[ Page 12151 ]

CONTENTS

Routine Proceedings

Budget Debate

Ms. Marzari –– 12151

Mr. Couvelier –– 12154

Mr. Zirnhelt –– 12158

Mr. Vander Zalm –– 12161

The House met 10:07 a.m.

Prayers.

MR. REYNOLDS: Mr. Speaker, I would like to give you notice that I would like to raise a question of privilege at 2 o'clock this afternoon. The question of privilege will be based on a statement made by the member for Vancouver East yesterday. Since it was made so late in the day, I did not have access to the library and other facilities to prepare myself. So I would seek your indulgence to be back here at 2 p.m. to read my question of privilege.

Orders of the Day

Budget Debate

(continued)

MS. MARZARI: Mr. Speaker, building a budget is a little like building a house. You assess the terrain, calculate the measurements of the foundation, find the best materials you can afford to invest in your foundation, and build with a plan that reflects the needs of your family now and in the future.

Interjection.

MS. MARZARI: That's not the way you build houses.

You have to be honest with yourself, your contractors and your bank about what you have and what you can borrow. You have to make provisions for future additions at the beginning so that you can avoid costly mistakes down the way.

Right now, our province is faced not with a careful architectural plan for a new house, but with a costly list of erratic, last-minute renovations to an old haunted house. It seems to be inspired by a mentality that once you tinker and adjust, putting in windows where the sun was this morning, or taking out the furnace because it's summertime All the while you're telling the bank that you've got a rainy-day fund to cover the costs or reduce the loan. You've told the contractor that he'll be paid what you'd agreed on. You haven't told the bank that the rainy-day fund has never even puddled, and you haven't told the contractor that you'll pay only what you're able to pay depending on your mood.

Nonetheless, you've built your foundation on the theme of caring. That's the theme the Social Credit architects want us to remember. I'm concerned about this house of caring. I'm concerned for Point Grey, for Vancouver and especially for the women of British Columbia, because the caring in this budget is not matched with political commitment to the priorities this government claims it wants to glue together — most particularly environment and women.

The concern is that it's not even matched to the dollars, to the things they most care about — for example, small business and hungry children. The bucks aren't there. I'm concerned because these born again Care Bears don't back up their caring with the other three cornerstones that should be part of the foundation of this house they want to build. These cornerstones, along with caring, are accountability, integrity and honesty. Accountability, not just when it suits government, but as a principle of governing; accountability, not peekaboo accountability, the game we all played with our kids when they were little — now you're here and now you're not…. I'm talking about a serious, steady, reliable legislated set of regulations and rules that enforce accountability and ensure that we, as politicians, truly do protect our heritage and truly do respond to the needs of people, that we can carry a message to people in British Columbia and be believed.

I refer here to the Public Accounts Committee. I can't really talk about accountability without talking about the public accounts, because that's where public accountability meets the bottom line. That's when you've got to match what you say you've got and what you say you did with what you actually did.

If ever there was a game of peekaboo in this province, it's with the public accounts and the Public Accounts Committee. For the last three or four years since I've been Chair of the Public Accounts Committee, we have been playing peekaboo with those accounts. Every year this side of the House has asked for the public accounts to appear on the floor of the House. Generally when we ask for those accounts, we are already 18 months away from when the public accounts began. Already we are looking into the far past. By the time we actually see the public accounts for the preceding fiscal year, we are looking at ancient history.

Last year the Public Accounts Committee actually managed to encourage government to do the following — and this was announced on July 25, 1990…. This was a speech by the deputy chair of Public Accounts — a Social Credit member. The major change in policy is that, commencing with the fiscal year ending March 31, 1991, the public accounts will be issued along with the auditor-general's report immediately after their preparation, notwithstanding that the Legislature may not be in session.

This sounds like nothing. This sounds like something that should have been in situ since the beginning of time. The fact that this is one of the major accomplishments of the Public Accounts Committee is in itself a testimony to the fact that we have had to spend four to five years pressuring for the early release and preparation of those public accounts. It is not good enough, Mr. Speaker — not good enough at all. It's unforgivable when other jurisdictions can get their books together for public perusal within four months of the end of a fiscal year.

[10:15]

Government has played peekaboo with the Public Accounts Committee itself. I don't know if many people in this province are aware that the Public Accounts Committee is one of the few committees that actually meets in this province, and it is only allowed to meet outside of House time, at 8 o'clock on

[ Page 12152 ]

Thursday mornings when the House is in session. This means that the committee meets only 12 times a year as long as the House is in session. It is not allowed to meet when the House is not in session. When the committee has attempted to meet during normal House business, it has been denied that privilege. Were it not for the coffee and muffins served at the Public Accounts Committee….

MR. REE: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, it's my understanding that the rules of the House prohibit discussions and actions of a committee of this House being discussed in the House. The discussion of the committee is only on the report of the committee. So I rule the member out of order.

MR. SPEAKER: The Chair has no knowledge about what happens in committee. In fact, the Chair has no knowledge of what happens in Committee of Supply. However, from time to time people report back to the House from those committees. The general rule is that when we're doing the throne speech and budget speech, the absolutely broadest possible parameters are allowed. With the exception of unparliamentary language, I think we're going to allow almost everything else to go ahead. If the member has an interest in a particular subject, though it may not have been actually mentioned in the throne speech or budget speech, we'll allow it to go ahead.

MS. MARZARI: I am talking about the Public Accounts Committee as an example of how this government plays peekaboo games with the principle of accountability in this province. Besides finding it difficult to meet more than 12 times a year to review the public accounts, the committee, after some discussion with very little resolution, also finds itself without a researcher, without someone working perhaps for the Speaker's office who would bring to the Public Accounts Committee researched in-depth information. It finds itself in the position that when the millions and millions of vouchers that this government incurs every year are to be looked at, the only people allowed to look at them are in fact the members of that committee.

The members of the committee number four opposition members and eight government members. Four opposition members with billions of vouchers — even if you can properly pull out the ones you wish to peruse — is not what I would call full coverage of accountability of the accounts of this province. I call it peekaboo accountability.

The second cornerstone I wanted to refer to today regarding the budget is honesty, a principle integral to good government. The big lie in the budget is about the deficit. People in British Columbia are prepared to accept a great deal from their politicians: pomposity and bombast. They're prepared to accept the white lie. They're prepared to accept hyperbole from time to time. But the people in British Columbia have been told about the deficit. They have been told that the budget stabilization fund, affectionately referred to as the BS fund, does not have money in it. It is the I rainy-day fund that didn't puddle. They have been told that by the auditor-general. They have been told that by Peat Marwick and reputable chartered accountancy firms. They have been told that by the president of the certified general accountants, who called it a smoke-and-mirrors fund.

When the fresh start, the new architect, stood up during his budget speech to say that we only had a deficit this year of $374 million, you can understand how everyone in this province can see through that. You can understand that immediately people will automatically add the budget stabilization fund, that doesn't have money in it, and understand that we have a true deficit of $1.2 billion.

It's not so much the deficit that people would mind. People understand that we have had a billion-dollar deficit basically since 1983, since that first big lie was told around restraint. We've built with a 12 percent increment in our operating budgets almost every year — a billion-dollar deficit into our budget almost every year. People understand that. People are almost prepared to accept the notion that if you want to really see your way through tough times, you have to go into deficit financing.

What they won't tolerate is the lie. The game here isn't peekaboo; the game here is more like horseshoe pitching. And as the big man said: "When you're going to pitch horseshoes, you have to make sure that you remove the horse from the shoes first." The big lie is that people are looking up in the sky, and they're seeing a horse flying through the air, and they're wondering what's gone down here. You can't get away with that. It's dishonest. People don't believe you, and everybody understands that people don't believe you.

Another big lie, another big game, a child's game that you played was the collective bargaining process in this province. Teachers, soon to be health care workers, have negotiated fairly at the collective bargaining tables. Over many years they have fought for and won agreements about how they are to be paid. Along comes Bill 82, and this government is telling them that now they have to play Mother, May I? Mother, may I have a 7 percent increase? Mother, may I have something above 4.2 percent, depending on the whim or the mood of a commissioner specially appointed to ascertain how much this province can pay. Employers and employees at bargaining tables know how much it can pay and how much they need. It is a principle that we and this government must recognize, because it is a principle which also made our province strong.

