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 )

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 27, 1983

Evening Sitting

[ Page

2001 ]

CONTENTS

Routine Proceedings

Compensation Stabilization Amendment Act, 1983 (Bill 11). Second reading.

Mr. Barnes –– 2001

Mr. Campbell –– 2003

Mr. Lauk –– 2004

Hon. Mr. Waterland –– 2007

Mr. Nicolson –– 2009

Miscellaneous Statutes Amendment Act, 1983 (Bill 35). Hon. Mr. Smith.

Introduction and first reading –– 2013

Compensation Stabilization Amendment Act, 1983 (Bill 11). Second reading.

Hon. Mr. Hewitt –– 2013

Ms. Brown –– 2015

Mr. Mitchell –– 2019

Mr. Lea –– 2022

Mr. Rose –– 2026

Mr. Gabelmann –– 2031

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 27, 1983

The House met at 7:35 p.m.

COMPENSATION STABILIZATION

AMENDMENT ACT, 1983

(continued)

MR. BARNES: For those of you who did not catch my previous remarks, Mr. Speaker, I would refer you to Hansard of the previous sitting.

Now that I've made my vicious attack, I'm just going to relate the

details that concern me with respect to Bill 11, a bill which my

colleagues and I will strenuously oppose and will certainly vote

against on behalf of those people who still hope there is some

semblance of democracy remaining in beautiful British Columbia.

I would just like to remind the House and those members on the

government side that in the election campaign the Premier promised to

continue wage restraint. There is no sense in which provisions in Bill

11 are a continuation of past wage restraint practices; they represent

an evolution of the program in the direction of direct control over

wages in the public sector by the cabinet, and they will allow the

cabinet to arbitrarily peg anyone's wages within a range of 10 percent

surrounding the existing compensation rate. That is, the cabinet will

be able to order at will, for any group of employees, a pay cut as

great as 5 percent or a wage increase up to 5 percent. Collective

bargaining, as it has been known in this province, will cease to exist.

Even arbitration, a process renowned by employers and right-wing

politicians as a method of resolving disputes without work stoppage,

will cease to exist. Any incentive which previously existed in the

entire public service sector — that is, some 240,000 employees of the

province, its emanations, regions, municipalities and funded agencies—

will cease to exist. Kicking people in the teeth in the way proposed by

this bill and others recently tabled in the House may be an incentive

to many things, but it is not an incentive to work harder or to provide

better service.

What are some of the political implications? This bill affects

everyone employed by the public in British Columbia. Its effect is not

limited to those who have been or will be fired under the guise of

restraint. Its effect is extended beyond the two-year period announced

by the Premier on February 18, 1982, and reiterated by the Minister of

Finance when he tabled the Compensation Stabilization Act on April 13,

1982. The Premier, during his province-wide television address, said

the guidelines would be effective immediately and remain in force for a

two-year period, with appropriate phase-out to ensure equitable and

consistent treatment of all groups. In other words, British Columbians

were asked to accept this intervention for a set period of time in the

interests of achieving certain goals. At that time the Premier set the

guideline at a minimum 14 percent annual increase.

Many people of good will were fooled into supporting the program on the basis

of the apparent reasonableness of the Premier's position. The strict two-year

limitation was reinforced by the Minister of Finance in his news release on

April 13. Recent experience has shown that the government is highly selective

in its application of these guidelines, however. The Premier has awarded a salary

increase of some 50 percent to Mr. Mike Bailey of his office, through the convenient

device of a reclassification and a change in job title. And he has awarded an

18 percent increase to communications adviser Doug Heal through a similar transparent

reclassification. I understand that Mr. Peck is looking into these increases,

although one has to wonder how far any public servant....

AN HON. MEMBER: He's already approved them.

MR. BARNES: He has approved them, Mr. Speaker. In any event,

the cabinet will have the final say on any future increases respecting

its friends, regardless of the outcome. In other words. the Premier and

cabinet do decide which government employees and senior servants at all

levels will be affected by the guidelines, regardless of their employee

status. So we are miles and miles apart on the treatment expected for

public servants and private friends of the government.

The road to economic recovery in British Columbia has been made more

difficult by past failures of government economic policy; wasteful

spending and non-productive debt of government and Crown corporations

have crippled the ability of the province to lead economic activity.

The wholesale privatization and abandonment of government functions

proposed in their budget package make the situation even worse. In this

atmosphere, economic recovery will require extraordinary effort and

cooperation from every sector of society, including those who work for

wages, as well as those who own and those who manage their private

businesses.

This bill will have precisely the opposite effect. Between the

public sector wage controls, the heavy-handed withdrawal of employee

rights of the public and private sector and soon-to-be-released Labour

Code amendments, suffering is to be imposed on every wage-earner in the

province. This includes unionized and non-unionized, public and private

sector — you name them; all people who work in this province will be

affected. The government may have ruined any chance of close

cooperation among all sectors of the economy for a generation or more.

This will take more time to heal than is good for our economy. By

focusing as much attention as possible on its favorite scapegoat, the

public sector, the government hopes the rest of the injury inflicted by

its legislative program will be less noticed. British Columbians are

learning quickly that the rights of none are secure unless the rights

of all are secure. The end of fair, expedient resolutions of human

rights violations, landlord and tenant disputes and minimum labour

standards is part of the same package as the public sector bashing

contained in this bill. The government has made it clear that it is

involved in a wholesale attack on the rights of all working people and

that it regards each measure as a fundamental key in the entire package.

Most important is the government's insistence on inserting the

public sector employer's ability to pay as a paramount consideration

for determining compensation. The public sector employer's ability to

pay is determined solely by the cabinet and the government. It can, in

point of fact, be determined to the last dime by the provincial

cabinet, which routinely approves the operating budgets of funded

agencies. The government either has, is giving itself, or likely will

give itself authority to order the imposition of an operating budget on

any institution, The employer's ability to pay is, in this sense, an

artificial concept created solely for the purpose of securing cabinet

control over the pay envelope of anyone who works in the government. It

should be noted that Bill 3 also

[ Page 2002 ]

gives the government separate authority to control

the number of employees involved within any public sector employer by

the expedient of terminating people without notice and without cause.

[7:45]

One wonders where the wisdom of Solomon is in those people over

there, those people who have the great wisdom to know how much every

person in the public sector should be paid. Traditionally we have used

a system of bargaining which recognizes many and various factors.

Certainly the ability to pay is a criterion for compensation and

compensation increases. But now the cabinet can order decreases by way

of this provision of the act, and, one presumes, increases for

political friends of the government as well. If the cabinet can abuse

this order-in-council authority to award pay increases to political

friends, it can do the same to award groups of employees that support

it electorally and in other ways. Similarly, it can punish those it

perceives to be its enemies. This is precisely what the government has

shown it is prepared to do in the last few days.

The second major principle is indefinite extension of the program.

No longer is there light at the end of tunnel or hope that there will

be an equal opportunity for everyone to bargain in good faith. The

rewritten

section 9(2) allows the government to retroactively take back

previous pay increases it has awarded under this program and also to

keep public sector workers under the stigma and threat of the program

for as long as the government feels it necessary.

The third major principle is to remove reasonable limits which presently exist under powers of the commissioner.

HON. MR. WATERLAND: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, I've

been watching and listening to the member currently addressing the

Legislature, and it seems that it's very seldom that he looks up at the

members. I am very suspicious that perhaps that member is reading his

speech, and I understand that is not permitted in the Legislature.

MR. SPEAKER: As hon. members are aware, we are allowed to

refer to notes, and it is, of course, up to the individual member how

copious those notes may be. The member obviously has copious notes.

MR. BARNES: Mr. Speaker, it's kind of late in the evening but

the minister should be able to determine whether or not I'm reading.

Obviously I'm reading, and I'm very pleased to say that it is relevant

and related to the bill. These interruptions are an affront to the

people of British Columbia. I think the minister should take his place

in the debate when he has an opportunity, and if he needs glasses to

determine whether or not someone is reading, I would be glad to assist

him. I know where he can get a pair for about $2.50.

HON. MR. WATERLAND: On that same point of order, Mr. Speaker,

my apologies to the member. There is no doubt at all in my mind that he

is reading his speech, because he has never made so much sense.

MR. BARNES: With that I think we've had a fair exchange, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: I think that's fair, hon. member, and I ask the member to continue.

MR. BARNES: Mr. Speaker, for the benefit of those people who

are listening to me and those who read these very relevant remarks

dealing with this most onerous piece of legislation, we have certainly

tried in good faith to comment objectively on this and not to be given

to intemperate comments, as is the case with those people on the other

side.

HON. MR. WATERLAND: It's no wonder you're on team C. Go on, read it!

MR. BARNES: I enjoy those members over there. They get twitchy when you start getting to the point.

Section I I of the bill makes the commissioner's decision final.

It's not subject to appeal and is necessary to achieve any compensation

adjustment. Regardless of any backlog and any delay in approving

compensation plans, the commissioner's final, binding determination is

required before anything may be done. I would note that under

section

25 (2) Mr. Peck's decisions had the effect of a supreme court order,

although no appeal was allowed under that section.

[Mr. Parks in the chair.]

Under any collective bargaining situation, or any tribunal which is

fair, parties should have the right to submit evidence. They should

have that evidence considered, be able to argue their case and appeal

an unfair decision.

Section I I of this bill provides none of these

fundamental rights and freedoms. It is, in this sense, a violation of

the principles of fundamental justice. Employees have no procedural

rights under this act as amended. Moreover,

section 27 of the act

already provides that no action for damages ties against the

commissioner, the mediator, the registrar or any other employee of the

commission.

Clearly, the attempt of this legislation is to make a major step

toward the annihilation of collective bargaining in the province. It's

quite obvious that the cabinet, in its lack of wisdom, but in

desperation to try to crush fair collective bargaining in this

province, as well as to demoralize those who would expect fair

treatment and those who expect to be represented by people of their

choice in a collective bargaining situation.... They find themselves

scapegoats of this government that has made no pretence in the past,

and I'm sure they will not in the future, to have regard for those

people who are wage-earners and those people who are working for a

living who do not have the opportunity to develop their own

enterprises. They hire those people to work for them as enemies. It is

quite clear that the creation of the Compensation Stabilization

Amendment Act was well contrived before the May 5 election. When the

Premier introduced the legislation a year ago, it was never intended to

be a temporary device toward restraint. It was just a first step toward

a revolution to the far, far right.

While we can speak in this Legislature with temperance and

responsibility, I can assure you that this is a very, very sinister

piece of legislation. It is part of a whole package of very dirty and

very crucial legislation to the province of British Columbia. I hope

that the government will listen to the opposition. I hope the

government will practise what it preaches. It has on many occasions

said that it wants consultation, not confrontation. It has said that it

wants to listen to and be partners with the people of British Columbia,

not to dictate. Clearly this is a piece of legislation that has caused

concern among organized workers in this province. As well,

[ Page

2003 ]

it has caused concern in the various levels of government, the municipalities

and other public sector employers. They realize that while the government has

the power to dictate wages through this instrument, in the end it will not be

those members in cabinet who have to work with those people and maintain some

semblance of so-called productivity that they're so concerned about. That

productivity can only come about where there is some respect for the person's

well-being and for the person's sense of achievement. They also need to

be able to feel that their efforts are appreciated. It's something, I'm

sure, that the government feels is not its responsibility or concern.

