1976 Legislative Session: 1st Session, 31st Parliament

HANSARD

The following electronic version is for informational purposes only.

The printed version remains the official version.

Official Report of

DEBATES OF THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY

(Hansard)

TUESDAY, JUNE 8, 1976

Night Sitting

[ Page

2455 ]

CONTENTS

Routine proceedings

Miscellaneous Statutes (Court Rules) Amendment Act, 1976 (Bill 69) Hon. Mr.

Gardom

Introduction and first reading — 2455

Anti-Inflation Measures Act (Bill 16) .

Division on third reading — 2455

Provincial Home-owner Grant Amendment Act, 1976, (Bill 17) .

Third reading — 2455

Interpretation Amendment Act, 1976 (Bill 20) .

Third reading — 2455

Auditor General Act (Bill 45) .

Third reading — 2455

Guaranteed Available Income for Need Act (Bill 28) Second reading.

Mr. Wallace — 2455

Mrs. Wallace — 2459

Mr. Cocke — 2461

Mr. Lea — 2463

Mr. Bawlf — 2468

Mr. Barber — 2469

Mr. Hewitt — 2471

Mr. Barnes — 2471

Mr. Kerster — 2475

Ms. Brown — 2477

Hospital Services Collective Agreement Act (Bill 75) Hon. Mr. Williams.

Introduction and first reading — 2480

TUESDAY, JUNE 8, 1976

The House met at 8 p.m.

Introduction of bills.

MISCELLANEOUS STATUTES (COURT RULES)

AMENDMENT ACT, 1976

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

a bill intituled Miscellaneous Statutes (Court Rules) Amendment Act, 1976.

Bill 69 introduced, read a first time and ordered to be placed on

orders of the day for second reading at the next sitting of the House

after today.

Hon. Mr. Vander Zalm presents the second annual report of the Burns Lake Community Development Association.

Orders of the day .

HON. G.M. McCARTHY (Provincial Secretary): Mr. Speaker, I would like to call public bills and orders. Report on Bill 16.

ANTI-INFLATION MEASURES ACT

Bill 16 read a third time and passed on the following division:

YEAS — 29

McCarthy

Gardom

Wolfe

McGeer

Calder

Shelford

Chabot

Jordan

Schroeder

Bawlf

Bawtree

Fraser

Davis

Williams

Waterland

Mair

Nielsen

Vander Zalm

Davidson

Haddad

Hewitt

Kahl

Kempf

Kerster

Lloyd

Loewen

Mussallem

Rogers

Veitch

NAYS — 14

Macdonald

Stupich

Dailly

Cocke

Nicolson

Lauk

Levi

Skelly

Lockstead

Barnes

Brown

Barber

Wallace, B.B.

Wallace, G.S.

Division ordered to be recorded in the Journals of the House.

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: Report on Bill 17, Mr. Speaker.

PROVINCIAL HOME-OWNER

GRANT AMENDMENT ACT, 1976

Bill 17 read a third time and passed.

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: Report on Bill 20, Mr. Speaker.

INTERPRETATION AMENDMENT ACT, 1976

Bill 20 read a third time and passed.

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: Report on Bill 45, Mr. Speaker.

AUDITOR GENERAL ACT

Bill 45 read a third time and passed.

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: Adjourned debate on Bill 28.

GUARANTEED AVAILABLE

INCOME FOR NEED ACT

(continued)

MR. G.S. WALLACE (Oak Bay): Moving right along, Mr. Speaker. (Laughter.) Bill 28 starts off with good intentions to amalgamate...

Interjections.

MR. SPEAKER: Moving right along, Hon. Member! (Laughter.)

MR. WALLACE: ...existing pieces of legislation....

Interjections.

MR. WALLACE: It is obvious, Mr. Speaker, that it is a lot tougher to speak after supper than before supper. (Laughter.)

But it is a serious bill because it takes a new direction in that it

asks this House to make some very serious decisions and to either

approve or oppose a bill where the precise impact of the bill is

actually going to be in the regulations, not in the bill before us.

While the supper break has some disadvantages, it also has some

advantages in that I can read the transcript of the minister's

introduction of second reading. I understand that in the minister's

introduction of second reading, he said that this legislation has an

advantage over the former legislation in which much of the direction of

the former legislation came from the regulations.

[ Page 2456 ]

I found that a very surprising statement, Mr. Speaker, because I

took the trouble to review all of the 29 sections of this bill, and in

16 of the 29 sections the regulations are referred to as being the

authority to implement the principle in each section. It seems to me

not really very fair to the people who will be affected by this bill,

and certainly to the members of the opposition parties, that so much of

the direct impact of this bill will only be known when, in fact, we

know what the regulations are.

In my view, it does not make a lot of sense to debate a bill in the

very widest and general and diffuse way when, in point of fact, the

real application and the real meaning and impact of the bill will only

be known after we know what the regulations are. We've already had some

experience of the impact of regulations in the circular which was

brought forward by the minister in relation to the present provisions

of Mincome for those under the age of 65.

It is very important, I think, that we should have some idea from

the minister as to the contents of the regulations which he has in mind

because in some respects — not all, but in some respects — in this

bill, he is in fact asking us to vote for specific recommendations by

his department which are not included in the bill but which are only

defined in a most general way. And yet in that general definition, as I

mentioned before supper, there is the widest power of

interpretation

under

section 1, both in relation to the term "income assistance" and

in regard to the term "social services."

I would like to quote, Mr. Speaker, one specific example of the

general point I'm trying to make. In one of the subsections which

interprets the definition of "social services," it refers to

"participation in improving the social conditions of the community." I

just can't think of a wider terminology to describe the breadth of

meaning which could be attached to the words "social services."

I want to be fair, however, and state that there is much in this

bill that attracts me and which I think is long overdue. I'm thinking

particularly of sections such as 10, 11 and 12, where we're dealing

with incentives, we're dealing with the plight of single-parent

families and we're dealing with handicapped health benefits. I can't be

stronger in my support of the minister's effort in that kind of

direction where, in fact, in the past, we certainly have made it

difficult for individuals to take low-paid jobs when, in point of fact,

they lose their medicare coverage and other such medical benefits.

Really the difference in income, in the net effect, is very small if

they are employed.

So the general thrust of this bill, and I suppose the overriding

thrust, is to encourage people not only to seek employment, but also to

ensure that they will not suffer through temporary employment in an

irregular way, or even in employment which might only last for one or

two or three months of the year. So I think in trying to appraise this

bill, and in trying to be objective, there is no doubt that many of the

sections are moving very much in a positive direction as the minister

has claimed.

On the other hand, I'm greatly concerned by the

section which deals

with the minister's authority to make certain judgments. Before supper

I referred to the same kind of legislation in the mining Act and the

Mineral Royalties Act which has been rescinded, or at least is before

the House, and I've no wish to intrude upon that rule of the House. But

the reaction of this government to the existing Mineral Royalties Act

shows that it is sensitive and aware of legitimate arguments which can

improve legislation by taking away or reducing ministerial discretion.

Mr. Speaker, there's one

section of this bill which to me is

absolutely frightening. It's certainly the image of big government in

the worst way. To stay within the rules of the House, I've no wish to

quote word for word any

section or number of the bill, but this

particular section, for example, relates to a person losing employment

by reason of misconduct. And this kind of terminology....

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. Would the hon. members please accord their attention to the member who has the floor?

MR. WALLACE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker

I don't want to belabour this point unduly, because I realize that

the minister does have to have some authority to make judgments. But

the language in this particular part of the bill really is quite

frightening. Because without suggesting that we indulge in semantics,

the word "misconduct" is so prone to the widest possible

interpretation

by many different people that for someone to lose his job because of

misconduct might simply be the way that the employee looks at the boss

or the foreman, or because the foreman may have his own biases or

prejudices and doesn't like somebody who doesn't cut his hair or

happens to be a member of a certain association or affiliation.

If you really want to look at it seriously, Mr. Speaker, the word

misconduct in the British context means sleeping with somebody else's

wife.

Interjections.

MR. WALLACE: No, I'm being completely serious. If anybody

reads the British press, he will find that that is the euphemistic word

which is used in the British press in reporting extramarital conduct by

an individual.

While that may be the extreme

interpretation as far as Canadians are concerned, the word misconduct

[ Page 2457 ]

and the power of the minister to decide what an

employee has done, which would qualify under this definition, I think

is really interfering with the rights of an individual to perhaps take

certain attitudes which he firmly believes in. He might be discharged

from his employment for his conviction in certain beliefs, whether they

be religious beliefs or union beliefs or management beliefs or a whole

variety of other reasons which as an individual he has every right to

believe. But these beliefs might not coincide with the beliefs of the

employer. If he loses his job for that legitimate difference of

opinion, is he to be considered as being discharged because of

misconduct? It's just a frightening power vested in one single word,

Mr. Speaker.

The same kind of qualification is also used in another subsection

where it talks about the person receiving social services who fails to

demonstrate that he is making reasonable efforts to secure employment.

I just have to ask if it is safe in a democratic society that one man,

a minister, no matter how well motivated he might be.... For however

much we trust this minister, we have to look ahead and consider that

there will be other ministers in the future holding this position and

given this authority. Is it safe to leave any one individual on this

side of the House or that side of the House to determine in the

behaviour of an employee what amounts to misconduct or what amounts to

reasonable efforts to secure employment?

I would like to ask the, minister, in winding up second reading of

this bill, if he would also explain the particular purpose in

section

22 of the bill which again gives the minister, in accordance with

regulations, the right and the authority to determine rates relating to

a variety of facilities such as private hospitals, personal-care homes,

foster homes, day-care centres and so on.

The astonishing thing that I can't understand is why this power has

been made retroactive to such a specific date as May 27, 1974, and that

the order is retroactive to the extent necessary to give it full force

as of the date of May 27, 1974. I would wonder what the intent of

section 22 is in being retroactive in the first place and being

retroactive to such a specific date as May 27, 1974. Mr. Speaker, I

can't recall if that was a date on which rates were changed or put up

or what has happened. I know that there's been enormous turmoil with

certain municipalities trying to sue certain private hospitals.

With the amount of work involved in this job of being an MLA, I

haven't had time to research the specifics, but I can well recall the

deep dissension that has existed between private hospitals and

municipalities about the rate that should be paid for patients in these

facilities, and the fact that one case did go to court, and I believe

that the court found in favour of the private hospitals.

Mr. Speaker, I won't belabour the point, because I haven't had time

to research it myself, but I would like the minister to explain if, in

fact, this part of the bill means that municipalities will be in a

position to reclaim money which has been paid to private hospitals

since May 27, 1974.

Beyond that point I would want to ask whether in fact this principle

of the bill is an attempt to get around the court decision. Now I hope

this is not the purpose of the bill because if we've got to the point

in this House where we're going back two years with retroactive

legislation to thwart the decision of a court, then indeed we are, in

my view, at a very serious point of disrespecting the law of the land

as decided by judges in our various courts.

I can't recall any bill ever, in the years I've been in this House,

that makes legislation retroactive for more than two years. There are

many reasons, and I know the Minister of Labour (Hon. Mr. Williams) for

one has often talked in this House when he was on this side of the

House about the very undesirable aspects of any kind of retroactive

legislation. But here we have in this bill, Mr. Speaker, a

section of

the bill which applies retroactive authority for over two years — May,

I'm not sure if this is a first in this respect, but regardless of

whether it is the longest term of retroactivity applied by a bill, I

would like the minister, when he winds up second reading, to explain

the intent of this section. Specifically, will certain private

hospitals, who succeeded in court in obtaining payment from

municipalities, be asked to pay back to the municipalities the amount

that was awarded by the court? Because in my memory it wouldn't

surprise me if in fact the court decision superseded May 27, 1974.

One of the other sections of the principles of the bill, Mr.

Speaker, is the capacity for the minister's department to go back five

years to see what assets the individual might have sold either at below

market value or for a minimal value in order to determine if five years

later these assets would have disqualified them from qualifying for

social service benefits.

