1972 Legislative Session: 3rd Session, 29th 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)

FRIDAY, MARCH 10, 1972

Afternoon Sitting

[ Page 719 ]

The House met at 2:00 p.m.

Prayers.

MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable the Minister of Education.

HON. D.L. BROTHERS (Minister of Education): Mr. Speaker, on

behalf of my colleague the Minister of Municipal Affairs, may I advise

Members of the Legislature that there are a number of students down

today from Port McNeil Secondary School and that encompasses students

from that surrounding area. They're from the upper part of Vancouver

Island and I hope the Members will bid these students welcome to the

Legislature.

MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable Member from Cowichan-Malahat.

MR. R.M. STRACHAN (Cowichan-Malahat): Mr. Speaker, I'm sure

you will have a particular interest in my announcement this afternoon.

From the great constituency of Cowichan-Malahat and the beautiful

Shawnigan Lake area from the Cliffside Preparatory School we have 15

students accompanied by their headmaster Mr. Peacock, and their senior

master Mr. Easthaugh. One of the 15, the House will be interested to

know, is the son of the Speaker. And I ask the House to bid them

welcome.

MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable Member for Saanich and the Islands.

MR. J.D. TISDALLE (Saanich and the Islands): Yes, Mr. Speaker

I would like the House to welcome some guests today from our sister

Province of Washington. I expect we will be taking them over. Mr. and

Mrs. Larry and family Alfendeff.

Introduction of bills.

HON. L.R. PETERSON (Attorney General): Mr. Speaker, on behalf

of the Minister of Labour, I have the honour to present a message from

His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor.

AN ACT TO AMEND THE

WORKMEN'S COMPENSATION ACT, 1968

MR. SPEAKER: The Lieutenant-Governor transmits here with a bill intituled

An Act to Amend the Workmen's Compensation Act, 1968 , and recommends the same to the legislative assembly. Dated at Government House March 10, 1972.

House in committee on Bill No. 82. On the recommendation of the committee, Bill No. 82, intituled

An Act to Amend the Workmen's Compensation Act, 1968,

introduced, read a first time, and ordered to be placed on orders of

the day for second reading at the next sitting after today.

MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable Member for South Peace River.

BRITISH COLUMBIA

AGRICULTURE CORPORATION ACT

Mr. Marshall moves introduction and first reading of Bill No. 83, intituled British Columbia Agriculture Corporation Act .

Motion approved. Bill No. 83 read a first time and ordered.to be

placed on orders of the day for second reading at the next sitting

after today.

AN ACT TO AMEND THE FOREST ACT

Hon. MT. Williston moves introduction and first reading of Bill No. 65, intituled

An Act to Amend the Forest Act .

Motion approved. Bill No. 65 read a first time and ordered to be

placed on orders of the day for second reading at the next sitting

after today.

HON. MR. PETERSON: On behalf of the Minister of Municipal Affairs I have the honour to present a message from His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor.

AN ACT TO AMEND THE

MUNICIPAL FINANCE AUTHORITY ACT

MR. SPEAKER: The Lieutenant-Governor transmits herewith a bill intituled

An Act to Amend the Municipal Finance Authority Act , and recommends the same to the legislative assembly. Dated at Government House March 10, 1972.

House in committee on Bill No. 81. On the recommendation of the committee, Bill No. 81, intituled

An Act to Amend the Municipal Finance Authority Act ,

introduced, read a first time, and ordered to be placed on orders of

the day for second reading at the next sitting after today.

HON. W.D. BLACK (Provincial Secretary): Mr. Speaker, I have

the honour to present a message from the Lieutenant Governor on behalf

of the Minister of Municipal Affairs.

FIRST CITIZENS OF BRITISH COLUMBIA

CORPORATION ACT

MR. SPEAKER: The Lieutenant-Governor transmits herewith a bill intituled First Citizens of British Columbia Corporation Act , and recommends the same to the legislative assembly. Dated at Government House March 19, 1972.

House in committee on Bill No. 79. On the recommendation of the committee, Bill No. 79, intituled First Citizens of Brisish Columbia Corporation Act

introduced, read a first time, and ordered to be placed on orders of

the day for second reading at the next sitting after today.

Orders of the day.

THIRD READINGS

HON. MR. BENNETT: Committee on Bill No. 17, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: Bill No. 17,

An Act to Amend the revenue Surplus Appropriation Act, 1969 .

Bill No. 17 committed, reported complete without amendment, read a third time and passed.

HON. MR. BENNETT: Committee on Bill No. 27, Mr. Speaker.

[ Page 720 ]

MR. SPEAKER: Bill No. 27,

An Act to Amend the Jury Act .

Bill No. 27 committed, reported complete without amendment, read a third time and passed.

HON. MR. BENNETT: Committee on Bill No. 28, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: Committee on Bill No. 28,

An Act to Amend the Administration Act .

Bill No. 28 committed, reported complete with amendments, to be considered at the next sitting after today.

HON. MR. BENNETT: Committee on Bill No. 33, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: Committee on Bill No. 33,

An Act to Amend the

Summary Convictions Act .

Bill No. 33 committed, reported complete with amendments, to be considered at the next sitting after today.

HON. MR. BENNETT: Committee on Bill No. 35, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: Committee on Bill No. 35,

An Act to Amend the Mortgage Brokers Act .

Bill No. 35 committed, reported complete with amendments, to be considered at the next sitting after today.

HON. MR. BENNETT: Committee on Bill No. 36, Mr. Speaker,

MR. SPEAKER: Committee on Bill No. 36,

An Act to Amend the Regional Parks Act .

Bill No. 36 committed, reported complete without amendments, read a third time and passed.

HON. MR. BENNETT: Second reading of Bill No. 19, Mr. Speaker.

ACCELERATED PARK DEVELOPMENT FUND ACT

MR. SPEAKER: Second reading of Bill No. 19. The Honourable the Minister of Finance.

HON. MR. BENNETT: The 1971 session of this Legislature passed the Accelerated Park Development Act

of 1971. At that time it was pointed out that British Columbia was

blessed with a varied climate and terrain, which allowed development of

recreational areas for the benefit of all citizens as well as visitors

to the province.

However, the dramatic increase in population of the province, and in

the number of annual visitors, pointed up a need to augment the

government's regular development of parks programme. Coincident at that

time was the urgent need to create additional jobs. This programme has

proven very successful on both counts.

The original appropriation of $15 million is fully committed, and

the funds have been used to provide many jobs for people, and at the

same time greatly improved provincial parks facilities. The government

continues to create jobs as a first provincial priority, and recommends

in this bill that an additional $10 million be added to accelerated

parks development special fund. Thus we will be able to continue to

improve our parks and to create jobs. And, Mr. Speaker, the funds will

be drawn down for these purposes as soon as the bill is passed. I move

second reading.

MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable Member for Kootenay.

MR. L.T. NIMSICK (Kootenay): Mr. Speaker, while we always

welcome money in any area that is going to create jobs I'm just a

little bit worried that the department itself has not got sufficient

money to operate the way it should. Some of this money, or maybe all of

it, should be turned over to the recreation and conservation

department, so that the money that is placed there could be used where

they know it is absolutely necessary.

There are areas in the Department of Recreation and Conservation

that are going starving for money for the conservation of some of our

things that are not parks in themselves but that make parks what they

are today, such as wildlife.

I'm of the opinion that this money should be turned over to the

department rather than a separate fund. It may look very fine in a

separate fund and say that it is just for the purposes of creating

jobs. But both purposes create jobs whether it's in the department or

whether it's a bill by itself.

If it is in the department then the Minister can place that money

where it's going to do the greatest amount of good — not necessarily

always just in the parks but it could be placed in other sections as

well. As I was suggesting the wildlife branch has never had enough

money to operate the way it should and our wildlife is going down the

drain more and more every day.

I hope that this government would do more in that respect. Instead

of starving the departments and their estimates and putting it into

separate bills I say it should go to the department in their estimates

so that they can spend it.

MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable the first Member for Vancouver-Point Grey.

MR. P.L. McGEER (Vancouver–Point Grey): Mr. Speaker, we do

have vote 239 of parks branch in our estimates book, vote 240

grants-in-aid of regional park development. Quite clearly this bill is

an abuse of the civil service because the proper way to administer any

tax funds that are available to government is through the civil service.

If we have had successes in British Columbia in management of

government funds, it has been because of the extremely capable

administrative services available to us through our civil service here

in British Columbia.

I want to pay them a very high compliment. We see every day abuses

of government funds due to lack of administration on the federal scene.

I don't need to detail them because they appear day after day in our

papers. I think it's a testimony to the excellence of our civil service

here in British Columbia.

I don't like to see anything done where money which should be

properly administrated in this fashion is pulled out by special

legislation, placed under one Minister with a group that he appoints

outside of the civil service, which is precisely what is being done

with this Act and what's being done with

[ Page 721 ]

a number of the funds which have been voted upon by this House.

Mr. Speaker, the principle is wrong. Funds that are available for

park development, for cultural purposes, for all of the special

purposes that have been claimed in these funds, should be administered

in the standard way, should be detailed in the estimate books, should

be subject to further scrutiny by the Legislature.

If it comes, Mr. Speaker, as it occasionally does that more money is

required during the course of the year than is provided for in these

estimates books, every member of the House knows an appeal can be made

to Treasury Board. The following year special warrants which have been

issued during the year are voted on once more by this House.

That's the appropriate way of handling funds. That's the way to keep

administration tight. It's the way to keep politics out of any awards

that are made.

When bills like this are brought before the House, it opens it all

up to political favouritism and political abuse — no matter how worthy

that particular project may be. I'm not going into the individual

sections now. I'm speaking on the principle.

What it is doing is taking money for parks that should be in our

estimates books under votes 239 or 240 and placing it under the

discretion, not of the Minister and his department — that is the

responsible Minister and his department — but the Minister of Finance

and those people he appoints. You read the bill. That's not the

appropriate way to handle funds.

The interest on the money that is in this phantom fund goes back to

consolidated revenue. But, Mr. Speaker, if there are unexpended funds

in our estimate books the unexpended funds go directly back to

consolidated revenue anyway.

So what are we taking it all out for and putting it in this special

bill? Taking the control of these funds away from the civil service and

away from the responsible Minister if it isn't for political purposes?

Why else would we have this special bill? Why wouldn't it be under

estimates — the way it belongs?

Mr. Speaker, is there some other reason than political gain which is

done first of all by the publicity, I suppose, that the Premier would

hope to get from this special fund but also in the way it can be

managed?

Quite clearly powers are given under this Act that would never exist

if these funds for park development were to be administrated by the

civil service. Mr. Speaker, we have enough government by

order-in-council. We have enough instances where the public's funds are

ducked from view.

We all know in this province that there is no public accounts

committee as such — there's a private accounts committee. Those funds

which disappear into any of these special funds are outside the

scrutiny of the Members of the House who are elected by the people.

Because the principle of the bill is wrong, Mr. Speaker, even if the purpose of the bill is right we cannot support it.

MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable Member for Delta.

MR. R. WENMAN (Delta): Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like

to commend the fact that we're going to have more money for further

development, even green belt development as well as included in this

bill.

I'd like to commend the government for the establishment of the many

fine parks in British Columbia. Certainly as I think of the Bowron Lake

Park, a great participating park, canoeing, hiking; as I think about

hiking up the Black Tusk … I could go on and on and on and list the

tremendous parks of the province.

I would like to suggest, however, that through this fund of

accelerated park development we consider some new concepts. The new

concept that I'd like to propose today is what I would like to have

become known as Sunday parks.

It seems to me in our society today we have a trend for the

decentralisation of the family. Just because it is a trend doesn't mean

that it's right. I think it is a trend that should be countered. I

think it should be countered by attempting to make ways in which

families can participate together.

