1994 Legislative Session: 3rd Session, 35th Parliament
HANSARD
The following electronic version is for informational purposes only.
The printed version remains the official version.
(Hansard)
TUESDAY, APRIL 5, 1994
Afternoon Sitting
Volume 13, Number 20
[ Page 9741 ]
The House met at 2:04 p.m.
Prayers.
F. Gingell: Mr. Speaker, on the floor of the House this afternoon is Mr. Gene Zwozdesky, who is the MLA for Edmonton-Avonmore in the Alberta Legislature. He is, of course, a member of the Liberal caucus, and I ask all members of the House, of whatever political persuasion, to make him welcome.
J. Pullinger: Today I am very pleased to see a group of friends in the gallery. They are from the Chemainus Native College, which is an exceptional institution developed and run by the Chemainus native band in my riding. It provides first-rate educational services to people from around the province. Visiting us today from the Chemainus Native College are Al-Cid Cardinal, Christine Elliot, Sam Salazar, Pam Bird, Vivian Charlie, Bev George, Lorraine Good, Mike Ingram, Jason Nelson, Diana Sampson, Sean Thomas and three staff members: Sue Woelke, Jackie Denis and Ken Eichenlaub. I would ask my friends and colleagues to make these people very welcome.
V. Anderson: I would like the House join me in welcoming Stanley Tromp, who is here from Langara College. He works on the Gleaner there.
I would also like the House to welcome my grandson as of last night, Mackenzie David.
F. Jackson: In the gallery today are four visitors from beautiful Barnhartvale, which is in my constituency: Alf Shether, his wife Cathy, and daughters Lorri and Alice. It was supposed to be a skiing weekend for the family, but an injury prevented that. I did promise that question period would make up for the weekend skiing, so I would beg members to make that promise good. I would also beg members to make them welcome.
R. Neufeld: It's not often that I have the pleasure of introducing someone from the north, but I have in the gallery today a councillor from the town of Fort Nelson, Mr. Dean Fanning. Would the House make him truly welcome.
PROTECTION FOR B.C. HYDRO "WHISTLE BLOWERS"
M. de Jong: The scandal at B.C. Hydro continues. Last week the head of B.C. Hydro threatened the Leader of the Opposition with legal action for exposing Mr. Eliesen's exorbitant pension payoff. We now understand that extensive interviews and searches have been done within B.C. Hydro to find the source of the Eliesen payoff information.
An Hon. Member: Witch-hunt, witch-hunt.
The Speaker: Order, please.
M. de Jong: A question for the Premier: will the Premier assure this House that no disciplinary action will be taken against any B.C. Hydro employees working towards accountable Crown corporations and government?
Hon. M. Harcourt: I want to assure this House that the actions our government has taken -- with the Peat Marwick study to open up the books of this province when we first got in, with the establishment of the Korbin commission and the Public Sector Employers' Council, with the asking of the...
Interjections.
The Speaker: Order, please.
Hon. M. Harcourt: ...comptroller general to investigate some practices in the health area and the tabling of that comptroller general's report a few weeks ago, with the introduction of guidelines to bring about greater accountability in the public....
An Hon. Member: Answer the question.
The Speaker: Order!
Hon. M. Harcourt: This government is committed to accountability in the public sector.
M. de Jong: I'm afraid that kind of rhetoric just won't cut it anymore. This type of witch-hunt that's been undertaken is reprehensible. It's a blatant attempt to intimidate employees into silence...
The Speaker: Your question, hon. member?
M. de Jong: ...while the bosses at B.C. Hydro continue to go after everything they can get. Will the Premier now take his backbencher's advice -- from the member who introduced the whistle blowers' legislation -- and protect the good and responsible workers of B.C. Hydro?
Hon. M. Harcourt: The good old farm boy has given us a lot of rhetoric himself in the last few minutes. If the members have any further information that can help this government in bringing more accountability to the public sector, and if you have some more examples of where there is waste and where there can be cuts in unnecessary government expenditures, this government is certainly open to any suggestions. If he could lessen the rhetoric and increase the evidence, we would be more than open to that evidence.
The Speaker: Has the hon. member a final supplementary?
M. de Jong: As a farm boy, Mr. Speaker, I'm blessed to recognize a bull when I see it.
In 1991 the government promised to bring open government to B.C. instead of playing favourites with political friends. Today the Premier has an opportunity to show the province that that promise meant something. My final question for the Premier is: will he stop the Spanish Inquisition that's taking place at B.C. Hydro and protect the dedicated employees of that Crown corporation who are fed up with the sweetheart deals that are being handed out to NDP hacks?
Hon. M. Harcourt: Well, he's speaking more like the city-slicker lawyer that he really is when he makes a statement like that. As somebody who no longer practises law or has a law certificate, I can certainly make an objective statement like that.
[ Page 9742 ]
If the member can offer some evidence in his overblown rhetoric -- and this is the first that I have heard of any such action taking place -- then I'd certainly be prepared to take this up with the minister and with the directors of B.C. Hydro, because this government is committed to openness and accountability in the public sector.
B.C. HYDRO EXECUTIVE COMPENSATION
W. Hurd: My question is to the minister responsible for B.C. Hydro. Today the Liberal caucus has come into possession of a secret contract between the former minister responsible for B.C. Hydro and Mr. Norman Olsen. Mr. Olsen was hired on contract to be CEO at $165,000 per annum. This contract also provided for additional benefits such as a vehicle allowance and country club membership. The problem is that Mr. Olsen was already receiving a pension from B.C. Hydro for his previous work as a senior executive. Will the minister confirm that his government knowingly hired Mr. Olsen despite the fact that he was already collecting a significant pension from B.C. Hydro?
Hon. G. Clark: I'm delighted to inform the House that the government knowingly hired Mr. Norman Olsen. Mr. Olsen has 40 years of experience at B.C. Hydro; he was chairman of the board for previous governments, has an exemplary record, and has been nominated for the Order of British Columbia. Mr. Olsen continues to work for the government, and I confirm the numbers the member opposite indicated. All of this has been public information since we signed the contracts. Our freedom-of-information legislation has made all of this information public, it has been before the B.C. Utilities Commission, and all of it has been above-board and upfront. It is improper to raise it in the House again to try to make something of it, because Mr. Olsen has done an outstanding job for British Columbia over the 40 years of his term.
[2:15]
The Speaker: Supplementary, hon. member.
W. Hurd: I fail to understand how the minister can defend this outrageous salary and benefits package, which the former minister not only condoned, but signed himself. We are dealing with the integrity of B.C. Hydro. There is a perception that Mr. Olsen was hired on contract so the NDP could secretly contravene B.C. Hydro's own regulations against double-dipping.
Does the minister truly believe that a salary of $165,000 needs to be further topped up by a pension? Does the minister condone the shady practices of the former minister responsible for B.C. Hydro?
Hon. G. Clark: The previous occupant of the CEO's chair was paid in excess of $175,000. Bonus provisions existed in VP contracts for many years prior to this government taking office. It is no secret that the government has expressed concern about executive compensation. We have raised it with Mr. Haggquist in the compensation fairness program. It was raised again by the audit of the Health Labour Relations Association the Premier referred to, and we have formed the Public Sector Employers' Council to deal with these questions. Mr. Olsen's contract was certainly not out of line. In fact, it is slightly lower than compensation for other executive members, and I remind all members that Mr. Olsen has 40 years of history at B.C. Hydro, is well respected by the people at B.C. Hydro and continues to do a good job for the people of British Columbia.
The Speaker: Final supplementary, hon. member.
W. Hurd: Surely the minister should take a more responsible attitude to this outrageous salary and benefits package. There is a hypocritical and arrogant attitude coming out of this government with respect to B.C. Hydro, and I would ask the minister again: will he send B.C. Hydro to the Public Accounts Committee, where a full and complete examination of Hydro's operations can occur? Doesn't the minister think the taxpayers of the province at least deserve that?
Hon. G. Clark: I want to remind members that after 40 years of paying into a public pension plan, and for his exemplary career in public service, Mr. Olsen deserves the benefits he and his employer have paid in.
The Public Accounts Committee called B.C. Hydro to appear before them, and B.C. Hydro did appear last year. I anticipate that when that important committee convenes, the Chair of the Public Accounts Committee -- who is sitting right next to the member -- will ask B.C. Hydro to appear before them. I know that B.C. Hydro is looking forward to demonstrating that they have the third-lowest electric rates and among the lowest administration costs in Canada.
B.C. ENDOWMENT FUND
D. Mitchell: Can the Minister of Finance confirm that her ministry plans, at long last, to release a list of all the government's investments through the B.C. Endowment Fund, and that that list is up to only September of last year?
Hon. E. Cull: Later today we will be releasing the holdings of the B.C. Endowment Fund as of September 30, 1993. That is in total conformity with the recommendations of Justice Peter Seaton, who reviewed this issue for us and recommended that we release the holdings of the portfolio with a reasonable time delay to protect our investment strategy.
D. Mitchell: The Minister of Finance talks about protecting the investment strategy, but when she presented her budget she indicated the government's plans to liquidate the B.C. Endowment Fund. She also indicated that the government plans to do that slowly, by selling off some $300 million worth of assets in that fund this year.
Unless the government releases the full details of investments in the fund to date, we cannot understand why the fund could not be liquidated faster. So I am asking the minister: would she commit today in the House to release not the details up to last September but all details of the government's investments in the B.C. Endowment Fund to date?
Hon. E. Cull: In winding up the B.C. Endowment Fund, we want to make sure that we are not conducting a fire sale and that the benefits the Endowment Fund has had for the people in this province over the last two years are protected and continue to be realized until the fund is finally liquidated. No, we will not be releasing current holdings. It would be prejudicial to the ultimate sale and winding up of the fund.
FORMER VANCOUVER POLICE CHIEF
G. Wilson: My question is to the Attorney General. Would he tell us if there has been any communication
[ Page 9743 ]
between the Police Commission and his office with respect to a settlement that was made in the Bill Marshall incident?
Hon. C. Gabelmann: No, hon. Speaker. In fact, the Police Commission has no role in the matter.
The Speaker: Supplementary, hon. member.
G. Wilson: With respect to the board and the final settlement, will the Attorney General tell us whether or not he was aware of the $300,000 settlement being made, and whether or not he was aware there was to be an exemption from further prosecution as part of a severance settlement paid?
Hon. C. Gabelmann: No, I was not aware. I found out through the media.
The Speaker: Final supplementary, hon. member.
G. Wilson: Could the Attorney General please instruct this House as to where in the act the board is empowered to make such a settlement, particularly with respect to exemption from further prosecution, and whether any binding matters with respect to an individual would not be subject to approval by the minister?
Hon. C. Gabelmann: The city of Vancouver and the Vancouver Police Board were acting in their capacity as an employer.
PROPERTY PURCHASE TAX CHANGES
F. Gingell: Last Thursday the Minister of Finance, in response to a question from the member for Matsqui regarding the property purchase tax, said that first-time buyers will save up to $4,000 in tax as a result of the amendments proposed in this year's budget. My question is to the Minister of Finance: do you still stand behind that statement?
Hon. E. Cull: I gave the wrong number in question period. The question was about the advertising of this program, and I'm happy to report that the advertising is correct.
F. Gingell: I'd like to point out to the Minister of Finance that the advertising was not correct. We have one advertisement that says $4,000, and another that says $3,000. I'd be happy to table them.
Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Finance made a sarcastic, bombastic, derogatory response to the member. She offered him a course in remedial math. Will the Minister of Finance now forgive the member for Matsqui the course in remedial math and take it herself?
MEETING WITH FORMER SPEAKER
L. Reid: My question is to the Premier. On March 24 the Premier said that the previous Government House Leader had met with the previous Speaker to discuss the proposed election of the Speaker. The previous Speaker had no recollection of this discussion. Can the Premier please tell this House whether he or the former Speaker was telling the truth?
The Speaker: Does the member have a new question?
L. Reid: This is a very serious incident. All of the cabinet and this Premier owe the province and the British Columbians here a duty of integrity and honesty. On March 23 the Premier stated that not one but two colleagues -- the Minister of Employment and the Minister of Environment -- met....
The Speaker: Order, hon. member.
Interjections.
The Speaker: Order, please. All hon. members are aware that question period is for asking questions, not bringing information. If you check standing order 47A you will find that to be the case. Will the hon. member please state her question.
L. Reid: Will the Premier please tell this House whether he or the Minister of Employment was telling the truth?
FEE INCREASES
H. De Jong: My question is to the Minister of Housing, Recreation and Consumer Services. Order-in-council 407 increases certain debtors' fees under the Debtor Assistance Act from 3 percent to 10 percent, while order-in-council 406 increases fees under the Cemetery and Funeral Services Act from $50 to $450. Could the minister explain how, for instance, an 800 percent fee increase on the deceased fits into the government's three-year tax freeze?
Hon. J. Smallwood: I'm sure the member would like a detailed response, so I'll take that on notice and bring him all the details in the House.
FAMILY RELATIONS AMENDMENT ACT, 1994
Hon. C. Gabelmann presented a message from His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor: a bill intituled Family Relations Amendment Act, 1994.
Hon. C. Gabelmann: I'm pleased to introduce the Family Relations Amendment Act, 1994. This bill will amend the Family Relations Act and will introduce a mechanism to provide a comprehensive framework for the division of pensions upon marriage breakdown. The amended legislation will apply to all types of pensions within the scope of the Family Relations Act.
The bill will eliminate the need for parties to have actuarial and economic issues resolved through litigation by directly involving pension plans in the process of pension division. The bill will contain provisions to allow for pension division at source, by the pension plan. It will eliminate the need for former spouses to maintain financial ties long after the dissolution of their marriage, and it will operate in conjunction with the Pension Benefits Standards Act.
The bill retains the jurisdiction of the court to adjudicate in matters of pension division and reapportionment of family assets under part 3 of the Family Relations Act. It also allows separation agreements to be filed in the Supreme Court and the provincial court without the necessity of a written consent by the parties. This will give an agreement the effect of an order of the court and will allow for easy enforcement and variation of agreements with respect to the provision of custody, access or maintenance.
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Bill 5 introduced, read a first time and ordered to be placed on orders of the day for second reading at the next sitting of the House after today.
Hon. E. Cull: I have the honour to present the Public Accounts for the fiscal year ending March 31, 1993.
I request leave of the House to move a motion without notice.
Leave granted.
Hon. E. Cull: I move that the Public Accounts for the fiscal year ending March 31, 1993, be referred to the Select Standing Committee on Public Accounts.
Motion approved.
Hon. G. Clark tabled the fifteenth annual report of the Science Council of British Columbia.
