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 )

TUESDAY, JULY 26, 1983

Afternoon Sitting

[ Page

507 ]

CONTENTS

Routine Proceedings

Oral Questions

Termination of Government Employees. Mr. Barnes –– 507

Reduction of Human Resources' Staff. Mr. Parks –– 508

Reduction in Human Resources' Services. Mr. Barnes –– 508

Municipal Amendment Act, 1983 (Bill 9). Second Reading.

Mrs. Wallace –– 509

Mr. Pelton –– 511

Mr. Rose –– 513

Mrs. Johnston –– 516

Mr. Stupich –– 518

Mr. Cocke –– 521

Mrs. Dailly –– 523

Mr. Mitchell –– 525

Mr. Howard –– 527

Appendix –– 532

TUESDAY, JULY 26, 1983

The House met at 2:04 p.m.

Prayers.

HON. MR. CURTIS: For those of us who have an interest in

British Columbia and Victoria history, this is an important date. It is

a date being marked by the Sisters of the Order of St. Ann, who arrived

125 years ago in Victoria to establish a small school. It's

interesting, Mr. Speaker, that — I believe, if I'm correct in my

information — they arrived on a Saturday and commenced their first

classes on the following Monday. They were four sisters of the Order of

St. Ann, accompanied by Bishop Modeste deMers from the province of

Quebec. The actual anniversary occurs in June, but it is today that

members of the Order of St. Ann are celebrating a very significant

anniversary –– 125 years. I believe one member of the order is in the

gallery today. Perhaps the House would recognize that date.

MR. SKELLY: I ask the House to welcome a number of my

constituents who are in the gallery today. Mrs. Linda DeVito is here

with her daughters Kristin and Jana. They are visiting the Legislature

with my wife Alexandra and my children Susan and Robbie. I would ask

the House to make them welcome.

MR. SEGARTY: Mr. Speaker, I would like to take this

opportunity to welcome Mr. Ian Downey, my neighbour from Cranbrook, to

the Legislature. He was the campaign manager for Harry Mathias in the

Kootenay riding. I would like everyone to give him a good welcome.

MR. CAMPBELL: I would like the House to show respect to Mr.

Reid, the second member for Surrey, who caught a purse-snatcher out on

the street last night. A tourist from Washington had been attacked by a

purse-snatcher and the hon. member caught the purse-snatcher. The

police were called and the man was arrested. Mr. Speaker, that goes to

show you that our members are taking care of the public. Thank you.

MR. REYNOLDS: Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the House to

welcome two friends of mine from Vancouver who are sitting in your

gallery today, Mr. Ted Rogers and Mr. John Rogers of Touchstone

Investments Ltd. I ask the House to welcome them.

HON. MR. GARDOM: Mr. Speaker, I would like all members to bid

a very warm and special welcome to a lady who is very well respected by

this side of the House, Mrs. Rosemary Dolman.

Oral Questions

TERMINATION OF GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEES

MR. BARNES: Mr. Speaker, I have a question to the Deputy

Premier. Oh, I'm sorry, I forgot; the former Deputy Premier. She is a

victim of restraint as well. I want to apologize for that error, Mr.

Speaker.

I have a question to the Minister of Human Resources. On Thursday of last week,

the minister told this House that staff firings would be conducted in an orderly,

humane and proper way. She said: "Our ministry staff will be the ones who

will be told. We will not be firing staff through the media." Can the minister

advise why ministry staff had to learn of their firing yesterday through the

news media and why she insulted the House in the way she did last Friday?

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. The second part of the question

is highly irregular and not in order in question period. The first part

of the question....

MR. BARNES: I will withdraw the insult part and say: why did she misguide or mislead the House?

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: I'm pleased to respond to the question

regarding the notification of staff in my ministry, because our

ministry administration has gone through a very great deal of trouble

to make sure that the staff who would be terminated would be advised in

a very orderly and proper way.

I was very surprised to see two members of my ministry staff

interviewed on television last night, apparently surprised. I followed

that up this morning by asking my deputy how that could have happened.

Let me tell you that the procedures in place were to make sure that all

management staff knew of the terminations. They would then be able to

advise staff yesterday morning or afternoon, before the public was

advised. Secondly, all staff members would receive a letter from the

deputy minister. All those in the lower mainland and most of those on

Vancouver Island would receive them yesterday afternoon, and those

others who are further away from either the Victoria head office or the

Vancouver mailing and delivery service would probably receive them

later in the week; however, they would be told verbally by their

supervisors.

[2:15]

We have gone to great lengths and trouble to make sure that they

were informed properly and with due respect for good labour practices.

They are being given four months' notice in some cases, nine months'

notice in some cases, and some are to be terminated in March of next

year. They have been given very lengthy terms of notice as compared

with terminations given in the private sector.

MR. BARNES: I would like to thank the minister for her response and suggest that she meant well. She meant to be humane, but she failed.

The minister has fired those staff in the ministry who have the

responsibility of keeping families together. Family counsellors have

reduced child apprehensions and children in custody by 20 percent in

the past 12 years. In 1970 there were 10,500 cases and in 1982 there

were 8,500. Has the minister decided how she will deal with the

increased need for custody care which will follow the firing of family

support workers?

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: Mr. Speaker, the family support program

is the largest program in the announcement yesterday. The total program

is being eliminated. It has been in place since 1978 in this province.

I believe it has done a very good service since it was started, and I

do not take away from it the service which it has undertaken. It

involves over 200 people. That does not mean, however, that the

services for children in which the member is showing some concern — and

it is a concern which we on all sides of the House

[ Page 508 ]

share, the concern for families and children — will

be neglected by this ministry. On the contrary, there is a very large

group of people in our ministry who will continue to address these

concerns. You must remember, Mr. Speaker, that that service is putting

a child support worker into individual homes, and the numbers of homes

that they can cover are limited in number, in comparison to other

services in our ministry. I can assure the member that the services for

children will be very well looked after in this province, because we

have been known to be in the forefront in Canada in that regard.

MR. BARNES: The support which the ministry staff had been

able to provide under trying circumstances has reduced a number of

child apprehensions. At the same time, the minister has fired the

support staff and is phasing out specialized child-care resources for

children in custody. Where does the minister think she will care for

the increased number of children in custody as a result of the staff

firings?

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: Mr. Speaker, the implication in that

question is that there is no staff left at all, and that's not true.

That is just simply not a fact of life. One service within the ministry

has been terminated; that is, the family support worker service. It has

been in place for four years in this province and it has now been

terminated. Other services that pay tribute to support for families and

children are still there. The foster care service, the war on child

abuse and social workers are still there. There is no diminution of

services in any of those and there will not be.

MR. BARNES: The minister has said that community groups will

pick up the services which the government has axed. Will the minister

then explain why she announced yesterday a 25 percent cut in community

grants across the province?

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: Mr. Speaker, I don't know where the

announcement of a 25 percent cut in community grants came from. That's

news to me. Maybe the member would like to explain that.

I would like to explain my comment regarding community services

because you did make mention of it. Please do not misunderstand the

statement that I've made to the press. I have said, in response to the

same sort of question, that there are many service clubs, churches and

other organizations in the province which, by virtue of their

commitment, will be picking up some of that service, and I'm quite sure

they will. I'm sure there are many churches that would do as they did

historically and traditionally in this province for very many years

before government did any of this kind of work.

MR. BARNES: I'll correct a percentage, Mr. Speaker. Perhaps

it was a 100 percent rather than a 25 percent reduction in grants to

the communities, especially to the ones that provide information to

seniors in need.

The minister has clearly put the cart before the horse and executed

her ministry hit list before known support services are in place. Is

the minister now prepared to demonstrate her alleged concern for the

people involved by getting her act together before she commences

savaging people's careers by pink-slipping her ministry staff?

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: Mr. Speaker, not only is the question out of order, but it was very poorly read by the member.

REDUCTION OF HUMAN RESOURCES' STAFF

MR. PARKS: My question is to the hon. Minister of Human

Resources. In this morning's press there appears once again an attempt

to mislead the public of this province. Would you clarify for the House

whether or not any of the staff of your department were told they would

be fired immediately if they talked publicly about their situation?

MR. HOWARD: On a point of order, planted questions of that

nature, giving the minister an opportunity to do what she should have

done on motions by making a statement are improper.

Interjections.

[Mr. Speaker rose.]

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. members, every member of this chamber has

the right to pose questions. The Chair has recognized the member.

Further, if points of order are to be raised and not interfere with our

time in question period, they can be addressed, as they have been on

numerous occasions, at the conclusion of question period.

[Mr. Speaker resumed his seat.]

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: Mr. Speaker, the question asked by the

member is one on which I have already responded to the media, because I

was surprised and shocked to see the allegation in the morning news. I

would like to share that answer with the House, and I'm pleased the

question was asked. I did not have knowledge of the question, but I am

pleased it was asked. The answer is no, none of my staff people have

been threatened in any way by the administration of my ministry, nor

will they be threatened in any way.

REDUCTIONS IN HUMAN RESOURCES' SERVICES

MR. BARNES: My question is to the Minister of Human

Resources. The minister has suggested that this member has difficulty

delivering his questions in a form that she feels acceptable, and I

will accept that criticism. I want to ask the minister what she has

done personally to fight against her colleagues on that side of the

House to protect the people in this province who need Human Resources'

services. Is she saying that she goes along with these restraint

measures that are destroying families and homes and children?

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: The allegation that we are destroying

homes and families is absolutely a typical socialist charge which is

untrue and which is one of the kinds of charges which they would like

to have made a fact of life in this province, because that's the way

they fight politics. But, Mr. Speaker, let me assure the member that

all he has to do is refer to the budget where the increase to the

Ministry of Human Resources is very great this year. It is larger than

last year; it has been continually so under the administration of this

minister. It has continued to strengthen over the years in

[ Page

509 ]

terms of our commitment as a government to social services in this province and will continue to do so.

MR. BARNES: The Minister of Human Resources has indicated

that the government is committed to statutory responsibilities, social

assistance and protection of children under the family and child

services legislation. She said she is not cutting off core programs.

Why is she keeping the people who look for those who are cheating — in

other words, the officers in the minister's department who are...? What

shall we call them — the fraud squad? Who are they? Are they also core?

Are they that essential that you would cut out programs for children

but keep the people who try to watch those few who may, out of

desperation, try to steal a few dollars? Is that the commitment of this

government?

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: Well, I assume that the first member for

Vancouver Centre is referring to the inspectors' program on the income

assistance program. The income assistance program in the province is

almost half a billion dollars, and the inspectors' program is one which

assists the ministry in making sure that the income assistance is

received by those in need, not by those who would defraud. Mr. Speaker,

I just want to emphasize that within those families which we are

protecting from fraud are children who we are providing income

assistance for.

MR. SPEAKER: The Leader of the Opposition rises on a point of order.

MR. BARRETT: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, a serious

allegation was made in the House during the question by the member for

Maillardville-Coquitlam (Mr. Parks) saying that a press report was

misleading the public. I would suggest that when those charges are

made, evidence should be tabled with this House so the House can deal

with irresponsible press stories in an official manner, rather than by

wild accusations without evidence. That's the normal practice, Mr.

Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. member, that is beyond the scope of the Chair. The member is fully aware of that.

MR. LAUK: On a point of order with respect to the question by

the hon. member for Maillardville-Coquitlam (Mr. Parks), it is long

since practice in question period that no question be based upon a

direct reference to an item in the press.

