1983 Legislative Session: 1st Session, 33rd Parliament

Hansard

The following electronic version is for informational purposes only.

The printed version remains the official version.

Official Report of

DEBATES OF THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY

( Hansard )

MONDAY, JULY 11, 1983

Afternoon Sitting

[ Page

187 ]

CONTENTS

Routine Proceedings

Oral Questions

Premier's comment on public servants. Mr. Hanson –– 187

Transfer of rentalsman disputes to courts. Mr. Macdonald –– 188

Human rights branch. Mr. Gabelmann –– 188

Treatment of terminated employees. Mr. Gabelmann –– 188

Trading in shares of Sunmask Petroleum. Mr. Howard –– 189

Tabling Documents

Annual report of the Ombudsman, 1982.

Mr. Speaker –– 189

Supply Act (No. 1), 1983 (Bill 10). Hon. Mr. Curtis.

Introduction and first reading –– 190

Second reading –– 190

Committee stage –– 199

Third reading –– 204

Budget debate

Mr. Lea –– 204

Mrs. McCarthy –– 208

Tabling Documents

Orders-in-council 1677, 1678, 1910 and 851.

Hon. Mr. Chabot –– 211

Pacific National Exhibition report and financial statement, March 31, 1983.

Hon. Mr. Chabot –– 211

British Columbia Steamship Company

(1975) Ltd. annual report,

Hon. A. Fraser –– 211

British Columbia Place Ltd. annual report.

Hon. Mr. Rogers –– 211

MONDAY, JULY 11, 1983

The House met at 2:07 p.m.

Prayers.

HON. MR. RITCHIE: I have the honour of introducing to the

House today a visitor from Australia. Would the members please welcome

the Hon. Evan Walker, Minister for Conservation and Planning of the

Australian state of Victoria.

HON. MR. WATERLAND: In the gallery today, visiting from

Ashcroft, is Mayor Ward Bishop, Aldermen Bev Maldidier and Tony Van

Leest, and administrator Bob Harper. I would ask the House to please

bid them welcome.

MR. STRACHAN: Visiting with us in Victoria today is someone

who has contributed significantly, on a volunteer basis, to cultural

affairs in Prince George. Would the House please welcome Myrna Moffat.

Oral Questions

PREMIER'S COMMENT ON PUBLIC SERVANTS

MR. HANSON: A question to the Premier. On Friday, July 8, the

Premier made an extremely serious charge and insulted 250,000 public

sector workers in this province, and their families. What research and

evidence was given to you to substantiate that very serious charge?

HON. MR. BENNETT: I thank the member for bringing this matter

up in question period, because it gives me a chance to correct what was

an erroneous report of an interview. I'm not blaming the senior

reporters; I've told the press it was probably that we were discussing

a wide range of subjects. When asked a question about the new

legislation, which I don't intend to discuss because it's before the

House, I said that the public would not expect to continue to pay those

who had received their dismissal notices that day after their duties

were removed. This was not a comment on the public servants who work

for us now, or a blanket statement to do with public servants in

general. I'm glad the member asked the question, because I was

certainly distressed by what it was not my intention to say, or

statements that I wanted attributed to me; I therefore thank the first

member for Victoria for giving me this opportunity to make my position

very clear.

MR. HANSON: Have you asked the reporter to apologize for the incorrect attribution to you?

HON. MR. BENNETT: No, because I am not blaming someone who is

a very senior and competent reporter. I accept full responsibility that

in the course of the discussion it may have been unclear what areas we

were discussing. Therefore there would be no reason to apologize,

except that I am glad for this opportunity to have the situation

clarified.

MR. HANSON: Is the Premier advising this House that legislation that

was introduced calling for the firing of government employees...? There are

250,000 people subject to legislation which would allow firing without cause.

When you were asked why those people would be fired, you say they were not doing

their jobs; then you wonder why....

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. Hon. member, this is question period.

MR. HANSON: I'm asking him if he said it, and if he's willing to apologize to those 250,000 people and withdraw that legislation.

[2:15]

HON. MR. BENNETT: No, no apology. It's a good opportunity to

see clarification. I believe that all those who work in the public and

private sectors in British Columbia undertake their jobs very

seriously. We also know that many in the private sector have lost jobs

because of the international recession. Their duties have not been

required. I think that unemployed store clerks and those in the forest

industry, such as loggers and sawmillers, who were dismissed when their

duties weren't required understand this very clearly. I had some

opportunity over the weekend to talk to a wide range of people who

understand it very clearly. I know that the first member for Victoria

and others, now that I've had an opportunity to clarify it, would have

an interest in accepting that and not wanting to create tensions that

shouldn't exist or confusion that should not exist. It was an

unfortunate story, and I'm glad for this opportunity to clear it up.

MR. HANSON: Why did the Premier not issue an immediate

apology to those firefighters and hospital workers and police officers

in this province? Why did he wait for this opportunity?

HON. MR. BENNETT: The earliest opportunity I had to meet the

media was today, and I wasn't aware of the nature of the story nor the

circulation until sometime late Sunday, That was the first opportunity

I had to hear about it. I was in the Okanagan and did not see the

newspaper accounts nor hear any on the media because I didn't have

either the television or radio on, nor were they where I was.

MR. HANSON: Why did you not ask leave of this House to apologize to 250,000 people?

HON. MR. BENNETT: Because the clarification had already been

made and I'm pleased to have an opportunity to clarify it. There is no

apology, because it is not what I meant, and I'm glad that I've had a

chance to clarify it. Nor am I asking for apologies because the report

does not correctly state what I either believe or intended to say or

think I said.

MR. BARRETT: Don't you know what you're talking about?

HON. MR. BENNETT: Yes, I know what I'm talking about. The

Leader of the Opposition not only doesn't know what he's talking about;

he doesn't even know what he's going to do.

MR. HANSON: To the Premier: is it not true, now that you have

the opportunity, that no evidence exists that these people are not

doing their jobs, and that what you're really doing is trying to

scapegoat the public employees in this

[ Page 188 ]

province, blaming them for the mismanagement of the economy for which you are to blame?

HON. MR. BENNETT: Mr. Speaker, the first member for Victoria

has now gone beyond not accepting my clarification and is trying to

insist that he doesn't accept my explanation. He is now starting to

play politics with the situation.

These are very serious times. We have a very comprehensive

management program that I think is supported by the large majority of

the people of British Columbia. As it is implemented I'm sure it will

gain the support of more. Those who would attempt to confuse the

situation or create fears where no fear should be extended are not

serving the interests of British Columbia. They are doing what they've

always done, and that's why you'll always be over there: you play

politics with every situation.

TRANSFER OF RENTALSMAN DISPUTES TO

COURTS

MR. MACDONALD: Bill 5, which, I won't discuss the merits of,

says that the jurisdiction of the rentalsman in dispute resolution is

being transferred entirely to the courts effective October 1. Has the

Premier any cost analysis showing the impact upon the courts of those

additional costs of writs and lawyers and judges and appeals and

sheriffs?

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. member, we are getting very close to legislation presently before us. However, I recognize the Premier.

HON. MR. BENNETT: I was going to suggest, Mr. Speaker, that

the member is trying to pre-empt the opportunity of discussing this in

debate on the bill. I know he's very interested in lawyers' costs and

the way they undertake their duties. I've had firsthand opportunity to

see him conduct a losing case.

MR. MACDONALD: Anybody whose reputation is worth only $10,000.... I don't know who won that case.

Mr. Speaker, I suggest that I am perfectly in order in asking

whether the government has papers, in the form of a cost analysis, as

to the increased cost impact upon the courts of the province? Are there

any such studies, or is it just an election payoff to the landlords?

AN HON. MEMBER: You're out of order!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please.

MR. MACDONALD: Are there any such studies?

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. Hon. members, while the review of

the rules of question period could very well take us some time, I'm

sure that members are familiar enough to know that questions which are

argumentative are not in order. In fact, hon. members, very few

questions are in order in question period. Therefore I would ask the

members' support in at least adhering to the minimum requirements of

question period.

HUMAN RIGHTS BRANCH

MR. GABELMANN: Mr. Speaker, I have a non-argumentative,

non-political question to the Minister of Labour. In view of the mass

firing of human rights branch officers and investigating staff on

Friday, can the minister advise us of the status of cases under review

by the branch in view of the fact that the Human Rights Code of B.C.

remains in force in this province?

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: Mr. Speaker, we will be discussing that

during the debate on the legislation. All of the cases which are

presently before the branch are presently before the branch. There are

a number, as well, that have been referred to me for action, and they

are presently under consideration by myself. So they remain in the same

situation that they were before this action took place.

MR. GABELMANN: In view of the fact that the fired employees

must be paid until at least October 31, can the minister explain why

the human rights officers will not be allowed to work in order to clear

the existing caseload?

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: Yes, Mr. Speaker. It has been practice

in the past that when a program is either shut down or intended to be

shut down, the people who have been involved in those programs are no

longer necessary for the operation, since it's the clear intention of

the government to change the way in which human rights problems will be

solved in this province.

TREATMENT OF TERMINATED EMPLOYEES

MR. GABELMANN: I have another question for the Minister of

Labour. In a television interview over the weekend, the Minister of

Finance (Hon. Mr. Curtis) said that employees affected by government

restraint will be dealt with "with the fullest possible understanding

and sensitivity." Can the minister explain where the sensitivity and

understanding are when RCMP and sheriffs are sent to vacationing

employees' homes to retrieve office keys?

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: Mr. Speaker, if the member has evidence

of that happening I'd appreciate having it; it certainly wouldn't have

been under my orders, or those of the deputy minister. If it has

happened I'll take some action, and I'll make sure that it will never

happen again. But it would be incumbent upon that member, if he has

that kind of evidence, to make sure that I, as the minister, obtain it.

MR. GABELMANN: Who is the deputy minister?

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: Mr. Speaker, the deputy minister in each ministry of government is a matter of public record.

[ Page 189 ]

TRADING IN SHARES OF SUNMASK PETROLEUM

MR. HOWARD: Mr. Speaker, I'd like to direct a question to the

Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs. Shares of Sunmask

Petroleum, which is involved in the ownership of the Spetifore

property, through an option to obtain a 30 percent interest in Dawn

Development (Canada) Corp., traded on the 6th and 7th of this month,

before the budget was presented to this House, in the neighbourhood of

150,000 shares — somewhat in excess of the regular trading pattern. The

shares increased on the 6th by 10 cents over the day before, on the 7th

by 20 cents, and by 30 cents on the 8th.

Can the minister tell the House whether he is conducting, or will

conduct, an investigation to determine whether there was a leak of the

legislation that affected the Spetifore property before it was tabled

in this House?

HON. MR. HEWITT: Mr. Speaker, because of the detail that the

member has given on the floor of the House, I'll take that question as

notice, and if he can provide me with some details in writing I'll

certainly be prepared to follow it up.

MR. HOWARD: Doesn't the minister know how to read Hansard ?

I just put the facts on the record. Isn't the superintendent of brokers

under the minister's jurisdiction? Does the minister know what he's

doing? What I'm asking is a very serious question about the potential

leaking of information relating to legislation that advanced the

interests of insiders and speculators in Sunmask shares.

HON. MR. HEWITT: Yes, I know the superintendent of brokers is under my ministry, and I will be pleased to wait to read Hansard in order to get the information to follow up.

TREATMENT OF TERMINATED EMPLOYEES

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

didn't want to interject again during question period, because I wanted

to give other members a chance to take part, but I would appreciate it

very much if the member for North Island (Mr. Gabelmann) would make

available to me any evidence that he has of the allegations that he

made in the House.

MR. SPEAKER: The Chair has no way of enforcing such action, hon. member. That is at the member's discretion.

Prior to recognizing Mr. Clerk, hon. members, I have the honour of

tabling the 1982 annual report of the ombudsman to the Legislative

Assembly.