[Mr. Veitch in the chair.]

You know, Mr. Speaker, we've all complained that one of the

unfortunate aspects of the present session of the Legislature is that

the two sides of the House are still fighting the election, and I feel

that that kind of sentiment is reflected in this principle of the bill

which gives the minister the power to go back several years — as many

as five years — to review what the financial status of the individual

might be today depending upon what they might have done five years ago.

Really, Mr. Speaker, I thought this was a government that was looking at the future, that was

[ Page 2458 ]

saying that the future of British Columbians would

be bright if they vested their trust in this particular party, that it

was the party and the government with an eye to the future with the

assurance that economic development would flourish, and that there

would be revenue from resources which would make it possible to provide

the widest range of benefits to people who are really in need.

If they would live up to that kind of promise and that kind of goal,

then I would be one of the first to speak in the strongest terms in

support of this government. But when I see this particular part of this

particular bill wanting to go back five years to determine what some

individual who is now in need did five years ago with their assets, I

have to wonder if that really demonstrates a 1976 awareness of what

society is all about, Mr. Speaker.

There are other elements in the bill that I really don't understand.

I don't understand the reference to a Residence and Responsibility Act,

which hasn't even been introduced before this House, as far as I know.

Yet in

section 24 of the bill there is a reference under a certain

subsection about income assistance and social services to an individual

who is in a local area defined in the Residence and Responsibility Act.

We've already had a bill in this House referring to another Act which doesn't

exist — the Minister of Highways and Public Works (Hon. Mr. Fraser) is looking

very interested.

HON. A.V. FRASER (Minister of Highways and Public Works): As of today!

MR. WALLACE: As of today. I stand corrected.

The other bill was introduced this evening.

But I'm talking, Mr. Speaker, about a bill now, Bill 28, in which a

section

of the bill refers to a non-existent Act entitled the Residence and Responsibility

Act.

Mr. Chairman, again I have to say that one of the themes running

through this bill is authority to the minister, discretion and power to

the minister. This same government was elected on the claim that they

were freedom fighters. Yet under the appeal

section of this bill, first

of all, the tribunal which will hear appeals is to be set up under

terms defined in the regulations. So here we are debating second

reading of the bill and we have no idea just what the terms will be

under which the appeals tribunal will be set up. In the same part of

the bill we read that the a tribunal decision "may be reviewed by the

minister."

It's very much a permissive aspect. It's up to the discretion of the minister; he may review what the tribunal decides.

Even more important, Mr. Speaker, is the fact that the way in which

the tribunal is established and conducts its business will be spelled

out in regulations which we are not in a position to debate. That, of

course, brings me to the whole question of the regulations section,

which in my view is the key to the whole bill. The regulation

section

has subsections starting with the letter (

a) and finishing with the

letter (l), and anyone who has even the scantest respect for the

subsections (

a) to (

l) cover everything from soup to nuts. Subsection

(l), Mr. Speaker, finished up by saying that "regulations may be

made...generally respecting any other matter required for the

administration of this Act and the regulations." If that isn't a

complete 360-degree sweep of the language available to define just

about any and every aspect that could be incorporated in regulations,

then I don't know what it is.

The thrust of this bill has a great deal to recommend it. I wish I

could support the bill in total but as so often happens, opposition

members have to weigh up the overall advantages of a bill and look at

the areas of disadvantage and the parts of the bill which cause some

real concern.

I've also listened to the debate so far and the comments of the

second member for Vancouver-Burrard (Mr. Levi) about the fact that this

bill does change a basic principle, namely that assets rather than

income will be the test individuals will have to undergo in seeking to

qualify for benefits. I think it was very well described by one of the

press gallery, who said that an incomes test is very much less

personal,

whereas an assets test looks at everything which the

individual owns.

To put this stress on ownership again seems to me something of a

paradox from this particular government which, according to the theme

in the last election, encourages ownership. It is a government which

seeks to encourage the individual to acquire his or her own home and

his or her own piece of land, and to be self-reliant by acquiring

assets which give the individual some measure of self-reliance and

security. Yet later in life, apparently, Mr. Speaker, his government

feels that ownership and acquisition of assets, even if they're

non-income-producing, should be a very basic reason or criterion on

which an application for income assistance should be based.

Again, in the absence of the regulations I can only peculate that

the thrust of this bill in relation to an assets test rather than an

incomes test means that the regulations will dictate to an individual

that he or she sell certain assets before they may qualify for income

assistance. In some respects that might well be fair enough, but in

other cases, depending on how far the regulations go, it might be very

unfair. I can't think that this minister would be particularly rigid in

defining assets in a very punitive and restrictive way, but the fact

that we don't have the regulations and we do not know how assets will

be defined and which assets the minister might require to be sold

before income assistance will be provided leaves the

[ Page 2459 ]

opposition very much in the dark.

So the principle of the bill in many respects is, as the minister

claims, progressive. It does, in fact, espouse a concern and a

willingness to help various groups in society, such as the handicapped

and the unemployable between the ages 55 and 59, and various other

persons in need of help, and adds support from this government. But

there are just so many questions that the bill creates and doesn't

answer, not the least of which is the overriding importance of the

regulations. It is because of this that I, with some regret, have to

vote against this bill on second reading. Now that is my considered

decision at this point in time. If the minister, in winding up second

reading can allay some of my fears, I am certainly willing to

reconsider my position in voting on this bill.

MRS. B.B. WALLACE (Cowichan-Malahat): Mr. Speaker, this bill

certainly brings up the question of a lot of very basic principles, and

it seems that the principles by which I am guided must be a bit

different from the principles which are guiding the minister bringing

in the bill. It was a lot of years ago when my mother used to teach me

about things relative to British justice and people being considered

innocent until they were proven guilty. Mr. Speaker, I have found that

that has been a principle I have followed throughout my life, and I

have found that it has paid off. It doesn't apply just in the courts of

law, Mr. Speaker; it applies to all people in all walks of life.

If you consider a person to be honest and forthright and to be

respectful, you usually get just what you expect; you get that kind of

honesty and forthrightness and respect. But on the other hand, if and

when you consider a person to be deceitful or shifty, you usually get

just that. You know, I like that Minister of Human Resources, Mr.

Speaker. He's a very nice young man with his rosy cheeks and his

eagerness. He's a very nice, appealing young man. But somehow, Mr.

Speaker, he has been badly misguided. He has had some bad advice

somewhere, because he seems to think that everybody's out to do him.

That bothers me that such a nice young man should have that attitude,

Mr. Speaker.

I'm particularly concerned about this particular piece of

legislation and what it's doing to the senior citizens of this

province, because it is putting the senior citizens into a position of

not receiving a pension as a right, but receiving only welfare. That's

what it's doing. Whether the minister realizes it or not, Mr. Speaker,

that's what this Act is doing. It's taking away that sense of right

from pensioners, and it's not just me saying this, Mr. Speaker. I've

had people in my riding who are going to be eligible for a pension very

shortly, and they're saying: "Forget it, we're not going to go to that

kind of means to apply for Mincome." Now maybe that's what the minister

wants, I don't know, Mr. Speaker. Maybe that's how he's going to save

some money for this government. But that's what people are doing.

Rather than go through the processes they would have to go through to

apply for much-needed extra funds, they are saying: "No, we are not

going to bother. It's not right and it's not fair that we have to have

this kind of an imposition put upon us."

Now, Mr. Speaker, I can remember back quite a lot of years, and I

can remember when the pension used to be something like $70 a month.

For that measly little pension, Mr. Speaker, we had the kind of things

that this GAIN Act is reimposing. We had people coming around and

snooping in the cupboards to see what you had on the shelf. We had

that, Mr. Speaker, and this is a regressive step to go back that 40

years. We're going back to the point where we were before, where we had

to declare assets five years — and even 10 years in some instances —

back, and if you had any property it became forfeit to the state to

repay any pension you had received. This is the direction in which this

Act is taking us, and it makes me very sad for this province, Mr.

Speaker, that we are going in this direction.

If a pensioner has made any gifts to his family in that five or 10

years, and that seems to be the direction this Act is taking, we're

going right back to the point where those gifts will be considered as

part of a debt against the estate and taken away from any heirs. It's

just a very sad state, Mr. Speaker, that we're going in this direction.

I'd just like to go back a little bit in the history of this

situation because, I think, as has been outlined by the two members of

the other sections of the opposition here, this is a very wide-open

sort of

an Act. It relates so much to the regulations, and we don't

know what those regulations are, so it becomes a case of attitude, Mr.

Speaker.

What is the attitude? I think if we go back in this House to the

history of what has gone on with pensions, we find that in the spring

of 1972 when the opposition tried to bring in a bill to make a minimum

income of $200, it was turned down by the then government.

Then they called an election. The New Democratic Party government

won the election; within three months they had acted upon this. They

had instituted the legislation that is now going to be wiped out

guaranteeing a minimum income to all persons over 65 — that was reduced

to 60 — and so on.

Then, Mr. Speaker, we had another election some three years later

and we had a change of government again. But at the time of that

election we had a lot of promises, promises that Mincome would not be

changed, that it would be improved. But that has not happened. Mincome

has been changed. Back in January of this year when the federal

government

[ Page 2460 ]

passed on the cost-of-living bonus, this was passed

on to those over 65 but the people on handicapped pensions and the

people from 60 up did not receive this — there was no increase to them.

So even then, Mr. Speaker, there was a move to do something towards

changing Mincome — that in face of the fact that we had such glowing

promises of maintaining Mincome and improving it and tying it to the

cost-of-living bonus....

Mr. Speaker, I am not alone in my opinions about what this Act is

going to do — or the whole intent of this Act. I think the last time

Frances Russell was quoted in this House, she was quoted by one of the

government members. But I would like to quote Frances Russell from the Sun ,

Wednesday, May 19, when she was commenting on Mincome. She says: "It is

to become just another welfare programme, not a form of pension as it

was originally conceived." She goes on to talk about the means test, "a

humiliating and demeaning experience for most people, so humiliating

that it dissuades not just the dishonest but the needy and proud from

applying for assistance. Those who are willing to subject themselves to

this experience often find they have to reduce themselves to real

poverty in order to qualify."

I had a case come to my attention this morning, Mr. Speaker, a case

where the Mincome forms had been filed the first of the year but

because of changes and bureaucracy and red tape they had not been

finalized until the rulings changed.

At that time of filing, the person involved was quite eligible but

they had something like $6,000 in the bank so they were no longer

eligible. If that person had taken a trip to Hawaii last January

instead of sitting here in B.C. they would have been eligible. That's

the kind of thing that this kind of legislation produces in people, Mr.

Speaker. It's not about to provide the right of reasonable Mincome — a

fair and just return for the work that pensioners have contributed to

the welfare of this province. It's not about to bring about that kind

of an approach towards providing some form of assistance for our senior

citizens.

The minister, the man from Glad, as he has been called — the

four-letter-word man, GAIN, PREP.... I have a better word, I think,

another four-letter word about this Act. I say it's a mean Act; it's

mean in a couple of ways, Mr. Speaker. It's mean in the small, petty

sense of the word because it's so pokey; it's mean in the other sense

of the word because it is punitive. Yes, it's a four-letter word. It

describes this Act; it describes that Minister.

MR. G.R. LEA (Prince Rupert): Another four-letter word: disgraceful. (Laughter.)

MRS. WALLACE: The minister has had a lot of terminologies: he

is the man from Glad, the Minister of Shovels and Tulip Bulbs and P-3

land zones.

AN HON. MEMBER: Land zones?

MRS. WALLACE: Yes, P-3 land zones. I'm not really digressing,

Mr. Speaker, but I do feel that in

an Act as open as this one is — as

open-ended — the only way we can really judge how this Act is going to

be interpreted is to review some of the things that have gone on with

this minister and his attitudes in interpreting policy or questions

that have come before him previously. I want to talk a little bit about

P-3 land zones.

It seems that the council for the district of Surrey were approached

by a church group to build a church. This was turned down, Mr. Speaker.

