1985 Legislative Session: 3rd Session, 33rd Parliament

HANSARD

The following electronic version is for informational purposes only.

The printed version remains the official version.

Official Report of

DEBATES OF THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY

(Hansard)

TUESDAY, MARCH 19, 1985

Morning Sitting

[ Page

5333 ]

CONTENTS

Tabling Documents –– 5333

Ministerial Statement

Government aid to Ethiopia. Hon. Mr. Curtis I .. I –– 5333

Budget debate

Mr. Lauk –– 5333

Hon. Mr. Brummet –– 5334

Mr. Gabelmann –– 5338

On the amendment

Mr. Howard –– 5341

The House met at 10:07 a.m.

Prayers.

Hon. Mr. Hewitt tabled liquor distribution branch financial

statements for the fiscal year ending March 31, 1984, and the liquor

distribution branch's sixty-third annual report for the year ending

March 31, 1984.

MR. HOWARD: Mr. Speaker, whenever the Rev. Father Keith Young

comes and leads us in prayer we undoubtedly are headed to a day of

great joy and pleasantness in this chamber, and today will be no

different. Thanks to Father Young.

MR. SPEAKER: We'll try to have him back often, hon. member.

HON. MR. CURTIS: Mr. Speaker, I rise to make a ministerial statement.

MR. SPEAKER: Proceed.

GOVERNMENT AID TO ETHIOPIA

HON. MR. CURTIS: Mr. Speaker, as the House will know, several

weeks ago a distinguished group of Canadian musicians produced a

recording entitled "Tears Are Not Enough." The personalities concerned

across the country donated their time and their talent, and I am

informed that they have forgone royalties and other financial benefits

associated with the production of this recording.

The artists include Anne Murray, Bryan Adams, Gordon Lightfoot,

Corey Hart, Paul Hyde, Joni Mitchell, Neil Young, Oscar Peterson, Mike

Reno, Liona Boyd, Burton Cummings and a number of others.

Several individuals, including a number of British Columbians — and

I would name Terry David Mulligan, Bruce Allen, Lou Blair and David

Foster — then formed the Northern Lights for Africa Society.

Two versions of the recording are in production; one, a seven-inch

record, is now available, I understand, and a second twelve-inch record

will be on sale at approximately the end of March.

In recognition of this humanitarian effort, initiated in part within

this province, the government of British Columbia will make a grant

equal to the proceeds of the 7 percent social service tax applied to

the sale of each recording of "Tears Are Not Enough." The grant dates

from the first sales in British Columbia, several days ago, and it will

remain in effect for all sales of that recording for a period of six

months from that date. The House might like to know also that all

proceeds will be verified through Price Waterhouse, chartered

accountants in Vancouver.

MR. STUPICH: Mr. Speaker, I was hoping, as the minister was speaking,

that I was going to be able to congratulate him on this contribution. I know

that the artists, when they undertook this, certainly did it in the hope that

governments would show some real recognition of the need to make some significant

contribution. I recognize the names of some of the artists, being a country

and western fan, and really think that what they did was a good thing and a

good way of bringing to the attention of Canadians in particular the seriousness

of the situation and the need to contribute.

But as I understood it, I heard the minister say that what the

province was contributing was the sales tax on the sale of these

records. I think if that is all the province is contributing — sales

tax that would never have been earned had the artists not done this

work and not been selling this product — then really we're in effect

giving them nothing out of the province. Now perhaps, I misheard. As I

understand it, we're giving them only sales tax which would not have

arisen had they not done this work. I hope I have misunderstood the

minister.

ON THE BUDGET

(continued debate)

MR. LAUK: One of the difficulties that any government has in

Canada, United States and Europe during this particular period of time

is developing a kind of budget that will ameliorate some of the

hardship people are facing as a result of the economic downturn that

most jurisdictions have experienced. Opposition members have elaborated

on how we feel that the restraint approach of the B.C. government,

rather than ameliorating that hardship, has exacerbated it and added to

the difficulties British Columbians are experiencing.

Last year we had a federal election, and there was a general hope

that the new government would take bold measures to solve some of our

economic problems. We've seen by the Wilson budget that it's more of

the same. I'm not sure whether it would be useful for politicians to

continue the rhetoric in this country and this province. I would like

to be able to throw more bouquets to the provincial Minister of Finance

for his budget, but I don't think we can. Recognizing the difficulties

in crafting a budget that will in some way help us out of this economic

morass, I do not think the budget was imaginative or creative enough. I

don't think it was bold enough. As a matter of fact, it wasn't bold at

all. As the poet said, between the idea and the reality falls the

shadow, in this case the shadow of indecision.

[10:15]

The rhetoric of both parties in this province, the rhetoric of the

parties in the federal jurisdiction and in the United States is nothing

but rhetoric. We're shouting at each other. Nothing about opposition

ideas is any good, according to the government, and nothing about

government ideas is any good, according to the opposition. Perhaps

we're both right. Because the people out there are living each day in

some hope that the political and economic leaders of this province and

of the country will come up with some solution to our problems. This

budget is a very far distance from doing that. It does not even

indicate a new direction that would indicate some hope for the future.

There are difficulties. You have high spending and high taxes.

Solutions offered by economists are contradictory and confusing. We

could bite the bullet and lower taxes across the board; that would

greatly increase the deficit of this province, and there's the worry

about how to pay off that long-term mortgage. Another solution would be

to raise taxes and cut inessential spending, but we can't in this

province. We're locked into major megaprojects. The government itself

is locked into an ever-increasing budget, ever-increasing deficits and

the exponential growth of debt service charges, the same as we're

facing in Canada as a whole.

[ Page 5334 ]

That's why I think it's about time, Mr. Speaker, that the government

listened seriously to the opposition's proposal that we have an

all-party committee for economic reconstruction. If we continue to

shout at each other, if we continue to use rhetoric to attack each

other's proposals, the people are the losers. In the long term the

whole province will lose.

The opposition concedes that it hasn't got the definitive solutions

to our current economic problems, and I say that the budget proposed by

the Minister of Finance the other day doesn't have those solutions

either. It's more of the same. It's an admission of inability on the

part of the government to come up with the bold moves that are

necessary to bring us out of this recession.

It is about time that on sober reflection all members of this House

considered seriously such an all-party committee. We waited for the

budget in some anticipation that perhaps our proposal for such a

committee was not really required. But we have fairly and honestly

studied the budget proposals of the government. We must as objectively

as we can, as British Columbians, say that it doesn't come anywhere

near addressing the problems that we're facing in the B.C. economy.

It would be an intelligent and gracious but, most importantly, a

responsible move on the part of the government to accept the

opposition's proposal for a reconstruction committee. If you want to

call it another name, that's fine. Let's not quibble. That committee

could have referred to it the broadest possible responsibility for

meeting and deliberating and receiving briefs and information, to come

up with some bold solutions to our economic problems. If there's a

worry that the committee will take too long, the Legislature can of

course limit the time period in which it must deliberate and come back

to the House with a report. I'm not saying it will come back with the

bold measures that we need, but it is the only avenue open to us; it is

the only hope open to us, to find the solutions that I'm talking about.

I want especially to plead with the government to reduce the

rhetoric. Members on the other side have said that the opposition is

negative, that the press is negative, that all they hear are negative

responses. The opposition is tired of hearing the government fighting

old elections. The rhetoric's floating back and forth — hours upon

hours of debate in this chamber, and not one answer for the people out

there who are waiting for us to come up with solutions.

Interjection.

MR. LAUK: The hon. second member for Vancouver Little

Mountain (Mr. Mowat) says: "Come up with a solution." I'm saying that

each member of this House should objectively and seriously consider the

proposition of the opposition: that we form an all-party committee to

examine in a realistic way the proposals that are out there and come up

with solutions.