But in the end we are talking about British Columbians, people who

have shared in the wealth, the suffering and the building of this

province, and who now find themselves, by a stroke of the pen, being

denied what they have traditionally won over the years through long,

patient hard work. This government is now saying that they no longer

have those rights, that it is going to fire them at will and dictate

their wages. If they don't like it, they are going to be dismissed. I

think this is a very tragic occasion in our democratic society. It is

one that we will certainly be paying for in the years to come, And I

will be opposed to Bill 11, along with my colleagues on this side of

the House.

MR. CAMPBELL: I rise to speak on Bill 11 and the compensation

stabilization program. Mr. Speaker, the first restraint program started

in February 1982. The Premier of our province was the first premier in

Canada to recognize the problems this country was in. With the downturn

in the economy, somebody needed to take a firm grip on the reins of

government to bring down costs so that people could afford it. And, Mr.

Speaker, after the Premier proposed that, the Johnny-come-lately

Trudeau government of some five months later said: Yes, we'll come in

with the 6-and-5 program, and then the rest of the provinces got on the

bandwagon.

During the last election campaign, we all know that the Leader of

the Opposition said he was going to dismantle the compensation

stabilization program; that was one of his themes in the campaign. He

kept saying: "We are going to dismantle the compensation stabilization

program."

AN HON. MEMBER: What happened to him?

MR. CAMPBELL: That was the kiss of death in that election. If

there was one single statement during the election that was

devastating, it was the one about dismantling the compensation

stabilization program. Our Premier said, "This government will run on

the compensation stabilization program, this government will run on

restraint and this government will win the election on those promises,"

and that is exactly what happened. For the opposition to sit across the

hall today and say that there is no mandate for this....

This is exactly what the election was fought on, on both sides: the compensation stabilization program.

In 1981 we had wage increases of 15 to 17 percent, so there is no question

that stabilization had to come in. Who was leading the wage increases within

the province? By and large, the public sector employees — not totally, but by

and large. Up until the end of August 1983 the average wage increase in B.C.

has been 6.3 percent. That is what the compensation stabilization program, along

with other programs and the downturn in the economy, has brought the inflation

rate down to.

[8:00]

MR. BLENCOE: What about Mr. Tozer?

MR. CAMPBELL: The wages are down, the inflation rate is

down.... As the opposition across the way heckle and keep on nattering,

that is fine, because they went through 29 days in April and May, and

they got their answer at that time.

One of the great things about the compensation stabilization program

is the ability to pay. That's what the private sector has faced for the

last 50 years: the ability to pay. That's what governments have faced:

the ability to pay. When times were good and the government had their

hands in the taxpayers' pocket, there was no limit to the ability to

pay — that includes your pocket over there too, my friend.

AN HON. MEMBER: I know.

MR. CAMPBELL: I am glad you know that and you finally agree.

There is one man out of 22 over there who is finally agreeing; one has

seen the light. That 4.83 percent of the people has now seen the light.

It may have taken three months, but eventually we have one convert, and

I am pleased. It hasn't been a wasted three months.

MR. BLENCOE: Hallelujah, brother!

MR. CAMPBELL: They are getting excited over there. That's a

good sign, because when they get excited they may eventually see the

truth, and the truth shall make them free.

The compensation stabilization program with the increases of plus 5

or minus 5 will be based on productivity of both parties to pay. Mr.

Speaker, it is essential that we have the protection of public services.

I am glad that there is one man over there that has taken up a

collection. He realizes that austerity is on; he is going to do his

part toward restraint. Whatever they are collecting tonight will be

used for health care services, which the people of this province will

appreciate. They are entitled to that. We are glad they are

participating in this at last.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Perhaps the second member for Vancouver

Centre (Mr. Lauk) could put down the collection pail and return to his

chair. For that matter, keeping in mind the very serious matter before

this House, we can all show a little more decorum and allow the hon.

member for Okanagan North to continue.

MR. CAMPBELL: The NDP say yes, we agree with restraint.

MRS. JOHNSTON: When did they say that?

MR. CAMPBELL: They say that every hour on the hour. Last week

they were saying it 22 times a day, every hour on the hour. "We agree

with restraint," they say — restraint over here; when you point over

there, it is over there. It is like quicksilver: when you reach for it,

it ain't there. It is always restraint in the next man's pocket. I am

pleased to say that I support the compensation stabilization program, I

support

[ Page 2004 ]

Bill 11, and I am glad that there is one man over there who sees the light and supports it; hopefully the other 21 will agree.

MR. LAUK: Well, that was a spirited speech, Mr. Speaker. We

all appreciate that kind of thing in the early evening. Not to reflect

in any way or demean the former speaker's speech, I want to refer to

the speech before the supper hour of the hon. member for Dewdney (Mr.

Pelton). I thought that there was an example to all of us from the

member for Dewdney in the way in which he conducted himself. He's a

freshman MLA, wouldn't you agree, and obviously a man of great

experience and wisdom. He reduced and focused the issues very well, I

thought. He articulated them without an offensive attack on the

opposition — without contempt or derision. From time to time we've all

been guilty of those kinds of things.

HON. MR. BRUMMET: Not you.

MR. LAUK: Yes, I have. I know it's hard for you to believe. You haven't noticed the rare occasions when I have, but that's been the case.

I want to throw a bouquet or two to the hon. member for Dewdney for

the way in which he presented that speech. It was a good speech, but I

feel it was on the wrong bill. It was a spirited defence of a

philosophy which we could all do well to look at seriously: that is,

let's have a look at bureaucracy. Yes, it is the fundamental British

parliamentary democratic right of a government elected to office to be

able to control and direct its bureaucracy to achieve its goals. After

all, a mandate is a mandate to that extent. But it's also the right of

Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition to oppose; indeed, it's the opposition's

duty to oppose legislation which it feels in its judgment and wisdom

is, one, not in keeping with the government's stated purpose; and two,

even if it did — which this bill does not — the legislation and the

purpose are wrong.

We agree with the government's purpose; we do not agree with its

methods. If you look at Bill 11, Mr. Speaker, you will quickly see that

the problem is not one of controlling bureaucracy. At least the

solution provided in Bill 11 is not solving that problem. The solution

provided in Bill 11 is not solving the compensation problem in an

equitable manner. It is creating a second-class citizen out of the

civil servant. The civil servant must adhere to the current

government's philosophy, goals and policies. There is no question that

it must. On the other hand, in order to do that you do not virtually

enslave, comparative to the rest of us, a group of people who just

happened to be civil servants. Ultimately the productivity question in

the bill is decided by cabinet. The question of ability to pay is a

question in the bill that's to be decided ultimately by cabinet.

The question of guidelines is only vaguely referred to in a

negotiative way. It seems to me — it does to all members of the

opposition side — that that approach to compensation control over the

civil service is an approach that is designed to confront and create

hostility and division, not only with the civil service but in society

and with labour relations generally in the province. It seems to me

that the member for Dewdney would have served us a little bit better

had he focused his attention on the way in which the government tries

to achieve the goals that we all agree to. You do not savage a vast

group of society simply because they happen to be paid by government.

There's a tremendous number of people who are paid directly or

indirectly by government, through its Crown corporations. It's a fool's

paradise to believe that in a democratic state power that's given to

the government for its mandate, for its period of office, is the kind

of power that will allow them to dictate terms without negotiation and

to control even the definition of productivity, in order to decide

unilaterally what the ability to pay is.

Ultimately that control must rest with the Legislature and with the

government. But this Compensation Stabilization Amendment Act wrests

away years of goodwill and years of labour-management stability in this

province. We think it's a fatal mistake and we think it's deliberately

designed by the government to bring about labour chaos and a

confrontation with labour in the province generally. We think they are

designing such a confrontation for their narrow partisan political

purposes, and not to achieve the goals that they say they're trying to

achieve. They need a confrontation with organized labour, including the

BCGEU, in this province; they need that to save them from the disaster

of their budget bills that they introduced on July 7.

They are relentlessly going on this move towards the edge of the

precipice — to fall off the edge, if need be — to bring about that

confrontation, because they feel that that confrontation will bring

them up in the polls. It'll be a confrontation with the trade union

movement that nobody trusts, and the government will save the public

from a disaster created by the government in the first place. It is

this government that has designed the chaos and that has designed

confrontation, and it's this government that is not going to reap the

whirlwind in the short term. They want the public to reap the whirlwind

for their political purposes. They're hoping to be able to sell to the

public of British Columbia the idea that a labour confrontation was

caused by labour, and that they are going to save the day. They're

going to come in on the white horse and save the day. That is a

cynical, crass and narrow political point of view.

Now on the other hand, the Compensation Stabilization Act — they say

— is designed for restraint. But is it? In a democratic society the

elected leaders of this Legislature, in particular the government, must

demonstrate by example that they're willing to restrain themselves.

MR. KEMPF: We can't do much more or we'd starve to death.

MR. LAUK: The poor member for Omineca is starving to death. I

wonder if he has to go to get his groceries at a special place. He says

he can't afford the groceries, Mr. Speaker. Have you ever heard such

nonsense? Certainly all MLAs think we're underpaid — in the past few

weeks we certainly do — but when you see the people who are unemployed

or employed by government on the lower end of the scale in the civil

service, then you can see the hypocrisy and the cynicism of this

government's policy through Bill 11.

In the past two or three years we've seen the expenditures for the

Premier's office alone increase its costs and salaries. They've hired

more political hacks and more political appointees, not fewer. They

haven't restrained themselves in their own ministerial offices.

Advertising alone just before the May 5 election, during the so-called

year of restraint.... The millions and millions of dollars that were

poured through, out of taxpayers' pockets, to do nothing more than

propagate the partisan policies of the Social Credit Party — not to

defend or legitimately inform the public of its

[ Page 2005 ]

policies, but to propagate its policies.... In most

jurisdictions this never happens, and it certainly does not happen

without criticism. Now there's again a threat by the Premier and the

cabinet of the day to spend $25 million or more to defend this package

of legislation. That's not restraint, that's cynicism and hypocrisy.

Have they cut back on their travel budgets? No.

Have they cut back on their office space and furniture? No. These

people are talking through both sides of their mouths at once. These

people are arguing for the civil service to restrain themselves, for

the people in education and in hospitals to restrain themselves, but

what are they doing on their own? They're demonstrating an example of

profligacy that's never been seen before in the history of the

province. That's not the example they should be demonstrating to the

people who elected them.

[8:15]

Since this government took office in 1976 — this government of

restraint — the total provincial debt has increased by four times; Four

times in the short period of time since 1976. It tripled itself within

the first four years of their administration since 1976 — tripled the

total provincial debt. Is that restraint? We heard yesterday about the

VIP lounge and so on. They never learn that they have a responsibility

to set an example for the people of this province. They and their

political hacks and appointees are drowning in the public trough, and

at the same time they stand up with self-righteousness and argue that

the civil service should be cut back, should be slashed, should be this

or should be that. If you are going to do that under the guise of

restraint, if you are going to do that under guidelines, set an

example. You haven't done that. The current advertising for the

legislative package that is being prepared at great expense to the

taxpayer is a travesty of democracy. How can you get up and argue that

you can justify dealing out public money to create propaganda to sell

your legislative package? If the legislative package is as good as you

say, you doesn't need the advertising; you don't need to spend public

money on that kind of thing.

AN HON. MEMBER: Where is the advertising?

MR. LAUK: The advertising, we are told, is being prepared at great public expense.