Interjections.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please, hon. members.

MR. LAUK: In the interests of order and fair play in question

period, the Speaker should, without interruption from any other member,

find those questions out of order. I ask Your Honour to take that into

consideration.

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. members, as I have stated on numerous occasions, if

the Chair were to strictly interpret the rules of question period, there wouldn't

be a question period, I respectfully submit. Therefore I would ask all members,

in the spirit of question period, which is really an opposition period of time

to ask questions of the government, to remember that we are in question period

and that they should ask questions.

Hon. members, I have taken the opportunity to submit to each member

a brief recap of some of the rules of question period, and possibly if

members were to peruse that we would find that our procedures move a

little more quickly and much more in order.

[2:30]

Orders of the Day

HON. MR. GARDOM: Mr. Speaker, I ask leave to proceed to public bills and orders.

Leave granted.

HON. MR. GARDOM: I call adjourned debate on second reading of Bill 9.

MUNICIPAL AMENDMENT ACT, 1983

(continued)

[Mr. Strachan in the chair.]

MRS. WALLACE: I want to deal with this bill as a member who

lives in a rural area and, therefore, is very much affected by regional

boards. I think that much of the argument that has been presented

during this debate has been very indicative of the reason why we are

suddenly faced with this piece of legislation. It indicates that there

have been a few people — and I submit there are very few — and a few

areas that have felt frustrated because of majority community

decisions. As a result of that, there has been pressure put upon this

government to introduce this bill in order to allow minorities, as a

part of the greater whole, to make decisions independently from the

majority decisions of that greater whole. So really what we are talking

about is the correctness and the desirability of doing our planning for

the future on the basis of small, localized concerns, or whether that

planning should be done on the basis of the community at large. I

submit, Mr. Speaker, that we should be doing that planning on the basis

of the community at large. What is happening with this bill is removing

that ability to plan for the future on the basis of the community at

large.

You know, you're never going to please everybody with planning,

because somebody isn't going to like what you come up with. My good

friend from Omineca was talking about how he would really like to just

get rid of regional boards completely. I don't know if he lives within

the municipality or the village or town of Houston, or if he's outside

the limits, but I know that he has a very nice home constructed there.

Let's assume for a minute that it's outside the limits of the town of

Houston. I'm sure that that member would not....

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hon. members, the member for Cowichan-Malahat

has the floor. Perhaps we could refrain from private discussions here

and there, and show some parliamentary courtesy.

MRS. WALLACE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I'm sure that that member for Omineca (Mr. Kempf) must visit his home occasionally. Assuming that that is outside the

[ Page 510 ]

limits of the village of Houston, he would not like

to go home some weekend and find that a hog farm had located on one

side of his home and a culvert-manufacturing plant was operating around

the clock on the other side of his home. That's the kind of thing that

happens, Mr. Speaker, if you don't have some kind of overall planning.

There is no protection for your investment in your home or in your

community if those plans can be wiped out, as will happen — as is

happening — with this bill. Those are the things that can happen. Those

are some of the concerns that I have.

I also have the concern, Mr. Speaker, that in fact we are kowtowing

— may I use that word; is that a usable word in the Legislature? — to a

very small minority. Probably one municipality in all of the Greater

Vancouver Regional District is supportive of this particular piece of

legislation. All the others are not, and I think there are something

like 15. Mr. Speaker, I happen to have a couple of very interesting

pieces of information here. I have a resolution that was passed today

by Vancouver city council, and I would like to read it into the record:

"Whereas many groups in the city and throughout the

province have raised serious questions about many aspects of the 26

pieces of legislation before the House in connection with the budget.

"And

whereas these bills have little to do with

restraint as such, but involve severe restrictions on human, social and

democratic rights.

"And

whereas, under provisions of Bill 3 in

particular, members of city council could be fined up to $2,000 for

failure to take a position ordered by Victoria.

"Therefore

be it resolved that this city council calls

upon the provincial government to take a second look and withdraw all

26 pieces of legislation, and to initiate discussion with all the

affected groups, before making any new legislative proposals on all

matters in question.

"And be it further resolved that as far as Bills 3, 5,

7, 9, 11, 22, 26 and 27 are concerned, bills which directly affect the

operation of Vancouver city council, that we take steps to adopt a

definitive position on these matters, for the purpose of formal

representation to the provincial government."

That's a resolution passed by the council of the city of Vancouver,

certainly the largest metropolitan area in our province, representing a

great number of voters in the province and certainly a great number of

people who live in the lower mainland area and are expressing their

concern and their desire for some consultation with this government.

I'm wondering why the minister responsible hasn't taken time to consult

with that group and with other groups around the province before

introducing this legislation so hastily into this chamber for

discussion. I'm wondering why he hasn't taken time to meet with these

people and to hear their concerns before foisting this legislation on

us here in Victoria. What's the panic? What's the haste? Why do we need

to get on with this? Is it because someone is waiting in the wings with

their bulldozers at the ready in the community of Delta, say, on the

Spetifore property, which has been mentioned many times? Or, as has

been mentioned in the Province

of this week, are developers that covet farmland now waiting quietly

for the bill to be proclaimed? Woodward's, which is planning a large

shopping centre in Surrey, is expected to be the first beneficiary. Is

that why this is being pushed into the Legislature, rushed through here

without taking time to consult with the people concerned?

This is a government fond of talking about good economics and good,

sound business sense. It is interesting to note, Mr. Speaker — again,

going back to the GVRD — that the combined capital investment programs

of the municipalities of the GVRD.... It's very difficult for anybody

like me driving through that area to know where one municipality starts

and the other ends. I'm sure you from the north have the same problem.

It is a conglomerate of urban development, with a conglomerate of

various governments that only the people who live there, I'm sure, can

sort out as to where one begins and the other starts. So to move in the

direction of doing away with any sort of overall regional control seems

very strange.

The point I wanted to make is that in that combined group of

municipalities there is a capital investment that averages about $100

million per year. That's about $95 per capita. In addition to that, you

have to add the regional thing; that's just the various municipalities

added together. If you add in the various regional things like water,

sewage, transit, hospitals, all those sorts of things, it's much more

than that. What does it cost to have an overall planning system by the

GVRD in that area? What is the cost to the taxpayer of that planning

system, which is planning for some kind of orderly development of that

$100 million investment? It's $1.3 million, or an average of $1.08, to

have some reasonable, rational planning in place on a $100 million

investment. Doesn't it make good economic sense to keep that kind of

planning in place? It certainly does to me.

I just don't understand a government that is bringing in this kind

of legislation. Why? Is it because they have a need to satisfy some

political commitments relating to a supermarket by Woodward's or a

subdivision by Dawn Development? Is that the reason behind this? Or

does it relate to other areas as well?

It certainly relates to my own area, Mr. Speaker. I'm sure that the

Minister of Municipal Affairs (Hon. Mr. Ritchie) has received a letter

from the city of Duncan, dated July 12, of which I have a copy. It is

signed by the mayor of Duncan, Mayor Douglas W. Barker, who is

certainly no supporter of my particular political party.

"Dear Sir:

"It is with deep concern that the city of Duncan has

learned of the abolition of regional planning in British Columbia. We

have a very good regional plan in the Cowichan Valley Regional

District. The city of Duncan has been planned as the commercial core."

Interjection.

MRS. WALLACE: Just listen for a minute, Mr. Minister.

"Now, in anticipation of the revised regional planning

act, the municipality of North Cowichan" — which sort of surrounds

Duncan city — "is in the process of rezoning 12 acres of land from

rural to commercial."

The municipality of North Cowichan — a pretty large and strong

municipality in the Cowichan Valley — is a member of the Cowichan

Valley Regional District. The mayor of North Cowichan is no stranger to

the Minister of Industry and Small Business Development (Hon. Mr.

Phillips). He often talks about him in this House. He just happens to

be the man who

[ Page 511 ]

was very much after my seat during the last election. So the

municipality of North Cowichan is in the process of rezoning 12 acres of land

from rural to commercial.

"This land adjoins the city of Duncan, is in a strip

along the highway and abuts Somenos Lake. This proposed commercial zone

would be larger than the commercial core of the city of Duncan.

"This new plan completely destroys years of good

regional planning. The Duncan city core has just been revitalized" —

under, I may say, Mr. Speaker, a very good program that that government

initiated, the downtown core revitalization program — "at a cost to the

merchants of $400,000. This work was done under a British Columbia

government program and was undertaken by the merchants on the strength

of a good regional district plan."

In other words, Mr. Speaker, the regional community plan was in

place. Duncan was the downtown commercial core, and those merchants

were prepared to put their money where their mouth was and invest

$400,000 in upgrading their facility under the downtown rehabilitation

program to ensure that there was a good commercial centre for people

who lived in the area. Now that's gone. North Cowichan can rezone their

rural land to commercial, to up their tax base, right along the

highway. If they so decide, they can allow a strip development to go in

there that will completely destroy Duncan city. Mr. Speaker, it is not

good economic sense to allow a second area to be built up that will

offset the money and the work that has gone into ensuring that we have

a good commercial centre within that area.

[2:45]

He goes on to say: "I would urge you to review this legislation. The

effect in this community could be to completely destroy the economy of

the city of Duncan and those forward-looking businessmen who have

invested their time and money in the city."

That's just one sample of the kind of concern out there. And yet

here we are, with this piece of legislation being brought in so

hastily, with no notice at all, no prior discussion between the

minister and the people concerned. It is of extreme concern to me that

we're being faced with discussing this particular piece of legislation

before those discussions have taken place.

Another concern that I have relates very specifically to the rural

areas. The whole idea of community planning in the rural areas.... The

plans are wiped out, cancelled, destroyed. The bill says something to

the effect that it repeals the sections that relate to community plans.

It takes away the rights of regional districts to bring in plans. One

section says that all regional plans and official regional plans

prepared or designated before the repeal of these sections are

cancelled and have no effect. So there we are with no planning.

It goes on to say that a regional board or district may — and I

emphasize the word "may" — introduce a community settlement plan. But

there are really no teeth in that. There's really no assurance that

that's going to be lasting or binding. It's not going to assure the

member for Omineca (Mr. Kempf) that he's not going to find a hog farm

next door to his nice residence. It's not going to assure me that I'm

not going to go home someday and find the vacant lot next to me has

been taken over by some rather noisy industry. That's not the kind of

rural life that those of us who live in those areas anticipate. That's

not the kind of atmosphere that we look forward to when we live in a

rural area. That's my concern.

Another concern that I have, Mr. Speaker, relates to the fact that

while I and my representatives, as rural representatives on a regional

board, will have nothing to say about what happens in any of the

municipalities or cities or towns within that regional district, there

is no change in the sections of this act which set up the voting

procedures on regional boards. What I'm saying is that members of

municipal and city councils who sit on regional boards — and who will

continue to sit there, as the act will now read — will have the

right.... Normally their vote is greater than the rural vote; certainly

that's the case where I live. The people who represent those

municipalities and towns and cities will have the power to dictate what

happens even with a settlement plan in a rural area. What I see

happening is that things like garbage dumps, which aren't wanted within

the confines of a given municipality or city or village, can well be

placed outside those boundaries in the rural areas. The whole setup

allows for that.

Interjection.

MRS. WALLACE: The minister says the regional district wanted

to put a garbage dump in Fort Langley. I would expect any decisions to

be made by a majority decision of a group within that area.

