[ Page 2177 ]

The House resumed at 6:38 p.m.

[The Speaker in the chair.]

S. Hawkins: Since it's my first opportunity to rise in the House to speak, I would like to thank my constituents for their patience in the past few months as I learned my new role as their MLA and how to deal with constituency issues. I'd also like to extend my gratefulness to my constituency assistant, Del La Marre, for all of her hard work and efforts on behalf of our constituents.

Tonight I rise to debate the interim supply that the government is asking for. I have some serious concerns about debating this very important issue at the eleventh hour before a long weekend. As has been mentioned by previous speakers, this House had the opportunity to sit last fall, through the winter or earlier this year, and this government has chosen the last few days in the last month before the end of the budget year and has left no opportunity to engage in responsible debate, to raise constituency issues, to make sure that this money is going to be spent responsibly and appropriately.

This government hasn't budgeted properly for the past six years. We've seen six successive deficit budgets. I heard someone say that at least they've been consistent. We are now going to see a seventh deficit budget, and they're asking this House -- they're asking members on this side -- to give them the confidence, to extend them spending authority for the next three months. They made promises of a balanced budget last year. They boasted of a surplus. That didn't take place. Within a week of tabling that budget, they announced a deficit.

How do we know that what they're proposing in this budget next year will actually happen? It certainly didn't come to fruition last year. I'm a strong believer that past performance is a very strong indicator of future performance. Just keeping that in mind, I have reservations about giving this government any confidence in the spending that they're asking for.

I heard the other side of the House talking about a lot of good news. I wonder what papers they've been reading; I wonder what TV stations they've been watching and what radio stations they've been listening to. I wonder if they've even been listening to anyone in British Columbia. In fact, they don't want to listen. They don't want to know, because they won't like what they hear.

Let me tell you what's happened in my constituency over the past few months under the continued mismanagement of this NDP government. Let's talk about municipal off-loading. Let's talk about municipal grants totalling $113 million in 1997 that were unilaterally and arbitrarily cut by this NDP government -- absolutely no consultation whatsoever with municipalities -- after they signed an agreement last September. They signed an agreement last September to consult. Imagine that! They were going to bring these communities into the consultation process. And despite signing the agreement with the municipalities that they would consult, guess what happened. They didn't consult with them, and they off-loaded $113 million of extra burden onto municipalities.

That means people and families in my constituency, seniors in my constituency, will suffer from decreased funding. That means homeowners, renters and small businesses will be forced into increased taxes and cuts to services. Good news? I think not.

In my constituency this NDP government also reneged on several other agreements. Surprise! A 1994 agreement with the Okanagan Basin Water Board to provide $450,000 worth of Eurasian milfoil funding over five years has been cut to less than half. Good news for my constituents? I think not.

The NDP walked away from a 20-year-old amalgamation agreement with the city of Kelowna that provided for maintenance of roads and sharing of policing costs. Good news for my constituents? As my niece would say: "Not!"

Agriculture funding has been cut -- significantly reduced -- and has put many of the tree fruit farmers in our valley in a bind over the tree fruit replant program. Good news for farmers in my constituency? I don't think so.

Government services that the public pays for through their taxes have also seen cuts in my constituency, in the way of office closures: the government agent's office in Kelowna, which was known and shown to be the busiest office in the province. I have a very high percentage of seniors in my riding. There were over 200,000 transactions taking place in that office -- and guess what. The largest community outside of Hope had its government service office cut, and now my seniors travel an hour through winter driving conditions, through winding roads, through rain this spring, for services that the government promised to provide. I asked the Premier to come and see what kind of roads these seniors have to travel on in the winter -- we had an awful winter this past winter -- but he chose not to do that. Good news for my constituency? I don't think so.

I think it must just be good news in the NDP constituencies. It's definitely not good news for a community made up largely of seniors who must travel an hour for services that people in other urban areas -- and perhaps constituents in NDP ridings -- take for granted. I ask you: where's the consultation? Where's the rationale or the heart in these decisions? No one asked my community if these services were needed or needed to be cut.

[6:45]

Besides the cuts and broken promises, my constituency is also feeling the impact of government regulation in the forest industry. As a result of this government's regulatory policies, people are very concerned about the viability and sustainability of the forest industry in the Okanagan. The Forest Practices Code, with its elaborate bureaucratic system -- built in B.C., built by the NDP and its revenue-driven stumpage system -- has put many forest jobs in jeopardy. Good news? I don't think so -- not even for NDP ridings. Those members sitting opposite are representing ridings that are resource-driven, that are. . . .

An Hon. Member: We'll be talking about it, don't worry.

S. Hawkins: They're talking about it, but they sure aren't listening, those members opposite.

Good news for forest workers? I think not.

Let's talk about this government's record for a moment. I mentioned it before. They promised a balanced budget. In six years, they've managed to table six deficit budgets. They have never seen a balanced budget. In fact, we're promised a balanced budget not next year but maybe the year after. Just like I

[ Page 2178 ]

said, I like to judge future performance by past behaviour, and I can tell you this government has been very consistent. We're going to see a seventh deficit budget next year, and we'll probably see an eighth. They keep promising balanced budgets, but I submit to you they don't know what that is. They've never seen one, they've never been able to prepare one, and they've certainly never delivered one.

But you know, as usual, it's not going for any of that. We see 5,500 forestry jobs lost. Do we see a penny of this money going. . .? Do we see this government extend a hand through Forest Renewal for funding for these workers? No, this fund is going to pay for this government's mistakes, for their budget gaffes and for bureaucrats in Victoria. That's what this fund has been used for, and that's why I can't support extending any more money for this government's mismanagement. Once again, the NDP government has shown that they say one thing and they do another -- over and over and over again.

Let's talk about health care waiting lists. They kept announcing all this money: $28 million last May, another $1 million in November, and another $6.5 million was offered again. They said: "Waiting lists are going down, and we're managing it." But you know what the facts showed? And the facts came from that side of the House; they were their own facts. The facts showed that last March the waiting list for cardiac surgery was 300 patients. In December, nine or ten months later, it was 500. It grew by 200 people. Now, how does that happen? They were going to manage it. They were pouring millions and millions of dollars into it. Where did that money go? They were going to reduce waiting lists. They were not successful; they haven't done it. They have not protected health care for cardiac patients.

Today they announce an increase in ambulance fees. Now, it's not a person's choice to go to hospital. It's not a person's choice to have a cardiac arrest or choke at home -- or a child in an anaphylactic attack or a senior who collapses at home. It's not their choice. But do you know what? They're going to have to pay more to call an ambulance to take them to the hospital.

An Hon. Member: Shame!

S. Hawkins: It is a shame. It's a very sad statement. It's a tax on the sick. Last week, or the week before, they announced a tax on the dead, and now they're going to announce a tax on the sick. It is sick.

Hearing-aid fees have also increased today. We heard, anyway, that they're increasing. So they're even deaf to the needs of the hearing-impaired. Where does this stop? It's a money grab for a desperate government. They're looking everywhere for money. We see angling fees for fishermen go up. We see probate fees for widows and widowers go up. We see higher propane taxes. We see gambling coming in. We see no-fault insurance. We see this government taking away victims' rights. We see this government. . . . What will they do next? In the famous words of an honourable minister on that side of the House: "Government can do anything."

How are they able to do this? By not listening to the people of B.C.? Well, government can do anything. They don't have to consult with communities. They don't have to communicate with organizations. But this government -- those members on that side of the House -- live by the dictum uttered by the Minister of Forests in his famous words: "Government can do anything." And they have shown that they can and they will, and that's a shame.

They promised a balanced budget; they didn't do it. They promised to reduce the debt; they didn't do that. They promised to reduce the deficit; they've never been able to do that. They promised not to introduce new taxes -- I just listed a whole bunch; they weren't able to keep that promise. They failed over and over again to keep their promises. Time after time. This government can't do anything that they promise. We've seen that. What they do show us is that they can mismanage, they can miscalculate, they can mislead and they can certainly miss opportunities.

The majority of the public, when polled, feel that this government set its agenda on the basis of fraud and deceit. The people of B.C. entrusted this government with protecting the financial future of the province so that we could protect programs like health and education. This government has shown us that they failed to do this over and over again. Instead, they increased the debt load on the average B.C. family by $1,500. They put B.C.'s credit rating at risk, and they have robbed us of the chance of a debt-free future for our children and grandchildren. And I think that's a real shame.

This government has demonstrated how irresponsible and incompetent it is, and how incapable it is of managing the public purse six years in a row now. That's the only consistent thing they've done: deliver a deficit budget and increase our debt. They have nothing to be proud of as they carry on with their shameful legacy. On behalf of my constituents, I cannot in any way support extending any kind of confidence in this government or say yes to the interim supply that they ask for.

L. Reid: It intrigues me that this week was also the week of the Sixty-ninth annual Academy Awards. When you take a look at the list and try and bring it in line with what we're debating today, which is whether or not this government should have access to additional revenue, the question we must ask is: has this government ever budgeted appropriately? Tying this back to where we are and the Academy Awards. . . . In the form of our Minister of Finance -- in Jerry Maguire, the best supporting actor: "Give me the money. . . ." That's what this is about: "Give me the money. I don't want any accountability for it. I don't want to deliver any measurement tools. I don't want to be responsible for the actions. Just give me the money."

In terms of where the Premier falls into this list of Academy Award winners, it's the original song by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice, "You Must Love Me." This Premier is arrogant in the extreme when he talks about not delivering accountability to the people. It is an ego trip of the highest order when this Premier refuses to come before this Legislature and be accountable. That's an issue. The best documentary was When We Were Kings. It probably starred the Premier and the Deputy Premier.

Honestly, there are issues today where this government has to sit in this chamber and be accountable. That is what special warrant spending is about. That is what we are here debating this evening. I don't see that accountability. Frankly, I haven't seen it over the past six years that I have sat as a member in this chamber. That disheartens me, because what it

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says is that these parliamentarians don't respect the process, don't believe that the democratic process shall prevail. That is what special warrant spending is -- it's sidestepping the democratic process. It's not on.

Mr. Speaker, I would draw your attention to the current BC Business article, in the March issue. I will quote. It refers to the current Premier:

"He has managed to sidestep his dismal record as Harcourt's tax-and-spend Finance minister by focussing on what he billed as the NDP's fiscal prowess in producing two consecutive balanced budgets, and promises to cut the size of government."

We know that's not true. You know that's not true, hon. members of the government. Certainly we have the documents to prove that. This is not assertion on our part; this is fact. This is fact that must be addressed by every single member of this chamber.

The article goes on:

"It was an amazing turnaround for a man who, three years previously, increased provincial sales tax, hit high-income earners with higher taxes, increased the tax on alcohol, widened the capital tax to include most corporations and imposed a school property surtax on residential properties worth more than $500,000 -- withdrawn a week later because British Columbians stood up and said no. This government needs to heed that advice, because British Columbians today will be saying no more frequently."

Again, it is my contention that this was a bogus election:

"Very early in the pre-election period it became clear to Clark's inner team that economic performance had sagged to the point where it would not provide a platform on which the NDP could campaign for re-election. Revenue figures were down and the budget was heading for a substantial deficit. The spin doctors agreed that the only way to avoid the budget becoming a major issue and forcing Clark onto the defensive was to revise the revenue forecast upwards, which happened last February."

Again, the facts are clear, and we have the documentation to support this article, to support the contentions found within. This says that this Premier took a decision, knowing full well that the facts did not support the decision he took. Today he would come to us and ask us to trust and to provide special warrant spending, to trust that he's going to spend those dollars appropriately. Based on past performance, that is not likely to happen. Our role in government is to safeguard those dollars, to scrutinize that expenditure, and that simply is not possible, based on this Premier's past performance.

The article continues, hon Speaker:

"It was an undeniably desperate effort at spin control, without which the NDP would probably have lost the last election. The facts speak for themselves. Mistruths were uttered frequently and, frankly, it worked. Finance minister Elizabeth Cull presented a provincial budget on April 30 which projected an $87 million surplus. She boasted that the previous year's books closed with a surplus. Later in the day, Clark called the election. Two days after delivering his budget, on June 28. . . ."

[7:00]

The Speaker: Excuse me, member. I hesitate to interrupt you, but on two occasions now you called a member by first name. You know from your experience in the chamber that that's not allowed, so please don't do that.

L. Reid: I respect your ruling, hon. Speaker. However, they were quotes. I am quoting what is in this article.

The Speaker: I'm sorry, member. Please take your seat.

Let's establish clearly what the rules are. There seems to be some confusion, so I'm going to ask the member's indulgence very briefly, if I might, to explain that. Whether one is quoting another source or not is irrelevant. The rule is very clear that we do not refer to members by their first names -- or their Christian names, I should say. If that wasn't clear to members, I am sorry; I thought everybody knew that. Please, let's live by those rules and conduct ourselves accordingly.

Thank you, member. I appreciate your time.

L. Reid: Two days after delivering his budget, this Finance minister broke ranks and disclosed to a reporter in Victoria that the 1995-96 budget had closed with a $200 million deficit.

Tying that to the request before us today, which is to grant this government special warrant spending, interim supply. . . . It's based on whether or not we can believe the information we've received in the past. We have proven that that is not possible, so why would we suddenly acquire a huge trust in the government benches? That is the question today, and it speaks very strongly to issues of credibility.

And it's not just the government whose credibility is at stake; it's the province of British Columbia. It alarms me that this government doesn't get that part. They are not just damaging themselves, they are choosing to mire the entire populace of British Columbia in a debt-and-deficit mistruth. They haven't told the truth. The facts speak to that, and the documents speak to that. I find it offensive that my province -- its credibility, its reputation -- is somehow being jeopardized by people who make political decisions to save their own skin.

That is exactly what transpired in this bogus election, hon. Speaker, and it's what has transpired following the election. Today somehow we're supposed to put that behind us and somehow believe that we can now trust these individuals. I can't do that; I don't intend to do that. My caucus colleagues and I will do our absolute best to hold these individuals to account, because they are damaging something that is very precious to all of us, which is the future of the province of British Columbia. This is about believing the numbers.

The article goes on for many pages, referring to the Premier's shattered image. I will make one last quote:

"Reporters uncovered the evidence that the balanced budget was due to revisions apparently ordered by the Premier and his insiders before the election, to allow the Premier to put a more positive spin on the economic outlook than was justified. It soon emerged that the current budget was also deep in deficit, and the entire basis of this Premier's election began unravelling. He couldn't escape the consequences of a win-at-any-cost election campaign. His straight-shooter image went into free fall, plunging in the polls as opponents accused him of lying to the voters."

What has changed today? Not very much, I would say. This government was not willing -- it was certainly able, but it was not willing -- to provide this opposition with the documentation. We had to request that information through freedom of information, then the government had the audacity to question the cost of this opposition -- the members on this side of the House -- securing that information. When you play fast and loose, and somebody counters with the facts, you can't suggest that the methodology by which they acquired them was somehow flagrant. It doesn't make common sense. What we're being asked to do today is give up common sense and grant more dollars to this government, when they've not been accountable in the past.

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The last line in the article says: "There is a lesson here. Image without substance has no shelf life." We've been at this a number of months. I can only trust that when this government come to their cabinet table and come back to this chamber, they do so with some credibility -- that they search within their souls for some sense of personal integrity. I can't imagine that every single person on that side of the House believes that what happened was the decent way to treat the electorate; I can't imagine that people believe that. There has to be some conscience on that side of the House. There has to be some soul-searching going on by a number of members of the government bench.

There are some honest people in this chamber. Most of them, unfortunately, appear to reside on the opposition benches. I believe that this government needs to come clean when it asks for dollars, and I believe that it needs to do so today.

Interjection.

L. Reid: If this member wishes to rise to his feet and indicate that he is prepared to respond, I would be absolutely delighted.

In the last number of months, I have read many, many news releases that this government has issued, which start out saying: "This is a straight fairness issue." What in the world would this government know about that? They've been unfair to British Columbians in the way they've treated them. It is not a situation where they can come before us and tell us that they know what's best, when they haven't been truthful.

The Institute of Chartered Accountants wants this budget to more clearly disclose the breadth and depth of budgeting assumptions. That's what we want when we talk about special warrant spending.

The Speaker: The Attorney General, on. . .?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: A point of order.

Hon. Speaker, I don't mean to cause any prolonging of the debate. It is my understanding that you can't call any single member of the House dishonest or untruthful. If you can't call any single member of the House dishonest or untruthful, I don't know whether you can call the whole collective side of this House untruthful or dishonest. The member who just spoke just finished saying that. I take exception to that.

The Speaker: I thank the minister for his intervention. The rules regarding unparliamentary language are fairly clearly specified in standing order 40 and in MacMinn's commentary thereon. I would just caution all members to please be as respectful as one possibly can of one's colleagues across the aisle. I don't think that any of us are well served by constant points of order, and I would caution both sides to please not get into that process. But I accept the minister's caution, and I'm sure the member for Richmond East will take it in the spirit in which it was intended. I ask her to please proceed.

L. Reid: I'm going to refer to the president of the Institute of Chartered Accountants, Mr. Doug Enns, because he talks about the tangible restoration of public confidence in the budgeting process. That, frankly, is what this is about. This is about whether or not British Columbians can believe in the process that this government will undertake -- certainly in the next six or seven months as we debate the estimates, but again following the next budget.

There has to be a belief system in place that says the information they receive is the same information that will be found in the documents that both sides of the House should have access to. That is what I speak of when I suggest that this is a bigger issue than tarnishing the reputation of government. This tarnishes the reputation of British Columbia. This is an issue of integrity, and I certainly wish to come back to that.

My hon. colleague from Okanagan West spoke about downloading to municipalities. That is not something that makes sense if a government truly understands which are provincial responsibilities and which are local governance responsibilities. I would suggest that this government again doesn't get that part of the discussion.

Interjection.

L. Reid: There have to be ways for the government to be very clear.

For the hon. colleague across the floor, let's look at the justice question. Justice is a provincial responsibility: yes or no, hon. member? It is, hon. member. It is a responsibility that should be borne solely by the provincial government, and that has not happened. This government has again shirked the responsibility, asking for more dollars in interim supply. We're not convinced on this side of the House that those dollars will be spent appropriately. That is a significant issue.

The courthouse question. It is exploitation of local communities. There's no question about that. If this Attorney General truly believes that it is a provincial responsibility, he will rethink the decisions that allowed him to suggest that those costs should be borne by municipalities. It's not an appropriate decision, and it doesn't suggest that this government understands where their provincial responsibility lies. Perhaps we need some kind of grid that talks about what now qualifies as a provincial responsibility. Indeed, is it going to continue to be as arbitrary as it has been in the past? Frankly, that's not support for local decision-making. That's utter exploitation. Let's think about it from a consistent perspective. Why is it appropriate to regionalize hospitals and centralize courthouses? Perhaps this government caucus could have some discussions about the mixed messages they send, because that is indeed a mixed message.

Earlier, I touched on what I believed to be untenable arrogance on behalf of this government. I do believe they played fast and loose with the numbers in this discussion. It's not acceptable. It's not fair to the citizens who reside in this province. Some credible plan is required.

In the words of Suromitra Sanatani of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business for British Columbia and the Yukon: "Public-private partnerships are not understood by this government." They talk about harnessing the entrepreneurial spirit. That's the best exhibition that they don't understand the topic. It's not harnessing the entrepreneurial spirit; it's unleashing the entrepreneurial spirit. It's not about asking government to control further what is best left alone. Again, this has to be one of the biggest divisions between what is free enterprise and what is completely misunderstood. It's absolutely wrongheaded. Let's unleash the free enterprise spirit within British Columbia, because right now it's not an issue that any members of the government currently understand.

These New Democrats, in our view, are fixated on the notion that they understand fiscal responsibility and fiscal

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management -- you know, walk out words like "prudent fiscal management." But we have, frankly, not seen it. Implementation has always been troublesome for this government. Some of the better ideas have gone awry as a result of shockingly poor implementation.

This government, in our view, doesn't have significant policies to tackle the deficit. The plan changes rapidly and continuously. Three strikes and you're out -- it happens in sports. They missed their targets yet again. Let's hope they move on, because it's not in the best interests of British Columbia.

I want to see a plan to govern. I haven't seen it, not in the last six years. We've seen plans for money grabs, for tax grabs, for calling a fee anything but a tax. When is a tax not a tax? In British Columbia, it's when you call it a fee, a licence, an increase, a surtax. This government has the language. But they don't have what we believe is integral to the exercise, which is fairness in the process. The language allows you to massage it beyond recognition. But the individuals who are waiting to hear something reasonable, relevant and useful from this government will be waiting quite some time.

One of the most interesting little news clips I saw was your Premier, hon. Speaker, coming into his NDP convention to suggest that the party would not take corporate donations, after that discussion had just been had on your convention floor. The folks are not in touch; that message is permeating widely through this province.

[7:15]

I have a particular interest in the issue of science, technology and research. A recent article talks about science and technology taking a significant hit at the hands of this government and their fiscal policies. When he was Employment minister, this Premier said his government "was committed to strengthening the technology sector, because it can generate wealth and high-paying jobs." Yesterday the Premier's government weakened the commitment, announcing $6.5 million in cuts to the funding support for science and technology in fiscal 1997-98. The support budget this year is worth $25.8 million. The cuts will hit the Science Council of B.C., which receives $12 million from the Employment ministry. The actual impact may not be known until the next spring, and maybe not even then if we don't get the correct documentation. It's not appropriate. If this New Democrat government is prepared to stand on its principles, one of its principles used to be that it would support science, technology and research -- that it understood what a significant contributor it could be to the economy of this province. Obviously it's gone. It saddens me greatly that it doesn't seem to be important.

I can tell you that it's not just this parliament. It's parliaments around the world that realize that measurement is the future, that benchmarking -- how people measure success by government in the delivery of public policy -- is an issue that every single parliament will need to come to grips with. I will refer to the thirty-eighth Commonwealth Parliamentary Association conference and one of the papers tabled at that presentation: "The responsibility of democratically elected parliaments to ensure that governments practise sound financial management and promote stable economic development...." That is a goal that parliaments across this land and across this world are attempting to achieve. This New Democrat government seems to believe it's not a goal that it too should have as probably its number one priority: to spend the dollars appropriately, to collect the dollars appropriately and then to report on the successes of those projects. As the critic for science, technology and research, I know that I am waiting for the measurement.

There have been a number of studies that have been begun by this government but have not seen the light of day. We can assume that they did not provide the desired outcome and, as such, have been buried. Or we can assume that at some point we will actually receive them under freedom of information. It seems to me that any time a study is conducted with taxpayers' dollars, with public funds, those documents should be in the public domain.

I want to end with a story, because I think it's absolutely appropriate to today's discussion. There was once a young shepherd boy who tended his sheep at the foot of a mountain in a dark forest. It was rather lonely for him all day, so he thought upon a plan by which he could get a little company and some excitement. He rushed down toward the village calling out: "Wolf! Wolf!" The villagers came out to meet him, and some of them stopped with him for a considerable time. This pleased the boy so much that a few days afterward he tried the same trick, and again the villagers came to his help.

But shortly after this, a wolf actually did come out of the forest and began to worry the sheep. Of course, the boy cried "Wolf! Wolf!" still louder than before. But this time, the villagers who had been fooled twice before thought the boy was deceiving them again, and nobody stirred to come to his help. So the wolf made a good meal of the boy's flock. And when the boy complained, the wise men of the village said: "A liar will not be believed even when he speaks the truth, because there is no way of telling when that time has come."

The Speaker: Seeing no further speakers, I recognize now the Minister of Finance, whose words will close debate.

Interjection.

The Speaker: I'm sorry. My apologies to that corner -- I have done this before.

R. Neufeld: Thank you, hon. Speaker. I guess I'm going to have to start heckling a little louder to remind you that there are people down at this end of the hall, or maybe send you a pair of my old glasses.

I rise to speak to Bill 5, to interim supply, with a bit of regret. The member for Peace River South laid out a plan that I think this Legislature should lean to in dealing with interim supply. Like him, I don't have much problem with interim supply. I just think the way we go about it is wrong. I think we should be here earlier in the winter debating what is going to happen and what dollars are going to be spent through the estimates process. Then, when the fiscal year ends on March 31, the money would be approved, and we would carry on. Given that, I am going to speak a little about interim supply and what's in the government's plan for the coming year.

But first I want to quote from an hon. member who is not a member of the House anymore but who occupied the chair that you do presently, Mr. Speaker, and that is the Hon. Emery

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Barnes. When he spoke about interim supply while in opposition, he was very clear in what he said, and I think we should all take heed. What he said is: "Clearly, interim supply is a political tactic designed. . .to subvert the democratic process and to deny the opposition an opportunity for relevant debate before funds are spent." I can see no reason that we should consider this bill at all, quite frankly. I think we should really take that to heart.

I want to take you back a bit to 1992. We witnessed the sitting of the first NDP government in many years, unfortunately. But part of their process, part of their manifesto, was open and honest government. It was number one, I believe, of 40 promises: open and honest government. Another one was no friends and insiders. That was under a different leader, a leader who in fact did live up to those commitments more than what we see happening today. That's unfortunate, because what it tells one is that as governments get re-elected, they get more arrogant and more forceful. They force on us their own opinion, which always seems -- as they think -- to be the right opinion.

We've had the Whip from the government side talk to us. We had other folks talk to us, and some heckling about we should rather. . . . The reason we're here in this short time frame is that last week was spring break. We couldn't be here then, because shouldn't we all be home with our families?

Hon. Speaker, there are many men and women in my constituency who worked through spring break, and those are the folks who pay the bill. Those are the folks who are paying the high income tax, paying the 7 percent sales tax on almost everything, and the increased fees -- you name it. Those folks are out there working hard so that the province can continue to operate. Yet we have such a lame excuse -- that it was spring break and we should be home with our children. Now, that might be a little easier for me to say, because my children are a little older. But if you went to my constituency and told any one of those men or women who work in the oil and gas industry or the forest industry, "You don't have to go to work because it's spring break," they would look at you like you were nuts. They'd say: "I've got a job to do, and I've got to get that job done." And that's what we should be doing. It is absolutely ridiculous to come in here on a Monday and listen to a throne speech, on a Tuesday listen to a budget, and on a Thursday night at 7:30 debate interim supply and the warrants. It's circumventing the legislative responsibilities of every member of this House. It's an absolutely arrogant way to do it. It's pushing on others what you believe should be done as a government. You continually think that you're right and everyone else is wrong; you never want to listen, you never want to take constructive criticism -- good criticism -- of any kind. You're right and everyone else is wrong.

