[ Page 3483 ]
Routine Proceedings
Oral Questions
Privatization in Energy ministry. Mr. Clark –– 3483
Mr. Gabelmann
Health pilot project for seniors. Ms. A. Hagen –– 3484
Voter enumeration for Boundary-Similkameen by-election. Mr. Harcourt –– 3484
Mr. Barnes
Stumpage rates. Mr. Miller –– 3485
Throne speech debate
Hon. Mr. Reid –– 3485
Ms. A. Hagen –– 3489
Hon. Mr. Parker –– 3492
Mr. Blencoe –– 3495
Mr. Vant –– 3498
Mr. D'Arcy –– 3501
Mr. R. Fraser –– 3504
The House met at 2:04 p.m.
HON. MR. VEITCH: Today, we have arriving in British Columbia two very distinguished visitors, King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden and Queen Silvia. They will be here in the Legislature tomorrow, and this evening they will be hosted by His Hon. the Lieutenant-Governor. I know that all members of the Legislative Assembly will want to wish Their Majesties the very best in British Columbia.
As well, we have in the gallery today two future leaders of British Columbia: the president of the Burnaby Young Socreds, Glen Helmlinger, and Matt Schwanebeck, vice-president. I would ask the House to bid them welcome.
HON. MRS. JOHNSTON: Mr. Speaker, in your gallery this afternoon are several very active women in the province of British Columbia, members of our Social Credit Women's Auxiliary. I would now like to recognize them: Eva Matheson, Coquitlam; Myrna Gething, Hudson's Hope; Bunny McDonald, Coquitlam; Edrie Jackson, Coquitlam: Jeanne Eddington, Surrey; Jean Hobbs, Prince George; Joyce Martel, Terrace; Aggie Flett, Nanaimo; and Gwen Honigman, Gabriola Island. And we have two visitors, Amanda and Florence James, from Nova Scotia. I would ask the House to make them welcome.
MR. HARCOURT: I have some very pleasant news for the Legislature. On Tuesday, March 15, at 12:13 p.m. precisely, James Roderick Barnes-McCansh was born, ten and a half pounds — and three feet long. [Laughter.] He was born to Constance Maxine Barnes-McCansh, daughter of the second and senior member for Vancouver Centre (Mr. Barnes), and Robert McCansh. The proud new grandfather assures me that this is just the start of a new role for him, because he has three other children, Beverli, Craig and Deborah, who are going to be following suit. Congratulations.
MR. BARNES: Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the first member for Vancouver Centre for expressing my genuine excitement over this big event. Not only do I have a new grandson, but I must say that he has two inches of coal-black hair, and I understand his hands resemble two Deep South sugar-cured hams — small ones.
With that, I would just say that it is with great excitement that I look forward to the new generation, which will be his. Let's keep that in mind in our deliberations from time to time.
HON. MR. REID: Mr. Speaker, our congratulations to the newest grandfather in the House, and I would hope that the child keeps his backfield in motion like his grandfather.
It's with a great deal of pleasure that I introduce to the House today, from the Association of Book Publishers of British Columbia, the executive director, Mrs. Gerry Tubin, the president, Ralph Maurer, and Howard White. Would the House please make these people especially welcome here today.
Mr. Speaker, while I have the floor I'd also like to introduce two other special guests of mine in Victoria today, the president of my constituency of Surrey-White Rock-Cloverdale, Mr. Tom Ivanore, who is in the members' gallery. With him is one of the strongest Social Credit supporters in my constituency, Mr. Rick Clough. Would the House make them welcome.
HON. MR. RICHMOND: In the members' gallery today is a distant relative of mine by marriage visiting from Winnipeg. His name is Arthur Simpson. He's been taking the warm climes of Victoria for some time and tells me that within a month or so he'll feel a lot better about going back to Winnipeg. Would the House please make him welcome.
HON. MR. DUECK: Mr. Speaker, somewhere in the gallery today is a very special, lovely person. This person happens to be my wife, and she's spent many years putting up with me. I would like the House to please welcome her.
MR. JANSEN: Two special guests and friends are in the House this afternoon. Mrs. Sylvia Brown and Mrs. Mary Smith. Would you please make them welcome.
MRS. GRAN: Mr. Speaker. in your gallery are members of the Langley Memorial Hospital board: Richard Holinaty, David Dreyer, Page Wheatley, Dr. William Esdale, Iris Mooney and Gary Walker. Would the House please make them welcome.
MR. LONG: Being a member of the House and a director of B.C. Ferries, I would like to ask the House to join with me in congratulating Dolores Gladstone from Prince Rupert on the birth of her new daughter aboard the ferry Queen of Prince Rupert; and I would also like to thank the crew who helped with this birth who showed up and really did a good job for these people.
HON. MR. VEITCH: It is that time in our legislative calendar when we remember those former members of this House who have passed on.
At this time I would like the House to remember Mr. Harry Cartmell McKay, who died May 17, 1987. He was elected in 1960, Fernie constituency, as a Liberal; re-elected 1963, Fernie constituency, as a Liberal. Mr. Arthur James Richard Ash, who died January 15, 1988, elected 1948, Saanich by-election, member of the coalition, Liberal; reelected 1949, Saanich. Coalition Liberal. I would ask the House to remember these former members.
Oral Questions
PRIVATIZATION IN ENERGY MINISTRY
MR. CLARK: A question for the Minister of Energy. Does the minister agree that under this new, privatized version of his ministry there is a direct conflict of interest between the goals and objectives of the petroleum industry, which are to make profit presumably, and to maximize sales volume, and the goals and objectives of the owners of resources, the Crown, which are to protect consumers and to get the maximum return for the treasury for the resource which is, after all. owned by the people of British Columbia?
HON. MR. DAVIS: Mr. Speaker, in the Speech from the Throne there was reference to the establishment of what was termed joint venture operating boards. There is a community of interest between the people of the province and these
[ Page 3484 ]
industries, and input from the industries certainly is welcomed by this government.
The employees in a number of divisions of this ministry who have been doing jobs closely akin to those carried out in the industry, like assaying and mine reclamation, policing and so on, will continue but they will continue under boards — two boards, both of which will be within the ministry. Those employees will continue to work here in Victoria, but there will be a board and the board's directors will include those who have a close working knowledge with the industry — but, of course, not a conflict of interest.
MR. CLARK: Can the minister confirm that the responsibilities for mine safety inspections and enforcement of safety orders regarding mine safety will be included as one of the responsibilities the new privatized parts of his ministry will undertake?
HON. MR. DAVIS: Mr. Speaker, the responsibility will always reside, in the last analysis, with the ministry and with the government.
MR. GABELMANN: I have a question for the Minister of Labour and Consumer Services. Does the minister believe that industrial health and safety inspections and enforcement should be conducted by an agency accountable to and dominated by the employer rather than by the Workers' Compensation Board?
HON. L. HANSON: Mr. Speaker, I guess I should ask a question in return of the member for North Island. Are you suggesting that we are contracting out that service? Is that your suggestion?
MR. GABELMANN: Given the establishment of an agency or a board which will take over the functions of the Ministry of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources in respect of various things, including mine safety health inspections and enforcement of orders, those orders and inspections will no longer now be done by the Ministry of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources but rather by an agency which will be run by representatives of both government and the employers. Doesn't the minister think it's now time that all health and safety inspections in this province be under the purview of the Workers' Compensation Board, particularly as this particular inspection service is now going to be partially privatized?
[2:15]
HON. L. HANSON: Mr. Speaker, I would have to defer that question to the Minister of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources.
HON. MR. DAVIS: Mr. Speaker, in a number of provinces mine safety inspection is carried out by an agency under the Labour ministry. British Columbia, on the other hand, along with a few other provinces, has had the Mines ministry continue to be responsible for safety inspection. People closer to the industry and more knowledgeable in the industry are involved in that case. That will continue to be the case: inspection responsibility and safety responsibilities, in the first instance, will remain with the Ministry of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources.
MR. CLARK: A question to the Minister of Energy. Can the minister confirm that the collection of production data which is used to calculate the royalties payable by companies to the province will now be done by this new privatized version of his ministry'?
HON. MR. DAVIS: No, I cannot. Anything which involves confidentiality and certainly any administrative actions which relate to taxation and the collection of taxes will be retained in the ministry, but outside the activities covered by these two boards.
HEALTH PILOT PROJECT FOR SENIORS
MS. A. HAGEN: My question is to the Minister of Health. A pilot project for seniors was announced in the recent throne speech. I would like the minister to tell this House the location of the proposed project, the size of the staff and the specific programs that that project intends to offer.
HON. MR. DUECK: This information will be coming forward in due course.
MS. A. HAGEN: A supplementary to the minister. Could the minister please advise this House what kind of consultation he had with the BCMA, the Capital Regional District and the Greater Victoria Hospital Society in relation to this project?
HON. MR. DUECK: There has been consultation going on for some time about the concept, but as you know this was a throne speech, and a throne speech is generally a vision of what the government is going to do. It was mentioned by your leader this morning that it is a vision of the direction the government is going, and that is fact. Therefore you don't go around telling people what the throne speech will include, and we are now setting things in motion to establish the concept of these services that we have announced.
MS. A. HAGEN: I might note then that perhaps the minister's congratulations to those bodies I just mentioned were a little premature. With regard to the same seniors' project, and in the hope that perhaps the minister can define the vision, apparently the ministry now thinks that seniors would be better served by a number of health practitioners in the alternative therapies — people such as chiropractors, physiotherapists — and many seniors on fixed incomes as we know now find the fees that were introduced last year a deterrent. Can the minister tell us whether he has decided to remove these deterrent fees, these user fees, from the alternative therapies?
HON. MR. DUECK: Mr. Speaker, I suppose the member will have to wait for the budget speech.
VOTER ENUMERATION FOR
BOUNDARY-SIMILKAMEEN BY-ELECTION
MR. HARCOURT: Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Provincial Secretary, who is making us green with envy with that St. Patrick's Day outfit. I would like the Provincial Secretary to know I have just received confirmation from the chief electoral officer, in a letter dated March 8, that he does
[ Page 3485 ]
not intend to order a full enumeration for the upcoming Boundary-Similkameen by-election. Will the government now join with the opposition in a joint request to the chief electoral officer to conduct a full residence-to-residence enumeration, so that we can have the most fair and efficient voters list for the by-election?
HON. MR. VEITCH: I want to add that one of the Pages — who falls within your purview, Mr. Speaker — asked if this jacket comes with batteries, and the answer is no.
To the hon. Leader of the Opposition, it is the intention of the chief electoral officer to conduct a complete blitz of the Boundary-Similkameen riding to enumerate door-to-door those areas where there may be new housing or any new senior citizens' rest homes, or anyplace where there has been or is likely to be movement of individuals. I predict that by the time the by-election eventually rolls around, yes, it will be the most complete election list we have had for that area yet, and I concur with him on that.
MR. HARCOURT: Mr. Speaker, that wasn't my question. I asked if you would be willing to do a full enumeration, because you did promise a full enumeration to replace the elimination of section 80 votes. If the government won't order a full enumeration, and the government has now eliminated section 80 — a section which allowed 2,100 people who were missed in the 1985 enumeration to vote in Boundary-Similkameen in the 1986 provincial election — will the Provincial Secretary at least promise that the sections of Bill 28 eliminating section 80 will not come into force for this by-election?
HON. MR. VEITCH: I don't want to offend the House with any comments on future action, but I can tell you this: as was canvassed in the last session of this Legislature, we're not eliminating section 80s and, indeed, there will be five additional days in which to capture those individuals who, for whatever reasons, are not on the normal voters list.
Between now and the time the by-election is called, the awareness level will be heightened in the area. Individuals will be told the many places where they can go and register to get on the voters list. We will conduct a blitz of the entire area; we will make more areas available; we will enumerate door to door any new or quasi-new residences in the area. There is still an obligation in any free society for individuals to take that one extra step: to go out and register if they are at all concerned about becoming voters in the area. By that time the awareness level will be so high that the Social Credit will be returned in that area with even a greater majority.
MR. BARNES: A supplementary, Mr. Speaker. I'd like the Provincial Secretary to define "quasi-new residence." Is that somebody who is partially under a bridge or sleeping under a bridge or behind a garbage dump? What is a quasi-residence?
HON. MR. VEITCH: If the hon. member is asking if members from Vancouver Centre be allowed to vote in Boundary-Similkameen, the answer is no.
MR. BARNES: I was quite serious when I asked him what a quasi-residence is, because we went through this and, as he said, we canvassed this question on section 80s. We asked the minister what would happen if, after he had done a 95 percent enumeration of all voters, and the list was almost complete. there were a few people left off on election day. What happens to those people? Will they be able to vote in a democratic society, or will they be disfranchised?
HON. MR. VEITCH: Yes. in a democratic society — in this democratic society — they have every democratic right to vote, providing they have attained the eligibility of individuals that are allowed to vote in a particular area — that, for the member's edification, being a Canadian citizen of the full age of 19 years. Those individuals will be afforded every opportunity to register, to get on the voters list, and after the timely period after the writ is dropped they will have six additional days in which to register and act on the voters list. I suggest that for anyone even remotely interested in the process of democracy there is a small obligation upon that individual, whoever he may be.
STUMPAGE RATES
MR. MILLER: Question to the Minister of Forests. The Premier, responding to pressure from the Prince George producers on the weekend, said that the stumpage rates in that area were a bad scene and would be reviewed. That was supposed to have been done yesterday. Could the minister advise what decision was taken with respect to the stumpage rates in that area?
HON. MR. PARKER: Yes, we've reviewed the situation in the Prince George area. The report is due in my office tomorrow, and from there we will be taking appropriate action.
Orders of the Day
HON. MR. STRACHAN: At the outset, Mr. Speaker, I would ask leave for the Special Committee of Selection to sit while the House is sitting at 3 o'clock p.m. today.
Leave granted.
HON. MR. STRACHAN: And with that, adjourned debate, Address in Reply.
THRONE SPEECH DEBATE
(continued)
HON. MR. REID: I'll accede to the member for Nanaimo.
MR. SPEAKER: The second member for Nanaimo seeks leave to make an introduction. Is leave granted?
Leave granted.
MR. LOVICK: Thank you very much. Mr. Speaker. I want also to thank the hon. Minister of Tourism. My colleague the member for Esquimalt-Port Renfrew (Mr. Sihota) has left a note with me asking me if I would make an introduction on his behalf. A group of students from Esquimalt Secondary School. with their teacher. Mr. D. Taylor, are here in the gallery, and I would ask the House to please join me in welcoming them.
[ Page 3486 ]
HON. MR. REID: Mr. Speaker, it's appropriate that one of the groups introduced today is from Sooke, because I was going to make mention of the absence of the member for Esquimalt-Port Renfrew, and I was going to mention the museum attendance in Sooke and the quality performance that that museum is adding to the community of Sooke. I commend the Esquimalt Secondary School for being here today.
[Mr. Pelton in the chair.]
Mr. Speaker, the government's throne speech was prepared in such a way as to address the question of deficit reduction, to build a stable province that provides social and economic security.
The throne speech also deals with the question of a bold program of privatization. The initiatives already undertaken by virtue of the interest of the employees of the province of British Columbia in privatization are beyond our fondest dreams.
A program for regional development to the benefit of British Columbians is another initiative announced in the throne speech, and a continued commitment to increased decision-making at the community level.
The Social Credit government will continue to deliver programs and services to people within a fiscal framework that is not only fair but affordable. We will also put in place by year-end a long-term strategic plan for British Columbia which will lay out our economic and social objectives for the next decade — very innovative, very aggressive.
A draft White Paper outlining our strategy on fiscal policy, economic development and social issues will be completed by August of this year. The White Paper will be given wide circulation throughout the province so business, labour and all other groups can provide input and advice to this government.
This government fully supports the free trade agreement with the United States.
