1980 Legislative Session: 2nd Session, 32nd Parliament

HANSARD

The following electronic version is for informational purposes only.

The printed version remains the official version.

Official Report of

DEBATES OF THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY

(Hansard)

THURSDAY, MAY 15, 1980

Afternoon Sitting

[ Page

2455 ]

CONTENTS

Routine Proceedings

Introduction of Bills.

Revised Statutes Correction Act, 1980 (Bill 33). Hon. Mr. Williams.

Introduction and first reading –– 2455

Oral Questions.

Cargill Grain Co. Ltd. Mrs. Wallace –– 2455

Water licence on Goldstream River. Hon. Mr. Rogers replies –– 2456

Pollution at Alcan plant. Ms. Sanford –– 2456

Rent controls. Hon. Mr. Nielsen replies –– 2456

Changes in WCB regulations. Mr. Hanson –– 2457

Tree-farm licences. Hon. Mr. Waterland replies 2457

Ministerial Statement

Municipal Finance Authority bonds.

Hon. Mr. Curtis –– 2457

Routine Proceedings

Forest and Range Resource Fund Act (Bill 6). Second reading.

Mr. Nicolson –– 2458

Mr. Passarell –– 2459

Mr. Leggatt –– 2459

Mrs. Wallace –– 2460

Mr. Hall –– 2461

Mr. Skelly –– 2463

Mr. Mussallem –– 2464

Hon. Mr. Waterland –– 2464

Special Purpose Appropriation Act, 1980 (Bill 5). Second reading.

Mr. Skelly –– 2466

Mr. Howard –– 2469

Mr. Mitchell –– 2471

Mr. Mussallem –– 2473

Mr. Hanson –– 2474

Hon. Mr. McClelland –– 2476

Mr. Nicolson –– 2477

Mr. Segarty –– 2478

Ms. Sanford –– 2478

Hon. Mr. Curtis –– 2479

Division on second reading –– 2480

THURSDAY, MAY 15, 1980

The House met at 2 p.m.

[Mr. Davidson in the chair.]

Prayers.

MR. HYNDMAN:

On behalf of the Minister of Environment (Hon. Mr. Rogers) and myself,

I ask members to join us in welcoming today in the gallery grade 12

students and faculty from John Oliver Secondary School in Vancouver

South.

MS. BROWN: In 1896, soon after their inception

as an organization, the Council of Women made as one of their

priorities the struggle for the protection of people who were household

workers, women who came to this country as immigrants to work in homes.

Agnes McPhail, during her tenure in the House of Parliament from 1920

to 1940, carried on this struggle on behalf of household workers. They

were not successful either. However, today we have a breakthrough,

because the women themselves have organized into the B.C. Domestics

Association and four of them are in the gallery.

I am sorry

if the members are not interested; however, I'm sure you are. I am

sorry again that the Minister of Health (Hon. Mr. Mair) is not

interested.

Four members of the B.C. Domestics Association

are in the gallery today to carry on the struggle for protection by

labour legislation. I would like the House to join me in paying tribute

to the following people: Mary Brooks and Susan Hill, members of the

B.C. Domestics Association; Pat Christie, a member of SORWUC; and

Rachel Epstein, a member of the Labour Advocacy and Research

Association, who are carrying on the struggle for the protection of

workers in homes by labour legislation in this country.

HON. MR. SMITH:

Following the example of the Leader of the Opposition's mother, my

mother has decided to come to the gallery as well and bring some

civility into this place. I would like to introduce her, together with

a number of ladies from her PEO chapter: Mrs. Buffan, Mrs. Campbell,

Mrs. Crombie, Mrs. Hawkins, Mrs. Housez, Mrs. Kirkham, Mrs. MacLean,

Mrs. McKenzie, Mrs. Mack, Mrs. Moore, Mrs. Ridgway, Mrs. Waggoner, Mrs.

Wallace and Mrs. Wallace. Will you make them welcome.

HON. MR. NIELSEN:

Mr. Speaker, I'm very pleased to acknowledge the presence today of 58

school children from Kingswood Elementary School, Richmond, who are

touring the precincts today accompanied by their teachers, F. Lorenz

and L. Broadhurst. I'd like the House to welcome them.

HON. MR. HEWITT:

I don't have my mother in the gallery to give us guidance today, but I

do have a young gentleman in the gallery, and I know that the members

here will show him how we carry on business in a very quiet and orderly

manner in this House. I ask the House to welcome my young son, Ron

Hewitt.

HON. MR. WOLFE: I thought the members would be interested to

hear a brief announcement regarding the Provincial Museum, to the

effect that the British Columbia Provincial Museum will today begin the

celebration for International Museum Day. The museum plans to have

museum staff in the galleries presenting demonstrations and talking to

visitors between 3 p.m. and 5 p.m. and 7 p.m. and 9 p.m. today. There

will be continuous film showings in the Newcombe Auditorium, and a bus

tour of other local museums has been planned. On Sunday, May 18,

special commemorative buttons will be handed out to visitors. This

event has been given wide publicity by the museum and I'm sure will

represent a busy period for them.

Introduction of Bills

REVISED STATUTES

CORRECTION ACT, 1980

Hon. Mr. Williams presented a message from His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor:

a bill intituled Revised Statutes Correction Act, 1980.

Bill

33 introduced, read a first time and ordered to be placed on orders of

the day for second reading at the next sitting of the House after today.

Oral Questions

CARGILL GRAIN CO. LTD.

MRS. WALLACE:

Mr. Speaker, my question is to the Minister of Agriculture. Recently

the minister indicated that the high concentration by Cargill in the

poultry business would not be serious, because people could switch to

pork or beef. Mount Lehman Hog Farm is the largest in B.C., with a

production in excess of 12,000 hogs per year. Will the minister advise

the House whether or not he knows who owns Mount Lehman Hog Farm?

HON. MR. HEWITT:

Yes, Mr. Speaker. I'm sure the member also knows but she's going to ask

anyway, because she raised the question in regard to the operation of

the Mount Lehman Hog Farm. It's owned by Cargill. The question is

facetious; she knew the answer before I gave it. Nevertheless, Mr.

Speaker, I'm a little confused on the opening remarks she made, because

I don't recall at any time making the statement that she attributes to

me.

MRS. WALLACE: On a supplementary, I would point

out, Mr. Speaker, that I was asking whether the minister knew or not in

view of the remarks which he made on a radio broadcast the other

morning.

My second question is: has the minister decided to

aid Mount Lehman — i.e., Cargill — in increasing their output through

financial contributions or otherwise?

HON. MR. HEWITT: In what way, Madam Member?

MRS. WALLACE: Through any financial assistance, as I asked, or any other

of the means at his disposal as Minister of Agriculture — for example, the continuation

or extension of the Farm Income Assurance Prooram.

HON. MR. HEWITT:

Mr. Speaker, this relates to a question to which the member knows the

answer, as it was given in this House a few weeks ago. No, I haven't

decided to

[ Page 2456 ]

make

any specific aid available to that operation, but the member is fully

aware that the operation at Mount Lehman does carry farm income

assurance rights, as any family farm operation would have.

MRS. WALLACE:

Is the minister aware that Cargill, which owns some 160 grain elevators

across Canada, has a share in the new Prince Rupert grain terminal?

HON. MR. HEWITT: No, I'm not aware of that.

MRS. WALLACE:

I assure the minister that that is true; they do have shares in that

terminal. Will the minister tell the House whether or not at this

present time Cargill has any involvement in the feed grain industry in

the Fraser Valley?

HON. MR. HEWITT: I'll take that question as notice, Mr. Speaker.

MRS. WALLACE:

There's just one more question in the series, Mr. Speaker. Will the

Minister of Agriculture tell the House whether or not Cargill Grain has

made any overtures toward establishing itself in the backgrounding and

feedlot operation in B.C.'s cattle industry?

HON. MR. HEWITT: I'll take that question as notice, Mr. Speaker.

WATER LICENCE ON GOLDSTREAM RIVER

HON. MR. ROGERS:

Yesterday I was asked a question by the member for Shuswap-Revelstoke

(Mr. King), and in view of the urgency expressed, I thought I'd bring

the answers today. The answer to his first question is: the comptroller

of water rights did not receive a request from the fish and wildlife

branch for a public hearing into Noranda's application.

The answer to the second question is: the consultants were retained by Noranda Mines Ltd., the applicant for the licence.

The

answer to the third question is: the first three of these reports were

forwarded to the fish and wildlife branch in Nelson in June 1979 for

the review of the fourth report — which was the final and relatively

unchanged version of one of the three reports submitted earlier and was

forwarded to the fish and wildlife branch in Victoria in January 1980.

The

answer to the fourth question is: on September 10, 1979, approval in

principle was given to Noranda Mines to proceed with the Goldstream

project. However, this approval was subject to certain provisions,

among which was that the additional information requested was to be

found satisfactory. The final version of the report on wildlife,

submitted in November 1979, was basically similar to the preliminary

report dated April 1979 and was found to be satisfactory.

For the information of the members of the House, while the environmental impact

of this project will not be severe, provision for mitigation or compensation

of such impacts is included in the water licences in a number of clauses, the

most pertinent of which is clause (n), which states: "Programs for the

protection and enhancement of fish and wildlife habitat, for the mitigation

of losses of habitat, shall be carried out by the licensee as directed by the

comptroller of water rights." After consultation with the licensee and

the director of the fish and wildlife branch, I'm completely satisfied that

this matter has been dealt with properly, Mr. Speaker. Any members wishing to

view the licence can do so in my office.

POLLUTION AT ALCAN PLANT

MS. SANFORD:

My question is to the Minister of Labour. In view of the finding of the

federally sponsored Brisebois report on the exposure of thousands of

workers at the Alcan Kitimat plant to dangerous pollutants, will the

minister assure the House that the WCB regulations will be altered to

ensure that the former Alcan employees who may have suffered as a

result of the inadequate pollution standards will be allowed to claim

benefits?

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hon. member, you are asking

for an alteration in the future; part of the question would be in

order, but that part would not be in order.

HON. MR. HEINRICH:

Mr. Speaker, I'm not in a position to give any answer to the question.

I will take the question, however, as notice and make appropriate

inquiry of the WCB.

MS. SANFORD: I wonder if the

Minister of Labour has considered asking the WCB to contact former

workers at the Kitimat plant who may have contracted lung, skin or bone

disease as a result of their work there, to be called in for an

inspection so that their claims may be considered.

HON. MR. HEINRICH:

I will treat that inquiry the same as the previous question. I will

take it on notice and make the appropriate inquiries on behalf of the

member and the people affected.

MS. SANFORD: The

other question I would like to pose to the minister relates to the

schedule B changes that are now under review. I wonder if the minister

would contact the WCB in order to ensure that those schedules will

include full protection for all workers in the province who may be

affected after working in plants similar to the Kitimat plant.

HON. MR. HEINRICH: Yes, Madam Member. Again, I will convey the request to the WCB.

RENT CONTROLS

HON. MR. NIELSEN:

In response to a question asked by the member for

Maillardville-Coquitlam (Mr. Levi) earlier this month — and the member

was in his seat earlier during question period.... He said: "We've been

hearing for some years that rent controls would be extended to cover

permanent residents in hotels. Tenants of St. Helen's Hotel — many

pensioners and people on low and fixed incomes — have just heard that

effective June 1 their rents will be increased from $27 to $37 per

week. Would the minister indicate what steps he has decided to take to

intercede on behalf of the tenants?"

I advised the member

that I would ask the rentalsman's office to develop the information on

the matter for me, and I have received a response. The rentalsman's

office has provided me with this information. There are 80 to 90 rooms,

most of them one-bedroom sleeping rooms without private bath. Clientele

is all male, primarily pensioners, loggers and out-of-towners.

