the government is right: that people will register. All of a sudden people won't be confused about whether it's the municipal list they're on or the provincial list. Even though they're missed when they're enumerated, they'll get a card. No basement suites will be missed. Everybody will be dutiful and responsible; they will get a card from somewhere and fill it in, and send it in to become registered. Nobody will be out of town during this process, which would disfranchise them.

Let's suppose we register every eligible voter in this province, except one. By denying that one eligible voter who qualifies under citizenship, residency and age, we do a tremendous disservice by not allowing that person to choose the party, the leader and their representative in the area in which they reside. I don't think members opposite understand the tremendous disservice to democracy that is being done by this part of the bill. I'm motivated to be here and to express my concern because I think it's a tremendous tragedy. No matter how partisan we are, I think we all cherish our democracy. I think we all want our electoral system to be above reproach, to be the best that it can be in this province and in this country. And that's not what's happening, because if we miss one eligible voter we're doing a tremendous disservice to democracy.

This is bigger than you and me. This is even bigger than this chamber. I think you are putting a nail in the coffin of our democratic system. You know and I know that Canadians and British Columbians have fought and given their lives for a belief in the democratic system, which is being harmed by this section of the bill. It's unnecessary. It's not going to serve any partisan aims; it's not going to solve any abuse, because there was no abuse; and it's such a disservice to the democratic system.

We're not talking about a small number of people. Let's suppose that the amendments brought in in this piece of legislation improve the registration by 10 percent. The estimate is that as many as half a million people were left off the voters list in the last election.

HON. MR. VEITCH: Everybody has to make some effort to register.

MR. JONES: You have a look at the Province of October 24 and the Sun of October 30 and their estimates of what a poor registration job was done during the last election. I'm sure the Provincial Secretary isn't suggesting that we had a good enumeration process last time. I'm hoping it will be improved, and I hope the modest amendments being made in this legislation will improve it, but let's just suppose it improves it 10 percent. If we did leave half a million off, 10 percent is still going to prevent a lot of people who would be eligible to vote from voting on election day.

Who are these people? These people are eligible voters. They're not some second-class citizens. They're not sloths;

[ Page 3245 ]

they're not people who should be disparaged by this government through their legislation. They are decent, caring people; they go to the polls on election day. They may not have done something that people on the list have done, but how great a crime is that? Should they be disfranchised by this process?

[5:30]

If on election day they want to go and choose the hon. Provincial Secretary to represent them, as a couple of thousand — or at least a thousand — did in the last election, the Provincial Secretary is denying them the opportunity to vote as they did in the last election. I don't think that's particularly smart. I think those thousand people are going to be angry at the Provincial Secretary.

One of the reasons that this bill has not been given the significance that I think it deserves is that people don't worry about this kind of thing up till election day. But mark my words, Mr. Provincial Secretary: there are going to be at least a thousand disappointed Social Credit voters in your riding in the next election who are going to be angry with you for penalizing them and disfranchising them and not letting them choose you as their representative. I think it's dumb. Why not give them a chance?

HON. MR. VEITCH: You'd better read the bill. You're too partisan.

MR. JONES: The Provincial Secretary has not heard the argument. I spent ten minutes at the beginning of my remarks pointing out to the minister — and he agreed at that time — that it was not a partisan issue. I'm not being partisan. I'm trying to stand up for democratic principles that I think we all believe in fervently in this House. I think the point has escaped the minister and his minions, and if he's talking about people who haven't read the bill and don't understand the significance of it.... You haven't explained it to your own troops, Mr. Minister, because I've talked to members of your party who clearly do not understand the bill and clearly do not understand the significance of the bill. So if there's any ignorance of this legislation, it's not on this side of the House.

[Mr. Pelton in the chair.]

Even if we carried on in the fashion that we did in 1986, we still did a tremendous disservice to those people. The kind of treatment under section 80, to which we exposed those people, I think was a travesty.