Orders of the Day

The House in Committee of Supply; Mr. Strachan in the chair.

HON. MR. CURTIS: Mr. Chairman, may I welcome you to your chair for the first time.

I move that from and out of the consolidated revenue fund there may

be paid and applied in the manner and at the times the government may

determine (

a) the sum of $6,042,000,000 towards defraying the charges

and expenses of the public service of the province for the fiscal year

ending March 31, 1984, and being substantially three-quarters of the

total amount of the votes of the main estimates for the fiscal year

ending March 31, 1984, as laid before the Legislative Assembly at the

present session; and (

b) the sum of $184,000,000, being substantially

three-quarters of the total amount required for the purposes referred

to in sections (

a) and (

b) of

schedule (

c) of the main estimates for

the fiscal year ending March 31, 1984.

Motion approved.

HON. MR. CURTIS: I move the committee rise, report the resolution and ask leave to sit again.

Motion approved.

The House resumed; Mr. Speaker in the chair.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Speaker, the committee reports a resolution and asks leave to sit again.

MR. SPEAKER: When shall the resolution be reported as considered?

HON. MR. CURTIS: I move that the report of the resolution from the Committee of Supply on July 11, 1983, be now taken as read and received.

Motion approved.

HON. MR. CURTIS: I move that the resolution be now read a second time.

[2:30]

Motion approved.

MR. SPEAKER: When shall the committee sit again?

HON. MR. CURTIS: At the next sitting. Mr. Speaker, I move

that Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair for the House to go into

Committee of Ways and Means.

Motion approved.

The House in Committee of Ways and Means; Mr. Strachan in the chair.

HON. MR. CURTIS: I move that from and out of the consolidated

revenue fund there may be paid and applied in the manner and at the

times the government may determine: (

a) the sum of $6,042,000,000

towards defraying the charges and expenses of the public service of the

province for the fiscal year ending March 31, 1984, and being

substantially three-quarters of the total amount of the votes of the

main estimates of the fiscal year ending March 31, 1984, as laid before

the Legislative Assembly at the present session; and (

b) the sum of

$184,000,000 being substantially three-quarters of the total amount

required for the purposes referred to in sections (

a) and (

b) and

schedule C of the main estimates for the fiscal year ending March 31,

Motion approved.

HON. MR. CURTIS: Mr. Chairman, I move that the committee rise, report resolution and ask leave to sit again.

[ Page 190 ]

The House resumed; Mr. Speaker in the chair.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Speaker, the committee reports a resolution and asks leave to sit again.

MR. SPEAKER: When shall the resolution as reported be considered?

HON. MR. CURTIS: I move that the report of the resolution

from the Committee of Ways and Means on July 11, 1983, be now taken as

read and received.

Motion approved.

HON. MR. CURTIS: I move that the resolution be now read a second time.

Motion approved.

MR. SPEAKER: When shall the committee sit again?

HON. MR. CURTIS: At the next sitting, Mr. Speaker.

SUPPLY ACT (No. 1), 1983

HON. MR. CURTIS: I present Bill 10, intituled Supply Act (No. 1), 1983.

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. members, I ask you to remain in your seats for just a moment while the bill is circulated.

HON. MR. CURTIS: Mr. Speaker, I move that Bill 10 be referred to a Committee of the Whole House forthwith.

Motion approved.

The House in Committee; Mr. Strachan in the chair.

HON. MR. CURTIS: I move that the committee rise and report recommending introduction of the bill.

Motion approved.

The House resumed; Mr. Speaker in the chair.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Speaker, the committee reports, recommending the introduction of the bill.

HON. MR. CURTIS: Mr. Speaker, I move that the report be adopted.

Motion approved.

HON. MR. CURTIS: I move that the bill be introduced and now read a first time.

Motion approved.

HON. MR. CURTIS: With leave, I move that the bill be now read a second time.

Leave granted.

HON. MR. CURTIS: Mr. Speaker, I have a few remarks in second

reading. This supply bill is in the general form of previous years'

supply bills presented to the Legislative Assembly. It requests a

portion of the estimates presented last Thursday to provide for the

ongoing expenditures of government. It also requests approximately

three-quarters of the funding planned for the government's continuing

employment development programs which, if I may point out to hon.

members, appear in sections A and B of

schedule C in the estimates.

Full supply for these programs will be requested through the Employment

Development Act which is now before the Legislature. Interim supply for

these programs is required to provide for essential ongoing employment

creation initiatives, such as indicated the other day; funding to

accelerate highway construction, diking and river works; and projects

which are related to the agricultural sector of the province.

In addition, as required by

section 21 of the Financial

Administration Act, special warrants approved by the

Lieutenant-Governor to cover certain essential government expenditures

are included as part of Bill 10. The bill contains schedules, as

members will have noticed, on pages 2 to 5, listing those special

warrants approved for the 1982-83 fiscal year and the first part of the

1983-84 fiscal year. I also want to point out that the amount of $6,226

million requested in this bill to defray certain government

expenditures includes the amount of $3,181,033,000 for the 1983-84

fiscal year approved by special warrants.

Finally, as has I think been the case each time interim supply is

presented, I would point out the requirement for early passage of the

supply bill, at the pleasure of the House, in order to provide for the

ongoing expenditures of the government for the 1983-84 fiscal year. I

therefore move second reading of Bill 10.

MR. STUPICH: Certainly the opposition will agree to

reasonably early passage of the legislation before us now. It's

three-quarters of the budget, and I suppose we can say that we can

agree with even more than three-quarters of the budget. But when it

comes to voting on the budget as a whole, I'm sure the government would

not expect anyone to support them other than the members in the House

who will be obliged to vote for them. The comment from the community

would seem to be unanimous in opposition to the total budget as such,

although I think everyone would support at least three-quarters of it.

There might be some differences as to which three-quarters.

The minister said in his remarks that it's the general form of such

legislation, and I suppose it is; it's called the same thing: "interim

supply." Certainly it's the first time in my experience that we've ever

had one for nine months. The longest that I've ever seen previously

was, I believe, two months. It might have been three. I'll give the

minister the benefit of the doubt on that, but it was certainly nothing

like nine months. Nine months, Mr. Speaker, takes us until next

December.

I don't know whether it's part of this legislation or not, but

previously on such occasions the minister and I have had a quiet

corridor chat about the length of time to be covered by the supply bill

and have speculated as to what this meant in terms of what the

government had in mind. This time there wasn't that opportunity for the

corridor chat, so I had no opportunity to ask him: does he have in mind

the House

[ Page 191 ]

adjourning soon and not reconvening until sometime

in December? If it's in order, Mr. Speaker, I thought he might want to

comment on that in closing second reading debate on this legislation.

Why are we today giving the government approval to spend enough money

to keep the government supplied with funds until the end of December,

which is some almost six months away? It does give one cause to wonder.

"General form as in previous...." Well, perhaps general form,

but again there is a difference. I've been here for over 20 years, and it's

the first time in my experience that the Supply Act has been brought in to retroactively

approve special warrants passed by a cabinet, with absolutely no public discussion

of government spending. We're not talking about nickels and dimes. Today

we're being asked to approve spending of some $6.2 billion. The cabinet

has already approved half of that spending, presumably without any discussion

at all — certainly none filtered out of the cabinet room. Enough spending for

four and a half months has already been approved, and a substantial amount of

that has already been spent. One wonders just how far the minister is prepared

to go in saying that this legislation is the same sort of thing we do year after

year. It would seem to me that the dissimilarities are greater than the similarities.

That, of course, would lead one into a discussion about why the

government thought it was necessary to proceed by special warrant in

the first place. There certainly was ample time between early October

1982 and the day the election was eventually called, April 7, 1983, for

the government to have produced a budget. If one were going to accept

the general form in the province of British Columbia, it would have

been normal to have had a budget by the end of January. With this

administration it has become later and later. Last year, 1982, it was

produced on April 5; the new fiscal period had already started. In

1979, I recall, it was delivered on April 2, the day after April Fool's

Day. So each year it seems to be getting later. But this is ridiculous.

We're into July before the government is able to pull together a budget

— the last budget, I believe, in the whole dominion of Canada. One has

to wonder: is this government not able...? There used to be some

question about its ability to run a peanut stand. It would seem to me

that it's becoming increasingly difficult for this particular group to

run a government. Each year the budget is later. We find that the

cabinet has to approve in excess of $3 billion in spending before they

have the temerity to bring their figures to the Legislature. Now, of

course, the Legislature is obliged to approve the legislation before us

— the Supply Act — because the Legislature can't possibly hold up the

kind of spending that is going on on a day-to-day basis. With the

special warrants already approved, the government could go on well into

August before it required anything.

Nevertheless, as far as the opposition is concerned, we do not

intend to hold up unduly the passage of the legislation now before us.

We prefer to get into a detailed examination of estimates. We prefer to

deal with the details of the budget, because there are many items in it

that we do want to talk about; and we want to have an opportunity to

vote against it at the earliest possible time, again and again. With

respect to the Supply Act before us now, the opposition will support it.

[2:45]

MR. MACDONALD: I want to say a few words about the bill

before the House, which shouldn't be before us at all. We've had a very

strange spring and summer in the province of British Columbia. March 31

was the end of the fiscal year, and it went by without the Legislature

being called and without a budget being presented.

Had the budget been presented, the government would not have won the last election.

Interjection.

MR. MACDONALD: No, they would not have won the.... The

Premier deliberately, through his public relations and his polling

techniques in his own office, held back the presentation of a budget to

the people of British Columbia so that they would vote for him blindly.

You stole the election.

The Minister of Finance is shaking his head. The political

interference from the Premier's office in your department, Mr. Minister

of Finance, is nothing short of a disgrace. I remember the statements

of the Minister of Finance, who said: "Well, we will have a budget. We

have some financial integrity." Then you'd hear a statement from the

Premier: no, there would be a budget in June. Who was making the

decisions? What is happening to the financial integrity of the province

of British Columbia?

A long time ago we had a Finance minister whose name, I think, was

Jones. He stood up — as an Attorney-General should within a cabinet; so

should the Minister of Finance — and said: "I have certain important

obligations to the people." Well, this Minister of Finance was

ruthlessly manipulated by the Premier's office.

Had this budget been presented as it should have been presented,

there would have been a different government today in the province of

British Columbia. I spoke to Alderman Don Bellamy yesterday for a few

minutes. He was furious about the 7 percent on meals over $7, which

doesn't apply to McDonald's, but applies to an awful lot of people. He

was saying: "I'll never be a Socred again." I tried to talk him out of

it. I said: "You look like a Socred. You've always behaved like one.

Why jump ship just because of a little election fraud, Don? You were

had, but so were the whole people of British Columbia. Why get so

excited suddenly?" So maybe I've held him in the ranks of the Social

Credit, where he belongs. But the people of British Columbia would not

have voted for this government had the Premier come clean with a budget

and said sales tax is going up to 7 percent. No way.

I'm talking a little jocularly, maybe, but we do have a statute in

this province called the Financial Administration Act, Mr. Speaker, and

it says that if funds are urgently and immediately required they can be

granted by the Crown without legislative debate or appropriation. They

were not urgently and immediately required. All the Premier had to do

was to summon the Legislature and present interim supply or present a

budget at estimates. The government has tortured, beyond all reason,

the language in the Financial Administration Act. That's the kind of

thing that King Charles I lost his head over, just as during that

spring when you were listening to the statements of the Minister of

Finance (Hon. Mr. Curtis) it looked as if he was losing his head for a

while there too, wondering what he was going to be allowed to do by the

Premier's office.

I know I'm talking history, in a sense, but I hope people won't

forget it. We shouldn't be here in the month of July debating an

appropriation running into billions of dollars that should have been

presented to the people before they voted;

[ Page 192 ]

that should have been presented to the people and

the Legislature before the end of the fiscal year, on March 31. I would

hope, Mr. Speaker, that this kind of manipulation of the democratic

process will never happen again in this province of British Columbia.

