[ Page 3391 ]

CONTENTS

Routine Proceedings

Motions

Coquihalla Highway cost overruns

Mrs. Boone –– 3391

Mr. Vant –– 3393

Ms. Edwards –– 3394

Mr. Skelly –– 3395

Mr. Gabelmann –– 3399

Mr. Cashore –– 3401

The House met at 10:07 a.m.

Prayers.

HON. MR. STRACHAN: Mr. Speaker, the motion on the order paper in the name of the member for Esquimalt-Port Renfrew (Mr. Sihota) does take preference — and we will begin with that. However, I do have a point of order that I would put to you, sir. I understand that the member for Esquimalt-Port Renfrew has stated outside this assembly that he has accepted the statement of the first member for Cariboo (Mr. A. Fraser). It would appear, then, that this ends the motion put forward by the member.

MR. SPEAKER: It's not really a point of order. The Chair can only go by what is heard inside the House.

Motions

COQUIHALLA HIGHWAY COST OVERRUNS
(continued)

MRS. BOONE: As we ended yesterday, we had heard defence of the Coquihalla from the government side. We were told by numerous members from the other side and the other end of this line here that highways were important to the interior. Of course highways are important to the interior; nobody is going to deny that. But what commitment does this government have to the highways of this area, and what commitment do the members on this side have to the highways of this area, when they so solidly support the privatization scheme that most of the municipalities in this area have come out in opposition to because of the highways? The very minister whose actions you are spending such a lot of time defending has come out publicly, outraged about privatization, saying that it is going to destroy the interior of this province; that it's putting lives at risk in the interior.

I see the city slicker from Vancouver South says: "What? I don't understand this at all." However, the city slickers outside this area understand what privatization is going to do. They understand the needs of the highways, and we understand what highways mean. So don't tell the New Democratic Party that we don't understand the needs of the interior. We most certainly understand the needs of the interior of this province. When you talk to me about not understanding the needs of the interior, tell me about the lack of services out there. Tell me about your lack of mental health services, alcohol and drug counselling services. Tell me that when you tell me that we don't understand the needs of the interior, Mr. Member. I'll stand up to any one of you any time of the day and tell you about the needs of the interior of this province.

When you have no defence — and I've seen this in many cases — one goes on the offence, and that's what we have seen. Certainly they are on the offence.

We have heard attacks on the New Democrats as city slickers. Do I look like a city slicker? I think not. We have heard attacks on the NDP government of 13-plus years ago. They're bringing up stuff about the NDP government at that time. What has that got to do with the Coquihalla? What has that got to do with the issue of misleading this House? Absolutely nothing. It's hogwash, absolute hogwash.

We have heard attacks on the NDP for not digging harder on the Coquihalla. Yes, they've said the New Democratic Party has failed as an opposition. What has that got to do with this motion? What has that got to do with anything? I tell you, I'll oppose you any time of the day, Mr. Speaker. Not you, Mr. Speaker, excuse me; I will oppose the member for Vancouver South any time of the day.

We are told that because we didn't find information earlier and things managed to slip through and were put into other pockets and into other areas, we failed as an opposition and therefore the people of this province have no right to have any further knowledge; that because we failed to find information at one point, we shouldn't took any further. What kind of logic is that? I guess that is Social Credit logic, and I guess that's why I'm over here and not sitting over there.

We have heard attacks on the New Democrats for daring to question a member of such long standing in the House. How dare we question whether somebody could possibly have done something wrong! How dare we question somebody who has paved a good portion of this province — a good portion of the Cariboo anyway. I say that's our job, and that should be your job too, to dare to question, to dare to stand up and say: "We want some answers." That ought to be the job of every member of this House.

We have heard absolutely no reasoned argument as to why we should not refer this matter to a special committee. Five hundred million taxpayers' dollars disappeared and we have a right to know who's responsible. We have a right and we have an obligation. Every member of this Legislature has an obligation to find out what went wrong there.

The terms of reference on the Coquihalla — and we've heard people saying: "Well, we have this report; everything is in this report." The terms of reference in this report are to compare the estimates and costs of the Coquihalla; to find reasons and justification for the difference between estimates and costs; to examine other recent highway projects where costs may have differed from estimates, and we certainly have found that; to investigate the procedures for costing, administering and reporting highway projects; and to make recommendations.

Nowhere have we found anything giving that commission the power to find responsibility and to try to find the blame. They did not give them the power to summon witnesses, and in fact we've had members of the previous government refuse to come before the commission. How can we say that we have got all the facts and all the figures and all the information as to why things occurred when members refuse to come before the commission?

Your own first member for Cariboo said yesterday: "What does this man know? He is no expert. He knows nothing about the legislative process." He himself is saying that. He in his own words has indicated that this inquiry — which the member for Prince George South (Hon. Mr. Strachan) says answers all the questions — does not answer all the questions and that the person who headed this inquiry is not an expert in the field. That is what the first member for Cariboo said.

If you take his words, which you were so apt at doing yesterday in telling us how wonderful he is and what a wonderful job he has done, and if you truly believe in this man, then you ought to believe what he says, and that is: this report does not cover everything and does not give us all the answers, and we need a further inquiry into this procedure.

[ Page 3392 ]

We need a special committee with powers that this commission did not have. The people of British Columbia have a right to have that information. The second member for Vancouver-Point Grey (Ms. Marzari) very ably stated yesterday why this should go to a committee, and why it shouldn't go to the committee that she heads. We have to have a committee that has the power to bring people forward, regardless of whether they want to come or not.

[10:15]

That is not the issue here. We should not allow people to say: "No, I am not going to come in front of this committee." We should not allow people to do that. We have an obligation to the people of this province, and we have a right to know this information. I can't understand some of these things, Mr. Speaker, because I don't understand what the people on the other side are afraid of. What are you afraid of? Why are you afraid to get the information? Why are you afraid to have a committee from this House empowered to question your peers from your previous government?

That is what we are hearing. We are hearing nothing from the other side regarding the fact that this has been fully canvassed, that the information is all there. The only thing we have heard from the government on that side is: "We have all the information, and you people ought not to be questioning us." Do you think that you and your peers and government members of any stripe ought to be above the law? That is not acceptable.

What's even more astounding is that members are implying that overruns can't be helped, that they are acceptable. In fact, as I stated yesterday — but some people weren't here at that time — we've had members say: "Well, so what about the $500 million? Because SkyTrain is much more of an overrun; it has a much bigger deficit." We can forget about the Coquihalla, because there's something bigger. That's an incredible way to deal with things. How can they justify saying that overruns can't be helped when, at the very time that this and other areas were going through massive overruns, the government was instituting a restraint program? They were holding hospital budgets down, refusing to allow them to go into a deficit position.

There were school boards fired because they would not adhere to a budget that was not acceptable to it. School boards fired — something unprecedented in this province. Yet the Coquihalla, the highways crews and the highways areas go on and on with overruns without a question, without anybody asking why, without anybody asking for accountability. Why does this government determine and absolutely hold to accountability when it comes to the service sector, such as your school boards, hospital boards, government services, yet when it gets to pavement, there's no accountability?

