[ Page 11535 ]

A. Sanders: Good morning. As a member of the Legislature, I've been asked to look at second reading of Bill 54, the Supply Act, and to speak in principle as to whether the government should be granted the privilege of interim supply.

[0110]

There is a question that is fundamental to this debate, and that is the following: should this government be granted money for overruns and money for the next quarter? Should the Legislature give this government the nod to spend taxpayers' hard-earned money? No matter how that question is couched, broached, coached, coddled, reframed, renamed, the answer is still no -- not one more penny, not one red cent. No is the only answer to that fundamental question: should the NDP be granted interim supply? This question is sort of like kicking a skunk. No matter how you pose the question, it's still a stinker for the people of British Columbia. So where do we take an odious problem like this? Where do we teach this government that no means no?

Allow me to recommend four preliminary questions that may provide a framework for government to learn that no means no, and allow me to substantiate, by these questions, why the government has no right to interim supply and no right to govern. Four fundamental issues are at stake here. Four fundamental questions will pierce the heart of the problem, and these four concerns must be addressed in the issue of supply. Legislators, on behalf of constituents, must ask today: "Has this government maintained and earned the moral right to govern in this province?" No. "Has the government demonstrated the fiscal responsibility necessary to govern?" No. "Does this government manage our affairs in a manner that gains and maintains the confidence of British Columbia voters enough to be granted the nod for further funds?" No. "Does this government have a plan?" No. No, no, no, no -- four questions, four consistent answers. These are consistent New Democrats.

Let's look at those four questions individually. Why do British Columbians no longer trust this government? When did the government lose the moral right to govern? What events led to a breach of trust so profound that we have a Premier who, in the annals of history, will challenge Brian Mulroney for popularity. What could this government have done in the face of British Columbians that was so heinous as to fuel recall campaign after recall campaign -- that has led, in this last year, to an effort that's called total recall? What has fuelled the public to hold non-partisan meetings, unprecedented gatherings of numbers up in the thousands, in areas across the province -- Prince George, Cloverdale, the lower mainland? Where have these Had Enough gatherings come from, and where have they found their momentum? Where have they got the energy -- for that number of people to get together to want to remove a government from office?

[0115]

The government itself has been the fuel for that particular fire. The government has provided the bullets; the government has loaded the gun. The government has held the gun to its own head. Now, in the last few weeks, it even seems to be willing to pull the trigger. How did all that occur? How did we get to that point in 1999 and in the middle of a government's term? I think it's pretty easy to see if you look at the litany of situations that have fed the flames of discontent towards the NDP government in the province of British Columbia in the last little while.

I think it would be fair to say -- not to drag up old historical issues -- that it started with Bingogate. I don't think, actually, that there's any question about that. The shame of a political party caught stealing from charity will never be erased from the minds of British Columbians. That will be something that will be remembered long after we, as legislators, have left this chamber, left this career and, perhaps, even left this life. The Premier's refusal to repay that money to those charities is still an open wound for many people in the Nanaimo area. It is one of the things that over time has added salt to the wound and has done much on a daily, monthly and now yearly basis to denigrate what is considered the job of a politician in British Columbia.

Many of us thought Bingogate would have been enough. Many of us felt that the Parks report would have been enough shame. Many of us would like to put that behind us -- collectively, as politicians -- and move forward so that we can regain the trust of British Columbians. Unfortunately, that wasn't the case with this government.

Following Bingogate, there was Hydrogate, the Cayman Islands, offshore accounts, intrigue, foreign involvement in issues and efforts of B.C. and our economy -- things that the public were very worried about, that they were sure were unscrupulous and that caught their interest but also their dismay. But that wasn't enough. Not only did British Columbians -- the average person in the average job in the average town -- have to deal with being part of Bingogate and Hydrogate; there was much more in store for them.

We had the '95-96 and '96-97 budget untruths -- and that's being very generous to government. We had Budgetgate. We're living Budgetgate right now. The citizens of British Columbia are still reeling from Budgetgate. They're still trying to understand what on earth went on and what on earth would leave them to feel as deceived as they do. But that wasn't all. While they were reeling from Budgetgate and recovering from Bingogate and Hydrogate, we got Skeenagate -- $330 million of taxpayers' money at a time when health care and education were suffering, $330 million in a cabinet minister's riding. And $330 million to people in my riding

[ Page 11536 ]

[0120]

Then there was Ferrygate. In fact, this Legislature was dismissed for a period of time and no longer debated the issues of the Nisga'a in order that things could calm down from what was Ferrygate -- so that a new minister, a new Captain Highliner, could get into the post and start to complete his understanding of that portfolio and hope that Ferrygate would go away. The unconscionable spending of hundreds of millions of dollars that could have gone to health care and education but were dumped into a project -- into a thing that the Premier wished to see go forward and that really had very much more interest to him and his career than it did to the average British Columbian in many areas of the province. . . .

While we were trying to recover from Ferrygate and people were trying to deal with the huge losses of dollars that would not be available for health care and education, we got broadsided with Casinogate, Pilarinosgate -- whatever gate you want to call it. Our Premier was involved, potentially, in a scandal that occurred with casino licensing. And the whole process of why we're bringing casinos and expanded gambling into British Columbia at all. . . . It's something that's been a sore and a festering wound in this Legislature and certainly within the communities of British Columbia, as they wonder why on earth we would have expanded gambling as a source of revenue for British Columbia services. Surely we can do better than expanded gambling. Casinogate is just the tip of the iceberg for the problems that can occur when you use gambling as a source of government revenue for any province, especially this one.

Stay tuned. We haven't even got to SkyTraingate and Vancouver-convention-centregate, and people are already feeling the burn. They're already feeling the anxiety of recognizing that billions of their tax dollars could go towards projects that are not properly financed, that are not properly accredited, that don't have good business plans, and they certainly don't have the understanding that the best use of tax dollars will be maintained in order to have those projects go forward.

I think that if we look over the last seven or eight years, it would be fair to say that British Columbians have tolerated being lied to. If we look over the last eight years, I think it would be fair to say that British Columbians have tolerated being cheated. I think it would even be fair to say that British Columbians have tolerated being duped. They have tolerated all those things with the dignity that comes with being a British Columbian. But there's one thing, hon. Speaker, that they haven't tolerated. They cannot tolerate the profound and deep humiliation they have felt nationally and even internationally by being likened, by association, to breaches of moral integrity. And this government has demonstrated that to them in the number of scandals that have occurred over the last number of years which are directly associated with the NDP government. It's difficult for British Columbians to be ashamed of their government.

[0125]

I think there has been a tremendous besmirching of that image, a tremendous humiliation of the average British Columbian when they look at what they voted in, in this province. That has affected both sides of the House. It is not reserved for government; it is not reserved for a specific politician. It is something that we all must bear: the mantle of scandal that has occurred over the last eight years in British Columbia.

Even when you can tolerate being cheated or duped, you cannot tolerate humiliation. You will find that the fundamental reasons for supporting the structure of government will become less clear. You will find that government, no matter who that government is, will be less trusted in the future because of past history and association. It will be more difficult for any government to gain the confidence and respect of the people who have voted them in. That is the principal reason why this government has lost the moral right to govern. Unfortunately, their loss of that moral right will reflect on governments that follow. That is the first reason why the government has not earned the right, the privilege, of interim supply.

Logically, the second question follows the first: has this government demonstrated fiscal responsibility? Again, no. Let's look at the facts, and let's use the government's own facts, as opposed to partisan facts from someone else.

Total debt stands at $34 billion. This is an increase of 101 percent since this government came to power in 1991. Total debt for every man, woman and child in British Columbia is $8,582 each -- $3,337 more for every man, woman and child than when this government came into power. Provincial debt, projected to be $95 million, is $544 million -- six times the deficit projected by the Minister of Finance. Why do we need a Minister of Finance? My children could have made this projection and could have maybe got just as close, maybe closer. I do not see in these figures any reason to have a Minister of Finance.

Interest payments are $2.6 billion per year -- $7.23 million a day, ticking off every single day of the year. That's money down the drain, money to service debt, money that will be increasing as time goes by -- as this government racks up more and more of a deficit for this province. No balanced budget is projected until 2002-03. A government that ran in 1991 on a balanced budget, a government that ran in 1996 on two balanced budgets -- that never were, that never will be. . . . A plan to increase taxpayer-supported debt -- 27 percent in the next five years. . . . Again, that's up from 12.5 percent when this government came into power.

[ Page 11537 ]

[0130]

We're at a time when people can't get a diagnostic test to save their lives -- literally. We're at a time when people wait eight or nine months for MRIs. We're at a time when you can tell a 23-year-old mother of two kids that you think she has multiple sclerosis but that the test that she needs so she can make some decisions about where her life is going -- what she's going to do with her job, who's going to help her look after her kids -- will be eight months down the road. Thirteen thousand tests a day, and we're waiting eight, nine, ten months -- sometimes even more -- for routine tests that should be available in health care.

If you had $7 million a day to use on people in health care and education, this province would be a profoundly different place. That's the kind of thing that comes from making hard choices, where you actually work towards balancing budgets and getting rid of interest payments. Does this minister realize that we could send every man, woman and child in British Columbia to Las Vegas for three days, all expenses paid, on the money that we spend every day to service our debt? That's what this province could save on interest payments alone.

Those are the kinds of facts that make sense to people in my riding. Those are the kinds of facts that make sense to people who could give a darn about politics, politicians and the stuff that goes on here in Victoria. That's the kind of thing that they understand. And when we tell them those kinds of things, they say: "What is going on in Victoria? Who is there working for us? How could these things happen?" And you know what? There's no answer for that that's good enough.

This government has done everything but demonstrate fiscal competency. That is the second reason that the government does not deserve the privilege of granting interim supply.

Now we must address the third question: does this government manage our affairs in a manner to gain and maintain the confidence of British Columbia voters enough to be given the nod for further funds? The answer is no -- unfortunately, no. From all that's been said, there is no other answer but no.

[0135]

We are in a circumstance where this government is not governing under the mandate that they ran on, that they set out to steer British Columbia on, that they told taxpayers was their purpose and that they said, when they got into government, they would carry through on. This government is not running on the platform -- not even one plank -- of what they said in the last election.

Now, if you change your stripes that much, if you campaign on balanced budgets, if you assure taxpayers that you will not spend money you don't have. . . . If you are a government that does not keep a single promise, that does not meet a single projection, a single target, a single ideal that you've set out for yourself in the mandate that you've been sent into the government seats to carry out, you have lost your right to be there.

If you decide that the mandate has changed and that all the rules and all the focuses and promises and future plans have changed, then it's your responsibility to take that to the polls and ask the taxpayer: "Do you still want us in the driver's seat? We've changed everything. Do you still want us in the driver's seat?" It's up to this government -- it's up to any government -- to ask the taxpayer that fundamental question in order to receive the moral right, the political right and certainly the taxpayers' right to have you in the government seats, to have you spend the money from the taxpayers' coffers.

This government has lost that mandate. Quite frankly, I don't think they ever intended to carry it out. They are so far from home, so far out in space from the orbit that they are supposed to be in, that they are not even the same people that the people who voted them in thought they were getting, let alone those 61 percent of British Columbians who didn't want them there. We are in a situation where we need to go to the polls. If this government believes the taxpayer is behind them, then let the polls decide. Let's hear the voice of British Columbians.

Finally, I ask, on behalf of all British Columbians: does this government have a plan? Again the answer is no. The Minister of Finance says her plan is to grow out of the recession, the NDP-induced recession. This is a tired, banal, exhausted, 1970s view of economic strategy. It has been abandoned by all modern provinces. Even the NDP stronghold in Saskatchewan recognizes the sheer stupidity of that kind of economic way of doing business. Will the Finance minister abandon what she learned in economics 100 a good 25 years ago and get in the know and get in with all the other Finance ministers and how they do business? Learn some new material. Get rid of the outdated, outmoded theories. Do some

[ Page 11538 ]

This is a tired, tattered, unusable plan. There is no plan for repayment. There is no plan to get the deficit or the debt on track. Any plans that have been made by this government have been abandoned, renamed, refocused, forgotten, submerged and changed. After eight long, jaded years, there's not a single British Columbian left who believes that the NDP can make the hard choices that are necessary to get this province on track. There is no plan. There never was; there never will be.

[0140]

A. Sanders: Thank you, hon. Chair. As a responsible person, I say to the government, take us to the polls.

L. Reid: Certainly, when I look at Bill 54, Supply Act (No. 1), 1999, I wonder if indeed there's any ministry in this government that is budgeted for appropriately. This is an enormous magnitude of special warrant spending. This is, again, a government that lacks a plan, that's not particularly well organized, that truly didn't listen to the British Columbia Business Summit, that has committed this province to $2.6 billion in interest annually. What kind of legacy is that for British Columbians -- for the children of this province? I mean, I have stood as a member in this chamber since 1991, and I can tell you that to see the debt load of this province double during the tenure of this government gives me no pleasure. It gives British Columbians no pleasure to know that fewer than four million people will indeed have the responsibility to pay off $35 billion. Again, my colleagues have been correct: there is no plan to do that. It's simply something that gets off-loaded every year. "Let's try and humour the taxpayers and suggest that there's a plan." Alas, every year there's no plan. Every year it should be something that's considered before us; every year nothing comes to pass.

I'm not clear why this government, the members opposite, continue to believe that they have indeed done a good thing for the province. I cannot imagine that they can somehow stand together and know that they've indebted this province to the tune of $35 billion and that there's not some remorse from the members opposite. There's not an apology forthcoming from the members opposite in terms of what has been done to this province. There's no remorse; there's never an apology. We'll never return to baseline at the hands of this government. We'll never get a handle on the debt at the hands of this government. This simply will not happen. And somehow the attitude passes for some kind of fiscal prudence in their minds.

It doesn't pass for that in my mind. It smacks of reckless irresponsibility when it comes to committing a province that has such potential to this level of debt load. That's not a legacy that I'm proud of. I don't know how members opposite can accept the fact that they have beleaguered this province to the extent that they have -- no apology for what has gone before, no apology for the fact that the province has been responsible for closing more beds, for creating longer wait-lists. Every year they come in with something to sweeten the pie, saying: "We're going to try and correct that problem" -- never an acknowledgment that the problem was created at the hands of this government and again never an apology. Those things are just kind of basic to how we should operate as legislators. There should be some responsibility inherent in how this place does its job.

The members opposite. . . . I'm concerned that the people are left adrift. These folks won't be here when that debt is paid off. But somehow it's okay to run it up and then leave. Somehow it's okay to suggest that the necessity for a plan is simply not there. I don't agree. I do not accept the notion that any entity in the province of British Columbia can leave a debt load in the range of $35 billion to those who come after and that somehow that's an appropriate way to proceed. I'm alarmed by the rhetoric opposite, by the lack of apology, by the lack of remorse, by the lack of decency when it comes to funding projects the first time out.

We have a government that will tell you that they are going to create more beds in health care. No one opposite stands up and tells about how many beds they have closed in health care, how many people have been put on the wait-list -- waiting for surgical procedures in this province -- as a direct result of the fiscal mismanagement of this government. "More dollars in health care" is the common rant. The number of dollars in patient care needs to be the response that emanates from these government benches, hon. Speaker. How much money actually reaches the front line in health care and education?

[0145]

Yet at the hands of this government, they plunk them out into the system and decimate what happens in secondary and elementary schools in terms of administrative practice, in terms of counselling support. They suggest that those brand-new teachers can go out there and deal with some very challenging children -- very challenging experiences for those young people -- with no support. I'm not grateful for that approach to a profession that I value very highly in this province. My professional colleagues are not grateful for that approach, because it's not thoughtful, not insightful, not responsible. It doesn't suggest that teachers are an integral part of that team. It's a team approach that we require in British Columbia in educational programs today, not tossing in 200 or 400 more teachers without any support systems. Yet indeed that is what this government has done and continues to do -- continues to take great, enormous pride in the fact that young men and women as teachers are cut adrift, are absolutely unsupported by the education system today because the counselling budgets have been cut, the administrative budgets have been cut. Who do they think supports new teachers? It's not this government.

[ Page 11539 ]

"Bet on it," is the columnist's response. It gives British Columbians out there, working and attempting to keep their families together financially, little hope, little optimism.

Hon. U. Dosanjh: She's certainly telling the truth.

L. Reid: The Attorney General is saying: "She's telling the truth." We know for a fact that the truth around budgets has not been told in this chamber for the previous two sessions; we know that for a fact. You know that for a fact. Both ministers opposite, the Attorney General and the Minister of Women's Equality, know for a fact that this province is owed an apology, that this province deserves some honesty around those questions. I am not impressed that this honesty was not forthcoming. I'm continually unimpressed with the fact that people try and defend that attitude; it is not defensible.

I mean, the press coverage has ridiculed, with "Day of Reckoning Will Come. . . ." Unfortunately, the day of reckoning will be there for the young people of this province who will be left to pay the bills, to attempt to cover off $2.6 billion a year in interest payments -- not reasonable, not fair, not decent, not thoughtful.

I mean, for the ministers opposite who are so intrigued by this commentary, perhaps there's some defence from that side of the chamber when it comes to what happened to the debt management plans of the last five years. What happened to those plans? Not one of them was met. They quickly were replaced by the next debt management plan, none of it about the long-term prosperity of this province. It's like being on a wild spending spree for a number of years and moving on before you actually end up being responsible for what you've left in your wake.

But this is an issue that, frankly, I don't believe this government can escape. I think the public has been enormously patient in terms of giving opportunities to this government to bring forward a debt reduction plan that they can actually manage to stick to. I've not seen one in my eight years. Certainly the deficit annually, the debt load that continues to mount, the $2.6 billion in interest that must be paid and the debt servicing that will strangle this province don't suggest to me that anyone on the opposite side can be indignant at all about the public response to this budget.

[0150]

The minister will say that this is a budget about choices. What choice was possibly left for the people who will now have to pay those bills? No choice. They are saddled with debt that is insurmountable, and no choice was given to them. The visit to a chamber of commerce and four other spots around the province does not translate into people's response to this budget. It's anecdotal and it's interesting, but it in no way gives this government permission to indebt the province to the extent that they have. It in no way suggests that it's appropriate for the young people of this province to be paying, all their lives, $2.6 billion in interest and to have $35 billion worth of debt. No one asked their permission. Frankly, this government promised them a dramatically opposite course of action -- that indeed there would be some fiscal prudence, some fiscal responsibility and that someone would look out for them as they reached their twenties and thirties and forties.

An Hon. Member: Not this group.

L. Reid: Obviously not this group. It's apparent to me that these folks are not that concerned about the 30-year-olds of this province today, who will indeed be left with insurmountable debt, in my view.

An Hon. Member: It's the unborn that are going to have to pay it. They'll still be paying.

L. Reid: The children yet to come.

More coverage from yesterday: "B.C. is Canada's only region that has yet to emerge from the 1990 recession. . . ." It has been ten years. As we're leaving the 1990s, it has been a decade. These folks entered this decade in 1991 and have not left a legacy that anyone is particularly proud of. There are more than enough examples along the front bench of individuals and previous Ministers of Health and previous Ministers of Education who have stood up time and time again to announce one-time-only funding. They're going to correct the problem with one-time-only funding. Then they've done it again and again and again.

There's no evidence of a plan, no evidence of a long-term strategy. When there's enough angst in the public domain, we'll try and pacify by pouring on a few dollars. Then we'll go on and wreak havoc in someone else's area of responsibility. When the public gets sufficiently irked about that, we'll calm the waters there and move on. So it's crisis management as opposed to any kind of long-term strategy. I can't recall the number of times I stood in this chamber and saw the minister opposite announce one-time-only funding. There is no plan when it comes to this government adequately funding health care and education.

This is an election budget. This is not a budget that's about long-term prosperity for the province. This is about a government that is again committed, absolutely committed, to indebting this province annually, in terms of $2.6 billion in interest, and long-term, in terms of $35 billion in debt. That's the legacy. I don't see any pride on the faces of the members opposite. The fact of the matter is that that legacy is insurmountable. We are fewer than four million people in the province of British Columbia, and we are in tenth spot out of ten. We're the last region in the country to realize that we should in fact have emerged from a recession, and we have not.

[0155]

[ Page 11540 ]

It intrigued me yesterday when the Premier introduced his good friend who was in the press gallery, Michael Smyth. The article is entitled "A Price Tag on Recklessness. Trying to find the truth in an NDP budget is sort of like the RCMP trying to find the receipts for the Premier's sundecks." This article was written by his good friend, as the Premier indicated to this chamber. In future, he may wish to rethink how he evaluates friendship. The article goes on: "You practically need a search warrant, and even then it's a tricky puzzle."

I found one little piece of truth yesterday, hidden away on page 110 of the budget reports in a table called "Key debt indicators," and that was the total amount of money you'll pay this year in interest charges on the NDP's accumulated debt. Brace yourself: it's $2.6 billion in interest. Those rates go up even higher. According to this charming article, you get whacked even harder. That's the price you're paying for the ferries, the SkyTrain stations, the megaproject boondoggles, the deals, the taxpayer-funded propaganda and the endless perks for politicians that are so infuriating.

Take this year's budget for NDP caucus operations. It's up a whopping 31 percent. Again, where's the accountability? And despite the Finance minister's contention that this is the most honest NDP budget to date -- which I think are interesting adjectives, the "most honest" -- yesterday the government quietly shifted $700 million in health and transit debt off its own books and on to the municipal finance authority. No matter where they put it, from this article written by the Premier's good friend, it's all your money.

Interjection.

L. Reid: It's the person you introduced in the chamber, hon. Premier.

And let me continue the article, now that he's here.

"When it comes to public finances, this government doesn't know whether it's coming or going. Forget their election promise to reduce the debt. That was a joke to begin with. And the Finance minister's promise last year to balance the books? That went bye-bye too. This is a political budget. By letting the red ink flow, the NDP hope to cast themselves as preservers of education and medicare. . . . It might have worked, if they hadn't lied and cooked us two phony budgets to get re-elected."

British Columbians listen to that. They know in fact that their legacy is not one that anyone can be proud of. They know in fact that they're mired in debt, that fewer than four million people owe $35 billion, that debt servicing alone is an insurmountable cost -- $2.6 billion in interest. Earlier, one of our MLAs contrasted all the things one could purchase for $2.6 billion. So if I have time, I may canvass that same area later on this morning.

[The Speaker in the chair.]

Indeed, it's an enormous sum of money. People aren't getting very much for that. They're not getting pride in their government. They're not getting service delivered in some kind of ethical fashion. They're not getting forthright candour from their politicians on the benches opposite. What does the average British Columbian do, faced with yet another deficit budget?

Interjections.

[0200]

There is no apology forthcoming; there are no apologies for mistakes made; there is no repayment of debt owed by the members opposite. It's kind of like: take, take, continue to take and never once go back and make amends. That alarms and frustrates me. I believe that it tarnishes all politicians. It doesn't surprise me, frankly, that not one person on the benches opposite has leapt to their feet, because there isn't a great deal to be proud of in this budget and in how this government interacts with the taxpayers of British Columbia.

There's a belief by the members opposite, hon. Speaker, that somehow it is government money. I've never accepted that notion, not in 1991 when I was first elected and not in 1999. It is always taxpayer money. The recklessness with which that taxpayer money is allocated and spent and the choices this government makes with money that does not belong to them absolutely astound me.

There are people out there who are absolutely dependent, reliant upon the services of this government: parents of mentally handicapped children, who can't get a week's respite care, yet they read in the paper that the province is engaged in yet another megaproject; teachers who can't be supported in classrooms; and children in care who are in nine or ten different foster homes within a year, and somehow the ministry would say to us that it's a superior placement to the one they left -- not fair, not decent, not honest and, frankly, not accountable.

Enough people slip through the cracks in British Columbia that someone on the government benches has to stand up and acknowledge that and, frankly, make some amends and some apologies. It doesn't happen. We have a government in this province that spends more on legal bills, in some instances, to separate families than they do on apologizing and returning children to families when mistakes have legit-

[ Page 11541 ]

Individual British Columbians are so disillusioned. Frankly, many of them are disgusted with how this government operates. They don't have recourse. They'll get a letter from a member opposite: "Well, seek legal counsel." It's rampant within the Ministry for Children and Families -- seek legal counsel, as if these individuals had resources to do that.

S. Orcherton: A point of order.

The Speaker: Would the hon. member take her seat.

I recognize the member for Victoria-Hillside.

S. Orcherton: Thank you, hon. Speaker. I just want to bring to the member's attention a very sad occurrence this evening. The member should know that at 11:45 p.m., due to some solar fuel cell damage to the satellite televising the situation here at the Legislature, these proceedings have not been televised. I'm advised that hundreds of British Columbians woke up with a start at 11:45. I want to advise the House that now it is 2 a.m. The satellite is back on. These British Columbians that woke up can now safely go back to sleep.

The Speaker: Hon. member, that's. . . .

S. Orcherton: It's good news. It's frivolous, as the budget. . . .

L. Reid: It's absolutely irresponsible for this government to continue to behave in such a manner.

The Speaker: Now, member for Richmond East, continue.

[0205]

That was not a point of order, as that member knows full well. That behaviour is appalling, just appalling. These are important issues for the families of British Columbia. You should worry about your press coverage. It appals me that that attitude passes for some kind of reasonable intellect in this province. There are opportunities for this province. . . .

Interjection.

L. Reid: Get to your feet, hon. minister. There are opportunities in this province for people to interface effectively and appropriately with their government. That is not it.

Interjection.

L. Reid: Again, a very interesting example of an individual who takes no responsibility, is not accountable, has not apologized to this chamber for something that is absolutely not a point of order. I resent the interruption. I resent the fact that he finds that interesting and amusing. This man has been in this chamber long enough to know what qualifies as a point of order.

In terms of where we were, I was speaking of families in this province who are treated with such utter disdain and disregard when they have enormous issues before them. The members opposite indicate that they should seek legal counsel -- as if they had the resources at their disposal to do that. It's a significant issue, not just for constituents of my riding or the members on this side of House but for constituents in that member's riding as well. That's an issue where people in their hearts know that being indebted to the point of $2.6 billion annually -- $35 billion in debt -- is not a reasonable way for this government to proceed. It's not decent; it's not honest. It's frivolous, it's reckless, it's irresponsible, but it's not anything to do with good government.

It brings me to the article "NDP Not Cracked Up to Running a Peanut Stand" -- and based on the performance of a moment ago, I would certainly agree with that. And "Budget at a Glance" says "Spending set at $21.05 billion. . .up 2.5 percent. Deficit in coming year will be $890 million, up from $544 million in 1998-99." The article is riddled with commentary that the Premier was unabashedly unapologetic about the ballooning deficit. "This is not the time to balance the budget. . . ." If he were clear and honest on this question, there hasn't been a time over the past eight years to balance the budget. The bottom line is that those of us who will continue to be resident in this province and pay the bills of this province know that we have been saddled with insurmountable debt that is absolutely inappropriate.

The issues I raise this evening are family issues. They are issues about which people need reasonable confidence in their government so that they can go forward and solve their personal issues, knowing that the government is getting a handle on their issues. That's not the case. There isn't a single article that suggests confidence on the part of the taxpayer -- that indeed these individuals have got their fiscal house in order. That's an enormous concern for me -- the disdain and disregard woven throughout these articles that they frankly don't care.

[0210]

It continues to astound me that when we look at anything that talks about. . . . "Budget at a Glance," "Children Let Down," "It's Politics, Not Economics," "Too Much Spending," "Heading for Bankruptcy" and "No Lure to Investment." Who is it that this government thinks will craft employment in the province? It's not going to be individuals who are so alarmed and so disillusioned by the fact that these individuals opposite refuse to tell the truth and refuse to deliver an honest and accountable budget to British Columbians.

Hon. Speaker, it is time for an election.

B. Penner: For those who may have just tuned in, we're here tonight debating Bill 54, Supply Act (No. 1), 1999. The content of this bill before the Legislative Assembly proposes to authorize $5.2 billion -- that's not million; that's billion -- in additional spending. Further, and what I have greater concern with, it seeks to retroactively give our sanction, the Legislative Assembly's sanction, to about $170 million that was author-

[ Page 11542 ]

I remember, a couple of weeks ago, my mother asking me if I was going to be around Chilliwack to join her and my father for a dinner. You see, it's my parents' fortieth wedding anniversary, which they just celebrated Tuesday evening. My mother wanted to know if I'd be around for dinner to help celebrate with them. I could not give her a straight answer, because I didn't know if the Legislature would be in session or not. In British Columbia, the MLAs -- the people who are supposedly in charge of the province's finances and looking after this great place -- are the last ones to know when we're supposed to be here doing the people's business. Typically, we get seven days' notice. My mother was frustrated. She wanted to make a reservation at a nice restaurant. She wanted to know if she should invite my sister to come out and join us in Chilliwack, and she wanted to know if my brother should come, with his wife. I simply couldn't give a straight answer; I couldn't say yes or no. I said maybe. If I'm in Chilliwack, I'd certainly like to join my parents. That's what I told them.

Imagine the frustration of our constituents -- the people that elect us, the taxpayers -- who want to know if their representatives are here working on their behalf at any given time. They're busy in their day-to-day lives. They've got jobs, families to look after, lawns to mow, cars to wash. They don't have eight or nine hours every day to pay attention to what's happening in Victoria, to find out if we're actually here working.

Everywhere we go -- and I'm sure all the members here have experienced it -- people stop us and say, "How's Victoria?" even when we're not here. Or when we are here, people say: "When are you going back to Victoria?" People simply don't know. That's because we don't have a fixed legislative calendar, and we don't have a fixed date for when the budget must be introduced.

That's why we're here now, at about quarter after two in the morning -- when most reasonable people are comfortably asleep in their beds -- trying to bring instructive, intelligent debate to a bill that would retroactively authorize $170 million in spending. That's just wrong. It doesn't have to be that way. The B.C. Liberal Party has already tabled legislation in this House -- which has been rejected by the government -- that would require the Legislature to convene by the third week of every February to table a budget, so that we would get into meaningful debate about proposed expenditures before they occur, rather than call us back here and have us sit around the clock into the wee hours to retroactively approve money that's already been spent. It just doesn't make sense.

[0215]

I don't believe in suspenseful endings where they're not necessary, so I'll say right now that I'm not inclined to give my support to Bill 54 and the more than $5 billion in spending it proposes. I see our House Leader is relieved to find out the ending well in advance; I know I had him sitting on the edge of his seat.

The reason, in a nutshell, why I can't bring myself to support Bill 54 is as follows. I'll get this off my chest and out of the way right here so we can move on. I believe this incompetent government is irresponsible, self-serving, debt-addicted and represents modern-day Luddites who can't be trusted with a blank cheque or credit card. That is it, in a nutshell, for me. However, I do have some other issues I'd like to explore tonight in the time remaining.

The budget tabled two days ago in this Legislature indicates that the government simply hasn't learned from the errors of its ways. The government is comprised of individuals -- 40 of them now. . . . Forty government MLAs comprise the government, and I submit that they haven't learned the lessons of their individual lives.

I know many of them have attended university. To do that, they probably had to borrow money, either from their parents, from other relatives or through student loans. I know I did. I remember getting my first student loan when I was in university. I managed to complete a bachelor's degree without borrowing any money by working part-time. But when I went to law school, I was too busy to hold down a part-time job, and I needed some help. So I was grateful for the cash that I got through a student loan. I spent it on tuition, books and food.

I knew the money would have to be paid back, and that's why, at the time, I borrowed as little as possible. In fact, I can remember the student loan officer suggesting, when it came to filling out my student loan application, that I fudge the numbers a little bit so I could borrow a bit more. But I knew I'd have to pay that money back, and as soon as I did get a job after university, I started making extra payments as soon as possible. Instead of paying interest to a bank, I figured it would be better to pay that interest to myself by paying off the debt sooner and using the extra money for other things. I still think that.

The members opposite, if they've had that experience, should apply that reasoning to government. There are times when you need to go into debt, but when you do so, you need to have a plan for paying it back. You can't just keep borrowing more and more. We all know this, I think, in our personal lives, but that is not how our province's finances have been managed under the NDP government.

For the eighth consecutive year, the NDP has failed to balance the budget. In the past, I recall NDP Finance ministers promising to start paying back the money in some future year, but they never did. It reminded me of the old Creedence Clearwater Revival song: "Someday Never Comes." Now they've stopped even talking about reducing our debt; we

[ Page 11543 ]

You know, the NDP budget does have some good news -- for banks. Interest payments on the debt this year will exceed $2.6 billion. According to my calculator, that's about $5,000 every hour, day and night. Not a single penny is going to actually paying down the debt.

[0220]

During debate in the Legislature I've promised my constituents to drive home a very simple message to the government: the best way to start getting out of a hole is to stop digging. And the time to stop digging that hole deeper is now.

Taking a look at what the government plans to spend money on in the upcoming year, there are number of startling increases contained in the budget. You'd think that at a time when the government claims their hands are tied because of falling revenues -- a problem largely of their own making, in my view -- they would look for ways to save money. But looking through the budget in detail, we see some startling increases.

One that caught my eye is the almost threefold increase in the spending anticipated by legislative committees, projected to go from $180,000 last year to $535,000 this year. That's a very curious thing. In my time here in the Legislature over the past three years, most committees have never sat and done any public business. The Health Committee, the Education Committee, the Finance Committee. . . . They have never, ever sat. So what is the government planning to do with these hundreds of thousands of additional dollars for committees?

Well, I think we can get some idea from their past conduct. One committee that did sit last year was a special committee investigating the multilateral agreement on investment, which was a proposed agreement that has since died. Nevertheless, the government insisted on having that committee sit and then, to add insult to injury, chartered a private airplane and flew it around this province at taxpayers' expense. The total budget for that committee was $200,000. That was tantamount to spending taxpayers' money on a search party looking for Elvis Presley in a Burger King. The MAI is dead, Elvis Presley is dead, and they should both be allowed to rest in peace.

But this government, at a time when our economy is in trouble, chose to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on an absolute boondoggle that served the public no good at all. I'm proud to say that B.C. Liberal members of that committee refused to take part in the taxpayer-funded travel, hotels and meals. They walked off the committee and did not rack up extra costs to the taxpayer. There are other anomalies contained throughout the budget, but I think that serves as a pretty good example of misplaced priorities.

There is a place for legislative committees, and that's to do the people's business -- on legitimate, live issues. So why don't we have a committee meeting to discuss Crown corporations? There is one on paper, but it's never been struck to examine in detail the conduct of Crown corporations. Perhaps if the legislative committee on Crown corporations had been functioning -- was allowed to function by this government -- the $225 million cost overrun on the fast ferries might never have occurred. Instead, the government preferred to have complete control, they shut the opposition members out of the process completely -- despite the fact that the opposition members collectively received far more votes than the NDP did in the last election -- and they denied the public, the majority of British Columbians, the chance to scrutinize a project that now is going to cost hundreds of millions of dollars extra.

[0225]

While we're on the topic of the fast ferries, with the assistance of the member for Richmond Centre, I did a bit of research some time ago. The first reference in this Legislature about the fast ferry project was from the Premier, who said that each ferry would cost about $60 million. That was on May 25, 1995, in Hansard. Within a month, the Premier reported to this House that the outside cost was $72 million -- "right down to the toilet paper." For those who wish to confirm that quote, you'll find it on June 22, 1995, in Hansard. "The price is fixed," said the Premier, responding to rumours that the project is going over budget. That quote is referenced in the Vancouver Sun, February 1996. Not long after, fast ferries were budgeted at $74 million per vessel, according to a B.C. Ferries news release of July 7, 1997. Then cost estimates rose to $86 million per vessel by March 1998, according to the B.C. Ferry Corporation. Now we're told that the cost for each ferry will be somewhere around $120 million-plus, and it's still rising.

Is it any surprise that B.C. Ferries debt is up 5,314 percent since the NDP took office? The debt, in absolute numbers, has gone from $14 million to more than $758 million. That figure does not include the fast ferries; add at least another $400 million for that.

Then there's the issue of the time savings. We were initially told that "the fast ferries would save from 40 to 45 minutes on every crossing." That's a direct quote from the Premier on June 24, 1994. Now the promised time savings are down to around 30 minutes, and many people expect that the ultimate savings may be as little as 20 minutes. The fast ferries have to go slower near the harbours because the wake is larger than expected, and the new ship is tough on moorings of pleasure craft at docks.

[ Page 11544 ]

Then there are the delays. The Premier told us that the first fast ferry would be ready by early 1996. That's what he said back in June 1994. Well, again I'm thinking of that Creedence Clearwater Revival song, "Someday Never Comes." Here we are, almost three years after the first proposed completion date, and the first vessel is still not in service -- never mind the other two. Construction didn't even start until April Fools' Day 1996 -- appropriately enough -- just before the last election was called. At that time, the Premier said that it would be in service by the end of summer, 1997. By the summer of 1997, the launch date had been pushed back to the fall of 1997. By the end of 1997, B.C. Ferries claimed that they couldn't put the boat in the water due to unusual tides and then said that they might be in service by early 1998. However, on January 19, 1998, the head of the project suddenly resigned. By March 1998, we were told that the vessel would go into service by Labour Day of 1998. Even that would have been more than two years behind the original schedule.

[0230]

Labour Day came and went, and the project missed another deadline for commencement of service. Finally, by September 1998, when it was supposed to be in service again, we were told that it might be ready by early 1999. Sea trials began on December 7, 1998, but by that time the ferry already needed a major engine overhaul after one crossing. That overhaul required the vessel to be laid up for three weeks. Now here we are, and it's April 1999. The first fast ferry is still not in service, but the bills continue to come in. That's the brief history of the fast ferry fiasco that was started, conceived and driven by the Premier with the full support of his NDP colleagues. Children throughout British Columbia will be paying for that ill-conceived project for many years to come.

There is one other point, though, before I move off fast ferries, that really needs to be stressed. When this project was announced, the government insisted that there would be an international market for the vessels made in British Columbia. Well, here we are. Incat of Australia, a competitor, makes a very similar catamaran. However, it's cheaper. It costs about $66 million (Canadian) per vessel. It's about ten times faster and has 11 percent more horsepower. Unlike the NDP's fast ferry, which has yet to enter service, the Incat fast ferry is already in service and has proven that it can operate on the open sea.

The NDP vessel can't operate on the open sea, because the waves would cause too much disruption. Our vessel is much more limited than the Incat ferry. Our fast cat has to be operated on inland waters only. By the way, Incat's fast ferry is now being built without a subsidy. As I stated earlier, the cost now for each B.C.-produced fast ferry is estimated at about $120 million-plus versus the cost for the Incat vessel, which is 10 percent faster with 11 percent more horsepower at $66 million per copy. Tell me: where is the market demand going to come from for a vessel that is twice as expensive, slower, doesn't have a proven track record and can't operate in rough seas?

The government has made much of the proposed budget, saying they are doing so much more for health care. But as a report on Global TV tonight revealed, it appears that this provincial government is in fact engaged in yet another sleight of hand. The federal government is increasing transfer payments to British Columbia for health care by a larger amount this year than this government is putting into extra funding for health care. Stated differently, the government is diverting health care dollars from the federal government into political projects other than health care. I don't think very many British Columbians are going to be impressed when they find out about that.

Let me give you some specific figures. This year the federal government has increased the Canada health and social transfer to British Columbia by $488 million. However, the budget for the Ministry of Health is increasing by only $478 million over last year, when you include the $124.5 million approved in special warrants for fiscal 1998-99. Right off the top, you can see that the province is putting less money into health care this year than they're receiving in additional funding from the federal government.

If you break those figures down further, you find that $209 million is going into capital expenditures, leaving an additional $125 million for patient care, and $100 million is being spent on computers, which I submit isn't going to help patients one bit. So out of a total of $488 million in extra revenue from the federal government for health care, $125 million is actually being authorized to go to patient care. Talk about a fiscal sleight of hand. Talk about a ripoff for patients in British Columbia.

[0235]

In total, taxpayers are paying more, and Alice Buckell is receiving less and finding that she can't maintain an independent existence. That's mismanagement. It's not helping the

[ Page 11545 ]

Last week a lady phoned my office. She is 90 years old and blind. She has artificial eyes, and she relied on getting professional help in her home to help her clean and disinfect the artificial eyes once a week. That help has been terminated, and as a result, she now has a very serious infection and has been hospitalized. Tell me, how much money are taxpayers saving now that this 90-year-old lady is occupying an acute-care bed in a hospital, rather than getting a couple of hours a week of home support so that she can remain independent and healthy? It's absolutely shameful.

The government wants to boast that this is a health care budget. As I've already indicated, they are passing on only a portion of the federal money being made available for health care this year. Further, because of the extra debt being incurred in this year's budget -- about $3.2 billion of taxpayer-supported debt -- interest payments will increase, using an interest rate of 5 percent, by $150 million next year. We all know that banks are the first ones who want to get paid. Next year, an extra $150 million will have to be found, over and above the $2.64 billion we're spending this year on interest, to satisfy the banks.