The minister refers to Texada Island, and we certainly know what

happened there; there was a great outcry against that. The rural areas

are going to become the Texada Islands of every municipality in this

province. That's exactly what's going to happen, because those members

of municipal and city councils who sit on those regional boards are

going to be able to carry those votes. We really don't have anything to

say even about our own community settlement plan, as little power as

they have to regulate us as far as development goes.

To me, it seems utterly unfair and undemocratic to take away from

the rural representatives the right to have something to say about what

happens in municipal areas, yet allow people from municipalities,

villages, towns and cities to continue to have the same representation

on regional boards in their planning, limited as it is. That concerns

me very much, because it is very undemocratic; but again, it's symbolic

of the kind of legislation this government seems inclined to bring in.

For all those reasons, it's very obvious that I do not support this

legislation. From an economic point of view, it's obvious that planning

pays. And from a social point of view, it's obvious that planning pays.

And from the point of view of today's lifestyle, where we move about so

quickly and easily over such extensive areas, indeed it is important

that we extend our planning to cover the greater community, not just

some lesser part of that whole for expediency or profit or political

payoff.

MR. PELTON: Mr. Speaker, this is only the second opportunity

I have had to talk to this House. I do rise to speak to Bill 9. Having

sat up there on three or four occasions, I certainly appreciate the

standing order with respect to relevancy, but there is a point I feel I

must make to set the record straight before I launch into what I have

to say. I have very few remarks, as a matter of fact, with regard to

Bill 9.

If I may, I would like to acknowledge a most unfortunate but

completely inadvertent oversight during my first speech to this

assembly. In my zeal to get my maiden speech off my chest, I offered to

stand at the top of the batting order and did

[ Page 512 ]

not enjoy the benefits of hearing many others

speak. I therefore proceeded blissfully ignorant of the tradition of

this House to congratulate Mr. Speaker and Mr. Deputy Speaker on their

respective appointments. I'm a strong believer in tradition, because I

think it brings a sense of time and place, in a historic sense anyway,

and a sense of dignity and decorum which in my view is essential to a

forum such as this. Therefore I belatedly but most sincerely add my

congratulations to those of my colleagues on both sides of this House,

Mr. Deputy Speaker, and I would appreciate your conveying my sentiments

to the hon. member for Delta (Hon. Mr. Davidson). I know that you are

both well aware at this time of my respect for the position that you

uphold, as evidenced by my interest in learning all the intricacies of

the Chair and by the fact that I keep this little red book close at

hand all the time. Mind you, Mr. Speaker, this latter point could prove

difficult, as there are those who might take solace in the fact that

there was another chairman, now departed, who also was noted for having

a little red book.

Now to Bill 9, Mr. Speaker. I'm not going to take too much time. I'm

not given to making long speeches, but I would like to deal with this

bill under two or three different headings, and the first point that I

would like to deal with is the fact that I'm concerned. There seems to

be some misunderstanding in this House with regard to what this bill is

trying to achieve. It has been suggested by a number of people that the

introduction of this bill would do nothing more than — to use a word

which was a favourite of the late John Diefenbaker — emasculate the

regional districts from the point of view of planning. I don't see this

as being the case at all. I think that the bill deals with the official

regional plan, and that's about where it ends.

I have a couple of things here that might back up what I'm saying.

First of all, there's a very small

article that I would quote from the Daily Sentinel ,

which I understand is a Kamloops newspaper. This is a statement made by

Mr. John Taylor, the deputy Municipal Affairs minister, in which he

stated that this bill does not eliminate the existing powers of

regional districts to zone land in the unincorporated areas. He went on

to state that the regional districts will continue to function in the

unorganized areas and deal with official settlement plans. He said that

the latter documents designate future land uses for specific areas

within a district.

I would like for just a moment, Mr. Speaker, to borrow a page from

the book of the hon. second member for Victoria (Mr. Blencoe), and

perhaps deal with a number of items that I believe are very relevant to

this bill that I bring forward out of my experience with the

Dewdney-Alouette Regional District. This district has an official

regional plan, as have most other regional districts, I believe, at

this point in time. But that is not where their planning function

begins and ends. They also have a planning function for local

jurisdictions and for electoral areas; they provide all of the planning

for that particular function and they also provide planning on a

contract basis for other areas, for small municipalities and

communities which cannot afford to have planners of their own.

They are involved in an interface type of planning, as has been

mentioned by some of the members who have spoken previously on this

bill, on matters which relate to things like sewer and water services.

As a matter of fact, the Greater Vancouver Regional District is very

deeply involved in these two services which are provided to

municipalities. This, I would suggest, is one of the original reasons

why regional districts were formed: to provide this type of service

which doesn't know geographic delineation, but spreads over from one

side to the other.

[3:00]

The Dewdney-Alouette Regional District not only has responsibility,

as I have stated, for these other matters, but I would just like to

read out to you a number of the other things that they do handle

through their planning department. They do research which is related to

the function of regional hospitals and provide data for decision-making

to those bodies; they become involved in agricultural land reserve

administration, the applications for pieces of land taken from the

reserve being processed through the regional district, and they also

handle these applications through to the Land Commission, if they get

that far. They have a responsibility for regional parks planning; they

do base maps for regional use; they keep track of land inventories —

and I'm still just speaking about the regional district with which I am

familiar; and they also develop and establish regional data bases which

are useful for a variety of purposes, like public works planning,

monitoring regional development, and that kind of thing. They also get

involved in things like population forecasting so that people down the

road will have some idea of what they're working with in that regard.

They have input into provincial corridor planning and, as has been

stated and seems to have been accepted as one of their

responsibilities, are involved in official settlement plans. I believe

that, contrary to what has been suggested just a moment ago, most areas

do have settlement plans in place. They also have a responsibility for

the administration of the Soil Conservation Act.

So, Mr. Speaker, I must repeat that I don't see Bill 9 as being the

end of the regional planning function. Also, suggestions that have been

made that you could, if this bill goes through, wake up some morning

and find a piggery next door to you, or some other kind of development

which is not compatible....

Interjection.

MR. PELTON: A piggery, I think I said. Yes.

This really cannot happen, because regional districts, like

municipalities, have zoning bylaws, and this type of thing is

controlled through the zoning bylaw. I haven't read anything in this

legislation which says there will no longer be zoning bylaws.

I would like to speak for just a moment or two about APCs — advisory

planning commissions. It was mentioned yesterday, I believe, by the

second member for Victoria. He mentioned the advisory planning

commissions. These commissions were developed many years ago before

most municipalities or cities had planning departments or planners.

Advisory planning commissions served a very real and useful role in the

controlled development of areas in which they functioned. There are

many planning commissions which are still functioning and which still

provide this kind of service. There is nothing that's indicated to me

that this procedure will be affected under this particular piece of

legislation. Most of the cities, I believe, and the large

municipalities no longer have advisory planning commissions, simply

because they have planning departments. But there are other areas, I

know, within the regional districts.... The Dewdney-Alouette Regional

District has a very active planning commission which does great service

to all of the people they serve, particularly the people who live in

the electoral areas where

[ Page 513 ]

the only form of government they have available to them is that government that they get from the regional district.

Just for one moment I would like to talk about the technical

planning committees that are being done away with under this

legislation. It has been my personal view for some time now that.... I

suppose way back somewhere these particular committees had a value, but

in my view they have outlived any usefulness which they might have had.

I personally have found, particularly over the last three years, that

they did yeoman's service at the time that official regional plans were

being developed. An official regional plan is, as I'm sure everybody

appreciates, just like an overlay kind of thing. You put all the

community plans together, and you can take the official regional plan

and lay it over the top and it fits on there just beautifully. All of

the functions are identical — almost identical — except that in the

official regional plan they are more widely defined than they are in

the community plan, where they get down to the nitty-gritty.

AN HON. MEMBER: There are more bureaucrats involved in it.

MR. PELTON: Yes, that's true enough.

The TPC, I would suggest, probably had some value, but as I also

suggest, it has outlived its usefulness, and I see no harm in its being

done away with. They've got to the point now where they are an

impediment, I believe, to the ongoing development within particular

municipalities.

I might give you just a couple of examples of the kind of thing I

found very difficult to live with. The TPC becomes involved in

applications for removal or subdivision of agricultural land reserve

parcels. On many occasions I have sat on the planning committee of the

regional district from my own municipality.... Here's a planning

committee that's made up of people from the municipalities which are in

the regional district, plus one of the regional directors, and we have

been dealing with a subdivision application within the agricultural

land reserve. This is quite permissive. There's no problem. You can

subdivide within the agricultural land reserve, but within different

jurisdictions they will have stipulated the size of parcels that

agricultural land can be subdivided into. The TPC with which we have

had to deal has, for some reason or other, locked onto the idea — and

perhaps it came out of the Land Commission at one time — that parcels

within the ALR should not be subdivided into less than ten acres.

People have come forward with applications that are.... If you applied

good logic to these applications I think it would be no problem at all

to justify the fact that they could be subdivided into smaller parcels

than ten acres. But the TPCs choose the ten acres, and invariably they

come forward with this negative kind of a statement. It becomes

monotonous that it must be ten acres.

A viable piece of agricultural land certainly doesn't have to be ten

acres in size. I can give an example of why that's not true. In Pitt

Meadows we have a young man who is renowned throughout this province

for the cucumbers he grows. He grows enough cucumbers to make a very

good living and to support a family, and I believe he hires one or two

people. He grows these cucumbers on 100,000 square feet of land. If

that isn't viable farming, I don't know what it is. On top of that, the

cucumbers are not even planted in the land; they're grown in pots. I

just cite that as an example of the type of thing we've been getting

out of the TPCs, and which I think we can do without henceforth.

The last thing I would like to speak about before I sit down is the

matter of autonomy for municipalities and other jurisdictions when it

comes to planning. I believe this is absolutely essential. I have never

been able to accept the fact that someone from some other area could

judge the kind of planning that goes on within my municipality by the

people who are elected to serve the municipality; the carefully

thought-out plans that they have approved, plans that have been

presented to them by the planners they pay, and that have gone to

public hearings in many cases. I cannot condone the idea that some

other jurisdiction should have anything to say about whether this type

of thing should go forward or not. I believe this is a form of

decentralization. It is a form of autonomy that I believe

municipalities are entitled to. I believe those people who sit opposite

support what I am saying, and I would like to quote from Hansard .

This is the first time I've stood on my feet and made a little speech

without having everything all written out, so forgive me for just a

moment.

This first one, from Hansard of April 6, 1982, is taken from

a speech made by one of the gentlemen opposite, whom I admire very

much. I've sat here and listened to him speak; he's an excellent

speaker. I don't necessarily like all the things he says, but I

certainly enjoy the way he says them. That's the hon. member for Prince

Rupert (Mr. Lea). In a speech that he made he said:

As a matter of fact, when the entire western world is

starting to take a look at the centralized economy that we have with

some worry — I think with well-grounded worry — when the whole world is

taking a look at a decentralized economic system and a decentralized

system of government, this government is going to a centralized system

more and more and more. More of the decisions that were made at one

time at the local level are now coming into this province's capital to

be made by a small group of people we call cabinet. More and more and

more we see the industrial and economic decisions that were once made

at the local level being made further and further away from the local

area — in New York, in Japan, all over the world, eastern Canada. As we

see those local decisions in our own economy slipping away from us, we

also see local government decisions slipping away from us, into either

Victoria or into Ottawa. A government that says they are for the

people, that they want the people in this province to make the

decisions that affect them.... This government has gone exactly the

other way around, in terms of schools, in terms of municipalities, in

terms of regional districts. Every one of those areas has had powers

taken away from them and transferred into the cabinet rooms in Victoria.

