1983 Legislative Session: 1st 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 )

FRIDAY, JULY 22, 1983

Morning Sitting

[ Page

451 ]

CONTENTS

Routine Proceedings

Public Sector Restraint Act (Bill 3). Second reading.

On the amendment.

Ms. Sanford –– 451

Mr. Rose –– 453

Mr. Stupich –– 458

Mr. Barrett –– 463

FRIDAY, JULY 22, 1983

The House met at 10:04 a.m.

Prayers.

MR. BLENCOE: I'd like to rise under

section 35 of the

Standing Orders and ask leave to move adjournment of the House for the

purpose of discussing a definite matter of urgent public importance:

funding cuts for Silver Threads centres in Victoria and for 22 others

in the province of British Columbia which were announced today by the

minister. That announcement has sent an incredible shock wave through

this community particularly. The Silver Threads centres here have

served this region and this city for many years and their importance to

the retired community is incredible.

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. member, we're not on a point of debate.

We're at the point of introducing a matter of urgent and pressing

nature which must be stated briefly.

MR. BLENCOE: I'm trying to be as brief as possible, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: You're not succeeding, hon. member. We can't use this forum as a method of introducing matters of debate.

MR. BLENCOE: I will try then to give very quickly the sense

of the emergency to this House. It indeed is a matter of grave

importance to those thousands of senior citizens, and I would urge the

House to consider this motion under

section 35 for emergency debate.

It's the minimum we can do for the thousands of senior citizens in this

community and others. Do you wish me to read the motion, Mr. Speaker?

MR. SPEAKER: No, hon. member; just forward the statement.

I'll take a look at it and get an answer back to the House at the

earliest opportunity.

Orders of the Day

HON. MR. GARDOM: Adjourned debate on second reading of Bill 3.

PUBLIC SECTOR RESTRAINT ACT

(continued)

MS. SANFORD: Last night, just before I adjourned the debate

on this particular motion to hoist this bill for a period of six

months, I was posing questions to the government about where they are

going to get the money to pay for the problems they are going to create

as a result of their actions in relation to the serious problems of

people who are facing firing and unemployment as a result of Bill 3. We

know that many difficulties are presented to people who must face

unemployment. There are increased levels of stress, of heart disease,

of all the stress-related diseases, including mental health problems;

increases in juvenile delinquency, wife battering, child abuse,

alcoholism — all of those things. Where is the government going to get

the money to pay the costs involved in the treatment of those people

who, as a result of this bill, will be adversely affected in that way?

[Mr. Strachan in the chair.]

I also want to know where the government is going to get the money

to pay for the increased court costs that are going to result from the

cutbacks in services of various kinds as a result of the firings that

are going to take place. When the rentalsman's office is removed, the

only alternative that people will have if there is a dispute, whether

they are landlords or tenants, is to go to the courts. The courts are

going to be so jammed as a result of that move alone that the costs to

the taxpayer are going to be horrendous. Where is the government going

to get the money to ensure that those court services are available to

people who no longer will have the rentalsman to turn to?

Where is the government going to get the money to pay for the

complaints that are going to come about through the whole area of

consumerism? The consumer services of this province are going to be

eliminated. The only alternative that people have when they buy an old

used car that doesn't work is to go to court, because the consumer

services are not going to be available through the Consumer and

Corporate Affairs ministry. They're going to be removed. Who is going

to pay for the vandalism that takes place as a result of the actions of

juvenile delinquents who have been adversely affected because their

parents are suffering and are under the stress of layoff and firing

without cause and without any recourse as a result of this Bill 3? No

just process is open to them.

Interjection.

MS. SANFORD: The Premier wants to know what I suggest. I

suggest that this government get some decency, that they learn how to

deal with people fairly and equitably, and that they remove this kind

of anti-democratic legislation that they have brought before this

legislature. It's a disgrace. That's what I suggest, Mr. Premier.

[10:15]

What I'm saying is that the taxpayers are going to be paying very

heavily for the decisions that are being made by this government. I

spent my time yesterday pointing out how these increases are going to

take place.

I've just learned that the land branch is going to be closing its

doors in Courtenay. They have six permanent employees. The land branch

in Nanaimo is also going to be closing its doors, which means that the

taxpayers on Vancouver Island who need the services of the land branch

are going to have to drive all the way to Victoria and spend all of

that money in order to have any service at all, rather than being able

to go into their local office in order to obtain the services that are

now available to them. The ten permanent employees that are involved in

those land branch offices have the option of relocating in Victoria.

Where is the money going to come from on November 1 to pay the

approximately $60,000 that it's going to cost to relocate those land

branch people here in Victoria so that they can eliminate the service

in Courtenay, Nanaimo and all of Vancouver Island? Now where's the

sense in this, Mr. Speaker? It doesn't make sense from the viewpoint of

the employees, and it doesn't make sense from the viewpoint of

services, and it doesn't make economic sense either. It's absolutely

ludicrous!

The school trustees have informed us that they don't want this kind

of legislation. They don't want the right to fire without cause. They

see this as a dangerous move on the part of government, and they don't

want to be put in that position of firing without cause. They made that

very clear to us. As a matter of fact, my own school trustees'

association, School

[ Page 452 ]

District 71 in Courtenay, passed a motion just a week ago. I would like to read that into the record:

"It was regularly moved and seconded that the board

approved the following statement outlining its position with respect to

the legislation tabled July 7, 1983.

"This school board expresses its opposition to the centralization

of power and erosion of democratic decision-making processes by the provincial

government as shown in Bill 3 and Bill 6. Specifically we oppose the essence

of Bill 3. This board believes that no school board nor other public employer

needs the right to fire employees without cause; in fact, we feel that this

aspect of Bill 3 is an attack on basic rights which should be available to all

employees in a democratic society. As well, this board opposes the centralization

of power embodied in Bill 6. This bill essentially removes all decision-making

power from local school boards and deprives local taxpayers of the right to

develop a school system geared to local needs."

They don't want this kind of legislation, Mr. Speaker. They don't want

to be put in the position of having to fire without cause.

MRS. JOHNSTON: Then they should resign.

MS. SANFORD: Oh, that would make the government very happy,

Mr. Speaker. If only the school boards of the province would resign,

then you could make all the decisions right here in the ivory towers in

Victoria. Wouldn't that be nice? Wouldn't it be nice if all the

municipal governments resigned; wouldn't it be nice if all the regional

districts resigned? This is what the back-benchers are calling for, Mr.

Speaker. If the school boards oppose what this government is imposing

upon them, then resign.

MR. REID: Good idea.

MS. SANFORD: Mr. Speaker, the second member for Surrey (Mr.

Reid), as well as the first member for Surrey (Mrs. Johnston), think it

would be an excellent idea if those people who disagree with the

policies of this government and the autocratic anti-democratic approach

that it has taken would just resign. Mr. Speaker, maybe the government

could move them out of the province if they don't like what they're

doing. I wonder if the second member for Surrey would agree with that.

If people disagree with the policies of this government, maybe the

government could come up with some money to move them out of the

province.

MR. REID: No, we wouldn't do that.

MS. SANFORD: Oh, they wouldn't do that. Just ask them to resign and go away.

MR. REID: They're good people; they're just wasting our money.

MS. SANFORD: The school boards are wasting the money, are they?

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I'll ask the second member for Surrey to come to order and the member for Comox to address the Chair.

MR. MITCHELL: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, I would like

to reinforce what you said to the member for Surrey: if he wants to

speak, he should get up and make a speech, instead of sitting back

there heckling.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I think that's been clearly stated. Will the House please come to order.

MS. SANFORD: Mr. Speaker, that particular point of order

raised by my colleague was applauded vigorously by the Minister of

Education (Hon. Mr. Heinrich). I don't know if he's embarrassed by what

the second member for Surrey is saying.

MR. COCKE: No!

MS. SANFORD: Oh! Does the minister agree that the school boards of this province are irresponsible and are wasting money?

HON. MR. HEINRICH: Never!

MS. SANFORD: Oh, he doesn't agree. We have a fight on the

floor of the House this morning, Mr. Speaker. The second member for

Surrey says they are wasting money…

MR. REID: I stand by that.

MS. SANFORD: …and he stands by that.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: If we can avoid addressing one another and

address the Chair, and also address Bill 3, then we can carry on. Three

minutes, hon. member.

MS. SANFORD: Mr. Speaker, I wonder if those two members could

have their fight in caucus. It's interesting to find the government

benches fighting with each other over what the school boards of this

province are undertaking. It seems pretty clear that there's a

disagreement here. Of course I know that the second member for Surrey

was suggesting the other day that we also do away with the Labour

Relations Board.

MR. REID: Hear, hear! I'll second that.

MS. SANFORD: You see, if you do away with the Labour

Relations Board.... There's the former Minister of Labour. I don't know

whether or not he would agree with that; maybe he does. But then we

could have more people traipsing into the courts, costing the taxpayers

more money by providing a court system for that kind of thing. He wants

to eliminate the land commission, the rentalsman, human rights....

MR. REID: Who ends up paying for it?

MS. SANFORD: Mr. Speaker, he's unreal. But unfortunately he

is representative of the attitude that is embodied in these pieces of

legislation. That's why we are here asking for the government to come

to its senses to agree with our motion to hoist this bill for six

months. In order to give them a few minutes to consider their position

on this, I would like to move adjournment of this debate until the next

sitting of the House.

[ Page 453 ]

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

Motion negatived on the following division:

YEAS –– 18

Macdonald

Howard

Cocke

Dailly

Stupich

Lea

Lauk

Nicolson

Sanford

Gabelmann

Brown

Hanson

Barnes

Wallace

Mitchell

Passarell

Rose

Blencoe

NAYS — 29

Waterland

Brummet

Rogers

Heinrich

Hewitt

Ritchie

Michael

Pelton

Johnston

R. Fraser

Campbell

Strachan

Chabot

McCarthy

Nielsen

Gardom

Smith

Bennett

Curtis

Phillips

McGeer

A. Fraser

Davis

Mowat

Veitch

Ree

Parks

Reid

Reynolds

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

[10:30]

MR. ROSE: I've always noticed that when I get up to speak

most of the audience leaves. I'm not shocked by this because it's been

happening to me for years. I notice the Minister of Universities,

Science and Communications (Hon. Mr. McGeer) is about to leave. The

last time I saw him he was in orbit caught by his own wind. He's

getting out, though, by his feet. I understand he's a brilliant man and

knows all about nerves. I know he makes me nervous.

