1981 Legislative Session: 3rd Session, 32nd Parliament

HANSARD

The following electronic version is for informational purposes only.

The printed version remains the official version.

Official Report of

DEBATES OF THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY

(Hansard)

TUESDAY, JUNE 23, 1981

Afternoon Sitting

[ Page

6353 ]

CONTENTS

Routine Proceedings

Notaries Act (Bill 28). Hon. Mr. Williams

Introduction and first reading –– 6353

Oral Questions

Northeast coal development. Mr. Leggatt –– 6353

Pulping of sawlogs. Mr. King –– 6353

WCB inquiry. Ms. Sanford –– 6353

Relations with Alaska under treaty of Washington. Mr. Passarell –– 6354

Fate of roundhouse at B.C. Place site. Mr. Barnes –– 6354

Urea formaldehyde insulation. Mr. Hall –– 6354

Committee of Supply: Ministry of Attorney- General estimates. (Hon. Mr. Williams)

On vote 22: minister's office –– 6355

Mr. Lorimer

Mrs. Dailly

Mr. Lauk

Mr. Macdonald

Mr. Davis

Mr. Leggatt

Ms. Sanford

Mr. Levi

Tabling Documents

Urban Transit Authority annual report and financial statements for the year ending

March 31, 1981

Hon. Mr. Vander Zalm –– 6376

TUESDAY, JUNE 23, 1981

The House met at 2 p.m.

Prayers.

MR. LAUK: Mr. Speaker, to allow some

time for the treasury benches to fill up for question period, I wonder

if we couldn't wait a couple of minutes as the hon. members come into

the House.

MR. RITCHIE: I wish leave to make an introduction things moved rather rapidly forward.

Leave granted.

MR. RITCHIE:

I'm very pleased to welcome to the House today Alec and Madeleine Ward

of Shynewood, near Nanaimo. I'm particularly pleased to meet these

folks, because they are the parents of my secretary. I'd like to say

they have done an excellent job of raising their daughter; she's just a

wonderful person and a wonderful secretary to me. Would the House

please welcome them.

MR. BARNES: Mr. Speaker, I would

like to ask the House to join me in welcoming a friend of mine, Mr.

Blane Lopes from Vancouver, along with two of his friends from

Victoria, Greg Morley and Usha Viswanthan. I hope they're enjoying

themselves on Mr. Lopes's first visit to Victoria.

Introduction of Bills

NOTARIES ACT

a motion by Hon. Mr. Williams, Bill 28, Notaries Act, introduced, read

a first time and ordered to be placed on orders of the day for second

reading at the next sitting of the House after today.

Oral Questions

NORTHEAST COAL DEVELOPMENT

MR. LEGGATT:

Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Industry and

Small Business Development. Recently Mr. Basford, who is now the B.C.

coal coordinator, stated that the cost of financing in the northeast

coal deal could become so high as to be prohibitive. Given the massive

public expenditure now taking place in the northeast, can the minister

advise the House why he has not required performance bonds in respect

to both Teck and Denison on this project?

HON. MR. PHILLIPS:

Mr. Speaker, in answer to the member's question I would like to assure

the House that the people and the taxpayers of British Columbia will be

fully protected in northeast coal.

MR. LEGGATT: Given the fact that this year alone it's expected the

expenditure should run to about $140 million of the taxpayers' money, and

given the fact that interest rates continue to be at a level that the coal coordinator

feels they're just about at the breaking point, what assurance can this

minister give the House that these massive amounts of tax dollars will be expended

for nothing if the companies back out and don't fulfil their side of the

commitment? Why are we putting up money when they aren't, and we still haven't

got a performance bond?

HON. MR. PHILLIPS:

In answer to the member's question, it's amazing that he'd even be

interested in this project, since the party he's speaking for wants to

see this great economic development project closed down immediately. I

would like to again assure the House that the taxpayers' expenditures

will be fully protected.

PULPING OF SAWLOGS

MR. KING:

My question is to the Minister of Forests. The minister has received

quite a number of complaints over the last six months — perhaps over

the last year — regarding the pulping of good saw logs. In view of a

recent survey conducted by the Forest Service which showed that almost

half the logs held for pulp booms were of prime sawlog quality, can the

minister advise whether he has decided to act on this information by

enforcing

section 34(

l) of the Forest Act to ensure that timber is

utilized for its highest end product?

HON. MR. WATERLAND:

I imagine that the member is referring to a study released some three

or four months ago — not quite recently — in which it was indicated

that a good percentage of the logs destined for pulpmills were in

category 3. Depending upon the economics of the lumber market at the

time, that classification can or cannot be sawlogs. In my opinion,

there are too many logs that could in normal times be used for sawing

which are going to pulpmills. We are continuing to work with the

industry to attempt to overcome this apparent abuse of sawlogs.

MR. KING:

I have a supplementary question. As I indicated, the minister has the

authority under

section 34(

l) of the Forest Act. I wonder if he could

expand on what he means by "working with the industry," rather than

enforcing the powers which he has under his jurisdiction to ensure that

this wasteful practice ceases.

HON. MR. WATERLAND:

The

section of the act to which the member refers.... Of course, we

wish to get the best use and the best value from the logs. Chipping a

log when there is a low market for lumber.... That particular log may

be able to produce only low-quality lumber, and it may be unsaleable at

times. In times like that chipping is perhaps the best use of the log.

WCB INQUIRY

MS. SANFORD:

I have a question for the Premier, if I could just have his attention.

We are informed that at a meeting with the United Injured and Disabled

Workers Association the Premier promised an inquiry into the Workers'

Compensation Board, Will the Premier confirm that he made such a

promise?

HON. MR. BENNETT: No, Mr. Speaker.

MS. SANFORD: Can the Premier inform the House then whether his government has decided that there will be no inquiry?

[ Page 6354 ]

HON. MR. BENNETT: No, Mr. Speaker.

MS. SANFORD:

Can the Premier confirm that he promised to meet with the Minister of

Labour to discuss the formation of some sort of inquiry into the

Workers' Compensation Board?

HON. MR. BENNETT: I can confirm that I said I would discuss the matter with the Minister of Labour.

MS. SANFORD:

To the Minister of Labour: can the minister tell the House whether or

not he has been contacted by the Premier regarding the setting up of an

inquiry into the WCB?

HON. MR. HEINRICH: There are a number of items which are the subject of discussion between myself and the Premier.

MS. SANFORD:

Obviously the Premier doesn't want the minister to answer that

question. I based that statement on the fact that he seems to be

informing him what to say. Could the Minister of Labour answer the

following question: has he decided to hold an inquiry into the Workers'

Compensation Board?

HON. MR. HEINRICH: The answer is no, Mr. Speaker.

MS. SANFORD:

I have a final question. Can the minister confirm that he promised the

representatives of the United Injured and Disabled Workers Association

that he would meet with them in about a month's time? That meeting with

the Minister of Labour took place almost a month ago now.

HON. MR. HEINRICH:

I don't recall making any statement to the group which visited the

Legislature approximately a month ago. I met with them and their

leader, Mr. Reid, in my office for about three-quarters of an hour or

an hour. I never made any confirmation about meeting with them at a

later time.

RELATIONS WITH ALASKA

UNDER TREATY OF WASHINGTON

MR. PASSARELL: Can the

Premier advise whether B.C. has initiated Canada-United States talks

concerning

article 26 of the Treaty of Washington, 1871, and the right

of both nations to free navigation of the Stikine-Iskut river system?

HON. MR. BENNETT: No, I can't confirm it.

MR. PASSARELL:

In view of the joint resolution of the Alaska Legislature requesting

the direct personal involvement of President Reagan and Secretary of

State Haig, has the Premier made similar overtures to the Prime

Minister and the Secretary of State for External Affairs?

HON. MR. BENNETT:

Mr. Speaker, I'm sure the member for Atlin by now is familiar with the

way American politics work. The executive branch of their government

deals with the executive branch of our government. In that case it

would be Governor Hammond, with whom the member is quite familiar, who

would deal with our government, and not resolutions of one of their

various Houses. We are constantly in touch with Governor Hammond on a

number of issues. For the most part, British Columbia and Alaska have

had good relations, and very seldom are unsettled by things reported or

written in newspaper columns in this province.

MR. PASSARELL: Has the B.C. government formulated a position with respect to the Treaty of Washington? If so, what is it?

HON. MR. BENNETT: It's a question of future policy. I'll take it as notice.

FATE OF ROUNDHOUSE AT B.C. PLACE SITE

MR. BARNES:

I have a question for the Provincial Secretary and Minister of

Government Services. The B.C.-Yukon regional council of Heritage Canada

has described the CPR roundhouse on Vancouver's False Creek as "one of

the most significant historic sites, both architecturally and

historically, in western Canada." Can the Provincial Secretary confirm

that the B.C. Heritage Trust requested that he ensure that an

independent and neutral assessment of the site be undertaken before

B.C. Place destroys the buildings?

HON. MR. PHILLIPS: Are you going to file that document you're reading from?

MR. BARNES: I like the good humour, Mr. Speaker. Would the minister please respond?

HON MR. WOLFE:

I was going to ask the member to read his question again, but in any

event, yes, I have been in touch with the Heritage Trust chairman on a

number of occasions regarding this matter. I've visited the site of the

CPR roundhouse myself, and I think I indicated in this House during my

estimates that nothing was going to take place with regard to that

particular matter before the end of the year. I've had discussions with

the Minister of Environment (Hon. Mr. Rogers) on this question, and

I've indicated to the Trust that a considerable facilities study has

been undertaken by B.C. Place authorities. The results of that

information are going to be supplied to all interested parties

including my ministry. I believe it's almost available at this time.

Following that a decision will be made in terms of the heritage aspects

and action that might be taken by my ministry.

MR. BARNES:

A supplementary question. Could the Provincial Secretary indicate if

there are any other independent assessors or authorities besides B.C.

Place determining the heritage value of the roundhouse.

HON. MR. WOLFE:

Not at this stage. Three studies have been undertaken. They're all

independent, but the studies I think the member is referring to have

not been undertaken at this stage.

UREA FORMALDEHYDE INSULATION

MR. HALL:

I have a question for the Minister of Intergovernmental Relations,

who's been neglected a little this session. Given the disaster that's

befallen B.C. residents as a result of the installation of urea

formaldehyde insulation, can the minister advise whether he has

proposed to the federal government any cost-sharing arrangements to

remove this dangerous substance from the affected homes of British

Columbians, or have it replaced?

[ Page 6355 ]

HON. MR. GARDOM: No.

MR. HALL: Supplementary. I take it that completes the minister's legislative program for this session.

HON. MR. GARDOM: Yes. [Laughter.]

Orders of the Day

The House in Committee of Supply; Mr. Davidson in the chair.

ESTIMATES: MINISTRY OF

ATTORNEY-GENERAL

(continued)

On vote 22: minister's office, $150,500.

MR. LORIMER:

Mr. Chairman, I want to discuss a little further the question of the

Eckardt commission report and the complaints from a number of people to

the ombudsman that this report was a gerrymander and dishonest. Prior

to that time the Attorney-General had made certain in-house

investigations but refused to have an exterior examination of these

allegations of gerrymandering and political influence in a commission

financed by the public of the province. Now the Attorney-General has

refused to give the documents and the information he has obtained to

the ombudsman. I suggest he has a cosmetic reason for not doing so. The

ombudsman states in his report that he had more problems with this

division than with any other branch of government. And he goes on to

say....