Approximately 20 percent of the clientele is

[ Page 2457 ]

permanent,

the balance transient. The rentalsman's office talked to several of the

occupants on May 6. They thought the rooms were excellent, that they

were very clean and well run. The current owners have owned the

building for ten years. The last rental increase was seven years ago.

The rents are going from $27 to $37 per week without bath, $35 to $45

per week with bath.

In the rentalsman's opinion the rents do

not appear to be excessive and the hotel is one of the better-run

rooming houses. We have not received any direct complaints from the

tenants, and considering the foregoing, the rentalsman advises that he

does not intend to designate these rooms under the existing legislation.

CHANGES IN WCB REGULATIONS

MR. HANSON:

I have a question for the Minister of Labour. The Workers' Compensation

Board has been consistently developing policies which are in

contravention of the Workers Compensation Act. One of the proposed

schedule B changes affects the workers at Cominco. At Cominco the

workers are exposed to acid mist and fumes, which results in the

erosion of their teeth. The proposed change is to allow for

compensation only of the front teeth. Is the minister aware that the

board is now making claims decisions based on the proposed changes

while the submissions from the labour movement and other interested

parties are still coming in?

HON. MR. HEINRICH: I am

not aware of the particular concern which the member is expressing with

respect to claims involving people employed with Cominco, or in any

similar type of activity. However, I will take the question as notice

and undertake to get an answer as quickly as possible for the member.

MR. HANSON:

I have a new question, Mr. Speaker. The Workers' Compensation Board

regulations call for — again this is Cominco — workers in high lead

hazard areas to have time allowed for a shower, for their own personal

protection. The company refuses to allow such time. The board has

refused to enforce the act. Why does the minister continue to allow the

board not to enforce the act?

HON. MR. HEINRICH: This

is the first time this particular problem has been brought to my

attention. If, in fact, the member had knowledge earlier than today, I

would have thought that perhaps he would have raised it with me. I

would be quite prepared to do what I can for him, but I have to advise

the House that this is the first time I have heard about it today.

MR. HANSON: Mr. Speaker, for the benefit of the minister, this matter was brought to my attention today.

have a new question to the Attorney-General. Since the WCB consistently

refuses to comply with its own act and regulations, has the minister

decided to prosecute the WCB?

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The question is out of order.

TREE-FARM LICENCES

HON. MR. WATERLAND:

On May 5 the member for Shuswap-Revelstoke (Mr. King) asked me a

question about the filing of the 1979 annual reports regarding

tree-farm licences 20 and 21.

The submission of the 1979

annual reports for these TFLs was retarded this year by delay in the

compilation of the scale statistics which were required to ascertain

the actual cut under the licences for the 1979 calendar year. The

figures relating to the actual cut must be confirmed by the Forest

Service before they are accepted in the annual report. The Forest

Service figures are obtained from the computer printouts, which were

late this year for all licensees in the Vancouver region.

Frequently

there are minor discrepancies between compilations of licensees and

those of the Forest Service. These do not constitute disputes but only

require clarification to reconcile any differences for the purposes of

accuracy. Only minor discrepancies relating to tree-farm licences 20

and 21 were encountered this year. The annual reports in question were

received by the Forest Service on May 9 this year.

MUNICIPAL FINANCE

AUTHORITY BONDS

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

The

provincial government has today announced that it is purchasing the

entire $62.7 million bond issue by the Municipal Finance Authority of

British Columbia. Details of the agreement between the province and the

MFA have already been negotiated, and the official closing will take

place in Victoria at the end of May.

This is the first time

that the province of British Columbia, using trusteed funds, has

purchased a complete bond issue by the MFA. The $62.7 million will

provide the current capital requirements for B.C.'s regional districts

and their member municipalities.

Usually the MFA goes twice

a year to the public market for this purpose. But this time, due to the

strength of British Columbia's financial position, the provincial

government has found it possible to assist the MFA in its fund-raising

to a greater degree than ever before, and naturally we are very pleased

to be able to do so. The coupon for this bond issue has been set at

113/8 percent, but the bonds have been discounted to yield 111/2

percent to the provincial government.

Financing in this

manner now allows British Columbia's municipalities to reduce their

short-term indebtedness to banks, which has been carried at a very high

interest rate. This is a private placement — I use that word in the

financial sense, private as opposed to public — and will have issue

cost savings of approximately half a million dollars, those savings

ultimately to be passed along, of course, to all residents of the

participating municipalities.

HON. MR. SMITH: I ask leave of the House to make an introduction.

Leave granted.

HON. MR. SMITH:

The first member for Victoria (Mr. Barber) would want me to make this

introduction, so I make it on his behalf and that of the second member

(Mr. Hanson). I'm very happy today to have a group of 23 students from

Norfolk House School, together with Veronica Blake and Virginia

Marshall-Lang. They are in your gallery. I would ask the Legislature to

make them welcome.

[ Page 2458 ]

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

Leave granted.

MR. STRACHAN:

On behalf of myself and I'm sure the Minister of Labour (Hon. Mr.

Heinrich), I would like this House to welcome Mr. and Mrs. Howard Lloyd.

Orders of the Day

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

HON. MR. GARDOM:

Firstly, Mr. Chairman, I would like to rise on a matter of rare but

very pleasant privilege. The matter is totally in order, because it

just came to my attention today. It is not all that often that Cupid

establishes a contractual presence in these premises, but I'm informed

that it is occasioned. I would ask all of the hon. members to express

their best wishes and congratulations to the hon. member for North

Island (Mr. Gabelmann) and his bride. I see he is having a

well-deserved half-holiday today.

Mr. Speaker, I would ask leave to proceed to public bills and orders.

Leave granted.

HON. MR. GARDOM: Adjourned debate on second reading of Bill 6.

FOREST AND RANGE RESOURCE FUND ACT

(continued)

MR. NICOLSON:

Mr. Speaker, yesterday I outlined some of the ways in which one of the

large interior forest regions had not been replanted at an accelerated

rate, in spite of a few years of accelerated reforestation funding. I

expressed the hope and the optimism that this act would prove to be

more than the tinsel, that it would give us what was promised but did

not materialize under previous efforts of this government toward

accelerated reforestation and, indeed, intensive forest management.

During

second reading of this bill I would also like to indicate to the

minister that we'll need more than intensive forest management if we

are going to allow a continuance of the erosion of the land base upon

which the forest industry is founded. The forest lands are being

reduced in this province by hundreds of thousands of acres, and in many

instances by four and five acres at a time.

It has come to

my attention that we lose large forest areas when we embark upon new

hydroelectric projects. These come out of the annual allowable cut and

reduce the potential of the forest industry in this province. This

problem is so serious that the Council of Forest Industries made

representations to the agriculture committee for lack, I suppose, of a

better public forum for presenting their concern. They talked about the

diminishing forest-land base. This presentation was made a few years

ago.

It has also been brought to my attention that we are

back at the practice of people going out and saying, "Well, I see a

piece of land, I'd like to have a home there," and then, by political

pressure, they get four or five or ten acres of Crown land set aside —

over the objections of the Ministry of Forests.

I have one

example where land in the Creston area — under file No. KD-0354397, in

the Anchor Creek area of the Goat River watershed near Creston — was

alienated to a Mr. McLaren. It appears to have been done on an ad hoc

basis. The alienation of this land was discouraged by the local

conservation officer. The Highways district manager never even saw the

application. The regional district representative turned it down. But

eventually the Lands department voted in favour of it. I know that

Crestbrook Forest Industries was opposed to this on the principle that

it was taking more land out.... I think the expenditure for this piece

of property was not really that great.

If we are going to continue to erode the land base, then all of the moneys that we appropriate in this Legislature....

we cut down on that land base by indiscriminate dispersal of Crown

lands to meet the short-term political objectives of a Crown land

program that is not well thought out, then we will indeed be

self-defeating and going off in many different directions.

have letters of objection to this particular incident. I mention that

in passing because I think it is typical of something that's going on

on a very widespread basis. I will be addressing myself to that problem

more properly in the estimates of the Minister of Lands, Parks and

Housing (Hon. Mr. Chabot) and with some of the persons who have been

responsible for this. It does bring to mind that the land base is not

an infinite resource. That's what this bill is about, and that's what

the minister has said in introducing this bill. Yet there seems to be

less coordination and less power of the local inter-sector committees

to sit down and think out the alienation of Crown lands and to cause

those things to happen on a rational basis. I don't disapprove of

people being given the opportunity to get Crown land, but I certainly

am against it when it goes into....

My first objection would

be when it occurs on prime wildlife-ungulate winter range, which, in

this particular instance, is the case. In respect to this Bill 6, it

also alienates forest land, invades a very major watershed and creates

a precedent and a pressure for the alienation of not just six acres

but, of course, the many others that will follow.

I might

also point out that the minister could look for some ally, I should

think, in the Minister of Education (Hon. Mr. Smith), who is going to

get pressures on him to send school buses five miles to pick up one

little family of children or something, while this indiscriminate type

of non-planned development happens over the objections of almost

everybody.

[Mr. Hyndman in the chair.]

So I say

that it is in that minister's interest — if this money is going to be

well spent and is not going to be spent in vain — that we return to

strong regional coordination as it affects the land base. Presently

there is a move away from that. In Nelson, for instance, the regional

lands office is being moved from Nelson over to Cranbrook, away from

your regional Forests ministry office, away from the land registry

office and away from all of the other forest-land base ministries. Mr.

Speaker, a lot more is needed if we're going to do more than just pay

lip service to the forest industry.

We are going to have to

look also at the wisdom and the full cost of developing hydroelectric

projects when they are reducing the annual allowable cut in an area. Up

to this point we have never measured that. In terms of submissions by

[ Page 2459 ]

B.C.

Hydro to the National Energy Board, they didn't consider the cost of

permanently destroying forest-land base in terms of the economics of

exporting power.

My concern in this matter is that not only

do we just lose the logs, but we lose the jobs. I suppose you could

make a direct computation as to the number of jobs that are lost even

when six acres of land are alienated. It might come up to a fraction of

one job, but if we continue this way and if people can go in and make

representations and put on political pressure to alienate six acres or

one

section of land when it isn't well thought out and when the

interests of the forest-land base are not considered, then this money

would not be well spent.

So I urge the minister to use all

of the power of his office. He is the minister of the largest and most

important resource in this province, and he should not preside over the

destruction of that forest-land base that this bill would hope to

strengthen.

MR. PASSARELL: Mr. Speaker, I have a

number of questions to raise with the minister concerning this bill. A

few weeks ago I asked the minister a series of questions concerning the

seedling program, and specifically, if you remember, Mr. Minister, the

aspect that seedlings were being bought in the United States at three

times the cost of growing the seedlings in British Columbia. I think

many people in British Columbia oppose a seedling program if they're

being bought in the United States, since we should be encouraging our

forest companies and the Forest Service, specifically, to be growing

the necessary amounts of seedlings in British Columbia and not buying

them in the United States. One of the first questions I have for the

minister is: does the purchase of U.S. seedlings for British Columbia

come from the general stumpage revenue? The second question, if the

minister is concerned, is: why must seedlings be purchased in the

United States?

Mr. Speaker, we are fortunate in British

Columbia to have large tracts of Crown land that can be used for

seedling farms. Encouraging the growth of seedlings in British Columbia

could benefit the province itself. In rural areas of this province, for

instance, small communities could be encouraged to run a seedling farm

with profits from the sale of seedlings going back to the community

endeavours.

This is my second series of questions to the

Minister of Forests. Large operators insist on clearcutting logging

operations. Tree planting is imperative in B.C. at this time. It

appears that the province....

Interjections.

MR. PASSARELL:

Mr. Speaker, the member for Omineca (Mr. Kempf) seems to be

interrupting me again. I'm wondering if he's going to make one of his

famous comments again.