It was turned down because the council had turned it down pending

possible amendment to the bylaw. They were going to introduce a P-3

land zone. There were no P-3 land zones in Surrey, there never have

been and there aren't yet, Mr. Speaker.

HON. W.N. VANDER ZALM (Minister of Human Resources): On a

point of order, I don't know what any municipal matter like the P-3

land zone has to do with the GAIN legislation. For the member's

information, I was with the citizens who objected to the zone.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Would the hon. member kindly confine her words to the principle of the bill?

MRS. WALLACE: Well, I'm relating this to the principle of the

bill, Mr. Speaker. I believe that there is a principle involved here in

interpretation of regulations. What I am proposing to point out is that

with these kinds of P-3 regulations, the sort of thing that happened in

Surrey could well happen in this particular bill. The building of a

church was delayed. Six months after the P-3 land zone was declared,

Mr. Speaker, the case came up before Mr. Justice Ruttan, a senior judge

in the court of British Columbia, and a day and a half was devoted to

the argument. The public hearing had the effect of allowing all the

neighbours to decide whether or not a church shall go up. It opens the

door to the discrimination in this instance.

This

article goes on that Justice Ruttan ordered the district of

Surrey to issue a building permit. But the Surrey district council took

this to the court of appeal, Mr. Speaker.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hon. Member, I'm still waiting for you to relate your remarks to the principle.

MRS. WALLACE: It's coming.

[ Page 2461 ]

So it went to the court of appeal, Mr. Speaker, and the judge in

that court brought in the ruling that said that there was no land in

the P-3 zone when the council purported to say that the churches can

only go in P-3 zones. Mr. Speaker, this went on. The Surrey council was

ordered to issue a building permit. But then the mayor who was then

mayor of Surrey, Mayor Vander Zalm, said: "I think we could set up a

board of health." The mayor thus suggested that a self-appointed board

of health could still thwart the building programme. There were some

other aldermen that didn't really think they should do this, but the

mayor went on to say: "I think we should form a council into a board of

health. We could have a meeting two weeks from tonight to consider

this." This in spite of the fact that the board of health had already

approved the building of this church. It was a contempt of court.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hon. Member, I'm still waiting patiently.

MRS. WALLACE: Very well, Mr. Speaker — I will move on. But

the point I'm making is that there was a principle involved here. That

principle was that that minister did not want that church built in

Surrey. That was the principle. He was prepared to use any manner or

means at his disposal to prevent that church being built there. The

point I'm making, Mr. Speaker, is that in this wide open Act, with all

these regulations, that minister is empowered to use that same kind of

scope. He was prepared to move against and to withhold the rights from

some group to build a church. Now we all have the right to our own

beliefs. I have my beliefs. I'm sure you have yours, Mr. Speaker. I'm

sure the minister has his. And we have a right to those beliefs. By the

same token, I am suggesting that we should not have the opportunity for

such an

interpretation to be put into this particular Act which, as the

member for Oak Bay (Mr. Wallace) has pointed out, could be related to

the length of a person's hair, their religion, any particular thing....

Interjections.

MRS. WALLACE: That's right. The member from Oak Bay mentioned that

as one of the things that an employer could dismiss the person for because he

was not suitable in his own personal opinion. I'm suggesting that this also

gives the same kind of power to this minister. He has proven by past experience

that he is not above...well, I won't say that he's not above, but

his whole attitude and direction takes him away from an open approach to all

segments of society. He has demonstrated the fact that he has a narrow outlook,

Mr. Speaker. I just feel that it is too much authority to put in the hands of

one minister — this kind of right to judge whether or not an individual is eligible

for certain claims under this bill.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hon. Member, you will return to the principle of the bill, please, shortly.

MRS. WALLACE: I'm speaking about Bill 28. I'm speaking about

whether or not the minister should have this scope of discretionary

powers, as provided in the regulations in this bill. I'm suggesting

that there is a certain principle involved in this thing that is

relative to the principle I've just been speaking about in the case of

Surrey.

I'm suggesting that we will be subject to this kind of regulation

being used. And I would suggest that with this bottom-line government

that's interested in only black ink, that minister over there, Mr.

Speaker, is going to find that the needs of this province and the poor

people in this province are probably much greater than he anticipated.

I'm suggesting that he's going to find that he's a bit short of money

in fulfilling the kind of requirement that is needed by the people of

this province and he's going to be in a position of looking for P-3

regulations to make this narrower and narrower and narrower in order to

keep within the bottom line.

I'm opposed to this kind of legislation that allows that kind of

discretion. To me, people are more important than money, Mr. Speaker,

and that is the thrust this should be taking, not the thrust that says

we'll spend X number of dollars no matter what we have to do to curtail

it.

MR. D.G. COCKE (New Westminster): Mr. Speaker, all too few

words have been said tonight and this afternoon with respect to Bill

28. We see a society around us where it seems to me that if we wanted

to put some kind of a test, an IQ test or some kind of a test, we would

find that less and less people are being afforded the opportunities

that many of us see around us.

We see also a computer world, one that demands more and more skills,

one that says to the handicapped: "You're really not part of our

society." Mr. Speaker, if you would care to roam with me for a second

in all of the major office towers in areas like Vancouver and Victoria

— I don't think there are too many in Columbia River — you would find

that where there used to be people serving in the elevator service, for

an example, taking us from one floor to another, they no longer can

render that service.

Mr. Speaker, what this bill represents to the people of this

province is an absolute neglect, total thoughtlessness toward two

groups in our society. Those two groups, Mr. Speaker, are the aged and

are the handicapped.

MR. G.H. KERSTER (Coquitlam): Nonsense!

[ Page 2462 ]

MR. COCKE: Not nonsense. You know, Mr. Speaker, no bill could

have been more misappropriately named than this bill. They call it

GAIN. You know, Mr. Speaker, this bill is a setback, a setback, a

tremendous loss to the people who we care for most if we have any kind

of sympathy, empathy or any kind of understanding of our fellow man in

this society.

Mr. Speaker, this bill sets parameters. This bill sets constraints that I suggest to you we will all regret.

Interjection.

MR. COCKE: Yes, I regret the bill at this point, and I'm telling you, Mr. Speaker....

MR. KERSTER: Have you read it?

MR. COCKE: Yes, I've read every word of it.

MR. KERSTER: Every word?

MR. COCKE: Every word of it, Mr. Member for Hawaii. Would you like to get up on a point of order at this point?

Mr. Speaker, this bill is an anachronism, This bill is a kind of

turnaround — face the past instead of face the future — that we've

become used to in the last few short months in this Legislature.

Mr. Speaker, the pensioners and the handicapped have been stripped

of some of their pride. This bill says to me that here's a government

that recognizes only one thing, recognizes that there are people among

us who have a great deal of talent and that talent must be tied to

earnings, that talent must be tied to the ability to deliver here and

now. But that talent isn't necessarily the talent to love or the talent

to just be a human being, just be a first-class individual. No, around

this province today we've got things that we never thought were

possible in British Columbia.

We have people sleuthing on other people. One of the reasons that

they're sleuthing, Mr. Speaker, is because we will not provide enough

social workers in this province — cutbacks in that department.

Interjections.

MR. COCKE: Social workers who can go out and talk to people, find out their problems; no, instead of that, we're having people....

AN HON. MEMBER: We've got too many social workers now.

MR. COCKE: Oh? Well, social workers are people that are

trained to understand others' needs, not trained to react like the

redneck member for

Columbia River (Mr. Chabot).

Interjections.

AN HON. MEMBER: Order!

MR. COCKE: Oh, order, order! But that's precisely what I'm

talking about, and I'm glad, Mr. Speaker, that he's drawn it to the

attention of the House, so that I could sort of reinforce the

understanding that we have as a result of all we heard from that side

of the House with respect to this kind of situation.

Mr. Speaker, this bill takes us back beyond 1972. It takes us back

to the old days of scurrying around, finding out that people may have

some other way of achieving some kind of a pittance or a livelihood. I

believe that that's quite unfair. I believe that there are those around

who have made a tremendous contribution to our society in B.C. I

believe that this legislation makes any number of people vulnerable,

not the least of which are women. I believe that any time you have

legislation that calls for people to make a contribution beyond their

ability — and that's really what we're talking about here — or beyond

the capacity, or beyond the climate to produce, it is unfair

legislation. I suggest to you, Mr. Speaker, that this is the kind of

climate we have, and this is the kind of climate that makes women

particularly vulnerable.

We are cutting off the great contributors. Yes, we're cutting them

off, because I'll tell you what we're doing with them on this

legislation, Bill 28. We're making all people who have the right

today...we're making them welfare recipients. We're saying to people —

pensioners in our midst — that they are now welfare recipients. I was

proud of the former minister of Human Resources (Mr. Levi) for this one

thing — and many other things, but this particular thing — that he said

to people who have contributed over the years...

AN HON. MEMBER: $103 million.

MR. COCKE: $103 million, the member says.

AN HON. MEMBER: Pharmacare.

MR. COCKE: Mr. Speaker, listen to that bottom-line thinking.

I'm proud of that minister because he said to people: "You have made a

contribution, you pensioners, you senior citizens, and our society has

made a contribution, and you have something coming to you." Now we're

saying, Mr. Speaker, to those same people: "Contribution or not, you'd

better prove you're right, and you'd better become a welfare

recipient." That's what we're doing, and we're also cutting off

disabled people who

[ Page 2463 ]

through no fault of themselves.... We are truly creating fear in our society.

AN HON. MEMBER: Be specific!

MR. COCKE: I'll give you a specific; I'll give you any number

of specifics. Had you been around long enough, and when you ran for the

community resource board in Houston, if you had taken enough care up

there to understand what you were running for, you would have

understood that there were people around you that needed the services

of the community resource board.

Interjections.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, please.

MR. COCKE: Thank you. Mr. Speaker, cutting off these members

in the way we have, we've impinged on their right to pride. There is no

fault of a person — and let's face this in this House — who doesn't

have the IQ of the Minister of Transport and Communication (Hon. Mr.

Davis), or, for that matter, the Minister of Highways (Hon. Mr.

Fraser), but is through no fault of his own unable to have enough

attention span to keep a job. And it can be proven in so many cases

that this is the case. What happens to that person? What happens to him

now? He's driven to a situation where he can no longer function with

any kind of pride at all, Mr. Speaker. I suggest Bill 28 does exactly

that.

Look at the people, Mr. Speaker, over age 65, or, for that matter,

over age 60. So many of the people in this province immigrated here.

Many of them came from sister provinces; three that I can think of,

very quickly, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba.

What happened to those people? They put the best part of their lives

into building an agricultural industry within their family, and, Mr.

Speaker, they got blown off the prairies in the dirty '30s. Blown right

off the prairies, and the member from Hawaii wouldn't understand this.

He was blown all the way over there from here, and it's an unfortunate

wind that blew him back.

But, Mr. Speaker, let's think about those people. Let's think about

those people, many of them between age 60 and age 75, who have little

to offer us today, with respect to productivity, but have a lot to

offer us with respect to our debt to them.

Mr. Speaker, some of them have managed to save up enough to buy a

little bit of a house, have a few dollars, a few paltry dollars in the

bank, to care for their emergent needs. Now, Mr. Speaker, we're saying

with GAIN that they've got to cut it right down to the absolute minimum

before they have it available.

Not so. Not so with the Mincome policy — but, oh, very much so with the policy

of GAIN. Mr. Speaker, I suggest to you that that group I'm talking about

lost their potential for savings during the Depression. Incidentally, at the rate

we're going we're having another depression right here in B.C. as a

result of the coalition party.

But, Mr. Speaker, this is the kind of people we're talking about

when we're talking about this legislation. I have watched Socred and

coalition policy over the years. I've watched it in my own family, Mr.

Speaker. I watched a few years ago the kind of thoughtless foolishness

when a hospital that was discussed in this House a short time ago,

earlier this afternoon, Gorge Road, when it became an extended-care

hospital. I watched a person in my own family, and I'll designate her,

my mother-in-law, who no longer walks the face of the earth. I watched

her moved out of that hospital because she didn't qualify because of

the very, very narrow parameters — totally disabled, Mr. Speaker, sent

home to a husband who couldn't care for her. Fortunately the kids could.