MRS. WALLACE: I don't feel the least bit jocular about this

particular piece of legislation. It disturbs me very much to be asked

to vote on a bill which covers three-quarters of a budget which we only

saw two or three days ago. Certainly there hasn't been time to really

digest what is in that budget, and yet we are being asked to give

approval to three-quarters of that without any time to really know and

understand and grasp what that budget covers. We're being asked tor

give approval to a sum, half of which is already covered by special

warrants with no reference to this Legislature — already spent.

We go through what may appear to some of the people in the gallery

to be strange motions here, with our moving people in and out of the

chair and moving to Committee of Supply; but all of those things have

roots, based on our democratic belief that the people must have a say

about how the money is spent. This government is denying the people the

right to have that say. They denied it by calling the election before

they presented the budget, and they have denied it by delaying, week

after week, month after month, giving us an opportunity to discuss

these moneys. That's an underlying rule — one of the basic foundations

of our whole parliamentary system — that the people and the money must

be discussed prior to anything else. Our little red book tells us that

that has to be the first thing we do. This government has denied us

that right, Mr. Speaker. I feel very angry about that — very angry. I

do not like living in a semi-fascist state, and that's what I seem to

be living in. I tell you, the people of B.C. don't like it either.

You people think you have a mandate. You had a mandate before you

brought in the throne speech and before you brought in the budget, but

you have fast lost that mandate, and I tell you that as the people

recognize what you are doing to them and the way you are ruling — like

a monarchy, dictatorship, a fascist approach — they are fast going to

decide that they don't like what you're doing.

I'm frightened by this kind of an approach because I'm frightened

about the very basis of our democratic system. I think it's time people

recognized what's happening in this province and recognized it for what

it is. I look at this bill — I've seen it for all of five minutes — and

what do I see in it? Two overruns on ministers' offices covered by

special warrants. You're the people who are supposed to be cutting and

restraining yourselves, and there you are: two overruns on ministers'

offices. What kind of restraint is that? Hit the little guy and let you

guys go on; is that the kind of restraint we've got in this province?

I'm mightily annoyed about even having to discuss such a bill, in such

an area of lack of information, and so late, Mr. Speaker. Futility in

democracy, and that government is a futile and desperate government

determined to keep power by whatever means at its disposal. It

frightens and bothers me, and I hope the people of B.C. recognize it

for what it is.

MR. SKELLY: I too would like to speak on this interim supply

bill. My concern is in part about the first part of the bill, which of

course deals with the current budget; we'll have an opportunity to deal

with that later on in the legislative debate. My other concern is about

why we're meeting so late in the year, why the government is presenting

its budget so late in the year and why they need this interim supply

bill in the first place.

The reason has to do with what the government calls its mandate.

They went to the people without having presented a budget, prior to the

end of a fiscal year, and they deceived the people. They told the

people lies about what they were planning to do. They said they weren't

going to increase taxes or user fees, and now they come down with a

budget in which they say it's absolutely necessary to increase taxes

and user fees. What concerns me is that this government should tell

this Legislature clearly and simply — this budget tells the Legislature

clearly and simply that the government was not telling the public the

truth when it went to the electorate during the last election;

therefore they have no mandate from the public because they didn't tell

the truth about what they were planning to do. This government has no

mandate whatsoever to do the things it's planning in this budget. They

won the election, and we have to admit that they won. The numbers don't

lie. It's the way they won the election that decides whether or not

they have a mandate. We all know that Hitler went through several

elections before he established his dictatorship. He used those

elections as justification to claim a mandate from the people for the

actions he subsequently took, which plunged us into the darkest period

of our history in this century — the direction this government is going

at the present time.

My concern is about the second part of the budget, in which we are

asked to authorize, retroactively, money that should have been voted by

this Legislature during its last session prior to the end of the fiscal

year — not approved by cabinet behind the closed doors of cabinet,

without any budget being presented to the Legislature. This is a

shameful practice, one that was reversed years ago, as previous

speakers have said, in some cases at the cost of the head of a monarch.

In Canada it was won around the turn of the nineteenth century when

legislative councils in this country got the power of the purse away

from the executive branch, so that the people who were taxed had the

right to have their representatives vote on how that money would be

spent. The power of the purse was a hard-won power for legislative

councils in this country, and again it was gained at the cost of blood

and suffering by our forefathers. For the first time in 150 years this

government has reversed that process and taken us all the way back to

the beginning of the nineteenth century, sacrificing a hard-won element

of the democracy that our forefathers gained for us in obtaining the

power of the purse from the executive branch.

Mr. Speaker, the fact that this government comes into office today

and claims to have a mandate from the people to do what it's proposing,

claims to have a mandate to present this kind of legislation, is

sickening. This government has no mandate at all. In fact, in

presenting this kind of legislation it has chosen to ignore the mandate

that the people have given it, and to take action against the people

who elected it in the first place. It's shameful legislation.

MR. BARRETT: There are three specific areas that I wish to

deal with in this interim supply bill. I will be brief, but certainly

to the point to the minister.

[3:00]

During the debate in April 1982, a number of specific questions were asked of the minister concerning $45 million

[ Page 193 ]

that was taken from general revenue in the last

week of the fiscal year 1982 — before March 31, as a matter of fact —

and transferred to B.C. Rail. This was $45 million of taxpayers' money

that was raised from general revenue by the citizens of this province,

and those citizens expect a full accounting of not a small amount of

money.

After we were presented with the budget, a number of questions were

asked in the House as to where this $45 million was to go, how it was

to be repaid, and where exactly it had been transferred. The minister

informed the House that B.C. Rail had indeed been given $45 million,

but the purpose of the $45 million was unclear because the government's

policy had not been determined on the use of that $45 million. I asked

at the time: "Why would a government give a Crown corporation $45

million if it didn't know what the Crown corporation was going to do

with the money?"

If the government were to give a civil servant $45 million to go

down to the comer and buy some coffee, it would be a nasty thing to do.

If the government were to give $45 million to a school district and the

school district said, "we're determining policy on it," that school

district would be attacked by the whole government. If the government

gave $45 million to a municipality to build roads, it would expect a

full accounting. Here in this chamber there are members from municipal

councils who, faced with an expenditure of $45 million, would expect to

tell the public exactly where that money is going, who is going to

spend it and how it is going to be repaid.

Without boring you with the details, Mr. Speaker, I raised this

frequently during question period. I raised it directly to the Minister

of Finance, I raised it through written question on the order paper and

I raised it through the great articulate, clear-cut responsible

Minister of Trade and Industry (Hon. Mr. Phillips), who has yet to

answer a question openly since his election to that high office. For

once he even shut up. Can you imagine, members of this House — not the

new members — any situation in which the Minister of Industry and Small

Business Development would actually shut up? Here is one. It's a matter

of amusement to consider that such a circumstance should take place,

but he sat silent. Why did he sit silent? Because the $45 million — I

charged at the time — was going to be taken out of the pockets of the

taxpayers of this province and handed over in cash to B.C. Rail to be

used to pull down B.C. Rail's debt so that it could show a profit

before an election.

Can I put this in context for the citizens who pay their tax bills?

Let me explain to you how it works under Social Credit. You take $45

million of taxpayers' money that should have gone into schools, roads

and hospitals — tell the teachers that they are greedy, tell the

municipal councils that they are irresponsible in handling the money,

tell the hospitals that they'll have to do with shorter operations and

save on sutures because the government is tight for money — and hand

this $45 million over to B.C. Rail. When you're asked questions about

it, say: "Well, we really don't know what is going to happen, because

we haven't made the policy." This is supposed to be a businesslike

government. This is an allegedly wise, tough, restrained and

disciplined administration. It took $45 million, threw it up in the

air, and said: "Everything that stays up there is the taxpayers'.

Everything that falls on the ground goes to B.C. Rail." Guess how much

the taxpayers got? We know what B.C. Rail got.

If you owned a mortgage out there, citizens of British Columbia, and

someone came along and said, "your mortgage is $45 million; here is $45

million to pay off your mortgage," would you turn it down? No. So as a

test pilot for this program B.C. Rail was given the $45 million. They

didn't turn it down. The shock is that not one statement was made in

this House by the Minister of Finance or by the Minister of Industry

and Small Business Development admitting that that $45 million was

going to be handed over to B.C. Rail, without any accountability to the

taxpayers of this province, as a direct subsidy to bring down the cost

of the northeast coal development.

I'll have to read back my own words, because I don't think the

government is going to quote me. I want to quote a prediction I made on

April 8, 1982, in discussing this very situation where $45 million

disappeared — not to the handicapped, not to the schools and not for

jobs; it just disappeared. I said on April 8, 1982: "When is this going

to end?" I stated: "What this bill proves is that there will be an

election before another Social Credit budget is presented to this

House." I was jeered for saying that. They said: "Oh, no, no, no, we'll

explain the $45 million; you, Mr. Member for Vancouver East, just have

a suspicious mind." Yes, I did have a suspicious mind. I thought I was

being lied to. Little did I know that my suspicions were fully correct

and that the government did lie about this $45 million.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please.

MR. BARRETT: I didn't say any minister lied; I said the

government lied. That is a fact and it is in order, and the lie is

proven in today's interim supply bill.

How did the government lie? It lied unashamedly and said to schools,

hospitals, or municipalities, "No money for you." It handed over $45

million to B.C. Rail. They said they did not formulate the policy....

I don't mind your leaving, Mr. Minister. I wouldn't want your own

words to come back to you, that lovely image you have of responsible

restraint. The only guy in the world who could blow $45 million in a

couple of hours and not give a word to the taxpayers or an explanation

to this House; who never said a single word in answer to a question in

committee on the bill and on the floor of this House. The government

lied about the $45 million, and we've had to wait 14 months to find out

where the taxpayers' money went. Every time you hear one of those birds

over there chirp, chirp, chirp about restraint, let me tell you how

they did it with $45 million that disappeared on a caboose.

I'll read this quote from the minister's own signed report. This is

a minister who doesn't know where the money's going, doesn't know where

it's coming from, but he thought that with the passage of time people

would forget about the $45 million. As we attend the vote on $6 million

for a government that lies about money, I quote here how the big lie

was perpetrated.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. member has taken great liberty in using

a word which on many occasions has been ruled unparliamentary in this

chamber. To attribute it indirectly does not allow the member to do

what he cannot do directly. Hon. member, you have been here long enough

to know that temperate language at all times is a guide to moderation

in debate.

[ Page 194 ]

MR. BARRETT: Mr. Speaker, I accept the admonition of the

Chair. I have been careful not to call anybody in this room a liar. No,

I haven't called any one of you a liar. If you want to disprove what

I'm saying, okay, that's fine. I called the government "lying," Mr.

Speaker. You see that the use of the word "lie" is what's in question.

I will not use the word lie. I withdraw the word lie.

The government has not told the truth. Mr. Speaker, I do not want

the press to go outside of this chamber with a corollary of that

statement.

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. member, you are very well aware that it is

impossible for a member to do one way something that cannot be done in

another way. To infer that any hon. member would not be telling the

truth in the chamber is not in keeping with parliamentary tradition.

I'm sure the member has a great respect for the traditions of

parliament, and I would ask him to bear that in mind as he continues in

his address.

MR. BARRETT: Mr. Speaker, my respect for parliament includes

the giving of answers in this chamber and accountability for public

funds. I asked 14 months ago for an accounting of $45 million that

mysteriously disappeared with the stroke of a pen in the last week of

the fiscal year '81-82. Had the NDP been in government and $45 million

disappeared, I can assure you, Mr. Speaker, that the language used by

the members opposite would not have been as temperate as that which I

am using today. Had the NDP done away with $45 million with the stroke

of a pen, the Chair would have been well tested to keep them buckled

down, even though there were no compulsory seatbelts at the time. But

because I am MLA Emeritus — and I'm looking forward to taking my leave

of this chamber — let me say that in the 23 years I've been here I

recognize an untruth when I hear one, even though I can't refer to it.