I thank the House for their kind attention, Mr. Speaker. Because of

my foregoing remarks I find myself unable to support this budget.

HON. MR. BRUMMET: It was certainly a revelation to hear that

member's change of approach from yesterday to today. He must have had a

good thought overnight. But I guess that is what has made it difficult

to accept some of the suggestions for an all-party committee, for

getting together to work out the solutions and so on, because, having

said that, he immediately said he could not support the budget. By

implication then, that member and all of his colleagues can support

nothing in this budget, and they basically said that time and again —

that whatever measures have been incorporated in the budget can't be

supported.

[Mr. Strachan in the chair.)

I can certainly support many of the measures in the budget and, like

any human being, I would like to have seen some of them go further and

provide more help and assistance and funding and tax breaks to others.

But I also have to be somewhat realistic. Had the Minister of Finance

accepted every one of the suggestions for tax cuts, he would have been

left with virtually very little revenue. Yet at the same time there is

certainly no reduction in the demand for services the government should

provide.

I could use this example. I'm very pleased with the assistance being

provided to Peace River area farmers through the budget. Naturally the

preference would be for an outright grant of more money for complete

support because of the difficult times. But I think the Finance

minister has had to consider that there were people who took out crop

insurance and paid a premium for that protection, and others who did

not, and I would be the first to agree that there has to be something

done to revise that crop insurance program, because there's only about

a 25 percent take-up. People take their own risks. Still and all, one

of the reactions that you get immediately, the standard sort of

reaction that hits the press, is: "Too little too late. Peanuts. It

won't do any good." Yet it is going to help many of those farmers. I'm

sure that many of them will appreciate the fact that they can count on

a loan through the banking institutions to provide them with the fuel,

the seed and the work that they need to do in order to put in a crop

next year, and that they will not have to pay the interest and will

even get a 10 percent reduction on that loan if they pay it back from

this fall's crop. So yes, we do have to hope that they're not going to

be that subject to the vagaries of the weather, that they will get a

break, and that they will benefit from this particular plan. They won't

benefit as much as everyone would like, but it's unfortunate that the

one person who stood up and said that it's no good gets reported.

That is the kind of thing that I'm talking about when I say it's

always the negative. There's almost $3 million going into that area.

That's an estimate of what it will cost to help people. Really, $3

million is nothing to sneeze at. Yet the reaction seems to be.... I

would have to wonder at the Finance minister's trying to do what he can

to stretch the little amount of money that is available to try and help

as many people and present incentives and then just getting hammered

with that sort of thing. He must go home at night sometimes wondering:

"Why do I try at all?"

We had a perfect example of that in the ministerial statement. He

said: "We've tried to give a concession. We've tried to give some

encouragement." The immediate reaction he got was: "You gave them

nothing."

Interjection.

HON. MR. BRUMMET: Well, you see? The member for North Island

(Mr. Gabelmann) says, "That's right, " and then he says: "But we're not

really negative. We really do think that anything that is done in a

positive way has some positive merit." But you won't accept that; it

has to be

[ Page

5335 ]

everything before you will accept any positive merit to it. And then you wonder why we accuse you of being negative.

Mr. Speaker, I know education has received the focus, but let me first of all discuss some of the tax measures.

I've mentioned the assistance to the Peace River farmers, and I'll

accept it and say thank you on their behalf. Many of them will

appreciate it. Certainly I'm human enough to have wanted to see more

faster, and that sort of thing, but I'll at least say thank you for

what we did get.

I can say thank you on behalf of my people for the reduction in the

off-road fuel tax, because that's a big factor in that farming area.

It's going to help those people. It's not going to solve all their

problems. This is where the debate often gets — into these extremes.

The fuel tax isn't going to solve all their problems, and they know

that. Everyone knows that. But the emphasis seems to be that unless any

one individual measure solves all the problems, then it's no good. I

can't accept that. I think the good is built up, often, in little bits

and pieces and cumulatively they do have a benefit.

The water rental tax is going to be a benefit to many people.

Certainly it hasn't been reduced, and it hasn't been removed. The

government, if they removed all of these sources of revenue, would also

have to cut back on the services or go to that NDP philosophy of

borrowing and not worrying about how you pay for it, hoping that sooner

or later some magic wand would happen. But it hasn't happened anywhere.

Everywhere that that philosophy of borrow and borrow more has gone into

effect.... I'm talking basically about operating expenses and....

Interjections.

HON. MR. BRUMMET: Yes, but let me put that in perspective

then, Mr. Member. You are saying that the government should have

reduced taxes more and that would have helped. At the same time your

members are saying that they should have increased funding to

education, increased funding to health, increased funding to everyone.

So what you're basically saying is that you should take in less money

as a government but that you should continually spend more money as a

government. That has to represent deficit financing.

Yes, we've all been into it. Every government in this country has been

lured into spending more than it was taking in, for whatever reasons — some

of them certainly political I reasons. If you didn't do it, the other party

promised that they would. So we've gotten into that worldwide, not just

in Canada. Then we wonder why, when we're paying a third of every tax

dollar in Canada on interest, we don't have money to pay for the services.

If anybody mentions cutbacks or reduced spending, that, of course, is a no-no.

"Not in my back yard. Do it somewhere else. Get the money from somebody

else, and cut the spending on somebody else, but for goodness' sake, never

in my area."

The small business employment tax credit. One of the members scoffed at that

because of the little amount. But it has a cumulative effect over the province

of some $75 million per year. That has to be beneficial. Maybe it doesn't

solve the whole problem, but certainly it has to have a positive aspect. I

would like, sometimes, for some of the members on the other side to say: "Look,

there is a positive aspect, even if I don't accept the thing as solving

all of the world's problems." To suggest that somehow a committee could

get together and put all of this in and come up with the plan as to how to spend

more money while taking in less...that somehow or other somebody could actually

come up with that....

Machinery and equipment. Everyone is familiar now with what is in

the budget. The cumulative effect is quite significant, and I think it

will create some real jobs. So I can't accept that it doesn't do

anything for the unemployed. It will create some real jobs. We cannot

continue to spend more money in government to create temporary jobs,

which, in effect, take out of the economy rather than put into it.

That's an illusion that we create and that illusion ends up costing us

a fortune in the long run.

[10:30]

Certainly some of the measures are not that significant in terms of

dollars, but I can tell you one measure that is very significant, one

which shows how the minister listened. It was a source of annoyance and

also created a lack of business opportunities for some of our people in

the area. That's the exemption at the point of sale for automobiles.

That may not be a big factor here but we have car dealers in our area

who can sell vehicles to the Alberta side. The net cost to those buyers

is no different. The way it was, they had to pay the tax when they

bought the vehicle in British Columbia, then they had to go back to

Alberta, register it there and then apply for the tax rebate. Rather

than go through that annoyance of having to put up the money and then

wait to get it back, they bought their vehicles in Alberta, even though

they preferred, say, a Fort St. John or Dawson Creek dealer.

The net change in revenue to the government is not significant, but

it now means that those people can document their vehicle as being

registered in Alberta. It can be exempt from the tax when they buy it,

and they don't have to put up that money and then claim it back later.

That will mean vehicle sales and fleet sales for some of the dealers in

my area, and that means business to those people. So the minister did

listen and did come up with something that is no change in actual

finance to the government other than that I'm sure it will assist those

industries and provide some indirect benefits.

So those are the sorts of things that do help, and it is another

small positive. Certainly if you want to be a critic primarily, you can

say: "Well, what does it do for the economy? What does it do for the

provincial revenue?" It doesn't do anything for that. But it certainly

does something for that individual. You get a million individuals who

are going to benefit from something or a hundred thousand people who

are going to get jobs as a result of this, and the total benefits to

this province are going to be immense.

