1995 Legislative Session: 4th Session, 35th Parliament
HANSARD
The following electronic version is for informational purposes only.
The printed version remains the official version.
(Hansard)
MONDAY, APRIL 10, 1995
Afternoon Sitting
Volume 18, Number 19
[ Page 13313 ]
The House met at 2:05 p.m.
Prayers.
Hon. E. Cull: In the gallery this afternoon are some students from Lambrick Park Secondary School, which is in my riding. They are accompanied by their teacher, Ms. Trumpy. I'd like to ask everyone in the House to make them welcome.
B.C. INVOLVEMENT IN FEE-FOR-SERVICE HOSPITALS IN CHINA
G. Campbell: Last week the Premier informed the House that B.C. Trade was actively at work in China trying to make sure the Chinese community benefited from Canadian medicare. I have in my hand a document from the B.C. Trade intelligence division, which points out quite clearly that the changes being pursued in China will "put the onus on individual citizens to pay for more medical services," and further: "B.C. Trade is clearly dealing with the Chinese to establish a U.S. model of health care." The same report from the intelligence division of B.C. Trade points out that discussions have taken place about taking B.C.'s cardiology patients from Vancouver General and shipping them to Shanghai for care. Can the Premier tell us if his idea of protecting medicare in British Columbia is to ship B.C.'s cardiology patients to Shanghai for American-style health care?
Hon. M. Harcourt: As I said last week, the difference with the New Democrat government in British Columbia is that we're taking one of the most successful health care systems anywhere in the world -- medicare -- and now making it available in China. What the Liberals want to do, both here and in Ottawa, is to import the American-style...
Interjections.
The Speaker: Order.
Hon. M. Harcourt: ...two-tier health care system. There is a need in China for diplomats, business people and people from areas of Asia who are living with their families or setting up enterprises to have access to good-quality health care based on the Canadian medicare model here in British Columbia, which is the best in the country.
The Speaker: Supplemental, hon. member.
G. Campbell: It is clear that the Premier has not read the document that his own Trade Development Corporation has prepared. The Trade Development Corporation is talking about American-style health care in China.
AVAILABILITY OF HEALTH CARE IN PRINCE GEORGE
G. Campbell: I was in Prince George last week, where we have yet another example of someone who has basic and fundamental medical needs not being met in Prince George. David Byers, a hockey player with the Prince George Spruce Kings, had the misfortune of breaking his leg. It could not be set in Prince George, so he was shipped to Kelowna. While he was there, he was told that he had to find out how he could get home for himself, on his own. Is the Premier willing to phone Mr. Byers, his family and teammates, and inform them why a simple leg break cannot get taken care of in the Prince George Regional Hospital? Will you phone them and tell them why getting the leg set is not an available service in Prince George under B.C.'s medical system?
Hon. M. Harcourt: I think it's really ironic that the Leader of the Opposition thought that his Minister of Finance, Paul Martin, didn't cut medicare enough. He has candidates -- the -- wanting to bring in a two-tier health care system, run and controlled entirely by doctors. It's ironic that he can stand up in this House and criticize this government, which is changing medicare so we can keep medicare for British Columbians and protect it against Liberals here in British Columbia and in Ottawa. It shows the rank hypocrisy coming from those who want to set up a two-tier health care system based on the American model, instead of the medicare system we want to preserve as New Democrats here in British Columbia.
TRADE MISSION TO MYANMAR
V. Anderson: After the Liberal opposition questioned the Premier, he cancelled the trade mission to Burma. Obviously the Premier is not aware of what is going on in his own trade office. Can the Premier tell the House whether or not the B.C. Trade office contacted or was contacted by the External Affairs offices prior to sending this trade mission overseas to this military dictatorship?
Hon. M. Harcourt: As I said last week when I heard about this trip, I informed the House that it was part of a much larger trip: a visit by the COO of B.C. Trade, Miss Oksana Exell, who was down reviewing the trade representatives -- not the expensive junior diplomat offices that used to exist, but the trade representatives -- who are there, on a businesslike basis, in Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand. They were going to look into potential opportunities in Indonesia, and they were going into Myanmar to look at some prospects there. When I first heard about that, I asked that the trip be cancelled, and it was cancelled.
The Speaker: Supplemental, hon. member.
V. Anderson: According to the reports, a briefing paper written by the Premier's Office failed to mention that Canada does not maintain diplomatic relations with Burma and actively discourages businesses from going there at this time. It would seem that the B.C. Trade offices, of all government agencies, should be aware of the political situations of potential trading partners. Can the Premier tell us why no one -- neither himself nor his staff -- took the time to call External Affairs, or if they did, why they ignored the warnings?
DISMISSAL OF GOVERNMENT SERVICES MINISTER
J. Weisgerber: My question is to the Premier. According to the chronology published in the April 5 Times Colonist on the sexual harassment scandal, Doug McArthur first learned of these two new allegations on Friday, March 31. Given that the NDP convention was on that weekend, can the Premier explain why his deputy supposedly waited until Monday, April 3, to advise him of these new allegations? Were these delays put in place to cover up for the Premier on that weekend?
[ Page 13314 ]
Hon. M. Harcourt: As I said from the beginning of this matter, I'm not prepared to make decisions based on rumour or innuendo or secondhand information. I asked my deputy to report to me if he had any solid evidence of incidents that had happened when he had finally done the due diligence that I requested him to do. He was able, on the Monday -- I think it was April 3 -- to report two further incidents. On the basis of his explanation to me of those incidents, I took action, and the minister was gone the next day.
J. Weisgerber: A supplementary. Is the Premier saying, then, that he knew of these allegations on Friday but asked that there be further investigation into them? Or is he saying that his deputy covered up these allegations until Monday before making the Premier aware of them?
Hon. M. Harcourt: I think it's unfortunate that the Leader of the Third Party is playing politics with this very serious matter. It's unfortunate that he's mocking the request by a Premier to his staff to make sure that they do due diligence when any of these very serious allegations are made. I am saying to you that to meet those standards my deputy did the investigation, talked directly to people involved and came to a conclusion, which he reported to me on April 3. On the basis of that, I acted on these very serious incidents.
[2:15]
AMALGAMATION OF SCHOOL DISTRICTS
L. Stephens: The Minister of Education is on record as questioning whether B.C. needs 75 school districts. Since 1980 there have been at least four internal government studies, all supporting school district amalgamation. Why did the minister back down from his commitment to reduce the number of school boards?
Hon. A. Charbonneau: There is a tremendous agenda on school boards this fall to implement new curricula and the new graduation and intermediate programs, along with many other good, long-overdue changes. I thought it was best that we get on with those changes rather than distract the system with another process. At an appropriate time I will come back to the issue that the member has raised.
The Speaker: A supplemental, hon. member.
L. Stephens: The minister knows that amalgamation could save taxpayers millions of dollars, with the elimination of duplicated services, boards and administration. Will the minister admit that he is putting political friends ahead of children and that there is a need to take the dollars out of administration and put them into eliminating classroom portables?
Hon. A. Charbonneau: No. This government puts children first; we put the quality education of all children first. We do not stand for a two-tier education system, as the member opposite and her leader stand for.
CRIMINAL GANGS IN NORTHERN B.C.
R. Neufeld: My question is to the Attorney General. It has now been reported that the Rockers bike gang has cut a deal with the Hell's Angels to set up shop in organized crime in northern B.C. What steps is the Attorney General taking to prevent this Montreal-based crime gang from running loose in northern communities and terrorizing law-abiding British Columbians?
Hon. C. Gabelmann: In discussions with the coordinated law enforcement unit, I'm satisfied that the police community in British Columbia is treating these issues with the utmost seriousness, and I'm confident that they will be dealing with it in the appropriate way.
TENDERING OF GOVERNMENT CONTRACTS
G. Farrell-Collins: My question is to the Premier. The Liberal opposition has learned that NDP special friend Ron Johnson has incorporated a new company which is also doing work for the NDP government. Chi Tah Communications was put on a $10,000 per month retainer by the Minister of Employment and Investment to do work for B.C. 21 in the Chinese cultural community. Can the Premier advise us whether or not, in his discussions with the auditor general and Mr. Hughes, he advised them of this link between NOW Communications, Chi Tah, and the Premier's office?
Hon. G. Clark: I'm delighted to discuss the efforts the government has taken to communicate to Chinese Canadians in their mother language. We have taken more action on this side of the House, through Chi Tah Communications and through the Chinese Canadian press -- which is substantial in British Columbia -- to make sure we communicate the issues and agenda of this administration in the many languages which make up British Columbia. I want to tell members of the House that we will be aggressively pursuing.... Whether it's through Indo-Canadian newspapers, community papers or Chinese-language papers, we will be communicating to people in their languages all the work this government has done. Chi Tah Communications is a communications firm which specializes in Chinese Canadian publications. I'm delighted that we've been able to take advantage of their expertise.
The Speaker: Supplemental, hon. member.
G. Farrell-Collins: The minister doesn't seem to get it. Everyone agrees that we should be communicating with all communities in our province. The question is whether or not those new-found, newly minted companies are getting contracts by a fair process. Can the minister tell us why Chi Tah did not go through an open-tender process to receive that contract? Why did the minister give that company the contract without going to public tender?
Hon. G. Clark: First of all, advice from my staff is that the information the member has is completely incorrect. I know that there are marketing firms that specialize in marketing and communications with various ethnic Canadians. We take advantage of more than just Chi Tah Communications. We have had numerous press conferences dealing with issues of concern to Chinese Canadians, and I remind members opposite that we don't hesitate to say that the Liberal Party is opposed to the Multiculturalism Act. They opposed increased investment in neighbourhood settlement programs. They oppose the new initiatives this administration has taken when it comes to new Canadians, and I might say that we know they support the Paul Martin head tax that was imposed by their friends in Ottawa.
Hon. E. Cull tabled the annual report of business done pursuant to the Public Service Benefit Plan Act during the fiscal year ended March 31, 1994; the report of business done pursuant to the Legislative Assembly Allowances and Pension Act, part 2, during the fiscal year ended March 31, 1994; and the public accounts for the fiscal year ended March 31, 1994.
[ Page 13315 ]
Hon. E. Cull: I `m requesting 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 ended March 31, 1994, be referred to the Select Standing Committee on Public Accounts.
Motion approved.
Hon. C. Gabelmann tabled the twenty-third annual report of the Criminal Injury Compensation Act of British Columbia for 1994, and the annual report of the Attorney General ministry, 1993-94.
Hon. G. Clark: I call Motion 80 standing on the order paper in my name. [See appendix.]
DESIGNATION OF SECOND ESTIMATES COMMITTEE (COMMITTEE A)
Hon. G. Clark: Motion 80 is the motion we've used -- I think this is the fourth year now -- to divide the Committee of Supply into Section A and Section B. It's an innovation which allows for a more efficient and expeditious use of the House's time. I think it has worked fairly well. We continue to try to refine and improve it. It hasn't, unfortunately, shortened the duration of the session, but it has led to some in-depth debate on various estimates matters before the House, and in some cases in the committee room -- the Douglas Fir Room -- the debate is more detailed than might be allowed in the House per se. I think that has allowed opposition members to more fully take advantage of estimates to question, including Crown corporations questions.... There was some canvassing earlier of the Crown corporations. I might say that I think this has really enabled much more canvassing of Crown corporation activities than in the past, and that's good. It has allowed for a full debate.
There is one small problem with the motion as it stands with respect to discussions with the opposition parties. Actually, this motion has changed every year as the nature of the opposition changes, the parties.... There's a kind of fluidity on the other side of the House, which sometimes makes it difficult to craft these. When we were putting together this motion in my office, we put it together the same as last year. Unfortunately, we failed to recognize that, uniquely, at the beginning of the session last year there was only the opposition party and then, I believe, independents -- or no other registered parties. That has changed, more in keeping with what it was the year prior to that when we had the Social Credit Party as a registered party in the House. So, hon. Speaker, I have an amendment which I'd like to move now: be it resolved that the motion be amended by deleting paragraph 2 and substituting the following:
"2. Subject to paragraph 3, within one sitting day of the passage of this Motion, the House Leader of the Official Opposition and the House Leader of the Third Party may jointly advise the Government House Leader, in writing, of three ministerial Estimates which the Official Opposition and the Third Party require to be considered in Section B of the Committee of Supply, and upon receipt of such notice in writing, the Government House Leader shall confirm in writing that the said three ministerial Estimates shall be considered in Section B of the Committee of Supply."
On the amendment.
G. Wilson: I'd appreciate it at some point if a written copy of that amendment might be brought over to the members whom the minister refers to as the "independents," because as elected representatives, clearly we have an obligation and a duty to the constituents who elect us, whether we are seen to be an official party in this House or not. The fact is that we have an obligation to fully participate in these estimates debates and to make sure we are able to properly adjust to the agenda as the government may modify it.
On the amendment, I would say that the fluidity of actions in this House would warrant that there be some consideration, in looking at that amendment, to commentary beyond the official opposition and the third party. It is not clear what will happen should the dynamic of this House further alter. I would say that if we're going to look at that amendment, we might also be very clear to include that: "all members be notified within their prescribed caucus." I think if the amendment could include "the third party and all members within their prescribed caucus," that would prohibit the situation that has occurred to date, where at least five Members of the Legislative Assembly have consistently not received notice when these changes come forward.
I think it's a simple amendment that takes the dynamics in this House into account. I would say that the dynamics are not limited to the opposition benches; we notice that the members opposite have, from time to time, had members fall into different jurisdictions. So if that amendment could be taken into account, we could support this.
J. Weisgerber: I want to rise and speak in favour of the amendment. It's important that we have an opportunity, as recognized in our parliamentary system, to participate in these events and, I understand, also the events that led up to the amendment coming forward as it did last year. From the third party's perspective, the amendment satisfies our needs.
G. Farrell-Collins: In echoing the comments of the member for Powell River-Sunshine Coast, I have no problem -- on my part, anyway -- hearing input that the member, or other members who sit as independents in this House, may have into that decision. Obviously, it's going to have to be something that's determined as a group, and I'm sure that we can all come to some conclusions in that regard. I have no problem with representations being made by that members or other members of this House as to how they would like to see that take place.
Amendment approved.
On the motion as amended.
G. Wilson: As members of this House will know, on every occasion there has been an objection raised with respect to the division of estimates into two Houses. I wish to be consistent in raising the same objections this year as I have in the past. I don't intend to belabour this point, but I think it is important to recognize that where members of political parties which are small in number are involved, it is often impossible for them to participate simultaneously in two debates, even though they may have a need to do so on behalf of their constituents, and as I have said before, from my point of view -- although I recognize that the Chair takes a different point
[ Page 13316 ]
of view -- that may violate the right of a member. Therefore I would like to again go on record as saying that we do not support the splitting of the estimates into two Houses, because it does cause difficulty for those members who are participating as part of parties which have a small number of elected members in this Legislature.
[2:30]
G. Farrell-Collins: I want to raise my concerns -- yet again, I guess -- that this government has.... While there are merits in doing what we've done, I believe there was a commitment undertaken by the New Democrats when they were in opposition -- and by the Social Credit government at that time -- to bring television into this House to make it more available for people to see how bills were debated, how their money was being spent and the decisions that went into that.
