(Hansard)
TUESDAY, JULY 9, 1996
Afternoon
Volume 1, Number 13
[ Page 235 ]
The House met at 2:07 p.m.
Hon. G. Clark: Today we have some special guests in the members' gallery. His Excellency Anthony Goodenough is the newly appointed High Commissioner to Canada for the United Kingdom. The High Commissioner is visiting from Ottawa with his wife, Veronica Goodenough. They are accompanied, of course, by Brian Austin, the consul general of the United Kingdom in Vancouver. We had the privilege of having lunch with the Speaker and the House Leaders from both parties. I know that our relations continue to be very strong with the United Kingdom. I'd ask all members of the House to give them a very warm welcome to our Pacific province and to this House here today.
B. Penner: It is indeed my pleasure today to introduce to the House a person who's no stranger here but who perhaps is a stranger to sitting on the government side: Alec Macdonald, QC, who was the Attorney General for British Columbia from 1972 to 1975. In addition, he was a political science instructor at Simon Fraser University from the late 1980s until the present. In fact, a number of members of this House have had the distinct benefit and privilege of having him as their instructor, myself included. I would ask the House to please make Alec Macdonald welcome.
Hon. S. Hammell: Birgit Nielsen, a teacher who lives in Delta but is a member of greater Green Timbers, is in the gallery. She is here marking literature exams of our young people. Would the House please make her welcome.
G. Brewin: In the gallery today are two young people studying in Victoria. The first is Kimiko Hashizume, who is a Japanese exchange student. With her is Samba Diop, who is a PhD medical anthropology student from Mali, in West Africa. Would the House please make them both very welcome.
Hon. J. Cashore: Visiting in the gallery today are two very special friends, accompanied by my wife, Sharon. The friends are Beverly Redding and Dr. Ralph Redding. Ralph and I went to school together in L.A. -- that's Lethbridge, Alberta -- back in the ancient days of the fifties and the forties. Ralph, I should point out, is a year younger than me, and he's retired. But I'm here because I still have a lot to do. They are here from New Bern, North Carolina. Would the House please make them welcome.
R. Thorpe: It gives me great pleasure to introduce my very good friend from Summerland, Harry McWatters. Harry is a proud owner and partner of Sumac Ridge Estate Winery. On Thursday they will be celebrating their fifteenth anniversary. In addition, Harry has been a tireless worker on behalf of the entire British Columbia grape and wine industry. Tomorrow he will be named agricultural marketer of the year for North America, only the second time a Canadian has received that award in 77 years. Please welcome Harry McWatters to the House.
G. Wilson: Hon. Speaker, in the House today from Prince George is Mr. André Sharf. With him are some friends from Baltimore, Maryland, who are here to see how British Columbians allow democracy to proceed: Mr. David Gossard, Trish Gossard and Julie Gossard. Would the House please make our friends welcome.
G. Abbott: I'm very pleased to introduce some friends who are here in the gallery today. They're from Sicamous, my hometown. Sgt. Doug Haworth, in addition to being the sergeant in Sicamous, is also a hockey coach extraordinaire. He's here with his wife, Charmaine, and their children Darren and Kyle. I'd like the House to please make them welcome.
J. Doyle: Mr. Speaker, today from my hometown of Golden I have three very special guests and constituents: my good wife, Judy, and our two boys, Adam and William. Will the House make them welcome.
DEATH OF PROVINCIAL
EMERGENCY PROGRAM VOLUNTEERS
Hon. U. Dosanjh: Hon. Speaker, I rise today on a very sad note. On Sunday, July 7, three volunteers of the provincial emergency program -- Richard Ayotte, Bill Bing and Richard Dendys -- died when their plane crashed while assisting in a search for a Piper Cherokee aircraft in the Nelson-Cranbrook area. The aircraft was successfully located; two of the three persons in that aircraft survived.
The provincial emergency program is the agency within the provincial government responsible for coordinating preparedness and response to civil disasters and emergencies. Under this program thousands of British Columbians volunteer their time each year for search and rescue and other activities. This tragic event underscores just how dangerous this public service can be. I ask the House to join me in expressing my sincere condolences to the families of Mr. Ayotte, Mr. Bing and Mr. Dendys.
G. Plant: This tragic event is a sad reminder to all of us that the beauty of this province is sometimes a wild and terrible beauty. I have long admired the bravery and the ability of those who volunteer their time for search and rescue activities across British Columbia. On behalf of the opposition, I, too, want to express my condolences to the families of Mr. Ayotte, Mr. Bing and Mr. Dendys.
J. Weisgerber: I request leave to respond to the ministerial statement.
Leave granted.
J. Weisgerber: I too want to join in paying tribute to the people of this province who perform the kind of volunteer activity that was the underlying event leading up to this tragedy. People around this rugged province, with wild terrain, often go out and risk their own lives in searching for others who are lost. It's important for us to recognize the contribution that these people make to our province, and to visitors and residents alike, and I certainly want to join the Attorney General and others in paying tribute to those folks who lost their lives so tragically.
[2:15]
G. Wilson: I seek leave to respond to the ministerial statement.
Leave granted.
[ Page 236 ]
G. Wilson: On behalf of the members of the Progressive Democratic Alliance, I also pass on condolences to the families and, in support of a unanimous message, would support the Speaker passing on our regrets to the families.
The Speaker: The Chair will undertake to do such a thing. I would ask the Attorney General if he would kindly deposit the particulars with the Table.
I believe there is a motion of privilege, is it, member for Delta South?
F. Gingell: Yes.
The Speaker: Pursuant to standing order 26, the member wishes to raise a matter of privilege. I would ask the House to please give its full attention to the comment. Pursuant again to the standing order, the member is allowed to make a brief statement outlining the case, and I would ask him to please do so.
F. Gingell: While points of privilege should be as brief as possible, I'm sure the Speaker will allow me the opportunity to lay out the grounds upon which a prima facie case can be made. I will be as brief as possible, given the complexity of the issues and the importance of the matter.
As you know, Mr. Speaker, the NDP have continually and without interruption claimed that they balanced the budget for 1995-96 and that with the 1996-97 budget, they had provided the province with a second consecutive balanced budget. From the recent admissions of the Premier and the Minister of Finance, it is now clear that these comments were false and misleading. They have thereby acted in breach of privilege -- or, more accurately, in contempt of this House.
I believe there is a prima facie case that a number of NDP MLAs, the former Minister of Finance and the present Minister of Finance have deliberately and wilfully misled this assembly. I have attached, Mr. Speaker, for your examination the comments of a variety of NDP MLAs, from the former Premier to a number of backbenchers. These Hansard transcripts reveal that, on over 60 separate occasions over the past year, NDP MLAs stood in this assembly and stated that the NDP had balanced the budget -- over 60 times. These NDP MLAs did not say they will balance the budget; they did not say they would work to balance the budget; they did not say they will try to balance the budget. They said they did balance the budget; they said they had balanced the budget. They hadn't and they didn't.
Mr. Speaker, you will receive arguments from across the government side, I am sure, that the NDP MLAs simply didn't know that the budget wasn't going to be balanced until the Finance minister mentioned it casually to a journalist.
The Speaker: Member for Delta South, excuse me. I have a point of order, I believe, from the Government House Leader.
Hon. J. MacPhail: Hon. Speaker, I fully recognize the right of the hon. member to make a prima facie case. But there are rulings before you of previous Speakers of this House that clearly distinguish between argument and making a prima facie case. In fact, I think a record has been set by the statement that this hon. member has made. He's clearly into argument. I suggest that he table the documents he says he has and that we just get on with your examining whether they have a prima facie case.
The Speaker: I am going to entertain very briefly a counterpoint from the Opposition House Leader, but I am not about to entertain an elaborate procedural debate. So these will be the only two submissions.
G. Farrell-Collins: I just ask the Government House Leader to turn her attention, and perhaps her head, to the minister sitting beside her, for in 1988 the minister from Esquimalt made a 15-to-20-minute presentation in this House on a point of privilege which was nowhere near as lacking in argumentation or as outlined as the one by the member for Delta South. In addition, perhaps the Speaker and the Government House Leader could look at the 1991 presentation of the former member for New Westminster, challenging the former Premier on a prima facie case of privilege.
The Speaker: Thank you, members. I remind everybody that I am indeed familiar with precedents, including the 1993 one. I'm going to allow the member for Delta South to continue until such time as I am persuaded that he is no longer giving me the kind of evidence we need to make the adjudication regarding a prima facie case. However, at the point where we move into the realm of argument rather than of building the case for us to consider, then I will cut it off. Please continue, member for Delta South.
F. Gingell: I'm sure that the NDP MLAs simply didn't know that the budget wasn't going to be balanced until the Finance minister mentioned it casually to a journalist, just over a week ago, on Friday, June 28, 1996. I submit that these MLAs knew, or they ought to have known, that there was no balanced budget, and that their systematic and deliberate lies constitute contempt for this chamber.
As you know, Mr. Speaker, the 1995-96 fiscal year ended on March 31, 1996. Yet in April of this year the former Minister of Finance stood up in this assembly and said that the 1995-96 budget was in fact a surplus budget, and she then proceeded to introduce what she called the second consecutive balanced budget. I attach excerpts from the former minister's comments for your reference. These comments came after the fiscal year had ended. These comments came, I submit, after she received, or ought to have received, advice that forest revenues were down and that the budget was in fact in a deficit situation.
The NDP would have us believe that they didn't know their budget wasn't balanced until three months after the year had ended. This simply stretches this government's credibility to the snapping point. I believe there is ample evidence to show that the government keeps timely information about forest revenue receipts and forecasts. I submit that the Finance minister knew, or ought to have known, that the budget was not balanced and that she showed contempt for this House by deliberately misleading this House and the people of British Columbia.
The Speaker: Member, given that you have now stated what I think is the primary contention of your privilege motion, would you take your seat, please. I think I have heard enough. Again, working on the basis of precedent, the submission you make will also be a written statement to the
[ Page 237 ]
Chair, which will then be adjudicated and evaluated in some depth. I think I have indeed heard sufficient, and I would therefore ask the member to move whatever appropriate motion.
Interjection.
The Speaker: You cannot speak, member, to debate that ruling with me.
Interjection.
The Speaker: Member, as I say, it seems to be the argument for a prima facie case that you have given.
Interjection.
The Speaker: Will you just table that motion, please, member. Thank you. The member tables a motion of privilege.
As is in keeping with the practice and the custom of this chamber, the Chair will reserve judgment until such time as we can review the case thoroughly and look at established precedents for doing so.
Hon. J. MacPhail: Hon. Speaker, I know you will be receiving the question of prima
BUDGET ESTIMATES
AND POTENTIAL FOR LAWSUITS
G. Plant: My question is for the Attorney General. In the famous case of Keen Industries v. the B.C. Railway Company, a contractor successfully sued a Crown corporation for civil fraud. The contractor relied on the railway's estimates of quantities in the construction documents in preparing its bid. The railway was guilty of civil fraud because the railway did not honestly believe in its estimates.
We know now that the government knew that their forest revenue estimates were inflated. No one knowing all of the facts could have believed them to be true. My question for the Attorney General, the law officer of the Crown, is this: has his advice been sought as to whether any action might lie against the government in respect of the preparation of the budget estimates, and if so, what advice has he given?
Hon. U. Dosanjh: I'll take the question on notice and read up on the law that my friend alludes to.
The Speaker: Given that the question was taken on notice, there can be no supplemental. If this is a new question, please proceed.
G. Plant: My question is again for the Attorney General. These false revenue forecasts were made on the eve of an election in which the NDP told the people of British Columbia that it had balanced the budget, and that it had balanced it twice. British Columbians relied on this assurance in electing this government. The law is clear that a representation made recklessly, careless whether it be true or false, will found an action for civil fraud. My question is this: has the Attorney General made any inquiries in respect of this matter, and if so, what has he learned?
Hon. U. Dosanjh: Hon. Speaker, I took the previous question on notice. No, I have made no such inquiries.
M. de Jong: Hon. Speaker, I heard the Minister of Education making comments. I hope he wasn't offering legal opinions, because he's not supposed to do that.
British Columbians continue to ask how the Finance ministry could adjust forestry revenue projections upward at a time when all of the indicators were moving in the opposite direction. The answer they're coming to focus on lies in the actions of Mr. Gunton, whose message on behalf of the Premier appears to have been: "Regardless of what the facts are, we're going to use figures that show a balanced budget. Come hell or high water, we're going to show a balanced budget, and we'll make up the figures to do that if we have to."
That's bad enough. But yesterday the Premier indicated and excused Mr. Gunton's involvement in the NDP campaign on the basis that he had taken a leave of absence. That's different from what we heard in May, when we were told that Mr. Gunton would only be campaigning after hours and on the weekends. My question to the Premier is very straightforward: was Mr. Gunton on a leave of absence, or was he not on a leave of absence and being paid by the people of British Columbia, to campaign on behalf of the NDP?
Hon. G. Clark: Actually, I want to refer, first of all, to a forecast. I was just looking at documentation here, and I noticed that when the Leader of the Opposition was mayor of Vancouver, he forecast 2,000 housing units a year. [Laughter.] Yet seven years later, only 1,000 units are built. I wonder whether our learned friend has asked for an inquiry into that forecasting error, hon. Speaker.
G. Plant: The people don't think it's a joke.
Hon. G. Clark: Yes, I know. A thousand units built when the promise was 14,000 isn't a joke, hon. member -- and that's the point.
The question from the
G. Farrell-Collins: Are you asking or are you answering?
Hon. G. Clark: This was question period the last time I looked. I will answer the member's question.
Mr. Gunton was not on a leave of absence. He worked from time to time on his own time, whether it was volunteer time for the
Interjections.
Hon. G. Clark: The last time I looked, it was a free country. We have
[2:30]
[ Page 238 ]
M. de Jong: Thank you, hon. Speaker. I'm tempted to suggest that the Premier wants to have his cupcake and eat it too.
Mr. Gunton earns $120,000 as a senior civil servant. He gets that money to work for the people of British Columbia, not for the NDP. We already know that prior to and during the campaign, Mr. Gunton was making inquiries of the Finance ministry to obtain corporate tax information for partisan use by the Premier and the NDP campaign team. Maybe the Premier can explain this to the House and to the people of British Columbia: how much time did Mr. Gunton spend on the NDP campaign? Is he prepared to order his deputy to repay the people of British Columbia the in excess of $2,500 per week he was paid to do the people's business instead of the NDP's business?
Hon. G. Clark: Mr. Gunton was, and is, a deputy minister of this government. There was a transition team put in place for whoever became the leader of the NDP and therefore the Premier of the province. It consisted of seven deputy ministers. They worked on that transition entirely appropriately. Mr. Gunton held the position of Deputy Minister of Environment right through until recently, when he became a deputy minister in the Premier's Office.
C. Hansen: My question is to the Premier. In the budget speech we listened to a few days ago, there's an admission that a program called Opportunities '96, where there were supposed to be 3,500 jobs, has in fact only resulted in about 200 summer jobs for students.
There are statistics that have come out just in the last few days that show that instead of more jobs for students in this province, there were in fact 5,000 fewer jobs in June of this year compared to last year. We are now at a point where one in every five young British Columbians is unemployed this summer. Will the Premier apologize to the students of B.C. for raising their expectations for summer jobs, with no intention of delivering on these false promises?
Hon. G. Clark: It's hard for the opposition to look for negativity, but look at these numbers: 40 percent of all new jobs in Canada in the last 12 months were created right here in British Columbia. There was an increase in housing starts, in May over May, of 32.9 percent: record housing starts. Retail sales were up 4.5 percent -- the highest in Canada -- and 35,000 new residents a year moved to the lower mainland because of our quality of life and because of the record of this administration in promoting our quality of life in this region. We are doing well. We are doing better than anywhere else in Canada. The people know it; everybody knows it, except for the opposition members.
We have a challenge with youth unemployment -- I took the Ministry of Youth. We announced six programs, and four of them are exceeding the targets we laid out for them. Two of them are not as successful. The one the member refers to has no government subsidy. Where there's a subsidy to the private sector they've done very well; where there's not been a subsidy they have not done well. As a matter of fact, today I talked to representatives of the Business Council about working on Opportunities '96, because business has a role to play in providing opportunities and jobs for young people. They have some corporate responsibility, and we want to work with them, as government, to try to create jobs in B.C.