J. Weisgerber: Hon. Speaker, in keeping with standing order 26, practice recommendation 7, I rise on a matter of privilege. I would ask you to consider carefully the privileges that all members enjoy and, in particular, the right of this assembly to control its publications. Beauchesne notes that "control of the House over its publications is absolute." This applies no less to televised publications of our proceedings than to written publications.
As such, I take exception to having that right denied through arbitrary controls imposed on our televised proceedings that have not been sanctioned or condoned by this assembly. Worse, I consider it a breach of privilege to be misrepresented in the televised Hansard as an independent when, in fact, I'm not, and I wish to be accurately denoted as a member of the Reform Party. All members are aware that I'm not an independent in the sense that most viewers would understand this term. Moreover, the labels ascribed on television are supposed to be there only to add clarity to viewers; they are there as an aid to understanding, not as a hindrance. Whether we are NDP, Liberal, Socred, PDA or Reform, each member of this House should have the right to have their political affiliation accurately identified, just as MPs in Ottawa do. A designation as an independent suggests that the member has no formal political affiliation, which is not true in my case.
Further, there is no rationale or legal basis for misrepresenting as an independent any member who is, in fact, a representative of a registered political party. I've not found any basis that suggests the current labelling of Reformers, Socreds and PDAs as independents is justified or even consistent with the wishes of this assembly. On the contrary, Mr. Speaker, it flies in the face of the directive given by the Board of Internal Economy on behalf of all members when television was first introduced in these chambers. I would remind all members of the words of former Speaker Stephen Rogers in Hansard on March 11, 1991. In respect of the rules guiding the televising of our proceedings, he noted: "The Chair is bound by the decision of the Board of Internal Economy, which left the Chair with the strict instructions that we were to follow the Ottawa rules."
[2:30]
Mr. Speaker, I would urge you to consider, then, the ruling on December 13, 1990, in Parliament by then-Speaker John Fraser, in response to a question of privilege that was similar to the one before you today. I won't take up the time of the House quoting from that ruling, but suffice it to say that it clearly supports the arguments I'm making here today.
The Speaker: Under standing orders, I believe your time allowed for a statement has expired. If you wish to table further documents, that would be in order. Are there any further submissions?
Hon. G. Clark: On behalf of the government, I would say that I'm somewhat sympathetic to the member's motion today. I don't believe it's a privilege motion, but I'm sympathetic to the substance of the question. If the member is saying that the Constitution Act governs whether a group of individuals qualifies as a party in the House -- and that number, as you know, is four members -- it seems to me that that is the Constitution Act. It is one which we have to abide by when it comes to financing of parties, their standing in the Legislature and questions with respect to the Speaker's recognition of parties in the House. That cannot be altered. On the other hand, if the member is requesting to be recognized in Hansard simply with the name of the party for which he's a member -- Reform Party, in this case, or any other party that members wish to affiliate themselves with -- and recognized on the screen in the electronic Hansard as a member of a party, I don't have a problem with that. I want to say on behalf of the government that I'm not really sure it's a privilege question to be dealt with under standing orders. But I don't have a problem with it, provided there are no monetary conqequences to the House or to orders of the day -- the orders of the business of the House -- or to the recognition of members of the House. He's simply asking for the name of the party to be attached in Hansard, electronic as well as printed, and certainly we don't have any problem with that.
L. Hanson: I know that during this session there have been enough changes in the various hats that people have worn that sometimes you need a menu to keep track of them. But, hon. Speaker, the issue is more important than making fun of it, as I was doing earlier. My colleagues were elected as members of a particular political party, and while we recognize the need for the four-member criteria for official recognition, the fact is that this House spends millions of dollars of taxpayers' money to present the television record of what happens here with the business of the people of British Columbia. When people get up to speak on various issues, the classification of "Independent" gives no information to the public about what that individual stands for or what political party he represents. I think that it is wrong not having it in Hansard -- which we also spend millions of dollars on -- and not putting it on the televised screen under the name of the person speaking. I would like to add my support and my colleagues' support to the member's motion of privilege. I am certainly not arguing with the fact that there is a need for a political party to have a certain strength to be recognized; I'm simply saying that there's a need to inform the public of what our party affiliation is.
G. Wilson: I have two points to offer on this that I think need to be considered. One is that the information provided should not be misleading. My colleague from West Vancouver-Garibaldi, who sits truly as an independent, is demarked in exactly the same way as all the other members are with respect to the parties they represent. I know that there is a tendency not to take this issue seriously. Some might argue, for example, that you should only be allowed one name change per session. The point is that we have to be
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able to provide those who are observing the goings-on in this chamber with the most accurate information possible. A designation does provide them some information which may be of use to them. Failing to have that designation, I recommend, since we are supposed to shed our partisanship in the debate here, that it may be better to have equality by showing no designation whatsoever, except for the riding from which you are elected, given that you are supposed to be representing all members from your riding and not just those of the party that elected you.
The Speaker: The hon. member for Richmond East was seeking the floor. Do you no longer wish it?
The hon. member for Peace River South.
J. Weisgerber: I would table the motion, if I could -- and even endorse the notion that members be allowed only one change per session.
The Speaker: Thank you, hon. members. The Chair will reserve judgment until later.
L. Reid: I beg leave to table a document.
Leave granted.
L. Reid: The document is a transcript of conversations between the Speaker and the previous House Leader, as per question period today.
(continued)
On the amendment.
D. Mitchell: I rise to conclude my comments on the amendment to the Address in Reply to the Speech from the Throne. I'd like to take only a few minutes, having already had a chance to speak for a few minutes prior to adjournment. It's somewhat unusual to be debating the Speech from the Throne at this point in the session, when we've already completed the budget speech. Having said that, there are a few elements in the Speech from the Throne that are worth reviewing, and I think it's useful to complete the exercise of the Address in Reply.
I have one issue, and only one issue, that I would like to discuss: the comments in the throne speech dealing with the forest sector, in particular, with the Commission on Resources and Environment, the CORE process. The Speech from the Throne referred to that process in an interesting way. It suggested that the CORE process was valuable and that it was going to be coming to a conclusion. It also suggested that the forest industry was going through a transition and that the government was aware of that. But it didn't really go much beyond those kinds of platitudes. It didn't really offer hope to British Columbians who are working in the forest sector and are very concerned about their jobs right now and about whether or not the working forest in our province is being diminished to the point where jobs are being permanently lost.
The throne speech referred to CORE. We know that when the NDP first launched this commission, shortly after it came into government, it was intended to be one of the jewels in the crown of this administration. CORE was really intended to be the highlight of this government's plans for land use and economic and environmental issues in the province by ending the so-called valley-by-valley confrontations that were occurring. Unfortunately, CORE hasn't lived up to its promise, and one of the reasons for that is that the government has unfortunately politicized the issue.
Instead, CORE has become a symbol for everything that is wrong in resource management in our province. That's unfortunate. It certainly doesn't in any way reflect on the commissioner, Mr. Stephen Owen, who I think has tried very hard to do a good job under difficult circumstances. Unfortunately, his mandate has been sullied by this administration. Right from the start CORE was prevented from looking into certain land use issues, whether it was in Clayoquot Sound, the Tatshenshini or other areas. His independence has been compromised by the fact that he reports directly to the government, to cabinet. Right from the start, when this commission was established, many in this Legislature -- I among them -- argued that CORE should report to the Legislature and that the commissioner should be an officer of this House, of all members and of all parties represented in the Legislature. Perhaps that might have made a difference in the sense that the recommendations that came forward from the commissioner might have been seen as less partisan and less associated with one particular group represented in this Legislature.
When Stephen Owen, the CORE commissioner, brought forward his Vancouver Island land use plan, he referred to it and to the accomplishments of the round-table process on Vancouver Island. One of the accomplishments he referred to was a shared vision statement. Any of us who were in this Legislature on the day of the monster rally at the front of the building, when some 15,000 to 20,000 people were protesting the Vancouver Island land use plan, have to wonder who shared that vision statement. Certainly the people in the huge crowd that was out there on that day did not share the vision.
One of the frustrations caused by the CORE process is that many British Columbians were asked to spend their time, energy and talents, over a lengthy period of time -- a year in this case -- on the Vancouver Island land use plan, yet they don't feel that they were heard and that their concerns were incorporated into this plan. Just last week I met with some representatives of the forest industry in the Cowichan Valley, and that was certainly the point they made to me. They felt disenfranchised by the Vancouver Island land use plan. They had put a lot of effort into coming up with their own recommendations, none of which were incorporated in the plan, and there was never any explanation offered to them.
We can see that the Vancouver Island land use plan has caused some grave concerns on Vancouver Island, not only about CORE but also about the future of the forest sector and the economy of Vancouver Island. When the Premier went out to speak to that crowd on the day of the monster rally on the lawns of the Legislature, he didn't offer them the commitment that they wanted to hear, although later on he did make some comments at a political convention, which he attended the weekend before last, that went much further. I'd like to refer to those comments in a second. But before I do that, I'd like to point out that the Vancouver Island land use plan is a concern not only to residents of Vancouver Island. This plan, if implemented, would form an important precedent for every land use dispute in the province. This plan, if implemented, would be a very important step in one direction, but it's not necessarily a step that all -- or even most -- British Columbians can endorse.
It's not only a Vancouver Island land use plan. When we look at land use issues and the preservation of valuable land
[ Page 9746 ]
on Vancouver Island, we also affect the mainland. We can't take a look at any region of British Columbia in isolation; they're all interrelated. It's easy to see that the Vancouver Island land use plan affects many areas on the mainland, including my own riding of West Vancouver-Garibaldi, when we analyze the complicated flow of wood fibre between Vancouver Island and the mainland -- whether it be logs, wood chips or other wood products. This plan affects much more than Vancouver Island. That's why British Columbians from all over the province came here on the day of the protest. A number of bus loads were here from my constituency -- from the Soo timber supply area, for instance, where there are some serious concerns about land use plans.
[2:45]
When the Premier attended the New Democratic Party convention the weekend before last, the party used a very carefully choreographed manoeuvre to avoid any political embarrassment on this issue. The Premier made what I think was a remarkable statement for any political leader to make. The statement he made to his political friends and party insiders at the convention was: "...not one forest worker will be left without the option to work in the forest as a result of land use decisions." It's astonishing, even for a socialist Premier, to offer that kind of guarantee to British Columbians -- as if any Premier could offer that kind of guarantee.
I fear that the Premier may be toying with the expectations of British Columbians. Since he made that statement, some British Columbians have been affected by land use decisions. They've been laid off, and they haven't heard from the Premier. Some of my constituents in Pemberton, in the northern portion of West Vancouver-Garibaldi, have been laid off since the Premier made that statement because of mismanagement of the spotted owl controversy. This is through no fault of their own. They were misdirected to an area of forest that had been designated as a spotted owl conservation area. They've been laid off, with no prospects for further employment. And the Forest Service, which made the initial mistake, has made no effort to redirect them to other areas of the working forest, because there is no other working forest in the Soo timber supply area. The Premier's statement to his political friends and party insiders that "not one forest worker will be left without the option to work in the forest as a result of land use decisions" rings very hollow to my constituents.
I don't know how the Premier can honestly expect to have any credibility with that kind of statement. He makes it, but he doesn't follow up. I wish the Premier had the power that he ascribes to himself, but he doesn't. My constituents in the Pemberton Valley, and British Columbians throughout the province, should not have their expectations raised to the point where they believe that the government can guarantee their continued employment in vulnerable forest and resource sectors forever -- ad infinitum. They are affected by land use decisions. No one can offer that guarantee -- not even a socialist government led by the hon. Premier.
One of my constituents, a logger in the Pemberton Valley, was laid off just last week because of the spotted owl issue. He asked me to deliver something to the Premier, and I'd like to do that today. He asked me to deliver his cork boots to the Premier, because he will never use these boots again. So as I take my seat, I ask that these be sent over to the Premier.
The Speaker: Order, please. I'm sure the hon. member is quite aware that exhibits are not part of the opportunities available to members. Please proceed, hon. member, without the exhibit.
D. Mitchell: I realize that cork boots may not be considered parliamentary in the traditional sense, but let me tell you that my constituents are concerned about this issue. They are so concerned that this constituent of mine -- a former logger, and I don't mind mentioning that his name is Allen McEwan -- believes he will never work in the forest sector again. He lives in Pemberton. He has asked me to deliver his cork logging boots to the Premier, because he won't use them and hopes the Premier can find some use for them. So, as I take my seat, I ask that these be delivered to the Premier.
The Speaker: The Chair appreciates your trying to fulfil the request of your constituent, but I don't believe it would be appropriate at this time to bring the items you have with you to the Legislature.
G. Wilson: As I rise to make a response to the Speech from the Throne, I have the opportunity for the first time -- because of the nature of the debate that surrounds the Speech from the Throne, and in light of what the government has come forward with and has tabled in terms of it -- to have some wide latitude with respect to the comments that can be made. Also, I know it is traditional, as we have a response to the Speech from the Throne, that we have an opportunity to respond to issues more directly related to our constituents and their concerns. This gives me the first opportunity in this House to stand before my constituents and put on the record for the first time why I now stand proudly in this House as the leader of the Alliance and no longer as a member of the Liberal Party of British Columbia. I believe I owe it to my constituents to make this point clear. I believe it's also important that the record show directly from me -- rather than through the somewhat messy filter of public comment in the press -- why I have taken the decision that I have and why I think it's important that in the debates in this House we address some of these concerns.
We are all elected into this House through our constituencies to represent the interests of the people of this province in as fair and direct a way as possible. We hopefully are interested in advancing to the fulfilment of future generations. Those who live in this province are to be able to live in a society that is tolerant and compassionate and that has a sense of hope and desire for a future that is going to be prosperous -- in all senses of wealth, not just in material possessions but also in that which is spiritual in nature.
We in this House come from different political backgrounds and we have different perspectives on issues and questions, some of which we hold very dear to ourselves and some of which we are prepared to stand and fight for. Sometimes the rhetoric becomes deep and thick, and passions bubble over as we fight hard for what we believe to be right. What I believe to be right, and what I stand here to try to defend, is the question of political integrity: to be free from the influence and direction of those who seek to gain privately through public officials. I tell you as I stand before you, and through you I tell the people of British Columbia, that I have never wavered from my commitment to attempt to do that.
