[ Page 12215 ]

CONTENTS

Routine Proceedings

Oral Questions

Inland water projects. Mr. Cashore –– 12215

Environment ministry regulations. Mr. Cashore –– 12215

Former chairman of Hazardous Waste Management Corporation.

Mr. Sihota –– 12216

Soil from Expo site. Mr. Cashore –– 12216

Dumping of soil from Expo site. Mr. Cashore –– 12216

Power- and gas-line extension program. Ms. Edwards 12217

Tobacco industry lobby. Mr. Perry –– 12217

Budget Debate

Mr. Sihota –– 12217

Hon. Mrs. Gran –– 12219

Mr. D'Arcy –– 12222

On the amendment

Mrs. Boone –– 12224

Hon. Mr. Veitch –– 12226

Mr. Clark –– 12230

Hon. Mr. Fraser –– 12223

Mr. Gabelmann –– 12237

MONDAY, MAY 27, 1991

The House met at 2:06 p.m.

Prayers.

MR. PELTON: Hon. members, in the gallery this afternoon we have Patricia and Ted Jensen, who are visiting from Toronto, Ontario. Patricia is the sister of our hon. Law Clerk, Mr. Ian Izard. I wonder if we could all welcome them to our Legislature.

MR. CASHORE: Mr. Speaker, seated on the floor of the House is a distinguished guest, my Member of Parliament for Port Moody-Coquitlam, Mr. Ian Waddell. Would the House please join me in making him welcome.

HON. MR. SAVAGE: I would ask this assembly to welcome from Burnsview high school, 60 grade 10 students with their teacher Mr. Westlake and a number of parents. Would this assembly please make them welcome.

MR. LOVICK: In the gallery are two good friends of mine. I would ask the House to join me in welcoming Ms. Debbie Parhar and Mr. Tarlock Parhar. These two friends also have the distinction of being related to my colleague the member for Esquimalt-Port Renfrew. Mr. Parhar is my colleague's father-in-law, and Ms. Parhar is his sister-in-law. Please join me in making them welcome.

MR. REYNOLDS: I'd like the House to welcome 50 grade 7 students and their teacher Mr. Herrin from Hillside Middle School, West Vancouver.

MR. SIHOTA: Mr. Speaker, I won't reintroduce my in-laws, but I would like to take a moment to introduce my wife Jessie, who is joining us today as well.

HON. MR. FRASER: On behalf of the MLAs from Vancouver South, I would like to introduce Ms. Ramsay and Mr. Carpenter with their class from Captain Cook Elementary School. Would the House please join with me in making them welcome.

MR. COUVELIER: Mr. Speaker, I have just noticed in the House an ex-adviser to this government for many years, a man whose opinion on constitutional matters and suchlike is well respected and who isn't afraid to put pen to paper to express them. I ask the House to welcome Mr. Melvin Smith.

HON. MRS. GRAN: Visiting the House today are Dr. Jack Yang and his wife Elsa Yang. Also with them are Scott Coffin and Daniel Chin. Dr. Yang is from Taiwan and has his PhD in nutrition from Washington State University. For the last two years he has lived in Canada. He is the general manager of Sunrider International. Would the House please make them welcome.

MR. CASHORE: I have just noticed in the gallery my good friends Ken and Mary Fowler, and I'd like to ask the House to join me in making them welcome.

HON. MR. STRACHAN: Mr. Speaker, I wish to table a document. Recently, accusations were made of an improper process by Mount St. Mary Hospital and Saanich Peninsula Hospital in awarding contracts for laundry services without following the proper purchasing procedures. As a result, an investigation was ordered into the process followed by the hospitals, and I'm tabling the results of that investigation today.

Oral Questions

INLAND WATER PROJECTS

MR. CASHORE: Mr. Speaker, my question is to the Minister of Environment. The flooding season is upon us, and British Columbians are naturally concerned about diversions and other projects that affect our inland waters. Does the minister agree that to protect our water resource, his ministry should review and approve all projects that may have an impact on rivers and streams?

MR. SPEAKER: This question is much more appropriate for the estimates, or certainly for the order paper.

HON. MR. MERCIER: I'm certainly happy to agree that we will take a look at the things that were mentioned.

MR. SPEAKER: I would just caution the member that the scope of the question would really restrict question period to the point of no other members being advised.... So perhaps the member could narrow it down to something a little tighter.

MR. CASHORE: Channel relocations and the construction of bridges, culverts, docks and wharves are projects that currently require statutory review and approval, Is it the minister's position that the environmental impact of these projects justifies the current requirement for statutory approval?

HON. MR. MERCIER: I didn't hear a question there. I would like to have a question.

MR. CASHORE: With regard to changes in and about a stream, is the ministry currently proposing to reduce its authority over channel relocations and other projects?

HON. MR. MERCIER: We're in the process of reviewing a number of regulatory areas, and this could be included. I take that part of the question on notice.

ENVIRONMENT MINISTRY REGULATIONS

MR. CASHORE: A new question, Mr. Speaker. The minister recognizes that the ministry is developing regulations that weaken ministry powers. Under the

[ Page 12216 ]

regulations, these projects could be built without the authority of a licence, order or other ministry approval. Will the minister confirm that such regulations now being developed are going to essentially weaken the requirements for review in dealing with these applications?

HON. MR. MERCIER: The difficulty with the position taken there is that the member opposite ignored what I said in answer to the previous question: the regulations are under review. So if you hadn't been determined to go on with your next question and had listened to what I said, it would have given you the answer to the last question: yes, we have the regulations under review. As to the specific ones that you're commenting on, I'd be happy to report back in due course.

MR. CASHORE: Will the minister recognize that these regulations, which are under review, will significantly weaken the protection of the environment in this province where those installations are involved?

[2:15]

HON. MR. MERCIER: Mr. Speaker, the member doesn't have to speak louder; I understand what he was trying to say. My answer still applies. The regulations are in the process of being reviewed and until that review is complete, I will just say to the member that we will take those comments into consideration,

FORMER CHAIRMAN OF
HAZARDOUS WASTE
MANAGEMENT CORPORATION

MR. SIHOTA: Mr. Speaker, a question to the Minister of Environment. By way of an order-in-council, dated August 2, 1990, a number of people were appointed to the Hazardous Waste Management Corporation, including the current member from Delta. Apart from the usual arrangements — for example, per diems — could the minister advise the House what other arrangements were made with that member for additional benefits and/or employment?

HON. MR. MERCIER: Mr. Speaker, the previous chairman was removed from the Hazardous Waste Management Corporation by an order-in-council. The matter of any other arrangements is presently under discussion. The former chairman's position is that there might be some additional remuneration forthcoming; the position of this ministry is that there is not. Because the matter could well develop into a claim situation, I believe that any further comment at this time would be unnecessary.

MR. SIHOTA: Any remuneration payable would, of course, be paid for by the taxpayers, and this is the vehicle through which that minister has to be accountable for that expenditure. What offers were extended, or purported to have been extended, to that member concerning prospects for employment or otherwise?

HON. MR. MERCIER: Mr. Speaker, this minister extended no offer. As I have already stated, the Position is a matter of disagreement between the former chairman and this minister. The matter could well develop into a claim situation, and in due course we will know if it has. At this point it has not.

MR. SIHOTA: The minister says there is a dispute. Would he care to tell the House what the parameters of the dispute are?

HON. MR. MERCIER: No.

MR. SIHOTA: Will the minister advise the House what offer was made by the Hazardous Waste Management Corporation to that member?

HON. MR. MERCIER: Mr. Speaker, as I've already advised, the position taken by this minister is that there is no claim in existence. Until such is received in a formal manner, the response to the question is that there is no claim.

SOIL FROM EXPO SITE

MR. CASHORE: I have a question to the Minister of Environment. Some crews removing soil from the Expo site have been ordered to wear protective clothing and respirators. Six years ago, hundreds of workers spent months constructing that site and were never told to wear protective clothing, nor were they warned that the soil they worked in contained potentially hazardous substances. Has the minister decided to find and notify the workers involved and to offer medical tests to those concerned about their possible exposure to hazardous materials?

HON. MR. MERCIER: The problem with the position taken by this member is that of all the information available — and as commented on by the Vancouver municipal health officer.... The degree of concern was such that it would not seem necessary to do what the member suggests. But I will take it into consideration and review the steps taken. The member does not serve the public by heightening concerns — such as the misstatement made with respect to the soil. If the member opposite understood the hierarchy of soils and whether they're hazardous or not, then he would not have misused the term "toxic" with respect to soils removed, and he would not have been causing the concern of the public in cases where it's not warranted.

DUMPING OF SOIL FROM EXPO SITE

MR. CASHORE: I have a new question to the same minister. Your officials went to Richmond council, but they refused to answer questions from the public. They have now agreed to go back to Richmond and answer those questions — which is a departure from the minister's position to date, I must note. However, it appears that such a meeting has yet to be scheduled. Has the minister instructed his staff to meet with Richmond

[ Page 12217 ]

residents as soon as possible, and can he tell us when this meeting will take place?

HON. MR. MERCIER: Mr. Speaker, this member continues to manage misinformation. I think I'll take the position that I'm fairly well in touch with the situation in Richmond, and I am satisfied that the soil being moved to Richmond is not a health concern nor in any way hazardous. The purpose of having the meeting escapes me. In due course, I'm sure that before the site is used in the future, the municipality of Richmond will have to have the usual types of public hearings.

Please don't confuse the issue of the soil that is moving to the site with the matters which may properly come before Richmond council in due course.

POWER- AND GAS-LINE
EXTENSION PROGRAM

MS. EDWARDS: Mr. Speaker, my question is to the Minister of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources. British Columbians in the interior and the north feel abandoned by this government. My colleague for Boundary-Similkameen has already noted that agriculture wasn't even mentioned in the budget and, reinforcing this statement of neglect and resistance, this minister has cancelled the power- and gas-line extension program which was introduced just last year. Has the program been ended because there is no more demand for the extension of these services in the province?

HON. MR. WEISGERBER: I would disagree with the first part of the question. I think northern British Columbians feel very well served by this government, and their voting patterns show it.

The gas-line and powerline extension program has been one of the most successful programs this government has ever introduced, and it has been used very successfully in both northern and southern British Columbia and the interior. In fact, there's a great demand for gas line extensions in particular. We are presently trying to identify a process that would allow us to broaden the service to people desiring to have natural gas in their homes and their businesses. The ministry is looking at ways to work with the Utilities Commission and the gas companies to offer that kind of service, as we have done so many times in the past.

MS. EDWARDS: In announcing this program last year, the budget proudly announced that more people in the north and the interior will be able to enjoy the full benefits of our energy resources. More than 100 communities have requested natural gas line assistance through B.C. Gas under this program for 1991, and far from expanding it, the ministry has cut it off. Why has the minister abandoned these people just when they had hopes of getting gas service extended to their communities?

HON. MR. WEISGERBER: One of the difficulties when you have 100 communities wanting a service is deciding on priorities: who you give service to; who you don't. As I said earlier and as my friend the Minister of Environment noted, the members opposite rarely listen to answers but simply respond with question number two, three and four regardless of the answer to the first question.

As I said the first time around, we are working with the Utilities Commission and with gas companies on ways we could expand the base and make more gas service available. There are no funds in this year's budget for gas-line extensions, and we are continuing to review that with the Minister of Finance as well.

MS. EDWARDS: The communities applying for this program in 1991 used the equivalent of 610,000 barrels of crude oil in a single year. Most of this could be replaced with cleaner gas. If he's serious about replacing this and about broadening the program, could the minister explain why he did not simply say that he couldn't decide who is going to have it, and cut it off? Why didn't the minister do that?

HON. MR. WEISGERBER: It's refreshing to see that the member is going to continue with her series of questions regardless of the answer. The greatest example of expanding natural gas service to the residents of British Columbia has to be the Vancouver Island gas pipeline. Hundreds of millions of dollars are being expended to take natural gas up the Sunshine Coast to Sechelt, to Texada, across to Comox, up to Courtenay, and down the Island all the way to Victoria. That is the biggest natural gas extension program in the history of British Columbia. It's by far the biggest and best program we've ever introduced.

TOBACCO INDUSTRY LOBBY

MR. PERRY: A question for the Minister of Health. Is the minister aware that the tobacco addiction lobby has recently begun a new campaign to waste public funds through abuse of the franking system and the lobbying campaign against the Prime Minister?

HON. MR. STRACHAN: Well, yes, I've seen the advertisements. The member probably knows I would not support that at all, because I'm a vigorous anti-smoker and would support any anti-smoking campaign. But I'm not aware of how a tobacco company could have franking privileges; that's extended to MLAs and Members of Parliament, but certainly not to any private industry.

Orders of the Day

Budget Debate

(continued)

MR. SPEAKER: The member for Esquimalt-Port Renfrew has ten minutes left in his speech.

MR. SIHOTA: Before adjournment on Friday we were talking about the budget that the government brought forward and how it failed to articulate a vision

[ Page 12218 ]

for the province and continued to perpetrate the big lie as to the extent of government finances. We have here an administration which on the one hand says it has been managing the economy well, but on the other hand fails to reveal to the public the extent of the overall budget. In fact, if my memory serves me correctly, the government documents show that we have a $1.2 billion deficit in the budget this year, and yet we have the Minister of....

Interjections.

MR. SIHOTA: Mr. Speaker, I'll just wait for it to settle down a bit in here.

MR. SPEAKER: Please continue.

MR. SIHOTA: As I was saying on Friday at the conclusion of my comments, there are a couple of things that I want to touch upon this afternoon in concluding the debate on the budget. The first, of course, is my concern about what the Premier has been saying across the province with respect to federal-provincial negotiations. As I pointed out on Friday, and wish to sort of pick up today, in my riding I have a military base...

Interjections.

MR. SIHOTA: If the members would settle down, they might appreciate the importance of this comment.

