1970 Legislative Session: 1st 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)

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 1970

Afternoon Sitting

[ Page 193 ]

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 1970

The House met at 2 p.m.

The Clerk informed the House of the unavoidable absence of Mr.

Speaker, whereupon Mr. Bruch, Deputy Speaker, took the chair pursuant

section 46 (2) of the Constitution Act.

THRONE DEBATE

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

MR. L. A. WILLIAMS (West Vancouver–Howe Sound): Thank you,

Mr. Speaker. Before making my contribution to this debate, may I say

that I hope, before this sitting rises, either the Premier or the

honourable the Attorney-General might indicate to this House the state

of the health of Mr. Redel, and what actions are to be taken by this

Government to prevent any repetition of the flagrant or perhaps misuse

of power which we have read about this morning.

Mr. Speaker, as we close this debate, I wish to congratulate the new

members who have participated. It was not so long ago that I made my

first speech in this Chamber, and I know the task that was before them,

and the relief that they now feel, that it is behind.

I might also say to those new members on the Government side that

this would have been a more fullsome debate had they been given the

opportunity of writing this Throne Speech, because the suggestions

which they had to make to the Government during the course of their

remarks were far more exciting as we approached the 70's than the

content of the document His Honour read to us on the opening day. We

have had too, during the debate so far, an interesting continuation of

the victory celebration that followed the election on the 27th of

August, but unfortunately, that victory has not in any way purged the

problems which faced this Province on the 26th of August, and which

faced it on the 28th of August, and which faces it today.

AN HON. MEMBER: Hear! Hear!

MR. WILLIAMS: These problems continue, and there is no

solution for these problems offered in the Speech which is under

debate. It is noticeable I think, that in the Throne Speech that

problems have been ignored, problems which this Government has

consistently ignored.

I would refer first of all to the problems which confront the

agricultural industry in this Province today. You know the production

of food stuffs is vital to our very existence, but there is no

protection against continuing loss of agricultural land from this

Government. Indeed, what we see in the rich delta lands of the Fraser

River, is an acceleration of that trend, and farmers are being

displaced without opportunity of re-location and all the while, the

honourable Minister of Agriculture apparently remains silent. No relief

is offered to those who work the land against the continuing and

oppressive burdens of tax that they must pay. All that we are offered

is some suggestion that the Department of Agriculture will assist them

in adopting better management practices, while the B.C. Federation of

Agriculture has placed before the Executive Council of this Government,

as it has in the years gone by, positive programmes for the relief of

agriculture, and they remain unanswered.

In the field of education, we have a sorrier and sorrier situation,

as each day passes. The problems which face us at the elementary and

secondary levels are greater today than they were a year ago, and yet

the Throne Speech offers nothing concrete by way of solution. I wonder,

when we consider growth as our aim, how we answer the people, for

example in Fernie, who daily see around them the construction of new

homes for the families who will be employed in the coal-mining

industries in the near-by areas, but who at the same time wonder where

they will get the classrooms to house the children of those families,

and where they will get the money to pay for the teachers that will be

required to serve in those classrooms. Certainly no solution is offered

in this Throne Speech, and that's a problem which apparently is being

ignored. Daily we have correspondence coming to every member in this

Assembly from mothers, teachers, school trustees, desperately concerned

about the education of our young, but there is nothing in this Throne

Speech.

In the field of hospitals and hospital care, and particularly in the

field of extended care and chronic care, there is no relief offered to

the problems which daily face our citizens, and I wish to deal just for

a moment with this problem of chronic care. We don't have the

facilities to provide for those aged people, desperately in need of

care in institutions, and the Government has consistently refused to

provide the facilities which will give them the standard of care which

they need and which their families would wish for them. During this

past summer, I was called by a constituent of mine, and asked for help.

This constituent asked my help because she had been referred by the

Department of Health to her M.L.A. and her problem was this, her father

was in a private hospital. They had just paid a bill of over $1,000 for

his care, and they were already three months in arrears. The father's

meagre assets were all gone, and he was being maintained in this

private institution by calling upon the where-with-all of his daughter

and of her husband, both of whom were working, both of whom had their

own family to care for, and this woman, said to me, "We can't carry on,

what am I to do?" Mr. Speaker, this is a question which no member of

this Assembly should ever be called upon to answer, because the

individual members of this Assembly cannot give the answer. The answer

lies over there.

I was encouraged yesterday when the honourable the first member from

Vancouver Centre spoke about senior citizens, and if what he said

yesterday is a change from what he may have said before I would only

say this, that it is a wise man who freely changes his mind with

reason, it's a fool who never changes his.

But in this field of senior citizens we must keep the senior

citizens in the communities in which they have lived, to which they

have contributed, and where their friends and families reside.

Regardless of what kind of facility we may provide for them when we

link them all together, senior citizen with senior citizen, we provide

only a luxury ghetto. When the senior citizen is disrupted from his

community, the community he helped to build, he and she loses

something, something intangible, but something which is essential for

their continued happiness and life. And when we place them away from

their families and away from their friends, away from the community

that they know and understand, we turn their face to the wall and let

them die. But the Throne Speech offers no solution to this problem.

In the area of our local governments, our municipalities, we find

nothing which provides relief from the crushing burdens which are

placed upon them by this Government and upon their citizens and

taxpayers who must raise the monies to carry out those burdens. This

Government offers no solution

[ Page 194 ]

for the unsold bonds that water works require, the

unsold bonds that sewage treatment plants require. This Government

offers nothing in this Throne Speech which will carry those

municipalities on into the new decade.

We were treated the other day to an address by the honourable the

Minister indicating that they had taken a survey and they had found

that some municipalities were inefficient. But I recall that in my

maiden year in this House I suggested to the honourable Minister that

that was the responsibility of his Department, and that was in '67, and

I repeated that request and suggestion in 1968, and finally in 1969 and

'70 we get a report, but still no solution, Mr. Minister. What are you

going to do? You had an inspection of municipalities

section in the

Municipalities Act for years, so the conduct of a survey in the last

year or half year is certainly not something new and not a forward

advance.

Nor, Mr. Speaker, do we find in this Throne Speech any solution to

the rights of our citizens who find inequality before the law, or any

solution to the lack of access which the citizen has to his own

Government, or any right of redress or of grievances resulting from the

action of that Government or any of its agencies. The honourable the

second member from Vancouver–Point Grey spoke at length on this

yesterday. No change, no real advance, no stride into the 70's. The

Throne Speech is silent.

Now, the Throne Speech, of course, Mr. Speaker, was not all silent.

There is a single line in the Throne Speech dealing with tenants'

rights which indicates that we will be called upon to consider some

amendments to legislation to protect further the rights of individuals

in relation to rental housing. This is followed by a statement by the

Attorney-General during his remarks in this House, in this debate, that

we would have a new concept of law to deal with the rights of tenants.

Well, I ask you, Mr. Speaker, or ask the Attorney-General through you,

when are we going to get it? Why are you waiting? For four years

members in this House have called for changes in the antiquated

Landlord and Tenant Act, and for four years you remain silent. And now

what do we find? The suggestion that there's going to be some further

rights, and with that suggestion we find in our communities that the

tenants are being served with notices of rental increases. Today,

yesterday, the day before yesterday, the tenants are getting it. The

landlords appear to be getting in their best licks while the

opportunity still lasts.

In my constituency I have a lot of tenants. They're fine people and

they are great contributors to the community, and yet in one apartment

building every tenant has received notice that by the 1st of April his

rent will go up and the increases range from $15 a month to $35 a

month. The constituent who called me about these increases had a $28

increase, the third increase in three years, and the tenants are

powerless under the present law. The urgency is now, Mr. Speaker. We

should have the legislation before us now, Mr. Speaker, legislation

which will give Province-wide application to establish Rental Review

Boards and protections for tenants, but we must not have the inequities

which are produced piecemeal by piecemeal in this Province.

This Government has established vast machinery to ensure equality of

assessment for the owners of land. This Government has created many,

many opportunities for home-owners. But we have no Government action

whatsoever for the protection of tenants. I recall a speech given in

this House, Mr. Speaker, two years ago by the honourable member from

Esquimalt, and he expressed the view that the stable people, the

worthwhile people in our communities, were those who owned their own

homes, and this would appear to be the attitude of Government. The

honourable the Minister of Municipal Affairs in his remarks the other

day said that the Government will continue to put emphasis on

home-ownership.

I say to you, Mr. Speaker, that the tenants in this Province are not

second class citizens. In our urban areas the majority of the residents

are tenants. They are young people, young married men and women, young

couples. Some of them don't have the adequate funds with which to

purchase homes, some by reason of nature of their employment find it

unsatisfactory to locate permanently in a community, others by just

personal desire would rather be a tenant. But they are still citizens

of this Province and they are still entitled to the protection which

the laws of this Province can afford.

I suggest to you, Mr. Speaker, that when this legislation comes down

we expect to see the repeal of the existing Landlord and Tenant Act and

its replacement by a statute which is in fitting with the times, which

will ensure that tenants will have a right to leases, or other security

of their tenancies, which will ensure that as tenants they will have

the right to privacy within their individual units, that they will have

the right to challenge terminations at the whim of a landlord, and that

they will have the right to protection from arbitrary and unjustifiable

rental increases.

I expect to see this legislation establish a Review Board, a

Provincial Review Board, functioning throughout all the areas and

regions of this Province where tenants, who have cause to complain

about the treatment at the hands of their landlord, can go for redress.

A Review Board before whom a tenant may bring his landlord and call

upon him to justify rental increase. Because it's not enough to say you

know, Mr. Speaker, that if the rents go up then you can move, because

the costs that are involved in removing yourself from one rented

property and re-establishing in another are prohibitive, and they are a

burden which only the tenant bears, and the tenant is forced to bear

that burden too often at the whim of the landlord. It would afford the

opportunity of the Premier of this Province, were he unsatisfied with

the conditions under which he lives, to call upon his landlord to

justify.

Mr. Speaker, all of these problems are with us and none of them are

answered in this document, and it will therefore come as no surprise to

you, Mr. Speaker, when we come to vote upon the Motion, that we will

rise against it.

I would like to direct some remarks to a subject which has been

canvassed from all sides of this House but which bears further

consideration, and that is the subject of pollution and environmental

management. The situation in which we find ourselves today, and it is

clear to everyone now that pollution and environmental management must

be our great concern if you think about it, results from our adoption,

our adherence to certain myths.

The first belief that was held by man and which has since been shown

to be a myth, is that man is superior to his environment, and we now

know this is not the case. The second belief that was widely held and

is now a myth is that of nature's super-abundance which can withstand

the continuing abuse to which man has and is still subjecting it, and

no one believes that any longer.

But we now have a belief, Mr. Speaker, that man's technology can

reverse the desecration which he has wrought. I suggest to you that

this belief will surely become the last myth, unless we turn ourselves

now to the major and drastic changes in thought patterns which have

governed our existence on this planet up until this day. Unless we

[ Page 195 ]

undertake those measures which can halt and then

reverse the activities of man which are upsetting the delicate natural

balance which preserves us from a major ecological disaster, unless we

assume the cost, both financial and social, which these undertakings

require. In each day in the news we wonder when we will begin to make

these changes in our thought process, when we will begin to understand

the cost.

One hears of the concern about phosphate-laden detergents and the

effect which they have upon the waters of this planet, and yet we find

the unbelievable statement that if we take the phosphates out of

detergents the ladies' wash won't be so white, and you'll have to scrap

the dishwashers. This, Mr. Speaker, I suggest puts the question fairly.

Do we want clean lakes, clean rivers or do we want clean wash and

that's the choice which government faces when it talks about

contractual permits and technological permits.