We've heard in this House an assault against a number of individuals who currently work in the public sector Crown agencies, B.C. Hydro being among them. I note that in the response to the Speech from the Throne we have named a number of people. Johanna den Hertog, Ian Reid, Dick Gathercole, Marc Eliesen were named and are currently in the Hansard record. They had been given the distinction -- as distinctions may have it in this province -- of being "political
[ Page 9747 ]
hacks." I don't think that is a particularly appropriate term at any given time, because they are individuals who have, for whatever convictions, decided to take a political course different from that of the opposition.
On election night in 1991, when I was elected Leader of the Official Opposition, I said that it was time to change the manner by which we do politics; it was time to get away from the partisanship that was so intense that all we end up doing is calling names and assailing against people on an individual basis. It seems that we have returned to those days, and it is most unfortunate. And it rings hollow, because how is it possible that despite the $452,000 that these so-called political hacks have had delivered to them...? If they are indeed so-called political hacks, what does that make Jim Moody? Over the course of the mayoralty of the now-leader of the new Liberal opposition, Jim Moody took $2.4 million in contracts and was directly involved in the political campaigning and manoeuvring that enabled that individual to be brought to power.
How can the people of this province take seriously what we are doing here when we hear an assault against people in the Crown agencies because of what are deemed to be unacceptable uses of the public trust, only to look at the public record to see that even greater amounts -- $2.4 million -- have gone to different friends and insiders, if indeed they are friends and insiders, as has been reported here? We cannot accept the notion of trust in this arena until we get away from personal assault and get down to the issue of debating the real issues that are important to British Columbians. I didn't leave that party with ease or without a heavy heart, because many of the people in that party -- some who sit as elected members -- I consider close friends. It was a difficult decision.
In a long and protracted debate on labour legislation in the fall of 1992, we heard one major principle: the right to have a secret ballot vote. I led the charge that a secret ballot vote was necessary; it was needed, and it was a sacred trust. And I heard, in the response from this new leader of the new official opposition: "The secret ballot in the workplace -- a basic democratic right -- is worth nothing to the NDP. B.C. Liberals consider the secret ballot a fundamental right." At the July 31 and August 1 convention of 1993, when the major constitutional issues were put before the delegation at the convention, the very members of that party who hold sacred this fundamental right were denied the right to a secret ballot because they wanted to have a show of hands to railroad through a 66 percent vote. And the member for Fort Langley-Aldergrove ridiculed those of us who defended the right to a secret ballot vote. Now we stand in our piety here and expect those who hear our debate and what we say in this chamber to believe us when we say that we should have a fundamental right to a secret vote. There are two rules: one rule for the masses and another rule for us.
Special deals and special rights for individuals. I got into politics to try to get rid of those kinds of things, and that was the second reason I had difficulty in continuing. Hon. Speaker, I could tell you that the third and most damning of all is when you have a political party that is not prepared to even honour the rule of the legislation that governs this province. We were told that a vote of 66 percent was acceptable in the passage of constitutional reform in that party. The members were told in 1993 that this proud party -- one that I largely built on my credit card, among other things -- was not a society and was therefore not governed by the Society Act. We were told that the rule under the Society Act for 75 percent was not needed to change our constitution. The Liberal Party of British Columbia Society was incorporated on May 28, 1991, and filed an annual report in May 1992. It was indeed a society and was subjected to the Society Act. It needed 75 percent to pass that vote, not 66 percent. When the members challenged it, the board that heard the appeal chose not to hear it.
I may serve one term as an elected Member of the Legislative Assembly of the province of British Columbia, and if that's the choice of my constituents, I accept that. It has been a privilege and an honour to serve, and I'm honoured to be here today to continue to serve. If we are going to amend this institution, change the manner in which we do governance, protect this province and, indeed, save this country -- and I believe it is under major assault right now from continental forces that would like to have us as nothing more than a supplier of raw material -- then we'd better start to move with honesty and integrity, and with a certain decency that suggests that the rules that apply to us must apply evenly and equally to all British Columbians, and that we must respect them. But I could not remain within the ranks of those who would not even honour their own constitution.
[3:00]
So I stand here as the leader of the Alliance, which is a political movement dedicated to trying to reform the system. In doing so, I and my colleague from Okanagan East, who is not here today but is certainly working hard, and others in this legislative chamber who are like-minded, regardless of their political stripe, hope that we can attack the issues and have an open and honest debate on them. I hope that we can somehow shed our partisanship, at least to the degree that we are able to articulate on the issues that affect the lives of British Columbians in this generation and will affect the lives of future generations of British Columbians.
With respect to that, I tried to move an emergency debate on CORE. I think it's important that every elected member of the Legislative Assembly stand up and tell us where they stand on CORE. As risky as it may be, if we don't accept CORE, what do we accept? This weekend I was up in Port McNeill and Port Hardy, and I was over to Sointula. I've talked to people up there who are on both sides of the question. They're scared, and they have a right to be scared if all they hear from this chamber is rhetoric, political attack and abuse of a personal nature that doesn't solve their problems. It doesn't address their fears, and it doesn't look after their concerns. We must pay attention to the environmental warning signs out there. I believe we made a fundamental mistake when CORE was set up. I said so at the time, and I will say so again: CORE should report to the Legislative Assembly -- where we can debate it, dissect it, understand it and advance it in the constituencies that elected us -- not to a cabinet, which is then going to be put into a political situation at a political convention, where they have to make a decision with all the pressure groups that are brought to bear: environmentalists, the IWA and others.
CORE is not about this generation's worth of jobs. CORE is about future generations of wealth. I think it is time we started to understand that there is a very real difference between standard of living and quality of life, and real wealth and material ownership. What we as citizens of this province have to do is start to address a new economic paradigm, and we must do it quickly. We do not have the luxury of debating ad infinitum on questions that are as important as land use decisions without taking some tangible steps. So what should we do? What we need to do is move forward and bring out a comprehensive land inventory, and in that comprehensive land inventory we must make an assessment of the worth and value of not just the standing timber but all the resource: the soil type, the
[ Page 9748 ]
water, the ungulates. In that analysis we must understand the human resource in that area and their dependencies.
Then, as this government has attempted to do -- and it deserves some credit for attempting -- we must bring members of the communities together around tables to discuss their future and the future of generations that are going to grow into those areas. We must never become what we are becoming now: a province that is driven by the lower mainland and the city of Vancouver. Our wealth and our lifeblood is in the rural areas of British Columbia, not downtown Vancouver. Downtown Vancouver has no problem spending our money, disseminating our wealth. But it is the small communities, the interior communities in North Island, the northern part of British Columbia, Prince Rupert, Prince George, the Kootenays, Peace River and all points in between that really make this province run.
We also have to recognize that in this new economic paradigm we need to change our approach towards social programs and the delivery of the social safety net. I lament when I hear that we are going to look at profit gambling as a principal source of revenue, or at least as a contributing source of revenue, in things like social housing and the social safety net, because we are dependent on that level of resource.
I personally do not believe -- and I am prepared to stand here and say it now -- that we need a stand-alone, profit casino in downtown Vancouver and on the downtown waterfront. Who is looking after the interests of the people who live in East Vancouver?
Hon. Speaker, you have a very nice park in your own riding, called Crab Park. It's the one small piece of waterfront where people -- many of whom have very little else to show in this world except for what they wear on their back, carry in their suitcase or perhaps push in a cart before them, and many of whom live downtown and need our assistance -- can go to sit and reflect. That must not be lost. It's the last remaining piece of public park on the waterfront in downtown Vancouver outside of Stanley Park.
If we're going to put our energies into this profit casino, we have to ask ourselves to what extent we're going to become shackled by the decision we have made. Is this truly a Faustian deal? I believe it is. There's a temptation for politicians to make those deals if they think that somehow they're dipping their hands into quick and easy revenue.
I know that some members have said there are millions of dollars going down to Vegas and that we can capture that money. There's never been a single study or report done to show that if there is a profit, stand-alone casino in downtown Vancouver, it will do little more than simply take the money from those who are addicted to it and from handfuls of those who may come in and try to make money on a sporadic basis.
Gambling is an addiction. It is something that creates enormous hardship. It also encourages a side of society that I don't think we want in downtown Vancouver. I ask only that we as legislators look at what went on in Atlantic City. Let's take a look at Vegas, and let's take a very close look at the operations run by Mirage. Let's not only look at the mirage but let's walk through the mirage and look at the reality behind it. There are very real costs to what we are doing.
In this session this House is going to look after another Faustian relationship: recall and referendum. I stand as one member who is opposed to recall legislation. I do not believe that it is the right way to go. Let me say this for every British Columbian who can hear my voice today: in 1991 the Liberal opposition ran against recall. They were elected as being against such legislation; we will see where they stand today. I can't wait for this debate to occur. I believe that there is enough solid evidence for an intellectual and fundamental argument to suggest, with some empirical evidence, that it's the wrong way to go.
On the question of initiative and referendum, I believe that a better way for us to reform this institution would be to allow direct delegation, so that members of the public would have an opportunity to come to the floor of this House and make direct representation to government with respect to pending legislation or legislation that they would like to see initiated. It's a more practical, sensible and cost-effective way of dealing with that same issue. Direct delegation would not divide communities. I recognize that a committee has studied this and has come forward, but I don't know how many people have actually spent time looking at this question. We must not make a deal with the devil. If we do, we are not only going to hamstring government in a manner that is going to be very complex and difficult to undo but we are going to find ourselves in a situation where communities will be torn asunder from time to time on the basis of a partisan agenda, a political agenda or a special interest agenda. But those agendas won't be in the interest of all of the people in those communities. I welcome that debate.
In the short time I have left, there is one other issue that I would like to address: the question of aboriginal land settlements, the Treaty Commission and the third order of government. I do not believe that there is one issue facing British Columbians that is more important, more time-sensitive and potentially more volatile than that, yet we do not hear a word about it. Very little is written in the media, and very little is said in this chamber.
As we start to enter into agreements -- and we are entering into agreements, government to government to government -- I would suggest that nobody has tested the legislation. I have done considerable research on this, and I have others, who have far better legal minds than I, researching and advising. I don't know under what federal or provincial legislation many of those agreements can, in fact, stand in a court of law. The tendency is not to test them there -- and I understand the argument -- because the courts are not always the best vehicle for analyzing and making decisions on collective rights in a society which is non-aboriginal and is very much built around individual rights. The debate we need to have in this chamber is collective interests versus individual interests and how you bring those two interests together so that there can be some meaningful solution to land issues and, more importantly, issues surrounding jurisdiction on that land.
I spoke out passionately against the Charlottetown accord. It was rejected not only by non-aboriginal people across this country but also by aboriginal people. Part of the reason is that humans, being what they are, create authorities, as they are, and within those authorities you will often find that an elite takes power and moves power forward. The agenda of the elite often becomes heard, and the interests of those who are less able to access those halls of power -- the meek, the disabled, the minorities; the people who we as legislators must be most mindful of -- become lost in the larger picture. I suggest that is going on in the province and across the country today. We have to be very careful as legislators that we don't deal with that question in a manner that does not protect those who have an interest in and a need for our protection.
The question is here before the House to debate. Should we be creating jurisdictions within the province where the rights that run with each jurisdiction are dependent upon one's ethnic origin? Is it possible -- and the answer to this
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question in advance is yes, it is, because it exists today -- to have jurisdictions within this province in which you may be a resident by virtue of your tenure and you may be taxed by virtue of your capital improvement, but you have no right to run for office or to cast a ballot for those who have a right to levy tax against you? That's a fundamental question, because we said that our fundamental basis was that our democracy must not allow taxation without representation to move forward. yet we are moving forward in that regard. Representation to those who tax you is a fundamental principle of our democracy.
Should we be setting up jurisdictions with laws that will have the opportunity to subjugate the laws of the province? My argument is no, we should not be doing that. We should recognize and advance an agenda that looks at equality among all people, regardless of race, colour, creed, language, religion or gender. The place to debate that is not on Main Street, on the streets of the resource communities, on the fishing grounds, out in the mouth of the Fraser or up on the Skeena and the Nechako, because if we debate them in those areas, we will see violence, ignorance and so much racism prevailing that the actual intellectual debate and discussion that is needed will not be able to take place.
[3:15]
The time to debate it is here and now in this chamber. I challenge this government to bring those issues forward, allow full and open debate here and test the direct delegation process by allowing members from the aboriginal community to come forward on the floor of this chamber and enter into such debate, because never has there been a more historic moment in our time as a nation and as a province than this one. Never has there been a more important nation-building issue than this one. We must get at the debate now, so that all of us understand fully what is at work and what its implications are, and so that we have an opportunity to work together to build a community in which we can all live and share equally.
Let me say also that as we move forward to debate the issues, it's important to look at two other areas that are of critical importance to British Columbians. One is with respect to the Nechako and Fraser rivers and the proposed hydroelectric development plan there. There has been a very serious abridgement of what I believe was a process designed to protect the interests of those water systems. We, as legislators, have to understand the legality of the question and the implication of where we take our redress. Nevertheless, we must stand forward strongly now and say that we will protect the Nechako and Fraser systems at all costs. If we do not, it will not just be the fishing and the livelihood of fishers who depend on those fish that will ultimately be affected in a negative way but it will also be all of the downstream users. We need to take this issue on, come together, shed our partisanship, if it exists here now, and say we will work together. We must work with the company, understanding that it has legal rights. We must work with the downstream interests, understanding that they also have a grave fear that if that project is allowed to proceed, those communities will find themselves in an untenable situation that we had no conscious understanding of when this proposal first came forward.
Lastly, I want to talk about the need for us to move toward social reform of our health care, education and social service systems, and also of the justice system. Last year was an interesting learning experience for me from a personal point of view. It was the first time I involved myself in the justice system to a degree unlike any involvement I had before. I found it interesting to look at how fragile the system is if we do not, through eternal vigilance, make sure that those who have tremendous power vested in them are vetted, reviewed and given an opportunity to leave and allow others who are more enlightened to come forward. We've heard a lot about recall of our MLAs and politicians, but what about our judiciary? What are we doing with respect to movement within a very slow, conservative and often somewhat lethargic group? It is clear that people who are in elected office must never interfere. Arm's length is important -- I'd be the first to say so and the first to defend it. But looking at the changing face of our communities and societies, we must also recognize that there is a very major need for judicial reform in this province's justice system. It's something that we have to get at. It's unfortunate there was nothing in the Speech from the Throne that gave us indication that we're moving anywhere close fast enough. Similarly, with our health care, education and social services network, we have gone beyond the opportunity of simply addressing these questions with more money. We have to address these questions with real change. As that change progresses, I hope that we'll have an opportunity to fully debate them.
I thank you for the opportunity to address this House on these most important issues today. I know that as the debates progress, all of us will have an opportunity to state our position more clearly.