C. Hansen: Quite frankly, thousands of students in this province are not going to be going back to school this fall. They can't afford it, because they can't get summer jobs, and they really couldn't care less about that kind of political rhetoric.
My supplemental is to the minister responsible for consumer services. Promises were made by this government for summer jobs under something called Guarantee for Youth. Given that that guarantee is not worth the paper it's written on and is only a program of deceptive advertising, will the minister responsible advise the youth of B.C. if there is any action they can take under the Consumer Protection Act when consumers are deliberately misled by phony guarantees? My question is to the Attorney General.
Hon. G. Clark: Firstly, unlike the opposition party that promised deep cuts to post-secondary education, which would result in huge tuition fee increases, we have increased funding for post-secondary institutions more than any other province in Canada. Secondly, we have frozen tuition fees. That's not rhetoric; that's action. We've frozen them for two years so that young people can get to university. Thirdly, the Guarantee for Youth is the largest, most comprehensive youth employment program in the history of British Columbia -- some $12 million. Combined with Youth Works and the new B.C. Benefits initiative, we are doing more to create jobs and training for young people. Yes, we need to do more. But at least we're doing more, not less, like members opposite campaigned on.
The Speaker: The member for Vancouver-Quilchena on another supplemental?
C. Hansen: Yes, hon. Speaker. We know what the summer jobs program is. It's advertising, and nothing more.
To the Premier: if this summer jobs program is so successful, why is it that the unemployment rate for young British Columbians is up 3.2 percent? Why is it that there are 5,000 fewer jobs for students this summer, when there are in fact 20,000 additional students in this province? Frozen tuition rates don't help. Jobs are what will help students go back to school. It's a little late now to start the consultation with the private sector. What action will the Premier take to ensure that there are additional jobs available to the students this summer?
Hon. G. Clark: The answer is obvious to everybody except the opposition. It's your federal Liberal counterparts who are cutting funding for post-secondary institutions.
Interjections.
Hon. G. Clark: That's exactly right.
Interjections.
Hon. G. Clark: A Liberal's a Liberal, hon. Speaker, and I can hear them howling. But listen to this: every single major summer job program by the federal government has been cut in British Columbia. They have cut funding to post-secondary institutions. We know that's why they campaign on the same side, in favour of cuts.
Interjections.
Hon. G. Clark: Hon. Speaker, unfortunately, I'm finding myself raising my voice, which I had not intended to do. The facts are
[ Page 239 ]
Interjections.
Hon. G. Clark: Let's see if they agree with these facts, Mr. Speaker. Would the opposition agree that hundreds of millions of dollars in cuts from the federal government for post-secondary institutions have taken place? The answer is yes. Would they agree that every summer job program from the federal government that used to exist has been cut in this province? Yes. Would they agree that the kinds of programs that we used to have in unemployment insurance for young people have been cut?
We're doing our part; they're not doing their part. Those members should support this administration, which has the most aggressive employment program for young people in the history of this province. They should get on board.
B. Penner: There are a number of questionable revenue projections contained in this year's new budget. The Finance minister appears to be counting on $214 million in revenue from B.C. Hydro; that would amount to a 70 percent increase from last year. That's without a rate increase, and at the same time that B.C. energy exports are dropping by almost half. I'm sure that the Finance minister has heard something about the $100 million problem at the W.A.C. Bennett Dam. How can the Minister of Finance continue to project a balanced budget when all of the facts point to a deficit?
Hon. A. Petter: The opposition continues to prove the point I have been making, which is that forecasting is an inexact science that looks forward. Changes take place, in that we have to adjust as we go along. The forecasts for this year's budget were determined by the previous Minister of Finance. They were introduced with this budget by me, satisfied that they still stood. We will continue to review them and make adjustments throughout the year. Perhaps the member, as a new member, isn't aware that this is an ongoing process. All governments go through this. As forecasts change, revenues go up, revenues go down; expenses go up, expenses go down. The challenge of a government is to manage within those changes in order to achieve their objectives, and that's exactly what we intend to do.
Hon. J. Cashore: Hon. Speaker, I have the honour to present the annual reports of the Ministry of Aboriginal Affairs for the years ending 1994 and 1995. I also have the honour to present the annual report of the British Columbia Treaty Commission for the year 1995-96.
Hon. U. Dosanjh: I have several reports to table: the B.C. liquor distribution branch annual report, 1994-95; the twenty-fourth annual report of the Criminal Injury Compensation Act of British Columbia, January 1 to December 31, 1995; the British Columbia Police Commission annual report, 1994-95; the Attorney General's annual report, 1994-95; the Legal Services Society annual report, 1994-95; and the office of the public trustee's year-end review, 1994-95.
The Speaker: Hon. members, I also have the honour to table the following documents: the annual report of the British Columbia Legislative Library for the year 1995; the third annual report of the information and privacy commissioner, covering the period April 1, 1995, to March 31, 1996; and the first annual report of the child, youth and family advocate, for the year 1995.
J. Dalton: I have two petitions to present on behalf of constituents -- perhaps a little more timely than the Attorney General's reports.
The first petition requests this House to reinstate the previous regulations governing the adoption of infants and children. The second petition requests this House to amend all child-related legislation and charters to affirm the primacy of parental authority.
G. Abbott: I am pleased to table a petition in the House today from 38 of my constituents in the village of Chase. It reads:
"We the undersigned, being owners and residents of creekside properties and properties in subdivisions at risk of damage from flash flooding or high water, respectfully request that the Legislative Assembly in the province of British Columbia and the hon. Minister of Environment, Mr. Paul Ramsey, reactivate the B.C. riverbank protection assistance program."
This was dated at Chase on June 30, 1996.
Hon. J. MacPhail: I call budget debate.
[2:45]
J. Doyle: I am pleased today to rise and speak on the budget debate. First of all, Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate you, as the member for Nanaimo, on your election as Speaker of this House. Congratulations also to the Deputy Speaker, the member for Victoria-Hillside, on the privileged position she has in this House.
I have been very honoured to represent Columbia River-Revelstoke since 1991. I'm very honoured once again to have been re-selected and re-elected to represent the people of Columbia River-Revelstoke. Earlier I introduced my family, who are here today in the galleries with us. All spouses and children of people in the chamber pay a big price, mostly in the absence of their spouse or family member who is on the people's business many, many times.
I would also like to thank our Premier for selecting me as one of the parliamentary secretaries. I am pleased and honoured to work with the Deputy Premier, the member from Prince Rupert, in that capacity.
On a personal note, I would like to mention a good friend of mine, Ken Petty, who lives in Golden. Ken is only 53 years of age, a former alderman who has worked hard for his community in many, many capacities. Ken, at the present time, is being thoroughly tested by a cancer. I admire your fight, and my prayers are with you at this time.
The constituency of Columbia River-Revelstoke is one of the largest in the province. We have five municipal governments, four school boards, six regional directors and four hospital boards. It takes four and a half hours by automobile to travel from one side of that riding to the other. It is also one of the most beautiful areas in the province.
I would like to spend some time looking back over the last four and a half years that I've been honoured to represent
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that constituency in this Legislature. For instance, $15 million from the infrastructure program was announced by the Harcourt government at that time, in conjunction with the federal government. It was spent in the riding that I represent on many infrastructure projects, and it created lots of jobs and strengthened the economy and the infrastructure in the communities.
I'd like to spend some time travelling throughout the riding, starting in Revelstoke, which is one of the two cities in my riding. One of the first tests I had when I was elected four years ago was that Revelstoke had for many years watched the timber that grew in its back yard leaving that community to go to other parts of that province. One of the items I heard loud and clear when I was elected the MLA was that people in Revelstoke were fed up that the only time the timber stopped in Revelstoke was at the traffic light, on its way out of town to be processed somewhere else. During the public hearings that we as government initiated into any transfer of tree farm licences, I was very pleased and proud to work as the MLA on behalf of the city of Revelstoke to make sure that that did not continue to happen. I was instrumental in working with the then Minister of Forests and the government to see that Revelstoke had the second community forest setup in the province of British Columbia. That has been a very profitable venture for the city of Revelstoke, in conjunction with the private sector.
I'd also like to mention that at that time the forestry critic on the Liberal side said: "Let's quit fooling around and transfer that timber out of town." I think it was to another community in my riding. But Revelstoke deserved its fair chance at processing jobs in Revelstoke.
I'm also very pleased to work with Revelstoke toward getting a community skills centre established. That is being built as we speak. Also, Revelstoke, which is a community of between 7,000 and 8,000 people, is one of the smallest communities to have a B.C. Transit system. That was set up in the last four years, and it's working very well to serve that community.
During the election in '91, I was approached by the parent-teacher advisory group in Revelstoke to see if I could assist them with improvements to the oldest school in Revelstoke, Mount Begbie Elementary. I was very pleased, of course, to have been elected and to have worked with the then Minister of Education to see if we could get improvements made to that school. That has happened, to the tune of $1.6 million, and the people in Revelstoke feel very good that the money has been found, at a time of tight money.
In Golden, which is my hometown, I have worked, and our government has worked, for the stabilization of the major employer -- the forest industry. New ownership took over that major employer in the last few months, which is the backbone of that town, and hopefully we will see stabilization for the workers and for the community.
Recently I was very pleased and honoured to have made an announcement on a small business wood sale for laid-off workers from a mill that had to close down, 20 miles west of Golden. There are going to be 63 jobs created out of that small business wood sale, and that will help to diversify the forest sector in the community of Golden.
Another item that is ongoing at this time, which I worked on in the last Legislature, is major improvement on the Trans-Canada Highway in Golden. That's to the tune of $4 million, and that work is ongoing as we speak.
The ski hill in Golden is one of the best in the province, the Whitetooth ski hill. I was instrumental in getting over $100,000 to assist them in enlarging and in making that a better hill for the many users, including my two little boys up in the galleries.
Golden also has a very fine 18-hole golf course, and I worked with the then Premier, Mr. Harcourt, to get moneys to pave the golf course road, which will make it better for local people and for the many people who visit Golden.
I also worked with the private sector -- in this case CP Rail -- and was instrumental in working with them to get $100,000 toward a large facility so the senior citizens in Golden could have a place to meet in. I'd like at this time to thank CP Rail for the moneys that they forwarded to the community of Golden to assist the seniors and our community.
In the last four years we have opened a new courthouse and a college facility in Golden. At this time I'd also like to make note of the former MLA, Duane Crandall, who also worked on that project at the time. So I was pleased to see them come to a conclusion in the last four years.
Golden is a community that doesn't have alternative energy. We don't have natural gas. Yet many of our valleys were dammed so other people could have cheap electricity. The government initiated an energy study for the whole Columbia Valley, and hopefully, out of that, Golden will possibly get a liquefied natural gas system in town to help with the cost of running your business, running your home, and also assist with air quality problems we sometimes have in the wintertime.
[W. Hartley in the chair.]
The small community of Field in Yoho National Park -- a community of about 110 homes and a small amount of commercial, but 38 miles east of
I also worked in the last year to make sure that Field would have the RCMP station; there was talk of that being closed. It is very important to the community of Field -- which is on the Trans-Canada Highway and is very busy in the summer and very trying in the winter, due to the lots of snow that we have -- to keep that police station open.
Also, there are moneys in the Ministry of Education's budget to build, in conjunction with community and other private sector developments, a new elementary school in Field.
The Windermere Valley and the Columbia Valley. I worked with the Ministry of Highways and we got a new $2 million bridge, which is very important for the community of Athalmer. Of course, it's the major road into the Panorama ski hill, which is a very, very big part of the economy in the Windermere Valley, and many people travel from Alberta, from other areas throughout British Columbia and from areas in the United States to spend their money at that facility.
We opened a new intermediate care facility in the community of Invermere, too -- $1.6 million. The community also raised $600,000. I commend the community, because they put their money where their mouth was in raising money for that
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very-much-needed facility. I'm also working at the present time to get more money for additional beds for that facility as they're needed.
We opened a new high school with the then Minister of Education, Art Charbonneau. I was pleased to have him in for the opening of that new high school -- a $15 million project.
Continuing in the Windermere Valley, in the community of Radium -- one of the smaller municipalities in the province -- again, we have been able to retain the RCMP station in that community. It's a very, very busy place, especially in the summer months.
Another very important thing I've listened to the people in my constituency
The small community of Canal Flats -- just over 300 homes -- is mostly dependent on the forest sector. I've worked with them on improvements to their arena, and at this time -- this summer, as we're speaking -- there are major works going on in that community in the paving of roads.
Kimberley is one of the oldest cities and one of the oldest areas in my riding. It was founded about a hundred years ago. Actually, this year they're celebrating their 100th anniversary as a community. I was instrumental, first of all, in having the B.C. cabinet, about three or four years ago, have their first-ever meeting in the city of Kimberley. To me, it was very, very important, if I was down here advocating on behalf of the city of Kimberley, for the cabinet to see that Kimberley, despite the fact that they have an employer presently -- the Sullivan mine -- that will be closing down in four years, is going to be there for the long term as a viable and healthy community. So I had the cabinet meet there. I'd like to thank the cabinet ministers who are in government today and the Premier at that time for taking me up on having that meeting in Kimberley.
I will be very, very pleased later on this month to participate in the major opening of a new dam and water system in the community of Kimberley. This is a total of $8 million -- very, very important as Kimberley turns from being a company town, if you want to call it that, to being more diversified in their economy. I'm pleased to have participated in bringing, out of that $8 million, $5 million to the city of Kimberley.
In 1983 Kimberley had a post-secondary education facility. It was closed down by the government of the day. If anybody in Kimberley wished a post-secondary education, they had to travel down to Cranbrook, which is 30 kilometres south. First of all, that hurt the dignity of the people in Kimberley in that they did not have that access to post-secondary education in Kimberley anymore. That's one of the first things I took up when I came down here in 1991 as the MLA for Columbia River-Revelstoke. I was pleased, about a month ago, to participate in the grand opening of the new skills training centre in the community of Kimberley. It gives those people their pride back. Access to post-secondary education is right there at home, no matter what your age or your needs are, in that training facility.
A major road north of Kimberley, from Kimberley up to Wasa -- it's about 25 kilometres -- was always a problem for local people to travel and for the many, many tourists that come to Kimberley to ski or to golf on one of the finest golf courses in all of British Columbia, the Trickle Creek Golf Resort. We repaved that road to the tune of $3 million.
In another part of Kimberley -- it's part of the municipality but separated by about five or six kilometres -- is the community of Marysville. We did a major revitalisation throughout Marysville. The provincial government forwarded $700,000 to make that possible. We're working to assist Kimberley to diversify further. The McKim theatre is in the middle school in Kimberley and has had assistance from various government ministries to the tune of about $300,000 in order to get that beautiful old theatre revitalised to hold many functions.
I'm pleased to have worked in the old parliament and to continue to work in this parliament as an MLA and Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Employment and Investment. We will work toward a fruitful result in placing a silicon plant in the city of Kimberley or around about the area. That would be 96 direct, good-paying jobs for the community of Kimberley as we look toward the mine closing down in the next four years.
I mentioned earlier that Kimberley is celebrating their 100th anniversary this year.
[3:00]
I would like to expand on the Kootenay-Columbia Basin area. I am very, very proud of what we have done in the past four years and of the forest renewal that we in this government initiated. It was announced in this building about three years ago. The chairman and chief executive officer of one of the major forest companies in the province commended our Premier -- Mr. Harcourt at that time -- and the government for having the foresight to look at something like forest renewal. So many of our communities and so much of our province depend on a healthy forest. Four hundred million dollars per year is collected in additional stumpage from that publicly owned wood, and that is going to be plowed back into the forest to keep it healthy.
Of course, we must remember that the Liberal opposition voted against this very worthwhile project. Whatever their reason, they can answer for that. It's something that I think we're all very, very proud of now. It's up and running. Already some money has been invested, and I look forward to further investment out of that $400 million per year in the area that I represent.
There's something else I'm very pleased about that we as government have said. I mentioned publicly owned wood in our province. We are saying to anyone who wants access to that publicly owned wood that access would be tied to jobs. That's what it's all about. That wood belongs to all of us. If you want access to it, the person or the company that produces the most jobs will get the most access. We've watched in the
Of course, we do need wood mills to make 2-by-4s and other things, but it has broken my heart -- as an MLA over the last four years travelling in value-added, all-party legislative committees -- to see the amount of wood that leaves the area that I represent. It leaves the Nelson forest district and goes down to New Westminister, or worse still, leaves the province to have value added to it elsewhere. That is something that we in this government are saying we will not stand for. So if you want access to that wood, you produce the jobs.
