1981 Legislative Session: 4th 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, NOVEMBER 25, 1981

Afternoon Sitting

[ Page

6629 ]

CONTENTS

Routine Proceedings

Presenting Petitions

Ms. Brown; social assistance cutbacks –– 6630

Dangerous Health Practices Act (Bill M201) Mr. Mussallem.

Introduction and first reading –– 6630

Oral Questions

Aboriginal rights in constitution. Mr. Passarell –– 6630

Enumeration of voters. Mrs. Dailly –– 6631

Mr. Lauk

Presenting Reports

British Columbia Utilities Commission annual report, 1980.

Hon. Mr. McClelland –– 6632

Speech from the Throne

Mr. Lea –– 6632

On the amendment

Mr. Gabelmann –– 6639

Hon. Mr. Phillips –– 6643

Mr. Cocke –– 6647

Mr. Strachan –– 6650

Tabling Documents

Pacific National Exhibition report and financial statement, March 31, 1981

Hon. Mr. Wolfe –– 6652

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 25, 1981

The House met at 2 p.m.

Prayers.

HON. MR. WOLFE: Mr. Speaker, it is an unusual day when we have two high

commissioners visiting us in the Legislature. Unfortunately only one of them

is presently in the gallery. I'd like to introduce His Excellency Lieutenant-General

Benjamin Mibenge, High Commissioner for Zambia to Canada. Would you welcome

His Excellency. I think also arriving shortly will be His Excellency Edward

Latter, High Commissioner for New Zealand to Canada, and Mrs. Latter; and Mr.

Ross Graham, consul of New Zealand in Vancouver, and Mrs. Graham.

MR. REE: Mr. Speaker, on behalf of my colleague the member for North

Vancouver–Seymour (Mr. Davis) and myself, I would like to ask the House to

welcome a group of students from Capilano College in the gallery and precincts

today. They are under the guidance of their teacher, Ms. Yetta Lees. Would the

House please welcome them.

MR. BRUMMET: Mr. Speaker, the person I would like to recognize is not

in the gallery today, but I'm sure that all members would join me in acknowledging

the achievements of a 16-year-old young lady from Fort St. John who has just

been competing in three international meets with the Canadian speed-skating

team in Quebec. Leslie Davidson came second overall and was the top Canadian

in the three meets. She is the only representative from British Columbia on

the national speed-skating team.

MR. MACDONALD: Mr. Speaker, I notice in the gallery my old ecumenical

friend, John Tisdalle, a former member for Saanich in this Legislature. We all

should bid him welcome; I'm sure we all will.

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: Mr. Speaker, it is kind of you to recognize me.

I was just going to make the introduction, and I join the member for Vancouver

East in welcoming Mr. Tisdalle to the House.

MR. LAUK: I rise on a question of privilege on behalf of s the Minister

of Tourism (Hon. Mrs. Jordan). Mr. Speaker, I think it's a disgrace that

there are only nine photographs of the minister in this annual report of the

Ministry of Tourism. I think we should all resolve to make sure

that at least 20 or 25 appear.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. I'm sure there is an appropriate time

for that discussion, but it is not now.

MR. BARBER: I rise on a question of privilege affecting this House

and every member of it. This is the first practical opportunity I have had

to raise this, as it was only this morning that I was able absolutely to determine

the identity of the individual; and that does relate significantly, I believe,

to the question of privilege that I propose to raise with your permission, Mr.

Speaker. You will recall that on Monday, following the presentation of the throne

speech, the official opposition moved a motion to establish a committee. That

motion was lost.

During

the course of debate on the motion I spoke. During that debate, as is

not uncommon in this House, there were interjections from both sides.

After I concluded, the Minister of Universities, Science and

Communications (Hon. Mr. McGeer) spoke. During his speech there were

interjections from both sides, including from me personally.

The

question of privilege devolves from an incident which has now, in my

mind, assumed some significance. It is because of its peculiar nature

that I ask you to determine whether or not there is a question of

privilege and whether or not there is a precedent established here. At

one point during the address of the Minister of Science I was startled

to be told by the individual sitting behind me on the floor — a guest

in the House, not a member of this House — if I may say it: "Why don't

you shut up. He didn't interfere when you were speaking." I turned

around to see who this was. It was a member of the public, I assumed.

He then went on to tell me that I didn't know what I was talking about

and that the material I was referring to was in fact covered in the

throne speech itself. The gentleman in question was clearly very

hostile. He was more than a little annoyed and took some pains to

instruct me as to the contents of the throne speech. I thought this was

a peculiar thing for a member of the public to do, but I presumed at

that moment that this was simply an uninformed member of the public who

didn't know about the special privileges accorded to members of this

House: that they may speak uninterrupted, and that they shall not be

told when to speak or when not to speak except by the Speaker,

according to the rules.

I discovered yesterday, and had

confirmed this morning, that this person in fact is not a member of the

general public. Rather the gentleman in question is one Patrick

Kinsella, deputy minister in the office of the Premier. I checked this

morning with the seating plan provided to me by your office and also

asked the government Whip who the individual was, because I didn't

recognize him.

It strikes me as a little peculiar — and I confess I resent it more than a

little — that I should be told on the floor of the House by the deputy minister

in the office of the Premier whether or not I should speak and what I should

say. It is that particular issue, and the particular problem of precedent, as

to whether or not guests on the floor of the House — especially a deputy minister

in the office of the Premier — shall find it their business to tell any member

of the House what to say and when to say it.

Therefore,

I have raised this at the earliest practical opportunity, because until

this morning when I finally had the list presented to me by Mr. Reser,

I was not aware — as I had ever previously met the gentleman, and it

didn't occur to me at the time — that it might be a very senior public

servant who was telling a member of the Legislature what to do.

The contempt that seems to have possibly been committed — if I may refer you

briefly, Mr. Speaker — is covered on page 136 of the nineteenth edition of Sir

Erskine May. It is the very ruling that you yourself made when the now Minister

of Health (Hon. Mr. Nielsen) raised a question of privilege in regard to a possible

contempt by way of interference with his communications, and I cite it briefly.

At page 136 it states:

"It may be stated generally that any act or omission which

obstructs or impedes either House of Parliament in the performance of its functions,

or which obstructs or impedes any member or officer of such House in the discharge

of his duty, or which has a tendency, directly or indirectly, to produce such

re-

[ Page 6630 ]

sults may be treated as a contempt even though there is no precedent

in the offence."

It then goes on to point out, as I'm sure you know, Mr. Speaker:

"Any disorderly, contumacious or disrespectful conduct in

the presence of either House or any committee thereof, whether by strangers

present or by persons attending as parties or witnesses, will constitute a contempt."

Again,

briefly, I find it bordering on contempt that a deputy minister, who is

obviously angry at my remarks and concerned, in his view, that I had

misconstrued or misheard the contents of the throne speech, should

presume to tell me whether or not to speak or how to read the throne

speech presented by His Honour, and this may well be a contempt. That

being the case, Mr. Speaker, if you do find on the basis of this prima

facie case that such a case has been established and that the

requirements in terms of the earliest presentation have been met, then

I would be prepared to move a motion and would ask your guidance as to

how we deal in the future with interjections — that perhaps is the

easiest way to put them — by a member of the public on the floor of the

House during the course of the House's business, following a speech by

a member and during the speech of another member following it. I would

appreciate your direction.

MR. SPEAKER: Thank you. Perhaps the hon. member would lay the motion on the table, which would clearly indicate the motion is in existence.

MR. BARBER: Do you wish it read or simply transmitted?

MR. SPEAKER: The motion is only required if a prima facie case is established.

MR. BARBER: Then may I give it to the Page?

MR. SPEAKER: As long as we can be sure that the motion is in existence, that satisfies.

MR. BARBER: Thank you.

HON. MR. BENNETT: Perhaps to assist you....

MR. SPEAKER:

Order, please. If a prima facie case is established, then debate would

be permissible. Since it is not a point of order that we're working on,

I don't know on what basis I recognize the Premier, if it has to do

with this matter.

HON. MR. BENNETT: I rise only to provide my own thoughts on this, Mr. Speaker, because it affects....

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please.

HON. MR. BENNETT: Well, it's in the form of an apology, if one is

required, to the member, and to say that I'm very concerned with the statement

made. It certainly is conduct not becoming a professional member of my staff,

and if such was the case, I certainly would apologize in advance of the information,

Mr. Speaker. I certainly hope the member accepts that on my behalf, and I will

follow through with instructions to my people. I know that we're all concerned

about the conduct of the Legislature and those associated with government. It's

regrettable, Mr. Speaker, through you to the member, if such an incident did

occur.

MR. SPEAKER: The only basis on which I can accept that is under the ministerial statement provision; a reply is in order.

MR. HOWARD: You are permitting debate on this subject matter, Mr. Speaker?

MR. SPEAKER: No, sir.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Reply!

MR. HOWARD: It's not worthy of a reply at this moment, but certainly if you find there is a case of privilege, there will be one.

Presenting Petitions

MS. BROWN: Mr. Speaker, I ask leave to present a petition.

Leave granted.

MS. BROWN:

The petition of 817 concerned citizens from lower Vancouver Island

humbly showeth that the actions of the Minister of Human Resources

(Hon. Mrs. McCarthy) in reclassifying single parents of small children

in effect denies these parents the freedom of choice to raise their own

children at home. "Wherefore your petitioner humbly prays that your

honourable House may be pleased to support the 817 concerned citizens

of lower Vancouver Island in their request that the minister rescind

this policy."

Introduction of Bills

DANGEROUS HEALTH PRACTICES ACT

a motion by Mr. Mussallem, Bill M201, Dangerous Health Practices Act,

read a first time and ordered to be placed on orders of the day for

second reading at the next sitting of the House after today.

Oral Questions

ABORIGINAL RIGHTS IN CONSTITUTION

MR. PASSARELL:

Mr. Speaker, I have a question to the Premier. At the recent

constitutional conference,

section 34 as proposed by the federal

government had widespread agreement among the provinces until the

Premier intervened and totally confused the issue. Is it now the policy

of the government of British Columbia to keep the phrase "existing" in

section 34 rather than the original version?

HON. MR. BENNETT:

Perhaps I can respond without using the incorrect information contained

within the question from the member for Atlin in describing actions of

myself. Perhaps the best way to respond.... If he had had this

available he could more accurately have posed the question or not have

had to ask it at all. I'll read from the letter I sent to the Prime

Minister on this issue. The letter proceeds:

[ Page 6631 ]

"Dear Mr. Prime Minister:

"I have been advised by the Status Indian Tribal Council and associations

of status Indian bands representing the majority of Indians in British Columbia

that they now no longer oppose the aboriginal rights provision contained in

the original federal constitutional resolution. I understand this is now generally

the position of treaty and status Indians across the country.

"The

change in the Indians' position is very significant, insofar as it was

a basis for the exclusion of that provision from the November 5, 1981,

accord, and the inclusion only of present

section 36, by which the

subject would be addressed at a meeting between first ministers, with

the participation of Indian leaders.

"Because

of this, British Columbia is prepared to support reinstatement of

aboriginal and treaty rights in the resolution now before the House of

Commons, provided you and the provinces who are signatories to the

accord concur, and provided that the process under present

section 36

remains in place, with a precise definition of all aboriginal rights

and the complete identification of the implications which these rights

may hold for Canada and for the provinces."

Without taking

the time to read it in oral question period, I might say that we go on

to establish British Columbia's historic position, not as a condition,

but as a fact. So, in fact, Mr. Speaker, the question and the premise

upon which it is based are incorrect.

