1973 Legislative Session: 2nd Session, 30th Parliament

HANSARD

The following electronic version is for informational purposes

only.

The printed version remains the official version.

Official Report of

DEBATES OF THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY

(Hansard)

FRIDAY, MARCH 9, 1973

Morning Sitting

[ Page 1177 ]

CONTENTS

Statement Filing in House for technical test. Mr. Speaker — 1177

Routine proceedings

An Act to Amend the Municipal Finance Authority of British

Columbia Act (Bill No. 120) Hon. Mr. Lorimer

Introduction and first reading

— 1177

An Act to Provide for Public Scrutiny (Bill No. 125) Mr.

Gardom.

Introduction and first reading — 1177

The Environmental Protection Act (Bill No. 126) Mr.

Brousson.

Introduction and first reading — 1177

An Act to Amend the Age of Majority Act (Bill No. 127) Mr.

D.A. Anderson.

Introduction and first reading — 1177

Committee of supply: Department of Health Services and

Hospital Insurance estimates.

Hon. Mr. Cocke — 1177

Mr. McClelland — 1178

Hon. Mr. Cocke — 1183

Mr. McClelland — 1185

Hon. Mr. Cocke — 1186

Mr. McGeer — 1186

Hon. Mr. Cocke — 1189

Hon. Mr. Bennett — 1191

Mr. Lauk — 1192

Hon. Mr. Cocke — 1196

Land Commission Act (Bill No. 42). Second reading Hon. Mr. Stupich — 1197

Mr. Phillips — 1202

The House met at 10 a.m.

Prayers.

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. Members, we have had the assistance of the

Canada Film Board in making a test film for us to determine

some matters of technical equipment for the use of the TV

committee. I hope this may be the last occasion you will have

to endure this type of filming. It would be essential from the

standpoint of the economics of the proposals made by the TV

committee and will be made available to them after it has been

completed. Is that agreeable to the House? Thank you.

The other matter — I rang the bill five minutes before

the hour so that Members would be aware the House was

commencing in hopes they would be here at the commencement of

proceedings. Then the three warning bells would be given when

the Speaker's parade has entered the House. The reason for that

is that there seems to be a lack of attendance at the opening

of the session most days.

The Hon. Member for Kamloops.

MR. G.H. ANDERSON (Kamloops): Mr. Speaker, I would like the

House to join me in welcoming a group of students from Cariboo

College and one of their instructors, Mr. Richard Oleson.

Introduction of bills.

MR. SPEAKER: The Hon. Minister of Municipal Affairs.

HON. J.G. LORIMER (Minister of Municipal Affairs): Mr.

Speaker, I have the honour to present a message from His Honour

the Lieutenant-Governor.

AN ACT TO AMEND

THE MUNICIPAL FINANCE AUTHORITY

OF BRITISH COLUMBIA ACT

MR. SPEAKER: His Honour the Lieutenant Governor herewith

transmits a bill intituled

An Act to Amend the Municipal

Finance Authority of British Columbia Act, and recommends

the same to the Legislative Assembly, Government House, March

8, 1973.

Bill No. 120 introduced, read a first time and ordered to be placed on orders

of the day for second reading at the next sitting of the House after today

AN ACT TO PROVIDE

FOR PUBLIC SCRUTINY

Mr. Gardom moves introduction and first reading of Bill No.

125 intituled

An Act to Provide for Public Scrutiny.

Motion approved.

Bill No. 125 read a first time and ordered to be placed on

orders of the day for second reading at the next sitting of the

House after today.

THE ENVIRONMENTAL

PROTECTION ACT

Mr. Brousson moves introduction and first reading of Bill

No. 126 intituled The Environmental Protection Act.

Motion approved.

Bill No. 126 read a first time and ordered to be placed on

orders of the day for second reading at the next sitting of the

House after today.

AN ACT TO AMEND

THE AGE OF MAJORITY ACT

Mr. D.A. Anderson moves introduction and first reading of

Bill No. 127 intituled

An Act to Amend the Age of Majority

Act.

Motion approved.

Bill No. 127 read a first time and ordered to be placed on

orders of the day for second reading at the next sitting of the

House after today.

MR. SPEAKER: I wonder if Members would not pass between the

Chair and the Member on his feet in future.

Orders of the day.

House in committee of supply; Mr. Dent in the chair.

ESTIMATES, DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH

SERVICES AND HOSPITAL

INSURANCE

On vote 86: Minister's office, $66,400.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I recognize the Hon. Minister of Health

Services and Hospital Insurance.

HON. D.G. COCKE (Minister of Health Services and Hospital Insurance):

Mr. Chairman, thank you very much for your recognition so early in the morning.

[ Page 1178 ]

AN HON. MEMBER: You're looking well.

HON. MR. COCKE: Feeling not badly. Mr. Chairman, I would

like to bring the House's attention to this little memento

which is a heart. This is a memento of the opening of the

cardio-thoracic unit at Victoria General Hospital, which

was just opened this Wednesday.

I do hope that that aspect of health care is in line now and

I am sure we will be able to keep up with the needs of the

province in the future. Mr. Chairman, I would also like to

indicate that this has another meaning — "Have a heart."

(Laughter).

MR. CHAIRMAN: I recognize the Hon. Member for Langley.

MR. R.H. McCLELLAND (Langley): Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and

our congratulations to go to the opening of the new unit at

VGH. It is very welcome.

Mr. Chairman, I have a number of questions I would like to

ask the Minister of Health. First of all, we are very concerned

about the future of hospital boards in the Province of British

Columbia after some of the statements made earlier in the House

by the Minister of Health.

I refer, first of all, to Hansard of February 20, in

which Mr. Cocke said:

"Most important, we are proposing that the majority of board members represent the patient. We believe

that to do that there should be wage-earners on the

board as well as professional and business people. There should

be women as well as men, Indians as well as white people and

all the other varieties. There will be some adverse comment on

our recommendation to ensure participation of non-professional staff on hospital boards."

Mr. Chairman, I don't know what the Minister of Health

thinks there are on hospital boards now, but there are those

kinds of people serving on hospital boards, all over the

Province of British Columbia. The statements would seem to

indicate that here is just another area of service, voluntary

service, into which the Government would like to get its

fingers.

AN HON. MEMBER: What are you talking about?

MR. McCLELLAND: Mr. Minister says he wants to make the board

more responsive to the community. Well, that's a word or a

phrase we are hearing more and more and more in Victoria and

it's the operative socialist phrase which means, "Let's get

more socialists on the volunteer boards. Let's put our people

on those boards and it will give us another base from which to

start an election campaign."

Mr. Chairman, I'd like to suggest that if anyone truly wants

to get on to a hospital board, it's very simple. All he has to do is first of all join the society

which is a part of the community in which he lives. Then he

runs for office. There isn't anything more democratic than

that.

As a result of that, hospital boards throughout British

Columbia are very well represented with all kinds of people:

labourers, wage earners, professional people, non-professional people, shopkeepers, nurses, members of the

women's auxiliary, women and men — they are well

represented, and truly representative of the community right

now.

Mr. Chairman, there was also an item in the paper the other

day with regard to a brief presented to the Minister of Health

from the Hospital Employees Union. I find that the Minister's

response to this brief was a little unbelievable and certainly

did nothing to case our concern about the fate of hospital

boards in our community.

The HEU flatly called for elimination of all local hospital

boards. It's a suggestion that sounds suspiciously like those

comments already made by the Minister of Health. It's certainly

in keeping with the practice of destroying all local input and

keeping the thumbscrews on with the pressure applied from

Victoria, just as we've done in so many areas of local concern.

Centralization — the operative name of the game in

Victoria today.

The HEU, in its brief, makes the bald statement that,

"Boards are appointed, not elected, and are therefore not

democratic." Well, I must say again that boards are elected.

They are elected from among the people who are interested in

hospitals in their own communities. And that's the way it

should be. A member stands for election on a hospital board,

and he generally becomes just another worker on the team.

AN HON. MEMBER: Seventy per cent of it.

MR. McCLELLAND: Seventy per cent of it. Any of the hospitals

with which I've had experience have had no aversion to a good

mix from the community. In fact, working people are on the

boards. Anybody that suggests that they aren't just doesn't

know what hospital boards are all about.

The boards should be slighted, I think, not only by the

brief of HEU, but also by the Minister's comment when he

suggests that those people are not representative of their

community.

If I could deal, Mr. Chairman, just briefly again with the

HEU brief. The HEU says:

"At best, the contribution of hospital boards is only

marginally positive. At worse, they are obstacles to efficient decision

— making and a

source of frustration. So the boards should be eliminated and replaced

by strong central direction and leadership; a super — board directed

from

Victoria."

Now is that what the Minister wants, Mr.

[ Page 1179 ]

Chairman? Surely not a five man appointed

commission to tell us how the hospitals of British Columbia should operate.

No local input.

Mr. Chairman, the health Minister should have vehemently

denied those charges and suggestions as a slur on every

hospital board in this province. Instead of vehemently denying

those charges and suggestions, the Minister waffles. "It's

unlikely the boards will go," he says. Why didn't you

say, "They won't go." That's the thing you should have

said.

"It's unlikely the boards will go," the Minister is quoted in the paper

as saying anyway, "but they have to become more reflective of the consumer and

the community." Once again read, "We've got to get more of our guys on those

boards."

Mr. Chairman, if we could go on to the plans for improved

health care in the future. I believe, and I truly believe this,

Mr. Chairman, that you have, Mr. Minister, the support and help

of every British Columbian, every legislator, in your efforts

to develop a more meaningful level of intermediate health care

in this province, an expansion of extended care in this

province, expansion of home care, and preventative care. You'll

have the help and support of everybody in British Columbia

because we all know that we can't continue to construct

expensive and over — equipped acute care hospitals in

every community and local area that asks for them.