... as does the Minister of Finance. The federal government is currently in the process of making a number of cuts with respect to defence expenditures in Canada and, as a consequence of that, there is a fair bit of concern across military installations and in ridings such as mine about the impact of those cuts. In fact, right now there is a lot of concern in my riding with respect to the impact of those cuts, in terms of both the base we have there and Royal Roads, as an institution of higher learning in the riding.

[2:30]

[Mr. Pelton in the chair.]

About a week ago I called upon the Premier, as I will again today, to express on the part of the province the concern that the closure of these bases will have a significant impact on the economy of neighbouring areas, and that it is essential that the federal government clarify its intentions vis-à-vis defence policy in this country. To date, I note that the Premier has not seen fit to take action with respect to that call. Be that as it may, what bothers me — and I wish she were here today — is that the Premier has in fact taken a position in support of those kinds of cutbacks.

I note that about a week ago she indicated that she was not in a position to criticize the federal government for any reductions in expenditures because, after all, she was making the same argument here in British Columbia. I wonder to what extent that argument now colours all other federal-provincial negotiations between British Columbia and the federal government.

The federal government and the province are currently in negotiations over the kaon factory. Will that now be the position of the provincial government — that it can go ahead and scrap any funding for a program because the province is not in a position to criticize federal cutbacks?

Will it now be the position of the provincial government that it sees nothing wrong with cutbacks on shipbuilding agreements — because, again, the federal government should be left alone to pursue the same type of economic policies as this administration does here in the province?

Will the province now be abandoning its court case with respect to Canada Assistance Plan cutbacks? As the hon. members of the House know, the federal government cut back — to the tune of some $200 million, in the case of British Columbia — the payments under the Canada Assistance Plan known as equalization payments. The feds made that cut. The province, I think to its credit, took that to court a year and a half ago and argued that those payments should be made and that the feds cannot back out of a contractual agreement that makes sure that there are equalization payments coming to British Columbia.

Will it now be the position of the provincial government, in light of what the province has had to say, that it will not oppose those cutbacks in transfer payments — which, I may say, have an impact on just about every minister, be it of Municipal Affairs, Government Services, Women's Programs, Energy or Agriculture? They are in the House right now and appreciate that those payments from the federal government have an impact on the programs the province can offer.

Given the fact that the Premier, the first minister of this province, has said that she is not in a position to argue against federal cutbacks, are we now vacating the field of taking on the federal government? One cannot help but conclude that that is indeed the position of the provincial government, in light of the statements with respect to defence.

While I am on defence, let me use this opportunity to call on the Premier of this province to say to the federal government that it is one thing to make decisions to cut back expenditures on defence, but it's another to do it without a plan. Surely a better way for the federal government to proceed is to lay out a White Paper on defence, state its positions, state what type of intentions it has, develop a national consensus around those changes and then make the cuts or the changes that are necessary. One of the biggest problems right now is that there is a cloud of uncertainty around many of these issues.

Mr. Speaker, I know that you will appreciate this more than perhaps most other members in the House. In a riding like mine, there's a lot of concern with respect to Royal Roads and the future of that facility. It is an institution of higher learning; it trains and equips our young men and women to deal with the technological changes in the world today. At the very time that the federal government is contemplating making cuts in the defence budget, surely it's also got to make sure that it has its best minds able to deal with the gaps in the service. Royal Roads takes the best minds in

[ Page 12219 ]

Canada and trains them to serve the country well — in, as I am sure you would appreciate, Mr. Speaker, a tri-service capacity in a tri-service training facility.

If the federal government proceeds with its cuts or decides to declassify Royal Roads as a tri-service facility, then many young people from ridings like mine will find themselves faced with the choice of either staying home, where they can now get training, or going to Ontario or Quebec to get training, which is an expensive proposition.

Again, it would seem appropriate to me that the provincial government would call upon the federal government to reconsider its plans, or at least to outline its intentions, with respect to an institution of higher learning such as Royal Roads. And the provincial Ministry of Advanced Education should give some thought to the utilization of the facilities we have in Colwood at Royal Roads, and perhaps to using portions of that facility for some of the provincial training that takes place.

So, Mr. Speaker, I'd like to see the Premier take a different position than she has, and I would hope that she will in the next few days.

I see that my time is nearly up, so let me recap a number of the points I was trying to make the other day. First, this budget continues the lie. The government has not come forward honestly and indicated the extent of its deficit. It has a $1.2 billion deficit in this budget, the highest deficit in provincial history. If you take into account the comments of the auditor-general, we have a $9 billion accumulated debt built up during the time this government has been in power. We have had a history of this government misleading the people of this province as to the true state of its finances. As I said the other day, one need only remember the famous phrase in the Coquihalla report which indicated, if I may quote, that the government had embarked upon a process of "deceit, prevarication and lies." That began with the Coquihalla and regrettably continues here today with respect to this budget.

HON. MRS. GRAN: It gives me a great deal of pleasure to stand and speak in favour of this budget.

Before I get into the specifics of the budget, I'd like to spend some time reflecting on why I personally became a member of the Social Credit Party and not the NDP. The best example that I can use is a piece of material that the NDP don't like to talk about: it was called the Waffle Manifesto. It's required reading for anyone who cares about their country, their province or their future.

The interesting thing about that manifesto was that it told us very clearly that what the NDP intended to do was to infiltrate the unions, education and women's groups, and they would then control any given government. In this case it was British Columbia. One of the authors or editors of that Waffle Manifesto was an individual called Ken Novakowski. He is now the president of the B.C. Teachers' Federation. I don't know if that means that they control education, but I think it tells us that they've been successful in some measure.

That particular piece of paper spurred me into caring enough to join a political party, to help that political party get elected and eventually to become elected myself. It's the one issue that made someone who didn't pay much attention to politics become very interested.

I hope that the groups that I mentioned — unions, education and women's groups — have not been captured by the NDP. I have met many of the people who belong to those organizations, and I know that they haven't. But it's a scary thought when one group sets out to deliberately capture and infiltrate that organization and take over the management, to fight the government. We must always remember that fighting the government means fighting the people, because that's what the government is: the people of the province or the country concerned.

Budgets are all about philosophy. They represent what those governments stand for.

I want also to reflect on a man called W.A.C. Bennett, who I am extremely proud to have known — not well, but to have known. All Social Credit members and all people who live in British Columbia are indebted to W.A.C. Bennett. He had great foresight. He was not just a bottom-line man or Premier, and he was a very caring man. I think it's important for all of us in this House to remember that just about all of the programs in this province date back to W.A.C. Bennett. We owe him a great debt.

The next Premier I knew far better: Bill Bennett. I worked for ten years in the Bill Bennett administration, and I enjoyed every minute of those ten years. I enjoyed, it because it was consistent government, and because you always knew where you stood. That included the people who were elected, the taxpayers of the province and the NDP. They always knew where they stood in opposition. Bill Bennett was a consistent leader, and he was a caring man. He was loyal to the people who served in his cabinet, and he never created an atmosphere that made it difficult for his colleagues.

There has been criticism of this budget from many quarters — some from Social Credit quarters. I guess it's healthy, but for me it's difficult to hear a member of our own party talk about our budget in a negative way. But that's the democratic process, and it's every individual member's right to do so. I thought it important for me today to make that point and to talk about other Social Credit leaders and how they behaved.

The controversy over the deficit of this budget is a healthy one, because what we're talking about are budgeting principles. If the budget deficit is $395 million or if it's $1.2 billion, we're talking about budgeting principles. That debate has taken place just about every time we've had a budget in this House. What we on this side of the House need to remember is that if this were an NDP budget, the deficit would be $6 billion.

I use that figure because that's the figure we have come up with in line with all of the promises made by the NDP over the last four and a half years. Six billion dollars is a whole lot different than $395 million or $1.2 billion. That's six billion dollars worth of NDP promises. It tells you that Ontario is not unique, and that 1972-1975 was not unique. If the NDP are to retain power after the next election, they will do exactly what

[ Page 12220 ]

the other two NDP governments did. The debt will be at least $6 billion in one budgeting year.

By the time the NDP raises the welfare rates, triples the day care costs and gives the farm to the BCTF and the BCGEU, there won't be much left for anybody else. That's only in one budget year. Those are the issues we have to talk about for the next few months. We have to talk about the difference between those two philosophies, and then the people of this province will decide.

[2:45]

I watched the Leader of the Opposition on the news the other night respond to John Shields's attack on the government. As usual, he danced around the issue, never answering the question, In fact, in four and a half years the Leader of the Opposition has never squarely answered a question.

I found the comments of John Shields repugnant. His attack on the government is incredibly irresponsible. What I find even more interesting — and it goes back to my comments about the Waffle Manifesto — are the comments reported today in the Vancouver Sun attributed to the president of the B.C. Federation of Labour, who says that he expects major legislative and policy changes under a New Democratic Party government. In fact, he told the convention that some of the changes could occur immediately upon change of government. How does Ken Georgetti know that? Does he have an inside track? I guess the sad truth is that they have infiltrated the unions, and they owe those organizations. They owe each and every one of them, and we all know what the end result will be for us as taxpayers. We know what will happen in this province.

For the members of the BCGEU, though, is that going to translate into more money for those public servants? I don't think so, because the money is not there. What it means is that under the NDP there will be more money for fewer people or a broken NDP promise or, more likely, a massive debt load for the taxpayer.

Public servants need to reflect very carefully on being told by their union leader that they should not vote Social Credit. He didn't say that they should vote NDP but that they shouldn't vote Social Credit. I would be offended at paying someone a large salary to come to that conclusion. I would be particularly offended if I was a woman working in the public service, because it's this government that introduced a pay equity plan. This government has put $40 million of extra money on the line for the women who work in our public service. We made that decision, and it wasn't necessarily a popular one throughout this province. Pay equity is very controversial and difficult to implement, but it spells fairness for people.

There were many difficulties with the leader of the BCGEU while we were doing this, but it has turned out to be the best pay equity initiative in Canada, if not North America — and now Mr. Shields has taken credit for that initiative. Fair pay increases is what this government wants for its employees. Fair is what the taxpayers can afford to pay.

We've also gone a step further. We've put child care into the workplace where we've been able to in this government. That's a first, and it's very important to those families who work in government, particularly the mothers with new babies who must go back to work because their family income dictates that they must.

This government, just as all Social Credit governments, has done a lot of good things for people. But all of us who take our paycheques from the people must always remember that we must never allow ourselves to become the elite in this province, with bigger paycheques and better benefits than people in the private sector. This government is trying to control the expenses on behalf of the taxpayer to make sure that we don't take more than is there and more than is fair.

I'd like to spend a few minutes talking about education, because the NDP spends a lot of time talking about education, taking shots at some of our initiatives and always saying that we never spend enough money on education. It's interesting because from 1986 to this year, the education budget has almost doubled — from $2.7 billion to $4.1 billion. Mr. Speaker, that's a lot of money out of the budget of a province with only three million people to pay the bill.

In my community education is a big issue. We have more families per capita in Langley than any other community in this province, and we have extreme growth problems. The average teacher's salary in Langley is $50,619, including benefits. That's not bad. I don't underestimate what teachers have to do in their day, what they have to put up with or how difficult their job is. But $51,000 is a fairly good paycheque in British Columbia, and that's for a young teacher who hasn't had experience.

Growth areas like Surrey, Delta, Maple Ridge and all of the rest of the Fraser Valley have very unique challenges. When we build a school in my community, before that school even opens its doors, there are portables all over the yard. The growth is absolutely impossible to keep up with.

This year the Ministry of Education doubled the capital budget to over $600 million for communities like Langley to try to keep up with the growth and to put students into proper classrooms and teachers into better working conditions. We are going to have to be very creative in our communities in the Fraser Valley and lower mainland to keep up with the rapid growth.

I guess we have to ask ourselves: does more money translate into better education? I read some interesting comments in the paper the other day by students who had graduated from school. They didn't give the education system good marks, because that system didn't provide them with the background they felt they needed to survive in the society they ended up going into.

We have to look at a lot of things in education. We have to look at the responsibilities of teachers, who are now parents, babysitters, psychologists and social workers. It's a stressful job. As the family breaks down, more problems come into the classrooms and more teachers find their jobs stressful. We have to look at the entire education system. We have to look at what students need to be equipped with to survive in today's society. We all know that education is the key to economic freedom for men and women, and if that's

[ Page 12221 ]

true, then education has to be one of the single most important issues in our society. That means we all have to pay more attention to what happens in that system.

In school districts, we can ask if they are top-heavy with administration. Are we spending too much money on administration? Are we helping teachers enough? Do we have enough support in those schools to help with the social problems? Those are questions that society has to answer. Those are questions that good politicians should be putting forward and talking about in election campaigns and in between.

As a mom and a grandmother, I worry about education. I worry about the confrontation created by the BCTF and the NDP, the climate of confrontation that pits parents against teachers and teachers against the government. There has to be a better way for us all to work together.

Perhaps unionization of teachers was not the wisest move for us to make. Many teachers in my district tell me that they wish they didn't have to belong to a union and that they far preferred to be professionals.

And so in this next election campaign, I would hope that the NDP wouldn't use education, that they wouldn't make people think that education isn't funded and scare children about their futures. Most of all, I hope that the biggest, best-funded union in British Columbia never becomes government in this province. If the NDP are elected, the B.C. Teachers' Federation will be our government.

It's important in this budget debate to touch on all three of the big ministries in government: Health, Education and Social Services. And for the Finance minister and cabinet it's a balancing act — not who's most important, but how do you fund them all. How do you fund all of the programs that people need and want in a country drowning in debt?

In this particular budget that has a deficit, this government has increased the funding in all three of those areas. No budget cuts. That's really important for us to remember. No budget cuts in a time of recession.

We've protected the health care system, which is the very essence of being a Canadian. Canadians believe in fair treatment for everyone, and if there is any one single thing that I as a politician want to see protected, it's our health care system. I want to know that all children, regardless of their parents' income, have the same access to medical care as everyone else does. That's the Canadian way. And we've done our part in this province in keeping that health care system well funded.

