[ Page 3755 ]

CONTENTS

Routine Proceedings

Presenting Petitions –– 3755

Oral Questions

B.C. Enterprise Corporation assets. Mr. Williams –– 3756

Mr. Harcourt

Budget Debate

Mr. Gabelmann, –– 3758

Hon. Mr. Brummet –– 3760

Mr. Barnes –– 3763

Hon. Mr. Dueck –– 3766

Ms. Smallwood –– 3769

Hon. Mr. Strachan –– 3770

Ms. Edwards –– 3772

Hon. Mr. Reid –– 3774

Hon. Mr. Couvelier –– 3775

Committee of Supply: Ministry of Social Services and Housing estimates (Hon. Mr. Richmond)

On vote 61: minister's office –– 3778

The House met at 2:05 p.m.

Prayers.

HON. MR. VANDER ZALM: Mr. Speaker, it gives me great pleasure to welcome to the House two very distinguished Canadians from the province of Quebec: the Hon. Robert Bourassa, Premier of Quebec, accompanied by his Minister for Canadian Intergovernmental Affairs, Hon. Gil Remillard.

When I visited Quebec City in February, it was clear from my discussions with the Premier and members of his cabinet that there were many issues and opportunities where the interests of B.C. and Quebec were complementary. I am therefore most pleased that Premier Bourassa and Mr. Remillard are able to be in Victoria today so that we can continue to discuss items of common interest. We've certainly had great agreement on Meech Lake at our many meetings, and we're hoping to conclude this very quickly in this Legislature. We've had much agreement on free trade and the benefits as they affect all regions of Canada. We see opportunities of industries here working with industries in the province of Quebec so that both economies can benefit considerably.

I'm very pleased that we've had such a great rapport with the province of Quebec. This is not only for myself; I know I speak for all ministers when I say it's always a great pleasure to work with members of the Quebec government. This cooperative relationship that we enjoy between our two governments and our two provinces will, I know, continue, and the people of Quebec and B.C. will mutually benefit. So it gives me great pleasure to ask all members of this House to extend a very warm welcome to Premier Bourassa and his minister Mr. Remillard.

MR. HARCOURT: Mr. Speaker, I too would like to pass on our very warm and friendly greetings to Premier Bourassa and Mr. Minister, and to let you know that, although we do have occasional political differences with the government, we are very proud of the role we hope to play in this Legislature in completing some of the unfinished nation building that was not accomplished in 1981, which is to bring Quebec into our constitution and into Canada fully. That debate will take place shortly. We will play our role in seeing that occur.

In our brief discussion, I let you know that there are some matters still to be done in this province and in this country in terms of our northern friends and their destiny over the next few decades — the first citizens who feel left out of the constitution.

It is in a bipartisan way that we welcome you to British Columbia, and I look forward to visiting with you in Quebec in the near future. Thank you for coming.

HON. MR. DAVIS: In the gallery this afternoon we have several prominent North Shore and Vancouver citizens: Mr. Don MacKay of Albright and Wilson Americas; Mr. Robert Hamilton, business consultant; Mr. Bob Wiens, Facs Records Centre; Mr. Peter Armstrong, Gray Line of Vancouver; Mr. Charlie Anderson, Canadian Overseas Log and Lumber Ltd. Would the House please welcome these people.

HON. MR. DUECK: It is with pleasure that I introduce a constituent from the Central Fraser Valley. It is Pastor Alf Lennox. He is the director of public affairs and religious liberty of the British Columbia Conference of Seventh-Day Adventists. Would the House please make him welcome.

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: I'm very pleased today to ask the House to join me in welcoming a Vancouver-Little Mountain constituent, Mr. Marc Roy, who is with la Federation des Franco-Colombiens. Also I would like the House to welcome Mr. Yves Merzisen, president of la Federation des Franco-Colombiens,

MR. REE: This morning I had the pleasure of meeting two very friendly people, and I'm assured they're all friendly from the Lone Star State of the United States. They're visiting Victoria and our great British Columbia today, and I'd ask the House to welcome Mr. E. Buck Lyon III and his lovely wife Laura Lee from the J.R. city of Dallas.

MR. DIRKS: In your gallery this afternoon, Mr. Speaker, visiting us from the great constituency of Nelson-Creston, is a good friend and a longtime supporter of this party, MR. Wally Penner. He is the chairman of the Kootenay Lake District Hospital board and regional district director for electoral area E in the Regional District of Central Kootenay. Would this House please make him welcome.

MR. SERWA: In the west gallery today we have a group of 28 students representing eight schools in Okanagan South, eight of the best schools in the province of British Columbia: Springvalley Secondary, Rutland Secondary, Kelowna Secondary, George Elliot Secondary, KLO Secondary, Mount Boucherie. George Pringle, and Okanagan Mission Secondary School. The tour of this group is sponsored by Crown Forests, a subsidiary of Fletcher Challenge, and they are accompanied, by Mr. Rudi Metzger, representing Crown Forests, and also by teachers Mrs. Reid from Springvalley and Mr. J. McIntyre from Rutland. On behalf of my colleague the second member for Okanagan South (Mr. Chalmers) and myself, please make this group welcome.

HON. MR. REID: I'd like the House to make a special welcome today to two people in the members' gallery. Mr. Charles Giordano, who represents the fine constituency of Delta, is one of the hardest-working Social Credit members in the province of British Columbia. Take note: he doesn't wear a red button. I'd like the House to make especially welcome Mr. Charles Giordano and also Mr. Bill Kay, who happens to be accompanying him today.

[2:15]

Presenting Petitions

MR. LOENEN: Mr. Speaker, I'd like to present a petition.

    "To the hon. the Legislative Assembly of the province of British Columbia in the Legislature assembled. The petition of the undersigned residents of the province of British Columbia states that on January 28, 1988, Henry Morgentaler and his supporters succeeded in removing all legal protection for the lives of Canada's pre-born children. Having achieved abortion on demand, they now want taxpayers to pay for every abortion, even though the federal law does not require" — this.

    "We, the undersigned residents of British Columbia, believe it is morally indefensible for you, for the

[ Page 3756 ]

government of British Columbia and for any government to force us, through taxation, to participate in abortions on demand. We therefore commend you, the Premier, and the British Columbia government for ending provincial funding of abortions. We urge you most strongly to resist the pressure to reinstate any such funding in any form whatsoever.

    "Your petitioners respectfully request that the hon. House do not use our tax money to pay for procedures used to search out handicapped pre-born children in order to abort them. We further request that no more tax dollars be given to agencies which promote abortion."

This has some 18,204 signatures.

Oral Questions

B.C. ENTERPRISE CORPORATION ASSETS

MR. WILLIAMS: To the minister who is Minister of Economic Development today, the following: she writes to the Vancouver Sun in today's press indicating that the Enterprise Corporation assets may indeed exceed book value. Could the minister advise what the Coquitlam lands are on the books of the Enterprise Corporation?

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: Mr. Speaker, the member is referring to an article of which I have no knowledge. I will take his question as notice — that's all I can do; I can't understand his questioning at all.

MR. WILLIAMS: It's in today's Sun in Vancouver —"B.C. Enterprise Assets May Differ From Book Value" — and it is signed by Grace McCarthy, Minister of Economic Development, Victoria. If some nut is sending letters and signing your name, we should find out about it, Madam Minister.

Could the minister confirm that, indeed, the 1,600 acres at Westwood are on the books of the Enterprise Corporation for one dollar — transferred from the Crown to the corporation for one dollar?

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: Mr. Speaker, no.

MR. WILLIAMS: She could not confirm. Could the minister advise the House what the number is?

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: I'd be pleased to take the question as notice.

MR. WILLIAMS: Could the minister confirm that there are 2,715 single family lots, 1,215 small lots, 700 townhouse sites and 400 apartment unit sites all on these lands? Probably not.

Could the minister advise the House what the equally valuable Riverview lands are on the books of the Enterprise Corporation for?

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: I'd be glad to take the question as notice.

MR. WILLIAMS: The minister says in the letter that there may be a difference. There is a giant difference — as big as the overrun on the Coquihalla and probably more. The minister knows those facts.

In the case of the Pleasantside Developments sale from the Westwood lands, the Fuchsia Place parcel sold November 28, 1986, for $474,000 from the Enterprise Corporation and flipped one month later for $1,326,000 after being sold by the Enterprise Corporation. Could the minister advise the House if the province of British Columbia, which owned these assets, was well served by the 300 percent flip in one month?

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: I'd be pleased the get the information for the House; in fact, I'll be looking forward to getting it. When the member is suggesting the turning over of lands at an enormous profit — of which he would perhaps like to leave the impression with this House — it would very much depend on what investment the buyer would have in the servicing of those lands. I will take the question as notice, and I'll be glad to get back.

MR. WILLIAMS: A million dollars amounts to a fair profit even minus the servicing costs, which were not very high. But the minister can certainly carry out those studies, and I have some that might be helpful to her.

In view of the fact that you can make a million dollars in a month by selling acreage, then subdividing them quickly and then selling lots — buying at $18,000 a lot and selling at $51,000 a lot — would the minister not agree that it would be more prudent to sell lots rather than acreage?

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: 1 usually take my assessment on those things from professionals, and the board takes that advice from professionals, so I would not want to give a quick answer to that. The member seems to have in his mind that he would prefer to sell it that way, but we'll come back with all the facts on the particular acreage and the particular lots he's talking about. I'll be pleased to share them with this House.

MR. WILLIAMS: The minister states in today's letter that the process - i.e., the sale of public lands - requires healthy competition in order to generate reasonable value for the assets. That has not occurred with the Westwood lands to date. Did the minister approve the process with respect to the disposal of the Westwood lands - to date?

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: The member seems to want to leave some sort of an inference in this question period regarding the sale of the Westwood lands and the Coquitlam properties. I have undertaken to bring everything back to him and the House, and I would be very pleased to do so. If at any time he'd put any other questions on the order paper, or if he wishes to give me more now, I would be very pleased to find the answers for him and bring them back.

MR. WILLIAMS: Could the minister advise the House whether there was any interference...? She suggested there were many matters where the Premier interfered with respect to the activities of the Enterprise Corporation. Could the minister advise the House if there was interference with respect to the previous disposal of Westwood or Riverview lands?

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: Most of those transactions were done by the staff of the Enterprise Centre, and that's why my answers today are not as up to date as they could be. I'd dearly love to answer this member today on the floor of the House as he asks these questions, but I will bring back the answers to all of them. However, the answer to your question is no.

MR. WILLIAMS: Maybe it would be more interesting if the minister elaborated on all of the interference to date and

[ Page 3757 ]

the specifics of it, other than what we're aware of with respect to Mr. Toigo and Mr. Poole — which is interesting enough and which we will pursue further.

In today's paper the minister again says that in-house and outside advisers looked at the value of the various Enterprise Corporation assets — Whistler, Roberts Bank and the other lands. Will the minister make these estimates public?

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: Any that the public should know will be made public.

MR. WILLIAMS: Isn't it reasonable to make the estimates public, so they become the base for bidding above a base value?

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: Well, that would really depend on whether or not you're trying to get the best return .for the taxpayer on the dollar investment of that taxpayer. If you have the kind of suggestion that this member makes, then you would indeed have a base line, and it would be the lower base to the taxpayer of British Columbia.

MR. WILLIAMS: Further, it's pretty clear that Mr. Toigo had a clever end-run around the limited bidding process with respect to the Expo lands. He envisioned $500 million for everything — and we know the Expo lands were $300 million; Westwood, $160 million; Whistler, $40 million. It meant he got Songhees for free and Roberts Bank for free, etc. Is it that immense end-run, with the incredible gains for Mr. Toigo, that caused the minister to finally go public over what was really happening between her and the Premier?

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: I know the member would just be delighted if he could put a wedge between the Premier and me. But I can tell you, Mr. Speaker, that the transaction regarding the sale of B.C. Place lands, and all of the transactions regarding B.C. Enterprise Corporation, have been under my responsibility, given to me by the Premier; and I'm extremely pleased to tell you that those transactions have been totally honourable and totally well carried out by the board of directors and me and the B.C. Enterprise Corporation. I'm very pleased with the way they're doing their work, and I will continue to support them in their work.

MR. WILLIAMS: I'm pleased. The minister, then, is entirely happy with the December meetings between the Premier's assistant and the people at the Enterprise board. When was she aware of the meeting between Mr. Poole, Mr. Toigo and the Enterprise board staff, the CEO?

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: Mr. Speaker, that's a matter of record. I was aware of that meeting after it took place.

MR. WILLIAMS: Was it December 5, January, February, or maybe April 1? Could the minister advise the House?

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: I'll be pleased to bring the date back for the hon. member.

MR. HARCOURT: Mr. Speaker, I agree with the Minister of Economic Development: there is not a wedge or a Mack truck between her and the Premier; there is an iceberg — it's huge.

In that vein, I would like to ask the Premier a couple of questions: will the Premier now agree to freeze the sale of all BCEC lands before your government's mismanagement and your giveaway schemes surrender billions in potential public revenue?

HON. MR. VANDER ZALM: The Leader of the Opposition not so long ago occupied another position in another place. I can recall when Expo was first proposed; I can recall when B.C. Place stadium was first proposed; I can recall when SkyTrain was first proposed; and each and every time that same leader. in another position in another place, wanted a further study. He was opposed; he was against; it was going to be a failure. He knew better than all of those people — municipally, provincially — who were involved.

But fortunately for British Columbia his message went unheard. Obviously no one heeded his advice, to our advantage, because today we've had Expo — an enormous success. We have B.C. Place stadium — a great facility. We have SkyTrain serving the lower mainland. None of these things would have been if that member had had his way. And if he were to get his way again, nothing would happen in the great city of Vancouver; nothing would happen in this province. We would stagnate. We would have studies, a field day for the consultants, no doubt, but the province would go nowhere. We're enjoying prosperity; we're enjoying progress; and we're going to continue to enjoy prosperity and progress under this government.

MR. HARCOURT: I'm sure Premier Bourassa will remember a mayor in Montreal who had a $1.2 billion deficit. We avoided that. I heard these arguments in 1984 from the same member — who lost two to one, for the information of the Premier — and the people of Vancouver paid as much attention to those arguments as they do today.

The Premier has his Minister of Economic Development now admitting that these public lands have a far higher value than your government has said. You've heard evidence today which suggests that the value of these public lands is in the billions — nowhere near the offer of Mr. Toigo, who I'm sure you're familiar with. In the interests of getting the best deal for British Columbians and assuring everyone that they have a fair deal, will the Premier now agree to an independent public assessment of the full value of the BCEC lands throughout British Columbia?