MR. REID: Who said that?

MR. PELTON: That was the hon. member for Prince Rupert.

Perhaps he was right at that time, but by George, we're trying to

change it now. We're trying to turn some autonomy back to the

municipalities, and for that reason, if for no other, I stand here and

support Bill 9, and I would recommend support from both sides of the

House.

MR. ROSE: This afternoon I would like to offer a few musings

on this particular piece of legislation. I don't expect to speak at any

great length, which will probably please the members opposite, and my

own colleagues as well.

[3:15]

I would like to take issue with a few of the things my good friend from Dewdney

said just recently. I don't suggest that he has misled us in any way or

is particularly confused himself, but I think he needs to be clarified on one

or two little items here. I think it's true to say that the whole package

of 26 or 27 bills.... They tend to be centralizing bills. When it

[ Page

514 ]

comes to education, and to municipalities and their financing, whether we're

talking about the ability of a municipality or an institution to pay salaries,

to hire staff.... All that kind of stuff is being centralized in the ministry.

We know that there are diseconomies of scale. But when it comes to the autonomous

zoning of land, then it's up to the municipalities, and this is where the

municipalities are most vulnerable.

As the mayor of a large municipality, which I once represented

federally, I think the members should know that the very reason we have

a land use act at all, and an agricultural land reserve, is that the

municipalities were not able to withstand the pressures of development,

because they didn't have the strength individually. So they were being

picked off one by one over the years. I've been in municipal life a

little bit — not a lot, but some — and I can recall that we had a lower

mainland regional plan approved by the municipalities before we had a

lower mainland regional district. It was the regional plan and the

districts within that that asked for and ultimately received in 1966 or

1967 the letters patent for the lower mainland regional district. Now

that didn't last very long; it lasted only one year. It lasted until

the Roberts Bank issue came about, and it had to do with where those

rail lines to the Roberts Bank coalport were to be directed. It became

a terrific issue. The regional district, which was one year old, was

led by a man who's now in the Council of Forest Industries — Alderman

Don Lanskail at the time. Where that rail line was to go became a

profound political issue. The regional district became a political

force that threatened the power of the provincial government. Within a

year of the letters patent being issued for the planning function of

that district, because it became a political instrument and because it

disagreed with the government, the plan was scrapped. The district was

scrapped.

So we had three or four more created out of it. It was "divide and

conquer." Exactly the same thing is happening here. Where do you think

we got Dewdney-Alouette Regional District? It was all part of the lower

mainland regional district. These were districts that asked for and

received that plan, and were granted letters patent for one year. They

were just withdrawn by fiat by the provincial government, by the Hon.

W.A.C. Bennett. Where do you think the Fraser-Cheam Regional District

came from? It came from the same thing, and so did the Central Fraser

Valley Regional District. They came about as "divide and conquer,"

because the regional plan was so strong and so concerned about the

region that it became a political threat. It frustrated the ambitions

and the objectives of the Premier of this province.

Interjection.

MR. ROSE: The hon. member for Langley (Hon. Mr. McClelland)

has his dates all mixed up. He wasn't in this House at the time; he

wasn't even in municipal politics. He was a broadcaster at that time,

and he was able to reach all the citizens in Langley without the aid of

a microphone.

I really think it's important to set the record straight. Who asked

for the regional planning to begin with? The municipalities. Who asked

for the planning function? The municipalities. Who chopped up the lower

mainland regional plan into about four or five parcels and left other

areas completely vulnerable? It was the provincial government. The same

thing has happened again. My good friend and colleague from Dewdney

says that he doesn't understand why there's this big misunderstanding

about all plans being cancelled.

We didn't say all planning is being cancelled — certainly not for

things like sewers, water, transportation or hospitals. We know those

aren't being cancelled. I refer the hon. member — and I ask him to look

at the bill — to

section 808(l). It says here: "Elimination of regional

plans and official regional plans. All regional plans and official

regional plans prepared or designated before sections 807 and 808 were

repealed are cancelled and have no effect." Well, it seems to me that

what you've got there is the very contradiction of what the member

asserted. Therefore I find it a little difficult to understand what he

is saying.

Look, it's land use planning that's being attacked in this bill;

it's not all planning. I repeat that when it happens to be something

that controls the purse-strings, then this government wants to

centralize; but when it has occasion to leave a municipality

vulnerable, then we've got autonomy. I don't think you can have it both

ways, but maybe you can. Maybe the idea is, after all, that you won the

election and you can do as you like. Land use planning is extremely

important in British Columbia, but there are other aspects as well. The

business of a region is a pretty important one.

The member for Dewdney represents a municipality that is sandwiched

between two other municipalities. At least to my knowledge, at the

moment he has had no examples of developments right on his border. But

ask Coquitlam. Coquitlam had Burnaby put a huge shopping centre right

on its border and Port Coquitlam had Coquitlam put a huge shopping

centre on its border. It seems to me that consultation in regard to

those matters is extremely important.

If Pitt Meadows, for instance, with this bill passing decided to put

a huge gas plant or some sort of heavy industry that was going to be

polluting on the border with Maple Ridge, it would be very serious. If

you couldn't handle it regionally, I don't know how you would handle

it. As a matter of fact, I've been to many meetings with the hon.

member dealing with the regional plan and its economic development. I

think that he would agree that intramunicipal planning is extremely

important. You don't have a vehicle if it's a notwithstanding —

"notwithstanding anything it says here, we don't have to pay any

attention to you as a region." Then I think we've lost something that

we've gained. I put it no more harshly than that. I don't say it's the

black hand of the state or the absence of it or whatever. I think we've

got to be reasonable about it or we're not believable. I, for one,

regret the fact that regions will no longer have an opportunity to

control their own destinies in an organized way. It is left up to a

particular municipality to make its own decisions. I don't think that's

proper.

Let's say it's acid rain, air pollution or whatever; land use

planning is similarly important and needs to be cherished. So I intend

to vote against this particular piece of....

MR. REID: Why?

MR. ROSE: Because I don't think most municipalities want it either.

MR. REID: Oh, yeah?

MR. ROSE: Well, I don't know about most, but all I know is, as Will Rogers used to say, "All I know is what I read in the papers."

[ Page 515 ]

I'm not going to read you the city of Vancouver's latest

pronouncements. We've heard from the member for Cowichan-Malahat (Mrs.

Wallace) on that one, so I don't need to repeat it. But I got a letter,

as did my colleague from Maillardville-Coquitlam (Mr. Parks), from the

district of Coquitlam, which I am honoured to represent, regarding

regional planning functions. It says here:

"The municipal council of the district of Coquitlam at

their meeting July 18, 1983, adopted the following resolution: 'That

council reaffirms its endorsation of the ten recommendations in the

proposal of April 16, 1982, from the Lower Mainland Planning Review

Panel, said recommendations attached to the letter from the GVRD, dated

July 12, 1983, addressed to Mayor Brian Robinson, and the council's

endorsation of the ten recommendations be made known to Coquitlam MLAs,

the GVRD and the Ministry of Municipal Affairs.' "

Then there is a reference to their recommendations, and I'm

certainly not going to bore the House by reading all of those

recommendations, but I think the important one is this:

"That the intermunicipal planning function should be

provided in legislation for the metropolitan economic areas such as the

lower mainland and greater Victoria, which have large and growing

populations and numerous local government jurisdictions."

That's the way that at least one municipality I represent feels

about it. I have to at least present their representation. That letter

went to the minister. I think that we fool ourselves if we say that

deregulation is going to solve our problems. Deregulation didn't solve

the airline problems in the United States. Go down to Arizona and look

at the planes on the ground. It didn't increase the traffic and it

didn't even make the fares much cheaper; it put all the airlines out of

business. So don't look to deregulation as some sort of magic panacea

that is somehow going to solve all our problems, because it isn't going

to do it.

What is this business that we're mired somehow and we're in a

tanglefoot of regulations? Of course we are. How can we operate as a

civilized society unless we have some rules to follow? The argument

here is not whether we need rules; the argument is what the rules

should be and how many should we have. But if it becomes vital to the

development of our region, where is the population on the lower

mainland going to go except up the Fraser Valley? There is no other

place for it to go. We can chase it up on the hillside. We can prevent

urban sprawl. Surrey nearly went broke just after the war because they

couldn't service urban sprawl. It seems to me that there is a regional

function here. If you deprive that region of those powers, then it is

going to be very difficult. I doubt, Mr. Speaker, in all sort of

kindness and benign approach that I can take to this, that we would

have had this problem had it not been for the Spetifore land deal. I

know we've had other problems — Grosvenor, Laing and other sorts of

attacks on the Land Commission. We could argue about whether or not

those things are justifiable, whether it's all sand or whether anybody

could grow anything on it or not. The point is the frustration. We have

this legislation, this "son of Spetifore" that we're talking about. To

throw this great baby of regional planning out with the bath water

seems to me.... I'm trying to think of a nice word. Precipitous, how's

that? It's precipitous.

HON. MR. RITCHIE: Spell it. It's very nice.

MR. ROSE: I wouldn't attempt to spell it, because I'm afraid I might not be able to do it.

People will say this is a payoff to developers — all the rest of it.

The Minister of Industry and Small Business Development (Hon. Mr.

Phillips) will say: "Well, don't you want any jobs? Don't you want us

to build housing?" Of course we do, but we happen to think that you

could build houses just as well, maybe not as cheaply, on hillsides as

we can where it's easier. For that matter, I believe that all the

corridors for transportation should be in the same place in the Fraser

Valley. Do you realize that in the constituency of Langley there are

about six or eight wide corridors that just gobble up valuable land? We

didn't think about those things 20 or 30 years ago. Surely we've

learned a bit since then. We've got rail corridors, road corridors,

power corridors. They should have all been down the river corridor, but

they weren't. Second sight is fine. We all have 20:20 hindsight.

Interjection.

MR. ROSE . I'm sorry. I interrupted the minister who was interrupting

me. I apologize for that. I shouldn't do that.

Because a government or a municipality such as Delta happens to be

frustrated by a particular aspect of planning and the law works against

it in that instance, I don't think that's any reason why we should

change the law. Beyond that, what concerns me about this amendment is

what the situation would be if a municipality, such as Maple Ridge or

Pitt Meadows, decided to amend its plan without relationship to the

region, to use up some agricultural land reserve to supply a lot more

housing or something like that. As I said, there's no place for the

population to go, except up the Fraser Valley, and it's a limited

amount of land. What happens there is that the council says yes, you

can do it. The council lets it go, and the rezoning goes through, and

you have a recommendation to the Land Commission that this agricultural

land be changed in zoning. Following that, it goes to the Land

Commission, which looks it over and says: "No, you can't do that. We

don't like it." Then it goes to cabinet, and the cabinet says yes, you

can. Then there is no final appeal from cabinet. We have taken away the

right of regional districts to have a final look at that kind of

proposal. Maybe that's what the aim is. I, for one, regret that.

[3:30]

There's just one other thing I would like to say before I sit down.

Really, it isn't often the local people who control development anyway.

You talk about local autonomy, but frequently it's in the hands of

developers, many of whom don't even live in this country.

