1981 Legislative Session: 3rd Session, 32nd Parliament

HANSARD

The following electronic version is for informational purposes only.

The printed version remains the official version.

Official Report of

DEBATES OF THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY

(Hansard)

WEDNESDAY, MAY 6, 1981

Afternoon Sitting

[ Page

5429 ]

CONTENTS

Routine Proceedings

Oral Questions

Report on severely handicapped. Mr. Cocke –– 5429

Market survey on Energy film. Mrs. Dailly –– 5429

Mr. Lauk –– 5429

Mr. Lea –– 5429

McAlpine report on Ku Klux Klan. Mr. Barnes –– 5430

Mr. Lauk — 5430

Expenses of Ian Jessiman. Mr. Macdonald –– 5430

Voters' list for Kamloops by-election. Mrs. Dailly –– 5431

Committee of Supply: Ministry of Consumer and Corporate Affairs estimates. (Hon. Mr.

Hyndman)

On vote 47: corporate affairs –– 5431

Mr. Howard

Mrs. Wallace

Mr. King

Mr. Levi

On vote 48: rentalsman –– 5434

Mr. Levi

Mr. Barnes

Mr. Mussallem

Mr. Gabelmann

Ms. Brown

Mr. Lauk

Mr. Mitchell

Mr. Macdonald

Mr. Leggatt

WEDNESDAY, MAY 6, 1981

The House met at 2 p.m.

Prayers.

HON. MR. HEWITT: I'd like to

introduce to the House and ask the House to welcome Mr. Gordon Harris

and Mr. Rob Hill from the Downtown Business Association of the city of

Penticton.

MRS. DAILLY: In the gallery today we have

a delegation from the British Columbia Association for the Mentally

Retarded, with their president, Miss Elise Clark; Miss Wendy Baker,

vice-president; Mr. Al Etmanski, executive director; Mr. Miles Ramsay;

Mr. Lyman Butterfield from Victoria; and Mildred De Haan. I ask the

House to welcome this very dedicated association.

HON. MR. CHABOT: We have in the House today Mr. and Mrs. Mike Machuk of Radium Hot Springs. I'd like the House to join me in welcoming them.

MS. BROWN:

Tom Lalonde and Fraser Hall of the greater Vancouver renters'

association and Jim Levatts from the Surrey Tenants Association are

visiting us today. I wonder if the House would join me in bidding them

welcome.

HON. MR. VANDER ZALM: I also extend a

welcome to the members from the Surrey Tenants Association, and Jim

Levatts in particular, with whom I met this morning.

We have

visiting with us today a delegation with whom I met this morning as

well. They are here promoting the expansion of a fantastic facility,

the Surrey Rehabilitation Workshop. We have with us Mr. David Penn, a

director, Dr. Al Sully, the treasurer, and the very able executive

director, Mrs. Eileen Stevens.

MR. MUSSALLEM: I ask

the House to welcome 75 students — and their mothers — from the

Windebank elementary school, under the leadership of their teachers

Mrs. L. Anderson and Miss M. Royal. It's interesting to note that this

school is the site of the Stave Lake dam, which was a major power

source of the B.C. Electric Co., and is now of B.C. Hydro. Many of the

workers on the dam, as well as the original settlers, resided on this

site. This excellent area in the municipality of Mission is very deeply

steeped in the history of British Columbia.

MR. LAUK:

Mr. Speaker, may I make a suggestion to the House Leader that we waive

question period until maybe 3 o'clock, when at least most of the

cabinet ministers can be present in the House? I ask leave that

question period be postponed today until 3:15 p.m.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please, hon. member. We're in the middle of introductions.

Oral Questions

REPORT ON SEVERELY HANDICAPPED

MR. COCKE: Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask a question of the Minister

of Health in this International Year of the Disabled. A report on the needs

of severely handicapped children and adolescents was prepared during 1980 by

an interministerial team for the ministries of Health, Human Resources and Education.

Has the minister decided to release the report on behalf of his colleagues?

HON. MR. NIELSEN: Yes, Mr. Speaker, the report will be released.

MR. COCKE: Mr. Speaker –– I wonder if the minister could be a little more definitive as to when the report might be released.

HON. MR. NIELSEN:

Mr. Speaker, I haven't a precise date. A review of the report was

undertaken approximately a week ago in a briefing, but it should be

released within a very reasonable period of time.

MR. COCKE:

Mr. Speaker, you can quite understand my concern. Will that report be

released before the estimates of the Minister of Health, the Minister

of Human Resources (Hon. Mrs. McCarthy) and the Minister of Education

(Hon. Mr. Smith)? Has the minister decided to release that report?

HON. MR. NIELSEN:

Mr. Speaker, I said yes, we intend to release that report, but it

hasn't been brought to my attention as to when the estimates of the

Minister of Health, the Minister of Education and the Minister of Human

Resources are going to be before the House.

MARKET SURVEY ON ENERGY FILM

MRS. DAILLY:

I have a question for the Provincial Secretary. Can the minister

confirm that Goldfarb Consultants, which operates out of Vancouver as

the Canadian Polling Institute, was employed by the government to do a

market survey subsequent to theSunday night broadcast of the film "Energy — a Strategy for the Future"?

HON. MR. WOLFE: Mr. Speaker, no, I cannot confirm that.

MRS. DAILLY:

Mr. Speaker, could the Provincial Secretary confirm that a Crown

corporation or the Ministry of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources

commissioned and employed this survey?

HON. MR. WOLFE: Mr. Speaker, no.

MR. LAUK:

On a supplementary, can the Provincial Secretary assure the House that

no member of the cabinet or agency of the cabinet contracted with

Goldfarb Consultants to do such a survey after this program?

HON. MR. WOLFE: No, I can't.

MR. LAUK:

We were reliably informed that such a survey was performed at

government expense. Can the minister undertake to determine this and

bring it back to the House, instead of playing cute?

HON. MR. WOLFE:

Mr. Speaker, I'm endeavouring to answer the member's questions. I think

that it's quite inappropriate for him to suggest that I'm trying to

play cute. I've answered directly to his specific questions. I do not

have the information he requests. He asked me what other ministers have

undertaken to do, and I think that is entirely out of order.

MR. LEA: I have a supplementary on the same topic for the Premier. As it's obviously going to be time-consuming

[ Page 5430 ]

and

probably difficult for us to go through each minister to try to find

out which ministry or which agency of government has hired Goldfarb to

survey the audience reaction to last Sunday's program sponsored by the

Ministry of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources, would the Premier

give the House his undertaking that he will check with his ministers

and bring back to the House a definitive answer as to which agency of

government, under what minister, is responsible for hiring Goldfarb to

do the audience survey?

HON. MR. BENNETT: I don't

want to deny the opportunity for ministers to respond to questions

applicable to their ministries. Obviously it would be useful for the

opposition to have a question in hand to supplement those days in which

their questions barely resemble urgent business in this province.

MR. LEA:

I think we're asking a perfectly legitimate question. We're asking the

first minister to check with his ministers to see whether or not

taxpayers' money is being used to do a survey of audience reaction to

the program that was put on last Sunday.

Would the Premier

check with his ministers and come back to the House and let us know? I

don't think it calls for a smart speech.

HON. MR. BENNETT: No, but question period could use a smart question.

The

question was posed to the Provincial Secretary, who would be

responsible for information services, and I understand that he is

already.... If asked that question, he would have brought the

information to the House. Because the member did not ask him to do so,

I will certainly deal with the Provincial Secretary on acquiring such

information. Perhaps we could have saved a lot of time if the first

question to the Provincial Secretary had been so worded.

McALPINE REPORT ON KU KLUX KLAN

MR. BARNES:

I have a question for the Minister of Labour. In answer to my question

last week the minister described the McAlpine report on the Ku Klux

Klan as a first draft only. Can the minister confirm that a final draft

is presently being prepared?

HON. MR. HEINRICH: I can confirm that not only was it prepared but it was delivered to me last Friday at about 1 o'clock.

MR. BARNES:

Mr. Minister, I appreciate the fact that you now have the final draft.

Is it reasonable to request that we now have an opportunity to view the

contents of that report?

HON. MR. HEINRICH: I advised

the member when the question was asked last week that this particular

report is to be reviewed by me, my officials and my colleagues. I think

that it will be released to the House in due course. I have no

intention at all of releasing it the day after it arrives.

MR. BARNES:

Mr. Minister, could you indicate to the House who completed the final

report submitted to you by Mr. McAlpine, and whether Mr. McAlpine

submitted it as a final report or as an interim report?

HON. MR. HEINRICH:

To the best of my knowledge the report answers the questions which I

had asked Mr. McAlpine to inquire into. In fairness I think I can say

that it's a final report.

MR. BARNES: I don't believe

that that is a satisfactory answer in light of the fact that reports

have it that Mr. McAlpine stated that when he submitted his final

report to you, he was relieved of his responsibility. Therefore if you

have a draft or a redraft or another report, it was done by someone

else other than Mr. McAlpine. Who was that person?

HON. MR. HEINRICH:

The author of the report is the counsel from Vancouver who I asked to

do the research and to prepare it. To the best of my knowledge he is

the author. He is the gentleman who had the report delivered on Friday

of last week. I don't understand the nature of the question.

MR. LAUK:

When asked before, the Minister of Labour said it was a first draft of

a report. Why the Minister of Labour seems puzzled at our questions I

don't know. We have read the answers in Hansard . The minister

said: "I have received a first draft from Mr. McAlpine." Mr. McAlpine

said: "That's not a first draft; that's the final draft." Who's

tampering with the McAlpine report?

HON. MR. HEINRICH:

The report which was delivered to me the week before last didn't

contain certain items — for example, an index; a major item. This was

the subject of some discussion; it went back. I can assure you that he

is the author and that no one else is.

MR. LAUK: It's

like pulling teeth, Mr. Speaker. To the Minister of Labour: you asked

Mr. McAlpine for an index. Is that what the minister is saying? What

other changes to the report have you asked Mr. McAlpine to make?

HON. MR. HEINRICH: Mr. Speaker, none.

MR. LAUK:

So the report that was received from Mr. McAlpine to the minister was

the final report, exclusive of an index. Is that what the minister is

saying?

EXPENSES OF IAN JESSIMAN

MR. MACDONALD:

The Attorney-General told us on May 4 that Mr. Jessiman, the head of

the civil law section, in answer to a question as to whether he went

back and forth to attend to his law practice in Winnipeg while carrying

out his work for the government of British Columbia, replied: "Before

entering upon his duties with the ministry, Mr. Jessiman transferred

his practice to others." In the light of other information, will the

Attorney-General be willing to amend his answer to the House?

HON. MR. WILLIAMS: No.

MR. MACDONALD:

Does the province of British Columbia pay for Mr. Jessiman's trips back

and forth to the city of Winnipeg, which I understand are for the last

week in every month, to attend to his law practice in Winnipeg? Does

the Attorney-General pay for the trips?

[ Page

5431 ]

HON. MR. WILLIAMS:

As I answered the other day, Mr. Jessiman transferred his law practice

to a firm of lawyers in Winnipeg. He does not practise law.

MR. MACDONALD:

Does the contract with Mr. Jessiman allow him some time to go back to

Winnipeg to do work with reference to that law practice in Winnipeg?

HON. MR. WILLIAMS: No.

MR. MACDONALD:

Is the province of British Columbia paying for trips of Mr. Jessiman

back and forth to the city of Winnipeg over the last four to six months?

HON. MR. WILLIAMS: I'll take that question as notice. I'm not aware of the details.

MR. MACDONALD: I don't like to take up too much time. Has the Attorney-General decided to file the contract with the House?

HON. MR. WILLIAMS: No.