The ombudsman's suggestion that there could have

been improper interference or attempted interference is offensive in

the extreme, according to a senior official of that ministry. I would

say that it indicates a severe case of arrogance on the part of the

ministry and the senior official of that ministry to take offence at

the ombudsman trying to carry out his duties as dictated by this

Legislature.

The Attorney-General's predecessor, the now

Minister of Intergovernmental Relations (Hon. Mr. Gardom), did carry

out some public inquiries. There was the question of whether or not

there was undue influence on Judge Govan, and Mr. Justice Seaton, I

believe, brought down a report. It was an outside review. However, this

Attorney-General has failed to have any outside reviews and has had

internal investigations into every matter that has come before him, in

order that the Social Credit government could be protected. I suggest

that this internal review of the Eckardt report was to protect the

Minister of Human Resources (Hon. Mrs. McCarthy). There is also the

internal review of the member for Central Fraser Valley (Mr. Ritchie),

who thanked the Attorney-General and said he appreciated the protection

that he had received from him.

Many of us in this House

listened to the Attorney-General when he was a member of the

opposition. He used to give great speeches of righteousness — what was

right and what was wrong — and he would have been the first to oppose

the steps taken by the Attorney-General today. I suggest that the

Attorney-General would like to have had external reviews of the matters

that have been mentioned today, but the Premier wouldn't let him. He

was put into the position of Attorney General for the purpose of

stonewalling all matters that might be an embarrassment to the

government — and he has done that, He has done that consistently,

knowing full well in his own heart and mind that he is not fulfilling

the trust given to him by the position of Attorney- General of this

province. It's not now a question of overwork in the Attorney-General's

ministry. The Attorney- General is probably the smallest ministry in

government today, and 90 percent of the work formerly carried out in

that ministry has been removed. It's a simple ministry; it's a ministry

that could be handled very well by this minister.

I am very

disappointed with this minister. In my opinion, he's been a likable

minister, a likable and very able person who could do a real job in the

ministry which he now represents. But he has failed miserably. He

hasn't done those things that he knows he ought to have done, and he is

now stonewalling the ombudsman to prevent him from doing the work and

carrying out the responsibilities for which he was appointed with great

fanfare by this government. He is merely the servant of the

administration of justice; he's not the master, and he is subject to

the law the same as anyone else. The question of even-handed justice in

this province is in doubt because of the failure of this

Attorney-General to carry out his responsibilities in the way in which

I believe he should. I'm sure it's the way that the Attorney-General

himself knows it should be done. I often wonder whether the former

Attorney-General was removed because he was carrying out outside

interviews or investigations into problems that have arisen — whether

they brought in another Attorney General who agreed to stonewall all

investigation in these areas. It's a very disappointing thing to see

that an individual who has been held in high esteem has, in my opinion,

lowered the quality of the position of Attorney-General in this

province.

HON. MR. WILLIAMS: Mr. Speaker, I would

like to respond briefly to some of the matters which have been the

subject of discussion, particularly those raised by the member for

Burnaby-Willingdon regarding his unwarranted assumptions respecting the

manner in which I have discharged my responsibility as the

Attorney-General. What the member seems to be unable to understand with

respect to the matter the ombudsman has under review is that nothing is

standing in the way of the ombudsman discharging his responsibility. He

is aware of the complaint which is before him and of the scope of the

investigation which he must undertake, and he has, as I have said

before, the full scope to examine all matters dealing with that

particular subject. Indeed, he has greater scope than was available to

me and to the officials of my ministry, who were involved in a matter

of considerably narrower ambit.

With respect to other

matters the member has referred to as being internal inquiries, he

should be fully aware that one was a police investigation and that the

Attorney-General does not interfere in police investigations — coupled

with advice from Crown counsel and from the Assistant Deputy

Attorney-General in charge of the criminal justice division. It is a

matter which did not and should not property come to the attention of

the Attorney-General unless it was impossible to resolve the matter at

the level of the Assistant Deputy Attorney-General, who, as I have said

on, previous occasions, was a man of long experience with government,

and one whose stature in the field of criminal law has never before

been called into question.

There was another matter taken under consideration by me; it dealt with a personnel matter within the ministry, and it

[ Page 6356 ]

was

quite appropriate that it be dealt with as personnel matters are — with

a thorough examination of the performance of a government official.

That was reported upon at length to this House.

The

Attorney-General of this province or any other jurisdiction in our

system has an onerous responsibility based upon the history and

traditions of the office, but also upon the law. I have, throughout

this matter and in all matters coming before me in my capacity as

Attorney-General adhered to those strict requirements. It is only in

that way, Mr. Member, that one can be assured that justice is

even-handedly dealt with by the Attorney-General to ensure that all

citizens, no matter what their station in life, are dealt with in the

same manner.

While I am on my feet, I would like to respond

to some important matters which were raised yesterday by the member for

Dewdney (Mr. Mussallem) and again this morning by the member for

Omineca (Mr. Kempf). Yesterday the member for Dewdney very properly

placed before this committee his concern about the evidence of

increasing consumption of alcohol, which he described as being of

epidemic proportion among young persons — those persons who are

under-age. He offered, by way of suggestion, certain changes which

might be introduced in regulation regarding the sale of alcohol in this

province. I don't wish to touch upon those because they fall properly

within the jurisdiction of the Minister of Consumer and Corporate

Affairs (Hon. Mr. Hyndman). Offences of that nature, and the remedy for

those offences, are something which does fall within the responsibility

of the Attorney-General. There is no question that we must look with

increasing seriousness at the freedom with which adult persons make

alcoholic beverages — and indeed other chemical substances — available

to young people. This is a matter of concern with regard to the

proposal of the federal government to, as they term it, decriminalize

the use of marijuana, even though there is growing evidence that the

use of marijuana is having serious medical results, both physically and

mentally. The continued use of that substance is proving to hold

disaster.

I believe it is a mistake for any government

within its jurisdiction to carelessly make laws which tend to free the

availability of these substances. I can assure the member that with

respect to the use of alcohol — its availability being one which falls

within the jurisdiction of the provincial government — steps are being

taken to ensure that its widespread use among young people will be

limited. The member will find that during this session the government

will be placing before this House some amendments to legislation which

we hope will go a significant way to contributing to the law

enforcement potential which will serve to reduce, if not eliminate,

some of the problems associated with underage drinking.

It is a concern which all of society must have, because it leads into other

areas. I refer now to the one which was raised by the member for Omineca this

morning: the matter of carnage on our highways. After two years of intensive

work by the motor-vehicle task force, recommendations were placed before the

government for changes in our laws with respect to the operation of motor vehicles.

The task force inquiry into motor-vehicle accidents and their causes clearly

showed that the consumption of alcohol was a continuing and growing problem,

the results of which are largely responsible for the carnage on our highways

— the significant loss of life, personal injury and the tremendous financial

toll which befalls each of those personal damage results. As a consequence,

the member for Omineca will know that the Minister of Transportation and Highways

(Hon. Mr. Fraser), together with the Attorney-General and their respective

staffs, has undertaken a major task to change the motor vehicle laws of this

province. Again, it is anticipated that in this session we will place before

this House legislation which will be a marked change in the way in which motor-vehicle

laws have been enforced.

Several

years ago it was thought that if penalties for individual infractions

were reduced, the drivers of this province would respond. It was though

that having points recorded against drivers' licences with the right to

drive being placed in jeopardy would have the effect of encouraging

better driving habits and better personal habits on the part of those

who operate motor vehicles in this province. It is clear now that the

change from the previous approach of penalizing for infractions has not

worked in this province or in other jurisdictions where it has been

attempted. Therefore we will be placing before this House legislation

which will reverse the earlier decision. We will face the drivers of

this province with the clear choice: either you improve your driving

habits and driving skills and take care with respect to your physical

and mental condition when you are driving motor vehicles or you will

see yourself subjected to significant financial penalties plus, in some

cases, penalties which will result in your being sentenced to an

appropriate corrections facility.

This will be a significant

change. We appreciate that it will be some time before the driving

public in British Columbia is fully accustomed to the new law. As a

consequence, I can assure the members that following introduction there

will be a major campaign so that no driver in this province will be

able to say that he is not aware of the change in the law, or indeed

that he has not been given the opportunity to adjust his driving habits

in such a way as to reduce the incidence of apprehension and the

resulting points which are presently being accumulated against driving

records. We want to produce safe highways and safe users of highways.

It is not our desire to punish. It is our desire merely to end, if

possible — to reduce, certainly — the unfortunate consequences of the

behaviour of unthinking persons on our highways today.

think that leads me, appropriately, into the second matter raised by

the member for Omineca this morning. He made reference to a newspaper

editorial and story which appeared this morning in the Province .

The story was headlined: "Courts are Failing to Protect Society." That

story by a recently retired judge provides one man's view of the

functioning of the system of criminal justice in this province. It is a

view which cannot be ignored. The learned judge spent, as he points

out, about 20 years on the bench of this province. He had the

opportunity to make his own assessment of the direction in which

society and the courts have been moving. That includes not only the

judiciary, but also Crown counsel and others who have the

responsibility of bringing cases before the courts.

Whether

one agrees with the learned judge's views or not, they are to be taken

fully into account in determining what the appropriate course of action

is if society is to be protected. The courts do have a responsibility.

As Attorney-General, it will be my role to ensure that the traditional

criminal justice system continues to discharge its responsibility

against those persons who choose to adopt standards of conduct which

society does not accept and those people who choose to conduct

themselves outside the norms which society consid-

[ Page 6357 ]

ers appropriate. If society is to survive, they surely must be dealt with in the criminal justice system.

The

traditional criminal justice system is one which requires, first of

all, a victim and then apprehension, trial, conviction and punishment.

It is a system which, by its very nature, is reactive. First, the event

must take place. I think, therefore, that the member should recognize

that something else is taking place in this province as a result of the

concern of people in our communities as to whether or not the

traditional criminal justice system is in itself sufficient. Therefore

we are finding greater interest on the part of citizens throughout all

communities in British Columbia in the aspects of crime prevention.

This is most particularly so in the matter of those persons who are

juveniles or are just over the age of being juveniles, but it is among

older people as well.

What is becoming clear is that it

isn't sufficient to say that the criminal justice system or the courts

must protect society. It is, however, clear that society itself has a

responsibility to discharge in ensuring that young people, in

particular, do not begin to move in the direction of conduct which

society does not accept as the norm. Society itself has a role. It is

interesting to note that in increasing numbers the members of our

communities are prepared to commit themselves to enterprises which will

ensure that crime is prevented in the first instance. This necessitates

some careful re-examination of the way in which society itself

functions, a return to individual self-responsibility, a return to a

concern for the family unit and the role which it may play in the

development of acceptable behaviour standards. That applies not only in

the normal crimes of breaking and entering and the like, and not only

with regard to vandalism — which is of concern throughout all of our

communities — but also the way you operate your motor vehicle, and

indeed the way young persons are able to acquire and use alcohol and

other chemical substances which are finding their way into regular use

in our communities, in particular by the young.

Society has

a responsibility. We find that the communities, as I indicated, are

willing to take the responsibility. As a consequence, the Ministry of

Attorney-General, together with the Solicitor-General of Canada, has

established programs for the creation of crime prevention committees in

various communities throughout the province so that the particular

problem in that community can be identified. Not only government, law

enforcement agencies and correction branch people, but those in our

schools, community centres, local government and service clubs — people

who are generally interested in the future of their communities — can

participate in this worthwhile activity. The activity is not reactive

in the sense that the traditional criminal justice system is, but it is

pro-active. It begins at the root of the problem, identifies in the

particular community where that root may be and attempts to search out

solutions which will ensure that young people, in particular, do not

find their way into conduct which will surely lead them into the

criminal justice system with all of the problems that that system can

create for them.