[2:30]

HON. MR. VANDER ZALM: Not so long ago the same questioner, in another position and in another place, was asking for the same sort of thing to take place. We certainly know, and frankly, I would expect there are hundreds of people in the business who are well aware of, the value of land in Vancouver, Coquitlam and Victoria. We don't need to have further studies. We don't have to bring in expensive consultants, as recommended by the NDP. I don't expect the Leader of the Opposition to really have any accounting knowledge, but I can assure him that we have within the B.C. Enterprise Corporation a wealth of information to provide all of that background, and we're making great progress.

Orders of the Day

HON. MR. STRACHAN: Adjourned debate on the motion that Mr. Speaker do now leave the chair for the House to go into Committee of Supply. The hon. second member for Central Fraser Valley (Mr. De Jong) adjourned debate, but he has taken his place, and the debate will continue with the member for North Island.

[ Page 3758 ]

BUDGET DEBATE
(continued)

MR. GABELMANN: I often find myself having to speak at a time that is incredibly anti-climactic, and after a performance such as that in question period, it's difficult to come down to the tone and level of debate expected in the budget debate. However, I'm sure that as members find their way back to their offices and wherever, this place will quiet down and I'll be able to get on with my comments.

I want to talk today about one issue that is of concern to residents all over Vancouver Island and in particular to residents who live in its northern parts. That issue is the question of the Island Highway. We all noted with some degree of surprise and, in fact, some degree of shock that only $6 million has been allocated in this current fiscal year's budget for the Island Highway.

I want to talk about the Island Highway in some detail. I made a decision a few days ago to spend my entire budget speech on the question of the Island Highway when a dear friend of mine was very badly injured on the Island Highway — not far from our home, actually — in yet another of the tragic accidents that occur on that highway all too frequently. My friend is in her third week in hospital, and for some days we didn't think she would make it; but she now appears to be pulling through, and I trust she will continue to do so. With her serious accident adding to hundreds and hundreds of other serious accidents on that highway every year — and literally dozens of deaths — I felt it important to go through the history and the nature of this particular road in some detail, to get it all on, the record in one speech.

I just want to look at the kind of road we're talking about, and in particular the kind of road we're talking about from Parksville to just north of Campbell River. We have as a major highway in this province what is in practice a local street; the highway from Parksville to Campbell River is in fact a local street. People live along the highway. In a great many of its miles there are accesses to the road every 100 or 150 feet, driveways into individual residences. There are frequent — and by that I mean every 100 or 200 feet — unmarked left turns being made on a major highway. We have a number of small towns and beach resorts through which this highway travels. We have what is in effect a waterfront tourist route full of strip development.

It is a 1948 highway, promised first in 1944 by the Premier of the day and designed and built in and around 1948. As engineers in general will say, the road is full of vertical and horizontal curves, making it excessively dangerous. It is a road that is used frequently by big trucks hauling dangerous cargo to pulp mills and for other industrial activity at the northern end of Vancouver Island. It's a major truck route now serving the expansion of the Gold River pulp mill and the continuing expansions over the years of the Campbell River Elk Falls pulp mill and, of course, the mines both in Port Hardy and at Westmin.

The road contains a mixture of both leisurely sightseeing — these trucks I refer to — and too many people trying to catch a ferry with not enough time allocated to catching that ferry. It is a dangerous mix. It's a mixture of local and long-distance traffic, and at the same time it's, in effect, a local street. While all this is happening with that particular route, we have the population — particularly in the Regional District of Comox-Strathcona — increasing at a rate above that elsewhere in this province and on this island. As a result, there is an increased use of this particular road.

1 want to quote briefly from Hansard in 1980, from the Minister of Highways of that time, the present first member for Cariboo (Mr. A. Fraser). He was talking about some improvements to the existing road, and he said: "That's only a stopgap measure and we're looking at a new Courtenay Campbell River road. It can't come fast enough as far as I'm concerned. " He says further on: "...it's a fact of life that the traffic density on the road from Courtenay to Campbell River is equivalent to the traffic density on the Trans-Canada Highway at Kamloops. I think everybody that lives in Campbell River works in Courtenay and everybody that lives in Courtenay works in Campbell River, because boy, it's a busy piece of road — that's apart from the tourists." That was in 1980 — eight years ago.

In 1981 the ministry received a report that it had commissioned from Graeme and Murray Consultants of Victoria, which recommended the routes for the inland highway. Highway 19, it said, was handling 8,500 vehicles a day in 1979. It is expected to be handling 21,000 vehicles a day by the year 2001, which is 12 or 13 years from now — from 8,500 to 21,000.

We look at the actual traffic counts, and we find some interesting information. I am going to compare the summer of 1987, because these are the most recent accurate statistics available, and I'm going to compare apples with apples.

If you are traveling to the interior of British Columbia, excluding the Duffy Lake route, you can go via the Fraser Canyon, the Coquihalla or the Hope-Princeton. You have on that route a minimum of eight lanes — two in the Fraser Canyon, four on the Coquihalla and at least two on the Hope Princeton, on much of which you now have four lanes and on some three lanes. But let's refer to it only as eight lanes, even though it is practically nine or ten for most of its duration.

In the summer of 1987 there were 16,779 vehicles per day on those eight lanes –– 2, 000 vehicles a lane. At the same time on Vancouver Island, south of Parksville where the Island Highway has four lanes, we had 17,847 vehicles per day –– 4,000-plus vehicles per lane. That's over twice the capacity of the routes into the interior and more in total numbers than either the Canyon or the Hope-Princeton would have covered if the Coquihalla didn't exist.

So while we had the Canyon and the Hope-Princeton, we had fewer cars on those two roads than we have on the Island Highway south of Parksville, yet we somehow felt a need to build the four lanes through the Coquihalla. If you look at the two-lane road — and you could pick out a million different statistics; I've just chosen a couple . . If you look at traffic in and around Courtenay or Campbell River, the numbers are from 13,000 to 20,000 vehicles per day all year long, on a two-lane road. That is ten times the number carried by the routes into the interior.

If you look at the rural area, for example, between Courtenay and Campbell River — say the Oyster River bridge or Merville in that area — you are looking at approximately 9,000 vehicles per day in the summer of 1987 — more than half the number carried by eight to ten lanes going into the interior. We do it on two lanes. I think those numbers are important. They may have gone over the heads of people doing it quickly like this, but I'm basically saying that the numbers on the Island Highway are far greater than the numbers going into the interior.

I referred to my friend's accident at the beginning of these comments, and I want to refer briefly to a March 1981 newspaper story in the Campbell River Upper Islander. The

[ Page 3759 ]

headline is: "Island Highway: the Path of Death." They talked about the 20 deaths on that particular road between Courtenay and south of Campbell River in a four-year period — that short distance of 25 miles or less.

I looked at the RCMP accident reports for the area in the North Island constituency in the first 22 kilometres of highway from the Oyster River Bridge into Campbell River. The accidents have been going up every year. In that 22 kilometres we used to have only around 160 to 180 accidents per year. We are now into the mid-200s. In 1987 there were 247 accidents in that 22 kilometre stretch of street that has to also occupy a place as a provincial highway.

When you look at the Highways ministry statistics for the area I referred to earlier in terms of the 20 deaths between Courtenay and south of Campbell River, there has been a 50 percent increase in the number of victims of traffic accidents in that area from 1984 to 1987. We have a serious problem, to .put it mildly, in terms of the dangerous conditions of that particular road.

Let's look at some of the economic questions involved in why it's so imperative that the budget not have $6 million, but rather some significantly higher figure in it to build this road at this time. When you look at the economics of the question, Vancouver Island's industrial activity is being held back because there is not a secure, safe and efficient transportation system.

The economic development commission of the regional districts of both Comox-Strathcona and Mount Waddington, which covers all of North Island and most — if not all — of the riding of Comox, wrote to the then-Premier in July 1979. In that letter the economic development commission said, among other things: "The commission feels that the delay in construction of the second crossing of the Courtenay River" — which is now being completed — "and the construction of the inland highway bypass is a major deterrent to the function of the commission and the development of employment in the area." So here was the commission saying to the then-Premier that it found it difficult to function and to perform its duties as an economic development commission because of the lack of a proper highway.

[2:45]

One business person in the North Island wrote a letter to the then-member of the Legislature for Comox in 1986, Karen Sanford. This letter comes from the president of the Mt. Washington Ski Resort, a major employer in the Comox Valley with spinoffs into Campbell River as well. The president, Alex Linton, wrote a letter in which he said:

"This letter is in full support of the request by the Association of Vancouver Island Municipalities for an immediate start of actual construction of a first-class new Island Highway from Parksville to Campbell River.

"We operate by far the largest ski resort on Vancouver Island and employ more people in winter than any other business in Courtenay. Most of our customers, many from Victoria and district, are becoming increasingly dissatisfied with the time and frustration involved in the trip up-Island. Some are coming less often, and others are going instead to Mt. Baker in the U.S.A., which should be unacceptable to our tourist industry principles."

It now takes longer to travel from Victoria to Courtenay than it did 20 years ago. "It's time to modernize for the future of Vancouver Island."

The Association of Vancouver Island Municipalities commissioned an economic development strategy discussion paper a few years ago. It was produced in 1986, just in time for the provincial election campaign. The steering committee included two people who are now members of this Legislature, the member for Cowichan-Malahat (Mr. Bruce) and the Minister of Finance (Hon. Mr. Couvelier). It also included quite a number of people who were Social Credit candidates in the last election campaign.

Among other things this report. recommended by the Minister of Finance and the member for Cowichan-Malahat, said these things:

"The present Island Highway is generally acknowledged to be inadequate along many sections for its present traffic load and will almost certainly become increasingly congested in the future. Public investment in improvements to this important transportation artery may be expected to produce major direct and spinoff benefits to the regional economy.

"The province has spent much less in recent years for highway construction on Vancouver Island than in other regions of B.C.

"...actual per capita expenditures in the seven years between 1977-78 and 1983-84 for road construction on the B.C. mainland averaged nearly twice what was spent on the Island. Planned 1984 road construction projects on the Island amounted to a per capita expenditure of only $14 compared to $87.40 for the rest of the province, exclusive of...the Coquihalla Highway."

You can imagine what the demarcation would be if you had included in the Coquihalla Highway in 1984 as well. They conclude in their section on transportation:

"This one investment" — the Island Highway — "has the potential to enhance economic activity in virtually every sector of the economy. In addition, it will demonstrate the kind of long-term commitment to the future economic viability of the Island region which will spur new investment and create new jobs. In short, it is our turn for provincial investment."

I'm trying to speed this along because of the need to get a number of speakers into the agenda this afternoon, but I want very quickly to go through some highlights of the political history of the Island Highway. While it's not particularly germane to today's problem, I thought I would read a clipping from the Colonist dated March 8, 1906, datelined March 7, Nanaimo. "As a result of general dissatisfaction throughout Comox district as to the manner in which public money has been spent on roads, a representative meeting of the settlers of Comox and Courtenay districts was held Monday to endeavour..." — to get something going about the road conditions on Vancouver Island in March 1906.

In 1935 we have continued concern expressed. This is again in the Colonist, June 18, 1935: "Scant attention is given to the peculiar needs of Vancouver Island in the matter of highways..." is the lead in this particular story. It concludes: "It's time that Vancouver Island had a new deal.

This is in 1935. We're way behind.

Another story in 1935 is talking about Vancouver Island roads. I was amused by this, and I think members of the House should have the opportunity to hear this: "If progress in remodeling the highway system of Vancouver Island is not carried on faster than the program of this year, it will take as

[ Page 3760 ]

long to put the existing roads in good shape as it did for the children of Israel to make the journey from Egypt to the Promised Land — 40 years." That puts us to 1975. We've been 53 years trying to get these improvements on this Island. The children of Israel could do it in 40.

[Mr. Pelton in the chair.]

A final clipping which I would love the Minister of Advanced Education (Hon. S. Hagen) to hear if he's in his office listening to the blower. This is May 17, 1946, from one of the Victoria papers, and I'm not sure which one. "MLA...to Resign. H.J. Welch, Coalition MLA for Comox, intimated at a public meeting here last night that he would resign unless the provincial government builds...." That's a road in the Comox area, not the Island Highway bypass, of course. Just a flavour of a few clippings out of many to indicate that this is an issue that's been going on for a long time.

I won't read at length, but in 1980 the then mayor of Courtenay, R.G. McPhee, talked to the government about the need for the inland route from Parksville to Campbell River. In part of the presentation he said: "This portion of the Vancouver Island Highway has more fatalities than any other equal in length of main highways in British Columbia." I would argue that the statistics indicate that those highway deaths are increasing at this point.

I have volumes and volumes of Hansard clippings which I will not refer to, but ever since Hansard was started in this Legislature, there have been references virtually every year to the need for the Island Highway to be constructed, going right back to 1973. At that time, members should know, the Minister of Highways promised to begin the program of four-laning the Vancouver Island Highway from Victoria to Campbell River and upgrading from Campbell River to Port Hardy. That work began in the early seventies, and the northern part was finished in 1979. Since then, of course, nothing has happened.

I was going to quote the Minster of Highways in 1982. He said very clearly then that they were very close to making a decision on the northern section of the road from Parksville to Campbell River, but that was 1982, and six years later nothing has happened.

Political commitments have been made by all kinds of us on both sides of the House to do something about this. It was a major feature of the NDP election campaign in 1986. We promised to four-lane that particular section. I won't read all of this; there are volumes and volumes of clippings which indicate promises from various people. I know that every candidate on this Island talked about it and made promises in the last campaign, and what have we got? Nothing. We haven't even had a word — searching through Hansard — from the member for Cowichan-Malahat (Mr. Bruce) or from the member for Comox (Hon. S. Hagen) on the issue since they were elected to this Legislature in 1986. We did have a word — and I was pleased to have it — from the member for Vancouver South the other day supporting the Vancouver Island Highway. In any event, the issue has not been pursued effectively by members on that side of the House.

In 1979, Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Highways promised to deal with the issue of the inland highway. He said it was anticipated to take seven to ten years to have the road we're talking about built, the reason being that they would have to acquire the right-of-way and that would be going into a lot of ALR. Seven to ten years from 1979 — that's nine years ago.

If the commitment of the Minister of Highways of that day is to be honoured, the road should be finished and we should be traveling on it next year — to take the outside of his commitment, which was ten years.

In 1981 as well the Minister of Highways made a commitment. This is in the Province of May 21, 1981. The minister "declined to say exactly when" — it — "might be ready, but he made it clear that the government has established a tentative timetable for construction. He also told the Province he would like to see the first contract for the new highway let by the fall of 1982, a starting date that would enable the government to have the link completed by the next trip to the polls." The story goes on later to talk about the expectation that there would be a 1984 election; we had one in 1983.

Let's say they expected to have the road finished in 1984. That's two years, and the commitments were there from the minister. We've had plenty of that over the years — too much of that over the years.

