1993 Legislative Session: 2nd Session, 35th Parliament HANSARD

The following electronic version is for informational purposes only. The printed version remains the official version.

Official Report of

DEBATES OF THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY

(Hansard)

THURSDAY, APRIL 29, 1993

 Morning Sitting

Volume 9, Number 11

[ Page 5629 ]

The House met at 10:03 a.m.

Prayers.

C. Serwa: I have the pleasure to rise this morning and introduce a good-news item. Last night two special events occurred. The first occurred in this Legislature. I would like to thank the Government House Leader and the entire government caucus for the courtesy extended to our Social Credit caucus last night. It was an honourable initiative, and it was sincerely appreciated by our caucus. My sincere "thank you."

The Speaker: I appreciate that the member's intentions were honourable, but we would not want to set a precedent to use introduction time in that way.

Orders of the Day

Hon. M. Sihota: I appreciate those kind comments.

I ask leave of the House to allow the Committee on Justice, Constitutional Affairs and Intergovernmental Relations to sit this morning while the House is in session.

Leave granted.

Hon. M. Sihota: Again, I would like to seek leave of the House to allow the Committee on Finance, Crown Corporations and Government Services to sit this afternoon while the House is in session.

Leave granted.

Hon. M. Sihota: We wish to advise members of the House that in Committee A this morning we will have the estimates of the Ministry of Labour and Consumers Services.

With that said, I call second reading debate on Bill 3.

BUILD BC ACT
(continued)

On the amendment.

L. Stephens: It is a pleasure for me to rise this morning to speak to the amendment put forward by my colleague from Surrey-Cloverdale and to support it. This is a time when we need some very serious consideration given to the mounting debt in our province. Every major business association has spoken against this bill: the chamber of commerce, the board of trade, the B.C. manufacturers' association, the Retail Merchants' Association and the bankers' association. All of these major business groups have spoken out quite clearly in opposition to this bill.

Why all this resistance from the employers of B.C.? The answer is very simple: this bill is about debt; it's about hidden debt and hidden taxes. Why is this government so eager to embrace more debt, while making fumbling attempts to attract capital? It is not absurd to be saying to investors: "Bring your money; we've lost track of ours." It is no wonder that real investment dropped in British Columbia last year. The government tried to create the impression that capital investment increased, and they did this by including government spending as investment. By this yardstick, the more the government spends, the richer we are. I suppose if the government actually spent every cent of our gross provincial product, we would be the richest region on earth. This is the debt philosophy behind this bill. All the rhetoric by this government about this being an economic development bill is a smokescreen. Debt is not growth. This government, in effect, has given up on attracting new industries.

In the days when the new tigers in Asia are competing with Japan, when Mexico and other South American countries are building new competitive plants, what juicy morsels is our Premier pulling out to attract business -- a Swedish labour code with a side order of capital tax topped with a garnish of environmental confusion. So there will be obviously no takers.

Interjection.

L. Stephens: That's right. Instead of Fortune 500 companies, give a fortune to Bob Williams and tell him how to create some Crown corporations -- lots of Crown corporations.

With this move towards greater debt and less accountability, we might expect to see some corresponding reduction in the ministries it clearly duplicates. But this is not the case. The Ministry of Finance still has the department of stealth -- otherwise known as the Crown corporation secretariat -- doing who knows what with who knows how much. The ministry of perpetual reorganization -- under the hon. member for Cariboo South -- has lost its purpose, but continues to have a budget. And training continues to be a part of the Advanced Education portfolio. Social Services apparently still has responsibility for the disadvantaged, and Women's Equality presumably has responsibility to seek opportunity for women. Yet all of these functions have been usurped by Build B.C.

A number of colleagues in this House have asked the question: "What's the rush?" Indeed, what is the rush? Bill 3 appears to be an attempt to create economic activity with the taxpayers' own money. It will create no new jobs and no new business for the province. Bill 3 will create more bureaucracy, which means additional public sector workers and patronage appointments. What does it do that cannot be done by the existing ministries? We've asked this time and time again, and there's been no answer from the government benches. Generating revenue in creative new ways is just another means of extending taxation. Bill 3 offers no assurances that the funds will be carefully spent, with open competition for contracts. Will it provide more openings for government patronage? We'll see.

Bill 3 appears to be a sleight-of-hand move to remove some expenditures from the government's accounting mainstream, thereby obscuring even further the province's true fiscal picture. It opens the door to 

[ Page 5630 ]

massive government intervention in the economy -- the opposite of what is required to generate further economic growth. What we really need is the government to create a better climate for investment, with less regulation. We need to encourage private sector investors to invest money and create jobs in British Columbia.

It was interesting to see the Minister of Economic Development's comments when he rose to speak to Bill 3. He had just returned from a visit to a Toyota wheel plant, and one of his comments was that they're expanding on borrowed money. He also goes on to say that B.C. 21 is able to coordinate necessary spending that is going to be made anyway by B.C. Hydro and B.C. Buildings Corporation. It does quite clearly say in Bill 3 that the corporation will be borrowing -- spending -- $900 million, including $500 million on new projects. He goes on further to speak of capitalization, saying that the question of long-term debt is a question of whether or not you've got assets to offset it. Well, that's true in business dealings. The reason you have assets is that if you need to, you can sell them. If you can't cover your debt when you have to, you can sell your assets. I don't know anyone who will buy a road, bridge or school. So the only way to recover your costs is through the taxpayers, when you're talking about government spending. There simply is no other way to cover debt. The members opposite certainly should be able to grasp that concept.

He talked about assets being investments. The investments of Crown corporations are debt, and that's what we see in this bill. That's what we continue to see. I'm sure that this government is going to become aware of that in the years to come, and it will leave that mess for members of governments still to come to clean up, as we've seen in Ontario. Ontario is now in a position where they've had to do some massive restructuring, when two years ago they thought they could spend their way out of their difficulties. In two years we in British Columbia will be in exactly the same position as Ontario and Saskatchewan. They are both having to struggle and to come in with massive draconian measures to deal with problems they initiated two years ago when they thought they could spend, spend, spend. This government is continuing down the same path, and we in British Columbia will find ourselves in the same position as Ontario in another two years.

The minister also says that British Columbia is a minor player in terms of public debt. We have the fastest growing economy in Canada, thanks largely to the influx of new investors and people moving into British Columbia. But I'll say again that at the rate we're going and the way this government is spending, we will be in the same situation as Ontario. It boggles the mind as to why this government can't understand that the difficulties we're seeing in Ontario.... The road map is out there for everyone to see. This government seems to carry on with much of the same legislation that has been brought forward by Ontario. The ramifications of some of those initiatives have brought home some serious difficulties there, and we will be in the same position.

[10:15]

It would be easy to say that it doesn't matter where the money comes from as long as the project gets completed. However, the opposition doesn't agree with this approach. We believe governments must be accountable for every penny they spend. Our debts and deficits are spiralling out of control and will continue to spiral out of control with this government. People are demanding that their leaders justify their spending. How many public outcries do there have to be? How many citizens of this province have to demonstrate on the front steps of the Legislature, and in communities around the province, for this government to understand what is happening and what the people are telling them? In the last election, the Premier of this province very clearly said: "We will not spend what we can't afford." That was nothing but rhetoric, with no understanding of what the people of the province truly are feeling and want their government to do.

Government spending is out of control and will continue to be out of control, and this Build B.C., B.C. 21, is simply a recipe for disaster. It will create an open-ended spending authority that is beyond the scrutiny of the Legislature and the people of British Columbia. It will allow the government to borrow and spend as much as they want, without having the figures show up as government deficit. No longer will the government show a deficit for projects such as the Coquihalla; instead, the money will be owed to B.C. 21. It's a great idea if you're an NDP government about to embark on a borrowing spree, but a lousy idea if you belong to the taxpaying public of British Columbia -- and they've told this government that time after time. People know what debt is. People know how you have to pay debt down, and they know they are going to be the ones who are paying.

Not only will B.C. 21 be a vehicle for discretionary government spending; the Crown agency will also create another level of bureaucracy with its own layer of red tape. This is another vehicle for the appointment of friends and insiders to this government, who in the last election yelled loud and long about the friends and insiders of the previous government. This government has far and away exceeded anything that the previous administration was capable of in patronage appointments to friends and insiders. The people of British Columbia won't forget that either the next time around.

Not only will B.C. 21 be a vehicle for discretionary government spending; there will be a new person to head this agency. Assuming he or she makes as much as the heads of Crown corporations, they'll earn in excess of $100,000 a year, and the public payroll will also be padded with the required patronage appointments, executive staff, administrative support, public relations and marketing professionals, and on and on -- and every single one of them drawing a taxpayer-funded paycheque.

If we don't have the money, the Premier said, we won't spend it. Well, we don't have the money, but the government continues to spend it and the taxpayers are going to continue to have to pay.

Some of the sections -- many of the sections -- of Bill 3 that we are going to be discussing in greater detail 

[ Page 5631 ]

in committee are very undefined. There are a lot of areas in this bill that simply need to be clearly focused, and people have to clearly understand what some of these initiatives will actually do. Some of them seem to be nothing but smoke and mirrors. Others are, as I have said before -- and other members of this House continue to say -- responsibilities of existing line ministries that will end up being redundant. I know a number of our members on this side of the House have been calling for some of these ministries to simply disappear if the Crown corporations that will be established under this particular bill, are going to be the ones that will have the authority and will have the responsibilities of supposedly accountable ministers of the province. I support this motion and I would encourage all members of the House to support this motion. The massive debt of these Crown corporations and the patronage appointments that will flow from it, as well as the inability of the Legislature to have accountability to the people of the province, are reasons that this bill should, number one, be defeated, and number two, that we should continue to support the call for this bill not now to be read a second time.

J. Tyabji: Hon. Speaker, this is the third time I've spoken to second reading of Bill 3. The previous time, we were trying to amend the bill through a hoist motion, and unfortunately we didn't have any success with that. The message that has to be given as strongly as possible to the House is that the public must be included in a fundamental restructuring of the province's financing that will incur the kind of debt we'll see under Bill 3.

When you look at the amendment we're debating right now, there are three aspects to it. First, the reason we oppose the immediate implementation of this bill is that all the activities of the new Crown corporation can be done within the current ministries, except for the amortization of capital debt. That means that currently the activities can all be undertaken by the existing ministries, but we will have wasteful duplication of government services as we incur debt that will not receive public scrutiny. That's an important point.

[M. Farnworth in the chair.]

The second thing the amendment brings forward is that there has been no public consultation, that the taxpayers have not been consulted in setting up this spending authority outside the Legislature. While the NDP is moving to undermine democracy, while it is again shuffling away democratic rights into a Crown corporation -- rights that should come before the House -- there is absolutely no consultation with the public. My feeling is that the public would not support that.

The third aspect of this amendment is that the increased debt held by the province will negatively impact the ability of future generations to control their own economic destiny. That's an important point to debate on this amendment that the bill not be read a second time.

I've got a number of articles to share with the House that cover these three aspects: the first aspect being unnecessary waste; the second, British Columbia's ability to prosper in terms of increased investment in the economy; and the third and most important one, that we are able to have a prosperous future, that future generations can reasonably expect a fortunate economic destiny.

Looking at the impact of this bill, we have to consider some of the economic analyses of deficits, not only provincial but federal. With regard to the ability of people to invest, as much as I don't agree with a lot of the quotes that come through Michael Walker and the Fraser Forum, there are often some interesting points made that the NDP should take note of -- for example, investor confidence. When overseas investors look to British Columbia to decide whether or not to invest, one of the things they look at is the credibility of the government in regard to forecasting the deficit and getting government spending under control. I'll quote from a Fraser Forum article called "Forecasting the Deficit" from April 1993: "...the provinces have built a reputation for predicting low deficits and ending up with high deficits." It goes on to say: "Such forecasts can show investors whether governments are serious about reducing the debt." Then: "There are two important things investors look for when deciding whether to believe governments. First they ask themselves if the government's forecasts are biased." Certainly in Bill 3 we have a good example of a biased government forecast for a reduced deficit.

The deficit that the government tabled -- through the legitimate process for government spending in the House -- was $1.5 billion. Clearly through Bill 3 the actual deficit is going to be closer to $3 billion, with further debt being amortized over ten- or 20-year periods. That amortization will never come forward for debate in the House, nor will there be any avenue for public debate of each capital project, because we will have it done through a Crown corporation which is directed by patronage appointments.

From the perspective of an overseas investor looking to British Columbia -- if one of the considerations is the reliability of a government forecast, as indicated here -- clearly there's no reliability at all in the NDP's deficit forecast, because they've hidden much of their deficit in the Crown corporation. So investor confidence would definitely go down with regard to whether or not they can trust this government's economic predictions.

It's interesting that the article ends with a quote that says: "Politicians are probably afraid to tell people just how large deficits will actually be." That goes back to my comments on the first amendment brought forward in second reading by the Liberal opposition that the bill be sent to a committee. At the time, the reason for my argument was that the Finance minister didn't have the courage to make the changes that are necessary to the budget and to the existing deficit. Instead of having the courage to come forward and tell the people that he didn't make any cuts, that in fact government spending is going through the roof, he decided to come up with this Crown corporation and hide the deficit. So that very much goes to that point.