I am very, very pleased also to have participated, with the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Forests at that time, the member for Nelson-Creston, in the first value-added wood conference in the community of Creston. The second value-added wood conference was held in my riding, in the city of Revelstoke, last year. The third value-added conference
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will be held in the member for Kootenay's riding, in Cranbrook, later this fall. We are saying to the people out there: "You can add value to the wood, and that will add jobs, and that will keep our communities healthy."
Another thing we're working on is that we looked into cleaning up our environment and getting the last squeal out of all that wood and waste that's left on the floor of the forest -- getting into cogeneration. I was very pleased that there was reference made yesterday by the member for Kootenay to the fact that we are looking. An announcement has been made that a cogeneration plant will be built at Skookumchuck, which will collect a lot of that waste and take care of the concerns that were raised -- especially of smaller mills, where they don't know what to do with that waste as we phase out the burners which are harmful to the environment.
Something that disturbs me is all the discussion we heard during the election and leading up to it about the minimum wage. I am very proud of the fact that British Columbia has the highest minimum wage in all of Canada. Nothing bothers me more than the fact that many people who work, let's say, in the restaurant business -- work in a restaurant -- can't afford to eat a meal in that same restaurant. The minimum wage has to be kept on track with the cost of inflation. I'm proud that it's $7 an hour. The opposition over there would like to freeze it.
Some Hon. Members: Shame!
J. Doyle: Yeah. I say to the opposition, Mr. Speaker, that if they feel that $7 an hour is just fine and they'd like to freeze it, I've got something to offer them. If they feel it's adequate -- the minimum wage at $7 -- I say to them: why don't they try living on it for a while? I figured out that an MLA in this House gets gross pay of $962 a week, roughly. Yet somebody working on minimum wage gets $280 a week, at 40 hours a week.
An Hon. Member: Give some of your pay away.
J. Doyle: So I would say to those many members over there, including the one who's speaking, that they should try living for at least three months or maybe a year on the minimum wage and just see how good it is. Of course, there won't be any of the benefits that they get as MLAs to do with health care, extended medical, all their items. There's none of that in the minimum wage. But that's just fine with them. Try living on it for a while. Try to say you put your money where your mouth is. From the 33 MLAs in the official opposition, I feel that would save us $1.5 million a year -- maybe that's all they're worth. It also would help the Finance minister, to get more money into his coffers to balance the budget. So there you are, members across the floor.
Another item we hear a lot about across the floor is the fixed wage, as they call it, or the fair wage. Of course, the opposition are really opposed to those unions and those fixed wages and fair wages. I would like to say to them: do you think it's the people on the $7 an hour who buy the houses, the cars, travel and go out for meals with their family? It sure is not. It's those people who are on that fixed wage or fair wage, or the families that have a union wage in their home. That's the people who keep our economy going.
Now and then I go up to Banff with my family, which is 80 miles east of my community -- a beautiful area. But I will bet you that the people who work in those many businesses don't own homes in Banff. They can't even afford to dream about owning a home. Yet the people who live in the communities we represent and who earn a decent wage, they can buy homes. That's what keeps our economy viable. So I say to the opposition: I feel you're very wrong. I don't know who you think will keep your communities viable, if you feel that the minimum wage is too high or that we should not have people earning a decent union wage.
I'm also very proud of the fact that we, in the four years in government, have increased moneys every year -- at least to the cost of inflation -- towards education, K to 12. Also, we know that the official opposition totally forgot post-secondary education. They were very embarrassed when we reminded them of that; they totally forgot about it. But we didn't; we froze post-secondary education. Rich people out there can always afford to send their children and youth to post-secondary education out there. But poor family members or average working families sometimes cannot afford it. So we froze -- and I'm proud to be part of the government for just that reason alone, plus many dozens of other reasons -- post-secondary education tuition fees.
Health care. I'm also very, very pleased that we have the best health care in all of Canada. That's one-tier health care, not two-tier like the opposition talked about. Nothing made me feel better on election night than to see that the would-be Health minister from Kamloops did not win a seat in this Legislature.
The Liberals speak about health care; they're all over the map on health care. It was funny to hear one of the members of the Liberal opposition speaking the other day about a waiting list for heart transplants. That is something we're all concerned about. But I would say that none of those people over there will need a heart transplant, because they don't have a heart. We as government are doing our best, and we have shortened the waiting lists for medical procedures in the province. We have done our best despite the massive cutbacks from Ottawa, to the tune of $435 million this year and over $800 million next year. Yet they don't say a word about that: that's okay.
Another thing I'm very, very proud of as the MLA from the Kootenays is the Columbia Basin Trust. When we were in opposition, before the election of '91, we said that we would take care of the rape that happened 30 or 35 years ago when our valleys were flooded. We lost timber; we lost communities; people lost their homes. That was a terrible thing that happened. We said we would do something during the last term of government, and we did. We promised to deliver on the Columbia Basin Trust; we did. Again, the official opposition is all over the map. They have four or five different ways of spending that money. I'm very pleased that the people in the Columbia Basin area elected four New Democratic MLAs -- continued to do that -- based on good delivery of the Columbia Basin Trust.
I am proud of the fact that we in British Columbia have the strongest economy and the lowest debt per capita of all the provinces in Canada.
In the throne speech some weeks ago, mention was made by the Lieutenant-Governor, delivering the speech on behalf of the government, of the fact that the government would look into the Workers Compensation Board and that a royal commission will be set up. I am very pleased about that because the WCB, by and large, is not working now. I think we would all agree on that. This is good news for injured workers, for each and every British Columbian -- this royal commission that will be held to look into the Workers Compensation Board.
Another item that was promised in that throne speech was a Crown corporations committee, chaired by a member of
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the opposition. There's no doubt, we all know, that Crown corporations must be accountable to the government and to the taxpayer. That's very, very important. This is a very timely and worthwhile committee, and I wish it the best as it goes about its deliberations.
Mr. Speaker, I've had discussions with our Premier. As we know, some weeks ago he was off at a Premiers' conference, letting people know that British Columbia is there. It's not part of the colonies anymore. We're here; we're the fastest-growing province in all of Canada. Something that I spoke to the Premier about, which I mentioned earlier, was in reference to the infrastructure program we've had over the last four years. It worked well in my constituency and in our province. For a future infrastructure program, what I would like to
Mr. Speaker, I've been very pleased to have had the opportunity to speak today in this debate.
Hon. J. MacPhail: I am going to be very brief today. I have thoroughly enjoyed the inaugural speeches from both sides of the chamber. They have been informative and, I must say, with the greatest of respect to the classes of '86 and '91, the class of '96 is exemplary in its skill and diversity with which we enter this House.
I am very pleased that amongst us on both sides of the chamber today there are more women, more people of colour and more people with diverse backgrounds than has ever existed in this chamber before, and that's wonderful news for all of British Columbia. I must say, hon. Speaker, that the range of people who sit in your chair -- from the short to the tall -- is a wonderful example of the diversity of this chamber as well.
I am very pleased to rise today and to fully support one of the best budgets ever introduced in this chamber, in the history of this chamber. In this budget we've got tax cuts for B.C. families and small business. Small business has been asking for tax cuts for ages and ages, and this government has delivered on those tax cuts.
Unlike other promises made by various political parties, we delivered a very realistic tax cut for working and middle-class families in this province, one that will make a difference to their spending and their ability to raise their family, and one that makes it absolutely, eminently reasonable that we have a balanced budget for '96-97. That's good news for British Columbians.
[3:15]
There are other issues that we have made about good government that are very sensitive for some people in this chamber. We are taking on a comprehensive review of all government programs. Now, that's hard work. Everyone in this Legislature knows how hard that is, because the services delivered to British Columbians by public employees are, by and large, essential, necessary and affordable, and they make our communities better -- something the opposition party has never understood about the public service. All they do is attack, attack, attack the people who work each and every day on behalf of British Columbians. And I say shame on them.
However, there is always room for improvement. We know that. Those of us who have good, solid experience in governing know that each and every day we can examine our own
Interjections.
Hon. J. MacPhail: And our horse -- and keep our house in order and make sure that we are efficient and effective, and that we deliver our services in a fair way throughout the province. Our government has made a commitment to do that review quickly, and to implement what we find in that review.
Just a couple of other things. I think my colleagues on this side of the House have made these points very effectively, and I am very impressed with all of the speeches made by my government colleagues. But we are protecting health care and education, and Budget '96 is all about protecting health care and education.
I must tell you that it would be a sorry day in British Columbia if the Liberal Party were elected. It would be a sorry day for health care and education, because you know what they promised in terms of protecting health care and education? They promised $1.4 billion in cuts -- for protecting health care and education. Call me crazy, but I don't know how you do that. I have no idea, but you know what? That's not surprising, because this is the same party that forgot about post-secondary education in their economic plan. "Oops! Oops! Post-secondary education. We're sorry, we forgot about it. But trust us. We plan on doing something about post-secondary education. We're not sure what it is; it's got something to do with K to 12. But trust us. We forgot; we're sorry."
But what's $1.4 billion in a budget? It's nothing to them, and everything to us on this side of the chamber. We believe in post-secondary education regardless of your source of income or your family background. We protected education. For the very first time in British Columbia's history, any student who meets the academic mark will have access to post-secondary education, and tuition fees are frozen. That's the best news for young people in this province that you could ever imagine.
Also in this budget: jobs -- a top priority, not like the other side that brings doom and gloom. No matter who they talk to, they bring doom and gloom to the well-being of the economy of this province. Shame on them! This is the best economy in North America, and what do they say? "Eeeuww! It's just terrible! And you know what? We may not be able to bring a better economic stance to this province." If they were in charge, that's true; it would be a disaster. Thank God a New Democrat government was elected.
Anyway, I'm going to be brief in my inaugural speech, and I'm going to try to be non-partisan as well. I really must say that in my constituency, where I've had my home for a dozen years, every day I grow to love my neighbours more and more, because Vancouver-Hastings becomes more diverse as the population expands. People from all over the world come and live in Vancouver-Hastings. It's wonderful. There are working families, middle-class families. There are people who live at the poverty line, and there are single moms
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and students. There's a high proportion of aboriginal families living in my constituency. I would argue that it's one of the most diverse and wonderful constituencies in the entire province, if not in Canada -- if not in North America. I miss the former member for Okanagan-Boundary, who used to extol the virtues of our province throughout the continent. So it's in his honour that I do that.
It's a very wonderful constituency, and you know what? Our government delivered for each and every one of my constituents, and that makes me very proud. I campaigned on the record of the government under former Premier Harcourt, and I campaigned on the basis of the wonderful initiatives that our government, under our new Premier, Glen Clark, put forward. My constituents said yes to an NDP government.
But do you know what happened? Something strange happened: on May 28 the candidates for the Liberal Party took on a big transformation. All of a sudden they became the defenders of British Columbia. Prior to May 28, it was: "Cut, cut, cut for middle-class and working families, and give it away to the corporations and the banks." That's what it was pre-May 28. I haven't heard any of that stuff. What I'm hearing from the opposition now is: "Spend, spend, spend." It's a transformation. It must be a religious transformation or something, because never once did any one of those opposition MLAs defend their own constituents in terms of protecting health care, education and our economy, and of creating jobs. All they did was follow the leader, who was in the back pocket of the corporations and the banks. That's all they did.
Anyway, do you know what, hon. Speaker? I welcome the transformation. I look forward to working with every member in this chamber to make sure that education is protected, that health care is protected, that our economy grows stronger every day, that jobs are our number one priority and that we all work together to make sure that the Liberals in Ottawa treat British Columbians fairly and without discrimination, whether it be social program funding, whether it be the protection of our fishing industry, whether it be the protection of our environment or whether it be fairness and equity in matters of the distribution of powers. I look forward to the transformation continuing for the opposition members to join us in defending British Columbia against the Ottawa Liberals. That's the best news for my constituents that they could possibly hear.
I know there are many, many more people that want to make their initial comments, and I want to sit down and welcome their comments. I must say, over and above everything, that I really, really am pleased about the transformation that occurred post-May 28 upon the election of a New Democratic government.
Deputy Speaker: I thank the Minister of Health and now recognize the member for Surrey-Cloverdale.
B. McKinnon: Thank you, hon. Speaker. First of all, I was going to congratulate you on your new appointment, but if you'll just pass that on to the hon. member for Nanaimo, I know he will fulfil his position with integrity.
I would like to congratulate all the MLAs on their victories in the recent election. I look forward to working with each and every one of you. I know we will have some lively debates in this House in the next few years.
Coming into this House for the first time fills one with awe and reinforces my feelings of privilege in representing the people of Surrey-Cloverdale. They have given me the privilege of representing them here in Victoria. I will work very hard on their behalf, and I intend to vigorously pursue the interests of my constituents and the people of this province.
My riding of Surrey-Cloverdale is predominantly small business and farming. We are also experiencing tremendous growth in all areas of this riding. We offer a community lifestyle to which families are increasingly attracted.
You could say, Mr. Speaker, that Cloverdale is where Surrey was born. Cloverdale was the original seat of the municipal government and remained so until well past the middle of this century. We are also home to the world famous Cloverdale Rodeo, second only to the Calgary Stampede. Cowboys come from all over the United States and Canada to take part and compete in this rodeo. We are also home to the Cloverdale Raceway, one of Canada's premier standardbred racing tracks.
The people who live in this riding are of a true multicultural mix. We have many ethnic groups, each bringing its own uniqueness and richness to our community.
A majority of the farmland in our constituency is below sea level, with two rivers that also run through this farmland. In order to control the flooding of our farmland, we have a series of dikes, which are controlled and operated by three diking districts. The diking commissioners are all local constituents. Its operation is a fine example of democracy in action.
Farming is very prevalent in my constituency. Most of the farms are about the size of 20 acres, and most of the farming is mixed vegetables and fruit. The lower mainland is well known for being the blueberry capital of North America.
It's not always easy to mix farming with increased urbanization. This creates a challenge for reasonable and sensible planning. When people complain about the smell of manure when it's spread on the fields in spring, the farmer reminds us it is the sweet smell of money. That is not to say that we do not have the occasional serious problem. When farming becomes high-tech, it can go beyond what many of us would accept as a reasonable compromise. I refer specifically to the composting operation of Money's Mushrooms in my riding. I accept that they represent a valuable industry, but continued composting within the urban area has simply become so intolerable that government action is mandatory.
Mr. Speaker, it is difficult to know where to begin to tell you what this government's broken promises are doing to my constituency, which has been neglected for so long. I will begin by refreshing the memory of this House and will start at a time when this government was first elected.
One of the first things this government did when they came to power was close the B.C. Transportation Museum and sell many of the priceless vehicles that represented part of our heritage. We were just beginning to put together a combined transportation museum, which would have included a rail museum, a flight museum and eventually the Surrey Museum, all in one location. This unique museum was poised to become a major attraction, which not only would have become self-sufficient if properly run but would have generated untold income to the people of this constituency. If the closure of the museum was truly directed to saving money for the taxpayers of this province and was part of a coherent economic plan, then perhaps I would not complain. Of course, we all know that there was no coherent plan, and this government went on to waste taxpayers' money on an unbelievable scale.
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[3:30]
It depresses me when I reflect upon the management of this government over the past five years. I can only hope that they have learned some hard lessons and will embark upon a plan of action that rewards the individual with less government interference and lower taxes, because this downward spiral of tax and spend is a recipe for disaster.
In my constituency right now we are trying to figure out how we can expect our children to compete in today's society if we are not prepared to give them the tools they need. We have the Surrey school district, in the fastest-growing area in this province, that still remains seventy-fifth out of 75 in student funding. It is time for this government to put the students first and give our children the education they deserve. In my constituency alone, this government has backed away from their commitment to build the Cloverdale technical university. This technical university is badly needed in the lower Fraser Valley. Not only would it benefit our students but it would also bring life back into the economy of this riding. The spinoffs that would be created by this university would create many jobs -- permanent jobs -- that are badly needed. They have backed away from building the Clayton secondary school. Lord Tweedsmuir School in Cloverdale is overextended in portables. Where are we going to put the students? Is this government planning to have two-storey portables to solve our problems? We need this school, as we need the Fraser Heights elementary school. Our population demands it. If we don't begin building the schools we need now, we will never catch up with the backlog, and that means that our students are going to suffer.