Because of the time, Mr. Speaker, I'm going to cut my remarks short and just say to the members of this House and the Minister of Finance (Hon. Mr. Couvelier) that these promises have gone on too long. We are living on this Island with a 1948-designed street that we are expected to use as a major highway. It's totally inadequate; it's killing people unnecessarily; it's injuring many people, including my friend who I talked about earlier. I just think it's time we got on and recognized that we cannot put up any longer with the level of safety and highway standards on this Island. We cannot wait another ten years or more. The traffic counts, according to those reports I've cited, will be triple what they have been in another ten years. We have just got to get on with that road now. The government will not be faulted one iota by anyone on this side of the House if they add to their highway construction budget beyond the $6 million indicated in the budget address and begin more immediately to get on with the construction of that route so that it can be completed in what is a reasonable period of time. In my view, a reasonable period of time is two years from today.

HON. MR. BRUMMET: I do welcome the opportunity to contribute in the budget debate and to support the budget that has been proposed by the government. I think it introduces a factor of realism into the budget which has been lacking across this country for some time, and I know that with the sort of partisan political system that operates in this country, to get anything done it's necessary to get elected in order to form the government. So promises are made quite freely during election campaigns by all parties. It's interesting, generally, that those who feel they have the best chance of forming the government tend to try to be a bit more moderate in their promises because they may have to deliver on them. It's quite easy for people who have absolutely no hope of having to keep their promises — or who feel they have no hope — to make wild promises. In the election campaign in my own constituency, my opponents sort of conceded the riding to me, but then went ahead and said they would eliminate the sales tax in our area. They were going to create artificial markets for the farmers; they were going to do all sorts of wonderful things. They could try to force me into the position of saying: "Me too." I chose not to. I chose to try to make responsible promises to the people that I would try to do something.

Anyway, it's easy enough to make these promises and to use figures one way or another. As I've suggested, the budget

[ Page 3761 ]

is responsible. Yes, it introduces an element of user-pay. I suppose that what we've heard from the opposition throughout this debate is that those people who use the services shouldn't be required to pay for those services, that it should be someone else, creating the illusion among people that services can be increased and increased and improved continually without any cost to the users. That is impossible. Only a socialist mentality could come up with that type of approach that yes, more and more will be available to you from government. But at the same time, every tax increase, every effort by government to raise more money in order not only to provide those services but to ensure them on a continuing basis is attacked by the opposition. So we have this illusion that's created in the minds of taxpayers that you can have more and it won't cost you a cent; it will cost — and I quote — "the government somehow or other."

[3:00]

Even if you translate that into some of what.... The opposition says you should tax the corporations and the companies and the big businesses; those are the people you should get the money from. At the same time, they are supporting the workers. They are supporting all of these people. I don't know who they think these people work for. Most of the employees that they support are employees of the larger companies or the small businesses that serve the larger companies. If there is a pulp mill in my area, I am not naive enough to think that it doesn't have some beneficial effects. The big company puts in the pulp mill. Grocery stores benefit from that; apartments benefit from that; local taxation benefits from that; the workers in the pulp mill benefit from that; the welders benefit. The suppliers of all those services would not have that kind of business if it wasn't for the pulp mill.

The oil and gas industry is basically run by large corporations. It costs a million, two and a half million, to drill a well; one in four may be successful. The ordinary small businessman cannot go out and drill a well. It takes a large corporation to fund that kind of activity and get the credit from the banks. Yes, they expect a return on their money. But when that big corporation drills a well in my constituency, it employs something like 65 people. We found out during the NDP years of 1972-75, when they virtually drove the oil and gas industry out.... The corporations left for better territory, but guess what else? A lot of people from my area, the small businesses that no longer had to service the oil wells, had to leave as well.

I'm trying to make the connection that these people say: "Hit the big ones and hit 'em hard;" in most areas they already pay a good share of the tax.

Interjection.

HON. MR. BRUMMET: Well, of course, the socialist philosophy of fairness is something that I have some trouble with. For instance, if you'd like to take it in terms of principle, you support the principles of fairness, I take it, and yet you just came from a convention that said: "Because some people didn't ask our permission to run for municipal office and didn't accept that, they're going to get kicked out of the party." I know of people all over this province who run for municipal office, and many of them hold Socred memberships. Not one of them has to ask permission from the Social Credit Party in order to run for municipal office. Not one of them has been kicked out or had their membership lifted because they ran for municipal office without the blessing of the Socreds. And there you sit talking about fairness, Madam.

Member. I think you have the audacity.... I don't know how you don't swallow when you talk about democracy in your party — even in the name. Democracy is okay to talk about; what about practising it?

Interjection.

HON. MR. BRUMMET: But the thing is that they don't have to ask permission of the Social Credit Party to run for municipal election, and they don't get kicked out of the party if they run without begging for permission to run. Now talk about that one. And you've got the audacity to talk about fairness.

So what we have is the socialist mentality of saying that more and more will be provided and it will come from the people who create the jobs, and somehow or other there's no connection between.... If a company locates in British Columbia, that creates jobs. If it locates somewhere else, that creates the jobs somewhere else. I believe I read something about your convention: that some of your people believe that there is not a corporate dollar in this province that hasn't had blood attached to it. Wow! The business community. And then the irony of it, I guess: a resolution, I understand, to turn down any request for contributions or participation by the business sector in supporting your party, and then to put a businessman on your executive. My, what principles. Principles of convenience, Madam Member, convenient to whatever you like in partisan terms.

The opposition has continually and I'd know this fairly well in my Education ministry said that they have done all kinds of surveys in this province, and they have used this to say that the people have overwhelmingly agreed that they would gladly spend more money on education or on health, and then when some more money is asked of them, to say: "Okay, we agree that education and health need more money, but you're going to have to contribute; it doesn't come out of a magic money tree somewhere." And then they turn around, and when some of that is incorporated into the budget, and, yes, more money will be spent, but some more money will need to be taken from you in order to do that.... So they use these surveys as their argument to say that the people want to spend more money on it; as soon as the taxes go up at all, they attack the government for increasing the taxes. Do you believe in those surveys, or don't you? I'm quite willing to suggest that if people are saying we want more money spent on education, I'm delighted. There are surveys that show that, and I want to give people the opportunity to do that, because I think education does need more money.

Their leader here talks about freezing the development of any of the Expo lands until you determine a fair value. On whose terms? What determines a value? A group of socialists getting together in a room and saying: "This is worth this much"? Mr. Speaker, in the real world what determines value is what it will sell for. I had a house in Fort St. John during the boom. It was worth over $100,000, because people were paying over $100,000 for that type of House. Some years later when the oil industry was flat and a few other things were flat during the recession, nobody would pay me $40,000. What was the real value of that house, $40,000 or $100,000? But it’s so easy to say the market or the value is what we will get together in a room and decide. Well, I decided the value was $200,000 for my house, because that suited my purposes, except that $200,000 was a complete illusion, because nobody would pay me $200,000 for my house. They wouldn't even pay me $40,000 for it. So what was the value?

[ Page 3762 ]

The point I'm trying to make is that the value of that land is what the highest bidder will pay for it, and that process has been followed. We've heard a great deal in the last while about who said what and who shouldn't have said what and who talked to whom and who didn't talk to whom and whatever the case may be, but in actual fact the process went on as the process should. So it's the actions that I think we have to consider. The process has gone on. Qualified bidders were established, they put in their tenders and those tenders are being evaluated to decide which is the best offer you can get; and that, in a sense, determines the value, not what it might have done if you had sat on it for ten years. Because it might also have gone down, as I pointed out in my analogy of my house in Fort St. John.

If I had sold, I could turn around and say that if I sold the house for $50,000, 1 lost $50,000. But I could also point out that that was a value that the marketplace dictated. Maybe it's my judgment. Maybe I should have sold it at that time. The only thing — something the members can't understand — is that to get into an equivalent house, I would have had to pay the same amount of money for it. In other words, did I lose $50,000 or did I gain $50 000? 1 don't really know. But those members on that side know. They decide something has a value and therefore that's what should happen.

I maintain that it's only a socialist mentality that can try to determine artificially what the value of something should be without going to the market for it.

I suppose I'd be a little bit more receptive to the Leader of the Opposition's statements to freeze this land deal if he wasn't the same member who had said, "Stop building Expo; stop doing this," and if it wasn't the same party that said: "Don't build the Bennett Dam; don't build a reservoir." Because I can remember, even before I got into politics in the early 1960s when the Bennett Dam was proposed, that the opposition stood up in this House, I believe, from what I've read, and said that if they were government, they would stop it. And the Peace Canyon Dam: if they were government they would stop it. They said that if they had any say, they would stop the Site C dam. And they have constantly attacked this government for the road-building programs and for the railways. They would have stopped the building of the railway line to Fort Nelson if they had had the influence. What that railway line generated was a lumber industry in Fort Nelson, a considerable lumber industry, with hundreds of people employed and many amenities that came to the town because of that. What the hydroelectric power in this province generated was industry that came in here and created revenue, so that many of the services that we enjoy now, which are among the best in Canada.... That was where that came from, not from a socialist philosophy.

When you think of it, Mr. Speaker, nowhere — when they've gotten into the position to try and make all these wonderful theories work — have they been able to make them work. They didn't make them work in British Columbia; they haven't made them work in Manitoba; they haven't made them work anywhere. But they still go on and, persist in promising more services at less cost to you. I wish their philosophy would work, because I would love to get onto that bandwagon and say: "We will give you more money and more services, and I promise, so help me, that it won't cost you another cent in one way or another." It would be nice, wouldn't it?

I could use other examples. They support the employees in the logging industry very strongly, and it's a symbiotic relationship. They very much support those in the logging industry, but at the same time they support every group that protests against logging anywhere in this province. Every group that protests against making logs available, they join and support that group, but they also support the workers.

People who build dams supported the socialists and they supported them — they supported each other. He said those who build dams should be good socialists. Yet it is a party that doesn't want to see another darn built in British Columbia and didn't want to see all the dams built that are there so far. They objected to the Revelstoke Dam, the Peace Canyon Dam, the Bennett Dam, all of these things.

[3:15]

So you have a party there, and only the socialist mentality, I believe, can somehow or other see no link between more services and economic development, between roads and economic development, between tourism and economic development, and between hydro and economic development.

They set themselves up as the real benefactors of the seniors in this province. They want more homes for the seniors. They want more of that, but it shouldn't cost anybody any more money. They try to delude the people that it doesn't cost to have more and better homes.

More medical services should be provided; but, please, it shouldn't cost anybody any more money. The medical services in this province are a bargain to anyone — a very good bargain, and very much supported.

One of the things those members constantly will not touch is the fact that those who don't have the money to pay their medicare fees have them paid for by the Social Services ministry. The people who can't afford to pay them get their fees paid. If we're only talking about those people who can afford to pay, why shouldn't they?

MRS. BOONE: The working poor are stuck by this government every time.

HON. MR. BRUMMET: Do you want a turn now or later?

I still go back to your element of fairness. You have fairness, but you sat in this House and applauded your party leader sending out in a government-looking envelope.... It was another method to try and frighten seniors in this province — stamping it on the outside with what looked like a government stamp, "Medicare Notice, " almost suggesting to seniors that if they didn't contribute to whoever asked for some money in there, they would lose their medicare. That is not true. That was a fraudulent, pretentious use of what seemed to be a government document. Medicare notice! Asking for funds to support the NDP in a brown, government-looking envelope stamped "Medicare Notice." They all sat here and applauded when that was brought to their attention. How can you applaud that?

Somehow or other, we're supposed to spend more and more money. They object to government deficits. They object to higher taxes. They object to lower spending. I don't know. It's only a socialist mentality that can reconcile those two and say: "We can spend more money, we can hold down taxes and we can hold down deficits." You can't have it every way. Whether you do that in your personal financing or you do it in government financing, it just doesn't work.

When you look at the totals of the revised estimates in this budget and the new allotments for '88-89, out of a $713 million increase, over $511 million has gone to the social

[ Page 3763 ]

services ministries: Health, Education, Advanced Education, Attorney-General and Social Services. Over five-sevenths of this money has gone to the social services. They stand there on that side of the House and attack this government for not caring about people, when three-quarters of the money from the budget now goes into that and the greatest proportion of the increase has gone to the social services.

We have a considerable increase in education this year. Was that ever acknowledged by any of them over there? Absolutely no way. All they do is pick away at things. They blithely go ahead and make interprovincial comparisons, saying we're the worst in the country and that sort of thing. In the first place, that's not true even if they use the figures they're using. I have said repeatedly that if you use all that this province spends on education, we stand comparison with any province across this country. When we report only operating costs, statutory pensions and a few things like that, we get a cost per pupil in this province of $4,022 in 1987-88, which is considerably below several of the other provinces -about halfway down the heap. But when I add up all that we spend on education in this province, including the buildings, the pensions, all of that, I come up with a figure of $4,593 per pupil, almost $4,600, which puts us second in this country to Ontario - well above most of this country.

Which figure do you want to use? They very carefully use that one. They have very carefully tried to orchestrate a belief in the mind of the public that the education system in this province has had cutbacks. Baloney! How can an increase every year have been a cutback? How can you say that is a cutback? The teachers' salaries which they defend and say that we have among the lowest teachers' salaries in this country.... What they neglect to mention is that this government puts an additional 10.5 percent into the pension fund. So if you have a teacher that gets a $40,000-a-year salary — and many of them do — you add another $4,500 or $5,000 to that, and you have a truer picture of what teachers are getting.

Besides that, from 1977 to 1987 — a ten-year period — the average salary in the industrial complex in this whole province went up 77 percent. The teachers' salaries went up 100.61 percent in that same ten-year period, and we're told that we're beating these people. My goodness! I know time is fleeing on, but I would like to conclude with one point. We have put an extra $135 million into the budget this year to accommodate what the school districts said they were short, and they had to go to their taxpayers for $129 million over and above what the fiscal framework provided.

So we said: "We accept some of your arguments; we'll bring all this funding up to date, and we'll put in $135 million." The new budgets have come in — the proposed budgets from the school districts. Mr. Speaker, we put in $135 million to bring them up to currency. They have absorbed that in their new submissions and added another $129 million. Then they say it's the government's fault that the local taxpayers are going to have to pay a lot of money. How do you do this?

MR. REE: Are you going to vote in favour of the budget?

HON. MR. BRUMMET: I think I'm going to vote in favour of the budget. You bet I am.

MR. BARNES: Thank you for that very warm applause, fellow colleagues. I am not going to support the budget. I would very much like to. I want to be fair, as a good democrat would. This is number 15 for me, and I must say that even with those three budgets between 1972 and 1975, none of them are perfect. No budget is ever perfect. However, they should be a guiding principle for all of us, no matter who is in power, especially in a democracy where we believe in the concept of government by and for the people. That should be our number one objective. I want to know where this government is going, because that doesn't seem to be the guiding principle behind this government's actions.