But we can't say either, "No, you just can't have that

expensive acute care facility." We have to offer them some

other form of health care in those communities so those

communities are looked after. Your comments in earlier talks in

this House about community clinics and home care — care

which is just as responsive to the needs of the patient as is

acute care — are very welcome indeed, Mr. Minister. We

wish you all the success in the world in expanding that

programme.

All of these developments, Mr. Chairman, are vital if we're

ever to make health care really meet the needs of society at a

cost that society can afford. That's the important thing.

Mr. Chairman, I was also happy when I read the other day that the Minister

has publicly recognized the need to keep hospital and health care costs down

as much as possible, and to admit that every once in a while Ottawa lays down

the law and says, "Mr. provincial health Minister, enough's enough. If you don't

keep your costs down, we're not going to help you out any more and we'll let

you pay the shot yourself,"

I'm glad the Minister recognized that, Mr. Chairman, because

it's been a fact of life for many years. One of the reasons why

health costs have been such an important item for discussion in

British Columbia is because of the stand that Ottawa has taken.

They just will not participate if health costs keep escalating

out of control.

Mr. Chairman, in the area of public health services, there

is right now a critical shortage in British Columbia of public

health inspectors. It appears that there's only slight relief

at hand. There's an increase — I believe I've added the

figures up correctly — of about 35 new public health

inspectors in the Minister's estimates. But with the workload

that these people have in their communities, I hardly think

that that is nearly enough, although it is a welcome

increase.

I would like to read a letter, Mr. Chairman, from the

Central Fraser Valley Union Board of Health. This is dated

January 25. It's addressed to the Hon. Dennis Cocke. And it

says:

"At our last quarterly board meeting we spent considerable

time discussing the great shortage of staff that this health

unit is experiencing. We noted that apart from a senior nurse

who has moved from office to office, the Mapleridge office

received their last increase in nursing staff in 1967. Mission

had its last increase in 1964 and we believe that Langley had

its last increase in 1958 although there are few around that

can remember that far back.

"Surely you must agree that this is a deplorable situation

considering the great increase in population, particularly in

the last five years where Langley has increased approximately

50 per cent, Mapleridge some 30 per cent, and Mission

approximately 20 per cent. "It was not enough that they have

added to their responsibilities the supervision of community

care facilities without any apparent consideration given to

extra staff needs. The health unit director, Dr. Robinson, has

told us he just does not have the staff to properly supervise

these homes and that we can expect deplorable episodes like we

had with Whispering Winds in Langley to happen from time to

time."

And the letter goes on in that same vein.

Before I deal with the letter itself, Mr. Chairman, I'd like

to once again tell the health Minister that I share his

comments fully when he congratulated in the House the excellent

staff that he has working under his direction.

There was mention of a problem that we had in Langley with a

rest home called Whispering Winds, the rest home that in my

opinion was operating under deplorable conditions and was

operating under those deplorable conditions for many of the

reasons I've cited — because of the shortage of inspector

staff in the health department. However I must say that both

the Board of Health in the central Fraser Valley and the people

in Victoria reacted with remarkable alacrity in not only

containing this problem but going a long way toward improving

it. And I thank them for that and so do the people of

Langley.

But with regard to that letter, there is a comment in here

about the transfer of responsibilities for the

[ Page 1180 ]

public health inspector to the Community Care Facilities

Branch. The comments about the supervision of these facilities

is one that I raised some time ago with the Minister in letters

that we had. I must once again comment that the Minister is

aware of this problem.

It seems to me that the supervision of community care

facilities, Mr. Chairman, must be completely divorced from the

normal responsibilities of the local inspectorial staff in the

community so that these people can have a chance to really keep

up to, the inspection of the community care facilities. They

can then free their local people to keep up with that other

workload that they have which includes the inspection of

subdivisions, the inspection of septic tanks, the inspection of

restaurants, the inspection of swimming pools and the

inspection of health problems in schools.

Then, besides all of that work — and already you're

understaffed I might add — they also are charged with the

problem of answering complaints from the community. In many

instances that keeps them on the go too much of their day so

that they don't have time to do the real job that is

necessary.

In the Minister's letter to me, he suggested that it is not

the policy of the health branch to develop a centralized

bureaucracy in the form of a community care facilities

licensing board and staff in Victoria, which could not have an

insight into the local need for these facilities. When the

administration of this Act was transferred, it was expected

that initially there would be a considerable load on the public

health inspectors. However, this introductory phase is nearing

an end and the administration of the Community Care

Facilities Act is becoming a matter of routine.

Be that as it may, Mr. Chairman, I can't agree with that

comment. It certainly isn't reflected in the community that I

live in. Obviously many of the people in the field don't share

that opinion either. By the people in the field, I mean the

health inspectors themselves. The task may be becoming a matter

of routine. I can admit to that. But the job isn't being done

as well as it could be. The inspection of community care

facilities need not be turned over to any centralized

bureaucracy. We don't ask that and it isn't necessary.

The licensing board and staff is already located in

Victoria. They direct the operation from here, so nothing will

change then. The inspectors themselves, I would expect, would

still be responsible to their local communities and responsible

to their local boards of health. I don't see any change there

at all. But their task would indeed become far more

specialized. They could pay much more attention and devotion to

working with the operators of these community care facilities,

working with those people to help them make their operations

better serve the community.

After all, they are looking after thousands and thousands of

our senior citizens, Mr. Minister, through you, Mr. Chairman.

I'd like to ask the Minister, Mr. Chairman, if he would at

least give that matter another thought.

Another problem arises with regard to community care

facilities as well. That is, as I understand it, that each of

these privately operated facilities is required to take a

certain proportion of cases as directed by the Government. I

have no quarrel with that. But very often in the areas which

I've inspected, these cases which are directed to the community

care facilities by the Government are alcoholics in various

stages of deterioration, sometimes in the worst stages of

deterioration. In many of the facilities that I've visited, it

turns out, Mr. Minister through you, Mr. Chairman, to be a very

unfortunate mix of tenants in these community care

facilities.

Alcoholics in this stage of their life, I'm sure we'll all

agree, require very special skills in order for people to look

after them. They are a special problem; they take special care.

They do not mix very well with the kind of people that we hope

to find in many of these facilities that come under the care of

the community care branch. They create these special problems

and they therefore are not compatible with the elderly people

who are in there.

We've placed those people in there for care. We expected, I

suppose, when we placed those people in those facilities, that

they would not be taken into an alcoholic hospital, for

instance, but that they would get the kind of care that would

allow them to live out their final days in some kind of

dignity. They have a right to expect that, Mr. Chairman. I

think we should take another look too at that practice of

demanding that a certain number of government — sponsored

patients be put into these homes, without first of all deciding

what kind of patients those are. Perhaps those people should be

placed into some other kind of facility, rather than in a

facility where the people of the community have placed their

fathers and mothers to spend the last years of their lives.

Just as a note of interest, Mr. Chairman, I wanted to

comment on the health Minister's brief comment in one of his

talks in the House about Canadians being in lousy shape. I

notice there's a move in the Legislature to have some of the

MLA's go play basketball and volleyball a couple of nights a

week. I hope that was initiated by the health Minister and, if

it was, I congratulate him for that. Personally, every time I

feel the urge to exercise, I lay down and roll over until the

urge passes. (Laughter).

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

MR. McCLELLAND: It is contagious. (Laughter). Mr. Chairman,

I wanted to make just a brief comment about the comments that

the health

[ Page 1181 ]

Minister made about Royal Columbian Hospital in the House on

February 1 of this year. It doesn't really disturb me, but I

did want to comment about it.

He said, "There was the Royal Columbian Hospital problem."

Mr. Chairman, that was really a problem that was just poor

labour relations — management not speaking to workers and

workers not speaking to management and therefore no

communication. Really, that's what it was. Nobody really

understood the other guy's point of view because of the fact

that he had never heard it. He didn't even know what it was

unless he read bits and pieces of it in the Press. There really

was no communication.

"I'm happy to announce," said the Minister, "that

things seem to be going along well." Well, Mr. Chairman, I'd

like to suggest that maybe the situation at Royal Columbian

Hospital improved because you pulled management out of that

hospital and put them to work in Victoria. Maybe that was the

problem in that hospital and it was solved for that reason.

Mr. Chairman, Dr. Foulkes has been placed in charge of the

health securities programme. I'm sure that's a good programme.

I hope it isn't just a programme in which the good doctor is

being paid $45,000 a year or whatever it is to write newspaper

ads. I hope it has more impact on the community than that. One

of the other things that disturbs me about this health

securities programme — this is including the cost of that

programme, which may go to $154,000 a year, if the part

— time people who have been employed suddenly become full

— time people, as the practice is. But even without those

part — time people becoming full — time people, the

programme is going to cost us $118,000 a year.

Anyway, as I said on one earlier occasion, it seems to be a

programme to find out answers to questions that the answers are

already in hand for. If that's true, I hope that there will be

some explanation of that.

There's one other thing I'd like an explanation about. The

Minister has said also in Hansard — I don't have

the place at hand right now, and I hope I quote him as

accurately as possible — that the health services team is

working very hard. They're going out into the community and

they're finding answers and they're finding problems and

they're getting mail and everything else. But he also says that

there will be no reports until October. That seems like an

unconscionably long time to wait for some indication of what is

happening to this health securities team that is costing us

$154,000 a year.

Is there no way, Mr. Chairman, that we can get at least some

kind of interim report in this House so that we can find out

what's happening with that health securities programme? We

can't, I think, wait until October for that kind of a

report.