At the same time I wish to assure the

members — particularly the member for Omineca — that the Ministry of

Attorney-General, in its role in the criminal justice system, is making

every effort to ensure that society is protected from those persons

who, in spite of all the efforts that may be made, still are prepared

to adopt conduct which is not up to standard.

I might say

that there has been criticism of the way in which the judiciary deals

with matters which come before it. This is not a criticism which is

easily levelled, and I don't level it in these circumstances. The

courts must deal with matters as they come before them. They must

consider in their wisdom and in their independence what the penalties

should be for infractions of our laws. Courts, however, do respond to

the initiatives, dictates and standards of our society. I believe that

as it becomes increasingly clear from the actions of our citizens that

there must be changes in conduct, the courts will follow that lead.

MR. LORIMER:

On just one more matter, the Attorney General talked about agreeing

that even-handed justice is necessary. Because of that, I'm wondering

why there hasn't been a public inquiry into the Eckardt commission

matter and the serious allegations of political interference with that

particular report. If there was even-handed justice in this province, I

suggest, there would be a public inquiry into this whole matter.

(Mr. Strachan in the chair.]

can only see two reasons for which there wouldn't be a public inquiry.

One of them is that the Premier may well have directed the

Attorney-General not to have one, and the Attorney-General knuckled

under to the Premier's decision. The second one is that the

Attorney-General has some knowledge, after his internal look at the

matter, that it would be a very damaging thing to have an inquiry —

damaging to his colleagues and damaging to his party. I think it's as

simple as that. There will not be a public inquiry, because one of

those two matters has come about. I think that the Attorney-General

knows full well that if he is going to be respected in his position as

Attorney-General and going to keep up the high name of that office, a

public inquiry is absolutely essential.

MRS. DAILLY:

First of all, I want to applaud the Attorney-General for his remarks on

the bill to be introduced here to do with the carnage on our highways

and drinking drivers. I'm sure that all of us are looking forward to

some legislation which will perhaps do something to alleviate that

situation.

We cannot applaud the Attorney-General for his

handling of a number of inquiries and problems that have been brought

to his attention either through the public or the opposition, and

lately even through the office of the ombudsman. No applause is merited

there. As a matter of fact, I am greatly disappointed in the

Attorney-General of this province, because I can recall when he was a

member of the opposition many years ago. We both sat in here. He was

always a person who believed in the openness of government — at least,

that's what he said on this side of the House — and injustice being

done and in full public inquiry.

Since he has become

Attorney-General and been faced with Lettergate, the Eckardt commission

problem and Gracie's Finger, apparently that Attorney-General has seen

fit to put his concerns about his own cabinet colleagues over his

concerns about proper justice being done in this province. I have found

this very disappointing. But more than being disappointed, what

concerns me is that the public of British Columbia has an

Attorney-General who is not fulfilling his role in a proper manner. I'm

not going to repeat all the statements and speeches that have been made

on this matter.

[ Page 6358 ]

Our

former Attorney-General, the member for Vancouver East (Mr. Macdonald),

said a considerable amount about that today. There may be several more

speeches. I simply want to make the point that if ever a province

needed a freedom of information act it is the province of British

Columbia. The need for that is symbolized by that Attorney-General and

the manner in which he has attempted to cover up investigations that

properly should be open to the public, through royal commissions or

public inquiries.

This Attorney-General is not doing his

job. All the fine words which he wants to bring forward in debate

simply do not answer the basic question to which the people of B.C.

want the answer. As far as I'm concerned, the time has long passed for

this province to have a freedom of information act. If we had a freedom

of information act in this province today, that Attorney-General would

no longer be able to get away with evasiveness and secrecy and refusal

to produce public documents which should be available to the public. He

should not have that option today. All I can say is the sooner this

government goes and that Attorney-General is removed, the sooner we can

get back to some true freedom of information in this province.

MR. LAUK:

The Attorney-General made some comments with respect to drinking

drivers; he promised some action on the part of government to deal very

forcefully with it. One suggestion — certainly not thought up by me —

that has its roots going back several hundreds of years in the British

justice system is the idea of a pillory. Offenders in a local village

would be placed in the stock and put on display for two or three days.

The resulting humiliation and ostracization by their fellow villagers

was thought to be sufficient to deter any further commission of such

crimes either by the offender or his fellow villagers. With respect to

drinking drivers, I don't suggest to the Attorney-General that we

establish a pillory for that purpose in each and every village square.

However, there was a suggestion recently that seems to fit the modern

definition of a pillory; that is, that as a result of a second or third

conviction a driver must place upon his automobile a licence plate that

indicates in some way that that person is a convicted drinking driver.

It establishes in the community that that person is an offender, and

therefore it will provide an incentive to others not to breach the law

in that regard. Secondly, it warns the rest of us to stay away from

drivers with such licence plates on their cars. It also alerts the law

enforcement authorities and the traffic police when such vehicles are

moving in and around the community.

Some people say that's

not a serious attempt at dealing with the drinking driver. I suggest

it's worthy of some consideration. It certainly would be more of a

deterrent than a slap on the wrist in court, such as a $200 or $300

fine and sometimes a suspension of driving privileges for short periods

of three, four and six months — sometimes a year. It seems to me that

the real penalty is to cause this person to be clearly identified and

marked as a consistent offender, a person who is endangering the lives

of other users of the highways as well as his own.

I wanted

to deal with the philosophical statement that the Attorney-General was

just making with respect to the enforcement of the law. I want to

discuss with the Attorney General something that I did not think it

would be necessary to discuss with this or any other Attorney-General:

his oath of office. In canvassing the oaths of office for

Attorneys-General I find they're very similar across the country. I'll

read the one from Alberta.

"You will in all

things moved, treated and debated in any such executive council

faithfully, honestly and truly declare your mind and opinion to the

honour and benefit of the Queen's Majesty and the good of her subjects

without partiality or exception of persons, in no wise forbearing so to

do from any manner of respect, favour, love, need, displeasure or dread

of any person or persons whatsoever."

What does that oath

mean? The oath, as it is recited in the 1976 annual report of the

Attorney-General's ministry, simply means that the Attorney-General is

not any ordinary member of cabinet or executive council. Indeed, in

some British jurisdictions the Attorney-General does not even attend

cabinet meetings, to demonstrate that model of impartiality and

aloofness from ordinary political decisions. His role must be as a

judicial officer advising the government and protecting the

even-handedness of the administration of justice.

Time after

time the opposition, the media and members of justice councils have

pointed out that under this administration, and particularly under this

Attorney-General, the clear indication to the public of British

Columbia is that there is not a fair and even-handed administration of

justice; that what is a good law for the ordinary folks is not

necessarily a good law for the people in the cabinet or their friends;

that when someone is accused an investigation takes place that is akin

to the investigations of Henry VIII and Charles I — private inquiries

like Star Chamber proceedings where confessions were obtained either by

torture or duress with some hope of favour or fear of prejudice. We

thought those days were gone forever. Is it an exaggeration or a

hyperbole, as the Attorney-General refers to it, to see that in the

investigation into the Eckardt commission where, as the

Attorney-General quite rightly points out, an allegation of some crime

was made...? He appointed an internal inquiry, and the report that was

subsequently tabled in this Legislature was from a Deputy

Attorney-General, himself now before the courts on this grave matter of

the uneven administration of justice in the province. Is there a law

for friends or a law for all?

He appointed an internal

inquiry. The Attorney-General said: "You must understand my onerous

responsibility. A mere allegation of a crime is not sufficient to cart

out all of the evidence that was obtained while reviewing and

investigating the situation, pointing to whether or not a charge should

be laid." Fair enough. If the Attorney-General had arrived, through an

independent investigation, at the conclusion that the evidence was not

sufficient to support a criminal charge — and this is done every day —

no further comment should be made and no charges laid. The

Attorney-General did not leave it there. His first sin was an internal

inquiry leaving open that great doubt with the public and with this

opposition that the inquiry was not an impartial, even-handed and,

indeed, thorough one.

The second sin is that having found

there was not sufficient evidence to lay a charge, he proceeded to

table in this House and read into the record a political statement

attacking the accusers, based upon the results of the internal,

apparently prejudiced inquiry. That document has been before us for a

year. Reading through it and the subsequent information we've been able

to obtain on the Eckardt inquiry, we find that the report itself snakes

through the evidence and produces only that evidence which will support

a decision that no charge should be laid, leaving out evidence that

could easily be interpreted as damaging to a member of the executive

council.

[ Page 6359 ]

How

has the Attorney-General fulfilled his oath with respect to that? I say

not at all. We all commit sins. The Attorney-General, having committed

those sins, had an opportunity to repent. He had an opportunity to

place all material that was relevant before the ombudsman, who was

investigating the whole issue. He has refused to do so on a narrow

technicality, which he sees in the Ombudsman Act, that states that it's

a question of privilege. As my colleague for Vancouver East has pointed

out, that question of privilege — if it does exist — is artificial and

technical, and it should be waived. The Attorney-General has refused to

do so.

The libel suit with the Deputy Attorney-General is

another case in which I would seriously question whether the oath of

office has been fulfilled. I will not deal in detail with that as it is

now sub judice.

In situation after situation this

Attorney-General has apparently gone to great pains to protect the

interests of his cabinet colleagues and has not fulfilled his duty with

respect to the even-handed application of justice in this province. He

has ignored those words in the oath which say: "without partiality or

exception of persons." I'm suggesting that is a breach of the oath.

This kind of protection of one's cabinet colleagues has apparently

taken place. How serious is it? We don't know. We have not got the

information before us. Will the ombudsman have the proper information?

I'm not satisfied that the Attorney-General's suggestion is correct,

when he says that the ombudsman will have the opportunity to interview

witnesses and have access to the same information and documents that

his own internal inquiry had. I'm not satisfied, for example, that the

statements the ombudsman will take will be the same as the statements

taken as a result of the internal inquiry. But there will be no

opportunity for the ombudsman to point that out, because he won't have

the transcripts of the evidence taken by the internal inquiry. There

can be no conceivable reason for the Attorney-General to hold back this

information from the ombudsman, except to protect those persons, as his

cabinet colleagues, from further embarrassment — or justice.

case in Texas was reported in the press, to show you how the power of

law enforcement gone mad — when it is not used even-handedly, when

people are not all equal under the law — takes place in another

jurisdiction. It's a story of some black boys in Texas who were

celebrating the emancipation of the slaves in the United States. Some

police in Texas arrested three of them on minor charges — possession of

marijuana or possession of liquor or something like that. Because a

road was blocked it was decided to take these prisoners in handcuffs

across a lake in a boat. The boat was swamped; it capsized and these

three very athletic individuals, who were allegedly handcuffed,

drowned. The two escorting policemen swam ashore. This is allegedly,

because the police deny that the prisoners were handcuffed, and it

appears as if we'll never know, because the police restricted the

search and recovery of the bodies to themselves. There was a suggestion

that the police had removed the handcuffs before the press was allowed

to see the recovery operation. All of us, including the

Attorney-General, regard that as a most scandalous abuse of power, if

the allegations are true, and there seems to be compelling evidence in

that regard. It's a scandalous abuse of power. It is a denial of

justice according to the basic roots of our history of justice in the

British common law and the British justice system, and yet the same

principle has been applied here. The charge in Texas is that those

persons, who committed what really would be at least negligent

homicide, are being protected from the full weight and even-handedness

of the law in Texas.