We were treated the other day to a dissertation on these two

devices, and it was clear, I think that everyone understands the

distinction between a contractual permit and a technological permit.

But it's no answer, Mr. Speaker, because we've got a Pollution Control

Act and we have standards, apparently, and yet we're told in answers

which have been filed in this House that there's never been a

prosecution under that Act. What's the use of standards? What's the use

of permits if nothing is done? How far can you stretch the elastic

before it breaks? That seems to be the basis upon which technological

permits are issued — flexibility, flexibility, so that no one ever

offends.

Mr. Speaker, this matter has been the subject of attention from all

sides of the House and I don't wish to speak about it much longer. I

would, however, like to relate to you a story about a 15-year-old, and

it deals with this matter of pollution. This young girl, as many

others, are concerned about this subject and this 15-year-old, when

talking to me about pollution and the dangers to our environment,

suddenly burst into tears and said, "What can I do about it? What can

I, a 15-year-old child do about it? You're an elected member, you

should be doing something about it." And I thought to myself that that

young girl was speaking for all 15-year-olds, because she was concerned

to know whether there would be a Province in which she could live when

she was 30. When she spoke to me, I would like to think that she spoke

to all the members of this Assembly, and to all those who hold elected

responsibility. Perhaps her outburst was emotional, but it's only an

aroused and angry people who will beat pollution, because in the end it

is their problem, their country, their future, their lives — not ours.

I urge the Government to stop the talk and begin the action and to

begin it here in this House, by the establishment of a special

committee of the members of this House to examine and inquire into all

aspects of pollution, causes, effects and remedies, in all areas of

this Province, and to report to this House at each Session upon its

activities, its findings and its recommendations. This committee would

have power to call before it such persons that may be required, in

order for it to discharge its functions. This committee would be a

continuing one, not sitting only when this House is in session, but

rather holding its hearings throughout the year in all areas of this

Province, and receiving submissions from individuals and organizations

in those areas. In this way, the people of this Province would be

afforded the opportunity of communicating directly with their elected

representatives in a forum which is designed to encourage the

responsible without denying access to any. The activities of this

committee will enable the members of this House to appreciate better

the nature and extent of the problems of environmental management, and

the adequacies, or otherwise of the policies of the Government for

their solution. We will then be in a position to determine how well the

technological permit is functioning.

Now, Mr. Speaker, there was

one other interesting inclusion in the Throne Speech, which must not

pass unnoticed, and it has been mentioned by others, and this is the

suggestion that we will have presented to us this year a new Land Act,

and I say Amen to that. The Land Act of this Province had its

origins in the days when practically the only use of land was

agriculture and, therefore, its whole direction is in that way. The

time is long past when we required an up-dating of the policies of the

Land Department in order to keep pace with the changing use and designs

of land in this Province.

But I am concerned, Mr. Speaker, about one sentence in the short

paragraph dealing with this new legislation. His Honour said, "I am

certain the new Act will correct deficiencies, and improve procedures

with respect to the disposition of Crown lands within the Province." I

assume we are to have some streamlining of the procedures. But the

streamlining with respect to procedures for the disposition of Crown

lands, I didn't think that this Government needed any help in giving it

away. If we are to have a new Land Act, Mr. Speaker, then we must have

a systematic evaluation throughout this entire Province of our land

resource, and the uses to which that resource in those various areas is

best suited. If the best use is a single use, then so be it, but if the

best use is one which affords the opportunity for multiple use, then

multiple use must be permitted.

Before we streamline any procedures to dispose of Crown land, we

must insist that this kind of evaluation is made, and that there are

safe-guards in the legislation to prevent the hasty and improvident use

or misuse of this essential resource. All of the actions of this

Government show improvidence in the use of land, and these must be

changed. If we are streamlining procedures, we must ensure that they

continue to hold the land resource over the years, and for the future,

not to give them away.

When you consider the disposal of Crown land, it brings me to a

subject which has been before this House twice before in this Session,

and with which I will deal, because it is in my constituency, and that

is Cypress Bowl. The honourable the Leader of the Opposition has called

for an inquiry into Cypress Bowl, and this has been denied or refused

by the Minister. Well, if we don't have an inquiry then of course we

don't know what the Government may have to say about Cypress Bowl. But

fortunately the elected representatives of the municipality of West

Vancouver were able to have an inquiry, and they got a report. They got

the complete files of the municipality with respect to Cypress Bowl.

They weren't refused and we can examine into Cypress Bowl from that

point of view and see if it casts some light upon this contentious

issue.

Before I begin, perhaps the members might be interested in seeing

what the Cypress Bowl controversy is all about. You know, back in 1964,

when this whole development began, the developer produced a brochure

and this is what Cypress Bowl was to look like, and I'm sure the

Government has seen it. This is Cypress Bowl composed of three

mountains, Black Mountain, Strong Mountain and Hollyburn. Throughout

this mountain you will find ski runs, wooded areas, hiking trails,

other recreational opportunities. This was Cypress Bowl in 1964.

[ Page 196 ]

Well, Mr. Speaker, this is Cypress Bowl today. T here

aren't any trails there, hiking trails or ski trails there. Just vast

open stretches denuded of timber, snow-covered avalanche-producing

forest-fire danger, and we wonder, Mr. Speaker, how it all came about.

How could we have gone from the design which was produced in 1964 to

the reality which was ours in 1970? Well, the original concept was

presented to the municipality of West Vancouver as it was to this

Government, and in 1964 the council of that day approved in principle

the development, subject to certain conditions. One was that there was

to be freedom of public access to and within the Bowl at all times, and

secondly, that the road access was not to be the responsibility of the

municipality. As you peruse this file, and I'll make it available to

any other members who might wish to take the time, you find that the

discussion went on with the municipality, and apparently with the

Government, in a harmonious and a proper way. The great concern was

raised between the municipality and this Government as to precisely the

manner in which this would be planned, whether there would be a

community plan adopted. The Department of Lands was involved, the

Department of Municipal Affairs was involved, there was great

cooperation on all sides.

In March of 1965, the municipal manager sent a memorandum to the

Reeve and Council, which dealt with meetings between him and the

company, at which representatives of the Provincial Government were

involved. Mr. Bassett, of the Department of Lands, accepted the

approach of a community plan, but he advised that the Province would

lease lands to these developers only after the presentation and

acceptance of a development plan, and only in accordance with that

plan, and this would require the concurrence of the municipality. Well,

that was all right, no one can complain about that. So as you go

through the file, you find that the Cypress Bowl is slowly being

developed, at least the plan is being developed, although no work is

being done.

This continued on, Mr. Speaker, until it became clear in late 1968

that the Government was not to participate in the construction of a

road into Cypress Bowl. The Department of Highways was not prepared to

undertake the construction of access, and this was when the

difficulties began. All this time the clearing was taking place, but

when the decision of the Provincial Government was made clear it would

not provide access, but that it would be the responsibility of the

developer, then we went from a plan that would have brought Cypress

Bowl into existence, and the developers began to cut and get out,

that's what happened. They were a cut-and-run group from that point on,

and the reports are here as to the timber that has been removed.

Now it is not to be thought, Mr. Speaker, that there was never any

consideration given by the Government to put in the road to Cypress

Bowl. Far from it, because the municipality of West Vancouver was in

receipt of lengthy correspondence and requests from the Department of

Highways concerning the location of the road access into Cypress Bowl,

but that all changed in November of 1968.

Then when the trees started to come down, and the municipality

became concerned about what was happening in Cypress Bowl, and the

public demands increased and increased, the municipality finally

responded to pressure and employed the services of an independent

consultant. A Mr. Borgeson was engaged and he made a report and he

found, for example, that on Black Mountain the clearing was excessive,

on Strong Mountain the clearing was excessive, and he found that it was

scarcely an area developed for recreational purposes, although it was

not beyond redemption, but still the developers went on. Now I

mentioned November 1968, Mr. Speaker, as being the time when the

developers were told that they would have to provide the roads.

Something else significant occurred at the same time. With the coming

of winter the logging operations in Cypress Bowl ceased, because the

snow was too deep. But also the right to log ceased, and could not be

renewed without permission of the honourable the Minister of Lands,

Forests, and Water Resources, and the Minister indicated in writing

that the right to remove timber would not be renewed unless and until

an agreement was reached with the municipality concerning public

access. Well, in spite of that, Mr. Speaker, removal of timber did take

place in 1969 and there was no agreement with the municipality

concerning public access to the Bowl, and there isn't today. Yet the

logging continued.

Then finally, Mr. Speaker, when these developers had removed all the

logs and there was nothing further to be gained in that area, because

public pressure was so great that timber removal would be impossible,

they ran out of money and they had to seek some partners, and they

found partners, and we all know about the Benquet incident. But the

partners weren't going to come in and put up the million dollars they

put up unless they had something tangible, and what was tangible, Mr.

Speaker, were the leases to Cypress Bowl. We've never seen these

leases, Mr. Speaker, but we know what developed when this whole house

of cards collapsed. Was the suggestion that the purchasers had

purchased believing they were getting the right to subdivide, and the

vendors had sold without selling the right to subdivide, and someplace

between the two lay the truth? Well, it's interesting to note that the

file from West Vancouver contains copies of the leases, and we have a

lease dated the 23rd of October between Her Majesty the Queen

represented by the Minister of Lands, Forests, and Water Resources and

Alpine Outdoor Recreation Resources Limited for 299 acres, and the

purpose is to hold the Crown land unto the lessee for residential and

commercial development.

AN HON. MEMBER: Shame, shame.

MR. L. A. WILLIAMS: The 23rd of October, 1969, and we have

another lease, Mr. Speaker, dated the 23rd of October, 1969, for 245

acres for residential and commercial development, and there is another

lease, Mr. Speaker, the leases are signed by the Deputy Minister of

Lands on behalf of the Crown and by two signatories on behalf of Alpine

Outdoor Recreation Resources.

AN HON. MEMBER: Million dollar leases.

MR. WILLIAMS: And, there is a third lease dated the 20th of

October, covering 88 acres for residential and commercial development,

and it is found in the lease, on added pages, the terms of which are to

form part of the lease and it is the option of the tenant to purchase

these lands

AN HON. MEMBER: That's a million dollars.

MR. WILLIAMS: and the option is exercisable in respect of

lands which have been fully developed in accordance with the purpose of

the lease, including the installation of water, sewer, and power

services, and construction of all subdivision roads to a standard

acceptable to the Department of

[ Page 197 ]

Highways.

AN HON. MEMBER: What kind of roads?

MR. WILLIAMS: Subdivision roads. Each of these leases contain this provision. I'll be happy to file this, Mr. Speaker.

All right, you want them all. You want me to read every page, the

provisions, of the option? All right. "That the lessee shall, at his

option, have the right any time and from time to time during the term

fully complied with, to purchase all or any part of those portions of

the Crown land either (

a) which have been fully developed in accordance

with the purpose of the lease including the installation of water,

sewer, and power services and, construction of all subdivision roads to

a standard acceptable to the Department of Highways.

AN HON. MEMBER: Shame.

MR. WILLIAMS: "(

b) in respect of which, before any

construction shall have commenced on the ground, detailed engineering

plans of the development proposed by the lessee have been submitted to

and approved by the Department of Lands, Forests, and Water Resources

and that department has been supplied with an irrevocable clean letter

of credit from a Canadian bank made payable to the Minister of Finance,

or a performance and fulfilment bond of a guarantee or security

company authorized to carry on business in the Province of British

Columbia acceptable to the Minister. In either case for an amount to be

approved by the Minister to cover and secure the capital cost of the

installation of water, sewer, power services, and the construction of

all subdivision roads which are shown on the approved plans of

development." Is that what you want me to read?

AN HON. MEMBER: Yes….

