1975 Legislative Session: 5th Session, 30th 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, APRIL 15, 1975

Night Sitting

[ Page

1361 ]

CONTENTS

Point of order

Schedule for Committee of Supply. Mr. Smith — 1361

Mr. Speaker — 1362

Mr. Smith — 1362

Mr. Speaker — 1362

Routine proceedings

Committee of Supply: Department of the Attorney-General

estimates. On vote 11. Hon. Mr. Macdonald — 1363

Mr. Smith — 1363

Hon. Mr. Macdonald — 1366

Mr. Gardom — 1368

Hon. Mr. Macdonald — 1373

Mr. Wallace — 1374

Hon. Mr. Macdonald — 1378

Ms. Brown — 1380

Mr. Bennett — 1381

Hon. Mr. Macdonald — 1382

Division on motion that the committee rise and report progress —

The House met at 8:33 p.m.

Orders of the day.

MR. D.E. SMITH (North Peace River): Mr. Speaker, before

proceeding further in orders of the day I wish to rise on a

point of order. My point of order is one respecting the

procedure of this House during debate in committee of supply. I

don't want to recanvass everything that was said just prior to

the adjournment for supper this evening, but I do believe that

the Hon. Speaker was on the floor of the House at the time that

the points were made by both sides.

I would just like to explore with the Speaker one or two

points which I think are very pertinent to the arguments that

were put earlier today. One is the fact that earlier this

afternoon the government Whip delivered to myself a copy of an

agenda or a memorandum purported to be the

schedule of

Ministers, which would be adhered to in the debate in Committee

of Supply. He gave me enough copies for all the Members of my

caucus and I presume the same type of memorandum was delivered

to all other Members of the House.

Interjection.

MR. SMITH: I'm on a point of order, Mr. Attorney-General

(Mr. Macdonald). Even you should recognize that.

The

schedule or memorandum which was delivered outlined a

purported

schedule of time and order for the remaining

estimates of this House. I would like to refer the Hon. Speaker

to our own standing order 45 on pages 17 and 18, respecting

Committee of Supply. The outline is quite detailed there, I

think, in that it indicates to all the Members of the House

that we are limited in the hours of debate and the total number

of sittings which will take place during Committee of Supply.

There is an allocation, in other words, of both time and total

number of sittings and this allocation is spelled out in

45A.

This allocation of time and the amendment to our standing

orders came about as a result of a committee hearing which was

attended by Members of all parties, although not supported by

the official opposition, and we said so. It was supported on

the floor of the House by the government majority and became

the rules that we all have to live with. We disagree with the

system of limits established last year but they remain our

standing orders at this present time, so we have to live with

the limits that are contained therein, including the speaking

limit of 30 minutes at any one time.

Now this afternoon, in my opinion, we were asked to subjugate our rights as

Members of this House to a decree by the government Whip. That decree is unacceptable

and I believe is one that should never have been put to the Members of this

House because it superimposes over the standing orders of our House selective

closure. It is something beyond the competence of any Minister, any Member of

this House or anyone acting in any capacity. It's for the House to decide, first

of all, the number of hours that will be allocated, and that's already been

done by these standing orders that we have to live with. It's also for the House

to decide and determine the order of speakers, and if that's not done it could

be done by the Government Whip in consultation with the other Whips of the House.

MR. SPEAKER: Excuse me. I think, Hon. Member, you really

mean in your statement....

MR. SMITH: Order of Ministers, pardon me.

MR. SPEAKER: The order of speakers is decided by the

Chair.

MR. SMITH: Right. The order of Ministers who are to be

canvassed and their departments.

There is nothing in our rules that allocates a specific

number of hours to any particular portfolio. That is the way it

should be, because there are some portfolios which will require

many more hours of canvassing than others. I think that should

be left to the discretion of the Members of this House. It's

beyond anyone, in my opinion, in any position within the House,

individually, to suggest to the other Members of the House that

they want to design some mechanism to define the number of

hours that will be allotted for any one particular

Minister.

I would like to refer the Hon. Speaker to May , 18th

edition. Page 51 describes the powers of parliament as follows:

"... the power of parliament is so transcendent and absolute,

as it cannot be confined either for causes or persons within

any bounds." In other words, we are responsible within the

precincts of this assembly. No one can dictate to us outside of

what our standing orders say, or if we can't find it there,

then we have to go to May or some other form that we

have used for many years.

I suggest that the decree this afternoon was really an abuse

of the rules of this House by the government Whip in which he

tried to implement a system which is not in any way dealt with

in the standing orders of this House. It is an abuse of our

rules and an abuse of the Members of this House.

The point I want to make is that the Legislative Assembly

and the Members herein are responsible for our own standing

orders, including any amendments thereto. No one person or

cabinet Minister or government Whip can take that

responsibility away from the Members of this assembly. I would

suggest

[ Page 1362 ]

that that was what was being done this afternoon and again

as we approached the hour of adjournment when the Hon. Premier

got involved in the debate. He suggested that the rules were

there, that the memorandum would stand, and that he was

prepared to withdraw the memorandum and then reinstitute it. I

do not believe, Mr. Speaker, that it was within his power to do

that, no more than it was within the power of the Hon.

government Whip to institute such a

schedule and impose that

upon the Members of this House.

I would respectfully request, Mr. Speaker, that you canvass

the whole matter in your own good time and report to the

House.

Interjections.

MR. SPEAKER: May I point out I agree entirely with the Hon.

Member that there is no right of any individual to determine

the business of the House so far as making the decision to do

one thing or another. The House itself ordains its own

procedures. But I also want to point out that any Hon. Members

who may be Whips for their parties may get together to work out

things. That is an informal arrangement, they say in tradition,

"behind the Speaker's chair" or "the Chairman's chair."

Therefore, so far as anything that happens during the day

that is for the House, by any motion that may be put by any

Hon. Member, to determine whether the Committee shall rise or

continue to sit. The Committee of the Whole House will decide

the issue of whether they will continue on one subject during

the day. There is one condition that I must attach to this that

you will all perceive immediately, and that is that no matter

how informal an arrangement may be suggested by any Member, the

House itself determines the matter and the order of business is

called out by the government each day. That has always been

traditional under our rules and I refer you to

Beauchesne, page 20 1.

Interjection.

MR. SPEAKER: I don't think any list, either alleged to be

official or unofficial, has any binding effect on this

House.

MR. W.R. BENNETT (Leader of the Opposition): There was no

arrangement. It was by decree.

MR. SPEAKER: I didn't suggest it was an arrangement. I said

"any list."

Therefore, the situation is simply this: I will look into

the matter in more detail and provide the House with all the

authorities that may be mustered. If you have any other

suggestions or any help you can give me, any authorities, I

would be glad to look at them.

MR. BENNETT: Do you want to have a recess?

MR. SPEAKER: No, I don't think we need it because

undoubtedly the House has the power, through the House Leader,

to call an order of business. If any Member does not approve of

that order of business, he can take the question up on a

judgment of the House or a decision of the House on that

particular order of business. But, as you know, the estimates

are taken up at any time the government thinks proper. I am

quoting from page 201 of Beauchesne .

MRS. P.J. JORDAN (North Okanagan): What about what they

think is proper?

MR. SPEAKER: I'll certainly look at the question but I

think, right off the bat, I can't help but say that the Hon.

Member is quite right, that no Member in this House can dictate

how many hours you will spend on this and how many hours you

will spend on that. That is for the House itself to determine

and for the Committee to determine through all the Members.

MR. SMITH: Mr. Speaker, in pursuing the point and before you

canvass the matter further, is there any way that the House

itself can determine the allotted number of hours by motion or

by...?

MR. SPEAKER: I would think the House could if it wished to,

by resolution, alter the number of hours it spends on any

subject, but any other way can only be by the House Leader

calling out the order of business at the beginning of the

Committee's work.

AN HON. MEMBER: Or suspension of the rules.

MR. SMITH: You just said the House....

MR. SPEAKER: The House determines its order of business and

if you don't approve of an order of business suggested by the

government leader, you are entitled to vote against the

motion.

I'll look into it in more detail. I must admit that it takes

a lot of study on a thing like this, but I think first of all

the House Leader can always call the order of business. That

has been traditional in every House.

MR. SMITH: It is certainly possible for the House Leader or

anyone to move that the rules be suspended. Is that not

correct?

MR. SPEAKER: That could be done but any Member of the House

could at the same time thwart any such object by simply

refusing to give leave, so that doesn't solve the basic dilemma

of what the House can do or can't do by its own volition.

[ Page 1363 ]

MR. BENNETT: You said the House determines. Tell us by what

method.

MR. SPEAKER: Well, I'll give you a little more detail on it

when I've had time to study it in detail.

The House in Committee of Supply; Mr. G.H. Anderson in the

chair.

ESTIMATES: DEPARTMENT OF THE

ATTORNEY-GENERAL

On vote 11: Minister's office, $86,036.

HON. A.B. MACDONALD (Attorney-General): Mr. Chairman, this

little budget, led off by the salary vote, is only $115

million. I fought like a tiger to get more from Treasury. We're

in trouble in some areas due to the financial stringencies of

the great depression which overtook North America, but hardly

touched B.C. I'm not going to tell you where the areas are

where we are really crying, but we are crying a little bit. I

wish the Minister of Finance (Hon. Mr. Barrett) were here to

listen to some of our pleas. Nevertheless, the programmes

developed in this department are going ahead on plan.

I hesitate to go into names, but I pay tribute to the

assistants I've had: led by David Vickers, the Deputy; Dennis

Shepherd, the Deputy; Ed Epp, the Deputy; and Jimmy Rhodes out

in left field (laughter); and Dr. Andy Thompson. Once you get

into names you run into trouble...Barrie Clark, too; he's

doing well — John Brewin, and so forth. But the danger of

running into names is that you forget somebody. But I think

it's a great team, and the credit doesn't belong to the

Minister; I readily acknowledge that.

MR. W.R. BENNETT (Leader of the Opposition): Quit spreading

the blame around. (Laughter.)

HON. MR. MACDONALD: I believe that the parliamentary

process, at the age in which we live, calls upon brevity as a

means of expression.

Interjection.

HON. MR. MACDONALD: I'm serious about that; it's no longer

the age of Gladstone and Disraeli. The British Parliament, a

few days ago, took two days to debate the most historic

question ever facing Great Britain, entry into the common

market. They assigned the time, and that parliament of over 700

members took two days for that.

So I don't want to filibuster my own estimates, but we're here to answer your

questions. We hope the House will grant supply, in particular the salaries — some

of the other votes can come or go as they please. (Laughter.) So I'm not going

to say anything. I should have mentioned John Hogarth of the Police Commission,

too, and there are many other people I know I've forgotten. And Mr. Adrian Wong.

MR. D.E. SMITH (North Peace River): Well, for an

Attorney-General who has so much to say outside of the House,

when it comes his turn to speak up fully and disclose all of

the tremendous things his department has been doing for the

last two and a half years, he's strangely silent; strangely

silent this evening. He's being very modest, I'd say. Very,

very modest. It would seem that, as a matter of fact, he's

preparing the ground work for his successor by saying: "Don't

blame me for all of the mistakes. It's my responsibility, but

I'm not the one that made all of those mistakes; it's my

staff." You're attacking your own staff, spreading the blame

around here, there and everywhere. Perhaps that is a sign of

the times that the Attorney-General is not to be long with us

as the Attorney-General. Perhaps some of the people who have

been occupying your seat while you were away at energy

conferences, and the odd time that you stepped out into the

hall to conduct a press conference, have gotten through to your

illustrious leader and there's another department in store for

you. Or perhaps they are going to put you out to pasture, Mr.