ENUMERATION OF VOTERS

MRS. DAILLY:

Mr. Speaker, to the Provincial Secretary, with respect to your

announcement today that there will be an immediate and full

enumeration, what will happen if an election is called before July?

HON. MR. WOLFE:

Mr. Speaker, in answer to the member's question, as I mentioned

yesterday, the Premier stated very categorically at least a month ago

that there would be a province-wide enumeration held prior to the next

general election. I think that's a pretty clear-cut answer to the

question you have raised.

If I may go on and respond to her

question by trying to clear up some of the confusion surrounding this

issue, perhaps the best way to do that would be to repeat the statement

which I made earlier today.

MRS. DAILLY: We all have it, Mr. Speaker.

HON. MR. WOLFE: Well, there may be some members who have not been apprised....

Interjections.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please.

MR. LAUK:

On a point of order, I refer the Speaker to the resolution adopted by

this House on Monday with respect to question period rules. Let me

suggest that a ministerial statement cannot be made during question

period, particularly one that the minister has chosen to deliver

outside of this House, which is somewhat discourteous in the ordinary

course of events. He should not be allowed to make the same statement

he has made outside of this House in the House during question period

taking up valuable time.

MR. SPEAKER: Honourable

members, I think we're all acquainted with the procedure of question

period. If a question is posed, then the answer to that question could

be anticipated. The scope of the answer must not supersede the scope of

the question. I think the minister is aware and I think he will work

within the bounds of the rules.

HON. MR. WOLFE: I

don't propose to abuse the time of the House with a lengthy answer.

Perhaps the best way to do it would be to summarize what clearly was

stated and which was stated earlier in the House as well.

First

of all, there are three actions that we are taking about the voters'

list. Firstly, there will be a full and formal enumeration before the

next election to establish a new voters' list. Secondly, the Election

Act will be amended to make enumerations mandatory following each

general election. And lastly, the Election Act will be amended to

provide for the registration of voters on polling day.

MRS. DAILLY:

Mr. Speaker, we have a number of other questions to ask the Provincial

Secretary, but before moving on to those I would like to ask the

Premier a question. Do you not think it is absolutely ridiculous to

change the Elections Act on the floor of this House, instead of calling

the Fair Election Practices Committee? I think it's ridiculous. I want

to ask the Premier a specific question. Why are you not calling the

Fair Election Practices Committee so that we can change this Election

Act in a proper way in a committee instead of back and forward

listening to the Provincial Secretary joke and flim-flam? Why are you

not calling the committee?

Interjections.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please, hon. members. There was a question.

HON. MR. BENNETT:

Mr. Speaker, I think I should respond that I think this was dealt with.

No such committee has been set up, except by the government. However,

the member for Burnaby North is judging legislation which, while it's

been stated in the throne speech, is not yet before this House. I think

when the member sees the legislation she will probably wholeheartedly

endorse it. I would be very surprised if the member voted against it —

this being the first opportunity for that member, having been on both

sides of the House, to do something positive about the permanent

electoral list. Though I know full well the member pushed very hard to

have that done when they were government, she was apparently unable to

persuade her colleagues.

MRS. DAILLY: Mr. Speaker, I

have a further question to the Premier. I understand he does not

believe in full democratic participation of the members of the

opposition in changing an election act. Is that correct?

HON. MR. BENNETT:

Mr. Speaker, the member would be suggesting then that debate in this

Legislature that is not carried out in committee is not democratic. I

happen to think the most democratic institution of all is this

Legislature, where their input and discussion and debate will take

place.

[ Page 6632 ]

I'm

surprised the member holds the view that somehow a committee is more

democratic than this chamber. But I want to assure the member that all

members in this chamber have an opportunity to have input and

participation and discussion on legislation on a broader basis than in

a committee of just a few. I consider that the ultimate democracy, and

I'm surprised at her statement.

MR. DAILLY: As his

Premier does not seem to understand the importance of legislative

committees and what they are and how they function and the actual

democratic procedure of using a legislative committee, I will have to

come back again to the Provincial Secretary and we'll have to

laboriously go through these changes on the floor of the House.

Mr.

Speaker, my question to the Provincial Secretary is, with respect to

the minister's announcement that persons missed in the enumeration will

be able to register and vote on election day: will the ballots of

persons registered at a polling station on election day be placed in

the regular ballot box along with other votes?

MR. SPEAKER: Is this question in anticipation of a provision?

HON. MR. WOLFE:

Yes, Mr. Speaker, I believe that it is. It would be more useful to all

of the members, I think, to raise these questions in debate during the

presentation of the bill. I simply attempted to respond to earlier

questions yesterday, and saw fit to explain that there were these two

measures involved in the bill, which I thought would satisfy their

curiosity at this point.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please.

HON. MR. WOLFE: I'm answering her question, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: A point of order takes precedence and I must recognize the member.

MR. COCKE:

Mr. Speaker, the point of order is that the member is not anticipating

anything. She's asking a question based on a ministerial statement made

this morning under the minister's name.

MR. SPEAKER: Thank you for clarifying. The minister was answering a question. Please proceed.

HON. MR. WOLFE:

I simply was offering a suggestion to the House that it would be more

useful to discuss this kind of detail when the bill is before us, and I

would be happy to do so then.

She raises a question — to be

very brief — having to do with the matter of polling-day registration.

This is a major new initiative to make sure that, notwithstanding that

a person may not have got on the voters' list, for whatever reason, he

is going to have an opportunity in the future to be registered on

polling day. I believe the member is asking whether this will be

counted on polling day.

A verification procedure is

contemplated, under which the person would establish what his residence

was. You have to know what poll he lives in — if he lives in the poll

that he is voting in. Therefore there would need to be a verification

procedure. Then, come official count day, the ballot would be counted.

Now this is different from the old procedure with the

section 80

ballots, because if it was later determined that the people who voted

under

section 80 were in fact not on the voters' list, they lost their

opportunity to vote. The ballots of those who voted under

section 80

and who were later determined to be on the voters' list did in fact

count. The new procedure will allow an opportunity to anyone who's

inadvertently not on the voters' list, who perhaps did not have enough

initiative to get on the voters' list, to vote on polling day. A

verification procedure will be taken with that particular ballot, and

it will be counted on the day of the official count, which I believe is

about two weeks after election day.

MR. LAUK: This

substantially is the same as

section 80. If the ballots are going to be

kept separate and apart from the ballot box, then there is the risk

that these ballots may never be counted, and we are just back to the

same old procedure, Mr. Speaker. I'd ask the minister to confirm that

the only change with respect to voting on polling day is that these

people will have their ballots put in an envelope, separated, and that

they may not be counted.

HON. MR. WOLFE: I think we

are engaging in a debate on this. I think we should be clear, though,

that the act will clearly order the registrar of voters to count those

ballots. There is no question that he would be obliged to do so. The

inference that they would not be taken into account is absolutely

incorrect. The act would clearly order that this be done. I only say

that certainly there has to be a verification procedure involved in

this new opportunity for a person to register on polling day so that

his ballot may be officially counted.

MR. SPEAKER:

Hon. members, this is after question period because I did not wish to

intervene in the time that was being computed. Nonetheless, hon.

members, in formulating your questions it might be wise to look at page

171 of Beauchesne, relating to questions referring to anticipation of

amendments to legislation. Perhaps in future your questions could be

formed with that in mind.

Hon. Mr. McClelland tabled the annual report for 1980 of the British Columbia Utilities Commission.

Orders of the Day

SPEECH FROM THE THRONE

(continued debate)

MR. LEA: Mr. Speaker, over the

next short while I'm going to be touching on a number of points from

resource economics as it is applied in this province to interest rates

to revenue-sharing between the federal and provincial governments.

There are two other topics that are going to be covered by colleagues

of mine. The member for North Island (Mr. Gabelmann) will be covering

housing shortly after I address the House. The member for

Maillardville-Coquitlam (Mr. Levi) will be touching on bankruptcies in

British Columbia as a specific topic.

I think, though, in

starting to talk about the throne speech and those aspects of it that

reflect on or deal with the economic well-being of the province, it's

well worthwhile putting the science of economics into some perspective.

I think

[ Page 6633 ]

all understand that it's not like math or physics. It's not exact, it's

theoretical, and it's almost anybody's guess until the proof of the

pudding is in.

As a matter of fact, to put it in the proper

perspective, there's a story that I'd like to share with members of the

House. It's of the three professionals who were stranded on the desert

island with nothing for sustenance except a can of beans, unopened.

They were a chemical engineer, a civil engineer and an economist.

try to get this can of beans open the chemical engineer said: "Look,

I'll put my academic training to work here. What I'll do is I'll take a

bit of this seaweed and a bit of this limestone; I'll put them together

and the chemical reaction will cause heat. It will burn a hole around

the edge of this can, and we'll eat the beans." He tried it; it didn't

work.

The civil engineer said: "Well, we'll put my academic

training to work here. We'll use this old, fallen piece of wood here,

and this rock as a fulcrum. We'll get the end of the wood under the can

lid, we'll pop it off and we'll eat the beans." He tried it; it didn't

work.

The economist said: "Boy, you two are all wet. We're

going to use my academic training now to open this can of beans. First

of all, let's assume we have a can-opener."

That puts it a

little bit into perspective. At the same time I think we also

understand that medicine is not an exact science; but we do go to the

medical profession when we're sick to try to get better, even though

we're almost positive that the medical practitioners aren't as sure of

everything they're doing as we would hope them to be. But what choice

do we have? When we're sick, we have to go to the doctors. When our

economy is sick, we have to go to the economists, no matter how inexact

the science they practice may be or may not be.

One of the

discouraging things about watching the present government and the

methods with which they try to deal with our economy is — what is to me

obvious — a complete lack of planning. It's not that their plans have

gone astray, but that there were no plans in the first place. We see

them dashing from one economic project to another, but there doesn't

seem to be any rhyme or reason.

The three basic questions

that have to be answered when looking at any economy are: what are you

going to produce, how are you going to produce it, and for whom is it

going to be produced? What is going to be produced? Well, we already

have an economy in British Columbia, so we'd have to change that a bit

and say: what is being produced? Is it possible to produce more, and

what will it be?

If we take a look at that and we see some

possibilities for us to expand our economy, then we have to get to the

next question. How are we going to put these new products on line in

British Columbia? We have to take a look at how we're producing the

ones now. Are we producing them efficiently? How can we produce any new

product coming on line efficiently also?

What are we going

to produce in the future? It seems that we're going to be doomed to the

same kind of economics that we've had in this province for a hundred

years: not of looking to new innovative products to put on the market,

but to further the extraction process. Every time we put investment

into the economy of British Columbia we do nothing more than further

widen the extraction process and ship out more raw materials adding

very little wealth. We have some examples which the provincial

government is either now carrying out or contemplating carrying out —

they're looking at proposals.

Someone has to be the overall

planning agency for the economy. Otherwise we have anarchy in the

marketplace and the industrial sector. It appears to me that that's

what we have. There is no overall strategy. Not once has the Minister

of Finance (Hon. Mr. Curtis), the Premier or the Minister of Industry

and Small Business Development (Hon. Mr. Phillips) ever come into this

House and said: "Here's British Columbia. Here's the overall plan." The

only plan this government seems to have is one that they are very, very

wont to keep putting forward. They say: "We want to create the correct

favourable climate so that industry and commerce will happen."

You

have to ask yourself: if they have no plan, what's the climate they're

going to set? We know that there is one climate that will attract

industry into this province, and that's a climate where you give the

resources away for very little or you actually subsidize them. That's

one kind of climate that will inevitably attract investment into any

jurisdiction with raw resources — not to charge the proper economic

costs for taking our resources out.

