1983 Legislative Session: 1st Session, 33rd

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 )

FRIDAY, AUGUST 12, 1983

Morning Sitting

[ Page

795 ]

CONTENTS

Routine Proceedings

Tobacco Tax Amendment Act, 1983 (Bill 13). Second

reading.

Mr. Michael –– 795

Mr. Gabelmann –– 795

Ms. Brown –– 798

Mr. Reid –– 803

Ocean Falls Corporation Repeal Act (Bill 30). Second

reading.

Mr. Cocke –– 804

Ms. Brown –– 808

Hon. Mr. Waterland –– 812

FRIDAY, AUGUST 12, 1983

The House met at 10:07 a.m.

Prayers.

HON. MR. GARDOM: Mr. Speaker, it's a rare pleasure for me to

rise this morning and ask all members to join me in wishing the

happiest returns of the day to a very vibrant, energetic and

knowledgeable lady who will be celebrating her ninety-third birthday

tomorrow. I'm sure this longevity aspect will strike a degree of fear

in the breasts of our socialist friends opposite, because she's none

other than the mother of my colleague the first member for

Vancouver-Point Grey.

I would ask all members to join me in wishing very dandy birthday

greetings to Mrs. Ada McGeer, and may her shadow never grow less.

MR. COCKE: Mr. Speaker, from the Royal City — the proposed

capital and should-be capital of the province of British Columbia — may

I present to the House and ask that the House welcome the president of

the largest ratepayers' association in the Royal City, Mr. Bob

Osterman, and Mrs. Osterman.

MR. PASSARELL: Visiting the galleries today is an old

classmate of mine from Notre Dame, Bernie Schwartz from Biggar,

Saskatchewan. I would like the House to welcome him.

HON. MR. BRUMMET: Mr. Speaker, I would like the House to join

me, though belatedly, in recognizing the contribution that was made by

Mr. Harold McWilliams, who passed away and was buried last week. Mr.

McWilliams served for three years, from 1968 until his retirement in

1971, as B.C. deputy minister of recreation and conservation. From 1937

to 1956 he was in charge of the province's reforestation program and

worked in other departments of government, giving very loyal service. I

would like the House to join me in an expression of condolences to the

family.

Orders of the Day

HON. MR. GARDOM: Leave to proceed to public bills and orders.

Leave granted.

HON. MR. GARDOM: I call adjourned debate on second reading of

Bill 13.

TOBACCO TAX AMENDMENT ACT, 1983

(continued)

MR. MICHAEL: In taking a leaf from the book of the second

member for Vancouver Centre (Mr. Lauk), I would say Phillip Morris is

dead, Sir Walter Raleigh is dead, and if the people of Canada don't

quit chewing tobacco, it will be the rumination of the country.

[10:15]

The time has probably arrived when the opposition should give

consideration to proceeding with the business of this House. We've

debated this bill for several hours. It's a very simple question of

whether we're in favour of it or against it. I would ask the members

opposite to give consideration to proceeding to some more challenging,

interesting debates, which I'm sure both sides of this House are

capable of and willing to get into. Let's get on with the business, and

proceed in the interests of the constituents, the people of British

Columbia, whom we are supposed to be representing.

I would close by saying that I rise to support this tobacco tax

bill, and would ask the members, let's get on to some more interesting,

challenging debates.

MR. GABELMANN: Mr. Speaker, particular thanks to my new

friend from Kootenay (Mr. Segarty) and my old friend from

Shuswap-Revelstoke (Mr. Michael). The member for Shuswap-Revelstoke

suggests that we should get on with this debate and not "delay the

business of the House." This is very much the business of this House.

We have over the years, in debating tobacco tax legislation, let it go

through without very much thought. The Provincial Secretary (Hon. Mr.

Chabot) agrees with that. Today I want to join with my colleagues, some

of whom have treated this issue lightly and some of whom have treated

it more seriously. Since I'm not particularly good at the light side,

I'm going to try to deal with it on the more serious side.

We are raising $132 million from tobacco taxes in this province.

That is a significant amount of money. It is a particularly significant

amount of money when you compare it to the amount spent on encouraging

people not to smoke. I happen to think smoking is a dreadful and

expensive habit. It's expensive not only from a health point of view

but also — on the lighter side — it's also expensive for those of us

who don't smoke to have to get our sweaters dry-cleaned every time we

go to a social function. I find the habit absolutely revolting and

disgusting and I....

HON. MR. GARDOM: Wear a suit.

MR. GABELMANN: Mr. Speaker, I don't go to the kinds of

parties the former Attorney-General does, where I have to wear a suit;

I go more often to the kind where I wear a sweater or less.

As I was saying, it's a dreadful habit. I'm not going to transgress

on the subject matter contained in the bill proposed by the member for

Cowichan-Malahat (Mrs. Wallace), other than to say that I agree with

that. I hope we can begin the process of ending smoking in public

places, including, may I say, the dining room downstairs and other

locations, so that those of us who can't stand the stink when we're

eating have a chance to eat in peace.

I do want to talk about the fact that I think we should be spending

a considerable amount of this $132 million of revenue that will be

raised in this fiscal year on preventive programs, on ways to encourage

people not to smoke. I think it's generally agreed that smoking is

expensive in health terms; it creates all kinds of disease in terms of

lung cancer, coronary problems and what not. The evidence is in, and I

don't need to go through all the data on that.

In fact, some of my colleagues suggested that smoking saves society

money, because all the smokers die so young they don't have to occupy

nursing homes. I've been in enough nursing homes and seen 90-year-old

people smoking to suggest to myself that that isn't always the case.

Interjection.

[ Page

796 ]

MR. GABELMANN: That's right.

Mr. Speaker, there was a report done in 1973 that, for the most

part, has not been implemented in this province, and that was one done

by Dr. Richard Foulkes, who was commissioned by the Minister of Health,

the current member for New Westminster (Mr. Cocke). Dr. Foulkes spent

some considerable time talking of the need for prevention in health

care matters, and he included in that some discussion about the need to

spend money, time and effort, educationally and otherwise, on the whole

question of tobacco. I find it really quite disturbing that at a time

in our society when alcohol and drug abuse is of such significant cost

to society, not just in economic terms also but in social and personal

terms, we have programs such as the Alcohol and Drug Commission being

abolished.

[Mr. Strachan in the chair.]

None of the new money raised by this bill that we're debating this

morning is being, as far as I can determine, allocated to encouraging

people to give up the dirty habit. Nor is any given to the whole issue

of people not starting the dirty habit. It's been traditional in our

society that women have lived longer than men, and one of the medical

reasons given for that is that women have not smoked to the degree that

men have. That's now changing, and teenage girls are now smoking more

than teenage boys. The impact on the potential for life expectancy will

be noticed very shortly in our society. Men will begin to live as long

as women, or put more accurately, women will begin to live as less long

— if I can put it that way — as men. How much effort is being made by

society, through the government, to encourage 12-, 13-, 14- and

15-year-old girls in our schools not to take up this habit? How much of

the extra revenue raised by this legislation is being earmarked for

educational campaigns in our schools to ensure that these teenage girls

do not — for the most part, at least — take up this filthy and

expensive habit? Not very much, I would suggest.

The prevailing wisdom has been — and the federal Minister of Health

seems to echo that view — that the way in which you prevent or

discourage smoking is to raise the tax. I'm not sure whether cigarette

taxes, and alcohol taxes for that matter, are raised almost annually

simply because the governments want revenue or because they seriously

want to try to discourage addiction or overuse of either alcohol,

tobacco or — I won't include the other drugs; they're not on the list.

But I suspect that unthinkingly and without planning governments have

simply increased the tax as a revenue measure and not as a measure

designed to improve the health of our society.

I think it's time we discussed that basic issue. The federal

minister suggests that raising taxes, particularly on tobacco, to

exorbitant levels will stop people. I'm not so sure. I think of my own

case, as one who enjoys a bottle of beer on occasion, and remembering

when a dozen beer were $2.52. It is now in the $8 to $9 range for a

dozen beer. It should discourage me; it doesn't. It doesn't appear,

either, to discourage very many others in our society who consume not

just beer but other spirits and wine. The taxes there have been

increased quite exorbitantly over the years; the consumption rate does

not appear to go down as a result of that.

HON. MR. CURTIS: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, I've

listened carefully thus far; the member, however, is speaking about

taxes which may or may not be applied to spirits, beer and wine, and

that is not the subject of this bill in principle, I suggest.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The point is well taken. This is the Tobacco

Tax Amendment Act.

MR. GABELMANN: I would not agree at all with that point of

order by the nervous minister. The fact is that this is a sin tax. What

we're debating is a sin tax — not syntax, but a sin tax — and the

principle of raising money from people's sins is what is under debate

in this bill. It specifically refers to one particular sin, but in

discussing that sin I feel I have a right to talk about the other sins

that are also taxed, because the evidence for one applies to the other.

If the Minister of Finance is uncomfortable with that, so be it.

Interjection.

MR. GABELMANN: It's very difficult to find a principle in a

bill where

Section 1 says, "Section 2(

l) of the Tobacco Tax Act R.S.B.C

–– 1979, c. 404, is amended: (

a) in paragraph (

b) by striking out '2

cents' and substituting '3 cents,' (

b) in paragraph (

c) by striking out

'3 cents' and substituting '4 cents;' (

c) in paragraph....

Interjection.

MR. GABELMANN: No, I'm just trying to find the principle. I'm

going through this to see if I can find a principle in this bill, Mr.

Speaker.

What is the principle when all we have is a series of numbers? The

principle is, that this is a taxation measure. There are a variety of

taxation measures in our society. Some taxes are raised by personal

income tax, some by social service taxes, some by resource revenues;

other taxes are raised in other ways. This is a bill to raise taxes

from people's sins, and I intend to talk about sins. I'm not going to

talk about resource taxes, because as hard as I look through all the

mumbo-jumbo in this bill, I can't find anything about resources; nor

can I find anything about the sales tax. So I won't talk about them,

but I will talk about tax on sin.

For too long now we have, on the one hand, blandly and blindly

accepted that by making speeches or allegedly arguing we will

discourage bad habits by taxation — the evidence is not in that we will

— and on the other hand, doing nothing, and even less than nothing, in

our society to make sure people don't take up these bad habits It's

clear to me that these increased taxes on tobacco, and on the other

sins, have not worked. Why doesn't the government consider, instead of

raising money as they hope to do, an additional...?

DEPUTY SPEAKER: One moment, please. The Minister of Forests

rises on a point of order.

HON. MR. WATERLAND: Mr. Speaker, the member now speaking has

said, in effect, that people who smoke tobacco or drink alcoholic

beverages are sinners. That may be his opinion, but I take exception to

that and would ask him to withdraw that implication.