For better or worse, that took place. The public and viewers, I guess, are the ones to decide. But one of the things we have done by moving Committee A into the Douglas Fir Room is to remove a large portion of the spending estimates of the government -- some 16 out of 19 ministries, in fact -- out of this House and into another area where that coverage is not available. If the government is going to make that commitment to make access to this chamber available directly to the public through television, my feeling is that perhaps there needs to be some serious thought given to looking at ways we can improve access to that committee room for the public, too. I know there are expenses involved in doing so, but if those expenses are justified in this chamber, I think they are justified in the other chamber as well. That is something I think needs to be looked at. I am disappointed that we have gone three years with this process in place and haven't yet undertaken to examine it in any meaningful way. I wish we would take the opportunity to do that and see if we can't improve upon that.
With regard to comments made by the member for Powell River-Sunshine Coast, I share to a certain extent his concern about the ability of individual members to debate and participate in two debates at the same time. But it's not uncommon in other jurisdictions in Canada and in other jurisdictions for estimates to be referred to standing committees and for those committees to meet three or four at a time in various rooms around the Legislature. It's not an uncommon practice. What it does require a member to do, however, is prioritize the issues that pertain to constituents, to work hard to ensure that the member participates in those debates that pertain significantly to constituents, and perhaps to negotiate with other members of this House to ensure that the schedule for estimates in the various committee rooms accommodates the interests of all constituents in all constituencies. I don't believe it's beyond the ability of this House to accommodate two Houses, when others accommodate six, seven or eight committees at the same time. I know we can enter into those discussions. And if the member has representations that he or other independents would like to make about the timing of that, I know the Government House Leader and I, representing our caucuses -- and others -- would be more than willing to entertain those representations.
J. Tyabji: I want to get on record again, another year, that I'm totally opposed to this. Obviously the Alliance leader has spoken against it.
However, one thing that hasn't been considered is the extent to which our constituents often participate with us in the budget debate. I think the Finance minister would agree that the announcement on budget day is just the tip of the iceberg and that, in fact, the details of the budget are what the constituents are most concerned about. Quite frequently, we will set up debates whereby our constituents will be watching and monitoring the debates and having direct input. Since we don't have direct delegation to the floor of the assembly here, the only avenue through which our constituents can participate is if they follow the proceedings through the televised debate.
If we limit the estimates to three that will be in this House, the rest of the budget debates will actually occur in a back room of the Legislature. I feel this is anti-democratic; this is a step backwards. This is an innovation that this government should never have brought in, and once they brought it in, they should have realized it was a mistake. We should have all the budget debates in this House. Even though we know that the legislation that comes in under this government will pass because it is a majority, it is actually in the budget debate that we can do a lot of constructive work on behalf of our voters. Unfortunately, many of them are shut out when we use the small room.
J. Weisgerber: I think the committee system works quite well. It seems to me that the committees have been cooperative in allowing members who have other responsibilities, whether they be in this House or others, to accommodate them. We have seen time and again that debates have been adjourned or subjects moved over until someone could come back and deal with them. So I think it's been working pretty well.
In the years I've been here, nobody has ever called me to suggest that they felt somehow left out of the estimates debate process. Perhaps that's something I will experience down the road.
What I would suggest, however, if there is any appetite at all for the televising of estimates debate in those hours when the Legislature is not functioning, is that there could be a pretaping of estimates debate and those run in other hours.
Generally speaking, again let me suggest that the system has been working very well. I think we have been able to accommodate small caucuses and individual members. I think it's appropriate for us to commit ourselves again to working cooperatively in order to make sure the people's business is done in the most effective way possible, and I suspect this deals with that.
Hon. G. Clark: I think it would be cruel and unusual punishment to televise the debates in the committee room, although we could show them from 12 midnight to eight in the morning for those who are insomniacs. As a cure, we could market it: Nytol look out; here come the legislative debates on television from midnight until eight in the morning. I might agree to it if we could name who gets to go on television from 12 to eight in the morning.
The previous government, after many years, with the support of the then opposition New Democratic Party, did support televising this House. It would be an interesting debate about whether that's been an advance of democracy or not; but I'll argue that it has been an advance to allow television into the Legislature. So that is a relatively new phenomenon. The committee rooms have printed Hansard, and they still have communications throughout the buildings on the speakers, so that it is, in a sense, electronically transferred. I am prepared to discuss with opposition parties, if we were to go further -- although I suspect the cost of so doing....
Interjection.
The Speaker: Would the hon. member for Surrey-Cloverdale please restrain himself. The minister may proceed.
[ Page 13317 ]
Hon. G. Clark: I suspect that the cost of televising the committee rooms would be rather prohibitive, in this day when we are concerned about taxpayers' dollars. If we put it to a referendum, I'm not sure people would be prepared to pay the cost of this chamber, let alone of the committee rooms. But I'll take any opposition members -- and the Liberal Party has suggested this perhaps -- who feel that we should look at this question.... I guess there's no harm in looking at it, although I would be concerned about the cost of it.
With respect to the committee's functioning, I take the comments of the leader of the Reform Party and the Opposition House Leader about trying to make sure that all members can participate in the debate, including members of the Alliance.... We certainly make every effort to do that, including scheduling, etc.
Interjections.
Hon. G. Clark: There are two independent members.... I think there's a Social Credit member over there, but I'm not sure. I can't tell anymore -- Reform, Socred, Liberal; they all look the same to me. We will make every effort to accommodate independents, Socreds, Reformers, Alliance, Rhinoceros or whatever else we have in the House.
The last point is that even though this motion we are passing deals with the standing orders of the House, three estimates shall be named by the opposition parties. That's not to say those are the only three estimates which will be heard in this House. That has not been the case. We've had seven or eight of the estimates out of 19 in the main House, in section B; that will still be the case. We will still hear more than three. It just gives the opposition members the right to name the particular three they would wish.
In addition to that, last year we moved the motion -- which I withdrew after opposition complaints -- about having bills heard in committee. If we wanted to get together as members of the House, not as partisans, to move some of the smaller bills into the committee room so we could hear more estimates in the main chamber, I would be prepared to entertain that, although I gather the opposition parties are opposed to that. But we try to be flexible to make sure that the most important business of the House -- important by virtue of the opposition feeling it's important for their constituents to hold the government accountable -- be held in this chamber, on television. Certainly we make every effort to accommodate.
In closing, I'm delighted that the opposition parties are in support of this motion in general. I know there are concerns, particularly from the Alliance Party members in the House, and we'll make every effort we can to accommodate their concerns.
Motion 80 as amended approved on division.
Hon. G. Clark: First of all, I ask leave for the Special Committee of Selection to sit at 2:45 p.m. in the Douglas Fir Committee Room.
Leave granted.
Hon. G. Clark: I call continued debate on the throne speech.
(continued)
On the amendment.
M. Farnworth: Thank you for this opportunity to participate in the throne speech debate.
When the Lieutenant-Governor read the Speech from the Throne, he outlined in clear and precise terms the legislative agenda for this coming session, and a clear choice for the people in this province between this side of the House, which has a vision that involves the people of the province working, a system of infrastructure investments and the protection of medicare, and the opposition, who feel that we should not be making these investments in infrastructure and that somehow a two-tier health care system is desirable for British Columbians.
We have watched over the last three years as this government has articulated what we believe to be the province's bright future. By whatever indicator you wish to use, British Columbia comes out at the top of the list as a place to do business, as a place where people want to live, as a place for quality of life and as a place for the future.
But there are voices in this province crying out that somehow these things need to be changed. There are voices basing their cry on the glib, one-line comments that we get from south of the border. They've been sucked in by a right-wing rhetoric that is more concerned with individual greed and those who have, rather than those who have not. They believe that British Columbia's future lies in an ever-descending spiral, that the lowest common denominator is something that should be aimed for and that needs to be encouraged.
It's unfortunate, because it is a vision that has been taken up by those who would advocate this point of view in Canada: the federal government, the Ontario media establishment and the provincial Liberal Party here in British Columbia.
[2:45]
For three years we've watched our province attract hundreds of thousands of new residents. They've come here to establish a future. We've encouraged people to go out and build this province. There is record housing construction, record business startups and record job creation. All those things have contributed to putting people back to work.
But there's another side to the coin that I've talked about, and that's the need for infrastructure investments for schools, for roads and for bridges -- the tools that we need to put in place so that our young people can take advantage of the best this province has to offer. So we've been making affordable investments because we believe that without that foundation the house of British Columbia will not be there in the twenty-first century. We will not be able to remain the leading province for growth, with the lowest per capita debt and the second-lowest level of taxation of any province in the nation -- all the things that have made it so attractive to the hundreds of thousands of people who are moving here. We've chosen to invest in schools. In my own riding alone there are currently under construction two high schools, a middle school, an elementary school and a new college that will service some two and a half thousand students and is scheduled to open in the fall of next year.
What does the opposition have to say about these things? They say they're a waste; we can't afford them; somehow it is wrong to be doing this. They say we are driving up the debt, and that's the most important thing, not whether the students of this province have adequate facilities in which to get an education or access to the latest in technology. They want to manufacture an artificial crisis and to hype, out of all proportion, the state of this province's finances through mistruths, fabrications and deceit.
They choose to ignore the strength of this province's economy. They choose to ignore the words that come from places such as New York about what a great place this
[ Page 13318 ]
province is to invest in, how the province's finances are on the right track, and how this government has been doing a terrific job managing the affairs of the province. This is at a time in this country when every other province is taking a cut-and-slash approach, when our next-door-neighbour province thinks education is such an important investment in our children that we'd better charge parents $500 a year to send their kids to kindergarten. That is the vision that the opposition speaks to.
One only has to look south of the border to see what happens when a government relegates education and health care to second place and adopts the philosophy, as the Liberal Party would have us do, that if you can't afford it for yourselves, that's your problem; go to charity, but don't come looking to government for a solution.
The Liberal Party philosophy is that federal government cuts didn't go far enough, and that somehow it's okay to off-load to British Columbia over $800 million over the next two years to effectively end universality of health care in this country and see the establishment of a two-tier medical system. That's the vision the opposition has. They have no commitment to medicare. They have no commitment to the maintenance of universality.
I see that hon. member shaking his head. It seems to me that actions speak louder than words. I would say that the Liberal commitment to medicare extends about as far as the member for Chilliwack's Liberal commitment, which isn't very far. They talk a great game, but when push comes to shove, they turn right every single time. They stand by their corporate friends, they stand by the ones who give them the paycheques and they stand by Howe Street -- every single time.
Interjection.
M. Farnworth: The hon. member says that they had nothing to do with it. The Liberal Party in this House has demonstrated time and time again -- whether it's through statements concerning medicare, or through statements such as the one the member for Richmond Centre made the other day about the appropriateness of private health care clinics....
Interjection.
M. Farnworth: Yes, hon. member, you did; and you can check the Blues.
What is clear is that a pattern is emerging -- a pattern that will result in the destruction of medicare and that will see those who can afford private service getting that service; a bleeding-off of the system and of the best and the brightest as the lure of the dollar is dangled in front of them, and a starving of a provincially funded health care system, so that the end result -- whether it's two years, five years or ten years down the road -- is that they will be crying: "Look, the medicare system isn't working anymore; the private system is the way to go." And they will slowly bleed what all Canadians, and all British Columbians, value so highly: our universal medicare system. This government is not prepared to allow that to happen.
Interjection.
M. Farnworth: The hon. member says I'm raising bogeymen that don't exist. If the member for Richmond Centre's comments about private health clinics the other day aren't a bogeyman, I don't know what is. If the Leader of the Opposition's claims that the cuts didn't go far enough isn't a bogeyman, I don't know what is. If the comments of the Leader of the Opposition's hand-picked candidate in Kamloops that physicians should manage the health care system is not a bogeyman, I don't know what is. We are watching the destruction in Ottawa of medicare through the elimination of universality and through the abdication -- with the acceptance of the members over there -- of the federal government from the field of health care. They will no longer have the ability to either target or regulate provinces if they choose not to maintain adequate provincial levels of health care.
The hon. member may argue; or he may say that the federal government has said: "Well, the cabinet will determine what actions are appropriate." Look at which party's saying it: the Liberal Party....
Interjection.
M. Farnworth: And the member says it's the provincial Liberal Party. Let me put it this way: as my colleague from Delta North says, a Liberal is a Liberal is a Liberal. I have one comment for you, hon. member. Whose sign did you have on your front lawn in the last federal election? It sure wasn't the Reform Party; it was a Liberal Party sign, so let's cut the nonsense out.
The Speaker: The hon. member for Saanich North and the Islands rises on a point of order.
C. Tanner: The point of order, Mr. Speaker...
Interjections.
The Speaker: Order, hon. members.
C. Tanner:...is that I live in a cul-de-sac and don't have a lawn.
The Speaker: Hon. member, that's a specious point of order and I would....
Interjections.
The Speaker: Order! Please proceed, hon. member.
M. Farnworth: As I said before, a Liberal is a Liberal is a Liberal, and they all had signs on their front lawns for their federal counterparts whether they live in condos, cul-de-sacs or wherever it is they live.
My point is that a federal Liberal government in Ottawa is determining what sort of punishments are going to be meted out to a provincial government that doesn't maintain standards at their discretion. Think about it. Would the Liberal government punish a province such as Quebec if they chose not to maintain the provincial health care standards that are currently demanded? I don't think so. Do you think that the Liberal government would bring punishment down on another Liberal government in another province such as New Brunswick, Nova Scotia or Newfoundland if they chose not to maintain health standards? I don't think so.
But do you think a Liberal government might decide to punish a province that had a New Democratic Party government -- not that we would do such a thing -- or a province that elected a Reform or Conservative government in Alberta, say, or in Manitoba? Of course they would, because they would take health care standards
[ Page 13319 ]
and use them for political expediency. They would use the stick of health care standards to punish other provinces, not equitably or fairly but whenever they wanted, in accordance with a health care system that they are putting into place in this country with the support of their provincial counterparts across the floor over there.
Those provinces that can afford it will maintain their own health care systems. Those that can't just won't have one. We will see an end to one of the most fundamental, cherished principles in this nation, which is universal access to health care. If that group over there ever had its way, we would see the end of that concept here in British Columbia.
We have a different vision, one that says everybody is equal and that everyone is entitled to the same level of care whether they be the head of the board of trade or a person on social assistance. What we're saying is that we want medicare to be made more efficient. We want it brought closer to home, and we want to protect the jobs that are in the system. We want people to be able to go to their physician and know that they're getting the very best treatment available. That takes commitment, and that's what this government is going to do, unlike my colleagues on the other side of the House.
Interjection.
M. Farnworth: Snide insults thrown across from the hon. member over there won't deter this member from standing up for medicare.
[3:00]
The protection of medicare is one of the key planks of the throne speech, and the next important thing is jobs. The infrastructure program that this government has put in place is something that the Liberal Party has again somehow fought every step of the way. I found the debate a little incongruous before, with comments about being able to have debates in two Houses and this being a little awkward. I know the Opposition House Leader said he didn't think that was too much of a problem. I can well understand why, because if you listen to the members of the opposition, they're constantly talking out of both sides of their mouth. They're constantly having a debate with both sides of their mouth. Out of one side of their mouth they say, "Oh, we want more schools," when they have the nerve to stand up and ask for them in this House -- not that they ever do. But on the other side of their mouth they're saying: "Hey, whoa, the debt's getting too high."