So I would like to encourage this Sunday parks concept. The Sunday

park, by my definition, would include these kind of attributes. It

would be an area closely related to densely-populated areas — the lower

mainland is only one example. I'll just use that one briefly. It should

be an area, a kind of park, that the family could drive to in an hour

or two from their home. It must be located close by because a family

cannot drive long, long distances in a car and get out of the car in a

good mood. So they have to be close, an hour to two hour's drive at the

most.

The activities in these Sunday parks must be family centred. They

could include many facilities like adventure playgrounds — that's the

kind of playground where you don't bring in the commercial swing and so

forth but you put a log up here and you can hike or climb up the log or

you can climb up the stairs to a tree-house or you can swing on a rope

across a ravine kind of thing or you can just hike along the edge of

the water of the bank. But very much a participation centre type of

park facility.

It may be too that as they are developed it might even be necessary

in a longer term because of their proximity to areas close to densely

populated areas that there will have to be a limited access; you allow

so many people in the park and that will be it for each Sunday and it

will be a matter of providing for more and more parks as the need grows.

Now just to establish one idea — a concrete example of where this

might be done. This could be done in many, many different ways and many

different places. I would like to suggest there's a great area in north

Delta at the foot of the hill called Burns Bog. Some areas of it are

being preserved as an ecological reserve through the youth

opportunities grant last year. They have established hiking trails. You

go hiking through the bog, a very interesting experience and a kind of

ecology that is available. This is one of the few areas in the world

that it is available.

So at any rate, you could start with the bog and establish hiking

trails in the bog area and the hiking trails then could continue on and

with the relocation of the Burlington Northern Railway from the shores

of White Rock and Crescent Beach areas, you could carry that hiking

trail on all the way from Burns Bog down across the mouth of the

Nicomekl-Serpentine River which will be a wildlife preserve type of

area …

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. I believe the Member is speaking

beside the principle of the bill. I think that this is the sort of

dialogue that might take place after the bill is passed between those

who would be administering the bill and within the terms of its

provisions rather than the outlining of all types of programmes that

may be conducted under the bill. So with great respect I would ask him

to try to keep to the principle of the bill.

MR. WENMAN: Alright, Mr. Speaker, I will very briefly

[ Page 722 ]

summarise then and I'll present this during the Minister's estimates once again.

But I would like to just say that I think that we could establish a

great Sunday park kind of area in the lower mainland as a principle in

this bill. A book of Sunday parks could be established and from this

area I'm very pleased to see that green belt protection fund Act and I

intend to support this bill hoping that from the funds of this bill we

can establish and buy back the Burlington Northern right-of-way for

Sunday parks. Thank you.

MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable Member for Oak Bay.

MR. G.S. WALLACE (Oak Bay): I'd like to go on record as

supporting this bill. We think the aim is very worth while of

developing parks, and in this particular instance in passing I would

say that we would certainly favour using it for some of the purposes

which are very timely such as the controversy over the Nitinat Triangle.

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

MR. WALLACE: I'm speaking of the royal "we" being the Conservative Party.

Interjections by Hon. Members.

MR. WALLACE: That's what the royal "wee" is. 'Wee" meaning tiny, but we'll be strong one day, Mr. Member. I would also …

AN HON. MEMBER: Only one voice.

MR. WALLACE: Everything has to have a start, Mr. Speaker. But I would have to agree with the Honourable leader …

Interjections by Hon. Members.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

MR. WALLACE: I would also like to go along with the

Honourable leader of the Liberal Party in pointing out that in this

kind of goal while I and the Conservative Party agree with the goal of

providing jobs and using the mechanism of park development to provide

these jobs, we feel as has been stated very clearly that this kind of

project under responsibility and the financing should be done through

the appropriate Minister.

This is not the proper way to do it in terms of having the financing

and the administration of the fund clearly open to scrutiny and

criticism. I think this applies to these other bills.

There's no point in being repetitive. It is felt by the Conservative

Party that this kind of statute also is too vague, inasmuch that the

manner in which the fund will be used is very poorly defined. When

anything is poorly and ill-defined, it is certainly more subject to

abuse and to being used for purposes other than the stated intent.

It also leaves considerable discretion to the Minister of Finance to

delegate authority which this House might not otherwise approve if it

were outlined in the bill. We feel that more detail should be available

in the statute with less authority included in the regulations to the

bill.

Nevertheless, despite these disadvantages I will support the bill.

MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable lady Minister without Portfolio.

HON. G. McCARTHY (Minister without Portfolio): Mr. Speaker, I

would just like to mention a couple of things in referring to the

address made by the Honourable leader of the Liberal Party in speaking

to this bill.

The Liberal Member points to the inappropriate use of funds by the

federal administration in various ways. I certainly would agree with

him on that. I'm sure there isn't anyone in this House who would not

agree. I have in front of me, in fact, a clipping regarding the $150

million local initiatives programme where some thousands of dollars

have been given to a devil-worshippers' fund, which is an example of

what the Liberal Leader was trying to point out to us.

I think it's quite a red letter day, actually, Mr. Speaker, because

this is really the first admission we've had in this House this session

that the Liberal apologists really do agree with us that there has been

misappropriation of tax money by the Liberal administration.

But to refer to the Act, Mr. Speaker, there has been a question

raised of the definition of the Act. The question has been raised, why

would it be other than a political purpose that we would be putting

this in a separate bill. And can I just refer the Honourable Members of

this House to the explanatory notes, which are very clear.

The explanatory notes say that the purpose of this bill and the

appropriation of moneys to this account is for firstly, creating

employment opportunities. Mr. Speaker, I think that that is probably

the most important aspect of the bill for all that I am probably in

this House as much a park enthusiast as any of the Members here. But

the fact that it creates employment, and if you will recall, Mr.

Speaker, these funds were set up at a time when the policies of the

national government were such that the creation of employment was so

necessary that this government decided to do something about meeting

the unemployment situation.

The second purpose of the bill is very clear. It is to create and

improve parks for British Columbia. Surely no Member in this House can

argue with that concept.

In the City of Vancouver, the city and the constituency which I

represent, we have Stanley Park which has now five million visitors per

year and Queen Elizabeth Park which has 2.5 million visitors a year

within five years there will be millions visiting those two parks alone

— millions more.

The national government that the Liberal leader is so keen in always

apologising for has in the next 10 years suggested 80 National Parks

for Canada. I'd like you to know, Mr. Speaker, that in the announcement

of those parks only one is going to be given to the Province of British

Columbia, so if this government does not pay attention to the provision

of open space and park land for the future of British Columbians may I

say that we can't count on the national administration so to do.

I would hope that every Member in this House would support a bill

which addresses itself to a very great need for the citizens of British

Columbia, for our future park acquisition and improvement programme and

for creating employment in a time when surely we have never needed it

so much.

MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable the Member for Burnaby-Edmonds.

MR G.H. DOWDING (Burnaby-Edmonds): Mr Speaker,

[ Page 723 ]

the remarks of the lady Member who just sat down

remind me that she would take a detour right around, the Howe Sound

area through Grouse Mountain, Golden Ears Park in order to take a

thrust at Ottawa. We're not discussing what Ottawa does or doesn't do.

But how we're going to finance park development in British Columbia by

this government.

I would suggest, Mr. Speaker, that it's always the primary

responsibility of the elected Ministers of the Crown to determine on

the question of what is a proper purpose in creating or improving parks

in the province.

I look with some disquiet on the proposal in this bill that the

Minister of Finance may pay amounts as he may consider requisite or

advisable upon certification by the Comptroller General. Seems to me

that if anything goes wrong at any time it makes the Comptroller

General the person on the hot seat instead of the Minister of Finance.

Surely the government and the cabinet have to take responsibility, and

they're a responsible government, for the selection of parks for

accelerated development or acquisition.

I'm going to suggest that this plan or proposal would be more useful

if it was spelled out in greater detail, how it will be decided. What

parks may be created or improved? I'll give you an example of the

problem that arises. The Department of Lands has a general

administration of the Crown lands of British Columbia. From time to

time they try to protect as best they may areas that they think might

be useful for future recreational purposes. But it's very difficult for

them unless they have some over-all planning with the parks and

recreational department to know precisely what the plans in the future

will be by that department.

One point I would like to make in this regard is sort of a

laboratory example of the problem. Up near Pitt Lake, a very beautiful

lake for recreation, adjoining it now logging roads go up near Pitt

Lake, lead to a cliff — above which is one of the most beautiful areas

for a park you could ever imagine.

Flying over it closely or landing on that lake you find yourself in

a scenic wonderland that makes Lake Louise or some of the other park

areas of Canada seem pale by comparison.

Using that as an example, the parks and recreation seem to know

nothing about it. The Minister of Finance knows nothing about it,

presumably. But the lands department suddenly gets from people who are

concerned with staking ground an application in the lands department

for use of the lake shore for summer homes.

Well, of course, that's fine for somebody with an airplane. But it's

going to destroy the purposes of this Act if there's not some

relationship between what the Department of Lands does, the Department

of Parks and Recreation and the Minister of Finance. Nowhere in this

bill is there provision for that basic principle of co-ordination

between these departments to see that the land is protected for

acquisition or creation of parks or improving of parks.

I wish the government would spend more time spelling it out, either

in this bill or some other bill — the method by which some of the most

beautiful land of British Columbia is going to be protected and

reserves placed upon it by concerted efforts of the different

departments concerned.

MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable Member for New Westminster.

MR. D.G. COCKE (New Westminster): Mr. Speaker, when this bill

was introduced and read a first time the Members of the Opposition, and

I'm sure the public, were surprised.

Really surprised! Because it came from a government that has

provided an opportunity for the erosion of parks over the years in the

Province of British Columbia. So that's why we were surprised. They

provided an opportunity for the erosion at the rate of over 1,000 acres

a month since that government's been in power therefore it was a real

surprise.

We're delighted! We're suspicious of the method of financing. We're

delighted on the other hand that there's some repentance here and that

there is in fact going to be some effort made to restore some

responsible order with respect to development of park land in this

province.

You know, we've lived with this matter of parks boundaries being

re-drawn to favour a large logging company. We've seen mining companies

influence the geography of a park and in fact change the entire

boundary of a park. So from that standpoint we were surprised.

You know, when I stood up and listened to the Hon. Minister from

Little Mountain (Hon. Mrs. McCarthy) taking credit for Stanley Park and

Little Mountain Park and so on, believe me we are very happy in this

party that that government didn't have access to Stanley Park and

Little Mountain Park because we'd likely have lost it to a logging

company. Thank you.

Interjections by Hon. Members.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Can we get back to the principle of this bill? The Honourable Member for Dewdney.

MR. G. MUSSALLEM (Dewdney): Mr. Speaker, any proper thinking

person in this House is in favour of this bill and so am 1. But I made

a clear statement here and I didn't stand in my place simply to say

that. It wasn't important enough because everyone knows that has any

sense at all that's a great bill.

The only reason I stand in my place is to take exception with the

first Member for Vancouver–Point Grey (Mr. McGeer) when he had the

audacity to say that the public accounts committee should be the

private accounts committee. He said this before and every time he says

it I will challenge him. Because he is suffering from a disease called

frustrationitus. He's in there in Room 221 examining accounts and can't

find a thing wrong. This is terrible.

MR. G.B. GARDOM (Vancouver–Point Grey): Order! Order!

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! Please keep to the principle of Bill No. 19.

MR. MUSSALLEM: Yes, I'm speaking of that exactly. But I must

correct the impression that any money spent by this House is not

available for inspection by the House. I am the chairman of the public

accounts committee and I say to that Member that any amount, even every

single dime spent by the government, is available for inspection. So

what is he talking about? It's a lot of nonsense, and it should be

stopped right here.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The Honourable Premier closes the debate.

HON. MR. BENNETT: Mr. Speaker, I'm alarmed sometimes at the

Opposition trying to always sow doubt in the minds of the public.

Always playing politics with even a bill

[ Page 724 ]

such as this.