Where is the logic that tells us that accountability is good on one side and no accountability is good on the other? Where is the logic that tells us that overruns on a highway cannot be determined, that you can't estimate high on a highway, yet a hospital ought to determine what its needs are going to be, whether there's going to be a massive illness coming through, whether there's suddenly going to be an accident or any of those things? How do we know these things — whether the negotiation process is going to suddenly hit them with a high cost? We don't know any of those things any more than the highways people know that there are going to be winter conditions. But I can tell you one thing: when you start to build a highway in December and you know you're building through winter conditions in the interior of this province, anybody who doesn't take into consideration those winter conditions is a fool, an absolute fool, and we ought not to have that type of person running our government.

We have double standards in this province, Mr. Speaker, and that is tremendously hard to understand. I find it really hard to understand, coming from a government which claims to have fiscal responsibility. That's what we bear all the time. When we say, "Why aren't you putting more money into hospitals?" they say: "Where is the money coming from?" When we say, "Why don't you pay for lunches to feed hungry schoolchildren?" they say: "Where is the money coming from?" Yet when you say, "We want to build the Coquihalla; we want to complete the third stage of the Coquihalla," nobody says: "Where is the money coming from?" They say: "We need it, and we're going to get it." And that's what we got.

We got the Coquihalla and other projects shoved down the throats of the taxpayers without any accountability at all, and it is totally unacceptable. We have businessmen and businesswomen sitting over there who are saying: "It's okay to have a $500 million overrun. We didn't know; we didn't understand. You have to understand that we can't estimate within a reasonable amount." Did you do that when you were running your businesses? I think not.

You want to reduce the deficit, yet we hear no word at all about trying to bring some accountability to what happened. Five hundred million dollars — think what that could have done to the school system. Think what that could have done to the hospital system, to the medicare system. Just think about that when you go back to your taxpayers and tell them that they can't have another mental health worker, that they can't have increases in their school budget, that it's okay for their school taxes to rise — which is happening in every area of this province — because we've got a Coquihalla highway.

I don't know. My constituents don't accept it, and I don't believe the constituents in Prince George South accept it either. There are some responsibilities of government. You must assume responsibility, and we must have some answers on the Coquihalla. People want to know, and to say whether or not people are for or against the Coquihalla, or whether they needed the Coquihalla.... Businessmen in your community want to know why their pockets have been picked. Businessmen and businesswomen in my community want to know why their pockets and purses have been picked in order to do these things.

Interjection.

MRS. BOONE: You're right — pickpockets. People don't like waste, and that is what we've seen. You know, Mr. Speaker, the day after the election, I had people calling from the community of Bear Lake, and they were telling me about the waste that went on when they were paving a stretch of highway — not a very long stretch, about 10 miles. They paved that thing two or three times — at least twice, I think possibly a third time. I had the construction association — that bastion of socialism — come to me and tell me about how they instructed people not to pave. They told the ministry: "Don't pave. That is not properly ready yet; the area is not ready." And they said: "We've got an election that we're doing right now. Pave it." So they paved it; then they repaved it — twice.

People want to know.... These are people on Bear Lake. They wanted that highway; they needed that highway;

[ Page 3393 ]

but they didn't like to see waste on that highway. That is what we need to find out: why there has been such waste, how that waste took place, and who authorized that waste. What's going on?

The minister says that there has been no wrongdoing. I'd like to see how all these projects end, and we've got a lot of highway projects going throughout the province right now. This report concludes that there was little reporting or control. That's fiscal responsibility for you. While the government members were praising the first member for Cariboo....

AN HON. MEMBER: You bet. The King of the Cariboo.

MRS. BOONE: They're praising him, and so they should. The man has given a great deal of work and time to the Cariboo, and nobody would deny that. But while you are praising him, you are not reluctant to leave him hanging out there all by his lonesome, are you? You're not reluctant to leave him sitting there to take the whole brunt of this affair.

MR. RABBITT: You hang your head. You're the one that's hanging him out there.

MRS. BOONE: I don't think — and nobody on my side of the House or my little comer of the world believes — that the former Minister of Highways acted alone. Nobody over here believes that he acted in a vacuum or that nobody else understood what was going on. Surely there are some people over there who will acknowledge that and will know that there are some problems and will realize that that member should not be left to face the brunt of this all by himself — which is what is happening. Shame on you, Mr. Member! Shame on you for leaving out that member sitting out there all by himself.

Is it the view of the members on the opposite side that nothing went wrong? Is that what you feel: that nothing went wrong? Do you believe that no action is needed? Do you feel no obligation to the people in your communities, to try to find out what happened to $500 million? Do you not understand that the people want answers for this? Do you believe that the government members have special privilege and that they should not be held accountable?

MR. WEISGERBER: That's not what the motion is for.

MRS. BOONE: Yes, it is. We want to find out some answers on this.

In his inaugural speech at Government House, the hon. Premier promised the people of B.C.: "As I undertake my duties as the Premier of British Columbia, I want all the people of our province to know that my style of government will be open and up front. We will lead by example." By voting down this motion to have a broad investigation, we will see the end to any open government, the repudiation of high standards of public conduct and the substitution of a policy that the government can do as it pleases as long as it is concealed from the public's prying eye.

We've had the member for Prince George South (Hon. Mr. Strachan) inform us and call us peeping Toms over here because we want to find out what happened on this issue, because we want to get to the bottom of it. I ask you, peeping Toms. Do I look like a Tom? I think not.

I am going to finish by just urging the members opposite, although I knew from the very outset — the first speaker to get up — that we have no hope of having this motion pass.... This government has unanimously agreed that they are not going to agree to this motion. They are going to hide this. They are going to cover it. They are not going to allow the people in this province any right to find out what happened and who was responsible for the overruns on the Coquihalla. Absolutely nothing.

Interjection.

MRS. BOONE: Well, are you going to get up and speak, Mr. Member, and defend your government? Please, do that. I would love to hear your defence of $500 million that was spent.

I urge you to vote in favour of this, to think about the people back in your communities who are calling on you and waiting for you to act responsibly in this issue.

[10:30]

MR. VANT: I want to assure you, Mr. Speaker, that I am definitely going to speak to the motion that names my colleague, the hon. first member for Cariboo (Mr. A. Fraser). Indeed I am not going to go all over the map as some of the members in the socialist comer of the House have done. I am going to restrict my remarks to phase 1 and half of phase 2 of the Coquihalla Highway. So this is the parameter, the scope, of this debate as outlined.

I find it very interesting that the immediately preceding speaker, the hon. member for Prince George North, seems to be against good highways. She seemed to go all over. She talked about school taxes and health care costs. She seems to be against safe highways which allow the safe transport in ambulances of patients. Safe highways are good for our school buses, to assist our people to go to and from work, and of course to ensure the flow of resources. Our road system is very important even though the member for Prince George North doesn't seem to think so.

I have heard since I got back from the Select Standing Committee on Forests and Lands meetings in Kamloops, after reading the Blues of Tuesday afternoon, March 8, that the member for Esquimalt-Port Renfrew (Mr. Sihota) mentioned half a dozen times about this so-called $500 million overrun, as did also the member for Coquitlam-Moody (Mr. Rose), both the members for Vancouver East (Mr. Williams, Mr. Clark) and, just this morning, the member for Prince George North. Indeed I even asked her: I said: "Did you say $500 million?"

MR. RABBITT: What did she say?