[3:00]

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

I think about the families in the United States that I've talked to who, even if they are fortunate enough to find an insurance company that will give them coverage, surely can't afford the premiums every month. It's not easy for a government to put the rates up for health care coverage, but I can tell you that what we pay in this province is absolutely nothing compared to our neighbours to the south, and it's money well spent. We also spend a tremendous amount of money in subsidies helping those families whose incomes are lower and who can't afford to pay the full rates.

I think that this Finance minister in this budget has done a really good balancing act. Right across Canada, hospitals are struggling to stay alive and to fund all of the programs and surgeries — everything that makes a hospital what it is in this country

When I think about the months that this government endured the advertisements paid for by the doctors undermining the health care system, it makes me wonder, sometimes, who really cares about the health care system. Is it government that cares? Is it the people who benefit financially like the doctors? Who cares about this health care system? Surely an organization like the doctors cares about our health care system. If they do, why would they use that very health care system as a club to better their own financial position? We all have to remember, in the heat of political battle, that there are areas that should not be used as political baseballs. I believe that health care is one of them.

In this government we don't talk very much about the privatization initiative that went on. I think the first member for Richmond should feel very proud of that fund — half a billion dollars sitting in a fund gathering interest. One of the proposed uses for the interest on the fund is a B.C. retirement savings plan which would benefit, in particular, those parents who stay at home raising children. That's an initiative by a Social Credit government, one that surely would never have been done by an NDP government. But we did it, and the money is there, and nobody talks about that — they just talk about the deficit. If we were to put that money into this year's budget, there wouldn't be a deficit, but that wouldn't be a very wise thing for us to do.

I want to spend a few minutes talking about my own ministry — about women and children and families. I want to talk about how this government over the last year and a half has done such a tremendous job in assisting families, in changing attitudes and in just overall really caring about the families in this province.

We have, as I said before, a choice coming up in the election. The choice is a helping hand from a Social Credit government or a handout from the NDP. Nowhere in government is the difference in philosophy more apparent than in my own ministry.

Social Credit, from the beginning — from 1952 — has cared about the family, has supported the family and has taken pride in talking about the family. My own observation of the NDP philosophy is that they patronize families and in many ways, through some of the things that are said and the accusations that are made, encourage bitterness and hatred, pitting women against men and creating even more conflict for children to deal with.

The Ministry of Women's Programs and Families has to be dealt with in a very sensitive and caring way. It can't or shouldn't be used politically. The issues of child care and violence are two of the most important issues that I have dealt with as minister in the last year.

In this year's budget there is over $12 million in additional money for child care. That's in addition to the $60 million in the Social Services budget for child

[ Page 12222 ]

care subsidies. That $12 million will partially go to communities to help them put into place the kind of child care they want. There will be $4 million in additional money for violence-related matters — real money to help real families pull themselves together in our community.

I'd like to end my remarks by saying that I hope the people of this province will look at this budget, see the intent in which it is meant — not to hurt people but to help them — and continue with sound financial management by keeping British Columbia Social Credit.

MR. VANDER ZALM: Mr. Speaker, I would ask leave to make an introduction.

MR. SPEAKER: The member knows it is improper, but shall leave be granted?

Leave granted.

MR. VANDER ZALM: On behalf of the member for Surrey–White Rock–Cloverdale, I'm very pleased to introduce in the gallery now 48 grades 9 to 12 students from White Rock Christian Academy. I would ask the House to make them welcome.

MR. D'ARCY: Before I get into my remarks on the budget, I want to briefly pay tribute to the former member for North Vancouver–Seymour, now deceased, and make a note that this member of the House was a friend of the resource industries, particularly those in my riding. He was originally from the interior, and whether working with the old B.C. Electric Co., the federal government or in this chamber in different ministerial capacities, he was a contributor to the ability of British Columbians to earn a good living from the abundant natural resources of this province. We could use more of his kind on both sides of the House.

Before I get into the budget, I want to make some comments about some good things that have happened in the past year in my own riding. I know we hear a lot of....

Interjection.

MR. D'ARCY: Some good things. I'll get to some other things that maybe aren't so good later on, but there are some good things that have occurred in my riding, and some have involved the government, which deserves some notice.

For instance, a centralized access centre recently opened in Trail to serve the region. We have long  needed two kilometres of new highway bypassing the smelter, the smelter hill and various railway crossings in Trail. We have the hospital expansion in Castlegar — again, much needed — and we have seen improvements in our provincial parks — in particular, Champion Lakes and Syringa Creek Parks. You'd almost think this was a Social Credit riding, wouldn't you? We've also had three major paving contracts completed: the highway between Salmo and Fruitvale, the highway between Trail and RossIand through Warfield and Highway 22A from Waneta junction down to the U.S. border, including a resurfacing of one of the former railway bridges, which is now used as a highway bridge across the Pend d'OreiIIe River.

We needed some of these projects because they were greatly overdue, of course, and also because of increased economic activity. Nonetheless, I have to take note before the chamber that they did occur within the last fiscal year. Perhaps one should also mention that we also have a commitment — no money, but a commitment — for a new bridge across the Columbia River in Castlegar. In the private sector, I suppose the most noted new projects would be a care centre and finally — after 30 years we've been waiting — an expanded and modernized pulp mill in Castlegar.

Mr. Speaker, having said that, I want to make some comments about the economy of the province — particularly the way we don't pay much attention to that in this chamber. Since this budget has come down, and even during the budget, the Minister of Finance talked about some of the people issuer, in the province, and what a good minister he was — or thought he was — because he was authorizing new expenditures and higher expenditures of money. He didn't really want to talk about the fact that there was a major deficit in British Columbia, the largest that has ever occurred.

But Mr. Speaker, in listening to the Minister of Finance, I got the distinct impression that he was doing what Social Credit has always accused the opposition of doing: he wanted to throw money at problems. He didn't want to do anything about them; he just wanted to throw money at them — money that he didn't have. He didn't have the money because the economy of the province is in a downturn. Throughout his entire budget address, and indeed in the debate that has ensued in this House, we have not heard anything about the resource industries of British Columbia, the manufacturing industries, the export industries or the difficult times they are in, and how the public — all three million of them, if they were very interested in what happens in this chamber — would be wondering why those people, to whom we are paying all this money to represent us, aren't trying to work together to do something about the economy in British Columbia.

British Columbians don't expect the government or the people in this chamber to work miracles. They don't expect us to have easy solutions, but they do want to see us sincerely and honestly working to improve the opportunities in British Columbia so that British Columbians can work their way out of the recession we're in.

There was no mention at all of the forest industry in the budget speech. There was a recycling of the reforestation plan, There was no mention at all of the difficulties facing the industry in sawmills, veneer plants, pulp mills, paper mills, plywood plants and remanufacturing operations or the problems that loggers face — both contract and those who work for larger companies.

There was no mention at all of the difficulties that the agriculture industry faces in British Columbia. There was no mention of the difficulties that manufacturers are having, particularly as we get further and

[ Page 12223 ]

further into the trade agreement with the United States and the difficulties they may have even in future when and if — maybe when — a trade agreement goes into place with Mexico.

Is the government not going to deal with any of these things, or are they going to try to deal with them after the fact? It's one thing to have a brush-fire approach to problems, but it doesn't do you much good to have a brush-fire approach when the building has burned down. The government needs to anticipate problems and deal with those that are out there.

Mr. Speaker, the mining and smelting industry is in difficulty in this province. The smelting industry in my area faces punitive taxes on electricity which their competitors in both the Third World and the main world don't have to pay. They face taxes on electricity levied by this province that their Common Market competitors don't pay, Mexican competitors don't pay, Pacific Rim competitors don't pay and American competitors don't pay. Will the government do anything about that? Oh no, we won't even talk about that. Not only could that industry be maintained, but it could be expanded if the government was prepared to enter into a dialogue.

Mr. Speaker, we all know where government gets most of its revenue. It isn't from resource taxes; it isn't from corporate taxes. It might be nice if it did, but it doesn't. Government gets most of its revenue — the kind the Finance minister wants to spend on education, health care, paving highways and so on — from people who are working, who are in business and earning money through their business. Government gets most of its money from sales taxes, income taxes and transaction taxes of various kinds that happen when the economy is humming.

[3:15]

Does the government propose any measures to get the economy moving faster? No. Have we heard the government members talk about that? No. Mr. Speaker, people in this chamber need to deal with some of these things. As I say, nobody expects miracles, but they do expect to see us moving on some of these issues.

Small business and retailers are having difficulty in this province, in part because the retail trade is simply not out there the way it was, and in part — especially if you live within driving distance of the U.S. border — because people are going across the line to buy things. Are they going across the line because they're disloyal to Canada or British Columbia? No, they are going across the line because in many cases they simply don't have the personal income to maintain even the bare necessities of life without looking for lower-priced goods and services. Is the government dealing with that? No. The government doesn't even talk about it Maybe it will go away,

The only worse recession affecting some of these industries is the one that seems to be affecting Social Credit. Unfortunately, that is not a good thing, because Social Credit is the government in British Columbia — at least until an election.

Mr. Speaker, I would sincerely like the government to look at the ways in which British Columbians earn a living and pay taxes, and to take some initiatives — they can still do it, even though they weren't in the budget — to allow people some opportunities to get work in this province. British Columbians are a very able group of people, but they would like some opportunities through the government.

What about training programs? The Minister of Advanced Education, Training and Technology was talking about training programs for occupations. What's happening to training programs for occupations? Colleges and post-secondary institutions are being cut back to such an extent that they are cancelling entire programs. In my area they are, and I suspect they are in every other college around the province as well. I don't know about the universities. They are the glamour things. But out where I live, where people really earn their money and the resource industries are what keeps the economy humming, the colleges are cut back to the point where they have to eliminate entire programs, and not academic programs — not yet — none of the high technological programs people notice, but the occupational ones where unemployed or underemployed people can learn something so they can go out and make a living. Those are the programs being cancelled. And the government says that they care about people; that's how they care about people.

What about the underemployed? Let's just talk about the underemployed and the unemployed, the working handicapped and the working poor. Will the government help them work their way off their handicapped allowance or off their social assistance? No. Every time they earn over $100 a month, they have to take a deduction. One of the first-things the government could do is help people get off welfare and get off their handicapped pension, if they have the initiative, which most of them have, to try and do it. That means letting them keep more of their own money. They take a paper route and have to pay it back to Social Services. It is really dumb. It is not only inhumane; it is really dumb.

Little things like that can help this economy. This is particularly true for those families with dependents. I have cases in my constituency where it pays the head of the family, usually a her, to stay home with her children because she does better on social assistance than working outside the home, even if she wants to work. It doesn't make sense. Just little things like that, not major budget items.

While we're talking about the government spending money on people programs, again, we don't hear about it because it's not a glamour thing in the lower mainland or greater Victoria. One of the major public problems in British Columbia is an adequate and safe drinking water supply. How many of those little licensed community water systems — some aren't so little but a lot are — all those water companies, improvement districts and irrigation districts, are on boil advisories? A few are even on boil orders. Any mention of that? If we have something that is precious in British Columbia, it should be our fresh water. How many communities throughout the interior and north do not have an adequate supply either in quantity or quality of fresh water? Are there any initiatives from government to help those ratepayers put those systems

[ Page 12224 ]

in place? No. There was an initiative from government in the 1970s, and they cancelled it, and then brought it back when 50 percent to 75 percent.... Again, it's a brushfire situation: it depends on how serious the health care problem is. It depends on how bad the water is, but only for municipalities.

What about all of those communities that don't have municipal water systems? They pay taxes too. They have to meet the same standards. They're under the same Health Act and Water Act. There's no assistance for them. Again, a minor budgetary item that government doesn't want to deal with or talk about.

Again, I was amazed listening. I had to go over it again. I didn't want to think I had imagined something. I was trying to imagine things that the member for Chilliwack should have had in his budget speech. He did a lot of politicking. He didn't deal at all with one of the major problems in the province: people out there increasingly see us in government as irrelevant. They see us as a hold-back on the situation they face. A good example is in my own riding, where for nearly a year the public did their best to try to persuade government and the approving agencies that they wanted clean and modern industry. Did we have to go through an excruciating approval program to be allowed to have a clean and modern industry that was going to utilize the forest resource properly!

It's news when these huge bulk-carrier loads of logs go out to Japan or Korea. However, it's not news when bulk-carrier loads of chips — that's raw wood too — go out to Japan or Korea. It's not news when trucks are steadily crossing the border — and occasionally railcars — loaded with raw wood for U.S. markets. That's not news. If we are ever going to use our forest resources properly, you can't just throw out words like "full utilization" and say it's going to happen in the forest. You've got to make sure that the industrial capacity is there so that the B.C. industry can fully utilize those resources. That is true fundamentally for the wood industry. It is true for the mineral, commercial fishing and agricultural industries. It is true for every raw-material industry in this province.

I don't have any instant solutions to offer, but I do know that — what have we now, 68 people in this House? — if we put our heads together, we could do a lot to improve the opportunities that people should have in British Columbia to work themselves into a better standard of living. We're not getting that from government.

What was the waste hotline that the member for Chilliwack talked about? My friend from Nanaimo had a good comment on that. It was about how people wanted to waste the government. Anyway, I have constituents who constantly tell me they've been trying to phone the government. They want to phone because for six months they've had a Pharmacare application in and they haven't heard. They're wondering if it got lost. They say that they keep phoning the line but that it's busy all the time. They have problems with their Medical Services Plan, and they will phone and phone I would suggest to the government that one of the things they could do, a very minor thing — I know it might involve hiring one or two more people — is making sure that those phone lines work. If you're going to advertise a phone line where people can get information, make sure it works and make sure that the people there have time to answer.

Also, I would suggest that if the systems themselves worked a little bit better, maybe people wouldn't want to phone all the time. Nobody would put up with that at the local level, you know. If you couldn't phone ICBC, if you couldn't phone city hall, if you couldn't find a live body at the other end, they wouldn't put up with it. But as long as they're phoning in here from Trail or Revelstoke and it's Victoria, the government can get away with it.