MR. GABELMANN: The minister's absolutely correct: it's my

opinion that it's a sin, and I'm entitled, as is any other member in

this House, to get up and express my opinion.

[ Page

797 ]

Mr. Speaker, are you ruling that I can't express my opinion?

DEPUTY SPEAKER: As a matter of fact, I am not. I will just

bring something to the House's attention in a moment.

[10:30]

MR. GABELMANN: Mr. Speaker, according to estimates, at least,

the effect of this bill will be to raise an additional $18 million this

coming fiscal year, the one we are well into now.

Interjection.

MR. GABELMANN: No, a total of $18 million for the entire

fiscal year. The tax began July 7, but for this entire fiscal year it

will produce $18 million. Presumably then, it will produce $20-odd

million in subsequent fiscal years. Hopefully it will produce less

because people will not smoke.

But what is the government doing? What is the principle? What is the

objective of this government in this matter? Is the principle to raise

money or is the principle to reduce the use of tobacco? The member for

Maillardville-Coquitlam (Mr. Parks) suggests that the purpose is to

raise money.

Interjection.

MR. GABELMANN: Now I hear the second member for

Vancouver–Little Mountain (Mr. Mowat) suggesting that the purpose of

this bill is to raise money for health care services, human resource

services and other kinds of services.

I don't understand why in this society we would not be prepared to

spend a few million dollars raised by this particular tax to save many

more millions of dollars in reduced costs to society. Not just cost in

terms of health care but also costs in terms of fires, lost time at

work — which is a factor caused by tobacco — and a whole variety of

other costs that are incurred by our society.

Interjection.

MR. GABELMANN: The member for Maillardville-Coquitlam asks

me: "Who says we are not discouraging the use of this particular weed?"

But we are not. The Alcohol and Drug Commission, which had a variety of

things in its mandate — hopefully, as well, a mandate to discourage the

use of tobacco — is being abolished. Where are the educational programs

coming out of the revenue from this particular bill to discourage the

habit, particularly when it comes to teenage girls in particular and

teenage kids in general? Why are we not spending some of this on those

kinds of programs?

I think one of the reasons that some of us on this side decided that

we wanted to take some time on this bill is that, as I said earlier,

year after year we blindly do the same thing: we increase the taxes on

this particular sin knowing that it's not politically unpopular to do

so. For the most part, even smokers will agree to accept increased

taxes, but we never take the time to think about the consequences of

the habit, and it's about time we did. It's about time that we embarked

on extensive educational programs in the school system. I would suggest

that it should be more than the $18 million that is being raised in

this fiscal year by this particular bill, but we should spend

considerable amounts of money in our schools on telling people about

the effects of tobacco.

Why isn't there a policy in this province, as there is allegedly

with liquor advertising — beer and wine — that the tobacco

manufacturers have to run at least 25 percent of the commercials

opposing tobacco?

Interjection.

MR. GABELMANN: The Minister of Intergovernmental Relations

whispers across: "Good point." That's a non-partisan issue. This whole

question of taxes on sin, educational programs and the abuse of drug

and alcohol in our society is a non-partisan issue. We all agree about

it. We share views. The idea that it's "sexy" and "in" and all those

things to smoke and to drink is mostly promulgated by television. No

money is set aside.... We don't even need to use this money out of this

budget for that. We could just pass a law saying to the tobacco

advertisers that they must spend a proportion — whatever it is, I

suggest 25 percent, but it could be some other percentage — of their

advertising budget on an anti-tobacco campaign, in the same way that

with beer and wine there has to be a campaign for moderation. Those are

important considerations. That doesn't require government money, but

what would require government money is to make sure that programs like

the Alcohol and Drug Commission are maintained. Whether they're

maintained as part of a separate agency or as part of an active

function of the Ministry of Health is legitimately debatable, but the

fact is that at the present time nothing is being done at all.

I want to go through a couple of recommendations made in 1973 that

affect this particular issue. The report of Dr. Foulkes, which has had

wide play over the years, is one that I agree with in general. I

suspect there are individual proposals in it that aren't particularly

agreeable, but for the most part his approach to these issues has been

from the preventive side. He argued that there should be an Alcohol and

Drug Commission to deal with alcoholism and drug addiction, and smoking

is a drug addiction. That commission should be organizing appropriate

integrated programs at the community level. It should be an independent

agency so it can offer advice to government, and it may well in the

course of its studies and work decide that the advice to government is

not to continue to raise taxes on tobacco, that that's not the

appropriate way to control or discourage tobacco.

In fact, I think you can argue that this tax, like a sales tax, hits

harder at the poor people in our society. The Minister of

Intergovernmental Relations (Hon. Mr. Gardom), when I made reference to

a 90-year-old, made reference earlier to one of the few pleasures in

life. For a lot of unemployed people and a lot of people on their own

without much money, smoking is, in fact, a pleasure. There's no

question about that, and I don't deny it. When you have a tax that's

across the board like this it wouldn't be a hardship for the minister

or for me if we were smokers, but for that poor individual who's living

on a fixed income in a tiny one-room suite, that cost is a hardship.

Maybe we should look at the whole question of how this tax hits. Does

it hit fairly or not? I think probably not. But that's something that

could be looked into, too, by an alcohol and drug commission that was

independent of government and had the power to make recommendations

about how the taxes should apply, and how we should proceed.

I'm not going to stretch this out to 40 minutes, mostly because I

would be repeating myself excessively if I were to try to do that. But

I do want to talk about one more thing. In

[ Page

798 ]

1973 the estimated cost of coronary heart diseases

in the United States, and this is a figure based on studies done six

years earlier.... In 1967 coronary heart diseases cost $15 billion in

the United States. If you assume that Canada is 10 percent the size of

the United States you can assume that that cost in Canada would be

roughly $1.5 billion. Since B.C. is 10 percent of Canada, the cost

would be $150 million here in British Columbia. The economic cost to

society of coronary heart disease alone is more than the money raised

by this particular tax measure. If it was $150 million in 1967, imagine

what it is today. Excessive costs. We don't take enough time to think

through how we're going to handle these kinds of issues.

The final recommendation in this

section of that report, entitled

"Recommendation No. 163," is: "That the government place greatly

increased emphasis on lifestyle modification to persuade the public

away from such proven unhealthy activities as smoking, alcohol and drug

ingestion." That's a recommendation that has never taken place; in

fact, we have gone the other way, Our sports stadiums are dependent

upon booze; they wouldn't survive economically without them.

Interjection.

MR. GABELMANN: I think it is the member for

Maillardville-Coquitlam (Mr. Parks) who suggests that's utter nonsense.

There's no question at all that the operation of B.C. Place, without

the passage earlier of the ability of beer and wine companies to

advertise on the electronic media in this province.... The whole

foundation of that....

HON. MR. CURTIS: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, earlier I

felt it appropriate to draw to the Chair's attention the fact that we

are debating a tobacco tax increase. Surely we are not debating the

question of beer and wine advertising or display material at a stadium.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Perhaps just to read Sir Erskine May's

comments on second reading: "The stage of second reading is primarily

concerned with the principle of a measure.... At this stage, debate is

not strictly limited to the contents of a bill, but other methods of

attaining its proposed object may be considered...." I'll leave that

with the members. All members are aware that it's rather a judgment

call on the part of the Chair.

I don't want to frustrate debate, but if the hon. member for North

Island could contain his comments to the principle of the bill and what

it's intending to obtain, then I'm sure we could proceed quite in order.

MR. GABELMANN: Mr. Speaker, I'm standing here puzzling as to

what Sir Erskine might tell us if he were here — whether or not I've

been in order. I may well be straying slightly from the order, and I

acknowledge that, Mr. Speaker.

What I would like to do in closing, and I will close at this

stage.... [Applause.] I knew if I used that line I'd get some applause.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to put into the record a couple of statements

that have been made over the years about tobacco. One is from Sir

Charles Lamb: "This very night I am going to leave off tobacco! Surely

there must be some other world in which this unconquerable purpose

shall be realized." Burton: "Tobacco, divine, rare, super excellent

tobacco, which goes far beyond all the panaceas, potable gold, and

philosophers' stones, a sovereign remedy to all diseases How is that

for an old view of tobacco? Edward Lucas says: "One of the two things

that men who have lasted for 100 years always say: either that they

have drunk whisky and smoked all their lives or that neither tobacco

nor spirits ever made the faintest appeal to them." I read those

quotations because my copy of Bartlett's Familiar Quotations

included them. I think all three of them are totally irrelevant, but I

did want to share them with the House.

I want to read a final quotation, which I think is quite relevant

and descriptive of the problem we face with tobacco. I think it

illustrates that the measures taken by the Minister of Finance to

attempt to wipe out this filthy habit are not appropriate. In saying

that, I'm assuming that he is in fact trying to wipe out this filthy

habit by this tax measure. I must say, though, that I do have some

doubts as to whether it is a correct assumption. Interestingly, the

gentleman's first name was Graham and his second name was Lee; his last

name was Hemminger. He was born just before the turn of the century.

Tobacco is a dirty weed. I like it.

It satisfies no normal need. I like it.

It makes you thin; it makes you lean,

It takes the hair right off your bean.

It's the worst darn stuff I've ever seen. I like it.

I suspect we could take off the last name of Mr. Hemminger and, if

it were in order to cite the first two names of this gentleman,

attribute that quotation to one Graham Lee.

I now move the motion be amended by leaving out the word "now" and

adding the words "on this day six months hence."

[10:45]

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The motion is in order.

On the amendment.

MS. BROWN: Mr. Speaker, the reason I'm speaking in support of

the amendment is that I don't think the bill it is amending is going to

do what the government wants it to do. If I thought for one minute that

by raising the tax on tobacco people would stop using it, I would

support that legislation; I would support it wholeheartedly, with all

my strength and being,

I dislike smoking. I cannot think of a single good thing that comes

from smoking. I disagree with the people who say that smokers are not a

burden on the medical system because they drop dead of heart attacks.

That's not true. They live on and on, and they're sick all the time.

They're a total drain on the health system. They're always coughing and

spitting all over the place. They have nasty habits. Their fingernails

turn brown, their teeth turn brown, and on and on it goes. The Minister

of Industry and Small Business Development (Hon. Mr. Phillips) is upset.

HON. MR. PHILLIPS: Brown is beautiful.

MS. BROWN: Not when it's the colour of your fingernails and

your teeth.

HON. MR. PHILLIPS: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, I

understand that the member opposite is speaking on the amendment to

hoist this bill for six months. I would suggest that her remarks have

to be kept to that point, which really doesn't have much to do with

whether or not people get sick. We might be interested in finding out

six months later

[ Page

799 ]

whether people are going to get sick. The hoist for

six months is

what we're talking about.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: That point of order is well taken. We are now

on a hoisting amendment.

MS. BROWN: I'm glad the minister asked those questions,

because it gives me an opportunity to be in order when I respond. We're

hoping that in the six-month interim the government will begin to see

the error of its ways and will pull the legislation. Raising the tax on

tobacco is not going to stop people from smoking.

One other thing I dislike about smokers is that they often fall

asleep when they're smoking and burn down things: they burn down

houses; they burn down apartments. They smoke in the bathrooms of

airplanes and cause airplanes to blow up. Smokers are an absolute

menace. There's no question about it.

If I thought for one minute that there was any way at all to rid the

world of smokers....

Interjection.

MS. BROWN: This is it.

In all seriousness, if there's anyone out there who knows how we can

stop people from smoking, I would like to find out.

Interjection.

MS. BROWN: You know. Okay. I personally would like to find

out.

Today marks 28 years that I have had to live with a smoker. I am an

expert on what it is to be continually breathing someone else's smoke.

I am the one who's going to die of lung cancer, not him. And if I

thought that by raising this....

Interjection.

MS. BROWN: Oh, Mr. Speaker, I know that he would appreciate

the hon. second member.... Is that what's driving him to smoke?

If I thought that raising the taxes would make even one person stop

smoking, I would support it.

Interjections.

MS. BROWN: I would. Are you going to stop smoking? You

haven't even started. Think of all the lives that would be saved, all

the property that wouldn't be burned down, all the airplanes that

wouldn't be blown up if people would stop smoking. Think of the health

care system: no lung cancer, no pleurisy, all that coughing.

AN HON. MEMBER: Rebuilding all those houses.

MS. BROWN: Rebuilding all those houses. You've got me right

there. If in order to stop that we have to stop smoking, then I'm with

it.

I really hope that this hoist is going to give the government an

opportunity — the Minister of Finance is leaving just as I am coming to

the financial part of my argument....

Interjection.

MS. BROWN: He's gone for a smoke, right. My case rests, then.

Precisely. It's even raising it.

In all seriousness, this bill has to be hoisted because I think the

government's making a very serious mistake by introducing one more

regressive piece of taxation. That, in fact, is what a tax on tobacco

is. It's regressive taxation. I think that for the government to add

this to all of the other regressive taxation which is already a burden

on the people of British Columbia is not something that the opposition

can support.

I want to talk — I know that this will bring back memories to a

number of people who had the misfortune of having to read Samuelson and

Scott's Economics when they went through school.... But there

are some

things here that I think the Minister of Finance needs to take a second

look at, so I want to recommend to him first of all a particular

chapter that he has to read, and then the exercise that comes at the

end of it. I want to recommend to him

chapter three, which deals with

the functioning of a mixed capitalist enterprise system. It talks in

some detail....

HON. MR. PHILLIPS: Speak to the amendment.

MS. BROWN: I am speaking to the amendment. This is the

problem: we have a Minister of Industry and Small Business Development

(Hon. Mr. Phillips) who is not even respectful of the bible of

economics, Samuelson and Scott. That's the problem we have in this

province.

AN HON. MEMBER: Poppycock!

MS. BROWN: If the minister will listen very carefully, the

minister will understand by the end of the time I'm speaking what is

absolutely important: that during the six months that this bill is

hoisted the Minister of Finance and the minister who is interrupting me

continually, the Minister of Industry and Small Business Development,

read this chapter, and, having read the chapter, address themselves to

the exercise at the end. Because one of the things that the

chapter

talks about in great detail is taxation. It goes into the difference

between progressive taxes such as the personal income tax system and

regressive taxes such as this particular tax on tobacco, the one we

were discussing and about which in support of an amendment to hoist I

am now speaking.

One of the things the

chapter says to whomever is implementing this

kind of tax is that they should look at the person or persons who

ultimately will be paying a particular tax. They have to ask themselves

the question, first of all: does the burden of that tax stay on the

person against whom it is first levied? Can one always assume that the

person a legislature puts a tax against is the person who really ends

up paying that tax or the person who is victimized by that tax? This is

not the case, because one of the things we know for sure — that

experience has shown us — is that people who smoke will find the money

to buy cigarettes regardless of what else they have to go without in

order to continue to support their habit. Because smoking is an

addiction. Raising the taxes on smoking isn't going to stop people

smoking. It means that they're going to be pulling money from somewhere

else in order to continue to support their addiction. That is one of

the reasons why this is such an insidious kind of tax. A number of

people have this habit who fall into the category — and most of the

[ Page

800 ]

people on whom the tax bears the hardest — of those

who can least

afford the habit of smoking in the first place. To have a tax added on

top of that and to have that tax increased is an additional burden

which they themselves don't bear. They take the money from elsewhere in

order to continue supporting their habit.

MR. PARKS: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I'm having a

great deal of difficulty understanding how this hon. member is speaking

to her hoisting amendment. It certainly sounds as if she is still

debating the main motion. As I understand the hoisting motion, she

wishes this House to shelve this resolution for six months. I have not

heard her debate why it should be suspended for six months. Perhaps she

could speak to that.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The point is well taken, although the member

now speaking has, in the Chair's estimation, addressed the hoist

principle. If the member could stay with the principle of the amendment

now before us I am sure the House and our rules would be satisfied.

MS. BROWN: Mr. Speaker, you have just illustrated and

demonstrated why you are the Speaker, and not the member for

Maillardville-Coquitlam (Mr. Parks). Mr. Speaker could see the link

immediately. I am agreeing with the Chair. The Chair is correct.

I'm going to repeat, for the benefit of the two little backbenchers

down here — the second member for Surrey (Mr. Reid) and the member for

Maillardville-Coquitlam — that I'm asking the government to hoist this

piece of legislation for six months, hoping that during those six

months they will avail themselves of some of the information about

regressive taxation and its impact on various groups on our society,

will see the evil of their ways, and pull the bill completely. Having

stated that in principle, I am going to help the government, and

hopefully the two little back-benchers at the same time, by discussing

some of the issues raised by Samuelson in

chapter 3 of his book on

economics, about regressive taxation and the groups that are affected

it, and why it has a negative impact not only on the people at whom the

tax is directed, but on other people as well.

[Mr. Pelton in the chair.]

Before I was interrupted we were talking about the question of who

ultimately pays this tax, and whether in fact a tax of this nature is

having the effect on the person at whom it is directed, rather than on

someone else. Now that the Minister of Finance has returned, this is a

question which I think he has to ask himself during the six months this

hoist is in progress. The Minister of Finance has to address the

question of just who is going to be affected by this tax.

[11:00]

On page 190 of this particular

chapter in the textbook is a

summary,

which I'll quote for the benefit of the Minister of Finance; this is a

lesson in economics I'm giving here: "Taxes give the government the

resources which it needs for its public activities.. Taxes also finance

welfare transfer expenditures that change the distribution of income.

The overall way taxes are levied affect the final distribution of

income among people." That's a very crucial point, one that the

Minister of Finance has to keep in mind whenever he's contemplating

introducing a tax.

"Taxes is one way of redistributing income, and when

you tax fairly through a progressive tax system, you redistribute

income in a fair and equitable manner. When you tax unfairly through a

regressive tax" — such as the one we are now asking the government to

hoist for six months — "you redistribute income unfairly and in an

unequal manner, and it tends to be a harder burden and have a harder

impact on the people who can least afford to pay that tax."

The whole question of regressive taxation is one that this

government has never addressed itself to. In fact, this is not the only

piece of regressive taxation that this government has visited upon the

people of British Columbia. That's why I think they need the six

months. If they do absolutely nothing else with it, they need the six

months to do some reading, some research, learning, analysis and study

about the real honest-to-goodness impact of regressive taxation on

people.

Okay, here comes the little exam that I would like the minister to

do over the next six months, Mr. Speaker. This comes at the end of

chapter 3. After he's read the chapter, he should do this little

exercise. First of all, it says: "Make a list of different taxes in

order of their progressiveness. Then try to decide what is the

importance of each at the various levels." He doesn't have to do the

second half of the question if he doesn't want to. But he certainly has

to do the first part of that question. He has to make a list of all the

various taxes that he, during his time as Minister of Finance, has

visited on the people of British Columbia, during the six months that

he is looking at this particular tax. He also has to look at some of

the other taxation. He should make the list in terms of his perception

of how progressive those taxes are. As a matter of fact, to jog his

memory, I think he should include in that, for example, the sales tax.

I don't want to go into detail on that, because that's another bit. I'm

just giving him some ideas of some of the other taxes that he should

include, in terms of making this list.

Then I want him to deal with this specific question because — you're

not going to believe this — Samuelson and Scott, in their textbook —

and it was printed in....

AN HON. MEMBER: Quite a while ago.

MS. BROWN: It was, because even in 1966.... This is a

reprinting, because I used it myself, and I've been out of school a

long time. But this is one of the....

HON. MR. GARDOM: How long?

MS. BROWN: Almost as many years as you.

But imagine, one of the exercises that I had to do as a student, and

that I think the minister should now do, is this: "Since people don't

change their smoking habits as a result of taxation, and since the poor

smoke, a tax on cigarettes is really no different than a tax on bread.

Do you agree? If so, what ought to be done?" Can you imagine, Mr.

Speaker, that this exercise — this test — which I'm asking the minister

to do over the next six months, during the time that this bill is

hoisted, is an exercise that every student who's done first-year

economics has had to do. It is appalling, isn't it, that a first-year

student in economics knows that a tax on tobacco is regressive. But the

Minister of Finance for the province of British Columbia hasn't

discovered that fact yet.

MR. PARKS: It is a progressive tax in a social sense.

[ Page

801 ]

MS. BROWN: It is not a progressive tax. It is not a social

service tax.

MR. PARKS: In a social sense.

MS. BROWN: Here we have the little back-benchers challenging

the fine minds of Samuelson and Scott, who have been training, teaching

and educating students in this province since the beginning of time,

because this is a required text, as dictated by the Ministry of

Education. It's approved of by the government's own Ministry of

Education. This text has decided and stated and said that the tax on

tobacco is a regressive tax. Every first-year student in economics has

been taught, has learned and knows that it is a regressive tax. They

have been set an exam at the end of

chapter 3 that every single one of

them has to deal with, and we have the Minister of Finance of the third

largest.... Is it the third largest budget in all of Canada that he's

dealing with, or is it the largest? It's the third largest budget in

all of Canada. He doesn't recognize that by increasing the tax on

tobacco, by even allowing a tax on tobacco, he is supporting,

introducing and increasing a regressive piece of legislation.

MR. PARKS: Would you rather it be reduced?

MS. BROWN: It shouldn't exist at all.

MR. PARKS: Oh, I see.

MS. BROWN: Did you take first-year economics? It's a

regressive tax.

Interjections.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Just a moment. The hon. member for

Esquimalt–Port Renfrew seeks the floor.

MR. MITCHELL: It's just on a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I

would like you to ask the Minister of Intergovernmental Relations (Hon.

Mr. Gardom) to participate in the debate properly: stand up and give

his reasons but not interrupt the speakers.

AN HON. MEMBER: Is that a point of order?

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Yes, it is. Thank you, the point is well

taken.

MR. PARKS: What's wrong? Can't Rosemary defend herself?

MS. BROWN: I would like to acknowledge that certainly for

this side of the bench, chivalry is not dead. I want to thank my

colleague for Esquimalt for coming to my defence.

However, during the six months this hoist is in progress, I am

hoping that the Minister of Finance will avail himself of this copy of

the text, read

chapter 3 and do those two tests. I have one final one I

would like him to do.

AN HON. MEMBER: That'll take him more than six months.

MS. BROWN: Yes, maybe we should move an amendment to the

amendment.

Interjection.

MS. BROWN: No, you have to defend it.

During the next six months, I want the minister to do this third

test. I notice he's writing down these little exams I'm giving him. I

want him to review his understanding of the following concepts: benefit

and sacrifice notions — all of these things are covered in this

particular

chapter — direct and indirect taxes, progressive and

regressive, and tax incidence and shifting. Those are four points which

I am going to touch on very briefly just to help him so that when the

time comes for him to do this little test, he'll get the answers

correct. I would be too embarrassed to admit to anyone that the

Minister of Finance of the province in which I live couldn't pass the

first-year economics test on the third

chapter in the first textbook

that every first-year economic student has to use.

I want to quote again from Samuelson on this one. I want to get it

exact so that when the minister reads it it comes out exactly the same

way. "The problem that we have is that regressive tax takes a larger

fraction from the income of low income earners than it does from the

income of high-income earners." That's the real problem with regressive

tax. The first point I raised was that the tax didn't necessarily

impact on the people it was directed at, and the second one I'm raising

is that regressive taxes take more of a percentage of the income of

low-income earners than it does of the income of high-income earners.

When we are looking at the redistribution of income, we see that

a regressive tax tends not just to keep the poor poor but it tends to

make the poor poorer than they were before, and it tends to make the

rich richer. That is one of the real problems. If the minister

recognizes that taxes are a form of income redistribution, then he has

to recognize that the regressive tax is more of a burden on them than

it is on others by taking more of the income of the poor.

It goes on to say that when you add that to the other indirect and

direct taxes that low-income families have to deal with, regressive

taxes are really very destructive. If it were the only form of

taxation, we would say the government has no option, but it is possible

to use a progressive tax system. That's why it is so important that the

minister should be very clear in his mind that this particular tax is

not progressive. Income tax is progressive. If, in fact, the government

is using taxes as a means of generating revenue, then the government

has a responsibility to see that the tax it uses is a progressive tax,

that it impacts in an equal and even manner on all people and that it

does not impact more severely on that segment of society that can't

afford the tax in the first place. When you start to look at the other

taxes that low-income people have to deal with.... I don't want to talk

about the tax on restaurant meals, but that's a straight

across-the-board tax that everyone has to pay regardless of their

income. A person who makes $10,000 a year pays the same 7 percent on

the purchase of goods or services as a person making $100,000 a year.

The impact of that tax is harder on the person making $10,000 a year.

As with tobacco, so with sales tax and these other taxes: they are

regressive. All I am saying is that the poor already are dealing with

too many other regressive taxes, and if the government is really

serious and the only reason for introducing this tax is to generate

revenue, then the government should know that it is better for everyone

concerned that this revenue be generated by a progressive tax, such as

a progressive income tax system, rather than a

straight-across-the-board regressive tax such as a sales tax or

[ Page

802 ]

the tax on tobacco, or a tax on meals, the other

tax introduced by

this government.

[11:15]

The problem that we have is that so often we mistakenly think that

because we live in an affluent and a wealthy country everybody can

afford the taxes and can afford to pay the price for the goods and

services which they receive. That is not true. I think we have to start

looking at the statistics.

MR. REID: You should quit smoking if you can't handle it;

that's simple.

MS. BROWN: The two little back-benchers keep saying they

should quit smoking. I thought I had dealt with that. It doesn't

happen. You don't stop smoking if you are addicted to tobacco simply

because the tax is increased. You don't stop drinking if you are

addicted to alcohol simply because the tax is increased. As a means of

dealing with morals it's a failure. It has been proven over and over

again. It is not necessary for us to reinvent the wheel; it has been

done. The research has been done on it by other jurisdictions, other

people in other places at other times. Increasing the taxes doesn't

stop people from smoking or drinking.

MR. REID: It helps.

MS. BROWN: It doesn't help.

MR. REID: I couldn't afford it, so I quit.

MS. BROWN: You didn't stop smoking because of the taxes; you

stopped smoking because you smartened up. You decided you didn't want

to die of lung cancer, you didn't want to have cancer of the lips, you

didn't want to have pleurisy, you didn't want to burn yourself in your

bed at night or blow up an airplane. That's why he stopped; it had

nothing to do with taxes.

AN HON. MEMBER: Is that why you quit smoking?

MS. BROWN: That is why I quit smoking.

If the minister really believes what the two little backbenchers are

telling him, then let him use the six months to read the material, to

read the research, to find out for himself that as a means of dealing

with one's morals, one's sin, bad habits or addiction or whatever,

taxes don't do it. If you could stop an addiction by taxing, all we

would need to do is put a tax on heroin. You speak to the Minister of

Labour, and he will tell you that not even treatment deals with that.

You don't deal with addictions through taxation. Surely not even this

government could believe that. Not even this government could believe

that you deal with addictions through taxation.

So it doesn't deal with the addiction. The only rational reason that

they have for this tax is a source of revenue; they are trying to raise

money. If that is the case then they have a responsibility during the

six months that this legislation is being hoisted to look at a

progressive way of raising income rather than a regressive way of

raising income.

Before I was interrupted I was going to give some statistics on

poverty in Canada and in British Columbia.

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

MR. REID: Poverty?

MS. BROWN: Poverty, that's right. The poor who smoke pay the

same percentage tax as the rich who smoke. It is precisely for that

reason that it is regressive. In British Columbia, according to the

statistics that we have....

MR. REID: Cigar smoking should be against the law.

MS. BROWN: I agree with that member 100 percent. Cigar

smoking should be against the law.

MR. REID: Cigarette smoking should be against the law. Your

husband should quit smoking.

MS. BROWN: I like cigar smokers; I just don't like the fact

that they smoke cigars. Some of my best friends are cigar-smokers.

We have something like 9.6 percent of the total poor of Canada

living in British Columbia. We're talking about 272,000 people living

beneath the poverty line who could be impacted as a result of this

regressive taxation. In case you're wondering, what I'm pointing out

is....

AN HON. MEMBER: Yes, I'm wondering.

MS. BROWN: Okay.

We sometimes forget, because we're so fortunate to have the

mountains and the ocean and everything is so beautiful in B.C., and we

think that everyone is rich and living in luxury.

MR. REID: Out in Point Grey.

MS. BROWN: Who lives in Point Grey?

MR. REID: Don't you live in Point Grey? Isn't that where

luxury is?

MS. BROWN: You'll have to ask the two members for Point Grey.

In Burnaby I don't know what you're talking about.

HON. MR. GARDOM: At one time you had great representation.

MS. BROWN: But now I have the best.

My colleague, in moving the motion, touched on the point that one of

the tragedies of smoking is that more and more women are beginning to

smoke, and as a result of this they shorten their life span. The other

statistic is that they make up 63 percent of the poor in British

Columbia, who are going to have to pay this tax and who are going to be

affected by this particularly regressive piece of taxation.

When we talk about poverty and the poor, then we're talking about

women.

AN HON. MEMBER: Women.

MS. BROWN: That's right, we're talking about women. So I have

a special interest....

Interjections.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please, hon. members. We are supposed to

have one formal conversation at a time, and right now the hon. member

has the floor.

[ Page

803 ]

MS. BROWN: Sixty-three percent....

MR. SPEAKER: Order, hon. member. If other members,

particularly the Leader of the Opposition, wish to conduct a caucus

meeting, this is not the time, in deference to the rights of the member

for Burnaby-Edmonds. Please continue, Madam Member.

MS. BROWN: What I was trying to talk about was the fact

that....

Interjections.

MS. BROWN: Okay, now can we talk about the 63 percent of poor

people in British Columbia who are women, on whom this particular piece

of regressive taxation is going to be a very particular burden? A large

percentage of those women....

AN HON. MEMBER: You haven't got time.

MS. BROWN: What? Did you deduct the time that the caucus

meeting was in progress? You didn't? Oh.

Mr. Speaker, I set three little exams for the Minister of Finance

that I'd like him to do during the six months that the hoist is in

progress. All of them deal specifically with the regressive nature of

this particular piece of taxation. I have dismissed the concept of the

tax as a means of dealing with one's addiction to tobacco, or one's

morals or lack of them, or whatever has to do with smoking. I refuse to

believe that that's the reason the tax was introduced. I accept that as

a tax measure the government introduced it to generate revenue, and I

pointed out to the minister that as a revenue-producing instrument it

was very regressive, because it had a greater impact on the poor than

it did on other people. I then asked him, in the six months during the

time this hoist is in progress, to avail himself of Samuelson and

Scott's Economics ,

chapter 3, which deals specifically with

this issue

of regressive and progressive taxation and which compares this kind of

taxation with really being a poll tax on people — that's really what it

is. Then I also gave him these three exams to do, one of which is an

exam that every student in first-year economics has to write and that

says, specifically — and I just want to repeat this in case the

minister missed it the first time: "Since people don't change their

smoking habits as a result of taxation, and since the poor smoke, a tax

on cigarettes is really no different from a tax on bread." The question

is: do you agree, and if so, what ought to be done?

I tried to help the minister by pointing out that the answer to that

question is yes, he should agree; and the second answer is that he

should withdraw the legislation. So he's got the answers to the

questions, and I hope he'll pass the test. I support the hoist.

MR. SPEAKER: The Minister of....

MS. BROWN: No, no. Is this closure?

HON. MR. CURTIS: I'll defer, Mr. Speaker.

Interjections.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. Hon. members, the minister is

entitled to speak on the amendment without running the risk of closing

debate. And the minister defers to the second member for Surrey.

MR. REID: Mr. Speaker, I move adjournment of this debate

until the next sitting of the House,

Motion approved on the following division:

[11:30]

YEAS — 27

Chabot

McCarthy

Gardom

Smith

Curtis

Phillips

McGeer

Davis

Kempf

Mowat

Waterland

Brummet

Rogers

Schroeder

McClelland

Heinrich

Hewitt

Michael

Pelton

Johnston

R. Fraser

Campbell

Strachan

Veitch

Segarty

Parks

Reid

NAYS — 13

Barrett

Howard

Cocke

Dailly

Lea

Nicolson

Gabelmann

Skelly

Brown

Hanson

Wallace

Mitchell

Blencoe

Division ordered to be recorded in the Journals of the House.

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. members, yesterday the Minister of Industry

and Small Business Development (Hon. Mr. Phillips) raised a matter of

personal privilege on a statement made by the hon. Leader of the

Opposition during debate the previous day. The hon. minister stated

that at the time the statement in question was made he was unable to

clearly hear what was said. Accordingly, after examining Hansard

he raised the matter upon his first opportunity to do so.

The hon. member for Nelson-Creston (Mr. Nicolson), speaking to the

matter as a point of order, observed that it was now too late for the

complaint of the hon. minister to be considered by the Chair. It is my

opinion that while points of order and matters of privilege should be

raised forthwith, there are circumstances when this may not be

possible. In the present instance I consider there has been no undue or

excessive delay in the making of a complaint, in view of the hon.

minister's explanation.

With reference to the statement complained of, I am sure that upon

reflection the hon. Leader of the Opposition must agree that the

reputation of the minister was improperly impugned, and that he will

now — in the proper tradition of the House — wish to withdraw the

allegation which was made by him against the hon. minister.

On this matter, the Leader of the Opposition.

Interjections.

MR. BARRETT: Mr. Speaker, I do not treat this matter as

lightly as the members do. If the minister feels impugned, it is a

serious matter to be dealt with as the House.... The Chair is asking

that I withdraw, which I am considering on my feet. But in response to

the "earliest opportunity," you see in Hansard that the

minister was clearly aware because he

[ Page

804 ]

stated right after my remark that he wasn't offended by my personal

attack. If you read the line, he was fully aware of what I said. In the

tradition of this House, if he wanted a withdrawal he should have got

up immediately.

Interjection.

MR. BARRETT: Do not lecture the House, please.

It is my intention to withdraw. But I withdraw on this basis: the

privilege afforded the minister to wait 24 hours to raise this matter

in Hansard is now open to every other member. On that

basis, Mr. Speaker, if I have offended the sensitivities of that

minister, who is one of the most delicate flowers in this chamber, I

withdraw my remark.

MR. SPEAKER . Thank you, hon. member.

HON. MR. GARDOM: Mr. Speaker, I call adjourned debate on

second reading of Bill 30.

OCEAN FALLS CORPORATION REPEAL ACT

(continued)

MR. COCKE: Mr. Speaker, let me first thank the House Leader

for informing us that we would be adjourning the debate and moving on

and jumping around. The opposition have been asked to cooperate. Let me

suggest to you all that the opposition, under the circumstances in this

House, are cooperating beyond belief. Can you imagine a province

confronted with the liturgy of proposed legislation that we are

confronted with, and we're asked to cooperate? "Trust us." Well, I will

speak to the bill — in due course.

Interjections.

MR. COCKE: Mr. Speaker, here's a man who wants your job. I'll

sit down while he raises a point of order.

HON. MR. CHABOT: The point of order, Mr. Speaker, is that the

member speaking now is not speaking to the bill. He's standing there

lecturing the chamber. He has indicated to me that he'll speak to the

principle of the bill, and to the bill, when he's ready. I suggest that

the rules of this House are such that he must speak to the bill, and

not stand there and attempt to lecture the House as to whether there's

cooperation between the two parties. Bring that member to order once

and for all.

MR. SPEAKER: Thank you, hon. members.

Hon. members, as we are all aware, the business that goes on between

either the Whips or the House Leaders outside the chamber is not a

matter for debate. We always allow a member some latitude when

introducing his remarks in speaking on any specific bill, and I'm sure

the member for New Westminster was just about to come to the bill at

this moment.

MR. COCKE: Yes, Mr. Speaker. I can't tell you how much I

appreciate your indulgence, nor can I tell you how much I am distressed

by the Provincial Secretary because of the fact that he is so urgently

suggesting that I get on with this bill. Certainly one gets on with the

bill.

[Mr. Veitch in the chair.]

We're dealing with Bill 30, the bill that outlaws, that destroys,

that dismantles the Ocean Falls Corporation. The Ocean Falls

Corporation that was set up in 1973, was set up for social reasons.

Interjection.

MR. COCKE: Social reasons. I heard the member for Surrey (Mr.

Reid) suggest recently that the increase in a certain tax, a tax that I

may not refer to by virtue of standing orders, was for "social

reasons." I suggest that Ocean Falls Corporation was set up in that

year for social reasons. There was ample.... I've heard some arguments

in this House. The arguments from that side were that Ocean Falls did

not have access to a timber supply that would meet the needs of the

corporation. That is absolute, pure nonsense. At the time, there was

all sorts of access to forest reserves — Crown reserves that were not

taken up by Doman, or any other in the forest industry. That job was

done, however, in the interim: to divest the province of that access,

to give away those forest reserves, and make their prophetic statements

come true. Sometimes they think we're not watching what they're doing.

Yes, there's no question about the equipment at Ocean Falls, no

question that it was outmoded. But there is also no question that Ocean

Falls had at its beck and call the cheapest power in the province, with

the possible exception of Cominco. Two-mill power, Mr. Speaker, from

their own dam, and that dam sits there to this day. Is it then not

worth it to bring that mill up to a standard that could sustain

competition? They said it was a white elephant when we brought that

mill in under government control, because all the jobs were going down

the tube. We felt that a lot of people wanted to live there. They told

us they wanted to live there. They loved their community.

Interjection.

MR. COCKE: Jobs. That's right. These people are always

talking about jobs. It's a key point on the British Columbia central

coast. And what did they do? They not only divested us of a perfectly

good investment, but beyond that, they destroyed that community. I was

saddened.

Recently, within the last three or four years, I have visited Ocean

Falls on a number of occasions, and I was saddened to go up there and

see a skeleton town. The preceding Social Credit government, the W.A.C.

Bennett government, after having been reassured by Crown Zellerbach

that they would keep that operation, spent a lot of money on a school,

a hospital, and gave the town the understructure that they needed in

order to survive.

MR. REID: That was the leadership of the day.

[11:45]

MR. COCKE: Nothing changed in that period. Nothing changed in

terms of viability. If you're talking about viability, that viability

suffered at the hands of the new Socreds, this new coalition of

opportunists who are running the province of British Columbia into the

ground — this debt-ridden province that has for the last eight years

had a government that it did not deserve, and goes on having a

government that is running us right into the ground. They ran Ocean

Falls under the ground.

[ Page

805 ]

Interjection.

MR. COCKE: Mr. Speaker, why doesn't the Minister of

Agriculture (Hon. Mr. Schroeder) jump to his feet at the opportunity

which will be afforded him and argue that one should be a party to

destroying a viable, good community in the province of British Columbia?

From that same minister the argument of the day was the fact that we

had picked up a white elephant. What actually happened? We got not only

enough profit out of that to repay us the million dollars we invested;

we got more than that. The taxpayers didn't spend a nickel on that mill

or on that town, other than the money already put aside to build the

school and the hospital and provide the services. So it was not a white

elephant. As I recall, it made a profit in the first year of more than

half a million in excess of that.

Interjection.

MR. COCKE: The Minister of Industry and Small Business

Development (Hon. Mr. Phillips), that great minister....

Interjection.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, please. I'll ask the minister to come

to order.

MR. COCKE: The Minister of Agriculture reminds me of an

analogy. He reminds me of another venture.

HON. MR. PHILLIPS: I'll tell you what you remind me of.

MR. COCKE: I find that anything the member for South Peace

River has to say to me has to be complimentary, because we are such

great friends, aren't we?

Let me go back to the comparison raised by the Minister of

Agriculture, who said: "Remember Swan Valley." We remember Swan Valley.

They did to Swan Valley early what they're doing now to Ocean Falls.

They destroyed a viable opportunity in this province.

HON. MR. PHILLIPS: How can you destroy a rat-hole?

MR. COCKE: A rat-hole?

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, please. The member for New Westminster

has the floor and will continue on Bill 30.

MR. COCKE: Mr. Speaker, I must say I very much appreciate the

help in discussing this question. Every time I hear a remark across the

floor with respect to what I'm saying, then I know perfectly well that

I must be on exactly the right track.

We're talking about the dismantling of Ocean Falls. They dismantled

very early a food processing service in this province that had met with

tremendous success elsewhere in the world. In their early days,

1976-77, that government decided that they had all the inspiration in

the world and all the understanding of business. We have seen where

that understanding has taken us. It has taken us from being a province

that had a tremendous debt situation in terms of low debt per capita to

a very high debt per capita. When they took power in 1976....

Interjection.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, please, hon. minister.

MR. COCKE: I'm just going to remind that minister that this

province had a debt of something in the order of $4 billion in 1976.

What is it today? Approaching $14 billion. It took us a century to

build a debt of $4 billion and it's taken them eight years to build a

debt almost triple what it was then. They don't mind spending the

province's money at the beck and call of Hydro. Spending $750 million a

year and more. Ask us for anything you want and you'll get it. Spend it

on B.C. Rail, Tumbler Ridge and all other megaprojects; but when it

comes to saving a vital link of communication, a viable community in

terms of its positioning, economic possibilities and wealth of cheap

power, no, not on your life.

Interjection.

MR. COCKE: All of these interesting remarks about the NDP

government, which put this province in a better capital position than

it has ever been. I wish I had it before me, but I could show you the

debt per capita over the years since 1968. The best years this province

ever had were while the NDP were in power.

MR. KEMPF: Is that why they fired you out after three and a

half years?

MR. COCKE: They fired us out after three and a half years

because the Liberals, the Conservatives, the Socreds and every other

opportunist in this province decided to get together in coalition. Two

at a time you couldn't beat us, but it took every other political

right-wing party in the province to do it. No other party in the whole

of Canada wouldn't form a government with 45 percent, but this is a

nice little tight ship. This is a nice little tight coalition, and they

all do their bidding.

Let me get back to Ocean Falls, and maybe they won't....

Let me just show you a little graph. This is debt per capita. That

debt per capita in 1971 was up here, and it's back there now. During

the year '72 it went down; '73, down; '74, way down; '75, way down; and

'76 it started to go up again, and it's been up in the higher ranges

ever since.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hon. member, you will advise the Chair as to

the relevance.

MR. COCKE: The Minister of Agriculture and Food very kindly

gave me the relevance when he said: "You want us further in debt." In

other words, a few dollars spent on a viable community of Ocean

Falls.... It could have been done easily. We could have had that access

not only to the forests but also to the very inexpensive power. We know

by experience....

Interjections.

MR. KEMPF: How would you know? You hadn't come over on the

boat yet.

[ Page

806 ]

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, please. I will ask the hon. second

member for Victoria (Mr. Blencoe) and the member for Omineca (Mr.

Kempf) to come to order, please.

MR. COCKE: I seem to be upsetting them somehow. I

particularly resent the remarks of the member for Omineca talking about

somebody who happened to come from another country, which is the mother

country of this land. But that's neither here nor there. That's

expected behaviour from the member for Omineca.

Interjections.

[Deputy Speaker rose.]

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, please. The member for Omineca will

come to order. The member for New Westminster continues.

[Deputy Speaker resumed his seat.]

MR. COCKE: Let me get back....

Interjection.

AN HON. MEMBER: Go back home where you came from.

[Mr. Strachan in the chair.]

MR. COCKE: It's a shame that the government are taking this

opportunity to make their biases known, because they prove by that

opportunity that they've taken advantage of that their biases are

stupid and foolish with respect to what I'm talking about.

Interjections.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! The members will come to order, please.

MR. COCKE: What we are talking about, I guess, is a bit of

history. In 1973 this province was faced with a strike. Everybody's

going to get the thought in their minds: "Oh, my goodness, we had a

strike." But let me tell you what kind of strike it was. It was a

strike of capital, not a strike of workers or picket lines. For some

reason or another, they were not particularly happy with the advent of

the NDP in power; I'm not sure why. In any event, that happened to be

the situation. One of the companies that reacted was Crown Zellerbach,

and I'm convinced they reacted in the way they did by virtue of the

fact that we were elected. Make it tough for the government, they

thought. When that Minister of Industry and Small Business Development

(Hon. Mr. Phillips) was a back-bencher, they had an agreement with the

W.A.C. Bennett government of the day that they would maintain Ocean

Falls, and I gave as my reasoning that they broke that promise to the

province by virtue of there being a change in government.

Another company did exactly the same thing, at about the same time.

We all recall Columbia Cellulose Corporation of New York, don't we?

They owned vast sums of forest land, at both the south and north ends

of the province. Col-Cel announced they wanted out. Weyerhauser

announced they would buy the profitable southern division, but they

would not buy the north; the north could go "square to blazes," and

that's exactly what was said. Part of that success story was that the

NDP said to Weyerhauser, on behalf of the province, "Buy it all, or

none." Having said that, we had no alternative but to buy it ourselves.

We bought it, made Can-Cel out of it, and that became a very profitable

enterprise, I don't mind telling you. It was also wrecked by the

wrecking gang that threw it into BCRIC, that gang over there that

couldn't stand the province to have assets like that — a window on the

industry, and all the rest of it. Oh, no, Mr. Speaker, it's not good

enough for the people of B.C.; see to it that it gets back into the

hands of the private entrepreneur who didn't want it and was prepared

to go on strike, prepared to wreck our province, our jobs and

everything else.

To save 5,000 jobs we hung on to it. To save 1,200 jobs in Ocean

Falls we hung on to it. That's precisely what we stand for, and

continue to stand for — the people of the province of British Columbia,

not the captains of industry. The captains of industry, so ably

protected by the Socreds; the captains of industry who have enough

money to protect themselves. A government should be in power to protect

the needs of the people in our province. They have neglected that and

they should be ashamed of themselves. When they bring in a bill like

this and expect us to support it in any way, shape or form, they must

really be ready for some care or treatment.

[12:00]

They continually argue that their reason for getting rid of Ocean

Falls was an increased debt load. Why then has the province been faced

with an increased debt load elsewhere, which hasn't even been discussed

or put forward with respect to any kind of apology or discussion with

the people through the House?

Let me ask you about the $45 million....

Interjections.

MR. COCKE: Mr. Speaker, we're not even talking about the $1.6

billion direct debt that the government has, which is health care, etc.

I'm talking about the Crown corporation debts in this province that

have been exaggerated to the extent that we make Ottawa look like very

careful spenders — and nobody can argue that Ottawa are very careful

spenders. Ottawa has been tremendously stupid with the way they have

collected debt, but so has this province. You take per capita debt

here, and we make Ottawa look good. Here we are, 5,000.... Let me also

give you an idea of what it looks like in terms of percentages of gross

provincial product.

HON. MR. PHILLIPS: Speak to the bill.

MR. COCKE: You're talking debt? You're the minister.... Mr.

Speaker, isn't it interesting that the minister who tried to call me to

order by indicating something about debt is the very person who's now

saying: "Speak to the bill." That is to the bill, because their

argument is that it's going to create debt.

I didn't want to go into detail on this, but I have to; you're

forcing me to. In 1971 we had a percentage of gross provincial product

debt of just a little over 27 percent. It went down to 26.5 in 1972, to

under 25 in 1973, to under 22 in 1974, to 21.75 in 1975. And then in

1976 it went up to 23.5, in 1977 it went up to 25, and in 1978 it went

up to almost 26.

[ Page

807 ]

Interjection.

MR. COCKE: I'm showing you. Where is it in 1983? Away back up

to 27.5 percent. Gross provincial product debt; that's our debt load.

If they want to talk debt, we'll talk debt until.... This comes from

the economic survey of the B.C. Central Credit Union.

We maintain that a terrible injustice was done to a beautiful little

community in this province, a community that was viable, that has a

super port — one of the best deep-sea ports in the province of British

Columbia. We're discussing another Harbours Board situation. It strikes

me that if there was any imagination with respect to how the Minister

of Industry and Small Business Development wants to put this province

back on the road, he might have looked at that port as an ideal

opportunity. The cheapest form of shipping is by water, so if we have

our forest raw product coming in by water and our paper coming out by

water, it strikes me that that again increases the viability of Ocean

Falls. You don't have to bring the pulp by railroad and truck, finally

get it to water and then ship it wherever you're going to ship it.

You're already there, already on the water, so it's viable. The mill,

if you would take a look at it someday, is right on the water. There's

no movement other than water movement. That, as far as I'm concerned,

increases the viability of Ocean Falls.

Ocean Falls should not have been destroyed. I have known people who

grew up in that community and love it. It's a unique situation. It

rains there — it rains some here, and it rains an awful lot in Prince

Rupert — but a lot of people like to live there. Ocean Falls was a fine

little community. Children that grew up there loved it. Because what

did they have at their beck and call, immediately beside where they

lived?

AN HON. MEMBER: Pulp mill odour.

MR. COCKE: That is probably one of brightest things that that

member's ever said since he's been been in this chamber. Of course

there was some pulp mill odour, but I can remember one of his

predecessors in here, Mr. Gaglardi, who said, any time there was a

suggestion that pulp mills smelled: "Those are the smells, my friends,

of dollar bills flying down from the sky." In any event, yes, there was

a pulp mill, and anyplace that you have a pulp mill there is some

odour. Of course with newer and newer technology, that is becoming

reduced to some extent. But that was not a terribly bad mill, because

of the type of paper that they did. It was not a very bad mill in terms

of smell.

Aside from that, they liked it there. They had a beautiful bay right

beside them for boating, fishing and enjoying the outdoors. All of the

outdoors along the sides of the mountains and hills were there to revel

in. It was a beautiful community. Moreover, they had privacy. And some

of them liked it. I can remember going to that town years ago when that

mill was going full tilt. I remember talking to people, and they just

wouldn't leave. They absolutely loved it. They just adored all the

opportunities they had. That now has been taken away.

I guarantee that Ocean Falls will be resurrected someday — maybe not

even for a forest industry situation. It will be resurrected some day

because of the very thing that I told you in the first place, and that

is cheap power. Somebody's going to go there. Somebody's going to start

something again. It's a shame that we did not give support to the basic

prime industry that has been there. If, in fact, it should have been

phased out, why not slowly introducing new and better opportunities in

terms of providing employment in that area? The fact is that two-mill

power is absolutely precious. Hardly anywhere on the continent do you

have access to two-mill power. The dam is already there. The turbines

are there. There could probably be some improvements with respect to

the amount of power that you could get from it, but it's all there now.

Let it go unattended, and it's going to cost an absolute fortune to

restore what was a real little gem on the coast of British Columbia.

That gem is called Ocean Falls.

When I hear the government talking about white elephants and the

like, at that point I become very discouraged. It strikes me that there

isn't enough understanding or empathy over there that would fulfil the

needs of the people in this province.

MR. REID: There aren't enough taxpayers' dollars, either.

MR. COCKE: Mr. Speaker, we continually hear about taxpayers'

dollars from a government that's run this province into the ground.

That government has made us one of the most debt-ridden jurisdictions

in all of Canada.

MR. HOWARD: And they did it with glee and pleasure.

MR. COCKE: That's right. That government had some of its

ministers out spending money like we've never seen before. We've had

the story of Broadway Bob. We've had the stories of others who have

spent money irresponsibly, not only within their ministry but on

themselves for their fun.

HON. MR. SCHROEDER: And you want to borrow some more.

MR. COCKE: Mr. Speaker, those are the kinds of things that

should be considered worthy of some borrowing. The minister puts his

hands on his head thusly — the same minister who obviously had to vote

in cabinet with respect to the money that's being poured into Tumbler

Ridge to make a viable community in the Minister of Economic

Development's back yard.

Interjection.

MR. COCKE: Sure it's a viable project. We can't even sell the

coal we're producing in the north, Mr. Speaker, and he says we should

put a billion dollars plus of taxpayers' money into a production up

north when we can't even look after the needs of the south. Come on!

Don't talk about Ocean Falls. Ocean Falls has far more viability than

Tumbler Ridge will have until the turn of the century. There is a time

when that coal will be needed. There is a time in the future when that

energy source will have to he tapped. But, Mr. Speaker, they've jumped

the gun, because that minister and the first minister in this province

are so up to their ears in love for megaprojects.

MR. HOWARD: And love for debt.

MR. COCKE: They love debt more than any jurisdiction in this

country. And I suggest....

MR. REE: One thing we favour is real jobs.

[ Page

808 ]

MR. COCKE: Mr. Speaker, the member talks about real jobs.

After they wipe out 1,200 jobs in Ocean Falls, they have the audacity

to walk in here and suggest to us that they're interested in real jobs

and that we're not. We are interested in real jobs. But way beyond the

real jobs, they have successfully destroyed the potential of a

first-class community on the very centre of our coast. I say

successfully, unfortunately, because I feel it's a travesty that they

should have done such a thing to our province.

[11:15]

Let me sum up.

(1) They destroyed a community of people who loved to

live and bring up their children within the confines of that community.

The history, Mr. Speaker, speaks for itself. Only once — and that was

during the war when they had to use so many of the males in that

community, who left to fight for our country and for a cause — were

there a great many singles in that particular area. Mostly it's been a

great family community; it certainly was right after the war.

(2) A

community with access to two-mill power. Think about it. In the past

only the CPR have had access to that level of cost in terms of power.

Why did they have that access? Because they had the Kootenay River

right in their backyard. We gave the CPR half the country, for crying

out loud, to get them to build a railroad out here to B.C.

(3) A viable

situation with respect to transportation. To add to the viability of

the future, the potential of that area, it was all water transport.

Even that minister, with not too big an understanding, understands the

value of that.

They have forsaken all of those values and brought in a bill, Bill

30, that doesn't even deserve to be ripped up. Mr. Speaker, I suggest

to you that we can in no way support this bill, nor will we. It's part

of a package of travesties visited upon the people of the province of

B.C., and we can't be a party to those travesties.

MS. BROWN: Mr. Speaker, I think that one of the questions my

colleagues on both sides of the House may be asking is: what would

someone from the great metropolis of Burnaby-Edmonds know or understand

about Ocean Falls? I think that when we debate and discuss this piece

of legislation, what this government is doing to Ocean Falls, we are

not just talking about a place or about a decision. We are talking

about a fundamental difference in ideology and philosophy. The story of

Ocean Falls, Mr. Speaker, affords us an important insight into the

philosophical and ideological difference between the way in which the

New Democratic Party and the Social Credit government respond to

communities.

The New Democratic Party, Mr. Speaker, believes that you can use

public enterprise in order to secure long-term industrial future for a

community. We believe that Ocean Falls, a town that has been home to

something like three generations of British Columbians, deserved the

right to continue to live and to exist. We believe that if the only way

to do that was to use public enterprise, then that was a good use for

public enterprise. That was a positive approach to that particular

dilemma.

On the other hand, Social Credit, or certainly the government,

believes that you just write off a town — not because the town is not

viable, not because the people in that town are abandoning it. You make

a callous decision, totally disregarding the people who work and live

there and who have been a part of a community, as I said, for three

generations, simply because philosophically and ideologically, as a

political party and as a government, you do not believe in social

ownership, do not have a commitment to social ownership and will not

permit social ownership to work. That really is what this debate is all

about. We can talk about lumber and timber, about energy and about the

ports — and I'm going to talk about all of those things — but I think

that we should not lose sight of what we are talking about here: two

different philosophical and ideological approaches to a community. One,

the government, is prepared to callously destroy — wipe out — a

community which was home, as I've said, for three generations of

British Columbians. It's quite prepared to do that simply because of

its commitment to an ideological philosophy. Another government saved

Ocean Falls, respected the community and the three generations of

British Columbians who lived there, because that government's

ideological and philosophical commitment was to see that social

ownership works — helping social ownership to work, protecting that

community and its people, and refusing to believe that you sacrifice a

community simply to your political ideology. That's the basic

difference. That's the underlying reason for all of the things that

this bill represents and means.

The member for Mackenzie (Mr. Lockstead), when he opened the debate

on this, decided that he should give us a little bit of the history of

Ocean Falls. I want to repeat that because I think the history of what

has happened to Ocean Falls very clearly illustrates the difference in

our ideological approaches to that particular problem. He told us about

the fact that there was a meeting which took place — he thought it was

in 1969 — between the then representative of Ocean Falls, Mrs. Isabel

Dawson, and the then Minister of Forests, Mr. Ray Williston, and Crown

Zellerbach, at a time when Crown Zellerbach was considering shutting

down Ocean Falls and allowing that town to die. Because this meeting

took place in the context of a pending election, certain decisions were

made. Now we don't know what those decisions were. We have no idea. We

only know what the end result was, and that was that Ocean Falls had a

stay of execution. Crown Zellerbach decided not to go through with its

original plan just to shut down Ocean Falls. He pointed out that a

public statement was made to that effect. They said they wouldn't do

that. He speculates and says he believes that it is possible that Crown

Zellerbach received some more timber rights on the coast of British

Columbia in return for agreeing to keep Ocean Falls going for a while

longer, at least until the election was over. He doesn't know. What he

does know, though, is that the government responded in a very strange

and unusual way to this decision. The government went into Ocean Falls

and built a brand new school. I think the figure he quoted was in the

neighbourhood of millions of dollars, which for that time, when the

dollar was certainly worth more than the dollar is today, was a lot of

money. They put into that small community the largest gymnasium of any

school in British Columbia. It was a clear commitment to Ocean Falls

and to the education of the children of Ocean Falls. That's what the

government did to prove that Ocean Falls was going to be permitted to

survive.

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

The government did something else. They built a brand new hospital

in Ocean Falls and equipped it in ways that many other existing

hospitals weren't equipped, with the latest in x-ray equipment.

[ Page

809 ]

HON. MR. WATERLAND: Have you been there, Rosemary?

MS. BROWN: I have been to Ocean Falls, and I'm going to talk

about my visit to Ocean Falls later on. One of the things that people

think is that because you live in Burnaby you don't go anywhere else.

It's a beautiful place, but I have been to Ocean Falls, and I'm going

to talk about my visit to Ocean Falls.

As I was saying, they made an investment in a well-equipped,

brand-new, beautiful hospital — another public announcement to the

world that

Ocean Falls was going to survive and that Crown Zellerbach was going to

honour whatever deal was made in terms of keeping its operations there

going. Then, lo and behold, in 1973 a public statement came from Crown

Zellerbach, the American owner of the Ocean Falls paper mill which

employed more than one-third of the company town's total population.

For all intents and purposes, they were it. You worked for them or you

didn't work. Crown Zellerbach had had many profitable years and had not

plowed any of that profit back into the equipment. They didn't try to

modernize it, to keep it running smoothly or up-to-date, and they

treated Ocean Falls in the manner in which all marauders typically

treat places: go in, take out, cut and run. As someone who grew up in a

part of the world where this was common practice, I know. You move

into a country and take out what you want, and when you've sucked it

dry, taken all the profits and everything, you leave; you shut it down.

As I said before, when the American owners of Ocean Falls paper

mill, who employed more than one-third of the population, announced

they were going to cease operations in 1973, one of the reasons they

gave was that the equipment was antiquated and not really in good

condition. It seems as though someone else was responsible for the

condition of that equipment.

MRS. WALLACE: Just like Chemainus.

MS. BROWN: That's right, just like Chemainus.

[12:30]

If the truth be known, it came as no surprise that no one rushed out

to buy that antiquated, run-down mill when it hit the market. So the

1,100 people who lived in Ocean Falls were hung out to dry; all their

labour, everything, down the tube. When it became very clear that no

buyers were interested, the New Democratic Party government of the day,

again as a direct result of its ideological and philosophical

commitment to public enterprise, in the best interests of the people

who lived in Ocean Falls, as well as in the best interests of the

community of British Columbia, purchased Ocean Falls. In an

article

published in the British Columbia Lumberman in 1975 by Jean Sorensen,

Ocean Falls was reported to be the buy of the century.

Interjections.

MS. BROWN . "The people of British Columbia know that the

minister has made, for the sum of $1 million," what is referred to in

this

article as the buy of the century. They got the mill and the

townsite. The cost was that low, we're told, because Crown Zellerbach

retained its cutting rights to the valuable timberlands which had been

associated with the mill for well over 65 years. This

article in the

British Columbia Lumberman , April 1975, says: "Skeptics who believe Ocean Falls

should have been turned into a penal institution will have to deal with

Ted Vesak. He believes in the future of Ocean Falls. 'I've studied it

inside and out.' He'll also tell you Ocean Falls is sitting in the

middle of the largest untapped block of timberland left on the

province's west coast.'" That's what he said. "Vesak, who came to

Ocean Falls to work for Crown Zellerbach in 1954, and later left a

Vancouver head office job to go back, is convinced the provincial

government got the buy of the century."

That government over there disagrees with that. They believe that to

pay $1 million to purchase the mill and the townsite, in the middle of

what is referred to as the largest untapped block of timber left on the

province's west coast, and to protect those jobs and its own investment

in that community — the expensive school and hospital that it's put in

there on behalf of the people who live in that community — was not a

good investment. But the government of that day, the New Democratic

Party government, recognized that that was a good investment. Because

you don't always measure things by the bottom line — certainly you

don't when human beings are involved. That is something that that

government over there never takes into account. As a matter of fact,

they will refuse to participate in a good investment if it includes

public or social ownership of any form of property. However, this

article goes on to say that for the $1 million paid to Crown Zellerbach

by the provincial government, the government received "a five-storey

hotel, a wood mill, a groundwood mill, a newsprint mill, schools,

apartment buildings, subdivisions, a hydro dam, commercial buildings,

recreation facilities and 45 acres of townsite valued at close to $50

million." That's what the people of British Columbia purchased for $1

million, and by so doing in addition protected the jobs of those people

who worked there and protected that community.

The

article goes on to say: "It is to the chagrin of those opposing

Ocean Falls that the corporation can even announce a modest profit for

the last fiscal year. 'Things are starting out good this year, and if

things keep going as well, we should do better than last year,' Vesak

says." He didn't pretend that Ocean Falls didn't have problems. He was

too involved in the lumber industry to do that. He was quite honest

about the fact that if Ocean Falls has a problem, "it is the constant

need to buy its raw materials to produce newsprint, a problem that

Vesak is both aware of and concerned about."

What we don't know, and what we will never know because we were not

party to that meeting between Mr. Ray Williston, Mrs. Dawson and Crown

Zellerbach, is what the deal was that was made and whether that deal

was honoured or not. We don't know. We were not a party to those

discussions, and we have no idea whether in fact Crown did hold up its

end of the bargain or not, or whether it just hung in there for a

couple of years and then pulled out, taking with it the additional

long-term timber rights which my colleague from Mackenzie (Mr.

Lockstead) suspects was what they were paid in order to keep their mill

going. We'll never know whether that was the case or not.

The New Democratic Party government was unable to acquire Crown

Zellerbach's timber rights, because they were held in the form of old

temporary tenures which the company was unwilling to sell. The company

was not prepared to cooperate in keeping Ocean Falls a viable, fully

employed community. They were almost up to full employment there for a

while.

[ Page

810 ]

Going back to the days of unrestricted resource giveaways, old

temporary tenures are a form of tenure almost akin to private ownership

in that the land reverts to the Crown only after it has been completely

cleared. However, a good corporate citizen with conscience has the

option to allow the government to purchase those rights if that is

their wish. But Crown Zellerbach did not want to cooperate with the

government in saving Ocean Falls. They were unwilling to expropriate

these timberlands. This is one thing that the New Democratic Party has

always been accused of: when you vote for the New Democrats, you vote

for expropriation. Of course, the only time we've ever had any

expropriation in this province was when Social Credit expropriated

first the Black Ball Ferries and turned them into B.C. Ferries and,

secondly, when they took over B.C. Electric and made it into B.C.

Hydro. That's the only time we've ever had that kind of heavy-handed

control.

However, the New Democratic Party government did not want to

expropriate these timberlands. The government therefore concluded an

interim agreement under which Crown Zellerbach contracted to sell

timber to the newly formed corporation for just three years. The

government intended to acquire timber in the midcoast area in 1975-76,

and at that time several of the licences on Crown land were due to

expire.

What happened when those licences expired? Did the Social Credit

government, which won the election in 1975 and became government, take

them over and use them to keep Ocean Falls viable and working?

Interjections.

MS. BROWN: No, they didn't. At a time when they had an option

and an opportunity to take over those licences, they allowed the

licences to be acquired by Doman Industries. Then they turned around

and said: "We can't keep Ocean Falls open because we can't supply them.

We haven't got the resources that Ocean Falls needs." After

deliberately making the decision not to acquire them, when those

licences came up for renewal, they allowed them to go to another

company.

Again we go back to an ideological, philosophical decision made by

this government.

Interjection.

MS. BROWN: Well, you know, the Provincial Secretary (Hon. Mr.

Chabot), not speaking from his seat, said: "Right on!" Right on to the

1,100 people who lived and worked in Ocean Falls. Forget about them.

Write them off. They're not important. As the member for Mackenzie

said, forget about the 1,800 native people who also benefited from the

survival of Ocean Falls. Wipe them out too. Wipe out their jobs and say

"right on."

Then the little back-bencher keeps saying, "What about the

taxpayers?" The people who worked in Ocean Falls paid taxes. The money

generated by a corporation which is owned by the Crown goes back to the

people. That's where it goes to. So you know, Mr. Speaker, that

question from the little backbencher just doesn't make any sense at all.

Anyway, Mr. Speaker, that's what happened when they had an

opportunity to secure those licences for Ocean Falls. What they never

talk about, of course, is the fact that in the beginning that Crown

corporation was not a losing proposition. In fact, it earned a profit

in 1976. Between 1973 and 1979 the mill won newsprint export sales of

more than $150 million, paid out more than $55 million in wages to its

employees and contributed greatly to the revenue of the provincial

government. Those are the taxes that that member for Surrey keeps

asking about.

Ocean Falls was well on its way to becoming a stable.... But it was

always a stable community. In addition, it was well on its way to

becoming....

MR. REID: A losing proposition — a drain on the taxpayers.

MS. BROWN: Oh, why do I always feel that I should take the

education of that member seriously, Mr. Speaker? When am I going to

finally accept that he's uneducatable? But it's not going to happen;

there isn't any point in trying to teach him anything. I just explained

that they were paying $55 million in taxes, $150 million in export

sales — revenue to the province — and he says: "What about the

taxpayers?"

MR. REID: What about the taxpayers?

MS. BROWN: That's what I'm telling you. That's precisely what

I'm talking about. The 1,100 working people in Ocean Falls and their

families were exporting $150 million worth of sales, receiving $55

million in income and were paying taxes. And he still doesn't

understand.

The profits in 1976, Mr. Speaker, as I have said....

HON. MR. PHILLIPS: You're the main reason that your party's

in opposition, do you know that?

MS. BROWN: I am? Nobody on my side of the House knows that I

have that much power, Mr. Speaker; only the government recognizes that.

[12:45]

In any event, when the government made its decision to close down

Ocean Falls.... First of all, it was a bad economic decision to do

that. But the other thing it did not do was take into account the

people who lived in Ocean Falls. What about the community of Ocean

Falls? What about the 1,100 to 1,200 people who lived there, the

families who used those schools in that stable community? Three

generations of British Columbians have lived in Ocean Falls.

HON. MR. PHILLIPS: They were glad to get out of it.

MS. BROWN: Not true. If you travel the length and breadth of

this province, you'll run into people who have lived in Ocean Falls.

Without exception, including the member for Prince Rupert (Mr. Lea),

they think of Ocean Falls with nostalgia. It was a good community to

live in, a stable community. Three generations of British Columbians

lived there.

The setting of Ocean Falls....

Interjection.

MS. BROWN: The Minister of Forests (Hon. Mr. Waterland) asked

me if I'd ever been there. I must say that I look back on my visits to

Ocean Falls with a great deal of pleasure. It's a very beautiful

community, or it used to be, before....

HON. MR. PHILLIPS: Who were you there with?

[ Page

811 ]

MS. BROWN: I took the ferry from Port Hardy to Ocean Falls.

HON. MR. PHILLIPS: Was that the Lasqueti ferry?

MS. BROWN: No, it was the one that goes to Prince Rupert.

He's the minister of economic development, and he doesn't even know how

you get to Ocean Falls. That's the kind of decision that government

makes. They wipe out a community — never visited it, doesn't know how

to get to it, doesn't know anything about it, but wipes it out with the

stroke of a pen.

Interjection.

MS. BROWN: That's right. First he wipes out the ferry

service, then he wipes out the community. No care, no concern, no

commitment whatsoever to the quality of life of the people who used to

live there and who still want to live there. No respect for the small

communities of British Columbia and the major contribution that those

small communities make to the quality of life of British Columbia.

Doesn't take that into account. An ideological decision: because Ocean

Falls was owned by all the people of British Columbia, it had to die.

That is the decision that was made by the government, without taking

into account the contribution of a small, stable community Re Ocean

Falls, with a good fabric; good underpinnings in terms of its social

needs being met; good school, good hospital, good housing, community

centre, skating rink, firehall — the whole works. It contributed to the

revenue of the province. That's what Ocean Falls did.

MR. MOWAT: Supported by the taxpayers.

MS. BROWN: Not supported by the taxpayers: supporting the

taxpayers. That's what Ocean Falls did — it supported the taxpayers.

MR. MOWAT: It lost money.

MS. BROWN: It lost money because of the bungling of the

Social Credit government — turning over those licences to Doman,

instead of using them to keep Ocean Falls as a viable community.

The problem with these newly elected back-benchers is that they

haven't taken the time and trouble to do their homework on the party

they ran for. He sits there not understanding a single word about what

his government did, just parroting everything.

Interjection.

MS. BROWN: Probably your family is one of the families which

would have wanted to keep Ocean Falls alive, and which looks back on

Ocean Falls with nostalgia.

Interjections.

MS. BROWN: To give the minister correct information, if there

does exist a $300,000 townhouse anywhere in Burnaby, I certainly have

never seen it. I certainly don't own it, and I certainly don't live in

one. So I think he'd better get his records straight; I do not live in

a townhouse, and certainly not a $300,000 one.

Interjections.

MS. BROWN: The reality of the situation is that that minister

never has his facts straight. He never knows what he's talking about.

Interjection.

MS. BROWN: No wonder my husband smokes too much.

Interjection.

MS. BROWN: That's possible, as I said. I'm not going to argue

with that one. It's quite possible that he smokes too much. I certainly

keep telling him that he smokes too much.

Mr. Speaker, if I can continue. The month since the announcement of

the closure of Ocean Falls by the minister of industry and small

business — the minister who is continually interrupting — has really

been a particularly sadistic and cruel one for the people who work and

live in Ocean Falls. In fact, once the government made the decision to

wipe out Ocean Falls, they could have gone about it in a more

compassionate way, but this government does not have a record for

compassion. Straying from the bill, Mr. Speaker, I just want to remind

you that when it introduces restraint, the first people whose services

it cuts are the children who are being sexually and physically abused,

families, the disabled and seniors, so it's not surprising that the

minister, in carrying out the annihilation of community life in Ocean

Falls, should do that in a callous and cruel manner as well, because

that certainly is the mark of his government. That is precisely the way

in which his government does business.

First of all he announced that Ocean Falls employees were told that

up to half of them would be able to retain their jobs. That was the

first announcement he made. That was bad enough, because what it meant

was that half of them were going to lose their jobs.

Interjection.

MS. BROWN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker, for bringing the light to

my attention.

Interjection.

MS. BROWN: Yes, I saw the green light.

He went on to say that there was going to be a $9 million investment

to convert the paper mill into processing facilities for low-grade

lumber. Now that the town has been all but shut down, Mr. Speaker,

those jobs are as distant as they've ever been. As of the end of May of

this year, only 100 of the nearly 500 employees at Ocean Falls had

found new jobs. Only 32 of them have found those jobs in the forest

industry itself. Many of the Ocean Falls families have suffered large

financial losses because they've had to go and abandon their homes,

which of course they purchased at the sale price, whatever it was at

that time. The community has all but died, and nothing remains except

the buildings which the government invested in when it built that huge

school with that large gymnasium and that hospital with all of that top

equipment, and all of the

[ Page

812 ]

housing. When I visited Ocean Falls recently, it was beginning to

die. The saddest thing about my visit to Ocean Falls was to look at

those houses standing empty, to look at that hotel with how many

hundred rooms in it standing empty, to look at buildings crumbling and

the abandonment of Ocean Falls — the school that used to have so many

children in it, the hospital that used to be the pride and joy of that

entire coast, because Ocean Falls used to be the social centre of the

coast. To watch that abandoned....

Interjection.

MS. BROWN: No. You can turn up your nose at the very things

that your own government invested in, but you did build a decent school

in Ocean Falls, and you did build a quality hospital there. Those were

things that Ocean Falls did have, and they're now abandoned. There is

nothing as sad as watching a ghost town. When you go to a ghost town

that dies because people have left it, that's one thing, but when you

visit a town that's dying because it's deliberately being killed,

that's another tragedy. That's a double tragedy, because you have

people who are being rendered homeless at the same time that they're being

made jobless. That's what that ideological, philosophical decision of

that government has done to Ocean Falls. I do not support this

legislation. That's the reason why I'd like to move adjournment of this

debate until the next sitting of the House.

Motion negatived.

HON. MR. WATERLAND: I would like to take my place in the

debate on this bill and speak about some of the socialist doubletalk

that we've been listening to for the last 40 minutes from that member,

and some of the rather contorted economic theories that she espouses.

However, the time being what it is, I move adjournment of this debate

until the next sitting of the House.

Motion approved.

Hon. Mr. Gardom moved adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

The House adjourned at 12:58 p.m.

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