Interjection.

R. Neufeld: I hear an "oh" from over there. Those folks that were elected along with me in 1991 will remember very clearly the holier-than-thou attitude from across the way -- from every one of those members who were elected in 1991 -- about the terrible Socreds. I was one of them, and I sat there and took that from this group that was going to be lily-white clean. We were finally going to see good government. And what have we seen? We have seen nothing but a financial mess in this province, nothing but deception -- I hope that's the correct word to use. It never ceases to amaze me how these folks over here can think that way, but they do. It's unfortunate for all British Columbians, and it's unfortunate for all politicians -- every one of us. We get tarred with the same brush, and that's wrong. If you folks want to operate like that, if that's what your party tells you to do and if that's what is in your constitution, okay. But I'll tell you that the people of British Columbia don't believe in that kind of hogwash. They want to see good government for a change, and unfortunately you haven't brought it. You haven't brought it at all.

We go down to forestry, and the movement of funds out of Forest Renewal B.C. into silviculture projects -- $100 million. It still amazes me that we can talk about $100 million or $10 billion and just roll it off the end of our tongues like it's nothing. A hundred million dollars diverted out of Forest Renewal B.C., into what is actually the responsibility of government, to hide your deficit, to hide your mismanagement of funds. This government should be ashamed of itself for even presenting something like this. It's absolutely unacceptable that we should have to tolerate this kind of budget -- this kind of chicanery and this kind of movement of numbers -- just to justify a smaller deficit.

Talk about jobs created within Forest Renewal B.C., if this government would just try to live up to the legislation -- to the FRBC act -- we would find a lot more money being spent in my constituency. Right now all we do is contribute to the pot, and we don't get anything back. In fact, it's historical for Prince George-Omineca, which contributes 27 percent of the revenue, to receive 16 percent back. That's an absolutely lousy return. As you get east of the Rockies, it gets worse. Bre-X has got nothing on you folks. If they just lived up to the legislation that they introduced in this House, that they spoke to, that they approved, that they said was going to be good for British Columbians, then I could tolerate a little bit of it. But when they continue to rip it out of our pockets in the north to fund things down here, whether they need it or not, it's not fair, because Forest Renewal B.C. says "equitably spent." One thing this government doesn't understand is equality and equity.

Highways. At one time we were proud of our highways. Until these folks came along, we had a budget of over a billion dollars a year for highways. In fact, Mr. Speaker, you should probably remember that quite well. You were the critic at the time. Over a billion dollars was spent on our highways yearly. What have we got now? You folks don't think you need anything but a bus to get from downtown Vancouver out to the Fraser Valley or somewhere. You got it down to just over $500 million. Yet you take in fuel taxes of over $600 million a year.

[7:30]

Road taxes. Some of you may not understand that, but it is, in fact, in the price of gasoline. That's unacceptable, and it shows a government that doesn't understand economics, doesn't understand infrastructure. You just want to stand and talk about how you're going to defend health care, education and social services. Important? You're darned right they're important, but they're not the end. They're not everything, because along with them you need an economy to support them. That's the part you folks don't understand. It's the economy. It's the dollar in, the dollar out. That's the thing that every one of you -- all four of you that are in the House -- ought to take a lesson on. I'm sorry, Mr. Speaker, I know I'm not supposed to quote numbers, but I can hardly believe it.

[ Page 2183 ]

An Hon. Member: Those are not numbers.

R. Neufeld: Thank you for correcting me. I'll carry on. I got a little carried away.

Talk about creating jobs. This government talks about creating 40,000 or 50,000 jobs this year. It just amazes me where all these jobs are. I've never been able to figure it out, but it seems as though every year that's a magic number. Right around 50,000 sounds good, doesn't it? Well, I'll tell you, Mr. Speaker, if this government would just get rid of the overregulation that they've put in place, the overtaxation, if they'd quit intruding on small business, if they'd quit their intrusion in all of our lives, then magically, the private sector would create many jobs -- probably a lot more than 50,000 -- and we'd all be a lot better off. Having government create the jobs. . . . And that's what you folks think job creation is: hiring someone else in the public service. There has to be ten people out there working to pay for that. That doesn't work.

Then we get onto the debt. This group of financial wizards over here. . . . Can you imagine a total debt, when this government took office, of under $20 billion -- Crown corporations, public debt, everything? And today it is $31 billion. Five years later, it's $31 billion. We can't afford you folks anymore. And that, coupled with an increase. . . . If we look at what the budget was when this group took over, at about $16 billion -- isn't it interesting how you can say "about $16 billion"? -- it's now over $20 billion. That's $4 billion more a year just in the operating budget. On top of that, you've added over $10 billion worth of debt. When will you guys catch on? When will you catch on to the fact that the taxpayers -- the working men and women of this province -- can't take it anymore? They're full to here.

An Hon. Member: What about equity?

[G. Brewin in the chair.]

R. Neufeld: What about equity? Yeah, really. Just listen to the guy over there. I guess if you go to the NDP ridings, you see some equity around, but you don't see anything anyplace else, unfortunately.

We shouldn't be one bit surprised about this group, because when they were first elected, it was interesting. The Premier, who was the Minister of Finance at the time, had a look at the books and said: "We've got some room to move." I remember that statement as clear as a bell. I remember the day the minister made it. "We have some room to move. We have the lowest taxation, lowest per capita debt, lowest debt charges in all of Canada." So what did you do? You ripped out, and in five years you got us right to the top, didn't you? You're afraid to put your bonds on the market, Mr. Minister, because nobody will buy them. That's what happened in five short years. That's absolutely unacceptable. But I guess we had room to move. We wanted to get to that wall -- that big wall over there -- as quick as we could. And that's what you've done.

Then, a little later on, when he's the Premier and he's made some comments about balanced budgets that he knows in the back of his mind are not quite true -- he knows that he's really not telling the people of British Columbia the truth. . . . When he finally comes out, he says we need some wiggle room. Well, that's just typical of this government. If it isn't room to move in taxation, it's wiggle room. You folks are good at it.

Interjection.

R. Neufeld: You know how to spend money and not get any equity -- to the member from Kitimat.

When we see the downloading onto municipalities that's been going on in this government. . . . I bring that to your attention. There are 1,100 people living in Hudson's Hope, and the dam is about 20 miles away. Guess what? Highways gave them the road. They said: "Here, it's yours. You can maintain it." This is a highway under their own estimates. Just a hill out of Hudson's Hope is going to cost $8 million to repair, and 1,100 people are supposed to just magically pay for this. That's how well thought out some of the program changes have been.

An Hon. Member: Room to move where?

R. Neufeld: Yeah, room to move. We take a community like Fort St. John and take away their municipal grants. This is a community that's having some real difficulty. They have the highest residential taxes in the whole province, the highest business taxes in the whole province and the highest commercial taxes in the whole province. What do we do? We get some downloading from this group of wizards over here. You know, they can just magically look after two more streets in town that both need millions of dollars' worth of work.

It's totally unacceptable. You've totally forgotten about what happens east of the Rockies. You don't when it comes to running the numbers in the budget about the revenue you get. You love that. You just love sucking the revenue down here, but you sure don't like to spend anything up there. In fact, if you look at the extra revenue that's been given out of that area, it's the oil and gas industry. It's peculiar to my area and to that of the member for Peace River South only, in the whole of British Columbia. In the five short years, fees alone have given the province over $2 billion. You know what we got back last year for highways? One million bucks. We have the most gravel roads of any constituency in British Columbia, and we get $1 million. I'm not talking about 15 kilometres -- those that are gravelled; I'm talking about over 2,000 kilometres, and we get a million bucks, after you stick in the $2 billion. That's unacceptable to the folks up north, and it's unacceptable to me.

Interjection.

R. Neufeld: The member for Skeena would just love to get into the debate. I hope he stands up and tells us how much he got in his constituency. He says that's more than he received. Well, it will be interesting to see what he really received in Kitimat. I don't know, but I'll wait with bated breath and listen when that member finally stands in this House -- it's been a long time -- and speaks about it.

The member for Powell River-Sunshine Coast talked about the government of the day not even living up to their own statutes, not even living up to their own legislation that they put in place -- specifically with the Ministry of Health; specifically with Municipal Affairs. I talked about the forest renewal act. They're not living up to that.

Hon. Speaker, it's a sad day in British Columbia when we have a government that produces legislation and enacts laws, and doesn't live up to them themselves. They're supposed to be the leaders. They're supposed to demonstrate some leadership to British Columbians and that they really believe in what they're putting into place, that they're really going to live up to it. But they haven't.

When I talk about $40 million in warrants in the Health ministry, I wonder how much of that is going to go into a new

[ Page 2184 ]

ambulance station in Fort St. John. Fort St. John, for instance, is one of the last places to run an ambulance service out of the fire department. And the government has just come down and said: "That's going to change. We're going to now put it under B.C. Ambulance. We're going to build a building." Wow, you've got all kinds of loot, don't you? When you tell me you don't have any money, I don't quite believe it. It's because of the union; it's because of this government's tie to the union. They dictate every move this government makes. The unions dictated that they wanted those folks in the ambulance service in Fort St. John put into the B.C. Ambulance Service, even though we have a petition of 3,000 to 5,000 people in Fort St. John saying: "Leave it alone."

When you look at what else is happening in the Ministry of Health. . . . And I know that funding is up. I'm certainly not going to say that funding is not up in Health, because it is. What really disturbs me is the appointment of the CHCs and the RHBs that have taken place across the province, just by the minister's will.

It was pointed out very clearly in the legislation how it's supposed to be done. But you know, one of the people appointed in Fort St. John came to me with a letter from the Minister of Health, saying that if they didn't believe in pro-choice they could not be on the board. Hon. Speaker, can you imagine? There should be some heads hung over there -- absolutely hung -- because a letter like that went out. Whose business is it? Whose business is it whether you're pro-life or pro-choice? It should have nothing to do with whether you can sit on a CHC or an RHB -- absolutely nothing.

I'm not advocating one side or the other. I can tell you very quickly what my position is on abortion. But when we talk about forcing your view, forcing the government's view, on people. . . . How are they going to do it? Are they going to interrogate these folks now that they've appointed them? And if they don't totally agree with them, are they going to fire them? It's actually a bit sickening to hear that, and it's repulsive. People ought to be able to believe in what they want to believe in. That should be no basis for whether they can sit on a health board or a community health council -- none whatsoever. Anyone should be able to sit on those. But that comes from the Ministry of Health.

I talked about open and honest, and I see very little that's open and honest over there. We saw the chicanery that went into the budget numbers before the election. We finally saw the Minister of Finance admit, just this last Tuesday, that: "No, I was about four or five hundred million out; I'm sorry, folks."

He knew that a year ago. There are documents today which say that the minister knew that over a year ago. That's unacceptable to British Columbians. To be honest, I think the minister should resign. For anyone to represent to British Columbians that they've had two balanced budgets, knowing full well that both were not balanced, is absolutely shameful. And to come up with a $185 million deficit this year. . . . But to get to that number we're going to sell off $170 million worth of assets, so that we only have a $185 million deficit. That's wrong; that's absolutely wrong.

You go to anyone's household and say: "Well, folks, sell your house, keep your debt, and use the money that you got out of your house to live on." You tell me what financial institution will allow that. None, absolutely none. But these financial wizards across the way sell assets, and bring it into operating and spend it. It should be spent on debt. That's exactly what it should be spent on. How it originated in the first place was through debt for some of the things like infrastructure, which the member for Skeena talks about. That's where it should be put back, not taken into general revenue to reduce your lousy number so it doesn't look so bad.

Hon. Speaker, it's just shameful. And I can hardly wait until we get into budget debate, because I've kept a few comments for that time too, so I'll allow someone else to take their place.

[7:45]

D. Jarvis: I rise as well to talk about the Supply Act, Bill 5. First of all, to put you on notice in case you don't see anyone rise right away, there's about 20 more of us that will want to speak on this tonight. So if the government is expecting to go to bed early, I just wanted to let them know.

Madam Speaker, this government wants us to approve more money for them to run this province. This is interim money, and we ask: why should we? It's a government that has failed to properly run the government, as far as we're concerned, for these past five to six years since 1991. We're unable to filibuster, as you know, so we all have to get up and give our 30-minute little talk. There have been some great statements made by most of the members here. We've been here approximately five hours now, and they have done a pretty good job of validating why we shouldn't be giving you interim money.

The NDP government has, over the past five years, made such a mess of this province that we have not seen a balanced budget out of them. In fact, I think the records actually show that there's never been an NDP government in the history of British Columbia that's ever given us a balanced budget. And to start it all off, this party, this NDP government, should actually not even be where they are now. They won the election by default. There's no question of that: they won it by default. With their back-to-back deficits, they told the people of this province that they had their financial situation under control. Well, they didn't. It was a case of almost pure fraud. I mean, 61 percent of the people. . . . Everyone in this House represents 61 percent of the voters of this province, and only 39 percent of this province supported the NDP.

Unfortunately, they are still trying to say that they are the people to answer the people's problems in this province. We have a financial problem because they didn't call this House back into session sooner, so they're trying to rush us. Well, we're not prepared to give them the taxpayers' money that easily. This government needs some authority to pay the bills, and we're not going to give it to them. When a prudent person goes to the bank to borrow money, he or she must have some credibility. That's what counts in life -- credibility. Of course, with this government, two lies don't make a right. Maybe I shouldn't be saying "lies"; that's not the right thing to say.

It does bring me back to a point about other parliamentarians in this country who have talked about lies, lying governments and things like that.

[ Page 2185 ]

D. Symons: Two incorrect statements don't make a right.

D. Jarvis: Yes, two incorrect statements. . . . That is correct, what my associate from Richmond tells me.

But I recall reading about that great MLA from Kamloops, Flying Phil Gaglardi. He got up in the House one time, and he said: "Madam Speaker, if I am telling a lie, it's because I think I'm telling the truth." I read just recently how lies are created in this country and how they are legitimized. Back in Quebec, an ex-member of the FLQ was convicted and put in jail, and then he was given a pardon. Then when he went before the board to be appointed a judge, he lied. He said: "I have never been convicted." Well, it was a moot point over the fact of whether he was or wasn't pardoned. Anyways, the latest constitutional judge has come down, and this is the explanation he gave. He said it was a legalized lie.

From that, I could only assume that this government is working on the premise that they've now told two legalized lies, saying that they have balanced their budgets. It's a very pathetic example, Madam Speaker.

Deputy Speaker: Hon. member, I would like to draw to your attention. . . . That is not parliamentary; it's quite unparliamentary language. I would request that you withdraw the phrases.

D. Jarvis: Yes, I will, Madam Speaker, because I thought I was telling the truth.

The Finance minister across the hall says he doesn't expect us to believe him -- the great caption that was in the Province the other day. I have it hanging up in my office, and I think it will stay in a lot of offices for years to come.

We know that he says that the deficit is only going to be around $189 million. But our Finance minister, the one that this House all really believe in -- our member for Delta South, who is well known and well respected. . . . And I think everyone in the House, including the Finance minister, should pay strict attention to everything he says, because he does tell the exact figures, the true figures as they are out there. He says it's not a $189 million deficit; it is an $886 million deficit.

So it comes down to the point where the NDP government, or the party, has to go to the banks -- the people that they hate so much -- to borrow money. They want us to sanction the fact that they're going out to borrow millions and millions of dollars, and put us into debt again for years and years down the line. We are now $30.9 billion in debt, and that is just an unbelievable figure. Debt is the future taxes of our children and our grandchildren, and how the heck are they ever going to pay for it?

Interjections.

D. Jarvis: Maybe I'll go off on a tangent here, because I just heard the gentleman from Skeena ask: "Are you going to ask for more schools in your riding?" Well, I'm not going to ask for more schools in our riding. All we're asking for is more money to operate.

This government believes in equality in education, so they put equality into education. As a result, they downgraded the education system in this province to the lowest denominator -- not from the bottom up, which everyone else would work for. They start from the top and work down. My district, school district 44, was caught in the squeeze of the downsizing and equality method of the NDP Party.

An Hon. Member: ND Party.

D. Jarvis: Well, it's not. . . . It's the NDP Party, all right. They're not new, they're not democratic, and they're not really a party. They're a socialist party -- that's what they are -- trying to start a socialist experiment everywhere they go. Let's face it. It failed in Europe, and the only place a socialist party works in Canada, really, is in Saskatchewan. There, at least they are trying to balance their budget. They are trying to put in some plan to pay back the moneys that they have created. Anyway, Madam Speaker, I digress.

I was talking about our education system on the North Shore. This government downgraded the moneys that were supposed to be given to the education system in North Vancouver. As a result, in the first year we are shortchanged $1.5 million. It progressed from there on to the point where we ended up having a $5 million debt. Now they've come and said they are going to protect education, so they're going to give us $700,000 less. All we ask for is our fair share. We don't ask for as many new buildings as maybe they might want to build up in Skeena, but we are certainly just asking for our fair share.

Madam Speaker, if we sanction this bill -- it goes through -- and give the government more supply, they will only create more debt and more taxes for our citizens in this province. That is not the thing we ought to have to do. You know, I looked at the. . . . There was a statement I saw the other day, and I thought it was quite good: the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. Well, we on this side of the House aren't going to stand by and let this government cause. . .

I've got to watch my wording on this one here.

An Hon. Member: Havoc.

D. Jarvis: . . .havoc amongst the province with a debt that's rising and completely out of control.

There's no way he could possibly do it, because they have put forward no plan whatsoever on how to create some wealth. Now, there are lots of ways they can do that. But somehow this socialist government has no comprehension how to create wealth whatsoever.

They have abused all the resource communities in British Columbia. I'm surprised how some of these individuals that are actually from resource areas, the Pecksniffian type of people, will go home and say, "Everything's all right, just let us look after you -- you know, pay up your taxes," while their families and friends all around them that are in the resource industry are losing their jobs day after day.

For example, mining. Right now we have nine mines that are ready to go on, that are going through the development assessment program in British Columbia. Yet right now three or four of them are being held up just by this government, actually.

An Hon. Member: Give your mine-the-Tatshenshini speech, Dan.

D. Jarvis: Yes.

That is wrong, Madam Speaker. When this government came in, the mining industry had 29,000 -- plus or minus -- people working in it. Last December there were 9,700 miners left in this province. They have downgraded one of the greatest wealth-producing industries in this province. This was one of our aces in the hole.

Now they're doing that to the logging. These people that live in the resource areas are going to go home and tell their

[ Page 2186 ]

constituents: "Everything is fine. We voted to increase the debt so that your children, your grandchildren, will never get out of hock."

Now, should we give them money? Instead of them putting in those plans, should we give them money that would take our rights away? No. That's what they want to do: they want to take your rights away.

Did you know that impaired drivers cost ICBC $328 million a year? That's $328 million a year. So we take these things that I'm telling you into consideration. Then ask yourself, "Should we allow them to take our rights away?" because there's an answer why they shouldn't take your rights away. Did you know that impaired drivers, as I said. . .?

Inexperienced drivers, for example, cost this insurance company $50 million a year in accidents. Did you know that unsafe highways and roads in British Columbia actually cost ICBC -- they figured it out -- $123 million a year? Fraud and theft, they've estimated, are costing ICBC $120 million a year. The ICBC say that they could save $104 million a year if they did a new sort of enhanced claims program.

[8:00]

Madam Speaker, if you add it all up, all those figures, just those figures -- and there are other cost-saving alternatives that they have -- that would save them about $1.3 billion. That would solve their problems. So why do they want to go into these programs like no-fault to save, when they're about $300 million. . .?

You know, they say they're going to lose $150 million as of last year and probably $300 million this year. We don't know, because they won't open up the books to let everyone look at them. All we have is what the Finance minister says, this architect of no-fault insurance.

It is a situation that if they put in these alternatives, all the road sense and the protections they could, they wouldn't have to go to a no-fault system where they take away your rights -- the individual. Now they say they're trying to use, for example, the lawyers as whipping boys in this situation, that the bad lawyers are charging too much money. But we know that a very small percentage ever go to court. We have to look at the fact that if you're injured or a member of your family is seriously injured, you're going to want a darn good lawyer to look after you. Why is this government saying that. . .?

An Hon. Member: Let the clerk look after you, from ICBC.

D. Jarvis: Well, that's about it. That's another aspect of it, too, that I'll deal with in a little while.

But this government does not want to allow you to have the right, in case you are seriously injured or a member of your family is seriously injured, to have proper representation. The only reason that lawyers are being used right now is because ICBC has an abysmal record of handling claims, making settlements. The intimidation that they give out is unbelievable.

I have stacks of letters. When the bill comes forward, if it ever comes forward, I will tell you about these letters I have. Some of them are really very heartrending situations that have occurred to people in this province. The only salvation they've ever been able to have was the fact that they went to a lawyer, and that lawyer took ICBC to court and got these people a proper settlement. ICBC wasn't ready to give them a settlement.

Interjection.

D. Jarvis: I wouldn't want any of my family to be seriously injured right now and have that side of the House, that socialist over there, make a settlement that would allow them to live happily for the rest of their life -- not likely, Madam Speaker, not likely at all.

Another subject was brought up here by another member on this side, and that was having union members look after you. Through ICBC, we're seeing where they've. . . . Pretty soon they're going to run out of money, because this no-fault plan will not be the saviour they think it is -- that it's going to keep their premiums down to a level that's going to be satisfactory to the majority of the people. In every district or jurisdiction in North America, we have seen the rates go up eventually. The rates have gone up, and the accident rates haven't gone down.

We don't know what they're going to do. But I can visualize that in three years from now, they're going to have to go to a direct writing system. So you'll buy your insurance in the future from a member of the B.C. Government Employees Union, through the motor vehicle branch. Instead of cutting the fat out of ICBC and looking inside to see what's wrong there, they have this ideological viewpoint that no-fault insurance is going to be the answer.

Hon. A. Petter: That was your ideological viewpoint.

D. Jarvis: Madam Speaker, the architect of ICBC's no-fault system in the. . . .

Hon. A. Petter: You -- it was your viewpoint.

D. Jarvis: The Finance minister has just told me that this is my proposed plan. Well, something's wrong here, because he's suggesting that I've brought it forward.

All I'm doing is responding to the millions and millions of dollars that he's spent trying to push ICBC onto the people of British Columbia, foist it onto them. As I said this afternoon, he has spent. . . . He had Peat Marwick, or KPMG, go out and do a three-month study. It cost the taxpayers in this province $1.4 million for a three-month study, for something they already knew and something they'd already made a decision on. They just wasted taxpayers' money on the premise that they were consulting with the public. That's just a bunch of complete malarkey; it was just a pathetic excuse.

And on top of that, right after that, up to the end of February they spent $333,000 in newspaper ads and magazine

[ Page 2187 ]

ads. So they've spent $1.7 million in the last year on studies and newspaper ads on a no-fault program -- something they've already made up their mind they're going to do. I imagine the legislation is all rewritten, down the hall somewhere.

Madam Speaker, I'll tell you something else about this government. The president of the NDP Party. . . . I think maybe Madam Speaker belongs to it; she probably has a card. The president of that party, prior to this election, wrote a letter and said the party is against no-fault insurance. Union after union has written to me, saying they are against it.

We wonder what's going to happen. We wonder what's happened. The Minister of Finance says he has not brought no-fault forward; it's me that's brought it forward. Well, I'm a little bit confused. This is the same man that's trying to ask me if we should give them more money to run this government further into debt.

Well, Madam Speaker, I believe that if they came forward with a real proper plan to show us how they could create wealth, the people on this side of the House would probably try to support them. We know that there's money out there to be made. We are blessed in this province with the greatest supply of resources in the whole world. It's a situation where we are able to compete with other jurisdictions in the world if we utilize our resources in a proper manner.

This government has taken the philosophical viewpoint that we don't need our resources, or else they would open them up and encourage people to come in and invest in development in our province. No, they discourage them. They discourage them with taxes and all these regulations.

I hear the Finance minister saying that he is in favour of mining. So why don't we see more approval from this government towards a good mining policy in this province? I would like to say at this point, before I get myself into trouble -- which the Minister of Finance would dearly love -- that I made a statement years ago, back in about ^92. I hear this statement rattled back and forth all the time, except they never quite finish it. They don't give the true picture of what I said. Everything is out of context. They take everything out of context, and that is exactly what they intend to do when they say that they're going to give us a balanced budget, maybe later on this year or next year.

We cannot believe them, and I've told you before why we can't believe them. As I said before. . . . No, I won't say that, because you're looking at me, and you know what I'm thinking about, don't you? I know you were going to say it. You know, my mother used to look at me that same way -- and I dearly love my mother, Madam Speaker.

All I'm going to say now is that this government is costing the taxpayers more and more money. They're going to double our debt. A short while ago the member for North Coast was quoted as saying he believes that maybe the debt should be doubled. Well, that's a dangerous statement for him to make. That's a dangerous thing for all the citizens of British Columbia, because that's going to cost us money.

At this point I'm going to say that I'm not going to support Bill 5, this interim supply act. With those words, I will sit down and pass it on to another member.

R. Coleman: The Legislature is sort of a special institution. It's a place where we make decisions as far as passing laws and bills and on the financial direction of the province, and we have a chance to debate those in fairness. It's also an institution that can be brought together fairly quickly to make decisions. Tonight I'd like to deal with special warrants in a brief discussion. I'd like to go back to some statements that have been previously made by people more experienced in this Legislature, and probably more learned in the debates of the Legislature than I. The first one is:

"So why do we have these institutions? Why do we have these procedures with respect to estimates, budget and supply? I recall the cry: 'Not a dime without debate.' It was a rallying cry advanced by members on the opposite side. But let's get to the heart of why that phrase was coined and used. What were the circumstances that gave rise to the cry: 'Not a dime without debate'? One of the things I am proudest of with respect to my party's previous time in office in this province is that we regularly brought in a budget in February or March, we laid it before this parliament, and we allowed it to be debated through the estimates procedure. There was never any change in that. There was never any bringing in of a budget this late. There was never the abuse of special warrants that we've seen by this government. We brought in a budget. We put it before the people and the parliament in February or March of every year, and we allowed the debate to continue."