[The Speaker in the chair.]
This government is not fulfilling the basic needs of this province. They are also holding back on building a 55-bed extension to Zion Park Manor extended care, a facility that is very much needed with this aging population.
This government has given its reason for placing all of these projects on hold as the sorry state of the economy. But the sorry state of the economy is a direct result of their mismanagement. One day the budget has a surplus, and the next day it has a large deficit. My constituents do a much better job at managing their finances than this government does.
We have such compelling projects as putting a traffic light at the intersection of 168th Avenue and Highway 10, which is a provincial highway. It has bumper-to-bumper traffic, but it has not even been considered at any time in this government's budget. This intersection clearly represents a danger to the motoring public. There have been many serious accidents at this intersection. Now is the time for this government to take action. Or do we have to wait until someone is killed before any action is taken? Who will take the responsibility then? The provincial highways in my riding are in such terrible shape because they have been continually neglected over the years.
Even with all our problems and needs, Surrey-Cloverdale is a wonderful place to live and bring up one's family. Surrey is a beautiful city of parks, and my constituency is proud of these many beautiful parks. Surrey Bend was just acquired by the city of Surrey with the help of this government. I applaud the government for their financial assistance so that this highly sensitive area was not destroyed for the sake of industry.
Mr. Speaker, I am sure that I have told you more than you ever wanted to know about my constituency, but I am committed to representing my constituents to the best of my ability, and to reflecting their needs and concerns. I hope this government will begin to really listen to the people of this province, not just when it suits them and not just in their own ridings. I hope they will begin to deal with the real issues and concerns with fairness and integrity. It's not really much to ask of anyone.
K. Krueger: Mr. Speaker, as many of my colleagues have said, it is indeed an honour and a privilege to stand in this beautiful room to represent our constituents. Of course, my constituents are in the beautiful riding of Kamloops-North Thompson. Most people in this room have visited Kamloops, I would conjecture. You know how warm Kamloops is in the summer: if you see a Kamloops coyote chasing a Kamloops rabbit on a July day, they're probably both walking. It's a hot place. It's a place that's supposed to have a cancer clinic right now, but it doesn't. But before we get into that sort of thing, I should continue my congratulations.
I would like to congratulate all the MLAs of this Legislature who, like every member of the B.C. Liberal Party who was elected, ran on a platform of truth -- a platform of who we are, what we've done and what we intend to do -- and ran with the intention to come here to work. That's why I'm here, and that's why the people of Kamloops-North Thompson sent me here: to work. I miss my family, and my family misses me. I didn't really want to live apart from them, but they agreed to this sacrifice because it's a job that needs to be done.
There is much work to be done, and we in the B.C. Liberal Party know how to do it. We laid out the plan to the electorate of British Columbia as to how we would do that, and more of them voted for our plan than for any other plan that was offered. We had a plan, and we still do, to eliminate deficits forthwith and cut debt and taxes while fully funding -- and, indeed, increasing funding for -- the things that are the most important to British Columbians: public health care, public education and public safety. We showed how we could do it; our plan was audited. The people of British Columbia believe in it, they believe in us, and we're still here to work to those goals.
It's possible to do these things. We can show the government how to provide good management in British Columbia and get things done. I'd be the last to ever say that the New Democratic Party does not have good ideas, because they do have some good ideas. I worked for the Insurance Corporation of B.C. for 21 years. I think ICBC is a good idea. I don't think some of the things that were done to it recently were good ideas, but we'll talk about that a bit later.
The traffic safety initiatives that the government announced some time ago are good ideas, but nothing much has happened. Why is that? As always, the NDP have some good ideas, but they are terrible at implementation and management and terrible at delivery of results.
Rather than cause another election imminently, which would be easy for
What sort of work am I talking about? What sort of work needs to be done? You've heard a lot about it from a number of our colleagues on both sides of the House. One of the things I hope people have been listening to, and I'm not confident they
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I see a cabinet minister opposite talking to his colleague, who is also a cabinet minister. I seldom see cabinet ministers paying any attention to anything that's being said over here, and most
Interjections.
K. Krueger: I'll withdraw that.
The Speaker: The member for Cowichan-Ladysmith on a point of order.
J. Pullinger: That reference is derogatory and completely unacceptable to this House, and I would ask that member to withdraw it and apologize to the minister to whom it's directed.
K. Krueger: I withdraw the remark, and if it was offensive, I apologize.
The Speaker: Thank you, member. Proceed.
K. Krueger: The member for Vancouver-Hastings seldom pays attention, and often turns around and speaks to other people in the House. I would like to know that the government is listening to us, because we were sent here to represent our constituents. The government has made a major point of saying that it wants to hear from the people, that it's listening to the people. We represent more of the people than the NDP does, and we would like them to listen to us.
One of the issues from my constituency that I'd like to see worked on is known as the Blue River bug-kill. There's a major amount of dead standing timber north of Blue River. Estimates are that it is between 50 and 60 miles wide and is 150 to 160 miles long. This timber has been killed by bugs, and it needs to be harvested. When it isn't harvested, it gets drier and drier. It's a forest fire hazard, and one day it's liable to burn, and the jobs that could have flowed from that timber will be gone. People are very concerned about that, but people can't get permits to work in the forests in the Blue River area. The Forest Practices Code is so complex and convoluted and requires so much administration that people in forestry say that you have to be a paralegal working for Forestry to even know how to interpret it. They're frightened of interpreting and administering it. It's very difficult for the people within forestry, let alone the small operators who would like to work in those areas.
There is a group of people in a little community called Vavenby in my constituency, and those people have sent me a petition saying that they're on welfare because they're not allowed to work in the bush. They can't manoeuvre around the Forest Practices Code. They need help getting by the horrendous bureaucracy imposed on them by the NDP.
The Forest Practices Code has not generated much employment in our constituency, although our constituency, like many others that have been discussed in this House in the last two weeks, sends a great deal of wealth down to Victoria. We've heard from the member for Peace River North, the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and our own member for Prince George-Omineca, and we've heard from the member for Columbia River-Revelstoke just this afternoon, all with the same complaint: that the wealth is drawn out of our constituencies and brought down here, and then disappears and doesn't come back.
People have to come to Victoria, cap in hand, to try to get a program, to try to get a little bit of infrastructure, to try to get something done locally. Our platform dealt with the forest renewal plan and making it work -- making sure that local people had the opportunity to decide how that money would be spent to generate jobs in their own constituencies. We'd like to see that happen. It could happen. Things could be made to work a whole lot more efficiently.
There are hourly equipment operators throughout my constituency -- people who used to be employed during the summer in building and upgrading secondary roads. Since the NDP came to power, those people haven't had any work, and they're losing their equipment and their businesses. They don't have the income they used to have, and they are ending up on welfare. I want to work on that problem.
The people of Clearwater, and indeed the North Thompson Valley, were promised a health care facility by the NDP MLA who preceded me as representative of this constituency and by Mr. Ramsey when he was Health minister.
Interjections.
K. Krueger: Again, I'm sorry. The then Minister of Health promised a multilevel health care facility, but the people didn't get it. All they've seen so far is their project on the frozen list, and that's not a very comforting thing when you've got people farmed out all around the province in extended-care facilities. The closest place to Clearwater for people to go for those types of facilities is Kamloops -- an hour and a half away in good weather -- and many of them are farmed out further than that. Those people are hurting because this project is frozen, and they suspect it's going to be cancelled. It was something that was faithfully promised to them. Indeed, many of them voted for the NDP; that was one of the few areas of my constituency where the NDP won, because they believed that promise.
An Hon. Member: Bad mistake.
K. Krueger: That's right. It was a bad mistake.
The ambulance service in Barrière and Clearwater has been cut back and cut back to the point that if the present plan is fully implemented, you will not find a full-time ambulance attendant along those highways between Kamloops and Prince George in a short time. This is of grave concern to those people. They are wonderful people. They go out at all hours of the night and day to rescue people who end up in the ditches along their highways -- people who are just passing through. They raise their own money to provide emergency equipment to go out and help the travellers who are passing through. It is wrong that they are denied ambulance attendants. They are continually cut back in their operating capital.
The Barrière health centre operates from month to month without knowing whether it will have operating funds, because of the inefficiencies and chaos brought on by the NDP's regionalization experiment.
[3:45]
Kamloops was promised a psychiatric clinic. Of course, we were also promised a cancer clinic before the last election, and we didn't get that. Now we wonder about the fate of the psychiatric clinic. It doesn't appear to be on either list. Is there
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a third list? It's not on the frozen list; it's not on the go-ahead list. Is there a third list? Is it the list of projects that "we don't quite dare announce that we've frozen or that we're going to cancel, because we've already dashed the hopes of the people of Kamloops once, and heavens, we may never, ever elect another MLA in Kamloops if we do it again"? Where is the Kamloops psychiatric unit? Why isn't it on the lists? I need to have answers for that. That's some of the work that I want to do.
Youth unemployment, which we've talked about in this House the last two weeks, is a major problem. I see people over on the other side of the House laughing and giggling and talking to each other when we need answers to that very serious question: what are the students going to do -- the students who don't have any jobs this summer and who desperately need employment?
Interjection.
K. Krueger: I notice that the member for Yale-Lillooet is heckling away. I appreciate that I've obviously made an impact on him, such that he's breaking the House rules and heckling someone in his inaugural speech. I thank him for that honour.
Regional unemployment is a big problem throughout the Thompson-Okanagan area, and that's a problem that I want to work on. The Employment Standards Act is a big problem. The fact that it has made young workers unattractive to employers is one of the reasons that young people are unemployed all across this great province of ours. It costs too much, and it's too difficult to employ them. It no longer makes sense to a lot of small business men. They are telling me -- whether it's Subway sandwich shops, restaurants or the hospitality industry in all kinds of areas -- that it's just not worth their while to bring in students. They're looking for mature workers now and employing them for longer hours. This leaves young people shut out of the kind of employment that used to get them started in their careers and turn them into productive citizens in society.
The Employment Standards Act is also a severe problem to the trucking industry and a whole lot of people who harvest our resources, because of the issues it creates that never existed before, when people were able to form relationships with their employees that made sense for the particular industry they operated in. I say, as the member for Peace River North said, it is wrong that people from the interior continually send the wealth of their area to Victoria and end up with this kind of treatment.
Another example is the condition of our highways. The pavement on Highway 5 has been in such shameful condition that the potholes along the shoulder unite to form a trench in many places. Passing lanes are almost non-existent between Kamloops and Clearwater. It's a major arterial highway. Traffic to Alberta backs up. Impatient people accumulate behind commercial and recreational vehicle traffic. Accidents ensue. People die because of the way the interior is neglected by the NDP government. This is a serious, serious matter.
I have a letter from the people who live along the Dunn Lake Road, pleading with the Ministry of Highways for -- you know what? -- not some multimillion-dollar bridge or project, but for a few more guardrails along their road. These people were travelling home during an evening recently and found a vehicle hung up on the guardrail, just barely teetering, still on the road. They realized what a tremendous hazard the short guardrail was, so they wrote for some more. They got an answer from the ministry that said: "We have very little money, and the money we have is allocated on lists. We'll put your request on a list." But the gist was that it's pretty far down the list.
Meantime, they know that over $1.2 billion has been spent on the Island Highway. They also know that a great deal of their resources have been sent to Vancouver Island. Where's the fairness in that? Other roads, secondary roads, all through my constituency have been going to pot for lack of maintenance. The wealth is hauled away, and the scraps are left.
School district amalgamation has proceeded very unfairly in the North Thompson Valley. There was a lack of a genuine consultative process. There was a lack of respect for the good people who were serving in the school district there. They are grievously offended, especially because of the changes that the government has brought about in other amalgamation processes. I want to know why they've been abused in the way that they have.
That's just some of the small picture from my constituency. There's the bigger picture as well, the things that plague all British Columbians: the boondoggle that is the regionalization of health care, the problems with the Motor Carrier Commission, the mess that is the Workers Compensation Board, the problem that people are taxed to the hilt -- and the government has nonetheless gone deeper and deeper in debt; more debt accumulated in a single term than all previous governments of British Columbia combined -- and the regulations under which the people struggle in trying to run their businesses and create jobs, and the ridiculous moves that are made, such as the ICBC premium freeze.
What was the reason for that? In the interior, people were experiencing reductions in ICBC premiums because their driving records are so much better than Vancouver's. Vancouver was experiencing increases because its driving record is so horrendous.
An Hon. Member: Those are my constituents you're talking about.
K. Krueger: I appreciate that there are members on both sides of this House who represent the people of Vancouver. But I think everyone can agree that it's fair that people pay their own way, pay their own freight. It should not be the case that a single broker in Kamloops collects more in premiums than is required to pay all the claims arising out of the entire region around Kamloops and that all the rest gets siphoned down to pay for accidents in Vancouver.
This clueless interference in the rating structure at ICBC is going to create chaos, as ICBC's reserves are eroded and as ICBC is plunged into debt. It is proof once again that the NDP cannot manage a peanut stand. People anticipate it may be that the NDP wishes to create a problem for ICBC as a pretext to impose no-fault. It is my considered opinion that an imposition of no-fault coverage by the NDP government on the people of British Columbia will result in another WCB-style mess. It will be another major welfare-type scheme, a boondoggle. People who cause accidents will not have the penalties that they presently have, will not have the negative effects on their lives. It will cause worse driving, it will ultimately cause premiums to go up, and it will be another blow to the law-abiding, well-behaving, taxpaying citizens of British Columbia that you all ought to be working to support.
[ Page 248 ]
We could write a book on ICBC and the ways that the NDP has damaged it. The NDP, with its affirmative action-style hiring, brought in a person from Calgary to run the public affairs and road safety division. They couldn't find a suitable woman in British Columbia, apparently, so brought in a person from Calgary.
She made a decision to eliminate a program that had been in place at ICBC for many years, whereby children were taught from elementary school on up to wear their seatbelts, to not get in the car with a driver who'd been drinking, and to obey the rules of the road. Her rationale was that elementary school children don't drive. That was a very destructive, ill-advised decision that we will pay the penalty on for many years down the road. When a longstanding manager at ICBC who had championed that program tried to stand up for it, she was fired.
I worked long enough in the public service to see the mandarins empire-building and to know that a weak, non-management-oriented NDP government is a great danger to any type of public service management, to any Crown corporation. We've seen that at B.C. Hydro, haven't we? If B.C. Hydro had the expertise to market worldwide and generate revenue, that revenue should have been used to subsidize the electricity rates that all British Columbians pay. It should not have been channelled into the pockets of tax-avoiding friends and insiders of the NDP. But that's where it went.
The harder people try, the more this government trips them up. The harder they work, the more taxes the government takes from them. And those whose lives are the least stressful and the easiest are those who just kick back, relax and live off the system. So yes, there's a lot to work on. How will we do it? Will we work from a constituency focus or a big-picture focus? Where do we start? It's like the chap who was asked how to get to Tipperary, and he puzzled for a while and said: "If I was going to Tipperary I wouldn't start from here."
If we had our druthers, obviously we'd be sitting on that side of the House, because we could and would implement our plan -- the plan we promised, the plan that more British Columbians voted for than any other plan. We would do it quickly, and we would do it well. But we're willing to work with the NDP and bring about good government.
I've been in management for a long time: half my working life has been in union leadership positions, half in management. We understand over here that when people can't do the job they're supposed to do, it may be a performance problem or it may be a conduct problem. If it's a performance problem, you work with them and try and demonstrate to them how to do the job properly. But if it's a conduct problem, that's another situation.
But we are willing, I and my B.C. Liberal Party colleagues, to work with the NDP, to try to teach them how to do a better job in managing British Columbia. It seems as though they have good intent, but they have very different outcomes from what they should. And I see them laughing again.
But think about Matthew Vaudreuil, and think about the 19 other little children after him who were murdered by people because of a system that didn't look after them. These are outcomes, these are results of a system that's badly managed and badly flawed.