That's, I know, 10 years ago, but for heaven's sake let's not go

back to 10 years ago. That's what we as a government tried to stop. We

tried to change the direction of this province in the last three and a

half years, and, Mr. Speaker, it's going to be a shame if the direction

is turned the other way with the advent of this new government.

We have a lot to learn. We have a lot to learn about empathy, we

have a lot to learn about understanding, and there must be

understanding for the disabled, there must be understanding for the

aged in our province.

More than that, there must be understanding that people, ordinary

people like you and me, have to have pride, have to have ego, have to

have some sense of worth — and, my heavenly days, security.

These people have every right to those senses, have every right to a

sense of pride for what they've done. People who are disabled have

every right to a feeling of "my, why wasn't I one of them?" — one of us

sitting here, heaven forbid! But, Mr. Speaker, so much as been denied

to the disabled that surely, as a Legislature, we shouldn't be party to

denying more, and I believe that we are denying more with this

legislation.

I fail to see how anybody in this House can support a piece of

legislation that goes backward as opposed to going forward, and this

legislation, Mr. Speaker, goes backwards; it does not go forward. In

1976 we should be looking ahead; we should not be looking backwards.

MR. G.R. LEA (Prince Rupert): Mr. Speaker, I don't know how

anyone could support this bill, no matter what the bill was related to,

because the bill doesn't say anything. You can explain the bill in the

explanatory note. It says: "The purpose of this bill is to consolidate

in one Act the income assistance and

[ Page 2464 ]

social services legislation." Other than that, it

really says nothing. It says that anything else will be formed by

regulations, and regulations, of course, are rules and regulations that

Acts of this Legislature are administered on. Those regulations are

formed by the Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council. In other words, the

cabinet, outside of this Legislature, is really going to put together

this Act and the regulations that are going to govern the kind of

social services that people are going to be getting in this province

for some time to come, or at least for another three or four years, and

maybe longer.

You know, it was a theologian, when he was finally let out of a

German concentration camp, Reinhold Neiber, who said: "You know, when

they arrested the communists it didn't bother me. I didn't protest; I

wasn't a communist. And they went to jail. Then," he said, "they went

after the gipsies, and it didn't bother me. I wasn't a gipsy; I didn't

protest." And he went on and on, and he said: "Then they got to me, and

there was nobody to protest because we were all in the concentration

camps, except those people that the German government at that time

under Hitler decided were their friends."

That's the danger with this kind of open legislation. There are

people out there who cannot defend themselves, who are going to be

affected by this legislation, and there are so many people in our

society who will stand by and say: "Well, I'm not on welfare; I won't

protest because it doesn't bother me, " or "I'm not over 60; I'm not

over 65; I won't protest because it doesn't bother me." In that way,

injustices can be carried out by government. "I am not handicapped; I

have both my legs, both my arms, my sight. I won't protest, because it

doesn't bother me."

Mental health — well, I could say that there are a lot of people in

this room who couldn't say that, because if they could they wouldn't

bring in this kind of legislation. They would bring in legislation that

is easily understood, not only by the members of the opposition, but by

the members of the back bench and by the people of this province, so

they know exactly what they are for and what they are against. This

legislation doesn't tell you anything.

Mr. Speaker, what you have to do is go back to what the hon. member for Cowichan-Malahat

(Mrs. Wallace) said: because this legislation doesn't lay out in words what

the people of this province who need assistance are going to get and in what

form that assistance will take, we have to deal with the attitude of the government

and of the minister. There is no other way for the opposition to try and deal

with this piece of legislation, because it doesn't spell out what it is

about.

Let's talk about the kind of attitude that that government has

displayed — the political party that that government represents. Let's

go back to just before the last election when that government, when

they were still in the opposition — the Social Credit Party and all of

those opportunists who attached themselves — were going around this

province saying: "When we are elected, there are certain things we will

do and certain things we won't do." They were elected on the basis of

the rhetoric that they were going around the province spilling out

during the election campaign.

The minister shakes his head; no, they weren't elected because of that.

HON. MR. VANDER ZALM: We were elected because of your performance!

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. LEA: You were elected because you said you were going to

do certain things and not do others. You said you were not going to

raise taxes. As a matter of fact, you said you were going to freeze

taxes. You raised taxes. You said that Mincome was a good programme and

that it would be improved. Now you've done away with it.

MR. KERSTER: Oh, nonsense!

MR. LEA: What are some of the other promises that you made on

that campaign trail? In the heat of the campaign battle what happened

is that you walked out into the community and people said: "Look, we're

not too happy with the NDP, but we love Mincome." So they said: "Oh, in

that case we won't do away with Mincome." They said: "Hey, we're not

too happy with the NDP. We'll vote you in, but we're a little afraid of

the taxes." They said: "Oh, then we won't raise the taxes." You would

have said and done anything in order to form government.

AN HON. MEMBER: And they did!

MR. LEA: And they did do anything and say anything to form

government, because there is no philosophical, ideological base to any

one of you. You are doing things in this province that no Liberal

government would do; you are doing things in this province that no

Conservative government would do; you are doing things in this province

no Social Credit government would do.

Only the extremists from three right-wing parties could bring in

this kind of bill — only the extremists. You can smirk and you can

laugh and you can go do anything you want, but that's what you are. If

you are ashamed of being the right-wing element of three old-line

parties, then stand up and say you're ashamed, or be proud of it.

MR. KERSTER: Ashamed?

[ Page 2465 ]

MR. LEA: Are you proud of it?

MR. KERSTER: Yes.

MR. LEA: You're proud of it.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hon. Member, kindly address the Chair.

MR. LEA: I am. Just because my back is to you, Mr. Speaker, I am still

talking to you.

Once we have to talk about attitudes we find that this political

party that that government represents will say anything; they don't

care whether they live up to it or not. Whatever they say you can take

with a grain of salt — anything they say — because quite frankly, when

it comes down to it, they will change their mind. They will change

their mind from day to day because there is no philosophical base;

there is no ideological base. They are the highest form of opportunism

that this province has even seen — that's what they are.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hon. Member, it is Bill 28.

MR. LEA: That's what we're talking about — opportunism. We're talking about the political party that that government represents.

Interjection.

MR. LEA: This bill reminds me that the member for Omineca (Mr. Kempf) ran for the resource board and lost. (Laughter.)

MR. J.J. KEMPF (Omineca): That's a lie.

MR. LEA: But we do have to talk about the attitude. We have

to talk about the attitude of the minister who is going to be

responsible for the administration of we don't know what, because the

bill doesn't say anything. The bill just says that it is

an Act to

allow the minister to disburse social assistance in any way he sees fit

and the regulations will come in later. As the member for

Cowichan-Malahat (Mrs. Wallace) said, even when there are regulations

and even when there are laws, it hasn't bothered this particular

minister, Mr. Speaker, before. When he was mayor, if the law or

regulation didn't suit him he sought ways to get around it. The supreme

court had to order him and some of the aldermen to obey the law.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hon. Member, please relate your remarks to the bill at hand.

MR. LEA: I am relating them. I am talking about the attitude,

Mr. Speaker, of the minister who is going to administer this piece of

legislation. He is going to have a bunch of helpless people out there —

handicapped people, people who can't help themselves. If he is going to

take the same attitude in administering this piece of legislation that

he took as he mayor of Surrey, then God help them! God help hem,

because he squirmed and used everything he could do to stop the

Jehovah's Witnesses from building a church in Surrey.

AN HON. MEMBER: Oh, oh!

MR. LEA: He finally had to be ordered — he and other members of that council....

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hon. Member, he is not the Minister of

Churches; he is the Minister of Human Resources. Would you kindly

relate your remarks to Bill 28?

MR. LEA: I'll tell you, the way he administers it there will

be no similarity between the church and social services. If they could

win the next election after doing away with welfare, after doing away

with any form of help for the handicapped, after doing away with any

sort of supplementary aid for our senior citizens, they would cut them

all out. The only reason that they allow them at all is because they

know that the majority of people in this province have more compassion

for their fellow people than that group over there.

Mr. Speaker, it is apparent in the kind of statements and it is

apparent in the kind of legislation that this government has brought in

that they have no regard for people who are in ordinary circumstances

in this province. They brought in a sales tax that is going to hurt the

ordinary person more than it is going to hurt the millionaires. In

other words, it is going to hurt other people more than it is going to

hurt themselves and their friends.

Interjections.

MR. LEA: They brought in legislation after legislation

dealing with taxes that are going to hurt the ordinary people of this

province but not hurt them. They brought in ferry rates....

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hon. Member, Bill 28.

MR. LEA: That's what we are talking about. We are talking

about an attitude of a government; we are talking about an attitude of

a coalition of political opportunists. That's what we're talking about.

When we have a minister bringing in a bill such as this, Mr.

Speaker, who used every trick in the book when he was the mayor of one

of the larger municipalities in this province to try and force a

[ Page 2466 ]

church group from building within that municipality, I say it's about time that we have to take a look, Mr. Speaker....

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hon. Member, you must relate your remarks to Bill 28.

MR. LEA: I am doing that.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: We don't care about the church at the present time.

MR. LEA: If you cannot understand it, then that is your problem. I am doing it.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I think the understanding is with you, Hon. Member. Would you kindly relate your remarks to the bill?

MR. LEA: The understanding with me, Mr. Speaker, is that

because there are no facts in this legislation, because it doesn't say

what the government is going to do or what the government is not going

to do, because it is an open, blank-cheque piece of legislation that

will allow the government to come in with any regulations that they

want — after they get rid of us out of the Legislature....

Interjections.

MR. LEA: After the Legislature closes, after we prorogue,

then they'll go to their council chamber, the executive council

chamber, and they'll sit down there and they'll make sure that the

handicapped aren't too well off. They'll make sure that the senior

citizens in this province are going to suffer just a little more.

They'll make sure of all of that. They'll do it all. But there is only

one thing that is going to make sure that the people in this province

who are handicapped, who are the elderly....

AN HON. MEMBER: Hypocrisy!

MR. LEA: Yes, it is hypocrisy. It's hypocrisy of this

government to bring a bill into this House and not say what it's about.

It says: here's

an Act; would you pass the Act? — and then we'll fill

it in later. That's what it says: they'll fill it in later, Mr.

Speaker. Well, that's not good enough, and so we have to talk about the

attitude of the minister who is sponsoring this bill, of the government

to which he belongs and of the backbenchers who support with blind

obedience, because they want to be in the cabinet.

MR. R.L. LOEWEN (Burnaby-Edmonds): Funny, funny.

MR. LEA: Oh, funny, funny. As I said earlier, there are some

people in this world who've talked their way into cabinet. He's the

first person I've met who talked himself out before he got in.

Mr. Speaker, would the minister, when he is concluding second

reading on this bill, tell us what he is going to do? As the member for

Oak Bay (Mr. Wallace) has said, what is he going to do? There isn't

anything in here that tells us. I'm not a church group trying to get a

permit to build a church in your municipality. I'm a person who was

elected by the people to come in here and question what you're doing,

and I won't sit down.

Interjections.

MR. LEA: That's right. You're a little annoyed, aren't you? You don't like things to come back and haunt you.

MR. KERSTER: Why didn't you question it when you were in government?

MR. LEA: That's right. It's not too nice when the opposition

has long memories and can remember the action that you took when you

were mayor. It's not too nice, Mr. Speaker, when another cabinet

minister after he lost an election said: "Well, I guess the voters in

this province don't want us to be honest with them. They want to be

bribed and conned." That was the Minister of Environment. The

statements he made....

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hon. Member....

MR. LEA: Now they're asking us to trust them, Mr. Speaker,

when they bring in a bill that says nothing, and they're going to make

regulations that are going to affect the way of life and the standard

of life of elderly people in this province, of the handicapped....

Interjection.