[S. O'Neill in the chair.]
C. Evans: It's a delight to stand here today as you sit in the chair, hon. Speaker. I'm very pleased to have an opportunity to give my speech while you are officiating over this assembly.
Different people stand up and talk about the throne speech in different ways. Some people use it as an opportunity to put forward their ideological position, if they have one. They beat up the government, or whatever, and say what they think is right and wrong in the hopes that the cameras will pick them up and send them out all over this province, and they'll then be famous for their oratory and their ability to put their political position forward. Other people stand up and basically create a mailer. They stand here in their place and talk about the good things that have happened in their constituencies. Nobody heckles, because we all understand that's necessary once in a while. Then it gets written up, they mail it off home and they're not really talking about the Speech from the Throne at all. I've heard all sorts of different ways of doing this address, but I haven't actually heard anybody attempt to address the Speech from the Throne itself. I thought that it might be novel to speak to the subject -- and it might please you not to have to remind me what the point is in speaking on this subject.
I listened to the Lieutenant-Governor deliver the Speech from the Throne. Some of his words are worth reflecting on. He said: "Times change, and we change with them." Here in British Columbia, the winds of change swept in a new government to lead our province in a new direction. So they did; it was more like a hurricane.
The thing that I'm proudest of in the last two years, since those winds of change began, is the element of integrity that we have brought to this job and this place where we work. When I was first elected, I used to visit high schools and talk to kids who would bite off the word politician like some kind of slur. For their entire lifetimes these kids had been taught that if you stood in this House and took wages for representing the people, you were probably crooked and, at least, suffering from pride: you manipulated people, didn't tell the truth and whatever you promised to do, you
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wouldn't do it anyway. Those kids would grow into the adults who don't vote and don't respect the system that we use to run our democracy.
I found it abhorrent; I was shocked by it. After all, just two months earlier I had been running for office as a logger. When I stood up as a logger, they all said: "Good on you. We like you." I came back two months later and said, "I'm apolitician," and they said: "Who cares what you have to say? We wouldn't believe what came out of your mouth anyway." Well, the winds of change needed to blow all that historical scum out of this province, from the Alberta border to the Pacific Ocean. We had to -- and still have to -- go the second mile to impose an image of integrity on this place, to banish conflict of interest by exposing our personal accounts to a level that's never been known before and to be a government that ends the cycle of revolving-door cabinet ministers. We will show those kids that by the time they're old enough to vote they will have a choice between policy, ideology and platform. The people they elect, while we differ -- and thank God we differ -- will be honest.
I'm really proud of the record of this government. After some two and a half years there hasn't been a single cabinet minister lose their job for having their fingers in the till or for telling lies. The previous government changed a cabinet minister a month for the entire term of that government. It goes back way further than that.
We're dealing with land claims, annual allowable cuts and land use planning in places where everybody knows that the tree farm that is there today is there because somebody took a kickback or cut a deal for personal wealth in order to give out that tenure.
We have fiscal jobs: we have to balance the budget. We have legislative jobs: we have to see that the laws order and direct society. But our very first job is to create a province where people can be proud to have this job. When the Lieutenant-Governor said that the winds of change blew two years ago, I thought: "And thank goodness."
The next thing he said was that we brought a profound change to provincial government in terms of fiscal policy. Then he went on to talk about how the budget had been reduced by $1 billion in two years. You know, that shouldn't sound so surprising, from the advantage of 30 months in this job.
I remember the years -- and decades, in fact -- when common mythology in British Columbia was that the conservatives on the other side of the House were the people who understood how to manage an economy. I remember decades when it was assumed that if the New Democrats were government, the people had reason to fear their fiscal situation.
I think the winds of change have brought an end to myth and have now created a situation where every adult -- and even child, probably -- in British Columbia understands that the New Democrats had to come in in order to end the loans to friends, to end the running up of huge deficits and to end the Coquihalla or northeast coal boondoggle form of government that the right wing had imposed on British Columbians.
It's like one of those spring mornings when the valley bottom is covered with mist; you can't see across to the other side of the valley, and you can imagine whatever you want is over there. Then, when the fog lifts, you can actually look across the valley and see what's growing there and who lives over there. The fog lifted, and the people discovered that when the social democrats were the government, they imposed fiscal responsibility on themselves and told the truth to the general public.
[3:30]
Hon. Speaker, it hasn't been much fun. I think it would probably be a whole lot more fun to be an MLA in a free-spending Liberal government or a free-spending Social Credit government. It's probably a real kick to go around giving out money to buy the electorate's affection. It's not much fun to spend two years going around basically saying: "I'm sorry, I cannot buy the hospital, the school, the day care centre or whatever it is that you want, because we can't afford it in these times" or "I cannot give you a raise." It changes you, and you start to wonder what it would be like if there were never fat times again -- years like the fifties, sixties and seventies, when people could stand in a place like this and assume an annual growth of 3 percent, 5 percent or 7 percent and make promises as a politician: "We'll give you this in exchange for your vote." It makes me wonder if a Conservative fiscal position, admitting that there are things we cannot afford, might not be the way of the future. It makes me kind of proud that it is my party and our government that first admitted those times had come to British Columbia.
The way of the right wing in the fat years was to spend it, and then came the thinner years in the 1980s, when the money didn't roll in anymore. How did they deal with change? There are two ways to deal with change. One is you react to it, and the other is you plan for it. Reactionary governments get their name from reactionary systems of governing, and the way they reacted to the tighter purse strings was with privatization. Where I live it meant that they sold off the very equipment that plowed off the snow that allowed us to get to work. They reacted with cutbacks. They said to huge sections of the civil service: "You're out of a job tomorrow." Then they reacted with the bread-and-circuses way of right-wing governments everywhere -- with boondoggles like the Coquihalla, northeast coal, Expo and that real boondoggle of all, Music '91, or whatever it was.
Then there's a second way, the social democratic way, which is that you plan for change. You try to look forward to see what the world will look like tomorrow, and you try to make decisions based on how to manage that change. That's what the Lieutenant-Governor went on to describe in the rest of his speech. He talked about record population growth in British Columbia. It's true, isn't it? I don't think it's true because our government is the best doggone government that ever was. I think it's a little more true because this is the best place to live that ever was. People come to British Columbia today to escape poverty in right-wing administrations and to escape polluted lands that have been destroyed in parts of North America. They come looking forward to a life and to the beauty of British Columbia -- but they come. It is our job to plan for that increased population growth.
The Lieutenant-Governor went on to talk about changes in federal transfer payments to the provinces, and I want to talk just a little about what that means. People stand up here all the time -- I don't think it makes any difference what party they're in -- and they badmouth the federal government for not giving us as much money as they used to give us. But we don't really try to develop too much of an analysis of what it means. To me it means that when the right wing decided that we would have the global economy and the free trade agreement, the right wing knew perfectly well that the net result would be the deindustrialization of central Canada -- a million good-paying jobs out of Quebec and Ontario. They were the kinds of jobs that made it so Canada could afford the transfer payment system to support post-secondary education, health and social services. They
[ Page 9751 ]
knew perfectly well that when they gutted this country no federal government of any party would be able to afford the federalism that is Canada.
So what happened post-free trade? We wound up with two federal governments, represented basically by both ideologies across this House -- the kind of right-wing one that mirrors Social Credit and Reform and the kind of principleless one that mirrors the official opposition. Neither of them could afford to match the commitments to the Canadian medical, education or social services systems. The net result is that they capped British Columbia's transfer payments. So every single time a new resident moves to British Columbia and goes to the doctor, we pay 100 percent, not the 50 percent that we did with the old deal. If a new person moves to British Columbia and needs social services, we pay 100 percent, not the 50 percent that we did with Canada. When we send a kid to college -- one more child than last year -- it's 100 percent our cost.
I'm not going to belabour the point, because everybody knows that the transfer payments have ended. But I want to say to the people of British Columbia that they can be real proud of the economy they are driving. Were it not for the post-free trade changes in transfer payments from central Canada to the provinces, they would have a balanced budget at today's taxation and expenditure levels. Understand that it's not whether you're Liberal, Social Credit, Reform, independent, I-forget-what or New Democrat; it's that nobody in the post-free trade Canada can afford the networks that existed prior to the 1980s. We need to restructure our economy.
The Lieutenant-Governor went on to describe how. First, he says, we have to find a way to settle our land use disputes that does not involve the historical us-and-them battles. Well, I'd say amen to that. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that in British Columbia the most important thing is for the 1990s to be the era when the politics of land take ascendancy over the historical politics of left and right.
I heard the members for West Vancouver-Garibaldi and Powell River-Sunshine Coast stand up this afternoon and say CORE was flawed. The member for West Vancouver even said it was a failure. The member for Powell River said he'd like to have a debate on CORE in this House. Well, me too. So let me enter that debate to say that I agree with the Lieutenant-Governor: the most important job of being government in the early 1990s is to find a way to manage the change on the land. I have attended CORE meetings here on the Island and in the Kootenays. I want to describe a meeting in Nelson that I attended a few weeks ago. Some members opposite, some members of the press and lots of citizens were describing CORE as a failure -- because they wanted it to be a failure, I think. They're more comfortable with the way we used to make deals here in British Columbia, where the most powerful automatically won.
There was going to be a demonstration outside the CORE meeting in Nelson on the weekend, and I thought: "Probably I should go to that demonstration and see what happens there." In the morning when I pulled in, logging trucks were lining the road outside the hall where the meeting was to be. When I walked into the hall several hundred people were there. Instead of attempting to sit there and have a conversation with a couple of hundred people watching, the people who ran the CORE process responded to the people outside by setting a microphone in the middle of the room and inviting the citizenry to come and address the whole group. Two-thirds of an entire day was devoted to this whole community having a conversation.
I saw mayors of towns, owners of sawmills, loggers, planners and watershed group representatives go to the microphone and basically say, from all different positions: "We have no choice except to finish this job." It's not because the government says they have to do it; some day they'll change the government. It's not because they have proof that the system works; on the contrary, we had 25,000 people here saying that it has some serious flaws. It is because they all recognize that the most important thing to them is to get to live where they live, and that the old system isn't going to allow them to live where they live anymore. The old system has broken down for everybody except the people who own the banks or the tenure. It doesn't work anymore for the person who used to pull boards; they replaced that person with a machine that sorts them by computer. It doesn't work anymore for the person who used to set chokers; they got rid of that person and now they do it with a set of shears. It doesn't work for the person who used to pull boards on the planer chain. I remember that job; the boards are dry by then and much lighter. It's way preferable; it took seven years to get up to the planer chain. Those people aren't there anymore either; they replaced all those people with another set of machines that do that job by computer, too. In fact, in the town of Slocan, where I used to work in the sawmill, with 17 people you can produce the wood that we used to make with 86 people 20 years ago, which means that all except for 17 families have to go.
The old system doesn't work anymore, because there are people moving in there who say: "I came because it's beautiful and because it's not Vancouver. I want it to look like this; I think this has value. I think the way that it is will bring tourists and increased residential buyers." It doesn't work anymore -- and I'm proud to say this -- in the Kootenays, because the trade union movement no longer automatically believes the boss when the boss says: "We have to have control of all the land in order for you to eat." Actually, it doesn't work for anybody anymore, except the boss.
I don't expect that the CORE process will reach consensus in the Kootenays. I don't think anybody ever figured it would. How do you get a bunch of people around a table for a conversation, and then six, eight, ten or 12 months later say: "Okay, we all agree to lose something"? Some of the people might be willing to lose something -- certainly all the members in this Legislature would be -- but some of those people are there speaking for stockholders, or are elected by some organization, and they can't give away their stockholders' money. They have no choice but to ultimately walk. Then, in this government's wisdom, we took one of the most respected individuals in the history of this province and made him the commissioner, so there would be somebody to write it up when the conversation finally has to end. Then, because ultimately we were elected here to govern and not to chat, that report will go to cabinet, and the good men and women in cabinet will decide the ultimate dispensation of the process.
[3:45]
The Lieutenant-Governor had it dead right: it's a hurricane of change. It is so different than the days just six years ago when I watched a sawmill owner in Crawford Bay go on a picnic with a minister and cut a deal to sell a quota where he never cut a stick; he made a million dollars simply because the people said that for a couple of years he had the right to go log it. He never did log it, and then he flipped the thing like a piece of Vancouver real estate. That's the kind of politics that some in this place would like to bring back. It's over. Whether I get to stand here for years and whether we're
[ Page 9752 ]
the government or not, it is over -- because it doesn't work anymore on the street.
I'll read what this party says: "Our generation has a solemn responsibility to preserve British Columbia's magnificent natural heritage. Expanding our provincial parks and protecting wilderness areas has been and will continue to be a major commitment of this government." The wind of change almost knocked me over with this one.
I remember when we were running for office -- and members opposite will know that each one of your parties had a person out there running, too. I would stand up and say to the audience: "Our party believes in doubling parks. Before the end of this century we're going to double the parks system." And the cynics would say: "We don't believe you." I'd say: "How do you thinkwe got from 3 to 6 percent? In the era of Dave Barrett's government we doubled the parks from 3 percent to 6 percent, so we already have a track record." When we came here, I thought that this will be a really hard job.
In fact, to the government's credit, we have in two short years created a situation where I think everybody out there -- with the possible exception of the member for North Vancouver-Seymour -- would agree that doubling the parks system isn't a commitment of a political party or a government but a social commitment to a future on the planet, and an obligation of our generation to people seven generations from now with a different set of choices who won't wish us to foreclose on those choices.
I really only have one trade besides talking, and that's killing trees. If I'm healthy enough when I lose or leave this job, that's what I'll do. You might say that making parks and wilderness is making fences around my own ability to work. But I'm really pleased that with tremendous haste, in 20 or 30 months, the people of British Columbia have moved beyond that simplistic notion to an understanding that 12 percent of British Columbia is an insignificant amount of land in terms of my ability to find a place to work. I am locked out of way more than 12 percent of land, because it's a Mac-Blo tree farm and I don't get to work there. It belongs to Fletcher Challenge. It is on Cominco's private land. It belongs to Shell Oil -- 40 square miles of it. It belongs to Beaumont Timber. It belongs to Weyerhaeuser. The truth is that private property limits our options as workers way more than the need to create parks for future generations.
All those companies I just named bought and sold each other like piranha fish during the 1970s and 1980s, when their idea of how to survive capitalism was to get bigger. They ate one another. They didn't negotiate around a CORE table; they consumed one another in hostile takeovers. That doesn't sound very nice. They never asked the workers what they thought. They never asked the MLAs what they thought. They didn't have people standing up over there saying: "Cominco can't do this." They said: "That's business." All we're trying to do is negotiate a little land away from business so that while they are eating one another over there they don't tromp on all the people's choices.