This government has great difficulties playing the games it chooses. I would suggest that you have to connect a few dots. In the connecting of the dots, you might see the long-range patterns, rather than randomly scribbling across the page so that people don't understand what you're about. As you announce your names, you have to make sure that people are on board or them.

Integrity is certainly one of the most important cornerstones, and integrity in government is the third cornerstone that I want to refer to here today. Integrity as to do with trustworthiness, reliability and people's sense that the processes you set in place are complete

[ Page 12153 ]

and seen to be aboveboard, where the substance is seen to be connected and related to your goals and visions.

Integrity has to do with disclosures. We have a member of the House, a minister of the Crown, who actually refused to disclose, and only disclosed virtually on the day that he was offered a ministerial appointment. Talk about a game. That's waiting for the lollipop to be offered before you play by the basic rules, is it not?

The budget last year claimed that the environment was your top priority. Hide-and-seek — this year it has disappeared. The budgets last year and this year claim to care more for poor people and claim to want to bring money to where the people are, to help them find jobs and get off welfare and dependence. Yet I look at the community services budget and I see a $1 million cutback in dental care for people on welfare. Poor people don't have teeth? Poor people don't need dental care?

I look at that budget and I see a $1 million cutback in home care. My colleague from Surrey-Guildford-Whalley spent a solid year encouraging this government to save themselves millions of dollars by taking children out of hospitals and institutions and getting them back into their homes where, for a mere fraction of what it costs to keep them in hospitals, they would be able to be tended by their parents, with some backup support. That program was cut by $1 million.

There is no tax break for small business, the backbone of the province and of free enterprise — the backbone that this government looks to for their support. There is still a 9 percent tax rate for small businesses. There are no promises that they're going to see any kind of continued loan guarantees or preferential interest rates in order to get them through tough times — none whatsoever. Yet we know that they're the ones that are really creating our wealth in this province.

Mr. Speaker, I fear we're looking at a government that truly has proven itself to be bankrupt. The integrity question made me laugh when I heard that there was going to be something called a WasteLine in this province. If there is a symbol for the lack of integrity, it has to be this addition of yet another dead-end phone line to the repertoire that we've developed for ourselves.

Let me tell you what the WasteLine has been. Let me tell you some of my suggestions, now that you're going to put in this phone line. I'll do it free of charge right now. There have been 110 ministers over a period of five years — a ministerial change on an average of every few weeks. There's your WasteLine; there's your waste and your inefficiency in government.

Also, stumpage never collected, forests never inventoried and inspections of forests privatized to the big companies, so that basically the big forest companies are analyzing and investigating their own rental and stumpage rates for the use of our public timber.

At the local level in Vancouver, Expo lands were virtually given away Now that we've seen the auditor-general's report, we can substantiate all of the suspicions we've had over the years. The Expo lands were possibly a billion-dollar giveaway to a private developer, who is doing the thing that private developers do: basically selling off the land and making hundreds of millions after we sold that land for $150 million in '86 dollars.

I worry therefore for the integrity of the process that this government might engage in in my own constituency. The Jericho lands — 50 acres coupled with another 50 acres of DND land next to them — are 100 acres of prime real estate on the west side of Vancouver. I worry for those lands, because as I've raised this issue in the House over the years, I've played hide-and-seek with members of the cabinet by asking: "Where are the Jericho lands now? Are they in BCBC? Are they in Education? Have they been shifted over to Health? Are they in Government Management Services?" In tracking them around, and watching them go at one point from community and social services back to BCBC, I have at least been able to figure out where they are in the process and whether they might be on the auction block at any moment. I'm playing hide-and-seek in this very House with a piece of property in the middle of my constituency that's probably worth a billion dollars. Is this the way to do business?

[Mr. Ree in the chair.]

The University Endowment Lands finds itself playing hide-and-seek. The Health ministry has contracted to take care of the health of the residents on the University Endowment Lands. Apparently the money has not been flowing. Contracts have been signed agreements have been made. The money does not flow to the University Endowment Lands. Granted, it's an anomaly; it's not a part of the Vancouver city jurisdiction. It does its jobs of municipal administration by contract. This province doesn't seem to be able to meet a contract. This is another game of hide-and-seek. Who is responsible for making the money available to serve a community of a thousand homes?

Human waste on this WasteLine. We needn't bother to go through the litany here: kids not in college who should be; women not in the workforce who should be. There are others on welfare — women — who should not be in the workforce, who choose not to be but are forced to be.

I have to talk about this whole process that we engage in in this House. Our time, the waste of our human capital — there are 69 people sitting in the parliament here in Victoria shouting back and forth at each other across the floor. We're not in committees. We're not solving problems on a day-to-day basis. We're not allocating dollars to trouble spots. We're not making long-range plans. We have 12 committees this year. They have yet to meet. They were commissioned a week and a half ago. I don't even know who the members of those committees are. The saddest part is that when those committees do meet, they will meet once. They will meet to designate a Chair and a vice-chair. The chairs of those committees actually get paid a little bit, I believe, but I do declare that those committees don't meet.

[10:30]

[ Page 12154 ]

Perhaps one or two out of the 12 will have a few meetings. This House does not designate work to its committees. We, as representatives of the people, who have spent years working in our various communities, municipalities and community groups to come to this level to represent our constituents, are relegated to this chamber to do our work, not to the more — shall we call them — bipartisan round tables of the committee structure where work could actually be done. We're in this chamber, and I agree with the member on the other side of the House from Richmond when he said last week: "This House is largely theatre.

Vis-à-vis this budget and the games that get played, this government plays a game called "frozen tag." You really do expect everyone in this province to stand still, frozen, while you tinker with the budget, play with it, move a million dollars from here to there and pretend there's no deficit. Then perhaps you want to tap us on the shoulder and we will all awake like Sleeping Beauty and everything will be fine again. That's not the way it works.

This business of the women's ministry has to be looked at as the final indignity for this government's attitude towards women. Day care was one of the major things that the Minister of Women's Programs took on in this province. A task force was allocated and good people sat on it. An excellent report was prepared. It basically suggested that a whole system of child care had to be developed, pulling from education, community services and health — all those aspects that go into the present day care program, which, as we know, serves about 20,000 to 30,000 children in a province that could use 200,000 to 300,000 spaces. There's a slight shortfall there.

A new system is needed, perhaps a commission, perhaps a secretariat that integrates child care in this province, where the buck stops in one place and people don't have to run from ministry to ministry to find out where they stand and what they should do. Maybe that's what was needed, a little piece of infrastructure or an announcement from a minister, which wouldn't cost anything, that we plan to create one place for child care to rest. It wouldn't have cost a dime. But what do we find? An announcement on child care from the Minister of Women's Programs that $12.1 million is going to be spent on child care and increasing subsidy rates. Fine. I'm not going to complain about $12.1 million being spent.

When I play hide-and-seek, running through the books on the estimates, I take a look at Social Services and Housing and find that for child care and special needs care there will be $57 million spent this year, and I look and find out that last year it was $51 million, I believe. So where's the $12 million, I ask? I flip through the book and I find it. Guess where I find it. I find the $12 million sitting in the women's ministry. And what is it doing there? I would suggest to you that it's doing a number of things.

First, it is complicating the issue of child care in this province even further, by adding one more minister to the list that has to be consulted about child care.

Secondly, and this is where the question of integrity comes into the picture, this government wants women to look good in this province. This government wants women to vote for them. Therefore this government wants to make the women's ministry look as if it's got money in it. Last year the women's ministry had perhaps $1.3 million to $2 million in it for grants to community groups, for conferences, for a few training programs and for women's centres. This year the budget looks closer to $13 million. Why is that? That's because the $12.1 million from day care has tiptoed out of the pages of Social Services across the estimates book all the way to the women's ministry, where now you can find it sitting resplendently with a ministerial budget up there in the seven numbers.