MR. LEA: Oh, they would abolish anything that stood in their

political way. They would abolish anything. You know, when you look

around this chamber and start talking about political opportunism and

the kind of people who will attach themselves to any vessel....

Interjection.

MR. LEA: That's right. Then you see the looks of hate coming

your way. Then you see it. Then they start chirping. Some sit there and

glower, others chirp, but down deep in all of your guts you know you

grabbed hold of the bandwagon of political

[ Page 2467 ]

opportunism and this is what comes from it. Broken

promises, right down the line: "We will not change Mincome; we will

only improve it." Then you do away with it. "We will not raise taxes;

we will freeze taxes." Then you raise taxes. Everything you said in

your election campaign cannot be believed.

The only reason we have an Auditor General Act and an Ombudsman Act

is that probably the Liberal Attorney-General would have walked away

from you if you hadn't brought it in. That's the only reason. I bet you

hated every moment of it....

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hon. Member....

MR. LEA: I bet you hated it all....

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hon. Member, as high a regard as we have for

churches, zoning in Surrey and the auditor-general, would you kindly

get back to the principles contained in Bill 28?

MR. LEA: Could you tell me what the principle of this bill is?

DEPUTY SPEAKER: You're doing the speaking, Hon. Member.

MR. LEA: But there is no principle to this bill, as there

have been no principles to other bills. There isn't anything in this

bill. How can the government bring in a bill which doesn't say what

they're going to do and ask the Legislature to pass it? The only reason

a government can bring in a bill that says nothing and ask the House to

pass it is when they've got a bunch of sycophants down there who want

to get into the cabinet. That's the only way they can do it. They'll

vote for anything that group brings in until the cabinet's full.

They'll vote for anything. Bring in the Lord's Prayer and amend it.

They'll vote for it! They'll vote for anything. They'll vote for

anything to get in that cabinet.

If they vote for this bill, then I dare them to walk directly out of

here into the press gallery and call a conference and tell them what

you voted for. If you vote against it, walk in there and tell them what

you voted against. There isn't anything in the bill. Even some of the

people who were originally in the Social Credit Party believe that they

also have a monopoly on people who believe in God.

MR. KERSTER: Ask Charles Barber about that!

MR. LEA: I'll say one thing. They intend to look out for

those people from birth to death. They've got one on every stage of the

way — right? (Laughter.)

Mr. Speaker, it is absolute hypocrisy to bring a piece of legislation onto

the floor of this assembly that says nothing, that says everything that will

happen to the handicapped, to the elderly, to people on welfare will come later

when cabinet, behind closed doors, sits down incestuously among themselves and

says: "Here are the regulations. Now here's what you're going to

get and here's what you're not going to get." That's what's

going to happen.

AN HON. MEMBER: You're not going to make it, Graham.

MR. LEA: I'm not going to make it? I'll tell you something: I

would rather stay on this side of the House and oppose this kind of

blank-cheque piece of legislation than to sit over there, in

sympathetic hope that I will get into the cabinet any day. I would

rather be over here defending the kind of people this bill is going to

hurt, as opposed to sitting over there for my own personal ambition and

vote for this thing. And that's what you people are going to do. I bet

you don't even read it; you just vote for it. The Premier says: clap,

clap; they go: clap, clap. He says: stop; they stop. I wonder if it

will remain the same after the cabinet is full. I wonder.

Interjections.

MR. LEA: That's what happens when government changes. It may

not happen that way in the United States, but if you had stuck around

here for a few years, you'd have found out that's where the British

parliamentary system works.

Interjections.

AN HON. MEMBER: Order!

MR. LEA: Why is it, Mr. Speaker, that every time we heckle

them when they're speaking, the House is called to order? Why is it? I

wonder why that is. But, you know, I kind of like them talking up,

because they are retarded. You know where they're retarded? They're

retarded about 1933.

AN HON. MEMBER: Is that right?

MR. LEA: About 1933. Because it's their kind of politics that

brought in this bill. It was their kind of politics that opposed Tommy

Douglas in Saskatchewan when he brought in the first medicare programme

in this country.

Interjections.

MR. LEA: It was their kind of politics that has opposed every

progressive piece of social legislation hat has ever come down in this

province, or no matter where in this world, because when it comes

[ Page 2468 ]

right down to it, all they care about are themselves right down the line.

Interjections.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hon. members, order, please.

MR. LEA: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So now what are we going to do with this bill?

Interjections.

MR. LEA: I think what we should do with it is ask the

minister to take it back to wherever he got it and ask him to fill in a

few of the blank spots.

HON. J.A. NIELSEN (Minister of Environment): There's one between your ears.

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

MR. LEA: Tell him to come back into this legislature....

Well, well, for the first time he's in an arena where he can't shut

them up by shutting off the microphone. And I don't think you're going

to do too well, you know that? I don't think you're going to do too

well. People can't phone in any more; you can't give him smart aleck

answers and shut 'em up, because now you're not going to have that old

microphone to shut off, Mr. Minister. That's what you're not going to

have. And you're not going to stand up because you don't have what it

takes.

Interjections.

MR. LEA: That's why you're shutting up all the time; you

haven't got it. You haven't got it, and I doubt whether you'll make it

through the next rotation. You know, I doubt whether you'll make it.

I would just like to say that I would like to thank you people for

paying such close attention and showing the respect I deserve, because

I'm going to oppose this bill, and anyone who opposes this bill

deserves a little respect. I bet if any one of you read it, you'd

oppose it, too.

MS. BROWN: Hear, hear!

AN HON. MEMBER: Oh, blarney!

MR. LEA: What's the number of it? What's the number of it?

MR. SPEAKER: The number of the bill, Hon. Member, is 28: Guaranteed Available Income for Need Act.

MR. LEA: Well, it worked. I was getting a little fed up with

the kind of interference I was getting before you took the chair, but

you're so honest and refreshing that I'm glad you're back, Mr. Speaker.

AN HON. MEMBER: Are you on the wrong page?

MR. SPEAKER: Now let's return to the principle of the bill.

MR. LEA: Would you tell me what it is?

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. Member, if you're not aware of the principle of the bill, I suggest you take your seat.

MR. LEA: I will, because there is no principle to the bill.

There is none. It's a blank piece of paper that says that the

government is going to make regulations. There isn't anything in here

that says people are going to get anything or not get anything. It

doesn't say anything.

MS. BROWN: Did you read it, Mr. Minister?

MR. LEA: Did you read it? I mean, did you read it? I know you

didn't write it. But did you read it? Because there isn't anything in

the bill. If you're going to come into this House, Mr. Speaker, and ask

the Legislature to pass a piece of legislation that has nothing

whatsoever in it, except what you choose as government to stick in

after this House prorogues and you've got your own way with no

opposition, then you better have another think coming because I don't

believe that the people in this province have red necks, but I believe

that the necks over there are bright scarlet, and your faces should be

that colour for bringing in this kind of legislation that allows you

nothing but arbitrary powers through the Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council

to pass any kind of regulation you want, affecting handicapped, people

on welfare and the elderly, so there won't be any opposition around to

draw any attention to some of the, I'll say, evil things you want to

do, because you were started in evil and you're going to end up that

way.

Interjections.

MR. S. BAWLF (Victoria): Mr. Speaker, far be it for me to

interrupt the steady stream of sort of factless invective that the

opposition are indulging in here this evening to filibuster this very

excellent legislation.

Interjections.

MR. BAWLF: I'd just like to call to the attention

[ Page 2469 ]

of the House, Mr. Speaker, a very major

contradiction here in fact, versus what has been foisted on this House

by the opposition. I refer to various comments from members opposite to

the effect that people are going to be cut back and cut off their

assistance in various forms in some dramatic way, and suddenly we're

only going to find, as I think the second member for Vancouver-Burrard

(Mr. Levi) suggested, only 5 per cent of the people formerly on the

rolls surviving with assistance.

I'd just call to the attention of the House that the increase in the

budget for the Human Resources department, a major portion of which is

allocated to the administration of this excellent legislation, the

total increase in that budget was some $91 million, Mr. Speaker, an

increase of 20.9 per cent — 20.9 per cent in one year — from $498

million last year, Mr. Speaker, to $589 million this year. If that

sounds to the members opposite that the people of this province are

somehow going to be cut back on social assistance, I'd suggest to you

that that's consistent on their part, because their arithmetic has been

just about as bad in government as it is in opposition,

As I say, Mr. Speaker, I'm reluctant to lend dignity to this

mindless filibuster that they're attempting to foist on this House, and

I certainly will not do so by taking any more time but to say that I

heartily support this excellent legislation. I feel that time will

prove that the minister is going to administer this legislation in a

most progressive manner, and we are entering a new era for social

assistance and related programmes in this province through the GAIN

legislation, Bill 28. It will be a most enlightened era and a vast

improvement over what we have seen in this province in recent years. I

thank you for the opportunity to speak to the bill, Mr. Speaker.

MR. C. BARBER (Victoria): What Scrooge wrote this Act?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh oh!

MR. BARBER: When you look at it, you begin to discover that

there are three principal motivations behind its authorship, and I want

to look at each one of them in turn. But I want to make a basic

observation, Mr. Speaker, and it's this: any government that believes

that GAIN is going to be accepted by seniors in this province as

progressive must also believe that seniors are stupid, that they're

blind, that they can't read and they can't comprehend. You must think

the senior citizens of this province are stupid if you think you can

convince them that this legislation is an improvement.

I would like to recount for the benefit of the House, Mr. Speaker,

an incident that occurred in the recent campaign. In Victoria, all of

us were in attendance at an all-candidates meeting at the Silver

Threads centre where the subject of Mincome was brought up. The

coalition candidates at that time, when asked whether or not they would

maintain that programme, said, as my colleague for Prince Rupert (Mr.

Lea) pointed out: "Yes, of course we'll continue it." To the

considerable surprise and chagrin of the coalition candidates, they

were hooted at; they were laughed at.

The 200 or 300 seniors standing there in the Silver Threads centre

in Centennial Square in Victoria hooted, laughed, jeered and ridiculed

those remarks. One man was so angry that he was moved to stand up and

say: "Who do you think you're trying to kid? Do you think we're stupid?

Do you think we were born yesterday?" You see, those senior citizens

didn't believe that promise, Mr. Speaker. They didn't believe the

promise that this coalition would keep Mincome and, sure enough, within

the first six months of office, they've destroyed the name, they've

destroyed the Act, and they've destroyed the principle.

We don't believe they were born yesterday. We don't believe they're

going to buy it. We do believe they're going to examine this bill in

the same way we have and come up with the three major observations I'd

like to make now about the roots of it.

It's fairly clear that the first reason for the authorship of this

bill is one of bureaucracy. It does consolidate under one legislative

roof three previous ones. We have no particular objection to that.

There are a number of reasons to do that with any numbers of pieces of

legislation. The first reason, clearly though, is a bureaucratic one.

The second is monetary. It's clear to us, Mr. Speaker, as has been

stated twice earlier tonight, that when British Columbia is in the

throes of the worst unemployment since 1952, and possibly the worst

since 1933, then we see that that minister doesn't have enough in his

budget. He's not going to be able to afford to keep the people on

assistance who are presently on it. He's not going to be able to afford

to keep the people on Mincome who are presently on it. So the second

reason is monetary, Mr. Speaker. He doesn't have enough money. He

doesn't have it, and he's clearly embarrassed that he might have to

come back to his Treasury Board and ask for additional funds in the

event of an overrun.

There isn't enough money in there when we have 115,000 people out of

work. The fiscal policies and the economic programmes of this coalition

government have seen the worst unemployment rate in 25 years this

month, so it's fairly clear that this legislation is designed to get

that minister and that coalition off the hook. He doesn't have enough

money to do his job.

The third reason is perhaps even more obvious and more pertinent.