MR. WILLIAMS: No, I'm not worried whether the municipality had to apply. All right….

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Much shouting).

AN HON. MEMBER: Why are you afraid of an inquiry?

AN HON. MEMBER: That's an after-the-election lease. You wouldn't have dared to sign that before the election.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order please. Order please.

MR. WILLIAMS: If you'll just bear with me, Mr. Speaker, while I turn up this vast file and find this elusive lease. Here it is.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order please.

If the House will not be silent I will have to ask the member to either proceed with his speech or be seated.

MR. WILLIAMS: Mr. Speaker, I'll continue the option portion,

Mr. Speaker, for the record. "Prior to exercising this purchase offer,

the lessee shall have the said portions of the Crown land surveyed out

of the leasehold at his own expense by a B.C. Land Surveyor of his

choice, under instructions to be obtained from the Surveyor-General.

The purchase price for any land so purchased within the leasehold

during the initial three year period of this lease shall be at the rate

of $395 per acre.

AN HON. MEMBER: Wow!

MR. WILLIAMS: "and for any land so purchased within the

leasehold after the three year period, but prior to the expiry of the

term of this lease, shall be based on the current market value

prevailing at the time of such purchase for comparable raw land

acreage, and in either case there shall be paid in addition, the value

of any milling timber existing on the said portion of the Crown land at

the time right to purchase is exercised, plus the statutory Crown grant

fee." So then, "That provided the Corporation of the District of West

Vancouver and/or the Department of Highways obtains all the required

access rights-of-way within a reasonable time to allow the development,

the lessee shall develop the Crown lands in accordance with the

following schedule." And there follows the schedule, and are you

interested in the schedule, Mr. Minister?

Mr. Minister, that's a proviso. It is not in this lease and I'll

read every word of it if you wish. No, it's not in there. Well, would

you file the lease in the House, Mr. Minister. This is Area No. 5, I

don't have the backing document on the lease and therefore it doesn't

give me the number. It deals with a parcel on attached plan, but it's

Area 5. It's the lease from which I was reading, Area 5. Thank you.

Because the lease, Mr. Speaker, from which I have read makes no mention

of municipal by-laws.

Mr. Speaker, if I can continue with my speech, I did not select the

lease. The one I read from was at random. If the Minister has some

documents he would like to file, then I think we should see them in

this House, and maybe slowly and slowly and slowly we'll be able to get

all the material out, as we did in this House a year ago in another

matter.

AN HON. MEMBER: Why are you so afraid of an inquiry?

MR. WILLIAMS: But, Mr. Speaker, the matter of these leases

and the attendant circumstances surrounding Cypress Bowl are not,

however, what really concerns me about this entire matter. It's the

basis upon which we could have gone from the plan I showed the members

at the outset of what Cypress Bowl was to be, and a picture of what

Cypress Bowl is today.

What happened? How do we embark upon these developments which are to

provide us with outstanding recreational areas in this Province, only

to find that when the trees are all gone, the mountains are bare, the

company has no money, the snow falls, and nothing happens. Because, Mr.

Speaker, it's happening elsewhere.

In my constituency, as well as Cypress Bowl, we have another

operation known as Powder Mountain, and I want to know whether or not

we can expect the same thing to happen there. Because I wrote to the

Minister about Powder Mountain and I expressed my serious concern to

him, and I urged him to conduct an inquiry into what was going on at

Powder Mountain so we would know early in the piece as to whether or

not this same thing would happen in Powder Mountain as happened in

Cypress Bowl, and on the 10th of December, 1969, the Minister replied

to me that he could see no basis for the suggestion of holding an

inquiry. The fact of the matter is that the developers of Powder

Mountain, and I'm not being critical of them, but the developers of

Powder

[ Page 198 ]

Mountain prior to the date of December 10th when you wrote me this

letter, had already indicated that they were short of cash. Their words

specifically were, "We're kind of short of cash, we're having to go on

a wing and a prayer."

Now, if the developers at Cypress Bowl fell down because of lack of

finance, and if the developers in Powder Mountain are falling down

because of lack of finance, then we are going to have the same thing at

Powder Mountain as we had at Cypress Bowl, and the policy of the

Department of Lands, Mr. Chairman, of a lease-develop-purchase, does

not prevent this from happening. As a matter of fact it encourages this

to happen. You go in with a wonderful plan, a delightful looking

artist's conception of what you will have when you are finished. You

take out all the trees, and then you say, "I'm sorry I can't go on, I

haven't got the money," and so you fold your tent and go away.

In my constituency, as well as Powder Mountain and Cypress Bowl,

there are a dozen other areas equally as exciting for this kind of

development. This is the kind of development we need to have in this

Province if, as the honourable the first member from Burrard pointed

out, we are to do the job in tourism with which we are capable. But no,

we don't have the staff in the Department of Lands who can assess these

plans, there are no financial commitments or guarantees required at the

outset when they file plans of what the development will take place,

there is no one who can look at those plans and say it will or it will

not work. Assessment is what is required at the outset, Mr. Speaker,

and when you have this assessment, then you can ensure that

developments like Cypress Bowl do not take place, unless the plan is

feasible at the outset, the developer has the financial ability and the

contractual ability to carry out the job. Unless you

schedule the

programme in such a way so that within its capabilities, financial and

otherwise, the job is done step by step, and if you once, once stray

from the programme which is set out at the beginning, then the whole

thing stops, and that is how you stop what occurred at Cypress Bowl.

But we've got Cypress Bowl in its condition today, Mr. Speaker, and

what do we do about it? Well, the Government approved the scheme in the

first instance. They thought it was a good idea. Did you never ever

approve this kind of a development? Did the Minister say that he never

saw this kind of a proposal? Never understood that this was what would

take place on Crown land?

Yes I read it and West Vancouver approved it in principle. Did you

not approve it in principle, Mr. Minister, through you, Mr. Speaker, at

the outset? He's asking me questions. I'll ask him the questions.

Through you, Mr. Speaker, I asked the Minister….

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Be quiet, please.

MR. WILLIAMS: did you not approve in principle this kind of plan?

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Will the member please sit back in his chair.

MR. WILLIAMS: What did you sign the lease for if you didn't approve the plan?

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order please. Will the member please proceed.

MR. WILLIAMS: We have a situation today where, denuded of its

trees, the Cypress Bowl area is still reported by people who are

qualified in the field, that recreational use and advantage still

exists. While its real use may largely be lost, we can still save

something out of it.

I say, therefore, that the Government has a responsibility in this

respect, and this responsibility is to engage qualified consultants to

go into Cypress Bowl and design a programme which will bring Cypress

Bowl into use as a recreational area. Having obtained that design, the

Government must then invite freely and openly developers who are

prepared to carry out that Programme in accordance with the

Government's design, if developers are not prepared to carry out that

programme in accordance with the design, then this Government, either

itself or through the auspices of the Regional Park District, must

undertake it and bring it to fruition.

In addition to learning the lesson of Cypress Bowl and ensuring that

it doesn't happen again, we must redress the situation which has denied

us this, and left us with this, and it can be done Mr. Minister.

Mr. Speaker, I indicated that we could not support the motion which

is before the House, and I move an amendment to this motion, seconded

by the honourable the member from Kootenay, that the following words be

added to the address in a reply to the Opening Speech, and I quote,

"but this House regrets that the Opening Speech has failed to propose

Legislative safeguards to preserve and protect public recreational

areas and Provincial parks from arbitrary despoilation."

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The Honourable Member for Kootenay.

MR. LEO T. NIMSICK (Kootenay): First, Mr. Speaker, I must say

that I'm very pleased to have the opportunity again to make my

contribution in this debate. I know that the banging of the desks

sometimes doesn't mean there are true feelings in that respect. I've

got to be very careful today, I've got my family in the gallery, my

granddaughter and my daughter and her husband, and this is the first

time that my granddaughter has been initiated into the Legislature, so

I hope that she enjoys it. Right up there, right in the middle, she hid

on you.

I would like to congratulate the new members of this House. I hope

that some of them haven't got too long a stay, but nevertheless, I hope

they enjoy themselves. I would like to say to them that they have

joined a very exclusive club, a club that only allows 55 members in the

Province of British Columbia, and as time goes on, you will find the

life expectancy is quite short in the Legislature. Some of us survive,

others succumb. The one point I would like to say to the new members,

that although we might take some of them apart during the debates of

this House, and they may feel kind of hurt about it, I hope they don't

carry it out into the corridors.

AN HON. MEMBER: Hear! Hear!

MR. NIMSICK: Because there is one thing we must remember,

that when in this Legislative Chamber we are discussing questions on

their principles, and while sometimes it may be sound very much like it

involved personalities, I for one have never taken it in that regard.

Listening to the speeches that have been made prior in this debate, I find one point that seems to stick out more

[ Page 199 ]

than any others. Every speaker from the Social Credit benches has

been damning the White Paper on taxation put out by the Federal

Government, almost every speaker. One who I was surprised that got up

and stated unequivocally that the White Paper was wrong, and that was

the Minister of Social Welfare.

Mr. Speaker, I would like the honourable the Minister to let the….

don't try and talk for somebody else, he'll have his chance today to

talk for himself.

You cry about the small businessman. I'd like to know when this

Government has ever been the support of the small businessman. You look

at the small logger throughout this Province, and where has he

disappeared to? All due to the policies of this Government. The small

logger has disappeared throughout the Province, and the small

businessman has got no protection, no protection whatever from this

Government.

AN HON. MEMBER: And the Commonwealth Trust.

MR. NIMSICK: It was always big business and the honourable

Minister of Social Welfare came into Fernie and he made that statement.

He was for big business, and there is no question about it. So your

tear-shedding is only a smoke screen.

The present taxes that are set up throughout Canada — no one, I'm

sorry, no one, will say that they are set out on an equal basis for all

people. Not one of the members that spoke on that side of the House

spoke about the increased exemptions, the need for increased exemptions

for the people on the small income. At the present time they are taxing

income tax on the old age pension, and this I think, is ridiculous, I

think everyone would agree. But you were worried about the business

people, you weren't worried about the little people.

The White Paper has increased the exemption to $1,400 for a single

person, I think this is too little, and to $2,800 for a married person.

These are points that are good points, but they don't go far enough.

They don't go far enough in the White Paper. The White Paper is a move

to try and equalize the taxes throughout Canada.

Our tax structure has been built up by the privileged class, because

it's a privileged class that has run this country for the last 100

years, and every time that somebody comes out to try and correct that

inequality, then you hear the cry. The Chamber of Commerce cries, the

mining industry cries, all the big industries across the country start

crying, and they don't cry for themselves, they cry like you do for the

little people. The people that are going to lose their homes or

something. Listen, you haven't read the White Paper if you say the

little people are going to lose their homes.

But they are trying, big business is trying to get the little people

that have got the votes throughout this country to shoot their bullets

for them. That's what they've got them to do — to talk on behalf of

them — to protect them so that their privileged position will not be

injured, and I say it's time, it's high time that we had equalization

of taxation in Canada, because it's far from it at the present time.

When you think by increasing the exemption only to $1,400 for a single

man, and I would like to know who could get along on $1,400 in one

year, and $2,800 for a married man, which is below the poverty level

admitted by the Economic Survey of Canada. This is the exemption, this

is the exemption that is allowed, and it's going to take 500,000 people

off the tax rolls in Canada, 500,000 people off the tax rolls in Canada,

and 3,000,000 people besides that are going to have a reduction in

taxes due to the White Paper.

Now these are the people that I am concerned about, the people on

the bottom of the ladder. Not the people that have been ruling the

roost for all these years and many of them have had a hey-day, a real

hey-day in tax protection. I say this, Mr. Speaker, to pick one little

item, like most of you picked out of the White Paper and cry bitter

tears about it, and say that you're going to ruin Canada, to me is

wrong. Let's get, all of us, behind the deal of trying to equalize the

tax burden throughout Canada.

