1977 Legislative Session: 2nd Session, 31st 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)

TUESDAY, MARCH 15, 1977

Afternoon Sitting

[ Page

1879 ]

CONTENTS

Routine proceedings

Motor-vehicle Amendment Act, 1977 (No. 1) Bill 7. Hon. Mr. Davis

Introduction and first reading –– 1879

Oral questions

Payment to northern central municipal association. Mr. Lea –– 1880

Release of tanker traffic studies. Mr. Gibson –– 1880

Rental car contracts at ferry terminals. Mr. Wallace –– 1880

Private contributions to government conventions. Mr. Lea –– 1881

Deletion of land from Agricultural Land Reserve. Mr. Skelly 1882

Condensation problem at MacInnis Place complex. Mr. Wallace 1882

Use of courtroom time. Mr. Macdonald –– 1882

Deletion of land from Agricultural Land Reserve. Mr. Barrett –– 1882

Committee of Supply: Ministry of Human Resources estimates.

On vote 184.

Mr. Macdonald –– 1883

Hon. Mr. Vander Zalm –– 1884

Ms. Brown –– 1887

Ms. Sanford –– 1892

Mr. Wallace –– 1893

Hon. Mr. Vander Zalm –– 1897

Mr. Levi –– 1899

Hon. Mr. Vander Zalm –– 1904

Mr. Barrett –– 1905

Mr. Gibson –– 1909

Mrs. Wallace –– 1913

Appendix –– 1915

The House met at 2 p.m.

Prayers.

HON. J.J. HEWITT (Minister of Agriculture) : Mr. Speaker, on the floor

of the House today we have a i visitor from England, Lady Alexandra Metcalfe,

CBE.

Lady Alexandra first worked for the Save the Children Fund through her fund-raising

activities in London, England, where her father, Lord Curzon, was the foreign

secretary. In 1955 she became a member of the council which is the fund's

governing body. Later she became chairman of the Overseas Relief and Welfare

Committee, which has the responsibility for controlling all overseas work of

the fund. In 1974 she was elected vice-president.

Over the years she has, at her expense, visited countries where the fund works, and in many of them has laid the foundation for pioneering work in education and child care. She has seen the fund's work develop from a first-aid measure to an establishment of long-term projects in mother-and-child health and welfare. In 1975 Lady Alexandra was made a CBE for her services to the Save the Children Fund. She is here to meet with the B.C. Save the Children Fund, which is the oldest branch of this organization outside Britain. Mr. Speaker, I would ask the House to welcome Lady Alexandra.

Mr. Speaker, with Lady Alexandra is Ralph Smith from Vancouver, who is the president of the B.C. branch of the Save the Children Fund. In the gallery is Dr. Joan Ford, the vice-president of the B.C. branch, and Mrs. J.F. Dewhurst, who is executive-director of the branch. I would ask the House to welcome them as well.

MR. D. BARRETT (Leader of the Opposition) : Mr. Speaker, I would ask the House to welcome today Mr. Tom Alsbury, an outstanding British Columbia citizen, who is accompanied by a group of senior citizens who are on an information visit to Victoria. Mr. Alsbury has been an outstanding citizen of this province for many, many years, and now, in his retirement, he's working harder than ever on behalf of the people of this province. I ask the House to welcome him.

MRS. P.J. JORDAN (North Okanagan) : Before introducing my guests, I would like to also lend my voice on behalf of the women of British Columbia to the warm welcome to Lady Alexandra. She is an inspiration to many women as to how a responsible contribution in society is acknowledged. I hope she enjoys her visit here.

I would also like to mention that Mr. and Mrs. Daryl Weitzel are in the members'

gallery. The Weitzels are very much a part of the small-business community in

the North Okanagan, as well as being people who offer considerable leadership

in the area f volunteer services in our community. I would ask he members to

give them a very warm welcome.

MS. R. BROWN (Vancouver-Burrard) : Also seated n the gallery are a group of women from the Malaspina College Employment Orientation for Women group. Today is their graduation day. They have completed their course.

So, I would like the House to join me in saying congratulations to Donna Andreassen, Susan Beadle, Carol Swanson, Gwen Titian, Grace Williams, Bev Grounds and D'auria Wilson. They are accompanied by their teacher, Pat Furdeck. Also graduating are Darlene Manson, Deirdre Laforest, Muriel Porteous, Darlene Dore and Mrs. Shirley Mann, who is a personal friend of mine.

HON. W.N. VANDER ZALM (Minister of Human Resources) : At 3 o'clock a group of 35 students and their teacher, Mr. Robert Lowe, will be arriving. I would ask that we express the welcome to them now.

MR. C.S. ROGERS (Vancouver South) : Mr. Speaker, in the gallery today is Mr. Michael Wood, a DC-8 second officer with Air Canada in Vancouver. I would like the House to make him welcome.

MR. H.J. LLOYD (Fort George) : In the gallery today is Don Ruhl, an associate from Valemount, in the eastern part of my riding of Fort George, I ask the House to bid him welcome.

HON. R.H. McCLELLAND (Minister of Health) : I would like the House to welcome please a group of students who are here to view the legislative proceedings this afternoon from Brookswood Junior Secondary School in Langley.

Introduction of bills.

MOTOR-VEHICLE

AMENDMENT ACT 1977 (No. 1)

Hon. Mr. Davis presents a message from His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor:

a bill intituled Motor-vehicle Amendment Act, 1977 (No. 1) .

Bill 7 introduced, 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.

[ Page 1880 ]

PAYMENT TO NORTHERN

CENTRAL MUNICIPAL ASSOCIATION

MR. G.R. LEA (Prince Rupert) : This is a question for the Minister of Municipal Affairs. The Kitimat Pipeline Co. has admitted paying to the Northern Central Municipal Association of B.C. $25,000 to ensure that the Princess Patricia, the boat on which the convention is being held this year from May 10 to 15, travels the proposed route of the Kitimat pipeline oil tankers.

Will the minister assure me, and the people of British Columbia, that this practice - even though it has been labelled as normal practice by the vice-president of Kitimat Pipeline Co. - will not be allowed by the province of British Columbia, that this kind of influence will not be allowed on any form of government - municipal, regional district or the provincial government?

HON. H.A. CURTIS (Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing) : Mr. Speaker, in answer to the hon. member, the question makes several statements which I would have thought would be ruled out of order. I was aware of the intention of the Northern Central Municipal Association to charter the Princess Patricia since that information has been widely circulated. I was not aware of the information the member has just provided me. That's my first understanding of it so I'll have to take the question, therefore, as notice.

Interjections.

MR. SPEAKER : There will be no supplementary on a question taken as notice, hon. member.

MR. LEA : No supplementary at all?

MR. SPEAKER : Not at this time.

RELEASE OF TANKER TRAFFIC STUDIES

MR. G.F. GIBSON (North Vancouver-Capilano) : I have a question, Mr. Speaker, for the Minister of the Environment. We know that the Environment and Land Use Committee has done studies on the possibility of a Port Angeles tanker terminal, and perhaps Kitimat, for all we know. Mr. Speaker, as a part of the information necessary for citizen representation to the Thompson commission, would the minister release these and any other relevant studies in the tanker traffic area paid for by the taxpayers' money?

HON. J.A. NIELSEN (Minister of the Environment) : Perhaps in stages it might be worthwhile first to determine precisely what studies have been made, and then I can provide the information to you and see if any are considered relevant for presentation to the Thompson commission. But as a first measure, perhaps, we'll determine which studies have been completed.

MR. GIBSON : I would have thought the minister would have known that right off. One of the other options, apart from the Kitimat dilemma, which has been suggested is a possible new location somewhere in the central British Columbia coast. But the studies to investigate whether this is a genuine option are expensive and beyond private organizations. Would he or the provincial government instruct the Environment and Land Use Committee to survey the possibility of central coastal sites for such a tanker terminal, if appropriate, and communicate those views to the public and to the Thompson commission?

HON. MR. NIELSEN : Mr. Speaker, I couldn't make that commitment at this time. I'll gladly take it as notice. In response to the member, I would think he would know precisely which studies had been undertaken. Perhaps it would save time if you would identify them as such.

RENTAL CAR

CONTRACTS AT FERRY TERMINALS

MR. G.S. WALLACE (Oak Bay) : Mr. Speaker, to the hon. seatbelt minister.

MR. SPEAKER : Hon. member, I think you'd better rephrase the introduction of your question.

MR. WALLACE : Yes, Mr. Speaker - to the Minister of Energy, Transport and Communications. With regard to rental car companies seeking contracts with the B.C. Ferries Corporation at ferry terminals, can the minister tell the House if it has been decided that one rental car company will be given the contract at the terminals concerned, or will there be a competition between at least two companies?

HON. J. DAVIS (Minister of Transport and Communications) : Mr. Speaker, I don't know the answer to that question. I'll make inquiries and let the hon. member know.

MR. WALLACE : Supplementary.

MR. SPEAKER : We get into a bit of a problem here, hon. members, in that the minister did not really officially say he's taking the question on notice. I would suggest to the House that to save time, if it's the intention of * a minister to take the question on notice, he states so, so the Chair can rule on any supplementals.

[ Page 1881 ]

MR. WALLACE : Mr. Speaker, the supplementary I'm trying to ask would perhaps help the minister in his inquiries anyway. There are very considerable problems at Swartz Bay already regarding parking. If we are to have rental car companies with a fleet of cars, I wonder if the minister has had any discussions with the B.C. Ferry Corporation about these additional parking problems.

HON. MR. DAVIS : Mr. Speaker, I'll take both questions as notice.

PRIVATE CONTRIBUTIONS

TO GOVERNMENT CONVENTIONS

MR. LEA : On a matter of principle of government, does the Premier agree or disagree that private companies should be allowed to pay, either in whole or in part, money for municipal, regional district or provincial elect ed-government conventions? Should private companies be allowed to pay any money towards a convention of elected officials in the province of British Columbia? I'd like to have the Premier's opinion on that.

MR. E.O. BARNES (Vancouver Centre) : That question is in order.

Interjection.

MR. BARRETT : You have no opinion.

MR. LEA : No answer!

MR. BARRETT : You don't know the difference.

MR. LEA : Mr. Speaker, is my question in order?

MR. SPEAKER : It could be considered argumentative, but the question was taken. It was my opinion to allow the question to stand but it was not answered.

MR. LEA : Mr. Speaker, the question is: in the Premier's opinion, should it be allowable for a private company to pay either the entire cost or part of the cost of elected officials to any government in British Columbia for a convention? Should that be allowed?

HON. W.R. BENNETT (Premier) : Mr. Speaker, in my opinion, there may be varying circumstances where particular functions for information in which the method of information is not designed to prejudice the opinion would allow other organizations - and I include organizations in your question.... Organizations are grouped to take the opportunity to present information in front of elected officials.

1 consider one of the greatest difficulties or the greatest crimes would be elected officials making decisions over areas and over items on which they have no information at all. So any opportunity to expand information may not, in my opinion, be a conflict to those officials but it may be that in some circumstances, depending on the type of offer and the type of aid extended or money extended, there would be a definite conflict.

I think the member's general question could only be answered in part. It depends on the specific circumstances. If the member would give me an exact situation we may be able to deal with it, but he's dealt in a hypothetical and general way in which there may be various answers and various different types of aid offered.