They don't seem to understand that 70 percent of provincial expenditures go to health care, schools or social services. In order, 33 percent goes to health care, 27 percent goes to schools, I think, and 14 percent of the budget goes to social services. They say we have to cut $1.5 billion; they want to cut $1.5 billion from the budget. And they want to give over $1 billion worth of tax breaks to their Howe Street friends. How many jobs is that going to make? Not too many. How many schools is it going to build? None. How many hospital beds is it going to close? A hell of a lot.
But they don't want to discuss that. Instead, they want to talk in glib platitudes and catchy phrases, saying: "Oh, we'll tinker a bit here, and if we eliminate the MLAs' pension plan there and we give $350 million in tax breaks to Howe Street, we'll balance the budget. That will take care of the debt. We don't have to worry." They don't want to tell the truth. They don't want to tell the truth to this House; they don't want to tell the truth to the public. They somehow think they can tap-dance their way through with a wink, a smile, a new suit and a haircut, and say: "Hey, trust me; trust us." They just don't measure up. Their rhetoric and their actions don't measure up.
They remind me of a kid in a school yard.
An Hon. Member: A Liberal?
M. Farnworth: Hon. member, you know the type. You come along, and you've got something for show-and-tell or whatever. They've always got to go one better; they've always got one story better than you have. You show them a water pistol, and they say: "It shoots blanks. Mine shoots real bullets."
Listen to the Leader of the Opposition. Budget cuts come down. The first thing he says is: "Well, they didn't go far enough. My cuts would go further if I was Premier. I'd be tougher than you were." You get this sort of sense of inadequacy from the opposition. No matter what you say, they say: "We're going to go one better, because hey, I'm tougher." It's not good enough. And yet they never quite measure up.
Interjection.
M. Farnworth: It's exactly as the hon. member says. They follow the Reform Party's lead, but they don't know when to quit. When are they going to quit? When are they going to quit with the slogans? When are they going to quit with the cheap shots? When are they going to quit hiding behind the new suit and the nice smile? When are they going to come clean and tell the people of this province that if you want to build schools, you have to spend money, and that if you want to build roads, you have to spend money, and that if you want to build bridges, you have to spend money. When are they going to come clean?
An Hon. Member: Call an election.
M. Farnworth: The hon. member says: "Call an election." Well, this side of the House will call an election, hon. member. I can tell you that at that time we will put forward our platform of jobs and protecting medicare. You will put forward your platform of one-liners, a nice smile, a new suit and an $80 haircut. I'll tell you, hon. Speaker, that like that kid in the school yard, they'll come up shooting blanks. They'll be found wanting, because in the end they just don't measure up.
This throne speech is one that sets out, as I stated earlier, a vision that this side of the House is proud to advance: jobs, investing in our communities, investing in our youth, investing in our roads and our infrastructure, and protecting medicare so the people of this province can continue to enjoy a standard of living not only today but for generations into the future. When the time comes, the people of the province will choose our way over their way every time.
The Speaker: The hon. member for Delta North rises on a matter?
N. Lortie: I seek permission to make an introduction.
Leave granted.
N. Lortie: We have with us in the gallery 24 students, good-looking young men and women, from the municipality of Delta and the constituency of Delta North. They are grade 11 students from the North Delta Senior Secondary School. Part of their education is about government and history, and this is part of that education. They are the future leaders of my community and of British Columbia. Could the members please make them welcome.
J. Sawicki: I am pleased to rise to speak against the amendment that is before us and in favour of the throne
[ Page 13320 ]
speech, because I think it's really important to do so. As the member for Port Coquitlam just mentioned, it's the throne speech that sets out our government's plan and our vision of what kind of province we want to build together for the people of British Columbia.
Last week the Minister of Finance tabled her budget in the House -- a budget that I believe most people felt was a fair and balanced one. I say most, because there are some who believe that there are quick-fix solutions to complex problems. There are those that are willing to sacrifice the principles of equality and fairness and compassion and social justice in a knee-jerk reaction to perceived fiscal circumstances. That wasn't the vision in the budget that was tabled, and that's not the vision that's included in this throne speech.
In all walks of life, but perhaps particularly in politics, it's important to know what your vision is and what direction you are going -- to have a focus, a plan. In fact, that's one of the main reasons that I entered provincial politics. I looked at what was happening to the things that I cared most about, and what I saw was blatant neglect brought about by shortsighted and often contradictory ad hoc decisions that were squandering our natural resources, degrading our environment and destroying local communities all across this province.
In those days it was Social Credit, but as I listen to the debates in this chamber -- to the Liberals, the Reformers and, of course, the one Social Crediter -- I am struck by the similarities. It's the same scattergun attack and lack of vision or understanding of why it's important to look at the big picture, so that government actions address the needs of British Columbians not only today but ten years from now and into the twenty-first century.
I was very pleased to hear an acknowledgment in the throne speech of how difficult it is to come up with a vision with which most British Columbians can identify. Consultation, compromise and consensus building are not easy. People have strong feelings about issues, especially when they affect their livelihood, the health of their families and the education of their children. But no government has worked harder to have meaningful dialogue on these issues, to bring people together and to find common ground. That's what it means to be part of a society: weighing our private individual good against the broader collective public good. When I hear members of the opposition suggest that we've got to cut back on all of those programs that make us a family, a community, that are people reaching out to care about other people, and that we should go back to more self-centred times, reduce the role of government in society -- reduce government investment in natural resources, infrastructure, job creation, education and medicare -- I realize just how different their vision of this province is from mine. I truly believe that society is more than just the marketplace; it's more than just a race to the bottom to see who can produce consumer goods the cheapest. The marketplace reflects price, but it doesn't reflect value. And a lot of the things I value, and that I think most British Columbians value, just aren't adequately addressed in today's marketplace, not because they're not important but because we use flawed economic tools.
The throne speech commits our government to moving forward in the partnership with business and labour in a strategy for jobs and investments in a modern economy. One of those strategies is investing in natural resources. I want to say a few words about that, because of all of the initiatives our government has taken -- positive, worthwhile, needed initiatives that have improved the quality of life in this province -- the ones that have changed the way we manage our natural resources and protect our environment are some of the ones of which I am most proud. The forest renewal plan has seen new stumpage dollars being pumped back into the forest and into local communities that produced those dollars. The Forest Practices Code brings together in one piece of legislation protection that reduces ecological damage before, during and after timber harvesting. There is the protected-areas strategy and the 81 new parks and wilderness areas that have been announced, some of them of world-class importance, like the Tatshenshini-Alsek, the Kitlope and Khutzeymateen. The CORE process, among many other good things it has done, gathered together local and regional stakeholders to painstakingly and often painfully work out regional land use plans for key areas of this province.
These initiatives have taken us light-years ahead of where we were three and a half years ago. I have to say that I was absolutely astounded to see the opposition vote against most, if not all, of these initiatives. In doing so, they not only voted against solid environmental stewardship initiatives, they voted against jobs that existed in local communities and exist today because of these initiatives, jobs that are being created as I speak and will continue to be created because this government has given top priority to job creation.
What the opposition is failing to understand is that there is a direct relationship between all of these things: environmental stewardship, job creation and safe and healthy communities. These things don't just happen; they take vision, planning, consultation and, yes, give-and-take, and maybe even a few false starts along the way. They take people who care about their neighbourhoods and about the future of their province, and they take compromise.
[3:15]
I think we've made tremendous progress towards these ideals in the last three and a half years. But hearing the opposition comments and the misinformation around these gains makes me realize that this progress is far from secure. That's why I was very pleased to hear in the throne speech our government's commitment to secure into law those land use plans that were arrived at through the CORE process and the work and cooperation of so many people. That's why I was particularly happy to hear that we will also move forward to adopt responsible stewardship of rivers and waterways.
Our government's decision to cancel Kemano 2 was a bold one, but it was the right one. And I really want to commend our government for the courage to make that decision. I make no apology for my constant lobbying to reach just that conclusion. But now we have to follow through on that commitment to protect the Fraser River -- which the Premier so rightly described as the heart and soul of our province -- and to protect B.C.'s other freshwater rivers that provide not only fish habitat but other economic and recreational values. That includes rivers and streams in our urban communities.
We are one of the fastest-growing regions in North America, and that has had really serious impact on some of our streams throughout our communities. I am very proud to say that in my own community of Burnaby, under the guidance of BCIT's fish and wildlife department, the city of Burnaby, the Ministry of Environment, Lands and Parks, Fisheries and Oceans Canada, local businesses and the citizens of Burnaby, we are now cooperating to restore and rehabilitate urban streams in our community.
In the remaining time that I have left, I too want to make a few comments about another government priority in our throne speech, and that's medicare. We have heard a lot about medicare in this chamber lately, and I suspect that we will hear a lot more. There are those who are suggesting that we,
[ Page 13321 ]
on this side of the House, are overreacting to the threats to our national health care system. I don't think there is anything further from the truth. If British Columbians and Canadians don't band together to fight alongside this government to retain an accessible, affordable, portable, universal and comprehensive health care system, we will wake up one morning and find that it's gone. If anyone has any difficulty visualizing what life will be like under a two-tier health care system, I invite them to review the comments from the member from Comox in Hansard of last week. She painted a very vivid and frightening picture and an accurate one, in my mind.
Let's be clear. Dismantling our health care system has very little to do with reducing government expenditure, nor does it have a lot to do with the assertion that as a society we simply are not able to afford quality health care for every Canadian. Rather, it's about those who are looking to profit from those who get sick. In just last month's issue of Georgia Straight, Joyce Nelson painted a very clear picture of who's really behind the push to dismantle Canada's health care system. It's the private insurance corporations and the pharmaceutical giants, that's who. After reading that article, I defy any member in this House to stand up and honestly say they don't see anything wrong with private, for-profit health care clinics and a flexible, privatized medical insurance system that can pick and choose which illnesses they will cover and which ones they won't, and which Canadian families they will support and which ones they will leave to fend for themselves or to remain wards of an emasculated public health care system.
Today, at this moment, B.C.'s Minister of Health is meeting with his counterparts from across this country. I am confident and proud that he will deliver a strong and clear message: this government wants no part of an American-style two-tier, privatized health care system. Just as an aside, while he's there I want to remind him to raise another serious health issue that he and I have been discussing with our colleagues, the Minister of Social Services and the Attorney General. That is the issue of fetal alcohol syndrome and the role a national alcohol beverage labelling program could play in alerting consumers to the dangers of alcohol consumption, particularly during pregnancy.
FAS is one of the leading causes of mental retardation, and each FAS child costs the government almost $1.5 million in health care and social services throughout their lifetime. That's not even counting the personal trauma suffered by those afflicted with this condition. You'll be hearing more from me on this issue when I table a petition later this session on behalf of the B.C. Coalition for Warning Labels.
Just another example of what happens when we choose least-price over least-cost alternatives.... Alcohol beverage labelling, medicare, skills training, environmental stewardship -- that's really what we're talking about when we debate this amendment and the difference in approach between this government and the opposition parties. Because in the opposition parties' race to criticize the throne speech, to see who can push the government furthest forward towards that artificial and shortsighted bottom line, they fail to consider the really wide implications of what they're advocating. As we proceed in this House to debate the legislation that will arise from this throne speech, I would really urge opposition members of all persuasions to think carefully about the true cost to society of their demands to cut programs, to cut expenditure and to cut government's role in building a more sustainable society in British Columbia. Like the proverbial house of straw, cutting and slashing and declining to do what I believe governments should do may hold the promise of a quick fix, but the house that the opposition parties would build for British Columbians would blow down at the first gust of wind. In fact, sometimes the noise in this chamber during question period would probably do the trick.
Our government, through the throne speech, has chosen to build the house not of straw and not of wood, but of brick. Architecturally it might be more complex, it might take us a little longer, and it needs the talent and skill and cooperation of all British Columbians to build it, but it will be much more sturdy than the quick-fix house of straw of the opposition parties. I believe that our way is the responsible way to build the house, to ensure an ecologically, economically and socially sustainable future for British Columbians. I would urge all members to vote against this amendment.
A. Warnke: I seek leave to make an introduction.
Leave granted.
A. Warnke: I do thank my colleagues within the chamber, because visiting with us today are grade 9 and 10 students from London secondary school in Richmond and their teacher Ms. J. Wisewoolf. I appreciate hon. members providing me with leave to make the introduction. Would everyone please make them welcome.
C. Tanner: I rise today to second the amendment to the throne speech moved by the member for Richmond-Steveston.
When the House sat last Friday.... Before I get into my speech, I'd just like to make a couple of comments about the speech, not by the previous speaker but by the one before that -- the member for Port Coquitlam.
Interjection.
The Speaker: Order, please.
C. Tanner: The member for Port Coquitlam said that the member for Richmond East wants to get rid of health care. I'd like to quote from the member's speech of a few days ago, when he said:
"I don't think the people of British Columbia are going to be fooled, because this is obviously the only thing that the government can grab onto. We're going to protect health care. We've bungled everything else, but we're going to protect health care."
I'm quoting what the government said. The member for Richmond East, my member on this side, said that universal health care is here to stay. Universal health care was set up by the federal government -- a Liberal government, I might add -- and it will stay. There has never been a suggestion by any member on this side of the House that we want to get rid of medicare. The only reason these people on the other side of the House are suggesting it is that there's such a dearth of independent thought or anything else in the throne speech to justify it as a throne speech that they have to grasp at straws. We agree that health care is a most important function and a most important part of life in Canada.
That amendment, as is traditional with all opposition amendments in every parliamentary democracy, says mainly that the official opposition has no faith in the government's ability to manage our public affairs. It says that this government is in error in its methods of management, its fiscal philosophy and its so-called investment infrastructure. My fellow members have a very basic disagreement with the NDP's management of the economy, and it's interesting that practically every other jurisdiction in Canada, including the NDP jurisdiction in Saskatchewan, agrees with our point of view.
[ Page 13322 ]
This government, of all the governments in Canada and maybe in North America, is probably the only jurisdiction saying that spending, borrowing and taxing will improve our financial situation. That's not true anywhere else in Canada or North America. We think they are wrong, and Canada thinks they are wrong. The individual provinces, business people and the public think they are wrong, but this government knows what's best for all of us.
You might ask what those people in cabinet know that we don't know. Virtually 30 million people are telling them that what they're doing is making a mess of things. They created a good part of it themselves, but -- let's be honest -- they did inherit some part of it. We think they're wrong, and we have other suggestions as to how to resolve it.
In my opinion and in the opinion of our colleagues, the heart of their so-called throne speech, which was genuinely pretty pathetic, is on page 6. It says: "Our B.C. strategy will centre on three key investments." The first on that list is investment in our natural resources. [Applause.] There's always one way to get approval from the government side, and that's to quote their own words at them; they love to hear themselves. All 51 members repeat them over and over again, so here's another opportunity for the members of the government. The second tenet of their so-called throne speech is investment in infrastructure. [Applause.] Thank you. Let's go for the third one, which is the funniest of all and the one I don't agree with: investment in people.