Now this government is deliberately creating confrontations with the

BCGEU. Why are they doing that, Mr. Speaker? Through this bill and

other legislation, why are they deliberately creating a confrontation?

I can only look at two possible answers. The first is in order to

create a battle to obscure the mean, political nature of the budget and

its legislation. They need a recovery, but not economically. They need

a recovery politically and they are going to create a confrontation —

that is their deliberate design — so they can come in on a white horse

and say, "We're going to save the day. We're going to order everybody

back to work," and so on and so forth. They're hoping they will

increase their popularity with the public as a result of this action.

This government has consistently, since 1976, moved to create a problem

and then comes in to solve it and to play the hero. It is the worst

kind of cynical politics. And it is a very dangerous game, because

they'll reap the whirlwind themselves; but in the meantime, all of us

will reap the whirlwind. That kind of division and chaos in society is

destructive.

That's true, Mr. Speaker: they wish to create a confrontation to

obscure the nature of their legislation, to obscure the real reasons

behind it and to increase their popularity. The secondary reason, but

as important to them, I'm sure, is the equally cynical view that when

the civil service is on strike we save money because we don't pay

salaries and costs. It doesn't matter about services to the public. It

doesn't matter whether people are drastically inconvenienced, either

through transportation or other public services. The Minister of

Finance (Hon. Mr. Curtis) hopes to eat away at that deficit that he's

foolishly created in his budget, and if there is a strike for any

length of time in any sector of the public sector, the government is

going to save money.

But the primary reason is a crass and cynical political reason. What

does this bill do? There is no collective bargaining. It destroys

collective bargaining for the civil service. How can you say there is

free collective bargaining in a democratic state only for the private

sector and not for the public sector? It has been threatened that free

collective bargaining will be the next target of this government in the

private sector. But what do you put in its place? If this government is

so adamant that they've got to destroy free collective bargaining for

the civil service, what will they put in its place? This gets me back

to the speech of the member for Dewdney (Mr. Pelton).

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Perhaps, hon. member, we could also get back

to this bill. I believe you are discussing the principle of a totally

different bill.

MR. LAUK: With respect, Mr. Speaker, I don't think so. Even

in municipalities, I think compensation is traditionally, as you well

know. the subject of free collective bargaining. And when it is

eliminated and brought into a situation under Bill 11, then you are

destroying the free collective bargaining system.

That's how I'm relating it to Bill 11.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Fair enough. Continue.

MR. LAUK: So when you take away free collective bargaining

from the civil service, what do you substitute? What do you have in its

place? The member for Dewdney said we have to get control over the

bureaucracy, because the sinister thing about a bureaucracy is that if

it has an independence of its own without control of the government,

there is a danger to democracy itself. I agree with that proposition.

That's absolutely true. You've got to control your bureaucracy. Any

civil servant who stands up and says, "I'm not partisan and therefore I

have to act independently of the government," is wrong. A civil servant

cannot claim non-partisanship, especially at the actual government

structural level.

MR. REE: What do you do to them then?

MR. LAUK: There is the very thing. That's the attitude that

you have. I'm arguing that if you are going to throw free collective

bargaining out the window. then you've got to have something in its

place that fits into a democratic system.

I would argue that you don't go to extremes. You don't have a

totally laissez-faire situation and you don't go to the extreme of

confrontation and dictatorship on the part of the government. The

government has an opportunity, in dealing with the civil service of

this province, to move in a bold way towards a social contract. towards

a situation where they will

[ Page 2006 ]

say: "Enough of the extremes and the

confrontations. We won't play politics and create a confrontation with

our civil service. We will sit down with them and create a contract

between the government and the civil service on all of these matters in

a realistic way." Because if you don't incorporate them into your

planning and thinking in a democratic negotiated way, if you don't try

to conciliate and bring the message to them that there's not enough

money and here's what we have to do about it, and you leave them out,

confront them, kick them in the teeth, demean them, humiliate them and

treat them with contempt, you're going to have labour chaos, not just

in the civil service but throughout the province. Surely everybody in

this chamber must realize that this is the whirlwind you reap when you

start this kind of confrontation politics.

If you want a new system, create a new system. You have the

opportunity to do a grand experiment with the civil service. Don't tell

me they won't be willing; you haven't tried. It's not what you do to

them; it's what you do together. The average civil servant is no

different than anybody else in British Columbia. They're citizens of

British Columbia. They pay taxes. They have families. They have a stake

in the future of this province, and they don't want to break the bank

or create hardship for social services to other people in the province.

They're the very ones who are standing up now trying to preserve them.

These people, in their own interests ' will sit down and conciliate

with the government, but the government hasn't conciliated. Has it

involved them in discussions? Has it negotiated with them in any way

and said: "Look, boys, we're in trouble financially. Let's work this

out together. We've got to provide these kinds of social services over

the next several years. We've got a deficit. We can't overtax the

people, and we've got to create jobs. Now what are we going to do about

it?"

I'm not saying the Manitoba experiment is perfect. There are a lot

of things that can work there but perhaps can't work here because of a

different context. The Premier of Manitoba sat down with the civil

service, and what did he get? He got a wage freeze. He got natural

attrition without any complaint from their union, and he got a $10

million contribution to a job-creation project from the civil servants'

own pockets — and that's a lot of money in Manitoba. I think we could

do even better with our civil service. I think we could even have more

of a commitment from our civil service in this province. That's the

kind of thinking I'm talking about. It's the politics of conciliation,

not confrontation.

That's why I say the hon. member for Dewdney, a gracious and wise

individual, gave an excellent speech, but on the wrong bill. The bill

is indefensible. Any confrontational bill in 1983 is indefensible. As

reasonable people in this province we've got to learn to reduce the

acrimony and animosity between classes of people. If you watched the

hon. member for Dewdney today, it might be nice to try it here. It may

work. That kind of conciliation, compromise and understanding rises

above all kinds of ideological disputes, and can bring about the kind

of prosperity in the long run that we all want for the people of

British Columbia.

Confrontation is a short-term and cynical view of political conduct.

You can win in the short term but we all lose in the long term. We've

got to diminish this idea that British Columbia is two armed enemy

camps, in a vast power struggle for some obscure, ideological reason on

either side. Believe me, some of those ideological reasons on either

side are pretty obscure. Yes, there's a difference between this side

and that side of the House. We're for compromise and conciliation.

We're for sitting down and dealing with people as if they are equal

human beings, not people to be treated with contempt because they

happen to be paid by the taxpayer, rather than by the private sector.

You know full well, Mr. Speaker, that the key people at the upper

levels of the civil service interchange all the time between private

industry and the civil service. If they're so incompetent, if you like,

does the private sector have the same problem in hiring these people?

They're hired from the private sector into the civil service and from

the civil service into the private sector.

MR. PELTON: Is there some other way?

MR. LAUK: Yes, there is another way, and that way is

conciliation. Move towards a social contract that will build on

goodwill, that will build a sense of confidence in one another in this

province, and reduce this enemy camp situation that nobody really

profits from in the end. Replace it with sensible and conciliatory

politics. I urge all hon. members to either defeat this bill or to

delay its passage until such time as the government can sit down and do

that with the civil service, and reach an agreement that will benefit

everybody. It can be done, no matter how difficult.

Once again I will draw the analogy to world affairs and this

confrontational atmosphere between the United States and the Soviet

Union. We can all sit down and froth at the mouth about either side,

but in the final analysis we have no choice but to negotiate with one

another. The people of British Columbia.... Everybody was reading that

poll in the Sun in their own way. I read it my way and I was

overjoyed, that 75 percent said your method is wrong, because to me the

method is the essential problem. If the method is correct the result

will be of benefit to us all, because if you inform people and treat

them like equals, with understanding and respect, you must expect that

they will do the same for you.

These elaborate threats by the unions on the one hand to strike and

elaborate confrontational statements on the part of the government on

the other hand will no longer be heard, because you will be sitting at

a table. In international affairs this is the kind of thing we have got

to start to look at. We have no choice. If we don't negotiate with the

Soviet Union on a realistic and respectful basis and stop saying — I am

drawing an analogy here.... You can't say forever that you don't trust

the Russians; the Russians can't say forever that they don't trust us.

We have to sit down and negotiate, because the alternative to

negotiation is the virtual end of the human race.

Never before in the history of mankind have we had this challenge and this threat and it could be....

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Back to the bill.

MR. LAUK: Mr. Speaker, legitimate analogies are usually

accepted. It is a puzzle to me how you can't understand the problem,

which is human relations. We are never going to get anywhere if you

don't understand the problem. You have to understand that the basic

problem under the Compensation Stabilization Amendment Act is the

problem of human relationships; it is a problem of mutual trust and

understanding. If you don't give the other side a chance to give, to

conciliate and to cooperate in a mutual solution, how are you possibly

[ Page 2007 ]

going to say that it didn't work if you don't give it a chance in the first place?

It seems very clear to me that the government is bent on this very

narrow political, extremist view. They are challenging every group in

society and they are calling themselves heroes. No matter what

destruction they may wreak upon the economy and upon our social and

political fabric, they call themselves heroes of restraint. The hon.

member for North Okanagan (Mr. Campbell) said that last February the

Premier of the province was the first premier in the country to

recognize the need for restraint and that there was a serious problem.

What the hon. member for North Okanagan failed to mention was that he

was the first premier of this province to call upon the federal

government to raise interest rates as a simplistic immediate solution

to the inflationary problem facing us all. That is one of the

difficulties: when you don't think and you make unilateral statements,

you end up with a disaster. Certainly he was the first to recognize the

problem; he was one of the first to create it. This government has done

that consistently since they have taken office. They have created a

disaster and come in and said: "We have a solution." Just think of how

much energy would have been saved if they hadn't created the problem in

the first place. They could get on with good government, they could get

on with conciliatory politics, they could get on with building this

great province instead of having us lag further and further behind the

other provinces in the country.

[8:30]

[Mr. Strachan in the chair.]

AN HON. MEMBER: Crisis management.

MR. LAUK: My friend says "crisis management." Knee-jerk

reactions, day-to-day reactions to problems, purely analyzed on a

political basis instead of the longer-term situation that will be of

more benefit to the greatest number of the people in the province. That

kind of crisis management is what has happened since 1976. When will

they learn? I am including not just the Social Credit members but all

of us. When will we all learn that the short-term problems don't work

and that purely political solutions are not acquitting our

responsibility? Our responsibility is for the people of this province

in the long term. When it all comes down to the end somewhere in our

priorities, somewhere in the list of things that we have to do as

politicians besides getting elected and re-elected — somewhere along

the line don't we say: "Aren't we here to do something for the province

of British Columbia and its future?" It seems to me that when you ask

that question, the obvious answer is to move toward compromise under

such a bill as Bill 11. I do hope that the hint at some moderation in

this bill can be sincerely taken by all hon. members, and I hope that

some of the details of those amendments are made known to us soon. In

the meantime I certainly indicate that I am opposed to Bill 11 on

second reading.

HON. MR. WATERLAND: Mr. Speaker, a few days ago the member

for Alberni (Mr. Skelly), accused me of being "the articulate member

for Yale-Lillooet." Since that time I found out what "articulate" are

and, Mr. Speaker, I ain't. It won't take me long to prove the point I

have just stated.