There was a classic book that I thought was interesting, but I've forgotten the name of the author. It was called City for Sale . That book was about....

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: It was Lorimer's book.

MR. ROSE: Well, it might have been. Anyway, it dealt with the

city of Montreal. Lorimer, if that's his name, demonstrated that

Imperial Oil or some oil company had bought up all the land around the

periphery of Montreal and made certain...

HON. MR. HEINRICH: Rockefeller.

[ Page 516 ]

MR. ROSE: Well, it's the same thing — Chevron.

...that development did not go on in the urban core of Montreal;

Montreal was going to become the hole in the doughnut, where the

shopping centres and all the arterials led. That had nothing to do with

local planners. But if a city or a region cannot control that, so

development is done by dummy corporations....

Interjection.

MR. ROSE: Get rid of them? Well, that's the final arbitration to all these things.

Interjection.

MR. ROSE: Well, in this case it wasn't a regional district.

The same thing is true of Montreal or any other district. I think it

indicates a need for more than just the particular, say, suburban

municipality's interests that we have to concern ourselves with. I

think the minister will find.... I'm sorry the minister had this sort

of sprung on him the other day because of a procedural wrangle over

here, because I know he intended to consult with a number of people. I

happen to know he had meetings set up. I happen to know he was a little

bit embarrassed that we're proceeding with this before he's had an

opportunity to have those consultations — at least, I've heard. Well, I

give him the benefit of the doubt. You're not sorry, Mr. Minister?

Interjection.

MR. ROSE: He wants to get on with it. I don't care what his

colleague over here says; he would push ahead with it. He would go at

it with a tank, I think. He would railroad it through. But I'm quite

sure that the minister, who has a lot more sensitivity on these issues

than a lot of people might give him credit for, would have preferred to

consult with the UBCM and perhaps other bodies on this matter before he

proceeded.

AN HON. MEMBER: Is he shaking his head?

MR. ROSE: No, I'm not certain. That does not, in his view,

signify a negative. It signifies that maybe mosquitoes or something are

bothering him.

I think we try to make the case, and I'll sum up quickly, that

regional plans were asked for by the municipalities. Point two: you

need to have those powers regionally or else the whole thing becomes

chaotic, with one municipality competing with another, without regard

for the other. We have to have some protection in terms of land-use

planning; at least nobody argues any longer that if I want to have an

autowrecking business in my yard next to a single-family residence,

that somehow interferes in somebody's private use of the land. We are

much more civilized and advanced than that. But we have to have rules

and regulations, and it seems to me this is not a forward step. This is

a backward step and we'll regret it.

MRS. JOHNSTON: I am very pleased to stand before you today,

Mr. Speaker, and speak in favour of Bill 9. Some of the comments put

forward by members in opposition are so far from the truth and reality

that one wonders if any of them have really taken the time to read the

bill.

The point which disturbs me more than anything else is the type of

personal rather than philosophical attack that has come across the

House. I don't mind people disagreeing with me or with members of the

government, but when these disagreements take the form of personal

attacks, I think they should not be acceptable or allowed. I hope some

of the members might clean up their act when they stand up to speak.

The suggestion made by some of the members opposite is that this is

the Spetifore proposal. Certainly nothing can be further from the

truth. We have already heard from the minister that this is not a bill

that was put together overnight, and the Spetifore proposal was

something that was dealt with very recently. Prior to the bill's being

presented in its present form, the minister assured us that discussion

had taken place between the Union of B.C. Municipalities and members of

the development industry. I really don't know how much further you can

expect a member to go; this is the place now to debate it. The mayor of

Surrey, who is very involved in the Greater Vancouver Regional

District, has been over to meet with the minister twice recently, to my

knowledge, and quite likely more often than that, and this has

certainly been one of the matters and topics for discussion. For a

member to suggest that the minister has placed this bill before the

House without any prior consultations with the bodies that are to be

involved would certainly suggest that the members are not informed at

all.

In my maiden speech to this House, Mr. Speaker, I did refer to the

necessity, in my opinion, of having the wings of the regional districts

clipped, and this is certainly a start in the right direction. It never

ceases to amaze me — and I speak now of the members of the Greater

Vancouver Regional District — that applications for change of land use

from Surrey, Delta or Richmond which go before the board and have to be

dealt with by members from North and West Vancouver, and particularly

Vancouver, are met with a negative reaction, even though the

applications of members of the local councils in Surrey, Delta and

Richmond, the three communities mainly involved in asking for land use

changes, are not dealt with in a vein of respect for the wishes of the

local community.

Members of the opposition have been suggesting that adoption of this

bill would leave us with no planning in some of these communities, and

I really can't understand that argument. We have a very large planning

department in Surrey, and most communities have planning departments.

Are they suggesting that the local planning departments and councils

are not intelligent enough, that they don't know the wishes of their

local communities well enough to make decisions with regard to land-use

planning? It is ridiculous to suggest that you are going to have an

auto-body repair shop next to a home if you have a planning department

in a community, or that you would have a major industrial type of

development next to a residential community in an area such as Surrey,

Delta, Burnaby or Vancouver, or any of the communities that do have

planning departments. The planning departments of these communities

wouldn't allow for that.

One of the original ideas behind the regional districts was the

decentralization of development, particularly the office jobs, store

type of development. But Vancouver, holding one of the major blocks of

votes.... If they're not prepared to support decentralization of

industry, jobs, or whatever it might be — commercial, industrial.... If

they're not prepared to support decentralization, it's just not going to

[ Page 517 ]

happen, because they hold the controlling block of

votes on the regional district. Vancouver has continually encouraged

office development in their downtown core, to the detriment of the

suburbs in the outlying districts. So when you have one of your major

partners in a regional district working to their own particular plan,

with no respect for the regional plan in general, it's just not going

to work.

I think basically we have a difference in philosophy here, and the

question that I would ask is: should the locally elected governments

have control over their destiny or should other communities do so? When

communities in the suburbs put forward applications for changes in land

use — and often they apply to land that has previously been in the

agricultural land reserve; not all the time, but quite often they do,

particularly in areas such as Surrey, Delta and Richmond — it never

ceases to amaze me that the mayor of West Vancouver or North Vancouver

or Vancouver will stand up and speak very strongly against the change

of land use. They are not prepared to put up any money to allow that

property to continue to stay green. They want to have their

constituents — the residents of their city communities — go out for a

Sunday drive and enjoy the greenery of the country, but it's at the

expense of the people who own that property in the country. I think

it's high time that we said no. If they want to have these large

greenbelts for their residents to look at, they had better start making

provision for them in their own communities or help the people who are

in these larger suburban communities to maintain them as greenbelts, if

that's the way it's going to be. They can't have it both ways. They're

going to have to help pay for them.

Here is another example, and this doesn't even apply to agricultural

land, Mr. Speaker. Surrey council has a very active planning

department, and we've been working on a community plan for quite some

time. We designated large areas in our community for future acreage and

half-acre development. But no, the regional district, in their wisdom,

wanted that particular area developed with urban lots. The local

council wanted half-acre and one-acre development so that they could

provide some open space for the people living in that community. But

no, the regional district — the majority of the members on the board —

wanted that as urban development. So, you know, it seems to me that

somewhere along the line the local autonomy has really been lost. Maybe

we should even go further than this bill. Maybe we should be looking to

Houston in the U.S.A. They don't have any planning. The economics of

the day dictates their planning. Maybe this is the way we're going to

have to start looking.

I think it's very important for us to look at the amount of money

being spent by some of these regional districts. As mentioned earlier

by one of our members, the Bulkley-Nechako Regional District has a $2

million budget. The Greater Vancouver Regional District had an $8.5

million budget in 1982, and their 1983 budget is roughly the same.

Roughly $1.5 million of that is for regional planning. It's a great

deal of money. If we are talking of restraint, it is actually a

duplication of work being done by local communities. That work is

already being done by the municipalities, so it's a waste for it to be

done in two areas. The Capital Regional District's 1983 budget is just

about $38 million; $360,000 of that is for planning.

Maybe, as the member for Omineca (Mr. Kempf) mentioned earlier,

we're not going far enough. I would hope that this would be just a

start in changes that are going to be made in the legislation.

Furthermore, I know that the Minister of Municipal Affairs is very

concerned about input from the local communities. He has already set up

a meeting with members sitting in the gallery today. It seems to me

that input is what we're looking for, and the input that has been

received from many of the local councils.... I can specifically mention

Surrey because we dealt with such a motion in Surrey council, which was

asking the provincial government to relieve the regional district of

their planning powers. This is not just a bill to relieve the members

of the transaction of the Spetifore property.

I would like to repeat some of the comments made by the second

member for Surrey (Mr. Reid) this morning because I think they're very

important. It shows the....

[3:45]

MR. BLENCOE: I wouldn't do that.

MRS. JOHNSTON: Wouldn't you? Oh, I would. Just in case some

of you across the floor didn't listen this morning, I think it's very

important....

MR. LEA: Are they germane, though?

MRS. JOHNSTON: Yes, of course they're germane, and I would

like to suggest that it shows the inconsistency of some of the

arguments put forward by the members in the opposition. I'm suggesting

that their arguments with regard to the Spetifore property really don't

hold a great deal of water when they say we want to do away with

planning and that we're basically going to do away with the

preservation of farmland. I refer to the

article that was in the Vancouver Sun

on February 4, 1974, when the minister of the day said that the Land

Commission Act was not designed to save all farmland. The

environmentalists were trying to preserve Tilbury Island from

industrial development. "They should realize that the Land Commission

Act was not designed to protect all the farmland in British Columbia,

Industrial Development minister Gary Lauk said on Wednesday." This

appeared to be in complete contradiction to arguments that have been

put forward by members opposite over the last two days. He further went

on to say that these people have to realize that the Land Commission

Act....

Interjections.

MRS. JOHNSTON: Mr. Lauk went on further to say: "These people

have to realize that the Land Commission Act was not intended to

preserve every square inch of farmland in perpetuity." I would like to

suggest that that was one of your own members — a member sitting in

opposition....

MR. REID: Who said that?

MRS. JOHNSTON: The second member for Vancouver Centre. I

guess it isn't really unusual, but it's contradictory to hear a member

of the opposition referred to as having made this type of statement

when we hear their members standing up now and suggesting that it was

only the Socreds that would do anything like that.

In November 1973 the NDP purchased 726 acres of land on Tilbury

Island in Delta for an industrial park. This was dedicated as prime

farmland, class 2 and 3, in the proposed ALR. I'm repeating this and

hoping that some of you opposite are listening because it's very

important. "Prime class 2 and 3" is certainly not anywhere near the

designation of the

[ Page 518 ]

Spetifore property. They are suggesting that the

Bennett cabinet has removed thousands of acres from the land reserve.

Ninety-eight percent of the 120,000 acres removed from the ALR since

1974 were recommended for removal by the Agricultural Land Commission.

This means that the decisions and recommendations of the Land

Commission were supported by the Socred cabinet on all but 2 percent of

the areas. The Social Credit cabinet, in accordance with the Land

Commission, has added 82,374 acres to the agricultural land reserve.

I'm very disappointed. I hope that members opposite are going to read Hansard

so that they'll have all these facts, and when they stand up to speak

on Bill 9 they'll be able to speak with a little bit more knowledge and

information, or else they won't bother to speak and they will support

it. Because they're not really standing behind statements that have

already been made by members of their party who have been in office for

quite some time.