MR. VANT: She said: "Yes, $500 million." Also, the first member for Vancouver Centre (Mr. Harcourt), the Leader of the Opposition, mentioned, to quote from yesterday's Blues, "a $500 million cost overrun." He emphasized that; he said "a half a billion dollars." Then he said it was the most massive overrun that we've ever had in this province.

Let's look at some of the facts, and I'll refer, of course, to MacKay's commission of inquiry, which after all was commissioned by this open and honest government. When we look at phase 1 and phase 2, the figures in there mention phase 1 ending up costing $414.7 million and phase 2 $155.5

[ Page 3394 ]

million. If we take the difference between the original guesstimate of $250 million, which I must point out was initially set in 1973 and roughly updated in 1979, and $414.7 million, it amounts, on phase 1, to $164.7 million. For phase 2, which on completion came in at $155.5 million, if we take half of the $30.5 million on that phase and add those two figures together....

Interjection.

MR. VANT: I went to school in Quesnel and I did quite well in arithmetic. That adds up to $179.32 million. If I am very generous and go beyond the bounds of this motion on the order paper to the actual completion of phase 2, which was done after the hon. first member for Cariboo ceased to be the minister responsible, that adds up to $194.57 million.

[Mr. Weisgerber in the chair.]

If you add in a modest 5 percent per year from that original estimate made in the early- to mid-1970s — 5 percent per year is modest because inflation in that period of time was running very high, but I will be very reasonable on this — it would add up over a ten-year time-frame to approximately 50 percent inflation. If you figure that into the original estimated costs of phase 1 and phase 2 of the Coquihalla being $375 million, you come to approximately $200 million, when you include that inflation factor.

The point I'm making is that when you look at the facts, it's not really an overrun at all. Really, the largest overrun we've ever seen in this province occurred back in 1974, in the Dark Ages between 1972 and 1975, and that was over $100 million. Not for jobs for people, not for something that would be of long-lasting benefit to all the people in the province of British Columbia — that was just paid out in welfare.

With all factors considered, there was no overrun at all. We have a first-class system that is of benefit not just to the interior people but to the coast people of the province. So despite this government's very generous increased funding for research and.... The opposition has blown it again. On the face of it, an incomplete case. To quote the hon. member for Esquimalt-Port Renfrew, he said something about a Swiss-cheese case, full of holes. That's what this case and this motion have ended up as, resulting in a motion which names my colleague, my seatmate the hon. first member for Cariboo. I'm very sensitive about that. He has been proud to have been named in connection with this very worthwhile project. But in the end, we have a motion before this House that no member — I repeat, no member — on either side of this House, with an ounce of integrity, could support. Mr. Speaker, I know that I will vote against it.

MS. EDWARDS: After the second member for Cariboo spoke, I was tempted to say that Major Douglas lives, but I think it might be even better to say that Major Douglas weeps.

The second member for Cariboo says there was no overrun. The first member for Cariboo says there was a huge overrun but it doesn't quite match a better one that we had with the SkyTrain.

The issue is a question of privilege, a question of the ministerial responsibility, which is as old as public administration itself. The ministers, as most of us who think about it will know, are to be responsible to the people. That responsibility is through this House and the other members who represent the public to that public. The whole issue is whether the minister was responsible to the people of British Columbia. The question is: where does the law stand? Does the law stand above us, or can it be subverted by an idea, by a policy that has been adopted but not publicly laid out?

It became clear that the overruns on the Coquihalla were there. I think that we cannot accept what the second member for Cariboo said at all. If he is disputing the fact that there were overruns on the Coquihalla project, then I rather suspect he steps out of the parade of a whole lot of people, even on his side of the House.

Having decided that there were overruns on the Coquihalla project, phases 1 and 2, the government appointed the MacKay commission. It's important to this case that we consider the position of the MacKay commission and what it did and what its position is going to be in the consideration of rights and wrongs within the House and the matter of privilege before this House today.

The commission was appointed by the government. It was testified to by government members, former government members and government administrative employees. Its report was recognized by the acceptance of that report, and we have to then look at the report, which was filled with such phrases as "misleading news releases," "lack of recall," which I cannot understand, and "lack of awareness," which I cannot understand. In fact, the commissioner, Mr. MacKay, said: "The Legislature was avoided." This is in the report that the government accepted. "The Legislature was misled by the documents presented to it, the true costs were not represented in a forthright way.... These deliberate and planned actions were politically motivated and were designed to give the impression ... that the Coquihalla was on budget." Ultimately — I repeat the phrase, Mr. Speaker — "in the matter of the Coquihalla Highway, the Legislature lost effective control of the public purse."

Now this should not be ignored. I don't know how a government who ordered the commission, who appointed the commissioner, who laid out the terms of reference, and who then took the report and accepted it, can ignore this recommendation.

The auditor-general has been cited in this issue of privilege. His responses and the responses of two people who were in that office have failed to assure the public and all the members of this House that there was not a misleading of the House as stated by Commissioner Douglas MacKay. And I might mention an editorial report this morning which is not uncharacteristic, which reflects in general an attitude in the public mind. The Province says: "It is absurd to suggest that the auditor-general has supreme authority and has settled this matter. Mr. MacKay's voice is equally authoritative." So even after the auditor-general has made statements vis-à-vis the Coquihalla Highway and the Coquihalla Highway inquiry, we are still left with the question of financial accountability, which is central to the idea of the public purse and who controls it, and also the issue of the political accountability, which rests with this House.

The honour of the office of Member of the Legislative Assembly, the honour of the House itself, and the nature of the public trust is put at risk by a public perception that the House was misled, that the Legislature was not told the whole case. All MLAs must ask themselves how they can represent the people that they were voted to represent if they cannot go back and assure the people that the political process is healthy

[ Page 3395 ]

in British Columbia; in other words, you can trust the members of the government, you can trust politicians. We all know the problems that come as soon as the word "politician" is raised these days, and if any of us have any interest in making sure that the word is not further smeared or dragged through the mud, we must set up a committee, as is being proposed by the member for Esquimalt-Port Renfrew, and get to the bottom of what happened with the Coquihalla Highway project.

The MacKay commission could not follow beyond its terms of reference. What has been brought to public attention is still sitting there, perceived by the public not to have been answered. The public is quite sure that something smells in the Coquihalla Highway project. The public has not at all been assured that things have been investigated and that all the answers have come. They know what happened. They don't know who did it and whether we'll ever know why. We need to know who as well as what.

[10:45]

If the committee comes into place, I assure the House that there will be no shortage of things to investigate. The kinds of questions.... There are so many of them it's difficult to decide. But when the committee comes up, it should be able to answer these questions. Who, for example, decided that a ministry could spend money before the funds were appropriated? Who said that that process, which goes totally against the Financial Administration Act, should go ahead? Who decided that a ministry should be in a position where it just has to ask for financial authority the minute it has determined its needs? Now that comes from page 68 of the MacKay commission. A ministry person said they believed they were in control because all they had to do was to predict what was going to be needed and ask for financial authority to spend. That is not good, and we must follow that up with a question: did any elected politician agree with the idea that the ministry was in control because it could ask for financial authorization as soon as it had determined what it called its needs?

Who was responsible for a list of projects being supplied to the Legislature that was "out of context with reality?" These questions have not been answered. As I say, they are only a few of hundreds of questions that need to be answered for this Legislature.