Those were the words of the Deputy Premier of this province.

And this is the auditor general speaking now:

"The Westminster model of parliamentary democracy, established centuries ago, provides the elected representatives of the people with control over the expenditures of public moneys. The basis for this derives from the 1869 Bill of Rights enacted in England and which is still in effect. The Glorious Revolution of the time saw the autocratic King James II driven from the country by William of Orange and Mary, who took the throne upon accepting the Declaration of the Rights of Parliament. Under this model of governance, the Sovereign and his or her ministers request the use of publicly raised funds for the government's programs, and the Commons or assembly of members considers the request and grants or denies the authority to spend.

"Two of the most fundamental cornerstones of parliamentary democracy are the rule of law and the principle of parliamentary approval of government spending. In British Columbia, the Legislative Assembly passes an act each year to assert its right to give precedence to matters other than those expressed by the Sovereign. The act is called An Act to Ensure the Supremacy of Parliament.

[8:15]

"Across Canada, at both the federal and provincial levels, we also have a distinctly unique Canadian convention for authorizing the government to spend. Through a special warrant, the government can authorize itself to spend public moneys, without obtaining the prior approval of members of the elected assembly. Special warrants are thus a statutory exception to the basic principle of democracy that requires parliamentary approval before the government spends public money. The common requirement in all jurisdictions for the use of special warrants is that the assembly must not be in session at the time the warrants are issued.

"Provision for the use of special warrants has existed in government of Canada statutes since the early years of Confederation. Even before, in 1864, the United Provinces of Canada enacted legislation to permit special warrant spending. Back then, this form of special authorization was used for urgent and specific needs, such as funding repairs to a public work or building because of a fire or a leaky roof.

"The circumstances of those earlier times made an instrument like special warrants necessary. Nineteenth-century conditions -- great distances, slow transportation, difficult communications, and parliamentarians meeting for only a small

[ Page 2188 ]

portion of the year -- justified the need to have some form of special spending authority available for fast-arising crises. Such is no longer the case in our modern society, where members of the assembly can be called together in a matter of hours."

Since the proroguing of the last session of this parliament in August of last year, we have repeatedly called upon the government to call this House back to deal with the business of this province. I want to refer to a letter dated May 30, 1991, and I'll read you a paragraph:

"Your Honour's official opposition is ready, willing and able to convene immediately should you choose to recall the Legislature. If your Minister of Finance presents the Legislative Assembly with a budget accompanied by an interim supply bill, Your Honour's official opposition will move with urgency to deal with the bill. This would provide your government the legal authority to meet immediate financial obligations, while allowing the Legislative Assembly to fully review and debate a proposed budget for the fiscal year 1991-92. I am confident that Your Honour will give due consideration to this matter."

"That's the end of the letter sent by the Leader of the Opposition. . . .

"Mr. Speaker, it is unfortunate that it would come to this. But when the government attempts to rule by decree, when the government attempts to rule without public debate, it undermines the very democracy we are here to uphold. It's unacceptable and it's disgraceful."

Those words, Madam Speaker, come from the Premier of the province, who was obviously not Premier at the time.

An Hon. Member: Does he believe it today?

R. Coleman: I guess you'd have to ask him, hon. member.

"The province's Financial Administration Act, passed in 1981, provides for the use of special warrants. The predecessor Financial Control Act had a similar provision; and prior to that act, the province's Audit Act, which dated back to the early part of this century, also allowed for the use of special warrant spending authorization.

"Special warrants in British Columbia are approved by the Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council only when the Legislative Assembly is not in session. The Lieutenant-Governor signs an order-in-council to authorize the special warrant spending, upon receiving the advice of the provincial cabinet to do so. . . .

"In recent years there has been considerable public discussion about the government's practice of using special warrants to authorize its spending. Our" -- the auditor general's -- office -- has provided comments and recommendations on the subject in at least three of our public reports over the past ten years -- in March 1989, June 1992 and February 1996. Our political leaders, and some government studies, have also provided official commentary on this subject over the years. The consensus generally is that reform of the practice of using special warrants is needed, particularly to ensure that the rights of members of the assembly are respected before the government spends public money.

"Before the Financial Administration Act was passed in 1981, the government established a task force in 1980 to receive and consider public submissions on a discussion paper, and new financial legislation drafted for the province, and to recommend appropriate action. . . ."

The greatest use of dollars with regard to special warrants is during election years, and the largest dollar value ever spent on a special warrant in the history of British Columbia was by this government last year, when they spent $5,615,706,000 on special warrants. That is unacceptable to the people of this province. This government knew that all they had to do was call this Legislature back earlier, and this would be unnecessary this evening.

"Special warrant spending authority has evolved over the years into being used for three categories. . .: (1) unanticipated requirements necessitating urgently and immediately providing funding; (2) insufficiently provided-for government budget appropriations needing additional funding. . .; and (3) the routine funding of the day-to-day running of government. . . .

"The first category represents the original intent for special warrants, but is now the least used of the three. Examples of this category of use in recent years were the 1991-92 funding in the amount of $12 million to assist the residents of Cassiar, affected by the closure of their mine and townsite, and the unanticipated expenditure to remove asbestos from the Royal British Columbia Museum.

"The second category has become an annual, almost routine use for special warrants, particularly for supplementing the annual budgets of certain ministries such as Health, Social Services and Attorney General."

One would think that if it has become a routine thing, these ministries would budget accordingly and be able to fund themselves in their fiscal budget.

The third category, which has been the subject of the greatest amount of public discussion and debate, has become the one in which the largest amount of dollars is used for special warrant spending authorizations. In the current 1996-97 year, until the Legislative Assembly was called together last summer, the funding for government spending, both routine and urgent, was, as I said -- bar none -- the highest ever.

"Public commentary from special studies, political leaders and our office about special warrants" -- and this is the auditor general speaking now -- "have all been virtually unanimous about the need for reform in the use of special warrants. The only way this will occur, however, is if the statutory authority for the provision of special warrants is amended, if not deleted.

"The auditor general has previously recommended that reform of the special warrants authority take place. Amendment of the statutory authority for special warrants should give full recognition to the rights of the Members of the Legislative Assembly in granting government the authority to spend public money."

Madam Speaker, the reason I used a lot of the auditor general's words is because I don't think anybody has more authority, more knowledge and a better way to comment on the use of special warrants than our auditor general.

The government is asking us to deal with Health, Social Services and Attorney General in this special warrant this evening, and I wish to comment on those three. Yesterday the Ministry of Health, through an order-in-council, fired the board of directors of the Langley Memorial Hospital and appointed a public administrator. I want to read you the schedule that was issued to the board of directors today.

"1. The board of directors of the Langley Memorial Hospital shall cease to hold office, but where the public administrator considers it appropriate, he may retain one or more members of the board to act in an advisory capacity."

This is the important one, Madam Speaker:

"2. The public administrator is given the exclusive right, in consultation with the Ministry of Health, to exercise all the powers of: (a) the society, (b) the board, (c) the members of the society, together with exclusive control and disposition of the property, assets and revenues of the society."

Shame!

"3. The public administrator may, where he considers it appropriate for the orderly management of the property and affairs of the society, delegate any aspects of his powers, duties or responsibilities to the person or persons selected by him."

[ Page 2189 ]

because this government is intent on an asset-and-capital grab of the hospitals in this province so that it can leverage it in the future for more debt to download on the people of this province.

Some Hon. Members: Shame!

R. Coleman: Because this hospital has a huge asset base, built by volunteers, the Ministry of Health is literally stealing from the people in the community of Langley, who have put in volunteer hours, raised volunteer dollars. All of a sudden, those assets they worked for are no longer theirs. That is disgusting, it is wrong, and it should not be done.

Madam Speaker, not only did they do this to the board of directors, but the Ministry of Health went through a bogus process to do this. They asked this society to hold a meeting to vote on amalgamation of hospital boards. They asked them to vote on the amalgamation of their hospital and their hospital society with another regional health board. They were given that option. They constituted the meeting under a democratic process. They sent out a notice to all their membership. Close to a thousand people showed up at the meeting. They debated the issue. Representatives of their legal firm were there, and representatives from the ministry were there. The presentation from the ministry was made, and the people voted. Only four people voted in favour of amalgamation.

Do you know why this hospital board was fired? Because it went through a democratic process allowed by them under law, and the ministry said: "You can't vote that way. We don't believe in democracy. You're gone, and we're going to appoint a board." There's no democracy on the regional health board, as was promised when this process started. As the member for Cariboo North related earlier, we actually have some harassment, if you wish, or at least some discrimination as to the selection of people to regional health boards. I would tell the ministry and the Premier and the people involved in this decision-making process to look at your own Human Rights Code with regard to what you can and cannot do to your own employees in the province, and also to the people in this province. You cannot discriminate based on their personal views. That is wrong.

Another interesting question is: who did get appointed to the regional health board? Did a member of the hospital board, who was a member of a board that had a four-year accreditation at one of the top hospitals in Canada, get appointed to the regional health board? No. But did a failed NDP candidate, a failed NDP municipal election official, get appointed to that board? You're darned right they did -- and that's wrong. That's why interim supply to the Ministry of Health isn't right -- because they're abusing their privilege to use our funds for the benefit of all people of the province of British Columbia.

Now let's deal with the Attorney General's ministry briefly. I don't want to get into everybody's portfolio in long detail tonight, but I must say there are certain things that have happened since last year, when we discussed interim supply and went through estimates. This photo radar thing hap- pened. Photo radar was going to bring us all this revenue, and, as one of the offshoots, we were going to get 100 new policemen.

Imagine this. Think of 100 policemen, whom we send through training in Regina or through the Justice Institute, and whom we send back and forth for training so that they can become senior investigators that learn how to do drug enforcement and become breathalyser technicians. We take hundreds of thousands of dollars of training, and we stick them in a van on the side of the road to operate a camera and radar. The truth of the matter is that that's a terrible, terrible waste of manpower.

Those people have the capability of conducting major investigations, doing community policing and putting patrols on the street where they're really needed. What do we do? My question has to be: how many community policing initiatives, how many preventative policing initiatives, have failed because these members were out of the system, sitting on the side of a highway? When we wasted these funds, how many investigations of sexual abuse or serious assault, or whatever, did not take place because these 100 capable, qualified policemen were out of the system? That's wrong. That's why the Ministry of Attorney General should not get an increase in funding.

[8:30]

I just want to touch on courthouses briefly. When you look at the sheer economic impact of the decision on courthouses, it's two things. It's definitely downloading on municipalities. But in addition to that, it does something else: it takes away from the fabric of a community -- to have safer streets. This is a government that said they were for that. The interesting thing about downloading courthouses is that BCBC, the B.C. Buildings Corporation, actually holds the leases on most of these courthouses. So when the ministry decides to close a courthouse, they're out of their lease in six months, but the corporation has to take the lease on and pay the bills and the costs. They're the ones that are going to be downloaded on. It's not just downloading on municipalities; it's also downloading on the Crowns, to hide the dollar that they're telling us they're saving, when they're not saving a dime.

It also ignores something very important. I can give you an example I know of. That would be the courthouse in the city of Langley, in the member for Langley's riding. There are two transition houses in that community, and there is no direct-link bus service to the courthouse where these services are being downloaded to. These are the people most at risk, with their children, who have come from abusive situations and are afraid. We're asking them to find a bus, make connections, get to court and get back so they can protect themselves. Do you know the only way they'll be able to do it in that riding? They'll get a motel overnight in Surrey in order to do it. If they have to do that, where are they going to get the money? They've already left an abusive situation. They're already isolated from society. How are they going to get there?

I don't believe the ministry took that into account. I don't think there was enough planning in this decision. Do you know that there's an additional $300,000 cost to the RCMP in the Langleys because of the shutting of the courthouse and the overtime and staff time to get members back and forth from court? Nobody thought of that. They couldn't have thought of that, because they wouldn't have made the decision on a building that has a lease that's about $90,000 a year.

I have a number of concerns with regard to health care, and I'm not going to deal with them here tonight. What we do is keep moving things around in the Ministry of Health. We've now moved a number of issues over to the Ministry for Children and Families -- including speech therapy -- where children are not getting the service they need under the Ministry of Health, and now nobody knows who is supposed to give these kids the service.

Madam Speaker, a number of other things in this province are in a mess as a result of bad planning and bad

[ Page 2190 ]

fiscal management, including the Residential Tenancy Act -- how we deal with residential tenancy and other items. I will not sit by and watch the abuse of our system, something that I thought was very important when I ran for election.

[The Speaker in the chair.]

D. Symons: I will make my comments fairly brief. I'd like to just reminisce for a moment, though, about when I was first elected, on October 17, 1991. I remember that back at that time, I came in here full of optimism and, I guess, a little bit of na�vety, in the sense that I was a newly elected person here. I had watched the operations of this House over the decades before. I had watched the NDP in opposition, and, you know, I thought they were pretty good, because they seemed to have a social conscience. They spoke much of things that I was concerned about. But when they moved from this side to that side, as we heard from the previous speaker, that mantle of social conscience fell off them. Indeed, it seems to be the Liberal Party of this province that's carrying those concerns forward -- the concerns of the people of the province.

I also thought that the legislative process would be somewhat different than it was, because I watched for years as the Social Credit Party basically gave no options and gave no part to the opposition party at that time, the NDP. They certainly made sure that at every chance, they made things difficult for the opposition. Having observed that and felt that for years, I thought that when the NDP came to power we would see a different atmosphere in this chamber, an atmosphere where, working together, we could cooperatively bring about the best interests of this province. But what did we find? We found that immediately, as the mantle of power fell to them, they lost that vision.

They don't call House committees together and give business to them. We appoint House committees at the beginning of each session, and we name members to those committees. The members meet once to choose a Chair, and that's the only time those members meet during the sitting. That is really unacceptable in a society such as we have here. This House could be used much more effectively if we used the House committees, referred things to committees and didn't waste time in this chamber arguing things out, discussing things and looking for compromises that we could find in a committee, before the legislation came here for third reading. This would be one way of moving a legislative session ahead more quickly, I believe.

Anyway, getting back to it, when I was first elected I had these concerns that rapidly evaporated my optimism for how the Legislature was going to operate. I still have that desire for it to happen, though, and I look forward to the day that any government will bring those things into effect. But about two weeks after we got into the Legislature, I found that we were doing exactly what we are doing this evening: we went into an emergency debate. But at least then, in 1992, we had two weeks. We had one week where the throne speech was brought up and debated, we had one week where the budget speech was brought up and debated, and then we moved into Committee of Supply and into special warrants. Still, the government did exactly the same thing. They waited till the very night when the next day was the end of the fiscal year to bring forth those bills so we could discuss them. It was a matter of pressure of time that they brought in. They were not wanting these topics to be debated rationally over a lengthy period of time, when we could do it in a reasonable atmosphere rather than late at night. And they are doing precisely the same thing this year.

Then, as now, I wondered why it was -- and now is -- an emergency. Did the government only recognize this morning that this is the last legislative sitting day of this fiscal year? We knew that last year, we knew it the year before, and they knew it then. There was no emergency. I'm rather surprised that the Speaker would allow these bills to be brought forward today on an emergency basis, by that particular part in the regulations. It isn't really an emergency; it was known in advance. Things that are known in advance are not emergencies -- except that's how it's ruled in this House.

The Speaker: Excuse me, member. For the record, I think that's a very important point you raise. Standing order 81 says two things: extraordinary and urgent. It says nothing about emergency. I would like to emphasize that, member, just for the record, if I might.

D. Symons: I thank the Speaker so much for that correction. I'm not quite sure, then, what the extraordinary part is nor what the urgent part is. Indeed, if we had started this House sitting in March or February, we would not be doing this tonight.

I have to ask why we were not sitting in February or early March of this year. That rests entirely on the government. It's their option when to call the House together, and they chose not to. So again, under your definition of urgent, I can't quite imagine how we can call it urgent when they have intentionally delayed calling this House together. I do not believe -- with the exception of when there was an election coming on -- that the government has left it this late in the fiscal year to call the session together.

I don't believe there's another time in history where that has occurred in this province: where they have left it to just four days prior to the end of the fiscal year to call the House together, and then they bring in a throne speech and a budget back to back. It is an abuse of the legislative procedures for this government to be doing that, but they seem to think their government can do anything.

I was going to read a quote that was read earlier, but I'll just read an earlier part of it where it talks about this: "The supply bill is really before us because we've got a government that is so erratic and so unstable that it finds it difficult to plan from one day to the next what the next move is going to be." That was followed by the other statement that the previous speaker had made about previous governments in the 1970s that brought forth their budgets in February or March. Going back to the quote from Hansard of May 30, 1991, why do we have these institutions? Why do we have these procedures with respect to estimates, budget and supply? I recall the cry: "Not a dime without debate." It was a rallying cry advanced by the members on the opposite side at that time, and tonight we are also advancing that rallying cry.

The government had the opportunity to call us together earlier. I heard a comment earlier from the government Whip, I believe it was, stating: "You wouldn't want us to come back

[ Page 2191 ]

during spring break, would you?" Well, that is the weakest argument I've ever heard for calling this House back at this very late date. There's no reason, as I said earlier, that it couldn't have been called back in February or March.

So what is a supply act, hon. Speaker? Maybe for the people watching on television this evening, we should give a little explanation. The supply act is a bill that the government brings in when they have not passed their spending authority. That means the budget and the estimates for each of the ministries have not been passed before one fiscal year runs out and the next fiscal year begins. It reads:

"WHEREAS it appears by Message from the Honourable the Lieutenant Governor and the Estimates accompanying the Message that provision is required to defray certain expenses of the public service of the Province, and for other purposes connected to this public service, for the fiscal year ending March 31, 1998..." -- That's for the coming fiscal year. -- "AND WHEREAS, in accordance with the Financial Administration Act, expenditures by Special Warrants of $98 930 000 in respect of the fiscal year ending March 31, 1997 have been submitted to the Legislature in the Schedule of this Act. . . ."

That's the fiscal year that is ending this weekend.

What that special warrants part is doing is covering the backsides, in a sense, of this government, which has overspent the estimates made last year in the budgets at that point. They are just making up for that overspending at this time. They are asking for our approval in hindsight, I suppose you can say, or in retrospect, for their past inaccuracies in funding those particular ministries.

It goes on:

"THEREFORE HER MAJESTY, by and with the advice and consent of the Legislative Assembly of the Province of British Columbia, enacts as follows. . ." -- this is what we are passing tonight. -- "voted expenditures appropriation. 1. From and out of the consolidated revenue fund there may be paid and applied in the manner and at the times the government may determine the sum of $5 040 000 000 towards defraying the charges and expenses of the public service of the Province for the fiscal year ending March 31, 1998, and being substantially 3/12" -- that's one-quarter -- "of the total amount of the votes of the main Estimates for the fiscal year ending March 31, 1998...."

That basically, then, is giving the government spending authority without explaining how they're going to use that money for the next three months. So we are going to give them spending authority, basically a cheque for that amount of money, to use in a way that we have not yet approved in this House.

The minister responsible for Finance says: "It's in the budget." Indeed, it's there, but that budget has not been passed. It has not been authorized by this Legislature. That's the problem. If they had called us together a few months earlier, that could have taken place. I'm simply saying to the hon. minister that if they had called us together two months earlier, we wouldn't be needing this tonight.

[8:45]

Second part:

"Voted financing transactions appropriation. 2. From and out of the consolidated revenue fund there may be paid and applied in the manner and at the times the government may determine the sum of $942 423 000 for recoverable disbursements referred to in Schedule C of the main Estimates for the fiscal year ending March 31, 1998."

That's what I referred to earlier. That was the spending deficit of last year, and we're having to go to three ministries where they overspent because we hadn't budgeted for these amounts of money. So although they've already spent it, we're now going to authorize them to spend the money they've spent.

And finally, the third part:

"Working capital account appropriation. 3. From and out of the consolidated revenue fund there may be paid and applied in the manner and at the times the government may determine the sum of $2 million to the Purchasing Commission Working Capital Account. . ." -- That's so they will have an advance on purchases they'll make for government accounts and government vehicles, etc. -- ". . .established under section 23.1 of the Purchasing Commission Act, being the amount shown for this purpose in the main Estimates for the fiscal year ending March 31, 1998, as laid before the Legislative Assembly at the present session."

That is what we are discussing tonight -- the $5 billion plus appropriations, one-quarter of the government's projected budget for the next fiscal year. I say "projected" because that's the word the Finance minister quite correctly pointed out in trying to explain why the 1996-97 budget had a $395 million deficit rather than the $87 million surplus they had projected. The word projected has to be watched very carefully, because their projection there was basically half a billion dollars out. We have to be very careful when this government talks about projections and, indeed, that projection they talked about before was out by close to half a billion dollars.

The NDP, then, are projecting this year a $185 million deficit for the '97-98 fiscal year. How can we believe that the $185 million projection will be any more accurate than last year's fiscal mismanagement? The answer is that we can't. We're really being asked, in the dying moments of this fiscal year, to give the NDP a blank cheque for how they will be spending that $5 billion advance they are seeking. Can we trust them to be fiscally responsible with this advance? The answer, again, is no.

I'm not alone in this opinion. Besides those on this side of the House, who I'm sure agree with the opinions I've expressed so far this evening, here are members on the opposite side who also agree. Why, one of the NDP members has said, if I can find the quote here quickly:

"We have seen repeated attempts by this government to stifle debate on taxing and spending of this administration. The main purpose of the members of the Legislature -- everybody should agree -- is to scrutinize spending, to pass taxing and spending laws in this House. That's why we're here, Mr. Speaker. It was that side of the House that, at one time, said: 'Not a dime without debate.' "

Remember, this is an NDP member speaking

"They are now asking for $5 billion of public money to be passed posthaste, today, immediately, under some phony guise of urgency" -- there's the word you used, hon. Speaker -- "and it's not acceptable to this side of the House.

"This House hasn't sat for eight months, which is unacceptable" -- how long has it been since we've sat? -- "in order that there be no debate on or scrutiny of this government's incompetent fiscal ability. There has been no debate for eight months because the House hasn't sat for eight months, and now they ask us to pass a bill today with very little debate.

"We know, Mr. Speaker, that they have had a lot of reasons why they do not want the scrutiny placed before them; there are a lot of reasons why interim supply and the delay in calling the Legislature have been their doing. It is because they want to hide the fact that they are the largest-taxing government we've seen for some time; they have regressively and unfairly taxed working people, the poor and seniors in this province; and they want to avoid that debate in this House."

[ Page 2192 ]

Who said that? Well, my goodness. Hon. Speaker, it was the then critic for Finance, the member for Vancouver-Kingsway, who today is our Premier.

Now, one would think that if these people were ethical. . . . I don't know if that's the right word to use here, but if they believed what they said back on April 23, 1990, regarding interim supply and doing it at the last moment, if they believed in that when they were in opposition, I really thought that when they moved to that side of the House they would then carry forth in a responsible manner. But are they? No, because look what we're doing tonight, hon. Speaker. It's the same thing.

So let us take a look at something further that the member for Vancouver-Kingsway, who is now our Premier, said in the same vein:

"The essence of parliamentary democracy is to authorize spending. When you go through Erskine May, when you go through all the parliamentary history -- hundreds of years of parliamentary history -- what you see, time and time again, is that the principal role of a parliament is to scrutinize spending ability, to scrutinize the taxing authority of the government and their priorities for spending and to scrutinize the government's agenda for the province."

We have been denied that opportunity, Mr. Speaker. We have been denied that opportunity for eight months between sittings, and we're being denied the opportunity now. Again, that was the Premier of the province speaking on April 23, 1990. So we find that this government seems to have a hypocritical sense of when they're in opposition and when they move to the government side of this House.

One would think that after all those striking words, they would be behaving in a much more responsible and proper manner toward the people of this province and the legislative procedures that should be taking place in this House. I said earlier that we can't trust the NDP. Well I would like us to examine their record.

This is the NDP's sixth consecutive unbalanced budget, and by that I mean deficit budget. The sixth one. I don't believe there's another government in the history of B.C. that can top that dubious honour. In 1992 and '93 they kept blaming the previous administration for the deficit that was left in 1991, but let me remind the hon. members that for almost half of that fiscal year it was the NDP who were at the helm of this province. Did they deal with the crisis immediately? No. They continued to let the debt grow so they could have a larger number that they could blame on the previous administration. It's worth noting that in the previous year, the year 1990, the Socreds actually posted a surplus, something this government has been incapable of doing.

Let's also take a look at the now Premier, who was Finance minister when this government was first elected in 1991. Look at his record as Finance minister and remember now that this is the person who has the reins of this government in his hands. The first thing that happened was that there was an announcement by the then Finance minister, in 1992, of a reduction in spending. He asked every ministry to reduce spending. All but one increased their spending. Not only did he announce once that there were going to be reductions in spending, he announced it twice; and at the end of the fiscal year, spending had gone up. Also, during his first year as Finance minister, in 1992, taxes increased close to $1 billion. Even after increasing the tax load on British Columbians by $1 billion, they still had a $1 billion deficit. That meant spending must have gone up considerably. The next fiscal year: same minister, same response. Some results were further tax increases. The tax increases now totalled close to $1.8 billion, and they still posted another large deficit.

Then we had a new Finance minister. The member for Vancouver-Kingsway was culled out of the Finance ministry and put into Employment and Investment. Wrong move, hon. Speaker. It was like putting a kid in a toy store with no supervision. But that's another story for another day. The new Finance minister fared no better, only now the NDP discovered that fee increase was also a way of garnering more funds for their spending increase. In her second year she introduced something called a debt management plan.