Hon. Speaker, I don't even know what your lights mean. Do I get to talk or sit down?
Interjection.
C. Evans: A minute and a half. Thank you, hon. minister.
I want to comment a little on a couple of other things the Lieutenant-Governor said.
Interjections.
C. Evans: A whole bunch of city slickers are sitting over there heckling me as a green logger. I want you to understand that all loggers are green. The people who work in the woods care about the land, and the people who buy and sell land to make themselves rich don't. I know who I represent.
Hon. J. MacPhail: Hon. Speaker, I am enjoying the debate so much that I'd like the hon. member to continue.
C. Evans: In closing, I want to say that everybody knows that we have the fastest-expanding economy in Canada. Everybody knows we have the best bond rating and the best job creation rate in Canada. But we don't usually have a conversation about why.
I'll tell you a little story. My landlord.... And for members opposite, I do have conversations with landlords; I'm not opposed to the landlord class. Last year my landlord told me that this was the most important government on this continent and that we had to survive for the sake of all the other governments. His argument was that ever since Ronald Reagan, the University of Chicago, the Fraser Institute, Thatcherism and the Conservative government of Mulroney, the governments on this continent have been imposing a multinational capitalist agenda upon people. They have been imposing on people something that they call the trickle-down theory -- all over. It didn't matter what they were. Conservatives, Liberals and in the United States Republicans or Democrats were all addicted to the idea that if you feed the rich, the money would work its way down through the classes and finally the people at the bottom would get a job selling McDonald's.
What happened? Even though they controlled all the newspapers and television stations and they kept saying it every day, the fact is the deficits kept growing -- in every state in the United States, in every province in Canada. And then along came a government. A bunch of people who came from jobs and off the street walked in here one day and said: "The trickle-down theory kind of doesn't work; let's try taxing those people a little; let's try job equity at the bottom; let's raise the minimum wage; let's sign some agreements with our own workers that say the people at the bottom get a little more than the people at the top." And what happened? The deficit started to go down and the jobs started to go up -- the exact opposite of what the Fraser Institute had been saying for 20 years, the exact opposite of what those people over there have believed all their lives and want to bring back.
It's beginning to be a balanced budget, because the people are good. If you give the people a couple of bucks, they don't fly off to the Bahamas and spend it. They spend it on their neighbour; they hire one another. The money goes around, and we begin to float a balanced economy.
So my landlord was right: come what may, this government has to survive so that weaker people and governments on this continent will begin to have the nerve to stand up to the rich and say: "You people couldn't run a popcorn stand."
Hon. E. Cull: Hon. Speaker, I wish to table a report.
Leave granted.
Hon. E. Cull: Hon. Speaker, I'm pleased to table the B.C. Endowment Fund inventory report for the period ended September 30, 1993.
[ Page 9753 ]
S. Hammell: I don't know whether I dare stand up and follow my hon. colleague.
It's appropriate that the Lieutenant-Governor should welcome spring with a throne speech that plants the seeds of future abundance for British Columbia. In my constituency of Surrey-Green Timbers, we're enthusiastic about the government's commitment to preparing our province for the next century. So are others; let me quote some other enthusiastic comments. One from G.A. Pedersson and Associates says: "B.C. is on its way to having the lowest tax burden... the lowest debt and debt-servicing burden...and the highest quality of public services in Canada. Right now B.C. is the place of choice to live in Canada -- the reasons will become even more compelling in the future."
Last week we in Surrey had a chance to celebrate as we took one big step into that future. Early last Monday morning, the Premier and the minister responsible for transit joined with the people of Surrey to open three new SkyTrain stations. Together we rode on the first train from the new King George SkyTrain station through Surrey Central and on to Gateway, the station that stands on top of the hill overlooking the Fraser. Sitting up high over the construction sites, we scanned a horizon of mountains stretching from Langley to Abbotsford and the North Shore, then west to Nanaimo, the Gulf Islands and the Olympics, and finally south to Mount Baker. We looked out over the farms of Surrey and down on our growing city. And I can tell you, that is some super infrastructure. It's quite a trip.
[D. Lovick in the chair.]
It's only appropriate that Rita Johnston, the former member for Surrey-Newton, is given full credit for her role in bringing SkyTrain to Surrey. She muscled that train up the hill from Scott Road station, because she knew how critical those stations were to the future of the new Surrey city centre. She also knew that it was now or never. Our administration picked up that torch and completed the commitment to Surrey.
That investment in the infrastructure of our province will cost B.C. taxpayers over $200 million when everything is in. Despite investments of this magnitude and the importance of this infrastructure for Surrey, "B.C's debt-to-GDP ratio is still the lowest in Canada, and this budget will not alter the market's view of B.C. as a top-notch credit risk." That's Wood Gundy speaking.
With us on that train were residents of Whalley who had spent the night curled up in sleeping bags outside the station, because they were determined to be among the first to ride through Surrey city centre on the train. Our conversations bubbled with excitement, with talk of the boundless opportunities all around us. Of course, it's spring: the sap is running, and we're planting our gardens, cleaning our basements and putting away our winter clothes. But this spring I sense a difference: the return of optimism and the confidence that this year things are going to get better at last.
The short-term slash-and-burn approach that other provincial governments are using to torture their economies into submission won't be followed by our government. Young families here can make plans for the long term, because they can count on the government's commitment to support a strong economy. This government has worked very hard over the past two years making tough decisions to prepare the ground for this renewed sense of confidence. Our economy is thriving, because we have taken action to bring down the deficit, freeze taxes and put people to work. An expanding provincial economy is good news for Surrey, because the rapid growth we've experienced in the last decade is only going to accelerate in the years to come. We need a prosperous, growing provincial economy to help us finance the institutional infrastructures that our families need.
I understand the comments of the new opposition member for Matsqui -- who also comes from a growing community -- when he said, during the by-election: "My platform is simple, direct and to the point. The University College of the Fraser Valley must be given additional funds and land to expand." I understand when he says: "The new MSA hospital and the Mount Lehman interchange remain stalled. Those issues need immediate attention." And I understand when he says: "In the longer term...options such as rapid transit, bridge and highway expansion, and additional ramp facilities must be reviewed." He also believes that we must invest in the future through the infrastructure of B.C. -- or at least of his constituency.
Looking out from SkyTrain at Surrey's neighbourhoods, with the early morning light touching the blossoming young fruit trees, it occurred to me that, like others, what we in Surrey grow most is families. That may sound a little strange, but when you think about it, that's exactly what we're busy doing. The city of Surrey will double in size by the year 2021. Young people keep on coming to Surrey, because they want the opportunity to rent or buy a home on a modest budget. They see the chance to raise their children in the kind of neighbourhood that they grew in. They expect the amenities that are available in other areas of the province: schools, recreation facilities, transportation and health care services.
[4:00]
They know that their community helps to prime the economic pump of the province through their economic activities, but those activities carry a price tag. Our population is very young. In fact, we would have to build a new elementary school every nine weeks just to keep up with the influx of families into our school district. Not only do we need capital, we need additional operating money, like the growth grant of nearly $2 million that we've recently received from this government. It is a grant that recognizes the real need of our growing community.
People at the Boundary health unit say that about one in four residents of Surrey is under the age of 15. That puts continuous pressure on our existing health care services and creates an immediate need for more hospital spaces, public health nurses, clinics and agencies to look after those with special needs, the disabled and the disadvantaged. We need the new health centre that the government committed itself to when the cabinet met in Surrey.
Those of you who live in well-established communities see an orderly progress from generation to generation. As neighbourhoods age and elementary schools empty, they're filled again by newly formed families who start the cycle all over again. This happens in Surrey's old neighbourhoods as well. But every year we also build thousands of new houses that fill with new families. They need new facilities: schools, roads, hospitals and social services. As these new residents move through the system, they need new high schools and more college spaces. As our numbers grow in absolute terms, we will need major institutions, like a university. I concur with the member for Matsqui: the University College of the Fraser Valley must be given additional funds and land to expand. He's not alone; Kwantlen College, our college in Surrey, also needs expansion.
We need investment in our infrastructure. B.C. Stats tells us that in 1993 migration into British Columbia increased 27 percent over the previous year. It's hard to grasp the
[ Page 9754 ]
tremendous implications of a population shift of that magnitude. In raw numbers we added a city the size of Kelowna to B.C. Surrey accommodated about one in eight of those newcomers. Think about it: you scatter seven people around the province, and plant one in Surrey; scatter another seven people around the province, and you put another person or family in Surrey. This is a trend that is expected to continue well into the next century. We must secure an environment that enables families to get started, to grow and to work in our city. We will need infrastructure like the south perimeter road to move people and goods from the ocean terminus at Tsawwassen to Highway 1 in Langley. Major capital projects of this kind are critical if we are to provide a diversified economic base for the jobs people want and need close to home.
To quote my colleague from Surrey-White Rock, both myself and Ken Jones will be "pressing for immediate improvement to King George Highway and 24th Avenue, in addition to a third access to the Highway 99 freeway to the border." This additional access to Highway 99 will cost $33 million. The member for Surrey-White Rock must also believe in investing in new infrastructure for this province.
In Surrey, families work together to ensure that the environment they've chosen for their own future is preserved for their children and grandchildren. Surrey residents are resolutely green about recycling, controlling pollutants, protecting our Green Timbers forest reserve, preserving farm lands and maintaining the integrity of our salmon spawning creeks. My constituents tell me that they support this government's policies on social services, the CORE process, deficit reduction and the tax freeze. But they are also demanding aggressive leadership in building for the future. Small business proprietors aren't asking for government subsidies, but they do want government to support private sector growth by building new roads, improving public transit, supporting training programs, assisting immigrants to acquire language and other skills, providing good health care services and ensuring that local businesses benefit from public investment. Our chamber of commerce is supporting the south perimeter road because they know that for every dollar spent, four dollars in economic activity will be generated.
The people of Surrey are more optimistic this spring. Young families that are just getting started, when purchasing their first home, can take advantage of the concrete benefits of being exempt from the property transfer tax. The people of Surrey are optimistic about the future of this province and are prepared to invest in its future, and so is this government.
J. Dalton: It has been a rather interesting afternoon so far, ranging all the way from people giving boots to others, to people talking about their own ridings and about independents, to people maligning people who have no cause to be maligned in this House. However, hon. Speaker, I intend to stick as much as possible to the agenda before us. It's unfortunate that on April 5 we are addressing a reply to the throne speech, which was given on March 14. It seems like a lifetime since then. The opposition has put forward an amendment which obviously expresses some concern about this throne speech.
The Speech from the Throne contains four themes -- or priorities, as they are labelled in the document -- and I'm going to address my comments to some of these priorities. I am also going to make comments about certain topics such as education and community justice. Unlike the optimism that some members opposite have expressed previously and this afternoon, and unlike the optimism expressed in the throne speech itself, I have to join the members of the opposition and not be quite so optimistic, to put it bluntly.
What do we see in the throne speech? This government would have us believe that there have been profound changes, especially with regard to fiscal policy. We are told that wasteful spending is being further reduced, that administrative costs are being controlled and that our fiscal house is in order. Well, I have to take issue with those comments and observations.
We're also told in the throne speech that we've turned the corner and that the government has a tone of optimism which all of us should share. What this throne speech neglects to say, however, is that the road ahead is marked with the same landmarks as the one we have followed for two and a half years now. It's marked with patronage, centralization -- more and more control being exercised by Victoria and the mandarins who are appointed to office by this government -- and, of course, spending to match. We must never forget that with each patronage appointment and each addition to the bureaucracy, there has to be spending to match these increases. All of these things affect the taxpayer directly.
British Columbians can take little comfort in what they see in the plans that are proposed in this budget and this throne speech. The year ahead will not be as rosy and as colourful as this government would have us believe. We see hollow promises and platitudes that will not stimulate the economy, and certainly will not create a climate for investment in British Columbia. The thousands of forest workers who descended upon this city two weeks ago and gathered outside on the lawns of the Legislature are certainly not convinced that the forest industry is being restructured in a way that makes economic sense -- anything but.
The many third-party interests are concerned about input into treaty negotiations with the first nations. These communities and the people who live in them have been neglected or omitted from the negotiation process, and this government is not taking any steps to address those concerns. The many community-minded people who volunteer their time to discuss regional health planning need specific direction from this government; again, that is lacking. All they are getting now is the time to meet, but they are not given the direction and the agenda with which to address the issues that this regional planning process is supposed to be addressing. In this speech we see the predictable general statements and platitudes that this government has foisted on the people of British Columbia for two and a half years. We have warm, fuzzy comments and a lack of detail.
I wish to comment on some of the priorities and themes of the throne speech, and a little later in my comments I will be specifically commenting on the opposition amendment as it bears on the reply to the throne speech.
[4:15]
Let's examine some of the detail and itemized statements this government has proposed for the next year. There are comments about skills training, and this government is quick to applaud its efforts in the areas of skills and retraining development. The Premier is quick to remind us of the forum he conducted last year, and I believe the government is planning a comparable forum this year to gather the captains of industry and education together. But I see a lack of commitment in what is contained in the throne speech and a lack of direction in the area of skills training. Without question, greater emphasis has to be placed on this area, but
[ Page 9755 ]
I do not believe that this government has the game plan in mind and in place to put words into true action.
It reminds me of the press conference given by the Minister of Social Services and the Premier on January 20 of this year. Both she and the Premier talked about B.C. 21 and the role it would play in retraining and job creation. The statements given that day were a red herring, because the Minister of Social Services had gathered the press to comment on reported changes in the Social Services ministry. However, both the minister and the Premier were on their feet for 20 minutes or more talking about B.C. 21, job training and skills, which had nothing to do with the purpose of the press conference. A little later I will be talking specifically about the Minister of Social Services's announced changes, which have a rather hollow ring to them, given the lack of action since that day.
Perhaps we can be optimistic. There are statements, when we come back to the skills and training initiative alleged in this throne speech. There are comments about apprenticeship and work experience -- things which no doubt must be initiated and enhanced. With the proper commitment and planning, I believe they can be. But I do not believe that this government has the planning in place to truly bring these things about.
Let me be constructive. I will offer the government an example of where such things are working. I made these comments as well in a private member's statement I gave recently. This is something that I observed firsthand in a recent visit to the Nechako School District. Having met with the superintendent of schools in Vanderhoof....
Interjection.
J. Dalton: The member for Prince George-Omineca is, of course, applauding my comments, as he is the MLA for the school district in question.