Attorney-General. Is that what's contemplated?

During the last two and a half years we've witnessed a

succession of changes taking place within the operation and

direction of the Attorney-General's department. And we are the

first to admit that, that you made, through your department and

through the officials of your department and your deputies, a

number of major changes with respect to the direction of

justice and delivery of justice in the Province of British

Columbia.

I think if we wanted to catalogue some of those changes we'd

have to mention the Justice Development Commission, the B.C.

Police commission and, of course, you've now taken over the

administration of all the courts in the Province of British

Columbia.

According to your budget you've greatly enlarged at least

your budget for the sheriffs' offices in the province. You

indicated at least very sketchily what you intend to do in that

direction. There's been an expansion in legal aid services,

which I believe most people will agree with. You've established

the office of the rentalsman and established the B.C. Energy

Commission, which you are responsible for, and the B.C.

Petroleum Corp.

Some of these endeavours in the pursuit of the expansion of

justice in the Province of British Columbia have been

relatively successful. I think that I have to say frankly to

you, Hon. Attorney-General, that some of the other directions

in which you are

[ Page 1364 ]

proceeding have not been so successful. In two and a half

years we had expected to see more results than we have so far.

As a matter of fact, if you try to analyse the direction which

you are taking with your department and the dissemination of

justice in the Province of British Columbia in attempts to

streamline and improve the judicial system and the delivery of

legal services, it makes one wonder what your ultimate goal is

in this province.

I think there have been some improvements, but in speaking

to your estimates this evening, I think I should catalogue some

of the areas that this party, at least, is unhappy with, where

we share the concern of a great number of the people in the

outside area — that is, the area in which all of us are

involved — and that is the area of public concern. If you

project the trends established by your department to their

ultimate conclusion, I'm of the opinion that whoever is the

author of the moves that you're making will before long destroy

the foundations of our justice system in the Province of

British Columbia.

MR. D.E. LEWIS (Shuswap): Garbage!

MR. SMITH: You know, the foundation is based on the

maintenance of the unequivocal separation of responsibility as

between the political level, which we represent in this

chamber, the judicial level, which should be completely apart

and separate from our responsibility — the courts and the

judiciary — and the enforcement part, as represented by the

police force in the Province of British Columbia. Presently

that's mainly the RCMP, but what the future holds is probably

anyone's guess — except to say this: in taking a calculated

guess at the direction in which you are proceeding with respect

to police forces — the policing of the Province of British

Columbia — we have to take a took at your budget, Mr.

Attorney-General.

We find out that there is a substantial amount of money

uncommitted, at least by last year's standards. You have a

salary contingency of $13 million out of a total of $115

million.

AN HON. MEMBER: How much?

MR. SMITH: That's $13 million out of a total of $115 million

as a salary contingency.

MR. A.V. FRASER (Cariboo): Unbelievable!

MR. SMITH: You have increased the amount of money for the provision

of legal services from $3.8 million to $6 million, which is substantial. You

have increased the amount of money provided for sheriffs' offices from $1.5

million to $8 million, a total increase of $6.5 million. You have provided for

a substantial increase in correctional services. It would seem to me that it

would be no small chore for you to find enough surplus money already allocated

within your budget, if it was your desire to do so, to use that money to replace

the RCMP with a provincial police force in the Province of British Columbia.

MR. FRASER: Right on!

MR. SMITH: The money is there, unallocated and, at this

point, unexplained to the Members of this House by a very, very

short statement in opening up your estimates by the

Attorney-General. I hope this evening that the Attorney-General

will be frank and open with the Members of this Committee and

explain to us just why the substantial increases are there and

what his eventual goal is in the distribution and the delivery

of justice to the people in the Province of British

Columbia.

It would seem to me that one of the endeavours of the

Attorney-General was the establishment of a Justice Development

Commission — a commission he had great hopes for, a commission

that was designed to streamline, improve and modernize the

justice system in the Province of British Columbia.

When one looks at the results, one can't help but feel that

some people are correct, that many people may be correct when

they suggest that the system is really a $15 million

boondoggle; that for the money expended and the benefits and

the results received, we don't really have much to hang our

hats on right at this moment.

I think perhaps the direction of the Justice Development

Commission was best spelled out by an independent person in the

town of Kitimat who said that he felt that your department,

along with others, suffered from task force-itis, and that they

wanted action rather than talk.

This gentleman, Mr. Bernie Gifford of Kitimat, in discussing

the Justice Development Commission when the commission members

appeared before an open meeting to discuss their

responsibilities in the town of Kitimat, said that the

commission's proposals for the delivery of legal services,

including legal aid, were presented in a discussion paper by a

consultant and lawyer Peter Lisk. They came under heavy

criticism by Gifford, and Gifford was among those who said they

wanted action.

"We have already been task-forced to death by everyone from

mental health to the humane society. The vast amount of money

spent on CP Air flights to the hinterlands, and the hotel bills

to Travel Lodge must be tremendous."

So what people are really asking for at the present time, Mr. Attorney-General,

is action, results; not a lot of lip service to the people in this province

suggesting that you're going to deliver great things and, in fact, delivering

nothing in the way of tangible increases or tangible results in justice to the

people of this province.

Let's take a look at some of the areas of concern that we

should canvass with the Attorney-General this evening: one is

the matter of legal aid, and the delivery of it to the people

in the Province of British Columbia. I don't think any of us

will disagree with the suggestion that no one should be denied

proper legal services because of a lack of funds.

I think the Province of British Columbia is prosperous

enough to devise a system which will deliver legal aid to each

and every citizen, irrespective of their ability to pay. That

was one reason, Mr. Attorney-General, that we had a very active

legal aid society in the Province of British Columbia, a

society to which you have contributed increasing amounts of

money. I agree with that; I think that's a good way to

proceed.

But why, then, would the Justice Development Commission

suggest that in the delivery of legal aid to the people in the

Province of British Columbia we need a legal services

commission? — a commission that is supposed to be composed of a

number of people drawn both from inside and outside the legal

fraternity, a commission that could very likely be responsible,

with a substantial budget through your department, for

allocating funds for delivery of legal aid to people within the

Province of British Columbia, a commission that, in its own

good time, would probably employ a substantial staff of legally

trained people who would be responsible for the delivery of

legal aid to those people who qualify.

Now that, on the surface, sounds like a good idea, but when

you tie the delivery of legal aid in the Province of British

Columbia to the purse strings of the Department of

Attorney-General, you create an obligation which I think should

be severed. I think that legal aid should be there without any

strings attached. Independent.

HON. MR. MACDONALD: You must have been bugging my office.

That's what I am planning to do.

MR. SMITH: Oh, why didn't you say so, Mr. Attorney-General?

Why didn't you say so in your opening remarks to this committee

this evening? We would have saved a little time, perhaps.

But it must be independent. There's another way to deliver

legal aid: through the existing law profession in the Province

of British Columbia — with the exception of those few areas

where we do not have adequate trained legal people at the

present time — by allowing them to be your representatives. Why

shouldn't this have all been set up through the Legal Aid

Society that we have in existence in the Province of British

Columbia?

I think the Attorney-General must admit to this committee that quite often

the people who become involved in the process of law, and those who need legal

aid, are on one hand requiring legal aid as a result of some action of the Crown.

It is becoming increasingly more prevalent for people to be involved in a case

against the Crown or an agency of the Crown as a result of some so-called misdemeanor

on their part.

Now is it not one of the criteria, then, of your department

to keep a complete and distinct separation from the delivery of

that legal aid? There should be no strings attached to it, Mr.

Attorney-General. There should be no way which a person who is

in the position of requiring that service should feel that in

some way the advice they received would be prejudiced by the

fact that the person's pay cheque was signed by the provincial

government and the Attorney-General's department. I think we

want to maintain a separation in that respect, and maintain a

dignity for the delivery of legal services in the Province of

British Columbia.

I know that the people involved in the Canadian Bar

Association, and their branch in the Province of British

Columbia, are greatly concerned about the direction that you

will take with respect to the future delivery of legal aid in

the Province of British Columbia. I would hope that the

Attorney-General in committee this evening will discuss with

the Members of this committee what he intends to do in this

respect.

There is another area that I would like to canvass very,

very quickly, and then we can perhaps get on to some other

points; that is the so-called right to sue the Crown.

The Attorney-General was very eloquent in introducing this

bill to the House a short time ago — at least it seems a short

time ago — and was quick to say that the NDP are the first

to really let a little sunshine into the Province of British

Columbia. But if you analyse the restrictions, and you analyse

the agencies of government, which are above and beyond the

statutes which we pass, then we have a very great right to

question whether the right to sue the Crown is any right at

all.

It would seem to me that while you make great of this new

statute, it is an illustration of socialist hypocrisy, because

the right only exists in certain circumstances, Mr.

Attorney-General, through you, Mr. Chairman. The statute is

worded so as to create the illusion of a right, but it doesn't

exist. It is an illusory claim, Mr. Attorney-General, one

which the public would be well advised to view with skepticism,

because it is not there. It is okay to talk about it. It sounds

great....

Interjection.

MR. SMITH: Okay, I'm going to get to that in just a moment,

Mr. Attorney-General.

[ Page 1366 ]

It's great to talk about, but Lord help anyone who needs the

benefits of this right to settle a grievance against the Crown.

I think that even you will agree that most of the grievances

which would come as a result of this statute will be because of

grievances against the Crown, the right to sue it, eh? And many

cases today before the court involve the Crown in one manner or

another. The bill purports to give this right to the people of

the province.

There are a number of exceptions, including some Crown

agencies, Mr. Attorney-General — for instance, the amendment

last session to the Statute Law Amendment Act, which puts the

Crown above this legislation with respect to land law and

assessment law. Are those not two of the most contentious areas

that the Crown and the people of this province are dealing

with, not only at the present time, but will have to deal with

in the future? I suggest to you that this hardly bequeaths the

right to the people of this province when those particular

agencies are above the statute that is supposed to have given

them that right.

So we have, as I said, the Landlord and Tenant Act,

section

50. We have the rentalsman, who is a power unto himself at the

present time and is not only a power unto himself but he's also

apparently able to delegate that authority and power to his

lieutenants, who can exercise it on his behalf; so even he does

not have to take responsibility for his actions in that

respect. He is above and beyond the call of anyone who has a

legitimate claim against the Crown. And we have the Labour

Relations Code, in

section 34(2), and the Energy Act in

section

114, which also includes the set-up of the B.C. Petroleum

Corp.

So it would seem to me that the right is only there in a

limited sense. Perhaps we were better off with the old fiat

that we used to be involved in as far as a right was concerned,

because at least once that was issued we knew that we did have

a position to go from that point forward. But the right that

you suggest is included in this statute (and have said so

publicly) and the right that people will find is there when

they deal with this statute are two different things, Mr.

Attorney-General. I think it should be spelled out clearly that

if, on one hand, you tell the people of the Province of British

Columbia they have a tight to sue the Crown you also have a

responsibility and an obligation to tell those same people that

there are certain agencies of the Crown which have been placed

in the position where the statute does not apply.