Think of the rapid elimination of the middle class, as people have been taxed more and more heavily and have gone more and more to two-income households, and they still can't keep up. Every year they have a little less in their pockets; every year it's harder to get by. Think of the disruptions of business because of the Employment Standards Act changes.
We're not at all sure that it's just a performance problem. We see a lot of indication that it's a conduct problem. The way good managers deal with conduct problems is called progressive discipline. You whack them once. If they do it again, you whack them again. Eventually you turf them right out.
And you know, we've tried. We've tried to talk about ethical government, about doing things right. We tried, in the vote on interim supply, to bring your attention to your mismanagement. We tried when we voted on the amendment to the budget yesterday. But you're not listening. You're not convincing us that you intend to change and deal with what appears to be a conduct problem.
I can tell you that everywhere I went during the election, I met cynical people who said things like: "All politicians are liars. Why should we believe anyone? All we ever get is more of the same." I heard that a lot. I know it isn't true, because I'm working with 32 other people over here and none of us are liars. All of us intend to do all the things that we said we would do.
But I understand the public cynicism. It's especially understandable when one looks at the events of the last couple of weeks and considers what was said in the throne speech and in the budget speech and what had to be admitted three days after the throne speech was read. It's a reprehensible thing; it's a real problem. If the conduct problem persists, we're going to have to turf this government out of office. We hope it's just a performance problem. We hope to be able to teach you how to do this job a whole lot better.
[4:00]
Hon. P. Ramsey: It's a pleasure to rise and speak in favour of the very excellent budget that my colleague the Minister of Finance has tabled in this House.
But before addressing the budget, I just want to address a couple of other things. First of all, congratulations to you, hon. Speaker, on your selection to carry out that very hard task of ensuring that what the members of this Legislature say we want in terms of decorum and order actually happens. It is a difficult task. I want to offer you my sincere congratulations, because I think that taking on that job requires a couple of qualities that you have demonstrated over the time that I've known you. First, it clearly requires a real love of this place, of the work that it does and of the way this place works, both during that loud debate -- some might even say raucous -- as government does its job of presenting legislation and budgets that it intends to carry out, and as the opposition does its job of opposing and stating its reasons for opposing. I know, hon. Speaker, that as a member of this chamber you have relished that debate and engaged in it from both sides of this House with pleasure.
I think it also requires a real respect for the common desire of all members in the House to represent their constituents and to do the business of the people of the province, and, where it is possible, to come to agreement jointly and, where it's not, to carry it out nonetheless. I know that in your time in this House you have respected that common desire that we all have.
After listening to some of the initial speeches from both sides of the House, I want to echo my colleague the Minister of Health's comments on the high quality of the speeches and
[ Page 249 ]
also on the very clear grounding in the interests and needs of people's constituents that I hear reflected in members' initial speeches. I think that is what brought us all here.
In beginning this session, I want to thank a couple of people regarding the election that returned me as the member for Prince George North. I'm going to start in perhaps an unusual place. I want to thank my opponents who ran against me in Prince George North. It may be a strange place to start, but clearly choice is the essence of democracy, and to have enough belief in how democracy works to stand as a candidate for public office is a really hard task in the 1990s. Those of us who have been elected or re-elected recognize, perhaps better than anyone, the strain it puts on one's family, personal life and professional life when one puts oneself forward. So I thank those who dedicated their time and talents to contesting the election of 1996 in Prince George North.
I must, obviously, thank those who worked hard on my successful campaign. Nobody gets elected to this place by themselves. We are here as representatives of parties with particular platforms, and obviously we attracted those who believe in those platforms and in our abilities as candidates to present those platforms in this place. It requires endless hours, time, money and energy to run successful campaigns, and I thank them.
Finally, of course, and most importantly, a thank-you to the voters of Prince George North for giving me the opportunity to represent them for a second term. I must say that as an immigrant to this country and to this province, I feel very keenly the honour of being selected to sit in this place and carry out the business of the people of British Columbia. I will do my best to represent those who have expressed their confidence in me.
There's one other introductory item that I want to comment on. It occurred to me as I was driving to the polls on election day. My wife and I were going off to vote. I was pretty sure how I was going to vote, and I thought I knew how she was going to vote as well. But what impressed me was that people in Prince George, like people throughout the province, were going about the business of selecting a government with no more fuss or bother than if they were going down to the corner store to pick up a loaf of bread and a gallon of milk.
I couldn't help but contrast that to what we see through the media every day of our lives: what happens in other countries as people face bullets, face threats or face what they feel is almost certain electoral fraud as they attempt to carry out fledgling democracies and choose a government in their country. I couldn't help but reflect, as we start this thirty-sixth parliament here in British Columbia, on just how fortunate we are that for us, casting a vote is a dull business.
Now to the budget. I want to commend my colleague the Minister of Finance for bringing down a budget which I think will really help carry on the tradition of building a strong province here, creating this most prosperous province in Canada with the best job creation rate in the country and the lowest per capita debt. This budget will carry on that excellent progress we have made over the last four years.
I must say, listening to the members opposite as they present their views on the budget, that I'm not sure they got elected in the same province that I did. During the campaign in Prince George, an article appeared in the paper which said we had the lowest unemployment in Prince George in a decade. That's the sort of record that we have as government. Job creation is unparalleled to any province in this country.
I read the paper this morning, before I came into this chamber. The brand-new Vancouver International Airport has barely opened, and it's bursting at the seams. Rather than looking at a declining immigration rate in this province, they're now forecasting 37,000 new British Columbians each and every year into the future, well into the twenty-first century. That's the sort of prosperity this province has.
This is a budget that looks forward to preserving and enhancing that prosperity. It's one that does what we said it would do in the election: it offers tax relief to middle-income families in this province, not to the big corporations, and tax relief to the small businesses. And boy, my community and, I think, other communities need that relief: a 10 percent break in income tax, a two-year tax holiday for qualified small businesses. They're the ones that are going to help create the next tens and twenties of thousands of jobs that we are going to need in this province.
Budgets are about choices, and this budget makes the right ones for middle-class working families in Prince George and throughout this province. I want to emphasize three things in my comments here this afternoon. I want to start with education. I was thinking back, as I listened to some of the initial speeches of members, to my first speech in this chamber some four years ago. I spoke of education. It's my background; I spent 20 years as an instructor and administrator in colleges and universities. I believe firmly that public education is one of the most important services that a government can offer, because it opens those doors to full participation in society, not only economically -- though I think that must be the focus -- but also socially, culturally and politically. We cannot have an informed electorate without a strong education system.
Standing here today, talking about the fifth budget that this government has presented, I can't help but reflect upon what I said in that first speech and what I see now. Then we had in this province a record in education that was at best spotty. Over the past five years we have added tens of thousands of new students to our public education system, and the budget that has been tabled in this Legislature and that we're debating provides full funding for every one of those students -- not only that but for those with special needs, and there are many.
For ESL students -- and, Lord knows, ESL is a major problem in some schools -- we need to make sure that training is available. Every one of them will be fully funded. For aboriginal students who are looking to drag themselves up to the education they need to make prosperous lives for themselves and their communities, and who require some special assistance, every one is funded. For special education, for students who are suffering with a physical or mental handicap or a disability, every one is funded, so that we can help people achieve their full potential. That's the record of this government; that's the record of this budget. I say to the opposition: you ought to stand with us and support this budget and its commitment to education, to public education, in British Columbia.
Not only that, but five years ago we didn't have a school meals program, and kids went to school hungry. We didn't have an inner city schools program that recognized that poverty and violence have an impact on students as they try to learn and receive an education. If you're hungry, you can't learn. If you're feeling threatened, school doesn't mean a damn. In Prince George now and throughout the province, those services are available, and they are preserved in this budget that we're debating here today.
[ Page 250 ]
I know that there are those who would seek to dismantle public education; they want to break it up. I heard some of it during the election. I heard proposals for voucher systems; I heard proposals for charter systems; I heard proposals all over the place. What they all meant was that they want to turn their backs on a universal public education system and turn it over to the special interests. In this budget, we on this side of the House have said a clear and loud no.
Our vision is of an inclusive public education system which meets the needs of our changing society, whether it's enhanced language opportunities to learn Punjabi, Mandarin or Japanese, or the ability to start an apprenticeship program in high school before you even get out of school. That's the sort of movement we need to preserve a strong education system, not walk away from it.
I mentioned that I spent a large part of my life teaching and working in colleges and universities. Five years ago participation rates in colleges and universities in this province ranked ninth or tenth out of the provinces in the country. It was abysmal. Thousands were turned away every fall at the doors of colleges or universities because they simply couldn't get in. Over the last five years, 20,000 new spaces have been created, and now what we used to call the fall follies are over.
When I ran for election in 1991, on leave as an instructor from the College of New Caledonia, that college turned away 600 students from its doors. They were qualified, eager students, willing to learn and better themselves and their community, and they couldn't get in. Well, that is over. We opened the University of Northern British Columbia in Prince George, the first university to be opened in this country in 25 years. We built the first community learning centre, which the Open Learning Agency opened, outside the lower mainland in Prince George and made workplace training a reality for those who required it. It was the first community in British Columbia to have a training centre. Now we're expanding the opportunities at the College of New Caledonia and making sure that apprenticeship and career training also advances in the north. And guess what: instead of having the lowest participation rates in the country and instead of the north having the lowest participation rates in British Columbia, now participation rates in the north are at or above provincial averages. We continue to rise and are now in the middle of the pack as far as the Canadian participation rates go, not trailing them. That's where we've come to.
[4:15]
This budget preserves that record, in the face of a federal cut to post-secondary education that could have meant 8 percent reductions in classes at every college and university, and 20 to 30 percent tuition increases. That was the Liberals in Ottawa, so what can you say about the Liberals in British Columbia?
Well, they too proposed some cuts in the post-secondary education budget. It took a little while to find it, but it was there. They proudly tabled this economic plan, and when we looked at it, when those of us who are concerned about education took a hard look at it, we saw the reality of it. It meant bad news for college and university students across this province. It meant that they would be faced with the kinds of tuition increases that are happening in Alberta and in Ontario -- 25 and 30 percent. It meant that the long lines of the 1980s would return to the college and university steps in September, and the people of British Columbia said no to that vision of post-secondary education.
Our budget freezes tuition fees -- and I'm amazed to hear people say that's the wrong approach -- for two years. I've heard people on the opposition benches say this is an irrelevancy. Tuition doesn't count; that's not important. Well, that's not what I hear from students; that's not what I hear from middle-income parents. Particularly for somebody who's going to university or college for the first time, that seems like an insurmountable barrier -- and adding 25 or 30 percent on top of it would be intolerable. This year, for the first time in my memory, with the accretion of some 7,000 new spaces in colleges and universities, no qualified student in the province who wants a post-secondary education is going to be turned away at the door. That's what this budget delivers on for the people of British Columbia.
I want to say that this progress has not come about quickly. It was part of the initiative of former Premier Harcourt, who made education and training a real priority for his government, and it's a priority that has been carried on by our current Premier, who has made himself the first Minister Responsible for Youth in the history of British Columbia. That's how important we believe it is to make sure that those opportunities are available not only for the wealthy, who can afford a post-secondary education regardless of what it costs, but for everyone.
Interjection.
Hon. P. Ramsey: Hon. Speaker, the member opposite says I've been reading their policy book. I think it may have been the other way around. They may have been looking at our record, stealing a few planks from what we have delivered to the people of British Columbia and saying: "That sounds good. Maybe we can pretend we're in favour of post-secondary." You know, they might have gotten away with it if they hadn't delivered that economic plan with as many holes in it as your average piece of Swiss cheese.
Hon. J. Cashore: They left post-secondary out.
Hon. P. Ramsey: They left it out, my colleague says. How true. Fortunately, the people of the province said: "We're not going to be left out; we're going to vote for a government that's committed to post-secondary education and give the Clark government a second term."
I also want to talk about what I think is one of the other most important services that government offers, and that's health. Universal and accessible medicare coverage is part of our Canadian identity, and we very much value a health system that doesn't distinguish between people and that says it doesn't matter who you are or what the size of your bank account is, you have access to quality health care.
It was a big issue in the last campaign, and people are concerned that they feel Canadian medicare slipping away. They have good reason to be concerned. There is a $200 million cut in federal Liberal transfers to this province for health this fiscal year, and another $175 million federal Liberal cut to health transfers will be coming to British Columbia next year. When voters hear that, and when they hear the opposition campaign during the election of slashing government spending by $3 billion with no indication at all about how health is sheltered from it, it doesn't add up. They are concerned, and they should be concerned.
They are concerned when they hear candidates from the Liberal and Reform parties talking about user fees, the need for more private, for-profit health services and the advantages of a two-tier health system, because they know what that means. All they need to do is look across the border, where
[ Page 251 ]
health insurance will cost a family of four $700 or $800 a month for a service that won't cover all their needs. They know that under that supposedly wonderful two-tier system there are 50 million Americans with no health insurance at all, and they know that there are people masquerading as Liberals who would advocate that policy for this province and for this country.
Who suffers under such a system? I assure you it is not the wealthy. The middle class in America are scared. They may have health insurance, but 25 percent of all Americans say the number one fear they have is ill health. Why would people want to bring that level of fear and uncertainty to this province? On the contrary, this budget delivers on our commitment to health care, providing not a cut as we are seeing in other provinces, but a 2.5 percent increase in health funding so that we can continue to provide new services, continue to work on preventing ill health, and continue to work in concert with doctors and hospitals to reduce wait-lists across this province.
I have heard my colleague from Peace River North commenting on services in Prince George. We simply must respond. I am proud of the record on health care in Prince George. People on health care right now have services they did not have five years ago. When they require it, 2,000 of them now receive an MRI scan in Prince George every year. That's 2,000 people who formerly had to travel to Vancouver. When they are preparing for a transplant operation or recovering from it, they receive that service at the transplant clinic in Prince George. They don't have to travel to Vancouver for it.
Interjection.
Hon. P. Ramsey: It opened in 1993, actually. I think I remember who was Health minister at the time.
When they do have to travel, they have the first travel assistance program that any government in this province has ever brought forward for those of us who live in the northern half of the province.
Wait-lists at Prince George Regional Hospital are shorter, there are on-site oncology services, there is a new psychiatric ward, and there are more specialists practising in Prince George now than there were four years ago. That's the record of health care in Prince George, and it's the same record across this province. It's a record that this budget will continue to push.
I want to end on a non-confrontational note, so maybe we'll talk just a little bit about jobs in forestry. When we talk about job creation, in Prince George that means looking at the forest resource. I want to remind the members opposite of where we are now, compared to where we were four years ago. An inventory of our timber resources had not been done in ten to 20 years; now a timber supply review is virtually completed. We're finally getting an accurate view of what our timber resources are. There was no link between holding a timber licence and a company's requirement to keep a mill open and a community running; now there is.
Then, there was great concern -- I heard it from my constituents -- about whether we were handling our forests in a sustainable manner, both for harvesting timber and in a manner respectful of all values in the forest -- for fish, for wildlife and for recreation. Now we have a Forest Practices Code that is recognized as among the best in the world. I heard some of the members opposite, as I heard them during the campaign, speaking against it. I have asked them to consider the alternative to it and to consider what happens to our forest industry when the environmental boycott, because of the lack of a sustainable management plan, happens to our forest industry. We need that code both to preserve our forest industry and, I submit, to make sure it's sustainable not just for ourselves but for our children and for their children.
Finally, I want to speak of Forest Renewal B.C., which will repair some of the damage of the past and create the jobs that we require in the future. This budget and this government are committed to doing that in Prince George and are saying there are immense opportunities here. I invite the members opposite to come to Prince George to tour some of the plants that are making not just 2-by-4s but arrow shafts, stair treads -- a variety of consumer goods that add value and those jobs for British Columbians.
I must say, the one hopeful note from seeing a few more members on the Liberal side of the House is that finally we have some people on that side of the House who come from areas of the province where they actually know what harvesting timber looks like. I think the total AACs of all the ridings of all the Liberals in the last government was maybe ten. Now we have some people here who do understand the needs of the forest industry. I hope that -- instead of, as the last opposition did, opposing the Forest Practices Code, Forest Renewal B.C. and all the initiatives of this government to make sure it is a sustainable forest industry for the future -- they will join with this government, build the forest industry for the future, and add thousands and thousands of new jobs by saying to those who would harvest our timber: "You owe it to the people of this province to create jobs and build stable communities for the right to access this public resource."