We have had three speakers on that side of the House ask for

increased taxes in British Columbia already this year. Increase in the

Provincial taxes, 6 per cent the sales tax, increase in the gasoline

tax, increase in the cost of hospital beds to the individual, and who

is this going to hit? The people that you are crying about? That you

are trying to let on that you're crying about the little people and

make suggestions, and make suggestions like this, is rather ridiculous.

You're only using the White Paper, and I'm sure Mr. Speaker, that the

Premier has made this a point, so that he can have a whipping boy

during his Budget Speech tomorrow. He will have a whipping boy to

protect him from any mistakes or any drawbacks that come out in the

Budget Speech.

AN HON. MEMBER: We don't beat women over here.

MR. NIMSICK: So much, Mr. Speaker, for the comments on the previous speaker.

I would like to deal now with a question that concerns my area very

much. Last year I placed a Bill on the Order Paper asking that it was

an action of not good conduct for a professional man to sign a

restrictive clause in an agreement which would prevent him from

practising, or anyone from practising, in the Province of British

Columbia. When I listened the other day to the honourable member for

North Vancouver speaking about the professional groups in this House,

and the little empires they have built up around themselves, the

privileges that they have had as to be a law unto themselves, I think

it is time maybe that we did have a complete investigation into all

these privileged groups in the Province of British Columbia. When he

spoke of that question in regards to the medical profession, it brought

me back to the Bill I had placed on the Order Paper, and my purpose in

placing this Bill was because I felt that restrictive clauses in this

Province were interfering with the right of these professional groups.

The professional group, especially in — we'll take the medical

profession — they would like for the doctor to practise any place in

British Columbia, and then later on comes along some little group that

will deny that doctor the right to practise within some community. We

had the sad experience in Cranbrook where a doctor was exiled from the

area, that he couldn't practise within 10 miles of Cranbrook for 10

years. The honourable the Minister of Health at that time said that it

was up before the Courts, so he didn't want to say anything about it,

but he was watching the case. I'm sure he is still watching the case.

You people claim to be free enterprisers. You claim to believe in

free competition. Now if you are going to deny a doctor the right to go

down the street and set up a practice, that's not free enterprise or

free competition, because you are afraid of competition. I say that it

is wrong when a restrictive clause denies this right to a man.

[ Page 200 ]

At the present time we have no resident surgeon in Cranbrook. We've

got to send to Kimberley for a surgeon. This is the letter that I wrote

to the Minister of Health, and I asked him a question. I said, What

happens if the doctor at the present time that has to come down from

Kimberley to do operations in Cranbrook, if he was out of town, or away

some place, and there was an emergency and they had to call on the

other doctor who has been exiled from Cranbrook, would he be allowed to

go down, or would he be charged with a contempt of Court if he went

down there in an emergency case? He neatly side-stepped that question.

He didn't answer me, and I hope he does answer me before the end of

this Session because I think this is a ridiculous situation to get

into. I think that that contempt of court should be squashed, Mr.

Minister and Mr. Attorney-General because it isn't in the best

interests of the people of British Columbia that he should deny that

doctor the right to operate in the City of Cranbrook, if necessary,

even. He didn't sign the contract.

I say that we should bring a Bill in that we'd do away with

restrictive clauses in any agreement in British Columbia. That would be

free enterprise, that would be true, free enterprise, if we did away

with these restrictive clauses in all agreements. These professional

men, Mr. Speaker, are educated by the people of British Columbia and

the tax-payers of British Columbia. This man came from that area, and

his education was partly paid for, and I don't see why he should be

deprived of the right, through economic reasons, because somebody wants

to have a monopoly, to practise any place in British Columbia, once

he's got the permission of the College of Physicians and Surgeons.

You would be very quick, if any case like this came up about labour,

you would be quick to jump on them right away. Because I am talking

about it, confirms the other groups, the other groups that you have set

up as little empires in this Province. That's why you are not

interested in doing anything about it. But I say that it's wrong, and

let's make it so that none of them can have restrictive clauses, and

we'll see how they like real free enterprise. How they like real free

enterprise.

Coming to the Speech from the Throne, Mr. Speaker, I was saddened

when I noticed that Nancy Hodges had passed away. I was in this House

when Nancy Hodges was the Speaker and I wish to say that Nancy Hodges,

when she was the Speaker, she did a very wonderful job, and she did a

wonderful job when she was debating in this House as well. Nancy Hodges

stood head and shoulders above most of the men when it came to debating

in this House, and we always enjoyed listening to Nancy, and I was very

sorry when I heard that she had passed away.

In the Speech from the Throne that I had it didn't say anything

about Mr. Matthews or Len Shepherd, but I imagine that that was an

oversight.

Then they have got an item here, October 27 last, the Honourable

Philip Arthur Gaglardi assumed the portfolio of Minister of Social

Welfare. You know, I would have been a little bit shy in mentioning

this point by the Government, because I think that the Minister — I

know he is impetuous and quick to say things that he probably is sorry

for afterwards, in other words he gets his foot in his mouth very

quickly — and the first thing he did, the first thing he said was that

he was going to get rid of the deadbeats. Well, you would take it from

that, Mr. Speaker, that the Social Welfare Department was riddled with

deadbeats.

AN HON. MEMBER: He threatened the whole Cabinet.

MR. NIMSICK: Riddled with deadbeats. Well, he should know

what a deadbeat is, because he even spent a certain period of time

before he got a job, and he got paid for it. So,

AN HON. MEMBER: Well, do you call yourself that?

MR. NIMSICK: He should know how it is, how it feels in these

cases. When I hear the members praising the previous Social Welfare

Minister, I don't think this is shared by the honourable Minister of

the present time, because I think it was a reflection, Mr. Speaker, I

think it was a reflection on the previous Minister when the Minister

immediately said that it was all deadbeats in the Social Welfare

Department. This was a reflection on the Minister. We haven't seen one

go since that statement was made that I know of, that has been picked

up and charged with being a deadbeat on the welfare rolls, and I think

that if there is that many then something should have been done.

I think the former Minister did some good things. He tried to

involve the local communities in dealing with these welfare problems,

and I think this was good. One of them was in our area. I would like

the honourable member for Nelson-Creston and the honourable Minister

who represents Trail-Rossland, and the honourable member for Columbia

River, if he is in here, I hope he takes this into consideration also,

because it was the former Minister that invoked the system, the project

in the Kootenays, the Community Resources Development Project, and this

operated from last June. They didn't give it a very big chance to get

operating very far, though, before the present Minister cancelled the

whole scheme out. And don't forget that this scheme is in the

Kootenays. It is being cancelled out.

AN HON. MEMBER: That's right.

MR. NIMSICK: It did a lot of good, even for the short time it

was there. But it just shows you what he thinks, Mr. Speaker, what the

present Minister thinks of the previous Minister's administration….

AN HON. MEMBER: Shocking.

MR. NIMSICK: ….because he is wiping this out. The first

phase of this demonstration project, the major population areas of the

Kootenays, Grand Forks, Trail, Castlegar, Nelson, New Denver, Creston,

Cranbrook, Kimberley and Fernie, were surveyed to determine the major

social services resources needed. And they did this. Now they have

cancelled it out.

I would just like to read a letter I received from a lady in

Cranbrook, and this is what she said, "Dear Mr. Nimsick: I am writing

this letter to congratulate myself. In the last election I almost fell

for 'the good life' line. The recent cutbacks on school construction,

hospital construction, and child welfare have convinced me that my

decision to vote for you was well justified and I would have kicked my

own posterior had I voted Social Credit."

AN HON. MEMBER: That's from a lady?

MR. NIMSICK: And now, Mr. Speaker, last August, 120 children

from social assistance families in the East Kootenays spent a carefree

week at a self-help camp at Wasa Lake. Now there is one thing we must

not forget, that this project was paid for by the Federal Government.

The camp sponsored by the Department of Social Welfare in Victoria

received

[ Page 201 ]

enthusiastic support from churches and communities, and the man in charge of the project was more than pleased with the results.

The Department of Social Welfare decided to terminate the Community

Welfare Resources Development Project in the Kootenays. This move,

announced January 6th, has placed in jeopardy a total of 12 projects,

three of them in the Cranbrook-Kimberley area, and some of them in the

other areas as well and I think that this has been a mistake. I don't

think that you gave the ideas of the previous Minister a chance to

work, to really prove themselves, before you disbanded the whole plan.

The programme is far from non-essential, and I quote here, "Since

our survey of the major population centres in the Kootenays conducted

from May 1967 to August 1968 demonstrated the need for such services."

Now, Mr. Speaker, I don't know why this was cancelled out. I don't

think it should have been cancelled out without at least some

conferences with the people concerned. I don't think it should be done

arbitrarily by the Minister or by Victoria. I think the whole problem

should have been assessed. It was a Federal project. The Federal were

paying for it, and I feel that this should be continued on, Mr.

Speaker. I would like to say to the honourable Minister of Social

Welfare this should be continued on.

I would like to also quote what the Minister had to say when he was

questioned about it. He was questioned about it from Nelson. "Gaglardi,

contacted Saturday at his Kamloops church, said he had not read the

story outlining the charges and did not want to hear about it. 'I don't

know anything about what you are talking about, and I could care less,'

Gaglardi said." Now this is from a Minister.

I don't think this is a proper way to treat a community, and

especially this community. Nelson is a Social Credit community too, you

know. I know you have come into my area and told the people that if

they had a Social Credit representative you would be a lot nicer to

them, but you are treating your own, this is the way you treat them.

You wouldn't dare come into my community and treat me like this. "I

don't know anything about what you are talking about, and I couldn't

care less," Gaglardi said, "I am just trying to do a good job and if I

can't do it, I can't." Well, I think that just about answers the

question. The Government is simply not interested in this community. It

doesn't care.

Mr. Bruch predicted that the termination of this project implies

that in the future we can expect no improvement in the existence and

quality of the social service programme and resources, and that

Provincial Government will continue to repress and exterminate the few

remaining vehicles by which communities can have some impact on the

decisions which affect their lives, and this, I think, is a wrong way

to treat any area. I think the least, Mr. Speaker, that he could — he

could have been civil with the Nelson people when they asked why he was

discontinuing it.

AN HON. MEMBER: Even you look good compared to him.

MR. NIMSICK: I have an

article here, too, where the

honourable Minister the other day said he was going to end, that the

welfare programme was on the way out, that he was going to change the

name first. In changing the name you don't change the programme, a rose

by any other name is exactly the same, so don't change the name unless

you want to change the policies, unless you want to make the Department

a better deal. Here it is. The honourable the Minister said outside the

House, Gaglardi said, "It is important welfare recipients have dignity

and stature," and added, "The way to do that is to make them useful.

That is all I want to see at this time."

You want to make them useful. You want to give them dignity. Do you

mean to tell me that the mothers with children on welfare are not doing

a useful job raising their families? You have got thousands of them,

thousands of them, that are raising families on inadequate incomes, Mr.

Speaker, I say that it is a mistake when you make statements such as

that. I don't think you mean that people that are physically unfit are

not useful people. We have got lots of people on welfare, and this is

the real role of the welfare, physically unfit people that are unable

to look after themselves. But to make a flat statement that you want to

make them all useful is indicating that they are not useful, and you

are putting a stigma on them that I don't think is good. I would like

to quote an editorial from the news.

