Official Report of

DEBATES OF THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY

(Hansard)

MONDAY, APRIL 28, 1997

Afternoon

Volume 4, Number 8

[ Page 2851 ]

The House met at 2:06 p.m.

Prayers.

W. Hurd: Hon. Speaker, I rise to make a personal statement.

The Speaker: Hon. members, in case anybody has forgotten, I want to advise that our standing orders do not make a specific provision for personal statements. However, we do have a long and established practice in this House whereby members can do so in certain special circumstances, provided they give the Speaker notice of the statement and share the text of the statement with the Chair.

The hon. member for Surrey-White Rock has done that. Therefore I am pleased to recognize him now.

W. Hurd: Mr. Speaker, I rise today to make a personal statement, of which notice has been provided to your office. I want to thank you for the ruling, and for the opportunity to make this statement in the House today.

As most members are aware, the writ of election has been filed in Ottawa, and Canadians will be going to the polls in a general election on June 2, 1997. As the nominated candidate for the Liberal Party of Canada in the new constituency of South Surrey-White Rock-Langley, the federal election law requires me to resign my seat in the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia during the writ period.

Therefore this is the final time I will address this assembly as the member for Surrey-White Rock, and since I have also announced that I will not be a candidate in the provincial by-election, which must be called in Surrey-White Rock regardless of the outcome of the federal election, doubtless, Mr. Speaker, this will be the last time I ever address this assembly.

I would like to use this occasion to express my appreciation to a number of people for their support. I especially want to acknowledge and thank my constituents. In 1991 they sent a member to the Legislative Assembly about whom they knew very little, and they reaffirmed their support in 1996 with one of the largest single vote totals in the May provincial election. I was humbled and grateful for their support, and for all their expressions of personal commitment and encouragement over the last six years, without which it would have been impossible for me to do this job on their behalf.

Let me also acknowledge my colleagues, both those who have served with me in the 1991-96 period and those who are with me on this side of the House today. They have always provided me with their unquestioned loyalty and commitment. I also want to thank the Leader of the Opposition, under whom I served as opposition Whip. He has worked tirelessly on behalf of all British Columbians, and has always supported my efforts.

I have assured my colleagues and my constituents that my decision to seek federal office is based on my conviction that I can potentially do more from Ottawa for my province and the people of my riding, serving with a Prime Minister for whom I have a great deal of admiration and personal respect.

Mr. Speaker, I'd like to say a few brief words about the members of this assembly from all parties, many of whom I count on as my friends. It seems to me that not too many British Columbians are aware of the assets they have embodied in the men and women of this assembly. Our democracy can only work if our system of government is able to work for the benefit of all citizens. It must advantage those without power and influence, or even hope, no more and no less than for those who do.

It is often the men and women of this assembly, unceremoniously and with little fanfare and through the daily operations of their constituency offices, who provide the people of British Columbia with fairness, equity and empowerment through access to ministries of government. I salute them for their quiet determination and self-sacrifice that ultimately makes our system work better for so many people.

Lastly, let me offer to the thirty-sixth parliament of British Columbia all my hopes and prayers. May your deliberations be indeed marked by temperance and understanding, except perhaps during question period, where those qualities will always be sorely tested.

Mr. Speaker, goodbye, good luck and may God bless and keep you all. [Applause.]

The Speaker: I have instructed the member to stay in the assembly, though not in his seat, so that others who may wish to comment . . . .

Hon. G. Clark: Hon. Speaker, it's rare indeed in this chamber that we rise above our partisan activities to pay tribute, to talk about one of our members, or to talk about any subject, frankly, above the normal state of events. Today is such a day. On behalf of the government and the people of British Columbia, from my perspective as Premier, I simply want to pay tribute to a member, Wilf Hurd. I can use his name, I believe, hon. Speaker?

Interjection.

Hon. G. Clark: Wilf Hurd . . . . I've never been able to do that in the House before. Six years in this place is long enough for many people, and I can almost say . . . .

Interjections.

Hon. G. Clark: Careful, members.

I honestly want to say that I think many British Columbia voters don't appreciate the sacrifices that members make in public life generally, and they certainly don't appreciate the work that's done in this chamber by individual members, particularly those who sit on the opposition side of the House. I sat there for a full five years as well, and I know how much work it is to comment on public issues and to debate the government, when the government has the resources and the government sets the agenda. It is a huge task, and a very, very important one indeed.

I can honestly say that Wilf Hurd has, I think, done an outstanding job, a thoughtful job. He is one of the hardest-working members of the chamber. I can say, candidly, that we on the government side are going to miss him as a forceful, thoughtful and hard-working critic of the government.

I can say, personally, that I wish him well in all of his endeavours. I wish him luck -- not too much luck -- in his future endeavours. I know that someone who has committed six years of his life to public service, acting in this particular job that we have . . . . I know that Mr. Hurd intends to -- and I know he will -- contribute in the future to public life in British Columbia. I think we're better off because of that.

So on behalf of the government side, I'd like to thank you, Wilf, for the work you've done. Good luck in the future.

[ Page 2852 ]

The Speaker: I think we're establishing new precedents here, and it's a good idea.

[2:15]

G. Campbell: I'm glad to join in this non-partisan moment, hon. Speaker. I can say, personally -- as I'm sure members on the other side of the House will know -- how important caucus leadership is when you work in a caucus. Wilf Hurd was our caucus Whip for as long as I was the leader, until a couple of months ago when he decided to run federally. Wilf led quietly, but he led by example.

There are probably few members of this Legislature, if any, that have travelled as many miles on the roads of British Columbia as Wilf Hurd has -- as universities critic, as Forests critic, as critic for Environment. He was always available to communities, and I've got to tell you that there were many days when I wondered why he was driving from 2 o'clock until 6 o'clock in the morning to get from one community to the next. But he did it consistently on behalf of all of us and, I think, on behalf of the public of British Columbia.

I concur with the Premier when he says that it's important that we not just have government, obviously, but that we have strong opposition. I think Wilf Hurd gave strong, principled opposition to the government on a number of occasions. For that, on behalf of all his colleagues, I would like to say thank you. Thank you for your commitment to public life, for your commitment to each one of us on our side of the House, and for your commitment to the public institution of the Legislature and to public life in British Columbia.

It is important that people are willing to stand for public office. I take my hat off to you for moving on to seek federal election. I know that you believe you can make a contribution there for your constituents, as you have provincially, and I wish you all the best in your future endeavours. Thank you very much for your service.

J. Weisgerber: I'd like to add a few words as well. One always wonders, given too much of this kind of flattery, if he may well decide to change his mind and come back to the front bench.

I, too, have come to know and admire Wilf Hurd over the last six years, both for his activities in this Legislature and outside. I was particularly impressed during his run for the leadership of the Liberal Party a few years ago, because he was indeed prepared to take some stands that were courageous -- that were somewhat different than the positions taken by other leadership candidates. The particular issues aren't as important as the demonstration of personal integrity and personal courage that he showed at that time and has continued to show in his responsibilities as MLA for Surrey-White Rock.

So I would send him on his way with our very best wishes as well.

G. Brewin: In the gallery today is a group of people from San Diego, California, with an organization called Walkabout Tours. They are led by Ms. Bain, with some local contacts and acquaintances: Don MacKay and his sister Jean Dillon. Would the House please make them welcome.

Hon. P. Priddy: In the gallery today are a number of students from Princess Margaret high school in my riding of Surrey-Newton. They are here for a tour of the Legislature, but I want to comment just briefly that this high school and these students have made an incredible commitment to programs on anti-racism and peer-conflict mediation. They have worked very hard to make their high school a healthy, safe and inclusive community. I would ask people to make them welcome.

C. Hansen: I have two good friends in the gallery today, Marie and Teresa Nykilchuk. I hope the House will make them welcome.

J. Doyle: I'm pleased to have in the gallery today a constituent, Michelle Eldstrom. Michelle is a good friend of mine. Her mother works for me in the constituency office in Golden. With Michelle is her friend Len Kirby. Len is a citizen of the community of Victoria, where we are standing today. I ask the House to make them welcome.

Also, hon. Speaker, I'm sure I join with all members in this House . . . . There has been one member over the last couple of weeks who has lost his voice. I would hope that the gaming critic, the member for Kamloops-North Thompson, will soon be fit to resume his duties.

Introduction of Bills

BC FOREST RENEWAL AMENDMENT ACT, 1997

(FOREST RENEWAL EQUITABLE REINVESTMENT)

R. Neufeld presented a bill intituled BC Forest Renewal Amendment Act, 1997 (Forest Renewal Equitable Reinvestment).

R. Neufeld: I move that the bill, of which notice has been given in my name on the order paper, be introduced and now read a first time.

Motion approved.

R. Neufeld: This bill would require Forest Renewal B.C. to plan and implement a program of expenditures that is equitable by forest district. Passage of the Forest Renewal Amendment Act, 1997 -- or, more appropriately, the Forest Renewal Equitable Reinvestment Act -- would require that reinvestment of FRBC funds in each forest district in our province be in proportion to the revenue that FRBC derived from that district.

Since its inception, FRBC has been shortchanging some forest districts and heavily subsidizing others. If we look at the Omineca-Peace region, for example, it contributes 27 percent of all FRBC revenues, but sees only 16 percent of expenditures returned to that region. The discrepancy between revenues derived and expenditures made is even larger when the figures compiled are based upon forest district. Passage of this bill would put an end to the ongoing inequities inherent in the current FRBC funding process.

This bill would also enable FRBC to direct expenditures within a forest district towards projects that create or maintain the infrastructure required for forestry activities. Forestry-related infrastructure has been chronically underfunded and now jeopardizes the sustainable use of our province's forests.

Finally, it imposes upon Forest Renewal B.C. a requirement to annually submit a report to the Legislative Assembly that provides a detailed accounting by forest district of revenues and expenditures. This will inject some much-needed accountability and transparency into the current reporting

[ Page 2853 ]

requirements. The current FRBC act will perpetuate regional inequities and permit the continual deterioration of forestry-related infrastructure. Passage of this bill will bring equity, accountability and transparency to the current FRBC funding process.

Bill M206 introduced, read a first time and ordered to be placed on orders of the day for second reading at the next sitting of the House after today.

Oral Questions

REUNITING NATIVE FOSTER CHILDREN

WITH NATIVE FAMILIES

B. McKinnon: The Ministry for Children and Families is planning to send a six-year-old special needs foster child to her extended native family in Saskatchewan. We understand and generally support the policy of reuniting native foster children with native families. However, the ministry is supposed to be guided by one overriding principle: to put the interest of the child first.

Can the minister tell us how it is in the best interest of this young six-year-old girl to be taken from the only family she has ever known?

Hon. P. Priddy: As the member of the opposition has actually alluded to, I think these are very, very difficult situations when you are working with a child who is aboriginal and when you look at what our history has been in this province and across this country of removing aboriginal children from their ancestry. We have, within our Family and Child Service Act and Adoption Act, very clear guidelines about the importance of ancestral ties.