What I specifically learned from the superintendent of the Nechako School District -- I think this government can learn from the initiative being exercised in local communities -- is that an accelerated apprenticeship program has been offered in grades 11 and 12 in that district. The program gives hands-on opportunities for senior students in endeavours such as bakeries, forestry and B.C. Hydro.
It's not that this government can take any credit for this -- they cannot. Local initiative and vision allowed the Nechako project to go forward. I would add that it was federal funding which allowed this program to actually get off the ground. Victoria certainly had no place in the planning or in the initiative taken by the local school district. In fact, I would be surprised if Victoria is even aware of these endeavours. So it's fine to speak of retraining and skills initiatives, but I just hope the government has an overall game plan in mind and that it is aware of excellent examples such as the one I have cited. As we in the opposition travel through this province, we are learning firsthand of the initiatives being conducted in these communities. I think the government owes it to all British Columbians to learn of these endeavours and to share them with others.
There is another item that the throne speech addresses, but again probably in hollow terms. It speaks of crime and the growing concern in our communities about safety. I hope this government is aware that the number one issue in the streets and in the minds of British Columbians is community safety. That shouldn't be a surprise to any members, but I wish to restate it. The comments made in the throne speech only give window dressing at best to a very serious public issue.
It seems ironic that the throne speech commented on crime, when just a week previous to March 14, when the Lieutenant-Governor made the comments from the throne, there was an internal report issued by the Attorney General's ministry advising that British Columbia has the highest crime rate and the lowest prosecution rate in this country. In reacting on March 5 to the report, which was dated January 15, the Attorney General said he wasn't surprised by the figures. I suppose the Attorney General would not be surprised, because he was simply confirming what everyone else had suspected for a long time.
I'll again remind members that if they just go into the streets and talk to constituents, the number one concern they will speak to you about is community safety. So I question what specific steps the government has in mind to prevent crime and to make our communities safer. It is simply not enough to make a passing reference in the Speech from the Throne. We need to see specifics on that issue.
I made comments earlier about the Social Services ministry. There is a comment in the throne speech dealing with the integrity of the social safety net. That one in particular caught my eye because, unless I am mistaken, for several months now the opposition has been critical of the integrity of social assistance and about compromises that are threatening the true purpose of the safety net that social assistance is supposed to provide.
At the January 20 press conference which I referred to earlier, the government tabled some reports -- some of which go back to 1980 -- that deal with administrative errors and problems with fraud and mismanagement within the Ministry of Social Services. I attended that press conference, and it was surprising to me that the government finally got around to tabling reports that were up to 14 years old. Those reports dealt with well-documented problems in that ministry. I needn't remind the government that in a report dated November 1992, one of the documents tabled, it was admitted that there had been errors and fraud. Members of this House may remember that the previous Minister of Social Services denied that that document existed but then finally reluctantly admitted that it did. However, it was not until this January that any action was taken with regard to problems that have been well documented in that ministry for many years.
Now we learn that restoring public confidence in our social safety net depends on eliminating bureaucratic waste. Those are comments in the Speech from the Throne in that regard. If we were to be generous to this government, I suppose we could say that it's never too late to learn. But it is certainly safe to say that this government is extremely slow in addressing that very serious problem. Let it not be mistaken: members in the opposition are not out to discredit the social safety net that Social Services provides; that is certainly not our purpose. It is our job in opposition, just as it should be the government's job, to address serious problems of administrative error and fraud that are well documented. I just hope that this government will follow through on the commitments in the throne speech.
There's one other item that I specifically want to comment on: the education system, and K to 12 in particular. If members look at the opposition's amendment to the throne speech, there is a comment there about the assault on the education system. I wish to make a few observations about the assault that is taking place.
It is now quite well documented that the local autonomy of school boards has been compromised to a severe extent. In fact, many school boards are now wondering why they are even bothering to go through the motions of allegedly
[ Page 9756 ]
exercising local control when control is truly being exercised from Victoria. For example, in the education formula announced by the Minister of Education and the Minister of Finance at the end of January, there was a cap put on administrative spending. The ministers have told local school boards that they must control their administrative spending and that a cap will be placed on administrative salaries. But they have no game plan in mind as to how the local boards are to undertake these things. To add insult to injury, the Ministry of Education has offered to send people from Victoria to the local school boards to help them manage their insufficient budgets. I'm sure the local boards are not going to take the minister up on that invitation; they're having enough struggles on their own without having someone from Victoria descend upon them and try to dictate how they should conduct their own local affairs.
Provincewide bargaining is also an issue that is going to become more and more topical in this session and in the year ahead. I do not see that the government has any specifics in mind as to how the provincewide bargaining issue that they've announced will be taken into account or is going to help the situation in the K-to-12 sector. Quite frankly, I think it's going to make a bad situation worse. I say that not from the point of view of whether or not I personally support provincewide bargaining, but from the point of view that the Education ministry, in particular, is tinkering with a system about which the public is crying out for change, when this government has no idea of what that change should be.
In fact, it brings to mind the reaction of the Premier last fall -- as members may remember -- to the Year 2000 controversy. The Premier came charging out of the gate, and as soon as he realized that the public was offside, he said: "I had better do something about it." So he came up with some very inflammatory and precipitate comments about the Year 2000. Unfortunately, the new Minister of Education inherited the mess that the Premier had created and, of course, had to do some backtracking. I cite that as another example of what I consider to be tinkering with the education system.
The government is now going to invoke provincewide bargaining, which may or may not be a good thing. It has seen examples whereby the school districts are complaining more about the erosion of local autonomy. We now have 12 school districts, the latest two being North Vancouver and Coquitlam, that have left the B.C. School Trustees' Association. There's obviously dissatisfaction within the ranks of the school districts themselves as to the direction that the Education management is taking. They're certainly not pleased with any statements coming out of Victoria in this regard.
Also, I might comment on some of the recent actions of the Minister of Education. I've learned that on at least two occasions he has cancelled appointments with local school districts to attend school openings and things of that nature. Perhaps he is trying to get back in his own way at the BCTF, which recently cancelled his invitation to speak at its annual convention.
[4:30]
I think what is going on here is a very interesting turf war between the ministry and the local trustees and administrators, who are either elected or employed to run a system that is certainly crying out for change. But I think, more importantly, that it's crying out for this government -- and it has not done so in the throne speech -- to show some leadership on that very important topic. This opposition, in presenting its amendment, is certainly dissatisfied with the lack of direction demonstrated with regard to education planning. We're going to have to wait and see what the next step in that process will be.
What we have before us, coming back to the throne speech and the opposition amendment, is a speech full of promises but not promise, mind you -- promises only. It contains statements about continued economic growth; maintenance of our education, health and social services programs; and continued good management. Those are the statements; I'm not endorsing them. However, the record does not support these statements. In fact, it's very doubtful that the road ahead will be any smoother than the one that got us to where we are today. A government that places its agenda first, not the people's, through patronage and other examples is not going to change. There's certainly no evidence of change in the throne speech before us.
The Premier has promised less legislation this session and more focus on the important issues. Well, I say fine, let's do so. Let us concentrate on the issues that are of concern to the public, but let's be sure that the legislation package is presented in a timely fashion, so that those who are affected by the changes in our laws can react before those changes are passed and imposed upon them. Thinking back, I remind the members that last year we sat in this Legislature until the end of July. We went through a very convoluted package of 80-plus bills. Many of those bills were presented in the latter part of June. We had late-night sittings. We had a Minister of Forests who stood on his feet at midnight one night to present a bill that by agreement we had said would not be presented, causing chaos in the House. I understand it even caused a member to be asked to remove himself from the precincts for the evening in question.
I'm hoping the government will not repeat the disasters of last year, so when I hear the Premier stating that we'll have less legislation, I hope that he will be a man of his word and stick to that agenda. In the throne speech, this government claimed to be the protector of the pocketbooks. It claims to be the saviour of our social programs, the champion of safety. Well, we will no doubt see that this legislative session perpetuates the first two and a half years of NDP policy. Forget the good news and the good times; forget the good intentions stated in the throne speech. It will be more of the same: the government putting its agenda first, certainly not the agenda that will suit and serve the people of this province.
I encourage all members to support the opposition amendment. We certainly cannot endorse the throne speech as it is written.
L. Stephens: I am very pleased to take my place and address the amendment and some of the issues contained in the throne speech. The government talked about building a more just and more prosperous province. It said that British Columbia must create jobs with a future and boost our regional economies. Let's look at what has happened in the two and a half years this government has been in power. B.C. 21, the government's major initiative, was introduced in last year's budget. The result of this initiative was the announcement of the building of the Island Highway. The NDP promised that people wouldn't need an inside track to get fair treatment from a Harcourt government, and that New Democrats are committed to fair and open access to government and an open tendering process for public contracts. Is that what happened? No. We have dedicated wage levels that require successful bidders to unionize in order to get government contracts. That's not fair, and that's not open. This is the government that gave a special deal to its longtime political supporters in the trade union movement by bringing in its high fixed-wage policy that's costing taxpayers millions of additional dollars each year.
[ Page 9757 ]
No, you don't need an inside track to get fair treatment from this government; you either need an NDP membership card or you need to be a union leader.
The throne speech also talks about skills training and education. Since the Premier's summit in June 1993, we've been waiting for the long-promised initiatives to strengthen skills training in British Columbia. There is still no sign of any meaningful programs to prepare our children for a highly skilled workplace. When this government took office, the graduation rate was 74 percent; it has now dropped to 69 percent. That drop is not acceptable; we must do better. We must prepare our children for a new marketplace. The Ministry of Education's proposed new graduation program must be meaningful and relevant for students who want to pursue post-secondary studies in vocations, trades and technologies. The ability of B.C.'s colleges and institutes to grant four-year degrees is a very welcome initiative.
"Revitalizing our forest sector," says the government's throne speech. The Commission on Resources and Environment has presented its Vancouver Island land use plan. The people who are directly affected by these decisions should be the ones who are consulted and brought into the process -- the ordinary men and women whose lives and communities will be affected. It's their friends and families who feel the impact of decisions made in Victoria. It's their livelihood and future, and they need to be directly involved in the process. When the Forest Practices Code is introduced this session, the Liberal opposition will make sure that the government keeps its promises to forest workers and their families: their communities will be protected, and land use changes will not proceed until there is an economic and social plan in place.
The throne speech talks about the government's "sound fiscal management and fair taxation." Nothing could be further from the truth. This government believes that home ownership should be penalized and not encouraged. The people of this province understand that the NDP's taxes -- their increased fees, permits and licences -- eat at our job base, erode our quality of life and eliminate our choices. People want their rights back. They want their choices, their communities and their futures back. We must secure a prosperous future, where families know that their hard work and effort will be rewarded, not taken away.
The role of government is to provide an environment for all of the people of this province to realize their dreams, hopes and aspirations. The Liberal opposition is committed to changing a system that watches as working families and single parents struggle to keep up, while governments dig deeper and deeper into their pockets. We are committed to changing a tax system that attacks homeowners, pushes up rents and penalizes small business. We recognize that there are no real rights without responsibilities. People in communities around the province must feel in control of their lives and secure about the future of their families.
In conclusion, this is the third throne speech that this government has brought forward, yet British Columbians still have a sense of despair and hopelessness. This government's legacy has been one of failed leadership, failed policies and failed opportunities.
D. Streifel: It's my pleasure today to stand during the Address in Reply. As is our tradition, I'd like to say a few words about the constituency of Mission-Kent, which I happen to be lucky enough to represent at this time.
We've been on some interesting walks around my constituency over the past couple of years to see some of the projects that are up and underway. The one I'd like to speak about first is the Hatzic Rock project, which is finally coming together. It will be a great benefit to our community. We have the community onside, working on this project, and we have a project manager coordinating it, Linnea Battel -- a very capable constituent. Our first building was erected on the Hatzic Rock site during the past couple of weeks. Although it's a temporary shelter, it will shelter some of the 10,000 to 15,000 schoolchildren who will tour that site this coming year.
We have worked on some other things in Mission in this past year. We have a new library. I don't have enough gall to stand in this House and take credit for any part of that library. The library was a project undertaken by the community, for the benefit of the community, and I applaud my community for that initiative. We're working together as a group on the joint project, though. The joint project is a new secondary school, a new campus of the University College of the Fraser Valley and a 700-seat performing arts theatre that will be home to many performances brought to town by the Mission Folk Music Festival. That project is coming together, although all the buttons aren't pushed yet. All the t's aren't crossed and the i's aren't dotted, but this MLA has great hope that the project will come to pass in the near future.
Every year up at Harrison, we have the Harrison Festival of the Arts along with the sand sculpture contest. It's a world-champion sand sculpture contest. I invite all members of the chamber to visit Harrison this summer to enjoy the Festival of the Arts and the sand sculpture contest.
I'm working with the communities at the end of the constituency of Mission -- Kent, Harrison and Agassiz -- towards a sewer and water infrastructure rebuild. As well, I'm working on commuter rail for my constituency. On the local news outlets the other day I described commuter rail as the project most announced, by the most number of people, in the shortest amount of time, in the history of British Columbia. I've asked that we not tease the community any longer until we hear those train whistles tooting in downtown Mission. Then I'll invite everybody aboard and we'll go for a ride. That's all I'm going to say about commuter rail today.
In this throne speech we are also working on a degree-granting program for the University College of the Fraser Valley. That will be a great boon to the local young folk as well as to those who go to that facility for retraining and re-education. At the current time, the average age in that facility is around 27, which makes it almost an advanced education institute.
[4:45]
I'd like to talk about some of the things that are most pleasurable to me as an MLA. In this past year I've been asked by the Sto:Lo people to be a witness on four different occasions. I'll just speak briefly about a couple of them. One was a child and family services treaty that was signed in Chilliwack at the Coqualeetza Centre between the Sto:Lo and the Social Services ministry. I was very pleased to stand as a witness to that event. I was also a witness at a totem raising by the Chehalis band at the Canfor Harrison Lake logging site to commemorate the 30 to 35 years of work that the Chehalis band members have put in on that logging site. I was very honoured to be a witness. I was also a witness at the installation of Chief Sam Douglas when he was installed as a grand chief of the Sto:Lo nation. It was a very moving and, for me, very interesting ceremony. I witnessed some dancing that few of my constituents have had the privilege to witness. As well, on November 11, 1993, I was at the longhouse at Coqualeetza when the Sto:Lo nation raised a totem to commemorate their war dead, soldiers who had
[ Page 9758 ]
given their lives for this country and our way of life as far back as the Boer War -- they number over a hundred. It was mentioned at that totem-raising ceremony that the community sent their young men to war, although they knew that when they got back they wouldn't be soldiers any longer. In the words of one of the witnesses there: "They'd just be Indians again. They wouldn't be allowed to vote; they wouldn't be allowed to own; they wouldn't be allowed to be. But they went forward and sacrificed for our country, so we could at least get to where we are today, a few steps down the road to full self-government for our first nations." I'm very proud that that was an initiative of this government. It's one that has been a top priority for us, and one that I support very strongly.