I submit that is stealing another $150 million from people like Alice Buckell who need support at home. That extra $150 million going on interest next year because of this year's deficit will be money not available for health care. In my mind, that's pretty simple mathematics.

I didn't do that well in algebra in grade 11, so I didn't pursue it in grade 12. But even I can understand that when you have higher and higher fixed costs every year due to higher debt, your options in terms of providing services to people are reduced every year.

I've already stated that in Alberta, Saskatchewan and other provinces in Canada, they are experiencing the opposite effect. They are going in the other direction. Their debt is going down, so they're paying less in interest and using that interest for other things: increasing health care and education spending, while providing for a better future in the long run for their young people.

Regrettably, I see that the red light has come on. I will continue my remarks during a later stage in this session. I'll say one last thing: not one more penny before the next election.

[0240]

If we go back just a short time ago, to the fall sitting. . . . I think all of us here remember it clearly. We came here to debate the Nisga'a agreement. It was something this government said was their centrepiece -- it had to be debated immediately and it had to be passed by this Legislature. In fact, I clearly recall second reading -- when they taunted everyone that didn't vote with them, called us racist if we didn't agree with them and said that it was time to pass the Nisga'a agreement because that group of individuals had waited for so long.

I remember clearly when Mr. Gosnell stood at the bar and spoke to the House. I remember clearly looking at all the Nisga'a that were in the galleries and that were dressed in their traditional garb. I remember those first number of days, sitting here going through the Nisga'a agreement. I remember a short recess for Christmas and an agreement that we would come back somewhere around the end of January and begin discussions again, because it was so pressing for this government. In fact, the Minister of Finance stated that it was time to get on with finishing the Nisga'a debate. The Premier of the province said the same thing. It was time to get on with the Nisga'a debate. "We don't care whose lives we're upsetting. We're going to come back early, and we're going to debate Nisga'a."

Well, we came back, and along came the police. You know, hon. Speaker, it was actually quite disgusting to see this government completely reverse itself, from being concerned about the Nisga'a agreement to again being concerned about their own political hide. They recessed this House for two full months after telling British Columbians, and everyone on this side of the House, that we had to come back and debate Nisga'a immediately, because it had to go through.

What a slap in the face for Mr. Gosnell, who stood at that bar and who pleaded with this government that said they were concerned about the Nisga'a. Were they concerned about the Nisga'a? No, they were concerned about the Deputy Premier being in so much trouble. They were concerned about how they were going to boot him out, take the ferries away from him and give it to a new person that crossed from this side of the House. That's how concerned they were about Nisga'a. They weren't concerned one whit about Nisga'a when their own political hide was on the line, and that's disgusting. It's about as disgusting as what we're witnessing here today with supply and Bill 54. It's hard to imagine that they could even come back to this House with their heads held high after that performance this last year.

[0245]

We'll go to No. 1 out of 48. No. 1 says: "The New Democrats are committed to open and balanced government that deals fairly with ordinary men and women instead of playing favourites with political friends and insiders." Now, that's your promise. Some of you were elected in '96, but others across the way were elected in '91.

The Speaker: Through the Chair.

R. Neufeld: Through the Chair.

[ Page 11546 ]

The Speaker: Hon. member, the word that you are to leave out is the word "you." We make no direct comments to other members in the House, and I'm just reminding you of that.

R. Neufeld: I'm going to read again another policy; it's a policy statement of the NDP government: "We are determined that politicians will not use elected positions for gain of themselves or their families, will not favour their friends, will not cheat and lie, and will not otherwise abuse the public trust given to them." I ask: have the government lived up to that promise and that policy put forward in 1990? "The New Democrats believe it is wrong for the government to shroud in secrecy controversial decisions" -- another policy. How about all the secret decisions that have been made by this government, shrouded in secrecy? How about it?

We'll go to promise No. 2: "You won't need an inside track to get fair treatment from a New Democrat government."

An Hon. Member: You just need a party membership.

R. Neufeld: I guess so.

"It is wrong for the government political appointees to profit at public expense with huge cash severances; $100,000 is too expensive a farewell gift." There are pages and pages of $100,000 gifts by this government to their friends and insiders; it's absolutely unbelievable.

Another NDP policy statement -- this party's policy: "We believe it is wrong for the provincial government to spend thousands of taxpayers' dollars in opinion-polling on partisan political issues. And we believe it is wrong for the government to use that data to develop expensive advertising campaigns to promote itself in a highly partisan way."

[0250]

Promise No. 3: "Our justice system will be free from political interference." Not a bad statement, except that we remember a past Attorney General. When there were problems in the ministry, he wouldn't step aside. We remember very well a past Finance minister who wouldn't step aside when there were investigations going on about gambling.

We recently went through quite a process with the Minister of Transportation and Highways, who likened the police to home invaders. It took a week for that member to finally apologize halfheartedly to this House. It's absolutely disgusting that that member knew full well what the policy was but elected to do it because he thought he was a minister of the Crown and could do anything he wanted.

The Deputy Premier, authorizing phone calls to judges when deals are being made with Skeena Cellulose. . . . The Deputy Premier! He doesn't meet this test; he doesn't meet the test of his own party, let alone the test of British Columbians. And then we have the Premier and his search. We have the Premier. . . .

Interjection.

The Speaker: Hon. member, take your seat, please.

I recognize the member for Burnaby-Willingdon.

J. Sawicki: Point of order. Hon. Speaker, throughout this evening there have been several references that I believe really do impugn the motives of other hon. members of the House. I would like to refer the hon. member opposite to standing order 40. It makes it very, very clear that there is a certain standard of language that's acceptable in the House and a certain standard that is not when it's directed to other individual members. I hope the hon. member would refresh his memory and perhaps turn to page 74 before he continues his remarks.

The Speaker: The member continues and, I'm sure, is aware of those comments.

R. Neufeld: Thank you. I know the truth hurts. In fact, when you rub the salt in a little bit harder, it gets a little bit touchy. I understand that, hon. Speaker. I will attempt. . . .

The Speaker: Hon. member, take your seat, please. Another member has risen. Would you take your seat, please.

J. Sawicki: Hon. Speaker, let me read standing order 40 for the hon. member in this House: "No member shall use offensive words against any member of the House." And the notes say: "The conduct of a member cannot be canvassed in debate nor charges of personal character be made, save on a substantive motion under notice."

R. Neufeld: I am only talking about what is actually out there, what is actually the truth. Did the RCMP. . . ?

The Speaker: Hon. member, there is a way of talking about what happened, and there is a way of adding views about what happened. I think the hon. member for Burnaby-Willingdon has raised some very good points. I encourage you to make your remarks in light of those suggestions.

R. Neufeld: You know, hon. Speaker, I take the chastisement. But if you wish to do it to me, I wish that you would tell the member for Skeena to watch the way he says things also. Maybe the member for Burnaby-Willingdon would like to stand up and read into the record for that member what he says. But I will carry on, because it wasn't me who conducted a search on the Premier's home. And these are not my words; it's NDP policy. It's written in "A Better Way," and all I'm trying to do is remind the members that they made a promise to British Columbians. They made a promise to their own members that they would free the justice system from political interference. I'm reminding them of how they did it. I can understand why they may be a bit upset.

We'll go on to promise No. 4.

[ Page 11547 ]

[0255]

R. Neufeld: Yeah, we're only on 4, and already I've had three or four of them up.

"We'll balance the budget over the business cycle and keep taxes fair for everyone. We will not spend more than British Columbians can afford." That is promise No. 4. Hon. Speaker, I don't know what the government thinks the people can afford, but I can tell you that in Bill 54, I don't think British Columbians can afford $35 billion worth of debt. I don't think British Columbians can afford to pay $7 million a day in interest charges on that debt. I can tell you that probably 80 percent of the people in the province think likewise. They don't believe in this airy-fairy way of finance, and that's what we've got with members across the way.

You go out and sell your assets daily -- that whole group over there. To go out and sell the assets of the province of British Columbia to put groceries on the table is absolutely unacceptable. We've got a group in government that will have brought the debt from $17 billion in 1991 to $35 billion by the year 2000 -- by the end of this fiscal year. You know, it took 130 years to get to $17 billion.

An Hon. Member: It's still not as bad as Guatemala.

R. Neufeld: It's still not as bad as some of the Third World countries. That's exactly right.

But it is absolutely astounding to me that we could have a government and a Finance minister stand up in this House and talk about how great a budget it is and say, "We made choices," when the choice they should have been looking at was promise No. 4: "We will not spend more than British Columbians can afford." By golly, they're spending more than British Columbians ever, ever can afford.

This is a government that's gone absolutely wild in spending. But it shouldn't surprise us, because if you go back and look at some quotes prior to this sorry lot being elected, hon. Speaker, you will find statements like this from our now Premier: "It's not a priority at this point. I think the priority is money being spent creatively and not to pay off the debt. Reducing the debt is not an NDP priority." That is in fact true, but yet that person -- that Premier -- told us in 1995-96 that he had two balanced budgets for the province of British Columbia, and they were both a lie.

We go to the member for Nanaimo. He says, about the same time: "Maybe it's not the case that a balanced budget is the greatest of all possible goods, because it's debatable whether a balanced budget is something to brag about. It's debatable whether a balanced budget is a desirable commodity or entity." That's the member for Nanaimo. He should know about money, the member for Nanaimo. Nanaimo rings bad bells for the NDP.

We could also have a policy statement. Actually, no, this is a response to a throne speech by a past NDP Premier, Mike Harcourt: "What you get with a New Democrat caucus is honesty about the state of the province's finances." In fact, I couldn't say it right, it was such a mouthful. "No mythical funds, no election budgets brought in two years in a row." I tell you, the shades of the past are coming to rest on this group across the way.

[0300]

I'm going to give the members a bit of a break, because there's a little break here and I'm running a little bit short of time, but promise No. 16 talks about fair treatment for our regions and our suburbs. "Our growth, our prosperity and our services must be shared fairly by all British Columbians. . . . We will make sure that needed public services, such as hospitals and health centres; new universities and colleges; and public works programs, such as new highway construction and transportation facilities, are fairly distributed among the communities throughout B.C."

It's absolutely amazing. I can remember the Premier saying one time in this House: "We're shovelling money off the back of a truck, and if we spend any more on this tip of Vancouver Island, it's going to tip into the ocean." That's what the NDP call a fair distribution of money.

Revenue sharing. Revenue sharing with the communities -- what did they do with it? They cut it -- just plain downloaded it. They talk about a slash-and-burn Alberta, but I live close to Alberta. I don't think it's such a slash-and-burn province. Actually, I think they're doing quite well. I don't know. We seem to fly almost all of our health problems by air ambulance to Grande Prairie, Edmonton or Calgary. Prince George sends most of theirs over there. I don't know what the slash-and-burn is. They've been able to pay down their debt, they've been able to balance their budget, and they've been able to do that by caring for people.

When I talk about the fair distribution of money and services, I want to bring to the government's attention a report from the North Peace health council about the hospital in Fort St. John. It says: "A master planning exercise was completed for the hospital in November of 1992." Nothing has been done.

Three years ago the Health minister promised that our ambulances would be under a roof in no time. They're still sitting outside. And I'm still receiving Workers Compensation Board compliance letters with regard to the hospital on a daily basis. The air exchange system doesn't work. There are no sprinklers. There's no access for the handicapped. The laboratory and X-ray rooms don't have enough air exchange. In fact, where they take the air exchange out is down at street level. Is this what the government talked about -- fair treatment for our regions? Is this what they meant, that they would actually look at all the regions of British Columbia and treat them fairly? It's another promise broke, and it doesn't surprise me.

[0305]

[ Page 11548 ]

What we really do, in a way, is buy antiquated, worn-out, worst-polluting pulp mills to be able to save those jobs, and then we leave that pulp mill strangled. It's the real way to do business. It was the Deputy Premier who pulled that one off. It's only some $300 million -- not a bad buy by NDP standards, when we think about all the other purchases they've made. That's the minister who lost the Forests portfolio, that's the minister who lost the Ministry of Employment and Investment portfolio, and that's the minister who couldn't answer any questions about fast ferries correctly. Even though the member from Richmond constantly reminded him that he was walking on quicksand, he laughed at our member and overspent and then tried to tell us that he didn't really know that it was overrun that much.

Promise No. 27: "Local services are running down and need fixing; we'll help. Local roads, bridges, sewers, water and sewage treatment systems and other facilities badly need upgrading in many areas of the province."

[W. Hartley in the chair.]

H. Giesbrecht: It's pretty hard to take this seriously.

R. Neufeld: Yeah, it is. The member for Skeena says that this is hard to take seriously. This is his own policy manual. It's no wonder the people of British Columbia are so disgusted with this group, especially the member for Skeena. He can't even live up to the promises in his own policies, and then he calls them disgusting. It's absolutely unbelievable. Well, I guess it is believable from that person.

"A New Democratic government will help local governments get the job done. It's a sound investment, a realistic source of jobs. And it's better to start now before the costs of complete breakdown become prohibitive." We've had the downloading of roads on communities. Way to go, folks; you really looked after them there. You've ruined the road system by not looking after it, not just in the north but all over the whole province. You folks didn't even know you needed a road until just prior to an election budget that the Minister of Transportation and Highways threw out here. And what have we got for it? Can you go around the province and see what we've really received for that $17 billion in debt? Hon. Speaker, you can't. You cannot see, around the province, what we really got.

There are so many promises here, and I'm running out of time. It's interesting to listen to members talk about how terrible some of these things that I mentioned are, but it's their own policy. It's from their own manuals. It's their commitment that they made to British Columbians. But what's a commitment from a New Democrat? It's not worth anything. A commitment from any one of those New Democrats that ran on this campaign and that has these policies in place isn't worth a whit. It's no wonder that their own members are leaving them in droves.

[0310]

It says: "Bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift." You cannot. You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong. You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than your income.

Deputy Speaker: Thank you, member.

R. Neufeld: You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich. I will not, in any way, support a bill put forward by this government that is so devoid of any real meaning, when they come to this House and talk about serving the people of British Columbia.

P. Nettleton: Thank you, hon. Speaker, for this opportunity to speak on behalf of the constituents of Prince George-Omineca with reference to Bill 54. It's just after 3 a.m., and I'm certain that there is an audience out there somewhere. Right here we're all on pins and needles. In any event, it is a privilege to be in this position. It's a privilege to be here, and I have a few comments with reference to Bill 54.

I was recently reviewing the Hansard reports from about this time last year, when special warrants and interim supply were debated. It seems the more things change, the more they stay the same. If it were possible to analyze and compare the debate of last year and this year's debate -- in terms of substance, tone or any parameter you can name -- would there be a statistically significant difference? Isn't it the same thing again, and hasn't it been the same thing year after year? Have we learned anything from our mistakes?

This isn't the first time the NDP has asked for this House to toast their illegitimate excesses. We've done this every year. It's an annual ritual which we could christen "making a mockery of the budget ceremony," if it were possible to make a mockery of something that was as absurd even as it was conceived.

It's true that other governments have also attempted to patch up the holes in their budgets with special warrants and interim supply bills, but this government doesn't have the decency to be ashamed of itself. This government has more to be ashamed of than any that have gone before it. Are they asking for more money because some unforeseen and unforeseeable crisis demanding action has arisen? No, unless the unforeseeable circumstance is the sudden realization that there really is an external, objective reality that defies all their meditations, positive thinking and wild imaginings.

They have made it perfectly clear that they have no interest in the revenue projections of their own Ministry of Finance, preferring their own out-of-a-hat figure projections. I suppose the rationale is that if they produce their budgets without reference to facts of any kind, then heck, everything is unforeseen. Why not ask for more money? How could they have known that they would need more money? How could they know anything? I for one don't believe any of this special warrant and interim supply stuff has anything to do with any unforeseen crisis. They're asking for more money now and in this way because they always planned to get more money now and in this way.

[0315]

[ Page 11549 ]

The really distasteful thing is that there's not even a hint of sheepishness to the government. They're absolutely brazen. They do what they do because they can, and for no other reason. Whether it's right, proper, responsible or prudent is absolutely immaterial. This is about power -- survival of the fattest.

We are supposed to be a parliamentary democracy. This isn't supposed to happen. This House has been abused. The government calls us and dismisses us as it suits its purposes strategically to advance its agenda, with as little interference from the public, the media or the official opposition as possible. We should be sitting in judgment on the government. We should be debating the appropriate sanctions for the reckless spending of a government that now must resort to special warrants. Instead, hon. Speaker, we debate moot points whose resolution is not even attempted and whose dissolution is of no consequence. There is a crisis, no question, but it is one of the government's creation -- in part reckless, in part wilfully blind, but for the most part wilful and deliberate. This government has engineered its own crisis, which is the destruction of the economy of British Columbia.

It's frightening. Look at this new budget. What's the projected deficit this time -- $900 million? And that's just on the books. Remember the '96-97 budget? It talked about a $187 million deficit, as I recall. However, that figure did not factor in the $200 million dumped on FRBC; the funding of the Transportation Financing Authority; the $373 million squeezed from B.C. Hydro, a Crown corporation deeply in debt in its own right; and $56 million from B.C. Rail -- more than its reported income. It gulped $170 million from the sale of government assets without considering the cost of having to lease or buy back similar facilities.

These sorts of budget games are still going on. The government is still using the sale of assets to boost its revenue, and it's drawing down three-quarters of the one-time-only windfall from the federal government health and social transfers. If you consider the debt shuffled off the books, the true 1999-2000 deficit will be closer to a billion and a half dollars, and everyone knows it -- or rather, everyone knows it will be at least that.

I cannot support these special warrants or interim supply. I realize my support or opposition makes absolutely no difference to the government. Practically speaking, they will do what they want, opposition or no. This is a war in which we are not even allowed to engage the enemy. That isn't that surprising, since we have chosen the moral high ground and the government just isn't interested in that hill. Nevertheless, while there may be nothing that I can do to prevent the passage of these measures, I will not help the government to help themselves.

Hon. Speaker, I might have felt differently about supporting these measures if I believed that the government cared about the people of this province. Even credit card companies will hold off on turning you over to collections if you are making some effort to make payments, however token. If I could see even some token effort to clean up the mess this economy is in, I might look more favourably on some temporary reprieve. Unfortunately, we have seen one deficit budget after another. This new one is a biggie, but maybe it's just more honest than the others.

The NDP never did have any commitment to any kind of fiscal restraint, but they were once more circumspect about it. They used words like "balanced" for "deeply in debt" and "optimistic" for "not in a million years" and "soon" for "when hell freezes over." With this new budget they finally declare their colours, proclaiming their allegiance to deficit spending. They are proud of the large deficit and of the whole mess. They are like a secret drinker who has been nipping on the sly all along, who may be tipsy in public once in a while but who now has finally gone on a real bender -- ripsnorting roaring drunk, careless of anyone's opinion.

[0320]

A different picture began to emerge after the election, as we all know. In fact, '95-96 produced a deficit of $355 million, and '96-97 produced a further debt of $352 million. At least, I think so. I mean, who knows? The Finance ministry warned that '96-97 could produce a $1 billion deficit. Did it? This warning was given more than a month before the Minister of Finance announced his surplus figures. At the time he announced it, his own notes advised that '95-96 ended with a $235 million deficit.

They have reneged on every single commitment to fiscal responsibility that they have made. Balanced budgets are no longer even projected until 2002-03, and we know how credible these projections are. They said that it was balanced in '95-96. They have not maintained B.C.'s credit rating as the highest of any province, as they said they would. They've been downgraded by Moody's, Standard and Poor's and the Canadian Bond Rating Service. They no longer plan to eliminate the operating debt over 20 years. Instead they have continued to accumulate operating debt through consecutive operating deficits.

The list goes on. The long and short of it is that they have no plan to eliminate the deficit, let alone work on the debt. They don't believe in it, and they never have. The mask has slipped with this latest budget. They paid lip service to sound financial management when they were re-elected. We all remember Premier Clark's sombre reflections following his narrow victory, when the majority of the electorate rejected his government and its policies. In 1997 and again in 1998, they determined to tackle the deficit problem and even claimed success.

Okay, so we can't trust them to tell the truth. Can we trust that they mean well? There have been charity proceeds stolen by the NDP Party to finance its election campaign, Hydrogate, budget misrepresentations tantamount to electoral fraud, improper fast ferry overruns and misinformation, and a suspect casino-approval process in which the Premier is somehow entangled. These are only a few of the more obvious examples. They don't mean well. They mean to do well -- but for themselves.

[ Page 11550 ]

In my own region in northern British Columbia there are 5,000 fewer people working than one year ago, and 14,000 people are looking for work -- not including those who have resorted to welfare or just given up hope of finding any type of work. Prince George has an unemployment rate of 17 percent, and business bankruptcies have tripled over the last year. That is what I see.

[0325]

This government could care less. They ask this House for more money than they have budgeted, but the fact is that they are not exactly holding their breath for the support of the House. They'll get what they want. They have been characterized by just this sort of arrogance throughout their time in power. In my own region a government member suggested that northerners shouldn't care about the cost of the ferries, because, as he put it: "Last time I checked, the fast ferries don't dock in Prince George." How patronizing! Exactly whose money is it that's paying for those fast ferries? If the ferries don't dock in Prince George, that's all the more reason for Prince George residents to be outraged at the costs.

Seven thousand people in the Prince George area rejected the Nisga'a treaty in a plebiscite, and the NDP suggested that these results could not be taken seriously. Again, that's arrogance. The regionalization of health boards was audacious in the extreme. Local, elected boards were summarily dismissed and replaced with party appointees. In the north and in other regions as well, good, respected doctors with whole lifetimes of service often devoted selflessly to northern communities have had to pack up and relocate. Why? Because the government was not dealing with them in good faith. The government meant to force them out and impose its model of salaried doctors on rural British Columbia. In the north the standard of care has been severely compromised as a result.

Property has been expropriated from charities without compensation. The government simply legislated itself back into the charity-fleecing business, after an embarrassing court decision slapped the government's hands. That's arrogant as well.

I don't believe that the government knows what is in the best interests of British Columbians. I don't believe that the government cares what is in the best interests of British Columbians. And I don't believe that the government even wants what is in the best interests of British Columbians.

I wish we could maintain the illusion that the government had a chance of re-election, because they would try to placate the electorate with some fiscal sense, but it seems that they are determined to leave as large a mess as they possibly can for us to deal with. They're in retreat, but they're leaving nothing of value behind. This may be the first time in modern history that any government has had spite as its guiding principle. This may be the first time that a scorched-earth budget was ever tabled. It is frustrating to sit in opposition and watch the ruins of this province burning, but there's little that we can do.

When I think about it, I guess the feeling that overwhelmed me when I read last year's Hansard was more of despair than disgust -- some distaste co-mingled, but definitely despair. To read these things is to go back in time. There's nothing that the government has done since that time that couldn't be predicted. So why couldn't it be prevented? Why is this pathetic, ragtag bag of NDP ideologues hanging on? They are discredited. Their policies have failed, and they have failed. They have no mandate from the people to experiment with their pet policies and ideology. They should call an election now. They should have called an election a long time ago.

[0330]

That is also a large part of the job of every other member sitting here today, whatever side of the House they happen to be sitting on. I believe that most, if not all, of us work awfully hard at that particular job. I think we all know how clean and wholesome and good it feels to be making a difference in those individual lives.

Yet when the government convenes as government and when the Premier, his cabinet, his senior policy advisers and other cohorts get together, all of that personal good intention is transmuted into a kind of clumsy, petty bullying of this House and of the electorate -- some sort of mob mentality, I suppose.

[ Page 11551 ]

B. McKinnon: I am pleased to rise and speak against this interim supply bill. Hon. Speaker, in the three years that I have had the privilege of serving my constituents, this province has gone in a downward spiral that has now spun out of control. We have an NDP government that refuses to listen to what is happening in this province. We have become a province spinning out of control, a province in chaos.

Low-income families didn't find much, if anything, in this budget that would help them feed their children. Child poverty has risen to alarming rates. Our children are going to school hungry. Who on that side of the House is doing anything about it? Who on that side of the House hears their cries at night when they go to bed hungry? Who on that side of the House is listening to the agony of the parents of these children whom they are feeding when they have nowhere to go for help?

We have an NDP government that has an agenda that is destroying our province. They are sending a message of despair to the people. I will not be supporting this interim supply bill. The NDP has never had any goals or visions for this province. The NDP have never given this province a straight answer on anything that they have done. This government does not have a clue as to how to run a business. They don't have a clue or understand that it is small business that creates jobs and gets the economy going. This budget that the NDP tabled is going to take British Columbia on the road to ruin. It will only further cripple our ailing economy. Yes, the NDP have set British Columbia on the road to ruin with this budget.

[0335]

Generations of children will now have this burden of debt forced upon them. What this government has given us is a blueprint for bankruptcy and unemployment -- $3.5 billion of debt. What a burden for the children! I can't understand how members opposite can support this government's spending. They sit on the other side of the House, and they don't even blink as this province teeters on the edge of disaster. We have a government that is out of control, a government that has soiled our entire democratic system, a government that has rattled the very foundation of trust between the elected and the people of this province, on which members of this Legislature depend.

There are so many reasons why this government should not be supported, why this bill should not be supported, that it makes you wonder how the members opposite can look in the mirror each morning and face themselves. The taxpayers of British Columbia have been besieged with one incompetent decision after another. Scandal upon scandal has rocked our province, and it shows us that the NDP has lost the right to govern this province. Every scandal this government has caused is a reason why we should not support this bill. Every scandal this government has created has caused the people of this province to do without the services they deserve to have. We had the Nanaimogate scandal and still wait for this government to have the courtesy to pay back the money they owe the charities. We had the Hydrogate scandal, the Ferrygate scandal and the Casinogate scandal. Will it ever end? Looming in the future is the Premier's fast-tracking of SkyTrain. Will SkyTrain be the next scandal to feel his Midas touch?

We go from crisis to crisis, hon. Speaker. Important issues are put on the back burner while this government spins out of control. Our economy is the weakest in Canada, and we need a government that will build investor confidence so that we can begin the steep climb back to prosperity for this province. We do not have anyone on that side of the House with the ability to do that. We need an election -- the sooner the better. It makes you wonder who in their right mind would support this government.

When we take a look at what is in this bill and actually read what the NDP are asking for, it's really scary. This incompetent government is asking us to support a supply bill that would give them the authority to spend billions of our tax dollars. As a matter of fact, over $6 billion is what they want to spend in the next three months. We have come to the end of the financial year, and now funds are needed to run this province. The Finance minister tells us they are going to spend themselves out of debt. How can they do that? This NDP government has lost all moral authority to govern this province. We have a government out of control, out of touch with the rest of the world. They sit on that side of the House. . . .

Interjection.

B. McKinnon: If you wish to speak, you'll have your moment.

An Hon. Member: Can you name a year when there wasn't an interim supply bill?

B. McKinnon: Can you name a year when you haven't. . . ?

Deputy Speaker: Through the Chair, members.

B. McKinnon: We have a government out of control, out of touch with the rest of the world. They sit on that side of the House in their little cocoons, pretending that they are addressing the needs of this province. When we take a look at the global economy, we realize that investment can go anywhere in the world. Add red tape overregulation and taxes, and a noose tightens around the neck of investment, and it disappears from our grasp. Red tape is like putting a red flag in front of a bull. That is what the NDP have done to business and investment in this province: they have tightened the noose on British Columbia.

[0340]

We know from the auditor general's report that this government was elected on the basis of a lie. Working families in

[ Page 11552 ]

Hon. Speaker, it doesn't take a genius to figure out -- to know -- that when your income drops and your debt goes up, you have to cut your overhead whether you like it or not. You have to decide to cut costs and set priorities in spending. If you continue to spend more than you take in, the day of reckoning usually comes sooner than later. We need a competent government that is prepared to build a competitive economy that isn't dependent on our dwindling natural resources.

Every man, woman and child in B.C. will owe $8,582 on the debt -- a 63 percent increase from the $5,245 owed on a per-capita basis in 1991-92. On average, each British Columbian's share of the debt has increased by $417 per year since 1992. At the end of the day, British Columbians are suffering from an NDP-induced decrease in their standard of living. We all have less money in our pockets now than when the NDP took office in 1991.

Let's take a look at what kind of government we have on that side of the House, hon. Speaker. We have a Premier who needs to answer many questions about the casino licence approval for his close friend Dimitrios Pilarinos. He's a Premier that promised the Nisga'a a treaty and then left the Nisga'a in the lurch halfway through their bill. He shut down the House when the going got too rough for him. It's funny how soon the Premier loses interest when things don't go according to his plan.

Interjections.

B. McKinnon: Members on the opposite side, if you wish to take your time and speak, please do it on your time, not mine.

Interjections.

Deputy Speaker: Just make your comments through the Chair. I've been hearing your speech.

B. McKinnon: Thank you. I have to keep the other side in order; nobody else is.

We have a Premier that fast-tracks the ferries without any consideration for the taxpayer, a Premier that has brought the B.C. Ferry Corporation to the brink of bankruptcy. We have a Finance minister who should try and explain how the deficit she forecast last year to be $95 million became an overrun of $500 million, a Finance minister who should be hanging her head in shame for tabling such a disgraceful budget for the people of British Columbia.

Then there is the Minister of Advanced Education. He had his judgment questioned by the auditor general on the fudge-it budget he tabled in 1996. He even stated: "Why should anyone believe me?" We cannot forget to mention the Minister of Aboriginal Affairs and how he loves to pose in swimming pools to get on the cover of his favourite magazine.

[0345]

These are some of the stars who are in charge of running our province. Not one person on the other side of the House is prepared to stand up and defend the supply bill. Not one member of the NDP has the courage to do something right for a change and vote against this ridiculous budget. Perhaps the most shocking part of the budget is that this year's new five-year fiscal planning framework doesn't even anticipate a balanced budget until the year 2002-2003.

There will be no tax cuts beyond the ones already announced. Leaders and investors will be shocked to see that the NDP is now planning to increase taxpayer-supported debt to as much as 27 percent within the next five years -- up from 12.5 percent in 1991.

The economic potential that the NDP has squandered in this province is an absolute travesty. This government has demonstrated with this budget that it is completely incapable of resolving the economic crisis it has created. It is time the NDP did the honourable thing and called an election.

The interest on the debt is now $2.6 billion. Imagine how many places in this province could use that money: patients waiting for heart surgery and hip replacements, books for our kids' schools, our highways. The list goes on and on. The NDP likes to think it has a monopoly on health care and education. Well, it doesn't. Where we differ is that this side of the House believes in putting the patient and the student first. Something this government is very shortsighted about -- and it has forgotten the patients and students of this province -- is that this budget isn't going to relieve the anxiety people are feeling. The people are worried that help will not be there when they really need it. The money will be gone; we will be put into bankruptcy by a bankrupt government.

Hon. Speaker, I would like to read most of an article written by Lorne Gunter from the Edmonton Journal. It's called: "Out of Work, Out of Money, and Out of B.C."

"British Columbia, the last great socialist government on the continent, is reaping what the search for a workers' paradise sows -- economic catastrophe." The refugees, writes Lorne Gunter, are fleeing to Alberta.

"There was a time when one could stand at the corner of Georgia and Howe streets, in the heart of Vancouver's business district, peer up at the misty mountains and feel the power of British Columbia: timber, hydroelectricity, mining, milling, vast interior ranches and a teeming pacific fishery, most of it funnelled -- at least on paper -- through the gleaming towers surrounding the intersection. Now one may stand on the same spot and feel nothing but the oppressive burden of carrying the last, great socialist government in North America.

"The figures won't be in until May, but most analysts expect they will show that B.C. entered a recession in 1997, a recession created by Glen Clark's New Democratic government. Predictions of how much the provincial economy shrank range

[ Page 11553 ]

from 1 to 2 percent, enough to put 50,000 to 100,000 British Columbians out of work.

"Still, if you're a fan of big government, grab your textbooks by Weber and Keynes, load up the Volvo and head for Canada's left coast. No need to worry about traffic, it will all be going in the opposite direction -- out of the province.

"For the first time in a quarter century, the inflow to B.C. of seniors and other refugees from the Canadian winter has been exceeded by the outflow of workers and businesses leaving the most heavily taxed and regulated jurisdiction in Canada for the Prairies. It gets to be minus 40°C here. It snows. And sometimes the wind is so strong, the snow appears to be falling straight sideways. Yet still the British Columbians are coming in record numbers.

[0350]

"Last year alone, more than 100 businesses moved to Alberta from B.C. to escape taxes that consume over 50 percent of a middle-class family's income, labour laws that were written by union leaders and regulations dictated by environmentalists and other anti-free-marketers.

"Since coming to office in 1991, the NDP government in B.C. has added an estimated 40 percent to the cost of extracting most commodities by forcing compliance with expensive environmental regulations, closing off vast regions of the province to mining and logging and confining development to remote, high-cost areas."

B. McKinnon: If you paid attention over there, you might learn something.

"It has also distorted the labour market by making it difficult to operate non-union shops and by making generous contract settlements on public works projects. In doing so, it has forced private companies to up non-union wages in an effort to recruit and retain skilled workers.

"Just how bad is it? Since 1995, adjusting for inflation and population growth, there has been almost no economic growth in the province. The percentage of British Columbians working full-time has begun to decline. Investment in new equipment and plants has lagged behind Alberta and Ontario, and per-capita disposable income has fallen every year except 1995.

"True, the collapse of the Asian markets has hurt B.C. more than other provinces. But the decline started five or six years ago, not last November when Asian currencies began to tumble. Besides, the U.S. remains B.C.'s largest trading partner, and the U.S. economy is rolling. The principal cause of B.C.'s problems is the failure of this government to confront fiscal reality. While every other province, and even Ottawa, has had to pare costs and programs, B.C. has kept the government engine chugging along to pay for the support of its friends in the unions, the environmental movement and the bureaucracy.

"In just the first six months of the current fiscal year, B.C. has run up additional public debt of nearly $1 billion. During the nineties, a time of rapidly falling interest rates, its annual debt-servicing costs have risen by more than a third. Now the [NDP] government has announced it will go even deeper in debt -- much deeper -- in the often-tried, never-successful attempt to jump-start the provincial economy. That's pouring fuel on the fire. Or is that dirt on the coffin?"

That is what they are writing about us in Edmonton. I wonder what that same writer would have to say about this budget that has just been put down. I think he would write that the final nail has been put in the coffin and that the NDP have written their own epitaph.

D. Jarvis: I rise to speak on Bill 54, the Supply Act. Normally, when I get acknowledgment to speak in this chamber, I usually start off by saying that I'm pleased to enter into the debate. However, I do have to say that this morning -- it's 4 o'clock in the morning -- I'm not that pleased to participate in the debate, because it should not be happening. This government is admitting that it has run out of authority to continue governing this province. They no longer have the authority to spend. Therefore the onus is on this government to tell us, here in the Legislature, and the rest of the people of British Columbia that the government can responsibly manage the finances of this province.

[0355]

We have a problem here in British Columbia. We have a problem, given the fragile state of our economy. We have revenues falling dramatically, as we are all aware of, and expenditures are rising, possibly to the point of being out of control. We have our rising debt -- the largest in the history of this province. And the Premier has called us back into session, really, to discuss the Nisga'a treaty. The budget, I feel, was probably secondhand on his mind, it appears. We have had deficit budgets over the past eight years, regardless of the fact that the Premier said once: "It's easy to balance the budget. It's not hard to balance it; anyone can do it." As I said, we have had eight consecutive deficit budgets, since the NDP government came to power in 1991. Still, the Premier's main, real concern is the Nisga'a agreement. That's what we had to come back for.

About one week ago, there was a great headline in an article by Susan Martinuk in the Province newspaper. The story was about the Premier calling the Legislature back into session. The headline read "Seven Provincial Deficits and He's Got Nisga'a on the Brain." That was very apropos in the sense of what's happening to British Columbia. This province is in a fiscal downfall, and the Finance minister has run out of money. The Finance minister is now asking this Legislature to allow them to borrow more money, and the Premier really couldn't care less, as his main thrust is Nisga'a. Heaven help the future of this province! All he's concerned with is passing a bill that has nothing to do with the Finance ministry's crisis. This is the epitome of a self-serving attempt to rush through a very, very questionable piece of legislation that may possibly change the outcome of this province forever. I can only assume that following the overspending of the fast ferries, he has now made the Nisga'a his legacy as he slips slowly from power.

We are debating today a supply bill enabling this government to borrow more money in order to cover the spending of last year's budget. This government is asking for more money, with no consideration that all the Finance ministers over these last eight years have shamefully allowed the fiscal management of this province to degenerate. Not one NDP minister has ever hit their target. This government has failed to come up with any comprehensive plan of any kind that would see a balanced budget in front of us -- a budget that would provide benefits to British Columbians like health care, education, jobs and a better life. They will say that they are protecting health and education, but the rot that is created by the years and years of deficits and growing debt will eventually cause chaos to these systems.

[ Page 11554 ]

[0400]

D. Jarvis: Mr. Speaker, before I go any further, I wish you would mention to our friend from Bulkley Valley-Stikine that if he wants to criticize what I have to say, he should get in his own seat and do it properly.

All economic figures point to a continuation of the recession that we are in and that we have been in for well over a year now. So there's no way that we can provide the services of health and education if our revenues continue to be sluggish. This government has no comprehension of how to create wealth, yet continues to spend recklessly. We cannot continue to support these services if we do not have the revenue coming in. This is a spend-spend government, with no consideration to what the end results will be in the future.

[H. Giesbrecht in the chair.]

Not one of the 40 members on the government side has ever had to meet a payroll. They have no comprehension of how to run a business, let alone a million-dollar payroll. They are all from either academia or the labour unions, and they have been spoon-fed their salaries all their lives. Oh, you hear a few of them, like the member from Comox. . . . She will get up and say that she and her husband have a bed-and-breakfast on Quadra Island. The Attorney General ran a walk-up law office for awhile. That is ostensibly the extent of their knowledge on how to run a business. If they think that the. . . .

Interjections.

D. Jarvis: Well, we all know, as a result of the finances of this government, that that is a true fact, because they do not know how to run a multimillion-dollar corporation like the province of B.C. They put it into debt that we'll not come out of for years and years and years. In fact, all our children -- and quite possibly my grandchildren -- will be paying taxes to pay off this enormous debt that we are creating.

As a result of the past seven years of deficit budgets, our debt has now risen to well over $34 million -- about $34.7 million. You just have to look at the budget papers for the last year and you'll see that for every dollar we borrowed, we had to pay interest on it. Interest on that debt last year amounted to $6.86 million per day -- $6.86 million that could have been used to cut costs, reduce wait-lists at hospitals, put more nurses into the system, provide school supplies, equipment and maintenance.

In my own area, North Vancouver, we have schools that haven't been maintained properly for years and years. It probably started first with that Education minister from Prince George, who started cutting back on all the schools and causing nothing but havoc. They have to share paper; they have to share books.

[0405]

This so-called caring government is more concerned with trees than it is with people, and that's a concern. We have 36 percent of Vancouver's children living in poverty; that's the information coming out of the government. That is up from 14 percent when this government first came into power in 1991. It's up 22 percent in seven years. In seven years they have mishandled the situation of poverty in this province to the point where it's almost out of control. And it will be if we don't get more revenue in, which they can't do if they run the government the way they are.

Another aspect is that 49 percent of the handicapped children in British Columbia live in poverty, and 79 percent of the aboriginal children live in poverty. And this is supposed to be a caring government.

R. Thorpe: It's a care-less government.

D. Jarvis: As the member from Okanagan-Penticton said, it's a "care less" government.

With all the problems that we are having throughout the whole province -- but especially in the lower mainland -- with drugs and alcohol, we actually only have 60 detox beds for every adult and child in this province -- 60. To make it even worse, when you think of the number of children in their teens out there that have a problem with alcohol or drugs. . . .

Hon. P. Ramsey: More spending.

D. Jarvis: Mr. Speaker, I'm being rudely interrupted by a gentleman from Prince George, who is saying that what I am saying is that we're requiring more spending. It really bothers me to think that his ignorance is showing in the fact that he would consider that to provide detox beds for children in this province. . . . We only have ten beds for all the children in this province that have a drug or an alcohol problem. They want to get out of that situation, they go to this supposedly caring government, and there are only ten beds left. He thinks that's funny. He actually thinks it's funny. That's the Minister of Education. That's how this government thinks. That's how they operate, and that's why they cannot run this government properly. They have no comprehension whatsoever of human life -- and/or economics as well.

[0410]

[ Page 11555 ]

B. Goodacre: Absolutely false.

D. Jarvis: Mr. Speaker, I remind you that the member for Bulkley Valley-Stikine is making comments from the wrong seat and the wrong side of the House. So if he wishes to continue, I would ask that you have him move his large self away from the magazine that he's reading and move over here.