But we also have, I would say, two other guiding principles: first, what is in the best interest of the child and, second, what are the child's wishes? Those are two very difficult things to do any kind of balancing with. I would also say that it's not just what's in the best interest of the child currently, but also over their lifetime. We await the recommendation we'll receive from the Child and Family Review Board.

B. McKinnon: The Murphys have been this six-year-old child's parents for almost her entire life. She calls them mummy and daddy. The Murphys cared for this child when no other suitable home was available and have nurtured her special needs. As a result, this emotionally fragile girl is thriving.

Will the minister tell us how her staff will explain to this six-year-old that she cannot live with her mom and dad anymore?

Hon. P. Priddy: I need to go back to the point that people in this House, including the opposition, supported the principles and guidelines in the Family and Child Service Act, which said that if there is an aboriginal child to be placed, then we must look for extended family and we must look for cultural ties, ancestral ties, ties to bands and reserves -- which is what we have done in these circumstances. But I have also said to the member opposite that there is a balancing piece about what is in the best interest of the child -- and what they say -- and the issue of continuity of care.

Those are the factors that are currently being looked at. When there is a final decision, hon. Speaker, I will speak more about it.

B. McKinnon: The Murphy family has raised this six-year-old girl since she was a baby. They are the only family she knows. It is clear from the reports of her teachers and social workers that the girl is extremely vulnerable to change. Does the minister agree that the move from the Murphy home will traumatize this emotionally fragile little girl?

The Speaker: I don't see an answer coming.

MINISTRY POLITICAL STAFF

AND FEDERAL ELECTION CAMPAIGN

M. de Jong: Mr. Speaker, during the last five years just about every known NDP activist, organizer and campaign coordinator has found a home in the provincial government. For the likes of Gerry Scott, Hans Brown, Michelle Kemper and Dawn Black, the passport to the public trough has been their NDP membership card. So we find ourselves at a federal election, and I suppose we will see the usual mass exodus of these personnel to NDP campaign offices right across the province.

My question is to the Premier. Can he tell us how many of his political cronies have been given five weeks off to join their NDP colleagues at Club Fed?

Hon. G. Clark: Hon. Speaker, I'd be happy to provide that information to the member, with respect to people who take time off to work in federal election campaigns. There are, as you know, pretty strict rules around that, as there should be, for public servants -- for all parties, I might add. There are people working on political staff, for example, of ministers, who I fully expect will likely take time off. We will ensure that that time off is without pay. We will ensure that any time off with respect to political staff that work for a political party is well documented and aboveboard.

Hon. Speaker, with respect to public servants, as you know, there are different rules around public employees and some recent court decisions around their activity or non-activity in campaigns, and we will endeavour to ensure that those are followed through as well.

M. de Jong: I wonder if we can be a little bit more particular. I'll direct my question to the Minister of Health. I note that one of the NDP's chief spin doctors, Chris Chilton, has been biding his time as a special adviser to the Minister of Health and, I'm told, is providing indispensable service there.

I wonder if the Minister of Health can confirm that Mr. Chilton won't be taking time off, won't be taking a leave of absence, to work on an NDP campaign, but will remain at his post to provide that indispensable, essential and vital service that we have been told he is providing to her in his present capacity.

Hon. J. MacPhail: Hon. Speaker, I think the Premier's previous answer stands.

GOVERNMENT USE OF

OPPOSITION ELECTION MATERIAL

G. Farrell-Collins: The Liberal opposition has come in contact with an interesting document, hon. Speaker. It is a 62-page, exhaustive, in-depth, detailed analysis of the B.C. Liberal "Taxpayers' Plan." The interesting thing is that it was done during the election period by Treasury Board. I've checked with two past deputy ministers, who indicate to me that this was never done before in the history of British Columbia.

[ Page 2854 ]

Can the Premier advise this House, given that there are only two NDP governments in Canada, whether it will be the taxpayers of British Columbia or the taxpayers of Saskatchewan who do the economic analysis for Alexa McDonough?

[2:30]

Hon. G. Clark: Hon. Speaker, I don't actually know the document to which the member refers, but I do know that government employees do prepare transition documents in anticipation of any eventual outcome of any election campaign. In fact, staff were advised . . . . The member may know this; I think there was a news story at the time. But even though there was a news story, he might know this in any event.

That is, what the staff do in each ministry is take the platform documents of the various parties, and they work through them, so that in the unlikely event of a Liberal victory, the staff are prepared to implement the policies which they laid out. So all staff are advised, particularly during the election period, to prepare documentation. When we took office six years ago, each minister was given a binder, a briefing book, with respect to how to implement the policies which were enunciated during the election campaign.

So not only is it not surprising that there were transition documents prepared for both parties, but it is done routinely; it's part of our British parliamentary system. I can tell you, as well, that that happens at the federal level. There is work being done, as we speak, to prepare for the smooth transition, regardless of the outcome of the election campaign.

G. Farrell-Collins: Two points. First of all, at the federal level they don't have people like Tom Gunton riding herd on the budgetary process, hon. Speaker. Second, we took the liberty of consulting with one of the individuals who prepared the transition last time, and he indicated that . . . . I believe his response was something to the effect of: "No, no, no. This type of detailed, exhaustive analysis has never been done in the transition process for a new government."

COST OF FAIR-WAGE POLICY

G. Farrell-Collins: My question is to the Premier. I notice with some interest that virtually everything is whited out, but there is one thing here that it shows. It's quite interesting. It says -- if you look at it very carefully -- that despite the government's reassurance time and time again that in fact there is no cost to the fair-wage policy . . . . The document says: "Ending the fair-wage program will avoid future costs. Savings will begin to be realized in 1997-98." Unfortunately the minister, or the ministry, whited out the appropriate dollar figure.

So my question is actually for the Minister of Labour: can he inform the taxpayers of British Columbia exactly how much they will save if this government finally abandons the fair-wage policy?

Hon. J. Cashore: Hon. Speaker, I would just observe that this Liberal opposition's threat to get rid of the fair-wage policy was one of the reasons they lost the election.

G. Farrell-Collins: I'll remind that minister that their perseverance with the fair-wage policy is partly why they couldn't balance their budget two years in a row.

GOVERNMENT USE OF

OPPOSITION ELECTION MATERIAL

G. Farrell-Collins: I have a final question for the Premier. I notice that the Liberal taxpayer plan was tabled on one day -- I think it was May 9 -- and about a week later there was a televised debate. The government has a habit of naming documents when it does that. Now, this one . . . . I'm sure I'm wrong on this one; I'm sure it means something else. But can the Premier tell me why, on the bottom of this document, it's identified as "TV/scenario"?

TOM GUNTON'S ROLE IN 1996 BUDGET

R. Coleman: Last year the Ministry of Finance denied that the Premier's political fixer, Tom Gunton, had any role whatsoever in altering the disgraced 1996 budget. According to Tom Gunton's expenses, on March 12, 1996, while he was Deputy Minister of Environment, he summoned Brenda Eaton, Lois McNabb and Tom Workman, then three Finance officials, to Vancouver for lunch. Tom Gunton's expenses state that the reason for this meeting was to discuss budgets. Can the Minister of Finance tell us why the Deputy Minister of Environment, contrary to what the Premier said, was allowed to meddle in what we now know was an untrue budget?

Hon. A. Petter: It really is time that the Liberal opposition got over the last election and started working on programs to help the people of British Columbia. There is a lot of work that needs to be done, but they continue to insist on carping about the past, trying to relive history. There's a future ahead of us. The people of British Columbia want us to solve those problems; this government is trying to do so. It's time the Liberal opposition did so, as well.

R. Coleman: There is no future for the people of British Columbia if a budget is based on fallacy. The only reason that Tom Gunton would haul ranking Finance officials to Vancouver is to cook the books. Tom Gunton was there, Mr. Speaker; his fingerprints were all over the budget. Today we learn he actually ordered three civil servants to go to Vancouver to discuss budgets.

Can the Minister of Finance explain why, contrary to what the Premier said, Tom Gunton was allowed to fiddle with the 1996 budget?

PREMIER'S ROLE IN

NDP FEDERAL ELECTION CAMPAIGN

C. Clark: We noted with interest recently that the Premier says he's not intending to get involved in the federal election, to endorse his brothers and sisters in the federal NDP. This, of course, despite the fact that the Minister of Health is running millions of dollars' worth of ads to support their federal campaign. So I wondered if the Premier's statement and the Premier's course of action here are based on a new-found respect for the independence of the federal political process. Or is it because he has received word from his federal colleagues that the minute he gets up and starts endorsing them, they will become just as unbelievable and just as non-credible as he is?

Hon. G. Clark: Well, I'm delighted to endorse the federal NDP. I kicked off the campaign, hon. Speaker.

[ Page 2855 ]

I want to know which party they support at the federal level. I want a show of hands, hon. Speaker. Are they in bed with the federal Liberals, or do they support Reform federally, or is it both of them? I can't tell.

Interjections.

The Speaker: Order, members, please.

Hon. G. Clark: I'll conclude, hon. Speaker. I'll briefly conclude by asking the members of the Liberal Party to tell us which party they're going to support in the federal election campaign.

Ministerial Statement

NATIONAL DAY OF

MOURNING FOR WORKERS

KILLED OR INJURED ON THE JOB

Hon. J. Cashore: I'd like to bring the House to a more sombre moment as we recognize a very serious issue -- that this is April 28, the National Day of Mourning for workers killed or injured on the job. Hon. Speaker, following the statement that I will make and that the representatives of the opposition parties will make, we will then observe a minute of silence.

I know I speak for all members of the House when I say that we mourn the men and women killed on the job in British Columbia, and those who have succumbed to illness resulting from their work. To their families, friends and co-workers, I extend our deepest sympathy and respect for their grief and loss.

I would also like to recognize all of those workers who suffered workplace injuries and illnesses last year. I wish them speedy recovery.

The statistics on work and related fatalities, illness and injury are grim reminders of the social and economic cost of workplace accidents. But no cold, impersonal statistics can convey the loss, pain and suffering caused to workers and their families.

Recently the Workers Compensation Board of British Columbia developed the Worksafe campaign, which that brought the message home, telling us, "If you get injured on the job, you're not the only one who gets hurt," because the tragedy of workplace injury and illness isn't just for the individual. It is a tragedy for their families, their partners, their friends and their communities.

By continuing to improve safety conditions, rehabilitation and compensation services for injured workers, we will demonstrate our sincere respect for those who are injured or killed in the course of their employment. Through increased inspection, education and consultation, we are working in partnership with labour and industry to reduce the number and severity of workplace injuries and diseases.

We still have far to go, but progress is being made. The workers of British Columbia deserve our greatest respect. It is most fitting that we reinforce our commitment to workers and their safety on this day of mourning.

J. Dalton: I wish to, on behalf of the official opposition, both endorse the remarks of the Minister of Labour and also thank him for the prepared statement that he delivered to my office in advance. This is one day of observance of workplace safety. But, hopefully, all of us in British Columbia -- workers in particular, and those in high-risk industries especially -- will remember that there should be 365 days of safety, not just one day of observation.