HON. MR. BRUMMET: Did you say nerves or nerds?

MR. ROSE: No, I said he makes me nervous. I would never call

him a nerd because it would be unparliamentary, and I don't believe in

using unparliamentary language even when provoked.

AN HON. MEMBER: It wouldn't be fair to the nerds.

MR. ROSE: My colleague suggests that I might be insulting the

nerds. I guess the people in the gallery — some people refer to it as

the peanut gallery — really wonder why we're doing this, and why only

people on this side of the House are getting up to speak. Oh, we had a

couple of isolated examples to the contrary last week, but by and large

it's people over here who are carrying the debate. A little exercise in

democracy.

I see I've driven a couple more of them out, but that's quite all

right because I don't really think it's possible for me to get through

to them anyway. As long as they go in their offices and turn down their

speakers they'll never hear me, so it won't make any difference.

What the public should know and what we're attempting to tell the

public is that we oppose Bill 3. But not just Bill 3; we oppose the

whole package. We think Bill 3 is simply a symbol of a whole package of

directions which will centralize all of the decision-making in Victoria

and get rid of all other levels of government. That's why we oppose it

as anti-democratic. It seems to me it's a progressive move; Bill 3 and

the package of 26 or so bills that follow it move us directly into the

nineteenth century and wipe out all the gains we've fought for for over

a generation. We oppose it because we have a basic ideological and

economic disagreement about how our country is supposed to proceed.

That's fair enough. The party on the opposite side has the power, the

members, the numbers, and it won the election; whether or not people

expected them to go as far as they did is another question.

We're not going to take the blame over here for creating the fear.

Yesterday the Minister of Human Resources (Hon. Mrs. McCarthy) said it

was the media or my friend from Vancouver Centre who was creating the

fear in the minds of public servants. We reject that. That is another

example of the big lie. I'm quite sure he had nothing to do with this

headline in the Vancouver Sun : "Restraint to cut $50 aid to

2,500 unemployable" — those who work in drop-in centres and other

things. Did the first member for Vancouver Centre create that fear? Of

course he didn't.

In the same paper, the Conference Board of Canada has come out with

a tremendously optimistic view of how we're going to recover. They'll

say it's fragile; that's an Allan Gregg term that pops up in all the

speeches written for the ministers. Anyway, the Sun

says: "Consumer optimism fails to sweep through streets." The

Conference Board is optimistic, but the people aren't. Why aren't the

people optimistic? Are you going to blame my friend from Vancouver

Centre for that lack of optimism? It's not his fault.

I thought it would be nice if you heard some quotes about some

people's lack of confidence. These are from people interviewed on the

streets, which the Vancouver Sun printed on July 21, 1983:

"Many people said they have been disillusioned by the Social Credit

budget." They don't have any optimism because they don't know who's

going to be picked off next. "'I'm just lucky I still have my job,'

Patrick Lee, 33, said, 'and this budget certainly hasn't done much for

my faith in the economy. I think I'll keep my money.'" Thousands of

people are going to do that across British Columbia. They're going to

keep their money. One of our basic arguments against the budget is that

it's going to create a climate of fear, to the extent that people are

not going to go out and shop, buy homes.... Oh, they might buy a

trailer. They won't be able to get out....

MR. MOWAT: Read the next paragraph.

MR. ROSE: I'll read the next paragraph if you like. But

that's the point of it. If you're a public servant, and you can be

fired without just cause, you're going to keep your money, like this

man — I believe his name is Patrick Lee. "The Conference Board, a

non-profit, independent institute, predicted renewed confidence will be

reflected in a healthy boost in consumer spending and a decline in the

level of…savings. Andy Scharffetter said he thinks the institute's

survey 'is an absolute crock, especially for B.C.'" He's just one

person; we all have our favourites. Some people like the musings of

that great guru of the Fraser Institute, Michael Walker, because he

agrees with what they think, which is a nineteenth-century kind of

economic picture. The new right, it's called. Neo-retreatism under

restraint.

[ Page 454 ]

MR. BARRETT: Charity tax deductions.

MR. ROSE: Yes, tax deductions for charities.

Here is another one: "A lot more people are back at work and there's

more orders coming in." He's talking about the forest industry. I and a

number of my colleagues were hosted by some members of the Council of

Forest Industries last Tuesday night. They didn't say there were a lot

of people going back to work. Interior lumber is doing fine — it's a

lot better and they have some orders — but the pulp market is extremely

soft and there aren't that many people returning to work. In fact, if

you want some fear, many of those people will never return to work,

because there will not be the kind of jobs left in the industry that

there were and have been traditionally. And besides, that's the

government over there that has cut the silviculture. What is more,

we're going to pass the social costs off to future generations. Who is

going to be doing the reforestation?

Well, they go on here, but I think I've made the point. One person

said: "A lot of my friends are out of work now. They (the Conference

Board) would hear something different from them. I'm thinking seriously

about packing it up and leaving the country." That's what Mr. Hartman

said. There's your optimism, the kind of reaction by on-the-street

people to a reporter. The reporter may be biased....

[Mr. Strachan in the chair.]

Interjection.

MR. ROSE: No, as a matter of fact, one of the reasons we have

the vacancy rates that allowed you to get rid of the rentalsman is that

people have left British Columbia in droves over the last two years.

Check your own statistics. I have my sources, you have yours.

Mr. Speaker, I'm really sorry that the members of the government

don't get up and try to defend the indefensible. We haven't heard from

them for days. Oh, well, a couple of things. We had that sleek member

for North Vancouver–Seymour (Mr. Davis) get up and say: "This bill is

not draconian or fascist, and I wish you'd stop saying that." Well, I

haven't said that.

MR. DAVIS: I didn't use either of those words.

MR. ROSE: You said that we had overstated the....

Well, that's obviously what you meant. All right, I withdraw the

quote. Does the ex-minister agree that some people have said that it

was fascist and draconian – not just in this House?

If you don't need draconian measures, such as dismissal without

cause, I would like the member to tell me why you need the powers. If

you look like a duck and you walk like a duck and you quack like a duck

in your speeches over there — I'm not speaking of you personally —

there are bound to be some people who mistake you for a duck. I've said

that I don't use those terms like fascist or draconian or Nazi. Some

people have a greater and higher sense of outrage than I. Not that I'm

not serious. I am serious.

I go by the offices of the members of the government and the cabinet

ministers, and all I hear them saying is: "No, we're not fascist or

Nazis. There's nobody in here but us chickens." You're the chickens,

all right. You haven't got the courage to use the existing legislation

under the existing contracts if you need to cut the civil service down

a little bit.

Interjection.

MR. ROSE: I'm not using the term fascist. I would be very

pleased to hear you come in on this debate and defend that. Where have

all the Socreds gone? Where are they? The second member for

Vancouver–Little Mountain.... Anyway, why do you need it?

The member for North Vancouver–Seymour made a reference to some

school inspector making $100,000. He said the salaries went up 17

percent. Well, they're certainly not going up 17 percent this year. If

you put everybody out of work you're certainly going to kill inflation

in a hurry. He's not worried about that.

Haven't certain districts, such as the one that he represents, the

right to hire the best people? If they want to hire certain people, why

shouldn't they have that right?

Interjection.

MR. ROSE: Not any more they're not. With Bill 3 everything is

going to be scheduled, from the school inspector, from the deputy

minister, right down to the vice-principal of an elementary school.

That's what's going to happen. So local autonomy is shot and they're

not going to have the same rights. I think that this party, at least,

believes in local autonomy.

I don't think anybody wants to defend somebody who is ripping off a

system, be he a university professor, a cabinet minister, a doctor, a

teacher or anybody who's not doing his job for his money. I don't think

we're trying to do that. But why didn't the member for North

Vancouver–Seymour, if he needs an example, pick on, say, a worker, a

cook or a custodian in an old people's home. There's another publicly

employed person and, I'll tell you, they're not making any $100,000 a

year. Some of them are scarcely getting by. I can tell you what the

average income is for everybody in Canada for that type of work, and

theirs is far below it. He says: "Well, we can't afford it." West Van

can't afford it? North Van can't afford it? Maybe not, but I'll tell

you one thing: those aren't the highest-cost administrated areas in the

school districts. I have a list of them, if anybody is particularly

interested in seeing them.

AN HON. MEMBER: I am.

MR. ROSE: I'll give them to you.

I'm going to read from a left-wing journal called The New Republic .

I have an

article here that quotes the analysis of President Reagan's

budget revisions for the fiscal year of 1982 — Congressional Budget

Office, 1981. Reagan went through a similar exercise a couple of years

ago where he thought that if he shifted the tax burden, all of a sudden

that economy would rebound. And he did that, He used the Michael Walker

laughable kind of technique called supply side economics. So he began

to change the income tax.

I'd just like to read to you what happened after he did that. Those

between zero and $10,000, who pay 36 percent of their income, got a 3.3

percent tax break. Those who earned $10,000 to $20,000, who pay 25

percent of the income tax in the United States, got 8.7 percent. Those

who earned $20,000 to $30,000 — and that's 18 or 20 percent, roughly —

got a 21 percent tax saving. Notice how these are going up. The $30,000

to $50,000 — 14 percent of the United States people earn this amount —

got a 31 percent tax saving. You can see that the trend is clear. It

levels off, and I'll read that

[ Page 455 ]

because I don't want to be accused of distorting

the figures: $50,000 to $100,000, share of total return 3.9 percent.

Why? Well, there are fewer of them. Even when we're distorting the

figures we have to be fair about this.

[10:45]

Interjection.

MR. ROSE: You bought that program, not me.

Those with $100,000 and over got a 17 percent share of the tax

saving. In other words, this was their payoff. I could go on and on in

that line. I could tell you what happened in New York in 1976 too, from

the same article. I'm sure you'd be fascinated by that, Mr. Member.

Interjection.

MR. ROSE: Well, it's like this. "What New Yorkers were forced

to accept, says Felix Rohatyn, was a period of austerity. That meant a

wage freeze of 20 percent, a 20 percent reduction in municipal work

force, increased transit fares and tuition at the city university, a

shift of pension costs from the city to the union and new taxes." See?