But you've got to take the horseshoes off the horse. People will not swallow this. This is too much.

The violence program. "We want to eradicate violence against women in this province." This government has managed to mouth the words around that, and have tried to say that's what they want to do. I'll even give them the benefit of the doubt; maybe they really do want to try to do it. They talked about $4 million to do it. I've looked through those blue books; I can't find that $4 million. You find it for me. You tell me how you're going to eradicate violence towards women in this province, especially after…. In the last week I've stood up twice to ask relatively simple questions about what this government is going to do about two things. One was about legal aid to women who want restraining orders. The Attorney-General didn't know anything about it and reported eight days later that it was being handled. It's not being handled. The second question, yesterday, on what this government was going to do to rectify the Criminal Injury Compensation Act, section 25, to make sure that women can get compensated if they were abused before 1972 — no answer thus far. Maybe it will come today, maybe it won't. Hide-and-seek: our favourite game.

Mr. Speaker, it's time to leave Toyland and to leave the games behind. At 6 o'clock their mommies and daddies take them home to bed. Picnic time is over. We have to look for government to serve the needs of real people in an upfront way, so that people know where they stand. People want firm foundation; they want honesty, integrity and accountability. If a government can provide those three cornerstones of the house, caring will naturally follow, and with it competence. Surely that's what British Columbia deserves right now.

MR. COUVELIER: I rise to support this budget, as you might expect. I've listened closely to some of the comments of the members opposite, and once again I'm struck by the near futility of discussing seriously in this chamber important matters of public policy It strikes me that with the needs of the citizens of this province and at the state of our evolutionary growth, we could expect, and our citizens should expect, more than merely rhetoric from the members opposite.

I've heard members opposite speak repeatedly about the big lie, and I submit that if there is a big lie rampant in these rooms, it is the misperception,

[ Page 12155 ]

misinformation and misrepresentation that we hear from the benches of the members opposite.

The member opposite went on at some length about some specific programs. You know as well as I do, Mr. Speaker, that the place for that debate is during the debate on the estimates. But in the name of sanity, any government that is prepared to spend an increase of 8.3 percent in advanced education, or 17 percent in the area of forests, or 12.3 percent in the area of health, could hardly be accused of being indifferent to the needs of those sectors in our economy.

Not once have I noticed, in the rhetoric of the members opposite, what they would propose to do differently than what the Minister of Finance has done with this budget. This is a responsible budget, one that recognizes the dynamics of the moment and that will continue to deal effectively with the opportunities and economic opportunities before us.

How could anyone be critical of the fact that this government has brought forward a budget which increases spending for Native Affairs, an issue that we've heard much verbiage about from members opposite, by 75 percent? How could anyone be critical of that kind of prioritization of what's important? I've not heard one of them mention so far in this debate that the percentage of increase in public debt payments has declined — not once. I haven't heard a peep out of those members opposite. We're spending 5 percent less on interest costs with this budget than the previous budget. If it's rhetoric we want and if it's the big lie we want to hear, all we have to do is tune in to the members opposite.

I read with some interest the Finance critic's comments yesterday. Once again I was struck by misinformation. For example, he describes in the early part of his speech five years of neglect by this government. My goodness, this government has the best economic performance record in Canada. We've created more jobs than any other province. Our economy is prospering vis-à-vis the rest of the country.

How can you possibly have the gall to sit there and put on the official record five years of neglect? Neglect of what, my friends? We have dramatically increased spending on education. We've significantly increased spending on health. We've looked at every single critical facet of public expenditure, and we have increased it. And you say five years of neglect. What would you do, my friends? What would you do that's different? Tell us. Tell us what you would do. You are mute on the question of what you would do, because you don't know what you would do.

Furthermore, I suspect you're a little bit wary of telling the public what you would do, given your past performance, when for that brief moment in history you did hold the reins of power. Maybe we can talk a little bit about that.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. Would the hon member please address the Chair in his comments.

MR. COUVELIER: I'm sorry, Mr. Speaker. I certainly didn't mean to rule you out by catching you in the umbrella of my comments.

The member opposite talked about freedom-of-information legislation, and we've already been served notice that this government will deal with that issue.

He also made the comment yesterday that the direct government debt has risen to $9 billion. Now I've gone through the figures at length, and I'm mystified by a $9 billion figure. Surely it cannot have escaped your attention; surely, if you've read the documents, you would know that page 62 of the documents you should have read before you got up and waxed eloquently tells you the direct provincial debt is $6.9 billion. Where do you get $9 billion? Maybe you might explain that to us at some point in the future, because clearly that's part of the big lie that you have been spreading around in an attempt to create some confidence in your assessments.

Yesterday the first member for Vancouver East went on to talk about the importance of creating a stable climate in the financial community and one that creates confidence by lenders. We've got the most significant improvement in rating-agency assessments of our performance of anywhere in the country. We are seen now as one of the safest havens for foreign investors to purchase our bonds and our borrowings. My goodness, what would you do that's different than that? Would you take us down a slippery slope, as your colleagues have done in Ontario and as you did in 1972-75.

[10:45]

They talk about previous blunders, and they describe the Coquihalla Highway as a blunder. Would you not have built it, my friends? What about those of you who come from the Okanagan? What about those of you who are on the border? Would you not have built the Coquihalla Highway? Is that what you're saying to us? Of course, you're not saying that. You dare not say that. You would offend those residents who live in your neighbourhoods.

Looking back at these comments, I notice the first member for Vancouver East appears critical of record spending increases — as he says it. We just heard the member for Point Grey deriding us for not spending enough. How would they have it? They can't sit on both sides of that fence. Clearly it's one or the other. Do we have a record of abysmal spending increases or are we penurious, penny-pinching, insensitive administrators? What are we, my friends? Tell us. Why don't you have a caucus meeting some time and settle the issue internally. That would be most fruitful. At least, then we would know what we are talking about.

I tell you, the weak, inept cataloging of alleged failures by this administration by the members opposite lacks focus, clarity and, most important, alternatives. Is it not your responsibility to offer alternatives? Is it not obligatory that you should not only be critical I'm not offended by your criticism; I am offended by your lack of creativity and lack of originality. Don't you have an obligation to tell the voters what you would do given the same circumstances? At no time have I heard that from the members opposite. They just want to perpetuate this big lie that they talk about.

Clearly, when would you want a government to increase its expenditures? In good times when it had

[ Page 12156 ]

the money to spend or in bad times when things are bad? Clearly, when you have the money to improve education standards or add new services in the health care area, would you not make those expenditures? What are you telling us, my friends? Are you saying that you would not have done those things, given that you had the money to do them? Is that what you're saying? Of course you're not saying that, but you cannot come down on both sides of that argument.

You know what they say about individuals who sit on fences: they run a very serious risk of physical injury. I suspect, that you will suffer that injury when the voters come to decide how capable you might be as administrators of public policy in this province.

Then I heard the first member for Vancouver East talk about the taxpayer protection plan and how saddened he was that this government decided to impose a high-income surtax. I was shocked; I could not believe my ears. Clearly, when times are tough those who have the ability to pay a little more could be fairly expected to pay a little more. Are they suggesting by their criticism of our addition to this surtax that they would not have done the same? Of course they're not saying that, because their colleagues in Ontario have led the field in that area.

Are they saying that they would not have increased the corporate income tax by a measly 1 percent? Of course they're not saying that, because the member for Vancouver East has traditionally been on the record as advocating a higher corporate income tax. This administration did it, and what do we hear now? Criticism for doing it. My goodness, my friends! When are you going to take your responsibilities seriously? You have an obligation. Do you not understand that? You have an obligation to tell the voters what you would do, instead of merely criticizing. It's a sad feature of the way we conduct our affairs in this room that bewilders me at times.