We in this House all know, and I'm sure all British Columbians know, that the Royal Commission on Workers Compensation is touring the province at this time. No doubt -- and in fact it has already become a news item -- workplace safety, of course, will be an issue that the royal commission has to address. We're certainly looking forward to the recommendations that will come out of that royal commission on this subject.

On a more personal note, I still vividly remember the day in June many years ago when the workers on the yet-to-be-completed Second Narrows Bridge plunged, unfortunately, to their deaths. It was not just workers; it was people who risked their own lives -- unfortunately, in some cases, by their own lives being taken -- to try and rescue those same workers. That is still a very vivid memory in my mind. I wasn't all that old at the time of that tragedy, but it's certainly one that has stayed with me and will, I know, forever.

So, certainly, we all recognize the importance of workplace safety. This is one important day when we can all give at least a moment's recognition of that event.

The Speaker: Thank you, member. Will all members please stand for a moment's silence.

Thank you, members. Please be seated.

Tabling Documents

The Speaker: Members, I have the honour to table a report today from the auditor general, "Report on the 1995-96 Public Accounts."

Orders of the Day

Hon. J. MacPhail: In Committee A, I call Committee of Supply, and for the benefit of the members of the House, we'll be debating the estimates of the Ministry of Attorney General. In the House, I call second reading of Bill 2.

[2:45]

BUDGET MEASURES

IMPLEMENTATION ACT, 1997

(second reading continued)

G. Plant: I'm delighted to have the opportunity to rise today and speak on this important bill, Bill 2, the Budget Measures Implementation Act, 1997. Of course, as this is second reading debate, the challenge for me is to identify the principle embodied in this bill and to speak on the issue of principle that is raised by the bill. As with omnibus bills at this time, it's sometimes a bit of a challenge to find the statement of principle. I must admit that I thought for a moment I had the answer to that question when I came upon

section 38 of the bill. I beg the indulgence of the House to read this particular section, because I want to illustrate how it assisted me in arriving at the ascertainment of the principle of the bill. The

section reads as follows:

"The Insurance Corporation of British Columbia must pay to the Minister of Finance and Corporate Relations in the 1997-98 fiscal year, as a recovery to the Ministry Operations

[ Page 2856 ]

Vote of the Ministry of Transportation and Highways, the costs, net of the amount appropriated under the Motor Vehicles subvote, reported by the Minister of Transportation and Highways as having been incurred by that ministry during that fiscal year for programs under the Motor Vehicle Act promoting and improving highway safety."

I wanted to read that because it is a remarkable instance of a form of legislative drafting that seems to be calculated to provide less, rather than more, assistance in terms of ascertaining just what the heck is meant by a particular provision in

an act. I wanted to read it out loud, because I was trying to give myself one more chance to figure out what it meant, and I thought that if I spoke the words out loud, I'd be able to do that. Unfortunately, I still can't figure out what it means. I'm sure that at some point someone will have to implement it and will have more success than I did.

Perhaps more seriously, I want to turn to a particular aspect of this bill, which is the provisions that deal with the changes to the Local Government Grants Act and in particular the repeal of certain parts of that act, sections 2 and 3 in particular. I do so, trying to bear in mind some thoughts about the relationship between provincial and municipal governments in our system, in our constitutional order and in our system of government. I recognize that municipalities are, in fact, created by the provincial government.

They owe their existence to procedures and steps taken under enabling legislation like the Municipal Act and the Vancouver Charter, and that is what gives birth to municipal governments. So obviously there is an important relationship between municipal governments and the provincial government. It seems to be inescapable in a complex and ever-growing province and economy that there will be a whole series of complex relationships between the province and a municipal government, in relation to the kinds of services which British Columbians need, want and expect from government.

Municipal governments provide important services to people -- the many British Columbians who live in our towns and cities. When you walk on the sidewalk, drive on the streets, use the water services, use the sewage services, look at the buildings around you and reflect on the zoning bylaws that allowed them to be built one way and not another, you can't help but be struck by how important the decisions of municipal governments are to the lives of ordinary British Columbians.

I know that the relationship between municipal governments and provincial governments gets complicated when you insert or interpose provincial services into the infrastructure of municipal government.

You find that those institutions which we consider as being primarily or fundamentally provincial -- like universities, health centres, that kind of thing -- get located on the ground in British Columbia in towns and cities, where there have to be arrangements made between the provincial and municipal governments to ensure that services are provided in a way that imposes a fair burden on those who support both levels of government.

In that context, it seems to me to be obvious that from time to time it's going to be important to look at the relationship, between municipal governments and provincial governments and to adjust that relationship if necessary, to make sure it's moving forward in a positive, constructive and useful way.

In fact, it has always seemed to me that when you look at those kinds of things, when you're asking yourself as a provincial government the question, "What should we do? What can we do? What are we planning to do in respect of our relationship with municipal governments?" the goal should always be: how can we make the relationship work better? How can we make the dialogue more constructive? How can we ensure that there is proper and adequate consultation? How can we ensure that the relationship is something that we are elevating rather than destroying, something that we are improving rather than it deteriorating?

What I find most unfortunate about the provisions in this bill that do the damage to the Local Government Grants Act is that they don't proceed from that principle. That is, they work harm to the relationship between provincial and municipal governments rather than improve that relationship. It seems to me that it's most unfortunate and, all by itself, a good reason to be unhappy with this particular piece of legislation.

But I think I can go further than that, because when I look at the kinds of things that ought to govern the relationship between the province and municipal governments, and in particular the kinds of things that ought to govern that relationship in respect of the transfer of funds between the province and municipal governments, I think there are some principles which most British Columbians would agree on as being the kinds of principles which would help that relationship, improve it and ensure that it works in a productive way.

I think the kinds of things that one would want to insert into that relationship are principles of predictability, certainty and stability; that is, how can the provincial government create principles and protocols and arrangements between the two levels of government that give those who have to make the decisions at the municipal level the kind of certainty they need to be able to do their planning on a year-to-year basis -- so that they can make a decision in year one on the basis of certain funding expectations and know that as the years go on, the decision will not be improperly interfered with in a way that undermines certainty?

[G. Brewin in the chair.]

The same goes for stability; that is, if you want to do the kind of planning which city governments and municipal governments need to do to ensure that they can provide the services they have to provide, I think you need to create some stability in the relationship. The province needs to deal with municipal governments in a way that allows municipal governments to make decisions, knowing that there are principles of stability governing the relationship between the two parties so that decisions made, plans made and forecasts made will be made on a secure and stable footing, and people can go about their lives in the way that they ought to.

It also seems to me that predictability is an important principle to apply in this context so that municipal governments can predict what the provincial government is going to do from year to year, for example, in the area of funding transfers, which will allow the municipal governments to make the decisions they have to make.

It seems to me that in relation to the Local Government Grants Act, the provisions of this bill completely destroy those principles of predictability, certainty and stability. What I find most disturbing about these provisions is the fact that not very long ago, this government proclaimed its adherence to those principles and came to this House with a legislative package that it said would enhance those principles.

So when the government came to this House in 1994 with the Local Government Grants Act, it sold the province on that act on the basis of the very principles which I just referred to, which I think are good principles, and which I'm afraid the current bill that now repeals these important provisions undermines.

In this regard and this context, I want to refer to some of the passages from the Hansard debate of May 3, 1994. That

[ Page 2857 ]

was the day on which the government called for second reading of Bill 20, the Local Government Grants Act.

In support of that bill, the members of this government and the ministers of the Crown came forward and noted that the government was seeking the repeal of a longstanding act, the Revenue Sharing Act, that had been in place since 1978, but that it was doing so in order to remove what the government described as the cloud of smoke and mirrors that had come into and had begun to surround the whole business of transfers of funds between the provincial government and the municipalities -- the way in which the provincial government provides money to municipal governments to ensure that municipal governments can deliver the full range of services they need to deliver.

Here is something that the Minister of Municipal Affairs said during the debate in 1994 on Bill 20:

"This province has taken a stand with the municipalities to seek stability, predictability and some form of credible relationship between the provincial government and the municipalities we attempt to serve and service."

She pointed out how the old situation was unsatisfactory. She said:

"In fact, municipalities and the province lived for all those years with a whimsical situation, where there was an annual last-minute situation of 'Let's forge some kind of budget here.' Bill 20 finally brings predictability, plus a legislated guarantee of consultation."

And she went on to say:

"Bill 20 is an example of the kind of successful collaboration that is possible when two levels of government sit down and try with certainty, stability and predictability to give municipalities exactly what they are asking for in their relationship with the provincial government."

[3:00]

She went on to explain how Bill 20 did that. The way Bill 20 did that was to enact a formula which ensured that from year to year the grants the province made to municipalities were kept within a certain range, that they would follow a certain path, that they would never rise wildly above that range, and neither would they ever fall drastically outside or below that range. I think British Columbians would agree that that kind of arrangement is the sort of thing you need in order to achieve the goals of predictability, stability and certainty.

They were the things that Bill 20 sought to achieve in 1994 and, if I may say, I think did achieve with some success. Unfortunately, for no apparent reason that I can see, this government has decided to throw out those principles -- to toss them away by repealing the very provisions in the act that were intended to bring them into effect in the first place.

What this government seeks to do in this amendment is the very thing that the government sought to avoid with the legislation it enacted in 1994. In fact, the Minister of Municipal Affairs said that the municipalities in the province were living with a whimsical situation. Well, that is exactly what they will be left with after this bill is passed.

The minister said that by introducing this bill, she was seeking to remove the elements of whimsy and lobbying and introduce elements of partnership, proper negotiation and consultation around the very special relationship this province has with the municipalities it serves. This bill destroys that special relationship, reintroduces the elements of whimsy and lobbying, and takes out those elements of partnership and consultation. I say that that is a significant step backwards in terms of what government ought to be doing in constructing a relationship with municipalities.

I think government should always try to make things better, not, as they're doing here, set out on a course that seems to me to be a deliberate attempt to make things worse.

I want to refer to one last passage from the debate in relation to Bill 20. This is the committee-stage debate from July 5, 1994, where there were some questions about how the formula created by the Local Government Grants Act would work. This is what the then Minister of Finance, Elizabeth Cull, said: "The Union of B.C. Municipalities wanted some predictability in a formula, and this is what we have offered them in this particular bill."

Pausing there, I don't recall hearing the Union of B.C. Municipalities lately, saying that they wanted to move away from that predictability or that formula, but I guess this government doesn't care as much about what the Union of B.C. Municipalities wants. The Minister of Finance goes on to explain this:

"The bill provides a fairly simple concept, which says grants to municipalities can change with respect to real provincial GDP. So it can go up or down, banded by 2 percent -- so up 2 percent, down 2 percent -- which makes sense, because then it says municipal grants will follow the fate of the province's economy. Tying it to the economy would seem to be reasonable."

