1990 Legislative Session: 4th Session, 34th Parliament

HANSARD

The following electronic version is for informational purposes only.

The printed version remains the official version.

Official Report of

DEBATES OF THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY

(Hansard)

THURSDAY, APRIL 26, 1990

Afternoon Sitting

[ Page

9197 ]

CONTENTS

Routine Proceedings

Ministerial Statement

Local government awareness week. Hon. L. Hanson –– 9197

Mr. Rose

Oral Questions

AIDS information, Mr. Perry –– 9197

Surgery waiting-lists. Mr. Perry –– 9198

REAL Women. Ms. Pullinger –– 9198

Vancouver Community College dispute. Mr. Jones –– 9198

Home support worker dispute. Mr. Serwa –– 9199

Purchase of computer equipment. Mr. Lovick –– 9199

Air pollution, Mr. Cashore –– 9199

Royal assent to bill –– 9200

Budget Debate

Hon. Mrs. Gran –– 9200

Mr. Barnes –– 9202

Hon. S. Hagen –– 9207

Ms. Edwards –– 9211

Mr. Mercier –– 9214

Mr. Sihota –– 9217

Mr. Huberts –– 9221

Mr. Miller –– 9224

The House met at 2:03 p.m.

MR. CASHORE :

Mr. Speaker, in the gallery today are five members of the Western

Canada Wilderness Committee: Adrian Carr, Paul George, Joe Foy, Derrick

Young and Ken Lay. Will the House join me in making them welcome.

HON. MR. MESSMER :

Mr. Speaker, visiting us today from the great city of Penticton are two

good friends: Glo Hamilton and Bill Muir. Would the members please join

me in welcoming them.

MR. PERRY : Mr. Speaker, I have

the pleasure to welcome Ms. Nancy Skinner, who is a councillor from the

city of Berkeley, which, as some of you may know, is often said to have

the second-best university in the world after UBC. She's a prominent

environmentalist and active in municipal initiatives for environmental

protection. It's a delight to have her with us today up in the gallery.

MS. PULLINGER :

Mr. Speaker, it's my pleasure today to introduce two people. One is a

young New Democrat — I believe he's in the Speaker's gallery — Simon

Philp. The other is David Winter, who is the representative of the CLC

for Vancouver Island and the north coast — also from my riding of

Cowichan Ladysmith. Would the House please help me make these two

people welcome.

MR. SPEAKER : Hon. members, just

before I call on the Clerk for the next order of business, members are

advised that following question period, His Honour the

Lieutenant-Governor will be attending the House for passage of the

Supply Act. Members should be advised that immediately after question

period, we will show His Honour the courtesy of staying in the House

for that brief period of time.

Ministerial Statement

LOCAL GOVERNMENT AWARENESS WEEK

HON. L. HANSON :

Mr. Speaker, I rise to make a ministerial statement. Each year at this

time, the province celebrates Local Government Awareness Week. Each

community in British Columbia is celebrating this event in some manner.

I would like to ask members of the House to join me in recognizing the

important role of local government in the life of this province.

all understand that local government is the cornerstone of Canadian

democracy. Moreover, local government provides the vital services and

public Works that citizens of British Columbia depend on every day.

Excellent management at the community level has helped spur British Columbia's

remarkable economic growth. I ask that members of the House join me in commending

the efforts of our colleagues at the municipal level and wishing them well as

they face the challenges of municipal government in the nineties.

MR. ROSE :

I'm pleased to respond to the minister and thank him for making certain

that we have this ministerial statement of his, which I think conforms

admirably to the guidelines for ministerial statements. He must have

been reading that great source, George MacMinn, on page 52.

Many

of the people in this room are former participants in local government.

I think we have some appreciation not only of what the responsibilities

are, but of the fact that you are very close to the people you

represent and also what an important part of our three levels of

government they really are. The former mayor of Vernon who just gave

that is, I think, an example of how it's often an excellent training

ground for people who wish to go on to other offices.

I'm

really pleased to hear that the government has seen fit to honour local

government because I felt, during the early part of the throne speech

and budget, that they were kicking them around as being obstacles — or

something like that — in the way of development, housing and that sort

of thing. This will certainly reassure them. I'm reassured; I hope

people in local government are. I thank the minister once again for

making this available to us.

MR. SPEAKER : I wouldn't

want the House to be misled. It's page 50 of MacMinn, not page 52. Page

52 deals with a rather unpleasant issue which we wouldn't want to

discuss.

Oral Questions

AIDS INFORMATION

MR. PERRY :

The minister is no doubt aware that the REAL Women newsletter contains

malicious and dangerous information regarding persons with AIDS. Has

the minister decided to correct some of the damage caused by this

government-financed mailing by assisting the Persons with AIDS

Coalition and the distribution of educational material to help halt the

spread of AIDS?

HON. J. JANSEN : Mr. Speaker, I'm not

familiar with this document, but I would hope that the hon. member

would, through the consultative process that we are going to undertake

with the AIDS strategy, bring this information forward to us at that

time.

MR. PERRY : On a supplementary, the information

question was front page in the provincial newspaper this morning. Does

the minister not realize that without an explicit attempt to counter

this government-financed misinformation, his entire ministry's efforts

towards AIDS prevention can only be undermined?

[ Page 9198 ]

HON. J. JANSEN :

It's unfortunate that when we get questions in the House, there are two

questions always written down, and regardless of what the answer is,

the second question is always asked. I would again refer the member to

my comments that we're going to undertake a very extensive consultation

program in terms of developing an AIDS strategy. I would hope he would

be very active in that regard and give us a lot of information to

ensure we do present a balanced policy.

SURGERY WAITING-LISTS

MR. PERRY : I can assure the minister I will be active in that regard.

the moment people in British Columbia are dying because of delays in

getting hospital treatment. Most recently a Kamloops heart patient died

in Calgary after being turned away from British Columbia hospitals and

waiting 30 hours in Kamloops. The minister is sitting on a private

report by an Ottawa consultant that reports on the reasons for these

deadly delays. Has the minister decided to level with British

Columbians on why people on surgical waiting-lists are dying and table

the report in this Legislature?

HON. J. JANSEN : It's

regrettable, again, that the member opposite sometimes allows his

politics to influence and cloud his professional judgment. A statement

such as that is irresponsible to the extreme.

The report

that the member is referring to is about two years old. It relates to

open-heart surgery. We have implemented all of the recommendations

except for one. If the hon. member would like a copy of the report, I

would be pleased to give it to him.

MR. PERRY :

Supplementary. I thank the minister for his assurance that he will

table that report. This latest death in Kamloops is not an isolated

incident. At least 12 heart patients died in British Columbia last year

while waiting for surgery.

The Finance minister (Hon. Mr.

Couvelier) has told us that heart surgery waiting-lists are the fault

of there being too many doctors. Can the Health minister name one

patient who died in this province because there were too many doctors?

REAL WOMEN

MS. PULLINGER :

I have a question to the Minister Responsible for Women's Programs.

Yesterday your Premier said that he saw nothing wrong with the REAL

Women newsletter distributed by this government. Even the Tourism

minister (Hon. Mr. Michael) agreed that some of it was offensive after

he read the newsletter. On behalf of the government side of the House,

is the minister now prepared to repudiate the contents of this

literature?

HON. MRS. GRAN : I had an opportunity

last night to read the letter in question. I have already said to the

press today that I intend to speak at that meeting. I think that group

needs to hear my message more than any group in this province. Let it

be known to the members of the opposition that the Minister Responsible

for Women's Programs in this province does not believe in intolerance,

and that I care very deeply about all of the women in British Columbia.

MS. PULLINGER :

I notice that the minister did not repudiate the contents of this

document. What we're asking from this government is ethical leadership.

Will the minister please confirm that she refuses to repudiate this

literature because its author is a political friend and supporter of

the Premier and because this government shares the view expressed in

this literature?

HON. MRS. GRAN : Mr. Speaker, I have

no difficulty — as I didn't yesterday — in saying that the contents of

the letter are not appropriate and are not my views.

MS. PULLINGER :

In light of that latest comment, has the minister decided that when she

speaks to REAL Women on behalf of all British Columbians, she will

specifically inform this group that the people of this province do not

support and are in fact offended by their ongoing campaign to deny

women choice on abortion?

[2:15]

HON. MRS. GRAN :

At this point I would like to point out to this House that there are

sides in every issue and sides where women are concerned also extreme

sides. But 80 percent of the women in this province hold the same

moderate, caring views as I do, and those are the women I represent.

MS. PULLINGER :

Mr. Speaker, British Columbians are offended that this government paid

to distribute this literature. Does the minister not realize that

without an explicit condemnation of this material in her speech, women

in British Columbia can only assume that she supports these policies?

MR. SPEAKER : I don't believe there was a question. The member for Burnaby North.

VANCOUVER COMMUNITY COLLEGE DISPUTE

MR. JONES :

I have a question for the Minister of Advanced Education. As of

tomorrow, some 1,500 UIC-sponsored students at Vancouver Community

College will lose their sponsorship and support in their job training

programs. I'd like to ask the minister: what steps has the minister

taken to ensure that those UIC-sponsored students are going to be able

to complete their training?

HON. MR. STRACHAN : The

steps that will be taken by this ministry in that issue will be taken

when they have to be. But let me say for the record that in the case of

this dispute, which I feel terribly

[ Page

9199 ]

bad about, the Legislative Assembly has to remember

that government is neither the employer nor the employee. This is a

legitimate labour dispute in the province between an employer and an

employee.

Regrettably, as in most labour disputes, there

are people who are going to suffer in one way or the other. However,

the law is the law. Negotiation continues with mediator Allan Hope. I

would urge both sides to return to the table and bargain in good faith.

I can assure this assembly that it is not my position nor the

government's to intervene in legitimate labour disputes.

MR. JONES :

Supplementary to the same minister. Unless a settlement is imminent,

those 1,500 students will suffer great personal hardship. The minister

is reported recently as having said that he will try to get talks

rolling again. I would like to ask the minister: what is he doing? What

has he done to get those talks rolling?

HON. MR. STRACHAN :

Unlike the New Democratic Party, it is not our policy to interfere in

these matters. Bargaining is continuing, and if I was the result of

that.... That's conjecture. I assured everyone a few days ago in the

statements that the member is referring to.... I urged both sides to

return to the table. It's my understanding that they have, and I

sincerely hope they can conclude their negotiations and begin the

operation at Vancouver Community College and those two struck campuses

as quickly as possible.

MR. JONES : A short

supplementary. Is the minister saying that he has been misquoted in his

statement that he will try to get talks rolling again?

HON. MR. STRACHAN :

Yes, you could conclude that, because I never said I would try to get

talks started again. My comment in this issue, as it was in the Douglas

dispute of late last year, was this: "I urge both sides to return to

the bargaining table." Those are the only comments I have made with

respect to this dispute and the previous dispute, so they are

consistent with the policy that this government takes to commenting on

labour disputes.

HOME SUPPORT WORKER DISPUTE

MR. SERWA :

My question is to the Minister of Health. Sheila Fruman, a British

Columbia government employees' spokesperson, and an individual who has

acted as a press officer to the Leader of the Opposition, accused you

in this morning's Times-Colonist

of abdicating your responsibility in the home support worker dispute.

Could the minister advise the House of the current situation regarding

the provision of these very important services?