It appears at this time B.C. cannot meet its commitment to replant every tree

it cuts. Figures vary, but it appears that for every three trees we cut, we

replant one. In the state of Washington, for instance, it appears that for every

tree they cut, they replant seven. The question to the minister is: would it

not be wise to leave small trees standing, if at all possible, instead of strip-mining

our forests? Concerning the question, I will read three unrealistic cutting

specifications set out in timber licence sales. These quotes are condensed.

The first specification is: — "4-051 — all living and dead trees 20 centimeters

at the butt must be cut; 4-053 — all live trees 3 metres and over in height,

not otherwise required to be falled, shall be falled; 4-054 — all trees will

be utilized to a small top diameter of 15 centimetres when able to sell."

There

is a need in this province for selective logging. All too often when

one drives through this province, we go past a massive area that has

been clearcut of all its growth. It is clearcut to the extent that it

is an eyesore. I'm talking specifically about Highway 37, between Dease

Lake and Cranberry Junction, where it appears that large operators find

it more profitable to leave the mess, lose their bond, and get out

without ever cleaning up the logging operation.

I'd like to

read another quote from a letter sent by Mr. Harry Hanhart Sr., who is

a small logger up in the area of Stewart. Mr. Hanhart says:

"I feel that the Forest Service today is a cumbersome, unwieldy

instrument, highly inefficient and totally out of tune with reality. Thousands

of man-hours are spent by highly paid personnel in making this department more

complicated and making life more miserable for the operators. A lot of our stumpage

money is absorbed in wages for these bureaucrats who have no clue at all what

it is like to live by their regulations."

He goes further, making some uncomplimentary remarks about the minister that

I wouldn't want to read.

The

bill states: "to ensure...funding for the enhanced management of

forest, range and recreation resources of the province." The fund is

$146.6 million. Much of our land in the north is only suitable for

growing trees, so why not cultivate it — rather than employ mining

aspects in the forest industry? Trees are a crop just like wheat or

hay, Mr. Minister, but with a very slow turnover.

It would

be encouraging if this minister would spend some time reading the

Pearse report for suggestions concerning the forest industry. The

report itself was one of the first major forest reports since the Sloan

report, and we need to look at our forests, which are the most

important industry in this province, in terms of the future. Mr.

Speaker, our forests must receive priority listing as our most

important renewable resource for future generations. At this time, I

would appreciate it if the minister could answer the four questions

that I posed to him.

MR. LEGGATT: I rise in support

of the principle of the bill. The bill makes some positive contribution

to the forests of British Columbia. However, I want to make some

suggestions to the minister. I hope he is going to listen to the

debate. I see I have his ear. It concerns our capacity to develop these

kinds of surplus funds that the minister has placed in the bill. In

this particular bill he is setting aside $146.6 million, which is a

significant amount of money, but what I want to suggest is that we have

to make a very serious re-examination of the way we go about collecting

stumpage in the province of British Columbia, because until we get to

the point of reexamining the stumpage formula we will not be able to

develop satisfactory revenues in terms of long-term reforestation, or

you will be drawing funds from other areas where there should be

additional funds and putting them into the forests when those funds

could become available with a proper and adequate stumpage formula.

The

principle of the bill is sound. I would commend the minister's

attention to the minutes of'the public accounts committee. In that

committee you would probably find some

[ Page 2460 ]

unanimity

between the government and opposition members in the examination of the

use of the Vancouver log market in developing stumpage revenues for the

province of British Columbia.

I'm convinced that it is time

for a further commission into that specific aspect around the stumpage

area. Mr. Speaker, you're looking at me slightly quizzically, but I

have an argument on relevancy.... But I would quite seriously suggest

to the minister — and this has been a matter that has been canvassed

very favourably in the public accounts committee, and commented upon by

his assistant deputy minister, Mr. Johnston — that to set a surplus

fund out of your surplus revenue is well and good, but if you will

re-examine the stumpage rate and the stumpage formula, I'm convinced

that literally millions of additional dollars can become available to

any government to enhance their reforestation and range management

programs.

Let me give you some examples from those

deliberations in committee, which I hope the minister will look at

seriously. I want to quote from his assistant deputy minister. This is

what he said on April 30, 1980, in answer to a question of mine:

"I think what you're getting at is: do we have adequate

staff to effectively monitor the performance of people doing the forestry work?

We're just completing a workload study of the area which includes taking

a look at the standards of monitoring that are required and whether we have

adequate staff to meet those standards. It's just in the final stage of

working it through and it would appear we may not have an adequate level of

staff."

Now

that is a very strong statement from an assistant deputy minister. We

all know how cautious an assistant deputy minister must be in terms of

his own particular responsibilities. He's made a very clear statement

here and I hope the minister will look very seriously at the complaints

of his own department on the lack of staff in monitoring the capacity

of revenue-producing in the stumpage area.

What he was

getting at specifically was monitoring the reforestation deductions

that are credited to the major companies in their own reforestation

program. As we know, under the stumpage formula the major forest

companies of British Columbia are entitled to deduct the cost of

reforestation. Admittedly those reforestation programs are under the

direction of the minister's department, but the minister's department

itself is now saying that it does not have adequate staff to check

those deductions that are being claimed against the stumpage for those

revenues.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: On a point of order, the Minister of Forests.

HON. MR. WATERLAND:

I fully appreciate the member's discussion about stumpage and the

problems that he perceives in the stumpage system. However, I hardly

think that second reading of Bill 6 is an appropriate place to discuss

that. My estimates will be coming along shortly and I will very pleased

to have a lengthy discussion with the member. If he wishes to have an

even more detailed discussion, I invite him to my office at any time to

discuss the very complex stumpage appraisal systems — both the interior

and the coast.

MR. LEGGATT: Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the minister's intervention

around this. I might say that if the minister is interested in seeing this bill

pass, and interested in the principle of the bill which is setting aside surplus

funds for the purpose of forest and range management, what I'm suggesting

is within the ambit of the bill. I'm suggesting the funds should be much

less if the minister had proceeded in a different manner in collecting stumpage.

DEPUTY SPEAKER:

For the benefit of the member for Coquitlam-Moody, Bill 17 — also on

the order paper, of course — probably affords more relevant scope, as

well as the estimates, for the point which I think he's now making. If

the member wishes to make some reference to stumpage in a very

supplementary and parenthetical way, the Chair is prepared to allow

that, so long as it is clearly referable to the concept of the bill,

which is a surplus appropriation.

MR. LEGGATT: I will

endeavour to do that. The second aspect of this problem, which I want

the minister to seriously examine, is, firstly, his ministry's lack of

capacity to monitor the reforestation deductions that the companies are

charging against those stumpage rates, and secondly, the complete

inadequacy of the Vancouver log market, as disclosed by the Task Force

on Crown Timber Disposal in 1974. It's been a long time since that

study was done. It's clearly inadequate. It's clearly a market which

does not reflect the real value of the timber. The interior of this

province uses an entirely different formula; it's a fairer formula, I

would submit — it's one that deals with the end product rather than the

log itself. Again, this cries out for either a parliamentary committee

or a commission study on that specific aspect. Again, to refer to the

bill in question, what we have here is a bill which sets aside $146.6

million of public money raised from the public, not from the forest

sector. This bill would be unnecessary if adequate stumpage rates were

collected by the minister's department. That's why I say it's

completely relevant to the bill. We wouldn't be looking at this bill if

the recommendations of the Pearse royal commission in 1974 had been

properly followed, and we had changed the formula under which we

determine lumber values for stumpage purposes out of the Vancouver log

market.

This complaint of lack of staff, it seems to me,

follows along a bit of philosophy. When you cut staff in your

revenue-producing departments you are reducing revenue to the Crown.

This is something we could apply in sales tax as well as stumpage. You

must be sure you have adequate staff in your tax-collecting agency, or

the result is that the public continues to lose revenues which should

be appropriately brought into the public treasury.

Today I'm

making a strong suggestion to the minister that he now embark upon

another commission, and that commission should take a specific look at

the Vancouver log market as a way of developing stumpage. He should

also immediately adopt the recommendations of his associate deputy

minister, and enhance the investigative staff for those deductions that

are being claimed against stumpage — enhance it to the point that his

staff wants and needs. Forget cost-cutting in that particular area,

because we could be losing literally millions of dollars in revenue as

a result of a nickel-and-dime philosophy in terms of the staffing on

the investigative side.

MRS. WALLACE: I want to make

just a few remarks on this bill. Some are to reiterate some of the

things my colleagues have said, and there are one or two new points

that I wish to raise.

[ Page 2461 ]

certainly agree that the amount of money involved here is not adequate

to cope with the size of the problem we're facing. I know the minister

has pointed out on many occasions what a tremendous problem we are

facing. He has said at some public functions — he's been quoted as

saying — that we will be running out of trees in ten years and we have

to do something about it. I have quotes here; I'm not going to read

them. His deputy minister has indicated the same thing. We're all

agreed that we're in a bad situation as far as our fibre supply goes.

We now have the knowledge and technology to at least take some steps;

we've had it for a long time, but we haven't had the money. This bill

is a small, tiny step in that right direction, but it's not

sufficiently big to really deal with the problem.

One of my

concerns is the shortage of seedlings; it's a concern of everyone.

Certainly that shortage of seedlings is increased by what is perhaps a

good average survival rate; but I'm suggesting to the minister that

perhaps we could have some improvement in that survival rate, were

there sufficient funds available to ensure that those seedlings had

some degree of attention after the first planting.

Forestry

has been related to agriculture as being a crop that we grow, and

certainly no agriculturalist would be satisfied to have 50 percent

generation of the plants that are planted, or even 85 percent. The fact

that you plant that seedling and leave it certainly contributes to the

high mortality rate that occurs. I'm not saying that it's any higher

than anywhere else; it's probably lower than a lot of places. But the

fact remains that there is a mortality rate, and as long as we have

that mortality rate and as long as we're short of seedlings we could do

something to improve our position by tending that crop, as it were: by

putting some kind of cap over that tree to protect it, or even by

hiring more staff that could retrace the steps of the planters and

water at an interval. The kind of things that any farmer would do could

certainly be carried out in the forest industry as well to ensure the

protection of those trees. Those things, of course, cost money; but the

importance of ensuring that our forest is replanted and replenished as

rapidly as possible is one that we have to face in British Columbia,

because we have waited so long to start facing the very serious problem.

I'm

concerned, as I said, about the amount of money set aside in this bill.

I don't believe it's nearly enough, and in addition to that I have some

concerns as to whether or not it's going to be spent. My reason is that

when I review last year's accounts I find that we had an amount of $10

million set aside for one year, and as of the end of December only

approximately half of that had been expended. I'm sure that very little

reforestation was carried on between the end of December and April 1. I

would suspect that when the accounts are in for the end of the fiscal

year we will find that that situation still prevails. I'm concerned,

when we have this amount of money spread over a five-year period, that

we may find at the end of this fiscal year that nowhere near a fifth of

that money has been expended.

I'm concerned for another

reason as well. Another provision in the bill indicates that this fund

will be established and that the interest accrued from that fund will

be paid back into consolidated revenue. It seems to me, Mr. Speaker, if

the minister is sincere in his wish to make funds available for

reforestation he could have at least provided that the interest from

the unexpended moneys in the fund would also go to reforestation rather

than simply return to consolidated revenue. When I look at that aspect

of the bill, coupled with the fact that past experience has indicated

that moneys so set aside have not been expended, I'm concerned that

this is just another pocket of money for this government to set aside —

take it out of the annual expenditures and collect the interest on that

money back into consolidated revenue. I'm concerned that we may stand

in this House a year from now and find that that fund is more or less

intact.