VOTERS' LIST FOR KAMLOOPS BY-ELECTION

MRS. DAILLY:

I have a question for the Provincial Secretary. On May 17, 1979, the

then Provincial Secretary, the member for Saanich and the Islands (Hon.

Mr. Curtis), stated: "The fact that the voters' list was not kept up to

date led to a number of horror stories that I'm not prepared to

tolerate any longer." I can't do it with that member's voice. The

member for Saanich and the Islands was referring to the May 1979

general election. My question to the Provincial Secretary today is:

what has the government done in the present by-election to prevent the

horror stories the minister referred to?

HON. MR. WOLFE:

There has been a considerable amount of activity generated to try to

purify the list more in terms of the by-election. There was a public

information program. First of all, Mr. Speaker, there is a new chief

electoral officer in this province, and this gentleman has generated a

special activity to do with the voters' list in Kamloops to purify the

list and remove unnecessary names, duplications and people who have

either died or left the area.

Interjections.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please.

HON. MR. WOLFE:

One might anticipate that these questions are asked without expecting

an answer. It's rather unusual. It's hard to know They don't want to

listen to the answer, Mr. Speaker. You stand here and give answers, and

they don't want to listen to them. So I guess we should just sit down

and not respond. Is that what should happen?

I was only going to say that our new chief electoral officer has gone out of

his way in this particular instance to try to remove names which are redundant

to make the list purer than it has been so there are no duplicate names and

names of people who no longer live in the riding. There has been considerable

action to try to improve the situation in terms of the voters' list.

Orders of the Day

The House in Committee of Supply; Mr. Davidson in the chair.

ESTIMATES: MINISTRY OF

CONSUMER AND CORPORATE AFFAIRS

(continued)

On vote 47: corporate affairs, $5,865,797.

MR. HOWARD:

Mr. Chairman, because of the immediate exodus from the House of cabinet

ministers obviously not interested in this vote, I move that the

Chairman do now leave the chair.

Motion negatived on the following division:

YEAS — 23

Macdonald

Barrett

Howard

King

Lea

Lauk

Stupich

Dailly

Cocke

Nicolson

Lorimer

Levi

Sanford

Gabelmann

Skelly

D'Arcy

Lockstead

Barnes

Brown

Barber

Wallace

Mitchell

Passarell

NAYS — 26

Waterland

Hyndman

Chabot

McClelland

Smith

Heinrich

Hewitt

Jordan

Vander Zalm

Ritchie

Brummet

Wolfe

McCarthy

Williams

Gardom

Bennett

Curtis

Phillips

McGeer

Fraser

Nielsen

Kempf

Davis

Strachan

Segarty

Mussallem

An hon. member requested that leave be asked to record the division in the Journals of the House.

MRS. WALLACE:

I want to raise a few points with the minister relative to the

responsibility under this vote for the administration of the real

estate industry, particularly in British Columbia.

I have

had a rash of constituents in my office who have expressed a number and

a variety of concerns about problems they have experienced, apparently

as a result of practices in the real estate industry. One rather minor

problem — really not so minor — is the provision of keys. There is a

regulation, I assume. Certainly it is a standard practice that any

realtor puts his own lock on a house and there are no extra keys made

for the existing locks. When the purchaser takes possession of the

house, all keys are supposedly put in that person's possession so there

is no chance of a stray key hanging around so someone can come in when

the owner is absent. In at least one instance that has come to my

attention, a reputable real estate firm has simply said: "Well, I'm

sorry, but I've just got one key. There are no more. You'll have to

have some more made." In that particular instance there was no proper

realtor lock on that house.

[ Page 5432 ]

think the minister has a responsibility to ensure that that particular

type of occurrence.... I know there are rules and regulations; at least

I assume there are. I think it's only proper that the minister should

be aware that they're not always being followed. It is quite a hazard

when that sort of situation occurs. It means having the added expense

of having to change the lock on that house. That expense has to be

borne. In this instance it hasn't been changed and the constituent is

very concerned about it and is hoping that they can at least get the

expense of changing the lock from the realtor.

[Mr. Strachan in the chair.]

Far

more critical is another problem that has come to my attention. A young

couple from Calgary purchased a house. The house was listed with a firm

in Duncan. It was a multiple listing and the agent who actually showed

the house and completed the deal was from a firm in Victoria. They

asked where the boundary lines were, and they were told that the one

boundary where the house was fairly close to the line went in line with

a certain tree. They checked and found a white survey stake in line

with that tree. Sometime later, after they had taken possession and

after they had put a patio at the side of the house, the neighbour

complained that the patio was on the adjoining property. They checked,

looking for the iron pin where the white survey stake was and didn't

find it. They eventually found the iron pin where the neighbour said

they would find it, which meant that the line actually cut through the

very extremities of the house.

They have checked this with

the real estate company which actually sold them the house. The

salesman no longer works there. The firm in Duncan where the house was

listed insisted that, in fact, they knew that the line was very close

to the edge of the house. They said they had advised all sales people

and all other listing firms of that. I know of at least one real estate

agent who works for another company in Duncan who had that house listed

and was not advised. This particular owner is a very tenacious person

and is taking this right through. I think eventually she will win, even

if she and her husband have to go to court on the thing. These are the

kinds of things happening under the existing regulations, Mr. Chairman.

Before

I left home this morning I had a call from a constituent who had just

been up in the Okanagan — I think he said it was Kelowna he had been to

— where they had been forced to take some action on behalf of an

elderly aunt because her mind was not as keen as it had been. When they

were making the necessary business arrangements, they found that she

had been pressured by real estate salesmen into selling a portion of

her property, right through the centre, which really detracts from the

value of the property, and selling it for a very low figure. They have

tried to have this sale cancelled, but are advised that because she has

deposited the cheque, it cannot be cancelled and legally the sale is

completed. I'm suggesting that as the minister responsible for real

estate sales in this province this minister has some responsibility to

ensure that these kinds of activities do not take place.

I have here a clipping from the Province

which indicates that an elderly widow in Burnaby has been pressured by

high taxes. Now there is not much you can do about that, but her land —

it seems unreasonable — is assessed at $7,600 and her home at $500.

She's happy to stay there. But there is real pressure on that

particular individual from the real estate industry to get rid of her

property because of such high taxes — pressure to move out of her home,

get away from her garden and get into an apartment or something. That

pressure is on. I'm sure it's been raised on the floor of the House

before that a practice seems to occur of reading obituary notices and

of calling upon bereaved widows — particularly those who are perhaps

not used to the business world — and trying to force a quick sale of

the homesite or property that that particular person may own.

These

sorts of suggestions and happenings really concern me, Mr. Chairman. As

the minister responsible not only for real estate sales in this

province but also for consumer protection, in my opinion the minister

has a joint responsibility.

It seems that there is some

laxness in what's happening in the real estate industry. We all know

that it has become a very profitable industry. I know there are a lot

of very responsible people engaged in it, but it's very unfortunate

that a few opportunists may spoil the name of the whole industry. It

seems that a few people have recognized that "there's gold in them thar

hills" and are out to mine the gold; they're out to make a fast return

for themselves without any consideration of what it's doing to the

homeowners. I'm speaking particularly of homesite properties. Perhaps

changes in licensing procedures — and I know I can't talk about

legislation — as well as in the legislation that controls the industry

are long overdue.

On the CBC news back in January a news

item was carried that over 100 people stood all night in Vancouver

waiting to apply for admission to a real estate course. I think that

indicates the kind of opportunistic approach that people are taking

toward what is becoming a very lucrative industry — a very fast return

for very little money. Of course the ILS no-commission system of

marketing real estate is another one where.... I know that we certainly

can't prohibit options. A legitimate option is quite an acceptable

thing. But an individual in the business of buying and selling real

estate can place maybe a $100 option for 30 days on a piece of property

that may be worth a thousand times that, and at the rate that the price

of real estate is increasing he can then exercise that option and

resell the property without even having to be registered or licensed at

all.

The minister nods his head. I'm sure he's aware of

this, and is concerned that this sort of thing is happening. There are

just too many loopholes available to people dealing in homes and

homesites, at a time of very escalated costs, and making exorbitant

profits and returns for themselves with very limited investment. I

don't want to give the impression that I'm tarring all people in real

estate with the same brush — I'm not; but I think the onus is on the

minister to take some action to ensure that the legitimate, qualified

people prepared to abide by regulation are protected from the bad name

the real estate industry is fast developing in this province. I get it

on all sides in my constituency and I'm sure that minister, as the

minister responsible, has had a great many letters and protests about

the kind of thing that is going on in the real estate industry.

I've

raised the problems that occur in the multiple listing system with

other ministers. There's a real competition as to which company will

get the basic listing, because they get a higher percent return.

They'll list it at any kind of a price and sell it at much less; I've

quoted in this house the actual list prices and actual selling prices

of a series of houses in my constitutuency, which indicate to me

without question of a doubt that this is happening. The problem is that

John Q.

[ Page

5433 ]

Citizen, seeing those list prices, naturally

assumes that's the going price for homes, and this has a tendency to

drive up the cost of housing even more.

Those are some of my

concerns — some of the problems I have had brought to me by

constituents in my constituency office and which I felt duty-bound to

raise once more in the Legislature, now that we have a different

minister. Perhaps that minister will put some priority on that

particular point in question, because I think it is one that is very

vital, not just to his particular concern and interest, but to those

other ministers who are responsible for the problem of housing.

Certainly it's of grave interest to those many people who are finding

it so difficult to buy a home today.

HON. MR. HYNDMAN:

May I thank the member for Cowichan-Malahat for her comments. She and I

agree that we're again at one of those cyclical stages in B.C.'s

history where the activity in the real estate market and housing prices

raise a host of fresh concerns and problems. Let me try to comment on a

number of the points that have been raised, in the hope that that may

be of some assistance to the member.

First dealing with the

question of keys, I think it's important to realize that when people

list their homes for sale there is no obligation or rule that requires

them to give up their keys. That becomes a matter of personal choice

and planning. For example, if a party wants to list a home but retain

control of possession and the keys, he or she is perfectly at liberty

to say to the realtor, as a condition of the listing, that there'll be

no inspection and appointments without prior clearance. "I will control

the key and let you in and out." It's usually through the multiple

listing process that the so-called "lockbox" system evolves. If realtor

X from one company wants to show the property, and realtor Y has the

listing — particularly, perhaps, in a far-flung area like yours —

there's a common meeting place or finding place where the key can be

obtained. There's a bit of a trade-off there, because to the degree

that kind of system permits the property to be more broadly shown and

exposed to a greater cross-section of realtors and purchasers, it

raises the very important question about security to the purchaser.

my days in conveyancing one of the suggestions I would make to

purchasers would be — given the size of the transaction and the value

of home — that it was probably a very modest investment in terms of

future insurance to have the locks changed when you moved in. So I

think it's a question of individual choice, and there's no question

that to the degree the vendor chooses to allow some access to keys by

realtors there is a security risk posed, and in that situation the only

guarantee of safety for the purchaser can be changing the locks.

The

member raised a very important question concerning surveys, and in the

kind of situation she discussed.... I'm assuming the matter has not yet

been commenced in the courts; if it has and is sub judice, I don't want

to comment. But I'd like to outline very clearly what the situation is

with respect to surveys. If a purchaser finds that the survey

dimensions of a property are not as represented in the course of the

sale, there normally is a very clear remedy in law by way of suit in

negligence against either the realtor or the conveyancing solicitor or

both. I think the conveyancer, be that person a solicitor or a notary,

if he is doing his job, should include a copy of the conveyancer's

survey report as filed with the land titles office. That should be

compared with whatever survey information the realtor has provided.