Let me read you an article written by Marjorie Nichols shortly after the election. It was October 31, 1986, in the Vancouver Sun. Ms. Nichols clearly points out that in other provinces eligible voters who have been left off official lists just march up to the polling booths, swear to their credentials and cast a ballot just like every other elector. But not in B.C. Here we try to make it difficult — even humiliating — for a citizen to vote.

Interjection.

MR. JONES: I don't think Ms. Nichols is somebody who is ignorant of politics. I don't think she's somebody who misunderstands what happened in the last election. She goes on to say: "In a federal election and in the other provinces, a potential voter is taken at his" — or her — "word. He is assumed to be innocent, or eligible. But not in B.C."

AN HON. MEMBER: They're suspicious; they don't trust the people.

MR. JONES: Even in the last election, we didn't trust electors. Because they weren't trusted and weren't counted on election day, and we saw what appeared to be an outcome in two ridings that went against the government, we now see this legislation. It's an error, and I wouldn't care if it was a normal error. But it fundamentally goes against the grain of what we should be doing in this democracy.

I don't know whether you remember a few months back, but my colleague from Prince Rupert and I were the two members of the House who voted against a piece of government legislation to do with elections. I voted against that because it fundamentally went against democratic principles that I believe in very strongly, as does this piece of legislation.

When you increased the time electors have to choose their representatives at the municipal level from two years to three years, you diminished their opportunity for democracy, and it was moving in the wrong direction. I voted against that and I voted against my party, because I believe firmly in democracy, far above any sort of partisan misunderstandings that may be on the government side.

We have a history in the western world of improving democracy, not making it worse. We've reduced barriers — racial barriers, gender barriers. We introduced affidavit voting. We went from allowing affidavit voting in one or two polls to all polls. That was enfranchising people. That was the proper way for the government to go.

Why, all of a sudden, have you lost your bearings, lost your direction on this legislation on elections? Why is it that you want to disfranchise over 100,000 people? It won't be that many next time; maybe it will only be 80,000, maybe it will only be 50,000. But you don't understand that if it's one eligible voter who wants to register on election day and has for good reason not been able to register prior to that, then you diminish our democracy, you diminish our democratic system.

I think it's shocking. We've had a shocking, sordid history in election behaviour on the part of the government side, and I don't have to reiterate the details of the gerrymandering and the Gracie's Fingers and the dirty tricks that have gone on. Those were tremendous scandals at the time — scandalous behaviour. But they affected the outcome in the odd riding; they did not affect the eligibility of voters and disfranchise large numbers of people, as this section of the bill does.

HON. MR. VEITCH: Nonsense.

MR. JONES: Maybe we'll talk after, and maybe we'll see an honest response from the Provincial Secretary, but when he has 1,000 eligible voters who meet all the requirements and who want to support him in the next election and for good reasons were omitted from the voters list and are unable to exercise their franchise and choose him as their representative and he feels the wrath of those people at that time....

People aren't going to get upset about this. It's not an issue that's moving this House right now. It hasn't moved the media. But I can tell you when it will be an issue; it will be an issue the day after the next provincial election, and it will be an issue that I think the Provincial Secretary, the members of the cabinet that approved this and the members that are not

[ Page 3246 ]

going to bring about a palace revolt on this piece of legislation are going to be very sorry for. At that time we're going to recognize how much we've diminished our democracy and how we've hurt our democratic electoral system by this legislation.

Interjection.

MR. JONES: Well, no, I think the second member for Vancouver–Point Grey (Ms. Marzari) has clearly pointed out that the government's argument about abuse is a fraudulent argument, a flawed argument, and that the section 80 voters from the last provincial election are somehow now okay. They are going to be put on the voters list. They're quite legitimate now. If we were having an election based on 1986 rules true and pure, we would disfranchise all those people. But no, we're not going to do that, because now they're okay. They didn't register in the pre-registration period, but now in a by-election they're going to be on the election list.