It is with pleasure that I rise to defend and speak in favour of the budget that has been presented here. It is a budget that says this government is on the side of the communities of Prince George and the north. This is a budget on the side of middle-class working families in this province. It preserves health and education and builds the prosperity that we already have in British Columbia.
G. Brewin: It is truly a pleasure to rise once again in this House to address the House and to talk about the first budget of the New Democratic Party government's second term. It is indeed a pleasure. It is also no easier to do it the second time than it is the first time -- to stand and speak. So it's quite fun to discover all of that, too.
Before we get into all the wonderful things in that budget, I would like to offer a few words of thanks to some folks, to add my personal congratulations to some other people and to offer a wee bit of praise.
First, may I say a warm and heartfelt thanks to the voters of my terrific constituency of Victoria-Beacon Hill, in which you are all now working and some of you, I know, are actually living. I know you're enjoying this fabulous community that exists as your capital city. It was the voters of Beacon Hill, if I may be so teasing, who were indeed very wise and very sensible and very perspicacious to send me back here. I am, of course, teasing and am most humbled by their continued support, faith and confidence in me. I will always do my very best, as I have in representing them on city council and as their mayor, to continue to listen, to be there for them and to respond to their concerns to the very best of my ability.
I also want to say thanks -- as all of us, I'm sure, would do in our own areas -- to the campaign teams we all had. I was really fortunate to have put together quite an incredible one. I've been in a number of campaigns. I hadn't quite seen
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the like of this one in some time. It was enormously keen. There were a lot of people, and it was well organized, very focused and, surprisingly, very good-humoured. That isn't always the case in election campaigns. Anyway, it made for a dynamite combination, and it was quite an exciting period of time.
The election has brought us here: 75 women and men. You may be interested to know that this is the largest contingent of women in any House in, I gather, all of Canada at this present time, and I think we are all to be congratulated for that. It's also a very special group that we're part of. I don't mean that to be in any sense elitist, but it seems to me that since Confederation there have been no more than about 800 people who have done this job. So as the kids put it, it is truly an awesome experience to be part of all this and to hear the echoes from the past as we stand here and create our own echoes for the future.
I also offer congratulations to my colleagues who were here in '86, to my colleagues and my cohorts from the '91 group -- you might say it is a graduating or returning group -- and a very special welcome to all the newcomers. There's such an interesting and diverse group on both sides of the House. I welcome all of you here and certainly look forward to the discussions around what on earth we've all got ourselves into, why we're here and what we're all about.
[4:30]
Now we begin our work. As we begin our work, I start off by offering congratulations to our new Speaker, the member for Nanaimo. The member brings to his new task a lively interest in politics and language and in giving good advice. I'm sure the rulings will always be fair and reasoned and -- I suspect and we all hope -- short.
May I also say thank you to the House for the honour you have bestowed upon me to be your Deputy Speaker. I am delighted to accept the challenge to do this. I know it's going to be lots of fun keeping all you lot in line. We've already seen what fun that's going to be. I had a certain amount of experience doing that in presiding over Victoria city council for five years, and you might just ask my four grown kids what they think about all that. Anyway, I wish us all good luck.
Let me say just a few words about Victoria-Beacon Hill as we move into the budget and talk about making right choices. Victoria-Beacon Hill, as many of you who have been here for a while have now observed, is quite an incredible centre. It is geographically the smallest riding in British Columbia. It doesn't take that long to walk across it. It is the most southerly on Vancouver Island. It has the benefit of, on one side of it, the Pacific Ocean -- or the strait of Juan de Fuca -- and across there the Olympic Mountains, which we like to claim as ours. Of course, the centrepiece of it is Beacon Hill Park itself. A fabulous park, it is there as a result of the foresight of our many previous forefathers -- before Confederation, in fact -- who determined that this piece of our community should be preserved as a park forever. I think that's to their credit.
[W. Hartley in the chair.]
My riding is not as ethnically diverse as many others in this province, but it is nonetheless a delightful mix of seniors, traditional and non-traditional families, all income levels, a large working-poor population, many strong neighbourhoods, a vibrant and tenacious commercial downtown, a harbour with enormous potential, a proud and determined heritage community that is reflected in our buildings here and a very flourishing tourism industry. Arts and culture abound. Sports facilities and sports activities go on here apace daily and weekly. We have the largest contingent of volunteers, as the Commonwealth Games in 1994 demonstrated: 14,000 people participated. We are indeed a proud community, and I am very proud to represent it. I think all of B.C. can be proud that it is the capital city of this great province.
I said earlier that we would talk about the new budget and about making right choices. I think that one of the things that has occurred, as the voters talked to us about how to make those right choices and what kinds of right choices we should be
Budgets are about dollars and cents, and I think this one is particularly about common sense, about organizing our money, our programs and our priorities in a way that responds to the working people, to the middle-income people, to families and to young people of this province. All of those folks to whom we all have some responsibility will see themselves and some of their needs reflected in this budget. A budget is about setting goals, about working to meet them together. This is not going to be an easy task; we are clearly in tougher times than we have been in the past. It is about finding a common purpose that will unite all of us and the people who live in this province.
In the election that we've just been through, British Columbians sent some very clear messages about what they want. I heard -- on the doorsteps, in the more than half a dozen all-candidates' meetings in Victoria-Beacon Hill and in my campaign headquarters -- people telling me what they wanted their government to do and the kind of commitments they wanted from me for the future, for the next four to five years of this government. They want us to invest in young people; they want us to invest in jobs; they want to protect health care; they want us to protect education; they want us to produce tax breaks for working British Columbians; they want us to make our communities safer. And they told us, very clearly, something else: we are to produce concrete measures to cut the cost of government and to reduce B.C.'s provincial debt.
I submit that this budget is proof that the government we have elected -- the New Democratic government -- is indeed listening to the people of British Columbia and the people of Victoria-Beacon Hill. It is a budget which starts off, first of all, I believe, by building on the financial strength of this community -- of the province of British Columbia -- by taking advantage of the facts that we have the very best credit rating of any province in this country and that we will produce further measures to improve services while cutting costs. The prevailing wisdom in other provinces, as we have heard and as we have argued, suggests that you can't have it all, that you do have to make choices. The kinds of choices that many of them have made, as we've seen in Alberta and Ontario, have been serious. They have been most draconian choices, in my view, where you have to choose between lowering the debt and social programs like health care and education. That's what other provinces and provincial governments are doing -- but not here in British Columbia.
I am so proud to stand as a British Columbian, to stand as a Canadian, to stand as someone from Victoria and say that we are doing things differently. We, the New Democratic Party government, are going to do things differently. That's
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our commitment to our communities. We will have to do it leaner, but we will not be doing it meaner. The protection of health care and education is a major commitment to us, and we are doing that in the face of some pretty tough restraints. We are not doing it as other provinces have done.
We are going to be acting, as the budget indicates, on government debt. We have put a moratorium on new capital spending, and very importantly, I believe, we are undertaking a comprehensive program review, so that we are finding the smarter way to do things. We are finding the more innovative way to do things and the less expensive way to do things. We will need to look at everything that we're doing and ask ourselves: how necessary is it? In what way is it necessary? Does it protect our vital social services and social programs? Could it be done better? Could it be done less expensively? That's what we intend to do.
The budget protects health care and education for B.C. families. It helps make our communities safer. It invests in young people. It will lead to thousands of new jobs in British Columbia this year. This budget offers an income tax cut for working British Columbians, an extension of the tax freeze to the year 2000 and a freeze on B.C. Hydro, ICBC and post-secondary institution fees. These are all moves that will put more money back into the pockets of British Columbians and help all our families and young people with their tasks at hand. We've cut income taxes for small businesses, which is an area where most new jobs are created. We'd like to encourage them to create more good, family-supporting jobs.
The 1996 budget strikes a balance between service delivery and solid financial management. It responds to the concerns raised by British Columbians and by the people of Victoria-Beacon Hill in the election campaign. It responds to the needs that we have heard and will continue to be committed to. Taxes are down and jobs are up; health care and education are protected.
Let's look at some of the choices. Again I will draw on Victoria-Beacon Hill and some of its parts. I know that the people of Victoria-Beacon Hill and the neighbourhoods in my community will be supporting the government's direction as outlined in the throne speech. They know that despite political issues and topics of the day, the government will continue in this term to make the right choices for middle-income working families, men and women, that we established in our last term.
Let's talk about a couple of the themes that were established. We have made progress in key component areas of B.C. One that I'm proud of, although it doesn't relate directly to Victoria-Beacon Hill, is talking about sustainability in our environment through a very particular process that we, as a New Democratic Party government, put into place: the CORE process, with consultation and consensus-building, to develop our working forests, parkland, forest practices and air quality. We made and will continue to follow through on a commitment on education and health care.
Most importantly, we made a commitment to the people that through all the tough decisions that have to be made by government, we will be keeping the considerations and needs of all British Columbians firmly in mind. For decades in this province, decisions were generally made with only the corporate and industrial point of view in mind. I know that our government will continue in this term to make decisions for all the people of British Columbia based on a broader spectrum.
We know that we face tough decisions in this next term. We will continue to face large amounts of downloading from the federal government. In the past term, we dealt with this reduction in transfer payments by reducing the size and cost of government and by spending smarter, not by passing those cuts onto the backs of taxpayers. In fact, we did it without increasing taxes or significantly reducing service. We're committed to continuing that method, despite the fact that we know there are more cuts coming from the federal government.
As the budget indicates, despite these cutbacks and our promises to freeze taxes, we will continue to support policies that will help British Columbians maintain our fabulous standard of living, and programs which support women -- transition houses like Margaret Laurence House and Sandy Merriman house here in Victoria. We will continue to develop violence prevention programs and programs to support women coming out of abusive relationships, like those offered by the Bridges program here in Victoria. We must still continue knowing how many of our people in all our communities, including Victoria-Beacon Hill, need affordable housing. Kew Court is coming out of the ground on Superior Street here in James Bay, and there is the Pandora project for mentally handicapped people. We say thanks to the province, and we say continue with that commitment. We also say thanks on the Pandora project to the Victoria Real Estate Board for being part of the partnership in the development of that project.
We look at other training programs that we are committed to continuing with. Skills training programs in conjunction with the Ministry of Social Services are now resulting in really positive situations for many of our people. I know, since I've had direct experience with a young person who came to my office to tell me about her experience with a social assistance worker, a skills training adviser and a training program. She currently is working in a very significant job here in Victoria.
Again, there is the success of the Community at Work program, which is a government-private sector partnership taking welfare recipients through specific training and job search programs, with some success. We know, too, the kind of commitment we make again to the broader community of British Columbia and Victoria-Beacon Hill -- programs for renters, the poor and the working poor, residential tenancy improvements, and the Tenants' Action Group and other advocacy organizations, all of which, working in partnership with government, have indeed been able to help resolve many difficulties that people in our communities have. It's very important.
The family bonus program, which is going to be introduced as talked about in the budget, is going to significantly assist the working poor, so that it will be better to be working than to be on social assistance. Part of what I'm saying in all of this and in the kind of programs that have clearly been developed within the greater Victoria area is that in these times of diminishing financial resources, we must guard against unfairly affecting the most vulnerable in our society with an undue share of necessary financial and program cuts.
I talked about partnerships earlier, and that's very much the way this government wants to continue to work, developing partnerships in local community areas, particularly in areas of health organizations as we see the changes that are taking place with the various local health boards.
I welcome the pause that has taken place, in terms of the health developments that have happened across our province, to give the community a chance to review where it's at so that it can make some better choices for the future.
[4:45]
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Also in Victoria-Beacon Hill are other partnerships that include working with business on many proposals, and work that will help them continue to produce the jobs that small business can do for us. We also work in partnership with other community groups, and some of them have to do with environmental areas. One of the things that's very exciting for us is local regional cycling routes, one of which is going to open in the next week or so.
Also important -- and it happened in the last term and will continue in this next term, I know -- are programs around funding for child care spaces, equipment and staff support. In Victoria-Beacon Hill we've seen significant and strong results as a consequence of the work we've done in the past term in James Bay: the redevelopment of Sir James Douglas, Margaret Jenkins and Victoria High schools.
Hon. Speaker, a combination of those kinds of programs and that real commitment to community, to the folks who have been ignored so much and who have been marginalized so often in the past, is part of what makes us New Democrats, and makes us and this government, I think, truly responsive to the community. The budget reflects all these things, and I'm really proud to be part of the deliberations in this House that will look to new legislation and new budgets to continue to build our whole province in that kind of way.
We see, then, that over the course of the next five years and in moving into the new century, we will be facing new challenges. We will carry with us the strengths that we have from the past, and we must now, with significant imagination and energy, deal with some of the issues that we're going to face -- such as further cuts from Ottawa, who are not going to be very helpful to all of us, as we've clearly seen.
People in this province need their government to stand up for services and resources that they rely on. The pressure, too, on all of us for U.S.-style health care will keep growing. The people need their government -- an NDP government -- to keep fighting for medicare, for one decent health care system for all. We need to make a strong stand to protect our vital salmon fishery, to prevent a disaster such as what we have seen happen on the east coast. We need to protect jobs and create new ones if our province is to grow. This is one of the top items on our agenda. We need more and better jobs for our young people. This is not an easy time for them. They need to find that sense of hope for their future. They need opportunities, and not just promises.
Our success in this area will not be based just on bigger government but on better government, not on more debt but on less, not on more regulation but on clear direction and support for the economy. There are tough choices to be made. There are complex issues and competing interests. In the end, though, I know that the people of this province and the people of Victoria-Beacon Hill are indeed up to the challenge. British Columbians can be proud of this province -- proud that it has the strongest economy, the best credit rating and the lowest debt in this whole country. Our job now is to make sure that B.C.'s success is shared by everyone in the province, not just by the privileged few. That's what this budget is all about.
Again, it's about protecting and improving health care for all British Columbians, not cutting back. The June 26 budget marks the beginning of a new mandate for this government. We're now turning to the challenge of lowering debt while ensuring continued economic growth and protecting health care and education. This budget shows that the government is listening to the people and acting on their concerns. The people here in British Columbia and in Victoria-Beacon Hill deserve a government that listens and will act on their priorities, and delivering that government is our commitment to the people of this province.
J. Wilson: Hon. Speaker, I welcome this opportunity to rise in the House for the first time. I would like to congratulate all of you on your appointment as Speakers. I feel that this House has made a wise decision with your appointment.
It is with great pride that I stand here and speak for the people of Cariboo North. As time progresses, I shall work hard to maintain the respect and trust of the people of the Cariboo. I would like to congratulate the people of Cariboo North for not falling victim to the election charades that were perpetrated on them by this government, as many ridings did.
I am the second representative from this relatively new riding of Cariboo North. There may be some confusion in the mind of government as to where this riding actually is. Our first representative described the riding boundaries to this House, and he described the mighty Fraser River as its westerly boundary. It would appear he was somewhat disoriented or, at best, confused as to whom he actually represented. This could be partially responsible for his recent demise from this House. You see, the riding of Cariboo North crosses the Fraser River and extends for another 200 kilometres to the west. The people of this previously undescribed area would like to be represented in this House today.
I have been asked by hundreds of people in my riding to come here and speak for them. I have been asked to come here and explain in no uncertain terms the way things are out there in real life: in the world where your everyday existence becomes a struggle; in the world where a good future is something you can only dream about. We live in a land of opportunity in this country. It is indeed sad when the government deliberately plucks that from your grasp.
When I listen to this government cry and name the federal government's reduction in transfer payments as the reason for our problems, I become very upset. The failures and problems of this government began long before the federal cutbacks came into the picture. The problems which we are faced with today are a direct result of the incompetence of this government. The misappropriation of tax dollars to meet their own interests and the insane way they spend our tax dollars without consideration for the needs of the people say only one thing: it is time they learned to govern.
There are a great many problems in the riding of Cariboo North. For the most part, these problems have been created by the NDP government. The infrastructure of our city of Quesnel is in sad shape indeed. This capital expenditure freeze is going to have a major impact on our community. We had two schools burn to the ground last year. It's not a matter of a bit more classroom space or a matter of replacing an aging school; it is a matter of no school. To impose a five-month freeze will put us into winter in the Cariboo, which will take us into another school year.