We just listened to the Minister of Education make a fairly compelling case about the high cost of education and the costs not normally included in the equation in terms of the ratio per student, and that if all costs were included, British Columbia would probably be number two across the country in terms of expenditure per student — something like $4,300.

How can you argue with money spent if the books are there to show? I am sure the minister would be glad to bring those books forward so that we could look at them.

Interjection.

MR. BARNES: He'd love to. Do you hear that? I am sure you would do it with the same amount of enthusiasm that your colleagues did when we asked for the books on the Coquihalla. We got all the facts. Everybody knew where every dollar was, and there was no skullduggery or monkey business. But let's face it, we are in a political arena; the government wants to look good. It's our duty in the opposition to try to challenge the government on all points to ensure equity, fairness and responsibility - all those principles that the nearly three million citizens in this province expect us to adhere to. That's what we're trying to do.

So if we stick strictly to dollars and cents, I am afraid we are going to get lost. I am sure there are many objectives, but certainly one of the objectives should be to provide the very best services, opportunities and resources to the taxpayers as possible, because that's why we're here as stewards of their resources. As you have said many times, Mr. Minister — so has the Premier of the day and the Premier before -governments have no money of their own, not one dime.

The people have 100 percent of the money, and they should keep 100 percent of it either through regulatory power, resources or whatever means. It is their business; this is their place of business, and they're all shareholders. That's where the problem is. They're not being recognized as shareholders; they're getting short shrift. Too many of them are being eliminated and overlooked. That's what concerns me. I wonder where this government is going. I wonder if this government has got its priorities confused.

This budget speech starts off with a cynical note. Very early on, the Minister of Finance says: "Let's get used to it. Times are good. The economy is boiling and it looks as if we're going to have great prospects for the future, but get used to at least 10 percent unemployment." What kind of objective is that? What kind of enthusiasm and confidence is that to give to people out there, especially young people and those in the public school system who are attempting to get into the post-secondary levels?

HON. MR. BRUMMET: You won't let us develop things.

MR. BARNES: The Minister of Education says we won't let him develop things. I wish that we had a choice in how things were developed in this province, because one of the

[ Page 3764 ]

difficulties, especially for me, is having to stand up in this House and appeal to a government that really operates on a completely different plane. It doesn't start from the premises I just gave in my preamble. It never has, and it can't, because it has a different agenda; it has a political agenda. We're not talking about that in the budget, but if you read between the lines you will see that this government has a political agenda that is deliberately designed to take away from the people these powers that we're talking about, to ensure that they do not have them - only a semblance of the right to vote, of the right of access to power, to be able to participate in this system. We know it through the decentralization sham that you've got where you set up eight ministries of state and gave them $8 million. How much of it did you spend? Only $300,000 after 10 months. Why didn't you spend this money? You didn't need it.

All I'm trying to say is that they can do what they wish when they want to if they have the will. It's a matter of priorities. It has nothing to do with what is needed, and that's why this budget is such a sham. I'll tell you, after so many years of listening to this government come in with these budgets and give us their rationale for why they can no longer afford adequate services for people, it makes me sick. I can say that without equivocation. It makes me very angry to think that we can squander money on all kinds of projects, not just the Coquihalla but all kind of schemes. We never hear any more talk about northeast coal. We used to hear the Minister of Economic Development (Hon. Mrs. McCarthy) talking about how great it was going to be and what kinds of contracts we had sewn up, and the Japanese were going to be just pouring money into the B.C. economy. Why don't we hear any more about that? Why isn't the government running around and yelling and screaming about all of the benefits that it is getting from Expo? Because, in fact, most of the money that we've been making in the last little while, especially from lotteries, has been paying off that debt. It started off in debt, and we're still in debt. The ALRT is another example. There are all kinds of projects.

[3:30]

The government comes forward with printed rationales on how things are doing well and how things are getting better. Although I get dismayed from time to time, I can tell you that the one thing that has stuck in my mind throughout all of this is the real objective of this government. I'm not going to be sidetracked by what you've got printed in your budget, because that's just a numbers game and we all know how that is. That's sort of like that BS fund you've got; you know, the budget stabilization fund, $450 million. Except there's no money in it until the government gets ready, and then it will spend the money that it doesn't have yet, but in the meantime it is starving social service programs and privatizing valuable resources; if they can't sell them they give them away. Assets are going out in fire sales.

In 1982 you had something like 50,000 people working in the public service. Today we have barely 30,000. The government says we've got to economize; we've got to become more efficient and cut costs. Any intelligent analysis of the situation, I'm sure.... The second member for Vancouver-Point Grey (Ms. Marzari), as Chairman of our Public Accounts Committee, would point out that when you look at the costs associated with privatization — not only the buy-outs of contracts for early retirement, etc., but the contracting of consultants and the other kinds of contracts necessary in order to get the services done for the public — it's just a dodge. It's a sham. It doesn't stand up to credibility. So what is the real objective? What's the real agenda of this government?

I maintain that it's politically motivated; I maintain that it's ideologically motivated. And you don't have to be an expert, Mr. Speaker, to realize the reality of what I'm saying — to realize that this government's overall initiative has been one of seizing power, and taking power and doing what it pleases. I think the Premier has made that very clear; once he got power, he has chosen his executive council, and he would like to have instilled in them the kind of guts and moxie for them to follow his dictates. Unfortunately, he didn't do a very good job of indoctrinating them in advance, and he found them all over the place.

Nonetheless, the government of the day is out of place. It is not respecting the rights of the people of this province. Unfortunately, in our system we have no rules with respect to impeachment. We have no way in which we can demand the resignation of the government. Although we can ask for it, we can't force it. I'm sure that if we could, this Premier would do the Social Credit Party a great service, because he would be gone; the people would recall him, because this government is obviously in real trouble.

HON. MRS. JOHNSTON: Wishful thinking.

MR. BARNES: It's not wishful thinking at all. In fact, if you want to know my true wishes, Madam Minister of Municipal Affairs, I want him to stay. As far as I'm concerned, he's one of the best things that's ever happened as far as the political battlegrounds are concerned, because he has gone way over his head. He has reached far beyond his mandate. He has taken this on as a personal opportunity for him to do his own thing, even to the detriment of his colleagues. I think he's going to be challenged for it, not only inside but outside. I want him to stay. I think he would make a great foil for our opposition leader in the next election. I think the things he's talking about that he thinks he can do as Premier in this province.... Either democracy's going to prevail; either there's going to be such a thing as the right of choice...

HON. MR. BRUMMET: Like it does in your organization, eh?

MR. BARNES: ...like it does in my organization, that's correct, and like it should do everywhere you have rules and guidelines. That's what this country is made of: rules and guidelines to help us all. That's what this office is about -that's what the Premier is supposed to have taken an oath to do. What opportunity does any of us have for serious input? What opportunity does even the cabinet have for serious input? Because you have to find out after the fact what's going on in this province.

I want to suggest as well that there's a lot of credibility to the charges that we are seeing the erosion of the universality of health care in this province. We are seeing the beginnings of a two-tiered system for those who can afford it, where profitability is the motive.

I feel that ultimately we'll see the public school system at risk, despite what that minister says, in terms of access to fair education. Already we have examples of those who are more affluent but still wish to have their children in the public school system choosing the schools that they think would be the most accommodating for their needs. In other words,

[ Page 3765 ]

they're finding the areas and the communities that are more conducive for their children's environment. They're not leaving their children in the communities that they happen to live in; they're finding, they're picking, they're choosing. That's the beginning, because those families and those communities are the ones who make the contributions to the communities. Perhaps they're the ones who are a little more articulate, have a little better capacity for comprehending the future and understanding the trends — they're not the poor people, the ones who are without economic means — and therefore there is a shifting of values, of economic muscle in certain districts. It's happening despite your efforts, Mr. Minister of Education. You may not be setting it up, but that's the choice that they have, the same as they have the choice to go to independent schools.

HON. MR. BRUMMET: And they shouldn't have choice?

MR. BARNES: They can have the choice. Mr. Speaker, I want to tell the minister....

HON. MR. BRUMMET: No choice allowed under socialism.

MR. BARNES: No, you just seize on that. While you're talking about choice, let's ensure that there is a bottom line in this, regardless of your specious attempts to distract. The point I'm making is that the children, the youth, the families — they count. The communities count. That's your job. That's what the public school system's all about: to ensure that those young people have an opportunity; that you don't deprive them.

You know yourself that many of them have very few discretionary funds, and you know that many of the people on social assistance in some of those areas — who are dependent on fixed incomes by one means or the other — can't participate. That's a disparity in this system, and you're saying: "Oh, well, it's laissez-faire. If they want it, they can get out and hustle." This is the point we're trying to make: there is such a thing as a poverty syndrome, which you should begin to understand. There are conditions in which people become poverty-stricken. It doesn't always have to be economic; even though it often starts that way, in time it becomes psychological. It begins to affect people in serious ways. You are not addressing that situation, Mr. Minister of Education, nor is your government, and it's clear that your political agenda is entirely different than what it should be.

The same goes for the Minister of Health (Hon. Mr. Dueck), who I'm sure will be speaking in a few minutes. I'd like him to point out to us how we are not heading towards a two-tier system or, even worse, that we're not going to see the erosion of universality of health care in this province, because that is the ultimate objective of that side of the government. The ultimate objective is everything for profit: education for profit; health care for profit; no social housing. Nothing that the government is going to be involved in.... All the government wants to do is to have the right to tax, to run a few programs that may benefit it. God only knows what your real agenda is, but it sure isn't to help the people of British Columbia, not when you tell them that they have to get used to 10 percent unemployment; that we can't afford to feed hungry children in the schools, when there are 600 or so in the city of Vancouver. They have all kinds of ad hoc feeding programs in the city in the elementary schools.

What is your government doing about it? It's saying, because of ideological reasons.... You would argue with that and say it's not ideological. Your reasons are that these families should be looking after themselves: "If we know where the families are, we'll go out and help them." But that's just another scam job; that's just another diversion. You don't intend to look after those families. In fact, to say that "families are the strength of our future" is one of the most dishonest, hypocritical, sinful, shameful statements you could ever imagine coming from a government that just a few years ago wiped out all those programs. You wiped out family support programs; you fired about 600 social workers over a short period of time, calling it restraint; the crisis program for youth; postpartum counselling for mothers. You wiped them all out, and the consequences were disastrous, and now you come back and say: "We're going to look after the family." Big deal!

I wonder what your scam is there, because the kind of thing you're talking about looking after is really a political game. Ultimately you do not want to see the people in this province have the ability to make decisions for themselves and to ensure that their resources are used equitably and for themselves.

This was part of the thing that the opposition leader was pointing out today. No one on this side of the House is opposed to the development of the Expo site, as long as it's done fairly and people get a fair return. But what guarantees are there that we're going to get any fair...? What about the social housing commitments that were made a few years ago by the council? Are we ever going to see those? What input has the public had? We've been running around trying to read the paper to find out what's going on; the members of the Legislature have no idea what's going on. In fact, the members of cabinet don't even know what's going on. It's not right.

You say you're talking about fairness, decentralization. What a sham! Decentralization for what? You mean to tell me I get myself elected and sent here and I've got to go talk to a couple of MLAs from other ridings to find out what's going on? Get serious.

As I say, we can spend some time on this budget talking about the details, but I can assure you that the real agenda behind Social Credit has never been to provide good services for people. You have your own agenda. If you had your way, you would privatize government itself. You've done your best to do everything to undermine it. How many standing committees sit in this Legislature? Name them, besides Public Accounts. Which ones? Every session they are listed. Everyone's listed, but we never sit, we never travel, we never get an opportunity to get input, and it's a big joke.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. BARNES: All of you guys know it's a big joke. It's about time you guys on that side of the House started talking to people like things really mattered around here, like you're trying to do something for people.

HON. MR. BRUMMET: It's strange that we have the best services for people anywhere in North America.

MR. BARNES: Sure. Have you ever taken a look at some of the ones on the streets, how they're selling their bodies? Have you ever gone down to the crisis prevention centre for youth and seen how many of them are threatening to commit

[ Page 3766 ]

suicide? Do you know that we don't have sufficient psychiatric services for youth in this province? You should find out some of the facts and what's going on. There's havoc out there on the streets. Have you ever looked to see how many native youth drop out of school, don't have any place to go, feel alienated in society? You get on the ball and start doing something if you really care about people.

Mr. Speaker, I want to say that this budget certainly says all the right words. It says a lot of things that one would like to believe, particularly that the government's aim is to try to improve social services, and that it is going to be good for all of us in the future. But there are many people who don't benefit.

Let me just close by showing you one small aspect of the hypocrisy of this government. We all know that this "save the family" routine is only an attempt to try to win the abortion argument and appease a few friends, that you have no serious desire to help the family any more than you have in the past.

Why is it that a youngster in a foster home can receive so much more support from the provincial government than he could in his own home? Why is it that the government talks about the family, when families are living in poverty, living 50 percent below the level of poverty? Why is it that the government refuses to even consider raising those rates? If it doesn't want to raise those rates, why doesn't it accept the fact that people are living in poverty and having to commit some kind of offence under the regulations in order to get the funds they require? We know that: it's by design.

[3:45]

There's probably not a member over there who would deny that people on social assistance live below the poverty line, that they do not have enough money. You know that. Why don't you do something about it? Why don't you say: "Okay, we'll raise the amount of allowable earnings $400 or $500 to bring it up to the poverty line, even though we can't give you the dollars. " Why don't you do something like that? Be realistic.

Why don't you allow them some flexibility under their shelter allowance, instead of pegging it to the amount of rent and saying: "Regardless of the rent, if you have a place you can rent for $100 and we're giving you $200 for shelter, then t you can keep the $100. That shows good enterprising skills. Good for you. You can shop around." Instead, they find a place for $150 and you say, "Well, you owe us $50, " and the people are already living in poverty. Highly illogical.

My second final wind-up is to say that the cabinet may not have moxie and guts according to the standards of the Premier, but what about the Premier himself? What kind of moxie has he got? Has he got the moxie to back up his challenge? Families are the strength of our future. Will he back that up by doing something about the hungry children in d the schools? Will he ensure that there are no hungry children in the schools?

MR. BARNES: You can talk politics all you want. The t fact is, those children are hungry, and they should be fed

MR. BARNES: Mr. Member, I can assure you that the r children don't know that politics are being played; all they t know is that they're hungry. Are you going to feed them? 

HON. MR. DUECK: It is my pleasure this afternoon to speak in support of the budget. I would like to say at the outset that in my opinion it is a fair budget, a responsible budget, a forward-thinking budget, and a budget that has real compassion for those in need.