Putting it differently, about the only case in which the purchaser is

stuck with the results of a wrong survey is a case in which the

purchaser has been prepared to acknowledge that the matter is uncertain

and to buy the property on that basis. In a case like this, I would

suggest that doubtless the purchaser is doing the right thing to check

back to see which people made the representations as to the survey

dimensions. In our common law in this province the leading case is

actually one heard in Nanaimo about five years ago. The law is

absolutely clear that if it is the error of the realtor or the

conveyancer that leads to the result that the purchaser find different

dimensions and is innocently victim of that, there is a very clear

remedy in damages through negligence. I think in that case the

purchaser is doing the right thing.

From the other side of

the desk, the Real Estate Council is certainly striving to stress to

realtors the need for greater care and the dangers of a negligent

attitude in presenting properties for sale. Certainly, I know the Law

Society regularly draws to the attention of conveyancers the increasing

degree of risk which conveyancers face if they fail to check, as part

of the conveyance, items like the survey.

On the question of

people being forced into listings and sales of properties, I want to

stress as I did yesterday, for members who have constituents concerned

that their long-time residence in a family home is threatened because

of the buildup of property tax rates, that the government does offer a

program for qualifying seniors, whereby property taxes can be deferred

as against the title by way of a charge at a very reasonable rate of

interest. If any members are dealing with this problem as it may affect

seniors who want to stay in the family home but are concerned about the

cash-flow burden of property taxes, the Ministry of Finance administers

the program. It's available there. It's a very sensible program. It

lets the senior defer the taxes as a charge against the title, and not

pay them. The interest rate is very modest. I believe that when the

property is ultimately sold or passes to an estate, the taxes must then

be paid.

In terms of the practices of checking through

obituary notices or otherwise pressuring elderly people in particular

to sell, there is, of course, if people go too far in that field, the

law of undue influence as a protection and a remedy. Short of that,

though, particularly in the case of a widow or widower, I think one of

the soundest pieces of advice, if they are suddenly alone and in a

difficult state of emotional transition, is that the family banker, a

reliable family friend, a family lawyer, or an estate lawyer — if there

has been one — should always be consulted before that dotted line of a

listing agreement is signed.

Certainly it has been a more

lucrative marketplace for realtors. The facts, nonetheless, don't seem

to change. On analysis, whenever the market heats up it seems that

there is a renewed interest in real estate licensing and a larger

number of licensees. The data seem to suggest that year after year the

market ebbs and flows, but a relatively small number of realtors make

the high incomes and there are a surprising percentage who, in spite of

the market, make a very modest income and then hang up the licence or

don't pursue it. In this current market there has been, as the member

noted, a rush to get into the licensing course in the last year. There

was the

article in the paper about the lineups on the street. Just a

year earlier the council was having difficulty finding enough people to

take the course, even though the market then was reasonably buoyant and

strong.

[ Page 5434 ]

agree with the member that the question of licensing practices and

procedures should be a question of ongoing review and concern. I want

to assure her that we are looking at some changes in that area. I can

tell her that one of my concerns is the current status under which

realtors must or must not disclose to vendors that an offer is coming

in from a person who is licensed. We're looking at a number of those

areas that deal with the question of how you get licensed and how you

conduct yourself once you are licensed.

On the question of

option dealers, I share the concern of the member. She is probably

aware that the ministry has in fact launched a prosecution against one

firm which the ministry alleges is following a pattern of conduct which

really amounts to, in our view, a conspiracy to breach the provisions

of the Real Estate Act. That case is scheduled to be heard late this

summer. We're giving the question of dealer options ongoing

consideration. The member is absolutely right, Mr. Chairman. On the one

hand, there is a proper place for the use of the real estate option in

business. On the other hand, there is great potential scope for abuse

if the option is in the hands of unscrupulous or unfair people. We're

trying to find some remedies that would, on the one hand, leave the

option as a legitimate commercial tool to be used for legitimate

purposes by people who fully understand what's happening, yet we're

going to find ways to protect the innocent public, particularly home

vendors, who don't often get into the real estate field from being put

upon as a consequence of the misuse of the so-called dealer option. I

think that covers the points the member raised, and I thank her for her

concerns.

MR. KING: I'm going to be very brief. I

just have one question for the minister. First of all, perhaps I should

make sure that I'm in the proper area. It's my understanding that the

ministry does administer the trade licences, or the Business Licence

Act, now.

HON. MR. HYNDMAN: I believe it is still with Finance. It may be in the process of being rolled over, but I'll just double-check.

MR. KING:

I'll explain briefly what the problem is. I'm unclear as to whether it

resides under this ministry or under Finance. But in any event,

assuming that the ministers talk to each other, I think the point would

perhaps be well raised with both. For the minister's attention, I refer

to a letter I received outlining the dilemma. It's from a constituent

in Enderby, and it's addressed to me.

"As a

hobbyist I would like to protest very strongly the new Business Licence

Act which replaced the Trade Licence Act as of January 1, 1981. I have

a very small greenhouse, 12 by 20, and from it I usually sell a few

vegetable plants in the spring. Sometimes I've sold a few craft items

throughout the year. Because I like to be honest, I've been getting a

trade licence for $10 per year as I'm in what is called an unorganized

territory, now part of a regional district, actually on the Mabel Lake

Road out of Enderby.

"When I went to purchase

my 1981 licence I was told I would have to pay $60, which is even more

than the general store at Ashton Creek would have to pay. That is

listed at $37.50. Furthermore, if I wanted to make and sell a few

crafts, I would have to pay $112.50. For goodness' sake, I don't sell

that many crafts in a year. I don't gross that much, never mind net.

Surely there could be a category for hobbyists that could have an

amount less than any listed."

As things are set out now, in

my opinion, there will be a lot more dishonest people who don't want to

be dishonest. Even the $37.50 is far too high for the kind of business

which the lady operates. It seems to me that this is a valid concern in

a rather isolated area, where perhaps partly for convenience and partly

more as a hobby than any great revenue producer people enter these

small part-time enterprises. A category might be made available to them

reflecting the fact that it's a very low-volume kind of operation. I

would appreciate the minister responding. If it is his jurisdiction, I

would appreciate him reviewing it very carefully. If it is not, perhaps

he would approach his colleague, the appropriate minister, and discuss

it with him. I will raise it again at the appropriate time.

MRS. WALLACE: I wonder if the minister could tell us whether he's the man responsible for that act or whether it's the Minister of Finance.

HON. MR. HYNDMAN:

It is in fact the Minister of Finance. I'll be happy to convey those

comments to him. We do some other forms of licensing. I think the

member's point is well taken: as we review the licensing we do, I think

you are asking us to bear in mind that there are some unusual and

casual cases out there and not to club them to death with licence fees.

MRS. WALLACE:

Thank you, Mr. Minister. I had assumed it was Finance and had my

remarks filed under that portfolio, but I didn't want to miss my chance

to deal with the vegetable growers who now have to pay a licence to

sell product off their own farm.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I think the committee has established at this point the licensing and what is available to us under this vote.

MR. LEVI:

I'd live to give the minister an opportunity to get on the record about

the scanners and the co-ops, because co-ops are under this vote. I did

speak to him before. One very large co-op has purchased scanners and

paid for them. There's a letter on the way to him. Perhaps you could

tell us the status and exemption in this particular category.

HON. MR. HYNDMAN:

May I thank the member for Maillardville-Coquitlam for his courtesy in

drawing this concern of his to my prior attention. The moratorium in

respect to scanners applies only to the supermarket grocery stores. I'm

happy to confirm that the co-ops and co-op food stores are excluded

from the moratorium. The policy ground for that is very simple, co-ops

being the voluntary getting together and conduct of business by members

of the co-op along lines they choose. Therefore, if a co-op, through

its normal democratic procedures, wishes and prefers to utilize this

kind of technology, that's their free choice and they are free to

pursue it.

Vote 47 approved.

On vote 48: rentalsman, $3,685,441.

[ Page 5435 ]

MR. LEVI:

I won't be very long on this. I have a number of colleagues who want to

speak on it. But I do want to have an opportunity to answer the

minister's observations, particularly about my views on rent control

versus his views on rent control.

First of all, I'll put to

him the realistic situation that he enunciated yesterday. He said that

by the end of this calendar year, some 45,000 new homes will be built.

That's very good. Mr. Minister, I wonder how that's possible when

you've got rent controls. We have rent controls. One of the first

arguments that somehow we've got to demolish rent controls, which the

Fraser Institute or any of its confreres have ever been able to

produce, is that the facts demonstrate that rent controls inhibit the

production of housing. Certainly the minister defeated his own argument

somewhat yesterday. He's said it before. If we're going to have a

record housing year in the midst of the rent controls, how does he

explain that?

Yesterday he outlined a number of measures

which the government is utilizing in respect to assisting people who

are under pressure because of increased rents. One of them was the

question of review. The minister may recall that yesterday I mentioned

the case of an apartment block in Vancouver East where the rent went

from some $325 to over $600. That group of people did, in fact, apply

for rent review and it was granted. The landlord was ordered to impose

only a 15 percent increase as opposed to something that was pretty

close to 100 percent. However, the landlord decided to go to court. He

challenged it, and that was set aside. The upshot is that those people

there owed some $200 in back rent. Seventy-five percent of them had to

leave, because they couldn't possibly cope with the almost 100 percent

increase.

It's all very well for you to talk about rent

review. Yesterday I said to the minister that if he was prepared to

consider putting a rent control level on the non-controlled areas — at

a level of $450 to $500, as we suggested last year — the rentalsman has

in his office a computer which contains all the relevant data on nearly

all the living accommodation in this province. He can tell us almost at

the push of a button exactly what the situation is. He said last year —

I discussed it with him — that they found that, apart from some

anomalies, the average rent in the non-controlled area — those units

built after January 1, 1974 — was about $450. The renters were already

in serious trouble last year; they're in twice as much trouble today.

Had

the government brought in some kind of control at that time, that would

have saved an enormous amount of pressure on the rentalsman's office.

At the same time as the announcement of the policy on rent review, we

did not have the increase in staff. I would say to the minister: right

now with the problem you have, you should give serious consideration to

funding the existing storefront operations — there are some others to

set up — so that they can take some of the pressure off the

rentalsman's office. It's an enormous pressure. We know that you know

the facts. There are some 35,000 telephone calls a month. The survey

also showed that 10,000 calls weren't even getting through to the

switchboard. You should start looking at how you can give some relief

to the rentalsman, not just by adding staff or by making use of the

very valuable service that was available in 1975. We had storefront

operations to take up some of the incredible pressure, and they are

under a lot of pressure right now at the rentalsman's office.

Regarding

the on-again, off-again policy on rent control, which the hon. minister

ascribed to myself, we brought in rent control at a time when we felt

we needed it. We made moves with regard to rent control up to 1975. You

people have been in government six years. We'll talk about on-again,

off-again policy. You started out in the campaign in 1975 by saying you

would never take rent controls off. Then in 1978 you took them off

without supplying any information on the situation to do with the

vacancy rate. By 1980 you amended the Residential Tenancy Act, which

created enormous pressures for people and also for the rentalsman.

couple of months ago the minister was talking to the realtors in

Victoria, and I think he was quoted as saying: "Rent controls are gone,

gone, gone, like the dinosaur." At that stage of the game, we were

under the impression that the government was going to continue with a

policy that the previous minister had said, and the one previous to

that. They said we were going to get out of rent controls. That started

in 1978. Up to two months ago, that was the impression of the public.

Now the minister stated yesterday that we're not going to get out of

rent controls. That's an on-again, off-again policy. I ask very

specifically what we can expect up to last night at 6 o'clock, and what

we might expect today?