MR. BARRETT : Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the wide range of the Premier's answer. I would like the Premier to address himself specifically to a current situation where in relationship to a major controversial project being initiated in this province -the Kitimat pipeline - the consortium involved in that pipeline has given a cash grant of $25,000 to a municipal organization planning a regional conference for the people who may be involved in influencing that decision one way or the other. As a matter of principle, does the Premier think that a cash grant of $25,000 to supplement a conference in that situation is appropriate? It has been granted already.

HON. MR. BENNETT : Mr. Speaker, that question has already been taken as notice by the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing (Hon. Mr. Curtis) . I'll be pleased to also take it as notice and pass my opinion along to the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Barrett) and the member for Prince Rupert (Mr. Lea) .

MR. BARRETT : Don't you understand morality?

MR. SPEAKER : Order, please!

MR. LEA : Will the Premier order the Minister of the Environment (Hon. Mr. Nielsen) to give the environmental groups in the Pacific . . .

MR. SPEAKER : Order, please!

MR. LEA : ... northwest $25,000 so that they can present their views to the municipalities?

MR. SPEAKER : Order, please!

MR. LEA : Are you going to order that or is it all one-sided?

[ Page 1882 ]

DELETION OF LAND FROM

AGRICULTURAL LAND RESERVE

MR. R.E. SKELLY (Alberni) : This is to the Minister of the Environment. Did the Environment and Land Use Committee approve deletion of eight acres owned by Brett Motors from the agricultural land reserve near Chilliwack airport for use as a car lot?

HON. MR. NIELSEN : Technically the answer is no, Mr. Speaker, but the cabinet did.

MR. SKELLY : As to a supplementary, Mr. Speaker, did the Environment and Land Use Committee recommend deletion?

HON. MR. NIELSEN : The Environment and Land Use Committee heard the appeal and recommended the release to cabinet, yes.

MR. SKELLY : Is the minister aware that Brett Motors of Chilliwack, which will benefit from this decision, provides a constituency office for the Social Credit member for that riding?

HON. MR. NIELSEN : No. I'm not aware of that, Mr. Member.

Excuse me, you were speaking of the Brett Motors' eight acres. It was an application to the Environment and Land Use Committee. The Environment and Land Use Committee recommended exclusion.

CONDENSATION PROBLEM AT

MacINNIS PLACE COMPLEX

MR. WALLACE : Mr. Speaker, this is to the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing with regard to the MacInnis Place complex in Burnaby, where they have serious condensation problems, and where residents have been told simply to keep their windows open - to heat the outer air, I guess. Can the minister tell the House if he has taken any initiatives to assist the residents of the MacInnis Place complex?

HON. MR. CURTIS : Of course. I've discussed this with the Deputy Minister of Housing. I've expressed my concern. He has expressed his concern to me, and we're attempting to resolve the problem. It's complicated. It may seem easy, but it is not easy. It is a relatively complicated problem, and I'm certainly expecting that it will be resolved.

MR. WALLACE : Mr. Speaker, regardless of the nature of the problem, the residents have been asked to keep their windows open at a time when we're supposed to be saving energy. I wonder if the minister has carried out any investigation of the work that was done by contractors to determine if there are faults in the construction that have led to these problems and additional cost to the residents to heat their houses and keep their windows open.

HON. MR. CURTIS : In a review of the problem we would clearly want to examine the possibility of an omission or incomplete activity by the contractor or some failure that may have been built into the structure. The matter is under review in its entirety.

USE OF COURTROOM TIME

MR. A.B. MACDONALD (Vancouver East) : Mr. Speaker, on January 17 the Attorney-General undertook to table records of time spent in courts by judges and courtroom use in the provincial court. I reminded him of the question the other day and gave him the date. I ask the Attorney-General when he will file, as he undertook to do, that information with the Legislature of B.C.

HON. G.B. GARDOM (Attorney-General) : In due course.

MR. MACDONALD : Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, the undertaking was given on January 17. Is it respect for the Legislature to say "in due course" -two months later?

MR. SPEAKER : Order, please. That's an improper reflection, hon. member.

DELETION OF LAND FROM

AGRICULTURAL LAND RESERVE

MR. BARRETT : The Minister of the Environment stated that he was not aware of the Social Credit constituency office provided by Brett Motors. Did he meet with the Save the Farmland Committee and the MLA for Chilliwack (Mr. Schroeder) in an office above the Brett Motors showroom to discuss the Chilliwack block deletion?

HON. MR. NIELSEN : Mr. Speaker, the member for Port Alberni (Mr. Skelly) asked me if I was aware that Brett Motors supplied an office to the Social Credit constituency. I am not aware that they supply any offices to the Social Credit constituency. I met with a group of people in Chilliwack some time back in an office in the Brett Motors building in downtown Chilliwack, where it's located at this time.

I'd like to respond to the member for Port Alberni to the original question asked. The various types of appeals which can come before government allow cabinet to make decisions under some circumstances.

[ Page 1883 ]

Just to make it clear, the ELUC made the decision on the Brett. It was a 9 (7) application, which is under the jurisdiction of the Environment and Land Use Committee rather than cabinet.

Orders of the day.

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

ESTIMATES: MINISTRY OF HUMAN RESOURCES

(continued)

On vote 184: minister's office, $146,516 -continued.

MR. MACDONALD : Mr. Chairman, I listened to the debate yesterday on the estimates and we didn't have very much specific information from the minister. I want to ask three little questions and I am sure the minister will give us his answers and opinions, as he should.

My first question relates to the famous letter that the minister sent concerning the Attorney-General's (Hon. Mr. Gardom'

s) department last December, and which was then later released to the press, in which he criticized the Attorney-General's department on the basis that it was breaking up homes because VCLAS, the legal aid assistance society in Vancouver, through the Attorney-General's funding, was making available help for people who needed a divorce. I asked the minister whether those are still his views because I put it to him, Mr. Chairman, that these are marriages that are long gone.

These are poor people who want to re-establish a home for their children and lack the $500, $600 or $700 that it requires to get a divorce in the usual way. I suggest that was an inhumane answer that the minister gave in that letter to this problem of people who are not able to invoke the law, as the well-to-do people are in this province, because they lack the means and were getting minimal legal assistance through the Ministry of the Attorney-General.

I am asking specifically whether the minister will stand up and disavow the sentiments he expressed about help for these people who need a divorce but can't afford it when the marriage is long broken up and they want to establish a new home. Is that still the minister's view - that that kind of assistance shouldn't be made available to these people? I think that criticism was totally unfounded.

The second question I want to ask the minister is about his 12 fraud investigators. There is no doubt that back in September, 1976, the Ministry of Human Resources wanted these fraud investigators to be clothed with police powers, which include, of course, powers of arrest, powers of immunity, Powers Of entry and seizure, which are not available to the ordinary investigator and which would, in effect, establish a political police in this province, a suggestion that was made during the time of Phil Gaglardi when he was Minister of Highways. That was a very dangerous suggestion to come from a minister of the Crown so far as a democratic society in British Columbia is concerned.

There is only one source, I suggest, Mr. Chairman, for police powers to be awarded to any investigator in the various departments of government, and that is the Attorney-General's department. I understand that since that time the Attorney-General's department has, on the advice of the police commission, said that this was an outrageous proposition that these people should have police powers. They have rebuffed the Ministry of Human Resources' attempts to clothe them with those police powers and to set up what, in effect, would be a political police. Nevertheless, Mr.

Chairman, the investigators exist and I put it to the minister that they are acting as if they are policemen, and they should not be. You know, the ordinary citizen out there does not understand the difference between a person who is a peace officer and has been given the proper authority, either as a private investigator or as a private policeman, under the Private Investigators' Licensing Act or a peace officer duly established through the Ministry of the Attorney-General.

I suggest that the minister has not only made a very anti-democratic suggestion through his department when it was suggested that these people should have police powers, but that, in fact, they are carrying on and interviewing people and investigating fraud in the Human Resources department as if they were police officers. I say that's totally wrong and should not be permitted in a free society. I want the minister to specifically make it clear that they are ordinary investigators and that they cannot pretend, as they have been doing, to be clothed with police powers.

The third point I want to make relates to my own riding but it also relates to the Greater Vancouver Area Homemakers Association. I have two cases here in which I have the details. The one family I have the details about were semi-handicapped, to put it mildly. I visited their apartment. They had suffered from strokes and back ailments, each of them, and through the homemakers association service they were getting eight hours of help in their home a week, which is not very much but is certainly of great importance if this couple is not to end up in a nursing home.

In spite of the AIB, and how we are all asked to practise restraint, and the tax impositions that have been made in this province in the last 16 months, this couple of senior citizens - semi-handicapped, semi-mobile only - were voluntarily contributing $ 10 a month to the homemakers service. They were asked for $1 or $2 a day, but they said, "no, we can afford

[ Page 1884 ]

$ 10 a month, " and they sent that in voluntarily.

But starting in January they were given a means form and it went through all of their income. They co-operated with the worker, who was very pleasant about the thing and rather disturbed that they had to undertake this kind of an inquisition. But their savings were examined to see how much they might possibly have left at the end of the month possibly for savings, possibly for burial expenses - who knows what life may hold in the future if all of their savings are wiped out?

In the case of this couple, from $ 10 a month it's gone up to $134. Perhaps I should have the exact amount here. It was first billed to them at $6.75 an hour and their final bill at the present time is $134.50 - an increase from $10 a month to $134.5 0, enough to reduce the nutritional diet they are receiving and certainly enough to wipe out whatever they might hope to save for a possible rainy day or possible burial expenses.

The other family, also in Vancouver East, is up from $2 a month to $167.40, just enough to move in and absorb any possible savings that couple could make, or to deny them the service. These are astronomical increases in specific cases that are taking place under the Human Resources ministry at a time when they are boasting of saving - what? - $50 million out of your budget to be proud of, when these semi-mobile couples, senior and seriously disabled, are not even able to have this minimal service that had been provided.

Mr. Chairman, there is another feature to it. Although this was not supposed to be reported, the young woman who comes in and provides the homemaker service in the first case I mentioned, while the couple were having the rate raised to $6.75 an hour, informs the couple that she received $3.50 an hour. That's all she's getting. So even if you raised it to $3.50 an hour, it would be a real hardship on this couple. But I want to know where the extra money is going. Is this a direct attempt to save money not only by increasing the rates, but making a profit of what would be $3 an hour on the provision of this service?

I would hope, Mr. Chairman, that we'll get down to specifics, because here are two couples in particular who have been badly hurt by the so-called restraint practised by this government which grinds those who are poor and sick and boasts at the same time of big savings in the budget of the Human Resources ministry as being quoted by the Legislature of B.C.

I want a specific answer about why this young woman should receive $3.50 and these people be billed $6.75 an hour, because even if the policy was right and you're going to turn your back on the humanitarian programmes brought in by the former Minister of Human Resources (Mr. Levi) , surely that cannot be right and this kind of a means test is surely invidious.

So I have three specific questions, Mr. Chairman. First I want the minister to stand up and say that he agrees with what I hope the Attorney-General (Hon. Mr. Gardom) will say - that divorces and broken-up marriages should be assisted where the means are not there through the Department of the Attorney General, if only to re-establish family life in this province.

Secondly, will he undertake to investigate whether these investigators of his are assuming that they're clothed with police powers? They are not and should not be, but they are carrying on in that way.

Finally, there's that question about the homemaker service.