I have said that this is an honest budget. The budget does not promise a pie in the sky. It is a real budget; it's up front. The budget does not hide the fact that services cost money.

With respect to the Ministry of Health, this budget is designed to make sure that the health programs that the Social Credit has built over the past 35 years will be well funded for the next 35 years. This is an honest budget which looks to the future.

We are told again and again that there is a cut in the health budget. Our budget for the coming year is over $3.9 billion. This is an increase of $375 million — not $1 million, not $2 million, not $20 million, not $100 million, but $375 million. And again and again, I hear from the opposition that there is a cut in the health budget. I don't understand the kind of accounting they use on that side. I'm not an accountant, but I see one sitting across from me who I understand is an accountant and a good one, but apparently they don't understand the elements of accounting.

There is a debit and credit part of the ledger; there is an expense side and a revenue side. But somehow or other, the socialists think there is only an expense side of the ledger — you spend money whenever you please, how much you please, and the money somehow will come your way.

They truly believe there is a money tree. Everyone surely has a money tree in the back yard. You go there with a long sweeper and go around a few times until you have a load, and then you know what to do with it. There is a money tree. They truly believe that. You don't have to earn money; you just gather it. I wish I was so lucky. I ask myself: why are they so negative? I could really say that NDP stands for "no down payment. " If you add negativism to it, it could well mean the negative, no-down-payment, socialist party of British Columbia.

I know that under our system we have to have opposition. That is clear and that's how our system is built. I agree with hat, but surely from time to time we could have some positive, constructive criticism. There have been members from the opposite side who have from time to time come to me and asked about a concern regarding health in their own constituency. This was good. We were able to correct.... Even if we didn't agree, we had good discussions. I think this should continue. But by and large, I see again and again that it is negativism — constantly negative.

Whatever we do on this side — spend an extra $375 million on health care — it's negative. They talk about a cut. I do not understand it, until I really start thinking about it. Why are they so negative? I've come to the conclusion that they do his for political gain. They feel that by being negative, somehow people will listen. They scare the seniors, frighten sick people and children, just to gain a few political points. I think it's despicable and I do not believe it will work.

They even oppose such programs as strengthening the family. How could anyone oppose a program of that kind? I would like to just highlight a few things in this program. We ay our future needs responsible decisions. They criticize. In their words, we don't need responsible decisions. We're viewing all policies which may present unintended barriers o forming or maintaining strong families in British Columbia

They're opposed to that. I don't understand why, but

[ Page 3767 ]

they say that's no good. In this program we have also developed a resource guide in which every resource in British Columbia, the address and the place, is listed. They're opposed to that. Now why would anyone, no matter what political party he belonged to, be opposed to something like that?

They're opposed, for example, to counselling for those who wish to prevent pregnancies. We have some pamphlets in our program that show various methods of birth control. I heard before that they were in favour, but for some reason or other, suddenly they are opposed to it. They are opposed to the video which gives some people some indication of where help is available and where they can go for some counselling. They're opposed to that too — a woman has got herself in an unwanted pregnancy and, of her own free will, would perhaps like some assistance. Surely you cannot be opposed to someone who is seeking help. Why would they be opposed to that?

Social Services and Housing — infant day care. Again and again we hear that we're not doing enough for day care. They're opposed to that. They say that support of residential accommodation for women who have got themselves in a situation not of their liking is archaic. We're saying that if somebody needs that assistance, we're going to make it available. But they're also opposed to that.

They're opposed to family support services and associated family programs, whereby we will perhaps find help for people who have children who are difficult to handle. They're opposed to adoption and more information on adoption of needy children, where families and couples would like to give some children a good home. They're opposed to family maintenance enforcement. I don't understand why, but they're opposed to it. They're opposed to marriage preparation.

The total program, which we consider a positive program, they're opposed to from start to finish. And I would sure like to know on what grounds. Mr. Speaker, to be a good socialist, you must be negative and you must criticize. W.A.C. Bennett was a man who always took a second look. Whenever he came out with a program, he would take another look, and with a second look would perhaps change his mind. And it so happened that he did change his mind. He said they weren't fit to run a peanut stand. "But, " he said, "that was unfair. They were, but they couldn't do it with a profit. "

We have the best health care system in the country. Canada has the best health care system in the world. Our health care system did not happen by accident. It took the courage, the vision and the determination of many Premiers and Health ministers over a 35-year period. It was the Social Credit Party that introduced hospital insurance in British Columbia; it was a Social Credit government that introduced the first — and still only — long-term-care program in Canada. Bill Bennett's proudest achievement was the introduction of a long-term-care program in B.C. in 1978 — a Social Credit Premier and a Social Credit government. To this day, no one else in Canada has a comprehensive, integrated long-term-care program.

The budget also refers to pilot projects here in the capital region. Again, they make light of that and criticize it. I think it is well worth looking at this for just a moment. We're developing a seniors care centre where seniors can be looked after in a more integrated facility. We're also improving health care for seniors, and we're trying to provide a fuller range of medical services to them in one centre — a convenience and quality care, if you will, at one stop for health services.

We're also providing community health care in a more coordinated and integrated function for everyone. This is now in the beginning stages of being developed. I think it's a great venture that my ministry is on, and 1 believe it will be proven to be a successful program because we believe it is easier and ultimately better to maintain health than to retain health.

Our health care system provides for 30 million medical claims a year, just to show you the size of the ministry. We attend to a quarter of a million emergencies each year. We have over three million in-patient admissions and over two million out-patient visits to our hospitals each year. It is a massive program.

We talk about emergency services. We were highly criticized in the last couple of days about the ambulance service in British Columbia, which has to be without question the best anywhere in Canada. Each time it is criticized I follow it up, and I find it was erroneous. It was criticized again to put fear into the people of this province who have had an unfortunate situation — the seniors and the sick people — just to create some unrest and perhaps gain a few Brownie points. But it will not work; people aren't that stupid. They're a lot smarter than what you give them credit for.

We provide assistance to mental health patients with a network of 2,000 beds throughout the province. This does not include the Riverview Hospital. We provide out-patient services to 18,000 per year. In our services to the handicapped, we assist 17 child development centres. Our excellent long-term-care programs assist over 40,000 people with home nursing care and facility care. We have 17,000 longterm-care beds. We have 7,500 extended-care beds. We are in the process, over the next two years, of adding 1,200 new beds. We have allocated $140 million this year for capital construction. Next year it will be over $150 million, and they say we have cutbacks. What kind of accounting is that?

[4:00]

We're not talking about $10 million. We're not talking about $20 million. We're talking about hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars, and again and again I hear them talk of cutbacks in Health. Surely if anyone could criticize someone for lying to this House, that would be one time. I'm not saying they are, but they certainly could be criticized, because it's not true. It is absolutely not true. When you take a real good look at the problems that arise daily — mainly from the media and from other individuals — most of the time they are not substantiated. Generally we can clear at least 90 percent of these up within a very short period of time.

This budget provides for an even better and expanded health service delivery system. We are concerned for health and health service in this country today, but we're also concerned about the health of people in the future. We cannot just look at today. That would be very short-sighted. When you look at the future you sometimes have to do things that aren't as popular. It is always easier to do the things that are popular, but I think it takes guts.... It takes a government that says: "We must look at the future. We must provide for the people that come after us, for our children and their children." That's what we're trying to do. We don't want to leave a bankrupt province as a legacy to our children. This budget ensures that that will never happen. Again, we are concerned about the future; we are concerned about what will

[ Page 3768 ]

happen to health care in years to come. Again, Mr. Speaker, I have to remind the opposition: there is no money tree.

What makes me pleased is that the budget provided to me this year will allow me to continue the excellent health care programs this province has become accustomed to. I don't know what polls the NDP were referring to when the member from Prince George said British Columbians are dissatisfied with their medical program and with the health care they are getting. All I can say is that the polls they are looking at must be something other than the ones that I see — perhaps even some of the propaganda they are peddling themselves and finally beginning to believe; in fact, that is what the people are saying on the outside.

I had the opportunity twice last year to go and visit the other Health ministers of Canada, and in every case - and I say this with some delight and some pride - they asked me about our long-term care, about our extended care, about the programs that we have for the mentally ill, about the programs we have for sick people in our province. They were very concerned about how we did it with the moneys that we are spending. Not only that, but two provinces sent delegations down here to see our senior people so that they could copy what we were doing.

I don't want to say that we're doing everything right; of course we aren't. We've got much improvement to look forward to. But I'm telling you, when you talk to these people.... And they're not all Social Credit members; as a matter of fact, we are the only Social Credit Party in the country. They are from all walks of life, including your party. They were most keen to see how we did certain things in our programs that they want to model. So that speaks for our programs. I would like to say that we are proud of that, and it will only make us even more anxious to do more things in health care that are affordable and that we can do under the current situation and with the moneys available.

But the scare tactics, the fear-mongering.... Again, to be a good socialist it helps to be negative. As a matter of fact, I think that is part of the mandate you must sign before you join their party.

It must be great to be in opposition, where you can criticize the budget, complain, talk about all the things you should change, but never have to perform, because you never get elected. So you can say anything you want — and talk is cheap. You can say, "Oh, that's wrong," criticize everything, because, after all, you don't have to perform. You don't have to show that it can be done. You can just sit there and criticize, and that's exactly what you're doing.

But people aren't that dumb; they know the service they're getting. I think I get around in the province more than anyone in this House, and when I talk to the seniors, to the nurses, to the doctors, to the people in hospitals; when I go to children's hospitals.... Even with all the problems.... When you have a budget or an organization as big as Health, there will be problems. But I'll tell you, by and large they are very happy and they love what we're doing in the area of health care.

The opposition have been doing nothing constructive to build a better health care system. They have continually created fear and uncertainty among the people of B.C., especially the seniors. Instead of looking for solutions, the opposition have tried to scare British Columbians into voting NDP. That is an absolute shame. They could help by at least bringing some suggestions forward that may help us in delivering a better health care system — and I must say, there have been some among them that have done just that. But sometimes I really feel they look with glee when something happens, even to the detriment of an individual; even when someone dies. Perhaps they can put just some responsibility, or say something went wrong.... I hope it's not correct, but it appears to me that they look with glee because perhaps now they've got something again to criticize.

I think that is despicable; I think that is absolutely horrible. They should try to solve that problem if it is in their area, and we would try to help them. When the opposition tries to discredit our health care program, I sometimes wonder whether they're talking about the 75,000 involved in delivering health care in this province. Are they saying those people are not doing a proper job? Because those are the people who are delivering the health care system. Are they saying in fact that those people are doing a lousy job, and criticizing? I think we should build up the people who deliver the health care system and say: "You are doing one fantastic job under the circumstances." We should support them. But are they really talking about the people who work there, or is it just something to create some negative feedback again: "Maybe we can make a couple of Brownie points; maybe we can get another vote by scaring people enough"? They go about discrediting the service, scaring the public with NDP fundraising letters in a cowardly way. The NDP's actions are shameful, all in the hopes of getting a few Brownie points. But again, it will not work. You can't get points that way. I think you have to do it the other way: you've got to be more positive.

The budget recognizes the future needs of our seniors. This budget takes a realistic approach to making sure our core programs have a good financial foundation that future generations can count on. I can't understand what the opposition sees wrong with that, unless they, perhaps like their cousins behind the Iron Curtain, want to keep their citizens ignorant of reality. I notice the member is laughing. I would laugh too; I'd laugh in shame.

Funding for serving our seniors is a very important issue, not to be trivialized with political rhetoric. We have been examining for a long time the manner in which we can support the needs of our seniors. We do this continually, to give them a better life in their senior years. After all, they have worked hard to get to that particular stage in life. We know that in the next so many years there will be many more, and we will join their ranks. We feel that by the year 2001 the number of seniors over 75 will increase by about 70 percent. You probably ask why we are doing things. We are looking to the future. There have to be dollars there for those people who will come on line. I want to reassure the seniors of this province that the actions we have taken in this budget are designed to ensure that adequate funding is available to meet their needs.

This government is concerned not only with maintaining an excellent health care system, which we have today, but also with ensuring that our children will be able to benefit from an affordable, comprehensive, progressive health care system. This budget ensures that this basic principle will be maintained.

As Minister of Health, I am concerned about the lack of vision and understanding that the members of the opposition have shown with respect to the initiatives that this budget will allow us to pursue, in order that we might retain our position as leaders in the health care field. During the difficult years of economic downturn in the early eighties, it was the Social

[ Page 3769 ]

Credit government that had the vision and the courage to lead the way in Canada in controlling costs that were out of control and when runaway costs were in such dire straits that some measure had to be taken. We had that courage. We did that, and we came through those bad times. The reality, however, is that today we have a more efficient, better-managed and more accountable system which is delivering more services to a larger population. The reality also is that there will never be enough money in health care to meet all demands, or the wishes of everyone.

Our responsibility is to ensure that we maintain an affordable and comprehensive health care system. The resource allocation decisions are difficult and not always easily palatable. However, we assume that responsibility readily and strongly believe that this budget recognizes our responsibility, as well as the general aspirations of our public. By working together with our health care professionals I believe that we will be successful not only in maintaining but also in advancing our health care system, which is looked upon enviously by so many people in the world.

Mr. Speaker, I am more than just pleased with the level of funding my colleague the Minister of Finance has allocated to me. I am also pleased that other initiatives will benefit the citizens of my community. I commit myself to protecting the health care system of this province, to providing the best affordable service equally to all British Columbians, to assisting those who are poor, to asking those who can pay to pay a nominal amount, to preserving what we have developed in health care for our children and our children's children. This is my duty, I believe; anything less would be irresponsible.

No, my friends, there is no money tree. As a matter of fact, if you looked carefully, that tree in your backyard would probably turn out to be a little pussywillow. It is the real world out there. The piper must be paid, and who is the piper? It's the taxpayers of this province, and I think the money that we have allocated for health care — $1,300 for every man, woman and child in this province — certainly cannot be criticized as a cutback.

MS. SMALLWOOD: I have found the last few speakers from the government side very interesting. I think the old adage that you know how well you're doing by the kind of opposition you have is probably a good one. I think that what we can deduct from the last two speakers is that we had a heck of a good convention, because we sure seemed to push a few buttons on the government side.

[4:15]

Coming back to this House and hearing the rhetoric from the government side and hearing them defend the government's actions and the budget really shows that the opposition, in its convention and in its speeches in this House around the budget, are really hitting a few buttons over there — a few really sensitive spots. What this budget does is shift the responsibility for the payment of government services more and more onto the average British Columbian. It increases the cost of being a British Columbian and decreases the services that British Columbians can rely on getting.