Mr. Chairman, I want to raise as my final item a very important item. If you'll

bear with me, this will take some few minutes to relate to you. But I want to

read you a letter which was written by a Vancouver lawyer to Dr. Pauline Hughes,

who is the superintendent of Woodlands School in New Westminster. Before I read

that letter, Mr. Chairman, I'd like to say that this is one of the most serious

cases I've ever heard about in British Columbia. It's a case that, so far at

least, seems to have been ignored in Victoria despite all of the pleas from

all of the people, from the legal profession to the media to many other interested

citizens. Not the least of those interested citizens is the person who is affected

in this case herself. Mr. Chairman, I want some answers from the Minister. I

want to know what is happening in this case and I want to know what's going

to be done to help this lady. The letter begins:

"Dear Madam:

"We have been consulted by Mrs. Marie A. White, R.N., head

nurse of your isolation ward, who has been continuously in the

employ of the Woodlands School since January 28, 1963.

"We are informed that last month, acting on information

provided by the assistant director of your hospital unit, Mr.

Norman Roberts, you placed Mrs. White under observation for

some three weeks. On November 3 you caused Mrs. White to be

spoken to by a Dr. McKenzie, who has recently joined the staff

of your occupational health unit. He was a complete stranger to

our client.

"Dr. McKenzie didn't give Mrs. White a physical or

psychiatric examination, but chatted briefly with her and later

contacted Dr. R.E. Helgason, a psychiatrist who had seen Mrs.

White professionally some two years ago. Later in the day, Miss

Dorothy Curl, your director of nursing services, told our

client that she was unwell and required immediate treatment.

Neither the nature of Mrs. White's alleged illness nor the type

of treatment was mentioned. Our client was then seen again by

Dr. McKenzie, this time in your presence, and was told by him

that she was to be taken to Hollywood Sanitarium immediately

for treatment. Neither you nor Dr. McKenzie offered any

information as to the nature of the alleged illness or the type

of treatment. Upon asking the reason for hospitalization

following a mere 15 — minute chat, Mrs. White was told

that the step was being taken on the telephoned instructions of

Dr. Helgason.

"Mrs. White questioned the validity of this alleged order,

asking how Dr. Helgason could have her sent to that hospital

for treatment when he hadn't seen her for two years.

"Dr. McKenzie's reply was a statement that, like it or not,

Mrs. White was going to Hollywood Sanitarium. Mrs. White then

appealed to you, asking if she had no civil rights. You stated,

quite

[ Page 1182 ]

emphatically, that she had none. Mrs. White then asked if

she could make a private telephone call but Dr. McKenzie, in

your presence, refused this and said that Mrs. White would be

taken away in any case, but that if she went voluntarily it

would make it easier for her.

"Mrs. White pointed out that this sounded as if she was

about to be taken to prison. Dr. McKenzie, again in your

presence, told her that she was going to a hospital, not a

jail.

"Mrs. White was by now fairly alarmed and offered her

resignation. This was refused without any reason for the

refusal.

"At this point a large man named George McKnight,

accompanied by Mrs. Stewart, entered the room And in your

presence removed Mrs. White against her will. She was first

escorted to her ward for personal effects, and then to a

waiting car in charge of Mr. Norman Roberts, who had obviously

been waiting.

"Against her will she was driven to Hollywood Sanitarium

where Mr. McKnight encountered some difficulty in having her

admitted as he had no proper admission papers.

"Later, enquiries by our Mr. Inerson," and that

refers to Mr. Stanton's law firm, "disclosed no proper

documentation whatever to support your moves and those of Dr.

McKenzie.

"Later in the day Mrs. White, while held against her will at

the Hollywood Sanitarium, was seen by Dr. Helgason briefly. He

told her it had been reported that she was a danger to herself,

and said that he had telephoned her family physician, who

allegedly said that she was in a depressed condition.

"A later check with the family physician discloses that Dr.

Helgason's statement was wholly without foundation. Dr.

Helgason also told Mrs. White that she was beyond the help of

any lawyer and in a subsequent conversation with Mr. Inerson,

again of the lawyer's office, said that it was his intention to

force a sedative on Mrs. White and have her taken to Riverview

for a 30-day admission.

"Before Mr. Inerson's arrival a member of the Hollywood

staff pressed Mrs. White to take 100 milligrams of Demerol and

when she refused, threatened that she would be given a

hypodermic. Under this threat she took the Demerol.

Fortunately, Mr. Inerson and Mrs. White's daughter arrived in

time to escort our client from the building and she is now in a

safe place.

"As you well know, the background to this rather fantastic

series of events involves Mrs. White's concern to protect the helpless children

entrusted to her care. She has, on occasion, reported grave abuses to her superior,

including the sexual molestation of some of the children by a janitor on your

staff and over dosage of certain children with medications, in violation of

doctor's orders.

"She also complained about careless distribution of drugs

from other wards to her area.

"We have had Mrs. White examined by her family physician,

who has referred her to an independent psychiatrist. These

doctors both report that she is in good physical and good

mental health and that it is absurd to suggest that there was

any ground whatsoever upon which the actions against her could

properly have been taken.

"Mrs. White informs us that during the three weeks when she

was under surveillance she made it known that she was concerned

with abuses of certain administrative procedures and practices

in Woodlands, and that she proposed, if necessary, to inform

the media about them.

"As there were no legitimate or lawful grounds upon which

you and the others concerned could have taken the steps above

described, we can only assume that these actions were totally

irrational That's an unlikely hypothesis. Or that you acted as

you did in order to get Mrs. White away from the institution

under a cloud, thereby rendering suspect any information she

might give to the media as being the vapourings of a mentally

ill person.

"In short, our client was seized, abducted, imprisoned,

drugged, and reported as insane for the purpose of protecting

certain improper procedures at the Woodlands School."

The rest of the letter is just procedural, Mr. Chairman, but

to follow that up, on January 3rd of this year there was a

story in the Columbian newspaper which says:

"Despite the fact that Health Minister Dennis Cocke has

ordered her reinstatement, Mrs. Marie White says she has not

yet received any official notification to report back for work

as head nurse of the isolation ward at Woodlands. She also says

she has not received the full retroactive pay ordered by Mr.

Cocke. Mrs. White alleges that she was taken from Woodlands to

the Hollywood Sanitarium, "

and the news story goes on to say that the Attorney

General's department has said it will investigate the

allegations.

"Mrs. White says she is ready and willing to go back to work

but she has not yet heard from Woodlands. The medical

superintendent of Woodlands, Dr. Pauline Hughes, refuses any

comment on the matter."

And later on, as late as the 14th of this month of this year

— I might say that there was an editorial on a radio

station in Langley which said, "it took this newsroom some

weeks of digging and pounding to get

[ Page 1183 ]

this story out into the open." Of the three dailies in the

greater Vancouver area the only one that followed through on

this story, to its great credit I might add, was the

Columbian. Neither of the self-styled big

defenders of civil rights and freedoms, the morning and evening

editions of the Pacific Press, saw fit to do anything about

Nurse White's story.

As of today, Mr. Chairman, and this is with confirmation

from Mrs. White's lawyer, Mr. Stanton, there has been nothing

done to help alleviate Mrs. White's case. She has been promised

reinstatement; she does not have reinstatement as yet. She has

been promised retroactive pay; she does not have retroactive

pay as yet. The word that I get from the lawyer's office is

that he is getting the run-around in Victoria.

Mr. Chairman, we should have some answers on a case as

serious as this one, and not only answers about a case as

serious as this one, but answers about what kind of thing will

happen in the future and whether we are taking steps to make

sure that it doesn't. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I recognize the Hon. Minister of Health

Services and Hospital Insurance.

HON. MR. COCKE: Well, Mr. Chairman, I didn't expect that

this would be exactly a love affair, and I'm pleased to say

that it isn't. From that side of the House, Mr. Chairman, I've

heard some very startling statements this morning and there are

some that I'm a little bit sorry about. I have some sorrow

about the whole question of that last situation, and I'll deal

with that last, too.

Let's talk about the future of hospital boards, Mr. Member,

through you, Mr. Chairman. The majority of board members

representing the patients. Is that so bad, Mr. Chairman?

Doesn't that sound like a good idea to you, Mr. Chairman?

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

HON. MR. COCKE: Mr. Chairman, that is not the case and

certainly wasn't the direction of that government that was in

office before ours, and we'll allude to that in a few

moments.

The fact of the matter is that he didn't understand, Mr.

Chairman, what I meant by nonprofessional staff. I meant the

staff of the hospital having a say on the board. I meant the

doctors having a say on the board. Those are the kind of

progressive measures that we're suggesting and we suggested it

on the floor of this House, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman, is there anything wrong with having the hospital boards more

responsive to the community? What's all this socialist bugaboo you talk about

over there? That organization of theirs that can't think of anything else. Totally

preoccupied with this message to the people. You know, "Somebody's out there

and they're going to get you." They can't exactly say how, but they can always

make those phony charges. Mr. Chairman, I get tired of this phoniness that goes

on.

So anyway obviously he hasn't done his homework with respect

to this whole question of hospital boards and my suggestion in

the House was completely obvious. He knew what I was talking

about. Mr. Chairman, I said, "more representatives," and

if Old Talkative wants to talk he can get up and do his thing

in his own good time. We've got lots of time.

Well, anyway, let me tell you they're not representative,

many of the hospital boards in B.C. They're not as

representative as many of them tell me they should be. They'd

like to be more representative.

Let's just for a second deal with a hospital board that was

set up completely by the last administration. The former

minister set up the board with over half of the members

appointed by whom? By the Lieutenant-Governor-in-Council. Now you tell me that's a representative

hospital board, and I hear that criticism from that side of the

House.

Let's take a look at the Coquitlam Hospital Board. Over 50

per cent of that board was appointed by the former Minister of

Health. Now if that's a representative hospital board I just

don't understand it.

MR. H.A. CURTIS (Saanich and the Islands): What about

Glendale?

HON. MR. COCKE: He wasn't in favour, precisely. That's

another situation. But the fact of the matter is we do want to

bring the health care back to the community.

How many times do I have to say it? How many times do I have

to stand in this House and indicate that that's our direction?

And then I hear all of this "centralization" and "socialist

phony representation," and that makes one a little bit

tired.