One of the responses that has come out is that $500 million is just chicken-feed; it doesn't even count in the scheme of things. It is said that there have been greater overexpenditures, and there have been. One was cited yesterday by the first member for Cariboo, who said that SkyTrain, of course, was a greater overexpenditure. I've heard it said that the trade and convention centre was another one that beat the Coquihalla project –– I don't know that that is any reason that this Legislature should not look into the reasons for a $500 million overexpenditure.

Another excuse that has been used is that Commissioner MacKay knows very little about the legislative system. This is so absurd as to be barely worth listening to. However, one must ask, because it is so absurd, why it was that the government appointed the commissioner to the commission if they thought he knew so little about the Legislature? Why would they appoint somebody to do it if they thought he was such an ignoramus? Is the government saying that Mr. MacKay sat on the commission for the number of hearings and the amount of evidence that was put before him and didn't learn anything about the legislative system? Is that what they're saying — that Mr. MacKay was a slow learner? I think that's another totally absurd statement.

If one realizes how silly these statements are, one also has to accept the fact that the real job has yet to be done. The MacKay commission report said that there was a legislative coverup. If the government assumes that that is not worth investigating, then something's wrong in this province.

Every MLA has an interest in these leftover reasonable suspicions in the public mind which impugn the honour of every MLA and the Legislature. and which affect the future legislative and administrative processes. How can this government suggest that the kind of thing that happened in the Coquihalla overrun is so unimportant, and then proceed to suggest the wholesale privatization of this province, when there are no better processes in place than those pointed out at the Coquihalla commission?

It's in the government's interests to show the ordinary citizens what they claim, which is that everything was fine politically with Coquihalla. If that's true, then for heaven's sake let's have the first member for Cariboo have the ability to exonerate himself, to tell the Legislature and the people of British Columbia that he is innocent of the matter of privilege that has been brought before this House.

The ordinary British Columbians need to know that. They need to know that they can trust the system. They need to know that they can trust Members of the Legislative Assembly. They need to know that they can trust the MLAs who are members of the cabinet. They have to know that the members of that cabinet have some interest in hearing the screams and smelling the smells and tasting the bitterness that has come out of the Coquihalla inquiry. The members of the public should know they can trust that if something goes wrong in administration of government, there will be a correction.

What we want of the government side of the House is to stop what I would characterize as adolescent posturing and suggesting that there is no body. The corpse is there, Mr. Speaker; it smells. It may be behind a closed door, but there is no doubt in anyone's mind in British Columbia that something was politically wrong — politically incorrect — about the Coquihalla project. I urge the members of this House to support the motion to have a legislative committee investigate what happened with the Coquihalla Highway project,

MR. SKELLY: I'm sorry that a member of the other side did not respond to the statements made by the member for Kootenay. I think it was important that she brought it back to the issue we’re really here to discuss today, and that is the issue of the privileges of the Legislature and of the members of the Legislature.

What we're discussing in this motion is whether somebody, by an act of omission or commission, did something which impeded the members of this Legislature from the full performance of their duties. That's the only thing we're discussing here.

I don't think there's ever been a suggestion on this side that anyone involved in the government or the administration did anything of a criminal or an illegal nature. That's not what we're here to discuss. It's possible to breach the privileges of this assembly by using legal means as long as the members of this assembly are impeded in their duties. So we're not suggesting any criminal or illegal activity on the part of any member of the Legislature or any member working in the service of the Legislature or the government. So let's dismiss

[ Page 3396 ]

that. That's not an issue in what we're dealing with here. That may have been an issue before the commission of inquiry, but it's not within the purview of this Legislature to deal with those kinds of issues nor should it be considered in this debate. If something has been done that's illegal, then that should be handled by the police and by the courts.

We're not even here to discuss whether there was an overrun in this case. That is not an issue here. I'll point out to the member for Cariboo why it has become an issue, because it has been an issue before the commission of inquiry and because, in connection with that overrun, the commission found that the House had been deceived and that somebody within the administration — and politicians — had prevaricated with respect to those overruns. As the first member for Cariboo pointed out himself, there have been other overruns. You can look at B.C. Place; you can look at convention centres; you can look at the SkyTrain project — which the member for Cariboo himself brought up — and you can look at other highway projects. There is no question that in those projects overruns of unbelievable magnitude were incurred.

But, Mr. Speaker, the government did not in those cases attempt to conceal those overruns from the members of this Legislature by plundering other votes which we didn't vote for that purpose. In that way the Legislature was deceived, and the privileges of the members and of the Legislature itself were impeded, and that's what we're here to discuss.

So there has been no suggestion of illegality. There's been no suggestion of criminal behaviour. There's been no suggestion that overruns are the major issue here, although the overrun we're talking about — the size can be debated — is a half a billion dollars of public money, and that is something all members of the Legislature should be concerned about, especially if the government and those working for the government under instruction of politicians took steps to conceal that overrun from the Legislature by trying to cover it up through another vote of the Legislature, moneys from which were not intended for the purpose of the Coquihalla Highway.

[Mr. Petton in the chair.]

The auditor-general came down in a number of letters and in a report to this Legislature saying that the government had done nothing illegal in transferring some of the projects connected with the Coquihalla Highway from vote 74 to vote 69. I want to remind the members that I said the government had done nothing illegal, but I want to further remind members that in order to deceive this Legislature, it's not necessary for the government to do anything illegal. The question of illegality and legality are not at issue here. It's whether the government, by transferring funds from one vote to another, attempted to deceive the members of the Legislature, to deprive of them of full powers of control over the purse and also to deprive us of our right to communicate the truth to our constituents, who elected us to this body in the first place.

I think it's important to note in the auditor-general's letter.... Remember, the auditor-general's information did not come to his body by way of sworn testimony subject to cross-examination, as the material in the MacKay inquiry did. This is not material that has been presented to a duly struck committee set up to look into this issue, so it has not been subject to cross-examination. The new auditor-general, Mr. Morfitt, has not been subjected to questioning by members or by the MacKay commission. So we're not dealing with the same type and quality of evidence that the MacKay commission dealt with, and that's a problem.

[11:00]

I think it's a problem that the auditor-general brought down his report to this Legislature, because it's confusing the issue — and the editorial material that the member for Kootenay (Ms. Edwards) talked about indicated that. But in his letters, the auditor-general did criticize the methods of financial planning, financial control and reporting adopted by a number of ministries, including the Ministry of Transportation and Highways. The auditor-general pointed out that the deficiencies in those financial practices within the Ministry of Transportation, both in reports that he made in 1981 and in 1985.... The auditor-general reported to this Legislature and to the persons he communicated with that those practices and the financial reporting did not provide a full and fair explanation of what ministries had done with the moneys and powers granted them by the Legislature. Therefore legislators did not have the information necessary to make informed judgments and to fulfill their obligations.

I want to advise you, Mr. Speaker, that that's all we're dealing with here: that the financial practices of ministries of this government, as reported by the auditor-general in 1981 and as he confirmed in 1985, impeded the members of this Legislature from making appropriate judgments and from getting the kind of information that they have a right to get from the government on the floor of this Legislature, through the estimates and budgeting process and the financial reporting process. The practices of those ministries denied legislators that right and, as a result, our privileges have been violated.