Now, one would have thought that the debt management plan would manage the debt. Not so. What was the essence of this debt management plan? Well, if you looked at it carefully, you would find they had planned that in 20 years they would bring the debt back down to the place it took them to get to in two and a half years. It was going to take them a 10-to-1 ratio to get the debt back to the place they had put it up to. So it was not too much of a debt management plan, but that was the plan they had in mind.

Did it work? Well, the first year of her budget they were $500 million short of their debt management plan, and the second year, as this government was going into an election, the same thing was repeated. They were nowhere near the benchmarks they had set in their debt management plan. Indeed, they were far below it, and they posted two more deficits, one of which they claimed to be a surplus.

I'd like to now move into a period when the NDP also had a leadership crisis, because there was a while there when there were some problems on the opposite side with the leader. We had a Gang of Six and so forth, who were trying to change the upper echelons.

Interjection.

D. Symons: Well, no, we're talking about yours at this particular moment. We've solved ours; I don't think you've solved yours yet.

A few years earlier, the Social Credit also had a similar leadership problem. And what did the NDP Finance critic of that time have to say after that -- that is, when they brought in the following legislative session? Well, let's take a look at what he said. This is a quote from the hon. member for Vancouver-Kingsway on May 30, 1991, just as the Social Credit government was falling apart: "But the government has been caught up in the political chaos of its own making. Preoccupied with purging a leader who left in disgrace. . . ." Now, who said this? You know, hon. Speaker, it was the man who would be king. Do you remember the story by Rudyard Kipling, The Man Who Would Be King? Remember that when he got the power of being king, it sort of went to his head, and indeed at the end of the story he lost his head. I think it might be instructive for the Premier of this province to read that story and learn the lesson from it.

Anyway, to continue with his quote:

"Preoccupied with purging a leader who left in disgrace, they have been incapable of governing the province; incapable of bringing in routine matters like the supply bill; incapable of bringing in even the most rudimentary obligation of the government, a budget that was on time."

That was the then Finance critic, now Premier of this province, who is not living up to the words he said in those days. All I can say is: how history repeats itself.

[ Page 2193 ]

Let's now move on to the present. Two days ago this NDP government introduced its budget. It boasted of being the first budget in many years to reduce spending. Did they really do it, or is it another fudging of the figures? In the budget speech it says: "For the first time since 1958, there will be a year-over-year decline in budget expenditures. Spending from the consolidated revenue fund will go down by more than $100 million, to $20.47 billion."

Let's look more carefully at that, because what we find in the budget books is that $70 million for rehab in Highways is disappearing off the government books and being shunted into the Transportation Financing Authority. It no longer appears in the consolidated revenue books for the ministries under the Ministry of Highways. It's no longer there. There are $20 million of Tourism expenditures that are now going into a special operating agency. They no longer show up in the budget books that we discuss in this House. They were last year; they're not this year.

[9:00]

So how much is that that we've been told has been moved off the books? Let's see, we had $70 million and $20 million; that's $90 million. Remember, hon. Speaker, that the government was talking about reducing spending by $100 million, and we've already found $90 million they just shifted off the books.

But we find more. There's $100 million in Forest Renewal. Silviculture expenditures that are supposed to be paid -- or were, up until this year -- out of the Forests ministry, will be no longer. It's going to paid for by FRBC. It's no longer on the books.

Schools, education. Each year the government has been giving $35 million out of the Education ministry to school districts for renovations and renewals. Not this year, hon. Speaker, but last year it was. This year they're to get it from the B.C. School Districts Capital Financing Authority -- $35 million that has been moved off the books.

And then there's the $60 million in municipal grants. Again, $60 million has been moved off the books and onto the shoulders of the taxpayers of the communities around this province -- to the renters, to the homeowners. That's where the $60 million appears when it disappears off this government's books.

If we add up those figures -- and there are other little ones, but these are the larger ones -- that's $285 million they've shunted off the books this year that were on the books last year. They tell us that they're reducing spending by $100 million, when they've shunted $285 million off of the books. That is a lot of hocus-pocus or smoke and mirrors. If the books were kept the same way this year as they were last year, that's not $100 million less but $185 million more.

That was the spending side. Now let's look at the reverse side. Remember that this is the government that said: "No new taxes." We've had a propane fuel tax, a tax that discouraged conversion of vehicles to a more environmentally friendly fuel, and a regressive one at that. We've had an increase in probate fees, a huge increase in fishing licences, an increase in other fees, etc., that bear no resemblance to the service supplied. All add money into the consolidated revenue fund just like tax revenues. I would agree that most of this government's fee and licence increases are tax increases in all but name. It is deceitful and despicable of this government to be talking about not increasing taxes when they're using every backdoor way of increasing the expense and the cost to the people of British Columbia.

For that reason, there is no way I could stand up tonight and support this bill -- to more or less rubber-stamp their desire to force a bill through this evening with no real, proper debate on the spending the government is asking for.

R. Thorpe: It's a privilege for me to speak on behalf of the constituents of my riding, Okanagan-Penticton, to say a few brief words on this spending authority and this Supply Act (No. 1). We are really talking about fiscal management here. This government continues to show us, year after year, irresponsible fiscal management, and now they want us to believe that it's prudent fiscal management. That is not believable for British Columbians.

In six short years the debt has risen from just under $20 billion to $31 billion -- numbers that people in my riding cannot understand. The only thing they can understand about these big numbers is that it puts their children and grandchildren at risk. They are going to have to pay back this mismanagement that this NDP government is causing the province. They have also talked about two surplus budgets, promised two surplus budgets, and in fact there have been deficits in excess of $600 million. Then they complain about off-loading from the federal government. And who are now the masters of off-loading? Our own provincial government. They say that it is prudent fiscal management to be off-loading to the municipalities of British Columbia after they promised, in my riding, that they wouldn't do that: $113 million.

Then we talk about incompetence and irresponsible approaches to management. This is a government that introduced photo radar -- took 100 police officers off the road and put them in vans. That was going to cost $32 million, and they were going to get almost $100 million for it. Now, who but this prudent fiscal management government could screw that up? Now it's going to cost $65 million.

The other thing that really concerns me, and I know it must concern the Minister of Finance, is when they talk about prudent fiscal management and they are in fact taking items that were recorded as expense items, so that they can say they are reducing expenditures for the first time in 40 years, when in fact they are moving items over under revenue and reducing revenues. For example, $20 million was shifted in tourism.

Now we come to what the real debt and deficit will be this year in British Columbia. This is the government's document. We didn't write it; we're just reading from it. They tell us that $886 million will be the deficit this year. Our debt will go up by $1.4 billion. Our children and grandchildren are going to have to pay this back for this irresponsible approach to managing our moneys. It's an awful lot of money, isn't it?

Debt management in our province is in a crisis, and what is it going to mean? It is going to mean higher and higher and higher taxes. Well, let's just talk about taxes, and let us look and see -- again, in the government's own document on the budget -- where they say "User Fees." Right here on page 50 of the government's document, they are now linking them and admitting that user fees are taxation going into general revenue -- yet they said no tax increases. They are not keeping their promises to the people of British Columbia. The people in the riding of Okanagan-Penticton understand taxes, user fees. The people in the riding of Okanagan-Penticton understand one thing. They understand that when the money comes out of their pocket and it goes into general revenue, it is taxation by their provincial government. And they have had enough. These higher taxes are going to kill investment in our province. Having just had the opportunity to travel through

[ Page 2194 ]

the northern part of British Columbia, I have learned firsthand how jobs are being killed by the lack of investment in this province. It is wrong, hon. Speaker.

Investment in this province means jobs. We need real jobs. We don't need jobs created by a government that says they're going to create X thousands of jobs and they don't materialize. It's the private sector that's going to create the jobs, not this government. Their record speaks for itself.

Then, of course, we hear that this increase of $1.4 billion dollars in debt is because they're going to protect health care and education. It's not true. We have to listen, and see what's happening in our own ridings. On health care in my riding, we recently had a senior who required air ambulance transportation to Vancouver for surgery. She was promised day one; she was promised day two; she was promised day three; she was promised day four. On day five the air ambulance came to take this lady to Vancouver for surgery. As she's being loaded onto the plane, they decide to check: is there a room in Vancouver? Then they get the word: no, there's not a room in Vancouver. So it's off the air ambulance and back to the hospital. The next day that senior citizen was transported to Vancouver, but, unfortunately, it was too late. She passed away.

Our health dollars are being wasted, and people are paying the price. That has to stop. This government talks about protecting health care. Go into the emergency rooms in this province and see people lying there day after day. Health care is not being provided, yet people are paying the highest taxes of anywhere in Canada. People deserve better service.

And then, of course, schools. You know, soon we'll hear "spend, spend, spend." But no, I'm not going to ask for new schools. I'm going to be asking that the promises by that government to the people of Penticton and Summerland are kept. The promises that are given during an election have to be honoured after an election. Keep your word on education to the people of Penticton and Summerland. They deserve it.

As I did not have the opportunity to be in government, I can remember reading about the debt management plan that was going to save the province over a 20-year period. That has become a joke. No, it's not a joke. It's the financial management plan now, but that will turn out to be a joke. This government does not know how to manage responsibly. They do not know how to manage prudently. They should listen to the experts, to the auditor general and the comptroller general for the advice they're paying for. It is there for the taking. And they should listen to the Public Accounts Committee so that we can work together. That's what the people of British Columbia want: they want us to work together to solve their problems.

With respect to the special warrants and interim supply, an auditor general report of 1995-96 and an opinion of February 1992 from Peat Marwick Stevenson and Kellogg, who say that special warrants are intended to be used only in exceptional circumstances. . . . That should be emphasized and encouraged.

Hon. Speaker, you and I know that we in this province have had a great opportunity to debate the financial situation of this province. There was absolutely no need for this government to deny the people of British Columbia their democratic rights to have an open and public debate about the finances. And the experts are also saying that that should not be. Then, of course, in the same report of '95-96, report No. 5, I have a quote from May 30, 1991. I think this quote has been referred to several times today, so I'll be brief. It's from our current Premier and former Finance minister and former Finance critic, I understand. The closing comment of that quote is: "And when the government and executive council acts unilaterally, it undermines the very foundation of our democracy."

[9:15]

Everyone in this House should work together to preserve democracy. That is why our country lost so many people: to protect our democracy, to protect our rights. For this NDP government to deny the people of British Columbia and their representatives the right to an open forum for debate on a very timely basis is wrong, and at the appropriate time the people of British Columbia will remind the government members.

I really want the government to start to walk the talk, tell us the truth and be open with all British Columbians. People want a vision. They want leadership. They want accountability. But, above all, they want performance, and that will be a new and exciting change for the people of British Columbia should it ever happen.

Interjection.

R. Thorpe: Thank you for your comments, hon. member.

This government has been reckless in its approach to financial management. It has been irresponsible and has saddled the youth of our province with a debt of $31 billion. Our leader spoke yesterday of this government's sideways shifting, and members on the opposite side said: "It sounds good to me." The problem is that the government does not respect the taxpayers of British Columbia. They abuse the taxpayers of British Columbia, and they laugh at them. They laugh at them in this House, they laugh at them in their offices, and the taxpayers of British Columbia are not going to tolerate this. Enough is enough.

This government cannot manage the moneys of our province. This government has no plan. It has no vision. There is no accountability. There is no respect for the taxpayers. And I don't believe this government will ever balance a budget. We'll only see more and more debt from this government. Therefore I say no more money for this government. It is time for this government to listen and to act with accountability to all British Columbians who are saying no to this government -- no to no-fault, no to gaming, no to taking from Forest Renewal. They are saying no, and I ask the members -- the few of them who are here -- to listen. I see an hon. minister nodding his head. I'm sure he'll take it back to his colleagues who aren't here, and we do appreciate that.

I'm now going to conclude my remarks. The people of Okanagan-Penticton want responsible government. They do not want irresponsible fiscal management. Therefore, on their behalf, it will be my pleasure to vote no to this bill.

B. Barisoff: I'm not going to keep the opposition benches in suspense. I, too, rise to speak against the supply bill -- in case they're thinking that somebody on this side might be speaking for it.

I have a real concern. When I got elected. . . . I would have thought that the government of the day would surely

[ Page 2195 ]

know that they were going to be in a situation like this a lot sooner than today, March 27, and that they would have known sooner that we would have to debate a bill like this one that's taking place now.

An Hon. Member: Anything is possible with this group.

B. Barisoff: It's true.

The government has presented a budget this year with a deficit of about $185 million. If you consider their track record from last year, that equates to where we should probably be looking at a budget deficit of half a billion dollars. We just can't accept that kind of action in British Columbia. These are the kinds of actions that take away from the schools and hospitals. They take away from my area. I just want to list a few things in Okanagan-Boundary that I think the mismanagement of this government has caused.

The multi-care facility in Keremeos has been promised by government after government for the last ten years. A cabinet minister who ran against me in the last election made the commitment that if the NDP got elected, that multi-care facility would be built. That was his commitment. It wasn't a commitment made on whether he got elected, but a commitment on whether that government got elected. I would hope that this government would look at that and say: "Yes, we're going to uphold that."

Another area that the mismanagement of this government has caused. . . . The farming community of the South Okanagan -- and it is truly the farming belt of British Columbia. . . . What did this government do? They laid off the only district horticulturist there. Those are the kinds of actions that it is hard for the people of British Columbia to understand -- when they take away something as minor as that, but which means so much to the people of the South Okanagan. These are the kinds of actions that this mismanagement has caused.

Another area is Osoyoos Lake. It's in need of sewers. It's the warmest lake in Canada. Year after year members have come before the government asking for funding to do something. Again, with mismanagement of funds throughout the entire province, it is another area they've let go. It's a tourism area. If this government would start to look at things that would generate revenue rather than look at things where they are wasting money, I think a lot of things that could be done in this province would be done.

On the border entry -- I happen to be appointed to the Motor Carrier Commission, which is looking at truck safety and deregulation in the province -- the government spent $7 million on an intersection there. The original estimate for that project was $2.5 million. These are the kinds of expenditures.... If that was looked after properly in the first go-round, those weigh scales and the truck safety of American truckers coming across the border could be looked at. But again, mismanagement has caused a doubling of what takes place there.

Going along further into my riding, through the Boundary country, we have two big sawmills over there and a lot of little sawmills. The Forest Practices Code is going to destroy them. They're on the verge of going out of business. But the government doesn't seem to be looking at those kinds of things. They've got to look at the fact that what they're doing with these kinds of regulations is destroying the infrastructure of British Columbia. They're destroying the companies that have made things go. We're seeing it in the north country. . . .

Interjection.

B. Barisoff: We're seeing it in the hon. minister's riding, with Repap, in the north. Those are the kinds of things that are going to take place. Mismanagement, again, is showing up all over this province -- big time.

Continuing along further into the riding, we've got milfoil going into Christina Lake. It's a serious problem all over. I think that we've got to look at the effect it's having on the entire province. These are tourist dollars that would be coming from all over. I remember listening to the Tourism minister, from my riding, prior to this. He was indicating that these are American dollars that are coming in. Again, this government seems to be bent on taking this money away from these kinds of areas, so consequently we lose those kinds of dollars.

This government says that they put money into education? I think they've got to look into rural British Columbia. The school boards in rural British Columbia are suffering. They say they put money into special education. I think they should talk to members of school districts or talk to parents of special education students in rural British Columbia -- they didn't get any more. The amalgamation process cost rural British Columbia school districts a lot. And I think this government has to look at those kinds of things, because it has a serious effect; it has a serious effect on my riding, along with a lot of other ridings in rural British Columbia.

They say that they've put more money into education. If you look at the budget you'll find that the per pupil cost is down. That's not putting more money into education; that's expecting to do more with less. Maybe it's not a bad concept, but the thing is that I don't think the government of the day should be there saying that they're putting more money into education, because what's happening is that the smaller school boards are taking less and trying to do with less.

Adult education. Fortunately, I think one of my other colleagues mentioned this. But it's only because of the fact that there was a great human outcry from out there that they were stripping the money from adult education. . . . They took this money away. The hon. Minister of Education doesn't happen to be here, but it was the pressure that was brought to bear which brought the funding back. I think this is the kind of pressure that also has to be brought to bear to bring the funding back for special needs students in this province.

Small hospitals. I have two small hospitals in my area. They say they've put a lot of money into health care. Well, the small hospitals in the small areas are being squeezed. I think something has happened with this government: they've forgotten about rural British Columbia. They talked the other day about having more members of the Legislature, in the last session. . .because rural British Columbia needed to be represented better. But what takes place, I think, is that they're not representing rural British Columbia as they should. And there are a lot of backbenchers that should have a good look in the mirror and think about what kind of rural representation we're getting. A lot of things are happening. If you talk to some of the backbenchers that I've had an opportunity to,

[ Page 2196 ]

there are a lot of areas in rural British Columbia that are suffering and suffering dearly, simply because the government is mismanaging the money again.

Interjection.

B. Barisoff: Well, no, that's not true. I happened to be up there and go through those roads, and I'd like to mention to the hon. member across the way that it is a serious situation up there. But it's a serious situation throughout the province. If some of the members would take a trip on the Hope-Princeton, they would see what I speak of. It's just disgusting. I happened to mention this to one of my colleagues from the north, Prince George-Omineca, and he said that's good in comparison to what they've got up there. I think this government has mismanaged funds so badly that we're seeing it all over. This province is going to. . . . I was going to say "pot in a handbasket," and that's exactly what's taking place. It seems to go from one thing to the other. There doesn't seem to be an area of this province that seems to be managed well. You can go from one to the other to the other, and every area seems to have something.

[9:30]

They keep saying: "Well, you want to spend, spend, spend?" It's not a matter of spend, spend, spend; it's a matter of managing the money properly. When we get a government that comes and tells us that we're going to have an $87 million surplus, and we turn out a $395 million deficit, and the province is in the condition that it's in, I think that somebody across the way has got to get up in the morning and look in the mirror and start to decide how to run this province properly -- because they sure aren't doing it right now.

[G. Brewin in the chair.]

An Hon. Member: It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out something's wrong.

An Hon. Member: They don't have any rocket scientists.

B. Barisoff: It was just mentioned here that you don't have any rocket scientists; I'm sure you have a lot of people there that have some common sense and can do a good job.

An Hon. Member: We haven't found one yet.

B. Barisoff: There's going to be some; I'm sure there is.

I'd like to stand up here for the full half-hour and speak for all kinds of things, but I think that. . . . I've been really, I guess, dismayed in a way about the fact that when I became a member of the Legislature, I thought that we were here to do what's best for the province. But I can see that when we sit in this House two and a half hours before Good Friday. . . . I happen to have a family, and it's important for me to be there; but it's important for me to be here to argue this point. I can't understand in my own mind why this government would not have called this Legislature together a lot sooner. We could have called this Legislature together at the beginning of March and have had ample time to discuss these kinds of bills. I think we've lost it; we've really lost integrity for the entire province of British Columbia, because this government doesn't seem to care what happens outside these walls. It seems to be a matter of power, and as long as they can go. . . .

Interjection.

B. Barisoff: The socialist attitude, as my colleague says.

But I would like to say that I hope this government would start to look at the rest of the province, look at the entire province, because the job that they've done to this point is dismal. It's really sad to think that we're looking at a $1.4 billion debt this year. We're mortgaging our kids, our grandchildren -- and I won't have any of them for a while, but I'm sure that they'll be there one day -- and to think that we're doing this to our future generations is just unconscionable. I have a hard time even getting up here to talk when I see what's taking place in British Columbia. I hope that the government on that side would seriously look at what they're doing and make initial moves to turn this around and start looking at what's going to happen in British Columbia.

B. Penner: For me, too, it is a privilege to rise on behalf of my constituents -- the constituents of the electoral area of Chilliwack. It's been almost a year now since I was elected in the provincial general election of last year, and I've said to many people that, prior to my election, I had about 120 clients. I was a lawyer in practice in Chilliwack. Now I have more than 60,000 clients, and I can tell you that in the past year it certainly has been a challenge to do my very best to represent the people I was elected to serve. But that was my oath, and that was my sworn duty: to represent to the fullest extent possible the people that I represent in Chilliwack.

In that vein, hon. Speaker, I have to ask a few questions about the bill that has been put before the House today for our consideration. I'm referring to Bill 5, Supply Act (No. 1), 1997. Trained as a lawyer as I am, it's natural for me to ask questions. I have a few of them. Why now? How much? What else? And why me? I'll approach all of those questions in order.

First of all, why now? Many speakers who have spoken tonight have also asked this question. The government relies, in part, on standing order 81; a part of that standing order says that a bill can be rushed through debate, through all three readings in the Legislature, on "urgent or extraordinary occasions." Well, I ask you, hon. Speaker, and I ask the other members of this Legislature through you: what is so urgent, and what is the extraordinary occasion that brings us to sit here on the eve of one of the most important religious holidays in the calendar? We have had many, many months to have the Legislature recalled to debate this matter in an orderly fashion. However, here we are with a government that apparently was afraid to meet the elected representatives from around the province to discuss their financial needs. Well, I suppose they have many things to be afraid of, given their financial performance over the past few years.

This brings me to the question of how much. Well, section (1) asks for -- and it doesn't look like a paltry amount -- $5,040,000,000; section (2), $942,423,000; and section (3), $2

[ Page 2197 ]

million for the Purchasing Commission. If this bill survives a vote on second reading to get into committee stage, I will be pleased to ask many questions about what $2 million is needed for the Purchasing Commission.

Now, I'm a little surprised -- maybe I shouldn't be, but I am -- to find that the Ministry of Human Resources is here today seeking $40 million in additional funding from the taxpayers of British Columbia. The reason I say I'm surprised is that only a few short months ago -- it seems short to me; it was, I believe, August of last year -- I heard the current Minister of Human Resources, the member for Mission-Kent, on my local radio station telling all and sundry that due to their clever management and brilliant schemes, the ministry was operating under budget and was saving the taxpayers of British Columbia oodles of money. Yet today they are here telling us that they have overspent their budget by $40 million. Something isn't right. Somebody wasn't telling us the correct facts. On the one hand we're being told that they're saving us "oodles of money" -- and that's the quote. In fact, in their election documents they talked about saving $350 million through welfare reforms. And today they come to this Legislature telling us that they have overspent by $40 million in that ministry. Somebody wasn't telling us the correct facts.

The Ministry of Health is here today saying that they need $40,500,000 in addition to what was already approved last year. Now, as I said at the outset, I am a servant of the people of Chilliwack, so I have to ask myself, in relation to the request from the Ministry of Health: have the people of Chilliwack been well served by the Ministry of Health in the past year, and particularly by the current Minister of Health? Well, let's review recent history. A number of weeks ago the Minister of Health arbitrarily fired the entire Chilliwack hospital board. Finished. Fired. But that wasn't the end of it. She had to insult the integrity of the volunteer members of that hospital board in the process of firing them. That is outrageous. Some of those members had been on that hospital board for 12 or 14 years, putting in countless hours. They're people who are married; they have families; they have businesses they try to maintain. On top of that, they're putting in countless hours, for no pay whatsoever, to help run the local Chilliwack General Hospital on behalf of the citizens of Chilliwack and the Fraser Valley. And what did they get for their efforts? They got fired outright by the Minister of Health. Then they get accused of fiscal mismanagement, and they're told that their integrity is in question. That is shameful.

So when the Minister of Health and the Minister of Finance come here today and ask me, on behalf of the people of Chilliwack, to support their request for an additional $40.5 million in spending for the Ministry of Health, I have to say that my answer is no, not with the way they are treating the people of Chilliwack. They do not deserve our support in their request for additional funding.

There is another ministry asking for additional funding. It's the Ministry of Attorney General, asking for $18.43 million in addition to what was already approved last year, because they overspent their budget. Well, let's consider this request. The Attorney General, of course, is the chief law enforcement officer of the province and represents a government -- and is a member of a government -- that earlier this week wilfully broke the law of the province of British Columbia. Outrageous, unbelievable and completely unacceptable. The law I'm referring to, of course, is the Electoral Boundaries Commission Act. The government failed, absolutely failed -- and after being put on notice, they still failed -- to comply with a law of this Legislature's making. I'm ashamed. I'm ashamed to be in this Legislature, because this Legislature should be in the business of making laws, not breaking laws.

I have a few other comments with respect to the Ministry of Attorney General and their request for additional funding from the taxpayers of British Columbia. Do they deserve it? Well, let's look at some of their other actions. They're busy prosecuting people who had the nerve to express their opinions during an election campaign. We live in British Columbia, and it is truly, I think, one of the most wonderful places on the face of the planet. It is also -- the last I was told -- a democracy. I thought that meant that people had a right not only to cast their votes but also to express their opinions. What other time is it more important to express your opinion than during an election campaign, before you use your right to cast your ballot? I can't think of one. Yet this government is purporting to prosecute and levy fines of amounts up to $220,000 against groups and individuals that had the temerity to exercise their democratic right to express their opinions during an election.

I have some other thoughts, as well, about the Ministry of Attorney General. I put this under the heading of "A Tale of Two Countries." Not long ago, hon. Speaker, I had the opportunity to travel to Southeast Asia, and I visited a number of countries. At my own expense, I travelled with -- and attended, as part of -- the Team Canada trade mission to Bangkok, Thailand. I am the trade critic for the official opposition, and I felt that it was important for me to go on the Team Canada mission to get to know more about British Columbia's reputation as a place to do business.

Well, I certainly learned a lot. But I learned a few other things, and I'll just share with you some of my experiences. I'll ask you, the listeners, to guess which of these two things happened in Canada and which happened in a communist country known as Vietnam. In British Columbia. . . . Oh, I gave it away. I'll take that back and start again, because I don't want to give you the answer; you're supposed to guess what the answer is. In one place. . . .

An Hon. Member: Is this Jeopardy?

B. Penner: A lot of people's lives are in jeopardy in British Columbia, and it's because of the fiscal mismanagement of this NDP government.

Interjections.

An Hon. Member: They laugh, they laugh.