However, we've just heard a lecture from an extremely articulate

member of the Legislature. The second member for Vancouver Centre is

indeed a gifted speaker, trained over many years, I'm sure, in his law

practice to be able to argue plausibly any side of any question and

make it sound rather logical. We have just been treated to that type of

exercise, and I guess if someone would listen to him they would be

very, very impressed. But if you were to sit down and analyze what he

said and try to take from what he said any semblance of logic

whatsoever, I'm sure that it would be very clear just how shallow and

how hollow his comments really were.

The member stood up and started saying that he admired the speech

made by the member for Dewdney (Mr. Pelton) and what a statesmanlike

speech it \was. He started off in that general vein himself. It didn't

take him very long, in spite of himself, to slither somehow down to a

political, partisan role and leave the statemanship and get into normal

political rhetoric that we hear in this Legislature.

I remember very clearly the evening of February 18, 1982, when

Premier Bennett addressed the people of British Columbia and tried to

point out to them the very serious nature of the economic situation

facing the people not only of British Columbia but of Canada and indeed

the entire western world. I remember it well because that evening I

happened to have been attending the annual Timber Club bash at the

Hotel Vancouver, which, by the way. was also attended by the Leader of

the Opposition. We watched the Premier that evening, and everyone who I

was with and everyone who I spoke to in the ensuing days recognized the

fact that the Premier of British Columbia indeed was identifying the

most serious problem that we as a society have had to face for a number

of decades.

After that address by the Premier, the Leader of the Opposition had

an opportunity to respond to the remarks made by the Premier. What did

he say? He said: "Kinsella shouldn't have bought that desk." That was

his entire response to that very serious message delivered by the

Premier that Patrick Kinsella of the Premier's office should not have

bought a desk for his office in the Premier's wing of the Legislature.

A very astute point, Mr. Speaker. A very shallow comment on a very

serious situation. We have seen the same thing happening these last

couple of days. Four cabinet ministers on Sunday afternoon attended the

football game at B.C. Place Stadium with quite a number of people who

belong to the Canadian Manufacturers' Association. In the midst of what

should be a very serious debate here in the Legislature this evening

and this afternoon and this morning, what do we have? We have a

preoccupation with the fact that four cabinet ministers attend a

football game with probably the leaders of the productive sector of our

society — people who belong to the Canadian Manufacturers' Association.

Those are the people who create jobs and who manage the industry of our

country. We had, I think. a pretty productive couple of hours with

those people. Many things can be accomplished in meetings like that

which can never be accomplished in the more formal setting of a

minister's office or the chief executive officer's office — some good

dialogue, some good understanding of what the problems are that face

this country. It happens that it was a Sunday afternoon, an afternoon

when most British Columbians are having a day of rest. Yes, it was

enjoyable to be able to watch the football game. It was also very

productive to be able to have the dialogue with those leaders of

industry of this country at the same time.

1, for one, make no apologies whatsoever for having taken

part in

that productive afternoon. Better that we should attend a football game

in Vancouver with the industrial leaders of this country than to have

our Premier act as a buffoon

[ Page 2008 ]

and go to China as a middle-aged, overweight person, and play soccer with the Chinese.

Interjection.

HON. MR. WATERLAND: Rugby, is it?

We witnessed that initial restraint presentation by the Premier in

February a couple of years ago as a result of the very long and arduous

weekend that the cabinet had at Schooner Cove. That, of course, was

billed by the opposition as the cabinet retreating to a luxurious

resort somewhere on Vancouver Island and having a good old time at

taxpayers' expense. That was a productive weekend, and through a series

of presentations made by the Minister of Finance and his staff, and by

all the ministries, the full realization came to us of just how serious

a situation we were in, and how serious it was going to become in

British Columbia. Strangely, the restraint program which was announced

by the Premier on February 18, 1982, almost two years ago, was soon

taken up by the left-wing Liberal bedfellows of the NDP in Canada and

British Columbia. They saw that the people of western Canada recognized

the need for such restraint, and as soon as they saw that it was the

type of thing that the people realized would have to happen, they

jumped on that restraint bandwagon and brought in their 6-and-5 program.

Because of the furor raised by the misinformation cast about by the

opposition and the ever-too-willing media in British Columbia, there is

an image abroad that somehow the people in western Canada and British

Columbia are not supportive of the type of restraint package that we

are promoting in British Columbia. The Liberals, by reading the media

in western Canada and British Columbia, feel that somehow it is not

popular and now they are attempting to jump off the restraint

bandwagon. That is why they have been sending money to certain groups

in British Columbia telling them to go ahead and fight restraint and

block the provincial government. In the last federal by-election they

were telling people that if they voted for the Conservative Party in

the British Columbian by-election they would in effect be endorsing the

restraint policies of the people of British Columbia. Guess what

happened? I needn't repeat it. There was probably the most massive

electoral swing which has ever taken place in a general election, let

alone a by-election. The NDP were literally told to go fly a kite. The

people of British Columbia and Canada are saying that the responsible

restraint philosophies that are practised by conservative parties are

the way we have to go. That is why the conservative philosophy to which

we in the Social Credit Party subscribe is the thing that will save

this nation and our society in the years to come.

It's rather amusing to me that Solidarity, that political arm of the

NDP — I don't know who is the arm and who is the body — is taking to

the ILO of the United Nations a case that is completely against all

principles of collective bargaining in the labour movement that any

settlement should be based upon the ability to pay. Isn't it strange

that they should go to the United Nations with a case that it is

somehow wrong that a collective agreement should be based upon the

ability of the employer to pay? How quaint! What an unusual approach to

things that anybody should ever consider the ability of the employer to

pay when collective bargaining takes place.

The second member for Vancouver East (Mr. Macdonald), who has left

the chamber, was talking so much about free collective bargaining in

the public sector. They say there should be no constraints whatsoever

to demand whatever is demanded by the union side, because that is what

is meant by free collective bargaining. There is no such thing as free

collective bargaining. Whatever is bargained for and achieved has to be

paid for by someone. It certainly is not free. We had a very good

example of that, and I believe it took place in 1973 or 1974. I believe

the name of the member of the opposition government at the time was

Strachan. He was negotiating with the ferry workers of British

Columbia. Because there were no constraints on the ability of the

government or the Ferry Corporation to pay he said: "I had to settle

with them for whatever they demanded, because they had a gun to my

head." They had a gun to his head, so he had to dip into the pockets of

the taxpayers of British Columbia and pay whatever was demanded by the

union. That is exactly the problem with so-called free collective

bargaining.

[8:45]

In my constituency the economy is based basically upon the same

things as the entire economy of British Columbia. The main industry is

mining with forestry a very close second, slightly different from the

rest of the province. Tourism is also a very important part of the

economy of the riding as are cattle ranches. I spent my entire career

in that mining industry until I got involved in politics, and I visit

and have little rap sessions with the miners, loggers and cowboys in my

riding. They have no trouble understanding that when they negotiate

with their employer they can't demand any more than the employer can

afford to pay. You talk to any truck driver or shovel or drill operator

in any of the mines in my riding, and each and every one of them can

tell you exactly what the price of copper, moly or gold is — the

commodities which their employer has to sell in the marketplace....

They know that when those prices go down, the chances are reduced of

their company, their employer, making a profit. Mr. Speaker, that is

why over the last year or so you've seen very modest settlements made

by people in the mining industry. Settlements have come in at zero or 2

percent and they are three-year agreements. The people who work for

those industries understand that the ability to pay is very basic to

the collective bargaining system.

That is what Bill 11, the Compensation Stabilization Amendment Act,

is all about. It is saying to the public employees in the province of

British Columbia that there is indeed a limit to the ability of the

taxpayers to pay what you demand. The government is accepting that

responsibility, saying: "We will determine, through our budgetary

process, just how much the people of British Columbia can afford to pay

you. Then you go and bargain up to that level, but not beyond, because

there is no way that we as a government will shirk our responsibilities

and allow people to put a gun to our head and put the taxpayers up to

ransom to pay whatever is demanded by the union leaders, who demand

ever and ever more."

That is why I think the remarks made by the second member for

Vancouver Centre (Mr. Lauk) — although presented in a very articulate

manner — were so naive that they're not even worthy of consideration.

Free collective bargaining is not free. There has to be a limit on the

amount of money available. In the case of government, this limit cannot

be set by a marketplace, because we're not selling our services in a

marketplace; they are set by the ability of taxpayers to pay, and by

our judgment of what we can take from the taxpayers in order to pay

those bills.

Interjection.

[ Page 2009 ]

HON. MR. WATERLAND: Of course he did. Mr. Speaker, there is

never such a thing as free collective bargaining, because someone has

to pay the bill. As long as it's within the ability of the employer to

pay, fine and dandy, we can bargain collectively up to that limit. But

there has to be a limit.

The members in the opposition seem to think that there is absolutely

no limit to the amount of dollars that the taxpayers can come up with,

and therefore the purse is wide open and we'll bargain with a gun to

our head, just as Mr. Strachan did a few years ago, and give away the

bank.

Interjections.

HON. MR. WATERLAND . He caved in. He sold the farm. He gave the farm

away; he didn't sell it. I think it's rather shocking that the members

of the opposition should even consider the fact that there should be no limits.

A naive approach was taken by the second member for Vancouver East (Mr. Macdonald),

who said: 'All you have to do is to sit down with the leaders of the government

union, and they'll be reasonable people. They'll recognize the fact

that there's a limit to what the government can pay." It's just

as he said that we should sit down with the USSR and simply negotiate a settlement

of the arms race. That member seems to think that all it takes is sweetness

and reason, and everything shall come to pass. What a very naive approach to

the very complex and complicated problem that we have in this country.

I don't intend to speak any longer, except to say that I fully

endorse Bill 11, the Compensation Stabilization Amendment Act. From my

travels throughout this entire province, not just from my association

with greater Vancouver and with the southern end of Vancouver Island

and with the rather left-leaning media in this area.... My talks with

people throughout this province, including many civil servants, have

been to the effect that they too agree with the policies and

philosophies of this government.

Mr. Speaker, I'm sure that the members will be hollering soon again,

as they have hollered up to and since May 5, and for the eight years

that I've been involved in politics. Every time something controversial

comes up, they say: "Call an election. Let the people decide. We don't

agree, so call an election." We called an election. Immediately after

the election was over, what did they say? "Call another election."

We have a mandate that was given to us by the people of British

Columbia to manage their affairs in a constrained fashion, not for a

couple of years but permanent constraints on the purses and pocketbooks

of the taxpayers. That is why I support Bill 11, the Compensation

Stabilization Amendment Act.

MR. NICOLSON: The first thing I'd like to comment upon is

that it's a measure of a man when he has to attack someone who is

deceased, someone who honoured this House by his very presence and his

dedication in here. If Bob Strachan were here today, he'd wipe the

floor with the likes of you, Mr. Member.

The minister talked in passing about the left-leaning media. Maybe

the media hasn't leaned left, and maybe it hasn't leaned right; maybe

it has stayed just where it has been for the last 20 years. Maybe that

party has moved so far to the right, and maybe this party has moved

toward the centre. That group over there find anybody who talks about a

reasonable approach toward the problems that we find ourselves in today

— and I will talk about ho we got into those problems and why we

shouldn't be having to consider this type of legislation or a

perpetuation of this type of legislation....

The media haven't moved to the left, and they didn't move to the

right when we were in government; they have been in the same place all

the time. Goodness gracious, I suppose the Sun , the Province and the Times-Colonist

have suddenly been taken over by some kind of radical socialist

publishers. Mr. Speaker, the mind boggles to think about such a thing.