It goes beyond that in the Coquihalla issue, because the Ministry of Highways, knowing that its financial reporting procedures were deficient, knowing that they had that comment from the auditor-general, knowing that the auditor-general reconfirmed it in 1985, took advantage of those slipshod practices to plunder vote 69 in order to cover up the overruns on vote 74. That's what we're dealing with here: that the Minister of Highways and the government knowingly used the slipshod practices that had been criticized and identified by the auditor-general in order to cover up information which they should have been honest and forthright about in this House. That's how the privileges of members of the Legislature have been violated, Mr. Speaker.

During this debate, a number of issues and red herrings have been dragged across the trail, as the government tries to cover up the coverup and as members of government try to cover their own backsides and get out of this issue as quickly as possible. Nobody in this House is against the Coquihalla Highway, and even if we were, we couldn't go back and tear up the pavement and put it somewhere else in the province. Nobody in this House is against the people of the interior of this province. We were elected to not only serve our constituents but to serve all the people in the province of British Columbia — to serve all those people equally. We're here, Mr. Speaker, in service of all the people of the province, to make sure that their moneys are expended fairly and that overruns of this nature do not take place without some justification.

Even some of our members have detracted from this debate by suggesting that perhaps the highway was built to serve the property interests of one of the members. I don't think that that has assisted us in getting to the point of the

[ Page 3397 ]

issue in this debate, that issue being that the privileges of the members of this Legislature have been violated.

I want to talk a little about the process of bringing a question of privilege on the floor of this House. As Mr. Speaker will know, it's not an easy process; it's very difficult to bring a question of privilege even to this stage in the Legislature. To my knowledge, only two examples have come this far in my career in politics, which spans 15½ years. In fact, I was here when the first member for Cariboo was just a rookie. In my career in politics, which spans 15½ years, only two questions of privilege were brought to this stage on the floor of this House, as far as I know or can recall.

One was a question of privilege against the Hon. Robert Strachan, who was accused by the Social Credit opposition of the day of deceiving this Legislature. To my recollection, under the NDP government that issue went to a committee on privilege. In fact, Mr. Strachan himself even insisted.... He didn't agree with any of the evidence. He felt the evidence against him was false and misleading, but he said: "In order to clear my name I want that to go to committee." He said that the opposition could criticize him, could steal his house, but that the last thing he had left was his good name. The reason that issue had to go to committee was to protect the good name of that member for Cowichan, the Hon. Robert Strachan.

The other issue, to my recollection, was the Jim Nielsen issue, where the minister's telephone was tapped in connection with another police investigation. That issue was considered a question of privilege, and it was considered by members on both sides of this House to be an important question in which the privileges of the members and of this Legislature could have been offended. That went to committee; it went to the motion stage and to the committee stage.

It is extremely difficult to get a matter of privilege this far in the Legislature. How do you get it this far? In order to get it this far in the process you must present a prima facie case and the Speaker must accept that case. The Speaker must accept a prima facie case that the privileges of the members have been violated and that a committee is justified, and that is what has been done.

I think the members should know that once a prima facie case has been established, the reputation of the minister is in question. That's when his reputation is put into question. It isn't put into question by going to committee, but when a prima facie case has been established. The Speaker has accepted that a prima facie case has been established against the first member for Cariboo (Mr. A. Fraser).

He said insufficient evidence was presented with respect to the other members and former members named by the member for Esquimalt-Port Renfrew (Mr. Sihota), but in the case of the first member for Cariboo a prima facie case had been established. In other words, by the Speaker's decision the evidence is sufficient to call into question the reputation of the first member for Cariboo.

The only thing that the first member for Cariboo can now do to clear his name is to have this issue go to a committee, have the evidence heard, have the evidence judged by that committee and have that committee say that the evidence is wrong or is right. The only way they can do that, a prima facie case having been established, is to go to committee. By denying that member the right to go to committee, the government side of this House is permanently besmirching and staining the reputation of the member for Cariboo. That's what's happening in this Legislature, because a prima facie case has been established. Can you imagine a commission of inquiry, having taken evidence under oath, having cross-examined witnesses under oath, coming to a conclusion that the House was deceived without there being any deceivers, that the House was lied to without there being any liars?

What happens if we leave this motion and the government defeats this motion is that the MacKay inquiry stands. The findings of the MacKay inquiry stand that this House has been lied to and deceived, and that members of this House have been lied to and deceived but this House isn't going to do anything about it. If that happens, people have no right whatsoever to respect the authority of this Legislature. We will have no more authority in this province than a kindergarten class. Why? Because by rejecting this motion we're telling the people of this province that you can lie to us and deceive us, and you can do it with impunity. We're telling the people that a minister can have a prima facie case established against him in this Legislature that stains his reputation over 18½ years of service as an MLA and as a minister of the Crown.... We're telling the people that a case can be established against this member that destroys his reputation over 18½ years, and this House isn't going to do anything about it. It is an absolutely shameful thing that the government has rejected this motion and has indicated that it intends to vote against it, because not only are they destroying the reputation of the member for Cariboo; they're destroying their own reputations and the reputation of all of us by saying to the people of this province that government administrators and politicians can lie to us with impunity. That undermines and destroys the ability of this Legislature to function on behalf of the people.

Let me tell you what I think might have happened had we gone to committee. Remember, this is an imperfect process. The committee will be struck of a majority of government members. This isn't a jury of your peers as you might find in the court. This is a committee that consists of a majority of Social Credit members. I think that it would be 100 percent made up of friends of the member for Cariboo, because after my 15½ years in this House I consider myself a friend of the member for Cariboo.

But let me point out what might happen should a committee be struck. I think the member for Cariboo will go before the committee and say: "Look, I was entrusted by the government and by the Legislature with the responsibility for building the Coquihalla Highway. The only problem is that they didn't entrust me with the money to do it, and having been placed in charge of that project I had to go back to the government to try to get the money that I needed in order to build it." I think the member for Cariboo will admit that that's precisely what happened. Having run short of the money he needed to build the project, he went back to the government asking for special warrants and additional budget in order to complete the project that he was obliged to complete on behalf of the people of this province.

The government knows the legislation and parliamentary practice and the Financial Administration Act a heck of a lot better than the member for Cariboo does, I suspect. You and I know, Mr. Speaker, that the member for Cariboo is not an orator or a debater in this Legislature; he's a doer. He gets out and does things. Members on both sides of the House have stood up and said that if you can characterize that member in any way, you can characterize him as a doer, a builder, somebody who gets the authority and goes out and gets the job done. He's not an expert in the legal ramifications and in

[ Page 3398 ]

the requirements of the Financial Administration Act. For that kind of advice, who does he go to? He goes to the Premier and to Treasury Board. And somewhere in that process, somebody advised the member for Cariboo to cook the books. That's what happened. "If you need the money, come back to us and get it under some other vote. Say it comes under vote 69. Use those very slipshod planning and financial control and financial reporting processes that were identified by the auditor-general to plunder vote 69, to take highway project money away from every other constituency in the province, whether they're NDP constituencies or Social Credit. Plunder vote 69 and get the money from there, or ask us for special warrants under vote 69."