"Surely Mr. Gaglardi must realize that there are very

few people who willingly live on welfare. It is not the life of Riley

or even the life of an occupant of the Hotel Vancouver. People live on

welfare because they are handicapped in some way, physical, mental,

family ties, lack of education, and so on. Any social worker will be

able to give Mr. Gaglardi a complete list. Mr. Gaglardi has been quoted

as saying that the reason he didn't reveal the location of his Alliance

of Businessmen offices was they didn't want to be bothered with kooks.

That is the way that you speak of people that are unemployed and on

welfare. Kooks, Mr. Gaglardi, are not so by choice. They are disturbed

people, and that is why they are often not able to hold down a job. And

that is why a firm would rather pay to keep them away from their

operation than have them around for free."

I would like to make a few suggestions, Mr. Speaker, to the

honourable the Minister. I would like to see him do a good job on this

welfare programme. I think that mothers with children should be in a

category by themselves. The mothers who lose their breadwinner in an

industrial accident are looked after by compensation, and they get that

pension by right and nobody looks down upon them for it. I say that

mothers who lose their breadwinner through a car accident or a heart

attack or even if he has deserted, they have a right, they should be

receiving this allowance by right, and not have the stigma of social

welfare placed on them, this is the reason, I say, that mothers with

children should be taken out of welfare.

We know that welfare is a department that has been overly abused by

the public of British Columbia. Overly abused by the public of British

Columbia. You can go any place and you can find people making the same

kind of statements as you made about deadbeats, and you try and trace

those deadbeats down and you can't find them. I have done it myself if,

and they won't give you names, they won't give you anything, but they

still claim they are there, and I don't think that is right. That is

the reason that I say we should take away, take the mothers with

children, they have got a responsibility to be treated just as highly

and on a high plane, just as mothers who lost their husbands in an

industrial accident.

Secondly, I would like to say, Mr. Speaker, to the Minister, that

the unemployed employable should be in a category by themselves.

Just a minute till I get through with you, Mr. Minister.

[ Page 202 ]

You asked for constructive ideas, now I am giving you a few, I am giving you a few.

I say the unemployed employable should be in a category by

themselves, and they should be given a job. The reason that you didn't,

the reason that these people are on welfare is because our present

capitalist system has deprived them of the right to make their

contribution. The only people that should be on welfare, Mr. Speaker,

should be the people that are physically unfit. This is what welfare

means. The only people that should actually be on welfare should be the

people that are physically unfit to look after themselves, and they

should be on welfare. The rest of them should be looked after under the

category where they belong.

I hope, Mr. Speaker, that the indication in the Throne Speech that

they are going to get an increased allowance, that it will mean

something, and especially to mothers. I have had more mothers with

three and four children come to me, crying on my shoulder because they

haven't got enough money to put the bread on the table, that they

haven't got enough money. Now everyone of you, I am sure, if you went

out of this House today and tried to live with three children, or two

children, on $150 a month, that you would have one sweet time doing it.

Well, I say we should have at least one measurement. It should be a

living allowance, but I think that the measurement for a mother with

children, whether she has lost her husband in an industrial accident or

whether he was lost by some other method, that they should be receiving

an equal amount. I don't think we should have two classes of citizens

in this regard, and we have them. We are giving a welfare recipient

$150 a month but we give a person who lost their breadwinner in an

industrial accident $200 and some, a month. Is that treating them all

alike? I am asking you, Mr. Speaker, and I am asking the Government at

this Session, now that you are indicating in the Throne Speech that you

are going to increase these allowances, for goodness sakes let's make

it one measurement for all people in that category.

I am quite certain, Mr. Speaker, in spite of all the cries on the

other side about the people that have got to live in little shacks, in

little one-room places, where people are getting $75 a month for

welfare, and a single person who is physically unfit trying to get by

on $75 a month, I am quite certain that those people that yesterday and

the day before on that side of the House got up and made their

contribution in the Throne Debate, and mentioned these things, and how

these people are living, if there's a motion on the Order Paper put on

there by the Opposition asking for an increase, they'll vote against

it. They won't vote for it. They'll vote against it. That's how sincere

you are. Sure it's easy, it's easy to get up in the House and make a

speech so that the people back home are thinking that you're fighting

for them. But unless, Mr. Speaker, as the saying goes, you put your

money where your mouth is, then it's no good. It doesn't do anything.

Listen, Mr. Speaker, many, many times we had resolutions in the same

category, but this would be turned down by your own group, and the

reason that you wouldn't let it go through, and the reason that you

ruled it out of order, is to protect your members.

I notice in the Throne Speech, too that they're going to extend the

benefits of home-ownership to older houses. "To extend the benefits of

home-ownership now provided by the Provincial annual home-owner grant

and assistance to build new homes, you will be asked to consider

legislation to provide further assistance to tenants by way of a grant

or second-mortgage loan for the purchase of homes already in existence."

Mr. Speaker, it's like an echo, it's like an echo from last year,

because I brought that question up when that Bill was on the floor, and

I asked for an amendment to be brought in at that time. I didn't hear

anybody asking for it, but you voted, you voted for that.

AN HON. MEMBER: How did you vote?

MR. NIMSICK: We tried to bring in, we tried to bring in an

amendment on this, and it was no good. So you are only doing what you

should have done last year, and what you were advised to do by the

Opposition last year.

AN HON. MEMBER: It was too early to do it.

MR. NIMSICK: Too early to do it? It's never too early to do

things for people. Except, Mr. Speaker, it gives a nice little plum to

go out with at election time and to offer the people. You promised it

last year, and of course you got to go through with it, but it was a

nice little plum to say to the people, "You put us back in, we'll make

this apply to older homes as well."

Then you go into pollution, and this is an age-old problem. "A

matter of prime concern in British Columbia today is the protection of

our environment." You'd think it was the first time you'd ever heard

about the environment. "There are many facets to the problem of

environmental control. They range beyond those measures designed

directly to minimize air, soil, and water pollution, to those so

necessary in a programme of environmental health protection. My

Government will continue to work toward the protection and preservation

of our total environment, so that all our citizens may enjoy the

beauties and wonders of our heritage as intended by nature. Reports

will be made to the Legislature concerning the efforts and progress

being made." What nice verbiage. I think, if it's anything like you

said previously, it's like a lot of tripe. We in this House, year after

year, even brought Bills in to put air pollution under the Pollution

Board.

AN HON. MEMBER: Hear, Hear.

MR. NIMSICK: ….each and every one of you that were here at that time voted against it. Turned it down cold.

Bringing in Acts is like all these conferences they got all over the

country. We've read about pollution ever since 1949. I'd like to quote

a statement here, far back as 1947. "The question before a conference

at Princeton University was The Fate of Man. Would he go the way of the

dodo and the dinosaur, or would he take his destiny in his own hands

and make a better creature of himself" That was said back in 1947, and

since that time we've had conferences across this country, we've had

committees going back and forth across the country, all talking about

discussing pollution, but have we ever done anything about it? We've

done nothing about it, nothing, nothing, because capitalism has its

basis at the base of the golden calf, and if it's going to cost any

money, don't do it. That's the way, that's the way capitalism operates.

We asked for air pollution control last fall in Natal. I went down

to Natal one day last fall, and I couldn't see up the street for coal

dust. There was a car that had just been washed that day that had an

inch of coal dust on that car. I went to the health officer and I asked

him about getting in touch with the authorities, and stopping the plant

from

[ Page 203 ]

keeping on going until they clean up this situation, because the

plant had ruptured. He said there wasn't a law in the land that would

give him the authority to do anything. There wasn't a law in the land

that would give him authority to do anything in regards to air

pollution. Finally, I went myself to the head of the Kaiser Resources,

and I had him close the plant down until he had it repaired. I say

this, if this is an indication, what you've got in the Throne Speech,

of what you're going to do this year, we'll be next year or the year

after with the same situation.

Now you're talking about having the municipality passing a by-law.

The municipalities, most of them, are in the pockets of the Chambers of

Commerce. The Chambers of Commerce are the people who represent the

industry that's creating the pollution, and if you think for one minute

that they're going to enforce pollution against industry in these small

communities, by local people, you've got another guess coming. Because

people are interested in, their first concern is their livelihood, and

all these companies need to say is, "We'll close it down, if you don't

like it we'll close it down," and they all run for cover, the whole

works. That is the reason we say we've got to have an authority far

higher than that, an authority that might have to get a little bit

ruthless at times in regard to pollution, and close a place down if

necessary, and demonstrate to them that something has got to be done.

This Government has been a Government of more or less giving

lectures for pollution, rather than controlling pollution. They give a

permit to pollute any time. They give a permit to pollute, that's what

you've been doing, and that's what you set up the Board for, so that if

somebody wants to pollute they ask for a permit and they get it.

Now you're talking about drilling in the Straits of Georgia for oil.

I don't know of a more ridiculous suggestion in my life than this.

We've got situations in Kimberley, pollution situations and water

pollution situations at Cominco, that have gone on for years. They've

made probably a billion dollars out of Sullivan Mine, and yet if they

spend five hundred thousand dollars to correct the gypsum part of the

pollution, they think they've done a big job. I say that they should be

given a deadline to clean up all of the pollution exactly the same as

they were given in Trail.

I remember the City of Trail when there wasn't a blade of grass

would grow within miles of that City. And what do they say to the

Government? I'm sure somebody must have asked the Government at that

time to have something done. Well, we can't do anything about it. But

the fumes had a habit of going down across the line, and it killed the

orchards down in the United States. So the United States, another

country, they laid a charge against Cominco. Five million dollars, and

they won it, they won it. They made it so expensive for Cominco that

Cominco cleaned up the pollution in the Trail smelter. From that day

on, I remember well, until they had the thing solved, while they were

progressing towards solving it, if the wind was blowing up into Canada

they would have everything going, if the wind was blowing down to the

States everything had to close down, and they had a man on there 24

hours a day to see that this was done. Years ago.

AN HON. MEMBER: 1920, 1921.

MR. NIMSICK: Trail is like a greenery now. Trail is like a greenery now.

AN HON. MEMBER: The United States did this.

MR. NIMSICK: What I'm telling you is that pollution can be

cleaned up. Trail is like a greenery, and the company did a very good

job of cleaning it up, but they cleaned it up because it was profitable

to them, or it was going to be more costly if they didn't clean it up.

That's exactly what this Government has got to do in regard to

pollution. The same with Kaiser Resources. They can put in a plant

there for coking in Natal that would have no pollution at all. When you

say that they should do it, they say that we intend to do it, but I

think the Government should step in and say, we'll give you so long to

do it and get it done.

The same as cleaning up the water coming out of the Mars Creek in

Kimberley. When I first came to Kimberley I used to take my friends

down to show them the Mars Creek Falls. For an interval I didn't do it,

so I went down again, and when I went down I was ashamed, because there

was nothing but a black mass coming over the top of those falls, and I

say that this is wrong to allow industry to do this.

I know that many times you say that the people are the greatest

polluters, but the people of Kimberley did do something. They put in a

treatment plant to clean up their pollution, and I think that the same

should be done in the other cases. The only thing with the City of

Kimberley, it's operating as a service to the people, and it's the

people that did it. I suppose if the people were taxed to pay for all

the pollution control for industry, that they'd do it too. But I don't

think that that's good enough. I think that it should come out of the

profits of industry to see that they look after the pollution problem.

The Minister of Mines the other day, when he spoke, said that about a

copper smelter.

We have been advocating secondary and tertiary industries here

because we feel that the resource industries do not make jobs. They

make very few jobs, the resource industries. Unless we process that

material in our own country we're not going to build up this Province

the way we should, because for the same amount of jobs that a

processing industry will provide or a tertiary industry, we've got to

mine or extract ten times the amount of minerals to do the same job,

and this is wrong.