I'd like to switch to this aspect of education and relate it to the

budget, in that we've heard quite a bit in this budget discussion about

the disastrous effects that it is having on education. That has to be

one of the best-done propaganda ventures in this province today. It

really is remarkable how emotionally charged, unsubstantiated

statements can become almost as though this is what the facts are.

Let me read to you a few passages from a letter sent out by the new

president of the British Columbia Teachers' Federation. I could read

you the whole letter and it says absolutely nothing in terms of fact.

It does not say anything at all, but it s a beautifully done propaganda

document calculated to incite the troops. It's the standard propaganda

weapon that has been used in various parts of the world — yes, by

dictators, by anyone. It's a nice device, and it's to fire up the

troops.

[ Page 5336 ]

You have statements like this: "That I do so now is a measure of the

gravity of the situation we face." Nice clichés. Another one: "We face

a threat of unprecedented magnitude. The quality of education, the

rights of students and of teachers are so seriously imperilled that I

feel it essential.... The threat is not just to us as individual

teachers or to our students. The viability of the public school system

and the very existence of our professional organizations are in

jeopardy."

Now I ask any thinking member in this chamber: what has he really

said to this point? I'll go on with these quotes. "The sacred trust of

public education is in our hands." Now that is enough to fire up

anybody, because spending 28 years in the educational system.... Think

of this: "The sacred trust of preserving quality education is in our

hands. Unite brothers; we must unite and fight. That's the strategy."

"Our strategy must be to fuel the momentum of the

pro-education movement." By implication, of course, anybody who talks

about dollars is anti-education. "We cannot do that if we are

underpaid, demoralized, perpetually besieged. The challenge before us

is a formidable one. The campaign will focus on the injustices...."

Not one substantiated fact in the whole thing. Now let me give you

what the facts are in British Columbia. This is what this is referring

to, this disastrous calamity that's happening according to the

president of the B.C. Teachers' Federation. I will reiterate time and

time again that most teachers in this province really want to teach

students as well as they can, to the best of their ability, and they'd

rather stay out of all this sort of thing, but they don't have any

choice. They're fired up, they're inundated with this stuff time and

again, and if they dare think as individuals they are intimidated.

[Mr. Ree in the chair.]

Here is what has happened in fact. In 1982 the pupil-teacher ratio

was 17.11 pupils per teacher; in 1983, 17.08; in 1984, 17.73: roughly

one-half of a pupil per teacher increase in the provincial averages.

That is destroying the educational system? I think most people can

understand those facts. At the same time, the cost per pupil....

Remember, we're saying that education is being destroyed by lack of

funding. At the same time, the facts are that across the province the

average operating cost per pupil in 1982 was $3,206; in 1983, $3,263;

in 1984, $3,346. So there has been an increase in operating costs per

pupil, and that of course was funded by the taxpayers of this province.

So they have paid more for each student in those years. There has been

an increase of half a student per teacher across the province, and that

is what those emotional statements are referring to, about destruction

of education. They've got the opposition all on that side.

The average annual teacher's unit salary in 1983 was $34,000; in 1984, $35,329. Those are the facts, Mr. Speaker.

Have you not heard...? I can see why students, school boards and the

public would be highly incensed with the fact that they're told that

the classes are going to go to 40 and 50 pupils. There is absolutely no

need for that. In all of the checking that I have done — unless it's by

design somewhere that I haven't heard of — there have not been any

classes anywhere near that size. Those class averages are down. I

checked it for my district and for several other districts. Most of the

classes are under 25. For elementary class size, the provincial average

is 23.6 students — almost 24 students; at the secondary level, 24

students. When I have found a large class of 35 — the largest class in

the district — it was, say, a phys-ed class, or in some situation where

they timetabled.... Being fairly familiar with timetabling....

Sometimes you run into these anomalies. But there is absolutely no

excuse in this budgeting system for classes of 40 and 50.

You had a situation in Vancouver of student protests. Well, I don't

know all of the particulars, but from what I gathered the students in

that school were all called into the assembly and told: "They're going

to destroy us. We're going to have all 40 and 50 in our classes next

year, but be reasonable. And we've got to turn the heat off" — which is

one percent of their cotton-picking budget. So they turn the heat off,

and say: "Well, you must wear your coats to classes. And remember that

we're going to have 40 and 50 students next year." And so the

students.... Believe me, I was there. I could have incited a riot any

time by just saying a few things — and some people happen to know that.

So what did the students do? They hit the streets with protest banners,

saying: "We're not going to have 40 and 50 students in our classes.

We're going to have heat in our classrooms." None of those were

necessary. None of those were correct. Then the audacity of that

principal to stand up publicly and say, "I'm saying to the students:

'Now you must not react this way; you must act in moderation; you must

do that,"' after having incited them. That's the kind of thing, and

some of the protest that we have, and some of the stuff that's being

fed to parents and to school boards to incite them and suggest that

this is destructive. It is not.

We believe in quality education on this side as well. As the

Minister of Education has said, we could go up to 19 pupils. I was

there for many years, when there were 19 pupils, and I will not accept

that we were not providing quality education at that time. We had

teachers who were committed to it, and we could handle those. And we

didn't have so many supernumeraries, and we didn't have all of these

other ways of spending the budget. We kept it in the classroom. I did

that as a principal: I organized and kept people in the classroom,

rather than in these other positions to bring up the class sizes.

I guess the experiences we've had are basically the ones that we've

been through. But I can tell you that I've talked with other principals

who said: "My gosh, I've got 35 pupils in a primary class." I'll be

honest with you; I used to say to them: "You don't deserve your pay as

a principal if you allow 35 pupils in a primary class. Reorganize the

school. Do something about it." There's absolutely no need under a 17-

or 18-pupil-per-teacher ratio in this province for any primary class to

be at 35. That's mismanagement, as far as I'm concerned. You can't

blame the government or the taxpayers or the funding formula for that

kind of mismanagement.

I have to say that some of that has to be politically inspired. I

guess politics creeps in. I'm not talking necessarily about

partisanship, but it's certainly politically inspired.

Just to wind up a little bit here on education, we had members on

the opposite side saying how our universities are going to hell in a

basket — as some other member said — that the funding is destroying

them, and that pupils are not registering in the universities. Then we

have the figures. We have all those emotional statements, and then we

have the facts. There were in 1979 just over 29,000 grade 12 graduates;

in 1984 that had gone down to just under 27,000. So that's at least

2,000 down in the number of graduates in the province.

[ Page

5337 ]

At the same time, when you add up the people who

registered in academic courses and non-vocational courses in colleges

and universities, the enrolment had gone up from 8,000 to over 10,000.

In other words, the total number of pupils graduating from high school

had gone down, and the number enrolling in universities had gone up.

Yet we're told that our universities are being destroyed and that

there's no opportunity for enrolment. So it went up, if you like, from

43 percent — in round numbers — in 1979 to 54 percent that are

enrolling in non-vocational courses. And then you can throw in the

Knowledge Network and some of these others, and you have, really, more

people getting an education. A quality education, I still maintain,

does not depend entirely on how much money you throw at it; it depends

on attitudes.

We're accused of teacher-bashing, creating a negative climate in the

classrooms and so on. I contend, Mr. Speaker, that it is not the budget

or the people who are creating it that.... It is the people with the

vested interest in trying to get their positions secured at the top

organizational level that are fomenting that dissent in the classrooms.

It's not the funding that does that. We had many happy teachers with

less funding; we had happy teachers with more funding. Primarily I

think it's a matter of attitude. When people are constantly stirred up,

yes, it creates a problem. But I don't think they need to be stirred up.