What I'm trying to say to you, Mr. Speaker, is: is this a caring government or just one grasping to stay in power? That's about the amount of it. They're grasping to stay in power, and they don't give a darn who they hurt. Now, the same inequity is shrinking and not growing in -- of all the places that you would expect it not to -- Alberta and Ontario, the two Conservative areas of Canada. They're not having this large inequity growing. And why? Because they have very good fiscal management in hand. They had large debts -- I think that Alberta's debt was worse than British Columbia's at one time -- but they put in a debt repayment plan and now have virtually reduced their debt. Saskatchewan, for example, is a socialist province, and. . . .

P. Calendino: How much did they cut from health care and education?

D. Jarvis: Mr. Speaker, our friend from Burnaby North was saying how much they'd taken out of the health care plan. Well, this is what I was trying to tell him. The difference between the rich and poor in the health care system has not had the inequity that this province has. We ended up being the province with the greatest gulf between the rich and the poor. That's done because of good fiscal management, not the way these socialists in this province do it. The socialist government is abandoning its young people and its seniors at the most vulnerable time of their lives. Then this government has the audacity to come here today and say that they've overspent and they need more supply.

We are in a dangerous situation in this province in the fact is that our debt is exceeding. . . . It is rising so fast that it's very doubtful we'll ever be able to keep it in control in the near future without, first of all, a change in government and then a mass infusion of revenue coming in, whether it be from resources or. . . . No one knows where it could come from, because they've driven most of the people out of this province.

In this interim supply bill that we have here, Bill 54, there's a request for $45 million for the Ministry for Children and Families to supplement the ministry's operations and "to provide funding of costs for residential and related support programs for children, youth, families and adults with mental handicaps" -- $45 million for the Ministry for Children and Families on money already spent for residential and related support programs for children and youth.

[0415]

The Ministry for Children and Families, as I said, are not listening to their workers or the people out there. In actual fact, the mentally handicapped in proprietary care are being handled in the most pathetic way you can think of. It's criminal, the way the adult mentally handicapped in this province are being treated when they live at home. Nobody in the bureaucracy appears to be listening to the parents or to the caregivers at home, as to what they are actually saying. The respite services are pathetic and only appear to be getting worse, as this government is now going to cut back on the respite days to do with mentally handicapped children that are living at home. That's hard to imagine.

Here we have children that some time ago were handicapped but were, by government design, put in the position where they were trying to be self-sufficient. They closed down places like Woodlands, took those children out and put them back into their homes to be looked after. Now some of them are 40 and 50 years of age, and the parents are, correspondingly, a lot older as well. They're burning out. Imagine having to look after, for 365 days of the year, adult children not capable of fully looking after themselves. They used to have 32 days respite care from the government. They now have cut the parents back to 28 days -- and this is a caring government.

We have a real problem coming on here. For example, if a parent of a handicapped adult required emergency care and needed respite services even for one day, the parent has to go through the Ministry of Human Resources, the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Labour and then the Ministry for Children and Families. This is a classic socialist bureaucracy that they've created here. The crime is the waste in government. The crime is not in the lack of money; it's in the waste of government and the way this government is handling those situations out in society. They should be ashamed of themselves.

B.C. is one of the last socialist governments on this North American continent, thank heavens. In B.C. this socialist government has been searching for a workers' paradise. As a result, it is creating an economic catastrophe in British Columbia. Since 1995 there has been virtually no economic growth in British Columbia.

P. Calendino: How about 40,000 jobs in two months?

D. Jarvis: I won't answer the question that the member for Burnaby North asked about the jobs that they're creating. We all know that unemployment in British Columbia is growing and growing. On a per capita basis, disposable income has fallen in every year the NDP has been in power. That is a fact.

[0420]

[ Page 11556 ]

Our biggest trading partner, the U.S. down below us, has a rolling-upwards economy. They have low interest and low unemployment. They have an upbeat population. And where are we? Our unemployment is rising. We have high debt. We have actually a very downbeat population. We don't have many happy communities in this province. All you have to do is go up to the upper part of the Island. There's the Whip, who is from Port Alberni. He's a member from the upper Island. There is massive unemployment in his town. Businesses are closing down. He's even moved out of Port Alberni himself. He lives down in Coombs or someplace like that. He won't even live in the town up there.

When you go up to the northern part of Vancouver Island, they have no more logging. They have no more fishing, and they have no mining. What are they doing? There's gas up there, but this government won't take the initiative to go out and lift the moratorium on gas drilling, let's say, off Port Hardy. That would bring in a lot of revenue. Fish farms up on the northern end of Vancouver Island would help the economy, and there's a moratorium on that. They wouldn't lift that. This is a government that has really no comprehension of how to keep this economy rolling and what to do.

The problem with British Columbia is that this Finance minister and the Premier have failed to confront the fiscal reality of what's happening to British Columbia. While every other province -- including Ottawa -- has had to pare costs and their programs, this government continues to support its friends in the unions, the bureaucracy and the environmentalist movement, and our public debt is again going up and up and up. Billions of dollars a year are being spent. Our debt- servicing costs, as I said before, are now in excess of $7 million a day. I suppose they're going to start a new advertisement program pretty soon to say how wonderful they are, and that's going to cost us, as it did last. . . .

Oh, I see, my time has run out. I'll close by saying that I could or might support this bill providing -- and I'll perhaps be a little mean-spirited in saying this -- that the Premier would be transparent and answer the questions that my own newspaper, the North Shore News in North Vancouver, is asking. They were asking, when they arrested that Asian gangster in Vancouver and he had a picture of the Premier: what was his relationship with him? And why was he in the Premier's office having his picture taken? And saying that, sir, I will have to vote nay to this bill.

[0425]

It's a government that has a sad and terrible legacy of spending other people's money wildly, irresponsibly and far beyond the means of British Columbians. So here we are at 4:30 in the morning on April 1, 1999, debating Bill 54, the Supply Act, wherein the NDP come cap in hand to the Legislature, asking for authority to spend some $8 billion over the next three months -- without legislative scrutiny. Once again, like some irresponsible teenager that cannot live within his allowance, they come to the Legislature and ask that we rubber-stamp their irresponsibility, so that they can carry on merrily as if nothing is wrong in the province of British Columbia. Of course, there is a great deal wrong, and it's ridiculous that the NDP would ever think that B.C. Liberals, the official opposition, would support this bill.

It's a travesty that none of the NDP members opposite have had the jam to get to their feet and speak. There's a fair amount of cackling from the black bayou over there -- people who cannot get to their feet but would rather sit on their duffs and just quietly wait their opportunity to use the government's majority to ram through another step in their irresponsible spending process, by which British Columbia is awash in a sea of red ink. B.C. Liberals alone -- and the member for Peace River South, to his credit -- stand against the irresponsibility of this government and clearly will be voting against Bill 54.

We started this debate last night. It looked as though the government members thought that we might give the kind of rubber stamp that they're accustomed to giving to the Premier and the Finance minister and their crazy spending habits and plans. Now it's tomorrow. As Shakespeare put it: "Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, creeps in this petty pace from day to day. . .and all their yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death." "It is a tale told by an idiot," Shakespeare said, and that's what the budget speech reminded me of -- "full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." But, of course, it signifies a terrible debt, a debt that is growing by the day, a debt that saddles our children and our grandchildren. As they snicker and laugh and carry on like a bunch of gargoyles, they demonstrate from moment to moment, as they have from year to year, their lack of responsibility, their lack of caring about what they're doing to British Columbia and its future.

My colleagues have made the point over and over that if the NDP wants supply -- if they want authority to spend any more of British Columbians' taxpaying money, natural resource revenues, provincial income of any kind -- they should go to the people. That's the only thing to do at this point. These people have long since departed from everything they campaigned on. They've long since been exposed with regard to their false budget statements in the election of 1996. They've been humiliated by one scandal after another, one auditor's report after another, one civil action in the courts after another -- even criminal matters proceeding in the courts against NDP politicians. It's time that they put a stop to this humiliation by calling an election.

[0430]

[ Page 11557 ]

There's another current issue not just in Kamloops, in our region, but all over the province, and that's the community social services workers and their current situation. They're in a position of outright unfairness by this government.

Interjection.

K. Krueger: There are people there, educated people who have to earn credentials to hold their jobs, working for $8.15 per hour, with years of seniority -- people who work in group homes, people who look after some of the most underprivileged people in our society.

And there's the Minister of Human Resources, heckling as she always does, taking advantage of her many opportunities to take advantage of the people of B.C. and not willing to get to her feet, not willing to speak to this bill for unauthorized spending by this NDP government but rather heckling when I'm trying to talk about community social services workers and the way they're being abused by this government, and the clients that they are trying to protect and serve. These people, the community social services workers, are astonished that this NDP government has no will to settle with them. They'd be even more astonished if they could see the behaviour of the Minister of Human Resources. It continues to shock me session by session, but it shouldn't, because it's what we've come to expect.

The community social services workers, as I said, see no will to settle on the part of this government. But they see clearly that there must be a way to settle. There doesn't seem to be any problem at all for the NDP to throw money around on things that they choose to throw it at; these people feel that there must not be a problem with money. You and I, Mr. Speaker, and certainly all of my colleagues on this side of the House, know that there is a big problem with money in British Columbia.

But it doesn't look like it from the vantage point of these people who have been driven by the NDP to strike, as they see the government throwing away money on the fast-scam ferries -- massive overruns on the ferries, hundreds of millions of dollars -- and hundreds of millions more thrown away on a defunct pulp mill in Prince Rupert, because it's the constituency of the Deputy Premier, and billions of dollars being thrown away on a SkyTrain extension in Vancouver that Vancouver and the regional district don't even want -- once again proceeding with work before the engineering is done, once again proceeding without proper open tendering, throwing away the public's money. There doesn't seem to be any problem when it comes to suddenly deciding to throw $300 million and probably a whole lot more at a Vancouver convention centre.

So these people ask me: "There's obviously a way that the government could settle with us -- why isn't there a will? Why doesn't the NDP care about us? Why is that?" I think it must be that the NDP doesn't care about their clients. I think they'd feel sure of that if they were listening to the comments of the Minister of Human Resources in the House this morning, because she heckles and catcalls and cackles away from the black bayou over there. She doesn't show any caring at all for those clients. If the clients don't matter to the NDP, then the people who are trying to service them understand why they don't matter to the NDP, either; that's what they've told me.

[0435]

Why are these women so easy to ignore? Where is the Minister of Women's Equality when it comes to these questions and issues? Why do we even have a Ministry of Women's Equality, if they aren't going to look after the needs and interests of women and the problems that women have with government? Why are they so easy to ignore?

It's not that the NDP government hasn't done anything. This is what they did. They made a bold move on March 25. It wasn't the Minister of Human Resources who made any sort of a move to help these people, and it certainly wasn't the Minister of Women's Equality. It was none other than the Minister for Children and Families. She dug deep and reached into her barrel of resources, and this is what she came up with -- in a week when these people are on the bricks and when they're having to resort to the only final weapon they have, which is withdrawing their services as they try to negotiate a fair wage and benefit package for the very worthwhile work that they do. This is what the Minister for Children and Families did to show how sensitive she was and how much she cared about their situation: she proclaimed last week -- the week that ended yesterday -- as Social Work Week. "March 25 to 31 has been proclaimed as Social Work Week in British Columbia, Children and Families minister Lois Boone announced today. 'Social workers do one of the most difficult

[ Page 11558 ]

Well, that's exactly what they're telling me. They don't get the recognition, the salaries or the treatment that these people on the other side of the House lavish upon themselves. Why, they just gave themselves half a million bucks more in their NDP caucus budget. How honourable is that -- half a million bucks to themselves and $8.15 to the people working with those that are very disenfranchised in British Columbia society?

After having said that these social workers rarely get the recognition they deserve, the Minister for Children and Families went on to say: "That's why Social Work Week is so important. It gives us all an opportunity to recognize and appreciate their hard work and dedication." Well, they'd like something a little more tangible than NDP recognition. She went on to say: "Whatever their specialty, social workers share a common commitment to helping people overcome problems in their lives. That makes a tremendous difference to all of our communities, and I want to encourage everyone to take the time to appreciate the contributions of social workers during the next seven days." Well, I hope a lot of people did. I certainly appreciate the contributions they make 365 days of the year, every year, and so do all of my colleagues on this side of the House.

All those people on the other side of the House continually try to perpetuate the myth that they are the representatives of working people and the ones who really care about working people. Trade unionists all over the province have found out through bitter experience that this isn't a government that delivers for them. This is a government that delivers red ink, chaos, strikes and problems, because, as W.A.C. Bennett put it so well -- it has been quoted so often; it's interesting that the Premier likes to quote W.A.C. Bennett, but he doesn't do this part: "They couldn't run a peanut stand." They prove that, time and time again.

So that's what they've done for social workers, for the community social services people that are on strike. They put out a press release and proclaimed Social Work Week, which ended yesterday. That isn't very much, and it's not good enough.

[0440]

Interjection.

Deputy Speaker: The Minister of Human Resources rises on what point?

Hon. J. Pullinger: On a point of order, hon. Speaker. It's a violation of the rules of this House to know who is here and who is not. The members opposite have been taking very personal shots at members on this side -- I heard them when I came in -- and they continue to make very false. . . .

Interjections.

Hon. J. Pullinger: Well, let them. People can read the record to see that they are making ugly, personal comments against members of this House. They continue to misrepresent who is here and the behaviour of people, and I would ask, hon. Speaker, that you ask them to abide by (a) the rules of this House and (b) some common decency -- if they can muster it.

Deputy Speaker: The Chair would remind members that there is a tradition of spontaneous interjections during debate. When debate gets personal, there is, of course, an increase in the number of interjections. So with certain cautions with respect to decorum, the member for Kamloops-North Thompson will continue.

K. Krueger: I'm sure it will look as preposterous on the record as it is that that sort of objection would be raised -- that once again an NDP member seeks to hide behind the rules of this House instead of engaging in debate, instead of standing up and saying what she thinks about Social Work Week, about the problems of the community social service workers and about this preposterous bill where we're asked to give $8 billion spending authority to people who have time and time and time again proven themselves to be utterly irresponsible with taxpayers' money. So let the record show that that's going to be it -- that was the Human Resources minister's only contribution to the interim supply debate -- her only discussion, given the opportunity to debate with us the issues raised by the community social service workers' strike.

These people are working on things like trying to keep children out of prostitution. Here's a little list of things that they gave me that they do. They enable people with physical or developmental disabilities to live with dignity, respect and independence in a loving home environment in their own neighbourhoods; they provide counselling, support and parental guidance to children and parents when a family breaks down; they teach young people life skills, like anger management, grocery shopping and how to get a job; they assist immigrant families to adjust to a different life; they staff crisis centres and they do suicide intervention; they help women and families in crisis by providing temporary accommodation in transition houses as well as sexual assault response, counselling, advocacy and assistance with outside services like legal aid; they provide quality, accessible child care to working families. That's the sort of thing they do. That's what they'd like to be doing rather than be on the bricks, but they are there because, in their view, this government doesn't care about them. I think that they have ample justification to believe that.

I don't think that many NDP members, curious as it is, have much of an understanding of what it's like to be on strike. They hold themselves forth to be representatives of working people; they ally themselves very closely with the B.C. Federation of Labour. But I've been working through the roster in my mind, and I don't see anybody over there that I think has actually ever been on strike.

[0445]

[ Page 11559 ]

I have. I was on strike for 22 weeks at one time. Mr. Speaker is pointing to himself at the moment -- there may be some of you. If so, then you know how tough it is and what it feels like to be deprived of your income -- to have to go to that extent to get your employer to pay attention to you. You start to feel like a second-class citizen even though you're not, because you don't have any income and because of the kind of things that people say to you on the picket line. It's a pretty rotten position for these people to be in -- to feel so unappreciated. I can't help but think it's because there are a whole lot of academics over there and people who pay lip service to collective bargaining but don't really believe in it -- and maybe have never really had anything much to do with it, other than textbook stuff.

Let me tell you why workers go out on strike. I know why I went out on strike for 22 weeks at one point. It's the only power, in the final analysis, that workers have in their search for fairness, respect and a decent deal. These people are dealing with a shyster employer, in their view and mine, an employer that continually breaks its promises, an employer that has skimmed millions of dollars out of the B.C. economy and into the hands of insiders -- things like the Raiwind power project. All kinds of deals: lately this messy, messy business of casino approvals; borderline involvement with Hell's Angels and people involved in all sorts of shady businesses; dealers from the bottom of the deck; reprehensible track records of blowing the public's money, to the point where there seems to be nothing left for the workers.

It reminds me of a story I once read. It was an autobiography by a Russian soldier who had been a loyal communist until one day when he actually had to be involved in servicing a banquet table where a number of Russian dignitaries were having at the caviar and everything else with great excess, and the vodka, until they'd actually pass out and collapse with their faces in the caviar -- commies in the caviar. At that point he lost all his interest in the communist system, and he came to realize what it's like for working people -- what it's like for the ordinary guy trying to make his way in a socialist or communist system.

Interjections.

Deputy Speaker: Order, please.

K. Krueger: We're certainly seeing that with the generous allowances that these people on the government side make to themselves -- and $8.15 to people trying to work in transition houses and in the very tough situations that these people work in. There are astonished workers all over British Columbia realizing that the NDP really doesn't give a fig about them, not at all. And they wonder: how does the NDP choose its priorities? Why do people in Crown corporations, for example, get these great big pay equity hikes, with retroactive payments and so on, while the NDP abandons workers such as the community social service workers?

If these people matter to the NDP, then I urge the government to show them that they matter. Stop fighting with them; stop fighting with nurses. Why did the government go into the clinch with the B.C. Nurses Union the way that it did? Why did the nurses have to go to the wall just to get this government to staff up in nurses? Now the government admits that it's short-staffed by at least 1,000 nurses. Those poor nurses have been struggling with that situation for years. It's been stressing them out; it's been making them sick. It's been causing them to retire early, when there's already a shortage. They've been abused by this government.

Hiring 1,000 nurses is no concession to the existing nurses. It's merely a government playing catch-up, having once again been prodigal and irresponsible and negligent in its management of its responsibilities. But, of course, this government knows nothing about management. It has no experience in management, no track record in management, no demonstrated ability to learn how to do management. If there ever was a demonstration of that, if there ever were results to measure, there is the burgeoning debt of this province. The fact that these people have managed in the 1990s to add as much debt to British Columbia as 125 years of previous B.C. government -- what a shameful record!

Interjections.

[0450]

The Premier himself said, ten days later, on February 19, 1999: "I'm getting tired of making announcements, and six months later or three months later the wait-lists are still there. And we keep putting money in." Well, if he thinks he's tired, how do the people on those wait-lists feel? There were 2,700 of them in Kamloops in January and well over 3,000 in Kelowna. And the Premier says he's tired -- poor baby.

It's time that the NDP got serious about fiscal management. We've been offering to help with that for years. They won't listen, and they can't seem to learn. They'd rather fight with doctors. Why is it so adversarial in British Columbia? Why, when the Premier came up to Kamloops to talk about the Highland Valley Copper situation with workers, would he say in the Kamloops media: "We can't let this company divide you from the NDP"? That's always his concern, isn't it? -- the political aspect of things. It's not the reality of 1,046 people having received layoff notices, not the fact that that's more than 25 percent of the regional economy in our area, but it's that he doesn't want to be divided from workers. And that is, of course, from the B.C. Federation of Labour and his bosom buddy Mr. Georgetti.

The fact is that virtually everybody in this province is divided from the NDP. There are only those 40 people on that

[ Page 11560 ]

If we compare that to the ministerial budgets. . . . If you are going to assess the importance of something by what the government's willing to spend on it, how in the world could Advanced Education, Training and Technology be worth only $1.755 billion, when the NDP is willing to squander $2.64 billion on interest? Why would the Ministry for Children and Families be worth only $1.481 billion, compared to $2.64 billion in interest?

The Minister of Human Resources, who had this little interchange with me this morning, has a budget of $1.554 billion. That's over a billion dollars less than this government is squandering on interest in the coming year. And this, as a number of my colleagues have said, is at a time when interest rates are the lowest in 40 years. What's it going to be like for us as those interest rates rise? I know that people over there are no doubt thinking they won't be in government anyway. They'll be off on their MLA pensions. They'll be doing whatever they plan on doing in the next life, because they know they're never getting back in here after the next general election. Maybe that's what they're thinking, but it's a terribly irresponsible way to think, hon. Speaker.

Examples are countless as we look at our economy, as we look at our region -- my constituency and the constituency of the member for Kamloops. Why, her own ministry is full of countless examples of the NDP's inability to take care of business, the NDP's inability to set priorities and spend money wisely and really make things work.

We've had umpteen environmental regulations dumped on the people of British Columbia. They're very expensive to comply with and horrendously costly for business. But when it comes to actually enforcing regulations against people who really are problems, this government always seems to come up short. We've got a dump, of all things, right in the middle of the residential areas of Kamloops. It's called the Owl Road dump. There have been all sorts of problems. The dump is supposed to be under strict permit conditions from the Ministry of Environment, but nobody's been showing up to administer those.

[0455]

This dump includes putrescibles, which weren't supposed to be there, and they attract bears. And the bears forage on into neighbourhoods. Dozens of bears have had to be shot in Kamloops in the last year. People ask me: "Why in the world do we have this Ministry of Environment or any regulations when they refuse to enforce them?"

Recently, residents of Clearwater were appalled to find that the Ministry of Environment intends to close their access to 19 different fishing lakes that they've been fishing for decades. They've done work to build up the stocks and build up the access, and the minister is suddenly cutting them off. They've written dozens of letters to the Minister of Environment asking her to reconsider, to repeal that decision, to not do it to them. Why does this government, for no legitimate reason, hassle the working people of British Columbia and interfere with the things that they like to do?

This government has been spending millions and millions of dollars tearing up roads that the public have enjoyed for years -- having access to wilderness in British Columbia. They don't offer any evidence that the public was creating problems by using those roads. It's a philosophical thing; it's an ideological decision. They actually call the things they use to tear up the roads water bars, to try to put kind of a friendly face on it. It's supposed to prevent the roads from having disorderly erosion, but they put these water bars across the roads that the public have been using and make them inaccessible for fishermen, hunters, campers, hikers, berry-pickers, ranchers, farmers -- people who have been using and need to use those roads. Once again, they hurt British Columbians and they hurt our economy with these actions. Why does the NDP hassle law-abiding people, and why does it squander their money in doing so?

You look at problems in our health care system, and they are everywhere. The government that brags that it spends more per capita on health care cannot be very proud of its actual record of delivering services to people. Think about issues like long-term care and intermediate care facilities. People are on long wait-lists waiting for these. I checked recently: Royal Inland Hospital had some 35 people occupying acute-care beds worth over $700 per day when they really needed, and were simply waiting for, beds in extended-care or intermediate care facilities. What a foolish waste of money! One elderly constituent in Clearwater was told she couldn't stay in the hospital in Clearwater because she was actually a long term care patient, so they shipped her all the way to Lillooet -- four hours away, far from her friends and family and support network. And she withered there. It was an unhealthy environment for her. People couldn't get out to visit her, and her life ended very early. Her family believes it was because of that. What a travesty!

[E. Walsh in the chair.]

For 12 years the government has known that Clearwater needs a multilevel-care facility. Eight months before the last election, Madam Speaker -- noting the change in the Chair -- the NDP promised the people of Clearwater that they would receive a multilevel-care facility, but there still hasn't been a spade in the ground. Money is being squandered month by month, year by year, on planning and consultants and the usual ways that the NDP spends money, but not a spade in the ground -- no work actually being done.

The Kamloops Cancer Clinic, of course, will always be a sore point in Kamloops, because we were promised that cancer clinic by this government during the election campaign of 1991. After the campaign, when the votes were counted and they had their butts firmly in the chairs over there, they reneged on that promise and didn't deliver. Now we're waiting for a Kamloops psychiatric unit, and it's starting to look like more of the same: more studies, more expenditure on paper-pushing, but not a spade in the ground, no concrete being poured.

[0500]

[ Page 11561 ]

It's not surgeons that create these health care problems. Surgeons don't bring on cancer; surgeons don't bring on heart problems. Surgeons don't bring on the need for joint replacement. Those are very real life problems that British Columbians experience, and we've paid taxes all our lives in good faith that the government will provide that patient care when we need it. Then people find themselves on wait-lists, Madam Speaker, and it adds tremendously to their stress. And the Finance minister says: "Spend, spend, spend." Well, if ever she had a responsibility to spend, that's in health care, that's in education and that is in public safety.

This government has been negligent. This government has failed to care for British Columbians. . . .

Hon. J. MacPhail: Spend, spend, spend.

K. Krueger: As the Finance minister says, she has spent, spent, spent, but she has not spent in the right areas. The Finance minister has flushed this money down some toilet. It hasn't reached the people who need it.

The Premier appointed a man who's twice been kicked out of cabinet to be the Minister Responsible for the Public Service. Well, what does that mean? We understood it to mean, when he was first appointed, that he would help make things happen for the public so that indeed they did get service -- that he would be some sort of lubricant in that grinding machinery of NDP government which chews up the revenue but doesn't churn out any public service. So I wrote the minister months ago and asked if he could intervene in an interministerial situation involving flooding of a number of my constituents along Westsyde Road, largely due to government-sanctioned interventions in the water runoff system -- the natural system high above them on the Bonaparte Plateau. And you know, Madam Speaker, I can't get any response from him. I can't get any cooperation. Nothing seems to be happening. That work should be underway. The local people were actually willing to do it themselves; they just needed a little bit of assistance with materials from the government and permission to proceed. But I can't seem to get the government to pay any attention. It's too busy dealing with its scandals, with its ongoing problems.

I have dozens of files in my constituency office of people being victimized by the family maintenance enforcement program -- people being hounded, people being driven out of house and home. Somehow the NDP is really anxious to deal with the money issues and getting hold of their money, but it's not at all interested in helping them with their problems of not getting any access to their children. Why don't we have a family maintenance and access enforcement program?

Why do people have to work through years of these difficulties in their lives without any help from government -- indeed, with nothing but hassle and abuse from government? That's why this government is continually out of money: it doesn't pay any attention to the real needs, and it squanders the money in all the wrong areas. It's a trust that the people of British Columbia put in their government, and it's a trust that this NDP has failed desperately to live up to.

For example, we look to Forest Renewal B.C. , FRBC, and the millions and millions of dollars wasted on administration in that program. And we remember clearly that in 1996, when the Premier was caught on the matter of the budget promises that he'd run on in the election and that all those members opposite ran on, he was clearly eyeing up the FRBC funds as a revenue grab to try and balance his books and make the deceit of the budgeting process less obvious. And he continually referred to a surplus, a massive surplus. That was only 1996, less than three years ago.

Where did all that money go, Madam Speaker? I've been talking to people who have a lot to do with FRBC, and they've been telling me that it's been squandered on administration, on paper-pushing, on members of various committees spending that money on the priorities of their own organizations -- to friends, as our former Forests critic and current critic for Municipal Affairs says -- squandered on friends. It was supposed to be spent on helping unemployed workers from the forest industry, on doing silviculture and restoring stream beds. What happened last year? Millions of seedlings were shredded, burned or buried because there was no money from FRBC to put those trees in the ground. What a travesty! What a waste, when there's still a huge inventory of land that needs reforestation, needs those trees to be planted.

[0505]

Then there's the Ministry of Transportation and Highways. On every project they build, they spend far too much, again because of their B.C. Federation of Labour-friendly policies, their so-called HCL model, their refusal to do businesslike open tendering. There's a project called the corridors project that the Ministry of Transportation and Highways has been working on. Perhaps members opposite have heard of it. I've certainly heard a great deal about it, and it was all warm and fuzzy consultation to begin with. I was invited, and other people were, and we listened to the concerns of the ministry staff. There was going to be all this consultation before anything was done. Well, suddenly the ministry announces a few weeks ago that it's going to start closing intersections in the Valleyview area of Kamloops, totally disrupting the business community there and putting the residents along Valleyview Drive in fear of having highway traffic rerouted in front of their homes and past the elementary school and the high school there -- once again, phony NDP consultation, a pretence of listening to the people when the results are going to be exactly what the ministry has predetermined. That's very, very offensive to people.

The cost of this government's way of doing things -- the cost of that mid-Island highway, a far shorter, far smaller, far less impressive highway than the Coquihalla. . . . It costs 50 percent more -- how can that be? -- a giveaway to friends and insiders. The reason that there isn't money for the community social service workers, the reason that this government has to come to this Legislature, cap in hand like a spoiled brat that wants more money, and the reason that this government has been out of money for the last five hours is because they are so prodigal and irresponsible with the public's money.

[ Page 11562 ]

The Education minister was talking in Kamloops recently about closing schools in Kamloops to make up for the shortfall of $750,000 that school district 73 is experiencing -- largely because of the class-size arrangement engineered between the Premier and Kit Krieger of the B.C. Teachers Federation.

Because of that type of intervention in the collective bargaining process, because of that type of interference in labour-management relations, both our public sector and private sector in British Columbia are in dire straits. I have people in my constituency who are home-schooling not because they want to, but because they couldn't get their children into a school anywhere near their homes because of the class-size limitations imposed by this NDP government, against all common sense. The poor school teachers are not happy with this arrangement at all. Their representative and this government walked away from over 100 important issues on the bargaining table, having arrived at this preposterous agreement.

I recently in these remarks compared the cost of post-secondary education in this province -- the budget for it -- to the interest cost that this government has now saddled us with for the coming year and presumably for every one of many coming years. It's about $1 billion more per year in interest than this government has budgeted to spend on post-secondary education. Yet it brags about its tuition freezes. Well, we can't really afford a tuition freeze if the government is not going to supply the necessary resources to the colleges and universities to make up for it.

[0510]

"A visit to the University College of the Cariboo campus reveals the effects of the tuition freeze. Labs are overcrowded, departmental budgets are stretched to the limit and the library lacks much-needed resource materials. John Harper, chairman of the UCC board, admits that it might be difficult to maintain services for students when revenues are stagnant. He told the Daily News on Friday that he hopes this week's provincial budget will contain some measures to offset the effects of the tuition freeze."

Then we look at the issue of gaming. If there ever was an issue that kind of brings home what's wrong with this government, it's got to be gaming -- a litany of disgraces and five successive losses by this government in the courts of British Columbia, a government that had to be admonished by the Supreme Court of British Columbia that it was operating in violation of the Criminal Code of Canada, a government that put itself in the ridiculous position of arguing in court that in providing money to health care and education in British Columbia, it was doing charity work. That was actually the evidence of this government. Isn't that shameful? Isn't that ridiculous? The court thought so. The judge said so, and the judge gave this Premier, this Deputy Premier and this government another backhand.

But do they listen? No, they blunder on. It's like moths to a flame; it's like gambling addicts continually going after money that doesn't belong to them. Now the Premier's been burnt in a very personal way, because they just can't stay away from the gaming.

They can't stop trying to ram slot machines down the throats of unwilling municipalities. Unlike this provincial government, the municipalities have done their due diligence. They know how destructive gambling machines are to the population. They know how highly addictive they are and the terrible social consequences and the human suffering that flow as a result of introducing that technology to a jurisdiction. They've been resisting for all they are worth having to spend their taxpayers' money fighting a government that is spending the same taxpayers' money trying to force those machines down their throat.

They just won't stop. In their introduction of gambling machines and casinos to communities, once again they are attacking charities throughout British Columbia. In recent months both the Royal Canadian Legion in Kamloops and the Women's Resource Centre have been on the brink of bankruptcy. The Women's Resource Centre actually had to close for a time, because their revenues were so down because of the government's competition in the gaming area.

The examples of this government's negligence and misbehaviour just go on and on. The Finance minister was foolish enough to brag in question period about this government's privatization initiatives, the way they've been selling off British Columbians' assets to try and cover their operating deficits. It's like selling the house because you can't handle your Visa cards; it's a shameful thing. One pertinent example that the Finance minister raised herself is the so-called privatization of the light vehicle fleet in British Columbia -- 5,000 vehicles that this province owned. What do they do? They put out one of their Mickey Mouse RFPs. They sell them to the Toronto-Dominion Bank, with a guarantee to the TD Bank that when those vehicles are disposed of ultimately, if they don't fetch the black book price, the TD Bank can claim that money back from the ministry which the vehicle came from. A lot of those vehicles are worth nowhere near the black book price. It's another liability, another hidden deficit on the part of this government.

[0515]

[ Page 11563 ]

The abuse of interior residents goes on and on in every which direction. That convention centre -- the province anteing up the provincial taxpayers' money for a Vancouver convention centre. . . . Kamloops has been trying to arrange a public-private partnership for many months now, scrounging around to try to come up with the right mix of local taxpayers' money and private investment in order to have a convention centre. Imagine how it feels to people in a struggling economy like Kamloops's to have this Premier suddenly announce that he's going to be giving $300 million and more to a convention centre in Vancouver. If any city in this province could afford to pay for its own convention centre, it's Vancouver. They didn't even ask for it; they didn't even know it was going to happen. The Premier once again just flies in like a seagull, does a squawk, leaves his mess, and off he goes, often never to be heard from again.

There's the matter of ICBC premiums, the so-called premium freeze. Premiums were dropping in the interior -- including in your own constituency of Kootenay, Madam Speaker -- because we pay far more than we should, according to our loss experience in the interior, for ICBC premiums. They had dropped for two years in a row -- not a lot, not as much as they should. But ICBC was starting to move in the right direction. And in swoops the Premier, and he declares a freeze. Interior residents have to go on subsidizing the loss experience in the lower mainland indefinitely.

B.C. Hydro rates should be way lower than they are. But the government swoops in, takes over that responsibility from the B.C. Utilities Commission and once again imposes one of its phony freezes. Now we and our businesses are stuck paying far more than we should for B.C. Hydro. That's one of the reasons that Highland Valley Copper is on the brink of going out of business. They're the biggest customer that B.C. Hydro has in this province, at $33 million per year. How much will that be reduced if they go out of business? By 100 percent; it'll be down the drain, gone. Would this government come up with a concession for Highland Valley Copper? No. Maybe they will now, but it's on the brink of shutting down. It may be beyond the point of no return. It's no bluff; we know that full well.

The government bailout of Skeena Cellulose in the riding of the Deputy Premier -- the man from Prince Rupert -- hurt viable pulp mills throughout British Columbia, including the Weyerhaeuser mill in Kamloops, which is a tremendous corporate citizen. It always comes up with the coin. Whatever big project the people are fundraising for in Kamloops, whether it's the Royal Inland Hospital Foundation or the UCC Foundation, Weyerhaeuser is always there with the biggest cheque of all. That mill has been attacked by this government taking the taxes it pays and contributing them to a competitor, and that's wrong.

It's wrong for this government to have committed $3 billion and probably more of provincial taxpayers' money to a SkyTrain extension that the people of Vancouver don't even want and that the local government in Vancouver didn't want either. It's wrong for this government, as the member for Peace River South pointed out, to be embroiling itself in the southern crossing proposal, which is not a good deal for British Columbians, from my point of view. We'll all be paying higher gas rates to pay for a pipeline to move natural gas from Alberta to the United States.

This government has waged a war on the businesses, jobs, workers and economy of British Columbia. Its war machine involves taxation, regulation and interference in labour-management relations. This government has heard that from one business summit after another, including business summits that this government arranged -- including one in my hometown of Kamloops last spring. It's the same input time after time, but do they listen? Absolutely not.

[0520]

Al Raine and Nancy Greene have been working nine years to bring on a ski resort called Cayoosh in the Fraser Canyon -- nine years of dealing with government regulation, bureaucrats and red tape, and not a spade in the ground. Not many people would put up with that and even stick around.

When we tour through the interior, we hear countless stories of this government's failure to respond to the needs of British Columbians in a responsible way. The people of the northwest have been asking for years for the government to put a second ferry run on the Queen of Prince Rupert route. They could fill their motels and hotels every day instead of every second day, but they can't get a response. The result of all this is an economic wasteland in the interior -- communities that are dried up economically and suffering. The resources are still there, and a lot of the people are still there. They haven't all left yet. But we've got a government that will not respond.

We've got a Premier who went up to the Peace River country and said that agriculture is not viable up there. What a ridiculous thing to say. People have been making a good living off agriculture in the Peace River country for over 100 years. My family developed a homestead and a farm in the Peace River country. Who is this Vancouver boy to go up there and tell the people in the Peace River that agriculture is not economically viable?

The forest industry? It's no secret. It's this government and its ridiculous policies that have made British Columbia such a high-cost production location for forest products and that have driven us out of international markets. We could have handled the Asian flu. That's just part of a normal cycle. It's predictable, and the industry was predicting that they would go into a downcycle. They warned us for years. They warned this side and that side in government that they were enjoying the highest prices they had ever had for an unbelievably sustained period, but that it would not continue forever. As soon as those prices dropped, they would be shutting down mills. They would be laying off workers, because they were barely making any profit, thanks to the high costs imposed through regulation and taxation by this government.

The result, of course, has been a foundered economy and unemployment everywhere, particularly youth unemployment. It's a grievous problem, something that has really hurt

[ Page 11564 ]

This Finance minister has finally been talking about transparency, and this budget is being referred to as the most honest NDP budget thus far. It's not much of a compliment. Clearly it isn't regarded as completely honest, and the preceding budgets certainly weren't either. For the longest time, this Finance minister insisted that there wasn't any recession in British Columbia, that this was just Liberal negativity and that if the Liberals would only start being Pollyannas, then everything would be okay in B.C. We had a sectoral recession, Madam Chair. But, of course, this government is finally admitting that B.C. is in a full-blown recession.

This government has to learn that it needs to plan its work and then work its plan. There has to be a plan if you're going to have a businesslike approach to running anything, Madam Chair -- and through you to the Finance minister, who is expressing open-mouthed amazement at these concepts. If the government continues not to have a goal and not to have a plan, if it continues to aim at nothing, it will hit it every time.

[0525]

Look at the results of last year's budget, supposed to be a $95 million deficit, about which the Minister of Employment and Investment made this hilarious comment: "The result of this is a $95 million deficit -- a half of 1 percent of total provincial spending, virtually a balanced budget" -- a virtual budget, Madam Speaker. Look at the results. The Finance minister admitted at the end of the third quarter to a $666 million deficit. Somehow she's taken the position that it was more like $542 million by the end of the year, but I don't believe it. I don't think anybody in British Columbia believes it, because we always see the debt rising by at least triple what the admitted deficit is.

The Minister for Children and Families said this about last year's budget: ". . .I think it's a very good budget. It may not be balanced, but it has a balanced approach to it." Well, there's a learned comment. The Minister of Small Business, Tourism and Culture said: "This is a budget that runs a small deficit, but it does that so we can invest in education and health. This is a budget that's on the right track. This is a budget that's worthy of support." The member for Vancouver-Burrard said: "It's not just a six-month plan or even a one-year plan or a two-year plan. It is indeed a long-term, goal-orientated three-year plan." Apparently the last two years have been abandoned. It's not mentioned in this year's budget documents, is it?

The Minister of Municipal Affairs said that last year's budget would further assist young people, women and all entrepreneurs across British Columbia in creating and realizing their dreams. Well, the women I spoke of in the community social service sector aren't having their dreams realized. In fact, they're not making any money, and their clients aren't being serviced. They're out on the bricks, and they don't think this government cares.

The Minister of Environment -- my counterpart, the MLA for Kamloops -- said about last year's budget: "That means looking at our existing infrastructure, through our parks and protected areas and our campground infrastructure." She looked at it, all right. The result, apparently, is that people are now being charged to camp in wilderness campsites that they never had to pay for in the past -- indeed, that many of the residents of the interior helped develop and bring into being into the first place. People bitterly resent having to pay those fees.

The Minister of Transportation and Highways, the member for Yale-Lillooet, said that last year's budget would provide new opportunities for the youth of this province. Instead, we've got this 63 percent unemployment for teenagers in this province. It's shameful. The former minister, the member for Coquitlam-Maillardville, said they'd have to go by the fact that the proof of the pudding is in the eating, when it came to evaluating last year's budget. Well, the pudding's looking a lot like crow pie.

The Premier said on March 9, 1998: "It's not business as usual. We want to change some things to get the economy moving, and we intend to do that. A strong and competitive economy requires a positive climate for business investment." Well, he was right, but he surely didn't do it. He failed to deliver. The economy has moved, all right; it has moved in the wrong direction ever since.

The B.C. Liberal Party has answers. We wish that this government would listen and begin to implement some of these answers. We wish that they would pay attention to our ten-point economic plan: that they would restore a professional, non-partisan civil service; that they would enact truth-in-budgeting legislation; that they'd pass balanced-budget legislation; that they'd agree -- as we've committed to -- to reduce personal income tax to the lowest rate in Canada; that they would indeed begin to protect and improve health and education services; that they would enact fair and balanced labour laws, so that business won't be discouraged from coming to British Columbia; that they'd cut the regulatory burden, like we will; that they'd protect private property rights and increase access to Crown lands; that they'd fight for B.C.'s fair share of federal tax contributions without getting into needless and stupid wars with the feds which they lose; and that they'd work to negotiate workable, affordable treaty settlements, as we intend to, rather than imposing the Nisga'a template on the people of British Columbia.

