1987 Legislative Session: 1st Session, 34th 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, FEBRUARY 25, 1988

Afternoon Sitting

[ Page 3119 ]

CONTENTS

Routine Proceedings

Oral Questions

Abortion. Mr. Sihota –– 3119

Mr. Harcourt

Presenting Petitions –– 3121

Tabling Documents –– 3122

Election Amendment Act, 1987 (Bill 28). Second reading

On the amendment

Mr. Gabelmann –– 3122

Hon. L. Hanson –– 3125

Ms. Edwards –– 3126

Mr. Mowat –– 3128

Mr. Skelly –– 3129

Mr. Loenen –– 3131

Mr. Rose –– 3132

Ms. Marzari –– 3136

Mr. Lovick –– 3138

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 1988

The House met at 2:09 p.m.

HON. MR. VEITCH: On the floor of the House today we have a

very outstanding Canadian. This distinguished gentleman served as

chairman of the CRTC; he's now president of Radio Canada, the Canadian

Broadcasting Corporation. I would like the House to welcome the Hon.

Pierre Juneau.

Accompanying Mr. Juneau today is the regional director of the

Canadian Broadcasting Corporation for British Columbia, Mr. Eric

Moncur, and I would ask the House to welcome Eric as well.

MR. ROSE: Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the loyal opposition, I

too would like to add my word of welcome to Pierre Juneau. Bienvenue,

Pierre Juneau. I consider him an old friend. I certainly am an admirer

of his. I've always considered him to be urbane, intelligent, and of

course fluently bilingual, and alongside him I feel rural, sometimes

thick, and almost monosyllabic. But he's done a great job for Canada.

He's been, I think, a credit to our nation, and certainly given

outstanding work in public service. Certainly he'll stand up as one of

the great Canadians. We're very pleased to have him here in la

Colombie-Britannique.

HON. MR. SAVAGE: It gives me a great deal of pleasure today

to rise in the House to introduce Mr. Gerald Geen, president of the

B.C. Fruit Growers' Association, and three members of the executive.

Would this House please make them welcome.

MR. BARNES: I'd like to ask the House to join me in welcoming

Mr. Bill Duncan, who is a long-time friend of mine and a former

American who some 35 years ago became a dedicated public servant, most

recently at the Kitsilano Neighbourhood House. He's now retired and in

Victoria to experience the activities for the afternoon. I'd like the

House to make him welcome.

MR. BRUCE: In the House today is a friend of mine, the

federal representative for the riding of Cowichan-Malahat–The Islands.

We may not be of the same political persuasion, but we do work for the

same people of the Cowichan Valley area. I'd ask that the House bid Mr.

Jim Manly a warm welcome.

MR. G. HANSON: In the gallery today is a constituent, Mr.

Naunihal Singh Sandhu. His brother from India is visiting, Capt.

Klaushal Singh Sandhu. Would the House give them a warm welcome.

MR. KEMPF: In the gallery with us this afternoon is Mr.

Russell Brown, who originally hails from Bums Lake. He was a former

member for Omineca in the B.C. Youth Parliament and will be entering

the internship program soon, in fact on Monday morning, in the NDP

caucus. I hope that isn't a shade of things to come in Omineca.

MR. SIHOTA: In furtherance of the comments made bv my good friend the

member for Cowichan-Malahat, I would also like to take this opportunity on behalf

of myself and my colleagues from Nanaimo to introduce our common Member of Parliament,

Mr. Manly. Joining him in the gallery today is a dedicated worker on behalf

of the New Democratic Party, one whom I got to know in the course of my last

election campaign because she worked actively on my campaign. Would the House join

me in welcoming both Jim Manly and Eve Elman to the House today.

[2:15]

HON. MR. STRACHAN: In the gallery today is a noted educator

in the field of native Indian education from the native Indian teacher

education program, formerly of UBC and now of the College of New

Caledonia in Prince George. Would the House please welcome Angie

Todd-Dennis.

MR. GABELMANN: This afternoon I'd like to make an

introduction on behalf of my secretary, Judy McCallum. Visiting in the

gallery this afternoon are her sister-in-law and her aunt, Sheri Ridout

from Victoria and Hazel Fisher from Winnipeg.

HON. MR. RICHMOND: In the gallery today is an old friend and

a good supporter of both me and the second member for Kamloops (Mr.

S.D. Smith). I'd like the House to please welcome Mr. Dennis Coates,

QC, to Victoria.

MR. CASHORE: I too would like to join in welcoming Angie

Todd-Dennis, who is working in the native Indian teacher education

program in Prince George. I've known Angie since our days at the

University of British Columbia. She was involved in founding the first

organization there for native Indian students. She has been a

distinguished member of the native Indian communitv and a leader as

such, and has been a founder of the native women's professional

organization.

MR. MILLER: I join with my colleague the member for

Coquitlam-Moody (Mr. Rose) in welcoming officials from the CBC to the

floor of the Legislature. I will also be in Prince Rupert to welcome

them on March 11 at the hearing, and I hope they pay close attention to

me and my colleague Mr. Fulton, and retain the services of the CBC in

Prince Rupert.

Oral Questions

ABORTION

MR. SIHOTA: A question to the Attorney-General. The Supreme

Court of Canada decision on abortion, the Morgentaler decision,

determined that it was an intrusion on a woman's individual liberty to

have her go in front of a committee to seek approval for an abortion.

Rape and incest victims now are required to seek funding approval

through the criminal injury compensation fund. Does the

Attorney-General not agree that that policy is contrary to the spirit

and intent of the Supreme Court of Canada decision?

HON. B.R. SMITH: No, that's a very artful series of

propositions strung together. The Supreme Court of Canada ruled that

abortion should be decriminalized, that because of the process set up

under the Criminal Code as an excuse for abortion, which required

committees in accredited hospitals, it did not provide equal access to

women all over Canada. Therefore the whole

section of the Criminal Code

was struck

[ Page 3120 ]

down. It does not provide a right to anything. It

simply provides that you cannot criminalize something as a result of

that sort of procedure. In fact, if you read the decision of Mr.

Justice Beetz, it suggests that a different, fairer procedure would

have been okay and would have upheld that law. Maybe the Canadian

Parliament, when it's looking at this, will re-enact it in some other

form with a fairer procedure. That is open to them.

But the procedure you're talking about under the criminal injury

compensation fund is neither a protracted nor a degrading one. It's one

that victims of crime in this province have availed themselves of for

many years. That legislation was passed in 1972. It's only in recent

years that it's been administered by a committee of the board, but how

it works is that a victim of crime can make immediate interim

application for funding. That funding can be provided in advance of a

medical or surgical procedure. It doesn't require somebody to be

brought in the dock; it doesn't require a conviction; it doesn't

require a person even to be charged.

What it does require is a genuine case of a criminal offence to be

alleged, and it would have to be something that a victim had reported

to the police and there was some independent corroboration. It wouldn't

just be someone going in and saying: "I'm a victim; this has happened

to me." There has to be some police support for it. But it is not a

degrading system and it is not a protracted system. So the member is

wrong.

MR. SIHOTA: I see that we have our own artful dodger here in

the form of the Attorney-General. The Attorney-General certainly has no

sensitivity to the trauma of a rape or incest victim in asking them to

go through this procedure.

More importantly, the Attorney-General hasn't read the decision, and

I want to quote from the decision very quickly before I ask my

question. The decision says: "Liberty in a free and democratic society

does not require the state to approve such decisions, but it does

require the state to respect them." In light of that view, does the

Attorney-General not agree that the government's policy with respect to

rape and incest victims is contrary to the spirit of the decision?

HON. B.R. SMITH: No.

MR. SIHOTA: Well then, let's take a look at the government's

general policy. The decision goes on to state that the interests of a

woman "take precedence over the interest of prohibiting abortions,

including the interest of the state in the protection of the fetus."

Does the Attorney-General not agree that the government's general

policy on abortion requiring compulsory pregnancy — which is what it is

— offends that provision of the decision?

HON. B.R. SMITH: No.

MR. SIHOTA: I see that the Attorney-General has been rehearsing his answers.

I want to ask the Attorney-General this question then. Can the

Attorney-General truthfully tell this House that he does not have in

his possession a legal opinion which advises him that the government's

policy on abortion is contrary to the Charter of Rights?

HON. B.R. SMITH: Legal opinions are given to the government;

they are not given to the member in question period. Legal opinions are

always a matter that are transmitted to the executive council, and

that's where they will be transmitted. They will not be transmitted to

the Legislature, and they will not be revealed, whether they are for

the proposition of the member or against the proposition of the member.

He knows that.

MR. SIHOTA: I will ask the Attorney-General directly again:

will he confirm that he has in his possession a legal opinion which

indicates that the government's policy on abortion is unconstitutional

and contrary to the Charter. Yes or no. No artful dodging in this case,

Mr. Attorney.

HON. B.R. SMITH: I have absolutely no intention of confirming

or denying any such thing. If I had such an opinion, I might have it

the other way, and it would not help the member one bit, because he

would pay no attention to either opinion anyway. He would give his own

interpretation in here, as he is with the Supreme Court decision that

applies to a criminal law provision, and try to suggest that that's

some kind of bill of rights in Canada for abortion — which it isn't.

MR. SIHOTA: The Attorney-General is taking the old courtroom tactic of going on the offensive when he has no defence at all.

Let me ask the Attorney-General this question then. The Canada

Health Act states: "...Canadian health care policy should be designed

and administered, to facilitate reasonable access to health services

without undue financial or other barriers." Given that provision, does

the Attorney-General not agree that the government policy of requiring

women to pay for abortions offends the provisions of the Canada Health

Act?

HON. B.R. SMITH: It is either before, or about to be before, the courts, Mr. Speaker. I'm not going to try to answer that.

MR. SIHOTA: Mr. Speaker, it is evident that the

Attorney-General has, first of all, a legal opinion which indicates

that his policies are unconstitutional. His policies fly in the face of

the Supreme Court of Canada decision. They offend the provisions of the

Canada Health Act. If the Attorney-General is so confident of the

government's policies on abortion, will he agree now to refer the

matter to the Court of Appeal in this province for a constitutional

determination?

HON. B.R. SMITH: I can't think of a case getting on faster in

this province than the Civil Liberties petition did this week. As I

recall, it was only filed late last week, and we agreed to it being

argued on Tuesday of this week. We will also agree to and facilitate

any other such matters that might arise, whether it's under the Charter

or the Canada Health Act or whatever, because I do believe that these

matters should be determined swiftly.

We have cooperated in having that first challenge brought on, and we

will continue to do so if there are other challenges. But to take a

whole series of matters away from the trial court and try to refer them

to the Court of Appeal I don't think would produce a faster result or a

faster resolve. I really don't. I've often looked at that route as a

way of resolving matters that were in dispute or contentious. It's not

as fast a route as it may seem. The fastest route is to get before a

judge, which is what we did in the case of the petition for the

[ Page 3121 ]

Civil Liberties Association, and we'll have a decision on that very shortly.

MR. HARCOURT: I was hoping to ask some questions of the

Minister of Health. He seems to be indisposed, possibly having his

fifth pregnancy, so I will ask the Attorney-General a question or two.

We do have a decision already about a ridiculous, seditious conspiracy

decision, and I would hope that we would have the Attorney-General's

word that we would have....