It's political. They've changed the name because the name stung them

every time they heard it. Every time the word "Mincome" came up, it

[ Page 2470 ]

was a reminder of one of the most remarkable and

successful programmes of the NDP. Every time that name came up, it was

a slap in the face to them, so for their political purposes they have

to get rid of the name, and they came up with this absurd acronym GAIN

— Guaranteed Available Income for Need Act. It's preposterous; it's a

joke. We laughed when we heard the name. It's crazy. However, it's in

one word — GAIN — and they hope it'll catch on and perhaps it will.

The point is, Mr. Speaker, that this coalition government realizes

that Mincome was outstandingly successful and outstandingly popular as

a programme, and they realize as well that being continually reminded

of it removes from their political base political support. I would

predict, Mr. Speaker, that the next change we'll see is in the name

Pharmacare. You watch — they'll do away with that one as quick as they

can.

MS. BROWN: PAIN.

MR. BARBER: My colleague suggests it'll become PAIN.

MR. SPEAKER: Pharmacare, Hon. Member, is not part of the principle of this bill.

MR. BARBER: No, but the principle we're looking at, Mr.

Speaker, is that represented by this coalition in its unceasing attempt

to rewrite history can to erase the successful history of achievement

in social services of the previous government. We have this bill before

us called GAIN, because they don't like the word "Mincome." They don't

like the fact that that was our name and our programme and our success.

They want to wipe it out as soon as they can. The motivation is

obvious, and it's political, Mr. Speaker.

Now I want to report about a problem that we have in Victoria,

dealing with this legislation and the people it will affect, and I'm

specifically referring to senior citizens. I would remind the minister

that on our side of the House we don't believe they're stupid, we don't

believe they're blind, and we know they weren't born yesterday. In a

local newspaper, after receiving numerous complaints through the

community service office which I operate in Victoria, we announced that

we were going to be establishing a pension clinic. The purpose of that

clinic would be to help senior citizens in Victoria sort out the mess

caused by this government's change in the Mincome programme, and to

sort out the mess caused by that government's refusal to pass through

and match various federal increases.

HON. MR. VANDER ZALM: I guess you'll be coming for a grant.

MR. BARBER: We're not coming for a grant. Our office is run by volunteers. We don't need a grant.

In our particular office, Mr. Speaker, we had, over a period of

three days following our newspaper announcement, 85 senior citizens

visit and phone. Every one of them had basically the same complaint:

they didn't understand what that coalition was up to. They didn't

understand what the new rules were going to be. They don't understand

why, mysteriously and peculiarly and without explanation, their cheques

are reduced or altered each month. They don't understand what's

happening to them, and they want answers. In the space of three days

following that particular presentation, senior citizens in Victoria

came forward and said: "Help us out. We don't understand what these

guys are up to. We don't understand why the changes and the cuts. We

want to know what's going on."

They also want to know, Mr. Speaker, why this government has broken

its promise and killed Mincome: the name, the principle, and the

programme.

MR. KERSTER: What's in a name?

MR. BARBER: What's in a name, the member for Oahu says.

What's in a name? A great deal's in a name because it stands for a

commitment and a promise; it stands for a principle. It stands for

something these senior citizens care about. In one of the first acts

our government took, Mincome was created. The Victoria Times got it right: the name was destroyed, the programme was destroyed, and the principle has been abolished.

The principle of this coalition government, under this legislation,

is that senior citizens are now on welfare. They have to take a means

test, they have to pass a means test, and if they don't they get no

assistance at all.

MS. BROWN: Shocking!

MR. BARBER: There are retroactive elements of this

legislation that don't belong in any such legislation anywhere. The

principle of that coalition is that a handout is a handout. They'll

change the name, but as far as they're concerned it's all the same for

young people, old people and handicapped. It's all a handout, and

they'll put them all on welfare.

This is a welfare bill, Mr. Speaker. The principle of that coalition

is that you should be ashamed to ask for help. Believe me, they're

ashamed to have to offer it. That's the principle that that coalition

takes. They have reduced Mincome to a welfare programme, and that's the

principle that they support. The principle that Mincome was, Mr.

Speaker, is that Mincome was not a gift from a social worker. It was

not a gift from a social assistance Act; it was a right enshrined in

[ Page 2471 ]

legislation. Mincome was a pension and a right.

There was no means test. It was not welfare, it was not social

assistance, and there was no means test.

This trash, Mr. Speaker, is welfare. You are insulting the senior

citizens of this province who have earned the right to the pension we

called Mincome. They earned that right. They earned it through 40, 50

and 60 years of labour in the service of the people of this country.

You have taken them from a pension and put them on welfare. There is no

other way to look at it; what was called Mincome is now welfare. You

have insulted, affronted, degraded and humiliated the senior citizens

of this province.

When our government came into office they discovered that many

senior citizens were more than hesitant to apply for Mincome because

they thought maybe it was welfare, and they wanted to go to their

graves and say they were never on welfare. For these people it was a

point of pride and honour and dignity that they never received welfare

in their lives. So our government took strenuous steps to ensure that

they understood that Mincome was different — it was not administered by

social workers like assistance was; it was a programme not the subject

of social assistance regulations, and it was a programme not the

subject of the Social Assistance Act. It was a special Act with special

regulations because it served the special need.

Under our government, Mr. Speaker, Mincome was a pension and it was

a right. No one had to ask for it. No one, certainly, had to beg for

it. Here they are going to be begging for it, and you're going to be

turning them down one after the other because you've got a means test

in here as well.

You've insulted them. You've broken a promise, and you are breaking

their hearts. You are forcing these people, on bended knee, to ask for

welfare. This is a social assistance Act; Mincome was a pension and a

right; now it's welfare and you've got a means test in there too.

We've read the bill, Mr. Speaker. We understand that they have put

the senior citizens of this province on notice that what was formerly a

right and a pension is now maybe a privilege, if they are lucky enough

to get it, and welfare whenever they get it.

It's an insult, Mr. Speaker. The seniors of this province aren't

stupid, they aren't blind, and they weren't born yesterday. They're

going to see through it. For that obviously sound and perfectly

reasonable principle, we can't support this stuff. It's nonsense. It's

trash. It's junk legislation. It's a mess. It's an embarrassment. You

shouldn't do it to the seniors; they didn't deserve it. Mincome was a

right and a pension; keep it that way. It was a right and a pension.

Don't make them beg for it; don't make them feel it's welfare; and

don't send them back 20 years into the past. It was a right and a

pension; keep it that way!

MR. J.J. HEWITT (Boundary-Similkameen): Mr. Speaker, I would

just like to make a few comments concerning Bill 28. I can stand up

here, I guess, like members of the opposition and go back in history

and probably comment on the $102 million overrun the former Minister of

Human Resources (Mr. Levi) had.

I could probably comment to the young member for Victoria, the

second member for Victoria (Mr. Barber), that if it wasn't a means

test, Hon. Member.... I don't know whether you are aware of it or not,

but a lot of the people who drew Mincome converted a considerable

amount of their savings into non-interest-bearing bank accounts to

avoid the interest so they could qualify for Mincome, because if they

didn't do that, Hon. Member, they wouldn't qualify for Mincome, you

see. So there was some type of a means test even in Mincome. There was

some type of a means test in Mincome itself, Hon. Member, and you may

not be aware of that.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. second member for Victoria calls this trash

legislation. I'd like to read a couple of items in regard to trash

legislation this member is so strong against, that in order to help

encourage single-parent families, in order to be able to encourage a

mother to go out and find work because she wanted to get ahead, this

minister is going to enable them to still maintain their coverage under

the Medical Services Plan in order for them to have the courage to seek

employment.

That member over there, who has conveniently left the assembly,

calls this trash legislation. Mr. Speaker, I think that is somewhat

shameful in the fact that the hon. member aims at one point of this

legislation and then calls this whole bill trash when he knows full

well that this Minister is trying to bring in legislation that will

give the handicapped and the single-parent family some courage to got

ahead and get off the rolls of assisted people in this province.

I find it rather shameful, Mr. Speaker, that the opposition can

attack and attack, yet not fully understand the entirety of this bill.

They pick at one point they feel they can make their issue on, make

their point on, and yet they attack a bill that has more merit, more

merit for the future of the people who are in need, and gives them

courage. I think that if the opposition sat down and reread the bill in

its entirety, and not pick on one aspect of the bill where they feel

they can make their points, but told the public in the province of

British Columbia the full impact of this bill, they would rise up and

support it, Mr. Speaker, as I will.

MR. E.O. BARNES (Vancouver Centre): Mr. Speaker, if I could just make a few comments, further to some that I made yesterday and this afternoon.

There are a couple of headlines that I think, for the record, the minister should be cognizant of, one

[ Page 2472 ]

that appeared in the Colonist

not too long ago, saying: "Only B.C.'s Deserving Will Gain Under GAIN."

I suppose that indicates that there are some people who deserve social

assistance and income assistance and social services and some who do

not.

Another one says that the welfare legislation appears to be "Electoral Treachery" by another person writing for The Vancouver Sun .

Now these are opinions that are expressed by people employed in

reporting the news, and who try and be objective, and who usually are

very cautious about drawing any conclusions about, you know, being

editorial, or subjective about matters as serious as this. But I think

the overwhelming evidence supporting cause to be alarmed is fairly

extensive.

I'd also like to remind the minister, as I've been attempting to do

all along, that there is some doubt as to his sincerity as the Minister

of Human Resources, because he has consistently indicated a disregard

for the rights of individuals in this society to very much. He talks

mainly about the deserving, the destitute and the unfortunates in such

a tone that those people who may be so designated are not likely to

feel very encouraged as citizens in this province.

Last March the minister issued a directive designating some 175

communities throughout the province of British Columbia as being areas

for non-welfare recipients and that, in my view, is a fairly serious

position to take in a society that encourages, and has been quite proud

over the scores of years of having, freedom of movement, freedom of

speech, freedom of assembly and the freedom to religious beliefs and so

forth. Now we have a minister who is suggesting that if you intend to

receive social assistance, or any assistance whatsoever from the

government, then you are duty bound to live in areas which we

prescribe. It's sort of suggesting that maybe they should be on certain

reserved areas — employable areas I think is probably the expression he

was using, Mr. Speaker.

When you take a look, you know, at some of these areas.... I

obviously won't have time to go through all 175. We only have about 45

minutes before adjournment, I presume. But, you know, how do you think

those people living in the various areas such as the Okanagan and the

Kootenays, Prince George, Cariboo region, Fraser Valley, Prince Rupert,

Bulkley valley, Kamloops main line, Vancouver Island north of Malahat,

Gulf Islands, Fraser North and the west coast, from Alta Lake to

Squamish and more, many more...? You know, I don't know if you were

overzealous in an attempt to try and pull your department together in

just a few months or whether you were really just exemplifying an

attitude of a new era that's coming into the province of British

Columbia.

I recall your having made similar comments, Mr. Minister, through

you, Mr. Speaker, when you were the mayor in Surrey, and you waged war

on the people who were misusing the welfare funds and compiled

extensive files on them and vowed to clean up those people who were

pilfering the public coffers for their own personal gain and not having

shown that they deserved to receive such services. So I'm going to ask,

as we're moving through this bill, if you would talk about some

interpretations of your concepts in respect to deserving people — you

know, in detail, Mr. Speaker. The minister has gone a long way in

suggesting that he is going to relieve poverty.

Under

section 1(6) of this bill he says: "...generally any other

form of aid that is necessary for the purpose of relieving poverty,

neglect or suffering." But I am still looking for that minister to talk

about alleviating poverty, eliminating poverty. He says "relieving

poverty." He assumes that is impossible to eliminate it, I suppose.

Perhaps it is a very difficult job but, you know, as minister you

should be more confident and show more enthusiasm about trying to

eliminate.

You go down a little further under subsection (

i) and you state that

"social services having as their object the lessening, removal, or

prevention of the causes and effects of poverty, child neglect and

suffering." You were making reference there to the things that this Act

would attempt to support. But when you talk about the causes and

effects of poverty, this is a fairly far-reaching concept, one which I

fully support. But do you mean to tell me that under this legislation

you intend to seriously attack the causes of poverty, that you, through

you, Mr. Speaker, intend through this legislation to devise programmes

that will, in effect, attack the causes of poverty? I really hope that

you do.