MR. BLENCOE: I have listened this afternoon to the excellent debate from our side of the House. My colleague from Burnaby has been very reasonable and at times quite understanding of this government. I heard the first member for Nanaimo (Mr. Stupich) give a very excellent presentation, a reasonable approach to this issue, asking the government, in a fair way, to provide us with the logic behind the particular section of this bill that we find quite offensive; that is, the removal of section 80 voting.

I think there's been excellent debate from our side of the House. Thus far we've heard virtually no defence, certainly no intelligent defence, from the other side of the House.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. BLENCOE: Well, you're not getting up to defend it. I haven't heard most of the members sitting across from me today, and the ones that sit on this side.... You haven't given us any real reason for wanting to cancel people's democratic right to vote on election day. We've asked today and every other day we've debated this bill for some sane reasons why you want to eliminate voting on election day by....

Interjection.

MR. BLENCOE: Don't be so frivolous, Mr. Member. Don't be frivolous with people's voting and their democratic rights. That's the problem with your government — through you, Mr. Speaker. You're becoming very frivolous with people's democratic rights.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Order!

MR. BLENCOE: When the truth hurts they call for order. They haven't got the intestinal fortitude....

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Perhaps I should call for order.

MR. BLENCOE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I wish I could find a Socred with the intestinal fortitude to defend this piece of legislation, but there don't seem to be any. You know, it would be nice to hear the Premier for a change, now that he's gotten back from his great travels afar, from his tour with — who was it? — the representative of Krupp works. Now he's back in town, maybe he could come and defend this marvellous piece of Social Credit legislation. Maybe he should. I think the Premier has an obligation, as current leader of the Social Credit Party, to come in and defend this piece of legislation.

He should tell the people in this House why he wants to cancel section 80 ballots. Why does he want to eliminate the right of people to register on election day and cast their ballot for the party or the individual of their choice? Let's hear from that Premier for once — who has talked since the election about a fresh start, a new approach to government. Where is the Premier of this province? I'll tell you where he is. He's hiding in the presidential bunker with David Poole. That's where he is. He's hiding.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hon. member, we are completely forgetting about the rules of relevancy in this debate. Second reading, principle of the bill. The second member for Victoria might continue in that vein, please.

MR. BLENCOE: Oh, Mr. Speaker, if there was ever a relevant issue in the province of British Columbia, it's this Premier's attitude to democratic institutions, and that's the issue we're talking about in this Legislature. The president, Premier Vander Zalm, who hides in his bunker and refuses to come and debate Bill 28.... Where is the Premier?

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hon. member, that is too much. The hon. member also knows full well that we don't refer to other hon. members by their names in debate in this House. I'm surprised at the second member for Victoria.

AN HON. MEMBER: He said Premier.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: No, he did not. He mentioned the Premier's name.

MR. BLENCOE: If I mentioned the Premier's actual name, Mr. Speaker, I withdraw that.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: If you would like to continue to speak, second member for Victoria, please, a little relevancy and speak to the principle of the bill.

MR. BLENCOE: Mr. Speaker, I think it's quite appropriate to ask the Premier of this province to come into this Legislature and talk about this piece of legislation. Because a number of my colleagues on this side — in particular the second member for Nanaimo (Mr. Lovick) — have talked during the debate of this piece of legislation about the democratic institutions that many British Columbians today feel are being usurped and thwarted by this government.

I think it's appropriate — that the Premier of this province has an obligation to come in and defend the removal of the right of British Columbians, citizens of this province, to actually register on election day and vote for the party of their choice. Nothing wrong with that at all. I think the Premier should honour us with his presence now that he's back from his travels.

[5:45]

HON. MR. VEITCH: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, this hon. member is waving his arms around and looking up

[ Page 3247 ]

to the sky for some sign or some bolt from above. He's being completely irrelevant. He's being tedious and repetitious. Whether another member speaks in this House or not is the business of the other member. We are here to discuss the principle of Bill 28, the Election Amendment Act, and I would ask you to call him to order.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Thank you, Mr. Minister. Maybe the second member for Victoria would continue, please.