That's what they got there. I don't know that it helped them out at

all. I do know one other thing: the bankers who held the bonds

certainly profited. That's what happens when you soak the poor. I know

that, say, the member for Vancouver–Point Grey would believe — he said

it yesterday — that everybody should have an equal share in the

sacrifice. He said that, and I agree with him. But I know if he gets a

20 percent cut in his salary it's not going to mean the same thing as

that child care worker getting a 20 percent cut in hers — not a bit.

It's not the same. Was it a 10 percent cut we had here last year in the

MLAs' salaries? That would have amounted to about $4,000. Certainly

$4,000 is a sizeable amount, but it's the income of some people, as

well, and a 10 percent cut would mean you can't afford an apartment.

Where are the vacancies? Are they in the low-priced apartments? They

are not. I just spent time in my own riding looking for an apartment

for my daughter, her husband and two kids, and we couldn't find one

under $500 a month. There was no place to go.

AN HON. MEMBER: Bring her over to Surrey.

MR. ROSE: What I'm afraid of is that if they go over to Surrey they might get contaminated. You might come calling.

Interjections.

MR. ROSE: To the audience: some people listening here would think that we're not serious here. We are extremely serious here.

Mr. Speaker, Sydney Smith was a seventeenth-century essayist, and he had this

to say about that same matter: "Do not think me foolish because I am facetious,

and I'll not think you're wise because you are grave." I always

took that as a kind of a motto, because I am extremely serious about this. It

strikes at the very root of what I believe in ideologically. It's not my

religion, but it is very important to me.

The minister suggested that perhaps we should all share equally and

have an equal sacrifice. As a cabinet minister he's got about $80,000

coming in, and I'm not sure that his sacrifice, if it's done on a

percentage basis, will be equal to that of that child-care worker who

works in my riding. I don't think he could defend it. He also went on

to say: "Look, we don't have any special interests in the Social Credit

Party." I don't know. He blamed us, saying that the unions have us in

their pocket. I've been in this party for a long time, and I have never

once been told to do anything by a union. If they choose to support us.

fine. I'm quite sure that there are some special interests in the

Social Credit Party from time to time.

Interjections.

MR. ROSE: You're going into orbit there; you've got to watch

that, You're not getting any younger, and hypertension is bad for you.

You'll get high blood pressure. Yes, we'd like to hear you speak. but

it won't do you any good. You're another human. Even though I disagree

with you, I wouldn't want you to have severe chest pains, so just take

it easy there and we'll all be all right.

Anyway, what about the real estate industry and the developers? I

wonder if they're not a little bit more friendly to the Social Credit

Party than they are to the NDP? I just wonder about that. I not saying

they are. I'm not going to make any charges about the Socreds using

Block Bros.' computer or anything like that; I know that we're not

using Block Bros.' computer. The multicorporations operating in B.C. —

the big forest companies and mining companies.... One of their

representatives is from my riding. He's a lobbyist over here, and he

said: "After all, Mark, you'd better took after me, because I'm one of

your constituents." I said, "Well. I'm sure that you've given me a lot

of support over the years, and so I'll certainly be looking after you."

What about the mining and the oil companies? What about the B.C.

Employers' Council? Good old Bill Hamilton has gone his way to that

great boardroom in the sky — not quite, but he's retired.

MR. REYNOLDS: He got an appointment like Leggatt did.

MR. ROSE: Is he a judge now? I think that he's a good man,

but I don't think that he necessarily favours, as the chamber of

commerce, our particular party.

Mr. Speaker, we are concerned because Bill 3 and its attendant legislation hits people....

HON. MR. WATERLAND: Bill 3 is legislation.

MR. ROSE: Mr. Minister, if you would take some of the stumps

out of your ears, you would be able to hear me. I think that would be

an excellent use of a sort of recycled bark or something like that,

which is probably worse than your bite.

Anyway, we're going to hack the Human Rights Commission, which is

probably one of the finest pieces of legislation we could have to

protect....

Interjection.

MR. ROSE: Again I would like to offer the member over there

this opportunity to seek the floor as soon as I sit down and adjourn

the debate. I want people to know why we're adjourning the debate. I

really haven't got into my speech. Mr. Speaker, I haven't really gotten

into my speech yet; I'm merely on the introduction.

AN HON. MEMBER: You have nothing to say.

[ Page 456 ]

MR. ROSE: If I have nothing to say, then I see no reason why you should respond.

The budget is going to cut $1.5 million from human rights. That's a

saving, but $500 million to business is job creation, they say. I think

that's a laudable objective if it works. For instance, if you take the

tax off machinery and give them a $10,000 exemption and it does provide

jobs, I think all political parties could accept that kind of

incentive. It didn't work for Reagan. It hasn't worked in the drilling

in the Canada Lands either. Do you know that there are 93-cent dollars

up in Canada Lands for drilling for Dome, Gulf and all these other

outfits off of Newfoundland? Do you know how many cents they pay out of

every dollar? Seven cents. Now if that results in jobs and oil finds

and all the rest of it, perhaps that would be worthwhile.

HON. MR. PHILLIPS: Did you support the national energy program?

MR. ROSE: No, sir. I did not support the national energy program, and I didn't support PIP either. Go and look up Hansard when you've nothing else to do, and you'll see that I voted against it.

MR. MOWAT: Tell us about the Crow rate.

MR. ROSE: We're going to have a resolution on the Crow rate.

I understand that the government is going to bring one forward pretty

soon, and I'm looking forward to that. I won't say whether I'll support

it or not; I hardly think I will. But I'm certainly looking forward to

the debate. I think that would be excellent. All I know is that 7

percent of the traffic on the railroads is grain.

AN HON. MEMBER: What about Bill 3?

MR. ROSE: Oh, Bill 3. Well, you know, your colleagues keep

distracting me. If it weren't for those distractions, Mr. Speaker, I

would have been right on in terms of the rules of relevance.

HON. MR. PHILLIPS: You wouldn't have anything to say at all.

MR. ROSE: I don't know whether I would have anything to say.

I wouldn't want to put a qualitative judgment on the nature of my

remarks. But you're not saying anything. All you're doing is sitting

there in the weeds barking. That's all you're doing. Get up and make a

speech. One thing I know about that member, Mr. Speaker, is that he's

very good on his feet. He's one of the best politicians in the country.

There are better politicians in the city, but he's one of the best in

the country. And that's where he should be — in the country.

Why do we need a six-month hoist? We were speaking here a little

while ago about an amendment. Now an amendment offers this government a

six-month period to cleanse itself of its wrong thinking, to get rid of

its sins. Sins against whom? Well, sins against the people, in many

ways, because what this bill does in this "without cause"

section is to

take away rights that have taken generations to build up. I know there

is a moderate anti-organization, anti-collective-bargaining sentiment

expressed on that side — not perhaps as vociferously by some members as

others, but certainly it's there. We hear it so frequently in the

catcalls.

But if you can dismiss without cause — and that's what this bill

says, "dismiss without cause" — then how can you bargain for grievance

procedures? If you're working for a company and you have a

grievance.... Some people mention sexual harassment; some people

mention minority rights. You're dismissed because you happen to be an

East Indian, or a native Indian, or a woman. If you can be dismissed

without cause, then how could you file a grievance? That is a mystery

to me, a complete mystery. How can you bargain collectively for

salaries if you're under a compensation program? And if you can be

dismissed without cause, how is it then that you're going to get people

to stick their necks out and take leadership positions? Because there

is a cloud over them all the time. That is an extremely serious one.

What about if you were working in an unsafe place? The Ministry of

Labour has all these commercials about people getting stuff in their

eyes and chopping their hands off and all that. They're kind of

gruesome and scary. I don't know how useful they are, but they have all

these commercials on, which is kind of nice, because I got kind of sick

of Fred Latremouille telling us how wonderful it was. I thought we were

really going to go right out of sight and the boom was on. Now we hear

it's fragile.

What about the seniority provisions? What about firing without

cause? All those things need to have an opportunity to be conveyed to

the people. I don't think we should rush these things through. I don't

think that we should try and sneak them through in the dead of night —

or in the dead of summer, when people are away and obviously occupied

with other things. I know that we're going to be occupied with these

things all summer. We hope that will make some difference.

Even with this business of tenure, I understand that there's been a

reversal on the part of some people here. The other day I read it in

the column of a celebrated local journalist in the Sun — Marjorie

Nichols, who's a friend to one and all on both sides of the House, I

assume. She said:

"Last Friday, Simon Fraser University president George

Ivany met with government officials in Victoria to discuss the

infringements of academic freedom, among other topics. When he emerged,

Mr. Ivany was bubbling with optimism.

"He told reporters that he was satisfied the

government would carefully avoid infringement of the sacred freedoms of

academe in the drafting of regulations pursuant to the budget bills

affecting the operations of B.C. universities.

"Optimism in high places is always nice to find, but a

couple of integral points seem to have escaped the SFU president. First

is that academic freedom cannot be protected by written regulations

behind closed doors by politicians."

To what is the columnist referring here? I'd like to give you a

little indication of this. I'm quite sure that Dr. Ivany of SFU might

have been misquoted. But if he weren't, it's a pretty dumb move for a

university professor — really dumb. What is he really talking about?

AN HON. MEMBER: Marjorie would never misquote anyone.

[11:00]

MR. ROSE: Mr. Speaker, he's at me again — or still.

[ Page 457 ]

He's talking about this sort of thing. He's talking about the fact

that

section 3 of this says: "The Lieutenant-Governor-in-council may

make regulations that he considers necessary or advisable respecting

implementation of terminations under

section 2(1)." Regulations, as

everybody should know, are not conducted out in the open. They are not

debated in a chamber such as this. Regulations affecting tenure, job

security, promotion, seniority, the whole works, are not arguably done

in open court. You pass the bill, you reassure somebody like Professor

Ivany, and then you rush off to the cabinet room and make regulations.

The first regulations to be published are perhaps acceptable, but once

the bill is passed, there's nothing to prevent one from changing those

regulations the next week if they want to.

I understand he has recanted, because this morning's paper says he's

changed his mind. "'Bill 3, regardless of current intentions, enables

action or intervention in the areas of freedom of speech and thought,'

SFU president J.W. George Ivany said in his protest letter, sent

Wednesday to the Universities minister Pat McGeer. His letter was made

public." I don't know what happened to him over the weekend. It sounds

like the conversion on the road to Damascus. Anyway, he's changed his

mind.