B. Penner: I don't think that's a laughing matter, hon. member.

However, let me just describe two different occasions happening in two different countries, one of which is a communist country and one of which is supposed to be a democracy. In one country there's a public protest being organized on the steps of a courthouse. To facilitate the speakers who are going to address the crowd of 1,800 people who have assembled in a cold, drizzly rain in the middle of February, speakers are set up and power is supplied from the courthouse. A gentleman emerges -- an employee of the Attorney

[ Page 2198 ]

General's ministry -- and tells everybody that he's under orders to cut off the power and have the people evicted from the steps of the courthouse, and that that order came from Victoria.

[9:45]

On the one hand, we had a person who was a government employee, speaking through a loudspeaker in a government-owned vehicle, criticizing the government and being free to do so. In the other country, we had a situation where people were told to leave a public facility, and that they couldn't use the power to feed the loudspeaker, because it was government property and those people were there to criticize the government.

Well, I am ashamed. I am absolutely ashamed that the latter incident occurred in British Columbia, Canada -- more specifically, in Chilliwack late in February of this year. That happened only days after my return from Vietnam, a communist country, where I was entitled to listen to a government employee in a government-owned vehicle use a government-supplied loudspeaker to freely criticize the government if he chose to do so. In British Columbia our public servants are not allowed to do that. It was a Ministry of Attorney General employee who came out to tell us that his superiors in Victoria had told him that we were not allowed to be there to criticize the government.

The Ministry of Attorney General is seeking an extra $18.43 million in funding. Do the people of Chilliwack feel that the Ministry of Attorney General deserves their extra taxpayers' dollars for that kind of effort if they're not willing to defend their right to democracy and free speech? I don't think so. I really don't think so.

My last question is about trust and why me. Why should I trust this government to manage the more than $5 billion in extra appropriations contained in the bill that's before us today? Well, as a previous speaker, the member for Okanagan-Vernon, said: "Past behaviour is the best indicator of future performance." I believe that. If I'm being asked, on behalf of the citizens of Chilliwack, to trust this government to manage an additional $5 billion, with limited debate about just where that money's going to go, I have to ask myself: what is their past behaviour, and what does that indicate about the future performance of this government if it is given that amount of money? Let's take a look.

I'm taking a look back at some previous claims that this government made and I'm quoting from a document entitled "Budget '96 Highlights," province of British Columbia. Here are a few interesting extracts. "Total government debt will decline by $99 million this year." That was the assertion by this government and by this Minister of Finance, who is here today to ask for an extra $5 billion in funding. Now let's take a look at the actual performance. That was the claim: "Total government debt will decline by $99 million this year." That was in 1996. In fact, according to page 35 of "Budget '97 Reports," taxpayer-supported debt increased by $1.1 billion. Did I get that straight? I think I did. This Minister of Finance said the debt was going to go down by $99 million, but in fact it went up by $1.1 billion. Oops!

Well, I look a little further at the Finance minister's claims from last year: "B.C. will have a. . .surplus of $87 million this year." This is the second consecutive surplus budget. That was a quote from, again, "Budget '96 Highlights." So that's the claim: a surplus of $87 million. What's the truth?

Debt has increased from $27 billion in 1995 to almost $31 billion as projected in the budget which this Minister of Finance tabled earlier this week. That's a $4 billion increase in debt since 1995, over a period of time that this government claimed to have produced two consecutive surplus budgets. It doesn't sound like much of a surplus if your debt is going up by $4 billion.

I'll look a little further in "Budget '96 Highlights." "Minister of Finance claims eliminating 2,200 positions from the public service this year." This is under the heading: "Cutting the Size and Cost of Government." So that was the claim last year. What is the truth? It certainly wasn't what we were told by the Minister of Finance, because, in fact, according to the president of the B.C. Government Employees Union, 14 jobs were actually eliminated from the public service. Did I hear that right? The minister promised to eliminate 2,200 positions from the public service -- that's last year -- and the president of the B.C. Government Employees Union said that only 14 people actually lost their jobs.

Now, given the difference between what this government says and what they do, the question I'm left with is trust. Do I trust this government? Do I trust this Minister of Finance? Do I trust the NDP to properly manage the taxpayers' money? Something tells me the answer is no. Something tells me the people in Chilliwack would say no, and, I think, for good reason. They have not been well served by this government, nor has the rest of British Columbia. For good measure, when you throw in, just for consideration, the attempts of this government to stifle free speech and take away rights and access to justice from the citizens of this province, I can't see any reason to support additional funding for this government on such an interim basis, especially when they had ample opportunity to recall this Legislature last year.

Again I point out that since the summer of 1995, this Legislature has sat for approximately 60 days. I see that the Minister of Finance is nodding in agreement with me, hon. Speaker, and I think you would also agree that that's shameful. It's simply not appropriate to sit for such a short period of time in what is supposed to be a parliamentary democracy. We're all elected to do a job, and I'd like to think that we take our jobs seriously. The taxpayers of British Columbia pay us -- and in my view, they pay us quite well -- to do our jobs. I am certainly willing and committed to do my job on behalf of the citizens who elected me, and I hope the members opposite would share my view with regard to their duty and would take their duty seriously towards the taxpayers of British Columbia.

In short, hon. Speaker, I find that I cannot support this bill and the principles behind this bill.

V. Anderson: Unfortunately, it becomes more difficult each year since I've been in this Legislature to stand and speak about the activities of this Legislature. As I travel around the community, I find that, more and more, people are doubting the truth and honour of each of those who were elected to the Legislature. I have discovered again and again that they have respected the persons on first being elected; but as they have seen the activities of the elected members of the Legislature, they have begun to wonder what has happened to those persons as they have come into the legislative chamber.

[ Page 2199 ]

We discover, as we do in a family, that what affects one of us affects all of us, that the good that might be reflected in one may be reflected in all, but also that the mistakes we make individually or collectively come back upon all of us. And I don't think we have the luxury in this Legislature to talk about "them" and "us." I find that the people in our communities don't make that kind of distinction; rather, they ask the question: are people willing, as individuals, to stand up and be counted for the promises and the principles they set forth at the time that they offered themselves for election?

That was brought home to me very clearly in this Legislature when we were debating a bill and voting upon it. Members of the Liberal opposition had different opinions on that particular moral issue, so some voted for it and some voted against it, and we respected each other. But it was a member of the government side, a minister and one of the government members, who berated us and said: "How dare you, in our parliamentary tradition, not vote as a bloc?" How dare we have individual opinions and be able to stand up and express those and vote individually, even though we might have a consensus for the majority of people within our party?

It highlighted for me what so many people in the community are beginning to think and feel: although we stand up for democracy when we are elected, where every individual has the right and the obligation to stand up and speak and act and vote according to their own principles, when we come here we say that because we have a parliamentary system, we no longer have that right once elected -- we have to vote the party line. That is leading us down to lose the very democracy we cherish. And that's what's at stake in this particular discussion we're beginning here this evening and will continue in the months before us: whether individual members are prepared to stand up, to speak out and to vote.

One of the unfortunate situations we are experiencing here this very evening is that only persons on one side of the House are speaking out. On the other side of the House, there's only one member, the Minister of Finance, who will speak, and no one else. That's not democracy. I cannot believe, particularly since I know a good many of the people on the other side of the House, that they all have the same opinion. And I cannot believe, even as the members speaking tonight have spoken up on problems and uncertainties in their communities, that others on the other side of the House don't have that same need to speak. We don't have a fair democracy when they're muzzled and aren't given that opportunity.

When we come to the particular Bill 5 that we're debating and trying to understand this evening, the very minister who presented it asked us to deal with it in principle. But he didn't have enough principles of his own to explain the different facets of the bill, particularly the overexpenditures in the warrants that we're asked to vote upon this evening. He expects us to speak about it without the knowledge and background that that minister has and could present to us, in the understanding of it. That kind of arrogance is not the kind of arrogance we deserve to have in our communities.

[10:00]

[The Speaker in the chair.]

Earlier this week -- it's been both a very long and a very short week at the same time -- the Minister of Health, in her comedy presentation as she presented herself before us here in the House, challenged the Leader of the Official Opposition about why he hadn't spoken out particularly about Magee school -- which is not in his constituency but in mine. Perhaps we need to remind them why we have doubts about what is being presented this evening. After eight years of Magee school being a priority in its own area, and for a number of years being a priority with the Minister of Education, in May of '96 the present Minister of Health, on behalf of the Minister of Education -- and he even confirmed it with a letter -- said to Magee school: "You have the funding, and you've been given the go-ahead for your building." That was May of 1996.

Within a month they were told that they would have to go through another audit. So they went through with the other audit, and they were cleared again in December. They waited expectantly for the announcements of new schools coming out of the freeze. Of course, as they know full well, when that announcement was made, Magee school was not on the list. So the announcement was made in the second round, in February of this year, that yes -- it's great news -- Magee school has been promised the funding, and they will go ahead.

As of today, they are still waiting for the okay from another ministry which has to give its okay, and they're no further ahead in getting the funding and being able to start the construction, which could start tomorrow -- or last week or last month or even last year. It's being held up again, and the costs are going up every moment and every day. When that kind of thing happens to the people of a community again and again and again, who's going to believe a presentation that comes from those same government officials?

But I think we have to realize that there's a distinction here -- and we need to make it periodically -- between the band of 16 who are "the government," the band of 16 who go behind closed doors and in secret and in confidence make their decisions. . . . When they have done that, the other 20 members of that party don't necessarily. . . .

An Hon. Member: There's 23.

V. Anderson: Okay, I'll give you three. Twenty-three members of that party don't necessarily know any more than the opposition does about what goes on within that. Or if they do. . .

An Hon. Member: Come on, come on.

V. Anderson: They're saying "Come on," and they're laughing at me for that.

. . .then that confidence oath, which they tell us is part of the cabinet secrecy chamber, is being broken. You can't have it both ways. And if the other members are operating with insider information, then there's a conflict of interest, and that's why the people of this province don't agree with the games that people are playing.

What we're doing here, unfortunately, is playing games, because the members of one side of the House are seldom really listening to the members of the other side of the House. That will lead, eventually, to our destruction. We need to be very careful with the fragile democracy we've got. It was won through hard fighting by our ancestors, by some of your parents and my parents, in two world wars and other skirmishes around the world, for which they died. We make a mockery of it here in our Legislature.

Sometimes we say that when our young people come from the schools and watch us during question period, when we're in our highest drama, they go home and ask what's going on. But as I listened and watched what we've been

[ Page 2200 ]

doing even this evening, if those same young people were here and watched this debate, they would have an even greater question about what we're really about. Because what we're about, in these decisions that we're making tonight and in the following days, is their very lives.

I have to admit that, as I observed and thought about it this past week particularly, and as members who have been here for a while will know, I've expressed the concern again and again, having grown up with the CCF tradition on the prairies and having listened as a child and as a youth to T.C. Douglas. . . . I know full well the quality and the vitality and the principled nature of that movement. I used to hear some of it in this House, but I complained that it was not put into practice. But as of January of this last year, I have heard very little of that anymore and very little of the practice that goes with it.

Let me give you an illustration of what I have to say, because one of the greatest -- and I hardly know what word to use for it -- effects of our system that we're allowing to be perpetuated is the lack of representation of our children within the courts. Again and again in my constituency office, I've dealt with parents and foster parents and grandparents who are fighting for the rights of their children, which, according to the convention, they should have -- their heritage and their family and their history and their support. They have not been able to have that right protected, because the power of the government and the government lawyers, and the money of the government lawyers -- when children are apprehended or challenged and families are challenged -- is just too much for those families to bear.

Not too long ago, when we appointed a children's advocate, it was recommended in Judge Gove's report -- and it was asked for again and again by our side of the House -- that that advocate should have the authority and the ability to stand with those children and give them the legal support that they need. That was denied them by this government. Those children have been denied their rights and their opportunities by this government. And they're not the only ones that are being denied, hon. Speaker.

The children in the schools, who were promised that they would have their school built. . . . They went down to hopefully meet the Minister of Education, who had made the promise over a year ago, to say to him: "We have been taught that a promise is a promise. Are you saying that a government promise is not a promise? Are there two standards, one for the Legislature of the province and one for the kids of the province?"

We're talking about giving permission for $5 billion for the ongoing work of this government. And at the same time, we're hearing them say that they have been giving priority to health care and education. Yesterday, March 25, even as we met in the Legislature, hearing the budget speech, the British Columbia School Trustees Association wrote to the Minister of Education. And I'll quote just parts of that because it's very relevant to our discussion.

They thanked the minister, first of all, for the $34 million increase in K-12 education, but they went on to say that there is a $43 dollar average decrease in funding for each child in the province of British Columbia. All school boards have received across-the-board cuts of 0.78 percent, or $27 million. And that means $43 less per student than was available last year to support education. The result is that the educational opportunities of our children in this province are being decreased. I quote:

"Further cuts in administration costs at this point do impact on support available to the classroom. For these reasons it is inaccurate to say that this current budget will not have an effect on classroom services." And the writer says: "I must state again, as the BCSTA has expressed to you and your staff in previous meetings, that we ask you, as minister, to be clear and honest in your comments to the media and the field. As school boards meet to face the devastating cuts in our communities, we will not allow comments such as 'efficiencies can be found without affecting students' to go unchallenged."

These are the volunteer school board personnel across the province, who are saying enough is enough. Hon. Speaker, enough is enough.

[10:15]

We have a letter, also a news release, that came out from the certified general accountants about this budget, and I quote:

"Finance minister Andrew Petter's budget has failed to offer a financial management plan that can lift the province out of its spiral of debt. . . . 'While the minister says that he's holding the deficit line to $185 million for 1997-98, the reality is that our total provincial debt will increase by $1.4 billion this year alone,' says Hryciuk" -- who has written this particular letter.

I come back, hon. Speaker, to the remembrance of one night in a previous session of this House. It was just about midnight, almost the time we're getting to now, and suddenly the minister, when we were just ready to adjourn, said that he wanted to introduce a new bill. And when I began to complain about that, the Speaker at that time said that we were supposed to speak to the principle of the bill, and I had to acknowledge that at that particular time, I couldn't find a principle to speak to.

I'm in the same situation now. What is the principle that we're supposed to speak to? Where is the justice and fairness? Where is the responsibility to our ridings and the people who elected us?

I remember that Tommy Barrett came as a speaker to a United Church convention some time ago. They were discussing about having your heart in what you were doing. And others were saying you needed to have your mind in what you were doing. And when Tommy got up, he said: "Well, it's all right to have your heart in the right place, and it's all right to have your mind working, but you also have to have the will to do it."

Individually, before we can do it collectively, we have to have the will to stand up for our constituents, to speak for them and on their behalf, and to vote for them. There are contentious issues, not only in this particular bill that we're dealing with this evening. There are others like gaming, that we have had mentioned again and again tonight, that we have to stand up for. And it's not good enough for us to say in one place that we believe one thing, and then to do something else in another place. If we are able to do that, we have to be able to state the principle of why we're doing it.

Hon. Speaker, I pause for a moment because I understand someone would like to make an introduction.

[ Page 2201 ]

Hon. C. Evans: Permission to make an introduction.

Leave granted.

Hon. C. Evans: I want to introduce my son Phil, who has come here from Yellowknife. I don't think he came here necessarily to visit me. That's Simone English next to him, and Simone wanted to see what we actually do for a living. I appreciate that everybody is behaving in a wonderful way so that she'll think we are respectful people. Thanks for being wacko enough to come here in the middle of the night.

The Speaker: Thank you, member, and thanks to Vancouver-Langara for allowing that.

V. Anderson: Thank you, hon. Speaker.

We've talked about the timing of our discussion this evening, and one of the statements of the past conflict-of-interest commissioner was that decisions about whether a person was in conflict or not should be based on what any reasonable person would think. I think we have to bear that in mind in all our actions, because I'm quite sure that any reasonable person in our province would wholeheartedly believe that when there are 365 days in a year and when the House has not sat since last August, there has been lots of time to deal with the budget fairly and honestly, so that it could be dealt with in the open and with discretion and with proper discourse. Any reasonable person, I'm sure, will conclude that to try to put this amount of activity and decision-making between Monday and Thursday is unreasonable -- for anybody who thinks reasonably at all.

So one has to ask why. Of course, you can impute motives to other people, but I've discovered in the past that if you leave the motives for them to explain, you will be far better off. The explanation we've heard so far -- that last week was school break -- is not a good enough explanation. We could have been here on March 1, debated for two weeks, taken a week out and then come back again. There was nothing stopping us from doing that if we wished to do that -- and any reasonable person would understand it.

But perhaps one other suggestion I would make -- which, again, any reasonable person would make -- is that having goofed as badly as we have, there is another option. It is not the best option, perhaps, but it is still, under the circumstances, probably a reasonable option.

Not long ago in the United States, they went for months without having their budget passed. The United States didn't fall apart, the world didn't come to an end, and they succeeded. Not too long ago, probably before this government was elected, there was a government that operated on warrants right through the summer until the election in October, and the world didn't fall apart -- even though they took a lot of heat over it.

We could have taken this weekend off. We could have come back next Tuesday, and one day later we could have dealt with it honestly and fairly and discreetly -- and reasonable people would have said: "That makes some sense." Perhaps the reason we didn't do it was because that day, of course, is April Fools' Day, and we wouldn't want to look like fools. It seems to me that because we're not taking advantage of that opportunity, we have goofed, and we deserve to be thought of as fools, individually and collectively.

J. van Dongen: I'm pleased to engage in this second reading debate on Bill 5, the interim supply bill, which includes special warrants to the tune of about $100 million and approval for the government to spend another $5 billion in the next three months. A lot of valid comments have been made by my colleagues about the misuse of interim supply bills and special warrants, and I would simply endorse all those comments that have been made.

I just want to express my own concerns about the credibility of the government, particularly fiscal credibility and operational credibility. I look at things like debt, a debt that in the last six years has grown by about $11 billion to $12 billion and is growing at a rate of roughly $1.5 billion a year. I'm very concerned about that. I look at things like the fact that the government had a debt management plan. It started one in 1995, never met any of the targets, and then abandoned it. I know from my own business experience on my farm and in other businesses that bankers really get nervous when people say things and don't follow through.

I look at things like the actual deficit for the first ten months of the fiscal year '96-97, which amounted to $772 million, and I don't know how the minister is going to bring that down to $395 million in the next two months. I look at the fact that in the consolidated revenue fund, we talk about a projected deficit of $185 million when in fact we know, when we consider all the financial information and all the government's operations, that the deficit will be over $800 million based on current projections.

These are some of the things that concern me, Mr. Speaker. I am not impressed by what people say as much as by what they do, and I'm not impressed by the appearance of cost-cutting but by the actual results when all is said and done. I think it's important that we focus on leadership in what are difficult times, and I think we need governance for all people rather than creating and exploiting existing divisions between the citizens of British Columbia.

I am concerned that the government does not fully understand the true implications of spending more money than it takes in. It makes no difference if you're a person running a household, a business or a government. More and more debt simply translates into higher taxes or fewer services for future generations.

I also want to reject the ongoing doublespeak of the government and its lack of respect for the Legislature. I want to give two examples of areas where I think the government has made commitments and has not delivered, or where it is misdirecting financial commitments. One of them deals with the University College of the Fraser Valley, in my riding. I'm going to read you a quote from the university newsletter dated March 14, 1997. The title of it is: "UCFV Faces Major Funding Shortfall for Coming Year."

"The failure of the provincial government to fulfil its commitment to the University College of the Fraser Valley has resulted in a budget shortfall of more than $1.2 million for the coming year. The government has given us the same amount of dollars as last year; however, they have also insisted on a provincewide framework agreement with our employees that includes a pay increase of approximately 1.8 percent, without giving us any money to implement it. They have also funded a new building on the Abbotsford campus without any new funding to cover additional operating costs.

"Finally, and most important of all, we find ourselves without the funding for 458 full-time-equivalent student spaces that was committed to us when we were turned into a four-year institution. The commitment was made in 1991, when the government transformed Fraser Valley College into UCFV. The funding commitment included an increase of over 1,200 FTEs over a five-year period.

"On this basis, UCFV introduced nine new bachelor's degree programs, added several other new programs and

[ Page 2202 ]

expanded its facilities and services to serve approximately 1,500 new students. Now, at the end of the five-year startup period, UCFV has still not received funding for 458 of the promised spaces, which was expected to add approximately $4 million to the existing annual budget. Three other university colleges were created in the province before UCFV, and they all received their full funding commitment.

"Although UCFV has added new programs and some new funding was received, the population growth in the valley has continued to outstrip the college's ability to serve. In order to cope with the budget problem, a number of options to generate more revenue and cut costs have been presented to the UCFV community. It also includes ensuring that special government-funded projects, such as the institution-based training initiative, which is designed to help people on social assistance to get training and education, are more efficiently integrated with the regular programming."

[10:30]

The other area I want to highlight is the decision by the government to cut funding to resource ministries by an average of 22 percent. I'm very concerned about this for a couple of reasons, but the main reason is that a lot of the wealth generated throughout all of British Columbia depends on the success of these resource industries and, in turn, the ministries that are required to serve them.

I just want to mention a few of the cuts in the Ministry of Agriculture. It's interesting. It seems to me that the Ministry of Agriculture is managed to the effect that all those cuts simply will be followed through on. The cuts amount to 90 staff positions out of 471. A lot of very experienced and respected senior staff have taken early retirement, and there will be a big hole in that ministry after April 1 of this year. A lot of good people -- a lot of senior people -- have been retired.

We've seen cuts to some very important programs, such as the dairy inspection program, for example, where we've had eight or nine people to date serving all of the province to maintain the highest milk-quality standards anywhere in North America. We'll see that staff level cut to probably two or three people, and that's after a big battle within the industry to try and maintain some semblance of a presence of staff to maintain quality standards.

We've seen cuts in programs that were, in my mind, virtual legal commitments by the province to the industries involved. One was the grazing enhancement fund, which was negotiated as part of a number of land use plans. It involved commitments to the cattlemen in the province, and there are major cuts in that program. There were also cuts to the Okanagan tree fruit programs, which were really well on their way to facilitating an important transition in that industry. Fruit growers actually signed agreements with the government for the coming crop year that had to be renegotiated. In my view, those were legal commitments both ways by the parties involved, and they were reviewed and are possibly still subject to legal challenge.

I think it's very unfortunate and not good economics when that happens. In fact, one of the leaders in the tree fruit industry said: "You know, the government saved $1 million. That's a one-time saving of $1 million that will cost them $10 million in impacts in terms of loss of confidence, loss of plantings and loss of revenue."

I also want to mention quickly some of the issues with respect to the Ministry of Health. The Ministry of Health is a very important ministry. It represents fully one-third of the total spending within our government operations. In my experience, it's the large ministries like the Ministry of Health where the greatest potential savings exist. We saw the implementation of the New Directions program some years ago now -- going on well over three years ago. We saw the government struggle with that for far too long before it decided. It realized that it was not going to work and that there was simply far too much bureaucracy built into the program for it ever to work. So now we're into a new program and more transition. I think it's really unfortunate that the Ministry of Health has been basically in transition for that long. That doesn't do anything for effectiveness; it doesn't do anything for morale. It was really discouraging to me.

About six months ago, I had a meeting with my local health board, and as I was sitting down, one of the senior staff members there said to me: "Do you know what's going on in the Ministry of Health?" I wasn't sure if he was being facetious or if he was serious, and I said that to him. He looked back at me and said: "No, I'm serious. Do you know what's going on in the Ministry of Health?" I said: "Actually, I came here to find out from you what's going on in the Ministry of Health." And he said: "Well, I can tell you I don't have any idea what's going on."

Very often, I think it's those little things that are signals of bigger things and bigger problems. I think there has been far too much turnover. We've had five different deputy ministers in three years in the Ministry of Health. Again, those are bad signals to me about the effectiveness of the management of day-to-day operations.

I also want to endorse the concerns expressed by the member for Fort Langley-Aldergrove about the forced amalgamation of hospitals and other care facilities, and the displacement of people who have dedicated their lives to improving health care in their communities. In their displacement, they were simply shunted aside, and not a lot of effort was made to involve them in the new regional health boards that have been set up.

[W. Hartley in the chair.]

In the face of some of these serious concerns I have about operational and financial management, we see a government compromising its principles by considering increased gambling as a source of revenue.

We see serious decisions about car insurance being driven by the government's need for cash, which it contemplates getting out of ICBC reserve funds. We see a government willing to compromise victims' rights by taking away their right to sue for damages. We see the government willing to compromise the treatment of injured drivers by putting in a no-fault system, as if we don't have enough evidence from our experience with WCB that such a system does not work. We see people who have been injured and who are working through the processes of WCB. In fact, when I observe those serious injuries -- the partial and permanent injuries -- I say that those people have in effect become wards of WCB. It's a very serious concern that I have.

I just wanted to raise a few examples that give me serious concerns about the credibility of the government and its willingness to focus on good management -- as opposed to

[ Page 2203 ]

managing appearances and seeking revenue sources that will serve only to compound our problems. I say sincerely that I hope the government will think seriously about some of those issues and redirect its energies to work for better management on a day-to-day basis.

J. Dalton: Hon. Speaker, I believe there are at least two issues, but I will point out two that I think are integral to our discussion of this interim supply bill. One is the impact of the budget on British Columbia. By that, of course, I mean the current budget, of which this document forms a part.

But perhaps as important, if not more important, is the record of this government over the last six years and, I submit, the last two years in particular. I am of course referring, by my reference to the last two years, to the two consecutive allegedly surplus budgets, the '95-96 and '96-97 budgets. All members will remember the controversy that has resulted from these two failed surplus budgets.

In the budget report of last year, we were told that this is the "second consecutive budget surplus." Shamefully, Mr. Speaker, that same statement was made in the throne speech last year. We know that reality set in soon after that document and after that statement was made -- the reality for '95-96 of a deficit of $369 million and for last year, '96-97, a deficit of $395 million. Now we're dealing with a budget deficit for the current year of $185 million. That, of course, is projected. We don't know yet what the final figures will be, but I suspect, given the track record of this government, that the $185 million deficit will no doubt balloon into some much larger figure.