Let me move on. I want to point out to the members opposite that there is a very interesting table attached to the budget documents on page 81: "Comparison of Provincial Taxes and Deficit Obligations." If one would believe what the members opposite are trying to portray with their big lie, it would lead anyone to think that the province of Ontario — which is now under NDP administration, as we all know — would somehow have introduced policies that benefit the average person and would somehow have done things that indicate a sensitivity to the fact that taxpayers have a very limited ability to pay.

Clearly, if you want to make an economy prosperous, government has to make sure it keeps tax levels reasonable and payable. By any standard of performance, when you look at what our administration has done over the last five years, you have to concede that we are one of the lowest-taxing authorities in Canada. One only has to look at the table on page 81, a matter of public record It's an audited figure, so you can verify the truth of it. It's not as if there's any smoke and mirrors here, my friends, despite your frequent use of that phrase.

If you look at the taxation levels for a single-income family of four earning $45,000 a year, in that haven of NDP sanity, the Ontario government charges that family $10,807 in total taxes; in B.C. it's $6,518. That's $10,807 versus $6,518 for a family of four.

Interjection.

MR. COUVELIER: What's wrong with that? Would you make it higher, as you did in Ontario? How can you criticize that?

For an unattached renter earning $25,000 a year in Ontario.... His total taxation level is $3,000 per year; in B.C. It's $2,400 a year. Would you want to raise that, my friends? Is that what you really want to do? I suspect it might be, because we've already seen what your colleagues have done in Ontario.

How about a senior couple, my friends, with equal pension incomes? You will note on page 81 that a senior couple with pension incomes of about $30,000 a year pay $5,789 per year in Ontario; in B.C. It's $3,519 per year.

No, my friends, the facts totally refute the kind of wild-eyed rhetoric we've come to expect.

Mr. Speaker, I want to draw the House's attention to a document that was commissioned by the administration in place in 1976. This document was requested by the concern of the citizenry about the accuracy and validity of the state of the province's finances. It's gone down in history as the Clarkson Gordon report, you might remember, and it commented on the state of affairs when the new administration took office at that time.

Let me read into the official record some comments from that report and the related documents. "Major programs were initiated for which no provision was made in last spring's budget. As a result, there has been a serious, unexpected cash drain from general revenues. The budget will be overspent by about $200 million." In today's terms, my friends, that amounts to $550 million. This is a comment on the administration in place in this province between 1972 and 1975. I don't have to remind you what philosophy drove that government.

Let me continue with quotations. In the area of budget, Mr. Speaker, the fund that was created to help provide a third crossing was completely spent. "In this budget year," the report says, "capital expenditures for transit amounting to another $42 million were committed without providing for that expenditure anywhere in the budget."

You talk about smoke and mirrors, about integrity and honesty. Nowhere in the budget did you have an expenditure which in today's terms amounts to $115 million. That's your administration's legacy to the people of this province.

Interjection.

MR. COUVELIER: From 1972 to 1975, when this province unfortunately fell off the straight and narrow wagon of fiscal responsibility and elected some wide-eyed radicals who didn't know how to manage public money.

[ Page 12157 ]

This report goes on to say: "In addition to this capital deficiency in the transit bureau, B.C. Hydro, which operates part of the bus system, will have a transit operating loss of almost $35 million" — in today's terms, $96 million, for which no provision was made.

Do you know what we had to do when we came back in? We had to totally restructure transit. We had to provide a base of revenue to transit which was going to be affordable. And, most importantly, we brought forward a rapid transit system long overdue.

The report also says: "Many of the funds established for special purposes that depend on capital funding by the government are short of cash or out of it altogether." There was a $25 million fund set up in 1969 for the building of the B.C. government building in the heart of Vancouver. That administration of '72 to '75 spent $20 million, and all they've done with that money so far is dig a hole in the ground.

I quote: "The sum total of what we've been told by the Clarkson Gordon report...is that this last year government overspent its planned programs by over $200 million and will take in about $300 million less than it estimated." The report also says: "One comfort I can give you is that governments over the years had built up sizeable amounts of cash." That's the previous administration, prior to the NDP administration. "One hundred and forty-three million dollars of this remains, and when this sum is applied to the projected deficit, we will still have a cash shortfall of close to $400 million." In today's terms, that's a total of almost $1.1 billion in errors in their budgeting process.

Can you get your mind around the fact that here was an administration that left the accounts of the government in such a shambles that they had a $1.1 billion error in their estimates? Not only did they have a shortfall in terms of revenue, they also had a terrific overexpenditure exposure, none of which they had the political nerve to recognize when they went to the polls. They tried to obfuscate it and hide it. Thank goodness we have in the written historical record the litany of their mismanagement.

Let me also quote this: "The biggest single contributor to the deficit faced by this government is ICBC." The effect of that shortfall of funding for ICBC amounted to $481 million in today's terms. The government was changed, thankfully, and management was brought back into public financing. As you know, we have totally restructured the ICBC situation so it is now funding itself; it's now self-financing,

My friends, your predecessors never had the political courage to deal with that issue squarely and honestly. You continued to try to sweep it under the rug so that no one would know. You talk about hiding deficits in Crown corporations. There's the classic illustration of it, and it's part of the official written record. No, my friends, you clearly have no basis on which you could ask the voters to trust you with public money.

The report goes on to say, on page 8: "Revenues for the current year are forecast to increase by 10.5 percent over last year, but will be 10 percent less than originally estimated. Expenditures are forecast to be up by 30.4 percent over last year...more than originally estimated."

If ever you needed the evidence and proof of how important it is to have people who know what they're doing managing public money, this report sets it out clearly. No, members opposite, I am rather dubious that you will be able to successfully convince the voters that you have the capability of handling this most important part of management and administration in the public sector.

I'd like to point out now a few of the comments dealing with the Ontario budget. It's true that much has been said about the Ontario budget, and I think it's also true that Ontario is not B.C. and that the Ontario NDP government has different personalities than the NDP aspirants in B.C. It certainly is true, given the evidence of the Clarkson Gordon report, about their spending inclinations; and it certainly is true that the members opposite seem dissatisfied with the present level of spending, despite an increase of 8 percent. So it is fair, I think, to look at that Ontario record to give us a clue as to what we might expect were the NDP ever to win in British Columbia.

I note that the Leader of the Opposition has publicly admitted that he sent a "crack" transition team to Ontario to help them design their budget and their administration, So Ontario has clearly been driven by the spending inclinations of the members opposite; as a consequence, I suspect that your disowning their decisions doesn't have a whole lot of credibility.

The consequence of the Ontario government's actions, as the House well knows, has been that Ontario is now on "credit alert" by the rating agencies. Standard and Poor's, the world's leading rating agency, has publicly stated that they have such a concern about the fiscal mismanagement of the Ontario NDP government that they will be constantly reassessing their credit rating.

Those spending decisions have an impact on the question of Confederation itself. I'd like to expand on that. Our country is a huge, diverse country with different economic problems and different potential economic solutions. The Canadian solution has traditionally been to equalize revenue opportunities by province — what we call the equalization payments to the have-not provinces. Those have-not provinces should be able, by virtue of equalization payments, to make sure that there is portability of social services: health care, education, that kind of thing. The idea is, to the extent that we are able, to make sure that there is a level playing-field across the length and breadth of this country.

[11:00]

I find it strange indeed, Mr. Speaker, that a party that has national affiliations and national ambitions should be so shallow as to not appreciate the horrendous impact the Ontario NDP government spending will have on this critical issue of equalization payments. If, for example, a have province like Ontario or B.C. gets too far ahead of the other provinces in the provision of its social services, clearly the whole basis of Confederation is put at great risk. The differences in

[ Page 12158 ]

those social services will start to widen and therefore reduce the portability prospects.

There are some provinces in our country that have run out of the ability to borrow money; that's a sad truth. Those provinces that have not yet borrowed to their capacity... And Ontario is, at the moment, one of those, although if they continue their spending practices as they predict, they will also soon run out of the ability to borrow money. Nevertheless, those provinces that have an ability to continue to borrow money place at risk the very basis of our Confederation.