We're shipping copper as fast as we can, copper concentrates to

Japan just as fast as we can ship them. They're stocking it up ready to

go and they're shipping it out there. It seems rather odd to me that a

country that has got to import the natural resource can do the job

better than the country who has the natural resource. We were promised

a rolling mill in Kimberley a long time ago. They haven't got a rolling

mill there for steel yet, but the same company has got a rolling mill

down in Hawaii for steel.

I'm thinking about British Columbia, and when the honourable the

Minister said that we had to put up with pollution if we had a copper

smelter, I disagree with him. I don't think a copper smelter needs to

pollute anything. We can process our ores without polluting the air or

the water. Telling the people that you're going to have to put up with

pollution is just another way of passing the buck, passing the buck,

that you have no intention of putting up a copper smelter in the

Province of British Columbia, or no intention of pushing that it be

done.

We're so anxious to get rid of our natural resources that we don't

seem to have time to do the processing. We're just anxious to get rid

of them. I don't know why. I think it wouldn't hurt to once again quote

the warning that the honourable member for Cowichan-Malahat stated the

other day, the warning that we were given just a few days ago by the

Ambassador of the United States, Mr. Adolph Schmidt,

[ Page 204 ]

and I quote Mr. Adolph Schmidt, who is the States Ambassador to

Canada, who has a friendly warning for British Columbians. "Guard the

natural resources." Speaking to the Men's Club at the Hotel Vancouver,

Wednesday, Schmidt said he had sensed an optimistic air of confidence

in British Columbia since his arrival Monday. "But", he added, "I hope

it will not be taken amiss if I remind you that my country, also, was

blessed with the areas of great beauty and an abundance of natural

resources. But in our eagerness to tame and develop our portion of this

Continent, or more specifically to make our fast dollar…." Now don't

forget, to make our fast dollar, "while the getting was good, we have

in many cases been profligate in our misuse of these irreplaceable

resources." This is a man from our friendly neighbour the United

States, one of the places we're trying to ship all our goods to, one of

the places we're trying to ship everything we can to, in a raw state.

We even sell a lake for $50,000 to a mining company, and I challenge

the honourable the Minister of Recreation and Conservation, that is

there any lake in this Province for sale to the individual? Is any

individual able to buy a lake? For any price? Because anybody that

wants a waterfront lot today cannot buy it, they have got to lease it.

They've got to lease it, and they've got to pay a lot more per acre on

a lease than what these people paid to have that lake, and I don't

think that this is profitable.

We're giving out coal licences in this Province as if they are going

out of style. I look through the Gazette and column after column, coal

licences, coal licences that are asked for in the Province of British

Columbia. I imagine that most of them are given, and I don't suppose,

with half of them, that those who give the licence out know where

they're going to go after the coal. It seems rather odd to me that we

are the people who are looking after the resources belonging to the

people of British Columbia. It seems odd to me that we can give a coal

licence away, whether it's away up the Elk Valley or whether it's way

out in the north country, then we can give them away, but the party

that we give them to can sell them for a big price.

This happened in the case of the Crowsnest Industries. Years ago,

not this Government, but a previous Government gave the Crowsnest

Industries acres and acres of land, including coal licences. But, when

somebody wanted to mine coal on this property, they didn't give it

away. For a small portion of it they asked $56,000,000 for it,

$56,000,000 just for so many thousand acres of it. Now why can't the

people of British Columbia sell their coal licences for that kind of

money, so that the money would go to benefit the people of British

Columbia and not to benefit just a few private individuals. If we did

that there wouldn't be as much argument maybe.

We give away rich mountains of copper, give it away without any

royalty on it, rich mountains of copper. Why don't we sell that? Do you

think those people that have those rich mountains, if another mining

company came along and wanted to mine the copper, that they'd get it

for nothing? This is what you call good business? This is what the

people look upon. They look upon you as a financial genius or

something, but I don't think that the people understand what you're

doing with their natural resources. You fool them, you lead them down

the garden path with a lot of fancy advertising.

We give away the Skagit, we give away the High Arrow, all the land

in the High Arrow, we give away the pondage of the Libby Dam. It takes

thousands and thousands of years of evolution to build these valleys,

to build these rich valleys.You can't tell me that the land up on the mountainside is like the

land down on the bottom, the bottom land in the valley, and we flood

them and drown them and give them away to somebody else for nothing.

You know, I don't think that we Canadians or British Columbians,

appreciate the value of the land. I remember back in the 30s when we had

the Cascade Highway going over the summit, and the mountains were so

high that we decided to survey a road that would be a lot lower. It had

to go half a mile into the United States to miss the mountain peak. We

called it the Victory Highway, and we went to the Government about it,

to ask the United States if they would give that corridor through

there, and let me tell you they wouldn't give us one inch of ground.

That's how they appreciate their land. They don't give away what

they've got.

I've got a letter here in regards to the pollution. "Dear Mr.

Nimsick: I am becoming increasingly concerned about pollution. No doubt

you can realize how frustrating it is for the average voting citizen to

see how the present Government is shortsightedly allowing this

beautiful Province to be despoiled by inadequate sewage disposal

methods, by big business being allowed to disregard the most elemental

standards of health and cleanliness, all because of the dollar. I read

recently that a mining company located on the northeast of Vancouver

Island has applied for permission to dump daily prodigious amounts of

mining wastes into the Straits. As far as I know there has been little

opposition to this and it is probably a foregone conclusion that they

will be allowed to do this, if they are not already doing so. What a

tragedy. Now the oil companies are in the process of applying for

permission to drill on the offshore of those very Straits. Surely this

cannot be allowed, especially in light of the tragic events off shore

at Santa Barbara, California. Mr. Nimsick, it is my suggestion to you

that you oppose this latest proposal of potential pollution to the

fullest extent." I wish more people would have taken that stand on

August the 27th, on August the 27th, and the people who were interested

in controlling pollution may have had the opportunity of doing the job.

Now that our Minister of Highways is in I'd like to say a few words to him.

I'd like, Mr. Speaker, I'd like to say to the Minister now in

regards to that highway from the Fort Steele Junction to the Fernie,

Kimberley, Cranbrook Junction, I hope that you're going to carry out

the promise that was made last summer that the contracts will be

called. They were supposed to be called last summer but I haven't seem

any action there yet. I hope that you'll improve the road to the fish

hatchery. We've spent millions of dollars on making a wonderful tourist

attraction down at the fish hatchery. Now our main area of tourists is

Fort Steele, but the road from Fort Steele to the fish hatchery is

nothing but a cattle trail, we might say. It's too rough for them,

because they usually go in the bush to walk because there's so many

rocks on it, and I hope that this will be done this year.

The highway to Kimberley needs to be updated. The by-pass on Van

Horne Street in Cranbrook, and you know this one very well, has been

promised for years, promised by the previous Minister, and it's not

been done yet. But it takes more than promises, of course, I know to

build highways. But I expect you, because I've helped you out in some

of your areas, and moving into your area, Mr. Speaker, I'd like to say

to the Minister I'm very pleased that he was able to get them to act on

the Kitchener-Creston Lake. It did create a little bit of arthritis

after the election, and it's been very slow in finishing, but

nevertheless you've at least started.

[ Page 205 ]

The Champion Lakes cut-off is another project, I think, that

concerns not only the people in your area but the people in my area and

the people across British Columbia. The Champion Lakes cut-off is long

overdue. A great many more people would come to Vancouver through the

Canadian route if we had the Champion Lakes cut-off, because it would

shorten the route. The only reason we're not doing it is political.

This has been a political football. The member for Trail and Rossland,

and the member for Nelson-Creston, they want to channel the tourist

trade through those two items. It's like a Y. I don't think they'll go

to Nelson very much unless you get that road from Salmo to Nelson fixed

up too.

AN HON. MEMBER: Hear, hear.

MR. NIMSICK: And I'll help you out in that, too, if necessary.

AN HON. MEMBER: That dreadful bridge.

MR. NIMSICK: But the Champion Lakes road, the benefits to be

derived from it by the people of British Columbia are so great that I

don't think politics should interfere with it at all.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear.

MR. NIMSICK: And we should go ahead with it.

I notice a little

article in here too in regards to ferries, in the

Speech from the Throne in regards to ferries. I come from the Interior

but I like to do something for the people on the Island and the people

around Vancouver too, and I say that the next step that this Government

should make is to have free passenger service on the ferries — free

passenger service on the ferries.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear.

MR. NIMSICK: The ferries are the part of the Queen's Highway

across this Province and I see no reason why a person should be denied

the right to come either from Vancouver to Victoria or vice versa

because they haven't got a dollar in their pocket.

AN HON. MEMBER: Hear, hear.

AN HON. MEMBER: You let the seagulls ride free.

MR. NIMSICK: And you could quite easily, you could quite

easily. The taxpayers in Victoria are subsidizing the fixing of

bridges, the keeping up of the Deas Island Tunnel and all this. Why

shouldn't we subsidize for the passengers going on the ferries in the

same exact fashion?

AN HON. MEMBER: Bridge across Okanagan Lake.

MR. NIMSICK: And the bridge across Okanagan Lake. The ferries up in the Nelson area are free. Why shouldn't the ferries to Victoria be free?

At election time you know, Mr. Speaker, they told the people, in

regards to education, that everything was in good order. They had

lifted the freeze and it was going to be hunky dory from then on.

AN HON. MEMBER: Beautiful, beautiful.

MR. NIMSICK: But as soon as the election was over, the tune

changed and they stopped even any school bylaws or any referendums

being put to the people in December. Now I say that this, I think, is a

mistake on the part of the Government. I think you could've at least

let the referendum go through, and if you didn't want to fulfill the

bill after that, at any time you were able to you could, but they would

have had the permission. But now they've got to go through the whole

rigamarole again if they want to get permission to build their schools.

We've got some pretty bad situations in our area, especially in the

Fernie-Sparwood area. We had to open the old Michel school which was

dust-ridden, at a great expense, and not only at an expense to the

school board but an expense to the people sending their children there

because it's a very dirty, dusty, polluted place. We need new schools,

and you stopped the school board there from going to referendum to

build that necessary school, and especially when the population is

exploding in that area. I think it's a callous manner of treating the

public in that fashion.

Game is another question in my area that's very important. The East

Kootenay has been noted as the finest big game area in the world, but

that is fast becoming a myth. When I'm speaking of big game I don't

think that we should conserve or preserve or build herds of big game

for hunters alone. I don't think there's a greater privilege than to be

driving around and to see a mountain sheep or to see an elk or a deer.

I think it's wonderful for the children, and this is something we must

keep in mind, that we cannot look upon this resource as just a

money-maker to fill the coffers of the Provincial treasury.

In 1958 the sportsmen went along with the biologists at that time to

put antlerless season on, and when this was done they wiped out most of

the local herds where people could see them. You can't see a deer, you

can drive for miles today and you don't see any of them in that area.

Ever since 1958, since they started the antlerless season, we've been

on the downhill run, till last year was the worst year that they've

had. The biologists still say it'll show up yet, but they've had ten or

twelve years. And now they're taking a petition up there, Mr. Minister,

through you, Mr. Speaker, to ask that the antlerless season be done

away with, that we cut back on the seasons, that we reduce the number

of takes.

I had one good suggestion where you would get a tag for a deer, and

a tag for a moose and an elk, and if you didn't use the moose and elk

tag for those game then you could have another deer. The sportsmen

themselves are willing to give up this right until we know where we're

going and how much game we've got left in that area. Otherwise we're

going to end up with nothing. This talk about harvesting game as if you

were harvesting a crop of wheat, it's not the same at all. I'm sure

that if a farmer was to run his cattle, or a cattle rancher was to run

his cattle the same as we are running the game, it wouldn't be long

before he wouldn't have any cattle. Especially if he hired somebody and

told them to go out on the ranch and shoot, indiscriminately,

everything that was there, calves, cows, bulls or steers — shoot 'em

all — and the first time they went out they got a big crop and he was

pretty happy, he made a lot of money, made a lot of money, so the next

year he got twice as many guys to go out and shoot the cattle and they

come in with another big bunch. The same thing is happening in hunting.