[10:45]

In one of my MLA reports I did point out that the teachers'

organizations say that quality education depends on how much more money

you put in. They said: "We need more teachers in the classroom. We need

to keep those pupil-teacher ratios down." Yet at the same time, when it

came down to the crunch and the Minister of Education said: "There is a

finite amount of money available. Which way would you like...?" He

didn't say this, but if you take it in salary increases, then it has to

come out of some other place. You cannot continually assume that if you

take it in salary increases there will be more to do everything else.

Teachers had the choice of holding their salary levels and retaining

those people in the classrooms, or going for a raise. They said: "No,

thank you, we will take the raise, but we want the government to put in

more money to keep those other bodies in the classroom." In other

words, their stated objective is one thing, but when it came down to

the choice to be made personally, they said: "We'll take the increase

and blame the government for not spending more money." They can't have

it both ways. That's, I guess, where we really are in general terms.

We have some of the most interesting discussions from that side. A

speaker, even in the same speech, will stand up and blame the

government for not spending enough money: we've got to spend more here,

there and everywhere. In the same speech you blame the government for

having the taxes too high, Now is there some magical money tree that

some one still believes in? I think we have to be honest with our

taxpayers and say, yes, governments can give you everything and

anything that you want provided you are willing to pay for it out of

your other pocket. When we get to that point and tell the people that,

then I think the people make those decisions.

They scoff at tax incentives; they blame the government for taxing too highly;

they blame the government for borrowing money, and at the same time they say

that the government must spend more than they are taking in. So help me, I have

some difficulty in putting that together.

I think what we really need in this province is some belief that

real jobs — jobs where people are producing things that sell.... It's

one thing to say, "Try and put jobs out there, " but if you are not

selling the products, that job is going to disappear in a very short

time and end up costing society, governments and — indirectly — the

taxpayers a lot of money. Job creation has to be in something that you

produce and that you can market. If we accept that, then the people who

can do that best are the private sector. They can create those jobs

whose continuance depends on their ability to market those goods, not

on their ability to pass laws or regulations. That's where it really

happens, and that's where I think it should be happening. Jobs that

government creates, in many cases, cost the taxpayers; the jobs that

the private sector creates generate revenue to the government to

continue the services that we're all in favour of.

Quality education and revenue to government do depend on what the

private sector can create, what initiatives can be provided. And

because we're in competition with other jurisdictions, we have to

provide some incentives and initiatives to get those industries here.

Once they're here they can be producing.

I guess what we need most of all in this province is a positive

attitude. We would like to have.... Let me use Expo as the example. We

now have recognition from many countries around the world who are

coming here to put their money on the line, to put up their displays

and to market their wares. They seem to believe that Expo is going to

attract a lot of people to warrant their investment there. Someone

mentioned that we can't directly guarantee that it will break even at

the gate, but I would suggest that it has a much better chance of

breaking even at the gate if just once some of the critics would turn

around and say: "Hey, it's on its way. It can do things. It's going to

be great, and let's all get together behind that." Whether it's Expo,

the farming industry, the mining industry, the logging industry or

whatever, if we could just say: "Okay, there are loopholes, there are

weaknesses, there are problems, but here's something positive that may

and can happen, and let's boost it...."

Put yourself in the position of someone in a foreign country who is

reading a British Columbia newspaper. If the headline says, "Expo is

great. Expo is go. Expo is going to have wonderful displays," you would

be far more inclined to come to Expo than if it reads: "Expo to fail.

Expo to lose money. Expo won't work." I maintain that those critics

who, for whatever partisan reasons, keep hammering that it won't work

are doing the damage, almost as though with a masochistic tendency,

hoping desperately, because it's this government that is pushing Expo,

that it will fail; and they will almost do everything possible to make

it fail. They mouth the objection that "Oh, no, we support it," but at

the same time they're doing whatever they can to discourage people, to

make it more difficult to attract people.

If we could just get people believing in this province, believing

that these incentives are going to work, you will find people investing

their money. You will find people willing to travel, willing to see

some of the things that are in his province. Certainly in my capacity

as Minister of Parks there are many beautiful things to see. Our parks

system is one of the best in the world and will attract a lot of

people. I would like those sorts of positive things put out there

rather than the negative things that tend to distract from success.

Success is partly a matter of attitude, not just numbers and

[ Page 5338 ]

predictions by economists. If people believe something is going to succeed, it will succeed.

MR. GABELMANN: Lyndon Johnson once commented on a Congressman

whom he suspected of having room temperature IQ — Fahrenheit, not

Celsius — that the man couldn't walk and chew gum at the same time.

Listening to the Minister of Lands, Parks and Housing, I'm reminded of

Johnson's comments.

HON. MR. BRUMMET: Thank you very much.

MR. GABELMANN: You're welcome.

The comment also came to mind when listening to the Minister of

Finance present the budget. One of the problems with the government is

that it is unable to do more than one thing at any one time.

HON. MR. BRUMMET: Be positive!

MR. GABELMANN: I'm being very positive, Mr. Speaker. I'm saying that the government can do one thing at a time.

Interjections.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, please. The Minister of Lands, Parks and Housing had his opportunity to stand in the debate. Would he please be quiet.

MR. GABELMANN: Mr. Speaker, I could have been critical of the Minister. I could have talked about Celsius, not Fahrenheit.

As I was saying, the government has an ability to do one thing at

one time, but never an ability, it seems, to do more than one thing.

When it was time, in their minds, for restraint, we got restraint and

nothing else. Now that they perceive those days to be over, they are on

to a new tack: corporate tax concessions, and nothing else. Again a

one-track government, unable to do more than one thing at one time; or,

as Lyndon Johnson would say, unable to walk and chew gum at the same

time.

Mr. Speaker, at the end of my comments I intend to present, on

behalf of the official opposition, an amendment. The amendment will

suggest that the budget fails in a number of major regards. It fails in

having any impact on reducing unemployment. It fails to develop or

propose any policies or plans to keep up with the influx into the

labour force of 20,000 new people each year. It fails — and here it

fails absolutely — to create any proposals or plans for new long-term

employment to reduce the staggering unemployment levels in this

province. I'll deal with that in more detail later. In addition, it

fails to deal with the crisis that exists in education and in human

services. Finally, it fails — and here again it fails absolutely — to

control an out-of-control and increasing debt, both direct and

indirect. Our amendment, which we will focus on in today's debate, will

suggest that this budget has failed to address all of those critical

problems here in British Columbia.

Mr. Speaker, the policies of the government obviously don't work.

They haven't created jobs and there's no indication that they will. The

policies have not created a climate conducive to investment or to

consumer spending. If we want to accept the model set up by the member

for North Vancouver-Seymour yesterday — which I don't entirely — that

we have a choice of consumer-led or of investment-led recovery, the

government's policies do neither. At least we are proposing that we put

more emphasis on consumer-led recovery and try somehow to tap the

savings of British Columbians. But the budget does neither that nor the

other.

The policies over the years, and they are continuing in this budget,

have created unprecedented poverty, unprecedented unemployment,

unprecedented insecurity — and unprecedented soup kitchens and soup

lines. I hear a member suggesting that what I'm talking about is

gloomy. You bet it's gloomy to stand in a soup line or to stand waiting

for a bag of groceries because your welfare rates are so low that you

ran out a week or two before the next cheque. Do the members on that

side suggest that we should stand here Dale Carnegie fashion and talk

only about how great things are, when they're not? It is gloomy out

there for many people, and I want to talk about the extent of that

gloom that pervades our society.

There are about 1.4 million eligible wage-earners in B.C.