With those three stratagems, as they're called, this government is going to invest in natural resources, in infrastructure and in people, and it will save the day. Nobody else in Canada is going to do it, but they're going to. Their own fellow NDP members in Saskatchewan aren't going to do it, but they're going to. The federal government's not going to do it, but they are. No other province in Canada is going to do it, but they are. They know better. They know what's good for us, and they know what's better for us.
[3:30]
Let's talk about their so-called investment in natural resources. It makes me laugh to hear them say things like that. The forest industry has been successful in spite of this government, due to two reasons and two reasons only: first, it has become more efficient, and second, the Canadian dollar has dropped so low in the world markets that our forest products have become very attractive to buyers all around the world, particularly Americans. They can't take any credit for that. The only reason they can take some credit for it is the fact that the Canadian dollar has dropped because they are increasing the debt. But let's not even attribute that to them.
Let's talk about the mining industry this government is supposedly so proud of helping. What's left of it? Most of it, in spite of this government, has endured increases in the world prices of basic metals, which has helped the mining industry. But most of the industry has disappeared north to the Yukon or south to Chile. No thanks to this government; they haven't done anything to help the mining industry at all.
Finally, let's talk about that third pillar of our economy: tourism. Tourism has prospered because the industry itself has substantial internal strength and diversity, and also because of our 70-cent dollar. The 70-cent dollar has brought Americans and foreigners into this country, increased by 12 percent. Thanks partly to their fiscal policies and their contribution to the poor Canadian dollar, it's so expensive that people can't afford to leave Canada and go anywhere to have their holidays. So it's working two ways for them: benefit to the government, but no thanks to them. The high cost of the American dollar is their great claim to fame.
What is this so-called investment in natural resources? I'll tell you what it is. It's an increased bureaucracy, it's more frustration with conflicting regulations, and it's confusing and contradictory policy decisions. They don't help, they hinder; they don't invest, they divest; they don't understand business, they frustrate the entrepreneur. So much for their investment in natural resources. It's been disastrous in the three and a half years these people have been around.
Let's turn to their second tenet: investment in infrastructure. [Applause.] You put out the regular words, and they all applaud like a bunch of penguins. They hear the words and they think: oh my goodness, it doesn't matter where it comes from, we've got to bang our desks again. Well, here we go.
Let's turn to their so-called investment in infrastructure. The Minister of Finance is pleased to talk about good and bad debt. When everybody else except them stops laughing and we try to find out what it means, let me try and give an understanding of what it is. She talks about credit card debt and mortgage debt. Apart from the fact that debt is debt, there is only one basic flaw in this comparison. A mortgage is awarded on the basis that the asset can be repossessed and resold to another party if a loan is defaulted. That's how a mortgage works; they must know that. I suspect that the majority of members have houses and mortgages. If they don't make their payments, the company that lent them the money will come along and take the house. That's how it works.
Perhaps the members opposite would explain to this side of the House how, if the government fails, it will sell its roads, schools, hospitals, courthouses and the infrastructure investment. Who's going to buy it? Who wants it? There's a very basic flaw in their calculations, which is contrary to any mortgage understanding that I've ever experienced in 25-odd years in business. Are they suggesting that a bridge is mortgageable? If so, they'd better go and talk to the people in Brooklyn, or anybody else who has a bridge. You can't repossess a bridge; the bridge has to stay where it is. To suggest that we have mortgage money available to us with an asset that is available to sell if you don't pay is patent nonsense.
We're not opposed to building schools; we're not opposed to building hospitals and roads. But we are opposed to closed-shop unions getting all the work, we are opposed to fixed-wage employees doing all the buildings, we are opposed to contracts not being put out to bid, and we are opposed to friends employed by this government making the decisions on those decisions. We are supportive of the infrastructure that is necessary to the well-being of the public, but only that which can be financed intelligently and is understood by the authorities who manage the facility -- and only after an examination of the necessity.
What of this government's investment in infrastructure? It's self-serving, it's expensive and it's not correctly or efficiently coordinated. Finally, it is adding to the total burden of the debt accumulating in this province, which could be reduced by efficient management and courageous cost-cutting.
Now let's turn to investment in people. Here I must agree with the government. I've got to agree with them again. Their investment in people is working. They've invested in people to such an extent that the bureaucracy this year will grow by another 500 bodies that must be paid for out of our tax dollars.
I couldn't believe my ears a couple of years ago, when I was making a member's statement on a Friday morning about cutting government. The member for Nanaimo, in answer to my statement, stood up and said: "I don't know what that
[ Page 13323 ]
member" -- meaning me -- "is elected for. I know what I'm elected for. I'm elected to expand government." I was astounded. I didn't think anybody in this House would stand up and make a statement as extravagant as that. I don't think I am here to expand government. I think I'm here to reduce government and to take the burden of taxation off the backs of the people who voted for me.
In education, this government claims to have put a cap on spending, but they've done nothing to decrease the public service in Victoria. They've done nothing to reduce the duplication between ministry and school boards. They've done nothing to reduce the number of school boards. They've insisted on paying capital costs which are too high and wages that are at a premium. That's not being prudent managers.
In health, they've created an unwieldy monster. Instead of managing two or three trial plans -- Closer to Home experimental areas -- they went hog-wild and foolishly attempted to recreate the whole province at once. They have generated mass confusion, severe strain and hopelessness on the part of the participants, both volunteer and professional.
Having disturbed the system so dramatically, they had the unmitigated gall to say that 6,000 transferred employees will be a reduction. They just move them out of here to somewhere else; it's not a reduction in employees. They're increasing by 500 the number of employees that this government is going to have to pay this year. It is not a reduction of employees; it's a reduction in the delivery of service to patients and public. They have blown it as far as the health department is concerned.
What about the public service itself? This government has infiltrated at all levels their like-minded friends. The NDP, these severe critics of the Socreds for so many years, this very same government that for years and years criticized the Socreds because they said they practised patronage, make the Socreds look like pikers. These guys are past masters at patronage. They're in the business of helping their friends and insiders into cushy jobs, and they've got it down to a fine art. They've changed every board, commission and committee to reflect their own image.
The throne speech is correct: this government has invested in people -- their people, their friends, their card-carrying insiders. If that's investment in people, I don't want any part of it; neither does my party and, I suspect, neither does the public.
[D. Lovick in the chair.]
So what we arrive at with this amendment is a call to the government to listen to their critics and admit that they don't have all the answers. In fact, they have very few. If they had the courage of their convictions, they'd call an election and ask the people what they think of this limp, colourless and inadequate throne speech.
This government claims it has consulted with business organizations and individuals. Those are not the reports that I hear. Business people tell me that this government puts in time with them and talks to them, attempts to impose their own feelings and their own views on them, and then tries to coerce them. Individuals occasionally are supportive for reasons best known to themselves, but most business people and most business organizations that speak to me say this government doesn't know what it's doing and it doesn't know how to do it. Business people I hear from only hope that this government does not do irreparable damage before it is voted out of office by ordinary people.
The Premier often uses the expression "on a businesslike basis." He wouldn't recognize a businesslike basis if it struck him in the nose. If this were a properly run organization and he were the president of the board of this government, he would have no control. His board of directors are fumbling their responsibilities. The ordinary shareholders of this corporation want a vote of confidence in this board. They have no confidence in this board; they have no confidence in this government. I ask the members of this government to call an election. Let's see what the people think.
Deputy Speaker: I thank the member for his comments. I see no member standing in her or his place at this point.... The member for Cowichan-Ladysmith.
J. Pullinger: I'm delighted to leap into the throne speech debate completely unawares. It doesn't look like 5:10 p.m. to me. I should point out to all those listening to this debate that the reason that I'm speaking at 3:40 p.m. rather than 5:10 p.m. is that the Liberal member scheduled to speak at this time hasn't shown up. As a matter of fact, there's only one in the House -- the one who just spoke. In any case, I'm pleased to add my two bits' worth to the response to the throne speech.
What we've heard from a number of people -- and, I think, correctly -- is that there are two choices facing us in British Columbia. We're at a time of change -- the nineties clearly are a time of change -- and we've got a couple of choices about how we should move forward to be better prepared for the next century. Unfortunately, what we're hearing from the opposition is, as the Premier said, the politics of fear and the politics of smear. I would suggest that perhaps we're hearing those kinds of things coming from the opposition because they really are unable to criticize, in any serious way, what this government is doing.
Interjection.
J. Pullinger: It's okay, I'm going. I mean, you're next.
It seems to me that the real issues that people care about -- the ones that are being obscured by the opposition's caterwauling and crying from the other side -- are things like jobs, for one. People care about jobs. They care about having a paycheque. They care about being able to function independently and to support their families, their communities and the small businesses in their communities. People care a lot about that. They also care -- and I've had a lot of feedback about this -- about keeping jobs in British Columbia. They think that our B.C. tax dollars should be used to create B.C. jobs for B.C. workers, and we on this side of the House agree with that. Jobs are certainly one issue that people care a lot about; in fact, I would argue that it's at the top of the agenda.
I want to mention a few things about jobs in relation to my particular constituency of Cowichan-Ladysmith. One of the central things -- in fact, the central economic driver in my part of the province -- is forestry. In 1991, during the B.C. election, and for a decade prior to that, that community was rocked again and again because of ongoing wars in the woods, increasing violence and confrontation, and increasing insecurity. Workers and their families didn't know from one day to the next whether they were going to have a job or whether they were going to be unemployed. It was a very serious situation; it created a climate that was unacceptable, quite frankly. People made it very clear that they'd had enough of conflict in the woods. They'd had enough of the insecurity because of a government that was, in effect, in the back pocket of the corporations that were in charge of the forest industry.
Our government set to work on fulfilling its commitments. We said that we would strike a jobs and environment
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accord, and that we would bring people together and sit down with everyone who had an interest in the forest and hammer out the best consensus we possibly could to create land use plans, to bring about security, to bring about stability and to protect 12 percent of our land base, as Gro Harlem Brundtland's report made clear we need to do. That became the Commission on Resources and Environment and ended up to be the CORE report, and we now have the Vancouver Island land use plan, with an enormous, overwhelming support, certainly in my area. We haven't seen the kind of conflict we saw growing over a decade in our area, specifically in the Walbran Valley and the Carmanah. That's simply gone, and workers can get up in the morning now and know that they can go to work.
[3:45]
Similarly, people in my area were really concerned about the ongoing erosion of the land base, with absolutely no protection. The southwest quarter of Vancouver Island was sold off by governments in the nineteenth century -- given away would be more real. It's mostly private land there; private forest companies own it. They didn't have to consult with anyone. They didn't have to talk to anybody about turning that land over for development. They didn't have to discuss costs involved in bringing services way out beyond the existing communities, and they certainly didn't have to talk about what it meant to the local workers and the local economy to withdraw big chunks of the forest land base.
In response to those concerns, we sat down and put together a B.C. forest land reserve. On Vancouver Island we've got 81 percent of the land base in that -- both Crown and private land. Again, that brings a sense of security and stability to our community, and it has been very much applauded. One of the owners of private land in our area was upset and undertook a poll in Lake Cowichan with an incredibly skewed question on it that asked something like: "Do you think it's okay for the government to expropriate your private property without compensation?" They promised to share the results with me, but they never have. I suspect that's because -- and I watched a number of people doing this -- everybody said, "Yes, I do; I think that's just fine," because they had suffered the effects of not having a land reserve in effect for a long time, and that had cost the community and individuals within the community a great deal. So we've got a land use plan; we've got a forest land reserve; we've got 12 percent set aside, which has made a huge difference.
We also have a Forest Practices Code and a forest renewal plan. There was another threat to people in my area and workers around the province, because we saw international lobbyists going to Europe and Asia to protest what they saw as poor logging practices in British Columbia and to suggest to those who were purchasing B.C. products that they'd better not if they didn't want to suffer some consequences from the lobbyists. That, too, was beginning to have an effect. I'm pleased to see that with the advent of B.C.'s new Forest Practices Code, which will bring us into the twenty-first century in terms of what we do in our forests, that threat has diminished and all but eroded.
We also brought in the forest renewal plan, which is excellent. We've benefited pretty directly from that in my area. The forest renewal plan will take $400 million a year in increased stumpage and put it right back into the land. It's going to provide for a buffer in terms of jobs and annual cuts. It will provide for a buffer to keep the job levels relatively stable while the other changes we've made come into effect. Without forest renewal we would have seen a decline in the annual allowable cut and in the number of jobs in communities like Lake Cowichan. With it we'll see some stability and, ultimately, either a flat line or a small increase in the number of jobs. So the forest renewal plan allows us to clean up mistakes of the past and to invest in our land and resources in a way that's never happened before in B.C., through things like intensive silviculture. It also allows for community economic diversification and value-added.
What all those things have meant in my community is that for the first time in ten or 15 years, people are truly starting to feel a sense of security, a sense of hope and a sense of building for the future. One of the really exciting things we've been able to do is to initiate a community forest, which has turned out to be the Cowichan Lake Community Forest Co-op. That's going to be a cooperative between the Cowichan Valley Regional District, the two electoral areas around Lake Cowichan, the village of Lake Cowichan, the chamber of commerce -- where the value-added industry has its voice -- the IWA and the local Cowichan Lake first nations. They're going to have a cutting licence, and they are going to be contracting that to one of the local operators in the area, a multinational forest company.
These people in Lake Cowichan have been kind of hanging on to the coattails of industry for decades, saying: "What are you going to do to us tomorrow? Please, can we have some jobs? Gee whiz, this is our wood. Don't you think you should be considering jobs and community development?" For the first time, they don't have to ask anymore. They can simply sit down and negotiate across the table. We have a major forest company sitting across the table from this cooperative, saying to them: "Gee whiz, we'd like to harvest your wood. How would you like us to do that?" So there's been a fundamental shift in the balance of power in Lake Cowichan, which has made a big difference.
All of these things have really changed the nature of our community. The ideas that are starting to come forward in Lake Cowichan are really exciting. We're starting to see a move building towards getting into the value-added industry in a bigger way. We've had several value-added plants open in the area, and there are plans underway for a number more. We're seeing the communities thrive and build. We've seen a sense, as I say, of stability, hope and confidence. Where we had 150 workers nervously working in the woods three or four years ago, we now have 300. I think that's a marvellous accomplishment, and I'm very pleased with that.
What's really interesting, and what people should be paying attention to, is that the opposition members have objected to the CORE process and tried to derail it on many occasions. They objected to the Vancouver Island land use plan. They voted against the forest land reserve, which has been well received in my area. They've objected to the Forest Practices Code, and they've objected to the forest renewal plan.
They've made it very, very clear that if they're elected, they want to go back to the old ways. They want to get rid of the protection for workers and communities. They want to go back to the kind of control by outsiders that we saw in the woods prior to the changes made by this government. They want to shift the balance of power back to industry and to their corporate friends. They want to unravel what they see as the excessive regulation of the Forest Practices Code and move back to a time that was pretty uncomfortable for those forest communities around the province. All of us should be paying a lot of attention to the fact that -- while we hear a good line from the members opposite -- they want to move us back and reopen the land use debates, undo the forest land reserve and get rid of the Forest Practices Code and of
[ Page 13325 ]
Forest Renewal B.C., all of which they find unacceptable. We do have some very clear choices. I suggest that the members opposite in the Liberal Party and the Socred Reformers will simply take us back to a time that was not very good and certainly not very prosperous.