Having said that, Mr. Speaker, I quote from page B15, the third

paragraph from the bottom. I don't want to read too much because some

of the new members will be shocked over the group they've joined and

will rush out to resign their seats.

AN HON. MEMBER: I'll take mine with me.

MR. BARRETT: Oh, you'll take yours with you. You'd better hang on to it.

Let me read this just so the citizens of this province know what

you're paying them for. Let's just keep it in this room, because

there's only a handful of us. We don't want to shock the rest of those

taxpayers out there. Between thee and me, Mr. Speaker, let us

understand how this government operates. "During the year ended March

31, 1980, in view of the cumulative deficit of the railway" — i.e. the

B.C. Rail — "the province's investment, which has amounted to $185

million as of March 31, 1980, was written down to $1." Hey, they wrote

off $185,572,900 down to $1 in this one line — wiped out debt. Now you

can't do that. So what did they do? They sold themselves some more

shares. They just printed a handful more shares down at the Queen's

Printer and said: "We owe $185 million. Tell the Queen's Printer to

pump in some ink and grind out some shares, and we'll sell ourselves

$185 million more worth of shares." That's Social Credit. Known as

funny money.

I don't dispute that; that's a matter of philosophy. This is the

question that I raise, and this is the answer that we had to wait 14

months for. "An additional investment of $45 million made in March 1982

has been written off and is reflected as an expenditure for the year."

They wrote off the $45 million that they gave to the railroad as a

bad debt. All those teachers, firemen, policemen and public-sector

workers — everybody who was told to tighten his belt, all those

taxpayers who are gouged more, everybody who had to pay more for

renter's grant — every one of them contributed to a $45 million

write-off to B.C. Rail that was never given a full explanation in this

House. And that minister has the gall to come in here this year still

not saying what his policy was on that $45 million, and he wants

another $6 billion to play with. Would you trust that minister? I tell

you how I'm going to vote. I'm going to tell you, when it comes to his

estimates, I intend to directly deal with himself. But I want to tell

you this: you may have fooled a lot of people in this province, and you

may have a happy little group of ambitious back-benchers, but when it

all boils down to it, you lied about $45 million that you took out of

schools, hospitals and roads, and you never had the courage to say in

this House what you did with the money.

MR. SPEAKER: I must ask the hon. member to withdraw the expression: "You lied."

MR. BARRETT: Mr. Speaker, I withdraw the expression that they

lied. I withdraw it, but I'll tell it in the corridor, and I'll tell it

on television, and I'll ask the government to sue me. I'll ask anybody

over there to sue me for saying it, because $45 million was taken out

of schools and hospitals in this province, never given a full

explanation in this chamber, and in 14 months it shows up written off

as a bad debt, and the minister who was the minister of the Crown

himself at the time, when asked about the question, said: "We have no

policy on this yet." Do you mean to tell me after these 14 months that

you just shovelled over $45 million and didn't know what was going to

happen to it?

[3:15]

Is that restraint? Is that accountability? Is that responsibility?

Some $45 million shovelled out of the back of a truck, dumped into B.C.

Rail with no explanation and no accountability, and they said that

they're going to show restraint, I can just see them. The minister was

spending too much time counting pencils — those with erasers and those

without — to see how much money he could save while the 45 million

bucks was going, going, gone.

Enough of that. It'll be just a temporary embarrassment to the

minister. In about 30 seconds it'll be all forgotten. And remember, it

was a socialist who brought it up. If a public accountant or somebody

out there in the corporate world or Joe Citizen brought it up.... But

it's just a little socialist who brought it up, asking for some

honesty, truth and accountability. It's just a socialist, communist

plot, Mr. Speaker. It's just a plot to find out what happened to our

tax dollars and what's happening in our schools. Who would make such an

allegation of such plots, Mr. Speaker. I would have no idea. But it's

out there. Well, we'll just keep it in here. We don't want it to spread.

I want to come to another expenditure here. For those of you who

have your first bill, ask the minister to autograph it. This is a

memento. Oh, yes, this is a memento, particularly for the member for

Cariboo (Hon. A. Fraser) and the first

[ Page 195 ]

member for Vancouver–Little Mountain (Hon. Mrs.

McCarthy) and the member from Point Grey — the old guard. The old

hard-bitten core of fiscal responsibility, the tough fighters.

Mr. Speaker, do you remember when the NDP was in office and they had

a $100 million overrun in welfare? Do you think that's bad enough that

somebody should resign over it?

Interjection.

MR. BARRETT: Does anybody else over there think that that

kind of overrun is bad enough that people should resign over it? Mr.

Speaker, I wish to bring to that member's attention — and I'll do it

quietly because I don't want the press or anyone else to hear about

this bill — that there's a $117 million overrun in welfare this year,

I've heard of political envy before, but this is going too far. No

wonder "Zalm" packed it up. No wonder he went back to chewing bulbs.

One hundred and seventeen million bucks flew out the coop on welfare,

and they don't bat an eye about an overrun. Look at the member for

Cariboo (Hon. A. Fraser). I'd like to quote some of his old speeches

about the overruns.

Oh, it's great fun now, Mr. Speaker, for those members. After all,

it wasn't a matter of principle; it's just politics. Here a fib, there

a fib, everywhere a fib, fib. "If we get caught, so what, the

election's over, now we can tell the truth." I'd like to hear what the

Employers' Council has got to say about that $117 million overrun in

welfare. I'd like to hear what Mr. Walker at the Fraser Institute has

to say about that. Here's this right-wing, capitalist government

gouging every penny they can from the taxpayers and saying "no more

overruns," and then they blow a $117 million overrun in welfare.

Interjection.

MR. BARRETT: Yes, to help the people. It belongs in the Guinness Book of Records under the category of "how much can you stretch credibility."

Well, they can stretch it; it's unlimited. They have rubber

credibility — any way you want to go. The thing about it is they never

have a need for Sominex. These people put their heads on a pillow and

tell themselves they're tired, and they can convince themselves of

anything. Conscience they ain't got. Guilt — that's for another world.

But telling the whole truth — oh, well, that's something else again.

I can hear that $117 million overrun in welfare on the hotlines now.

You know what's going to happen? It was all Levi's fault. Those

right-wing spokespersons out there will say: "Well, we have to have a

$117 million overrun to show that we can do better than the socialists.

We really didn't want to spend the money. But a $117 million overrun

proves that we're 17 percent better than the socialists." I can hear

the whole speech now.

I see that my very good friend, the member for the Peace River

country, is back in the House. I know that he's just bursting in his

britches to stand up and tell us his part of that $45 million. I know

that he's just going to reach over gradually now and turn up his

microphone and get ready to speak on this bill and explain how that $45

million was spent. Why, I have a quote from him, Mr. Speaker —

somewhere. Do you think I should find it?

AN HON. MEMBER: Go ahead.

MR. BARRETT: Is he secure in cabinet, Mr. Speaker, or would I

do damage to his role in that good office? Somewhere in here he said:

"Oh, we're not going to use that $45 million for the railroad." Tch!

Tch! That member has been struck silent. That's like me running out of

words. Look at him, Mr. Speaker. He doesn't want to speak. He doesn't

want to talk. He doesn't want to participate. He knows what happened to

that $45 million, and this is the first time I've ever seen him show

any self-control. Look at that! It's an incredible performance of

maintaining self-control from a voluble minister who is now receiving

social-work advice from his colleague from Cariboo. Restrain yourself,

Mr. Minister. Don't get into this debate.

AN HON. MEMBER: Check your wallet, Don.

MR. BARRETT: That's right! Hang on tight! It'll be over in a

minute. Good going. Every penny they've paid to those image-makers is

worth it if they can get that guy to sit through this.

But we know, don't we, Mr. Speaker? And some of the others know that

it was that minister who knew all along that that $45 million taken

from schools, taken from municipalities, taken from hospitals, was

going to pay off the debt in B.C. Rail for his favourite project of

northeast coal; while he said — and told this House, Mr. Speaker — that

no money would come from general revenue, not one penny of taxpayers'

money would go into B.C. Rail for that project.

MS. SANFORD: Is that a fib?

MR. BARRETT: Considering those words came from that minister,

it's not a fib. It's what he believed at the time, and that's all

right, Mr. Speaker. Ministers are entitled to mistakes — the $45

million misunderstanding, the $185 million write-off. But, Mr. Speaker,

put that in context with the attacks on teachers, on school districts,

on hospitals and on hospital boards. Put that in context with this

pious claptrap about restraint. Put that in context with telling

honest, hardworking citizens of this province that they must tighten

their belts, show caution, and not blow money, while they hid the fact

that that money was being written off as a bad debt for the 14 months.

I want to talk about the last subject that I intend to raise today.

I was going to be more forceful, but I don't have to be now because

we've had an explanation from the Premier on this subject — that he's

been misunderstood again. You see, two senior reporters, as the Premier

described them, said that when we pay tax money out of consolidated

revenue, some people are not doing their jobs. Now, Mr. Speaker, I

would expect that the Premier will come into this House and put a

motion of privilege on the order paper asking those two reporters to

come to the bar — not the kind that they're normally familiar with in

the passage of their professional duties but the golden bar in this

chamber — in the morning so we can be sure it's straight testimony, and

to turn on their little tape recorder and find out whether the Premier

said these words.

[Mr. Strachan in the chair.]

Who's not doing their job in the civil service? Do you know anybody?

If so, Mr. Speaker, why did they withhold that information until just

this week? Are they sitting on

[ Page 196 ]

reports saying that people aren't doing their jobs?

How does it feel to be a psychiatric nurse in a mental hospital

struggling with a dangerously ill patient, to pick up the newspaper and

see that they are squandering money on civil servants? How does it feel

to be a prison guard and to be assaulted by a criminal in the line of

duty and to pick up the paper and read that you are really not doing

your job. How does it feel to be a nurse in a hospital when there's a

line-up of patients in the emergency ward and you've just discovered

that $45 million in your budget was thrown on B.C. Rail, and you read

in the newspaper that we're paying you money for not doing a job? How

does it feel for a fireman to climb up a ladder and go in and rescue a

child...? What does it do for their morale, these people who are on the

line 24 hours a day in a community protecting life and limb so the

likes of us can be in comfort here in this chamber?

During my early years, Mr. Speaker, I did work as a prison guard. We

put in more than eight hours a day. We put in 12, 14 and 16 hours a day

with young offenders. We didn't get paid for that.

AN HON. MEMBER: You got fired, too.

MR. BARRETT: Sure, I got fired, because I attacked this government. Had I been a Socred I wouldn't have been fired.

AN HON. MEMBER: Look at the opportunity it gave you.

MR. BARRETT: Yes, Mr. Speaker, it's wonderful.

Interjections.

MR. BARRETT: Mr. Speaker, the reference is that I am a lame

duck. Is that right? Okay, I'd rather be a lame duck than a lame-brain

any day, Mr. Member.

AN HON. MEMBER: Too bad you're both.

MR. BARRETT: Mr. Speaker, now we've got the member involved

in the debate. Now we're going to see some intelligent repartee. First

it starts with an indecipherable yell, then an unrestrained....

Interjection.

MR. BARRETT: There it is; there's the number one stage, Mr.

Speaker — the indecipherable yell. Shortly there will be a bellow,

sometimes mistaken as a burp, and then some semi-intelligent utterance

about "I told you so."

Mr. Speaker, what this government deliberately set out to do was to

leave the impression that they are being generous in hiring people for

government jobs — to leave the impression that everybody out there who

works for the government has a soft touch. I'd ask the cabinet to go

spend a night in jail as a prison guard. I'd ask them to spend a few

days in another kind of mental hospital — not this one, but another

one. I'd ask them to go and spend an evening with a policeman who's

going about his duties trying to maintain the peace in our communities.