Don't try to find holes in the policy

that we've talked about. I've said that you've got to bring back some

form of rent control at some levels to stop the problem which exists

today. I can't emphasize that too much. You've done it with the

scanners. If you've done it with the scanners, then you'd better take a

look at the problems people have with rents. What of the people who

just had to get out of the apartment block because there was an

increase of over a hundred percent? What are they going to do? Not only

that, but they've got to come up with the extra money they owe on the

allowed rent by the courts.

Yes, the landlord has the right

to go to the courts after he got the rentalsman's decision, and the

courts ruled against the rentalsman, and those people are out on their

ear. You spoke yesterday about what is available. SAFER is available to

a certain category of people. The SAFER budget and the SAFER

involvement is not all that impressive. It's never reached 20,000.

GAIN? What are we talking about now? We're talking about people who

have a restricted income. Then you talked about the tax query. Those

aren't the kind of things which apply to the problems which exist for a

large cross-section of our population. As I said yesterday, it's no

longer low-income people who are suffering under this problem. There

are working people who are suffering, and who can't find the

wherewithal to meet these large increases. That's a now problem.

Certainly

to put the lie to the argument that the rental controls somehow inhibit

the construction of housing accommodation, as I said in the beginning,

just look at the minister's proud boast that there are going to be

40,000 units. I asked yesterday who was going to live in the 45,000

units. Nothing that you said yesterday indicated that there were any

programs available to make it possible for anybody in this province,

whose income was less than $45,000 per year, to live in one of those

houses you talk about.

Yes, I agree with you that we've got

to have housing stock, but that's down the road. The problems of

mortgage rates.... Ad hockery in terms of rent controls is exactly the

same kind of ad hockery that exists in the investment and banking area.

One month we're up to 18.4 percent; three months later we're down to 14

percent. Don't tell me that rent

[ Page 5436 ]

controls

are such an inhibiting factor, or even more so than the cost of money.

My gosh, that's an ad hockery — up and down. That's not in the

minister's bailiwick, although the government should be using some

pressure to talk to the bank and to the Minister of Finance and to that

Wizard of Oz down there who keeps changing the bank rate.

But

I keep making my point to the minister, Mr. Chairman. None of those

people who argue that rent controls inhibit construction have produced

one fact to show it, regardless of Dr. Block's pictures of Hiroshima

and New York and the empty buildings. I've been on two forays with Dr.

Block — once on television and once on a radio program. We get into the

same argument, but there are no facts. His great solution to removing

rent controls is pile in and pour in a bucketful of public money to

subsidize the rents for the people who can't afford to pay them. And

who would we be subsidizing then? The landlord.

So having

answered the minister's question as he requested I do, we're looking at

a now situation. You tell us how all these people are going to deal

with the crisis now, and think about what you've been saying over the

past three months. You inherited a policy from a predecessor who was

adamant that we were going to get out of rent controls, and you

exercise pretty well the same opinion. "Gone, gone, gone," you said,

"like the dinosaur," and yesterday you told us that they're not gone;

they're staying on. Your solution to all the problems that people have

with rents — and there are thousands of them — is: "Look at SAFER and

GAIN." It's as though everybody who's got a rental problem is over the

age of 65. You say they'll get a tax credit, and you say they can defer

the payment of their taxes. We know that; that was a program the

previous government brought in. That doesn't help people who work and

young people who are trying to get going; that doesn't offer any

solution to those people.

The only solution, and it's tough

for you to accept it, because you will never have the staff to deal

with all the complaints that are coming down the pipe, where it takes

anywhere from three weeks to a month to get a situation.... If they

start going to the courts we're going to have courts making judgments

about the housing crisis. I haven't actually seen the judgment the

judge made on it, but it's too bad when you have a rentalsman — who has

a function in terms of his job — making a decision that the rent on a

place in Vancouver East is too high by far and reducing it by 15

percent, and then the landlord goes to court and gets it allowed. That

may be more the rule than the exception, if that's what's going to go

on. That's dangerous to people who are trying to remain in the

accommodation they have.

I must repeat that nothing the

minister has said in his

interpretation of what I've said.... We're not

embarrassed about the fact that we brought in rent control, or the fact

that at the end of 1975 there were some 3,500 condominiums in the

greater Vancouver area that were unsold. You constantly tell us that

this is what dries up and inhibits the construction market, but you

used the best argument yesterday. This year, 45,000 houses are going to

be built in the midst of what appears to be such a terrible thing —

rent control. Don't tell us about New York. I don't want to know about

Hiroshima; I want to know about Vancouver and all the areas where

people are suffering because of rents. It's on your head. Don't start

using the Fraser Institute airy-fairy policies. They haven't come up

with a thing.

I don't know whether the minister asked all

the financial people, en passant at the meeting he had with them three

or four weeks ago: "How is it we're building so many houses this year?

Is it because we've got a Socred government?" We were told a couple of

days ago that all the investors are scared to death the NDP is going to

come back.

You have not made the argument. You have failed

in making the argument about inhibiting construction so you now have to

go to the solution; and the solution now is for these people who live

in accommodation where they're literally being taxed out of existence

and where they have no controls over their rents....

I'd be interested in the minister reacting. He asked for these comments, and I'm giving them to him.

HON. MR. HYNDMAN:

I'm just delighted to have the chance to comment on a couple of the

points raised by my good friend from Maillardville-Coquitlam.

First

I want him to appreciate, as I know he will, that through the course of

these debates I have not — nor do I propose to — referred to any of the

material of the Fraser Institute, New York, Hiroshima or Dr. Block. I

give him that pledge. I propose to talk about this very difficult

problem on the basis of my own material and philosophy. I can assure

you that I shall not be otherwise upsetting the afternoon of the member

for Maillardville-Coquitlam by referring to Dr. Block, the Fraser

Institute, or tales of Hiroshima or New York City.

I'm

awfully glad that my good friend raised the question of the recent

conference we sponsored on new techniques in home financing, out of

which a quotation was attributed to me about rent controls "going the

way of the dinosaur" and being "gone, gone, gone." I'm delighted to

have this chance to say that I took the precaution of having all those

proceedings transcribed. I'd be very happy to ship a copy to my friend.

For the record, at no time have I stated that rent controls were going

the way of the dinosaur, or would be gone, gone, gone. I'll happily

furnish you with a copy of that. In politics we often wonder where

quotations come from, and I think we accept the fact that they may be

erroneously quoted or fictionally invented. Normally that doesn't

bother me too much; it seems to go with the territory. But in an area

like rent controls where people have very severe emotional worries and

apprehensions, I do take exception to that kind of fictional creation.

I don't suggest that the member is responsible, but I'm awfully glad I

have a transcript of those proceedings.

But more

importantly, may I say that in the course of that day, when we wound up

we had an open plenary session, and the builders, developers and

lenders there had some things to say about rent controls and rental

construction and so forth — there again on record in that transcript,

Mr. Chairman — first pointing to rent controls and the worry about

expanded or extended rent controls as one of the chief holdbacks and

drawbacks to their not being involved in a bigger way in the production

of rental accommodation. They also spoke at length about the thing we

discussed yesterday, the on-again, off-again nature of government

policies, preferring and stressing the need for clear, permanent,

simple policies and investment guidelines.

Now, Mr.

Chairman, my friend raises an interesting point. He says: "Look, you've

got all these wonderful housing starts; they're surely the very defeat

of your argument, because how can all this be happening if rent

controls are so bad?" But with the greatest of respect I'd suggest that

the reverse is the case, that those figures indeed support my point

[ Page 5437 ]

view and should cause the member to re-examine his. First of all, to

the degree there are record levels of housing starts, and some rental

accommodation starts, I think they are because of the clear, simple,

direct and non-expansionary attitude that this government is taking

toward rent control — its emphasis on the supply side. But, you know,

Mr. Chairman, within those figures there is not enough housing

production being devoted to rental accommodation, in my view, as

opposed to non-rental housing stock, and we have to get, within those

production figures, more and more construction going on the rental

accommodation side.

You come back to those who normally

build, develop and invest in those and you say: "What will it take to

get more of you building more rental stock?" I'm sure my friend knows

the answers: a non-expansion of rent controls, a permanent return to

capital cost allowance and some relief from high mortgage interest

rates. I was just reading the Kamloops paper from Saturday; a local

builder-developer is quoted in the Kamloops Daily ,

page 6, as saying: "Developers aren't quick to build rental units,

because of rent controls." I'd suggest that is one very substantial

difference in the climate — and the member is right; he spoke at length

yesterday; it's a very sensitive and sophisticated investment climate

out there these days. To the degree potential builders of rental

accommodation feel or are worried that the trend is going to be toward

expansions of rent controls, rental accommodation and construction is

less likely to happen, and to the degree they can be sure the

government is going to attempt to maintain a supply philosophy, we'll

more likely encourage builders to come into the market.

1973, the last calendar year before the previous NDP government brought

in what was then a fairly heavy-handed rent-control system, the number

of apartment units under construction, according to CMHC, was 11,567. A

year later, following the introduction of what was then, relatively

speaking, a fairly severe rent-control system, those construction

figures fell by a third, to 8,676. With respect, Mr. Chairman, those

kinds of tangible figures in the recent history of British Columbia

would tend to support the argument of the government on this point. It

seems to me that that evidence suggests that if we expand the

rent-control system, we're going to see that kind of fall in

construction, which was historically the case here.

So we

disagree, and we lay emphasis on the supply side. There is no question,

Mr. Chairman, my friend is right that in the very short term it would

be very sexy politically, very attractive, to go ahead and expand

controls. Regardless of what the member opposite might think of the

amount or absence of political wisdom on this side, it would be a very

easy and attractive thing to do to say: "Sure, we're going to expand

controls full-bore." We happen to very strongly believe that that is

the wrong way to go, if we want to see an increased — and permanently

increased — production supply, supply and supply. So I think we do

differ on that one, but we lay great stress on the supply side.

appreciate the member responding to a number of the questions that I

raised yesterday. I think one which I raised was the question — from

his side of the aisle — to the potential builders and suppliers of

rental accommodation: "What incentives do you offer under your policies

and programs? What position are you prepared to take on capital cost

allowance?" You've outlined your position on controls, on efforts to

alleviate the impact of high mortgage interest rates to the prospective

builder of apartments. So that's basically, I think, where we're at in

the debate.

I would like just perhaps to close with a couple

of quotations from two UBC professors who, I think, enjoy a very

independent and well-regarded reputation in the field of urban housing

and real estate analysis, professors Stanley Hamilton and David Baxter,

who reasonably recently looked at the question of rent controls and

their expansion. In a publication of the Appraisal Institute of Canada

called "Landlords and Tenants in Danger: Rent Control in Canada" they

had this to say: "Although rent control is intended to alleviate a

housing problem, in the long run it makes it much more acute by

increasing the shortage of rental housing and distorting the supply of

new houses. Rent control seriously damages confidence in rental housing

as a private investment, and if it continues for long enough it may

destroy it entirely."

We're proud of the fact that housing

in British Columbia is being constructed at record levels. As that

housing is moved into and those homes are purchased, there will be

tenants leaving rental premises and some easing of pressure on the

vacancy rate. But I think within those figures we have to ask what we

all can do to increase the production of rental housing. That's perhaps

where my friend and I are differing today, as yesterday.

MR. LEVI:

I'll just make a short response so that my colleagues can get in.

Certainly we differ greatly. There is very much a philosophical

difference. We said yesterday and have said before that the

government's first tentative step into the housing market in January

1980, in which you took some $9 million to $10 million and levered it

into $200 million of mortgage investment, was a way to go. But nothing

that you've said this afternoon gives me any impression, having built

all these houses, of just where we're going to go in terms of putting

people in them. That's a very serious problem. There's the whole

question of mortgage rates and the inflation factor. Those have been

the serious inhibiting factors in this whole game.