Mr. Speaker, we have a long period of time in which to debate the budget, and perhaps — depending on the government's whim — time after that to get down to specifics and maybe even some legislation. But in the meantime, I have an amendment to the motion put by the member for Chilliwack. Perhaps you could tell me by a nod, if you wish: do I need to read the amendment into the record book, or is it adequate that a notice of motion has been given?

MR. SPEAKER: The amendment appears on the order paper, page 4. You may read it if you wish. It won't appear in Hansard; it will appear only in Orders of the Day. It's up to you.

MR. D'ARCY: Perhaps to remind myself, and the other members in the chamber, of its content. I know everyone else here can read, but just in case they have not bothered. It's seconded by the member on my right, Mrs. Boone:

"Be it resolved that the motion 'That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair' for the House to go into Committee of Supply be amended by adding the following words: ', but this House regrets that the 1991 budget continues the current government's practice of trying to hide a record deficit of more than $1.2 billion and a direct provincial debt of $9 billion while failing to protect the jobs and businesses of British Columbians during hard times in the forest, mining, smelting, manufacturing, farming and retail sectors'."

I would hope that the debate would continue, perhaps with specific reference to those two general topics.

[3:30]

On the amendment.

MRS. BOONE: I am pleased to second the motion. It's unfortunate, after having had to wait one and a half months for a budget — and we did have to wait a long time — and wait for three ministers to review this budget, hopefully giving some advice that would attempt to address some of our problems, they still failed to address the major problems facing this province: unemployment and protecting the jobs, paycheques and businesses of this province. Perhaps it's because these three ministers came from Vancouver, from Saanich and from the Fraser Valley that they failed to realize that there is a second British Columbia out there, and that this other British Columbia is suffering desperately. [Applause.]

[ Page 12225 ]

I see that came from.... I even got some applause on that from across the way

This second British Columbia is hurting badly, and I was really amazed to hear the minister say that he didn't feel that B.C. had been hard hit. I see that Sunday's Province states: "...last month's bankruptcy figures reached record-high proportions, and B.C. is wheezing as badly as every other province." That's very true. If the Minister of Finance were to go north or into the central interior or into the Kootenays and try to tell them that B.C. wasn't faring so badly, that times were not very tough, he'd get an earful, let me tell you, from the people there.

We've seen mills close. We've seen shifts cut. Job-sharing is very common, and redundancy is a very common thing now with people too. I hate it when some fella comes to me, an elderly man usually — around 50 — and he says: "I've been made redundant." The redundant person is usually around 50, because they don't face.... We've got a lot of redundant people on the other side there.

But at a time when jobs are being made redundant because of technological changes, we've seen cutbacks in the training programs from this government — a fine way to treat people who are trying desperately hard to find another means to get themselves back into the economy, earn a living for their families and bring a paycheque back to their families. That's what the people of this province want to do, and this government has denied that time and time again and has done nothing in this budget to assist them.

There are many companies out there trying desperately hard to keep afloat. The effects of our high dollar value coupled with the high interest rate, the decreasing housing starts in the U.S. and the MOU are many, and our forest industries are suffering badly. One of the mill managers in our area recently commented to me that he didn't feel that the government members or many of the government cabinet members understood the dire straits that the industry was in. I found that hard to believe, but after hearing the Minister of Finance's speech, I can understand it.

They truly do not understand what effect the memorandum of understanding is having on the forest industry in this province. I was amazed to hear the member for Omineca stand in this Legislature on Friday and defend the memorandum of understanding — the member for Omineca, whose loose lips actually caused us to have the memorandum of understanding, who spoke out with the Premier of the day in 1986 and brought about the memorandum of understanding.

The previous Premier and that member sold out British Columbia. When the high stumpage rates were brought in, the previous Minister of Forests, who is in the Legislature there.... I said: "What are you going to do when our industries go bankrupt? What are you going to do when our sawmills go bankrupt and they close down?" He said nobody would go bankrupt.

You know, he's probably right. The companies in my area have not gone bankrupt; they've sold out to the multinationals in order to keep going. They had no choice, because they couldn't exist in the economic climate that this government brought about for the industry in this province. If the goal of this government is to have two or three industries in our forest sector, then they are achieving it rapidly in this province. Some determined individuals are hanging in there, but the clock is ticking.

The memorandum of understanding has taken away our right to manage our forests. We must go to the U.S.A. on bended knees to try and get any changes to anything that we do in our forest sector. You know what their response is to that. They laugh at us, tell us to go away and come back again some other day, but they're not going to assist us in any way, and are certainly not going to allow us to do anything to change the memorandum of understanding.

[Mr. Pelton in the chair.]

In 1988 the free trade deal was the whole basis of the federal election. This government supported that free trade deal by the Conservative government, as they have supported every other initiative by this Conservative government. That free trade deal was supposed to change things. It was commonly understood and said by many in the forest sector that they supported the free trade deal because that would enable us to change the memorandum of understanding. Guess what. We have the free trade deal, we still have the memorandum of understanding, and there's been no change to that memorandum of understanding at all.

For those that don't understand why the independent mills can't make it, given the MOU, let me explain.

The stumpage rates are paid on the logs that are shipped to the sawmills. Chips created from those mills, are sent to pulp mills. There's a high value for the chips, but the pulp mills do not pay the stumpage; it's paid by the sawmills. There is no shift of costs of the stumpage to the pulp mills. I see in the paper right now that there's a pulp mill closing down for three months because they have an oversupply of chips. When there's an oversupply of chips, the pulp mills can pay virtually whatever they want for the chips and the independents have to accept whatever they want.

Mills aren't buying the chips right now. When you get into a situation like that, the independent sawmills cannot exist and they go under. They go under because they do not have the ability to sustain themselves; they have nothing there to fall back on, such as the integrated mills that the pulp mills had.

Had this government tackled the chip price at all, they would have helped a lot. But they didn't. They've never tackled the price of chips; they've never even thought about tackling the price of chips. So we will slowly watch as our independent mills go into nonexistence within the province of British Columbia.

Timber licences were originally given out to provide community stability. Many today make that argument in favour of the various forms of licences and tenureholders that we have. However, this government has failed to make companies meet their licence requirements. There have been many over the years who have failed to produce the facilities they were to have in

[ Page 12226 ]

order to keep their licences, but they're still in operation.

In 1988 this government changed the licence to allow companies to close facilities. They still maintain access to the timber. So much for community stability New technology has been introduced, and we've seen more and more timber being used, and we're employing less and less people.

A question this government should look at and should have looked at prior to the budget: should industry be allowed access to our timber if they're not creating jobs? That's a valid question but one this government never even thought about. Or does it care? Does it care about the jobs out there? Probably not.

Should we be providing profits to multinationals to ship out of the province or out of the country if they're going outside the country in establishing a facility just outside the border — which is happening? Should we be shipping wood that has a minimum amount of value-added done to it across the border when many of our own companies here can't get access to that timber? Should we be doing that? These are issues that are affecting the hinterland of this province, and no mention has been made of that in the budget or in the throne speech.

In the past we've asked this government to take a stand against free trade, and they refused. We asked them to take a stand against the GST, and they refused until it was too late. Now we see free trade with Mexico coming. Why wasn't free trade with Mexico mentioned in the budget? Will you sell us out again? Which of your friends will you listen to now, or will you listen to the workers of this province who are telling you what free trade with Mexico will do to them? Who will gain from you and your Conservative friends' agenda? It certainly is not going to be the workers of this province.

Mr. Speaker, this government boasts about its job creating policies. The reality is that they have created low-paying jobs: 54 percent of the jobs that have been created are full-time core jobs. That means there are a vast number of people out there who have to hold down two jobs just to make a living. Many are working at very low-income jobs and are being subsidized by the government, because their income is not even enough to make what they would make on welfare. These are the types of jobs that have been created by this government: low-income jobs.

We saw just prior to this budget the ending of the small business loans. That has affected a lot of small business people, who this government talks about caring for. I just heard — the Minister of Women's Programs should be well aware of this — that women's programs have been affected by this. We've been trying to assist women get started in the business world, yet the small business loan program that would provide them with some assistance in getting into the business world and becoming entrepreneurs has been pulled out from under them. Where is the commitment here?

Mr. Speaker, this government has failed the workers. You've talked about diversification, yet we still see many communities entirely dependent on one industry. We see more and more companies going after less and less timber. We've seen community versus community in order to gain some access to timber out there. This government has forgotten who it represents and whose interests must be protected. It has failed in the past to protect the jobs and paycheques of workers. It sold out the fishing industry, the Okanagan fruit growers and the forest industry

Quite frankly, my daughter, who is in her first year of Little League, plays a much better game of hardball than these guys over here. They have failed to come up with any ideas to help our economy. The first throne speech that came from this government said: "Get the government off the backs of business." Yet when times were good and there were record profits for companies in this province, and this government was boasting about how wonderfully it was doing, they reduced the corporate tax. They reduced the corporate tax and increased taxes on the average person. You should have been saving money during those days. You should have been saving some of the money to put aside into that rainy-day fund that you talk about, which has no money in it. You should have saved money, but you've never done that. You now have the largest deficit in the history of British Columbia, and that has been brought about by this government.

Now times are tough, and profits are down. And what do they do? They introduce an increase in the corporate tax. Times are tough, so we're going to give you a little boost by giving you an extra tax. Smart move, Mr. Speaker! Lord save us from the rationale of a government as economically blind as this one.

The people of this province deserve more than the rehash of the old programs that this government has proposed. They need a government that is prepared to tackle the problems facing this province and bring out policies that will protect the jobs and paycheques of British Columbians. This government is tired and worn out, and it deserves some time on the bench.

The people deserve a government that can at least be honest with them. The Minister of Finance says there is a $395 million deficit. The Premier admits that we have a $1.2 billion deficit. Get your act together, members, and find out that the deficit is $1.2 billion. This government has not got the guts to admit it to the province of British Columbia. No one denies that this government singlehandedly has brought about a $9 billion debt for the taxpayers. You promised to protect taxpayers, yet you increased taxes again. Every year this government has increased taxes to the tune of $3,000. They've picked the pockets of every single, solitary person out there, and they're doing it again after promising two months ago that they would not do this again. They said: "I will not tax you again." Two months later, guess what. They're taxing us.

[3:45]

Mr. Speaker, this government does not have the ability to be honest. They do not know the difference between right and wrong. It's time for a change.

HON. MR. VEITCH: Mr. Speaker, as Yogi Bear used to say: "It sounds like déjà-vu all over again." I've heard this same speech from Dave Stupich, Rosemary Brown and Dave Barrett, and where are they now? Two of

[ Page 12227 ]

them are warming their toes in Ottawa. And I'm hearing it again from the hon. member for Prince George North.

I rise to speak against the amendment. I want to say that this 1991 budget is more than our finances for a single year. This is the first budget since the government introduced the taxpayer protection plan. It lays out the economic road map for British Columbia for the future. It clearly sets out the philosophy of this government with respect to the direction and destination for the people and businesses of the province. This budget delineates the priorities of this government and clearly differentiates between the government's plan and that which would be pursued by the opposition side of the House — there is no question.

As such and in the absence of any detailed, constructive plan by the opposition, I'd like to examine the differences between the solid policies of this budget and our taxpayer protection plan, and those of the opposition, their transition team and their taxpayer destruction plan. I'd like to draw some clear distinctions here. Today I'd like to focus my remarks beyond the horizon of this fiscal year and examine how the budget will contribute to the overall goal of economic competitiveness in British Columbia.

Hon. members on the opposite side may not understand the word competitive. If British Columbia is going to be able to afford increasing levels of health care, education and social services, then the money to pay for those services must come from somewhere. You can't live today by mortgaging tomorrow. It's irresponsible, short-sighted and an intellectually bankrupt economic theory that maybe deserves to be back in the nineteenth century. In every political jurisdiction in Canada except Ontario this idea has been totally abandoned.

You see, Mr. Speaker, it is not only an economic problem we have in Ontario but a moral problem as well. What the transition team from British Columbia went down to do, in establishing the policies for Ontario that are there now, was to mortgage the future of not only our children but also those yet unborn. There's a moral problem. When you pass on your debt from one generation to the next simply to pay off an election debt, that's a problem.

I'm a very fair person. I believe in giving my opponents a very clear chance to defend themselves, and I'm very glad to see the Leader of the Opposition here in the House today. Welcome back, Mr. Leader of the Opposition.

Before I continue my remarks and compare the opposition to their Ontario counterparts, I'm going to allow the Leader of the Opposition to put this troubling issue to rest once and for all. I hope he's listening. I challenge the hon. Leader of the Opposition to name those colleagues who are responsible for setting the policy agenda in Ontario, the people who are responsible for destroying the Ontario economy, and remove them from your caucus today for horribly misrepresenting the moderate policies your party claims to have.

If you refuse to do this, hon. Leader of the Opposition, and continue to associate with the policies of the members of the transition team, then be honest enough with the people of British Columbia. State now for the public record that you're not going to have anything to do with Ontario or with the members of the transition team who established that policy in Ontario. You can shrug and you can be dour over there, hon. member. Socialism is socialism. Whether it's a recently-elected — and, I believe, short-lived — socialist government in Ontario or a never-to-be-elected socialist government in British Columbia, it's still socialism. I want to thank the hon. Leader of the Opposition for setting the record straight.

British Columbia is a small, open economy. To survive economically, and therefore to survive at all, we must sell our goods and services abroad. We've got to export, and to export, we have to be competitive.

The hon. member for Prince George, who spoke just prior to me, was talking about a free trade agreement with Mexico. I don't know whether we're going to have a trilateral free trade agreement. If we do, I know that British Columbia needs to be at the table to ensure that its interests are protected. I also know that I don't want any socialists at that table giving away British Columbia; I want people who understand business and people who have built this province.