I'd ask them to go and spend some dangerous time with firemen. I'd ask

them to understand that for the most part, people who go to work, no

matter who hires them, give a full day's measure, and they should be

treated with respect and with dignity.

[3:30]

Would that we got a full day's work out of politicians. We haven't

been here for seven and a half months. There was no budget before this

interim supply. We were being ruled by decree. The government never

called the House together. It's the first time since Charles I lost his

head over the same action — Bill the First. Is there anyone at the

municipal level who could get away with financing in this way? Is there

anybody in the business world who could get away with financing in this

way? Is there any major corporation that would lift the hat off its

head, throw in the dice, call out the numbers and say, "see you

tomorrow"?

This government, known as the Social Credit Party, deliberately did

not call this chamber together because it had massive overruns, as

witnessed by the $117 million in welfare. It deliberately did not call

this chamber together because it was hiding the fact that it wrote off

$45 million in a handout as debt to B.C. Rail. It did not call this

chamber together because it did not want to face the people of British

Columbia with what they knew was going on.

I said in April 1982 that they would not call the House again until

an election was over; I was right. Anybody in this province who

believes this government now.... Regardless of their political

philosophy, regardless of their station in life, regardless of their

role in our great community, anybody who would believe the word of this

government when it comes to public accounts, has got to show the

greatest amount of faith that has ever been recorded in the history of

mankind. I am not a skeptic. I am not a cynic. I have an open mind and

an open heart, but when I have been done over the way this government

has done me over.... You do over the people of British Columbia again

and again by gouging money out of schools, gouging money out of

hospitals and gouging it out of roads and saying it's restraint, while

all the time you are pouring it into subsidies for a Crown corporation,

and you didn't have the decency or the guts to come back and tell the

people of British Columbia what you were doing. That's what you stand

for: a government that refuses to tell the truth.

On election night I turned into the cameras and said that I rejoiced

for the victors; all I asked was that they tell the truth. They have

yet to learn that lesson.

Mr. Speaker, in the short history of this province....

There sits over your chair the dates of the opening of this chamber.

It was opened in 1897 — not even one hundred years ago. In the first 78

years after this chamber was opened, the cumulative debt of everything

we did in this province — Crown corporations and every expenditure for

capital assets — was $4.8 billion up to 1975. In those eight short

years between 1975 and the present this government has increased the

provincial debt threefold to well over $12.5 billion. In terms of debt,

every single kind of government — Liberal, Conservative, coalition, NDP

and 20 years of Social Credit — did not accumulate more than $4.8

billion; this government tripled that amount in eight years, and today

they expect us to talk about their fiscal responsibility.

This uncomfortable moment will be over shortly and I will take my

place, and 99.99 percent of the people of this province will never know

that this moment passed. But, Mr. Speaker, let you and I know what is

passing here. Let you and I clearly understand the line that divides

the official opposition from that coalition over there; the line is

called truth and honesty in government, more than anything else.

[ Page 197 ]

There are children who are going to have their education impaired

because of this government; there are line-ups of people waiting at

hospitals for needed surgery; there are projects that are being shelved

on the basis of restraint. And all along it has been nothing but a

political sham and fraud. There has been a massive diversion of funds

into projections and projects, funds taken out of general revenue that

people paid their taxes for.

In that short period of time, I have had the honour and pleasure of

sitting in this chamber for almost one-fifth of the history of this

province. In that too-long period of time I have never witnessed

anything as callous, untruthful and cynical as this government and this

bill today.

HON. MR. PHILLIPS: I stand in the House to support the

legislation. Before I give you the reasons why, I would like to say

yes, the member who sat down has indeed been in this House for a number

of years. He has made a lot of speeches, but none as hypothetical and

shallow as the one he just made, I thought maybe it was his swan song.

I can remember playing around puddles when I was a kid. The little

polliwogs used to jump in the puddle, the puddle would drain away and

the poor little polliwogs would be left high and dry. That's sort of

what the member reminds me of. He is still thrashing around but the

water is going, and pretty soon there aren't going to be many people

around. There weren't many listening to him in the House, as a matter

of fact.

Back to the budget. I want to talk for just a moment about the $45

million that was discussed earlier with regard to B.C. Railway. Before

I do, I want to remind members of the House that that money was

transferred to that great British Columbia railway before restraint.

That member stands up and says schools and hospitals are being cut by

20 percent. I didn't believe him because it's not true. But I am

surprised that this member could even mention B.C. Railway, because in

1977, the last year that he was president of the railway, a year when

the economy was booming right along in British Columbia, it lost $22

million on operations. Now, under the management of this great

government and a new board of directors, not only is the railway doing

a fantastic job of serving the industry of this great province, but

last year, in one of the most difficult years in the economy since

1930, the government and its good management made over $17.5 million.

That change has taken place in a very short period. It is because of

good management, the leadership of an independent board of directors

and this government that the railway is once again a part of British

Columbia that all British Columbians are proud of. It is serving, and

will be returning a profit to, the people of British Columbia.

Now I want to talk about the $45 million. If you analyze what he

says, the man who just took his seat wants you to spend more, gives you

the devil for restraint, says that everything is being gouged, and

services to people. We've listened to that rhetoric in this House for

far too long. We're not going to miss it, because I understand you are

going bye-byes. It won't be soon enough for me. You perpetuated the

idea that everything the government does is against British Columbia

and the taxpayers.

You would think he was the author of social services. I don't think he

read the budget speech. Expenditures in this year's budget for services

to people are up 8 percent. Over 70 percent of the budget this year is to services

to people: Health, Human Resources, Education, Attorney-General, Colleges and

Universities. He has the audacity to stand in this House.... You'd think

we were cutting services to people. We're cutting out some of the fluff

that's not needed and that the taxpayers don't want to pay for. When

it comes to needed services for people, we are better at providing them than

you are. We have promoted those industries and those areas in the province that

service industries to ensure that the private sector will provide the taxes

so that those services to people — those essential services to people that you

pontificate about all the time, my friend — will be there in the years to come.

I want to tell you that the British Columbia Railway has been an instrument

of development. I can remember when I used to sit on that side of the House

and spend about a third of the time in this Legislature arguing about the British

Columbia Railway. I can remember the years 1976, '77, '78, '79,

and then a little bit in '80, a little less in '81 and practically not

at all last year — no one wants to mention the British Columbia Railway, because

it is being very well run.

I can remember when that member built a railcar plant. There were

huge overruns in that railcar plant, and the money that went into the

railcar plant had to come out of hospitals, out of education, out of

services to people. It was a waste of money, because not only was he

going to build this railcar plant for $4 million, but it ended up being

a 100 percent overrun. It cost twice as much as they planned when they

were building. That wasted money came out of the hands of the taxpayers

of British Columbia. You took that money and you wasted it on the car

plant. Not only that, when they started manufacturing cars, the cost of

the cars was 30 to 50 percent more than they could be produced anywhere

else. And then he runs around the province saying: "Oh, the Socreds,

they cut down the car plant." I'll tell you, if we'd have kept it

going, we'd have had the tracks of the British Columbia Railway in

British Columbia full of cars, and they'd all have been produced at

about 50 percent more than they could be produced anywhere else.

MR. MACDONALD: What nonsense!

HON. MR. PHILLIPS: That's not nonsense. You, my friend, you

were a disaster as Minister of Energy. If I were you, I'd just sit

there and hang my head in shame. We know how Williams wanted your job.

Williams is going to come back to haunt you. When the second member

steps down, Williams is going to get his seat. Williams will get you

yet. I'll tell you, Williams has got a long memory.

[3:45]

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hon. members, one moment, please. A great

deal of latitude has been allowed in this second reading of the Supply

Act. The Chair has allowed it, I guess for some historical purpose, but

now I think we have really exhausted the limits of latitude to both

sides of the House. Perhaps we can return to the second reading of Bill

HON. MR. PHILLIPS: Well, I'm talking about the warrants in

this bill because some of them went to the British Columbia Railway.

Mr. Speaker, I realize you allowed a great deal of latitude to the

member opposite when he was speaking, because I remember him saying

something about line-ups of people at the hospitals, and children's

education being impaired. Was there ever anything further from the

truth, when this budget this year is up 8.5 percent over last year to

[ Page 198 ]

provide more and better services to people in

education and in the hospitals, when we are taking the highest.... I've

been in this House for a number of years as well, and the percentage of

the budget going this year to provide services for people — the debt —

is the highest it has ever been. And they sit over there and

pontificate and say that we're removing essential services from people

and that we're not providing any money for health or education. I'll

tell you, the people of this province didn't buy that on May 5.

AN HON. MEMBER: What about the $45 million?

HON. MR. PHILLIPS: You're still flogging that....

I'll tell you, I really feel sorry for your guys over there, When

you start talking about how we didn't tell the people there was going

to be a deficit, that is simply not true. But I remember well that in

November and 11 days in December of 1975, when there were no quarterly

reports, when the Minister of Finance didn't stand up and say, "Yes,

we're going to face a deficit," like our Minister of Finance did.... He

went ahead like there was no tomorrow, called a snap election and

expected the people to go into it with their eyes closed. We told the

people of this province the truth. We told them there was going to be a

deficit. We told them there'd probably be a deficit next year. We told

the people the truth. Because we have been up front with our financing,

with our budgets, with our forecasts and with our quarterly reports,

the people of this province know that they can rest assured that what

this government does they can rely on. That's why that member there is

trying his last swan song to justify what he did when he was Minister

of Finance. You well know, Mr. Speaker, that when the financial ship

was sinking and the holes were showing up everywhere, he jumped

overboard and called the member for Nanaimo (Mr. Stupich). He thought

that because he was from a port city he'd be able to run that ship. I

remember it well. He abandoned the ship, called a snap election and

expected the people of this province to buy his garbage. I'll tell you

they didn't buy it.

Our Minister of Finance and our Premier went around this province

and said: "Yes, we're going to have a deficit. We underestimated the

depth of the recession."

MR. BARRETT: What happened to the $45 million?

HON. MR. PHILLIPS: We told them the truth, my friend. You can

wave all the books around you want. We told them the truth. We brought

in quarterly reports, and we brought in Erma Morrison to check the

accounts. That's more than you did. So you stand up here and you try

and justify your silly actions when you were Minister of Finance and

Premier of this province. It won't work, my friend.

MR. BARRETT: Tell us about the $45 million.

HON. MR. PHILLIPS: The $45 million is one of the best

investments that the taxpayers of this province have ever made, because

already by picking up some of the....

MR. BARRETT: You said you'd never do it. You said in this House you'd never spend that money.

HON. MR. PHILLIPS: Where do you expect the British Columbia

Railway to get its money from? Off some tree or something? I remember

when you put through $35 million to the British Columbia Railway. I

stood up and I said: "What is it?" You didn't even know whether it was

a grant or a loan. You called it a groan. I'll tell you, that $35

million had to come right out of the taxpayer's hands, to be wasted,

because you were losing that much in almost two years. Today, that $45

investment will return millions and millions and millions of dollars to

the taxpayers of British Columbia.

So I just wanted to set the record straight and say that I

definitely support this interim supply bill and I support our Minister

of Finance. I just didn't want you to be taken in by that last humble

plea from the lame-duck Leader of the Opposition who was trying to

justify what he did when he was Minister of Finance. I haven't heard

him say that in this House for so long that it's good to see you back

in form, and bye-bye.

MR. REYNOLDS: I have just a very short comment. I heard the

second member for Vancouver East (Mr. Macdonald) make some comments

about burnping into Mr. Bellamy, the man who is in charge of the B.C.

Restaurant Association, yesterday and having Mr. Bellamy say that he

would never vote Socred again. I think I'm quoting him correctly.

MR. MACDONALD: No, I talked him out of that. He's still with you.