In my

opinion, one cannot make the argument at all. You have not made the

rent control argument. However, that's where we are at at the moment.

Unfortunately, I can't get it today, but I will share with the minister

some other analysis of housing starts during the time of rent controls

and in the period that followed.

The minister has not

answered the problems of people who are renting today. That's a

question. We've gone through the business of what's available to older

people specifically. Really, it's a restatement, although you didn't

say it, of: "Well, those people are just going to have to tough it out.

We don't have any answers to that problem." All he relies on, as he

says, is the production of housing and people moving from rental

premises into the ownership of homes. There is no government program

that would make that possible. There is no government program at the

moment that deals with the crisis that people are in.

It's

got nothing to do with it being a sexy proposal. Let's leave that

aside: we haven't got an election right now. We've got a by-election up

in Kamloops, but you guys aren't planning to call an election for a

couple of years. Let's deal with the very real problem: what are

tenants going to do? You haven't answered that. I'm not talking about

people over the age of 65 but about young people and couples earning

$1,500 to $2,000 a month, some of whom are now in the most horrible

situation of paying up to $1,000 for rent because they live in

apartment blocks where the landlord has decided:

[ Page 5438 ]

"The sky's the limit; we're going to get away with

what we can." It's happening in a lot of places. The minister has not addressed it. You

might want to address it after one of my other colleagues speaks on it.

MR. BARNES:

Mr. Chairman, yesterday I tried to give the minister a picture of what

was happening to the community of the West End as a microcosmic view

considerably close to what's happening provincially. That is,

politicians seem to have abandoned the tenant in the traditional sense

of having a right to exist with dignity, respect and a fair amount of

stability based on reasonable government guidelines and regulations

that would assist them. I won't review all of those matters, but I will

just say that I was inspired to try to give the minister a picture of

the matter from a humanistic standpoint as well as to give him some

respect for the problem he has, being a new minister in the portfolio

and having inherited a matter that was well established before he took

the job as Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs.

The

opposition is having difficulty penetrating the minds of the public on

this issue, and certainly the minds and the intelligence of the

government with respect to this question of the dilemma that renters

find themselves in in the province today. Although we're very

concerned, it's difficult to know how to begin. Most of us are quite

experienced rhetorically and are quite able to use up a lot of time

talking about matters. The problem is: can we penetrate the powers that

be — the authorities — who, in fact, can deliver some solutions to the

very serious, critical problems that tenants are facing?

recall the Hotel Stratford situation — it was just a few months ago,

when this minister was appointed to the cabinet. That's the Hotel

Stratford in Chinatown in the downtown Vancouver area, a 151-unit

facility which housed permanent tenants. Strangely enough, although

many of these tenants had resided in that facility for some 20 years,

or an average of eight to ten years, they were not protected under the

Residential Tenancy Act of British Columbia by virtue of the fact that

they were residing in a hotel — a facility regarded as transitory and

not licensed for rental accommodation as such. Representations were

made to the minister to proclaim the appropriate

section under the

Residential Tenancy Act, which had been recommended for amendment by

the rentalsman's office. To my knowledge, that is one of the few

sections that is yet to be proclaimed. I believe it's

section 44(b),

but maybe it's another section. In any event, had it been proclaimed,

it would only have been a partial step in the right direction; but it

would have provided some protection in the meantime, until proper

facilities could be obtained for these residents to ensure that they

received the same protection as persons living in other rental

accommodation.

The story of those people living in the Hotel

Stratford is, unfortunately, not a very glamorous or successful one. In

fact it was a very tragic story. I have received a letter. There are

just two cases that I would mention. The story has been before the

public for quite some time now. This is one of perhaps hundreds of such

facilities that are being demolished by legal means through receiving

permits for demolition from the city of Vancouver. Although it was not

demolished, the Hotel Stratford did receive a permit for renovations.

In light of the fact that none of those tenants were protected under

the Residential Tenancy Act and had no guarantee of tenure, they were

given immediate notice. In other words, it was a sudden death

situation. I understand that that particular landlord by his own

graciousness — if you could call it that — gave them 30 days, which he

was not required to do by law.

I've had some report on how

two people have done. Mr. Lucy Schmeaduch, a very confused and disabled

elderly person, has only been able to find a room at the Hotel Europe,

which has become a flophouse featuring lots of drugs and violence.

Another one of those old gentlemen, Alf Knudson, a retired workingman

who lived at the Stratford for 20 years, is at the West Hotel, where

bathrooms are not accessible to wheelchairs. Until local workers find

him a portable toilet, each call of nature requires a three-block trip

by wheelchair to The 44, which is a club for — you might call them —

displaced persons and refugees within their own community who are

suffering the punitive measures of governments with very little social

conscience and who find themselves sort of down and out or more or less

at the bottom of the ladder in the area adjacent to Gastown and other

parts of the lower downtown Vancouver area.

There are many

stories about individuals who are suffering from the effects of a

wanton disregard for the disturbing of fairly stable communities and

living situations, by the lack of regulations that are humane and

recognize the need for planning and consultation with local social

planners and other authorities who have the responsibility for

maintaining some kind of cohesion and community identification

throughout the province.

[Mr. Davidson in the chair.]

colleague from Maillardville-Coquitlam has been attempting to rebut

some of the remarks made by the minister with respect to the value of

rent controls as a device that would protect affordable housing in

light of the fact that there are not sufficient vacancies available in

that category to accommodate most of the people in need of housing who

are not only on fixed incomes.... Quite frankly, just about everyone is

on a fixed income, including most of us in here who have no outside

entrepreneurial activities and have to rely on incomes that we can

anticipate being pretty consistent throughout the year. We too are

dependent on economic curves and are not in a very good position to

adjust, should things get too far out of kilter.

The rent

controls, as I attempted to say yesterday, were brought in by the

administration between 1972 and 1975 as a temporary device, recognizing

that there had to be a rational approach to managing the housing

situation as a social resource. In other words, we disagree somewhat,

philosophically, on the value of housing as a necessity in life. We

think that there are contrasts to be made between housing and other

values that we enjoy in this society such as automobiles, extra

cottages in some nice resort community, being able to have two or three

television sets in your home and so forth. Generally housing has to

first be seen as a necessary and vital part of everyone's lives —

certainly in our society. Therefore we treat it the same as we would

treat our natural resources in the ground, forests, coal, water

resources, animal life, etc. We treat it as having to require serious

management planning in order to ensure that it accommodates the people.

That's

all we're asking the government, recognizing that philosophically we're

somewhat diametrically opposed in terms of how to solve the problem.

Nonetheless, we're intelligent enough to realize that problems can be

solved in a multitude of ways. What we're asking is: how does the

government intend to deal with the crisis that presently exists? Not in

the long term alone; certainly in the long term, paralleling something

that is happening to deal with the

[ Page 5439 ]

emergency

situation today.... Because I don't think that you can sell people who

are suffering the idea that one day you'll be able to help them. They

have a right to seek solutions and satisfaction immediately, to relieve

the pain and discomfort that they may be experiencing.

Rent

controls unto themselves are not a solution. They are only a means to

an end. I suggest to the minister that the government does not appear

to be absolutely honest in what it is suggesting about leaving rent

controls in place. I would like the minister to set the record

straight. He stood up yesterday and said that there is no plan, on

behalf of his government, to change the status quo, that they are going

to more or less leave things as they are with respect to the rent

control situation. He said that they were concerned about supply of

housing. He reiterated: "Supply, supply, supply is the basic policy and

way in which this government intends to resolve the housing situation."

But

as I said months ago, rent controls are in fact being and are virtually

removed today. I'm going to ask the minister for statistics — if he has

them available, and if he hasn't got them I'll ask if he will indicate

to the House when he will have them available — to show for the House's

edification how many units existed, let's say, a year ago. One year

ago, how many units were under rent controls? How many units were

protected under that ceiling? Is it $300? It doesn't matter, because

you have an automatic inflation factor of 10 percent every year, and it

doesn't take very long before it's out of whatever category you

established. How many of those homes protected under rent controls at

$300 have ascended as a result of the 10 percent allowable annual

increase? How many exist today still under controls, and how many will

be out of controls immediately, next month, or the next month, or the

next month, because of the 10 percent?

What I'm suggesting

is that you can leave the status quo because one of the former

ministers of Consumer and Corporate Affairs, Mr. Rafe Mair, made quite

sure that there would be an escape hatch over a period of time, and all

the government has to do is sit pat and there will be no control

whatsoever; not one single unit will be under control. Because only the

units built before 1974 were ever under controls in the first place.

Any units constructed now are not under controls, I believe, until

about five years or so. So in effect, there are no controls in place

that are of any value to anyone, and that's the whole point. The

controls are a device that can be used. The minister is concerned about

stimulating the economy, or giving some incentives to those developers

who indicate they cannot manage without some kind of government

assistance. We never know about those, because they never show us any

books; we do not require that they show us their cost projections in

terms of construction, or the margin they require, in terms of

occupancy percentages, in order to see what they can and can't live

with. I would say that there are very few investors in rental

accommodation, who would invest hard-earned capital, probably borrowed,

on speculation that they would be able to jack up the prices in a short

space of time and recover their investment overnight, who would invest

capital on the basis that they had to have 100 percent occupancy. In

fact, I doubt if any would invest capital on the basis that those units

— of whatever size, whether a 10-unit, a 100-unit, or a 200-unit

apartment block — had to have 100 percent occupancy at all times in

order to realize a proper return on their capital investment. I doubt

very seriously if that exists.

Now, Mr. Chairman, you and I

know that in Vancouver the vacancy rate is zero. In fact, it's less

than zero; there are people standing in line for places to stay in the

affordable category. So how is it that even under rent controls it is

justified for these landlords annually to charge 10 percent, which is

legally allowable? I don't believe that they need the 10 percent in the

first place. I never did believe that they needed it, and I have always

suggested that we should have some kind of rent review commission which

would require them to bring all of the information and put it on the

table under some kind of tripartite system where you have somebody

representing the tenant, the landlord, and the government, or whatever

combination of a committee you would suggest, that would find out the

true costs.

It's about time we fought inflation by taking

some responsibility, rather than catch-all 10 percent that permits

inflation to run rampant. I'm not talking about that kind of rent

controls. You see, in some cases, you may need 15, or 20 percent; in

some cases you may need 1 or 2 percent and in some cases you may need

none. But I would suggest that most people who invest their capital are

trying to get as good a deal as they can, and if possible they would

like to break even at 40 or 50 percent occupancy. They don't need 100

percent. When you get 100 percent you're making nothing but money —

windfall profits. The situation that we have in Vancouver and

throughout this province right now is just that. The situation is

crushing, and the governments do nothing. They are indifferent because

of dogmatic, doctrinary attitudes about what services the public should

have. They're always prepared to intervene and to show their muscle

when it comes to helping out people who convince them that the free

enterprise concept, the laissez-faire approach to economic activity, is

beyond reproach and deserves some status that is etched in stone and

cannot be tampered with. We all know that that is incorrect.

Nonetheless, most people are led to believe that that's the way it has

to be and that's the way it is. It's tragic.

Fm going to

read a letter from a person who I certainly wouldn't have considered a

year ago to be on the poverty line. I wouldn't think that someone

paying $701 a month on July 1, 1981, was on the poverty line — in terms

of the kinds of people we're concerned about. If they were paying what

we considered to be a normal rent factor — 25 percent of their income

for rent — that person would be making close to $3,000 a month.

Nonetheless, this person writes: "I wish to make you aware of a case of

gouging the public. I have an apartment — one bedroom, one den — on

Beach Avenue in Vancouver. My rent was increased on March 30, 1981,

effective July 1, 1981, from $701 to $1,250. That's a 78 percent

increase. The owner is Hollyburn Properties in North Vancouver."