Interjections by Hon. Members.

HON. MR. BENNETT: I want to say this. Surely the Members, Mr.

Speaker, in this House, even the Opposition Members should know that

the money spent in this bill will be handled by the civil service, be

handled by the comptroller and the people in the department and the

Minister and, the people in the department of the parks department.

They all know that! But all they try to do is sow distrust in the minds

of the public,

Interjections by Hon Members.

HON. MR. BENNETT: I want to say this. The people of this

province have every reason to support this government and every reason

to keep the Opposition out — and they will!

Interjections by Hon. Members.

HON. MR. BENNETT: A similar bill last year, Mr. Speaker, was

brought forward mainly because the federal government's avowed policy

was to create unemployment in Canada and our students in the

universities and the high schools as well as other citizens found it

difficult to get jobs.

There's one bill that we passed last year, if was one alone, created

over 1,600 new jobs. I want to say this bill will create an equal

number of new jobs this year and the students in the universities and

others when this bill is passed should make application through the

Civil Service Commission for these jobs. Because they will be available.

Mr. Speaker, this is a bill the government is very proud to present to the House and I move second reading.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The question is that Bill No. 19 be now read a second time.

HON. MR. BENNETT: Division, I think. Division.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The Hon. Member for Burnaby North.

MRS. E.E. DAILLY (Burnaby North): Mr. Speaker, I want to point out that when that division was called there was only one Member standing.

AN HON. MEMBER: One man rules.

Interjections by Hon. Members.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! Order, please!

AN HON. MEMBER: Secret votes. Secret. That's one of their things that's secret.

Interjections by Hon. Members.

HON. MR. BENNETT: You're, dividing it.

Inteijections by Hon. Members.

AN HON. MEMBER: I challenge your ruling, Mr. Speaker.

HON. MR. BENNETT: Challenge the ruling.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh! Oh!

Interjections by Hon. Members.

MR. E. LeCOURS (Richmond): Point of order, Mr. Speaker;

Contrary to the statement of the Hon. Member for Burnaby North (Mrs.

Dailly), I was standing. There were at least two.

MR. McGEER: Point of order, Mr. Speaker.

MR. LeCOURS: I was standing!

Interjections by Hon. Members.

MR. McGEER: Standing orders very clearly state that three

Members shall be standing. You said one Member was standing. Every

single person in this House saw that the Premier was the only person on

his feet.

MR. LeCOURS: I was standing!

MR. McGEER: Now just a

minute, Mr. Speaker, are you ruling that the Premier stood to challenge

your ruling? Was he challenging the fact that three people are required

to stand before a vote is taken? Or was he challenging the fact that

you didn't see two other phantoms that might have been there as his

shadows?

DEPUTY SPEAKER: There seems to be a question here. Some indicated that they were standing as well.

MR. McGEER: Oh, Mr. Speaker, let's have the three you said, they should stand up now.

AN HON. MEMBER: Let's put them on oath.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh! Oh! Oh! Shame!

MR. McGEER: We saw you were down!

AN HON. MEMBER: I called for that division.

Interjections by Hon. Members.

MR. McGEER: You people are just …

Interjections by Hon. Members.

MR. GARDOM: Where are your ethics? Where are your ethics?

MR. W.F. JEFCOAT (Shuswap): My point of order is that I saw

the lady Member stand and the Member down here stand. I didn't see the

man behind me but I saw the …

Interjections by Hon. Members.

MR. JEFCOAT: I'm not out of place.

MR. D. BARRETT (Leader of the Opposition): May I …

Interjections by Hon. Members.

[ Page 725 ]

MR. BARRETT: You recognise other points of order and you won't recognise me.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I will recognise the Hon. Member as well. Just one moment please.

Interjections by Hon. Members.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The Hon. Leader of the Opposition.

What is your point of order?

MR. BARRETT: Mr. Speaker, as I understand it you have made a ruling that you saw only one person

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I have not made a ruling.

MR. BARRETT: May I finish please?

AN HON. MEMBER: We challenge your findings

MR. BARRETT: The ruling has been announced to the House

AN HON. MEMBER: Wrong, wrong!

MR. BARRETT: … right or wrong, Mr. Speaker, let us keep order in the House. If you have made …

Interjections by Hon. Members.

MR. BARRETT: Mr. Speaker, you have made a ruling …

AN HON. MEMBER: No ruling.

MR. BARRETT: A ruling was made. If you didn't hear that then

you weren't standing either. Mr. Speaker, you made a ruling that there

was only one person on their feet. That ruling has been challenged. I

say, I put the question to you. I now put the question on your ruling.

HON. L.R. PETERSON (Attorney General): Point of order, Mr. Speaker.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: What is your point of order?

HON. MR. PETERSON: It's a mistaken impression that it requires three people to ask for a division. I would refer …

MR. BARRETT: We're dealing with a ruling.

HON. MR. PETERSON: I would refer, Mr. Speaker, to standing order No. 16 if you wish the vote to be recorded in the Journal

then it has to be demanded by three Members. But my point is that it

does not require three Members standing in their place to call for a

division in this House and never has. However it requires the three

Members to stand in their place if you want the results of that

division, once the vote has been taken, to be recorded.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The point taken by the Attorney General is correct.

MR. BARRETT: Mr. Speaker, I ask you on your earlier ruling — what is your decision on your own ruling?

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I made no official ruling.

Interjections by Hon. Members.

MR. BARRETT: Mr. Speaker, I distinctly heard the Chair

announce that there was only one speaker on their feet and there would

be no division.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: If there had been a ruling it would have been final. We have had discussion on pros and cons of the situation.

MR. BARRETT: I heard a ruling.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The situation is now clarified and there are

indications that there were three Members who claim they stood

requesting the division.

MR. BARRETT: All right. Mr. Speaker, I now put it to you this

way. If we are accepting the Attorney General's

interpretation, as

obviously you are, then we proceed with he division. I ask you this — will the division be recorded since there was only one person on their

feet? Or, will there be permission asked for it to be recorded? Because

there were not three people on their feet.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The Honourable Member knows full well that a

recording has to be asked for at the time the division is completed and

the announcement made on it.

MR. BARRETT: Oh, if you interpret this correctly you say three people have to be on their feet for it to be recorded.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The question is that Bill No. 19 be now read a second time.

Motion approved on the following division.

YEAS-45

Ney

Strachan

Bennett

Merilees

Dowding

Peterson

Marshall

Nimsick

Black

Wallace

Barrett

Fraser

Cocke

Dailly, Mrs.

Campbell, B

Hartley

Vogel

Wolfe

Lorimer

LeCours

Smith

Hall

Little

McDiarmid

Williams, R.A.

Jefcoat

Chabot

Calder

Tisdalle

Skillings

Wenman

McCarthy, Mrs.

Loffmark

Kripps, Mrs.

Jordan, Mrs.

Gaglardi

Mussallem

Dawson, Mrs.

Brothers

Price

Kiernan

Shelford

Macdonald

Williston

Richter

NAYS-4

Rousson

McGeer

Williams, L.A.

Gardom

PAIR

Campbell, D.R.J.

Clark

[ Page 726 ]

Bill No. 19 read a second time and ordered to be placed on orders of the day for committal at the next sitting after today.

HON. MR., BENNETT.: Second reading of Bill No. 20.

ACCELERATED REFORESTATION FUND ACT

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Bill No. 120, Accelerated Reforestation Fund Act . The Hon. Premier.

HON. MR. BENNETT: Mr. Speaker, the 1972 budget speech

stressed the top priority of this government was to create jobs. Hon.

Members are already aware of the "create jobs — make work" aspects of

the Accelerated Park Development Act . Now as a further step in the government's make-work programme, this bill is introduced — the Accelerated Reforestation Fund Act .

$10 million is hereby set aside in a special fund to be used for the

accelerated reforestation or forest improvement programme throughout

the province. This bill also provides that lands acquired by the Crown

under the Green Belt Protection Act

may be used for make-work forestry programmes. This new policy is in

recognition of the importance of British Columbia's number one resource

and through this reforestation programme to protect and perpetuate our

great forests. At the same time additional jobs are created and funds

will be drawn down immediately this bill is passed so that the

programme and the jobs may be started as soon as possible.

Mr. Speaker, I'm sure it's not necessary for me again to draw to the

attention of the House that the money in this bill will be handled by

the Department of Forestry, the ministry of forests, handled through

the Civil Service Commission, through the comptroller of the

departments and all the proper way and to create a great number of new

jobs in our province and at the same time help reforestation in our

province.

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

HON. MR. BENNETT: All this government's good policies help our election. Certainly they do. I move second reading.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The Honourable second Member for Vancouver East.

MR. R.A. WILLIAMS (Vancouver East): That's just blatant

nonsense we've got from the Minister of Finance with respect to this

bill. The Premier himself has written in a report to the federal

government about the actual real needs for reforestation in this

province. The Minister of Lands and Forests is fully aware of what the

real needs for reforestation are in this province and to come up with

this bill and have the audacity to call it acceleration is nothing

short of incredible.

Acceleration! There are the equivalent of two and one-third

Vancouver Islands in British Columbia that were not properly

reforested. Two and one-third Vancouver Islands, not satisfactorily

re-stocked — weeds. And the mammoth jobs that are necessary to catch up

in this province isn't going to be touched by this bill. It's barely

going to be touched. What did the Premier say? That two and one-third

Vancouver Islands figure, Mr. Speaker, comes from the Scandinavians who

have prepared some reports on this matter.

In a report from the Premier, the Minister of Finance, to the

federal government in Ottawa, September 14, 1970, he had this to say

about reforestation.

"British Columbia is currently planting 25 million

trees at a cost of $3.5 million as part of a five-year programme to

plant 75 million trees by 1975 with a budget of $10 million."

But, said the Premier:

"This goal only takes care of current needs. To

provide for areas requiring reforestation (and he indicated expansion

in the annual cut) requires an increase in the annual planting

programme of 175 million trees which will cost an estimated $18 million

a year."

By the Premier's own admission a proper reforestation programme in

British Columbia would cost $18 million a year and he has the gall to

come up with this bill and call it an accelerated programme.

It's $10 million. It's a one-shot $10 million fling that will create

some jobs but won't come anywhere near dealing with the kind of

ravaging that has taken place in the environment at the government's

hands in the past 20 years.

We've got an annual budget here now in the estimates of about $4

million for tree planting and for nursery work — $4 million and he

admits that we need $18 million. Even with this one shot, the $10

million in the floor, he's not coming anywhere near what is necessary

for annual programmes.

You know, way back in 1911, in the Teddy Roosevelt era, we developed

a commission of conservation in Canada at the national level and the

Commission of Conservation prepared in 1911 a report on the forestry

problems of British Columbia. Mr. Flumerfelt prepared that report.

They point out that there's a need for a major sinking fund in

British Columbia to deal with the whole question of reforestation in

the province back at that time. As they state: "We recommend the

establishment of a forest sinking fund."

They saw royalties from the forests, adequate royalties, as true

forest capital and that it should be returned to a substantial degree

back into the land itself so that we would in fact have a resource in

perpetuity.

The Premier has the audacity to get up in this House today and talk

about perpetual forests when what we've had is massive waste and not

the kind of programme that's needed and this bill is really just a

minor admission by the prodigal son that there was in fact a bit of a

problem. It's a Band-aid when we're haemorrhaging with respect to this

major problem and this major industry of ours.

You can talk about jobs. It will create some jobs for young people

this summer and that's worth while but these are jobs that should be

available every summer to young people all of the time. There should be

more jobs than this if we were tackling the problem seriously. We're

talking about Crown lands, provincial assets, and this waste and

ravaging has taken place on the Crown lands of British Columbia.

I'm sorry to say that the private sector has done a better job than

the province itself has on these lands and as the Honourable the

Minister knows, I'm hardly one to sing the praises of the private

sector of the forest industry in this province. But in this sphere

they're doing a far more adequate job than yourselves. You can talk

about jobs, but the very fact that you're not planting trees — trees

that are needed — means that you're eliminating jobs for the future.