My question. If you are prepared to facilitate the referral to the

courts of law of the regulations and the bureaucrats who are going to

make those bureaucratic decisions about abortions in life-threatening

situations, will you, Mr. Attorney-General, finally instruct your

government to obey the law and get a quick referral of the Canada

Health Act on the question of universality and reasonable and quick

access to medical services, and on

section 4 of the Hospital Act, that

hospitals cannot refuse service to an indigent person? Will you make a

commitment here and now to have those two matters speedily before a

judge immediately?

HON. B.R. SMITH: The Leader of the Opposition doesn't listen

to the usually well-presented questions of the member for

Esquimalt–Port Renfrew (Mr. Sihota). I was asked that question, and I

indicated that we would facilitate other attacks under other

legislation if they were forthcoming. But, Mr. Speaker, if all these

matters were before a tribunal promptly, there's another matter that

has to be before another tribunal, and that is that the Parliament of

Canada has to wrestle with this question and bring about some national

resolution to the whole question of therapeutic abortion. The criminal

law is passed by parliament; it is not passed by this Legislature. And

the Canada Health Act is a federal piece of legislation, so maybe the

Leader of the Opposition would urge the Parliament of Canada to take

some action and assume its responsibilities as we have done.

MR. HARCOURT: I would hope that the Attorney-General would

stop acting as the minister of defence for this indefensible government

policy and be a minister of justice. I am asking a very simple question

of the Attorney-General. The Hospital Act is within your jurisdiction.

Sir, through you, Mr. Speaker, I'm asking you to save citizens the time

and the money and the aggravation. You've got the resources of the

people of British Columbia to act for a direct referral. I would urge

the Attorney-General to show some political courage and conviction and

to have the taxpayers of this province, instead of citizens having to

band together to protect themselves from this government.... Mr.

Speaker, I would urge....

Interjection.

MR. HARCOURT: I heard very clearly what you said, and I don't think it's up to citizens to have to do that.

I am asking the Attorney-General here and now if he will instruct

his officials for direct referral to the courts to see their position

on the Hospital Act, and if he would ask the Attorney-General of

Canada, the Minister of Justice, to join him in referring the Canada

Health Act on a question of universality, access to poor and rich and

in terms of geography — would refer those to the courts immediately so

more women don't have to suffer.

[2:30]

HON. B.R. SMITH: No, and I will not set up a national health

seminar on the matter either, which is what the Leader of the

Opposition is proposing. I do not understand, Mr. Speaker, how this

member can try to suggest that a court application filed on a Thursday

or Friday and argued and heard by the Chief Justice on a Tuesday isn't

an absolutely responsible and expeditious way of dealing with the

challenge. It certainly is, and we will give the same accommodation if

there are other challenges.

MR. SIHOTA: I want to return to something the

Attorney-General said about the federal government: waiting for the

federal government to take the leadership on this issue. The federal

government has passed a statute. It's called the Canada Health Act. It

tells this province what it has to do in the case of providing these

types of medical services. Now this government doesn't apply the

life-threatening test to all other medical services it is required to

provide under the Canada Health Act. It doesn't apply the

life-threatening test to tubal ligation, vasectomies, breaking a leg or

scratching an eye. But they do on abortion.

Given this government's obligation to fulfil the terms of the Canada

Health Act, and given the fact that the Charter demands equality of

treatment, does the Attorney-General not agree that his government's

policies offend both the Canada Health Act and the Charter of Rights?

HON. B.R. SMITH: No, Mr. Speaker, I do not, because the

proposition that is being put forward is that the Charter requires

eternal funding of every service that the member alleges is provided

for under the Canada Health Act. We have no indication that our policy

is in violation of the Canada Health Act. If in fact it is, and if a

court rules it is, then naturally we'll abide by that order. But we

have no such indication, and the member knows that. We are proceeding

quickly to the courts if any challenges of that kind are forthcoming.

Presenting Petitions

MS. EDWARDS: Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present a

petition to the Legislature and to table with it some 270 letters

supporting the import of the petition. The petition says:

"To the hon. the Legislative Assembly of the Province of British Columbia in legislature assembled:

"The petition of the undersigned of the Elk Valley

Health and Safety Protection Committee and the residents of the Elk

Valley state that the proposed Chevron Mansfield C-72-d sour gas well

presents a potential danger and risk to the health and safety of many

Elk Valley residents. Your petitioners respectfully request that the

hon. House rescind the permit which allows Chevron to drill the

proposed Mansfield C-72-d sour gas well until medical research which is

currently being done by Dr. Hulbert of the University of Alberta is

completed, so that the results can be included in the consideration of

granting the permit for Chevron to drill this well."

[ Page 3122 ]

This petition comes with more than 270 letters addressed to the

Premier and to the Minister of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources

(Hon. Mr. Davis); similar letters too, more than 900, have been sent

with the same message, Mr. Speaker.

Hon. L. Hanson tabled the annual report of the Ministry of Labour and Consumer Services for the year ending March 31, 1987.

Orders of the Day

HON. MR. STRACHAN: I call adjourned debate on the amendment to second reading of Bill 28.

ELECTION AMENDMENT ACT, 1987

(continued)

On the amendment.

MR. GABELMANN: This afternoon in the debate on the amendments

to the Election Act, I intend to make two points and two points only.

My concerns with this legislation revolve around one issue. That issue

is the right of a citizen in a free and democratic society to vote. The

issue has been canvassed for some hours now in this Legislature, but I

am not certain that all members of this House have understood fully

what it is that these amendments will do.

Before getting to the details of that, I want to make my first

point, and that is this: governments are elected every three or four

years to govern and are given a mandate by voters to do that governing.

Governments are not elected to set the rules by which they will be

elected. That is the reason why we normally have independent electoral

commissions to determine constituency boundaries — a principle that is

well established in most provincial jurisdictions and certainly well

established nationally and now appears to have been established

properly here in British Columbia with the full authority of the Fisher

commission to examine into those boundaries.

The other side of the question in respect to elections is the rules

which govern those elections. The reason why we on this side of the

House are arguing for a hoist — a six-month delay — is so that the

government can consider not necessarily amendments to this bill or

withdrawing the bill altogether, but can consider the principles upon

which legislation of this kind should be introduced.

It is my contention that as with electoral boundary commissions and

the determination of constituency boundaries, so too should election

law be determined by a neutral independent body to be referred to this

Legislature and enacted upon by this Legislature. It is inappropriate

for elected politicians of whatever stripe to write the rules that

govern their election, in the same way as it is inappropriate for

elected officials to draw constituency boundaries on their own. I think

that point has not been fully understood by many members of this

Legislature and, from all accounts, not by the minister.

We are a small percentage of the people who were contestants in the last election

campaign. We are obviously an even smaller percentage of the society which exercises

its rights in those election campaigns. We do not have a right in this Legislature

by partisan, political decision to set up the rules which govern our re-election

or other members' election in the next campaign and in subsequent campaigns.

That process, as I said, should be done in the same way as the redrawing of

constituency boundaries is done — by an independent commission. It can be the

same commission, or it can be a different commission; that's not a concern

of mine at the moment. The principle, however, of the decision that establishes

the rules of the game being made in a partisan manner I think is the fundamental

question.

My second point deals more specifically with.... And we have to deal

with the legislation. I don't like the fact that we have to deal with

it in this way. I'd rather it came from a commission, but we have to

deal with it. It deals with the simple point that we are denying some

of our citizens — a small percentage of them, no doubt — the right to

vote. Let me tell you why. But before I tell you why, let me say that

unlike the intimations of some members on the government side, if not

all, we are not talking here about a privilege. Voting is not a

privilege in our society. Voting is a right. I don't want to take the

time to get into a lecture about the differences between privileges and

rights. We members of this House understand the differences. There are

issues where we would disagree about the line between rights and

privileges, but I can't believe for a moment that any citizen in our

society nor any member of this House would argue for a minute that in a

free and democratic society the most fundamental right is the right to

vote. It is not a privilege.

If it's a right, then everyone should have access to it. "We do,"

interjects the minister responsible for the bill. Some of us in this

House may have read last year an extensive report done by Southam News

on literacy in this country and may have been appalled by the findings

of that report in which it was discovered that incredible numbers of

Canadians are in fact functionally illiterate — cannot read or write in

many instances. That's an astounding fact. It was astounding to me when

I read that particular survey. I think most of us in this House would

have been surprised by the extent of that functional illiteracy, but we

have not passed nor should we ever pass a law in this province or this

country which says that if you're functionally illiterate you do not

have the right to vote. We don't have that. Everybody has the right to

vote, given certain reasonable rules: reaching the age of 19 in this

province — it should be 18, but it's 19 — and being a citizen and a

variety of other reasonable provisions. Everyone has the right to vote.

Whether or not they understand what an election is, whether or not they

understand what democracy is or what a parliament is, they have the

right to vote.

Included among our citizens are people who do not understand this

process as we do. Obviously, members of this House fully understand

that there is an Election Act, there are elections, there is such a

thing as dropping the writ and there is such a thing as a voters list.

We understand that; a majority of British Columbians understand that.

But there are tens upon tens of thousands of British Columbians who do

not know anything about that, who do not understand that, who do not

pay the same kind of attention to election campaigns as we do.

Some of those people, when they are canvassed or enumerated in a

federal election, think they're on a voters list. They are. Some of

those people, when they are put on or get themselves on — or they own

property, so they're automatically on a municipal voters list — think

they're on a voters list. Many of those people do not distinguish one

voters list from another. There isn't a member of this House, I am

[ Page 3123 ]

convinced, who has participated in election

campaigns as an organizer or candidate, who hasn't on election day run

into otherwise qualified people at the polling station or when taking

people to the polling station when they phone in for a ride or for

whatever reason, who come to the polling station and discover their

name is not on the list. When you as a worker in the campaign or as a

candidate or something say to them,"Did you not register...? Every one

of us who has worked in a campaign will be able to recount from memory

dozens and dozens of cases where people will say: "Well, I registered.

I remember when they came around and enumerated me." Then when you

question them and ask,"Are you sure it was the provincial enumeration?"

they say: "Well, I don't know the difference. They came around, and I

signed up, and I'm on a voters list." You ask them: "Was it a federal

list?" "Well, I don't know. How long ago was it? Well, it was sometime

in the last few years." In fact, it may have been the previous

provincial election in another community they used to live in, outside

their current riding. It may have been the federal campaign; it may

have had something to do with municipal voting. People don't remember.

So you find dozens of people in every community — I'm not going to

say dozens in every poll; to do that might exaggerate the point, but

many in every poll — who honestly believe that they're on the list and

make no effort to find out about that until they go in to vote, because

they don't know they need to find out about it. They just go in to

vote. They know they have a right to vote. They're old enough. They're

citizens. They know they were registered or enumerated or that they're

on a list somewhere. They voted in the last election, they say. You ask

them what the last election was. They can't remember whether it was

municipal, federal or provincial. They go into the polling station, and

they can't vote because they're not on the list.

[2:45]

That's why election acts in most provinces in this country allow for

those people to vote on election day. They believe they are eligible;

they are, by all criteria. They have a right to vote, so they go to

vote, but they get tricked. I don't mean "trick" in the sense that

anybody is out to try to deliberately trick that person individually,

but they get tricked by the system.

It is a complicated, convoluted process to people who are not

interested in or concerned about politics, or who are not functionally

literate. They may not be able to read the newspaper ads, so they

listen to the radio ads and the television ads that come from the chief

electoral officer. The ad will say that in order to vote in the next

election you have to be on the list, and the person will say: "I'm on

the list; I voted last time." They can't remember how long ago last

time was. They can't remember whether it was municipal, provincial or

federal, and they can't remember whether it was on the list in the

community where they live or where they used to live.