[2:30]
Mr. Speaker, this morning I had an opportunity to meet in my office with the Association of B.C. Book Publishers. There are currently 53 publishers in British Columbia. They published over 300 books in 1987 — regional, national, cultural, trade and children's books — an increase of almost 100 percent over 1975. They generate over $12 million in sales revenue in the province of British Columbia, and they employ 170 direct employees — another indication of an economic employment potential for the province of British Columbia. I think it's incumbent upon us as British Columbians to encourage further productions and publications in B.C. for trade and educational publications. I commend this group for their contribution to the cultural community of British Columbia.
The throne speech talks about enacting legislation to help B.C. business and industries increase throughout the Pacific Rim in order that we can maximize trade with the United States and other nations of the Pacific Rim; help B.C. business and industries take full advantage of the free trade agreements with the United States; provide assistance, where appropriate, to help business or other sectors adjust to the free trade agreement; promote British Columbia to international investors; and also to encourage closer ties with the states of Washington, Oregon, California and Alaska in both trade and tourism. The Premier and his entourage spent last weekend in Alaska visiting representatives from the state and the Yukon, talking about trade and tourism initiatives that we can cooperatively market, to encourage further tourism from the southern part of the continent.
We intend to heighten federal awareness of the Pacific region and its importance as Canada's gateway to the Pacific Rim. We want to evaluate British Columbia's standing within the federal system. We want to develop ways and means to bring about more equity for British Columbia in relation to federal funds. My ministry has a cooperative agreement dealing with the federal government's ERDA tourism development agreement, which next week will be modified so that British Columbia industries and destination tourism attractions can get further funding on a cooperative basis from Ottawa. We look with anxious opportunity to that.
We want to evaluate areas of federal jurisdiction within British Columbia to determine if these functions might be more appropriately administered by the province of British Columbia.
We want to develop ways to bring about more equity for British Columbia. We want to determine priority for areas of action between the province of British Columbia and our federal counterparts. We want to negotiate with the federal government to restructure the economic development agreements I've just mentioned. We want to reduce the emphasis on direct loans in the province in favour of....
MRS. BOONE: Giveaways.
HON. MR. REID: Not in favour of giveaways. We're in favour of increased involvement by the commercial lending institutions. In relation to that, when I took over the ministry of culture and sports, one of the difficult things I found was that most of the organizations within the province of British Columbia had been operating on a handout basis for too many years and hadn't been encouraged to generate business plans.
I can say without question that the ministry now has an agreement with all the groups being supported by provincial funding and administered by my ministry to be on a business plan basis. It has worked to the advantage of the organizations and the province. The organizations have a more effective three-year planning process in place. They have a business plan that not only is workable by the organization but also can be agreed to by the province.
The film industry in British Columbia is the fastest growing film component in North America. In 1987, the province of British Columbia generated more than $152 million worth of investment by film and television productions — almost double the previous year, with major productions such as Roxanne, Stakeout, Mountain King, After the Promise, etc.
The interest and economic viability of British Columbia and the welcome labour climate now within the province have been accepted by the film industry in major initiatives. There's even an investment now in North Vancouver by a firm called Cannell Films of more than $30 million to create a seven-studio film production operation as a result of the change in the labour climate in the film industry in British Columbia — and that's a positive initiative.
Through the budget process, the government will help the small business sector further improve its record as a job creator and economic generator. Social programs — health
[ Page 3487 ]
care in particular — remain an area of commitment and concern of this government.
The time has come to take a new and innovative approach to dealing with health care. The Ministry of Health will initiate and spearhead a pilot project here in Victoria. New strategies, techniques and ways of delivering health care, particularly to senior citizens through a community-based, integrated delivery system, are long overdue: the establishment of a senior citizens' centre, a one-stop, specialized health care centre, staffed by salaried physicians, nurse practitioners, alternative health care practitioners in the district of Victoria. Hospitals will be encouraged to use alternative care practitioners, another initiative long overdue in the health care system in British Columbia.
We will be awarding a $100,000 grant to the University of Victoria to develop the new health information system. We will enhance and strengthen programs to deal with substance abuse, including alcohol and drugs.
MRS. BOONE: We heard it all in the throne speech.
HON. MR. REID: Mr. Speaker, I'm not sure the opposition heard it all in the throne speech, because they weren't paying attention. I want to re-emphasize the positive issues in the throne speech.
One thing they didn't hear and that I want to strengthen and emphasize today is the positive thing that's happening out there in relation to the heritage and conservation programs which come under my ministry. We conducted a survey of visitors in 1987 of the British Columbia Museum, Barkerville, Fort Steele, Kilby Store, Craigflower Manor, Point Ellice House, Keremeos Grist Mill and Hat Creek Ranch. Without question, the heritage attractions being embellished and promoted by the province of British Columbia and by the communities and volunteers out there are one of the best tourist attractions that this province has to offer.
It was a result of the interest shown by visitors to British Columbia towards these historical sites and attractions, and the task force called Project Pride, which went around the province under the leadership of the first member for Vancouver-Point Grey (Ms. Campbell), which created a further interest by the communities in embellishing these historical sites and attractions and offering to the public who visit the province some cultural, historical reflections of B.C. The survey we undertook was very encouraging and very interesting. It talked about the further kinds of things that the province should do.
The visitors to British Columbia talk about the friendliness of British Columbians and why they come back to B.C. The main reason people visit British Columbia is the friendliness of the people; the second most important reason is the cleanliness of the communities; and the third reason is the safety in the communities which they visit. On top of that, we add on all those other great things British Columbia has that others don't have: some of the historical sites; some of the mountain scenery; some of the whale-watching opportunities; some of the museums, which they're glad to pay to enter...
AN HON. MEMBER: Don't forget good government.
HON. MR. REID: ...and good government and leadership. All these things go hand in hand for the tourists in British Columbia.
But the interesting thing about all these attractions is that they've also created an opportunity for British Columbia to prove, once and for all. that we are a unique community in the way we treat our home visitors and our external visitors. If British Columbia could have retained the same visitation level and hotel occupancy in 1987 as it did in 1985, it would have done something no other world's fair community has ever done in the history of world's fairs. But the surprising thing is that British Columbia went one step further, just as it did with the world's fair. We blew '85 right out of the water; it doesn't even come close to matching the '87 hotel occupancy in any region in the province. That speaks well for the programs which British Columbians put in place to treat visitors very specially when they arrive here.
The second-largest industry in the province is the hospitality industry; it's the second-largest employer, generating in excess of $3 billion in 1987....
MR. MOWAT: How much'?
HON. MR. REID: Three thousand million. Mr. Speaker, $3 billion in income in 1987 is an increase of $400 million in hospitality income in B.C. over 1985, an unheard-of success. The reason that happened is that the world's fair was such a total success; the world found out about that place called "hospitable British Columbia." So people came in record numbers, and they brought into the province in 1985 room rental expenditures of $416 million and in 1986 — which was an astounding year — of $605 million. And 1987 was up $100 million dollars over 1985, to a total of $516 million worth of room-rental expenditures.
That talks about the product called British Columbia. That talks about the pride of British Columbians generating interest in our communities, invite visitors to come to British Columbia. having a very receptive community, having people believing in what British Columbia has to offer —not only as a product, but as a place to visit. That's why heritage sites and historical sites are such an important component in the product called tourism.
Canadian visitors spent in British Columbia, on average, $57 per person, higher than in any other province in Canada. Overseas visitors spent, on average, $58. When you have an increased visitation. which we did have in '87, that's the kind of generation in funds that the hospitality industry garners.
Fifty-six percent of the people who visited British Columbia in 1987 came by rubber-tire traffic, and 14 percent came by recreation vehicles and campers. The reason that's important to emphasize in the throne speech about the economy of British Columbia is that the state of California has more recreation vehicles than there is population in British Columbia. There are over three million rubber-tire recreation vehicles in California, so that product we continue to market and promote.
Those people spent a lot of time in 1987 visiting other parts of British Columbia. They saw us in '86 but they came back in '87. and they visited regions they hadn't heard of before. They came back because we had such friendly people — as a result of programs such as SuperHost in 1986 — and they spent so much time in the metro Vancouver area in that particular year that they wanted to see the rest of a province which could create the kind of enthusiasm that British Columbians had as superhosts in 1986. So they visited areas around the province that they hadn't visited before, such
[ Page 3488 ]
areas as the North-by-Northwest, the Rocky Mountain region, the Okanagan, the Kootenays...
[2:45]
AN HON. MEMBER: The Nicola Valley.
HON. MR. REID: ...the Nicola Valley, the Fraser Canyon.
Why I relate this so emphatically is that the province of British Columbia had the largest increase in visitors in 1987 of any other province in Canada, and that's a total turnaround from any other world's-fair-hosting community, because normally a hosting community for a world's fair has worn out all the opportunities to show itself off to the visitor in that particular year and so people go to other places in subsequent years. But that didn't happen in British Columbia.
What we've been able to do is generate an interest in British Columbia by not only external tours but also internal tours. British Columbians, on average, visited inside British Columbia an additional 5 percent in 1987. It's important to reflect on that, because 50 percent of the tourism industry is made up of our own people, and the more we can encourage British Columbians to visit the best products in Canada and North America that we have of our own, the better it is for us both with retaining income and generating further income within the communities around the province. Because British Columbians, by and large, are not fully aware of the product that we have within the bounds of the province.
It was fortunate that so many visitors came in 1986 and stayed in homes of friends and relatives and were told about the products that these people who came to see Vancouver and Expo...what they saw on the way. British Columbians were told about a product that they weren't fully aware of themselves. As a result, we got an incredible opportunity to invite the people back, and they did come back, and they came back, as I said before, in record numbers.
The other thing that happened to us was that the cruise ship industry, which expanded itself in record numbers in 1986 as a result of the world's fair, set a record that we thought we would never touch in a four- to five-year time-frame. A surprising thing happened again about the cruise ship industry in 1987: we generated not only the same amount of visitors — 313,517 I think the number was — but an additional 500 people through the ports of Vancouver and Victoria as a result of the cruise ship industry. That indicates the kind of people that have found out about cruising in British Columbia, and that's an important number because it's a major focus of my ministry in talking about the pride of British Columbia and generating further visits and further income to the economy.
Mr. Speaker, there are going to be substantial investments to bring computers into the classrooms in 1988. We're going to increase funding to reflect the increased enrolment in schools, which has been highly criticized by the opposition on an ongoing basis. We're going to provide increased postsecondary support and make major improvements in financial assistance to students in 1988, and we're going to contribute to make the independent school system more highly recognized.
We're going to computerize a registry of potential organ donors and develop it in conjunction with the motor vehicle branch.
Mr. Speaker, I'm also proud to announce — and my colleague to my left is pretty proud of it too — that we're introducing mandatory basic safety inspections which will be extended to include automobiles and light trucks. This time around we would hope that the opposition would also check their cars, because the last time, when the argument was to retain it, we found out in the parking lot at the back of the parliament buildings that most of the members of the opposition hadn't even kept their cars up to their total inspection requirements. So we would hope that this time around they would at least do their part.
Legislation will be introduced to strengthen the development of Vancouver as a strong financial centre, and the private sector trading-house activity will be encouraged to help market and sell British Columbia products and services around the world.
AN HON. MEMBER: That's an old press release.
HON. MR. REID: No, this is all part of the throne speech, Mr. Speaker.
Waste management and litter acts will encourage the recycling of municipal waste. The reason why that's a very strong point within my ministry.... As I said earlier, the second most important reason that visitors are coming to British Columbia is because of the cleanliness of the communities. There's a pride that we build up in the communities when they are concerned about the cleanliness within their own communities. They do it for two reasons: first of all, for their own community pride, but also for the reason of impressing the visitors to the area. I guess there's nothing more discouraging than visiting an area.... I'm glad the students have left. When you visit a schoolground in some of the communities in the province.... I would hope the people in the education system would take it upon themselves to get into this recycling and litter cleanup program, because there's nothing more discouraging than visiting an elementary or a secondary school and finding it totally littered with ice-cream wrappers and Coke bottles and you name it, dropped at the feet of most of the students — unless it's dropped by the teachers, because there are only two people that go there.
MRS. BOONE: Teacher-bashing now.
HON. MR. REID: I would bash the teachers in this respect. I would say it's time that the teacher component of these institutions encouraged their students to have more pride not only in themselves but in the community in which they live, and that they would make a special effort to go out and clean up the streets. If the students are aware of the emphasis by visitors to British Columbia to participate in our communities and see what we've got here.... The strongest emphasis they have is the cleanliness of the community. And if our young people coming up today who are going to enter the employment rolls do not have as one of their goals pride in the community and a concern to clean up the community, there is something wrong with the system.
There is something wrong with the system if a school of 800 or 900 students can't find it within themselves to take some time....
Interjections.
HON. MR. REID: Parents should do it, but do you want parents to do it? Do you want parents to follow the students to school and pick up the paper wrappers?
[ Page 3489 ]
MRS. BOONE: Parents influence their children.
HON. MR. REID: The parents do that full well, but we also have people who are paid very good wages to instruct students about the pride of the community and pride in themselves. One thing I think a teacher should do — you're right — is to instruct students not to drop their garbage on the street. But if they do, maybe have a once-a-week clean-up campaign to make their school the proud area that it used to be. I'm saying that in some cases right now it's not, and I would hope that the education system would take that on as one of their mandates.
MRS. BOONE: Name schools.
HON. MR. REID: As I travel around the province as the Minister of Tourism, I'm more conscious of it now than I ever was before, because of what I have been told by people who write me after they have left British Columbia and say: "What a great place, but as I drove down the street by the second member for Victoria's (Mr. Blencoe) community, there was paper all over the street."
MRS. BOONE: Did they mention the smell in Prince George?
HON. MR. REID: No, because they know that's called "airgold" in Prince George, and I'm not so sure there are too many complaints.... There are none from the residents, but the visitors to British Columbia, by and large, do not complain about it very much, and they understand that some communities, because of the industrial base, are built on problems such as the smell in the air.
MRS. BOONE: The car-wrecking yards.
HON. MR. REID: Well, some of those should be cleaned up. I have no argument there.
As I said before, we are a world-class community called British Columbia, and we are world-class because we know how to treat our visitors; we know what they want; we know what British Columbia has to offer, and we're able to tell the rest of the world what's here. We bring into play the friendliness of the people, as I said before, and the cleanliness of the communities, but the other neat thing is that we're called the safest community in the world to visit.
So you have those three things going for you, then having all your attractions and activities and park sites.... Speaking about park sites, I commend the Ministry of Environment and Parks because, along with their programs and marketing initiatives in 1987, they set a record in 1987 for park visitations. They were up 17 percent in park visitations in British Columbia in 1987 over 1986 in almost every region of the province.
They had 20 million visits this year. It exceeded any other province in Canada, and it equalled the entire federal parks system. That says a lot for our parks, so as we bring on the other neat ones.... We hope that the feds will pick up the ball and fund the South Moresby acquisition so we can get on with that additional park within the system, and that British Columbians and other visitors can utilize that gorgeous park in South Moresby. As we utilize that and talk about the other parks in the province which are being improved daily — some of them being privatized and run by local community people, making them a higher visitation....
MR. BLENCOE: Time!
HON. MR. REID: Are you tired of hearing me? This is all good news. Mr. Member, I would think you would be writing some of these things down because they're such interesting numbers. You could use them in speeches around Victoria and tell them about the good things that are going on.
Before I run out of time, I want to commend the province of British Columbia for its initiative in supporting the invitation to host the 1994 Commonwealth Games and the opportunity to prove once and for all that British Columbia is the world-class community not only in hosting and in tourism, but also as a sporting community, and in some of the other neat things that go on in each of the communities in which we exist.
I know that the second member for Victoria (Mr. Blencoe), along with his colleague, will be encouraging all the communities around the world to vote for Victoria as the hosting community for the Commonwealth Games in Seoul in September. We hope to win that to prove once and for all that British Columbia and Victoria and the rest of the communities in British Columbia are a proud place for every one of us to exist.