[0530]

[ Page 11565 ]

We've at least kept them awake for a night. We're exercising our democratic rights as the official opposition. We're holding the line as long as we can. We're five and a half hours into the day now, and this government hasn't had any spending authority since midnight. Would that we could continue that forever, because that's what the people of British Columbia want: they want this government out of office and down the road; they want an end to the economic bleeding of British Columbia; they want a government that will protect health care and education, as the NDP have proved themselves totally incapable of doing it.

What we need, rather than an interim supply bill, is an election. I call upon this government to call an election, end the pain, admit they can't do the job, get it over with and let a real government take the helm.

G. Hogg: Could we have two designated speakers?

Hon. J. MacPhail: No, but I promise to listen to this one.

G. Hogg: No, no. Don't make that promise.

I've listened with great interest, intrigue and often a sense of wonder to the debate which has been taking place. I'd like to try and come back to a touchstone sense of what this Bill 54, Supply Act (No. 1), 1999, is indeed asking for. In accordance with the Financial Administration Act, special warrants of $169.5 million, seeking those expenditures by special warrant dealing with the Ministry for Children and Families to supplement vote 25, ministry operations: ". . .to provide funding of costs for residential and related support programs for children, youth, families and adults with mental handicaps." For the Ministry of Health, to supplement vote 48, ministry operations: ". . .to provide funding for the higher than anticipated ongoing expenditures of the Medical Services Plan, Acute and Continuing Care, and Pharmacare." And further, in the Ministry of Health, to supplement vote 48, ministry operations: ". . .to provide funding for the higher than anticipated one-time expenditures related to the reimbursement of drug costs, start-up costs associated with the new national blood program, and the debt servicing contributions related to the timing of the transfer of debt to the province from the Greater Vancouver Regional Hospital District." Then there is the voted expenditures appropriation representing three-twelfths of the total amount put forward in the budget, an amount of $5.2 billion, and the voted capital and loans, investment and other financing transactions of $780 million. And finally there is the revenue transfers appropriation of $730.5 million. Those are the numbers which are before us -- the touchstones upon which we must look, upon which we must focus for the purposes of this debate.

I have tried to do my due diligence and search for the appropriate reference points, the context in which I should place this debate and, indeed, the method by which I would put this debate to the tests of reason. Hon. Speaker, each of us, both individually and collectively, has a conceptual framework, either implicitly or explicitly defined, from which to make such judgments. The question of granting this interim supply must be measured by that framework: the set of principles and beliefs which have dictated the history of this House and have formed its precedents. The decisions which have become the basis for guiding our deliberations must be tested against that conceptual framework. Given the light of informed review and debate, and the information that that discussion will lead to, ultimately brings that decision.

[0535]

The history of people, of organizations and of governments and their past practices provide us with the best indicator of future performances. I have been involved in the development of social histories, predisposition reports and all of the predictive natures which they provide us to look at to try and determine how we're going to anticipate behaviour and how we're going to be able to anticipate performance. I've looked at the history, the record, that has been put forward and that now stands before this House, as this government stands before this House seeking interim supply, seeking the confidence of this House in its plan for the short-term future.

The government is asking -- asking at the last possible moment -- for approval, and it is doing that with a mandate which has been tarnished for the electorate and with a fiscal record which is somewhat abysmal. The confidence which we place in this request for interim supply must be based on the performance history of the government -- and quite a history that is.

After leading B.C. in economic growth in the early 1990s, B.C.'s economy slid into a recession in 1998 with an expected contraction of near minus 0.5 percent. This year looks no better, with some forecasters predicting negative growth approaching minus 1.8 percent. Real per-capita GDP has fallen in three of the past six years and is expected to decrease in 1998 and again in 1999. B.C.'s employment growth rate in 1998 was 1.2 percent. At 2.8 percent, employment growth across Canada was two times greater than in B.C. Alberta's employment growth rate hit 4 percent, while Ontario experienced employment growth at 3.7 percent. A closer look at B.C.'s 1998 job numbers reveals that the 53,000 jobs created can be accounted for by a 5.7 percent increase in self-employed positions and an 11.6 percent increase in public sector employment. The number of private jobs was essentially unchanged, with a meagre growth of 0.3 percent. B.C. has experienced virtually no growth in paid, private sector employment since mid-1995.

Under this government's tenure and this Premier's tenure as the Minister Responsible for Youth, youth unemployment in B.C. grew by 31.7 percent, to 56,900 in April of 1998 from 43,200 in May of 1996. In July 1998 the youth unemployment rate hit 22.9 percent, the second-highest youth unemployment rate in Canada -- second only to Newfoundland.

Total investment in British Columbia fell by 8.3 percent in 1998 to $19 billion -- the second-biggest decline among the provinces. Business investment fell 10.5 percent in 1998 and is expected to decrease another 9.2 percent in 1999. Private sector capital spending in B.C. has decreased now for three consecutive years. Retail sales declined 1.5 percent in 1998 to $33.2 billion. British Columbia was the only province with weaker retail sales in 1998 than in the previous year.

[ Page 11566 ]

[0540]

It goes on and on. The value of manufacturing shipments in 1998 dropped by 2.8 percent from 1997. Wood manufacturing posted the largest yearly decline of 10.9 percent. There were 17,625 housing starts in 1998, an astonishing drop of 30 percent from 25,680 starts in 1997. The decrease means a loss of over 18,900 construction-related jobs. B.C. was the only province west of Quebec to experience a decrease in 1998. Alberta gained 3,065 starts in 1998, a 13.5 percent increase.

There's more. There were 20,759 business incorporations in British Columbia in 1998, down 2,199, or 9.6 percent, from the 22,958 incorporations registered in 1997. B.C. incorporations have fallen every year since 1994. By comparison, Alberta gained 3,854 business incorporations in 1998, for a total of 24,343 -- an 18 percent increase. Alberta incorporations have risen every year since 1995.

It's estimated that more than 18,000 people have left British Columbia for Alberta just in the year 1998, followed by some 96 companies. So far this year, 35 companies have left B.C. for Alberta. While Budget and Tilden are busy moving citizens to Alberta, it's unfortunate that the business climate is driving them out. It was a miserable year for our forest industry. Ten mills were permanently closed. Over 16,000 jobs were lost. The industry faced a record loss of over $1 billion. A whole community lost its future when 382 workers lost their jobs with the closure of the Gold River mill. No mines were opened in B.C. in 1998 -- only two mines, Gibraltar and Highland Valley. And they teeter on the brink of closure.

The Ministry of Health confirmed that the total of the government's attempt to reduce health care administration costs has topped $10 million in severance pay-outs. Last spring, Kelowna General Hospital had a wait-list of 3,700 patients, the highest number in B.C. By January 19, 1999, that number had ballooned to 3,831. There has been over $300 million in health care used in the health labour accord, which was signed in 1993 and renewed again in 1996. The New Directions regionalization scheme has yet to show great response and the ability to serve patients. The BCMA has calculated that the fast ferry loss of over $400 million would have funded some 139,000 heart bypass surgeries. The cost of that fast ferry program is fast approaching $450 million, and we were promised that it would cost $210 million.

[0545]

B.C. made the Wall Street Journal on June 4, 1998. The paper blamed B.C.'s government for its failing economy, citing high taxes, tough labour laws and costly regulations as the culprits in B.C.'s poor investment climate. It was revealed that the government paid $400,000 for a 25-page instruction manual that told officers they should not photograph the pavement or the sky, and I understand that that manual won a national award.

Performance history is indeed one that only the naïve or misled could say would lead us to look at the future with either confidence or optimism. "Choices," the Finance minister has said. "This is a budget about choices." Well, the financial record of this government was also one about choices -- not good choices. And I do not see anything in this interim request and the budget which it represents that suggests there is a plan which I and the people of B.C. can hold forward and put forward with confidence.

To exacerbate this, there are five deficit/debt reduction plans which the government has placed before this House. There was the 1992 deficit reduction strategy, the 1995 debt management plan, the 1997 financial management plan, the 1998 revised financial management plan and now the 1999 five-year fiscal planning framework. Each plan put forward by this government has missed its mark and has ended in failure.

Let's look at those, hon. Speaker. The 1995 debt management plan assumed budget surpluses in '95-96 and '96-97 and, as a result of those assumptions, made a commitment to the following: a commitment to maintain British Columbia's credit rating as the highest of any province in Canada; a commitment to eliminate over 20 years the then $10.2 billion operating debt incurred from previous deficits; a commitment to reduce total taxpayer-supported debt as a share of British Columbia's GDP from its '94-95 level of 19.1 percent to 10.2 percent within 20 years; a commitment to cap the interest cost of taxpayer-supported debt to ensure that this cost does not exceed 8.5 percent of provincial revenue in any year over the next 20 years. That was the 1995 debt management plan. Instead of the projected surplus of $114 million, it dissolved into a deficit of $355 million, and '96-97 ended with a deficit of $352 million. Rather than shrinking operating debt, it increased to $11 billion by the end of '96-97, and the taxpayer-supported-debt-to-GDP ratio grew to 20 percent. That was the 1995 debt management plan.

We went from there to the 1997 debt management plan. That plan reneged on the promise of reducing taxpayer-supported debt by half within 20 years and replaced it with a vague goal of reducing direct debt over 20 years. It also raised the 2015 debt-to-GDP ratio restriction to 15 percent; and asserted a ceiling of 20 percent for the taxpayer-supported-debt-to-GDP ratio, falling to 15 percent by 2015; a balanced operating budget; a reduced direct debt over 20 years; and a maximum taxpayer-supported interest bite -- the cost of debt servicing per dollar of revenue -- of nine cents. . . . Instead of a balanced budget, the 1997-98 operating deficit was $152 million. Direct debt increased by $422 million, and B.C.'s credit rating was downgraded in May of '97 by Moody's and Standard and Poor's. That was management plan number two.

[0550]

[ Page 11567 ]

Instead, the taxpayer-supported-debt-to-GDP ratio dropped 21.2 percent last year and this year will be 23.9 percent. The new fiscal planning framework sets a debt range of 22 percent to 27 percent of GDP over five years. Under the new framework, a balanced budget isn't even projected until the year 2002-03. Moreover, the new framework does not even anticipate any tax reductions for the next five years, beyond those announced last year and this year.

What has been the result of all of this? British Columbians are indeed suffering from what this government has induced through the decrease in their standard of living. We all have less money in our pockets now than when this government took office in 1991. The weakest four-year period of economic growth B.C. has seen in 35 years was 1995 through 1998. While every other provincial economy was prospering, B.C.'s economy fell into a government-made recession in 1998 that is forecast to continue well into 1999.

B.C.'s economic output per person, a prime indicator of prosperity, has fallen in three of the last six years. Each British Columbian's share of B.C.'s economic pie is smaller than when this government took office. In the rest of Canada, economic output per person has increased during that very same period. The average British Columbian's real after-tax income has fallen by roughly 6 percent since 1992. British Columbians are working harder but taking home less pay under this government.

In 1997, British Columbians' real per-capita after-tax income was $16,340, while Alberta's was $16,833. In Canadian dollars, per-capita after-tax income in Oregon was $34,731 and in Washington State it was $30,775. British Columbians must now work two additional weeks a year to pay their taxes -- two weeks longer than they had to work when this government came to power in 1991. B.C.'s job market in 1998 was the weakest the province has seen in 14 years. There has been virtually no growth in paid, private sector employment in B.C. since the mid-1900s.

How do we compare with the other provinces? Five provinces tabled balanced budgets in 1998-99: Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, New Brunswick and Newfoundland. Those five provinces, plus Quebec and P.E.I., are slated to balance their budgets in 1999-2000. Under the government's new fiscal framework, B.C.'s budget will not be balanced until the year 2002-03. It is truly a budget about choices.

[0555]

Six Canadian provinces and two territories have some form of balanced-budget or debt management legislation: Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, Yukon and Northwest Territories. We have had five such plans, and with not one of them have we been able to touch the targets and expectations that were put forward within.

Looking at the financial background, the financial history of this government -- and doing that without looking at the scandals, the timing of the requests and the myriad of other preoccupations which have been put before this government -- there are many reasons why we're seeing the type of reaction we are seeing in the communities today. These are the reasons that the Surrey Chamber of Commerce has called upon this government to resign. These are the reasons why we receive daily calls for resignation and for review -- to look at this government. These are the reasons why this government is currently so low in the polls and the reasons the people of B.C. have lost confidence in this government. These are the reasons why I cannot support this interim supply. And hon. Chair, yes, it truly is about choices.

C. Hansen: There are very few windows in this chamber that allow someone to get a sense of what's happening outside. But as I look up, I realize that the sun is starting to rise in British Columbia on April 1, the start of a new fiscal year for this government. The sun is starting to rise on a fiscal year in which the government is asking for spending authority for $21 billion. In this interim supply bill that we are being asked for, we are being asked to authorize $8 billion. Just stop and think about it. Yesterday afternoon, at about 3:30, this government brought in legislation to authorize the spending of $8 billion, and they expect this legislative chamber to pass it in a few minutes or in an hour or two. I don't think so. Eight billion dollars of taxpayers' money!

If this government had a track record of showing that they had spent money in the past with some degree of effectiveness, with efficiency and some austerity in government, where taxpayers could have a sense that their dollars were being used effectively to deliver programs that are needed in British Columbia, then there might be some generosity on the part of British Columbians for this kind of spending authority to be approved in short order. But for this government to come in eight hours before the end of a fiscal year and expect that we're suddenly, instantly, going to pass $8 billion worth of spending is simply foolhardy.

In the official opposition, we know that we have an obligation to hold this government accountable for the mismanagement of public dollars that we have seen in the past. We are here to debate this, not to hold up the business of government, not to cause hard-working individuals who are in the provincial government not to get paycheques. That's not the objective here. The objective is to deliver a message to this NDP government that they simply cannot take this Legislature for granted. We have seen the incompetence and the mismanagement of government, and we have seen the mismanagement of this Legislature, which is why we wind up with legislation of this nature coming before this House at the very last possible hour, never mind the last possible day.

[0600]

[ Page 11568 ]

I think that in fact sums up the problem that we have in health care with this government today; it's that this government is not doing well when it comes to health care. In fact, they're doing abysmally. Their record is abysmal. Pumping more money into the system without any kind of a comprehensive vision and comprehensive plan is simply not going to solve the problems that are there. If anything, it has the potential of making those problems worse.

I want to quote the Minister of Finance, who herself was the previous Minister of Health when a lot of these problems that we have in the health care system today really started to be manifested. I think we want to look at the track record of this government in health care. I think we have to look at the time that the current Minister of Finance was in fact the Minister of Health in this province, because that was the time when a lot of problems started to develop. That was the time when I think the public realized that their worst fears were starting to be manifested in the fact that the health care system was not there for them when they needed it.

But this is a quote from the current Minister of Finance; she said this on February 9 of this year: "Why is it, when we add hundreds of millions of dollars each year, that waiting times increase?" I must say that I appreciate the minister's candour in those kinds of comments. But it certainly doesn't give us any cause for comfort when we see that this government's track record on health care has simply been to pump more and more money into health care without any comprehensive plan, without any sense of how this is going to help the health care system in this province and how we are going to start addressing some of the needs of British Columbians when it comes to health care. So we have the Minister of Finance candidly admitting that they are pumping hundreds of millions of dollars in, yet the problem gets worse.

If you look at the spending of this government in health care, the actual estimates that were tabled in this House one year ago were to increase the health budget by $228 million -- an additional $228 million dollars for health care. Did health care get better in this province? No. What we saw was public confidence continuing to erode. We saw wait-lists in this province continuing to grow. The reason it happened was that the former Minister of Health had absolutely no plan for how to address the needs of the health care system over the long term. The current Minister of Health has the same track record. So what we found last year was that the $228 million was not enough, that what they had to do was, through special warrants, inject yet another $124 million into the Health budget of this province.

Now, what's interesting is that it brought total health care spending in this province in the last fiscal year up to an increase of $353 million over what had been spent in the previous year. The reason that this number is significant is because that is the exact number they are increasing the current budget by for health care in this province. Last year, health care spending went up by $353 million. This year the estimates show that spending will go up by $353.5 million. So the real increase in health care spending is almost identical. Yet last year, after pouring in these hundreds of millions of dollars more money, the problems got worse. This is like déjà vu all over again, because we are seeing the same increase in this Health budget, again without any kind of a vision and any kind of a comprehensive plan.

[0605]

This government claims that they are increasing the Health budget by $478 million. The only way you can justify that number is to go and look at last year's estimates and compare them to this year's estimates. It's not comparing last year's spending to this year's spending, but rather, to what was in the budget last year. The increase in the Health budget this year from those estimates is $478 million. Well, this government, in the discussions with the federal government that took place earlier this year prior to the federal budget, made a commitment that all of the new health dollars that were coming as a result of the last federal budget -- all of the new health dollars that came under the Canada health and social transfer -- were going to be passed on in increased health spending in this province. That has not happened. This government, this Minister of Finance, have not passed on the federal money that is coming to British Columbia. The increase in the Canada health and social transfer from the federal government to British Columbia in the 1999-2000 fiscal year is $488 million; the budget has only increased by $478 million over the last year. We wind up with NDP members who are bragging about this commitment to health care -- this wonderful new infusion of dollars into health care in British Columbia -- yet we find out that they haven't even passed on, dollar for dollar, the moneys that are coming from the federal coffers as a result of the Canada health and social transfer.

Part of that increase in money in the Canada health and social transfer is a fund of $471 million. This fund of $471 million is dedicated to health care and can be drawn down by the province at any time over the next three years. Let's look at what this government has chosen to do. This government has chosen to take $350 million of that $471 million in year one. So all that has been left in that fund for the next two years is $121 million. I know for a fact that the Ministry of Finance in this province does not know how it is going to fund health care next year, because of the fact that they have raided the pot this year for the short-term, one-year health care needs of this government. If this government had been responsible, it would have allocated that $471 million in equal amounts over the next three years, so that we're not robbing next year's budget in order to pay for this year's short-term needs that result from the NDP mismanagement of these budgets.

[0610]

[ Page 11569 ]

I don't want to dwell exclusively on health care. I want to take us on a bit of time travel, and I want to take us back to 1991, when the NDP government first took office in British Columbia. You can go back to 1991, and British Columbia was a province that had one of the highest GDP growths of any province in Canada. We were on par with Alberta -- the two provinces with probably the most dynamic economies in Canada.

When it came to job creation, in 1991 British Columbia was number one of all the provinces when it came to job creation. We had a provincial debt that at the time was the lowest per-capita debt of any province in this country. And we had a credit rating -- you know, that thing called a credit rating that really governs how much we have to pay in terms of interest on our provincial government debt and borrowing for Crown corporations -- that was the highest of any province. We were the envy of every province in Canada, with that credit rating. We were the envy of even Alberta when it came to our credit rating. In 1991 we had investor confidence in this province that saw opportunity for job creation, opportunity for economic growth and opportunity for the dynamic economy that this province had at that time.

So, if we get back in our time machine and fast-forward eight years to 1999, where are we now in comparison to where we were in 1991? We went through an election in 1996, where the NDP Party campaigned on a vehement anti-business rhetoric, where they basically vilified everybody in this province that creates a job. They vilified everybody that set up a small company. They held in contempt individuals who were the entrepreneurs that really built this economy in British Columbia. And now here we are three years later, and we are paying the price big-time.

It's not the NDP members in this chamber who are paying that price; it is individual British Columbians. It's working families in this province that are paying the price for the way that this government has driven opportunity out of this province, driven entrepreneurs out, driven job creation out of this province, to the point that we now no longer have a province that is number one when it comes to economic growth. We are now in last place. Last year the province had the very dubious record of being the only province that had negative economic growth, the only province out of ten that was not feeling an economic boom. British Columbia was languishing in recession.

In terms of job creation, which is something that we've heard a lot about from the NDP in the last few months. . . . They've been bragging about this job growth. Look back over the last two years and you realize that we now have 13,000 fewer private-sector-paid jobs in this province than we did in 1996.

There have been comments in some of the heckling that was coming across the floor earlier about new jobs, but let's start looking at where those jobs are coming from. Those jobs are not private-sector-paid jobs; those jobs are primarily in the public sector -- jobs that are paid for by the taxpayers. At the same time, what we are seeing in this province is an erosion of the tax base that is needed to pay for those public sector jobs.

[0615]

The number of the actual deficit that we see in the budget of the line ministries becomes more and more irrelevant as this government transfers more and more of the basic operations of government to Crown corporations and agencies outside of the line ministries.

We have seen over past years that the motor vehicle branch, for example, is no longer a part of government; it's now part of ICBC. I find that people in my riding of Vancouver-Quilchena are astounded when they learn that -- that the motor vehicle branch has been transferred to an insurance company to run. It's no longer on the books; it's off on the side. It's part of the overall operations of government but not of the line ministries that are recorded when we look at our basic deficit.

We look at the operations of Forest Renewal B.C., which has now taken up the employment of hundreds of employees who were formerly employed by the Ministry of Finance or the Ministry of Environment. And throughout the whole range of government, we have seen the expenses moved into Crown corporations. We're not talking about an increase in debt in this province of $900 million, as forecast in this budget. But we are seeing an increase in excess of $3 billion of taxpayer-supported debt, and that is a legacy that our children will be paying for, for many, many, many years.

We look at our credit rating. I mentioned earlier that in 1991 our credit rating was the top of any province in Canada. We are no longer number one, and we are the only province that has seen that credit rating slip. I know that this Minister of Finance is very defensive about her credit rating, because every time the credit rating takes a blow, we see the cost of borrowing money go up for this government. My fear is that we're not just going to see British Columbia being put on credit watch, as was done after the recent downgrades, but that we're going to see further erosion of our credit rating in this province as a direct result of the budget that this Minister of Finance tabled on Tuesday.

Investor confidence in 1991 was the top in Canada, and today I think that investor confidence in this province is, without question, the worst of any province in Canada. This government will talk about the Asian flu as being the reason behind it, but if you look at our neighbours in other provinces, they have had the same kind of forces in world markets come to bear on their economies. Yet they are not only surviving those challenges but actually thriving in the face of those challenges around the world, while this economy is going into the tank.

A little over a year ago it was interesting that the Premier initiated a dialogue with the business community. There were consultations done by the former Minister of Finance, and then when he was switched in February, the current Minister of Finance took up some of those discussions with the private sector. The message that came through from the private sector

[ Page 11570 ]

[0620]

It was interesting that in April last year, the current Minister of Finance set up a task force to cut red tape. At the same time and in the same week, they brought into effect Workers Compensation Board regulations that resulted in a massive increase in regulation that private companies, particularly smaller companies, had to bear. We saw the government, in the same week, bring in Bill 14 of last year -- it was brought in last April but is still part of this current session -- which significantly increased the red tape that small companies in particular have to bear in this province. We have seen the forest sector take body blow after body blow as a direct result of the actions of this government and the Forest Practices Code -- which has basically been strangling forest companies in this province.

I believe that there are two types of New Democrats in this government. There are those who I think are fleetingly trying to grasp on to some notion that they can actually win the next election, and there are those that I believe are trying to change the NDP's foolish ways, in order to bring some sanity and credibility back to this government, in hopes that they can win back some of the support in this province.

I know that the newest member of the New Democratic Party said, when he joined, that he was coming because the party was going to move to the centre. Here we are, only a matter of a few weeks later, and we see a budget that's been brought in that is clearly. . . . If that's moving to the centre, we hate to see what moving to the left would be all about.

There are those in the New Democratic Party who would like to mend their ways and restore some of that credibility. Those are not the ones I fear the most, when it comes to what the future may hold. The ones I fear the most are what I call the candy-store crowd. The candy-store crowd are those in the New Democratic Party who recognize that this party is not going to win the next election, that they may be facing annihilation in the next election and that they may not be in power again in this province for some time. The candy-store crowd are those who basically see the opportunity to get as much candy in their pockets while they've got the opportunity, before this party -- the official opposition -- comes in as government to change the locks on the door to the candy store.

What we see from the candy-store crowd is a bunch of initiatives over the last year. We see the changes to the Labour Code. That's been brought in as an attempt by this government to change the rules in a way that will make it much easier for the trade union movement in this province. The Labour Code changes that were brought in were one of the many body blows that this government has dealt to the economy, and we are now paying the price for that. They were brought in not as an effort to get this government re-elected. They were brought in because the people who were pushing them realized that this government is not going to get re-elected, and therefore they wanted to get as much as they could while they had the chance.

We also looked at some of the health accords that have been negotiated in recent years. The Minister of Finance talks about transparency in government, transparency in budget. The accords that have been negotiated are anything but transparent. They were done in total secrecy. The only reason that we have even seen the light of day on two of these accords is because somebody made that information available when this government was not prepared to allow that to see the light of day.

[0625]

Now, let's just surmise that a government -- an NDP government -- was going to push forward with an initiative like that. Who do you think they would talk to before bringing in that policy? They would probably negotiate with hospital administrators, because there are labs in hospitals that do some of this lab work. They would probably sit down with those labs. They would probably sit down with a lot of the regional health boards around British Columbia that are responsible for delivering services to British Columbians in communities around this province. They would probably sit down with some of the senior officials in the Ministry of Health. Wouldn't that be logical if you are talking about lab services, which is a core responsibility of the Ministry of Health? You know, they might even involve the Health minister of the province in negotiations of that nature.

But let's look at how these negotiations were done. They weren't done in that nature. They weren't done in a transparent or even a logical fashion. Those negotiations took place between the health unions and the chair of the Public Sector Employers Council, an individual by the name of Russ Pratt. Now, that's an interesting name, because he's just become the principal secretary to the Premier. The third partner to this negotiation was Tony Penikett. Tony Penikett is basically employed out of the Premier's Office as the chief accord negotiator.

[The Speaker in the chair.]

So here we have this secret deal that has been negotiated behind the scenes between the Premier's Office and the health unions in this province. That accord is an attack on the private sector. That accord is basically a sweetheart deal for the unions to increase their membership base and to increase the funding base that would come in to those union coffers through membership dues.

[ Page 11571 ]

J. Dalton: Good morning. It is April 1, for anyone who's tuned in. Of course, I needn't comment on what we celebrate on April 1.

Hon. Speaker, we have to place this Bill 54. . . . Remember the old TV show, "Car 54 Where are You?" Well, Bill 54, where are you? We have to place this bill in the context of the budget, which was only brought in two days ago. Of course, the government rushed out of here on February 1, trying to get a new minister up to speed. It took them two months to gather their thoughts to bring in a budget, which, of course, necessitated this very bill that we are now debating.

In the budget of 1999-2000 we see an admitted deficit of $890 million. That's what they admit to. Of course, the future will tell us what it actually will become. They also admit that by the end of the fiscal year -- March 31, 2000 -- the debt in this province will be $34.7 billion. That is an interest of $2.6 billion per year. Over $7 million per day is spent simply on interest, which would build an elementary school for each and every day of the fiscal year. That's how much interest we are paying out. The 1998-99 projected deficit was $95 million, but they've now admitted that the actual deficit for the fiscal year just concluded is actually $544 million. So that certainly escalated somewhat.

[0630]

However, we can look at other sources of revenue that this government just loves. I'm sure they would love to have more forest revenue, but it's beyond them to capture that. So what do they do? They throw fees and licences at us. In the current budget, fees and licences total $57.5 million.

When we look on page 65 of the "Budget Reports," we'll see a whole series of fees and licences listed under the title of "Other Revenue." Each and every one of them has a very interesting descriptive that introduces it: introduce and increase safety inspection fees; introduce fees for the registration of wills; restructure admission fees to the Royal B.C. Museum -- restructure, of course, means increase, needless to say; introduce forest recreation fees -- I'm sure the Forests minister is prepared to defend that one when he gets around to debating the budget; increase land title fees; introduce fees for advertising at brake check areas; increase towing and storage rates; increase commercial vehicle licence fees; introduce a National Safety Code certificate fee.

Every one of those is either an increase to a current fee or a new fee entirely -- a very strange way to raise revenue, particularly when I think of the very popular upcoming season in the summer when people like to go camping, which used to be an affordable family activity. Now, of course, the government is dinging those very users for campsite fees.

We should also look in particular ministries. One that I have in front of me is the Ministry of Municipal Affairs. As we know, because the government snuck this one in just before Christmas last year, municipal grants are down $40 million. The Municipal Affairs budget is down $99 million. It's taken a 41 percent decrease -- a real whack. But where does that end up? Well, of course, there is a food chain in the legislative process, just like there is a food chain in any other process. At the end or the bottom of the food chain are the municipalities of this province.

By the way, just before I get to cite a particular example of the impact of these decreasing municipal grants, we should also note that the FTEs in the Municipal Affairs ministry are up five. There's a very marginal increase from 456 to 461. It's rather interesting that the Municipal Affairs budget is decreased by 41 percent, yet the FTEs in that ministry are up five. That math doesn't seem to quite work out properly.

Let me just cite a particular example of the impact of the municipal grants decrease, because it happened, actually, in my own municipality. I guess I have perhaps, in a sense, the unfortunate happenstance to be a North Vancouver district taxpayer. But I'm not alone in this misery that this government is creating. The North Vancouver district has approved its 1999 budget, and that will result in a 5.4 percent tax increase, so my tax bill will be going up 5.4 percent.

[0635]

Where are they to go? Where are they to turn for revenue? There is only one other course of action -- well, actually two. They could significantly reduce services. Of course, that would mean that the taxpayers would be squawking about the streets that are in decay and the sidewalks and the water not flowing properly. Or, as all municipalities will be forced to do in some form, they have to pass that grant decrease on to the local taxpayer. I am rather surprised to hear the Municipal Affairs minister offering advice to the district of North Vancouver as to how they should handle their affairs, when this government has such a dismal record of handling its own.

Other people have got into the prebudget discussion -- now, of course, the budget discussion -- including the B.C. Federation of Labour, an organization that, I presume, is still supportive of this government. Angela Schira, who, we are

[ Page 11572 ]

We know, of course, that the B.C. Business Summit certainly has an opinion about economic growth. They've called for tax cuts and a range of measures to encourage investment. The problem, as we know -- and this government seems to think that it can turn back the clock to the 1970s -- is that government cannot spend its way out of a recession. It cannot spend its way out of the economic woes and mess that we are in. Running up deficits and debt doesn't cut it. I should say. . . . I'm sure that the government side will be saying that the B.C. Business Summit is just, perhaps, an arm of the B.C. Liberals, and some of this other nonsense that they spin.

The B.C. Business Summit leaders. . . . We know there were many of them who gathered last fall to come up with the blueprint for economic recovery, which this government chose not to listen to. The summit does not advocate abandoning the cause of health care and education. What the summit recognizes, and what every other province in this country has recognized, is that when you build a strong economy, you therefore produce revenue. Revenue, of course, translates into sources that this government, or any other government, will have to spend on health care and education and public safety and social services and even municipal affairs, so that I as a taxpayer in North Van may not have to face a 5.4 percent increase. That's the problem that this government has created and doesn't recognize.

[0640]

Well, I can predict that if we carry on with this crash course to disaster, those services, like every other in this province, will certainly be eroded and sacrificed on the altar of NDP foolishness. And who will pay for that? I think this is the irony of the whole exercise. This government says: "We're protecting health care and education." Let me just think ahead: education, students, my children -- all of our children and grandchildren. Who's going to pay the debt that this government has left us? It won't be our generation; it will be the next generation. It will be the very generation that we are training -- spending huge dollars and investing in their minds and in their training. Many of them will be leaving for Alberta and Ontario and Washington State and the Far East and wherever else they can find employment. So we're spending a huge amount of money investing in the minds of the young people, many of whom will not even be here to pay off this debt. The ones who will be left will have a legacy to discharge the debt. I think it's very ironic that this government claims to protect education, yet it is leaving a massive bill for those very people.

You don't spend your way out of trouble. You encourage investment and employment; you encourage people to come to British Columbia. Many people want to come here. They're proud of the environmental factors in this province and the way of life. I gather that the sun is shining this morning -- we can't see it, but I think the sun has come up.

Hon. M. Sihota: Another beautiful day in British Columbia.

J. Dalton: There we are, as the member opposite says: "Another beautiful day in British Columbia." But economically, hon. member, it is not a beautiful day in British Columbia. The whole scenario is wrong.

What we have to do is recognize ways to generate real revenue in this province, which comes through investment and employment and by respecting the traditional natural resource industries -- not red-taping them to death, but respecting the fact that forestry and mining have always been the integral industries of this province. Sure we can encourage tourism -- and will do so -- and the high-tech industry and the other new-age industries. But if we abandon the traditional industries of this province, the $1 billion loss that the forest industry has just reported will only increase, and the timber sales that I referred to earlier will only further decrease. We are on a treadmill to economic disaster, and this government has no plan. The budget -- and certainly this interim supply bill we're debating -- has no plan for us to get out of the mess that we're in.

[0645]

When we look back at those budgets, we see that in '94-95 the projected deficit for that fiscal year was $898 million, but when they actually got around to doing their homework, they reported an actual deficit of $370 million. I think we might even question that, but that's a few years ago now. The '95-96 budget projected a surplus of $114 million. So this is the first of these so-called balanced budgets -- $114 million. Well, as we know, that shrank to a revision of $16 million. And then in '96-97 there was a projected surplus -- another balance, supposedly -- of $87 million. Well, all of that disappeared, hon. Speaker, which of course generated the report that the auditor general produced just recently.

[ Page 11573 ]

Other sorry items that this government has to re-examine in the light of this request for. . . . I've tallied up the amount of money that this government wants us to authorize through Bill 54. It's $6.88 billion in total. That's what this government would like us to authorize. I shudder to think of issuing that cheque to this government.

The Pacificat. The fast ferry fiasco, hon. Speaker. . . . Well, we know they've admitted that that project is over budget by $240 million. That's what they've admitted to date, hon. Speaker, and I would have to suggest that it is quite likely to be much more than that. We also know, of course, that the fast cat ferry is well behind schedule -- like three years behind schedule. And there's no assurance that it's going to fit the needs of the Horseshoe Bay-Nanaimo run that it's advertised to do.

Skeena Cellulose. What more can I say about that? What was it -- $349 million thrown out the window?

The convention centre. Well, there's been lots of media coverage recently about the convention centre. I want to just put one comment into the record. This is a comment from John Fraser, who's the media spokesperson for the federal Fisheries minister -- of course, David Anderson being the senior cabinet minister for this province. Now what does Mr. Fraser say? "There is no commitment on the table by the federal government. It's an awful lot of money. We have to be very careful about how we handle the taxpayers' money."

Hon. D. Miller: That's a travesty! Why are you undermining B.C.'s position? Why are you saying to the federal government: "Don't give any money"? It's outrageous. It's scandalous that he won't speak up for British Columbia.

The Speaker: Members, members. Take it easy.

[0650]

The spokesperson for the federal government says we have to be very careful how we handle the taxpayers' money, so I think there's a very strong hint and indication that the feds may pull out of the convention centre proposal. We know the Premier has jumped in and said that, oh well, he'll pay for it. Where that money will come from, who knows? Perhaps when we get into more debate on the budget itself, we'll be able to comment on the location of the convention centre and the union deals and the other factors behind it.

SkyTrain. Of course, that is the most looming disaster of all; $3 billion-plus is the projected cost to run this thing through neighbourhoods that don't want it. It hasn't been properly assessed environmentally; there's no economic plan. It is strictly the back of the envelope with the Premier. As I remember, a few months back when Arthur Griffiths was working on the light rail project -- he was hired to shepherd that thing through and examine its implications. . . . One day, literally out of the blue -- and Arthur Griffiths had no more knowledge than anyone else -- the Premier decided, because he got up one morning and had a brain wave, that he was going to run SkyTrain from Vancouver Community College out to New Westminster and have a T-line to Port Moody and another one over the mountains. I believe one is on its way to Oliver -- who knows?

I predict -- and I've said that publicly at a North Vancouver district council meeting -- that SkyTrain will be the worst boondoggle and disaster this government has ever thought of. Our children, grandchildren and several hundred generations beyond will have to pay for that one -- if they ever pull it off, and hopefully, they won't.

Hon. Speaker, I have a couple of other aspects of the sorry record of this government to comment on. Government propaganda. I'll just make a quick observation about the Nisga'a ads that were running incessantly -- print, television, etc. We believe that at least $8 million has been spent on the Nisga'a ads. The other day I got an interesting phone call from a friend of mine who is a senior executive in the advertising business. He said to me that the production costs of the Nisga'a ad that ran on TV were extraordinary. He didn't want to get into all the politics as to why it was running or anything else; he just simply described the production costs as "extraordinary." I think we can all use our imaginations as to what that translates into.

The other interesting thing he told me about the ad is that it was produced in Toronto. Why would we produce a British Columbia ad about a British Columbia treaty in Toronto? Who knows? I guess we couldn't find the people to do it here. Maybe the government had no confidence to do it here.

There's one other one as well. We have to cast our minds back a few years to Bingogate. Perhaps the only thing I'll say right now, because of the passage of time, is that when the Premier took over his current job -- that's three years ago now, three years ago-plus -- he promised that the NDP Party would pay back the money that was taken from the NDP charities in Nanaimo. To my knowledge, that has never happened. How can we, in all conscience, vote in almost $7 billion in interim supply to a government and a party that can't even do the honourable thing and live up to a promise and a commitment it made through its Premier and leader to pay back the bingo funds that were taken improperly?

[0655]

Going through my papers in preparation for the budget speech and, of course, this interim supply, I came across an article that reminded me of the plight of Ron Lapointe, who the minister and also the new Minister Responsible for the Public Service got involved with. Mr. Lapointe moved here from Manitoba last year. He wanted to set up a mechanics trade, because that was his profession in Manitoba. He brought his tools with him, along with all his other personal effects, when he and his family moved from Manitoba.

[ Page 11574 ]

It turns out that a ministry official commented that the only review available to Mr. Lapointe was to challenge the tax bill. That was back in January. I don't know whether Mr. Lapointe gave up in frustration and went back to Manitoba, where no doubt he could find work, or whether he appealed the bill -- hopefully, successfully if he did so. But I remember that it was not only the Minister of Finance. . . . By the way, she also defended this tax bill by saying that she had to protect B.C. business. I might ask: what B.C. business is there to protect?

Mr. Lapointe was defeated in his attempt to set up a new business in this province, and the government may still be arguing over the toss as to whether they're going to be able to extract that money. I'm sure he won't be able to pay it. After all, he wants to set up a business, and the last thing he's going to be in a position to do is pay $4,500 to get that business started. So here's a government that claims. . . . We heard again from the minister two days ago, and she had another photo op the other day about red tape. I'm sure Mr. Lapointe is not very impressed with the track record of this government on red tape and taxation.

Seeing that the red light is about to flash and I would hate to go over time, of course, in contravention of the rules -- and there it is -- I will hold my further remarks until we get around to the budget, which I'm sure someday we will do.

The Speaker: The conversations in the chamber are getting just a wee bit noisy.

C. Clark: Good morning to everyone. Every year the NDP comes and asks for more money because they can't live within their budget. Every single year that I've been here, we come in on March 31 and we sit late -- overnight in most cases -- because the NDP has come up with a plan. But they can't live by it. They can't live within their budget.

A New Democrat told me recently that there are three kinds of people in this world: those who can count and those who can't. And that would sort of sum up the NDP approach to budgeting, the NDP concept of financing and accounting. They can't count. They can come up with a budget, but they can't live within it. So every year we come back, and we're asked to approve first, money that the government's already spent and second, money that they want to spend but they haven't got approval for. When they were on this side of the House, they used to say that that was the wrong thing to do -- that that was an incompetent, reckless way to run government. And I agree.

[0700]

There are two things the government can do. First, they can call back the Legislature when they run out of money. They can call it back early and say: "Look, we've run out of money. This is an extraordinary circumstance. We're going to go to the Legislature and ask them for permission to be able to spend more." It's not government's money; it's not the NDP's money. That money belongs to taxpayers. That's the people whose pockets it comes out of, and they're the people that should have the opportunity to scrutinize how government's spending its money. That's what this Legislature is fundamentally about: allowing people some access to the decisions that are made on their behalf on the money that is taken from them and that is spent on their behalf by government. But instead, consistently, this government has chosen to shut down that process, to cut the public out of that process, to shut them away from the Legislature and say: "No, we're not going to let you have any say in how we spend your money. We're just going to spend it on your behalf without permission."

That's the NDP way. And this Finance minister has the gall to call that a transparent process. It was only days ago that this Finance minister stood in the House and called this the most transparent budget that this government has ever produced. She implied that this is one of the most transparent budgets we've ever seen in British Columbia. Then, just days later, this Legislature is called together and asked to approve money that has already been spent -- that was never accounted for -- after the fact. Surely, if the government wants to spend the public's money, they have a duty to go to the public first and ask them if they would like it to be spent. That's what the whole estimates process is about: allowing the public, through the Legislature, some opportunity to scrutinize where their money is being spent. That's what the process is built for; that's how it originated.