HON. J. JANSEN : The BCGEU is seeking a contract with four home support

agencies, and this I believe to be a first contract for the BCGEU in this particular

care. They are seeking a contract that is richer than other contracts signed

in the industry. They are proceeding with bargaining and unfortunately have

reached some confrontations.

colleague suggested before that we urge further negotiations. It's

obviously not a matter for the Minister of Health to become involved

in. We buy services from these home support agencies, and they are

represented by the Continuing Care Employee Relations Association.

PURCHASE OF COMPUTER EQUIPMENT

MR. LOVICK :

A question to the Minister of Transportation and Highways. Can the

minister confirm that in the last month of this fiscal year her

ministry purchased some $10 million worth of personal computer

equipment?

HON. MRS. JOHNSTON : Mr. Speaker, I would have to take that question as notice. I don't have that knowledge.

MR. SPEAKER : A new question?

MR. LOVICK : A new question, Mr. Speaker, to the same minister. If indeed some such equipment was purchased, can the minister tell us...?

Interjections.

MR. LOVICK : It was worth a try.

MR. SPEAKER : The members are starting to police themselves. The Chair is delighted.

AIR POLLUTION

MR. CASHORE :

Mr. Speaker, a question to the Minister of Environment. The Minister of

Forests (Hon. Mr. Richmond) has waffled on the issue of reducing C0 2 emissions by reducing slash-burning. Will this minister confirm that the best way to reduce C0 2 emissions, given the report that came out recently, is to reduce slash-burning?

HON. MR. REYNOLDS :

I disagree with the comments made by the member about the Minister of

Forests. I would suggest to him that he should read more than one

report before he asks a question in this House.

MR. SPEAKER :

Before recognizing the member for Rossland-Trail (Mr. Darcy), I would

advise the House that the second member for Vancouver East (Mr. Clark)

is absent today because his wife and he are the proud parents of a new

baby girl. In celebration of that, the House would like to send them a

note.

The member for Prince George North (Mrs. Boone) is

today celebrating the annual occasion of her birth. The House will

please make her welcome.

[ Page 9200 ]

Hon.

members, I am advised His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor is in the

precincts. I would ask all members to remain in their seats.

His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor entered the chamber and took his place in the chair.

CLERK-ASSISTANT : Supply Act (No. 1), 1990

CLERK OF THE HOUSE :

In Her Majesty's name, His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor doth thank

Her Majesty's loyal subjects, accept their benevolence and assent to

this bill.

His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor retired from the chamber.

Orders of the Day

Budget Debate

(continued)

HON. MRS. GRAN :

As I was saying before we adjourned for lunch, I am proud to stand up

and debate in a positive manner the budget, the only balanced budget in

Canada for the second year in a row. Instead of the debt that the NDP

stands for, the spending of the NDP socialists on the other side of the

House were they government would be quite a different story today in

this province. They expect the voters in the next election to elect

them as government so that we, once again, can find ourselves

debt-ridden in a province where we have a balanced budget and money in

the bank for a rainy day.

Having talked about my

constituency, I want to now talk about my ministry. I want to talk in

particular about women's programs and take this opportunity to dispel

some of the myths that have happened because of things that have been

said by opposition members.

The first thing I want to make

very clear is that the Ministry of Women's Programs is an advocacy

ministry. It's a ministry where 1, as Minister Responsible for Women's

Programs, make sure that all of the programs offered by every ministry

in government are good programs, that they're working and that they're

what the women of this province want.

[2:30]

My ministry is committed to assisting women in becoming economically

independent. A perfect companion for that to happen in an orderly and

speedy fashion is Government Management Services. Government Management

Services consists of a ministry of people who are committed to customer

service. They're committed to quality, and they're committed to caring.

Those are all the ingredients necessary to make women's programs work.

So Government Management Services offers women's programs an extra measure

of support that would not be there if women's programs were a ministry on

its own. The office of information technology, as we heard yesterday, has put

together a position that will assist women in the public service to obtain new

skills for jobs when the jobs they hold as clerical workers disappear through

technology. Those are the kinds of innovations this ministry is responsible

for.

the last five and a half months, this ministry has created more

successes for women than at any other time in this province — even

during the years of the NDP. I remind this House what a former member

of this House on the NDP side had to say about Dave Barrett when he was

the Premier of British Columbia: "This condescension was galling, an

example of the most glaring paternalism centred on the introduction of

a women's ministry. Dave Barrett, the new Premier, publicly rejected

the policy of a women's ministry." That's how much the NDP care about

women in this province.

She goes on to say: "The depth of

Barrett's ignorance about women's issues was profound." That particular

member of the NDP is now a member in our federal Parliament. Not only

that, but Barrett ran for the leadership of the NDP, hoping to be the

Prime Minister of Canada, and holding views that clearly do not

coincide with the views we continually hear about women's issues from

the other side of this House.

MS. PULLINGER : Rosemary Brown said nobody could do better than Dave Barrett for women. He did it.

HON. MRS. GRAN :

Yes, I think the second member for Nanaimo is right. He did it; he did

nothing — absolutely nothing for the women in this province.

Interjections.

HON. MRS. GRAN :

Let me talk, Mr. Speaker, about some of the things we've done in the

last five and a half months, and the leadership that this government

has shown. Let's talk about pay equity for the public service in

British Columbia. Let's talk about the many women in the public service

who will benefit from that pay equity program.

Fairness for

women in the public service will cost millions of dollars when it's

implemented. That is leadership on the part of this government, and I'm

proud of it. That is just the first step.

The private

sector must take note of what the government is doing and implement

their own pay equity programs. They must remember that on the other

side of the House, the NDP have promised that they will implement the

heavy hand of government throughout this province with legislation not

just for public servants, but for every individual business in this

province.

The devastation of that for business will be

great. Jobs will be lost because of the kind of implementation that the

NDP are known for doing. The NDP have all their friends to look after.

They owe big debts, and those debts would have to be paid.

[ Page 9201 ]

Now

let's talk about child care centres. We hear a lot about child care

from the NDP. On this side of the House, this government has instructed

every ministry to look at every building to see where child care

centres can be implemented, to demonstrate leadership for the private

sector.

Let me tell you what the critic for women on the

NDP side has to say about child care, quoted from the Vancouver Sun,

September 16, 1988: "The federal government is proposing a $6.4 billion

child care program spread over seven years. We are asking the

provincial government not to sign it." That's how much the critic on

the other side of the House cares about child care.

Today

British Columbia is in the position of having to ask its taxpayers on

their own to put in place the child care, which we need the help and

assistance from the federal government for. So I think the women of

this province can say "thank you" to the NDP for helping to defeat

something that was badly needed.

I want to talk about some

of the goals being set for the addition of more women to boards and

commissions and management positions in this government. Those goals

are in place, and they are working. There are more women in management

positions in government today and in the last three years than at any

time in the history of this government and this House.

want to talk about regional development. I want to explain to the other

side of the House how this ministry works. In its budget, Regional

Development will include programs for women who want to get into

business, including home occupations. When you're looking at the budget

for the ministry of women's programs, you have to look further than

that. Look at Regional Development and Advanced Education, which have

received more funding. That funding will In many ways assist colleges

to offer more training programs for women, especially for those left on

their own to support children and without the job skills to get

good-paying jobs. Advanced Education is responsible for a very big part

of that.

Let's talk about social services and the myth out

there that women's centres are shelters. Women's centres are not

shelters. Shelters are provided by the Ministry of Social Services, and

with the 25-percent increase in funding for transition houses this

coming year, we will be spending $10 million in this province on

transition houses — safety for women and children being battered at

home.

I want to talk about the Ministry of Health and the

greater access to mammography testing recently announced by the

Minister of Health — another indication that this government cares

about women. I want to talk about millions and millions of dollars in

services to women, including access to a B.C. pension plan. At least 50

percent of the people in this province do not have access to a pension

plan. This government....

Interjections.

HON. MRS. GRAN :

Well, you start with a White Paper — for the member for Prince George

North (Mrs. Boone) — so that people in the province can have some input.

Interjections.

MR. SPEAKER :

Order, please. Could we please have the minister address the Chair, and

could we have fewer interjections. This is the most interjections we've

had so far in the budget speech; somewhat fewer would make the House a

little more pleasant and might give a better impression for our

visitors today.

HON. MRS. GRAN : Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Then I won't have to speak so loudly.

just noticed that on the other side of the House there are four female

members in the NDP and one very nice male member whom I have very fond

feelings for. I'm going to do something a bit political at this point

and point out the difference between the philosophy of women on this

side of the House and that of women on that side of the House.

look at the second member for Vancouver Centre (Mr. Barnes) and wonder

how he felt when the female caucus of the NDP tried to have him

defeated in his nomination meeting. I wonder what feeling that gives in

your caucus. I wonder how the men in your caucus feel and whether they

trust you.

Interjection.

HON. MRS. GRAN :

Well, you see, your view of democracy and my view of democracy are

different. Shoving a knife in your colleague's back is not democracy,

in my view. Anyway, it points out in a very small way the difference

between the women in the Social Credit Party and those in the NDP.

MR. BARNES :

On a point of order, I first of all want to thank the member for her

very kind, adoring words which she bestowed upon me. However, I should

set the record straight with respect to some of her other remarks about

the female members in the caucus.

MR. SPEAKER : That's not a point of order.

MR. BARNES : It's just a clarification of the facts.

MR. SPEAKER :

No, hon. member. You have the opportunity, according to my speaker

list, of being the very next person to speak in this debate, and you'll

have ample opportunity at that time to clarify anything you wish to

clarify. Would the minister please continue.

HON. MRS, GRAN :

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I thank the member for his point of order.

When he gets up he can make up the usual stories that the NDP make up

about us. I happened to have read that

[ Page 9202 ]

in several publications, so I assumed, as you always do, that It was true.

Anyway,

on to women's programs. It's important for all of us in this House to

recognize that women are not just adult women and young women. The

women in this province start as young girls in school and they end as

seniors in this province. There are many concerns that need to be

addressed, and those concerns need to be addressed in a very caring

way. It's most important for women to work together. We can have our

political differences in this House, but one of the things I really

feel very strongly about — and the letter yesterday that we've had much

debate about pointed it out more than anything that I could ever bring

to the House — is that women must join forces and work together for the

betterment of all the women in this province.

The

polarization that exists is very demeaning to women on both sides. Some

of the statements made.... I think the massacre in Montreal that was

mentioned in that letter was the worst part to me. It was the most

tragic thing that I've seen happen in my lifetime to a group of women,

and for someone to use that in the way it was used in that letter is

very sad.

It was also sad to see the way some women's

groups made all men feel like they had committed that terrible crime. I

think that's the issue I want to point out: how women hurt themselves

sometimes by being filled with hate.

Many of the meetings I

have gone to as minister for women's programs have had that hate. One

in particular that I think about — you could cut the air with a knife —

was a difficult meeting for me, just as Saturday's meeting will be a

very difficult meeting for me. But I think it's important for me, as

minister responsible for women, to go to those meetings, to tell my

story about working together, about unity, caring and, above all

things, working together for the good not just of women but of children

— because if women don't represent children, who will? We don't often

hear speeches in this House about children because children don't vote.

Children are not a power, but children are our futures, and I

believe....

[2:45]

Interjection.