In closing I would just point out that I believe local autonomy of

municipal and city governments is very important. The regional

districts have grown to the extent that not only should they have their

planning powers clipped, but there should be other items that are under

their control....

I'm glad to see that transit was taken from them, and I think we're

going to start looking at some other areas. When we look at $38 million

for the Capital Regional District and at $8.5 million budgets for the

Greater Vancouver Regional District, in a time of restraint there's too

much duplication in those sums. I'm pleased to speak in support of Bill

MR. STUPICH: It will come as no surprise to you, Mr. Speaker, to hear me say that I intend to speak in opposition to Bill 9.

Interjection.

MR. STUPICH: The hon. Minister of Education (Hon. Mr.

Heinrich), I think it is now — today — asked me whether or not I would

raise Tilbury. Well, I'll rise to the challenge; I will talk about

Tilbury.

I'm pleased to see that the hon. member for Dewdney (Mr. Pelton) is

still in the House. I believe that if there is anyone on that side of

the House who's going to listen, then I believe it will be that member,

whether he's in the chair or not. He gives one the impression that he's

actually listening to what's being said. Not too many of the 57 members

in the House are prepared to listen to what anyone else is saying.

Interjection.

MR. STUPICH: Well, I may include in that the second member

for Surrey (Mr. Reid). He certainly doesn't listen with his ears. One

gets the impression he does all of his listening with his mouth wide

open.

I was in this House when regional districts were first started, when

they were introduced by the then Minister of Municipal Affairs, the

hon. Dan Campbell, with the support, of course, of the Premier of the

day, W.A.C. Bennett. At that time they were given one common function.

Every regional district's prime function was that of planning. That was

why they were established in the first place. Certainly, in the passage

of time other functions were assigned to them by the first Social

Credit administration. I don't recall whether we added any functions,

or whether any have been added since, but they have picked up a number

of functions over the years. But the one function that they all had was

planning. The one function that they still have, until this legislation

is approved, is planning within the regional district. That was felt to

be the most important thing. Up until that time there was some planning

in municipalities. Up until then there was some planning done by the

provincial government, although precious little, in rural areas.

Whatever planning being done was being done by the Department of

Highways in those days. Regional districts were first established to

get some rationalisation of the planning that was going on, so that it

would truly be planning. They were given the role of planning within

the boundaries of those regional districts.

It's a function that they have carried on, not without some

controversy over the years. There have been questions raised about what

they're doing. But there can be no question that it's better to have

the planning done within the boundaries of a regional district, even

when there are several municipalities within the boundaries of that

regional district, rather than to have various municipalities within a

regional district, in opposition to other municipalities, decide where

certain zoning changes are going to be made.

[Mr. Strachan in the chair.]

The hon. first member for Surrey (Mrs. Johnston) made some

interesting remarks about this and talked about the way in which the

regional district is stopping certain areas from having certain

attractions. For example, wouldn't it be great if highrise office

buildings could be built in areas other than downtown Vancouver? I

can't agree to that. I wish they were all in one place. Keep them all

in one place and let's keep the rest of the country a little bit better

than sticking a whole bunch of highrise office buildings all over the

place, simply because it suits the needs of a particular municipality.

I see the Minister of Municipal Affairs (Hon. Mr. Ritchie) is rather

amused at this. Of course, it has been called the Spetifore amendment.

And even the members on the government side....

Interjection.

MR. STUPICH: I'll stop for a breath, and maybe you can say that again. I might hear it this time.

Interjection.

MR. STUPICH: Mr. Speaker, I don't know what that has to do

with planning on the part of the regional districts. Certainly

everything that the Nanaimo Commonwealth Holding Society has tried to

do has been approved by local planning authorities without any problem

at all. The vote on the highrise was eight votes in favour and one

against on a city council of nine.

Interjections.

MR. STUPICH: I'm sorry, Mr. Speaker, I'm trying to hear this

and answer it at the same time. There are too many of them chattering.

May I simply say again that out of nine votes, eight were in favour of

everything that that organization wanted in order to proceed with the

planning that was proposed.

[ Page 519 ]

Interjection.

MR. STUPICH: The member suggests that I want all the

highrises in Vancouver. What the hon. first member for Surrey was

speaking about and what I was responding to — the minister obviously

wasn't listening to his own member — was her decrying the situation in

which highrise office buildings within the Greater Vancouver Regional

District are being concentrated in one part of that regional district,

rather than being spread evenly throughout the Greater Vancouver

Regional District. That's what the conversation was about, Mr. Minister.

If I could get back for a moment to the hon. Minister of Municipal

Affairs, well might he smile about this. It's being called the

Spetifore amendment, and the members on the government side, while

sometimes they've objected to that, have never really made a case for

it being anything other than that. The Minister of Municipal Affairs —

the current minister — was, of course, a member of the Land Commission

at one time. His attitude towards saving agricultural land, preserving

it for that purpose, was well-known. You'll recall, Mr. Speaker, that

it was the object of an RCMP investigation at one time. You'll recall,

Mr. Speaker, that same member saying in this House that had it not been

for the intervention of the Attorney-General, he wouldn't be a member

of the House. So we know his attitude towards agricultural land.

I can well believe that that minister would bring in legislation

doing away with some of the authority of the Land Commission,

indirectly. I suspect, Mr. Speaker, that he probably has more arrows to

fire with respect to the Agricultural Land Commission Act — he or other

members of his government. I think we have not seen the end of their

attack on the Agricultural Land Commission Act in this current session

of the Legislature. I'm concerned about that. We'll have to wait to see

what comes next, I suppose.

The first member for Surrey (Mrs. Johnston) made much of the fact

that the municipality of Delta supports what the government is doing in

this legislation, and that's great. But it's not the whole story. The

member neglected to point out that of the twelve municipalities within

the GVRD, eleven are opposed to Bill 9. Eleven to one — that's pretty

good odds; that's better than eight to one.

This is dated July 26: "Eleven of the member municipalities of GVRD

have voted to oppose Bill 9, or expressed their approval of the current

regional planning process" — they liked the regional planning approach

— "or endorsed the ten-point recommendation re regional planning. Only

Delta has decided to express support for the bill."

Mr. Speaker, the GVRD did come up with recommendations with respect

to planning, and I would like to remind the members of those

recommendations.

"

(1) An inter-municipal planning function should be

provided in legislation for metropolitan economic areas such as the

lower mainland" — the whole of the lower mainland, not just

municipality by municipality — "and greater Victoria which have such

large and growing populations and numerous local government

jurisdictions. Because of those local government jurisdictions, so that

there will be some rationalization of planning within the municipal

district, it is important that there be this larger area that does have

control of planning.

" (2) the purposes of inter-municipal planning should be:

" (

a) to provide a process for the coordination of

programs, services and expenditures necessary to meet the needs of the

area's population."

One of the things included in the planning process, the official

regional plans, that has been talked about a bit is planning traffic

corridors. How ridiculous it would be, Mr. Speaker, to have

municipalities planning traffic corridors. Suppose when they got to the

boundaries of the municipality they didn't meet with what was being

planned in the next one. It makes some sense only if there is

inter-municipal planning.

"(

b) To investigate and recommend action on problems which

affect all or a major part of the area."

You can't say that something

happening within a municipality has an effect only on that municipality, not

when they are living as close as they are in the Capital Regional District or

in the Greater Vancouver Regional District.

[4:00]

" (

c) To supply the information on the overall social

economic and physical development of the area which is necessary for

effective planning and decision-making."

" (

d) To establish and maintain a regional land-use policy framework."

Mr. Speaker, that's a good recommendation. It makes a lot of sense.

It makes no sense to take away from the regional district the authority

over planning within that regional district. We're not centralizing by

maintaining it as it is. It's not the sort of centralization that is

before us in perhaps 20 of the 26 bills currently on the order paper.

Almost every one of them is increasing centralization of power within

the cabinet room. This is simply saying that the planning will stay at

the local level, but in a local level of a size appropriate to the

planning process itself.

"

(3) All metropolitan economic areas should be

covered by official regional plans" — this was supported by all of them

at that time — "which should include:

" (

a) area-wide development objectives and a strategy

describing the desired distribution of future population and

employment, together with the transportation systems needed to serve

that distribution. It's appropriate that the regional district as a

whole should decide whether or not there should be half-acre lots or

10-acre lots."

The member for Dewdney (Mr. Pelton) raised the question of a

recommendation that within the ALR the area should be limited to 10

acres when he talked of a very successful agricultural producer, who

was operating on about a hectare. In that particular case he went on

and sort of spoiled his story by saying that that particular farmer

could just as well have been on non-agricultural land. What he was

growing was growing in pots. Certainly in that instance it made no

sense for that person to be obliged to use 10 acres. But I suggest that

rather than disturb the planning process, it would have made more sense

for that person to have located elsewhere, rather than to be on good

farmland. There are all kinds of anomalies.

I've been challenged to deal with the Tilbury land. Several members

have quoted a member of the NDP administration at the time, with

respect to the Tilbury land, ten years ago. The Agricultural Land

Commission Act was introduced in this Legislature in the early spring

of 1973, and it was

[ Page 520 ]

passed before summer. In those days we used to meet

in January. We'd have a budget in February, and we'd get on with the

business and, up until 1972 at least, we'd be through with the business

by sometime in April, subject to coming back again for special

situations. Now we can't even have a budget until July. However, in

those days things went along a bit more smoothly. The Land Commission

Act was introduced in early 1973 and passed a couple of months later,

and at the time it was said over and over again that the boundaries

were not carved in stone. Certainly there were mistakes made in setting

up the boundaries originally, but you'll recall that the boundaries

were all discussed, studied and submitted to public hearings by

regional districts, and finally approved by regional districts before

they were submitted to the Land Commission for further study and

review, before they were again submitted to the Environment and Land

Use Committee of cabinet for further consideration and review. A lot of

work went into them, and even then the process was not perfect. It

couldn't be, but at least it achieved something.

At the time we said that the ideal would be that there would be a

five-year period during which any further changes would have to be

made. It was called a fine-tuning process by the first chairman of the

Land Commission, by the second chairman, by me and by others. By the

end of that time, hopefully, few changes would have to be made. By

then, hopefully, the community in total would recognize the importance

of the whole program, would realize that this was in the interests of

the whole community, and would accept the boundaries that were finally

established after a fine-tuning process of five years.

Within that five-year period mistakes were made, I'll grant you

that. There were areas included that should not have been included, and

there were areas taken out that I was opposed to having taken out at

the time. I accept that. Nevertheless I accepted also that for the

greater good, in order to get the boundaries established, in order to

get as much away from controversy as we could at the time, compromises

were necessary and were accepted. The Tilbury land was one of them.

Planning had gone into that beforehand, and while I personally felt

that it hadn't gone so far that it was too late to turn the clock back,

others argued that it had gone too far. Whatever, that was done. We're

talking about something that was done almost ten years ago.

Today we're talking about something that is being proposed to be

done ten years later, five years after the fine-tuning process should

have been completed. It hasn't been completed. The Land Commission,

from the time of the election of the Social Credit administration in

December 1975, has been starved for funds for proceeding quickly with

the fine-tuning process. The Land Commission itself was changed. The

Social Credit administration didn't like the decisions that were coming

out of the Land Commission and appointed their own people to the Land

Commission. They didn't like the decisions that their own people were

making, because when these people worked with staff and saw the value

and importance of what was happening, they were making very similar

decisions to the ones that were being made by the original commission.