When the NDP sat on this side of the House, that's what they used to say should happen. When they were over here, they stood up every year, in special warrants debate, and said: "What you, Social Credit government, are doing is wrong." That's what they used to say when they were on this side of the House. But they don't say that anymore; everything has changed now that they are in government. There are the necessities of, well, trying to stay in power, of doing whatever you can to hang on to government. That is what this government has been reduced to.

They are no longer the group of people. . . . Well, they've been exposed, as a group of people, for what they are -- not the group of people who stood on this side of the House for something, for a principle, and got up every year and consistently said: "You know, you Socreds are so wrong; you have no principles." Oh, they got up and said that the Socreds were corrupt, that they weren't working on the people's behalf. Now they are on that side of the House, and they're doing exactly the same thing. They're doing exactly the same thing as the Social Crediters that they used to attack so vigorously. You know, what the Socreds did was wrong, and what the NDP is doing is wrong. It's absolutely wrong.

The brand-new Minister of Aboriginal Affairs stands there. . . . He used to chastise the NDP up and down. I remember when he sat at this end of the House. He would sit for 24 hours and chastise the NDP. Now he will sit there silently behind the Premier, while he does exactly what he used to stand consistently and chastise them for.

The NDP can at least say that they have had eight years of doing this, and maybe they have gotten used to it. It's been a long time since the NDP were in opposition; they can at least say that. It was eight years ago. "We've changed our minds

[ Page 11575 ]

Interjection.

C. Clark: It is shameful. The government should change the way it operates. It should find a new way of doing things. That's what they promised us in the election in 1991; that's what they promised us in the election in 1996. They went to the people in 1996 and said: "Don't worry. You know, we might not have been a stellar government for the last five years; we might not have done everything you wanted us to do." They went to the people and said: "You know, we might have got caught with our hand in the cookie jar; we might have done some things that were maybe a little bit less than ethically upstanding." But at least they said they had a plan. They had a plan to fix the problems.

[0705]

You know, it brings me to three. . . . I want to talk about the kinds of plans that the NDP have, because you've got to ask yourself. . . . Someone has to be held responsible for this. Someone has to stand up and say that they are going to take responsibility. Where does the buck stop? One of these days they've got to say that the buck stops here. It stops right on that desk, on the Premier's desk. He can't shuffle off responsibility anymore. He can't stand there and say: "Oh, it's not my fault; it was the Socreds. They were so bad at budgeting. We're out of money, because they spent us into the hole. We're still trying to recover." He can't say that anymore. He's got to take responsibility. He's got to stand up, and he's got to say: "I have the backbone, the strong shoulders, the guts and the moxie to stand up and say that the buck stops here, right on my desk."

That's what he's got to stand up and say, but he won't do it. Consistently he has shirked responsibility for the problems he's got British Columbia into. Consistently he's denied that we are even in an economic recession. He's denied responsibility for the people who've lost their homes in Quesnel, the people who can't make their mortgage payments anymore, the people who can't put food on their table for their children and the people who've lost the dignity of having a paycheque. He shirked his responsibility, and it's time he stood up. But I don't expect that he will do that.

This budget plan is just another one of those NDP plans. There are three kinds of NDP plans. First, there is the plan that they have to come up with because the Legislature says they have to. This kind of fits into that category. The rules of the Legislature require that government come up with a budget every year, that government introduce it to the Legislature and that it be debated. Even the NDP can't avoid those kinds of plans; they can't avoid introducing them into the House. But you know, they never live by the plans. They introduce them. They talk about them because they have to. But they don't stick to them. It's like their budget plan. It's like their financial management plan.

Maybe we should very briefly go through the list of the kinds of plans this government has come up with. Let's look back to 1992. They had the deficit reduction strategy. Did they stick by it? No, the deficit went up. They had the debt management plan in 1995. Did they stick with it? No, the debt went up. They had the 1997 financial management plan. Did they live within that? No, they didn't. We had the 1998 revised financial management plan. Now, this year, we have the 1999 five-year fiscal planning framework. Do you think they're going to live by that? Do you think that for once they're going to stand up and live up to their promises, that they're going to meet their commitments and that they're going to live by their plan? Of course not.

No one in the public believes that this government's going to keep its promises. No one in the public -- particularly those who voted NDP in the last election, who must now feel a profound sense of betrayal about the fact that the NDP have consistently, shamelessly and without apology done everything they can to pull the wool over the voters' eyes and to trick the voters, to go out and tell them one thing, all the while knowing that they intended to do another. . . . That's what this government symbolizes.

[0710]

But then there's the second kind of plan the NDP likes to come up with. That's the plan they like to talk about but never produce, the one they like to do the press release about to make people think that they have one. They want to give the idea that they've got a plan, but they never actually produce that plan. What fits into that category that we've seen over the last year? Well, let's see. We've had the Premier's job plans. The Premier has promised 231,000 jobs, in separate announcements that he's made, and guess what. We're in a recession in British Columbia. We're losing jobs in British Columbia -- 14,000 jobs in the forest industry last year. That's 14,000 families, presumably with 14,000 mortgages, whose children deserve a secure economic future. Meanwhile, on the other hand, the Premier has a constant, non-stop, shameless flow of press releases announcing a total of 231,000 jobs.

An Hon. Member: Shameful!

C. Clark: That is worse than shameful, hon. Speaker. That is obscene. It is obscene to mislead people the way this government has. It's obscene to stand up and suggest to people that one of these days they might have some certainty for their

[ Page 11576 ]

You know, I'm sure that this Premier goes into cabinet meetings every month, every week -- when they have them -- and he sits down. He doesn't sit and say: "What are we going to do for British Columbia today?" He doesn't say: "How are we going to drag our province out this recession we've created? How are we going to get the thousands of forest workers that we've thrown onto the employment line back to work? How are we going to restore some hope and opportunity in British Columbia? How are we going to make this province great again?" He doesn't go into the cabinet meetings and say that. He goes in -- or he used to go in -- and says: "Well, folks, what headline do we want today? What are we gonna do to try and get ourselves in the paper? What press release can we cook up? What plan can we imagine, can we announce that we can get out there so we can get ourselves in the paper?" That's what he talks about. That's the record of this government. But we never even see the plans. They never even exist.

Three aluminum smelters -- where are they? It was only last year that we had members of the NDP getting up and speaking so hopefully. In fact, some of them got up and said they were sure that we were going to see three new aluminum smelters in British Columbia by the year 2000. Well, you know what? The NDP had better hurry up, because we've only got nine months until the year 2000, and we don't have any aluminum smelters yet. Where's the Nike plant? Where's the semiconductor plant? Where are all those jobs? Where's the 20,000 jobs in the forest industry? They're not there. They were just intended to be announcements and press releases, just there to get the government on the front page of the paper.

You know, I bet the Premier walks into cabinet meetings today and says exactly the opposite, because the public has caught up with him. He used to stand there and make these announcements. For a little while it worked. He did get himself on the front page of the paper. Those job announcements did get him somewhere. But you know what? You can't keep fooling the public, and you can't even keep fooling the media. Eventually people are going to catch up with you, and they finally have.

[0715]

That should be the lesson for this government as they look toward the next election. We know there's an election looming. Surely this is an election budget or, at least, a leadership budget. My goodness, you see all the goodies in there: $110 million in contingencies. Don't you normally put money aside for a contingency when you've got money? Don't you normally say it if you've got a couple of grand in the bank? "I want to put an extra $1,000 aside in case I need my roof fixed." That's a kind of contingency. You don't say: "I'm $1,000 in debt, and I'm going to put another $1,000 aside for a contingency." Where do these guys learn economics? Where did they learn to do their math? There must be some kind of accounting principle that maybe they teach at the London School of Economics or maybe in the NDP campaign school that the rest of us just don't get. And it's not just the members in this House that don't get it; it's the public that doesn't get it.

The Minister of Aboriginal Affairs would sit there and suggest that members on this side of the House look foolish when we stand up and ask the government to be accountable. Well, I would suggest that this Minister of Aboriginal Affairs really, really shouldn't talk that way. He made the mistake of going from being the man who stood there and pretended to be the independent voice for British Columbians, pretended to be the guy who was going to stand up to the government and who stood there and chastised them regularly, and now he's walked over into this den of scandal -- this non-stop wave after wave of embarrassment, not just for the government but for all the people that they claim to represent. You know, people don't have to support the government to be represented by them. We certainly don't have any choice. This is the government for all of us in British Columbia, and the only choice that we seem to have is to just sit and wait for an election and, in the meantime, feel ashamed of this government, feel ashamed when people from all over the country call us and ask: "What is going on in British Columbia? Why can't the British Columbia government get something right for once?"

[0720]

[ Page 11577 ]

Where is the NDP while all this is going on? Every single member of the NDP has had the opportunity to stand up and say: "Enough's enough. This government doesn't reflect my values anymore; this government doesn't reflect the values of my constituents anymore." Goodness knows, it doesn't. I don't know what the members on that side of the House are thinking. Maybe they do have a different set of values from the rest of us. Maybe years in power have led them to a place where they have a different view about how British Columbia should be governed and about an acceptable ethical standard for ministers of the Crown. Maybe eight years in government have instilled that in them, have changed their values fundamentally.

I can tell you this: I get calls from NDP constituencies, and their constituents' values have not changed. The people of British Columbia still expect a government that operates according to a moral and ethical framework that reflects something they understand, the kind of values that they want to teach their children and that they want to instil in the next generation. I get calls from those constituencies -- people who are frustrated and are asking what can be done. I tell them, "Look, you can either wait for the next election, or you can call your NDP MLA and ask them to do the right thing for once," because every single NDP MLA has a voice.

They went to that cabinet meeting with the Premier after his home was searched, and they sat there. We understand that they had the opportunity to make comments. We don't know what the contents of those discussions were, but we certainly know the outcome. Not a single member of the NDP stood up and said: "Enough's enough. I'm calling your bluff, Mr. Premier. I'm sorry. This doesn't reflect my values anymore. This isn't why I ran for office in the first place."

I know that most members of this House did run for office with the best of intentions. We do disagree with each other frequently. In fact, within our various caucuses, we have different ideas about how we want to get where we're going. But you know, I think most people got elected with the idea that they wanted to accomplish something good -- and not just that they wanted to accomplish something that was good for the people but that they wanted to do it in a way that they could be proud of, that reflected the values that they wanted to instil in their children. I think that's what most people believe when they get elected. That's what they want to achieve. That's why we're here.

[0725]

Is that what the New Democrats on that side of the House wanted to achieve when they ran for office -- to lower the public respect for politicians and the political system, to debase it to such a level that good people wouldn't even put their names forward or would think twice about putting their names forward for public office? Or did they want to do this so that they could be a part of a government that is engulfed in scandal after scandal, that grants casino licences apparently without a process, even though it's the same government that proposes to be in charge of the most massive expansion of gambling in this province's history? Is that the kind of government that these members decided they wanted to be a part of?

[W. Hartley in the chair.]

When they ran for office, did they decide that they wanted to be a part of a government that put together a fast ferries program that nobody asked for, that nobody particularly wanted, that wasn't going to work, that had no financial controls and that, when it was finished, the government wouldn't even admit that they'd made a mistake on? Are these the kind of people. . . ? When New Democrats decided to run for office -- when they made the choice that each of us has to make to put their name forward, when they made the tough decision to go before the public and put their good name on the line -- did they say, "I think I want to be part of a government whose priorities are $450 million for the Ferrari of fast ferries," while people can't get heart surgery? Did they say they wanted to be a part of a government that wanted to underwrite $300 million for a convention centre, while parents have to fundraise to buy textbooks and paper for their children in school? When these people decided to run for office, were those the priorities they wanted to see reflected in this government? Was that what they wanted to achieve? When they ran for office, did they say, "I want to be a part of a government that spends $7 million a day in interest payments on the debt," while kids aren't getting the kind of quality education that they deserve, while students are at university and can't get courses and while students are graduating in British Columbia with some of the highest levels of debt load we've ever seen?

Is that what they said when they ran for office? I want to make this appeal to this House today. I don't believe that every member of the NDP believes that those are the right choices for government. I don't believe that when they decided to put their good names forward, they thought that those would be the right priorities for government, because they're not the right priorities for government. The priorities for government have to be protecting health care and protecting education -- not assaulting it, not endangering it, not making it impossible to pay for.

Deputy Speaker: Member, your time has expired.

C. Clark: That is why I urge every member of this House, particularly the New Democrats, to take their opportunity to vote against this bill. Make your voice heard.

Deputy Speaker: Thank you, member.

C. Clark: Make it impossible for this government to carry on another day.

V. Anderson: The debate on the supply bill should be a constructive debate about the future of our province, but

[ Page 11578 ]

[0730]

The next paragraph goes on to say: "It's been 37 years since an NDP government first introduced medicare in Canada. . . ." It was not the NDP that introduced medicare in Canada. I grew up in Saskatchewan, grew up with the CCF, the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation. It was the CCF that introduced medicare in Canada.

The difference between the CCF and the NDP as it exists here in British Columbia is the difference between night and day. The NDP in Saskatchewan still carries much of the heritage of the CCF, and as has been said here again and again in this House, that heritage has been reflected in a different kind of vision than the NDP in British Columbia. In Saskatchewan they have balanced the budget; they have listened to the people on the street; they have responded to the concerns of those who are not as well blessed with financial resources as others. And that is not true here in British Columbia.

Once again, as I've had to do every year that I've been in the House since 1991, I have to wonder how come the heritage of the CCF is not displayed by the NDP of British Columbia. I think there are many NDP members in this province who are saddened and frustrated and angry because that heritage has been lost. Once again, like last year and the years before that, there is no mention of the concern which is historic among the CCF for the people of the province who are struggling with economic difficulties for a whole variety of reasons.

When I first came to British Columbia, in 1966, I went to the CCF-NDP to see if I could find the heritage that I had known in Saskatchewan. I found some of the old-timer CCFers there, but I found a new breed that had gone in an entirely different direction and that have since dominated in that party. So I went to look for the values of the CCF, and I found them within the Liberal movement, which has a balance of concern for the people of the community, along with the traditions of Tommy Douglas of balancing the budget and having an independent financial resource that could care for the whole of society.

So I rise today to say again, as I have had to say so often, that I am saddened that in the budget that this government put forward, there is no recognition of support for some 20 percent of the population who, for a variety of reasons, are in an economic situation where life is not as easy or as open or as free. It's a sad day that this continues to be the case. It's a sad day when I go down and visit in the communities where I live and across the province and find that the people on low incomes who counted on the NDP to support them are finding that they have turned their back on them, and I find that the youth on the street who counted on the NDP to support them are finding that they are not having regard for them. It's a sad day.

[0735]

One of the first things that this NDP government did was to emasculate that program and to cut it in half, to take away some 20 beds for young people who wanted to recover and cut it down to the seven beds which exist at the present time. And it's still the only program in this province where young people can go for the opportunities they need.

As we meet with the youth in the downtown core of Vancouver, they tell us again and again that they need an opportunity for detox, an opportunity which has been denied them by this government and of which there is no mention in this particular report. They need an opportunity to move from detox, if there were such an opportunity, into long-term treatment and care -- treatment and care which is denied them at a very crucial time in their lives by this government and for which there is no response in this particular budget. It's an indication that this government and this budget have denied their roots, their heritage, for the people who most have need of them.

They talk about a decrease in income tax, and they say this is one of their major planks. But the part of our constituency that depends upon them does not pay income tax, because they don't earn enough money to pay income tax. This has no bearing for them. It was interesting when they gave a sample of what benefits we'll get from the tax cuts. They started with a single-parent family with two young children with an income of $30,000, but 20 percent of our population, if not more, does not make $30,000 in income. They do not have that kind of income. There's no indication that this budget deals with those particular people and their needs and their concerns. This government has gone astray from its roots, astray from its heritage.

I want to touch on another particular program, and that is the program that comes out of Children and Families, which is there presumably. . . . It is in the legislation we voted for. It is basically sound legislation, but it's the implementation and management of that program which is a disaster in our province at the present time.

[0740]

[ Page 11579 ]

They had another youngster, and shortly after that youngster was born, the father was walking along the park with the youngster in the carriage. As he walked along the park, the police descended upon him, took the youngster, and he had to go home and tell his wife that his daughter had been taken by the government. Can you image the disaster and the stress that brought upon that family in the light of their previous history?

They went to court on their own behalf, without a lawyer. Because he happened to have a job, legal aid is not available to them, but he couldn't afford a lawyer because of the low income, part-time job. But in spite of the inadequacy of that opportunity against all the high-priced government help that is available for the ministry, they were able to convince the judge that the infant belonged in their own home. So they had the infant home and every month they were back meeting with the ministry, trying to meet their requirements and trying to work co-operatively with them.

So what happened on Tuesday of this week -- Tuesday afternoon? Two workers and six policemen came to the house. They forced themselves in with their guns in hand, and before they'd left, they had beaten the husband and knocked him unconscious -- they had knocked him to the ground. They took him to the hospital, and they took their daughter away from them once again.

Those are the kind of circumstances we are living with in this province. It's unaccountable, and it must be stopped. Today I want to formally request and demand an independent inquiry into the history of the way this family has been treated by this government and its ministry. It is something that must be gone into by an independent inquiry.

We have been to the ombudsman, the commissioner, the child advocate and the ministry. This is the second or third year that I have brought it up in the House. It just goes from worse to worse. There is nothing in this budget to deal with those kinds of circumstances.

These circumstances are the reality for hundreds in our province. Members of the Chinese community have gone public. They've had public forums saying that they have been mistreated, misunderstood and mismanaged in trying to work with the Ministry for Children and Families. The same is true for our young people and the Ministry of Human Resources. These concerns are not reflected in this budget. I cannot understand this government, which for years said they had a priority for those who had need of Human Resources or Children and Families, to find that this kind of representation is not there.

Interjection.

V. Anderson: Do I want to spend money? Yes, I want to spend money if it's needed in order to do the things that need to be done for people. But I don't want to be spending money on advertising. I don't want to be spending money on fast ferries. I don't want to be spending money on a SkyTrain that the community hasn't adopted. I want to be spending money on the priorities which the CCF would have spent money on -- people who are in need and who have circumstances around children within our community. You have to listen to the people of your community.

[0745]

For three hours I've listened to them, one after the other, presenting their needs, presenting their concerns that this multiculturalism-promoting government has said that ESL programs have to be cut back. How can you be a multiculturalism-promoting government and say that ESL programs have to be cut back, when the very educators that voted and supported you in large part are saying these are fundamental programs for these young people? As one of the principals said quite clearly to me, 45 percent of the students who come into that elementary school and who were born and grew up in Canada come into school without the English language. They come in as English-as-a-second-language students.

It isn't a question of budget; it's a question of managing your money. Wake up. You don't need more money. You just need to put it in the right place. Put it on students as a priority. Put in on people in need as a priority. You should know that. I grew up with that, and have been bred within the CCF movement on that. I brought that forward because I find that a concern here within the Liberal movement.

Hon. Speaker, that kind of concern came across from teachers, from counsellors, from teaching psychologists, from teachers associates, from elementary school teachers, from secondary school teachers -- all the way through. How come this budget doesn't reflect what the people of the community are saying to you, what the people of the community are asking?

Another priority which the community had -- those same teachers, that same group of people. . . .

Interjections.

V. Anderson: You go argue with the teachers, not with me.

The same concern was for young people who have special needs. There's nothing in this budget about people with special needs. They were saying that in the last number of years, they have had taken away from them the resource people that dealt with people with special needs. They have had librarians taken away from them. They have had associate counsellors taken away from them. They have had taken away from them the opportunities to deliver the integrated programs that people with special needs need.

This government, which has a great publicity program about how it's helping everybody. . . . When you listen to the teachers of the community -- that's what I did for three hours the other night -- one after the other, they said that these things have to be brought back into the classroom. They have taken away the multiculturalism workers. They have taken away the very things that enable the teachers to do their jobs. And they have said, in effect, that it's not only good cutting

[ Page 11580 ]

It isn't more money; it's a reorganizing of money. This government has wasted more money in management -- mismanagement -- than any place. That's not hard to tell. And everybody in the community knows that this government has wasted it. I know that it hurts the members over here to hear this.

An Hon. Member: Not a bit.

V. Anderson: It doesn't hurt you a bit to hear it? I'm glad you're honest with us -- that it doesn't hurt you to hear that your people are suffering and that your teachers are telling you something different than what you're listening to.

[0750]

It's a disgrace that this government has allowed the very people who depend upon it, or thought they could depend upon it, to be cast out. Talk to the people with disabilities. They've been frustrated by the whole B.C. Benefits program -- not by the way it was written in legislation but by the way it's managed, by the way people have been cut out of the system by regulations and by requirements to sign documents and to give away their freedoms and their opportunities in order to get the limited funds that are available to them.

It's this government which cut back on the opportunity for those on social services to earn extra money to keep themselves partly in the workforce and partly have the opportunity to do a better job for their families. Then, in this budget, they're talking about replacing what they cut out and giving more opportunity to people to earn some money on top of the support they give. It was this government that cut it out. It's in almost every situation.

When this government says that they're going to improve circumstances, what they're doing is simply putting back what they took away from these people over the last eight years. They've taken things away from people, and then they want to give them back and take credit for it. People don't have that short a memory. I think it's a disgrace and a disaster what has happened to this province, that people have put their trust falsely in those that they depended upon. I think this government has to be accountable to itself as well as to the people of the community for what they have done and the hardships they have caused.

I will give Tim Stevenson and Jenny Kwan credit for going to meetings in the downtown east side at the Carnegie Centre and taking the abuse that they've taken from the community, time and time again, for the lack of support by this government over these last few years. It's hard to try to put into words the victimization of so many people in this community by this government. Whether it's done intentionally or unintentionally is irrelevant. The fact is that it's happening, and these people feel they are being victimized by the very people who should be their supporters.

That's got to stop. The people of this community have to come together to stop it if we can't. Unfortunately, in our system, the government has a term of office. They have the opportunity to continue for the full length of that term. But when they see the kind of dissatisfaction and hear the kind of hurt that's happening to the people in this province, in true conscience they need to examine their own consciences and ask: "Where have we gone astray? Why have we gone astray? What are we going to do about it?"

[0755]

Our health care is in a disastrous situation, and this point has been raised again and again. We need to re-evaluate, not reorganize. We've had too many reorganizations already. What the people of this province want is some stability, some promise that tomorrow will have some relationship to today, that things aren't going to change overnight -- that they can have some stability and that they can count on it.

One of the realities for many of our young people is that when they have completed high school or when they have completed university and when they go to look for a job, people ask: "What experience do you have? Where have you worked? What background have you had in working with people?" A very high percentage of our young people have no experience -- no opportunity in the working community and no opportunity to have a background.

Many in my era started to work Saturdays and after school at 12 years of age, if not younger. We worked our way through high school and through university, and we were able to pay our way by working. But because of the rules and regulations that are available -- developed mostly by this government -- the young people cannot work. They cannot be employed either when they are going through high school or when they are going through university. A very simple illustration today is that there are very few paper-boys or paper-girls anymore who go out and deliver the paper in the morning and make their spending money, because they have been regulated out of that. Those routes have been taken by adults -- adults who have become unionized and have replaced the young people that once had opportunities.

This government does not recognize, apparently, what they have done to the young people of this province. They don't recognize that they have words for the people with disabilities, but not actions. They don't recognize that they develop a system for children and families and mismanage it

[ Page 11581 ]

We must have a change. This budget will not do it. The motions of this government won't do it. I ask the people of this province to make sure, by letters, by writing, by phone calls, and finally by an election, that we have a new way in this province.

[0800]

One of the things we're losing today is integrity in government, and I want to read a couple of quotes.

Interjections.

R. Coleman: I hear from my side over here that there are people who wish to think that I don't have the right to speak in this House and wish to tell me to sit down, but I will not. I will take my time in this House, and I will use it to my value and to the value of my constituents.

On June 16, 1994, Prime Minister Jean Chrétien, when announcing in the House of Commons the appointment of Howard Wilson, Canada's first ethics counsellor, said this: "When we took office, there was an unprecedented level of public cynicism about our national institutions and the people to whom they are entrusted by the voters. The political process had been thrown into disrepute. People saw a political system which served its own interests and not those of the public. When trust is gone, the system cannot work."

For many years we had a conflict-of-interest commissioner who, as an officer of this Legislature, represented us well and did a good job on behalf of members of this House. In a report he submitted, where the same quote came from, these were his comments:

"It is my view that a nation is no stronger than its ethical and moral principles, and the ultimate strength of those ethical and moral principles is in the hands of those citizens democratically elected to lead our country in the provinces, the territories and our municipalities. The cornerstone that underpins sound moral and ethical principles and values is the integrity, honour and trustworthiness of our democratically elected officials at all levels of government."

This is the fourth time that I've stood at this time in a session of the Legislature, and each time I've stood, I've asked one question. And I ask the question because it reflects on the historical perspective that I have of this government -- the historical perspective of the distrust of the public of the province. It is a simple question: have you paid the charities back yet? Have you paid back those people in Nanaimo from whom you took money through the Commonwealth Holding Society?

You promised to. Your trustworthiness and your credibility as individuals within this House is gone because you have not done so. The fact of the matter is that money was taken from charities that ran street programs for kids. Money was taken from charities that ran programs for nuns. You know what? That is despicable. And what's more despicable is an organization, in the form of the NDP government, that would stand before the people of this province and say: "We're going to fix that, and we're going to pay it back" -- and it hasn't been done. When you think of that, the integrity, honour and trustworthiness has been gone for a long, long time. And that's a shame.

This is a government that deceived the B.C. taxpayers. They deceived them about the state of B.C.'s finances, they misled this Legislature about the 1995 and 1996 budgets, and they presided over successive downgrades of our own B.C. credit rating. You have to wonder where the integrity is in this system when the people that are debating the estimates of the province on behalf of their constituents -- the people that are standing in this House that are elected by the people of British Columbia -- are giving them false information with regard to the state of the finances of the province. That is wrong. It is wrong simply because we have a right to know. The people have the right to know, and people that would mislead this House and mislead the province about those two successive budgets for political means have stepped over the boundaries of ethics and trustworthiness that the people who elect us wish to see.

[0805]

For us to have not balanced a budget in eight years, downloaded assets of government and clawed money out of Crown corporations and bled them dry so they increased their debt simply so we could even come close to trying to balance the budget is wrong. The fact of the matter is that government today does not know how to function in a manner that is fiscally responsible to get the best service for the best dollar for the best value for the taxpayer.

This is a government that has brought the B.C. Ferry Corporation to the brink of bankruptcy. Can you imagine, our Ferry Corporation now has the borrowing power to go to $1.3 billion? In doing that, we have a Ferry Corporation that buys its maps from a company in Ontario -- a Ferry Corporation that's going to spend $450 million of B.C. taxpayers' money for the fast ferry program, and when it goes out to tender for its maps, a firm in Burnaby and a firm in Langley do not get the tender, and we make our maps in Ontario. We use B.C. taxpayers' money that we're borrowing against a fast ferry

[ Page 11582 ]

But the interesting thing is that if you keep on going, maybe you should have just built a fixed link in the first place, because you're going to have $1.3 billion in debt. What are you going to do? You're going to have to service that debt. You won't be able to with your revenues today and you won't be able to with the money you projected out of the gas taxes, so you'll turn around and have to borrow again next year and the next year and the next year, and pretty soon we'll have a Ferry Corporation that will have a debt rivalling that of the government. It doesn't make any sense, hon. Speaker. It is bad fiscal management, and it is bad management in general.

This is also a government that has breached its own guidelines in granting approval in principle for a casino licence. That casino licence approval in principle was to a friend, an acquaintance -- I'm not sure which. Maybe today it's a friend, but then: "Oh, we did build a deck together." Maybe it is a neighbour, or: "Maybe I do know him better." All of a sudden we have somebody that is receiving an approval in principle which is now under investigation by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

An Hon. Member: Why don't you wait till it's over?

R. Coleman: Now let's take a step back and talk about this for a second. I hear the member saying: let's wait until it's over. That's a great line; I want to give you a great line.

Back in the days when the Premier of this province was in opposition, there was a credible politician in this province who did the honourable thing when he was questioned about a simple thing like a plane ticket on an international flight for a staff member of his from Siemens International. What did that minister do? Immediately after his office was brought into question, he resigned. He stepped aside until the investigation was completed, until that thing was cleared up, and that's what he should have done. This Premier, at that time, demanded that that happen. This Premier stood on a soapbox and said: "If you have any honour in your office, any integrity in your office, you'll do the right thing and step aside until the investigation is completed." That's exactly what this Premier should have done when he was found to be under investigation.

Hon. Speaker, this is a government that has attacked the integrity of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the judiciary and made false statements regarding non-existent criminal investigations of the media by Crown counsel. Talk about interference in the process of justice. The government of British Columbia criticizes the RCMP, tells somebody that there is an investigation going on by Crown counsel when there isn't, and they expect us to take their credibility seriously.

[0810]

An Hon. Member: You don't know what you're talking about.

R. Coleman: I know of what I speak, because I was under a recall at one point in time, although no signatures were ever returned. For 60 days everything I did was monitored; every cent I spent was monitored. Nobody came in from outside and did anything for me, because it would have been recorded and would have been given to the chief electoral officer anyway. But to have to have a forensic audit take place to find out that push-pulls were done and polling was done and sent through a minister's office so the results could reach the people that were under recall is wrong.

The fact of the matter is that to say that it's a new piece of legislation, that it's a new application of the legislation so we only cheated a little bit, still doesn't make it right. It's still the fact of the matter that people misled people in those ridings about the use of outside political organizers and polling.

This is also a government that has wasted millions if not billions of dollars on such things as the Skeena Cellulose bailout -- a bailout of a failing pulp mill, a highly polluting pulp mill and one that is not exactly modernized, one that skewed the market when the bailout took place.

We also have a government here that has wasted millions of dollars on Nisga'a propaganda, minibuses, all kinds of sweetheart deals and numerous other little boondoggles. It's also a government that wastes money right in this Legislature. This is a government that brought us back in December because there was a big rush and it was an important thing to get on with the Nisga'a treaty. We left here in December and came back in January, and we came back earlier than the agreement that was in place between us relative to when we would come back, because we had to get the treaty done. A week later we adjourned the House, and we came back two months later. So what did we do? We ramped up the cost of the operation of this building twice -- the operation of the additional staff, the people in the dining room, the costs of the per diems for members -- when we could have done it in a normal legislative session. And the only reason we did that is because somebody was looking for photo ops to increase their popularity in the month of December -- and that failed. In the month of January they found out that they weren't doing too well in the debate, and they had to change the minister. Then they had to train the minister.

The other thing is that this is a government that has committed millions of dollars for a new Vancouver convention centre. Now, isn't it interesting that they've committed those millions of dollars without knowing the actual costs of construction and the cost of the facility? The dollars are like a piece of Jell-O trying to stick to the wall.

But you know what else? This is a government that wants the opposition to review the trade and convention facility, come to a decision that says that this is for the best for everybody in British Columbia -- but does not provide the pro formas, does not provide the financial information and does not provide the data to make that assessment. As a matter of fact, this is a government that wants us to spend over $20,000 in FOI requests so that we can find out the background of the convention centre. Yet you're looking for

[ Page 11583 ]

This is a government that told us they were going to create 21,000 jobs through the jobs and timber accord and, through its policies and its Forest Practices Code, has threatened the very survival of the forest industry in British Columbia. They've taken $2 billion out of the industry in superstumpage and put it into FRBC, yet when you discuss their business plan, they can't even tell you how many trees, how many kilometres of road or what results they've got from the money they've spent in the forests. There is no accountability. The business plan is awash. After four years of operation of FRBC, we still don't know how that company operates or its outcomes, because they can't tell us.

[0815]

This is a government that has broken the Criminal Code and retroactively taken money from charities -- gaming revenues that were legally theirs. Can you imagine that? Can you imagine the programs that were funded by charities in this province. . . ? You decided you wanted to illegally take their funds, and you had to bring in legislation retroactively to get it away from them. How many food banks, how many homes for battered women, how many programs for kids went by the wayside when you decided to do this clawback that you so greedily wanted back into your own economy?

This is a government that's fast-tracking the SkyTrain project in the lower mainland -- a project that could be $3 billion and that they don't want to discuss with anybody. They just want to fast-track it. And when they fast-track it, they don't even know if it's going to have the result that is needed for the transportation corridors in the lower mainland.

At the same time that they do that, they increase the taxation on the people living in the Fraser Valley, with the gasoline tax and also on the tax on their gas from B.C. Hydro. There are five service stations in my riding alone that are in danger of closing, along with jobs for young people. And this is a government that just brought in a budget and talked about reducing taxes to small business. You're putting small business out of business, because across the border, a mile and a half away. . . . It's a four-cents-a-litre difference in gasoline for the people living in the upper Fraser Valley. You didn't take that into account, because the little guy doesn't matter as long as a pet project gets fired through and we can have a photo op for the next election. That's what that's all about.

This is also about interest on debt. Let's talk about the interest on this debt for a minute -- $2.6 billion. In the budget yesterday, there was this great, flowery little paragraph about 1,200 social housing units in British Columbia. Well, I can tell you, hon. Speaker, that they've been announcing the same social housing units for at least three years in this province and saying they're the only ones delivering units anymore. But what they say they're announcing and what they're delivering is a fabrication. The fact of the matter is that if you took a second and tried to put this in perspective, $2.6 billion in interest costs is close to 40,000 homes in this province. But you know what else it is? The $2.6 billion is over $800 million more than this government spends on children and family programs in this province.

[0820]

The fact of the matter is that you cannot debt your way out of this. You have to manage your way out of this, and management is not a strong suit on any program or project that this government has ever had since it was elected in 1991.

This is a government that yesterday talked about putting money into health care. But what they haven't done is told you how they could manage health care more efficiently. And what they also haven't told you is that their management of health care has been such an abject failure that the waiting lists that are sitting there that they're trying to fix -- that their own Premier and ministers say: "We keep throwing money in, and it doesn't seem to work. . . ." Those waiting lists are there because of bad management. They're there because this government can't manage the health care system. The fact of the matter is that not only have we affected the health care system, but when we start to do that, it has an unbelievable impact on people's lives.

When I have a 95-year-old woman who sits on a gurney for six hours in the corridor of a hospital waiting for a bed, sick, and she is sent home, and she goes home to die because there's no place to care for her in a hospital in my community. . . . When I have a surgical waiting list that is so long that people actually phone the ministry and say: "I'm going to Alberta on holidays next week. If I get my knee surgery there, will you pay for it? I'm nine months away from getting it in British Columbia, but I know I can get into the Foothills hospital in Calgary in two weeks." They go to Alberta and get their operation, and we pay for it. That tells me that you're not managing the dollars in this system very well. If you can afford to pay for it at Foothills, why can't you afford to pay for it in Vancouver? The fact of the matter is that you've taken this health care system and you've put it into crisis.

[ Page 11584 ]

You know what they're saying? They're saying: "Find the money." There's no money to be found. You're the ones that created the imbalance in this system, and when you created that imbalance, then you have to fix the imbalance. But you're not prepared to do that, because that's another sneaky little download like the $800 million to municipalities -- another sneaky little download now to the school system. That's what we've done. "We'll hide this money over there, but let's keep spending over here like a bunch of drunken sailors as we go $890 million more over budget in our operating account and go $2.4 billion in debt. And while we do that, we'll pump off $4 million or $5 million here, $800 million over there, and all of a sudden we're going to be sitting here, and we're going to say: 'How did we ever get a $3 billion or $4 billion increase in the annual debt in one year?' " You'll get there because you can't manage your finances.

Hon. Speaker, this is a government that has failed to adequately protect children and implement the recommendations of the Gove commission. This is a government whose attitude is apprehension before counselling. This is a government whose attitude is apprehension before assisting parents to learn how their parenting skills could be improved so that children can be raised in their own homes. This is a government that has made children an industry -- an industry for government. There are better ways to do that, and this government has been told those better ways by the opposition critic, and they continue to ignore those opportunities to improve.

[0825]

This is a government that has decided that the Nisga'a treaty was a priority and then decided that it wasn't a priority. Then they decided it was a priority again. This is a government that tried to take a nation of people, a group of people -- the Nisga'a -- and turn them into a photo opportunity. This is a government that lost their way on treaties. This is a government that has never consulted with the people of British Columbia on the guiding principles that the people that live in this province want put into treaties. They've refused to do that, and as a result, they are going to find that the people of this province have no patience with that autocratic, dictatorial attitude to what people think when it concerns their lives and it concerns their future.

This government has just simply stumbled from one scandal to the next: Bingogate, Hydrogate, Budgetgate, Skeenagate. There are more gates around here. We now have Deckgate, for crying out loud. All these gates that we have are simply because there is no respect for the people that elected these people to government. There is no respect. There is this attitude that integrity, honour and trustworthiness don't have to be on the plate of this NDP government, because they know better. They don't have to care about ethics and principles and values, because they think that the people out there don't know any better.

I'm going to tell you something, hon. Speaker, and these people better get this through their heads. You've lost the confidence, you've lost the trust, you've lost the integrity, and you've lost the trustworthiness. You've lost everything that made it so that you even deserve to sit as a Member of the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia, as a government, because of what you have done to the people of this province. You've turned your back on your principles; you've turned your back on your integrity. That is wrong. That is so wrong.

There's only one way to restore that integrity; there's only one way to restore that trustworthiness. That way is to call an election, because during an election, we will change this government, and we will put people into office who are prepared to stand and operate based on the ethics that will restore the confidence of the electoral process in Canada and the electoral process in British Columbia. And we'll restore the confidence and belief of the people of British Columbia that there's a future here in this province. I can tell you that there is not a future here in this province with an NDP government. There is only a future in this province with us in opposition sitting on that side of the House, fixing the problems that they've created over the last eight years.

[0830]

I've listened to the speeches made by members of the opposition throughout the evening and into the morning. I think that if you can look at what's been said, there's really been one theme to it -- a theme of overwhelming disappointment in what this government has done to the province over the last eight years, overwhelming disgrace with what this government has put forward and put upon the people of British Columbia over the last eight years, and utter shock at the budget that was presented to this House two days ago now.

No one on this side of the House can understand how it is that the members on the government side of the House have managed to convince themselves that this is the way to go -- that this high-spending, high-debt, high-deficit, high-tax budget is going to turn British Columbia's economy around.

[ Page 11585 ]

G. Farrell-Collins: The member says: "It's a gamble." It's not even a gamble. There isn't a chance that it's going to have that effect. So we on this side of the House are left wondering whether the members on the other side actually believe that that's what they're doing with the budget this year -- whether they actually believe they're going to be able to spend their way out of this deficit and spend their way to prosperity in British Columbia or whether they're just saying that. If they believe that that's the right way to go -- and it's so different from what they campaigned on in the last election; it's a completely different philosophy and strategy for finance from what they campaigned on in the last election -- then what they should do is take this budget to the people of the province and ask for their approval, ask for their mandate to head off in this new direction.

Hon. Speaker, we were told that the government was moving toward the centre. We were told that the government had a plan, that the government had to start listening to British Columbians more. This isn't a move to the centre; this is a move to the extreme and irresponsible left. It is so far left that there isn't another government in North America that has taken this strategy. And the Premier is happy about that; he's proud of it. He's proud of a budget that racks up $2.7 billion in new debt. Perhaps he has plans to leave the province after the next election so that he won't have to pay for it. I know that there are a lot of British Columbians who would gladly pay his moving expenses.

If you look at this budget, it's clear -- not just from this budget but from the last eight years -- that the government has never had an economic plan. The government has never had an idea of how they were going to make British Columbia prosperous. They've never had a sense at all of where they wanted to go in any of these budgets. From year to year, there's no cohesiveness. From year to year it's a different priority. One year it's tax cuts, and the next year it's debt increasing. One year it's capital expenditures, and then, after the election, it's a capital expenditure freeze. How are the people of British Columbia supposed to know where the government is going? How is the government supposed to know where the government is going?

Today the government is asking us to grant them three months' worth of supply -- about $6 billion -- and they have not described for the people of British Columbia what their plan is. They haven't told British Columbia what their agenda is. They haven't told British Columbians how they intend to do what they're doing in this budget and make it benefit the economy of B.C. and the people of British Columbia.

There are no accountability measures in place to ensure that the money that they're putting into health care and education gets where it's supposed to. They never do that. Year after year they put hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of new money into health care and the education system, and year after year there are never any measures in place to ensure that that money is going where it's supposed to go. The Premier has itemized that as a problem; the Minister of Finance has raised that as a problem. So you would think that with this budget, where they're putting all this new money into health care and education, they would tell us how they were going to ensure that that money gets down where it belongs: to the patients, to the students. It's just: "Give us more money." We have a bill here; it's about two pages long. It says: "We want $6 billion." No analysis, no debate, no discussion. Not one member of the other side has stood up to tell us how they're going to make sure that that money gets where it belongs -- not one.

Interjection.

[0835]

Hon. D. Miller: Why do you have to refer to other members? Isn't that against the rules -- singling out other members like that?