In your estimates this year you have a budget for delivery of legal services

and advice to departments of government. I would be interested to know what

your intention is with respect to the operation of that department and if, while

you're at it, you will canvass some of the misleading advertising that we have

seen published by different agencies of government, including the Department

of Finance. Certainly it should be a first call on the services of that department

to clean up the act of the different departments of government within this province

before they proceed any further. What are your intentions in that respect, Mr.

Attorney-General?

I think that I have posed a number of questions to the

Attorney-General. I'll take my place and perhaps we can listen

to him and his replies to some of these points.

HON. MR. MACDONALD: Mr. Chairman, the Hon. Member has made

some very good points.

In terms of the legal aid, I think I should bring before

this session of the Legislature a legal services bill so that

some of the things that you mentioned will be in legislative

form. I don't think legal aid should be dependent upon

applying to a political authority for help in this or that

case. I think it should be administered by an independent body.

On the other hand, the amount of funds — I think it's $4.2

million that we are devoting towards legal aid in these

estimates — is large. The amount we recover from the federal

government on that is relatively small because we are

restricted to 50 cents per capita so we get about $1.2 million.

That's inadequate. I think we should have a separate legal

services commission. I think the bar should be represented on

that but I think the public should be, too.

I think we will find that there will be legislation

introduced and I would hope that some of the decisions that we

have difficulty with at the present time and the Legal Aid

Society of B.C. has difficulty with will be helped to their

solution by a very effective legal aid body which will really

bring dedication to this problem of extending legal services to

people who are without that kind of legal advice when they need

it at the present time.

We need to know what the mix should be: to what extent

should there be community legal aid offices and to what extent

should it be fee for service? It varies in different parts of

the province. Frankly, one of my problems is that I have five

legal aid community offices working now and others planned,

but I can't find the lawyers. We start a new law school; that's

a big thing, We get another 80 people coming on stream but our

population in this province, in spite of the political climate,

has been growing at such a rate that even the 80 additional a

year will barely be keeping up with demand. So we have to look

further.

MR. D.M. PHILLIPS (South Peace River): You're hiring too

many in the civil service.

HON. MR. MACDONALD: You do something and it's inadequate

because the times are so swiftly changing. That's part of the

problem.

[ Page 1367 ]

MR. PHILLIPS: You're hiring too many in the civil

service.

HON. MR. MACDONALD: Yes, we've had to, to rationalize the

thing and prosecute some of these people who get out of hand.

I'm not going to mention names. It's been a problem. So that's

something that gives me concern. But the principles you

enunciated I don't disagree with. I don't want every kind of

legal aid problem coming on my desk. I want to find the good

people who can administer it independently of government but

still carrying out our policy in the field and nicely balanced

between the expert professional lawyers and the other people

who have a keen interest in this from the point of view of the

public.

Now you said that last year the JDC didn't do very much. I

am not going to give a long speech. Let me tell you a few

things they did in police, though.

The sheriffs' programme by September 1, 1975, will release

312 policemen who are doing duty either as court attendants,

Crown attorney work and court administration work into the

streets. That's pretty good. That was one of the main

objectives of this — not only to have a civilian sheriff force

but also to release police officers whose job was out in the

community so they could do that work. We're doing that. The

first class started on March 17, if my memory serves me

correctly, at the B.C. police college in Vancouver. We have 17

women constables in recruit training at the B.C. police college

at the present time and quite a few of the boys as well. They

are getting up to three years, over a period of time, in terms

of recruit training. Then we're sending back officers who have

been in service and giving them advanced training in places as

diverse as Ottawa, Regina, Calgary, Naden and other police

training units for advanced training. So that's one of the

programmes that would never have happened or been able to

happen but for the JDC, as it is called.

We look at the CLEU programme — the Co-ordinated Law

Enforcement Unit. It could never have got off the ground if we

hadn't this little bit of freedom to manoeuvre and then to

report back to the Legislature as we're doing tonight. The CLEU

programme has been so successful in terms of its major problem,

which is heroin trafficking, that we have forced the price of

heroin up to $65 a cap at the present time. I think that's

about three times what its value was when the CLEU thing began

to bear down with the kind modern research we're bringing to

that fight against organized crime.

That's created pressures on the drug community, but I'll tell you another thing

it's done: it's taken heroin out of the high schools because it's no longer

a cheap easily available thing for the young people of the Province of British

Columbia. I don't rest content or smug or satisfied with that kind of a programme

because it's a continuous war. But we've made strides in

that field, and we're going to make further strides. That's the

kind of thing that....

Interjections.

HON. MR. MACDONALD: The Hon. Member said that we're going to

create a B.C. provincial police force. As a province we are

entering into pretty difficult negotiations. I might try to

summarize very briefly the kind of problem we face, but I don't

want to filibuster.

At the present time, under contracts that expire next March

31, we do get a subsidy toward RCMP in the Province of B.C. The

federal unit, of course — the immigration and their drug squad

- they pay direct and they're not too many people. The

provincial force — they pay 50 per cent at the present time. In

the municipal field they pay 50 per cent for the first five

members of the force, and only 25 per cent thereafter. The cost

is rather complicated; it's a formula that works out at about

$26,000 per man for the provincial RCMP officer, including his

vehicle, his equipment, communication things and uniform. In

the municipal case it works out at less than that under the

formula.

But this has not been too unfavourable a formula; it's given

our municipalities a choice. But now we're running into the

crunch, and we see the federal government pulling back on the

kind of sharing that it should be doing in these fields. We

think that the police in their new role are out there in

society not only in crime detection but in crime prevention as

well, and diversion out of our jail system and out of our court

system. And they are doing a good job with modern training in

that direction.

So we don't like the federal government to say: "We're going

to pass the criminal laws. You enforce them with your police

dollars raised by the taxpayers of B.C. without adequately

financed federal contribution. We'll build jails, we'll have

parole boards and we'll help with that kind of prosecution.

" They've got their own court system going there.

That's the wrong end. We think it should be spent on

prevention, and we think the federal government should

participate much more generously than they are now indicating

that they are about to do.

These negotiations are going on with the Hon. Warren

Allmand, who, I must say, is a very progressive and enlightened

Solicitor-General of Canada. I think he understands the

problem. I think he has to sell his colleagues on the

importance of having people out in the community before

somebody gets trapped into the system by arrest, the court

process and the jail system.

The municipalities also have to be considered. We have 12

municipal police forces in the Province of B.C. Then the areas

that are under 5,000 population,

[ Page 1368 ]

and the provincial government polices those. About 39 are the

RCMP municipal police. There again, the federal government

should, we believe, make a contribution towards the municipal

police forces. But the choice as to whether you have a

municipal force or you have the RCMP contingent should be made

at the local level.

I rather support the UBCM proposal that the municipalities

should get 25 per cent of their policing costs paid through the

federal government across the board. They've submitted that

brief; it will have the very serious support, in my opinion, of

the provincial government. We will be working not only in terms

of the RCMP contract but in the municipal subsidy that is

suggested by UBCM as well.

On the right to sue the Crown, I wonder whether my Hon.

shadow is not a little bit mixed up on this point. You take the

Energy Commission: courts do not decide what the price of, say,

natural gas should be in Vanderhoof, but an energy commission

makes that decision. Courts do not want that kind of a decision

appealed to them. But if the Energy Commission steps out of its

boundaries, if it doesn't do its statutory duty or is guilty of

unfairness, then it can be sued.

The rentalsman's decisions are another example.

Interjection.

HON. MR. MACDONALD: No,

section 51. The Energy Act has a

section on a point of law.

We are not taking anything away from the courts that

traditionally they don't want. They are not equipped to handle

the determination of a just rent by the Rent Review Commission,

the determination of the price of energy by the Energy

commission, the determination of whether an eviction should or

should not take place by the rentalsman. These are the

decisions, it's true, that are taken out of the courts, but

they are made by qualified people to make those decisions. I

would like to see which of these things you people want to put

back in the courts. I wonder how many of those things you want

back in the courts.

The right to sue the Crown is there. It is absolute. But

there are some tribunals such as the Labour Relations Board,

such as the Workers' Compensation Board, that have their own

procedures and their own codes of appeal. If you think that

that should be taken out and just made a court action, say so;

but I don't.

I think the right to sue the Crown, which was delayed in

this province for so many years, is something which is now part

of the liberties of the people of British Columbia.

MR. G.B. GARDOM (Vancouver–Point Grey): I notice, Mr. Chairman, that

the vote of the Attorney-General encompasses $115 million, and there are 20-some

votes dealing with things ranging from justice planning to prosecution services,

parole board, land registry office, fire marshal's office, the Energy Commission,

rentalsman, and salary contingencies; and for practical purposes the debate

on $115 million has to terminate tonight. I personally am very disappointed

and sad to see that the legislative process in this province became demeaned

this afternoon.

It is not the fault, Mr. Chairman, of the opposition that

administrative shortcomings of this administration — or any

administration, for that matter — produce a number of questions

which have got to be asked in the public interest. It is not

the fault of the opposition that Ministers have not adequately

responded in some situations to the debates on their estimates

but have treated the questions that have been raised from a

position moving from arrogance on one extreme to disdain at the

other end of the spectrum.

Similarly, Mr. Chairman, it is not the fault of the

opposition that some Ministers have very abjectly refused to

answer very valid questions, and also it's not the fault of the

opposition that some Members of the government and, indeed,

cabinet Ministers have launched into filibusters of defence

which have been consuming all the while, I'd say with their

full knowledge and design, the time allotted to the questions

of administrative performance and policy. I say they did this

with full design and knowledge. I think ignorance is a plea

that is not open to them because this administration has set

the rules of debate. It has changed the rules and, I'm afraid,

has shamefully abused the rules.

We have today in this province, as is exemplified not only

by the vote of the Attorney-General's office — the $115 million

which is increased from $70 to $115 million — but by virtue of

the very remarks he made tonight he illustrated very clearly to

everyone here that government is more complicated, it is more

complex, and that is being compounded daily by virtue of the

philosophical direction of this administration and its

ever-continuing excursions into the private sector. They are

buying companies, equities, land like it was bargain day at

Woolworth's. It is also compounded by virtue of the

ever-increasing controls and regulations over the society of

British Columbia.

On the one hand, we find that this government.... What

happened to your flower?

HON. MR. BARRETT: I've got the Liberal rose on. We bought

the Marguerite . Are you against that?

MR. GARDOM: We find, on the one hand, that the government

confounds and complicates the process and, on the other, it

abuses and it emasculates

[ Page 1369 ]

the right of a citizen to have his day in court and properly

interrogate Ministers of the Crown about the administration and

the performance of their departments, which is the biggest

business this province has ever known. Surely to goodness, Mr.

Chairman, this is a denial of a democratic right. I say, if

this is the so-called "new democracy" of the New Democratic

Party, that the people of B.C. want none of it. I say to them:

get out of it. Be off and be gone and just get away from the

helm as soon as you can before the ship is completely on the

rocks.

I think the people in this province are clamouring for the

right to again exercise their democratic right at the polls. I

would say, in the name of all that is fair, please let them

have that choice as soon as possible.

Now as the clock is ticking quickly away on $115 million

and, I would say, is ringing a degree of knell against the

historic concepts of parliamentary accountability in the

paucity of time allotted, I want to make some short and

unfortunately précis-ed remarks — they've got to be

because that has been forced upon us — and raise some questions

to the Hon. Attorney-General.

First, I'm not going to say that the Attorney-General did

not inherit a portfolio that was in doldrums for about 20

years, because he did. There was some very good response to a

number of earlier-stated ideas in the Legislature of this

province, and by virtue of that, some very good policies have

come into being.