I'd

like to point to one

thing that's happening in my part of the country. Mr. Speaker, I think

when you hear what I have to say you will wonder at the sense of what

the government is trying to do. In front of the government at the

moment is a proposal for the shipment of LNG from Canada to Japan.

Basically, the proposal is that we'll take natural gas — some of it

from Alberta but some of it from British Columbia — put it in a

pipeline and ship it to tidewater near Prince Rupert. At that point

we'll liquefy it, put it in huge ships designed for the project and

carry

it to Japan, where it will be put back into vapour form to generate

electricity for Japanese industry. This is from Dome themselves. That's

what they plan to do, and that's what their customers plan to do.

Mr.

Speaker, does it make sense to you that we're going to take natural gas

— keeping in mind that we don't really know how much natural gas we

have...? All we really have are the estimates from the companies

who give that information to the government, which then comes out as if

these estimates are accurate or within the ballpark. But I think we all

have doubts as to the volume of natural gas available to us and the

needs that we, as British Columbians and as Canadians, are going to

have in the future.

So we're going to take natural gas and

ship it to Japan, and they're going to create electricity with it. What

are we going to do for the creation of our own electricity in this

province? We're going to dam the Stikine and Laird rivers. Now think

about that. Does it make sense that we're going to take our natural

gas, add no wealth to it whatsoever and ship it out in its raw state to

create electricity in an industrial state competing for the same

markets we are, while for our own electrical needs we're going to dam

two of our rivers, one river for sure, the Stikine, a salmon-producing

river.... And all of the effects of damming rivers that

we've learned over the years — both at the time and the ongoing

environmental harm that's done.

I don't think you have to be

an economist to look at that and say it doesn't make any sense for us,

as British Columbians or Canadians. As a matter of fact, at a meeting

last Friday night in Prince Rupert, where Dome were putting forward

their proposal, I asked the Dome spokesman. First of all I said: "I

know why Dome wants to do it, and you really would be remiss if you

didn't plan to do it, because of your shareholders. I understand why

Dome wants to do it, but can you give me one good reason why the

province of British

[ Page 6634 ]

Columbia

or the country of Canada would do it?" He said: "That's not my

department." I said: "I see. That's a question I'd have to put forward

to the province of British Columbia and its government." He said:

"Exactly." I'm putting that question today: does it make sense? If so,

explain it to us. Because on the face of it, it doesn't.

Mr.

Speaker, we are going through a time in British Columbia when it's

getting more and more difficult to make ends meet. It's getting harder

to pay the mortgage or to buy groceries, a new vehicle or clothing. In

other words, it's getting very, very tight. We're having difficulty

getting along, at least if we're going to use the old established level

of expectation that we've had in the last few years.

I'd like to read a short passage from a book. It's written in the first person, and he's talking about the economy. He says:

"You

know, one of the advantages I have is that I'm not an economic expert —

thank goodness for that. 'These are the days when the economic experts

of the world are busy talking in one another's fallacies,' as Mr.

a wholetime job.' No doubt it's also a very fascinating one. But the

result of this is that the experts stand discredited, bankrupt and

naked, though as anyone knows who has had the misfortune to listen to

them, they're not even ashamed of their nakedness. They are as barren

of help as our statesmen whom we have watched ever since the war

fleeing from one conference to another in a desperate effort to flee

from the wrath to come.

"No, I'm a much more

important person than a professional economist. I am a consumer, and it

is time the consumer spoke. There has always seemed to me to be more

than a family likeness between the regiments of consumers in peace and

the regiments of infantry in war — both are the backbones of the

respective bodies and both are commonly ignored. In the army it is the

infantry who has to furnish the fatigued parties and march, march,

march as well as fight. Just as the citizenry, it is the consumers who

have to put their hands into their pockets when there is any ticklish

work to be done and pay, pay, pay as well as live. In short, both get

the kicks and few get the dollars.

"What I'm

trying to do is get your permission to christen my hero. I don't want

to call him or her just a consumer, for that would mean starting off at

the wrong foot with the other foot stuck in the textbook. What I want

to call him or her, if I may, is the poor, bloody consumer, just as

those of us who are old enough to have served in the war used to talk

about foot-slogging in the infantry and call it the 'poor, bloody

infantry.'"

Mr. Speaker, I'm quoting from a book called The

Meaning of Social Credit , written in 1934. It seems to me that if there

is one thing that this arch-conservative government across from us has

forgotten, it's the roots of Social Credit and the roots of any kind of

social responsibility. They are strictly travelling a road of

arch-conservatism and monetarism, with no thought for the consumer.

Their minds are travelling in larger circles than that. They have piers

in downtown B.C. that they're trying to finance, they have coliseums,

they have coal deals and they have petrochemical plants. They have all

of these great mega-projects floating through their heads, but it

doesn't seem to me, Mr. Speaker, that they have much concern for the

consumer in this province — not much at all.

Mr. Speaker, I'd like to turn to the throne speech. It says on page 3:

"My

government believes that economically strong provinces are integral to

a strong Canadian economy. Economic leadership to promote the well-being

of our people is a vital element in establishing the framework of

progress and opportunity that must serve us in the years ahead."

On the next page, under "Economic Development Conference," it says:

"My

government will continue to demonstrate strong leadership in its own

sphere of economic activity and, in this vein, an Economic Development

Conference will be convened in the spring."

I would like to now go back and quote from the book written about Social Credit:

"But

the result is that the experts stand discredited, bankrupt and naked.

They are barren of help as our statesmen whom we have watched ever

since the war fleeing from one conference to another."

that the answer that this government has for our economic woes — that

it's all going to be settled at a conference in the spring and then

everything is going to be hunky-dory? What about this winter? What

about the people who are not going to be able to meet their mortgage

payments this winter, Mr. Speaker? Is the economic conference in the

spring going to be a ray of hope for them? It's not what this

government is going to do; it's what has it done and when is it going

to do something to help the consumer — the person who makes this

province work, the person who makes this province grow, the person who

keeps it all together and the people who are the backbone of this

province.

Manufacturing is down. It's going down every year

in the province of British Columbia — not up but down. It's almost

impossible to believe that in 1981 manufacturing in this province, as a

percentage of our gross provincial product, is down from what it was

ten years ago and down from what it was five years ago. In other words,

we are going into the extraction of raw resources even more, shipping

them out with no added wealth, no secondary or tertiary application,

just shipping them out for short-term benefit — short-term political

benefit. There is no plan by this government to get our economy going

the way it should be going. I mentioned earlier that we have to decide

what we're going to produce, how we're going to produce it and for whom

we're going to produce it. This government has no such plan; it's

evident. Look at the number of people who had faith in this government

and in the Premier, those who invested their savings — their

hard-earned money — or went out and borrowed money, and on the strength

of the government's word bought BCRIC. "A lesson in the marketplace" it

was called. We have sure learned our lesson. We have to ask ourselves

why BCRIC is such a disaster. It's a disaster because it has not

invested in the economic future of this province; it has invested in

jobs that were already here, in an economy that was already here.

Literally what we did was to take close to half a billion dollars of

British Columbia money and ship it out of the jurisdiction. We didn't

gain one job; we didn't gain one industry. We ended up in exactly the

same situation we were in before in terms of economic development. The

only thing that happened was that we shipped British Columbia dollars

out of this province to be invested

[ Page 6635 ]

somewhere else. That's the sum total of what happened in BCRIC. It was

supposed to be a company that was going to invest in the future; it ended up

being a company that invested in the past.

AN HON. MEMBER: And ensured Kaiser's future.

MR. LEA: I understand they bought a sports team — the Colorado Broncos

or something — with the proceeds. Instead of having jobs in British Columbia

we have the proud owner of a new sports team in the United States.

Are

we actually taking a look at our economy and trying to figure out which

way we can go in order to produce more jobs and more wealth? Well, we

have a government that says it wants to. But do you know, Mr. Speaker,

what this government actually put into research last year — into

industrial and technological research, so that maybe we could find some

new frontiers, maybe start taking some of our forest products, mining

products and agriculture products and find some way to add more wealth

through new technology? Do you t know what we spent last year? We spent

$8.2 million in research; 0.13 percent of the government's budget

went to research. We should hang our heads in shame, Mr. Speaker. With

that kind of spending and that kind of emphasis in trying to find new

industries and new economics, we're not going to find them. Again I

think it points out a government that is willing to go along with the

status quo, willing to sell out our resources cheap, even willing to

subsidize them for immediate, short-term economic gain, because it is

politically expedient.

To plan, we may have to tighten up our belts for

a while; we may have to build up capital goods. For the future we may have to put into

research the money we'd like to spend now. I think British Columbians are

willing to do it. It's the government of this province that is not willing

to do it, because to them it might mean that they lose the next election. That

is paramount in this government's mind — this arch-conservative government,

this non-Social Credit government, this government with no social conscience,

this government that only deals with experts and brings them in from Ontario,

this government that has been hoodwinked by those of the far right, not just

the medium right but economists of the far right. I think we can prove it. You'd

never know it to listen to them, Mr. Speaker. They very seldom talk about what

they're going to do. They very seldom talk about an economic strategy; if

we British Columbians listened to them, we would think that they had none at

all. I happen to have found a paper put out by the province of British Columbia

in 1978. It's called "Towards An Economic Strategy For Canada: the

British Columbia Position, " and it's signed by Premier W.R. Bennett,

February 1978. I suppose what we have to do is decide in our democracy what

different forms of economic theory are possible for this government to adopt.

I suppose they could adopt the classical approach of Adam Smith or J.-B. Say

of France. They could intend, through complete monetarism, to control the world

or at least our part of the world — by a small group of people sitting around

a mahogany table somewhere and deciding that the economy is either going to

go or not go by the amount of money that's dumped into the economy at any

given time. If things are really going in an inflationary spiral, then take

some money out. If it's depressed, then stick some more money in. Even Mr.

Friedman says that that's a little out of date, and he has revised that

original monetary theory to take into account some of the Keynesian philosophy

that came along later. But not this government. They think that Mr. Friedman

is a "lefty." Now that's not Karl; this is Milton. They actually

think Friedman is a "lefty," because this government is an absolute

adherent to the Thatcher-Reagan-federal Liberal-Friedman kind of economics. That's

what they are, and they state it.

Turn

to page 33 of "Towards an Economic Strategy for Canada: the British

Columbia Position" — "Monetary policy." This is what the Premier of our

province put forward to Canada. He said: "If you'll just carry this

out, everything will be hunky-dory." He said that in 1978. Before

getting to it, I'd like to remind you of a statement that's been made a

number of times lately by the Premier of British Columbia in his wrath.

He points his finger eastward toward Ottawa and says simply: "Lower the

interest rate." That's what he says. "Lower the interest rate." It's

pretty nice politically to say it today. All the mortgages are going

up; everybody's angry about the interest rate, and so they should be.

But what does he Premier say to Ottawa? A simple solution: "Lower the

interest rate."

What would happen if Ottawa took our

Premier's advice? He doesn't say how much to lower it either.

Politically that's getting dicey. Then somebody may be able to call him

on it. Just "lower the interest rate." The Premier, out of the other

side of his mouth, says: "Well, we're concerned about the stability of

the dollar. We're concerned that the dollar may fall."

What

would happen if Ottawa, with no other action, lowered the interest

rate? Would the dollar fall? The answer is yes, the dollar would fall.

What would happen to us then? Would the price of consumer goods go up?