I know that the bill includes restoration of

rangeland, and I know some of the problems that are being faced in the

attempted resolution of land use — the conflicts of interest over that

rangeland. I would suspect that a very few dollars out of this $146.6

million — or whatever it is — will be expended on rangeland restoration

within the next year, because I don't think the present conflicts as to

how that rangeland is to be used and allocated will be resolved. I

believe the minister needs to add decidedly to his staff to ensure that

the people are available to resolve these conflicts, because until they

are resolved we are not going to get on with the business of range

restoration. Certainly we are not going to get on with it in any way

that's going to have a long-term meaningful benefit to the province

unless we do resolve the conflicts.

For those reasons, while

I support the bill, I am very concerned that we don't have a more firm

commitment from this government not only to expend the total dollars

set forth in this bill but also to ensure that more dollars will be

available. This amount of dollars is far from enough to resolve the

problem, and to attempt to tell the public that this bill is going to

resolve the problems that face British Columbia in the forest industry

is to bring a sense of false security to the public, because it is not

going to resolve those problems. It will go a little way, but it will

not go anywhere near providing the total answer in solving the problems

in the forest industry.

I am supporting the bill because at

least it is something, but I am concerned that the minister has not

seen fit to expend the moneys voted to him last year, and I am

concerned that next year we may find little expended from this fund.

Finally, I am concerned that the interest from that fund will not be

added to it but rather returned to consolidated revenue.

MR. HALL:

I want to make a confession to you: this is probably the first speech

I've ever made on forestry in the House for a number of years, although

in my riding there is probably the beginnings of all the forest

industry in B.C. In the sense that Green Timbers nursery is there, and

that is important. After the minister replies to me, it may be the last

speech I ever make on forestry. We'll see.

I want to see if

I can get the minister to respond to some numbers, because that is

really what we're talking about. Everybody in this House has

congratulated the minister for producing the document. I think

everybody in the House has congratulated the minister for trying to

address the problem and produce the report. Where we are going wrong is

in the numbers we see and whether or not we can assess the numbers

correctly and then evaluate whether the application of those numbers is

going to do the job.

If I may occasionally drift from the

bill, just touching lightly onto the budget and then dashing back to

the bill.... It is difficult to get it together, because I think the

minister wants the best of every conceivable, possible world.

MR. BRUMMET: For B.C.

[ Page 2462 ]

MR. HALL:

We all want that, Mr. Member for North Peace River. But he wants the

best of every conceivable world in every argument he has, and that is

something we might not be prepared to give him.

The $388

million figure he's got to play with, first of all, includes the entire

Forest Service budget, and the same is true of the $1.4 billion forest

management program. The actual increase in the forestry budget is only

$32 million. That has got to be taken into consideration, at the same

time, in accompaniment with the kind of money in this bill.

The

increase in the staff is what I'm bothered about, because I've seen

good programs put forward from the early sixties — if I may be

political for a second — by Social Credit administrations, and then no

staff and no allowances put forward to put into programmatic effect

those good intentions. I can think of the Attorney-General in 1952

doing that.

Interjection.

MR. HALL:

Nothing was ever done. Ecological reserves, green belts, all sorts of

things, Mr. Member — you, as a young teenager, driving around the wilds

of north and south Delta, will have seen some of those things.

Nevertheless, I always want to see where the performance is. The

research staff, which is going to have a lot to do with this bill,

remains unchanged. Silviculture staff increases by 12, and the

estimates for temporary salaries of professional services are up. That

is the basis upon which we approach this big task.

[Mr. Davidson in the chair.]

agree wholeheartedly that it is a huge responsibility and one in which

we want to see the minister succeed. Some $84 million is to be

allocated from stumpage for reforestation and other matters. The $146

million will apparently be spent over five years. At most then, extra

expenditures for reforestation, the intensive forest management that

the minister refers to, between '80 and '81 will total about $100

million, and the bulk of this will be spent by the forest companies.

The monitoring of that major effort is the one that has caused me and

the member for Coquitlam-Moody (Mr. Leggatt) to have some concern.

Because under examination by members of the committee, members of the

minister's staff have indicated.... I don't want to read the actual

minister but the evidence here is that there is not the staff to do

that, although there is the knowledge, the concern and, I am sure, the

intention to improve that position.

I want to hear from the

minister what plans there are to make sure there is an adequate staff

level to achieve the standards of monitoring that are required. That

was mentioned under examination April 30 and May 7, and in the workload

study that's going on. I want to hear the minister give us that kind of

assurance.

MacMillan Bloedel estimate, Mr. Minister, that an

expenditure of $15 million to $18 million per year between '80 and '85

will create 50 to 75 salaried positions and some 70 to 100 man-years of

hourly paid employment by 1985. That doesn't include any capital

expenditures. If you take those figures as a rough guide, you can

estimate what the expenditure of close to $100 million, which I

maintain will be left over, could directly create in salaried positions

and some man-years of employment. But I think we need the assurance of

the minister that that's exactly what's going to happen. I want to see

what broad brush-strokes in terms of manpower and monitoring services

he's got in the back of his mind for this bill. It's taking place after

successive governments have not done their job on reforestation, after

years and years have gone past without the companies doing the correct

job, and after the companies have frankly abandoned, because of lack of

supervision, in my view, or lack of legislative clout, or whatever is

required, some of our heritage that we should have insisted be

nurtured. I admit that that probably wasn't done as well as it should

have been between '72 and '75. Now we've got that to pick up, and I'm

not too sure that this program is going to do it.

Those

kinds of strictures I'm asking to be looked at, and I would hope the

minister would give us that kind of response. This whole thing has got

to be looked at against the background of unprecedented profit levels

by the corporations that are enjoying this resource. For instance, the

direct revenues from forests — that's stumpage and logging tax —

totalled 9.3 percent of B.C. government revenue in 1973; in 1974 they

went up to 13.3 percent — that was the highest they'd been for a long,

long time. They fell back dreadfully in the slump of 1975 to 1976, back

to 2.5 percent. When the minister's party came back to power, direct

revenues from forests went to 3 percent, and in 1979.... I think

they've now reached 10 percent — I obviously haven't got last year's;

it's not yet reported. I hope it's a lot more than 10 percent. I

wonder, however, if it's gone as high as 13.3 percent. I just don't

know, and that's an interrogative, clinical, quite innocent question of

the minister — I'd like to know what the last figures were.

AN HON. MEMBER: It's out of order.

MR. HALL:

I don't think it's out of order, when you consider what we're doing for

this resource, when I maintain that it's not been done adequately for

some years.

Interjection.

MR. HALL: That's right, and I could do without the heckling too, in view of the happenings of the last couple of days.

Direct

forest revenues, Mr. Speaker, are expected to fall back this coming

year, probably to 5 percent. Now if the revenues are falling back and

we're ploughing this money in, I'd like to see the real figures for

what's going on. Nobody is saying that this side has got the only

interest in this business, and I don't think anybody on that side is

saying that they have the monopoly of interest either.

This,

the most important industry of all, needs that kind of attention, and

that's why I've been compelled — impelled, if you like — to make a

speech on forestry for the first time. Normally we leave it to the

members who have a direct personal contact and direct personal

involvement in the business. But I think it's time that many of the

city members engaged in this kind of debate and found out — perhaps for

the benefit of the people who work in the finishing end of the business

— a little more of what's going on in the natural and basic economy of

the province. And for that I thank you, Mr. Speaker. I hope the

minister will answer in the spirit of those questions. There will be

two or three more speakers, I think, engaged in this kind of debate on

this kind of bill, the most important kind of bill in front of us in

this chamber.

[ Page 2463 ]

MR. SKELLY:

Mr. Speaker, it's a pleasure to take

part in the debate on this bill.

I'm surprised that more members of the government caucus, especially

the silent back bench over there, have not taken the opportunity, since

they appear to believe that this is an extremely important bill for the

province of B.C.

Interjections.

MR. SKELLY:

I'm perfectly willing to allow someone to take my place, if anybody

were prepared to speak on that side. We've heard what that member has

had to say before. He simply changes the words, but the speech is

always the same.

Interjections.

MR. SKELLY: No, I counted them before I stood up, and there were none.

HON. MR. WATERLAND: I'll speak.

MR. SKELLY: I think you'll be next, Mr. Waterland.

any case, I'm standing in support of the principle of this bill. I do

believe that inadequate funds have been allocated in the past to

intensive management of the forest resource. One of the best ways you

can spend surplus funds in the province, if they are true surplus

funds, is to plough them back into the industry which provides our

bread and butter. I'm talking in particular about the bread and butter

of the electorate of the Alberni provincial constituency. So I strongly

support the principle of increasing the allocation of money to the

development of our forests, especially in this critical period of

transition between old growth and new growth and all the problems that

attend to that transition.

I also agree with the principle

of providing some kind of funding over a longer term instead of

operating on a year-by-year basis. In general, when you have a lot of

revenue from the Forest Service making expenditures, you meet the

obligations in that year. But when you have very little revenue, you

fall back. You tend to fall back more and more in the lean years when

you're not getting that stumpage or taxation revenue from the resource.

So I prefer to see the minister who is managing a long-term renewable

resource to put money in over a long-term period and to assure the

people who are involved in that resource, and whose livings depend on

that resource, that they are going to have some assurance over a

longer-term period than in the past.

I also support the idea

of submitting the five-year descriptions of the state of the art, the

state of our forests and also the five-year management plans for forest

and range. I support all those in principle and, therefore, support the

principle of this bill.

I do have some concerns, however. Those concerns have been expressed by other

members who have been on their feet in this debate. We really don't have

sufficient detail to make a good judgment on whether this is a good expenditure

of public money. The minister made a brief opening statement about how the money

was going to be spent. But if we're only going to be spending $19 million

or so out of this bill in the first year, Mr. Speaker, and if we're going

to be dividing it between the forest resource and all of those things the minister

mentioned — intensive silviculture, forest protection, development of NSR sites,

improvement of the range resource and the development of recreational sites

— then that $19 million, which isn't very much money in today's terms,

is going to be spread pretty thinly over the ministry and over the resource.

I'm kind of concerned that it is not enough money. We don't really have

sufficient detail about what the minister is planning to do with the $19 million

in the first year and the $146 million over the balance of the five years. It's

not as much as I thought it was. We don't really have sufficient detail.

This

ministry has been developing in what I think is the correct way, Mr.

Speaker, and it's kind of at odds with the present government in the

way that it is going. The ministry is coming down with White Papers on

forest policy and allowing comment from all sectors of the industry and

groups in the public. We're looking at silvicultural policies, policies

for tree nurseries, nurseries in the private sector, farm woodlots, and

programs for allocating timber. I think that's the right way to go.

Unfortunately,

he's begun the procedure, but I don't think he's followed through

adequately on the procedure and allowed sufficient public comment on

the policies before they're developed. People seem to have the feeling

that when the White Paper comes out, the public then make statements in

a very informal way or by way of letter to the minister, and then a

policy is announced. There isn't kind of sufficient cross-feeding

between the public, the industry and the ministry before the policy is

announced in its final form.

Possibly over the next five

years. or when the next plans are submitted, I hope the minister is

going to look fairly carefully at the way the public is involved in

making suggestions on forest policy, the way this money is going to be

spent and also the way the public is involved in the management of

forests and government programs after we have voted the money in this

bill.

I think the minister would do well to look at the U.S.

Forest Service and some of the regulations that have come down in the

management of the United States' forests. They are moving very

successfully and very quickly towards a program for full public

involvement in the way the national forests are managed in the United

States. I hope that the minister is moving in that direction and that

we can see some sort of law in the area of public involvement in the

development of policy and in the management of forests in the province

of British Columbia.