HON. W.N. VANDER ZALM (Minister of Human Resources) : Mr. Chairman, with respect to the first question by the hon. member for Vancouver East (Mr. Macdonald): yes, I did send a memorandum to the Attorney-General. It was a memorandum between he and I and certainly it wasn't for publication. In that memorandum I expressed concern, and I expressed concern as a minister in charge of a ministry which sees more and more family breakup day by day to the point now where it would seem 4 out of 10 are breaking up and, if the present trend continues, it may be as high as 5 or 6 our of 10 in about 5 years.

I'm concerned about this day by day, every day, every hour of the day; I'm concerned about the amount of family breakup in our province and in our country. I took it upon myself to place my concerns with respect to a publication that came to my office in the form of a memorandum, and I addressed it to the Attorney-General.

[Mr. Veitch in the chair. ]

The publication which arrived in my office bragged, in my opinion, haughtily of the number of people that were being served through a particular society which was being funded through another branch of government. In my reading it it appeared as if that society was very pleased, much more pleased with the numbers that they were dealing with than with the particular function that was being performed. That was my opinion.

I was disturbed because I had just been faced with specific problems relating to family breakup, and I then expressed those concerns to the Attorney-General. I will continue to express such concerns to the Attorney-General when they occur to me, to any other minister, to government or to any other member of society who wishes to listen. I am worried, I am concerned, and I believed I have every right to be. I believe that when I express such concern, I express it not only for myself but for all British Columbians.

[ Page 1885 ]

The No. 2 question dealt with the fraud investigators. I know that you chose to call them fraud investigators. They are formally called inspectors, but if you wish to call them fraud investigators. . . . I've done so myself on occasion, because they do that - they investigate fraud. Certainly we can address them as such.

But the suggestion by the member for Vancouver East (Mr. Macdonald) was that we had required these members to have police powers, and that is not so. It never was and never will be. We had requested or required that where possible they have police experience. The reason for that is because it would save an extensive training programme and, secondly, it would avail us of people who have the know how, the knowledge and the experience not only to protect themselves in the duty they carry forth but also to provide protection in knowing the rights of the people they serve or, for that matter, the people they're investigating.

I think it was good; I think it was just. It was not intended, as the member was suggesting, that they be men who would act as police, move in and investigate, move in and arrest, or move in and seize where there was no cause for such.

No. 3 is the Greater Vancouver Area Homemakers Association. Yes, Mr. Chairman, I can appreciate that this matter was brought to the attention of the public yesterday by Mrs. Diane Cox, who was speaking on behalf of the association, and I can appreciate the concern expressed by the member for Vancouver Centre (Mr. Lauk) about the rate being charged by that particular agency. I think perhaps the former Minister of Human Resources (Mr. Levi) , who was a party to the workings of this particular organization, would now be equally concerned about the rate being charged by this particular society.

1, as Minister of Human Resources, have expressed my concern to that particular society about the fact that they're charging a $6.75 rate or the equivalent of $70 per day for homemaker service. That is what it's costing this ministry - $70 per day from the homemaker service that is being delivered through that society or agency. That society or agency, like the programme, did not come about during the last three or four years-, they have been operating for a number of years. But like so many areas within our society, their price has been allowed to get somewhat out of line - at least, so some would say, relative to the amount of service we can afford in that area.

MR. N. LEVI (Vancouver-Burrard) : At $3.50 an hour for a homemaker?

HON. MR. VANDER ZALM : You state that they're paying their workers $3.50 an hour, and I think this gives us all the more reason for concern. When you have a society, a so-called non-profit society, charging $6.75 for a service and paying those that are providing the service within that society at $3.50 an hour, yes, there's all the more reason for concern.

The member for Vancouver Centre says that now we have suddenly imposed a means test upon the people who are requiring homemaker service. That is completely wrong. That means test has been in existence for as long as the previous minister, or anyone else here, I imagine, who has any knowledge of the homemaker programme can remember. A means test has always been in existence.

There was, however, one thing which, I think for reason of perhaps lax administration, had been left out over the last several years. That was that the service was provided without a needs test to approximately 100 to 150 Mincome or GAIN for seniors recipients. What this means to the hon. member who posed the question is that anyone in receipt of Mincome was not being needs-tested, but someone in receipt of a similar income but not Mincome, was being needs-tested. So we were in fact being faced with having two people with the same income but from different sources, one being needs-tested and the other receiving the service at absolutely no charge.

Our decision was that following a period of time, giving fair notice, we would treat all people equally. That's not to say that I would not prefer to see a programme which, as the member for Oak Bay (Mr. Wallace) expressed yesterday, would provide the homemaker service on a much more liberal basis, that would keep people out of institutions and in the home. I would prefer to see that type of programme, and we're working towards that end with the federal government. They have been most co-operative in this and I'm hoping that we'll see it resolved in the not too-distant future.

With respect to the underrun in my ministry, if that underrun comes about through good administration in reducing the number of people on welfare, then great. That's how it is. It is not being produced at the expense of programmes or by programmes being cut back.

I think the member for Vancouver Centre (Mr. Lauk) will recognize, too, that any other programmes that are being introduced this year will be not only for this year. They're ongoing, so that budgetary considerations must be given not only for what is available in the particular vote at this time, but for what may be required in future years. That's good administration, and it's only through good, sound administration that we can continue to have a healthy ministry that will provide for the needy on an ongoing basis.

MR. MACDONALD : Mr. Chairman, just starting back through these three subjects, in reverse order,

[ Page 1886 ]

the minister seemed to me to be saying that he didn't impose the test. Yet the letter from the managing director, Mrs. Cox, of the area homemakers service says this:

"Dear Messrs. X and Y:

"We have been advised by the director of Human Resources,

Victoria, that after April 1, 1977, all clients must pay for service according

to the means test." It says, "means, " not "needs, "

test.

And then, of course, the form is there. It has been taken around and filled out by people. You say you're treating people equally, but you give equal treatment to people of unequal means and unequal state of health. Anatole France said: "The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges." That's not equality, it's a means test. I'm not at all satisfied, Mr. Chairman, with the minister's answer.

Here he is supposedly the smart business administrator, and you pay some girl $3.50 an hour to go into a home, and your department has imposed, as of April I a provision for $6.75 an hour, which is $3.25 too much. That's going on under your administration. It's gone on since the beginning of January. I say that's a most inequitous means test to be applied to people who are semi-invalid.

I just want to finish the other two subjects. You know, you can employ this kind of a test on people who need the help, and they're going to end up with the Minister of Health (Hon. Mr. McClelland) and the other departments of government in some kind of a nursing or convalescent home. That's the economy that you're practising while the rest of the economy lets it rip.

In answer to the other part about the police powers, the minister either doesn't know what's happening in his department, Mr. Chairman, or he does not care to know. But surely Mr. David Schreck, who's the manager of the Vancouver Resource Board, knew what he was saying on September 9,1976, when he said this about the fraud investigators: "Schreck said the 14 fraud investigators located outside Vancouver currently are becoming police officers." Now that was the intention and it must have been known to the minister.

"Becoming police officers" is to have police powers, bypassing entirely the department of the Attorney-General. He went on to say: "Buchanan told them that it will make the service more efficient by eliminating the need for a redundant police investigation."

That's the anti-democratic bias of this government which the minister pursued and is still pursuing and to which the Attorney-General says nothing. It should be known by all ministers of that government that only he, as the chief law enforcement of the Crown, can endow police officers with police powers. That should only be done according to law.

[Mr. Schroeder in the chair.]

If the stories I get are correct, these investigators or inspectors are carrying on as if they are policemen. The Attorney-General should be doing something about it beyond giving a kind of a rebuff to this suggestion through the police commission. With all respect, Mr. Chairman, the Attorney-General should step in and find out just how these people are carrying on this activity. They seem to think they can roll up into one ball of wax the investigation through the Ministry of Human Resources, which there should be, of course, and the police forces of the Attorney-General. I say it can't be done, because then you've stepped over the line.

What Gaglardi tried to do with a political police force, you're trying to do with these investigators. You don't understand the line or distinction between the two whatsoever.

MR. LEA : You might get some of your portfolio back, Garde.

MR. MACDONALD : Now the third thing is that with all respect to the minister, Mr. Chairman, the people that VCLAS was helping to get divorces first had a test as to their means and as to whether they could get it privately, But always, when they go into the supreme court or the county court of British Columbia to get a divorce, the first inquiry the judge makes is: is there any possibility of reconciliation? That's the judicial function and it should be known to the minister. So we're dealing with people who have to show to a court that the possibility of holding together that old family life has long disappeared.

Of course, 90 per cent of the people whom the VCLAS was helping were mothers and wives who had long been deserted by their husbands, usually without support. If they had sufficient support, I suppose they'd be able to pay for their own divorce. You're not helping to prevent breakups of marriages by denying the relief to those marriages that have already broken up, so that these mothers and wives can re-establish a home of their own - a shelter and a father for their children. That's what VCLAS is doing.

If the minister took the attitude that he expressed - that this was a dangerous thing in encouraging breakups - I say these were long broken-up homes. He should applaud the efforts of VCLAS to give them some assistance so that they could remarry, re-establish a home, find another father, and become regular citizens in the community, with a proper family life. That's what this kind of assistance was doing, and when the minister attacks it, he doesn't know his job.

HON. MR. VANDER ZALM : Firstly, again with respect to the homemakers programme, we cannot

[ Page 1887 ]

tell the Greater Vancouver Area Homemakers Association what wages they can or must or should pay, because that would be contrary to the labour regulations as they presently exist. These are not our employees. The hon. member, from past experience, should know this and the question should not even arise on the floor of the House. I can't understand it. However, that's No. 1.

Secondly, I can appreciate that Mrs. Cox feels a little concerned because we have expressed ...

MR. MACDONALD : She says: "Write to you, "

HON. MR. VANDER ZALM : . . . our dissatisfaction with the cost of the programme on several occasions. Ironically, however, Mrs. Cox was the one who originally made representation to us to seek the changes that have now been introduced. The change is not, as the member stated, a means test. The means test was always there. It's a means test, and basically it means this: you take $275 for basic support; you add to that the shelter cost experienced by the couple or the individual; to that, you add special needs, whatever these may be - medical, dental or otherwise. Then when you add that all together, if there's still money left ...

AN HON. MEMBER : You scoop it up.

HON. MR. VANDER ZALM : ... they contribute towards the homemakers service. When you speak of someone getting eight hours of homemakers service a week, that's costing a great deal more than $134, unfortunately. Therefore it's a contribution.

MR. MACDONALD : Eight hours at $3.50. Why should it?

HON. MR. VANDER ZALM : That's No. 1.

No. 2: 1 agree that the Attorney-General (Hon. Mr. Gardom) is the only person who can provide the police with powers. That's certainly how it is, that's how it's to be and I don't argue with that at all

AN HON. MEMBER : You did argue with it.

HON. MR. VANDER ZALM : I think those were the only questions you posed, and I guess they've been answered now.

MS. BROWN : Mr. Chairman, I would certainly like to bring to the minister's attention the letter that he sent around - serial letter 496-401, dated December 16,1976 - notifying the homemakers service that as of April 1,1977, everyone going on homemakers service has to be needs tested. You call it needs-tested. It's the same as a means test. I've got the form, too - both on blue and both on one.

HON. MR. VANDER ZALM : It is not.

MS. BROWN : Here is a couple - a man and a woman - getting Mincome and old-age pension combined, for a total of $573.10. That's their combined income. One of the members has diabetes. They're both senior citizens. One member of the couple has diabetes and has a special diet allowance. There's also a special transportation allowance because the other member has a slight disability. But out of $573.10, Mr. Chairman, this couple used to pay, as the hon. member for Vancouver East (Mr.