I don't think a lot of people are particularly sympathetic about tenure at universities.

I want to tell you something about tenure, because I had tenure.

MR. REID: How about Dr. Kane?

MR. ROSE: I think we should raise Cain about something like

that. I don't think it should take six years to get rid of Kane. Maybe

we should return to caning, as they do in the British schools.

HON. MR. PHILLIPS: You'd better talk to Mrs. Eileen Dailly.

MR. ROSE: He's at me again, Mr. Speaker. He's trying to get

me off my topic and strike fear in my heart. I certainly wish he would

speak. He has an evangelical quality to his speech. I think he even

believes his own press releases. I wish he wouldn't try to deflect me.

It usually takes a long time for a university to grant tenure to

people. In my own case, I think it took six years. I admit they had a

little problem; I can understand that. But it didn't happen overnight.

They have an opportunity to look people over pretty carefully. I know

that some of us, as we're getting more grey and white, lose that kind

of zip; maybe we shouldn't have tenure then. Somebody said that Wayne

Gretzky doesn't need tenure. He signed a contract for $5 million; why

does he need tenure? But when you need tenure is when you need it:

maybe when you're 55 or 60 years old and can't get another job, or

can't get elected to public office. But you need it for more than that.

If a sociology or economics professor, like Reuben Bellan of Winnipeg,

speaks out about how wrong-headed is the whole approach to the economy

— not just in British Columbia — and if he hasn't tenure, then

according to this bill he can be fired without just cause. That's why

people need that kind of protection. If you don't have that sort of

thing you can be picked on and scapegoated without any defence.

I'm not sure that anybody is going to be particularly concerned

about the odd university professor, because they're considered fat

cats. They do have nice jobs; they work in nice buildings, like we do —

palaces, really — and they're not going to worry about that. But I

think the principle is there. It's the freedom of an academic to pursue

without fear or favour something that might be of value to humanity.

What would have happened to Dr. Kinsey if he had gone into his

particular research without any kind of academic protection? It's not

just us — you know, the teardrop boys and women in the NDP — who feel

that way about tenure.

This legislation is becoming world famous. Because of this bill,

British Columbia is becoming absolutely world famous. Here's a copy of

a cable forwarded to Premier Bennett which came into my hands. I didn't

sneak into his office at night or anything like that. It came from the

national president of the University Teachers of New Zealand.

MR. REID: What kind of government do they have in New Zealand?

MR. ROSE: It varies, but regardless of what kind of

government they have currently, they have protected their university

teachers, Through Conservative governments and Labour governments they

have protected their university teachers. They don't try to scapegoat

people like this government. This government is oppressive.

Interjections.

MR. ROSE: Mr. Speaker, I wonder if I might be permitted to carry on and read my wire.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I certainly hope so. Will the House please come to order.

Interjection.

MR. ROSE: The minister across the floor thinks the question

about scapegoating should be directed to the Minister of Agriculture

and Food (Hon. Mr. Schroeder). That's all he knows about.

Let me tell you about this: "Our association is appalled at your

proposals to attack university autonomy, academic freedom and tenure,

plus civil servants and teachers generally, stop." "Stop" is just part

of the telegram, but I think it's appropriate in there. "Legal rights

of British Columbia citizens seem equally under threat, stop. Urge you

to withdraw, stop." I agree with that, but it's not just that. It's not

just the defence of some university. How many are there? What a

minority. It's the defence of the larger body politic; it's the larger

public that we're concerned about. That is why we want this hoist.

Mr. Speaker, I understand that I have just about finished my

introduction. There's another equally important matter which concerns

me. I don't have the phone book here, but I have lots of clippings. I

think that one of the worst features of this thing is that there are

likely to be confrontations. You've got the majority, and ultimately if

you hang in there and you don't listen to anybody, you're going to win.

We don't dispute that. You don't have to listen to me. Here are some

able people who are talking about their concern for what might happen

in a series of confrontations between working people and their

government, and how it's going to be polarized here and how can that be

good for the economy of the

[ Page 458 ]

country. I already said if you scare everybody so they won't buy

anything, that's not going to be good for the economy of the country.

If you have a confrontation, how's that going to help the country?

That's not going to help the country at all. Even our old friend Mr.

Hamilton of the Employers Council in his speech said:

"Labour-management relations are not conducted in little black boxes

which are unrelated to one another. Each negotiation, each strike, each

lockout, each change of conditions of contract has repercussions and

influence far beyond those directly concerned."

Interjection.

MR. ROSE: He's at it again. There have been all kinds of editorials from the Financial Times , hardly a radical rag.

MR. LEA: He thinks Bill Hamilton's a pinko.

MR. ROSE: Does he? I know that the Provincial Secretary (Hon.

Mr. Chabot) thinks that Archbishop Remi de Roo is a pinko, but maybe

Bill Hamilton is a pinko. I don't know about that.

MR. SKELLY: Compared to these guys he is.

MR. ROSE: I'd like to close on my concern for the future of

the relationships between management and labour among people of the

province with this quote from the Financial Times — hardly, again, a

radical, right-wing journal. It says here: "It's hard to quarrel with

the objective of smaller government, but a time of high unemployment —

British Columbia's rate stood at 14 percent in June — may not be the

best time to dump thousands of fired government workers on the labour

market." How many? I don't know that.

Mr. Speaker, I want to carry on with this because I understand my

time has elapsed. I would like to move to adjourn this debate till the

next sitting of the House.

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

[11:15]

Motion negatived on the following division:

YEAS — 18

Macdonald

Barrett

Cocke

Dailly

Stupich

Lea

Nicolson

Sanford

Gabelmann

Skelly

Brown

Hanson

Barnes

Wallace

Mitchell

Passarell

Rose

Blencoe

NAYS — 28

Waterland

Brummet

Rogers

Heinrich

Hewitt

Ritchie

Michael

Pelton

Johnston

R. Fraser

Campbell

Strachan

Chabot

McCarthy

Nielsen

Gardom

Smith

Bennett

Curtis

Phillips

McGeer

A. Fraser

Davis

Mowatt

Veitch

Ree

Parks

Reynolds

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

MR. NICOLSON: I ask leave to make an introduction.

Leave granted.

MR. NICOLSON: I notice in the gallery, visiting with her two

children.... They've been here for so long that I believe they really

do deserve to be introduced, Mr. Speaker; they've been very attentive

this morning. It's with pleasure that I introduce a long-standing

friend, Sandy Edson, and her two children in the gallery with us today.

MR. STUPICH: Mr. Speaker, I have some concern that we have

not yet convinced the members on the government side of the House that

consideration of this bill should be postponed for six months.

Certainly the interest in this bill is building up in the community;

there can be no question about that. Regularly in all of the newspapers

and on the radio and TV stations we're hearing comments about the

government's total program. Really, although we're considering at this

point postponing discussion and consideration of Bill 3, it's awfully

hard to differentiate between Bill 3 and the government's total budget

and total program. I think we're debating much more than simple

consideration of this, and we should really be talking about postponing

the government's whole program for some six months — at least the

program as we've seen it to date. We're getting....

HON. MR. GARDOM: You've been postponed for four more years.

MR. STUPICH: The Minister of Intergovernmental Relations suggests that it's been postponed for over a year.

HON. MR. GARDOM: No, I said you have been postponed for four more years, Dave. It was a kindly aside.

MR. STUPICH: It's not quite the way I heard it the first

time. He's now saying that we have been postponed. In any case, Mr.

Speaker, I'm having trouble hearing him. That's the problem: he's

sitting down. If he were to rise to his feet and use his microphone,

I'd have no difficulty at all. I suggest that he wait; my remarks will

be relatively brief, 40 minutes, and then if the Minister of

Intergovernmental Relations has anything at all to say about this — and

I rather suspect he will have before this debate is finished.... I

expect he will.

I've been keeping track of the ones who have spoken in this debate.

Let's look at the cabinet members who have spoken in the debate in

total. With respect to the original discussion, before the House

started giving real consideration to the idea of postponing the debate

for six months, the Attorney-General (Hon. Mr. Smith) spoke — an

ex-Conservative, but the only ex-Conservative I can identify who has

spoken in this debate at all. Two other cabinet members spoke, both, as

I understand it, ex-Liberals: the Minister of Consumer and Corporate

Affairs (Hon. Mr. Hewitt) and the Minister of Education (Hon. Mr.

Heinrich). Then we get to the consideration of the six-month

postponement. Only two members on the government side of the House have

spoken: the Member for North Vancouver–Seymour (Mr. Davis), an

ex-Liberal, and the Minister of Universities, Science and

Communications (Hon. Mr. McGeer), another ex-Liberal. No other

Conservatives, not a single member of the old Social Credit group.

[ Page 459 ]

It's certainly obvious to me, and I think to everyone, that the

government members have decided, or have had a decision made for them,

that they'll not take

part in this debate as to whether or not the bill

should be postponed six months. Presumably they're listening. From time

to time the Minister of Forests (Hon. Mr. Waterland) tries to get to

his feet, but each time he has an opportunity to be in order in getting

to his feet, he forgets the thought that was racing around in that big,

empty mind, and he has to wait until the next opportunity. He keeps

forgetting what he's going to say whenever an opportunity arises. When

he's out of order — when he's sitting in his seat, as was the Minister

of Intergovernmental Relations — of course he thinks of all kinds of

things to say. There are other members on the government side of the

House who never fail to rise to the opportunity to defend government

policy. There are some real good examples of that.

Apart from the Minister of Forests, who likes doing it on every

occasion, the minister of industrial development and small business....

Well, he's been called all kinds of things, Mr. Speaker, but I'll have

to call him that right now. Certainly if there ever was anyone who

never resisted an invitation, never resisted an opportunity, never

turned down an opportunity, to stand up and speak in favour of

government policy and in opposition to motions such as the one I'm

supporting now — the motion that we postpone deliberation of this for

six months — then that particular minister was always very anxious to

get into the debate to try to convince us and everyone else within

hearing distance — and that's quite a distance, in his case — who would

listen that the government was doing the proper thing.