Now, it may be that the Minister of Municipal Affairs or the Minister of Finance could come into this House now and say: "Well, that was 1994; this is 1997, and things have changed in the economy. They've changed in a serious way, and therefore we need to change the way we deal with municipal funding." I don't recall them having said that, but it is something they could have said. The unfortunate part about that is that there's also an answer for that in the government's explanation of why Bill 20 was a good thing, because the Minister of Finance went on to say this:

"We also wanted to ensure that if there were a circumstance where the economy was in terrible shape and real expenditures were dropping more than the GDP was, because of trying to contain spending" -- now there's an interesting line -- "the deficit" -- another interesting line -- "or other concerns about other expenditures, municipalities would not get a larger percentage increase in their grant than the overall spending increase."

So the whole context of this debate, it seems to me, is a context that we were in in 1994 when this formula was introduced and when it was made law -- when the government said that this formula would introduce elements of predictability, certainty and stability. And it seems to me most unfortunate that this government has decided to throw those important and useful concepts out the window. It seems to me that it is particularly unfortunate that the government has taken this step without any real or significant consultation between municipal governments and the province.

In fact, the irony is that virtually at the same time the provincial government was promising yet another era of consultative relations between municipal governments and the province, the government, in fact, announced its decision to repeal these provisions in the Local Government Grants Act.

I have here a letter from the mayor of my hometown, the city of Richmond, in which he points out that the first thing that he and his city council want to go on record as objecting to is the non-consultative approach that the provincial government used to bring about these changes. And frankly, that does not augur well for a government that wants to introduce -- or claims that it wants to introduce -- an era of consultation and has, in the law, the tools of predictability, certainty and stability which will allow it to move forward. To then act in a way that does not honour those principles seems to me to amount to one thing and one thing only: that is, another NDP broken promise.

So the whole process that was established by the bill when it was introduced in 1994 -- a helpful, useful process --

[ Page 2858 ]

is being thrown out the window in favour of what? Nothing, I suppose, but an annual lobbying struggle by municipalities: people lined up outside the minister's door, trying to explain on an annual basis why they need particular funds, why they are relying on the province to support particular programs -- and without any certainty, without any of the stability, without any of the predictability that is necessary to engage in meaningful planning.

So the process has been undermined. It seems to me to be equally unfortunate that not only has the process been damaged but that this damage has happened in the context of significant substantive cuts in funding by the provincial government to the municipal governments. I mean, I could complain, and I have complained, about how I think this bill causes harm to the relationships between the province and the municipal governments of British Columbia, but the additional very real harm is the harm caused when the province cuts actual grants to the municipal governments of British Columbia. And in my home city of Richmond, the cut is a very significant one.

I remember listening with some interest at the time the announcements were made in relation to these cutbacks. The government tried to downplay them. There was the usual sideways shuffling around just what the impact of these cuts would be. I think the provincial government said that these cuts were going to amount to something in the order of 14 percent, and it doesn't surprise me at all that the municipal governments of British Columbia decided to get their pencils out and figure out whether those numbers were right.

Nor does it surprise me at all to find out that in fact the numbers and the claims are not right, that this is not a 14 percent reduction in grants, but that this bill is being used as the tool to achieve grants of 30 percent across the board, and in some cases, over 70 percent cuts in the funding from the province to the municipal governments.

In Richmond, the 1996 transfers from the provincial government to the city of Richmond were in the order of $5.6 million, and maybe $5.8 million. The new transfers after this bill are $1.9 million, representing a change of almost 66 percent. Two-thirds of the transfers that were made have been cut, and that does, in fact, cause some hardship in my community.

Now, the municipal government of Richmond, the city government of Richmond, has done what it can to avoid the impact of those cuts to service delivery, but has nonetheless been forced to take some drastic steps. There has been a decision to reduce the hours of operation for the two outdoor pools in Richmond -- at a time of the year when school children and adults alike are looking forward to opportunities for summer recreation. There has been a reduction in the overtime for firefighters, and that may well have service delivery impact in the city.

There has been a reduction in management staff. The interesting thing about examining the reduction in management staff is to note the way in which the loss of those positions will impact on and cause the impairment of particular service delivery because of the kinds of things that those management staff people were doing. My city has a track record of operating its government conservatively within its means and in a way that does not involve all that ugly fat that characterizes other bureaucracies. So when you take $3.7 million out of the budget of the city of Richmond, there is a significant impact.

There is the very significant fact that there will be no funding for hiring additional police officers or for replacing the RCMP officers who will be transferred out of Richmond to join the newly reorganized federal drug squad that is being moved into Vancouver. The city now has additional cost burdens because of other decisions made by this government, including having to hire legal counsel to handle bylaw infractions.

Sometimes we can take these little cuts, look at them on a case-by-case basis and acknowledge that each one of these, while it is significant and serious, is perhaps not the largest or most significant cut that one has ever seen. On the other hand, when you take the picture as a whole and you realize that in fact a city which depended on significant funds from transfers from the provincial government will lose two-thirds of those dollars this year, the overall picture is a serious one.

It is unfortunate that the government, in announcing these decisions, chose to understate the effect of the cuts rather than be honest with British Columbians about them. It is unfortunate that the government has taken steps which, in both the short term and the long term, will damage the relationship between municipal governments and the province at a time when I think it is important -- if not critically important -- that those relationships be constructive, be forward-thinking and be organized in a way that allows for people to plan and make decisions that will benefit all British Columbians.

It is particularly unfortunate that this government -- a government which claims that it listens to British Columbians, a government that claims that it does things in a consultative manner, a government that claims that it is on the side of British Columbians -- should choose to bring these decisions about without consultation, in an abrupt and virtually arbitrary manner and in a way that forced municipal governments to have to absorb their impact with hardly a moment's notice.

[3:15]

In conclusion, I want to read a passage from a letter that the mayor of Richmond has written to the Members of the Legislative Assembly, in which he says: "One of the reasons I believe the public has a lot of respect for local government is that we live up to our commitments and are open and accessible. The provincial government has a responsibility to do likewise." Well, I agree with those sentiments.

The portion of this bill which is the attempt by this government to repeal the Local Government Grants Act provisions -- to take away the stability, the predictability, the certainty that did in fact hold the potential for the continued building of a constructive relationship between the province and municipal governments . . . . These provisions are wrong, and I oppose them. On that basis, I will be voting against Bill 2.

C. Clark: In speaking to Bill 2, I think it's important that we first talk about some of the principles which the public expects its government to live by. There are three things in particular that we can enunciate here today.

First of all, there's the principle of consultation. I think that British Columbians expect that from their government. British Columbians expect that government will ask them what they would like it to do, how they would like it to run the province. British Columbians expect to have some say in how their government is run, because British Columbians are the ones who foot the bill. It is taxpayers who pay for the operations of government, and it is taxpayers who should determine what government does. So consultation is a key part of running government in British Columbia.

[ Page 2859 ]

Second, government needs to recognize -- particularly this government -- that there is only one taxpayer. No matter who is taking it out of our pockets, it's all the same pocket. For a citizen of British Columbia, whether they're paying the provincial sales tax, the GST, the corporate capital tax or increased rent costs as a result of these new taxes, it doesn't matter who they're paying it to; they're still having to pay it. And it's an increased cost. Government needs to recognize that no matter who it is that's taking it out of their pockets, it's still coming out. And that has an impact.

Third, government needs to recognize that when it makes a commitment, it should live by it. When government makes a promise to the people of British Columbia, it has an obligation to live up to that promise. That is something that this government has failed terribly at. This government is probably one of the worst in living memory for being able to live up to its promises.

It would be very, very hard for me to be able to count on my hands the number of promises that this government has kept. We all know that they made a lot of promises -- promise after promise after promise. They went to ridings and regions across this province and told people one thing, and now they're doing another.

One of the things that we've talked about a lot in this House, when we've talked about keeping promises, is the promises during the election. The government's record for making promises during the election and then keeping them after the election was, I will admit, pretty rotten. However, I think we can look back even further -- look at their record even years back -- and find that what happened during the election wasn't an isolated incident.

Not keeping promises is something that this government has a fair amount of expertise at. Perhaps that's why the Premier chose not to change much of his cabinet: maybe they're all so experienced at not keeping promises. Maybe if you brought someone new in, they might try and keep a promise. Well, we can't have that in British Columbia, can we? What would the people do? It would be so unexpected, so counterintuitive. People wouldn't know how to deal with that outcome from government. So we go with the same old crew again and again -- all the same old people who are expert at not keeping promises.

I'd like to speak a little bit about some of the promises that were made. These come from a report card on recent provincial commitments on local government transfers. The respondees were asked to assess whether each of these promises was kept or broken.

Let me go through it a little bit for you here. Commitment number one: "I am prepared to agree to enter into some certainty for municipal governments, which constrains my options down the road." Well, that's the Premier in 1993. Kept or broken? Broken. "This legislation" -- she's referring to the new Local Government Grants Act -- "is designed to deal with stability and predictability, and it does that." That was Elizabeth Cull, the former Minister of Finance, in 1994. Kept or broken? Broken.

"This province has taken a stand with the municipalities to seek . . . some form of credible relationship between the provincial government and the municipalities." Kept or broken? Broken. "The formula under the Local Government Grants Act is guaranteed." This one is from the Premier. Kept or broken? Broken. I can go on and on and on.

Interjections.

C. Clark: There are probably a few members of the House who would like me to do that, but I think my point is made, of course. This government hasn't kept any of its commitments to municipal governments.

What this bill does in particular is take the limits that the government had voluntarily placed on itself, in its flexibility to reduce government grants, time by time, and it gets rid of them. It says the government can do whatever it wants. It completely wipes out any certainty that municipalities might have. It wipes out any commitment that this government made, or any requirement that they have to keep those commitments. I suppose that the province could argue: "Well, municipalities are a creature of the provincial government, so we can do whatever we want.

We can just wipe them out." I guess the government could wipe out municipalities altogether if they wanted to, but then, of course, who would foot the bill for their . . . ? Who would they be able to pass cuts on to if they did that?

An Hon. Member: Just you and me as taxpayers, that's all.

C. Clark: My hon. colleague brings up an excellent point. When this government introduced this bill, and when this government made the decision to take away any constraints on its ability to reduce its grants to local government, what did it do? It expanded its ability to raise taxes on local homeowners and local renters -- and that's almost everyone in British Columbia.

But the trick of this is that the government can then say: "Well, we're raising fees on this and fees on that, and we're raising all these local, little taxes, or we're getting rid of exemptions for taxes, but we're not actually raising taxes." The fact is that they are raising taxes; they are raising taxes by passing on cuts to municipalities. Who's going to foot the bill for that? It's going to be homeowners, and it's going to be renters. I don't think British Columbians can afford any more tax increases.

The other side of the coin, of course, is that municipalities can cut services. I don't think anybody would argue that municipalities do some legitimate tasks that taxpayers and citizens of British Columbia require: municipalities maintain parks and recreation areas, which are important; they pay for policing; they pay for fire services, garbage and recycling. All of that is done by municipal government. Is the province prepared to pick up those services? I don't think so. I don't hear anybody on the other side of the House saying: "Gee, we'd really like to take up some of those services.

We know that municipalities can't afford to pay for it anymore because we've slashed -- we've gutted -- their grants. We've gutted the amount of money that they have available to them to fulfil these needs and to carry out these services."