Because of high rank and position, the

proper procedures have not been employed here to determine whether or

not crimes or infractions had taken place. A case where you allow the

search and recovery of those drowned victims to be conducted by the

very people who are under suspicion of negligent homicide is the same

as people who are apparently not impartial conducting an internal

investigation into allegations against cabinet colleagues. I want to

know whether or not the handcuffs were removed. If it can't withstand

full public scrutiny, then the suspicion will always be there.

was not I who chose to bring a full political report to this House and

expose the issue to a political debate; it was the Attorney-General. He

can't have only his side of the story. The other side has not been told

— and there is a question here of whether it will ever be told because

of the reluctance of this Attorney-General to fully disclose the

materials he has with respect to that commission. I say, Mr. Chairman,

that that is a breach of this oath on its face. I call upon the

Attorney-General to defend himself and to demonstrate that he fulfils

all of the tenets of that oath by conducting himself and his department

in such a way that he fully and completely discloses all materials to

the ombudsman so that the public will know that justice has been done.

Mr.

Chairman, the other situation that should be made clear is a situation

involving the Lenko case. The Attorney-General made some very grand

statements, and he reminded me of a three-line poem I'll read out in a

moment. He made some very grand statements about how cowardly

an act it

is.

Interjection.

MR. LAUK: Lenko is the chap who has just been rehired by the government.

It's

not a legal case but a political one — the political issue of Lenko. It

was clear. Mr. Chairman, that Lenko was directly involved in

counselling an offence, that an investigation did not take place into

his activity contributing to the subsequent phony letters-to-the-editor

campaign and other dirty tricks, and that he was active in producing

tapes of a workshop conducted by the Social Credit Party recommending

such unsavoury practices. Before any harm could come to him, such as

the

summary dismissal not only of the Social Credit researchers but of

three apparently innocent stenographers in the caucus offices, he

resigned — I suppose to take the heat off. After a year he's back, and

there are many questions that we have to ask with respect about our

friend Lenko.

We have seen him in the parliament buildings

throughout this year. He's just waiting and knowing that eventually he

will be reappointed to government service, escaping a full disclosure

of his involvement in that very unsavoury dirty tricks affair. Other

people suffered a penalty; Lenko escaped, and now he's back again. The

Attorney-General stood up in this House and said such acts were

cowardly; they were wrong, irresponsible and reprehensible. Such grand

language for the chief law enforcement officer in the province! What

was that poem in Kychy's law relating to the Attorney-General? I want

to read this little poem for the Attorney-General's edification. I want

him to carry it with him, and I really hope that the balance of his

term will not be marked with it and that he will not leave public life

with this being the indictment of his service to the Crown:

[ Page 6360 ]

Of those great men who clothe their private hates

In the fair colours of the public good,

And to effect their ends pretend the state,

As if the state by their affection stood.

This

Attorney-General is always ready with a grandiose statement, some

profundity, leading the public to believe that there is even-handed

justice at his hands. Yet, when called upon to actually act out that

role that is properly the role of the Attorney-General, he has failed

to do so.

I want to deal with coroners now. Last year and

the year before I questioned the Attorney-General with respect to the

coroner's service in this province. I pointed out to the

Attorney-General two or three years ago that murders are being

committed in this province without being detected and unknown to

anyone, even the next-of-kin. I cited two cases. One involved a sniper

incident on a highway where a person was killed, and it was thought for

some time that it was an accident, until bullet fragments had been

found. It would have been determined immediately, had an autopsy been

conducted. I pointed out to the Attorney-General's department that they

were taking steps to reduce the possibility of detecting these crimes

by ordering fewer autopsies — by instructing coroners not to order

autopsies unless they were dragged, kicking and screaming to make the

order. It was a big mistake. Now the chief coroner appointed by that

ministry has been fired.

I'm not going to get into the

problems of the chief coroner and the Attorney-General. Whether there

was a conflict of personalities or whether Chief Coroner McArthur was

getting too frisky spending public money I don't know. Maybe he was

empire-building; it doesn't really matter. But the comments that the

late chief coroner has made since his dismissal have been most

edifying. His report, which is now in wide circulation, with respect to

beefing up the coroner's office, is a very enlightening one. He argues

that there are hundreds of deaths in the province occurring which are

culpable — in other words blameworthy — which never reach the attention

of the authorities because of lack of efficiency and adequacy of the

coroner's service. He was making a sincere effort to bring the coroner

services in this province up to date with the rest of the provinces in

this country. Not because of the coroners, but because of the niggardly

attitude on the part of the government to provide such services, it's

the worst coroner's service in the country.

The province of

Alberta, for instance, which is a province with half our population,

has five times the number of pathologists on government staff

conducting autopsies. We're not spending the money necessary or

attracting the professionals necessary to bring about a coroner's

service such that all of us can feel confident that crimes such as

culpable homicide will not go undetected. As the Attorney-General said

earlier this afternoon, the least the administration of justice in this

province can do is to ensure detection. The coroner's service is

failing to do that.

A large portion of the coroner's office

relates to hospital deaths. The current chief coroner and the

Attorney-General see no conflict of interest in transferring the work

of the coroner's office to the hospitals, whose directors would have an

inherent self-interest in concealing the facts. I'm not suggesting that

they would, but they would have an interest in doing that. Are we to

place the handling of the coroner's service in this regard in the hands

of the hospitals? It used to be there, but it was taken away for that

very reason. Thorough and independent investigations with thorough and

independent autopsies into hospital deaths have to be in place. We

cannot risk the temptation on the part of hospital staff to cover up

their own mistakes. That seems to be reasonable and logical, yet the

Attorney-General sees no problem there. He's probably going to stand up

and say: "Are you attacking the integrity of the hospital workers and

the doctors and the directors?" Of course not. But in our system of

justice we try to lay plans and establish structures that will avoid

any such temptation.

The major reason to have a coroner is

to provide an independent investigation of untimely deaths, which

should be reported without bias or favour, and to make recommendations

to prevent similar deaths in the future. Why is the Attorney-General

attempting to remove this independence?

One of the problems

in this province is that we don't have anywhere near the kind of

facilities that will ensure detection of culpable homicide; we don't

have that expertise. Toxicology and pathology are fledgling in this

province, compared to other provinces. What does the Attorney-General

do when a new coroner wants to expand those facilities? He says: "He's

spending too much money. We can't afford to spend that kind of money on

such a service." Well, the people of this province have to decide. Are

we going to ensure detection of culpable homicide or not? Are we going

to have an adequate system that will detect these kinds of things or

not?

I see my time is drawing to a close, Mr. Chairman. I'm

sorry, because I had some other points to make about the coroner

service. The Attorney-General is hard-pressed now. He must ensure that

an independent coroner service is being established and that proper

technical support systems are available to that coroner's service so

that all the public of British Columbia can be protected. There are

classic examples of how they are not being protected at present.

also want to talk about supporting the coroner himself. The coroner is

underpaid. He is not given the proper support service as far as

secretarial and office assistance is concerned. It limits and

discourages good coroners from conducting their responsibility to the

public. This was pointed out to the Attorney-General as long ago as

four years. Action was promised but none has been forthcoming.

MR. MACDONALD:

I'll just ask a brief question on the subject of coroners. I would like

to ask the Attorney-General why he decapitated, chopped or otherwise

dismissed Dr. William McArthur? He came into his office one fine day,

as they say in Italian opera, to find that his successor was in his

chair. Forget that it was a hurried thing. We've heard various

explanations that the medical establishment didn't like the way he was

investigating their hospitals. We've heard that he may have talked too

much to the press about his investigations. I would have thought this a

virtue, because I think the public should know what's going on. We

heard that he wanted to spend more money to beef up the service. What

is it? Here we have an Attorney-General who fires him and then Murphy

after him, with no explanations. So here's the time of accounting in

early spring of 1981 in the city of Victoria — to judge by the weather,

at any rate. I would like a full explanation of why this government

fired Dr. William McArthur, and Murphy for that matter; what the

severance pay was. Finally, these things should be levelled about.

HON. MR. WILLIAMS:

I'd like to respond to some of the matters raised by the first member

for Vancouver Centre (Mr. Lauk). May I point out to you, Mr. Chairman,

that the

[ Page 6361 ]

oath

of office to which the hon. member referred is the oath taken by every

member of the executive council, not only the Attorney-General. Let me

say without hesitation that in the conduct of my responsibilities as

Attorney-General I have in every respect lived up to that oath of

office. I would ask you, Mr. Chairman, and members of the committee to

heed very carefully the choice of words by the member for Vancouver

Centre, who at every appropriate moment inserted the word "apparently."

He very carefully wove a fabric — it is just that — respecting his

claims of impropriety on my

part in the discharge of my responsibility.

He ended up by reading a poem. I would like the hon. member to reread

the poem and apply it to himself, because just prior to reading it he

referred to what he called the Lenko case. It's the first time I ever

heard the suggestion that Mr. Lenko was linked in any respect to any

report which I provided or to certain matters which were the subject of

intensive police investigation throughout this province. Moreover, it

was an independent evaluation by legal counsel and not done by me

personally or by any member of the Attorney-General's ministry.

MR. MACDONALD: But all sub rosa.

HON. MR. WILLIAMS:

The second member for Vancouver East says "all sub rosa," but he knows

perfectly well that it is traditional among Attorneys-General and

ministers of justice that matters of criminal investigation are not

reported upon in detail. To do so would expose innocent citizens to

public scorn such as the member for Vancouver Centre would like to

apply to people who might have been involved in convictions for

impaired driving. The scorn which he would impose upon someone who has

been convicted of impaired driving is precisely the scorn that he would

like to impose upon someone who hasn't been convicted of any offence at

all. That's the standard he would apply; that's the even-handedness.

Let me say what I have said before. The citizens of this province who

find themselves in conflict with the law, or in likely conflict with

the law, will have their affairs investigated and dealt with in a

professional way. They will not be exposed to scorn only to satisfy the

apparent views of members of the opposition in this House.

MR. MACDONALD: Are judicial inquiries a thing of the past?

HON. MR. WILLIAMS: No, they aren't a thing of the past.

MR. MACDONALD: Well, let's have a couple of them right now.

HON. MR. WILLIAMS:

In appropriate cases we'll have them; we will not have the kind of

public trial that you would like of persons who have not even had any

prima facie case suggested against them.

The coroners. I am

pleased that the member for Vancouver Centre has raised the question of

the coroner's service, because there have been some significant changes

with respect to that in the past few months, and members should be

aware of them. I'll respond first of all to the question from the

member for Vancouver East. Why was Dr. McArthur terminated as the chief

coroner for the province of British Columbia? He was terminated on a

decision which I made that Dr. McArthur's views regarding the future

direction of the coroner's service were not views which I shared, nor

were they shared by officials of the ministry. We were concerned that

the direction in which we were moving in this province would not

provide us with the coroner's service desired one such as the member

for Vancouver Centre alluded to — without the unnecessary expenditure

of very significant sums of money. We found on examination that the

structure of the coroner's service, which had been under consideration

for a year and a half or two years, was not developing. Therefore the

much needed increase in the level and standards of the coroner's

service was not being achieved as quickly as we considered appropriate.

is important that we have an independent coroner's service, and I am

satisfied that we have one today. I'm surprised that the member for

Vancouver Centre would suggest that the decision to locate some of the

facilities of the coroner's service in a hospital somehow or other

interferes with the independence of the coroner's operation. I would

like to remind the hon. member that it was the former coroner, Dr.