It was a real training process for them to become members of the

commission, with the one exception that I mentioned, and that is the

current Minister of Municipal Affairs. He never did learn, but the

others learned and they made, in general, good decisions.

The Social Credit administration had to react again. They brought in

legislation in 1977, I think it was, to take the appeals into the

cabinet room so that if you were ever turned down in an appeal

anywhere, there was a process of getting into cabinet, where the

decisions were made without any public discussion. You could always get

your land out if you had an "in" or a cabinet minister's ear.

Unfortunately that's the way it has gone in recent years. Even that

hasn't been good enough to get all of the land out. We're not talking

about hundreds of thousands of acres. Sure, they can talk about how

many acres were added and how many have been subtracted, but it's the

critical and important pieces that are important. One that is important

enough to get into a cabinet discussion is very important, and

unfortunately those are the kinds of things that have been happening

since. When all else fails, if you can't even get your land out by

going to a cabinet meeting, well then, change some legislation to make

it possible.

In this instance, it would seem that there is a municipality that is

anxious enough to get this particular piece of land out that it's well

worth bringing legislation in to upset the planning process for all the

regional districts in the province. As one commentator said, "it's

using a baseball bat to kill a flea" to have to change the process of

the whole province simply to accommodate one individual situation. One

wonders why they didn't make a frontal attack on the whole process and

throw out the land commission act completely, as the Premier threatened

to do in the dying days of the election campaign, as he threatened to

do in the election campaign of 1975, but to this day apparently hasn't

yet had the nerve to. I say "to this day" because today is July 26; who

knows what will happen on July 27. They may well decide take the

legislation on completely.

Planning now, before this legislation, is done at the local level.

I've been challenged across the floor about shopping centres in

Nanaimo. I'm unhappy about the proliferation of shopping centres that

have been built within the boundaries of the city of Nanaimo. Certainly

with regional district support it couldn't have happened because the

regional district did have the authority. But how much worse will the

situation be when there is no supervision by the regional district?

It's bad enough now in Nanaimo. It will be worse if we pass this

legislation. It's unfortunate that the government feels it necessary to

do this simply to deal with one particular situation.

The Minister of Labour (Hon. Mr. McClelland) is getting bored with

the whole process. I can recall his involvement in a particular attempt

to get some land out of the agricultural land reserve as well, and I

won't talk about it now. I visited the Gloucester Properties, as did

many of the members in the House — good agricultural land.

Interjection.

MR. STUPICH: The Minister of Labour says: "You've got to be

kidding." Mr. Speaker, I don't know whether you had the opportunity to

visit that area. I don't know whether that minister ever looked at it.

It's just amazing to see the excellent farmland on one side of the

boundary, and the way it is being used productively. Then you come to a

line — in one case it's a fence; in one case it's a ditch — and you say

that on the other side of that ditch and the other side of that fence

it's not good farmland.

Bill 9 should never have been introduced; it takes away from regional districts the right to plan their own destinies.

[ Page 521 ]

Bill 9 would make it possible for municipalities to start competing

against each other within the boundaries of one municipal district, to

the loss of the whole regional district area. Bill 9 was introduced for

one particular situation that surely could have been handled some other

way. We have to be opposed to Bill 9, and we hope the government will

have the good sense not to proceed with this legislation.

MR. COCKE: First, may I say that not only do I not support

this bill, but I would think the Minister of Municipal Affairs (Hon.

Mr. Ritchie) knows, as I do, that the council in New Westminster has

voted in opposition to it. They have voted in opposition to this bill

because that city has had an opportunity to be at the whim of the

provincial government. They would take the regional district ahead of

that group over there, which has taken New Westminster down the tube

for the last number of years, particularly since 1976.

The council in New Westminster feels as I do: that to allow a

conglomerate of cities and towns within a region to each go its own way

with respect to planning, the only control being at the level of the

Minister of Municipal Affairs, who at once wishes to be a czar in this

province.... He's just been made a minister, for goodness' sake. Now

all of a sudden he wants to be the planning czar for the whole

province. That's what this is all about. He has made it very clear, as

have other members in this House, that they are very concerned about

the interference of regional districts, particularly when it gores

their ox. That's the thing that really hurts. When that group over

there either has a friend who has been seared by the planning process

or themselves have been seared by the planning process, then trouble

begins.

We have been accused of having made a mistake in Tilbury. I, along

with my colleague from Nanaimo, agree that that was an unfortunate

situation. Nonetheless, it was part of the very early process of the

whole question of protecting agricultural land. If we are to say that

the people of British Columbia should be continually jeopardized

because of one mistake, then I think we're making a very poor argument.

It's interesting to me that it's the members opposite who continue to

bring up that question, the very members who don't believe in the

situation in the first place.

[4:15]

Whether or not we like it, a very small percentage of our land is

available for agriculture. The other day I spoke to a person from

California, and it was a very interesting conversation we had. This

person was suggesting that they lived in a very rich agricultural area.

However, because of the fact that taxes are getting increasingly high

in that area, the farmers are selling their land to real estate

developers. It sounds like an old story, doesn't it? And the minister

says: "Tut, tut, tut." Because of his inability to think into the

future, he is not thinking about the fact that it's this kind of a

question all over the world that will place our future generations in

jeopardy.

We heard all that talk this morning about the Spetifore land. We

heard the second member for Surrey (Mr. Reid) admit that this bill was

the Spetifore amendment, so I gather that this is pretty well accepted

on both sides of the House now. What they're saying is that because of

the fact that there were some mistakes made with respect to succession

duties, estate taxes and the evaluation of the land, this particular

family was to some extent jeopardized financially, and that subsequent

to that they raised potatoes and then were confronted with McCain,

which I believe, and I agree with that member, is a damn travesty.

It is an absolute travesty that McCain should have been placed in a

position where they could drive a B.C. firm out of existence before it

even got started. That's a travesty not of our making, but why add

travesty to travesty? Why take that land out of the agricultural land

reserve, which has been done, and then, having taken it out of the

agricultural land reserve, after it has been proved to be good

agricultural land for generations — incidentally, it was farmed for

generations — and the regional district will not agree to make it a

housing subdivision, bring in

an act like this, depriving all of the

regional districts of the province of their planning function?

HON. MR. RITCHIE: Nonsense!

MR. COCKE: Mr. Speaker, it is not nonsense at all. It's taking away the planning function with teeth.

Interjection.

MR. COCKE: You've deleted 809 from the statute, have you not?

Then go and read it. I just took the time to read it before I got up to

speak.

You and I both know, Mr. Speaker, that this bill does exactly what

the minister wants it to do. It places all the power in his hands. The

municipalities are subservient to that minister. They don't have the

muscle that the regional districts have; therefore that's where it

rests.

MRS. JOHNSTON: Trust him.

MR. COCKE: The first member for Surrey says: "Trust him." She

trusts him to make sure that every farm in the province becomes a

trailer court or something. I think probably she has some idea about

trailer courts and the like. But I don't trust any individual that goes

power-grabbing like this. I have listened to all the statements that he

has been making in this House over the years, and what we see before us

is totally consistent with his statements made heretofore, and those

statements are: "Get rid of these hindrances; the developers are

getting impatient." Developers do get impatient. They get impatient

because what they like to do is develop the bottom land — it's easier

to develop. They want to get in where it's cheap, and that's precisely

what this kind of thing enables in the long run.

I believe that Delta are making a sad mistake, and now this government moves in to bail them out.

This minister must be getting uncomfortable. For some reason, all of

a sudden not only is he a czar but he now has the capability of saying

to a member opposite: "Get your hands out of your pockets." As long as

my hands are comfortable there, they will remain there, Mr. Minister,

with or without the Minister of Municipal Affairs liking it.

I believe that the municipalities cannot function as units when they

are so close. I can remember the old days of Dan Campbell. All the talk

in those days was metropolitanization, wondering what to place under

the metropolitan mantle and wondering what not to and so on and so

forth. It was decided ultimately that metropolitanization was not the

way to go and that the regional district was the concept.

I believe, Mr. Speaker, that the regional districts do need some refining.

I will go that far.

[ Page 522 ]

Interjection.

MR. COCKE: The member for Omineca (Mr. Kempf) said: "What do

you know about other parts of the province?" It just so happens that we

have some land in the Interior on Skaha Lake. The now Minister of

Consumer and Corporate Affairs (Hon. Mr. Hewitt) was up there....

Interjection.

MR. COCKE: What's wrong with having property? The only thing that I don't have is Dawn Development shares.

Interjections.

MR. COCKE: No thanks. You keep them.

Mr. Speaker, the ranchers in Okanagan Falls decided that they were

going to introduce a slaughterhouse into that poor little community,

with a 10,000-head feedlot. Now I don't know if you know anything about

Okanagan Falls, but it's kind of a nice little beautiful valley at the

foot of Skaha Lake. So some of us had to go to work to see to it that

it didn't happen there, because there were other areas that were quite

happy to have these facilities. It just so happened that it never did

get to the regional directors from Penticton and other cities because,

as we all know, the rural directors have a veto on that sort of thing

and the rural directors exercised their veto. In other words, their

vote carried the whole thing and put it away, and now it's down in some

other part of the valley. It's away from civilization.

Interjections.

MR. COCKE: The GVRD.... You see, Mr. Speaker, that's

precisely what I'm saying. If there is a way to refine it, why don't

you find a way to refine it rather than bludgeon it to death? That's

all we're talking about — change the weighting of votes. You're the

Minister of Municipal Affairs. You've been there for 15 minutes and you

bring in a sledge-hammer to cure a very easily cured situation, in my

view.

The vengeful attitude of this government has shown up in every piece

of legislation we have before us, except the first piece of

legislation, which will never be discussed or talked about. It is the

parliamentary piece of legislation that comes in each year and dies on

the order paper so that the Attorney-General can be blessed by

introducing it the next year, and it's about parliamentary privileges.

In any event, Mr. Speaker, I have discussed this with people in our

area who are most affected and with people on council in New

Westminster who are most affected by this legislation. They suggest

that if we don't have an overall plan and if we allow individual

municipalities, cities, towns or whatever to be vying for everything

and paying no attention to one another, then we don't have the kind of

streamlined society we need. Some of the members opposite shake their

heads. They say: "Trust us. The Minister of Municipal Affairs will make

the decision." I will have faith, but I will tell you this: I would

like the people in our province to read Hansard , just the speeches that that minister has made in his time in this House, and "trust us" will not be their attitude.

MR. REID: Have faith.

MR. COCKE: Have faith!

Mr. Speaker I'll tell you what kind of faith everybody should have,

and that is the faith in a government that brings in legislation that's

fair, equitable and hasn't got some kind of motivation such as what we

have here.

MRS. JOHNSTON: That's the B.C. spirit.

MR. COCKE: The B.C. spirit has become a joke across our

country. How ashamed I am every night when I go to bed, picking up the

eastern press and finding out that we are the laugh of the nation. Now

we've even hit the Wall Street Journal , for crying out loud.

They in turn have said that we've got a foolish, repressive, vindictive

government. Now really and truly.... When you have to become the object

of half the western world looking at us and sneering, or smiling in

disbelief, then I suggest that what this government should do is not

only pull this piece of legislation, but pull all 26 bills. Pull every

one of them, like the city council of Vancouver asks, including your

good Socred member Don Bellamy.

Interjections.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Come to order, please.