So if they're not going to cut services, and if the province isn't prepared to take any of those services unto itself and say, "Well, we're prepared to take that on now," then what will happen? Taxes will go up. It's going to be a big tax hit.

And to add insult to injury, this government has cut most deeply many of the municipalities that have been most responsible in terms of their spending -- those municipalities that have put money aside in anticipation of maybe a drop in their industrial tax base or in anticipation of other things that might happen in five, ten, 15 years down the road; municipalities that have done the hard work, planning so they can ensure that they don't have to raise taxes.

This government is taking advantage of those municipalities' hard work, and taking advantage of the fact that they have put money aside, to cut deeply into the amount of money that's available to them to provide services.

[ Page 2860 ]

Let me go on. Of course, ironically, this is happening at a time when even the federal government is saying, "We're not going to cut transfers anymore for health and social services" -- even at a time when they say that. Isn't that ironic?

But, you know, there's another whole aspect to this, too. The provincial government loves to say: "Oh boy, we're just passing on cuts. None of it is really our fault. I mean, we really balanced our budget. It's really not our fault that we're profligate spenders, that we haven't gotten anything under control and that we really haven't paid attention to the bottom line." Maybe the calculators in the Ministry of Finance were broken that day. I don't know what the excuse was. Maybe the weather was bad. There are all kinds of excuses out there for the fact that their budgets don't appear to work.

The worst thing was that this government didn't even provide any consultation or any notice. This is certainly, of course, as we know -- and I've spoken on this subject many, many times -- the lack of consultation that this government undertakes . . . . They don't provide any notice so that people can plan. They don't go in and say: "Well, you know, over the next few years, here's how the cuts are going to occur. Here's the amount. We expect you to budget for it."

Perhaps even if they did do that, the government wouldn't budget for it. We know that the government has known about various kinds of cuts that were going to happen from the federal level. We know that the government knew that forest revenues were going to be down. Now, maybe they didn't know the weather was going to be bad, but they knew that forest revenues were going to be bad. We know that they knew these things. And they still failed to budget for them.

Well, I give a little more credit to the municipalities, because I think they're a little more competent in doing their budgeting process. In my communities, the communities I represent, I know that the mayors, councils and staff do look ahead and do their best to predict the changes that will be coming down the line, so that they can protect local taxpayers. I know that happens in my community. And I know that when they add up the bottom line, they do it with a great deal of confidence. They look at what is coming down the road, and they try to build in a level of predictability and a level of certainty.

But does the province allow them to do that? No, the province just passes on these cuts with no notice. It is sudden. They drop it on them. Now, rather than spending their time serving the citizens of their cities, municipalities are going to be in a constant and regular lobby mode with the provincial government, running over and back to Victoria to ensure that their budgets aren't further eviscerated by anything that this government might undertake next budget time. They're going to spend months of the year preparing to lobby the provincial government so that they can continue to protect the taxpayers in their ridings.

Before I add a few more quotes, I want to put on the record the percent change in 1997 transfers for some of the communities in my area. For Port Moody, it's over 40 percent down; for Coquitlam, it's over 51 percent down; for Burnaby, it's over 62 percent down. I don't need to remind you, hon. Speaker, that in this House there are three other representatives of Burnaby. Where are they speaking against Bill 2? Where are they standing up for their communities and saying: "That is too much; 62 percent is too big a hit for the taxpayers of Burnaby"? The people who live there don't deserve this.

The council, of which two of those members have been a part, managed reasonably responsibly. They put that money aside. Now they are going to stand there and vote in favour of huge cuts. That's the payback they get for their hard work. You know, I wonder: am I the only MLA for Burnaby in here? Well, I'm certainly the only MLA who is prepared to speak up on this budget.

I know that my hon. colleague has quoted extensively from the previous Minister of Municipal Affairs, when she talked about certainty, stability and predictability, when she talked about consultation and when she talked about all those other good things to which this government was apparently committed.

[3:30]

I want to just finish, I think, on this particular topic by talking about the history of where this government has been in terms of municipal grants, because we know where this government has been in terms of the larger picture of its promises. We know that's a sordid . . . . Well, it's a rather twisted trail indeed. But let's talk a bit just about the revenue-sharing.

In 1994 the Revenue Sharing Act was written off arbitrarily. That was $250 million, which was owed to local government, that was written off. Now, there's a piece of financial wizardry, if you've ever seen it. Then, in order to placate the municipalities, they brought in changes that would limit local government transfers to plus or minus 2 percent.

And then in 1996 the Premier went on TV, saying that grants to municipalities were subsidies. Does the Minister of Health or the Minister of Education believe that federal transfers for those purposes are subsidies? I don't think those are subsidies. I think that is money collected by one level of government and transferred to another level of government for legitimate purposes, which the taxpayers and citizens of this province expect to receive. We can make exactly the same argument for the money that is transferred from the province to the municipalities.

Unless this government is prepared to call those federal transfers subsidies, the Premier had better take back his comments that those transfers to municipalities are subsidies, because they're not. The services that municipalities undertake are legitimate and expected. They are services that citizens do not just expect but deserve to expect.

So we've talked a little bit about the history of this. I'm prepared to stand up for my municipalities in this House; I'm prepared to stand up for the cities I represent.

I want to finish with just one further comment about the propane fuel tax, which this bill explicitly fails to address. When I say that, what I mean to point out is that propane was exempted from fuel tax by legislation. This bill fails to renew that exemption. So what does it do, in effect? It makes propane more expensive. It makes propane conversions less likely. It means that there are going to be fewer people using propane. It means that there is going to be more dirty air, particularly in the lower mainland.

Now, we know this government isn't particularly committed to air quality. We talked about Burrard Thermal quite a bit in the last session of this House, and the fact that this largest contributor of greenhouse gases in the lower mainland -- which is a government agency -- is something that this government is totally unprepared to address or think about. Even though I know that the member for Vancouver-Fraserview has in the past expressed some sympathy for shutting it down, I'd ask, perhaps, if he could stick to his previous position on that. But the government, in response to that, says: "Well, you know, it's only 5 percent. The real

[ Page 2861 ]

problem is cars; they're the ones that are really polluting it. That non-point-source pollution, that's the big problem we've got."

And the government is right. Burrard Thermal is certainly a big problem, and it's certainly one of the easiest problems the government has to solve. But car exhaust is an enormous problem, and that is the thing we're going to have trouble addressing. The propane fuel tax or the lack of one -- or the incentive to use propane -- really contributed, I think, to ensuring that our air was a little cleaner. It contributed to reducing the amount of pollution that is produced by cars in British Columbia.

So what is this government doing? They're getting rid of it. They're saying: "Well, no, we don't need that. We'd rather have the money than the clean air." Well, I'm sorry, but I'd rather have the clean air than the money, particularly given the way this government spends its money, which isn't very responsibly. I'd rather live in a city where the air is breathable on those hot summer days in August. I'd rather live somewhere where senior citizens weren't asked to stay in their homes on days during the summer because the air is so unbreathable.

With this bill, this government is showing total disregard for those environmental principles which it claims to stand up for. This is one of many, many areas -- the angling fee increase, this new tax . . . . This government is much more interested in collecting taxes than it is in protecting our environment. That is one thing that has become abundantly clear. This government is much more interested in ensuring that it can cover up its budget fiasco, that it can go to British Columbians and say: "Oh, gee, we're really sorry, but we've fixed up the problem." And they're prepared to do that at any expense, even at the expense of the environment.

On that I will conclude, with the note that those are the reasons I can't support this bill. I cannot support a bill that fails to protect the environment; I cannot support a bill that makes a trade-off between taxes and clean air; I cannot support a bill that fundamentally betrays the trust between a provincial government and its municipalities; I cannot support a bill that flouts any claim of consultation with British Columbians; and I cannot support a bill -- yet another bill -- that represents another broken promise to the people.

Until this government starts keeping its promises, our whole system -- the belief of people in our system and the willingness of people to participate in our system at election time -- will be undermined. With that, hon. Speaker, I thank you for the opportunity to speak to this bill.

Deputy Speaker: I wonder if I could get permission from the House to make a brief introduction.

Leave granted.

Deputy Speaker: In the gallery, joining us today, is a group of 35 students, grades 9 and 10, from Tri-City Junior Academy in Pasco, Washington. They're here with their teacher, Mr. Furr, and several other adults. Would the House please make them welcome.

S. Hawkins: I too have a few comments to make regarding this bill. I must say I share many of the concerns that the speakers before me have raised today, first with respect to the sections of this bill which repeal

section 2 of the Local Government Grants Act. You know, it's very interesting.

This government said they were going to consult; this government made a lot of promises. I think that just repealing this one simple

section of the Local Government Grants Act shows something so significant. In my opinion, it shows a fundamental breach in commitment, consultation and trust on behalf of government with local governments. I think it shows almost thumbing their noses at taxpayers. There is only one taxpayer in this province. And here we have a government saying: "Well, we're not going to raise taxes; we're not going to do it. No, no new taxes. Read our lips; no new taxes."

But you know what? What did they do? They passed it onto the local municipalities. And who's paying taxes there? All of us. There is no provincial taxpayer and local taxpayer and federal taxpayer. It's all one taxpayer. That's what they've done. They've totally thumbed their noses at individuals in this province who pay for services, who pay for facilities. They've just said: "Well, we're not going to raise them provincially; we're going to off-load onto the municipalities. And they can do what they want."

Guess what they had to do: they had to raise taxes. So with one stroke of a pen, they're now going to get rid of grants -- grants that they provided for in 1994 with the introduction of Bill 20. Municipalities and regional districts in this province were supposed to be under

section 2 of that bill. They were supposed to be guaranteed certainty, predictability and stability in funding from year to year.

I just want to read a quote from Hansard , from the then Minister of Municipal Affairs. She said at that time, when Bill 20 was being debated:

"Both levels of government will make important gains from the legislation. Local government receives a formula-based municipal general grant and statutory consultation with the minister responsible for the new act."

Let's be very clear; they were going to get statutory consultation.

"The provincial government gets a local government grants program that is affordable and which comes within the framework of sound fiscal management in a way that does away with the surplus fund" -- here is the important part -- "sets local government grants on a sustainable foundation well into the future, removes the element of whimsy and lobbying, and introduces elements of partnership, proper negotiation and consultation around the very special relationship this province has with the municipalities it serves."

I would put it to you that removing

section 2 of the Local Government Grants Act just very effectively removed that special relationship which this government sought to attain with local government, because, as I said before, removing that

section is a fundamental breach of an agreement with local governments.

I just want to say that this off-loading certainly has betrayed the commitment of openness and consultation it made to local governments when it signed the new protocol agreement at UBCM last September. I was there. I was there when the Municipal Affairs minister got up on the podium and bragged about this new consultation agreement, this new protocol, where they were going to consult with local governments and make sure they were involved in discussions. If there was going to be anything affecting municipalities, it was going to be discussed with them first. Guess what. Guess how much consultation local governments got over this

section being removed, over grants being reduced or eliminated: they got none, even though they bragged about a new protocol agreement at UBCM. This government thinks nothing of unilaterally and arbitrarily breaching the Local Government Grants Act.