McArthur, who proposed such a move — first of all in a letter to the

ministry back in June, and again in his own report, which was

surreptitiously released to the public, although not by Dr. McArthur

and not by members of the ministry. He had as I recall, the doctor's

statements, prepared that report for his own purposes. and he did not

release it or authorize its distribution. Careful examination of that

report indicates that it was the doctors' desire that facilities

available in the hospitals of this province be utilized by the

coroner's service. I would like members to know that not only in

Vancouver General Hospital and the Royal Columbian, which has been a

tremendous support to the coroner's service, but in all the hospitals

throughout the province the facilities available are being utilized by

the coroner's service today.

Since Mr. Galbraith was

appointed as chief coroner we have been able to complete the structure

for the organization of the coroner's service by the appointment of

regional coroners. It is their specific responsibility to ensure that

assistants to coroners acting within individual regions will have their

work carefully coordinated. They will lend valuable assistance to local

coroners with respect to investigations, inquiries and inquests. They

are involved in the ongoing development of local training programs to

ensure that the service is continually upgraded.

The member

for Vancouver Centre suggests that other provinces have pathologists on

their staff who are available to meet the needs of the coroner's

service to a greater extent than is the case in British Columbia. The

member fails to recognize that we have, throughout the length and

breadth of this province, available to us under contract eminent

pathologists who work with the coroner's service on a fee-for-service

basis. We can thereby employ as required the skills and experience of

qualified pathologists to meet the needs of the coroner's service as

they may arise.

With regard to lab facilities, it was the

case until the appointment of Mr. Galbraith that all the toxicology lab

work was being done either in the city of Vancouver's laboratory

facilities or at those facilities operated by the Royal Canadian

Mounted Police. The consequence of this was to overload those

facilities, resulting in extensive delays in receiving the reports

which are necessary in order for the coroner's service to discharge its

responsibilities at inquests. Since Mr. Galbraith has become the

coroner we have arranged with regional hospitals throughout the

province to use their lab

[ Page 6362 ]

facilities,

and they have the lab facilities to undertake testing which is

required. We have been able to use the extensive lab facilities at

Riverview for more serious lab tests. We have therefore been able to

reduce the load upon the Vancouver police laboratory and the RCMP

facilities, so that they are only dealing with those laboratory tests

which are required in police cases. This has provided coroners

throughout the length and breadth of the province with speedier, more

efficient lab service. We aren't going to stop there. The Ministry of

Health, in cooperation with the Ministry of Attorney General and the

coroner's service, is planning new provincial lab facilities, so that

we will be able to have the best-equipped and best-staffed

public-health lab facilities available in modern medical science. When

those facilities are complete, we will be able to provide even better

service to all the coroners in the province than we are able to do

today.

I should point out to members that we have in the

province 123 fee-for-service coroners assisting the ministry. Of those,

31 are members of the medical profession and six are lawyers. They work

throughout the length and breadth of the province, in all our

communities. With the assistance of the regional coroners, they form a

network throughout the province, so that as the need arises

professional and technical expertise can be brought to bear upon the

coroners operations.

The member for Vancouver East has left

the chamber. He made some comment with respect to Mr. Murphy, who

served with the coroner's service, and my termination of him. He's

factually incorrect. Mr. Murphy was not terminated by the

Attorney-General. In the restructuring of the coroner's service the

position which he was then occupying disappeared, as he knew it would.

Mr. Murphy chose not to reapply for one of the existing vacancies which

would be available to him.

MR. DAVIS: Mr. Chairman,

the main complaint which the constituents in Vancouver-Seymour have

about the administration of justice in this province is that our

judicial system is too permissive. Not only do we have too many laws,

but the laws themselves, they think, are too bland and administered

even more blandly. The result is that too many offenders — at least in

their opinion — are getting off. They're being let off by our judicial

system partly because they shouldn't have been charged in the first

place, or perhaps because our judges, for reasons known best to

themselves, are much softer on crime than the average B.C. voter wants

them to be.

The complaint which I hear expressed on every side nowadays, Mr. Chairman, was well summed up in a letter published in the Peace River Block News

in Dawson Creek recently. The minister has already made reference to

it. Angered at the increase in crime and the lack of punishment of

these crimes, the newspaper's editor, Mr. Glen Dalke wrote a blistering

editorial, which read in part:

"I'm sick and tired of hearing of people who have been

arrested for one crime or another and released on bail, only to go out and commit

yet another offence.

"The penal system was at one time a way to protect society

from these criminal types, and when the judiciary followed the old adage of

punishment fitting the crime, it worked well. However, our society's permissiveness

has now infiltrated this body that was set up to protect us.

"The judiciary should take a hard look at them selves and come to the realization that they have become too permissive.

"It

must be extremely frustrating for our law enforcement officers.

Imagine, if you will, society's rage if — God forbid — police forces

became this permissive and quite simply stopped making arrests, gave up

and said: 'What's the use?' "

Mr. Dalke said even better

than I can what the vast majority of British Columbians are thinking

and saying as well. But this, interestingly enough, got Mr. Dalke into

trouble with the powers that be, and his reward for speaking his mind

editorially — and certainly as a result of expressing these perfectly

logical, legitimate and widely shared beliefs — was that he was

summoned before an indignant judge of the Prince George county court

and ordered to show cause why he should not be cited for criminal

contempt. So much for the matter of freedom of speech in our society

whose judiciary frequently winks at those who break one or more of our

numerous laws, even if they have broken them again and again.

Luckily

for Mr. Dalke he appeared before a judge with some common sense who

wasn't as thin-skinned as the county court judge was: Mr. Justice F.

Craig Munroe of the B.C. supreme court. He ruled in the case of Mr.

Dalke: "The editorial in question was written in good faith, without

malice, for no improper purpose, and attributed no improper motive to

those taking

part in the administration of justice, on matter of public

interest." Mr. Justice Munroe then went on to quote Lord Atkin, the

famous 1936 Privy Council ruling, namely: "Justice is not a cloistered

virtue; she must be allowed to suffer scrutiny and respectful, even

though outspoken, comments by ordinary men."

Mr. Justice

Munroe's ruling, of course, had to concern itself not only with Mr.

Dalke's right to express the view that the penal system and the courts

are failing to protect society by being too soft — otherwise too

permissive. The ruling protected the public's right to say the same

thing. It wasn't a finding that the judiciary was in fact being sloppy

in the administration of justice, but there was an inference — subtle

as it was — that those who are responsible for the administration of

justice in this province should take a long, hard look at the laws we

are passing and the kind of people we're appointing to administer these

numerous laws at a time when the majority of our voters want fewer

laws, clearer laws and a tighter system to administer these laws in

British Columbia.

First, on the number of laws: we are

adding to their number and their variety with each session of the

Legislature, of the House of Commons and of every elected body in this

country. Our two senior levels of government alone are grinding out

more than a hundred new acts a year. Sometimes they repeat part of

another older act, rarely an entire act. Rarely do they wipe a major

act off our statute books. So we have dozens of pieces of legislation

being added to that amorphous mass which I will call the law. Little is

being stripped away. On balance, the verbiage is growing at a rate of

about 10 percent a year. It's doubling every seven years. It's growing

at a compound rate, one which is bound to sink not only the judicial

system but also the ship of state if this keeps on.

Unfortunately,

laws are also becoming more complex. When a revision takes place, 10

pages are often replaced by 20 pages or more; sometimes it's 50. In the

case of the Income Tax Act passed by the federal government in the early

[ Page 6363 ]

1970s,

it was a three-fold increase in bulk. That's not to mention the host of

regulations which usually follow in the train of legislation of this

kind. One of our hon. members and compatriots sent around a little

message the other day. It was headed: "The Age of Verbal Overkill." It

says: "The Lord's Prayer has 56 words. Lincoln's Gettysburg Address has

266 words. The Ten Commandments have 297. The Declaration of

Independence has 300. A recent U.S. government letter setting out the

price of cabbage has 26,911 words."

This tendency to

overregulate, and to add qualifying phrases is bad enough; but the

small print — a term which I will use to describe the regulations

issued later; that is, after the act is passed by the government of the

day — is even more distressing. There is apparently no end to this kind

of lawmaking. A new act may be impressive enough in itself, but when

the cabinet or even a single minister or, indeed, a non-elected

representative on a regulatory body drafts a new regulation, we have

new law. Therefore we have laws enacted — even when the cabinet and

sometimes the ministers themselves aren't involved — which have the

force of all other laws. Perhaps some of our ministers understand this

detailed legislation; perhaps their officials do; perhaps a few of them

do. These kinds of laws face little public scrutiny prior to their

authorization. They're law, and they must be administered just as

effectively as if they were the first rule of the land. They have the

full weight of the Crown in right of Canada or the Crown in right of

the province behind them. They can be light-handed or heavy-handed.

They can have the effect of a scalpel or a sledgehammer. It's up to our

appointed judiciary to administer them in due course. It's little

wonder that our magistrates and our judges sympathize with those who

run afoul of many of these kinds of laws and legislation — indeed, this

overkill in legislation, especially if the circumstances are unusual

and the accused hasn't run into this kind of red tape with a cutting

edge before.

I can speak with some personal authority on

this subject because I've been through the legal mill myself. When the

government hammered me without prior notice on the subject of travel

expenses — keeping the difference between economy and first-class

airfares and not charging other expenses — I was prosecuted under a

regulation, not the act itself. The regulation defining the word "

allowance" — and the act was dated 1917 — said that I was "allowed an

actual, reasonable expense, " whatever that meant. The court focused on

the word "actual" and dismissed the word "reasonable, " and so I was

convicted. But mark this: within a few weeks of my dropping my appeal a

new regulation was passed by cabinet dropping the word "reasonable" and

defining an allowable expense as an actual expense — keep your

receipts, no matter how large the amount, and you're safe. It seems

"reasonable" has gone out the window, even in matters of this kind.

mentioned that a hundred new acts are being passed by our senior levels

of government — federal and provincial — each year in this country.

Where acts are numbered in the hundreds, orders-in-council or

regulations are numbered in the many thousands. Last year, at the two

senior levels of government, we collectively passed approximately 5,000

new regulations. Even at the provincial level we're averaging between

1,000 and 2,000 a year. This is too much for our judicial system to

handle. It's far too much law for our law-abiding society to sustain.

More and more people are breaking laws which they didn't know existed.

When they're apprehended, they aren't given a chance to make amends. As

a result, they think our legal system is unfair and unjust. They may

even think it's discriminatory in the sense that they have been picked

on unnecessarily, or so they think, while others who have offended the

same law get off scot-free.

Recently I had occasion to raise

this subject with one of our former federal ministers of justice. He

said right off the top: "We don't have a system of justice in this

country, we have a system of law. It's the administration of the

written law that counts." I'm afraid he was right. It's the

administration of too many laws — laws in their growing numbers which

are not only little-discussed and poorly thought out, but which common

sense dictates should be and often are ignored in the courts,

especially where the imposition of penalties is concerned.

Back

to Mr. Glen Dalke and his editorial. It's not just a matter of the

judges going soft on the typical offender of our laws; it's a matter of

increasing concern to our police forces also. Our judiciary, as it

becomes more and more permissive, as it lets its first, second or even

third-time offender get off, enrages our enforcement officers. To quote

Mr. Dalke's editorial again: "It must be extremely frustrating for our

law enforcement officers. Imagine, if you will, society's rage if our

police forces became this permissive, and quite simply stopped making

arrests, gave up, said, 'What's the use?' "

What's the use,

indeed? There are too many laws and few of them have any real cutting

edge left. More people, unfortunately, are being accused of unlawful

acts, but many more, percentage-wise, are getting off or being ignored

altogether. When this happens in highly visible cases — cases involving

solicitation for the purposes of prostitution on our streets, for

example, then the enforcement process in this country is really in

trouble.