In a province like ours, which is as transient as it is, especially

in some constituencies, that is a common problem. If you do not have a

provision by which people can arrive at the polling station and, in the

course of discovering that they're not on the list and that in fact

they were enumerated in a different election, have a right to get on

the list right then.... What's wrong with that?

The government argument seems to me to have two elements. One is

that people might.... I heard the Minister of Tourism, Recreation and

Culture (Hon. Mr. Reid) talk about busing from one riding to another.

He interjected that....

HON. MR. REID: I didn't say that. I said "busing," but I didn't say "from one to the other." There's a big difference.

MR. GABELMANN: I assume if you're being bused you're being

bused from point A to point B, right? Anyway, I'm silly to involve

myself in a debate of this kind.

The government argument appears to be twofold. One is that people

may shift the location of their voting. For example, I guess the

scenario goes this way: if you are a certain political adherent, you

might live in a constituency where you either win overwhelmingly or

lose overwhelmingly. Your vote is perceived to be of less value,

therefore you go to a neighbouring constituency where you can find a

way of being registered, and you vote there. Nobody wants that. That's

the argument I've mostly heard in reference to Point Grey, in terms of

students who in many cases have a legitimate difficulty in determining

which constituency they are properly to vote in.

HON. MR. VEITCH: All they have to do is read the act.

MR. GABELMANN: There are times when the act isn't clear; I can think of situations, but we won't go into that.

What we heard was that people in that category, students

particularly, could have the choice of voting, say, in Prince George or

in Point Grey. So an argument is made that maybe they make the choice.

They don't have that choice; the minister agrees. The act is clear. The

rules are precise: you vote where you ordinarily live.

Interjection.

MR. GABELMANN: That's right. If you intend to return. You may

be in the second-last month of your university term. You don't know

whether you're going back to Prince George to your parents' home,

because you don't know where your job is going to be for the summer. So

it gets complicated.

But that's not the issue. We realize that there are clear and

specific rules. There needs to be no legislation, as we've done with

this bill, which prevents people from manipulating the clause about

where they live. The minister agrees: you can't manipulate it. The

rules are clear. If you violate the rules, you can be charged. There's

no problem; we agree, it seems, with that particular provision.

What, then, is the problem? What is the government arguing? What

goes wrong on election day? It's not that people vote in the wrong

riding, or that they move into another riding, because that's covered

by other sections. What's the government's argument? There isn't an

argument. When you go through and try to sort out why it is that people

who are not on the list on election day can't vote, what we really come

down to is one issue, and one issue only: some political parties are

better equipped in some ridings to organize those people to get out to

vote — those people who are not on the list. And there's a concern.

Interjection.

MR. GABELMANN: No. People who are not on the list, period. People who are on the list elsewhere? Let's just go

[ Page 3124 ]

back to that. I thought I had dealt with that, but let's go back to that.

The person who is on a voters list.... With those changes, in the

third year after the election they register, and like many people in my

constituency they work six weeks in this community and six weeks in

that community and then two months in the next one, so they have moved

four or five times since the last time they got on a voters list. If

they remember to get on each time, presumably the mechanism will get

them off the previous one. But people don't go into the.... You get a

job in a construction project in a particular community; you don't go

down to the registrar of voters to change where you're living. It just

doesn't happen. People don't do that.

The election is in the fourth year. So it's a year after you've been

enumerated. Say you were enumerated, and you're living in the third or

fourth or fifth different community and different riding since then.

What do you do? Do you go and get registered? "No," you say, "I am

registered. I remember getting registered, but I don't remember where."

You can't remember that kind of thing, because people don't pay much

attention. The government is saying that those people who are on a list

will not be able to vote. Look at the combination of

section 80 and

section 80.1 now, and

section 117 and 118, and those people are not

going to be able to vote, because they no longer live where they were

registered. They can't vote where they don't live. But they normally

live in this new place. We'll get to this more effectively in committee

stage.

My point is that there are people who, for a variety of reasons —

because they moved, because they're functionally illiterate, because

they don't pay much attention to politics like we do — don't get

themselves in a position to be on the list.

I guess it comes down to the basic point that if they have the right

to vote, then they have the right to vote, period. Your right to vote

is not subject to a responsibility to get on the list. There is a right

to vote. Rights cannot be abrogated; rights cannot be made smaller;

rights cannot be reduced by mechanistic, bureaucratic devices to limit

the right. And I think the courts will decide eventually that that's

what the Charter of Rights means. But that's to be determined.

I don't see why any self-respecting believer in a democratic society

wouldn't make it possible for every single individual to vote as a

matter of right, not as a matter of responsibility to go and get

himself on the list. And anybody who says an enumeration conducted in

the fall of the third year or whenever it's conducted is going to get

everybody is a fool or is fooling himself. Because the enumeration last

time, which was supposed to be a thorough enumeration, missed probably

10 to 15 percent of the people of British Columbia, or a number higher

than that, as some people allege. Otherwise, why were there fewer

voters registered in 1986 than in 1982-83? And why were there

150,000-odd people going in to vote who weren't on the list? And many,

many thousands of others who didn't go in to vote who weren't on the

list? That was following a full enumeration.

AN HON. MEMBER: A tiny percentage.

MR. GABELMANN: The percentage doesn't matter. It's like the

old joke about paying for a particular service — the price doesn't matter;

if you pay, you pay. It doesn't matter if the percent is 50 percent or 0.0000000001

percent. The principle is what counts in a democratic society about the right

to vote, and if one citizen who is otherwise eligible to vote is denied a vote

because of bureaucratic, mechanistic, legislative impediments, then the whole

of our society is demeaned by that person's not having a right to vote.

And when I say they don't have a right to vote I'm talking about an

effective right to vote, because if they don't know the procedure, don't

understand how it works, don't get themselves on the list or think they're

on the list and discover they're not, they can't vote.

[Mrs. Gran in the chair.]

Now the minister might argue.... He won't do it successfully, but he

might argue that they can vote; under 80.1 they can go in and say: "I

think I'm on the list; therefore I get a ballot." But that ballot won't

be counted if they didn't get themselves on the list prior to three

days before. A ballot that's not counted, even though it's been cast,

does not mean that person has had a right to vote. What we have to do,

if legislators are making this law, which I argued initially they

shouldn't be.... It should be independent from partisan political

decision. However, if we are going to be making this decision, it

should be based on one premise and one premise only: that is, to ensure

that every citizen who chooses to vote votes. Period. That does not

exist with this amendment.

I thought I would talk for five minutes, and it has been almost 25

now. The point is so basic and so simple and so singular that it is

difficult to find different ways of making the argument in order to try

to get through into people's minds that this bill, in a significant

way, takes away from some of our citizens their right to vote. The

minister shakes his head. It takes away from those of our citizens who

do not understand the process, who are confused by the process, who

believed that certain things happened, their right to vote. Why would a

parliament be designing and passing laws that would restrict an

individual's opportunity to cast their vote? There can only be two

answers to that. Is it because the bureaucracy in the chief electoral

officer's office is frustrated by the mechanisms; they don't like it,

they find it untidy, difficult? If it's a bureaucratically driven

legislative initiative, it should be tossed out without any further

debate, much less a six-month hoist. If a bureaucratic frustration with

the

section 80 process — which requires some difficulty, extra staff,

extra checking, the possible charging of people who might violate the

one person, one vote rule — is what has driven these amendments, then

it should be thrown out, because no bureaucratic reason is good enough

to deny people an opportunity and a right to vote, and it should not be

accepted.

[3:00]

I assume — I can only do that — that the government is bringing this

in not driven by the bureaucracy but rather driven by the political

side. It's one or the other: either the government has brought it in

because the bureaucrats say we need it to make the machinery smoother,

or it's driven by a political decision of cabinet that we need it for

some other purpose. And what's the other purpose? What else could it

possibly be, if it's not bureaucratically driven, other than politics?

I can't think of any other alternative that might exist as to why this

particular legislation is in front of us. It's either politically

driven or bureaucratically driven. In either case it's wrong.

If it's politically driven, it's inappropriate in a free society, because even if it didn't affect the results of the next

[ Page 3125 ]

election, it can be perceived to have an impact on

the next election. Who in our society most often don't get themselves

on the list? Poor people, transients, less educated people. Often — not

always, but often — it's people who work for a living in a variety of

jobs and who travel. Many of those people often happen to be New

Democratic Party supporters. That leads to a conclusion on the part of

some of our members, quite justifiably, that this is politically

driven, that there is a desire to weed out some of those voters

cleverly, masking it in all these trappings of alleged democracy.

The minister says no, that's not what it is. Therefore it must have

come out of the bureaucracy: that there is a feeling there that the

mechanisms don't work. There is no justification in our society to

tamper with, to affect in any way the rights of people to vote, simply

because bureaucrats find the process difficult or cumbersome or

problematic.

So what are we left with? Why are we debating this bill? Why aren't

we in fact making amendments, if they're necessary, to ensure that

every citizen who wants to vote votes on election day? If any one of

those citizens votes twice, they should be charged and the full force

of the law applied against them. Everybody in this House would support

that. If any one of those voters manipulates the residency

requirements, they too should be charged.

HON. MR. VEITCH: We'll be charging from now till sundown.

MR. GABELMANN: The minister says: "We'll be charging from now

till sundown." Well, that's only until about 5 o'clock, so three hours'

worth of charges are not bad, to have a democracy in our society. But

let me say that you won't be charging from now till sundown, because it

doesn't happen. People don't vote twice. People don't cheat. People

want an honest opportunity to vote. If people did cheat, there would

have been some charges. If people did cheat, there would have at least

been some allegations made and some names dropped. There have not been

any, because it doesn't happen. It might happen in the odd isolated

case, but I guarantee you it didn't happen in North Island. There

wasn't a single allegation or suggestion that I heard of or that anyone

else that I know of might have heard of in that constituency of people

voting twice or manipulating the requirements of residency. Yet some

1,500 people, if I remember correctly, voted under

section 80 in that

constituency.

What you do, if you believe that people have the right to vote, is

allow them to vote, and you do not impose educational or other

impediments simply because they do not follow politics like we do and

do not understand the rules or perhaps are not functionally literate.

You do not impose rules which prevent those people from having the

right to exercise their right to vote.

It's for that reason that we on this side of the House are proposing

that there be a six-month hoist: not so that it can be brought back in

six months, but so that the government and the minister can rethink how

it is these laws are derived, who actually constructs those laws, and

what their purpose is. I suggest that the process should be independent

and neutral and the goal should be that every single citizen has the

right to vote in an election.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The Minister of Labour has 30 minutes.

HON. L. HANSON: Thirty minutes. That's a long time.

AN HON. MEMBER: We'll give you more time tomorrow.

HON. L. HANSON: Will you? I never fail to be amazed at your generosity.

In any case, I speak against the hoist motion. That surprises the

members for the opposition. I would imagine. It's interesting to hear

the rhetoric that goes on, the claims that democracy is being totally

alienated by the

section 80 vote change. There seems to be a suggestion

that democracy is truly only predicated on people not having any

requirement other than to be able to register on the day of the

election.

Bill 28 does provide some extra days — in fact, a number of extra

days. I believe the opposition House Leader was suggesting that it

restricted the registration time, and if I remember correctly, he said

to 14 days before the election date.

AN HON. MEMBER: The Leader of the Opposition.