We're doubling the pressure and tripling the pressure of the hunting,

and we expect the herds to remain the same. This is impossible.

[ Page 206 ]

AN HON. MEMBER: They'd advocate shooting the bulls.

MR. NIMSICK: This is impossible, to keep the herds up, to my

mind anyway, and I'm not a biologist. If you could go and pick your

cattle, or the deer and the elk that you wanted to shoot that would

have no effect on the herd, this would be different, but as I say, in

the case of the cattle rancher, if he was to go out and

indiscriminately get rid of his herds, it would end up that he'd have

nothing, and that's what's liable to end up in regards to the game in

the East Kootenay.

You promised the people there a land use study several years ago. We

had the ARDA people in there taking a land use inventory. Last year I

was given to understand that the land use — not in this House but

outside of this House — that the land use inventory by ARDA is in now

but it hasn't been made public, and I'd like to know why, and I'd like

to know when.

While I'm at this, I would like to offer my congratulations to the

B.C. Wildlife Federation for having won, shared in the winning, of the

Owl Conservation Award. (Applause) This was presented by Alan A.

McNaughton, P.C., Q.C., LL.D., who is Chairman of the World Wildlife

Fund, and he said the B.C. Wildlife Federation has made a major

contribution, over the past few years, to the cause of conservation and

protection of wildlife, by creating public awareness of the urgent need

to conserve our natural resources.

AN HON. MEMBER: Hear, hear.

MR. NIMSICK: I think this is a big boost to the B.C. Wildlife

Federation, because I really think, in this regard they have been

trying to do a job. They received $2,500 of that award, and I hope that

that $2,500 will go to do a lot more good. I'd just like to pass this

around — and now you'd be lucky if you saw two on a truck.

Now I'm going to come to another problem that's probably

interesting, a little more interesting to you maybe, and that is the

election. I'd like to say a few words on the election.

AN HON. MEMBER: Hear, hear.

MR. NIMSICK: I don't think anyone's got more right to say

anything on the election than I have. (Applause) You know, I think that

when there's big majorities there's very few people understand the

Elections Act, or study it, very few people. It's when you're in a

close contest that you really study the Elections Act and you find out

how inadequate the Elections Act is. The night of the election, you

know, there was great rejoicing in the Social Credit camp, not only in

my area but in Victoria as well, I'm sure.

AN HON. MEMBER: Shame!

MR. NIMSICK: There was great rejoicing, great rejoicing, I was 48 votes behind.

AN HON. MEMBER: Shame.

MR. NIMSICK: This is what the honourable member for

Nelson-Creston said commenting on Socred wins in Kootenay and

Revelstoke-Slocan riding, Mr. Black said, "Now we have a solid voice in

the government for the Kootenays."

AN HON. MEMBER: Ohhhhh.

AN HON. MEMBER: They never had one solid voice before.

MR. NIMSICK: We have a solid voice, and I'll be right with

you for the Kootenays, Mr. Minister, but I'm very pleased — I thought

you were my friend, I thought you were my friend, Mr. Minister, and

after that night, after that night how you shattered it, my faith in

you. The Premier tried hard, and all his cohorts, to take the Kootenay

riding. The Premier was in there three or four times. He started out

with this film at the taxpayers' expense. The Premier came in with his

film "The Good Life." He came in and he got the taxpayers of Cranbrook

to help pay for the dinner that was put on so he could show the film.

He went to the Chamber of Commerce. The Chamber of Commerce owed a big

bill for the dinner because not many turned out. So then they went to

the City Council and they got some money from them to help them pay,

and they did this in several places in the Province.

All the Cabinet Ministers came in one after the other, they were

trouping through there, and they were telling them time and time again

what a wonderful area it was, what a wonderful growth area it was, it

was the fastest growing area in the Province of British Columbia, but

it would be better if they sent in a Government representative. They

did tell them this, and they even said you would get more if you sent

in a Government representative. You were so convincing that you even

influenced a bunch of gutless Liberals in Kimberley to go along with

you. That's right. That's no reflection on the Liberals here, but I'm

talking about the ones he was talking about last summer. He himself

said they were a bunch of gutless Liberals up there, that knifed their

own candidate in the back and went over to the Social Credit, and they

thought they were going to defeat me by it.

AN HON. MEMBER: They were sure your friends in August.

MR. NIMSICK: In August, listen boys, when you had the slogans going it was that way.

But this Elections Act should be overhauled, because there are many,

especially the Government members, who have utter disregard for the law.

AN HON. MEMBER: So have you.

MR. NIMSICK: The candidate, and the Cabinet Ministers of all

people, to have an Elections Act and then to flaunt it in the face of

the people like they did during that election. I think it was terrible.

When you use the public's money for campaign funds through your big

advertising, and nobody can tell me any different. It wasn't by

accident that those big page advertisements were in the paper during

election time. It wasn't by accident — it was done purposely and

deliberately.

Let me tell you, Mr. Speaker, a few years ago you passed

an Act in

this House depriving the right of trade unions, by majority decision,

to use their funds for election purposes, and yet you could put your

grimy hands into the pockets of every taxpayer in the Province and take

the money and use it for campaign funds. You did it right and left, and

you know it.

Section 164, just to give you an idea,

section 164 of the Act. It

says, "Every candidate at an election who corruptly, by himself or with

any person, by any other way or means on his behalf, at any time

between the date of issue of the

[ Page 207 ]

writ…." and so on, "provided, or is accessory to the giving or

providing, or pays, wholly or in part, any expenses incurred for any

meat, drink, or provision to or for any person in order to be elected,

or for being elected, or for the purpose of corruptly influencing that

person, or any other person." That's 164, and this is what they

advertised, "Phil Gaglardi and Harry Broadhurst will be in Cranbrook at

the Stop and Go Inn — free lunch."

AN HON. MEMBER: Oh no, please!

MR. NIMSICK: I phoned up the returning officer that it was against the law and they didn't do anything about it.

I never buy a glass of beer for anybody at any time during an

election. I never buy a glass of beer for anybody because I live up to

the law, I live up to the laws. But your candidates went into the beer

parlour and bought beer — they even bought me beer. Your candidates

even tried to get my vote with beer and I say that if we are going to

flout that

section of the Act, then it should be out of there. It

shouldn't be in there.

Then we came to the recount or the re-check of the ballots. I asked

for a re-check on the night of the count. They told me at first that I

couldn't get it. Then they said I could get it. Then they said I would

have to have the request in writing, so I put it in writing. Then we

came to the re-check, and they were going to limit me to one scrutineer

at each box, and the Act says, and I'll read that too,

section 121.

AN HON. MEMBER: Be sure your foot is out of your mouth first.

MR. NIMSICK: Prior to the final count, ….in the presence of

the candidates or their scrutineers, and shall give to the scrutineers

of the candidates appointed to attend at the counting…." And it says

in here also, under

section 68, in regards to scrutineers, "Every

candidate or his official agent may, by writing under his hand, appoint

a scrutineer or scrutineers at each polling-booth…." and I took it up,

and you people sent in the chief electoral officer at the time of the

recount to try and defeat me. I asked him, when I came up to the

scrutineers, they sent for the police because I wouldn't agree to only

one scrutineer, so they had to send for the police.

They sent to Victoria for an

interpretation of the Act, and they

hired a lawyer in Cranbrook to help out the poor chief electoral

officer, to help him out. I told them, I said, "It's your decision to

make, not the returning officer, not the local returning officer." He

was a top man, and he didn't make the decision. He wouldn't make the

decision, and you don't live up to these laws.

AN HON. MEMBER: Who was your lawyer? You had a good lawyer.

MR. NIMSICK: I actually didn't need lawyers, but I had a good lawyer just the same, I had my son.

I think they wrecked them throughout the Province. I think that it

shows, when you see how many

section 80 ballots were cast — there was

one damn, darn poor job done with the registration. I think they are

appointed by the Social Credit party, the enumerators, and I feel, in

my own mind, that they quite likely slid over those who were not Social

Credit. This is my feeling, and they quite likely slid, because

otherwise they didn't do a good job. Otherwise they didn't do a good

job. They should have done a better job. There should have been nobody

voting

section 80 hardly, in that election, they should have been all

on the list, and so I'm not holding anything back for that.

But I think we should have a complete overhauling of the Act, and

those sections that, if you're going to ignore them, if you are going

to disregard them, then for goodness sakes make it for all people. I

try and live up to those sections and you break them, so I don't think

that that is right. That's one thing I can say without fear of

contradiction, that I do not break the law at election time, or any

other time, if I can help it. You people talk about it.

When the final ballots were counted at the re-check, when I was six

votes ahead, I said to them, I said, "Now I'll withdraw my

request…."No, but listen, at the final count before the re-check was

counted, I was six votes ahead, "So I'll withdraw my request, I'll

withdraw my request for a re-check because she said it was going to

take too much time" So up marched the candidate for the Social Credit.

"I want a re-check, I want a re-check." I said, "You can't have a

re-check." (laughter) So the chief electoral officer gets on the

telephone again to the Attorney-General's Department and asked him

about it, and asked him about it, so when he asked him about it the

Attorney-General's Department upheld my decision. They said the only

thing that you can do is to not accept the withdrawal, so he got his

re-check too, and then I was 12 votes ahead.

But you know, you people talking about the labour people being your

friends, I am dubious about how many, because I'm sure that I must have

got 100 per cent of the workers on the Kaiser project in the absentee

vote, and your rejoicing was short-lived. I gave you an opportunity to

rejoice for a few days but that was all.

Then you run around the country with this slogan of calling us

Godless socialists. The whole programme of Social Credit was that they

called us Godless socialists. I was taught that Christianity was the

brotherhood of man, and I ask you, in a political sense, does not

Socialism advocate the brotherhood of man, too? Every day you recite

the Lord's Prayer in this Chamber at the start of the sitting, and if

you study it carefully, it says, "It will be done on this earth as it

is in Heaven." Now I pray to God that they don't do a job in Heaven

like they are doing on this earth, because it would be one heck of a

job.

So capitalism, you know, does not use the resources of the world for

the common good, but for profit. They build obsolescences into almost

every

article so that it will not last too long. You will have to buy

another, and our natural resources are used up that much quicker. The

faster and faster they use them up the more profit is made. They care

not whether it is used to burn people to a crisp in Vietnam or to

destroy it, the goods that's made, as long as the price is kept up.

Socialism means to make use of the world's vast resources for the

benefit of all, aided by science and universal planning, free of

exploitation as of the present time, and as in the past centuries of

slavery. Planning implies the conservation of natural resources and

their efficient use. Also care of all its sources of water supply,

minerals, forests, agricultural land, and the wealth of sea-food, our

parks, etc. Socialism is to stop the stupid waste of men, money and

resources. This is the very essence of Socialism. I ask you, is this

the Godless Socialist Plan?

You know, the Scripture says that, "Ye will be persecuted by those that call themselves Christians," and I think this

[ Page 208 ]

applies very aptly to the Social Credit Government. You were not

particular as to the tactics you used to win this election, but

problems of poverty, unemployment, waste, and pollution are still with

us. They have got to be solved if the human race is going to continue,

and in order to solve them you will have to break out of the limits

that capitalism has placed upon you. I was watching the T.V. when the

Federal-Provincial Council was in progress, and every one was like a

herd of cattle in a corral, milling around, moving from position to

position, but solving nothing. Before you will solve those problems,

you will have to break out of that corral, and follow the road to

Socialism.