HON. MRS. GRAN :

The member for Esquimalt Port Renfrew (Mr. Sihota) doesn't want to hear

me talk about how important children are. He just likes to hear people

talk about — especially in his own voice — how important he is.

Mr.

Speaker, it's important for all of us, as people sent here by our

communities to represent them, that children are treated fairly, that

there is adequate housing for children and their mothers and fathers.

You hear a lot of criticism from the other side of the House about the

government not providing housing. They know on that side of the House

that this government has put millions of dollars into subsidies and

incentives to provide rental housing. They also know that the biggest

problem we face in this province is local governments who will not give

the zoning for that kind of housing, and you know it's true.

The

other thing you know on the other side of the House is that the

building of rental units ended after the NDP reign when we had rent

controls. It's true that no one, including the member for Esquimalt

Port Renfrew, would put their money into something that could end up

being a debt-ridden burden for them and governed by Big Brother. There

are lots of reasons why there isn't enough housing.

I want

to end my remarks by quoting the Leader of the Opposition, who said: "I

have a yardstick. If it's good for Vancouver, I'm for it; if It's not,

I'm opposed to it." The province has rejected that notion election

after election, as Social Credit governments were elected in every

region of this province.

Mr. Speaker, I support this

government, I support this budget, and I believe that the people of

this province in the next election will send Social Credit back to

Victoria to do the good job that they have always done.

HON. MR . REYNOLDS :

I know it is extremely unusual to ask leave to make an introduction in

the afternoon session, but there is a very important group here, and I

would ask leave to make an introduction.

MR. SPEAKER :

I would like to quote almost verbatim from Mr. Speaker Reynolds in his

encouragement for members not to do this, but I will ask the question.

Leave granted.

HON. MR. REYNOLDS :

I would like to introduce up in the gallery from Sentinel Secondary

School in West Vancouver some grade 11 students and their teachers, Mr.

Millard and Mr. May, and ask the House to make them very welcome.

MR. BARNES : I do not rise to support the budget. It has several flaws in it and omissions.

would like to say before I proceed with some of the remarks I have

prepared for today.... I'm not sure if this is the business of the

Legislature, but inasmuch as the matter has been raised with respect to

some of my female colleagues in caucus stabbing me in the back, I can

assure you nothing could be further from the truth.

It just

shows you that when you get information from the press, you do take

your chances, because we're not obliged to confirm what one may read in

the press. I know that there have been some misleading, inappropriate

comments made that were incomplete with respect to the true situation.

I don't want to get into details, but I can assure you, seriatim ,

right down the line, for every single female in our caucus I have

nothing but the utmost respect. They have respect for me. We are a

democratic party. Although I was challenged — and I regret this very

much — by a female, it was done in the spirit of democracy, and it was

fair game. I was vulnerable; I was attacked; I

[ Page 9203 ]

survived;

I got support from a few of my colleagues voluntarily — they were not

forced to do it. That's the end of the story. We are all a happy family

over here.

I have made so many speeches in this House that

you could just go to the computer and push a few buttons and pull out

speech number 1, 2, 3 or 4 and say the same thing again. I'm not

terribly enthusiastic about going down this budget and talking about

what it doesn't do.

We all know that the budget is a

contrivance by the Minister of Finance to try and create the illusion

that the province is being managed well, that the budget is reflective

of good government, and so forth. I find that those numbers are

misleading because they don't really get to the concerns. What really

matters in the end is services to people, the benefits to be derived

and the affordability of those services.

What we are faced

with today are disparities in terms of the accruing benefits. It

depends on where you're sitting or where you're standing. If you happen

to be a person who has a good job, a good income that allows you

sufficient dollars to buy the goods and services that are available in

society, fine. But if you are in a situation where you don't have

sufficient income to meet the demands of the marketplace, then you are

in difficulty.

[Mr. Pelton in the chair.]

want to talk about one aspect of the responsibility of government that

I think is neglected far too much. I'm not sure if I'm going to be able

to make the case in terms of the economic benefits that should accrue

to the people's government. In other words, we are talking dollars and

cents, but what about human conditions? What about human relations?

What about some of the symptoms that we are experiencing today with

respect to discontent in the community?

I am absolutely

appalled to think that we are less than ten years away from the turn of

the century. What we are experiencing today in terms of reactions to

the demographic changes that are taking place in this province is

frightening.

In the throne speech just a few days ago, His

Honour the Lieutenant-Governor was given the document to read in which

he promised that in June the government would be sponsoring a major

symposium on multiculturalism. That in itself should tell us something.

If the government is going to sponsor another — they didn't say

another, but you can add "another" — major symposium on

multiculturalism, there has to be an election in the making, because

every time we have ever had any attempt whatsoever to have a conference

with the people in the multicultural community in this province, it has

been just before an election. That goes back at least a decade, that I

can remember. We've had all the recommendations repeated and

regurgitated, and they are all stacked up in somebody's office.

what are we talking about? We're talking about cynicism, usury,

exploitation of people who are counting on a government to show some

responsibility and get on with showing leadership as we approach the

twenty-first century. We're not just talking about approaching the

twenty-first century, business as usual; we are talking about some

major changes that are taking place before our eyes.

I have

a list of symptoms — call them reactions — to those changes, and we've

all been reading about them. March was a big month for some of these

symptoms. Just a few days ago we had more symptoms; we have been

getting them almost daily. The government itself just got caught up in

some of those symptoms, which I will comment on.

But the

situation has been neglected and ignored, and now the chickens are

coming home to roost. "Chickens" is a complacent attitude that we have

had about the demography of this society, about the diversity of this

society, about the real history of this multicultural society — a

society that is made up of peoples from all races, all cultures, all

sexes, all religions, and all shapes, forms, sizes and ages from around

the world. And it has always been like that. In fact, one of the first

people to these shores 300 or 400 years ago was a black man coming over

with the French to the east coast, and he was an interpreter. If he had

been a hip politician, we probably would have had a better break as

black people in this country. But he was only a go-between; he didn't

get very much out of the deal.

I can suggest to you, Mr.

Speaker, that as we look at the reality of what's happening, we have

culture they have the dominance in society. That has been tradition;

that is the perception that's out there. I'm suggesting that your

government has failed to recognize the demographic changes that have

taken place, and you've allowed those people to sit there and get

themselves in a state of mind that is inappropriate for this day and

age, and it has been for a long time.

Sure, we accept some

realities. We are basically a bilingual society, except we realized

later that we couldn't live with the bicultural. We are multicultural;

we always have been. There are some things you're going to have to

accept, some things you're going to have to change. But right now we're

talking about a serious dilemma, an emergency situation. This is why

I'm picking this issue, because the symptoms have been loud and clear

for a long time, and now we are at the brink of disaster.

Just

a few weeks ago, Angus Reid, a well-known pollster, found that at least

one-third of Canadians were bigots. Even more surprising, he said that

at the very most, only one-third of them even believed in the mosaic

called multiculturalism, although we have a national, federal policy

called multiculturalism, one which we just enacted in 1988. We have

been pushing to have the act duplicated in this province. We don't have

it yet, although we're getting promises and promises.

[ Page 9204 ]

Mr.

Speaker, there's no need for this neglect. There's no need for us to

play politics with every single thing we do. Why can't we be

responsible? People's lives, people's security and people's goodwill

are at risk. Unless we address the concerns that our young people are

going to have to live with in the future right now, and in a

legislative way in this chamber and not leave it up to osmosis and hope

that people will somehow love each other and get along.... That would

be great, but that would be a miracle that has never been duplicated

anywhere in the history of the world.

We're going to have

to be realistic. People are naturally concerned about their own

self-interest; they want to be protected. When anything changes their

environment, they feel threatened because they are not in control and

do not understand. For too long we have sat back and allowed what we

call the free society, the free marketplace, to run wild. This

Legislature is here for a purpose: we are here to look after the best

interests of society and to be sensitive to the needs, the changes and

the diversity of society, and to address those in a democratic

atmosphere and deal with those principles that ensure that everyone is

respected, has status in this society, and is recognized for their

individuality and for their rights under the constitution of this

country.

Until we can assure that every individual feels

that, how can we be assured that they are going to protect that

process, that policy, that principle and those ideals? We're failing

them, because the things I've been reading in the paper lately tell me

that people are reacting rather than being responsible. They are making

demands and jumping to conclusions about their fellow human beings,

what their rights are and what they think the other person's rights are

without knowing the facts. I'm sure this is the case.

[3:00]

We're

dealing with ignorance. We're not dealing with maliciousness. We're not

dealing with people who are out to destroy because they simply are, as

Angus Reid is saying, "bigots." They didn't destine themselves to

become bigots; I'm sure of that. I think it's neglect. The New

Democrats on this side of the House and I believe that people

fundamentally want to live in peace and with goodwill. They want to be

able to trust their neighbours. They want to be able to go to sleep at

night without having to worry about someone burglarizing their place,

or that they are going to be demeaned, disgraced or put to shame

because of the colour of their face, their lifestyle, their value

system or their religion.

We have allowed these things to

fester and grow out there in an atmosphere of superficiality as far as

goodwill is concerned, because it is all a facade. People are uptight;

they are worried. They are asking a lot of questions. We're not giving

them the answers.

People don't understand enough to have

confidence in the system. I wonder how many people, when they are

criticizing immigration policies — which have shifted somewhat from the

European immigrant to the so-called visible minority along the

Pacific

Rim — stop to think what would happen if we abolished all immigration

in this country. Some people would say: "Good, now we don't have to

have growth. We will all have lots of jobs for ourselves."

But

Mr. Speaker, that's not the reality. The hard facts are that Canadians

do not reproduce enough of themselves to maintain the population. We

are far less in numbers than we require. We have something like 1.6

children per female, which is below the mortality rate. It doesn't work

out.

HON. S. HAGEN : I did my part.

MR. BARNES : You did your part.

a generation from now, somewhere in the first quarter of the

twenty-first century, we would probably have something like 25 percent

to 40 percent less population than we have in this country today. In

other words, instead of 26 million, we'd probably be looking at 15

million or less in another generation.

You have the

immigration. We've always had the immigration. We will continue to have

the immigration. This is my point. We are not recognizing the impact

this is going to have on the lives of people who do not understand what

is going on. Through ignorance, we are leaving them vulnerable to all

of these negative reactions which are hurting this country and this

society.

There's no need for that; there's no need for this

neglect. This is a serious matter. I have stood up in this House time

after time and begged the ministers over there — the Provincial

Secretary when he was in and the former Provincial Secretary who Is now

out.... The best we were ever able to get out of them was an advisory

committee on multiculturalism.

There's the new Provincial Secretary (Hon. Mr. Dirks).

have given them the right to advise, but no mandate whatsoever to

implement. There isn't a dime in the budget to deal with anything other

than a symposium, which I'm sure you know about. You've probably got a

whole bunch of big dollars. That means song and dance; that means more

reports. That means the Premier and all of his cabinet ministers will

parade in front of these people, take a few pictures and get everything

looking good. It's all a facade.

HON. MR. DIRKS : Are you against the symposium?

MR. BARNES :

Yes, I am against the symposium that is going to duplicate what you've

done before, because we've got all those reports already. You've got

recommendations already. What you've got to do is act. Why don't you

act? What are you going to find out in a symposium that you don't

already know? You don't need a symposium.