In terms of jobs, I think it's also worth mentioning the Island Highway project, which this government is finally building 30 years later. As a friend and colleague of mine once said: "The Socreds -- a Liberal-Conservative coalition under the Socreds -- certainly saw no reason to destroy a perfectly good election promise by fulfilling it." That seemed to be the case in terms of the Island Highway, because for election after election after election under the Social Credit government we heard how they were going to build a Vancouver Island highway, but we never saw any action. New Democrats also made that commitment, and we are clearly fulfilling it, as you can tell by the traffic jams up and down the highway. What is notable is that we have not only fulfilled it, but we have stopped and regrouped in order to look at ways to make that project work even better for the people of Vancouver Island and B.C.
We looked at the project and made a very conscious decision to break it down in such a way that B.C. companies could bid successfully on the contracts. They do it in smaller chunks rather than as one huge megaproject, which would no doubt end up with somebody coming in from Alberta or farther east with their workers and doing all the work and walking away, leaving our workers unemployed at the same time. It has been reshaped so that B.C. companies can access it and get local contractors -- most of the vehicles I see working on the Island Highway project have local Vancouver Island names on them -- to make sure that local workers get the jobs. I am very proud that 90 percent of the jobs on the Vancouver Island Highway project are local Vancouver Island and B.C. workers, and that is significant.
The other thing in this very much maligned project is that there is more than double the number of apprentices working on the Island Highway. Because of the nature of the Vancouver Island Highway project agreement, we were able to more than double the number of apprentices. Anybody who works in construction will tell you that there is an enormous need for apprenticeships for people to upgrade or learn the skills they need to become qualified construction workers.
There is also a skills training component. Not too long ago, with some of my colleagues from the mid-Island, I opened a training program at the Chemainus Native College, just north of Ladysmith, which will see a number of Vancouver Island workers -- including first nations people, women and others -- being trained to do the work that is necessary on the Island Highway over the next numerous years. As well as getting an Island Highway built at last -- 30 years later -- we have a project agreement that allows it to be built on schedule and on budget, with B.C. workers, B.C. firms and qualified people. That makes it a far superior deal, as far as I'm concerned.
The opposition has made it very, very clear that if they are elected, they are going to get rid of the project agreement. They're going to tear it up, because they somehow see it as a sop to labour. I'm not really sure how you can argue that, given that it's Vancouver Island people first. However, they like to argue those lines, and the truth doesn't seem to make a hell of a lot of difference to them. So we have them arguing again and again about how this is some sort of a great insider deal.
The fact is that without the Vancouver Island Highway project agreement, we couldn't hire local people, couldn't hire local contractors and couldn't double the number of apprentices. In other words, we couldn't make B.C. tax dollars work for British Columbians. The opposition has made it very clear that they think it's just fine for Alberta companies and Alberta workers, or somebody from outside, to come in and do those jobs. They're on record again and again saying that it's okay for outside workers and outside companies from beyond the borders of British Columbia to come in and use B.C. tax dollars to build the Island Highway, while our workers sit at home unemployed and we all pay the bills.
An Hon. Member: Shame on the Liberals!
J. Pullinger: So shame on the Liberals!
We should be very clear that this Island Highway project agreement is what allows us to do those kinds of things. When the Liberals say that they're going to tear it up, they mean they are going to get rid of the training opportunities and local jobs and local employment, and that's clearly very important.
The other thing that is incredibly important to people is the kinds of services we take for granted in our society. Public education; we all just take it for granted. I find it distressing to hear members in both parties opposite talking about things like charter schools. They talk about giving parents a choice. We all know that what they are talking about is at least the partial privatizing of our education system. We all know that by doing that, we're shifting control from democratically elected school boards to a handful of special interest groups that want to make decisions about schools. We all know that privatizing will probably ultimately cost us more dollars overall and provide a special-agenda education for a few at the expense of the rest of us, and that's simply unacceptable.
[4:00]
The real story and the issue that is at the heart of our identity as Canadians is probably medicare. All of us have come to assume that medicare is here and was always here. There's a whole generation of people who have grown up thinking that these things are there and will stay there forever. What we see now from both the federal Liberals and the members on the opposite benches is an unprecedented attack on our social programs, particularly on our universal health care.
The federal Liberals had an opportunity. We told them: "We've got $9.2 billion worth of cuts that you can make in British Columbia: useless programs to subsidize business as well as waste, overlap and duplication. Here, cut." What did they do instead? They took direct aim at social programs. They're unravelling the funding that ties the provinces to a set of standards on education and health care and social assistance across this country. We are losing that uniform level of social programs across the country, and at the same time, they are gutting the funding for those things.
That gives me a great deal of concern. I am very concerned about that, because it is being done in such a way that the announcement happens this year and the gutting happens next year. That's a very clever political move, because that allows them to get the decision out of the way without much flak, and when the actual cutting comes, the provinces will wear it; the provinces will take the blame. It's a very clever political move, and it may succeed. The tragedy is that it also leaves people relatively complacent about our health care system and the funding for it. It hasn't raised the level of anxiety that we should see -- and will see, I am sure, when the cuts start to be felt.
This government has made it very, very clear that unravelling our health care system is not acceptable. We won't
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accept ending universality and the standards of our health care system across the province. We won't accept what the people opposite are saying. I think the term they use.... There's always a fancy term when you are unravelling something that people really like. In this case it's called "outsourcing to the private sector," which is sort of like privatizing or downsizing. They are going to "outsource to the private sector" a whole lot of the parts of our health care system.
What that means, in short, is two tiers; it means an American system. It means handing over our public service to individuals for private profit. It means spending a lot more on health care. The United States spends half again on health care what we spend in Canada. The reason is that medicare is not only a way of effectively providing an even level of quality service to everyone based on need -- not based on the depth of your back pocket -- but is also a means of controlling health care costs. You can provide services that are needed, not services that make money. You can deal with health issues in the early stages, because you don't have to wait until your paycheque comes in to take your child to the hospital.
What we are talking about is an ideological move on the part of the federal Liberals, and both opposition parties supporting it, to privatize our health care, to make it two tiers and to cost us more money for a lot less care. I think all of us on this side of the House find that absolutely unacceptable. I hope that people are paying attention, that they get beyond the politics of fear and the politics of smear, and that they look at what's being said underneath it, because there's a lot at stake. Once we dismantle the health care system, it's going to be a long time, a lot of effort and a lot of money to put it back together again. It's kind of like Humpty Dumpty. You can't take him apart and then put him back together again -- it just doesn't work that way.
I'm very pleased that this throne speech makes it very clear that we're going to continue to invest in people and that we're going to invest in our infrastructure and create good, family-supporting jobs for B.C. workers and provide people with the education and skills training they need to get and retain those jobs, and at the same time protect the services that have made our country, and this province, one of the best places in the world to live.
In our throne speech I'm really pleased that we have continued to move forward to invest in infrastructure in B.C. Despite the fact that our economy is the best in the country, that our credit rating is the best in the country and that our per capita debt is the lowest in the country, etc., I think it's worth noting that the Liberals and the Socreds are saying that we shouldn't spend one more cent -- not another penny -- on infrastructure. They're saying that it's absolutely unacceptable to borrow money to build schools or health care centres or hospitals or roads or courthouses or any of those things we need as the population expands in British Columbia. I think we should all take careful note of what they're saying, because they're saying that it's okay to have 25 percent of our kids in portables and it's okay for those numbers to increase as the population grows. They're also saying that it's okay to let people sit at home unemployed in the name of unnecessary and, quite frankly, destructive restraint. And I'm pleased that we're doing absolutely the opposite.
We're going to continue to keep B.C.'s debt affordable. We have a debt management plan that's going to see the level of debt per capita drop significantly over the next 20 years to keep it affordable. But we also have made a commitment to those kids who are in portables that this government will not act like the Bennett government and the Vander Zalm government in the 1980s. Rather, we are going to invest in our young people, in schools and in education and make sure that they've got the education and training that they need to deal with the twenty-first century.
I am very pleased that, for instance, Ladysmith Secondary School and Ladysmith Intermediate are going ahead -- that's tremendous. Both of those are desperately in need of expansion and renovation, and that was stalled over the 1980s. We've seen a very outmoded, old school in Lake Cowichan changed and brought into the twenty-first century. We see a brand new community health centre being built in Chemainus, a hospital upgrade in Cowichan and another one in Ladysmith. The Island Highway is going through, and the people in my area are working and are getting the skills they need. We're getting the infrastructure that we need for the twenty-first century, and that obviously is a good choice. Let's make no mistake: that's gone if the Liberals or the Reformers are elected in the next election.
So I'm very pleased to have had an opportunity to talk a little about the very positive effects that this government and our policies have had in Cowichan-Ladysmith over the last three years. I'm very pleased that our economy is in the shape that it's in. I'm very pleased that we are forging ahead to build for the future rather than falling back to the regressive policies of the past.
L. Stephens: It's a pleasure for me to take my place in the debate today and speak to the amendment on the throne speech. As I listened to the Speech from the Throne, I kept waiting for signs of a vision and statements from this government that they recognize the damage their policies have caused to this province. But there was no vision in the throne speech, only the same sad, tired, old rhetoric of the tax-borrow-and-spend policies of this government. The speech talks about engaging in a race to the bottom; presumably this refers to the bottom line. But the way this government likes to tax, borrow and spend, they wouldn't know a bottom line if it jumped up and bit them.
Let's take a look at the reality of this government's strategy on the key investments that they talk about. This government says that it has brought peace to our woods and made truly dramatic progress in balancing jobs and the environment. The reality is that at no other time in the history of British Columbia has there been such uncertainty and such fear in working families in our resource-based communities. The forest renewal plan, the Forest Practices Code, the protected-areas strategy, designated parks and aboriginal interim agreements have all contributed to this uncertainty.
Throughout the province, communities that are forestry- or mining-based, communities where ranching is the major economic factor -- or tourism, aquaculture, sport and commercial fishing and recreation areas -- are all fearful about the economic viability of their regions. Mining employs 13,000 people directly and adds $2.6 billion to the B.C. economy. In 1993, exploration expenditures in mining were $9 million, the lowest since 1964. Forestry employs over 100,000 directly and adds $14.2 billion to B.C.'s economy. Over 300,000 British Columbians depend on resource jobs for their living. Forestry uses less than one-quarter of B.C.'s land to produce huge economic benefits from the forests. Over 80 percent of the communities in British Columbia depend on resource industries. In communities all over British Columbia, people are urging the government to stop, look and listen to the people of the communities. They didn't listen to the people of the Kootenays, they didn't listen to the people of the Cariboo-Chilcotin, and they didn't listen to the people on Vancouver Island.
Investing is one of the keys the government talks about in the throne speech. What they talk about here is just a rehash
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of the announcements they've already made in regard to the new public transportation in the Coquitlam area and the Island Highway.
One of the things that this government fails to talk about when they do discuss their infrastructure programs is the partnership with the federal government. It's all right; I understand that this government loves to bash federal governments. It doesn't matter which one, as long as it's the federal government. But they always love to have their hands out to take their money -- always. They will take every cent that the federal government gets them. You know the analogy of biting the hand that feeds them. That that's hypocritical, this government can't and doesn't ever seem to understand.
This government has had to downsize the Island Highway project. The original estimate of $1.1 billion, which mysteriously became $1.2 billion and was still considered on-budget, now involves cutbacks in interchanges and lane expansion. The government steadfastly insists it is on time, but these changes mean the Island Highway will not be completed until the year 2000 or beyond, not the original 1998. Who knows what it will cost in the meantime?
[4:15]
B.C. Ferries' ten-year plan is another example. These fast ferries internal upgrades will cost taxpayers $800 million -- money that is critically needed elsewhere in this province. One of the areas that comes to mind, of course, is schools, where we have so many of our students in portables.
The government talks about skills training for workers who need retraining. The throne speech goes on at some length about skills training. In the East Kootenay Land Use Plan they talk about skills training for workers, and they talk about new community centres opening. The Skills Now program, as we all know, is in much disarray. It's simply not working. It simply was not planned and certainly was not implemented. If you talk to different organizations around the province that are supposed to be integrated into this Skills Now training, it's abundantly clear that it's not working. Likely what will happen with this so-called skills training is exactly what happened in Quebec. The government has retraining programs of ten weeks. This is just enough time for people to qualify for federal unemployment insurance. In Quebec, it's called the ten-42 plan. The government comes up with a training program for ten weeks. Then when the people have completed this course and there's no work for them, but they do qualify for UI, what happens is that the federal government pays. The provincial government looks like they're good managers when, in fact, all they have done is smoke and mirrors and moved their responsibility off onto the federal government.
This throne speech talks about protecting medicare. It says that "dark clouds of two-tier American health care loom on the Canadian horizon." Well, the only Americanization creeping into this province is Karl Struble and the direct line that this government has to Washington. Who is in charge here? To say that the federal government has retreated on medicare and "has abandoned medicare, disregarding its value to the fabric of our nation and the security of Canadians" is preposterous. The capacity for hypocrisy of this government is truly astounding. As we have seen in the last couple of days, this government is shipping our people, our citizens of this province, out of their communities for medical treatment -- not just out of our province but out of our country as well. Scandalous! We are the only province in the country that is spending more than the national average on health care, while we have higher than average waiting lists. Health care in this province is in crisis. The transition to regional health boards for decision-making is causing widespread confusion. Another is the funding formula that is to be used, merging the labour contracts and the costs of the labour accord. These are all huge issues for health care in this province.
And in education.... The member for Cowichan-Ladysmith talked about special interest groups and said that the Liberal opposition was a special interest group which supported privatization -- I think that was the word she used -- in education. Nothing could be further from the truth. If we want to talk about special interest groups, I would suggest that the NDP is a more appropriate analogy. For the Liberal opposition, education is a top priority. We understand that students are the priority and that education should be an essential service. If this government believed that education was important and that the students were important, education would be designated an essential service. Children belong in the classroom, learning, and there is nothing that should interrupt that -- nothing.
Choices for parents, teachers and students are critical. Parents want to be involved in their child's education. They want to have the ability to choose schools and programming, and they want to have real input into what goes on in their child's classroom -- not just on hot dog days and sports days, but to really take an active role in their child's education. And we have to make sure that what we do at the senior secondary level has a direct and long-lasting effect on our children's ability to lead and to develop happy, healthy and productive lives.
The problem with education is not that we are doing what we used to do; it is because we are doing what we used to do, and that needs to change. The world has changed, society has changed, and we need to change the way we deliver education in this province. We have to focus on the outcomes. The delivery of education in the province has been focused on the process of delivering education -- how we deliver it. We have to turn that around and focus on the outcomes: what do we want our education system to do today? I would suggest that there are a number of things that we would like our students to know when they graduate from grade 12. They must be computer literate, numerate, able to communicate and to problem-solve, able to think and to problem-solve, and literate. If we can teach our students how to acquire those skills, when they move into the workforce or on to post-secondary they will have the skills to be successful in whatever they pursue.