When you've got two and one-third Vancouver Islands in weeds in this

province, then you're eliminating jobs that are in the future. This

bill is simply an admission of failure in a

[ Page 727 ]

vital field that you have chosen to ignore during your 20 years in office.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The Honourable first Member for Vancouver-Point Grey.

MR. McGEER: Mr. Speaker, we got about the phoniest

explanation for a bill we've ever had when this bill was introduced by

the Minister of Finance.

He told us all about how this was a fund to be administered by the

civil service as though it were something introduced into our estimates

under the reforestation and forest nursery vote. That's vote No. 146

and if a reforestation fund is to appear in the proper way before the

civil service it comes under vote 146.

This bill is nothing but a direct slap at the civil service and at

the Minister who is responsible for reforestation because

section 3 of

this Act, despite the protestations of the Minister of Finance, spells

out very clearly that the Minister of Finance may appoint a person or

persons to advise him with respect to the expenditures of moneys from

the accelerated reforestation fund.

The Minister of Finance does it now. Not the Minister of Lands and

Forests, nor the deputy, nor the civil service, nor the people who

always in the past have been charged with the responsibility of looking

after the reforestation in British Columbia. Now it's the Minister of

Finance and his political friends. Because this is what we've got again

and again in this House — a denial of the civil service, a denial of

the Legislature. Instead, the surplus accounts of this province are

taken for the personal aggrandisement of the Minister of Finance to

distribute to persons he sees fit to appoint.

It's a complete lack of accountability for the funds that the people

pay in their taxes and funds that the M.L.A.s and particularly Members

of the Opposition are here to watch being spent.

Mr. Speaker, we had another outrageous suggestion being made by the

Member for Dewdney (Mr. Mussallem) who's chairman of the public

accounts committee. I sit on that committee and I've been trying to

find out for years where the $2.1 billion of funds that have slipped

out of sight of this Legislature in the same manner that the money in

Bill No. 20 is going to disappear …

AN HON. MEMBER: That's not right.

MR. McGEER: I have been trying to find out how those moneys

are being spent and the second Member for Vancouver-Burrard (Mr. Price)

says this isn't right. But every year when we go to public account we

try and find out where money is being spent and he says: "Put in your

request for vouchers."

Now, Mr. Speaker, I challenge the Member for Dewdney (Mr. Mussallem)

or the second Member for Vancouver-Burrard (Mr. Price) or any Member of

the House or the Press or the public to say what vote number this is

going to come under. It doesn't come under any vote number. You can't

find any vouchers for this, it's just slipped right out of sight to

people that the Minister of Finance may appoint.

We don't quarrel with reforestation

anymore than we quarrel with parks — indeed we've been asking for more

money for these projects for years, long before the N.D.P. have been

asking for it. But there is a place in our estimate books where moneys

that go for reforestation should be voted and moneys that go for parks

should be voted.

I don't expect any better from the Minister of Finance. It's typical

of the way he's performed. I certainly don't expect any better from the

Social Credit backbenchers who pop up whenever he pops up and pop down

whenever he pops down. They're just a bunch of puppets on a string.

What really disappoints me is the official Opposition because

they're the ones who should be opposing and the Member for Kootenay

(Mr. Nimsick) stood up and he pointed out exactly what was wrong with

the last bill. So did the Member for Oak Bay (Mr. Wallace). But when

it's time to stand up and be counted as Opposition, they're right with

the government. They don't have the courage to stand for principle,

just like they won't have the courage to stand for the principle of

this bill.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The Honourable Member has no right to question the courage of any Member. Will the Member withdraw that?

MR. McGEER: Either you believe in scrutinizing the public accounts or you don't.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Will the Honourable Member withdraw that remark?

MR.McGEER: Which remark?

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The Member has no right to question the courage of any Honourable Member in this House. Will you withdraw that remark?

MR. McGEER: May I question their lack of courage, Mr. Speaker?

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The Member may not.

MR. McGEER: May I be truthful, Mr. Speaker?

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I would expect every Member to be truthful …

MR. McGEER: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: … But also courteous to the Honourable Members. The Honourable Member should withdraw that remark.

MR. McGEER: How can I express it nicely? I'm searching for words.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: That is not the Chair's responsibility as to

how you should express it but when you make improper expressions it is

your responsibility to withdraw them.

MR. McGEER: Very well, Mr. Speaker, I withdraw the implication that the Member lacked courage, but I don't know how one expresses a …

DEPUTY SPEAKER: May I further point out that the Member is not dealing with the principle of this bill.

MR. McGEER: No, I was dealing with the fortitude or lack of it, on part of the Members of the Opposition.

[ Page 728 ]

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The Honourable Member has no right to reflect

on a business of this House that has already been passed and dealt

with. Now will you proceed with the principle of Bill No. 20 or take

your seat?

MR. McGEER: Well, I'm delighted, and I was proceeding as

rapidly as I could, Mr. Speaker, before you interrupted. I could only

say that the principle of this bill is to take money out of

consolidated revenue, to give a blank cheque to the Minister of

Finance, to disburse to persons that he may appoint, to take it outside

the scrutiny of the Minister who should be responsible, to take it

outside the scrutiny of the civil service, to take it outside the

scrutiny of the Legislature, to take it outside the scrutiny of public

accounts, to put it in with the $2.1 billion that has gone out of sight

already in British Columbia and which we can't pursue as elected

Members …

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Will the Honourable Member come back to the principle of the bill?

MR. McGEER: It's a denial of the civil service, of the democratic process and we oppose it.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The Honourable Minister of Lands, Forests and Water Resources.

HON. R.G. WILLISTON (Minister of Lands, Forests and Water Resources):

Mr. Speaker, after listening to that diatribe that the Honourable

Member just delivered, he didn't even believe it himself because he

hasn't even read the bill. He hasn't even read the bill.

MR. McGEER: I have read the bill very carefully two or three times.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Will the Honourable Member please be seated?

HON. MR. WELLISTON: I will gladly withdraw the fact that he

didn't read the bill. He didn't understand it when he read it, that's

all that's the matter. And the fact is Mr. Speaker …

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Will the Honourable Member please be seated?

HON. MR. WILLISTON: He did not understand it. There's an officer of this House …

DEPUTY SPEAKER: For the last time will the Member for Point

Grey (Mr. McGeer) be seated? Will the Member for Point Grey be seated

or leave the House? That is just enough of that. Will the Honourable

Member be seated?

HON. MR. WILLISTON: There's an officer of this Legislature,

the officer of this Legislature is the Comptroller General, you and any

Member can ask for any expenditure that's made out of any Act that's

authorised by the Comptroller General to be deposited before the public

accounts committee — every expenditure that's made has to be certified

by the Comptroller General, it's stated in this Act, and to indicate

that the civil servants and other people it's just straight untrue and

a great misrepresentation.

When people get up and try to put that across the country, Mr.

Speaker, they're not worthy of representation in this House. They are

not. It's stated right here and to indicate the opposite is just not

permissible. However, Mr. Speaker …

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I think the Honourable Member was very close

to leaving an improper reflection there on the Members and he should

either withdraw, or reword his remark.

HON. MR. WILLISTON: I'm not quite sure, but I would gladly

withdraw, Mr. Speaker. Because I think the sooner we get off this type

of situation on the vote the better it happens to be, and I didn't lead

it into this type of a situation in the first place, in the discussion.

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

HON. MR. WILLISTON: I was very sure of what I said. Because I was just quoting a matter that happened to be in there.

MR. BARRETT: Do what the Speaker said, withdraw.

HON. MR. WILLISTON: I did, I said that the Comptroller

General as pointed out, had to prove each expenditure in here. And to

infer that nobody had any control over it was a direct

misrepresentation of what was in the statute and I say it again.

MR. BARRETT: If what the Member is saying is correct, he is deliberately misleading the House.

AN HON. MEMBER: He used the word "deliberately"…

AN HON. MEMBER - No he didn't say it …

Interjections by Hon. Members.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: It is up to the Leader of the Opposition to withdraw the word "deliberate."

HON. MR. BENNETT: Lend him one of the new hearing aids.

HON. MR. WILLISTON: Mr. Speaker, just one or two words on the

side to take it away from the Honourable Member from Vancouver East

(Mr. R.A. Williams). Some of the problems that we have within the field

of reforestation and some of those things that we are accomplishing, or

can accomplish — some that we can carry out with additional work

creation when we have the opportunities in particular areas.

As the Honourable Member really knows — and he knows better than

likely most Members in this House — many of the areas require extensive

preparation work, before they can be effectively reforested in the

first place. This means snag removal, even burning, in some of the

areas to which he has made reference — and nobody denies the fact that

there are large areas of not satisfactorily restocked land in the

Province of British Columbia and they've accumulated since the time we

first have had forestry.

[ Page 729 ]

At our accumulated cutting rate at the present time keeping pace with the problem, as we have indicated, is of great difficulty.

We are, as it has been stated, on a programme of planting 75 million

trees a year, but to enable us to plant 75 million trees a year, we

have to have a backlog of funds to enable us to prepare sites for the

effective planting of these areas. The Honourable Member I think

realises that fact even better than anyone else in this House.

A factor in there is that when you put it in, when you're asking for

actual annual sum expenditures in this as it happens to come, that is

in the total, largely dependent upon the areas in which you have been

lucky enough, or have been able to gather the seed at the particular

time to get it into your nursery programme, to get it right through and

back into the elevation and the area — the site to which you happen to

be located.

Some of that area requires from time to time, an expenditure of

funds out of all relationship in this specific situation to your annual

requirement.

This vote, even as we're moving at the present time within my own

department, within my own forest officers, it's already being planned

in use as the situation goes at the present time. Mr. Speaker, I urge

all those Members in this House — restating again that the every

expenditure goes through an officer not outside this House, but who can

be called before the bar of this House, or before a committee of this

House to explain the expenditure — I don't plead, I don't, I ask that

this vote be given special attention by everyone who happens to sit in

this House, and represents people in the Province of British Columbia

who are in any way connected with this general economic activity.

MR. McGEER: Point of order. The Minister when he was up

making his address, suggested that the moneys in this bill a were

accountable through public accounts. He does not sit on the public

accounts committee. I do sit on the public r accounts committee. What

he said was absolutely false and I ask him to retract it.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Will the Honourable Member please be seated, and stop interrupting with facetious points of order?

MR. McGEER: It's not a facetious point of order at all. He

left the wrong impression with the House. He doesn't sit on the public

accounts committee, I do.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The Honourable Member for Oak Bay.

MR. WALLACE: Mr. Speaker, I would just like to comment that

the citizens of British Columbia are well aware of the tremendous

importance of the forest industry. In our economy, frequently

mentioned, 50 cents of every $1 comes indirectly, or directly from our

trees. And therefore any programme which will enhance that part of our

economy must surely be supported, and in this regard I would ask

permission to comment on the fact that the Honourable leader of the

Liberal Party seems to think that because you cannot oppose in things

which are not necessarily black and white that you are a wiffle-waffler

if you support the government. Well, I think it's a function …

AN HON. MEMBER: Who's the wiffle-waffle?

MR. WALLACE: Oh, one of your honourable colleagues accused me

of being a wiffle-waffler, whatever that is. But I would suggest, Mr.

Speaker, that in a matter such as this the issue is such that the aim

of the bill is very creditable, but that there are aspects of the bill

which certainly I myself and the Conservative Party would prefer to see

handled differently, and I would agree that as I read this bill the

Minister of Lands and Forests has suggested that on this side of the

House we don't understand what the bill says.

But the fact of the matter is that it does state in

section 3 that

the Minister of Finance may appoint a person or persons to advise him

with respect to expenditure of moneys. It is my feeling that this kind

of disbursement of financing should be done under the Minister

responsible for the department dealing with forests, and of course

accountable to the House, as he is for all the other items that are

listed in his estimates.