All you need is

action. You've got to get into the school system and stop some of this

stupid stuff that's going on with these kids attacking each other.

What's happening with the university students — the UBC engineers....

It's shameful that people in post-

[ Page 9205 ]

secondary

education — in an institution of higher learning — would get their

kicks by talking the way they do about native Indians, women and others

in society.

I think it's disgraceful, but it's happening.

It happened the other day with the rugby students of the Meralomas

rugby team in Vancouver. They got their kicks by looking at skits about

hanging Chinese who were going to purchase some property and about

women in sexually offensive and demeaning shapes. How can we accept

that? These are young people; these are not the old people.

Interjection.

MR. BARNES :

You agree 100 percent with me? Then you should tell the Premier and the

Minister of Tourism (Hon. Mr. Michael) that they should start reading

the stuff before they give people the privilege of using tax dollars to

put out hate literature. That's what that was. The government is not

organized. That's exactly what you were doing.

Let's get

smart and get wise because we are, by neglect, allowing this place to

corrupt. This place is decaying. People's security is the thing. You

can be sure that is happening when Angus Reid says that one-third of

the people in this society are bigots. That is enough. That's

horrifying. I suggest to you that it hasn't just started. It has been

this way for a long time. I am not overreacting, Mr. Minister. You say

I'm overreacting. We have our female members here who were just over to

the Union Club the other day to try and exercise the privilege that has

been extended to them as MLAs.

AN HON. MEMBER : And to you....

MR. BARNES :

And to us, of course. I never knew there was a problem, although I

haven't tried to apply for full membership. I may find that there is

some small print in the bylaws. Be that as it may, these colleagues

found out that they were not extended the full rights they thought they

had as MLAs.

Are we going to say that they're out because

they're malicious and don't respect people's humanity if they happen to

be the opposite sex? Let's be fair. Let's try to be more gracious.

Let's try to say that it's only by practice, custom and habit that they

know not the negative effects of their ways. What we have to do is

begin to enlighten people, and tell them to pay attention to their

behaviour and the effect it is having on other people.

It's

about time we looked, first, at the person and see a human being, and

don't look and see a sex. It's about time we look and say: "There is a

person." Sure, people will continue to have their colour and their hair

texture, and they will continue to wear certain kinds of clothes. They

will continue to have their religions, beliefs and lifestyles. First of

all in a democratic society, we've got to say: "That's a human being —

number one." And it's on that basis that we establish our principles.

The

problem is that we don't do that. This is what's annoying me when I see

these incidents in the paper. Imagine this Meralomas group, who found

it fit to do a mockery of those 14 female Laval engineering students in

Montreal who were massacred.

Keep in mind that these

youngsters thought this was fun. You've got to understand what we're

talking about; we are talking about people who think this is fun. We're

talking about people who go and buy rental snuff movies of people being

killed — people who are getting used to rape and violence on television.

HON. S. HAGEN : Where are their parents?

MR. BARNES :

Where are their parents? Where are their entrepreneurs who are

exploiting them through commercialism? They're selling this stuff on

television; this stuff is for sale. It's hard to go out and find any

toy that doesn't have some violence attached to it. We get our kicks,

we get our fix, we stay high by abusing each other. We are the most

inhumane people in this so-called democratic society in the world,

because we pretend that we're not. We really do get our fix by hurting

people.

HON. MR. VEITCH : Does that include football?

MR. BARNES :

I can tell you that I know what I'm talking about because I used to do

it for a living, and it's kind of hard to withdraw from that kind of a

lifestyle.

I may not make not all my points with respect to

the economic benefits of this problem, but I can assure you that if we

did a good job of making people feel that they were human first —

especially if we're going to be the province in this whole country that

is going to set the stage and be the leaders in the world today.... And

there aren't that many places in the world today that you can count on

like Canada.

The reason British Columbia is so important —

even more so than Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and all the provinces

in the east — is that we are the gateway. All of the politicians have

talked about the gateway to the Pacific and about the easy

out in the Pacific. We do a lot of business. In fact we would be in

really bad shape if we didn't have access to those markets. And we know

that.

People are coming here. As much as we fought the bad

side of Expo 86 and the way the government overspent to buy those

realty lands and then gave them away — a buying high and selling low

mentality.... I'm sure the stock market could never survive with that

approach. Nevertheless, that's an aside. You did that. You promoted,

and you got a good response. We're now having people coming to British

Columbia from all over the world, but you haven't done your homework.

Where's the multicultural policy? Where's the commitment to preparing

people so they can understand the dynamics? There are forces that are

taking place that you have created. You've sat back and said: "We'll

leave it to the free market-

[ Page 9206 ]

place." The free marketplace has to be regulated. The people who are participating have to understand how it works.

Interjection.

MR. BARNES :

That's right and you know it. You've got to ensure fairness and

equitability, and you've got to ensure that everyone can participate.

You've got to protect people and have working conditions. You've got to

make sure that there is no exploitation. You've got things like fair

wages. You know what I'm talking about — regulation. There's no such

thing as a free lunch, and there is no free market. There are markets

that are regulated, equitable and fair in order to ensure that people

can participate. They don't participate in a market that is one-sided.

What

I'm saying is that there are some people who cannot participate. We

still have people sleeping under bridges in this province. We have

people who are getting kicked out of their homes because of the high

cost of land, land that is being raised higher than it should be

because of exploitation and no laws that protect against flipping

because of absentee landlords being able to buy land and not use it for

their own homes, etc.

In other words, people's homes are

not really theirs unless they've got a lot of money. If they are

tenants living in an apartment building, they are at risk. They do not

have a home. They are always going to be at risk, because there is no

rentalsman; there are no controls; there is no protection whatsoever.

They are 30-day itinerants, no matter how long they've been living

there. You've got some very well-off tenants in the Kerrisdale area —

not in this member's constituency — who are finding that out. Their

homes are being converted to condominiums; some are being demolished.

People are finding out after 30 and 40 years of being good citizens and

saving their money that it is really only so much paper. People are

willing to buy homes nowadays sight unseen — just for the land. They're

going to raze the buildings in any event. That is not the kind of

government we need to ensure fairness and inspire confidence on the

part of the population in this society. I am sure that your budget will

satisfy quite a few people if they are already pretty safe and secure,

but it doesn't address a lot of the people in my constituency.

were talking a little while ago about young people. Something else I

think it's about time we started to address is the youth and the

problems they have in getting the education they need in a new

information society, which is going through some major changes as to

where our wealth is going to come from in the future. There are going

to be people who are not only functionally illiterate but simply

discounted by sheer numbers, by competition. Mr. Speaker, you will have

literate people, who will be trained and will have degrees but who will

not fit in, because we are not recognizing that we must have a better

system of planning and rationalization of what we're doing in our

post-secondary institutions, high schools, technological institutions

and throughout the whole system.

[3:15]

There has to be some respect for those young people, because they

are the ones on the other side of the equation or ledger. We have to

pay for those mistakes, and we are going to be paying for them.

However,

the specific thing I want to talk about is young people. This is why

I'm so happy that the young couple who, in January I think, had a

little baby named William.... I think the lady's name was Mrs. Cope.

Does that ring a bell? An

article just the other day in the Province

said that Mrs. Cope was advised by her landlord that she could no

longer stay in her apartment because she and her husband were

expecting. It was one of those adults-only premises. So Mrs. Cope

protested. Nonetheless, she was evicted. But that wasn't the end; that

was only the beginning of her frustration and humiliation. She went to

all kinds of apartment buildings and ran into the same thing. She

simply couldn't get a place. She had to leave the Victoria area and go

someplace up the highway.

Ten years ago there was a similar

situation in the West End concerning a woman who worked for B.C. Hydro,

I think, and her husband who worked some other place. They'd been in

the West End for eight years, living in an adults-only building. She

became pregnant. The landlord found out and sent her a letter that

said: "That's good news. Congratulations!" The bad news was: "However,

you do realize that you've been living in a building which is for

adults only, and I hereby serve you notice." This was all in the same

document.

That's what is happening in this province. We

just finished celebrating Earth Day over the weekend; we had a peace

march. We're telling people that we're going to have to retool and deal

with sustainability. We're talking about how we're going to manage our

resources and how it's going to be in the future. What about

sustainability of the human race? What about human relations? What

about people learning to get along? What kind of complex is a person

going to have who knows that he was rejected by society because he was

born? The parents who had been living in the community found themselves

uprooted. This is the kind of thing we've got to address. These are the

inequities that work against all the balanced budgets you could ever

come up with, because you're paying for it on the other end.

AN HON. MEMBER : Are you against balanced budgets?

MR. BARNES : I'm against budgets that appear to be balanced, when in fact we know that they're not.

Mr.

Speaker, I am going to conclude, because I don't want to talk about all

the other things. There are a lot of things we could talk about. We

could go back and talk about the Minister of Women's Programs, when she

was talking about Dave Barrett and trying to chide him for not bringing

in the women's ministry. But he also brought in funding for the

[ Page 9207 ]

status

of women, which your government destroyed. It was the member from

Little Mountain, when she was the Minister of Human Resources, who

wiped out most of those human services programs.

I remember

one specific program that she wiped out, and although I've had five

children, I'd never heard of this. It shows you how healthy my wife was

in those days. Rosemary Brown was sitting next to me, and I had these

notes and I said: "I want to talk about this syndrome, but what is it?

It's called post-partum depression." And she said: "Oh, that's what

happens when you've had a baby and things are pretty rough and you've

got to have some time to recuperate." We had programs like that in

place. Grace McCarthy wiped that one out, along with all kinds of other

programs that dealt with children's concerns.

I'm telling

you we were the government of the people then, we're going to be the

government of the people in the future, and I can tell you in closing

that there has never been a more desperate need for a New Democratic

Party government than today. We are going to get in because our time

has come, our policies are appropriate and we are the people's choice.

The only hope for the future is a New Democratic government.

DEPUTY SPEAKER : Before we proceed, the member for Surrey-Guildford-Whalley has asked leave to make an introduction.

Leave granted.

MS. SMALLWOOD :

I'd like to have the House join me in welcoming students from A.H.R

Matthew Elementary School and their teacher Ms. McLean. There are 25

grade 5 students in the precincts, and I believe they are accompanied

by three of the parents

HON. S. HAGEN : It is an

honour and a privilege for me to participate in this debate on the 1990

throne speech, and I want to say that I wholeheartedly support the

budget for the 1990 year.

As the Minister of Regional and

Economic Development and as a member of the Legislature for Vancouver

Island, I am proud of what this budget proposes to do for this and

every region of this great province.

This budget builds on

the solid work of the last two budgets. It builds on the positive

vision that this government has set for the future of this province, a

vision that will lead us not just through the decade but well into the

next century that awaits us.

The central focus of that

vision is a dynamic, environmentally sustainable economy, one that

builds on the strengths of our regions and one which gives British

Columbians the opportunities that they deserve to improve their quality

of life and standard of living.

This budget is all about

meeting the challenges of a rapidly changing world. It's about securing

our future and the future of our children. It's about creating the

conditions for private sector growth, particularly in the area of small

business — our number one job creator. It's about sound and careful

management of taxpayers' dollars. It's a budget which makes prudent

investments in the tools that British Columbians need to compete with

the best in the world.

For example, there are strategic

examples and investments in primary, secondary and post-secondary

education. These are the investments that will pay big dividends back

to the economy for many years.