MS. A. HAGEN: After that scintillating speech, I want to introduce my comments by asking the Minister of Tourism and other good things to take on notice this question. I truly find it hard to believe that the parks of British Columbia have superseded in number of visitors to all of the national parks of Canada. Little Prince Edward Island, for example, has something like a million visitors a year just along the little strip of Cavendish. I genuinely would like to have him take that question on notice. It was one of the more interesting statistics in a speech that lauds British Columbia, a speech that I think we would all concur with in terms of our love of our province and our recognition that we want visitors to come here and enjoy all of the good things that the province has to offer.
I want to get back to the throne speech, not in regurgitating some of its lines, which the minister did when he needed to pad his speech a little bit in the course of his remarks about tourism, about which he is understandably enthusiastic. I want to get back to some of the main thrusts of the throne speech, Mr. Speaker.
[Mr. Rabbitt in the chair.]
Might I just acknowledge your first time in the chair, Mr. Speaker, and note that I'm looking forward to your attendant silence in that position. I will try to make sure I stay in order just to ensure that that is the case.
I want in the time I have available to talk about quite a large number of aspects of the throne speech. A thread that I think was lacking in the Speech from the Throne that we heard, and certainly has been lacking in the manifestation of the Speech from the Throne from last year.... The theme of my comments is going to be working with people with leadership. The counterpoint to that perspective is going to be what I am more and more disturbed to see: working in isolation and with a rudderless ship of state. The comments that I'm going to make are certainly, I hope, going to bear out
[ Page 3490 ]
some of that lack of direction, that lack of any kind of foresight, and certainly a lack of evidence of working with people, the real people of the province — the working people, the professionals, the people who are out there in their regions and districts doing their jobs both as workers for government formally and as workers for the public good, in the broadest sense of that word.
As might be expected, I am going to begin my comments in the health field. This is a field which takes a tremendous part of the financial resources of the province, about a third of its budget — a consistent figure, I might add, which has been in place for quite a number of years, and which takes also a tremendous volume of the very fine human resources which this province has as one of its fundamental underpinnings of activity and productivity.
[3:00]
The government over the last number of months has had a great deal to say about health care costs. It has had less to say about some other aspects of health care. It has had very little to say about access, and it has had very little to say about the quality of care. It seems to be totally preoccupied with the issue of cost — and that is an issue that certainly government must take as a major concern. However, in looking at only that aspect of the issues that surround health care, it tends to develop the kinds of responses to policy development, to planning and to action that clearly are taken in isolation, and taken also then further into isolation by its failure to consult with those people who are concerned not only about costs but about access and about quality. We see very good evidence of that in what is the only really descriptive part of the throne speech which we heard on Tuesday. Most of the throne speech is in fact made up of one-liners, which cryptically give some evidence of what is to come.
In the description of one undertaking that relates to the Health ministry there is considerable detail about a pilot project which is defined to take place in Victoria. This particular item in the throne speech was of such importance that a press conference was scheduled following the throne speech on Tuesday afternoon to give further details of the goals and intent of this particular item. When the minister attended that press conference, we found that a number of things seemed not be in very good shape, as far as that project is concerned. First of all, it appears that it was developed in total isolation, perhaps in the minister's office, perhaps somewhere else. It presumably has some relationship to some work that has been going on in the Capital Regional District with the medical health officers of the district and the capital regional hospital society, but both of those gentlemen disclaimed any knowledge of the project and used words like: "It's a total surprise to me. I hope that we will understand it a little better when we have some details." So although the project is in the capital, where surely people have easy access to those people who will be involved and who are in fact named as principals with the project, and although those people have been working in the field of planning, they knew nothing about this.
The minister's answer in question period today, that because this was a throne speech we therefore don't consult, really doesn't hold water. When we come to budget, I recognize that there's a good deal of confidentiality, but a throne speech is really a state of the union address about where we are right now and where we're planning to go next year. It's not some secretive document that has to be held in such confidence that the very people who are going to be involved in some of the initiatives have no idea about it. It is clearly a project without details. Even the minister himself has no idea where this particular project of the seniors' care centre is going to be built.
Finally, it is a project with a very dubious, if in fact clear, motivation. Most charitably, the motivation is unclear; most realistically, the motivation seems to have to do with challenging the status quo, with dealing with cost, not with service and quality. The project has, in fact, all the hallmarks of having been hatched somewhere in a hallway at the last minute, and simply thrust into the throne speech as an idea that somebody suggested was a good one because some good work was going on in Victoria.
Let me tell you that some good work has been going on in Victoria for a long time, for 15 years in fact. Perhaps the minister hasn't noticed — it's something that perhaps he's been too busy to notice — but there are a number of projects that parallel very closely this unique pilot project that the minister is now going to be proceeding with as a result of the throne speech announcement.
In fact, the kind of initiatives stem from the last very thorough review of health services in this province, a review that goes back 15 years. I have on my desk today the first volume of that study. There are two volumes which form the essence of the material, and there are seven backup documents which are in our Legislative Library. It's popularly known as the Foulkes report, authored by Dr. Richard Foulkes, a medical doctor, and is called "Health Security for British Columbians."
I suggest that if the minister would go back and revisit that report of 15 years' duration, he would find it surprisingly fresh today. It speaks about community human resource and health centres, and it talks about an organization that involves all the people who are participants in health care — the ministry and its bureaucrats, professional people and the users of the service in the administration through regional boards — and clearly defines responsibilities. It's a fascinating document to read even after this time.
One of the clinics that was established at the time that report was tabled still exists within this community in the James Bay area, an area with a very high number of senior citizens who have their residence there. Studies have been done of the work of that particular clinic, studies, I might note, that this government has never let see the light of day because they are so favourable to the efficiency and effectiveness of that clinic and to its excellent service in the community.
For a government that's concerned about costs, let me just name three of the reports of that study that very definitely have an effect on the cost of health care services. First, the people who are served by that clinic have a lower than average use of prescriptions. The Pharmacare issue, then, is addressed. They have a lower average number of referrals, and with the kind of cost to a specialist that means we have a lower cost for the Medical Plan. Finally, there is a shorter-than average hospital stay for clients of that centre. Moreover, it is still an intergenerational centre where seniors, young people and families of the community work together, share meals and participate in community affairs. It is community-operated with a community board. All those features that suggest the kind of piloting that the minister is looking for are in place.
I could note, too, that within this city — and the second member for Victoria (Mr. Blencoe) will know these programs
[ Page 3491 ]
well — at the Fairfield Health Centre and Royal Jubilee Hospital, there are programs that have taken initiatives to develop the kind of comprehensive care services that deal with seniors' concerns about remaining able to live independently and having the least intrusive care possible. I could make reference to work going on in any community you want to mention in this province. For example, in my own city, the Fraser-Burrard Hospital Society two years ago placed before this ministry an extensive, well-costed program for a continuum of care services that would have been effective in reducing hospital stays and better integrating and organizing the services available to seniors.
We're reinventing wheels and working from a project approach. That kind of approach is the rudderless ship that picks up an idea, runs with it as something fresh, doesn't have any knowledge of the history of this province or the work going on with the professionals and the volunteer sector in British Columbia, and pretends that it is dealing with some of the long-term planning issues around health care and, in this case, the health care of an older population. It's not good enough, Mr. Speaker. It's not something that's going to take this province anywhere. I want to submit to you that we on this side of the House could, at the drop of a hat, in a committee, prepare for the Ministry of Health a comprehensive plan that would take us a lot farther and a lot faster than anything we've seen in this House already.
I want to conclude my remarks on the health area for seniors by paying tribute to a person who was a long-term care administrator in my riding, who died suddenly in August of last year. His name was Bob Piaggio, and he was an outstanding public servant. He was an entrepreneurial administrator — somebody that both sides of this House could acknowledge. The second member for Vancouver-Little Mountain (Mr. Mowat) knew the gentleman and knows that I speak of a very fine person.
Bob was known for his wonderful sense of humour. One of my favourite lines of his, having sat in committee meetings with him, as we tried in my community to work through good planning with the dollars and resources available, was: "Look, we've warbled this enough. Let's get on with it." I want to say right now that we've warbled this enough around some of the piloting work and initiatives that have been taken. The field knows what needs to be done; the professionals know what needs to be done; the volunteer sector knows what needs to be done. Let's not have any more unique pilot projects foisted on us in some kind of sterile environment. Let's work on the community and the community work that has been done. Let's stop warbling it and get on with it, Mr. Speaker. Let's get moving.
There are a couple of other areas of the many areas around health that I also want to speak about briefly. The throne speech makes reference again to matters relating to women's reproductive health. It renews a promise made sometime during the last session for some dollars to provide for support for pregnant women and for some kind of homes for pregnant women who may need shelter. Without saying a great deal about this issue that we've spent a lot of time talking about in the session just completed, I just want to make this point again. It's consistent with the point I made about seniors.
This program is nothing other than the most minuscule band-aid to deal with issues relating to women and families. I'm sure that women having difficulty with a pregnancy will be grateful for support. I hope that support translates into the kind of thing that gives them good nutrition, the kind of counselling and moral support they need, and if they need housing — and that's something that is important and can be provided.... It doesn't sound to me like a very contemporary way of dealing with a pregnancy — I'll even accept that. But it doesn't do anything about life after a pregnancy has run its course. It does nothing to ensure that there is going to be housing for women and children. It does nothing to ensure that there's going to be jobs and training for women who are the sole support of their family. It does nothing to really address the woeful lack of child care in this province. We are dealing with a minuscule part of what a social service system should provide. I am simply appalled that after a year even that minuscule effort that was announced last May is reannounced in this throne speech, with nothing having happened.
Let me say, too, that intrinsic to any programs we provide for women and families must be programs that deal with family planning and all that that entails — a knowledge of birth control and the kinds of care a person and a family need during a pregnancy. Those issues must be addressed as well. We've only gone a single step toward dealing with this very important issue of nurturing women and families. Clearly, of course, there must be within those programs the right of women to exercise choice and to have abortion available in a medically safe setting.
[3:15]
Finally, in the health area, there's something in the throne speech that refers to the Minister of Labour and Consumer Services, and it has to do with alcohol and drug programs. It notes that those programs will be coordinated by the Minister of Labour and Consumer Services. It's a puzzling role. If we look at alcohol and drug abuse as it affects health and welfare, not control and pricing and all of those things, it's clear that the ministries that have most to do with that issue are the Ministries of Health and, probably, Education. Why we would be looking at this coming into the Ministry of Labour and Consumer Services. I can't imagine, but I'm fearful.
When I look back to the announcements the government made last December, coming out of the very excellent public process that produced the liquor policy review by members of the government, about what it was going to do about prevention of abuse and rehabilitation where there was abuse, it appears that the commitment is window-dressing entirely. There has been no suggestion as yet that there are going to be dollars or appropriate resources put into that initiative. Numerous briefs were received by that commission, and very well reported. I want to just refer to one which came from the Alcohol-Drug Education Service in Vancouver — the final words of that brief: "We urge our leaders to resist short-term gains and pressure from those who stand to benefit financially, and to utilize proven prevention strategies to the maximum. Now is the time for Victoria to act preventively to ensure equitable access to health and improved quality of life for all."
Back to the issue of cost, access and quality. We will not reduce costs unless we do look at the issues of access and quality. The three are inextricably linked together in any kind of planning that the government puts into place when working on complex health and welfare issues. What we have in the throne speech is a series of one-liners that really give us no sense of leadership. Where there is any fleshing out, it is a single-project-oriented sort of approach that doesn't begin to look at long-range planning.
[ Page 3492 ]
Someone asked me yesterday what I thought about the long-term plan announced in the throne speech. I said: "If that long-term plan bears any relationship to short-term reality, it doesn't bode well for the people of British Columbia."
Now I want to turn to a number of other issues in the few minutes I have remaining to me this afternoon. One of the areas I want to talk about briefly is education. It is talked about briefly also in the throne speech, and the thrust is in fact consistent with the thrust I have noted very much in the context of this government, and that is a movement toward more privatization of our education system.
I want to look at that particularly as it pertains to postsecondary schools because, quite honestly, I had not really realized the extent to which the government, by policy and cutbacks in funding, is shifting very much of the focus which had been the mandate of the colleges and institutes of British Columbia; it is shifting that focus and locus to privately licensed schools.
The foundation of the community college system in British Columbia was to provide access to people in every region of the province. Over the last 20 years we have in fact developed a network of community colleges which, with satellite campuses and through the use of television — the Knowledge Network and the Open Learning Institute — has made educational opportunity available in every part of the province. We knew that it was a fledgling system, a system which needed a great deal of nurturing to ensure that access for all students was going to be available.
What I am finding, having this in fact confirmed as I talk to leaders in colleges throughout the province, is that access to education is being severely eroded. More and more schools are being run for profit, for fees we would consider exorbitant — $3,000, $4,000 for six months, four hours of classes a day — schools to which people go with government student loans but which are accountable to no one. They are licensed by the Advanced Education and Job Training ministry, but other than that there is no accountability for curriculum; there's no accountability for their financial stability.
What we are finding in the colleges at the same time is that there has been a cutting back, a continued pressure to cut back on programs which allow people to come in at what I know our college calls the threshold level — the level that allows them to take courses and training where they are able to learn and learn productively. Very often that first level of training is a stepping-stone to advanced levels of training as they move on, and all of us can tell stories of people who have had that kind of wonderful opportunity for access.
That's being cut back, Mr. Speaker, and at the same time, again in this rudderless state we are involved with, there is on the part of the Advanced Education and Job Training ministry no clear policy on training. It's ad hoc. Whoever has an idea in the private sector gets a licence and goes ahead with it. It's not something that is going to contribute to the economic well-being of the province, and it's not something that's going to contribute to students being fairly treated in every part of the province. And it is exploiting them, very much so, because the fees being charged for the kinds of courses that are offered — fees, I mention again, that very often come from student loans which have to be repaid by students — are punitive fees and totally reprehensible in a province which has a commitment to public education.
In that field we have many women who are disadvantaged, and I have just a couple of things I want to say for the record about women. I know other people in this debate will be looking at their needs. I want to very clearly put on the record our commitment to fair wages.
There have been people on the other side of the House who have said: "This would be wonderful, but...." It is a moral imperative in this province that we have fair wages for women, and the example I use which epitomizes the attitude is the example of home-care workers in this province, contracted by our long-term care branch of the health ministry, who have had a two-cent an hour increase over the last five years and are still paid in the wage range of $6 to $6.50 an hour. That is not defensible; that is not fair; and it is something we cannot any longer tolerate — institutionalized ghettos for women because there is something that might happen to a bureaucracy. It has nothing to do with bureaucracy; it has to do with fairness, fairness to women who are bringing their skills to the workplace.
Time runs very quickly, and I have one other comment that I want to make around taxation and fair taxation. In my riding, as in many tidings in the province, the public is finally beginning to get the equation about the relationship between government funding and their residential taxes. That applies to schools and it applies to hospitals. I fear very soon in some areas it's going to apply to transportation. It applies to municipalities. It is a shocking record that again deals with ad hockery, that puts into place regressive taxes that hurt the very people our laws and taxation system should be designed to protect.
It is a situation where the public knows that it is being charged for a government's dereliction of duty in the areas for which it has responsibility: health, education, welfare and services. That responsibility can only be redressed with a thorough review of tax law, something that our leaders spoke about in other perspectives today.
I want it on the record that the citizens in our communities are watching what this province is doing. They know what their roles and responsibilities are, and they know what the roles and responsibilities of the province are as a whole, and we, working with them, should be seeking to achieve a fair taxation system that would enhance our economy and would deliver the kinds of programs that we've come to expect.
HON. MR. PARKER: Mr. Speaker, I wish you all the best on St. Patrick's Day. I see you are properly attired.