Let's refer for a moment or two to the Hospital Employees'

Union brief. The Member heard what they had to say, but he

wasn't listening to what I had to say. All of those people up

there. You read it in the paper — well, O.K. I would

refer you to some of the Press — they heard fully what I

had to say.

Where the hospital union called for the elimination of

hospital boards, I indicated that that wasn't the direction at

all. My words were that it would be counter-productive

— counter-productive, to decentralize health care.

So if that isn't plain enough, I'll say here publicly in the

House, with your ears to hear directly, that I do not support

nor do I favour elimination of hospital boards, period.

Let's not forget that that brief was not my brief. That

report was not my report. It was sent to me. Well, you know,

I'm listening to all of this business and it's as though these

are my words, and they

[ Page 1184 ]

certainly weren't. My words were quite in contrast. So, Mr.

Chairman, I hope that I've cleared up that little matter.

Mr. Chairman, he welcomed the discussion that we had in the

House previously on this whole question of alternative health

care measures. Well, thank you very much. We plan to do as much

as we possibly can in this direction, and hopefully we can work

together to reduce the hospital costs, to reduce the costs of

the delivery of health care in this province.

Then I'll go on and answer as best I can the question about

public health inspectors. As you said when you were reading the

report of the Union Board of Health of the central Fraser

Valley, the fact is there has been a real shortage of staff. It

goes back well into the 1960's, as you were indicating by

reading that report. We're trying our best to move into that

area and provide the inspectors and the public health nurses

and so on that are needed. Hopefully, we will have the staff

that is necessary. But don't forget that the direction is still

decentralization. We don't want to hire a bunch of people on

our staff to do the work that should be done at the community

level.

So that gets me down to that other aspect that you were

talking about, and that was, why don't we provide special

inspectors from here to do the community — that's what I

understood — the community facility inspecting?

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

HON. MR. COCKE: That wasn't what you said. You wanted us to

do the work that can be done by the Union Board of Health. If

that's not the case, then maybe you can relate to that later.

I'm glad that you indicated that we did a good job on

Whispering Winds. I can remember Whispering Winds. I haven't

seen the place in the last few years, but I had a rather

intimate relationship with Whispering Winds a few years ago, in

that a relation of mine was there. At that time it was well

run, very clean, excellent food and so on. If it did

deteriorate, and as you indicate, was not in good shape for a

while — well anyway that was brought around to your

satisfaction in any event.

Mr. Chairman, there are other aspects of this that I

question. That Member indicates that we should be very careful

about alcoholics being permitted in community facilities. You

also indicate that we should be very careful about demanding

that there be a certain percentage of welfare people as the

inmates of any community facility.

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

HON. MR. COCKE: What did he say, Mr. Chairman?

MR. McCLELLAND: I said alcoholics.

HON. MR. COCKE: Mr. Chairman, that Member indicated that we

were able to dictate that a certain percentage were welfare

people, obviously. Well then if you're telling me that we

indicate — that we dictate — that alcoholics, or

this or that, I rather think that you're making a bad play.

Now what do you do with people who are ill? What do you do

with people who are chronically ill? I suggest to you that in

1952, the City of Vancouver was at the point of getting a

de-tox centre. Oh, Mt. St. Joseph Hospital was going to become

a de-tox centre. That all went down the drain in 1952, and that

fight has been fought for years and years.

We agree that there has to be an alcoholic programme in this

province, and at last something is being done about it. We are

doing it now, we are working our heads off. There are a number

of sick people in our society who have to have help, who have

to have care. And they're somebody's dad and mother too. I

think that we don't turn our back on people under any

circumstance and particularly in depriving them of a place to

sleep and a place to eat. Especially if it's a place that's

affording them some sort of dignity that they would lose if we

just say, "Go and hide behind some kind of fence."

Mr. Chairman, I'll go on on the Royal Columbian Hospital.

I'm not very happy about that solution to the problem that you

suggest, through you, Mr. Chairman.

The fact that Dr. Foulkes left that hospital had nothing to

do with the fact that we were able to mend a few fences around

there. I wasn't talking about the administration of that

hospital, I was just talking about something that had happened

in this province. Since you bring it up and since you allude to

it, why don't we discuss it more fully?

There was a situation that was artificially created in this

province that alienated management from labour in every field,

including hospitals, including industry, including the whole

kit and caboodle. There was an alienation process going on and

they were just part of that process. I suggested, after that

little bit of discussion we had, that they were able to talk to

one another again and I felt that things were a great deal more

secure. I hope that they will be able to continue talking and

continue negotiating.

The health security programme under Dr. Foulkes is a one

year programme. So how can you suggest that it's going to cost

X dollars per year? There's nothing, Mr. Chairman, that

indicates that that programme is going to go beyond next fall.

Nothing at all that says that that particular programme is

going to go beyond next fall.

The Member said, "Let's get a report, let's get an interim

report. Let's find out where they're going." We couldn't even

get the Perry report on education

[ Page 1185 ]

after it was finished for years and years. We couldn't get

the Carruthers report for years and years. There were finished

reports. Finally when we became Government, we were able to

have access to those reports. Mr. Chairman, what is the great

huge hurry about getting working papers? That's really what you

get — you get working papers from a group such as

that.

The Premier and my Ministry called for that particular

commission to do a job, and finish that job by October of next

year. That job was the rationalization of our departments

— the suggested rationalization. That's what I hope to

have by next October. That is a monumental task and I'm sure

that this particular group of people will do their level best

to produce the report, and I'll be able to make it public at

that time, but not before. Why would I make a working paper

public before? All it would do would be to confuse the whole

issue. So anyway, that's their responsibility. If in fact there

are some papers that I feel should be dealt with in the House,

you have my assurance that they will be dealt with.

Now last, I want to discuss just for a minute or two this

Marie White case. Now that went all through the papers and let

me say first that I want to congratulate the Vancouver

Sun and the Vancouver Province , in this room

right now, for not getting on that ball. Yes, sir, they

resisted. I was in contact with those two papers, and I had a

great deal of contact with those two papers over this case.

They decided in their own wisdom that they were not going to

drag people through the dirt just in order to get a headline. I

want to congratulate that aspect of the papers in this

province.

Mr. Chairman, that was an unfortunate case, and it's not

over. It's not over yet at all. I'm very dissatisfied, Mr.

Chairman, with that Member dragging what I consider to be an

innocent person, through this. I really do, and I'm not talking

about Marie White at this time. I'm talking about some of the

charges that woman made, which have not been vindicated or

justified, about other people who were involved — charges

about people who are perfectly innocent in the eyes of most

people.

Really and truly, I just don't see the relevance — that

private letter should never have been read out — at least

that part of it. Sure, we have a safety in this House, but I

just don't think that that's the thing to do at this point. If

you can prove that there was some sexual activity in that area,

then come up and make those charges; but really and truly I

just think that that's too much.

Mr. Chairman, this has been set up as a committee, and

there's been no input to my committee, no input. The

Columbian

article as far as I'm concerned is just too

bad, but that paper hasn't done their homework. The fact of the

matter is they haven't checked to see whether or not this

person has lived up to her end of the particular bargain with respect to this committee. She

was asked to produce some evidence, bring it before this

committee and it's never even been started. I indicated that

providing she could meet certain standards, she would be

reinstated that day and that would be it. She is to come to the

committee and hasn't to date. Maybe it will happen.

Anyway, I once again congratulate the big dailies for having

stayed from this case. After all, it is human beings we are

dealing with and that is where it's at, at the moment.

Mr. Chairman, I think that answers most of the questions to

this point.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I recognize the Hon. Member for Langley.

MR. McCLELLAND: Supplementary question, Mr. Chairman.

Speaking of disappointment, I'm disappointed in the health

Minister because rather than answering questions which is his

role in this debate, he has twisted facts and attacked. I would

rather see him do some constructive answering of questions

rather than that kind of approach.

Mr. Chairman, I never said "hide alcoholics in some dark

hallway"; I just asked if he could refrain from putting

alcoholics in with our elderly people. We have placed our

elderly people in there to be able to live out their lives in

peace and not have to have that kind of care associated with

them because it is a different kind of care. Mr. Chairman, we

want that kind of care as much as you do. Don't forget it.

Don't twist my implications, because they are certainly not

true.

The other thing has to do with the health inspectors. I

never said, "Leave them in Victoria and have them do the job"

— I said exactly the opposite — decentralize them,

put them in the community, but make them specialize in this

kind of inspection. That's all I asked for; the way it was one

other time. The inspectors have too much to do.

HON. MR. COCKE: Working for whom?

MR. McCLELLAND: Working for their community, but under the

direction of the Community Care Facilities Branch which is

already here. That's all we asked.

Mr. Chairman, as far as the problems of publicizing certain

things in this House, this thing has been before the community

for months — all kinds of media.

The news media, Mr. Chairman, through you to the Minister,

is responsible for providing news and that is their job. There

is nothing wrong with them doing their job. For you to suggest

they should be muzzled from doing their job is highly

irresponsible.

[ Page 1186 ]

MR. CHAIRMAN: I recognize the Hon. Minister of Health

Services.

HON. MR. COCKE: Mr. Chairman, just one or two words.

The Member was disappointed. He felt I should be dealing very

quietly and very lucidly with this whole question of answering

questions. The fact of the matter is, Mr. Chairman, when one is

attacked, then one counter — attacks. If you don't like it, don't

attack.

I answered those questions the very best way I could.

The constructive answering of questions, the refraining from moving all over the place, is a two — way street.

Now, Mr. Chairman, we won't go through this alcohol thing

again. Let me say this: old people sometimes are alcoholic.

There is no conscious effort to place people because they have

a particular illness in that particular institution. None at

all. People have the right to go into rest homes if they wish

to.

AN HON. MEMBER: Do you have the responsibility to make sure

they are run correctly?