Some hon. members will remember the so-called Wendy King case. A few of us may even have read the little book, The Wendy King Story ,

before it was banned by court action taken against Wendy King and its

publisher, Mr. Robert Wilson. What that book really said was "Why me?"

The streetwalkers get off, and they get off repeatedly. They get off

even though their lives are being managed by others. They are the truly

exploited. They are also a public nuisance, but they are being

dismissed almost routinely by our courts. So why pick on a person who

engages in prostitution on their own, with a consenting adult and in

the privacy of their own apartment — in effect, their own home? These

are good questions, but an even more important one is: who tried to

turn the police off when the drug squad accidentally spotted Justice

Farris entering Wendy King's apartment? There was an unexplained lag

between that incident and the bringing of a charge of prostitution. It

was only when an overzealous security manager at the Devonshire Hotel

made statements on an open-line show in Vancouver that things really

began to happen. He had heard the grumblings of the law enforcement

officers and he talked, perhaps too much. Then the establishment had to

act. Justice Farris had to resign and for once the enforcers had their

revenge on a judiciary which, in their opinion, is too liberal in

matters of this kind.

I'm not pointing a finger, really, at

anyone. I'm saying that most British Columbians believe that we are too

permissive in the administration of justice in this country. The

reason, as far as I'm concerned, is not hard to find. We have too many

laws. We're passing too many laws and far too many orders-in-council or

regulations nowadays. We're overloading our judicial system. We're

making it impossible to administer our innumerable laws in a just and

reasonable manner. We're punishing some people unnecessarily, and

[ Page 6364 ]

we're

making those who get off, or appear to get off, look bad. Our judges

are only human. With all this pressure of more law and more detailed

law, they're bound to make mistakes. Becoming specialists, they're

losing both their perspective and their common touch. Common sense is

giving way to book learning. The prize is going to those in our

judiciary who know more and more about less and less. The wording of an

obscure regulation is being given weight out of all proportion these

days. My sympathy, then, to our judges, but my sympathy even more for

our police — our law enforcement officers. Their job, as Gilbert and

Sullivan so aptly described it in the latter part of the nineteenth

century, is not a happy one. If anything, it's even less happy these

days. Often it's frustrating, and that frustration has as much to do

with the number and the lack of quality of our new laws as anything

else.

There's a strong argument, I think, for a well-worded

bill of rights in our Canadian constitution. It runs like this. Laws

passed by Ottawa or a province — that includes all their regulations —

should be subject to a simple test: do they offend the basic rights of

Canadians as individuals? Some of them undoubtedly do and many of them

have. I'd like to see these laws tested on occasion against a simple,

straightforward and well-thought-out bill of rights, a fundamental law

that guards our rights as individual citizens and prevents the

bureaucrat and the busy politician from legislating us to death. That's

at least one reason why I'm for, not against, a bill of rights in our

constitution.

Back to the minister and the administration of

justice in this province. Could he tell us roughly how many laws and

regulations or orders-in-council are being passed each year on average

by this Legislature and this government? I don't expect him to have the

answer at his fingertips, of course, but I would like to know some time

before these estimates are concluded what the numbers for British

Columbia currently are.

MR. LAUK: Before the hon.

member for North Vancouver–Seymour took his place in this debate in

committee, the Attorney-General, under the pretence of replying to my

critique, suggested that.... He was trying to duck his oath by saying

that other colleagues in cabinet take the same oath. The

Attorney-General does not understand the uniqueness of his position,

and that's a big problem, Mr. Chairman. I would refer him to his own

annual report of 1975. His predecessor, the hon. first member for

Vancouver–Point Grey (Hon. Mr. Gardom), was then Attorney-General. In

reporting, the Deputy Attorney-General said this:

"He"

— the Attorney-General — "is not only the head of a department and

thereby obliged to advance the interests of his department among his

cabinet colleagues in caucus and in the Legislature; he must also be

able to advise government and provide legal opinions irrespective of

the political implications and independent of the political

consequences that might result either to his department or to the

government generally. That is a unique role for a minister of the

Crown. The words are worth repeating, because I believe few people

understand the importance in our society of that role. It demands a

candour and frankness not always found in political life. We must

always preserve that independent role, a cornerstone of our

parliamentary system."

The Attorney-General then gets up and

says: "Oh, well, my oath is the same as any other oath in the cabinet."

He's ducking his responsibility and culpability in the role he has

played to cover up evidence with respect to the Eckardt commission, the

allegations against the Deputy Attorney General and many other matters

that have occurred while this minister has been the Attorney-General of

this province. The role that Attorney-General has played is nothing

short of a scandal.

With respect to coroners, the

Attorney-General suggests that it's okay to use the lab facilities of

the hospitals, because the police labs will handle police cases. I

suppose that passes everybody. But if you know the actual process by

which a case becomes a police case, you know that the coroner's office,

the pathologist and the toxicologist have to be involved in the first

instance in many cases — before it becomes a police case. If he means

by a police case that the police are involved, police are primarily

involved in all death cases. There are very few in which they are not.

A police constable is always called to the scene, does a cursory

examination of what's occurred and then calls the coroner. That's the

process. In that sense, all cases are police cases. If he's talking

about police cases involving investigation of culpable homicide, how do

we get to that stage without a pathologist's report? How do we get to

that stage without toxicology?

The Attorney-General has

still not answered the very serious criticism that if hospital

facilities are used, what is to prevent the temptation for doctors,

directors and officials involved with that hospital to cover up or

destroy evidence that would implicate them in a blameworthy death at

the hospital itself, or to prevent one hospital moving to protect the

reputation of and the individuals involved at another hospital. This is

left open, and it's a serious criticism. It's not enough for the

Attorney-General to say: "It's going to cost too much money; let's just

throw it in there." Why have it in the first place? If you're not going

to seriously determine what the cause of death is in these cases, don't

bother. But if you are serious and you want to find out with certainty

the cause of death and whether it's a result of blameworthy or culpable

homicide, then give the adequate facilities and the independence to the

coroner's service that that goal requires.

The Coroners Act,

section 9(2), requires that deaths in institutions, such as homes for

the aged and mental hospitals, be reported to a coroner. However, as no

full-time coroner is available to investigate such deaths, these are

subsequently going unreported.

Interjection.

MR. LAUK:

I'm looking at the report that's in wide circulation. It is suggested

in that report that over 100 infant deaths each year are incorrectly

classified due to inadequate investigation. I wonder what is on the

Attorney-General's mind when he's trying to shave a dime here and shave

a dollar there when it comes to those kinds of figures. Is the Attorney

General satisfied that there will be any improvement in this situation

during the two-year period when the coroner's office is being

relocated? Is the Attorney-General willing to take the responsibility

for unnecessary deaths which may take place in the meantime because of

inadequate staff and facilities? Is he going to personally take that

responsibility?

The effectiveness of a coroner's system

depends on the quality of forensic pathology that is available. In 1979

the chief coroner advised that three forensic pathologists were

[ Page 6365 ]

required

to ensure that British Columbia did not continue to lag behind most of

the developed world in its standards of forensic pathology. As of March

20 this year my office has determined that there is not a single

full-time forensic pathologist in the province. It's not enough to say

that there is a fee-for-service program; we all know that. The adequacy

and the professionalism of a pathologist, linked to forensic medicine,

is the important essential ingredient — not a part-time forensic

pathologist but a full-time forensic pathologist who is familiar with

the machinery of the coroner's service and the facilities available to

him. I know he's referring to the one or two individuals who are on a

fee-for-service basis in this service. It's not adequate, and we're

getting the kinds of figures that I've just read out to the committee.

I'm

not going to get into a running debate with the Attorney-General about

why he dismissed McArthur or why Murphy was dismissed or anything like

that, but it is a sad day indeed, Mr. Chairman, if those people were

dismissed because they were trying to do something for the public of

this province with respect to coroner's service and the

Attorney-General didn't like it — it cost too much money or he didn't

like the way it was gone about. It's a sad day indeed if those

dismissals are followed — and seemed to be followed — by inaction on

the part of this ministry to provide a good coroner's service. The

Attorney-General still has not answered those criticisms. I repeat that

it's not enough for the Attorney-General to argue that the dismissals

just occurred as a matter of reorganization or something like that,

when the reorganization itself is causing a failure in the coroner's

service to detect culpable or blameworthy deaths.

Lastly,

Mr. Chairman, before I take my seat and permit others to speak, I want

seriously to bring to the attention of the Attorney-General the

problem, as I perceive it, that his view or his role of his office is

sadly mistaken and incorrect. He has taken positions on several

incidents, already mentioned here and in last year's estimates, that

protect his cabinet colleagues, and that is not his role. His role is

to make sure that there is an even-handed application of the

administration of justice, not to protect his cabinet colleagues. As

the Attorney-General's own report states, "he must also be able to

advise government and provide legal opinions, irrespective of the

political implications and independent of the political consequences

that might result either to his department or the government

generally." The Attorney-General stands condemned. He has not fulfilled

that very heavy responsibility. He's been found wanting and he has

failed in that position as Attorney-General.

HON. MR. WILLIAMS:

Mr. Chairman, I would just like to respond very briefly to the member

on his concerns about the coroners. It's interesting that he quotes

from Dr. McArthur's report, Dr. McArthur being the former chief

coroner. Just a year ago, when he was chief coroner, Dr. McArthur wrote

urging approval for the immediate move of medical-legal laboratories

from their then position on Cordova Street to the Vancouver General

Hospital. He categorized that as an urgent matter impacting

significantly upon the quality of justice in British Columbia. That is

a view which is shared by the present chief coroner. I wish to assure

members of the committee that with respect to the operation of

coroner's facilities that use space in hospitals, they are run entirely

by the coroner's service and not by the hospital administration. If the

member for Vancouver Centre were as knowledgeable as he would lead one

to believe from his remarks, he would recognize that fact.

May

I also say that the statistics which he was quoting with respect to

deaths and a number of other categories can at best be described as

wild speculation. I say that because one of the concerns which I have

had, along with the officials of the ministry and the pre-sent chief

coroner, is that there has not existed in British Columbia a data base

upon which such statistics could be developed. It is being put in place

now. That has been one of the problems. It was a problem when Mr.

Galbraith became the chief coroner. and we are moving as quickly as

possible to correct it. Without a proper base, proper record-keeping or

proper statistics, it is virtually impossible to determine what is

taking place in the fields which the member mentioned.

would also hasten to add that, as the members will recognize, we are

entering the third year of the operation of the coroner's service,

following the major amendment which created the coroner service as it

is today. In that first year $1.4 million was expended for this

service. The budget has now increased by 100 percent. Significant

fiscal resources are being employed for this service; in addition, the

direction in which we are moving is to utilize existing facilities

which contribute to the efficient functioning of the coroner's service.

MR. LAUK: I just have one point. The statistics which I cited came from the former chief coroner of the province.

HON. MR. WILLIAMS: That's right. That was the problem.

MR. LAUK:

The Attorney-General says that was the problem. Was the man fired

because he said something that caused some discomfort to the

government? Was he fired because he was trying to achieve public

recognition of a serious problem in the province? Is that what the

Attorney General is saying?

HON. MR. WILLIAMS: No.

MR. LAUK:

The figure cited was from the chief coroner of the province. He was the

authority at that time. He said there were 100 infant deaths improperly

classified. The Attorney-General now superimposes himself as the expert

and says that the chief coroner was wrong and that was why he was

fired. Well, that's a very sad indictment of the way this

Attorney-General acts. He kills the messenger. The message is clear,

and it's a sad one. It's an indictment of the coroner's service, which

has been starved to death by this government.