The answer is yes, the price of consumer goods would go up. Mortgages

would come down — that's good. But the other things that would happen

by lowering the interest rate without taking into consideration the

exchange rates and without stopping the flow of capital out of this

country and bringing in price controls and wage controls where

needed.... If you want to do all of those things, then yes, you can

lower the interest rate. But you just can't lower the interest rate and

say that everything is going to be hunky-dory.

It might have

far-reaching repercussions for British Columbia. Just last night in the

state of Washington, our neighbour to the south, a committee met to

decide exactly how they were going to approach Washington, their

national capital, to talk about an import quota on British Columbia

lumber. If the interest rates were lowered, as our Premier wants, with

no other action taken, and the dollar started to fall, would we not be

putting even more pressure then on the lumber producers and the

politicians in the United States to lobby even harder their national

government to bring an import quota on our timber and forest products

going into the United States? Would we not be pushing it just a little?

We're already being accused of dumping. What would happen if the dollar

fell even more, instead of strengthening? That's what would happen if

you followed this government's advice to Ottawa.

It's surprising to me, Mr. Speaker, that the Premier would even suggest

that Ottawa is travelling on the wrong path with their monetary policies. Because

in 1978, this government and this Premier were in absolute accord with what was

happening. Did you know that in 1974 there was a statement by the governor

of the Bank of Canada on Canadian bank policy? The governor of the Bank of Canada

announced in 1974 that the bank was going to follow a gradual monetarist

[ Page 6636 ]

policy,

annually stepping down the rate of increase in money. It said this

might (

a) cause the rate of interest to choke off both investment and

consumerism; (

b) cause taxes to rise if government spending could not

be reduced; and (

c) cause complications for exporters and importers

through the price level of foreign payments and the rate of exchange

being disrupted.

But they did go to the monetary policy in

Canada in 1974, and it hasn't changed. They are following a monetary

policy, through the Bank of Canada. Now the Premier is saying to the

them to lower the interest rates." Is that what the Premier of this

province said in 1978? No. In that paper from 1978, it says: "The Bank

of Canada's current monetary policy, which is in the form of a monetary

rule, should be supported in principle."

They even go a

little further, because they believe that the Bank of Canada's monetary

policy is a little wishy-washy, and they'd like to have stricter

monetary controls than the ones that are being exercised by the Bank of

Canada. In the same paper it says: "Such a rule would dictate that the

money supply would not be allowed to increase as rapidly as it did in

the early 1970s. The excessive money supply growth contributed to the

severe inflation of the economy — and has endured in the seventies —

and to the present structural economic problems."

Let me

followed the province of British Columbia's advice through our Premier,

and they lowered the interest rate. I think we'd still have inflation

in this country. Now, if we were to lower the interest rate, that would

make lending by banks a much easier proposition. It would be easy

lending if we lowered the interest rates. That would create new

deposits, Mr. Speaker. As a matter of fact, for every thousand dollars

of new deposits, we would have created in the branch-banking system of

this country $12,500 worth of credit.

If the Bank of Canada

were to lower the interest rates at this point, as the Premier has

pointed out that they should, without taking other measures, we think

the interest rates should go down. But there are other measures that

can be taken — the Premier doesn't mention any other measures. "Lower

the interest rate." We would ever further widen the money supply in

this country than it has ever been before, and during an already

inflationary time. What the Premier is suggesting to the Bank of Canada

is that during this inflationary time they further widen the supply of

money.

Now what's gone wrong with this old Social Credit

government, Mr. Speaker? You and I know that they sure aren't Social

Crediters. We also know that they're not new Conservatives. We know

that they are old-line Conservatives. They're out of date, no matter

what economic theory you look at. They're absolute monetarists. They

actually believe that fiscal policy should be done away with and that

we should return to the economics of monetarism, and they state it

boldly and loudly in their 1978 position to the provinces of Canada.

But

now things have changed a little. People are mad. They're angry about

their mortgage rates, and a politically opportune Premier points his

finger towards Ottawa and says simply: "Lower the interest rates." I've

pointed out a number of things that could happen, Mr. Speaker, if we

were to do that. We'd increase the money supply; we would further

inflation in this country. God knows where it would go if the

thing: we'd be paying a heck of a lot more for everything we consume.

So really what the Premier is doing is saying to Canada: "Put up the

cost of living. Not only put up the cost of living, but we want you

also to jeopardize our best trading partner for our lumber and forest

products, the United States. We want you to force the States to bring

in an import quota on forest products. We don't have enough people out

of work." He wants more — or is it just that he doesn't understand? I

think that's what it is. Nobody could be that cruel.

So what

do we have? We have a Premier who can only be one of two things, Mr.

Speaker. He's either a person who's completely bereft of any economic

knowledge, completely ignorant of economic matters and how the money

system works and how the banking system works, or we have a complete

political opportunist. He's one or the other. Now if he is a political

opportunist, and he enjoys pointing his finger at Ottawa and blaming

them for everything, even when he knows better, then it's unpardonable

that the Premier of this province would actually take the misery of

people of losing their homes and treat it in a politically cavalier

way. If it isn't unpardonable, what is it? It means that he's

completely ignorant about finance, monetary matters and about

economics, and that's unforgivable in a first minister. So it's one or

the other: the Premier has committed

an act that's either unforgivable

or unpardonable.

"The Bank of Canada's current monetary policy, which is in the form

of a monetary rule, should be supported in principle." I don't think

anyone since 1936 has really believed that that's the truth. Even ex-President

Nixon didn't go along with that.

Let's

see what happened when the United States turned to monetary controls,

and let's see what happened in Canada in 1974 when we turned to

monetary controls. We see what's happening as Great Britain turns to a

monetary theory. The United States, just about six months earlier than

we did, stopped using price and wage controls and all the controls

available to a modern economic structure, and went to monetarism. In

1974, the United States had a surplus of $8.1 billion. At the same

time, they switched to monetarism. They now have in the United States a

deficit of over a trillion dollars. That's what the monetary theory has

done for the United States. Reagan didn't bring it in. Monetary policy

has been followed by Democrat and Republican presidents since 1974.

[Mr. Davidson in the chair.]

Canada, by the admission of the Bank of Canada, the government has been

following monetary theory since 1974. What about the deficits? What's

been happening to the deficit in Canada since we've changed to the

monetary system being put forward by the government opposite? In 1972 —

this is by percentage of the gross national product — we had 18.8

percent of net federal debt. In 1973 and 1974 it even went down a

little. It went down to 17.2 percent of the gross national product. In

1974 it went down to 15.5 percent. This was not under monetarism.

That's when we made the switch, and watch the climb: 1975 and 1976,

17.2 percent; 1976 and 1977, 18.1; 1977 and 1978, 21.5 percent; 1978

and 1979, 24.8 percent; 1979 and 1980, 26.2 percent; 1980 and 1981, 28

percent.

[ Page 6637 ]

this

country has travelled upwards at about the same percentage point

increase as in the United States, which changed to the monetary

approach at about the same time. Mr. Speaker, it doesn't work. The

economy is much too complex and much too sophisticated for a group of

self-appointed monetary intellectuals to sit around a mahogany table

somewhere and try to control the economy of this province and of this

country strictly by changing the number of dollars in the economy at

any given time. But that's what they're trying to do. This government

believes in it. Not only do they believe in it, they think it should

go further than it is. They think that the monetary policy by the Bank

of Canada is too wishy-washy, and that we should actually go to an even

more strengthened monetary policy.

There's a classic

definition of pure monetarism. I'd like to take this classic definition

of pure monetarism and compare it to the kind of monetarism that the

use. This is the classic from the textbooks.

"Let

the central bank stabilize the growth rate of the money supply every

year and every month at some agreed-upon constant rate — say between 8

and 9 percent a year. Then, abandoning active fiscal policy and all

fine tuning, let the free market take care of the rest, including a

floating rate of exchange. Let no man, no governor, no committee try to

manage interest rates, unemployment, price levels or foreign balances."

Pure

monetarism. What does it say over here in the Social Credit government

document? "Such a rule would dictate that the money supply would not be

allowed to increase as rapidly as it did in the early seventies." In

other words, keep the money supply tied by year and by month to the

gross national product and the interest rate. Don't do anything else.

Also

in this is fiscal policy. Let's see how closely this government across

here comes to being monetarist — not even as up to date as Milton

Friedman. It says: "An analysis of the use of fiscal policy in Canada

over the past two decades indicates that errors have been made" — I

guess we all buy that — "but does not warrant the conclusion...."

They shouldn't be totally rejected, the government says. We will give

them a point there. They don't want to completely reject fiscal policy,

but they would like to go to 95 percent monetarism.

I'd

willing to bet, Mr. Speaker, that there are cabinet ministers over

there — possibly even the Premier — who didn't even know that this was

your policy. Obviously no one in cabinet wrote it. I suppose what they

did was phone down to the civil service and say: "Got any economists 5

down there?" They said: "We've got six of them." They said: "Put

forward a position paper for the province. We are going to Ottawa."

This is 1978. Did they ask what kind of economists were going to be

putting it together? I guess they said: "We really want it

conservative." So I guess they dug up the most conservative economists

within the province of British Columbia, whoever they are, who put

forward this position paper on behalf of the province. The province

trotted down to the first ministers' conference with this paper

espousing pure monetarism, with all the resultant changes that count,

such as high unemployment.

I think we have to examine what

happens when you apply monetarism the way this government has asked the

federal government and the Bank of Canada to do. What happens? Say we

are having an inflationary period and we want to check inflation. We

want to get prices back down to some stabilization. Well, what we do

when we want to do that is we take money out of the system — in the

monetarist system. Now how they do it is they might go out and sell

government bonds. So every time a government bond is bought it takes

money out of the banking system; it takes money out of circulation.

Taking money out of circulation hopefully makes the prices drop. What

else happens? If we are going to take money out of the system and leave

less money out there for people to spend, then obviously borrowing is

going to go down, because high interest rates go along with it. Taking

money out through bond issues. Making loans hard to get. So what's the

result? What theory is it that the monetarists work under? They work

under the theory that when times are tough those on the bottom must

suffer. What the whole monetarist system is designed to do is make

marginal businesses go broke, thereby creating unemployment — more

unemployment, less demand on the system for consumer goods; less demand

on the system for consumer goods, curbing inflation.

Remember,

at the same time that the Bank of Canada brought in their 1974

monetarist approach, the Prime Minister of this country, Mr. Trudeau,

got on his feet on national television and said: "We are going to

wrestle inflation to the ground." But do you remember what he said

next? He said it's unfortunate, but in order to do it we are going to

have to suffer more unemployment. The monetarist system creates

unemployment to fight inflation. That's what it's all about.

This

government agrees with that. They don't believe in spreading it out.

They don't believe in the middle class taking a little kick. They don't

believe in the rich taking a little kick, because at the same time that

they are putting forward their monetarist theory of cutting down on

money available to the working people, they're talking about stimulating

industry. Is it crazy? How can you slow the economy down by stimulating

industry?

What has this government been saying to the

federal government all along? They have been saying: "Decrease your

deficit. At the same time we want you to give more money to the

provinces. We want you to spend more money, Ottawa, but we want you to

take less taxes, and we want you to decrease your deficit."

Now

what did the federal Minister of Finance have open to him coming into

the last budget? It's not the way it used to be. We don't have either

inflation or deflation; we have another new modern thing happening

called stagflation. That's where we have high inflation and high

unemployment at the same time. Maybe someone else in this chamber has

read some economist's solution to cure them both at the same time, but

I haven't, and I'd be very interested in having someone else explain to

me how you do both without exchange controls, without stopping the flow

of money out of here and price controls on commodity areas and wage

controls where needed. There's no other way.