Also, I would like to see a broadening

of the involvement. This was suggested in the recent report that was

done under TIDSA, where the consultants hired by TIDSA to look into the

tourism resource in British Columbia made the comment that one of the

problems we have in resource development in British Columbia is that in

the operation of our first industry, forestry, we don't take into

account enough the needs of the second industry, tourism and

recreation, which provides the next highest amount of dollars to the

economy of British Columbia. That one industry, in the way it's

operated, doesn't take into account well enough the needs of the second

industry. There should be a bit of broadening of public involvement, so

people concerned about that second industry, tourism, are involved in

some of the decisions made in the first industry, the operation of the

forest industry, so that the two don't conflict.

When the

government House Leader and I were on a select standing committee of

this Legislature a few years ago — when those committees actually did

some work....

[ Page 2464 ]

That

particular committee hasn't done any work since the present government

took over in 1976. But at that time, those committees were working and

seeking public involvement and we got some very valuable comments from

the public. One of the things that was brought forward to our committee

was the Ontario logging guidelines, where they used landuse architects

and landscape architects to develop forest openings, roads and

clearcuts in such a way that they don't constitute such a problem for

the tourist resource. So I would hope in the future the ministry might

consult other ministries of government, and especially the ministry

responsible for that second major industry in B.C., the tourism

industry.

One of the things that the minister mentioned in

his opening remarks was the forest protection aspect. I feel that the

way the ministry handles insect control at the present time is

unsatisfactory. It's based on some antiquated beliefs about insect

control and it's a very costly way of going. The minister will remember

the aborted spruce budworm program in the Fraser Canyon, where we were

looking at spending a million dollars on control of the spruce budworm

in the first year. Well, that would eat up one-twentieth of the money

allocated in this coming year under this bill. If the minister had

adopted that form of insect control all over the province, it probably

would have eaten up the whole bill and nothing would be left for

intensive silviculture, and, really, not that much wood would have been

saved for harvesting and conversion.

There is a different

approach to insect control, which was suggested in a letter to the

minister from the Sierra Club recently, when the Sierra Club was

commenting on management of beetles in lodgepole pine stems. Also,

there is another approach to insect control — which is being adopted by

the orchardists in the Okanagan — where they are looking at the forest

as a complete ecosystem, rather than as standing wood which is

vulnerable to being eaten by bugs — therefore, if you see the bugs, you

go in and spray and hope that the forest won't be eaten at as rapid a

rate. That's an old and antiquated system of insect management. I would

hope that the minister, in adopting a new and better-financed approach

to silviculture and forest management, will consider new approaches to

insect control, because the old approaches have been singularly

unsuccessful and extremely expensive, and I would hate to see any of

this money wasted on that approach to insect control.

The

new ones are based on what they call the integrated pest management

movement. It was developed by a number of universities in the United

States. Two of the major proponents on the west coast are Helga and

William Olkowski of the John Muir Institute in Berkeley, California.

They came up and discussed the basis of the movement with a number of

people from the Forest Service, the University of British Columbia, the

city of Vancouver — which was involved in a gypsy moth spraying program

at the time — and the provincial and federal departments of

agriculture. It was a refreshing new approach.

There's also

a consultant, as I say, working for the orchardists in the Okanagan who

has managed to reduce insect damage in those orchards, and has managed

to reduce the amount of money spent on sprays simply by taking a little

more care and observation of the problem. That's just one of the

specific things I would like to bring to the minister's attention

before he closes debate on the bill.

As I said before, Mr. Speaker, in principle I support the allocation of additional

moneys for intensive forest management and I support the minister's objective

in spending this money and assuring this money over a longer term.

MR. MUSSALLEM:

It's nice to hear the member for Nelson-Creston (Mr. Nicolson) being so

positive and recommending this bill. Indeed it's a landmark bill.

Although it is unnecessary for me to speak on it, I cannot let the

opportunity pass to express my point of view and to compliment the

minister on what he has brought together at this time. It is impossible

to look at this bill in isolation. This bill is the sum total of long

years of expertise and planning throughout the years of this

government. It is also desirable to note that during that time three

years of socialism has ensued. I cannot help but remark on the member

for Surrey when he referred to the years of the socialist regime in

British Columbia, 1972-75, but he failed to make note of the fact of

how, at that time, this industry almost hit the bottom of its cycle,

how everybody was out on strike and how the plywood business had

practically disappeared; and chaos reigned supreme. Mind you, we don't

look on that with any pride, except for the little ripple in the upward

stride of this great industry in British Columbia, well managed

throughout the years. The foresight used in previous years is now

coming to fruition. We are fortunate to have the minister we have, who

can grasp the opportunities that are here and who can produce a bill of

this kind to bring us to this new plateau of greatness in British

Columbia. What other industry in the year of 1970 would think of

producing power from woodchips? It was unheard of; it was called

ridiculous. But those were the days when that started, when

environmentalists were practically unknown, and the lumber and wood

industry was urged to maintain the streams and forests. It's a great

opportunity. It's a time I cannot let pass, having sat in this House

through those years.

Mr. Speaker smiled. Is he thinking I'm

occupying valuable time? Well, of course I'm occupying valuable time.

That's what should be said here. It should be said clearly that there

is no negativism on our side. We are positive. The member for

Coquitlam-Moody (Mr. Leggatt) made some remarks; he was in favour of

the bill. Everyone is in favour of the bill, except they have the word

"however." "However" is only a word used by the opposition in being a

little negative — sometimes more negative than others, but always

negative.

Progress has been shown in this industry. This

industry, which was in the foreground — and it needn't have been in the

foreground — could have been mismanaged. But every step of the way

throughout 20 years of Social Credit government before '72 and seven

years after there was progress every inch of the way until today it's a

mighty industry representing thee core employment of British Columbia.

I just cannot let the opportunity pass without complimenting the

minister again for producing a landmark bill of this kind. No matter

how you dissect it, no matter how you take it apart, no matter how you

refer to it, you must come to the conclusion that it is the sum total

of a great job well done. I think this House should pay him every

compliment and say: well done, good and faithful minister.

HON. MR. WATERLAND:

It's quite rare in the Legislature that we do have as serious a

discussion as we have had on Bill 6. I think it demonstrates the

awareness of the members on both sides of the House of the importance

of this forest resource and range resource in the province.

A number of questions have been asked. I don't want to

[ Page 2465 ]

take

up too much of the House's time, but I do think legitimate questions

have been asked with legitimate concern. I would like to go through the

questions asked. I won't repeat my answers, because some questions have

been repeated a number of times. I would like to run through some of

the points raised.

First of all, starting with the member

for Alberni (Mr. Skelly).... This question was raised by most of the

members who spoke — that is, that it's not enough money. Mr. Speaker,

the funding provided in Bill 6, plus the budgetary amounts, plus the

amounts offset against stumpage, over the next five-year period amount

to $1.5 billion. I would point out — particularly to the member for

Nanaimo (Mr. Stupich), who said it wasn't enough to keep up with

inflation — that these funds are in 1980 dollars, and allowances will

be made for inflation. This is a base amount, Mr. Speaker, in 1980

dollars. The Minister of Finance (Hon. Mr. Curtis) himself made an

attempt to project future inflation in his analysis of the economy of

B.C. This program is in 1980 dollars, and allowance will be made from

year to year for inflation. This is the bottom line, the basic amount.

The

member for Alberni talked about the White Paper approach, and the

thought that he had that perhaps not enough attention is paid to

feedback. Let me assure that member that in developing the White Papers

— and we have had a number of them and will have more. Before the White

Paper is produced, we have extensive consultation with the private

sector, the general public and anybody who shows an interest. White

Papers are developed as the best distillation of the comment and

requirements we have for management. When feedback comes from the White

Paper, that usually leads to additional modification of what was stated

in the White Paper. Feedback is important. We do listen. We have taken

the consultative approach because forest management is much more than

just managing timber production.

The member also mentioned

the fact that we don't allow enough consultation with other ministries.

He will recall that the Ministry of Forests Act states that we must

manage the forest in consultation and with input from other ministries

and the general public, and we do. We are broadening this as much as

possible. As a matter of fact, Mr. Member, we do have landscape

architects on our staff and we use them extensively in areas in which

forest harvesting may have visual impact. We've had these people for a

year or so now and they're offering us some excellent advice. So other

ministries and other needs of the land base are very important to us.

We do, of course, listen and respond whenever we can.

The

member went into insect control to some extent. Insect and disease

control are extremely necessary. We lose the equivalent each year of

about one-third of our annual harvest to insects, disease and fire,

most of that being to insects and disease. We can't control pine

beetles and bark beetles by spraying. I know the Sierra Club suggested

that we do it through the management of the harvesting of trees before

a certain age. With lodgepole pine and the problems we have now with

them.... Lodgepole pine has only been a commercial species in B.C. for

15 years or so, and the trees that are under attack are usually in the

80-year age class. Yes, starting now we can do that, We can't all of a

sudden harvest those older stands which have been there for many years.

The

second member for Surrey (Mr. Hall) is no longer in the Legislature,

but I would encourage him to make additional speeches on forestry. I

think he raised some very good points, primarily related to the

staffing increases which he sees as necessary to carry out our

programs. Let me say that we are planning for a modest staff increase,

I believe 32 this year, but our objective is not to have government

employees do the work. We'll monitor it and we'll direct it. The

objective is to have as much of it as possible done in the private

sector, and I think that's the way it should be.

Getting to

the staffing and the level of expenditure.... We in the ministry

prepared this program for presentation to cabinet and subsequently to

the Legislature. This is the optimum level of planning that can be

managed in an efficient manner. We could spend an extra $100 million

this year, I'm sure, but we would waste 90 percent of it, because

before you can do this type of work first of all you have to develop

the people with the expertise to do it and you have to continue to

learn about the response of a forest to the things we are doing. If we

send inexperienced crews into stands where we perhaps don't have enough

technical information, they could degrade the stands instead of

enhancing them, through improper stand treatment work. This is the

optimum amount and the first of continuous five-year programs. Already

we are working on next year's five-year program. That has to be

presented to our legislative counsel by this September. That will add

one year to this program as we drop off the last year. So it's the

beginning of ongoing five-year programs. As we learn more and more

about the response of the forests to the things we do to it, we will be

able to increase these programs and, indeed, increase the wood

available to us.

As an aside, the concern expressed by the

member for Skeena (Mr. Howard) was that the program is not enough to

provide that cut as soon as it will be needed. We have stands in

British Columbia at various ages of maturity now, both naturally

replanted and artificially replanted, and as these stands reach

maturity great increases in their growth rate can be achieved through

silviculture treatments. I have a couple of examples here. This tree,

if you can see, up to about this age — I would guess that is about the

80-year age class — had very little growth, It was thinned then, and

you can see the tremendous increase in wood volume that was put on at

that time. I have another example, and this, I believe, is a coastal

hemlock. This line in here represents an age of about 100 years, and in

the following 12 or so years its volume increased tremendously.

AN HON. MEMBER: Are you going to table that?

HON. MR. WATERLAND: No, I won't table it. I think I'll make a table of it, Mr. Minister.

These

are examples of the tremendous increases in wood volume growth that you

can get through stem treatment work. This type of thing makes me very

optimistic as to our ability to meet the natural falldown effect.

Members

have expressed concerns about the forest-land base and that's a concern

of mine as well. The forest-land base is shrinking as our population

expands and as we put more and more environmental constraints on the

use of that forest-land base. We alienate it for other very legitimate

uses such as highways, rights-of-way, powerline rights-of-way,

agricultural and urban development, wilderness areas. It erodes the

land base. Most of them are legitimate needs of the people of British

Columbia.

I am working right now with my colleagues, especially the Minister of Lands, Parks and Housing (Hon. Mr. Cha-

[ Page 2466 ]

bot),

to establish additional provincial forest reserves. We have some 79 of

them now, and another 50 hopefully will be in place by the end of 1981.

This will not take land out of other uses but will ensure that as we

make these tremendous investments in forest land management we are

investing the money in lands that will be kept in forest production.