We need

adequate facilities. The Attorney-General has still not answered that

conflict-of-interest criticism with respect to moving the coroner's

laboratory services into hospital situations. I'm not saying it won't

work, but he has not satisfied the public or this committee that

safeguards have been taken against conflict-of-interest situations

arising. The Attorney-General stands condemned. He said: "I fired the

chief coroner because he gave me information that made me

uncomfortable." He's arguing that the statistics were wrong. How does

he know?

HON. MR. WILLIAMS: I can't allow that last

statement to go unanswered. The member is obfuscating, as he always

does. The fact of the matter is that I did not say that Dr. McArthur

was terminated because of any such matters; I simply tried to point out

to the member that he was quoting

[ Page 6366 ]

statistics.

One of the difficulties we have in the coroner's service is that there

is no data base upon which statistics can be properly developed. That's

one of the problems we have in the coroner service. I did not say it

was the reason Dr. McArthur was terminated.

MR. LEGGATT:

I wanted to deal with a couple of other aspects. Quite briefly, the

first one deals with something that's been touched upon by other

speakers: the uneven nature of the Attorney-General's administration.

When we deal with the specific complaint of the ombudsman about the

civil law division, he says: "I have had more problems with this

division than any other branch of government." He's zeroing in on the

Loffmark pension problem. The Attorney-General has taken the position

that an opinion given by someone in his ministry to the Provincial

Secretary (Hon. Mr. Wolfe) surrounding Mr. Loffmark's pension is

something clothed in solicitor-client privilege. On the surface that

sounds correct. What I want the Attorney-General to do first of all is

to tell us if this privilege exists. He has asked the Provincial

Secretary to waive that privilege. As the Attorney-General well knows,

that privilege does not reside in the hands of the lawyer that gives

the opinion, nor does that privilege lie with the Attorney-General. If

there's any privilege surrounding the Loffmark pension opinion, the

privilege is on the part of the client. The client was the Provincial

Secretary.

To demonstrate some good faith to this House and

to demonstrate that the Attorney-General is not stonewalling the

ombudsman, which no doubt he claims, will he now stand in this House

and say that he is officially requesting or has requested the

Provincial Secretary to waive any privilege he may have surrounding

that particular opinion? Will he waive that privilege and allow the

ombudsman to do a decent and complete investigation into that matter?

If they're stonewalling, the reason is very clear. Whether the

Attorney-General or anybody else knows it, there is a strong suspicion

in that case that someone intervened to elicit that opinion at a period

of time when Mr. Loffmark took a very public stance in opposition to

this government. If the Attorney-General is preventing an investigation

of that question, he is failing to fulfil even the minimum obligation

he has to this House and to the province to dispense justice in an

even-handed way. He's abandoning it.

[Mr. Davidson in the chair.]

we look at the reports of ombudsmen right across the country, I don't

think we will see one that is more damning than the report of our own

ombudsman with respect to this Attorney-General. He has failed to stand

in his place and defend himself from the most serious charge that I've

seen one public official level against another — certainly in the

history of the ombudsman's office, as it applies in Canada. The first

question to the Attorney-General is: will he now request the Provincial

Secretary to waive any solicitor-client privilege around that, so that

there can be a more full investigation surrounding the opinion that was

given with respect to the Loffmark pension — an opinion, of course,

which has since been found to be legally incorrect by the courts?

The

next subject I want to raise with the Attorney-General deals with his

responsibility as the chief law enforcement officer of the province.

It's not really a question that deals with whether justice is

even-handed. It deals with his responsibility for law and order in the

province of British Columbia, and the responsibility to try to head off

problems through the use of the law, before they come to the point of

explosion. I think what the Attorney-General and his government suffer

from is a bad education about the history of this province and its

minorities. What we see is an Attorney-General who had a kind of

laundered education around the history of racism in British Columbia.

We live in a province which is explosive and on the edge of very

dangerous times, indeed because of the ethnic mix that has been

welcomed by all parts of this House, I would suspect.

What I

refer to, of course, is the question of how the Attorney-General deals

with the growing problem of the KKK. I'm going to anticipate the two

responses that he's going to give to these remarks. First of all he's

going to tell me that it's under investigation. The second thing he's

going to say is: "If you have evidence, bring me the evidence and we'll

look at it and follow it up." Both of those responses are inadequate

for this reason: as the chief law enforcement official in the province

of British Columbia, it is his duty to see that law enforcement zeroes

in on special problems, so that we prevent more serious problems from

developing. We did it on drug enforcement. Can the Attorney-General

tell us whether CLEU has a special mandate to look at this question? Is

there a special investigative team now dealing with the serious problem

of the KKK in the province? I hope his answer to both those questions

will be yes. Not for a moment will I accept the Attorney-General's

response of "if I tell you, it will inhibit the investigation." I don't

believe it will at all. I think it's time we told the KKK that we're

going to investigate them and that we're going to prosecute for

violations of the law. If it takes more people to do it, we've got to

do it. We have a special task force in CLEU. They have done an

excellent job in many areas. I want to know whether CLEU has been

mandated at all in the KKK question.

The Attorney-General

rises in his place and says: "Oh, you guys are always making these wild

charges. Give me some evidence." Let's read the report of Rick Ouston —

under his byline. It's from the Vancouver Sun of June 1, 198 1. He says: "

"Let us offer a prayer of thanks to God for creating us in his image, for giving us white skin and superior intelligent."

That's how the invocation begins at the famous Stave Lake cross-burning.

"With that invocation, delivered by a blonde woman in her

early twenties, the Ku Klux Klan's first public cross-burning in B.C. in

years was underway Sunday. Before long, 40 white supremacists, a dozen of them

wearing white robes, were brandishing flaming torches, making Nazi-style salutes

and chanting 'White Power,' as an eight-metre-high, rough-hewn wooden

cross sent flames into the darkening sky."

I don't think Rick Ouston made that up. I got a feeling that he was there.

He said he was there; I believe him. I wonder if the law enforcement people

of this province have now interviewed Mr. Ouston with regard to violations of

at least three acts: the B.C. Firearm Act, the Human Rights Code and the Criminal

Code. The scene was a remote beach at Stave Lake. The road onto the beach was

guarded by two men carrying rifles. What are two men doing guarding this particular

meeting by carrying rifles? What right do they have to guard this particular

meeting? What right to they have to carry firearms? Do they have firearm permits

under the Firearm Act? Do they have a right to carry firearms to a meeting?

[ Page 6367 ]

the

Attorney-General will know, that is a specific violation of the

Criminal Code. You cannot carry any firearm to a meeting. That's a very

serious criminal offence in Canada. You can't carry firearms for any

purpose that is dangerous to the public peace. That is an even more

serious offence — that's an indictable offence.

I'm going on to quote from the article:

"The woman speaking identified herself as Anne Farmer. She

said she was the National Grand Chaplain of the Canadian Klan and the girlfriend

of Wolfgang Droege, the ex-B.C. Klan leader, now in a New Orleans jail....

"Canadian Klan leader Alexander McQuirter, who attended

the ceremony, was asked about the Klan's claim to have attracted a 'new

breed' of recruit — businessmen instead of workers. He said 'the (people

who wear) ties type' are the new Klan majority, but they want to protect

their jobs, so they just provide money and other backroom assistance...."

Following

this, we have reports of the East Indian Defence Committee arming

themselves. I don't think we can live in an artificial atmosphere in

Victoria for very long without being exposed to some very serious race

problems that are developing. In my view, one of the most serious

problems is developing in the Fraser Valley, where we have the

farmworkers' union presently organizing the farm community. That has

all the potential for explosion. And who is in the middle of that? The

Ku Klux Klan, which has been allowed to grow and develop in the

friendly atmosphere of this government.

Words are not enough

in condemning the dangers of this organization. Actions speak much

louder, but there has been no action whatsoever. Let's look at the

offences that prima facie have been committed by that organization

without charges being laid. First, if you want to deal with the

Criminal Code,

section 83 says this: "Everyone who carries or has in

his possession a weapon or imitation thereof for a purpose dangerous to

the public peace or for the purpose of committing an offence is guilty

of an indictable offence and is liable to imprisonment for five years."

I don't think Mr. Ouston imagined seeing two rifles at that meeting. He

was pretty clear about it. It wasn't hearsay; they were there. There

was no attempt to justify it by saying they were hunting. Are we going

to allow people in this province to wander around with guns and burn

crosses at meetings, or are we going to do something about it?

Section

84 says: "Everyone who has a weapon in his possession while he is

attending or is on his way to attend a public meeting is guilty of an

offence punishable on

summary conviction." I think the Legislature is

at least owed an explanation as to why charges aren't laid under that

section when the evidence is so clear, so unequivocal, from the

eyewitness to that particular meeting.

Last but not least,

our own human rights legislation provides — I'll have to paraphrase it,

but I know the Attorney-General is familiar with it — that the display

of a symbol is an offence where that symbol means race discrimination.

I don't know what else you can call a burning cross. Here's the

section, "Discriminatory publication,"

section 2(

l) of the Human Rights

Code: "No person shall publish or display before the public, or cause

to be published or displayed before the public, a notice, sign, symbol,

emblem or other representation indicating discrimination or an

intention to discriminate against a person or class of persons in any

manner prohibited by this Act." That sounds like a burning cross to me.

Why

no action on the KKK? I hope the Attorney-General is going to rise in

his place and say: "Yes, we have a special investigative team; yes,

CLEU has been mandated to get on top of this problem." But a long time

has gone by. Race relations in this province are getting worse, because

it is a powder keg. We have an ethnic mix that needs law and order on

its side. We do not need any groups in this province arming themselves

for protection against any other group. The reason for this powder keg

is the lack of action on the part of this Attorney-General and his

government.

Interjection.

MR. LEGGATT:

Compare the actions against the KKK with the actions — as my colleague,

the second member for Surrey (Mr. Hall), reminds me — against the

picketers at Adams Laboratories in Surrey. It didn' t take long to get

on the site then.

MR. HALL: They had them in handcuffs right away.

MR. LEGGATT:

They had them in handcuffs and on their way. They barely had to open

their mouths and they were in jail. But the KKK has been spouting their

poison around this province for over a year, having high profile. They

have been on the news; they are in the newspapers; they are on the

hotline shows.

HON. MR. VANDER ZALM: You're doing it.

MR. LEGGATT: Oh, I'm doing it.

Somehow we haven't got a government that's able to find any violations of law.

Interjection.

MR. LEGGATT:

I see, it will go away. The first member for Surrey (Hon. Mr. Vander

Zalm) says that if you ignore the KKK they'll all file back into the

woodwork. Right? You think that's the way to deal with the problem? Is

that the way the minister deals with his portfolio? The way to look at

a problem is to put it in your desk and it will disappear. I don't

think that's the right answer, Mr. Minister.

HON. MR. VANDER ZALM: Translate it whichever way you want. You're doing them a favour every day.

MR. LEGGATT:

You're sending a message out to the people of British Columbia: "It's

okay to belong to the KKK. We don't prosecute them; we don't talk about

them; we ignore them. Therefore they're a respectable organization."

They are not a respectable organization. They are in violation of many

of the laws of this province, and we haven't seen a single charge laid

yet.

HON. MR. VANDER ZALM: You're giving them stature. Shame on you. Just for political purposes.

MR. LEGGATT: No, I'm not giving them stature. They're getting stature because of inaction on the part of this government.

[ Page 6368 ]

HON. MR. VANDER ZALM: For political purposes you're giving them stature. Boy, politics goes pretty low sometimes.