MR. REYNOLDS: Well, the second member for Vancouver East is

saying he talked him out of it. I'm suggesting to the hon. member that

Mr. Bellamy never said anything of the sort, because I called him after

I heard the second member's speech. He denies ever saying that. He said

that he would never say such a thing. He is a Socred, a man very happy

to be one. He is concerned about the 7 percent on some of the

restaurants; he would prefer to see it 3 percent across the board,

which would actually make the government more money than the 7 percent.

I just wanted to put it on the record that Mr. Bellamy is going to be

on CKVU tonight denying what the second member for Vancouver East said

today in this House.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: If we're back to the bill, the minister closes debate.

HON. MR. CURTIS: I listened with interest to the comments

made by the member for Nanaimo (Mr. Stupich), who is not in his seat at

the present time, but perhaps he is listening in his office. Yes, it is

correct that in the past we have had a corridor discussion to discuss

the nature of interim supply. I'm sorry that we didn't have that

conversation this week or rather last week leading up to today.

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

The member for Nanaimo, who is the finance critic for the official

opposition, spoke about the special warrants which are contained in

Bill 10, and I think that it is appropriate to identify for the House —

I did not do so in my opening remarks in this debate — that the most

recent special warrant, the one under which we are presently operating,

is valid until approximately July 31. Mr. Speaker, you would understand

the use of the word approximately, because it depends on the draw on

the provincial treasury. It might extend into the first two or three

days of August or it might not, depending on a variety of circumstances

which as of today, July 11, are

[ Page 199 ]

unforeseen. I felt, and indeed the government

feels, that notwithstanding the special-warrant authority which was

made available through the Financial Administration Act, and which was

supported unanimously in the last parliament by members on both sides,

it was appropriate that we return to the more traditional legislative

route of interim supply at the earliest possible day. When one

considers that we gathered here for the throne speech late last month

and the budget speech occurred on Thursday last.... Notwithstanding

almost three weeks, let us say for purposes of illustration, remaining

under special warrant, it was thought that the government should move

early rather than at the last minute to validate the special warrants

and then, again, function under the more conventional, traditional and

accountable interim supply mechanism which is before us at this time. I

had the opportunity to reread the Leader of the Opposition's statements

of April 8, 1982, regarding British Columbia Rail. He made reference to

one page in particular, but on page 6949 and for the balance of that

debate we see that somehow that member, who has also left his seat — I

see he's in the chamber — has just not been able to understand or

accept the success of the British Columbia Railway over the last

several years. That's it; it's nothing more.

MR. BARRETT: Just tell the truth.

HON. MR. CURTIS: I trust the member is not inferring that I'm not telling the truth, Mr. Speaker.

The fact is that the British Columbia Railway was one of his

favourites during his brief time as Premier of this province, and he

has not been able to accept the fact that under the businesslike

administration since late 1975 that railway has turned around and

turned the comer. It is a credit, in particular, to the Minister of

Industry and Small Business Development (Hon. Mr. Phillips), and it is

a credit to the board of directors of British Columbia Railway. But for

those members who may have forgotten the debate last year, and for

those new members who may care to read, we can see that July 11, 1983,

is very much a revisiting, on the part of the Leader of the Opposition,

of remarks made in April 1982, debating a similar bill, interim supply.

I thank the several members for their comments, and I move second reading of Bill 10.

Motion approved.

HON. MR. CURTIS: Mr. Speaker, with leave, I move that the bill be referred to a Committee of the Whole House for consideration forthwith.

Leave granted.

Bill 10, Supply Act (No. 1), 1983, read a second time and referred

to a Committee of the Whole House for consideration forthwith.

SUPPLY ACT (No. 1), 1983

The House in committee on Bill 10; Mr. Strachan in the chair.

Sections 1 and 2 approved.

On

schedule 1.

MR. HANSON: I want to ask a question of the minister

regarding the last warrant in

schedule 1: Ministry of Tourism, for

marketing and advertising, $1 million. Can he give us the details on

that particular warrant?

HON. MR. CURTIS: Mr. Chairman, through you to the first

member for Victoria, this special warrant relates essentially to

advertising which is pre-booked. The Minister of Tourism and I have

discussed this in a number of conversations. It is appreciated that

some of the external advertising which the Ministry of Tourism

undertakes must be booked well in advance. Prior to the Financial

Administration Act being passed in this House, those commitments were

made without the degree of accountability which now is required under

the FAA. Therefore this is a confirmation of expenditures which will

occur at a time other than the fiscal year in which they have....

Interjections.

HON. MR. CURTIS: I'm attempting to give a straightforward

answer. There are some distractions. If the member for Prince Rupert

finds FAA to be confusing then I will spell it out for him again: the

Financial Administration Act, which I think he supported.

[4:00]

In any event, it is to clearly identify funds which are spent in a

fiscal year other than which they are allocated. I trust that satisfies

the member.

MR. HANSON: I would like a little more clarification, because

it is $1 million for advertising. On March 31, right at the end of the

fiscal year, seven days before the provincial election was called....

Do you have in your briefing notes any details on the type of

advertising? Was that part of the advertising that was the run-up to

the provincial election?

HON. MR. CURTIS: Mr. Chairman, I have no information in my

briefing notes with respect to the bill, but quite clearly this was

Ministry of Tourism advertising, and I may not have been as lucid in my

explanation as the committee would like at this point in time. The fact

is that this is a practice which went on for a number of years in the

expenditure, or pre-commitment if you will, of advertising dollars for

Tourism. The Financial Administration Act (FAA) now requires that a

special warrant, rather than a carrying over of the commitment from one

fiscal year to another, be clarified and clearly spelled out.

Did the member say that this was some several days before the

election? It was some several weeks before the election — May 5; this

is a March 31 warrant and it related purely to the fact that it was the

end of the fiscal year. I'm sure that the Minister of Tourism (Hon. Mr.

Richmond) will be able to expand on that in greater detail when his

estimates are debated; or, if the member wishes, I could undertake to

provide more information for him in the course of the next several days.

MR. HANSON: I'd like to pursue it just a bit more, because we

were given, prior to the election call of April 7, a ballpark figure of

approximately $1 million for the B.C. Spirit advertising, which was the

run-up to the campaign — the six-month advertising campaign before the

election was called, where the taxpayers were paying the money and the

[ Page 200 ]

government was expending it on behalf of the Social Credit Party.

I think it is very important for this House to get clarification on

what these expenditures in advertising are. I'm a relatively new member

in this House, with only four years' service, but in the brief history

of that four-year period, there is less and less information contained

in the estimate book every session to enable us to establish how the

government is expending the taxpayers' funds: I think this particular

estimate book is as brief as, or probably briefer than, any we've ever

seen. In fact we have heard corridor statements from your members

indicating that it would involve perhaps six months' research to find

out where the programs are being cut. That's the kind of information

contained in the estimates.

So here we have a debate this afternoon, Mr. Chairman, where

expenditures are being authorized for $6.042 billion, and all I can

hear from the minister when he's coming for retroactive approval for

the expenditure of a meagre $1 million for marketing services and

advertising in the Ministry of Tourism, the day of the fiscal year-end,

seven days before the call of an election.... I ask him what that

advertising is and he tells me "pre-booking and FAA," and I get some

bureaucratic mumbo-jumbo. I think the people of the province deserve an

answer for expenditure on a special warrant without any authority and

recall to this Legislature — what the expenditure of that $1 million on

a special warrant is. In

schedule I it totals $186 million. I'm asking

a very, very simple question: what was the $1 million on advertising

for Tourism, seven days before the election, for?

HON. MR. CURTIS: Mr. Chairman, without being able to provide

for the member and for other members of the committee the precise

advertising bookings, I'm sure that the Minister of Tourism would be

pleased to do that at the earliest possible time. Again, this is

Tourism advertising, and let there be no mistake about that, Mr.

Chairman. It is advertising for Tourism — much of it would be external

but not all. Much of it would be external, to the province of British

Columbia relative to Tourism only, and the member is misinformed if he

is inquiring as to whether this could have been some other kind of

advertising. That is not correct, and I'm sure that the member will

accept my word in that regard.

Again, I believe that it is not bureaucratic mumbo-jumbo. But that

is another indication, Mr. Chairman, through you, of the stringency of

the Financial Administration Act, which overhauled very outdated

financial accountability legislation in this province. The FAA would

not permit that which had occurred for a good number of years.

Therefore the money had already been committed, and it was necessary

for a special warrant to be passed for that advertising in the Ministry

of Tourism. I'm quite satisfied with it, because the FAA has imposed

disciplines on us which did not exist before, and I think that's very

beneficial. It does not suggest a $1 million overrun in advertising by

the Ministry of Tourism, but rather an upfront accounting of it before

the end of the fiscal year. I again assure the member who has

questioned this that the advertising is tourism-related and, indeed,

marketing services within the Ministry of Tourism. It cannot be

assigned to another ministry if it relates to this particular activity.

It is Tourism, it says "Tourism," and that's the answer.

MR. HANSON: As the minister is aware, this is the first

opportunity for this side of the House — and therefore the public — to

query the government's expenditures for the preceding several months.

Prior to the election, for six months on the televisions of this

province we saw a series of extremely well made and extremely expensive

films put together by Mr. Brown and his associates. When the government

was asked about the financial accountability for those expenditures and

what ministry's vote was used to draw those funds from, we were given

the explanation that approximately three-quarters of a million dollars

was expended for those films. I think it is a very fair question of the

minister: in what vote of

schedule 1 does the cost of those particular

films reside? Is it

schedule 1 or 2? Where is the warrant to cover the

glossy Dave Brown movies that were sent all over the province, at

taxpayers' expense, extolling the virtues of the Social Credit

government, with the "B.C. Spirit" logo prominently displayed? This was

before it became somehow institutionalized and legitimized as some kind

of regular logo for the people of the province, whether or not they had

a say in it — you know, the one on the liquor store clocks, on the

sides of our ferries, on textbooks and now even on the MLAs' mail. You

know, Mr. Chairman, this kind of notion frightens a lot of fair-minded

people in this province. Somehow there's a symbolic linking between

those logos of the Social Credit Party and taxpayers' money. That's

something of great concern to us. In this particular debate on interim

supply of $6.042 billion, half of which has been already expended by

the government with no say or debate through this chamber for the

people, I'm asking him under what particular vote, in

schedule 1 or 2,

do Mr. Brown's payments for those films reside? I think it's an

absolutely fair question. I'm sure the people in your ministry who

brief you on this very important legislation have provided you with

backup data to give a fair answer to the people of the province.

HON. MR. CURTIS: Again to the member, we are under

schedule 1. The member rose on

schedule 1. I suppose it is important therefore for Hansard ,

if not for the assistance of the members, to point out that

schedule 1

relates to special warrants from 1980 to 1983 — funds up to and

including March 31, 1983.

I say again to the member that the Ministry of Tourism advertising

of $1 million was strictly related to tourism activity — nothing else,

no more.

I'm going to go through the rest of the schedule, because the member

is pursuing an incorrect assumption. Therefore I think it's appropriate

to take some time to answer. Of the several warrants, the Ministry of

Agriculture and Food's was $14 million — I'll round off the numbers.

For Ministry of Agriculture and Food operations, $20.7 million.

Ministry of the Attorney-General, police services, $2.5 million; court

services, $1.2 million; corrections, $1 million; legal services,

$1,080,000. It's a relatively small amount for the Ministry of Consumer

and Corporate Affairs, considering the size of the warrants: minister's

office, $30,000. For the Ministry of Finance: financing transactions,

$2.4 million — I'm sure the member understands precisely what those

are. For the Ministry of Forests: countervailing duties — the efforts

undertaken by the Minister of Forests and senior officials in that

ministry, $250,000. For the Ministry of Health, $24.5 million for

supplementary health programs. For the Ministry of Human Resources —

the largest one of all — a total of $186 million; supplementing

ministry programs, $117.3 million. For the Ministry of Labour — again a

relatively small amount — $27,000 supplementing vote 57; and the $1

million which the member has questioned at length. I can be of no

further

[ Page 201 ]

assistance to the member with respect to

schedule

1, in that the money to which he has referred with respect to

government advertising is not in these schedules.