So here is Mr.

MacEachen, the federal Minister of Finance, going into the budget

having one of two choices because he's under monetarism, which they

suggested he keep. In fact, they commended the Bank of Canada and the

government for adopting monetarist policies. He has to fight either

inflation or unemployment — one or the other. He can't do them both

under monetarism, because there is no known economic theory under

monetarism to deal with stagflation. Yet this province, this government

across here, is putting forward monetarist theory to look after the

economic

[ Page 6638 ]

ills

in Canada and in this province when there is no solution in monetarism.

It has been proven there is no solution. But having had their genesis

somewhere around the ark, they have no idea. They think that life is

just a simple little thing that you create a favourable climate.

Mr.

Speaker, I'm convinced that they don't have any idea how the economics

of this country or this province work. I think we can prove it by the

kind of documents I have in front of me. They are actually asking

the monetarists to control stagflation when there is no known cure

under monetary theory. But they agree with it, they support it, and

they push it.

What other kind of jackpots have they gotten

themselves into? Cost-sharing with the federal government. To read

what's happening now in the newspapers you'd think that this government

didn't design and agree with the new cost-sharing program. But here's a

quote: "Province to Battle Government Cuts." That's the provincial

government here which is going to battle federal cuts. "Curtis Opposes

Separate Financing Idea." "Curtis Says Times are Hard Ahead for Schools

and Hospitals." As if his government didn't agree to the present

financial formula that's going on, in their greedy little way, in 1976.

They agreed; as a matter of fact, they pushed for it.

One of

the things that politicians say to each other is: "Never write it down,

because someone might find it later." Here it is, in the same 1978

paper to the federal government, on page 40: "The Role of the

Provinces." This is a statement by the provincial government. It says:

"Likewise, the transfer of tax points to the provinces in lieu of

cost-shared programs has further strengthened the potential of the

provinces to affect the performance of the economy." Isn't it

interesting? In 1976 this government signed an agreement with the

Federalism in Canada." This is when we went to this new cost-sharing

program which this government is squealing like stuck pigs about now.

After long and complex negotiations, including a number of last-minute

accommodations, the arrangements governed by the present act were

accepted by all provinces; that includes this one.

When

were in, our government — our former Minister of Health, our Premier,

and our Minister of Human Resources — went to Ottawa and said: "We

reject this new kind of financing." Do you know why they rejected it?

Because they said we'd end up in the spot we're in now, that's why. But

oh no, not these economic wizards — not these super-sharp business

tycoons who came in from the hills to show everybody what economic

wizards they are with their outdated monetarism, signing

federal-provincial agreements that have actually brought less funds

into this

province than the old fifty-fifty cost-sharing program. Do you know

what would be happening right now if they hadn't signed that agreement?

No matter how much health care costs went up in this province, the

federal government would have been required under the old agreement to

pick up 50 percent of it. They sold us out. I don't think they did it

purposely; I think they were just stupid.

Mr. Speaker, this

talks about their social conscience. They knew that Prince Edward

Island would be worse off under this agreement that they signed; they

knew that Newfoundland with all the Atlantic provinces — they knew that

it would be a very hard and trying time for some of our sister

provinces if this agreement went into effect. But at the time we were

riding a little high on the hog. We thought our economy was going to go

big. Well, they thought that just by being elected that was the proper

climate for economic recovery. They thought just the mere presence of

themselves in office would create an economy that we could all be proud

of. They didn't realize that it was a bit more complicated than that.

So they ran off to Ottawa thinking: we're in now, the climate it great;

the economy is going to get better, so what we can do is sign this

agreement and we'll be okay, Jack. Maybe the Atlantic provinces won't

do all right, but who cares? We're down here looking after British

Columbia.

When we were in government and our Premier stood

up and said, "No, no, no, we as British Columbians will not take more

than our share and make the people in other provinces suffer; that is

not being a Canadian," the member for Surrey said that he never felt

prouder of his Premier and his leader than on that day, and I think we

all did. How do you feel about your leader?

AN HON. MEMBER: Good.

MR. LEA:

You feel good? I'm sure you would, because he is doing exactly what you

would want him to do: practise greed. You feel good about that.

Cost-sharing.

Yes, we're in a pickle. We aren't in a pickle because the federal

government imposed a financial formula on us, but because this

government agreed with the proposal put forward by the federal

government. Now I'm not going to give the federal government clear

marks — they knew what was going on too; they were looking for an out.

But when the New Democratic Party was in power in British Columbia,

Saskatchewan and Manitoba, they didn't have anybody to pick them up on

their sucker move. But when Sterling Lyon got in! This government —

boy, I'll tell you, they knew they had it coming and going, because

they had a government.... As one ex-Social Credit minister said:

"The world turns around on greed, my friends — greed." It sure does,

when it comes to this government.

So what have they done

since they've been in power since 1975? No money into research for new

technology; no exploration to find new industry to add wealth, but only

a continuation of old Social Credit practices of ever widening the

extraction process, shipping out of the province raw resources and the

jobs along with them. They'll even subsidize natural resources if the

short-term activity that comes from it makes them look politically

good. No plan whatsoever — no what, how or for whom in their economic

planning. Their advice to Ottawa: one of pure monetarism, one of taking

one segment of society and making that one segment suffer bad times,

not sharing equally — not having the middle class and the upper class

share a little bit in the restraint and the belt-tightening. Oh no, we

can bring the control of the economy back into line and fight inflation

by just asking those who are unemployed to suffer; just those who are

unemployed, that's good enough for them.

Interest rates. If

the federal government followed the Premier's advice, we'd probably

lose for years the kind of relationship we've had selling our forest

products to the United States. If the government had followed the

Premier's advice, prices would be escalating today; prices would be

going beyond our wildest imagination, because to lower those interest

rates without exchange controls and without stopping the flow of

capital out of this country.... We would have a money supply

problem in this country that would drive us into an inflationary spiral

like we've never

[ Page 6639 ]

seen

before. That's what has been suggested by this government and that

Premier to the federal government in this country. Cost-sharing,

problems with post-secondary education finances, problems with the

financing of our health system — only because of an agreement signed by

this government in 1976, all written out, there to see.

Every

time one of the mistakes of this government comes home to roost, they

blame someone else: big business, labour, the federal government,

single mothers, welfare recipients, the opposition. They have blamed

everybody, but they haven't taken any responsibility for the kinds of

acts they've done.

Mr. Speaker, as I mentioned at the

outset, economics is not an exact science. It's called the queen of

social sciences. It's not like math or physics. Theories are only

theories until they've been put into practice, and then the proof of

the pudding of the theory is in the results.

Everyone has

pointed out that it's very difficult for a government to decide upon

what sort of economic approach it's going to take. It's difficult to

know which economist to believe, and which one not to believe, and

whether you believe either. John Kenneth Galbraith said:

" It will be no easier in the future than in the past for

the layman or the lay politician to distinguish between the adequate economist

and the others. But there is no difficulty whatever in distinguishing between

success and failure. Henceforth it should be the simple rule in all economic

and monetary matters that anyone who has to explain failure has failed."

But Mr. Galbraith says we should be kind to those whose performance has been

poor. We should be kind to the government. He says to be kind, but we must never

be so gracious as to keep them in office. And I agree.

They

put forward an economic theory called the monetarist theory. Looking at

history, I suppose they should have had some idea that it doesn't work.

But they didn't. Let's be kind to them, but let's not be so gracious in

this province that we return them to office.

Monetarism and

this government are synonymous. This government, monetarism and

Reaganism are synonymous, as is Thatcherism and as is the Bank of

Canada of this country. They are classic monetarists trying to hide,

now that they've got into all sorts of economic problems, by talking

about women. Now they're concerned about people, after they've ruined

the economy by an outdated monetarist economy theory. Now they're going

to appoint a deputy. Now they're going to expand the Labour ministry to

talk about employment. Now they're going to have a conference in the

spring.

Mr. Speaker, what they're doing is explaining

failure. And that means they've failed. Because of that I'd like to

make an amendment to the throne speech, moved by myself and seconded by

Colin Gabelmann, the hon. member for North Island. The amendment is

that this House regrets that the speech of His Honour fails to

recognize that the economic policies of the government have resulted in

economic stagnation, and further, fails to provide proposals for

strengthening the economy of the province so as to provide full

employment opportunities for all our people.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The amendment appears to be in order.

On the amendment.

MR. GABELMANN:

Mr. Speaker, we begin this debate on the amendment to the Speech from

the Throne in the midst of what is probably the worst economic crisis

that British Columbians have faced since the Great Depression. I doubt

that that statement would be challenged, particularly by those

thousands and thousands of people in this province who face this winter

without jobs, and many are facing this winter without the security of

knowing they may be able to keep their own homes. Entire communities in

this province, including entire communities in my constituency, are

unemployed — not just high unemployment rates in those constituencies,

but the whole town is out of work. In town after town we have that

situation, particularly in communities dependent upon the forest

resource of this province.

Loggers and millworkers and those

employed in the forest industry, and those who provide for the forest

industry in other service industries, expect that, come the winter and

Christmas, they will have a month or so where they shut down. People

plan their lives around that. But not many of them have planned for the

two or three and in some cases the four months — and in some cases the

fear of six months — of shutdown this winter. That doesn't just affect

those workers and their families. It affects the entire communities

they live in, and it affects a lot of small business people and a lot

of others in every one of those communities. And, of course, down the

road it affects everyone in this province. People are scared; they're

not spending. As a result, small businesses are going bankrupt. We

haven't yet seen the impact of those bankruptcies that will happen

after Christmas. Many of them are hanging on, waiting and hoping that

there will be some kind of Christmas trade that will give them enough

cash flow to survive for a few more months, but in January and February

we'll see many of them go under.

Poor people, a group that

not many of us talk about nearly enough — those who are on social

assistance and on fixed pensions and those who are in low-paying jobs —

are paying out almost all their incomes on shelter in this year of

Social Credit. They have very little left for food or clothing. Dozens

and, no doubt, hundreds and, fearfully, thousands of children in this

province are going to school every day without a lunch because there is

no money in their family to provide for that third meal a day. I know

teachers who take an extra-large lunch to school so they can share a

little bit of their food, a little bit of their wealth, with their

kids. The member for Central Fraser Valley (Mr. Ritchie) shakes his

head. He probably never spends any time in his constituency nor, Mr.

Speaker, any time in any of the poorer parts of this province. He has

certainly not spent any time in the city of Vancouver or in parts of my

riding, where in fact I can tell him about kids who go without their

lunches.

Interjection.

MR. GABELMANN: He

says it's sick. It sure is sick, Mr. Speaker. It's a sick society and

it's a sick government that would allow that kind of situation. If you

want any proof of that, you, Mr. Speaker, and the member for Central

Fraser Valley come with me, and I'll introduce you to those kids, their

teachers and principals. What do those people expect from a government?

What do those people expect from the people they elect to, hopefully,

help them in their daily lives? They expect something. They might not

know about the throne speech, because they can't afford to buy a

television set or a newspaper, so in many cases they don't know we're

[ Page 6640 ]

here

debating a throne speech. They may not know about the throne speech,

but if they knew about it and that this was an opportunity for some

presentation of economic action and initiative, they would expect a few

things. They would expect a vigorous economic policy. They would

certainly expect a substantive housing policy. What did they get in the

throne speech? On page 4 and 5 they got a couple of paragraphs saying

nothing. Some of the sentences were very well written, I might say —

almost as well written as the kind of throne speeches we've seen for

years in Ontario. They're that well written.