HON. MR. COCKE: Yes, and so therefore we don't have the

responsibility of going into a rest home and saying you can't

have this particular kind of patient or that particular kind of

patient. That is all there is to it. Otherwise there is just no

way. Old people sometimes are alcoholic and that's all there is

to it.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I recognize the Hon. First Member for

Vancouver — Point Grey.

Interjections by some Hon. Members.

MR. P.L. McGEER (Vancouver–Point Grey): Thank you,

Mr. Chairman. I didn't want to be the subject of a dispute

before I had a chance to say a word.

AN HON. MEMBER: It could be easy to do.

MR. McGEER: Mr. Chairman, the Minister got off to a flying

start. He got so excited that I was afraid he was going to

knock over that "Be kind" heart symbol that was sitting on his

desk. I was beginning to wonder for a moment who the Minister

was with the red hair.

Mr. Chairman, I was impressed with that "Be kind" symbol,

first of all because it represents such an exciting advance in

health care for the province of British Columbia. Of course,

heart disease is the number one killer in our country.

There are various ways of combating heart disease. One of them, Mr. Chairman,

is exercise and the Minister did make the allegation that we were in lousy shape.

That hurts me, Mr. Chairman. I think we all want to have an opportunity to prove

the kind of shape we are in. I would like to issue a call to the Minister: Why

don't we all go jogging one morning in Beacon Hill Park? It is a wonderful place

to exercise.

I will participate, I know the Whip of the New Democratic

Party (Mr. Barnes) and the members of the Press will join us

and we'll have a "Get in shape week" here in the Legislature.

Perhaps next Tuesday morning, Mr. Chairman, or at sometime

suitable to the Minister — we'll jog for our health.

I jog every day. I'm not bragging in any way. I haven't seen

the Second Member for Vancouver Centre (Mr. Barnes); I know the

Minister of Health does the track at the "Y". But to be alert

you need to have this physical exercise. That is why I give

this particular encouragement to the Press to join us next week

on these jogging expeditions.

There was an amount of people applauding the daily Press in

Vancouver. I can never remember the daily Press in Vancouver

having been applauded before. Here I was prepared to quote from

a very fine

article that was written about our number one

expert in Canada on stress and heart disease, Dr. Hans Selye

which appeared in the morning edition of the Pacific Press. It

states, "Man must have recognition for health." It says "He

cannot tolerate constant censure for that is what makes work

frustrating and stressful."

Very bad for the health and I know this has been a good day

for the health of the Press and I want to make it so for the

Minister too, by saying that I think he has done just an

excellent job in the time he has been in office.

I may occasionally criticize a Minister but I would hope

never to be reticent about giving credit where credit is due. I

think this Minister is starting off in a very fine way. He has

commissioned a study and hired a very competent man to

undertake that. He is receiving ideas from all over and because

of that, I think there is a very high level of co-operation and we are going to see some exciting new

concepts emerging.

There is one aspect of this that is very urgent, Mr.

Chairman. I know the special consultant to, the Minister can't

do everything at once and he's going to take until

October to finish his job. But we are in a countdown on one of

the most important aspects of health in this province and this

is with respect to the health resources fund.

Believe it or not, British Columbia has spent less and has

been further behind any other province in the nation in making

use of the health resources funds. The procrastination has been

so extreme that unless a firm construction

schedule is

commenced by June of this year, it will be impossible for us to

use our full share of the federal funds. This is why decisions

have to be made in advance of that special consultant's

report.

[ Page 1187 ]

Hon. Members probably know that British Columbia turns out

the least number of doctors per capita of any province in the

nation. In medical education we have been last, just as we have

been last in spending the health resources funds.

Mr. Chairman, this has not been due to any lack of planning

because British Columbia was first in all of North America in

planning the concept of a health sciences centre. For that, we

owe a credit to the former Dean of Medicine at UBC, Dr. J.F.

McCreary, who was the one who introduced this idea not just to

British Columbia but to all of North America. I think

eventually this health sciences centre, when the hospital is

finally completed out there, should be called the J.F. McCreary

Health Sciences Centre.

There has been a development already of a UBC health

sciences centre in western Ontario. Mr. Chairman, they built

UBC's scheme 15. In other words, there had already been

completed 15 sets of plans for a health sciences centre before

that university took one and built it. It opened just this year

— a jewel, really, in the Canadian medical education

crown — UBC's plan 15. I've forgotten what scheme we're

up to now, but it's 18 or 19 or so.

Why we're at the final countdown is this: the money has been

made available. There's still over $50 million that belongs to

British Columbia for improving medical care and medical

education facilities. But that money will be forever lost

unless firm decisions to build facilities can be made. My

question to the Minister is will he do this?

What is required as the most urgent priority, Mr. Chairman,

is to increase the size of the medical class. May I say once

more that we are now graduating 60 doctors a year. We are

licensing 300 doctors a year. We are turning away 300 or more

capable students. There are no facilities for teaching them.

The doctors are needed. The hospitals are there. But the basic

science facilities that are so necessary for this cannot

accommodate more than the 80 who are there….

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please.

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Would the Hon. Member not carry on….

MR. McGEER: Mr. Chairman, if I could explain to the Member.

The medical profession is responsible for licensing doctors.

Therefore, what they do is license a sufficient number of

doctors to fill the health needs of the people of the province.

That's about 300 a year. But it's a different problem to train

a doctor. The College of Physicians and Surgeons cannot license

a man unless he's had a medical education.

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. We're considering the Hon.

Minister of Health's estimates, not the Hon. Member's …

MR. McGEER: Mr. Chairman, I'm just terribly pleased to take

the time to make this point. I don't think we should hurry over

it because it's so fundamental. We need to license 300 but the

bottleneck is at the entrance to medical school. There's no

lack of people wanting to take doctor's training; no lack of a

need for them right here in British Columbia, to have a career

in medicine. But there's a problem of not enough basic science

facilities to enlarge the class.

Mr. Chairman, if the Minister would give the O.K. to spend

health resources funds to enlarge these basic science

facilities, then the class could be enlarged to 100, 120, 150

or more. I think that this should be the first priority for

this health resources fund.

The second priority, Mr. Chairman — and again this is

something that can be very, very quickly done — is to

enlarge the clinical facilities for teaching at our existing

major hospitals, like the Vancouver General and St. Paul's

hospital. That can be done very quickly. When this enlarged

medical class gets to its clinical years, those expanded

teaching facilities will be waiting for them.

Thirdly — and this really must start almost

simultaneously too — is to build the great centrepiece of

medical facilities in this province. That, of course, must be a

high — level hospital on the University of British

Columbia campus. A health sciences centre is not a centre

without a hospital. If there is an absolute must for us to take

advantage of the millions of dollars that have already been

spent, it is to create this high — level clinical

facility. I know the Minister sees the necessity for all of

this. For him it's just a question of time and priorities, but

that's my suggestion.

Mr. Chairman, the Minister also has another very major

hospital decision to make. In this province, as in other

provinces of Canada, we've got veterans' hospitals that have

passed their time as veterans' hospitals, simply because we've

been fortunate enough not to have been involved in a major war

for many, many years. What these hospitals are largely being

used for today, Mr. Chairman, is chronic hospitals — the

kind of thing that we've been so short of in British Columbia;

the clinical gap, if you like.

What could be more appropriate than to use these veterans'

hospitals as the centrepiece, not for an acute care programme

— that's going to be the UBC health sciences centre

— but for a chronic care programme?

It's been shown in studies that as many as 50 per cent of

the people who are in chronic hospitals can be discharged if

the one supporting thing that they need

[ Page 1188 ]

can be provided on an out-patient basis. Maybe it' s

a little bit of supportive nursing care. There have been some

exciting statistics produced showing that by team care in a

chronic hospital you can substantially reduce the number of

people who are committed to that institution.

For a person with chronic illness, the event that makes them

leave their home, wherever it is, and enter the hospital will

be the one thing that they couldn't cope with on their own.

Therefore, if it is this insulin shot that could have been

given on an out-patient basis, the person has to

completely fold their own domestic arrangements and go into an

institution. We've never realized before, Mr. Chairman, I don't

think, what a tremendous proportion of our chronic hospital

population is there for a relatively trivial reason, The point I'm coming to, Mr. Chairman, is that if you take

hospitals like Shaughnessy — and people are hunting for a

role for these places that are in danger of becoming white

elephants — and make them into chronic hospitals and

support them with strong out-patient and ancillary

services, we're going to be able to move people in and out of

those hospitals and tremendously reduce the overall cost of a

chronic care programme.

I see this as a great opportunity for the Minister to

initiate a completely new style of chronic health care in the

province by taking over these military hospitals as the main

base. I'd like to ask the Minister what he sees as a future in

the chronic care field.

The next subject that I'd like to raise with the Minister is

one that, I admit, Mr. Chairman, falls only partially within

his jurisdiction. But I know of no other way to raise a protest

for a person like myself than to say it on the floor of the

House. I am dismayed, shattered, shocked, aghast….

AN HON. MEMBER: Get to the point.

MR. McGEER: Mr. Chairman, the state of support for medical

research in Canada is all of these things and more. The primary

responsibility has been at the level of the federal government

and I think the federal government has let down the Canadian

people in a shameful way. Many Members have criticized federal

policies, but I think none has been worse over the last five or

six years than the attitudes of the federal government towards

medical research.

In this period, when a terrific escalation has taken place

in federal expenditures in the health field, medical research

has been throttled. Just this year the estimates for the

Medical Research Council have been tabled in the House of

Commons with the barest increase imaginable — even a

smaller increase in percentage, Mr. Chairman, than went to the

universities here in British Columbia — a bare 5 per

cent.

Mr. Chairman, a fairly desperate group of outstanding doctors from the Province

of Ontario got together in 1965 with some businessmen in that province to explain

the difficulties of doing excellent medical research in Canada. There was a

report commissioned called the Woods Gordon report which set targets for medical

research.

In that year, they said the budget for the Medical Research

Council of Canada by the year 1970 should reach over $80

million per year. The budget for 1973-74 has been

brought down as $40.1 million. In other words, we have gone

three years past a target date and still only half the level

that was recommended in that report.

I believe the report was a modest one because it still left

medical research in Canada substantially behind that of the

United States. While the United States, through its National

Institutes of Health, spends approximately $5 per capita in

medical research, our equivalent in Canada, the Medical

Research Council, gets less than $2 per capita.

We are not pulling our weight as a nation in this field.

It's our own health and well-being that suffer because

of that.

In view of the fact that the federal government is riot

doing its job in medical research, I would like to ask the

Minister: Has he any plans to compensate for this somehow at

the provincial level? I say this with the certain knowledge

that quite a few provinces in Canada have compensated fairly

generously. The Province of Ontario, again, is one; Alberta,

the Maritimes. We, provincially, have spent very little money

in this direction.

Next, Mr. Chairman, I'd like to ask the Minister about

drugs. One of the important gaps in our medical care problem in

this province is the high cost of drugs and medical appliances

to those who are in the low income groups. If a person has

chronic illness — arthritis, heart disease, diabetes

— then drugs become the most important necessity in that

person's life, more important even than food. Most of us can

survive for a while with either no food or limited amounts of

food but for the person who has a chronic illness, death itself

may ensue without the continued administration of life-saving drugs.

Life-saving drugs often come very, very expensive.

The steroids — well, the Minister knows them. I don't

need to take the time to go through them. I think we should

have a programme in British Columbia where all prescription

drugs over a certain modest minimum — make it $25 a year,

if you like, so you have a deterrent for people who would

otherwise fill their medicine cabinets with all the junk that

they could pick up at a drug store. But for the people who

really need it and have a long-term requirement for a

drug, then I think that should be picked up by our medical

insurance scheme.

Mr. Chairman, the cost of this would be extraordinarily low. The fairness of

it would, I think, be

[ Page

1189 ]

beyond dispute.

Lastly, Mr. Chairman, I'd like to ask the Minister if he

couldn't get his teeth into another problem. This is the

problem of fluoridation. British Columbia is tenth in Canada in

fluoridation of water supplies. The supporters of fluoridation

include the Canadian Dental Association, the Canadian Medical

Association, the Canadian Pharmaceutical Association, the

Canadian Public Health Association, the Department of National

Health and Welfare, the Dominion Council of Health, the Health

League of Canada, the Canadian Federation of Business and

Professional Women's Clubs, the National Council of Jewish

Women of Canada, the Voluntary Committee on Health of the

Senate and House of Commons, the U.S. Army, the U.S. Nary and

the U.S. Air Force.

Mr. Chairman, if one could find groups with a broader

community of interests than that supporting a single measure, I

would like to know what it is. Mr. Chairman, the Minister of

Health would be on very sound medical and political ground if

he were to become the champion of fluoridation in British

Columbia. I have regretted that we've had such feeble

endorsements in the past.

Oh, they've come. The Leader of the Opposition once mumbled

something about being in favour of fluoridation. I've heard

former Ministers of Health whisper on an occasion or two that

they thought it was maybe not a bad idea. But never have we had

a Minister of Health who would crusade for this, a number one

health measure. It would be so easy if strong support were

loaned to this cause.

Mr. Chairman, I know what the hesitation is. That is that

there are always these groups who contend that the purity of

the water is being offended by the addition of fluoride or any

other agent. Really, I think we overdo this idea of having

nothing in the water but H2O. I would cite as the

evidence for this….

Interjections by some Hon. Members.

MR. McGEER: I'm not talking about the kinds of things that

some of my Hon. colleagues like to have with their water, Mr.

Chairman.

I'm talking about the kinds of things that will prevent

heart disease. Here in the very papers that have been praised

this morning — in this case the afternoon edition of the

Pacific Press — is this report saying that heart disease

is linked to soft water. In other words, the pure water

supplies that are always championed by food faddists and the

members of the Greater Vancouver Water and Sewage Drainage

District about being the greatest asset of Vancouver, actually

contributes to heart disease. We'd be better off if we had hard

water here on the coast, Mr. Chairman.

We do get adequate copper in our water because that comes through all the pipes.

As anybody who has tried to fill a swimming pool knows, we get lots of dirt

in with the water. But we should have calcium with the water if we want to prevent

deterioration of the arteries. We should have fluoride in the water if we want

to prevent deterioration of the teeth.

Mr. Chairman, I'm an unashamed champion of fluoridation of

our water supplies. I'm looking for a Minister in that

portfolio who will be my hero and crusade for this cause. I

would want to give him a model of a fluoride molecule to go

with that heart model he has, for the day that we have

fluoridation introduced in the major communities of this

province.

The Minister can do it in a number of ways. One is just to

see a simple change in the Municipal Act which would

allow city councils to fluoridate at their discretion. That's

been done. Make it a simple majority vote — that's been

done. But there always seems to be about 40 per cent of the

people who are reluctant to take this step and will not support

a referendum when you have to go to that 60 per cent majority

and I think this is the thing that has been the destroyer of

children's teeth in this province.

What we really want to have is a courageous government that

puts public health high on its list of priorities, and

particularly one that has the financial genius to recognize

that this is one of the cheapest public health measures that

could be introduced.

Mr. Chairman, my case for fluoridation rests.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I recognize the Hon. Minister of Health

Services and Hospital Insurance.

HON. MR. COCKE: Mr. Chairman, I'll just take a couple of

minutes and answer some of the questions put by the First

Member for Vancouver–Point Grey.

We are certainly pleased to have him support my suggestion

sometime ago in this House that we all keep in shape, jog, and

do all the other necessary things to keep the blood flowing

through our arteries at a rate sufficiently great to keep it

from stopping suddenly.

As far as your challenge is concerned, I don't know. I'm not

the same age as you are. We'll discuss that between ourselves.

I certainly go along, however, that we should all get out and

do that kind of work.

Now, Mr. Chairman, the First Member from Point Grey dealt

with the question of the Health Resources Fund. He indicated

that by June of this year we'd better have the plans drawn and

get the shovel into the dirt out at UBC — otherwise we're

down the tube as far as the utilization of that $50 million is

concerned.

I appreciate all the work that Dr. McCreary has done; I

appreciate all the work that Dr. Gibson, Dr. McGeer, and many

other doctors and many other people in this area have done with

respect to their

[ Page 1190 ]

work toward the Health Science Centre Hospital. Now, Mr.

Chairman, I disagree with the Member, however, that we, have to

make a decision by June of this year. We have nothing, there is

nothing in the agreement or nothing in the Act that I can

recall that indicates that you lose some of it if you don't get

it before 1981. 1981 is the cut-off time for the

utilization of the Health Resources Fund. So let's not stampede

ourselves into decisions around this question, and I'll just

develop that a little bit.

Another thing, too. I don't want anybody to get the

impression that this is $50 million of federal funds. What it

is is $25 million of federal funds and $25 million that we

would have to match. In other words, this is a matching

situation. Remember, those of you who remember history, this

was Judy LaMarsh's, when she was health Minister for Canada,

this was the plan that she set up to help health education. It

was a great idea, and I agree with the Member that somehow or

another we must utilize these resources.

Now, both Dr. Bates and I are relatively new at our jobs.

Dr. Bates is the new Dean of Medicine at UBC, and I have had

early discussions with Dr. Bates, last fall, as to the

direction to go. I had discussions with him and with others. I

had a discussion or two with the Hon. Member across the way

about this facility. I suggested to Dr. Bates that one thing we

had to do is to provide some satisfaction to the health

community. In other words, let's not move in a direction that

is going to dissatisfy the majority, or a great number or

whatever.

So they've been doing a job. They've been going out to

hospital boards and so on, and they've got support from St.

Paul's, they've got a little bit of support from the General,

not really great support, not thunderous applause or anything.

To date, the Medical Association has turned them down flat.

We're dealing with an area which I feel is very important

— people who are intimately involved making or at least

taking

part in the decision-making.

Now I recognize that the buck stops here at this Minister,

but I'm just a little bit too new, and a little bit too short

of information at this point to make a definitive, final

decision as to where that Health Resources Fund money is going

to be used. But I can tell you this — it's going to be

used. It's going to be used in B.C.

Now, Mr. Chairman, to go on, I think that that probably

rests that situation, but you know I'm very excited about the

Member's suggestion about veterans' hospitals.

As most of you know, we are at the present time negotiating with the federal

government around Shaughnessy and the veterans' hospital here. The officials

— the Deputy Minister of Veterans' Affairs and his associates — have been out

here and we've had some discussions, as they had with the previous government.

But I think we are on a course which will lead us ultimately to a place where

those hospitals will come under our purview.

When that occurs, I agree with the Member that a study has

to be done to give us an understanding of the best utilization

of Shaughnessy Hospital. Shaughnessy does have some very fine

acute care facilities. They are doing acute and some intensive

care. As you know, they are doing two open heart operations a

week. But a real programme can be built around that hospital,

particularly if we are able to get into intermediate care,

because if we go into that level of care, the next level down

from where we are now, extended care is very easy to identify.

If a person cannot walk and they are chronically ill then they

need extended care.

But if, on the other hand, we move down to that level, which

is our objective if we can possibly get in there, then we're

going to have to have some kind of major facility that is going

to complement that kind of delivery, and under those

circumstances I certainly want to have, Mr. Member, through you

Ms. Chairman, to that Member, I certainly want to have

Shaughnessy and for that matter Veterans' over here looked into

very carefully as to how they can best help our whole health

care delivery system.

Mr. Chairman, the Member is a scientist, and as a scientist

he says we've got to have some real change in research in

Canada. In Canada we are only putting $2 per capita on the line

in research, In the United States they are putting $5 on the

line. He also indicated that the United States has moved up

sharply in the last two years. Well, so they should.