HON. L. HANSON: I'm sorry, the Leader of the Opposition. My apologies, Mr. House Leader.

The facts are that I believe registration is allowed up to within

three days before the election. I know that there were a number of

presentations by the opposition that the ability to vote is a right,

and I certainly agree with that right. I think that all rights do have

some obligations. We, in our society today, are obligated to do certain

things before we're permitted to do certain things, even though they

may be our right. We're obligated to submit our income tax by a certain

date, and we're subject to some penalties if we don't. I think it's

only fair and reasonable that people have a requirement to do a

responsible act to entitle them to do certain things.

I don't see that the right to register on the day of voting, as has

been suggested by the members opposite, is the first step towards the

discontinuance, if you will, of democratic voting procedures to elect

our governments. I think the remark was made that it was the first step

to doing away with elections completely. I really would spend an awful

lot of time reading that act to determine in any way where that act

says or even intimates that there is an intention to do away with

democratic elections.

I think the Leader of the Opposition was suggesting something about

the Jansen report on the liquor review; I think he said it was an

indication that this government had a report done and then totally

ignored it. I would just like to place on the record that over 80 of

the 99 recommendations of that review have already been adopted by

government. And I wouldn't even raise that in the debate on Bill 28

except that it was raised by the Leader of the Opposition.

It's interesting also to note that most of the political parties in

Canada have a requirement to become a member before you have a right to

vote, and certainly you are not allowed to become a member on the day

of a nomination vote. I grant you that it does have some differences,

but I believe in your very own party there's a 60-day requirement. In

Okanagan North there's a 30-day requirement. That is in the Social

Credit Party, not in the New Democratic Party.

In any case, I have some difficulty in accepting the criticisms that

are being levelled at Bill 28 by the members on the opposite side. I

believe we are facing a by-election, maybe more than one, in the very

near future, and I urge this

[ Page 3126 ]

House to defeat the hoist motion and get on with

the adoption of Bill 28 for the betterment of the voting procedures in

British Columbia.

MS. EDWARDS: It's my pleasure to stand up and support the

motion to hoist this bill for six months, and I do it basically by

suggesting that there are some by-elections coming up, that the reason

that the minister proposes this bill is.... Perhaps his goals could be

obtained in a different way and they could be obtained if he tried some

proposals that we have in the by-election, at least one that is coming

up.

I think in order to do that we need to look at what the goal of this

legislation is. The Provincial Secretary says that he recognizes that

the fundamental principles for the voter include that voting must be

fair, safe from abuse, convenient and extended to all eligible voters.

He says that the system should be easy to follow, up-to-date and, above

all, fair.

There have been some problems with that because these are very

difficult standards to meet. And of course, when you look at the

changes that are proposed to the electoral process, one looks at the

goal of what they are and how we are trying to use them so they are,

above all, fair, certainly convenient, and extended to all eligible

voters and all of these other criteria that the Provincial Secretary

has put forward.

I was very interested in the speech of the member for North Island

(Mr. Gabelmann) who laid out very clearly what the possible reasons for

this legislation are. I chose to phrase them as goals, and I would

think that either the minister, the Provincial Secretary, is hoping for

ease of administration or, one supposes, increased voter participation.

I suspect that the third reason that was brought up by the member

for North Island, which was a political reason, is certainly something

that the party in power couldn't afford — a recognition that that party

was actually behaving in a manner that was simply political, and

political in the most miserable sense. So I have taken that out of my

remarks and suppose that perhaps the reason that the proposals are here

is for ease of administration. Certainly the remarks that he has made

indicate that that is why the changes are being made. In other words,

it was far too difficult to deal with 150,000-plus voters who wandered

to the polls on election day and said: "I should be here; I have a

right to vote and I want to vote."

What I want to say is that this is not the only way that one can

address the problem of administering the vote, of in fact doing a

registration procedure and then being assured that all the people have

the right to vote, and being sure that one doesn't infringe upon that

right by telling them that they cannot vote on election day when in

fact many of them have come from very far and wide with the

understanding that it is a citizen's right to vote, that they have

simply to meet the criteria of being 19 years of age and of having

lived in British Columbia for six months in the area in which they want

to vote.

I'm suggesting that the other goal which I am sure the minister

would also espouse — increasing voter participation — could be better

served if he used different methods of dealing with the administrative

part of getting the voters out to the polls. The Provincial Secretary

would do well to remember that we all complain of voter apathy. We all

say: "Oh, the public doesn't care." Then when the public cares and

comes out to the polls in droves, could somebody tell me why we want to

turn them away and say: "I'm sorry, you didn't come three days

earlier," or "I'm sorry, you didn't come three days earlier, and it

worked for you"? In other words, the process that we have worked.

We need, really, an assurance of better enumeration in any case, and

I am suggesting that we should proceed by changing some other

processes. I'm suggesting that if this legislation were hoisted for six

months, the government would find a golden opportunity to try out some

different methods and see whether in fact they could more efficiently

register the voters that we calculate to be out there. If they found

they could reduce the percentage of

section 80 voters, then perhaps

there would be no need to change this legislation.

There are some other problems. For one thing, the minister has not

consulted with the public. This has not had a great deal of discussion

in the public domain. In fact, it has been overshadowed by a number of

other issues that have been of what we consider to be a great radical

nature; that's why this particular bill hasn't come to people's

attention the way it deserves to have.

We think that consultation should occur, and it could occur before

such time as we need to run the by-election or by-elections that are

upcoming with other jurisdictions. I may be repetitive, Madam Speaker,

but I would like to point out that it's important that we look at what

happens across the country. In fact, if we canvassed the other

provinces, and even some other jurisdictions — in other words, Canada

and perhaps our neighbouring state, Washington — we would find that

British Columbia is out of step. What we find, if we look at whether or

not there is voting on election day by people who come to the polls, is

that there is that kind of voting. You can come in and vote on election

day in Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Prince Edward Island, Nova

Scotia and Newfoundland.

HON. MR. VEITCH: With restrictions.

MS. EDWARDS: You can come into the polls on voting day, and

they have some kind of legislation whereby you can vote. In fact, in

federal elections — and in Ontario and in New Brunswick in the rural

areas — if you come to the polls on voting day and you have not been

able to register, and you can swear an affidavit that you are eligible

to vote....

Interjection.

MS. EDWARDS: In general the trend is that in the rural areas there are procedures for voting on election day in those three areas.

In two areas that we canvassed in our check of the way things are,

there was no voting on election day. One of the provinces in Canada

where it is not allowed is Quebec; one of the neighbouring areas where

it is not allowed is the state of Washington. We might note that in

those jurisdictions there is something else that happens that might

make a difference. In Quebec they do an enumeration and register voters

annually; they do an annual list unless it is ordered otherwise. In

Washington state they have a permanent voters list which they keep

updated.

In Manitoba, where in fact they keep a voters list, they update

their voters list on a regular basis. I've forgotten just exactly how,

but I could find out by consulting my notes. They enumerate after the

writ, and they have been able, with

[ Page 3127 ]

an open voting list, to have only 2.8 percent of

their calculated number of voters come to the polls on election day

without having been previously registered.

That is probably much more administratively acceptable to the

electoral officer, and certainly wouldn't create the situation that we

had in the 1986 election, where people were lined up so badly.

Everybody has talked about it. There were lineups, there were people

turned away who didn't vote because they knew it would take too long,

and there were people who didn't have proper ballots and so on and so

forth.

[3:15]

It seems to me that the registration process must be very carefully

examined before we look at taking away

section 80 and allowing people

to come to the polls and vote if in fact they were left out of the

process somewhere along the line.

We have to look at our own registration system in British Columbia.

We know that it hasn't been working well. We know that duplications in

registration do not necessarily mean that there has been an abuse of

the right to vote; we know it by the arguments that have been put

forward already. But basically there were people who may have been

registered in another riding. The chief electoral officer said that if

they forgot whether they were registered in their previous riding, they

were quite eligible — and quite correctly eligible — to vote under

section 80.

Of all the numbers of people who voted under

section 80 in the last

election — this has been said endlessly; I will repeat it because it is

important — there has not been one single case in which any charge of

abuse was brought. This is a large number of people.

There were only 61-plus percent of our population registered to

vote. That of course doesn't mean the percent of the voters; I'm saying

the percent of the population. It's been calculated that in any riding

there were from less than 50 percent to just under 75 percent

registered on the list. That isn't enough. That is not a good enough

registration to ensure that everybody in our province has got the basic

right to vote. That should be fixed up. The Provincial Secretary tells

me that it will be better next time. I'm delighted it will be better

next time. If the registration process can be improved so that we do

not have a calculation of up to 25 percent of the voting public in

British Columbia left off the registration list, then we won't have the

large numbers of people coming to vote on election day and plugging the

system, and not having their rights recognized.

One has to notice that the total number of people who voted in 1986

was less than the total number that voted in 1983, despite an increase

in the population of the province. It's important to know these things,

and to put them down and to consider them, before we change a process

that perhaps does not need changing.

It's important to talk too.... I think the government should look at

these procedures before they take away the right of British Columbians

to vote on election day.

The card process. I want to add a little bit to what's been said before.

There are certainly any number of reasons why people don't recognize what

card they get in the mail, and whether that card said: here you should register

to vote, or here you have registered to vote, or here you are a registered voter,

or Columbia Natural Gas called, or you are being dunned for a bill from B.C.

Tel. People find in their mailbox printed messages and, for all the reasons

that the member for North Island (Mr. Gabelmann) has just outlined, they sometimes

are unclear. The general public is not as interested in elections as we in this

House are. They do not pay that kind of attention, and whether we like it or

not, that's what happens. That may be something that we should shake our

finger at them about, but probably shaking your finger at voters is not the

appropriate thing to do.

I think the whole business of phone calls was very confusing in the

1986 election. People were told: "No, you haven't got your voter's card

yet, but all you need to do is phone up and find out if you're on the

voters list." Well, I am sorry to have to remind the members of this

House, in case they had some of these voters in their constituencies,

that people do not trust phoning a government bureaucrat to be told

they are on the list, yes. Too many people in my riding have had too

much experience with the kind of bureaucracy that takes a look at some

microfiche and tells them something that isn't quite accurate, and when

the time has passed, they are out of luck. The phone call business was

told to them, and may have worked, but people didn't trust it, and they

weren't going to do it, because they wouldn't trust that it would bring

them any results. That was a problem. Maybe we can get around it some

other way.

The whole business of registration booths was handled not as well as one would

expect, to put it very mildly. The registration booths were established in various

locations in everyone's constituency. In some constituencies there was no

notice to the public as to where they were, for example, over a weekend. That

can be a major reason why many people did not get their names on a registration

list. If the electoral process is not better, and if it cannot efficiently tell

people, in the most human way.... I say the most human way because I mean

that it appeals to the human being out there. If they can't do that, then

they cannot expect that the registration process will work well. They might

expect the kind of thing that happened with so many people not being on the

list. Why don't we try better registration methods? Why don't we try

them in Boundary-Similkameen and in any other by-election that we're having?

Why doesn't the government try to see if it can make a better system and

perform better administratively in this particular aspect of the voting process?

Why don't we see if the number of

section 80 votes can be reduced in one

or more by-elections for ridings? If that's the case, then there is no reason

to impede the course of justice for people who require and expect the right

to be able to vote.