I would also support the bill because it will provide jobs and if

we're helping the forest industry, and if we're providing jobs I would

find it very difficult to oppose this bill. But I don't think that

takes away from the right of any individual Member of the Opposition to

point out — and what really burns me up about politics, Mr. Speaker, to

be quite blunt about it, is that apparently because you can't agree 100

per cent of the time, you're expected to oppose.

I would submit that where I as an individual Member find a great

deal worth while in a bill, to oppose it because there is in my opinion

also something wrong with the bill I feel is something that brings

politics into disrepute.

If I chose to vote as I do, and be accused of being a

wiffle-waffler, I accept that accusation. But, Mr. Speaker, for these

reasons the fact that this is a very worthwhile aim to accelerate the

reforestation in the province, I can't speak on authority on this — the

Honourable second Member from Vancouver East (Mr. R.A. Williams) knows

a great deal more and he may be correct that we're not going fast

enough.

But it would seem to me that at least we are going in the right

direction, and this is a step in the right direction albeit it may not

be fast enough, or in sufficient quantity. But surely one could then

suggest to the Premier, that this be maintained and this not be a

one-shot deal and that we should continue this programme year by year.

I would however repeat that I do not like the idea of being under

the Minister of Finance in the terms outlined in the bill. I would also

repeat that I think the statute could spell in greater detail the

specific manner in which the money is likely to be used.

I would again repeat that we are opposed to the idea of so much

authority being spelled into regulations about which this House, at

this time or any other time does not have the right to debate and

amend. But for the various reasons I have mentioned, I propose to

support this bill.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The Honourable Member for Cowichan-Malahat.

MR. R.M. STRACHAN (Cowichan-Malahat): Well, Mr.Speaker, it's

second reading. We vote on the principle of this bill. The principle of

the bill is that we plant more trees in Brisish Columbia — and who can

vote against planting more trees in the logged-off areas of this

province?

The last Sloan Royal Commission report indicates I think a

short-fall of 20 million acres, I think that was the figure, that then

Chief Justice Sloan included in his report of land that required

reforestation in this province.

Nothing that has happened from that day to this — and I

[ Page 730 ]

think that was 1956 — has allowed us to catch up on

that 20 million acres. And this is what the Premier was talking about

in that submission that he made to Ottawa two years ago. I agreed with

the submission when he made it. He underlined the urgency of that

submission when he took it to Ottawa. The urgency is still there — it's

been there for 17 years that I know of.

This bill only does part of it — and I think the Premier, the

Minister of Finance, is subject to criticism for only doing part of a

job. I agree with the Member from Vancouver East in that criticism.

Because the sooner we get that land into forest production, then we're

restoring some of the real capital of this province, namely its natural

resources, which we are using up pretty fast.

The Premier in his opening remarks talked about — and I'm not going

to get into a long hassle about how this money is handled — the Premier

indicated that it would be through the Civil Service Commission. Now,

actually I rather expect it will be handled as it's now handled. This

week's B.C. Gazette includes five advertisements for tree planting, and it's put out to tender.

Last week's B.C. Gazette

had one advertisement, putting it out to tender. When it's put out to

tender the individual gets the contract and he hires whom he pleased in

order to fulfil that contract. It doesn't go through the Civil Service

Commission, and the Premier was I think in error in indicating that to

the House.

HON. MR. BENNETT: The Premier was in no error.

MR. STRACHAN: The Premier was in no error? So, this means

then that the tree planting is not going to be handled in the way it's

been handled in the past. Here's the B.C. Gazette

of last week, and its notice to contractors prospective bidders for

this contract to plant 60,000 trees on 145 acres more or less in the

spring of 1972 out of this money, that sealed tenders must be received

by the chief forester by 4 p.m. Thursday, March 16, 1972, and it goes

on to indicate the form of tender and so on.

Now, so it's not going to be done this way. He said it's not going

to be handled this way. I would like the Premier to tell us when he

winds up how it is going to be handled through the Civil Service

Commission, because he stressed the fact and he has reiterated that

fact.

This means a completely new policy of handling the tree planting

process in the Province of British Columbia. This is then a principle

inherent in this bill, and the Premier should have told us that when he

opened up his remarks. He should not have sloughed it off and said that

will be handled by the comptroller and the Civil Service Commission.

I would like him in closing to inform us what the new principle is,

under which he is going to go about planting many more trees than we've

handled in the past, through the contract process. And I'll expect an

answer to that when he winds up.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The Honourable Member for West Vancouver-Howe Sound.

MR. L.A. WILLIAMS (West Vancouver–Howe Sound): I only have a couple of matters to add on what the Member from Cowichan-Malahat has just said.

The reforestation programme in this province is not dependent so

much upon the number of acres of land for which reforestation is

requited but indeed upon the stock of seedlings which are available

each year in which to carry on an annual programme.

The reforestation of our lands is not as simple as planting your

lawn. Without an adequate stock of seedlings then an annual

reforestation programme cannot take place.

What bothers me about this bill is that the Minister of Lands,

Forests, and Water Resources knows what the available supply of

seedlings is now and will be in the future. It is possible with that

particular knowledge to know the maximum programme that can be carried

on by his department in reforestation each year.

That's another reason why this kind of money should be provided in

the vote under the estimates of the Minister of Forests because it is

predetermined what the maximum reforestation can be. Whether it is

handled by private contractors or within the forest service itself, it

is possible to know exactly how many trees are available to be planted

and how many men are required to do the job and how many dollars are

required for that purpose.

It isn't necessary, Mr. Speaker, that we have some special person

appointed by the Minister of Finance to advise him on how this should

be done. We already have a Minister who is directly responsible to

carry on this provision.

Then why, if that's the case, didn't the Hon. Minister of Finance

say that he would take the advice of the Minister of Lands, Forests,

and Water Resources instead of some person or persons appointed by him?

This is the trouble with legislation. You leave the openings and the

people aren't satisfied.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The question is that Bill No. 20 be now read a second time.

Motion approved: second reading of the bill.

Bill No. 20 ordered to be placed on orders of the day for committal at the next sitting of the House after today.

HON. MR. BENNETT: Second reading of Bill No. 21, Mr. Speaker.

POWER AND TELEPHONE LINE

BEAUTIFICATION FUND ACT

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Bill No. 21, Power and Telephone Beautification Fund Act . The Honourable Minister of Finance.

HON. MR. BENNETT: To continue this government's policy of

encouraging a more beautiful British Columbia, this government has

turned its attention to the blight caused by overhead wiring in

municipal areas.

To encourage the placing of overhead telephone and power wires

underground, the government proposes in this bill to set up a fund of

$10 million. The moneys in this fund may be used by the province as its

share in a three-way sharing between the province, the municipality,

and the public utility to pay for the placing of wiring underground.

The bill makes it clear that a public utility includes the British

Columbia Hydro and Power Authority.

The government is confident this sharing proposal will result in the

placing of many wires underground in the more densely-populated urban

areas. I am pleased to announce, Mr. Speaker, that several

municipalities have already expressed a keen interest in this new

policy. I move second reading.

[ Page 731 ]

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The Honourable Member for Burnaby-Edmonds.

MR. DOWDING: Mr. Speaker, I certainly approve of the

principle of the bill, but hasten to say that it's an extraordinary

thing that when a municipality is forced by the rights of a superior

government to make available its land and its streets for the ugly and

often quite dangerous electrical facilities and utilities that adorn

those streets by their ugliness, that they should have to participate

in the beautification process that they in no way are responsible for

clearing out.

When the B.C. Electric was the major supplier of electricity in

British Columbia, there was a hearing before the Public Utilities

Commission with respect to the imposing of those very high and ugly

towers along Boundary Road in Burnaby, on the boundary of Vancouver and

Burnaby. At the hearing the Public Utilities Commission was assured by

the public utility that within 10 years these power lines, which are

huge, would be removed and go underground.

Nothing was ever done. That proposal made to the Public Utilities

Commission was never honoured or observed by the successors to the B.C.

Electric, the B.C. Hydro and Power Authority. It strikes me as strange

that these various public utilities can provide the services in effect

on the cheap at the expense of beautification of an area.

The local councils have no control over the imposition of these ugly

erections along the main streets — steel structures often as high as 75

feet or more with as many as six 350 kv. lines, some cases now 550 kv.

lines, strung all over the lower mainland and of course the original

type of wooden poles that are down every street and every lane

throughout British Columbia,

Anyone who looks in more settled areas of the world which have far

less of the resources, the wealth, and the reason for beautification — places like Britain, France, Germany — find to their amazement when

they travel abroad that these places have had underground wiring for

years. These countries look with astonishment and scorn, indeed, upon

us in British Columbia and other places in Canada who have only at this

late stage even considered a beautiful environment as a necessity to

the development of a decent and a better life.

I'm going to suggest that it should not really be at the expense of

the local taxpayers that these utilities clear-up their front yards and

their back yards. It should be the responsibility of this government

and the various public utilities such as the B.C. Hydro, B.C. Telephone

Company, and the cablevision people to clean up their own mess without

the taxpayers having to bear that load directly when they didn't create

it. They didn't want that type of development and they were forced by

this government to accept it under the rules of the Municipal Act and

those particular authorities provided in the statutes.

I think this period under this government has been marked by more

stormy sessions with local landowners complaining in every area of the

province at the way they are expropriated, the way the power of B.C.

Hydro is used against them without any real recourse.

Some of the most beautiful spots, without any regard for the

amenities or the aesthetics of those spots, are being invaded by B.C.

Hydro and its power fines. One can understand why power lines are

perforce required across 500 miles of mountainous territory. But when

you see a power line going unswervingly beside a beautiful fall and

park near Squamish and the fight that went on there over that

particular construction, it makes you wonder why this government is so

unconcerned about beauty, about the environment, and preservation of

some of the beauty spots in British Columbia.

I think probably, one of the most disastrous sights you can see is

to look down any lane in the City of Vancouver and see that mass of

wires and that festoon of cables that are strung right down the lane.

You know, even a hummingbird could hardly get through the wires that

are represented in that lane in any part of downtown Vancouver. This is

true in many other cities.

I am going to ask the government to give some consideration before

we get to the committee stage to deleting that portion of the

section

that deals with the municipality having to agree to share equally in

the cost along with the provincial government and the particular public

utilities. I'm going to ask the government to be fair about this, for a

change.

Don't impose a burden on the municipal taxpayers that they are not

entitled to bear, one that they do not deserve and one that was not to

solve a problem that was not created by them. Why should they? Why

don't you ask any passerby to dig in his pocket and pay? Or a tourist?

Anyone else in the locality? Why should it be the municipalities? I

cannot understand for the life of me why that is included in

section 2.

I would urge the government to make some changes.

On the whole we welcome the idea of beautification, setting up some

funds. But I think you could have gone much further in making it a fair

apportionment of the costs on the people who should pay.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The Honourable Member for Oak Bay.

MR. WALLACE: Mr. Speaker, I'd like to comment on the principle of this bill once again.

The citizens of British Columbia are very sensitive to abuse of the

environment and the fact that such a possibility as putting underground

wiring is very desirable.

At this time as I stated earlier in the debate, one could question,

however, the priority of this kind of spending of money at the present

time, particularly when much criticism has been leveled against the

government in this House at the fact that many needs of the people are

not met, with the particular example that I have quoted many times of

intermediate care.

So that, in principle, one would support the concept that as

urbanisation increases — and no one can dispute but that it is

increasing — and as people crowd into smaller spaces in the city

environment, anything which can be done to create a more aesthetically

acceptable environment is much to be desired. I simply say that at this

particular point in time the priority of the overall management of

people's affairs suggests to me that this money would have been much

better spent in providing certain services to people in the community.