I think the government really should stop and examine itself, not

say that everybody else is bonkers but look at themselves and what they

have done. We are in this problem because since the present Minister of

Finance took office we have squandered over a billion dollars in liquid

cash deposits. We used that up. This wasn't found by some secret,

leaked document; it can be found by any careful perusal of Public Accounts and past budgets. It's all right in those ordinary public documents.

They also cancelled all the special purpose funds, and this year

they are going to go a further billion dollars into debt. Since that

minister took over in 1980, we are short about $3 billion. We have

dipped into our savings and we borrowed a combined amount of S3 billion

against the future. We have, roughly speaking, about an annual $7

billion budget. That's why we have problems today. What are the

components that are making that up? What are the amounts in those

estimates? The budget would have us believe that there is going to be

over a 12 percent increase in spending in this fiscal year. That

doesn't sound like restraint. If they are going to be laying off a

quarter of the public servants and if they are going to be holding

their wages to zero through the continuation of this piece of

legislation — or, indeed, even cutting back minus 5 percent — then why

isn't that reflected in a decrease in the estimates for salary

expenditures?

I know, as anybody might jump up to tell me, that we have already

gone halfway through this fiscal year. Even at that, with all the

people that have been laid off and given notices, with the attrition

that is going on and the positions that are not being filled, if you

look at the estimates, you will find that they are actually projecting

increases in about a quarter of the salary votes. Indeed, there are a

few salary votes that would see some fairly large decreases. but in the

main there is a very small reduction reflected in the estimates.

The whole business about the kinds of budgets that we have been

having and the need for restraint has been unquestioned and was first

proposed by the official opposition. You remember voting for huge

increases in office furniture estimates two years in a row. You voted

for huge increases in government advertising estimates. For two years

in a row the NDP proposed millions and millions of dollars of savings

in the provincial salary budget. All of this is projected by the

Premier, I think, to save some $200 million, if one can believe that

figure. But, Mr. Speaker, we proposed savings of $170 million. With the

interest that would have earned over the last couple of years, that

would have provided the $200 million right there. So why are we in this

position? We're in this position because back in the days when the

government was caught.... I don't know whether it was one, two or three

elections ago — one rolls into another — but I do recall an election. I

guess it was after the 1979 election when there was a little messy

business, and a few people said a few things and a couple of executive

assistants that were involved were let go from the Social Credit caucus

office.

[ Page 2010 ]

[9:00]

But in its haste to take away from this tarnished image and savour

the full bouquet of victory, the government started this mad bunch of

announcements of various megaprojects. One or two of the megaprojects

were probably okay. They all became somewhat tainted, because they all

were announced within about a week of each other. I can just see the

Minister of Finance (Hon. Mr. Curtis) going to the Premier and pulling

on his shirt-tails and saying: "Oh, well, Gracie has announced Pier

B.C.; can't I announce a new computer building, maybe a $38 million or

$40 million building out in Saanich?"

MR. PARKS: On a point of order. Mr. Speaker, I believe it's a

custom in this House to refer to other hon. members by the constituency

they represent, not by their first name.

MR. NICOLSON: I'm sorry, Mr. Speaker, I should have known

better. It was just an affectionate term for a member of this House and

I was carried away a little bit.

Interjection.

MR. NICOLSON: In a Christian sense, yes, Mr. Minister.

Mr. Speaker, we saw this huge rash of megaprojects, and many people

in the interior don't even realize the true extent of them. It wasn't

just in the northeast coal megaproject where we were showing

leadership. Maybe the Canadian Manufacturers' Association are very

pro-northeast coal; I'm not sure. I know some members of the CMA who

would take a slightly different view, but the fact cannot be lost that

to create 1,500 coal mining jobs, we are putting in place an

infrastructure which is costing the government $1.5 billion. That's $1

million to create one coal mining job.

The Minister of Forests talked about the Canadian Manufacturers'

Association and all the jobs that they produce. Well, Mr. Speaker, I

want to tell you that it is still the small, independent entrepreneur

who produces most of the jobs in this province. I believe that a small

independent entrepreneur, given $1 million assistance from the

government, would be able to produce a darned sight more than one

fundamental basic job. I realize that there are the service jobs down

the road — the railroad, the port facility and the other little

multipliers — but there are the same multipliers if you have a small,

independent entrepreneur producing — whether it be revitalizing diamond

drills, as is done in one business in Vancouver, or someone doing

seismic engineering work in Creston, which is something that happens.

Entrepreneurs like that produce a lot more jobs. Going back to

something that we do very well in this province, some small assistance

to a sawmill in the order of $.5 million produced over 30 direct jobs.

So we have in this bill a reaction to a situation that is a

self-made problem. Again, what we are doing with this bill is trying to

deflect attention away from the real source of the problem, and the

source of the problem really was in 1979. The Social Credit government

went along without creating any huge mistakes, except they almost did

lose the election in 1979, as the Premier has admitted and a few other

people have said. Other than that mistake, they didn't make a great

number of unrecoverable mistakes. Following 1979, this government

embarked upon a series of really ill-thought-out projects without

considering the ability to pay. This government went ahead and

considered a number of megaprojects without considering the ability to

pay. Now they're saying to the public servants: "Because we made this

very hasty judgment, now you can't have collective bargaining. Ability

to pay is going to be our defence, and we're simply not going to allow

free collective bargaining." You are going to say that you believe in

the free enterprise system, but you don't believe in free collective

bargaining.

We are on a very dangerous road today because of this government's

economic failures. This piece of legislation also has its origins in

public polling the Goldfarb polls which, again, the government was

paying for with public funds — another one of their budget priorities.

They have been asking questions probing people about their attitudes

toward all the various public sector employees: civil servants,

teachers, college professors, and in other areas. If they find a group

on which the public perception is soft or, even better yet, hostile, we

have seen that they have gone after those groups. We saw them go after

the doctors, and then we saw them go after the teachers per se. That

was before the election. Since then, we have seen them taking on all

public sector employees, not just those in the provincial government

but also municipal workers, firefighters, police — anybody. They have a

policy which has been set for them, not by careful consideration of how

best to get British Columbia going but of how best to deflect attention

from themselves. I guess Machiavelli has been quoted once or twice this

session — and I could maybe paraphrase: when your domestic policies are

failing, then find an external enemy; and if you don't have an external

enemy, then create one. That is what this government has been doing,

and we see that this government is performing worse, right now, than

any other province in Canada.

We see, by the Premier's own admission — I heard him yesterday on a

news broadcast — that one out of four people in the forest industry,

one out of five people in the mining industry and one out of six in the

service industry are out of work. What a ringing self-condemnation. If

I had failed so badly, and if I had been so singly responsible for such

a dismal performance, I would have to resign my position. This

government is projected to have the worst job creation record in

Canada, way below the Canadian average for the year. You have led the

country in business bankruptcies per capita for about the last five

years. By every economic indicator, we can see how bad things are. Look

at the massive unemployment. And this government can do nothing more

than preach the politics of despair. This is a despondent government, a

government that would seek to lower everyone to the point of

desperation in order that they would take almost any kind of a job,

rather than a government that would say we have some of the best

people, some of the best-educated people, the potential for having some

of the best technical training, and the means of fulfilling our own

needs in terms of labour shortages in specialized areas. But instead of

doing that, this government is cutting back and cutting back. It's

cutting back in the universities and in technological education. I

heard some glowing reports about the new TRAC program and how it's

training people. Well, Mr. Speaker, I've heard reports from the

administrations of some of our colleges and from the people who are

trying to teach these programs, and you get two different stories.

This particular piece of legislation is, of itself, not a critical

wound. This particular piece of legislation, if implemented of itself,

would leave some room to manoeuvre, and

[ Page 2011 ]

some room for some cooperation and partnership to

be created. But taken in conjunction with the budget and the announced

intention of laying off 25 percent of all civil servants, with no kind

of plan — no further announcements forthcoming since the first

ham-handed efforts on July 7 with the midnight, sweeping type of

legislation.... This piece of legislation would, of itself, not have

been critical, but combined with other moves that have been made, this

becomes a very signal piece of legislation.

This thing started by the Premier saying that he was going to bring

in a restraint program and implement a ceiling of 14 percent on wage

increases. This was some time ago. The next thing that happened was

that the member for Omineca (Mr. Kempf) announced that he would come

down to the Legislature, be a maverick and really shake things up down

here. But that didn't happen. The Premier announced that there would be

a 14 percent ceiling. Then he was back-pedalling to about 10 percent,

then 8 percent, then 6 percent. When this piece of legislation was

first brought in — the act which this Compensation Stabilization

Amendment Act amends — there were no floors and no ceilings; they were

all flexible. The parameters of the act were called the rubber room —

the room with no floor and no ceiling. Now we are hardly improving on

it. We are making the act permanent, and we are really confessing that

this government has failed because it cannot continue very necessary

programs. This government is discontinuing programs, which is going to

be a burden on future generations, not just in the sense of the moral

judgment I would make in terms of the costs we are going to bear, with

ruined lives and wasted lives, but even in terms of the money that this

is going to cost in incarceration and institutionalization. This

particular attitude is not cost-effective.

Professor Dobell has also pointed out.... He is a person who speaks as a conservative, describes himself as a conservative.

MR. R. FRASER: No possible way.

MR. NICOLSON: And you say: "No possible way." I say that you

people have moved so far to the right that you don't even know what a

little bit right of centre is. You have moved beyond conservative and

you have left us the middle, and for that we thank you.

This government — and some of its members would seem to prove that —

is really bent upon destroying the middle class in this country.

MR. R. FRASER: Where do you find that?

MR. NICOLSON: Well, I find it in the Atlantic Monthly journal,

which some members on this side of the House read. I don't know if

people over there read such journals. I find this in the New York Times .

I find it in many different sources. I find it by reading books. I find

it by talking to people who are concerned with the future, people who

are pointing out the fact that jobs are disappearing for the people who

formerly were given technical training.

[9:15]

We see this government talking about high technology as if it is

going to be our saviour. Yet as much as I believe that there is a great

deal that can be done for mankind by the proper use of what is now

described as high technology, we see that there are tremendous problems

being created by it. And this government is not addressing those

problems. This government is simply waging war with a class of people.

You are waging war with the class of professionals and technicians who

have been trained and who have chosen to go into the so-called public

sector. But I don't know what is a public sector and what is a private

sector. When we look, for instance, at the way in which the Ministry of

Forests can interact with the private sector, when we look at the

symbiosis of the public and private sector.... I have had people in the

private sector tell me that the government cutbacks are actually

slowing down their operations, which means that they are having to lay

off people, We are also going to lose world markets because of a

simplistic kind of view as to where we should be cutting back in the

public service.

I warned this government about the reorganization of the Ministry of

Forests. I said it would become centralist; I said it would cost a lot

more. In just one item alone, in a matter of two years the cost of

putting a roof over the head of the Ministry of Forests went from $3.5

million to $19.5 million.

HON. MR. HEINRICH: What's that? Repeat it.

MR. NICOLSON: Are you going to get up and call me a liar

about that? You can't, because you know it's the truth. The budget for

putting a roof over the head of the Ministry of Forests in two years

went from S3.5 million.... The first year it went up to S10.5 million

and the next year to $19.5 million. What a huge increase in such a

short space of time because the government made that mistake! It also

resulted in a huge, wholesale bunch of job reclassifications. People

moved up and got higher classifications without having to do more work.