What this government has done with this budget and with previous budgets and legislation — and the Minister of Health protests so loudly — is to increase the taxes that British Columbians pay and increase a list of services for which the people of this province have to pay user fees. That is what is happening under the guidance of this Health minister. The minister seems completely unable to understand that the more you increase the burden of taxation on the people of the province, the less they are able to support their families, the less they are able to educate their children and the less they are able to do the job that they are trying to do. The minister increases the list of health services that health care no longer pays for in this province.

The minister talks about strengthening the family program. I think that it's a really good opportunity — and I welcome the chance — to take a look at what that program really does and the hypocrisy of this government to suggest that this program will strengthen the family: the glitzy ads being played again and again on TV, the romantic vision of the Premier's and — I would imagine, by the Health minister's own words — the Health minister's view of what families experience in this province. If this government truly supported families and truly supported the majority of people in this province, they would not be insulting the intelligence of the people of this province by bringing in these glitzy ads paid by taxpayers' dollars. Instead they would be supporting the good work being done in communities all around this province: the professionals, the community service organizations and the family service organizations that have been starved under this government; the planned parenthood organizations that are targeting the same programs this government purports to be supporting. If this government truly cared, this government would not be spending all of this money on a propaganda program. This strengthening-the family program that they're talking about is a very thin veil, a very thin guise to again promote the views of the Premier and the Health minister on women’s role in society.

The reality in this province is that women have got to feed and house those children. If this government was in support of families and children, they would be doing the things necessary to allow families to get on with the job. Instead of talking about getting used to 10 percent unemployment, instead of decreasing the support for community colleges, this government would be supporting families and supporting women in their plight to feed those children.

This government is not doing that. This government is very clearly increasing the burden on families. This government is increasing the barriers to women. The second budget that this government has brought down has increased the financial burden on families and decreased the services to families. The government has instead chosen — and shame on you — to bring in a glitzy, romantic, propaganda program.

We want you to open your eyes. We want you to see the reality of families in this province. We want you to support those families. We want you to support community colleges. That is the opportunity.

To have the Minister of Advanced Education (Hon. S. Hagen) applauding comments and calls for support for community colleges again just shows the hypocrisy. Because it is you, sir; it is your ministry that has cut back the opportunity and has increased the barriers not only for women but for young people in our communities. The lineups of young people at those community colleges that have been turned away, that have had their future denied them....

Those are the decisions that women have to make in this province when they decide whether to bring a pregnancy to full term: whether they can feed their kids, or whether they have to save their money to be able just to keep the roof over their head, to pay the taxes that this government demands of

[ Page 3770 ]

them. When this government increases the tax burden and the financial costs for seniors, what they are doing is increasing again the burden that families must bear. Our constituency office, since this budget has come down, has had increasing calls from families saying: "I have my mother or father in an extended care home, and we can no longer afford it because of the increased burden that this government is putting on our families. Our mother and our father are going to have to come back home. We're going to have to take care of them, and we don't have the resources to do that. What that will mean to us is that we can't pay for the increased costs of supporting our children and their future."

[Mr. Rabbitt in the chair.]

This government is stealing from families. This government doesn't care about families. This government is living in a dream world, in a fantasy land. The people that are paying are the people of this province. We pay through taxes, and we pay doubly because of the increased burdens — the shift of burdens, the shift of costs. Rather than living up to your responsibility to deal with the needs of the people of this province, you are shifting the burden onto individual families, onto individual women and onto seniors who have worked and built this province into what it is.

For the Minister of Health to stand there and to tell us that he is looking after the future needs of seniors.... The seniors of this province thought that that's what they had worked all their lives to do. They paid taxes, they built this province, and they did so in good faith. They did so because they were looking after the future. It was their energy, their money, their commitment that built this province, and now you are abandoning them. By shifting the tax burden onto the average family, onto seniors' backs, you are increasing the number of people that can be classified as working poor — as people living below the poverty line. That will cost everyone in B.C. That is the future you bring to the people of B.C., to the youth of B.C., to the seniors of B.C. It is hypocrisy for you to say, when you deliver budgets like this, that you care about the family. The only thing that this government cares about is furthering its narrow, unrealistic view of the way a society should operate. Your vision is a vision that does not reflect the needs of the people; it is a narrow, cruel, punitive vision.

The previous speakers have talked about the NDP and the socialists, about the opposition. Well, let me tell you that when I come back here and listen to the kind of rhetoric that came out of the last two speakers, I am very proud to be in opposition. I am very proud to dissociate myself from this government. I am very proud to stand with the New Democrats and with my leader, Mike Harcourt.

Interjection.

MS. SMALLWOOD: The Minister of Environment says we should get used to being in opposition. The Minister of Health says it's easy to be in opposition and you should try being government. Well, we've asked the Minister of Health to resign, because he in the past has not been able to fulfil his mandate. Clearly, the people of this province do not have confidence in the Minister of Environment, because of the work that he has done. I believe very strongly that the people of this province, because of the last year and the record of this government, do not have confidence in this government.

Maybe it is time that this government, before it sells out all that the seniors have built in this province.... Maybe it is time that you felt what it is like to be in opposition and you felt what it is like to try to do the people's business and to carry the responsibility for half of the population of British Columbia with the kinds of resources that we have. It's about time that the kinds of things the New Democrats have been talking about have an opportunity to be fulfilled — our vision, our image.

That's what we've been talking about this weekend. We've been putting together policy, and I'm sure that the Social Credit members do not understand how a party democratically develops policy and builds for the future, taking the ideas of the people of this province and putting them into well-thought-out policy that spells out what we will do when we form government in a very few days. The way this government is going, it may be sooner than you think.

[4:30]

I'm sure that the members of this government don't understand how a political party builds its strength and its consensus from its members, how elected people work with the membership, how we develop policies together, and how we meet that kind of consensus and support around the good ideas that spell out how we will govern a province.

This government talks about fiscal responsibility. This is the government that likes to position itself as the government that can manage. Well, your record is abysmal. This is the government that would not disclose, would not open the books, would not let the people see how they spent their tax dollars on Coquihalla. This is the government that continues to shift the responsibility of running this province from those who can pay onto the rest of us, with increasing burdens and decreasing service. It's a government of smoke and mirrors; it's a government that again is cruel.

So I take my place proudly in opposition to this budget. I take my place with a great deal of support from the people of this province, because the people of this province have had enough of this government's hands in their pockets.

HON. MR. STRACHAN: I am delighted to take my place in this budget debate. We thought we'd have the pleasure of the hon. Premier speaking to us this afternoon in this slot, but he was busy, obviously, with the first minister from Quebec. Therefore I am pleased to rise in the Premier's position.

MR. CASHORE: You've got to wear a smoking jacket.

HON. MR. STRACHAN: I quit smoking about three months ago. My smoking jacket got burned.

Interjections.

HON. MR. STRACHAN: Come on, you guys! I want to get on with this, what it is I want to get on with.

However, I am pleased, as all members on this side of the House have been, to speak to the budget at hand, the second budget presented by this new administration, and to speak in glowing terms of how it's going to serve us well in the next year.

Briefly, if I could comment to the member for Surrey Guildford-Whalley (Ms. Smallwood) about governments and elections and being in opposition or government, we're here because the majority of the people thought that we should be here, and you're over there for the same reason. And until that electorate wants to do something about that, I am afraid we will have to take our respective positions in this

[ Page 3771 ]

place. That's just the way it goes. You may have a different opinion about where we should respectively be sitting in this Legislative Assembly, but the people of British Columbia have contrary opinions to you.

Also I do take offence to what the member had to say about our government's position on services to those in need, particularly families and children.

The member will remember, of course, just before adjourning the first session of the thirty-fourth parliament, that we brought in outstanding and landmark legislation with respect to maintenance for families, for those who have had problems in family divorce, young ladies primarily, and families seeking maintenance. I think we're all obligated in this province to the outstanding and remarkable work done by my colleague the Attorney-General (Hon. MR. Smith) in bringing legislation like this to the people of British Columbia, and as well to our colleague the hon. Minister of Social Services and Housing (Hon. Mr. Richmond).

Those two gentlemen, hon. members will know, brought in legislation that goes a long way to bringing maintenance orders and the care of maintenance orders into the twentieth century and making errant husbands realize the responsibility that they have.

Further to the member's comments with respect to our services for families and children, the member is advised to attend the Legislative Assembly tomorrow when we go into debate of the Minister of Social Services and Housing. If she follows those debates, she will note that the services for families and children budget in the estimates, on page 169, are increased considerably from $105 million to $114 million — a remarkable increase of $9 million. For you or anyone else to say that we are neglecting families and children in the province of British Columbia is totally unacceptable. Any fast look at the budget will show that.

Thirdly, with respect to what you had to say in terms of developing policy, it's interesting that you spent twenty minutes discussing policy and yet did not present any. That is typical of opposition debate, when they say that our policy should change but, in fact, never have the desire, the wit or maybe the care to present their own policy.

Interjection.

HON. MR. STRACHAN: Yes, the moxie. I have moxie. Further, after looking at a recap of your recent convention, if you're going to develop a policy without involving businessmen and other representatives in your party, it's going to be very difficult, because until you adopt a comprehensive approach to involving all people to contribute to and support your party, you're going to be seen as being one-sided, owing to a few and not including everyone in your policy-making, and that will be very difficult policy to develop and to sell to the province of British Columbia.

AN HON. MEMBER: Not Emery, though.

HON. MR. STRACHAN: No, not Emery.

In the few moments I have, I'd like to speak briefly to the estimates of the Ministry of Environment and Parks and how they shape up in the budget speech. I'd like to discuss a few comments that have been made with respect to this ministry. My critic the member for Surrey-Guildford-Whalley mentioned in the throne speech debate....

Interjection.

HON. MR. STRACHAN: Yes, we'll do those in a while. I'm discussing my role in the budget and what the budget does for me.

The critic mentioned in the throne speech debate that British Columbia had not acted as quickly as it could with respect to the Brundtland commission, the first ministers' round-table report and its impact on Canada — in particular its impact on British Columbia. I want to react to that and say that we're probably further ahead than any other province in Canada with respect to those recommendations.

When meeting with the first ministers last October or November — I forget the date, but it was shortly after the last CCREM meeting in September — the Premier agreed that British Columbia would certainly have that type of task force provincially to fit into the federal scheme of things.

I want to tell you something that is interesting from a British Columbia perspective — and I take no credit for this because it happened well before my time; it happened during the administration of Bill Bennett — and that is the great progress this province did make in terms of environmental legislation and environmental policy.

For example, the members of the first ministers' round table federally recommended that in all cases a Minister of Environment should be involved in economic development. I can tell you that it's been the policy of this government for years that the Minister of Environment always sits on the Cabinet Committee on Economic Development. That has been in place for eight or nine years, in my memory, in British Columbia. It is not yet done in many other provinces; it's not yet done federally. But it has been in place for some time now in British Columbia, and I think that's something we should be very proud of.

Also, it was recommended in the first ministers' round table of the environment that there be environmental land use committees. Good Lord, we've had that for some time. Going back to the first Bill Bennett Minister of Environment, which was in 1977.... Something the New Democratic Party didn't do when they were government but something that W.R. Bennett brought into place was a Ministry of Environment with appropriate legislation and a cabinet committee level to make the proper environmental decisions and bring to the cabinet level concerns of the environment. I'm quite proud of this government and the record it's had in terms of environmental measures.

I can tell you — and I would have full agreement with my Canadian counterparts, because we've discussed this — that British Columbia is light-years ahead in terms of environmental legislation in Canada and also light-years ahead in terms of the process that environmental measures take in Canada.

Briefly, I'd also like to speak about my Parks budget and discuss a bit about parks. As you might know, it has been in the news lately — the Strathcona and others. I'm pleased to see — as I'm sure are all members who are interested in this great world-class provincial park system — that we have a $2 million increase in the parks and outdoor recreation budget this year, from $30 million to $32 million. That reflects our government's concern with improving our park system in every way we can. We added about a million hectares last year, and we will continue to add.

A recent acquisition was Botanical Beach. We were able to preserve good access to this remarkable beach in the Sooke area which features some of the most unique marine tide pools in the Pacific — so unique, as a matter of fact, that the

[ Page 3772 ]

University of Minnesota began studying these tide pools just at the turn of the century, 1901 to 1905. They saw this area as probably being the most unique area of its type on the Pacific coast. From that point of view, they indicated to all and sundry that it should be preserved and it has been. We were able just in the last couple of weeks to preserve the foreshore of the land behind the Botanical Beach area, the pools, for public access and to keep it away from the loggers' chainsaws, and for the enjoyment of the people of British Columbia.

My time is running short, but there's one more item I should talk on briefly because it does stem from the increased budget figures for the parks and outdoor recreation branch, and it deals with Strathcona Park. As many members are aware, there has been some serious consideration over the development of Strathcona Park in the last couple of years. The Wilderness Advisory Committee gave us recommendations which were followed by and large, with the one exception of there being further hearings. That was one thing the cabinet of the day did not follow. So following some considerable public pressure, I'll admit, we did strike a further committee to review the boundaries of Strathcona Park, and that committee will be meeting between now and June.

I think it's appropriate that we hear the positions, and there are many and varied positions. Many people want to see total preservation of Strathcona Park, that areas now deemed as recreation areas should be pure class A park areas where no extraction industry or any activity other than pure park activity would take place. Many other people look at it from the other point of view and talk about economic development, talk about appropriate park and resource extraction in a recreation area, and who would like to see more extraction industry, particularly mining activity, within the boundaries of the recreation areas in Strathcona Park. So in all cases when you're dealing with land use and land use conflicts, you have two, three, maybe four, maybe half a dozen different opinions — quite divergent opinions — on what should happen to one piece of property.

Nevertheless, it goes without saying that the decision reached by my most recent committee is to the boundaries, and what will happen within those boundaries is without question going to be a difficult one. Feelings are heated and opinions are polarized as to what ought to happen in Strathcona Park. I can't say I blame the people for having their concerns. But there are many opinions there, they are varied, they are divergent and it's going to take the wisdom of Solomon and of the committee headed by Dr. Peter Larkin to establish appropriate boundaries.

[4:45]

My time is rapidly running to a close in this debate. We will be having the vote in about 45 minutes, so I'm going to take my place and allow others to proceed and wrap up this debate.

In closing, I want to say that I strongly support the measures of the Minister of Finance and Consumer Services. He has done a remarkable job in establishing the economic blueprint for British Columbia for the following fiscal year. We see fiscal responsibility. We see our basic budget stabilization fund which is going to put a little bit away for us for the kind of sign wave that goes through a resource-based economy such as we have in British Columbia. I think it's appropriate and long overdue. So in that point of view I am very much in support of the budget stabilization fund, in support of the initiatives that the Minister of Finance brought to us a couple of weeks ago, and strongly in support of this budget. I would urge all members here to join me in my support.

MS. EDWARDS: It's always a pleasure to follow the Minister of Environment and Parks; however, I was promised a better warm-up act.