MR. SIHOTA : I notice

that the member has been a member for three and a half years in this

House. So have 1, and sometimes we forget things. I may be wrong on

this, and I stand to be corrected, but usually you don't come in here

and just read a prepared text.

I thought there was some

kind of rule, Mr. Speaker, and perhaps you can guide me on this. It's

kind of peculiar that the minister would just come in and read a

prepared text for half an hour and mail it out. I think his

constituents should know — and hopefully he'll put the comment in with

the mailing that he does — that the minister just comes in here, reads

a prepared text and doesn't respond to any of the comments or debate

that's been going on here.

HON. MR. STRACHAN : If the

members review Beauchesne, they will note that it is common to use

notes and printed material when referring to the address in reply, the

budget speech and particularly when you're dealing with technical

detail, which the minister is clearly doing now.

MR. SIHOTA :

I didn't think there was any technical detail at all. It's a sort of

pom-pom speech that kind of puffefizes — if I can put it that way — the

budget. There's no technical detail in there. It's just a rah-rah

booster speech on the budget. I don't think it's the kind of situation

where a minister should be referring to notes, particularly a senior

minister. He's had a lot of experience in the House.

HON. S. HAGEN :

I certainly hope that the members opposite — and I notice they're down

to two or three — will listen carefully to the copious details that I

will be outlining in support for this budget.

This budget

will increase spending on primary and secondary education in this

province by $398 million, to a total in the 1990-1991 budget of $3

billion — an increase of 15 percent. That's more money for putting

computers in classrooms than for our commitment to the Pacific Rim

education initiatives.

I hope they'll listen to this as

well. Funds for post-secondary education and job training will increase

by $132 million to a total of $1.1 billion in this fiscal year.

Our

commitment to our regions is evidenced by a doubling of the funding for

the Access for All post-secondary strategy. As a former minister of

Advanced Education, I am pleased to see that we

[ Page 9208 ]

have built on the successes of Access for All, a strategy based on extensive regional consultation,

Obviously the member for Esquimalt is not interested in the post-secondary system, because he's not listening.

The

strategy this year will include money for an additional 2,400 student

spaces, not only in the greater Vancouver and greater Victoria areas,

but spread throughout the province in the Okanagan, Cariboo and central

Vancouver Island.

People in my Comox riding and throughout

the Vancouver Island region will benefit through the introduction of

fourth-year university courses in Nanaimo and funding for a new

business administration school at the University of Victoria. The

budget also allocates funds to extend fourth-year courses throughout

the province.

The strength of our province depends on the

strength of its regions. Everything is not centred in Esquimalt or

Victoria. We have a lot of things going on throughout the province.

These are expenditures the people of British Columbia have called for,

and we have delivered them, through our regional development board, our

region advisory councils and the numerous task forces — a wide range of

issues. We've helped people at the grass-roots level build a regional

consensus and bring it to government for action.

This

government has performed. We have brought together people with varying

philosophies, from a great variety of backgrounds, listened to them,

and acted on their recommendations and concerns. We have brought

together people from small business — and of course, Mr. Speaker, we

know that the people on the opposite side of the House know nothing

about small business and don't support the small business sector. We

have brought together people from local and regional governments, from

community groups, and we have helped them get results on regional

issues. In my own riding of Comox, we saw a consensus of regional

business, community and government come together to make possible

improvements to the Mount Washington ski hill. This is a perfect

example of British Columbians working together to create new economic

development initiatives and new tourism opportunities. I know the

member from Esquimalt, especially, is interested in that project.

am very pleased that this process is being acknowledged and assisted in

this budget with an $80 million investment in projects which will

ensure regionally balanced prosperity in this province. This will be an

investment in the future of the province, an investment that

strengthens not only our regions but all of British Columbia.

People in our regions have told us that they want better access to quality

services like education and our world-class health care system. As members of

this House heard last week, this government is spending $13 million per day

for health care in British Columbia, an average of $4,000 per household annually.

In total, our health care commitment is $4 billion in this fiscal year, just

under one-third of the entire budget. All of this has been achieved by careful

management of financial resources. British Columbians will get quality health

care with no increases in MSP premiums despite federal cutbacks.

This

budget underlines opportunities and our commitment to seniors, people

who have given so much to build this great province and make it what it

is. In addition, our seniors will be receiving even more help In making

their accommodation more affordable.

The government's

action to alleviate the tax burden on British Columbia homeowners will

be especially helpful to our seniors. This year all homeowners will

receive a supplementary homeowner grant equal to 25 percent of school

property taxes in excess of the basic grant. For seniors who receive a

basic $700 homeowner grant, a school property tax bill of $1,430 would

be reduced from $730 under the previous system to $548 this year. It

represents a tax saving of $182, which will double next year.

[3:30]

I notice that the socialist opposition has spoken loud and long

against this initiative. They can take their complaints to the seniors

and all the other homeowners in my riding of Comox and see what the

people think of it. I tell you, I know that the people of Comox, if you

give them a chance, will show the NDP at the next election what they

like and don't like.

People who rent are going to get lower

taxes as well. The renters' tax reduction will be expanded to help

people with low and moderate incomes. A family of four with a net

income of $30,000, who would have received a tax reduction of $200 for

1989, will receive an income tax reduction of $570 for 1990.

Mr.

Speaker, I know the people of my riding, and they applaud these

measures. Something else they're going to like is the budget's

commitment to the Island Highway. One hundred million dollars Is slated

towards the construction of the Island Highway in this fiscal year.

Mr.

Speaker, I'd like to point out that the socialist New Democrat

candidate who was recently nominated to run for his party in the newly

created Parksville-Qualicum riding demonstrated his party's lack of

commitment to this, which is the most important issue on Vancouver

Island. He said: "I just can't tell you that I'm going to say rah, rah,

rah for an Island Highway. I think we could better spend the money

somewhere else." That NDP candidate, Mr. Len Krog, made these comments

on March 13, 1990. I'm sorry that the leader of the opposition, or at

least one of the Leaders of the Opposition, isn't in the House this

afternoon, because if he had any commitment to the people of Vancouver

Island, he would go up to Parksville-Qualicum and refuse to sign the

candidate's nomination papers and send him packing.

MR. SIHOTA :

On a point of order, I hope the minister will put this point of order

in his mailer he's going to send out to his constituents. He knows full

well that Mr. Krog has issued a note explaining his statement and

putting it in proper context. So when the minister mails this to the

residents of his riding,

[ Page 9209 ]

I'm sure he'll mail the clarifying comments I've just put on the record. Thank you.

HON. MR. STRACHAN :

Mr. Speaker, that's clearly not a point of order. We might conclude

that the member has now taken his place in debate. It's a consideration.

MR. SIHOTA :

The minister has, as all members of this House do, an obligation in the

course of his comments to make sure the full truth is uttered in this

House. When there is an omission, it seems to me it is only appropriate

for members of the opposition to point out that omission. It's not

debate; it's a reminder to the minister that he should be mindful of

making sure that all aspects of the matter are raised.

DEPUTY SPEAKER : No, it certainly wasn't a point of order, hon. member, and I would ask the minister to continue.

HON. S. HAGEN :

I would remind the member opposite that these were not my words. These

were words uttered by the candidate on his nomination day in the riding

of Parksville-Qualicum. It shows his non-commitment to the number one

issue on Vancouver Island. As a matter of fact, many of us may buy some

buttons that say: "I like Leonard." I think we're going to send him on

a speaking tour of the province, as a matter of fact.

Mr.

Speaker, the people of this province know where their government

stands, and that's foursquare behind the Island Highway project. The

government has created a special five-year $3.5 billion Freedom to Move

account. Listen to this: $3.5 billion for the Freedom to Move account

to make sure that these and other much-needed investments have a secure

funding base from which to proceed.

The

government's

transportation planning process — and they should listen to this as

well — has been aided tremendously with the input from the eight

regional

transportation committees which reported In July 1989. The Freedom to

Move special account is going to help make many of these regional

priorities a reality all over the province.

I am proud of

the very strong commitment this budget makes to protecting our

province's precious environment. As Minister of Regional and Economic

Development, I can assure members of the House of this government's

dedication to working with businesses large and small to ensure that

sustainable development becomes a reality. As the budget documents

point out, the government of British Columbia is committed to a healthy

environment and to the principle of living off the planet's interest,

not its capital. This point was driven home at the recent Globe '90

world conference on global opportunities for business and the

environment, which was funded in part by my ministry and other

ministries of this government.

This government is not

afraid to make the hard choices — listen, you'll learn something — to

secure the future for all British Columbians. Hard choices go into

producing a balanced budget like the one we've had for the last two

years. Hard choices also go into protecting and preserving our

environment.

Let me talk about one major issue on Vancouver

Island. The Vancouver Island gas pipeline is becoming a reality,

because this government took action. In the last election, in 1986, the

socialist opponent who was defeated by me took a negative position. She

did not support the Vancouver Island gas pipeline. I'll tell you why I

supported it. I supported it because not only is this a great economic

development project for Vancouver Island, but it's a great

environmental project. For dirty, imported California bunker fuel it

will substitute clean Peace River, British Columbia natural gas. It

will reduce the number of barge loads coming into the Strait of

Georgia. The 300 barge loads a year will be eliminated with the flow of

clean natural gas. The socialist candidate who ran against me did not

support this project — no commitment to the environment.

This

project will also reduce fly ash going into the air by 10,000 metric

tonnes a year. The quality of life for residents of Vancouver Island,

the Sunshine Coast and indeed all of the Fraser Valley will be improved

with this project. That's good government.

Over the past

couple of years, this government has introduced a number of changes to

legislation and regulations to help protect the environment. Just in

February this year my colleague the Minister of Environment (Hon. Mr.

Reynolds) and I presented a new mechanism called the major projects

review process. This new process will ensure that all major projects

are thoroughly assessed for their environmental and social aspects and

impacts.

What's important about the process is that

industry will now have a clear picture of the regulatory requirements

for approval. It focuses the approval process by giving proponents a

single window of contact with the provincial government to deal with

environmental standards. The review process will be administered by a

steering committee headed by representatives from my ministry and the

Ministry of Environment. The public will have input at all stages. This

government believes in democracy, unlike the socialists from the other

side, who don't like referendums and don't want public input unless it

agrees with their particular philosophy.

Strong

environmental regulations and their vigorous enforcement will continue,

as will spending Initiatives on new parks, improved sewage treatment,

new research and new forestation.

Another important

environmental objective we're following is to give British Columbians

an economic incentive to protect common resources. These initiatives

will be in the form of new environmental levies, such as those on new

tires, lead-acid batteries and disposable diapers, which contribute to

waste management problems.

[Mr. De Jong in the chair.]

Reforestation will receive $222 million this year from the new sustainable development fund. Over

[ Page 9210 ]

the

next ten years, the province's reforestation commitment will exceed

$1.7 billion, demonstrating the importance this government places on

the forest industry.

Another example of this government's

commitment to sustainable economic development is the budget support

for science and technology. Earlier I spoke on the budget support for

Access for All. The Access for All strategy will attract new minds to

British Columbia. The brightest and the best will be here and in fact

are already here in British Columbia.