That was your Government Employee Relations Bureau that you set up and

didn't keep your hand on the wheel of, when you've got hundreds of

employees in that. Yet you allow that type of thing to go on as well.

Mr. Speaker, this government over here has been guilty — and no one is

more guilty than the Minister of Finance (Hon. Mr. Curtis) — of runaway

expenditures. And suddenly you're saying to people who have either come

to British Columbia or were born and raised in British Columbia, people

who have set their careers in various parts of the province, that they

must be totally uprooted; their careers must be ruined and they have to

just suffer like everyone else has suffered, and so on and so forth.

Mr. Speaker. what distresses me about this kind of legislation is

that it doesn't end with the public servants. The Premier has said that

we have to pass this piece of legislation because the people in the

private sector had layoffs in the last couple of years and now it's the

public sector's turn. The logic of that, if you really stop and think

about it.... During the Second World War a whole bunch of young men

went out and were killed or maimed. Does that mean that we then should

have gone and killed and maimed a whole bunch of older men, a whole

bunch of women or children? That's the kind of logic that the Premier

is using. He's saying that because a whole bunch of people have

suffered, we've got to make them feel better by making other people

suffer. That's the kind of division, that's the kind of politics of

despair that.... This side says that British Columbians deserve a

better future than that. There has to be a better choice than inaction

and reaction from that government. This side of the House says that

British Columbia should have a future. It does have a future, if this

government gets on with governing instead of trying to punish people in

order to make another group feel better.

[ Page 2012 ]

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

This particular piece of legislation is just more of an enticement

to the breakdown of society in this province. Having looked at it not

in isolation but in connection with all the other legislation, I'm

afraid that it is a premeditated move on the part of this government.

This government is tempting the people of British Columbia. You can say

that you've got 50.2 percent — or, as I read it from the official

electoral returns, 49.8 percent — of the popular vote and we've got 44

percent. Does that make such a big difference? Does that 5 percent

difference...? It makes the difference that you people are entrusted

with governing the province for the next five years. I said that during

the throne speech debate. I don't propose that we are here to govern;

we are here to oppose. I made what I hoped to have been.... My throne

speech contribution was a conciliatory speech. It was made before this

legislation and budget were brought in. It was made in good faith. It

was made with the hope that we could all work together to build a

better British Columbia from the rubble that we have right now.

Mr. Speaker, let's not pass this bill. Let's not make things worse.

Let's step back. There is still time, and there are all kinds of

dramatic moves that could be taken. What would happen if the government

suddenly pulled back on about three, four or five of these very

contentious bills? I will give you a suggestion, and I have not talked

this over with anybody.... If you made a move like that and if you

coupled it by approaching somebody, who, I think, is held in great

respect not just by people in the NDP but also by a lot of people in

the Social Credit Party that I've talked to since the election.... If

you were to ask Mr. Bill King to head some kind of investigation, that

would be the way....

I should tell you things like this. I should make suggestions like

this. This is the way out for you people. If you wanted to do something

that was smart, conciliatory and that gave a real strong signal....

Maybe one or two of you over there are listening. It might not be to my

betterment in terms of my political fortunes if you should look good

over the next four years, but if you want to start doing something that

is good, and if you want to get this province moving again, you've got

to start thinking that way in terms of another target group. Who are

you going to bully? Who are you going to beat up after you've taken on

all of the public sector people?

Interjection.

MR. NICOLSON: Yes, you're going to take on the private sector people then.

HON. A. FRASER: Bill King is busy hogheading. That's what he wants to do.

MR. NICOLSON: Bill King is busy hogheading, Mr. Minister of Highways.

I'm sure that's what he wants to do and would prefer to do. But I'll

tell you that if he were ever given an offer like that, it would be with a sense

of responsibility that he would consider it. He would consider not what he wants

to do for himself but what he might do for his province. I think that's

what we should be doing instead of saying: "What can we do to perpetuate

this rancour? What can we do to perpetuate this war? What can we do to continue

attacking a few labour leaders and, with them, the whole province of British

Columbia?" We should be looking for other solutions.

It isn't just the public sector employees who are suffering from

this kind of confrontation, of which this bill is a very integral part.

This bill might say that some people.... I heard a car salesman — not a

used-car salesman; I think it was a brand-new car salesman — phone in

to CBC from Victoria. He was one of about three people who were against

the announcement made recently by the B.C. Government Employees' Union

president. Surprisingly to me, about a dozen people were in favour of

the statement made by the president. It was on the CBC, so we can maybe

say, "Well, that's that listening audience," and dismiss it at that.

But the interesting thing is that I find that in my constituency a lot

of the car salespeople — and a lot of people on Baker Street or Canyon

Street in Creston, or on the main street in the different

municipalities in my riding — don't make the connection. They complain

about business. They say that they can't sell the used cars; they're

selling the new cars okay and this sort of thing. Yet on the other hand

they seem.... That's where you do get some support for this kind of

legislation. They don't make the connection that the reason they're

having trouble selling these cars.... The reason that consumer

confidence is so bad is because it is getting battered every day by

this province.

The conventional wisdom that you will find on the financial pages

from the Louis Rukeysers, the Don McGillivrays and others, who talk

about consumer-led recovery.... This government, with this kind of

legislation, is doing everything they can to stop consumer-led

recovery. There is an effort being made in communities in my riding to

link the relationship between retail sales and the bashing of consumer

confidence that is being created by Bill 11, the other bills and the

budget. People are now going into their merchants and telling them what

they are not going to buy because of the lack of consumer confidence.

The cutbacks by this government in the town of Nelson are going to

have a greater impact.... There are going to be more jobs lost in the

town of Nelson by those cutbacks than there was by the permanent

shutdown of the Kootenay Forest Products plywood plant. That had a

devastating impact on the community. The layoffs and the transfers of

people to other areas are going to have a devastating impact. The other

devastating impact they're going to have is that there's going to be

more money spent by the government on travelling allowances, because

people are going to be travelling greater distances, as they already

are in the Ministry of Forests. There are going to be more overnight

accommodation bills and more time wasted in travel. There are going to

be all kinds of ancillary expenses, but less work done in the field.

[9:30]

For instance, after all the smoke settles and the wages are cut, if

there is any gas left to put into the tank of the pickup truck in the

Ministry of Forests, people are going to be travelling five hours up to

do an inspection, and they're probably going to have to stay overnight

just to do a little bit of work. What you're going to end up getting

after all these relocations and this absolute war on the....

HON. MR. WATERLAND: Dumb, dumb, dumb!

MR. NICOLSON: Yes, it is dumb. What you have done is so dumb.

It was dumb to take something that was costing you $3.5 million a year

and goose it up to $19.5 million in

[ Page 2013 ]

two short years. That's your bill to the B.C. Buildings Corporation.

I have made a very concrete suggestion. I know two members of the

cabinet bench who did not treat this with derision, and perhaps they

are listening.

HON. MR. WATERLAND: Don't count on it.

MR. NICOLSON: I won't count on you, Mr. Minister. I can count on you to be predictable and complacent.

With that one thing for them to sleep on, Mr. Speaker, I would move

adjournment of this debate until the next sitting of the House.

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. member, you must allow me a moment to ascertain if the motion has been made previous to my arrival in the chair.

Motion negatived on the following division:

YEAS — 9

Cocke

Dailly

Stupich

Lea

Nicolson

Brown

Mitchell

Macdonald

Rose

NAYS — 25

Waterland

Brummet

Schroeder

McClelland

Heinrich

Hewitt

Ritchie

Michael

Pelton

Johnston

R. Fraser

Campbell

Strachan

Gardom

Smith

Curtis

A. Fraser

Davis

Kempf

Mowat

Veitch

Segarty

Ree

Parks

Reid

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

Introduction of Bills

MISCELLANEOUS STATUTES

AMENDMENT ACT, 1983

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

a bill intituled Miscellaneous Statutes Amendment Act, 1983.

Bill 35 introduced, read a first time and ordered to be placed on

orders of the day for second reading at the next sitting of the House

after today.

COMPENSATION STABILIZATION

AMENDMENT ACT, 1983

(continued)

HON. MR. HEWITT: Mr. Speaker, it is nice to rise as a member

of the winning team. As we noticed, the A team lost again over on the

other side, like they lost on May 5 — and the B team and the C team.

I am pleased to rise to support Bill 11, the Compensation

Stabilization Amendment Act. This piece of legislation identifies a

change in time, because the minister has indicated in the legislation

that this extends the compensation stabilization program indefinitely.

And rightly so. We have to recognize that we have to live within our

means in this province as public servants, as a government providing

service. We have to recognize that funds that are generated out there

in the economy are what pay the bills that are run up in operating a

government.

The Minister of Finance, in bringing this bill in, also recognizes

the ability of the employer to pay. He has identified in the bill the

fact that we must live within our means as a government. We must

recognize that the public employer — the government — must have the

ability to pay the employees and to provide funds for programs. He also

identifies the need for greater productivity as a government. He does

not identify just the public servants or attack public servants, but

the whole government operation must have high productivity in order to

give value to taxpayers for their tax dollars.

I pose three questions to the opposition: where does the money come

from to pay for government services? The opposition knows as well as we

do on this side of the House — at least I hope they know as well as we

do — that the funds to operate a government. any government, come from

the economy of the province. the taxpayers of the province. In these

days of fragile recovery, when unemployment is still high, which means

that the people out there aren't earning funds in order to pay taxes

and to fill the government coffers, and when our forestry industry is

striving for survival, we have to recognize that we cannot increase the

burden on the economy by having an ever-increasing debt load for the

taxpayer to cover. We must live within our means. They talk about all

our cuts, etc. Even with all those that they call harsh measures, even

after our budget, even after our cuts in the various programs and the

restraint bills that are before this House, we are still S1.6 billion

in the red for this operating year.

[9:45]

Mr. Speaker. I pose those questions to the opposition: what would an individual

in a private company do? What would an individual personally do if he was faced

with the inability to pay his bills, either because he was unemployed or because

his factor), or his store couldn't provide the revenue to cover the costs,

and he was suffering a loss? What happens then is usually bankruptcy, but as

government we have a responsibility to provide those essential services that

the member for Burnaby-Edmonds (Ms. Brown) is always so concerned about — those

people services. Even with all the "draconian " measures we are accused

of, we ensured that our people services in the fields of education, health and

human resources got increases in their budgets to attempt to meet those essential

services.

I pose one last question to them: what about the long-term impact of

an ever-increasing deficit? You know as well as we do that at the

federal level, with the amount of accumulated deficit that they

have.... About 30 percent of every tax dollar goes to service that

debt. The members opposite should recognize that if you are paying for

past services, if you are paying to service debt and you've used up the

money, then the pressure and the load on the taxpayer today, tomorrow,

two years, five years or ten years down the road get so heavy that you

could actually have an economic collapse across this country and in

this province if we took the same tack.

But we've identified the problem in this province. The people of this province identified the problem and accepted

[ Page 2014 ]

the need for restraint. They did it on August 29 in

Mission–Port Moody when they elected a Conservative member in a safe

NDP seat. They did it because the federal NDP leader came out and said:

"A vote for a Conservative is an endorsement of the Social Credit

restraint program." And what happened? We had the biggest turnaround, I

believe, probably in the history of a by-election — from a safe NDP

seat to a safe Conservative seat.