Unemployment figures from StatsCan suggest that 16 percent of that

number are unemployed. I wonder how many members, Mr. Speaker, have

looked carefully at these numbers. Last month 226,000 people were in

receipt of UIC. About 1 percent are on for health or maternity reasons

— not a very large number. If you take that 226,000 in receipt of UIC

as a percentage of the number of people in the workforce, you have 16

percent. So when Statistics Canada tells us that the unemployment rate

in British Columbia is 16 percent, that figure is only those people in

receipt of UIC. The 16 percent does not include the 108,000 people who

in 1984 had their UIC benefits exhausted — the so-called "exhaustees."

Many of those people went onto welfare. Many went home to live with

extended families. Many have been lost in our system. Some of those

people did find work, no question about that. But there were 108,000 in

that category. Then, Mr. Speaker, we have in total numbers about

270,000 people in receipt of social assistance in British Columbia. Of

that number, about 130,000 are adults, of whom probably somewhere in

the order of 100,000 would work were there jobs available.

[11:00]

There are 100,000 people; there are up to another 100,000 people who

have exhausted their UIC; there are, and we all know them personally,

countless thousands of others who have given up looking for work — the

so-called "deeply discouraged" — and who may have in their family

another wage-earner and therefore are not counted in any of the

statistics. We have uncounted numbers of young people who still live at

home. I wonder how many other members have noticed as I have in

traveling around their ridings — as I've noticed in mine — the number

of 25- and 28- and 30-year-old children living at home, not counted in

any of these numbers because they're being supported by their families.

I wonder how many members have noticed the number of people who are

cashing in their RRSPs, who are selling an extra car or a sailboat or

things that they've acquired over the years, in order to survive. They

are not counted on the social assistance rolls or the UIC rolls, and

many of them are not counted on the exhaustee list either.

Mr. Speaker, it's difficult if not impossible to determine the exact

number of unemployed in British Columbia. You have to make a number of

assumptions. In suggesting what I

[ Page

5339 ]

think the real unemployment rate is, let me make

one assumption: that if every person between the ages of 15 and 64 who

was able to work and who was not going to school and wanted to work was

counted as being part of the total workforce, we would have an

unemployment rate in British Columbia of 30 to 31 percent. Almost one

in three British Columbians who could work is now not able to work. And

yet we get lulled into the numbers. I remember when 5 percent

unemployment was considered high because 3 percent was considered the

right number. Then the numbers drifted up, and now we're blase about 16

percent. But let me repeat, Mr. Speaker, the 16 percent only includes

those people in receipt of unemployment insurance. The actual figures

are well into the twenties, and if you include the potential that every

person has to contribute in our society, the number is more likely to

be 30 or 31 percent unemployment in British Columbia. I am not making

these numbers up; I spent some time working them through. That is a

tragedy beyond comprehension. Those numbers are staggering. They're

numbing.

[Mr. Strachan in the chair.]

The Minister of Lands, Parks and Housing (Hon. Mr. Brummet) said in

effect: "Where's the money going to come from?" If we had full

employment in this province, there would be literally billions of

dollars of additional revenue — an absolute guarantee of at least two

billion and probably three billion dollars of extra revenue, and at the

same time a reduction of somewhere around a couple of billion in

expenditure. We could produce an extra five billion dollars — in round

numbers — in terms of net revenue to the government simply by having

full employment. Why isn't full employment the target of this budget?

Why isn't full employment the target of the government? It has been

easy over the years to talk about dealing with inflation and, as the

former Prime Minister said, "wrestling inflation to the ground." The

government in this province has set up programs to attempt to reduce

wage increases. Those have been accomplished because the government was

determined to accomplish those goals. Why don't we pursue the goal of

full employment with the same vigour? What's wrong with full

employment? Is that a left-wing idea or something? Other countries can

do it, and I'll talk about that a bit later.

What is there in the budget to inspire confidence? What signals are

there or what initiatives are there in the budget that will begin to

free up the $36 billion worth of savings in this province? People

aren't going to spend it all, but my God, if they spent 10 percent of

it we'd put hundreds of thousands of people back to work. No

incentives, no encouragement, nothing whatsoever.

AN HON. MEMBER: Nothing but gloom and doom.

MR. GABELMANN: Mr. Speaker, the member again says: "Nothing

but gloom and doom." I invite that member to go down to Christ Church

Cathedral, spend some time with the people in the lineup there and come

back and say the same words again — that it's nothing but gloom and

doom. Of course it's gloom and doom. Do you know what it's like out

there, Mr. Member?

Interjection.

MR. GABELMANN: Mr. Speaker, would you mind curtailing the babbling member?

One of the impacts that we don't talk about very much.... We talk

about the economic consequences of unemployment and the economic

consequences of the acts of this government, but we don't talk about

some of the other things that happen. When people feel threatened, when

they feel insecure, when unemployment rates are high, when education is

and when human rights are downplayed, racism and intolerance grow by

leaps and bounds. We're seeing evidence of that all over this province

now, Mr. Speaker — the kind of racist comments that are being made, the

kind of racist intolerance that's being shown. We see it and hear it

everywhere. We see it in schools, we see it in sawmills, we see it

throughout our society. That too is a condemnation of the economic

policies of the government.

I've talked about some of the numbers. I've tried to portray the

immensity of the tragedy. What has the government's response been over

the years and through this particular budget? For years now we've had

the megaproject strategy — whether it's the Revelstoke Dam, northeast

coal, rapid transit, Expo or B.C. Place, all of which have been

capital-intensive, all of which, no doubt, have produced some jobs.

They're not labour-intensive programs but all capital-intensive

programs. Billions, literally billions, of dollars are spent and

unemployment levels are continuing to grow. It's officially at 16

percent but more likely in the 25 percent to 30 percent range.

The private sector is to be responsible, says the government, for

job creation. To achieve this goal, the minister announces in this

budget millions of dollars in tax concessions. Not a single concession

granted is tied to a guarantee of jobs. The members over there want us

to be positive and to applaud what they do. The government only has to

say certain tax concessions will be granted in exchange for a certain

number of jobs, and that applause will be forthcoming. We would be

delighted to applaud those kinds of moves.

But instead we have $1 billion worth of tax concessions over three

years and not a single job guarantee out of it. A hope and nothing

more, Mr. Speaker. There are no guarantees whatsoever. There are no

guarantees that that money, apart from being used to pay for debt that

many of these companies and corporations have encouraged, won't be used

for further acquisitions so that companies can continue to gobble each

other up. If the government wants us to applaud, then they should give

us something worth applauding. Tie those concessions to job guarantees.

Tax incentives, Mr. Speaker, by themselves, according to a 1980

Canadian Tax Foundation study, are neither efficient nor effective in

achieving most of the objectives for which they are supposedly

introduced. That statement was made some years ago. The government does

not seem to have understood that. That's not some left-wing

organization. That's the Canadian Tax Foundation.

Mr. Speaker, we hear from the other side the blame that social

spending is the cause of the rising deficits, yet our social spending

has gone down when you compare it to inflation, which you need to do.

The cause of the deficits has been because the government hasn't

followed a full employment strategy. That's what has caused the

deficits, tied in, of course, with the fact that billions of dollars

are going into capital-intensive megaprojects.

[ Page 5340 ]

Mr. Speaker, a joint economic committee of the U.S. Congress reported that

post-secondary institutions and the availability of skilled workers are among

the most significant factors attracting investment. Quality education and skilled

workers: the most significant factors attracting investments. Where is the understanding

on the part of the government of that particular fact?

The level of funding to colleges and to universities has been

reduced and the Minister of Universities suggested we can get our

skilled workers from outside this province. They do not understand

basic economics in their own system, in their own so-called private

enterprise system. Even members of the U.S. Congress can understand

that.

Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Finance the other day justified

underspending in education by stating that the aging population

requires more for health care, and he seemed to imply by that that what

we were doing was reducing education and increasing health care. Yet

both are reduced, when again you compare it to inflation. Both of those

expenditures are reduced. In fact, where additional money is going, 24

percent in this case, is to social assistance payments, because of the

failure of the government to pursue a full employment strategy.

Mr. Speaker, the Conference Board of Canada reports that in spite of

dramatic increases in 1983 B.C. exports — this is back in 1983, and

that trend continued in 1984 — the poor economic performance in B.C.

was due to Socred restraint policies which reduced demand, created

enormous uncertainty and discouraged consumer spending and discouraged

private investment. Yet in spite of this from the Conference Board of

Canada — yet another agency which I cite that has no left-wing leanings

or connections — the government persists in its policies which have

demonstrably proven a failure in the last number of years.

Why don't we look elsewhere to see what other people have done?

Other members of this House have cited other jurisdictions. I wanted to

cite two that haven't received very much attention in these

comparisons. The economy and the government that I think deals with

this whole question best in the world is Austria. We don't hear very

much about it.

[11:15]

When the Austrian unemployment level reached 3 percent, Mr. Speaker,

the government declared it had an emergency on its hands and needed to

develop employment strategy, and they did. They launched an extensive

job-creation program when the level reached 3 percent — not 16 percent,

or, more likely, the 25 percent or 30 percent that it is in B.C. Their

approach involved a number of initiatives, some of which in isolation

have been picked up on by the government, but not as part of a package.

In Austria, their approach was to offer public support for research and

development; expenditures for road construction, which we see here in

some ways; support for the tourist industry; and money into housing, an

area that's been totally neglected by this government. They offered

interest rate subsidies for small businesses and income tax deductions

for capital investment in industry. Regions with higher unemployment in

Austria were given special consideration for construction projects. Is

that the route taken here in British Columbia, when you look at the

unemployment rates in some parts of this province, and no government

activity whatsoever? In Austria they decided that they needed to take

that kind of regional approach. Available funds for export promotion

were increased. Full employment was the core of the government policy.

They decided, when unemployment reached 3 percent, that they had an

emergency. We in this province, with up to a third of our potential

workforce not working, have yet to recognize that we have more than an

emergency; we have a catastrophe upon us.

The opposition members, in this debate and during the throne speech,

have offered a number of suggestions that should be undertaken by the

government and would be undertaken by an NDP government. The list is by

no means exhaustive or exclusive. We will continue with those

suggestions during the course of debate on the amendment, which we will

come to when I move it at the end of my comments. We will continue to

suggest these various ideas and programs throughout the course of this

legislative session. I want to just mention a few of them as I wind

toward a conclusion of these comments.

We need some real tax reforms that deal with personal income. We

need tax reforms that would redirect existing funds to those with

greatest need. Income tax credits for low and moderate-income earners

would allow them needed cash. These earners spend most of their incomes

in small businesses, and it is in small businesses that new jobs can be

created.

As I said before, tax concessions must be tied to guarantees of job

creation. A cooperative approach to economic reconstruction will help

to create that kind of stable investment climate. Cooperation and

partnership does not mean developing a program and then announcing it

in a neighbouring theatre. That's not how you develop partnership.

Partnership is when two people sit down together and jointly work out a

proposal or program, not when one of the partners does it and then

thrusts it on the other. That's not partnership at all, Mr. Speaker;

that's continuation of confrontation.

The same thing applies to the labour market. In Sweden, labour and

management can get together under the government's auspices and work

out proposals to use money that might otherwise have gone into profits

or into wage increases and jointly allocate that money to job creation,

when their unemployment rate reaches 4 or 5 or 6 percent, which they

consider to be a crisis. Can you see that happening in B.C. under this

government? It wouldn't, because this government would develop the

proposal, announce it and then expect everybody to participate. It just

doesn't work that way, Mr. Speaker.

What incentive has there been for employee cooperatives when they've

been suggested in varying parts of this province and in various

industries? There has been no assistance that I can see from the

government.

There is some mention in their budget of support for aquaculture and

mariculture. If that support is as extensive and as developed as it

needs to be, then I welcome that. We've been arguing for that for years

on this side of the House, and finally we see some mention of it in the

budget. I'm delighted about that. That should be a major industry on

this coast.

Research and development go hand in hand with universities that are

world-class. We're in danger of not having any world-class universities

in this province.

Importantly, reallocation of funds to forestry must be among the

highest of the government's economic programs. Money into a road is

fine, but it doesn't produce as many jobs now, nor does it produce as

many jobs forever, as similar dollars in forestry. If we spent the $300

million that we should

[ Page

5341 ]

spend every year on silviculture, we'd be creating 2.5 million

person-hours of work right now — just for $300 million worth of

investment, not expenditure. The member for North Vancouver-Seymour

(Mr. Davis) made this point very well yesterday, and it's a point I

agree with: some things are operating and some things are capital. When

you invest in the forests, that's a capital expenditure and should be

viewed that way, because it's an investment and the value of the

resource is enhanced. A byproduct of that could be the development,

immediately, of literally millions of hours of work. The work needs to

be done, we know it needs to be done, and the workers are there to do

it. The will from the government is absent.

The reforestation program that the mayors on Vancouver Island have

been involved in is another good idea, one that deserves all of our

support. But it's only part of the answer. Silviculture is not

something we need to finance out of jiggery-pokery, in the sense of

finding money here, there and everywhere else from various government

fundings. We need to say that every year we need x number of dollars,

in this case about $300 million, so let's allocate it as an investment

for our forests.

We need to deal with the question of training programs, particularly

for women who are entering or re-entering the workforce so that they

can fully participate in the labour force. In that process we need to

adopt the concept of equal pay for work of equal value, for all

government-funded jobs. More training seats for women in vocational,

technical and upgrading programs must be pursued. The women's economic

rights branch should be restarted and made into a more vital part of

government. Introduction of a provincial pension plan would be a very

useful program to get people involved in our economy, and particularly

would help women.

Mr. Speaker, finally in this list of ideas may I say that if we had

healthy workplaces we would have better productivity in this province.

But with the state of workplace health and safety in this province,

with the state of the Workers' Compensation Board, clearly what's

needed is a full public inquiry, if not a royal commission, into the

whole question of workplace occupational health and safety.

My time is virtually up. Seconded by the member for Skeena, I would

like to move the following amendment: that the motion that Mr. Speaker

do now leave the Chair for the House to go into Committee of Supply be

amended by adding the following words: "But this House regrets that in

the opinion of this House the hon. Minister of Finance has failed to

make provisions to reduce unemployment or to create new long-term

employment within the province, to address the crises in education and

human services, and to control increasing government deficits and the

cost of the public debt."

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The motion is in order, as printed in Orders of the Day .

On the amendment.

MR. HOWARD: I listened attentively to the Minister of Lands, Parks and

Housing, and made some notes on a scratch pad in front of me. I was going to

reply to his speech, but after he engaged in that type of confrontational abusive

attack, improperly factualized — in other words, not fully in accordance with

the truth, in terms of his accusations — and after the comment from my colleague

who preceded me, just one simple sentence that caused the Minister of Lands,

Parks and Housing to.... I don't know what he did — blew up, got up

in a huff, slammed his desk, picked up his books and stalked out of the chamber.

I thought that if that's the case, he's going to have to live with himself

the rest of his life. Therefore the notes I had made to reply to him I thought

would be wasted; obviously he's not interested in counter comment or debate,

but just in accusation and stalking out.