[ Page 5632 ]

With regard to investor confidence and the predic tability of economic forecast, the Minister of Finance tried to justify Bill 3 by talking about job creation. In a publication called "Economic Reform," one of the interesting points made is that any job creation that comes as a result of tax dollars -- whether that be through the garnishing of tax revenues by increased taxes on the public, or whether that be as through Bill 3.... Tax dollars are, in effect, being borrowed for ten or 20 years in the future. We still have parasitic job creation. It's not wealth generation, and it's certainly nothing that's going to provide any economic stability.

I'd like to share with the House an April 1993 article called "Rosetta Stone" in a publication called Economic Reform. The point of this article is that we cannot rely on the kind of economic justifications that we've seen from governments, and such as the Minister of Finance has made. The article says:

"Since the economy speaks to our experts in hieroglyphics, the story of the Rosetta stone may be helpful. It was found near Alexandria during Napoleon's Egyptian campaign, and it fell to the British as booty on the French surrender. On a fragment of black basalt there are inscriptions in Egyptian and Greek, in three alphabets -- Egyptian hieroglyphic and demotic, and Greek. By careful cross referencing the three versions..." -- the hieroglyphics were completed.

The point of that is: here we have economic forecasts that are about as easy to understand as the hieroglyphics on the Rosetta stone. Getting back to economics, the glyphs that defy us are the official version of the economy. According to this, we simply have to achieve zero inflation by pushing interest rates up to whatever heights are necessary to do the job. If we did so, our short-term pain would be rewarded with long-term gain. When that policy collapsed the economy, the same hysterical concern was shifted to the resulting deficits. But as our governments cut their spending and increased taxes, the deficits perversely grew bigger.

The point that I'm trying to make is that this government, which has a mandate to bring in a balanced budget -- and it clearly didn't do that -- has constantly given us justifications for increased government spending in order to kick-start the economy so the deficit will go down. What we've seen happen repeatedly is that the deficit goes up. With the deficit increasing in size, we're obviously going to continue to see an increased government spending. This is the wrong economic hieroglyphic to be grasping at a time when we're in an economic recession.

[10:30]

I was hoping that with a story that brought in Egyptian hieroglyphics, we might at least catch the interest of some of the more esoteric ministers in the cabinet. But I see that even that won't make them listen to a debate on reasoned investment in the economy.

The third point, with regard to the amendment that was brought forward, is the ability of our current and future generations to have some control over their economic destiny. As the Liberal opposition has done before, I'd like to bring up the example of what happened in New Zealand. There have been a number of articles written by economic theorists about what happened in New Zealand and how we are on the brink of that kind of economic collapse in British Columbia.

The British Columbia Report is a publication which I don't often read, but it occasionally contains some interesting articles. We see a byline in that; Ted Byfield is the editor. From March 29, 1993, we have a....

J. Pullinger: That a good, unbiased magazine.

J. Tyabji: It doesn't matter where the truth comes out; the truth is still the truth, no matter who says it.

The headline is: "Only When Sewage Covers Your Lawn...."

Interjection.

J. Tyabji: It's interesting that we're finally getting some input from the government side. This is a good example of how the government refuses to even look to any publications that don't have the same ideological bent as the government. In the Liberal opposition we look to all publications, because we will find the grain of truth no matter where it happens to be hidden.

The Headline Is: "Only When Sewage Covers Your Lawn Do You Discover What Matters In Politics." I hope we can get their interest, because obviously they haven't read this article. Maybe that's why we have such a problem with our budget right now. The article says:

"The most astute comment I've heard so far on the Conservative leadership race came from Eric Malling, host of CTV's 'W5.' He said it didn't matter, and he meant it, and I agree with him.

"Oh yes, it matters in the sense -- the way who wins the Stanley Cup matters, or which Hollywood star gets the Academy Award. But such concerns instantly lose their importance when something really serious happens: a grave illness in your immediate family, for example, or an accident, or a death. Then you discover that these other things were of no real import at all.

"The same is true in politics. Mr. Malling took his 'W5' crew to New Zealand last month, where nine years ago a country as seemingly secure, prosperous, stable and resource-rich as Canada suddenly found out what really does matter in politics. It's called debt."

And that's what this debate is about. Since members on the government side haven't read this article, I hope they will be listening.

"If you didn't see the 'W5' program about New Zealand on February 28, there were things in it you should know, and you aren't likely to find them in the Southam newspapers or on the CBC.

"Up until 1984, New Zealand had been something of a socialist paradise, almost on a par with Sweden. Its medicare system covered even drugs and had been instituted 30 years before Canada's. It had led the world in feminist legislation; women got the vote there 100 years ago. It was a haven for Greenpeace. It had divorced itself from the international fight against communism, denying bases to the U.S. Navy. It had broken off relations with South Africa. And it had the third-largest standard of living in the world. Like Canada, it was financing itself by borrowing money. The politicians of all the parties deplored this, just as they do in Canada, and all solemnly vowed to make the economy, the deficit and the debt their number one 

[ Page 5633 ]

priority. But just as in Canada, nothing they did seemed to work.

"Then one day in 1984, shortly after a new socialist administration took office, the finance minister delivered the news to a thunderstruck cabinet. Without warning, New Zealand's credit had been cut off. Its latest bond issue just wouldn't sell. The money was needed to retire an old bond issue upon which the country must now default. So New Zealand could no longer borrow. That didn't mean trouble down the road; it meant trouble that very day. Meeting the civil service payroll would be a problem. Money for unemployment insurance, pensions, farm subsidies simply wasn't there.

"The cause of this crisis was no mystery. New Zealand, like Canada, had been heavily borrowing foreign money. Its foreign debt reached 47 percent of its gross national product. Canada's now stands at 44 percent."

I want to interrupt to say that that doesn't include the provincial debts. The reason this is particularly relevant to British Columbia is that New Zealand and British Columbia are very parallel in terms of resource-based economies and the kind of structure they set up. And in particular, the kind of mind-set that was directing New Zealand is typical of what we have here with this socialist administration. We're rushing down the slippery slope to higher debt.

It goes on to give us some more statistics about New Zealand and then says:

"Taxes were raised, but the deficit kept getting worse, just as in Canada."

And I would add: just as in British Columbia.

"The response of the government to this disaster was frantic. New Zealand embassies were told to borrow whatever they could from local banks in their respective countries and send the money home, in effect pushing the embassies' credit cards to their limit. Farm subsidies vanished overnight. Crown corporations were ruthlessly cut back, then sold."

It goes on about the other things they had to get rid of.

"Nearly three-quarters of the 22,000 employees of the state railway lost their jobs."

I would say to this government that considering the number of patronage appointments they have, imagine what this will do to your own NDP when we eventually end up in the same situation, because you'll have no workers left. They'll all be so upset that their paycheques aren't being covered because of government debt.

Then it talks about specific examples. This is very important because in B.C. the spending priorities of this government are going in the wrong direction; and if we keep allowing government spending to go through the roof, with increased deficits and increased taxes coming in, we will end up in exactly this situation. Here are some grim examples:

"In a fashionable Auckland suburb, raw sewage seeps through the lawns of the fine homes, bringing with it...." -- the associated things. I don't feel comfortable reading that out. "The main sewage line...leaks so badly that the city's beautiful bay stinks horribly, and the people have to tolerate it.

Ships bringing used cars from Japan are seen, "because that's the only thing most New Zealanders can now afford.

"Perfectly shaped pine trees are being hewn down in the cherished national forest and sold to Japan to meet debt payments.

"A baby hippopotamus born at a local zoo had to be shot because there was no money to build new accommodation for it and...it couldn't be sold.

"Unemployment has risen from an amazing 22 individuals in 1955, to 650 in 1974, to more than 200,000 today."

Then it goes on to say that the standard of living went down to number 22 from number three.

From there they talk about the federal leadership race, saying that until we get politicians with the fortitude to deal with the reality that's around the corner, we are going to end up in exactly the same situation.

I find it interesting that the three cabinet ministers who are here are smiling right now, because they feel this is something so far removed from what we have to deal with today that it doesn't bear serious consideration. I think that's unfortunate. If we continue to have a cavalier attitude toward deficit financing and incurring increased debt, then we're going to end up very quickly in that situation, because international investor confidence will drop. One day they will say that given this government has no serious commitment to decrease government spending, there obviously is no reason for them to continue lending us money.

As I've said before, it's an interesting mind-set that the Finance minister is bragging about a 6 percent increase in government spending, when under Social Credit we had three years in a row of 12 percent increases. We had 12 percent, 12 percent, 12 percent. Last year we had the NDP at 10 percent. This year they've brought it....

Hon. A. Charbonneau: Eight.

J. Tyabji: Well, 9 -- almost 10 percent. This year it's 5.7 percent, so we could argue almost 6 percent. I don't know that I'd want to brag about 8.7 percent, or whatever it was, either. But this year it's 5.7 percent; I know that. But it's still a growth in government spending. That's the point.

Hon. A. Charbonneau: Population increases....

J. Tyabji: That doesn't wash. Let me explain this. The Minister of Transportation is saying population increases, therefore government spending. Let me explain: when the pie gets bigger and you have more people coming into the province, you also have more taxation, because we have consumption taxes, property taxes, income taxes. This government keeps saying that population grows and therefore this is good for the economy. The point is that government spending does not have to continue to grow, especially when you add 12 percent and 12 percent. Let's say it was just under 9 percent last year and just under 6 percent this year. For the government side that may not understand, a growth in government spending means that if you start off 

[ Page 5634 ]

spending $100 and then under the last three years of Social Credit you went to $112, plus 12 percent the next year, plus 12 percent, we're talking about compound interest. The first year the NDP came in they brought it in just under 10 percent. This year it's 5.7 percent. That means the increase in government spending is horrendous. The Social Credit increased it by 12 percent, 12 percent and 12 percent because they weren't sure when the election was coming and they had to keep increasing government spending to keep it going.

Interjection.

J. Tyabji: The Minister of Transportation is justifying this by saying that it's a decrease in constant dollars per capita. Let me say, for the Minister of Transportation and the Minister of Finance, who brag about increased growth in government spending, that the people of the province are saying: "Keep a lid on government spending." That means no further growth. You had excessive increases in government spending. This government had an opportunity in their first year to come in with a zero percent increase in government spending because they followed three years of horrendous, unjustifiable increases in government spending under the Social Credit administration. If this government had come in with zero percent, they would have some credibility.

This government promised the taxpayers a balanced budget within a business cycle, which would be defined as five years at the most. Anyone in the business community knows that you can't just make a promise and not meet it. If you have a business, it means foreclosure, loss of the business and seizure of your capital assets when you don't come up with a balanced budget over a business cycle. This government should have come in with zero percent last year and zero percent this year, but they came in bragging about 5.7 percent. That doesn't factor in the capital expenditures under Bill 3, which we will never see a budget for.

We now have amortization of capital projects in the Ministry of Transportation, under the Minister of Finance's auspices, with this new Crown corporation and the new government agency. What is a government agency? Since the government won't define the government agency that they've outlined in Bill 3, which includes a Crown corporation, the Liberal opposition will define a government agency. A government agency is hereby defined as a Crown corporation and the extra spending authority in every bit of executive power needed to hide all the excess deficit spending and any capital spending that the government doesn't feel comfortable tabling in the House. That's what a government agency is.

I think it's absolutely shameful that the Minister of Finance, the Minister of Labour, the Minister of Transportation -- basically any of the ministers who have had the guts to address Bill 3 in the House -- have come out bragging that they're going to build all of these things, but they don't have the courage to tell the people what that represents in terms of amortized capital debt.

Interjection.

J. Tyabji: I invite the Minister of Transportation to stand up when I sit down and repeat that, because I certainly haven't seen any tabling of forecast expenditures in terms of capital costs. If the Island Highway project is on the burner, which we expect it is.... The Leader of the Liberal Party has repeatedly said that we expect a couple of megaprojects to be announced right after this bill passes. If the Island Highway is one of them, and if the Island Highway is going to be financed by tolls through the new Crown corporation, I invite the Minister of Transportation to come clean with the people of the province today, here in debate in the House, when I sit down. Let's set the record straight. If it's not one of them, maybe the Minister of Transportation would like to stand up and say no, the Island Highway is not one of the megaprojects that the Minister of Finance referred to after the leader of the party goaded him into it when we were debating the last amendment.

Hon. A. Charbonneau: I've been really clear on that, really clear.

J. Tyabji: Obviously you were not. Perhaps you'd like to share it with us in the House today.

Hon. A. Charbonneau: User-pay support.

J. Tyabji: The Minister of Transportation is confirming a toll highway for the Island Highway?

Hon. A. Charbonneau: No.

J. Tyabji: No? It smells like a toll highway, it looks like a toll highway, and it sounds like a toll highway, but it's not a toll highway.

Hon. A. Charbonneau: It's a duck.