This

particular complainant says: "My husband is severely handicapped after

a stroke and is in a special home for the handicapped." She states that

they are on fixed pensions; they have an old-age pension and the Canada

Pension Plan with which to meet these obligations. Obviously they are

paying some money out of their savings as well. She goes on to state

that this increase represents an extraordinary hardship and that she

herself is severely arthritic. She is asking us to please help.

I'm

sure that this is someone who at one point in time considered herself

beyond the need for intervention by government, her MLA or any advocate

in the community. Anyone who was paying $700, $800 or $1,000 a month a

year ago

[ Page 5440 ]

probably

felt that they were free-enterprisers and had no problem — that it was

a good philosophy that those poor bums who can't pay should move out.

Now we're finding that 80 percent of the people are in that category.

It's a very serious situation. We're not talking about people on social

assistance and welfare. We're talking about people who have worked

professionally, retired and have the right to live with dignity and

respect. They should not be subjected to invasion with impunity by

profiteering speculators with government sanction — and that's exactly

what they're doing.

I'm having difficulty trying to

penetrate the government's intelligence — I'm sure they have some of

that someplace — but the matter is serious beyond imagination. As one

member of this Legislature who, fortunately, is still able to live

relatively secure in my home that I've been paying for for some 30

years, I'm very lucky. As one of my colleagues expressed yesterday — I

believe it was the member for Prince Rupert (Mr. Lea) — even the

members of this Legislature, who with their indemnities and expenses

are earning something like $35,000 a year, would be unable.... That's

provided we get the increment of 4 or 5 percent. Mind you, that's 6 or

7 percent below the national inflation average, but we have to

demonstrate that we're prepared to suffer to make our point.

Nonetheless, I would suggest that very few of us would qualify for a

loan today at the interest rates that are being asked. Very few of us

would be able to buy a home costing much more than $80,000 on the

salary that we have, unless we owned a home already and had a pretty

big down payment of, say, $40,000 or $50,000. If you're buying a home

for the first time, you're in serious trouble. That includes all of us

in here. If we're not on the poverty line, then I'd like to know what

the score is.

A lot of people out there making $20,000 or

$30,000 a year ago thought they were doing okay. I know quite a few

professional people who are starting out, working for the Ministry of

Human Resources and other places, who were quite proud to receive their

degrees a year ago and got their jobs. Now they're making $18,000 or

$20,000, some $22,000. They'll never see the light of day. They'll

never be able to realize what the Premier promised in 1975.

Talking

about the Social Credit Party, Mr. Bennett is quoted as saying: "We

will make a commitment that every British Columbian will have a home

within the near future. Social Credit believes that every family in

British Columbia has the right to own a home and the land under it." I

don't know if there's much point in elaborating on that, because I

think that has about as much validity as the Premier's promise in the

same year when he said they wouldn't remove rent controls. I've already

told you that rent controls don't have to be removed. When you've got

an escape hatch, it'll remove itself in time. That's exactly what is

happening. I would like the minister to bring those statistics to the

House, tell us how many rental units remain under rent controls and

project one, two, three, four or five years down the road and tell us

how many units will still be under rent controls in that time. I

suggest there will be none.

[Mr. Strachan in the chair.]

suggest that those people in my constituency, for instance, who are

paying right now $300, $400 or $500 a month, barely being able to make

it on fixed incomes and who are being held under siege by economic

conditions with which they have absolutely no control — all they're

getting is indifference from the government — will be unable to find

accommodation anywhere in the lower mainland in five years. I predict

that in three years nobody in the West End will be paying less than

$1,200 to $1,500 a month. Even the hovels and sleeping under the bridge

will cost you.

That place is being taken over by a

conspiracy of former NPA aldermen in the city of Vancouver with Social

Credit philosophy and Social Credit indifference, arrogance, greed and

lack of compassion and concern for people. I know those are strong

words, but I think the evidence is there to verify the charges that I'm

making. I don't make them frivolously, Mr. Chairman, on a matter such

as this. I believe that when I take my seat or walk out of these

chambers, I'll still have to write these people and tell them I've made

a speech. I've talked to the minister and to the public. I don't even

know if the media will cover this, because I don't think they even see

this as the big issue that it should be. I don't think they're even

concerned. I'm talking about real people and the things that a real

government would care about. But we can't get anywhere on it.

Interjection.

MR. BARNES:

He's quite correct, Mr. Chairman. I will go so far as to say that I

don't deal in personalities. You'll notice that I am a very reasonable

person who is totally objective and who looks at things on the basis of

the material and information before me. I try to leave individual

personalities out of it. I can say that I am not attacking that hon.

minister over there, whom I respect and consider to be a decent person.

I've seen him on the site quite a few times. In fact, I thought he was

going to move from Vancouver South to Vancouver Centre because he was

in my riding so much. One of the things that disturbs me is that he is

an experienced and articulate man, and there are very few people who

are going to win debates when he stands up, believe me. The man is

knowledgeable in his field. I'm asking him to put that all aside —

learned though he may be — and take a look at the problem that is

facing us and maybe give the kind of leadership that that Social Credit

government has been lacking for so long. Certainly he does not have to

become a victim of the BCRIC syndrome, the same as the rest of those

people over there. Surely he can divest himself of the Bennett touch

and do something constructive and responsible and with a sense of

decency for a change. We don't have to have everybody who joins that

cabinet getting locked up into the death-wish that that Premier seems

to display at all times.

I think it's time that somebody

over there listened. This is what I'm appealing to the minister to do.

Pay attention and throw caution to the wind. I'm taking a risk myself,

because if he takes my advice, you know he's going to do very well. He

may not be in the cabinet long, but he'll do very well. We've listened

to those people trying to justify all kinds of things. You tell me, Mr.

Chairman, what the most important thing to do is. Should we establish

housing for the people of British Columbia — senior citizens,

handicapped persons, families that have been displaced from the West

End? You don't even see children anymore. They've closed down all the

elementary schools. Most of the people that come in there are imported

from outside of the riding, because they're not known to live in that

area. They're destroying the constituency of Vancouver Centre as far as

the ordinary demographic mix that we've know for so long. I'm saying to

that minister: come out front and do something on behalf of the people.

[ Page 5441 ]

don't

need a $10,000 production by Mr. Achilles de Heal to give the

government a polished image through some kind of canned formula they

got from Hollywood. We don't need that at $10,000 a production plus the

cost of making the production — buying TV time and competing against

national activities like hockey. They're trying to tell the public that

they're something they're not. Spend the money on the people; that's

the best way to do your image. We don't need over $20 million for

publicity and promotion of political biases on behalf of the government

anymore. We don't need to be insulted with respect to human dignity and

decency in this province by having the government allocate $73,000 for

the dissemination of information with respect to human rights in this

province either. That's a bit of an insult in light of what they're

spending millions on.

I'm saying that the rentalsman's

office is a sham. What can he do? He isn't getting any money or support

to do anything. I'll tell you one thing: he'll be out of work if he's

going to be concerned about controlled units, because there won't be

any in a couple of years. What's he working on? Is he keeping

statistics? For what purpose? The game is over as far as tenants are

concerned. I honestly do not know what tenants will do in this

province. What senior citizen tenant can afford to pay $1,250 a month?

That's ridiculous, and it's not going to stop there. It'll just keep on

going because there are no controls on these units. Maybe it will be

$2,000 or $3,000. Believe me, both you and I know there are people who

can pay $3,000 a month. I'm sure there are many of you over there who

can do it, and at $4,000 or $5,000 it wouldn't make any difference. I'm

sure several of you are driving gold Cadillacs. I bet you there are

quite a few over there driving very expensive cars, and it's no

problem. You probably trade it in every year, and maybe you're getting

it on some kind of an expense account in the first place. But we're

talking about the ordinary people out there, not those of you who have

learned how to exploit the political system and take advantage of it to

your own ends. We're talking about the ordinary guy on the streets.

Eighty percent of the people have become ordinary. Last year it was

only about 30 or 40 percent. It'll be 100 percent pretty soon.

Everybody is going to become ordinary, and nobody will have any place

to stay. Everything will be luxury, Mr. Chairman.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The time under standing orders has elapsed, hon. member.

MR. BARNES:

That's a shame, Mr. Chairman. I think I could get leave of the House to

continue forever on this. I don't think there's a person in the place

who would deny me the right to continue making my remarks.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Hon. member, that would take a substantive motion. You have every opportunity to continue on the debate under vote 47.

MR. BARNES: Do I hear any noes?

AN HON. MEMBER: No!

MR. BARNES: That must have been the man from Omineca (Mr. Kempf), the only person who is totally indifferent and insensitive to anything.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Hon. member, under standing orders another member must be recognized. The hon. member for Dewdney.

MR. MUSSALLEM: Mr. Chairman....

MR. BARNES:

On a point of order, Mr. Chairman. In light of the urgency and

seriousness of this matter, I wonder if the member for Dewdney would be

kind enough to yield to the second member for Vancouver Centre in order

that he might complete his remarks,

MR. CHAIRMAN: That would be entirely up to the hon. member for Dewdney who the Chair has recognized.

MR. MUSSALLEM:

If it had been a pressing matter when the member could not speak again,

I would have considered it, but the member can get up and speak at any

time during this debate. There is no limitation to the number of times

he can get up, but the rules call for.... A man of football hero

stature like him knows that he should play by the rules, and I'm sure

he wouldn't want to do otherwise.

It was a very impassioned

speech, but it's marvellous to get into passion totally blinded to the

facts that exist. Rent controls are the culprit in the matter of the

charge of housing. Let me refer this House to the situation in 1972

when the previous government was in office. We're dealing mostly with

Vancouver and the heavily populated centres of British Columbia. In

1972, before the days of rent control, there was a vacancy rate in

Vancouver of 3 percent to 4 percent. In the apartment districts of

Vancouver South and the West End, many signs of "Apartment for Rent"

were out on the lawn, but suddenly the situation changed. The NDP came

into power, and the first thing with the socialist theory is to control

everything. One of the issues that came down was rent control, and rent

control is one of the culprits in this entire issue.

Our government has a history of building facilities and homes for people — rental accommodation. I again have the privilege....

Mr.

Chairman, I do not know why I spark the hon. member for

Shuswap-Revelstoke (Mr. King), but whenever I get up to speak.... This

is the second time he's brought me a note. If you'll permit me, I'll

read this to see what he has to say. Thank you very much.

Mr.

Chairman, rent controls are the culprits. I can refer you to a time

before 1972, when we built many facilities for senior citizens. The

rents there are still at the rate of $75 to $150 per month. This is the

system without controls. But we developed a system of building homes

and building houses for people. The minister himself stated that there

are 45,000 units under construction. and the only answer to this

problem is the building of rental accommodation. Under our system, this

is being done, but rent control is a negative system. It just stops the

builders from developing, and I believe that we must develop and

encourage the builders of rental suites in this province. That is being

done by that minister, and there is no point in us considering going

back to the old system of rent control.

I remember very

well, when the NDP was in office, bumper stickers which said: "Will the

last person to leave British Columbia turnout the lights." There would

have been plenty of places to rent if that party had been in power for

another year. There would have been places to rent every-

[ Page 5442 ]

where,

because that's the ghost-town syndrome. With our expanding economy

today, it is difficult to keep up the housing; but it will come with

the principles we are developing at the present time. I believe that

the theory of rent controls is wrong, is disastrous, and will lead to

nothing but the closing up of construction being done at this time.

MR. BARNES:

Mr. Chairman, I think that I can conclude my remarks very quickly now.