That is very important. The estimates given of the loss of forest land

are not what we would like to see lost. In fact, it goes far beyond

what we would like to see. It doesn't meet the expectations of many,

but it's a good, realistic estimate of what will happen to the land

base over the years, as these other demands have to be met to a certain

extent.

The forest-land base is not a static thing. It

increases and decreases. Some of the uneconomic lands we have now will

come back into the forest-land base as our harvesting technology

improves. Nothing is static. The inventory we have, the allowable cut,

is not static. It changes from year to year, and it will change in an

upward direction as we continue to do a better job of managing the land

base.

I know I am boring some of my colleagues, but I think

this is an important enough subject that we should give it the

attention it deserves.

Members have mentioned that the

Forest Service is unwieldy and that we don't have adequate staff with

proper training to monitor the things we're doing, to monitor the

expenses being made by the private sector. Let me assure the members

that we do, and as we are now getting into the final stages of Forest

Service reorganization the capability will be even greater, because

we'll be spending much less time sending memos back and forth. The

different levels of management will be making on-site decisions with

people closer to the field.

So many people talk about

replanting as a reforestation program. It is not a reforestation

program at all. It is a total forest management program, reforestation

being but one part, albeit an important part. We must not only plant

where we have to; we must prepare for natural reforestation, because

that is more than adequate in many, many areas. In fact, in many areas

natural regeneration does too good a job and the areas get overstocked.

So planting and reforestation is but one part of the total process.

The

member for Cowichan-Malahat (Mrs. Wallace) said we must look after

those seedlings after they are planted. Indeed we do, but I don't think

we can go so far as to have people going around with watering-cans. We

do go back and check on survival rates. On average, survival in British

Columbia is as good as anywhere in the world. We must remember that we

have a terribly complex forest with wide variation in climatic

conditions, altitude and latitude — perhaps one of the most complex

forests in the world. We have a lot more to learn about it. Our

survival rate is increasing all the time; in some areas it is close to

90 percent, in other areas we are fortunate to get 50 percent. But no

one should expect that every seedling planted will survive into a

mature tree. That's not realistic: it doesn't happen here; it can't

happen here; it doesn't happen anywhere in the world.

The

member for Nelson-Creston (Mr. Nicolson) talked about seedling

plantations in his area and compared 1975 to subsequent years. He will

probably recall a report of the Forest Service where we had some

terrible survival problems in those years. We have pulled back on the

level of plantation there until we learn how to overcome some of the

mortality we had in those plantations.

Mr. Speaker, I

believe I have covered most of the general areas of concern raised by

members. There are a number of misconceptions as to what forest

management means, as to what happens when we clearcut. The member for

Skeena was talking about clear-cutting policy raging throughout the

province. Clearcutting is a very legitimate silvicultural tool; it is a

method of harvesting used by every forest jurisdiction in the world

that I have visited, and I have visited many in the last few years.

Many areas get a substantial amount of their wood from commercial

thinnings prior to clearcutting, but in most types of forests

clearcutting is the final harvesting method. It is the way Mother

Nature does it; it is the way we do it. Some of our forests lend

themselves to selective logging. I think the Kamloops forest region is

a good example. Last year over 50 percent of the area harvested was

harvested by selective logging. The harvesting prescription is dictated

by the forest: what the forest is, the species you have, its location.

Clearcutting is not universally used, but it is used to a great extent.

The

amount of funding over the period of this program is going to increase

spending by 34 percent in 1980 dollars. As I said, that is the optimum

level of spending that we can manage effectively without wasting money

and without, perhaps, degrading some of our forests. New programs will

come, year to year. Every year we will have a new five-year program

which must be approved by the government and which, I'm sure, will be

approved by the Legislature. We have to recognize the fact, and I think

most members do, that our number one industry in British Columbia is

still forestry. Our most important resource is still our forest and

range resource. We will only get out of it in the future what we put

into it now — the luxury of endless fields of untapped prime virgin

forest is behind us.

I'm very happy, Mr. Speaker, that all members will be supporting this motion. I move that the bill be now read a second time.

Motion approved unanimously on a division.

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

Bill

6, Forest and Range Resource Fund Act, read a second time and referred

to a Committee of the Whole House for consideration at the next sitting

of the House after today.

HON. MR. GARDOM: Adjourned debate on second reading of Bill 5.

SPECIAL PURPOSE

APPROPRIATION ACT, 1980

(continued)

MR. SKELLY:

I intend to vote against this bill, Mr. Speaker, unlike the last one,

and for a number of reasons. First of all, I don't agree with the

principle of the bill. The fact that you should take surplus

funds...and I don't really agree that they're surplus funds. You just

create an artificial surplus by understating your anticipated revenue

and by 7 overstating your expenditures, and then cutting down on the

expenditures to create an artificial surplus.

Interjections.

MR. SKELLY: I'm criticizing our own government, because during our term of office we ran up surpluses as well.

[ Page 2467 ]

you read the Socred leaflets you won't find them there, but if you read

the budget statements of the province for every year until the Social

Credit government took over in 1975, you'll find the surpluses there,

Mr. Speaker, I would urge you to reject the rewritten histories and

newspeak of the Social Credit Party, which I can see you've been doing

over the last little while, having taken a look at the whole process

from a fairly neutral point of view. I would urge you to take a look at

those old budget speeches and the public accounts of the years when the

NDP was in office, and you'll find there was a surplus in every year in

which we had control over the finances. But I still don't agree with it.

think that a surplus should be an unusual occurrence. Either you should

set aside funds for contingencies for the lean years and you should so

state in the budget, or else you should more accurately predict the

performance of the economy and the performance of the government in the

way they take on revenues and expend the taxpayers' money. Mr. Speaker,

that is not the proper way to do it, so I disagree with that.

also think that most of the expenditures that have been placed in the

Special Purpose Appropriation Act should not legitimately be here in

this bill. These expenditures should be within the individual budgetary

estimates of the individual ministries. Of course, the $26 million they

talk about spending on the debt that Social Credit created after they

came to office in 1975 is a piece of fiction that we can all ignore in

discussing this bill. But an example is the $100 million that's being

allocated here to the Minister of Transportation and Highways (Hon. Mr.

Fraser).

Now the minister, when he stood up to talk during

debate on this bill, said he wasn't going to talk about how this money

was going to be expended. He said it was capital expenditure and it

would increase his capital budget by something like 33 percent, but he

wasn't going to tell us how it was going to be spent. He said we can

cover that during his budget estimates. But that's not the proper place

to deal with an expenditure of $100 million; the proper place to deal

with that expenditure, Mr. Speaker, is when you vote for it on the

bill. The minister didn't give an adequate explanation of how he was

going to spend that $100 million, which would be an addition to his

capital budget. But the minister did attempt to explain — in the way

that Social Credit people rewrite history in this province — how the

capital budget has been spent since they took office in 1976. He called

the former Minister of Highways "Pothole Lea." Well, Mr. Speaker, in my

riding they call that member "Pothole Fraser."

[Mr. Strachan in the chair.]

Interjection.

MR. SKELLY:

No, they call him that in the riding. I don't call him that here. I

call him the member for Cariboo. But in my riding they call him

"Pothole Fraser," because he hasn't done sufficient work in my riding

to maintain the roads that were built there by the NDP or that were

sufficiently maintained there by the NDP. I've talked to the employees

in the minister's own ministry, and they say that funds have been

effectively cut back in that ministry and in that area since the Social

Credit government took over in 1975-76. They say that they don't have

sufficient money to keep up with the deterioration of roads in Alberni

constituency, and that even if they spent $1 million a year on

maintaining those roads, you wouldn't see any impact for the next five

years. That's how badly the roads have been allowed to deteriorate in

the rural areas of Vancouver Island.

Mr. Speaker, I intend

to bring this to your attention at every single opportunity that I have

in this Legislature, to show what a poor job the Minister of Highways

is doing in Alberni constituency, and the fact that he should pull

himself up by his bootstraps and get to work. Don't just vote him these

$100 million funds with no explanation as to where they're going to go;

we demand an explanation as to where they're going to go. That's why

the people in our constituencies sent us here in the first place. This

bill does not provide us adequate scope for debate to question the

minister in any detail as to how this money is going to be spent.

Just

within the last little while, the regional district of

Alberni-Clayoquot wrote to the Minister of Highways: "Dear Mr. Fraser:

At its last meeting the regional board discussed the general conditions

of highways and rural roads in the Alberni Valley. It was agreed that

most of the roads are in deplorable shape and in many cases propose

hazardous conditions to motorists."

I was up in the

constituency yesterday and met with a number of people. There were two

children, cyclists, injured on one road in the Alberni Valley, and the

injury was attributed by the police and by the citizens of the area to

the poor condition of highways as a result of deterioration over the

last several years.

I talked to the Highways employees there. They said that in the past....

HON. MR. MAIR: The roads are fine in Kamloops.

MR. SKELLY: Yes, they are fine in Kamloops, and I hope to get to that in a second, Mr. Speaker.

the past the rural roads were maintained on a year-by-year basis, and

the ministry employees in that area did a fine job in keeping ahead of

the breakup and deterioration of those roads. Today they don't have

sufficient funds or crews to keep ahead of the regular maintenance

requirements, and it's because of the bad management of that Minister

of Transportation and Highways.

Interjection.

MR. SKELLY:

Mr. Speaker, there is a member who has never spoken in the House,

except in asides across the floor, and has never said anything

constructive in debate on any of these bills. The only thing he has

done is to promise his own ministry that he's going to remain silent in

order not to embarrass them. I would urge you, Mr. Speaker, to make him

keep that promise.

HON. MR. MAIR: I said that?

MR. SKELLY: I always mix you up with the other member, who is also an embarrassment to his ministry.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Perhaps all hon. members could pay attention to the member who has the floor at this point.

MR. SKELLY:

Mr. Speaker, I was talking about the deplorable condition of highways

in Alberni riding and in other rural constituencies on Vancouver Island

and throughout many parts of the province where the minister fails to

[ Page 2468 ]

allocate adequate funds on an impartial basis to keep those roads in good, safe condition.

many other provinces and in many other jurisdictions, Highways

department moneys are allocated on a fair and equitable basis. The

conditions of the roads, the areas and the climatic problems with

frosts and breakups and that kind of thing — all those are taken into

account. I suspect with this minister that nothing more is taken into

account than the political affiliation of the member of the Legislature

from that riding.

In the province of Saskatchewan, every

year they publish — and we get nothing from the minister in advance of

discussion on the budget — where road developments are going to take

place, constituency by constituency. It doesn't matter whether you're a

Conservative or a New Democratic Party member in Saskatchewan. It does

matter if you're a Liberal or a Socred — and here they are virtually

interchangeable — in Saskatchewan, because there aren't any, so they

don't get advance notice. In Saskatchewan every member of the

Legislature gets advance notice as to how those highway funds are going

to be spent, capital funds and maintenance funds, and a map is provided

so that it will be of benefit to members of the Legislature, and the

electorate, and the travelling public who use those highways on a

day-to-day basis.

Not here, Mr. Speaker. Those funds are

allocated on a strictly political basis, and that is an element of

corruption that we must deal with in this province. We must challenge

this minister to work out a formula for allocating highway capital

funds which is based not on the political preference of the member of

the Legislature for a particular area but on the needs of highway

development in that area.

HON. MR. MAIR: On a point

of order, I distinctly heard the member for Alberni suggest corruption

on the treasury benches and in the government. I would ask the member

to withdraw.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: In the manner of the

House, if the member has suggested that, the Chair would ask the member

to withdraw any suggestion of corruption.

MR. SKELLY:

It wasn't my intent to suggest that, but if the minister drew that

conclusion I most certainly would withdraw. What I intended to suggest

— and I hope that minister will listen clearly — is that when funds are

allocated on a political basis, then it is possible for corruption to

seep in. That should not be permitted in this province, and it should

not be permitted to continue if it has done so in the past.