However, the bill in principle is a very good idea. It comes at a

very timely occasion for the people of Saanich, for example. I'm not

here to represent them but I do know from discussion with the Mayor of

Saanich that he is attempting to have certain power lines, the plans of

B.C. Hydro, changed. I'm not aware of the full details of what the

Municipality of Saanich is proposing but it would seem to me that the

principle of this bill incorporates the very kind of solution

[ Page 732 ]

that the Mayor of Saanich and his aldermen are looking for.

I would also have to agree with the former speaker from Burnaby (Mr.

Dowding) that it seems, in the light of the most recent report

available from the Union of British Columbia Municipalities, that

between 1958 and 1968 the fraction of revenue which the municipalities

have to spend on services to the homes and the streets and lighting and

so on has steadily decreased because of the increasing fraction spent

on social welfare and education. I feel that in this light and since

the tax base available to municipalities is limited, I would agree with

the former speaker that it would seem much more desirable in

section 2

to share the expense of this proposed underground power and telephone

line — that

section 2 should exclude costs to the municipalities.

Finally, Mr. Speaker, I would, in supporting this bill, again point

out that we in the Conservative Party feel that there is too much left

in regulations and not enough outlined in the statutes.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The Honourable the first Member for Vancouver–Point Grey.

MR. McGEER: Mr. Speaker, the principle of this bill is not

really any different from the principle of the bills that we have

discussed before. It's a way of taking the surplus of British Columbia,

the people's taxes, and tucking it into little corners for the Minister

of Finance to be pulled out at such times and in such amounts as suit

his political purposes, in the meantime taking the capital of the fund

and using that for different purposes which are never disclosed in

these bills but which always turn out to be the favoured Crown

corporations.

The objective of the whole financial arrangement here in British

Columbia is to build up tax surpluses, to take the bulk of it for the

purposes that you really want but which aren't that popular with the

public — like the B.C. Hydro and the P.G.E. — and disguise the real

purpose for the surplus and the real direction of the fund. Instead

they bring out a bill that's the icing on the cake — where the

objective declared in the bill is terribly attractive, like the power

line beautification or accelerated reforestation or accelerated park

development — something with a very sexy title which automatically gets

the N.D.P. on the hook. They'll go for those political things every

time and I'm sorry to say the Conservative Party too.

What we're trying to stand for, Mr. Speaker, what we do stand for is

sound financial principles, open books for the Province of British

Columbia and traditional administration of funds.

That means that you don't bring in phony political bills. If you

want to undertake power line beautification — which we agree with, I

made any number of speeches about the straggling higgledy-piggledy

lines all over downtown Vancouver — it's a rat's nest of wires.

Everybody agrees with it. They should have been taken down long ago.

The City of New York buried its overhead wires in 1900 for safety

reasons so there is no question that putting power lines underground is

a sound principle.

That's not really what we're doing with this bill. What we're doing

is setting up an attractive objective while we slip away the people's

tax surplus and direct it in ways that only the Minister of Finance

will know about — out of sight of the Legislature, the elected

representatives, the people that pay the taxes in the first place.

Mr. Speaker, it's something we deplore. We understand how difficult

it is to make this point to the public of British Columbia. And for

that reason, of course, the New Democratic Party will oppose it in

principle but vote for it. We're not going to do that. We think the

principle is wrong. We're against the bill and we're going to stand up

and vote against the bill.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The Honourable Member for New Westminster.

MR. COCKE: Mr. Speaker, who can vote against motherhood? That's what this bill is all about.

The problem, Mr. Speaker, is that basically there are three different groups concerned with respect to the final decision.

The provincial government will go along with sharing one-third of

the cost of burying the cables providing the municipality and either

the B.C. Hydro or the B.C. Telephone, whichever, is involved.

Now, Mr. Speaker, it's not likely that you're going to have a

situation where there are going to be very many power lines or

telephone lines buried because all it takes is one partner and you

don't go ahead with it.

I would hope that before this comes to committee stage that the

Premier will have an amendment before the House which will indicate

that there will be two partners — that will be the provincial

government and either utilities, whichever is involved.

Mr. Speaker, I don't want to get parochial and as a matter of fact,

only because this is out of my constituency can I draw your attention

to something that's in the Leader of the Opposition's constituency.

Probably the most unsightly telephone lines that I've ever seen are

along Bernette Road in the District of Coquitlam just in Maillardville.

I don't think I've ever seen as heavy a concentration of lines even in

the central area of Vancouver where you would expect that you would

have that kind of concentration.

I think that the B.C. Telephone did a shameful job there. Absolutely

incredible. I've always hoped that one way or another we could ask that

utility to do something about their lines. Well, why don't we then go

to the B.C. Telephone and/or Hydro and say the provincial government

and the utility will share costs getting the lines underground? Mr.

Speaker, if that happens to come up in the third stage I think that it

will be an even better bill than it is now.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The question is that Bill No. 21 be now read a second time.

Motion approved on the following division:

YEAS-45

Ney

Strachan

Bennett

Merilees

Dowding

Peterson

Marshall

Nimsick

Black

Wallace

Barrett

Fraser

Cocke

Dailly, Mrs.

Campbell, B.

Hartley

Vogel

Wolfe

Lorimer

LeCours

Smith

Hall

Little

McDiarmid

Williams, R.A.

Jefcoat

Chabot

Calder

Tisdalle

Skillings

Weriman

McCarthy, Mrs.

Loffmark

Kripps, Mrs.

Jordan, Mrs.

Gaglardi

[ Page 733 ]

Price

Kiernan

Shelford

Macdonald

Williston

Richter

NAYS-4

Brousson

McGeer

Williams, L.A.

Gardom

PAIR

Campbell, D.R.J.

Clark

Bill No. 21 read a second time and ordered to be placed on orders of the day for committal at the next sitting after today.

PROVINCIAL RAPID TRANSIT

SUBSIDY ACT

MR. SPEAKER: Bill No. 22, the Provincial Rapid Transit Subsidy Act . The Honourable Premier.

HON. MR. BENNETT: One of the major problems facing the people

of British Columbia today in the municipal areas is the need for a form

of rapid transportation or the improvement of the existing form.

Rapid transportation by public buses or railways or other means

provides economical and efficient transportation to a great number of

people. It decreases expense to municipal governments to provide costly

roads and parking areas and eliminates traffic congestion and air

pollution.

To encourage a municipality or a group of municipalities or a

regional district throughout the province and any

part in the province

to construct and operate a non-profit system of public rapid

transportation the provincial government in this bill is offering to

share equally in any of the operating losses incurred in any year.

Amortised debt charges or sinking fund payments may be included in the

transit authority's books as operating expenses.

While it is hoped municipal transit authorities may be able to

operate rapid transit facilities on a break-even basis the provincial

government in this bill is in effect underwriting one half of the

annual losses that may occur. Mr. Speaker, in this bill, since there

are bus services in Greater Victoria and Greater Vancouver up for

discussion from time to time, some people might have the opinion that

this bill is only for them. That is not true. This is for throughout

the province. It applies to Cranbrook or Nelson or Vernon or Powell

River, Nanaimo, North Vancouver, anywhere.

AN HON. MEMBER: West Vancouver?

HON. MR. BENNETT: West Vancouver yes. That's the whole idea of it.

But regarding the Greater Vancouver and Victoria situations, perhaps

Mr. Speaker, I should say a word in explanation and that is this. The

bus services in both these fields are handled by the British Columbia

Hydro. It is not the policy of this government, it will never be the

policy of this government, to force the municipalities, the said

municipalities to buy out the B.C. Hydro bus service. It will never be

the policy of this government to force Hydro to sell these bus services.

I hope that if in free discussion they do choose to make an

arrangement, I hope the British Columbia Hydro would be generous to the

municipalities involved. I move second reading.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The Hon. first Member for Vancouver East.

MR. A.B. MACDONALD (Vancouver East):

Mr. Speaker, I think this bill is one of the greatest tragedies that

has been laid before the Legislature this session. Because the problem,

and the Premier has alluded to it, is an immense one. The leadership

provided in this bill is nil. I say that advisedly because the

bill doesn't even go as far as other government offers in the past to

move into this field. I refer to the statement of what this government

has offered the bus systems in the past.

We all remember these offers, but it's quoted in the regional

transportation study under Mr. Kelly for the Greater Vancouver region,

where in the fall of 1970 the government offered — and it was a cheap

offer because they knew nothing would come of it, nothing would be

spent under it. This bill is not going to entail the expenditure of any

money, Mr. Premier, unless possibly in a small bus system in Salmon Arm

or something of that kind. Well, that's fine. But the major growing

problem of urban transportation in the Greater Vancouver and the

Victoria areas has been woefully neglected.

Well, in the fall of 1970 the government offered to turn over to the

region the existing bus transportation for $ I and to pay a continuing

subsidy equivalent to the loss in a base period, and 50 per cent of any

increased losses from operation. So they were going to pay the existing

loss which with the Hydro and the kind of accounts we get is running at

about $4.5 million per year from which is deducted the $2 million. In

addition to that they were going to pay 50 per cent of the deficit.

Now, Mr. Speaker, this bill reneges on even that kind of a promise.

Because we're cut back now, we're not paying the existing loss at a

base period. We're only paying 50 per cent of the deficit. So it is a

cheaper bill than the political speeches we've been hearing in the last

two years from this government. Even on the basis as it had been

offered and it was offered during the past two years, neither the

region nor the City of Vancouver nor the City of Victoria could pick up

and operate urban transit even if they got it from the Hydro for $1 on

that basis. The Premier knows that.

This bill should be taken back and redrafted in generous terms which

would make possible the saving of freeway costs, highway construction

costs, and accident costs because the accident toll on B.C. highways is

running at about 500 human lives per year. It should be taken back as

unworthy of presentation to this Legislature because it does not go

even as far as the offers made by this government within the last two

years.

To say it is a disappointment to the urban municipalities is putting

it very mildly indeed. It is such a disappointment that there is no

possibility whatsoever that the City of Vancouver and the region of

Greater Vancouver can pick up the so-called offer made under this bill

and ask that on this basis the region operate transit and that they

will pay half the deficit.

This from a government which is talking about contributing for the

Third Crossing — $41 million I think it is — for a total Third Crossing

expenditure when you connect it up with Highway 401 of about $285

million before that connection is made, and that's only one of the

freeways that you're embarking upon.

[ Page 734 ]

What are the existing losses? We turn to the Hydro report and to the

Kelly report and the Kelly report doesn't quote the existing revenues

from transit of B.C. Hydro but they're shown in the Hydro report at

about $15 million. The loss is about $4.5 million.

The total cost of our bus system at the present time is about $20

million to run the urban transportation in the Greater Vancouver and

Greater Victoria areas at the present time.

In the Kelly report there is appended a footnote and it says that

the auditor's full report is not a public document by the terms of our

understanding with B.C. Hydro. Two Hydro directors are here today who

allowed our auditor full access to all their books and records. The

full auditor's report is not a public document. In other words, Hydro,

continues as it has in the past to hide its public accounts on a vital

matter such as urban transportation and to say even to the Greater

Vancouver study group that the report is not a public document. They

are hiding as if it were a closely held family secret. The Hydro

accounts are as if they were some skeleton in the closet.

We're proud of Hydro. We're proud of Hydro but we do not think that

they should hide their finances in this way, just as a squid, I think

it is — the fish when anyone comes near it emits a black ink fluid in

order to be able to escape in the confusion. That's the way a squid….

AN HON. MEMBER: Squid government!

MR. MACDONALD: … and that's the way the essential Hydro

accounts have been hidden through the years from the people of British

Columbia even though two Hydro directors sit in this House and heap

scorn sometimes upon the kind of figures that we come up with but won't

produce the books themselves.

When you look, Mr. Speaker, at other places and see what's being

done on behalf of rapid transit, and I refer you first to the Toronto

experience, because that's shown in the same report — the latest help

of the Province of Ontario to local transit. They give 50 per cent of

approved capital costs and they have been doing so for some years now

to Metro transit and they gave a minimum of 50 per cent of the

operating costs of the Metro transit facilities rising under special

circumstances to 80 per cent.