As one of the members has said, we have been very critical of the

legislation, but I would be the first to support the minister on any

programme he had that is going to seriously eliminate the kind of

injustices and difficulties that so many people have in trying to

overcome the situation they find themselves in socially and

economically, Mr. Speaker.

You also state under another

section — I think that is

section 8 —

that you are in favour of services designed to encourage and assist

residents of a community to participate or to continue to participate

in improving the social conditions of their community. Now that sounds

to me exactly like the kind of programmes you just eliminated — the

community resource boards. They were committed to just that purpose,

Mr. Speaker, to furthering the community, to participating, to

encouraging the participation, to providing assistance as volunteers,

in fact, Mr. Speaker. But you eliminated them. Then you come in with a

bill.... Are you trying to use rhetoric to confuse people? Right away

before the bill was in you eliminated everything that it should be

trying to bring in. So naturally we are suspicious

[ Page 2473 ]

about the things that you have included in your

bill. I am taking a little time to work up to some points that I want

to ask you later but under section....

Interjections.

MR. BARNES: Okay. I've just had a member tell me that I

shouldn't deal with all of these points. We will save it for committee.

I think she is probably right. I will just generalize and say that you

have a number of things such as confidentiality....

MR. SPEAKER: Could I suggest that was very good advice, Hon. Member?

MR. BARNES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Don't get in the debate

now. You are being cute. I just confessed. Now you shouldn't comment on

my comments. You know that.

MR. SPEAKER: Only when they are out of order, Hon. Member.

MR. BARNES: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I respect you. It is nice to have some humour at about 10:20 in the evening.

The tenor of the bill leaves a great deal to be desired. Talking

about places of residence, you say that there is no discrimination in

the bill, that you are going to recognize the rights of the people who

are deserving. Yet at the same time, as I pointed out to you, you have

175 communities that you say are not welfare areas. Then you turn

around and under

section 7 say that people will not be discriminated

against who receive welfare. "In the administration of income

assistance or social services there shall be no discrimination based on

race, colour, creed or political affiliation."

Interjections.

MR. BARNES: But residence, that is different, as long as you

live where we tell you to live. Don't you think an amendment would be

in order, Mr. Minister, through you, Mr. Speaker, to include residence,

to say that residence also is included under

section 7 — "regardless of

residence"? Maybe you'd better read that bill. I don't think you

realize the seriousness of that, because this member....

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. Member, may I interrupt you just long

enough to remind you of the rules of debate — and which you are aware

of — that do not prevent you from moving any amendment that you so

desire and placing it on the order paper if that is your intent?

Now I am prepared to allow you certain laxity in discussing the bill.

MR. BARNES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: But let's remember that we're not discussing the

bill

section by

section at this particular time; it's the principle of

the bill that's involved at the moment. There will be ample time in

debate on the sections. Certainly if you wish to move amendments,

either in your own name or by suggesting to the minister that he

should, that can be done when we get to that

section of the bill.

MR. BARNES: Would you be in support of moving an amendment to

include all residents, Mr. Speaker, through you to the minister? And

would you, well, on a point of clarification...?

MR. SPEAKER: Unfortunately, Hon. Member, we're not in a

position at the moment in this debate to discuss amendments. Amendments

will be moved if and when we get to the committee stage of the bill,

which is some way beyond where we're at this evening.

MR. BARNES: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Interjections.

MR. BARNES: No, no, no. Get out of here. (Laughter.) Mr. Speaker, thank you very much for that clarification.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. member has the floor.

MR. BARNES: I thought you were indicating that I could make an amendment at this time.

MR. SPEAKER: I'm sorry if you took that impression from my words.

MR. BARNES: Thank you. I'm quite clear now, and I certainly

hope that the minister will beat me to it, because I would prefer to

cooperate with the government. If he were to move the amendment then I

would be voting with him, and that would be nice for a change.

Mr. Speaker, I think what I would like to do now is just go back to

this afternoon and recall a question that I asked the minister about

the existence of an organization called the New Opportunities Handicap

Programme. I wonder if the minister will recall me asking him about

that organization. I've tried to get more information on the

organization. This is the one that I indicated to the minister was

located in the riding of Vancouver Centre, down at 444 Dunsmuir, and is

presently employing handicapped persons to solicit by telephone persons

interested in purchasing light bulbs that have been produced by the

Philips Company in the United States.

[ Page 2474 ]

These light bulbs, apparently, have an extended life of many, many

times that of conventional lights and are selling for something like

$1.99 each — anywhere from 25- to 100-watt bulbs. The reason I raise

this....

Interjections.

MR. BARNES: Well, Mr. Speaker, just for the edification of

those people who are saying that I'm on the wrong bill, I'm going to

have the minister take note of

section 13 in this particular bill — the

handicapped transportation allowance. Look under that

section while I'm

talking. The member for Columbia River (Mr. Chabot) or one of those

places up north, was indicating that I was on the wrong bill, but the

point that I'm making is very much related to this bill.

My question concerns the fact that I have been advised that one of

the community resource units of the Department of Human Resources has

referred a handicapped person to this organization to assume his duties

as a salesperson for this company. I'm told that these people are

required, among other things, to say something to the effect that,

"because we are handicapped, we can send these light bulbs postage

free, at a saving to you." Now this is a script that the handicapped

persons are required to read, and this is only a part of the quote. I

don't have the rest of it, but I'm told that that is a direct excerpt

from the script that they are required to read on the telephone spiel.

I've also been able to confirm, Mr. Speaker, that they are required

to sell a minimum of seven light bulbs per hour in order to qualify for

their commission; they're not receiving any remuneration for their

services. Now that may or may not be true, but that, again, is what I

hear. I'm sure the minister would be most anxious to investigate, to

find out, because as you say under your

section 13, Mr. Minister, and I

would like to read this to clarify the purpose, Mr. Speaker, of what

I'm trying to say:

"The minister may, in accordance with the regulations,

authorize payment of a monthly transportation allowance for a

handicapped individual participating in an organized programme of

rehabilitation or training established for the handicapped."

I've been given the name of at least one person who has been told

that should he go to this place — by the recommendation of a member

from the Department of Human Resources — he would in fact receive a

transportation allowance. I understand that the allowance could go

anywhere from $3 to $8 for transportation — is that right? Well, Mr.

Speaker, the minister will clarify that, but in any event, if you have

handicapped people working for organizations such as this, and if your

bill states that the organization must be set up to rehabilitate or

provide training for handicapped, then that means that the person from

the Department of Human Resources must have qualified this organization

so that it has been accepted. If you said that you didn't know about it

this afternoon, then maybe you should check with the department,

because someone has already started to send handicapped persons to it.

I'm wondering how you could support an organization that is in fact

exploiting these people in a most degrading and dehumanizing way....

MR. KEMPF: You don't even know it's happening.

MR. BARNES: This is happening. I'm prepared to table any

facts that I have, and if you would like to follow through, if any of

the members on the other side would like to look into this matter, I'll

be more than glad to provide you with the information I have.

The thing that I'm asking the minister to do is ensure the House

that if something like this has happened because of his inability to be

on top of all of his staff and all of the departments, if there is any

truth in this, he will forthwith give the House a report back. I would

hope that he would want to do this immediately, because I've tried to

find out if this firm was licensed, and I haven't been able to do so. I

understand that they've only been in town two or three months.

This is another fact because I have names, Mr. Speaker, and I hope

that the government will not ask that we bring in all the

personalities. This is only a matter of clarification in terms of

procedure. If you want to bring in names and personalities, that's fine

with me, Mr. Speaker, but I do feel that you should take a very careful

look at what's happening to the handicapped people, especially if

they're being subjected to humiliation and being asked to read

something that degrades them as human beings who are being exploited,

who are providing cheap labour with no guarantee of any income

whatsoever, if this fact is true — and let's hope that it isn't. Let's

hope that someone is just playing a very cruel game. But I understand

that if you were to follow through on this you'd find that there's been

some things going on that the minister hasn't been able to find out

about.

I certainly would hope that there is a system that will be far more

scrutinizing — once this bill is passed — that deals with

section 13

than the one that has permitted this to happen. If it is to be true,

Mr. Speaker, then it seems to me as though anyone who says that they've

got a job for the handicapped can exploit them, because the Department

of Human Resources will rush to their aid and say: "Fine, we'll

subsidize you and we'll provide you free transportation. If you take

the handicapped person, we can get them off handicapped assistance and

[ Page 2475 ]

are free." The person goes out and they're on some

kind of a commission programme with no guarantee that they're going to

get paid. In fact I understand that some of the people have been trying

to get paid who have, in fact, sold several light bulbs, and they

haven't received it.

AN HON. MEMBER: Light bulbs?

MR. BARNES: Light bulbs! Imagine that! They're not even

Canadian-made! They're imported from Georgia by the Philips company.

So, Mr. Minister, since you've been trying to keep me from getting into

all the details of this bill, I'm quite willing and quite patient to

permit the minister to close the debate at this time....

Interjection.

MR. BARNES: Oh, there are other people who are going to be

speaking. Well, I'm going to wait and do my thing on committee, because

there are lots of things I want to ask the minister. I'm not impatient,

but I hope that the minister will answer some questions. Mr. Minister,

I'll give you one example. You sat there you were very nice and very

pleasant, and you didn't answer any questions when you were on your

estimates.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please! We are not on the estimates of this minister.

MR. BARNES: I know that, but the minister makes me wonder whether he's going to answer these questions.

MR. SPEAKER: We happen to be on second reading of the bill.

MR. BARNES: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate that. You are very, very pleasant this evening. I appreciate that.

MR. SPEAKER: I'm trying my best, Hon. Member.

MR. BARNES: I've known you over the years and you have been known to have your days, but tonight isn't one.

MR. SPEAKER: Then I'm sure that you're not going to repeat

the same arguments that I've listened to tonight when we debate

section

13 of the bill.

MR. BARNES: That's right, Mr. Speaker. No, I wouldn't think

of becoming repetitive, redundant, or any of those things that the

House rules try to discourage.

MR. SPEAKER: I'm sure. I'll remind you of that.

MR. BARNES: But I will say, Mr. Speaker, that I would like an

answer from the minister as to the real statistics on that PREP

programme that he has.

Interjection.

MR. BARNES: Mr. Speaker, you're listening to the first member

for Vancouver Centre (Mr. Lauk), who is trying to give me support on

the side, but I want you to listen to me. I'm asking you about the PREP

programme — you know, the provincial rehabilitation and employment

programme that you've got. I want to know about the statistics on that.

It's connected.

He says in the bill, Mr. Speaker, that we also want to encourage

people to get jobs — to use the member for Columbia River's (Mr.

Chabot'

s) expression: "Jobs!" I agree with the member; we want them to

get jobs. And you said that you're going to do that. I hope you will

give us some hard, fast statistics as to how you are going to achieve

this. We hope that you won't use any complicated things, just be very

straightforward, tell us whether these people are going to be given

jobs that would relate to their abilities or whether you're going to

say: "I don't care whether you have the ability or not: here is the

mud, here is the shovel; now go to work."

You say also that you're concerned about people having jobs that

relate to their abilities. Now if it relates to their abilities, you

are going to have problems because that means you are going to have to

be concerned about the human factor; you've got to be concerned about

individual differences. That's going to complicate your job. So I don't

know if you're just saying that to make it look this way and then

you're going to shove a shovel in their hands and say: "If you don't

want to work, no job. No workee, no job; no welfare."

AN HON. MEMBER: No tickee, no laundry.

MR. BARNES: I hope you will clarify that for us.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. member for Coquitlam.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: No, the member from Hawaii.

MR. KERSTER: Mr. Speaker, I continually have to remind those

people that the very intelligent electorate in Coquitlam did make a

choice — and keep reminding them. Nevertheless, they did make a choice

and I am here because of that choice. Accept that, would you?

Interjection.