The other problem with the budget now and in the past is the provincial debt, which has escalated beyond any acceptable amounts. As of Monday next, our provincial debt will be $29.4 billion. A year later, March 31, 1998, the debt will have increased a further $1.5 billion, to $30.9 billion. Truly, hon. Speaker, we are mortgaging our future -- but more importantly and shamefully, the future of our children. That is a very sad commentary on the conduct of this government.

Tonight they are asking us to pass into law interim supply and to give recognition to special warrants, which clearly are the track record of a government that has no concept of fiscal responsibility and no concept of the concerns of the people of this province: the taxpayers, the women and children, everyone in this province who is adversely affected by the economic mismanagement of the NDP.

We see some evidence of that mismanagement right in the supply bill itself. We have three ministries that are over budget by a total of almost $100 million. What happened? Last year this government and the Finance minister were so proud to be on their feet and say they had brought the deficit under control. They had a surplus. Presumably, that meant the spending by government was under control.

An Hon. Member: Not true.

J. Dalton: Obviously not true, hon. member, because a year later we have special warrants for $100 million.

As I said earlier, not only does that create great difficulties for our future debt and the costs related to that but also for the cost of borrowing. This government has put on record that its cost of borrowing has gone beyond the point where we can expect to get the favourable rates we have at the moment. Our Finance critic yesterday drew to the attention of this House and the Finance minister that the lenders in this world are looking at this province: ". . .the main reason for this deterioration. . ." -- this is a quote from the document, and of course, they're talking about the deterioration of our economic circumstances -- "is that there is currently a perception of uncertainty by investors regarding British Columbia." I can well believe that there's a great element of uncertainty, when you consider the budget we're dealing with now and this interim supply bill we're going to deal with this evening.

[10:45]

Obviously, all government services are compromised by the fiscal mismanagement of the government. There's one in particular I wish to comment on, and that is public education. The government proudly announces in its current budget that education funding is up 0.6 percent. However, that increase hardly takes into account the increased student population. We know the reality, hon. Speaker. For example, the Vancouver school district will be running a $16 million deficit for next year. My own school district of North Vancouver will have a projected deficit of $770,000.

I add with regard to my district as well that next month there will be a $2 million referendum that North Vancouver is putting to the taxpayers of that community. The North Vancouver district is seeking funding to start the implementation of the new technology instruction that this government has mandated in the curriculum but has not provided adequate funding for. Now, that is truly shameful when you consider the importance of education to our economic future and wherewithal.

Hon. Speaker, I submit that a school district should not be placed in such a position of compromise as North Vancouver will be facing in this referendum. School taxes, as we all know as property owners, are quite significant now. The property owner who has to pay these taxes expects that Victoria and the Ministry of Education will provide the funding to reflect the mandate of the Education ministry. This government has failed to do so.

I have one other comment as well about public education, and that, of course, is the controversy over new and expanded schools. We know the rather sorry situation that the Premier created recently by announcing 11 new schools, all of which surprisingly were in NDP-held ridings and eight of which were in cabinet ministers' ridings, one of which was the Minister of Education's very own riding. Then the Minister of Education, realizing the political fallout from this, later stated that he didn't care if students were NDP kids or Liberal kids. Quite frankly, hon. Speaker, I don't think that's relevant to the issue. Kids aren't politically motivated. Kids are kids who want a good education, and they deserve it no matter how their parents may have voted in a general election.

Subsequent to that, we of course have had a new list of projects produced that will allow expansion to go ahead. New schools will be constructed; others have been put in the planning stage. But there is an element of uncertainty in that list. I'll cite an example, again from my own school district. Two days after the announcement came out and my children's high school, Handsworth, was on the planning list, I saw the principal of Handsworth at a school function. I asked him what he understood by the announcement of planning for his school. He didn't know. So I called Victoria on Monday next

[ Page 2204 ]

and found out for him, and I informed him what the planning was. But I think it is shameful and a very sorry record when the very people being affected by these announcements have no knowledge of what the announcement means. My colleague from Abbotsford previously made a similar observation when he attended a health meeting and the people at the health board meeting didn't know what the Health ministry was up to. We have a similar scenario.

The courthouses closing has caused unbelievable chaos and confusion. In West Vancouver, they've put forward a proposal similar to those which Richmond, Chilliwack and other communities have put forward, to take care of the rent and swallow the costs that the Attorney General has the responsibility to provide but has abdicated. West Vancouver has been informed that its proposal of $350 million in savings for the AG ministry, over two years, will not be accepted. That results in the West Vancouver courthouse closure and anticipated extra policing costs to that municipality, for the same two-year period, of half a million dollars. So the government won't even accept a good financial offer that makes sense both from the fiscal point of view and from the people point of view. We all know the inconveniences of closing courthouses in whatever community it may be.

One other form of downloading that will not be occurring this year, happily, because they've delayed it a year -- but it's coming, and they've told us they've already flagged it -- is the shifting of the maintenance of some arterial highways in this province to the municipality. It's a bit ironic in a way, I guess, that the government is prepared to shift the cost of maintenance of these highways down to the municipality, but they don't seem to have the wherewithal to put a game plan in place and address the very serious issue of the rehabilitation or replacement of the Lions Gate crossing, which I can assure this audience -- and certainly my constituents know this full well -- is long overdue. It's long overdue because of the safety factor as well as the transportation factor on that crossing.

So we have a very sorry record of a government that is over budget. It's been over budget for all six years it's been in power in the nineties. It's a government that allegedly produced two consecutive surplus budgets, but we know that those budgets were based on deceit. It's a government that downloads, with no apology to the municipalities. We must remind the members opposite that there's only one taxpayer. It doesn't matter which pocket you're picking; there's only one taxpayer's pocket available. It's just shameful. Then we have a government that says: "Well, please don't worry about the past. Please just pass this interim bill into law. Don't worry about the $100 million overrun in the Attorney General, Health and Human Resources ministries. Please forgive us for those. Next year, all will be better." We also, of course, have a government that drifts in and out of gambling expansion, no-fault insurance, Forest Renewal raids and Sunday liquor store openings -- another thing they don't seem to want to talk about in this House. It's shameful.

So what do we have? We have a government that has been elected by concealing vital budget information, and now this same government comes to us on the last available day before the long weekend and says: "Please pass the supply bill into the law." I say to this government: you're asking the people of this province for a blank cheque. I say: cancel the cheque. Clearly there's only one option open to all members in this House: you must vote this bill down.

K. Whittred: I look at the clock, notice that it is nearly 11 o'clock, and I ask myself: why are we in this House tonight, debating this bill on the evening before the Easter weekend? I'm sure there are members on both sides of the House who had thought they would be home by this time. Certainly others, like myself. . . . I know I was certainly looking forward to some quality grandson time this weekend.

I would think that by this time in the evening perhaps we can kind of condense things to their simplest terms. Those on the government side of the House tonight are here not debating this bill but simply because they have a payroll to meet, and they need this interim supply bill. We on the other side of the House are here because history, parliamentary law and constitutional law demand it. I think those issues have been well documented and demonstrated by various other speakers throughout the evening.

However, that does not address why we're debating this bill at 11 o'clock. I can see that there are only two scenarios. One is the issue of mismanagement. There has been much talk all evening about mismanagement -- mismanagement of budgets and so on. I'm going to speak about mismanaging the little stuff, maybe in this case a schedule. Did somebody forget to look at a calendar and see that there were only three days in this week? I don't know.

I look at a number of other things that go on in my riding and within my experience. For example, in my riding we have the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool. We have spoken about the downloading of provincial responsibility onto the municipalities, and certainly the downloading of things like railways, taxes and municipal grants are well known. But in my riding we have one more. This is a case where a stenographer apparently forgot to write down that grain elevators are major industries. This is costing the city of North Vancouver $500,000 this year -- a small thing, perhaps, but is small mismanagement indicative of bigger things?

In my other life, before I came to this House, I was a teacher -- not an administrator or a superintendent, but a regular, ordinary classroom teacher in a British Columbia school. I remember that at about this time last year -- in fact, maybe it was April -- we got a notice from the ministry.

I believe my colleague mentioned earlier that people in his area, in health, didn't know what went on in the Ministry of Health. Well, I can tell you, having worked in the Ministry of Education, it's common knowledge that nobody knows what goes on in that ministry. Anyway, that is another story.

I was going to say that in April the announcement came down about a major change in curriculum. Nobody had bothered to find out that the timetables were already completed in February -- an obvious case of small mismanagement. If they can't handle the small things, I wonder if the government can handle the big things.

[11:00]

My colleague from West Vancouver-Capilano made mention of the new technology 11 curriculum which has been

[ Page 2205 ]

mandated by the government. But there are no equipment and no resources to teach it with -- more small mismanagement. Is that indicative of large mismanagement?

A week or two ago, Mr. Speaker -- and you would be aware of this -- I had the privilege of being asked to stand in for my colleague the member for Richmond-Steveston at a rally to support the courthouse in your riding. I understand that decision has now been deferred. But when I arrived there -- and, of course, I was a stranger in this community and wasn't too familiar with the issue -- I was amazed to find an almost new building. My first reaction was: why would the government build a new building and a few years later turn around and close it down? It didn't make sense to me -- more mismanagement, small mismanagement. If you can't handle the small stuff, can you handle the big stuff?

Then we get to one of the major issues in my riding, the Lions Gate Bridge. This has been on the books and has been discussed longer than the CPR. The CPR was built in the 1880s, for heaven's sake, and went right across Canada. I cannot believe that this government cannot come out with some sort of announcement so that at least the elected representatives of the people can sit down and have a debate about it. I cannot understand why the minister cannot at least accept an invitation from the local chamber of commerce to speak on the issue -- again, small mismanagement.

In North Vancouver we have one of the largest concentrations of seniors in the province. I don't know how many of you read the article in today's Globe and Mail about the downloading of health services on families -- in fact, mainly on women. One of the main outcomes of that particular phenomenon is the need for respite services. We have had a respite service okayed; it has been passed; it is supposed to be being built. Again, it's not. Nobody knows what has happened to this particular facility -- more small mismanagement.

I had a senior doctor from Lions Gate Hospital in my office the other day telling me that because of a particular piece of equipment that was becoming obsolete, the ability of Lions Gate Hospital to remain a major trauma hospital is in question. Apparently, this is not of concern to the people in the ministry. They say: "Go to St. Paul's." Again I ask: has anybody in the ministry looked at a map? In the case of a major emergency, it is entirely possible that there won't be any bridges. I call that mismanagement -- lack of foresight.

The second possible reason that we are here at 11:05 at night is not because the government mismanaged the schedule but because it was deliberate; they actually planned this evening. This is sort of gun-barrel legislation -- legislation by exhaustion. If that is the case, then I have to concur with my colleague from Vancouver-Langara. He very eloquently said this evening what I was going to say, in the last part of my presentation, about the need to look at reform in this institution. I am sure that all of us, from time to time, feel somewhat stifled by the discipline and rules which are imposed on us and by the manipulation of the game plan. I think that is what my colleague was saying, and I support his remarks. I will conclude my remarks at that point. I urge the members of the House to vote against this appropriation.

B. McKinnon: I wish I could say I was happy to speak here in the House today. I believed that this parliament was supposed to operate in a democratic manner, but now we see our democracy shifting because of the behaviour of this government. I would like to express how disappointed I am in the way this government has treated the parliamentary process. Leaving the supply bill to the afternoon before a very important religious holiday shows what little regard this government has for parliamentary procedure in this province. Where is the moral responsibility? This government has been asked many times by the opposition to call the House back so that this government's business could be done by proper parliamentary procedure. It only fell on deaf ears.

This government has its own agenda that regards any process that enables the opposition any time to debate the process. . . . It just throws it out. What we have, Mr. Speaker, is a government that wants to govern from Vancouver rather than from the Legislative Assembly. We have members of this government in the back bench who cannot even stand up for their own principles. They have stated publicly that they are against gambling, but we don't hear anything from them. Has the cat got their tongues?

Today is a sad day for all British Columbians, as we have a government that only cares for their own power, not about the people of this province. How can one support a government whose Finance minister is on the front page of the Province newspaper saying that he doesn't expect anyone to believe him? Why should we give this government anything, let alone more money? Why should we give spending authority to a government that says it can do anything it wants? Why should anyone believe anything this government has to say? They say one thing, then do another.

This is a government that is going to toss the province's credit rating out the window. This is a government that has created a debt monster -- an out-of-control debt monster. This is a government that has allowed the rest of Canada to outperform British Columbia since January 1996. This is a government that says it is protecting health care and education, creating jobs and cutting spending, when it's all an optical illusion. Take a look at our waiting lists for operations in the hospitals, our overcrowded schools and our school boards in debt because they can't get the money they need to educate our children.

This is a government that has a corporate capital tax that discourages investment in our province. This is a government that doesn't understand that small business is the backbone of the province and the country. They chase businesses to Alberta and the States, because they make it too expensive to do business here in British Columbia. I was privileged to go on our northern tour. When we visited Alberta, we were told that if British Columbia doesn't soon wake up, the world is going to pass us by and go around us.

This is a government that is off-loading costs to local governments and other agencies so that the budget shows they have reduced spending in this province. This is a government that plans to bring in no-fault insurance and take away victims' rights. This is a government that is going to bring expanded gambling to this province. They're not concerned about the social cost; it's the money that they are after. This is a government that is going to open liquor stores on Sundays, which is just another addiction that this government likes to make money on.

[ Page 2206 ]

They don't take time to find out what they do to families with a stroke of the pen.

[The Speaker in the chair.]

Let's talk about education and what this government is doing to the parents and students of this province. In my riding of Surrey-Cloverdale, education is in a severe crisis situation. Lord Tweedsmuir, a senior secondary school that was built for 1,350 students, now has 1,900. Every space on the school grounds is taken up with portables. This government recently announced the lifting of Clayton secondary and Fraser Heights secondary from the freeze. These were schools that were promised to us in 1995. Clayton secondary was ready to go to construction. The stress and fears that the parents were feeling were finally lifted. We were finally going somewhere. That didn't last too long, though. The plans had to go back to the drawing board, waste more of our taxpayers' money and set the building of the school back for who knows how long? We may never see the school.

Where are we going to put all the new students that continue to move into the riding? Does this government care? I don't think so. It's too bad that the ears of this government are blocked to the people of this province, blocked to the people who need schools to educate their children, blocked to the people who have been put on waiting lists to have operations. These are the people that this government continually reminds us are on the top of their priority list.

I cannot support this supply bill before us tonight, for all the reasons stated here tonight.

P. Reitsma: Thank you, hon. Speaker, for the opportunity to address the interim budget act. Yes, I'm sad that it's been eight months. Eight months ago we met for the last time, and I'm sad that this, indeed, has to be railroaded at literally the eleventh hour, a couple of hours before a very important date -- Good Friday and Easter, which Christians celebrate, but which I realize are also important holidays for those that have another faith. I think it's a lack of consideration.

The interim supply is full of broken promises. It's a budget full of broken promises, and it's a budget and interim supply full of tax increases. Why should we approve this interim supply? It provides us with no scrutinization so that we can look at the details if any amount is inappropriately spent. This supply act is a dishonest piece of legislation. It provides us with no debate on how the taxpayers' moneys are spent. It's not unlike the gag law on expressing views that is being put on by this government. It's a very sad day today for B.C., yet I guess it's a very happy day to relax in the wriggle room. What confidence do we have in the accuracy of the numbers floating around like a trial balloon?

[11:15]

Constituents in Parksville and Qualicum tell me time and time again: "We don't believe this government; we don't trust this government. This government is obfuscating the truth." Telling the truth is something worthwhile to fight for, to crusade for. I remember my father fighting in the Second World War in order to try and preserve the freedom that so many people laid down their lives for. Freedom also means speaking the truth. We teach our children to tell the truth, to not be afraid of the consequences of telling the truth. Why should we give any more money to this government, squandering, with a litany of broken promises, an interim supply act which sounds as good as an investment in Bre-X -- inflated, overrated and overestimated? It's rather curious that in the financial world, a negative balance is referred to as an honest NDP budget. There's some headlines in the paper, and once or twice I agree with some of the statements made. One particular one by the Finance minister, of course, was: "I Don't Expect You to Believe Me." I agree with that. As a matter of fact, yesterday the member for Vancouver-Fraserview -- and it really must bother him -- at 4:58 in the afternoon, stated: ". . .the opposition gets up and says, 'Liar, liar.' " Mr. Speaker, he mentioned that, and obviously it's a great bother to them.

What has happened? We were promised two balanced budgets. In fact, as I understand, as of yesterday there are six unbalanced budgets. Our debt is going up, for the first time, to $30.9 billion, and the debt is future taxes for children and for grandchildren. I know what it means to be in private business. If I had this kind of debt, I would have been put into bankruptcy -- but not this government. How can we trust this government and the budget? How can we believe this government? How can we have faith in this government? Where is the integrity? What we need, above all, is the truth in budgeting and, indeed, balanced-budget legislation.

Now, this weekend most of us will be hunting for Easter eggs, which is a very pleasant task. But we and the people of B.C. will be hunting for the truth in budgeting and the truth in numbers, and that is a sad situation. We'll be digging up goodies this weekend, Easter eggs and what have you, yet this government is covering up the budget untruths. What course is this good ship, the government, taking, floating? It reminds me of Noah's Ark, with a true purpose and true intentions, with the vision and the destination. It did float. Yet when I look at the Finance minister's ark, all that's in there are woodpeckers. It floats at the moment, but you know what woodpeckers do. Ultimately that causes it to sink. As far as I'm concerned, this budget is a woodpecker's budget: it floats, but there are so many holes in there that it sinks. And you know who is going to pay for that.

There are a couple of items in my riding of Parksville-Qualicum. One of them, of course, is schools. I too believe it is purely coincidental that the first round of releases of the 11 schools, in NDP ridings and cabinet ministers'. . . . I so agree that it is absolutely coincidental. However, I would like to point out that, certainly in my area, of the many photo opportunities and many promises in 1993, one particular school in Errington was promised that there would be a new school by the year 1996. That school has an alarm system for when the sewage overflows. Kids are trained to hurry out of the school, covering themselves because of the sewage overflowing. Yet in 1993 we were promised -- all the documents are there; the photo opportunities are there -- that indeed funding would be forthcoming, and the new school would be there in 1996.

Might I remind the current Minister of Education -- it's like a revolving door; we get so many over the years -- that the ministry tried very hard a year and a half ago to force amalgamation of school district 69 and school district 70, without any consultation or communication. The whole community got together and asked him to give them an opportunity -- after no consultation and no communication -- to come up with a plan that would work. The community forced that to be done, and indeed they came up with a plan to save that particular amount of money. Why all this unnecessary grief to my area, whilst a phone call for cooperation would have been enough?

Since I see the Attorney General, I would like to talk about the courthouse in Parksville, as well. Let me read from the Parksville-Qualicum Beach News, October 29, 1996, when

[ Page 2207 ]

the hon. minister did come to Parksville. The headline read: "Top Cop Shows Badge in Parksville." I would like to quote a couple of sentences, one from a student who questioned the minister about whether high school students have any influence on laws and regulations. In a very curious and very honest reply, the minister said: "You certainly can have. Politicians are cognizant that you are the leaders of tomorrow. Politicians live in awe of public opinion." Another question was asked by the reporter of the news, and that was if the Parksville provincial courthouse was on the government hit list of budget reductions. The answer was: "The rumour was denied that the government may close the Parksville courthouse as part of its $750 million budget reduction plan. I can't tell you specifically which courthouses are marked for closure. . . . But," the hon. minister said, "Parksville is not on the list that I've seen kicking around."

I would like to go back to what the minister said in terms of influence on regulations and laws. "You certainly can have it," he said. "Politicians are cognizant that you are the leaders of tomorrow. Politicians live in awe of public opinion" -- words. Actions speak louder than words. I would just like to remind the other side of public opinion on casinos and no-fault insurance. One of them. . . . The declassification of the highways onto the municipalities without any consultation or communication, and the loss of grants to the municipalities after a protocol agreement was signed last year. . . . As a former mayor of Port Alberni and also a former mayor of Parksville -- 11 years in total -- I know what it means to tell the truth. I know what it means to look people in the eyes when I see them in church, in the shops, on the streets. When one sees them day after day, one cannot be obfuscating the truth.

I wish this government would have stuck by the intent of and the reasons for the protocol agreement -- that is, communication and consultation with the municipalities through the UBCM. That has not been done. This government, whilst they should be apologizing to the UBCM, should also apologize about the budget and commit to introducing balanced-budget legislation. I think that whilst they're apologizing, they should be apologizing for adding 1,400 civil service jobs after promising to cut 5,000-plus. I think whilst they're apologizing -- it's the same letter anyway, and I'll deliver it -- apologize for politicizing education and the funding of 11 schools. As I mentioned, they're all in NDP ridings -- purely by coincidence.

On the same line, apologize for ignoring the wishes of British Columbians and foisting gambling on the province. Whilst they're apologizing, they should put in a guarantee that as they promised, no money would be raided from the forest renewal fund. The rest of those members who spoke out a couple of years ago against the forest renewal fund should finally stand up and show integrity on behalf of the comments and commitments they made. Actions speak much louder than words.

I would like to see the opening of the courthouses in B.C. -- and pay back the money extorted from the communities in order to keep them open. Cancel the no-fault insurance scheme, repeal the notorious gag law, and above all, scrap the fixed-wage law and the health labour accord in order that more moneys may flow to people. Indeed, keep and honour the promise about being on the side of students. Of course, whilst there may be more funding for education, the actual funding per student, as has been mentioned a number of times, has gone down by $40-plus. That is not a sign of integrity and honesty.

While we're talking about no tax increases and fees and what have you. . . . There's a litany of fees, but they don't call those tax increases, of course. Get away from the feeble excuse that because propane prices are so low, this is one of the reasons they have increased it by 2.2 cents per litre. That, again, is the breaking of a promise.

In my particular area, the tourism area, which I've been involved in for some 30 years, I notice that a number of film industry people and companies have been coming to B.C. Of course, B.C. is an excellent place to shoot films. As a matter of fact, I wish they'd come to this House and film the theatrics, the actions going on in this House by this government, because I think that ought to be marketed. That ought to be made available to Disneyland, because the production of such a film, although it might take years, will indeed produce some money for us and may help to cut down the deficit.

I cannot help but think of two movies that would be parallel. One is Jim Carrey's movie, which, of course, is Liar Liar -- or in this particular case, "Untruth Untruth" -- and the other one is 101 Dalmatians, which I guess should be changed to "101 Donations" -- by the taxpayers to this provincial government.

Confidence in tourism. Well, it's a revolving-door policy. I think we've had -- what? -- four or five Ministers of Tourism in the last year and a half, which of course shows a tremendous amount of confidence in this particular industry.

D. Symons: Point of order. Hon. Speaker, I. . . .

The Speaker: Excuse me, member. I have to recognize you, first, and I also need to have you in your own seat if you're going to raise a point of order.

D. Symons: Thank you, hon. Speaker. I was sitting near the member so I could hear what he was saying. Because of the background noise from the opposite side of the House, I am not able to hear him clearly enough. I'd appreciate it if the members could use more decorum. Thank you.

The Speaker: I thank the member for bringing that to my attention. I hadn't noticed the background noise; however, I do take your caution.

P. Reitsma: Thank you, hon. Speaker, and thank you to my colleague. It's so good to see that we have a couple more members on the other side. It's been rather quiet there, because there was nobody there -- just the minimum number required, I suppose. Again, that shows you the interest they have.

[11:30]

Mr. Speaker, I was talking about the tourism industry. A promise was made last year, before the election, that a funding formula would be in place. I's were dotted, t's were crossed, hands were shaken, promises were made. Yet lo and behold,

[ Page 2208 ]

just a couple of months after the election, because it wasn't legislated, things were changed and funds were cut by almost 25 percent.

I won't go too much into the general accounting principles of this particular Finance minister, but it reminds me of an archaic one. It reminds me of the first bookkeepers, who were Adam and Eve. They founded the loose-leaf system, and that's exactly what we see here: a loose leaf here and a loose leaf there, a little bit here and a little bit there, and a binder to put it all together. It is not good enough.

Last but not least, I think we can get rid of. . . . We would go a long way toward balancing a true budget -- other than through legislation, of course -- by eliminating the health labour accord and the fair-wage policy, which on the Island Highway alone cost us an additional $70 million. That's money that could have gone to all kinds of worthwhile projects -- and not a percentage of that into the union coffers, as far as I am concerned. Do away with the corporate capital tax, which will stimulate. . . . And the banking facilities, by the way, are not included in that. That will stimulate the economy here. This would help to protect health and education -- something we said we would be doing.

Once again, Mr. Speaker, this government has proven that it cannot -- nor will it -- listen to people. I will just remind you of the gambling and the no-fault insurance. That's what people all over do not wish for, yet they're not listening.

On behalf of my constituents in the Parksville-Qualicum area, it's very difficult for me -- in fact, it's impossible for me because of the lack of confidence, the lack of integrity and the lack of truth in the budgeting -- to support this particular interim supply bill. I will say no to that.

I. Chong: I would have liked to have started this session feeling optimistic about the future direction of this province, but the throne speech and the budget speech have quickly dissipated any such feelings.

Today we are here to respond to the government's request for an interim supply of money -- money that this government expects to be just handed over without proper or full debate or accountability. We should be so fortunate that when we ask, we should receive. This government has overspent its budget in three ministries, and this government expects us to allow them to continue to spend without explaining how they got to this sorry state. And so I say no, Mr. Speaker.

When I was recently participating in a tour of the northern interior, I heard from people and small businesses -- small businesses that, like this government, fell short of cash. In many cases, it was not due to their own acts or any kind of mismanagement. Who can they turn to when they need the extra cash for their families, for food, for clothing and for shelter? The lending authorities, the banks, expect a business plan before any advance or interim financing is to be considered. Well, I would challenge this government to give us and the B.C. taxpayers a business plan before any advance is given to it. We do know that this will not happen, not because the government cannot provide a plan but because they refuse to. They refuse to be accountable, and that is deplorable. That is a deplorable example to set for our future generation.