We have to remember, in thinking about that, the reasons why people

may not be able to get their names on the voters list and to register

up to three days before voting day. It may sound very generous to those

of us who are of course always there come voting day. We're around,

right? We can find some time to do this in the riding, the

constituency, where we belong. But there are some problems.

I know it's always said: "Students, well, they're fine." I think

that those of us here who have been students know that there are times

in the life of students when they read nothing but the books that they

must get from a library or which they have had to buy from a bookstore

for their courses. Students don't have time to sit around reading

newspapers. In fact, some students don't see a newspaper from the time

they go into university, for example. And it's the university and

post-secondary level students we're talking about, because these are

the ones who are older than the rest, and voting Canadians. They are

going to be there, and they often do not have the time to do the kind

of scanning that is considered the kind of stuff that every citizen

does. That's one of the reasons that we

[ Page 3128 ]

have problems registering students. We forget what

it is that makes them tick. We don't seem to know yet how to get to

them as well as we should.

I think every member in this House has people in their ridings who

are tradesmen who work somewhere else. In my riding I have carpenters;

80 percent of the carpenters who are employed — which is a very small

percentage of the number of carpenters who are there — work on the CPR

tunnel project in Revelstoke. They go to Revelstoke to work. Their

place of residence and domicile is in my riding. They do not easily get

back to get their names on a voters list three days before a voting

day. It is not easy for them to get registered. They do not find it

simple. There are the others who in fact may go to Pincher Creek to

work on a project over there. That's even more difficult. They can't

even talk to their provincial people from there. The Alberta

government, I'm trying to say, hasn't stopped them all.

There are tenants who move around. Of course, tenants have to move

from place to place, and I'm told they can vote in a different poll

under some

section of the Election Act. But that doesn't cover the

whole thing. In my area, they move from riding to riding, and they

don't find it easy to get themselves registered on the voters list.

[3:30]

I think that we can't forget the illiterate. People pass this by,

but it's a matter of some considerable concern, and we are just now in

this country addressing the extent of illiteracy and how it affects

many people in our country and certainly in British Columbia. A person

who is illiterate is going to be able to vote, is going to be able to

hear the issues by oral ways, and so on and so forth, but in fact is

not necessarily going to be able to easily find the way to register to

vote. If a person who is functionally illiterate doesn't happen to be

home when an enumerator comes around, it is very difficult for that

person to cope with the electoral registration process.

We have, then, all of these things. We have students that don't have

time. We have seniors who can't afford newspapers either, and there is

a lot of work for this through newspapers.

We also have the problems that come with the latest technology. I

believe the Provincial Secretary said that there is a lot of use of

computers with the voters list. I would certainly applaud the use of

computers, but I think everyone has to recognize the problems that are

not human that come with computers. When was the last time you got your

name mixed up or a machine made a mistake? "The computer made the

mistake at the bank," is the one we often look at first, and we go and

talk till we're blue in the face to try to explain what's wrong. That

becomes a major impediment to people trying to have the process work

for them.

I think that all of these things need to be addressed. I think the

Provincial Secretary has to look at them all. He has to be assured that

the chief electoral officer is looking at them all and has a better

plan than the one we had in the last election so that we have far more

people registered, in which case there is no need to eliminate

section

80 votes where there is no evidence of any abuse having taken place.

If the government can improve its registration techniques, and if it betters

its record in Boundary-Similkameen and the other ridings in which it might have

the option to try out these techniques — in other words, move the 7.05 percent

of the vote that was

section 80 votes down to something closer to the Manitoba

achievement of 2.8 percent — only then could we decide if we should move away

from an accepted practice in Canada. It may be well to stop here for a minute

and say: " Oh, yes, you just want us to be the same as everybody else."

That's not what I'm saying. People always do like to stand out from

the crowd as a person who looks better, who achieves better, who moves better,

but nobody likes to stand out from the crowd because they have a large wart

on their nose. I'm suggesting that this difference from the rest of Canada

would be like a large wart on the nose.

If the chief electoral officer fails to improve the situation in the

by-elections, we could then decide if we should move to a practice that

is obviously more necessary in British Columbia where the

section 80

vote is so high. If we have poor registration, it doesn't make sense to

take away

section 80. If you can't get on the vote by registering in

the normal way, you should still have that right. It has been argued

very forcefully that voting is a right, and therefore it is there. You

should have the right to walk in and declare that you have the right by

an affidavit and have your vote cast and counted.

We could also decide if we have any excuse at all for removing this

opportunity for the public to prove that it is not an apathetic public.

We sometimes are careless with that term, but all that the large number

section 80 votes proves to us is that the public is perhaps not as

apathetic as we sometimes accuse them of being. If people were sitting

home, if we had a registration process that miscalculated 15 to 25

percent of the voting public, and if we didn't have any

section 80

vote, that would be different. But we did have a huge

section 80 vote.

We need that safeguard, and we need it whether or not we have a good

process; we need it because it's a right of people. We could decide, if

the process was improved, that we have the technical expertise and the

ethical commitment to open the door as wide as possible to the voters

of British Columbia instead of closing it, where we don't have any need

to close it. We can handle election day

section 80 votes, which have

their function and purpose in establishing in this jurisdiction that

voters who have a spoken right to vote also have an actual right to

vote.

What I'm trying to say is that we want fairness in the electoral

process. We want fairness that is perceived to be fair. Probably the

clearest thing anybody knows from the time they're a child is whether

something is fair. It's not fair if you go to the polls to vote and you

can't vote. We need to be sure that we have that possibility for every

one of our citizens, and we need to have that perception clearly in the

public mind.

MR. MOWAT: I sit in this House today to oppose the

opposition's motion to hoist Bill 28. I think Bill 28 ensures the

eligibility of all British Columbians to have their name placed on the

voters list. I think every British Columbian has a right to vote, and

it's a given right, but with that right comes responsibility. We give

our British Columbians the right to drive a car, but with it comes the

very serious responsibility of how they drive it. Many of our

Canadians, and particularly a lot of British Columbians, have fought

for our right to vote in provincial elections. I think sometimes we

don't take that right and our responsibilities seriously enough.

I note that in many other countries in the western democracy, the

law says you must vote. If you do not vote, you're penalized —

Australia, Belgium, Greece, Luxembourg, Switzerland. In Italy they say

that while it's not compulsory, it's regarded as a duty, and failure to

vote is recorded for five years on the elector's identity card. I also

note that in Australia, for example, a member of the Commonwealth, it

is mandatory to vote, and their voter turnout is 94.3 percent.

[ Page 3129 ]

In other countries, we often see on television where some people

abuse the privilege of voting. They do not vote in other types of

elections, whether we see it as a democratic country or not, and they

are not exercising their rights or responsibility.

I recently read the book From Snowshoes to Politics ,

written by a former member of this House and minister, the Hon. Cyril

Shelford, in which he recounts very graphically why he went to war and

some of his thoughts, when he was fighting up through Italy and in

Europe, about the right to vote. When he came back to Canada he was

going to ensure that he got involved in the process of democracy, which

is a very precious thing for us in British Columbia and in Canada. But

often we do not take the responsibility of the right of voting very

seriously.

I know that some members of our House on both sides have gone

through a recount in the recent election in 1986. I went through this

in Vancouver–Little Mountain, and I noted that there were 953

duplications of registration and 790

section 80 duplicates. The total

number of

section 80 votes in Vancouver–Little Mountain was 9,206, and

those were just the ones noted. That says to me that there's something

wrong with the system and it must be looked at.

I must say that one of the other things I feel very strongly about

in Bill 28 is what it will do for the disabled. They're referred to in

the act as shut-ins, but those are persons who, because of disability,

cannot get out to vote on voting day. They now have the privilege of

voting on voting day.

But again, to ensure that that voter has taken his responsibility,

the act says he must be on the voters list and must be registered. I

think that's a very little price to pay for a person who wants to

exercise the democratic right, to take the time and become registered.

Now a person who's on a disability and has trouble getting out can

become registered very easily, and that will allow that person to

exercise the right.

Also we have the advance poll, which allows for a lot of people who,

because of their age, may have problems in getting to a very busy poll

on voting day but can go to the advance poll and vote in a leisurely

method, to get in with the assistance of people who will take them to

the advance poll.

I think very strongly that a person who wants to exercise his right

has, any business day of the year, the right to go and see if he is on

the voters list and, if not, to put his name on the list. I was very

concerned to hear the member for New Westminster (Ms. A. Hagen) speak

against the public service people working for our government and knock

them and say that she was very concerned about what happens when you

phone to see if you're on the voters list and that — if I understood

what she said — you cannot rely on information given by the public

service. I think the public service of this province does a great job

in many areas, particularly with the problems on voters day.

I think that by expanding in Bill 28 the number from ten days, adding on a

number six for a total of 16, it's another way we're looking after it.

We know Bill 28 will ensure that no British Columbian is denied his or her right

to vote, but in it we ask that when they go to the ballot-box that day, they

be a registered voter in the electoral district where they reside. But where

their name has not been included on the voters list, they can cast a ballot.

If there's no voter registration card in their name at the polling place,

they can apply for a ballot, mark it and have it placed in a ballot envelope

to be dealt with by the returning officer on or before the final count.

I think that's little to ask of our citizens, that they become

registered on the voters list to ensure that they are not denied and to

ensure that they have taken that step of responsibility and have gone

to the electoral list to see if they are on it and, if not, made that

effort to put themselves on it.

I again speak against the hoisting of this motion and hope that the House will proceed to enact this legislation very quickly.

MR. SKELLY: I'm in the difficult position of being against

the hoist, but I'm going to speak in favour of it and vote in favour of

it. I can say this because the Minister of Labour (Hon. L. Hanson) is

in the room. In very few instances — and I said this during my last

participation on a hoist motion — during the 16 years that I've been a

member of this Legislative Assembly has the opposition ever chosen to

use the hoist motion.

In my view, a hoist motion is generally brought to the floor of the

House out of frustration, when all else has failed, when reason has

failed, when negotiations among the critic and the minister and the

House Leaders have failed. We all know that this is a motion of

confidence; we all know that the government is bound to reject it, so

we all know what the outcome of that process is.

This bill has been on the order paper since the last sitting of this

Legislature. There has been an opportunity to discuss the issues

between the critic and the minister. I know those discussions have

taken place. I have a great deal of respect for the first member for

Victoria (Mr. G. Hanson) and for his commitment to the democratic

system. He has presented a bill in this Legislature calling for a

reform of the electoral system in this province and indicated to the

minister that he is prepared to discuss these issues to see if we can

bring about, through the process in this Legislature, the most neutral

and most effective electoral legislation that this province can

possibly bring.

I resent the fact that government members in this House seem to be

comparing us with other provinces and saying — in terms of the open

period for registration — that we're a tiny bit better than Manitoba or

some other province. What we want in this Legislature, and what we want

for British Columbians is the best we can possibly be.

When we've reached this point in debate, and the minister smiles

across the floor at me, knowing that we've reached the end of this

debate, really.... We reached it when it began, because the government

isn't going to make any move on this. If I were the Provincial

Secretary or the government or the Minister of Labour, knowing that

we've reached the point where, in labour relations, we're ready to walk

out on the street in a strike or a lockout and that reason has failed

and the parties to negotiation have failed and the process has really

failed and that something has gone wrong.... If I were the Provincial

Secretary when this kind of a motion has been put on the floor....

Remember, as I said, in the last 16 years that I've been a member of

this Legislature, I think we've dealt with only a dozen of these

motions. A tiny fraction of one percent of all the bills that have come

in to this Legislature since I've been a member have been subjected to

this kind of motion. I think that the Provincial Secretary should take

this into consideration, because we don't use this motion lightly.