The right to sue the Crown has been talked about tonight.

It's a limited right and it is only a limited right. I think

there is no question of a doubt, and this is perhaps a pretty

technical kind of thing, but the Attorney-General is well aware

of it.

On the whole, the right to sue the Crown in the Province of

British Columbia has also done away on the other hand — by

virtue of the restrictions in specific writs for the abuse of

administrative decision and administrative discretion — with

denying the checks and balance which has been historic in the

concept of law which this province inherited — British law —

when it became a province.

It has denied the right of the subject to appeal to the

courts for matters that might constitute a denial of natural

justice. Those matters have for practical purposes been

eliminated in the Province of B.C.

I am glad to see they brought in a little statute a year ago

to provide interested judgments, and I think there has been a

very, very genuine and a hardworking desire to improve the

administration of justice. I concur with the Attorney-General

in having a lot of sequestered and very valuable expertise. My

compliments to them as well.

But there's no way, Mr. Chairman, that the fountain of justice in this province

is really bubbling, because the Attorney-General is being used by this government.

I say he's being used by the socialist party. He's being manipulated, whether

he knows it or not, and I tend to think that he does know that, but he's powerless

to prevent it. It's pretty obvious by his actions that if he did have the power

to prevent it, he desires not to.

First, one has to ask as to whether or not the area of the

Attorney-General should be confined to Attorney-Generalling. I

think it should be. However, he's played a great role in

energy, which I say in the ordinary structure of any kind of a

contemporary government should be the role of the Minister of

Energy, or we could say in this particular structure within the

role of the Minister of Mines (Hon. Mr. Nimsick), and I notice

he's nodding in acquiescence and agrees thoroughly.

It's absolutely discordant, for the duties and

responsibilities of an Attorney-General, to be getting into the

other fields that he is. You know, if you liken him to a wine,

I would say that he's not a sparkling Macdonald, full of body

and satisfying and accomplishing. You have to respect his most

genuine charm, but by virtue of the fact that he is being

structured by his own party and by his own government, I'm

afraid some of that wine is becoming somewhat flat and

pedestrian. He's being tied to form, like the cork perhaps was

out too long, or in too long — you can pick and choose as to

what you might prefer in that regard.

The reason the Attorney-General is being used and

manipulated in this manner is probably because of the Premier's

lack of faith in his own Minister of Mines, or the Premier's

fear of his Minister of Lands and Forests, who is now running

Lands and is running Forests and is running Water Resources.

For all practical purposes he's running Housing. He's

encroaching into Ferries, and he can certainly claim a great

deal to do with Municipal Affairs.

So the Attorney-General has become the obvious hedge for the

Premier. You know, perhaps in the interests of the general

public this is well and good. But the fact is, purely and

simply, that the Attorney-General is being manipulated.

You know, he is also being used to become the soft-sell

image for the New Democratic Party, with the Gideon on his

bed-table, not withstanding the Waffle Manifesto, which he

subscribed to, is tucked well into the Book of Revelations

underneath.

True, it's a manufactured image and it's well manufactured,

and it's very well played by a thespian unparalleled. But the

best plans of Burns and men may gang aft agley and one has to

ask, Mr. Chairman, what did the Attorney-General trade off?

What did he trade off in order to give himself this role or

duplicity?

Well, I would say that first of all Dr. Macfaustus let the

sunshine law slide well into becoming a luminary for Lucifer.

He let department after

[ Page 1370 ]

department of this government encroach into the field of

administration of law, and for a few examples we could take the

Insurance Corp. of B.C. which for all practical purposes has

become a law unto itself. It has set up a bunch of regulatory

requirements for drivers in this province which would almost

choke a horse.

At one time a driver had to have four pieces of paper in his

pocket in order to validate his insurance. He had to have a

registration certificate, an owner's certificate, a driver's

certificate, and a driver's licence. Fortunately now, one of

those is removed — but what a lot of nonsense. Were this under

the control of the Department of the Attorney-General, we would

never run into a conundrum such as this. The Attorney-General

well knows, as a practising lawyer, that these kinds of

procedures and these kinds of requirements are true bunkum, but

I'd say that he's completely powerless in his position by

virtue of the omnipresence — or perhaps the utter lack of vision — of the Minister of Transport and Communications (Hon. Mr.

Strachan) to do anything about it.

Another example is the rules of the road and the violations

of the rules of the road. I would think, again, that this would

be the total responsibility of the Department of the

Attorney-General, including driver safety and including the

department of the Superintendent of Motor-vehicles. They should

be within the Department of the Attorney-General, but no, once

again, those have been purloined away, and I say that's

absolutely wrong.

We've never yet come to grips with the dreadful problem of

drinking and driving in this province. Roadway roulette is

practised almost constantly in our highways. Deaths are on the

increase, accidents are on the increase, and fines have always

proven to be a rotten yardstick. Suspensions, true, have

helped; make no mistake about that. But that's not enough. We

have to have one law for the rich and for the poor and that law

has got to be: be sober when driving or keep off the road, or

be prepared to face similar consequences. Fine and dandy; truly

inform the public of what the consequences may be. Tack it up

in every liquor outlet, every bar, every beer parlour, every

gas pump in the province. Let people know what the impairment

levels are and let them also know what the responsibilities are

if they're caught, and if they're caught, sock it to them.

I'd say maintain the suspension system, which is working but unfortunately

not working fairly, because what is a suspension to a man who happens to be

a professional man or a businessman and he's off the road for six months? He

takes a taxi. What is a suspension to a man who happens to be a milkman or a

deliveryman and he's off the road for six months? His family could well face

welfare. It is not a fair yardstick in itself; nor is the fine a fair yardstick.

What is $300 to a person of moderate to good circumstances and what is $300

to a person of low financial circumstances? They are entirely different standards.

So what's the solution? I say some degree of social agency

custody for an offender, whatever his economic status in life

may be. There should be some compulsory form of social agency

custody for these drinking driving violations, and I'm

suggesting something like a person riding shotgun with a

traffic officer; spending some time in the morgue; spending

some time in the hospital during the daylight hours for a given

period of time — one or two weeks — be he a top industrialist

or be he a labourer or a milk truck driver.

Again, this is an area that should be responsible and within

the confines of the Department of the Attorney-General. He's

found that he's been encroached upon, in my view, or the

department, by the Minister of Consumer Services (Hon. Ms.

Young). I said during her estimates that, in my view, there's

absolutely no business this being a separate Ministry. It

should be under the aegis of the Department of the

Attorney-General or, for goodness sake, if it's not with him,

why in heaven's name not give the Liquor Control Board to her?

Why is that under the Department of the Attorney-General? You

may as well look at either side of the coin. Go one way or go

the other.

I'd suggest that if more time could be spent by the New

Democratic Party in administering instead of backbiting for

political power among themselves, B.C. wouldn't be in at least

the same degree of mess that it is now.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. GARDOM: So much more could effectively be done, and I

stress the word "done." I subscribe to the remarks of the

speaker who spoke earlier tonight. So much more could be done

as opposed to being studied and gafflebagged and researched by

a bunch of long, medium, short and no-hairs from nine to five

day after day after day.

Let's just, for example, take a look at crime. Crime is

well; it is thriving; it is flourishing in the Province of

British Columbia. It has never ever in its history enjoyed such

a bonanza. The war on crime; has there been really and truly a

war on crime? I doubt that very much. It's more like semi-peace

on crime, and what's the net result? We find murders by

torture, by crossbow, by acid and gun. We find people who have

been tied and trussed, feet and face burned, and executed for

pay. They're contract killings. We find murders following the

grossest of sadistic sexual perversion, and how many more? How

many more unmarked graves are there in the Cariboo, or from

Vancouver to Squamish?

We find people riding out to find a policeman and

[ Page 1371 ]

kill him like it was a duck hunt. A headline in the paper

today tells of gangs of greasers who consider themselves beyond

the law: "Bike Clubs Front for Crime." It's just ghastly. These

are newspaper reports in the Province of British Columbia over

the past few months: "Half the Time Police Could Not Return;"

"B.C. 1,758 Police Before Average;" "Heroin Traffic, An Evil

that Won't Go Away." That's admitting defeat. "Drug Squad

Mountie Assails Bail Law," "Help For the Child

Batterer." What about help for the poor people who have been

battered? Obscenity situations increasing constantly. Here's a

dreadful one: "Crime Takes Millions in B.C."

These are two of the findings in the first report of the

newly formed Co-ordinated Law Enforcement Unit. Vancouver is

the major link in the importing of heroin to North America, and

the drug trade is a half-a-billion dollar annual business for

organized crime in B.C.

Headlines, the Saturday Province , October 26, 1974:

"Crime Fighters Tell Tricks of Heroin Smugglers," and on

and on.

"Ottawa Crime, Meeting Has Finger on Vancouver as the Drug

Centre."

"Gambling's Corruptive Power is Ever-Present Danger."

"Says City Coroner, More Than 1,000 Drug Deaths in City

Since 1970."

Then this great report in the Sun on Friday, October

25, of last year: "Heroin Creates a Vicious Sub-culture.

Complex Web Insulates Top Men," and on and on and on.

Heroin, Mr. Chairman, and cocaine and speed and drag and

phizz-along are doing millions and millions and millions of

dollars more business in this province than they have ever done

before.

Where is the real action of this government? Where is the

preponderance of evidence that these ghastly situations are

being effectively fought, checked and contained? Nowhere do we

have that evidence! These are all things that were on the

increase yesterday and they are on the increase today. I say

that the sooner the Attorney-General becomes a freedom fighter

in these kinds of causes and forgets the hanky-panky of NDP

imagery and energy-wenergy and becomes a full-time

Attorney-General in the Province of British Columbia, the

better.

Under his administration they have not caught or put out of

circulation one really big-time illicit drug operator ever

since he came to office — not really one at the top. Everybody

knows it's tough, and it is dangerous.

don't help one whit, either. Where is the firm and the outspoken, positive attack

of the Attorney-General for the Province of British Columbia on the bail reform

procedures which have made a mockery out of a lot of our criminal judicial procedures?

Once again the Attorney-General has got to make up his mind if he's his own

man. Or is he subject to the Minister of welfare overrun, and does he find that

he is philosophizing down his neck? Surely to goodness there must be something

wrong with the system when we find bail floutees committing offence after offence

when they are waiting for trial, which they are often skipping, let alone even

attending.

What has happened to our values? It's just wrong! The public

can sense that it is wrong. Why can't the politician who has

got the responsibility understand that it is wrong and properly

cure it?

What really is being effectively done — not planned but done — on an all-out fight to rid Vancouver of the dreadful label of

being the heroin city of Canada? What really are the

Attorney-General's attack forces and his complete plans of

attack against this situation, which is beating him today? You

are not winning that fight, Mr. Attorney-General. You just have

to open a paper in the province of B.C. any weekend or any

weekday and find out if you are winning that fight. That fight

is not being won.

I say to the Attorney-General, whose motivation is of the

most excellent, you have the power. If there is a dollar

shortage you had better make that public and clamour to cure

that dollar shortage. If you have any difficulty with your

Treasury benches, or if you are having difficulty with other

administrations, let the blame fall wherever it may. If the

fault is the fault of the Liberal government, let them know it.

If the fault is the fault of anybody, let them know it, but for

God's sake get to the job and bring in effective measures and

effective controls.