I cannot emphasize how unjust it is to use our children as pawns in political games. For the past four years we have watched the systematic dismemberment of our acute care facility in the G.R. Baker Memorial Hospital. The number of beds has been reduced to a level which does not allow for the employment of two full-time surgeons. We are now at 44 beds, and almost every night people end up on stretchers in the hallway. Surgeries become cancelled on a regular basis because of lack of beds, and emergency surgery cannot be carried out without beds available in the hospital for the
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patients. As a result of this deliberate dismantlement and lack of opportunity to work, our chief surgeon will be leaving sometime in September. The one remaining surgeon will be unable to carry on for very long. The end result will be the loss of the surgery facility in our hospital. This is totally unacceptable.
We have suffered cutbacks year after year, while our population continues to grow at a rapid pace. Retired people are relocating to our city, and they must have surgical services available. Many young families are also moving here in search of employment. This city is home to five major sawmills, one planer mill, one plywood plant, a fibreboard plant and two pulp mills. A large portion of our workforce is in direct forest industry-related jobs as well as agriculture and mining industries. This, combined with our aging population, makes it absolutely essential that our surgery be maintained and that this government provide an additional $600,000 to $700,000 to fund this acute care facility.
Last year this government bled our community of $98.6 million in stumpage alone. I implore this government to return a small portion of this money to the community so that the burden of worry can be removed from their shoulders. What do they think they are doing? They will have to put 25 more ambulances in place instead of two or three, and how much will be saved? Not one cent. Costs will be increased and lives will be lost. No one in their right mind would ever consider shipping people all over the province when they need immediate medical and surgical attention. The cost will be the same in the end, with the added cost of transportation. Maybe this government hopes some will die en route and save a few dollars in the end.
Imagine this: we have a serious auto accident on the highway. Six people need to be rushed out of the region; no ambulances will be available for at least five hours. Then an expectant mother develops complications and requires immediate surgery. What will this do to her baby's future? Half an hour later, a patient arrives with acute appendicitis. This patient lives in a remote semi-rural area and when admitted has a ruptured appendix. Please explain to this person's family: "We'll be glad to do surgery tomorrow." What they are saying is that our lives are worthless. When will this government wake up and come back to the real world where the rest of us live?
We have been promised a bypass for the city of Quesnel. There is a very serious bottleneck on Highway 97; it is an accident waiting to happen. If all industries were to synchronize their shift changes to happen at once, you would be looking at a seven-hour shutdown of Highway 97 each day. That's how serious this problem is.
Overregulation by this government has brought almost every industry to a halt or has brought the cost of production to a point where it is barely feasible to operate. The Forest Practices Code will have a severe impact on the contractors, in some cases forcing them out of business. It will also have a major impact on agriculture with regard to range tenures. This government refers to it as a living document. It is of little comfort if you are forced out of business in the meantime.
The mining industry has disappeared into a sinkhole created by regulatory bodies and boards. In 1991 we had approximately 2,200 people employed in placer and hard-rock mining in Cariboo North; today we have 400.
The record of this government stands as the biggest disaster of any government in recent history. Some of their ideas are certainly entertainable. However, everything they touch has a way of turning into sheep pellets. The forest renewal fund is a prime example of mismanagement of public funds. This government recognizes that silviculture investment is the cornerstone of the forest renewal program. They recommend that nearly 50 percent of expenditures be put into this envelope. There will be a significant gap in availability of timber in this province in 20 to 40 years if something is not done immediately. An allocation of just under 50 percent of funds for silviculture work is not sufficient at this point in time and should be addressed as soon as possible.
[5:00]
What action has been taken by this government, Mr. Speaker? That is what I want to know. It is obvious that they know nothing about construction, let alone what a cornerstone is. In 1995-96 only 17 percent of the total forest renewal funds had been diverted to actual silviculture projects. In 1996-97 the figure has risen to only 36.7 percent. Much of this has become a slush fund to aid their friends or has gone to various ministries to allow them to run wild with their agendas.
This government has proven that its word is worthless. How can they expect us to believe that over their term funding will be distributed as they say it will? This government has deceived the people of this province -- they are total hypocrites -- apart from their friends, whose support they can count on because they know they will be rewarded. The support they depended upon to get re-elected came from those who are desperately trying to survive, whose future at times seems hopeless. They have promised the unemployed jobs which they are unable to deliver. They have promised to maintain and improve health care, and we watch it steadily deteriorate. School children were promised schools so that their education would not suffer. Their dreams vanished instantly once this government was re-elected.
The university students were promised work; they were counting on this very much. It meant that they would be able to attend another year of university or college. Their dreams were shattered. What good are advanced learning facilities if you cannot afford to attend and are forced to adopt a welfare role and allow this government to drive you deeper into despair?
I know of several businesses that tried to hire a student and were told by government that they were not large enough to provide the proper job training.
This government has no idea of what creates wealth in this province. There are only two types of jobs in their minds: one is administrative, and the other is regulatory. That government is responsible for the death of common sense. The hon. Minister of Employment keeps harping about people needing a fair wage, and with good reason: so that the Minister of Finance can continue to remove more from their pockets as each day goes by. Ask anyone, and they'll tell you it's not how much you make; it's how much you take home that counts.
This government, I'm sorry to say, will be nothing more than a repeat of the last one. They make as many promises as they can during the election, knowing full well that they will all be broken. They become better and better with words. This government has a serious affliction: it is suffering from an acute case of verbal diarrhea.
Actions speak louder than words. It is time the people of this province see some action -- action they have been promised. As for those of us on this side of the floor who believe in the old-fashioned principles of honesty, integrity and accountability, who have worked so hard to try and return these
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principles to government, we have suffered greatly at the hands of this government. Voter apathy now reigns supreme because of the deception and corruption, the callous, uncaring, hypocritical attitude of this government.
An Hon. Member: Say what you mean, John. Don't hold back.
J. Wilson: You're right.
Many people in my riding are desperately in need of work. They are faced with losing everything they own. Many small contractors are unable to make their payments. It is infuriating to look around you at the opportunity of years of employment in the log salvage business, which is necessary to enhance forest health, only to be told that maybe next year we will have a program in place, and knowing full well that any district manager now has the ability to issue a cash sale at his or her discretion.
In the words of the Premier: "The voters told us to stop spending money, and we are going to listen to them." How original. If the voters asked this government to step in front of a bus, would they take their advice? Mr. Speaker, I believe that government should work for the people and not against them. I believe in actions and not political rhetoric.
I challenge this government to adopt a role that will meet the needs of the people of this province. I challenge this government to drop the approach of saying no to people when they attempt to develop opportunities and create employment. If this government is able to accept the challenge of a self-inflicted attitude adjustment and come away with a positive point of view, then it will be a pleasure to work with it and provide as much constructive criticism as possible. However, if they continue on their present course of political rhetoric, then the future during this term will indeed be bleak for the people of this province. It is my hope that the government of this province will stop and actually listen to what the people are saying. I am here to be part of the solution.
R. Kasper: It gives me great pleasure to rise during this budget debate. Before I start, I'd like to say a few things. The member for Cariboo North reminded me of the former member, Frank Garden, who actually did an incredible job representing his constituents. I know that prior to his being elected to this House in 1991, he was a very strong advocate on his local council. I wish Frank Garden well in his future.
Congratulations to all members, in particular the opposition. It's a clear demonstration of democracy in British Columbia that we have a good, strong opposition. I think that's important. I know I've had the opportunity to work with some members. The member for Saanich North and the Islands and I go back, during our terms in local government, to working together trying to solve problems on behalf of our respective constituents. I also note that the member for Parksville-Qualicum and I have had the opportunity to work on a number of occasions and on a number of local issues and as advocates of the Vancouver Island Highway project. I'm sure he appreciates that it's our government that started that project to make things happen in this province.
I am humbled by the fact that I was re-elected in 1996, this year. Just to show other members the appreciation I have for what the voters displayed to me, in 1991 I had a 940-vote margin; this year that went up slightly to just over 3,000 votes -- a 233 percent increase. Why did that happen? Why did the popular vote for our party go up 5 percent and for the Liberals down 5 percent, increasing the spread by 15 percent? I'll tell you why, hon. Speaker: it's because we built four new schools in Malahat-Juan de Fuca, because we started the Vancouver Island Highway project and because we made sure the priorities of the people in Malahat-Juan de Fuca were addressed. They sent the message loud and clear: "We like what you've done. We like the fact that this government paid attention to the needs and wants of constituents."
Unlike the Liberals: "No, no, no. Don't spend the money; don't spend the money." They never listen. During the election they wouldn't listen, and that's why the Liberal candidate lost support for the Liberal Party. Can you believe it? They thought they were on a tidal wave. Well, guess what: reality has set in. You're on that side of the House; we're on this side of the House. Get used to it -- four years. Sit tight. Don't get panicky.
We also created more parks than any other government in this province -- parks that protect the environment, parks for people. We did it, but what did you guys do? The Liberals on the other side of the House complained: "Too many parks; too many parks." Never again.
We also brought forest renewal. Forest renewal was there to make sure unemployed loggers were put back into the resource, to make sure there was reforestation and to make sure there was watershed rehabilitation. It's something that was very clearly demonstrated in my riding.
We also made sure that we worked with local communities. We sit there, listen to their concerns and present those concerns to government. That's why we got elected; that's why we formed government.
I want to talk about the budget. Key areas are tax breaks for the middle class and small business, a tuition freeze, frozen hydro rates, increased health care and education funding, and the B.C. Benefits program. Tax cuts for B.C. families: there's a 2 percent tax cut immediately, this year, for low- and middle-income families. Next year there's another 2 percent tax cut. That's good government. You guys talk about it, and all you can do is talk about it. This side of the House can act upon it and deliver; you'll never be able to deliver. It's this side of the House that makes things happen, and I'm proud to be on this side of the House.
Taxes will be frozen, and there will be no new tax increases to the year 2000. That's good government. I defy any member on that side of the House to vote against those tax freezes. When those tax freezes are brought forward into this House, you stand up and be counted. Are you going to vote against those? That's the question I and many others ask. Dare you vote against a tax freeze for ordinary British Columbians?
What is their definition of ordinary British Columbians? During the election campaign their interpretation of the average family income was $125,000. At many candidates' meetings I asked the question: "Will you please stand up?" Nobody stood up; they didn't dare -- none of them. It's not only low- or middle-income families that are going to get relief and tax breaks; it's also small business. I know: I spent ten years in small business -- my family, 35 years. So I have a bit of background, and I understand and appreciate the issues that small business brings forward in this province. It creates jobs; it creates incentive and employment opportunities for youth and for everybody. That's why there's a tax cut for small business.
It's not a 2 percent tax cut; it's not a 5 percent tax cut. It's a 10 percent tax cut. That's good government. I defy you: are you going to vote against that? Stand up and be counted. I hope they'll lend their support, because those are good initia-
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tives. The people in this province spoke. Those were the issues they presented both before and during the election campaign, and the Minister of Finance has presented that in his budget. I defy you to support that; I hope you will.
We're also making sure that health care and education are funded. There's an increase. I don't think anybody would deny increasing funding when the population and the need for those services increase. There's a 2.5 percent increase in funding over the 1995 levels, which will assist hospitals in reducing the waiting lists and dealing with the additional demands on our health care system. If you look at it historically, over the past four years health care funding increased by 23 percent. Not one other province in this country can match that. That's good government.
It's not only health care funding that has been increased; there's the increase in funding for our school system. School funding has gone up 3.5 percent this year. In my riding there is one school district where the funding was increased to make up for the shortfalls under previous governments in the 1980s, where the funding had increased at a rate which was twice that of the increase in population. We have members here who just can't stand hearing this good news. It sends a chill up their backs.
Well, let's talk about chill. Tuition fees are frozen; Hydro rates are frozen; ICBC rates are frozen. That's good news in this warm weather for B.C. constituents; they need that. But the hard reality is that it sends a chill up the backbones of those people on that side of the House. They can't tolerate the fact that we on this side of the House can make things happen.
[5:15]
An Hon. Member: No backbone there.
R. Kasper: I'm glad you said that. I just wonder if there is that there.
An Hon. Member: No chill.
R. Kasper: No? People said during the election that they were sick to death of the increases, so tuition fees, Hydro rates and ICBC rates were frozen. That will send a chill up your backs. We did it. You talk about it, but it's this side of the House that takes the action. It's this side of the House that governs. Get used to it.
The other thing I have to congratulate the Minister of Finance for bringing forward is the review of capital projects. That will affect the riding I represent. I'll be in the minister's face to make sure that portions of the Vancouver Island Highway get completed, that there are one or two additional schools built in my riding and that the extended-care health facility in my riding is built. I have to make sure those things happen.
But when that announcement was made, what did we hear from the Liberal side? We heard that it is untouchable. Prior to the election we were criticized for spending dollars on those capital projects: "Don't spend the money, don't spend the money." Then, when the announcement was made, what happened? "Spend the money. You can't do that; you can't go back on those things. We need those projects in our riding." A total flip-flop. You know, they're like a bunch of flapjacks. They're full of hot air. They become flat and stale within a few hours. They come in all varieties, shapes and sizes. Some are underdone and some are overdone, but very few come out just right. In many respects, it's like the policies on that side of the House -- not much, half-baked, full of hot air, flat and stale in a few hours, flip-flop, all sizes, all shapes. But that's what democracy is about. You can't have it both ways. You'll learn that. You'll have to stand up and be counted.
When members opposite are critical of the government's actions to review these
I want to talk about some issues. In this House, not that long ago, I got up and I spoke about WCB. I welcome the fact that there is going to be a commission -- or whatever you want to call it -- on the whole issue of WCB. In many respects, no stone should be left unturned. The WCB is corrupted with its authority and power over injured workers in this province, because it makes sure that its interests are protected and not the injured workers'. I know, because I have many injured workers in my riding. I think it's important that when this is done, no stone is left unturned.
You know, it's a bit much. I hear from constituents who -- after many years of trying to get through to a medical appeal panel, a review panel, on evidence that's brought forward, because there has been denial and because workers have had their rights taken away from them -- have had no money coming through. Then, when a decision is rendered by that board or commission, it takes three months to write the letter informing them of the decision. That's a scandal and that's wrong. There were changes made during the term of the last government. I don't think those changes went far enough, but I look forward to making sure that those are the kinds of issues that are addressed on behalf of injured workers in this province.
Another area I'd like to talk about is employment standards. I think that employment standards, which I know the Liberal Party had some major problems
An Hon. Member: You're understating.
R. Kasper: I'm understating. Sorry.
I feel that the legislation that was brought forward by the last government was good legislation, but there are a couple of things missing. There's a very strong lack of enforcement. That's for that very small percentage of rotten apples among the employers. The vast majority of employers in this province treat their workers well. They rely on their workers to do a good job, because if they do a good job, that sells goods, services and products; it keeps everybody in business. But the few who are the rotten
There's not enough education, either. I think all people, especially our students, should have some level of education about their rights, just like the employers. Those students, be they in high
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you've got laws, which I consider good laws, you need the others also: you need the enforcement; you need the education.
The other area I've had concern with is the Motor Carrier Commission. This might surprise some people on that side of the House. The Motor Carrier Commission is probably one of the most archaic entities in this province. It's absolutely unthinkable. There's a member, the critic, on the Liberal side who I look forward to working with. I understand that he has some background in the industry. I could be wrong, but I look forward, in my position as Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Transportation, to hearing those ideas that he may want to offer or bring forward. Quite frankly, I think that operation should be done away with. But if you do that, you've got to have some ground rules, and that's probably the most important thing. How far do you go, and what should the industry do? So that's the challenge, and I personally think that all members should give some thought to that. As a private member I spoke on that issue in the House during the last parliament, and I think I had established a good relationship with members opposite who had similar concerns and views about the Motor Carrier Commission. That's something that has to be dealt with: a lot of unnecessary red tape and bureaucratic mishmash. Ridiculous!