Having received that advice from Treasury Board, from the Minister of Finance and from the Premier, the Minister of Highways, who was responsible for the construction of this project, did that very thing. He came back to Treasury Board seeking special warrants under a different vote after having redefined the project. That's where the deception and prevarication took place.

[11:15]

What we're suggesting here is not that the member for Cariboo is the only guilty party, but that other people are culpable and have not been identified. In order to protect the reputation of the member for Cariboo and to make sure that the guilty are identified, what we need is that kind of committee.

Government — the Premier, the Minister of Finance and Treasury Board — could have advised the Minister of Highways that this is not the proper way. The auditor-general had even pointed out to them that it's not the proper way: "Really, what we should do is go back to the Legislature, be honest with the Legislature, say that we've estimated insufficient funds for the construction of the Coquihalla Highway and associated projects, and ask for a supplementary estimate from the Legislature." That was the honest alternative. That was the appropriate alternative.

I'm telling you, Mr. Speaker, as you know yourself, that it would have been tough to do that, because then you would have had to face the wrath of the opposition. We would have made fun of the government for underestimating the project. We would have made fun of the government for not having sufficient funds to build the highway, or for a slipshod process of estimating. But ultimately the government, with its majority, would have received the funds and the road would have continued — the construction would have continued — legally, without the members of this Legislature having been deceived.

Knowing those two processes were open to them — the legal process, the legitimate process, the honest process, of coming back to the Legislature and asking for more money; or the dishonest process, not strictly illegal, of trying to conceal that money in vote 69, of plundering a vote that was really voted in this Legislature for projects other than the Coquihalla Highway — the government chose the dishonest route.

We're not saying that the Minister of Highways was the most culpable person there; we're saying that he was one. We're saying that he was probably less culpable than the Premier and the Minister of Finance and the other people named in the case made by the member for Esquimalt-Port Renfrew (Mr. Sihota). Unfortunately, we didn't have sufficient evidence to bring those people before the House in this kind of a motion.

We're now faced with the situation, Mr. Speaker, where the government leader and government speakers have indicated that they're not going to vote in favour of this motion; that they don't want any further evidence to be heard on this issue; that they don't want any further information to be brought before the House on this issue; that they want to leave things stand as they are; and that they want to get out of this issue as quickly as possible, save those who they can save and sacrifice those who have been sacrificed to this point. That's what the government members are saying.

But what have we sacrificed to this point, both as a result of the findings of the MacKay inquiry and as a result of the establishment of a prima facie case against the former Minister of Transportation and Highways on the floor of this Legislature? One, the MacKay committee found that this House has been deceived and lied to; and by not proceeding to a committee, we're saying that's fine. We are saying that it's fine for politicians to lie to this Legislature; that it's fine for the employees of government to lie to this Legislature; and we know that should not be the case.

In the absence of a committee to hear this issue, the MacKay findings stand. They certainly stand in the public's mind, and they certainly stand in minds of the editorialists in the various media. If we don't do anything to clear that issue up, either to dismiss the findings of the MacKay commission through a committee on privileges, or else to reaffirm what they said by identifying the liars, the prevaricators and the deceivers, isolating them from ourselves and punishing them accordingly, then we're saying it's right, it's proper, it's fitting for anybody to lie to this Legislature. And we'll be hypocrites. We won't be servants of the people of this province. We won't be servants of this democratic institution that we are elected to serve and sworn to serve. We will really be turning our backs on the history of this institution and on the blood that's been shed to protect it. There's more at stake here than simply trying to get out of this by the skin of our teeth and save the reputation of some of our members who perhaps should be found guilty of lying to this House or setting up a situation whereby the expenditures on the Coquihalla Highway can be concealed and thereby deceiving this House.

We have to think beyond ourselves. We have to think beyond the kind of basic political war game that goes on in this province, and at some point — as we've done twice in my political career of 15½ years — regardless of the political persuasion of the person charged, we have to go to committee and either find that person or others guilty, or we have to clear their name. This Legislature and the members of the Social Credit Party, by refusing to support this motion, are saying: to heck with the Legislature, to heck with the institution, to heck with the history of this institution which blood has been shed to protect, and also, to heck with the reputation of the first member for Cariboo, against whom a prima facie case of privilege has been established. That's what is really at issue here.

I hope that members, when they're considering this — and perhaps if the debate goes on beyond noon, and we have an opportunity to consider this in our caucuses — will consider what is really at stake here and will change their minds, strike a committee on privileges, have that committee sit and hear the evidence — including the evidence of the auditor-general that has not been subject to oath and cross-examination — and then come to a conclusion as to whether the first member for Cariboo is guilty, whether others are guilty, or

[ Page 3399 ]

whether we should dismiss the findings of the MacKay commission inquiry.

MR. GABELMANN: I want to take a different approach to this discussion and this debate. I want to talk in very personal terms about my own involvement in the history of this issue. I don't intend to refer to the MacKay commission report nor to many of the other issues involved that have been raised by many on this side of the House and in particular by the member for Esquimalt-Port Renfrew.

I want to talk about how I feel as a member of this House who was lied to directly by another member of this House. I want to trace the history of what happened to me and then of course, by extension, to all members of this House and to the institution itself.

On May 22, 1985 — and if you think back, this is just less than a year from the beginning of Expo 86; less than a year from the official opening of the highway — I spent a day in a four-wheel-drive vehicle traveling up the construction site of the Coquihalla Highway. I had made the decision to go up there based on some other issues, some other concerns — the use of Alberta labour on a B.C. project. That is what had led me to make the trip. I wanted to find out whether or not those allegations were true. In fact they were, but that's another issue.

In the course of making this trip up through the construction project, I talked to contractors and their representatives. I talked to works foremen, superintendents. I talked to workers. I stopped in at a couple of camps and talked to various managers, both union and non-union contractors, and in the course of doing so — in May of 1985 this was phase 1; this was Hope to Merritt — discovered that already everyone who had worked on the project knew that the $250 million allocated to it and established by the government as the budget was not enough. I was told this repeatedly by everyone connected with the project on the site.

I couldn't prove it. I had no way of coming back to this House and saying that it will be more than $250 million. It was one of those situations which you can't pursue any further simply because you can't adduce evidence. But we knew it and I knew it.

I also recognized that this was a magnificent engineering project, a magnificent engineering feat with some remarkable environmental protection taking place in terms of the Coquihalla River itself. I made comment in the House on June 6, a couple of weeks after I got back from that trip, to that effect. I couldn't pursue the issue — this was the estimates of the Ministry of Highways and Transportation — because on the order paper was Bill 2, and the Chairman of the House at that time properly pointed out to me that I could not discuss anything that was covered in Bill 2. So I was unable to talk then about my gut feelings and my instinctive reaction and my general, unsupported by fact, knowledge that this project would be overrun. So we didn't pursue it in the estimates at that point, but I did make mention of what a fantastic engineering feat I thought the construction project was.

Then, unbeknownst to me and to anyone in this province outside of Treasury Board and the Premier's office, documents were exchanged which have been referred to in this debate and which are appended to the MacKay report. By some method that I still don't completely understand, I was given copies of those letters and of those Treasury Board documents which are now public in the MacKay report. This was in the fall of 1985, prior to the House sitting later that fall and prior to the debate on Bill 2.