We, the balance of Canada, must not allow the Ontario government to continue with their fiscal mismanagement, if we really care about the future of Canada. What holds our country together is the way we have a caring relationship with each other and a recognition that the have provinces should make a contribution to the have-not provinces. But if Ontario continues to spend at these levels, they will raise their service provisions to the point where some of the other provinces cannot possibly compete unless equalization payments are increased. The effect of that, of course, will be to increase the federal deficit even more and to make it even more unmanageable than it is.

So I say to you, members opposite, that when you caucus with your national leaders and with your other provincial leaders in the other provinces, you might productively carry the message to them that there are obligations to citizenship in this country, that there are no free lunches, that there are no free rides and that we cannot allow any one province to mismanage public financing to the extent that we have seen in Ontario. It will drive to the very heart of what makes our country great and what makes its future so promising.

In this respect, I just want to mention that one of the most authoritative constitutional experts in Canada, Mr. Melvin H. Smith, QC, has published a document which I recommend to anyone who's interested: The Renezoal of the Federation: A British Columbia Perspective ' It's a most useful and valuable document, which makes the same kind of points, in its own way, as I do.

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate your attention and the attention of the House. I hope I have successfully made the point that there is no basis for the B.C. voter to assume that you will do anything different than what you advised Ontario to do when you sent your "crack" transition team to them. There is no basis for them to assume that you will do any better a job in 1991 than you did in the 1972-75 period. We have on the record that sad performance by people who were given a heavy responsibility.

Lastly, Mr. Speaker, I'd like to once again make a plea for the members opposite to understand the importance of making a useful contribution to the designing of public policy in B.C. If they continue with their narrow-minded partisan approach and niggling nitpicking, if they continue to dodge the issue of what they would do with public money — as they have done consistently — and if they continue to avoid exposing their vulnerability to the attention and scrutiny of the rest of the province, they are neglecting and abdicating a very serious responsibility when we are elected to this House.

I know it's difficult to appreciate, but I don't happen to think that you are any different than us. We are all British Columbians, and we are British Columbians first. I'd like to think that we're British Columbians first before we're NDPers or Social Crediters. I happen to think that we could do a far more effective job of understanding and relating to each other, were it possible for you to assume the obligations that you have consistently failed to do since you have been in this House. We are all the same, and hopefully our objectives are all the same. I believe there are some obligations that should transcend partisan politics. Surely a serious discussion about how public money is spent would be one of those.

You would do a far greater service to the citizens of this province and to this side of the House, who are attempting to manage these issues, if you made your comments constructive and helpful, and if you told us what you thought the alternatives might be. You've consistently avoided a debate about the alternatives, because you know in your heart of hearts that this government is one of the most sensitive, caring governments that has ever been elected to the province. You merely have to look at our long record of public participation efforts to know that's true.

So, my friends, let's look at these issues squarely and honestly. Let's abandon the rhetoric. Let's get on with the job that the people elect us to do, and hopefully in that process provide better public administration in the province.

MR. ZIRNHELT: Mr. Speaker, I can assure you and the member for Saanich and the Islands that we do indeed take his suggestions seriously and have all along. If he examined it, we have put our platform before the people, and we are working on draft legislation. It's easy to read what the New Democrats stand for. We've got long-range plans, and we have fine-tuned them.

With respect to the budget, you'll hear a number of suggestions from me. With the meagre resources provided to us, we're not in the position to come up with a completely alternative budget, because you continually don't provide the necessary committees with information. We do not have enough information, and we don't use the committee system in this Legislature in a way that we could get at the real spending of the government. If we did, that would make a major contribution to democracy in the province and would make the use of opposition resources much more effective.

The member opposite talked about avoiding debate and being caught up in rhetoric. The key to rhetoric is the truth that lies behind it. We repeat the truth so that the truth can be understood and spread widely. As long as we have scandals coming up once a week, that hides a serious debate. We have spent thousands of hours talking around the province about our priorities and alternatives, and that gets buried in the newspapers because yet another scandal gets the front page. As soon as the scandals stop, we can get front-page stories with our positive alternatives. So I urge you to ease up on the scandals.

[ Page 12159 ]

The truth of this budget is that there's a $1.2 billion deficit. What has happened must be known by the people. Despite the claims of careful fiscal management, there has been a doubling of the government purpose debt in four years. I think that fact has to be discussed and debated widely. We have a record deficit and a record debt. There's no question about that; the facts are there.

We've seen hundreds of tax increases. My predecessor, the late Alex Fraser, who was the first member for Cariboo then, talked about the need to vote for the New Democrats in the next election because of the shift in the burden on the small-income-earner in the interior of the province. This big shift of taxes from the corporations down to the small-income-earner has created a major problem for households. Three thousand dollars per household has created a real inability for people to move and shift their lives and to buy the things they need. Thanks to the ideology that this government subscribes to, you deregulate, take the taxes off the corporations, load up the little guy and make him pay proportionately more for health services and school taxes, and that creates a bigger gap between rich and poor. If that isn't driven by ideology, I don't know what is. We've seen 20 years of that kind of economics. We end up with major structural problems in the economy, with no plan to get ourselves out of them. We find that this huge gap between rich and poor has widened in 20 years, and it has widened all over North America. As social democrats, we do not want to follow the same pattern that other governments have on the national scene and in the United States and Britain.

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

The major shift of half a billion dollars a year to the taxpayers who have the least ability to pay is something that we're very concerned about. Yes, the government has increased the corporate tax rate by I percent but that doesn't raise as much money as the increase in fees for hospital premiums, which is a very regressive tax. So this government has been hurting the working poor through its tax shifts.

We are seeing $208 million in tax increases, in spite of the fact that in the previous throne speech the government predicted a fragile economy and in spite of the fact that only months ago they sought to gain support with the public by saying they were going to freeze taxes. Well, three months later, with the spring breakup, the tax freeze has thawed. This government clearly doesn't know what it's doing.

I'd like to turn to the situation in the forest industry, which is a major part of the economy of the province and approximately 50 percent of the economy of the interior, which I represent. First of all, dealing with the contribution of the forest sector to the province as a whole, from '84 to '89 there was only a slight increase in what that sector contributed to the gross domestic product, in spite of the fact that in that time period the cut has increased. The direct employment impact has in fact gone down from 7.6 percent in '84 to 7 percent in '89, and the total employment impact of the forest sector has gone down from 15.4 to 14.4. Instead of investing in research and development over the last decade, we've seen a decrease in the performance of the industry.

On the other side of that, revenues from the small business enterprise program have gone up 30 percent in that time period, whereas revenues from timber sales have gone up 6.6 percent — almost a 5 percent increase from the small business program. Now I know that's comparing a bit — the gross and the net. But factoring in the differences, we're still seeing two to three times more money per unit coming from the small business program. What that is doing is taking money directly out of the pockets of small business people in the forestry industry and squeezing them to the point where a lot are going out of business. A lot of them can't get timber. When they do, they're buying themselves a job and depreciating their equipment. In the meantime, the larger companies and licence-holders are paying about the same amount as they were years ago. I think this has to change. I hear every day from small business operators who say they're tired of being taxed through the excessive stumpage that they have to pay.

[11:15]

It was interesting to note a paragraph on the bottom of page 67 in the Forest Resources Commission report which talks about the return to the people of B.C. from this very valuable resource. I'd like to quote from it:

"Clearly the asset base generated through private transactions is markedly higher than the asset base generated through provincial stumpage — no matter which of the three...valuations or the three discount interest rates is used. In fact, the private transactions produce an asset value more than four times higher than that found for stumpage. This suggests that industry is capturing a much higher value from the forest than is the government. Stumpage payments are not capturing the full value of the resource. It also suggests that companies are willing to pay a competitive rather than regulated price for access to timber. The difference between these two values is presently being captured by private industry upon the sale of tenures and not by the Crown. It is the view of the Forest Resources Commission that this 'gap' in valuation should be closed."

There's no question why the Minister of Forests has tried to bury this report: it seems to indicate that there has been gross mismanagement. The amount of money that this represents in the low end would be $4.7 billion and in the high end, $8.8 billion. I suggest that if we're capturing the value of the forest resource, there's more than enough money to reduce taxes for the people in British Columbia and to provide a higher level of services.