I do recognize that the hour is late, so I will focus on one specific example that affects my riding. Let's talk about health care. When this government tells us that it is putting more money into health care, my questions are: where and how? I have not seen, in the past year, how this government has put patients first. What I do see are generous severance payments and a blatant patronage contract to a former cabinet minister to the tune of $1,000 per day. The actions of this government are shameful, and B.C. taxpayers are still demanding accountability.

In my riding of Oak Bay-Gordon Head, there is a health care unit with services for long-term and intermediate care, and this is for all the residents of the capital region. This facility is in desperate need of renovations for health and safety issues: health issues, such as the ongoing concern of urine aroma from the flooring; and safety issues, such as building code requirements and design deficiencies.

The facility acted and submitted applications for Treasury Board minor funding on October 29, 1993, and again on November 19, 1994 -- minor funding being for projects with estimated costs of between $100,000 and $1.5 million. On June 13, 1995, capital project certification of approval was in fact granted in the amount of $750,000. A project team was then set up, and design and planning was initiated. A year later the ministry did give approval on the design. However, at the same time it gave approval, it informed the facility that the project would be frozen.

What we have learned, time and time again, is that promises this government makes, even in writing, cannot be expected to be kept. The Minister of Health, on August 13, 1996, stated emphatically that the freeze wasn't on minor capital projects. Something just doesn't add up here. Here we have a project that is a minor capital project, and the minister says the freeze wouldn't impact it. What kind of doubletalk are we expected to wade through? Mr. Speaker, can the Minister of Health tell us what happened? How does this put the patients first? This is just one example. I have several others, but I will elaborate on them at another time for another debate.

We were told that there was a debt management plan, but it's never been adhered to. We were told there were two balanced budgets, but it's actually been two deficit budgets. We were told this government would protect health care and education, but it seems that's only in NDP ridings. We were told taxes would be cut so that the average taxpayer would have more disposable income to spend in their community, but any savings we expect in our pockets have been quickly picked by the imposition of indirect taxes they call user fees and by the off-loading onto municipalities. We were told there would be no expansion of gaming, but now we have a minister who wants to put forward destination gambling. We were told that ICBC rates would be frozen, but we weren't told that our right to sue would be taken away.

This government has not shown any form of prudent financial management, and given their abysmal record of financial incompetence today, how on earth can I or any

[ Page 2209 ]

elected member in good conscience support yet more incompetent and reckless spending? I have to say no to this interim supply bill.

The reality of all this is a government that is not able to meet its financial obligations, a government that has squandered the money of the people of B.C. and is now having to go out to see if someone out there will lend us some money to cover our debt -- a debt that has reached $31 billion, a debt that will have huge impacts on our children. We now have to go out into the world of money markets and convince investors that we are a good risk. All of this in the event that Finance ministers were told to balance the budget or face the consequences. We now face the possibility of being downgraded. Money will cost us more and services will be affected. So the vicious circle begins.

What does "interim" mean to the farming community in my riding? What will they do in the interim, while their industry has undergone enormous pressure from Washington State? When changes must be made to stay within the new market trends, what will they do while funding has been cut to the Agriculture ministry and their ability to adjust to those trends has been hampered? How do farmers plan for their future when this government plays flip-flop with the replant program? What will the orchardists in my riding do in the interim while the ministry plays around with their crop insurance program -- a program that would provide only minimum coverage in the event of a major hailstorm and would be a disaster to the individual farmer?

To obtain the new tier 2 coverage would cost an additional 20 to 30 percent for the same coverage. This is unaffordable. This has placed the farming community in an awkward position. History has shown that only those farmers who have carried crop insurance have survived the potential financial difficulties of the unpredictable weather of the Okanagan Valley. This is an industry in crisis, an industry that is extremely important to the economy of the Okanagan Valley, an industry that has created hundreds of jobs, both directly and indirectly in secondary industry.

Another major concern to the orchardists of the Okanagan Valley is the sterile insect release program. This program needs help from both federal and provincial governments in order to survive.

It would appear that this government will be following the same trends for post-secondary education as in the '96-97 budget. In that budget, they froze tuition fees. There was a decrease in funding, there was a demand for an increase in enrolment, there was an attempt to create the addition of new programs, and we have seen a number of labour disputes. The freeze in tuition fees was, no doubt, a political decision made to obtain photo opportunities during an election, rather than a decision based on sound economic principles. We'd all love to give free post-secondary education, but colleges and institutes rely on an average of 15 percent of their budgets being collected from tuition fees. This freeze affects a very small percentage of the student population, and by removing the institute's ability to adjust these fees, other areas of the system are affected, ultimately, with the closure of programs.

[11:45]

The original budget had no increase in funding in '96-97. In actuality, funding was decreased to colleges and institutes. In a recent newsletter, Dr. Bowering of Okanagan University College stated: "The OUC '96-97 budget was reduced by $67,662. This represents OUC's portion of $1 million of reductions from post-secondary institutions to help government deal with the deficit."

The ministry has demanded an increase in enrolment of 4 percent in its attempt to improve efficiencies, and institutions not attaining this goal may have funding impacts in the '97-98 budget.

The addition of new programs has occurred without the necessary funding in place. An article in the Nanaimo Free Press states: "Malaspina University College brass don't know where the funding will come from to grant the tourism degrees the Minister of Education promised."

The NDP government has failed to resolve the labour disputes within the colleges and institutes, and as a result, all three bargaining units are involved in negotiations. In the case of support staff, they have been without a contract for almost two years. Kwantlen, Malaspina, Northwest and OU colleges either have taken or will be taking a strike mandate.

Anyone who attended the UBCM -- Union of B.C. Municipalities -- meeting is well aware of the imminent threat to services that has been proposed by the provincial NDP government through the decrease of transfer payments to municipalities -- $60 million worth. Core services such as fire and police, road maintenance and library services are jeopardized by these arbitrary cuts. The role of managing a municipality is extremely complex and demanding, and while delivery of services has always been a challenging and formidable task, in most cases it is done with careful consideration and attention. Despite municipal governments' outstanding track record of balanced bookkeeping and cost-effectiveness, they are being asked to get smarter. It is clear that it is unlikely that we can get a whole lot smarter than we already are. The final options that municipal governments will be faced with are reduced services, increased fees and increased taxes.

There is no doubt that this government is very interested in gambling. They have been dealing very successfully, in their favour, off the bottom of the deck for years. They have been fixing the odds against British Columbians, making it impossible to get ahead. I can visualize gambling NDP-style: slot machines where you insert loonies and get back nickels; a lopsided roulette wheel, heavily weighted in favour of the government; blackjack played with a partial deck, that information known only to the government dealer; craps played with dice with no dots, no winners; and the ever popular bingo, where all the proceeds are given to NDP charities, otherwise known as "the party." I can also see the casino, built modular-style, with a road leading up to it built by the Island Highway contractors at twice the estimated cost.

This House supports a lot of tradition. NDP tradition, unfortunately, is made up of debt, taxes and hypocrisy. Most of the members seated on the other side of the House when in

[ Page 2210 ]

opposition spoke out against interim supply, but as in so many other cases, the NDP is quick to move the goalposts. I will stand with my colleagues on this side of the House in opposing this bill. Our constituents and the people of this province deserve proper accountability. With that, I move adjournment of the debate.

Hon. A. Petter: I've listened very intently to the comments of members opposite, in an attempt to try to detect in their comments some clear, consistent and positive view of what government should be doing and where we should be going. Unfortunately, I have had difficulty detecting such a view. The matter to be decided in this debate is, of course, the advisability of providing interim supply. I think the question of the advisability of providing interim supply does relate to one's view of the budget and of how government ought to proceed to deal with, frankly, what are some important choices for British Columbians. That is, after all, what government is all about: making choices and setting priorities. This government has, in the budget, set out its priorities. Those priorities are pretty clear. They are: to protect health care, to protect education, to create jobs, to provide relief to middle- and lower-income British Columbians, and to do it in a fiscally responsible way.

So I listened with interest to the members opposite, to try to detect what their vision was, what their views were. Here's what I heard. It sort of falls into three categories. The members opposite spoke at various times -- some of them to a greater extent than others -- about the need to reduce spending. They talked about the need to cut the deficit, to cut debt, to cut spending and to cut the size of government. That was probably one-third of the presentations that I heard from the members opposite.

The other third of the presentations were suggesting that this government was making cuts that the members over there couldn't support. Indeed, the Finance critic suggested we were cutting too much in middle management in the public service. Others suggested we were cutting business subsidies that shouldn't have been cut, or they opposed cuts that reduced the number of welfare offices or that rationalized court services in the province. About one-third of the presentations were in opposition to cuts, sometimes very dramatically stating that somehow cuts were not acceptable.

The third category of arguments that were made by the members opposite were pleas for more funding -- people saying, "In my constituency we should have had more schools or more roads"; "In my constituency we should have had more social programs"; or "Provincewide, this government should have provided more breaks for big business," through some trickle-down theory of economics.

Now, those British Columbians who have stayed with us listening these long hours since this debate started. . .

An Hon. Member: There's two of them.

Hon. A. Petter: All two of them, as my colleague says.

. . .hopefully will add up these three basic arguments. An opposition that says we should reduce spending, that opposes any cuts made by government and that cries crocodile tears while requesting more funding for programs is an opposition that does not have a clear, consistent and positive view. It's an opposition that is confused and contradictory. The only thing in common amongst all the statements made by the members opposite is that their vision is negative. They are prepared to criticize everything. They're prepared to say we should have cut more; we should have cut less. They're prepared to say there should be more funding. They have no coherent view. The only thing that's common is that their only agenda is to criticize, to be negative. They have no positive view.

What are their priorities? How can British Columbians evaluate their priorities when they don't have any priorities? They're against everything, and they have no vision.

Why do I support the advisability of interim supply? I do so for some very obvious reasons.

An Hon. Member: We've got to pay the bills.

Hon. A. Petter: My colleague says we've got to pay the bills, but it's more important than that. It's a matter of meeting the priorities of British Columbians. We've got to get on with the job of creating more jobs in this province. Last year this province -- not government alone, but government and private sector in partnership -- created 25 percent of all the jobs in Canada, with only 12 percent of the population. That's an incredible record during a time of downturn in economic growth. This year we want to create more jobs. We've got to get on with that, and that's why we need supply.

Education. I advise the members to look at the "Budget 97 Reports," pages 61 and on, about education funding. If they read the report they will find dramatic proof of this government's commitment to education funding. On a per-pupil basis. . . . Let me read:

"Some of British Columbia's increased K-to-12 spending. . .is due to population growth during this period. Much of the growth, however, represents enhanced per-pupil funding, which has moved from below the national average in 1990-91 to 5.1 percent above the Canadian average in 1995-96."

In the post-secondary education sector, British Columbia had the highest average annual growth in spending during the 1990-91 to 1996-97 period in all of Canada. When I campaigned to become elected to this assembly in 1991, one of the issues I campaigned on was education, because at that time, British Columbia's commitment to post-secondary education placed us second to last in the country per capita. Now we're second to first in the country. We have not only increased funding, we have increased capacity to the point that the capacity of the post-secondary system has increased by 20.4 percent, or about 23,900 full-time student spaces in British Columbia in that time. That's why we don't have eligible students waiting in line every fall, as we used to in the past. We need to have approval for funding, so we can build on that record and continue to support education in this province as we have in years past. And yes, we can continue to do it with tuition fees frozen, despite the wish of members opposite to see those tuition fees go up. Shame on you, hon. members, arguing that tuition fees should go up and act as a barrier!

Health care funding is up $300 million in this year's budget, placing our funding over $7 billion. Let me again quote: ". . .health care spending per person is 11.4 percent higher in British Columbia than the national average and was the highest in Canada in 1996-97." That's from "Budget 97 Reports" -- the highest in Canada. We don't have to just listen to the members' crocodile tears on health care spending; we only have to cast our minds back less than a year ago to remember the policy of the Leader of the Opposition on health care funding. He said, "Six billion dollars is plenty," and when

[ Page 2211 ]

he tried to deny he said it, the Nanaimo Daily Free Press, which had quoted him, came back and said: "Liberal leader Gordon Campbell is standing by his comment."

Interjections.

The Speaker: The point of order that is about to be raised is absolutely correct.

Hon. A. Petter: I apologize. I withdraw. It refers to the leader, and I withdraw my reference to his name. I'm sorry. That was inappropriate; I apologize. The Nanaimo Daily Free Press scribe who wrote the article said she took the numbers from the leader himself: "Wilson stands behind her story and said in no way was Campbell misquoted. 'The number he told me was $6 billion' " -- and that's in the story.

The Speaker: Mr. Minister, I know it's very late, but you have just committed the same sin again, so I hope you would not do that. Please proceed.

Hon. A. Petter: I apologize, hon. Speaker. It is late. The point I'm trying to make here is quite simple. This government has not only committed the highest per capita commitment to health care spending, it has done so in the face of an opposition that has argued that health care spending should go down -- and a Leader of the Opposition who has said it should go down by as much as a billion dollars.

Finally, the reason that interim supply should be provided is because this is a government and a budget that are about providing support for working families, through an income tax cut; through freezes on tuition fees, hydro and taxes; through a family bonus that is leading the country in attacking child poverty -- being looked to from around the country in attacking child poverty; and are finally succeeding in making work a better deal than welfare, bringing down the costs of welfare while increasing the number of jobs and the opportunities for those working families who are struggling to make ends meet.

Those are the priorities in this budget. That's why interim supply is required in this budget, not to fund tax breaks for big business -- not the billion dollars in tax breaks for big business that the opposition wants to fund -- but to provide support for ordinary British Columbians.

What do we hear from the members opposite? Regrettably, no coherent vision: "You spend too much"; "You spend too little." There's no coherence. The only thing they have in common amongst and within themselves is an unremitting negativity -- an unwillingness to make positive suggestions, an unwillingness to roll up their sleeves and work together to solve the problems and get on with the job.

Let me make one final comment about the issue of special warrants. The question was about special warrants. We had some very interesting historical discussion, particularly. . .

Interjections.

The Speaker: Order, members, please.

Hon. A. Petter: . . .from the Leader of the Third Party, on the historical context of special warrants, and there is a concern. There has always been a concern in this Legislature about special warrants. But this budget is not an appropriate target of that concern. In this case, we have a budget that is $28 million over estimates. Of a $20.6 billion budget, the warrant being sought is less than $100 million -- one-half of 1 percent of budgetary expenditures -- and the examples given by the member of hundreds of millions of dollars, or in excess of a billion dollars being sought, which raise the legitimate concerns we debated before, simply do not apply in this instance. This is a government that has come in remarkably close to its expenditure targets in a year in which the economy has slowed down: $28 million over estimates. For that reason it is entirely appropriate that these special warrants be sought -- and that this government approve them.

With that, Hon. Speaker, I close second reading debate.

Second reading of Bill 5 approved on the following division:

YEAS -- 38

Evans Zirnhelt McGregor Boone Hammell Streifel Pullinger Farnworth Kwan Waddell Calendino Stevenson Bowbrick Goodacre Giesbrecht Walsh Kasper Orcherton Hartley Priddy Petter Miller G. Clark Dosanjh MacPhail Cashore Ramsey Brewin Sihota Randall Sawicki Lali Doyle Gillespie Robertson Smallwood Conroy Janssen

NAYS -- 35

Dalton Gingell Reid Campbell Farrell-Collins Plant Sanders Stephens de Jong Coell Anderson Nebbeling Whittred van Dongen Thorpe Penner Weisgerber G. Wilson J. Wilson Reitsma Hansen C. Clark Symons Hawkins Abbott Jarvis Weisbeck Chong Coleman Nettleton Masi McKinnon Krueger Barisoff Neufeld

Bill 5, Supply Act (No. 1), 1997, read a second time and referred to a Committee of the Whole House for consideration forthwith.

The House in committee on Bill 5; G. Brewin in the chair.

The Chair: Shall sections 1 to 3 pass?

Some Hon. Members: Aye.

Some Hon. Members: Nay.

The Chair: I thought I'd give it a try.

I recognize the hon. member for Delta South on section 1. We'll be going through these three sections separately, and the schedule will be dealt with separately.

[ Page 2212 ]

On section 1.

F. Gingell: Madam Chair, before we deal with the issues around the first item, I'd like to ask the Minister of Finance why there is no special warrant for vote 68.

The Chair: Hon. member, we're not discussing special warrants under section 1. Section 1 is to deal with the three-twelfths of the total amount of the votes for the main estimates. That's what's in section 1, and that's what's for discussion.

Sections 1 to 3 inclusive approved.

On the schedule.

F. Gingell: When I look at the revised forecasts for the year and the votes this House passed in the last session, I note that according to the revised forecast, vote 68 was overspent by a sum of $40 million. I was wondering if the minister would give us an explanation as to why there is no special warrant for excess expenditures on vote 68.

The Chair: If there was no special warrant, then there is no special warrant. The special warrants are the three that are here. We're on the first one.

F. Gingell: My understanding is that under the Financial Administration Act, if any specific vote has been overspent, there is a requirement for a special warrant. Vote 68 is the vote for PSERC, the Public Service Employee Relations Commission. I haven't got the numbers here, but I think the amount of the original vote was $12 million. My understanding is that it was overspent by some $40 million. I would have brought the estimates. . . . If I have to, I will go and get them, or I can borrow them. I believe this is to do with amounts that have been expended by the government in dealing with early retirements. I think that it's a significant issue, and I would have believed that a special warrant was necessary for overexpenditure in that particular vote.

[12:15]

Hon. A. Petter: Well, I'll try to be helpful in my response to the member. Had he given me some notice that he wanted to raise an issue that is outside of the schedule, I would have been happy to have that information. My officials are, in fact, looking into this matter. But in the absence of such a request, what we're debating here is a schedule in which special warrants have been provided for specific purposes. The debate, I would have thought, is germane only insofar as it deals with those requests that have been authorized by government and are now before us on the schedule.

But I can assure the member, in response to his question, that my officials are seeking the information. If I can have it in the course of this debate, I will be happy to provide it to him, although I think it's strictly outside the context of what's being debated here.

G. Farrell-Collins: I believe we've passed sections 1, 2 and 3 and are now on the schedule. At some point the Chair will call for passage of the title and the preamble. The dollar figure in the preamble is $98,930,000 and I assume that perhaps this question can be raised at that time and would then be in order. I would ask the Chair's ruling on that at this point. I see the Finance minister saying he's got an answer.

Hon. A. Petter: I'm informed by staff that there is statutory authority for any overexpenditure that exists with respect to this matter. I think, as the member indicated, that it relates to early retirement. But the expenditure is provided for by statute.

F. Gingell: Looking back at the estimates for 1996-97, there is no mention of statutory authority in this issue. There was an amount that was voted by this House -- slightly in excess of $12 million -- for the operation of the office of the Public Service Employee Relations Commission. The documents the Minister of Finance has tabled in this House indicate that $52 million has been spent, so I expected there to be a special warrant for $40 million. If that's incorrect, then I would appreciate the minister so advising me. I do think, hon. Chair, that it would be appropriate at this opportunity to talk about and get an explanation of the $40 million overexpenditure on vote 68.

The Chair: Hon. member, this is not the Public Accounts Committee, nor are these the estimates. The special warrants are the ones that. . . . There was no special warrant for whatever that overrun was; that's for the estimates.

Interjections.

The Chair: Hon. members, it is not relevant. I rule the questions and the comments out of order.

On the matter of the special warrants and the Attorney General ministry, I recognize the hon. member for Vancouver-Little Mountain.

G. Farrell-Collins: It's perhaps on a point of order. I sought guidance earlier from the Chair with regard to the calling of the title and the preamble -- where there in fact is a dollar figure -- and whether or not at that time that question would be in order, and I didn't receive an answer from the Chair.

The Chair: It's relevant in the public accounts, hon. member. It's not relevant here at this time.

An Hon. Member: It certainly is.

The Chair: No, it's not.

Interjection.

The Chair: We're dealing with the schedule, and we're dealing with the Attorney General's special warrant, as listed here, for $18 million plus. That's what the schedule says and that's what the special warrants are about. These are special warrants, which is a particular category of business that we deal with here.

G. Farrell-Collins: Thank you, hon. Chair. I appreciate that.

Interjection.

G. Farrell-Collins: There's no need for that type of comment from the Government House Leader. The member knows far more than the Minister of Finance will probably ever learn in his term in office, hon. Chair. The member asked a simple question, and if he's asking it in the wrong place in the debate, I'm sure he'd be glad to raise it at another time.

[ Page 2213 ]

I rose on a point of order and asked the Chair, with all due politeness and respect, whether or not that matter could be debated, not as a special warrant in the debate of the schedule but rather at the point where the Chair will call for the passage of the preamble and the title. I've yet to receive an answer. I'm politely asking the guidance of the Chair on this.

The Chair: Thank you, hon. member. I will have a word in a minute.

On that issue, what is on the floor before us at the moment is the schedule. What is to be discussed within the parameters of the preamble will happen then; otherwise, it's a hypothetical question. At the moment, the schedule is on the floor.

G. Farrell-Collins: On the same point of order, hon. Chair. Perhaps I can do this outside or something. I'm merely seeking guidance as to when is the appropriate time for the member to ask his question. I don't think it's a trick question; I think it's fairly straightforward. If the Chair would rather that we sought guidance somewhere else, I'd be glad to do that. I think it's a simple question, offered and requested with all politeness and respect. I'm just looking for guidance from the Chair. I believe that it is sometimes the role of the Chair to offer that guidance.

The Chair: Hon. members, when we get to the preamble, we're discussing the same topic. The issue that you raise, and which is being raised, is properly placed within estimates and not within this Bill 5, which is very limited. The item here, and the total amount of money here, is in fact the total amount of money from the schedule. That's the ruling: that it is not within the parameters of this bill.

G. Farrell-Collins: Thank you.

On warrant 3.

G. Wilson: I wonder if the Attorney General might break out this $18.4 million so that we can see precisely how much is being requisitioned for the adult correctional centres, youth custody centres and probation, family and community services, so that we have an understanding of where those amounts will be applied.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: The special warrant of $18.43 million is comprised of three items: $8.6 million to pay for the costs associated with guarding a higher than anticipated number of adults in custody; $3 million for costs associated with the reclassification of probation officers; and $6.83 million paid to B.C. Buildings Corporation for the planning and site acquisition costs for three proposed youth custody centres.

G. Wilson: Just so that I understand those figures, the $3 million for the reclassification is a salary component that is determined as a result of reclassification that took place through the last collective bargaining process. Is that correct?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: Yes, it was retroactive to a particular time.

G. Wilson: So it was retroactive. Perhaps the Attorney General could just explain. When the collective agreement was signed, was the reclassification part of the collective agreement? Or was the amount of money negotiated higher? I am trying to distinguish if the collective agreement was made, and then reclassification took place which brought about an additional expenditure. Or did they negotiate reclassification which retroactively incurred cost to government?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: The latter.

G. Wilson: I think I heard the Attorney General indicate that the $3.6 million for the building of the youth centres was proposed. Perhaps the Attorney General could expand a little on that answer and indicate whether or not those moneys are committed funds and, if so, where.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: I understand the hon. member is talking about the $6.3 million. In conjunction with BCBC, the ministry had been planning to replace the Victoria and Willingdon youth custody centres. These projects have been put on hold due to restricted capital budgets. BCBC has incurred costs for various things such as zoning, design work and the like. Had the projects proceeded, these expenditures would have been rolled into the final project cost and then debentured. BCBC will continue to own the property. The responsibility for these issues is to be transferred to the Ministry for Children and Families.

G. Wilson: The Attorney General actually anticipated my next question in that answer, and I apologize for getting my numbers reversed -- I'm not sure if it's the hour or maybe my dyslexia. On the $6.3 million, then, I'm still not sure whether or not those dollars have actually been committed or if they are simply budgeted but not yet expended. I guess that's the word I'm looking for. If they are to be, will they be expended through the Attorney General or will they be committed through Children and Families?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: It is $6.8 million for the three projects, and the money has been spent.

G. Wilson: Perhaps the Attorney General might tell us what we managed to get for those three projects -- how much each of those projects cost us. I understand that the Willingdon youth custody centre was one. I didn't quite catch where the others were.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: This was work done on the Fraser youth custody centre, Victoria youth custody centre and Burnaby youth custody centre, approved for planning for '88-89. Many of these issues related to zoning and design work on all three, and the total money spent was $6.8 million.

[12:30]

G. Wilson: I'm not sure if I'm not hearing properly. The numbers don't. . . . I keep hearing. . . . The minister just said, for example, that these were approved for '88-89. What does that refer to? I understand that the Fraser, Victoria and Burnaby. . . . Maybe I'm just not hearing properly. I'm not sure.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: These were approved for planning much earlier. The planning was done in the last year or so, and the money has been spent over the years. It's been $6.8 million. Let me just tell you what was spent. The approval process was approved in '87-88 for the Fraser youth custody centre, and to date the money spent has been approximately $2.7 million. I'm just giving you round figures. The Victoria youth custody centre was first approved for planning in '88-89, and the money spent on that has been approximately

[ Page 2214 ]

$2.1 million. The Burnaby youth custody centre was first approved for planning in '88-89, and the money spent has been about $2 million. The total is rounded out to $6.8 million.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: Normally, after design and the other processes, when projects are completed, these are all rolled into the costs -- in terms of the building occupancy costs as well -- because these projects will not be built as part of this ministry. So all of the expenses have now been added up, and we're dealing with those expenses this year.

G. Wilson: Is the Attorney General suggesting that these projects were not completed until the fiscal year just ended? So have they been essentially in a design stage and a construction stage for roughly a decade and therefore now we're carrying it, and it's going to be transferred into another ministry? I still don't quite understand why a project commenced in '87 or '88 requires a special warrant expenditure in '97.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: I don't particularly fancy giving a lesson in how these things are done, because the hour is late. Usually you acquire the land, you begin the rezoning process and then you begin the design process. It takes years to do all of that, and we have incurred about $6.8 million in expenditures on all three projects. The land is going to be held for the Ministry for Children and Families. The work that has been done may or may not be utilized by the ministry, but the money has been expended as part of this ministry and we have to take account of that. Usually this is not done until the project is completed. Since our dealings with those projects have come to an end, we have to deal with these expenditures and take them into account.