J. Tyabji: It's a duck. Wonderful! I see the level of debate that the cabinet for the NDP are providing in the House. Interesting that none of them will get on their feet and provide some intelligent debate, but we do at least have some heckling from the Minister of Transportation that the Island Highway is in fact a duck. Wonderful! At least the people of this province got value for their entertainment dollar, with their tax dollars, when they elected the NDP, because we actually have the cast for Monty Python.

[10:45]

I see I still have some time left. Let's go back to the amendment and the fact that the Liberal opposition are committed to try to talk some sense into the government with regard to stalling Bill 3, so that we can get some public debate on what this represents for the future of the province. People are not aware. The Minister of Transportation seems to think that just because he stood up in front of a few partisan groups in little meetings around the province, and made his intentions clear....

[ Page 5635 ]

Interjection.

J. Tyabji: Ah, wonderful! I'll expect a list of the names of the people whom the Minister of Transportation has given his intentions to so I can phone them and try to get some idea as to what it is that this House will be doing outside of the debate of the House.

Interjection.

J. Tyabji: I'm writing it down. Vancouver Island municipalities.

An Hon. Member: You were there.

J. Tyabji: I wasn't there for the speech of the Minister of Transportation, unfortunately. I'm sure it was a lovely speech.

What the government is failing to realize is that when the people of the province wake up the day after Bill 3 is passed, they will understand that not only do they have a $1.5 billion deficit, not only have they had a substantial increase in their taxes, not only is our debt now at 98 percent of the level of the other provinces in the country, which is truly unfortunate, because in British Columbia we had an opportunity to lead the way in terms of a low percentage of debt, but now they have no idea what this government is going to incur on their behalf in terms of capital debt and amortization, in terms of what the annual payments will be on the mortgage that we will now be holding on our schools and our hospitals and our bridges and our highways.

We have no idea what the user fees are going to be, as the Minister of Transportation is yelling: "User fee, user fee!" Great! I hear: "Taxation, taxation!" Not only do we have increased taxation, a $1.5 billion deficit, an increased debt and amortization, but we're going to have higher taxes. We have no idea what the period of amortization is going to be. It's as if this government has decided that, in their wisdom, the people of the province need a new house and this government is going to buy it. They're going to find the best house that they can find, but we're not going to know the details of how much it costs, what our payments are going to be, or how we're going to pay for it. But we're going to have our signature on the document -- that's one thing we know. Not only that; we're never going to have it come forward for public debate, because the bill doesn't allow for public debate.

Now we'll have expropriation of assets allowed under a Crown agency run by patronage appointments; expropriation of any private property in the province, which can then be used either for sale, for lease or for a giveaway, in order for the Crown corporation to meet its objectives. One objective is to meet the job-creation goals of this government, which we know means all kinds of quotas, whether it be on gender, or whether it be ethnic minorities, or whatever it would be. We know the people of the province don't support a quota system to end discrimination.

I would appreciate hearing from the Minister of Women's Equality, if she has some thoughts as to what "traditionally disadvantaged groups" means. We heard the member for Vancouver-Hastings, who said that since women were underrepresented in the operation of heavy equipment in construction crews, Bill 3 would take care of that. If the Minister of Women's Equality would like to give us some specifics, I'd sure like to know. If it means ending discrimination, I'd like to see the evidence of the discrimination of the hordes of women who have been prevented from operating heavy machinery in construction crews. I haven't heard from a lot of them. Maybe the Minister of Women's Equality would like to help us out with that. If Bill 3 is going to do that, then as the leader of the party was saying earlier, we will end up with government contracts being awarded without tender, to companies that meet the job-creation goals of this government, which aren't even outlined. We'll have no public debate, no public scrutiny and no accountability afterwards. That represents a brave new world that the people of the province don't want. They don't even know that it's going on.

It is truly unfortunate that we have this cavalier attitude of the government, where they don't even feel that they have to go to the people to ask for permission to bring forward a vision of the province that I don't believe the public shares. If the government believes the public does share it, by all means ask them.

As I have stated before, if they ask the public whether they share this vision and the public says, "Yes, we want this kind of thing. We would like to have absolutely no knowledge of what kind of debt we are incurring. We give the government carte blanche; go ahead, borrow 20 years into the future for capital projects. We don't even need to know about it," if that's what the public is saying, I'll stand up and vote in favour of the bill if the government can show me that is what they are saying. I don't believe they are. In fact, I challenge the government to stand up and debate and provide any evidence that what they are bringing forward in Bill 3 is what the public is asking for. This is why, in the reasoned amendment, the Liberal opposition have put as No. 2 that there has been no public consultation with the taxpayers for their desire to set up spending outside of the legislative jurisdiction. That's an important point.

This government doesn't understand what democracy means. They don't understand that when you stand for election and provide a platform, such as all the NDP did -- and each one of them, I am assuming, subscribed to the platform during the campaign -- and when you get elected on the basis of that platform, that is then determined to be a mandate. You can determine the level of mandate given to you based on the percentage of votes you get within your riding -- or within the province -- as to how much people subscribe to that mandate. One well-publicized thing this government committed to was to not spend any more than the people could afford, and to have a balanced budget within five years. It seems that part of the mandate was dispensable. All of a sudden, just because the NDP had a heavily partisan convention in the fall to put forward their own partisan ideological agenda, we now see it coming out in Bill 3. That's not 

[ Page 5636 ]

democracy. That's catering to special interest groups, and the people of the province won't stand for it.

I would like to say to the government -- even if the government isn't listening to this debate and thinks this is a waste of time -- why are you holding up Bill 3? It is the duty and obligation of the Liberal opposition to stand forward, in the strongest way possible, and try to talk some sense into them. Even if they won't listen to us, the people are listening. The people understand, and it will come back to this government on a day of reckoning, whether that be sooner or whether that be later.

G. Wilson: In rising to speak to Bill 3, I think it is important for us to try to communicate to the government as well as to the people of British Columbia, because this is an extremely important piece of legislation.... I believe, and I believe my colleagues in the Liberal opposition believe, that this legislation is the cornerstone of this session, because it appears that no work in the province can continue until this bill is rushed through, until we have some kind of quick passage of the creation of this new Crown corporation, which I think the government is trying to mask as a simple agency of government.

In the two previous times I've spoken to this particular piece of legislation, I've attempted to point out to the people of British Columbia exactly what this legislation is attempting to do, and to recognize why the Liberal opposition is opposed to this particular form of capital financing for projects -- which I think we would all agree are necessary for the people of British Columbia.

We are not saying that we don't need highway construction. We are not saying that we don't need increased capital construction on schools and hospitals. Neither are we saying that we should have any kind of change or new policy that would move us away from providing the necessary capital construction in our schools and other projects necessary to the communities within this province. But what we are saying, and what the government doesn't seem to be hearing, is that the mechanism this government is planning to put in place is not a sensible way to try to do it. This bill removes the necessary accountability from this House for the expenditures of millions of dollars of taxpayers' money -- no proper debate and no proper scrutiny or accountability through a public audit, which would be done by the auditor general.

The second thing we think is wrong is that this bill provides an opportunity for the duplication of government services, which will increase the cost to the taxpayer of providing the very services I've just outlined.

Thirdly, we believe that this bill is a manner by which this government intends to put in place a proposition that will change the nature of training and employment standards, which have normally been dealt with through line ministries.

As we start to get into the reasons why we believe that this bill should not be read, in speaking to this amendment, we have to understand where this government is coming from. My colleague from Okanagan East just referred to the member for Vancouver-Hastings, who stood in this House on April 14 and said: "...I am disappointed in the opposition's failure to understand what this is all about. I thought that the opposition did understand that the future of our kids is actually at stake in this province." When you look at the capital financing programs that are here -- and we heard from the member for Vancouver-Hastings that this is about the future of the children of the province -- we have to look in a bit more detail as to what is being discussed.

Again on April 14, the same member said: "...this project focuses on people. It has a huge emphasis on investment, not just in infrastructure and institutions but in people as well...."

Then that member went on to talk about the fact that in 1984 there were 1,262 carpenters in this province and of the 1,262, only 16 were women. It had improved by 1991; there is further discussion about 1,912 male carpenters, and 22 women. In 1984 there were 331 male sheet-metal workers, and three women. The member for Vancouver-Hastings told us that by 1991 we in fact had not progressed in those areas at all: "...there were 331 male sheet-metal workers and three women."

Nobody on this side of the House in the Liberal opposition is trying to suggest that we should not have fair and open access to any type of employment for any individual, regardless of gender. We're not saying that if an individual wishes to be the best sheet-metal worker in the province they should not be given an opportunity to succeed at that, whether they're male or female. But it's stretching the point to suggest that we need to provide a Crown corporation to do that -- a Crown corporation with virtually unrestricted borrowing powers, a Crown corporation which is given the opportunity within the mandate under this bill to be both a borrower and a lender, and a Crown corporation which can bypass due debate in this House on budgetary matters.

I find it incredible that the member for Vancouver-Hastings would say that we need to use this Crown corporation to bring about a larger number of women working in heavy metal, sheet metal and carpentry in this province. If we tie that to the rant we had from the Minister of Labour, who got up -- and because it was the end of the day or perhaps because he'd had a bad one.... Goodness knows there are enough disputes in the schools of the province right now, so he should have had a bad day, if he didn't. Nevertheless, the Minister of Labour was saying that people want to have ships built now, and they want to have construction on the Colwood crawl now and they want to have capital projects solved now. Does this mean that the ship workers in the Esquimalt dockyards are going to now, by virtue of what's being discussed by the member for Vancouver-Hastings, include more female sheet-metal workers because of Bill 3? Is that what we're being told? When we build the new superferry -- which the Minister of Labour says the people want built right now -- will the member for Vancouver-Hastings, through Bill 3, say that on the dockyards in Esquimalt there are going to have to be a number of women working as heavy-metal welders? I 

[ Page 5637 ]

don't think that's the case. At least, if that is the case, the government had better stand up and tell us, because I think the dockyard workers in Esquimalt would like to know that.

The people who are involved in construction, the heavy-metal workers who are currently, according to the Minister of Labour, waiting upon this bill for the commencement of the new superferry -- if, indeed, that's true at all -- would like to know that under Bill 3 they're going to have to start to have quotas in the workplace on the dockyards of Esquimalt. If it doesn't mean that, then what on earth is the member for Vancouver-Hastings talking about when she stands up and says that we're going to change the employment inequity between men and women because of Bill 3? I think that's a fair question to put to the members opposite. Is Bill 3 going to in fact change this inequity that exists between men and women?

[11:00]

Secondly, I think we have to turn to the Minister of Finance, who got up and gave a rather detailed explanation of the five principal reasons for this bill. It was interesting that he stood up and said that silviculture projects were being held up because the Liberal opposition was trying to have some intelligent debate on Bill 3, and failing getting that -- which I think that all of us who would look at Hansard would see, certainly from the government side, that there has been no intelligent contribution to this debate -- essentially what we have to have is no planting, because we can't do it until we have Bill 3.

The Minister of Finance owes it to the existing silviculture contractors who have had work previously with the agencies that exist under the Ministry of Forests in the various regions of the province -- and many of these contractors are, in fact, employing university students, who are waiting to get into the bush so they can earn the money they require over the summer to go back to school -- to tell them why they can't get the job until Bill 3 is passed. What is it that we're going to change in the silviculture financing that is going to stop the contractors from having that money?

Let's be clear. The only piece of money that the Minister of Finance tells us has gone into this is the $100 million in seed capital that this Bill 3 puts in place as a result of the creation of this new Build B.C. special account. This is a little contradictory, hon. Speaker, because now we're hearing the Minister of Finance say that we'll only put $100 million into this, and this money is given authority by vote from the Financial Administration Act. According to the act, that is supposed to be for community-level capital projects, employment and job-training initiatives, resource-enhancement initiatives and infrastructure initiatives. The only one that qualifies is the resource-enhancement initiatives. So are we now saying that Bill 3 is going to be the vehicle by which we are going to be spending our money for silviculture in this province? If that's the case, what happens to the federal share? What happens to the normal kind of transfer payments into this province that come from Ottawa to assist us in that proposition? What are we going to do in the Ministry of Forests?

Hon. Speaker, what is it that this bill is going to do to the contractors that are now currently awaiting silviculture contract work in British Columbia? My suspicion is that what this bill is going to do -- as the member for Vancouver-Hastings says -- is provide us new employment opportunities that will allow us to be able to have a more skilled workforce. Where it suggests that we shouldn't be dealing with this in a partisan way, and on the same day, April 14, 1993, suggesting that essentially.... Again I go back to the member for Vancouver-Hastings -- who seems to think that this is, in fact, an employment strategy program and not a capital financing program; certainly those are the comments -- saying that we will have a skilled workforce in place and we're going to do it in a fair way, that we're not going to pick out a certain sector of our population and say: "Okay, you'll get all the jobs." We're going to say: "Those of you who have been at a disadvantage, those of you who perhaps have not had the training so far, those of you who have not been able to complete your education, we're going to give you the opportunity for real training."

What does that mean in light of what we're hearing from the Minister of Finance in terms of the contracts that we await for silviculture? Does this mean that we're now going to turn silviculture into make-work projects in British Columbia? Because if that's true, then we'd better let the people who are currently contractors in the field know that they are not going to get the contract work they expect they are going to get, because we are changing the way that we allocate dollars towards silviculture enhancement in this province. That's the honest thing to do for the people of British Columbia. Tell us if that's in fact going to be the case.

Let's turn to what it means in terms of what we see here with respect to the money that is going to be put in place on projects such as the Island Highway. We hear that there is going to be some changes to how this system is going to work. It provides, as I have said before, tremendous power into the hands of two ministers: the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Transportation and Highways. The Minister of Transportation and Highways is going to be the chair of this new authority, and this new authority will have four patronage appointments that will then have a majority of three of those people to decide not only on the priority of expenditure for capital projects, but to be able to decide how they will borrow the money, how they will finance the money and, more importantly -- in the initial analysis to the people of British Columbia -- how they intend to recover the cost. Because this is supposed to be a self-supporting, self-financing program.

I don't know how they intend to do this. Because no matter what kind of magic this government thinks they can weave.... I know that the Minister of Finance does believe that he can weave some magic to try to balance this budget. And he is, I'm told, a bit of an amateur magician -- at least that's what his friends say. The point is that the Minister of Finance has really taken on a trick that's just far too obvious to anybody to see. 

[ Page 5638 ]

Because this isn't going to be self-financing. This is going to be financed, if at all, out of two principal modes: (1) borrowing, which increases debt. And therefore let us not try and hide or shuffle the operational capital side of this equation from the debt that the people of British Columbia are going to have to deal with -- and which the Liberal opposition when we are in government after the next election are going to have to deal with to try and solve the debt that this group are going to leave us with.

Let us also recognize that what we are going to see is that the manner by which these contracts are going to be provided to the population is again going to be in jeopardy. Now I've twice raised, and I will raise again -- and the Minister of Highways, I know, would be anxious to get up and correct me if I am wrong -- that what this says is that there is likely to be a change in the manner by which we are going to start to apply dollars toward capital highway construction. It is going to be financed in a different manner through a different authority.

My question is: what happens to the day labour contractors in the communities who are dependent upon that work? What happens to an open and public tendering process? What happens to the new regional committees that have already been established, that have already prioritized the importance of highway construction programs -- such as in my own district, which I know the best, the Gibsons bypass? Is the Gibsons bypass going to get done? Will it be completed in its final form with the passage of Build B.C., Bill 3? Does that mean that if we pass this, the Gibsons bypass will be finished? Can the Minister of Highways tell us: "Yes, let the member for Powell River-Sunshine Coast know that if this Bill 3 passes, we will have within a year or within 18 months full completion of the project"? This project has taken 20 years to get completed -- a Gibsons bypass which will be the gateway -- and grant you, it is only the gateway -- from the ferry terminal for about three miles until we hit back to the old goat trail that takes us the rest of the way to Powell River.

I don't think it means that the Gibsons bypass is going to get completed. I don't see anything in here that says it's going to be a change in the manner by which priority funding is going to be done. If that was going to be the case, then why did the Minister of Highways not establish that in the budget that was set down within the Highways ministry itself? Why do we need this Build B.C., Bill 3, to try and hide that kind of cost and cost analysis? I suggest that there's much more to it than we see.

Because it has not been discussed yet and needs to be in this debate, let us move to the borrowing powers of this new Crown corporation. It says right here in section 23 that this agency will be able to "borrow the sums of money it considers necessary or advisable and may issue securities in the form and on terms and conditions determined by the Minister of Finance and Corporate Relations at or before the time the securities are issued."

The borrowing powers of this agency are large. They are not accountable because, notwithstanding what the Minister of Finance said when he stood up and gave his rather articulate -- and it was a fairly articulate commentary for the Minister of Finance.... He did manage to keep himself under control, which I know is difficult for him when debating a subject that he has some passionate reason to want to get through. He's desperate to get this borrowing authority in place because, I suspect, if the truth were known.... There is no coincidence, let me say, between the Minister of Finance's return from New York, where he cut a deal on a new package of dollars he had in his hip pocket, and his introducing the next day in the House his two labour friends from the construction unions, who were here to be briefed on how that money's going to be spent.

But let us take a look at what the minister said. He said this Bill 3 was going to allow, in terms of borrowing, an accelerated social capital of $1.4 billion. Now what is accelerated social capital? The Minister of Finance had better detail what accelerated social capital is, and he had better tell us and the people of British Columbia how that $1.4 billion is not to be accounted for in the overall deficit or debt of this province, because that is borrowed money. I don't know what kind of hocus-pocus magic the Minister of Finance thinks he can weave. But I'll tell you that $1.4 billion -- no matter how you mask it, hide it, shell-game it, or try to shunt it into some other authority or line in the budget -- is still debt carried by the people of British Columbia.

What is it that we're going to have built for that? My suspicion is that the member for Vancouver-Hastings is quite correct: the vast majority of that money is going to go into job training, into skills production and promotion and into social programs. It isn't going to be spent on capital infrastructure programs at all. This is not going to be building the capital infrastructure we need. It's going to start to put in place the social agenda of this government, not the capital financing programs people need.

The Minister of Finance also said Bill 3 is going to make the Crown corporations accountable. You have to read through the bill to figure out where it says it's going to do that. I'll tell you where, because you have to get right down to the very end, under part 5, General, section 30, Consequential Amendments. These are important because these are going to amend several acts that are already law in the province of British Columbia. It's important that we understand the acts and what it's going to do. It says:

"The Financial Information Act is...amended by adding the following section:...

"2.1 Every corporation shall provide to the minister, Minister of Finance and Corporate Relations or a committee of the Executive Council that is designated by the Executive Council, strategic plans, business plans, capital and operating budgets and other information requested by the minister or committee."

This is the accountability the minister is talking about. So we have to go to the Financial Information Act to figure out what this amendment's going to do. And when you look, it's really not going to do very much at all. All it's going to do is add the provision of a business 

[ Page 5639 ]

plan to the list of obligations the Crown corporations are already under. That's it -- a business plan.

Under section 2.1 it says: "Every corporation shall, within 6 months after [each] fiscal year, prepare a statement of financial information...." It lists a whole line of things that it needs to do: "a statement of assets and liabilities, an operational statement, a schedule of debts, a schedule of guarantee and indemnity agreements, a schedule showing..." employment earnings, a consolidation of total remuneration -- all of those kinds of things.

The Minister of Finance isn't fooling anybody here. This Bill 3 isn't going to make the Crown corporations any more accountable than they are now. The only thing it means is that the Crown corporations are going to provide him with a business plan. Does it provide scrutiny of Crowns to the legislators of this province? Absolutely not. Does it provide any elected member of this Legislature any additional information with respect to the operational accounts of the Crown corporations? No, it does not. So for the Minister of Finance to tell us that the purpose of this bill is to make the Crown corporations more accountable is absolute nonsense. It doesn't do that at all. The minister should be ashamed of trying to make one line a business plan and some kind of great advance on the accountability of the Crown.

He talks about regional employment and training and says that the regional employment and training programs are going to be connected to the construction of schools and hospitals. What does that mean? If we are launching a new apprenticeship program in B.C., I would personally have no problem with doing that. I think it's a great idea. We need a new apprenticeship program to do job training and get new job skills, and we have to make it accessible to men and women on an equal basis. We have to be more progressive in making sure that those training programs are relevant and give young people hope. I don't have a problem with any of that. If that's what it does, say so. Make this bill an Employment Standards Act change and do it through the ministry that is responsible for it. We have a ministry that's responsible for training. In the estimates, I'm going to be asking the minister -- I give him notice of that -- what Bill 3 is going to do to his ministry. Why are we not putting that in place in terms of apprenticeship and job-training programs in the area it needs to be done, instead of making it part of this particular bill?

[11:15]

What this bill is attempting to do with respect to job training is inadequate in the extreme. What it really does is provide a lot of capital that is going to be shunted into certain programs that would be better run through either the Ministry of Advanced Education job training or the Ministry of Social Services. The Liberal position is that we should be reducing the number of line ministries through the creation of a ministry of community development that can integrate the delivery of job training and services and make it relevant to people within their community. That's the proper solution, not this Build B.C. and a new Crown corporation.

For anybody who says that this is not a Crown corporation, I would suggest that they read the consequential amendments, one of which amends the Financial Information Act by adding Build B.C. to the Schedule 2 list of Crown corporations: B.C. Buildings Corporation, B.C. Development Corporation, B.C. Gas Corporation, B.C. Hazardous Waste Management Corporation; it goes on and on. There are more Crown corporations here than there are cabinet ministers, and that's saying something. This new Crown corporation will have no better reporting authority than any of these.

Let's not try to pretend that this isn't the establishment of a new Crown agency; it is. Let's not pretend that it's going to be any more accountable to this Legislature, because it isn't. Let's not pretend that this isn't a borrowing and spending authority, because it says so in the bill. We also have to recognize that acquiring and disposing of property, bypassing the normal system of acquisition and sale of Crown land, is now allowed. That's a pretty serious thing to consider.

Let's take a look at one of the consequential amendments at the end of the bill. These things often get overlooked, and they're some of the more important things to take a look at. It says that section 57 of the Ministry of Transportation and Highways Act is going to be amended to allow this particular B.C. Transportation Financing Authority, which is established under the Build B.C. Act, to be part of the disposal of property no longer required by Crown lands. What does that mean? We don't want to just take the word of this bill, because the bill doesn't mean much unless you get into the Ministry of Transportation and Highways Act.

Section 57 of the Ministry of Transportation and Highways Act talks about the disposal of property no longer required. It says:

"Notwithstanding subsection (1), the minister may, on behalf of the Crown, for the consideration he considers appropriate, lease land that is under his control under this Part to

(a) a board, authority or commission established under an Act;

(b) an incorporated society or association that provides a public service;

(c) an incorporated cooperative association or credit union; or

(d) a corporation established under an Act of the province or of Canada."

And add to that: "May now lease to this agency, the B.C. Transport Financing Authority established under the Build BC Act."

Hon. Speaker, this is a very important point, and the government better be clear on it, because the people of British Columbia are going to want to know this. What this means is that the minister responsible for the Ministry of Transportation and Highways is able, under his own authority, to transfer leased land that is no longer deemed necessary under his line ministry into a Crown agency that the same minister is the chair of -- with four patronage appointees -- and the Crown agency is going to then administer that as capital. Does that mean that once it becomes a part of the capital asset of this corporation, this corporation is able to dispose of that land? Under this act, it says that it can.

[ Page 5640 ]

So what are we talking about here? We're talking about a minister who is able to simply transfer the assets of the public from one level of jurisdiction and authority as line ministry to a Crown agency and make it an asset of the corporation, which is then available to this corporation to dispose of. That's the only way. As my colleague from Langley just said, there are only a couple of ways you can finance this. You're not going to have people buying schools, hospitals, roads and what have you. So my colleague from Langley is absolutely correct: you sell it. You sell it in its Crown asset form: land. Or the only other way you're going to do it is go out and raise taxes on the basis of having it as an asset. That means debt. It means large debt, and it means you're going to take away a public asset from the population and have the right to dispose of it without any public hearing, without any public notice, without any kind of public system, which is currently protected under both the Highway Act and under the Ministry of Crown Lands. That's disgraceful. This government shouldn't be allowed to get away with that, and that's seen as a consequential amendment at the end of this bill.

Hon. Speaker, there are a couple of others -- and I notice my time is getting really short, although I suspect I will have yet another opportunity to speak on this bill. Let me say that there is a consequential amendment to the Motor Fuel Tax Act, which is a tax that allows this government to put a 1-cent-a-litre tax on gasoline in prescribed areas. The Minister of Transportation and Highways had better tell us what that means, because if "in prescribed areas" means the interior of the province, where distances are great and the dependency on the automobile is high and where people need that automobile to get to work, a 1-cent-a-litre increase is an onerous tax. They don't have any alternative to get from where they live to where they work. Therefore I want the Minister of Transportation to tell us what "prescribed areas" means.

Interjection.

G. Wilson: The Minister of Transportation is saying that 1 cent a litre isn't unfair, that it's not an onerous tax? Well, I'd like the people of British Columbia to write to this Minister of Transportation and Highways and tell him what 1 cent a litre means in terms of total fuel consumption for people who live in the interior and have to drive long distances to get to and from work. How quickly 1 cent a litre adds up when you need a large vehicle that is not exactly as fuel efficient as you might find if you have a small little commuter car in downtown Vancouver.

Hon. Speaker, I see my time has ended. I have far more to say on this bill, and I'm sure I will have another opportunity to do so.

Hon. P. Priddy: I ask the House's leave to make an introduction.

Leave granted.

Hon. P. Priddy: It's a real pleasure for me this morning to welcome two classes of students from Panorama Park Elementary School, which is a school in my riding of Surrey-Newton, along with teachers Jill Haskett and Arlene Cooper and family and friends who have joined them here today. It is quite an extraordinary school, and the classes that are here have made a real contribution to the community of Surrey, including last week being out planting trees throughout Surrey in honour of Earth Day, keeping Surrey green, as well as really respecting the multicultural parts of Surrey, which are of great value to us and make us a richer community.

They had a multicultural fun night last week. As well, they made two quilts: one a quilt of many flags and the other a quilt of many faces. I saw the quilt that many of these students did last year on endangered species, and they're quite extraordinary. Will the House please make them welcome.

[The Speaker in the chair.]

The Speaker: Seeing no other speakers, I call the question.

[11:30]

Amendment negatived on the following division:

On the main motion.

C. Tanner: I rise at this point in the debate to speak to the main motion before this House, and that is the implementation of a new act to finance all sorts of good changes in this government's policy. The defeat of that last motion was one of the few opportunities this government had to make the same changes that the Minister of Finance made when he realized he'd blown it with his recently introduced budget. He had an 

[ Page 5641 ]

opportunity with that amendment to make further changes.

The Speaker: Order, please. I regret to interrupt the member. I would like to call the House to order so that we can hear the debate.

C. Tanner: I'm clearing the galleries and the House. I'm doing a great job here. Maybe that's the only way we can get enough calm to hear the words of wisdom that I have to say to this government on this sad state of affairs, when they've got to bring in this type of underhanded legislation and defeat two good motions.

In the first one we gave them an opportunity to reconsider what they'd done -- to wait six months and look at it again. The second thing we did was give them a reasoned amendment, suggesting they should think again about the very strange change in direction that this piece of legislation introduces.

Over the past three or four days this House -- and I'm not criticizing the decision of the Chair, Madam Speaker -- has been subject to changes of the rules. The government has been using its overwhelming majority to ram stuff through. They've tried to divide and conquer this side of the House by bringing in motions so that the two opposition parties would vote against each other. They're trying every tactic they can. Worst of all, they're trying to ram through, without due consideration, a new -- and what they consider vital -- piece of legislation into a system which has worked extremely well in this province, in every other province and in the federal government of Canada.

This Minister of Finance made a categorical error when he brought in his budget, and he was man enough to stand up and rescind it. A member of their party, of a federal bent, was man enough to send a letter to a provincial government of the same political persuasion as those people and tell them that, in his view, he was wrong. I don't agree with that federal member, but it took courage to do what that gentleman did in Ottawa yesterday, and it took equal courage, believe it or not, for the party in Ontario to continue in the decision they had already made. The reason I use that illustration is because there is a call for courage here again today. The minister has shown it once this year since he introduced this budget, and he's got an opportunity to do it again. He's got an opportunity to say: "Perhaps what the opposition is saying is correct. Perhaps the reason they're suspicious and uncomfortable has some merit. Perhaps some of their frustration has reason."

Every single member of the opposition parties and both independent members have asked the government to reconsider. All we get are yawns and a blas�, uninterested, we-know-better-than-you reaction from these people across the aisle. The two amendments were made in good faith. This is only the second or third time since we've been in the House in a year that we've had two amendments to a main motion. We've made the motions because it is the only avenue available to these members of the House to bring the government to give more consideration to what they're up to.

One has got to wonder -- just to briefly recap what has happened up to now -- why one or two members of the cabinet are defending this legislation occasionally from time to time during this debate, while members of the back bench are standing up and making the most irrational promises that I've ever heard from any group of government members on any side. They apparently think that all the problems we have in this province are going to be resolved with this piece of Crown corporation nonsense. I think we have reason to be very cautious; I think we have reason to be worried about a piece of legislation as far reaching as this Bill 3.

I want to just emphasize what I'm saying about a general apprehension about the whole bill. I want to just emphasize some of the authority and some of the power that is given to a group of people who are not -- except for the Minister of Finance -- under any scrutiny from this House to spend our money, to raise our money, to sell our assets and to have all the powers of any corporation. I quote particularly section 10, where it says: "There is hereby established a corporation known as the BC Transportation Financing Authority consisting of a board of directors made up of the minister and not more than 4 other members appointed by the Lieutenant Governor in Council."

Those four members and the Minister of Finance have more power, can do more things, can spend more money, can raise more money, can indebt this province, can sell our assets without responsibility to this House for a year and sometime afterwards than this government has itself. You've got to ask the question why the Minister of Finance would want to do that. What is he hiding? What is his objective? Is there something that he can do in the legislation that he can't do in the line departments? Is there something that he can do in this legislation that he doesn't have to report back for examination of budgets in this House? Is there something in this legislation that he doesn't want us to know about? And if so, why doesn't he stand in this House and tell us? The one opportunity he had two days ago to say that, he said: "We've got it to have it through quickly because we're going to plant trees." Because we're going to plant trees, we've got to have this piece of legislation. Who does he think he's talking to? Come on now! Nobody delegates this sort of responsibility to their best friend. Why would they delegate it to a committee? We don't know who it's going to consist of, who is going to be appointed by the minister, to do things that line ministries can do now. We have a right to be suspicious. We have a right on this side of the House to demand some sort of explanation as to what this minister is up to.

When that party, which is now the government, was in opposition, they made fun of the BS fund. They laughed and chuckled; they had such good times. They pointed at the minister. The main critic was the present Minister of Finance. I've got to tell you that he did a good job. He had reason to question them.

Before 1972, back in the late sixties -- before we had Hansard, the only place in Canada that didn't -- they had another little gimmick going called contingent liabilities. The government sloughed off all their debt 

[ Page 5642 ]

into Crown corporations, contingent liabilities, and said: "We're clean; we don't owe anybody anything."

There is no difference between this legislation and the nonsensical legislation of the late sixties and of five years ago with the BS fund, except that this is more ominous, because it gives more power and authority to the minister and the four people he's going to appoint. We know what sort of people they appoint to Crown corporations. They appoint their friends and like-thinking members of the public so they'll get the response they want. In effect what we have here is the Minister of Finance going into the Crown corporations business and being able to sell off the assets of the province, raise money and incur debt that is not in any way warranted.

I will refer to another area of the bill which gives powers and authority to the minister. I would like to refer the House to section 17(2) of the Interpretation Act. That section says: "A majority of the members of the corporation" -- and they're talking about interpreting what a corporation is -- "may bind the others and the corporation by their acts." We have here a committee appointed under section 10, which consists of the Minister of Finance and four others. The majority -- that's three out of five; now we have the minister and two others -- of those people can put this province in a financial situation which is totally beyond the control of this House. And these members on that side of the House are supporting that type of horrendous legislation.

Madam Speaker, under section 23, the powers of ministers and public officers: "The words in an enactment directing or empowering a minister of the Crown to do something or otherwise applying to him by name, or to his office, include a minister designated to act in the office of the deputy of the minister." Here we go again. The minister now has himself, his deputy and one other friend, giving him a majority on the board. And we all know where deputy ministers come from. I'm not criticizing the government for that; they should come from people who are like-minded. So we've got two, by law, members of the same political persuasion in charge of this authority plus one other. The other and two more are all appointed by the government. It's a frightening prospect.

[11:45]

As a consequence of that, and because two of our amendments have been turned down, it is now my intention to make a further amendment. My amendment reads: "that all the words after 'that' be deleted, and be followed by 'Bill 3 now be read a second time, but that the subject matter be referred to the Select Standing Committee on Finance, Crown Corporations and Government Services.'"

The Speaker: When the Chair has received the amendment, I will allow the debate to continue while the Chair considers the amendment.

On the amendment.

C. Tanner: The reason I am making this amendment, Madam Speaker, is because this Legislature has a legislative committee called the Select Standing Committee on Finance, Crown Corporations and Government Services, and it's sort of interesting that, like all legislative committees, the majority of members on that legislative committee are of government persuasion. For example, the member for Cowichan-Ladysmith, the member for Vancouver-Fraserview, the member for Victoria-Beacon Hill, the member for Surrey-Green Timbers, the member for Maple Ridge-Pitt Meadows, the member for Malahat-Juan de Fuca, the member for Burnaby-Edmonds and the member for Surrey-Cloverdale are all members; five of the six members are on the NDP side. On our side we have the members for Surrey-Cloverdale and Delta South, the leader of the Liberal Party in the House; the members for Vancouver-Quilchena and Peace River South, the Leader of the Third Party. So here we have a committee on which, by coincidence, the two opposition leaders sit, which is composed of a majority of the members of the government who can consider this piece of legislation.

I would point out that under Bill 3 there are two committees appointed, one of which will make the decisions and the other of which will review the legislation, and they are made up of government members. At least on this legislative standing committee, the two leaders on the opposition side have an opportunity to sit, and they are, luckily enough, blessed by the members for Surrey-Cloverdale and Vancouver-Quilchena.

There is an opportunity under that legislative standing committee to consider this legislation. There is an opportunity under that legislative standing committee to travel the province -- as this government is so wont to do -- and get the public's opinion. The public deserves to be consulted, because this legislation is very different from anything we've ever seen before in this House. It is different from the BS fund and different from the contingent liability legislation. This is something we need to examine, something the public needs to know about, and something the press gallery should be reporting in headlines, because this government is going in a new direction. We want to know why, and in our view, the place to find out is in front of a legislative standing committee.

Why would they object to that suggestion on this one occasion? In the past year they've had committees running all over the province on every subject you can possibly think of -- sometimes wasting the public's money, in my view. But not in this case, because the public should be allowed to find out what's going on and why the government is making this radical turn.

I would urge all members of the House to support this amendment. And I would ask that every member on both sides of the House -- particularly the back-bench members on that side of the House -- to think very seriously about what they think this legislation's going to do for them. It will not solve your problems unless you know the cost that you will pay, and the cost that they will pay is the cost of having no perusal of the money spent, no perusal of the assets sold, and no perusal of the debt incurred. It's 

[ Page 5643 ]

imperative that this House keep control of those functions.

The Speaker: We're on the amendment.

V. Anderson: We come here again to look at this bill, to try and understand what the government is attempting to undertake. One of the items that we've been involved in over the past few weeks is the attempt to examine the budget of this government and in the estimates to go over the line spending for each of these government items.

But as we look at this bill, what we really discover is the real budget being presented to us, because what we have is an A budget and a B budget. In the A budget, which was the one that was presented to us earlier in this House, they have outlined the estimated expenditures and programs of the various ministries of this government. However, in this B budget, as we have heard from so many of the members opposite, we have before us, in every ministry, suggestions that there will be programs and capital expenditures and undertakings of an unlimited and unlisted kind, simply hinted at again and again. So this B budget, which is the hidden budget of this government, is the one that we are really going to have to deal with in the coming year. That's a very real concern, because in the time that we spend in estimates looking at the A budget, we're discovering now that we're not really looking at the major programs or activities that this government is planning in the province this year. We can look at every ministry of this government and find the opportunity within this hidden B budget -- the Build B.C. budget, the B budget -- for every minister to have transferred to this budget the work that they wish to have done, far beyond anything they had put into their estimates. It gives them the opportunity at the end of the year to say: "Why, look, we only spent half of our money, because we conserved and cut back in our A budget. So we can balance the budget out of our A budget, out of all of the money that we spent."

However, what they have done is spend money out of the hidden B budget under the two or more corporations that they've established by this bill. The money that they've established by this bill will accomplish all of the things and more that they had in their estimates. But none of them will be accountable to the people of British Columbia.

We need to look very carefully at the sleight of hand that's being performed by this government. I doubt if we can find anywhere in the historical roles of the Legislature this kind of double-budget process. Even the hon. members of government, as they have spoken, have testified to the fact that out of this B budget will come projects of an unlimited number. They've already indicated that they are looking forward to the promises they have been making in their ridings of the activities that are coming out of this B budget.

All we have to do is go back in Hansard and list the many promises that they've already portrayed to us. This double-budgeting process is a real concern. The one that is out in the open is only the sham budget. The real budget, hidden from accountable view, is the B budget. We can't stress enough that the people of this province need to discover what this government is about. It is about a social engineering process within this province, the dynamics of which they have not given to us. They have only hinted about the process they have put before us. In this surprise grab-bag of a budget, called Build B.C., we can see just a glimmer of what they are attempting to undertake.

Interjection.

V. Anderson: Across the chamber they're saying it's hypocrisy. I agree wholeheartedly that this Build B.C. budget certainly is hypocrisy, because it's a hidden, behind-the-curtain undertaking which was developed in the back rooms and is being presented and dominated by a very few members, who are not even accountable to their own members.

Hon. Speaker, we're reaching the hour of adjournment. I move that we adjourn the debate until the next sitting.

Motion approved.

Committee of Supply A, having reported progress, was granted leave to sit again.

Hon. L. Boone moved adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

The House adjourned at 11:58 a.m.

PROCEEDINGS IN THE DOUGLAS FIR ROOM

The House in Committee of Supply A; D. Streifel in the chair.

The Committee met at 10:16 a.m.

ESTIMATES: MINISTRY OF LABOUR AND CONSUMER SERVICES

On vote 49: minister's office, $350,350.