Enhanced student learning should be our goal. One size does not fit all. We need to define and we need to develop systems and programs and methods of instruction that address the needs of individual students, because all do not learn in the same way. We need to talk about teacher-training. We need to look at different organization of our schools and different methods of instruction. There are lots of things we need to talk about in the education system, and I'm encouraged that that dialogue has begun. It needs to progress further, but at least it has begun.
Finally, the lack of leadership of this government is the single most critical factor in British Columbia today. This throne speech fails to deliver on the three things that British Columbians want government to do: cut government spending, cut debt and cut taxes. Once again this government has failed to respond to the real concerns of real people. This throne speech shows an amazing lack of vision, and the NDP will be judged for their tax-borrow-and-spend policies that are seriously undermining B.C.'s health care and educational services.
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Deputy Speaker: The question is the amendment on the throne speech. On the amendment, the member for Richmond South.
D. Symons: I was under the impression that one of the government members was going to stand up and speak on behalf of their throne speech, but apparently they have nothing to say.
I do have a few comments I would like to make. I guess the first one is to make some response to the member for Port Coquitlam, because he was quoting me from Hansard, or so he said. I had to look up in Hansard to find the quote that seemed to concern him, because we're talking about health care and he seemed to imply that I was against health care. I went to Hansard, and I'm reading from April 5, 1995, where I say: "Universal health care is here to stay. Universal health care was set by the federal government -- I might add, a Liberal government -- and it will stay." So all the comments he was making further to that certainly cannot negate the words I said. Health care is here to stay, and we as a Liberal government.... We hope to form government shortly, once the government gets the courage to call the election, and at that point we will make sure that health care is here to stay. Universal health care is not on the auction block. I'd just like to make that perfectly clear to the member, who obviously didn't hear my words very well and tries to twist them.
Some other words were also said by the opposition -- the government members, our opposition -- that I did want to take some exception to as well. He was talking about my commitment, specifically, to education in the community of Richmond. I have stood up for this, and I can find in Hansard last year and the year before, during estimates, where I've asked questions about the government's commitment to putting in school rooms in Richmond rather than portables. We had 252 portables in a school district where 25 percent of our students are housed in portables. That is unacceptable, and I have asked and have just recently written to the Minister of Education. It's interesting that he was commenting to the parents committee here that we have not talked to them about this issue, when within a week of the time of talking to the parents committee, he answered my letter that had been sitting on his desk for two months, asking exactly the questions he was saying we weren't asking of the government.
What we have here is a government that's trying to perpetuate misinformation, lies and all the other things that they can spread to discredit the opposition, but I think our words will stand on their own. The government cannot get away with that sort of thing.
Where I have concerns with the government is about the priorities it has used in spending. Spending on hospitals and education is valuable spending, but we don't have to go further into debt. This is where the government keeps telling us: "You're saying cut, cut, cut." I am. I'm saying this government should cut out the excessive spending it is doing needlessly.
We find that it, in its wisdom, has instituted something called the Highway Constructors Ltd. for building the Island Highway. I might add that in just the last few weeks, what we've seen the government do is downsize the Island Highway. Just a few minutes ago in this Legislature, I heard a member talking about the fact that they are on time and on budget. By the time they've downsized this to a cow trail, they'll certainly still stay on budget. Every time they find that the budget is going up fantastically -- and it was going to cost about $200 billion if they continued building the original highway as they had planned it.... They keep downsizing it because they're running over. One of the reasons is this Highway Constructors Ltd. What it does is create a union hiring hall, and the construction industry indicates that this has upped the cost somewhere in the neighbourhood of $70 million. That is $70 million that's taken out of school and hospital building in this province.
Not only that, but by setting up Highway Constructors Ltd. rather than having this built as a Ministry of Transportation and Highways project, what they have done is make this whole project eligible -- if that's the right word to use -- for the GST. Because of the way this government has decided to do it to reward their friends and insiders, we find that they have made the whole project eligible for the GST, adding another $35 million to the cost of the highway project. No wonder they've had to scale back the size of it. With these sorts of plans and ways of doing things, they've managed to make the cost prohibitively high. Now they're beginning to realize the mistakes in doing it this way, but rather than correct the mistakes they're downsizing the project. They must keep rewarding their friends.
Another instance of government misspending is on the health care accord, where basically the government made an agreement to not lay off any health care workers as they downsize. They hoped attrition would take care of it. In the process, they gave them a shorter workweek and a pay raise, and they guaranteed that anybody who was misplaced or put out of hospital because of bed closures would not lose their job. They were able to sit at home.
There was a cartoon in the paper a day or so ago, indicating that the Premier was wondering about these tourists in the Legislature building. As the cartoon went, his minister said that those weren't tourists; they were health care workers who were still waiting to get a job, and they were basically on the public payroll being paid for not working. That's another instance of this government's mismanagement of the economy of this province.
What we find, for a government that's saying it's going to be looking after its expenses, is that there are another 500 government employees planned for this fiscal year. You'll find this in the back of the book where there is information on full-time-equivalents, if government members would care to look it up. We have to add that 500 onto the more than 2,500 they have added to the government payroll in the last few years, and so we have over 3,000 more government employees since this government took office. Part of the money that's going toward the government workers they've hired could be going into building hospitals and schools. Rather than hitting at the opposition here, saying somehow that we're against schools and hospitals, which we are not.... We are against the government using its taxpayers' money unwisely.
This budget seems to perpetuate that notion on the part of the government, because they talk about good spending and bad spending, and so forth. I've given some instances of bad spending. We find in the bad spending this government has done that if they had taken account of that and considered only good spending, there would be millions of dollars available for the good spending thing without going further into debt, and that is my concern.
What we also find is that this government has spent somewhere in the neighbourhood of $100 million on PR, and we find that NOW Communications is at the centre of this. They call it government advertising. I think it's simply the NDP politicizing themselves; they're trying to build up their public image by buying ads and paying for NDP advertising through the taxpayers' pockets. I think the majority of the taxpayers out there are going to feel somewhat unhappy with
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this government for using their tax money and for trying to show in a blatant way the NDP propaganda. If this government was doing a good job as a government.... I think the work it's doing should speak for itself. It shouldn't take newspaper advertising; it shouldn't take a Premier on television with flip charts one time, and the other time with a phone-in that doesn't work. It shouldn't take that sort of PR exercise to tell the people of British Columbia what a wonderful job you're doing. If you're doing a wonderful job, the job will speak for itself and the message will be out. Because it's not doing a wonderful job, and because this budget is a nothing budget, in a sense, this government perpetuates the whole thing. This government is a failure.
[4:30]
So what we have to do, then, is look at the budget and find out what is or what is not being said in the budget. And we find in here that there are an awful lot of things that the government claims they're doing, and that basically what they are doing on some of the plus things -- the highway projects and the rest -- is carrying through with commitments that the previous government made -- the previous government, by the way, about which this government continues to say: "Look at how they ran up the deficit. Look at how they ran up the debt of this province." And this government continues to do the same thing while at the same time criticizing the previous government for doing that. I find that a little incongruous and possibly hypocritical.
So we find that the government is spending a great deal of time....
Interjection.
D. Symons: The first two years they basically.... The only highway projects they did in this province were the projects that were already committed to by the previous Social Credit government. For two years they basically cut back on any capital projects; they reduced spending in the rehabilitation program, which really maintains our highways so that we don't lose infrastructure each year. They cut back on that. It was already underspent by the Social Credit government; this government is underspending even more. So what we're doing year by year is losing highway infrastructure in this province. Yet this government is claiming what a wonderful job they're doing building the Island Highway, while they let a good amount of the rest of the province go down the tube as far as their highways are concerned, because they're not keeping up with the required rehabilitation at the rate that all knowledgeable people indicate you have to spend.
We also find that this government has spent a lot of money in the process of trying to keep its friends hired. We have the vast numbers of friends of this government who have been hired and now form a large patronage thing within the civil service of this province. Never before have we seen so many people brought in and put on the government payroll. A good number of them who have proved rather inefficient have been moved off to greener pastures with very nice severance packages. Again, it's more money that could be used for schools, particularly schools in Richmond that are short of classrooms -- having 25 percent of the pupils in portables is not satisfactory.
The government has been asking.... I know the Minister of Employment and Investment was in Richmond this morning. He didn't bother to tell the MLAs that he was going to be there; he again made some knocks at me and the two other MLAs from Richmond, with the viewpoint that we aren't speaking up for schools in Richmond. I will say to this House today, on the same day the minister made those comments, that I am speaking up for schools in Richmond. I'm speaking up for schools in the province of British Columbia and education. I taught for 30 years in a high school, and I know how important education is for the students and for the people of this province.
Interjection.
D. Symons: The member says I haven't learned much, but I'll tell you one thing: being a teacher is an extremely educational process, because I think I gained as much as the students. You learn a great deal from young people. One of the things you learn from young people is their concern about their future, and I don't think this government has done anything to secure that future for them. Young people coming out of school today are faced with the uncertainty of whether they're going to get into secondary education, because of the fact that their grade point averages might not be quite up to a straight-A level. So we have a lot of concern on the part of students in this province that there will be jobs and a future for them in this province. That, I think, is a shame to this government and the previous government for not providing the certainty that these students need.
I would like to take a look at the budget, because we find that it's a moderate budget in comparison to the first two budgets this government brought in. I daresay that they are not adding any taxes or milking the people of British Columbia any more than they did in those first two years; they increased taxes by a considerable amount in the first two years. Of course, they say: "We aren't; we've frozen taxes. We're not raising taxes any more. All we're doing is simply raising fees and licences so that we get another couple of billion dollars through that method." It's a billion, I believe, that they're planning on getting through increased fees and licences this year. To me, that's a tax. It's also a tax when the government is clawing back money through dividends from B.C. Hydro. Where does Hydro get its money from? It gets it from you and me and everyone in the province who uses power. Taking money from B.C. Hydro and putting it into general revenue to keep their figures down so they can say, "Hey, we've got a zero deficit," is simply another way of taxing the people of British Columbia.
I noticed that this budget, like all the budgets that the NDP have brought in, really lacks an economic plan for the province. It moves on and on and on, but there's no economic plan or blueprint for enhancing the economy of the province. There's no plan for development of secondary industry and no incentives to business. Rather, we have a vague promise that they're going to reduce the deficit and so forth, as they have claimed they're now doing. But what this really is is a bookkeeping sham -- I guess we could call it -- and a bit of cooking of the books by simply removing things that in 1991 were covered as part of the line ministries, one thing being highway expenses and capital construction. Those were covered in 1991 under the line ministries.
The $300 million the government is spending this year in building the Island Highway does not show up in the books anymore. It shows up in the Transportation Financing Authority and is not counted as part of the provincial debt. The fact that they claim that there's a $114 million surplus this year is simply a little bit of flimflam with the books of the province. I don't think the people of this province are being fooled at all by the government's manipulation of the books in order to cover what they claim is reducing the deficit.
The real problem is that the people of this province expect the government and want the government -- and demand of
[ Page 13330 ]
all governments of Canada -- to deal with the size of the public debt. This government has shown no inclination whatsoever to attack the issue of the public debt. What we find if we look at the year-by-year progress of this government is that the debt of British Columbia has gone up and up and up. Today it is 60 percent more than when this government took office three and a half years ago.
An Hon. Member: Fabricator.
D. Symons: All you have to do is read your own documents, hon. members. In 1991 the debt of this province was $17 billion. It is now $27 billion, and that is pretty close to a 60 percent increase.
Interjection.
D. Symons: My hon. friend here has added: "And they're borrowing $1.2 billion this year." That's where I really have difficulty with this budget. What we find is that on the one hand the government says: "Hey, we're wonderful. We're giving you a surplus this year. We've balanced the budget." Yet when you look at the figures, you find that they have revenues of a certain amount and they have expenditures that are $1.2 billion more than the revenues. For anybody else....
An Hon. Member: Do you owe any money on your house? What about your house mortgage? Do you owe any?
D. Symons: No, I don't have a mortgage on my house. The hon. member asks about my house. What we find is that you have to pay off your house. You can't keep adding and adding and adding without paying on the principal. Now we have this government that is continuing to spend, year after year, more and more than they take in. There must, somewhere along the line, be an end to the process.
I was suggesting earlier that one of the ways of making an end to this process is to look at the way they have been handling some of the government things: Highway Contractors Ltd., fixed wages, the health care accord and the number of government employees they have added to the payroll. That's one way you could be really balancing the budget and addressing the problem of debt.
An Hon. Member: We put them on payroll where they deserve to be.
D. Symons: One thousand of those new government employees were indeed on contract; 2,500 of them are new employees who were not on contract before, and you are adding another 500 this year. Those are people that this government might be taking off the welfare rolls, which is another indication, I think, of some of the puffery in this document called the budget. The government says what a wonderful job it's doing, yet we find that the welfare rolls have swelled during the last two and a half years in the province of British Columbia. Therefore we have to ask: where is this wonderful province, which these people have been claiming that they have been making B.C. into -- this sort of Shangri-la that they claim they have created -- when the welfare rolls and the poor in this province are growing day by day?
Interjection.
D. Symons: Well, if the members differ with me, I would like to have them show me the figures where there is a smaller number of people on the public dole today than there were three and a half years ago. I would be very pleased to see those figures; the ones I have are quite different from those. It would seem that this government has not handled the economy well.
In their document they talk about creating jobs. The best indicator of creating jobs is to help small business, because small business is really the generator of job creation in British Columbia. And what has this government done for small business? Precious little. And for middle-sized business, they've made sure that they tax them on the infrastructure they've put in. They tax them on their capital, not necessarily on their profits. I go along with government members when the government claims that they want to tax businesses on their profits; I think that's quite fair. But to tax a business on the assets it is buying in order to create jobs seems to be counterproductive.
I was concerned earlier when the member for Port Coquitlam was making some comments about the Liberal Party and tried to, I think, label the provincial Liberal Party as being the same as the federal Liberal Party. I would like to point out to the members here that they are two separate parties. We have two separate constitutions. You may remember that during the referendum the Liberals in this House were wearing No buttons -- that happened to be what the majority of Canadians were saying -- whereas the federal Liberals happened to be wearing Yes buttons. But we found that every NDP member in this House was on what side? [Applause.]
I am pleased that the NDP members are really beginning to show that they still aren't with it with the people of Canada, because the people of Canada rejected the Charlottetown accord, and the NDP were for it. You were very out of place with the rest of Canada and apparently, from the clapping you've been doing, you still are.
Now I've misplaced the one thing I was going to look for. What I would like to read to you -- and I will have to do it from here because I can't find.... I am going to read from something called the New Democratic Party constitution: "Preamble. The New Democratic Party believes that social, economic and political progress in Canada can only be assured by the application of democratic socialist principles to government and the administration of public affairs." [Applause.]
Some Hon. Members: More, more, more, more.
D. Symons: I would like to remind these people that that is why we are in trouble in British Columbia today. All we have to do is take a look at some of the socialist governments around this world to see how many of them have collapsed in the last few years.