In this debate, that particular member of the old Social Credit

group has been silent, except to interject regularly when he happens to

be in the House — but when he is sitting down, when he is completely

out of order. He has nothing at all to say in support of the

legislation, in opposition to the motion that the consideration be

postponed for six months, nothing at all to say standing on his feet in

his place. There are five Liberals and one Conservative on the cabinet

benches. There is not a single Socred. There is one more Liberal still

to be heard from. Apparently they are being given this opportunity to,

once again, swear their allegiance, their loyalty, to the man who gave

them the job they have, and they are being asked to do this during this

debate in opposition to the motion to postpone this for six months, or

in support of the legislation that we were considering earlier.

The old Socreds and other cabinet members are not necessarily so

silent outside of the House. We're talking in the House about

postponing this for six months because we really believe it would be in

the interests of the community to defer consideration — to postpone

consideration. Certainly we'd like to see it defeated altogether. But

at least give the community some six months to recognize just exactly

what the government is trying to do in this legislation, and perhaps to

rally behind the government — hopefully, from where I sit, to rally

against what the government is doing and to persuade the government

that the authority that it is seeking in this legislation is authority

that no democratic government anywhere in the world should be asking

for; certainly no democratic government.

Certainly no government in Canada or British Columbia should be asking for

the kind of authority that this government is seeking with this legislation.

That's why we want them to postpone it for six months. Let them listen to

the comments that are coming from within B.C., from outside of B.C., from other

parts of Canada, and from other countries which are looking at this legislation

and are shocked by the language in this legislation, shocked at the idea that

any democratic government.... Any member of the Commonwealth of Nations

bringing in this kind of legislation would never dare use the kind of words

or give itself the kind of authority that the government is seeking in Bill

3. Mr. Speaker, it is important that consideration of this bill be deferred

for six months, at least.

The only one, really, who spoke against the motion to defer

consideration for six months was the hon. member for North

Vancouver–Seymour (Mr. Davis). There was another speaker from the

government side

of the House, the Minister of Universities, Science and Communications

(Hon. Mr. McGeer). but he had nothing at all to say about whether or

not the bill should be postponed. It was simply an attack on the

opposition — an attack on such things as tenure. He doesn't believe in

tenure. You will recall that that is the particular minister who used

certain trained seals at the University of British Columbia to make

sure that he got his tenure. Even at the time he said he didn't believe

in it for anybody else; it was something he wanted for himself.

Interjection.

MR. STUPICH: Again, Mr. Speaker, if they'd wait until I

stopped to take a breath, I could hear them; preferably if they got up

on their feet, then we'd all hear them. We'd get these gems of wisdom.

I plead with them to stand up and let us hear what they have to say.

They might have an argument against postponing. I can't imagine what it

would be. Certainly the Minister of Universities, Science and

Communications gave no reasons for postponing it. His was a straight

political harangue.

HON. MR. BRUMMET: What has the "trained-seal" tenure at universities got to do with your arguments? That's why we interject.

MR. STUPICH: Mr. Speaker, tenure is one of the very important

points in Bill 3. The concern about tenure is one of the reasons why we

should defer consideration of Bill 3. That is one of the arguments that

has been raised in the community about this legislation.

HON. MR. GARDOM: Does the IWA have tenure?

MR. STUPICH: No, but they do have....

HON. MR. GARDOM: Do the plumbers have tenure?

MR. STUPICH: I'm being asked by the Minister of

Intergovernmental Relations whether or not the IWA has tenure. Of

course they don't, but they do have a collective agreement between the

employers and the employees that does give some protection. Until we

dispose of the legislation that's before us now, they even have some

access to the human rights branch in the Ministry of Labour. They

should still have it legally, but they don't. Obviously that's being

done away with.

[Mr. Strachan in the chair.]

[ Page 460 ]

No, they don't have tenure. But there is an orderly procedure agreed

upon for terminating people or for laying them off. That applies even

with the B.C. Government Employees Union. Legally they have that now.

It's obviously not very effective because they are being terminated

without notice and without cause. The legislation is still before us

and still on the books of B.C. It still gives them that protection,

protection that is worthless, because the government has made it quite

clear that it intends to remove that protection — another reason for

postponing consideration for six months. They made it quite clear that

even if some public sector employer makes the mistake of entering into

some sort of agreement with employees that does allow some form of

tenure, Bill 3 overrides any such protection. One of the reasons that

we must defer consideration of this is that government members

themselves have not had an opportunity to read the legislation, even

though we've been debating it as long as we have.

[11:30]

Mr. Speaker, outside of the House we are getting comments. We got a

long letter from the Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs (Hon.

Mr. Hewitt). We have the Minister of Labour (Hon. Mr. McClelland)

travelling around the province and admitting that there's some blame on

the part of the Socreds for not having properly explained what they're

trying to do. The Minister of Lands, Parks and Housing (Hon. Mr.

Brummet) asked if they stood up and told us what we were trying to do,

would we support it? Give us that opportunity. Stand up and tell us why

you're opposed to postponing this for six months; I'll go further into

that and raise more questions about that during the next few minutes.

As I said earlier, Mr. Speaker, the member for North

Vancouver–Seymour did speak. I've often disagreed with what he has said

in this

House in the time since he's arrived, but sometimes I've agreed. Often

he speaks in opposition to what the government is doing and then votes

for it. He does that regularly. He's never voted against the government

since he arrived in this House. I expect that he has never ever voted

against the government in any House. Certainly in this House he's never

voted against them, but he's often spoken against what the government

was doing and raised concerns about what the government was doing. In

this speech, Mr. Speaker, he didn't. He spoke in opposition to the

motion to move a six-month hoist.

Interjection.

MR. STUPICH: Mr. Speaker, once again that minister is

objecting, interrupting and trying to help me make my speech. I don't

find it very helpful, but I don't mind. It shows that he knows I'm

here, and at least he's here. I do appreciate that. What if you gave a

party and nobody came? What if you were speaking in the House and there

just wasn't anybody left?

MR. REID: How many have you got here?

MR. STUPICH: I have enough here. I'm not complaining.

Interjections.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, please.

MR. STUPICH: Mr. Speaker, they know I'm here, and I know

where they are right now. I know what they're doing right now. They

know that I'm here and they're quite satisfied that I'll do what's

necessary so that they'll be able to do what they're doing right now.

Interjections.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, please. Perhaps we could return to Bill 3.

MR. STUPICH: Mr. Speaker, it's been suggested across the

floor of the House that we have three leadership candidates in the

House, and everybody else is out....

HON. MR. GARDOM: No, only two.

MR. STUPICH: Mr. Speaker, do you mind if I get to the thrust....

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I'd appreciate that. Would the government House Leader please come to order.

MR. STUPICH: I really would like to get back to the remarks

made by the member for North Vancouver–Seymour. There is a person who

experienced something that this bill is directed at. There's some

question as to whether he was fired with cause — certainly a question

in his mind. There's some question as to whether others should have

been fired where there was even greater cause. In any case, he had no

opportunity to appeal to the human rights branch in his instance; at

least if there was an opportunity he didn't use it.

He spoke entirely in opposition to the motion to hoist this for six

months. Yet it wasn't his regular speech, Mr. Speaker. Usually his

speeches are well researched. Usually the figures he uses can't be

challenged; usually the statements he makes in debate in this House are

well supported by authorities. That wasn't the case with respect to the

speech that he made on Wednesday, July 20. There's been a suspicion in

the minds of us on this side of the House and certainly in the minds of

the press.... It's been suggested by different columnists that the

speeches on the government side of the House since we were called

together from the beginning have been written by one or two researchers

working for the Social Credit Party and that they're all saying exactly

what they were told to say. This is the first real evidence, in my

mind, that that indeed is the case. For the member for North

Vancouver–Seymour to deliver the kind of speech that he did on July 20,

there can

be no explanation other than that somebody wrote the speech for him to

give, because it wasn't his usual speech. It didn't come up to the mark

as far as he was concerned. He did say something very interesting in

the opening paragraph. Suspicious as I am that somebody else is writing

the speeches, I can't help but wonder just what this means and what it

bodes for the future of this province, certainly for the future of the

Legislature in the next few days, few weeks, few months or whatever. I

would invite someone to comment on this, Mr. Speaker.

Speaking about Bill 3, he said: "I know that it has to be seen in

the context of other law in this province" — no problem here — "and

other legislation yet to be brought into this House." Is that a threat

or a promise? Is he saying to us: "You haven't seen anything yet. Bill

3 is simply a small introduction to what is yet to come. Bill 3 is only

one part of

[ Page 461 ]

the picture; the remainder is yet to be filled in, and it's when you

see the remainder that you'll know the full thrust of this government's

policy in dealing with the people and the economy in this province."

What is he saying, Mr. Speaker? We don't have an opportunity to ask him

in the debate. But if he indeed was speaking for the Social Credit

caucus when he said in the House that this has to be seen in the

context of other legislation yet to be brought into the House, then I

think we should have the answer to that. If it takes six months for the

government to answer that question, then indeed that is reason enough

in itself for the House to consider postponing debate on this

legislation until we know what other legislation must be seen for us to

fully understand the ramifications of Bill 3. It has given me great

concern and it must be worrying others.

The member for North Vancouver–Seymour felt it was important to say

that in his introductory paragraph. What does he mean? What are the

government members holding back? What is still to come? Let's postpone

this legislation for six months and give the government the opportunity

to see the rest of the legislation, which, according to the member for

North Vancouver–Seymour, must be seen before we can really consider

the legislation before us. We must look at the total package in the

context of the legislation yet to be brought into the House. Let's

postpone consideration for six months.

He goes on: "First of all, our financial affairs in this province

are not as good as they have been." There's little doubt about that.

We've presented facts and figures from the Public Accounts and

the throne speech to show there has been a steady deterioration in the

financial affairs of this province over the last four years.

Particularly — not particularly, but since the present Minister of

Finance (Hon. Mr. Curtis) took office, we have had four deficits in a

row — assuming we are in a deficit in the year 1983-84, and no one

questions that. There is some question about the amount, but no one is

questioning whether or not we are in a deficit position in the year

1983-84. So yes, our financial affairs are serious, and they have been

made more serious by the present administration. It's become

progressively worse in the last four years, although, according to the

Minister of Finance, the turndown in the economy really hit us a year

and a half ago. So some two and a half years before there was any

problem with the economy generally, the financial affairs of the

province had been deteriorating.