G. Wilson: I'm not particularly receptive to getting a lesson at this hour, either, except that I am trying to understand exactly how this works. Unfortunately, that is the role of opposition, and we need to account for these moneys.

I have two questions that perhaps I can put to the Attorney General. One, are these facilities completed right now? Two, what proportion of the total budget is the $6.8 million that is included in this warrant? What proportion of the total cost of those projects is that $6.8 million?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: The answer to the first question is no. The answer to the second question is that we would never know, because these projects would not be completed by this ministry, and the final costs are usually not known until the end -- until the matters are completed. So I couldn't give you what $6.8 million is in terms of the percentage of total cost.

G. Wilson: Maybe the Attorney General could tell us, then, if they're not completed, where they are in their construction. Have they been started? If they have been started, then presumably we have a projection, at least, of what the total cost would be.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: As I said earlier, the land was acquired, rezoning has been done, architectural work has been done, and the anticipated cost would have been around $50 million for all three projects, if completed.

G. Plant: Just to pick up on this theme so that I can understand it, youth correction facilities are being passed from the Ministry of Attorney General to the new Minister for Children and Families. Is that correct? May I ask the Attorney General to confirm that?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: Yes. And the transfer would be complete by the end of the summer, I'm hoping.

G. Plant: Is the bringing into warrants, as it were, of these amounts of $6.8 million -- reflecting the three as yet unbuilt projects that we've been discussing -- an aspect of this transition from one ministry to the other?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: Yes.

G. Plant: I guess the next question is: with respect to each of the three components of the $6.8 million that you referred to earlier -- that is, approximately $2.7 million for Fraser, $2.1 for Victoria and $2 million for Burnaby -- are they moneys that were spent in the fiscal year that is just coming to an end, or money spent over the ten-year planning period that is, I guess, coming to an end so far as this minister's ministry is concerned, with the transition?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: The latter is the correct situation.

G. Plant: At some point I will look to the member for Delta South for an explanation about why money spent prior to this fiscal year would not at some point in the past have appeared somewhere in estimates. But the question that I think I will be capable of understanding an answer to is: what is it about these moneys -- the $6.8 million -- which was unforeseen a year ago? That is, why didn't the government know a year ago that it would need this money?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: This money would not normally be paid like this. Usually you would capitalize at the end, once the project is complete, and you would pay through the rental occupancy charges of the buildings, eventually with an arrangement with BCBC.

G. Plant: I understand the process of capitalizing project costs. But at some point the bills have to paid. It may be again that what's happening here is another bookkeeping process -- that is, a bookkeeping process between BCBC and the Ministry of Attorney General. Otherwise, it's still hard for me to understand why this $6.8 million -- although it had been spent over a course of ten years; that is, actual money having been paid to actual people for doing actual things -- would appear only now for the first time in some financial record of the province, like the warrants that we're looking at.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: I'm no expert on capital expenditures. Let me just read to you the policy as one of the conditions of tenancy with respect to the payment of the planning charges. These were all planning charges on all three. They were incurred by BCBC. It says here:

"These costs may be rolled into the total project costs and build on project completion. Should the project not proceed past the feasibility phase or be placed in an extended period of abeyance, the client will be responsible for all costs incurred plus administration and carrying costs. If funds are not available in the fiscal year of billing, appropriate charges plus carrying costs will be identified in the next client budget for billing early in the subsequent fiscal year."

I hope that makes some sense.

G. Plant: I'll move on and give the member for Delta South there. . . . I'm not finished with the subject yet, but I am

[ Page 2215 ]

more interested in a different aspect of the question. There was a capital spending review affecting a number of capital spending projects announced at the end of June last year. My recollection is that each of these three projects was affected by that review, but I'm not sure if my recollection is correct. Could the Attorney General please confirm if that's so, if I'm right?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: No.

G. Plant: From this point forward, any decision about whether to complete the construction of these projects is a decision that, from a ministerial responsibility point of view, will be the responsibility of the Minister for Children and Families. Is that correct?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: Yes.

G. Plant: One of the other items is $3 million for reclassification of probation officers. I think I understood some of the questions and answers that took place previously around that. But what was it about that expenditure that was unforeseen a year ago?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: Perhaps I should have made this statement at the outset so that this was clearer. The collective agreement signed with BCGEU in 1994 included a review of the pay scales for certain types of jobs, including social program officers, who are probation officers. We were unable to budget for the agreed-to amount for probation officers because the review had not begun when the budget was set. And PSERC has not yet finalized the new pay rates. The $3 million is an estimate and includes two years of retroactivity -- that's $1 million per year, going backwards. The funds will be accrued and paid when there is a final agreement.

I can give you one more piece of information -- usually against the lawyers' advice. There are 502 probation officer positions in the corrections branch. Since it's there, you might as well have that too.

[12:45]

G. Plant: I have tried to follow the process of transition of some programs between the Ministry of Attorney General and the new Ministry for Children and Families. I must admit, I have forgotten what is happening with probation officers. Are some or all probation officers moving over to the new ministry?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: Some are moving.

G. Plant: At the risk of asking a stupid question -- which has never stopped me yet in this process -- is the division between those probation officers who have primarily been responsible for young offenders, on the one hand, and the others? Or is it a more sophisticated division than that?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: Primarily the former.

G. Plant: What did the Attorney General mean by higher than anticipated costs for adult correction? In other words, what was it that happened last year that was unforeseeable in respect of costs for adult correction?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: There was an increase of approximately 12 percent over the budgeted level of 2,310 inmates. It was essentially 2,587.

G. Plant: I need to go back over that. In other words, there were 12 percent more adult inmates than had been projected for this year.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: Yes. Let me just also say that most of the higher count is in expensive remand and institutional beds.

G. Plant: I recall that approximately a year ago the Attorney General told members of the House in answer to a question I asked, or perhaps it was in introduction to his estimates, that it was his strong goal and objective as the minister responsible for corrections in British Columbia to be -- I think the phrase was -- the first Attorney General to close a prison in British Columbia rather than to have to open another one. It seems to me that this requirement to spend $8.6 million more than anticipated for adult correction represents a failure on the Attorney General's part to give effect in any meaningful way to his policy aspirations for that ministry. I'd be interested in the Attorney General's comments on that point.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: British Columbia has one of the lowest incarceration rates in the country. We spend the largest amount of money of any province, if I'm correct, on community disposition with respect to sentencing, by and large. In British Columbia we have, in fact, the largest percentage of non-custodial sentences of any province. For instance, B.C. spends a higher percentage on community correctional services than most other jurisdictions; 18 percent of all expenditures are for community programs, compared to the national average of 13 percent.

But I want to say this to you, as I said last year: we have already embarked on a very fundamental justice reform in this province. We are actively pursuing the goal of diverting non-violent defenders. Those kinds of programs take time -- firstly, to craft and design after consultation with the communities, and secondly, to have any significant impact on the incarceration rate, and also on the expenses incurred at the end of the day. But I can tell you that we are consulting with the communities. By this fall this year, we want to be able to start on diversion. There are no quotas for diversion; there are objectives. But I want to tell you that it's one of the issues that's uppermost in my mind. After we get out of this House, it will occupy many months of my time going around the communities, consulting the communities, establishing diversion across the province so that we can get non-violent, non-serious offenders, in a precourt fashion, away from the courts and from corrections.

G. Plant: The question that we're dealing with here in broad terms is a question of unforeseeability. I wonder whether what we have here is a case of wishful thinking. I suppose the issue is going to arise again when we examine the estimates for the year that's about to begin. But the increase, it seems to me, reflects realities about life in British Columbia which ought to be taken into account, notwithstanding the degree of commitment to things like community sentencing or non-custodial sentencing in British Columbia.

I guess the question that it leads me to is: does the Attorney General think we'll be back here again a year from now having to approve $8 million or $10 million in additional

[ Page 2216 ]

spending because the government has a rosier picture of the chances of success of its diversion programs than reality would dictate?

G. Plant: I think the Attorney General is right that it will be useful to continue that debate at some length when we get to the estimates process.

I want to ask a slightly more general question that relates to corrections. It relates to this transition, generally speaking, for youth programs out of the Ministry of Attorney General and into the new ministry. Earlier the Attorney General spoke about a deadline -- I believe it was the end of June that I heard the Attorney General say -- for the completion of this transition. Perhaps I could just begin this brief line of questioning by asking if I recall the date correctly.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: This change probably would have happened earlier had it not been for some legislative changes that would be required to the Correction Act. Those legislative changes would be introduced. Once that process is complete, hopefully we may have a date in place.

G. Plant: I'm going to sit down, because I think the Attorney General wants to answer the part of the question that remains.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: My apology. I've just been reminded that it has been introduced, at least indicated, as part of the budget measures legislation.

G. Plant: I've seen the bill. In terms of both understanding the supply act which is before us for debate -- and in particular the warrants -- and the larger challenge of understanding the estimates, is the Attorney General able to say that for financial accounting purposes, the transition and transfer is to have taken place on March 31? Or is it going to be more complicated than that?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: Yes, that's how the estimates are set up.

G. Plant: I was on the road of trying to figure out how it was that money spent never made it into the books, and I think I'm going to yield on that subject to others who may know how to ask the questions better. That's all I have.

F. Gingell: Hon. Chair, I've been listening to this debate. I would appreciate it if the Attorney General would correct me if I am wrong, but what I understand has happened with respect to the proposed development of youth custody facilities is that money has been spent in earlier years, from 1988 on, by B.C. Buildings Corporation, and you have now come to a position, in 1996-97, where someone has made a decision that the clauses which surround that expenditure by BCBC and which call for those funds that have been expended to be reimbursed to BCBC have triggered. Basically, that is what is happening. Would the minister confirm that?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: So that I don't confuse the situation, I will answer simply: that's exactly what's happened.

F. Gingell: The trigger that caused B.C. Buildings Corporation, which had been working on the development of these facilities, to suddenly sit down and write out a bill to the Ministry of Attorney General is a decision that the projects are not going to go ahead. If the projects were going to go ahead, that would not happen. If the projects are just being frozen in a capital review -- well, they're not going to happen this year, but they'll happen soon -- then there wouldn't be any cause for the trigger to be pulled to cause that billing to take place from BCBC to the Attorney General's department. Is that correct?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: The projects are on hold, and that's why the trigger occurred. There are no plans in the next three years' capital spending to conclude these projects.

G. Plant: At the risk of muddying waters that may have just been cleared: is part of the triggering mechanism a result of the transition to the other ministry? Is it that, as between the ministries, the Ministry for Children and Families has basically said to the Ministry of Attorney General: "You have to eat this cost as part of your budget. We don't want to own this cost"?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: Primarily, it is because the projects are on hold for a substantial length of time.

B. Penner: I have a question for the Attorney General. Going back to the issue of the $3 million allotment for the reclassification of corrections officers, I just wish to clarify that I think I heard the minister indicate to the House that that's pursuant to an agreement reached through the collective bargaining process in 1994.

[1:00]

Hon. U. Dosanjh: Yes.

B. Penner: To seek further clarification, then, by the spring of 1996 the cost of reclassification had not yet been determined. Is that correct?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: It is correct. It has not been determined.

B. Penner: Well, then, I wonder how it is that we arrived at this number today, if it has not yet been determined.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: The figures have not been finalized, but we have a somewhat clearer idea of what it might cost.

B. Penner: So after three years, the case appears to be: "We're still not really sure, but we're guessing." My concern, which I bring to the attention of the minister. . . . Perhaps it's already too late in the day to close the barn door, now that the horse is gone, but if the negotiations are ongoing with representatives of the B.C. Government Employees Union, has the government not tipped its hand by putting this figure of $3 million down in writing as to what they are prepared to settle for in dealing with the union?

[ Page 2217 ]

Hon. U. Dosanjh: These are not negotiations that are going on with the union. This is a review of the pay scales being conducted by PSERC, based on an agreement that was arrived at in 1994. That process hasn't been completed.

B. Penner: If it's not completely completed, is it getting closer to completion? I take it that it's not yet completed.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: It's not final; it has not been completed.

B. Penner: Just to clarify, on the additional moneys purported to be authorized by the special warrant for the Attorney General's ministry, I take it that none of this is to go towards any additional construction of courtrooms at the Abbotsford courthouse, which was previously announced by the minister. Would I be safe in saying that?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: I was expecting that at some point. No.

B. Penner: One final question before I turn the questioning over again to our justice critic for the opposition. Could I ask the Attorney General whether he intends to proceed with the construction of three additional courtrooms at the Abbotsford courthouse?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: At least for the next two years, that necessity has been obviated.

B. Penner: Does that mean, then, that the construction has been deferred for those additional courtrooms in Abbotsford?

Hon. U. Dosanjh: We will have ample opportunity to go over these issues in estimates. I would be happy to engage in this very meaningful debate on the issue of regionalization of court services, if at all possible. Obviously the hon. member knows that there is an agreement with Chilliwack for at least two years.

The Chair: I think we will move on now. I should clarify that we'll do a vote at the end of all three warrants. So I call on the Minister of Health and Minister Responsible for Seniors.

I recognize the hon. member for Okanagan West.

On warrant 4.

S. Hawkins: I rise to speak on the special warrant, order-in-council 306. In this warrant, I believe it says that about $40.5 million was needed at the end of the budget year for a higher fee-for-service and alternative payments to physicians. I'm wondering if the Minister of Health can break this down for me and tell me where the money was spent.

Hon. J. MacPhail: On the measles vaccination campaign for preschool and school-age children, and an increased number of surgeries and treatments as a result of funding announced in April 1996. The $30.5 million is for the fact that the working agreement was ratified after the last estimates were prepared, and it was $30 million higher than we estimated before we settled with the doctors.

S. Hawkins: I guess I'm a little confused, because right after the budget was tabled last year, there was a capital review done, and savings were to be realized from that capital review. I'm just wondering what savings were realized that could have been applied to the Health budget so that the budget wouldn't have to run over and special warrants be needed. I wonder if the minister can just clarify that for us, because there was supposed to be some kind of savings. Special warrants should not have been needed.

Hon. J. MacPhail: I'm not following the question in terms of a capital review related to the MSP budget, I'm sorry. This special warrant deals with MSP.

The Chair: We are talking about the Medical Services Plan here, and other items are obviously ready for estimates.

S. Hawkins: From my discussions with the BCMA, I understand that when this special warrant was issued, their budget was capped at $1.393 billion, and they received $10 billion for new programs. I believe that was for MSP-negative patients and because the doctors' workload had increased with respect to the reference-based pricing special authority forms they were filling out. I'm wondering if the minister can confirm that for me.

Hon. J. MacPhail: The amount that was booked in estimates last year was booked prior to reaching the agreement with the BCMA. After we reached agreement with the BCMA, the agreement required a further $30.5 million. We underestimated, for the 1996-97 estimates, how much we would give the doctors in final settlement in terms of the working agreement with the BCMA.

L. Reid: The minister referenced a measles vaccination program and additional funding for surgery. Could the minister kindly break down that sum of money for each of the programs that she has outlined?

Hon. J. MacPhail: There is $10 million over and above the $30.5 million that was negotiated midway through this year, pursuant to the interpretive memorandum that is part of the working agreement. Of that $10 million, about $1 million is for the immunization program and about $6 million, I think, is for surgeries. The notification program for cellular blood products for hepatitis C made up the balance.

L. Reid: I appreciate the last clarification on the cellular products, because the sum was only resting at $36 million. I'm glad you found the remaining $4 million out of the $40.5 million. In terms of the increased costs on the Medical Services Plan, how much of that was related to increased physician visits as a result of your Pharmacare program?

Hon. J. MacPhail: None. We have been tracking that. I think the hon. member is probably referring to the reference-based pricing policy. Is that right?

L. Reid: Yes.

Hon. J. MacPhail: We've actually tracked that for patients to see whether there has been an increase in patient visits as a result of those who have been prescribed reference-based priced drugs, as opposed to non-reference-based priced ones, and there's no difference.

L. Reid: Certainly I would like to debate that point with the minister, but I want to be absolutely clear that we're both dealing with the true definition of reference-based pricing.

[ Page 2218 ]

When we talk of generic substitution, we are talking about products that are chemically identical. That is the concern today. When we talk about reference-based pricing products, that is this government's opportunity to link products that are chemically different. So indeed I would suggest to this minister that there are increased physician visits. Frankly, physicians in this province are tracking that. It's been my understanding that this ministry has conducted a study that provides that information: that indeed there are dollars expended which are now found as a special warrant under the Medical Services Plan's increased costs. The issue in the special warrant is unforeseeability. My contention is that this minister must have realized that that policy would have a dramatic impact on the level of physician visits and, as a result, increased costs. Would the minister kindly comment.

L. Reid: Just as she was taking her seat, I believe the minister referenced that she's not aware of the study. The study is one that has been promised to this member of the opposition for more than six months, and probably closer to 12. It's a study that's being conducted by your ministry to validate the claims this government continually makes around reference-based pricing. If that study is available, I think it's only prudent that this minister provide it to this House, because I do believe it will add some clarification to this debate. I do believe, in this debate around MSP funding, that there are increased physician visits, and that this will be reflected in the study.

Hon. J. MacPhail: That will be a good debate for our estimates under the Pharmacare budget. I look forward to it.

The Chair: Any further debate? All right, then we'll move on to Human Resources, if the minister is ready.

On warrant 5.

M. Coell: Through the Chair, a very happy Easter to you. Your Easter eggs will be ready as you leave later this morning. I'll give the minister a moment. Your staff is coming?

Interjection.

The Chair: We'll provide the minister with an opportunity for his staff to join him.

M. Coell: The last eight months have seen great changes in the former Ministry of Social Services, with a large number of programs being hived off and put into the new Ministry for Children and Families, leaving a somewhat sparse Ministry of Human Resources. The budget approved by this House last year was $1.7 billion, and the warrant before us is asking for $40 million more. It's my understanding that the $40 million falls to the income support programs, from which the vast majority of that $1.7 billion is made up. I wonder if the minister could break down for us the number of dollars in each one: income assistance, income support for persons with disabilities, Youth Works, hardship assistance, administered benefits and services. What are the dollar figures from the $40 million in each one of those categories?

[1:15]

Hon. D. Streifel: To specifically answer the member for Saanich North and the Islands. . . . That's what it is, isn't it? It was the former member for that riding who sat down in that corner, and I sometimes miss the booming voice, but honestly, hon. member, you're much more pleasant to deal with.

Program management income support. . . .

Interjections.

Hon. D. Streifel: Hey, what can I say? It's the new, relaxed me.

Program management income support is $3 million, income assistance is $80.6 million, and income support for persons with disabilities will be a negative. That's a saving of $10.5 million. Youth Works is a saving of $100,000.

M. Coell: That adds up to the $40 million that you're asking for?

Hon. D. Streifel: It adds up to $73 million.

M. Coell: Possibly the minister misunderstood my question. Of the $40 million that you're asking for in this warrant, where is that in those programs? If you were asking for $73 million, I would have the right answer to my question.

Hon. D. Streifel: This is probably a discussion that would be best held between my support staff and your member for Delta South, because I'll tell you, I'm not quite sure I understand it.

The warrant request is for $40 million. The overexpenditure was $73 million. The difference was recovered to the vote authorized under the supply act, and that reduced the requirement for the special warrant to $40 million.

M. Coell: Just so I'm correct, $33 million was taken care of from other parts of government, and $40 million is what you're asking for? Was the income assistance an overage of $80 million?

Hon. D. Streifel: If you include the disabilities and the other side of the income assistance, it was $70 million.

M. Coell: Thank you very much for that. So the overage in income assistance and income support for persons with disabilities was an overage of $70 million. I wonder if you could comment on the caseload of people who were requesting income assistance during the year. Was that caseload up or down from the previous year, and by what number?

Hon. D. Streifel: The caseload overall, year over year, was down quite dramatically. We had 6,300 cases more than we had anticipated and than had been planned for.

M. Coell: The 6,300 more cases would mean your caseload was up, not down.

Hon. D. Streifel: Year over year we were down. The annual average of nearly 218,000 in the previous year -- '95-96 -- fell to just under 198,000 in '96-97. That was the actual. It was the biggest drop in the income assistance caseload in 20 years. The difficulty comes where we had anticipated that the

[ Page 2219 ]

caseload would drop further, and it did not. I understand I have two numbers, actually: 6,200 cases more than we had anticipated, but the overall caseload was down to 198,000.

Hon. D. Streifel: Hon. member, that would be a great question for estimates. We're dealing now with a special warrant for the current budget.

M. Coell: I agree. That is a question that I wish to pursue in estimates.

The Youth Works portion of your budget was over. Can you tell me how many people you had planned to use the Youth Works project and how many clients you did end up with?

Hon. D. Streifel: Actually, the Youth Works portion of the budget was underexpended by $100,000.

M. Coell: There is $171,000. How many young people took advantage of the program and were clients of the program?

Hon. D. Streifel: I don't have that number. We'll have it for you during estimates of the ministry that it pertains to.

M. Coell: I've heard a lot of ads on the radio, and I've seen some brochures. How much of that $171,000 was spent on communications, whether print media, brochures or radio ads?

Hon. D. Streifel: I'd ask for clarification on what $171,000 the member references.

M. Coell: It's $171 million. I apologize.

The Chair: Hon. member, we're dealing with income support programs for income assistance totalling $40 million. That's the subject of the Human Resources warrant at this time. All other items are part of estimates.

M. Coell: The Youth Works program is under by $100,000. That is what the minister has told me. You don't feel it would be all right to ask questions on that because it's under and other parts are over. Is that your ruling?

The Chair: I'm just reminding hon. members that we're dealing with income support programs. If that's part of what it is, then the minister is perfectly entitled to respond to that. It sounded like it was veering more into estimates, but the minister can respond to that.

Hon. D. Streifel: Hon. member, these questions are again moving towards the estimates debate. If I could clearly understand what you are referencing under this $100,000 underexpenditure, then maybe I could deal with the answer.

M. Coell: In other areas of the budget for income support programs, which is where this money is coming from, I'm trying to see how some of the moneys were spent. Clearly we have an $80 million overrun in income assistance and a $100,000 decrease in Youth Works. That is a 10 percent overage in your budget, and something to be very concerned about.

The areas that I would like to look at now are the closures of welfare offices. There were 14 offices closed in the province. Was that money used as part of the $33 million from other parts of the government that came in to offset that $80 million?

Hon. D. Streifel: Yes.

M. Coell: Thank you for that.

The number of clients using income assistance was hard to estimate, obviously, with the overage of $80,000. I would hope that during the estimates we would be able to look at what the reasoning would be for an estimate this year. I am concerned, seeing it's the same budget as last year, and I think it's important to look at that and at ways we could possibly have a more accurate estimate to deal with during the legislative period this year.

I have no other questions, Madam Chair. Maybe some of my other colleagues do at this point.

Schedule approved.

Preamble approved.

Title approved.

Hon. A. Petter: Hon. Chair, I move that the committee rise and report the bill complete without amendment.

Motion approved.

The House resumed; the Speaker in the chair.

[1:30]

Bill 5, Supply Act (No. 1), 1997, reported complete without amendment, read a third time and passed on the following division:

YEAS -- 38

Evans Zirnhelt McGregor Boone Hammell Streifel Pullinger Farnworth Kwan Waddell Calendino Stevenson Bowbrick Goodacre Giesbrecht Walsh Kasper Orcherton Hartley Priddy Petter Miller G. Clark Dosanjh MacPhail Cashore Ramsey Brewin Sihota Randall Sawicki Lali Doyle Gillespie Robertson Smallwood Conroy Janssen

NAYS -- 34

Dalton Gingell Reid Campbell Farrell-Collins Plant Sanders Stephens de Jong Coell Anderson Nebbeling Whittred van Dongen Thorpe Penner Weisgerber J. Wilson

[ Page 2220 ]

Reitsma Hansen C. Clark Symons Hawkins Abbott Jarvis Weisbeck Chong Coleman Nettleton Masi McKinnon Krueger Barisoff Neufeld

Interjection.

The Speaker: The Lieutenant-Governor. You're right; I shouldn't be so informal.

He will join us shortly, and therefore I would ask members to please remain in the precincts, certainly. Thank you.

I recognize the Opposition House Leader.

G. Farrell-Collins: I beg leave to make an introduction.

Leave granted.

G. Farrell-Collins: I wish to ask the House to make welcome four members of our caucus staff who have worked very, very hard this evening: Janis Robertson, Todd Stone, Kim Chan and Tracy Golab. They have worked tirelessly this evening to help contribute to this debate. [Applause.]

The Speaker: I am sure Hansard will record that the approval was unanimous.

Members, I am advised that the Lieutenant-Governor may be some few minutes, and therefore it would seem to me appropriate to advise you of that fact and suggest that perhaps we should recess the House for the next 15 minutes. If that's agreeable, I would suggest that we simply recess, as I say, for 15 minutes. Is that agreeable? Government House Leader, could I have a motion to recess the House until, shall we say, 1:50?

Hon. J. MacPhail: That sounds great.

Sorry, hon Speaker. I move that the House recess until 1:50.

Motion approved.

The House recessed from 1:39 a.m. to 1:51 a.m.

The Speaker: I am advised that the Lieutenant-Governor will be joining us momentarily.

His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor entered the chamber and took his place in the chair.

Law Clerk:

Supply Act (No. 1), 1997.

Clerk of the House: In Her Majesty's name, His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor doth thank Her Majesty's loyal subjects, accepts their benevolence and assents to this bill.

Hon. G. Gardom (Lieutenant-Governor): May I wish everyone a happy Easter.

His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor retired from the chamber.

[The Speaker in the chair.]

Hon. J. MacPhail: I move that the House at its rising stand adjourned until 2 p.m. Tuesday. I wish everybody a good long weekend and a safe trip home. I move that the House do now adjourn.

Hon. J. MacPhail moved adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

The House adjourned at 1:54 a.m.

Copyright © 1997: Queen's Printer, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada