1991 Legislative Session: 5th 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)

TUESDAY, MAY 28, 1991

Afternoon Sitting

[ Page

12253 ]

CONTENTS

Routine Proceedings

Oral Questions

Government borrowing. Mr. Clark –– 12253

Extradition of man charged with child molestation in Chilliwack.

Mr. Dueck –– 12254

Completion of rental housing units. Mr. Blencoe –– 12254

Government forms printed in U.S. Mr. G. Janssen –– 12254

Hospital laundry services contracts. Mr. Perry –– 12255

Tabling Documents –– 12255

Budget Debate

Mr. Perry –– 12255

Mr. Peterson –– 12260

Mr. Barnes –– 12261

Mr. Smith –– 12265

Mr. Miller –– 12268

Mr. De Jong –– 12272

Mr. G. Hanson –– 12273

Point of Privilege

Fantasy Garden World Inc. sales tax. Mr. Speaker's ruling ––

TUESDAY, MAY 28, 1991

The House met at 2:06 p.m.

HON. MRS. JOHNSTON: In the gallery this afternoon we have the parents of one of our illustrious Vancouver Province

reporters — but we won't hold that against them. I would ask the House

to please make welcome Bill and Maud Kieran, who are visiting from

Sooke. And it is Mrs. Kieran's birthday

MR. SPEAKER: Oak Bay–Gordon Head. Excuse me. Second member for Nanaimo.

MS. PULLINGER: That must have been a little déjà vu ,

because I'm going to make two introductions on behalf of the member for

Oak Bay–Gordon Head, who is not well today. First, Mrs. Christine

Mathers is with us in the gallery today. It's her first time in the

Legislature, and she's the grandmother of one of our interns here, so

I'd like everybody to make her welcome. Also with us today in the

Legislature we have a Mr. Richard Boisvert, who is a teacher at Campus

View Elementary School, and a group of his students. I'd like to

welcome them also to the Legislature.

HON. MR. SAVAGE: On behalf of the second member for Delta and

myself, it gives me a great deal of pleasure to rise in this assembly

and welcome 55 grade 11 students from Delta Secondary, their teacher

Mr. Frank Sawatsky and a number of parents. Would this assembly please

make them welcome.

MS. EDWARDS: It's a real pleasure today to introduce two very

active and involved citizens of Cranbrook, Gary and Diana Cavers, who

are enjoying a very lovely holiday in Victoria.

HON. J. JANSEN: I'd like to welcome to the precincts Mr. Fred

Feistmann, a constituent from Chilliwack and the manager of one of the

best highway maintenance contractors in the province, Gateway

Maintenance.

HON. MR. WEISGERBER: It's a rare occasion for me to have an

opportunity to introduce a constituent in the Legislature. Visiting

today from Dawson Creek is Joyce Torio, her daughter Loreen Way and her

granddaughter Keenan Way. Would you please make them welcome.

Oral Questions

GOVERNMENT BORROWING

MR. CLARK: A question to the Premier. In answer to a question

on Rogers Cable last week as to the excess of expenditures over

revenues that the province has to borrow this year to cover the budget,

the Premier answered that the province had to borrow in excess of $1

billion. Is she prepared to stand by that statement in the House today?

HON. MRS. JOHNSTON: Mr. Speaker, I would stand by any statement that I make.

MR. CLARK: A supplementary. Will the Premier then now

acknowledge that her Finance minister was incorrect when he stated that

only $395 million had to be borrowed to cover the deficit this fiscal

year?

HON. MRS. JOHNSTON: I can assure the member opposite that no

one in the House is more correct than our Finance minister, but I will

refer the question.

MR. CLARK: How can the Premier reconcile her remarks last

week that the government had to borrow over $1 billion to cover its

operating deficit and the remarks by the Minister of Finance that the

government only had to borrow $395 million?

HON. MRS. JOHNSTON: May I suggest the question would be better put to the Minister of Finance.

Interjections.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. There actually wasn't a question,

and therefore there wasn't an answer. Those of you familiar with the

popular television show "Jeopardy" might know that you must phrase your

answer in the form of a question. Are you all familiar with that? It

would be nice if we started doing the same thing. We'll go back to the

order of business, and the member for Vancouver East has the floor.

MR. CLARK: A question to the Premier. How can she reconcile

the Finance minister's remarks in this House that the government only

had to borrow $395 million with her remarks on television last week

that the government in f act had to borrow over $1 billion?

HON. MRS. JOHNSTON: Mr. Speaker, as usual, we have a bit of a fruit basket....

Interjections.

HON. MRS. JOHNSTON: I was talking about apples and oranges. Could I refer the question to the Minister of Finance?

HON. J. JANSEN: Mr. Speaker, I again want to tell the member

opposite that there are distinctions between the operating deficits and

the capital requirements of British Columbia. I should write it down on

a little piece of paper and give it to the Page so that he doesn't have

to repeat the question ad nauseam.

The situation is that there is an operating deficit in this province

of $395 million, which we have to borrow. On top of that, there are

borrowing requirements for capital purposes, which include Crown

corporations, reserve funds and other funds with capital needs. How

many times do we have to advise the members opposite that this is the

situation? I would be pleased to spend some time with the members

opposite and show them entirely how the matter of finances works —

source and application of funds.

[ Page 12254 ]

MR. CLARK: To the Premier. When you announced you were

seeking the leadership of your party, you stated that you spoke a

language that British Columbians understand. Most British Columbians

understand only too well that the government is spending $1.2 billion

more than it's taking in. Why will you not stand up in the House today

and tell your Finance minister to tell the truth — that the deficit is

$1.2 billion and not $395 million?

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. I must ask the member for

Vancouver East to stand and withdraw the allegation or imputation that

the minister is not telling the truth. The member knows the rules.

There were a number of other suggestions made at the same time; I'm

only asking you to comply on one of them.

MR. CLARK: Mr. Speaker, I withdraw the reference to telling the truth, and I'll rephrase the question?

Will the Premier instruct the Finance minister to end the charade

and come clean on the budget deficit, which she admitted on television

last week was over a billion dollars? Will you instruct your Finance

minister to tell the people of British Columbia the true deficit? It's

over $1 billion.

[2:15]

HON. MRS. JOHNSTON: Mr. Speaker, I would suggest that the

member listen to the clip and understand with complete accuracy the

statement that was made.

EXTRADITION OF MAN CHARGED WITH

CHILD MOLESTATION IN CHILLIWACK

MR. DUECK: My question is to the Attorney-General. Fraser

Valley residents are outraged that an administrative foul-up in the

federal Justice ministry has allowed Martin Bakker to be released from

custody in the Philippines, instead of being extradited to face eight

charges of molestation arising from incidents in the Chilliwack area.

In consultation with his federal colleague, will the minister ensure

that adequate procedural safeguards are in place, both federally and

provincially, to prevent similar instances of negligence in cases

involving such serious crimes?

HON. MR. FRASER: Mr. Speaker, there can't be any greater

outrage than the outrage we all feel on both sides of the House when it

comes to a person in a position of privilege attacking our most

vulnerable members of society, the children. So I share the member's

outrage, and I can assure him that my officials and I will be in touch

with officials in Ottawa to see what we can do to upgrade the security

with respect to extradition matters.

COMPLETION OF RENTAL HOUSING UNITS

MR. BLENCOE: I have a question for the Minister of Social Services and

Housing. Can the minister confirm to the House, as B.C. Housing has confirmed

to us, that by April — just a few weeks ago — the rental supply program in the

province, our own program, had delivered only 1,247 completed units since 1989?

Can the minister confirm those figures?

HON. MR. JACOBSEN: No, I do not confirm that. I can't give

you the exact number of units completed to date at this particular

moment, but I would be happy to bring back that information. The number

is substantially more than that. The commitment made by the province is

a firm commitment. We have made available the total amount of money,

which was $80 million in that program.

A lot of the units not completed at this point are being delayed

because of trying to get rezoning within municipalities in order to

locate those buildings, That's something that the government cannot be

responsible for. I would hope that the municipalities which have

responsibility for that will accept the responsibility to see that

housing is provided for those in the province who need accommodation.

We have done our share. We would ask for the cooperation of other

levels of government to bring the project to its completion.

MR. BLENCOE: I would expect the minister to know his own

statements and statistics. B.C. Housing has provided the evidence of

how many units are either completed or under construction. How does the

minister reconcile information provided to us by B.C. Housing that he

is 4,000 units short, in terms of units either built or under

construction, with the claim in the budget of 6,500 units? Mr.

Minister, you need to tell the people of British Columbia the actual

figures in terms of housing built in the province.

HON. MR. JACOBSEN: As I said before, I can't confirm to you today the precise figure on the numbers completed.

Interjection.

HON. MR. JACOBSEN: That's an interesting thing. In Social

Services, for instance, we have 144,000 files with different claims to

deal with. The opposition might on any one day ask me about any of

those files and expect that I would know the status of each one. We

have a lot of other material and issues that we deal with in the

ministry, but I will be happy to bring back the details of the program.

Interjection.

HON. MR. JACOBSEN: Yes, okay. But the briefing I had on that

particular program very recently talked about substantially more units

completed than that. As I said before, however, there are a number to

be completed, and they are being held up because of difficulty in

getting the zoning required in order to make them happen.

GOVERNMENT FORMS PRINTED IN U.S.

MR. G. JANSSEN: A question to the minister responsible for the Queen's Printer. We've heard a lot

[ Page

12255 ]

about the loss of business and jobs because of

crossborder shopping. Yet I have here five forms clearly printed in the

United States and supplied by the Queen's Printer. Can the minister

responsible inform the House of the dollar amount of business being

farmed to the United States while B.C. businessmen suffer?

HON. MRS. GRAN: I'm having some difficulty reading the form

from over here. I'm not sure what the member has in his hand — it could

be his own birth certificate.

I think it's always important for us in this House — especially the

opposition when they're asking questions — not to malign public

servants. The Queen's Printer is in my ministry. They are very proud of

everything they do, and I can tell you that they would not do anything

to hurt local business people unless the contract was absolutely

necessary. But in answer to your question I haven't been able to answer

many questions this time, so I am going to take some time to do it. I

would be happy to bring back to the House the information that the

member requests, and I thank him very much for the question.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. I must caution the member for

Alberni and all members that exhibits are not permitted in the House.

You may ask leave to table documents later, but we shouldn't show

exhibits. Ministers with failing eyesight can't be expected to read

that distance in any event.

MR. G. JANSSEN: Clearly the Ministry of Finance, through the

Queen's Printer, is getting documents printed in the United States when

that business should be remaining in British Columbia. The minister

responsible can waffle, can try to say that civil servants are dutiful

people in this province — including the Minister of Finance, and we've

just heard what kind of a deficit he's running. Why is this business

not staying in British Columbia? Why is the Ministry of Finance having

forms printed outside this province?

HOSPITAL LAUNDRY SERVICES CONTRACTS

MR. PERRY: I'll avoid the temptation to be an exhibitor here. Notice that I'm choosing my words very carefully today, Mr. Speaker.

This is a question to the Minister of Health. Yesterday the Minister

of Health tabled a report on the Saanich Peninsula Hospital and Mount

St. Mary Hospital laundries. Will the minister now confirm that in fact

the true cost to the taxpayer of the contracts agreed to — against

ministry regulations and hospital bylaws — was one-quarter of a million

dollars per year, or $1.25 million over a five-year period? Will he

explain why that information was not included in the ministry report?

HON. MR. STRACHAN: I'm having trouble following the member's logic. I'll take that question on notice, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: The bell terminates question period. There are a couple of reports which require tabling, I'm advised.

Hon. Mr. Chalmers tabled the 1989-90 annual report of the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries.

Hon. S. Hagen tabled the annual report of the Ministry of Advanced

Education, Training and Technology for the year ended March 31, 1990.

MR. CLARK: I would like at this time to give notice of my

intention to pursue a privilege motion upon reading the Blues as they

come out later this afternoon with respect to the answer given today by

the Minister of Finance.

MR. SPEAKER: The Chair is so advised.

MR. BLENCOE: I would like to ask leave to table the minister's own document relating to housing statistics.

Leave not granted.

MR. G. JANSSEN: I would like to table the forms that clearly

show that the government is involved in cross-border shopping in the

United States.

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. members, when I put the question I would

like there to be some silence so that if objectors wish to say no, even

quietly, the Chair can actually hear them. Shall leave be granted?

Leave not granted.

Orders of the Day

Budget Debate

(continued)

MR. PERRY: I couldn't help but observe during the immediately

preceding question period the request of the hon. member for Vancouver

East for the government to come clean. It brought back to me an old

saying that I learned in my youth: cleanliness is next to godliness. It

reminded me of one of the reasons that I entered politics originally,

which was the perception two years ago that this government is actually

one of the dirtiest governments in British Columbia history. It needs a

darned good scrubbing. We all know that there's only one place that

scrubbing will come from: it will be from the people of B.C., and we

all hope that scrubbing will come soon. Even the atmosphere, which

is....

Interjection.

MR. PERRY: "Maybe it will even be a purging," says the member

for Maillardville-Coquitlam. But even the atmosphere in this chamber

might be improved if the public is given the chance to select for

itself some new representatives that do have the confidence of the

[ Page 12256 ]

people and are not the lame-duck government that we have now.

I couldn't help but observe during the very interesting remarks of

the preceding speaker in this budget debate, the second member for

Richmond, that I wished that those thoughts had not come so lamentably

late in his parliamentary career, because I agreed with much of what he

said.

I agreed with his comments about the need to improve access to

housing for low and middle income people. I agreed with his principle

that ownership of housing is, in principle, an excellent idea. I agreed

with his comments entirely, and I must say he's the first member of his

side of the Legislature I have ever heard advocate modest-sized housing

which is energy efficient. He didn't specifically mention the words

energy efficiency, unless I missed them, but he clearly had that in

mind in his remarks. I couldn't help but think that if only a few years

ago he and his colleagues in Richmond had been advocating the same

ideas, perhaps we would not have had the fiasco of the Terra Nova land

development in which some of the finest agricultural land, not only in

the province but in the country called Canada, were paved over to build

monster houses.

I've flown over those houses. I've driven by them. I've even cycled

and walked by them, and I've seen that those houses violate exactly the

principles that the second member for Richmond was talking about.

They're energy inefficient. They are monster houses. They glorify the

grotesque overconsumption of space and overconsumption of energy which

has got our society into so much trouble. I find it late in the game,

frankly.

I have to remark also of the sudden commitment to a renewed

parliamentary democracy of which that member speaks: the sudden

commitment to the committee system. I find sometimes methinks he doth

protest too much, because that member, the second member for Richmond,

was in fact the chair of the Select Standing Committee on Health,

Education and Social Services last year, and that member is the very

one who declined to allow that committee to sit, despite requests,

despite even a motion on the order paper requesting that the committee

sit.

And somehow I find it the epitome of hypocrisy to now, in the dying

days of the Legislature, argue for frankness. I see the member for

Langley shaking her head. She too chaired that committee, and she too

refused to lift a finger to see that that committee could sit to

consider, in a non-partisan way, some of the eight issues that I

requested in my motion to be put to that committee.

[2:30]

And I remind members that, for example, the British Columbia tobacco smoking

strategy was one of the matters we could have considered in a non-partisan way.

For example, the potential for health education to improve health and control

health care costs, the reform of the Pharmacare program to ensure maximum value

to the public. Those were some of the non-partisan issues that I requested in

every possible way the committee consider.

And since we are discussing the budget, let us remind ourselves that

we legislators have all been paid on a bi-weekly basis to serve the

public year-round. We could have been doing that committee work. We

could have been serving the public more creatively than we do during

these debates. And it was a government, composed of the second member

for Richmond and his colleague the Minister of Women's Programs — two

former chairs of that committee — who declined to let it ever sit. So

let the public not be fooled by this last-minute graveside commitment

to openness and honesty in government. Somehow I find that less than

convincing.

Listening to the budget speech and looking at this document, I

couldn't help but think back to the old Social Credit budgets in the

old days of the former Premier, the late W.A.C. Bennett. I was just a

young stripling then, and my father was a faculty member at UBC.

University faculty members used to receive those budgets unasked for in

the mail. But they were fun documents. My dad used to bring them home

for me to look at the beautiful colour photographs. Perhaps some

members will remember those days. They were interesting documents, and

they were really all the advertising the government did. It did not

waste $30 million per year, as this government has done, showing us

lovely pictures of the former Minister of the Environment in that nice

sweater that I complimented him on last year. It didn't waste money

telling us about its taxpayer protection plan, which was about to be

abdicated within months by the government. It confined itself to a

simple, relatively dignified budget message that was widely distributed.

There was a difference in those budgets, whether one agreed with

them or not. I didn't always agree with Mr. Bennett, the former

Premier. But one thing he did have was some vision of where he was

going. Again, I didn't always agree with that vision. I thought his

vision for the unlimited, unrestrained development of hydroelectric

resources — the flooding of river valleys for the Bennett Dam and

Williston reservoir without ever even clearing the trees and without

letting the local native people know that the water was rising.... I

didn't agree with that. But at least that Premier had some vision of

where he was going.

As I look at this document, I see no vision. I see a hodgepodge of

ideas and what amounts to fed-bashing, fictitious and phony humanism,

and fiscal finagling. I will explain some of those points as I go

through. Let's consider the fed-bashing. The speech began with a

completely cowardly and unwarranted attack on the federal government.

Cowardly I say because of its hypocrisy. This government has taken

every possible opportunity to bash a federal government that most

Canadians, whether we like it or not, still respect as the government

of our country. The speech argues that transfer payments should now be

cut back. This is the same government whose former Premier, the now

disgraced former Premier, argued strongly to Ottawa that the transfer

payments should be cut because of the burgeoning federal deficit. I

happen to share the concern over that burgeoning federal deficit; it

alarms me as a taxpayer, as a citizen

[ Page

12257 ]

and as a public representative. That's not the way

I run my finances; that's not the way I ran my medical practice. I

don't intend to engage in that kind of personal financing in the future

myself, nor do I intend that for the people of British Columbia or

Canada.

However, you can't have it both ways. You can't argue that transfer

payments be cut and then argue for them to be restored. You can't argue

that the supreme concern now is the burgeoning federal deficit and also

argue for more transfer payments, because like it or not — and I hope

most of us like it still — we are a rich province. We are one of those

provinces that pays more to Ottawa than we get back in taxation. Most

of us would like Canada to remain based on that principle of federalism

— that we see something beyond the limits of our province and the Rocky

Mountains. As much as we love our province, we love our country more.

Therefore to argue in a rich province that transfer payments be

maintained amounts to arguing for more taxes to Ottawa so we can get

some of it back. In effect that is what this budget speech does.

[Mr. Pelton in the chair.]

I happen to believe that it's appropriate that we as a rich province

contribute to the maintenance of national standards in health care,

social services and education. Therefore I supported the concept of

transfer payments, and I still do. But it is completely logically

inconsistent to argue somehow that that will promote fiscal

responsibility and federal deficit reduction. It's having your cake and

eating it too, and it's not a very sanitary or tasty cake.

Mr. Speaker, let me turn to the fiscal finagling in this budget. I

see on page 7, for example, the headline: "Efficient Government." I

wonder what that could possibly mean. One might well wonder about that.

Members on this side of the House have become used to needing to look

hard for examples of efficient government.

I see the Minister of Government Services sitting there. I thank her

for giving me the courtesy of listening to me. I wonder if she had in

mind, when she contributed her suggestions to this budget development,

the $1.2 million that was wasted on government flights for cabinet

ministers flying around the province in the fiscal year that ended a

year ago. Was that an example of efficiency?

I see the current Minister of Health, who has now left the

chamber.... I recall meeting him on the tarmac in Quesnel once during

the Cariboo by-election, when I'd gone up there out of funds provided

by my party. He flew in on the government jet one day all by himself. I

was locked in by the fog and couldn't fly out on the commercial jet. I

heard something coming in, so I stuck around to see who got off it.

There were two rather embarrassed-looking pilots and one passenger, the

then Minister of Environment, the member for Prince George South. He

had flown in to address the chamber of commerce during an election

campaign.

I remember asking him — I won't use his first name here, but I was very

friendly with him in those days, as I am now, and I used his first name — "Are

you the only passenger on that plane?" I couldn't believe it. I was

new to government then. I was coming from a university where, contrary to some

people's expectations, we worry about spending $500 for a piece of scientific

equipment. We have to write hundreds of pages to justify that sometimes. I saw

him flying in on that plane and he said.... He used my first name; I suppose,

Mr. Speaker, even you wouldn't grant me the indulgence of mentioning it

here. But he used my first name in a friendly way and said: "That's

the way it is when you're in government." That was efficient government,

Mr. Speaker. That's what it meant to these people who sit on the government

benches. Let's not kid ourselves that they have something else in mind.

What about Pharmacare funding? One of the reasons I urge the health

committee to consider, in a bipartisan, non-political way, the issue of

Pharmacare is that it is in a sense a sacred cow. It's very difficult

to discuss reform of Pharmacare without frightening people,

particularly the elderly. It needs to be done in a nonpartisan way. It

needs to pool not only the intellectual talents but the political

skills of us all to achieve a rational reform.

We've had a burgeoning Pharmacare budget in this province. Are our

people really that much healthier thanks to all those drugs? Some of

them are. But we've got one drug to lower cholesterol that I mentioned

in the estimates debate last year; we've gone from zero to $3.3 million

in two years for people over 65, without any evidence that that drug is

beneficial.

AN HON. MEMBER: Why do you prescribe it, then?

MR. PERRY: I don't prescribe it. The member from Terrace asks

why I prescribe it. I don't prescribe it, and I teach doctors not to

prescribe it in that situation.

Interjection.

MR. PERRY: The member for South Peace River asks who does

prescribe it. Physicians prescribe it, Mr. Speaker. And of course,

there's a challenge there. That gives rise to the issue of how we best

address control over irrational prescribing and the public's

anticipation that such benefits should be forthcoming to them. Of

course, physicians receive a lot of pressure from patients. They even

receive pressure from the media and, of course, from drug companies

urging that these drugs be prescribed.

This government has been unable to ensure an efficient Pharmacare

service. Appropriately enough, it appointed a Pharmacare review

committee in 1990, or perhaps in 1989. That committee still has not

reported. The report should have been ready months ago, perhaps a year

ago, because a report never tabled, never submitted or never published

is useless to the people of B.C. Yet members of that committee are

drawing $250 for showing up at a meeting. Where is the report? If you

call that efficient government.... Well, sorry, we can do better than

that. There's somehow a myth in this chamber that we can't, but we darn

well can do a better job than that.

[ Page 12258 ]

What about the Saanich laundry to which I referred in question

period? Here's an example of a hospital administrator exceeding his

authority and ignoring the circular sent to the hospitals by the

Ministry of Health. A board, violating its own bylaws as prescribed by

the Ministry of Health, has sought to save itself $25,000 or $50,000 —

a noble goal on its own — but at a cost of $300,000 to the total

hospital system. That leads to a net cost to the taxpayers of $250,000

per year and $1.25 million over a five-year contract. At the same time,

15 unionized jobs are lost.

That is not my idea of efficiency in government; that is my idea of

complete fiscal irresponsibility. It is absolutely crazy, and this

government does not have the capability to control it. When it's

exposed, it doesn't even have the decency to admit it. It censors a

report of the kind that I have in my hands here. There is no mention of

the cost of an apparently illegal contract like that. That's not my

idea of efficient government. Perhaps it's the new acting, interim

Premier's idea, and perhaps it's the idea of a few members of the

government benches who still adhere to their own twisted and warped

philosophy. But that is not the public's idea of efficiency in

government.

What about the third parameter of that budget: the fictitious and

phony humanism I referred to? I see some of my colleagues smiling in

amusement. Sometimes in dealing with this government, there is no

refuge except in humour. Sometimes it's impossible to take them

seriously.

MR. MILLER: If you can't laugh, you'd have to cry.

MR. PERRY: If you can't laugh, you'd have to cry, and we'd be drowning in our tears by now.

HON. MR. CHALMERS: The thing is, I can't take you seriously.

MR. PERRY: I hear one of the members saying, "You can't take

it seriously." I think that was the second member for Okanagan South.

You can't take this budget seriously. I couldn't agree more.

On page 22: "Caring for Seniors." Imagine that, Mr. Speaker. You're a senior yourself, I think.

Interjections.

MR. PERRY: I hear members calling for order. They don't

realize that it's a compliment to be called a senior in this province,

and it always will be.

Mr. Speaker, can you imagine that? "Caring for Seniors." I think of

two specific examples. I wonder if the budget was referring to the

people of Kaslo? Mr Speaker, I think that you may know where Kaslo is;

I'm not sure if all government members do. Kaslo is a small town on the

banks of Kootenay Lake, a bit north of Nelson, where a large fraction

of the population is seniors, virtually all of whom pioneered that part

of the country. They built Kaslo, and they built the prosperity that we

have in British Columbia now Many of them are veterans.

[2:45]

If they fall ill or infirm and require something more than home care

— a service which has been slashed under the present government....

Home care hours have actually been cut, believe it or not, by about 27

percent in that community. If they fall ill or infirm, they must be

deported to Nakusp for intermediate care.

I see the member for South Peace River laughing at that expression,

but perhaps he doesn't know what the road is like between Kaslo and

Nakusp. I've driven that in summer. I've never had the misfortune of

driving it in winter, but even in a summer snowstorm, it's pretty

rough. I see the member for Boundary Similkameen commenting that he has

driven that road. It's not a great exaggeration to say that for an

elderly spouse to be sent to Nakusp amounts to deportation. The same

situation applies in Keremeos.

The people from Kaslo have been working as hard as they know how —

heart and soul — to obtain some kind of modest intermediate care

facility. When I visited the hospital there, nobody was in it. It was a

virtually empty hospital with an average occupancy of 2.5 beds out of

ten. If efficiency is having an empty hospital, when you've got people

crying for intermediate care that could be converted out of that

hospital — even a few of the beds converted so that people could stay

in their own town.... That's not my idea of efficiency or humanism.

People in Keremeos face the same problem. There are many towns like

that. In Keremeos the ministry tells them: "Fine, go over the hill to

Summerland; Summerland's got lots of beds." What's it like to drive

over that road in the winter if you're 80 years old and your spouse is

in Summerland? Salmo's got the same problem, says the member for

Rossland-Trail.

I don't see that as evidence of caring for seniors; I see

bureaucrats in Victoria who know nothing of the problems. They see

Kaslo and Nakusp on a map, and they think they're a quarter of an inch

apart. Maybe these days they think in millimetres; that would be two or

three millimetres maybe. Keremeos and Summerland look like about five

millimetres apart on the map. It doesn't seem very far, but for some

people it's a lot. And this is a government that has not done very much

for those people.

There are so many things that I'd like to talk about. I hope we will

get to the estimates debate, because I've got a lot to say on behalf of

my constituents and of people not getting adequate health care in this

province. But before I turn to that field, Id like to say something

about the auditor-general's report.

One of the alarming things in this report.... I think other members

have spoken about the complete inability of the Forest Service to

supervise the conduct of forestry and the return to the public from the

resource that we all own. Many other speakers have spoken about that

and about difficulties and inadequacy in supervising the Highways

accounts. Of course, we all know about the Coquihalla story.

But this auditor-general's report refers to the unfunded pension

liability — $3 billion of unfunded liability or additional debt — for

teachers and public service workers in the public service plan whose

[ Page

12259 ]

pensions are not guaranteed by law but who,

according to the auditor-general, have the reasonable expectation that

their pension commitments will be honoured. Yet according to the

auditor-general's report, there is a $3 billion shortfall estimated

right now, and government has taken no step to correct the actuary's

advice that contributions be increased.

I don't plan my pension that way. My private pension is going to be

very modest at my income, but I get everything I can into it because it

is going to be so modest. I do not regard this as fiscal responsibility.

Let me turn to the fictitious and phony humanism I referred to. I

found it rather galling and frankly, it was hard to know whether to

laugh or to cry as I listened to the Finance minister last week ringing

in the pealing bells of a new era of Social Credit thought. Well,

anyone who believes that would not only buy the Brooklyn Bridge; they

would probably buy the Coquihalla Highway for even more than the

taxpayers paid for it. Or they would buy the Expo lands for a billion

dollars when they could have had it for a $50 million down payment.

There's so much misery not attended to in this province; I think

some of it needs to be spoken of in our chamber. I have here a letter

sent to the second member for Cariboo from a young man who is dying of

AIDS in Quesnel. I met him once in Quesnel, and the town had responded

to him with exceptional humanism. I must say that it impressed me how

people can see through the myths when they're given a chance. It has

always struck me how much contrast there is between the government's

response to the AIDS epidemic and the people of British Columbia when

they see what's really happening.

This young man picked up his infection because of a mistake by

government in the transfusion of contaminated blood products for

hemophilia. The government did not want to spend a little bit more

money to buy a product which was probably of higher quality. The

government did not deliberately infect these people, but because it

tried to scrimp and save a little bit of money, it ended up costing

many hemophiliacs their lives. Many of them are still coping with the

disease.

The federal government has come to terms with this issue and offered

a modest compensation. The provincial governments have promised through

the provincial Health ministers to address this issue, but they are

dragging their feet and stonewalling, perhaps because they know that

these young people don't have very long to live. If they stonewall long

enough, there will be no compensation to be paid, because they will all

be dead. I don't think that's fair. I think the requests of the

hemophiliacs are reasonable — to allow some measure of protection to

their families and, to this young man in Quesnel, some measure of

assurance that his children will be looked after when he faces the

inevitable consequence of that infection, and some peace during the

final phase of his life. I don't think that's too much to ask when we

know that cabinet ministers have been jetting around the province as

the sole occupants of jets, running up multi-thousand-dollar bills just

for their personal convenience.

1 have with me a letter from a young woman in Castlegar, Cathy

Lafortune, who wrote to the Premier's Advisory Council for Persons with

Disabilities to describe the situation of her young son Jeff. Her son

is seriously and multiply disabled; he's quadriplegic and also has a

severe mental disability. I visited her in Castlegar recently and saw

what she describes in her letter. I quote from the letter:

"Jeff must sleep in a very small room in our basement"

— remember, he's quadriplegic; he lives in a wheelchair — "down 15

stairs which turn a corner. He must be carried downstairs like a babe

in arms. This is becoming less practical and more dangerous as he grows

larger and heavier. Bathing him in one narrow bathroom is also quite

difficult, and nearly impossible for me to do alone as I cannot lift

him, and the space is really too small to make a lifting device

practical.

"Our dream is to build Jeff a main-floor room,

including a fully accessible bathroom with raised tub and adapted

commode, so that he could begin to have bowel movements into a toilet

instead of a diaper."

It goes on in this vein. It's hard to imagine when reading it that

this is a young man who weighs about 80 or 100 pounds, and I think he

is 18 years old. His mother took him back home after he'd been in a

group home because she wanted to look after him at home with her

husband. Yet once he is 18, he comes off the at-home program and is

basically on his own, with an excessively modest pension which does not

allow even for routine comforts and conveniences that he would be

provided in an institution.

That woman has had no satisfaction from government. It doesn't take

much visiting her house to see that she's courageous, that she's

dealing with a situation few of us could handle and that her requests

are modest. She wanted perhaps a low-interest or an interest-free loan

so that she could remodel her house to make it more commodious for her

son. That's not unreasonable, but where in this budget do we see any

commitment to helping people like that? If we do, I have yet to believe

it.

Mr. Speaker, I look at problems like the excellent report of the

review committee on the Vernon Jubilee Hospital. Perhaps it's one of

the strongest external reviews of a hospital that has ever been done in

this province. They found virtually nothing wrong with it, except that

they'd done their job too well. The ministry had accorded them a little

extra money in order to catch up with their enormous surgical

waiting-list. They did such a good and efficient job of it that they

have caught up a lot with the surgical waiting-list, but they've

overspent their budget. The review team, a very hard-nosed group of

people, could not find areas to save money, so they suggested that they

cut back on that program and let the waiting-list grow again. They did

such a good job that they shouldn't have done it. Let those people out

there wait for their medical treatment, instead of the review team

facing the reality that the hospital was doing a fiscally responsible

job and allowing them what they needed. Mr. Speaker, it's completely

illogical, and if I were a member of that board or that staff —

medical, nursing or other staff — I would be darned mad at this

government. I hope they are next time.

[ Page 12260 ]

What about alcohol and drug programs? We still haven't had the

Thornton report released that the opposition member for Prince George

requested last year. The government is still sitting on it. Four

hundred or five hundred copies are locked away in a safe — a report,

the first of its kind, suggesting the true cost of alcoholism in our

hospital system and observing that perhaps 25 percent of the

hospitalized patients are there because of alcohol. What have we got

but the cutback of that...?

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Sorry, hon. member, time has expired.

MR. PETERSON: Mr. Speaker, it certainly gives me a great deal

of pleasure to stand in my place and strongly support and endorse the

budget as presented by our Minister of Finance. It's a budget that

deals with the realities of today and at the same time focuses on the

future, so that all British Columbians can continue to enjoy the

quality of life that we have been enjoying under the Social Credit

governments of this province. It deals with health care, social

services and education words. While we're able to deliver these

outstanding programs, we remain the financial envy of all the other

provinces in Canada.

Let me deal with some facts, Mr. Speaker — not rhetoric but actual

facts. When I talk about our province being the financial envy of all

provinces in Canada, I'd like to give you some numbers which totally

support that statement. Let's look at our net direct debt as a

percentage of gross domestic product. Our number in British Columbia is

7 percent. That is 100 percent less than the next-lowest province in

Canada, Alberta, which sits at 14.7 percent. Quebec is at 22.3 percent;

Saskatchewan, 25.2 percent; New Brunswick, 27.2 percent; and our

federal government, 67.8 percent.

Let's look at the cost of debt servicing, the cost on the basis of

per dollar of revenue. In British Columbia 3.8 cents out of every

dollar of revenue we receive goes towards servicing the cost of our

debt. These are actual facts that cannot be disputed by rhetoric, Mr.

Speaker. In Alberta, the closest province to us, it is 8.3 cents on

every dollar. We go to New Brunswick, and it's 12.4 cents on every

dollar; Manitoba, 11.3 cents; and our federal government, 20.7 cents on

every dollar. Clearly that shows that successive Social Credit

administrations in this province have been fiscally responsible We will

continue to be fiscally responsible after we win the next election in

this province.

I've listened with, I'd guess you'd almost have to call it, forced

interest to the debate of the opposition relative to this budget. At

best, I can say their debate is inconsistent. They made conflicting

statements. And talk about hypocrisy! One example is we have your

second member from Vancouver-Point Grey talking about additional

funding for health care. We have the member for New Westminster talking

about additional funding for education. We have the member for Prince

George North talking about additional funding for welfare services in

this province.

[3:00]

This budget has addressed all that but still maintains the realities

of today as understood and reflects our fiscal responsibilities. But at

the same time as your members, Mr. Member from Prince Rupert, are

asking for additional funds, we have their Finance critic standing up

and saying: "The budget isn't balanced, but we would balance it."

How can they have both worlds? How can they do that? Even they must

realize that isn't possible. At least this government will face the

realities of today and plan and focus on the future so we can balance

the budget over a five-year cycle.

Yesterday I listened with a lot of interest to the member from North

Island. He stood up and took some shots at us for dealing with Ontario.

He said: "Look, I'm going to stand and talk about British Columbia."

The members opposite have to understand that Ontario's economy is 42

percent of the total Canadian economy. They are the biggest province in

Canada with 9.8 million people. Whatever happens there certainly has an

effect on what happens in British Columbia in terms of national

inflation rates, etc. The point is that this Social Credit government

has the broad view. These people opposite have a very narrow view of

things. We should be looking at Ontario, because it has an effect on

our abilities in this province.

It was interesting to note that yesterday the same member took a

very different point of view — in fact, statements conflicting with

their opposition leader. We were talking about the so-called transition

team that went to Ontario to assist them in planning their government

after the NDP won there last August. It seems that the opposition Whip,

the member for North Island, does not take the opportunity to discuss

these things much with his opposition leader, because his point of view

on that transition team was not exactly the same point of view that the

opposition leader had.

Let me show you why. On April 27 the opposition leader is quoted in the Vancouver Sun

as saying — he's talking about this transition team, and I think we

have to make note of this — that the team reported directly to the

opposition leader and was made up of "three or four members of caucus

and resource people." The opposition leader went on to say that he

wouldn't disclose who they are because they agreed it would be a

discreet committee. Fair enough. If they did that and they provided

that assistance, fine. We know the results of the assistance. But at

that time at least he admitted that he did it.

Yesterday in this House the opposition Whip, the member for North

Island, stood up and said: "No, no, no. There were no opposition

members on the transition team. None of our resource people were there.

We maybe had a transition game plan in place and we mailed it to them

and maybe one particular member of our party might have gone down and

talked to them a bit about it." But he said: "No elected opposition

members down there. No resource people down there." His leader, as I

said, said that three or four members of their caucus were down there,

plus resource people.

Now what I'd like to know is: who indeed did go down there? What is the truth? There seems to be a

[ Page

12261 ]

conflict of opinion within their own caucus. Maybe they could just

clarify it, because if they can't even agree among themselves on what

happened in the past, how on earth could they ever agree among

themselves with what would happen in the future — particularly when we

have something as important as the future of the province of British

Columbia?

Mr. Speaker, I want to make just two other points. Again these are

facts. I want to talk about our revenue dollar, where we get it from.

In British Columbia, 58 cents comes from taxation. In Ontario, in the

'91-92 fiscal year, 78 cents comes from taxation. That may sort of show

the balance for you.

[Mr. Ree in the chair.]

Mr. Speaker, I just thought it was important that we bring these

conflicting statements up when I heard the second member for

Vancouver-Point Grey talking about conflicting statements,

inconsistency and hypocrisy. I really wish he'd look into his own tent

before making those accusations over here. Because I think it is very

misleading on their part to be proceeding in that manner. You can't

have it both ways. So please, some consistency in your debate.

Since taking office five years ago this government has done a lot

for British Columbians, a lot for our riding in Langley, Fort Langley,

Aldergrove, Walnut Grove, Murrayville, Brookswood — tremendous

communities. The whole range of provincial government programs has been

generously funded. The result is more and better services benefiting

more British Columbians in every region of the province as well as

Langley.

In particular, there have been tremendous gains in health care,

education and advanced education. I'd like to take a moment and talk

about a few of those as they relate to our own riding in Langley. Just

this year we had the announcement of a new site and the planning money

for Kwantlen College in Langley. That will result in a new $30-35

million facility to provide advanced education to address the needs of

our community.

The talk and action is towards a new university in the Fraser

Valley. It is a much-needed facility that should be carefully planned

and then placed in an area that meets not only the needs of today but

the growth potential of tomorrow. I'm very confident that we shall move

on this in the correct way. It'll be a facility that everybody in the

Fraser Valley will be very proud of.

Mr. Speaker, we have made a lot of gains without going into the red

to pay for them. Fiscal achievements include two balanced budgets and a

reduction of the provincial debt. This year's budget builds on those

achievements. Programs for people are stronger and better funded than

ever before. We are building for the future, making capital investments

and building schools, hospitals and highways in every region of the

province.

We're paying as we go. We have introduced new fiscal controls and taxpayer

protection to ensure that government spending stays in line with the taxpayer's

ability to pay. That's the bottom line — the taxpayer's ability to pay.

We have made it a legal requirement for the government to balance the budget

over a five-year period. The '91-92 budget is year one in that cycle.

Interjection.

MR. PETERSON: We did it for two consecutive years. Never has

an NDP administration been able to accomplish anything like that. This

is a good budget for an uncertain economy. It is compassionate to those

in need and makes investments to build for the future. It is affordable

and responsible.

MR. BARNES: The member for West Vancouver Howe Sound wants me

to talk a little about football. You'd have to be a football player to

be able to withstand the punishment that this budget imposes. We have

exposed the budget quite consistently as having been grossly deceptive

and a misrepresentation of the facts. I'm not as conversant as some of

my colleagues with breaking down the various entries and dealing with

the various ways in which you can create fronts and covers such as the

BS fund — whether you have any money in them or not, to be able to show

them as part of your fiscal resources.

I'm going to try and appeal to the government once again, as I did

during the throne speech debate in my remarks with respect to facing

the serious responsibilities of government when it comes to people

services. We are politicians, and we can have dialogue with each other

and play games as far as one-upmanship and so on is concerned. But the

reality is that someone has to pay for the shortfalls in terms of our

wisdom and judgment in making good sense of what we're doing. The

results are irrefutable, and you can see the results. It doesn't matter

what we say to each other or how we try to pretend that something is

what it isn't, the facts and the results are there for everyone to see.

If we are negligent in terms of properly assessing the needs of social

programs in the community — and they are unlimited — then those results

are going to be seen by the consequences on the lives of people.

I have been spending quite a bit of time lately talking to people

who work with young people. In fact, I've held meetings with youth

workers right across the lower mainland for the last month or so. The

reason I've done this is that although I have a background as a former

social worker who has worked with drug addicts, who has worked in jails

and correctional institutions, who has been a parent for many years —

having raised four children myself — and whose heart is in the right

place, I realize this doesn't mean that I am as informed as I need to

be about the current situation on the streets today.

I could be rather condemning of the government because, let's face

it, it has effectively ignored the point that I'm going to try to make

with respect to services for young people. But they know that. There is

a different view of what the government's role is, and we know that as

well.

[3:15]

The government has been scrambling. As we know, the government is going to be bringing in $12 million

[ Page 12262 ]

or so to deal with child care programs and $4 million for violence

against women, family violence. We don't quite know how they're going

to use that money or whether that money has any relationship whatsoever

to the needs. It's good, though. It does get their name in print to

show that they are doing something. They can now associate themselves

with the rhetoric. But what real effort has this government made to

find out the facts and what is required?

Mr. Speaker, I suspect that what is happening and what has been

happening in this chamber and what this budget is really all about is

politics. Because that's how you play the game — all over the world.

It's nothing unusual. What I'm saying is that it's about time we

stopped and thought about the results of the politics we're playing.

Just to give you an example, last week the first member for

Vancouver–Little Mountain stood in this House and asked the

Solicitor-General if he would approve conducting public forums that

would include parent s, professional people, community workers and the

youths themselves to go around and try and find out what we can do

about the violence that is happening and is being measured out by

youths against themselves. She was motivated by a rather atrocious,

offensive action by a youth against a young girl. This has been going

on and on. There was nothing unusual about her revelation in her

request.

The point is, politicians are very good at making dramatic

statements that give attention to themselves, whereby they can get

recognized in the community as being identified with an issue. But

there has to come a time when we want to find out what we can do about

it. Now those public forums that the former minister, the first member

for Little Mountain, was suggesting we conduct and that the

Solicitor-General suggested the opposition members and any other MLA

have input into.... The point is, that's all been done. It's been done

many times. It's nothing new. And to what end would you conduct these

forums? This is a sad enough situation.

Interjection.

MR. BARNES: There are answers, hon. member. There are

definitely answers, and I'm going to try to get to some of those

answers. First of all, you've got to be sincere.

I can recall when the former Attorney-General, Mr Brian Smith, went down to

a forum at Britannia Community Centre three years ago — 1988 — and he stole

the show. The press were there and all these sincere community workers were

there trying to find solutions to a very serious problem. That was a public

forum in which a politician went in and grabbed the headlines and condemned

all these hoodlums, and said that we're going to get more police, we're

going to start cracking down and we're going to every.... It was all negative.

There was no understanding about what's happening within the lives of these

young people. We don't think people are doing things for no reason. The

tragedy is that we're not unique in British Columbia, and I want to make

that clear.

Although I'm attacking the Social Credit government because I don't

think they're doing their part, I don't think the work is being done

anywhere when it comes to young people. Every day when I wake up in the

morning I know I can pick up the paper and start reading about

something's that's wrong with the young people: they're falling through

the cracks, they're dropping out of school. We've got so many

youngsters dropping out of school today that most of our programs

should be special-needs programs on the streets, because young people

today don't seem to be fitting into the public school system the way

they should. They're not able to relate.

There's too much bombardment on the part of commercialism —

enticement to get rich quick, buying lottery tickets, finding some

quick way to make a buck. There is no quick way to make any money. But

we're not doing the job, and we're not communicating with them. In

fact, we're setting a bad example ourselves.

We've gone from a measly half a million dollars that we used to

generate in lottery money to something like — what is it? — half a

billion today. In total, we generate $500 million in lottery money.

People buying lottery tickets are ten times less likely to win than be

struck by lightning, which chance is probably one in half a million.

But it gets up into the billions when it comes to trying to win some

money in the lottery system that we're running in this province. And

people are out there trying to make a buck.

We're not a very good role model. We're not a very good example of

what should be happening in this place. I have done my homework, I've

got the notes here, but when I look at the work that's been done.... We

were talking about forums. There was one in North Vancouver. It was in

the Speaker's riding; he recalls that. It was at the Capilano Community

Services Centre about a year ago. What was the result of that forum

talking about what the public's perceived needs were? Nobody there was

saying we've got the money in place. No one was saying we've got the

workers in place. No one was saying we've got the sensitive

understanding in place.

One of the tragedies is that when it comes to youth and violence, it

makes a good press. It is awfully easy for the press to report the

violence of some young person. But when you go back and do the profile

on that person's life — where they've come from.... Then you connect it

with the things you're talking about, what you're going to do when the

$4 million is reduced — violence in homes, alienation, neglect.

Not only that, we have a lot of people coming to this country who

have not been properly settled — for instance, the Vietnamese

community. They come from a country where some of them are rural, some

urban; some of them are from the north, some from the south. Actually,

they may not look upon themselves as being either Chinese or

Vietnamese. They don't have an integrated community, and they may

become alienated from society. There are about 18,000 in the greater

Vancouver area.

But who's aware of what is needed to settle these new Canadians?

It's as though we are an ad hockery operation. There is no central

administration or central

[ Page

12263 ]

intelligence. There is no body...although cabinet ministers do get

together to discuss social services and programs. But they have no

specific mandate to do anything.

There isn't anything in this budget about youth other than the fact

that you're going to get more prosecutors, enforcers and investigators

to try and stop the crime, because the crime is where the emphasis is.

But these youngsters don't have any options. I'm not saying that we

should be bleeding hearts and just give them everything; I'm saying

let's have some dialogue. If the first member for Vancouver–Little

Mountain had said, "We are going to encourage meetings where we sit

down with the youth themselves for a change instead of sitting down

with their parents, schoolteachers and the police — all of us

professionals, " I would have been more impressed, because that's what

has to happen. We have got to start talking to the young people

themselves.

I don't think we understand what is happening when young people

rebel the way they do. We do not take time. There was no mention of

anything to do with these kinds of things in this budget, and I'm sure

that when we get down to detailed debate, we'll find that we have

simply neglected that area.

Sure, there will be programs in Social Services and Housing to deal

with certain kinds of community programs, especially with women and

child care. The government is beginning to pick up on some of those

programs. But I would like to see where in your budget you're going to

be dealing with funds for youth leaders, the young men and women who

are right on the streets — the John Turveys of the world. John Turvey

happens to be paid by the city of Vancouver and Downtown Eastside

social planning. He's not paid a dime by the province. As a matter of

fact, I don't know of any youth workers who are paid any money by the

province. The Youth Advisory Council was involved in paying for one

person in Britannia Community Centre — something like $50,000 a year or

so ago — but they haven't put any more money into it since then. We do

not have a strategy to deal with youth, and the minister asks me: "What

should be done?"

If we're seriously committed to young people.... We talk about young

people as our most precious resource, and when I hear that I often

wonder what we are talking about. Our resource? They're not trees;

they're not renewable in the sense that when their lives are destroyed

and their hearts are broken, they can be fixed up that easily. People

have long memories and their pain grows deep. So when they're battered

around and beaten and they become violent and start to act out, who's

listening? Who cares? The first thing we want to do is condemn them and

make them heel.

We don't understand. I'm not suggesting I understand, but I know the

first way to understand is to begin to have dialogue to communicate with these

people. If we start to do that and give them the sense that they matter and

that we can listen, we would begin to get on the right track. Simply by default,

we're just not dealing with it, Mr. Speaker. Like I say, it's a universal

problem; it's worldwide. In some countries that we do business with, it's

even worse.

Here's a headline: "Young and Violent." That headline in itself

speaks; you don't need to read the text. Who ever asked the question:

"Why would these young people be violent?" Are they learning it from

their parents? Are they learning it from society? Can we do anything

about this, or should we just turn our backs? I find it very

disturbing. Here are society's angry young victims in the piece in the

Vancouver Sun .

The law is deaf to the pleas of a hooker's mother. She's probably

trying to save her daughter. There was a lady in North Vancouver who

went out on the streets a year or two ago and desperately tried to save

her daughter. All we can do is feel sorry for her. We can do a lot more

than that. It's not so much the money that we're talking about. We're

talking about respect for people's humanity and having the time of day

for them.

There are many requests being made. I know there's one made by the

First Baptist Church in my riding. They will be making an application

soon to put up a transition house for young people coming onto the

streets. One of their big concerns is that they have to wait so long

before they can get any help. These youngsters come on the street. They

say: "There's one who just got here — brand-new. If we can get him

right away, and we had some way to intercede...." But they don't. There

is nowhere they can go.

If a youngster suffers from a psychotic episode of some sort, forget

it. We don't have the facilities or the strategy in place. We don't

have the department, the ministerial responsibility or the statutory

commitment to do anything. It's like: well, we'll do what we can.

British Columbia spends peanuts compared to every other province.

MR. SERWA: We don't even grow peanuts.

MR. BARNES: Let me say to you that what you provide wouldn't

buy a bag of peanuts in terms of the real needs in the ethnocultural

community.

I say that because it's the ethnic communities that make the news.

We've had gangs ever since there has been a country — people hanging

out. They're not necessarily bad or violent; they're just gangs. As

soon as these visible minorities are seen in a gang or anything

happens, it makes a great threat because people are already fearful and

feeling somewhat threatened by these new arrivals or these different

looking people. We're neglecting these people, our responsibilities and

our duty to the public and to these new Canadians. They're not given a

very good impression about our understanding of what it is like for

them to come to this country and to adjust.

[3:30]

Of all the multicultural agencies in this province, only one — I

think it's Mosaic — gets about $100,000 or so from this government. The

others get nothing; I mean zero. The federal government is the one that

sponsors and pays. Even the federal government doesn't pay enough. I'm

not talking about a big-ticket item that would go in the budget. You

probably could

[ Page 12264 ]

pay for every one of the multicultural societies and service

agencies in this province for maybe $5 million a year. You could take

care of them in a sustaining way, not just an ad hockery, grantsmanship

type of thing where people get the money after they have had to cut the

program off — the money doesn't tie in with their budget. This is a

real problem. It is at the Immigrant Services Society, which is a

typical example. They deal with immigrant women and try to get them

prepared to go into the workforce. They don't have the dollars. Or they

get an approval from the government, but they don't get any money After

they've waited and borrowed from the bank on their line of credit, they

finally run out of credit, and they have to close down the program.

Then six months later the government sends them the money. The

government doesn't understand how important it is for these

organizations to get their money on time.

I'll tell you, had you done this, you could have gotten my vote, at

least on that one item. Had you said, "We're going to put some

commitment to the rhetoric about youth being our most valuable

resource, because we don't like these headlines we're seeing every day,

we don't want to see any more youngsters being battered by each other...."

We don't want to see situations where the learning centre in my riding

is having to close down because the government is reclassifying it.

It's going to put the responsibility on the Vancouver School Board,

which obviously does not have enough money in its block fund to carry

on with the programs they already have. The Attorney-General was

saying: "Well, we can't handle it any more." This is what I mean: it's

too difficult to get a handle on, but the fiscal thinking and fiscal

planning are in relation to social need. They don't compute. And that

has to change.

So I'm saying, Mr. Speaker: let's make a commitment to go to the

source, to get the young people working for themselves and with

themselves and having serious dialogue with government. If you're going

to have a Youth Advisory Council, as we have, then give them some real

work to do. Let them get involved in assessing the realities of what

it's like to be on the streets. Deal with these young people. Let the

young people themselves talk about what should happen.

You'll recall that a few years ago we had a young man, an MLA called Bob

Skelly. We all tried to make jokes about him because of his nervous condition,

which was something that could happen to anybody, but we thought it was cute.

He had some bad luck in the election. Bob Skelly had a private member's

bill, a youth guarantee act. I don't know how much it flew out there but

when you go back and read it, he was saying: "Look, any government that

is not in a position to make a commitment to its youth is self-destructive,

because every young person.... " We're beginning to recognize it as

far as child care programs are concerned, from the cradle right through to the

grave, because we have to deal with senior citizens as well. Living in dignity

begins from the time you are born, and we have to have a strategy that recognizes

that at every phase of development.

Our public school system seems to be only for the survival of the

fittest, not because the educators want it that way but because they

don't have the resources or the commitment. You talk about commitment

in politics — and gamesmanship.... But what's going to happen to your

Year 2000? The government has this glowing report from the Sullivan

commission on how we can improve the effectiveness of our public school

system for young people. What's going to happen to that? It seems like

the government's budget does not include the infrastructure you will

need to work out those plans and programs, to cope with that

transition, because we're talking about a transformation of the public

school system. Your budget shows that you're cutting back instead of

being prepared for that. What happened to that dream?

[Mr. De Jong in the chair.]

Some people have been saying some interesting things, I think. A

couple of MLAs have been saying that the British parliamentary system —

parliament as we know it — is going to have to grow up, because no

matter how much politics we play, we do have to live with our

consciences. We cannot afford to allow our irresponsible acts to impact

on the lives of those people out there relying on us. I think there is

a correlation between our behaviour in here and the results out on the

streets, and it's getting to the point where I find it intolerable,

quite frankly. I don't stomach it very well, because I know we could do

a whole lot better. We are squandering money away, shovelling it out

the back of a truck. This is a $16.5 billion budget, but what is its

effect in terms of real services to people?

It's not just the money. It's a government being proactive and

prepared to be a hands-on government — not standing up in here and

making speeches, but being able to go out and know what you're talking

about because you've been out relating with the people and know what

the issues are. They're inspired because they know the government

cares. When they do demonstrate a need, as has been demonstrated

throughout these various forums that have taken place year after year

right across the province, they know they don't have to go from

ministry to ministry to try to find somebody with some responsibility

in order for them to get some money. That shouldn't happen. That's a

disgrace. It's unconscionable and irresponsible for us to have to do

that.

The answer is cooperation and coexisting with respect, each and

every one. We're concerned about what it would take to become a

Canadian. No matter what it may take, if it doesn't start off with

fundamental humanity and principles that deal with decency, then none

of that other stuff is going to work, because that's the problem.

You don't have to go to a culture like ours with races and religions

from all over the world, people with different viewpoints. You go to a

country where it's pure white or pure black, if you can find such a

place, and you'll find the same forces at play: greed, neglect and

selfishness, where there is this sense of irresponsibility and

disrespect for humanity.

[ Page

12265 ]

There is something fundamental that we're talking about, something

more common even than the multicultural diversity that we have in this

society. There is something very basic that people feel. They talk all

the time about feeling alienated. Recently I've gone to native youth

conferences, one in Salmon Arm, and this is what they talk about: their

humanity. I was at one just recently out here at Totem Park at UBC, and

they talk about the same thing. It doesn't matter where, you go; the

first thing that comes out of people's mouths is: "I feel alienated. I

don't feel like I'm respected. I'm not treated like I belong." So

basic. That's what governments are going to have to do. In the future,

that's what we have to understand. We cannot just carry on dealing with

dollars and writing numbers and having academic discussions between

ourselves. We're going to have to realize that there has to be a

result, a product at the end of our activities.

I've just concentrated on this one point. I know there are other

points with respect to this budget. A lot of them are politics as

usual. I'm sure that other members have talked about the fact that it

looks as though senior citizens are going to have to be pretty well off

in this province, because there have been no escalator clauses in their

funds such as SAFER, seniors' allowances and programs to sustain them

to carry on. Those are maintained in the budget with no great increase.

The point is that unless you've got some money, it's going to be

tightening up. Rents are going up. Costs are going up. You've increased

the deductible on their prescriptions. Things like that are all going

to squeeze people a little more. We could go on and on. My colleagues

have touched on most of these points.

One fundamental thing I can say in closing, which puts the cap on

everything, is that the Provincial Secretary-cum-Minister of Finance

and Economic Development minister, and now Provincial Secretary again,

amended the Election Act a few years ago. I recall myself and the

member for Surrey–Guildford Whalley fighting and trying to get him not

to take away the basic right to register to vote right up to the moment

the polls closed. The reason for that is fundamental. You don't play

around with things like that. We did, of course, and they can no longer

do that. We're probably the only province in Canada that has that. In

the municipalities it's the same thing. But the point is that those are

the kind of games we're playing.