There is half the number of jobs per cubic metre that there was in 1962, and we've doubled the amount of cut in that time. Our priorities are wrong. This government has defined efficiency in terms of the volume that they can cut and not in terms of the employment or the contribution to government that the industry can provide.

If we don't turn around and define efficiency in social terms, meaning meaningful employment that has some potential to remain far into the future, the

[ Page 12160 ]

disservice to the people of British Columbia is tremendous.

Since 1944, for example, the area dedicated to industrial forest use has increased 1,000 percent, whereas in comparison the land dedicated to parks increased 20 percent. The volume logged has increased 1,400 percent. So in terms of our priorities, over the last 40 years we have been dedicating ever-increasing amounts to the forest base without regard to other users of the forest, who have increasing economic value.

I'd like to read more statistics into the record. The government must recognize from the very little research that's been done — not enough by any means — that from managed stands, the second generation of trees growing here, the yield increases from basic silviculture are 6.8 percent. But if there's additional silviculture, there is upwards of 20 percent, and if there's very intensive silviculture, we can increase the yields up to 50 percent on some of the best sites. Yet when you look around for a cost-benefit analysis and some kind of a strategy, they're not there. They're all going to be in the future.

The Minister of Forests' excuse for dealing only recently with this is that there is a shift in values from the people. I suggest that it has not been a recent shift in values. We've got to a crisis in the management of the forests in B.C. That is why the public has been demanding it. The government has been negligent.

The Forest Resources Commission suggests that real free enterprise — real competition — in the marketing of timber will create more value. It will create a healthier industry, one which must make the adjustment towards creating more valued-added by producing more out of less volume. The volumes have been over committed for some time, and as long as we continue to put more and more timber through our mills, we are going to recapture less and less. That's been the tendency over the last two decades.

A few words on the Cariboo economy and what implication the budget has on it. We know that over the last few years there has been a loss of 3,000 jobs in the region, in the Cariboo and Prince George, and it has been because of the trends I was talking about: the lack of strategic industrial planning and the lack of planning in forest resource management.

For example, in order to offset that, there were promises during the Cariboo by-election that there would be three major industrial facilities. So far the success rate is one out of three. We hope the other two go ahead, but if they don't, there is no alternative plan in place. The government walks in, promises 500 jobs and inflates the figures, the real increase in employment, to make it look like it's offsetting the loss of jobs due to modernization in the forest industry — and it's not real. These jobs may or may not materialize. We hope they do, but if they don't, we don't have an alternative strategy. We don't have a strategy to deal with the falldown when we level out the amount of cut to a sustainable level.

Tourism is very important in the Cariboo. In the budget we've seen a drop of $4.1 million. We're concerned about that. In order to keep our market share, British Columbia will have to continue to invest in marketing assistance and so on for the small operators. And they don't just make $5 an hour. They are owner-operators, family ventures that produce a quality of life as well as jobs for two or three family members. Some of them have existed for 50 years. It's a very important part of diversification of the Cariboo economy, and I'm sorry to see that it hasn't been given a higher priority.

There are no further budget items for power- and gas-line extensions, which are also very important to continued economic development and diversification in the Cariboo. The most modern operations require power- and gas-line extensions which are very economical methods of heating and which promote the market of B.C. gas. We see very little there, and there are a number of very important projects in the Cariboo that I'm afraid won't get funded. This budget doesn't address that.

I see very little attention being given to the upgrading of secondary roads which continue to be the lifeline of the forest industry in the Cariboo. I'm sure there's money buried somewhere for some projects, and I look forward to the estimates debate where I can raise specifics. But I'm sorry to say that the continued upgrading of the infrastructure does not come out as being emphasized for the interior.

I think we need an interior strategy, and you ought to be able to pick it up out of the budget. Because if we don't pay attention to the areas that have been declining recently, then we will continue to have the two economies in British Columbia: one in the lower mainland and one in the interior. It's the one in the lower mainland that's growing, and we need to divert that growth into the Cariboo.

In order to accommodate that growth, we need to see that attention is being paid to the things that my colleague the first member for Cariboo and I often agree on: the provision of adequate staff to monitor habitat requirements and to take care of poaching problems in these spread-out areas. I know that the conservation officers are strung out; they have thousands of miles of road and ever-increasing numbers of roads, and they can't deal with the illegal hunting. There is a threat to the basis of subsistence economy and also to the tourism economy in the area.

Hunting also provides a really important aspect to the quality of life — something that we don't measure in dollars but that is important to the people we want to attract to the Cariboo, including the professionals who provide an important part of the social infrastructure we need in order to operate and provide a high level of service for people in the Cariboo.

But in the environment aspects of the budget, I don't see a real commitment to habitat protection. It seems to me that habitat protection, which hasn't really increased in the number of FTEs available to it in the last ten years, is struggling seriously as more and more habitat is accessed by roads. I don't see much in the budget that would look toward coordination of access road development, though the throne speech did mention it. We look forward to that coming in and being debated.

[ Page 12161 ]

The auditor-general's report has further undermined the already lacking confidence the public has in the state of forest management. We have a situation where not only do we not know how much we've got left on the shelves of the store — how much has been sold — but we don't have anybody at the checkout counter. I think this is grave, because the public needs to know that this very valuable resource — the old growth forest that we're logging — is giving a return for the public investment that's there. The auditor-general has pointed out the weakness in the monitoring and auditing. I see a marginal increase in the shuffling of people in the Forests ministry to maybe begin to look at this, but it doesn't give us any confidence about what has happened over the last ten years.

I noted earlier in another speech that we've seen as part of the government's ideology that you turn it over to the forest companies to manage and it will be managed better. Well, the public has said often enough that they want their officials to be there monitoring, evaluating and giving us the assurance that our resource is being protected. That's not just the forest resource; it has to do with water. The growing importance of the management of water for drinking and recreation purposes is getting critical in a number of areas — especially in the dry interior, where we have a number of other activities like logging and ranching which can threaten the watersheds if not carefully managed. I don't see in the budget a major increase to deal with this problem.

We recently had a sewage spill in the 100 Mile area, and we were hopeful that this budget would show an increase in spending in that area of renewing sewage disposal systems. I see a decrease in that by 3.6 percent in the Municipal Affairs budget line item: $12.1 million. We only need $1.1 million to solve a major problem in the Cariboo, and I'm afraid it might not be given a high enough priority by this government. We will debate that in the estimates.

I'm made a little nervous by what I see in the budget. I'm sure my colleague the first member for Cariboo is a little nervous too. We both have hopes that there's something there for us.

A line in the budget says: "The quality of life depends on the quality of the environment." We have to ensure that government resources — the public officials out there — sense an accountability to the people they work for, who are the people of British Columbia but also the people in the regions, and open up their decision-making so that people know that the work they do is of value. If we did a value-for-money audit of the Ministry of Environment, I wonder what the conclusions would be. I'm afraid that we would find that the department has some of its own priorities which don't always relate to the priorities that the people in the area have.

The key to responding to local people is that you can take on board a lot of volunteer assistance, both in monitoring and in actually providing some of the management functions. A case in point is fish habitat management. We have a very important industry in the south Cariboo that does not get a reinvestment in any way commensurate with its value to the local economy

Small investments will return more revenue, and that's exactly what we have to do. We see no strategic plan for that. We see a bit of muddling through, but we don't see a major commitment of strategically spending money so that we maximize the benefit to the economy. It only makes sense that we take care of the natural habitat which is the easiest to maintain and will give us the greatest return in terms of the fish resource. I'm sorry to say that I don't see a major commitment in the budget to that by way of even a priority.

I'd like to comment on the Lands and Parks budget, where I see the survey of resource mapping has gone down by 9 percent. I'm quite concerned about that, because I know the people in the forest industry in the Cariboo need to know how much timber is tied up in the parks proposals, how much timber is tied up in the parks, how much land is rock, how much land needs to be left for ecological purposes and how much is critical habitat. We don't know that; we cannot answer that, and I see by this budget that we're not going to be able to answer that. There is some possibility that this inventory item will be picked up by a slight increase in the forest inventory budget of the Ministry of Forests, but I would like to underline the comment I made earlier that it's no way to run the public's business, not knowing how much you have out there, and it makes people feel very insecure.