[ Page 2476 ]

MR. KERSTER: There he is, the hon. member for Vancouver-Burrard (Mr. Levi), a perfect example of what happens when first cousins intermarry.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. KERSTER: Talking about shovels, as the hon. member was a

moment ago, I'd like to remind you that when you start to talk the way

you were talking just a moment ago...it's up to your knees now, and

that's really deep. That's really, really deep.

I found the hon. second member for Victoria's (Mr. Barber'

s) speech

both good and original. However, the parts that were good weren't original, and the parts that were original weren't any good. That overemotional second member for Victoria said that this legislation

would make senior citizens afraid — and I repeat, afraid. You people have been

running on fear tactics for years, and it's finally catching up with you.

He said that it would make senior citizens afraid to send in the application

forms. Well, let's look back. You people like to look back in the opposition,

in the official opposition, only when it serves your party purposes. Nevertheless,

let's look back to April 4, 1973.

During debate in this very House, quoting from Hansard , when the hon. member

for North Okanagan (Mrs. Jordan) was questioning the former Minister of Human

waste and Resources....

MS. BROWN: Oh, oh!

MR. KERSTER: To quote the hon. member for North Okanagan:

I asked the minister some specific questions about Mincome. The

first was in relation to the application form. The minister still hasn't

answered this House in the oral question and answer period or under his estimates.

I quote: "Your answers will in no way effect their eligibility."

Mr. Minister, do you stand by that statement? Is it not compulsory

and will it not be compulsory for elderly citizens to answer this questionnaire

if they choose not to? Will it in no way affect their receipts?

Well now, the former Minister of Human Resources (Mr. Levi), the $100-million

man, responds: "Yes, I'm sorry." He's always sorry for clerical

errors, for overruns, for running off at the mouth and so forth, but: "Votes

and proceedings." Then he relates back to the question, which is unusual. He says:

In respect of the Mincome form, that's not an application

form. It's needed for statistical purposes to comply with the federal regulations.

I replied in the House the other day, I think, on about five different occasions

that I am not going to say that people are going to be punished if they do not

return the form up to now — and it's four weeks on Thursday that we sent

it out. We have almost 75,000 forms back out of 108,000 forms that we had to

send out. So we're in no way concerned.

Well, he showed very little concern during his term in that office, that was obvious.

The forms are coming back and we're prepared to wait two or three months anyway.

Very precise.

Well, the second member for Victoria (Mr. Barber), the member for

New Westminster (Mr. Cocke), the member for Prince Rupert (Mr. Lea) and

the second member for Vancouver Centre (Mr. Barnes) have taken nothing

but a very negative, tunnel-visioned look at this bill, Bill 28. They

know very well that it doesn't do away with Mincome and that it is an

outright convolution of the facts, and they know it. The Handicapped

Persons Income Assistance Act is not done away with, and the Social

Assistance Act is not done away with.

MR. BARNES: It says so right in the bill.

MR. KERSTER: Why don't you put the teeth in your mouth in

backwards, my friend, and bite yourself right in the back of the throat

for saying something like that.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. KERSTER: I want to get a point across here.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please! Will the hon. member, first of

all, address the Chair? Secondly, top casting aspersions across the

floor at other members who do not have possession of the floor at his

particular time.

Interjections.

MR. KERSTER: Mr. Speaker, through you to the hon. members who

do not have possession of the floor, I would request their lending an

ear for once, instead of a mouth,

AN HON. MEMBER: Oh, oh!

MR. KERSTER: What I'm saying is that the second member for

Victoria (Mr. Barber), the member for New Westminster (Mr. Cocke), the

member for Prince Rupert (Mr. Lea) and the second member for

Vancouver-Centre (Mr. Barnes) have taken nothing but tunnel-visioned

looks at this bill. They know it doesn't do away with any of the

Mincome, Handicapped Persons Income Assistance Act, or Social

Assistance Act legislation. It's just another batch of thoughtless,

politically motivated gobbledegook and twisting of the facts. It's the

official opposition's attempt to confuse the people of

[ Page 2477 ]

this province again. They did it for three and a

half years and I don't think the people of this province are going to

accept this garbage any longer. And speaking for my own riding,

Coquitlam....

AN HON. MEMBER: Where?

MR. KERSTER: You got that? These people are not to be

confused by this twisting of the facts because.... Neither are the

people of British Columbia. They don't buy this kind of garbage any

more. This is a good piece of progressive legislation and I'm proud to

be a part of a government that brought it forth.

MS. BROWN: Thanks very much, Mr. Speaker. And to all of my admirers on both sides of the House, thank you, thank you.

I think first of all I should clarify for the member for Coquitlam

(Mr. Kerster) that the reason why he's referred to as the member for

Hawaii is not because we're under the illusion that the people of

Hawaii voted for him, but because he always seems to be out of it when

it comes down to whatever legislation is being discussed, and we

suspect he must be in Hawaii when it's happening. Now he just gave us a

speech for, I think, about seven and a half minutes in which he assured

us that the Social Assistance Act was not repealed, that the

Handicapped Persons Income Assistance Act was not repealed. I would

like to draw his attention to Bill 28, the bill which is under

discussion,

section 27, which reads as follows — and because I'm not

quite sure of the member's ability to read I think I'll read it for

him, with your permission, Mr. Speaker. It says: "The following Acts

are repealed: (

a) Social Assistance Act; (

b) Guaranteed Minimum

Assistance Act; (

c) Handicapped Persons Income Assistance Act."

Now I realize that I was out of order by dealing with this specific

section of the bill, Mr. Speaker, but I appreciate your allowing me the

indulgence so I could bring this to the attention of the member for

Hawaii.

Interjection.

MS. BROWN: Okay. What I really want to say, though, is that I think it is a disgrace, a disgraceful piece of legislation. It is a....

Interjection.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. member for Coquitlam on a point of order.

MR. KERSTER: Mr. Speaker, according to the standing orders of this

House, 42(1), I know that I can't speak twice to the question except to

correct a statement, a material part of the speech which has been misquoted

and misunderstood...

MS. BROWN: That's not a point of order.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. I'm waiting patiently for the point of order, which I've done for other hon. members on other occasions.

MS. BROWN: Okay.

MR. KERSTER: ...which may have been misquoted or

misunderstood, but then not to introduce any new matter or new debate.

So I would trust, Mr. Speaker, that this is a valid point of order. I

would like to correct a statement on which the hon. member has

misquoted me and....

MR. SPEAKER: If it's a matter of a misquotation or something

that you disagree with or a difference of opinion, under standing order

42 you do that at the end of the hon. member's speech.

MR. KERSTER: Mr. Speaker, knowing the hon. member, I may not get a chance to correct that statement tonight. So I thought I might....

MR. SPEAKER: I have no knowledge of that, Hon. Member. It's a matter of the rules of the House.

Interjections.

MS. BROWN: Mr. Speaker, I know that in this House on a number

of occasions you have explained that rule to this House, that you do

not interrupt a speaker who is on her feet, to correct a statement. You

wait until she's finished. On her feet — or his.

Interjection.

MS. BROWN: On the rare occasion when men get on their feet in

this House...but, of course, again, the member must have been in Hawaii

when you were explaining this to the House, Mr. Speaker. But you will

get an opportunity to correct me, Mr. Member — tomorrow sometime, I

think, if that's okay with you.

But I really would like to deal specifically with Bill 28 — and I

would appreciate it if the members would refrain from heckling me while

I'm trying to deal with this very serious piece of legislation. The

second member for Vancouver Centre (Mr. Barnes) stood in this House and

spoke for 40 minutes and you could have heard a pin drop. They're

scared of him, but a little old lady like me, I get on my feet and

everyone over there...right? Pick on your own size next time, Mr.

Member for Hawaii.

All of which is to say, Mr. Speaker, that this is a disgraceful piece of legislation, and of course it is not

[ Page 2478 ]

going to be possible for me to support it.

AN HON. MEMBER: Oh, oh!

MS. BROWN: I'll tell you why I think it is so disgraceful.

For the past five and a half days I know the members of this House have

been wondering where I was.

AN HON. MEMBER: Yes, we have.

MS. BROWN: Okay. I was attending some of the sessions at the Habitat forum, and over and over....

AN HON. MEMBER: Without leave!

MS. BROWN: Without leave. Where's the dapper Minister of Labour (Hon. Mr. Williams)? He's not here tonight.

MR. G.V. LAUK (Vancouver Centre): The man from Glad!

MS. BROWN: Yes. But, Mr. Speaker, over and over again the

topic under discussion had to do with poor people and poor countries

and human settlements. It wasn't once but many times that we were told:

"But, of course, this does not apply to North America. This does not

apply to Canada. You are a very wealthy country. You have no

understanding of what poverty is all about." Over and over again we

heard delegates from all over the world, Mr. Speaker....

Interjections.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. The hon. member for Vancouver-Burrard has the floor.

MS. BROWN: No respect for my grey hairs — nothing!

Mr. Speaker, over and over again we were told that these things did

not apply to Canada because it was a wealthy country, and it is true.

This is a very wealthy country and British Columbia is one of the

wealthiest provinces in this very wealthy nation. Yet I know from my

experience of having worked here, Mr. Speaker, for a number of years as

a social worker that there is tremendous poverty in this province. I

think that we ought to be ashamed of ourselves, quite frankly, as a

people and as a nation, that that kind of poverty exists in this very

wealthy province in this very wealthy nation of ours. We ought to be

ashamed of ourselves that the Department of Human Resources has on its

caseload as many people as it does, that in fact we have the level of

unemployment in this province that we do, and that in fact it was

necessary to bring down this kind of legislation.

We have a lot to be ashamed of, and I think that for the minister to

introduce legislation at this time which does not, as the bill says,

get to the root cause of the poverty, but tries to separate out the

deserving poor from the other — and he has not given us his criteria

for the deserving poor — adds to our shame. Certainly as far as the

nations of the world are concerned, it forces us to hang our head in

disgrace.

Mr. Speaker, this is not new legislation. In 1972 the previous

Minister of Rehabilitation and Social Improvement, the former member

for the constituency of Kamloops (Mr. Gaglardi), introduced this bill

under a different number, but it was the same bill, Bill 49. I don't

know how many members in this House remember that Bill 49. Precisely

the same kinds of powers that were incorporated in that bill are

presently in this bill, and the same kinds of punitive acts that were

incorporated in that bill are presently in this bill. The only

difference is that because the present minister is smoother and more

suave in everything that he does, he introduces legislation that was

more suave than that of the previous Minister of Rehabilitation.

AN HON. MEMBER: That's "swave"!

MS. BROWN: No, no, suave. You swave, Mr. Minister, I'll suave!

Interjection.

MS. BROWN: But it's the same bill. It's the same sweeping

powers. It's the same kind of legislation that gives him the right, as

it would have given the former minister the right, to designate who

shall and who shall not be considered deserving poor in this country.

It deals with the same kinds of means-testing that is now being dressed

up in this new flowery language of the minister who grew up on tulip

bulbs, which I guess explains the flowery nature of the language being

used.

There isn't anything different about it, and in fact people fought

against that legislation in Bill 49 in 1972. That was one of the pieces

of legislation that brought about the downfall of that Minister of

Human Resources, and I certainly hope, if you insist on forcing Bill 28

through this House, Mr. Minister, that it will be responsible for

bringing about your downfall too.

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Boundary-Similkameen (Mr. Hewitt),

earlier in the House when he was speaking talked about the fact that

you were in support of single-parent families. He made great issue of

that fact. You obviously are in support of single-parent families,

because this legislation is going to create a lot of single-parent

families.

Now one of the things that I heard the minister discuss on the CBC one morning was the fact that he

[ Page 2479 ]

knew about the aid-to-dependent-children

legislation in the United States and that he was going to ensure that

any legislation introduced by him would not have those kinds of

destructive effects, would not have that kind of destructive impact on

the family as a unit. Yet lo and behold, Mr. Speaker, in this bill,

Bill 28, under

section 11 — and I'm not going to deal with the sections

in detail now — he has introduced legislation which does precisely what

the aid-to-dependent-children legislati