[The Speaker in the chair.]

[ Page 2862 ]

Removing this

section and not consulting with local governments also proves that they believe that top-down government from Victoria is more effective than bottom-up management from local governments. Yet we know how responsible local governments are. We know that. They balance their budgets every year. They make do. They stretch and meet their needs and provide their communities with the kinds of services and facilities and programs they need. And they do that with a commitment from this government, hopefully, that they will be provided some kind of assistance. That assistance had come in the form of Bill 20,

section 2, which provided them with some kind of certainty, stability and predictability. That's gone in this act. It's just unbelievable. The NDP, with this off-loading onto the municipalities, has thrown local budgeting totally into chaos. With one month's notice that the municipalities weren't going to get their grants, their budgeting just went into absolute chaos.

I just want to read a little bit about what it means to my community. They had to invest hours and hours into detailed analyses of impacts and comparisons with other communities. They had to . . . . The announcement that there would be cutbacks resulted in a considerable amount of effort in order to revise the budget and maintain their document publication date of December 20. They prepare a budget and they have to publish it. This put all of that up in the air -- and just the unbelievable hours that they had to invest into revising this put a great hardship on the staff of local governments.

They also had some problems with the staggered announcements of additional downloading by the province. That was the Ministry of Transportation and Highways and the amalgamation agreement which said that Kelowna had to maintain roads with the province in rural areas. The government walked away from that agreement. They made it very difficult for local government staff to develop a budget position with any degree of certainty, not only for future years but for the current year.

What did they have to do? Did they have to increase taxes? Well, you can bet your boots they did. Local government had given direction prior to the provincial cuts to present a provisional budget with a tax increase of no greater than 1.5 percent to the average property owner in my constituency. The impact of the cuts on the city of Kelowna was approximately $2.4 million, which represents a municipal taxation impact of about 5.5 percent. That's a huge hike.

You know, they tried to be very responsible. They did adopt a provisional budget, and it provides a taxation impact of 3.5 percent. But they would have, if . . . . Obviously, that comes with cuts to services and programs and what have you. But they are going to have to increase taxes by 3.5 percent. If they hadn't been responsible and looking at cuts in other places . . . . It did result in cuts. This grant reduction and walking away from the amalgamation and policing agreement did result in cuts. I just want to point out where the cuts in my community are coming.

[3:45]

There's job loss. You know, you try and pare back as much as you can, but it has very human consequences. There are two positions eliminated from the fire department emergency services. We've lost two fire department positions. The traffic and bicycle safety program has been eliminated. This is a program that youth and children usually use. It's gone. There are reduced hours at the recreation centre. The summer arena staff are seeing a reduction. There's the elimination of a drafting position at city hall. There are reductions in a variety of program costs and services all across the board.

Contracting-out. The municipality has now had to take a position on contracting out various maintenance duties, which obviously will impact on service delivery. And there's a general 2 percent reduction in community grants. With the grants they had received previously, they would make grants to community groups. We have seen those grants now being reduced, including grants to our museum, our art gallery, the chamber of commerce, the YM-YWCA program, the Boys and Girls Clubs, and on and on. There were layoffs.

What risks did the local governments in my constituency assume as a result of the reductions they had to make? Well, they tell me that the city of Kelowna usually takes a very conservative approach to budgeting for interest income, due to the potential volatility of interest rates. We've threatened that. They've had to dig deep, they've had to dig into their cushion, and now it puts their budgeting for the next few years at risk.

Also, their property tax penalties, utility penalties, criminal record searches and interest on tax arrears have all been revised to reflect recent experience, which may or may not materialize at the levels budgeted. All of those things are at risk. There have been significant types of revisions in the budget, risks that the community has had to take, program cuts, service cuts, community grant cuts.

It's just unbelievable that this government didn't understand the impact of the decision they made. They promised no new taxes. As we're going through this with speaker after speaker, we've obviously seen feedback from the communities that there have been increases in taxes at the municipal level, all as a result of this government not keeping its promise, not keeping its commitment and not keeping its trust with people at the local government level. Unbelievable!

We talked before, just for a minute, about the amount of notice on the cuts that the communities and local governments got from this government. The members opposite talk about federal off-loading. Well, there was a few years' of notice. This government gave one month's notice with absolutely no consultation. The province announced its intention on November 26 to fundamentally breach the provisions of the Local Government Grants Act.

The municipalities are suffering. Some of the municipalities are suffering up to 80 percent cuts in provincial transfers as a result of this breach -- far beyond the maximum 2 percent variation that was envisioned in the act. When the NDP passed the act in 1994, they promised -- and I repeat, they promised -- it would provide stability, predictability and certainty to local governments. Those were their words; they weren't ours. Just two years later, two years after passing a very significant bill promising this concept of stability, predictability and certainty, they unilaterally decided to breach it, with absolutely no consultation with the municipalities.

Where is the trust? Who can trust this government when they passed something two years ago, and less than two years later signed another commitment -- a protocol at last year's UBCM -- to consult with municipalities, and then gave them one month's notice, with absolutely no consultation? Now they breach

section 2 and say: "Okay, nothing. You have nothing anymore. We get to decide." In the famous words of the Minister of Forests, government can do anything, and obviously they can. They can make an agreement two years ago; they can pass

an act that says they're going to provide stability, predictability, certainty. And two years later they can say: "Aw, we thumb our noses at you. We're not going to give it to you." So it's gone. We've seen them do that over and over again. They say one thing; they do another. This is just another example.

[ Page 2863 ]

We've seen all kinds of examples of breaches by this government. I would say this is one of the most significant, because it hits right down at the community level: it hits homeowners; it hits renters; it hits small business; it hits kids; it hits jobs. There are human faces involved in these kinds of decisions, which obviously the members opposite don't want to recognize. Because if they did, they'd rethink their decision. I cannot support this bill for those reasons.

There's another thing. The speaker before me brought up the point about propane. Sections 18 to 22 of this bill deal with the propane tax. Why a propane tax now? Why? At a time when we're encouraging British Columbians to change their vehicles over to accommodate cleaner fuels, when we're saying that we appreciate clean air and want to bring in measures to encourage that . . . . We're asking people to be more environmental and to support all kinds of environmental actions. Why now? You know why? Because they're in trouble. They haven't been able to balance the budget since they got into power. They've got a high deficit. It's their budget fiasco that's driving all this kind of stuff.

They said: "No new taxes." Well, I guess municipal cuts aren't new taxes to them, but the propane tax is. So again, it's another breach of something that they had promised and that they can't keep -- something that I guess is going to be a pattern that we're going to see over and over again from this government.

In closing, hon. Speaker, I cannot support this bill, because of those two main concerns.

M. de Jong: As we embark upon this debate relating to Bill 2, I will tell you candidly, Mr. Speaker, that I was more interested, as this debate unfolded, to hear what members of the government benches had to say in defence of this legislation than I was to know what the opposition would say. . .

Hon. J. MacPhail: That's a given.

M. de Jong: . . .because quite frankly . . . .

Interjections.

M. de Jong: You know, Mr. Speaker, I'm going to lay the ground rules right from the outset: I will accept no interference from the Government House Leader, be it conscious or subconscious. I would ask her to be mindful of that.

I've waited to hear what members of the government benches had to say to their communities, because the impact this legislation will have extends to communities right across the province. I have noted them to be embarrassed, as well they might, and to be uncomfortable, as well they should be. And I can only conclude by their silence that they have chosen not to defend this legislation because it is indefensible. There is very little they can say to defend what amounts to an abandonment of the trust, if they ever had any, that they owe to their constituents.

You don't have to go back very far, Mr. Speaker -- in fact, only to last week -- to derive, out of Hansard and out of press clippings, members of the governing NDP caucus lamenting the cuts that have come out of Ottawa with the federal downloading. There is a litany of quotes that one could present in this House where members of the NDP have chastised and criticized the federal government, as well they might, for engaging in that exercise in a way they would say -- and I would agree -- has been unfair.

But the government benches become strangely silent when the question is posed to them: "How is what you are doing, by virtue of Bill 2, any different?" How is it any different? Then the benches go silent.

I want to talk about the notice that we received of this legislation. You know, in a perverse sort of way -- in a very perverse way -- it's the one thing that the government might applaud itself for, because at least we had a little bit of notice. But let's revisit the form that notice took. We had the Deputy Premier speculating openly last fall that there would be cuts. There would be cuts, he said, to local government. The next logical question was: how much? How much are the cuts going to be? We're interested. We're local government; we have communities to run; we have budgets to set. How much are the cuts going to be?

What was the response from the Deputy Premier? Well, the Deputy Premier said: "That's for me to know and for you to find out, because I'm not going to tell you. I'm not going to tell you until after the municipal elections are over. I'm going to hold you in suspense." I've waited for members of the NDP government to explain why. Why was that appropriate? Why was it right for the Deputy Premier to say: "I won't tell you. I can certainly tell you, but I've chosen not to tell you until after the municipal elections"?

Every time I hear members on the government benches talk about other members playing politics, I think of that statement. I think of that statement by the Deputy Premier, whose only reason for not providing that information which was so essential -- is so essential -- to local governments in order to set their budget was to attempt to somehow shield partisan political cronies of his who were running in local elections. That's the only reason: he didn't want to leave them exposed.

For the life of me, I cannot imagine what kind of response we would have had from those government benches just about a year ago, if the federal government had said: "Ah, there are more cuts on the way." The Finance minister would have properly said: "What are the numbers?" And if the federal Finance minister said, "Well, my friend, you've got an election coming; I don't think I should be telling you just yet," I wonder what his response would have been. He would have been justifiably outraged. But when that same question is posed to this government regarding their means of manoeuvring with the municipal budgets, there's silence on that issue. There is no defence; it is indefensible.

This is about communities: my community, the communities of the member for Shuswap, the member from the Okanagan, the member for New Westminster. It's about their communities and how this legislation is going to impact upon them. It's a sorry, sorry tale. It is a tale that members of the NDP caucus don't want to acknowledge and don't want to deal with. Well, we are going to deal with it. We have been dealing with it, and we're going to continue to deal with it.

The numbers tell a real story. I'll start with Abbotsford, the community I know best. The city of Abbotsford -- even before we get to the effects of Bill 2, even before we get to the millions of dollars this legislation is going to cost the people of Abbotsford -- loses over half a million dollars annually from legislation this government introduced related to railway taxes. That's not mythical money; that's not pretend money; that's not Monopoly money. That's real money that the people of Abbotsford will have to make up some other way.

[4:00]

[ Page 2864 ]

Is that a government member I hear saying: "No new taxes"? What hollow words, when even before we get to Bill 2, we know that this government has dug a hole that $550,000 won't fill for the people of Abbotsford.