I rise today to speak in favour of the throne speech, and it gives me a great deal of pleasure. The first-year performance of this government has been absolutely tops, and I am proud to have been part of it. Can you imagine — 90,000 new jobs, the finest growth in employment in Canada — 7.3 percent, a result of sound fiscal management and vision. Fantastic!
MR. SKELLY: What's the unemployment rate in Terrace?
HON. MR. PARKER: It hasn't been better. Since we've been in government we've seen things happen in Terrace that we didn't see happen in the eight years before. It's fantastic.
Let me tell you, the auto retail sales have never been better. All retail sales have never been better. The logging opportunities are many, and forest industry opportunities are many. We'll see an announcement tomorrow in Skeena that means a great deal for employment in the city of Kitimat. We will see incredible expansion in the forest industry all the way north through to Stewart as we bring the power line to Stewart in the fall of 1989. We've reconstructed the highway into
[ Page 3493 ]
Stewart so that all of those in the northwest have more employment opportunities.
It's just too bad, you know, that in the last eight years my predecessor didn't see fit to give some leadership to that constituency and bring us out of the Dark Ages, but fortunately the people of Skeena have seen fit to be part of government and we're doing great things. We've got one of the strongest economies in Canada, and the beauty of that strong economy is that we're very attractive to the global environment. We've seen investment grow in British Columbia — over $11 billion in this past year in commitments and investment.
It's to the point now where we see the opposition weakening and falling off and heading into Ottawa for something else, looking for a little more government largess to carry on their careers. The opportunities in opposition in this province are few. Government in British Columbia is strong and will be here for years to come. You can see it in the vision of longterm strategic planning — never happened here before. Their vision as a government is of conviction, of vision and leadership, and I know you're proud, Mr. Speaker, to be part of that government.
[3:30]
In developing this long-term plan, our government is drawing on the skills and the talent and expertise of many people throughout the province, in both the business world and the academic world as well as within government. We will see the opportunity for input through a White Paper which will outline the strategy in a broad range of areas, from fiscal policy in economic development to social issues. That will be completed, as we say in the throne speech, this summer. The opportunity for everybody in British Columbia to participate in this sort of planning is offered by a government that believes in open government and consultation, which is a record to date and will be a record far into the future. That is a tremendous legacy, in my opinion.
Because of our strong and strategic location on the West coast of Canada, we see an enormous opportunity in the Pacific Rim, and we're offering leadership in that. We're looking forward to participating with our neighbours to the south in a free trade agreement, which opens trading horizons — which are really just limited by our imagination — to the people of British Columbia. New jobs, lower prices on a lot of commodities, expanded markets, closer ties with our neighbours....
I'll tell you something, Mr. Speaker, that perhaps other people in the House aren't aware of. The Ministry of Forests and Lands represents British Columbia on an organization called the — and it's a mouthful — Western States Legislative Forestry Task Force. It consists of two state senators and two state representatives from each of the states of Montana, Idaho, Washington, Oregon, California and Alaska — all of our neighbours. British Columbia and Alberta are associate members of that. We do a lot of things along our common borders that deal with forest management and especially forest protection. When it comes to forest protection, it's not only fire; it's insects and it's pathogens — diseases.
There is a great deal of cooperation by the agencies. Last year, the state of Oregon was having a very devastating fire season. They were overtaxing their supervisory personnel, and we were able to lend them 18 people from the B.C. Forest Service to assist them with their fire overheads and supervision. We did that because we're neighbours and because they needed the help, and we've had that sort of participation and assistance from our neighbours to the south. We see the same thing in the common border with Alaska up in the northwest. It's a pleasure to represent British Columbia on that task force.
We are all aware of the key role our Premier played in the finalization of the Meech Lake accord and the leadership he portrayed in those deliberations. And although we don't always seem to get a fair shake from our friends down east.... I have many relatives down east, being a Nova Scotian by birth and a British Columbian by choice — like my honoured friend across the way, our new grandfather, a British Columbian by choice; my congratulations to you and your family. Although we're often overlooked by our friends down cast, we are strong on Confederation and will continue to earn our spot in Confederation and ensure, by working closely with the federal government, that British Columbia receives its fair share in the different programs initiated by the federal government on the national scene.
[Mr. Pelton in the chair.]
One of the things that really excites me is that we're working positively, through the Ministry of Economic Development, to restructure the economic and regional development agreement, particularly in the realm of the forest resource development agreement. We are currently a little better than halfway through a five-year agreement on what we call FRDA, the forest resource development agreement, and that has helped British Columbia to catch up on backlog reforestation in areas where the Crown is responsible for reforestation. What we're looking forward to now is FRDA 11, as we call it — a little jargon in the Forest Service — which will help us develop an effective stand-tending program to ensure that all the reforestation efforts that have gone on before are well tended, well managed, well husbanded.
I speak in support of my colleague the Minister of Health (Hon. Mr. Dueck) and the initiatives that are outlined in this throne speech for 1988. I'm looking forward to seeing some of the proposals that he has here, especially the one to do with senior care centres and the opportunities that they offer for our seniors all over the province. It's interesting, people will tell you that Victoria is the retirement centre for British Columbia, for Canada: I have to tell you that many people appreciate the northwest, the north central area or the Kootenay country for a place to retire. Seeing this type of initiative, where specialists are available in one centre that avoids the confusion of being referred to many specialists that so many of our seniors encounter, I think is an incredible initiative for the whole province. I look forward to working with my colleague in developing that sort of initiative in the northwest.
Our health care in British Columbia is second to none in the world, but we all have a responsibility. every one of us, to make sure that we lead a healthy lifestyle and that we're less of a burden on our neighbours, so that our health care system will continue to deliver first-class care for those who genuinely need it.
Something else I am proud to see is the encouragement for hospitals to permit the alternative care practitioners into hospital privileges. As I and many people, I'm sure, in the Legislature and in British Columbia, have encountered, the services offered by folks like chiropractors and naturopaths are often the type of care and service that hospital-bound
[ Page 3494 ]
patients really require and until now haven't been able to achieve. They need to leave the hospital because these folks haven't been able to get hospital privileges. That type of initiative is real leadership, and I'm pleased to be part of a government that puts that into play.
Mr. Speaker, talking about health care comes into social services. We have an incredibly effective social service system in British Columbia, and it's important that that service be delivered to those who genuinely need it. The people that we have in that ministry work hard to ensure that the programs are delivered, and they work hard to make sure those programs are not abused, so that the funds are there for the people who really need it.
Mr. Speaker, education is really a social service, and this government is absolutely committed to our young people, their finest investment. I'm really proud to have been part of a government that can manage to increase funding to the education system and to come up with such innovative initiatives as a "Passport to Education." Some of the youngsters in my home town of Terrace have really changed their attitude towards their studies. They are seeing something on the horizon for a little bit of effort. As we all know, a carrot works a lot better than a stick.
My wife is a teacher, and both of us have gone through university and we've tried to encourage our kids and worked with them on their homework and so on, but nothing caught our young fellow's imagination like that "Passport to Education."
The throne speech refers to the fact that our colleges and our universities are agents for economic growth, and that's absolutely correct. The Northwest Community College in our region has served the people of the northwest very well, paying attention to the needs and the requirements of the region instead of coming up with some esoteric type of curriculum. They pay attention to what is necessary, where the job opportunities are, and where the career opportunities are, and they have delivered that service very well to all the small communities in the northwest and on the Queen Charlottes.
As Minister of State for North Coast, I'm working with my colleagues in the Nechako, Cariboo and Peace regions on the assessment of a university for the north, one that would probably be centered in Prince George. We're pleased to be working together; we've created a sort of a wave of enthusiasm by the educators in the north central and north coast area of the province, and before the year is out we hope to have the feasibility study complete, and I'm quite optimistic that we'll be rising in the House in support of a new university for this province.
Just touching on the minister of state initiative that our government has instituted, the opportunity for regional input to government through this initiative is incredible. In the north coast we have invited all the senior elected members of various levels of governments to participate in the regional economic group and the regional social services group. We have invited the mayors, chairmen of regional districts, hospital boards, college boards and school boards and presidents of labour councils. One day maybe they'll see fit to participate and contribute.
We've invited the presidents of chambers of commerce; we had the chairman of the health unit. But more importantly, we have invited the chiefs of band councils and presidents of tribal councils to participate. For too long the natives of our province have been left out of the planning of and participation in the economic development of the province. We are pleased on the north coast to welcome them as full members of our development groups. We've been working closely, and as a matter of fact, our meeting arrangements and structure are based on those suggested by a friend of mine in the Nishga Tribal Council. We're pleased that we can get natives and non-natives in the same room, focused on the same issues, working together and understanding one another better.
I'd like to touch on the forestry opportunities outlined in the throne speech. Last December this House passed amendments to the Forest Act that reflected the new directions in policies on basic silviculture introduced by this government early last fall. At first reading of the bill, I indicated that we believed the role of government is that of a manager, planner, facilitator and catalyst for the economy. The private sector's role, on the other hand, is to be responsible for commercial production of goods and services. Thanks to the passage of the amendments, we have now shifted the cost of responsibility for forest renewal on our harvested Crown lands from the government to the licensee.
At a recent conference on the future of forests, sponsored by the environmental studies program at the University of Victoria, this move was welcomed. One of the participants was a gentleman by the name of Neil Brett-Davies, a professional forester with MacMillan Bloedel. He's their manager of resource analysis. He said: "The ball is now in the companies' court, and the job will be well done." He has also made it quite clear that the industry believes that good silviculture is good economics.
Our forest industry is now assuming the full costs for basic silviculture, costs previously credited to stumpage accounts — in other words, carried by the Crown.
[3:45]
Another initiative is preharvest silviculture planning. That is now mandatory. We will enforce silviculture performance and will require audit to ensure that performance is more than adequate. In early February, the British Columbia Forest Service released a discussion paper, another means for many of our interested citizens to have consultation on and input into our policies. We released another discussion paper — this one on silviculture — on the regulations which would implement amendments to the Forest Act. We have now received numerous submissions from industry, associations, organizations and individuals, and we are now finalizing the regulations for release in the very near future.
To balance industry's new responsibilities in forest renewal, we will be bringing to companies the opportunity to acquire greater security of tenure. During this session of the Legislature we plan to introduce amendments to the Forest Act to allow the British Columbia Forest Service to increase the number of tree-farm licences in our province.
Often we have our forest industry, our forest resource, compared to performance in countries such as Finland or the Scandinavian countries, northern Europe, the States, but people fail to recognize the fact that more than 70 percent of the land base in every one of those jurisdictions is privately held. Here, over 90 percent of our land is publicly held, held by the Crown in trust for the people of British Columbia.
In order to emulate the forest management opportunities that are demonstrated in those different countries that I enumerated, we have a tenure system we call the tree-farm licence, which is area-based and gives a licensee an opportunity to manage a piece of land almost in perpetuity. As long
[ Page 3495 ]
as the performance is there, they continue to have the opportunity to manage that piece of land. That's as close as we can get to the sort of situation that happens in the Scandinavian countries, in Europe, etc., without alienating the land base. The foresters in our organization, the British Columbia Forest Service and our ministry, believe that this is a good, effective system, and so do 1, Mr. Speaker, and I endorse it. I look forward to bringing in during this session the necessary legislation.
We'll be moving from about 29 percent or 30 percent level of tenure in tree-farm licence to one of about two-thirds of the land base of the province as the productive forest land base. Those will all be done through public hearings. We will judge individual applications for tenure in terms of company performance and public interest.
The amendments we'll be introducing this session will also provide for the recapture of the allowable cut from the number of licensees throughout the province, so that we can lift that volume of competitive timber from just under 8 percent to about 15 percent — almost doubling it — so that we will provide additional opportunities for residents of British Columbia, newcomers to the industry, to be participators in the forest industry.
We are working with industry, placing a greater emphasis on product and technology research as we promote the production of value-added products in our province. We're helping them with their markets. We're working with the Ministry of Economic Development, who have set up a network over the world with the Canadian embassies, consulates and trade commissions so that we can identify new markets and new opportunities for the small operators in British Columbia.
We're working also towards the removal of tariff and nontariff barriers in the forest sector. Normative barriers are those that are selective specifications that kind of keep one of our wood products out of a certain market. For example, the spruce-pine-fir product out of the central interior has about an 8 percent tariff in Japan. It's very difficult to make inroads into that market with the SPF when you're competing with coastal hemlock, which is producing the same type of structural lumber, yet because it is hemlock and not SPF it bears no tariff. Our Ministry of Economic Development is working with us to try to get those types of situations lifted and clear the way.
Mr. Speaker, we're going to be introducing for discussion to the people of British Columbia a White Paper on wilderness recreation area management. Again, all those who are interested and concerned about this resource and this facet of forest management will have the opportunity to participate and to submit their concerns on the management policies for wilderness recreation areas.
All the incredibly great things outlined in this throne speech make me proud to be part of a government that's created a situation where I live that's.... We've lived there a number of years, and talking to our neighbours who have been there all their lives, things are just buzzing in the northwest. The opportunities there are many and varied, and I hope there are a number of people here in this House from southeastern and southwestern British Columbia who will see fit to come north and see the good life, visit, and maybe you'll drop anchor. There are many new jobs up there, and we need the expertise that this province has and offers.
We have the powerline into Stewart. We'll see sawmills up there in the not too distant future. We'll see the new Westmin mine underway in the very near future. We have a brand-new sawmill in Houston that's absolutely state-of-the art worldwide. We have a new sawmill going into Terrace that's going to scoop the one in Hazelton. We are looking at a situation with the pulp mill in Kitimat that will increase the number of jobs, increase the utilization and widen the product scope, increasing our market opportunities out of the northwest. We've seen highway improvement on Highway 16 west and reconstruction at Tyee. We'll be seeing more this year on Highway 16 west. We have reconstructed Highway 37A. We'll work cooperatively with the communities of Stewart and Hyder to make sure that they are linked with the Alaska Marine Highway and the tourist operations and opportunities.
It's a good time to be in British Columbia, Mr. Speaker, and I'm proud to stand here and support this throne speech.
MR. BLENCOE: Before I get into any specific discussion of topics let me, on behalf of Victoria and the constituents I represent, welcome all the MLAs for a new session. All of you make Victoria your part-time home. I hope and I'm sure that my constituents, the people of Victoria, will treat you well and kindly and look after you, as they always have done when MLAs stay in the great capital of the province of British Columbia.
Mr. Speaker. let me congratulate you on your appointment and congratulate all those others who have been given the privilege of officers of this House.
I've heard a number of throne speeches in the last few years. They all have the same ring about them. They all tell the people of British Columbia how well the government is doing. They're usually full of clichés and recycled news releases. I don't think this throne speech has really changed. I've heard a number of people in the last few days on behalf of the government basically sound like a group of cheerleaders, trying to convince themselves — because 1 think there are even some government members who have to be convinced — that this government is on the right course.
The members smile, and they know what I'm talking about. They know that not only are the majority of British Columbians today wondering about what kind of government they have in place, but there are within the ranks of Social Credit members those who are greatly disenchanted, frustrated.
HON. MR. REID: Not so. Name names.
MR. BLENCOE: I don't have to name names. They've been on the front pages of papers, Mr. Member.
MR. VANT: Media perceptions.
MR. BLENCOE: Well, you could call it a media perception, hon. member for the Cariboo, but you know it really sometimes would be useful for a government like we have today — which really is in deep, deep trouble at home — to reflect on the last year or so and what you came into government saying.
Many British Columbians wanted this government to live up to the expectations that the Premier and the election propaganda.... They wanted him to live up to those thoughts of open government, integrity in government, doing the right thing for the people of British Columbia, leading us
[ Page 3496 ]
to the next century in an atmosphere of optimism and fairness, and developing a consensus on the critical issues that face the people of the province. We've heard those words. particularly from the Premier. No major decisions will be made for people without consulting the people — we remember those words — open government, fresh start. But where are we now? A year and a bit later and although this government may not wish to admit it, there is out there in the province a degree of cynicism.