I'd like to see the Attorney-General inform the public in

the Province of British Columbia exactly which countries are

involved in legalized poppy growing and which countries export

those, and which countries' laboratories are processing heroin.

If the rest of Canada won't, why should not B.C. go ahead and

grasp this filthy nettle and boycott the rest of those exports

into this province from those countries if they are producing

those kinds of things? It doesn't really impress me for your

department to get on your high horse about South African wine,

which is a piddling little thing compared to something like

this.

AN HON. MEMBER: Hear, hear!

MR. GARDOM: If you want to start getting involved in an

ethical argument, please don't illustrate South African wine as

a good ground for an ethical argument on this point. As I said

in another debate, you'd find a much better example for keeping

out the generators that are put into B.C. Hydro, which are

imported from the Soviet Union, than we would keeping out South

African wine in the Province of

[ Page 1372 ]

B.C. Fine and dandy. Let these nations know that we are not going

to play ball with this kind of a thing. Is this a true report?

A half-billion dollar heroin traffic, according to your law

enforcement organization in the Province — one-sixth of the

budget of the Province of British Columbia. Boy, is heroin ever

thriving and flourishing in B.C.

Gun control. As I say, we don't have too much time to talk

about these things, unfortunately. This is why I'm appalled at

the procedures that are taking place in these estimates.

I differ, with every respect, with the suggestion of someone

earlier tonight that these should be going to committee. The

things that should be going to committee are bills, and the

estimates of the Province of British Columbia should be debated

as fully as they have to be in this Legislature, in the open,

in front of all the public of B.C.

Gun control. I'd like to know the Attorney-General's

position on this, because in my view it is something that is

desperately needed. Anything that can cut down on the wanton

and illegal use of guns is desirous. Registration can help

that. That is no cure. I'm glad to see that I've got support

from some of the Hon. Members tonight. Registration is not a

cure, but it can be of assistance because it's a means of

tracking something down.

The means of licensing dealers is another thing that has to

be done, and surely to goodness, a requirement before a person

buys a gun. There is none today. Any fool, any idiot, any

unbalanced person can go into a store today and purchase a gun,

put a bullet in it, and we all know what can follow from

that.

We can register cars, we can register mortgages, we can

register even bicycles in the larger urban areas, but we don't

have a method of registering all firearms. How would this

really, truly affect or hamper the freedom of the responsible

individual? I suggest not one bit. The responsible individual

has nothing to fear from it.

Not for one second am I suggesting the outlawry of firearms,

but a more effective method to help check on those people who

abuse the use of them.

I was interested to hear the remarks on legal aid. There's no question of a

doubt that for years we've been hampered in this province and throughout the

civilized world, I suppose, for people to receive proper kinds of legal assistance.

True, there's equity and equality before the courts once one is in front of

the courts, but there's certainly not equality or equity in climbing the steps

to those courts. We should have a province-wide legal aid system, much along

the lines of the one that is in the Province of Ontario, whereby people would

receive, on proof of need — it's not a giveaway programme — legal assistance

for civil matters and for criminal matters as well.

There was a lot of talk in the throne speech about

amendments to the expropriation Act. I really commend the Hon.

Attorney-General on his foresight and his fast-stepping; we're

going to amend

an Act that's not even in existence in the

Province of B.C., and that shows vision. We've got to give you

credit for that.

But it's high time that we cut down the methods of

expropriation that have existed in B.C., in which Mr. Justice

Thorson, when he was in the Exchequer Court of Canada, once

remarked as being the most arbitrary of any country outside of

the Soviet Union, and still exist, unfortunately, in the

Province of British Columbia. We have to have fair

expropriation laws. There was a most excellent study which was

entered into by the former administration. You've been sitting

on that study for the better part of two and a half years now

and it's peculiar to me why that has not been introduced in

B.C.

I'm glad to see that you've been working hard on the Liquor

Act. It's an archaic statute, and it's high time that it was

amended. Everyone, I think, is looking forward to seeing it

coming forth in the province this year.

Statute law revisions. It would be nice to know how that is

going on — whether you're starting alphabetically or

chronologically, and if we move down from one or down from "A," or where that is sort of standing now and if what

....

MR. CHAIRMAN: Excuse me, Hon. Member. You're in your final

two minutes.

MR. GARDOM: That's an in-joke. At what point is that at the

present time?

There was one item in my final two minutes. It's a small

item and I hate to take the time of the House with an item as

small as this. But we don't have the time to otherwise discuss

these matters, and this is what is so dreadful about this

procedure.

I'll give you the illustration, Mr. Attorney-General. We

don't have time to have chit-chatting across the floor, so

would you please be totally attentive? Would you please give

thought to amending the Evidence Act to make it easier for

people to prove foreign marriages. As you know, now in

matrimonial affairs if there happens to be a marriage outside

of the Province of British Columbia it requires the obtaining

of the services of a solicitor or consul in another country.

It's a very expensive process. It's totally unnecessary. A

little amendment to the Evidence Act, which I'm sure Mr.

Vickers could put together for you before the evening's even

out, would take care of a matter such as that.

Again, Mr. Chairman, I would like to thank you and the Hon.

Members for your time tonight. I do

[ Page 1373 ]

gratefully thank you for that, but I say with absolute

sincerity that we have made a very bad step in the Province of

B.C. in adopting the measures that we have for estimates. We

are precluding the public from the opportunity, which is their

democratic right, of finding out if the administration is being

properly carried forth in their best interests. The public

interest today has not been served.

HON. MR. MACDONALD: I would like to answer briefly the

points brought by the Hon. Member. In the case of impaired

driving, which unquestionably is a very serious offence and a

rising thing in the Province of British Columbia, our figures

are higher than they are elsewhere in Canada. We have in the

Attorney-General's department, in cooperation with the Drug

and Alcohol Commission, 17 impaired drivers' courses going on

at the present time throughout different parts of the

province.

Interjection.

HON. MR. MACDONALD: As a condition of probation you have to

attend over a four-week period three hours a night.

Interjection.

HON. MR. MACDONALD: Well, that's much better. A fine won't

do it, jail won't do it, but send them to school. I think it's

good. It's just one of the things we have to look at — and one

of the best things.

Now in terms of the heroin in the Province of British

Columbia, it is very interesting what's happening. I am not

going to talk any more about CLEU because the figures which the

Hon. Member gave were prior to about last September when the

report came out. We have had great success since that time, and

many of these cases are now before the courts. We have people

at a higher level in the drug-trafficking business than has

ever been the case in Canada before, and that's important. But an interesting thing is happening in southeast Asia at

the present time. Without commenting on that very sad military

situation, the interesting thing is that around what is the

golden triangle where the poppy blows at about 4,000 feet up in

the plains in Cambodia, Laos and Thailand, the area of the

regular heroin routes down through Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos

are being cut off by the armies of the Viet Cong. That's where

our heroin comes from. One of the rings we broke in the Bangkok

connection ring happened in that way.

It may well be that the military situation in southeast Asia

will in time curtail this import to the Province of British

Columbia.

That's why our figures are so bad. The heroin isn't coming from Turkey, though

that may resume. But when it comes from Turkey, it will be mostly through eastern

seaboard ports. It has been coming from southeast Asia, from the golden triangle

in the uplands of southeast Asia. It could very well be cut off.

If the communists win, drug traffickers are shot. You can

say what you like about them, but we found out that in China,

shortly after 1949 when Mao won, drug trafficking, including

opium-smoking and some of the lesser things, was just abolished

by fiat in the kind of society that can do that kind of thing.

We can't do it in the same way. But it was ruthless, and it was

rooted out. You know, the farmers are not making the big money,

really. They grow the poppies. It's a good cash crop.

AN HON. MEMBER: They give them a choice, quit or a

bullet.

HON. MR. MACDONALD: Yes, they give them a choice. You can

either be above the country or below it. Take your choice.

(Laughter.) Anyway, it isn't the farmers.

But there has been so much corruption in southeast Asia that

through military planes, through high government officials,

through payoffs, it filters down through Bangkok and through

the other ports.

Interjection.

HON. MR. MACDONALD: Well, it may be, but this is the main

source; that bridge area is the main source of poppy-growing

in the world, really. It stretches right from that golden

triangle through to Turkey. I don't know what the effects will

be.

On gun control: the Canadian Senate does some things well

because they have some people in there, like Senator Eugene

Forsey and Senator Carl Goldenberg, who are as good public

servants as Canada has. Under Senator Cameron they are

beginning to hold hearings, after they have finished with the

drug legislation, on gun control. I would hope that we could

make representations from the Province of B.C. to that

committee. I would think the committee will be sitting on this

question some time in May.

AN HON. MEMBER: Do you favour gun control?

HON. MR. MACDONALD: Yes. We have handgun control. It is

interesting that in the United States most of the homicides —

70 per cent of them — are committed by handguns, because they

are totally uncontrolled in the United States. But in Canada we

find that about 70 per cent of our homicides are becoming to be

the result of rifles, sawed-off shotguns and other weapons. I

think that that's a pretty valid reason that control or

penalties in respect

[ Page 1374 ]

to the transportation, unauthorized possession and that kind

of thing of handguns in Canada has reduced the number of

homicides by that means.

If you leave it wide open as they have in the United States,

despite the state laws, then you find that the number of

homicides by handguns becomes very high indeed. I would hope

that we will have — and we've done quite a lot of research on

this matter and that research is continuing — something to say

to the Senate committee.

MR. G.S. WALLACE (Oak Bay): Mr. Chairman, I would have to

add my brief protest to the way in which the management of

estimates is being handled. But, rather than waste time

complaining about it, I would prefer to get on with some of the

pretty important topics.

I think there are a few issues today in society that concern

the man in the street more than the amount of crime and the

apparent difficulty in maintaining law and order. Just in

recent weeks within this very city where we are debating the

Attorney-General's estimates we have had holdups on a frequency

that was quite unheard of before. The latest one, which

involved abduction of a mother and child and a frantic race

through the streets and the brandishing of weapons and the

firing of shots in Victoria, was apparently related to a heroin

addict.

I think it is all very well to say that we've stepped up the

war on heroin problems and that we raised the price and we've

caught a few of the bigger fish, but I think society had better

recognize right now that this involves an increased desperation

on the part of the users, and we see individuals, like the

person I have just quoted without mentioning names, subjecting

the man in the street to risks which at least he was not

subjected to until we reached the point of restriction to

access of heroin. I think it is very easy for any of us in this

House to stand up and pontificate about the heroin problem, but

it seems to me almost, at times, that there is no way you can

win.

If one takes what is described as a permissive approach to

heroin, one is roundly condemned as being a bleeding heart or a

soft heart or some kind of irresponsible citizen. Yet when we

set up a special law enforcement unit, and that unit takes some

of the actions it has taken, we have to recognize that the

price of heroin on the street goes up and we have some

desperate acts of violence and the increasing frequency of

holdups by heroin addicts desperate to acquire more money to

buy the more expensive heroin. So let's not take any very

superficial or fanciful approach that all we need are more

policemen and more force and more people involved in trying to

break the kind of cycle which the Attorney-General mentioned a

moment ago.

It's been my impression that there has been interception of larger deliveries

of heroin in the last several months. I think, at least from an educational

point of view, the October report of the law enforcement unit should be given

the widest possible distribution in this province, Mr. Attorney-General. Granted,

the report doesn't solve any problems, but it does outline for the average citizen

the opportunity to be better acquainted with some of the dimensions of the problem.

In some ways I've come to the reluctant conclusion that the Chinese solution

is probably the only solution.