The other area I have a concern
Another area that's a great concern to my constituents is access to wood fibre. I've got a lot of small mill operators who want to make sure that they have a fair shake at the wood fibre that is available to them -- or not available, as is the case. They have a hard time getting out there and pumping up the bids, because a lot of the big corporations are backing somebody under the small business program. They pump up that value, and the poor guy who needs it is left high and dry. It's an insult to working people in my riding to see logs being shipped out of the riding and going to the opposite end of the Island or over to the lower mainland. There has got to be some tenure reform, some changes to the small business program. I'm talking about real changes, not a lot of fluff -- real changes that will address those concerns. The Minister of Agriculture, when he was a private member, chaired a committee on this whole question of value-added. When that committee made its report -- a unanimously adopted report -- it also looked at some of the issues concerning access to fibre. It's affecting a lot of people in this province.
Another area that I congratulate the government on is, under the previous Minister of Environment, implementing a complete review on the greater Victoria water district. The greater Victoria water district supplies all the water that all of us drink here. It has been fraught with a lot of the public's concerns and problems throughout the greater Victoria area. There are a lot of land use decisions and issues that have to be dealt with, and I welcome the results of that report.
I think it's important, though, that we pick up on something that we actually touched on in a ministerial statement, and that was dealing with the fisheries issue. That affects the riding I represent, which runs from Port Renfrew through to Sooke and swings all the way up through Cowichan Bay. There are a number of fishers who are both commercial and sport-recreational. I think everyone would
An Hon. Member: It's a shame.
R. Kasper: Yes, it's a bit of an insult. We have a process here that maybe we should be looking at. We heard from the Liberals that they support the minister's actions on getting more input and on the parties working together. I think they echoed the minister's statement of concern. But when it came down to the brass tacks, denial was granted to other members who felt that they could offer some assistance for this problem.
Let's get down to this issue. It's important that we recognize that in order for us to solve the problem, we've got to work together, not only on this side here, not just the parties, but people at the local community level and government to government. That just doesn't seem to be happening.
The Liberal cousins in Ottawa -- your
Interjections.
[5:30]
R. Kasper: They're not my cousins; they're your cousins. Your cousins have been making some pretty bizarre decisions, and I don't see you doing much about it. Hon. Speaker, I don't see much done about it on that side, but hopefully we'll get a resolution to that. It's important that those members work together to try to find a resolution for working communities that are going to be drastically affected by the plans that Ottawa has embarked
Interjections.
R. Kasper: I hear some gums flapping on the other side.
It's my hope to sort of carry on with some traditions. There are a lot of new members here, and there are some old members here. I think it's important that we try to come up with some problem-solving. I welcome some of the challenges that have been put out. The committees are perhaps going to do some more work together; we can find a way of resolving problems without being too partisan. You know, this place is not a nice place. Everybody's nice here, but this is not a nice place. It can be very vicious. I don't think that's what we on this side and you on that side are all about. I think we're all basically good people, and I look forward to working with you in a good working group. Hopefully we can solve the problems together.
I would like to close by again saying that hopefully we can work together. Hopefully we can do some problem-solving and come up with some solutions. When there are some good ideas presented by government, which deal with freezing tuition fees and Hydro rates, with increasing health care and the funding for our education system at the K-to-12
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level, with freezing taxes for low- and middle-income families and also with giving a 10 percent tax break to small business, all members can support those initiatives. It's important that we do not forget who we're here to represent: ordinary people -- the hard-working individuals who make up this province. Hon. Speaker, thank you very much for the opportunity of participating in this debate, and I look forward to working with all members.
Deputy Speaker: Thank you, member. I now recognize the member for Cowichan-Ladysmith to close debate.
J. Pullinger: It's my pleasure to stand in my place and speak in favour of this recently re-elected government's first budget. I am proud of this budget. I am very proud to support this budget, because it carries out and puts into effect the things that we promised prior to and during the election. In fact, it is the same budget that we campaigned on. When members opposite say that we've changed it, we can just look and say that this is the same budget. It's the same one we brought in before, and we've brought it back. I'm proud that we have carried through to the letter of our commitment.
This side of the House campaigned on a number of things in the last election. We stood up and said that we would represent the interests of the average working and middle-class family in this province. The average person in this province said that if we were going to represent them, we ought to give priority to health and education. I'm proud to say that not only did we do that for four years in our last term, but we're doing that again. That is perfectly clear in this budget, unlike the governments of Ontario and Alberta, which members opposite openly admire, which are slashing funding for health and education. Unlike their commitment to "outsource to the private sector" -- a euphemism to say they're going to create a two-tier medical system -- we are protecting medicare and health care, and we are going to continue to do that.
The NDP brought medicare to this country, and it is the NDP in this province, and in this country, that is protecting medicare and will continue to do so. So I am very pleased that this budget increases funding to reflect the growth in this province and provides new funding to look at the biggest issue that we have to look at, which is the reduction of waiting lists. We've made some significant progress. There is still much to do.
We campaigned on a promise to protect health and education, and we're doing that. We campaigned on a commitment to cut taxes for small business and for the average family, and this budget does that. The average person in this budget will get two tax
Interjections.
J. Pullinger: ....two tax cuts. I've been listening to them too long. The Liberals ran on a commitment to increase taxes for the most vulnerable among us.
Interjections.
Deputy Speaker: Excuse me, member. Could you take your seat, please.
The minister rises on a point of order.
Hon. D. Miller: I was having difficulty hearing the debate. There seems to be quite a number of people talking quite loudly all at once.
Deputy Speaker: Thank you, minister. We can all get through the proceedings much more smoothly if we can hear one another, so that's good advice. Continue please, member.
An Hon. Member: I know you want to hear of her tax increase.
J. Pullinger: This budget cuts taxes for small businesses, provides a tax holiday for two years for new small business, which is the economic engine and job creator in our economy. The focus of the cuts is for the average person, true to our commitment.
The other thing that I'm pleased to see in this budget is a continuation of our government's commitment and record in job creation. Over the past four years, rather than slashing jobs, as the Liberal plan would have done -- 41,000 an independent study says -- or like their federal cousins have done, this New Democrat government has worked hard with the private sector to create jobs. We have been very successful. Consistently for four years we have created more jobs than any other jurisdiction in this country. We plan to continue that record. Jobs are a top priority. We've demonstrated that, and we'll continue to do that. I'm pleased to see that our budget again makes that commitment clear.
An Hon. Member: Union jobs.
J. Pullinger: The Liberal member opposite says: "Union jobs." I hope so, because union jobs tend to minimize the difference between women and men. They tend to have decent wages. They have big enough paycheques that they can support their families and support small business. So I certainly hope so. But the members opposite clearly think having a decent-paying, family-supporting job is a terrible thing. That's part of the Liberal agenda. We all know that.
What we committed to in the campaign and prior to the campaign, we're delivering in this budget. I'm very pleased with that. We promised those things, and we're delivering on those promises. I want to talk a little about what the Liberals promised in the election and how that has looked to a lot of people. Maybe that's why they're on the other side of the House for another five years.
Before I do that, I just want to have a little look at that outdated, old economic theory called the trickle-down theory that underlies this neo-liberalism, which is an awful lot like the neo-conservatism that we have all had to deal with from Mulroney, have watched Alberta's Klein engage in, and now Mike Harris -- all those people the members opposite, the Liberal Party, admire so much. Let us just start with a little look at that economic theory.
First of all, that theory begins with the premise that government is inherently bad and that government, therefore, ought to be minimized at any cost. It says that everything should ideally be left to the whims and capriciousness of the marketplace, to private interests and to free enterprise. That's the underpinning of the other side.
Interjections.
J. Pullinger: The members opposite -- the Liberals -- are heckling and just simply underscoring what I'm having to say.
That is the premise that underlies the economic theory that underlies the Liberal platform in the last election. Let's just see how that looks when it's carried out. Of course, what's supposed to happen here is that if you feed and pour government resources, public resources, into that very thin top layer,
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the big corporations, the wealthiest among us -- in other words, those least in need of
Interjections.
J. Pullinger: Hon. Speaker, I'm having trouble hearing this member opposite; he continues to scream.
The theory is that if you pour resources into that thin layer at the top, it will somehow trickle down and provide jobs and an income for the rest of us.
Let's see how that looks when you take that ideology, that theory, which has been around forever. We heard it from Newt Gingrich in his so-called commonsense revolution -- that draconian agenda that the Americans are rejecting; we've seen it with Margaret Thatcher; we've seen it with Ronald Reagan; we see it in Alberta; we see it in Ontario. How does that agenda look? They're all based on that same set of principles, that same ideology.
In B.C. that looks like a $3 billion cut to spending and, at the same time, a $1 billion tax gift to the biggest corporations and the banks -- a massive, massive shift of resources from the average family, from working people, into the hands of corporations, and many of them aren't even based in this province. We're going to take our tax dollars and shovel them to the corporations. That's the first thing we do.
[The Speaker in the chair.]
The second thing you hear about after that massive shift is regulation. "Let's get government off the backs of business." [Applause.] Look at the applause! Thank you. Obviously I'm right on target in this, hon. Speaker. What that means -- and we've heard that in this Legislature before -- is mining in the parks, getting rid of environmental review processes and getting rid of things like the Forest Practices Code. Of course, we've had a commitment to gut all the legislation that protects our farmland, etc. That's one kind of regulation that we're talking about.
The other kind of regulation we're talking about protects workers and their families, ensuring that they have a fair share in the wealth created in this province. Those people create the wealth; those people should have a fair share in it. And those are the other regulations that the Liberals say ought to be cut.
What we see then is Bob Plecas, who wrote -- guess what -- Bill 19. Hired as an adviser to the Liberals, Bob Plecas was the architect of Bill 19. Isn't that surprising? We see a strong objection -- today, yesterday, four years ago -- consistently by the Liberals to any piece of legislation that protects the average and middle-class working person in this province. Every piece of legislation is objected to in the most vehement means possible from that other side of this House.
They have objected to a fair and balanced labour code that was written by a committee of business and labour. They object to employment standards that provide the most minimum protection to thousands of workers -- notably women who work in private homes, farmworkers and mostly women who, up to that time, had no minimum protection under the law. They objected to that. They object to having a decent minimum wage. In fact, they have promised to roll it back so that it will not only be difficult to survive on the minimum wage but it will, again, be impossible to survive on the minimum wage. Those are the kinds of regulations they're talking about. We hear it again and again and again. So let's be very clear.
Let's move to ask what the expected result of this great trickle-down theory is. Well, they tell us that if we shift the resources to the top, get rid of all that nasty environmental and labour legislation
[5:45]
But you know what? We did that in the 1980s in British Columbia, and we were last coming out of the recession -- dead last. Not only were we dead last with that kind of ideology, which created more bankruptcies in the 1980s than we'd seen for years, but we drove unemployment up to 14.4 percent. Absolutely unacceptable! We saw the minimum wage go down. We saw the gap between the haves and the have-nots in this province -- and in fact across the country, because Brian Mulroney was doing the same thing nationally -- widen faster than it has in any decade in our history.
So, and not surprisingly, we have a generation of young people who grew up in that and survived the eighties but were basically without hope in 1991. Some 20,000 students a year were being turned away from our post-secondary educational institutions. We had trailers and portables growing like mushrooms in the schoolyards, because we built nothing in the 1980s, based on that agenda that we're hearing today. The minimum spending was $24 million; the average was $60 million. That hardly changes the doorknobs on our school system. It was absolutely outrageous.
Obviously, we've seen the same thing happen in the United States, only worse. We've seen the same thing happen in Britain. We saw New Zealand in this great economic experiment, based on that same ideology, go from a country that had virtually no unemployment, virtually no crime -- a very solid, egalitarian, prosperous country -- go that exact same agenda. We saw a 40 percent increase in poverty; we saw massive increases in crime; we saw massive increases in unemployment, and, of course, they no longer owned their resources, their communications or any of that other important public infrastructure
Interjections.
J. Pullinger: When the Liberals settle down, I'll continue. We
Interjections.
J. Pullinger: ....some basic courtesy.
Interjection.
J. Pullinger: I'm on my feet, hon. member. Hon Speaker, would you shut them up.
The Speaker: It seemed to me that the member was doing rather well without any assistance. I'll just remind
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J. Pullinger: In any case, in New Zealand we've seen, as I've said, poverty rise, crime rise, homelessness rise, unemployment rise and social disruption rise. Of course, profits rose and incomes for the very wealthiest rose. But we've seen a terrible erosion: a culture erosion, environmental legislation erosion, social legislation erosion. That experiment is deemed to be a success by the people opposite and others like them who believe in that ideology, but the majority of New Zealanders think it has been an abysmal failure, and I would offer that people in Canada -- in Alberta and in Ontario -- are coming to that very same conclusion.
I want to touch ever so briefly on just one other small issue. That is the issue of integrity that we hear so much about from the members opposite. We hear from the members opposite all about integrity. They are sanctimonious in the extreme. Yet we never hear them talk about their leader and Moody's, their leader and Atlas Travel or their leader and the VLC -- where they were supposed to create 2,000 housing units a year, and seven years later they've created 1,000.
We don't hear about the big shift when their leader was mayor of Vancouver, where they fired health care workers in order to give bigger bunches of money to the corporate sector in Vancouver. We don't hear about that; they don't tell the public. They don't remind the public about all of those backroom deals to secure nominations they wanted, over the wishes of the membership before the election.
They don't talk about the backroom deals in the election. They wanted to be government, and they were cutting deals all over the place behind closed doors. That's their kind of antics. But I think the worst kind of unethical behaviour I saw in the election
The deception continues. They continue to say they are going to represent women, when they want to get rid of the Ministry of Women's Equality and cut $3 billion out of services. They say they are going to look after seniors, when their tax cuts will give over $1 million a year to a pulp mill in my riding; but they will increase property taxes for low-income seniors and modest homes. That's what they are saying. They are saying they are going to look after the interests of the average person, when they are talking about a $275 million cut to transit. Who uses transit? Women, single mothers, seniors and low-income people, primarily. Who is going to pay for that half-billion-dollar cut from municipal grants? According to a 1993 letter from the Leader of the Opposition, they'll either raise municipal taxes or cut services. The people with big cars and lots of them don't care; it's the low-income person, the average person, that it will hit. That's the commitment they made. But they are saying they will look after their interests.
They said they were going to increase post-secondary education funding by 14 percent. Guess what: their own economic plan demonstrated they were going to cut not only teachers over the long term but also post-secondary education by 5 percent. How does cutting post-secondary education funding by 5 percent, driving up tuition fees and closing down access -- like we saw in the 1980s, when this same plan was implemented -- look after young people and the average worker?
What about the end to social housing? When the federal Liberals cut all funding for social housing, we were the only province left building social housing. You can bet your bottom dollar that would be gone, just like it is in Ontario. You can't cut $3 billion, give another $1 billion to the big corporations and do all of these things. It doesn't add up.
I think that that kind of talking out of both sides of your mouth is reprehensible. I am so pleased that 60 percent of the population of this province saw through it and elected this government. Although we made mistakes -- I make no bones about that -- we acted on our commitments last time, we are acting on our commitments this time, and this budget demonstrates that we will carry through with precisely the commitments we made prior to the election.
I want to close my comments by saying that this side of the House campaigned on protecting health and education, and this budget does that. This side of the House -- New Democrats -- campaigned on making jobs a top priority again, and this budget does that. We campaigned on freezing taxes, not for the elite and not in two years, but for average middle-income families and small business now, and we're doing that. This budget does that.
We said that we would provide opportunities for youth, and this budget does that. We said that we would listen to British Columbians, and in the election people said: "Yes, we want to build B.C. We don't want the extreme program of the Liberals, where we'll build nothing, like we did in the 1980s, and create a massive social deficit. We want a balance." Despite the fact that we have the lowest per capita debt in the country, we listened to that concern, and we're going to review spending to make sure we find that balance.
We also said that we will continue our record of fiscal responsibility, continue to have the best credit rating in the country, continue to have the second-lowest overall tax rate in the country, continue to have the lowest per capita debt in the country, continue to see record investment, record exports, record mining exploration, etc., and continue to lead the way -- and we're doing that.
I am proud to stand in my place today and support this budget. If all the members opposite meant anything they said about protecting health and education, working for young people, and job creation, they'll stand up and support it, too.
With that, I would like to adjourn this debate.
J. Pullinger moved adjournment of the debate.
Motion approved.
Hon. J. MacPhail: I'd like to take a moment to advise the House that we'll be sitting tomorrow. With that, I move that the House do now adjourn.
Hon. J. MacPhail moved adjournment of the House.
Motion approved.
The House adjourned at 5:56 p.m.