G. Farrell-Collins: I love it when the minister of whatever it is this week comes into the House to heckle. He never stands and never has anything valuable to say to the House. He just sits in his chair here and heckles people.

Hon. D. Miller: Where's your alternative budget? You've got lots to say. What would you do?

G. Farrell-Collins: The minister asks us what the alternative budget is. That's the government's entire economic strategy. It's their strategy for government. If there are problems in health care, blame the doctors. If there are problems in education, blame the administrators. If there are problems with the Ferry Corporation and the minister has been an utter incompetent, blame the staff. If he goes out and buys himself a $329 million pulp mill that doesn't produce pulp, he blames the banks. He has always got somebody else. . . . Members of the NDP always have some demon to blame. It's always somebody else's fault.

I don't think the Premier of the province of British Columbia, in all his years in government, has once stood up and taken responsibility for one of the messes he's created. With the Hydrogate scandal, he didn't know anything. It wasn't his problem. Somebody else did it. So he fires the chairman of B.C. Hydro -- he fires the CEO of B.C. Hydro. He says: "It was their fault; I didn't know anything." Adrian Dix, his principal secretary, sat in on every one of those meetings and knew exactly what was going on. They share the same apartment building -- the same room -- and not once did Mr. Dix tell the Premier about the Hydro problems. That's so hard to believe.

The minister who used to be responsible for B.C. Ferries -- he got the hook about two months ago -- didn't know what was going on at B.C. Ferries. He has a caucus colleague who sits in on every one of those board meetings, and she didn't know what was going on. The minister's former ministerial assistant went over to B.C. Ferries to take over the whole communication strategy for B.C. Ferries, and he didn't say anything to the minister responsible. You have to ask yourself: when does that minister, who sits in front of us -- the minister who never stands but always talks -- get to be accountable? When does the Premier get to be accountable for his mistakes?

Hon. D. Miller: What are you afraid of?

G. Farrell-Collins: I'll tell you what I'm afraid of. The Minister of Energy and Mines and Northern Development

[ Page 11586 ]

Hon. D. Miller: So table your alternative. Tell the people what you're gonna do. Stop being so coy.

G. Farrell-Collins: The minister doesn't know how budgets are made, obviously. I guess they do it backwards. In most jurisdictions, they look at the money they've got on hand, then they forecast how much money will likely come in, and then they decide how they are going to spend it. When you make a budget, you have to know the truth about the money that's on hand, and you have to know the truth about the revenues. Apparently, with the NDP, they don't do it that way. They go out and decide how much they're going to spend, because they need to spend some money so they can run some television ads and run some print ads and have an advertising campaign. We know that that's the way they plan for the economy. Their whole economic plan -- and we've seen the internal documents -- consists of an advertising campaign. It consists of polling, followed by advertising campaigns and more polling and more advertising campaigns.

The new minister responsible for the economy, the A team -- the only cabinet minister, I think, in British Columbia history to be yanked out of cabinet twice for misconduct and then put back in again -- is running the economic strategy. And what does it consist of? A request for proposals for polling, followed by a request for proposals for advertising. That's it. That's the economic plan for British Columbia.

If that's the way you make budgets, then anybody could put forward an alternative budget. A class of six-year-olds in grade 1 could put forth an alternative budget, but it would have about as much credibility as that minister's budget has.

[0840]

I don't even think the minister knows how much money is on hand and how much money is coming in, because they never ask that question. They build budgets backwards. To them, a budget and an economic plan is an advertising campaign; it's a media event. It's a way to get more support without any accountability. If that's the kind of budget that the minister wants, if that's the way budgets are made in British Columbia, then he might as well go out and get anybody to put together an alternative budget.

But if he wants a factual budget based on the numbers, then he should come clean and for once in his life tell British Columbians the truth about the finances of the province of British Columbia. If he is not willing to do that, fine. If he's not willing to tell British Columbians the truth about the finances in British Columbia and the government doesn't know what the state of the finances are in B.C., then how does he expect anybody else to be able to do it? How does he manage to do that?

Hon. D. Miller: How much would you spend on health care? How much would you spend on education?

G. Farrell-Collins: I see the minister is taking his heckling from the newspaper this morning. He sees one article, out of the whole sea of newspaper articles that have been published in the last three months, that isn't kicking the living daylights out of the government, and he is overjoyed. He's downed three espressos and four cappuccinos and rushes into the Legislature to run up and down the aisle with the red flag, singing "Solidarity Forever."

It would be wonderful if for once the minister responsible would get up and tell British Columbians the true state of the finances in British Columbia. It would be wonderful if for once he would stand up in the House and tell British Columbians how he managed to screw up the fast ferry fiasco, how he managed to waste $260 million of taxpayers' money for zero added value. I can't wait for the time the minister responsible stands up in the House for once and tells British Columbians why and how he managed to waste $329 million on a pulp mill that doesn't make pulp. For all the noise that comes out of the minister responsible, you would think he was the Six Million Dollar Man, but he is not. He's the $600 million man.

When the government finally decides to come forward and tell British Columbians what the truth is, we'll be there. If the minister really wants to see the alternative budget, he can see it within two weeks. All he's got to do is call an election, and he'll see it. If the minister and the government and the NDP members opposite want to call an election today, they will have the alternative budget for the future of British Columbia within two weeks.

If the minister wants to throw that out for us, call the election. The people of British Columbia will have a chance to see the difference between a budget that is full of garbage, like the one this government presented two days ago, and a budget that talks about the future for British Columbia and that's accountable, that tells people the truth for once -- for the first time in a decade. We'll put it out there and let people see the difference between the two.

Hon. D. Miller: But not before. You will not go to the public of British Columbia now -- not before.

[0845]

Let's look at what the government is asking us for here today. They are asking us for $6 billion to start upon their path

[ Page 11587 ]

If the minister responsible -- or I should say the minister irresponsible -- wants to tell us what's in his budget, if he wants to tell us what the next boondoggle is. . . . There is at least one every year -- maybe two. Is it going to be SkyTrain this year? Is it going to be Forest Renewal? Is it going to be something else? What's it going to be this year? Where's the scandal for this year? Where's the boondoggle for this year? Where's the extra billion dollars built in for the latest screwup by the Premier, the minister responsible for economic development and the economic A team? It's an A team in a junior league.

The fact of the matter is that this House should not grant supply to this government when they have brought forward the type of budget we just saw, when they brought forward an eighth consecutive deficit budget. It's the largest increase in debt in the history of British Columbia. They've more than doubled it. It's a 160 percent, I think, increase in taxpayer-supported debt in eight years and a 102 percent increase in total debt in eight years. This government has pushed British Columbia into bankruptcy at a rate that all other governments of all political stripes couldn't achieve for over 120 years. This government has managed to do it. I hope you people are all proud of yourselves.

When the public gives its verdict on your performance over the last eight years -- or four or three years; whatever it's going to be -- and you pack up your office on the other side and put your books in your boxes and pack up those eight budgets you've got sitting on your shelf into the boxes to take home with you, I hope you're able to look yourselves in the face and realize what you've actually done to the province. I hope you're going to be accountable. I hope you're actually going to feel accountable, after the election, for what you people have done to the province and to the future of the young people in this province.

You took a once-proud province that was number one in economic growth, and you put us to the back of the bus. And you've done it in record speed. You should be ashamed of yourselves. If you've got any guts and any courage, and if you really believe in what you've been saying, then let's take it to the voters of British Columbia. Give them a chance to have a say. Let them tell you what they think. If you're not afraid to do that, you'll find a verdict from those people. If you are afraid to do that, then I guess we're going to sit here for another year or two while you scramble around and try and find a new leader, ditch the one you've got -- because he's tarnished like the one before him was tarnished -- and try to take another run at the public. The public of British Columbia has been bitten once; they're not going to get bitten again by the New Democrats. I can't wait for the election.

Interjection.

G. Farrell-Collins: The minister says we're just going to have to.

British Columbians can't wait for the election either, because they want a chance to tell this government what they think of them. I know that in every one of those ridings, there are literally thousands of people who are sitting home at night, flicking on the TV and watching the news and then waking up in the morning, pulling the newspaper off their front door step, sitting there with a cup of coffee and reading it. They're not the kind of people who write letters to their MLAs or make phone calls to their MLAs. They don't phone in on talk shows; they don't write letters to the editor. They don't do any of that. But they vote, and they're making up their minds. In many cases, they've already made up their minds. Parksville-Qualicum was an excellent example of the people of British Columbia who you never hear from -- except on election day -- and how they've made up their minds.

[0850]

It happened once before. They were in here for three years. The public had a verdict on them, and they threw them out. It took them 20 years to rebuild their party.

The federal Conservatives went in there for nine years under Mr. Mulroney. Because they failed to stand up to their leaders in the caucus of that party and tell them what they thought, they became so disconnected from the voters that they were thrown out in the election in 1993 and ended up with two seats.

[The Speaker in the chair.]

It's happened in other jurisdictions to other political parties. It's not just New Democrats, Conservatives or even Liberals. It's happened to government after government across Canada. When they lose touch with people and with what it is those people are telling them, when they head off in a direction behind a leader who doesn't have a clue where he's going and are too gutless to stand up and tell him or her that they're headed in the wrong direction, they all walk off the cliff together. It takes them decades to rebuild their party.

So it's time that the members on the other side made that choice. The Minister of Finance talked about the choices and the values on their side of the House. Well, if they value their party, if they value the heritage of that party, which goes back to Tommy Douglas and before that, and if they value the work that they think they've done for the province of British Columbia in opposition and in government, then it's time they made a choice. It's time they stood up -- not necessarily in public, if they can't do that; but it's certainly time they stood up and talked to the Minister of Finance and the Premier and told them that they are on a road to ruin, not just for the province of British Columbia but for their political party too.

[ Page 11588 ]

So I hope that those members stand up -- somewhere, sometime -- and say what they need to say. If they don't, they're all going to be packing boxes after election day and heading home with a legacy that's not something they're going to want to tell their families about.

The Supply Act that's before us asks for $6 billion. It asks for one-quarter of this year's budget. It wants spending authority for that. Well, I don't think that we should give them one-quarter. I don't think we should give them anything, quite frankly. But if this bill passes second reading, we'll be moving an amendment to change the supply act to give the government one month's worth of supply. Let's see if, in that month, they see the light and if the backbenchers have the courage to stand up to the leaders in their party and tell them about the reality that they heard today and yesterday and that they're going to hear throughout the entire weekend in their communities about what the people of British Columbia think about the direction they're taking this ship. Then they can come back in a month, and we can fix this mess.

[0855]

So with that. . . . I've made my intentions clear, I think -- to vote against the supply bill. We'll be voting against it on this side of the House. If it passes second reading, we'll be amending it to shorten the leash on this mad-dog government.

The Speaker: Seeing no further speakers, I will put the question on second reading of Bill 54.

[0900]

YEAS -- 35
Evans	Zirnhelt	McGregor
Kwan	G. Wilson	Hammell
Boone	Pullinger	Orcherton
Stevenson	Walsh	Randall
Gillespie	Robertson	Cashore
Conroy	Priddy	Petter
Miller	G. Clark	Dosanjh
MacPhail	Sihota	Lovick
Ramsey	Waddell	Hartley
Smallwood	Sawicki	Bowbrick
Kasper	Doyle	Giesbrecht
Goodacre		Janssen

NAYS -- 29
Whittred	Gingell	C. Clark
Farrell-Collins	de Jong	Plant
Abbott	L. Reid	Neufeld
Coell	Sanders	Jarvis
Anderson	Nettleton	Penner
Weisgerber	J. Wilson	McKinnon
Dalton	Barisoff	van Dongen
Symons	Krueger	Hansen
Stephens	Coleman	Hawkins
Hogg		Weisbeck

Bill 54, Supply Act (No. 1), 1999, read a second time and referred to a Committee of the Whole House for consideration forthwith.

[0905]

SUPPLY ACT (No. 1), 1999

On section 1.

G. Farrell-Collins: As I said earlier in my address in second reading of this bill, we on this side have been extremely disappointed with the recklessness of this budget; the massive increase in debt that's been put before us; the lack of a balanced budget after eight consecutive years, with the inability and, quite frankly, the total lack of ability of the government to provide; and total lack of any sort of accountability measures at all for the new funding that's going into health care and education -- indeed, for any of the other funding they've been putting into those two areas for the last number of years -- to ensure that the results actually get down to the patients and get down to the students in the classroom.

We've been clear on this side of the House. We think the government is headed in exactly the wrong direction as far as the debt and deficit go for British Columbia. The minister talked about her values and the choices that the government is making. On this side of the House, we believe that those values have changed from year to year, and the choices have changed too. The government has made a decision to go exactly contrary to what they campaigned on in 1996 and received a mandate to put forward, and that was balanced budgets and paying down the debt. This is not a balanced budget; indeed, the debt is skyrocketing.

Hon. Speaker, we believe that the government should be calling an election and taking this to the public as a significant change in their mandate, hear what the public has to say about it in the form of an election; and if they win the election, then they can proceed with it. If they don't, then someone else will proceed with their budget.

[0910]

[ Page 11589 ]

With that in mind, I move the following amendment to section 1:

[that we strike out "$5.2 billion" and replace it with "$1,733, 333,333," and strike out "three-twelfths" and replace it with "one-twelfth."]

On the amendment.

G. Farrell-Collins: I think the amendment is an attempt to put a shorter leash on this government. It's clear that they have a majority -- a five-seat majority -- in the Legislature. It's clear that at the end of the day, no matter how irresponsible their actions and how unwise and lacking in vision and long-term accountability their actions may be in this budget, they will likely pass it in some form or another at some time or another.

What we on this side of the House want to do is two things: to ensure that the government has some time to rethink its course -- to gauge the reaction, the real impact on our economy and the impact that the credit rating downgrade will have on the government's ability to service that $2.6 billion debt service cost, which continues to rise year after year. The government has an opportunity to rethink the direction once it's gauged the public support, or lack thereof, for this budget and to go back to the drawing board and come up with something that is far less unrealistic and irresponsible. The government will have a chance to come forward with something that meets the needs of British Columbians -- not based on polling but based on vision and on a plan for the future -- and an opportunity to create a future for British Columbia that is more positive than what they see now and that will turn this economy around and get us back on track.

I think that the vast majority of British Columbians do not want the government to be spending its way out of this recession and racking up the debt. They'd like to see the government manage its way out of the recession responsibly, with a plan that will work and has a proven track record and some clear measures. Until the government does that, it behooves this House to put a tighter leash on this government.

Second of all, this government has proven itself to be less than forthright in presenting its financial documents. Certainly the 1996 budget, which was introduced twice -- only to find out after a very short period of time. . . . In one case I think it was four days. . . . The numbers from the previous year were different. This gives us an opportunity to examine and take some time, and give the government a small amount of supply, so that once those numbers come in in a more substantial form, the minister can present them to the House. We can see how far revenues and deficit targets for last year are really off her present target.

We know those numbers are going to change; they always seem to change. Therefore I think we need to ensure that this government is on a very short leash and that we don't grant them supply for three months. Rather, we grant them supply for one month. At that point in time the minister comes back before this House, gives us an economic update and an update on the fiscal situation in British Columbia and what the revenues and expenditures were for last year, gives us a budget update for this year, and gives an update on what impact the credit downgrade will have on our ability to service our debt and the effect that will have on programs.

I think this is a budget that, if the government is wise, it will treat as a trial balloon. I think the reaction has been overwhelmingly negative. I think the impacts on our economy are going to be felt very quickly, and we will see the impact that this strategy the government has taken, this dramatic change in direction from what it had a mandate to do in the last election, will have on the province.

[0915]

Hon. J. MacPhail: This is a bill about interim supply and about flow of revenue to keep government operations going, to keep hospitals and schools going, to keep our campgrounds going. The hon. member is very able to engage in the kind of discussion that he engaged in in budget debate, and I welcome it. There's no question that this is a dramatic budget, and it certainly is what I would call a defining budget as well. It makes perfect sense for us to have that debate in the coming weeks. This is interim supply. This is about making sure that payments flow, in order to keep government operations going.

I understand that the members opposite have not been in government and therefore would probably not understand that payments for government don't flow on an equal one-twelfth basis; that hospitals do not plan their surgeries based on monthly payments; that doctors do not perform their surgeries and people don't get sick based on nice, equal one-twelfth payments; that our school systems have different demands on them as they flow throughout the year; that our colleges and universities have different demands on them as they flow throughout the year. If indeed this amendment were to succeed, hospitals' business would be put at risk, surgeries would be put at risk, payments to physicians would be put at risk and our school payments -- our ability to continue providing education to students -- would be put at risk.

There's no question that we can have the debate on the defining differences between us about how, or to what, payments are allocated. I very much welcome this debate. In the past, because of the opposition's inability to understand the process of estimates, we have never completed final supply -- while this party has been in opposition -- before the last weeks of June, and usually into July. This is simply about carrying on government operations while we engage in a very legitimate debate about what our priorities are.

G. Farrell-Collins: That's a very interesting comment by the Minister of Finance -- that ministries don't get their funding in one-twelfth increments. Perhaps she might understand the finances, but she doesn't understand the Legislature very well, perhaps. The way that supply is granted to the govern-

[ Page 11590 ]

I know that last year -- I believe it was last year -- the government hadn't succeeded in getting supply through the Legislature by June 30 and then came in with a supply bill for one-twelfth -- another month. So the logic behind the minister's argument just doesn't hold up. It's not the case. It's an argument, but it has no basis in fact.

[0920]

Second of all, in past years the government has often changed the numbers from the previous year or their forecast for the future year as more information comes in. Certainly the auditor general's report indicated that that was the case. I'm not going to argue with the minister about the fault for that at this point. We've had that discussion, and we'll have it again. But the fact of the matter is that the government changes its estimates from the previous year as the information comes in, and it certainly changes its forecasts for the coming year.

So I think it's important for the minister to wait, to have a look at what the impact is going to be with the credit downgrade and this budget, what impact this budget will have on the forecasts for economic activity. I expect they will be downgraded, too, as a result of this budget. If those revenue forecasts and GDP forecasts drop off, the minister has got a problem on her hands. I think it would be smarter and prudent for the Minister of Finance to deal with that early, rather than waiting till June, July, August or September to deal with that, when we're virtually halfway through the fiscal year.

That's the reason for the call for a reduction in the amount of supply that's granted to the government, and to give them a much tighter leash. It's so they can't go out and get themselves all caught up in it and wound around the pole, to use the analogy. Rather, they have a chance to gauge the results, gauge the impact, see what the effect is going to be on GDP and revenue forecasts for the government, and economic forecasts, and come back and give us an economic update in a month.

The Chair: Carrying on on the amendment, the member for Vancouver-Little Mountain.

G. Farrell-Collins: Thank you, hon. Chair. I still encourage the minister. . . . I don't know about her reluctance to get up and give an explanation for why the need for three months as opposed to the one month.

Interjection.

G. Farrell-Collins: The minister said she did. The argument she gave is that the schools and hospitals and campsites will grind to a halt if we don't do that. Well, that's simply not the case. The minister brings in a supply bill -- an interim supply bill. It'll happen for -- she says -- three months. We're trying to amend that to one month. After three weeks pass, she can bring in another interim supply bill and get her three-month supply bill, if that's what she needs -- or her two-month supply bill.

If the minister has no other explanation for why, then I think she's going to find herself in exactly the same position she found herself last year. She brought in a budget. It had revenue estimates. It had a deficit forecast. It had debt forecast. And literally within weeks, the credit rating of the province was downgraded, the revised GDP forecast came in, and the revenue estimates for the government fell. They crashed.

She stood up in this House on budget day and explained that that was the problem with last year. We're giving her the opportunity this year to be more prudent, to be more timely and to act more quickly. I think it is appropriate, it is prudent and it is important that the Minister of Finance take advantage of that opportunity to walk cautiously as she heads off in this dramatic new direction and to gauge the level of impact that this budget is going to have on our economy, then be able to react to that sooner rather than later.

If the Minister of Finance is unwilling to do that, I guess what we're going to see next year is that she's not going to hit the deficit target again. We're going to have debt even higher than what she said it was. We're going to have impact. We're going to have special warrants again, like we have attached to this bill and that we'll get to a little later. The exact same scenario that we have seen year after year, Finance minister after Finance minister from the New Democratic government, is going to happen again this year. She's going to be left standing in this House a year from now, possibly, tabling a budget that tells us that last year didn't go anywhere near the way she expected.

I wish the minister would take the prudent course, as opposed to the reckless course. If she wants to take the reckless course, she has the numbers, she has the backbencher support to do that and she can do that. But I can tell you that at some point during this session, when we get to the next supply bill -- if that's necessary -- she's going to have to answer those questions anyway. And we'll see what the impact is.

[0925]

Amendment negatived on the following division:

[ Page 11591 ]

[0930]

On the schedule.

L. Reid: I'm speaking to warrant 1, which reads: "To supplement Vote 25, Ministry Operations, to provide funding of costs for residential and related support programs for children, youth, families and adults with mental handicaps." I am very interested to have the minister break down this $45 million; perhaps that's where she can start.

Interjections.

The Chair: I'll recognize the minister when we have order in the House, please.

Hon. L. Boone: It was difficult to hear what was going on because of all the rabble coming forth, but I believe that the member asked for the breakdown of the $45 million. The $45 million is $22.38 million for services for children and families and $22.62 million for services for adults. A further breakdown of those ones is that services for children and families include $11.58 million for children and family support programs; services for special needs children, $4.97 million; children in care, $5.83 million. Services for the adults include residential services, $15.38 million; and training and support services, $7.24 million.

L. Reid: In terms of the postscript on this particular warrant, "families and adults with mental handicaps," does the minister ask us to understand that each of these categories -- children, youth, families and adults -- pertain to individuals with mental handicaps? Or only a portion?

[0935]

L. Reid: My question is for clarification. It relates to support programs for children, youth, families and adults with mental handicaps. These are all programs for children, youth and families and programs only for adults with mental handicaps. Is that how the minister reads this as well?

Hon. L. Boone: The services for children and families are for everybody. Services for adults is just adults with mental handicaps, yes.

L. Reid: If we begin with the assumption that $45 million was the expenditure from January 1 through March 31, and when we go back through the press releases and the announcements of care that has been provided on behalf of Children and Families, the total is in fact $66,000. The minister breaks it down: $45 million into $22 million for MCF and roughly $22 million for adults. So based on her last comment, I'm defining adults with mental handicaps as a $22 million expenditure in British Columbia, which, frankly, leaves $22 million remaining, of which only $66,000 has been announced since January 1, 1999. If the minister could perhaps fill in the difference between $66,000 and $22 million in terms of services as stated in the warrant for children, youth and families.

Hon. L. Boone: This is not additional or new program spending. This is moneys that were spent in current programs required for counselling services, for parenting courses, for support services for families. They're not new programs that have been announced. These were spent on that program over the whole year. That's why we ran into overexpenditures.

L. Reid: What the minister is saying is that the $66,000 announced -- January 1 through March 31 -- is not included in the $45 million.

Hon. L. Boone: I'm not quite sure what it is that you're talking about with regards to new services that were announced. If there are new services that were announced, they're included within the budget here. But not all of these expenses are new services. They are in fact services that existed, and we've just had overexpenditures within those services. We've had pressures that have come on the ministry. I think you can recognize that at this particular time, with families under stress and with things happening in communities, in many cases there has been a requirement to put in some assistance to families. We've done that, and I certainly make no apologies for doing that.

L. Reid: I'm going to canvass for a few moments the issues that have been raised by a parent support group for families of mentally handicapped adults, because we are absolutely at the juncture where we're talking about adults with mental handicaps. There are significant issues that I will spend some time canvassing this morning.

The issue, frankly, is around choice. There seems to be little definition around residential programs. Indeed, individuals who reside in their homes and with their families believe they have been disenfranchised by this ministry -- that it is indeed possible to receive service and be supported in your community in a group home placement or a foster placement in terms of residential care. But if you reside at home, those budget dollars are simply not available to you.

[ Page 11592 ]

[0940]

Now, families today who have mentally handicapped adults at home have no choice. They are not able to purchase the service which they believe to be in the best interests of their adult offspring. Yet the ministry, effective this spring -- which I take as today and going forward -- gives that choice to other individuals with younger children in the system. Supported child care is a choice. It's a brand-new initiative on behalf of this ministry, but frankly, it's one I support. I believe that families are often in the best position to purchase, acknowledge and decide how best to care for their person.

So my questions will pertain to why it's appropriate for this ministry to provide choice to parents of young children but not to provide choice to parents of adult mentally handicapped. Perhaps the minister can begin with a response.

Hon. L. Boone: You're partially correct, I guess, in that we don't give individualized funding to families. But we do provide some support for adults who are at home. In actual fact, some of the $7.24 million is there for adult training and support services, and that program includes funding for self-help skills, support work placements, professional supports such as psychological assessments and home support for adults with developmental disabilities. There are pressures here, and I think you and I both know that not everybody will be able to get all of these services, as we have budget constraints. So for those areas where we have had extreme pressures, we have in fact -- and that's why we have run over budgets in some of the very emergent situations where people are in desperate conditions with aging parents, etc., and they require some assistance -- gone over our budget in that respect -- recognizing that we can't always hold the line, because we're dealing with humans. But there are pressures. Yeah, there are going to be some people out there that are not going to receive everything they want to receive. We'd very much like to do that, but we simply don't have enough money to do that.

[0945]

Yet if you contrast that to someone like the Jeremy Rodrigues case, if MCF is going to provide funding for care of autistic children, why are parents prevented from choosing the most appropriate care for their child? So we have one situation which I think is a direct contrast; one is directly in opposition to the other. In this instance, this type of supported child care, which will offer services to special needs children, provides parents with that level of choice until you move across the spectrum. If you happen to be autistic, then you're in the same category as mentally handicapped adults. Your parent again has no choice.

So I'm looking for some balance. I'm looking for some consistency in the question. This is a government that is either behind providing choice to the people who are closest to the special needs folks in our population or not. What will the answer be in terms of how people will be selected to participate in this supported child care? Has the decision been taken on behalf of this ministry today to exclude autistic children from the choice of appropriate care?

Hon. L. Boone: If you look at the supported child care. . . . I don't want to go into this at great length, because it was done not without controversy. The supported child care came about as a result of a child care review -- it's been ongoing for four years -- where block funding has been removed from the child development centres in some of those areas that provided a very select service to a small group of people. That money has been taken and put out to families so that they can select the services around there. But the dollars haven't changed with regards to the amount of money that is there. Parents also provide their own additional dollars to their child care, so it's a slight difference as compared to the support services that are given to handicapped adults.

The idea of having individualized funding is one that I know some people would like to see. But I'm sure there are others out there that would be very concerned about individualized funding and what it would mean to their particular group home, etc. So at this particular time, we have not chosen to go the route of individualized funding. We are working with the community living sector to try and find ways to spread some of those dollars out so that they can be delivered to a broader section of people. We're working with that community very closely and we'll continue to do so, recognizing that this is a community that has some very large problems. We want to deal with those problems, and we want to work with them cooperatively to do so.

L. Reid: If I might again reference the minister to this article: "Under the old special needs child care program, certain child care centres and other specialized agencies received block funding to provide spaces for these children. Within the new supported child care program, these block funds will be distributed to follow individual children who require extra supports in the child care setting of the family's choice." So that begins, let's say, today -- the spring of 1999. That's in place for these children. Yet the ministry appears to have taken a very different view for autistic children. Those choices will not be in place for their offspring. Why?

[ Page 11593 ]

L. Reid: I believe there is a principle at stake here. Again, I'll reference this comment: "The new program will provide money to help special needs children, regardless of where they go for help in British Columbia, rather than fund only a limited number of places or agencies." So what this ministry is doing in terms of supported child care is saying to an array of parents: "You have a choice. You know best the type of service that would benefit your child." When it comes to autistic children, the ministry is saying: "Parents do not know best; the ministry knows best." There's no consistency in the minister's comments, hon. Chair. There's no balance around that commentary. Perhaps the minister doesn't understand that that's the case, but that is absolutely the case.

[0950]

[E. Walsh in the chair.]

There's a very different set of criteria in place for individuals who would avail themselves of supported child care and have some choice in the selection of that service, as opposed to autistic children whose parents are not able to select a service for them regardless of the service. I think that's a concern. I think that's an issue that the ministry will continue to grapple with.

Perhaps the minister could comment on where the project sits, in terms of coming up with an autism strategy for the province. My understanding is that MCF and Ministry of Education. . . . The actual report was due out last fall, in the fall of 1998. Perhaps the ministry could give us a status report on that, which may indeed allay some of my concerns around this special warrant. Is it the intention of this ministry to provide that same level of choice to parents of special needs children of this province, regardless of the disability?

Hon. L. Boone: I will answer your question on this, but I'd like to direct you back to the special warrant, because your questions are really much more focused in on estimates debate. However, with regards to the autism report, that report has been shared with the autistic community. In fact, I understand that when ministry staff shared that with them, they got a standing ovation. I've received letters saying how pleased they were with the report. We will be releasing that report this month, I believe, seeing as how we're now in April.

But just going right back to autism, parents of autistic children do have the same choices. They do have the choice of moving their child into supported child care, exactly the same as any other person out there. You're talking about a therapy; you are not talking about supported child care. Supported child care is available to all children, regardless of their disability. But the therapy is a totally different name of the game out there.

L. Reid: In terms of the question, what we appear to have today is the Minister for Children and Families withholding funds from individual parents of autistic children because they perhaps don't agree with the type of service they might be seeking for their child. Is that a factual statement?

Hon. L. Boone: I'd like to direct the member back to the special warrant, please, and back to the dollars here. We could get into an all-day debate with regards to therapy and provision of therapy. Those debates are well and good and ones that we should have in this House, but I think we should be having them during the estimates debate.

L. Reid: I thank the minister for her comment, but the principle is imbedded in this warrant discussion this morning. We are spending enormous sums of money belonging to the taxpayer, and we are saying to a certain set of parents, "Indeed, you have some choices," and to another set of parents: "Indeed, you have not a single choice." We can revisit this many, many times, and I know that we will, because it's not a response that's logical. Frankly, it's lacking in logic. And the same questions will come forward as we pursue services for mentally handicapped adults. There's a different array of services available to those who reside with strangers than to those who reside with family members -- again, not an appropriate way to proceed, in the eyes of the community.

If indeed, as the minister suggests, the autism community gave a standing ovation, the individuals in the autism community that have spoken to me have not yet seen the report. I daresay they probably were not part of a standing ovation. They too will look forward to its release.

In terms of issues that have been raised on behalf of individuals represented by the Parents Support Group for Families of Mentally Handicapped Adults, again the principle is the same for me. If the minister and the Finance minister have both stood and talked about choice, it's either choice that's universal or choice that's selective. My contention today is that this is a very selective choice, that this Ministry for Children and Families has made a determination on who will have opportunities and who will not. That's not necessarily the most appropriate way to proceed.

[0955]

My first question to the minister is: what proportion of this $15.38 million that the minister has referenced has actually gone to individuals in residential care -- which I would assume the minister is defining as foster care or group homes in the province of British Columbia?

Hon. L. Boone: The $15.38 million is for adult residential services, and all of that has gone into adult residential services.

L. Reid: Was I correct, hon. minister, in terms of noting that adult residential care is only group home or foster home placement?

[ Page 11594 ]

L. Reid: Does "small family settings" include the mentally handicapped adult's own family?

Hon. L. Boone: No, it doesn't.

L. Reid: Again, the principles at stake here are choice and fairness. We have individuals today caring for their mentally handicapped sons and daughters at home. A son and daughter living in a group home receive in the neighbourhood of $1,800 to $3,000 a month for their care -- $36,000 a year in some cases. We have the family members, who I believe do a tremendous service for this province -- a tremendous cost saving for this province -- by caring for those individuals, and we have a special warrant today that doesn't include those people or take into consideration the fact that there are such limited opportunities for individuals who would choose to care for a mentally handicapped son or daughter at home. Apparently they can't even claim a dependent's deduction for their sons and daughters.

It seems to me that the points brought forward on behalf of this group, the parents and supporters of families of mentally handicapped adults, are legitimate concerns. Again I quote: "Families who care for their sons and daughters at home are denied the basic essential services that proprietary caregivers receive." Why would the ministry deny the same level of service for a person who is a mentally handicapped adult residing at an address of their family as opposed to residing next door in a group home? Why does that difference exist?

Hon. L. Boone: This is a little repetitious, because I did mention earlier that part of this warrant is $7.24 million for adult training and support services for those who are living at home. So we do provide some services. As I stated earlier, some may say that it's not enough. I get that all the time in this ministry -- and every ministry I've ever been with. People will always say that it's not enough money, and in many cases, it's probably not. But we do provide services to those individuals who are residing at home.

[1000]

Leave granted.

M. Coell: I'm pleased today to have 30 grade 7 students from Bayside Middle School in my riding here with six adults and their teacher Ms. Evans. Bayside is a wonderful, progressive school in the municipality that I reside in, Central Saanich. The principal of the school is also the mayor of Central Saanich, and I have a great working relationship with him and his council. I'm very pleased to see the students from Bayside here. You could have been here all night; we were here all night. But we are glad to have you here today. Would you please make them welcome.

L. Reid: To continue in terms of where we left off, the minister said that the government does provide services for mentally handicapped adults who reside at home. Today is the day, April 1, when they tell me that the number of respite days is being reduced, effective today, from 32 days annually to 28. Can the minister confirm that, indeed, that is a factual statement?

Hon. L. Boone: No, I can't. I can't be expected to know the situation with every individual out there. I do know that we do a review of services that are provided to individuals and determine the level of services based on that review. There may have been a review done that determined that this particular person did not require those services at that time, but I certainly can't confirm that this is what is happening to any particular individual out there in this province. We've got a lot of people out there, hon. member, and I'm sure you realize that I can't be aware of what's going on with every single one of them.

L. Reid: Hon. Chair, I would simply ask the minister to check. This is not an individual policy decision; this is apparently universal. Today it will affect every single family who has an adult mentally handicapped person at home. They had one weekend a month off and seven days of summer vacation; now they've got one weekend off and four days of summer vacation -- for a service that's provided 365 days a year, 24 hours a day. So it's not an individual example, hon. minister. It is apparently a policy decision of your government to reduce the services to families who keep their folks at home.

We are debating a special warrant that's about increasing dollars in group home situations. Why in the world would this government contrast the respite care available to families -- whether they are foster families or the families that those folks live with full-time before they move into ministry care? Why is there a difference? It is not something that has been well understood by the community. Frankly, I don't understand why the ministry would choose to disenfranchise a set of parents who are doing an enormous service for the province of British Columbia.

Hon. L. Boone: I know of no policy decision to reduce those costs. As I said, that may be a decision made at the local level to reduce some of their costs there. We are here with a special warrant because we've had additional pressures come onto us from within various communities. We've tried very hard to work to minimize our needs for a special warrant so that we don't come to the taxpayers for more dollars, but we've had to do so. That's very unfortunate, but it is recognizing that we do need to supply some services to individuals out there who are in emergency situations.

If you want to get into the broader policy issues, as I said, we should be debating this during the estimates debates and not during the special warrant. . . . We're talking here about the additional dollars that we've had to put in to supply services to individuals, over and above the money that we were budgeted for last year. I would have preferred not to have to spend additional money. But we recognize that there are many individuals out there who require services, who need them, whose families need them. Therefore we've come forth with a special warrant, and that warrant includes $7.24 million to provide services to those individuals such as the ones you are talking about.

L. Reid: All of these issues are absolutely paramount to the creation of this ministry, which was supposed to be one-stop shopping for families, and paramount to the discussion of $45 million in additional funds required to fund this minis-

[ Page 11595 ]

[1005]

We have individuals who have to deal with the Ministry of Labour, the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Human Resources, the Ministry for Children and Families, and they still cannot secure service. All of this ties directly to the choices made by this ministry to fund these particular avenues in this special warrant. It's an enormous concern, and I come to this minister in that spirit -- that it's an enormous concern which has been ignored by this ministry for a long, long time.

If the intention of the ministry is to disenfranchise these families to the extent that they have no other choice but to put them in care, this ministry will not be asking for $45 million next year; it will be $90 million. More and more of these young people will end up in the care of the ministry, because that will be the only way that families can receive a decent level of support. It's not appropriate; it's not decent; it's not fair; it's not balanced. It's very selective cherry-picking on behalf of this ministry. It says to families: "Place your child in a foster home; frankly, you will have fewer worries."

These are the individuals who choose to take care of those folks at home that are unsupported today -- unsupported to the tune of $15.38 million that has been set aside exclusively for young people who reside at an address other than their own. That appears to be the only criterion -- yes or no?

Hon. L. Boone: The $15.3 million is for adults; it's not for children. Please let's make this very clear, because we're talking about adults here. And we do provide some services. I remember a time when we provided no services, when in fact. . . . I was talking to somebody awhile ago who was saying to me that they wanted additional dollars to keep their child at home. I asked, "What were you receiving seven years ago?" and they said: "Nothing." They were receiving nothing -- no services at all, no supports, nothing whatsoever. Now some of those families are receiving up to $83,000 a year in some cases, because they've got microboards, etc., that have been set up to work with their families.

We have supplied a tremendous amount of money. Our home support service, the at-home program, has grown tremendously as we do put services out there to support families. That doesn't mean that those families don't have a very difficult job to do; they do. But I don't think there is anybody out there that would say that it is entirely government's or society's responsibility to pay entirely for parents to support their children. We will give those parents all the support we can to assist them so that they can stay at home. We will give them respite care. We will give them some support services -- whatever.

I guess that you're asking us to make a policy decision here that says that we will pay families to take care of their own children and to have those children reside at home. That's not a policy decision that has been made, and it's not one that I intend to make in this chamber here today.

L. Reid: Perhaps an example would illustrate this for the minister, because she had some impression that I was talking about children. These are individuals who are more than 18 years of age, and they have typically finished in the school system. A working single mother is trying to cope with providing care for her 18-year-old son with multiple diagnoses, as he has been medically excluded from school. The Ministry of Education will not provide a home school program during this period. The MCF refuses to support him with a worker during the time he is supposed to be in school. So this already medically fragile individual and his working mother are left to cope on their own.

Is it any wonder that families have no other option but to place their sons or daughters in care at a dramatically increased cost to the taxpayer? The minister will know that many, many of these individuals are in single-family homes, that the only option for that family home to survive is for that parent to be at work. Frankly, we both know -- everyone in this chamber is aware -- the services that have diminished over time for individuals who have completed grade 12 are enormous -- cutbacks in terms of service to individuals who cannot live independently and whose families have chosen, I think, to make a contribution to the budgets of this province and provide very high quality care for their individuals at home. Lots of these people have given up jobs to care for these children at home and still can't get a weekend a month in respite care.

[1010]

The Chair: On a point of order, member?

C. Clark: Yes, thank you, hon. Chair. There's so much noise in the chamber. I'm sitting a few seats away from the member for Richmond East, and I can barely hear what she's saying. Not everyone is blessed with a loud, audible voice like mine. So I wonder if you could ask the members who are making noise to leave.

The Chair: I'll remind members that it is difficult to hear in the chamber when there is a certain level of noise that's being reached. I would ask that the speaker be heard.

Hon. L. Boone: I thought I did explain it. The government has never paid parents to look after their own children or to keep their own children at home. We will give support to parents so that they may keep those children at home. We continue to do that, as we have done with a 16-year-old youth who was discharged from hospital. We've provided that person with various forms of medical equipment -- ventilators, modifications to a wheelchair and all kinds of different assistance -- so that that person can in fact stay at home. We do that with children and adults so that they can stay at home and have support.

But you are right. We do not pay families as service providers. That's a debate that you may want to have, and maybe society may want to have it -- to say that all parents

[ Page 11596 ]

L. Reid: Let me bring the minister back to the question. It was not paying parents for caring for their children. It was whether or not the principle we began on, which was choice. . . . The example I gave was supported child care. This ministry is prepared to allow parents to make choices for young children. They appear not to be prepared to allow parents to make choices for young adults who are mentally handicapped, who are not independent decision-makers and who will probably never be independent decision-makers. So do I see some illogic in the minister's comments? Yes, I do. There are opportunities today. . . .

If the minister seems unclear, perhaps a couple more examples. Here's a graduation scenario. After graduation, the individual faces a three-year wait-list for a day program. Families struggle to provide day care. Families of adults with high medical behavioral needs have no alternative but to place them in care. So instead of saying to that parent, "Here are some dollars; you might purchase some appropriate service for your young adult during the day while you or your spouse is at work," they're going to be in full-time care with the ministry at an enormous cost to the taxpayer. The fact that families do this level of care impresses me. Frankly, I think it's amazing the number of families we have today that care for mentally handicapped adults at home day after day. That impresses me.