AN HON. MEMBER: It's permanent.

MR. WALLACE: It's permanent, as someone says from the back

benches, but on the other hand, I doubt if our society is of a

nature in 1975 that accepts that solution.

There is no doubt, however, that crime in British Columbia

is on the increase. I was interested to read a report of a

speech made by the Deputy Attorney-General who, thank goodness,

isn't afraid to speak out publicly in any kind of sensitivity

as to his civil service position. I think some of the public

statements of the Deputy Attorney-General in regard to their

candour and their frankness could well be emulated by certain

other Deputy Ministers.

On this occasion the Deputy Minister makes the point that

too little money was being spent on justice. Although he didn't

say so, I'm sure that it was close to his mind that there

aren't as many votes in justice as there are in many other

departments appealing to a larger segment of the society.

He said: "Justice plays too small a

part in budgeting." I

think that is rather a courageous statement for a civil servant

to make in as sensitive a position as Deputy Attorney-General.

He went on to say that in manpower problems B.C. has the

highest crime rate and the lowest police ratio in the country,

and that this could not be cured overnight.

[Mr. D'Arcy in the chair.]

MR. WALLACE: I really don't think that the length of his

contract makes a fig of difference to the kind of comments that

I've quoted.

On the question of adequate numbers of police, I had a

question asked of me a few weeks ago regarding Vancouver, the

West End of Vancouver. Perhaps the Attorney-General can confirm

or deny this — that, at times in the West End where there are

approximately 30,000 people there are as few as two police cars

on patrol for considerable lengths of time, which would seem an

incredibly small number of police to try and apply the law in

an area of such dense population and traffic.

I know that the Attorney-General has been in negotiation

with the City of Vancouver to encourage

[ Page

1375 ]

them to increase the police force, which I think has been

increased by something in the order of 100. I wonder if the

Attorney-General could tell us to what degree he considers that

more police and more cars are required and to what degree the

provincial government is willing to cooperate in assisting

both with financing and advice and support generally.

In the picture of violence that we live against, I wonder if

the Minister has given any further thought to the subject I

raised earlier about the violence in films and, as well, the

violence in television which, of course, the Minister has

little opportunity to control. I raised the question of a movie

earlier on this session — "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre." The

kind of follow-up which the Attorney-General reported on was

somewhat disappointing. He said there had been practically no

complaints. I wonder exactly what that means.

I've done some follow-up, Mr. Attorney-General. Apparently,

as far as Oak Bay is concerned, the film was very well attended

and there were no complaints. I have to ask of society what

kind of gratification, or whatever the word might be, people

receive from going to see very violent movies. Then these same

people get after the MLAs and ask the MLAs to try and do

various things to stop violence in the street. It seems to me

that there has to be one fantastic contradiction that we have

many members of society tripping into movie houses to see the

most violent and hideous and disgusting movies and at the same

time asking that legislators provide first of all the laws and

then the administration to protect the individual from

violence.

I think one point is worth mentioning, Mr. Chairman. I

recall a few years ago, when we passed the legislation dealing

with the film classification director, that one of the elements

that was debated was censorship. I recall very clearly that

this House was assured that this was not censorship; this was

classification. Well, I've got news for this House. This is

censorship. I would like to quote the man who does the

censoring. His name's Macdonald; I don't know if he's a

Scotsman. What with Donald Macdonald, Alex Macdonald and this

Macdonald, there's....

Interjections.

MR. WALLACE: Ray Macdonald. There are so many

MacDonalds that I'm not surprised the Member for Cariboo

(Mr. Fraser) gets so fed up with Scotsmen over here.

I don't wish to attack Mr. Macdonald. I want to make it very

plain that I'm not attacking him as a person. I'm attacking a

....

Interjections.

MR. WALLACE: I'm attacking a principle — that we do have censorship.

I think we should have one or the other in this province and that we should

attempt to restrict the showing of movies and be frank and open in saying that

we are restricting movies, but not to hide under the word "classification."

Mr. Macdonald was interviewed — this appeared in the Colonist on February 6,

an article, an interview — by Mr. Ferry. Part of the interview says: "Mr. Macdonald

is no scissors man. He says he'd rather throw a picture out than cut it up."

Further down it says that he turned back 14 movies last year.

MR. J.R. CHABOT (Columbia River): He didn't turn down Linda

Lovelace, though. (Laughter.)

MR. WALLACE: Now what's that dividing line...?

Interjections.

MR. WALLACE: What's the dividing line, Mr. Chairman, between

the film which receives a very harsh warning that it's

disgusting or violent or brutal or whatever? What is the

dividing line that allows the film to be shown, albeit with the

warning, and that other kind of film that comes within the 14

that were never shown at all? In the judgment of one single

man, a certain film could be shown with the warning that it was

bloody and cruel and so on — all the words that we see in the

advertising.

The only point I'm trying to make is that the individual

filling the role of film classification director is actually a

censor if he turns back 14 movies. I think that we should, on

that basis, at least decide whether we're going to have

censorship or classification, because these other 14 movies

should perhaps have been shown with the most extreme kind of

description that the director considers suitable. I don't see

how you can call this man simply a classification director.

Admittedly it's a small percentage of films — 14 movies in a

year is a small percentage — but I don't think there's any

doubt that that is censorship. If we want censorship — and

there's such garbage appearing on the screens, and such

violence — then I think that it's time that we looked at the

legislation governing movies.

I was very interested to learn just yesterday that the

Ontario government has set up a royal commission to look at

the whole question of violence on television.

MR. L.A. WILLIAMS (West Vancouver–Howe Sound): Good. Another

commission will be required. We've got development commissions,

we've got law reform commissions, we've got I don't know what

other commissions.

MR. WALLACE: The Member for West

[ Page 1376 ]

Vancouver-Howe Sound just arrived and he seems to be eager

to get into debate, Mr. Chairman.

MR. L.A. WILLIAMS: Why don't you sit down and shut up?

MR. WALLACE: I think I hit a tender spot.

AN HON. MEMBER: He got a free pass to the movies and he

wants to talk about it. (Laughter.)

MR. WALLACE: I think I've touched a tender nerve. I've had a

little bit of training as to how you treat tender nerves.

(Laughter.) You apply cool packs and sometimes sedation.

MR. L.A. WILLIAMS: Every time you speak it's sedation.

(Laughter.)

MR. WALLACE: Well, it's obvious that the Unity Party's

really blown now, isn't it?

AN HON. MEMBER: You should know.

Interjection.

MR. WALLACE: Yes, it's these evening sittings, when the

time's cut short, Mr. Premier, when you can't debate the

Minister's estimates until every point's been covered.

This question of violence is one that is encouraged by the

approval of society, that it's all right to show movies and to

show violence in extensive amounts on television; yet we

complain about it when it plays such an active

part in the life

of the man in the street, who these days is subject to all

kinds of sudden violence.

I wonder if the Attorney-General will first of all comment

on the movies and consider whether there is some reason to look

at an attempt with the federal government to control violence

on television. One of the reasons, I think, that there is such

strong support for the last television channel in the greater

Victoria area being kept out of the clutches of commercial

enterprise is the fact that we're already bombarded and

subjected not only to some rather infantile advertising but to

a surfeit of films and shows which also emphasize violence. I

think the efforts of the government to limit this would be

something that the Minister might want to comment upon.

Juvenile delinquency, in the same respect, is often involved with violence.

I wonder if the Attorney-General would comment on the Berger report, which states

that while the general policy for juvenile delinquency involves community support

and participation in the widest sense, there is a percentage of juvenile delinquents

who require what Mr. Justice Berger terms "secure accommodation." He added the

proviso that this should be subject to review after 30 days

and should never exceed 60 days' detention in such a secure

accommodation facility, but he did make the point very clear

that probation officers and counselors, in trying to handle the

larger majority of juvenile delinquents, are often burdened

with the relatively small number of so-called hard-core

juvenile delinquents, which makes the overall performance of

the counselors and probation officers difficult to carry out. I

think the

section in the report by Mr. Berger on juvenile

delinquency is a very accurate appraisal of how the majority of

cases should be handled in the community, but how it is

absolutely essential that the small percentage of offenders who

indulge in violence of one kind or another, in stealing cars,

in repeated breaking and entering, and the risk of physical

injury to the citizen, should be treated in such facilities as

he described as secure accommodation...and whether the

Minister has any plans to act on that recommendation in the

future.

We've already heard in this House, from up island, of some

of the very serious problems they have had in Nanaimo and

Duncan. One of the cases, which the Attorney-General

investigated, related to a 14-year-old child who, I think, had

committed offences into double figures and had escaped from

custody many times, and so on, and had caused damage into the

thousands of dollars. I wonder if the Attorney-General would

comment on the action he plans to take in the near future to

deal with this problem.

I wonder if there has been a great deal of discussion about

the justice commission. I wonder if the Attorney-General would

comment on the fact that the vice-chairman of the commission

resigned, reportedly because of frustration. While we haven't

the time to discuss some of the comments made by Mr. Cramm, he

did say that he felt one answer was to set up a separate

department of justice, that the kind of demands made on the

whole system under one Minister and Deputy just made it almost

impossible for the efficient kind of services to be made

available, both in the carrying out of the law and the

administration in such areas as courts and other

facilities.

He points out that the provincial government should have the

courage to completely restructure the rules of procedure to

speed the slow process. The rules are made for the public and

not for the convenience of judges, according to Mr. Cramm. Now

this may be an unfair criticism, but it is the kind of

statement which the average citizen reads by a responsible

person who has resigned from an important position. I wonder if

the Minister would care to comment on his view as to whether a

separate Department of Justice would get around some of these

problems.

I wonder if the Attorney-General would comment

[ Page 1377 ]

on the other serious problem which has developed by the

greater use of sheriffs and deputy sheriffs in conveying

prisoners.

MR. FRASER: Barrett's brownies.

MR. WALLACE: I'm sure that the Minister is aware of two very

serious incidents, one in Nanaimo and one in Vancouver, where a

sheriff was stabbed and where another sheriff was injured by a

razor. I gather there was some discussion between the sheriffs

and the Attorney-General's department as to whether sheriffs

should be armed. There has been no report or public

announcement of any kind since that meeting. While it seems

like a wise move to provide more sheriffs in order that

policemen could more readily fulfill the original purpose of

their work, would the Minister care to comment on what has been

done to give the sheriffs an added measure of personal

protection in the new role which they are filling?

Another subject which has brought a great deal of publicity

and criticism is the Attorney-General's habit of introducing a

stay of proceedings. I'm referring in particular to the Sanucci

case, which we don't have time to discuss in detail. As the

Minister knows, this is a case where the Crown brought in a

stay of proceedings before even the coroner's inquest had been

held in relation to the death of the party concerned. This

young women died under unusual circumstances and the coroner's

inquest was held. Before the coroner's inquest was even

reported upon, the Attorney-General's department ordered a stay

of proceedings.

As I say, we don't have time to follow the whole case

through tonight, but the very central crux of the matter was

that a charge of manslaughter was laid against an individual,

and the Crown refused to proceed. Finally, the father of the

girl took private action in court and the judge in that case

allowed such an action to proceed, whereupon the

Attorney-General's department announced that it would take on

the prosecution.

As I say, Mr. Chairman, the case is more detailed than that,

but basically the Attorney-General's department was left

looking somewhat suspect for whatever reason — just sheer

internal incompetence or whatever. The fact is that the whole

business of stay of proceedings leaves the impression that

either the department didn't know what it was doing, or in fact

there was some other evidence upon which the department was

acting.