And it goes on: in the coming year, the revenue source that used to be provincial government grants to the tune of $4.5 million in Abbotsford will be reduced to $2.7 million. That's a reduction of $1.7 million. That's not Monopoly money, either. That's not something the people in Abbotsford can go to their homes and write a phony cheque for -- the way, perhaps, members of this government would do. Those are real dollars being taken out of that community, out of my community -- money that's not available to provide services to one of the fastest-growing communities in the province. It amounts to a property tax increase that is the equivalent of 5 percent.

Was that a government member I heard saying: "No new taxes"? I think it was. So where's the money coming from? Where's the money coming from to provide the services that those elderly people in Abbotsford require, that those children going to and from school require? The fact of the matter is that it's not mythical money. It's real money that this government is ripping out of communities, and Abbotsford is one of them.

When you consider the added pressure being brought to bear on one of the fastest-growing communities, and you also consider that this is a community that only a few years ago went through an amalgamation process for the express purpose of bringing more efficiency to government, of eliminating the duplication that this government has been unable to eliminate . . . . They've done it in Abbotsford. They weren't told to do it. It didn't come by some edict, the way this government is wont to operate.

They did it voluntarily because it made sense to the people of Abbotsford and Matsqui to reduce the cost of government, to bring efficiencies to local government through the amalgamation process, and it has worked.

Quite frankly, Mr. Speaker, I can tell you, and I can tell the minister responsible and this government, that having gone through that entire process -- and it's not easy -- what the people of Abbotsford feel like they've now received from this government is a slap in the face. "Thanks very much" -- that's what they're saying. "Thank you very much. We've done our part to bring some efficiencies, to bring some reduced costs of government to our people, and this is the thanks we get." It's a pail of cold water that's been thrown on the people of Abbotsford by this government.

If you look at the numbers that I've related as they apply to Abbotsford and you apply them across the province, it's a pretty sorry tale. In 1991-92, $376.2 million was transferred to local communities. Where do you think that figure went in 1992-93? It went down. That's not something we hear about from the government members. They don't like to talk about that; they don't like to talk about it at all. Where do you think it went in 1993-94? It went down again. Now we're down to $300 million. Have I heard one member of the government caucus get up to tell us about that? No, they don't want to talk about that.

They don't want to tell the people in their communities how this legislation is going to impact on them. In 1994-95 it went down to $250 million. By 1995-96 it was $232 million. It has gone down consistently: 33 percent, in terms of the whole numbers. Do we hear that? Do we hear about that from these government members? No, they stay silent because, as I say, they're embarrassed, and well they should be. They should be truly embarrassed.

I think that when you talk about these things in those sorts of terms, it's easy for government members to shirk their responsibility, to try and hide behind the global numbers. But let's talk about how some of the other communities . . . . We talked about Abbotsford, and we'll talk about Abbotsford some more. But let's talk about some of the other communities in British Columbia.

The Minister of Forests is here, the member for Cariboo South. Well, his community is taking a 48 percent hit; 48 percent of the revenue that Williams Lake used to get from the provincial government is being ripped away. I haven't heard the Minister of Forests talk to the people of Williams Lake. I haven't heard him get up in this chamber, where this legislation is being passed, to explain why the people of Williams Lake should accept that kind of arbitrariness on the part of their provincial government. And it's millions of dollars.

I saw the member for Rossland-Trail here. It's 47 percent. Did we hear about that from the member for Rossland-Trail? Well, his constituents are hearing it now, if they didn't already know. But, of course, they know -- and if they don't know now, they're going to know when their property tax notice comes in the mail. They're going to hear about it that way from the government that promised them: "No new taxes."

The Premier loves to send out little notices with things like ICBC bills and B.C. Hydro bills. I wonder if the Premier is thinking about including a notice in this year's property tax assessments. I wonder if he's thinking about a little love note -- a little love note from the Premier in this year's property tax notices that communities are sending out: "No new taxes. Love, Premier." Do you think they'll believe him?

An Hon. Member: "PS: Fooled again."

M. de Jong: "Fooled again," the member from the Okanagan says. Indeed, people are tired of getting fooled; people are sick of being fooled. When this government tries to fool someone, it costs people money; it costs families money out of their pockets.

Let's move down the list: the member for New Westminster is here. Just so that the member for New Westminster's constituents are under no illusions -- and I'm sure they're not -- that community formerly received $2.9 million from the provincial government . . . .

G. Bowbrick: I've spoken about it many times.

M. de Jong: The member for New Westminster seems a bit sensitive about the fact that that amount of money is being reduced by 45 percent, to $1.5 million. I think perhaps the member for New Westminster has been able to explain to his constituents in a completely non-partisan fashion how that isn't going to impact on them one little bit. He's offered that . . . . Now, I haven't quite followed the logic, but I'd love to know how he's going to do it. Because if he's able to do it in New Westminster, I'm certainly not above taking his formula and applying it in Abbotsford.

But the fact of the matter is that, notwithstanding what he said to the people of New Westminster about this not having an impact on them, it will. It will have a dramatic impact on them, and any suggestion to the contrary is just inaccurate, very inaccurate indeed.

Who else have we got? The government benches are Spartan today, as we might expect when discussing Bill 2. My friend from Mission-Kent . . . . I've looked, because I get the same newspapers and I listen to the same radio, and I wonder when the member for Mission-Kent is going to explain to his constituents why it's okay that the $1.4 million Mission used to get from the provincial government is going to be $900,000

[ Page 2865 ]

next year, representing a 32 percent decrease. I've waited; I'll continue to wait. There's no time like the present: will the Minister of Human Resources, the member for Mission-Kent, explain to his constituents why that isn't going to impact adversely?

And it goes on. In Columbia River-Revelstoke . . . . I haven't heard the member for that area explain why there's a 27 percent decrease and how that isn't going to impact on his constituents. We wait and wait and wait. But more importantly, the constituents that those members are supposed to be serving, whose concerns they are supposed to be bringing to this chamber, wait in futility because the same dynamics that operated during an election campaign just about a year ago are at work here.

I have combed the clippings; I have looked through the campaign literature in vain for one NDP member of this Legislative Assembly to have said: "Elect me and I will cut transfer payments to this community." It's not there. They didn't want to talk about it then, and they don't want to talk about it now.

Let's talk about Abbotsford. Let's talk about how in very real terms this is impacting on the people of Abbotsford. It happens in small ways. There are people watching this broadcast today who will notice something different this spring in the city of Abbotsford. There's no spring cleanup. There used to be a spring cleanup every year, in addition to the regular garbage service. One day a year, you could drop a couple of extra bags. You could clean up around the house; you could get the leaves. You could clean up, and you could deposit that in the transfer station free of charge.

It doesn't happen anymore, because the city of Abbotsford, the government closest to those people, has had to make decisions, facing the dictatorial legislation that this government has imposed on them. They have had to make up a 5 percent decrease in revenues over and across the board, millions of dollars that this government used to send -- tax money that came from Abbotsford, I might add -- that's not going back there now, because this government has diverted it to other sources.

That seems like a little thing, but if you're a family on a fixed income struggling to make ends meet, 20 bucks here and 50 bucks there and 75 bucks there all adds up. Members in this chamber who are counting our new dollars in our new paycheques may say: "It's only $75. They'll get by." But 75 bucks could represent the enrolment of one of your kids in a soccer program.

If you think about it in those terms, if you think about those families struggling to find that extra money to give their children -- their grandparents, for that matter -- for those extra little amenities that many of us take for granted, it starts to come home to you. Members scoff: "It's only $75; it's only $50." But for those families that this is going to impact the most, it's the difference between the kind of life they they'd like to have and the kind of life that this government is condemning them to have.

In Abbotsford, there are going to have to be some user fees, because the city simply can't operate the recreational facilities that we have in the way they have in the past, given this NDP government's downloading. If you can imagine this, Mr. Speaker, any agency that wants to have a parade -- for cultural events, Canada Day -- through Abbotsford is now going to have to pay double the fee they used to pay in order to hold that event. The reason is that they're faced with a $2 million decrease in funding, in transfer payments, in municipal grants, so local government has had to go looking everywhere.

For a government that touts itself as the defender of the underprivileged, as the defender of those who don't have a voice to stand up to government, it's shameful. It's shameful when you consider the hidden attack this represents on multicultural groups and on arts-related organizations.

[4:15]

The Tourism minister tries to slough this off as being insignificant. I dare say that it's not insignificant to members in her community, and it's certainly not insignificant to the people in my community. I sense a certain defensiveness on her part. It's interesting how quickly these members of the NDP from across the province rise up when you focus in on their communities. It's interesting how defensive they are about what Bill 2 will do.

Interjection.

M. de Jong: Well, here she goes again. You can hardly discuss this bill and the application and the effect that it's going to have on British Columbians across this province without incurring the wrath of the NDP. Well, let me remind them of something. It's not my legislation. It's your government that introduced the bill.

Abbotsford is home to a lot of tourism traffic. Here's another way that this bill is going to have an impact. What this government's policies have meant for that community . . . . If you're travelling into the interior of this province and you have an RV -- which, of course, the government ultimately wants to tax as a luxury item -- and you take your family up to the Okanagan and go for a swim in Penticton or Kelowna . . . . When you're coming back from that holiday, you want to use a sani-dump facility. You used to be able to do it in Abbotsford. There used to be two of them. They're gone now, because the support that was formerly available to operate them has been removed.

Now, I can't even begin to imagine what impact that is going to have, when you consider the spinoff dollars from someone stopping in a community. But it's gone now. No amount of obfuscation, no amount of denial by members of the government, members of the NDP, will change the fact that it's gone because of policies that they have implemented. It is deplorable, in my view.

Then there's the whole question of education. I wake up at night hearing echoing in my mind government members defending education. They are the defenders of education. Well, let me tell you what that defence of education has meant for one school district: school district 34 in Abbotsford. It's a school district that has experienced rapid growth over the years, as all members know. We know that this government is imposing a pay increase that will come out of budgets. We know that a school district like Abbotsford is actually receiving more money this year than it did last year.

That, of course, is the figure we hear from the government members all the time: "Well, the budget has gone up." Well, so has enrolment. Where is the logic?

The fact of the matter is that if you're a student attending public school in the district of Abbotsford this year, you are being funded $43 less than you were last year. And you don't hear that figure from members of the government benches. They stand up and make these pious pronouncements about defending education, and they choose to ignore the facts.

As I've said in the past, I have begun to discern a tendency on the part of government members that I think . . . . My colleagues try to dissuade me from believing this, but I think they sometimes view what I have to say with some skepticism. I am baffled and, as I have said in the past, I am troubled to think that that should be the case.

Interjection.

[ Page 2866 ]

M. de Jong: And hurt.

But let's consider what others have had to say. Let's consider what a coalition of school boards up and down the Fraser Valley have had to say. This is a letter to the Minister of Education: "On behalf of public school students in the lower mainland, we urge you to stop telling the public that the provincial budget will protect classroom services. This statement simply is not true." They continue: "How can it be a true statement?" These are not my words.

"Districts are being asked to absorb a cut of $27 million and the per-pupil allocation is reduced. . .it does not even cover the cost of the new students we expect in our schools in September, let alone a host of other cost increases that we can not avoid."