Macdonald) said, $10 a month for homemakers service - for someone to come in twice a week for four hours and do the heavy housework, because the doctor's instructions were that neither of them was to do heavy housework.

The Vancouver homemakers received this serial letter 496-401, telling them that this couple should no longer be eligible for homemakers service at the subsidized rate. That's what it was. The department was subsidizing the homemaker. There's nothing mysterious about that. That's what the department was doing.

As of April 1, the subsidy is going to be cut off and these people are going to be charged $184.50 a month. They're going to be allowed to deduct the $50 a month which covers their special diet and transportation allowances, so that $136 a month is left. Thirty-five per cent of their combined income of $573.10 is going to go to pay the homemaker for eight hours a week - twice a week the person used to come in.

This has happened because the Department of Human Resources had made a change in policy. This hasn't happened because the Greater Vancouver Area Homemakers Association has suddenly decided to up its rates. Those were always the rates. The department used to subsidize people whose income didn't make it possible for them to pay the full rates. I think it really is hypocritical for the minister to be trying to blame the Vancouver homemakers association when it's his responsibility. His department changed the rules and said that these people were no longer eligible for the homemaker subsidy.

They would no longer be eligible after April 1, despite the fact that we have two elderly people, both with some kind of handicap, trying to live on $573.10 a month.

Now the Minister of Municipal Affairs (Hon. Mr. Curtis) said that no elderly person in this province should have to pay more than 30 per cent of their income for rent, for accommodation, for shelter, yet we find that the Minister of Human Resources is quite happy to have an elderly couple pay up to 35 per cent of their income on homemaker services. Now what is the alternative? The alternative is that these two people are going to have to go into either

[ Page 1888 ]

extended or intermediate care because they cannot stay home and do the housework themselves. There is a letter from their doctor saying that they cannot do the heavy cleaning themselves. What is going to happen when they go into hospital? What is it going to cost the Department of Health? This decision of the Department of Human Resources - what is it going to cost the Department of Health?

MR. LEVI : Thirty bucks a day.

MS. BROWN : The Department of Health, Mr. Chairman, is going to have to subsidize this couple when they're in hospital. This is the kind of short-sighted decision made by the Department of Human Resources to show what a great management person we have running that department, saving money, which ends up actually costing the taxpayers of the province more. All we have is a paper shuffle, as the member for Vancouver Centre said yesterday. He's shifting the burden from his department to the Department of Health.

But he's doing more than that. For a man who stands up in this House and assures us of his great love for the family, he is going to be forcing an elderly couple in their twilight years to split up. They're going to have to go to hospital What is that decision doing to that family? What about this great concern for the family that we're being told about?

MR. LEA : As long as they don't get a divorce,

MS. BROWN : As long as they don't get a divorce. Well, this is worse than getting a divorce, as he said yesterday, forcing them to leave their home with their little bit of garden and their pet. This was his dream for everyone in the province - all senior citizens should be in their homes with their little garden and their pet. Do you care that this particular couple, as a result of your serial letter No. 496-401, is going to be forced to give up their home, their little bit of garden and their pet, because of a short-sighted decision to cut off their subsidy for a homemaker who used to go in twice a week and do the heavy work and make it possible for this family to stay together?

The other point I wanted to raise, Mr. Chairman, also has to do with that member's statement about his great love for the family. It was his great love for the family, of course, which forced him to cut off the funding for the Conference On the Family - $60,000 was all that conference was asking for. It was to sponsor a conference which, as he himself has said on more occasions, has done great work, magnificent work, in terms of keeping the family together and exploring ways and means of supporting the family. What does he mean? Either he supports the family or he doesn't.

When for $60,000 a conference could have been sponsored that makes very positive - by the minister's own words - contributions to the quality of the life of the family in this province, he terminates their funding so that once again he can stand up in this House and brag about what a great administrator he is.

MR. LEA : At least they can't get divorced now.

MS. BROWN : No, they can't get divorced - not on his $60,000 anyway. He piles it all up in his department over there, and he says: "Look what a good boy am I - $110 million saved!"

The minister says that he is concerned about the breakup of the family. I wonder if the minister is concerned about some of the reasons for the breakup of the family. Mr. Chairman, do you think the minister is concerned about some of the reasons for the breakup of the family?

I want to talk about one of the reasons. I want to talk about violence in the family and about one of the reasons why a couple decides to separate. There are all kinds of reasons leading to violence in the family but once it exists - once it is there and the decision has been made to separate - what is this department doing? Let me tell you what the department is doing.

A directive was sent out by the regional director for Victoria pertaining to women who, as the result of being beaten over and over and over again, have decided to leave their husbands. The directive requires that prior to a woman being given welfare assistance, a community worker from the area had to go and interview the husband. The bruises weren't evidence enough. The black eyes weren't evidence enough. A community worker has to go in and interview the husband before she gets any welfare whatsoever or any assistance for herself and the kids.

Two things happen when the community worker goes in. First of all, the community worker has to identify the area from which he or she will be coming. This woman has been running and hiding for her life from this man who has been battering here, and now her husband finds out where she is living. That's great, isn't it, Mr. Chairman? That's really good stuff. As a result of this minister's great love for the family and marvelous desire to keep the family together, this directive now means that that husband can immediately locate that frightened, seared and battered woman and her children who have been hiding from him. That's the first thing.

The second thing that happens is that the husband says: "I want her back. I need her. My family is important to me." So the community worker says: "He wants you back. You are not eligible for any welfare assistance." And she says: "But he beats me. Here are the bruises; here is the black eye. The kids are scared of him. I am frightened of him. I don't

[ Page 1889 ]

want to go back to him. I want to start a life of my own with my children, and in order to do that I need some kind of financial assistance from the Department of Human Resources."

"Sorry, " says the community worker. "As long as your husband

is willing to have you back, you are not eligible for any assistance from the

Department of Human Resources."

So back she goes into the home, and the whole vicious cycle of violence in the family starts over again. Do you know how that ends? Do you know how it ended in the case, Mr. Chairman, of Jamila Dean? Her husband finally killed her. That's how that ended. Then she didn't need any assistance from the Department of Human Resources any more.

MR. LEVI : The children did.

MS. BROWN : The children did. In more ways than one, the children do. But that's the result of this kind of policy from a minister who tells us that he is concerned about the family. There's a difference, of course, Mr. Chairman, between being concerned about the family and being concerned about the members of the family. There is a very great difference, isn't there?

One of the things that we know, Mr. Chairman, is that when there is violence in the family, that is probably as good a time as any for the family members to separate. The statistics tell us that 30 per cent to 40 per cent of all homicides - or murders, to translate - committed in North America happen in the family between husband and wife, between mother and child, between father and child and between child and child. Violence in the family, Mr. Chairman, is a really serious state of affairs.

That minister, Mr. Chairman, castigates a community legal service that helps poor people - not rich people, because rich people can go out and hire a Philadelphia lawyer to protect them. The poor people, who are unable to do that and go to the Community Legal Assistance Society (VCLAS) for that kind of assistance, are told: "I am concerned about the family. I will not tolerate your separating, no matter what.

You will not be funded to continue your service to poor people." If it happens that it ends, as in the case of Terrace, where we have the tragedy of child beating, or as it happened in this case in Richmond where that woman was found beaten to death, it's all because of the minister's great concern for the family.

The other really horrendous statistic, of course, is that one-fifth of all policemen killed on the job are killed as a result of intervening in a family dispute. That's how serious it is.

Let me tell you something else about the minister's decisions concerning this. Other people became aware of the seriousness of violence in the family. The first people who became aware of this, of course, were the women who were being beaten. It was drawn to their attention first, and out of this awareness developed an alternative resource to the Ministry of Human Resources. Women came together and established something called "transition houses."

Now a transition house is a place of refuge. It's somewhere where a woman can grab her kids in the middle of the night and run to - for her life. But as happens with most Alternative services, and certainly those pertaining to women, they have no money, so they go to the Ministry of Human Resources and request funding.

As a result of the previous minister's decision a number of transition houses were begun in the province. The first one was in Vancouver. Then Victoria decided to have a transition house. Langley, Kamloops and Prince George became interested. North Vancouver tried, and they got turned down; Vernon tried, but they got turned down. In Port Coquitlam apparently their MLA really went for it at for them and they're going to be okay, I think. I think Port Coquitlam is going to be okay. Richmond is now exploring it.

But the point is, Mr. Chairman, that the Minister of Human Resources has been very reluctant to work out any kind of funding. I'm not talking about the per diem, Mr. Chairman; I'm talking about start-up funding. The problem having been recognized, the need - because it is a needs-test minister we're dealing with, Mr. Chairman - having been identified, the ministry has still refused to go into the business of start-up funding for these transition houses.

Every major city in this province needs transition houses. It's no longer an alternative; in many instances it is the only alternative.

Vancouver Community Services did a study - this entire book is about wife-battering - on the needs of women who were the victims of violence in the family, and they asked these women what their priority was. Their No. 1 priority, Mr. Chairman, was shelter. Before anything else they wanted a place to which they could run and hide, not a place where the community worker comes and says, "I'm going to interview your husband, " and then tells the husband where the wife is hiding. They wanted a place where they could be secure. That was their No. I priority.

Then No. 2: they said they would be interested in counselling. This, of course, is where the minister's great concern comes in. Then No. 3 was finance. But their No. I concern in every single case was shelter.

What would a minister, Mr. Chairman, who was genuinely concerned about the family do? What would a department that was genuinely concerned about human beings do? The establishment of transition houses on a 24-hour-a-day crisis basis would become a priority with that department, especially when we take into account that most of

[ Page 1890 ]

the people who use that department - most of the people who that department has to service - are women. It's not 50-50. The Ministry of Human Resources doesn't serve 50-50. When you talk about need you're talking predominantly about the female of the species. Not that department, Mr. Chairman -nobody knows for sure at this point where their funding is.

Vancouver Transition House has been very fortunate because its funding comes through the resources board. Lo and behold, yesterday a bomb was dropped on the floor of this Legislature. The Vancouver Resources Board is about to die.

Interjection.

MR. GIBSON : Then stand up and deny it.

MS. BROWN : Stand up and deny. I would like the minister to stand up and assure us that the Vancouver Resources Board is not about to die, because in fact the minister, by his very own words, issued a threat to the Vancouver Resources Board that if they didn't cut out funding all those little fringe services like transition houses, he was going to have to terminate them.

Vancouver Transition House, the first one and really the key, the apex from where all the others radiated, is going to go under. You wouldn't believe the dance of the dialectic, Mr. Chairman, that transition houses have to go through to get funding. Some of the transition houses, like Ishtar in Langley, right near your riding, Mr. Chairman, are actually funded as an extended-care unit. It gets its funding from Health. Yes, it comes under hospital funding as an extended-care unit.

Interjection.

MS. BROWN : Oh, listen. The Victoria Transition House has had so many.... What is the word when they come and study it to see if you are doing things right? What is the word?

AN HON. MEMBER : Fraud evaluation.

MS. BROWN : It's not for fraud. There is another....

Interjection.

MS. BROWN : No, it's not auditing. It's a quality test - that's it. It has been quality-tested so many times that they have worked out a really unique way of dealing with this crisis. When a woman gets beaten in the middle of the night and she wants somewhere to go, she can't go to Transition House in Victoria. First of all, she has to go to a hotel, I think. Is it a hotel, Mr. Chairman, that she is put up at?

MR. LEVI : A motel, but not the Empress.