They've been let down. They were hoping for something different; they really were. They were hoping for a government that would believe, for example, in democratic institutions and principles and uphold them and cherish them. But we've seen that in the last few months it's not accurate, and all sorts of events have taken place. Not just in the estimation of this side of the House, but of people in many quarters of the province, it's a government that really doesn't take very seriously the traditions of this House and this parliament —longstanding traditions of the Legislature on how decisions should be made in British Columbia.
[4:00]
We were told — once again, in terms of this institution being the focus for issues and decision-making — that the committees of this House would consult with the people of British Columbia on critical issues of the day, that we would have openness and a different approach. And what have we had? We've had confrontation, upset and, as the member for New Westminster (Ms. A. Hagen) said today, a government that appears to be quite rudderless — no direction at all.
I've heard member after member defend this throne speech talking, for instance, about what they're doing in education and what they're doing for children. Yet this is the same government that over the last few weeks has consistently said they refuse to feed hungry children in British Columbia. What are people supposed to believe? Do you think they can believe you really are concerned about children and education? When we have a dramatic need — and it's been documented that thousands of children in this province are hungry — the government has enunciated a policy that it is not prepared to enter into any kind of program that would try to feed those hungry children. What a reflection on a government that has lost any sense of right, justice, equality and fairness in British Columbia! They won't feed hungry children.
There was nothing at all in the throne speech about the concept of integrity in government, or the problem of conflict of interest in government. In the last year the people of British Columbia have seen scandal after scandal — not just in the last year; it's been the history of the last five years in this province. Social Credit members, for whatever reasons, have been getting themselves into positions of conflict of interest, and the Premier refuses to recognize that public business and private business are totally different and that there has to be a difference between the two. There was not a word in the throne speech that you're prepared to deal with that issue, to bring back confidence to the people of British Columbia that when you're doing public business you are going to be totally clean. We didn't see that. Consequently, integrity in government in the province of British Columbia remains an issue. Yet we see no attempt by this government to admit that that is indeed an issue to the people of British Columbia.
There was nothing in the speech that would admit one little bit that privatization and decentralization have been ill-conceived programs, haven't been thought out properly, and that the dramatic impact upon this province in many areas has sent us back a long way. We have asked consistently for this government to give us the evidence, to table the studies, to do the cost-benefit analysis of privatization to show to the people of British Columbia that they are going to benefit by privatization. Yet there is absolutely no admission in this throne speech that they are going to do that.
MR. BARNES: I just wondered if you could advise the House, Mr. Speaker, whether or not there is a quorum at this moment.
DEPUTY SPEAKER: Including myself, there is, hon. member — I was just counting.
MR. BARNES: What is a quorum, Mr. Speaker?
DEPUTY SPEAKER: Ten.
MR. BARNES: Well, we have nine, right?
DEPUTY SPEAKER: No, I'm included.
MR. BARNES: How many members are there in this House? Do you remember? Sixty-nine?
DEPUTY SPEAKER: That's right.
MR. BARNES: I just wondered. Thank you for that help.
MR. BLENCOE: We don't disagree that a government in power obviously has the authority to set policy and a direction. But there comes a time when the people do speak out and say certain things about policy, and you'd think a government would take another look. It's incredible that in this throne speech there wasn't an admission of "let's have another look," in the interest of good government, in the interest of open government, in the interest of fair government.
We didn't see that. What we see is a government that is prepared with its Premier to carry on that road, that zealous road, with blind faith, no analysis, to that great heaven of privatization and all the benefits that it supposedly will bring to the people of British Columbia. Where is the analysis? Where was the throne speech telling the people of British Columbia that now we've had this government in for, it seems, far longer than since October 1986...?
We've now got this program full tilt, but have we seen the analysis, for instance, of the selling off of the highways division, the privatization of the highways division, or the maintenance? Have we seen the proof that the people of the province of British Columbia will be better off by this government's program in that area? No proof at all. What it is is a dogmatic belief that if it's in the private sector it's automatically going to be better. Blind faith.
The people of British Columbia are a little more sophisticated than that. The electors are a little more sophisticated than that. They say: "You're managing our assets and if you want to sell our assets, tell us why. How are we going to benefit? What's the net return?" But we haven't had one statement in this throne speech that tells us they are prepared to do that analysis on behalf of the people of British Columbia.
[ Page 3497 ]
So the truck moves on, the zealots are still in control —and we've seen that over the last few months — blind faith, personal views, overwhelming decisions that should be made for a plural society, and I refer to the abortion issue. Government should be, in a democracy, in the business of achieving consensus on critical issues that are going to dramatically affect every single person living in a society, in this case the province of British Columbia.
But there is no desire on the part of this Premier or this government to achieve consensus on these important issues that are being inflicted on the people of the province of British Columbia. There is no desire at all. It's one person, it appears, and his belief that he is automatically right in the critical issues that face the people of British Columbia, and to heck with any other opinion or any other viewpoint or any other way of approaching the people's business in the province of British Columbia.
What kind of democracy are we running in the province of British Columbia? The people of British Columbia deserve better. They've gone through the last ten years of turmoil, upheaval, from the Bennett austerity program, and now what have we got? We've got this crazy, zany bunch of zealots who are saying they know what to do with the province of British Columbia — privatize it, sell it off — and a Premier who says, "I know best and I'm not going to listen to anybody," even to his own cabinet ministers, even to his own backbenchers, even to his own party presidents, even to his own rank and file.
I may disagree with this government, but it is the government of the province of British Columbia. I don't want a ship that is rudderless, because the people of the province of British Columbia need a government that at least knows its direction, where it's going. We at least need stability in the province of British Columbia so the people of this province can flourish, so that the captains of industry in other parts of Canada and North America know that this is a stable society to invest in.
AN HON. MEMBER: That's why the NDP won't get elected.
MR. BLENCOE: Well, Mr. Speaker, I'll get to the 13 years of Socred incompetence and financial incompetence in a minute.
The uncertainty and the instability. The people have no clear idea of where this government is taking us. They certainly did not get it from the throne speech.
After what this government did to the working people of British Columbia with Bills 19 and 20, and the criticism that that legislation mounted in the province from all sides of the political spectrum, I would have expected this government to have something in the throne speech that recognized the contribution of working people to the province. Not one word about working people in the province in the throne speech.
This government refuses to admit that the last year in British Columbia, in terms of guiding this province to a full economy, to greater employment and to a sense of future — indeed, if I may say vision — we have not had that. What we've got is a government that appears to refuse to step back, as W.A.C. Bennett used to do, and say: "Let's have another look. Maybe the citizens of British Columbia are telling us something. Maybe there is a message we should take." There is an impression in British Columbia that the policies that are before us and that we've seen in the last year are not being developed for the majority of the people of the province but are being developed for ulterior motives and for personal reasons on behalf of the Premier. This is his personal mission, his vision of what British Columbia should be and of what British Columbians should believe in. That's very dangerous. We are a plural society. We are a society made up of all sorts of cultural groups and viewpoints. It's incumbent upon any government to listen to all sides on an issue. But we have had, and we continue to have — and the throne speech did not show any different direction — a government that is going down a road, saying: "We know best. Stand aside. We're going to get there because we believe, brother, we believe." That is not how democracy works.
[4:15]
AN HON. MEMBER: That's how it works in Red Square.
MR. BLENCOE: I'll treat that comment with the contempt it deserves.
There was nothing in this throne speech that talked about the educators in British Columbia, those at the university level, those in the schools who serve and educate our children. There was talk about the independent schools but nothing about the education system and nothing that would indicate to those in the schools, both educators and children, that this government is prepared to bring back peace and harmony into the schools. Over the last five years our schools have been war zones.
Interjection.
MR. BLENCOE: Yes, they have. We know that. There have been fights, internal hassles. The government, for whatever reason, has been determined to see teachers as a scapegoat in the political arena. Mr. Speaker, whatever side you take, there comes a time — whoever is in government — to say enough is enough. Let's bring some stability and harmony back into the system. Let's recognize teachers and recognize how important it is to our future and stop seeing it as something that is a drain on the economy, something that we have to spend money on. Education is our future. We continue in this province to underfund. We don't recognize the importance of education in our future, and don't give it the level of importance it deserves.
There was nothing in this throne speech about the importance of local government — nothing at all. We've had, in the last year since the last UBCM, major change in terms of policy that reflects upon local government, and I refer to the ministers of state system and the so-called decentralization that this government is trying to introduce.
I don't have to say — it's being said all over the province — that there is deep apprehension about the ministers of state system, that it is usurping the traditional role of local government, and that you don't need another level of bureaucracy to do what local government has the ability to do. You don't need it. All we can conclude is that the ministers of state system is the dream of the Premier to come back and introduce his own land use act, which he left cabinet for — you all remember that — in a huff; he called his cabinet ministers gutless. We all know that in that land use act there were over 50 ways the provincial government and the minister at the time — the Premier today — could overturn local decisions made by local government.
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There is no need for another level of bureaucracy in the ministers of state system. Local governments have the ideas, the strategies and the economic policies to deliver the things to their regions, in terms of economic development. We can only conclude that this Premier and this government — this Premier in particular, as he has centralized provincial decision-making into his office over here — wants to ensure that he and those who work for him now have a greater control over local government and the agenda of local government.
On this side of the House, we have for years and years consistently talked about real decentralization and devolution of power in the province of British Columbia — real decentralization. We don't need an inner sanctum cabinet of instant millionaires reporting to the Premier about what's happening in the regions. We don't need that; it's not necessary. We don't need that extra cost or that control over local government.
In our estimation, what you have to do is empower the regions with decision-making ability in areas that are traditionally controlled by the provincial government. Let local government govern, Mr. Speaker. That's the motto. You have democratically elected regional officials who know their regions the best. They know their strengths and their weaknesses; they have community ideas; and they know what decisions are necessary for economic development. All you have to do is give them the power or the policies or the legislation to go into the areas in which they feel they can benefit, in terms of economic development. That's what many regions in the province were waiting for prior to the announcement at UBCM. They're waiting for changes in policy or legislation which would allow them to move into areas which would commit them to do the economic development, without Victoria running the show. Local councils should be the economic developers in the province of British Columbia. They don't need ministers of state from Victoria to tell them how to do it. They don't need it.
We need to look at structures in the province of British Columbia and to allow the locally elected officials and local councils.... How can they get involved, for instance, in resource management and allocation of resources? How can local councils have a greater say in land use matters or water resource matters in their region? That's the direction we should be going: real decentralization. How to share resource revenues: that's what we should be talking about, and how local government can have a greater share in those resource revenues — on an equal basis, I might add — throughout the province.
We need to look at economic strategies that come from the local level up. What we have now, with the minister of state system, is another control over local government and a provincial government that now wishes to set the agenda for local government in terms of economic development. We do not accept that kind of control. We do not think it is necessary. We certainly think it is bureaucratic, inefficient and costly to the people of the province.
To give you an example, when we were in government we introduced the concept of resource boards in a number of locations. In our estimation that was real decentralization, where in social and health issues, local boards were elected. There was one in my community, in James Bay. They were elected to make decisions about health matters and social issues in their neighbourhood or in their area.
MR. BARNES: Who abolished them?
MR. BLENCOE: The Premier of the province abolished the Vancouver Resources Board, and the current Minister of Economic Development (Hon. Mrs. McCarthy) abolished the one in my community. Yet we have a government today which is going to introduce this new project in Victoria, basically a concept that we introduced some years ago in the province.
The reason I give that example about James Bay and those resource boards is that we were prepared to give local people decision-making authority. We were prepared to give them control over their own affairs in their own neighbourhoods and communities. That is different from this Premier's view of decentralization, which is power grab, which is: "How can we control the agenda of local government?"
MR. LOVICK: Despite the name, right?
MR. BLENCOE: Despite the name; that's right, Mr. Speaker.
Let me say in closing that we will continue to speak up for local government. We will continue to speak up for real decentralization, because we think it's most important in this diverse province with unique regions that those regions be given greater control over their own affairs.
MR. VANT: I take this opportunity to commend the Speaker, the hon. member for West Vancouver-Howe Sound (Hon. Mr. Reynolds), for the fine job he is doing; I am glad that you, the first member for Dewdney (Mr. Pelton), have been re-elected Deputy Speaker; and I'm more than delighted that the member for Yale-Lillooet (Mr. Rabbitt) is the Chairman of the Committee of the Whole.
I listened with great interest to the second member for Victoria (Mr. Blencoe), and I'm happy to report to the whole House that he has kept his word. He said to me in an aside before he spoke that he wasn't going to say much, and he didn't.
I want to say that I always feel welcome here in this fair city of Victoria. Many people I run into here have always expressed a very keen interest in Social Credit and in the openness and the willingness of our government to consult. The hon. second member for Victoria mentioned our select standing committees, and I can say with all honesty and integrity that the one I serve on — the Select Standing Committee on Forests and Lands — has been going out into the province and has been working with the people on their concerns. So we are getting closer to addressing problems out there with the people most directly affected.
In the Cariboo, the people have never faltered — never failed to support Social Credit. We believe in and we practise free enterprise. A healthy private sector, we in the Cariboo know full well, generates the revenue necessary for the social and economic security that we all need.
The throne speech indicates that this government will continue to guide us on the path of prosperity, to enable people to have opportunities as children, as students, as parents, as workers, as tradespersons, as service-providers, as entrepreneurs, as investors, as professionals, as senior citizens. Everyone everywhere has a fair portion of what British Columbia has to offer. As is the great principle of our party, we insist that there be equal opportunities for all and special privileges for none.
This government and this Premier have announced and taken very bold initiatives. These are very necessary in a
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constantly changing world. Change has to be met head-on with bold initiatives and, I might say, a positive attitude.
Change, of course, is not new. Our great province was sparsely populated by our first citizens. They survived on the abundance of fish and wildlife so prevalent in an undeveloped land. The first Europeans, after their arrival, interacted with the indigenous people in connection with the fur trade. The Cariboo had Alexander Mackenzie follow the Indians' grease trail to the Pacific Ocean way back in 1793. He defined a route from the Blackwater country just north and west of Quesnel to the Pacific Ocean at Bella Coola.
[4:30]
Indeed, back in 1808, Simon Fraser explored the river bearing his name. He was accompanied by his lieutenant, Maurice Quesnel. The Quesnel River and the present city of Quesnel are named after him. This primitive economy, this primitive transportation system of traveling along trails and canoe routes, gradually changed. With the discovery of gold, mining brought in thousands of people. The government's first road-to-resources program began in the early 1860s and was completed in 1865 with the building of the first Cariboo road. Stopping-houses along that road began the ranching and farming industry in the Cariboo. The needs of that early traveling public were met. Stern-wheelers moved people and goods from Soda Creek to Quesnel and on to Fort George.
In 1871, British Columbia joined the Confederation of the Dominion of Canada.
MR. CLARK: And you're trying to get out now.
MR. VANT: Well, we're considering our membership in this confederation, for sure.
Out of 25 MLAs in that first Legislature, no fewer than three came from the Cariboo.
MR. RABBITT: How many socialists?
MR. VANT: None. We have never had and never will have a socialist represent our great area.
But by then, the Cariboo economy was beginning to be diversified. We had mining and whipsawn lumber, and more and more cattle ranches were being carved out of the bush. The inhabitants of the Cariboo came from all over the world. There were the Forty-niners from California and people from every country in Europe. No fewer than 4,000 Chinese participated in the Cariboo gold rush.
In 1870, Keen's store was founded in Quesnel, and the descendants, such as Charlie, Harry and Bob Keen, still live in Quesnel and are still good corporate citizens today.