Every Monday morning when caucus meets we ask one another: "How did

it go this weekend?" And without a doubt, without any reservation at

all, every member — every man jack and woman of us - says that when we

go home, the message we get is: "You're doing the right thing. You're

doing a great job. For Heaven's sake, don't back down."

There goes one of my constituents, the member for New Westminster

(Mr. Cocke), who has his summer home in my constituency. He knows what

I'm talking about because he knows a lot of people up there.

People in communities throughout this province are not swayed by

headlines, by Operation Solidarity, by statements from union leaders or

the Allen Garrs and Marjorie Nichols of this world. They recognize the

need for restraint and the need for government to get out of the lives

of the people of our province. Operation Solidarity will spend lots of

money. I don't know whether union members — and maybe the opposition

members who talk about spending money on advertising — will ever

identify the amount of workers' money that goes into that Operation

Solidarity program. I think some day one union member is going to stand

up, and then another, and another, and another, and say to those

leaders: "You are out of touch with us, because we recognize the need

for restraint in government, whether it's British Columbia or Canada."

Those union leaders are not in tune with their membership. The people

of this province, whether in the unions, the business world, senior

citizens, etc., endorsed this government on May 5, and again in a

by-election in Mission–Port Moody. The public aren't buying what the

union leaders, the Art Kubes and the Operation Solidarity people are

saying.

The second member for Vancouver Centre (Mr. Lauk), who's not in the

House right now, says we should negotiate. The leader of this party,

the Premier of the province, in February 1982 sent the message out loud

and clear, and from 1982 to 1983 there were opportunities to negotiate.

But do you know what happens in the "negotiations" that the member for

Vancouver Centre is so concerned about? A lot of those union leaders

are concerned about seeing their power taken away from them. They'd

rather go for rallies on the legislative lawns, they'd rather go with

Operation Solidarity and with taking over the courthouse in Vancouver.

Mr. Speaker, we have a job to do, we have the endorsement of the people

of British Columbia to do it, and by gosh, we're going to do it.

The second member for Vancouver Centre also said the role of the

opposition is to oppose. I think that goes back to John Diefenbaker's

famous statement, and probably beyond. I suggest to you, Mr. Speaker,

that it's time for a change in the opposition's role in this House.

We've gone through 16 weeks, I believe, of nothing but delay tactics by

the opposition. They've opposed and opposed and opposed. The second

member for Vancouver Centre might say, "That's our role," but I suggest

they've gone beyond the role of an opposition to state its case in

opposition to a government program, bill or budget. They have taken 60

hours in some cases to do a job that could be done in 6 hours. It

doesn't take amendments to a bill to hoist a bill; it doesn't take

reasoned amendments to get your message across. The members opposite

know the reason for those amendments. The reason for the reasoned

amendments is stall, stall, stall.

There are members on this side of the House, such as the member for

West Vancouver–Howe Sound (Mr. Reynolds), who talked very eloquently

about the possibility of closure. You know, there are those of us who

could agree with the need for closure, when we look at the amount of

delay tactics that are brought forward in this House by a sick and

worried opposition. The tack we've taken is to provide you with longer

sessions. That's why we're here tonight. We're going to let team A,

team B and team C speak, whether or not they're repetitious and tedious

— although we'll bring it to your attention from time to time. We'll

allow them to ventilate. But I can tell you, even though we'll sit here

for some time, in the end we'll succeed in bringing forward this

legislation. Very simply put, we'll succeed because we were given a

mandate on May 5, and we are carrying out that mandate.

If they tell us that the legislation we're bringing through has

nothing to do with the mandate we were given, I'd suggest they go back

to May 5, 6 and 7 newspapers and read the headlines and the stories. In

there the message is loud and clear. Some of the news media were

captivated by the fact that we did something they thought we couldn't

do. We won an election and we got a great endorsement. As a result, the

comment was made that maybe, just maybe, the people of this province

agreed with the restraint program and said: "Mr. Premier and

government, we recognize that it's not going to be easy, but we

recognize the need for the program that you're about to embark on."

We could have taken the easy way out, as many politicians do. We

could have had no cutbacks. We could have had no severe legislation. We

could have been nice guys and gals on this side of the House.

AN HON. MEMBER: We could have had the summer off.

HON. MR. HEWITT: Yes, we could have had the summer off, as my

colleague says. We could have done all that and probably have survived

another several years. I guess we could have glossed it over by saying:

"We didn't impose any heavier tax on you; we didn't take any services

away." No politician likes to upset the electorate. You always like to

be popular, you like to have the opportunity to get the vote. No

politician likes to have a rally on the front lawn or have people take

over a courthouse. I'd suggest that's irresponsible, and this

government, when it got its mandate, said, "We have a job to do," and

we're going to do it.

The NDP and some of those union leaders out there who are very vocal

and damning in their comments have not tested the political winds and

are not in tune with their members or with the population of British

Columbia. As I say, the people out there recognize the reality of today

and the need for restraint in this province.

We have often been accused of " the closure," the fact that there

was a motion the other night by one of my colleagues that the question

be now put, and the great hue and cry by the Leader of the Opposition.

Let me just read the first few paragraphs of a news item from February

23, 1934:

"The first political skirmish in the legislative

session occurred Thursday when the CCF fired its opening shot. It was a

very mild encounter, but not lacking

[ Page 2015 ]

in sagacious political inspiration. At the termination of a short,

suave and gentle speech, Rev. Robert Connell, opposition leader, moved that

the debate on the address be shut off at once, in order, as he said, that the

government might proceed forthwith with the implementation of its policy of

work and wages. He moved formally, 'the question now be put.' "

Closure, Mr. Speaker, is what was done in 1934 by a CCF member, the party that is now known as the predecessor of the NDP.

In closing, I just want to say that it's evident to the majority in

this province that restraint is needed. It's evident to the vast

majority in this province that we wish to get government out of the

lives of people and business in this province. The budget and the bills

are needed and accepted to achieve our goal of economic recovery. Take

away the party stripe, and I believe we all know that economic recovery

will mean the maintenance of people services in this province. If we

demand special protection as public servants, ignoring the taxpayers'

ability to pay, we will fail to reach that goal of economic recovery. I

think the members opposite also recognize that, Mr. Speaker, although

they fail to say it in debate ' I think they recognize that the only

way you can provide for people services — for health, education, human

resources, police services, etc. — is by having an economy that can

generate revenue for the government. We ended up with a deficit

forecast in this year of $1.6 billion, but when you look at the budget

— and I refer to the member for Burnaby Edmonds (Ms. Brown) — Education

is up from $1.3 billion to $1.4 billion; Health, from $2.28 billion to

$2.45 billion; Human Resources, from $1.2 billion to $1.37 billion.

Those are substantial increases in those three areas of public service.

And when the opposition says, "You aren't creating jobs," look again at

that budget under the employment development account, which has $245

million identified in an area that creates employment in this province

at a time when it's needed. We maintained those people services; we

helped the private sector generate employment in this province. That is

the reason we have the deficit we have, but we recognize that we have

to be limited in the demands we put on the taxpayers.

In conclusion, I want to say that I wholeheartedly support Bill 11,

as it is one of the many parts of the formula needed to achieve an

economic solution to the problems facing this province.

[10:00]

MS. BROWN: I want to say first of all how pleased I am that

the government members have decided to participate in the business of

the House. I went home this weekend, and I had the opportunity to speak

to three different groups of people. I was forced to tell them that the

government members were drawing their paycheques but not doing any work

— that in fact they were not participating in debate. I promised to

mail out the Hansard s to them to show them that for an entire

week when this House sat around the clock the government members did

not participate at any time in the debate except to introduce closure

or to move points of order, but they were collecting their paycheques.

I am glad that they have decided to change their strategy. The

government members have now decided to earn their salaries rather than

just sitting on their prerogatives and slurping at the public trough,

which is one thing they do so efficiently and so effectively. I want to

congratulate them for deciding to participate in the business of the

House at this time.

I want to set the record straight for the hundreds of people in the

gallery who, after listening to the last speaker, the minister, may

wonder what we are talking about. We are talking about the legislation

being introduced by the government to deal with the massive deficit

which they ran up, not the opposition. The government itself ran up the

deficit which it is now trying to deal with, and the government is

introducing legislation to deal with a public sector workforce which is

large, based on their increasing that public sector workforce. They are

the ones who built the public sector up to the size it is, not the

opposition. Now they introduce legislation that says we have got to

downsize the public sector. You are the ones who upsized the public

sector.

[Mr. Segarty in the chair.]

What we are dealing with is schizophrenia. We have a government

going around the province introducing legislation, making speeches,

talking about righting wrongs which they themselves created. If that is

not schizophrenia, I don't know what it is. They built up the deficit,

and now they are saying to the people of the province that we have got

to do something about this deficit. They created it. This was not an

opposition deficit. Everybody knows that they have been government for

27 of the last 30 years. You built up the deficit that you are now

talking about and dealing with, saying everyone must tighten their

belts and do something about it. You with your profligate spending,

with your profligate ways, with your incompetence, your ineptitude,

built up this deficit which is now a burden on the province, and you

have the consummate all to stand on the floor of this Legislature and

say to the people of British Columbia: "You have got to restrain

yourself so that we can deal with this deficit." It is your stupidity,

your profligacy, your ineptitude and your incompetence that created

that deficit. The opposition didn't build that deficit up: the people

of British Columbia didn't build that deficit up; you did. Instead of

taking responsibility for the deficit, instead of hanging your heads in

shame, instead of apologizing to the people of British Columbia for

your incompetence, your ineptitude and your profligacy, you've got the

consummate gall to go to them and say to them: "You have got to tighten

your belt."

Do you know what you do? You say to the people of British Columbia,

"Tighten your belts," but you make no effort to tighten your own belts.

You still continue in your profligate ways. You are still using the

government jet as your private limousine to fly home for dinner every

night. You are still using a S60,000 VIP box to wine and dine your

friends and your colleagues while you watch a football game. You still

spend a fortune on advertising, on your offices, on your private

expenses and those kinds of things. You take pretty good care of

yourselves, and then you make speeches to the people of B.C. and say:

"Tighten your belts. You've got to restrain yourselves." You're not

restraining yourselves. You're still spending money, still slurping at

the public trough. Look at those buttons you're wearing; they're

probably all paid for by the taxpayers of British Columbia.

Interjection.

MS. BROWN: Oh, yes, they are. You guys don't pay for one single thing yourselves. When the vouchers come up

[ Page 2016 ]

before Public Accounts a year from now, we're going

to find a voucher to cover the cost of those buttons you're wearing at

the same time that you're talking to the public of British Columbia.

HON. MR. HEWITT: Who paid for your buttons? I want to know.

MS. BROWN: There is no way that the opposition can slurp at the public trough.

I think that sometimes we have to remind the government about the

real.... I don't want to use the word "hypocrisy," because it's on the

list of unparliamentary words so I'm not allowed to use it. But I think

that every now and then the government should know that they're not

fooling anybody. They're not kidding anybody over here. We know who's

running up those bills. We know who is creating those deficits, for

goodness' sake. And we know who continues to do so. We sit here and

listen to these pious speeches: "Oh, the people of British Columbia

must tighten their belts." "I am a small businessman," says the first

member for Vancouver South (Mr. R. Fraser). "I know what it means not

to be able to meet a payroll, sob, sob, boohoo, boohoohoo." He broke my

heart. I was weeping; I was in absolute anguish and suffering listening

to the tragic situation of the member for Vancouver South, until

someone reminded me that five members of his cabinet sat up there in

the $60,000 VIP box drinking the B.C. booze and entertaining their

friends, while the rest of us couldn't even get it on TV. We had to

listen to the game on the radio. That's what happened to the rest of

British Columbia. And then he stands up and tells us that we've got to

tighten our belts and restrain ourselves.