MS. BROWN : A motel? Okay.

I'm going to give the department due. They fund the Victoria Transition House. There's no question about it. It comes under adult care. But what that means is that you don't just walk in there and say: "Here I am with my children. I have been beaten and I am running for my life." You have to be checked out very carefully first to see that you meet all the requirements on the blue form and the white form and the pink form and the yellow form and all those forms all the way down the line.

MR. LEA : To make sure you're not lying.

MS. BROWN : Right. And we have to check everything out because you could beat up yourself. (Laughter.) Oh, yes.

MR. LEA : Just to get a free room.

MS. BROWN : Yes. The husband has to be checked out and asked: "Now are you sure you're responsible for this bruise and this bruise and that bruise?" He identifies the whole thing and it is gone through very carefully. Then they get into the Victoria Transition House, but not before then.

MR. LEA : If they have lots of bruises they go to the Empress; a few bruises and they go to a motel.

MS. BROWN : Right. But this is really a very serious matter.

Kamloops is guaranteed; they have their seven beds on a monthly per diem. We talk about the number of cases that appear before transition houses and we look at the number of beds that this government is prepared to finance - 12 in Vancouver, 17 in Kamloops.

MR. LEVI : An NDP riding.

[Mr. Veitch in the chair. ]

MS. BROWN : Vancouver Transition House last year dealt with 678 women, and they are funded for 12 beds. Kamloops dealt with 800 women and they are allowed 17 beds. The restrictions and the begging and the pleading that one has to go through from a minister who assures us about his concern for the family!

Yesterday the minister said that he didn't answer any questions because what he heard were observations. So I am putting my questions to him. First of all, is the minister prepared to change the eligibility requirements for the homemakers services so that all senior citizens who are presently in receipt

[ Page 1891 ]

of that service will continue to get that subsidy? In other words, is he prepared to withdraw this serial letter 496-401? Mr. Chairman, is the minister listening?'

MR. CHAIRMAN : Proceed, hon. member. I'm sure he's listening.

MS. BROWN : You're sure he's listening.

The homemakers service is really crucial in terms of the family of the senior citizen. I am appealing now for the family of the senior citizen to the minister who has expressed great concern for the family. I am also appealing to the minister on behalf of those families who cannot stay together as a result of the violence which exists in them.

MR. CHAIRMAN : Hon. member, you have three minutes left of your time.

MS. BROWN : Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm going to be speaking very quickly.

Transition houses: I want the Department of Human Resources to make itself responsible, Mr. Chairman, for seeing that every locality in this province that demonstrates and identifies a need for a transition house will have the seed money, the funding to get it started, and for seeing that it's operated on a 24-hour-a-day crisis basis. That's my second request.

The third issue, Mr. Chairman, that I raised was that of the Vancouver Resources Board. Now the minister laughs when I say that the Vancouver Resources Board is about to die. -I would like him to stand up and state very clearly that the Vancouver Resources Board is going to be permitted to continue the very excellent work which it's doing. Those are my three points, Mr. Chairman, and I would appreciate the minister dealing with them.

HON. MR. VANDER ZALM : Mr. Chairman, with respect to the items mentioned by the hon. member, first she made reference to the Conference on the Family and the fact that they've requested, according to her, $60,000 worth of funding for a conference. That is not so. They have not requested $60,000 for another conference. As a matter of fact, the last thing I think we should be considering now is another conference.

Instead we need action. I have expressed that to members of the committee and we're meeting with them this coming week. I have suggested to them, too, that we perhaps might consider a joint effort -not only joint in the approach taken and the concerns expressed, but joint in the funding.

MR. GIBSON : As long as it doesn't cost anything.

HON. MR. VANDER ZALM : There will be a meeting. The hon. member for North Vancouver-Capilano (Mr. Gibson) says: "As long as it doesn't cost anything." Yes, I am concerned about cost, and I think perhaps he's been in Ottawa too often where they don't seem to have much concern about this. I don't intend to take that attitude.

The other item was transition houses. We have, in fact, expressed a concern to the people who have made presentations to us and we have said that we would encourage the establishment of transition houses. We have funded them in the last year, as the other government did in the year before that, and we have further stated that we would fund them throughout the province on a per them basis, and that has been acceptable to those who are still operating within the system. I think it's an accountable approach, which I prefer, and which appears to be working.

The hon. member said there were 800 women in Kamloops requiring service because they had been abused. I would like to see where she receives her statistics, but I would imagine her statistics for that don't vary too much from some of the other statistics she's been quoting. I can appreciate why many of the people are confused because of some of the statements that have been coming from some of these members.

MS. BROWN : Mr. Chairman, I just want to respond to two questions raised by the minister, since it sounds as though these are my estimates rather than his.

The first one has to do with my statistics. The Coalition for Transition Houses, Mr. Chairman, sent around a questionnaire to all of the transition houses, which were asked to fill them out and send the information back. That's where I got figures of 800 for Kamloops, 1,080 for Prince George, 678 for Vancouver, 122 for Langley - Ishtar, it's called -and for Victoria, 180. So that's where I got my figures - from questionnaires which were circulated by the Coalition for Transition Houses and which were filled out by the transition houses.

The minister has missed the point. What I'm asking the minister to do is not just per them the ones that are already in existence, but to do what he says he wants to do. Let's have some action, Mr. Minister. As you say, you are ready for action. Let's have some action. Start seed-moneying - putting seed money into the starting up of the transition houses. Okay, so we now have five or six in existence. In a province of this size, we need a lot more. We know that the violence in the family is on the increase. The need has been demonstrated. There's no longer the need for a pilot project or a study.

The department should be moving into other municipalities, into other towns, into other areas, and there starting from scratch. You shouldn't have the women in Vernon fighting with

[ Page 1892 ]

the Department of Human Resources for funding. You shouldn't have Coquitlam having to nag that poor little member for Coquitlam (Mr. Kerster) to get funding for their services.

Mr. Chairman, the Department of Human Resources should itself take the responsibility for starting these things now that the need has already been demonstrated. That serial letter that was sent out, that directive by the regional director for Victoria about women applying for welfare, saying, "first of all, I have to interview your husband and find out if he wants you back before you're eligible for welfare, " should be withdrawn. That letter must be withdrawn, Mr. Chairman. That is a dangerous letter. It's destructive and I would like to hear the minister make some response to that.

MS. K.E. SANFORD (Comox) : I'm not sure if the minister is....

MR. CHAIRMAN : I recognize the hon. member for Comox. Proceed, please.

MS. SANFORD : Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I'm always interested in matching the words of this minister with what actually happens within that department and what happens to people in the end after he introduces a programme or after he initiates some project. You know, he tells us one day that we're going to have the best programme for the handicapped imaginable. I don't think he used the word "imaginable, " but that's the impression he gave, Mr. Chairman.

Lo and behold, we see that the handicapped are going to be done in again. We remember the minister when he introduced the GAIN legislation and said what a great step forward this was going to be for the people of the province. What do we see instead? A 28 per cent loss of income for people under that GAIN programme is what it means.

Now we hear the minister talking about action as far as the Conference on the Family is concerned. He wants to get things going. But what did he do? He discontinued the funding for the excellent work that was being done by the Conference on the Family.

I would just like to read a letter which went to the Premier and which was signed by all of the delegates from the B.C. Conference on the Family. This is dated November 4,1976, and I'm going to read just one paragraph:

"Never in the history of this province has the'ie been such an effective outreach programme for citizens concerned with the family. A network of relationships has already been established, encompassing all local areas of the province. The provincial council on the family will ensure the continuance of a momentum already gained and offer lasting benefits to the families of British Columbia."

Now he cut their funding, yet at the same time he talks about how concerned he is about the family. Now he's talking about action again! But all of the momentum that was started and all of the excellent work that was begun under this Conference on the Family has now been washed down the drain.

Mr. Chairman, the people who were directly involved in working on this Conference on the Family are feeling very disillusioned. They saw the potential and they saw that the work that they were doing was accomplishing something. It's going to take a lot of people a long time to forgive the minister for his actions, and they are now listening very carefully to the words of the minister whenever he speaks. When he says something, they now begin to suspect it means something entirely different.

One of the things that the minister said yesterday, Mr. Chairman and I'm quoting from the Blues, was:

I'm sure those who have researched for today's sitting

will have found that not only are the number of people requiring income assistance

today down considerably from what they have been in previous years, but that

the reduction is most notable in the area of single employables.

The number of single people on welfare is down, he says, and this is most notable among the single employable people.

Well, Mr. Chairman, I was thinking about that yesterday and I discussed it with some of my colleagues. We wondered, in view of the fact that there were 112,000 unemployed last month in this province, what was happening to all of those young people - the single employables. They're not on the welfare rolls, the minister tells us. There has been a reduction there. So what was happening to them? It wasn't until the figures concerning unemployment in this province were released today that we actually saw a reduction in unemployment, Mr. Chairman.

But it's more significant than that that we saw a reduction of 10,000 people on the work force. Now we know what has been happening to those single employable people - they are leaving the province in droves.

It's also interesting to note, Mr. Chairman, that at the same time the work force in Alberta increased by some 11,000. Even in my own constituency, I know of five young people who have moved into Calgary, who are sharing an apartment and who are trying to find work in the Calgary area. That's what's happening to them. Now we are beginning to understand why they are not appearing on these welfare rolls. The single employable young people are deserting the province - they're fleeing, looking for work.

This one figure, Mr. Chairman, of a 10,000 decrease in the work force in this province, is the single best indicator of the economic performance of the province and it shows that we are in deep trouble.

[ Page 1893 ]

No wonder the young people are leaving.

We are waiting for replies from the Minister of Economic Development (Hon. Mr. Phillips) about businesses relocating.

MR. CHAIRMAN : Hon. member, we're dealing with the Ministry of Human Resources, vote 184, not the Minister of Economic Development. Please proceed.

MS. SANFORD : Right. I certainly am, and I'm dealing with all of those young people who are having to leave this province. The minister is bragging that they're not on the welfare rolls, but now we're beginning to understand what's happening to them.

AN HON. MEMBER : We're shovelling them into Alberta.

MS. SANFORD : We're shovelling them into Alberta.

MR. L. NICOLSON (Nelson-Creston) : Do they publish the two lists - the Alberta rates and the B.C. rates?

MS. SANFORD : Well, I was able to determine that all these young people who are not on the rolls of the Minister of Human Resources' department anymore are instead likely to be in Alberta with an 11,000 increase in the work force in Alberta alone. Oh, they've probably gone to Saskatchewan and Manitoba. Stan Purdy of the Canada Manpower in Victoria has advised them not to stay here. He doesn't want to see them on the welfare rolls.

I assume that a lot of those young people have accepted his advice moved on to Alberta or Saskatchewan or Manitoba. These are our children who are moving on.

Interjection.

MS. SANFORD : Not likely, says the minister.

MR. NICOLSON : You want to bet?

MS. SANFORD : What should be happening is that the people on Mincome - and this GAIN programme, as he calls it - should have that 28 per cent which has been taken away from them returned to them. The handicapped should get the full amount that's available to them, because then they will spend the money in this province. That will create a better economic situation and in turn create more work, so that our young people are not leaving this province in droves. Then the minister stands up and brags: "Oh, we're not getting them on the welfare rolls; they're all leaving."

We've discovered that now. They're fleeing ...

MR. L.B. KAHL (Esquimalt) : You discovered it.

MS. SANFORD : . just as businesses are. Either that or they're going bankrupt. That again is creating more unemployment and people are fleeing the province.