Competitiveness requires more than just lower interest rates or a lower dollar, as the hon. member from Prince George spoke of. Competitiveness extends to the health of the citizens, to the level of training and education of our labour force and to the costs of working and doing business in British Columbia. We must compete on all these fronts because if we fail to meet all these challenges, we fail our children, our children's children and generations yet unborn. We have a moral responsibility in this province not to mortgage those people in the future. Mr. Speaker, I put it you and to the House that the policies of this government — and every Social Credit government since 1952 and every Social Credit government in the future — are consistent not only with this goal but with enhanced competitiveness. That's what has made our economy thrive. We have given business the opportunity to move forward in the province and have tried, as much as possible and given the proper checks and balances, to stay out of the way of businesses and have them do what they do best.

The policies of the opposition — the same policies that are destroying Ontario, the heartland of Canada — are clearly opposed to and clearly inconsistent with the goal of competitiveness. If these people across the way, benign as they look today, are given the chance to be government, they'll destroy British Columbia. That's the message we've got to get out to every nook and cranny, hon. member for West Vancouver-Howe Sound. It's important to us and to future generations. In that light, this debate may be the most important debate to take place in this chamber in the history of the province to date.

Today our government is faced with failing revenues and increased demands for services, conditions caused to some extent by the fiscal mismanagement of successive federal governments. It was interesting to me to pick up the newspaper the other day and see that

[ Page 12228 ]

the junior Minister of State for Finance for the federal government was berating business people who had gone bankrupt. Over 6,000 people had gone bankrupt, and he said the reason was that they didn't listen to Ottawa. Isn't that something? Imagine a government in Ottawa telling people that they have to be fiscally responsible! Can you imagine the irony of it? It would be almost like Pink Floyd in Ontario doing the same thing.

MR. CLARK: Where's your wig?

HON. MR. VEITCH: You're just mad because you couldn't get into Mozart, that's all.

Other governments faced with similar circumstances have chosen the route pioneered by Social Credit in the last recession. There is government economic restraint in every jurisdiction in Canada except Ontario. The Ontario NDP, I believe, in consort with members opposite, have chosen a route pioneered here in British Columbia by the late and unlamented last NDP government, the one headed up by David Barrett — the washed-out, long-abandoned road of big government, big taxes and big deficits. In doing so, the Ontario NDP have plundered the people and the businesses of the province to pay off their election debts. Yes, Mr. Speaker, debts owed to special interest groups, debts owed to privileged friends and insiders of the socialist movement.... Every socialist hack who couldn't get a job anyplace else in a socialist administration is working in Ontario. If these people ever win, the rest of them will be out here. Watch it.

I heard the member for Vancouver East announce — a little self-righteously, I think — that the NDP government would not be deterred by corporate phone calls. I don't think they're going to have to worry about any corporate phone calls; that's not the problem, as I see it. I believe that. Because, as we have seen in Ontario, I don't think there are many friendly calls coming in to Pink Floyd. I don't think he's getting many calls saying: "Get on with it. Go deeper in the hole. Put us out of business." I don't see that happening in Ontario.

Recently, when auto industry executives tried to voice their concern about the new NDP legislation in Ontario that increases taxes on cars, they were denied even the courtesy of a meeting. That's what they think about business. Listen to what they think about it. There's nothing that makes a socialist's blood run better, you know — that makes the adrenalin pump more — than jumping on business, attacking business; that's what does it. But when Bob White, president of the Canadian Automobile Workers' Union and vice-president of.... Listen to this, hon. Minister of Women's Programs. When Bob White, president of the Canadian Automobile Workers' Union and president of the NDP, phoned up old Pink Floyd, he gave him a meeting right away.

Privileged friends and insiders, blatant conflicts, paying off political debts — that's what they are doing in the province of Ontario. That's what they will do if they are ever elected here. We can't allow that to happen in British Columbia. The Ontario NDP are exchanging financial debts for political debts. It seems that this year they are going to pay off a tremendous amount of those debts with $9.7 billion of the people's money. Terrible! It's an economic crime of high proportion.

[4:00]

Do you know what the member for Vancouver East had to say when he was asked to comment on the disastrous budget in that province — the same kind of legislation they would like to bring in here? Given the opportunity to clearly take a stand and denounce the outrageous $9.7 billion deficit.... Do you know what he said when he was asked if the deficit was too large? The hon. member — the only remaining member for Vancouver East, the would-be Minister of Finance, the NDP fiscal conservative over there — said: "I have no idea." That's what he said. Mr. Speaker, the Finance critic of the NDP has no idea except the idea that spurred their movement during the Industrial Revolution. They haven't had an idea since then.

AN HON. MEMBER: Since when?

HON. MR. VEITCH: Since way back to the time of the Industrial Revolution in the nineteenth century. Perhaps the member opposite would like to tell this House the other important topics relating to public finance of which he has no idea, aside from fiscal policy.

MR. HARCOURT: This is an easy one: is it A.D. or B.C.?

HON. MR. VEITCH: I can't tell. The light's shining off the top of your head, and it's bothering me.

Perhaps the member opposite would like to tell the House the other important topics relating to public finance about which he has no idea, aside from fiscal policy. The investment community definitely has an idea about the deficit in Ontario, and I quote from last Friday's Financial Post describing a meeting between Premier Bob Rae and the New York financial community. Robert Morse, president of Morse Williams and Co., described the NDP's management of provincial finances as "an absolute lack of reality." That's what they think about NDP policies in New York. He said: "I have an action I'm going to take. I'm going to take my money out of that system. I'm going to withdraw my support for that ideologically bankrupt system which is socialism operating in Ontario."

Economist Anita Lauria said: "We will vote with our pocketbooks." You watch them vote in Ontario next time around. They'll vote with their pocketbooks.

At a convention of Ontario development officials, Haydon Mathews, chairman of the prestigious Urban Development Institute said: "This government is virtually shutting down the development industry in the province of Ontario.

Those are the economic plans — the lack of economic plans — that you have for this province, Mr. Leader of the Opposition. You further commented: "Our green-society revolution may turn out to be a green-card revolution." They're heading south, Mr. Speaker. They're wondering why free trade won't work

[ Page 12229 ]

under a system like that in Ontario. Who will invest in such uncertainty as is being caused by the fiscal policies in Ontario, many of which were brought about by the transition team from British Columbia.

Mr. Speaker, the people of British Columbia do not want to have to become Americans to be able to afford to live. They want to be able to live and work here in British Columbia. The people of B.C. know that $10 billion in the glue is just too much. The members on this side of the House know that $10 billion in the glue is just far too much. But in typical NDP fashion, the opposition has no idea at all.

I'd like to state that this is an economic time bomb in Canada, and it's going to blow right up in the faces of Bob Rae and Floyd Laughren. Unfortunately, it's going to blow up on a whole bunch of other people in Ontario, and the cost of this mismanagement is going to rip right across this country, if they are allowed to remain.

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

Can you imagine what would happen, Mr. Speaker, if we allowed the same kind of administration to carry on here in British Columbia? Although I said the time bomb is going to explode over 2,000 miles away, the fallout will land squarely on the hon. members opposite as they go around this province during the next provincial election in B.C. Mr. Leader of the Opposition, they're going to ask you who your transition team is. You better have an answer. You've got to ask what kind of policies they foisted on Ontario, the industrial heartland of this country. This is the first distinction between what this Social Credit budget seeks to do and what those on the other side of the House would do if they were in our place.

Next I'd like to take a very quick look at some other differences between the two visions and how they will affect British Columbia's competitive position. This budget — and I reject the amendment — recognized the need to balance books over a five-year economic cycle.

In the debt-reduction plan tabled by the Minister of Finance with the budget, the government has clearly laid out its plan to ensure that the size and scope of government remains within the taxpayers' ability to pay. And by doing so, we're able to keep taxes well below the levels of other provinces. That makes British Columbia competitive and makes our business expand so that people have jobs. This keeps them from having to invest in the United States.

The NDP model contains no such plan. Higher and higher taxes and even more debt is all that is planned for those who pursue the model that the NDP pursued in Ontario. Nothing else. It's economic destruction With his budget, Pink Floyd announced — much to the amusement of Premier Rae — that his government would plunge Ontario over $30 billion further into debt by 1995. What kind of a legacy is that to pass on? Follow that example and you'll not be competitive.

This budget protects the job security of tens of thousands of public servants while not unfairly burdening the people or businesses of British Columbia. By staying in the workforce, these people remain contributing members of society, not additional drains on the social service network and ultimately the taxpayer's pocketbook, as the paying taxpayers become fewer and fewer, as they do in Ontario. In the NDP model, generous wage increases are planned for public sector employees. Here in British Columbia, with the B.C. Government Employees' Union lining up with the NDP, can taxpayers expect anything different if the NDP were ever elected in this province? I want to ask you and the people that question.

What would that do for British Columbia? There is a 40 percent increase in the cost of welfare in the NDP model: a clear recognition that socialist policies are going to put people out of work. By removing people from the labour force and placing them on welfare, NDP policies will again add to the size and cost of government by dealing with unemployment in the only way that they know how: by increasing welfare, not increasing jobs.

Our government recognizes the need to provide for those who can't provide for themselves. At the same time we've taken steps to minimize the employment effects of recession on the people of British Columbia.

This means that people will be working. They'll be learning skills and paying taxes, again making British Columbia more competitive in the Canadian and international marketplace. By reinvesting in our forests and by providing for education and training, this government will help keep people employed as productive members in our society.

This budget recognized the need for affordable housing. To provide for the shelter needs of the people of British Columbia, this government is continuing its commitment to encourage property ownership. Yes, hon. members opposite, private property. You understand that? We encourage private property in Social Credit. I know it's foreign to you.

The homeowner grant and the property purchase tax relief work to make home-ownership a reality for British Columbians.

Interjection.

HON. MR. VEITCH: You've been on the dole longer than I have, hon. member. That's why.

Because the marketplace is and always will be the most efficient means of stimulating the vast majority of housing units, this government has shunned the rent control policies of the NDP, which were so disastrous during the Barrett administration — policies with fixed prices in the rental housing market, causing shortages and ultimately chaos in the rental market. As a result of Bill 4, recently passed in the province of Ontario.... Ask the people in the housing industry in Ontario.

This budget contains a provision for maintaining the finest-quality health care system in all of this country. This government recognizes that healthy British Columbians are vigorous, hard-working British Columbians. In Ontario the NDP government has attacked the universal medicare system by placing limits on coverage for those people who live in Ontario. The sick will suffer just as much under

[ Page 12230 ]

socialism as anyone else. Don't ever forget that for a moment.

This budget is a budget for the future. It plans for prosperity rather than the deliverance of poverty. This budget is honest about our finances in British Columbia. It doesn't paint an unrealistic picture of growth, as our Ontario counterpart does.

I'm proud to reject this amendment. I'm proud to speak in favour of this budget today, and I'm looking forward to comparing the Ontario budget every day here in this chamber, in my constituency, around the province and on the doorsteps during the next provincial election. The people of British Columbia will once again say no to big spending. They'll say no in the next election to big taxes and special interest groups that serve socialism — thanks to the Ontario NDP — and they will say yes to Social Credit once again in British Columbia.

MR. SPEAKER: The first member for Vancouver Little Mountain seeks leave to make an introduction.

Leave granted.

MRS. McCARTHY: In the House today are six students from Lord Tennyson Elementary School. They are grade 3 students. I just met them outdoors, when they were here to have a tour of the buildings, and I can attest to the brightness and the interest of these six students who are now in the Legislative Assembly. They are accompanied by Ms. A. Ptucha and Laurie Linton, their teachers. I'd ask the House to give them a warm welcome.

MR. CLARK: I'm going to tax the patience of the grade 3 students, I'm sure.

I'm very pleased to rise in this debate, particularly after the former Minister of Finance, who held the office for a brief period — too brief, I'm sure, for the minister. It's always interesting to speculate on how much of this budget that was actually delivered had the imprint of the member for Burnaby-Willingdon, the former Minister of Finance. We didn't get too much in his speech today that would give us a sense of how much of an impact he had on that budget document in the all too brief time he held that chair.

But I must say that it was interesting that the former Minister of Finance who spoke previously, the member for Burnaby-Willingdon, announced to all through the television stations that there would be no deficit this fiscal year. A few weeks and a few Finance ministers later, we see a record deficit — the largest deficit in the history of British Columbia. I would like to read, just for the record, a section of this motion again: this House regrets that the 1991 budget was the current government's practice of trying to hide a record deficit of more than $1.2 billion and a direct provincial debt of $9 billion while failing to protect the jobs and businesses of British Columbians during hard times in the forest, mining, smelting, manufacturing, farming and retail sectors."

It's an appropriate amendment, because we have a record deficit. I'd like to answer the question for people watching and people in this chamber of what a deficit is and how to define it, particularly when you hear all the bafflegab coming from the current Minister of Finance and the last two or three Ministers of Finance.

[4:15]

It's very simple. How much money is this government taking in this fiscal year, and how much money are they spending this fiscal year? When you do it that way and strip away all the manipulations and all the bookkeeping, it's pretty clear that we're taking in $1.2 billion less than we're spending. In other words, we have a $1.2 billion deficit in British Columbia — a record deficit, the largest in history.

Everyone agrees with that — everybody except the government members on this side of the House and the Minister of Finance. On a cable show the other day, even the Premier acknowledged the government had to borrow $1.2 billion to cover the costs of running government for this next fiscal year. The chartered accountants have said it. The certified management accountants have said it. All the certified general accountants in the province have said it. On Friday the board of trade told the government: "Fess up on the deficit." Even the Fraser Institute, usually a group that can be relied upon to support this particular government no matter what happens, acknowledged that the real deficit in British Columbia is $1.25 billion.

The question is: why does the government persist in pretending that the budget deficit is only about $400 million? Every speaker in this House persists in pretending the deficit is dramatically smaller than it really is. When this Premier announced she was running for leader of the Social Credit Party, she said that she would be honest and straightforward. One of the things she said was that she talks in a language that people understand. Well, people understand that the deficit is $1.2 billion, and yet the government refuses to acknowledge that.