However, further to what I was saying, I just wanted to say that in

addition to that one example of a senior citizen living at 2061 Beach

Avenue — the property owned by Hollyburn Properties Ltd. of North

Vancouver — another person wrote to me, and after her greeting she

says: "Please help. My rent for July, 1980, was $358 for the first

month I was there. As of February, 1981, just a few months ago, it was

$422." That's 18 percent from the time she moved in, and she says she

has received another notice a year in advance — which is very generous

of them — that she'll be paying $650, nearly a 100 percent increase

from the time she moved in.

Mr. Chairman, when does it stop?

What about stability? Must everyone be in fear of being removed? We

have opened the floodgates on the tenants. This is a pure and simple

war against the tenants. It is a deliberate attempt to destroy these

people. I said that it was a conspiracy; there are those among you who

may think that's a little strong. But when you take a look at how it

was just ten years ago in the downtown area, where you once had a

network of community amenities, where the demography reflected a true

Canadian atmosphere of mixtures of cultures, races, classes, of

institutions, churches and schools.... The noise factor was down. It

was a community adjacent to Stanley Park — something that we're

benefiting from today because of the foresight of those legislators in

those days who saved that park. You can believe there would be

highrises higher than those Douglas firs if it were left up to people

such as those who had the NPA for many years — that's the Non-Partisan

Association.

The committee is addressing a matter that I'm

afraid has been shunted aside too long. I'm asking this one neophyte

minister — although in the world of debate and the world of affairs he

is certainly no neophyte; he is new, and he has jumped into something

that he did not create — to have the integrity and strength to resist

the limited, myopic vision of his colleagues in cabinet. I hope he will

fight this matter to the very end to try and do something for the

people, because this is a matter that I feel should be on a

non-partisan basis. We have fellow Canadians and British Columbians,

and we have people who fought as frontier people. Many of those senior

citizens who can no longer afford to live there were the ones who

developed and created that community. I think that out of common

decency and interest in the rights of these people...to be able to stay

in that place should be guaranteed and ensured.

So when the member for Dewdney (Mr. Mussallem) suggests that rent controls

are incorrect and that you have to give incentives to developers, and many of

these devices that have been used by the Liberal government and many other parties

who see capital as our god, he must understand that it is not good enough to

just rely on the principle of supply and demand to take care of public, social

requirements. We know full well that there are many people who can never compete

successfully in a capitalist system. We know for a fact that with the invention

of the chip and all the other electronic devices that are coming into place

we will be finding more and more people displaced by automation and other devices

and techniques that are happening as a result of our progress without reference

to the people. We are allowed to proceed without reference to anybody. We can

invent and create all kinds of schemes that will screw up this society, this

culture — the techniques and methods of industry and everything else that we

use. All I'm saying is that when someone comes and tells me that these principles

are greater than the individual they are supposedly serving, I say balderdash.

It's not true and it should never be true. We are here to ensure that whatever

happens in this society, we look after the people themselves. They are the number

one resource. This is not what is happening.

I can't stand for any academic explanations of why the people don't

have homes. I want them to have some place to stay, and at a rate that

they can afford. Does the minister not realize that these people have a

right to defend themselves by any means necessary? Anyone that's being

trampled over has a right to defend themselves. They have a right to

stand up and say: "No. No more. I'm not going to take it anymore." I

think that's what you're provoking them into doing. Most of them are

law-abiding citizens and probably have never even heard of the

expression "civil disobedience" before. They probably wouldn't even

want to entertain it, but I can tell you that more and more people are

going to have to. It's not a case of wanting to. They're going to be

pushed over the edge and they will have to. They're going to have to do

something. You won't do anything but tell them: "Don't worry. You can

always find someplace else to stay. The West End and the downtown core

is going to become a playland for me and my friends."

That's

exactly what you have in mind with your Transpo '86, B.C. Place

stadium, convention centre proposal and all other kinds of schemes

which are going to destroy the core of that community. It should never

have been hit so hard or bombarded by intruders without reference to

their needs and without planning and consideration. If anything is

worth anything, it's worth patience, time, consultation and planning.

You don't just go in there as though you're an expert in carnal

knowledge, which is exactly what you're doing in this case, by moving

in on these people brutally. It's a form of rape. That's all it is.

You're moving in on these people, taking away their homes, displacing

them and making them refugees within their own community. You have the

gall to say: "There's nothing we can do." I think that they have the

right to stay right where they are, and you're going to forcibly remove

them from their homes. You're going to sit back and say that there's

nothing you can do and that that property is owned by that company or

this company, and they can do what they want to with their property. I

say that's hogwash, and you know it.

Those people should be

indignant and angry. They should fight. Unless you do something, I'm

going to be one person who is going to recommend that they use every

device that they have at their disposal to fight back — every legal

means, and pressure on the rentalsman. If they don't get their homes

looked after the way they should and if repairs are not done the way

they should be, I'm going to recommend that they don't pay. They'll

challenge the landlord by saying: "Take me to court. I'll pay the

rentalsman. Let the rentalsman fight." We're going to have to start

fighting back if you don't look after the people. I think that it's

gone far enough.

You show me where there is a capitalist who would invest his money in anything in which he doesn't get some kind of a

[ Page 5443 ]

guaranteed

margin of safety. He's not going to invest in an apartment block that

he has to have 100 percent occupancy for. No way. That would be stupid.

Even as a former social worker, I know that. I'd want at least 5

percent running room, and I can guarantee that most of them are making

their money back at 40 or 50 percent occupancy. It's not the situation

that is being painted. This is why I say that it's a disaster. It's a

crime.

This is a big field. I haven't addressed all of those

questions with respect to the rentalsman's office, because I figure

that they're secondary to the real problem. We aren't here really, in

my view, to entertain each other with long speeches of no purpose and

concern. I'm saying that I'm here on behalf of those people who are

suffering. That's my main concern. I'm not saying the Social Credit

government is incapable of solving the problem; I say they do not have

the will or desire and are basically against the people. I'm not saying

the socialists or anyone else are the only ones who can solve the

housing problem. I'm saying you're not committed to it. When you're

committed and you care, you'll bloody well solve the problem.

You're

sure going all the way to try and save your image, but you won't do the

things you could do where you wouldn't have to spend that money. You

wouldn't have to spend the money if you did your job. That $20-odd

million you're spending, at $10,000 an hour to get BCTV time to promote

yourselves and to propagandize so that you can stay in office, you

could be spending on constructing housing, except that you are against

it. You are doctrinaire and dogmatic about it.

And this

philosophical thing. You're not doing it because you say: "We can't do

it because we don't stand for those principles." I say that these are

people. What about their principles? What about their right to exist?

You say: "That's too bad. They'll have to find some place." Well, I can

tell you they won't be staying in the high-rent areas of downtown

Vancouver or even in the surrounding areas. They may even have to move

out of the Fraser Valley within five years. That's what's going to

happen. We're going to have a new class, a new breed and a whole new

game.

It's a sellout by that government, the same as they're

selling out our natural resources under the ground and in every other

respect. Now you're selling out the people, the last resource you have.

You don't have sense enough to realize that you need their belief in

your willingness to be just and fair. You're not being that, and

there's nothing that minister's going to say that is going to satisfy

the members on this side of the House, other than some kind of action

that will get some changes and relief for those people today.

With

respect to that member, as I said earlier, you just got here, but

you're here and your eyes were wide open when you took the oath of

office and said you would do your best on behalf of the people of

British Columbia. I hope you will give us some answers and not speeches.

MR. GABELMANN: The last time I was in this position and you were in that position some things happened that won't happen again, Mr. Chairman.

It's

with a very real sense of absolute futility that I take my place in

this debate. I think what would be more useful would be to spend our

time out there trying to persuade people in the community that there

are two philosophical approaches to the rental accommodation crisis and

the crisis in housing in general, that this is our position, the

government has put their position, and you should choose. For us to try

here in this Legislature to persuade the minister or his colleagues to

reverse their dogmatic, ideological, philosophical, right-wing,

old-fashioned, capitalist view of housing is absolutely futile in my

judgment.

Each of us on this side of the House — and if

there were a will, every member of this Legislature — could stand up

and repeat horror stories ad nauseam. I don't intend to do that at

length today, nor do I intend to make all the philosophical arguments.

That debate will take place in the election campaign — the sooner the

better.

Before I make some other comments, I want the

minister to answer one question for me. I'm going to describe something

which happens frequently. This last incident happened this week in

terms of my awareness of it. It's a true story and it's accurate. I

won't name names, but I will, privately, with the minister if he

wishes. I want to ask him what he would do for these people. Two months

and a week ago a woman and her son, both of whom are moderately

handicapped — not handicapped enough for HPIA, but moderately so — were

living in a rented house in Campbell River. She, on welfare and earning

the allowable extra money per month, received an eviction notice, a

legal, properly served — in fact it was two months — eviction notice

effective April 30 — last week. She and her son spent most of the last

two months doing two things: packing and looking for new accommodation.

She talked to her social worker, and the social worker said: "Under MHR

policy I can pay out money, but I can't help you find accommodation.

That's not in the mandate. You should continue to look on your own."

The two of them looked — walking, I might say, because neither of them

are able to drive, if they could afford it. They looked for

accommodation, and I can tell the House, and I could have told the

people in question, that that was pretty futile in Campbell River these

days; the vacancy rate is zero. As the member for Vancouver Centre (Mr.

Barnes) was saying, it's less than zero, because there are people

waiting who are doubled up in other accommodations. It's really in

effect less than zero.

April 30 came and went and she's

still in the house. The boxes are packed and there is no place to live.

Today is May 6 and she is still in the house. Yesterday, May 5, she got

a call first of all from the landlord, who's been kind enough to leave

them five days more although he wants the place. He said: "The sheriff

will be in; take your stuff and store it." Of course the woman on

welfare would have to pay for the transportation of the material and

the storage. Presumably she'd submit a bill to the government through

MHR, so the taxpayers would pay for that, but that's not the real

problem. The real problem is what she is going to do. Where is she

going to live? There is no place whatsoever to live. She phoned me and

asked what I could do. I said: "I don't know what I can do, but I'll

make some calls." So I made some calls, including one to her social

worker. And her social worker, quite properly, within her mandate

expressed by the government, said: "I can't do anything about it. If

she comes to me with some bills for accommodation that exceed the

limits, then I'll recommend to my supervisor or talk to my supervisor

about finding a way to pay for them." What I want to suggest to her

when I leave the chamber later this afternoon and call this lady back

is that she and her son move into a hotel in Campbell River and send

the bill to MHR. Knowing what the situation is in Campbell River and

knowing what the room costs are to start with, if she can get a room

for under $35 a night — for the two of them probably in the $40 range —

she'll be lucky. Knowing the accommodation situation,

[ Page 5444 ]

how

it's progressing and how much worse it's beginning to get, she may be

in that hotel for a long, long time to come at $30 a night, if she can

get it — $1,000 a month.

Why would the government — as they

are doing in many other cases, particularly in the lower mainland at

the present time — want to pay $1,000 a month for the accommodation of

this woman and her son? By all of its policies it has said: "We would

prefer to pay that $1,000 a month." I don't understand that; it doesn't

make sense to me; it doesn't seem to me to be good stewardship of the

taxpayers' dollars. The number of people in this province who are in

that situation is large; I don't have a figure; I don't know if anybody

has a figure. MHR should have the number and they probably do if they

search through their records. It's not only large, it's increasing. And

as this summer and this fall approach, it will get nothing but worse.

At least in the summer people can make do one way or another, but in

the winter they can't.

When I call this woman back, Mr.