HON. B.R. SMITH: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the generosity of the member in yielding to me for a minute so that I can make a brief introduction and not interrupt her speech. I would like to introduce the 12th Gordon Head Girl Guides Company in the gallery, all budding parliamentarians. They are here today — 28 of them ages 9 to 12 — as part of a tour of the buildings. I think we should make them welcome — and make them welcome, of course, on our respective sides, where they are going to come later and overwhelm us.

MS. EDWARDS: It's always a pleasure to welcome Girl Guides. I'm pleased the Attorney-General did join with our welcome too.

In looking through the budget, I think one of the most interesting statements is the Minister of Finance saying that "our planning horizon takes us to the brink." I agree with that statement; I do think the planning horizon takes us to the brink. I'm not sure whether the Minister of Finance realized what he was saying. He said: "...the brink of the next century. " He didn't use a term such as the threshold of the next century. He didn't talk about a door opening on the next century. He didn't say we would be at a place where we could perhaps open our eyes to the vista of opportunity or whatever. He didn't even suggest that we had a lot of work to do and therefore we would have to climb a ladder of opportunity. He said we were brought to the brink, and I agree with that.

After the budget speech was delivered, I went home to my riding, as did all the members. I don't know what they did with this, but when my constituents asked me what news I was able to bring about the budget, I was able to bring them a number of things that perhaps I would have been happier not to have had to carry.

For example, I was able to say: "You have now, as an average family, a $192 increase in your health care premiums to deal with. You can now pay $696 a year for your health care premiums if you are paying for a family. If not, as an individual, you may pay $102 more than you did before. As a family you would have a 38 percent increase; as an individual you would have a 45 percent increase." Whichever it was, I was able to say that to the individuals operating as people within families and to the businesses who pay a large part of the premiums that are paid in this province. In fact, I was able to say that they could pay more.

Then they would go on and say, "Come on, there must be something else," and I was able to say: "Yes, of course, you'll be able to pay more for your gas tax. You'll be able to pay more for your car insurance, and there will be less money in the budget for road-building." In a constituency like mine, where people do not have transit services, where they depend for their employment and their transportation largely — more largely than in a more urban community — on cars and roads, this was bad news.

I was also able to tell them that they would be able to pay more for user fees if they were mentally ill. They would pay more in user fees if they were participants in an alcohol abuse program. They would be able to pay more if they were elderly

[ Page 3773 ]

persons needing long-term care. I only use these as examples. They are hearing that they can pay more for the use of the facilities which were, before we started, inadequate for the area in which we live.

In alcohol abuse programs, for example, we have had a half-employee added in the last year, and for most of the time over which it was available to be had, we could not hire anybody, and we do not have the service. We have the problem of the elderly being able to pay now. Since last year's budget, they are able to pay for their physiotherapy, for Pharmacare, for dispensing fees and so on — and this is before. Some of them are down to the rate of $3.39 per day and now they are able to pay for those other things before they have to pay for such things as wheelchairs, hearing aids, denture liners, eyeglasses and other needs for which proportionately seniors have a greater demand.

[Mr. Pelton in the chair.]

Besides that, I had to tell the people who said, "Well, I think I'll go and have a drink on it because it sounds so terrible," that they were going to pay more taxes for sinning by doing such things as going out to have a drink. They are going to pay higher taxes on alcohol and the full 10 percent sales tax for beer, which was exempt. Cigarettes are up, and all of this is up, even though only 9 percent of what's expected to come in from these increased taxes will go to abuse programs to counteract the effects.

I was able to tell them that their rural taxation would be increased for residential and business property. Last year I told them that their taxation went up from $1.40 to $1.70, which was an increase of 21 percent. This year, on top of that marvelous increase, they could have a 60 cent increase. Up 30 cents last year, up 60 cents this year — 35 percent. They're now paying $2.30 as a rate, and the total increase in rural taxation, under this government, is 64 percent.

They were really pleased by now. They were beginning to get more and more.... "Excited" may be the word. Then I was able to remind them that college programs were being cut; that even though there looked like a minimal increase in the budgets for colleges, it didn't even meet the inflation, and in fact it meant cuts in programming.

I was able to tell them that there was a 400 percent rise in fees for court costs, that it looks like the government is going for a two-tiered court system to go along with the two-tiered education system and the two-tiered health system that we're working toward as well.

To respond to the Minister of Health, who just said that we don't even like the family program that has been announced by the government, I am suggesting that to say to my constituents that there will be more money for homes for unwed mothers is like talking into the wind. The use is not there for homes for unwed mothers — for "supportive accommodations for women who get themselves into a situation not of their liking," as the minister says. All of this, when people were understanding that they bear 87 percent of the tax burden in this province.

We talked, of course, about the BS fund, which is alternately called in the budget "one-time proceeds" and "unexpected revenue." I wonder what the minister means; does he mean that anything that is unexpected is one-time, or does he mean that if it's one-time it wasn't expected? I think that the whole business surrounding that is enough to supply this House with fodder for debate for quite some time.

It says in the budget, and I was able to tell them, that people who had expressed concern last year about changes had been answered this year by the Minister of Finance, who said: "All right, we won't make changes." What a lovely answer.

What I was able to tell them out of the budget document was that average personal income has increased in B.C., as you may notice, since 1984 by 17.6 percent, but that wages and salary increases in the same table show an increase of 15.5 percent in the same time period. If you play a little statistical number-crunching here to find out what happens, weekly earnings during the same time period increased 5.6 percent since 1984. What that tells us — the logical conclusion — is that though there is an increase in personal income, the largest part of it is in income which is other than wages. It's a very clear trend, and it's very disheartening to have to speak to wage-earners and tell them that although their wages are coming up, they aren't even proportionately holding ground against the people whose personal incomes come from places other than their labour.

To be a little more specific, although a little broader — because I am interested, of course, in the Tourism, Recreation and Culture aspects of this budget — a look at this confirms that despite all talk that tourism has such great regard by this government and that tourism is the number two and going to be the number one industry, it is now nothing more than glitter. There is no body to the way this government looks at this industry, because in fact the spending has been reduced by 37.7 percent from last year — from $54 million to $49 million — and tourism is taking it in the neck.

The potential for the tourist development of this province, as the government keeps saying, was proven by Expo 86, but then they keep saving too that what came out of it is happening somewhere else. They talk about investment going somewhere else. Now, Mr. Speaker, I have nothing against increased investment anywhere in this province, but I have something to say about a government that sets up Expo 86 and then says that the rest of the province will have its turn later, and then when we get to the budget of 1988, the Tourism budget is cut by nearly 38 percent.

In fact, the budget says that this government will stress partnerships. Probably the most successful partnership program in this province was the Partners in Tourism program. It's being cut this year by approximately half. That program, interestingly enough, was used more by the regions outside of the lower mainland than it was used by the regions in the lower mainland. Tourism, the beautiful industry that affects every part of this province and has experts right across the province, and doesn't need to be centralized - this industry and this program, which was also a decentralizing program, has been cut in half. What does that say for the future of this industry that the government says is going to get bigger and better?

Another effect on Tourism, Recreation and Culture is what's happening to the Lottery Fund. I'd like to know how one defines "surplus lottery funds." What in a lottery becomes surplus lottery funds? The budget is very clear that last year we had $73 million under budget. In other words, the spending that should have gone to the cultural and recreational industries was not spent — $73 million — because of course we were retiring the Expo debt. But at the same time that that $73 million was not spent, we took $13 million of lottery funds and stuck it into the BS fund.

Not only that, while the cultural industries are going down the tube for lack of support and lack of.... They are suffering severely, and we are talking about next year having

[ Page 3774 ]

$79 million going into a so-called budget stabilization fund. because these are surplus, somehow, and perhaps.... I don't know. These are unexpected, or are they one-time funds? I'm not sure which, but how do you define surplus lottery funds to put them into the fund for unexpected income? For one-time income? I don't know, Mr. Speaker. It doesn't make any sense at all. All it does is make a huge impact on those cultural industries that have such great potential in this province but are not getting the support they need from this government.

[5:00]

To top that off, in Tourism, Recreation and Culture we have a great search: where, we say, is JobTrac? Where is the money for the community projects so fundamental to the base of the tourism industry, the cultural industry and the recreational potential of this province? The JobTrac program within the Ministry of Tourism was cut by $20 million. JobTrac within Environment and Parks was cut by more than $2 million, and the CareerTrac program in Environment and Parks — $1.5 million — is gone. The JobTrac program in Forests and Lands, which had something to do with the recreational development of this province, of approximately $1.5 million, is gone. Each of those programs impacts on our visitors. How can we maintain a clean and safe environment for tourists who come, normally as families? How can we do that without those funds which are not in the budget, Mr. Speaker?

Besides the fact that tourism businesses are largely small businesses, the small business sector as a whole was affected by this budget in a number of ways, and some of those ways I've been talking about: every community in the province was affected by the JobTrac business.

Insurance premium tax revenue is up 32.9 percent since 1984-85. The only entry higher than that is corporation capital taxation. Pardon me; I got that one wrong. Corporation capital taxation is down 26.8 percent, while the insurance premium tax revenue is up 32.9, which means that the small businesses who are paying that kind of premium are carrying a much heavier load — all of this while the small business tax continues to be nearly double what it is in Alberta. The minister makes a great point of bringing it down from 11 percent — where it went last year from 8 — down to 9 percent, but he forgets to mention that it's still high, high, high, in the spectrum across the province, and it's also double what it is in Alberta.

Now there was one tourism industry that got some money. It got $1 million to decide where it should relocate within the lower mainland. It has nothing to do with the interior of the province. It's the sport of kings, Mr. Speaker — the horseracing industry.

Any hope for the future with this chaotic scramble for moral training — remember, it's good for us to pay user fees — and the reduction of services through privatization.... The whole dehumanizing pressure on low-income residents shows that we need something other than this budget, Mr. Speaker. We certainly have been brought to the brink, but it would have been better had we been brought to a threshold which showed some hope for getting better.

HON. MR. REID: While we're waiting for the minister to close debate on this, I think it would be appropriate if I stood in my place and discussed the positive sides of the tourism industry as it relates to the budget, and corrected a few small errors made by the previous hon. member.

AN HON. MEMBER: Take the big ones, never mind the small ones.

HON. MR. REID: Well, the big ones were in the millions.

The hon. member mentioned that the Partners in Tourism budget was reduced by half. The fact of the matter is that the Partners in Tourism budget was reduced by $340,000 out of $4.5 million. As a result, the industry has picked up their portion of the marketing — what they felt was their portion in previous years, in any event.

The other thing that should be known is that in 1987 we had a record year in tourism. If you take out the six months of Expo 86, 1987 was the best total year we've had for tourism in the province, because we are now second and destined to be first by the year 2000. If everything goes well and some of the other members on the other side become positive about the industry called tourism, we will move up to first.

We generated in excess of $3 billion in the hospitality industry in 1987. To make up that increase, in 1987 hotel expenditures in the province went up over $100 million over 1985. That was distributed through every region of the province, including the region which the hon. member comes from.

The hotel industry became very positive as a result of Expo 86, and saw the opportunities of promoting the industry called tourism, in a global sense for the province. In 1987 we generated in all other regions of the province a stronger focus, a stronger attention to the product called tourism and the hospitality industry on behalf of all partners in the province.

We had 13.5 million visitors to B.C. in 1987, and our indications today show us that in 1988 we'll exceed even that.

Just a week ago last Thursday we put in place something very innovative, the first of its kind in North America, typical of British Columbia, leaders again: an 800 number which is research-driven for all connections in North America outside of the province. From any area in North America now you can call this 800 number, which has 12 research travel counsellors on staff 12 hours a day, seven days a week, responding to questions about specific attractions in the province that these people might have on their mind to visit.

As a result of that, we will have research from where the call comes from. We'll have research on the information requested. We'll have research on the number of people coming. We'll have research on the number of areas in the province that are of interest to outside visitors. Primarily, the market is the United States, because that's where our major visitor source is. Eastern Canada is a source we need to tap; this 800 number will give us that research. It will also give us instant reaction to requests from other people across North America.

To the hon. member, that's another positive thing. It's going to give us a lot of opportunities to tell the story about attractions in your community and your constituency, such as Fort Steele and the old oil rig at Fernie, and some of the nice things that they're trying to bring on at Sparwood and what's happening in Kimberley and all those things that are really happening in your area. Fort Steele will finally come of age.

We didn't lose any attendance at any of the facilities in the province because of the application of user fees in 1987. We gained in financial capacity, but we're also rebounding in relation to visitations.

I see the hon. Minister of Finance has arrived. I had so many other great things to talk about in relation to tourism in

[ Page 3775 ]

the budget, but since I don't have much time left I'll save it all for estimates, when I can tell the whole story about tourism and why it's going to be number one in B.C. very shortly.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Members are advised that pursuant to standing order 42, the minister closes debate.

HON. MR. COUVELIER: I am very pleased to have the opportunity to close this session of discussion around the 1988-89 provincial budget. During this past weekend, I took the task upon myself of reading every single word spoken on this subject during the last week and a half. I tell you that nothing could have been more difficult or arduous or boring.

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

One of the difficulties I had in bringing my mind to this subject was that the comments from the members of the opposition were so full of inaccuracies, innuendos, misquotations and outright distortions of fact that I had some trouble trying to put words to paper that would adequately explain the truth of this year's budget.

I want to spend a moment or two just talking about some of the specific comments. I noticed that the Leader of the Opposition, the first member for Vancouver Centre (Mr. Harcourt), spent a great deal of time talking about his own electoral performance, as if somehow that had the slightest relevance to the issue of the budget, and as if those of us in this House had no knowledge of his previous experience in other forums. Surely if the hon. member for Vancouver Centre is at all interested in talking about political history, we've got more on this side of the House, my friends, than you could ever muster on that side.

If it has, any relevance at all — and I rather doubt that it does, really, as it relates to this budget at least — I would think, in characterizing the electoral performance of the Leader of the Opposition, that it surely must bear repeating, the comments of the Premier during question period today, that on every major initiative that that individual had to deal with as the chief elected officer of the largest city in the province, there was procrastination. There was a total unwillingness to deal with positive, solution-oriented kinds of suggestions that were coming from the government of the day, whether it be Expo or Transpo, the stadium, SkyTrain or any new initiative. Indeed, any new initiative, any change from the status quo was stoutly resisted by that hon. member.

Surely if people are interested in leadership, the last thing they would want to seriously consider is someone who follows rather than leads. Let's take, for example, the Expo lands which had some discussion in his presentation during the budget debate; let's consider that material.