In a democracy, the most important things politicians do and should be held accountable for are their taxing and spending decisions. Frankly, that's the reason why we're here: all of us here as members elected by our constituents have to be accountable for the decisions we make, particularly in a time when the public feels cynical towards politicians, and overtaxed and underserviced by governments at the national level and by this provincial government and other levels of government. People feel very strongly that they are being alienated from the political system. They're cynical about it.

It's more important than ever before that governments tell the truth when it comes to their financial status. It's more important than ever before that the government tell people the bottom line. That's why in the past the auditor-general has said that the government is not using the appropriate set of books. That's why the in the past the auditor-general said that the BS fund was a device to manipulate the bottom line. That's because the auditor-general understands that one of the most important things for a government to be clear about is what the bottom line is, how much we owe and how much we have to borrow to cover the operating costs of government. It's that very critical point that this administration persists in being less

[ Page 12231 ]

than truthful about. It persists in pretending the deficit is only $390 million.

It's not just this year. Not only is this current budget, which takes us through the end of this fiscal year, a $1.25 billion deficit, but this budget also documents what the real deficit was in the last fiscal year. The real deficit then was about $800 million. Remember, last year the government said the budget was balanced. This year the government says we have this little tiny deficit. But in the last two years the deficit amounts to $2 billion. In the last two years we have spent $2 billion more than we take in as revenue. By any definition, that is a deficit budget.

Not only are they not telling the truth about the deficit, and not only are the books cooked when it comes to the deficit in this current fiscal year, but they're also being less than truthful about the direct debt associated with this administration. The direct debt is the accumulated deficits of the government in addition to debt that has to be repaid every year in terms of the interest payments. This year's auditor-general's report says that the government is understating their direct debt. He said before this budget that it was really more than $6 billion — not the $4 billion or $4.5 billion that the government is pretending it is. When you look at this budget, the direct debt associated with this administration is $9 billion.

How do they do that? How do they hide $3 billion in direct debt? This government does something that no other government in Canada does, and it's unacceptable. Hospitals, schools and the transit authority all require large amounts of public money to build capital works — hospitals, schools, the SkyTrain system and the like. Instead of recording that debt as a direct debt to the government, they pretend the debt is associated with other people: the hospital financing authority, the education financing authority or the B.C. Transit authority. The reason that's unfair and doesn't tell the truth about the government's finances, as the auditor-general points out, is that every year the government has to pay the interest on that debt. That comes out of our spending in this fiscal year.

It's not that hospitals don't need to be built; surely they do. It's not that schools don't need to be built; of course they do, and particularly in places like Surrey where they're desperately needed. It's not that we don't need transportation vehicles or rapid transit vehicles, which are very expensive. We need all those things. But be honest. If you're honest about it, that debt has to be paid back by the taxpayers of British Columbia and is therefore a direct debt of this administration. The direct debt, according to the auditor-general's formula, has gone from $4.5 billion to $9 billion in the term of office of the current Social Credit government. In four and a half years the debt has increased by $4.5 billion That is $1 billion a year that we're in debt as a result of the actions of this administration. That works out to about $3 million a day. Every day that they've been in office, this administration's direct debt has increased by $3 million.

It's like that big debt clock that we see downtown from the board of trade. We could have a big debt clock here in Victoria. Three million dollars a day, 365 days a year for four and a half years: that's how much the direct debt has increased in British Columbia as a result of this administration. That's as a result of accumulated deficits and increased spending on capital projects which have to be paid back. Instead of the kind of cooking the books that we've seen repeatedly with this administration....

We have a record deficit which the government doesn't tell the truth about. We have a deficit last year which was one of the largest in history. So not only do we have a deficit for last year and for this year, but they're not telling the truth about it. Not only have we got a $9 billion debt, but they don't tell the truth about that either.

It's dishonest to try to portray the books differently, and it's fundamental in our democracy that the taxpayers who elect us have a right to know what the bottom line is. They have a right to know what the true financial position of the government of the day is so that people can be held accountable. That's not happening. It's unacceptable that in this age, when politicians are held in low esteem and mistrusted, when the public are fed up with political manipulations, we would not have a government that would tell the truth about the finances of the province.

Not only are the books cooked with respect to not telling the truth about the bottom line, but we have some other examples which I think prove the case that the government is being less than truthful when it comes to their financial plans. That's in the guise of the taxpayer protection plan. The former Premier, the first member for Richmond, was right when he decried the breaking of the taxpayer protection plan.

Just a month or two ago this government passed a bill called the Taxpayer Protection Act, and members on that side of the House all stood up defended it, saying: "We will not raise taxes. Tax rates have been frozen." The Premier said it on television. They said it in the House. One after another, members of this administration stood up and defended the Taxpayer Protection Act. They said: "We won't raise taxes. Elect us and we'll freeze taxes." And then just a few weeks later they brought in a budget which essentially breaks their law. It undermines that legislation. It says: "Notwithstanding that act that froze taxes, we've decided to raise taxes."

It's not that they've raised taxes. The issue is not that they've decided to raise corporate taxes or the wealth surtax. That is an issue which the public can rightly judge and vote on. The real point is that when they thought they were going to call an election, when it was just before an election, they brought in a bill that said: "We will freeze taxes. We won't raise them. Vote for us and we'll keep a freeze on taxes." Then just a few weeks later they broke that pledge. They broke that law, and they've raised taxes again.

Most governments wait until after an election to break an election promise. This government has broken an election promise before an election. How is it that members on that side of the House could have stood up in this chamber just a few weeks ago and supported legislation which just a few weeks later they decided to break? It's unethical for members on that

[ Page 12232 ]

side of the House to have said that they wouldn't raise taxes before an election that didn't happen, and then a few weeks later raise taxes to circumvent their own legislation.

We've seen a pattern of dishonest bookkeeping right from the first incarnation of the BS fund till today. The deficit is understated. The debt is understated. The tax freeze has been broken. As I said, the most important thing that we do in this chamber is scrutinize the taxing and spending of government. They have to be held accountable for those actions. Essentially, they undermine democracy itself by not telling the truth about those fundamental questions of the taxpayer about financial management of the province.

I want to spend a few moments on the other aspect of this amendment other than the dishonesty in terms of the bookkeeping. It also talks about the fact that there's nothing in here that deals with the real hardship being faced by British Columbians. In the last ten years or so we've seen a dramatic structural change in the economy of British Columbia. We really see two British Columbias: the lower mainland and southern Vancouver Island, which are heavily urbanized areas, and the rest of British Columbia, which is still largely resource-dependent.

In the urban areas, we have a more diversified economic base. There are lots of problems in the lower mainland. As a member from Vancouver, I could go on at length about problems associated with growth, housing and poverty that have not been dealt with by this administration. There are problems in the lower mainland as well. But outside the lower mainland in resource-dependent communities.... I see the member for Yale-Lillooet here, and he knows what I'm talking about. The forestry-dependent communities have been hit hard in the last few years and months because of a variety of factors: high interest rates and a high Canadian dollar by the federal government, which we hear very little about from this Social Credit administration.

[4:30]

What else has happened is that we've seen technological change which has reduced the workforce. We see a government that has severed the connection between access to public timber and manufacturing rights so the companies now.... Since the 1800s, people got access to public timber if they created jobs. That unwritten and written contract has been broken in recent months. So we see an ever-diminishing supply of jobs from our resource sector. That is particularly devastating for communities outside the lower mainland.

Yet there's absolutely nothing in the budget that deals with unemployment in places like Nelson, Merritt, Kamloops, Kimberley, Trail and others. Those resource-dependent communities look for help from the provincial government. They look for help from this administration. They look for leadership from the government. They look for plans that can ease the kind of insecurity faced by workers in British Columbia, whether they lose their jobs and whether the forest industry will be here tomorrow. Sadly, there's nothing in here.

[Mr. Pelton in the chair.]

Just a couple of examples. Firstly, in Kimberley we know the mine has about ten years of life left, depending on what happens with the price of minerals and the like. It has a limited life. What would most governments do when faced with a community who's major source of employment may decline? What most governments would do, regardless of ideology — Conservative, Liberal, NDP; it doesn't matter — is say: "We know that town is going to face hard times. What can we do to help Kimberley?" They would send in a team of interdisciplinary people and say: "Are there other minerals in that community that would keep miners working? Can we assist companies to explore for new minerals? Can we give some subsidies to companies to look for minerals? Should the government do it itself?"

Secondly, what about the people that work there? How old are they? Is there a role for government to top up pension plans for those workers so they stay in the community? Is there a role for the company? Should we require the company to assist older workers in that community to stay there? Are there other economic development activities that could take place? Is there a potential for tourism? Clearly there is. Should the government go out of its way to encourage tourism in Kimberley? What can it do to help? Are there other manufacturing opportunities? What is the credit union doing? Can we help the credit union? Should we provide high-risk loans to entrepreneurs to go to Kimberley?

I'm just giving examples of what normal governments historically have done all across Canada to try to assist a community like Kimberley. Yet very little is being done for Kimberley. Fortunately the mine has reopened, and that is important. There was a fertilizer plant there that closed without a word from the government. There are other industries up there that perhaps could be helped. But this is not an ideological thing; this is just good, rational, sound government.

How can we help? How can we diversify that economic base? How can we deal with those workers who may lose their jobs? How do we deal with the tax-base loss? How could we look for other mines, minerals or the like? There is a whole range of initiatives that would be done by any rational government, and very little is being done. There is some help for the ski hill, and I applaud that. That's an initiative that perhaps might be worth.... It might not be — I won't judge the merits of it — but at least there is some initiative on the part of government to deal with a problem in the community.

But let's look at all the other communities in British Columbia that have had downsized resource bases. We've got forests; we've got sawmills. Almost every sawmill in the province is for sale. What is the government doing to protect the jobs and paycheques of workers in the forest industry? What are they doing to diversify the forestry resource base? How can we induce valued-added? Very little is being done.

[ Page 12233 ]

This isn't an ideological speech, from my point of view; it's good rational government, looking to try and help resource-based, dependent communities throughout British Columbia. Those communities are seeing double-digit unemployment rise even higher in this current recession in Canada and in British Columbia.

The lower mainland has problems, but outside the lower mainland there are particularly acute problems around economic development. Sadly, this government does nothing to allay the fear of workers or deal with the job insecurity that workers have outside the lower mainland. It does nothing in terms of forestry — very little. It does nothing in terms of value-added in the forest sector. It does nothing in terms of diversifying the economy. It does nothing in terms of the kind of interdisciplinary work that other governments undertake, regardless of ideology.

We have a dishonest government and a dishonest budget that doesn't tell the truth about the bottom line. It doesn't tell the truth about the deficit. It doesn't tell the truth about the debt associated with this administration. We have a government that doesn't have its priorities right — in job creation, in economic development and in diversifying our economy outside the lower mainland.

For those reasons I'm pleased to rise to support this motion. The current Premier has indicated that she would like free votes in the House more often. I know the former Premier has spoken in this chamber and quite correctly criticized the dishonesty of breaking the taxpayer protection plan. A little more honesty from that member over time and he'd probably still be sitting in the Premier's chair over there. But he's right when it comes to the government breaking its own law on the taxpayer protection plan.

I hope that the Premier, in the spirit of her comment that she'd like more free votes, would consider a free vote on the budget and on this amendment. I know there are members on the other side who are concerned that the budget doesn't deal with the real concerns of British Columbians. I hope we have a free vote on the amendment and on the budget, and maybe some of those members on the other side will have the courage to stand up for their constituencies and for the priorities they have that are absent in this budget.

HON. MR. FRASER: Mr. Speaker, of course I cannot support the amendment, because it doesn't make any sense; but that's usual for submissions by the opposition. But I would like to reproach them for some of the things they've said. They certainly are quite confident when handing it out, but they're not very good at taking it. Perhaps we should rethink some of that. I'm sure they will have their day in court, though, and I hope they will be able to take as much as they can give We'll see; I somehow doubt it.

Of course, I think what we have to concentrate on is the secret transition team, the Ontario budget and all of those things that tie them to the province of Ontario They're all true. Of course, they won't admit to knowing who is on their own transition team, they won't tell us how many there are — three, maybe four — and they won't tell us who the resource people are

Goodness knows, you wouldn't want the people to know who's on it. The people who talk about open government aren't even good at open opposition. Isn't that interesting!

Mr. Speaker, I just happened to do a few calculations, which is my bent anyway. I have in my hand a couple of loonies, just to give you some indication of how big a deficit $9.7 billion really is. I would encourage anyone who has a loonie in their pocket to take it out now, hold it in their hand and....

Interjections.

HON. MR. FRASER: The member has suggested that there are loonies. I see quite a few of them on the opposite side of the chamber, Mr. Speaker, so there's nothing wrong with that.

If you take a loonie and put it edge-to-edge, you will find out that a $9.726 billion debt would stretch 19, 452 kilometres. Now the debt of Ontario, with loonies standing on edge, side-by-side, would be two return trips to Ottawa — almost 3,000 miles. That gives you some idea of how big a debt Ontario has. I thank research for those calculations — and it's official, by the way.

Who can forget the Premier and the finance minister of Ontario laughing while they presented a budget of $9.7 billion? It's an unbelievable record of shame for that government, which obviously has no idea of what it's doing or why — a government that was ridiculed by the financiers in New York, laughed out of New York and, as my colleague said a few minutes ago, given credit for having a budget that has a total and absolute lack of reality. That tells you something about the New Democratic Party — the party that says that it wants to run the beautiful province of British Columbia; the party that can't run anything. In fact, now with the resignation of Mr. Williams, we can see them slowly disintegrating. Indeed, question period is going all to pieces.

So, Mr. Speaker, we don't have any problem connecting the NDP with Ontario, because once NDP, always NDP.

Interjection.

HON. MR. FRASER: It's important to remind you every now and then just how bad you really are. I know your spirit's good; you understand all those things that are soft. But when it comes to leadership, you know you're weak. When it comes to administration, you know you're weak. When it comes to management, you know you're weak. You've shown it everywhere. You've shown it here in 1972, you've shown in it in the Prairies, you've shown it in Ontario and you just can't get away with it.