In the last election the minister came to my riding....

The

last time I brought this up he said I was fighting the last election

all over again, but I insist, Mr. Speaker, that this has to be debated.

If funds are allocated for highway improvements on a political basis,

then it has to be debated each and every year in each and every bill

where highway funds are affected and during the minister's estimates.

We cannot allow this political favouritism to continue further —

political favouritism in the allocation of capital and maintenance

funds which affects the lives, health and safety of the travelling

public in our riding. Narrow roads, poorly maintained roads, poorly

designed roads and poorly aligned roads, roads used by logging trucks,

by passenger vehicles and by students walking along the shoulders of

those roads to school — it's a dangerous mix, and if those roads are

inadequate, then the minister should deal with them on the basis of

need, rather than the basis of politics, which has been the case in the

past. This is not an appropriate bill in which we should be considering

the expenditure of highway funds. We should have the right to question

that minister in detail during his estimates. That money should be

taken out of this bill and dealt with in the Minister of Transportation

and Highways' bill.

In almost every case, in almost any

section of this bill, that criticism applies. And it's not a negative

criticism, although the members on the Social Credit benches have

difficulty in determining what a positive suggestion is and what a

negative criticism is. That is not a negative criticism, Mr. Speaker.

It would help the members of this Legislature on both sides if they

knew what they were voting for. I am amazed at the comments that

sometime come across the floor from over there when they want bills to

go through without debate in the House. What do they think this

Legislature is here for? We're here to question and to oppose when we

find problems with a bill, and we're not here to rubberstamp, without

asking questions, everything the government chooses to do. That's why

the opposition and that back bench are here. They must be the easiest

people in the world to deal with. These bills must go through caucus —

if they even go to caucus at all — in a matter of seconds, because

nobody answers, asks or criticizes; it's a rubber stamp all the way

through. But I realize there's a cabinet majority in caucus, so the

highly paid people are able to work their will on the easy ones in the

back bench.

There are some legitimate expenditures that I

can see in this bill — legitimate expenditures that probably should be

taken out of surplus funds. Those are allocations to the Refugee

Settlement Program. Nobody can predict how world situations are going

to change to the point that Canada will be called upon to accommodate

refugees from war-torn and strife-torn areas throughout the world. It's

legitimate, I think, to set up a special bill to accommodate the

settlement in Canada of those refugees. So taking one or two things out

of this bill that I can support, I would have to say there are only

those one or two things, and also the Youth Employment Program. It's

legitimate to account for the requirements of summer student labour in

a separate bill each year when you know what those labour requirements

are going to be and how many students are going to mid-term during the

summer term in any one year. So I think those are legitimate things to

put in the bill, but the rest we should be dealing with in estimates.

There

are very few ministers in the House today prepared to explain what the

expenditures in this bill are going to cover, and we don't have

sufficient opportunity to question that, so I'm absolutely opposed to

the way this bill has been handled. I would like to urge, again, to the

Minister of Highways that this is an inappropriate way to deal with

capital expenditures in the Ministry of Highways. We need some formula

and system in this province that allocates capital and maintenance

funds to the various constituencies not on the basis of the political

affiliation of the individual who represents that constituency; it

should be based on the highway maintenance and development needs and

the safety of the people in that area. That's the main thing that I

would like to impress on you, Mr. Speaker, and the members of this

Legislature in my opposition to this bill.

[ Page 2469 ]

MR. HOWARD:

Mr. Speaker, in second reading of bills, as we all know, there is an

examination and debate about the principle of the bill. That's very

difficult, if not impossible, in this case. Not only does the bill have

no principle but, to put it in the other sense, it's an unprincipled

bill. It's an unconscionable bill, because what it seeks to do is to

put all members in the House in the position of voting for something

they want and, in the process, getting something they don't want. The

alternative is not wanting something, voting contrary to it, and in the

process defeating something that they want. That's the unprincipled

part of it, as has been outlined before by the member for Nanaimo (Mr.

Stupich). The bill contains 17 separate items of expenditures

identified alphabetically and embraces 11 ministries of the government,

and it is all wrapped up in one piece of legislation. That's why I

think it's an unprincipled thing to bring to the Legislature this type

of bill and force members into the position of voting in a way in which

they might not want to, and probably would not, vote on the individual

items contained therein.

It is insufficient to say we can do

that in committee, because we are dealing with the foundation of the

bill at second reading. For that reason, and because it's a

parliamentary mechanism being used by government for purposes which are

not in keeping with the principles of a deliberative legislative

assembly, I can't cast a vote totally in favour of the bill. To do so

would be to vote for something unprincipled and unconscionable.

Separate them. Put the items in the estimates where they should belong.

Bring in some supplementary estimates if need be. Then we can examine

in detail whatever needs to be done in that regard. Then we can talk

with the minister in that particular department in detail about the

specifics and about the proposal and about the ideas that the minister

might have. But we can't do that when faced with this particular bill.

also want, in a way supportive of the member for Alberni (Mr. Skelly) —

and also on my own behalf, for the constituency I represent — to point

out to the House that the highway and rural or back-road system in

Skeena is an absolute disgrace. I think what we are doing here is

simply carrying on the legacy left to us by a former member for the

constituency of Kamloops, one-time Minister of Highways Phil Gaglardi,

who could see nothing else but blacktop for any place that suited his

political purposes. This government is carrying on that tradition, so

the rural roads in my constituency are an absolute disgrace to any

government that holds itself out as one desiring to, or claiming to,

serve the interests of the people. Those rural roads in Skeena have

been filled with potholes and washboard, bricks, stones, ruts and dust

for years and years, and they're still in that condition.

Interjection.

MR. HOWARD:

Well, the member for Omineca (Mr. Kempf), unable to fend for himself in

this Legislature, unable to put up a case for roads in his own riding,

has probably got the greatest length of roads in poor condition in the

whole country — a direct result of his inability to fight for things

that are needed in that riding. But that's his problem, not mine.

just want to reiterate that the rural roads in Skeena have been

neglected and are continuing to be neglected. The case of people who

live at the ends of, or along, those rural roads is ignored completely,

because we have a government that can only look at Highway 16 — the

ribbon that runs through the constituency, the transprovincial highway

— for blacktop, can only look at the connection down to Kitimat. They

are currently blacktopping Highway 37 northwards — yes, but all to the

detriment of people who live off those main roads, and that's not good

enough. If you talk to the Highways department people in the region and

in the district, they say they are not able to do anything, because

they put matters forward here and they get shot down.

Another

unprincipled thing about this bill is that one perceives, with respect,

say, to the proposal for $100 million, that it won't be spent this year

in any event. It's window-dressing; it's there for some...I wouldn't

say ulterior, but it's there for some influencing motive. It's a good

round figure — $100 million for an accelerated highway program.

see you're about to interrupt the chatty member for Kamloops (Hon. Mr.

Mair), Mr. Speaker. If you want to, that's entirely up to you; if you

don't want to, I don't mind.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order,

please. The member for Skeena has the floor, and it is contrary to our

standing orders to impede any member who is speaking. That said, the

member continues.

MR. HOWARD: What the bill does, in part, is....

It's

got this $100 million figure out there, which is a fine, round figure

and sounds nice, but it's also got a provision which says that, just in

case any of that $100 million isn't spent at the end of the fiscal

year, then it's all wiped out and it's not there for any continuing

program. If there was sincerity on the part of the government to have

an accelerated highway program and to allocate $100 million towards it,

and it wanted to do it by legislation, which is the case here, then it

should be a piece of legislation that continues in existence until the

$100 million is expended. That would be a principle that one could

examine if they did that by way of a separate bill. But to lay the

money out with the full intention, in my view, not of spending it but

of having it left over at the end of the year, so it can go back into

general revenue, so they can say, "Aren't we great money managers?

We've got some money left over; we've got a surplus...." That is

another unprincipled part of the bill that I cannot endorse.

Public

debt was talked about earlier here. Mr. Speaker, so long as government

members continue year after year to carry on the myth that a debt was

created when we were in office, we have to put forward the

countervailing arguments to deny it, to put it in its proper context,

because that was not the case. The member for Nanaimo (Mr. Stupich),

innumerable times — and I don't want to repeat the figures that he has

put forward on many, many occasions — has pointed out that when we were

the government the surpluses that were created were there and were used

to good purpose. They were put aside in special-purpose funds; that's

what their use was. And some of those special purpose funds, Mr.

Speaker....

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Where are they?

MR. HOWARD:

They say: "Where are they?" When this crowd got into office they looked

around in the savings accounts and wiped out some of the

special-purpose funds to bring the money back onto the current side of

the ledger and say: "Aren't we good money managers? We've now got a

[ Page 2470 ]

surplus."

That $261,447,790, I believe it was, that was supposed to have been a

debt was a fictitious, manipulated, manoeuvred figure. The member for

Nanaimo has laid out that case on a number of occasions as well and

pointed out that there was cash and that this government dispensed with

the cash and distributed it out there so they could say: "Look, our

pockets are empty; we need to borrow money."

HON. MR. FRASER: You're not a chartered accountant. What do you know?

MR. HOWARD:

I'll tell you this much, Mr. Minister of Highways. I'm not a chartered

accountant, but I know a lot more about accountancy than you know about

building highways. You don't need to be a chartered accountant to

examine the books and see what happened. The only time you need to be a

chartered accountant is when you want to cook the books like you guys

did.

Interjections.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I will

ask all members to kindly remain silent while the member is speaking.

And I will ask the member, if he has imputed any wrongdoing on behalf

of the members opposite, to withdraw that imputation.

MR. HOWARD:

I wouldn't dare impute any wrongdoing to members opposite. The member

asked me if I was a chartered accountant and I said no, you don't need

to be a chartered accountant to understand the bookkeeping structure of

this government. But you have to be a chartered accountant if you want

to cook the books; that helps. Now if the members opposite feel....

HON. MR. HEWITT:

On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, I think the member really doesn't

mean what he is implying here. He in effect has stated that chartered

accountants go around cooking the books for people. I suggest to him

that he should clarify what he said. I'd ask him to withdraw or clarify

his statement.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: A member is

responsible for the remarks he makes in this House. He cannot offend

another member without withdrawing that remark. I will ask the member

for Skeena....

MR. HOWARD: If I've offended the Minister of Agriculture, of course I withdraw that. I wouldn't do anything in that sense.

HON. MR. CURTIS: All you can do is drag the debate right down to the bottom.

MR. HOWARD:

Oh, look who's talking about the bottom, Mr. Speaker: the Minister of

Finance, who played politics with the jetfoil and the Marguerite to

save his political hide.

Look, if you want to engage in a

debate about this public debt, you're the guys who raised it. They're

the people who raised it, Mr. Speaker. I am trying to put on record the

facts of the case as they've been presented to me.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The member for Skeena will stick to the general principle of Bill 5, and all other members will kindly listen to the debate.

MR. HOWARD: There is no general principle to the bill, Mr. Speaker. However, I'll try my best.

was raised in the introductory part of the bill, and throughout by

members opposite through their across-the-floor comments from their

seats, that there was a debt created by the NDP when they were

government. I say that that's not an accurate statement. For the end of

the fiscal year ended March 31, 1976, this government stated that there

was a budgetary deficit of some $261 million, and they said that was a

terrible state of affairs.