I didn't do anything at that time with those documents, and decided that I would save them for the Bill 2 debate. Because there was a possibility that the source of the documents could be exposed if I referred to them precisely, I didn't. I referred in general terms to the numbers involved when in fact there was a specific dollar amount — $118.8 million, if my memory is correct — on one of the documents. I referred in the House to a figure of somewhat over $100 million. I was deliberately vague and coy about all of this simply because I felt jobs might be on the line in respect of the information that I had been given.

Having a personal experience on the site which led me to believe that there were overruns, having documents in my hand which demonstrated that the Treasury Board and the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Transportation and Highways had talked about the need for supplemental warrants in July and August and September, I knew that there was an overrun. It was a fact in my mind. I had what I thought was the evidence. I had the Treasury Board and cabinet documents.

I want to just say in parenthesis here that many other members of this House raised questions and were given answers in other areas of this whole subject that also lead to the question of this motion being in front of the House, but I want to just emphasize that I'm only dealing with a very narrow point of it, and that's my own personal experience.

[11:30]

I began my contribution — if that's the right word — in the debate in committee stage on Bill 2, entitled the Coquihalla Highway Construction Acceleration Act, section 3. My first question to the Minister of Transportation and Highways was whether he anticipated that $375 million would be sufficient to complete construction from Hope to Kamloops. The minister said yes. I had documents — I wasn’t waving them in my hand, but I had them on my desk in a file folder — that indicated that the minister and the Minister of Finance had already had discussions about finding another $100 million or so because the project was overrun. This was in the summer and fall of 1985 and the fiscal year didn't end until March 31, 1986, and the highway itself wouldn't even be completed at that stage. Having the documents in my hand, I asked the minister if he thought that the original budget of $375 million was going to be enough. He said: "Yes." I thought to myself, he's telling me a lie. Given the rules of the House, I wasn't able to say so, so I thought I would pursue the matter further. Having the documents in my hand, I said to the minister:

"Has the ministry, or the minister, made any communications with the Treasury Board and/or the Minister or Ministry of Finance with respect to securing approval for anticipated expenditures beyond those already allocated by either this Legislature or Treasury Board?"

The minister said: "We haven't made any additional requests to them." Lie number two — to me, leaving aside anything else that may have transpired in this House.

Later on in the discussion — because I don't want to repeat it all; this particular Hansard extract is also appended to the MacKay report, although they did it out of order for some reason — I said to the Minister of Transportation and Highways:

[ Page 3400 ]

"...had any discussions been held between the Ministry of Transportation and Highways and Treasury Board, or the Ministry of Finance, with respect to the need to secure at a later date, by special warrant, some additional moneys, over $100 million worth, in order to complete this phase, the Hope to Merritt phase, of the Coquihalla Highway? Have any discussions been held between his ministry and the Ministry of Finance or Treasury Board?"

The minister obviously at this point twigged that I must know a little bit more than he thought I might have known, because I was specific in my wording in saying: "with respect to the need to secure at a later date." I think those words twigged the minister, so he began to back off his earlier answers in a certain way. He said: "Well, there could...have been." There could have been discussions between his ministry and the Ministry of Finance. "I'm not aware...." He said, "We're getting a little bit confused here now," and then he began to obfuscate. He had taken his lessons well from the former member from Columbia River, and he began to try to muddy the waters. But he said he wasn't aware about discussions — and I had letters in my hand with his signature. Then, going further along in the discussion, I said to the minister: "Would the minister deny that Treasury Board has given conditional approval for an expenditure somewhat over $100 million beyond the original estimate for this project? And he said: "To the section of road from Hope to Merritt and Merritt to Kamloops? No, I don't think that's correct. It might be for other highway expenditure, but not on this section. The figures we have there I believe to be correct, which we've dealt with here, for this section." That's this section of the bill, the bill calling for an expenditure of $375 million on phase 1 and 2.

So the minister signed a letter, has been involved in an exchange of correspondence at least — and no doubt conversation, but I can't prove that — asking for additional money at a later date, by special warrant, and he's telling the House: "No, I don't think that's correct. I don't think there's been conditional approval." Yet we have, the documents. That's lie number three to me.

Mr. Speaker, there are other elements of the questioning on that section of the bill that, I could argue, add to the case. I don't think it's necessary for me to go through all those details, and I don't want to. Those are, for me, the three outstanding lies.

I'm not picking on the former Minister of Highways in particular; it wasn't he alone. He was representing, if not cabinet, then at least Treasury Board and the Premier's office. That's clear to everyone, I think. This is not an attack on an individual. This is not a suggestion that he and he alone stood up and on his own accord lied to the House. He did it on behalf of the government, on behalf of Treasury Board. I guess that's what we're talking about. In a parliamentary system, a deliberate lie of that kind is the worst sin or, in another context, the worst crime possible against this institution. I for one feel particularly offended about it.

I wish now, in retrospect, that I had not let go, and that I had pursued the questioning. I had the documents; I knew the answers. I knew we weren't being told the truth, and I let it go after two or three pages of Hansard. I don't know how long that took, but I let it go. It was one of the realities of this House that sometimes you respond to issues that are important.... You don't recognize the crucial nature of an issue until some time after it has passed. You've participated in the debate, and you sit down and think later: wait a minute, I should have dealt with this in a more comprehensive way. I fault myself now for not having done that, given that I had the information in my hand.

Just a bit later in this debate, still on November 21, 1985, I had given up trying to get the minister to answer the questions. He refused to or was unable — one or the other — to provide a list of contracts that had been approved and was unable to give us a list of expenditures that had been complete and how they related to estimates of what each contract would cost. I moved at that point that the committee rise and report progress, because he wasn't giving us these answers. Of course the government turned down the motion, supporting — in its majority — the lies we were being told by the Treasury Board through the mouth of the minister.

Then I made just a political speech at that point in my frustration, and I want to repeat it for the record now:

"Well, Mr. Chairman, it seems pretty obvious that the Minister of Transportation and Highways is not prepared to give this House any information from his ministry to substantiate the claim that only $260 million or so has been expended to date. In fact, considerably more money than that has been expended. The facts are that phase 1 and phase 2 will not cost $375 million or thereabouts, but approximately $500 million. Those are the facts that the minister is not prepared to share with this House. He could prove me wrong simply by coming in with the figures; we could extrapolate from that and know approximately what kind of costs are involved."

Mr. Speaker, if I knew on November 21, from a limited amount of information that was at my fingertips, that the cost would be approximately $500 million — as it turned out, it was a fairly close prediction in terms of phase 1 and phase 2, in November, four or five months before the highway was actually opened — how was it that the government was unable to make a similar prediction about the actual costs? I knew from my limited information what the cost of building phase 1 and phase 2 was going to be. It was approximately $500 million, and I said so in Hansard on November 21. It strains credulity, to put it mildly, to believe that the government didn't know what I knew: how much the road was going to cost. If I knew how much the road was going to cost, as an opposition member without much access to the day-to-day cost-control mechanisms involved in this kind of project, without any of that information; if I knew within a very small percentage of error what the cost was going to be, why didn't the government? The fact is that the government did know.