MS. BROWN: It sounds the same.

MR. GABELMANN:

It sounds very similar — the same kind of language, the same kind of

smooth rhetoric, but it says nothing for those people who face those

kinds of economic situations.

Fortunately, though, those

people had an opportunity to listen to what the minister responsible

for housing in particular in this province was prepared to say after

the throne speech at a press conference. Later in these comments we'll

get into some detail on that. What do those people who face a winter of

unemployment and severe hardship get from the throne speech? They get

three words to help them through the winter: realism, compassion and

profound optimism. That is all those unemployed people and their

families have from this government in this throne speech. Compassion is

fine, but those words provide no groceries, pay no rent and they

certainly save no houses from repossession. When you come to housing,

what did the minister say in his long-waited housing policy? Remember,

Mr. Speaker, the policy was proposed a year ago by the Premier and the

Minister of Housing. They said: "It's imminent. Any day now we're going

to get a policy statement" — a year ago last fall — "on what the

government's going to do on housing." Almost every two weeks throughout

the year we had a promise from the minister that the announcement would

be within the next couple of weeks. How many times did we hear the

minister say, "In two weeks, my friend" — having had five and a half

years to prepare, think through, and to do a proper presentation of a

proper housing program? What did we get? We got a housing minister who

issued a press release. He devoted the entire front page to saying:

"Because of the budget introduced on November 12 in Ottawa, we're going

to have to do something here in British Columbia. Therefore because of

MacEachen's budget, we have this statement." In effect that's what the

entire front page was saying of his press statement.

(Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

During

a time when we have the highest mortgage interest rate and the lowest

vacancy rates, we've had no action. Now we have the grand announcement.

Before we go into some detail about analysing what that announcement

says and means, what problems should the government and politicians try

to solve? What kinds of issues should be dealt with by such a policy

statement?

In my judgment, Mr. Speaker, there are at least

three major groups of people whose needs need to be attended to by such

a housing statement. The first, and in my judgment the most important,

are those people on low and fixed incomes who face excessive rent

increases — most of those people living in decontrolled apartment

buildings.

The second group are young families who hope, and have been led to believe over the years, that they could own their own homes.

The

third group are those people already in their own homes who are faced

with mortgage renewals which in many cases mean they will no longer be

able to afford to pay the mortgage, and therefore will have to give up

the homes that they've been living in for some years.

Homeowners,

this third group, are so frightened today in this country that they

swelled the numbers of demonstrators last Saturday in Ottawa to

unprecedented numbers. When have we ever seen a demonstration in this

country so massive, so broadly based and so well-disciplined because

people were coldly angry about what governments were doing to them?

Why

is that? Because poverty is finally beginning to reach into the middle

class and the middle classes in our country are finally beginning to

understand what 35 to 40 percent of this country have had to understand

for decades: the grinding nature of poverty. Those people, many with

their education and many with their understanding of the political

system, decided to join in that massive demonstration, which should

tell governments at whatever level in this country something about how

people feel.

I'm not going to go into all kinds of horror

stories about those people who are facing mortgage renewals that they

can't afford to pay. We're all well enough aware of that. The

newspapers have been full of stories over the last number of months.

The

second group — those young people, those young families attempting to

get into their own home, to purchase their own home — have in most

cases given up that dream. It's a dream that exists, but it's so

tenuous now that they don't even bother in most cases.

don't know how we in this province, where we have a desire for home

ownership, where we have what are perceived to be good incomes, where

we have lots of land, where we have lots of lumber, where we've got

lots of material and lots of workers, can't put those things together.

We have the demand, we've got the material, but we can't put it

together. Why not? What's wrong with government?

The member

for Prince Rupert talked about lack of economic planning. I suspect he

had something when it comes to the approach that this government takes

when it comes to those kinds of obvious problems.

But today,

Mr. Speaker, before I get on to a more detailed analysis of the

so-called housing policy, I want to spend a bit more time on the group

that I think, as I said before, we don't spend enough time talking

about, and that's the poor. The seniors, poor people, deserted mothers,

the countless working poor — and that's an increasing number in our

society — provide the most tragic, the most depressing and most damning

indictment of the Minister of Housing (Hon. Mr. Chabot) and his

millionaire friends.

Let me just recount a few statistics, a

few examples and a few real-life situations. Someone in our office

phoned the B.C. Housing Management Commission the other day to ask what

the current figures are on waiting lists for B.C. Housing Management

Commission housing — that's subsidized housing. There are 3,000

families and 3,500 seniors in the lower mainland on that waiting list.

The 1980 annual report tells us that in that year, completed in 1980,

there were 1,300 people placed in the whole province. In the lower

mainland alone, today, there are approximately 6,500 family units —

3,000 families and 3,500 pensioners — on the list.

[ Page 6641 ]

Many

thousands of other people don't even bother to put their names on the

list because they know they have years and years and years of waiting

before they'll get on. Most of us in our constituency offices don't

even recommend to people that they put their names on the list for the

same reason: there is no program to provide housing for those people.

1980, according to this annual report, 20,000 people called the office

of the B.C. Housing Management Commission. As I said earlier, 1,300

were placed. There's just a little bit in the annual report. This is

another one of these government documents that I think we should refer

to on occasion. Here's a little paragraph about the housing demand:

"Nineteen-eighty

brought an increased demand for commission-managed housing,

particularly in urban areas. In the greater Vancouver region, staff

handled over 20,000 applicant calls, visited 1,300 applicants and

interviewed 900 walk-in applicants. During 1980, 455 senior citizens

and 918 family applicants were placed. By the year's end, staff in the

commission's regions were administering applications for accommodation

from 8,000 families and senior citizens, a 19 percent increase in

applicants over the previous year. Family applicants increased by 41

percent over 1979 in the greater Vancouver region, and on Vancouver

Island" — the greatest increases of all — "43 percent and 50 percent."

A 50 percent increase in seniors' applications. And it goes on.

Let's

leave that. That's those people who wish to participate in the

government's B.C. Housing Management Commission program — a Mickey

Mouse program if ever there was one.

What about seniors'

housing? The minister has talked grandly in this House about his

commitment to seniors' housing. Do you know, Mr. Speaker, that if you

are part of a group on Vancouver Island today which is attempting to

build senior citizens' housing, the ministry will tell you that there

are no available units until 1983? "Thank you for applying, community

group, but there is no more money on Vancouver Island under our budget

for seniors' housing. In 1983 more money will open up. We'll put your

name down." That's what they're being told. If the members don't

believe me, they can phone the Ministry of Housing itself. That's where

I got the information.

All over this province, literally

thousands of people are actively waiting on lists in the co-op housing

sector. At the University of B.C. there are two separate housing co-op

groups who have organized themselves. They're all ready to go and have

been for some time, but they can't get the land to build the co-ops.

Why can't they get the land? It's Crown land. Well, what's wrong with

that? The minister talks about making Crown land available. Why isn't

the Crown land available? The minister says they're thinking about

making a village out of the university endowment lands and until they

decide whether it's going to be a village or not, they're not going to

release any land. That's the attitude of this government toward co-op

housing.

So then we look at market housing. We look at what

people have to look at in terms of day-to-day rental applications in

the newspaper. I have Monday's Vancouver Sun want-ads. What's

your ordinary working-poor or welfare recipient going to do with this

kind of available rental accommodation? "Attractive bachelor and one

bedroom, $370 to $430 per month." That's in Vancouver. "Three-bedroom

basement, $600 a month." In East Vancouver, hopefully

they're a bit cheaper. Here's a two-bedroom for $550 a month. "West

Broadway, 2 bedroom, $550 a month." "South Burnaby, one bedroom, $450 a

month," and on and on and on. I don't need to go through them. I took

those at random. Anybody who wants to look at the paper can demonstrate

that. How do you pay $400, $450, $500, $550 a month for rent when we

have a minimum wage that hardly produces that in total income in a

month? These people also have to feed themselves, clothe themselves,

hopefully have a telephone and pay the heat bill and the light. How do

they do it? How do they do it in this society in these days, and what's

the government's response to it? Nothing.

I want to talk

about some real situations in my constituency. In Campbell River I'm

going to describe five separate situations and ask members of this

House whether they think the government, through the Minister of

Housing, is doing what they should be doing, and whether the

government, through the Minister of Human Resources, is doing what they

should be doing, and whether the government, through the Minister of

Labour, is doing what they should be doing.

I'm going to

describe the cheapest family rental accommodation building of any size

in Campbell River. I know the building well, because I lived in it

myself until recently. If you are a single mother with an 18-month-old

child, presumably in this building — and there are several cases — you

would have a one-bedroom apartment. That one-bedroom in that apartment

building — one of the cheaper ones in Campbell River — is $377 a month.

The shelter portion for social assistance is $300. The food, living

allowance and all of the other costs, like the heat — not necessarily

the heat in this case, because that's in the shelter.... That

doesn't matter because the shelter portion is lower already than the

rent alone. So their heat, light, telephone, food, clothes and Pablum

for the baby comes out of a difference of $163 a month.

Think

about what you would do, Mr. Speaker — and I ask members in this House

to think about what they would do — if their family's total disposable

income after paying rent was $163 a month. To start with, you take $40

off that to heat the place; you're then talking about $4 a day for

everything else. What kind of a society is it that we live in that's

governed by a government that says everything is just hunky-dory?

Let's

talk about another situation that exists in this building: a single

mother with a 14-year-old son who is going to school and is quite

active — the mother is considered employable under the new regulations.

Her rent in September was $282 and it was in controls. To get it out of

controls, the owner remortgaged the building. So there are new finance

rates, which means he gets to justify a big rent increase. So he sends

the rent up to $395 on November 1 — from $282 to $395 based on rent

justification. Then, on January 1, he gets another 10 percent increase

because it's been a year since they had the last 10 percent increase.

So this woman — single, a welfare recipient with a 14-year-old child —

has her rent go from $282 to $434 in the space of three or four months.

What's her income? Her total income from social assistance is $540. She

and her 14-year-old son have $106 a month left to live; $35 to $40 of

that $196 goes to heat and light. How does she buy running shoes for

the kid so he can play sports at school? And the Housing minister (Hon.

Mr. Chabot) is proud of his actions and the Minister of Human Resources

(Hon. Mrs. McCarthy) is proud of hers.

[ Page 6642 ]

Let's

take another situation: a single parent with two kids under 12,

eligible for the extra amount that's been docked off because the two

kids are under 12. Her rent in a two-bedroom apartment is $434 a month

as of January 1 under the new rent schedule. Her total income is $595.

She and her two kids get $161 a month to pay for everything else.

One

parent with three children — here is a really tragic situation, as if the

others weren't — is in a three-bedroom apartment. In September her rent —

in the same building — was $325; in January it will be $501. Her income

is $800 — $400 for shelter and $400, the other portion.... She is

also on welfare. Her actual disposable income, the non-rent payment,

drops from $400 to $299 a month in January. She loses $101 net because

of the application of the government's program.

But let's

not talk about welfare recipients. They're not popular, so nobody talks

about them. Let's talk about senior citizens, whom the government loves

to talk about, because senior citizens are politically popular to talk

about, much more so than welfare recipients, even though they're all

people. Let's take a single person over 65 who qualifies for the

maximum — OAS, GIS and GAIN; gets it all. What's the income today? It's

$483.24. What's a one-bedroom apartment? It's $377. That senior

citizen, who has contributed to the economy of this province and this

country for decades, gets from this government and from the federal

government a total of $106.24 and is probably lucky to have $70 a month

left over for food and clothing and maybe the odd newspaper and maybe a

movie once or twice a year, but it's not likely on $106 a month. And

these are real situations.