MR. LEGGATT:

Mr. Chairman, it's important that the Attorney-General seize upon his

prime responsibility, which is the maintenance of law and order in the

province of British Columbia. We have to look to him for leadership on

that subject. I ask him to rise in his place now and tell us that there

is a special task force. Tell us that the KKK is violating the law and

is under investigation and charges are forthcoming. Send a message out

there to people who are increasingly nervous about their own safety. As

long as we have inaction on the part of this government this movement

will grow, as it has in other areas. I suppose the first member for

Surrey would have said that Hitler would have gone away if we just

ignored him and said nothing about him. It doesn't work that way.

You've got to stand up and be counted on something like the KKK. If you

go to sleep on it, they just grow and grow.

Mr. Chairman, I

have a few things to say about prostitution. I know the first member

for Surrey is very fascinated by that subject as well, but I would like

to hear the Attorney-General's response on this most important problem

in the province of British Columbia.

HON. MR. WILLIAMS:

First of all may I deal with the matter of privilege that the member

raised. May I simply say this: when this matter was raised in the House

during question period some days ago I made inquiries as to the extent

of the investigation by the ombudsman into the records of the

superannuation branch, and I'm advised that the letter of opinion to

which the member refers had already been disclosed to the ombudsman's

investigator. Quite frankly I am left to wonder what the issue is.

The

member raises the question of the activities of the KKK. I assume he

would include in his concern actions of a similar nature by others who

may not follow that particular association but hold the same views. I

am as distressed at the public reports of these activities as is the

member. I will not advise him what specific action is being taken on

the part of law enforcement agencies in this province except to say, as

I have previously, that matters of this nature have not been ignored

and are not being ignored. I suppose it would be of some advantage to

the member if it were announced that a special detail of police

officers were charging off into the highways and byways of British

Columbia seeking out people who meet clandestinely in places to which

the press and nobody else is invited. He can read provisions of the

Criminal Code for as long as he wishes, but he knows that unless one

identifies and apprehends the perpetrator of particular conduct no

charge can be laid. I trust that with his experience he will recall

that matters of this kind often take longer than any of us would wish

to identify and take the appropriate action. However, to suggest, as he

does, that we're living in a powder-keg and to refer to certain

activities with regard to trade union organization as contributing to

that is, I think, doing a disservice to the people who are involved in

those legitimate activities. To raise concerns and even threats with

respect to the future of those activities.... I would caution the

member against activities which may lead to misinterpretation. The

matter is not being ignored and will not be ignored: steps will be

taken to apprehend people who offend against the law and they will be

brought to justice.

MR. LEGGATT: During a question period sometime

earlier in this session there was some indication not only that the

McAlpine report would be released but also that we could expect some

action this session with respect to this problem. I'm wondering if the

Attorney-General can take the House into his confidence on this and

advise if we can expect either legislative changes or some announcement

which deals with the particular problem. I think it was the Minister of

Labour (Hon. Mr. Heinrich) who indicated in answer to a question

surrounding the KKK that they anticipated action this session on this

particular subject. Has the Attorney-General any information to give

the House on that?

MR. CHAIRMAN: Again I must point

out to members of the committee that the administrative action of a

department is open to debate, but the necessity for legislation and

matters involving legislation cannot be discussed in Committee of

Supply.

MRS. DAILLY: I wish to move on to another

area with the Attorney-General at this time, although it's obvious that

the opposition has received no satisfaction whatsoever on the

inadequacies of the handling by the Attorney-General and the government

of Ku Klux Klan activities in this province.

The area I want

to deal with is the area of the youth detention home, which we used to

refer to formerly as the "Willingdon Home for Delinquent Boys and

Girls." One of the most satisfying moments that I personally had as a

cabinet minister was when the NDP government was able to shut down

Willingdon Detention Home, as it was used at the time when we came into

office. Cells were being used where 12-year-old children were being

placed and where children with mixed emotional problems were being

placed together — children who were psychotic with children who simply

had run away from home because they were upset one night.

The

return of the Social Credit government has brought back again to the

province of British Columbia the handling of young people in this

province to the way they were handled 50 or 60 years ago. At the

present time we have 90 children detained in Willingdon. I think we're

all aware of a very tragic accident — which is called "an accident:"

and I want to discuss that with the Attorney-General — which happened

at the Willingdon Detention Centre a year ago. A young boy of 14 was

drowned in the swimming pool at Willingdon. After eight months an

inquest was finally held. Following the inquest, it was decided that

death was accidental. There have been some inmates at that detention

centre who have said that they do not believe it was accidental. They

believe that this 14-year-old boy — who should never, in my opinion,

have even been placed in that institution — was held down by some other

inmates in that pool until he drowned. I know I have no proof of that,

but I have taken the time, as I hope the Attorney-General has, to read

the report of the inquest. I'll tell you, after you read through all

those pages you come away with even greater concern about what must be

taking place at this detention centre which the Social Credit

government endorses. It isn't until there's an accident there that we

suddenly find some minor changes being made.

Mr. Chairman,

are you aware of the fact that there were no professional lifeguards on

duty at that pool? Are you aware that there were just a few rules on

how to behave in the pool posted? Are you aware that none of those

children who were sent there and go into the swimming pool are even

checked out to see if they can swim? Are you aware that there is very

[ Page 6369 ]

little

staff training for the handling of young people who are having a

swimming activity? I could go on and on with the areas that I think

would make any person in this room very concerned, particularly when we

know that a 14-year-old boy was drowned — a 14-year-old boy who

probably should never have been placed there to begin with.

Did

you know why this boy was put there? He had run away from home. I'm not

saying that boy didn't have problems, but the point is: what did we do

with him? We — I have to take the responsibility; we're all members of

this society — sit back and these things continue to happen. He was

placed in there along with 89 other people — some of them, I'm sure,

psychotic; some of them with terrible problems; some of them terribly

assertive and aggressive. Can you imagine yourself as a 14-year-old

boy, which you must have been at one time, being sent into a detention

home such as that?

Interjection.

MRS. DAILLY:

Mr. Chairman, I know that everybody has a right to laugh in this House.

I do too. But I'll tell you, at this very moment, when I hear the

Premier and his colleagues laughing when I'm talking about the

unnecessary death of a 14-year-old boy, I'm ashamed for them.

MR. KEMPF: That's a cheap shot.

MRS. DAILLY: It's cheap of your Premier and your colleagues to be sitting over there laughing.

MR. KEMPF: Garbage!

MRS. DAILLY: If he considers this garbage, so be it. I can't help it.

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

MRS. DAILLY:

A number of questions that have been asked about this case have been

sent to the Attorney-General. I know he has them. He has been asked to

make a probe of this incident, and I understand today that the

Attorney-General has stated in the paper that he does not intend to

investigate this incident further — that if anything is going to happen

now, it's up to Corrections. This is not satisfactory, Mr. Chairman.

For example, when the Attorney-General says he's going to leave it up

to the corrections department, how about answering some of these

questions through the corrections department? I say that some of the

questions I'm going to pose here, which have been posed by the

child-care worker who was so concerned that he wrote to the

Attorney-General, are questions that can only be answered through the

Attorney-General's ministry.

Why was the family of the boy

not directed to their rights to a lawyer? Why was the inquest delayed

for over ten months? If the police investigation had to do with that

delay, why did they say so very little at the inquest? Why did they

make no reference to the 14 statements in their possession from the

others in the pool? Did those statements mention roughhousing or

fighting in the pool? Could Robert — this is the boy who drowned —

swim, and how well? None of these have been answered, Mr. Chairman.

Would one push or one dunking get him into trouble? Was the man who was

acting as lifeguard working a 16-hour shift? I do not want to take up

the time of the House to go through every one of these questions, but

I'm only posing these to you so that the minister in reply can explain

to me why he would not follow up these very relevant questions with a

proper investigation.

That is to deal with one aspect of the

case; the other thing I want to deal with referring to this case is the

very fact that there wasn't a lifeguard on duty. And you know one of

the reasons given by the staff was budgetary — not enough money to hire

a full-time lifeguard in this pool in a detention home. Money is being

poured out by that government to try to build up their PR images, and

yet there isn't enough money for a lifeguard in a pool operated by this

government where children are sent without proper protection. There is

not enough training of the staff for these incidents. I'm asking the

Attorney-General what he is going to do about this case. Are you

satisfied that this case should just be dropped now completely and left

up to Corrections?

Mr. Chairman, none of us can bring back

the life of Robert, who drowned, but let us remember the children who

are there now and of whom, unfortunately, many will have to be there

because of this government which still believes in incarcerating young

people in this kind of environment.

HON. MR. WILLIAMS:

Mr. Chairman, I would like to respond to the matters raised by the

member for Burnaby North (Mrs. Dailly). First of all, may I say that

her statistics are considerably in error. The population at the

Willingdon home is not 90 children; as a matter of fact, it was 70 in

the previous months, and last month it dropped to 60.

With

regard to this unfortunate incident that occurred more than a year ago

— and I thank the member for reading into the record from a copy of a

letter which was sent to me — it is accurate to say that I am

conducting no examination into the matter. But that doesn't mean that

no investigation is being made into the 21 issues which are raised in

this letter. Those questions are being investigated by the commissioner

of corrections, and when those responses reach me — which should be

very soon — then a decision will be taken as to what further action, if

any, is required.

The operation of the swimming pool at

Willingdon under the regulations which were in place a year ago

required the presence of two members of the staff, at least one of whom

was a competent swimmer and who also held a St. John's Ambulance

certificate. Since the inquest the pool has been closed, and it will

not be used until a staff member has been recruited who holds a Royal

Life Saving Society certificate in order to ensure that we minimize, as

much as is ever possible, the likelihood of any repetition of this

unfortunate incident. In addition, when the pool is opened the other

recommendations of the coroner's jury will be incorporated into the

rules for the operation of that facility.

Interjection.

HON. MR. WILLIAMS:

Yes, I did. They made recommendations which touched upon the testing of

swimmers before they used the pool, the taking of regular head counts

during the course of the swimming exercise — a kind of swimming

roll-call — and the use of continuing poolside inspections. Those

things should, as I say, to every extent possible prevent a recurrence

of the event. It was an unfortunate accident, and one that we will

endeavour to ensure does not arise again.

[ Page 6370 ]

MS. SANFORD:

Mr. Chairman, I want to bring to the attention of the Attorney-General

a couple of situations that exist within the constituency of Comox. I

would like to refresh the Attorney-General's memory. I know that he was

here when Scott Wallace, who then represented Oak Bay, gave one of the

most moving speeches I've heard in this House, following his attendance

at an inquest held in Courtenay after a 16-year-old girl hanged herself

in the jail there. The jury recommended at that time that changes be

made to those cells, which everyone involved in the field — police,

judges, probation officers — agrees are deplorable.

A total

of four hangings have now taken place in the Courtenay jail unit, and

still there are no changes. I realize a new RCMP facility, which may be

ready a year and a half to two years from now — maybe sooner, hopefully

sooner — is under construction. But those cells in the current facility

will apparently continue to be used. Once the prisoners have appeared

before court and are awaiting sentence, they will be held in the same

cells that are now in such a deplorable state that everyone in the area

agrees something must done about them immediately.

I know

the minister has been contacted by people in my constituency, letting

him know that there is a problem in that these same cells are going to

be used in the future, even after the new RCMP facility opens. I would

like to know today, following four juries recommending that changes be

made to the cells, what action the minister is going to take with

respect to those cells, and how soon we can expect that action to take

place. I don't think we can wait for another suicide to have some

changes made to those cells. There are problems with those cells.

Apparently the lighting is insufficient to put up a proper TV

monitoring unit. Another thing is the staff shortage. The people

required to look after the prisoners also have to answer the phones and