[3:45]

We've reached the point that people reach in labour negotiations when everything has failed, and negotiations

[ Page 3130 ]

have failed, and reason has failed, and people hit

the streets or get locked out. I think that — and this is why I'm

against a motion to hoist for six months because I know it's the end of

the road — perhaps the minister might think it over a little while and

not take six months, but maybe withdraw this bill during second reading

and offer to meet with our critics and the experts in this area and

say: "If this isn't going to serve the people of the province by

establishing a neutral voter registration system and a neutral piece of

electoral legislation, then what suggestions do you have that might be

brought back on the floor that will resolve the problem?"

This is the government — and I don't have to remind you, Madam

Speaker — that campaigned during the last election on being

consultative and cooperative and willing to listen to the people of the

province and incorporate their views and the views of the people on

this side who represent 43 percent of the voters in the province of

British Columbia. This government campaigned on that basis; why don't

they act on that basis? Here is an opportunity for the minister to

demonstrate what kind of stuff he is made of, to demonstrate whether he

really believes in that kind of process, and to pull this bill. Don't

wait for the hoist motion. We all know we're wasting our breath on

that. Pull the bill. Discuss it with the debate leaders, and I think

that we can come to some kind of conclusion on an adequate and neutral

registration and voting process that will satisfy all of the people of

the province and will be neutral with respect to political favour. I

think we can do that, and I want to suggest that the minister do that.

That's why I say I'm against the hoist motion, because I know what the

ultimate result is going to be.

I feel that I'm put in an unreasonable position by having to support

a motion like this, knowing that it's going to be fruitless and that

the result isn't going to favour the people of this province and that

we're not going to end up with a neutral and effective voter

registration system. That's why I guess I feel frustrated in being

forced to speak against the hoist and vote for it. I don't like being

forced to do anything.

Interjection.

MR. SKELLY: I'm going to vote in favour of the hoist.

There's only one

section that's in dispute, and that's the

section that does away with

section 80 votes.

Interjection.

MR. SKELLY: Every speaker — including the member for

Vancouver–Little Mountain who is interfering, contrary to the rules of

this House — on the government side and on the opposition side has

recognized that

section 80 is a problem. He said that 9,000 people in

his constituency sought to register on election day under

section 80

because they didn't know if they were or weren't on the voters list. In

any case, he said that that told him the story, that there was a

problem with the registration process in the province of British

Columbia.

When you get 157,000 people registering on election day, going

through the kind of confusion that resulted from the

section 80

process, it certainly should have told you the story: not that there's

something wrong with

section 80, but that there's something wrong with

the initial voter enumeration process and the voter registration

process. Rather than trying to eliminate the symptom, we should be

dealing with the disease, and the disease is the voter registration

process.

You've suggested that by expanding the voter registration time, the

time that people can register to vote prior to an election call, or by

delaying the creation of a new voters list until the third year after

an election, we may be dealing with the problem. But I'm not convinced

that we're going to deal with it. One of the problems in this Election

Act is that it doesn't require voter registration people in a

constituency to compile an adequate voters list through an effective

enumeration process. They may be instructed to do it, but they're not

required to do it. As a result, we have the kind of process where

there's a little registration booth at Safeway or in the shopping mall

or somewhere else, but there is no adequate voter registration

procedure in this province.

What this side is arguing for is that that procedure be established

first. If it works, we fully expect to see the number of

section 80s

reduced, the confusion and the expense and the problems and the

bureaucratic routine that surround

section 80 on election day reduced,

and the problem resolved. What we don't want to do in the process — and

I know you don't want this to happen either — is to restrict voters and

deny them the right to vote.

[Mr. Pelton in the chair.]

I used to fly airplanes — not for a living, but to spend what I

earned in making a living. I used to fly airplanes for fun, and I also

fly other people's airplanes for business purposes. In airplanes — and

I think the Minister of Labour (Hon. L. Hanson) does a little flying

himself — they have what they call redundant systems. A redundant

system is something that does the work if the first system fails. You

have two sets of magnetos, so you keep those plugs a-poppin'.

You're a flier yourself, I understand, Mr. Speaker. You know that

you have redundant systems in order to protect you if the first system

fails. I'm glad that a 747 has two systems to make sure the flaps get

extended, because if the first system fails you can always rely on the

second one to catch the problem, rather than hitting the ground too

fast and too far from the runway. I'm glad that they have these

redundant systems built into airplanes, so that we as travellers and

fliers can be protected if the first part of the system fails.

Mr. Speaker, the right to vote is so important that there should be

redundant systems built into the electoral process to make sure that if

we're not caught in the registration system on the first round, there's

a second round and perhaps even a third round to make sure our citizens

have the right to vote by the time election day arrives. I think that

in looking at this Election Act we should be prepared to build in those

redundant systems so that our people are protected, and the democratic

rights of our citizens are protected.

I was surprised at the member for Little Mountain, who suggested

that being able to vote is something like having a driver's licence.

That is as far from an appropriate comparison as you can possibly get.

Having a driver's licence in our society is a privilege, a privilege

that's granted by the government and a privilege that can be taken away

legitimately by the government if you abuse that privilege. In a

democracy, the right to vote is not a right that you can grant or take

away. It is a right that is derived from this being a democracy in the

first place. There is absolutely no comparison in what the member said

between the issuing of a driver's licence by a government and the right

to vote, which is a fundamental and a basic right that no government in

[ Page 3131 ]

British Columbia has the right, as the member for

North Island (Mr. Gabelmann) suggested, to abridge or to take away or

to deprive any citizen of. In fact, this government has an obligation,

as I suggested before, even to introduce redundant systems that make

sure that that right is there and can be exercised by citizens on

voting day.

I don't want to take too much time in what I consider to be really a

waste of the House's time. It was my hope that when the first member

for Victoria (Mr. G. Hanson) brought this issue forward and asked for a

hoisting of this legislation, the minister might have taken his words

and his arguments into consideration, and pulled the bill and debated

the bill outside the House to see what might have been done to improve

the legislation in order to deliver the best possible voting system in

the province. That not being done, as I said before, we've reached the

point where it's almost fruitless.

The minister might argue that the 157,000

section 80 votes that

happened on election day in the 1986 election were confusing; that it

was a time-wasting process; that it was expensive because we had to

hire more deputy returning officers and that kind of thing to handle

the problem; but I'll tell you, already in this debate we've spent more

of the public's money than it cost to deal with the

section 80 process

in the last election. That's how fruitless this debate is. Already

we've spent more in terms of the time of this House debating this piece

of legislation than it cost to run the whole

section 80 system.

Surely members on the government side concerned about the amount of

public money that we're expending have to make some kind of judgment

themselves. Is there no more effective process than a hoist motion

where our debate leaders can sit down with their debate leaders and

hammer out a system that will be more acceptable to all members of the

House, that will eliminate the amount of time we have to spend on this

kind of debate in the Legislature and yet produce a better system for

the people of this province? I'm convinced that there is such a system,

Mr. Speaker. Even though the Provincial Secretary is not in the House,

I hope that he's listening; I hope that he'll take my words into

consideration; and I hope that we can come up with a system.

I'm certainly not satisfied with the Election Act and the electoral

system in the province of British Columbia. I think this Legislature is

proof positive that the system has failed. When the people who got 49

percent of the popular vote have 66 percent of the seats in the

Legislature, that's proof positive that the system has failed, because

the seats in this Legislature are not representative of the wishes of

the people. There should have been a fairer distribution of seats in

this Legislature, and that is proof that our electoral system is skewed

in favour of the government party.

[4:00]

If the minister really wanted to correct the problem, maybe he

should have looked at the way people are listed on the ballot. As you

know, Mr. Speaker, under

section 86 of the Election Act the government

party is always listed first. It's worth sufficient percentage of the

vote in each constituency that that alone could have turned the

election around in the last few elections. This Election Act was set up

in such a way as to favour the governing party, and there are many

things in the act that should have been changed.

I suggest to the minister that if he was interested in providing a fair and

impartial and neutral electoral process, then he would have checked through

this act with a fine-tooth comb and identified sections like that that run absolutely

counter to a fair and impartial and free and democratic process, and along with

other sections he would have eliminated that section.

The fact that he hasn't done it indicates to me that he's not

interested in the neutrality of the act. He's not interested in the

fairness and impartiality of the act. What he's interested in is

identifying a problem for a certain number of Social Credit candidates

in the last election and eliminating that problem. I don't think it

works. That kind of unfair and politically motivated tinkering with the

act doesn't work. The people know what's going on, they recognize

what's going on, and you'll pay the price, I'm sure, at the next

election.

Besides,

section 80s wouldn't have turned the election around one

way or the other. They may have favoured us in one particular

constituency; they would have favoured the Social Credit Party in

another constituency. There's really no benefit to be derived from it

politically one way or the other, so that's why we question why the

minister, even if he's politically motivated, would want to proceed

with it. We recognize that the government has the majority in this

House, and we recognize that we're not going to turn it around or

change it by a motion like this. But I think we can get together, work

out the problems with the Election Act and bring a statute on to the

floor of this Legislature that we can all be proud of regardless of

which political party we represent.

I have a great deal of confidence and a great deal of respect for

the first member for Victoria and a great deal of respect for other

members who have spoken in this debate, but I think we'll probably have

an opportunity before the day ends to go home and think this piece of

legislation over, because it appears to me that the debate won't be

completed before we close at 6 o'clock. I would hope that the minister

might withdraw the bill, consider this

section of the legislation,

consider improving the voter registration system, and by an improvement

in the voter registration and enumeration system reduce the requirement

for

section 80, but not eliminate the availability of

section 80 for

those who do need it on election day because they fell through the

cracks of the system. I think that if reasonable members of the Social

Credit caucus are able to discuss this with the minister, they will

probably appeal to him on the same basis as I am now and ask the

minister to reconsider.

So that's why I say I'm against hoisting this for six months. I

think we can resolve the problem within two or three days. By having

reasonable people sit down with reasonable proposals we can come to

reasonable solutions that will be of benefit to all of the people in

this province. Basically, that's who we're serving when we're elected

to the floor of this Legislature.

MR. LOENEN: I find myself in unusual agreement with a lot of

the statements that were just made to the House by the member for

Alberni. He pointed out that this motion is useless and it's wasting

our time. I couldn't agree more. He says that he's been here for 16

years and motions to hoist are rare. I've been here less than a year

and I've seen three of them. I hope that the opposition House Leader

and the NDP will heed the advice from the member for Alberni, quit

wasting the taxpayers' time and money and no longer resort to hoist

motions which are purely tactical and meant to frustrate the will of

the majority of the people of British Columbia.

He also mentioned that the Election Act favours the government of

the day. The question is why then did the NDP not change that when they

had the opportunity to do so? I

[ Page 3132 ]

think it's somewhat hypocritical to suggest that we're politically motivated, etc., etc.

I was also happy to learn that the member told us that there is no

political benefit attached to the changes that are recommended and are

before this House, and that in fact it would not change a whole lot.

The outcome of future elections or past elections would not really be

affected, the member told us. I am happy to hear the member say that,

because I agree with that. This amendment is not politically motivated;

however, the reason for it is to ensure that we have greater democracy

in British Columbia than we do today. We are all agreed that democracy

is most precious and that the right to vote is one we ought to protect

and shield and guard for all people.