The member for Nanaimo has put on

the record many times how that $261 million — a fictitious figure — was

created. The government then proceeded to borrow, to place on the

books, debt totalling $261 million and some hundreds of thousands of

dollars. They did this in five separate stages. The first borrowing was

not on March 31, 1976, but was on June 22, 1976; the second borrowing

was in September 1976; the third borrowing was in November; and then

into the following fiscal year, right down to March 15, 1977, two weeks

before the end of the first fiscal year that this government was in

office, when they borrowed $11,477,790 — the exact amount of money

necessary to add up to the original fictitious figure that they said

was a budgetary deficit in the year before. Not only that, but two

weeks later, for the year ending March 31, 1977, the government was

crowing about good management and about having a budgetary surplus of

$76 million. If in fact they had this budgetary surplus of $76 million

at the end of March 1977, why did they borrow $11,477,000 two weeks

prior to that time? Weren't they able to predict their cash flow and

their income?

I submit to you that all those activities were

for the sole purpose of trying to continue to substantiate a myth,

namely that the debt was created when the NDP was in office. The myth

is carried forward in this particular bill, and will be carried

forward, if this government continues to have its way, every year for

the next eight or nine years, or whatever balance period is left, when

they will presume to wipe out the debt that they created in the first

place. That's another reason why one cannot vote for the principle of

that particular bill.

If debt is such a disgraceful thing to

government — this government particularly — why is it then that out of

the so-called budgetary surplus of $76 million at the end of March 31,

1977, they didn't retire some of the debt? Why did they carry it

forward? If debt is such an abhorrent thing, why was it that on March

31, 1978, when they were crowing about a budget surplus of $140

million, they didn't retire some of that debt? Why was it the same case

at the end of March 1979, when they were talking about a $145 million

budgetary surplus, that they didn't retire some of that debt? They

carried it forward solely to maintain the fiction that there was a debt

when we left office. That is not an accurate statement on their part;

it's a distorting statement. Over the few years that this government

has been in existence, by the creation of that fictitious debt just up

to the end of the fiscal year 1978-79 — I'm not putting in this year,

because I don't have the figures for it — the taxpayers of this

province paid out in interest nearly $60 million on that fictitious

debt that they would not have otherwise had to pay out if this

government had been honourable in its dealings with the people insofar

as the books were concerned.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Mr. Member for Skeena, all members are honourable.

[ Page 2471 ]

MR. HOWARD:

I know that. I'm not impugning anything to any hon. member. I'm talking

about the government performing

an act that is not in keeping with the

honourable aspect of this institution and the things which we all want

to see about it. Right?

HON. MR. PHILLIPS: Don't look at me when you talk. I wasn't even paying any attention to you.

MR. HOWARD:

I'm only looking at the minister of small industry, business or

whatever it is, you know, because he happens to be there. He fell

within the gaze of my eye as I swept it around the room.

HON. MR. PHILLIPS: I'm surprised you can see over the gutter.

MR. HOWARD:

I'm also reminded of the fact that that hon. minister is adept as

anybody at speaking from his seat. He was the one who said he didn't

know the difference between cash flow and debt, when he took

part in a

government that distributed all the surplus cash flow in order to

create the fiction of debt.

Mr. Speaker, I say the bill is

not a bill with any principle, and it may reflect the attitude of a

government that has an equal amount of principle as well. I can't

support it.

MR. MITCHELL: I too would like to rise in this debate and state that I too am not happy with the bill and will be voting against it.

HON. MR. PHILLIPS: Did you enjoy your dinner?

MR. MITCHELL: I enjoyed it, and I will get down to it when I get down to dealing with your section.

sit in utter shock when I listen to the government and backbenchers and

all the garbage that comes across from that side of the House where

they will consider that $100 million of the public funds can be

expended by anybody without an explanation, without the minister

getting up and giving somebody — the public, this side of the House,

their own backbenchers — an explanation of where $100 million is going.

A hundred million dollars....

Interjection.

MR. MITCHELL: Mr. Speaker, will you ask the minister to wait his turn?

a lot of people $100 million is still a lot of money. When a government

has the audacity to say that we can pass this, put it in a budget and

bring a bill before parliament without an explanation, I find it

shocking. I know when the historians read this in later years they too

will wonder what really happened to this government.

there is a surplus — if it is not needed somewhere else then it should

be used. If it's a necessary part of the budget, it should be in the

budget and it should have a proper explanation. As my fellow member

from Port Alberni said: "It stinks of political patronage." It is a

political slush fund that can become a grab-bag for every little

by-election that may come along, for every minister that may come

along....

HON. MR. CURTIS: On a point of order, while

I can appreciate that the member opposite is not pleased with some

aspects with this bill — and that's an understatement from what he's

said thus far — I think the phrase "stinks of political patronage" is

unacceptable. I take personal offence to the reference.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Offence has been taken. The Chair would ask the member to withdraw.

MR. MITCHELL: I will withdraw that it stinks of political patronage. I'll say it smells of political patronage.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hon. member, that is not acceptable either.

MR. MITCHELL: That it appears like political patronage?

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Will you withdraw those remarks?

MR. MITCHELL: It has a semblance of political patronage?

DEPUTY SPEAKER: "Political patronage" is unparliamentary and offensive to the Chair. Will the member withdraw?

HON. MR. VANDER ZALM: Be a gentleman, Frank.

MR. MITCHELL:

I'm always a gentleman. It's just the parliamentary procedure that I'm

a little mixed up about. If "political patronage" is wrong, then I

withdraw that.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Thank you, hon. member. The member continues on Bill 5.

MR. MITCHELL: I withdraw "political patronage" and I would appreciate it if the minister would withdraw the bill.

HON. MR. CURTIS: No.

MR. MITCHELL:

You shake your head no? You're still going to explain where $100

million is? You know, we're still small-time boys. Hugh, and $100

million to a lot of us is a lot of money, and we want an explanation.

HON. MR. CURTIS: It's a lot of money to me too.

MR. MITCHELL:

We feel the public demands an explanation. When I asked the Minister of

Transportation and Highways (Hon. Mr. Fraser) to consider paving the

shoulders so there would be some semblance of safety for the

pedestrians, for the cyclists, for those with a car that broke down, I

was told by that minister, in a letter, that it wasn't an important

priority to their department.

HON. MR. PHILLIPS: Levi spent more than that on pot parties.

MR. MITCHELL:

I really think, Mr. Speaker, that that is an obscene remark by the

Minister of Industry and Small Business Development, and I think you

should ask him to

[ Page 2472 ]

withdraw it. But as I say, there is one rule for that side and one rule for this side.

DEPUTY SPEAKER:

Hon. member, the Chair cannot accept that either. All hon. members will

retain their seats and not impede the debate, and the member for

Esquimalt–Port Renfrew will continue on Bill 5.

MR. MITCHELL:

What I really would ask, Mr. Speaker, is that the government give some

serious consideration that when they come in with a bill of this

magnitude, with the sums they are throwing around, maybe.... As someone

said, $100 million is a nice even figure, but there are other figures

in here. There's a figure of $3.4 million to the Minister of

Transportation and Highways for the purpose of expanding and improving

airport facilities. Now this is not a round figure. This is $3.4

million, Mr. Speaker. If we can come in with a figure of $3.4 million,

there must be something in the estimates and the engineers' studies,

some knowledge in that department of where that money is going to be

expended. I feel that this parliament and the public have a right to

know where $3.4 million are going to be expended. If that knowledge is

there, it is the duty of the government to share that knowledge with

all members of this House.

I feel that when members of the

government sit back and pooh-pooh the responsibility of this

Legislature, they are decrying the responsibility of each and every one

of us. I feel that there is a proper place in parliament, in estimates

and in procedures for moneys of this magnitude to be explained to this

House.

Interjections.

MR. MITCHELL: As

long as you'll show me where it is in my riding. If you want to show me

where $100 million is going to be spent in my riding.... If the member

for Kootenay (Mr. Segarty) knows something that this House doesn't

know, and if he can show me where $100 million is going to be spent, I

feel that he should stand up and tell us. If he knows something that

the rest of us have been denied, then I feel that there is.... I won't

say political corruption, because I will be ruled out of order, but

there is political knowledge that is not shared with this House. I

didn't say political corruption. I withdrew it.

If there is

certain information available and the member for Kootenay can show me

where it's going to be spent and the minister denies us that

information, I would like to know what kind of a back bench you have

over there.

HON. MR. FRASER: Read Hansard .

MR. MITCHELL: You're going to tell me in Hansard where $3.4 million is spent? If I read Hansard , is there something...?

HON. MR. FRASER: I talked all about it. You were on one of those Thursday-to-Tuesday weekends. You weren't here.

MR. MITCHELL:

Mr. Speaker, I would ask the minister to withdraw that. I haven't

missed a day in this House since the House opened, except one.

Interjections.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: If the Minister of Highways has imputed any wrong motive on the part of the member, the Chair will ask him to withdraw.

HON. MR. FRASER: I'm delighted to withdraw, but I want to point out that he's kept some pretty short days.

MR. MITCHELL: I appreciate that withdrawal.

Interjections.

DEPUTY SPEAKER:

All other members, including the member for Skeena (Mr. Howard), the

member for Nelson-Creston (Mr. Nicolson), the Minister of Labour (Hon.

Mr. Heinrich) and the Minister of Transportation and Highways, will

come to order. The member for Esquimalt–Port Renfrew continues.

MR. MITCHELL:

One of the other things I would like to mention is a nice round figure

of $5 million that is being granted to my friend, the Minister of

Industry and Small Business Development (Hon. Mr. Phillips). Where is

the Minister of Industry and Small Business Development?

me this was another example of what happens when there is no planning

and it's at the whim of government. A bungled transportation policy was

established in 1976 when the Social Credit government took over,

including the running of B.C. Steamships. Each year they had a new

minister sitting on that board, and this year we got down to a deadline

and we didn't have transportation to run from Victoria to Seattle. Out

of nowhere, and at the whim of the Premier of this province, he called

a group of political friends, business people from Victoria, and set up

a company. He could take out of the funds that were being given to the

B.C. Development Corporation....

HON. MR. FRASER: On

a point of order, I think you should bring the member to order. That

isn't anything to do with funds in this bill. He's talking about

transportation and so on in regard to boats and the B.C. Steamship

Company.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Second reading does allow

for great latitude, hon. member, but your comments should pertain to

items that are mentioned in the bill before us now, Bill 5.

MR. MITCHELL:

The money that is given to this particular minister is money that is

being used from that ministry under the assistance to the jetfoil. This

is one of the developments that we in the greater Victoria area feel

was a blunder. The explanation that this government gave as they

brought in the Marguerite, the Queen of Prince Rupert and the jetfoil....

Interjections.

MR. MITCHELL: Mr. Speaker, if you'll keep your side of the House — I mean the other side of the House — in order, I'll carry on.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hon. member, I'll ask you to withdraw that remark.

[ Page 2473 ]

MR. MITCHELL: "The other side of the House?"

DEPUTY SPEAKER: No, "your." Please address the Chair, hon. member.

MR. MITCHELL: No, I referred to the other side of the House, not your side. I take that back.

feel that if we're going to spend money on the economic development in

this province there should be some intelligent and long-range planning.

Maybe there is a good explanation. Maybe the jetfoil is the greatest

thing since sliced bread, but the fact that we now have an American

ship with the Union Jack on the front, the Canadian flag flying high

and an American flag flying on the back to me is not the type of

development that we should be into in this province. The Minister of

Industry and Small Business Development (Hon. Mr. Phillips), who had a

large

part in that fiasco, now can sit back and can have an additional

$5 million without any explanation. This is again part of the lack of

knowledge that is being given out here.

In closing, Mr.

Speaker, I listened to the argument of some of the ministers that this

money is needed and is important to the development of British

Columbia, but at the end of this bill it says: "Any part of the money

appropriated under

section 1(

c) to (

n) that may be unexpended at the

end of the fiscal year ending March 31, 1981, shall not be expended

after that date." If this money is needed for the needs of the people

of British Columbia, then it should be expended, but when you have a

grandfather clause — or whatever that clause is at the end — you're

indicating that this is money that is not needed. If there is