MR. BLENCOE: Well, perhaps the Premier tomorrow morning will honour us by his presence and will talk about why he wants to remove the rights of people to vote and register on election day. We would like to hear his views on that matter, Mr. Speaker.

I'd like to talk a little about Victoria and how many people voted by section 80 in the last election and in 1983. In 1983, some 2,900 people voted by section 80, representing 3..5 percent of the people who voted in Victoria. There were 2,900 who registered on election day, at the polling station, and cast their democratic vote. In 1986, Mr. Speaker, 3,451 in the riding of Victoria registered at the polling station on election day and cast their ballots. That was close to 8 percent of those who cast ballots in Victoria in 1986, a substantial increase in terms of percentage over 1983. Of course, I could get into some of the problems that have been canvassed well on this side of the House: the poor enumeration we had in the province of British Columbia. But in my riding 3,400 people registered on election day and were allowed to carry out their democratic right to vote.

In Victoria we have the largest senior citizen population per capita anywhere in the country. With that come unique problems for those seniors. seniors. One of them happens to be to deal with voting. Many seniors do get missed. We were very surprised to find, when we were canvassing — I'm sure Social Credit members who were canvassing found this — that many seniors, for various reasons, missed enumeration. We recommended that they could vote by section 80. I think we all know that many seniors are often reluctant to open their doors to people knocking, to enumerators, and don't know what's going on. Many seniors in my riding are in and out of hospital — long-term care — and missed enumeration; they didn't get registered. In 1983 and 1986 many seniors used the right to register on election day. They used section 80.

We've canvassed on this side of the House the reasons why people don't get registered or enumerated. Their professions or their occupations keep them away, or they don't get properly registered. But I think it's a particularly sad reflection on a government when you are going to introduce a system that will not allow senior citizens who, for very good reasons, were not on the voters list. Seniors who have contributed to our society and the economy and their community for a long, long time will now, in the province of British Columbia, under this government's legislation that is before us, not be allowed. For whatever reason they were not registered, they cannot vote section 80 at the polling station.

My colleague from Burnaby stated that you will feel and hear the anger from citizens who find out they're not going to be allowed to register and vote, but seniors....

HON. MR. VEITCH: Senior citizens are smarter than you think. You're not giving them enough credit.

MR. BLENCOE: That's not the issue, hon. member. The issue is that people do miss the normal procedures for registering. The point I'm making is that the population of my riding of Victoria has a high percentage of retired senior citizens. That brings unique problems. One that we know of is that seniors do miss getting on the voters list.

AN HON. MEMBER: They're sure disappointed if they can't vote.

MR. BLENCOE: Exactly. One thing that the retired and the seniors who have contributed to society or their community or their country or their province really still want to do is vote. And now this government, in its wisdom, is going to disfranchise thousands of senior citizens who want to vote by section 80 on election day. I think that's absolutely scandalous. Disfranchising senior citizens who have contributed to British Columbia and Canada all their lives. This government has the audacity to introduce legislation that's going to disfranchise thousands of senior citizens by section 80.

Interjection.

MR. BLENCOE: Oh, senior citizens in my community know all about this Social Credit government. They know all about you. We hear from them every single day, and I can tell....

Interjection.

MR. BLENCOE: Well, they come here because they know they have two New Democrats representing them. That's why they come to Victoria. They know, for instance, that we care about section 80 ballots and that they can vote on election day and register to vote on election day. They know that we think democracy and democratic rights are still important, that we will challenge the moves by this government to remove the basic democratic rights of our citizens, not just in section 80s but also other kinds of things that are happening in this province today.

That's why I would have hoped that the Premier of this province.... Well, you shake your head, Mr. Speaker, but it would be nice to hear from some members on that side. Give us the real reasons why we have this legislation before us.