It's time that the people of British Columbia understood what's

going on here. We have a government that has created a deficit which it

can no longer handle, and instead of doing something....

Interjection.

MS. BROWN: We're talking about Bill 11, the compensation restraint legislation.

Interjection.

MS. BROWN: Stabilization — thank you. That's the bill we're dealing with.

AN HON. MEMBER: The member for Omineca (Mr. Kempf) is watching you.

MS. BROWN: Oh, I know. The ogre from Omineca has got his eye on me, so I've got to straighten up and fly right.

Goodnight. Mr. Speaker, I want the record to show that the Minister

of Forests (Hon. Mr. Waterland) is leaving, with his tennis outfit.

AN HON. MEMBER: He's going out to look for a wood-nymph.

MS. BROWN: Precisely. The losing team is just leaving.

It's interesting that the Minister of Finance (Hon. Mr. Curtis),

whose bill it is, has just come in after being out of the House for an

hour. Did I get that right? Were you out for an hour?

HON. MR. CURTIS: About twenty minutes.

MS. BROWN: Okay.

I've made my point that the deficit we're dealing with was run up by

the government itself, and they are now asking the people of British

Columbia to help them deal with it; that they should do that with

courtesy and humility instead of making a big issue about it. The

oversized public sector we're dealing with is one that was blown up by

the government itself, and if it wants to downsize it, it should do so

carefully and by introducing due process, recognizing that it created

this monster that it's having to deal with.

However, that's not the reason I'm on my feet. What I really want to

talk about, in speaking against this piece of legislation, is the

people who are mostly going to be affected by it. The Minister of

Finance talks about FTEs: full-time equivalents. The best way to deal

with a person, whether it is in war or any other time, is to

depersonalize him. We're not talking about human beings when we talk

about firing 6,000 people; we're talking about some strange thing known

as an FTE. We're not talking about living, breathing people. The

government tells us that nobody's going to lose his job; positions are

going to disappear. Presumably that's supposed to make us not care. The

reality of the situation is that we are talking about human beings. We

are talking about people who are going to lose their jobs and suffer as

a direct result of this piece of legislation introduced by the

government.

The original Compensation Stabilization Act was introduced in April

1982, and at that time the Premier said: "This is a temporary measure,

so everyone who has been fired, don't worry. Go on UIC and when that

runs out go on welfare, and by then things will be better and we will

rehire you again. You will be redeployed in the government's employ."

Now, a year and some months later, we find another piece of legislation

which says that the stabilization program, or "restraint" as it is

called, is to be extended indefinitely. In other words, those people

who were fired last year are not going to be rehired now that their UIC

has run out and they have been on welfare for a while. But in addition,

more people are going to be fired and laid off. We've heard all these

pious statements like: "Now the public sector worker is going to be

treated exactly the same as the private sector worker has always been

treated."

I would like to give you a couple of statistics, Mr. Speaker. Of the

people employed by the government, in all of its jobs, 51.1 percent are

women. That's what we're talking about. What we were talking about

under Bill 28 last spring and what we're talking about under Bill 11

this year is this government's unrelenting onslaught on the working

women of this province. That's what we're talking about. We're not

talking about positions and FTEs, and all those other euphemistic

statements, initials, alphabet soup and that kind of thing. This

government is the largest employer of women in British Columbia. That,

unfortunately, is the reality that we have to live with. The government

has also been, despite all of the things you may have heard to the

contrary, one of the most ungenerous employers in the province. Do you

want to know something, Mr. Speaker?

MR. KEMPF: No, not really.

MS. BROWN: Well, you may not want to know it, and if I were

in your position I probably wouldn't want to know it either, but I want

to tell you that the women who work for this

[ Page 2017 ]

government need to have the government know these

facts, and that is that most of the women who work for this government

make less than $1,500 a month. They can't afford to sit in a VIP box to

watch a football game; they can't even afford to go to the football

game. The working conditions of the women who work for this government

are disgraceful. The so-called FTEs and positions which the Minister of

Finance talks about are a disgrace in the affluent and wealthy province

that we live in, a province where the government can use a private jet

to take its ministers home for supper every night, and can spend

$250,000 on a poll prior to the election to find out what women think

and what they want to hear from the government, so that the government

could turn out brochures promising them the moon and the stars, and

then deliver nothing. If that money had been spent on giving even a 1

percent increase to the large number of women, most of whom are in the

clerical ghetto, they would have been better off than having that money

spent on that poll.

[10:15]

Now we have before us a piece of legislation which says that the

government wants to extend indefinitely, forever if possible, the right

to continue this attack on the working women of this province.

These are the statistics. As I said before, Mr. Speaker, 80 percent

of the workers involved in the hospital services of the government are

women, and 84.7 percent of the health sciences employees are women.

MR. CAMPBELL: How come the men are being discriminated against?

MS. BROWN: That member for Okanagan North, who took the place

of Mrs. Jordan, says: "How come the men are being discriminated

against?" I find it impossible to deal with the total lack of education

of government members in the 40 minutes allotted to me, because if that

member knew anything he would know that for every dollar that a man

earns in this province a women earns 59 cents. That's the kind of

discrimination men are suffering in this province.

Look at the public sector worker. Look at the information put out by

the Ministry of Labour and by the Public Service Commission of this

government itself. It says that 51.1 percent of the employees are

women, and most of them are locked and closeted in the clerical ghetto.

Their average income is less than $1,500 a month. That's the reason I

am not fighting on behalf of the men in the public sector but on behalf

of the women. Any time the men are in the position that the women are

now in, then I'll fight for them too. I'll fight for them too. I like

men. I don't see anything wrong with them. But I think it is so

patently unfair that for every dollar that is paid to a man in the

public sector and any other employ in this province, a woman is paid 59

cents. You should consider that unfair too and you should be standing

on your feet and fighting against that too.

Do you know what we have? We have Mr. Walter Block of the Fraser

Institute — that great institute that advises the Minister of Finance

and tells him what to put in his budget — addressing the chamber of

commerce in Victoria and saying: "The women of B.C. should not be upset

with the Premier because their wages are not as high as men's wages

are. They should be upset with their husbands. Do you know why? Because

their husbands insist that they have babies and that they stay home and

do the washing and the cooking."

MR. KEMPF: It's about time they did.

MS. BROWN: The member for Omineca thinks that's wonderful. I

believe that it is great that women should be the ones responsible for

having babies, because if that was something that was left to the men,

God knows what would happen to that job — they'd mess that one up too,

as they've messed up everything else they've done. But that's not

reason enough to penalize them. and that's what this piece of

legislation does. This legislation penalizes working women. When we

come around to debate Bill 26, which wipes out the basic employment

standards which protect women.... I'm not reflecting on another piece

of legislation. I'll deal with that when the time comes, but you put

that in the same package as this legislation and Bill 3 and all the

other pieces of legislation, and what you see is an unrelenting

onslaught against working women in this province. Do you know what the

end result of that is? The statistics that go back to the beginning of

time on poverty in this country show that the poorest people in this

country are women and they are never, ever going to break out of that

poverty cycle as long as we have to deal with this kind of legislation.

Until government members like that member for Okanagan North and that

member for Omineca and that Minister of Finance and the Minister of

Education and that member for Mission–Port Moody, Mr. Speaker, who are

the only government members sitting in the House aside from yourself

and the little member for Surrey....

AN HON. MEMBER: Point of order.

MS. BROWN: Oh, sorry — the member for Shuswap-Revelstoke (Mr.

Michael) is included. Until those members get into their government

caucuses and start fighting on behalf of changing these injustices, we

are always going to have those kinds of statistics.

Do you know what happens? One of the things that women have been

fighting for is equal pay, because they've decided that they don't want

to live on welfare. they don't want to live on UIC, they don't want to

be dependent on handouts from spouses or governments or anywhere else.

They want true value for their work. They just want to be paid true

value for the work they do. That's not going to be possible any more

under this kind of legislation. It is not possible under Bill 11 or

Bill 28. When the trade unions are fighting for their very survival,

they haven't got the energy to put into the battle supporting women in

their fight for equal pay. As long as you have poverty you are going to

have a drain on the public purse. That is so obvious to everybody. When

people work and have an income, they pay taxes, they buy the goods and

they buy the services of the small business sector, of the medium

business sector, of industry and commerce — they can pay rent, they can

buy houses, they can afford mortgages. they can make an economic

contribution to the common wealth of the community in which they live.

You can't do that when you are poor.

Poverty is a drain on the public purse. If we are interested in

doing something about the public purse, we should be committed to the

elimination of poverty. We should be wiping it out. Even if we don't

care about the emotional and psychological ravages of poverty, even if

we have a government that says: my interest is only in the bottom line;

just talk to me about dollars and cents; don't talk to me about

emotions, about psychology, about compassion and feelings and those

kinds of bleeding-heart things that you social workers

[ Page 2018 ]

are always talking about.... Even if you put those

things aside and only talk about dollars and cents, poverty still ends

up being a drain on the public purse. It is a drain on the common

wealth. It is a burden on every single one of us, not just the people

who are poor.

You would think that the Fraser Institute, which is supposed to be

the embodiment of brilliance and intelligence, would have been able to

recognize that fact and that in advising the Minister of Finance and

the government it would be talking about ways in which we could create

jobs and generate economic independence for all of the people in the

community instead of introducing this kind of legislation which locks

people into low-paying jobs, into low-paying work ghettos and into

poverty. Do you realize that we have people working for the provincial

government whose income is so low that they are eligible for day-care

subsidy'? They were eligible for the renter's grant when it existed.

They were eligible for the provincial tax credit when it was still in

existence. That's how low their salary was. They were putting in a full

day's work, and their full day's pay was so low that they were eligible

for welfare handouts. This piece of legislation entrenches that; this

piece of legislation says that that can go on indefinitely.

When the bill was first introduced in April of last year as Bill 28,

I spoke in opposition to it, I was opposed to it and I gave the very

same arguments then that I am giving now. I said that the bill

penalizes and hurts 51.1 percent of the number of people employed in

the public sector and that we the government, as the largest employer

of women in the province, have a responsibility to set an example. We

have got to establish standards that the private sector should be

aiming to meet. Instead of ' that we are doing the very opposite. By

introducing the stabilization bill, which downgrades the increase in

income that a person can have who works in the public sector,, we are

not establishing those standards.

Do you know what happened during that period of time, Mr. Speaker? I

have here a comparison of food prices. Between 1979 and 1982 there was

an increase in the price of milk of 31 percent, in bread of 40 percent

and in meat of 17 percent; energy costs went from 79 cents a gallon for

gas to $2 a gallon. During that same period of time we are talking

about an increase in the income of those workers of something in the

neighbourhood of 8 percent.

There is no way that these people were ripping off the province.

Because they weren't getting an adequate income the government and the

taxpayers were being forced to subsidize them in other ways such as

rental, day-care costs and income tax credits. They were being

subsidized in all kinds of different ways. Wouldn't it have made more

sense, when we are talking about stabilization, to talk about helping

to close the gap, helping to create