[11:30]

Under the Labour and Consumer Services budget items I notice there is a $600,000 reduction in prevention and treatment of substance abuse. The government is still sitting on a report — and I understand that many copies exist — dealing with the costs to hospitals of treating people whose diseases are as a result of alcohol abuse. It has been suggested that this is one of the largest costs to health, and yet we don't have a comprehensive strategy to deal with it. We can't cut the prevention and treatment of substance abuse by this kind of money and expect to achieve any savings, because anything spent here is going to be directly saved in hospitalization costs.

I'd like to wind up with a summary of how the situation is with respect to the major part of the economy of the Cariboo, which is the forest industry. I and others feel very nervous that 70 percent of the industry in B.C. is controlled outside of B.C., 43 percent is controlled outside of Canada and only 30 percent of the industry is controlled in B.C. If we look at the government as the managers of public business and we use the analogy of the store again, there's nobody at the checkout, we don't know how much has been sold, we don't know how much is on the shelf and we don't know how much is on order. In fact, we don't even know how much of what is on order is back-ordered, because we don't have the information yet. We are only just beginning to look at growth and yield. I say that this alone is sufficient reason for the people of British Columbia to elect a new government.

MR. VANDER ZALM: As we listened to the budget speech we certainly became more aware again that these are troubling times and that obviously governments everywhere, particularly in this country, are

[ Page 12162 ]

struggling with budgets and wondering how to make ends meet.

At the same time, however, daily we see on television and hear on the radio and listen to people on phone-in shows or read the newspapers and find that people generally are extremely concerned about government spending, about where it is we're going with the cost and size of government and the share it's taking out of each person's pocket to pay for all of this. They're concerned to the extent, as has been mentioned by a number of members, that they're shopping across the line more and more — particularly if they're living anywhere near an American town where they might pick up groceries and other supplies a little cheaper because there are fewer taxes and less cost. There is all of this concern.

I realize that this is very difficult for governments to address throughout the country. We're seeing practically every province with a deficit, from what we know today, with deficits ranging all the way from the horribly high, irresponsible deficit in Ontario to something a whole lot less here. We're very pleased about the fact that it's obviously a whole lot less, and we're very pleased that we've managed far more effectively and appear to have a far greater concern for the ability of the taxpayers to meet all of this expense than they have in Ontario.

But still, unfortunately we see a deficit here too, and to say that I'm totally pleased about that would be totally dishonest. I'm not pleased; I'm not happy. I'm sure that all of us could come up with a different formula. Each of us as individuals, members on the government side, members on the opposition side — all of us could perhaps come up with another formula as to how we would see this done and how, in order to avoid the higher taxes, we would reduce the expenditures or do things differently.

As I listen to the NDP I've continually heard more demands for money in various areas. They're looking to spend more money, and at the same time they're being critical of the deficit as we see it now. You can't spend more money and at the same time look towards a balanced budget or a lesser deficit. You can't do that.

The NDP approach has been — we've seen it time and time again — totally irresponsible. What we are hearing from the NDP in B.C. — and I've listened carefully to all the arguments so far — is simply a repeat of what we saw in Ontario, where they talked about spending more money, where they made all sorts of promises regardless of need or priority or where the money should perhaps be directed, simply spending more money in all areas. We're seeing it here in B.C. just as we saw it in Ontario.

Ontario has not only created a disaster for themselves, but it has an impact on every province and every person in this country. We'll all pay for it one way or another when governments elsewhere but in this country move as irresponsibly as we saw in Ontario. That's not the answer.

Yet I don't believe that this budget could not have been balanced. I believe it could have been balanced. I believe it should have been balanced. I say that because the difference between balancing and not balancing — given the $400 million figure used by the Minister of Finance — is about 2½ cents on the dollar. That means that for every dollar we spend in government, if we were to decide that in future — or certainly for this fiscal year — we would target 97½ cents instead of a dollar, we would achieve a balanced budget.

We've seen increases in practically every ministry, and substantial increases in those social services ministries that eat up about 70 percent of the total budget. If in hospitals, schools, social services centres or welfare offices they couldn't manage to find that 2½ cents — given the tremendous increases they were given — Id be very surprised. There's no excuse. It can be done and should have been done so that the budget could have been balanced.

I'm also told though I haven't seen the details of it, that the budget provides for approximately an 8 percent increase in payroll. An 8 percent increase at this time, in 1991, is far too much, in my view. If 65 to 70 percent of the total budget is wages or payroll in government, then had that increase been 4 or 5 percent instead of 8 percent, the need for a deficit or any tax increase would have been eliminated. It's about time that we started to get a hold on that. We don't need to be giving all things to all people right now. It can't be done. We can't be spending these moneys in order to satisfy those who work in the public service, and at the same time provide more programs in health care, education, social services or elsewhere. Mr. Speaker, I think the people in this province are looking for us to be the example to hold the line. It could have been done.

Mr. Speaker, I'm also concerned about what has happened to the Taxpayer Protection Act. I believe the Taxpayer Protection Act was the greatest achievement by any government in this province's history or this country's history. I don't believe it has ever been done anywhere on the continent, where a government said: "We will balance the budget over the term of five years. We will present annually to the Legislature a plan for this balanced budget. We will present a plan for how we will reduce the accumulated debt. We will freeze tax rates for three years, for it to be reviewed at the end of three years." That, to my view, is a first, perhaps in the world. And it was being viewed not only by people here — our seniors or those on limited incomes who view this as security perhaps beyond anything else ever promised by government — but by people everywhere in the world, particularly those in business who were seeking a place to invest. The Taxpayer Protection Act was a message that had a potentially greater impact on the economic development of this province than anything we've ever seen in this province or this country.

It could have and should have brought industries from other parts of Canada. As a matter of fact, we should have taken the Taxpayer Protection Act, had it printed and sent it to every industry in Mississauga and all around Toronto. We should have opened up an office with a big B.C. flag right in the middle of Toronto, and we should have used that Taxpayer Protection Act to bring industry into this province like we've never seen it come before, to create economic

[ Page 12163 ]

activities and jobs in all communities throughout this province like we've never had in this province before. That could have been done. The Taxpayer Protection Act was the tool with which to do it, and those people in Ontario who are now being suppressed with heavy taxes, insecurity and not knowing where they might be next year or the year after would have been flocking to B.C., creating jobs and economic activity and paying their dues and taxes, which would have provided all the moneys for social programming and other things.

I realize that the Taxpayer Protection Act has been offended by this budget to the extent that it really is no more and can't be used for that purpose, and I'm very sorry about that. I believe, in all honesty, that that was a mistake. But as I said, Mr. Speaker, each of us in this House, on either side, undoubtedly would have another formula. We may not like the formula presented to us in every respect, but I certainly prefer the formula given us to what we saw in Ontario or what I might expect from the NDP in this province, which would unfortunately be total disaster and would lead to deficits such as we've never seen before and to an outflow of business, particularly to places across the line. We can't stand that. We need to keep those jobs and that economic activity in our province.

I was hoping to hear from the opposition about the privatization program. I was hoping that they would tell us a bit more about how they view privatization and whether they would take those services that have been privatized and turn them back into government. It's very difficult, as it has always been for the last four years, to pin down the Leader of the Opposition or the NDP on anything. They tend to talk in generalities, and they're for whatever is the topic of the day. Therefore there is a great deal of uncertainty about what they might do and how it would be done.

But privatization is one of those programs that a lot of people are concerned about, because it has provided us with savings. The people of this province, from the lowest taxpayer to the highest, have saved by this privatization process. That's important. We are charged with caring for those tax dollars provided us by the people. Government has no money of its own; it collects all it spends from the people, who work very hard to earn those dollars. So we owe it to them to be very careful with the moneys provided us.