Speaking of centres

for excellence leads me to the TRIUMF kaon factory project. This

leading-edge proposal will build on the current strengths of Canada's

TRIUMF particle physics research laboratory at UBC. There have been

several articles in the media over the last few days because of the

winning by Helmut and Hugo Eppich of the Entrepreneur of the Year

award. They, of course, have been leading proponents of the expansion

of the TRIUMF facility to the kaon factory. This project is attracting

support from Japan, West Germany, the United States, the European

Economic Community and four other nations, all of whom want to help

Canada and contribute up to $200 million towards the expansion of this

facility.

People in this province and all across the

country want their federal government to take a more significant role

in world science. We can do that by paying more to send our best

scientists abroad to work in other countries, or we can send them to

our own facility here. Which is best: paying to send them to other

countries or paying to keep them here? Obviously it is best to keep

them here.

All of the initiatives I have described are made

possible by a strong British Columbia economy. British Columbians in

all regions of this province have responded to strong economic and

leadership initiatives. In the last three years, the unemployment rate

in this province has dropped from 12.5 percent to 7.8 percent; 170,000

jobs have been generated; annual investment has grown from $9.6 billion

to $15.7 billion; and retail sales have also gone up over 10 percent,

more than double the national average. I notice that the opposition is

not listening, because they are not interested in economic matters,

employment creation or increased investment.

Let me talk

about the small business sector, the most important sector in our

economy. Our small business sector is leading the way in job creation:

90 percent of the jobs generated in this province were generated in the

small business sector. The small business sector is the backbone of our

provincial economy. The members of this government applaud their

efforts. This budget keeps faith with our commitment to work with our

private sector to create the conditions for small business to keep

doing what it's doing best; that is, creating real and lasting jobs and

economic prosperity.

Further to that commitment, I want

members of this House to know that in the very near future I'll be

announcing new programs for financial assistance for businesses in

British Columbia. This government believes that British Columbians

should enjoy the rewards of their labour. That's why we've kept

government lean and responsible.

Every time the government

makes sacrifices to reduce government overhead, the opposition makes a

fuss. All the while, they've never told us what their true agenda is.

All the while, they've left British Columbians to wonder if they have a

secret agenda. What is the true cost of the NDP agenda, and who will

pay for it? Of course, the taxpayers will pay for it. Maybe they could

use a few words of wisdom from the candidate in Parksville-Qualicum — my

favourite candidate, who will become the best-known NDP socialist

candidate in the next election, and still lose. Here's what he said:

"If the NDP is going to be honest with the people of British Columbia,

these things are going to cost a great deal of money, because believe

you me, we're all going to have to pay higher income taxes." That comes

from the NDP candidate in Parksville-Qualicum, who is saying we're

going to have to pay higher taxes.

[3:45]

Just last week the finance critic for the NDP said: "An NDP

government would spend more and pay for these spending increases by

increases of corporate taxes and shifting priorities." Is this the new

NDP campaign slogan: "corporate taxes and shifting priorities"? It

sounds more like a declaration of war on the small business person in

British Columbia.

Our government believes small and

medium-sized business are a priority. As I said earlier, they are the

number one job creator. In an economy like British Columbia's, we can't

afford a government that wants to play Russian roulette with the

prosperity we currently enjoy.

Much of the budget debate

has centred on B.C.'s fragile economy. We all know that when it comes

to economic management, the NDP are bulls in the china shop. The worst

thing we could do at this critical time is let them loose on the

economy of this province, only to create a path of mismanagement and

chaos. The small business person and the investor want a stable

economy. They want a climate where they know that their capital and

expertise are welcome. This government has worked hard to create that

stable economic climate, and we're going to work even harder to make

sure that the socialists don't get a chance to ruin it.

want to complete my remarks with a few words from the budget address:

"Good government means making hard choices. It means showing

leadership. It means making the right choices. It means recognizing

that government has no money of its own, only the taxpayers' money, and

there are limits on their ability to pay." I know that the socialists

don't believe that, but just listen to that and try to understand it.

I'll just say it again, because I know that the member for

Esquimalt–Port Renfrew (Mr. Sihota) is having difficulty with it. It

goes against the socialists' beliefs and against his beliefs. I'm

quoting from the budget speech: "It means recognizing that government

has no money of its own, only the taxpayers' money, and there are

limits on their ability to pay."

[ Page 9211 ]

Here

is the last quote that I would like to use, and this relates to the

socialists as well: "A government that promises everything will deliver

nothing." That's exactly what the socialist government delivered from

1972 to 1975: nothing except higher taxes and higher government costs.

Indeed,

Mr. Speaker, government is about making the right choices, making

financially responsible choices; making choices that will secure our

children and the future of our children. That is what this budget is

about, and that is why I support the budget.

MS. EDWARDS :

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the minister — I believe it is

international trade now, is it? — for signaling the end of his speech so

many times.

I want to talk about British Columbia Hydro,

and how the budget tells us it is going to go. B.C. Hydro is crucial to

the operations of this government, and what goes into the budget is

extremely important to how we read this budget. It provides nearly 10

percent of the increase in the general fund revenue over last year that

the B.C. Hydro dividend — which is, by the way, not yet approved.... It

is budgeted at $124 million. The annual increase in general fund

revenue is $1,358,000, 000, so that $124 million is nearly one-tenth

of the increase of everything that we are talking about, as far as

revenue is concerned, in the budget this year. It's a hefty

contribution, and it means that B.C. Hydro needs to be looked at very

carefully, not only for this reason but also because of the direction

it is going.

Without B.C. Hydro there would be a decrease

in the contributions from government enterprises, and that is quite

interesting. The increase, actually, is $95 million, and as I said,

B.C. Hydro's dividend, not yet approved by the B.C. Utilities

Commission, would be $124 million, meaning that if it were not for B.C.

Hydro, government enterprises would be giving to general revenue less

than they did last year.

The question, Mr. Speaker, is: is

this the fallout from privatization? Is it because we have fewer

government enterprises now that this one government enterprise has been

asked to make up the difference and to ensure that with all the

privatization and the giving-away and the selling-away of the

government enterprises, the revenue remains at least as good, and

therefore one of the government enterprises is fingered for $124

million to boost the government coffers?

This is going on

at the same time that Hydro's debt is increasing. The debt, which is

nearly half of the total provincial debt.... Hydro's debt is

approximately $7 billion, and the total provincial debt is $16 billion,

so this one government enterprise bears nearly half of the total

provincial debt. If you look just at the direct government debt, B.C.

Hydro has a debt that is nearly double the direct government debt. So

by taking away $124 million as a dividend, it isn't because B.C. Hydro

doesn't have debt problems of its own, or certainly a debt situation of

its own. B.C. Hydro bears a huge amount of debt and is still asked to

put in this $124 million in order for government enterprises' revenue

total to be as good as, or a little better than, it was last year. In

fact, B.C. Hydro will require $249 million more borrowing this fiscal

year, according to the budget figures.

I think that

indicates, again, how important B.C. Hydro is to government revenues

and indicates something more about this $124 million that was asked by

the government of B.C. Hydro almost out of the blue as a blunt

instrument of increasing prices, because as the ministry and the

authority itself said, we want to ensure that we have conservation.

Conservation in order to do this, Mr. Speaker — it was a rather odd

rationalization for what the government decided to do.

is fairly clear, when you look at it, that this is the agenda: that

government needs more revenue and that is the reason that B.C. Hydro

may have to pay the $124 million if it is approved by the B.C.

Utilities Commission, instead of taking a more intelligent approach to

conservation and to demand side management by B.C. Hydro and doing a

restructuring of rates. That has been promised by Hydro, but they

weren't given time to do that. They were asked to pay $124 million on a

3-percent-per-year increase right across the board, for the poorest

people in British Columbia just the same as for anybody else. That was

unfair, and it does not effectively and intelligently address the needs

of this province and the need for energy conservation that British

Columbians have.

Generally, Mr. Speaker, conservation is

part of a broader program which we call demand side management. Demand

side management is the key to our energy future. We need more than just

this sudden rate increase, with a directive to the Utilities Commission

that it must consider environmental issues when it takes into account

applications for Hydro to be able to pay a huge amount to the

provincial government in a new move with questionable motivation

ascribed. We need a clearly-thought-out, very clearly stated and

effective demand side management policy. The effect of demand side

management can be significant, and it has been used very effectively in

other jurisdictions.

Ontario Hydro has been able to

estimate achievable savings of 25 percent on current annual production

by the year 2000 through its conservation measures. That is all for

electricity that costs less than 5 cents per kilowatt-hour, and that is

very close to the avoided cost of B.C. Hydro.

The

California Energy Commission reported in 1988 that in the years between

1977 and 1985, its energy efficiency programs had led to a 10 percent

reduction in electricity use. That's a significant amount, Mr. Speaker.

The

Northwest Power Planning Council, immediately to the south of us,

identified potential realizable conservation savings of 15 percent over

the total customer base — and later I'm going to talk more about the

northwest area in the U.S. and what they've done. They are managing 15

percent conservation savings over the total customer base between 1985

[ Page 9212 ]

and

2005, and all of the power they have identified would be available at

2.4 cents per kilowatt-hour. If you were looking to a higher cost for

that energy per kilowatt-hour, you would have significantly higher

conservation savings.

According to B.C. Hydro documents,

supplied at the rate application hearings, Duke Power is aiming for a

demand side management goal of 24 percent reduction in peak summer

demand and 29 percent in peak winter demand by the year 2002. 1 quote

these simply to say that there is a major opportunity here — a

potential — for B.C. Hydro to follow demand side management and to

achieve the kind of direction we need in our energy policy in British

Columbia.

Before I discuss again what goes on in the budget

and the government's probable consideration of conservation and the

kind of energy policy and conservation we need in order to protect our

environment, I would like to refer to a recent letter that came out

from the Bonneville Power Administration under the Department of Energy

in the U.S. southwest. Down there the Northwest Power Act of 1980 —

that's a full decade ago, Mr. Speaker.... In 1980 the United States

federal government instructed the Bonneville Power Administration to

give conservation first priority in adding new power sources to meet

northwest power needs. So this authority has a decade of experience.

What they have done is learn how to achieve energy savings

systematically and track energy use so that they can be sure of the

amount they're going to save, can make predictions and plan ahead, and

can be efficient and intelligent in how they go about it.

One

result, says this letter — which comes out with a publication on big

savings from small sources, how conservation measures up and so on — of

their decade of activity is a 300-megawatt addition to the power

supply. I've mentioned other achievements that have happened In the

northwest. The other result — and this is the Important one as far as

I'm concerned — is confidence about conservation as a power resource,

confidence that has enabled the Bonneville Power Administration to rely

on conservation "to meet most of our expected power growth through

1997."

That is exactly the problem that B.C. Hydro has said

it has. It doesn't know what's going to happen with its conservation

policy. All it needed to do was look south, Mr. Speaker, and it could

have seen an authority with a decade of experience which has enough

confidence in what it can do in its conservation program, with the

results that it has brought out of its conservation program, to predict

that until 1997 they need nothing except their conservation policies to

meet the demand for electricity.

[4:00]

Demand side management in energy and conservation is the key. So

what do we have in the government's budget this year, when we have talk

from Hydro and the ministry that that is what should happen? We have a

sustainable development initiatives fund of $18.6 million, of which

energy is only one part.

Now if Hydro is having as many

problems as I have tried to indicate it has, and as many problems as it

mentioned when it was talking about this very issue at its recent

application for a rate increase, then it seems to me that we need a

concerted approach to the problem. We need an approach that should have

been in this budget. There should be something in this budget that

indicates that we are going to go ahead and do something coordinated

that will be effective in achieving the energy conservation which will

sustain our environment and allow us to make the decisions that all

British Columbians want. What we didn't need was chucking the whole

issue in as one of a grab-bag of things in almost a collector fund — a

collector of moneys from various ministries where the money would

otherwise have been spent — and calling it a big fund for something,

when it is really just a new frame for a number of amounts of money

which otherwise would have been spent, probably more correctly, in the

real industries in which they should have been spent.

This

sustainable environment fund — basically an election poster — is managed

by a committee. That, to most people in this day and age, says

something very clear. We have all seen the cartoons of a swing being

done by a committee; we've seen the horse designed by a committee

that's a camel. So why, when it's so obvious that we need a clear,

organized and direct approach...? Even the minister and the government

recognize in the budget speech that we need a direction for energy

conservation and we need a way of doing demand-side management, as

we've heard from the major authority, the B.C. Hydro and Power

Authority. Why do we put this into an election-front committee? Why

would the government decide that that would be an adequate way to

address the issue? What is the reason that we take the action away from

the ministry and B.C. Hydro, this authority that is so big within the

government of British Columbia and the budgetary calculations? There is

no reason put forth in this budget speech to say why it has been taken

away from the normal channels. There is certainly no reason to suppose

that what this fund will be doing is additional to what the ministry

would otherwise have been doing.

The question is: is there

any net benefit? Is there anything that is going to be done that could

not have been better done under the normal practice and with the

industry grabbing hold of what is so obviously a good example and going

ahead and finding for British Columbians a conservation program that

achieves as much as has been achieved further south in this country

where their resources are not so rich and not so easily tapped into?

really have to repeat the absolute necessity of a concerted,

thought-out drive to achieve what we want to achieve. What we need is

this approach instead of the outdated political flag-waving that we had

all last year and previously on the proposal for a Site C dam. This

government proposed it all last year and said that they absolutely had

to have the Site C dam ready to go — a huge megaproject out of the

past, out of the olden times when this government

[ Page 9213 ]

thought

that they needed huge projects to which they applied the term "mega" in

order to get elected. So we are having that kind of thing that was

flagged all last year.

When it finally became clear that

conservation and independent power production — in other words, the

whole demand-side management gamut of things that you could use — would

be adequate to meet our needs, and it looks like it would be adequate

to meet our needs.... Certainly the budget figures that we put out

indicate that electrical power generation was down in 1988 from 1987

and was down in 1989 from 1988. Electrical power generation is down,

presumably for reasons that indicate we may be getting hold of some of

this. But the government was still going ahead and declaring that Site

C was necessary.

When

the government finally decided they

would not do that, they didn't say: "We're not going to do Site C

because we don't need it. We can find a power supply from somewhere

else." They didn't say: "We're not going to do Site C because it would

do too much damage to the environment." They didn't say: "We're not

going to do Site C because of the aboriginal land claim which

interferes, or the necessity to relocate one of the Indian bands whose

land settlement has never been adequately put together since the

original Peace River dam was done,." No, they said they would not do

Site C because it was too complex to figure out how to manage the

environmental assessment and review process that would be required

under federal legislation.

The government is out of date and out of control on this one.

MRS. BOONE : Tired old government.

MS. EDWARDS :

They are a tired old government. They could have put together a plan

for energy conservation that would have looked good and would have had

the support of all the people in this province, because the people are

ahead of the government on this one, and they are ready to go for a

program that makes sense, a program that is affordable, a program that

uses our resources in the best way that we could possibly use our

resources.

I also want to talk a bit about an environmental

premium. That was announced as a surprise goody — it was a surprise to a

lot of people, even those in the ministry, I understand — by the Premier

in the Cariboo by-election. A year and a half later it has been

announced again. It has been said that in fact we will give an

environmental premium to one energy project: the Williams Lake wood

waste project, which is being built by NW Energy Corp. We assume that

that environmental premium will go, because.... We don't know yet. It

hasn't been paid; the money isn't there.

As a matter of

fact, whether it's paid or not, we don't even know on which criteria a

decision was made about that environmental premium. There is an amazing

amount of doubt, not only among the general public, who barely know —

and they sometimes don't expect to know — the details, but among the

people who do expect to know the details. When you ask them their

perception of how a decision will be made on who gets an environmental

premium, and that decision has not been made, they make a guess. But

nobody is sure exactly how it's going to be done.

When you

look at the budget, you see that the $124 million dividend B.C. Hydro

has to pay to the government goes straight to general revenue, but you

can't see how it would go out if it were paid to the NW Energy Corp. as

an environmental premium. One wonders, because of some of the language,

whether it would go through that sustainable environment fund.

The

problem is that the whole thing is mushy at the edges. You don't know

where the money's going in, and you don't know how the money's going

out, how the decisions are going to be made or where it's going to be.

It's disappointing, again, to find that we have another budget, and we

still don't know what's happening with the environmental premium. We

don't know what the criteria are for making a payment out of the Hydro

dividend that goes into the government revenues. We have been told that

that's where it would come from, but when it goes into general revenue,

that's just balancing talk, Mr. Speaker; it doesn't necessarily apply

at all.

This is a matter of considerable interest, because

until we have some clear guidelines and know how it's going to be

financed, so we can follow it through the books, we don't know if it's

just friends of this government and insiders who are going to get this

kind of assistance over the years that it is offered.

HON. MR. VEITCH : Are we still on the budget?

MS. EDWARDS :

Yes, we're still on the budget. I'm sure that the government is still

in control. I'm sure they knew that this was going to be budget speech

day, and I'm sure it's going to go on until we have had at least six

sittings on the budget.

I want to make a positive statement

in my speech, because it's something that one has to say occasionally.

There is a hint in this budget which has nothing to do, unfortunately,

with energy conservation or B.C. Hydro. There are words in the budget

document that say that there will be a provincial wildlife inventory

implemented. That is the kind of phrase that can raise my spirits to

the skies. It is needed so badly that it is a delight to see it.

Unfortunately, again, one looks at where it is in the budget, and one

sees that it's in the resource management initiatives of the

environmental initiatives of the sustainable development fund. It's in

with other things. It is in the same group as the operations of the

Forest Resources Commission, and so on, which came over from the

Ministry of Forests. Presumably the implementation of a provincial

wildlife inventory comes out of the Environment ministry.

The

amount is $11.3 million, and I know that's not going to do it yet.

However, I must say that I am delighted to see that it is recognized as

a need in this province. I trust that whatever amount goes toward a

[ Page 9214 ]

wildlife inventory will be increased later and that we will continue with it.

It's

not the only inventory that's needed in this province. We need an

inventory of all of our resources, because we cannot manage anything

adequately unless we know what we're trying to manage. I've been saying

that ever since I came in here, like a broken record, and I guess I'm

going to have to continue to say it. It is a delight to see this phrase

in the budget, and I welcome it.

I would like to mention,

too, particularly because the minister who preceded me was on it quite

a lot, the business of Access for All. It's almost a cruel joke in the

southeastern part of our province. Access for All was put forward with

a great deal of fanfare. It indicated that people right across this

province would have access to a broad range of post-secondary

education. Then every initiative was made in the central or western

part of the province; the east was not there. Third- and fourth-year

university programs were put in at colleges in the central part of the

province and on Vancouver Island. There was a university in the north,

but what happened in the east? We could have at East Kootenay College,

after a considerable amount of arm-twisting, one course which would be

put forward to train teachers. They could get a bachelor of education

degree. As it turned out, they had spots for 25 or 30 people. At the

original basic information meetings that the college put on to find out

who was interested, 250 people came out. That was just the first blush

of this.

What happened and what they were told was that

under the program, they couldn't get their degree until five years

after they began it, for various reasons I won't go into. What I mean

to tell you is that it was the most disappointing initiative. To follow

up, the increase in the numbers of students at our college is not being

recognized in the degree of funding that is offered to the college

under the Access for All initiative. It has simply been, as I say, a

cruel joke in our area, and I am sorry to see that there will be

nothing more for the colleges which are not included in the first pass.

notice that the fees and licences have increased the revenues of this

province by 6 percent, according to the predictions for the fiscal year

upcoming. I'd like to tell the Speaker that the people in my riding

bear much of the load of those increases. It's very difficult for those

who need to get to court to file court documents, because they're often

among the poorest and the most needy in our society. That's one of the

places where the fees are increased considerably.

[4:15]

It affects everybody with septic tanks that need inspections and

which have to have things done for installations. There are major

increases which are felt often very strongly by the senior citizens who

remain in their homes or who move to different houses, instead of going

into public institutions and staying in private residences.

That concludes my remarks on the budget. I cannot support the budget as it is being put forward.

have mentioned several things that are important, the most crucial of

which is the energy policy for this province, which must be dealt with

more adequately and more directly.

MR. MERCIER : The

budget is the most important document we deal with in this Legislature.

There were occasions in the past few days when this House was

distracted from its business and was barraged with the smut and dirt

dredged up by the opposition. The people we represent must wonder about

some of the things we discuss in this House, when there are so many

people with serious problems and all the opposition concentrates on is

dirt.

By the speaking order, I see the member for

Esquimalt–Port Renfrew follows me, so he will be able to make any

comments he wants to rebut that. He's the master mud-dredger, in my

opinion.

I want to get on to the budget, but first make a

comment about the debate on interim supply. It was a stall. Why do you

think the opposition would stall us in the interim supply and in other

measures they use? I don't think they wanted to talk about this budget.

I don't think they had anything to say about this budget, and I don't

think they had anything constructive to add to it. This was the best

budget, and it has the best programs for the best government in this

province. For the people of this province, I'm very proud to speak

about this budget.

The main items that were important to

the taxpayers: no tax increases and a balanced budget. The homeowners

and low-income renters really won. Increases in the homeowner grant

will knock an average $100 off more than 500,000 homeowners' tax

bills, and 40,000 low-income renters will receive a tax credit

increase. No wonder the opposition can't criticize this budget.

The

NDP has made attempts to discredit the remarkable achievement of two

successive balanced budgets. I'd like to take a few minutes and talk

about the criticisms and negative comments on the balancing of the

budget by the use of the budget stabilization fund.

That's

like knocking reserve accounting. In our government setup in this

country, governments can have reserve accounts and utilize those

accounts from time to time. In a province where a budget of $15 billion

is under consideration, it's appropriate to have a stabilization fund

of $1 billion or more. At the municipal level you would call that a

reserve. It's appropriate to deal with that reserve. In times when you

have excess revenues, you add to it; in times when you need to take

funds from that reserve, you do so.

For the NDP I would

recommend reading the municipal accounting and other accounting

handbooks. If you call the budget stabilization fund a reserve, I'm

sure they'll understand that it was an appropriate action to take at

the time. And that's not to mention the money in the privatization

benefits fund.

Almost $500 million dollars has accumulated in the privatization benefits fund. If people understand

[ Page 9215 ]

the

accounting used throughout the democratic world in government settings,

they'll understand that it's appropriate to have reserves and to

transfer to and from those reserves. Above all, the discipline

necessary to have a balanced budget was followed by this government.

That discipline has not been recognized in this country at the federal

level, and you can see the difficulty we're in there.