With all of their desire to cut back — according to the member for

North Vancouver–Seymour — the budget presented still shows expenses

exceeding income by 20 percent. I said, when I spoke during debate on

the budget.... Do you remember, Mr. Speaker? There was a time in the

affairs of this House when we actually were debating the budget. It's

some time ago. The government has chosen not to have that debate

anymore, and I don't blame them. Certainly I wouldn't want to be

leading the debate in support of that budget, so it surprises me not

one bit that the government has abandoned discussion of the budget,

hoping everyone else will forget how bad it is as well.

We were told in that budget to expect a deficit of $1.6 billion.

Included in that budget was an interim statement for the first two

months. This is before any consideration of the draconian measures

included in Bill 3, before any thought of the government — there was

thought, I'm sure, but no discussion of the idea that the government

wanted to be able to fire any number of employees. The Provincial

Secretary (Hon. Mr. Chabot) said there are 300,000 public sector

employees. The Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs (Hon. Mr.

Hewitt) said 250,000. Someone else said 240,000. I suppose, when we get

up in those figures, it's not all that important. The figures seem to

range generally between a quarter of a million and 300,000. They want

the right to be able to fire any number with absolutely no cause at

all, simply because someone chooses to fire them. That's all there is

to it. No right to appeal to anyone, to ask why, to question the

decision. Nothing. The person in the position to fire can simply get

rid of anyone that person wants to get rid of, and not explain to

anyone why that's being done.

Without that authority, in the first two months of this year the

government deficit has been $115.1 million. We can't multiply that by

six and hope to get the year-end deficit, but we were told over and

over in the budget and in the election campaign that we are on the

fragile road to recovery. The fact that we are on the fragile road to

recovery is supported by the fact that with the figures presented to us

in this two-month statement, we've actually done much better than the

government anticipated. They did admit in the budget speech that they

couldn't compare it with estimates, since estimates had not yet been

prepared at the time that figure was prepared. Nevertheless, it would

look as though we're heading for a deficit of substantially less than

$700 million, on the basis of the information we have as presented in

the interim statements and the feeling in the community. This was borne

out yesterday by three separate federal reports to the effect that we

are indeed on the road to recovery. It may not happen in B.C. with the

effects of the budget that we now have, but certainly we're bound to

benefit in some way from what's happening in the rest of the world, in

spite of our own worst efforts.

HON. MR. GARDOM: Do you want to bet on that? You wait and see.

MR. STUPICH: That we're going to do better in spite of our

own worst efforts? I'm not sure. The Minister of Intergovernmental

Relations is telling me that the government's worst effort will succeed

in making things worse in B.C. than is anticipated in the rest of the

country. He thinks that his government's efforts will actually stall

the recovery in B.C. more than is expected by anyone else. It would

certainly be something to be proud of if they did achieve that. If I've

misunderstood his remarks, I'd certainly like to have him stand up and

explain them, because what I said was that I anticipate that the

government's worst efforts will not be able to slow down the economy in

British Columbia. It's still going to improve. He's offering to make a

wager with me on the contrary: the government's worst efforts will

succeed in slowing down the economy in B.C. It's quite possible that

that will be the case, but not as much, I hope, as the Minister of

Intergovernmental Relations is suggesting.

AN. HON. MEMBER: Nonsense!

MR. STUPICH: I hope it's nonsense; indeed I do.

I suppose I'm reading from a source that the Minister of

Intergovernmental Relations wouldn't credit, but I'll read again from

the remarks of the member for North Vancouver–Seymour: "Fortunately,

with the turning around in the world economy, our income side will

undoubtedly improve." I believe and hope that to be the case. I hope

the Minister of Intergovernmental Relations is wrong, but I do think

income

[ Page 462 ]

will improve, and I think because it will improve and because

expenses are going to hold, I hope, with the one exception.... The

Minister of Human Resources (Hon. Mrs. McCarthy) is obviously going to

overspend her budget, again as happened last year. I remember the

attention we attracted by having a $100 million overexpenditure in

Human Resources. It was $138 million last year. In terms of dollars,

that is the ministry that has increased over last year's figures more

than any other. Because they have, through their policies, put so many

people on the dole in this province, they overspent their budget last

year and they're anticipating to spend $116 million more than the

overexpenditure last year. In all likelihood they'll be short even on

that. I don't think there's any question about that one: it will go

higher.

[11:45]

We start talking about figures, and this is where we're running into

some difficulty as to how many people we are talking about. We should

be talking not just about people but about the services that people are

providing.

At this point I want to talk about the number of people involved.

The member for North Vancouver–Seymour did: "When I hear that of a

quarter of a million public servants in the province, a quarter of that

number are going to lose their jobs and that 67,000 public service jobs

are on the line, I have to react. It's totally false." I don't know why

he would feel that he had to react. The figure given by the Provincial

Secretary was that there are 300,000. The figure in the budget was

250,000. The figure in the letter that the Minister of Consumer and

Corporate Affairs wrote and had printed in the paper was 240,000. He

says we're wrong in talking about a quarter of that number. That's the

announced target by the government to achieve that kind of cutback.

Whether it's 67, 65 or 75, it's still a tremendous number to be talking

about putting on the dole in the province of British Columbia. He says

there are only going to be a few thousand. He went so far as to suggest

that it might be two or three thousand, and then later on to say 10 or

15. There's quite a difference between 2 or 3 and 10 or 15.

If the government's program as announced by Bill 3 is going to

achieve the firing of only two or three thousand people, then why are

we debating it? If that's the intent and goal, why the need to bring in

legislation that gives the government the authority to fire without

notice, without warning and without cause? There is something wrong.

Either they are looking for authority, the kind of authority that they

do have in some countries where they don't have democratic governments,

to get rid of people....

There has been talk of a hit list. Certainly I'm not reassured by

people like the Minister of Universities, Science and Communications.

I've seen his record. When he was Minister of Education, I recall

raising questions with him about people he fired from college councils.

He challenged me across the floor at that time — this was early in 1976

— and said the NDP did the same thing. We were in estimates then, and I

had the opportunity to ask him to name one whom we had fired for

political reasons when we were in office. That was seven and a half

years ago; I'm still waiting for that minister to give me the first

name. Yet he did it in every college council in the province. He got

rid of people for political reasons. There was no other explanation for

the people who were fired from various councils at that time. They made

some mistakes; they fired some people who had been appointed by the

previous Social Credit administration — fired them in error, thinking

that they had been appointed by us — and made a few more enemies for

themselves, Nevertheless, I have no faith that that particular minister

would have anything other than political considerations in mind when he

was following this policy to fire without cause.

Again, the member for North Vancouver–Seymour: "Looking at the

numbers, close to half of the 250,000 are under the federal

government." Mr. Speaker, that's not what the Provincial Secretary told

us. The Provincial Secretary was talking about public sector employees

who work for the government, municipalities, hospitals, school

districts, and various Crown corporations owned by the government, and

saying that that figure totalled some 300,000. He wasn't talking about

federal government employees, or employees working in federal Crown

corporations. That's one of the reasons that makes me doubt that the

member for North Vancouver–Seymour had anything to do with writing his

speech. It makes me doubt that he ever read it before standing up in

this House, or ever saw it before then.

Then he gets into the budget. He said: "We really aren't going to

cut back anyway. In spite of all this furor, in spite of attracting the

attention of people worldwide, we don't really mean that. We're not

going to put these cutbacks into effect." He pointed to health. He said

there is an 8 percent increase. Well, it's not quite 8 percent, Mr.

Speaker. If you look at the budget, page 36, you'll see it's 7.3

percent. And it is the second-largest increase in the budget. But that

doesn't tie in with the legislation before us now. If they intend to

actually increase the number of employees in the health service....

That's what the member is saying. He says: "If we're going to increase

the budget by 8 percent" — he should have said 7.3 percent — "then it

means we're going to hire more people." Well, if that's really what the

government has in mind, that they intend to hire more people in health

services, then I certainly wish they would take the opportunity of this

debate to stand up and tell us that Bill 3 really means that the

government intends to hire more people in the health fields. I don't

believe that that is the case. I don't believe that the member for

North Vancouver–Seymour wrote the speech. I don't believe that he read

the bill. He couldn't have, for him to say that the increase in health

services referred to in the budget means that the government actually

intends to hire more people in the health services. But I'd sure like

to have somebody over there, other than the member who's already

spoken, tell us that was the case.

He goes on to say that universities and colleges are another very

large group of people who are not affected by this package of

legislation. I say again, he hasn't read the bill. He's talking about a

different bill; I don't know which one, but certainly the one before us

now very specifically does apply to universities and colleges. There's

no doubt about that. It's right in the legislation. Obviously he needs

this six-month hoist so that he'll have time to read the bill.

However, going on with his remarks. "Their budget has increased

roughly 8 percent" — the universities and colleges. Not only has he not

had time to read the bill, neither has he had time to read the budget.

Because, again, if you look at the budget, page 36, table 5,

Consolidated Revenue Fund, operating expenditure by ministry, it shows

an increase for Universities, Science and Communications of 0.5

percent. That wouldn't even cover the increase in hydro bills. I don't

know where he got the figure of 8 percent. But he says that means

they're going to hire more people at universities and colleges.

[ Page 463 ]

Mr. Speaker, there is a college in your area. There's one in my

area. I know the cutbacks they've already instituted, and I know the

trouble they're going through right now to find further areas of

cutbacks to meet the government's target. I don't know where the member

got his speech, but I say again that it's not the kind of speech he

normally presents — a well researched document backed up by facts and

figures. It's not his speech at all. I don't know whose it is. I would

like to know, but I don't expect to be told about that.

He goes on to say that "not only are we going to hire more people in

health; we're actually building new hospitals, and that provides

employment — 10,000 to 20,000." I suppose if he can be out by 10,000,

or if he wants a range of 10,000, he could also say zero thousand to

10,000, or 30,000 to 40,000. What does it mean? It doesn't mean very

much, especially if they're building new hospitals at the same time

they're closing down beds in other hospitals. There are still beds

closed down in the Nanaimo Regional District General Hospital. We don't

have the money to use the beds, in spite of the waiting lists of some

1,500 people.

On hearing of these cutbacks, a constituent of mine wrote a letter.