G. Farrell-Collins: My question for the minister harkens back to what we were discussing yesterday. I notice he's reported today by a Times-Colonist reporter as saying that he personally picked Hans Brown for the position he now holds. Yesterday the minister said otherwise. Could he clarify what was actually the case?

Hon. M. Sihota: I haven't seen the Times-Colonist report. I can't comment on what's in it. I don't know if it's in quotes. If you have it there, hon. member, give it to me, and I'll take a look at it.

[ Page 5644 ]

G. Farrell-Collins: Did or did not the minister personally select Hans Brown for the position?

Hon. M. Sihota: As I said yesterday to the press, and as I will repeat today in this chamber: regardless of who was or was not involved, who was considered and who was not considered, there was a decision made with regard to Mr. Brown. I'm accountable for those positions, as I said yesterday, and am prepared to answer questions put to me regarding that decision. It was a wise decision, one easily defended. I was questioned yesterday by the press about Mr. Brown, in terms of responsibility, and during the course of the interview I indicated that I am responsible for any hiring decisions made in the ministry, regardless of how they're made, who makes them or when they're made. Those are my responsibilities.

There have been questions recently regarding Mr. Brown and Mr. Eliesen. I'm happy to answer questions with respect to Mr. Brown and Mr. Eliesen, but I'm not going to get into discussions about who else was considered for those positions.

I know the hon. member has concerns about the decision that has been made. He articulated those yesterday; they're on the record. I want to put on the record that I am personally accountable, as the minister, for any of these decisions. That's my job as minister of this portfolio.

G. Farrell-Collins: We all know that the minister is ultimately responsible for the actions of his ministry. That's nothing new to anybody. Quite clearly that's the case. The question isn't whether or not as a minister he's responsible for the actions of his ministry, but whether he was personally responsible for that appointment. Did he personally select that member, or was it done by other people within the ministry?

Hon. M. Sihota: I'm accountable to this House for the decisions that are made in the ministry. In this case, I'm quite prepared to handle any questions with regard to his skills or qualifications for the job for which he was selected.

G. Farrell-Collins: The question is quite simple. Did the minister as a person, not necessarily as the minister, personally select this gentleman for this position? Was it the minister's recommendation that he be hired? Or was it a recommendation that came from within the ministry itself? I think that's a legitimate question to be asking the minister, and I think it's a question that he should be answering.

The Chair: Hon. member, put in that light, the Chair believes the question may be out of order in that you are asking the minister as a person, not as the minister, to answer the question. That clearly puts it outside the realm of the minister's office.

G. Farrell-Collins: I'll try and phrase the question more precisely then. Was this gentleman hired on the recommendation of the minister, or was this gentleman hired on a recommendation from staff within the ministry?

Hon. M. Sihota: As I've indicated to the member opposite, this was a decision for which I am accountable. This decision was made after some discussion, and a four-month contract was entered into.

G. Farrell-Collins: I guess the question is whether this gentleman was recommended to him by the professionals in his ministry or whether this gentleman was recommended to the ministry by the minister himself?

Hon. M. Sihota: When a decision is made to hire someone of Mr. Brown's stature, with his background, it is obvious to all that this decision will attract public interest. Therefore a minister is involved in considerations regarding the decisions that are made. The final call on this kind of decision rests with the minister because of the publicity it's bound to generate. In that context, yes, the final call was made by the minister. It had to be because of the nature of the individual's background.

G. Farrell-Collins: I guess the question then is: was it the minister who brought this name to the attention of his staff, or was it the staff who brought the name of this gentleman to the attention of the minister?

Hon. M. Sihota: With respect to that question, it is absolutely immaterial. The point is that it was a decision which, given the fact of who was hired, obviously at the end of the day has to be made by me. And it was.

G. Farrell-Collins: Perhaps then the minister can outline in a little more detail than he did yesterday the parameters of Mr. Brown's duties and how they relate to the terms of reference of the review panel. He stated quite clearly that they don't conflict with each other. Perhaps he can explain how they are different, and how that process is going to take place.

Hon. M. Sihota: In this case, a recommendation was made by the ombudsman that the appeals within the employment standards branch go to the Labour Relations Board. I'm sorry, the ombudsman recommended that there had to be a different way in which we deal with appeals from the employment standards branch. She did not specify whether or not it should go to the Labour Relations Board, but she did recommend that we had to change the system of appeals within the employment standards branch. Why? Because it was felt that to make an appeal within the same branch would be asking the people who had passed judgment in the first place to make a judgment.

A committee of special advisers looked at this issue and encouraged the government to go in the direction of having these appeals handled by the Labour Relations Board. That decision was based as much on good economy -- i.e. utilizing an agency that exists -- as on trying to find an appeal mechanism. That's 

[ Page 5645 ]

important to say, because we had the same problem, for example, in terms of what we do with appeals in residential tenancy.

I don't have the terms of reference here with me, which I will get. I'd be happy to return to this issue at 2 o'clock with the hon member. The terms of reference for the employment standards review are very explicit. They explicitly state that the government has made a decision, and the decision is that there will be appeals from the employment standards branch to the Labour Relations Board.

Let me quote from the terms of reference: "To review and make recommendations on an expedited basis on three aspects of the existing Employment Standards Act." One of those is: "the legislative amendments necessary to transfer employment standards appeals to the Labour Relations Board."

So the government made a decision that there will be this appeal mechanism. They are required now to tell us how we ought to do that, and that is what they are doing. Mr. Brown is not doing that. Mr. Brown is taking a look at a number of areas relating to the appeals and getting a better understanding -- and helping the government have a better understanding -- of the kinds, quantity and nature of appeals. So I think that answers the question. In my view there is no overlap between the work, and there is no work being done that I think would override or contradict the work of the panel. Mr. Brown is working on the technical aspects of the issue.

I should also let the hon. member know that because of some of the concerns around this issue, and because of wanting absolute certainty and wanting to talk to the Canadian Federation of Independent Business -- who expressed a concern on this issue -- I will be discussing this issue further with Mr. Brown this afternoon. I'm quite happy to return to this topic at 2:30 when we reconvene, to elaborate on the answer that I have given. But I am confident, on the basis of the information that I've had to date, that this is not an overlap in responsibilities.

Secondly, I want to make it abundantly clear, because I think this is where the confusion arose in the first place, that Mr. Brown is not doing a review of the Employment Standards Act. I make that abundantly clear and I want to put that on the record, because I have indicated that to the small business group. I understand that their statements in the press were predicated on that assumption. I can understand that the nuances sometimes get lost. They appear to be lost to the critic as well. So it is important that that point be stated explicitly on the record.

[10:30]

G. Farrell-Collins: I understand the minister saying that he is going to be discussing this with Mr. Brown this afternoon and getting back to this House afterwards, when I assume he will have more information for us than he has presently.

My question is: if Mr. Brown was hired with specific terms of reference, and those terms of reference don't conflict with the terms of reference given to the review panel, why does that discussion need to take place? I don't know if it's for clarification or not. That's a conversation between the two, which I suppose we can look at this afternoon.

The minister said that Mr. Brown is looking at the technical aspect of the appeals. What would be involved in the technical portion, and how can we do that review of the technical aspect before we even have recommendations from the panel as to what the legislative changes should be?

Hon. M. Sihota: The review panel is being asked to take a look at the structure of the appeal mechanism -- how it should work. They will be giving us some recommendations with regard to the structure of the appeal system. That is distinct from looking at the technical aspects in terms of the kinds of problems and cases and how we physically begin to move the files through the system into the Labour Relations Board, assuming that we know it's going to go to the Labour Relations Board. If I could just give an example: of all the physical changes that have to happen within the context of that appeal, the review will do the structural work. He is doing the background technical work. Once legislation is in place it is up to the panel to tell us how the process will develop. They are to tell us, for example, how we are to deal with variances. That's something which the panel does. It's not something that we've asked Mr. Brown to do. While they are doing that work -- because we know that it is going to the Labour Relations Board -- we're asking Mr. Brown to do the technical work in terms of making sure that we can physically establish a system that fits in with the structure that's established by the panel. That's why the contract with Mr. Brown is for the time period it's for. It's a four-month contract.

G. Farrell-Collins: If Mr. Brown is doing the technical aspect -- of how to physically move these appeals, as the minister puts it, and how these are going to be transferred and how they're going to be dealt with -- while the board or the panel is on an expedited process, as the minister says, of developing the structure of the mechanism, it would seem to me that the panel and Mr. Brown will be working intimately together and will be consulting on an almost daily basis as to how that will be taking place. Can you tell the House whether or not that's taking place?

Hon. M. Sihota: I'm not sure if that's on a daily basis. I think the hon. member would agree that there's a little bit of hyperbole in that statement. I think one would presume that they would get together to discuss their examinations, and that is certainly an assumption that I've made as we've worked this thing through.

G. Farrell-Collins: Looking at the administration of this process raises a question in my mind as to why the members of the panel didn't know that Mr. Brown had been appointed. They didn't know that he was doing this work. They didn't know that he was there, or that he was employed by the employment standards branch. How is it that members of the panel weren't involved in determining who would be good to 

[ Page 5646 ]

do that job -- at least on a consultative basis? I can't understand it. It seems from an administrative point of view that the minister, as an administrator, would have consulted the panel to determine that it would be comfortable with whoever was doing that position. Of course, the decision ultimately rests with the minister. But in order to make sure that the process works well, that they're on the same wavelength, and that they understand what it is they're trying to do, certainly they should have been involved in some capacity as a sounding board on that appointment.

The minister is not only personally choosing this gentleman to do this job, and taking personal responsibility for it, but he has also chosen the people on the panel. They were appointed two or three weeks ago, and if they're working on an expedited basis, I think time is of the essence. As soon as they were appointed and Mr. Brown was hired, surely the minister, as an administrator, should have brought those people together to say: "Here are your terms of reference; here are the goals we're trying to achieve. This is what you're going to do, and this is what you're going to do. Let's sit down and see if we can draw out some parameters on the activities of each of us and come to some conclusion." That's just basic administration.

When people are working on a project that is so intimately linked, as the minister says, to the point where the people themselves who are involved have difficulty understanding where the terms of reference overlap, surely the minister would get those people together and have them discuss that. I find it extremely curious that the minister appoints this gentleman and doesn't even tell the people who are involved in the structural process that the work is going on. Why did that take place? What's the explanation for that?

Hon. M. Sihota: First of all, let me make it very clear that there is no hidden agenda here. What the hon. member would like to establish is that the government has Mr. Brown doing some work that is the real work of employment standards, and the panel is just sort of an exercise. That's not true at all. I want him to disabuse his mind of that suggestion. I understand that it's in his interest politically to try to make that point, but I want to make it clear that that's not the case. I've communicated that to the party since this issue has arisen.

Second, the hon. member should understand that Mr. Brown is not making decisions with regard to policy.

Third, he should understand that it is the responsibility of Mr. Thompson, with the advisers that are there, to make decisions regarding policy. They are making the fundamental policy decisions with regard to the structure of this matter. Therefore there's this clear difference between what they are doing and what Mr. Brown is doing.

Fourth, the hon. member talks about parameters and the fact that these people should get together from time to time. He's right; the panel is required to do this on an expedited basis. They met -- for the first time, I believe -- on April 22. It seems to me only common sense that they meet first to determine exactly how they want to approach the issue.

Fifth, it seems to me that during the course of their discussions regarding the expedited issues -- one of which is the transfer of these appeals -- they will inevitably want to meet with Mr. Lanyon, because the Labour Relations Board is required to be involved in the technical aspects of these appeal matters. They will also want to meet with Mr. Brown because of his responsibilities, which I've outlined. They met for the first time on April 22 as a panel. I'm sure that as time goes on they will want to meet with both Mr. Lanyon and Mr. Brown, because they have some responsibilities. They will want to meet with our employment standards folks to get a better understanding of some of the difficulties that arise when trying to make these policy decisions.

So they will meet, hon. member, on those kinds of terms. They will not meet when you want them to meet; they will meet when they want to meet. And they will decide who they want to meet and when they want to meet with that person.

G. Farrell-Collins: Of course they're going to meet when they want to meet. The fact of the matter is, though, that the panel didn't even know Mr. Brown had been hired. How can they ask for a meeting with the gentleman when they don't even know he's there, and didn't know the terms of reference of his contract and what he's doing? Surely the minister, as an administrator, should have advised the people on the panel that he was coming on stream. There were concerns expressed, rumours moving around throughout the industry and a report in the Sun -- as late as March 11, before this House even sat -- that Mr. Brown was being considered for a vice-chair's position with the Labour Relations Board handling appeals and that this was of concern to the people who would be involved in the panel the minister was planning to set up.

The minister should have headed this off at the pass, so to speak, and told those people: "Mr. Brown is being hired; he's being hired to do only the technical aspects and he's only going to be dealing with these specific things. These are his terms of reference. He starts on this date. It's a four-month contract. This is what he's being paid." Or you might not want to tell them the amount. "This is what his contract is. You know he's there, so we don't have any misunderstanding." Surely the minister should have done that. He's caused himself no end of grief over this issue, and he's certainly caused no end of discomfort and concern among the business community, which is a group he wants to be involved in the process.