While there are a few little items in the Speech from the Throne

that might be considered good, a few little politickings, it offers no

solution to the real problem of our social problem. It does not

indicate that the Government understands, or wishes to understand, the

underlying causes of our problems, or to set out upon a course that

will solve them. When this final motion comes, after the next speaker,

when the final motion comes, I ask you to vote "No" to the Speech from

the Throne.

Now, dealing as the seconder to this motion, I would like to say

that this Government, further, has proven itself a champion in

desecrating our land. The Strathcona Park, they gave it to the Western

Mines. They gave part of the forestry to somebody for a piece of land

up in the top end of the Island. They gave away Divide Lake, they

exchanged timber for land, they flood the Skagit Valley, they ruin the

Elk Valley — they will be ruining it right up to the National Parks if

they can possibly do so, and they're giving away. We've got to have a

more definite programme of land use in the Province of British

Columbia. This motion, Mr. Speaker, this motion affects all members,

regardless of party, in this House, and regardless of constituency, and

we call on members on all sides to support it.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The Honourable Minister of Recreation and Conservation.

HON. W. K. KIERNAN (Chilliwack): Mr. Speaker, I would first

of all like to thank the mover and seconder of this amendment to the

Speech from the Throne, because it provides for me an opportunity to

give a full report and history on park development in British Columbia,

and also to lead the old and the new members through the intricacies

and the problems, the prospects and the results of many long hours of

deliberation. I thank you for inviting me to make this address, and for

providing the opportunity. Because no subject has been less understood

or more maligned than park policy in the Province of British Columbia.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Shouting)

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order!

MR. KIERNAN: I want, however, I want to have the

opportunity…. However, Mr. Speaker, if somebody else wants to make

this speech, fine. But I suggest, leave it a little while.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The Minister has the floor.

MR. KIERNAN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to advise the

House of three matters related to park policy that have direct bearing,

in fact, on the amendment that was just moved.

First of all, I wish to advise you that pursuant to the Park Act,

1965, by the authority of that statute, the Lieutenant-Governor in

Council has been pleased to provide a Class A park in the Skagit Valley

of 3,700 acres. The Order-in-Council pursuant to this statute is here.

The park will further have, encompassing the area, a recreational area

of 32,000 acres which will be known as the Skagit River Recreational

Area and established under the Forest Act.

I might explain, Mr. Speaker, for those who do not know where this

part of British Columbia is located, that the Skagit River, which rises

in British Columbia, passes under the Hope-Princeton Highway and flows

across the international boundary into Ross Lake, is located

approximately 25 miles easterly from the town of Hope. The Skagit River

Valley has long been under observation by our parks and recreation

people, and we felt that if the raising of the reservoir as proposed by

Seattle Light and Power should proceed, that it would provide us with

an additional 6,000 acres of usable recreational water in that period

of the summer when that type of facility is in demand. Whether or not

the Seattle Light and Power proceeds with its programme, the long-term

planning for parks in this Province still dictates that we ought to

establish the substantial Class A park in the Skagit River Valley, and

this is what we have done. I don't propose to spend a long time, I

don't propose to spend a long time on this. The date is the 3rd day of

February in the year of our Lord, 1970.

Now, Mr. Speaker, the park here is of considerable importance, but I

don't propose to spend a great deal of time on this particular park

this afternoon, because I think the honourable members who have

indicated, at least on the opposite side of the House, that they

propose to support an amendment to the Speech from the Throne, ought to

have brought to their attention the process of evolution in park

development in the Province of British Columbia, so they may be able to

understand some of the complexities confronting whoever may be vested

with the responsibility for parks, and some of the positive and

constructive actions that have been taken, not only to eliminate those

problems, but to assure that they do not again reoccur in the future.

However, there is another administrative matter that it is proper I

bring to the attention of the House, because it deals with another

Provincial park, and incidentally there are 276 Provincial parks. There

are also 2,632 map reserves for future park development if detailed

assessment, in the process of the development of the Province,

indicates that those map reserves ought to be developed for parks. So I

think you can realize now that we're dealing with something in excess

of seven million acres of real estate. That is not inclusive of the

million acres of National Parks within the Province, of the parks

presently being put together by the Regional Districts, of the parks

that are presently municipally or city managed, but simply the

Provincial parks system.

I would also advise you that at the time the Department of

Recreation and Conservation was formed in 1957, there were 106

Provincial parks in the Province of British Columbia, which was double

the number that had existed in 1952. Just as a matter of interest, in

1957, Mr. Speaker, there were 106 Provincial parks, which means of one

new Provincial park each month for all of those years intervening

between 1957 and today, or 144 months, 144 new Provincial parks, plus 5

over and above one a month, and you tell me that that is not an

aggressive and positive park programme.

Now, my friends, to come back to an administrative

[ Page 209 ]

matter, and I want to point out to you that one of the

responsibilities of ministerial office is that you make decisions. It

may be that they are not pleasant decisions, that doesn't excuse you

from making them, that's your responsibility. You know, the big problem

with many people in the world today, they can't make decisions.

Having examined the casualty record at Mt. Seymour Provincial Park,

and finding that although the tobogganing represents only a minor

portion of the use, it is accounting for far the major portion of the

accidents. In view of the fact that there is not a proper area at this

time in which we can properly manage tobogganing, and that the

tobogganists will not restrain themselves from getting into the ski

areas, I have no alternative but to ban any further tobogganing as of

today until proper facilities can be provided.

I want to tell you that that is not a simple problem in Mt. Seymour

Park. It's immediately adjacent to the greatest concentration of

population to be found in British Columbia. Within an hour and twenty

minutes drive out of Mt. Seymour Provincial Park there are today, Mr.

Speaker, 1,100,000 people. I had hoped that some of these other

developments such as Cypress Bowl, such as Whistler Mountain, would

slacken off some of this load that we have at Seymour, because the load

is at times almost unmanageable. The fact remains that Mt. Seymour has

only two things to recommend it. One, that it is readily accessible

even though the road is bad at times, and two, that it is immediately

adjacent to a large metropolitan area. The terrain is bad, the snow

conditions are less than optimum, and the air is fresh.

Now, Mr. Speaker, we have directed our attention, as well as to Mt.

Seymour, to other areas that were within reasonable reach of the

Greater Vancouver Metropolitan area, and we have created extensive

developments at Gibson Pass in Manning Park. We have added to the

facilities and we didn't make the mistake, Mr. Speaker, when we built

the road from Manning Park Lodge into Gibson Park, we did not make the

mistake that was made in building the road into Seymour. After the war,

that is the last war, it goes back a ways, there was great interest and

pressure for the development of the mountain playgrounds on the North

Shore. Because of this pressure they said, let's stick in a road so we

can get up and ski on Seymour, and they put in a road simply to minimum

standards. Since then, from our limited park budget, we have been

slowly and tediously reconstructing that road and resurfacing it to

standards that are acceptable to present day requirements.

When we built the road from Manning into Gibson Pass, and I must

admit we had more favourable terrain, we built it to adequate

standards, and I can simply illustrate the difference to you when I say

we plow the road from Manning Lodge to Gibson Pass ski area six miles

with an ordinary road grader. We plow the road to Seymour with a

$45,000 Sicard snow plow, we rebuilt the old one, we bought a new one,

and we moved the machinery shed up to the top of the hill so we could

plow down instead of up. You know we keep trying, we're making

progress, but the terrain and snowfall are very much against us and it

is one of the more difficult areas to maintain.

Now, our problem in relation to tobogganing is simply this, in order

to have tobogganing that is reasonably safe you've got to have a pretty

sizeable cleared area, because if you have only a narrow belt and you

get 27 tobogganists, 3 of those flying saucers, and 16 bobsleds going

down the place all at once you're not going to have a toboggan run

you're going to have a sausage machine. This means you've got to clear

hundreds of acres if you are going to accommodate the kind of volume of

people that wish to engage in that type of activity, and also the

accident records show that tobogganing is far more dangerous than

skiing.

Well, I think I ought to make it perfectly clear since somebody has

raised the question, are we closing all the parks to toboganning? Now I

don't know anything I said that would lead anybody to conclude that I

was talking about other than Mt. Seymour Park, but just for certainty,

I'm only dealing with tobogganing at Mt. Seymour Park. I'm only dealing

with it in the interests of public safety, I am doing it reluctantly,

but, nevertheless I'm doing it because it has to be done. Now I can't

make it clearer than that.

AN HON. MEMBER: That's a small point.

MR. KIERNAN: Well, tomorrow it would be a very large point

because my friend, it may not be a very big point at this moment but I

want to take you to another little point and then we're going to come

back and we're going to analyse this whole business of park

development, park control, and so on.

I just wanted to point out again in relation to parks, Mr. Speaker,

and especially for the second member for Vancouver East for his

benefit, that the only way a park can be established in British

Columbia, whether it is by purchase or from Crown land, is by an Order

of the Executive Council signed by His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor.

There is no other way. If the land is donated it still must go through

the Executive Council. If the land is purchased it still must go

through the Executive Council, and have an Order specifically setting

out the boundaries, the classification of the park, and authorizing it

to become a park. Now, I think that's fairly obvious, but apparently

some people lose sight of that fact or never got around to reading the

statute.

I want to deal with one other matter that is of current interest,

it's a very little matter perhaps in some people's eyes. In other

people's eyes it's very important. In my opinion every lake, every

valley, every stream in this Province is important. I think we have one

of the finest recreational potentials to be found anywhere in the

world. I think, consistent with the population of 2,000,000 people, we

are doing a tremendous job of developing it. I think that recreational

development ought not to be the exclusive prerogative of government,

but that there is a place for free enterprise or private enterprise, if

you wish, and I think that unless we can encourage more private

development of recreational areas that we are not likely to catch up

with the demand. Certainly this has been illustrated time and time

again. Grouse Mountain, Whistler, Mt. Baker, a mixture of private and

public developments, some straight private development, some straight

public development.

But, I want to deal very briefly with a matter related to parks that

has apparently caused a great deal of concern, and that has to do with

the little park reserve area known popularly as Divide Lake. Now,

again, most of you won't be able to find Divide Lake on the map and

unless you happen to have been there — you can find four or five of

them as a matter of fact — most of you don't know where Divide Lake is.

AN HON. MEMBER: We'll never find it now.

MR. KIERNAN: Most of you don't know where Divide Lake is. Well, then what is its — fill me in — what is its proper

[ Page 210 ]

name?

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Will the member please address the Chair.

MR. KIERNAN: Maybe the member would be good enough, maybe the

member would be good enough to fill me in, Mr. Speaker, as to what the

recorded name of the lake is, if it isn't Divide Lake.

AN HON. MEMBER: It is Empty Lake.

MR. KIERNAN: There are four or five lakes. That's right.

Quiltanton. The member that lives in the area knows what he is talking

about. He has probably been in there. Now then, let's take a look at

Quiltanton Lake.

AN HON. MEMBER: Look at it quickly before it evaporates.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, please.

MR. KIERNAN: No, it isn't going to evaporate. You see, Mr.

Speaker, and this is just an observation related to the amendment we

are debating, I listened with great attention to the speaker that

seconded the motion, and in an hour and 45 minutes of dissertation he

spent five minutes on parks, and yet the whole substance of the motion

was directed to parks and recreation areas. Now that is observation

number one.

Observation number two. In the five minutes he spent on parks he

mentioned two, Wasa Lake, and his complaint there was some arrangement

that he objected to in relation to the youth camp there, but he was

quite complimentary about Wasa Lake park. The other one was Champion

Lakes which has a beautiful black top road to it, and what did he want

to do with Champion Lakes? Well,