I would like to compliment the first member for Burrard (Ms. Brown) on her very lucid explanation as to the need for transition houses in this province. I would like to ask the minister this afternoon whether or not the Campbell River women who have done an excellent job in terms of outlining and detailing the need for a transition house to be located in Campbell River will in fact get funding this year. They've put in their proposal; they are awaiting an answer. I hope that I will be able to leave this chamber and let them know that yes, the very carefully documented need that they have shown will in fact be met by this Minister of Human Resources.

MR. WALLACE : Mr. Chairman, I think the theme that we should be trying to develop in all these different subjects is prevention. I'd like to make a comment on the minister's statement back in October last year which left the clear impression in the province that a great many, if not all, of the elderly citizens in our nursing homes were heavily over-sedated and given drugs just to keep them quiet. That was one of the phrases which appeared in a press report.

I think that was a most unfortunate statement, Mr. Chairman. But like most of the minister's statements, it had an element of truth to it. There are cases where sedation is overused in the treatment of elderly people. But once again, the overall statement gave the impression that this was a widespread abuse and that if it were brought under control there would, "as usual, " in the minister's words, "be savings of millions of dollars."

I would just like to inform the House, Mr. Chairman, that we're looking at the problem from the wrong end when we simply try to control the use of medication in nursing homes. The real problem is low wages, under trained staff, old facilities and rising costs that are not being met by payments for social assistance patients. The result is the sometimes inadequate management of the patient simply because of these very difficult circumstances under which the staff are working in nursing homes.

It's all very easy for the minister, and perhaps myself on past occasions, to have criticized nursing homes, but the problem lies not per se in the nursing home itself, but in the circumstances surrounding the way in which that institution has to function. One of the reasons it has to function that way is that this government is taking no action to provide the kind

[ Page 1894 ]

of care and facilities that in any way compare with other levels of care in other hospitals in this province. To turn around and castigate those people who are trying to provide a desperately needed....

MR. CHAIRMAN : Order, please, hon. members. There is unusually loud chatter in the House. The hon. member for Oak Bay has the floor.

MR. WALLACE : I wish to stress, Mr.

Chairman, that while there may be some abuse of medications on our elderly citizens in the nursing homes, if it happens, and the degree to which it happens, is related to the fact that this government, and the preceding government, and the government before that, have been abysmally negligent in tackling the real problem, which is to provide top-quality care and adequate and modern facilities, and not have these other old facilities understaffed and the staff underpaid, completely unable to give good care, and then turn around and blame them because some elderly citizens are receiving too much medication.

That is the grossest travesty of justice in castigating these people. The challenge to this government - and to the last two governments - is to deal with the problem at first hand, to see what the need is, and to provide the facilities and the trained staff and treat these elderly citizens exactly the same as any citizen who has to be in any other kind of hospital in this province.

We've got two classes of patients in British Columbia. We've got the ones who are lucky enough - if I can use the word - to be in an acute hospital, and we've got the ones who are unlucky enough to be in nursing homes. When they get substandard care, who do you blame? You blame the people who are trying to provide the care under the most difficult of circumstances. It's completely unfair. Not only is it unfair because we're not attacking the reason, it's unfair because many of these nursing homes are providing a very excellent and first-class standard of supervision as far as medications are concerned.

I wonder if the minister has heard of the unit-dosage system, which is the programme that he was talking about. I think the minister even claims to have instituted it. If you'll do some inquiring, Mr. Minister, you'll find this has been in use in some areas for about five years. I checked it out today. Surrey, the area you live in, has been using this for five years. So let's not add insult to injury by suggesting that the minister has discovered some very efficient and safe way of administering drugs in the nursing home.

The unit-dosage system is being used in the greater Victoria area, and has been for at least two years. I'm sure it will please the minister that my research - and he's always asking the opposition members about their research - as recently as today, shows that the druggists who are using this system to provide medications to nursing homes tell me that they are prescribing fewer individual prescriptions because they can provide a larger number at the same time. It's also saving money, which I'm sure would make the minister extremely happy.

I just feel that it's only right that this whole argument or issue of medications for the elderly citizens in nursing homes be put in context. I think many of the people working very hard to provide care in nursing homes under difficult circumstances have been made to look as though they are completely indifferent to the real plight of their patients. In point of fact, the people who are indifferent are sitting over there in that government, just the same as the two governments before them.

Interjection.

MR. WALLACE : That's right. You guys didn't do any better than these guys - a plague on both your houses!

MR. NICOLSON : You'd better get out of Victoria and go and look in Kimberley.

MR. CHAIRMAN : Order, please. The hon. member for Oak Bay has the floor.

MR, WALLACE : They're very provocative today - both sides, Mr. Chairman. It's very difficult for a lonely little soul like me.

HON. K.R. MAIR (Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs) : This is an attack on lonely little souls.

MR, WALLACE : One of the other interesting elements in this argument - and I'll be non-partisan for a moment, which is fatal for a politician - is one of the comments that appeared in the press. It said that 10 per cent of the patients are using 3 3 per cent of Pharmacare medications, and that 10 per cent of patients are the ones in the nursing homes. I can't imagine how anyone would be puzzled at that statistic. Why are they in the nursing homes in the first place? Because they've got all kinds of disabilities that need medications.

Of course the people in the nursing homes are bound to use far more medication than the people outside. The ones outside who are over 65 are just too happy to be independent or semi independent. Nobody but nobody goes into a nursing home until that is the very last choice they face. Anybody who works with elderly citizens will know that the kind of pathetic comment an older citizen will make, time and time again, particularly to their relatives and the family doctor, is the plaintive plea: "I hope to God I never finish up in a nursing home." When you get that cry

[ Page 1895 ]

from the heart of an elderly citizen, don't tell me that we've got people in nursing homes who could manage to live elsewhere with or without families or assistance. It stands to reason that the elderly citizens who have to end up in a nursing home have a much greater legitimate requirement for medications than all of these other citizens over 65.

1 researched some of these statistics. The statement was made that there are about 17,000 citizens over the age of 65 in nursing homes, and the average drug cost per year is $278. The average cost for patients who are over 65 outside of nursing homes - there's reputed to be 226,000 of them - is $48 a year. Apparently this causes some great concern to our administrators in the Department of Human Resources. I would suggest, Mr. Chairman, that the answer is obvious: those patients in the nursing homes quite legitimately need a far wider range of medications than the ones who are lucky enough to be at home or elsewhere. That's just a completely misleading comparison.

On that same subject, could I ask the minister a specific question, since he likes to be asked clear, specific questions? When he was discussing medication in the nursing homes, he stated that a consultant would be appointed to oversee the administration of medications. I wonder if he could tell us who that consultant is. Could he tell us at what salary that consultant was appointed? Can he tell us the terms of reference? Was it one year, six months, or was it like Mr. Schmidt, a six-year appointment to be terminated by resolution of this House, or what?

Last but by no means least on that subject, can he tell us what progress the consultant has to this date reported or what is the consultant doing specifically to bring about more efficient administration of medications at the much-desired goal of cheaper cost?

I think we should also recognize that medications of any kind for elderly citizens present a much greater problem for nurses and doctors alike for the very simple reason that the ageing process means that the effects of medication are much less predictable, much more variable. And, with many of the failing functions in the elderly citizen such as kidney and liver functions, there's a much greater possibility of complications.

So let's not turn around time and time again and castigate the nursing homes in British Columbia. They're attempting to provide a very legitimate and urgently needed service under very difficult circumstances. I might say that in talking to some of them lately, they've told me they would be very happy to have a visit from the minister because they feel that he's got a lot to learn. He might be a little less critical and a little better informed if he would visit the nursing homes before he speaks in public about them.

AN HON. MEMBER : Hear, hear!

MR. WALLACE : I would like to just touch briefly on the needs of the senior citizens that have been touched upon but not in any great detail, Mr. Chairman. I think it's time we made it plain that the elderly women in our society are the ones who, again, are perhaps suffering the greatest discrimination as far as service is concerned. The statistics show that the average wife lives seven years longer than her husband and spends the last years of her life alone in declining health with declining dollars. Although the figures would need to be updated for inflationary effects, Mr.

Chairman, the Royal Commission on the Status of Women reported that of all women over 65, 74.4 per cent at that time received less than $ 1, 5 00 a year, and 90 per cent at that time received less than $3,000 a year. From that kind of statistic, it shows that there are an enormous number of elderly women living on very limited incomes. It raises again the question of their being unable to participate in the Canada Pension Plan.

My next specific question, Mr. Chairman, since the minister likes specific, clear questions, is: what action has he taken or is he taking with the federal government to hasten the day when housewives can participate in the Canada Pension Plan? I'm quoting from a census which is several years old, unfortunately, but which gives the proportions quite accurately. The 1971 census showed that there are 750,000 widows in Canada, and 55 per cent of them received the guaranteed income supplement. Over half of them were at a level of income that merited being given the GIS. The incredible thing, of course, Mr.

Chairman, is that the GIS - the guaranteed income supplement - is not a right, it's a privilege. They have to go through this business of means-testing to qualify for that relatively small payment on top of the old-age pension.

I just wonder if the minister is actively engaged in at least trying this preventive approach from this year onward that housewives who will one day become senior citizens can at least start contributing to the Canada Pension Plan with the result that when they get to be over 65 there is something extra by right, not by privilege, that they've had an opportunity to contribute to. I raised this matter with the Provincial Secretary (Hon. Mrs. McCarthy) and she mentioned that some discussions have taken place. Could I ask a specific question, Mr. Chairman?

Where are we in discussions with the Ottawa government on this very specific and very crucial point if we mean to have any long-term planning for senior citizens?

I wasn't quite clear on the minister's comment earlier on about how he differs with me in regard to keeping elderly citizens in the home. I read an interesting

article the other day from Alberta where they have a council on ageing. Incidentally, Mr.

[ Page 1896 ]

Chairman, I think it would be an excellent idea for British Columbia to have a council on ageing which would, on an ongoing basis, be very much aware of the problems of the elderly and try to put forward in an objective way recommendations to the government of the day as to how some of these measures could be implemented to minimize the need for institutionalized care, to minimize problems which, with earlier treatment or earlier assistance, might never happen.

I'm rather pleased to note that the people in Alberta seem to be very progressive in the kind of resource persons they enlist, Mr. Chairman, because the Alberta council on ageing called in Professor Williamson from the Department of Paediatrics at Edinburgh University.

Dr. Williamson is a professor of geriatrics at Edinburgh University. He, I gather, has caused some controversy in the job he was asked to do because he believes that there are many ways we should spend the money in trying to keep people in the home,

whereas the Alberta programme, which was embarked upon quite a few years ago, has ended up by Alberta having the highest percentage of people in institutions of practically any industrialized country. Alberta would appear to have gone overboard in the other direction. The statistics show that at all levels of care, Mr. Chairman, they have a higher incidence of citizens in such institutions than anywhere else.

I think there has to be some middle-of-the-road concept here. I realize that if you followed the idea of keeping the citizens in their homes to the ultimate, you would finish up spending more money than you would on institutional care. There has to be some middle of the road. But the discussions we've had on the homemakers service today I think are crucial.

Regardless of the two sides of the House arguing about

definitions and means tests and needs tests and all the semantics that go with that, I would like to ask the minister if, at least in principle, he is committed to the idea that we should attempt to provide help in the home - without getting into all the regulations and guidelines - and committed to the principle from a human point of view as well as a dollars point of view. With institutional care at $30, $40 or $50 a day, to give an elderly couple two hours, twice a week, of homemaking services surely makes a tremendous amount of sense.