Everyone was welcome to come and settle. People waited and waited for the government in Ottawa to keep its promise to build a railroad to British Columbia. It took them no less than 14 years. We waited from 1871 to 1885 for the goods to be delivered. But eventually, our patience paid off. Great things happened. Hastings Mill eventually became the great city of Vancouver.
MR. CLARK: You made this speech last year.
MR. VANT: The second member for Vancouver East should appreciate the beginnings.
The point is, Mr. Speaker, change and bold initiatives were necessary for that to happen. Indeed, in the 1920s the Pacific Great Eastern Railway came up to the Cariboo, That linked us to tidewater at Squamish. Finally, in 1952, the great W.A.C. Bennett linked Prince George and the Cariboo to North Vancouver. At last our great timber resources could be harvested, processed and shipped to market.
Since the dawning of the new age in British Columbia in 1952, we have seen a power and put together, natural gas pipelines put in and. believe it or not, a lot of pavement laid beyond Hope. All this has created jobs. Pulp mills were possible; finished lumber products could be shipped from our area to the United States. Indeed, Peace River grain could be shipped to feed Cariboo cattle at a very reasonable cost. A vast first-class road network opened up all parts of the Cariboo, so it is easy and safe to drive to places like Nazko, Likely, Keithley Creek or Alexis Creek.
My colleague the hon. first member for Cariboo (Mr. A. Fraser) did much to enhance our roads. Indeed, even circle routes are now possible for the tourists. We build straight, good roads to resources and to our communities, but our visitors like to go in a circle. More and more of our 8,000 lakes are now accessible.
Our province's strong economy due to the excellent leadership of this government has caused more and more housing starts. Housing sales and retail sales are up throughout the Cariboo.
During the recession. the lumber industry spent millions and millions of dollars in the Cariboo to upgrade their plants. Productivity has increased. This year, more than $130 million will be spent expanding and upgrading the Quesnel River Pulp and Cariboo Pulp mills at Quesnel. This increased investment is 50 percent Japanese, concrete evidence that, yes indeed, we are on the Pacific Rim.
Last year, enough dimension lumber was shipped from this province to Japan to build more than 40,000 homes. Markets are indeed expanding on the Pacific Rim. Meanwhile, 100 Mile House has become the log home building capital of Canada, and a good portion of their finished log home packages are shipped to Japan and to Europe.
Exciting things are in store for the southern part of the Cariboo. With Pacific Rim markets in mind, our weed-tree timber can be manufactured into a very high-quality product. Increased investment of millions of dollars and new jobs will come on stream as a result. This will be the initiative of a home-grown entrepreneur.
In the Cariboo over 80 percent of our dimension lumber products are currently shipped to the United States. We have to continue to strive to diversify our market and our product line as well. And so, yes, we must promote free trade with the United States and every country we can. We know we can compete.
Over the years C&C Wood Products at Quesnel, under the innovative, inventive guiding hand of Joe Cerasa, has developed into a first-class $6 million plant producing firstclass pine and cedar paneling and laminated furniture stock, and using waste 2-by-4 shorts to make lattice boards: all value-added products. This plant now employs 60 people.
Interjections.
MR. VANT: I can tell. Mr. Speaker, from the mutterings in the socialist corner of the House —that they seem to be against the gainful employment of people.
This particular plant uses a low volume of wood. It is both value-added and employment-intensive, and their products are shipped around the world, to Europe, Asia and Australia.
[ Page 3500 ]
1 must admit, Mr. Speaker, that there are some opponents to free trade, but we in this government know that free trade will be good for British Columbia. We know we cannot ignore the political realities of hardball American protectionism. The alternative to free trade is not the status quo. but it would be a trade dispute in which we would have only one tenth the power of our major trading competition. People should not forget that much of the suffering during the Great Depression of the 1930s resulted from a trade war started by the protectionist-inspired Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act in the United States, which in the end caused Japan to go to war.
So we in British Columbia must support free trade to keep the $150 billion of annual trade going between the United States and Canada.
MR. MILLER: What about state intervention by that great American President?
MR. VANT: We believe in small government and the promotion of free enterprise, and we will not get into another depression, and those drastic state interventionist methods will not be needed because of free trade.
I can see markets opening up all around the Pacific Rim. We in British Columbia — yes, including us in the Cariboo — do not have to rely so much on the United States market.
MR. MILLER: Do they agree with privatization?
MR. VANT: They certainly do. As I said earlier — if you were here, hon. member for Prince Rupert — they are solidly free enterprise, and they have faith in the private sector.
Currently 48 percent of all wood products shipped from B.C., and 33 percent of our pulp and paper shipments, are exported to the United States. Free trade will secure access to that important United States market.
In the Cariboo we harvest over 40,000 hectares of timber annually. At that rate, it would take another 80 years to harvest all the mature forest in the Cariboo forest region. I am delighted that this throne speech contemplates legislation to ensure reforestation of all harvested areas. We in the Cariboo have an increased awareness of the care and nurture of our very important forests, thanks to an initial study by the village of 100 Mile House, who have used every government program available to put people to work, thinning natural regenerated juvenile stands — and yes, Mr. Member in the socialist comer of the House, many planting.
This has led to the forest proposal for the entire Cariboo forest region put forward by the city of Quesnel, the city of Williams Lake and the village of 100 Mile House, working with the Ministry of Forests. The proposal is that from $7 million to $15 million a year will be spent over a ten-year program, for a total of $137 million in intensive silviculture treatments. This allows for juvenile spacing, brushing, sanitation and site rehabilitation. This would be carried out on a total of no less than 275,000 hectares, to improve future quality and supply of timber. This program would create over 4,000 man-years of direct employment in the forests.
MR. RABBITT: Jobs.
MR. VANT: People want meaningful work — yes, jobs, as the hon. member for Yale-Lillooet says. They want a sense of pride and accomplishment, not welfare. The long-term benefits from this proposal will be employment and, as I've said, a great improvement in our timber quality and in our supplies.
We welcome the restructuring of the economic and regional development agreement with the federal government. In terms of our forests, we need a new forest regional development agreement now — we could call it a FRDA 11 — to ensure that we get our fair share from Ottawa, to continue in conjunction with the private sector this important reforestation.
Seedling production has to be planned ahead. We have to know now that we have the means to plant all those seedlings. With the new stumpage system and the industry's contribution to silviculture costs, the Cariboo Lumber Manufacturers' members this year will pay a projected $130 million to the government for the timber that it consumes. So we do contribute substantially, and I do trust that it's not more than what the industry can afford. The industry, after all, needs capital to keep upgrading their plants and to keep them efficient and productive.
[Mr. Weisgerber in the chair]
The government's promise in the throne speech to examine and review the tax structure in the mineral industry is most welcome. This I am sure will result in positive action in response to the mineral industry's task force report — produced last year, incidentally, at the request of our leader and our Premier. Yes, we on the government side of the House always welcome advice and information from the industry itself. This leads to good government, government close to and responsive to its many constituents.
Finally, I'd like to say a word or two about the Meech Lake accord. Alex Macdonald, QC, and Pierre Elliott Trudeau are against it; it must be good. After all, B.C.'s power will be enhanced. The fiscal decentralization provided in the Meech Lake accord is, I believe, a very beneficial development. History has shown that Ottawa's superior revenue raising possibilities make a mockery at times of the constitutional division of powers in health, post-secondary education and welfare. We seem to be at the mercy of judges more and more these days. I see no harm in British Columbia having the right to submit names for appointments to the Supreme Court of Canada. I know that this House will pass an appropriate resolution concerning the Meech Lake accord and constitutional amendment well before the deadline of June 23, 1990.
[4:45]
This throne speech reaffirms our well-founded faith in the private sector. This throne speech addresses concerns of every part of this province. The government is getting closer to the people in every region of the province. Indeed, in the Cariboo development region, the key elected people are very positive about our restructuring, about our decentralization. Ask the mayor of Prince George or the mayor of Mackenzie or the mayor of Quesnel. This has not been an imposition from the top. It's not centralization; it's being responsive to their concerns, their dreams, their aspirations.
I must say, Mr. Speaker, that my only disappointment in the regional development initiative in the great Cariboo development region is that the first hon. member for Cariboo (Mr. A. Fraser) hasn't been well enough to attend our meetings. Moreover, the member for Prince George North (Mrs. Boone) so far has not responded to our very cordial invitations.
[ Page 3501 ]
1 find that amazing because, back in the dark ages between 1972 and 1975, there was very briefly a socialist member from Prince George, Mr. Alf Nunweiler, who was appointed a minister without portfolio and given all kinds of money through special warrants to set up a big office in Prince George to oversee development in the north. So when we look at the history of the socialist party in this province, they at one time gave very tangible....
MR. MILLER: What happened to Alf Nunweiler?
MR. VANT: He got defeated, of course. The member got defeated.
MR. MILLER: Why?
MR. VANT: Well, he was a socialist, but there was an interest in development throughout the region at that time. It is sad that the current members seem to have lost that interest.
Yes, there is a lot of meat in this throne speech. No one who reads it — and I wish more members sitting in the socialist corner of the House would actually take the time to read it — can say: "Where's the beef?" It is there. There are over 36 major initiatives. There is something for everyone. Jobs and education for youth, health care, safety of motor vehicles are all addressed.
It is a pleasure to support this throne speech of the second session of the thirty-fourth parliament.
MR. D'ARCY: Mr. Speaker, I'm glad to see that you're now from the interior, if not the northern part of the province, because there are some things there which I want to talk about.
HON. MR. STRACHAN: The sunny side of the mountains.
MR. D'ARCY: The sunny side of the mountains, right.
I was very pleased to hear the member for Skeena (Hon. Mr. Parker) take his place in this debate earlier this afternoon, because he's the Minister of Forests and we have many concerns, especially in my area, regarding the present administration of the forest industry.
I suppose our most immediate concern is the arbitrarily imposed — and highly arbitrary — new stumpage formula which has been imposed on the operators within the region — I might say, without proper consultation and without taking into account the market forces which affect operations. I think it is generally conceded that the provincial government should have been for a number of years getting a much better return on the trees which they, on behalf of the people of British Columbia — in sacred trust, I might say — have owned. They should have been getting for a number of years a much better return.
It is patently clear that when the government finally decided to act, spurred on, I might say, by our friends to the south and their desire to put a countervailing tariff on wood, the policy was a singularly coastally oriented policy in terms of getting the revenue. That is, most of the additional revenue which the government is getting from the forest industry is coming from interior operators and northern operators. That is primarily because the government — and I don't know how much input the member for Skeena had or how little — perceived, quite correctly, that the forest industry, particularly the sawmill industry but the pulp and paper industry as well in the interior and north, was far more efficient than it was on the coast.
The fact is that the mills of the interior and north and the loggers of the interior and north have been penalized because they were doing such a good job. Most are surviving at the present time because the market situation is fairly good. But we all know that the only thing you can predict with certainty in the forest industry — in fact, in virtually every commodity being sold on a world market — is that there is great instability in those markets, and prices are even more cyclical than the weather. When times act tough, a great many of the independent operators, especially the non-integrated ones, the not large multinational corporate ones, are going to have a great deal of trouble surviving.
In particular, this is because the government has — and this amazes me; for a party that likes to say, and I think we have heard.... There was a speaker recently on my left who indicated that he felt his party was oriented to free enterprise, to the market. Well. if the stumpage formula were more market-oriented, which the formula was — inadequate as it was, it nonetheless was market-oriented and price oriented.... If the new formula were more market-oriented, rather than simply designed to maximize revenue for government, then it would be somewhat more fair. Nobody likes paying taxes, but the fact is that people will pay taxes when they have the ability to pay. But when commodity prices decline in the forest industry — and they will, because they always have — many highly modem, highly efficient operations will no longer have that ability to pay. Some of them are going to be in a lot of trouble.
I was happy to hear the minister, and the Lieutenant Governor the other day, say that there was going to be a major push in reforestation to ensure that all lands were properly reforested. Well, I've been hearing this sort of thing in speeches from the throne for 16 years, but hope springs eternal. Let's take the Lieutenant-Governor at his word and say that maybe he's going to come through this time.
Mr. Speaker, I don't want to simply hear statements from government about planting X number of millions of trees. What we want to know, and what the people of the province really want to know, is: how many acres or square miles are being replanted, sufficiently restocked relative to the amount being logged; and how much is being recovered of the forest sector, especially the fast-growing areas, out of that which has not been satisfactorily restocked over the years? That's what the public wants to know, not how many millions of trees have been put forward, because, of course, we don't know how many have died, how many were dead when they went in the ground, or how many are going to be thinned out before they reach maturity.
So in order to maintain that industry we have, particularly in the Kootenays, major concerns about the stumpage formula, the government's attitude toward the industry — which is no longer market-oriented, which amazes me.... Well, it shouldn't amaze me. I've always thought there was a lot of lip-service paid to free enterprise on the other side; but when it came to actual practice, they had a frontage tax mentality when it came to collecting revenue and an urban-oriented mentality, particularly with respect to the interior producers of fibre for mills — a coastal orientation that rewards inefficiency and disinvestment, as in these 30- and 40-year-old mills that are quite endemic on the coast of British Columbia,
[ Page 3502 ]
and penalizes the operators in the interior and north who are modern, efficient and can compete too well in world markets for many of the coastal multinationals' liking.
Mr. Speaker, I don't want to spend my whole speech on the forest industry, but I want to bring up another area of concern that is a situation throughout the entire province, and I think you probably even have it in yours. There is a surplus of residual chips in British Columbia that's especially acute in the southern interior and the West Kootenays. The sawmill industry in B.C. is simply producing more residual chips than the pulp and paper industry is capable of absorbing. There needs to be a major expansion in the province in pulp and paper. I know the government can't simply conjure somebody up who's going to write a cheque for $750 million and produce a new major mill somewhere. But the fact remains that the markets are extremely good, and I think we all know from the past that governments have ways and means. We see an initiative taken by Alcan in the Vanderhoof area — whether it will come to fruition or not, we don't know — providing incentives for investors to invest in a major new operation and take advantage of some of this surplus. There's a tremendous amount of wastage of decadent wood. We in the West Kootenays have perhaps the highest concentration of decadent and low-value fibre. There is a tremendous wastage of chips throughout the province, and a tremendous export of chips.
Much has been made about the export of raw logs from the province; that is bad enough. If you check some of the rail sidings near the 49th parallel throughout the southern interior, you'll see a lot of chip cars lined up, and they're not CP chip cars. They're chip cars that belong to the Burlington Northern and other U.S. railways, and those chip cars are removing chips from British Columbia to mills in the United States. They're going there because there is absolutely no place for those residuals to go in Canada — let alone in British Columbia. The only alternative is to use them for hog fuel, if you couldn't sell them to American buyers.
So clearly there is that need. That need is especially acute in the West Kootenay. Whether we need an expansion or modernization of an existing operation or a totally new — to use the industry jargon — greenfields mill I suppose would be up to the government and investors. But certainly it is a major need in the province.
Mr. Speaker, the government has talked — and there were some references in the throne speech — about foreign trade initiative. This is another favourite discussion of government in British Columbia: how we're going to optimize and maximize our Pacific Rim contacts. When the government of B.C. thinks of the Pacific Rim, they think exclusively of the countries of eastern and southeast Asia, Japan, Korea, China, mainland China, Taiwan, Malaysia, Singapore and Australia and New Zealand.
Probably one of the most significant traders and players in the Pacific Rim is the Soviet Union. I don't know what we have to do to get the government to wake up to the fact that the Soviet Union is a Pacific Rim country. Perhaps a phone call to San Clemente and getting Richard Nixon to go over there and play ping-pong with some Soviet official in Vladivostok might wake them up. I believe there are significant trade opportunities to be had between British Columbia and the Soviet Union on the Pacific Rim, and I think that the government should be far more actively exploring those opportunities and encouraging industry and investors in British Columbia to explore those industries on their own.