I notice that the Attorney-General has said that there is a

study underway right now to compare British Columbia with other

provinces in regard to the frequency with which the Crown does

act in this manner. The figures that were quoted at the time

showed that Ontario averaged fewer than one case per 1,000 in which prosecution was stayed, but in British

Columbia the frequency averaged 1 for every 75 cases.

MR. FRASER: Shocking! Shocking!

MR. WALLACE: The judge concerned made the point that justice

would be seen to be done to a better degree if the case were

brought before a court and the Crown prosecutor then asked to

demonstrate why, in fact, the case should not proceed. But for

the Attorney-General's department to act unilaterally raises

some serious problems in the public mind.

The other case that has caused a great deal of concern, Mr.

Chairman, regards the manner in which an assault charge against

two football players was so badly handled, leaving the public

again to wonder to what degree the Attorney-General's

department is either incompetent or simply extremely slow to

act.

MR. L.A. WILLIAMS: Natural incompetence.

MR. WALLACE: These two football players severely beat a man

in Campbell River on May 27, 1974, and one of the players was

so successful in avoiding being served with the criminal

charges that the papers eventually had to be left with his wife

on July 7...

MR. L.A. WILLIAMS: He's just a broken field runner.

MR. WALLACE: ...which is six weeks after the assault. Of

course, even after that event, there were considerable delays.

The case was adjourned on two or three occasions.

MR. L.A. WILLIAMS: He got penalized for delaying the

game.

MR. WALLACE: Finally, it was October 28 before the case came

to court. We know that subsequent to that the court, because of

a technicality, found that the case could not be proceeded

with. Although this football player had already been fined at

the civil level, I forget how many thousands of dollars and

found guilty in a civil suit, he was subsequently discharged

because of a technicality in the action of presumably the Crown

prosecutor.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The Hon. Member is in the final minutes of his

allotted speaking time.

MR. L.A. WILLIAMS: He got traded to Toronto.

MR. WALLACE: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[ Page 1378 ]

These two instances — the stay of proceedings on a very

serious matter where the charge is manslaughter, and a bungling

and fumbling of a prosecution where a man was very severely

beaten in a Campbell River hotel and where finally one of the

charges was dropped because of a technicality in the way in

which the charge was written — leaves the man in the street

asking what kind of efficiency we have in the administration of

justice in this province. Probably the Attorney-General would

like to explain what happened in these two particular instances

and perhaps assure us that the likelihood of that happening in

the future is not great.

HON. MR. MACDONALD: I'll try to answer as quickly as I can.

Since the last case is fresh in the Members' minds, I'll start

at the back and work up. Hunsperger and Magrum were charged for

the Campbell River incident. There was delay. We have about

80,000 prosecutions that go through this department every year.

This was one of them. There was some delay in service of

process, unquestionably, but then there were appearances by the

lawyer for the accused in the court and then there was a

non-appearance — I think it was in October.

MR. WALLACE: October 28.

HON. MR. MACDONALD: Yes, October 28. Then the new process

was issued to summons Mr. Hunsperger before the court. Our

prosecutor at that time, who was a very capable lawyer, did not

ask for a bench warrant.

AN HON. MEMBER: Why?

HON. MR. MACDONALD: That is a matter of discretion.

Generally speaking, you don't arrest people. He had appeared by

a lawyer already, and he didn't. That was his decision on the

spur of the moment. But the funny part about the judge's

decision, and the part with which I disagree, with respect, was

that when the trial came up the judge refused an amendment

because, he said, the citizen should not be harassed. He said

this citizen had been harassed because over a period of time

there had been the two processes and so forth. In my opinion,

the citizen had not been harassed. If he had been harassed, we

would have issued a bench warrant on his non-appearance. You

know, arrest him when he didn't appear on October 28. So I

respectfully disagree with the decision, but that is the

court's decision. Mr. Hunsperger then had his Prince George

case. That is still before the courts so I don't want to

comment.

Sanucci....

MR. L.A. WILLIAMS: He was banished to Ontario.

HON. MR. MACDONALD: That's punishment in itself. So he has

had a $6,000 fine, two months' imprisonment and banishment to

Ontario. But, anyway, sometimes cases of people which are

before the court become prominent. You have to be a little bit

careful that he does not suffer in court difficulties because

of the prominence of his name in the media. But I think that

democracy has to take that chance on occasion. It's happened in

this case and I'm not complaining about it.

In Sanucci there never was any evidence, so the RCMP issued

a charge very quickly after the incident when the woman died —

in strange circumstances, admittedly. When our prosecutors

looked at it, in their best considered judgment there was not

proof beyond a reasonable doubt of culpable homicide. That

doesn't mean there wasn't culpable homicide. It means that we

could not prove culpable homicide beyond a reasonable doubt,

particularly in view of the medical evidence. So in that case

it is the Crown's duty, whatever its feelings may be, not to

proceed with the charge.

Our position in that respect has since been adjudicated upon

in the Supreme Court of B.C. in the judgment of Mr. Justice

Anderson. In the case of Davis and Farnell, the learned judge

said: "It must not be forgotten that the Attorney-General and

those appointed by him have an important and integral part of

play in protecting the subject against undue oppression and

expense, while, at the same time, making sure that the

administration of justice is not fettered by mere procedural

error." He goes on to mention when stays should be entered:

"The Attorney-General has a duty and an absolute discretion to

enter stays of proceedings where he considers it proper in the

interest of justice to do so."

Now where it appears there is not fair evidence to go before

a court, then I think I should enter a stay, whatever the

feelings might be in a particular case. In this case, however,

at the instance of the court, which is probably wrong, the

request was made following the coroner's verdict that there be

a case, and all the evidence was laid before a judge.

I am not taking umbrage at the fact that we were sort of

asked by a judge to proceed with a prosecution. I don't think

it's right, because I think there should be a separation. But

that suggestion having been made we therefore appointed the

best prosecutor we could and laid the best evidence before a

preliminary inquiry; and that inquiry found there was no fair

case to carry it further. So everything was laid out.

MR. WALLACE: Isn't that the better way to do it?

[ Page 1379 ]

HON. MR. MACDONALD: No, for better or worse, I don't charge

somebody unless I say there's a prima facie case of a breach of

the law. I don't say: "Well, whether you like him or not, I'm

going to out that fellow through the court process anyway." I

have the initial decision through my prosecutors and the law

officers to decide whether he should be put into court at

all.

MR. L.A. WILLIAMS: A prima facie case.

HON. MR. MACDONALD: No, I say there has to be a fair case

which on a preliminary inquiry would justify a man being

committed to a higher court.

MR. L.A. WILLIAMS: Reasonable grounds.

HON. MR. MACDONALD: I think our decision is much as it would

be of a judge listening to evidence at a preliminary inquiry.

We don't decide if he is guilty. We decide if there is fair

evidence to go to a jury. Now in terms of Sanucci and any other

case, I just want to make the statement that there will never

be and there has never been any influence from high places or

low places or any other places interfering with the

administration of justice in my department, and there never

will be as long as I hold this office. I make that

categorically.

MR. FRASER: Baloney!

Interjection.

HON. MR. MACDONALD: In the case of stays of proceedings, we

probably do because a lot of the drug charges are multiple. The

average case of a stay of proceedings is a fellow who is

charged with .08, he is also charged with impaired and he's

convicted of the impaired. Now what are you going to do —

convict him of the lesser offence? You stay it or you withdraw

it. But I have issued instructions to our Crown prosecutors

some time ago that they should explain to the court the reasons

for a stay. Do it in open court, and in almost all cases you

can do that. You can also say quite frankly to the court that

the witness has disappeared.

Interjection.

HON. MR. MACDONALD: Well, there are cases where you want to

keep the charge alive.

AN HON. MEMBER: Why?

HON. MR. MACDONALD: Because a serious social injury has been done and

a witness has disappeared. In fact, witnesses have been intimidated, and we

try to run down the intimidation. Witnesses have been killed — I kid you not,

in terms of drug cases. In that case, do we say we are going to withdraw the

charge? No, we think that in some of those cases we should stay it and see if

we can put together a case again.

Interjection.

HON. MR. MACDONALD: Well, withdraw the other. Don't stay it.

Okay?

Now in terms of the Berger report, that's before the

government. It's a very good report. It is before the

government for policy decisions. I appreciate the lion.

Member's interest in the juvenile problem.

In respect to violence on television and in the movies, I am

rather of two minds. I am going to consider with interest the

inquiry...I think it is Judy LaMarsh of Ontario. If you ban

"The Texas Chainsaw Massacre," would you make that kind

of thing more attractive and unbalanced?

MR. WALLACE: What positive value does that have?

HON. MR. MACDONALD: None. It's a reflection of the cultural

barbarism of our time. But you ban it and you give it hidden

allure. You're the doctor; why do you ask me that question?

MR. WALLACE: What about the 14 films?

HON. MR. MACDONALD: Well, we didn't have a classification

for those 14. The legislative committee sat, it developed

classifications for films and there were 14 we couldn't fit in

anywhere. So it's still classification but we couldn't put them

in — we couldn't find a name for them. Ray Macdonald ran out of

adjectives so we wouldn't do anything about them. Fourteen

didn't make it at all.

I think the report of Ray Macdonald has been tabled this

year in the Legislature — I'll check that out. I know I've seen

it. Maybe it has been tabled.

In the Vancouver situation in the case of police, they're

over 5,000 population, they have their municipal forces — it's

their financial problem. They are getting more police — I think

it's 130 they're planning through their council to try and

recruit for the next year. We'll help them in the training; we

will help them through the sheriff thing by releasing their

officers.

I'd like to go into lockups, too. Vancouver city has a

terrible lockup situation, but there's a big financial

commitment. It cost us $9 million a year to take over the

administration of justice and relieve the municipalities last

year of that kind of a burden. I have to go to the Minister of

Finance (Hon. Mr. Barrett) before I can say that we really

should, under say, the sheriff service, conduct the lockups

and

[ Page 1380 ]

relieve the police from that kind of duty. That would help

Vancouver enormously. They must have 30 — or how many people? —

50 people tied up in lockup duty. That's no place for a

policeman. He should be out in the community engaged in crime

prevention work. So we're helping Vancouver very substantially

by allowing them to release policemen for police duties. But

the increase in their force, until there's a new financial

formula, is up to Vancouver city council.

MR. WALLACE: What about the sheriffs?

MR. MACDONALD: Oh, in the case of sheriffs, yes. Where it's

a dangerous-custody situation in the discretion of the chief

sheriff, arms can be carried. But there are other ways of

handling some of those things. Sometimes there are handcuffs

necessary. Sometimes there is an additional guard because the

prisoner being conveyed is dangerous. Sometimes you break up a

group and if you've got two or three people on, say, one drug

charge, you don't put them all in one van — you might do it

separately with more adequate precautions. They carry arms

where necessary — they can in court security but only in

situations where it's really necessary.

At one point, I think, my department was accused of ordering

50,000 handguns. Somebody went around the province saying that

we had got this order. When we ran into this incident that the

Hon. Member mentioned, I said: "How many have we got?" The

answer came back: "We've got 12." They were being used

primarily in the sheriffs' training classes out at BCIT for

training. So I said: "Order another 12. Double the number — but

don't order 50,000 under any condition."