If you look at the City of Seattle and its region you find that the

State of Washington is now introducing a measure to give the cities 20

per cent of the locally-generated gasoline tax to build mass public

transportation. In the State of Washington a progressive government is

willing to cut back on auto traffic and pollution and road building

costs and boost public transit in a way in which this government has

not even started to move.

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

MR. MACDONALD: No, I'm talking about the state, Mr. Premier. I'm not talking about the federal contribution at all.

HON. MR. BENNETT: Because you got that.

MR. MACDONALD: Let me read it again because let there be no misunderstanding about this matter. I'm talking about urban transportation.

AN HON. MEMBER: He's talking about it now.

MR. MACDONALD: It is the State of Washington that is prepared

to give 20 per cent of the locally generated gasoline tax to subsidise

local transit and in the Greater Vancouver area, where I would estimate

taxes on gasoline and fuel taxes and licences probably generate $60

million a year, only a particle of that comes back into the transit

system. The result is that through the years we've starved public

transportation. We have watched the service on the buses going down,

down, down — the frequency of the buses going down, the service, the

times, the schedule, losing passengers on the buses and it's very hard

to regain them once you've lost them. The fares as we knew from last

year, are going up.

Another example I would like to give is that of the State of

California — I'm not talking about the federal government — where

Governor Reagan of California has signed into law, this is last year,

an extra 2 cents gasoline tax which is to provide $170 million in new

revenue that is earmarked mainly for the development of mass transit.

One other example is a little town of Commerce in California where

they had embarked upon a policy, which we favour, of free bus service

in selected areas. Free bus service and if that sounds like a lot of

money, it's not a lot of money. It is a fraction of the roughly $700

million that is going to cost the Greater Vancouver area to have rapid

transit.

With the operating costs of Hydro buses in both Vancouver and

Victoria running, as I said today, at about $20 million, of course they

would increase with free transit but nevertheless this is a fraction of

the cost. In this little town of Commerce the free service in this

southern California town of 10,500 is suddenly gaining attention from

transit experts around the nation. There is no reason why area by area

we cannot move into the field of providing free public transportation

delivered as the public health service is delivered today on a non-cost

to the consumer basis, as fire protection is delivered today to the

citizens of a community, and as roads are provided today.

What we're talking about is a policy that makes sense financially,

when you consider the staggering costs of going ahead with the freeway

system or even with the rapid transit system which must come but which

should take second priority to developing free bus service in selected

areas of this province without delay.

We see in this bill a leadership vacuum on the part of the

provincial government which has continued over a period of many years.

We see a bill which will not be of any use whatsoever to the

municipalities in the coming year. We see a regional district which

without leadership and help from the provincial government — and it has

never had that — has been taken over now with the help of the willing

Vancouver aldermen who have sold the fort on this matter. They elected

as chairman of the Greater Vancouver Region Mr. Ron Andrews who is a

fine gentleman and probably a Liberal too — a fine gentleman but a man

devoted to a third crossing with all the capital funds that are going

to be poured into that kind of an operation, a total of about $285

million before you have connected it up.

For money of that kind it would be very easy, very easy indeed to

give us in the lower mainland and in the Greater Vancouver areas the

best bus transportation system in this world within selected areas — no

fares whatsoever, with a promotion of the park-and-ride system from the

suburbs into the City of Vancouver, with the allocation on the city

streets of priority lanes for buses reserved exclusively for them — even proceeding into not only smaller buses but the dial-a-bus

[ Page 735 ]

system in certain areas. They're trying that in Regina at the present time.

Interjection by Hon. Member.

MR. MACDONALD: It's working well is it? I believe it can.

There are all kinds of possibilities which we are completely missing in

this bill which is the last look at perhaps the greatest problem which

affects the quality of life in the greater urban areas of this

province. A problem which this government continues to look at through

old Dozey's blinkers, A problem which has not been faced up to and a

bill which actually reneges on previous government offers. One step

forward, two steps back — that is the policy contained in this bill and

I say this course that we are embarked on is ecological insanity.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The Honourable Member for Alberni.

MR. H.R. McDIARMID (Alberni): I was just wondering if the

Minister of Finance would consider the question of some municipalities

to subsidise private transit systems. I think Port Alberni, for

instance, have a private company and in view of the capital outlay that

they would have to put out to take over the company, they have elected

instead to subsidise that company so that it can carry on in essential

service for the city.

Now admittedly there is a certain amount of profit which this

company makes and I think it would be up to the provincial government,

in this context, to provide the company with the profit, but perhaps an

alternative solution might be with a properly audited financial

statement from the company, if we were to deduct the profit which the

company made from the amount of subsidy which the city paid. Would the

province be prepared to pick up 50 per cent of that subsidy?

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The Honourable Member for West Vancouver–Howe Sound.

MR. L.A. WILLIAMS (West Vancouver–Howe Sound): Mr. Speaker, I

suppose I shouldn't be surprised at the remarks from the Honourable the

first Member for Vancouver-East (Mr. Macdonald). His approach to this

legislation is typical of the attitude that has been expressed by the

N.D.P. with respect to this problem of urban transit over the past

several months.

Certainly it would be nice to have more all the time, but there are

many communities in this province which don't have the problems the

City of Vancouver has but which attempt to run their own public transit

system. This is a move which I am sure they will all support, in West

Vancouver for one — which for years and years has carried its own

public transit system at continuing loss to the system and a burden to

the property taxpayers. It would benefit and I suppose that one might

say that this is a selfish approach.

AN HON. MEMBER: West Vancouver is not B.C.

AN HON. MEMBER: It's part of B.C.

MR. L.A. WILLIAMS: I appreciate that. It is as much a part of

the Province of British Columbia as the City of Vancouver. The Member

speaks about the government being a squid in this regard. A squid. The

City of Vancouver has sat on the lower mainland region like an octopus

with its tentacles stretching out and affecting everything that takes

place in the surrounding municipalities. The City of Vancouver is only

a part of British Columbia too.

I'm surprised at the N.D.P. taking the position on this bill because

they know, as well as everybody else — and the Member read from the

Greater Vancouver Regional District study — that they are currently

approaching the provincial government so that the letters patent to the

regional district will be amended to include transit as part of their

function and authority.

As a part of these discussions to have transit added to the regional

district responsibilities, there are other discussions which are going

on with regard to the acquisition of the B.C. Hydro lines, their

equipment, their facilities and they are having the same kind of

negotiations with West Vancouver — throw your system in and make it a

proper urban transit system which will function.

I don't think that the passing of this legislation is in any way

going to inhibit the right of the regional district to negotiate with

this government to make the deal which this government should make with

the regional system once it is established. But to use this bill — which can have benefits whether or not the City of Vancouver has its

own way — to use this bill in the way that the N.D.P. have and to turn

down the opportunity which is present those communities which are

running their own bus systems, just because the City of Vancouver may

not like it is not …

AN HON. MEMBER: The whole of Greater Vancouver, the whole of Greater Victoria.

MR. L.A. WILLIAMS: Oh, yes, the whole of Greater Vancouver.

The whole of Greater Vancouver is being subsidised by the B.C. Hydro

with regard to its transit, and by this government, and now they want

more and more and more. When actions are taken which could bring some

reason and sense to the problems that confront this area, the official

Opposition is opposed.

It is opposed because, Mr. Speaker, I suggest to you that the City

of Vancouver wants to make its own special deal. If any of the Members

have taken the opportunity of discussing this matter with the chairman

of the transportation committee they will know that the City of

Vancouver is driving its own special bargain. It is only prepared to

agree with the regional district so far and then it wants its own

special bargain and that's the position that the N.D.P. is taking. We

think this is a good bill — a step forward.

AN HON. MEMBER: That's not right.

MR. L.A. WILLIAMS: There is always more that can be done and I'm sure that it will be done as the circumstances require it.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The Honourable Member for Oak Bay.

MR. WALLACE: Mr. Speaker, I will be very brief. I think the

concept of the provincewide, or at least a transit system which can be

applied in any part of the province, is very sound thinking as a basic

idea. But the main problem undoubtedly is in the main urban areas which

are growing larger all the time and which are creating their own

pollution

[ Page 736 ]

through the automobile and buses in particular.

But I think we should at least take note of some other parts of the

world particularly the bay area and San Francisco where, I'm sure

everyone's read with interest, a tremendous project was developed on a

regional basis.

Unfortunately parts of the region opted out of the programme, once

it was underway and I understand the complete project is going to be

something less than was initially attempted. Be that as it may, it's

the old story that if we don't embark on rapid transit the cost years

from now when the mess that's being solved will be that much more

complicated.

It certainly should get across to us that now is the time to get

into programmes, but the other thing about the bay area that impressed

me is the fabulous cost. I can't remember the figures but it was

something like $700 million or some such figure. So the point that I

think comes out in this, in discussing projects of this size, is the

cost. Simply on that basis I would have to oppose this bill, for the

simple reason as I have stated already that the municipalities have a

limited tax base and the municipalities are already having considerable

trouble financially coping with education, social welfare and the

services to the municipalities.

While again I would not suggest that I am any expert on rapid

transit, I am most impressed by those other parts of the country and

other countries where the costs have been so high. I just don't feel

that the municipalities by and large in this province can go into any

kind of deal where they have to find the money to pay for half the

deficit.

Some measure of the problem, even in our present experience if I'm

correct in referring to vote 85, is that there is already a $2 million

subsidy to the bus system which I think is a very clear indication that

it is very difficult to run this kind of system and not make a loss.

On this very fundamental point, which I've said several times

already this afternoon, the municipalities have a limited tax base.

They are having a lot of trouble coping with their responsibilities

within the present tax structure and to suggest that the only way we

can get rapid transit in the urban areas is to saddle the

municipalities with half the deficit I think is unacceptable and I will

be obliged to vote against this bill.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The Hon. Leader of the Opposition.

MR. D. BARRETT (Leader of the Opposition): Mr. Speaker, one

of the unusual advantages of being so far behind in rapid transit or

the construction of freeways through our cities is that we have the

opportunity of learning by the mistakes of others. In the United States

after 20 years of commitment to the automobile the whole concept of

rapid transit has been revisited by the major cities. But not on a half

measure.

In the City of San Francisco $1.5 billion will be spent in the bay

area for the Bay Area Rapid Transit, to be opened later this year. In

Washington, D.C., a $3.1 billion system for rapid transit is now under

construction. In Pittsburgh $228 million is going to be spent on the

first phase of a county-wide transit system. In Atlanta voters have

authorised a new sales tax to help finance a $1.4 billion system. Mr.

Speaker, Boston, New York and Chicago are all making moves to expand

their rapid transit services, and there are vast federal and state

funds pouring in to these urban areas to help them.

Strange as it may seem, Mr. Speaker, even Honolulu is considering a

rapid transit system because of the traffic problems they're facing.

And a Los Angeles firm, Mr. Speaker, is recommending a system using

lightweight pneumatic-wheel cars 35 to 40 ft. long instead of a New

York type of subway trains and they're suggesting the lighter weight

trains for the following reasons — rubber provides better grade in

climbing; the system would produce less noise in a warm locale where

everyone has his window open like Port Coquitlam, Mr. Speaker; the

aerial structures on the line would be elevated, out of the way and

probably be more attractive.

But, Mr. Speaker, San Francisco's experience is probably closer to

our own needs here in the lower mainland of Vancouver, and the lower

island area of Victoria. While they have been waiting for their new Bay

Area Rapid Transit system, Mr. Speaker, they have experimented with

other approaches to moving people without massive expenditures on new

freeways.