There are very few people.... In fact, the majority of people alive

today do not live in a democracy. If you look back over history, only

very few people have enjoyed what the people of British Columbia enjoy:

namely, the right to vote and the right to participate in a democracy.

Because it is so precious, we ought to devise ways that will guard

against abuse. We do know that the

section 80 provisions do lead to

abuse. When we have the chief electoral officer tell us that a voter

honestly not remembering if he is registered in another electoral

district may vote, we create a situation which is certainly open to

abuse. We ought to recognize that most people are honest but that there

are people who for one reason or another will be tempted. We ought to

remove that temptation from people. It is naive to suggest that this

won't happen.

Politics is simply war by another name. We know that. We know that

millions of dollars are spent fighting political battles. Reputations

are won and lost, emotions run high, and we ought to make sure that

there is not the least opportunity for people to abuse the system. All

we are doing here, Mr. Member, is safeguarding — not for political

reasons; safeguarding — the preciousness of democracy. I think we ought

to recognize that, and we ought to recognize that it is simply naive to

think that when there are opportunities for abuse, people will not in

fact do that.

The other thing that we ought to recognize is that, as so many

members opposite have told us time and again, people have rights. Yes,

we have rights. We have a right to vote. But along with those rights

come responsibilities. You cannot have the one without the other. When

I hear the member for North Island (Mr. Gabelmann) speak, it is the

same innocent, naive, simplistic NDP philosophy all over again and

again and again. You ought to trust people, people are honest, etc.,

etc., etc. They only talk about rights; they never talk about

responsibilities. When someone in my riding abuses this system, he

deprives me of my democratic right. We ought to recognize that in order

to ensure the franchise for those members of our society who are

responsible, who do not resort to illegal tactics — to guard their

rights — it's only right and proper and appropriate that we insist that

people exercise responsibilities that come along with living in a

democracy.

We all recognize that the problem lies with the registration of voters. This

legislation, this bill, does more to fix that problem than anything we've

seen for a long time. In fact, we're leading the nation. No legislation

is perfect, and if in time, through technological changes and abilities to register

people even better than we intend to do.... I am sure that this House will

ensure that amendments are introduced to make it even better. But this is certainly

a step in the right direction. I just want to recommend it to the House and

I know that people of this province are going to welcome this kind of legislation

which ensures that all our rights are fully protected and that no one can even

be tempted to tamper in the least.

The member for North Island told the House that we are in a kind of

conflict-of-interest position and that we ought not to be dealing with

changes to the Election Act. The ultimate court of appeal is the voters

of this province, and in due time they will have the right to decide

whether the decisions that we have made and introduced as government

are appropriate and in the interests of all British Columbians. We

ought to recognize that, to say that we have no right to make such

decisions. We are here to represent the interests of the people who

sent us here, and in due time they will judge whether or not we are

making the right decisions. I am quite prepared to submit this decision

before that final court of appeal.

Mr. Speaker, I'm against the motion to hoist; I do recommend this

Bill 28 to the House. I hope we can quit wasting time, as the member

for Alberni (Mr. Skelly) suggested, and that we can get on with the

work speedily.

MR. ROSE: I'm very pleased that the minister has returned

from his long walk, back to listen intently to the wisdom that I'm

about to offer.

I hope I can add something beyond — and I don't mean to be too

unkind to the member for Richmond — some self-righteous platitudes to

do with rights and responsibilities and all that good stuff.

One thing worries me a little bit about the attitude expressed by

the previous speaker. He said that if you don't watch people very

carefully, they'll do something naughty. I don't know if that's the

proper faith in people that I think he should have. Why do you need to

control people all the time and take away their choices? There's a

little touch of authoritarianism in all that. They're the same people

who say that the best government is the least government. When we

suggest here that there might be a little more freedom, somehow people

are going to take advantage of that, and we must slap their wrists or

they'll do something naughty and bring down an honest and God-fearing

government like the one that sits across the aisle. I can tell you a

little bit about trustworthiness too, in terms of the kind of

gerrymandering that's gone on in this province for the last 15 years.

That's why I'm in favour of the hoist motion.

[4:15]

Interjection.

MR. ROSE: That one never saw the light of day, so I couldn't

tell you what happened to it. I know it was done by the previous

government, but when this government came in.... It must have been a

good one because they quashed it. We've never seen it since.

I want to address just one more remark to my hon. friend the second

member for Richmond, and it has to do with the waste of time. Yes, it

is a waste of time talking to the wall. That's true, it is very costly.

But I'll also remind him, because I know he's a new member, that it's

the only power the opposition has. You guys have fixed it up so that

when it comes to a vote, the voting machines over there on the other

side always win. So it's the only power that we have.

I don't particularly want to hoist this thing. I'd much sooner do

what 78A calls for. Mr. Minister, 78A is in the rules now. You can

stand up and refer this whole matter to a standing committee. You can

take this little book.... And

[ Page 3133 ]

you're well and truly informed on this little book

because you helped write it, along with other estimable members in 1985

— one of the scribes. I want you to listen to this carefully. I know

some of you over there are functionally illiterate, so I'll read it to

you.

Interjections.

MR. ROSE: I withdraw the "functionally."

This is what 78A, Reference to a Select Standing Committee, says:

"At any stage after introduction a bill may be referred to a select

standing committee upon motion without notice" — without notice; spring

it on us! — "made by the member in charge of the bill. Such motion

shall be decided without amendment or debate." If you want to shut me

up, stand up and refer it to a committee. What would be better than

that? The committee would have the power to call witnesses; it would

have power to move from place to place and time to time; we could

examine all kinds of swell suggestions coming from the public and other

interested people. I don't like participating in these things either

because I think if the minister.... We can adjourn from place to place,

from time to time, and we could study voter registration in such exotic

places as Bangkok, Nicaragua, Guatemala and El Salvador. Why don't we

go to Japan or Europe and see what's happening there? I'm not a member

of the committee, but I would certainly try to get on it.

That option is open to the minister. That would give us an

opportunity, a substitute for the six-month hoist. I would be very

pleased to sit down, yield the floor to the minister, and have them

come in here and bring this to us. Break new ground. Don't be cautious.

Throw caution to the wind. Take a chance. Have faith. Not like the

member for Richmond. He has no faith. He has no faith in the natural

goodness of people.

The just have not always inherited the earth, nor have the meek —

not up to now, anyway. It's the strong and those that may be a bit

clever who seem to inherit a good deal of the earth, if not the wealth

of the earth.

All right, why are we doing this? Why are we doing this business

about Bill 28? Why are we going through this agony? Why are we going

through this futile exercise? Why are we, as my hon. friend here said,

wasting the taxpayers' money by going through this? It's symbolic.

Unfortunately, there is a good deal of cynicism over the record of this

government when it handles matters dealing with elections. I'm sorry.

[Applause.] Thank you very much. Not too much applause, because you're

eating up my time.

As David Lewis said one time, before he was going to say something

particularly sarcastic: "It pains me to say this." But why are we doing

this? What is so vile about Bill 28? I guess we homed in on this

section 80 because of the history of this government's dealing with

election matters. It hasn't always provided an objective, level

playing-field approach to politics. As a matter of fact, it's something

almost in the way they're handled in the Deep South. This is Deep South

North.

It's not that we don't trust the minister. We do trust the minister.

But I don't know if I trust some of his close associates here. Perhaps

some people in the bureaucracy have given him some wrong information

about how difficult it is to have

section 80 voting, how dangerous it

is, how pernicious it is to allow more people to vote.

I don't know why we need to change. So there are a few things in here that

might be better. But look at what has happened to us in the past. We've

had a history since 1975 of electoral hanky-panky on a large scale. It really

does pain me to say this. We've gone through the Eckardt commission. That

was straight and utter gerrymandering. We had the sad spectacle of Gracie fingering

some of the votes in Point Grey so you could add Socred votes to....

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Order!

MR. ROSE: There's nothing out of order. The Eckardt

commission was a classic case of gerrymandering. This was supposed to

be a learned judge, and this was supposed to be an objective exercise.

It wasn't. It made certain that Little Mountain would remain Socred —

forever, perhaps. There was an example of that. The Eckardt commission:

it was outright gerrymandering.

I don't know if you know what gerrymandering is. I'd like to tell you.

"The term is derived from the name of Gov. Elbridge

Gerry of Massachusetts, who in 1811 signed a bill readjusting the

representative districts so as to favour the Democrats and weaken the

Federalists, although the last-named party polled nearly two-thirds of

the votes cast."

Those guys were better than you are.

AN HON. MEMBER: Who wrote that?

MR. ROSE: I'll give you the source in a second.

"A fancied resemblance of a map of the districts thus treated

led Gilbert Stuart, the painter, to add a few lines with his pencil and say

to Mr. Benjamin Russell, editor of the Boston Sentinel: 'That will do for

a salamander.' Russell glanced at it, 'Salamander?' said he. 'Call

it a gerrymander!' The epithet took at once and became a Federalist

war cry, the map caricature being published as a campaign document."

Now what I'm saying here is that despite the outcry of Eckardt, Gracie's

Finger, all that other stuff at the time, it carried, and as a result we had

the government re-elected. It was in bad shape. It had a redistribution and

it was re-elected; close, but it was re-elected. So when things get close, the

government changes things.

Let's have a look at 1983-85. In 1983-85...

HON. MR. VEITCH: Eighty-six.

MR. ROSE: No. I'm talking about 1983-85.

...we had the restraint program. This caused marching in the

streets, bankruptcies and unemployment to the extent that we hadn't

seen them for years, and also a consequent downswing of the governing

party in the polls. So what do we need now? We need another quick fix.

We're going to come up with this great little deal. We will take 12

ridings and make them dual-member ridings; 11 of those 12 happen to be

Social Credit ridings. We won't change the boundaries of the Eckardt

commission, which were gerrymandered to begin with. What we will do,

Mr. Speaker.... This is exactly why I want to tell you that I'm

speaking to the hoist motion.

MR. PETERSON: I rise on a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I

realize that my doing this is like David taking on Goliath, when I'm

dealing with the opposition House Leader.

[ Page 3134 ]

However, I was led to believe that we were talking about the hoist motion on Bill 28, not about redistribution in this province.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Thank you, hon. member. I'm sure that the

hon. opposition House Leader has heard clearly what you say, and will

carry on the debate bearing that in mind.

MR. ROSE: Mr. Speaker, through you to "David," I admit that I

became a bit discursive there. I might have strayed marginally from the

point. However, I was trying to make the point about our suspicion and

why we can't embrace the minister and his proposals with greater

alacrity. It's because we're suspicious; we've had these terrible

experiences.

One of the ridings which benefited from this particular arrangement

of redistribution, a bill occurring in the last House, was "David's"

own riding. It took about a third of the number of people to elect him

as it did to elect me, when you come right down to it. They got two for

one; out in Langley they had a two-for-one sale in 1986. I wouldn't

suggest that some of the products might have been a bit shop-worn or

shoddy. Certainly I have great affection for both the "David" from

Langley and his partner. Is she the caucus chairman of the governing

party now? Yes. I have a great regard for her as well. Anyway, the

quick fix worked.

Ladies and gentlemen over there — and I'm sorry that the member for

Richmond has gone — I think we can make the point that 11 of 12 of you

estimable ladies and gentlemen wouldn't even be in this House if it

were up and up. Never mind the second member for Richmond (Mr. Loenen)

fixing it up so people have got to be honest; what we have to do is fix

it up so the government is. That's the point.