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

Our members have asked in a very appropriate and reasonable way for the documentation of the abuses. We don't have the abuses before us. We don't have any evidence that the system was being abused.

Given the time — and I wish to carry on and try and convince this government to be reasonable....

Interjection.

MR. BLENCOE: Oh, keep going, the Provincial Secretary says. Well, as I was saying, we have been trying for a number of days now to approach this government, I believe in a reasonable way, to provide us with the real evidence that shows that section 80 ballots are a problem. We haven't had that evidence. Why would you want to not allow people to register on election day to vote? That's a reasonable question.

[ Page 3248 ]

My colleague from Burnaby and others have given you the evidence and the numbers to show that there's no real partisan reason for this, and I think he did an excellent job on that point. The member from Nanaimo gave you some other examples. I think there is some confusion on the other side — which is not abnormal — about the real reason behind this legislation.

MR. RABBITT: None whatsoever.

MR. BLENCOE: Oh, none, he says. That brilliant member over there says there's no confusion. Well then, I can only assume that tomorrow morning that member will get up and give us his reasons and his sound defence of this legislation. I think the people of British Columbia are entitled to a real defence.

That is why we have debated this piece of legislation for many, many days. It is a very important issue. It may seem frivolous to the Social Credit members, but there's nothing more fundamental than ensuring that every opportunity is given to all citizens to vote, even to register on election day. What's so bad about that? What's so bad about allowing somebody to say: "I'm sorry, I didn't register; my husband was in the hospital"? Senior citizens saying: "My husband was in the hospital, and I missed the enumerator." Or: "I missed the extra registration." Why is that so bad that you would not allow someone to actually cast a section 80 ballot on election day? All we've been asking, for some days, is that you give us some sound reasons why you want to stop people voting by section 80 on election day. Member after member on this side has asked for the reasons.

It would appear there's some warped perception that section 80s give us, the New Democratic Party, some advantage. This seems to be a perception: that we are so effective in getting out the vote and getting out people who are not registered to vote. Mr. Speaker, we admit that we think it's very important to draw to people's attention that they have a right to vote and that if they're not on the voters list they can vote by section 80. We think it happens to be very important that we encourage people to carry out their democratic right and vote. But the same opportunities exist to that side of the

House to encourage their workers to get people out to vote and encourage them, if they're not on the voters list, to vote section 80. That's the name of the game, Mr. Speaker. That's the system. Why would you want to tamper with that? Why would this government want to sort of take away that very important element, the right to cast a ballot on election day by section 80?

[6:00]

MR. MILLER: The right to vote.

MR. BLENCOE: The right to vote, as my good colleague from Prince Rupert says. Why would you Social Credit members want to disallow people to vote — and in my riding, Mr. Speaker, disfranchise the group I was particularly speaking about today, senior citizens? Those seniors really think it's very important to vote, but now when they go to vote in the next election under the Social Credit administration and they're not on the lists, section 80 won't be open to them, Mr. Speaker. That's a very sad situation.

Seeing the hour, and obviously after many speakers on our side have been trying to get some real information about why they're doing this, Mr. Speaker, I will move adjournment of this debate until the next sitting of the House.

Motion approved.

MR. SPEAKER: The second member for Langley has asked leave to make an introduction.

Leave granted.

MR. PETERSON: In the members' gallery there are two fine friends of mine, two principals from School District 35. I'd like the House to join me in welcoming Mr. Mike Baker from Stafford and Mr. Brian Thomasson from Shortreed.

Hon. Mr. Strachan moved adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

The House adjourned at 6:03 p.m.

Appendix

AMENDMENTS TO BILLS

65 The Hon. M. B. Couvelier to move, in Committee of the Whole on Bill (No. 65) intituled Cooperative Association Amendment Act, 1987 to amend as follows:

SECTION 5, by deleting the proposed section 4 (3).