We're the last province to recognize the right of 18-year-olds to

vote. We haven't dealt with that yet. But we know full well that these

young people — the ones I just finished talking about — might take

exception to the government's thinking on what programs should be. You

don't want to give them the right to vote, and you have the power not

to do it. But is it the right thing to do? That's an example of what I

mean.

This budget has been analyzed from just about every point, and I'm obviously

not going to be supporting it. But in saying that, it's with great regret

that I wouldn't have an opportunity to do something quite dramatic by standing

up here and saying: "I cannot deny the fact that the government is finally

recognizing a specific area of responsibility, and it has created something

very...."

Mr. Speaker, this budget speaks for itself. There's no point in me

carrying on. I've been talking about the youth of this province and

their needs and about the way they are behaving as a result of neglect

or indifference on the part of the government. I know there will be

those who will argue with me and say that I don't know what I am

talking about. But I will say: "Don't talk to me; I'm just the

messenger." I've been out listening to young people, the people in the

communities and the schools.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I'm sorry, hon. member, your time has expired.

MR. SMITH: Mr. Speaker, I want to make reference to an

article in a paper delivered to the business law subsection of the

Canadian bar this past March. I wonder if, for that purpose, I might

have leave to table the document I'm going to be referring to.

Leave granted.

MR. SMITH: It was with a great deal of interest that I

listened to my good friend the member for Vancouver Centre. I was

surprised and somewhat disappointed at the end of his speech when he

indicated that he would not be voting in favour of this budget. What he

had to say certainly was worth listening to because he — I think

perhaps as much as anyone in this chamber — has a very fundamental

understanding of some of the issues we have to deal with, particularly

in relationship to young people, born of the fact that he has spent a

good deal of time on the streets as a social worker assisting young

people.

So I must say that, given that experience and the fact that this

budget fully discloses a $1.2 billion increase in the amount of money

dedicated to health, education and social services in this province —

the overwhelming majority of which will be expended in and around the

city of Vancouver, and much of which in turn will be expended on some

of the programs that the member has advocated for a very long time....

I say again that I was surprised and somewhat disappointed. that he was

not able to support that which he has advocated so often in this

chamber.

Mr. Speaker, in addressing the motion before us, I want to discuss

several matters that I raised or referred to in the throne speech.

Among other things, I want to discuss some government initiatives,

especially performance reviews and evaluation audits within the

Ministry of Finance.

[3:45]

I want to further examine the work of some administrative tribunals,

and I want to talk a bit about competition and concentration in our

society, as well as the business of creating jobs and wealth in the

future — especially as it relates to rural British Columbia.

During the decade of the 1990s the need for capital, the need for

capital formation and the need for access to capital will become the

field of greatest competition between nations around this world. That

competition

[ Page 12266 ]

to attract capital results from changes that are now occurring in

eastern Europe, the great expanding trade blocs emerging in Asia, the

liberalization of trade from and within Latin America and the sea

change now occurring within all sectors of industrialized economies.

That competition for capital will be the root driver of our trade

policies, our taxation policies, our regulatory levels and the amount

of debt government will be able to impose upon its citizens.

British Columbia is historically, geographically and socially in a

favoured position to be a major player in new capital formation as well

as a major beneficiary of the capital formed. We are in that position

because we have a history of ensuring that jobs in the resource sector

of our province, typically found in rural British Columbia, are

supported by capital formation vehicles typically found in urban B.C. I

celebrate that historic relationship and implore this House to ensure

that it continues, because our resource sector is changing rapidly, and

with that rapid change are coming new, expanded capital needs for both

retooling and diversification.

Our geography has positioned us well in relation to Europe, the

western United States and the Pacific Rim, but most importantly we are

favoured geographically by being part of a nation which is a player in

world governing organizations and which is attractive to investors

everywhere.

Socially we have organized ourselves so that free enterprise is the

dominant public economic value. Our education system supports expanding

future-oriented knowledge-based industries, and our regulatory system,

in the main, has not been an impediment to growth, improvement and

innovation.

It is important that we maintain these fundamental advantages. It is

also important that we ensure our own administrative agencies do not

compromise our natural advantages through immaturity, inconsistency or

inadequacy.

During debate earlier in the session I referred to the status of the

presumption of innocence in this province generally, and at that time I

raised particular concern about the role of administrative tribunals.

Today I want to further that discussion by apprising this House of some

of the concerns now commonly being raised about the quality of activity

undertaken by one of those tribunals, namely the Securities Commission,

and its adjunct agency, the office of the superintendent of brokers.

The former chairman of the Financial Services Commission, Leon Getz,

QC, a pre-eminent barrister and UBC law professor, on March 20, 1991,

presented a paper to the business community and to the business law

subsection of the CBA, which I suggest should be studied by all in this

chamber who are interested in this issue. Getzs paper raises issues

that must be addressed and will be addressed, and to which I'll refer

later.

The accumulating evidence points squarely to a need for fundamental change

in both jurisdiction and leadership personnel associated with the commission

and the superintendent's office. Speaking to a Simon Fraser University class

on the topic "Managing Public Companies in 1989," the present superintendent

set out his fundamental administrative philosophy, should he assume a position

of authority. It's a philosophy which I think spoke more to personality

than to process. That was before he was appointed. Subsequent revelations indicated

much about his methodology, and the speed with which he would move away from

the highly respected work that had been done by his predecessors. Later in 1989

the superintendent's lawyer shed further light on this methodology — this

new enforcement philosophy — when in the presence of three other lawyers, the

chief investigator and a businessman, he said: "Someone has to take the

blame in this Laing-Cruickshank affair, because this businessman has a high

profile. My client is the securities commissioner, and the press is all over

this issue." During a more recent hearing before the commission, a supposedly

independent mineral-expert report was submitted by the superintendent's

office. In fact, subsequent review discovered that the superintendent's

investigator had made handwritten notes on the draft report, which somehow found

their way into the final version of this so-called independent expert report.

These incidents are not stand-alone events. Instead, they are crisp,

Morse-code signals to all who can listen. At the very time when British

Columbia needs consistent, enlightened, evenhanded experience acting as

the administrative tribunal supervising capital formation in our

province, we instead have an organization desperately needing overhaul

of its processes, its personnel and the scope of its jurisdiction. Not

the least of this is the mandate in procedural issues involving the

awarding of costs by a tribunal which, through our own Financial

Administration Act, is permitted — if not expected — to be

self-financing. That sounds like the essence of conflict.

Today there is little dialogue by commission and superintendent with

the investment community. The hallmark of regulatory discretion is

uncertainty by those who are regulated. The necessary balance between

enforcement of policy initiatives to enhance the market and business

development has been eroded. Commission hearings are presumed to be

foregone conclusions because of the assumed relationship between the

superintendent and commission officials. Service to the industry —

especially processing of material — has declined in a relatively slow

market, even as the fee structure now is higher than several competitor

jurisdictions in the United States and Canada.

I raise these matters because if we are to succeed in this vital

area of competition during this decade, we must move now to establish

an administrative system that sensibly defines and protects the public

interest while furthering the building of a vital service industry in

this province.

The great competition of the nineties will be for the formation and

attracting of new capital. British Columbia is positioned to be the

number one North American venue for that purpose. A major factor in

determining our success or failure will rest with the kind and quality

of administrative practices developed with and between the commission,

the public and the marketplace. To date, our system and its personnel

are simply

[ Page

12267 ]

not meeting the challenge associated with the historic opportunity

that is before us all. The cult of personality has inflicted itself on

that particular administrative tribunal to such an extent that its

processes disclose the confusion about, if not a merger of, means and

ends.

In the budget documents, there is considerable discussion about

performance reviews, evaluation audits and value-for-money analysis of

programs to be undertaken by the Ministry of Finance. These new

procedures are to be commended and encouraged because they build on our

very fine tradition of public service delivery and sound administrative

practice, which is frequently recognized by independent observers.

Indeed, Professor Cutt of the UVic School of Public Administration,

writing for the IPAC organization in 1988, pointed out that Social

Credit administrations, beginning in 1976, established in this province

the most advanced frameworks for public and financial administration

anywhere in Canada. As we criticize and seek improvement, we should

also recognize we've done well, and I urge all MLAs to begin by reading

the highly important and informative analysis Professor Cutt did in

that document, which is entitled "Budgeting in the Provinces."

I also wish to say that the evaluation process for programs

announced by the minister ensures that audits occur within the

framework of responsible parliamentary government. It does not compete

with the policy work of MLAs, and it includes knowledge of the policy

trades that have to be made when establishing programs. That evaluation

work, in turn, will properly be subject to our auditor-general's own

examination. But I say again that the audit of major public policy

choices that the auditor-general is presuming to develop is not where

MLAs who are seeking a greater role for themselves should be allowing

an official of this chamber to be headed. It appears that the act under

which the auditor-general operates does not authorize this scope of

activity. It is, therefore, by some other route he has taken his

authority. The question of how much is spent on this form of activity

relative to other forms of audit should, at the minimum, be a line item

in the auditor's annual budget proposals. Only then can MLAs properly

answer the question of who audits the auditor.

[4:00]

Mr. Speaker, an important developing public policy issue involves

the matter of competition and concentration. I raise it because in

Canada we are now examining jurisdictional reform under our

constitution. In my view, the need to deal with competition issues

arises on two fronts: on the one hand, it may be that for purposes of

competing in some world commodity markets, we are going to have to

openly examine greater concentration of production assets; on the other

hand, we must resist the concentration we see in the petroleum-refining

sector, for instance.

On the service side, British Columbia must play a role in ensuring that Toronto-based

multinationals like Southam Inc. cannot successfully offend the competition

law, as they are trying to do through monopoly control of community newspapers

in and around Vancouver. The actions of Southam's Pacific Press are not

in the public interest, and I think that we have to have a stronger and faster

response to that kind of behaviour. It seems to me that one way to do that is

for a provincial role to be an important option to be examined during the coming

constitutional talks.

As well, the budget raises and discloses some interesting choices

for public expenditure. In the Kamloops constituency, we are pleased to

see a continued commitment to education, health care, our new

university-college of the Cariboo and the increased moneys for

forestry, agriculture and native affairs. We appreciate the need to

preserve programs for people and to enhance our environment, but we

also recognize the need to build up our province's ability to pay for

these programs and the need to create wealth, jobs and opportunity for

our children. That is why we in Kamloops shudder to think that the

transition team from this province's NDP was the self-admitted crack

team setting the new Ontario government's fiscal track to financial

tragedy

Yesterday I listened to a member chiding the government in this

House by saying that this transition team, after all, is a planning

team — the team that was going to demonstrate that they could plan and

Social Credit could not. If this is evidence of planning, if this is

evidence that what has come out of the Ontario budget is not some

aberration — as these people claim Dave Barrett was — and if this is

evidence of a planned, thought-out response to fiscal management, then

I can well understand why the people of Kamloops, as well as Prince

Rupert, shudder to think that that kind of activity and fiscal

management would and could be visited upon the province of British

Columbia.

Mr. Speaker, they've had transition teams before. I know they had

one before the '83 election and before the '79 election. I don't think

we should get too excited about these transition teams, because

although their work may be characterized as planning, I suspect that at

the end of the day it will be shown to be a little bit more about

daydreaming than it is about planning.