But we have to be more careful in British Columbia, and I've

discussed this with the Member too, Mr. Chairman, so he's just

letting you in on it now. We have to be most careful in British

Columbia how we go with respect to research.

If we start moving into research arbitrarily without really

letting the federal government take the responsibility that

they should be taking, then we're in the area that they should

be in, and we should be encouraging them to get out of the area

where we should be in. Let me explain this now. I've got you

all confused and so now I can bring you out of the morass.

One of the problems we have with the federal government is

the fact that they've built a health bureaucracy. With that

health bureaucracy they've become helpless in their own

bureaucracy. When we go down to Ottawa and ask for a global

budget, they can't give us a global budget because, if they

did, they'd have to fire half their people, because their

people are so intimately involved in health care. Their civil

service would be greatly depleted and that would be counter-productive to the way governments normally act.

I'm not suggesting it's counter-productive. It

[ Page 1191 ]

should happen that way, but so far it hasn't happened. The

bureaucracy is so great that if there is any threat of removing

a person's job by virtue of giving more responsibility to the

province, then that's of course resisted. And that's the kind

of thing that I sense.

I don't hold this against anybody. This is the human animal

that we're dealing with. This is human nature. We build our

little empires and it's very difficult to bring them down.

I really feel that our input — and not to say that we

are ignoring this place — should be particularly at this

moment to get the federal government into the area of health

care where they should be and get ourselves into the area of

delivering that care, in co-operation with the

community, the professionals, and so on.

So I just don't see us affording too much research at this

point until such time as we can get some sort of an agreement

with the federal government as to their direction, because if

things keep going the way they are going now, our funds are

going to be very tight, particularly in view of the fact that

costs are rising at such a rapid rate.

We have to be most careful, and I encourage the federal

government to do a great deal more with respect to research and

get out of the delivery of health care themselves.

Now, Mr. Chairman, on prescription drugs I agree….

MR. CHAIRMAN: Did the Member have something special to say?

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

HON. W.A.C. BENNETT (Leader of the Opposition): …in a

kindly way. That is that the Federal government, I don't say it

in criticism of them, have always sought to get some kind of a

formula to get away from sharing the rising costs on a 50

— 50 basis, both in hospital insurance and Medicare.

All I would suggest to the Hon. Minister is that he not

agree to any of those kind of formulas because we're living in

an inflationary world — keep the federal government in as

a full partner in these two important fields. That's all I have

to say.

HON. MR. COCKE: Madam Chairman, we have adopted a very

definitive attitude in that respect. As a matter of fact, we've

gone beyond that and indicated areas where they could take a

great deal more responsibility than what they have to date. One

of the problems of course is that those are the only areas

where they do deal. They've cut the base short. They've

narrowed the base in that they say, "O.K., on the insured

benefits only," not recognizing that there's mental

health….

AN HON. MEMBER: You must have a broad base.

HON. MR. COCKE: That's right. You must broaden the base,

otherwise, we take….

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

HON. MR. COCKE: Right on, that's the way. We agree that

that's the way it is and we're providing some leadership with

the other provinces. The Province of Quebec is going in that

direction. Hopefully, when we go down to our next meeting with

the Hon. Marc Lalonde, by that time the federal government will

recognize that they must broaden the base. Thank you for your

contribution.

Mr. Chairman, the area of prescription drugs; yes, we're

most interested in prescription drugs. I guess you probably

noticed the announcement by the Hon. Ed Shreyer, Premier of

Manitoba the other day, that they're moving in that

direction.

One of the problems, however, around this whole question of

prescription drugs — whether there's co-insurance

or not, and I agree that certainly if we're going to move in

very quickly, and that's part of our study — but if we're

going to move in very quickly, there has to be some co-insurance. Prices aren't right.

That's one thing that the health Ministers across this

country recognize and agree upon — that is that the price

of drugs is absolutely intolerable. There's such a percentage

of it in advertising, such a percentage of it in unearned

profits right across the board. Not at the local level, but at

the manufacturers' and large distributors' level. That's where

the big profits are.

We have a study on with the western provinces right now as

to whether or not we should get into bulk buying and providing

drug stores with an opportunity to get drugs at a better price.

If there's enough involved, then we can go abroad for drugs,

providing they meet the quality and our needs. Anyway, those

are some of the things that we're studying.

Mr. Chairman, again back to this fluoridation. We've

discussed this around the House. It's been kept in the public

eye, Mr. Member, through you, Ms. Chairman.

We recognize that in areas where they do fluoridate, such as

Prince George and Kelowna, that there is a tremendous reduction

in tooth caries. But there is so much misinformation abroad,

until such times as this whole question can be rationalized and

people stop going wild about it, it's a very difficult

situation to deal with.

Now you say O.K., I can be a crusader on a white horse.

Ralph Nader is a crusader right now on a black horse, if that

can be the contrasting situation. We have to get the people

educated in this whole

[ Page 1192 ]

question. No use in saying you're going to do this or you're

going to do that without having a proper education.

I've asked for and I have a report on the whole question of

dental care and preventive dental care in this province. I will

be soon making that report available. It's a very interesting

report. I want everybody in the House to take a real good look

at it. It could be that in the next year or two that we're

going to be able to start implementing some form of preventive

dental work on a scale that is going to be of great value to

us.

I want to remember just for one second. Remember when they

chlorinated the water in Vancouver? At that time there, were

two individual water supplies — one serving the western

part of the city and one serving the eastern part of the city.

The old Seymour watershed and the Capilano watershed.

Remember they announced the chlorination of that water and

there was a hue and cry like you never heard in your life. Then

they announced the date. The target date was such and such, and

then of course the date came.

Subsequent to that date, there were all sorts of calls,

letters to the editor — and oh, people were just very

upset. Now most of the calls came from the east side of the

city where they were bothered with diarrhea and everything else

as a result of this chlorine. The only problem was, they'd had

some technical difficulties, the chlorine hadn't been

introduced into the Seymour watershed yet; but had been

introduced into the Capilano watershed, and there wasn't too

much complaint from that side of the city.

That's the problem with all of these things. We have to do a

job of educating in order to get people to understand exactly

what's going on.

MS. CHAIRWOMAN: The Hon. Second Member for Vancouver

Centre.

MR. G.V. LAUK (Vancouver Centre): Thank you, Ms.

Chairperson. I can say this, that I thank you for recognizing

me and the people of Vancouver Centre thank you, and all the

backbenchers thank you. I think as far as Chairpersons are

concerned I must….

MS. CHAIRWOMAN: Would the Member stand up, please.

(Laughter).

MR. LAUK: Ms. Chairperson, I know that you and I are both of

— have that distinction. I was going to say that I'm glad

that you did recognize me, and as far as Chairpersons are

concerned, I much prefer the Ms. to the "Mr."

I've been sitting here for the last few days stewing about a few things that

were said by a couple of Members, and I'm sure said in all sincerity, about

heroin addiction. What I found upsetting was not that they were wrong, which

they were, but that they couched their remarks…at least one of the Members,

a professional man in the medical field, from one of the Vancouver ridings and

not of this party. (Laughter).

AN HON. MEMBER: Oh, who?

MR. LAUK: A clue is that he's one of the last of the stand-up comics for the Liberal Party.

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

MR. LAUK: He couched his remarks in a sort of scientific

atmosphere and a research atmosphere — expertise. And I

noticed that the Liberal Party organ once again caught up on

this in their editorial of March 8, 1973.

MS. CHAIRWOMAN: What is your point of order?

MR. D.M. PHILLIPS (South Peace River): Have the speaker

refer to the Minister's estimates instead of wandering all over

the…. (Laughter).

MS. CHAIRWOMAN: I think the point is well taken. Would the

Hon. Member confine his….

MR. LAUK: Ms. Chairperson, I'd like to refer you to the

estimates that I'm talking about, vote 94, vote 109 — you

can refer to practically all of them.

Interjections by some Hon. Members.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Order, order.

MR. LAUK: …which all come under the health estimates and

also the Health Minister's salary because he is deciding policy

in this regard.

MS. CHAIRWOMAN: We are dealing with vote 86, Hon.

Member.

MR. LAUK: That's exactly what I said, exactly what I said.

Now could you tell me — are you serious about that ruling

by the way? Are you serious about that ruling?

MS. CHAIRWOMAN: Proceed.

MR. PHILLIPS: I think when you were stewing you must have

boiled over. (Laughter).

MR. LAUK: Well I do know what I would like to say and I was

quite serious about the fact that a few days ago two Members

did make these statements, albeit seriously and with sincerity.

I know them both, and they are concerned over the problem of

heroin

[ Page 1193 ]

addiction.

Now the Member for South Peace River (Mr., Phillips)

suggested that we shoot traffickers, or pushers as he put it,

in heroin. But you see there are problems involved with that

approach. Number one — 95 per cent of the addicts, to my

own personal knowledge, who are in the Vancouver area, are

pushers most of the time, all of the time, or some of the time

— 95 per cent.

Interjection by an Hon. Member.

MR. LAUK: He said pushers. The second problem is that under

the Narcotic Control Act, trafficking is defined as

"transporting, giving, sharing, or even having in one's

possession a quantity that might be found to be more than you

could use within a short period of time."

Thirdly, Ms. Chairperson, three very prominent persons

involved in the drug traffic in the last two years have been

sentenced to long prison terms — the very top of the

echelon of the drug trafficking business. The drug trafficking

has increased. People have taken their places. Those

personalities of whom I'm talking, they are what I would

describe clearly, in my experience, as psychopaths, who do not

fear death and who traffic in death. Believe me, Mr. Member, if

I thought that firing squads would do the job I would pull the

trigger myself, but they will not.

MR. PHILLIPS: What do you recommend?

MR. LAUK: In plenty of time, Mr. Member. You just listen

carefully. The first Member for Point Grey (Mr. McGeer) was a

little more researched in his remarks but because of the

couching in science he was more responsible for the

sensationalism that he caused.