It is interesting to see who is supporting the New Democratic Party and their budget ideas. We notice in the paper, for example, that John Shields said to his members: "Defeat the government." That presumably means that the special interest groups and the management people in some unions believe that they can do it better. John Shields's idea of serving the Government

[ Page 12234 ]

Employees' Union is to defeat the government. Some campaign, Mr. Speaker.

Luckily, in this province we find that many of those who claim to run the big unions are out of touch with their members — those very same members who didn't go to the convention, who didn't vote for John Shields and who will vote for the Social Credit government of British Columbia on election day, because they always have — except one time.

Now we notice that things are going quite badly in Ontario. We notice in Ontario that the heartland is missing. We notice in Ontario that....

Interjection.

HON. MR. FRASER: Yes, some of your special interest friends have said they don't like the government, but actually the people of the province do. That's why they vote for us — and will. The member opposite said they did. He's suggesting that they won't, but Mr. Speaker, they will because they understand....

Interjection.

HON. MR. FRASER: It's interesting, because one of your members over there said to me today that it, doesn't matter what we do on the government side of the House, we're going to lose. I love it when the opposition gets arrogant, Mr. Speaker. I just love it when they feel so confident. "Come to my riding," he said, "and tell me all about you." I said: "I'd love to do that, and I probably will. If I get a chance, I surely will." There's nothing like going into opposition territory and picking up votes on the strength of running a good government, on the strength of good policies and on the strength of telling people what the opposition really is all about: weak at the top, lacking in administrative skills and no experience. They can't do it.

We watch the pitiful exercise in Ontario, and we know that the transition team the opposition sent down — bragged about by their leader — led Bob Rae into the gloom of deficit disaster and into becoming the laughingstock of the whole financial world. It's critical to understand how serious this problem is. We can't continue to do the things for people that we want to do, if we can't create the work.

Those opposite would say that one of the best things about Canada is the social safety net. What I say is this: one of the best things about Canada is that hard work in a good country produces the wealth, which then gives us the money with which to provide social services. That's how it's done, Mr. Speaker.

[4:45]

In the province of Ontario — the engine we used to have in this country to drive a major manufacturing sector — what do they do down there? We learned from the budget that they spend more money on welfare than they do on education. That has to be backwards. In British Columbia we spend more on education than we do on welfare. We want the people of British Columbia to be able to change from one industry to another if they choose to do that. Let them have the capacity to think and to reason. We want them to feel confident about their future in British Columbia, and they do. How can you possibly have a country where you can make more money sitting at home on welfare than you can working, and expect it to survive? How can Ontario put up so much money for welfare that people can stay home and have the money sent wherever they want? They will mail it electronically to wherever the recipient has to be. You don't even have to live there.

Why does that bother us? Why do we care? Because we in British Columbia pay for part of it. It's costing everybody in this province money for Ontario to get sloppy with their system — no checking, no residency requirements, nothing. It's a walkaway, a disgrace, a disaster. Talk about complaining about the Social Credit government! At least we try to create opportunities for people. We did work in Kimberley, although that member suggested we did not. We did work for the critical industries commissioner, but that member forgot to say so.

Here's what Bob Rae is doing in Ontario. Rae's plan, it says in the Globe and Mail, has a chilling effect on entrepreneurs. A company that was going down the drain, that was going to be saved.... The 20 employees who were going to keep their jobs suddenly found themselves without a job. Why was that? The answer's quite simple. Mr. Rae and the brilliant NDP of Ontario — with the help of the NDP of British Columbia, as we all know — has some new laws suggesting that officers and directors of companies will be responsible for people's paycheques. That's why they're having trouble getting people to take jobs as directors and officers. You can't help an ailing company that someone else put in trouble, because if you do, you might be liable personally for that effort. For trying to save those jobs and that company, you've got a personal liability, not a pat on the back.

When do you ever hear the NDP talking about excellence? When do you ever hear the NDP talk about the entrepreneur of the year? When do you ever hear of encouragement for people who actually make it and create the wealth that provides us with the opportunity for social services in British Columbia? Never. They love the lowest common denominator. It's wrong, and it's not how this country was built. This country was built with hard work.

Interjection.

HON. MR. FRASER: Remember when you used to work? Now you wear those funny designer glasses. Who picked out that shape of glasses anyway? That designer suit has got you right at the heart.

It says right here: no checking for welfare; no residency; no nothing. You have to make it possible for people to work — creativity. Record deficits. One disaster after another. How much more do we really need? The Ontario budget, supported by this group over here, is a disaster. It is wrong.

What do our friends over there say? One of them said, "I don't mind that perhaps a bleeding heart is a do-gooder who lacks economic analysis. I don't know." You're right. They don't. Then the member for Vancou-

[ Page 12235 ]

ver East said: "It's my view that politicians can play around with taxes. That's what we're elected to do." That's a funny thing for him to say just a minute ago he said we have to be responsible.

How about our friend from Esquimalt-Port Renfrew, who attacks the government constantly? He said that one of the members of the B.C. cabinet should resign because he had investments in British Columbia companies. It's some crime for a member of the government to actually believe enough in the province to invest some of his own money That shouldn't be a crime, and it isn't. "Resign!" they say, so casually destroying people's reputations without a worry and without so much as a passing glance of doubt. He suggested that one of our former members of cabinet had to resign because he had an investment in British Columbia. In fact, the member he was talking about had on his disclosure form for two years that very interest in that very company he owned. He didn't have to resign because there was a conflict; however, he did so because there was an appearance of a conflict. Isn't that interesting?

He, from Esquimalt–Port Renfrew, who poses as a paragon of virtue, who called down the former Attorney-General, who called down the whole government, who brought the whole justice system almost to disrepute.... What happened? We had the Hughes inquiry, which said that the justice system is fine and the minister is doing his job right. We had the Owen report, which said the same thing. There is only one person in that whole series against whom it was recommended that a charge be laid, and it was the member for Esquimalt–Port Renfrew. So in spite of his wealthy family having enough money to send him to private school and university, where has he gone wrong? He may be the epitome of John Dean's book Blind Ambition.

It's critical for those of us who sit in this House to stand up and say what we believe in, and I shall. I see that the Leader of the Opposition is not here, but I am sure he is watching — I hope he is, anyway. What does he say that's wrong? Oh, there he is right over there, not in his seat. He says that he believes in aboriginal title, and he says the courts do too. But they don't That's not what they've said. Talk about telling the truth. It's important for you to make your point correctly, and you're not.

Interjection.

HON. MR. FRASER: Do you? We'll find out after the election, won't we?

What would the NDP do if they were in power? Would they have a drastic anti-pollution law that would put all our forest companies out of business? Would they have the member from Maillardville have laws so tight that you couldn't even light a woodburning stove?

AN HON. MEMBER: We wouldn't have SkyTrain,

HON. MR. FRASER: With the Leader of the Opposition, we wouldn't have SkyTrain; we wouldn't have the convention centre; we wouldn't have had Expo 86.

Interjection.

HON. MR. FRASER: I know you want to go to sleep. I know you don't want to hear this, but you're here, and you can listen.

There are a lot of good people here on this side of the House, Mr. Member. He talks about what we're going to do in the budgeting. He said: "Put an extra $3 billion into the budget." Where's he going to get the money? Well, where else? He talks about health care problems — good grief! All the things he's going to do: eliminate medical premiums, $600 million more assistance for this, $500 million.... This party across the way would do here what they did in Ontario, if they had a chance, and that's the destruction of this province. And now the country depends on this province more than ever, because the rest of the country can't continue the way it's going, especially with the lead of the biggest province, called Ontario.

Do you know what? I know who I'm not going to vote for. I'm sure not going to vote for you, not for the NDP. You know, Mr. Speaker, of course you can't vote for the NDP.

Interjection.

HON. MR. FRASER: Well, the interesting thing about the Social Credit government is that we've been able to take so much abuse and still survive.

Interjections.

HON. MR. FRASER: How easily they laugh, but how well we do. We'll see who's laughing when the next election in over.

MR. HARCOURT: Watch your back.

HON. MR. FRASER: Oh, I have no worry about my back. I'm glad all those members over there are enjoying the debate. You will continue to enjoy the debate from that side of the House, because when it's all done, we'll be here doing what we have done for the people of British Columbia for so long: building highways, hospitals, the education system and the health care system; helping people who need help; creating wealth and fair taxation — all for those who need help, my friend. I'll tell you....

Interjections.

HON. MR. FRASER: Mr. Speaker, I don't think they want to hear all this good material. But I think I have a few minutes left, and we're going to get it out here.

HON. MR. RABBITT: It sure bothers them when they hear the truth.

[ Page 12236 ]

HON. MR. FRASER: They don't want to hear about it, do they?

How do they describe what happened in Ontario?

Interjection.

HON. MR. FRASER: He doesn't want to hear my notes, Mr. Speaker.

Interjection.

HON. MR. FRASER: Oh yes, we can. Let's talk about what other people say. If you don't want to believe what I say — and you may not, but you should — let's hear what Wall Street says about the federal NDP — with whom they're connected, by the way: "The NDP philosophy on the economy compares to the superstitions of medieval peasants." The amazing thing is just how fast intellectual bankruptcy leads to fiscal bankruptcy. They don't want to hear that.

Here's another one: "It is nothing less than astonishing that a major Canadian government would deliberately and proudly set out to double the public debt within four years, raise already high tax rates, contribute to the national inflation, add to the cost of doing business within its jurisdiction and colonize an even larger part of the economic landscape for government activity." That's Ontario. Can you believe that they would pass on unmanageable debt to their children and grandchildren? No wonder their heads are down; that's where they should be.

Who said he wasn't going to raise taxes? The finance minister of Ontario. What did he do a week later? He raised them. Who put them in line?

What is the fundamental difference between our parties? The fundamental difference is that you believe in groups and we believe in the power of the individual. Your bottom line is handouts; our bottom line is opportunities.

Interjection.

HON. MR. FRASER: Law and order is a subject that is, of course, very close to my heart. I can hardly wait to get to the estimates. I would like to get into a lengthy debate with anyone over there when it comes to estimates on law and order. There is no question that we care about this country and we'd like our country to be safe. We want the streets to be safe wherever we are and whatever the time of the day. My colleague the Solicitor-General and I will be putting even more effort into that. One of the great things about this country is law and order and the fact that the streets are safe, where people can walk up and down....

[5:00]

MR. HARCOURT: You've cut back on public safety.

HON. MR. FRASER: That's not true. For some amazing reason the Leader of the Opposition and members of the New Democratic Party think they can say whatever they like with immunity. But the people of this province are listening. They hear this. They're watching you and they'll find out.

Then he says: "More jail sentences." We do believe in law and order, unlike the opposition which doesn't seem to care about law and order. We are constantly working on it. There is no giving up on trying to keep this country safe. There's no giving up on working to keep this great country together, working for a place in the world scene. Why is a little country like Canada able to get together with some of the bigger nations of the world and make a significant contribution? Because we've worked hard. We have the capacity to think and the will to reason, and we are prepared to contribute to the international scene. As one country, we can do that.

This country is worth saving. You can't save a country by going $9.7 billion in debt in one province and then suggesting that they wouldn't do the same thing here. You can't do that. Those two men in Ontario, laughing while they presented a budget of $9.7 billion, have got to be totally wrong.

Let's look at a few comparisons of budget revenues for B.C. and Ontario. Compared to Ontario at 78 percent, 58 percent of our total revenue is derived from taxation. Ontario gets 37 percent of their total revenue from personal income tax, and in B.C. it's 27. Retail sales tax in B.C. is 13 percent, and in Ontario it's 19 percent. We have the lowest debt in the country. It's not an accident this province is well run. It's no surprise we're doing okay. It's no wonder people are moving to British Columbia.

Interjection.

HON. MR. FRASER: There you go again, Madam Member. Here you are going on at great length about what I am making up. I suggest to you that you're making it up. But one thing the people of B.C. understand is that you can't run the province as well as we can. They know that.

MR. HARCOURT: Call an election. Why don't you call it and find out?

HON. MR. FRASER: We'll find out, won't we, at election time? We'll find out for sure.

Who spends more on social services in Canada than any other government? British Columbia spends more on social services than any government in the country — 72 cents out of every dollar, the highest amount in Canada. We've managed the economy well. And what does the NDP do in Ontario? They spend it on welfare. Goodness gracious, wouldn't you think they'd try to do some education work down there? More money on welfare than on education is not the way you go to build a country.

You go about building a country by educating your students. Who built the great education system in B.C.? The Social Credit government. Who expanded the universities? The Social Credit government. Who built the college system? The Social Credit government. Who supported our plan when they were in office briefly? They did. They liked our plan, and they

[ Page 12237 ]

were expanding it. Who has degree-granting opportunities all over the province? This government did it.

MS. SMALLWOOD: Who created the food banks?

HON. MR. FRASER: You created the food banks.

Interjection.

HON. MR. FRASER: Policies, policies. Do you know what's going to happen...?

Interjection.

HON. MR. FRASER: You encouraged it. Where I would encourage work, you would encourage welfare. That's the essential difference between us.

Had it not been for this government, there would be no great projects in this country. We would not have the great transit system had it not been for this government. It was not the mayor of Vancouver who ran the city of Vancouver at the time the great things were built; it was the province that did it. There was a lack of vision and leadership. Who was the mayor of that day? The now Leader of the Opposition. Where does he stand on anything? We don't know. What will he do? We don't know.

But let me tell you what he might do. Supposing he got to be Premier. How would he act? I recall a few years ago when he was mayor of the city of Vancouver, and the city decided to go into the concrete business. They decided there was a lack of competition in the concrete business. There were only nine suppliers able to supply concrete in the city of Vancouver, and they decided there was a shortage of competition. In an in camera meeting, the mayor and his friends from COPE decided to go into the concrete business. They were going to deliver concrete in the back of gravel trucks. However, when it was found out by the private sector unions that they were going to go to the public sector unions, there was a big outcry, and at a public meeting he changed his mind. The flip-flop is there all the time.