The throne speech had four themes: sound fiscal management and fair taxation; long-term job creation and economic growth; skills training for the twenty-first century; and revitalizing our forest sector. I'll speak about these four themes -- probably somewhat disjointedly as they swirl around in my head. I will try to put them together and how they fit my community, which I'm fortunate enough to represent at this time.
We talk about skills and training for the twenty-first century. I heard the hon. member for West Vancouver-Capilano talking about an initiative, an accelerated apprenticeship program, of the Nechako peoples. He may want to check with the hon. member for Matsqui to find out that a very similar program is being undertaken in the Abbotsford School District. It is a technical training centre for young folks, where they can choose a career path in the eleventh year of high school that will take them to this learning institute. They will have two years of high school. They will buy into the program by putting off their graduation for a year and taking a third year of training, which will prepare them for work in this world of ours that changes so quickly and in which work seems to be so difficult to find from time to time. It's an initiative that I've been working on with the chair of School District 34. I'm very proud to work on it, although it's not in the constituency that I'm fortunate enough to represent at this time. That constituency is represented by a Liberal member, but that's all right. I'll work for anybody if the cause is good.
We talk about sound fiscal management and fair taxation. We heard in the throne speech how we had paid $1 billion off our deficit in the first two budgets. Hon. Speaker, $1 billion rolls off the tongue quite quickly. I don't think it gives justice and proper emphasis to exactly what $1 billion is. Few of us may realize that it is a thousand million dollars. A number of my constituents have asked me how much we've paid off. I tell them $1 billion, and they think in terms of one. When we talk in terms of a thousand million dollars, that's a significant pay-down on a debt that was left to us by a discredited, incompetent former government.
F. Gingell: You haven't paid off the debt.
D. Streifel: I hear the hon. member for some place south of Delta talk about paying off the deficit. That's what I said: we've paid off the deficit. As a matter of fact....
Interjection.
Deputy Speaker: Members, through the Chair, please. We've had a very good and comfortable session thus far; let's not deviate from that track now. Please continue, member.
D. Streifel: In this throne speech, we heard about taxes being frozen for three years. As a former union negotiator, that looks to me like a tax cut. Because the position I used to take to the table whenever we were facing a wage freeze was that a wage freeze was as good as a wage cut. I'm proud that this government has had the courage to come forward with a tax freeze for three years at the same time that it is reducing the corporate capital tax for incorporated family farms -- that will be a tremendous boon to the Fraser Valley -- as well as eliminating the corporate capital tax for one or two thousand small businesses. When I mentioned this to a reporter in Abbotsford a couple of weeks ago, the point was put to me: "But in fact, that was your tax anyway." And I said yes, it was our tax. We used it for a while to pay down a deficit that was left to us. We don't need it now, so we can give it back.
I can thank my constituents who contributed to that, because we are paying down the deficit in British Columbia. We're under $1 billion with this budget, and I think that's something British Columbians can be proud of. To satisfy the member for Delta South, we're going to pay about $600 million off the debt this year with the selling of some holdings of the province. I think that's honourable and well worth thinking about.
We've cut spending growth in half and in half again in this budget. It's the lowest increase in spending growth in many years in British Columbia. At the same time, we've maintained our commitment to education, health and social services, and a financial commitment to long-term job creation and economic growth. At the same time, we've made a major commitment to skills training. We have dedicated $200 million in the coming months and years for skills training, to fill the jobs that will take us into the next century.
I've talked about some of the things that were in the throne speech, but I'd like to talk about some of the things I have the most fun with. That's when I get calls from my constituents and from constituents across the river. Those constituencies are represented by Liberal members and a Social Credit member of the House.
In particular, one phone call comes to mind. Liberal constituents from across the river phoned me up and said they needed help with a project. I said: "But I'm not your MLA." And they said: "That's all right. We phoned our MLA, and he's really good at criticizing you and at being critical of this government. But he wasn't any help to us at all, and we need help to get our project off the ground. Could you help us?" I said: "Well, sure." As a matter of fact, we've been working on a project together, and in the next couple of weeks we'll announce together the fruition of that program and of that help I was able to give.
We hear lots of criticisms from the opposition members about this government and the fact that our deficit's down, our jobs are up and taxes are frozen. They like to criticize that; they think it's not true. But in fact it is true. It's been spoken in this House. I've seen the budget documents, and I'm very pleased at this time to support the throne speech and the budget we brought into this House. Although I missed the opportunity to speak on the budget, with the liberalism granted around throne speech time I can say a few words about our budgeting.
We talk in terms of why this government is different. Although it's tempting to stand up here and criticize the former Social Credit government, I think one point has to be made that sets us aside from other governments and parties that have governed and would govern this province. That's the initiative of feeding some kids in British Columbia
[ Page 9759 ]
-- 65,000 meals. When a meals program was put to the former government, the Premier of the day said: "If the parents can't get up in the morning and pour some cereal in a bowl, it's not my responsibility." This government has taken up the challenge and fed 65,000 kids -- 65,000 kids who will have a different outlook on life. They'll go to school and get a meal, sustenance for their mind and their soul for that day. I expect that we won't be finding vast numbers of those kids coming through the criminal justice system. We'll have made a difference in the lives of those children.
We talk in this throne speech of the deficit being down, jobs up and taxes frozen. This is the theme for B.C. in 1994. This is the reason B.C. led the way in Canada last year and will lead this year, next year and into a balanced budget by 1996. That's why I stand for these few minutes today and support the throne speech of this government.
B. Simpson: I'm delighted this afternoon to respond to the Speech from the Throne as presented by His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor. "The B.C. economy posted strong, balanced growth last year as both foreign and domestic demand surged. More of the same is anticipated in 1994." The source of those words is none other than the Conference Board of Canada's 1994 Provincial Outlook. There is no higher authority for giving credence to the government's position that B.C. continues to have Canada's strongest economy. This theme was repeated in the latest edition of Maclean's magazine. I wish to read what Maclean's says about B.C. and our economy: "The government of British Columbia, Canada's financially healthiest province, introduced a budget that freezes income, sales and corporate taxes; maintains key services and delivers a promise to reduce the deficit from $1.3 billion in 1993-94 to an estimated $898 million this fiscal year."
I want to state for the record some of the highlights of the Speech from the Throne and the budget and what business leaders have to say. In the last few months our Premier and our Finance minister have gone throughout the province and listened to ordinary British Columbians and leaders of business. The result is a throne speech that is pragmatic and not ideological. Those who know how important it is to have a sound economy recognize the determination of our Premier and Minister of Finance to put the province on a sound business footing. "We compliment the minister. There is a different tone in the budget, far more practical and businesslike," said Jerry Lampert, president of the Business Council of British Columbia.
Let us not forget that the former Social Credit government lied to the people of British Columbia when they said that the deficit would be $370 million. Peat Marwick, Canada's foremost major international accounting firm, exposed that lie and expressed concern that the deficit was in fact in excess of $2 billion.
[5:00]
Deputy Speaker: Member, I'm sorry to interrupt, and I certainly don't mean to impede the flow, but I have to caution you that the use of the word "lie" is.... Certainly, if there were Social Credit members in the House here, they would have every reason to stand up and claim offence. I would ask the member to please be more careful in his choice of words.
B. Simpson: I see by their silence that they agree with me.
Through sound financial management, this deficit has been cut to $898 million. This government has reduced the deficit by 60 percent in three years. By 1996 the deficit will be eliminated, fulfilling a campaign promise that we would balance the budget. With regard to spending, taking into consideration inflation and the population growth of this province -- which is close to 80,000 per year -- there is in fact a cut in government spending of 1.3 percent.
We promised that decisive measures would be taken to control spending in the public sector. An example of that determination was the announcement just a few days ago that the provincial government has reached a tentative agreement with the Government Employees' Union for a zero increase in the first year and a 1.5 percent wage adjustment in the second year. This is a government that keeps its promises. We promised to put our financial house in order. We said that there would be no money in this year's budget for public service wage increases, and we delivered on that commitment.
Our government is determined to save our citizens their hard-earned tax dollars, and steps will be taken to control the excess absenteeism by members of that particular union. There is no increase in personal income taxes, no increase in sales tax rates, no increase in Medical Services Plan premiums, no increase in the average school or provincial rural area property tax levels, no increase in corporation income or capital tax rates, no increase in fuel tax rates, and no increase in tobacco, hotel room, insurance premium or property transfer tax rates.
What other government in Canada can make that pledge? We have gone one step further. Not only are we freezing taxes, but we started to eliminate taxes in certain areas to stimulate the economy. Let's look at what the business community has to say about the elimination of certain taxes -- for example, the tax on jet fuel. The tax on international flights has been reduced. This reduction will attract international carriers to British Columbia. Vancouver International Airport Authority stated in their press release that this reduction is a great boon to business activity. The vice-president of marketing for the airport authority, Gerry Bruno, said that the reductions would improve the airport's competitive position with other west coast airports and would be a major incentive in the airport's attempts to attract more international carriers to Vancouver.
Our government envisions the day when we will see international aircraft coming in from Malaysia, the Philippines, Vietnam and Indonesia -- landing in this province and bringing tens of thousands of tourists and hundreds of millions of dollars in investment. Our government is fully committed to ensuring that bilateral air agreements take place, and trusts that the two major international airlines in Canada will cooperate in assuring that these bilaterals are established.
It is noted that Air Canada's representative Sandie Dexter stated, with reference to the reduction of the aviation fuel tax: "It's excellent news on all accounts. Considering how much more we are flying out of Vancouver, the savings will be substantial."
Mining taxes. Representatives of the Mining Association of B.C. met on numerous occasions with various government ministers, including the Premier and our Minister of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources, and emphasized the importance of mining to the province. It is an industry responsible for 33,000 jobs generating $2.7 billion in annual revenue. This government listened and reduced the mineral tax rate. And what did the Mining Association say in response? I quote Mr. Gary Livingstone, president of the Mining Association of B.C.: "Today's budget, which among other things provides for a mineral tax rate reduction for coal to bring it in line with tax rates for base minerals, is welcome
[ Page 9760 ]
news and represents a good start from which we can begin to tackle other key concerns."
The New Democratic Party government restored the automobile trade-in allowance. Mr. Joe Brown, manager of Dueck on Marine -- I'm sure he won't mind if I put in this commercial for his company; it's bordering on my riding of Vancouver-Fraserview -- stated: "I can't think of anything better that could have been done."
The New Democratic Party government cut the property purchase tax for first-time homeowners on homes valued up to $250,000 -- a tax introduced by the former Social Credit administration. This move has been praised by the real estate industry and the ordinary British Columbian, who will have $3,000 more to put into his pocket -- which he can spend on appliances or furnishings, thus further stimulating the economy.
Yes, tax cuts for the ordinary British Columbian -- including first-time homebuyers -- and mining tax incentives and tax breaks for small businesses: this government not only promises to help British Columbians, but delivers on those promises. Let us remember that the $898 million projected deficit for 1994 represents a substantial 30 percent cut from 1993-94.
L. Boone: How much?
B. Simpson: A 33 percent cut. Isn't that something? I'll repeat that: a 33 percent cut. If the federal government had not reneged on the federal-provincial cost-sharing agreement and off-loaded on B.C., we would have a budget surplus of $900 million in 1993-94 and $1.6 billion in 1994-95.
This is what the prominent brokerage firm of Wood Gundy has to say about our budget. I quote from Wood Gundy's "Economics: Provincial Budget Briefs." Their senior economist stated: "B.C. finds itself in the enviable position of strong economic growth and job creation, the lowest debt-to-GDP ratio of any of the provinces, the lowest debt-servicing-to-spending ratio of any of the provinces and the highest credit rating...B.C.'s debt-to-GDP ratio is still the lowest in Canada, and this budget will not alter the market's view of B.C. as a top-notch credit risk."
Not only have we frozen or reduced taxes and set the goal of balancing the budget in the next two years, and not only do we have the strongest economy in Canada, but we're putting billions of dollars into infrastructure. At this time, I want to address the criticism of the opposition members who criticize us for borrowing for infrastructure. Members of the opposition have been critical of the government for spending billions of dollars for infrastructure.
I'm a longstanding member of the board of trade, of which I'm proud. I had the opportunity last year of attending a seminar where the vice-president of the Royal Bank stated that the clear role of government is to provide infrastructure to stimulate the economy. We are listening to leaders of the business community. Infrastructure means schools, hospitals, roads and rapid transit. No business can expand without borrowing, and that holds true with the provincial government. Yes, the province is borrowing to provide infrastructure.
What is the return on our investment? I'm sure that the Finance critic for the opposition knows what the return on the investment is: a healthy, highly educated population whose skills make possible the healthiest economy in the whole of North America. I see by the silence of the Finance critic of the opposition that he must agree with me.
Schools. In my riding of Vancouver-Fraserview, we have Moberly Lake school with 12 portable classrooms. I know that doesn't sound like much to my colleague from Surrey, where they have probably twice that amount; in B.C. and Vancouver, believe it or not, that's the most portables we have. We promised during the last election that renovations would be made to eliminate those portables, the cost of which will be $6 million. Last month the Minister of Education and I visited that school. We went into those portables and we saw for ourselves how those children had to traipse through the mud in the pouring rain to go to the washroom, and how they were concerned for their safety. We saw how the teachers work under intolerable conditions. This story could be repeated in school districts throughout the province. If the opposition had its way, there would be no borrowing to replace those portables. I dare the opposition to come into my riding and tell those children, teachers and parents that we should not borrow in order to give them the best possible conditions in which to learn.
Recently I had the opportunity of turning the sod on a $24.1 million facility to replace Cambie Junior Secondary School in Richmond. This is a unique school, combining a school with a community centre, which is an effective use of taxpayers' money. The majority of the $24 million will be coming from funding provided by the B.C. 21 initiative -- money that had to be borrowed. I had the opportunity of speaking to the school trustees and to the hon. member for Richmond, whom I have a great deal of respect for....
An Hon. Member: Which one?
B. Simpson: Richmond East, but I respect all the members from Richmond. In particular, I had the opportunity of speaking to the member for Richmond East. The trustees told me that they need four or five times that amount to meet the school requirements. This government, regardless of where the ridings are or who holds these ridings, is determined to provide the best education and facilities. I want to assure the members from Richmond that we will fulfil our promise to provide the best facilities.