[5:00]
1 have one more point on the forest industry, Mr. Speaker, and that is — you haven't considered it out of order before, so I hope you don't now — that I think most British Columbians, in theory or in principle, are in favour of free trade. But we all know that one of the major problems with the federal government's trade deal is that it doesn't give us free trade. Many of us thought that there would be some relief from countervailing tariffs and from anti-dumping regulations which can be passed merely on allegations, and we know what the Americans have done. If they can't get you on a countervail under one set of laws, they simply say: we'll change the rules, and then we'll get you on another set. The fact is they can countervail and provide anti-dumping laws any time they want, and the trade arrangement does not provide relief from tariffs applied against our forest industry. That is a major problem.
As a noted economist, Abraham Rotstein, has said: the problem with the so-called free trade agreement is that it gives free trade a bad name. That's the problem with it. It doesn't give us free trade. If it did, 1 believe that, apart from a few completely unreconstructable total Canadian nationalists, it would meet far greater approval among the Canadian population.
I have one point before I leave the area of industry which, in my riding, could be affected by that. The throne speech makes some reference to wanting to enhance and support the agricultural industry in British Columbia. Mr. Speaker, we in the West Kootenay really have only one successful area of commercial agriculture. We have a lot of people who have agricultural operations — sort of farm gate operations. But we have only one area of viable commercial operation and only one area of food processing, and that's the dairy industry. British Columbia dairy products are the highest quality, I believe, in the world — and the best-tasting. I would not like to see our dairy industry hurt in any way by this trade agreement, either now or in the future, because of the quality of these products and the fact that, in my area at least, it is the only successful commercial agricultural operation or foodprocessing operation which has ever survived the ups and downs of economic life that particularly affect the agricultural industry in British Columbia.
I want to talk about education for just a moment, particularly as it applies in my area. The government once again.... It's like the tree-planting analogy. They said we put $175 million in. Doesn't that sound good? They claim that is better than the other western provinces. Well, I've made a couple of phone calls, and I find out that in British Columbia this year the average school board which has already approved its budget, just to maintain programs, is thinking of applying to every dwelling unit — not just every home — a tax increase that ranges from $30 to $60 just to maintain their existing levels. That's not happening in the rest of western Canada or in the province of Ontario. We're not seeing an expansion of programs, but we are seeing increases in taxes at the local levels. So for the government to say that they're putting in X millions of dollars doesn't really mean very much when the local taxpayer is having to come up with money simply to maintain the standards which exist.
We also see in the throne speech the usual platitude about how we must give our young people the tools to do the job. What we must do is give the educational system and the people in it the tools to do the job so that they can do the
[ Page 3503 ]
responsible thing for our young people in this province before they go out into the world and into the marketplace.
One of the major concerns that I have in the two school districts in my riding — and I find out it's true elsewhere in the province — is that as the province has closed various institutions for the severely handicapped — for instance, Tranquille — and as these people have come more and more into the community and been main-streamed, there have been some funds made available for these special needs people but there have not been sufficient funds for those with special learning problems. Whether those special learning problems are some learning disability — not unintelligent, but some learning disability — or because of brilliance, what I found out by checking with school board after school board and parent group after parent group is that generally speaking in the lower grades, say, kindergarten to grade 6, there is reasonably adequate provision in most school districts for those with special needs. The problem exists in the higher grades.
Mr. Speaker, I don't want to get too much into education estimates, but I want to talk about giving the students of this province the tools to do the job. If you're essentially going to abandon those with special needs when they hit grade 7.... We all know that a grade 6 education is simply not adequate to cope with life as we have it.
Interjections.
MR. D'ARCY: I want to talk about the mining and smelting industry briefly. Once again....
Interjections.
MR. D'ARCY: Mr. Speaker, I'm used to being interrupted by members in my own party. I don't know why I have to take the imposition of being interrupted by members on the government side all the time.
DEPUTY SPEAKER: I think it's appropriate to ask at this time that we quiet down, pay a little attention and listen.
MR. D'ARCY: The throne speech makes reference to examining what it describes as unreasonable taxes on the mineral industry. The fact is that there have been some unreasonable taxes on the mineral industry, but the most unreasonable tax is the water rental fee on labour-intensive smelting and refining industries. Let's point something out, and let's make no mistake about it. The mining industry, while very important to British Columbia, is not in itself particularly labour-intensive, nor is it in itself a particularly high revenue-producer for the province. We all wish it was, but it is not. The mineral deposits in British Columbia are simply too low-grade, and the level of technology which must be employed, and should be employed, to make use of these deposits simply does not leave much revenue for anyone.
The smelting and refining industry is very labour-intensive, relatively speaking, yet a totally unreasonable taxation load is placed on that industry, particularly the operations in Trail. In fact, it's no wonder that the only operation of this sort is in Trail, because that's the only area where low-cost hydroelectric power is available, other than in the Kitimat-Kemano area. It is simply not understood in the government benches, and indeed, it's not really understood almost anywhere in the province.
1 think it's well known that the basic raw material of the smelting industry in Kitimat is low-cost electricity. What is not usually realized is that the basic raw material of the operations in Trail is exactly the same thing. It is not the proximity to ore. In fact, very shortly the operations in Trail are going to be relying on Alaskan ore, and getting it to the smelting operation is probably going to be just as expensive as the ore supply for the Alcan operations in Kitimat. Yet unlike the operations in Kitimat, the government insists on putting a very heavy taxation on the electricity used by that plant.
If the government is finally going to realize that they should look at the taxation regimes applied to the mining industry, it should be a far higher priority to look at the taxation regimes applied to the smelting and refining industry. The major source of revenue out of both the mining and the smelting and refining industries is not direct resource taxation but rather the taxation from property taxes, personal income taxes, sales taxes and so on generated by employees.
Just to go back to the forest industry, it surprises me that suddenly after all these years.... Maybe it shouldn't surprise me. If the government can suddenly recognize that there just may be a problem in the mining industry, not recognizing that there's a problem in the forest industry in terms of not using market-oriented taxes, not realizing there is a problem and has been for years, imposed by that Social Credit government, not previous Social Credit governments, not by a New Democratic government, not by the coalition government, not by the government of Amor de Cosmos.... The water tax problem in the smelting and refining industry is an invention of the Social Credit government across the way.
MR. LOVICK: Literally across the way.
MR. D'ARCY: Yes, literally across the way.
This leads me into the area of transportation.
By the way Mr. Speaker, I just want to point out that the modernization and diversification process that's going on in Trail is resulting in some diversification of products that I believe is going to lead to stability within the industry. The government wanted to talk about high tech industry. There are shortly to be three major high tech raw materials produced in Trail: gallium arsenide, germanium and indium compounds. None of these produce a whole lot of jobs, but taken together they do help to alleviate the jobs lost due to technological change in both the refining and smelting of zinc, lead and silver. So both are significant, and certainly they add to the high tech potential of British Columbia.
About 20 years ago there was a major controversy in the southeastern part of the province over whether the coal being mined in the Elk Valley and Crowsnest Pass area was going to be shipped to Roberts Bank or to the terminals on the north side of Burrard Inlet over American or Canadian railways. That was a major controversy. It was eventually resolved in Canada's favour. That coal today is shipped over Canadian railways,
We're not talking as many carloads as with the coal, but there is some question how the Red Dog ore which will be coming into Trail from Alaska is going to get from the coast to Trail. I would hope the government is going to work very hard to make sure that there is an all-Canadian route. As we know, the Trail operations are situated only a few miles from the U.S. border, and the Burlington Northern enters Canada at two points very nearby, at Laurier-Cascade near Christina
[ Page 3504 ]
Lake and at Waneta just south of Trail. I would hope that the government will actively get involved in ensuring that those approximately 15 carloads a day of ore, which are going to maintain the smelting and refining industry in British Columbia — and I might say perhaps the largest and more modem operation in Canada — are going to come in through purely Canadian transportation routes. It is highly competitive, and we certainly don't want to lose those jobs.
[5:15]
While we're on the topic of transportation, in the southern interior and particularly in the West Kootenays we have major concerns about what will happen to our ferries. We have seven of them. One of them, the Castlegar-Robson ferry, has an extremely high user rate; of the freshwater ferries, only the Albion-Fort Langley ferry exceeds it. These are major transportation links of great importance to everybody in the southern interior. Many of them have been there for decades. They are integral parts of the transportation system. A few had tolls on them until the 1960s, until such time as all the tolls in British Columbia on the First Narrows bridge, the Second Narrows Bridge, the Deas Island Tunnel, and all the tolls that used to be on the bridges at that time were removed. Those ferries which had tolls on them had their tolls removed too, and quite correctly.
We do not want to see a cutback in service. We do not want to see fees attached to any of those ferries, because they are a major part of the transportation structure of the southern interior. We just happen to have more of them in the West Kootenay area than throughout the rest of the province, but there are numerous freshwater ferry operations throughout the southern interior and the north. I don't know exactly whether you have any, Mr. Speaker, in your constituency, but certainly there are numerous operations where we are.
I can't move on without reminding the government that their own members may think that highway privatization is a popular move, but it is not a popular move. It never will be. The people of the interior, especially in the Kootenays, are highly suspicious of that move and strongly oppose it. It's an opposition which crosses political party lines. There is no one, to my knowledge, who favours the assumption by the private sector of highway maintenance operations. We're still hoping that the government is going to reconsider that move in view of the political opposition.
I see St. Patrick has joined you; he has his little green light on, Mr. Speaker.
One of our major concerns in the area is, as 1 mentioned earlier, relative to the smelting and refining industry. We want to keep our low-cost industrial power. It's self-generated. It does not have a major environmental impact. We not only want to retain the unassigned industrial power for industrial options and expansions in the future, whether those expansions be in the forest industry, the smelting and refining industry or in other industries, but we would hope to see that the government will not interfere should B.C. Hydro decide to take advantage of the lowest-cost, most cost-effective per kilowatt hour development that they can make in terms of increasing their power supply in their grid, and that is machining or putting in a powerhouse at the Keenleyside Dam. That's very important to us, not only to act as a stable force in our economy, but also to make sure that all of that water — I don't know how many million acre feet pass through that dam every year — is properly used in Canada to generate electricity for the Hydro grid.
Before I take my place at this time there is one other thing that I have to enjoin the government to do, and I suppose this is directed particularly to the cabinet and the treasury benches. There is a feeling out there in the province of British Columbia, especially in my area of: what is the government going to do next? How are they going to interfere with our lives and our industry next? I would hope that the government is going to stop interfering with the stability and the infrastructure of this province and let people get down to doing the job they do best, which is running the province and making it successful economically.
MR. R. FRASER: What a great delight it is to be here today to speak in favour of the throne speech! Look at all those excited faces over there waiting for me to say something inside the House instead of out. What a great day we have!
I do want to talk about a few things in the riding before we get ahead. I want to talk about a couple of really delightful experiences I've had in the riding in the last week, going to Sir James Douglas school. You talk about the great mailer you put out; we've got some of those, too, and more coming for you. I met the principal there, Pat Mitchell, and then I went over to Moberly, where the principal is Gail Sear. In two successive weeks we had great dinners put on by the people from the schools, where the parents bring the food and the kids entertain and the teachers are all there and it's meet the public, meet the teacher. It was a really joyful experience.
Interjection.
MR. R. FRASER: Yes, I learned a lot, and you would, too, if you went to my riding. You would come on strong, and you'd be great.
MR. LOVICK: Why don't you list all the kids by name?
MR. R. FRASER: As a matter of fact, I probably could list many of the kids by name, because I do pay attention to the people who live in the riding. There's no question about that.
I'd also like to say something about the throne speech mentioning the great Rick Hansen, the kid who went around the world in a wheelchair. He was a man before he left and a giant when he came back, and I guess you can imagine what he felt like when he said: "When I broke my back, I thought my life was over." Imagine the horror of that experience. And then this great young man comes back and goes around the world, and shows us all that if you have the will-power and the strength and the vision, and you have a little support from your friends, you can really work miracles. That's called leadership, my friends, and I really want to commend him and the government, for getting involved with that.
Today I was at the University of Victoria and met the dean of engineering — and I like education, of course; one of my favourite subjects is education at all levels, whether it's K to 12 or post-secondary — and we talked about the co-op engineering program, as you might have expected, and I found that it's going very well. I want to bring you the message from the dean, who said that the co-op program there, which is four months in school and four months on the job, is producing some remarkable results. You graduate in five years, taking a four-year program, because of the time you spend in industry. What they're finding out there is that the students who come to the University of Victoria from out
[ Page 3505 ]
of town occasionally need to borrow some money, so they get a student loan. But when they work in industry every other four months, they make money, and the dean told me that the students are making.... Taking engineering at the University of Victoria, they're earning between $30,000 and $40,000 over that term, and not only are they graduating almost entirely without any debt; many of them are leaving not only with a little money in their pockets, but with absolutely great experience. They're playing their cards right and going from one industry to another, learning it with the keen young minds they have, and it's really working well.
As you might expect, the colleges want to put some students into that program as well, and, as you know, many of the colleges throughout the province have good first-year engineering programs. But some of the students at UVic don't make it; they fail. So guess what? There are some openings, and now the students from out of town can fill those spots. So the whole thing is cost-effective and working very well, and I commend the University of Victoria for that program and the students who are graduating for working so hard and doing so well.
We indeed have much to be grateful for in the province of British Columbia with respect to education at all levels, and when you have a student aid program which permits you to borrow up to $26,000 and pay back only $12,000, it's astonishing. What a great opportunity the students are being given by the taxpayers of this province through a program initiated by this government. There is simply no question about the opportunity that is there. As my friend from Point Grey said this morning, it is so important for us to fund those students and to train those minds and to exercise those brains, so that when they come out of university or college or high school or whatever, they can make a contribution to the community and to the citizens of the province, and they can take their turn supporting the senior citizens and spending money on schools for the kids coming through.
They want to do that and are doing that. Indeed they will do that, and they may occasionally travel. We hear the opposition members say from time to time: "We don't have schools. Our kids have to go away." It's not such a bad thing to travel to a different place to go to school, whether it's high school or university. Any of us who have had a chance to do that can certainly testify to the fact that it is a mind-broadening experience.
Certainly the universities in British Columbia are encouraging students from elsewhere to come to British Columbia to bring some ideas with them and to meet our students and to transfer information, to transfer friendships so the students in B.C. can gain some friendships from lands across the sea. Our students who go away can bring back their experiences to us, and we will have a wider and broader and better horizon if we are willing to look beyond our own borders for ideas, no matter what the subject might happen to be.
The enthusiasm I find in all levels of education is very high, impressively high. While we hear many times from those who don't want to know that our teachers are despondent, I can assure you from my riding that they are not. They are working hard and doing what they want to do. As a matter of fact, I accepted an invitation from the president of the BCTF to attend some of their sessions, which I will be happy to attend because I think it's important for the BCTF to know the Members of the Legislative Assembly regardless of where they may happen to come from or where their political views may happen to go.
It is short-sighted of any organization dealing with the public body in British Columbia to talk to only one side of the Legislative Assembly, and far too often that happens. At a reception the Speaker put on the other evening I was talking to John Shields, who you know is the president of the BCGEU, and I said to him quite openly: "John. why is it you never seem to invite a government member to talk to your meetings? It always seems to be the opposition."
He was quite surprised. But when I was in business, I certainly talked to my competitors and their customers. I wanted to know what they were thinking and what they were doing. I encourage John Shields and every other leader in the province, whether it's business or union or school or whatever, to talk to....
MR. S.D. SMITH: What did he say?
MR. R. FRASER: John Shields didn't answer the question. He didn't say: "Okay. first member for Vancouver South, why don't you come and talk to our group and let us find out what you think and how you think and what you think would work." They might learn something new.
AN HON. MEMBER: Did he say that?
MR. R. FRASER: He did not say that, but he should have said that.
HON. MR. RICHMOND: What did he say?
MR. R. FRASER: He looked surprised. I couldn't believe it. Here's the head of the biggest union in the province....