An Hon. Member: The communists like Denmark, like Germany.
D. Symons: We have to look at countries because.... For all the member says, it's the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. They tried communism for a couple of years and found it didn't work, and then changed indeed.
Interjections.
D. Symons: They gave up communism; after five years it didn't work, and they changed to socialism. It didn't work well there, and it's not going to work here.
We find, as we read further down: "Article I -- Name and Purpose. The name of the organization is the New Democratic
[ Page 13331 ]
Party of British Columbia, hereinafter called 'The Party'." Listen up, members, because it's your constitution. "The Party shall consist of a section of the New Democratic Party (of Canada). " In other words, you're one, not two.
[4:45]
Interjections.
D. Symons: I may remind the members of what happened to the federal New Democratic Party in the last federal election.
Section 1.01: "Should conflict arise between the Constitution of this Party" -- that is the provincial party -- "and that of the New Democratic Party (of Canada)" -- the federal party -- "herein referred to as `The Federal Constitution,' the Federal Constitution shall prevail."
So we find here that these provincial NDPers are simply vassals to the federal NDPers, yet the member for Port Coquitlam had the audacity to somehow indicate that we are connected to the federal Liberals simply because one of our members might have had a federal sign on his lawn as well as a provincial sign. That does not mean you are beholden to all of their policies at all. That is the sort of nonsense that is being perpetuated by the members of the government side of this House.
An Hon. Member: Ask them about gun control and their federal counterparts. How do they feel about gun control?
D. Symons: I don't think we want to get into gun control, because I think that is something that has to be an individual issue.
Interjection.
D. Symons: I think we're allowed to have our own minds over here, which is somewhat different than across there. Maybe it's because there aren't enough in one.... I had better not say that. I didn't want to imply that they are all brainless; I'm sure there must be some brains over there.
Anyway, we find that this constitution of the NDP talks about economic and social planning, and I guess the best way.... They also talk about social ownership. I would guess, more correctly, that we are talking about economic and social engineering. We find that when the government brought in its labour bill, Bill 84, it was moving one step in that direction. What the government has done in the last short while, of course, is tone down its socialist side. They have toned it down because they know they are coming up to a provincial election. They've done their damage in the first two years; they're bringing in a budget that seems somewhat benign in order to lull the people into thinking what nice people they are after all and that indeed we have a very nice Premier. "Won't it be nice if we just sort of slip in and fool the public so we can hit them again once we're re-elected." As soon as this government gets in again, they're going to bring in another round of legislation that is going to really....
Interjections.
D. Symons: I know many people who are very concerned that that could be the case. Up until recently -- and they are having to change their tune a little -- they were saying: "Stay alive until '95." They are afraid they might have to wait another year if this government doesn't call an election this coming fall.
We have to have some balance in the government. We have to have some economic stability in the province. I don't believe that this government, in the budget it has brought forward, has shown that it has the view and the plan in order to bring the people of British Columbia to a feeling of confidence in this government continuing to govern the province.
H. Lali: I rise in support of the throne speech, and to speak against the amendment.
After having listened to the hon. member, he has convinced me more and more that he's here in body but not in mind. For all his claim that he's been a teacher for 30 years, I don't think he's learned much. The more I listen to the Liberal opposition, I keep reminding myself of the fact that I thank God I'm a New Democrat and not sitting on one of those benches over on the right-hand side.
In any case, I guess the member who spoke before me has obviously not done his research and has not looked at what the picture of British Columbia is and has been over the last three years. I'd like to go through some of these facts that he's obviously neglected to take into consideration. For several years now, British Columbia has had the highest population growth of any province in Canada. While we're providing for another hundred thousand or so people per year in British Columbia, we are not only able to provide services for those people, we are able to manage our finances accordingly.
We also have the best job creation record of any province in Canada. We had 66,000 jobs created in 1994. Going back for the last three years, we've had 140,000 jobs created in this province. That's 40 percent of all jobs created in Canada, while we in British Columbia have only 11 percent of the population. We've also had the highest number of new businesses opening up in British Columbia. Also, our retail sales were up every year over the last three or four years.
On the other side of things, we have the lowest debt per capita of any province in Canada. Along with that is the second-lowest taxes of any province in the country. The end result is that British Columbia has the highest credit rating of any province in the country. All of that has been a result of the good government we have been providing for the last three and a half years since we were elected, by creating the kind of climate that businesses need to prosper and thrive and create jobs in this province.
If the throne speech -- which was presented last month -- has shown one thing to the people, it is that we have listened to the concerns of the people of British Columbia. As I went around my riding, and as my colleagues from this side of the House did the same thing in their constituencies, we heard from people that they were worried about the Chretiens, Mannings, Campbells and Weisgerbers of this world who want to dismantle our medicare system, divide it up and sell it to their friends. We also heard from citizens that they were concerned about the future of their children. They were concerned about jobs for their children in the future. This throne speech addresses both of those issues, and that's why our vision is to protect medicare and to create jobs.
Meanwhile, the opposition is talking about scaling down the quality of health care we have in this country -- that very health care that Tommy Douglas and the New Democrats fought for in the sixties and brought in so that every Canadian in this country could enjoy it, and it became a model for every other province. An issue before us now is to keep that universal free medicare -- the quality of that medicare which is the best in the world -- alive and ongoing so that not only we can enjoy it in our old age, but also the upcoming generations, so that when they grow older they can have that quality of medicare for their future. But that's not the way the opposition sees it.
[ Page 13332 ]
The Reform Party has already come out federally -- Mr. Manning.... The provincial Reform hasn't come out against what Mr. Manning is saying: that health care should be based on the charity of other individuals in society, only the core services should be funded through tax dollars, and everything else should be put up by the individuals themselves. Yet they don't want to define what the core services are. We haven't heard boo out of our Reform friends here in the Legislature.
And then you look at the federal Liberals off-loading $800 million worth of funds onto the provincial government. They're backing away from their obligations to health care in this country and dumping it onto the provincial jurisdictions. And what do we hear from the Liberals who are sitting in this House? What did we hear from the Liberal leader? He said the cuts didn't go far enough. He thought there should be more off-loading onto the provinces, that the federal government should be backing out more from medicare. Yet when you ask him what he would be willing to do if he were to be elected Premier, he's not willing to provide for the vacuum that would be created by the federal government. Instead, what you hear is the Liberal Health critic and, indeed, the Reform Party talking about bringing in, if they were -- heaven help us -- ever elected, a two-tier health system where there would be the rich who would be able to afford the quality health care and the poor who wouldn't. They want to bring in this two-tier health system similar to what they have in the United States. I think it's important for the people out there to know that these people here, these people to the right, want to destroy health care as we know it.
What do we hear from our friends on the right wing when it comes to job creation? Well, all they can do is criticize -- for the last three years all they've done is criticize. They've criticized B.C. 21, which is making those affordable investments in infrastructure in this province. As you drive around the province, you'll notice that in the last three years this government has taken the initiative to get rid of the backlog, which for a dozen years or more the last Social Credit government had in place when it came to replacing some of the infrastructure that was falling apart. We're building highways and fixing up the old highways. We're also rebuilding some bridges -- and there are quite a few in my riding in particular that we're rebuilding.
We're building schools and rebuilding the old ones that are falling apart. This government is also building courthouses. It's building new ferries and upgrading the old ones that were also falling apart. We're building fire halls so that those communities that need fire protection will be able to have that through funding for new fire halls in their communities. There are at least a half a dozen communities in my riding that have received funding to build new fire halls or to upgrade the old ones.
This government has also helped communities to build community centres, pools, libraries and hospitals, and all of these have been long overdue. They had been neglected by the Social Credit government. In the 1991 election, when I was doing some door-to-door canvassing, people were saying to me that they were seeing all this growth taking place under the Socreds in the lower mainland and the lower Island. I know that the then Leader of the Opposition, now the Premier, and the New Democratic Party made a commitment to the people of this province that we were going to end that neglect of the regions -- the interior and the north -- and that all the moneys for infrastructure were no longer going to be channelled into the lower mainland. We've done that through our regional initiatives. You're seeing all these types of facilities -- the schools, the fire halls, the bridges and the hospitals and all the others that I've mentioned -- being rebuilt and new ones being built throughout every region of this province, because this government had the intestinal fortitude to listen to the people of this province and make those affordable investments where they were needed, and that meant throughout the province.
Last year this government introduced the Skills Now initiative: $200 million for creating new spaces in our colleges, institutes and universities. We created 9,100 new spaces last year, and 3,000 spaces the year before. There are plans to create another 4,800 new spaces in the upcoming year. All those spaces we're creating have filtered down into all the communities throughout the province, including my own constituency, where we have a small aboriginal institution called the Nicola Valley Institute of Technology. We were able to provide 30 new seats or 30 FTEs in that small college. By making the kind of investments we're making, we're creating jobs throughout the province.
I'd also like to touch briefly upon some of the forestry initiatives that this government has undertaken in the last three and a half years. In 1991, when we came into power, the situation, as you will recall, was quite sad within the province. We had loggers pitted against environmentalists by the past government; we had industry that was at loggerheads with the aboriginal people; and we had valley-by-valley conflicts. Instead of trying to solve those conflicts, the Social Credit government under Bill Vander Zalm tried to use the divide-and-rule method, where they were actually pitting those people against each other. Indeed, we ended up with a lot of violence in those communities throughout the province as a result of the mismanagement by the former government.
[5:00]
The situation before us when we got elected was that we had two choices. We had two options: option A was to remain reactive to all the pressures existing in society at the time, which meant to actually manage the decline of our number one industry in this province; or option B, which was to take a proactive approach and deal with the issues and problems head-on in order to come up with solutions so that we would no longer have those conflicts.
During that election campaign in 1991, the New Democratic Party in its platform said that there was going to be a new way of doing forestry once the New Democrats were elected. We've lived up to that promise. We have put into place our land use planning processes -- CORE and LRMP. That has ended valley-by-valley conflicts. That has ended the conflict that existed between the loggers and environmentalists and between aboriginal communities and industry. We've been able to do that on Vancouver Island, in the Cariboo and in the Kootenays.
We also brought in the forest land reserve, which is similar to the agricultural land reserve, so that industry, loggers and forestry workers could be assured that there would be land set aside where their children and their children after that could retain jobs in the forest industry. When we got elected in 1991, we said that forestry was not a sunset industry. We said it was a sunrise industry and that we have to achieve sustainability of our forest resource.
We also brought in our Forest Practices Code so that forest practices would be managed according to our highest standards. We brought in the timber supply review to look at our resources in the forest industry so that we could do the inventory -- an inventory that hadn't been done in this province for at least 20 to 30 years. If our goal was to manage forestry for the future so that we could have a sustainable resource for generations to come, how were we going to be able to do that if we didn't know how much of a resource
[ Page 13333 ]
actually existed? This is where the timber supply review was essential.
Last but not least, last year this government had the courage to introduce the forest renewal plan, whereby $2 billion would be re-injected into our forestry land base over the next five years. Workers in small communities like Merritt, Boston Bar, Lytton, Hope and Lillooet could be assured that this government was going to live up to its promise of forestry being a sunrise industry. We were able to do that.
I would also like to mention, as we are talking about job creation -- and this government is committed to job creation -- that I have a good-news story, as opposed to all of the doom and gloom that the opposition likes to build up. Last month I went up to the community of Gold Bridge-Bralorne to announce this government giving a mining certificate to Avino-Bralorne-Pioneer Mines. They're going to be opening up a gold mine, I've been assured, within a six-to-12-month period. At its height, they will have 150 employees working at that mine.
As I indicated earlier, all that this opposition has done about all of those job creation initiatives that I've outlined and about the others that everybody is familiar with but which, due to the shortage of time, I have not outlined here.... All the opposition could muster was criticism for each and every one of these initiatives. They voted against B.C. 21 -- that is, building schools and courthouses and creating jobs. B.C. 21 is creating jobs in their own ridings, and they voted against that. They voted against every other positive initiative that this government has put forth over the last three budgets. They voted against job creation. All they can talk about is cuts. You'll hear them get up, speaker after speaker, talking about making cuts, but they're never specific about where they would make the cuts.
While they're talking about making cuts and eliminating the budget that finances the rebuilding of schools and bridges and all that, you will find -- especially in the Liberal opposition -- those very same MLAs going over to the Minister of Education's office to lobby for schools in their own particular riding. They want to see cuts. They want to see the cuts in somebody else's riding, but they don't want to see those cuts taking place in their own riding. That is the absolute in hypocrisy.
An Hon. Member: Two-faced.
H. Lali: Two-faced, as the hon. member sitting next to me is saying. That is hypocrisy and being two-faced at its worst -- or at its best, as the Liberals and the Reform like to look at it.
When they do talk about specific cuts, they talk about two areas where the cuts would come from: health care and education. They also talk about another kind of cut: a cut in taxes. When they're specific about making cuts in taxes, they're talking about making cuts in the corporation capital tax, whereby the Howe Street boys would be freed of $300 million a year. They also talk about making cuts to school property taxes on businesses, for a total of $1 billion. When you ask them where they will make the cuts to spending, they won't give us any specifics. We know one thing: they don't want any cuts to occur in their own particular back yard or in their own ridings; they want to see the cuts come somewhere else. It's NIMBY in reverse, and it's hypocrisy at its worst.
An Hon. Member: You've had more money spent in your riding than any other member in this House.
H. Lali: That's because I'm an active MLA, and I work hard on behalf of my constituents. I work very hard on behalf of my constituents, so I can hear their concerns.
J. Beattie: Point of order, hon. Speaker.
Deputy Speaker: I recognize the member for Okanagan-Penticton on a point of order, which I think I anticipate.
J. Beattie: Hon. Speaker, you know I always enjoy the comments of the member for North Vancouver-Seymour. They always adds a little spice and humour to the discussion, particularly when he talks about mining in the parks. However, I do wish he would make his comments from his seat.
Deputy Speaker: Thank you, member. The point of order is oblique but understood -- namely, members' remarks across the floor of the chamber should only be made from members' seats. I hope we will all take that caution and abide by it.
The member for Yale-Lillooet continues.
H. Lali: Thank you, hon. Speaker. That point of order came at a timely point, as I needed a drink of water anyway. So thank you, hon. member for Okanagan-Penticton, for that point of order.
When we say to these individuals: "If you're going to cut $1 billion and on the other side...." I'm making reference to their plans to cut the corporation capital tax and also eliminate the school property tax on businesses, which amounts to $1 billion. On the one side, they say they want to balance the budget, and on the other side, they say they're going to give tax breaks of $1 billion to their own big business friends from Howe Street. How are they going to be able to balance the two? How are they going to be able to balance the budget if they're talking about actually making cuts in revenue? What they don't tell us is that the secret backroom deal they're making with the Howe Street boys is that they would actually raise that $1 billion in revenue by raising the personal income tax of lower- and middle-income earners. On the one side, these people like to go out into the public and say that they're speaking on behalf of the average working person in this province, which they aren't. To them, average is somebody who's making $100,000 to $200,000 a year. On this side of the House, the New Democratic side, we're talking about lower- and middle-income earners who are far below the $100,000 mark. Those are the very people the Liberals would tax to death. If they're not going to raise income tax, would they raise the sales tax, the consumer tax? The lower- and middle-income earners would be hit again.