Then we have the kind of

announcement from the Minister of Housing that doesn't even begin to

deal with this crisis in our society; it doesn't even touch on it. He

says, as quoted in the Vancouver Province : "Oh, that's a

federal problem; I don't want to take away their jurisdiction."

Nonsense. It's our problem, and it's your problem to do something about.

Let's

look at the new policy in light of the kind of situation that I have

described. Do you know what this policy is as announced by the Minister

of Housing? It is the first housing policy announcement by any

government in this country that is designed specifically and purely to

generate income for the government, to make money. The whole

foundation, the whole focus of the policy is an attempt to generate

revenue for the coffers of a government that can't balance its budget.

That's what it's designed to do and that's what it will do. I'll get to

some of those specific examples of why that is so as we go through the

housing.... I have the benefit of the press release, and that's all

— plus the minister's press conference and what I've been able to glean

from that.

First he talks about residential land supply and

putting Crown land on the market. Good. We've argued for it for years.

We've argued for the establishment of land banking like they do in

Swift Current, Saskatoon, Regina, Calgary and even in Prince George.

They have sound, logical, rational land banking. Let's do it, but let's

not do it in a haphazard or unplanned way — a little bit now and maybe

later some more. All you do then is have booms and busts in the cycle.

When you have a boom the price goes up, and when you have a bust it

doesn't come down. You just drive up the price and add to inflation.

But, yes, good. I am one of those opposition members who likes to try

to be positive and give the government credit when I can. It is good

that they finally accepted that there should be some land banking and

some service land put on from the Crown reserves.

Number two

is Crown land lease to purchase. Well, sounds good, but it's pretty

absurd when you look at it. Let's take, for example, a piece of Crown

land that costs $50,000 in an area that has a housing crisis. That's

not out of line. Some are cheaper and many are more, but let's take the

$50,000 figure. Under this plan for this Crown land the applicant would

pay $500 a month in the first year and at the end of five years would

have to pay almost $70,000 to buy the lot.

The minister

shakes his head. The press release says if the value of the lot is

$50,000 in the first year, the inflationary factor will be controlled

at 6 percent. After five years, 6 percent compounded on $50,000 is

$70,000. That's what the purchase price would be after five years. The

minister's press release says very clearly that the inflation on that

property will be limited to 6 percent. If he says otherwise, he can get

up and make his contributions.

When you calculate what the

cost to the applicant is, it turns out that it's 18 percent. In today's

market it would be better to go to the bank and borrow to buy the lot

today than it would be to take advantage of number two in the

minister's housing policy. It's an absurd policy.

Interjection.

MR. GABELMANN: If the minister wants to participate, he will have his turn, if he dares.

Mr.

Speaker, the third item in his proposal is an expanded second mortgage

program — doubling the second mortgage from $5,000 to $10,000. Good. I

applaud him for that. I don't think it's going to have very much

impact, because when you're talking about $100,000 being the average

for a new home, the $10,000 doesn't make a lot of difference in terms

of second mortgage in the kind of economic situation we have now. It

might be better if that figure were higher. Good. I want to give him

credit. The $5,000 was absurd and $10,000 is better, and I'll give you

some credit for that.

Number four is conversion guidelines.

I'll try to speed this up, Mr. Speaker. We agree with the conversion

guidelines, but you announced it last year and we haven't seen anything

yet. Announcements, announcements, announcements, and we don't get

anywhere.

Number five is conversion loans. You're raising

the amount of money available in conversion loans. Good. The minister

doesn't have any idea about how many houses that's going to produce —

the MURB-type incentive. They're going to take the $7,500 that

MacEachen is promising and they're going to add $4,000 to $4,500 to it,

hopefully to bring back the equivalency of the MURB benefits that

existed before. And then he talks about that providing 10,000 more

units. The federal government is only talking about 15,000 units in the

whole country. Our share proportionately is 1,500. Maybe the minister

will be lucky in his meetings with the federal minister and get a

couple thousand or maybe even three thousand. It doesn't begin to deal

with the problem.

Number seven in this scheme is

rent-to-own. Here the minister is saying in an unspecified way that you

can go into your apartment building where you're renting and you'll be

able to end up owning it. Let's take a typical $80,000 townhouse. Under

your rent-to-own program, that $80,000 townhouse — and that's not a

price that's out of line; that's a typical price — is going to cost

$800 a month for the first year. In the final or the fifth year, it

will be almost $1,100 a month. We're talking about people who need

housing who don't make that

[ Page 6643 ]

much

money in total. Let's say you can afford it in year five. You can

purchase that $80,000 unit in year five for $107,000, based on your 6

percent inflation. You have paid over $55,000 in payments in those five

years, and you have no equity. All you have is the right to purchase

the place.

Mr. Speaker, I won't go into details about

alternative programs, but there are better ways of doing it. The

savings and trust program that we propose, which members on that side

voted for, would make sure that on that same building, a person

paying.... Let's just go through the details. You'd get a savings

and trust mortgage for $70,000. The buyer makes a $10,000 payment at

13½ percent interest, which I think would be lower now that rates are

beginning to come down. The monthly payment is $950. At the end of the

five years the mortgage outstanding is still about $69,000, but the

unit will be worth $107,000.

Here's the important point. For

a total payment of housing of $57,000, the buyer will have built up an

equity of $38,000, compared to no equity under Social Credit — they

don't believe in equity. What does the entire seven-point program cost?

Press speculation has it about $5.7 to $6.1 million. My guess is that

it's less than $5 million in total cost. Total commitment to the

housing crisis in this province is less than $5 million of government

expenditure. What's that? About one one-thousandth of the budget. The

greatest crisis that we have in our society today, and that's their

commitment.

We on this side are always accused of being

negative. In the last two years or so, since I've been the housing

critic for the official opposition, I've tried not to do what I've done

today: not to present negative criticisms of government policies, but

rather to outline what we would do, given an opportunity to implement

our own policies. I have outlined those kinds of things consistently.

There hasn't been any response from that side of the House. But I want

to do it again very briefly in the five minutes remaining to me.

don't expect you to implement this program, but we will beginning two

weeks after the next election day. The first thing we're going to do is

end the right-wing ideological blinkers that dominate the government

today. We will put back into place a housing corporation in British

Columbia so that we, too, like every single province and every

territory in this country, can have a housing corporation that can

begin to do some of the things required in the housing market.

HON. MR. CHABOT: Don't make me throw up.

MR. GABELMANN: Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. member for North Island has the floor. Let's not interrupt him.

MR. GABELMANN: I won't pursue it anymore. I would if it were a more honourable member.

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. member, we are all honourable members in the House.

MR. GABELMANN: Yes, I agree, we're all honourable some more than others.

The

second thing we would do, after establishing that housing corporation,

is proclaim the savings and trust act that many on that side voted for,

so that people in this province truly can once again look forward to

the dream of owning their own homes becoming a reality,

The

third thing we would do is assist local government in setting up an

organized and rational land-banking system, which will abandon the

boom-and-bust cycle so favoured by the government and its developer

friends. We would do, as I said earlier, what some of the cities on the

Prairies do and what Prince George does.

The fourth thing we

would do is provide assistance for social housing by giving real

assistance to co-op housing, by cooperating with CMHC in the various

provisions that exist in the National Housing Act that would allow us

to take advantage of federal money and put some effort into social

housing in this province for the poor, the elderly and the disabled;

and not — as I said earlier, when the minister wasn't in the House —

tell pensioners on Vancouver Island that they can't have any senior

housing on the Island because there is no more money left until 1983.

That's what your office tells us. You should phone your office and see

what's going on in your own ministry, Mr. Minister.

Number

five, and finally, as part of a major housing program we would

establish an effective and fair-to-both sides rent review and control

mechanism which will truly protect tenants from disastrous and

unaffordable rent increases — the kinds I talked about earlier that face

so many of mv constituents and, I know, constituents in every riding in

this province.

Judging again by the minister's inane

behaviour when he sits in this House and listens to opposition

speeches, judging by his lack of understanding at the press conference

on Monday afternoon, and judging by the shallowness of the program he

has implemented, it's clear that rational debate in this Legislature

has not produced any result as far as he is concerned for developing a

housing policy. Quite frankly, I've had just about enough of rational

debate about the issues — because we haven't had very much.

I've

tried to be rational. We on this side of the House have tried to be

rational. We've tried to present alternatives. We haven't said that the

alternatives are necessarily panaceas. We haven't said that there might

not be problems with some of our alternatives. But at least, by God,

we've proposed some constructive and some real alternatives, which they

have totally ignored because they don't care about the kind of people I

have talked about. They don't care about people who are poor, the

elderly, those people on social assistance, and they don't care about

that increasing number of people in our society who have considered

themselves to be middle-class and are now knowing for the first time in

their lives what poverty is really like. If members on the opposite

side don't believe me, I would be delighted to take them on a tour of

my riding and introduce them to hundreds of people in those situations.

But

rather than any more debate, Mr. Speaker, I suspect the answer to this

kind of issue is that we should allow the people to choose between

their policy and our policy. I would be quite happy today, tomorrow,

next month.... Sometime before July and sometime before the

enumeration is complete, I would love to test our policy on housing

against their policy on housing. Let the voter decide: I know we'd win

that contest!

HON. MR. PHILLIPS: Thank you very much,

Mr. Speaker, and I must say that it's indeed a pleasure to see you back

in your high office and in such good health.

MR. SPEAKER: Thank you, sir.

[ Page 6644 ]

HON. MR. PHILLIPS:

As you might suspect, I am going to speak against the amendment and

very much in favour of the throne speech which was delivered on Monday

last.

I listened, Mr. Speaker, with a great deal of

interest to the two previous speakers, and as usual I was unable to

determine from their deliberations in this assembly what the NDP policy

would be all about. But there's one thing for sure, the NDP will never

have to worry too much about a housing shortage. I want to tell you, it

would be a very few months after the election — if, God forbid, they

should ever form the government — they would be suffering from a

housing surplus, the same as there was in 1975 when people were leaving

this province by droves because of their economic policies.

was interesting to hear the member for Prince Rupert (Mr. Lea) say that

a theory must be proven. Well, their theory of economic policy, their

theory of socialism, was proven to be completely a failure in the

province of British Columbia in the time that they had.

I've

listened not only to the debates here in the Legislature, but to what

the members opposite have said and what the leader of that socialist

group opposite us has said in the last few months. I've listened to

find out what they would do to correct the supposed economic ills of

the province of British Columbia. All I heard, Mr. Speaker, was that

the socialist opposition, were they government, would buy up all the

sawmills of British Columbia. I don't know where they'd get the money

to buy them up, nor do I know what they would do with the lumber that

was produced from the sawmills, but that is the sum total of their

economic policy.

I could make a lot of comment about what

the member for Prince Rupert had to say, but he really didn't say

anything. I think that that was the poorest effort that that member has

ever put forward in this Legislature. It just goes to show how devoid

of ideas, how devoid of policy that group over there is. You talk about

lack of planning. You know anybody can get up and take a sentence out

of context and talk for half an hour on it and never say anything. Go

to the library, and pick up a book, and read about some past economic

policies. But I listened intently, Mr. Speaker, and heard not one word

of what that socialist opposition would do were they government.