As an administrator, the minister should have advised them that this gentleman was coming on board, what his terms of reference are and given them every assurance at that time that there would be no impact and no overlap. Why would the minister wait until the issue was brought up in question period in the House to give those assurances? I would have assumed that his answer would have been very clear and forthright, and that in fact all these people would have been advised 

[ Page 5647 ]

and involved. It shows an abysmal lack of judgment, if nothing else, to go through that process and not to involve those people.

The minister has selected this gentleman to operate in a technical capacity to deal with this section of the review process, if I can call it that. I want to make it clear to the minister that I'm not saying this gentleman is out there doing an independent, one-person review of the whole Employment Standards Act, because I don't believe that to be true. I want to, as the minister says, disabuse his mind of that. But clearly, if he is involved in this process in some way, the minister should have advised those people as to what the parameters were. I know the minister gave us an idea yesterday of when the term of his contract started. Perhaps he can remind us of that exact date again.

The Chair: Before the Chair recognizes the minister, I think I'll address the committee in general on standing order 43 on tedious and repetitious debate, and standing order 61 on relevancy and matters regarding the necessity of legislation and examining legislation. It appears to me that examining the parameters and terms of reference for the committee to review employment standards is a matter requiring legislation, and we'll be dealing with legislation. It seems to me that the technical aspect, control under the minister's office of Mr. Brown, sets up a process that may not require legislation.

We're moving into an area where we're getting out of the parameters of the examination of the estimates of the minister's office. We've been on it for some 25 minutes now. It's becoming somewhat tedious. I caution the committee, the minister and the critic to bring this back into the area of relevancy within the minister's office, or we'll go on to a new topic. Thank you.

G. Farrell-Collins: Hon. Chair, I'll be very careful in my questions. But it's quite clear to me that the expenditure of $30,000 for a four-month contract is of concern to the public. Clearly that's an expenditure involved within the minister's portfolio and something to which he himself has stated in this House that he must be accountable.

The Chair: Hon. member, order, please. If you'd review, the Chair has stated that that does come under the parameters of the minister's office. The work of the committee to develop legislation around employment standards is not examinable in the estimates. Bear that in mind, please, hon. member.

[10:45]

G. Farrell-Collins: I'm not concerned with policy decisions that will be made by that committee. I've never asked one question on that. Those decisions will be made by that panel and will be referred to the minister. That's all been laid out. I'm not asking any questions whatsoever with the legislation that will be coming down sometime in the next 12 months or so.

My questions deal specifically with the process this minister entered into as the administrator in charge of millions of dollars in his budget, and whether or not he is making those decisions accordingly. Those definitely fall within the realm....

The Chair: Do you have a question for the minister, or is this a point of order, hon. member?

G. Farrell-Collins: Call it a point of order, if you want. That's fine. This clearly falls within the minister's purview. We are asking the minister for the dates and times of this gentleman's appointment. That is certainly within order of this House. The minister has the question.

The Chair: On the point of order, then, thank you for your direction. I'm glad you agree with the Chair that that expenditure is within the purview of the minister's office.

Hon. M. Sihota: I answered the question yesterday.

G. Farrell-Collins: Can the minister then confirm the reports we have from the personnel department of his ministry that, in fact, Mr. Brown is in training at employment standards.

Hon. M. Sihota: Mr. Brown will work to establish a system of appeals, employments standards issues of the Labour Relations Board, and will render related services that may be required by the Chair of the Labour Relations Board. Those are the terms of the contract.

G. Farrell-Collins: Is the gentleman in training, or is he on contract and working as a fully paid person under this contract?

Hon. M. Sihota: He's in a four-month contract -- and I've already indicated that -- paying the rates, which I've already indicated on the record, for that time period.

G. Farrell-Collins: This will probably be my last question on this, and I want to be careful how I ask it. Seeing as the remuneration that goes with this contract is now public record, can the minister explain why that level of remuneration was chosen -- that of a vice-chair? It was rumoured in the media and in the industry that the gentleman was being hired ultimately to take on a position as vice-chair of this appeals division. Could the minister comment on why a level of remuneration coinciding with the vice-chair's was chosen?

Hon. M. Sihota: Surely to God, the hon. member doesn't expect me to get into discussions about why people are paid, or the basis of negotiations for people to be paid certain rates of pay.

G. Farrell-Collins: Perhaps we can move off that issue for now. We'll get back to it after lunch, once he's had a chance to speak to Mr. Brown.

[ Page 5648 ]

There's been a certain level of concern with changes made to the Labour Relations Code in this House last fall, as they apply to the upcoming fiscal year. Could the minister give us an idea what the rate of certifications has been since January or so, and what plans he's made for that in the upcoming budget?

Hon. M. Sihota: The hon. member should know there actually have been quite a few certifications. I don't have the actual numbers here, but I notice, looking at the weekly reports as they come in, there has been a fair number of certifications. Something in the back of my mind tells me there have been about 4,000 employees certified since January 1 of this year. If you want, we will get you the actual number.

In terms of expenses to the ministry, you have to understand that under the previous system, because we had to have votes, we used to spend a lot of money on holding those votes. We're saving money because we don't have to hold those votes. I know the system takes into account that we would be getting more business in certifications. That's true. It doesn't necessary follow that there will be increased costs. There are some costs, obviously, and we anticipate more volume. We think we can handle it.

G. Farrell-Collins: I've heard a variety of numbers for the rates of certifications. My understanding from the latest numbers I heard is that in the first four months of the calendar year we've dramatically increased the number of certifications. Primarily the question is about the size of those bargaining units. My understanding is that a good volume are bargaining units of between one and ten employees. Can the minister give us those statistics and those numbers?

Hon. M. Sihota: That's true. They've been on the smaller side. We can get you actual numbers. I was looking at the breakdowns last week, and I must say that I was a little surprised to see how many were on the smaller side. That is indeed what's happening.

G. Farrell-Collins: I would indeed like to receive those numbers. It would be helpful to receive them as soon as we can. I don't know if we're getting them shortly or if the time frame.... Perhaps the minister can tell us when we can expect them.

Interjection.

G. Farrell-Collins: This afternoon? That's fine.

The Chair: Through the Chair, hon. members, please.

G. Farrell-Collins: I'm allowed to take time to think, am I not?

The Chair: Order, hon. member! It's never appropriate -- in committee or in the House -- to question a ruling from the Chair, hon. members. It's never appropriate to question the direction from the Chair, hon. member, as well. The Chair is exercising a great deal of patience this morning in the way this debate is progressing. If the hon. member would carry on with his question, the committee would be able to progress. Thank you, hon. member.

G. Farrell-Collins: I was in the process of asking a question, and I will continue with the question to the minister.

When the debate and the discussions and the involvement took place with the business community in the review of this code and how it impacts this upcoming year, the minister made it quite clear numerous times that this code would have very little impact on small and medium-sized businesses. Can the minister explain how those comments relate now, given that we have seen this dramatic increase in the certifications in the small bargaining units of one to ten persons?

Hon. M. Sihota: It just amazes me. You don't have the numbers, but you call them dramatic. Why don't you just wait until you get the numbers, and then we can decide whether it's dramatic?

G. Farrell-Collins: You said they were dramatic.

Hon. M. Sihota: No, you said it was dramatic. The point that I'd make is that since these changes have come in, there has been an increase in the number of employees who are certified in the one-to-ten range; where you have one to ten employees at a job site. I don't know what the hon. member is arguing. Is he arguing that somehow it's wrong that people who work in small enterprises be entitled to have the protection of trade unions? Do you say it's wrong to have collective bargaining in employer organizations that have a small number of employees? Does he think that those men and women who work in smaller enterprises should not be entitled to secure those rights? Does he find it alarming and frightening that men and women wish to join a trade union, even though they're in a small company? What's wrong with that? If that's what the trend is, that's what the trend is. Quite frankly, to my way of thinking, the more people think about these issues and debate among themselves whether or not they want to have trade union representation, the better. So there should be that kind of debate in society.

I know where the right-wing fundamentalists in the Liberal Party come from. They don't think that people should have these rights. Well, I don't apologize for the fact that people should have these rights. People should have the right to decide whether or not they want to be in a trade union. They ought to be able to make that decision freely, and it ought not to concern the hon. member whether or not those people are members of a small employer or a large employer. They should have that right.

I'll tell you something. So long as we're in government, we will defend the right of people to decide if they want to join a trade union. So they're joining 

[ Page 5649 ]

a trade union, and it may be that they're joining trade unions in small organizations. So what? Does that strike fear into your heart? Does that make you tremble? In fact, hon. member, I should do....

The Chair: Through the Chair, hon. minister, please.

Hon. M. Sihota: Hon. Chair, that should make the hon. member do the exact opposite. He should applaud the fact that working men and women are consciously making decisions to join trade unions. There's nothing wrong with that. There's everything wrong with a society that frowns upon people having those rights. The reason why we in British Columbia live in the kind of prosperous economy that we have and the reason why we in British Columbia have the kinds of benefits that we can provide to working men and women in this province is to a large measure due to the fact that we have had active trade unions in this province since the turn of the century. Trade unionism is a valuable asset in terms of our economic culture here in British Columbia.

I know that those who are the right-wing fundamentalists in the extreme side of the Liberal Party -- like, I guess, the hon. member is -- would have some difficulty, hon. Chair....

G. Farrell-Collins: Point of order, hon. Chair. I'm sure the Chair can find the appropriate standing order that harkens or makes comment about personal attack and name-calling in the House. I would just ask the minister to come to order and be more relevant to what we're discussing here.

The Chair: On the point of order, it's appropriate for the member who rises on a point of order to state the standing order under which the point is made.

G. Farrell-Collins: Forty-three.

The Chair: Your point is well taken, hon. member. It is never appropriate in debate in the House for a minister or any member of the House to launch personal attacks on an individual. I'm sure, if the minister has trod over the line, he would be glad to reconsider and choose a little more carefully some of the words used.

[11:00]

Hon. M. Sihota: Hon. Chair, I'm talking not about the individual but about the fundamental difference in ideology between that political party and the political party I represent. We on this side of the House believe strongly that people ought to have trade union rights; that there are benefits which accrue to working men and women when they are the beneficiaries of a collective agreement. There's nothing wrong with that. I find it disconcerting that the party opposite seems to think there is something wrong with employees because they work in the small business sector, that they ought not to have these rights. We prosper as a society in large measure.... I don't want to engage in hyperbole, as the hon. member often does. I'll just put it this way: we benefit as a society because we have encouraged the development of trade unions in this society. I make no apologies whatsoever for the fact that men and women have sought the protections that trade unions secure for them, whether they work for one employer, ten, 20, 30, 40, or 100.

G. Farrell-Collins: The minister took a question and turned it into a speech.

I don't know if the minister was asleep during the eight weeks when this bill was debated in the House, but if he was awake, I'm sure he would have understood that the Liberal Party is in no way opposed to individual workers making a choice as to whether or not they wish to become certified and be represented collectively by a trade union. I have absolutely no problem with that at all; in fact, if employees choose to do that, I would encourage them. That's strictly their choice. I wouldn't for one minute wish to interfere in that and counsel them to go one way or the other. That's clearly their option. There is not one person in the Liberal Party who would state otherwise. Quite clearly, that decision is left to the employees, and to the employees alone. In fact, we argued in favour of employees having the right to vote on that decision and being able to make that choice freely, as opposed to involving some of the other factors -- the intimidation that takes place on both sides -- which the minister, even during the debate, conceded did take place.

We have absolutely no problem with employees making that decision. We would encourage them to make that decision, but we would choose that they be able to make that decision in a secret way within the confines of a polling booth. That is the fundamental difference the minister talks about between his party and this party. If he somehow thinks that rights for individual employees to vote in a secret manner is somehow fundamentalist and right-wing, then perhaps from where the minister sits on the political spectrum, anything other than his opinion would look right-wing. The vast majority of people in this country would agree that the right to a secret ballot and a secret vote is something that's a cornerstone of democracy. The minister disagrees with that cornerstone of democracy. He's made that quite clear again in his little tirade.

The Chair: Order, hon. member. The same ruling on an attack on an individual would apply in this stage of debate as was applied just a few moments ago. It may be worthwhile for the Chair to review at this time that we are again treading into an area that would require legislation to bring about the changes that are under examination. We are bound by the standing orders to examine the administration of the minister's office, not the need for future legislation. I would caution the committee this morning to keep the debate within order -- within the standing orders.

G. Farrell-Collins: The question that I stated to the minister, before he got off on his campaign speech, related to the certification of employees and the size of those units. How does he reconcile that he stated publicly, in the House and in meetings with all 

[ Page 5650 ]

members of the business community -- and I'm sure with labour also -- that the plan for those changes didn't really involve small and medium-sized businesses, and wouldn't have an impact on them, and now we see in the minister's estimates, and with the comments he made earlier, that -- to use his own words -- he was surprised by the level of certification in the low end of the employee numbers? Perhaps he can reconcile those two issues.