I think it's time for them to actually come clean, to come to the public and say that the cuts they would make in spending would be to medicare and to those very projects that create jobs. That's where they would make the spending cuts, and they would raise taxes on the lower- and middle-income earners. I think it's high time that the leaders of the Liberal and the Reform parties started telling the truth to the voters of British Columbia, because those are the kinds of questions they'll be asking them on the election trail.
As I've indicated, the kinds of cuts they said they would like to make.... I'd like to just use some examples of some of the funding this government has provided in my riding, and I would like to ask the Reform, and especially the Liberals, if these are the very projects they would like to cut.
An Hon. Member: You're not going to go over the list again.
H. Lali: No, I'm not going to go over the list. I only have a half-dozen items. I think it's important for the people in my
[ Page 13334 ]
riding -- and I'm sure quite a few are watching -- to know that on this side of the House the New Democrats are not the ones talking about making cuts to these projects which I'm about to outline in front of you, because we're the government that funded these projects.
What I would like to ask these Liberals and Reformers sitting to my right is: is the $8.3 million that was announced by myself and the Minister of Education for the rebuilding of Merritt Secondary School in Merritt...? Would the opposition be talking about making cuts there? How about the Canada-B.C. infrastructure program, whereby we were able to announce the $3.5 million for the pool-library complex in Hope? Would the Liberals like to stand up and say that is where they would like to make the cut? I know you voted against B.C. 21, the provincial shares coming out of that B.C. 21 program. Or is it the $12 million major rehab of the Fraser-Hope Bridge in the municipality of Hope? Is that where the cut would be made? What about the $2 million this government gave for downtown revitalization in Lillooet? Would you like to cut there, hon. members of the opposition? Or is it the $1.5 million that this government has announced for the long overdue sheltered housing in Princeton? That issue was there when I got elected; it had been there for five consecutive budgets, and the last government turned it down each time. It was under this government that we were able to fund it. Is that where the opposition would like to make the cut? Or is it the water and sewer infrastructure in Collettville, where the provincial government is going to be pumping in anywhere from $2 million to $3 million? Is that where the Liberals would like to see the cut made, and deny the people of Collettville clean drinking water and proper sewage treatment? Or how about the announcement that was made recently on the water reservoir this government is helping to fund in the municipality of Cache Creek? Would these people like to make the cuts there?
Interjection.
H. Lali: The hon. member sitting next to me just handed me an editorial from one of the newspapers in my riding. I'll tell you what one of the editors in my riding is saying about the kind of work this government and this hon. member are doing. This is from the community of Lillooet, from the Lillooet News under a section called "Viewpoint." This is the editorial by the editor. It's entitled "Lillooet Getting Its Share of Goodies." It also says: "But Never Enough." I'd like the members of the opposition here to know that here's a community that has been in dire straits and that is saying it's never enough.
This is a little dated, but it says: "Last week, MLA Harry Lali came gleefully to town, brandishing a press release saying that our infrastructure grant had come through." They were very happy about that. She, the editor, goes on to say: "We must admit that the end results of Mr. Lali's agitations in Victoria are impressive. The Yale-Lillooet riding got nearly twice as much money in this latest round of infrastructure grants as any other riding in the province."
[The Speaker in the chair.]
She continues: "Politicians are seldom praised by news media. We haven't quite decided if that's the nature of the beast or if politicians are seldom worthy of praise. However, looking at the big picture in the Lillooet area, we must admit that Mr. Lali has come through with the goodies."
[5:15]
The Speaker: Order, please. The hon. member is referring to himself by his name. He should refer to his constituency when speaking of himself.
H. Lali: Thank you for that clarification. I shall do so from now on.
This editor continues: "It has been said by visiting ministers that our MLA is better known as Lillooet Lali in the halls of the Legislative Assembly." Finally, she says:
"While we have had our differences, editorially speaking, with the hon. member and most certainly will continue to do so in the future, we must give credit where credit is due." This hon. member and his government "must be doing something right to bring this much money into Lillooet over the past few years, not to mention a whopping $14 million into the Yale-Lillooet riding last week."
I'd like to say to those members sitting in the right-wing benches over here that if they need proof that the people out there in the constituencies approve of this provincial government spending money for infrastructure on their behalf, then those members should read this editorial and the many others like it that are occurring in ridings in the interior, in the north and in every other riding that these people don't represent. All of these Liberal members are from the urban area of Vancouver and its suburban area. Not a single one of them represents a riding on Vancouver Island or an area north or east of Hope.
Interjection.
H. Lali: I make a correction. There actually is one member from the lower Island who represents the Liberal Party.
I say to these people, try taking a drive out into the interior and the north and talking to the people of those constituencies.
An Hon. Member: They should try coming into the House once in a while, too.
H. Lali: And they should try coming to the House. I see there's only one Liberal sitting here.
I know their leader has made some trips into the interior, and he's even come into my riding. But he's not listening to the people in my riding, because the people in Yale-Lillooet are saying to me, to the New Democratic Party and to the Premier: "We want funds coming into this riding so we can rebuild the bridges, like the Fraser bridge at Hope, like the Lytton Bridge, like the Collettville bridge, like the Whipsaw bridge." They want money coming into the riding to build those projects. They're saying to me that they want to see those funds flowing so we can rebuild the schools that haven't been rebuilt for 20 or 30 years. They're also saying to me -- the Liberals should listen and should actually try to get up there once in a while -- that they want to see those funds coming in so they can rebuild their infrastructure in communities like Cache Creek, Ashcroft and Logan Lake. But obviously we know one thing: the opposition isn't listening.
I'm glad and proud to support this throne speech, because this Premier and this party have listened. We have delivered, and that is why. Our vision is protecting medicare and creating jobs.
F. Randall: I rise to speak against the amendment and in favour of the throne speech. We're all aware that the main emphasis of the throne speech is on jobs and medicare, which are two very important issues. There is a jobs and investment strategy for this government: investing in our natural resources, infrastructure and people -- all very worthwhile moves.
Three goals of the government are to maintain B.C.'s top credit rating, the best of any province in Canada; to cut taxpayer-supported debt as a percentage of the GDP from the
[ Page 13335 ]
current 20 percent -- I think we're all aware that Alberta is currently at 37 percent, and the federal debt represents 75 percent of Canada's gross domestic product -- and to protect medicare. We intend to build new cancer clinics, shorten the waiting lists in hospitals, free communities to set their own priorities, promote preventive care and maintain a healthy workforce.
I want to mention, on this debt business.... I've heard it talked about a lot: bad debt and good debt. There is a difference in kinds of debt. I spent a lot of years on the credit committee of a credit union approving loans, and there is a difference. If a person comes in who has $15,000 or $10,000 on their credit card, and they want to borrow to pay that off, or if they come in and want to borrow $10,000 or $15,000 to do some improvements to their home, there is a substantial difference in approving those kind of loans. To say that all debt is the same is not true. Talk to any moneylender or bank manager and see how easy it is to borrow for your credit card debt. It's not that easy.
I would also like to briefly mention the comments of the member for Richmond Centre, I believe, who was talking about the Island Highway costs. I think you'll find that with all of these projects there are land acquisition costs. I know I'm experiencing it on a project in Burnaby-Edmonds right now. There are expropriation costs. Land costs continue to go up. And if you're acquiring land, you've got to be fair with whoever owns that land.
I think the whole matter of the Island Highway agreement, which was raised by that member, was a good deal for the province. That agreement is substantially below the standard agreements, and it is going to provide qualified local people on Vancouver Island to perform that work. It's a good agreement. It should be expanded to other areas, because the provincial government really made a bargain when they got that agreement -- again, as I say, substantially below what the standard is.
Also on the matter of people and jobs, to my mind, jobs are really almost a right, I guess. I think everybody should have the right to work. I know that if people are unemployed for long periods of time, it affects them substantially, to the point that they begin to wonder about themselves. It starts to affect them mentally. They begin to wonder if they are not qualified and can't do the job. If people have long periods of unemployment, it really affects them, their families and their friends. An effort has to be made to try and find as many ways as we can to create jobs in British Columbia.
The other thing I want to comment on is the comment about this government not needing to spend 5 cents to let the public or the voters of B.C. know what they're doing. I think that the government has an obligation to report to their constituents and advise them about what legislation has been passed and what they're doing. Certainly, everything that happens in this House is not reported in the newspapers. A lot of legislation goes through that you never read or hear anything about. The government should at least do an annual report to all the residents of British Columbia on what they have done in the past year, rather than residents having to read local newspapers, which do not always report the facts.
Also, comments were made by the speaker from Richmond that the books are cooked. I don't know how a person can make that kind of statement. Surely the people in charge here would not allow that to happen; I'm sure that the auditors would not allow that to happen.
Interjection.
F. Randall: To make those kinds of statements is just looking for nasty words to say and being, as is mentioned across the way, irresponsible.
Comments about labour legislation. Bill 84 was mentioned by one of the previous speakers. It's a known fact that the Socred-Liberals and the Socred-Reformers would love to get back to the legislation that was here previously. The leader of the Socred-Liberals has already stated that if he were Premier, he would certainly be reverting to the previous legislation, which in effect caused many serious problems in this province and did a fairly good job of deunionizing the construction industry. So that's what we've got to look forward to from thoseSocred-Reformers and Socred-Liberals.
I was reading an ICBA annual newsletter in which there was a picture of the Socred-Liberal leader arm in arm with the ICBA, making a statement that the ICBA were "our kind of people." For those who know the ICBA and Hochstein, he has certainly made statements that you should be able to hire people as cheap as you can get them. If you can get people to work for $5 an hour, that's the objective. He's made those statements; I was there when he made them. He has no understanding that people need a decent wage to live on. It's a matter of if there's lots of unemployment and you can get them cheaper, then you get them. That is the organization the Liberal leader is arm in arm with, according to their newsletter and the statements that these are "our kind of people."
I have some real concerns about the direction that this province would go under any of the opposition parties that are in this Legislature at the present time. Also, there's an article in one of the Burnaby papers: "Reform Ready for Action." It says: "Weisgerber is willing to form a Reform-Liberal coalition government." It then says: "Although emphasizing that there is a distinct difference between the Reformers and Liberals, Weisgerber said that should it come down to a minority situation, he would welcome talks with Liberal leader Gordon..." -- I can't mention his name; the leader of the Liberal Party. They would in effect do anything to keep the NDP from returning to office. Obviously they are beginning to realize that this government has an excellent chance of being reelected, and they're already discussing with each other how they can maybe try and stop it. So I think this indicates that they're cut from the same stone or the same cloth.
Also, I just want to mention a couple of things on the budget issue. Certainly the Socred-Liberals say that they'll cut the debt and corporate taxes, but at the same time their spending list keeps growing. I don't know how you can do both those things....
[5:30]
The Speaker: Order, please. Regrettably, hon. member, under standing order 45A the question must now be put on the amendment.
Amendment negatived on the following division:
| YEAS -- 17 | ||
|
Dalton |
Campbell |
Farrell-Collins |
|
Hurd |
Gingell |
Stephens |
|
Weisgerber |
Hanson |
Mitchell |
|
Tanner |
Jarvis |
Anderson |
|
Warnke |
K. Jones |
Symons |
|
Fox |
|
Neufeld |
|
[ Page 13336 ] | ||
| NAYS -- 33 | ||
|
Sihota |
Priddy |
Edwards |
|
Zirnhelt |
Charbonneau |
O'Neill |
|
Garden |
Perry |
Hammell |
|
B. Jones |
Lortie |
Smallwood |
|
Cull |
Gabelmann |
Clark |
|
MacPhail |
Dosanjh |
Lovick |
|
Pullinger |
Janssen |
Randall |
|
Beattie |
Streifel |
Simpson |
|
Sawicki |
Jackson |
Kasper |
|
Brewin |
Copping |
Schreck |
|
Lali |
Hartley |
Boone |
F. Randall moved adjournment of the debate.
Motion approved.
Hon. G. Clark moved adjournment of the House.
Motion approved.
The House adjourned at 5:38 p.m.
APPENDIX
80 The Hon. G. Clark to move --
Be it resolved that this House hereby authorizes the Committee of Supply for this Session to sit in two sections designated Section A and Section B; Section A to sit in such Committee Room as may be appointed from time to time, and Section B to sit in the Chamber of the Assembly, subject to the following rules:
1. The Standing Orders applicable to the Committee of the Whole House shall be applicable in both Sections of the Committee of Supply save and except that in Section A, a Minister may defer to a Deputy Minister to permit such Deputy to reply to a question put to the Minister.
2. Subject to paragraph 3, within one sitting day of the passage of this Motion, the House Leader of the Official Opposition may advise the Government House Leader, in writing, of three ministerial Estimates which the Official Opposition requires to be considered in Section B of the Committee of Supply, and upon receipt of such notice in writing, the Government House Leader shall confirm in writing that the said three ministerial Estimates shall be considered in Section B of the Committee of Supply.
3. All Estimates shall stand referred to Section A, save and except those Estimates which shall be referred to Section B under the provisions of paragraph 2 of this Order and such other Estimates as shall be referred to Section B on motion by the Government House Leader, which motion shall be governed by the provisions of Standing Order 60a. Practice Recommendation #6 relating to Consultation shall be applicable to this rule.
4. The Committee of Selection shall appoint 24 members for Section A, being 14 Members of the New Democratic Party, six Members of the Liberal Party, two Members of the B.C. Reform Party and two other Members. In addition, the Deputy Chair of the Committee of the Whole, or his or her nominee, shall preside over the debates in Section A. Substitution of Members will be permitted to Section A with the consent of that Member's Whip, where applicable, otherwise with the consent of the Member involved.
5. At thirty minutes prior to the ordinary time fixed for adjournment of the House, the Chair of Committee A will report to the House. In the event such report includes the last vote in a particular ministerial Estimate, after such report has been made to the House, the Government shall have a maximum of eight minutes, and the Official Opposition a maximum of five minutes, and all other Members (cumulatively) a maximum of three minutes to summarize the Committee debate on a particular ministerial Estimate completed, such summaries to be in the followng order:
(1) Other Members;
(2) Official Opposition; and
(3) Government.
6. Committee B shall be composed of all Members of the House.
7. Divisions in Section A will be signalled by the ringing of the division bells four times.
8. Divisions in Section B will be signalled by the ringing of the division bells three times at which time proceedings in Section A will be suspended until completion of the division in Section B.
9. Section B is hereby authorized to consider Bills referred to Committee after second reading thereof and the Standing Orders applicable to Bills in Committee of the Whole shall be applicable to such Bills during consideration thereof in Section B, and for all purposes Section B shall be deemed to be a Committee of the Whole. Such referrals to Section B shall be made upon motion without notice by the Minister responsible for the Bill, and such motion shall be decided without amendment or debate. Practice Recommendation #6 relating to Consultation shall be applicable to all such referrals.
10. Bills or Estimates previously referred to a designated Committee may at any stage be subsequently referred to another designated Committee on motion of the Government House Leader or Minister responsible for the Bill as hereinbefore provided by Rule Nos. 3, 9 and 10.
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