MR. HANSON: Mr. Chairman, may I ask the minister where that particular expenditure resides in government?

MR. CHAIRMAN: We are getting beyond the scope of the schedule, and we're allowed in committee to debate that which is specific.

HON. MR. CURTIS: Thank you for your direction, Mr. Chairman.

It is not in these schedules. The government advertising to which the

member has referred was carried out in fiscal year 1982-83 and will

therefore be reported in public accounts for the fiscal year 1982-83

when they are made available to this Legislature. But they are not in

the schedules, and therefore they are not in interim supply and

therefore not in the 1983-84 expenditure. That advertising — thank you

for your direction earlier, Mr. Chairman — did not occur in the fiscal

year under debate in this supply act.

MR. CHAIRMAN: A point must be well taken by the Chair and by

all members of the committee: we are on

schedule 1. Debate in Committee

of Supply is, of course, strictly relevant to the piece of business

before us, which is

schedule 1 at this point. We can inquire as to

items listed in this schedule, but we really aren't allowed the scope

to go much further.

MR. HANSON: I think the minister is missing the point. The

point is that to make a proper accounting to the public, we must know

under which votes and in what fashion the moneys are being expended.

What we see here is a little paper, four or five pages long — if the

people in the gallery can see it — which authorizes the spending of

$6,042 billion. Now we're debating this document, and in it there is a

schedule 1, and there are a number of columns. The columns indicate the

date at which the expenditure was approved by an order-in-council; a

number is assigned to the warrant; the service; and then it says,

"Minister of Agriculture and Food," or, "Tourism," or whatever the case

may be; and then it has two or three words, and then a number — $14

million, $20 million, $60 million or $90 million. There is no detail

about how that money was spent.

I'm asking you a very simple question — because I think the people

of the province would like to know; they're very concerned — about that

particular series of political advertisements that took place prior to

the election call: the logos, and Mr. Dave Brown, former advertising

assistant to the Premier, who undertook the production of those films.

I think, Mr. Chairman, it's entirely in order, because I'm trying to

ascertain precisely where that vote is in the documentation before us.

The Minister of Finance is telling us that it is not in

schedule 1. My

bet is that he would say that it is not in

schedule 2. He says it's

going to be in public accounts. Now he is the Minister of Finance of

this province. He's coming to the people, and through Her Majesty's

Loyal Opposition, to seek authority to spend an additional $3 billion.

He's already spent something over $3 billion. I'm asking such a simple

question: which ministry paid for those ads? He tells me that it's not

in

schedule 1. Is it in

schedule 2?

[4:15]

MR. CHAIRMAN: Hon. members, at this point we once again must

remind the committee that we are specifically discussing

schedule 1. It

is clear that it's before us, and there's not much more we can say

about that except to discuss

schedule 1. Debate outside of

schedule 1

would therefore be out of order.

MR. MACDONALD: The Minister of Finance has talked about the

disciplines imposed upon him and all of us by the Financial

Administration Act, which he refers to as good old FAA, our old friend

that we all voted for. Of course, we didn't vote for it whatsoever for

it to be tortured in the way it has been this year by the minister.

However,

schedule 1 says that these are warrants listed pursuant to

section 21(5) of good old FAA. Now what I want to ask the minister,

when he talks about the disciplines, is this: could we go in this

province for two or three years without a budget, with a government...?

HON. MR. PHILLIPS: What's that got to do with the

section we're on?

MR. MACDONALD: Well, we went for a year and a half, okay?

HON. MR. PHILLIPS: You know the rules of the House, and you aren't abiding by them.

MR. MACDONALD: Yes, I do. I'm going to abide by them and insist on my rights for an answer.

Section 21(5) is specifically referred to there, and it says: "The

amount appropriated by special warrant shall be submitted to the

Legislature as part of the next ensuing supply bill." But supposing we

had a government that wanted to go two or three years without a supply

bill. What's to stop the minister's

interpretation of the marvellous

powers within

section 21? What are the limits? I'll yield the floor for

an answer, and then I may have something more to say.

HON. MR. CURTIS: We are on

schedule 1 and it seems to me that

the member who has just taken his seat — who has been a member of this

House much longer than I — is seeking a legal opinion. I think he

understands the rules of this House. The government is quite clearly

presenting a supply bill. We are debating one portion of it. Quite

clearly this government intends to pursue the traditional practices of

this assembly and of this province. I have difficulty in answering a

question which seeks a legal opinion, particularly in committee stage.

The member did not speak in second reading stage.

MR. MACDONALD: Yes, I did.

HON. MR. CURTIS: He spoke in second-reading stage, but he did not raise that subject. I cannot give a legal opinion.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Before recognizing the hon. second member for

Vancouver East, the Chair must once again point out to the committee

that our rules under committee guide us to be strictly relevant to a

schedule or a

section before us. Perhaps if all members could be

reminded of that and speak specifically to

schedule 1 and what

schedule

1 indicates, we could be relevant and in order.

[ Page 202 ]

MR. MACDONALD: I don't know whether seeking a legal opinion

of that minister would be of much use to me. He says we've been

following the traditional practices of the province of British

Columbia. That's nonsense! We've never had this situation where a

budget was not brought in and vast sums warranted by special warrant

when the Legislature should have been sitting, but I'll leave that

alone.

This minister raised the point that there are disciplines in

section

21 of the Financial Administration Act. I'm saying that the thing

appears to be totally wide open. We now have a situation where a

government would not have to bring in supply appropriation for one,

two, three or four years, on the

interpretation of the present

government. That would be an extremely dangerous situation. When the

minister says to this House there are disciplines that are imposed upon

us, I'm asking how long we can go without supply appropriation. Is

there any limit in time? That's a simple question. What are the limits

on this power of King Charles I which this government has arrogated to

itself? Are there any limits in time?

MR. CHAIRMAN: Canvassing a piece of legislation is totally inappropriate at this point. We are in committee and we are discussing

schedule 1.

MR. MACDONALD: We are discussing the schedules which are

under subsection 5 of

section 21. I want to know whether there are any

limits whatsoever. The minister sits there silent, and I can just

assume that we have reached the point in this province of British

Columbia where there are no limits and where the Legislature does not

have to any more have supply bills laid before it. As they see it under

section 21 the government can pass special warrants on a massive scale,

and then they have to be laid before the Legislature at the next

ensuing appropriation. That might be two or three years down the road.

So we have passed right over from democracy and fiscal responsibility

to the people to government by decree. When I asked the minister: "Are

there any limits in time?" he sat there silent. There are no limits. If

a government is as arrogant as that one, there are no limits. It is

time we pulled this province back to order and got rid of that gang.

HON. MR. PHILLIPS: You're out of order.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. I call all hon. members to order.

HON. MR. CURTIS: I thought that we all had respect for the

rules of this House. I cannot offer an answer to a hypothetical

question in committee stage discussing a schedule. The member knows

that full well. If he wants to raise the question in debate on the

budget, then surely he can. But I cannot answer a question when we are

dealing with a very narrow aspect of a supply bill. Again, I suggest

that while the member may want to grandstand for a little while this

afternoon — and that's fine — he could seek a legal opinion with

respect to his question.

MRS. DAILLY: To the Minister of Finance, I note that on

schedule 1 there

is an overrun of $117,300,000 for Human Resources. I find it rather ironic

that we are retroactively passing it when we recall the many years that the

Socred government — when they were in opposition, of course — spent hours expressing

grave concern over an even lesser amount of money in an overrun. So my question

to the Minister of Finance is: can you explain to us why this was needed?

HON. MR. CURTIS: I alluded to this in the budget speech, and

indeed, we spoke of it through the course of the winter. The

$117,300,000 which was passed by special warrant on February 21 this

year relates to the tremendous impact on the programs of that ministry

in terms of the recession through 1982 and obviously towards the end of

fiscal year '82-83. Quite simply and in a very straightforward manner,

in the course of the late winter that ministry had expended, or was at

the point of nearly expending, its earlier appropriation voted by this

Legislature for a variety of programs. That is the answer, without

getting into all the details — the traditional Ministry of Human

Resources programs.

MRS. DAILLY: A final question to the minister on that same

subject. In your answer I believe you said the "traditional" type of

programs. Could the minister inform me if the majority of that money

was spent on welfare payments because of increased unemployment?

HON. MR. CURTIS: I'll defer to the Minister of Human

Resources (Hon. Mrs. McCarthy), Mr. Chairman. If that is your wish and

hers, it may provide the member with a more detailed answer.

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: Mr. Chairman, I'm really pleased to have

an opportunity to respond to the question, because the question is

couched in terms that would really add a commentary on our ministry's

actions during the very strong international recession which we've all

been through and which this province suffered from last year, comparing

it with the $100 million overrun which was experienced by this province

under that ministry of social services. I want to assure you that there

is just no basis for comparison — absolutely none. Yes, the $117

million which is noted in this account was over that which was budgeted

for and was expended to give help to people in need — that is, income

assistance. We were responding to our statutory and, if I may add, our

moral obligation to look after people in need.

I'm going to just give you a couple of figures which may help the

member who has asked the question and those on the socialist side of

the House. In March 1981 there were 56,859 cases on income assistance

compared with 102,591 cases in March '83, this past year, this worst

year of our recession — an increase over previous years of 56 percent.

That year does not bear any relationship whatsoever to that of the

former minister of social services in the NDP administration. In a very

good year economically, his explanation was that there was a

bookkeeping error of $100 million. Let me say, Mr. Chairman, there was

no bookkeeping error in this regard. There was a need to provide for

people in need. We did that and we're pleased that we were able to do

that. I think that all of the people of British Columbia expected us to

do that, and so we will in the future.

[4:30]

MRS. DAILLY: I'm glad that the minister has pointed out that

her government has a moral obligation to provide when people are in

need. I wish they felt the same moral obligation to do something to

provide jobs for the people of this province, which we consider an

equal moral obligation and which is not being met by that government.

[ Page 203 ]

For the record, Mr Chairman, I will continue on the schedule.

Interjections.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. There's been a little latitude allowed on both sides. Back to the schedule, please.

MRS. DAILLY: Yes, back to the schedule.

I think the comparisons were brought up by me and the minister

between an overrun during the years of the NDP and that under the

Socreds, and I would just like to make this one brief point: I'm very

proud of the comparison. Under the NDP the overrun was for new,

positive programs such as Pharmacare. On that side of the House the

overrun is because of incompetent government having to put more people

on welfare.

Schedule 1 approved.

On

schedule 2.

MR. COCKE: Mr. Chairman, just a comment on

schedule 2. The first time....

Interjection.

MR. COCKE: I've been away doing very important business, Mr.

Minister of Agriculture (Hon. Mr. Schroeder). Farmers all over the

province are having trouble.

In

schedule 2 what we see, for the first time in the history of the

province, is utter, complete and absolute dictatorship.

Schedule 2, Mr.

Chairman, outlines the money that the government has spent since the

last budget went south, which was on March 31 of this year. Since that

time the government has been spending our money, and now they say to us

that we must face the music and pass this schedule, which accounts for

money which they have spent without a shred of the parliamentary law

behind them. They got away with this expenditure by manipulating the

public and then ultimately calling an election. Then even after the

election they did not bring forth a budget, because there had to be

changes. Mr. Chairman, we see before us the first and hopefully the

last time that the people in our province are going to be subjected to

such tyranny and absolute dictatorship — because that's what we have

here. This is what happens when you go as far right as these people;

and I'm talking about political right with a large R. It's an absolute

shame that the people....

HON. MR. PHILLIPS: Bring that member to order, Mr. Chairman.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. Perhaps the hon. member could

speak to

schedule 2, and the Chair must observe that we are entering

into debate which would have been most appropriate in second reading.