I am sure that the three members of the opposition who represent Richmond would not dare say to the students, their parents or the school trustees that we should not borrow to build Cambie Junior Secondary School or the other schools that they so desperately need. I see from the silence of the three members from Richmond, who belong to the opposition, that they are in agreement with me.
By building new school facilities, we are creating employment. We're also gaining long-term benefits for the children of British Columbia. Time and time again, members of the opposition have demanded that our government build schools, hospitals, roads and rapid transit. I say to them: where is the money going to come from if it's not from borrowing? We're not talking about a few million dollars here; we're talking about billions of dollars for infrastructure, for schools, for roads and for rapid transit. Because the economy of this province is strong and we have the highest credit rating, we can borrow at the lowest possible prevailing rates of interest. We're able to borrow and give British Columbians infrastructure which the business community says that we, as a government, must give to facilitate economic growth in the province.
As a result of an infrastructure agreement with the federal government, $675 million will be put into B.C.'s infrastructure development over the next two years. B.C. will receive $225 million in federal funding under the agreement. Our government, under B.C. 21, will match this amount, and local governments will also contribute $225 million. In the administrative report issued by the city engineer of the city of Vancouver on February 1, 1994, the engineer noted that the city
[ Page 9761 ]
of Vancouver played the lead role in the federal infrastructure program's study of infrastructure needs across Canada. In 1983, it was at the urging of Vancouver's mayor at that time that this plan was developed. The mayor at that time is now the Premier, and he chaired the original federal infrastructure program. As a result of the vision of the mayor of Vancouver at that time and his colleagues on council, millions of dollars will now be put into the city of Vancouver for sewers, waterworks, streets and electrical work.
B.C.'s share of the infrastructure agreement will be $225 million. I challenge the opposition MLAs from Vancouver to say that we should not borrow that $225 million or that we should not do the infrastructure which is so desperately needed in the city of Vancouver.
[5:15]
Let me tell you, hon. Speaker, what all this means for my riding of Vancouver-Fraserview -- and I hope my constituents are listening this evening. Several continuing-care homes are receiving funding from the Ministry of Health and B.C. 21. The Finnish Canadian Rest Home -- this total project is worth $8.35 million, which will be a replacement of 54 beds. United Church Fair Haven Home -- close to $800,000 for planning funds has been approved towards a project that will cost approximately $14 million. The German Canadian rest home -- $700,000 in planning funds has been approved towards a project worth $10 million. The Icelandic Care Home -- close to $100,000 has been spent for room conversions. The Kopernik Lodge -- our government is seriously looking at their request for a special care unit costing approximately $1.5 million. The Royal Arch Masonic Home -- our government is seriously looking at their request for a special unit which, if approved, would be close to $9 million.
Throughout the province of British Columbia the NDP government is spending hundreds of millions of dollars for schools, hospitals and community centres. Our government will seriously look at the request by Killarney Community Centre in my riding for much-needed renovations.
In conclusion, we have controlled spending in this province. At the same time, we have given top priority to education and health, while other provinces, such as Alberta, are making drastic cuts that are causing severe disruptions in the lives of their citizens. I'm proud to be part of a government that helps its citizens develop their potential. I am proud to be part of a government that is adding 8,100 places in post-secondary educational services, while enhancing the health of our citizens. As we lay the groundwork for the next century, our children can look to the future with confidence -- an exciting future in the best place in North America to live: the province of British Columbia.
Thank you, hon. members, for your attention.
K. Jones: It's a pleasure to carry on in the throne speech debate after the very interesting presentations that have been put forward throughout the afternoon by fellow members. It is interesting, through the throne speech debate, to learn so much about the various attributes and needs of different ridings throughout the province. This is a great opportunity for people to actually hear about what the province is made up of. It's not only a massive province that reaches from the U.S. border to the Yukon and from the Pacific Ocean through to the Alberta Rockies; it's a series of small communities of families and homes here and there. They create probably one of the finest places in North America, and perhaps in the world. I think that many people would agree with me that this is the finest place in the world to live. People are coming here from all over the world to put down roots. They have moved away from their historical background and have come here, uprooting their heritage and bringing some of it with them. They contribute a great deal to the growth of our communities, to the character of our towns and cities and to our culture.
My riding of Surrey-Cloverdale -- the east half of Surrey; in a line from Guildford almost to White Rock and out to Langley; from the Fraser River, the Port Mann Bridge and Barnston Island right down to the U.S. border crossing at the Peace Arch and the Pacific truck crossings at Highway 15 -- is a tremendous area, where we have a wonderful cosmopolitan mix of people and cultures. We have urban, suburban and rural. We have some of the finest farm properties in British Columbia. The market gardens in that area feed, for a good part of the year, the province of British Columbia and other provinces and parts of the northern U.S. through their great growing capabilities.
With all of this we also have various problems that come with it. We have problems with our high growth rate in education. There is insufficient funding to provide the necessary teachers and school facilities. As the member for Vancouver-Fraserview pointed out, in Surrey we probably have the largest number of portable classrooms anywhere in the province. We continue to be the lowest-funded-per-capita school district in British Columbia. We also continue to be the lowest-funded-per-capita health district in British Columbia. We also happen to be the lowest-funded college community in British Columbia, and have the lowest opportunity for people to go to university. We recognize the need to have those services provided for the people of Surrey, just as we have the need to provide them throughout the province. The difference in Surrey is that with the high growth rate over the past 20 years -- and certainly at a very much more rapid pace over the last ten years -- we have a serious shortfall from the previous government, and now with this government, in its inability to address the needs of high growth and the need to create the infrastructure required in that area.
We don't want to say that we have to keep spending, but there are certain areas in which we have to start redistributing the overall budget. We need to make sure that the university services provided in Prince George are also provided to the students of Surrey, Langley and North Delta. We are certainly not asking that the kind of money poured into the University of Northern B.C. should be spent in Surrey. A much more efficient educational facility could be provided, and we want to see that. There is no opportunity for a lot of our students to go on to post-secondary education. If those who are capable and have the desire don't go on to post-secondary education, we lose a major part of our future asset. If we don't train our young people, jobs will not be created by those young people as they grow up. They will be doing the menial jobs at McDonald's, rather than becoming creators of technology and scientific development and the professional people our students are just as capable of being as students in any other part of the province.
We have to start bringing equity to the distribution of funds throughout the province, and it is not equal at this time. There are gross disparities among different parts of the province -- a great difference between the Fraser Valley and Vancouver, even -- and those have to be reconciled. The people of Surrey should not be treated like second-class citizens by this government, and that's what has happened over the last three years. It happened with the previous Social Credit government as well. We have to find a way. The formulas that have been brought forward so far are not
[ Page 9762 ]
solving the problem. There must be a much larger transfer of funding until facilities and operating costs in Surrey are properly addressed.
I urge the members for Surrey-Whalley, Surrey-Green Timbers and Surrey-Newton -- all three are on the government side, and two of them sit on Treasury Board -- to come forward and stand up for the people of Surrey and make sure they are truly represented. And I want to remind the government that there are five people who represent Surrey, not three, as some of their organizations and propaganda sometimes seem to indicate. The people of Surrey would like to feel that they truly have that representation. When the people in this House look at Surrey's interests, they should recognize that with a large population of 280,000 people, the city of Surrey has not one representative, like many other cities in this province, but five. With its current growth rate, we should probably be represented by seven members; that is how quickly we have grown since the last electoral representation was done.
Surrey is required to provide transportation infrastructure so people from other communities in the Fraser Valley can get to their places of work and amusement and culture. Some of the major highways in the province go through our community. Highway 99 comes in from the U.S. border on the south, and on the north side we have Highway 1, which feeds through to the Port Mann Bridge and into Vancouver and Coquitlam. Those are major traffic arteries that have seen tremendous growth over the last ten years. For quite some time they have far exceeded their capacity during rush hours. Something needs to be done to address it. I see the government's desire to address the transit problem on the north side of the Fraser River, and I commend them for doing so; it's definitely needed. But they have a major problem to solve before they can move that ahead; that is, they have to find some agreement with Canadian Pacific Railway over who owns the right-of-way. That's not an easy thing to do.
We also have a transit situation on the south side of the Fraser, through Surrey and Cloverdale. We have a railway line that ties right into SkyTrain at the Scott Road station that could be utilized by a light rail transit system, which could replace what had originally been there, the old interurban system. It's a very economical method of bringing people into our communities. We're talking about not having to bring people into Vancouver all the time now, because with the growth in Surrey, the Whalley area and the new Surrey city centre, job opportunities will come as this area develops. People will come into the area and move to the Surrey city centre instead of going into downtown Vancouver. This is a good move. This is the direction that the GVRD and the people of Surrey have been working towards. It is a necessary change for the structure, population growth, job opportunities and industrial development.
[5:30]
Industrial development is moving into Surrey. In order to facilitate that, we need a major perimeter highway that would take the truck traffic along the South Fraser perimeter road from 176th Street to Delta and ultimately link into the Delta port facilities. That development project needs to be given first priority immediately. The money for the planning needs to be put aside in this budget year so that we can build the road and any industrial facility along that route and also in adjoining areas. This will provide a very good transportation route to take traffic from the eastern Fraser Valley through to the Delta port facilities. There will be many job opportunities as a result of that south perimeter road.
I cannot emphasize strongly enough the reasons that we need to move on that today. We need to use whatever is required to fund that and make it work, recognizing that it will create a large number of jobs and pay for itself by the employment it provides.
As in many other growing communities, in Surrey we also have concerns about the crime that comes with that growth. With heavy traffic we have speeding problems and the accidents, deaths and injuries that come with that. I can't emphasize enough the need for everyone who is in that high-density traffic area to be much more cautious with their driving. Giving a little bit for their fellow driver out there may save both their life and the lives of others. It's something that we in this Legislature need to stand up and speak about more often than we have. We have to set the standard for the people of B.C.
[The Speaker in the chair.]
Unfortunately, we have had an increase in serious youth crime. This has caused a great deal of concern to all people in my community and, I'm sure, in most other communities throughout the province. There have been a lot of young people dying as a result of what appear to be random, unprovoked or unexplained incidents. It appears as if these people -- young people who are not wanted and are not being given the feeling of love that all people desire -- are crying out as a symptom of a problem that we have in our society. There is a definite need for all of us to address this is without question. We also have to find better ways of dealing with the victims of this crime, both the injured persons and the families that are injured in various ways by the fact that they have lost a loved one who can't be replaced.
There is a concern that the justice system does not serve the needs of these people. They are treated callously at times. There are postponements of hearings, and sometimes legal persons will not even appear but only send a fax. I condemn those people in the legal profession who provoke needless pain in these parents, grandparents, and brothers and sisters, who want to be part of a justice program. They want to see it happen. When they get delays in the processing, that is a serious injury to them. It is often an additional expense, because they may have to take time off work in order to attend. It's a very serious problem that we in this Legislature have to address, and I think we need to get on with it in this session.
I would ask the government to bring forward some proposals for discussion and legislation -- to the extent that they're capable of doing it -- and to urge the federal government to take the actions that are within their jurisdiction and to bring rectification to the court processes, particularly those that involve young offenders and young adults.
I'd like to note that one of the great popular facilities in Cloverdale is the Cloverdale Exhibition and the rodeo. The Cloverdale Rodeo is probably one of the largest participatory activities in the province. It is seen throughout North America as a senior rodeo to which the very top in riders and horsepersons are coming on an annual basis.
The Cloverdale Rodeo and Exhibition Association has been trying to get a simple piece of legislation through this House for the last two years -- a piece of legislation that would allow them to change their name to Cloverdale Rodeo and Exhibition Association from their originally established name of Lower Fraser Valley Exhibition Association. This House has twice brought that to the floor through the first reading process. Yet in each of the past two years, that
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legislation has died on the order paper for failure of the House Leader to bring it forward for a final vote.
I received indications that this could be done again this year, and that if it was, it would probably pass -- but that it would pass at the end of the session providing I behaved myself. I am not going to be under that impediment in order to try to bring forward a constituent's need. I don't think our government should be making that insinuation. Therefore I have turned this over to one of the NDP members in Surrey to carry forward just so that there will not be any problem with an opposition member holding up the process. Therefore I no longer will be championing that. I hope that the hon. member for Surrey-Green Timbers, who has been handed the ball, will carry it and bring it to completion. I will be only too happy to support that process throughout the legislative procedure, but I really am concerned that this is not the way this type of government should be operating.
We have a very serious problem with the Workers' Compensation Board that I'd like to just touch on slightly. There are a lot of workers whose simple injuries, or what would appear to be simply resolved injuries, are not being addressed but are being allowed to carry on, some of them for as long as 20 and 30 years. They have been such a great difficulty that these people have now come together to bring the weight of a union of them to this government, to try to get it to prevail upon the Workers' Compensation Board to resolve the very serious problems that they're faced with.
Many of them are getting no benefits. They have no working capability, and they are just subsisting on whatever they can. I don't think this is any way to be treating people who have dedicated their lives to working in our industries throughout this province over the years. I think these particular cases need to be treated on a fair and equitable basis. They need to be given a proper hearing, and not one with doctors who do not have the proper qualifications to deal with a particular type of injury, and who are making judgments and overruling people who are specialists in that area just because they happen to work for the WCB.
Something has to be done about the WCB from the bottom to the top. The approach to the client is not one of service, but almost of a person who is on trial. WCB does not recognize them as injured persons but demands that they prove they have an injury. It is particularly difficult and requires compassion for the treatment of people who have non-physical injuries -- the ones you can't measure like a broken arm or a missing leg; the people who have internal damage to their hearing or nervous systems as a result of certain work conditions. Those people should be given the greatest of compassion, but they are given short shrift by the WCB on many occasions.
[5:45]
I had hoped that this throne speech was going to speak to those issues, but I did not hear them being mentioned at all. There was no mention of farms, no mention of the need for community growth, and no mention of the need of people with serious injuries. This throne speech is not addressing the real issues. It appears to put the government in the best light by making people believe that there are no taxes and that they are reducing the deficit, even though the debt is increasing by $2 billion. And the deficit is also greater than what they are claiming.
Hon. G Clark moved adjournment of the debate.
Motion approved.
Hon. G. Clark: Just before moving adjournment, Mr. Speaker, I'd like to advise all members that the House will be sitting tomorrow for a part-day.
Hon. G. Clark moved adjournment of the House.
Motion approved.
The House adjourned at 5:47 p.m.
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