Was this practically double majority...? It was a miracle, but it

wasn't done with mirrors; it was done with

definitions. I won't go into

it deeply, because I don't want to offend your sensitivities about

order, Mr. Speaker. It was done when some ridings like Central Fraser

Valley or Langley, with roughly 160 square miles, were called "urban

rural," and therefore had a lower voting base. Some, such as mine, were

called suburban, even though they were four times as large and required

a much larger growth factor in order to qualify for two members. That

isn't straight up; that's not nice.

The former Provincial Secretary, Mr. Chabot, defended this on the

grounds that we were anti-rural. "What about Atlin?" and all that

nonsense. It worked perfectly, though. Here we have a government

elected by about 5 or 6 percent more of the vote than the opposition,

with more than double the members. You've got to think there's

something wrong with that in a rep-by-pop situation.

I don't say that this party would have formed the government; it

wouldn't have. But it wouldn't have had the big, lopsided majority that

we have now. That's why we want the hoist. We want to have more

information; we want people making greater opportunity to consult so we

can have a better system developed that is fair. It's not sleazy.

Again it pains me to say it, but like our Prime Minister and his problems in

Ottawa, there's a sleaze factor in all this. Again, some of the people —

as a matter of fact, nearly all of the government — I have some affection for.

They are my colleagues; I work with them and I see them every day, and you're

bound to develop certain kinds of relationships — love-hate relationships sometimes.

You're bound to develop that. So it's not nice to stand up and say:

"Look, you're not quite straight up, you guys."

[4:30]

We've just been through a privilege motion the last couple of days

which indicated in the financial area it wasn't quite straight up. I

don't want to comment on that because there hasn't been a decision by

the Speaker, and I won't go further on it than that. We've seen it in

many other ways over the last three years since 1983. We've got a

commission now.

Anyway, instead of two to one almost, it would have been roughly

37-33. I worked it out in terms of the bill. Would we have gone on this

radical business about privatization, selling off everything left and

right, all this kind of stuff about abortion and denial of human rights

if there had been that close a squeaker? Because that's the difference,

and that's all.

AN HON. MEMBER: Fairer distribution.

MR. ROSE: So distribution has been unfair. Now we're in trouble again. After the election — notice, after the election — the Sun

and Marjorie Nichols and others came out and said this was awful, this

two-member-riding stuff. We shouldn't have it. So now we've got Judge

Fisher.

Now when Judge Fisher was first given the job, he was told that he

could only fiddle with dual-member ridings, because I think the Premier

was sensitive to the fact that it was asserted that he stole the

election. He didn't need to steal the election. I am sorry to say it

with my honourable friend sitting here, but as the percentages turned

out, he would have won anyway. He didn't need to steal the election.

We don't need to have special things happen to protect the

government in the coming by-elections unless things are in trouble

again. Now I haven't got the poll, so I can't tell you whether they are

or not, but there has certainly been lots of criticism.

Despite the undoubted integrity of a lot of people over there, their

wins are suspect and there was political manipulation. The atmosphere

stank so much that we have to have another redistribution thing. We

have to have a bill while this is going on. I think it's an insult to

Judge Fisher that, despite the fact that he can come up — and I think

he will — after Eckardt and McAdam....

I'm not blaming either of those two estimable judges — certainly the

second one — because they were probably given terms of reference so

limited that they couldn't do very much. All they could do was find out

where they could add other double-member ridings; and I'm not saying

they got their marching orders, but it's funny that they all ended up

in strong Socred seats.

With that kind of suspicion behind us, with that kind of experience

behind us that things are probably not really level electorally, we

then come along and have what is, in effect, the Smallwood-Marzari

amendment. That's what we've got in

section 80.

There are some good things in the bill. I'm not denying that extra

registration time is not a plus. I don't think it's the answer, but I

can't deny that it's a plus. It's an improvement, right? The mail

ballots for the disabled seems to be a reasonably sensible provision. I

don't think it's outstandingly progressive, you know.

Interjection.

[ Page 3135 ]

MR. ROSE: Well, you could. You could go a lot further; you

could do a lot better. I have great faith in your ability to do better

things than you've shown us up to now.

MR. SKELLY: Not based on performance.

MR. CASHORE: One must have faith.

MR. ROSE: Yes. So we want the hoist because that's the only

way we've got to delay this thing, to delay this madness, to have the

minister think about it. He's here and he's undergoing all.... I know I

might be repetitious but I just hope I'm not tedious, so I don't suffer

from the twin diseases of tedium and repetition.

AN HON. MEMBER: No, only one.

MR. ROSE: Oh, just one. All right. The third year enumeration

is not a bad idea. I don't object to that, but I think it's too little

and too late. The average turnover in population in any district — in

some it's higher — is about 20 percent per year. When you're talking

about trailer parks or apartments or whatever, it's roughly 20 percent

per year. So over a period of four or five years you lose them all. Now

that's not true. There are stable suburban districts, but I think

you've got blinders on if you don't think that the strength in the

legislation is based on stable suburban districts rather than districts

where there is a high degree of migratory population and changeovers in

rental accommodation.

So it undoubtedly affects.... You can look at the percentages of the

votes. A lot of others have said 157,000 used

section 80. Did they use

it for nothing? Why did they use it? Because they were lazy? Because

they couldn't get out? They couldn't get off their chairs to get out

and register? It's darned tough to register sometimes. It's very

difficult for some people to register.

You know, a large segment of the population in the Deep South in the

60s and before that were left off the list deliberately. They were left

off the list because they thought that if they voted, they would

probably vote in black people in the Deep South. There were voter

registration marches there in the Deep South. They barred the door and

wouldn't let them in. There were all kinds of sit-ins. They wouldn't

let them come in the front door in the Deep South in the 60s — only 20

years ago. People got shot for the marches and the demonstrations

and.... Get to the back of the bus where you belong and stop

interrupting me. No, I appreciate the interruption. But the point is

that people fought to get those votes, and they were thwarted in their

attempt to get those votes. Why? Because they might vote for the wrong

people.

When you have a short election period of roughly 28 days or whatever

it is, the argument is you don't have time for enumeration. Well, make

it longer. The only reason you have

section 80 at all is because you

have a shoddy, sloppy enumeration system. That's the only reason you

need it. How come 157,000 people took advantage.... ? It didn't amount

to much in my riding; it amounted to 6 percent. What about the ones who

were left off and didn't even bother to vote? Only about 70 to 80

percent of the people vote anyway in this province. We need to figure

out ways so that more people can vote, not fewer. Well, you're not

addressing the problem.

Somebody comes into the polling booth and says: "I'm on the list. Why

am I not on the list?" Go over to the

section 80 lineup where there are

100 people all filling out these dinky little things that take forever, especially

for senior citizens who don't hear very well or see very well. There's

a big lineup, and some of the polls in my riding ran out of ballots.

So you've got to think one of two things. You've got to think that

there must be some basic reason why those people aren't on the voters

list. Either they're too old, or they've moved in recently, or they're

functionally illiterate, or they're really illiterate, or they don't

give a damn. There's got to be some reason for it. Why don't we address

that problem?

Well, if they don't give a damn, they probably won't vote. You know

what they do in Australia? They fine them if they don't vote. I'm not

suggesting that heavy-handed stuff, but it might appeal to the

government — at least some members of it. It's kind of a jackbooted

approach to electoral politics, but it's a long, long way from

Australia. We don't need that, but what we do need is a better system.

Why should we be unique in being one of the two provinces in Canada that doesn't allow voting on election day?

HON. MR. VEITCH: You've got to take the whole thing in context.

MR. ROSE: I know; it's a package. That's what worries me. The whole thing is a package. That's what really bothers me.

Look at

section 5. It removes the right of anyone to pick up

multiple applications. So the minister says that we want more people to

vote, but you can’t register them. Only we can register them. Will you

make certain in my riding that I can have 1,000 application cards? No,

it's not in the cards, because you're afraid that I'm going to sign up

some NDPers. I would suggest that you give 1,000 to the Social Credit

machine. They may not need 1,000, especially after the events of this

week. They probably wouldn't even need 100. I've heard that they've cut

off your money supply. Next thing they'll do is cut off your air supply.

What I'm saying is that if we hadn't had these terrible, terrifying,

terrorizing experiences, I think we would have a much greater degree of

confidence that we're going to have a trick-free election. What are the

people going to do in Boundary-Similkameen? They're not used to this

new system. They'll say: "I'm on the list; I was registered; I

registered. A guy came along and registered me." It turned out to be

federal, but it doesn't matter. People think they're on the.... "Oh,

I've lived here all my life. I'm on the list." I hear that all the time.

Somebody else made the point that not everybody thinks about

elections every day. Not everybody thinks about politics every day,

every moment of their waking hours, as we do. They're not that

concerned, and they're very confused with the federal, the provincial

and municipal. Maybe there should be one master roll for them all.

Maybe there should be some kind of voting card like a Visa card so you

could move.... I don't know how you'd identify your place of residence

under that voting card, but maybe you could. Maybe that's the way to do

it. A person does it once, and he's got it there for a lifetime. You

change your residence like you change your driver's licence. But to

suggest, like the hon. Minister of Education (Hon. Mr. Brummet) — I

wonder if he's qualified to be Minister of Education — that somebody

and some group and some ridings are going to be like the lemmings who

en masse head for the sea or head for, say,

[ Page 3136 ]

Point Grey to elect my hon. friend here, as worthy

as she is.... That is the bogeyman theory of electoral politics: you've

got to watch them like hawks or dead men will be on the polls.

Despite what I regard as less than fair distribution and election

legislation, we have a pretty good record of honesty in elections in

this country. I think we do.

Whenever we want it to be objective and fair, we try to put things

in an outside commission. That's why in business we have auditors.

Auditors come in to make certain that the accountants aren't mixing up

their money with the firm's and taking it all home, or that there isn't

juggling to avoid taxes. So we do have outside.... We have an

ombudsperson. Even for this Legislature we have an auditor-general.

So the idea of having an electoral commission at arm's length from

politicians, giving them that power to accomplish the goal, which is

one person, one vote, equal access to voting, an encouragement to

vote.... Maybe that would be the way to go. Maybe we could have a more

simplified system, but....

My hon. friend has asked me if I wanted to be designated speaker.

No, I didn't ask to be designated speaker, and I see that I've now

turned green and am about to turn red, so I'll conclude my remarks with

that.

There's nothing wrong.... As a matter of fact, the appearance of

evil, the appearance of influence, is what hurts us and makes

politicians be treated cynically by the public. We can change that:

send it to a committee and we'll look at it; we'll stop this talk right

now.

MS. MARZARI: I rise as 50 percent of the reason for the

abolition of

section 80 in Bill 28. The other 50 percent, the member

for Surrey-Guildford-Whalley (Ms. Smallwood) will be addressing this

tomorrow or on Monday. I address it not only as 50 percent of the

reason for the abolition of

section 80; also address it as a politician

who believes very strongly in process, in how things are done; in fact,

even sometimes more strongly in the process of how things are done than

what gets done. My colleagues on both sides of the House have come to

know me as a person who cares about machinery and administrations and

proper and due process all the way along the line. For that reason, I

am adding my support to this hoist motion of Bill 28.

Like others among my colleagues, I would that there were other

techniques for the opposition to ask the government side of the House

to defer this bill; to send it to a committee; to take another look; to

cool off, as it were. I would that there were other techniques than a

hoist motion. But that is not the way it is to be, and therefore we on

this side o