MS. R. BROWN (Vancouver-Burrard): Mr. Chairman, I've been

getting up four times this evening and I appreciate your

recognizing me. Very briefly, I would like to introduce another

subject to the Attorney-General, and that is the statement made

by the Minister of immigration to the effect that the response

to the Green Paper from Vancouver would seem to indicate that

there is more racial tension in Vancouver than anywhere else in

Canada. I know that most of the responsibility for dealing with

this falls under the responsibility of the police. I know, for

example, that....

Interjections.

MS. BROWN: No, it doesn't.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please, Hon. Members. The Second Member

for Vancouver-Burrard has the floor.

MS. BROWN: I recognize that neither the Liberals or Social

Credit are interested in what happens to anybody but themselves

in this House. Nonetheless, most of the racial conflict in the

city....

Interjections.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please! The Hon. Second Member for

Vancouver-Burrard has the floor. I think all the Members know

the rules.

Interjections.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

MRS. JORDAN: She's running a leadership campaign on

provincial time! Shame!

MR. CHAIRMAN: I would suggest the Members know the rules;

the person speaks in their place. The Hon. Second Member for

Burrard has the floor.

MS. BROWN: Mr. Chairman, every time I get up to say

anything, the opposition accuses me of conducting a leadership

campaign on the House time. I would like to remind them that

I'm sitting in this House not because I'm running for

leadership but because I represent the constituency of Burrard.

I'm not going to allow them to deprive the constituents of

Burrard of a representative because of their stupidity.

I would like to talk about the problems the East Indians

have been having in the constituency of Burrard and in

Vancouver in terms of racial conflict. In every instance those

East Indians have had to call upon the police to ask for some

kind of protection. What I would like to find out from the

Attorney-General is: what kind of training do the police have

in terms of dealing with racial conflicts? How many policemen,

for example, who are graduating in the class which is

graduating on Friday, are themselves of racial or ethnic

backgrounds that are non-white?

Interjection.

MS. BROWN: This is what I'm trying to find out from the

Attorney-General.

Mr. Chairman, I recognize that the Member for North Okanagan

(Mrs. Jordan) is not interested either in the plight of the

East Indians or any other immigrant group in this country. But

the fact of the matter is that they have a concern too, and in

the riding of Burrard there is a very large East Indian

population. I'm trying to speak on their behalf and to find out

from the Attorney-General what kind of training the police in

his department have to deal with the kinds of racial conflicts

that they have to

[ Page 1381 ]

come across day after day. That is my first question. The

second one has to do with the Landlord and Tenant Act. As he

knows, there is a case before the Human Rights Commission now

of a woman who has been deprived of housing because she has

children. I aim to find out where there is any plan to amend

that

section of the Landlord and Tenant Act so that it will

forbid and prohibit discrimination in terms of rental

accommodation on behalf of someone just because they happen to

have children.

The third area that the people in Burrard would like some

kind of explanation from the Attorney-General has to do with

the matter of neighbourhood pubs. Now the second neighbourhood

pub in Vancouver has recently been opened in my riding. What we

would like to know is: what kind of thinking goes behind the

decision that says that those pubs have to be closed down at 11

o'clock? What is the reason for this? Why is it that other

drinking places can remain open later, yet these pubs have to

be closed at 11 o'clock?

My final statement. I would like to find out from the

Attorney-General what kind of changes in legislation are

planned by his department in regard to the needs of women this

year. Thank you very much.

MR. W.R. BENNETT (Leader of the Opposition): Mr. Chairman,

I'd like to ask the Attorney-General: last year at this time

there was a discussion in this House about Columbia Cellulose,

the share trading, and the unusual trading pattern. The

Attorney-General at that time named a committee that would

investigate the trading pattern. That committee was named on

March 15, and the names on that committee were, as named by the

Attorney-General: Bruce Morrison, D.F. Smith, L.G. Smallicombe,

A.R. Campbell, all of the British Columbia Securities

Commission; and Inspector R.N. Mulloch, Sergeant T.J. Hill,

Sergeant F.L. Long, Sergeant J. Dunbar, Sergeant K.E. Salt, and

Corporal N. Peter. They were charged with the responsibility,

under

section 25 of the Securities Act, to make an

investigation into any matter relating trading and securities

of Columbia Cellulose. I'd like to ask the Attorney-General if,

indeed, all of these members that were named to that

investigation team did in fact participate, or ever met. Can he

advise if all members met and if any of those members who were

named to that investigation did not participate in the

investigation; if in fact the committee held formal meetings or

advertised meetings or public meetings, and were witnesses

called? Were any witnesses called? Was anyone advised of the

investigation? In fact, did any investigation take place at

all? In fact, of all of the police members named in this

commission, did any or all of them participate in the

investigation?

Mr. Attorney-General, I mention this because since that time, March 15, 1974,

there has been no announcement or no suggestion as to what ever happened with

this committee, if there is a report, if that report will ever be made available

to the House and whether or not the Members of this House will have satisfaction

over the very serious concerns they have about the unusual trading patterns

of Columbia Cellulose before it was purchased, or a large portion of it was

purchased, and it became Canadian Cellulose, before the government bought the

79 per cent.

As you will recall, Mr. Attorney-General, in the fall of

1972 the average trading was about 30,000 shares a month. In

the spring — January, February, March — of 1973, a time when

this company and this negotiation, and the study for the

negotiation, were taking place, the trading jumped to 600,000

shares a month and upwards. The price jumped — doubled and

tripled — and there were reasons to suspect that perhaps some

of the public, or some people, had knowledge before the

announcement was made to the general public.

It was a concern of this Legislature, as it was a concern of

the people of B.C., that in the takeover or purchase of these

shares there may have been leaks or there may have been the

possibility for some individuals — some groups of individuals —

to take advantage of insider knowledge for their own benefit or

the benefit of others with whom they may have shared this

knowledge.

At that time we questioned the Attorney-General as to an

investigation on when the first negotiations took place; who

was charged with the responsibility for the negotiations;

whether all people responsible for the negotiations and in the

purchase of these shares were covered under an oath of secrecy,

normally held by the civil service and by the cabinet, or

whether outside advisers were used who were not subject to this

oath. We asked these questions because we were concerned.

We also asked — if the government was committed to further

purchases in the future — whether from the unusual events

surrounding these purchases the Attorney-General could

recommend to the government procedures for further purchases

that would prevent such an unusual set of circumstances from

taking place again and whether, in fact, a set of procedures

involving that would guarantee that only those with the oath of

secrecy and only those people who were covered under the oath

of the civil service would, in fact, be a part of any

negotiations in the future, and in fact, outside negotiations

would not take place, and, in fact, that maximum security would

be maintained so that we wouldn't have the unusual trading

pattern that jumped from 30,000 shares a month to 600,000 a

month that developed with this investigation.

I wonder if the Attorney-General could advise me if, in

fact, all of these people have met, whether

[ Page 1382 ]

indeed the investigation is complete, whether they held

meetings and whether the report is prepared for this House.

HON. MR. MACDONALD: I'll try to answer briefly the last

question and those of the Member for Burrard.

The Col-Cel investigation was very immense. It involved the

exchange in Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal and New York. The

total number in the period that we considered — that my

officials considered might have been insider trading — the

total number of shares involved in trading was 483,000 common —

I'm leaving out the odd numbers — and 490,000 preferred. There

were 8,000 separate transactions, and these had to be first run

down. Then they had to be checked with a list of people who

could possibly, by any stretch of the imagination, be

considered to be insiders or having special information. They

came up with a list of 171 names.

The staff of my department to date have spent 350 hours on

this matter. Now it's important, sure. This was a major

resource purchase involving a big area of the Province of B.C.

So I'm not saying we're resenting. I'm saying we need two more

chartered accountants in the securities branch just to work on

this. We've had two doing it. The team doesn't necessarily meet

under the Securities Act investigation. They're entrusted with

this investigation, but they don't necessarily meet. It isn't

completed but, in terms of this investigation, we found nothing

suspicious. This is the report.

I'd be glad to talk to the Leader of the Opposition and

other Members about the kind of work involved in this inquiry

and the kind of thing we did in Dunhill, although in the

Dunhill thing, which was a subject of debate, because there was

a court case we nevertheless, to show we had nothing to hide,

sent a copy of each to the two lawyers — one on each side of

that case. That was a long time ago. In this one, I can't say

it's completed. I say we're suffering under a staggering work

load....

MR. BENNETT: Did all of those people participate in the

investigation — all the people you named?

HON. MR. MACDONALD: I'll answer that. I've got it on the

record and we'll give you a reply to that as to whether they

all participated. I can't answer that now.

Now in answer to the Hon. Member for Vancouver-Burrard: in terms of racial

tension in Vancouver, that's partly why we started the B.C. police college,

you know. There the recruits are taking courses in criminology and social studies

and the ethnic population of the Province of B.C. and that kind of thing. So when we go into areas where there is

this kind of problem, with this front-line social service, the

only ones there seven days a week, 24 hours a day, are the

police services. We want them well trained in human

relationships and crime prevention and detection.

I think they are doing a good job. This is the kind of

training in which we are engaged.

In terms of some landlords' refusal to rent to children, I

think it should properly be handled not as an amendment to the

Landlord and Tenant Act, but under the Human Rights

Commission.

In terms of the neighbourhood pubs closing at 11 o'clock —

unless my information is not totally up to date, by last count

we had 14 neighbourhood pubs in the Province of British

Columbia under the general licence. If any Hon. Members want

the addresses and the names of those 14, I'll be glad to get

.... Don't tell me it's 16! Well, there you go, you see, I'm

out of touch. I'm quite out of touch. I imagine that one on 4th

Avenue was licensed in the meantime. We have 21 applications

pending. We now have 16 neighbourhood pubs.

I was ready to go with my estimates two weeks ago and then I

don't know what happened — since that time, my figure of 14 has

become 16.

I think that answers the questions that have been asked.

Interjections.

HON. MR. MACDONALD: Why do they close at 11 o'clock? Because

the concept of the neighbourhood pub was a cozy, quiet place in

a neighbourhood where people go to sleep early at night and

that kind of thing. However, in terms of new liquor legislation

that is coming down, and new regulations, we are looking at

that question too. We want a chance to look at the economics.

If 11 just does not make the thing economically feasible, we

may have to look at that closing hour.

Hon. Mrs. Dailly moves the House rise, report progress, and

ask leave to sit again.

Motion approved on the following division:

YEAS — 28

Hall

Macdonald

Barrett

Dailly

Stupich

Hartley

Calder

Brown

D'Arcy

Cummings

Lorimer

Williams, R.A.

King

Young

Radford

Lauk

Nicolson

Nunweiler

Skelly

Gabelmann

Lockstead

[ Page 1383 ]

Gorst

Rolston

Barnes

Kelly

Webster

Lewis

Sanford

NAYS —

Jordan

Smith

Bennett

Phillips

Chabot

Fraser

McClelland

Morrison

McGeer

Williams, L.A.

Gardom

Wallace

MR. P.L. McGEER (Vancouver–Point Grey): When you report to the Speaker,

would you be good enough to inform him that a division took place on whether

the committee should rise and report progress, and ask leave to have that division

recorded in the Journals ?

The House resumed; Mr. Speaker in the chair.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Speaker, the committee reports progress

and asks leave to sit again, and I am to report that a division

took place on this vote, and they wish it recorded in the

Journals of the House.

Leave granted.

Hon. Mrs. Dailly moves adjournment of the House.

The House adjourned at 11:07 p.m.

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