The amendment, while it has just been read by the mover, probably

needs to be reiterated, and I wouldn't mind doing that. We're asking

the House to express regret, sorrow, sadness at the fact that the

Minister of Finance has failed to make provisions to reduce

unemployment, or to create new long-term employment within the province,

to address the crises in education and human services and to control

increasing government deficits and the cost of the public debt.

Mr. Speaker, we have in this province, and have had for quite a few years now,

a desperate, burning need for government to come along with a long-range concept;

in other words, a concept for the future, something that our younger people

could look to with hope and anticipation, and say: "Yes, our government

recognizes our need. There is hope for us into the future."

We've had for some years a desperate and crying need for government

to engage in the management of the economy: the creation of jobs, a

program and some ideas and some policies that this generation and our

younger generations can look to with hope. We've had a desperate need

for a government to make a commitment to sound fiscal policies which

help, not fiscal policies which penalize.

In recent years, because of the accumulation of direct debt, the

burden is directly on the taxpayers of this province. This province and

the people in it have hoped for some plan for that debt reduction, for

the management of the debt. Not one of those four items that I

enumerated — a long-range concept, management of the economy, helpful

fiscal policies and a plan for debt reduction — is addressed in the

budget. In fact — and I'm not the only one who says this — they are

ignored completely, as if having no place in the political affairs of

this province; and that's why the amendment.

[11:30]

Instead of a long-range concept, we've got a government bent on

pursuing a short-term, short-range political fix to the economy. We've

got a government that's like a heroin addict: when the quick-fix wears

off, they've got to have another shot. That's what this budget does,

and that's what previous budgets have done: short-range, immediate —

"Let's get a hype on this particular theme that we're following at any

given moment, and that will solve matters." That's what they did with

restraint, and that's what the member for Surrey (Mrs. Johnston), who

is sitting across from me, in coming out of her own caucus last winter

said: "Oh, the public is fed up with the word 'restraint.' We've got to

hide from that word; it's a bad word." Yet restraint was the quick fix

of the moment, and it failed.

This budget has another heroin injection in it. We've got a desire

for management of the economy, to do something in the long-range point

of view. In this budget — and this is why the amendment is before us —

we have an abandonment of that. Turn over things completely to those in

our society whose sole rationale for existence is to have a

clean-looking balance sheet.

The government likes to say it's the function of the capitalist

system to provide jobs. That is not true. It's the function of the

capitalist system to develop a profitable balance

[ Page 5342 ]

sheet; that's what it is. If in the process of doing that jobs are

provided and created, one is ancillary to the other. When the

government abandons its responsibility to the totality of society and

turns over that question of security for our people in this province to

a group who have another goal in their eyes, then that's abandonment.

[Mr. Ree in the chair.]

The fiscal policy in this province, under this budget, didn't work

last year; it didn't work the year before; it didn't work the year

before that, and now we've got more of the same. How about a plan to

manage the debt even — the direct debt? There is nothing in the budget

about that, except more debt on the way. Mr. Speaker, I said earlier

that I'm not the only one who says that. Let me read a brief quotation

into the record from Thorne Riddell, chartered accountants, a review of

the provincial budget — a group, incidentally, which endorses the

budget generally because it said it helps business. But here's what

Thorne Riddell Inc. said on page 4 with respect to the debt: "Notably

absent from this budget is a plan to deal with the mounting provincial

deficit." They're not my words but the words of respected, reputable

Thorne Riddell Inc. That is incorporated in the amendment, so I assume

if members opposite vote against the amendment, they will basically be

voting against Thorne Riddell as well. The words are: "Notably absent

is a plan to deal with...deficit."

I want to deal specifically with forestry under the amendment, and

the need for employment. Forestry, logging, sawmilling, pulp and paper

mills, plywood, shingle mills and the whole range of activity in the

forest industry in this province is the single most important aspect of

our economy above all others. This government treats it like it is a

fading industry, a sunset industry, in the common phraseology of today.

They treat it like it's going to dwindle away and disappear.

Forestry is important economically, Mr. Speaker, because it accounts

for 60 percent of the income to the province from exports. If we could

export more finished products, if we just bend our eyes in that

direction and do something to enhance the manufacturing of wood

products further in this province, that 60 percent would increase. But

60 percent of our income and exports is forestry.

Some 42 percent of the manufacturing in the province comes from

forestry, and forestry will remain vital and important to us in this

province for generations and decades to come — forever if we do it

properly. It's a renewable resource, and it requires commitment on the

part of government on behalf of all of the people of this province, and

it requires financing. Silvicultural activities are the key to

providing that immediate and long-term employment.

Do you know how much is in this budget, Mr. Speaker, as a percentage

of the total budget for silviculture? One-half of 1 percent of $9

billion is anticipated to be ploughed back into the future of forestry.

Here's a government that spends twice that amount on keeping people in

jails. They'd sooner spend money on televisions and tenderloin steaks

for people in jails than on planting trees for the future. That's an

example of the orientation of this government. There's something wrong

with a government that has that kind of priorities. There's something

wrong with a government that doesn't give a damn about the future of

this province and the people in it, but concentrates its activities on

things like those I just mentioned.

We're currently planting about half the area harvested — half the

area logged over or denuded by fire or insect infestation. We're

continuing every day to lose half the potential of the forests for the

future. When you project that just a few years into the future, Mr.

Speaker, the job possibilities don't look too bright, unfortunately.

I'm not glooming and dooming anything; I'm just identifying the

barrenness of imagination on the part of this government. We've got

more than a million hectares of denuded forest land classified as NSR —

not satisfactorily restocked — 650,000 of which are in good to medium

sites, which is where we should be concentrating our site

rehabilitation, preparation and planting. Seventy-five hundred jobs

could start immediately, with somewhere between 10,000 and 15,000 in

the longer term from activity in silviculture. And we've got one-half

of 1 percent.

We also got a budget this year that has an 8 percent increase over

last year in total expenditures by this government, and a reduction in

silvicultural money of 8 percent. The budget goes up by 8 percent,

silviculture goes down by 8 percent. Is that a commitment to the

future? It's a commitment to stupidity, a commitment to arrogance, a

commitment to the confrontational tactics for which this government is

noted. Four million dollars was taken out of silviculture that was

there last year. I don't know where it went, but $4 million is removed

from silviculture. What a condemnation, just in those figures

themselves.

Let me point out to you, Mr. Speaker, that I'm not the only person

who condemns that. The Minister of Forests (Hon. Mr. Waterland) does

himself, except he hasn't got the courage to stand up in the House and

admit the failure that has taken place. Let me make a reference to this

flashy-looking document called: "Five-Year Forest and Range Resource

Program; Province of British Columbia; Ministry of Forests; the

Honourable Tom Waterland, Minister; March, 1980." Let me tell you what

the minister said we were going to do in this province — that was in

1980 — when it came out. I'm quoting from his own document, his own

words. This is basic silviculture, just the fundamental activity that

needs to take place: "To achieve the required level of basic

silviculture by 1985, expenditures must" — an imperative — "increase to

$60.8 million per year." This is at a time when they were not

anticipating a federal-provincial agreement. This is straight

provincial money on basic silviculture.

Here we are in 1985. We have a $4 million reduction in silviculture

over last year. What did the minister say about intensive silviculture?

That's a little bit further down the road from the basic. That's what

really is necessary to make sure the trees grow after you plant them.

"Average annual expenditures over-the five-year period will be" — this

is from 1980 to 1985 — "$30.95 million, with significant increases in

1983-84 and beyond."

I have some more figures that the minister laid before the House at

that time. In his projections, in 1980 dollars, the minister said: "We

must" — basic and intensive silviculture — "in 1980-81 plough $75

million back into the forests; in 1981-82, $78 million; in 1982-83, $83

million; in 1983-84, $90 million; and in this year that's just about to

conclude, 1984-85, $102 million."