Hon. M. Sihota: I'm not sure what that has to do with estimates, but let me answer the question. I obviously underestimated the extent to which the trade union movement would seek to organize employees in the one-to-ten employee group. I will take this opportunity to congratulate the trade unions for showing the vigour that they have in going out and organizing, and providing collective bargaining rights for those workers. In terms of the retail sector or the tourism sector, I don't know to what extent there has been penetration in those sectors, which have traditionally been underrepresented by trade unions. I put forward the argument at the time of the bill that they were underrepresented, and that there's a challenge there for trade unions to prove that they were relevant. I take it that they are now meeting that challenge by proving their relevancy and encouraging the employees to determine whether or not they are sufficiently relevant to meet the contemporary needs of those employees.

G. Farrell-Collins: I would hazard a guess that the minister wasn't that surprised after all, and that it was quite clear in his mind when those changes were made that this is exactly the type of thing that would happen. He would have been in agreement with the small and medium-sized business representatives when they said that that would be the case and that they should be more involved in the process.

I have a question for the minster. We talked a little about the certification process and the demands that is placing on his ministry for the upcoming fiscal year. The minister says there are going to be cost savings there because there are no votes, and votes cost money and take time. Can the minister state what level of votes is anticipated to take place -- if at all -- under the new code with the sign-up in the 45 to 55 percent range?

The Chair: Hon. minister and hon. member, that clearly calls for a hypothetical conclusion on the part of the minister.

G. Farrell-Collins: Point of order. If I'm going to ask questions in estimates, I have to ask the minister what he has budgeted for in the upcoming year. Budgets are hypothetical; they are based on projections. If I can't ask questions that are based on projections, then how is it possible to do anything in this House?

The Chair: Order, hon. member. That is not a valid point of order. The point of the question was to ask the minister to hypothesize on how many votes will be voted on and how many won't be voted on. It's not usual for the Chair to offer an explanation of a ruling under a standing order. The Chair's patience is being stretched to the limit this morning.

G. Farrell-Collins: The Chair's patience is out of order. On a point of order, hon. Chair, this is ridiculous.

The Chair: Order, order!

G. Farrell-Collins: If I can't ask the minister questions as they relate to the estimates, then we might as well adjourn this House and go home.

The Chair: Order, hon. member. Would the hon. member come to order!

Hon. M. Sihota: Yes, go home. See you.

G. Farrell-Collins: Hon. Chair, can the minister tell us...?

The Chair: Hon. member, would you please take your seat.

On vote 49, the hon. member for Fort Langley-Aldergrove.

G. Farrell-Collins: Hon. Chair, my question to the minister is: can he tell us what allowances have been made in this budget for votes that may take place under the new certification procedure, as it relates to the votes that would take place when there is a sign-up of between 45 and 55 percent?

Hon. M. Sihota: There's no discrete provision in the budget in that sense. What we have is employment standards personnel, which the hon. member obviously doesn't realize, do these votes, and what happens.... I'm sure he'd benefit from a thorough understanding of the ministry. The employment standards branch goes out and conducts these votes when they're required. If they are not required to do that, then they do their general work, which is to try to bring down the backlog we've got in terms of employment standards. Otherwise they're taken out to do this. There's not a specific allocation in the budget for this; rather, it is within the general staff allocation of employment standards, and we deal with the issues as they arise.

Secondly, I don't have the numbers here in terms of how many votes we've had in the 45 to 55 percent range. We've had some, but not a lot.

G. Farrell-Collins: I don't want to berate the minister, but it's becoming very difficult to get through this process when the questions are asked and the minister doesn't have the information available to him. I would suggest that the minister make himself apprised of that information. I made an offer to him last year to provide him with the written questions -- the information and the details -- that I would be asking, so we could speed up the process. Unfortunately, it took six months to get it.

[ Page 5651 ]

If the minister wants to go through that process again, if he feels that it would work better and be a more efficient use of his time and that of his staff, I would be glad to submit a similar list of written questions for this term of estimates. He can get back to us in a couple of days and we can resume. I find it very difficult to ask questions of the minister with regard to the expenditures and plans for his ministry when he doesn't have the information available and keeps telling us he will get back to us. I can't wait six months to get answers to these questions. We are in estimates, and I assume these estimates will finish up sometime this week or next. It makes it very difficult for us to do this job if the minister doesn't have answers to the questions. If he is the minister, he should be able to answer these questions in this House.

The minister perhaps can discuss that with his staff and determine what his choice will be. If he is going to be accountable, as he says, to the public, he has to be able to answer these questions in some sort of a timely fashion. Perhaps the minister can respond to that first of all. Then I know my colleague has some questions on certain issues.

Hon. M. Sihota: Maybe the hon. member didn't understand. I can't tell you how many dollars we've allocated for votes in the 45 to 55 percent range, because we don't have an idea of how many we expect in the area. That's the way it works. We do have some information in terms of the Labour Relations Board and the number of employees who have been certified. I would be happy to give that to the hon. member because he requested it.

As of April 19, it states that from January 18, 1993, to March 31, 1993, 95 applications for certification for previously unorganized employees filed under the Labour Relations Board were granted. Of these certifications, 87 were granted automatically with membership percentages shown in the following table: 27 percent in the 55 to 65 percent range; 33.3 percent in the 66 to 75 percent range; 13.8 percent in the 76 to 85 percent range; and 25.3 percent in the 86 to 100 percent range. That's the distribution in terms of those 87 of the 95.

[11:15]

A vote was ordered for the remaining eight certifications. In four cases, the membership percentages were between 45 and 55 percent, so you can see that less than one-tenth of the applications fall in that category. In two cases, votes were held because the membership cards were signed before the proclamation date. In one case, a vote was ordered under section 24(1) because the panel doubted the veracity of the membership evidence. In one case, a vote was ordered under section 24(1), as part of the settlement agreement.

The member obviously therefore knows that we do take a look into the veracity of the evidence. If it's not satisfactory, we don't proceed.

One of the certifications granted was for a unit composed of dependent contractors. It was granted, of course, automatically. Another of the certifications was for a bargaining unit composed of employees of independent contractors. It was also granted automatically.

The hon. member asked a question about how they break down, by the size of the certification and the size of the bargaining unit. Of the 95 certifications, 40 were in the area of zero to ten. Nineteen were in the area of 11 to 20; 11 were 21 to 30; ten were 31 to 40; three were 41 to 50; five were 51 to 60; three were 61 to 100; and four were over 100. The average bargaining unit size was 27 employees.

At the same time, four certification applications filed in the Labour Relations Board for previously unorganized employees were dismissed, so we've had some dismissals. Two were dismissed because of alternate applications to expand a presently certified bargaining unit. One was dismissed because the bargaining unit was not appropriate. For one case, the membership percentage was over 55 percent, but the parties agreed to a vote under subsection 24(1). In that case the union lost.

To date this year, 12 of the 20 applications for decertification were granted, covering 121 workers. In 1992, 56 decertifications were granted, covering 1,026 workers. In 1991, 51 decertifications were granted. The hon. member should also know that this year four picketing/strike/lockout applications have been initiated.

I should also advise the hon. member -- in response to another question he had asked -- that the registry of the Labour Relations Board initiated 80 applications this week, making a total 1,262 applications initiated in 1993. In 1992 the council received 4,740 applications, and 3,243 in 1991. Currently there are 358 active cases in the registry.

He asked earlier on about the number of applications and how many workers were covered. To date 136 of the 184 applications -- I guess at that time that's all they had calculated -- covered 3,801 workers; I'd said somewhere in the neighbourhood of 3,000. Under the Labour Relations Code, 109 automatic certifications have been granted and eight have been granted following representation vote. In 1992, 197 certifications were granted, covering 4,643 workers -- that's under the previous legislation. In 1991, 244 certifications were granted, covering 5,413 workers.

If you take 1991, just for the sake of argument -- which I think is what the hon. member is trying to get at -- 1991 would have been entirely under Bill 19. In that year there were 244 certifications covering 5,413 workers. In the period I indicated earlier -- let's say roughly from the middle of January to the end of March of this year -- we have received 184 applications covering 3,801 workers. So if you work on some sort of trend line, it's obvious since this legislation came into force that we are seeing an increase in the number of people securing certification. It should be noted, however, not to assume that those trend lines will continue, because historically there has been a pattern in terms of the seasons and when work comes.

Finally, with regard to the question raised by the hon. member, because these figures are sort of frozen in the snapshot taken as of April 19, and actually as of March 31, if the hon. member wishes from time to time 

[ Page 5652 ]

to correspond with me and ask me for updates, we'd be replied.

W. Hurd: I had some specific questions relative to my riding with respect to the Ministry of Labour and Consumer Services. If this causes us to jump ahead in the schedule somewhat, I apologize to my colleague, with guidance from the Chair.

My initial question regards the issue of manufactured homes in British Columbia, and particularly the south Surrey-White Rock region, where there are four or five such parks. Since being elected I've received numerous representations from groups concerned about the review of the Residential Tenancy Act pertaining to those particular manufactured-home parks, the escalating pad rentals and the security that might be available. I'm aware that the hon. member for Juan de Fuca-Malahat conducted a review of the manufactured-home issue at the request of the Ministry of Labour.

I just first of all wondered whether there were any additional funds devoted under the ministry's estimates for continued review of this issue. We can't address that, as there may be legislation coming, but I would certainly welcome comment from the minister on his assessment of the review commissioned by his ministry.

Further to that, I understand that the manufactured-home park owners have reviewed the terms of reference and the findings of the report from the hon. member for Malahat-Juan de Fuca and have indeed accepted the recommendations. I would welcome discussion on this problem from the minister under the votes of his ministry. Is any further study likely to be needed on it?

Hon. M. Sihota: One of the best examples of this government reacting to the concerns of ordinary British Columbians is the initiatives we've taken with regard to manufactured-home owners. The member for Malahat-Juan de Fuca and I have a significant number of residents in our constituencies who live in manufactured homes. During the last election campaign, we campaigned on working toward the establishment of a bill of rights for manufactured-home owners. I'm pleased to report to the House that we moved with some dispatch in terms of attending to that need.

My colleague, the hon. member notes, initiated a report at the request of our ministry and myself. It's important to say this report came after a lot of reports from the previous administration, where there had been a tremendous amount of inaction with regard to protecting the rights of manufactured-home owners. We want to put an end to that pattern of inaction and move with initiatives to protect the rights of manufactured-home owners. That will be done.

The hon. member is right. The rules unfortunately constrain us here; we can't talk about pending legislation. That being the case, I can assure the hon. member that this government will proceed with its election commitment to protect the interests of manufactured-home owners. I know the problem firsthand because of my association with park owners and tenants when I was in opposition and since then.

I have met recently with the owners' representatives, and I agree with their view that the report prepared is excellent. It gives me comfort to know there's some consensus with regard to the report. It always makes it easier to make implementations.

I should take this opportunity to congratulate the park owners and the tenants for their interest in this issue, and the member for Malahat-Juan de Fuca for his hard work in concluding the report in an expeditious fashion. We understand our obligations as a ministry to proceed, and I want to give the individuals affected, namely the tenants, on-the-record assurance that we will proceed with dispatch.

In addition to that, I would like to thank the hon. member, in advance, for congratulating this government for the work it's doing in that regard.

W. Hurd: Further to my question, can the minister explain to me, as someone with many manufactured-home parks in my riding, exactly what protection is available under the Residential Tenancy Act while we're in this period of waiting for legislation that might or might not come this session? There's a great deal of concern being expressed by the current residents of parks about the urgency of their situation. As land values escalate and property taxes continue to escalate, there is a real danger of rents escalating and pressure being put on in anticipation of the government coming up with legislative changes. For the benefit of the committee and of myself, as someone trying to get a handle on this issue, what protection might be available to the residents of the manufactured-home park?

Hon. M. Sihota: I would be happy to inform the hon. member, because it's important that he know what rights accrue to his constituents. If I may say, those rights are stipulated in the legislation. There are some provisions that exist with regard to termination and notice of rents. As the hon. member may not be aware, the current legislation provides for a 12-month provision for a notice of rent increase and a six-month provision with regard to termination of a lease.

The hon. member asked about rent review. That's interesting, because I didn't realize that his party was in favour of rent review. I guess we're all learning things as we engage in this debate. I'm pleased to see that they are in favour of rent review.

W. Hurd: Mr. Chairman, from an innocuous request about a review of the Residential Tenancy Act, it's a massive leap to rent review. But it's a gap that I'm sure the minister has bridged many times before.

I was specifically interested in a situation where the manufactured-home park has separate lots or is subdivided. Can we get into a situation where the manufactured home is sold, which provides the park owner with the opportunity to raise the rent without the 12-month notice? Does the sale of the manufactured home in any way compromise that section?

[ Page 5653 ]

The Chair: Order, hon. member. We're in a division in the House now. The sessional orders require that this committee rise and report progress a half-hour before. Could we entertain that motion now?

Hon. M. Sihota: Given the fact that that vote is going on, perhaps this is a good juncture to do this. I move the committee rise, report progress and ask leave to sit again.

Motion approved.

The Committee rose at 11:28 a.m.

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