Chairman, I don't know what I'm going to say to her. I can't say to her

that she should go to Human Resources and ask her worker to help find

accommodation, because the worker isn't allowed to do that under

policy. I can't say to her that she should go to the rentalsman's

office in the Consumer ministry, because it's not the function of the

rentalsman's office to find accommodation for this woman. What do I say

to her? And what do the rest of us say who face these kinds of

situations? This isn't the first one I've faced. I've had — not a lot

in the scheme of things — I would say six or seven in the last six

months, which is a lot. It's an immense amount to those six or seven

families. What do you do? And that's the very real problem that we face

in this province. What do we get? It makes me angry — not angry enough

to shout, just angry enough to cry. What do we get in the face of these

kinds of personal tragedies? We get philosophical debates based on

Fraser Institute reports on the merits or demerits of rent control. We

don't get action from the government in assisting cooperatives or

construction of public housing, in the assistance for developing

programs that will allow affordable rental accommodation for low income

people. We don't get programs for that. We get nothing.

I said as I opened my comments that

for me it's beyond the point of standing up in this Legislature and

having great philosophical debates between the two theories, because as

the member for Vancouver Centre so eloquently put it, we are beyond the

time for these people when theories, philosophies or politics that go

on in this Legislature matter a damn. They don't. What matters now is

that there be some housing for these people. What matters now is that

there be some control over the rents for these people so that they are

not forced to leave when their rents are suddenly out of rent controls.

Most

of us have picked up this ad from the 1975 election campaign, signed by

the now Premier of the Province, over the logo of the B.C. Social

Credit Party: "Social Credit Will Not Abolish Rent Controls."

Rent

controls are being abolished systematically and deliberately. What is

the effect of the abolition of rent controls? It drives people out of

their existing homes and neighbourhoods; it destroys a pluralistic

society — as the member for Vancouver Centre (Mr. Barnes) put it so

well, it creates ghettos of various kinds: ghettos of the rich, ghettos

of families, ghettos of well-off singles, and it creates this new

ghetto of people without homes of any kind. People are camping in

friend's garages or spending months on end with friends in cramped

apartments. It's an absolute disgrace. It's the greatest social policy

failure on the part of Social Credit; it's more than a policy failure.

I wish laws were written into the Criminal Code under which we could

lay charges for that kind of behaviour, that kind of government

inaction. People's lives are more affected by that kind of criminal

action than by many others.

Let's put an end to the

philosophical debate. Let's not argue about whether X number more

apartments will be built if there are rent controls or if there are not

rent controls. The fact is — and the numbers are available — that more

housing was built in Victoria and Vancouver in 1976 than in 1980 when

rents were being decontrolled. To be precise, these are the exact

figures: in Victoria in 1976, the year after we were defeated, three

years after rent controls were implemented, starts on rental

accommodation were 3,100 and a bit; last year, according to Lands,

Parks and Housing, there were only 1,160. Not much more than one-third

as much rental accommodation was built in 1980 in the city of Victoria

as was built in 1976. The government, in its ideological uptightness,

argues that it's because of rent controls, and that if we didn't have

rent controls we'd have more rental construction. It's absurd, because

since 1974 rent controls have never applied to new construction.

the minister wants to get into a cute argument with me about the mood

and the feeling of investors about, well, there might be rent controls

in this province.... The record of both parties is that new

construction isn't under rent control. It probably should be, but the

record is that it wouldn't be — it isn't; it wasn't with us. It should

be in some areas, and one area is affordable housing. There should be

government money and public money involved. If we need to use various

ruses to get public money channelled into affordable housing, then

let's work that out. But let's not do it so that it's just a pure tax

break, as proposed by the minister. If we're going to go back to the

old MURB program, all we'll really be doing is establishing a tax haven

for people who don't have to spend all their money on accommodation and

food.

I quoted some figures for the city of Victoria: there

was roughly one-third as much rental accommodation constructed in 1980

as in 1976. In Vancouver the figures aren't as bad: in 1976 there were

8,360 new rental units constructed; in 1980 there were only 6,450 — a

drop of about 2,000. Is it because of rent controls? Between 1976 and

1980 — Social Credit years — did developers and investors suddenly

become afraid of rent controls? It doesn't make sense.

Why

is it that when you look at the figures of housing starts, they were

better in 1974, 1975 and 1976, as a result of the policies of the B.C.

Housing Corporation, but then they tailed off? The reason — and this is

not much of an exaggeration — we've had a housing and rental crisis in

British Columbia, which has increased since 1976, is that by and large

landlords and investors vote Social Credit, and tenants vote NDP. In

the space of one year in the city of Kamloops, between October 1979 and

October 1980, the vacancy rate went from 3.8 percent down to 0.5

percent. How many housing starts or rental accommodation starts did the

government assist in developing in the city of Kamloops to avoid that

crisis? When you have a vacancy rate like that, and when you have the

fact that most suites are now out of rent controls, what do you think

is going to happen to the cost of that accommodation? Where do you

think those people are going to live — people on social assistance, the

working poor, people in low-paying jobs, students? Why does this

province have to wait for an election and the return of the NDP to have

any solutions? Why do we have to wait that long?

[ Page 5445 ]

move on, in the city of Victoria, average rental accommodation costs

$525. Those are advertised, available rental accommodations, totalled

and averaged. Taking the traditional 25 percent of your income for

housing — that's probably much out-dated now; we're probably talking

now about having to pay 35 and 40 percent — you're talking about having

an income of over $2,000 a month. The average wage is $1,600 in this

city. So how many people in this city are able and eligible, under the

25 percent formula, to pick up these suites that might be available?

MR. LEA: The free market will look after it.

MR. GABELMANN: Yes, Adam Smith is in his heaven and all is well with the world.

on this side of the House could go on if we thought it was worthwhile,

and spend any number of days — probably any number of weeks — debating

this most critical problem. As I've said several times now, I don't

think we will do that. I don't think we have any ability on this side

of the House to persuade that side of the House that the people who

finance their campaigns should be deserted. I expect fully that the

government will persist in its decision to ally itself with those

people in our society who exploit the poor, the working poor, and who

now in this crazy, mixed-up economy of ours are beginning to exploit

average and ordinary working-class families.

We haven't

talked at all yet in this debate about the impact on students returning

to universities and colleges in the fall. Where will they live in the

city of Vancouver, the district of Burnaby and other parts of the lower

mainland? If they do find a place, how will they pay for it? The YWCA

in Vancouver operates a housing registry which deals with rental

accommodations. In March 1978, there were about 200 inquiries about

rental accommodations. This March, two years later, inquiries are over

1,200 — a sixfold increase. The Red Door Rental Aid statistics, while

computed somewhat differently, lead to the same kinds of conclusions.

All the evidence is in, whether we talk about the YW housing registry

or what experiences the Red Door has every day. All the evidence is in

to indicate that there are hundreds and thousands of people out there

who have no affordable place to live. And the government says: "Okay,

let's bring back MURBS. Let's bring back capital cost allowance." If

you do that, without any reference to the kind of accommodation you

have constructed, what you will have is a lot of vacancies in the

$1,000-a-suite range. So I suggest you be very careful about any

programs of capital cost allowances.

What are we going to

do, Mr. Chairman? What are we going to do about this crisis? I suspect

nothing much will happen. I've talked to many friends in the community,

who ask why the NDP is not hammering on the government more about this.

Why aren't we forcing them to have emergency debates? Why aren't we

doing this, that and the other? My answer to them is very clear. What

would be the point? There are two distinct philosophical attitudes in

this province, one represented on this side, the other represented on

the other side of the House. The public can choose which of those two

philosophies is best suited to their needs, and they will have that

opportunity soon, I hope. We will then get an opportunity to solve this

terrible rental crisis in British Columbia.

MS. BROWN:

Mr. Chairman, Alberta has no rent control but experiences the same

problems with zero vacancy rates, lack of accommodation, and too many

people for too few units. This is clear evidence to everyone that rent

control is not the reason why we have zero vacancy rates. Yet people

who are opposed to rent control keep using that same tired old

argument: the reason there is a crunch in housing in British Columbia

is that we have rent control. The evidence is there: in another

province which has no rent control, they are experiencing exactly the

same phenomenon we are. I don't know what you have to do to finally get

it across to these people who keep blaming rent control for the vacancy

rate dilemma that there is no correlation between the two.

I'm

working on the assumption that the minister did not know that fact, and

so I am bringing it to his attention now. Alberta, a province which has

no rent control whatsoever, is also experiencing a shortage of housing.

They too are going through the housing crunch. So I'm hoping that when

the minister stands up to deal with this, he will not trot out the same

old tired arguments that there is a zero vacancy rate in Vancouver, in

Burnaby, in the lower mainland, and in British Columbia, because of

rent controls. The evidence is there. If his brother didn't tell him

before, I am certainly telling him now, and he can check that out for

himself.

Specifically, I would like to talk about the

situation in Burnaby, Mr. Chairman. In case you're wondering if there

are a number of people in Burnaby who live in rented accommodation,

I'll just give you a couple of statistics. Some 50 to 60 percent of the

housing in the Stride Avenue area, which is within the constituency of

Burnaby-Edmonds, is rental accommodation, and 40 to 50 percent of the

housing units in east Burnaby, in the northeast Burnaby end of the

riding, as well as in other parts such as Lyndhurst and Cameron, are

also rental units. What we are experiencing on the increase in east

Burnaby and in some parts of south Burnaby is the demolition of older

homes and the assembling of land for the development of rental

accommodation. Some of it is going into the development of

condominiums, but most of it is going into rental accommodation. So

it's becoming a major problem.

The other thing that we have

in Burnaby is a large number of people on fixed income. There is a

large number of senior citizens living in that particular part of the

community. There is also a large number of people who are on

handicapped pension, and people in receipt of income assistance through

the Ministry of Human Resources. Both of these are on the increase: the

development of rental accommodation, as well as the influx of people on

fixed income. There's a real crunch and a real necessity to ensure that

rental accommodation is affordable. What we are finding — here I'm

using the figures from the minister's own department that come, in

fact, from the rentalsman's report — is that between 1978 and 1980 the

kinds of increases that we've been experiencing in the Burnaby area

have been between 30 percent and 50 percent. Nobody on a fixed income —

no senior citizen, nobody on the handicapped pension and nobody in

receipt of income assistance through Human Resource — gets a 50 percent

increase. Not even the SAFER benefits increase that rapidly. It is very

clear that people on fixed incomes are really feeling the pinch as a

result of these kinds of increases in the rental situation.

I can name one place in particular, Humphries Court, at the corner of

Kingsway and 16th in Burnaby, has notified its tenants that their rents

are going up 25 percent to 30 percent this year. One-bedroom suites,

for example, are going up from $360 to $450 a month, plus utilities. Of

course, no one

[ Page 5446 ]

has

any control over utilities. All of us have to pay the Hydro, regardless

of what it is. There is no public hearing for us to decide whether it's

fair or unfair. It's a cost that we have no control over. Here again

I'm saying specifically to the minister, not just on behalf of people

who work — I think that certainly the second member for Vancouver

Centre (Mr. Barnes) spoke very eloquently on behalf of working people —

but specifically on behalf of people on fixed incomes, like senior

citizens, people on handicapped pension and people in receipt of income

assistance through Human Resources: it is not going to be possible for

them to keep up with these kinds of increases. It is really a matter of

grave concern to these people, and to me as their representative, that

rent control is eventually going to disappear, and that they're going

to be left at the mercy of people who are willing — for one reason or

another — to increase their rents by 25 percent to 30 percent. That's

my first plea.

The second thing I'd like to bring to the

ministers attention is the dilemma of disabled people and people on

handicapped pension in finding rental accommodation. One of the things

that disabled people have asked for — this year in particular — is to

be covered by the Human Rights Code. This request has not been granted

to them. So what they're finding is — in the past as now — that people

are refusing to rent them accommodation, for one reason or another.