She went to her doctor with a ruptured vessel in her eye. She's been

waiting for five months to get into the hospital. It's elective

surgery; she has to go on waiting. She still doesn't know when she's

going to get the eye operation she needs. She's been waiting five

months for that kind of operation. How much longer? In spite of that,

we're told: "Isn't this a great government? It's building new

hospitals." New, empty hospitals, for which it will not provide staff,

and if it does it will close down other hospitals. That's not providing

for the needs of the people, as the Lieutenant-Governor abjured us to

do during his remarks in the House.

In talking about the opposition, the member for North

Vancouver–Seymour said: "They were talking about a big drop, a 10

percent drop." That's not what we're talking about. It's what the

government is talking about. The government hasn't been talking about a

10 percent drop for the employees working directly for government. The

government has been talking about a 25 percent drop for all public

sector employees. Again it's obviously not that member's speech. Then

he refers again, as I have, to the fact that the human services budget

has gone up. It's nothing to be proud of to say that we're not going to

increase the amount for the lowest-income people in the country. These

are the people most in need of help — people who are getting social

assistance. You say that we're spending more money in total on them,

but we're not going to increase the amount. There are so many more

things I would like to say about this.

Modest trimming. There's another place in the budget where it boasts

about having achieved a 15 percent reduction in staff in the course of

the past year. They've achieved that without bringing in the kind of

legislation they're bringing in today, without having the right to fire

anyone and give no reason — no purpose, nothing at all — and without

having those kinds of draconian measures that are attracting the

unwelcome attention of so many people in B.C., in Canada and throughout

the world.

The government members need time to consider our motion. The

government members need time to read the budget. The government members

need time to read the bill.

Mr. Speaker, I move adjournment of the debate until the next sitting of the House.

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

[12:00]

Motion negatived on the following division:

YEAS — 17

Macdonald

Barrett

Cocke

Dailly

Stupich

Lea

Nicolson

Sanford

Gabelmann

Skelly

Brown

Hanson

Wallace

Mitchell

Passarell

Rose

Blencoe

NAYS — 28

Waterland

Brummet

Rogers

Heinrich

Hewitt

Ritchie

Michael

Pelton

Johnston

R. Fraser

Campbell

Strachan

Chabot

McCarthy

Nielsen

Gardom

Smith

Bennett

Curtis

Phillips

A. Fraser

Davis

Mowat

Veitch

Ree

Reynolds

Reid

Parks

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

HON. MR. BRUMMET: Mr. Speaker, I thought I should bring to

your attention the fact that the division bells did not ring in my

office on this occasion.

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. members, the Chair is undertaking an

entirely new system on the division bells throughout the buildings.

However, because the session is on, we were forced to delay the final

implementation of the system, which will be completed as soon as we

rise. So I would ask for the members' indulgence until that time. But I

appreciate being informed of any problems, and we'll undertake to

correct those as they are brought to the Chair's attention.

MR. BARRETT: Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleagues for their....

Interjection.

MR. BARRETT: You've been spending too much time with the

horses. That well-known punter has been spending too much time looking

at the wrong end of the horse, because there'd be no other way that

he'd come up with this kind of legislation, I'll tell you.

I want to thank my colleagues for that applause given right after I announced I was leaving.

As the official opposition we're standing here today to ask that

this bill be taken off the order paper for six months — just for six

months. Of course, if it passes, it means that the bill is killed, but

I don't want to tell the back-benchers that; all I want them to

understand is that we want a six-month hoist. Otherwise we'll have to

debate it for six months, and I tell you, Mr. Speaker, with all good

will and all good humor, that's exactly what we intend to do.

I'm so happy to be here in this glorious summer in this capital city

enjoying the outdoors and the good breezes. No other legislator would

love to be in Victoria all summer long

[ Page 464 ]

working here on behalf of the people more than the new member for

West Vancouver–Howe Sound (Mr. Reynolds), the one and a half members

for Surrey and the other members who are new to this House. None of

them want more than to spend their summer here in this wonderful

chamber dealing with this legislation. There isn't anybody who would

rationally want some kind of logical time-frame to spend some time with

their families or their constituents, or to enjoy that. No, after eight

and a half months' absence from this chamber, and through an election

that just went on, the government never once said what they were going

to do if they won. Then they won the election, and what do they do?

They come down here in the summertime, they bring this kind of

legislation in, and they're going to put all those back-benchers through

the heat of sitting here in the summer when their friends and

neighbours are away with their families and rowboats. People are here

on vacations....

MR. REID: We come here to work.

MR. BARRETT: Yes, one or two of them come here to work. The

rest of them are out somewhere. I don't know where they are — including

the Premier, wherever he is.

These are just my introductory remarks, Mr. Speaker, which must

include the humble statement that I have been given the gracious honour

by my supportive colleagues to be the designated speaker. This means

that, as difficult as it is for me to find the words necessary to

participate at any length in any debate, my colleagues have given me

this challenge.

Just to conclude my opening remarks so I can get to the

introduction, I want to respond to some of the statements that have

been made so far by the government members defending this bill. For

those of us sitting in this chamber — and once in a while we draw in

the galleries; we let them know there's a lot of politics going on in

here.... I wouldn't want anybody leaving this chamber from the

galleries and thinking that there's a lot of politics going on here,

but there's a lot of politics going on in here. Sometimes it's very

political in this place. Sometimes people have biased points of view

and they actually think that through logic and reason they're going to

influence the other guy's bias. But once in a while, Mr. Speaker, we

come up with a device — as we're debating here, so I can stick to the

rules that we're confined to — that deals with removing a particular

piece of legislation from the politics of this chamber and taking it

out to community and asking the people of British Columbia what they

think about it. They were never told that this kind of bill was coming

in. No Social Credit candidate that I know of was told that this was

happening. As a matter of fact, as I read it in the paper, a former

Social Credit candidate, Mr. Begin, said that if he had known during

the campaign that he was running for a party that was endorsing this

kind of legislation, he wouldn't have run for them.

Interjection.

MR. BARRETT: And Graham Bruce too, yes. I want to know if you

have ripped up his membership. If you go about ripping up his

membership, I want to know. Let's get it out in the open here, because

there are not many people around to report this. If you rip up a Social

Credit membership card, does that mean they have to rip up their Tory

card too? I want to know that. Because we've got a new Tory Socred, a

three-day wonder, who sits down there representing West Vancouver. He's a

latter-day convert to Aberhart's charting. You should use that at the

races. It's very good. You'd have more luck with the A plus B theorem

at the track than some of these people have here in the chamber.

Interjections.

MR. BARRETT: Leave comic book characters out of this debate. We're dealing with real, live exhibits here.

Mr. Speaker, do you know what they're trying to do in this bill? I

want to talk to you, never mind these other fellows. Do you know what

they're trying to do? They're trying to tell people who work for the

government that they can be fired for any reason at all. No reason at

all. You don't have to tell them anything. Supposing this bill passes

and some day the Liberals are elected to office in British Columbia. Do

you know what would happen, Mr. Speaker? The Liberals would fire all

the Socreds who'd been hired by this government.

MR. LEA: That would be everybody.

MR. BARRETT: That's it. There goes Tozer right down the tube.

I stand up here and say that we've got to stop this bill to defend Tony

Tozer, if nothing else. What other reason would he have a job other

than that he's a shirt-tail relative of the Premier? Can you imagine

some Liberal government coming in here who hasn't been messing around

with politics in this chamber for a long time? They'd actually ask

somebody, "What are your qualifications for a job," and the guy could

only say: "Well, for goodness' sake, my only qualifications are that

I'm a shirt-tail relative of the Premier." He'd be fired and he would

have no protection under this legislation, because Bill would be gone.

We've got to think of the Tony Tozers in the civil service. We've got

to defend them, Mr. Speaker. We've got to stop this bill.

I'm, going too far, but that's the absurdity of it. This bill will

emasculate any pretence whatsoever that there is merit, that there is

quality, that there is qualification. It will reduce itself simply to

who smiles best to this government that is presently Social Credit,

made up of Tories, Liberals and everyone else.

[12:15]

What is even more iniquitous about this particular

section is that

you won't even know what party to join, depending on what minister you

go to work for. Two of them showed up at the Tory convention. What kind

of rules will they lay down for personnel practices when it comes to

party selection under the heading of turncoats, loss of principles,

floorswitchers and numbers of parties? The Minister of Energy, Mines

and Petroleum Resources (Hon. Mr. Rogers) and the Attorney-General

(Hon. Mr. Smith), the former Tory, went down to the Tory convention and

sat in the gallery as Socreds watching the Tory convention. Now if you

weren't a shirt-tail relative of the Premier, and you were trying to

get a job in British Columbia, and you were trying to get a job through

one of those ministers, you wouldn't know what kind of party card to

hold, and that's not fair. At least we hope that when the regulations

are published they will split each department and say: "Well, McGeer is

a former Liberal, so you've got to have a Liberal card to get a job

there." The Minister of Intergovernmental Relations (Hon. Mr. Gardom)

was one of those Liberals too, so you hold a Liberal card. If you want

[ Page 465 ]

work for the Minister of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources

you've got to have a Tory card, or both. Or else, Mr. Speaker, you

could even be nothing.

As a matter of fact, the best way to get ahead in this government is

to be nothing and know nothing. It's a kind of populism. You could take

out a card that says "I'm a know-nothing." As a matter of fact, Mr.

Speaker, you wouldn't even have to give some of them cards; they're

walking examples of it. They could have fill-out blanks. What we could

do is hand out political cards where you just take a punch: "Today I am

a Tory. Today I am a Socred. Today I'm a Bill Bennett relative." A

MasterCard for getting yourself a job.

The one who's laughing most is one of the fellows with whom I have

great political kinship, the Minister of Transportation and Highways

(Hon, A. Fraser). We've been around a long time. His department is

riddled with appointees on the basis of patronage, but he's been fair

about it. He doesn't mess around. He says: "If you want a job, here it

is." He's always done it by open patronage; he's never messed around. I

admire the guy. He never needed legislation or any of the niceties:

"You, you're a nice boy — over here. You got a job. You, over here...." His department is loaded with Socreds.

Interjection.

MR. BARRETT: Mr. Speaker, I'm being interrupted by that highly skilled debater. I won't call him names; he's a new member.