SECTION 6 (b), in the proposed section 5 (2) by adding "and" at the end of paragraph (a), by deleting "and," at the end of paragraph (b) and by deleting paragraph (c).

SECTION 9,

(a) in the proposed section 13 (2) by deleting paragraph (a) and substituting the following:

(a) the business of operating a railway as a common carrier, except as authorized by the Lieutenant Governor in Council, , and

[ Page 3249 ]

(b) in the proposed section 14.1 by renumbering it as section 14.1 (1) and adding the following subsection:

(2) Where the business that an association is permitted to carry on is restricted under subsection (1), the association may, however, carry on and undertake any business that may be conveniently carried on in connection with the business to which the association is restricted.

SECTION 10 (b), in the proposed section 15 (2), by deleting paragraphs (a) and (b) and substituting the following:

(a) if it is insolvent, or

(b) if the result of so doing would be to render it insolvent.

SECTION 12,

(a) in the proposed section 17 (1) by deleting paragraph (b),

(b) in the proposed section 17 (1) (f) by adding "name or" after "alter the", and

(c) in the proposed section 18 (2) by deleting "may" and substituting "shall".

SECTION 20,

(a) by deleting the proposed marginal note and substituting "Directors: certain Company Act provisions apply", and

(b) in the proposed section 30. 1 by adding "137, 138," after " Sections" and by adding ", 152" after "147".

SECTION 22.1, by adding the following:

22.1 Section 38 is amended

(a) by repealing subsection (1) (1) (ii), and

(b) in subsection (2) by striking out "a copy of the balance sheet," and substituting "certified copies of the financial documents placed before the annual general meeting,".

SECTION 25, by deleting "Subject to section 69, every" and substituting "Subject to section 44. 1, every".

SECTION 31, in the proposed section 52 (4) by deleting paragraph (b) and substituting the following:

(b) subject to its rules, from repaying to a member amounts paid by him for shares, or.

SECTION 35, the proposed amendment to section 62 (6) is deleted and the following substituted:

Section 62 is amended

(a) in subsection (2) by striking out "is entitled to" and substituting "shall", and

(b) by repealing subsections (6) and (7) and substituting the following:

(6) Sections 283 to 285 and 323 to 344 of the Company Act apply to an extraprovincial corporation registered under this section.

SECTION 37, in the proposed section 65 (4) by adding " (2) or" after "62".

SECTION 38, in the proposed section 69

(a) by renumbering it as section 44. 1,

(b) in subsections (1) and (2) by deleting "a housing cooperative" and substituting "an association", and

(c) in subsection (2) (a) by deleting "housing cooperative" and substituting 14 association".

[ Page 3250 ]

SECTION 38, by deleting the proposed section 72 (1) to (3) and substituting the following:

72. (1) A housing cooperative may by its rules adopt either the circumstances set out in paragraph (a) or the circumstances set out in paragraph (b) as constituting the grounds for termination pursuant to this section of the membership of a member who has a right to possession or occupancy of residential premises that is dependent on his membership:

(a) the member has failed to pay rent, occupancy charges or other money due by him in respect of the residential premises;

(b) the member has

(i) failed to pay rent, occupancy charges or other money due by him in respect of the residential premises, or

(ii) in the opinion of the directors, the member has breached a material condition of an agreement between him and the housing cooperative relating to

(A) his possession or occupancy of the residential premises, or

(B) his use of the property of which those premises form part, and has failed to rectify the breach within a reasonable time after receiving written notice to do so from the housing cooperative.

(2) Sections 33 and 48.3 do not apply to termination pursuant to this section of a membership in a housing cooperative.

(3) A housing cooperative that under subsection (1) has adopted the grounds for termination of membership set out in subsection (1) (a) or (b) may by a resolution of the directors

(a) requiring a majority of 3/4 of all the directors, and

(b) passed at a meeting of the directors called to consider the resolution, terminate the membership of a member described in subsection (1) on the grounds adopted by the housing cooperative.