We really have only two questions here: the government knew or didn't know. If it didn't know, then this motion should be defeated. If the government didn't know how much it was going to cost — something that I knew — then this motion should fail. I don't think anybody in this province or in this country who has paid any attention to this debate and this discussion and this entire issue believes that the government didn't know. I think the fact that documents existed which demonstrated that they were asking for additional money is proof beyond any shadow of a doubt that the government did know.

No one can question that, and I don't know that anybody has questioned that point. I don't think anyone has made the case that the government did not know. If they have, I'd like them to explain why I knew when the government didn't.

[ Page 3401 ]

So what are we left with? We are left with the fact that on November 21, in this narrow element of this broader issue — the narrow element being my personal involvement in it — the government, through its spokesperson, the Minister of Transportation and Highways, told me three clear and unequivocal untruths. In answer to three separate questions, he lied to me.

That by itself, leaving aside all of the other questions that have been raised and dealt with in this House, leads me to believe that everyone who was a member of Treasury Board at that time is responsible for participating in a deceit and a lie that was told through the voice of the Minister of Transportation and Highways to this Legislature. That was his only role: he was the mouthpiece for the government.

I don't think anyone can refute what I have just established in this short presentation. If they can, I'd like to hear it. If they're saying that these documents that I had in my hands in those days, which are now appended to the MacKay report, are fabrications, let them say so. If they say they are for projects other than the Coquihalla, let's try to have that demonstrated in the face of all of the evidence.

The fact is that the House was lied to. It's as simple as that, and I don't feel comfortable and happy saying this. The former Minister of Highways was always my favourite cabinet minister to deal with over the years, and I go also go back to 1972, with a brief break in between. I've always had a good relationship with the minister and have never known the minister to deliberately, or even accidentally, tell me a lie. He was always straight with me. When he didn't want to answer my question, he didn't answer my question, either in this House or privately. Never in all my years of working with the first member for Cariboo have I ever had cause to say the things I'm saying today. I'm not today saying them against him. He was part of a cabinet, Treasury Board, Premier's office decision to deceive not only this Legislature but the public of this province.

[11:45]

I think the facts are clear. I think the evidence is overwhelming. It's not for me to say that the facts are there; it's for a committee of this House under our parliamentary system to make that judgment. That's why we have the motion, narrow as it is. If I am still as convinced now as I was then that I was lied to, it might be that there are considerable numbers of people in the province who also share that view. The only way this can be resolved is by having a "trial," a set of hearings, an opportunity to have a proper and full debate. How do you do that? You do that through a committee of the House, under our rules.

If they continue to take the position they've taken to date, by denying the opportunity for the first member for Cariboo to have his day in court and for this Legislature to have an opportunity through that committee to establish the facts, the government today is participating in as deceitful an action as the government of 1985. The deceit continues.

The government knows that it could not survive a fair trial, a fair hearing, a fair discussion in a committee of this House. It knows it could not survive this issue, because it knows it is wrong, and therefore it is saying: "No, we won't have this trial." This is more than a prima facie case, in my view; there is an absolute and compelling case backed up by documents. If we don't have the hearing, if we don't have the committee established, this government, for whatever reason — hard to fathom — is saying that it is prepared to put its oar in the same water that Bill Bennett's government rowed in and, by doing so, is as guilty of misleading and being deceitful to this House as was the former government of Bill Bennett.

MR. CASHORE: I've heard many members on the government side of the House indicate some kind of regret that they are being required to participate in this debate. I can certainly understand why they would regret that. It must be a very difficult challenge indeed to rise and defend the government for its action with regard to highways projects in British Columbia going back into the last administration and, indeed, perhaps beyond that.

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

I felt that the comments of the first member for Nanaimo (Mr. Stupich) yesterday, following the speech given by the first member for Cariboo, were very apropos. I thought they set a very worthwhile tone in response, and indicated very clearly that the issue we're dealing with here is an issue much larger than that one minister. It's an issue that is being argued not on behalf of the opposition, not on behalf of political expediency, but on behalf of something that we all revere and honour within this House: the opportunity that we have to indicate to the public that justice is being done, that fair and appropriate procedures are being followed and that we are fulfilling our role as stewards of the public purse.

Mr. Speaker, there have been some very good moments in this debate. I have heard members of the opposition, for instance, stand in their place and say: "Perhaps we could have handled this situation better." I think there has been a very real attempt to give this debate a generous smattering of dialogue.

The first member for Nanaimo put our task into perspective when he said that although there have been overruns, and while that is an extremely serious issue, worthy of much discussion and debate, the point being ignored by government speaker after government speaker is whether or not this Legislature was misled.

I'm rising to speak on a motion that a committee of privilege should investigate whether the Legislature was misled on the cost of the Coquihalla Highway. Mr. Speaker, that point has been addressed by almost none of the people on the government side who have addressed this issue. They have chosen, speaker after speaker, to evade that question. Instead they have gone in the direction of evading the issue before us.

Some have talked about the importance of building highways. Mr. Speaker, I believe it's important to build highways. As the member for Maillardville-Coquitlam, there are some highway projects that I would certainly want to argue for and support — but using the accepted procedures, both in the process of bringing a project from the proposal stage right through to the delivery stage, with all the accounting and cost accountability that should be a part of that. So it's entirely academic and inappropriate for member after member to stand here and talk about what a wonderful thing it is that highways have been built in the province. Clearly any government has to have a budget for highways, has to look upon highways as a priority, has to look at the importance of finding routes to commerce, and has to look at such matters as the job creation aspect of that process. Those of us involved in matters pertaining to the social needs of the province — the need for job creation, the need for decent wages — might look at those priorities somewhat differently,

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in terms of what kinds of projects are going to create the most jobs, etc.

But we're not discussing whether or not it is appropriate to build highways through the mountains. We're discussing whether or not this Legislature's responsibility has been evaded and, indeed, whether dishonour has been brought on this Legislature through an inappropriate process designed to circumvent the Legislature. Those who have spoken on this for the opposition have addressed that issue, and I think they have addressed it very articulately. I was really troubled to sit in my office yesterday afternoon and hear a member on the squawk-box talking in glowing imagery about men of iron and machines of steel going out into the difficult mountain valleys, going through there and accomplishing these marvels of engineering. I almost expect that member to have had a dream last night, and in the dream John Wayne would come riding in and say: "Well done, pilgrim."

I think it's unfortunate that we've had to listen to this type of response, which is a further part of the coverup. Any attempt to participate in a debate that refuses to address the key issue that is before us and instead goes on with all kinds of bafflegab, all kinds of that thing that brings politicians into disrepute by avoiding dealing with the real issue, again I think brings discredit to this House.

Mr. Speaker, I've been going through the Blues and I feel that there's only one member on the government side who has really made an effort to take this debate seriously. I don't think he's taken it seriously enough, but I believe he's made an effort. That member is the present Minister of Transportation and Highways (Hon. Mr. Rogers), and I believe that he has addressed some of the issues.

In listening to his comments in this House yesterday and in reading his comments in the Blues, one could really recognize that there were elements of contrition, that there were elements of attempting to explain how it happened, and that there were elements in which he was seeking to at least enlist some kind of understanding with regard to the kinds of pressures that people in the ministry were under.

I would hope to continue with this theme later on in the afternoon, and I move adjournment of this debate until the next sitting of the House.

Motion approved.

Hon. Mr. Strachan moved adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

The House adjourned at 11:58 a.m.