I'd

like to tell you, Mr. Speaker, that this government has been planning

for the economy, and that is one of the reasons that the province of

British Columbia today, in a very serious situation in Canada and in

the rest of the world, is weathering the storm far better than any

jurisdiction that you will find in the free world. That just didn't

happen; it happened because we did our planning. It happened because we

had good, sound economic policies; that's why people are employed today

in British Columbia. That's why there were 50,000 or 60,000 thousand

jobs created in the last year, and there are more plans on the drawing

table. Because this government had a plan, because we implemented that

plan, and because the private sector responded to that plan.

Interjection.

HON. MR. PHILLIPS:

It wasn't the same plan you had, my friend from Prince Rupert. You talk

about creating jobs and stand up here and preach economic policy!

Mr. Speaker, when that member was Minister of Highways, what did he

say? He said: "Go home, Yankee, we don't need you." I want to tell you,

when you think of the job we've done on tourism and the thousands and

thousands of people who are employed in the tourist industry today in

British Columbia.... That member has the gall to stand in this House

and talk about economic policy. We've created thousands and thousands

of jobs. Their idea of creating jobs is to have people sweep up after

the soup lines and wash the soup bowls. That's their policy.

Mr.

Speaker, I want today to talk about what is in the throne speech and

where we are going in the future. I want to speak against this

frivolous motion that these birds opposite always seem to bring

forward. I think they think that somebody in the press gallery is going

to pick up that they brought in a motion of non-confidence. Well, the

strength of the economy of British Columbia today is due to our policy

— of additional and diversified markets, our policy of diversified

investments, our policy of diversification and strengthening our

economic base away from total and sole dependence on the markets of the

United States — great thrusts into the Pacific Rim, great thrusts into

the European Economic Community, diversification of investment,

diversification of our economic base and diversification of our

markets.

We didn't go to Japan, Mr. Speaker, to play —

what kind of ball was it? Rugby ball. We didn't play rugby ball. We

went to tell Japan that British Columbia was a free-enterprise society

again and they should come and invest and buy from us. You talk about

results. In 1975 British Columbian exports to Japan were $863 million;

in 1980 our exports to Japan were $2.18 billion. Why do I mention those

exports, Mr. Speaker? Because the creation of those exports is the

creation of jobs in British Columbia — jobs for the working people of

British Columbia. I want to tell you, Mr. Speaker, the working people

in British Columbia can look to the future with faith and security,

because they know the markets will be there, and they know our economic

base is strengthened. They're not like many other provinces and

jurisdictions in the world, where they don't know when their plants are

going to be closed down. Surely, Mr. Speaker, we're suffering some

problems in our forest industry, but in Japan there is a great market.

The policy of this government is to diversify the market and the proof

of the pudding is in the eating.

Let's take a look at

another place in the Pacific Rim: sales to Korea in the last five

years, Mr. Speaker, have exceeded our own expectations. In 1975 B.C.

exports to Korea were $14.5 million; in 1980 they were $134.4 million —

a 925 percent increase. Now that didn't happen by us sitting in our fat

offices in our fat chairs; it happened because this government has an

aggressive sales force and is out there helping the private sector to

create new markets in the Pacific Rim, which happens to be the fastest

growing market in the world. We didn't go there to play rugby; we

didn't go to China to plant trees; we went to talk business. The

results are there — make no mistake about it.

What else are

we doing, Mr. Speaker, to diversify our markets, to diversify our

investment and to diversify our economic base? We've had sales missions

to Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia, the Philippines, Indonesia,

Singapore, Hong Kong and Thailand. I want to tell you, Mr. Speaker,

that they're coming here.

AN HON. MEMBER: How much did it cost?

HON. MR. PHILLIPS:

Oh yes, Mr. Speaker, listen to the yap from the opposition. They're not

interested in the results and in the jobs. They're not interested in

the results, because

[ Page 6645 ]

they can't stand the results. They can't stand to see a prosperous economy in British Columbia.

MR. LAUK: Let's have the results.

HON. MR. PHILLIPS:

If you'd stay in your chair instead of being up and down in the coffee

shop drinking coffee or up there trying to read books in the library

about some theory that was written 14 years ago and get up to date, my

friend.... Stay in the Legislature and you'd hear the facts.

What

else are we doing, Mr. Speaker? We're exploring that great giant China.

We don't expect immediate results. But I want to tell you that that is

the policy of this government, not to plan from election to election

but to plan from decade to decade.

We are continuing our

efforts in the European Community. We are now selling lumber in the

U.K., Holland, Germany, France and Italy. We will be pursuing the

diversification of those markets with an even greater vigour and

vitality.

People from around the world are looking to invest

in the province of British Columbia, because they realize that this

government has a sound fiscal policy and a sound taxation policy. This

government has created a climate.... Oh, you can talk about the

climate, but we have created a climate. Do you want to say that climate

doesn't matter? The member for Prince George wants to say that climate

doesn't matter. When they were government they created a climate that

drove people away, a climate that would not bring anybody to the

province; no investment to create future jobs.

We have an

economic base that is becoming more diversified every year. Yes, today

the forest industry is still our number one industry. I'd like to speak

for just a moment about what is happening in our forest industry, about

what has happened in the last six years in our forest industry because

a climate was created in this province. Hundreds and hundreds of

millions of dollars have gone into new plants and modernization of

plants. Had the socialists stayed in, the lumber industry would not

have had the faith to make this investment, and today the lumber

industry would be five times worse off than it is. It is only because

of modernization that they are able to withstand this slight economic

downturn.

New mines are opening all over the province, and

have during the last five years. Many more are on the drawing board.

What about Cominco's half-billion-dollar modernization? On the drawing

board are new mines and new pulpmills in our two leading industries. On

the drawing board are ferrosilicon plants, ferromanganese plants,

aluminum smelters and a world-scale copper smelter, just to mention a

few.

What I am trying to point out to the members of the

Legislature, Mr. Speaker, is that there are plans on the

for investment and for the diversification of our economy which carry

us through not until the next election, not till 1985, but on into the

year 2000, because we are working in advance and we are doing our

planning.

Interjection.

HON. MR. PHILLIPS:

Well, I just mentioned a few to you, my friend, but you wished not to

hear. I would suggest that you go back to your little cocoon in your

caucus room.

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. member, please address the Chair.

HON. MR. PHILLIPS:

Being presented to this government, very shortly, we have plans for a

petrochemical manufacturing facility. Tell us we have no plans. This

will be based, my friends, on natural gas. Well, I want to tell you,

Mr. Speaker, when they were government what did they say? "There's no

gas in the ground. Don't build any pipelines. Don't prepare for the

future. Don't build any scrubbing plants, because there's no gas in the

ground."

Now what have we got? Being presented to this

government by 13 companies are 15 projects with a total investment of

over $12 billion, diversification of our economic base, steady

long-term jobs for the future; and the opposition tells us that we're

not doing our planning. No, they're not going to be on stream next May.

But I'll tell you, unless I'm wrong, by next June some of them will be

under construction and providing jobs for the people of British

Columbia.

Certainly

there are opportunities in the overseas

markets for liquid natural gas. I listened with interest to what the

member for Prince Rupert (Mr. Lea) had to say about liquid natural gas.

He doesn't realize that liquid natural gas to the Pacific Rim will

create five times more economic activity than it does by putting it in

a pipeline and shipping it down to the United States. He doesn't

realize that having two markets gives greater diversification to our

economic base, instead of having one market, where they can turn the

valve any time of the day they want to. He doesn't realize that the

sale of gas to Korea and Japan will be a take-or-pay contract that

brings long-term stability to the economy.

I don't want to

talk about all the planning we've done for the development of our

northeast coal fields, except to say that when the socialist rump group

opposite tells me that this government hasn't done any planning, I have

to take it with a grain of salt. because it is the planning that we

have done over the last five or six years that brought the project to

fruition when the markets developed. It will be one of those projects

which will gainfully employ people in the coming year, when all other

economies are suffering. People will be flocking here to seek

opportunities and jobs which are not available in their own provinces,

We're

opening up the north in the eighties as another Social Credit

government opened up the southeast in the decade of the sixties. The

southeast is doing very well, thank you. It has contributed to the

economy of British Columbia, and is providing thousands and thousands

and thousands of jobs.

I remember not too long ago the

socialists standing in the Legislature telling me that the northeast

was going to steal all the markets away from the southeast. I want to

tell you that today the difficulty with the southeast is not the

markets. They can sell more coal than they can put over the

transportation system. It is the responsibility of the Canadian Pacific

Railway or the federal government to ensure that that transportation

system is upgraded so that those producers and would-be producers in

the southeast can continue to sell their coal, which is a

world-competitive commodity.

It will be a sad and sorry day

when governments fail to take a portion of their budget and invest it

in the economy of the future. Governments must continue to plan for the

future. They must take a portion of their revenue and invest in

transportation systems and in infrastructures to open up this still

basically pioneering province. When governments fail to do that, the

economies of those jurisdictions which those governments serve usually

fail in a very few years.

[ Page 6646 ]

Our

manufacturing base has grown steadily. I don't think that the people of

British Columbia are aware of the very sophisticated manufacturing base

we have in British Columbia, but the beautiful part of it is that

thousands and thousands of new jobs have been created in the

manufacturing sector in British Columbia in the last five years, and

hundreds of millions of dollars have been invested in new manufacturing

facilities.

I've listened to the opposition from time to

time talking about job creation, and talking about adding further value

to our natural resources. But I readjust recently that the NDP, the

socialists opposite, made a submission to the Site C hearing. What are

they saying in that submission? They are against further power

development in this province. I ask you: how can you have manufacturing

facilities, add further value to your metals, add further value to any

of your natural resources without power? But that doesn't amaze me,

because they were against the Peace River power dam and the Columbia

River power dam. They have been against development and yet they talk

in their swan song about creating jobs. I would say that the NDP have

not changed in this province in the last 30 years. They're still going

around with their heads in the sand, trying to catch on any little

thing that they think will be popular to get them a few votes —

appealing basically to the ignorance of a lot of people.

amazes me how they can be so devoid of an economic policy. They harp

about jobs; they harp about further processing. Maybe they think that

you can run industry in this province with an Eveready flashlight

battery contract. I'll tell you, you can't run industry in this

province with an Eveready flashlight battery contract, because you

can't run an industry, you can't have a strong economy, and you can't

have a growing economy without power. You can't have it both ways.

Those opposed to the orderly development of our province and to the

broadening of our economic base had better realize that without a

growing economy and without a strong economy, or the ability to invest

in the future, there will be no taxes, and it's taxes that just happen

to pay for all of the services that the people of this great province

enjoy. I refer to health services and human resources services, and I

want to tell you that you'd be hard-pressed to find any jurisdiction in

the world that enjoys a higher standard of social services than we do

here in the province of British Columbia.

Those services are

only available to the citizens of this province because there is a

strong economic base, because there are people in the private sector

out there making money that we can tax. If you look five or six years

down the road, without new economic development or a strong economic

base, without a profitable private sector.... I ask you, Mr.

Speaker, and all of those enjoying the services that they enjoy today,

where they think the money is going to come from to pay for those

services.

The NDP have no economic strategy. They are devoid

of any sound economic policy, and no matter how hard you listen, Mr.

Speaker, you will come to realize they have no economic policy. They're

listless and floating. I hate to be critical, and I wasn't going to be,

but when they criticize a throne speech which looks to the future and

outlines policies for the future.... When they condemn that, I just

have to be somewhat critical in opposing the amendment which they have

before us.

I want to make a small comparison. I remember

when we used to talk to the socialists opposite about what happened in

1975. In defending the fact that industry was going broke, people were

leaving the province, and there were no plans for future investment,

they