However, he told a Vancouver newspaper when he was bragging about

their prowess that this transition team — which apparently gave advice

to the Ontario government to provide for the kind of budget we're now

seeing saddled on the people — reported directly to him. That's what he

told a Vancouver newspaper, at least. Assuming that they use the

Vancouver newspaper so frequently to be quoted, I presume they believe

what is in the Vancouver newspapers. He said they reported directly to

him and were made up of three or four members of his caucus as well as

some resource people.

I think the public has a right to know who these people are. I'm

sure that as a precursor of the kind of freedom-of-information example

the Leader of the Opposition would want to set, the Leader of the

Opposition will now lift the veil around his so-called discreet

committee and name the people who were on that transition team and

helped the New Democratic government in Ontario write the most

disastrous budget ever presented in Canadian history.

[ Page 12268 ]

As I listen to the NDP discuss this budget, I'm reminded of the

enduring truth that this place always needs more shoes that have

stepped on field muffins than have walked up escalator steps, because

the NDP is never satisfied as to how far they're prepared to put their

hand in your pocket. As I listen, I'm reminded of the NDP newspaper

vendor who for ten years had a Socred silently go by every morning and

drop a quarter into his hand but never take a paper. One morning in the

eleventh year the NDP vendor stopped the man and said: "Do you mind if

I ask you a question?" Startled somewhat, the Socred replied: "I

suppose you're going to ask me why all these years I've given you a

quarter and never taken a paper." "No, " said the NDPer, "my question

to you is: do you know that newspapers now cost 50 cents?"

Listening to the NDP in here for five years has led me to conclude

that their promises are as foolish as they are simplistic. It's the

promise of disaster, it's hope by the hopeless, it's management by

Mandrake. It's the eternal NDP position that somehow British Columbians

can simultaneously have Swedish-level social services as they pay

American-level taxes. Well, if the folks eventually buy that line, then

Barnum finally will have been proved correct.

But they won't buy it. They won't buy it just as in 1933, 1937, 1941

and 1945, the people of Kamloops and Savona and Birch Island and Wire

Cache and Avola, and indeed all British Columbians, said yes to Bob

Carson, and they rejected in those years the option of socialism. And

it's how Syd Smith earned the people's vote in 1949 when they said no

to our friends opposite. The folks painted the slopes of Mount Paul

with the words: "Go, go Gaglardi!" in 1952 and 1953 and 1956 and 1960

and '63 and 1966 and 1969. Yes, in 1972 they responded to Dave Barrett,

the first socialist they'd ever met who had the deceptive appearance of

a good sense of humour. They sent to this House my good friend Gerry

Anderson, but even a hard worker like Gerry Anderson could not stop the

people from pulling their hands out of the hot embers of statism in

1975 and restoring freedom and free enterprise to British Columbia when

they said yes to Rafe Mair and did again in 1979.

On my birthday in 1981, the people said "no thanks" to our friends

opposite and "you betcha" to the first member for Kamloops, whom they

returned in 1983. Even though the NDP had a transition team at the

ready and at work before the 1986 election, Kamloops — like the rest of

British Columbia — rejected NDP socialism. The people will do so again

in 1991, so that they can continue that tradition on into the election

of 1995-1996, and thereafter into the century that is coming.

This is a strong budget, delivered by an outstanding Finance minister who is

part of the best government team in Canada, a Finance minister who has already

cleaned the opposition's clock so often in question period that they feel

like they're now in a Maytag demonstration. I therefore ask all fair-minded

members in this House to vote yes to the motion that's before us.

MR. MILLER: I wanted to correct the record with respect to a couple of points.

First of all, I would make the observation that the second member

for Kamloops obviously has a great deal of time on his hands these

days, now that he's no longer in cabinet, to craft these arcane

speeches that I'm afraid have absolutely no impact on members on your

own side, Mr. Member. But keep up the good work. You have kind of a

nice literary turn of phrase. Who knows, there might be hope for you in

another occupation yet.

I notice the members on the government benches looking on with some

eagerness. Perhaps the vacuum of leadership on your own side compels

you to feast your ears and eyes on the second member for Kamloops in

hopes that there is indeed a Messiah who's going to lead you out of

this political wilderness. But I doubt it. I'd also make the

observation that newspapers cost a lot more than 50 cents. If you want

to buy a daily paper in my riding, it costs you well over a buck.

MR. REYNOLDS: I'm sure, Mr. Speaker, it's not because of the

member's speech, but I've noticed there are hardly any members on his

side. And when I check our side, I don't find a quorum in the House. So

maybe you could ring the bell so that the NDP members could come and

listen to their own person speak.

MR. MILLER: Mr. Speaker, I'm sure they're going to flock back in droves once they know I'm on my feet.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I'm sorry, hon. member. There is a quorum at present, although the numbers are low, I must admit. Please proceed.

MR. MILLER: As I said, the second member for Kamloops has a

lot of time on his hands these days as he ponders his past sins and

tries to check out the price of newspapers around the province.

I want to talk very briefly about one of the issues he raised.

That's the question of the auditor-general's report. The second member

for Kamloops overlooked one of the fundamental points raised by the

auditor general, which is that not enough information is being given to

politicians to make good policy decisions. There is some question over

the ability of ministries to develop that kind of information for MLAs.

Mr. Speaker, you'll give me my 30 minutes? It's awfully hard to make a speech here.

MR. REYNOLDS: Mr. Speaker, I would ask that the Clerk

carefully count again. I've checked this House, and I don't find a

quorum here. This member certainly should have his own members in this

House to listen to him speak.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I agree that the number is short at the

present time because some members have left. We will be ringing the

bells and will continue when here are sufficient numbers back in the

House.

[4:15]

We do have sufficient numbers now. We will ask the member for Prince Rupert to please continue.

[ Page

12269 ]

MR. MILLER: I hope time is going to be added.

As I said, the second member for Kamloops, who has a lot of time on

his hands these days, actually has a fairly nice literary turn of

phrase. I thought some of that phraseology was kind of nice. He must be

spending a lot of time reading the newspapers.

When I examine the budget and particularly when I listen to the

claims made by members opposite that they are now going to balance the

budget over the five-year cycle, I have to ask myself why they didn't

do it in the four and a half years they've been in government. The

government is now going to the people promising to balance the budget

over the budget cycle, yet for the past four and a half years they

haven't done that.

During the 1990 budget address, the Minister of Finance of the day,

who's not the same Minister of Finance we have today, said that Socred

fiscal management has allowed us to balance the budget. He said last

year in the budget address that the budget was balanced, when the fact

is that the budget wasn't balanced. There was a $756 million deficit

last year.

HON. MR. VEITCH: Where did you get those numbers?

MR. MILLER: Mr. Speaker, we are now hearing some chomping

from the member for Burnaby-Willingdon, who used to be the Finance

minister. It was probably the shortest time that anybody in this

province has ever been Finance minister; the record is held by the

member for Burnaby-Willingdon. I saw an interview in that hectic time.

I'm not even sure he knew he wasn't the Finance minister any more. He

went on TV and said there would be a balanced budget. Then they

switched to the former Minister of Finance, who said there would be a

huge deficit.

Mr. Speaker, those statements were made within five minutes of each

other, which shows you the kind of confusion that reigns on the Socred

benches. If they're saying that we will now balance the budget over the

business cycle, British Columbians have to ask themselves why they

didn't balance the budget over the last four and a half years in the

budget cycle. Their phrases ring a little hollow.

[Mr. Pelton in the chair.]

In 1988 the Minister of Finance said: "With the budget stabilization fund,

British Columbia will have money in the bank for a rainy day." He described

the budget stabilization fund as money in the bank. The fact is that independent

auditors have exposed the BS fund as simply a device to hide debt. They claimed

in 1988 that there was a billion dollars in the BS fund, that there was a rainy-day

account and that there wouldn't be a deficit. They were wrong. When they

claimed that they had a balanced budget in 1990, they were wrong The deficit

was $756 million. What are they doing now? In front of the people of this province

and this House, they're saying the deficit is only $395 million. When the

Premier, who appoints the Finance minister, went on television last week — she

didn't appoint that member from Burnaby; she appointed someone else; maybe

she made a mistake — she said: "We have to borrow $1.2 billion."

I don't think we should try to hoodwink the public of British

Columbia. I think we have an obligation to play straight with the

public of British Columbia. We have tried in the last week to get the

Minister of Finance and the Premier to get their stories together, and

they can't. The Premier says we have to borrow $1.2 billion; the

Minister of Finance says we have to borrow $395 million.

Interjection.

MR. MILLER: Well, now we have another potential leadership

candidate — who I will bet money will not be a leadership candidate —

adding his voice to the confusion that reigns on the Socred benches.

This government has been the most erratic, unstable and disorganized

government this province has ever seen. British Columbians are looking

on in wonder and in fear; they're looking on in amazement at the

bizarre antics of this government. What other government in Canadian

history has, in rapid succession, announced a tax freeze in January,

brought in legislation in March to implement that tax freeze and

brought in a budget in May which increased taxes? Has any other

government in the history of Canada ever done such a thing? No.

They promised a tax freeze. They said there would be no increase in

taxation. It was a promise made by the former Premier on television.

British Columbians gathered around their television sets to watch the

former Premier say: "There's a tax freeze." I assume members of cabinet

supported that. We debated that tax freeze in March. We debated

legislation in this House, and minister after minister, Socred

backbencher after Socred backbencher, stood in this House and supported

that legislation which froze taxes. That incorrigible gang trots into

this House in May with a budget that breaks its own legislation and

imposes major tax increases. They have misled the public of British

Columbia.

MR. BRUMMET: The people have a right to know how you're going to pay for your promises.

MR. MILLER: The people have a right to a stable government.

They have a right to a government that doesn't make tax-freeze

announcements in January, doesn't bring in legislation in March and

then doesn't bring in a budget in May which completely wipes out all

those promises they made in the past two months. That's what British

Columbians deserve. They deserve a government that's prepared to be

honest with them. And you'll find that if you're honest with the

public, you'll get their support.

[Mr. Ree in the chair.]

This government is erratic, it doesn't know where it's going. Worst

of all, throughout all of this I have not detected in any member of the

government side a

[ Page 12270 ]

single shred of remorse or shame for breaking their pledge to the

people of this province. Not a single member has ever expressed even

the slightest bit. They don't have a tinge of remorse for their

deception, for the absolute chicanery that they've practised on the

people of this province.

They have committed an....

Interjections.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, please. Hon. member, a modicum of

decorum in language is a mark of parliamentary excellence. Some of your

language is treading on the very borderline of unparliamentary

language. "Chicanery" and a few other terms are not quite acceptable.

If you would just watch your language.

MR. MILLER: Mr. Speaker, little did I know that "chicanery"

was not in the parliamentary lexicon. Based on the advice that you've

given me, if any of the members feel offended by the use of the word

"chicanery," I would be more than happy to withdraw.

MR. BRUMMET: Tell us what it means so we can make a judgment.

MR. MILLER: The former Minister of Education is yelling in my

left ear, he's saying he doesn't know what the word means, but he wants

me to withdraw it anyway. I'll be happy to oblige.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hon. member, the Chair is asking for parliamentary debate. That is all.

Interjections.

MR. MILLER: Mr. Speaker, I'm finding it difficult to speak

above the heckling. I'd be quite happy to lower my voice if the Socred

members would stop their braying.