Instead of following that great five-year range and resource plan —

which, incidentally, this House endorsed unanimously, and which this

government was applauded for

[ Page

5343 ]

and which everyone that I know of, and certainly everyone in this party, looked

at with appreciation and said: "Finally we're embarking upon something

other than just dealing with matters on a fiscal-year basis...." Those

are the projections of the minister. That was his commitment to this House and

to the people of this province. With the curtailment of $4 million, which was

yanked out of silviculture, and with a reduction by some 8 percentage points

to $53 million for silviculture in this budget, even in the face of and including

therein moneys under the federal-provincial forestry agreement, we have nothing

more than an admission of abject failure on the part of the minister.

We've got an anticipated forestry agreement somewhere that has been

delayed and delayed ad infinitum and not yet signed. Why we don't know.

We only know the minister hasn't been able to get it signed by his good

friends in Ottawa, the Conservatives. Every moment's delay in the

signing of that agreement is a delay in the opportunity to plan for

this coming fiscal year. Maybe that's why the minister finally admitted

yesterday in this chamber that in this coming fiscal year all that will

be allocated for silviculture is $22 million out of the

federal-provincial agreement. There will be $44 million next year and

$68 million in each of the three following years. That sounds like his

five-year projection that I just referred to. It escalates into the

future.

[11:45]

It wasn't realized before. What guarantee, if any, is there that it

will be realized now? It's speculation to deal with that point. But if

you add those figures up, it comes to $270 million over a five-year

period. Yet the agreement is touted to be for $300 million. What

happened to the other $30 million? Is that to be diverted for some

other purposes? Is that in the back of the government's mind — to say:

"You know, we're going to use that for something else"? We don't know,

but even the $22 million — not by my standards, but by the standards

set by the mayors on Vancouver Island — is inadequate. The mayors on

Vancouver Island have had a number of meetings about silviculture, and

they say that just for Vancouver Island alone, they could use $23

million this year — never mind the rest of the province. And the

minister is talking about $22 million, compared with the $102 million

he projected in 1980, which is an admission of failure.

Mr. Speaker, I have advanced the idea that we identify a ten-year

period. That's in concert with people who are engaged in the practice

of forestry and are saying that we necessarily have to commit ourselves

that long into the future to do something worthwhile with forestry;

that we should identify a precise amount of money to be slotted into

that fund each year; that we should take 25 percent of the income that

accrues to the province under the Forest Act and the Logging Tax Act,

and plough that back into forestry; that we should put into the fund

the moneys that would accrue and come to the province under the

federal-provincial agreement; that we should sanctify that, set it

aside and let a trust company administer it so the government can't get

its hands on it. Our future is too important to have a repetition of

the history in this province of cheating by the government when it

comes to forestry matters.

You know, Mr. Speaker, and others in this chamber know full well,

the applause that was given to the government in 1980 when it set up

the five-year range and resource fund, when it set aside moneys and

said: "We are committed to the future." I think it was $136 million

they set aside and identified to be set aside in that fund for

silvicultural purposes. That was applauded throughout the province,

throughout the industry and throughout the Association of B.C.

Professional Foresters, who are committed in an intellectual way and in

a professional way to caring for our forests for the future. Everybody

said "good," and then two years later when the Minister of Finance

reached in and grabbed what was left of that fund — I think it was $83

million or something of that nature — out of the hands of the Minister

of Forests and stuck it into general revenue, for what purpose we don't

really know.... Maybe it was to build new jails, or maybe they

anticipated relocating Oakalla or something of that sort, with that

money; we don't really know. But they grabbed it and they took it.

Did Forests fight back? Did the Minister of Forests (Hon. Mr.

Waterland) stand up to retain that money for the future? No, he did

not. He failed miserably in his responsibilities, in his oath of

office. He failed miserably in the duties assigned to him under the

Ministry of Forests Act to fight to keep that money. Instead he sat in

cabinet, genteel and laid-back, and supinely accepted the theft of

money set aside for forestry theft by the Minister of Finance, in an

indirect way.

HON. MR. GARDOM: Point of order — unparliamentary language,

MR. HOWARD: Theft was not the word to use, Mr. Speaker. I have no hesitation in agreeing to that.

The fact of the matter is that the Minister of Finance reached in

and grabbed the money, and the fact of the matter is that the Minister

of Forests sat back and smiled and accepted it. Any Minister of Forests

committed to the future — other than this current one — would have done

something about that, I submit.

That activity, that failure to stand up and fight for what is right

and correct and what is a commitment to the future, set this province

back ten years, as far as preserving some integrity in the forest

industry itself and as far as silviculture and a projection into the

future are concerned. That action in itself denied us, for the time

being, a chance to do something correct. We're reviving that, and have

revived it publicly by statements and by making mention in this chamber

of the need to establish an identifiable amount of money for an

identifiable period of time out of reach of the government, out of

reach of the Minister of Finance, set aside exclusively and committed

for forestry and for the future.

Let me make one other reference to forestry. We have an agreement

called ERDA, loosely referred to from time to time by that acronym: the

economic and regional development agreement. This agreement was signed,

Mr. Speaker, by this government and the federal government on November

23, 1984. In that agreement there is the most regrettable clause. I

asked the Minister of Forests about it the other day in question

period, and he said: "Oh, I doubt that there is anything like that in

the agreement." I assured him that there was.

ERDA is for ten years, theoretically. Any forestry subsidiary

agreement could be for the same period of time, with the appropriate

extended amount of money over that period of time. Let me tell you what

the ERDA agreement says, what this government signed, to show you once

again the very short-range approach it has to matters in this province

and to the future of this province.

[Mr. Strachan in the chair.]

[ Page 5344 ]

Article 9.1 says: "The term of this agreement shall be...until

March 31, 1994" — about ten years from the date of signing.

Article 9.2

says that notwithstanding that, "this agreement may be terminated at

the end of any fiscal year that occurs after the expiration of two

years from the date hereof by either party giving to the other at least

one full fiscal year's prior notice in writing...."

Now we have a ten-year agreement with the right of the provincial

government to wipe it out after three years and the right of the

federal government unilaterally to wipe it out after a ten-year period.

I can understand incorporating in an agreement of this nature something

about cancellation by mutual consent, yes. I can understand the use of

the phrase that's internationally known in contractual relationships

between countries — force majeure — as a necessity upon which they can

found cancellation. But to incorporate into an agreement relating to

our future the unilateral right of either level of government to wipe

it out after three years is simply not acceptable.

Mr. Speaker, the amendment clearly should be supported by everybody in this

House, especially the portion of it that Thorne Riddell endorses, namely that

there is nothing in the budget...or that notably absent from this budget

is a plan to deal with the mounting provincial deficit. The amendment should

be supported on the grounds that while there is an 8 percent increase in total

budgetary expenditures this year over last, there is a reduction of 8 percent

or $4 million from the silvicultural moneys available. There is a denial in

the silvicultural question of our need to do something worthwhile and fundamental

for the future.

That's the rationale for the amendment itself. It's not so much what

we say or do here but how strong is our commitment to the younger

people of this land, to those who are unemployed and to future

generations. On that basis and with that principle — obviously, Mr.

Speaker, because I've seconded the amendment — I'm going to vote for

it, and I hope members opposite will see the necessity of doing the

same thing. I simply ask you, if it's possible, to look into your

hearts. Vote on the basis of what your heart tells you, and you'll

support us on this amendment.

Hon. Mr. Gardom moved adjournment of the debate on behalf of Hon. Mr. Heinrich.

Motion approved.

Hon. Mr. Gardom moved adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

The House adjourned at 11:56 a.m.

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