Let me bring it to a close by saying that: (1) this province is in good shape; (2) it will be in good shape as long as the Social Credit government is in power; (3) we intend to keep it in power; (4) you can count on us because we're strong; and (5) I will not support the amendment.

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

MR. GABELMANN: If that's the best the government can do, any worries I might have had about an election campaign have suddenly evaporated.

It's been interesting in this debate — not just in the debate on the amendment this afternoon but in the budget debate itself — the amount of time that government members have talked about Ontario. We've heard from, I think, every single government member, most of their speech dominated by their views, impressions and understandings of Ontario. It makes me wonder why we hear so much about Ontario. Is it because the government does not want to talk about British Columbia? Are they afraid to talk about their record for most of the last four decades in this province? Are they concerned that scrutiny of their budget, their debt, their deficit, would further confirm British Columbians' determination to put an end to this government? That's why I think we hear about Ontario.

I wonder why government members, if they want to talk about Ontario, don't talk about 31 years of NDP government in Saskatchewan — 31 consecutive years, in terms of NDP power, of balanced and surplus budgets. Starting in 1944, in a province with the most depressed economy in Canada at that time — Newfoundland was not a member of Confederation — solely reliant on the agricultural industry, the NDP in its earlier incarnation as the CCF was able to come in and begin the process of 20 years of successive budgetary balancing and budgetary surpluses. Why? Because we in the New Democratic Party are committed to paying as we go. We are committed to balanced budgets.

In Saskatchewan they were able to do more than we think we can do in the first term of an NDP government in this province, as a result of having to pick up the pieces that have been left in this province. I don't believe we're going to be able to balance the budget in each of the first four or five years of the business cycle that ensues following this September, but I do know that we will be able to balance the budget over that cycle. We won't do as well in that sense as Tommy Douglas and Woodrow Lloyd and Allan Blakeney were able to do, with successive, continuous balanced budgets in Saskatchewan.

As a result of picking up the pieces in this province, we are going to have to have a four- or five-year period before we can get the budget cycle into balance. Why is it that Social Credit does not believe that money should be set aside in good years so that it does not have to be borrowed in bad years? You had the germ of the idea when you established the budget stabilization fund, as phony as it really was in its presentation to the public. You had the germ of the idea: setting aside money in the good years so that there would be money available in the bad years. What happened? You spent the money in the good years. We have a bad year now and there's nothing left in the budget stabilization fund. What is the fund? It's a shell for borrowing. But that's not the way you run the fiscal management of this province; it's not the way it should be run.

Interjections.

MR. GABELMANN: Heckling often has the effect of lengthening a member's speech. I am sure that members would not want my speech to be lengthened.

In any event, to go back to the serious point, governments have a responsibility to set money aside in good years. Social Credit has not done that in this last decade. We had bad years at the beginning of the decade, and we had some good years in the middle and later years of the eighties; money was not set aside. So what's the result? This year, in the months just preceding an election, putting the best face on it, they still have to go out and borrow $1.2 billion.

[ Page 12238 ]

Instead of talking about their approach to budgets and to the economy of this province, they want to talk about Ontario. I think that for every minute we talk about Ontario, we should talk 31 minutes about Saskatchewan — about the balanced budgets that province was able to produce — because that's the record of the New Democratic Party that I associate with. I tell you, that's the kind of record....

Interjections.

MR. GABELMANN: Whether we have 31 years or not.... I don't know; we may not have quite that many. But I guarantee you, we will balance our budgets in this province, unlike the last decade of Social Credit. We're now in a position of having $9 billion of operating debt — not counting B.C. Hydro debt, not counting Crown corporation debt.

The Attorney-General was quoting Wall Street journals, I believe, or papers or magazines, about some government doubling its debt in the last four years. I thought he was talking about the government of British Columbia. The government of British Columbia has doubled the provincial debt in the last four years. So if we're going to have these kinds of debates, let's have them based on some reality and some accuracy.

Talking about accuracy, let's talk just for a minute about the allegation made earlier by the Premier, repeated earlier today by the Provincial Secretary, repeated again by the Attorney-General — and I know repeated often by other members of the House — about the NDP transition team going to Ontario. Let's put the....

Interjections.

MR. GABELMANN: I think it's important to talk about it exactly the way it is. What happened? What are transition teams? I know the government wouldn't know. They didn't have one in '74 or '75. Transition teams are an effort that most responsible opposition parties create to plan for the period between election day and swearing-in day. It's a little bit of planning. I know that planning is a foreign concept to Social Credit, but we believe in planning. We believe in thinking ahead. We believe that you have to work out what you are going to do from 8 o'clock or 8:01 on election night until the time you're sworn in.

[5:15]

In Ontario, I must tell you, the NDP did not expect to form the government. It was a surprise to them as much as to us and probably to you. They had not prepared. They didn't know what was going to happen in their first ten or 12 days between election day and swearing-in. We had done some work; we offered to give them some material. No single member of this caucus or of our staff went to Ontario. Do I need to say it again? Nobody from this caucus or from our staff went to Ontario.

Yes, an individual went to Ontario at no cost to the taxpayers of British Columbia — unlike the government of British Columbia, which was prepared to spend taxpayers' money to send an official to Toronto on budget day. Why were you wasting taxpayers' money to send public servants to Ontario to listen to a budget you could have picked up the results of from a fax machine? It cost at least a couple of thousand bucks to send somebody down. We wouldn't have used taxpayers' money in British Columbia in that way.

Mr. Speaker, I hope that puts an end to the.... I guess I can't use the word "lies," because there would be an implication that I'm accusing some of the members of lying, and I don't want to do that. They have been badly misinformed and have used information that they got from some source which is not correct. It is totally wrong, and they have repeated it.

I think it's important that we have a good debate in this province between the two major parties, so that people in this province can understand what their choices are. But let's keep the debate to the facts. So I trust that we will never again hear reference to any member of any transition group going to Ontario for any purpose other than to deal with the ten or 12 days between election day and swearing-in day, or hear reference to anybody from this caucus or its staff going at public expense.

Interjection.

MR. GABELMANN: Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Health says that he thinks I protest too much. Actually, I sat this afternoon and thought long and hard about whether I would even make those comments simply for that reason. Whenever you're charged with something in politics or in life in general, if you respond to it, you do several things. You give it an air of credibility, you heighten the awareness of the issue and you make it seem more important than it really is.

Ordinarily I would be inclined, as I think most of my colleagues would, not to respond to charges when they're so obviously based on absolute falsehoods. It's not wise to respond. But the problem is that the interim Premier has been saying these things on the public airwaves. Member after member of the government caucus has been saying the same thing, and it's just not true. I think it's important to point out to the people of British Columbia that lies are being told in the broadest sense, and it's not appropriate. That does not help British Columbians make an informed judgment about who is best equipped to govern this province. Those kinds of stories that get made up and peddled are not appropriate, and I think it's important — even though I risk what the Minister of Health suggests about raising the issue's profile — to set the record clear.

We've heard, in this endless diatribe about budgets elsewhere, very little from the government about what their economic plans are, what their prospects for British Columbians' lives are. We've heard nothing whatsoever about the forest industry from members in this debate. We've heard nothing at all about how we can ensure that people out there who work for a living, people out there whose lives are dependent on decisions made by government, threatened by the fragile economy — which used to be the buzzword of Social Credit a few months ago but no longer is — concerned

[ Page 12239 ]

about their mortgages, concerned about their ability to continue to live in the communities around this province.... We've heard nothing at all from the government about the government's plans and programs to ensure some security of mind for those British Columbians. Therefore our amendment.

Our amendment deals with real concerns that ordinary British Columbians feel strongly about — people who are afraid of what the future holds here in this province; people who are aware that in our major resource industry, forestry, decade upon decade of mistaken government policy is finally coming home to roost, and that that has a threatening impact on their lives. They want to look to government, to get the reassurance that government has some sense of what the future may hold. And what do they see? They see the results of the auditor-general's report, which talks about chaos, in financial terms and in accountability terms, in the forest industry. They look at the Forest Resources Commission report, and they see a scathing indictment of 50 years of policy in this province. They worry. And what do they hear from the government? Nothing whatsoever that is reassuring.

What do they hear from the government? Talk, talk, talk about Ontario. They don't even hear about the government's justification, in economic terms, about why you wanted to have a $1.2 billion debt this fiscal year. We don't hear any justification as to why you wanted to raise taxes. You must have some good reasons for making those choices. What are those good reasons? Are there any good reasons, or did you just stumble into it? One Finance minister after another, over the last few weeks, stumbling along, and the last numbers that appear on May 21 end up being the budget.

Interjection.

MR. GABELMANN: Experience isn't necessarily.... There are countries around this world with leadership, Mr. Speaker, that have had decades of experience. Take Ethiopia: they've had — what? — 25 years of one government. Does that mean they provide good government for Ethiopia? We've had this cabal in the Soviet Union governing for 80 years. Does that mean they provided good government?

Interjection.

MR. GABELMANN: No, they're state corporatists.

Interjections.

AN HON. MEMBER: They're a little testy over there, aren't they?

MR. GABELMANN: A little testy, a little defensive, a little concerned.

Experience, Mr. Speaker, isn't the only criterion After the election we'll begin our chance to get experience, and we'll have so much experience we'll probably be using that crazy line in about 20 years too. I wanted to talk about one other issue which was raised this afternoon by at least one member of the government side.

Interjection.

MR. GABELMANN: Let me digress for a moment, Mr. Speaker. Parliaments in the British system, starting with Westminster, have had traditions of intelligent and useful heckling and one-liners from members as another member is speaking. Often that heckling can add to the debate; often it produces memorable lines which get quoted for decades and decades after. But the heckling that comes from the cabinet bench right now, I think, is at about a par with their ability to actually govern this province. The inane comments from the Minister of Labour would best be left to his constituency, where they probably would appreciate it a bit more than we do here in this House.

I want to talk about one issue raised earlier this afternoon by one of the government members: free trade, and especially free trade with Mexico. The Provincial Secretary suggested that it's important for British Columbia to be at the table as the discussions between Canada, the United States and Mexico proceed. But the Provincial Secretary didn't say why British Columbia should be at the table. I've noticed that the government has been very careful not to commit itself to a proposed deal with Mexico. They're obviously worried about the political implications of saying yes or no to a Mexico-U.S.-Canada free trade agreement.

What's the position that was developed earlier by the Provincial Secretary when he was the Minister for Trade? What was the non-position that the current minister responsible for trade has adopted? They say that B.C. should be at the table. An argument can be made along those lines, but you need to know why you're at the table if you're going to go to the table, and it's my assessment that the government has no idea why it should be at the table other than to protect itself from the political fallout that might occur before an election campaign if some bad decisions are made. It's the only motive that I can see.

The government was enthusiastic about supporting the FTA with the United States. I suspect they are quietly supportive of the initiative with Mexico. The government fails to recognize that there is a fundamental difference in the freer trade arrangements being made in Europe and the ones being proposed in North America. In North America the proposal is exclusive to one sector of the economy. The proposals are designed to promote and put forward the agenda of the corporate interest — a legitimate corporate interest in our mixed economy. But the free trade agreements are simply designed to promote their agenda, to ensure that they can get their products produced at the cheapest price. That's the agenda.

Europeans took an approach to freer trade that said the agenda had to be based on improving peoples' lives, ensuring that strong environmental standards were upgraded, working from the strongest standards

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of living and bringing people and other countries up to those standards.

The approach in North America, which is corporate-driven, is the reverse. The agenda here in North America, driven by this government's friends in Ottawa — a government that has been in power since 1984 — driven by that corporate agenda, is this government is going along with an approach on free trade which only narrowly deals with the issue. It deals only with the corporate agenda; it deals only with maximizing the profits; it deals only with producing goods at the lowest possible price. It doesn't deal with issues about raising standards of living; it doesn't deal with social safety-net issues; it doesn't deal with basic environmental rights in the way that the European trading partners have done.

I think this is the important element of the debate over free trade that has largely gone undebated and ignored. Why? Because we're part of a society here in North America where the media — certainly the financial press — is largely corporate-driven. They don't understand that there are other elements in an economy which go beyond what's best for General Motors. The old adage that what is good for General Motors is good for the country should have been proven wrong years ago. It's not the case. It's been proven that the Mulroney government, this government, the Bush government, and the Salinas government all appear to believe that what is good for the corporate sector will be good for the people.

The people of Mexico didn't vote for Salinas last time round. I was in Mexico during that election campaign. Clearly the opposition parties won the election. It was fraud at a massive scale. Cuauhtémoc won the election clearly, even though he wasn't installed as President. The people of Mexico understand that they are not going to benefit. They've seen the experience with the maquilodora which has not been of benefit to them: increased poverty as people move away from their own communities, roots and traditions. We're going to see more of that if this government has its way and if their soulmates, the Conservatives in Ottawa, have their way with that kind of deal. But that doesn't mean that in opposing this particular initiative we're opposed to the idea of reducing trade barriers.

[5:30]

The European experience has been instructive in that respect. You can raise people's standards of living. You can have more efficient economies by reducing tariff barriers. We should be moving towards those goals. Let's not do it in isolation, with this kind of narrow regional and corporate agenda that flies in the face of all the efforts that the GATT countries have been making for so many years.

It's 5:28, and I know the rules of order require that in a minute or so we conduct a vote on our amendment. Let me conclude by saying that our amendment wants to draw the attention of the people of British Columbia to the fact that in this budget the government has tried to do two things: hide the real debt and shift the public's attention away from the real issues. In addition, the budget fails to deal with those fears faced by so many working people, small business people and families around this province. Therefore we have proposed the amendment. We — and I trust some hon. members on the other side — are going to vote for this amendment.

MR. SPEAKER: Just before putting the amendment, might I remind members that standing orders prohibit reading of newspapers in the chamber?

Amendment negatived on the following division:

YEAS — 17

NAYS — 30

Hon. Mr. Richmond moved adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

The House adjourned at 5:38 p.m.