As I said, we've had a history of a very erratic government, which

has essentially broken promises they made to the people of this

province. You can't expect to be taken seriously when you promise a tax

freeze and then break it in the budget you present. When you examine

this, you're forced to draw some conclusions. The obvious one is that

they either didn't know what they were doing — which is quite possible

— or that they weren't being honest when they said there would be a tax

freeze. In either case, when you betray the public trust, the penalty

is defeat at the polls.

[4:30]

I've been appalled — and it was repeated by the second member for Kamloops

who spoke before me — to listen to some of the rationale being expressed by members

on the government side when they said that they felt they were going to get

re-elected. It essentially came down to this one point: it has always been that

way. They recited all the elections they've won and said: "That's

the way it's always been in British Columbia; therefore that's the way

it will always be." It seems to me that when they use that kind of argument

they are portraying probably the most arrogant attitude any politician can ever

have. You've taken the voter for granted. You've said: "You've

always supported me in the past, therefore I know you are going to support me

in the future, and therefore I don't have to be honest with you." There

will be a heck of a price to pay.

Mr. Speaker, I want to deal with two areas in forestry that I think

are absolutely critical to continued economic prosperity in this

province. I should note that the lack of economic vision in this budget

is frightening in relation to the forest industry. I've spoken before

about two British Columbias: the urban lower mainland with its

diversified economy more related to the service sector; and the vast

areas outside the lower mainland, essentially small communities —

though some are fairly large — that rely on forestry for their economic

well-being. Forestry is the cornerstone of the economy of many of those

small communities, and this budget was almost silent in terms of the

needs of those communities. We see that the recession has not impacted

the large urban centres to the degree that it has the small communities.

I see that the former Minister of Education has gone to get a

dictionary. I'm not going to accuse him of chicanery; he's going to

look up the word and find out for himself. I digress, Mr. Speaker.

As I said, the forest industry is vital to the economy of these

small communities. I look at the budget, and it really doesn't offer

them anything. On the second-last page of the budget is a passing

mention of a silviculture program — a rehashed, warmed-up, leftover

promise made along with the promise of a tax freeze in January. Since

that promise has been broken, questions are being asked around this

province about whether they're going to keep their promise on

silviculture. At any rate, it's pretty thin soup: basically a rehash of

promises made before and served pretty lukewarm to those people who are

concerned about their future.

When I questioned the Minister of Forests last week in this House

about that silviculture program, he alarmed me and, I would think,

other British Columbians by standing and saying that they don't have

enough seedlings and that maybe we don't have the land prepared for

planting. This promise has been in existence since January of this

year. The government has been working on negotiations with the federal

government on a second forest resource development agreement for two

years now. The former Minister of Forests talked about billion-dollar

agreements. I know the government prepared a FRDA wish list. They were

prepared — or gave the appearance of being prepared — to spend an

additional $700 million over five years, starting in 1990. And lo and

behold, the Minister of Forests stands in his place last week and says:

"We don't have the seedlings to begin our planting program.

Unfortunately, we're not going to spend as much this year in

silviculture as we told you." People look at that and say: "There's

another broken promise."

The Forest Resources Commission undertook a very important economic

evaluation. It's an area in which I think there's a real vacuum of

policy in this province. It's a pretty complex area. The Forest

Resources Com-

[ Page

12271 ]

mission undertook to establish the value of our standing timber:

what is the value of our forest resource, our asset? They used two

methods of evaluation. They looked at the amount that we collect in

stumpage payments, and they worked backward from there, as though that

would be a return on the asset, and they came to the conclusion that

under that scenario it was worth roughly $1 billion. Then they used a

market valuation approach, where they took a number of factors,

essentially public transactions — sales of forest companies among each

other; the kinds of values that are attached to logs that are traded on

the Vancouver log market — and the stumpage that is frequently bid up

under the small business program. They used those private transactions,

and they engaged a firm called Western Capital to do an evaluation on a

market basis. That firm, using a number of interest-rate scenarios —

13.5 percent, 11.44 percent and 7.15 percent, which is the rate of a

regulated utility — worked up some scenarios and came up with figures

purporting to represent the value of the asset base that ranged from

$4.7 billion to $8.8 billion.

I'm not suggesting that we should take these numbers as absolutes. I

think there needs to be a lot more work done in terms of this question.

But surely what is striking is the difference between the asset

valuation using the stumpage-based method and the asset valuation using

the market-based method.

The Forest Resources Commission report then goes on to say.... They

do draw their own conclusions. Again, I'm not saying that they're

absolutely correct, but they do draw their own conclusion that the

asset base is worth between $8.3 billion and $8.5 billion. One has to

ask: if it's clear that there is a difference between the valuation

based on the two methods of arriving at those numbers, where does that

difference flow? The Forest Resources Commission makes an absolute

statement with respect to that, and it's an important one when we

relate it back to the position those small communities are in and what

is required to improve and stabilize their economic base. I'll quote a

sentence from Page 67 of the Forest Resources Commission report: "The

difference between these two values is presently being captured by

private industry upon the sale of tenures, and not by the Crown." In

short, Mr Speaker, the portion of the value of our standing timber

asset is being captured not by the Crown but by private transactions.

MR. BRUMMET: Shut them down! Run them out!

MR. MILLER: The solution is not the kind of senseless comment

that I've just heard from the former Minister of Education: "Shut them

down!" I'm talking seriously about how I think we can strengthen our

forest economic base.

These are serious topics; this is a serious report that I'm quoting. I

know there has not been a lot of discussion on it. For the edification of government

members who may not have read this report, it was a commission appointed by

your own government. It contained people like Joyce Harder, the mayor of Lillooet

— a community in the Minister of Labour's riding. I'm sure that she

signed her name to this report with the full knowledge that she had gone through

a very extensive and exhaustive process. She would wish this report to be taken

seriously; she would not wish this report to be mocked by some members of the

Socred side. When I see a report that has names attached to it like Jack Munro

of the IWA, the Hon. Robert G. Rogers, former Lieutenant-Governor, and Cyril

Shelford, a former Socred cabinet minister in this assembly, I would think it

should be taken seriously and that it deserves earnest debate, which I am attempting.

As I said, the report makes a statement that stands on its own: some

of the value of our standing timber assets is being captured by private

companies. Now the important thing is that we should pursue this issue

in terms of trying to come to grips with the amount. Is that happening

and to what degree? If it is happening, I would think there is a case,

as is the view of the Forest Resources Commission, that this gap in

valuation should be closed. If we're losing.... If we're transferring

the value of Crown resources to private companies, we have to deal with

that.

What can we do? First of all, I think we have to do some more

economic analyses on this point. I'll use an example of a transaction

that took place where a major forest company, Canfor, purchased a

smaller company, Balfour, which had some sawmills and forest tenures. I

believe they paid $95 million for Balfour's assets. The economic

analysis that I read, by generally eastern-based brokerage houses,

claimed that the $95 million represented a far greater value than the

fixed assets of the company, and in fact it represented the value of

the standing timber.

Why is that important now? If the conclusions of the commission are

accurate.... We are faced with a recent announcement, first of all by

Fletcher Challenge, that they intend to dispose of their solid-wood

processing plants and some [illegible] that Fletcher Challenge is going

to dispose of their Boston Bar mill, Hammond mill, Fraser Mills,

Williams Lake sawmills and two stud and plywood mills in Kelowna and

Armstrong. Over 2,000 employees are affected by this move. We had the

announcement by Westar just the other day that they intend to dispose

of their solid-wood processing plants and their tenures. They're

talking about sawmills in Hazelton, Kitwanga, Vanderhoof, Castlegar and

Malakwa and a whole-log chipper in Hazelton.

These companies are putting these assets up for sale, and they're

going to include Crown timber that has been allocated to them as an

inducement for companies to buy the mills. Now if value is escaping the

Crown and if some of the value of the standing timber is going to be

transferred to private companies, should we not be looking at the

situation in those communities which are faced with a great deal of

uncertainty and a great deal of instability because of the gap between

capacity and timber supply? Should we be not taking some of that

uncaptured value? Not that the Crown should capture it all; perhaps we

should make requirements of private capital or the companies that move

in there to examine the economies of those small communities like

Hazelton and

[ Page 12272 ]

Kitwanga, which currently sees the mill shut down even though there

was a commitment by Westar to operate it. Should we not be taking some

of that capital in conjunction with government and industry together

and using that capital to stabilize those economies? For example,

should we not look at the whole range of devices that can be used to

stabilize economies between government and private industry:

retraining, the whole economic diversification, topping up pension

plans for early retirement for workers who might be old enough to get

out of the industry, intensive silviculture applications in areas that

expect to be hardest hit by the falldown in supply of timber? Should we

not be using that uncaptured value in the interests of all of the

citizens of this province, but particularly the people I try to

represent, the people in those small communities throughout British

Columbia? We could do a range of things to improve their position.

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

Finally, we could be moving, as Dr. Clark Binkley, the new dean of

forestry at UBC, talks about, from a resource-exploitation base to a

knowledge-based forest industry. Our competitive advantage in forestry

is that we are harvesting old-growth trees. We are harvesting trees

that we essentially did not put any capital investment into. At some

point in time, we will lose that competitive advantage. The only way

that I know to maintain our competitive advantage is to apply research,

development and technology to our own unique British Columbia

circumstance. We are faced with a host of international competitors in

forestry.

MR. SPEAKER: Just before the second member for Central Fraser

Valley begins his speech, the Chair would advise the member that I will

be bringing a ruling down at about 20 minutes to six, to give members

who wish to attend advance warning.

[4:45]

MR. DE JONG: It is indeed a pleasure for me today to speak on

this budget. It's probably the highlight — not my speech, but the

budget — of the legislative session. It was preceded by a throne speech

which, in general terms, laid out the recognition of the needs and

aspirations of British Columbians and also the improvements and

continuation of the existing and some new programs. We now have a more

closely, defined blueprint of that throne speech in our budget

submission.

I really appreciate many things in this budget. It's a good budget. It

respects the needs of British Columbians in terms of health and social needs.

It reflects the current economic conditions. It follows the guiding principles

that have been held by the Social Credit Party for many years to allow the vision

of British Columbians to succeed and enhance economic standards and quality

of life for all British Columbians. It's a blueprint that hasn't just

got dotted lines on it; it's got very solid lines on it. It's not a

visit by Santa Claus, as the opposition would propose to do and as they have

done in Ontario. This budget recognizes the needs and the limits of resources

available and what the taxpayers can afford, providing economic conditions remain

stable.

The opposition's real policy, however, in contrast to ours, is to

buy now and pay later; load the burden onto the next generation and

renege on current responsibilities. I believe that in Ontario they've

shown a pretty clear picture of that in their budget.

The member for Prince Rupert just mentioned a while ago that our

government had not kept its commitment in terms of the Taxpayer

Protection Act. If I recall correctly — and I'm not all that good in

remembering exact numbers — when the Premier of Ontario took office, he

promised that there would be a deficit, but that it would not exceed

$2.5 billion. What did he come up with? Almost $10 billion. Is that

responsive to the taxpayers? I do not believe so, Mr. Speaker. I

believe that, even though I would have loved to have seen no tax

increases, we would have stayed with the Taxpayer Protection Act to its

fullest extent. However, recognizing today's situation, I can also

understand that we should not go into a larger deficit than what we

have undertaken this year, and that would be in the neighbourhood of

$400 million.

When I had breakfast with a group of citizens in Yarrow on Saturday

morning, we discussed the budget a great deal. The people who were

there — and I believe they are the people I generally represent in

Central Fraser Valley — believe in helping the people in need. They

support a good health care program. They would, however, love to see a

user fee to avoid abuse. They also expect elected people to govern on

the basis of resources available to them, and that means bas