First of all, let's remember that those lands were initially in private sector hands. What did we have during that experience? We had diverse industrial uses which were unsightly, many of them, which were not maintained in an adequate sense and which provided a very poor vista on entering the heart of Vancouver Centre itself. We had this private sector ownership, and when the previous Social Credit government decided that they wanted to put it into public ownership and do something with it in terms of a world-class fair, it meant change from the status quo -stoutly resisted. This member spoke eloquently and, indeed, sent telegrams and is well on the record as being opposed to any change from that status quo. However, the government of the day had the wisdom to proceed, and they did.

Now we're talking about transferring it back to private ownership, and what do we have? Once more, resistance, criticisms and a "let's take a second look" kind of attitude. It seems that any change from the status quo is going to receive criticism from the hon. Leader of the Opposition.

Surely if the issue of leadership is at stake, wouldn't you judge the effectiveness of the leaders chosen in terms of their willingness to lead, to accept some change, to provide some original suggestions as to how to deal with the difficult question of managing change? We've had all that from this side of the House and I am grateful for that, as are most British Columbians.

Then, dealing with the speaker from the marvelous area of the province, Prince Rupert, I find in reading his comments that they were largely personal in nature and contained misquotations, in my judgment, which he then proceeded to build some monumental thesis around.

[5:15]

We can all consume time by using misquotations or distortions of fact and start to build these mirages around which we can build a speech. But surely anybody who is paid the kind of salary that we are should be able to bring some creativity to the issue, dealing with facts rather than fiction, and surely somebody who has nothing else to do but sit around and dream up ways to make speeches should be able to develop something that we can deal responsibly with.

Interjection.

HON. MR. COUVELIER: That's right. We see nothing like that in the presentations we've heard so far. Specifically, I was quoted — and it's in Hansard, apparently, repeated by this member for Prince Rupert (Mr. Miller) — as saying that people don't want to work. I gather that that quotation was picked up in some newspaper account and, as usual, that seems to be the sum and substance of the research work done by the members of the opposition.

This Premier expanded the funding to you, hon. members, so that you could do some research work that was useful and meaningful and would contribute towards good government. What do we have? You subscribe to every daily, apparently — there are three of them in B.C., at least in the major centres — and that seems to be the sum and substance of your research. I wonder if we're talking about effective expenditure of public money, whether you really take that issue seriously.

Let me assure the members of this House that I am not satisfied with a 10 percent unemployment rate. You should note that our province is affected by some special factors which tend to hold the unemployment rate above the national average. When our economy begins to grow as rapidly as it has in the last year, people migrate into British Columbia from other areas in the country, many of them from prairie provinces, who seem to want to leave that socialist kind of atmosphere and come out here where there are some jobs. I can tell you that 20,500 people moved to British Columbia. More people moved to British Columbia than went to other parts. In other words, our in-migration clearly is a reflection of Canadians' attitude towards our province and its economy and its future — and they are upbeat and positive.

How would you explain the creation of 90,000 new jobs, pray tell? I saw no recognition whatsoever of the fact that this government, with its dynamic leadership and its positive attitude towards economic growth, created 90,000 new jobs in the last 12 months. No mention whatsoever; deadly silent on that question.

[ Page 3776 ]

Then I notice the second member for Vancouver East (Mr. Clark) got off on some sort of children's fable exercise. He wanted to talk about Robin Hood. Well, I've got a statement of fact, I think, for members of the opposition: Robin Hood did not exist; it is a children's fable; it is a myth. In other words, my friends, whatever you're going to expend has to be found in terms of revenue to pay for it. There is no sugar daddy. This fascination with children's fables, which I get from the second member for Vancouver East, surely is a reflection of the mindset of the hon. members from the opposition. It truly is a dream world they live in, Mr. Speaker.

Then we had the honest admission from the member from Prince George that there was a "thickened confusion." My goodness, that's clear for anybody who reads the garbage contained in the comments from the opposition. Thickened confusion is endemic from the chairs, both occupied and vacant, across the floor.

AN HON. MEMBER: Mostly vacant.

HON. MR. COUVELIER: Mostly vacant, that's true.

Then we came to the nub of the criticism of this great budget when we heard the member for Maillardville Coquitlam (Mr. Cashore). He got up and wanted to talk about income redistribution. Now there is where we are really different. That's the crux of the difference between this progressive, modem, with-it kind of leadership and what we have from the hon. members opposite. What these people across the floor want to do is redistribute B.C. income, as if in some magical stroke this is all of a sudden going to create equity and equality. The good Lord did not make us all equal, Mr. Speaker. The good Lord did....

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

HON. MR. COUVELIER: Not in the sense that there will not be differences between us. There are differences between us; every single human being has those differences. In that sense any proposal which would rob initiative from individual accomplishment is counterproductive and will, in the fullness of time, wind up losing jobs, rather than creating them.

This fascination with children's fables and this total inability to understand what makes things work is easy to understand coming from the members of the opposition, because they really have never made anything work. They've never had the responsibility to make things work. If you need to delineate between the two parties in this House, it would be the difference between the talkers and the doers.

During this debate it was claimed that the gross provincial product is still at the level of 1981 in constant dollars. This is totally incorrect. The gross provincial product in 1987 was 10.3 percent higher than in 1981 in constant dollars. This clearly means that the standards of living are higher now than they were then. Furthermore, the average British Columbian wage packet is still greater than the Canadian average. There is no credibility whatsoever to suggest that our workers are being abused vis-à-vis the others in the rest of the country. We are still above the Canadian average.

Much comment was made about our fee increases in the two budgets that we have brought forward. The suggestion was that these are somehow hidden taxes. User fees are not hidden taxes. They're just sensible alternatives to tax increases. Are the hon. members suggesting that the general taxpayer should bear government's cost for industry waste-management practices or for regulating or recording transactions of commercial corporations? Are you suggesting that, in the interests of not pursuing user fees, the general taxpayer should pay for these things? Well, wouldn't that be an interesting suggestion!

A statement was made that B.C.'s small business income tax rate of 9 percent is the second-highest tax rate in Canada. That is totally incorrect; there are six provinces with higher rates on small business than B.C. One province has the same and two have lower rates. Therefore, rather than being eighth in the country, we are third — a misstatement of fact.

Health care premiums are talked about as being regressive and unfair. I just want to remind the hon. members that the MSP premiums contribute only 12 percent of the total cost of health care in this province and, indeed, are less than the premiums charged in the richest province in Canada — that is, Ontario. Furthermore, with the premium assistance program that we are providing for low-income residents, we have removed the major part, if not all, of the regressive aspect of the MSP premiums.

Much comment was made about the increase in charges for seniors living in extended care homes. I saw much reference to a figure of $3.69 per day, I believe, being all that we left for these unfortunates, once again a distortion of fact. The fact is that if these seniors are getting GAIN — and presumably they are in need and therefore would have GAIN — the amount of money left for them is $4.95 per day, not the $3.69 that the hon. members waxed eloquently about.

May I just remind the hon. members, for those socialists in the House who liked to talk — last year at least — at great boring length about Manitoba, that the Manitoba government wanted to bring in a new per them rate which would have had the effect of dramatically increasing the charge for seniors in their extended-care homes. Indeed, even today Manitoba charges more. But what defeated the Manitoba government? Their budget that suggested these increases, my friends. Absurd that you would have the gall to stand up in this House and criticize this government for having a better performance than your socialist friends in Manitoba.

When my critic the hon. first member for Nanaimo (Mr. Stupich) finished his comments on my budget speech, I was impressed with the fact that members of the opposition rose en masse to applaud his presentation. I turned to my seat mates and said: "I didn't get a standing ovation. What's wrong?" Then it was explained to me that this was to be the final budget response from the hon. member and therefore it was an appropriate action. Had I had the wit to understand the event properly, I also would have stood and applauded his presentation. We can't sit here day after day boxing each other's ears without acquiring some appreciation for each of our human characteristics, and I just tell you that in the short period I've been in this House I have acquired a deep respect for the hon. member. I for one would like to express our appreciation for his service to the citizens of this province, and I am going to miss his friendly countenance and his gentlemanly behaviour, unlike some of his colleagues.

HON. MR. VANDER ZALM: I think he can stay. The rest should resign.

HON. MR. COUVELIER: The Premier has a good idea.

However, there were some comments made by my official critic that I feel I must respond to. He claimed that regressive property taxes account for 37 percent of education funding and that the funding shortfall is caused by the

[ Page 3777 ]

reduction in non-residential property taxes which has been assumed by residential property owners — individual homeowners. I want to categorically deny that that is the fact. The fact of the matter is that this government's contribution to education amounts to 80 percent of the cost of education and that we expect only 15 percent recovery from the private property owner. If local school boards choose to provide more than the provincial standards, then of course local residents should bear the cost. That's a deeply held conviction of this government and one that will endure during the years of our stewardship, I can assure you.

The hon. member also made a point about decentralization in the Nechako region and mentioned that they were getting less than the Mainland-Southwest region. That confused me for a bit, and so 1 looked at the stats. The fact of the matter is that the Nechako region is getting $14.60 for every resident of that region, compared to less than $1 for the lower mainland, primarily by virtue of population, of course, but another example of distortion of fact such that the innocent reader of Hansard might be misled about the truth.

The hon. member also talked about this budget having an impact of $700 for each family. Let me remind the hon. member that a middle-income family with, say, one smoker, moderate drinking, and two cars would have an annual effect of only $317 per year and that for seniors with an income of $20,000, for example, an impact of only $116, which is more than offset by the income tax reduction that would ensue. This government does not have a regressive taxation policy and has clearly brought forward one that does not impact negatively on those unfortunates unable to pay.

There was another misstatement in the sense that it was claimed that our real B.C. debt is $19.2 billion. I just want to remind the House and put in the official record that the direct and guaranteed debt is $17.6 billion as of the end of March this year. This includes $8.6 billion of B.C. Hydro and other commercial Crown corporation debts, and that debt is selfsupporting and will be self-retiring. So it would be a distortion of fact, I think, to hint or suggest that that is an obligation of this government. Those debts will be retired by those Crown corporations, because they're all commercial in nature and are able to make the retirement. The only debt we have to worry about in terms of our operating budget is one of $5.2 billion, and I assure hon. members that we are going to deal with that before we go back to the polls the next time.

[5:30]

The hon. member also made some derogatory remarks about public accounts and put that whole issue into some question. I find that an unacceptable treatment of the very responsible job being done by the comptroller-general and the auditor-general, who are given very specific responsibilities by government, by legislation and by this House. To suggest that they are less than loyal or accurate in their performance is unacceptable.

Interjection.

HON. MR. COUVELIER: Take the wax out, hon. member. I talked about the comptroller-general and auditor-general. There are two different positions, two different individuals with two separate responsibilities.

The most important initiative in this whole budget speech, which had no meaningful comment whatsoever from the opposition benches, dealt with the health care initiatives that my colleague the hon. Minister of Health (Hon. Mr. Dueck) is going to be shepherding in the months ahead. I don't know of any more forward-thinking attempt to resolve this very difficult social problem — that is, managing health care cost growth — than what we are bringing forward in British Columbia. I know from talking to my colleagues across the country that they are intrigued with the kinds of things that the Minister of Health has embarked on. I think it has a very high profile with all governments, in seeing whether we can effectively bring some order to the matter.

In the budget we talked about four points that we expect to have a dramatic effect on the attitude and behavioural patterns of British Columbians as they relate to health care. The first point dealt with a plastic card that would be used by people who use the system. That plastic card will be run through at the doctor's office or the hospital, and it will contain the cost of the service provided. That card and statement will do two things: it will assure me, who must pay the bill, that the service was received-, secondly, it will alert the users to the cost that I will be paying on their behalf. As I've gone around the province so far, I am impressed with how well that initiative has been understood and enthusiastically supported by British Columbians.

Secondly, we're going to computerize those cards so that essential medical information can be on them. That's a unique issue, and one that we will be leading the nation on.

Then, of course, we talked about community care centres, which I think have great promise. We are going to start the pilot project in the capital region, and I'm very confident it will provide a new way of thinking and using the system.

Maybe most of important of all is the fourth point, which had to do with giving hospitals, professional hospital administrators and boards more authority in how the system is utilized and monitored. For too long the issue has become one of public debate between practitioners and government, and it's time to get everyone involved in the system and more intimately discussing it in a way that contributes towards solutions.

In all of the comments and criticisms, no recognition has been given to the dramatic change of spending patterns brought to government expenditure issues by this government. We've been in office only a year and a half. We've now brought forward two budgets. I want to remind this House that in the area of health care we have provided $514 million more than our predecessors. In the area of advanced education we've provided 121.6 million new dollars. In the area of education we have provided 235.8 million new dollars. We've provided additional moneys for social services.

If you consider those categories to be essential social spending categories, as I consider them, and the categories of expenditure that you would choose our successors and heirs to judge us by — as I do — then the total new dollars we have provided for that spending envelope is just less than $1 billion, and we've done it within a year and a half. What can you possibly find to criticize about that? I know you had to stretch credibility to fill the time allotted, but my goodness, I don't see how any British Columbian can fail to take pride in what we've done.

We inherited a budget that allocated 68 percent of expenditures to those categories. With this second Vander Zalm budget, we are spending 75 percent of provincial expenditures. Are you opposed to that, hon. members? Really? How can you possibly be?

I want to close by quoting from an editorial in what is generally acknowledged — at least internationally — as Canada's premier business publication, the Globe and Mail. The Globe and Mail has this to say about our budget:

[ Page 3778 ]

"...B.C. plans a balanced budget by 1990-91" — I never gave them the year, Premier; I don't know where they got that one from — "but Mr. Couvelier did not use this year's $551 million bonus to make things look better than they are. He established a budget stabilization fund, with an initial contribution of $450 million. Moreover, he will put the proceeds from B.C.'s nascent privatization program into a permanent account whose annual interest will be added to general revenue, unlike the example of Britain's Margaret Thatcher...."

We will not be spending all the money as it comes in. The Globe closes by saying:

"Together, these funds will begin to do in B.C. what the Heritage Fund achieves just across the Rockies. This is good public management in the west, which has a lot to teach the rest of Canada about financial prudence."

Needless to say, we don't always agree with what the Globe has to say, Mr. Speaker, but I had no trouble quickly agreeing with that one.

So I am pleased to move that the Speaker do now leave the chair for the House to go into Committee of Supply.

Motion approved on the following division:

YEAS 38

NAYS - 19

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

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

ESTIMATES: MINISTRY OF
SOCIAL SERVICES AND HOUSING

On vote 61: minister's office, $224,319.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Shall vote 61 pass?

HON. MR. STRACHAN: Well, I think it's going to take a little longer than that, Mr. Chairman. That wasn't the agreement. I move the committee rise and report progress and ask leave to sit again.

The House resumed; Mr. Speaker in the chair.

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

Hon. Mr. Strachan moved adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

The House adjourned at 5:46 p.m.