Quoting from the New York Times , Mr. Speaker, dated Sunday, February 6, 1972:

Since the Golden Gate Bridge Highway and

Transportation District last month started running comfortable

air-conditioned buses over the bridge from suburban Marin County, they

replaced much less attractive Greyhound coaches, rush hour bus

ridership has soared by 35 per cent, about 5,500 daily. At the same

time rush hour traffic on the bridge decreased by 6 per cent.

Do you hear that, Mr. Speaker? In San Francisco they are actually

decreasing the amount of traffic on the Golden Gate Bridge with the use

of rapid transit. A 6 per cent decrease of bridge traffic, by updating

and subsidising completely a rapid bus system.

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

MR. BARRETT: Well, since they instituted this new experimental programme with air conditioned buses.

I'll read what else they have done. A decrease in traffic — and you

name any other city that's shown a decrease in traffic on their

freeways, or their bridges. And this is with existing urban

throughfares.

On the Bay bridge the number of rush-hour car pools (now they've got

a carpool system going in San Francisco) autos with three or more

occupants have doubled to about 2,200 daily, since tolls were abolished

for car pools, and they were given preference in a special express

lane.

What they did, Mr. Speaker, was give people with three or more

passengers in a car the right to the express lane into the city, or out

of the city. As a result, the number of cars with more than three

people increased to 2,200 daily. The Golden Gate bus service, that I

mentioned earlier — that brought the decrease of traffic there — is

part of unusual auto subsidised bus and ferry conglomerate that seems

certain to draw attention of the New York, and New Jersey political

leaders.

Now, Mr. Speaker, I submit that we can learn from San Francisco's

experience. And we can begin to alter our approach in terms of

patchwork looks at rapid transit.

But the more important experience that I feel that we can learn from

the United States, Mr. Speaker, is what's happened to the city life in

large American cities. Mr. Speaker, it is a well-known fact that over

the past 15 years in large urban centres in the United States that

because the cities have been giving undevoted attention to servicing

the automobile large American cities have become dehumanised roadways.

[ Page 737 ]

It is an unusual sight to see people walking on the streets, even in broad daylight in the American cities.

AN HON. MEMBER: They're afraid to …

MR. BARRETT: They're afraid to at night, says the Minister,

and he's quite right. One of the personal regrets that I had was in

1969 on a return visit to the city of St. Louis, my wife and I had been

absent from that city for some 12 years. When I returned to that city

we saw a brand new ring of freeways, going around the city and

servicing the downtown core, and as a result they had cut the city into

pieces, as if it were a giant spider web.

People on the outskirts who we had known as friends welcomed us to

the city, took us out to the airport parking lot and unlocked four

locks on the car, each door had a lock on the car. They'd only been at

the airport for some 15 minutes. They took us in their car to their

home and they bolted the door behind them. Later, the next day, Mr.

Speaker, my wife and I decided to take a bus downtown and we were told

by our friends not to get off the bus in certain areas, not to go and

visit parts of the city that we were fond of, and not to stop until we

got down to the downtown core and to please take a taxi home.

When my wife and I began to examine the fear that our friends had of

their own once-beautiful city, it became apparent to us that the

service to the automobile in that city had destroyed a warmth, and

personal relationship that existed just on the basis of people seeing

each other and freely walking the streets.

Now, Mr. Speaker, those of us who have visited Los Angeles feel the

same fear of the street. Those of us who read of New York know the same

fear of the streets exists there. Fortunately that has not yet happened

to our great City of Vancouver, or to its sister city the great City of

Victoria. And I would weep for the day that it does happen here.

We have something magical left in our cities, something warm, and

something understanding. But if we turn away from the people

communication that is still left in our cities by not supplying a

complete provincially-financed rapid transit system in our cities we

may lose the last chance to have here in North America a find of open

city life that some of us treasure.

Mr. Speaker, unless this provincial government gives some leadership

to both Victoria and to Vancouver by being directly involved in

providing funds for mass rapid transit I am frightened that those

planners who are committed to the automobile may sell to the City of

Vancouver, and to the lower mainland the freeway system that services

only the automobile and actually alienates people.

Mr. Speaker, I remember a very tragic event that happened in

Vancouver some two or three years ago when a young nurse was murdered

on her way home from her duties at a hospital. And I remember that the

total community of this province got so upset over that one tragic

murder that even the Attorney General was appealed to by the Vancouver

city public. The reaction was one of horror, and shame and regret, and

at the same time we had guests up from St. Louis, Missouri, and they

said: "How come one murder makes headlines? We have murders daily in

our American cities and they are relegated to small notices on the

inside pages."

That came as a dramatic illustration to us that our cities still

have heart, still have warmth, and they still are a place for people.

We could still get upset about one murder, enough to mobilise a whole

community concern for weeks on end. And I regret the murder, but when I

thought about the reaction I felt pretty warm.

People can fall down on our streets and still expect service. People

can have problems and still have other human beings to relate to them.

Our cities have not been given over completely to the automobile yet.

But if they ever do, Mr. Speaker, we are going to suffer the same fate

of the large urban centres of United States. We won't have city life

that's worth living, we'll be spending most of our time locking doors,

bolting windows, teaching our children fear of the streets rather than

keeping them as the warm, open and exciting places that they should be.

Mr. Speaker, unless we make a commitment to rapid transit such

beautifully potential human areas as Robson Street will eventually lose

in the economic battle for locations of roads, and service the

automobile. That great potential of Gastown as a warm human centre in

Vancouver will lose its meaning as a human gathering place.

The potential of keeping China Town as a land mark of human

experience in a City of Vancouver will become threatened. Once we

commit ourselves to a piecemeal approach to servicing the automobile,

and a half hearted bill like this to assist in rapid transit, then

anything can happen in our city.

It is my feeling, Mr. Speaker, that this government has a far

greater responsibility than what has been evident in this bill. There

is nothing new shown in this bill. They've made these same offers in

the past and I suggest that it's not good enough to repeat the same

offer of picking up half the loss. Nobody wants to go in business on

that basis. Our responsibility is to put the rapid transit business on

its feet.

On the question of financing rapid transit, Mr. Speaker, we have an

equalizing system in this province although the Premier attacks

equalisation across Canada. We equalise transit in the Province of

British Columbia. The lower mainland contributes to general revenue,

and as a result of that contribution to general revenue highways are

built throughout the province.

The north contributes the general revenue and a result of that,

general revenue partially finances the magnificent ferry system that we

have in this province — and it is a magnificent ferry system. Something

that all of us are proud of.

So when we have approached these transportation needs on an

equalisation basis no one anywhere in this province has criticised that

approach. And I suggest to you that the same equalisation approach must

be taken for rapid transit in our urban areas.

There's more at stake than just solving traffic problems, Mr.

Speaker. There's the whole problem of keeping our cities human, warm

and safe. I don't want the City of Vancouver or the urban area of

Victoria to develop that touch of paranoia that individuals must have

to survive in American cities.

If one looks to the great European cities, their murder rate, their

crime rate, their rate of violent assaults on people are relatively

smaller where there are fewer automobiles, Mr. Speaker. Even police

forces are finding that they can do a better job of policing urban

districts when the officer leaves the automobile and a more direct

relationship takes place.

Rapid transit, Mr. Speaker, allows people in suburban areas a new

form of communication and awareness of other human beings. Many people

living in suburbia don't even know their neighbours. They can live side

by side for years without ever knowing their neighbour. There's no

opportunity for a new sense of community to develop in suburban areas

when people don't get to know each other.

[ Page 738 ]

But when you have mass rapid transit, people have the opportunity of

meeting each other for the first time, on a bus, or on a subway. My

friend smiles, but I tell you that the old interurban ride from

downtown Vancouver up through Central Park, or the old interurban ride

all the way out to Chilliwack was a social event, Mr. Speaker. Sure it

was.

It was slow, I grant, but it was just as slow as it was as getting

in my dad's Essex and trying to drive to Chilliwack. At the same time

you have to admit that. I remember we had to pack cold chicken in the

side pocket of the Essex for a whole Sunday trip to drive as far as

Mission. And my dad always had a little bag full of ice…for the

chicken. (Laughter).

It was always a slow trip there, and a slow trip home. But there was always a sense of communication on those old interurbans.

The last point that I want to make in building out a human experience through rapid transit is jobs, Mr. Speaker.

With rapid transit we can provide a number of permanent jobs just

servicing rapid transit in itself. The drivers in the vehicles and the

maintenance of the vehicles, the construction of the vehicles if we

want to be that daring. The whole approach to a transit service

incorporates in it literally thousands of jobs that are permanent. The

money that we spend won't be going to major oil companies, whose

profits drift away from British Columbia.

If we service the automobile it is only the major oil companies that

benefit, because they're selling fuel to the automobile that

dehumanizes people. But if we made a major investment in rapid transit

we would be in no small measure insuring the warmth that exists in our

city, well be creating the opportunity for people to get to know each

other on a far more permanent basis.

Just as important, we would be placing a secure economic base in our

communities for permanent jobs. So, Mr. Speaker, I say that this bill

unfortunately doesn't go far enough and we can't support it because its

concept doesn't give vision or hope to the citizens of both urban areas

who desperately need leadership from this provincial government.

At one time, Mr. Speaker, this government did on the spur of the

moment move on a transportation matter, with nerve, with energy and

drive — and that was over the great ferry system that they established.

But they've lost that nerve, they've lost the vision, and, they've

lost that drive because the same need that created the government

action for the ferry system now exists three times over in leadership

for mass rapid transit in our urban areas.

You know, Mr. Speaker, my very good friend, the Member from

Vancouver East (Mr. Macdonald) represents one of the most exciting

parts of all of Vancouver. That part of the city will be destroyed if

we commit ourselves to freeway systems without free rapid transit. It's

only a matter of time.

I don't hesitate to recommend free rapid transit, Mr. Speaker. The

cost of free rapid transit would be far less than our eventual cost of

just paying the interest on the money we'd have to spend on huge

freeways ripping the hearts out of out cities.

It doesn't have to be done overnight. It can be done step by step.

The first step to go, of course, to the east end of Vancouver because

if any

section of that great city deserves free rapid transit, it's the

east end.

But beyond that parochial appeal that relates to my own personal

experience in that community, we can step by step build a free rapid

transit system that the total community of British Columbia can be

proud of, even in Pouce Coupe, and Chilliwack and in Vancouver.

So I ask you, through you Mr. Speaker, for the government to

withdraw the bill, correct it, and say that they will pick up the total

deficit of mass rapid transit and give us some new leadership, new

vision, and new hope to keep our beautiful cities beautiful and human.

MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable the first Member for Vancouver–Point Grey.

MR. McGEER: Mr. Speaker, I'm very disappointed really at the

position that the N.D.P. has taken upon this bill. It's not one of

their afternoons. As the Member from Vancouver East pointed out, he's

so afraid that something will benefit some other area of British

Columbia than Vancouver East, he'll always be against it. It so happens

that there are small communities around this province that are

operating bus systems, municipally owned that do lose money. I don't

see why the Members of the N.D.P. should be against those communities.

It happens to include West Vancouver, but the City of Nelson is

another one. If a bill comes along that is going to help those

communities carry on with their bus systems, it deserves support. That

doesn't mean to say that this bill is going to do any good for the City

of Vancouver and the City of Victoria. It's not.

This bill, as far as I'm concerned, isn't intended to do that. If

we're going to create a rapid transit system for the lower mainland

area, we're talking about a gigantic undertaking. One only has to look

at the rapid transit study that has been made, and it was a good study,

to know that what we are embarking on — and I think we should embark

upon it — is an enormous project that will take us some 15 years to

complete and wind up costing not less than $500 million, probably more.

If we want to gain any kind of an idea of what we're getting into,

we only have to look at this Bay Area Rapid Transit system. Again, the

Leader of the Opposition misrepresented to some degree what has

happened with the Golden Gate Bridge.

Interjections by Hon. Members.

MR. McGEER: Now just a moment. Just hear me out. I spent a full day …

AN HON. MEMBER: Point of order.