[1015]

This is not for the minister's clarification; this is not about paying families. This is about allowing them to make some choices about the best care for their sons and daughters. That's not a dramatically different argument from allowing them to make choices for preschoolers. The principle is whether or not we believe that families have the abilities, knowledge and competency to choose the best service delivery for their young person -- whether that person is eight or 18. What I'm hearing the minister say is that it's dramatically different; we can only allow them to make those choices when those children are in supported day care, but not as young adults.

Where's the distinction, hon. minister?

Hon. L. Boone: Maybe my voice isn't loud enough, and maybe you're not hearing me, or what have you. But we do provide those choices, and we do provide services to individuals. You can pick out one person who has not been able to receive services. I clearly admit to you, and I have admitted to you that yes, we do have pressures on these budgets. That is why we are here today in a special warrant situation -- because we have chosen to fund the most serious, the most emergent ones that we have.

But we do provide services; we do provide respite; we do provide support to individuals out there. Is it enough? Probably not. Could we do more? Yes, we could do more. Do we need more money? Of course -- we always need more money. But for you to say there's nothing out there, that there are no choices. . . . There are choices out there for individuals. We do provide some services to individuals so that they can keep those people within their homes. But as I said, those families are always stressed, they are under extreme pressures. I recognize that; I know that we could provide more services. But we are doing what we can within the dollars that we have. We've had to come for a special warrant because we have provided services for those who are in the worst-case scenarios with the most stress on them. That means that some may have to wait for a little while to get those services.

L. Reid: What the minister is saying is that indeed services continue to be available for individuals who reside at home. Over the past seven years, they tell me, those services have decreased each and every year. Indeed, another hit is coming to them today. So do they feel supported? No. Are there opportunities for these individuals to have respite care? There are opportunities for them to request it. Is it forthcoming? No. There are opportunities for them to plan a vacation with their family. They wait for the person to arrive to provide respite care, and people don't show up.

This is a very expensive, costly system today. The minister would have this chamber believe that somehow this is one family that finds themselves in dire straits. There are probably 200 families that have made contact with myself and the member for Surrey-Cloverdale in the last number of weeks. That's not an insignificant number; that is an enormous number of folks, who are doing their absolute best, and each time there is some other bureaucratic snarl that's put in place. They tell me that for any kind of emergency respite care, that's now a decision that's taken at the deputy minister level here in Victoria -- that their worker can't make the decision. So by the time the decision rumbles its way and gets back to them, the emergency is long over. It had to be solved, because they were once again unsupported. Is the minister aware of that new bureaucratic snafu that has been placed before them?

[1020]

L. Reid: Just a very simple question to the minister. Does she appreciate that the controls she has put in place are far more expensive than delivering the service in the first place?

Hon. L. Boone: No, that's not true. We've in fact saved many millions of dollars since we put those controls on. The controls are not expensive.

[ Page 11597 ]

Anytime bureaucracy is created, it has to be efficient. In this case, it's not. Those individuals in the field have been empowered to make those decisions for many, many years and have handled those emergencies in a timely fashion. Not any more.

So at the very least the minister can review that policy and decide why individuals who have been charged with those case files for a long, long time -- in some cases, since the child was a baby, so maybe 15 or 20 years. . . . Now when that family is in a crisis situation, nobody phones them back. Three, four, seven, eight days go by. Why is that considered to be cost-efficient for the system? I'm not accepting the minister's contention that that is a cost savings. I think that is an enormous cost to people in our communities.

Noting the hour, I will ask that this House recess for the celebration of the new territory, Nunavut.

Motion approved.

The House recessed from 10:23 a.m. to 10:48 a.m.

[E. Walsh in the chair.]

R. Thorpe: I'm sorry I wasn't here earlier for my colleague from Richmond East, who asked the minister a few questions on autism. The one thing that my colleague from Richmond East has said to me is that the minister has advised her that the report on where we're going to be going with respect to autism has, in fact, been shared with the autistic community of British Columbia and will be released to the House this month -- in April. I'm just wondering if the minister could share a copy of that with us today or early next week, because members in the autistic community in Penticton have not seen that report. Would that be possible? Could the minister answer that?

Hon. L. Boone: We will be happy to give it to you when we release it.

R. Thorpe: Maybe the minister could just advise me and the House: to whom in the autistic community has this report been released?

Hon. L. Boone: The Autism Society of B.C. has been involved. They have members throughout British Columbia, and hopefully, they've shared that information with their members.

[1050]

Hon. L. Boone: You would have to ask the Attorney General about that. The children's commissioner is under the Attorney General's ministry, not under this ministry.

R. Thorpe: I'd like to confirm: is the minister saying, then, that her ministry has not received a copy of that external report and review of this particular situation?

Hon. L. Boone: I'm not sure whether they have or not. I haven't seen it, but I'll find out for you.

R. Thorpe: One of the things that I don't want to do is make an assumption here, so I appreciate that the minister's going to check. I would ask that if the minister in fact has received that, would the minister please give me a call and let me know, so that I can at least know the status of it.

Hon. L. Boone: Yes.

R. Thorpe: Could the minister advise the current status of the class action suit launched against her ministry by the families of autistic children?

Hon. L. Boone: It is before the courts, and a decision hasn't been rendered on that.

C. Clark: I want to seek some detail from the minister about the different budget envelopes she's presented to us. I ballparked some of the figures without the benefit of a calculator here, but it appears, for example, that the special needs budget is. . . . The increase is about 10 percent of the total budget last year -- that is what they've spent in the special warrant. That's a pretty substantial increase for just a special warrant. Maybe the minister could tell us, break down for us, where the extra money in the special needs budget that's in the special warrant is being spent.

Hon. L. Boone: The services to special needs children -- that amount is $4.97 million. The at-home program, a medical program, is about $1 million extra. Child development rehab costs increased by $1.3 million, and special needs family support costs by $2.7 million.

C. Clark: How much of that is being spent on contracted services?

Hon. L. Boone: It's all contracted except for the at-home program, which goes directly to the family.

C. Clark: I understood that last year the ministry was hoping to save dollars per child on special needs spending by moving to supported child care. I'm not asking the minister to tell me that indeed they're spending more because there are more children. Last year the explanation we got from the minister is that they were spending more as a total, but they were trying to find savings. It would actually be less per child, because they were finding savings and efficiencies within the system. So does this special warrant tell us, then, that none of those savings were realized and that in fact the move to supported child care and those programs has actually been more expensive than anticipated?

[1055]

[ Page 11598 ]

But I do want to make it clear that we have in fact put some of it on a one-time basis, because of some difficulties in moving to supported child care. There were about four areas that had some additional dollars that were put there to support the existing child support services while we moved those areas to supported child care -- recognizing, as I told you last year, that we had some difficulties in some areas that were having some problems and that we were sustaining the existing services while we tried to do that. That did cost us some additional dollars over and above what we had. But the supported child care budget remains the same. So the dollars that are here are for services over and above supported child care.

C. Clark: Those additional dollars. . . . If they're a one-time cost, can the minister tell us how much they were? Because we have to be able to assume that they won't be included in next year's budget. How much were they? What were they for?

Hon. L. Boone: I know that in one area there was approximately $90,000-some-odd. I'd have to get the exact numbers for the four different areas as to how much of those extra dollars were provided. But they went to those regions. They are one-time regions; those regions are going back to their regular funding, because these were transitional dollars that were extended for those areas. So I'm not sure what the transitional dollars were for each of the different areas. But I know, for example, that in the Prince George region there were some additional dollars given there to move them to transition. They recognize that at the end of this fiscal year, those transitional dollars are no longer there, because they were one-time funding and they go back to their regular funding for the child care for that region.

C. Clark: Last year the minister had a supported child care consultation that she set up in response to the public outcry from some parents in some regions about the move to supported child care and the fact that it wasn't working. Can the minister advise us of the status of that committee? Have they reported in? And if not, when can we expect some answers from them?

Hon. L. Boone: That wasn't a public consultation. That was a committee that went out to work with the regions to find out the problem areas that they were having and how they can move toward supported child care in a system, either in identifying how the dollars can be spent or any of those things such as that. But it wasn't a public consultation. There were only about four areas in the province that had some difficulties, and I wouldn't say that it was a public outcry by families. In fact, the member from Richmond has already said that she supports this initiative and recognizes that it's giving parents a choice. So, many parents are extremely happy with supported child care and like the option of having the choices there. But we recognize that there were some problem areas where it was difficult to move, and that's why those people went out to work within those areas.

[1100]

Now, the minister mentioned that this wasn't a public consultation but that there was a committee that she sent out. Has the committee reported back to her? What were the results that were reported back to her? And how have those results been reflected in the money we're being asked to approve today?

Hon. L. Boone: The committee was never to report back to me. The committee was to work within the regions to assist those regions in moving toward supported child care.

C. Clark: So there was never any change in any budget numbers or any change in any budget allocations as a result of the committee that the minister empowered to go speak to regions. Is that correct?

Hon. L. Boone: Yes.

C. Clark: That's a heck of a thing to call a consultation, isn't it? I mean, one day they call it consultation, the next day they call it going out and talking to people -- when really what it is, is just going out and talking at people. You never intend to make any changes about anything. You just try and keep people quiet and pretend that you're doing something. That seems to be the MO for this government pretty consistently across the board, and why should it be any different in Children and Families? In fact, it never has been.

Very briefly, I want to touch on the children-in-care budget. It's gone up by about 2.5 percent. Most of that, I assume, is foster care, but I wonder if the minister can break that down for us.

Hon. L. Boone: Approximately half went into foster families and half went into the contracted resources.

C. Clark: One of the things the minister told us last year is that they forecast a 10 percent growth of children in care over what has now become our past fiscal year. Did that forecast prove to be correct?

Hon. L. Boone: We actually did better than that; it was a 5 percent growth rather than the 10 percent. We are pleased that we're moving in the right direction at reducing the number of children in care, and we'd like to see it down even further.

[1105]

Hon. L. Boone: The growth in the number of children in care has gone down, yes.

C. Clark: The minister said last year, too, that one of the ways they were going to save money is that they were going

[ Page 11599 ]

Hon. L. Boone: I guess we partially achieved that goal; I won't say we fully achieved it. From March 1998 to February 1999 there has been an overall net increase of 248 foster homes. It is anticipated that this number will go up as we have had some ongoing recruitment, and we have more coming on line. We would have liked to have seen more, but we just haven't been able to get all of the foster homes that we required.

C. Clark: Is that a net increase of foster homes, or is that the new foster homes that have come on line, not including the foster homes that have been lost in the system?

Hon. L. Boone: I said that there was a net increase.

C. Clark: How many children did move from the contracted care sector, then, to the foster care sector?

Hon. L. Boone: I'm getting the director of child protection in here, who has a little more knowledge of all those numbers. If you want to go on to another question, we can save some time, then.

C. Clark: I did want to focus on foster care. It was the last area I really wanted to focus on with the minister. We could talk about child and family support, which has gone up about 10 percent. Maybe the minister could break down that budget for us.

Hon. L. Boone: Well, $11.57 million is for supervision orders. Programs included aboriginal services, service to youth, support youth, safe houses, residential support for pregnant teens and family support. Family support includes respite for caregivers, homemaker home support, general family support such as counselling services, child care and transportation assistance. Those are the services that were provided. We required additional dollars to the tune of $11.57 million.

C. Clark: Was the minister suggesting that $11.57 million was spent on supervision orders? I suspect she wasn't. She said that. Or I heard that. Could she tell us how much was spent on supervision orders?

Hon. L. Boone: A supervision order is not something that you actually spend money on. What we spend money on is the services that are provided here, as I stated. That includes services to support youth, safe houses, residential support for pregnant teens and family support. Then there's family support, which includes respite for caregivers, homemaker service, home support and general family support such as counselling services, child care and transportation assistance. As I said earlier, all of those services are included within the $11.57 million.

C. Clark: What I'm asking for are some numbers attached to each of those. Can the minister provide us with that? If she can't provide it for us today because she doesn't have it handy and she's not ready, that's fine. She can forward it to us later. All I'm asking for is the commitment that she tell us how much money is attached to each of those items.

Hon. L. Boone: To expedite this, I will make sure that the ministry gives you a copy of this sheet. Rather than reading these figures over to you and having you write them down, I'll get a copy of this to you -- okay?

C. Clark: Last year the ministry said that one of the ways they were going to save in their foster care budget was by transferring to foster care from contracted services. How much of those savings that they predicted were achieved?

[1110]

C. Clark: The ministry didn't achieve its $4 million saving there. Did the ministry achieve the $2.6 million from better planning as a result of increasing guardianship workers that they predicted last year?

Hon. L. Boone: We've only just got the guardianship workers in place, and we're starting to see some results there. But no, we haven't made those achievements.

C. Clark: If the ministry didn't achieve the $4 million in savings from transferring to contracted services, and it didn't achieve the $2.6 million saving from increasing guardianship workers, did it achieve the saving that they predicted of $5.6 million from increased adoption of 240 children?

Hon. L. Boone: We have actually placed 95 in adoptions. We have 62 in progress, so when we finish, that will be a total of 157 for a saving of $3.6 million.

C. Clark: So the ministry did not achieve its prediction of saving $4 million in the transfer to contractor services, didn't achieve the $2.6 million as a result of increased guardianship and missed its target by $2.5 million for the adoptions. Did the ministry achieve the reduction that they predicted of $1.8 million in guardianship expenses for children in care?

[1115]

C. Clark: Can the minister predict any year, any time, when any ministry in this government will actually meet any of its predictions, meet any of its plans, make any of the savings that they say they're going to make anytime in the near future?

L. Reid: There are a couple of issues I want to canvass before we conclude. The independent living situation. My understanding is that it now falls under the Ministry for

[ Page 11600 ]

Hon. L. Boone: We don't have it all broken down, but we will get you those numbers if you wish.

L. Reid: I thank the minister for the offer to provide that information. The principle of this government has seemed to be Closer to Home -- closer to home in your own home; it doesn't get better than that. So indeed I'd be very intrigued by the level of spending, the number of individuals that that has supported, what the increase was over last year. Any of those areas would assist me. My thinking around this is that Closer to Home has evaporated, because it's unsupported. The talk continues, but the level of support, I believe, shrinks.

In terms of this ministry being one-stop shopping for communities around the province, one of the biggest issues is transportation. The minister will know that mentally handicapped adults, particularly individuals in independent living situations, cannot secure a driver's licence, so they are at the whim of and totally dependent on something like handy-DART or a variety of other transportation modes around the province. In terms of having a strategic plan for the ministry, what kind of thought has gone into it? What kind of decisions have been taken around transportation for individuals who rely on the Ministry for Children and Families for their care and to move to medical appointments, to move to learning environments, to move to working environments? What happens now? I have a number of constituents, as do my colleagues, who wait hours on end for something like the handyDART service -- two or three hours. They can't keep a job, because they can't be guaranteed of getting there on a reasonable time line. What kind of modifications has the ministry put in place to ensure that this doesn't happen to individuals who are totally reliant on this service?

Hon. L. Boone: While I'd like to get into a debate on the handyDART system, that's not within my ministry's mandate here. We do provide assistance for individuals to go to day programs, to get to appointments -- to do a number of different things. So we do provide transportation to assist mentally handicapped individuals. But I can't comment with regards to the handyDART system.

L. Reid: I thank the minister. If it's not the handyDART system, is it a dollar value that's provided to these individuals so that they can purchase that service? Are they indeed able to access cabs so that they actually might arrive somewhere in a reasonable time frame? Or is handyDART the only service that this ministry funds?

[1120]

L. Reid: I don't wish to belabour this point, but certainly when we come back in the estimates process, I will need from the minister some sense -- beyond the discussion where the worker works with the family, and they come up with a process as to what the individual needs -- that when they pick up the phone to call for the service, somebody actually comes. I don't have that assurance today, as many, many constituents don't have that assurance today on behalf of their individuals living in communities. So any work that can be done on that in the interim has got to be helpful to folks who are waiting by the phone today for somebody to actually pick them up to deliver them to some vitally important appointments.

The minister mentioned that $11.57 million was the large sum; from that, specific dollars were provided for respite for caregivers. What portion of the $11.57 million is for respite?

The second question is: what portion of that respite allotment is actually for families who are caring for their own children at home?

Hon. L. Boone: Out of the $11.5 million. . . . As you can well understand, we do not necessarily have our figures broken down the way you are requesting them here. So out of the $11.5 million, $352, 000 went to community education; aboriginal services was $408,000 -- I'm rounding these off; services to support youth was $499,000; Maples Adolescent Treatment Centre was $926,000; family support was $9,518,801. Of that family support. . . . Respite is part of that -- respite and training and recruitment and respite support for pregnant teenagers, homemaker and family support. If you want the breakdown as to how much went into respite for families who are taking care of their own individuals at home, as compared to others, we'll have to get that figure. We'll get it to you -- okay?

[1125]

Hon. L. Boone: As you know, we have kids coming into care, but we have kids going out of care as well. Although we've had a number of increases, we're very proud that we have reduced the increases. I mean, it sounds silly to talk in those terms. But we were increasing at a rate of 13 percent. We were hoping to reduce it, and we're very proud that we've actually cut it down to an increase of 5 percent. We've reduced the increase, which sounds kind of strange. But we are sending more kids home; we're trying to get them home. We've provided more support for families, so we are, I think, on the right track here in trying to reduce the number of kids that are in care and provide some assistance to families so that they can keep those families together.

L. Reid: This says that 40 percent of apprehended children are home within three months, and 79 percent are back home within a year. Those figures fascinate me, and I would

[ Page 11601 ]

My question speaks to the families who have been disrupted beyond belief. Is there any focus, any emphasis on the part of the ministry to frankly say they're sorry for some of those situations that have caused such enormous turmoil, that were not at the hands of family members; when in fact they have been through the mill, in lots of cases, in terms of dramatic impacts on their lives; when, indeed, the investigation was not complete?

In lots of cases -- the minister will know which cases I refer to -- the rules of evidence have not been in place, and the allegations were not substantiated. There were lots of scenarios where children were returned because, frankly, they were apprehended inappropriately. What happens on the part of a social worker who interacts with that family? Is there some regret extended to the family for the enormous disruption to their lives?

Hon. L. Boone: We've been through this before. The court determines whether the allegations are substantiated or not, and not our workers.

In the cases where individuals have been returned home in three months' time, in many cases we've given some support to that family so that they can parent properly, so the child is not at risk. In some cases it's voluntary agreements, where parents have come to us and children have come to us and said they need some support and a little bit of time so that they can work out some difficulties in their lives, and they've gone back. Our workers do not go out and apprehend children without having the court say that there is some reason for them to do so. For you to say that there are allegations that haven't been substantiated, etc., etc. . . . I do not necessarily think that's true.

L. Reid: Again, I won't belabour this point. The minister is correct in the sense that the courts do make those decisions. But they make those decisions based on information that's provided to them by social workers in the field. Are there a myriad of cases where insufficient evidence has been provided by the social worker? Countless, countless cases. So again, my only request to this minister would be that somehow some humanity enters into the process, that when a mistake is made, an apology is extended -- because there are mistakes made.

I fully support what the minister has said, in terms of supporting parents and in terms of becoming better parents. I'm absolutely on side with the prevention strategies, the early intervention program, the zero-to-five strategies -- all of those things. But this is a human system, so when mistakes are made, rather than moving on, every once in a while it might be appropriate to say: "We're really sorry this happened to you." That's my only comment on that question.

The minister also commented, in fact, that no money is spent on supervision orders. My understanding is that a great deal of money is spent on enforcing those supervision orders -- i.e., who is hired to supervise, whether or not those individuals are readily available -- and in lots of cases we have constituents who have supervision orders that are, frankly, worthless because no one will enforce them. No one is there. No one is able to provide supervised access. That's a concern.

Indeed, if this $11.5 million looks at those kinds of issues, which the minister indicated earlier on that it did, giving someone a piece of paper that means nothing, that is not enforceable, only frustrates them and only frustrates the process. So my thinking is that rather than believe that the supervision orders cost nothing, there be some recognition that there is some cost to provide the service that goes along with the words on the piece of paper. If the minister would comment.

[1130]

L. Reid: So by way of conclusion, the minister is going to assure me that if someone has a supervision order, there actually is some confidence. They can go forward with some confidence that there will be somebody who will provide the supervision that matches the order. I'm hoping the answer to that is a yes.

Hon. L. Boone: My colleague to the right here is saying that he can't hear himself read quietly, so I would ask the Minister of Finance to try and tone it down a little bit, because I can't even hear the question.

Yes, there will be support.

L. Reid: I would thank the minister, and I would thank the staff. I look forward to receiving the material that's been promised, and I look forward to the estimates debate.

The Chair: Seeing no further speakers, we will continue on to warrant 2, Ministry of Health.

On the schedule, warrant 2.

C. Hansen: As we move on to the next two special warrants, which both fall under the Ministry of Health, what we have before us is a total of $124.5 million of additional moneys that had to be added to the Health ministry budget for the past fiscal year. The first warrant deals specifically with the Medical Services Plan, the acute and continuing care program and Pharmacare.

I want to start out just on a general note with regard to these warrants. I'd like to start with a quote from the minister's press release from last March -- March of 1998. I'll just read this quote: "The challenge is to ensure this new funding" -- the $228.5 million that the Health budget was increased by last year -- "goes to enhancing care for individual patients and improving the health of British Columbians. The best way to achieve that goal is by investing these new dollars into key priorities such as hospitals, wait-lists, preventive health care and doctors' services." I would like to ask the minister where we went wrong in the last 12 months in terms of meeting that challenge as she set it out.

Hon. P. Priddy: I don't think we did "go wrong" at all. If you look at the areas on which the special warrant is focused, it is exactly those areas which the member has just named. It is additional dollars for physicians in rural areas; it's additional

[ Page 11602 ]

[1135]

Hon. P. Priddy: I certainly have confidence, as we go forward this year, that we will be significantly further ahead at this time next year in addressing the issues of wait times and additional nurses to provide quality care for patients. I think none of us can say that this time next year there will be no wait times and no new drugs on the market, that this is the only drug that can meet someone's needs and that we have not anticipated. . . . But I think we can say with confidence that we will be in a much better -- well, it's not so much we. . . . Patients in the province will be in a better position next year.

C. Hansen: In the nine-month report that came out -- the third quarterly report -- what it shows for the Ministry of Health is expenditures that were $133 million over budget at that point -- the end of December. I was wondering if the minister can explain how we went from $133 million over at the end of December to $124.5 million at the end of the fiscal year.

Hon. P. Priddy: I think probably two things. . . . At the end of the third quarter. . . . The member knows that the closer you get to the end of the year, the more precise you get. So our estimate was $133 million at the end of December. We did take some internal action within the ministry around sort of tightening areas of expenditure, but nevertheless, by the end of the year, it was somewhat less. Part of that is just on estimate.

C. Hansen: Since the first of January this year, a great number of announcements of new spending have been made. At the time, I believe, in most cases the minister assured us that these were new dollars that were being spent -- not existing dollars that were in the budget. So if we go from the end of December and a $133 million deficit to the end of the fiscal year itself with a $124.5 million deficit -- within the range that the minister just explained; I accept that that's a reasonable approximation at the end of December -- what that tells me is that all of the announcements that have been made since January 1 are in fact not new dollars. If the announcements that were made were supposed to be new dollars, it would have increased the deficit and increased the amount of these special warrants by the end of the fiscal year. I'm wondering if the minister can reconcile that.

Hon. P. Priddy: One of the factors in that estimate is that at that stage -- at the end of December -- we were still estimating within the sort of one-time dollars for Canadian Blood Services, which is about $40 million. Since that time those dollars have been capitalized and therefore aren't reflected there.

[1140]

Hon. P. Priddy: I'm sorry -- I didn't mean to mislead the member. The amount that we capitalized is $25.6 million, which was the capital part of that. There were additional operating costs last year of, I think, $23.5 million; non-capital was $7.5 million startup funds for the blood society.

C. Hansen: My understanding of the blood service is that in previous years it had been funded from the operations of the ministry, in terms of a grant to the Canadian Red Cross for operating the blood service. Could the minister tell us how much, in the previous fiscal year, was allocated to the Red Cross for the operations of the blood service, and how that compared to this last year under the new national blood service?

Hon. P. Priddy: I think the question -- sorry, we were just doing a bit of math here -- was last year's cost. Last year's cost was $40 million, paid to the Canadian Blood Agency which then contracted with the Red Cross.

C. Hansen: That $40 million cost in the previous fiscal year, I gather, had been an ongoing expense. I'm sure it has escalated over a couple of years, but basically it got to that $40 million number. I wonder if the minister could tell us, in terms of last year's estimates, where we would find that $40 million. Or did it just disappear off the ledger?

Hon. P. Priddy: It would be in the acute- and continuing-care budget.

C. Hansen: So, in other words, the $40 million that had been allocated for blood services on an ongoing basis was in fact part of the continuing-care budget going into last year. This money that's covered in this special warrant that the minister just broke down -- is that all in addition to the previous $40 million?

Hon. P. Priddy: Yes, it is.

C. Hansen: Just to get some clarification. The minister talked about $25.6 million for capital, $23.5 million for operating and $7.5 million for non-capital. I wonder if she could explain what that last category is.

[1145]

[ Page 11603 ]

Hon. P. Priddy: Unless you were including the cost of the Dobbin report as a collective agreement -- and I don't expect that you were -- then my staff indicates to me that there is no additional cost in the special warrants for those.

C. Hansen: In other words, all of the collective agreements -- the settlement, the increased benefit provisions, some of the reclassifications and things like that that happened as a result of those agreements -- would have been covered out of the existing allocated expenditures for the year.

Hon. P. Priddy: We will do an additional check for you, member, but most of it was set aside at the beginning of the year to cover that. We're just doing an extra check to see if any came out of contingencies. But most of it was set aside at the beginning of the year, knowing these were coming up.

C. Hansen: Does the minister have a breakdown of how much would have been set aside for the settlement of those agreements?

Hon. P. Priddy: We don't have that information with us. We can get it if the member wants us to do so.

C. Hansen: I would appreciate that information and look forward to it.

Dealing specifically with the first special warrant, it mentions specifically $84.5 million for the Medical Services Plan, the acute- and continuing-care program and Pharmacare. I wonder if the minister could give us a breakdown on how that $84 million is chopped up for those various needs.

Hon. P. Priddy: The way that breaks down -- at least in large categories, member -- would be $17.65 million for the Medical Services Plan, $52 million for acute and continuing care and $14.85 million for Pharmacare.

S. Hawkins: I just have a couple of general questions for the minister before we get into specifics. I'm wondering this: how closely do the minister and the ministry watch the ministry expenditures? Would the minister describe for me how often she monitors the expenditures? How often are they reported to her? Is it done on a weekly basis? Is it done on a bimonthly basis, on a monthly basis -- on where the budget is in the estimates?

Hon. P. Priddy: We receive operating reports on a monthly basis from the individual health authorities around the province and from the Medical Services Plan, which are received into the ministry on a monthly basis. In those areas where there are additional challenges, then that's brought to my attention.

[1150]

Hon. P. Priddy: Certainly with the health authorities it would depend very much on what they've identified as an area that they may be overexpending in. We might either tell them that they have to be able to manage and find it from some other part of their budget, or we might do a review to see if they do indeed have pressures that cannot be met. We may say: "You can carry it over into next month. We'll have a look at whether your needs or pressures have changed next month." There's a variety of ways in which it can be handled, depending on what the identified overspending is.

S. Hawkins: When did this minister know that there wasn't enough money in the budget? When did this minister know that there was going to be a cost overrun and that there was going to be extra money needed in the budget?

Hon. P. Priddy: I think it's fair to suggest that by the time the Dobbin report was finished and an estimate was done on what the final cost would be, we did have an understanding at that stage that it was not within our existing budget.

S. Hawkins: Can I take by that, then, that it was in September of last year? I believe that the Dobbin was finalized and that the minister was going into negotiations about money with the physicians back in September.

Hon. P. Priddy: I'm sorry -- I want to try and remember the question. It was probably about mid-September, I think, by the time we knew what the final cost would be.

S. Hawkins: That's interesting, because in September this minister knew that there wasn't enough money in the Health budget. We were back in this House in November and in December; we were back in this House until February 1 of this year. We hear from all our constituents that they're not getting the health care they need. They're asking us to represent their concerns in this House; they're asking us to get services to them. This minister tells us today that she put an extra almost $85 million into health care that she knew was going to be overrun last September. She comes today, on April 1, 1999, and tells us she spent that money, and the House hasn't even approved that spending. This minister had opportunities in November, in December and in January, right until February 1, to come before this House and ask for that money. I think that's an insult to our constituents. I really do.

This minister says she put $84.5 million -- which is a huge sum for me to even say -- in medical services, in acute and continuing care and in Pharmacare. All last year we heard concerns -- and I'm sure the members across the way heard concerns, as well, from their constituents, from patients and families in their areas -- about patients who are not getting the treatments and the services they need in this area. The minister is telling us today that she spent that money when she had the opportunity to come before the House and ask for that money to be spent in areas where it was needed. She had the opportunity to do that, and she didn't do that. I'm wondering why the minister didn't take the opportunity to do that.

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[ Page 11604 ]

B. McKinnon: Could I ask leave. . . ?

Leave granted.

B. McKinnon: Visiting the Legislature right now are 21 Girl Guides from my riding of Surrey-Cloverdale along with their leader, Ms. Gibbons, and I ask the House to make them welcome.

[W. Hartley in the chair.]

Hon. P. Priddy: I think that at that time of the year -- it's not an early stage; it was halfway through the fiscal year -- there were still for us a number of undetermined factors about whether we were going to need additional dollars. We knew Dobbin was an unbudgeted, if you will, expense; we didn't know at that stage whether we were going to be able to capitalize the dollars or not. We didn't know if we would have access to a government contingency vote or not, so at that stage all of the information that we currently have was not available.

S. Hawkins: I think that's one of the lamest excuses I've heard in this House. That was September. We were back here in November, we were back here in December and we were back here in January, right to February 1. That was two months ago, and I don't think the minister spent that almost $85 million just in the last two months.

I think this minister knew back in September that they were going to need more money, and it's an abuse. I think it's an abuse of this Legislature for the ministers to come in here and ask on the very last day for money they spent in the year before that they've never asked the Legislature for. They never got approval for it. This minister is telling us she knew back in September of 1998 that there was going to be an overrun. She must have known in November, she must have known in December, she must have known in January, and she must have known on February 1.

I want to ask the minister: for this $84.5 million that she overspent in the budget that she says she spent on the Medical Services Plan, she spent on acute and continuing care and she spent on Pharmacare, can she break it down for us and tell us when that money was actually spent and where it was spent?

Hon. P. Priddy: If the member is asking specifically where in acute and continuing care or where in Pharmacare and so on. . . . I'm happy to sort of read the list, if you like. We can do that in smaller or greater detail, as the member prefers. But in acute and continuing care, it was spent on areas of addressing wait times, renal services, oncology drugs. As we mentioned earlier, operating costs for the new national blood program. . . . Pharmacare costs were higher than expected as a result of higher than anticipated utilization and increased drug costs for seniors, which are growing at a significantly higher rate than we've seen in some time. Income assistance beneficiarie. . . . The universal plan was up, as well as HIV/AIDS drugs.

In terms of the announcements made, I think it is important to remember that if you announce money -- $10 million, say -- for a particular kind of initiative, all of that money doesn't suddenly go out the door. You might have $2 million go out now and the rest in the year to come.

[1200]

What I asked for is the $84.5 million. The minister knew last September that she was going to run over budget. Somewhere that money ran out, and she had to add another $84.5 million to the budget. I want to know: when was the money spent? You had $84.5 million to spend. When did you spent it? Did you spend it in November? In December? January? February? March? I think it's a simple question. If you spent it then, you knew you were going over budget. We were here in the Legislature. I think it's an abuse of the Legislature for you not to ask for that money when we were here.

The minister did mention that she drew from the government contingency fund. So the questions are: when did she spend that money, how much a month did she spend, and how much did she draw from the government contingency fund?

Hon. P. Priddy: If you will, for a minute, simply take the items around acute and continuing care which. . . . If I were to sort of break the list down further -- wait times, renal dialysis, etc. -- that's about $59 million. Most of that money went out quite late in the year and was announced quite late in the year. So we didn't know in November about some of the situations we were going to have around pediatric wait times, the MRI and so on. Much of this was announced quite late in the year, so we wouldn't have known in November or December about a number of those that you have raised. That's about $59 million. And we wouldn't have. . . . Because of the ministry accruals, you don't "run out of money."

S. Hawkins: I'm having difficulty believing that the minister actually spent $59 million on wait-lists in January, February and March, because that would be a heck of a lot of surgeries being done at a time when I think there were a lot of RAD days, nursing strikes and hospital OR closures. I'm having difficulty understanding where a lot of this money was spent.

I want to go back to a question I asked earlier, because I don't think I heard the minister's response to it. Why didn't this minister come back to the Legislature and ask for approval for that spending? Why didn't she do that? She had an opportunity in November, in December, in January and in February. Why didn't she do that?

Hon. P. Priddy: Two comments. One of them is: I don't think any ministry knows. . . . Clearly the two ministries we've addressed today often have very unexpected needs until quite late in the year. I mean, we know we didn't budget for Dobbin, because that wasn't an issue when last year's budget was done. It doesn't mean that you know either the size or the magnitude of the additional dollars you might need. But when you ask if those dollars were spent late in the year, I would say to the member that including the Canadian Blood Services costs, which have only been finalized in the last few days and which account for $31 million, all of those other costs -- indeed that whole $59 million -- have, in point

[ Page 11605 ]

[1205]

Hon. P. Priddy: The $133 million projected at the end of December is about 1.5 percent of our budget, if you will -- significant, but 1.5 percent. So when you get down to estimating those expenses, 1.5 percent is getting down to cutting it fairly close, even though it's a large number of dollars. When I said that the $59 million went out towards the end of this fiscal year. . . . That is correct, but for instance, the money would have been in the $133 million that we estimated for the Canadian blood society. Even though we didn't have, until a few days ago, a final answer for what the final amount might be, that had been estimated within that.

But I go back to the fact. . . . I don't know if there's any place else to go with this, hon. Chair, whether this discussion is fruitful beyond this, but at the end of December we still were not. . . . Although we knew that we had, or were estimating, an overexpenditure, we didn't know if we'd have additional dollars from the vote. We didn't know if we could capitalize Red Cross costs or blood costs. There were a number of unknowns that we could not have projected accurately at that time. We did, however, try to be as transparent in there as we could about what the issues would be within that amount.

S. Hawkins: The government is very transparent. I think the government had a lot of money for announcements. That's what the minister had money for. There was a lot of announcements made, pre-budget, for Health care spending, and this was billed as the Health budget. It's coming out of overruns from last year's budget, and I think that's disgusting. I think the minister will have lots of time to come back to the Legislature and ask for the money and have it debated and have members from both sides raise concerns from patients and families in their ridings as to where that money should be spent. That's the way it should be done.

It is an abuse of the Legislature for this minister, who had lots of chances in the last year to come before us and ask for approval, to be talking about $59 million that was just spent in the last month or so. I think the transparency is for political gain. It was all those announcements that were made.

I want to talk about the contingency fund, because in the estimates from last year the total contingency fund for the government was $74 million. I want to know how much this minister drew out of that $74 million, out of last year's contingency fund, for these special warrants.

Hon. P. Priddy: We have staff going to get the answer to that.

[1210]

There has been, as I understand it, a major problem in terms of the backlog with the Medical Services Plan. This is actually in a letter that was written to a private citizen from an official in the registration and premium billing branch, where he says: "With respect to the recording you heard when telephoning MSP in December, in order to address a large backlog of unanswered correspondence, the registration and premium billing branch is closing telephone lines approximately one day a week and devoting staff to handling mail." I know we had the opportunity to discuss this at a briefing that some of the senior ministry officials kindly attended. I had the understanding that there were additional resources being put into dealing with that backlog, yet I don't see that reflected in special warrants. I'm just wondering if the minister could tell us what kind of additional resources were put in and how those might be reflected in these special warrants.

Hon. P. Priddy: The member identifies something that has been a frustration to all kinds of people, and we have received the same kinds of letters. I don't consider it acceptable that that office closed in order to deal with their administrative paperwork. That is no longer happening. The office is open each day. We put in 18 auxiliary positions to, if you will, clean up that backlog, and that has happened. The backlog has been dealt with. I think that any of the costs that you would see reflected have been covered over. It's my understanding that it's by vacancies that existed within the ministry.

C. Hansen: I want to move on to the issue of rural doctors and the Dobbin report. When the Dobbin report came down last June, the minister assured us that every one of the recommendations would be implemented. I'm wondering if the minister feels that she has lived up to that commitment.

Hon. P. Priddy: The answer to the first part is yes. We have carried out the recommendations of Dobbin -- all of them. However, I would actually say that there have probably been some unexpected consequences created by carrying out the Dobbin recommendations, which we are still dealing with. And there are some communities for which this has not been a perfect answer, as I guess nothing that applies across a large area ever is. There are still areas that we're working on, but the recommendations have been carried out.

C. Hansen: I'd like to highlight two specific areas that certainly those in northern British Columbia do not feel have been addressed. These are not unexpected consequences of Dobbin; there are certainly those. But there were areas that Lucy Dobbin herself saw were issues, but she didn't have time to deal with them. She made specific recommendations regarding, first of all, the on-call services for specialists in rural communities. The other areas where she made specific recommendations were with regard to physicians in NIA commu-

[ Page 11606 ]

[1215]

We are currently negotiating with health authorities about those communities that are NIA communities but do not have a hospital within them. We don't have a resolution for that yet, but we are working with health authorities to try and resolve that. I think what Dobbin had said is, "Please try and put together a process that will address this," and that's what we've done.

C. Hansen: This may be the one the minister was just referring to, but the reference that I have is to the rural initiatives steering committee. This may very well be a different committee than the one the minister just referenced. But there was a meeting that took place in early February between representatives of the rural initiatives steering committee and Ministry of Health officials. That meeting took place on February 8. They were promised that there were going to be dates set for future meetings to move this process forward and that those dates would be set within four weeks. That was a very specific commitment that was made. Certainly, as of earlier this week nothing had happened -- unless something has happened in the last few hours. I wonder if the minister could explain to us why there has been no date set for that committee to meet to move some of these issues forward.

Hon. P. Priddy: The committee that I was referring to -- and it's the only committee that my staff tells me we're aware of, and it's the only one I know about -- is called the provincial coordinating committee for rural and remote health services. Oh, Lord, we do this; surely we could make it a longer title if we worked at it. Anyway, PCCRRHS is the committee that does have as its mandate to coordinate activities between stakeholders around health services in remote and rural areas. They are currently developing a rural action plan. Nobody here knows whether they met on February 8 and whether people promised dates back or not. We can check for you. These are not likely to be the staff who were in attendance. Well, they're not the staff who were in attendance at what I assume is this committee's meeting. This is the actual title that it goes by. It's probably the same one, but I don't know.

[1220]

But I guess my big concern is that in the Dobbin report, when these issues were addressed. . . . I would think that this would be a much higher priority in terms of the minister's priority list. If you go back to where we were a year ago in terms of the northern doctors dispute, I'm sure that this minister would not want to relive those days. I'm sure that the patients in those communities would not want to relive those days. Those were times when families were put at risk. I think everybody was relieved when Dobbin came down with at least some recommendations, which were pulled together very quickly. I think you've got to give Lucy Dobbin full credit for the work that she did under incredible pressure in a very short period of time. But nobody read the Dobbin report as if this were somehow the grand solution to the problems of northern doctors. It was meant to be, basically, a band-aid to the immediate issues that were facing northern communities at that time. In that regard, Lucy Dobbin was successful.

But what she also did in that report is set out those areas that had to be addressed. Since becoming Health critic, I have spent a considerable amount of time in NIA communities around this province. I've been into the East Kootenays; I've been up into the north; I've been into the Peace River; I've been into the northwest. What I find is a whole new, growing sense of anxiety in those communities, because what they see is another new problem emerging as a result of the failure to follow up on some of these issues and to deal with them as priorities.

I would say to the minister that she has an opportunity today to move some of these issues much higher up on her priority list, so she can deal with the rural initiatives steering committee and ensure that this agenda is moved forward. I will guarantee her that if these issues aren't addressed, that is a powder keg that is about to blow up in her face again. Hon. Speaker, I would regret it very much if I have to stand in this House the way the previous Health critic did last year to point again to the minister's inaction in dealing with those northern issues. I think it's incumbent upon this minister to take firm control of these issues and make sure they are dealt with quickly.

My question to the minister is: will she make a commitment to northern communities that she will see that these issues get moved forward on a priority basis -- not sit in this House and say that she doesn't know when meetings take place and who's meeting and who's really dealing with this issue?

Hon. P. Priddy: I think, in fairness, that this is a priority for the ministry, and the fact that I don't know the specific date that every committee meets, particularly one which doesn't match the name I have here, is really not what the issue is, surely. I think that in an $8 billion ministry you don't know the date of every committee that meets, and if you have a minister that does, then that's probably a bit of a problem as well.