If we all had time I'm sure every member over here could stand up and quote examples that demonstrate that principle. Earlier on the minister made some statement about his view on this and I wonder if he would mind repeating it.

The other area I want to ask specific questions about.... This is, I think, vital, Mr. Chairman, because we've all talked in general terms but we haven't had any specifics, and the minister likes specifics.

AN HON. MEMBER : He just doesn't give any.

MR. WALLACE : I'm talking about money. The interim financial statement shows that his department, by the end of December, 1976, had spent $358.5 million. The estimate for the 12 months of the fiscal year ending March 31,1977, was to have been $589.6 million. Assuming that he does not anticipate any particular increase in spending in the fourth quarter, the arithmetic suggests underspending of about $111 million, according to the figures in the interim financial statement and in the estimates.

We have heard, Mr. Chairman, that much has been saved by employing the person who is capable of employment but who was presently on welfare. I wonder if the minister could give us a precise breakdown of the various votes within which the underspending of $111 million has been compiled. Now I am not suggesting that that $ 111 million figure is absolutely accurate. If you want to make it very easy with round figures, I am willing to talk in terms of $100 million underspending.

But if you apply strict arithmetic to the figures available, you will find that there will be an underspending of approximately $111 million below the $589 million, which was the estimated figure that we were given at this time last year.

So could we have from the minister the breakdown as to which votes in his total jurisdiction the underspending has occurred. That's the first question. For example, the votes run from 184 to 194, and the key areas about which we are all concerned on this side of the House are the areas such as community grants, aids to the handicapped, various community programmes, income assistance programmes and so on. I would assume from what the minister has said in general terms that all the underspending has been pretty well in one area - the area of removing employable single persons from the welfare roll.

If I could ask a very specific question: what amount of money was budgeted in that area in the estimates we received - in the left-hand column of our estimate book? Out of the estimated figure, what has actually been spent? From listening to the opposition members' debate and from my own point of view, I don't feel we can intelligently or responsibly debate this minister's performance at all, Mr. Chairman, unless we have that breakdown.

I don't think that talking about an underspending of $ 100 million, which is spread over a very wide area of community responsibility, in such a general way is what would serve the interests of the public very well. It certainly wouldn't help us to do our job very well as opposition members. So I think that's the next specific figure I'd like the minister to answer.

On the Conference Of the Family - and I think the word "conference" has been grossly

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misunderstood this afternoon; the initial project was to hold a conference - what we want to do from this point onwards is to ensure that all the voluntary people who turned up at the conference last November or October don't just disappear into their various communities, thinking they had a commitment, both on the part of the churches and this government, to put together an ongoing volunteer organization that would have enormous potential to do some of the preventive things which resolution after resolution at the conference stressed and which the minister himself acknowledged.

He acknowledged that it's not much use trying to put more and more money up to solve marriage breakdown. It makes a great deal more sense to find what preventive ways we can to ensure that marriage is more successful; and even when marriages get into trouble, to provide personnel and assistance of various kinds to try and save the marriage.

The overwhelming, repetitive theme which came from the Conference on the Family was that these 200 or more delegates were most conscious of the way in which they could act within their own communities provided there was some organized structure through which they could all function and provided there was at least some basic kind of funding and leadership from the government itself.

Now this could occupy a whole debate for a very long time, Mr. Chairman, but as the member for Comox (Ms. Sanford) quoted: "There never has been such a concerted outreach programme by so many individuals." Surely their enthusiasm had to come from the point that the minister has mentioned many times - that the family in British Columbia and in Canada and in North America is in deep, deep trouble. Nobody disputes that there are more family breakdowns, more trouble with teenagers, more social problems of wife beating and child abuse and juvenile delinquency and so on.

The place at which this is most likely to be tackled is at the start of the problems - within the family, from day I when a child is born into a family, from the circumstances under which that child is raised and the circumstances within which husband and wife respect or don't respect each other. I just think that the delegates to that conference constitute a very exciting potential of human resources, and that's the department we're talking about - human resources of a positive kind.

MR. CHAIRMAN : Hon. member....

MR. WALLACE : Yes, Mr. Chairman, I'm in a hurry. I'll finish soon.

We talk so much about human resources in the negative sense - all the things that are going wrong with society. I'm trying to talk about some of the positive ways in which the people at the Conference on the Family can start doing preventive work within

British Columbia. While I've got much more to say about this, Mr. Chairman, I'll take my place since my time is up. I do hope the minister would answer these specific questions.

HON. MR. VANDER ZALM : Mr. Chairman, first, with respect to the Conference on the Family: yes, I attended the conference in October, I believe it was, in Richmond. I addressed the conference then, and I suggested to those present that they provide the bodies and we'll provide the bucks, in keeping with the theme that I attempted to get across: involvement, volunteerism, people participating and being a part of.

Unfortunately, I must say, we've only had two proposals come forth. One was locally for TV ads which were certainly not in keeping with what I considered to be the type of project we wanted; the second was for an involvement programme from the lower mainland which is still being considered and which might be proceeded with.

I would very much like to see the churches take a far more active

part in providing many of the services which government only is now involved with or which perhaps are being left undone or done not as well as they might be done. I've said this many a time. I've said it to various church groups, and I will continue to say it because I think we can go back some years and find that at one time all of the services were being provided by the churches. While perhaps that wasn't the best approach, certainly a combination might be ideal.

I'm hoping that our meeting this coming week with the people that are involved will be fruitful. Incidentally, I should mention also that on the family conference we never cut back on any of the commitments made with respect to funding. There was a commitment made and we certainly saw it through. I only received last Friday the recommendations from the conference. Certainly I think it's fair to say that the minister who is requested to recommend on where we should go from here or how we might participate should be entitled to view their recommendations before being asked to make a recommendation with respect to the future of the conference or the matters proposed through the conference.

The hon. member asked where the savings were, in what votes, and how much. Unfortunately, I can't give that information in detail because much is within the offices. For example, the child-care programmes are administered through the various regions. They have the budgets, and when the final figures are in certainly I can give it in detail. In the meantime, however the one vote that I can give a fairly accurate figure on is the income assistance vote, and the saving in that particular vote appears to be in the area of $54 million.

[ Page 1898 ]

The other question was with respect to nursing homes, private hospitals and the statement which I had made sometime last fall with regard to people being over-drugged or having too many drugs made available to them and suffering because of this. I think perhaps the hon. member, more than anyone, will be aware that there is a problem with illnesses resulting from over usage of drugs. It has been a problem, and it's a problem which is recognized by the doctors, by the medical association and by the pharmacists. Both of these associations have made various representations to the Minister of Health (Hon. Mr.

McClelland) and myself expressing their concerns. In our review of the Pharmacare programme, this problem came up again and again and again from these very same associations - the fact that there was a tendency towards the use of too many drugs.

As a matter of fact, after we went into the monitored-drug system which we financed, and which we proceeded with following the recommendation of the director of the programme, we have found now from the experiments or from the programmes which are presently in place - and Mr. Frank Lowe, the consultant, is attempting to expand the programme into all of these facilities - that the drug usage, because of our switching to the monitored-dose system, will probably be reduced by 50 per cent in the institutions.

So it is a real concern in the institutions. It's one to which Mr. Lowe is addressing himself as our consultant, and I did have the figures here. Mr. Lowe has a $20,000 order-in-council contract. It's a consulting fee, and it's approximately one-third completed. I believe it's to last about eight months. The total study will last about eight months, and it's about one-third complete now.

But we are concerned about the over utilization of drugs in the institutions and the over utilization by people who are receiving benefits from the Pharmacare programme. It's been brought to our attention in a number of ways, particularly - and I'm very grateful for this - by the B.C. Medical Association and the B.C. Pharmacists Society. They have repeatedly brought back this point again and again,

But it's been brought to our attention by our social workers and I have these here. These are the drugs right there which were prescribed to one lady in a period of about three months. As a matter of fact, she had 1,200 pills prescribed to her in a period of six weeks. This lady died from an overdose of drugs and the social worker brought all of these pills into our office. As a matter of fact, the prescriptions are here and we have evidence of two and three prescriptions in the matter of a day or two days; three and four prescriptions in the matter of two days.

This was, of course, a person who was receiving the benefits of the Pharmacare programme. Our programme perhaps, partly through our doing, allowed this sort of thing to occur, and it's unfortunate. I think it's a matter that we should all be concerned about.

But we're tackling it; we're attempting to get at it. We're attempting to resolve not only the over utilization of drugs in the institutions and in the nursing homes, but also over utilization by individuals who are receiving the benefits through the programmes that we have available to them. Programmes that are necessary, if properly in place and properly administered, can be of tremendous benefit to the people in need. But evidence like this is terribly upsetting.

MR. WALLACE : I have just a quick follow up on two of the points.

First of all, let me make it plain. I agree with the minister that at all levels of our society there's an over utilization of medications. Nobody needs to wonder about that. The non-prescription drug business is one of the most flourishing elements in our whole economy. People believe greatly these days, it would seem, in everything from Alka-Seltzer to Ex-Lax to dandruff treatment to whatever. There's no question that there's an ever-increasing tendency by all people in our modern society to depend on medications, and the minister has given us a dramatic example of one case.

Again, I just say let's not take the extreme example, such as the one that the minister has just demonstrated, and leave any assumption that this is a widespread abuse. I think that it would be very unkind if we, in a well intended effort to cut down on medication overuse, were to penalize some of these elderly citizens in nursing homes who very much require pain killers and vitamins and medications and anti-biotics off and on because of recurrent infections. There are a whole lot of reasons that I could go into but I won't take the time of the House. So let's not go overboard, Mr.

Chairman, and run the risk of saying that because some people take too many medications, we've got to have some overall drastic restriction. We have to keep some sense of balance in this whole area.

The other point I just want to comment on briefly. . . . I think I can set the record straight, Mr. Chairman. The minister stated that he had only received proposals from the Conference on the Family a few days ago. He may be referring to the final, finished, bound, complete copy. But I have to say with the greatest respect that the minister knows very well that he has had preliminary information -perhaps not in complete form like the nice blue-bound book that he got the other day. But some weeks ago, the minister knows that I attended at his office to discuss the matter of the Conference on the Family. That was several weeks ago, and within a day

[ Page 1899 ]

or two I arranged for the chairman of the conference, Canon Hilary Butler, to deliver an outline of the material involving the basic proposals to the minister's office. Now I know that was not the complete story of the conference or the complete outline of all the proposals, but it certainly embodied the basic idea that we should. have an ongoing council of some sort and that we should invoke - if that's the word - family month in the month of May. I'm pleased that the government has done that and I commend them for it.

But I think it is important to set the record straight that people such as Canon Butler, who has done a simply magnificent job as chairman of that conference, have gone overboard in trying to provide as much information as possible - within the limits of the staff, which is only one in number, I understand - and to provide a lot of the documented reports from a conference that lasted three days.

I wouldn't want the impression to be left that somehow or other those organizing the conference did not attempt very shortly thereafter to provide the minister with very adequate detail on what was decided and what the members of the conference would like to see in the immediate future. I think it would be fair for the minister to acknowledge that because I know the churches are trying. I've had discussions unofficially with the churches and they acknowledge that there's nothing but common sense in a 50-50 or co-operative effort by the churches and the minister's department.