Having dealt with that interruption, let me go back to the point

that I'm making. Some of the ministers are more upfront about the

patronage. They say: "If you want a job, vote Social Credit. If you

want a key appointment in the civil service, become a shirt-tail

relative of the Premier." How many can they marry? You can marry into

the family. Can't you see the whole production? You want a job? Marry a

Bennett. Sounds okay to me. Tozer did okay.

All of these devices that this government used time and time again

were normally acceptable. Once in a while a cheeky newspaper reporter

would say something about it, but they were just jealous because they

weren't in the family. Once in a while some uppity columnist would say:

"Naughty, naughty. We want to defend the independence of the civil

servants." They're just naive, high-school-graduate journalists who

don't understand how politics work. The reason they don't is that

they're never in here for prayers. They come after. If they were in

here before, they'd understand. That's the way it goes.

Since it's a cozy little chamber here, except for a few people

around who promise not to tell anything they heard in here today, we

all know what the game is, don't we? Hire a relative, take care of a

friend, protect yourself. One of the greatest motivators of continuing

Social Credit is known as enlightened self-interest. If you can't make

it on a Tory card, join the Liberals; if you can't make it as a

Liberal, join the Socreds; and if you're really in trouble, attack the

pinko socialist coalition that is against all the things that are going

on. You know what I'm talking about. The game has been great fun up to

this point. We've had self-righteous editorials in those newspapers out

there saying: "Well, we want some fairness." One or two observers from

the east say they shouldn't be politics, but we've never reached the

point of formalizing it in law. What we're going to do now with this

bill is say to every civil servant, to anybody who comes to work for

the government, anybody who is working for the government in any Crown

corporation, police force and fire force, that unless you toe the line

of this government, you can be fired.

That new member for Vancouver–Little Mountain (Mr. Mowat), as I

talked of this hoist, was the one who spilled the beans in an earlier

speech about the real meaning of this bill. He's still new and naive

and upfront, and he came in the House — I remember it very clearly —

and threatened the mayor of Vancouver: "Get on board, or else." Do you

know what that means? That means get on board and be a Socred, or you

don't get nothing.

Interjection.

MR. BARRETT: You see? He said that's right. He hasn't learned

yet that there are some niceties. You don't come out with those

bald-faced threats. That's too upfront. What you do is say: "Social

Credit's got a better way." — i.e., "We're in power and we'll beat the

slats out of you unless you go our way." Instead of that, he came right

upfront and said: "Well, get on the right side."

Interjections.

MR. BARRETT: What has happened to the caucus coach? This new

back bench of the government proves how the silicone chip has

influenced cloning. They put one word in that guy's head and dong!

"Leadership, leadership." I know why he's in here: they can't stand to

have him around the offices. They've got him programmed in here.

Interjection.

MR. BARRETT: Speak up. Normally I wouldn't pay any attention

to this kind of a misplaced, unguided missile that ended up in here,

but that guy really thinks he's contributing something.

In a more serious vein, I would advise that people who know their

way around the House, like these cabinet ministers, can't interject

unless they're sitting in their own seat. It's a matter of decorum. I

just bring that to your attention. If the Minister of Highways (Hon. A.

Fraser) wants to interject, go ahead. You go right ahead. You'll be the

first real Socred to debate in this debate. All you've done is set up

two Liberals who came over there and signed in blood that they were

going to be good Socreds. The only two cabinet ministers to get up and

defend this particular

section have been ex-Liberals.

I hear about the Premier wanting to go on television and tell the

folks about this bill. Let's have a hoist for six months while he goes

on television. It's a heck of a good idea, because he hasn't stood up

in the House and defended the bill. He hasn't stood up in here and said

why he's supporting this bill. This is a major part of his new economic

theory; a major part, they say, of the whole restraint and recovery

program. They claim this is necessary to put British Columbia back on

its feet. In the name of the hoist of this particular bill, why has the

architect of this legislation, the person who leads this government and

this party, not had the courage to stand up in this chamber and say in

front of the elected MLAs why the bill is here? You tell me that. You

tell me why he finds it necessary to drop little hints to the media

that he's going to talk on television. If he wants to talk on

television, then I make this challenge: let him face this chamber and we

[ Page 466 ]

will grant leave for television cameras to come into the chamber and

see the debate and the response from the opposition on defending this

bill.

MR. SKELLY: He needs cue cards from Doug Heal.

MR. BARRETT: We'll let Doug Heal sit over here and hand up the cue cards.

If there's going to be any bypassing of the debate in this chamber

by the Premier saying, "I want free television time," I hope that the

television stations have the guts to say: "Sure, we'll give you

coverage; we'll cover you speaking in the Legislature on your bill." It

has been over one week that this bill has been debated, and the Premier

has yet to speak one word — not one word on this bill that radically

alters the attitudes, the social fabric and the general direction and

growth of where we are in British Columbia. Let the television cameras

come in, let them cover anything he's got to say, and then let the

television cameras, in turn, cover what I have to say. Let the people

of British Columbia decide what they think of this bill on that basis.

If the government is so proud of what they're doing in this kind of

legislation, then why is the Premier afraid to stand up in this chamber

and speak in defence of taking away freedoms as this particular bill is

doing? I find it passingly pathetic that they send a few cabinet

ministers around to go on hotline shows, and say: "Well, maybe we've

been crude in handling this thing. Instead of hanging people we should

have shot them." What choice have they got on the basis of crudeness?

The whole bill itself is an obscenity, and the only way it could be

implemented is by crudeness. There is no finesse in taking away

people's rights. When you say that a man or a woman will lose their job

on the whim of an employer, without giving them any reason why they've

lost their job, there is no non-crude way of presenting that news. It

is the loss of democratic freedoms that we understand exist for all

human beings, Mr. Speaker, and there is no nice way of doing it.

There isn't a citizen in this province who expected to see this kind

of legislation see the light of day. There isn't one of them who stood

up in any Socred candidate's meeting and said: "Vote for me and I'll

bring in a bill that says we can fire people without cause." Not one of

you had the guts to do that in the election campaign, and yet the bill

is here. The bill has been here for a week, and the Premier is running

up and down the corridors saying: "I want to talk on television." If

you want to talk, come in here, in the chamber, where you asked for the

job to be the leader of the government. Stand up as leader of the

government and say what you've got to say facing the people in here,

not running away down the hallway.

I have never seen this whole community turned around so much on one

piece of legislation. We've had fantastic debates here before. Some

nights we used to sit all night. We would say it was the end of the

world and then wake up in the morning and it wasn't. But we've never

had a bill like this before.

MRS. JOHNSTON: Bill 42.

MR. BARRETT: Yes, the Agricultural Land Commission Act. Well,

Mr. Speaker, I think the new minister for Surrey has made an

inadvertent slip here.

MR. REID: You made her minister?

MR. BARRETT: Sure, I made her minister. Isn't she Pat Jordan? I'm sorry, Mr. Speaker, I'm 52, my eyes are going. I've got new glasses.

Interjections.

MR. BARRETT: Just a minute. Let's have a pause here and get all the interruptions coordinated.

MR. MOWAT: If you were in the House more often you'd know all the members on this side.

MR. BARRETT: Oh, you're pretty good there. Now let's go back; there's been a mistake. Let's hear it once more. Leadership.

MR. REID: Leadership!

MR. BARRETT: That's it, thank you very much. I hope the people of Surrey hear about the quality....

MR. REID: There are 37,000 of them.

MR. BARRETT: Shush, shush. Mr. Speaker, I have never been so

devastated by such an overpowering attack defending the Premier as from

that member for Surrey.

HON. MR. BRUMMET: You didn't want to hurt him, did you?

MR. BARRETT: There's the sparkling minister — such a brilliant example of public education.

Mr, Speaker, what we're dealing with here is a bill that is frankly

destabilizing a generally small-L liberal coalition that holds together

Canadian society. Although there are great differences on issues,

legislation has generally been produced in this country in the centre

arena, after having both ends of the political spectrum, part and

parcel, formulate an attitude that develops into consensus. If there

was ever a nation on the face of this earth that wrote its legislation

based on consensus, it is this great Canadian nation. In that consensus

there has always been room for ideas on the left, ideas on the right,

captured in the middle by small-L liberal consensus.

[12:30]

One of the things that makes us different from the United States of

America — which is our great neighbour — and one of the things that

makes us different from our parent Great Britain, is that we have a

synthesis of both their political styles and communication and

structure. From Great Britain we received the structure. From the

Americans we received part of the style. But the synthesis of that has

always been taking time to develop legislation that generally reflects

where people are in the middle. I know that. And any time that a

government moves dramatically one way or the other, there is always a

public reaction.

The member mentioned Bill 42. Bill 42 has stood the test of time,

When we brought in that legislation, we said we must save farmland.

There was an immediacy about it because developers were destroying any

rational protection that was absolutely necessary to protect the 4

percent of this province's land that was arable. What is the urgency

here for this bill? Will this bill stand the test of time? It won't

stand the test of time, Mr. Speaker. It is already the subject of debate

[ Page 467 ]

from coast to coast in this country about the behaviour of a government that would take away basic human rights.

We're being watched by the whole country. I don't want Toronto

knowing about us. When they find out what our weather's like they're

going to come here. I don't want the rest of the frozen country to find

out how beautiful it is to live here. But if you had gone out of your

way to tell other Canadians not to come here, you couldn't have devised

a better piece of legislation than this and the other package that

takes away human rights in this province. The real motive, Mr. Speaker,

is that those who have power based on their own personal economic

interest are now extending that mindless philosophy to overtake the

rights of every citizen in this province, as demonstrated through this

bill. This is an attack on the middle-income people, the poor and the

handicapped. The super-rich are not hurt by this because they don't

worry about being fired. Who is going to fire the head of a chain of

hardware stores without cause? When he gets fired it will be with lots

of cause, and this will be part of it. But in the meantime, who else?

Interjection.

MR. BARRETT: Do you believe that?

I was just beginning to move into that part of my debate that would

have brought tears to the eyes of the members for Surrey (Mrs. Johnston

and Mr. Reid), but because of other imperatives, I move adjournment of

this debate until the next sitting of the House.

Motion approved.

Hon. Mr. Rogers moved adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

The House adjourned at 12:35 p.m.

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