I'm

proud to work with a Premier who has fought for two consecutive

balanced budgets. I'm proud to work with colleagues on the government

side who respect the taxpayers' right to a balanced budget. If there's

any dishonesty in this House, it's the approach of the opposition to

say that, in some miraculous way, they're going to increase services

but not taxes.

Take the financial critic, who said that if

the NDP were elected, about $400 million of the benefits he had

described would be financed largely through corporate taxes and

shifting priorities. I ask you: is he thinking about little

corporations or big ones? The major number of corporate taxpayers are

small business corporations. Are they talking about increasing the tax

load on small business? If they did that, it would restrict those

corporations' ability to create employment, expand their own businesses

and fuel the economy of this province.

We saw that before,

when they came down on small business and increased those taxes and

took that money out of the hands of the engine-room of our economy, the

small businesses of this province. I'm sure the taxpayers of this

province understand that much. They don't have to understand that we

have a $1 billion surplus fund called the budget stabilization fund,

but they must understand that the financial critic of the opposition

has said that they will increase corporation taxes and shift priorities.

I'd

like to talk about the NDP financial critic and shifting priorities.

Our budget shows one-third of the $15 billion budget going to health

care. Is he going to shift that up or down? Our budget shows 27 percent

of $15 billion going to education and over 10 percent to social

services — $1.5 billion. Is he going to shift that up or down? So the

list goes.

When they talk about shifting those

expenditures, let's assume they mean shifting them upwards. Let's

assume they're going to shift them upwards by another $1 billion or $2

billion. On the other side of the ticket, then, they have to find the

revenue, and where are they going to find it? The taxpayers of this

province have been taxed by successive politicians over time. We've

found that they're not willing to be taxed any more, any higher. Yet

the opposition talks about increasing programs. Is a tooth fairy in the

House? Is someone going to come up with the money that they're going to

try and buy the voters with in an election campaign? I think the

taxpayers and voters of this province are too smart to listen to that

rhetoric.

If there's any dishonest approach, it's that of

the opposition when they tell the taxpayers and voters of this province

that somehow they're going to increase services without increasing

taxes. If they're going to increase taxes, where are they going to do

it? They're going to have to get the money from income tax and social

services tax. They're the main part of our tax revenues. Which ones are

they going to increase? And what are they going to do if the federal

government increases taxes to satisfy the requirements they have to

repay the deficit and the interest on it?

Let's face it,

opposition members, you have nothing to criticize in this budget,

because you can't increase services without increasing taxes. In our

judgment, the taxes are fair, the burdens are properly absorbed and the

services are the best that the taxpayers of this province can afford at

this time in this country.

It is a remarkable achievement

to have a balanced budget at a time when most politicians, for the last

20 and 30 years, have been prepared to promise the people program after

program. Somebody had to put himself on the line and take stock. Our

Premier did. He has stood by this balanced budget approach, much the

same as we require, by law, that municipalities balance their budgets.

We require the children of this province — those children called

municipalities — each year to plan their expenditures and raise their

revenues and balance their budget.

It's only fair that the

province balance its budget — it's only fair. If we could only teach the

federal government how and when they should balance their budget, this

country would be in great shape. We'd have a better chance of affording

the programs that we've developed over the past years, especially those

social service programs brought in since 1945.

This country

is in danger of losing the ability to pay for those programs. This is a

grave time for this country. A year ago I said that this province would

be better off financially to join with California. A year later, at

this time, I see the Maritime Premiers and people talking about

secession. I see Quebec talking about secession. Is that any way to

build Canada?

We can't have this kind of financial crisis.

We must put the country's shoulder collectively to the wheel. The

promise of British Columbia is in the financial condition that can help

the federal government, but we don't want to be bludgeoned by Ontario

and Quebec. Financially they have bludgeoned this country. They've

beaten the other regions into submission almost since Confederation.

Almost

since the beginning of this country we've been at the beck and call of

those two major population provinces — those two provinces that really

have the ability to put this country right fiscally and financially.

They haven't been good examples themselves, and they certainly haven't

been the best partners in Confederation.

Why is that

relevant when we're talking about our budget — our $15 billion budget?

Because the federal government is losing each year in its annual

deficit twice what our whole budget is. They have accumulated deficit

in the hundreds of billions of dollars, and if we can't straighten that

out federally, then all the good work that our Premier and his

government are doing provincially will go for naught.

On that point, I think the Meech Lake accord should be reconsidered. I've supported the New-

[ Page 9216 ]

Newfoundland

Premier — and I wrote to tell him I support him — on a reconsideration of

the Meech Lake accord. And I'll tell you why. There should be

absolutely no further discussion of culture and language rights until

the federal financial house is in order.

The people of this

country know — and it's reflected In the polls and the lack of support

for the federal government — that fiscal matters are a priority. We

must have the house financially in order for this country to survive.

It is absolutely no benefit to the people of Canada if we don't. And it

makes us wonder in this province about the hard work of bringing

forward a balanced budget, about the discipline we have to employ to do

that, if we can't get the federal deficit under control.

[4:30]

We want to have a conference.... I support the Premier of

Newfoundland. I don't know why I like that man so much. The other day

he said we should have a federal conference of all the provincial

elected people. It sounds logical to me that we get together at this

time. Year after year the federal-provincial conferences have been a

closet of a few selected people and federal members, but what would

really turn this country around, as the Premier of Newfoundland said,

would be If we could get all of the elected members of every province

in a room. I want to sit down beside the Qubcois — the people in that

province that were elected to represent them and who came from the same

forefathers as I — and ask them what their game is. They got $3.5

billion last year — more out of the federal pot than they put in They've

got the resources and the towns and the people and the energy to take a

bigger role instead of throwing the red herrings at us.

you look at the financial sharing arrangements, they're almost a

sovereign state of their own. This province could be a sovereign state

of its own with a balanced budget, the debt being paid off and the

expansion we have ahead of us. Do we say that? No. We're so polite we're

getting sucked down the tubes by those two central powers. It's

happened for a hundred years, and it's got to stop.

MR. MILLER : Is this a separatist speech?

MR. MERCIER :

That's a typical opposition reply. I joined with them and they joined

with us to oppose the general goods and services tax brought forward.

Goods and services tax is a retail sales tax. You can't call it

anything else, because when consumers buy something, they pay for it.

Just

at the time in our country's history when the provinces have

established the right to collect retail sales tax, just at a time when

it's almost entrenched — and we should be thinking of entrenching in our

constitutional conference the right to have the retail sales tax — in

comes the Minister of Finance federally with a bunch of bureaucrats who

designed a program for him. He swallowed the whole thing hook, line and

sinker. They told him it would be easy, and three years later he's

finding out that the people of his country object every way he's

turned, no matter what he's called it. It started out as the federal

sales tax and then they called it something else and something else,

and it wasn't going to be a direct tax, and then they start giving

rebates because of the low-income people. It's a complicated mess. What

is it doing to us?

Can you imagine — in the future when we

might need it to finance social programs — when we go to the taxpayers

of this province and say, "We'd like to increase our social services

tax to provide for the hospitals that we are going to need...." We are going

to need more and more money spent on health care because of our aging

population. We have an obligation, and we intend to meet it in the

coming years when we're still the government in this province. We will

want to meet it, and we may have to increase the sales tax to meet

those obligations of the social services tax.

How are we

going to go to our people when on top of the 7 percent, by the time we

have to do that, the federal sales tax will probably be in the order of

15 percent? What are the taxpayers in this province and this country

going to think? Look at the 80 countries that have put in a similar tax

to the goods and services tax; it's crazy

The federal

bureaucrats, when they designed this program for the Finance minister

of this country, forgot to tell him — and no one seems to have thought

about it — that all those other countries like New Zealand and the

European countries do not have provinces. For 100 years the provinces

have been trying to get a revenue base equal to their responsibilities.

Now what does he do? He takes away what could be the most significant

potential revenue base for this province.

So I ask you....

We're here discussing our budget, and we're here doing a responsible

job. We've got a gutsy Premier who has balanced the budget in

successive years. He and I have disagreed on some other things, but

I'll tell you one thing: I back him on this.

The

responsibility of this government and successive governments to meet

the reasonable demands of the taxpayers for a service from reasonable

revenues — we have done it, and it's a remarkable achievement. It was

nice to see that Ontario did it the other day. I think they copied our

lead. I think last year we embarrassed them. They have the biggest

industrial base in this country, and I think we embarrassed them into

balancing their budget. They didn't have any choice.

Now if

we can only get the collective heads together and do the same thing

with the federal deficit, if we handle our affairs properly, we could

throw something in the pot to solve that deficit without going to the

goods and services tax. I think we could do it, and I think we could

have a strong country out of that.

What does all that have

to do with our budget? Well, it has plenty to do with our budget,

because we have an opposition group here that thinks they can buy their

way into the next election by promising people. You know, for 25 years

I've been in this

[ Page 9217 ]

political

game. For 25 years in Burnaby I've listened to these people promise.

The only thing that's changed now is that the socialists of the world

have effectively gone down the tube. The socialist policies were

bankrupt because they didn't work. A funny thing happened with modern

communication. The taxpayers realized that now when they need a

program, the money comes out of their pocket. The news travels too fast

now. It used to be in the old days that you could promise a program,

and it was a year before the tax bill showed up. But now it happens

instantly. The public is more sophisticated. They aren't going to buy

that baloney that there's going to be some magical pot.

if the opposition promises the programs, and they try to win an

election on that, I'm going to ask the taxpayers of this province to

stand up and be counted and realize that they can manage their money

from their own pocket better than the government can. This budget is an

example of good management of the taxation dollars, and I am sure the

people of this province will recognize it, no matter how many times the

opposition says it's dishonest or a lie.

reserve of $1

billion. If we have a decline in the economy, that will be like a

hiccup. If we have a serious slowdown in forestry and mining resource

prices, that will look like a hiccup. I think the people of this

province will realize that a government like ours will manage us

through difficult times. They know that an irresponsible group making

irresponsible promises can in no way manage the affairs of this

province.

In closing, I would just like to comment on a

couple of points that bothered me in the opposition criticism. They

talk about the Expo lands and relate it to money management. The Expo

decision was made by an independent board. The advertising for the sale

of that site was worldwide. It was the best price at the time for that

property, and there is a huge amount of land — 25 percent of the site —

dedicated as park, and millions of dollars were put into the

infrastructure for sewer, water, sidewalks and so on.

The

expert on property development and a couple of the sub experts on the

other side have been wrong, wrong, wrong on almost every occasion. When

you go to sell a piece of property, you sell it in the best market at

the best time. In fact, that sale led to an infusion of money from

investors coming to this province. That money was followed by

additional money, and then the opposition says the prices are too high

now. Well, you can't have it both ways. We believe in progress; we

believe in individual initiative. We believe in people getting things

done, and I hope the city of Vancouver finds it in their hearts someday

to give a building permit to the guy who laid out all that money,

because these guys in opposition do not know about things like building

permits.

How would you like to put $50 million down, and

two years later still not have a sniff of a building permit? It's easy

to say; it's easy to look back. But it really makes me sick to listen

all that negative talk in this.

Interjection.

MR. MERCIER : An apartment? I mentioned 25 percent or more, giving the

parkland in. How would you like to be that developer listening to all this opposition?

How would you feel if you were a person having to invest just a few hundred