MR. PETERSON: Was he flabbergasted?
MR. R. FRASER: Flabbergasted would be the perfect word. He might learn something. Talk about privatization, the great things.... Mr. Shields said that we've sold a lab for $140,000 and that one piece of equipment worth $150,000 was a fire-sale price. I said if it's such a good deal, why didn't he buy it? He has 40,000 members. At $140, that's about three and a half bucks. Really and truly, why didn't he buy it if it was such a good deal?
You’ve got to heckle louder; I can't hear you, Nanaimo.
MR. LOVICK: Look what happened the last time they tried to buy.
MR. R. FRASER: I can't hear you. You've got to speak louder if you're going to heckle me from there.
MR. LOVICK: When he tried to buy it, you wouldn't have it.
MR. R. FRASER: You've got to heckle knowledgeably. There's the man who speaks down to everybody in the room, including himself. Unbelievable behaviour.
Then Mr. Shields says,"Bill 19 is going to deunionize the whole province," and then goes right on to say: "We're not going to deunionize." Which is it? The glorious Leader of the Opposition said this morning: "You promised to have television in the House, and it's not here." I said that I would dearly love to have television in the House just to have him on
[ Page 3506 ]
it. Speaking from the bottom of his heart, he said: "Gee, I'm mad, Mr. Speaker. Oh gosh, I'm sure mad about that." Speaking from the heart of the page is where he's speaking from, the guy who's got fire. Oh, Lord, if he's fire, you guys are in real trouble. Fortunately, he's only the apparent leader, so we're not going to have too much trouble with that one. He'll be around for a little while.
[5:30]
1 just love the story about the Leader of the Opposition at 18 months of age, leaving his mother's hand and striking out on his own. This is supposed to mean that he's a leader. I've got a feeling that he was lost then, and he's still lost now —but we'll soon find out. He is described by one of his colleagues in Vancouver as a man with the ability to take credit for the sun rising and setting, to go both sides of the equation and take credit for both. I think that's pretty close. He has been on both sides of a lot of issues in Vancouver for a long time. He certainly was opposed to Expo — until it became noticeable that everybody was on side.
Interjection.
MR. R. FRASER: The Leader of the Opposition was against Expo, yes — from the beginning, until it was so obvious that it was a success.
MR. S.D. SMITH: You're making that up.
MR. R. FRASER: I wouldn't make up a thing about him. I read a great book the other day and found a line that described the Leader of the Opposition so well. It described some generals as people who lead from their rear and some politicians who follow from the front. Isn't that the one that describes the Leader of the Opposition: a man who follows from the front. Unbelievable!
MR. MILLER: I guess you don't want to talk about your leader.
MR. R. FRASER: Well, the thing about our leader is that he certainly is public about what he believes in. There's nothing to be hidden there; no question about that. You know where he is; you know where he stands. He's completely open about that, and for that you have to give him credit. No question about that.
Now your leader — you never know where he is. Your leader is so hopeless, it's incredible. For a guy who's so careful, he's reckless. He describes the CPR as robber baron operators, and he talked on television one day about being a waiter when he was a kid and spilling trays on American tourists, and he thought it was funny. There was an indication he was doing it on purpose. Now, do you believe that? This is the guy who wants to talk about tourism. Come on!
Listen, he talks about free trade. He said....
Interjection.
MR. R. FRASER: You've got to heckle louder than that; I can't hear you. You're not having any fun unless you can heckle me, I know — merciless heckling. Where is that neat little note?
Here he is. We were talking about decentralization, and he says: "Real decentralization is a good idea." That was in October. In November he said: "Decentralization is a black hole, sucking all the decisions into the Premier's office." Now which is it? The Leader of the Opposition goes this side, then he goes that side. You remember that sign about McGovern that went around and around and around. Remember that one? That's the Leader of the Opposition. Unbelievable! Where does he come from? We don't know where he comes from. We know where he's going — no question about that. We talk about all this great stuff.
The Leader of the Opposition gets up and says: "Will the Premier obey the laws of Canada and British Columbia?" And the Premier says yes. I asked the question too, just to reinforce it in your mind that our Premier will do that. But what does your leader say? Your leader says: "One-day protests are great. If they had to have illegal strikes, fine and dandy." That was the Leader of the Opposition. He's asking the Premier, who will obey the law, to obey the law. Then he says right in these little clippings that an illegal strike is totally understandable. Completely, unbelievably, round and round this guy goes, and where he stops, nobody knows. He says he has a great talent for gathering together people with a lot of ideas. Why would he do that? Because he doesn't have any of his own, maybe. Where do we go now? Where do we go from here?
Mr. Speaker, he said: "Aw, gee, I'm sure excited about that one." Then we have all kinds of good ideas coming along. Privatization — giving people a chance to make money for themselves, to employ people, to raise their children, to pay their taxes and do their job. Isn't that great? Isn't that what it's all about: a chance to make a contribution of some significance, your own way? Run a business. Have a little fun. Pay some taxes. Work harder than you might work any other way. Nothing wrong with working harder.
MR. MILLER: If you keep trying, you'll make it back into cabinet.
MR. R. FRASER: Listen, I know one thing, my friend. If I never get back into cabinet, I'll be there before you.
What does your leader say — that he's against free trade? He says: "We don't want free trade here. It's not going to work here. You know, our little businesses can't compete. The poor little Canadians can't make it." We can so. We have already. We always will. Then right after he tells the students at SFU that we can't make it in free trade, what does he say? "We need to expand opportunities in Washington, Oregon and California." What's that? Isn't that free trade? Who are these Americans we're so afraid of? Our friends. That's right. And the guy who says he doesn't want free trade spent his whole last year as mayor of Vancouver going to the Orient at least five times.
HON. MR. VEITCH: Trying to get away from Expo.
MR. R. FRASER: He wanted to run away from Expo, I guess. Isn't that amazing? Why would a guy want to take all those trips and then not want to have any trade with anybody? Then he said this morning: "If you sell it here, you've got to make it here." We don't want to make cars here. We want to make little microchips or something, and we'll trade. That's what it's all about. Make it here! Trade, trade, trade.
You know, I never stopped learning, and that's something that you guys should think about. Never stop learning. If there's bargains out there, why don't people buy them? A lot of other people have tried it.
[ Page 3507 ]
We cannot have any privatizing of the highway maintenance system, they say, philosophically or otherwise. 1 say, why not? The engineers, the operating engineers, the teamsters, the labourers and the construction unions who built the highways should know something about maintaining the highways. Why not? That's what they're supposed to do, isn't it? Work.
MR. S.D. SMITH: That's a quantum leap for these guys.
MR. R. FRASER: I know: for these guys, that's a quantum leap. It's so incredible. You want the people to work hard and put the money in. This privatization is so simple; it's just opportunity spelled another way.
I'll tell you, I'm going to skip some of this stuff because you guys won't understand.
We're going to put a little hardware in some schools —buy some computers. I hope we spend a lot of money buying first- or second-generation computers because it doesn't matter how fancy they are as long as the students understand the principle of the operation. It doesn't have to be the best or the fanciest in the world to do it. They just have to understand how it works.
The reason for that is very simple. Those of us who have had a number of careers already are going to show the way for those....
Interjections.
MR. R. FRASER: I suppose you think I've got another one coming, and you're probably right. This and more, yes. I tell you.
MR. LOVICK: Put it this way: you're holding your own.
MR. R. FRASER: From the second member for Nanaimo that's considered a compliment.
I see your leader in the paper. He says he's musing about what's going on in the Premier's office. I guess he just can't keep up; it's one of the problems. Mayor of Vancouver, traveling all over the place.
Now we're going to talk a little bit about Meech Lake. The opposition doesn't like Meech Lake either. Well, we have two little groups in Ottawa that say they like it, and one is called the House of Commons. I think it's pretty good. Not too long ago, we had the Senate saying: "Yes, we're going to go with that." It's just that simple.
Do you remember our great friend from South Peace who used to talk about the harping and the carping and the shallow and hollow policies? Do you remember that guy? Where is he?
Then there's businesses. What are we going to do with the little businesses? Are we going to give them a chance to survive? You bet we are. I read that we have 90,000 new jobs in a year.
HON. MR. REID: It's 95.
MR. R. FRASER: Well, we can't take credit for all of them, but quite a few of them for sure.
MR. LOVICK: What was the wage average, do you know? Just an honest question.
MR. R. FRASER: For those on the opposite side who think you have to start at the top all the time, I will remind you that many of us started at the bottom — and you work your way up slowly. I have great respect for the first member for Nanaimo (Mr. Stupich), a guy who really understands that. A more decent guy you couldn't find than that man right there.
Interjections.
MR. R. FRASER: A compliment drove him out of the room. He's not used to it. Isn't it great?
AN HON. MEMBER: He was so encouraged he crossed the floor.
MR. R. FRASER: That's right — here he comes now.
We're going to do some of the things you guys like. How Iong ago was it that everybody was crying: "Oh, the government is taking away the testing of automobiles"? Oh, wasn't that awful! Well, it was a terrible thing. It gets you right in the heart — unbelievable. So then the government said: "We didn't say it was awful. We have great faith in people maintaining their lives and their automobiles and all those other things." But there was a great cry, I'm told, to bring back the testing of automobiles in British Columbia. So we did it. And who should pay for the testing of automobiles? Maybe the owner. Can you believe that? The owner buys the tires; he buys the gasoline. I guess he should buy the inspection service. Pay for it, even — a radical new idea. The only alternative is to say to the seniors who don't have cars: "You will help me pay for my car." This government won't do that. The owners will pay. No one else is responsible. Very logical. And do you know what? It is good.
Interjections.
MR. R. FRASER: You applaud me more than you applaud your own leader. I'm at least fun to listen to — and say more than he says, for sure.
[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]
So we're going to have the automobiles on the road all safe — or safer, they say. Even if it's just a piece safer, it's okay with me. And if we find out more about our cars than we knew before, that's great too — and at a very modest little fee, that's okay. So we've done that. I like that idea.
MR. BLENCOE: What's the fee?
MR. R. FRASER: Well, I understand from the Minister of Transportation and Highways (Hon. Mr. Rogers) that the maximum fee is $25. So it could be less.
Interjection.
MR. R. FRASER: Yes, that's what he said in his announcement the other day.
MR. BLENCOE: That puts you out of business.
MR. R. FRASER: Well, there ought to be guys that will do it just as well.
We talked about some of the....
[ Page 3508 ]
Interjections.
MR. R. FRASER: Just a minute. Who's making this speech? I'm getting heckled from everywhere here. This is a terrible affront.
MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. Would members just let the member finish his speech. Thank you.
MR. R. FRASER: Mr. Speaker, I apologize for exciting the members opposite more than they were excited this morning by their own leader. Television in the House; you got it. Oh, if I could just find a way to spend $6 million that I didn't need, right on television. Oh, Lord.
MR. BLENCOE: You have to read this in Hansard.
MR. R. FRASER: Actually I won't have to read it; I'm going to send it out so everyone else can read it. They'll get more votes again this next time. Let's do that one again: I'll get more votes next time than I did last time. Is that better?
Oh, this little government, as we talk about doing these great things and doing some of the nice, positive things that are happening....
MR. BLENCOE: Tell us about the Premier.
MR. R. FRASER: You want more information about the Premier? Let's talk about what the Premier likes to think about. How much time have you got? I've got all day. We can extend this session on as long as you like. Here's a man who has principles and beliefs and makes them public. What do you guys do? You don't do that. I've never even heard you do that. That's right, you're all over the map on everything, unless the first member for Vancouver East (Mr. Williams) is here.
MR. S.D. SMITH: Did he ever send a telegram to Paris?
MR. R. FRASER: Did he ever send a telegram to Paris saying: "Don't bring Expo to British Columbia"? That must have been the Leader of the Opposition saying that. Isn't that amazing — negative, negative, negative. Oh, how does he live and get up in the morning, you know?
The Premier says: "Let's support the concept of good family life, and try to keep marriages together, try to keep families together." And the Premier says: "If the family can't stay together, what we're going to do is to make sure that the spouses get support."
[5:45]
MR. S.D. SMITH: He favours families, eh?
MR. R. FRASER: I guess you could say the Premier favours families. I think that's a good idea. Who wouldn't?
Or if the family can't stay together we can at least favour our support mechanism so that the taxpayers don't have to pay the bill to keep the spouses supported. That's seems fair, doesn't it? You have some responsibility; accept it, pay for it, do it. That makes sense to me. I don't have any problem with that.
MR. LOVICK: Is this called doing penance, or what?
MR. R. FRASER: I never have any trouble standing up here and talking about what is right and what is correct, in spite of the fact that you don't understand, Mr. Second Member for Nanaimo. I think you probably are very fortunate to have a man like the first member for Nanaimo to help you win, because I think maybe there is a great coat-tail ride over there. 1 mean, could you want more than that?
MR. BLENCOE: Vicious.
MR. R. FRASER: Vicious attack — oh, forgive me.
The Premier also supports education. He said: "Here, you are, private sector; you give the university some money, and we'll give you more on top of that." That's good, isn't it? Isn't that a good idea? Let's educate young British Columbians coming through. That makes sense. Let's put more money in the school system: that's easy to understand. Let's develop the high tech industry: that's easy to understand. Who was it who used to say that they lost in '86, and they — Pat, Pat, Pat....
HON. MR. STRACHAN: Thirty-three, thirty-six....
MR. R. FRASER: Actually, some of these new members don't know that, hon. House Leader of the government; they don't, but we'll let them read it in Hansard, I guess, at some later date.
Well, we're only on page 3 here; we've got a number of pages to go.
Now the government has said: "We're going to encourage business immigration." Good idea. If we're going to have people coming to Canada, we like them to come with experience and with capital, right? That's a good idea. But we should never forget, nor will this government ever forget, the fact that people who come here without money can earn money and make a significant contribution, and indeed our Premier is exactly one of those. He came here with little, worked hard, showed that it could be done. A lot of people do it here. That's the great hope of British Columbia. That's the great hope of Canada. You can do it here. You can buy land here. You can go into business here. You can get educated here. And no doubt one of the best health care systems in the world is right here in British Columbia. Isn't that a surprise? Guess which government? Social Credit, one government after another. And the only change I see in that, Mr. Speaker, is that it's getting ever better.
We have an interesting opportunity facing us, you know.
MR. LOVICK: Ever better. Onward and upward.
MR. R. FRASER: Now they're coming along, aren't they? They're coming with us. Here they go, onward and upward.
MR. LOVICK: I don't mind helping you rouse your own troops .
MR. R. FRASER: Actually, all the help I can get is gratefully received. I never turn down help. Maybe I should ask you for a contribution during the next election, just to make sure.
MR. LOVICK: You'll need it.
[ Page 3509 ]
MR. R. FRASER: Well, actually, I accept all contributions.
I will skip over a few pages here.
What else are we doing to make things happen in British Columbia? What else would make us a more popular place around the world? What else would bring people here so we could show them what we're doing and how we're doing it and what we have to offer?
We're going to try and get the 1994 Commonwealth Games right here in the city of Victoria. That will put billions and billions of federal government dollars right here in British Columbia. Won't that be great? Bring all those young athletes down to Victoria to compete in the games, which ought to be here, which can be here. The great Minister of Tourism, who is doing his job....
MR. BLENCOE: Don't tell them about him. They won't come.
MR. R. FRASER: Isn't it terrible, Mr. Speaker?
AN HON. MEMBER: Two minutes left.
MR. R. FRASER: Two? There's so much more to talk about. It's unbelievable.
I want to say in closing.... I'd like to take somebody else's place tomorrow too, because I've got so much more material here.
I would like to say that it is a great privilege to serve the people of British Columbia with a government that is go-ahead all the way.
HON. MR. STRACHAN: On behalf of really anybody, Mr. Speaker, I'll adjourn 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 5:51 p.m.