Privatization has achieved even more than I had hoped for. When it was first considered some years ago, it was obviously done to provide a better level of service and innovation and to give these services an opportunity to create new economic activity outside government. And it was also done in order to save tax dollars. But the thing that most people would agree with as they see the results of privatization — and anyone driving our highways would attest to this best — is that the service level is beyond anything I've seen in the past. As a matter of fact, it used to be that if you drove from Vancouver through Richmond, Delta, Surrey, into the United States, the real change came when you crossed the border and you tended to say: "Look how it is. They maintain highways so much better than what it is we see on our side." There used to be criticism from our own people about this. I'm sure the Americans, as they came in here, too often viewed their roads as far superior to what they saw here. Now it's quite the reverse. As a matter of fact, if you come from the United States through the Peace Arch into Canada, it's like a parkway. It's beautiful; it's maintained; it's an invitation; it's a welcome sign. You couldn't improve upon it in any way, shape or form. It's lovely. The grass is cut, the trees are up. The gardener is coming out in me, no doubt. It's something that you can really feel good about.

Similarly, when you drive Highway 1 through the lower mainland, or if you travel to the Okanagan and see the tremendous improvements that are being made there, and the maintenance that is given our roads, it is undoubtedly an improvement. On Vancouver Island, let me mention that one of the best jobs done is on the Pat Bay Highway We don't have to go very far to see the tremendous improvements, the maintenance, the upkeep, the regard given our highways such as we've not seen before.

Mostly it's the same people working in the system as we saw when it was public. There is a care now that didn't exist before, perhaps because it's something that they themselves are directly a part of, that they directly have an involvement with. There's pride in being involved, pride of ownership. That again is something we would lose if the NDP dared, as they might, turn this all back into the bureaucracy — in for big government to take care of. Privatization has worked well, and we ought to be very proud of the achievement made through that privatization process. Incidentally, not only is it a model for the rest of the country but in my previous office I was getting letters from people in Arizona, California, Texas, the eastern seaboard states, about the privatization process, how it was done and all of the results. They wanted to find out about this privatization process, because they had heard about the success of it right here in British Columbia, Canada. It was a first in many respects, a model not only for the continent but for the world.

We've heard some criticism from the opposition about the regionalization process. I grant you that the regionalization process saw some changes, and I'm not sure in retrospect whether some of those changes should have been made or whether we shouldn't have continued as we were. I have still some doubts about the changes made and some second thoughts about how it might have been done. Frankly, I guess all of us might do some things differently if we could do it twice, that's for sure.

But again, as you look at the impact of the regionalization process in those regions outside of Vancouver Island and the lower mainland and when you travel to the interior or the northern parts of this province and you see the effects of regionalization and the tremendous message it has given to the people out there in those regions, then certainly you become aware that it has been a tremendous process. To say that we would do it exactly the same or make some of the changes that were made is certainly not correct.

I am sure things could have been done, and perhaps should still be done, a little differently from what it is, but the process is working. It's working very effec-

[ Page 12164 ]

tively. It's okay to sit here behind a cosy desk in Victoria and be critical of it, but when you're out on the grass or out there on the road in some interior region and you're seeing the results of this in not only road improvements or social programs, then again, it's something that they treasure. They don't want to have it disappear. They don't want to see the NDP centralize all of this again in Victoria in order to suit some people in the bureaucracy They want those services maintained in the regions. That local pride and that feeling of being involved is very important to all of those people in the regions.

We have many wonderful social services programs in this province. A lot of people who come to visit us from other parts of Canada or the world marvel at our educational system and what we've achieved through the colleges, the universities, technical institutes, our schools in all of the communities right from the elementary through. They marvel at the level of service. They marvel at the standards. They think it's wonderful. They look at our health system, which is second to none anywhere in the country or in the world. They look at our social services — by and large they're very good — and they certainly are impressed with many of the programs provided through the Ministry of Social Services and others.

Yet, as the Finance critic for the opposition just indicated in his comments across the tables here, there's a great deal of controversy about the politics in this province, about the polarization, about the ongoing disputes, about the fights that we see within the political system — some of them infights, certainly. They're concerned and worried about that. It is also, I suppose, a reflection in part of how it is that people haven't yet developed sufficient appreciation for what we have in this province and in this country. When you look at the ratings given to Canada by the United Nations task force that does the ratings for quality of life internationally, and you see that our country comes out second-best in the world — way ahead of the United States and other places — you have to understand that while we haven't got perfection, and while there are undoubtedly still things to be done, we have a great deal to be grateful for.

But, Mr. Speaker, as I reflect on this budget, I repeat that I'm not happy with the deficit. I'm terribly unhappy with the fact that the Taxpayer Protection Act seems to have been thrown out; I'm terribly unhappy about that. I think we've missed a tremendous opportunity by having done what we did, and I'm concerned. I don't believe that there isn't sufficient fat within the system that we couldn't have brought about a savings that would have led to a balanced budget and that might have kept the Taxpayer Protection Act intact.

There are many ways in which we can save, and there's much waste. I'm sure all of us see it here every day. I come to my office in the morning at that end of the caucus, and it's so at the other end of the caucus and with the NDP caucus: there's a pile of Vancouver Province newspapers and a pile of Vancouver Sun newspapers and a pile of Globe and Mail and USA Today. That's a very minor thing, but it's right under our noses. Then we get all these clipping services from the various newspapers and radio and television. Everybody gets them. They glance through them very quickly and away it goes in the wastebasket to be recycled by someone. It's a small thing, it's nothing at all, but it's right under our noses.

Today I was sent a bag of buttons. I'm allowed to distribute these buttons. We all get buttons, but do we really think about the fact that they're...?

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. The member should know the rules: not allowed to do that in the House. The member's been here a long time. Please proceed.

MR. VANDER ZALM: You can't see them — they're in a brown envelope.

There are ways in which we can certainly save in each and every ministry, and so we should. That should be the goal of all in government.

I know as well that in a democracy there are many things we do in order to protect the democratic process. I listen to members of the opposition make allegations and charges, as we saw the other day and as we've seen in the past, and there's immediately some sort of investigation, all of which is extremely costly and all of which will be given us in the name of democracy. But I think it's time we seriously considered all the activities and actions by each and every one of us, regardless of where we sit in this House and what position we serve, and that we carefully consider time and time again that the moneys we spend — by whatever means or for whatever purpose — are those provided us by the taxpayers. The taxpayers out there everywhere are saying: "We've had enough. We can't take any more."

Mr. Speaker, we now enjoy being the second-best place in the world, and this is undoubtedly by measures which include not only economic activity and how we treat various groups and what social services or level of education we provide. There are many considerations, including the amount of taxes we pay. If we continue in this country as we see it at the federal level and as we see it in places like Ontario, then we're going to lose that standing of being second-best.

It's great to say that we have all these services, that we can count on government to provide whatever our needs are for today, tomorrow or next week. It's wonderful, but if at the same time for every dollar you pay — we see what they did in Sweden — 70 cents goes to government, then suddenly that place in which we live and all that we do and are involved with, despite the fact that we've got big government out there ready to give us all services, doesn't look so attractive anymore. When 70 cents out of every dollar we earn has to be counted out to some bureaucrat, who then puts it into government because the elected people decided they wanted to have more programs and more things to be involved with, then all of that attraction no longer exists.

If we want to keep this country number two or make it number one, and if we want to have the rest of the country as well and as wonderful as B.C., we've got to be concerned about creating the economic

[ Page 12165 ]

activity which will provide job opportunities and choice for all of our young people, regardless of where they live in this province. We've got to allow them to keep most of that money — preferably as much as possible of that money — that they have earned through their hard work.

We can do that if we manage carefully and effectively. I'm very pleased that we've got a tremendous record in this government, and I'm very discouraged and fearful when I hear the opposition talk about more spending and more programs.

Mr. Speaker, I'm very pleased to have been participating in this debate.

Mr. Barlee moved adjournment of the debate.

Motion approved.

Hon. Mr. Strachan moved adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

The House adjourned at 12:01 p.m.