[1225]

[ Page 11607 ]

Certainly there are issues that we are still working out. That's not because it's not a priority in the ministry. Our committee, the provincial coordinating committee, is meeting. Whether it has a next date. . . . I'm sure it does. If that's what the member needs to know, we'll find out. Let's remember that as a result of the Dobbin report most physicians, who are already receiving somewhere between 6 percent and 20 percent NIA allowance on top of what they bill, are now receiving an additional $30,000 for on-call payments, as much as an additional $6,000 for their continuing medical education, as well as having their pension plan covered and their malpractice insurance covered, etc.

In the northern communities alone several things have happened. One of them, as I say, is the fact that most of those physicians who have qualified are making another $30,000 a year as a result of on-call payments. I don't think that that is in any way ignoring the priorities of physicians in the north. That's how we have responded as per Dobbin's recommendations, acknowledging that there are some communities that we're still working on because they didn't fit within that.

I think the other thing is that because of this committee and because of the work being done, as well, with other people in HEABC, we now are able to recruit physicians into communities like the Robson Valley, where the two physicians left. They were fee-for-service physicians. There are now four physicians there. They're on salary. They're working less on call. They're covering the community. The community is not anxious. They know that they're there to stay. So we have also been able to make some difference in northern and rural and remote communities in the way that the work is done. I would suggest to you that people in the Robson Valley have much less anxiety.

C. Hansen: Certainly in other communities there is growing anxiety. I think that if you go back to a year ago, the minister had a major political problem on her desk in terms of medical services. It's not about doctors; I agree with the minister on that. It's about patient care and service to those communities. What I'm saying to the minister today is that she has a growing problem in many of those communities. She may not think it's a political problem today that warrants her priority. Certainly my plea to the minister is that she deal with this one before it becomes a major political problem for her, because there is anxiety growing in many of those communities.

The minister mentioned earlier that there was $17.65 million that was allocated to MSP as a portion of these special warrants. Could the minister tell us how much the funding for doctors in northern B.C. amounts to as a portion of that $17.65 million and as a result of the Dobbin recommendations?

Hon. P. Priddy: I want to go back to just make a point at the end of the last question that the member had addressed. It is a priority for this government. You may have different information, and I'd be pleased to hear from which communities that's true. My information is that the majority -- not all, member, but the majority -- of communities feel that this is working reasonably well. My staff have been out working with those communities, working with those health authorities, asking those questions.

But are there places where it still isn't working as well as we'd want? That's true. It is a priority; it will stay a priority. But it's not a priority if the only answer, as it seems. . . . If the only answer to settling it is another open chequebook -- you can only solve this with a whole lot more money, and that's the only solution -- it is much harder to solve those kinds of problems if people come to the table only with that as an answer.

As I say, we've seen. . . . My deputy reminded me that we now have two new physicians in Fraser Lake, which got a lot of press when their physicians left. We have two new physicians in Fraser Lake. They're working on salary. That community's anxiety level is not up, and it's working well. So that's that part.

In terms of the $17.65 million, $7 million of that was last year's cost for Dobbin.

C. Hansen: I was wondering if the minister could tell us, first of all: of that $7 million, is that all allocated from the previous fiscal year? The cost of implementing Dobbin, then, is just the amount that impacted on the 1998-99 fiscal year and is a portion of this and is reflected in this special warrant.

The other question -- if I'll just lump this into this as well -- is: could the minister tell us how many of the contracts with northern doctors that will emanate from the Dobbin report are now signed? What percentage are we up to in terms of signed, secure contracts?

[1230]

C. Hansen: I also understand that many of these contracts have expiry dates of March 31 on them and that a bunch of them have expiry dates of June. Of those that were signed and in place, they were about half and half. I'm wondering where we're at in terms of negotiation for renewals of those contracts and where the minister sees that going in the months to come.

Hon. P. Priddy: We have advised the health authorities that we are prepared to renew all of those contracts or roll them over, if you will, on the basis on which they were signed.

C. Hansen: I want to come back to the minister's comments about the new doctors in the Robson Valley and in Fraser Lake. Who makes the decision to put in place salaried physicians? Do they go out to basically recruit doctors? Or do they go out specifically to recruit salaried doctors in those communities?

Hon. P. Priddy: What most health authorities do is use the recruiting facility that we set up through the Health Employers Association of B.C., or HEABC. We need a lot more acronyms in the Health ministry, surely -- anyway, HEABC. They use the recruiting service through there. When they find

[ Page 11608 ]

C. Hansen: Could the minister tell us what direction goes from the ministry to those health authorities with regard to fee-for-service versus salaried positions?

Hon. P. Priddy: What goes from the ministry to the health authority is simply information about the options; there's no direction. If they can find a physician that's going to do work by fee-for-service or contract, it doesn't matter, as long as the medical service gets covered.

S. Hawkins: I'm wondering if the minister has the information that I asked for before: how much of last year's contingency fund, which was set at $74 million in total, did this minister draw out last year for Health?

Hon. P. Priddy: We anticipate accessing the contingency vote for $14.8 million this year, which is really about a labour issue that's. . . .

Interjection.

Hon. P. Priddy: Sorry, '98-99 -- the year we just finished yesterday. It's $14.8 million for '98-99, which is about an issue that we currently have in arbitration.

S. Hawkins: Can the minister tell me what that issue is?

[1235]

S. Hawkins: Is that employment equity? Is that what the issue is?

Hon. P. Priddy: No, it's not an employment equity issue.

S. Hawkins: Can the minister confirm, then, that the actual overrun for her ministry is $139.3 million, with the money that she's planning to draw out of the contingency fund?

Hon. P. Priddy: Until we have a decision on the arbitration, we don't know. If we have a decision that rules for the issue of comparability, then it will affect previous expenses. So at this stage, until we have that decision, we won't know.

S. Hawkins: It seems to me, at this stage, we're already there. The minister is talking about a $124.5 million overrun in special warrants. Then she's telling us that she's planning to draw about $15 million out of the contingency fund, which I think is kind of strange, because the contingency fund is money that we really don't have either. Last year's budget posted, I believe, a deficit of over half a billion dollars. I'm wondering. . . . Can the minister tell me what the process is to draw money out of the contingency fund? What terms of reference does the minister have to use, or what process, to get the money out of that fund?

Hon. P. Priddy: Well, we may already be there. But until the arbitration rules, I won't expect that we are. So we're simply trying to be cognizant of the fact that that would be the cost of that ruling if it rules a certain way. But I don't know that we're there for sure. We're just trying to predict it. In terms of the contingency vote, that's accessed through Treasury Board. It's a Ministry of Finance vote.

S. Hawkins: I'm wondering why this $14.8 million -- since we're not there yet -- wouldn't be in a line item in next year's budget. Why is it being drawn out of last year's contingency fund?

Hon. P. Priddy: Because it affects prior-year expenses.

S. Hawkins: The minister was talking about comparability being the issue. Can she define that?

Hon. P. Priddy: This particular arbitration is a fairly complex one, and I would not presume to describe the entire arbitration. But basically it is an issue almost of classifications between unions, in terms of whether there's comparability between a job done by one person in one union and one person in another union and what the classification of that looks like -- the comparability of their jobs and the wages they are paid.

S. Hawkins: It seems to me, then, that the minister is talking about employment equity. Is that what the minister is talking about?

[1240]

S. Hawkins: You know, I'm having trouble understanding this. Bear with me. Which workers and unions are we talking about, and what kind of job classifications are we talking about, when we're setting aside almost $15 million as a contingency to settle an arbitration?

Hon. P. Priddy: Two things. One of them, hon. Chair, with the greatest respect, is that these are not dollars that are within the special warrant, so I don't know how much more discussion we should pursue with this. And I don't know if this is the best place to. . . . I don't have staff here who could give you a description of the entire arbitration. My understanding is that it's HEU and it's BCGEU, and it's certainly people who work within the health sector in both those unions. I'm not sure that I can provide more information around the arbitration at this stage. I'll leave it at that.

S. Hawkins: Thank you. If it's out of order, the minister should have told me before we got down this line. Maybe my last question is. . . . The $14.8 million is just strictly for the arbitration. Is that the only money that this minister is drawing out of the contingency fund?

Hon. P. Priddy: Yes.

[ Page 11609 ]

Hon. P. Priddy: I'm not sure about the CIHI information. What we know about hospitals -- and I want B.C. to rank first in everything, and mostly we do -- is that we have the highest per capita hospital funding in the country. I don't know what the CIHI figures are based on, but in terms of. . . .

Interjection.

Hon. P. Priddy: I'm sorry, are you asking the question or is someone else?

An Hon. Member: Would you like to answer?

Hon. P. Priddy: Yes. It is the highest per capita hospital funding in the country, so I'm not sure what the CIHI figures that you're using are referring to.

C. Hansen: Well, basically, if you look at the way CIHI has broken these down, they break it down in terms of total spending in the province for all hospitals. They also break down total provincial government spending for hospitals. They also break down total private hospitals. They break down total federal government spending on hospitals in this province. And basically, if you take the numbers for the total spending on hospitals province by province, we rank number eight out of ten. If you look at the total provincial government spending on hospitals, we still rank number eight out of ten provinces.

[1245]

There are all kinds of wonderful things we can do in health care. The sky's the limit in terms of how much money could be spent, but the pot is only so big, and we have to recognize where our priorities are. I think those numbers that come out of CIHI point to where the crux of the problem is in health funding in British Columbia.

I wonder if the minister could respond to that.

Hon. P. Priddy: I would be interested in the CIHI report that the member has and how it's broken down. By the way, my deputy is a member of CIHI. But the information I have and the independent information and research that's been done -- like the article in Maclean's magazine a few months ago -- indicate that British Columbia has the highest level of health funding per capita and the highest level of hospital funding per capita. That's not only our information, but it's information done by Maclean's magazine that's not -- I don't think -- particularly out there to serve this government.

So I would appreciate -- and we will get back to you -- if you could share with us the particular report that you're looking at.

C. Hansen: Thank you. I appreciate the fact that we have heard reference to the Maclean's article many times, and I'm sure that well into the next election, we will continue to hear about the Maclean's article, because it's the only thing that this government has to fall back on. Certainly some of the other reports don't hold up. . .and certainly the public's anxiety doesn't attest to what the minister was saying.

But the CIHI numbers are actually from a couple of sources, and I will pass them along to the minister now. First of all is their web site; these numbers come off their web site. In addition to that, they produce a manual -- it's about two inches thick -- which basically breaks down all these numbers by province for consecutive years. That's where I have derived these numbers from. If the minister's officials can't source those numbers from that reference, then I would be pleased to provide more specific detail. In fact, I'll gladly loan the minister a copy of the binder of data that has come out.

I want to turn to an announcement that was made on December 3. I remember it well, because it was a press conference that was called in the press theatre in this building. The Minister of Health and the Minister of Finance met with the press to basically make an announcement that they were going to put funding in to deal with the increase in wait-lists that resulted from the nurses' job action in November. There was certainly a lot of anxiety; there was a lot of press coverage of individual patients who were being bumped from wait-lists as a result of the nurses' action. What the minister said was that they were going to ensure that funding was there so that hospitals could catch up on the increase in the wait-list that was specifically caused by the nurses' job action. I'm wondering if the minister can tell us if she is satisfied that the commitment she made that day has been delivered on.

Hon. P. Priddy: As soon as you say you're satisfied, there will be a story -- and it happens all the time, and you can't help it -- that somebody got missed somewhere. But I am satisfied that so far, $8 million has been delivered to health councils to deal with surgical backlog or home support for patients discharged after surgery, as a result of the nurses' strike. For an example, in the Okanagan-Similkameen, it's $336,000; in Vancouver-Richmond, $870,000 -- I'm rounding out. I have a list in front of me of all the health regions where those dollars were directed to reduce those backlogs.

[1250]

C. Hansen: Thank you. In fact, I wasn't planning to bring up the doctor's RAD days, but since the minister brought it up. . . . I think there's a big difference between the job action

[ Page 11610 ]

But the issue I was specifically addressing was the December 3 announcement of the minister. First of all, she mentioned that $8 million has been delivered to health authorities. I was wondering if the minister could tell us if that $8 million is specifically included in the $52 million that has been allocated under this special warrant.

Hon. P. Priddy: Yes.

C. Hansen: Also, I was wondering if the minister could tell us, after that announcement was made, how the various hospitals were advised that this additional funding was going to be made available to them.

Hon. P. Priddy: Through our regional teams.

C. Hansen: Is the minister aware that there are several hospitals that really had borne the brunt of those increased wait-lists that were not aware of how that money could be accessed, even as much as a month later? I wonder if the minister has any comment on that.

Hon. P. Priddy: I'm not aware. . .but certainly I'll take the member's statement that there may have been hospitals not aware. . . . We advised all of the health authorities that have the responsibility for hospitals that the money was available and how to access it. I would be very disappointed if there were a health authority that did not. It's hard to imagine -- but as I say, I take the member's statement -- that a health authority, for whatever reason, would not pass that information on to a hospital that had a backlog as a result of. . . .

C. Hansen: I understand that the moneys that were made available only went to those hospitals that saw job action, those that actually had picket lines in front. In addition to that, there were other hospitals that basically had to scale down their surgery, because they didn't know exactly when job action might happen and had to be ready to implement essential service levels in those facilities. They too had serious backlogs grow as a direct result. I'm wondering if the minister could comment on the fact that some of these hospitals that experienced the threat of job action certainly didn't see any of this funding.

Hon. P. Priddy: The member is correct. The hospitals that saw job action were the hospitals that had access to those dollars. I appreciate that there may be hospitals that made the decision to ramp back or reduce their schedules because they did not know if they would have a job action or not. But you are quite right: it was the hospitals that saw job action that received the dollars.

[1255]

Hon. P. Priddy: I'm happy to answer the question. I would note that this is not in the special warrant and that this isn't an estimates debate. But yes, the money has been allocated, and as a result, cardiac wait times are down.

C. Hansen: So, in other words, this announcement that was made was not new money. It was basically existing program money that had been allocated.

Hon. P. Priddy: This was new money in last year's budget.

C. Hansen: So in terms of how the hospitals would have seen these dollars flow, it wasn't really anything that came earmarked specifically to fund this announcement but, rather, was just part of the regular block funding that would come to hospitals or the funding that would come for cardiac care that they've seen on an ongoing basis.

The Chair: Members, perhaps the Chair could give some advice. If there are no further questions regarding the warrants, we could look at considering them.

C. Hansen: Perhaps I could go on to the next phase of this, which I think does directly affect special warrants. That's the issue of how physician services would be covered with regard to this supposed increase in funding for cardiac surgery. Again, if that was not something that was funded initially, then it would be something that would have to be funded under special warrant. Where I'm going with this is to ask the minister how physician services -- both in terms of cardiac surgery itself and the anaesthetists that would be required for this surgery -- would be funded.

Hon. P. Priddy: The dollars to which the member refers are not in the special warrant.

C. Hansen: This will certainly be an area that we'll pursue when we get into the estimates debate. With that, I'll defer to my colleague from Okanagan West for a few moments.

S. Hawkins: The minister said earlier that the MSP budget was topped up by $17.65 million. Earlier I asked for a breakdown, and she said she would give it to me in detail. So perhaps she could break that up into chunks and tell us exactly where that $17.65 million in special warrants was spent on the MSP budget.

Hon. P. Priddy: As indicated earlier, $7 million of that was the cost of Dobbin last year. Higher-than-budgeted supplementary benefit services were $8.45 million, and there were $2 million in additional items.

S. Hawkins: Well, that was very specific. I wonder if the minister can tell me what the supplementary budget

[ Page 11611 ]

[1300]

S. Hawkins: Well, I don't want to call the minister untruthful, but every time I get a commitment from the minister that she's going to provide me with something. . . . I haven't received one commitment in the last three years. So perhaps if the minister can send some staff to get that. . . .

It would be a lot easier if the minister came to the Legislature before the money ran out and asked for approval. That would have been much, much easier than sitting here today when the money's run out, begging on bent knee for the Legislature to approve the special warrant. That would have been a lot more respectful of the Legislature, and perhaps we wouldn't have to be here sitting up all night trying to figure out what this government does with the money that the public has entrusted it with.

There are $2 million in additional items; $2 million is a big chunk of change. Perhaps the minister can itemize that for us. Or does she not have those figures either?

Hon. P. Priddy: Of that, $1.2 million is specifically related to surgery and anaesthesia arising from the backlog from the B.C. Nurses Union strike.

S. Hawkins: Can the minister tell me if any of the special warrant spending was spent on cancer services?

Hon. P. Priddy: Yes, $4.6 million was spent for the Cancer Agency, for drugs, and $400,000 for pediatric oncology.

C. Hansen: The line of questioning I had before was regarding the funding for cardiac wait-list surgeries. The minister advised that that's not part of the special warrants.

I guess what we have so far, in terms of the $52 million that was allocated -- to read the Finance minister's press release -- "to reduce wait-lists and provide more funding for kidney dialysis and cancer drugs. . . ." The minister mentioned earlier that $8 million of that $52 million is a result of the December 3 announcement on the backlog from the nurses' job action. When she mentioned funding for cancer drugs, I wasn't sure if that was specifically out of this $52 million or out of the Pharmacare costs that come up in the other warrant. I'm wondering if she could give us a breakdown of that $52 million, in addition to the backlog from the nurses' job action.

[1305]

C. Hansen: There was one number that I missed, and if the minister doesn't mind. . . . She mentioned $7 million for blood startup and $31 million for blood services. It was the next number after that and before we got to the $3 million for home care.

Hon. P. Priddy: It's $5 million for additional operating time.

C. Hansen: So, basically, the $5 million for the additional operating time and the $3 million for the home care support are this $8 million that the minister talked about earlier -- in terms of the December 3 announcement. Thank you. I can see heads nodding, so I'll take that and allow the minister to relax for a second.

I want to move on. You mentioned the $600,000 for MRI. Yet the announcement that the minister made in January was for $2.7 million that was supposed to go into additional MRI screening. I'm wondering if the minister could explain the difference between those two numbers.

Hon. P. Priddy: It's $600,000 in the current year, annualized into $2.75 million.

C. Hansen: So I guess, in other words, the increase in MRI testing that was announced in January is spread over two fiscal years -- am I understanding that right? -- $600,000 in the past fiscal year and then the balance in the coming year.

Hon. P. Priddy: I'm not sure I heard all of the question. But my staff, who were very attentive, did, I think. The $600,000 was for the first few months, when this was announced. The $2.75 million is an annual ongoing cost.

C. Hansen: In other words, these are ongoing dollars. So that $600,000 was spent in the past fiscal year, and in the coming fiscal year there will be an additional $2.7 million put into MRI testing on an ongoing basis. I'm concerned, because I wasn't sure if I heard the minister say that the expenditure for these few months was $600,000, and if we had done this amount of testing over a one-year program, that would be $2.7 million -- which is what she announced. In the last year, how many real dollars were put into increased MRI testing as a result of the minister's announcement in January? I gather the answer is only $600,000, not $2.7 million.

Hon. P. Priddy: No. The member is correct. It was $600,000, because that was the rest of this fiscal year. The $2.75 million, which will be the ongoing annual cost, is the amount that will be in the budget.

C. Hansen: In fact, my recollection was $2.7 million, but maybe the minister used the number $2.5 million; it's in that neighbourhood, anyway. That is part of the new estimates for this fiscal year, which is starting today. There is an additional

[ Page 11612 ]

[1310]

C. Hansen: Thank you. I'm going to defer to my colleague from Okanagan-Penticton, with some questions regarding continuing care.

R. Thorpe: I have just a very few quick questions. As the minister knows and has acknowledged, we have a severe long term care problem in the South Okanagan. During the past year the ministry undertook to commit to producing -- with the regional hospital board -- a plan on how this issue was going to be addressed. Has that plan been completed?

Hon. P. Priddy: I'm sure that's a question the member will be asking in estimates. I can tell the member that of the new $10 million put into long term care beds, $1.25 million went into the Okanagan-Similkameen health region. I think the other question seems to be appropriate for estimates.

R. Thorpe: The question I asked, and I think it is appropriate to ask here. . . . Actually, the minister is correct; I probably will be canvassing this area in estimates, but I'll be canvassing from April 1 onwards. My question is: was the plan that the ministry undertook to complete in the last fiscal year with the regional health board completed in the fiscal year 1998-1999, which ended at midnight last night? That's my question.

Hon. P. Priddy: I still think it's an estimates question. However, it is virtually complete. There's a bit of work yet to be done that will be finished about the third week in April.

R. Thorpe: So the answer is no, it's not completed, and therefore future questioning on that issue will take place in a calendar year that starts today -- which we'll save to estimates. As part of that plan, though, is the issue of how funding is going to take place, given the disparity in the regional nature of the percentage of the population of seniors versus the provincial average. . . ? Is that -- the funding as a percentage of population base -- being addressed in the plan that is nearly complete?

Hon. P. Priddy: The member raised those issues last year in estimates, and I passed that information along to people doing the continuing care review. When the report is on my desk later in April, I will let him know.

B. Penner: On behalf of people in Chilliwack, I want to ask some questions of the Minister of Health concerning recent cutbacks in home support services in the upper Fraser Valley.

The Chair: Member, before we get off on the wrong track, I just want to caution you that we're dealing with the schedule before us.

B. Penner: I have in my hand Bill 54, which we are presently debating, and the schedule attached to that contains warrant No. 2, authorizing $84.5 million in additional spending over and above what the Legislature approved last year. One of the stated justifications for that cost overrun is continuing care. In my community the regional health board is justifying the dramatic cutbacks to home care services on the basis that they had an overrun. Now, I think I heard the minister say earlier that the amount of money that went to continuing care as part of the $84.5 million special warrant was about $10 million. But I also think I heard her say that that went to long term care facilities and not necessarily to home care services.

First of all, I'll just ask the minister to confirm those numbers.

Hon. P. Priddy: The only home care that is addressed in the special warrant is the $3 million that was part of addressing the backlog as a result of the BCNU labour disruption.

[1315]

I want to provide the minister with a few figures that I obtained from the Fraser Valley health region. According to the best figures they had, which I believe were for the 1997-98 year, 544 days per 10,000 population is the rate of utilization of acute-care beds at Chilliwack General Hospital. I'm told that that's below the provincial average. So presumably our health region is saving money for taxpayers by having a lower utilization rate of acute-care facilities. On the other hand, though, the health region is justifying cutbacks to home support, because they say our spending per capita on home care is about $1 per person over the provincial average. I'm told that our per capita spending is about $54 on home support versus the provincial average of $53.

That raises the obvious question: is the health region authorized to take some of the savings they get by the underutilization of acute-care services to help support increased demands on home support services? I think there is a logical link; at least, it appears logical to me. If we're moving people out of our hospitals quicker and expecting them to look after themselves at home, surely we should supply them with the resources necessary to do that, so we don't just kick them out of our hospitals before they're ready to look after themselves and let them fend for themselves. So I'd ask the minister to respond to those questions on behalf of the people in Chilliwack.

Hon. P. Priddy: As it relates to the special warrant, $1 million for long term care beds went to the Fraser Valley health region. They had flexibility about how they used that.

B. Penner: Just to pursue the minister's answer, do they have 100 percent discretion as to how they allocate money, which the minister just indicated was for acute-care services? Could they have taken that acute-care money and put it in its entirety into other types of services, such as home care?

Hon. P. Priddy: As it relates to the warrant, what I said was that the million dollars, which was part of the $10 mil-

[ Page 11613 ]

B. Penner: How much flexibility -- 10 percent, 20 percent, 50 percent? I know the minister kind of laughed, but I think it's a serious question. Last week, there was a meeting held late in the evening at the public library in Chilliwack, attended by 75 people -- in some cases very elderly. Some of those people are legally blind, but they are so concerned about the cutbacks in home support services that they made an effort in pouring rain to come out to the public library to try and get some answers. People are very concerned. The woman in Chilliwack leading this charge is an 82-year-old who is a cancer survivor, has had five heart attacks and has had open-heart surgery, and she's having her services adversely affected. She has taken the initiative to help organize a group of people to get some answers. I made a commitment to those people last week in Chilliwack that at the earliest opportunity, I would seek some answers about what kind of flexibility the health region has in allocating savings in one area to increased demands in another.

Hon. P. Priddy: As it relates to the $1 million for long term care beds that is in the special warrant, they had complete flexibility.

B. Penner: I thank the minister for her answer. I don't have any additional questions at this time, but I'll just put the minister on notice that I will have additional questions when we get into estimates debate on the Ministry of Health.

C. Hansen: Just to continue along on the line of long-term care, last year in the estimates the minister made this statement: "Long term care facilities throughout the province will receive care-level adjustments to reflect acuity changes. . . ." I'm wondering if the minister. . . . First of all, I believe that does fall under the parameters of the warrant in the way that the minister has described it, and I'm just wondering if the minister can give us assurance that that in fact is being implemented today.

[1320]

C. Hansen: I guess one of the other quotes that she made at that time in the context of long-term care -- which, given her last answer, may apply to this next question as well. . . . What she said was that all negotiated wage increases would be funded when it comes to long-term care. Again, do we see any portion of this $10 million for long-term care going to that particular need?

Hon. P. Priddy: The answer is no.

C. Hansen: Those are certainly issues that we will be pursuing in estimates, and I guess my interest will be: if they aren't funded out of the special warrant increase, then what are they funded out of? Certainly there are a lot of areas that don't see evidence of that.

I wanted to come back to, specifically, acute care. On February 19 the minister made an announcement regarding B.C.'s Children's Hospital and the increase in funding of $3.25 million to reduce wait times for B.C. kids. In it there is a specific reference to the fact that the funding includes $750,000 in doctors' payments to cover extra workload. Could the minister explain to us where the $3.25 million would show up in these special warrants?

Hon. P. Priddy: The announcement that I made was for $1 million at that stage. The $600,000 was to cover start-up costs associated with opening a sixth operating room to reduce the backlog of surgical cases, particularly in areas in which there were wait times that we considered to be longer than the norm. That has now been established as a result of our work with Children's, which is orthopedic; cardiac; time-sensitive plastic surgery; ear, nose and throat; complex general surgery; and neurosurgery. The other part of that $1 million, then, was $400,000 that was provided to the Children's Hospital for five new nursing positions in the children's oncology program for the in-patient unit, which were necessary because of the increasing rate of children developing cancer and the growing volume of long-term follow-up patients.

C. Hansen: That's not what the press release says. The press release talks about $3.25 million. In fact, it's a headline: "Government Invests $3.25 Million to Reduce Wait Times for B.C. Kids." It says: "Nearly 800 more surgeries will be performed at B.C.'s Children's Hospital every year as a result of $3.25 million in new funding announced today by [the Premier and the Health minister]." Can the minister rationalize the numbers she just gave me with what's in the press release?

Hon. P. Priddy: It is much as in an earlier question that the member and I have discussed. That was the start-up money and the money to cover the rest of this fiscal year. The $3.25 million is an annualized cost.

[1325]

Hon. P. Priddy: I believe I've answered that question. There was $1 million of this in the special warrant.

S. Hawkins: It's getting very frustrating getting answers from that side of the House. This whole debate is about the government coming to this House after the money runs out and asking for spending they did that they had no approval for.

Interjection.

S. Hawkins: The Deputy Premier is asking for order. If he wants to do that, he should get in his own chair, perhaps,

[ Page 11614 ]

Here we are on April 1, and they're still sitting over there. . . . I am absolutely shocked. This minister should have known that she was going to get scrutinized for this funding. I'm surprised that for some of the items we're asking for here today, very simple items, she hasn't come prepared. She hasn't come prepared with answers telling us where the funding is coming from, so she's going to have to bear with us. We're going to stay here as long as it takes to get answers to the questions we're asking.

Last year the priorities for this government were protecting and improving access to critical care. Can the minister tell me how much money in special warrants was spent improving access to critical care? Was any of that money in the special warrant spent on critical-care beds? We did hear an announcement a few months ago that the government was funding more critical-care beds. How much of that came out of special warrants? And where are they?

Hon. P. Priddy: There is no additional funding for critical-care beds in this warrant.

S. Hawkins: There was no funding for critical-care beds. There were critical-care beds announced just a few months ago and funding for that. Perhaps that was smoke-and-mirrors again. Perhaps that's funding allocated to next year's budget. You know, it's interesting, because last year in January just before the budget was announced, the then minister -- who's now the Finance minister -- had six crucial areas that she was going to address in last year's budget. She added more money into the budget. This minister and this government still -- still -- had to add special warrants to meet those goals.

Every single year this ministry pours money into a black hole called the Ministry of Health, and this minister brags about it in Maclean's magazine. Any time they want to say that they're doing a good job, they point to the media, to a Maclean's magazine article. Maybe she should start reading the Sun, the Province, the Times Colonist. Maybe she should start watching BCTV and see what a good job they're doing. Maybe she should actually tour communities, because I remember. . . .

Interjections.

The Chair: Excuse me, member. Would you take your chair for a minute.

The Chair's been listening closely to this entire debate. I know you feel strongly about these points, but these points have been made, certainly in second reading and also in these words already. So the Chair wants again to caution the committee that if there are no further questions with regard to the schedule, perhaps we should look at considering the vote on the schedule.

C. Hansen: I think we embarked on this last line of questioning on the basis of critical-care beds, and this is the first time in this discussion that critical-care beds have come up. The issue is that there were announcements made of new critical-care beds in this province, and the minister just told us that there was absolutely nothing in these special warrants for them. Now that is an issue that directly affects special warrants.

I'd like the minister to tell us where in these special warrants is the funding for those critical-care beds that she announced?

Hon. P. Priddy: The question was whether there are critical-care beds in the warrant. There are not. If the question is about critical-care beds that were announced, then the member surely will ask that in estimates, given that they are not in the special warrant.

[1330]

"Now therefore it is ordered that a special warrant be prepared for the signature of the Lieutenant-Governor authorizing payment from the consolidated revenue fund of $84.5 million to provide for the funding of costs arising from the Medical Services Plan, Acute and Continuing Care, and Pharmacare."

Hon. P. Priddy: To the first point made: acute and continuing care is simply the vote that this comes under. That doesn't mean that all of those pieces are under that amount.

Interjection.

Hon. P. Priddy: Sorry -- your question or hers? I just wondered who I was supposed to answer.

Interjection.

Hon. P. Priddy: I did; he's left. Your turn.

The Chair: Hon. members, please.

Hon. P. Priddy: I don't want to prolong this debate, and I don't want to get into issues that are not special warrants, but the critical-care beds announced were in last year's budget.

The Chair: The Chair must again caution that we're not dealing with what is not in the schedule; we're dealing with what is in the schedule.

C. Hansen: I would like to move on to Pharmacare, unless the member for Okanagan West wanted to do anything more on acute care.

S. Hawkins: Oh, we'll do that in estimates.

[ Page 11615 ]

Hon. P. Priddy: I'm sure that the member may have more specifics, but to do at least an introductory comment, the expenditures are higher than anticipated in several areas. I think there may be and are reasons for that. But they are higher than anticipated in terms of the utilization for seniors, for the B.C. centre for excellence for HIV/AIDS and for income assistance beneficiaries in the universal plan for families. I mean, in those areas the costs were higher than expected, and I think there are some reasons for that.

Right in this province, there are about 26 million prescriptions written every year -- about 85,000 to 100,000 prescriptions written every day in the province. We have a growing aging population. While we can certainly calculate some of that based simply on what we know about demographics and age, what we often don't know are the sorts of new breakthrough drugs that come through every year. There are always 20 or 30 of those. They are very expensive, like the drug for Gaucher's disease, which is extraordinarily expensive, although for a small number of people. There are drugs that a number of prescriptions get written for because they're new drugs. People hear about them, and they're sure they will work, etc. There becomes a pressure on drugs that are new in the province as well.

Now, we work very hard with the College of Physicians and Surgeons to monitor, you know, the prescribing trends, if you will, or habits in the province. We continue to do that on several projects. But I think part of it is new drugs that come through the aging population and some of the things that we're seeing in trends with HIV/AIDS.

C. Hansen: This becomes a case of déjà vu all over again. It seems like every year we wind up talking about overruns in Pharmacare costs. It seems that every year the minister is making excuses as to why utilization is up higher than anticipated. Certainly there are demographic facts that the ministry should be relying on in order to forecast these demands. We've got experience in other jurisdictions that we are constantly faced with. Why is it that year after year we always have to come to this chamber and hear a Minister of Health defending why there is higher utilization than the ministry forecast?

[1335]

C. Hansen: In terms of the special warrant, how much are we talking about in terms of increased Pharmacare costs in these special warrants?

Hon. P. Priddy: It is $26.85 million.

A. Sanders: Under the special warrant for Pharmacare, there's a number of areas delineated that are considered part of the Pharmacare budget and, I would assume, part of the Pharmacare overrun. These include such wide-ranging things, from verification and adjudication of claims for benefits under Pharmacare to monitoring drug utilization.

My first question to the minister: when we look at the overrun that the minister is requesting funding for and has already spent with respect to Pharmacare, what is the number one area under that Pharmacare budget that this special warrant is necessary for?

Hon. P. Priddy: If the member's asking about within the plans, the largest increase that we've seen over the previous year and the largest number being prescribed is in plan A, which is seniors.

A. Sanders: Well, that partially answers the question. I'm assuming the minister means from that that there were increased costs against the Pharmacare budget for medications for seniors under Pharmacare. Is that a correct interpretation of that?

Hon. P. Priddy: Yes.

A. Sanders: And under that. . . . Let's focus on the seniors, because I think that's a pretty good area to start in.

Interjections.

A. Sanders: And if I had the chamber with less noise, I would probably proceed a lot quicker here.

For the information of this member, what new drugs were added this year under Pharmacare that were not there previously?

[1340]

A. Sanders: In this special warrant, I recognize some medication that's not included there: Fosamax alendronite. Could the minister comment on that drug?

Hon. P. Priddy: I understood the member's request to be for the drugs that were approved in '98, which is the list that I read you. I think Ozomak was. . . . Fosamax was actually approved in February of '96 on special warrant.

Interjections.

The Chair: Members, perhaps you could take your conversations elsewhere while we try and finish this warrant.

[ Page 11616 ]

The Chair: Continue member. We can hear you quite well at this end of the room.

A. Sanders: I'm sorry, but I can't hear myself, hon. Chair. And I'll stand here till I can.

Under special warrant, what's very important there is that we can have medications available under Pharmacare as long as an individual -- a bureaucrat sitting at a desk somewhere receiving a fax -- approves that medication.

Let me give you an example of how this system breaks down horribly for people -- real people with diseases and real people with concerns. I had a constituent who is on home oxygen and has emphysema come into the Vernon MLA office. She's in her early fifties, lives on her own and is very, very disabled. In 1998 she became very sick with a pneumonic process, ended up in hospital and spent three months in the intensive care unit of Vernon Jubilee, which has eight beds, on a ventilator. That ventilator, obviously, was not available for any other patients, because this woman could not get off the ventilator, due to her disease. She was assessed by the local respirologist, who felt that there was a procedure that could be done at Vancouver General that would help her. If this procedure was done -- which was removal of the part of the lung that was diseased -- she could perchance not be on a ventilator and, hopefully, not be in hospital.

She was sent down as a ventilated patient to Vancouver General for evaluation. Because she had been ventilated for three months, she had severe osteoporosis. Because she had severe osteoporosis, it was impossible for the thoracic surgeon who saw her to consider an operative procedure until she had increase in bone mass. To get an increase in bone mass, she needed a medication called Fosamax, which is on special authority. When the physician requested special authority for the woman so that she could not be in my hospital for three months on a ventilator, in a $1,000-a-day bed, whoever sits in the bureaucratic chair in Victoria said no. She was refused the medication that might keep her out of the hospital, that might keep her out of the expensive part of the hospital, in the intensive care unit -- that might, incidentally and coincidentally, improve her life.

It was suggested by the bureaucrat at the other end, in the Pharmacare division -- who, I assume, has a bachelor of science in pharmacy or something. . . . I don't know if they've ever seen a patient or know what a patient looks like -- or certainly someone with this disability of this woman's. The family physician was refused this medication for this woman, and the suggestion from the bureaucrat in Victoria to the treating physician was that they should go to the drug company -- the big bad drug company that this government won't even talk to -- and ask for medication on a compassionate basis -- in other words, free from the drug company for a patient covered under Pharmacare in the province of British Columbia.

[1345]

There's a new medication on the books these days -- again under special authority. This is an oral medication that helps people with asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. This medication, when asked for under special warrant for the same patient, was refused again. When the bureaucrat sitting in the office over there somewhere talked to the treating physician again, who had put in a special authority, which was refused -- and was refused a number of times, not just once -- it was again suggested that the family doctor go to the big bad drug company and ask for compassionate medication for this patient.

That's two occasions within a period of a year where our government is asking drug companies to boot in money or boot in free drugs to treat our people. People who have never seen a patient are making the decisions on whether that patient deserves the drug or not. There are no special circumstances for exceptions to the rule. There are no special circumstances for this woman to have a medication that might keep her out of a very expensive bed in a hospital that only has eight beds to look after people who are horribly ill, sometimes terminally ill.

That's my view of what's going on in Pharmacare, hon. Chair. When I see special warrants and they suggest that Pharmacare requires extra money, I wonder how much of that's going on. And I wonder on how many occasions during a day in the Ministry of Health and the department of Pharmacare, when special warrants are refused, we're going to drug companies hat in hand to ask for medications for patients. I consider that unconscionable, I consider it philosophically wrong, and from a government that hates drug companies as much as they do, I find it, actually, completely amazing.

So during this particular part of the debate, because Pharmacare is usually an issue, I will ask the minister (1) if she is aware of this circumstance, because I'm sure this isn't the only one; (2) if she has any recommendations for solutions to that circumstance and (3) why in Pharmacare there are not special exceptions where special warrants don't work and don't fit the bill and don't save patients money. Why don't we have those things under this program? And when we're looking at money going into that program, are we sure -- are we positive -- that it is being used as well as it should be for the benefit of people in communities?

[1350]

[ Page 11617 ]

To just make one comment, the special warrant -- and the member has referred to seniors. . . . We have said that the amount for seniors is up. The year before last, just as a matter of interest, we approved prescriptions for Fosamax for almost a thousand people in the province. I don't know about individual circumstances and so on, and I couldn't, I think, under a special warrant be expected to respond to that. But as it relates to the special warrant and increased costs, special authority is there to try and bring some rationale to utilization, particularly for new drugs. The first drug, at least, that the member referred to is often approved on special authority. I don't know about these particular circumstances, but if it's a question of process, I'm sure that we'll talk about it in estimates.

A. Sanders: Again, because of the importance of how much we're asking for under special warrant. . . . I think, quite frankly, that if we did track these kinds of cases, we'd be asking for a whole lot more. Are these kinds of cases tracked? Where do cases go that are not approved under special warranty, with respect to the dollar amount that we would be paying in Pharmacare and how much we would be overrunning in addition to what you've overrun here if we did track those?

The Chair: If the member could please confine her questions to the special warrant.

A. Sanders: Are there quotas on these medications? In other words, if the first 500 people have been given special authority for Fosamax, does the 501st not get it?

The Chair: Perhaps the Chair could suggest that if there are no further questions, we could deal with this vote.

C. Hansen: The minister earlier mentioned to us that of the special warrant that we have before us, it is specifically for several very expensive drugs that have. . . . We're talking about the increased allocation of drugs for seniors, which is very much a part of this special warrant, hon. Chair. So, with deference, I believe it's entirely consistent with what the special warrant debate is all about.

Last year when we went through this same debate regarding increased Pharmacare costs, the minister advised us during the special warrant debate in this chamber that plan A under Pharmacare was up by 24 percent over and above the previous year; that plan B was down by 3 percent; that plan C, for those on income assistance, was up by 7 percent; that plan D, for those with cystic fibrosis, was up by 13 percent; that the universal plan, plan E, was in fact down by 21 percent; and that plan F, for children who are dependent upon special medications, was up by 23 percent -- which was actually extremely volatile and, I think, shows that the forecasts that were made were very much off what the ministry had anticipated. Plan G, I guess, is broken into three areas: mental health was up 56 percent, HIV/AIDS was up 29 percent and home oxygen was up 3 percent.

I'm wondering if the minister could give us comparable numbers in terms of what the experience has been over the last 12 months.

Hon. P. Priddy: The seniors plan is up 9.61 percent. The long term care plan is up 5.7 percent. Income assistance is up 10.04 percent. Plan D, which is cystic fibrosis, is up 5.16 percent. The, if you will, family plan E is down 4.49 percent. Plan F, which is children with complex medical needs, is up 6.67 percent. Plan G, the mental health one, is up 35.78 percent. HIV/AIDS, which is Plan X, is up 18.06 percent; and home oxygen, 8.86 percent. I think that's it.

[1355]

Motion approved.

The House resumed; the Speaker in the chair.

The committee, having reported progress, was granted leave to sit again.

Hon. D. Miller moved adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

The House adjourned at 1:57 p.m.

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