Those aren't my words. Those are the words of a coalition of publicly elected school boards, saying to this minister: "Tell the truth about the cuts that you are imposing on education." It applies in Chilliwack, Abbotsford, Langley, Delta, Richmond, Vancouver, New Westminster . . . . There's New Westminster again.

An Hon. Member: New Westminster again?

M. de Jong: Yes.

Maple Ridge, Coquitlam, North Vancouver, West Vancouver, Mission -- there's Mission again -- Fraser-Cascade; these are school boards that have been abandoned by this government. What's worse is that the government tells the opposite story. It is deplorable in the extreme.

I want to touch on one other subject. I did want to speak about local funding and how it has impacted on local post-secondary education. Maybe I'll do that quickly -- and again, this is not me speaking. This is the University College of the Fraser Valley, where they indicate that there has been a $1.2 million shortfall. Here's the point: ". . . we find ourselves without the funding for 458 full-time-equivalent student spaces that was committed to us when we were turned into a four-year institution."

This government stands up here day in and day out talking about the availability of post-secondary spaces for students, and they aren't funding those places. They aren't funding them for the students that need them. There's been a breach of faith here. There has been a breach of faith, a breach of trust, and it's never been more apparent than when you consider this government's flip-flop on the whole gambling issue.

I'm going to read a quote. I'll even tell you who it's from. The Deputy Premier said in 1987 in this chamber: "Talk about morally offensive. I ride around, and I see ads on buses for the mortgage-burner lottery when I know the working people in this province are struggling to make ends meet paying their mortgage, and they're lined up gambling in hopes they can get out of that burden of debt." The minister for gambling had quite a different story in 1987. It is a sad legacy, and one this opposition will continue to hammer away at to reveal the charade that this government is to the people of British Columbia.

G. Campbell: I should say as I rise to speak on Bill 2, the Budget Measures Implementation Act, that this really is a very sad moment for this government and for governance in British Columbia. I've been involved in public life for some time. I started at the local level, as I know a number of members opposite did. I can recall as far back as 1986-87 when many members opposite would rail against a government that unilaterally made decisions and that unilaterally ignored the impacts of decisions on their communities and on their facilities and services.

I can recall in 1991, when the then leader of the New Democratic Party -- the one-time Premier, the now resigned Premier, former Premier Harcourt -- stood before representatives from every local government in the province and said: "Our government, the New Democrats, will give authority, will give responsibility, will give resources.

We understand how important local government is, and you can count on us backing you up at the Union of British Columbia Municipalities with what's called the local government bill of rights." And then, of course, what happened was that immediately that the NDP were elected, they forgot all of those promises. They started to attack homeowners and property owners; they started to attack small businesses and renters across the province. Slowly but surely, the erosion of public service, the erosion of public trust in this government, began.

In 1994 this government brought in

an act which the government of the day said explicitly -- and the current Premier and Finance ministers have said explicitly -- was to provide stability, predictability and credibility to the relationship between the provincial level of government and the local level of government. I guess when you look at the title of this bill -- Budget Measures Implementation Act -- you have to understand what really is being implemented, consolidated and reiterated here, unfortunately, by the government. You simply cannot trust the New Democratic government to keep its word.

When I think about people running for office and the goals they set for themselves and the principles they espouse as they run for office, it's staggering to me that they would consciously go to the public and say: "This is so important to us. This is so critical for us that we will put it into legislation." You would at least expect the people who are passing the laws to believe in the laws and to be controlled by the laws, as opposed to breaking the laws.

In 1994 this government said, beyond a doubt, that there was going to be predictability, there was going to be sustainability, there was going to be stability, and there was going to be credibility established in the relationship between the provincial government and the local governments across this province.

With this Budget Measures Implementation Act they have once again shattered any trust which may have existed between the homeowner and the NDP; between the renter and the NDP; between the small business person, who's out there struggling every day, hour after hour, every week, to hire young people, to provide jobs, to provide support for the public institutions . . . . They've broken that trust as well.

The problem is that they are so lost in this place and in their ideology that they've lost track of the impact of these on people's lives. Property tax is a regressive, hurtful and harmful tax. It is a tax which drives right to the heart of communities. If we believe in communities and if we believe in strengthening communities, then we have to give them more support, not remove the support -- and when we remove the support, not try to pretend that nothing has happened.

So what happens? Bill 20 comes in and the government says: "We're going to provide you with this predictability and stability." They say: "Join together in partnership with us in the government." Local municipal representatives come forward and say: "Yes, we will do that. Not only will we do that, we believe so much in this bill that we will forgo $250 million that is due to our homeowners, that is due to our small businesses, that is due to the renters of our communities. We

[ Page 2867 ]

will forego that, because we are cementing a long-term relationship. And the New Democratic government has said to us, 'This is in legislation' " -- and people think they wouldn't dare break the law.

What happened? In 1994, that was passed, and we sort of slowly watched as, almost from the day it was passed, that undertaking started to be eroded. In 1995 the provincial government unilaterally passed Bill 55, which was again a property tax attack on homeowners, small businesses and renters. The same government that says they're for affordable housing attacks the homeowner again. The same government that says they're on the side of small business gives a huge tax break to huge businesses and goes after the small businesses in their communities.

The same government that said in 1995, "We will not impose unilaterally on you anymore, municipal leaders; we will not take from your pockets any longer, homeowners and renters and small businesses," stands up and passes Bill 55, which again hits right at the heart of the critical local services that every citizen in this province demands and deserves.

So what happens? There is hope in the hearts of people across the province. There is hope that one day -- someday, somehow -- this government will be true to its word. They marched and came together in the community of Penticton in September of 1996. The Premier came and the Deputy Premier and Minister of Municipal Affairs of the day, and they said: "We have signed a protocol. We will no longer impose on our local cousins. We will no longer impose our decisions on the homeowners and the small businesses and the renters of British Columbia. We will consult.

We will be sure that you know what we're doing." Try this, hon. Speaker: "We'll be sure we understand the negative impacts of our decisions on your lives before we pass them."

[4:30]

Interjection.

G. Campbell: The New Democratic Party said that. I know it's hard to believe, but that's what they said. The fact of the matter is that that was September of '96. By November of '96 they had again broken their word. So a budget document, which should establish in people's minds a sense of trust, a sense of hope for the future, has really become the document which once again shatters the public's trust in this New Democratic government.

When they say something, run for the hills, because they're not going to live up to their word. When they tell you they're going to legislate and they're going to protect you, watch out, because they're coming after you, big-time. We've seen it in forest renewal, we're seeing it with local homeowners; we're seeing it with small businesses; we're seeing it with renters. The same government that promised no new taxes is the government that's imposing taxes in community after community across this province. The real deficit that we see in this province is a deficit that's built in our public institutions.

It's a deficit in trust; it's when people say: "You know what? I don't care what they say anymore; I don't care what their commitments are. It matters not what they legislate, because they themselves will break the law." When this starts to happen, it has a huge negative impact on all of us.

How can you go forward? How can you invest in a province when you have a government you cannot trust? How can you go forward when you have someone that makes an agreement and then breaks the agreement, makes another agreement and then breaks the agreement, and makes a third agreement and then breaks that agreement?

People are not so foolish that they don't know that if you can't take the government's word, they are not going to come here and invest, they are not going to come here and create jobs, they are not going to be able to afford the kinds of homes that they may like, and unfortunately, that is exactly the belief that this piece of legislation -- this Bill 2 -- reinforces in people's minds. It is not simply the big picture. It's what happens in terms of the small communities across this province. It's what happens in city after city, community after community, as we look at the impacts of this particular bill.

I represent Vancouver-Point Grey. Vancouver is still the largest city in the province -- probably until the next census, when Surrey will overtake them. It's easy to say: "Well, it doesn't matter what happens there." But when city council in Vancouver went through their problems, what did they face? This government reduced their revenue-sharing by millions and millions of dollars -- $17.2 million. Unlike the government, I like to be accurate in my figures. What happened was that it increased the costs of many public services.

The government sits on their side of the House and they sort of smile and think: "Well, no one will ever notice that we did this." But in fact it is the provincial government, the New Democratic government, that has done this.

They've increased the costs of police clearance fees and the costs of library services in the province. When you think about it . . . . Just as an aside, I can recall meeting with some members on that side of the House. Once they claimed they were concerned about literacy in this province. I am concerned about literacy in this province. This government has done everything it can to reduce literary services in British Columbia. We've seen libraries close; we've seen library services close down in schools; we're watching as library costs are going up in municipalities. Once again, it is simply an example of a government that says one thing and does another.

Recreation program costs have gone up. We have a government that says they're concerned about young people. "Let's close the recreation programs down. Let's not let them go out and have any kind of sponsored activities without being able to pay for it." That's not caring for the young people of the province.

You look and it says that the cost of residential construction is going up. It seems to me that that side of the House -- the government, the NDP -- often talk about affordable housing. They've just shot up the cost of housing for every single British Columbian. It's gone up because of this government's 1997 Budget Measures Implementation Act. Once again, we have a government . . . .

I hate to say this: I've got two of these bills in my hand right now; one is too many. Once again we have a government that says one thing and

an act which does another. We have reduced funding that is going to be made available for cultural, health and housing organizations in my community. Once again a government that claims they're for health is reducing funding for health; a government that claims they're for housing is reducing funding for housing; a government that claims they support cultural activities . . . . One thing I guess most of us could have found in the throne speech was a small, brief one-sentence reference to cultural activities in the province. The impression is that cultural activities are being supported.

The fact is that funding is being reduced. It may be being reduced at the local level because this NDP government broke its word to the people across this province and reduced revenue-sharing by $113 million.

[ Page 2868 ]

This government claims it is concerned about the environment. So what does it do? It taxes the use of propane. It's the only government in Canada and in North America that thinks the way you encourage activity is to tax it. We have people that are using propane fuel because they believe it's better for the environment. My colleague from Abbotsford pointed out that there are people in his constituency who are trying to deal with the problem of air that is deteriorating in quality by using that facility. What's happening to them? They're going to have that taxed. We're going to increase that tax.

The government that promised no new taxes is going to increase the taxes of those people who use propane fuel by $400 to $500 a year. Sometimes the government doesn't seem to understand what that means. It means that that person has got to go out and earn at least a thousand dollars to be able to pay that tax. When you say there are going to be no new taxes, people expect no new taxes. Unfortunately, when the NDP government says no new taxes, people know what they're going to get is more new taxes, and more new taxes on top of that.

Again, the Budget Measures Implementation Act, 1997, makes it clear that when the New Democrats tell you they care about the environment and the quality of air, what they mean is they're going to tax the environment and tax the quality of air so that it's more difficult for us to achieve our goals. Say one thing; do another. This should be the "Breach of Trust Act, 1997." At least it would be properly labelled.

The challenge that I think all of us face in government -- and I'm the first to accept it -- is that we have to make some critical choices. It seems to me that we heard, even today in this House, that this government has made a choice. They think it's better to hire political appointees and let them run off and go and act politically in some federal election campaign than it is for them to support issues like affordable housing and cleaner environments and better services for people across the provi