Perhaps, as he says, there was a day when the churches were looked upon to do all of this work, and perhaps times have changed to the extent that they're not doing enough. Surely we've never had a more golden opportunity to try and get together and see if we can't blend the voluntary element very much at the local level with government assistance from a centralized source of personnel and money.

MR. LEVI : Mr. Chairman, I was impressed with the minister's rather dramatic revelation about the drugs, and this is about the only thing I'm going to agree with him on this afternoon. I don't agree with the member for Oak Bay (Mr. Wallace) . The people who write the prescriptions are doctors. Most of the attack in terms of the over-prescribing seems to have been levelled at the old people.

Well, it's doctors who write prescriptions, and the only way we're going to get less prescriptions written is when doctors decide to write less prescriptions when there is no longer an acceptance that the only way to deal with old people in homes is to drug them. We've got to get away from that one, but I can't express too strongly that prescriptions relate to the power of doctors to write them.

The first step that we make in terms of this particular problem is that we've got to get them to write less prescriptions. That's important. I think there has to be that understanding. When the Pharmacare programme first came in and we met with the medical association they were worried about this, and we were worried about this. That's why there is a monitoring system where they can tell who is prescribing, the high prescribers, the high users, the high pharmacist charges - that's all there. I recall last summer I was completely surprised when the chairman of the medical association, Dr.

Jory, came out and attacked the seniors for abusing the programme. Then we had the minister having a little bit of that as well. Well, it's not the seniors who abuse the programme. They ask for the prescriptions. There's got to be more responsibility taken in terms of the doctors since they're the people who write prescriptions.

I understand that the minister said yesterday he only wanted to deal with specific questions. He wants to deal with fact. Well, I'd like to deal with a couple of facts and see whether I can get the minister to pay attention long enough to indicate whether the things I'm going to say are the things that he actually said. Yesterday in his opening remarks he said, and I'll quote from Hansard, Mr, Chairman: "For the first time in several years we provided increases to the denturists, to the optometrists and to the pharmacists." Now what he was presumably saying by that is that for years all of the people who worked in these three areas were not getting any increases.

Now I don't know whether the minister has a particularly good memory or not, but last year I asked him a question particularly related to the pharmacists, and in the Journals of the House for 1976, question 36, it says that I did ask him a question. It was on May 13. 1 asked him, Mr. Chairman: "With reference to the prescriptions paid to pharmacists by the department: (1) what was the amount of fee paid in 1972,1973,1974,1975 and 1976?" The second part of the question was: "On what date in they years mentioned in No. I was the fee agreement made between the department and the pharmacists?"

Let's remember, I'm raising this because yesterday he said: "For the first time in several years we provided increases to the denturists, to the optometrists and to the pharmacists." His answer to the question was: "In 1972, the fee was 50 cents; in 1973, the fee was 50 cents; for a prescription in 1974, it was $2.20; in 1975, it was $2.55; and in 1976, it was $2.75." He made a little mistake. He's leaning back and he's laughing.

Okay. Now you might ask your deputy minister and your comptroller, who are sitting on either side of you: " When did we make the increase to the denturists?" There was an increase to the denturists in 1975 - a fairly substantial increase to the denturists. The optometrists we were still negotiating

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with, but agreements were made with the dentists and with the pharmacists. Settlements were made. Certainly the denturists were quite satisfied with the settlement we made. So it's important that if the minister is going to make statements in the House, he makes them factual.

Over the last few weeks he's been bombarded by questions relating to the issue raised by the Liberal leader (Mr. Gibson) in relation to the $22.50 and the $35. He indicated at that time, Mr. Chairman, that somehow the previous government was lax in not picking up all the sharing. What I want to say first is this: the difference between that government over there and the previous government is that they're completely wedded to the idea that the only programmes that can take place in this province are those that can be cost-shared.

You've got to conform to an asset test - to the needs test, as the minister is fond of saying. Okay, that's one philosophy. That was the philosophy of the previous Social Credit government; it is now the philosophy of the existing Social Credit government. But it was not, Mr. Chairman, the philosophy of the previous government. It was not. We did not base our programmes on whether we could get cost-sharing or not. What we did was to introduce programmes and then go after Ottawa for the cost-sharing. We complied with one basic requirement on the part of the cost-sharing agreements.

We got our accounting in right at the beginning. We started to bill the same day as we introduced the programme, hoping to negotiate cost-sharing with Ottawa on a daily or a weekly basis. We did that with a day-care programme. It took us almost two years, but we got the cost-sharing. We introduced the special services for children programme, and we got cost-sharing. It is now a cost-shared programme. He shakes his head. The minister doesn't know whether it is or it isn't. Let me show you something.

I want to go now to the report that was tabled in this House last year by the present Minister of Human Resources, signed by him - Hon. William N. Vander Zalm, 1975. There's a

section on page 24 which deals with other programmes. I just want to quote from it and comment on it.

"The Department of Human Resources is providing a wide range of needed services to children and families, to senior citizens and to the handicapped in the province. Government expenditures for the calendar year" - they make reference to a calendar expenditure -"were $460 million. The federal government contribution to the departmental costs came to 37 per cent of the total expenditure in 1975." It should be understood that under the Mincome programme, the only cost-sharing we were getting from the federal government at one point was 19 per cent.

I'm not talking about 19 per cent of the old-age security or the guaranteed income; I'm talking about the third decking of pension - the Mincome. That's all we got - 19 per cent. But we were constantly negotiating with them for a bigger amount of the sharing.

"The federal government contribution to the departmental costs came to 37 per cent of the total expenditure in 1975. This is an increase of 4 per cent in the federal government's share as compared to 1974. Federal government sharing in the cost of social services is provided for in the Canada Assistance Plan, signed by nine provinces. Quebeckers have a different arrangement.

"Under the terms of the Canada Assistance Plan, provinces can recoup 50 per cent of the cost of expenditures on income maintenance and welfare benefits if the expenditures are in line with the regulations by both governments and are agreed to."

Okay, that's the principle. If you're going to introduce a plan and you want it cost-shared, then you have to conform with the standards of requirements that are set by the federal government. As I said, the philosophy of the previous government was to meet need first and then attempt to get the cost-sharing.

"The substantial increase in services offered by the Department of Human Resources in the last few years has meant that far more social-service dollars have been contributed to the province by the federal government. But the negotiations of federal agreements to cost-share new programmes has been a lengthy business and still continues."

Now I don't want that minister to come into this House, Mr. Chairman, and somehow advance himself as a shining knight in white armour and as the only individual who has ever done any negotiating with the federal government. I practically bought a third home in Ottawa, I was down there so often.

The important thing is that in terms of the taxpayer, of course, you negotiate the business of cost-shared programmes. Of course you try to get the maximum amount of money from Ottawa. But you also have to look at your own basic philosophy on how you're going to deal with people. If you're going to say that you can't introduce that programme because you can't get cost-sharing, you're never going to get any change at all.

The minister, in his estimates, indicates that he's going to cut over $2 million from the special services for children programme. Why? He's concerned about the family, he's concerned about children, and he's going to cut $2 million from that budget. That's a cost-shared programme. Right at the end of the annual report: "

(3) Federal cost-sharing for special services for children was agreed to in 1975." It states

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it right there in the book, signed by the minister. Why is he cutting it? Because we've got no family problems? Why? He's cutting it. It's simple. It's just being cut.

I just want to carry on, Mr. Chairman.

"The substantial increase in services offered by the Department of Human Resources in the last few years has meant that far more social-service dollars have been coming to the province." You can look and see the amount of cost-sharing that has increased quite dramatically in terms of what's returned to the province.

"Some programmes have been offered on a universal basis, such as the Mincome guarantee to persons over the age of 60 regardless of assets, and are not eligible for sharing on a 50-50 basis."

We knew that. We were negotiating. The federal government did not share at all on the provincial Mincome payments to persons in receipt of old-age security. Pharmacare expenditures for persons over the age of 65 were also not shared by the federal government. But that was not a programme that we were not going to introduce simply because we couldn't get the cost-sharing. We attempted, at every meeting I attended, to see whether we could negotiate some kind of cost-sharing out of them.

"The increased federal contribution in 1975 is best explained by three factors." This is from the annual report last year. "Some agreements made with the federal government in 1975 on cost-sharing were allowed to apply retroactively to 1974." Of course it was, because we started billing in late 1973 with the hope that once we had reached some agreement with the federal government, they would go back and cost-share the programme almost from the beginning. That's the basis on which you negotiate. So it was achieved not, as the minister indicated, by the fact that somehow he came in and suddenly got cost-sharing. This is a business of constant negotiation.

The federal cost-sharing on Mincome payments was increased in 1975, and in

1976, as part of the continuing negotiation, the federal government agreed to

increased sharing. The increase can be seen by comparing the agreements in 1974

and 1975. In the 1974 agreement Mincome payments to persons aged 60 to 64 and

to handicapped persons were cost-shared on a 50-50 basis, up - for persons with

asset levels no higher than $1,000 single and $1,500 married couple - to $160

for persons 60 to 64, and up to $200 for handicapped persons per month. In 1975

there was a change in the agreement: Mincome payments to persons age 60 to 64

and to handicapped persons are cost-shared on a 50-50 basis for persons with

asset levels no higher than $1,500 for single and $2,500 for married couples,

up to $160 for persons 60 to 64 and up to $215 for handicapped persons. At that

time Mincome payments were $249.

At all times, the philosophy of the previous government was to meet need and to constantly negotiate for a greater part of the sharing. The great tragedy today, Mr. Chairman, that we have is that we have a government that is grossly underspending in many areas, and yet we still have a situation where they've gone against their promise: they have not indexed pensions for seniors, they've not indexed for the handicapped - in fact, they haven't indexed it according to one of their big programmes. That was what the Premier ran up and down this province saying. I've got to keep saying this because that's what they said they would do and they didn't do it.

So what I'm saying, Mr. Chairman, is that the whole business of dealing with Ottawa is an ongoing, difficult question. It's very ongoing, but there's an easy way out of it. I'm not a subscriber to the easy way out, which is the whole issue of taking tax points. I don't want to get into the financial area, but if we take tax points in terms of social programmes, that may be to our advantage in this province, but it's going to be a very bad scene for people in the Atlantic provinces. We used to discuss social programmes across Canada on the income security review that lasted over three years in this country.

We would attend the meetings. We, as a government, advocated that what should really happen to the Canada Assistance Plan was that it should be continued but it needed to be rewritten and, as I understand, it probably is being rewritten. There should be a greater degree of sharing on a sliding scale, with provinces like B.C. and Alberta and Ontario at 50 per cent, but the other provinces at a higher level - 70 or 80 per cent, depending on the index of unemployment, how much social assistance they're paying - because that was part of the federalist approach that we took.

Now I just want to make one other observation in relation to the guaranteed annual income. We evidently have a split opinion on the other side about whether we should or should not have guaranteed annual income. In this country, as I said, we spent the better part of three years debating in essence whether we would go the guaranteed annual income route, and we went around. We were not convinced -certainly as a delegation - at any time that the federal government was really serious about this, and those talks went on for three years.

The important thing is that sooner or later we're going to have to get around to the business of a guaranteed income because we're going to have to stop trying to pander to the nine different income security plans that exist in the country, including the business of old-age pension and family allowances, and the veterans' pensions, and unemployment insurance - all of these programmes. They are very costly to administer. But

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we're a long way from that.

There are some very serious political considerations for political parties in power. Who wants to interfere with a veteran's pension? It's almost like committing political suicide. But there's a reality about i