MR. COCKE: Mr. Chairman, the only time that you can really

debate

schedule 2 is when you get to

schedule 2. I'm debating it

specifically, and if the member for Peace River has enough class to

take the chair and tell people when they're right, wrong or

indifferent, then that's one thing, but when he sits in his seat and

suggests that I'm out of order, then I would suggest that he's quite

unable to ascertain order and has always been. And we've both been here

for a good long time.

Getting back to this schedule, it is all the appropriations that

have been made since March 31. This is $3,181,033,000 that the

government has spent without having come back to the Legislature to get

permission; and the Legislature is the only body in our kind of

democracy that can provide that permission. When you think of this

schedule — and in my view it's criminal — and what it represents.... It

represents what every decent, democratically inclined person must feel

quite ill with. Going right back to the Magna Carta, people who are

asked to shoulder the responsibilities of parliament have always

resisted this kind of retroactive procedure of the House.

There is nothing we can do about it; the money has been spent.

However, outrage should be, and was for a time, in the public's mind,

in the minds of those journalists and editorial writers who have a

comprehension of the meaning of democracy. But now, just as the

government believed it would, time tends to make one a little

forgetful. But I for one will never forget this travesty; never in my

life will I forget it. It is a travesty before democracy and before the

people in British Columbia; and I'm telling you that anybody who has

thought it out is shocked beyond compare. If they had any shame the

Minister of Finance would stand up in this House and say to the people

of British Columbia, "I apologize most profoundly; I didn't do it on

purpose," or something like that. Because, by God, we have faced

dictatorship for the last number of months in this province, and let's

hope it never happens again.

Schedule 2 approved.

Title and

preamble approved.

HON. CURTIS: Mr. Chairman, with leave, I move the committee rise and report the bill complete without amendment.

Motion approved.

The House resumed; Mr. Speaker in the chair.

Bill 10, Supply Act (No. 1), 1983, reported complete without amendment.

MR. SPEAKER: When shall the bill be read a third time?

HON. MR. CURTIS: With leave of the House, Mr. Speaker, now.

Leave granted.

Bill 10, Supply Act (No. 1), 1983, read a third time and passed on the following division:

[ Page 204 ]

YEAS — 47

Waterland

Brummet

Rogers

Schroeder

McClelland

Heinrich

Hewitt

Richmond

Ritchie

Michael

Pelton

Johnston

R. Fraser

Campbell

Strachan

Chabot

McCarthy

Nielsen

Gardom

Bennett

Curtis

Phillips

McGeer

A. Fraser

Davis

Kempf

Mowat

Veitch

Segarty

Reid

Reynolds

Macdonald

Howard

Dailly

Stupich

Lea

Lauk

Sanford

Gabelmann

Blencoe

Rose

Wallace

Barnes

Lockstead

Hanson

D'Arcy

Skelly

NAYS — 1

Mitchell

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

ON THE BUDGET

(continued debate)

MR. LEA: Mr. Speaker, when I adjourned the debate on Friday,

I said that we were of one mind no matter which side of the House we

were from. We wanted the budget....

Maybe we didn't want the budget, but we at least wanted the economy

to improve. We wanted some sort of stimulus for the economy, because we

all desire that the economy of British Columbia become better than it's

been in the past and is now.

[4:45]

It makes one wonder, though, Mr. Speaker, why the government — being

with us in wishing for a better economy — would bring in a budget that

would dampen the economy. We have two problems: we have a short-term

economic problem and we have a long-term economic problem. This budget,

although it doesn't deal with the short-term problem the way that we

would like to see it deal with the problem, is at least an attempt on

the government's part to deal with short-term economics. I am

surprised, though, that in the whole budget debate there wasn't one

word spoken about the long-term problems that we face in this province,

in terms of our economy. In the short term we want to stimulate the

economy in such a way as to create some employment through economic

activity. This budget has not addressed one stimulus that will create

more economic activity. They have taken approximately $125 million in

sales tax out of the pockets of consumers and turned it into the

coffers of the treasury in Victoria.

I mentioned in the throne debate that no one questions the need for

restraint. When the revenues aren't coming in, there has to be a

curtailment of government spending or borrowing, or taxes have to be

raised. We only have three choices. This government has chosen to

borrow some money; they have chosen to raise money through taxation.

What they've done is arrange to gather some taxes from those people in

society who can least afford to pay. It's not just that it's a

philosophic position taken by the government; it is an economic

position that will throw a more dampening effect on the economy. Almost

every economist in North America, or in the western democracies of the

industrialized countries, is saying: "If there is one thing we need

it's a consumer-led recovery."

In this province, and I think these figures can be verified by the

Minister of Human Resources (Hon. Mrs. McCarthy), because I heard her

mention this herself not long ago, there is approximately $25 billion

in savings accounts. People who are making extremely high wages are

taking a portion of their wages and putting it into savings accounts.

They are putting it into savings accounts for a number of reasons:

(1) they do not have consumer confidence; (2) they are not investing it in

the marketplace because the return on interest rates in banks makes

them feel a lot safer than investing it on a gamble in the business

sector or in the private sector. So what we have are billions of

dollars, sitting in the bank in savings accounts, that we desire to be

spent in the economy.

When the Minister of Finance was asked on television yesterday

whether he had considered a surtax on income for higher-income people,

or whether he'd considered taxing people on the graduated income tax

scale, he said that it has not been a consideration of government.

Wouldn't it make you wonder, Mr. Speaker, why the Minister of Finance

and the government wouldn't try to in some way get some of the money

out of those savings accounts into the economy? The best way, of

course, to do it is to have an economic climate such that those people

voluntarily take their money out of savings accounts and invest it in

the economy, either through consumer spending or through investing in a

widening of the economy. But it's not happening. If the government had

raised the same number of dollars out of a surtax on higher income

groups that they've raised from raising the sales tax from 6 percent to

7 percent, wouldn't that have effectively meant that some of that money

that was going to go into savings from the high-income groups would be

diverted through a transfer payment into the economy? I don't think

anyone can argue with that. That's what would happen. Yet this

government didn't even consider it. Why not? Because they were not

looking for an economic document. They were looking for a political

document in the guise of a budget.

During the campaign the Premier and other cabinet ministers ran

around the province pointing to public works with pride, saying: "These

are what we've given to the people of British Columbia so that there

will be some economic activity during this downturned economy." But

what could be further from the truth? Those projects were started at

the height of an inflationary spiral when times were good. This

government has done everything backwards. When we had inflation, this

government went out to the money markets and borrowed money, competing

with the demand for money from the private sector and adding to

inflation by borrowing money to build public works during an

inflationary spiral. They also asked contractors to bid on these

projects, when the contractors had all sorts of jobs they could bid on;

that in turn added to the inflationary spiral in British Columbia. The

timing was not to help us out of a recession, but were projects begun

during the good times. They just happened to come to completion in a

recession, but they were started during the good times. There was no

economic reason for them to be done during that time. They may have had

social benefits, but there was no economic reason to do it at that time.

[ Page 205 ]

[Mr. Strachan in the chair.]

When you are looking to investment to stimulate the economy, there

are a number of criteria you have to keep in mind. First, you're hoping

to stimulate the economy by creating some work on a short-term basis.

When you're looking for that short-term project, you should also look

for a project which, when completed,, will bring further wealth to the

province in the future so you can pay for that deficit on future

earnings. I think the northeast coal project would fall into that

category. I think down the road the northeast coal project will have

the opportunity of bringing wealth back into the province, so it's not

a bad thing to deficit for, in general terms.

Let's get to the B.C. stadium. Does it fall into the same category

as northeast coal? I don't think so. The Premier used to be very fond

of talking about not borrowing money for groceries. You'll notice, Mr.

Speaker, that he hasn't used that expression for some time, because he

is now borrowing to pay for the groceries; but that used to be one of

the Premier's favourite retorts. In fact, the Premier would gladly take

any complex issue and break it down to the family, and show you how

ludicrous economics was by pointing to the family. I've already said

it's a beautiful stadium. It's something we as British Columbians can

all be proud of, and should be proud of. But we did have some

reservations about the timing of the stadium. Let's use the Premier's

argument. Let's assume we're a family and that there's less money

coming in, or the money coming in isn't going as far. We say, boy, here

are hard times. We've got some choices to make in terms of priorities.

Should we take a portion of our income and put it into a swimming pool

in the backyard? Times are hard. Should we take money that maybe would

put a nutritious diet on the table for our children? Should we take

money that may have. Been destined for the dentist for better teeth

care? Should we take money that could go to medicare payments so our

family could have good medical coverage? Good medical and dental

coverage and a nutritious diet for our family, or should we build the

swimming pool in the backyard? What would you do, Mr. Speaker? Would

you decide to cut down on medicare payments, to cut back on those areas

in which your family spends money to make sure you've got good, sound

teeth by having proper maintenance? Would you decide to take meat and

fruit off your grocery list in order to build the swimming pool?

[Mr. Strachan in the chair.]

When you're finished building the swimming pool in the backyard, you

may have a big party and invite all the neighbours, who may all go for

a swim. Everybody might say, "You know, this is the best damned

swimming pool I've ever been in," and it may be true. But when do you

build a swimming pool? Do you build it when you can't afford medical

coverage? When you can't afford to pay your dentist? When you can't put

proper nourishment on the table for your children, or clothe them

properly? No damned fool would do that. Nobody. Yet the Premier would

have us look at his government and say, "Aren't they wonderful?" "When

things were really bad we built a swimming pool. We invited everybody.

Everybody had a good time swimming. Now where are the doom and

gloomers?" said Social Credit. Now who's against the stadium? Isn't it

beautiful, with its big dome? But is it a project that will bring back

manifold wealth? Is it a project that you should deficit finance for

during bad times? Or is it a project that you should build during the

good times?

The Premier is talking out of every which side of his mouth. First

he said he wanted to do it because it was bad times. But then we

remember that he did it when it was good times. Then when it's bad

times he says: "Well, who knows? Are you against the swimming pool?"

or, as he calls it, "the stadium." The Premier can't have it every way.

One thing we do know is that you don't get a consumer-led recovery by

taking money out of consumers' pockets. You don't get a consumer-led

recovery when you make sure there's less money in the economy to be

spent on consumer goods. It just doesn't work that way. Yet that's what

this government has done in its 1983 budget. We have to suspect that

those people at the lower end of the income scale are spending all

they've got in the economy. We have to assume that they're not putting

savings aside. We also have to assume that the high income earners are

putting some savings aside, because we can look at the bank records and

find $25 billion in savings in this province. There was no attempt

whatsoever to get those savings out of bank accounts, either through

incentives or taxation, in order to put that savings money into the

economy so that we can have a consumer-led recovery.

Mr. Speaker, this government has decided that they're going to use

restraint for economic recovery. Even Major Douglas, the great old man

of Social Credit, would wonder what they're up to. How in the world do

you have a consumer led economic recovery by practising restraint? As a

matter of fact, when the Premier first brought his restraint package in

he said it was to fight inflation, if you'll remember. Is that how it

works? Does restraint fight inflation and bring about economic

recovery? Is that how it works?

Interjection.

MR. LEA: The first member for Surrey shakes her head and says: "Yes, that's how it works."

[5:00]

During an inflationary spiral you have the price of everything going

up and your economy is going by leaps and bounds and bringing up the

price of everything. Everybody who knows anything about economics knows

that the way to get inflation down, if you're a classical economist, is

to use interest rates and money supply. Tighten up on credit and money

supply and up the interest rates and you force the economy into a

depressed state, therefore bringing about a reduction in inflation.

Everybody knows that, don't they? This government backed that very

purpose in their 1978 paper, signed by the Premier, that they sent to

the federal government. They said that the way to bring inflation down

was to practise restraint — short money and high interest. Now, lo and

behold, they say that's exactly their formula to get economic recovery.

Is there any other kind of economic formula that they have? Do they use

restraint to get recovery and to get depressions?

The