MR. COCKE: Mr. Speaker, one of the most amusing people in this House is that two-word member, that second member for Surrey (Mr. Reid).

Interjection.

MR. COCKE: That's right, he's comic relief, and the good Lord

knows we need comic relief in the serious days we have before us. We

have before us a bill — Bill 9 — that has nothing to do with in-depth

thought in changing the situation so that regional districts can better

respond to the needs of the people in our province or the needs of the

respective municipalities that they serve. No, the bill has been

brought in in order to see to it that Delta can pull out that potato

farm, and that the developers can sell it for millions of dollars and

walk away suggesting to themselves that they made a good deal when they

helped elect the Socreds to government. That's not good enough. That is

not the kind of reason that we should be debating this bill in this

House this day. We should be debating a well-thought-out change or a

streamlining for municipal districts. We should not be debating a bill

that denies them an opportunity to see to it that there is coordination

of planning.

[4:30]

We all talked about that years and years ago. I can remember when somebody

said to me: "Are you in favour of metropolitanization?" I was a little

bit young and not too terribly involved, other than by the fact that I knew

this duplication of service, the duplication of so many things, was insane and

uneconomical. I said: "You know, I'm almost at a point now where I

believe in total amalgamation of the whole lower mainland." That would

be a mistake. But what we've got here is an amalgamation of the whole province

under one planning czar who doesn't know anything about planning, obviously.

He's done more than Vander Zalm in those terms. I don't think Vander

Zalm wanted to go that far. His big problem was that he took a kick at the Islands

Trust and got his feet wet. Then somebody told him the polls were wrong, at

the behest of Lord knows who. Anyway, he's growing lettuces. It would be

a great help to this province if, in fact, the

[ Page

523 ]

Minister of Municipal Affairs would go back to selling feed, because he has

brought in a bill that's an offence to the whole planning process of this

province. There is no way that you could expect anybody on this side of the

House to support this bill.

AN HON. MEMBER: Or any bill.

MR. COCKE: That's precisely the way it looks, Mr. Member.

When bills are born in vindictiveness, when bills are born in

insincerity, when bills are nothing to do with good government, how can

you expect the loyal opposition to buy them? Not on your life. Many of

you have been here and seen the opposition in the past. If the

legislation is decent and good and thoughtfully put together, it will

be supported from this side of the House. But when legislation is this

bad....

This isn't the worst, I must admit. This is the enabling legislation

for Spetifore, but it does affect a great many other planning

functions. It certainly is not the basic rot that we face in terms of

the legislation we have before us. In any event, Mr. Speaker, we oppose

this piece of legislation.

MRS. DAILLY: I don't profess to be an expert in municipal

affairs, so I can't compete with the expertise that we've heard from

many of the members who have just joined the Legislature as former, and

still present, aldermen. I cannot go into the great details and

specifics which they have, but I'm on my feet to speak because I can

see in this bill a very basic principle being enunciated, and a

philosophy which I could never support. It's not merely because I

happen to be a member of the New Democratic Party that I am

philosophically opposed to this. I am speaking primarily as a person

who has been elected to represent the people of Burnaby North. If I sat

still and did not rise to take

part in debate on this bill when it's

going to have such detrimental effects on the people who live in the

community which I represent, then I would indeed be remiss.

I'd like to explain why I feel this. I think the first member for

Surrey (Mrs. Johnston) certainly did make a point which I completely

agree with when she said: "After all, it looks like it's a complete

difference in philosophy." I don't think she quite realizes that it

isn't a difference between the Social Credit and the NDP philosophies;

it's a basic difference of philosophy between those citizens in this

province who believe that we should go back to the good old days, which

we all know were not really those good old days, and the more

enlightened citizens of British Columbia — I know I speak for many of

them in Burnaby North — who believe that we know that we're now living

in 1983, and that all the mechanisms and organizations of governments

which existed at the turn of the century cannot possibly fit the needs

of modern government today. This is really the basic philosophical

difference.

Somehow or other, many of the people on the Social Credit side of this House

seem to believe that you can turn the clock back. You're no longer dealing

with little villages and communities in the lower mainland; you're

dealing with highly sophisticated, densely populated communities. The very reason

that the Social Credit government under the former Premier, Mr. Bennett Sr.,

brought this in — and I give him credit for having that foresight — was that

they could foresee that the whole tone, population and character of our communities,

particularly in the lower mainland and the lower Island, were going to change

tremendously. This was brought in by Dan Campbell maybe 20 years ago; I can't

remember the actual date. Give him credit; he looked ahead and foresaw the many

difficulties that we would face if we allowed each local government and community

and municipality to do its own thing entirely without any regard to its neighbours.

Somehow or other, for whatever reason — and many people on this side

of the House have certainly given some of the reasons why they believe

they have done so — the Social Credit cabinet, aided and abetted by

many of the people who have worked in local governments and have joined

the Social Credit Party or are members of it, want to turn the clock

back. They want to take us right back to the turn of the century. They

continually talk about how it's going to save the taxpayers money, and

they cite a figure, as the second member for Surrey (Mr. Reid) did

earlier today, of around $2.5 million, perhaps even more.

I look at that and I say yes, you may save that in some of the staff

that are going to be fired and other functions that are being taken

away and won't be needed. But do you know what's really interesting? At

the same time as those members talk about saving the taxpayers money by

this bill, which will eliminate several million dollars — we concede

that — that same Minister of Municipal Affairs who's bringing in this

bill, and referring to the saving of money is taking action and making

policies that are going to add millions of dollars to the taxpayers of

B.C. in the local areas. He has just announced a complete change coming

in the whole matter of financing sewerage in the lower mainland and

other areas. That very act itself is going to cost the people of

Burnaby, whom I represent, thousands or probably into the millions of

dollars, and I hope you can explain to me that it will not. The point

is in reality that every act that is taken by that government is not

saving money to the degree they state, because on the other hand they

are imposing more and more taxes on the people. So this argument about

saving a couple of million dollars here is not going to wash with the

people of Burnaby, I can assure you, when they see what other

impositions are being placed on them by these changes.

One of the members said: "We're so glad that we have transit back in

the local area." Well, that sounds great, doesn't it? All these

simplistic statements sound great when they're out there on their own

making speeches in their communities. But have they the courage to say

also: "Sure, we've taken transit away from the large structure it was

in" — and many of the large structures were created by the Socred

government to begin with — "and we're going to take it and give it back

to the local areas"? But have they, at the same time, explained to the

people they represent and to their communities that the Social Credit

government is not returning the taxpayers' money to those communities

for transit operation? We find no policies that are going to alleviate

the burden of transit. We find that the local taxpayer is going to be

paying more.

Many of the members of the GVRD have said regarding transit — and I

know I'm digressing, but it was brought up by another member: " Okay,

we don't mind having it back to run locally, but will you give us the

money to operate it? Will you give us the money to operate it so we

won't be put into a deficit operating position where the taxpayers are

going to have to pay more?" We have no assurance of that, Mr. Speaker.

On one hand to talk very simplistically about this bill saving money,

and at the same time completely to cover up the other policies which

are going to create more problems for the taxpayer, I don't consider is

playing it really straight.

[ Page 524 ]

We do not, as I said, live in little villages anymore. I know one of

the members who spoke on behalf of this bill, and no matter whether I

disagree with people or not, I still respect your right to get up. I

think some of you really are sincere in your beliefs, but the second

member for Surrey (Mr. Reid) actually said that this was going to

modernize, streamline, or something to that effect, and that he

believes it is good to move in this direction of going back to the

local area alone performing the functions. I wonder if he, in his

business, is ready to go back and start selling the horse and wagon

again. Is it not the same analogy, Mr. Speaker? He is selling, I

presume, modern cars today, but he's asking us, and the people of my

area, to go back to the horse and buggy days in planning.

MR. REID: If the regional district had their way, I probably would.

MRS. DAILLY: Mr. Speaker, the regional district, which the

member has now referred to, doesn't want this bill. As has already been

pointed out to the minister, the GVRD representatives asked for a

meeting with him. Did they get it before you brought in this bill? I

wonder. If you met with them, Mr. Minister, through you, Mr. Speaker,

then surely you understood their concerns. Why have you still ignored

their concerns and brought forward a bill which the members of the GVRD

do not want?

It has been pointed out, I'll repeat again, that as recently as this

week 11 of the member municipalities of the GVRD have voted to oppose

Bill 9. How can you ignore that? I know the new Minister of Municipal

Affairs.... Whether or not I agree with him in his policies, I still

say I wish him success in his job. But how can you start off well in

your position as a minister if you're going to immediately bring in

legislation that ignores the wishes of the people who have given their

opinions on the proposed legislation? Surely that is not performing the

basic function of a new minister or of any minister. So I'm asking that

minister, when he is closing the debate, to explain to us whether he

has any respect for these people who have come before him with their

concerns.

[4:45]

I live in an area — and I know everyone who has travelled through

Burnaby is well aware of this — where we get all the traffic. We get

all the traffic from Vancouver going one way and all the traffic from

Coquitlam, Surrey, etc. It just happens to be where we are located

geographically. When I first moved to Burnaby years and years ago, of

course, it was quiet and there was no traffic problem. But times

change, and with those changing times I expect — and the people of

Burnaby expect — that government will allow a structure that will help

my municipality meet those terrible problems of being a traffic

corridor for surrounding municipalities. When the people of Burnaby

discover that with this bill the Social Credit government is taking a

vehicle away from them which would perhaps help to alleviate to some

degree the terrible traffic congestion in North Burnaby, for example,

they are going to be absolutely shocked.

If Vancouver city wants to do something that will dump more traffic

into North Burnaby, or if Coquitlam or Surrey want to do something that

is going to create more traffic for North Burnaby, what recourse do we

now have? What recourse does the Burnaby council have? Before, we had a

structure, the GVRD, where the Burnaby aldermen could sit on the GVRD.

Instead of a confrontational style, they could sit with their

colleagues from Vancouver, North Vancouver, West Vancouver, Surrey,

etc., and discuss these common problems. They had a vehicle that would

help prevent one selfish little community from doing something that

would have a serious effect on another community.

[Mr. Pelton in the chair.]

How on earth can we accept the fact that we are going to destroy a

facility that was created more than 20 years ago by the Social Credit

government to meet the needs of the future? Here we are in the future

today, 1983, and what do we find? We find that another Social Credit

government is going to take away this good vehicle. They're going to

take us right back to the turn of the century, and we're not there

anymore. We're dealing with modern, tremendous problems. You can't

handle those problems with the same structures you had at the turn of

the century. That's why we don't want to turn the clock back. You talk

about streamlining. You know, the interesting thing is that when you

debate the GVRD and its functions vis-a-vis the functions of a local

government, I must admit that as a member of Legislature I have a great

problem, because it is very difficult to get anyone very excited when

you talk about function. Most of the people, I'm sure, in my riding and

many others really do not make it a particular source of great

excitement for themselves to study the functions of the GVRD or the

municipal council. I'll tell you, they do get excited when they find

out that some actions taken by somebody somewhere are affecting them

negatively.

It's very easy for the Social Credit government to move on the GVRD

at a time when the people in my riding and in others are really

concerned with other problems, particularly unemployment and the

economy. This is a time to bring in something like this, because most

people aren't going to have time to study it, and most people are not

going to have time to understand the implications of it, but it's my

job as a member of this Legislature to try to point out to the

government the implications and make them stop