He says that drug addiction is like a disease. I'll talk

more about that in a moment. A contagious disease. In fact he

is in

part correct but he missed a very, very important factor;

that the addict, the person addicted to heroin, does not spread

the disease. It is the novice user, the person who has not yet

been investigated, not yet been found out by the police, his

parents or anybody else — the novice user who with his

peer group, his friends, is excited about this new thrill

— seeking and encourages them to use drugs.

The addicts that I know, Mr. Member, know that they are

living part of a living death and do not talk about their drugs

to novices or people who are not other addicts. That is the

fact of the contagion that you are talking about. Therefore,

his suggestion of isolation is false.

It is like prison. We isolate them in prison and we practically have a free

drug society in Oakalla. I think many of the lawyers in the House could testify

to that. Certainly the Hon. Member for Alberni (Mr. Skelly) mentioned this in

his remarks sometime ago.

These people are undetected until they are addicts. When do

we start arresting them and isolating them. When do we pick

them up and put them on an island? — when they just met

someone who started using heroin or when they used it once or

twice? — when they started mainlining, that is putting it

in directly into their veins, until they are described as a

confirmed addict? When do we arrest them? — when they are

over 16, over 12, over 9, age 7 as in a case in New York

recently? When? Lock them up?

In a little while a new addict community would develop and I

think my friend from Point Grey knows that. He mentioned

recently a letter he received from the Home Secretary from

England. He says, "There were increases in drug-related

crime from 200 to 500 approximately." I haven't got it exactly

but that's the general figure.

Well, there are all kinds of reports from Britain — a

population vastly in excess of Canada's. They have about 4,000

or 5,000 addicts in the United Kingdom. Believe me, an increase

of 200 to 500 drug — related crimes in Vancouver —

well, we should be so lucky. That kind of failure we need over

here.

Ms. Chairperson, I rise to speak on this vote in order to

emphasize one of the most unfortunate tragedies of our times

and that is heroin addiction. Some people estimate that we now

have, as I say, about 10,000 to 15,000 addicts in British

Columbia. The addiction problem is epidemic. It is

contagious.

In the past it was a small group of addicts who in most

cases before addiction indicated anti-social and

delinquent behaviour. Now the insidious disease is reaching its

ugly fingers into every part of society. It is no longer just

the poor families that are susceptible, but every family.

The disease is walking hand in hand with the general moral

decline on our community. We can clearly see that all drug

dependency is interrelated — like alcohol and other drugs

such as barbiturates and so on. The addict is becoming younger

and younger. We are told that in North America we are only on

the threshold of massive drug dependency and drug use.

I'm talking about an emergency. But I must emphasize that

the days when we can get away with sensationalizing the problem

in the Press and in this House and ignoring our duty as

legislators and members of the Press must be over. If we do not

act with knowledge and understanding, we will be abdicating our

greatest responsibility. We will be turning our backs, I say,

on our own survival.

MR. PHILLIPS: That's what I said the other day.

MR. LAUK: Now, who is the addict? He is a multi-drug

user these days. He uses barbiturates, amphetamines, pot, LSD,

and alcohol. Prior to 1966,

[ Page 1194 ]

the user became seriously involved with drugs at about 18.

By 1968, this age dropped to 16; by 1972, from between 12 and

14 years of age. Complete dependency used to take an average of

two years. Now it takes just a few months. Before, the

majority of users ranged between the ages of 25 and 30. Now,

most heroin addicts are between 20 and 25 and I am told it is

getting younger.

How does he become an addict? There is evidence that some

start using through association with friends who have just

started using. This is the contagion that the First Member for

Point Grey has described and it has been described in many

articles, one of which I loaned to him the other day. It is not

as popular myth would have it, through association with those

already drug dependent. It is only the naive novice, who is

enthusiastic about the thrill. It is only the novice who

spreads the disease by his ignorance of the living death it

leads to. Some are previously delinquent and associate with

addicts in the world of crime. Others take the drug because of

a painful disease.

Their backgrounds are filled with profiles of poverty,

brutality at home or just neglect, with no facilities or

alternative life styles available. The cost of his heroin

epidemic is a heavy one, both economic and social. We know that

it costs the heavy user $60 to $100 a day to maintain his

habit. If there are only, let's say, 10,000 addicts in B.C., at

$60 a day, the low end of the scale, it is costing $600,000 a

day, $4.2 million a week, $16.8 million a month or $201.6

million a year. The second biggest industry in the

province.

I have here a letter I wish to read to you. It is an

interesting letter. Where do they get the money? Mostly from

criminal activity, theft, prostitution, robbery, embezzlement

and so on. Of course, at one time or another they traffic in

the drug themselves This letter was sent to me some time ago

and it says, page 3:

"The once preconceived adage that addicts were misdemeanor

thieves and social nuisances no longer applies in this day and age of high cost

illicit drugs. Thousands more addicts, tighter retail store surveillance and

other contributing factors require an addict to pursue his criminal activities

in a faster and higher monetary return fashion. Consequently a more serious deviation

in addict criminality has transpired during the past 10 years A large part of

this deviation in addict criminal thought can be attributed to the criminal

training and educational environment on our so-called correctional institutions.

Jailing addicts for treatment of these addictions accomplishes one thing and

one thing only: it makes them more bitter and sophisticated criminals. What other

proven failure can they copy or incorporate?"

He goes on to talk about Lexington. This is a letter from a

man serving 12 years for bank robbery — a drug addict,

heroin addict for several years. Sounds like he could be

rehabilitated.

Add to this, the $201.6 million a year, the additional cost

of police. I estimate $20 million as the added share; $40

million is the general cost and I say 50 per cent of our

criminal involvement in the courts and jails is drug-related in British Columbia. That's $20 million. Courts

and lawyers: 50 per cent of the total, which would be a

conservative $2 million. Prison and corrections: again at only

50 per cent of the total cost to the economy of British

Columbia for heroin addiction is a conservative $248.6 million

annually. Not bad for organized crime — business as

usual.

What about the social costs — the loss of human

resources? Who dares to put a dollar figure on that loss? Who

would have the courage to turn their backs on this pitiful and

tragic waste of human life? The history of attempts to solve or

eliminate this problem is a bitter failure — one of the

saddest chronicles of our time.

In the 1950's in the United States and Canada, there

occurred a sensationalized drug scare as a result of which

certain attempts at solutions were made. Laws became tougher

and organizations sprung up such as the NAF — Narcotic

Addiction Foundation. I will just read from the Narcotic

Addiction Foundation's own history here.

"The Narcotic Addiction Foundation of British Columbia was

formed under the Societies Act of the province on September 13, 1955. Its formation

was a direct result of recommendations emanating from a study conducted by the

health division of Vancouver Community Chest and Council, the principle of which

was that a body be formed to conduct research and educational programmes in

the field of narcotic addiction"

Research and education programmes, primarily

research. That's what I'm afraid they've done ever since: experimentation in

drug substitution. Morphine and methadone, 2606 or whatever they call it these

days. Playing in blockage dosage or maintenance dosage.

Throughout its history the Narcotic Addiction Foundation

seemed primarily concerned with this research. I believe that

the public should know that only recently has that organization

made attempts to change direction and place some emphasis on

treatment — in other words, concerning themselves with

the addict and not with addiction. Oh, they've always had

social workers and doctors who have devoted a lot of time to

the addict and his dependency. But primarily, the thrust of the

energies of the foundation was in research and

experimentation.

It is for this reason, I suggest, that they have developed

the urinalysis process. "What is urin-

[ Page 1195 ]

alysis?" I heard the First Member for Vancouver–Point Grey

(Mr. McGeer) say from the coffee shop upstairs — oh no,

there he is. It is a process by which an addict provides a

sample of his urine under supervision in a laboratory with the

requisite machinery. It makes an attempt to analyse the sample

in order to find traces of a drug or drugs. This is done, we

are told, for the purpose of diagnosis. In other words, is the

person using heroin? It does not, nor can it determine

addiction.

Urinalysis has been heavily criticized on two grounds:

(1) that because it cannot determine addiction, its usefulness for

diagnosis is virtually nonexistent, except for the simple

purpose of saying that someone has used heroin, which is

meaningless to treatment; (2) it is not accurate.

I quote from the Vancouver Sun , December 14, 1972, an

article by Mr. Harry Nelson, page 10:

"Charges of grossly inaccurate results and cries of

'chemical McCarthyism' are following in the wake of worldwide

enthusiasm for urine screen tests to detect drug abusers.

"Urinalysis has become so widespread that a new category of

paraprofessional, the micturitionist observer, has evolved. His

job is to monitor persons while they are giving specimens to

make sure that they don't deposit a black-market clean

specimen instead of their own.

"The sudden popularity and rapid growth of urine screening

has alarmed some professions. 'The screening is a massive put-on by well intentioned people who don't know what they

are doing as far as toxicology is concerned,' says Dr. George

Lundberg, assistant director of laboratories at the University

of Southern California Medical Centre and professor of

pathology.

"He said, 'Urinalysis drug detection programmes, as they are

commonly conducted, produce large numbers of false negatives,

false positives and misidentifications. The rate of

inaccuracies varies greatly, depending on which laboratory does

the analysis.'

"He cited studies in which urine samples containing known

drugs were sent unannounced to different laboratories. 'The

error rates ranged as high as 70 per cent,' he said."

Seventy per cent.

"Imperfections in the technology of urine screening and

human error in mixing up samples and misreading results are

given as some of the reasons for inaccuracies. 'Yet a person's

job or parole or whether he wins a race or stays in a methadone

programme often hangs on the results of such tests,' Dr.

Lundberg said. 'The question is raised,' he said, 'what are

they trying to do — identify or treat?"

If an addict is seeking treatment, he receives methadone medication from the

foundation. During treatment he may have used heroin once or twice. If he did

so and it's detected in urinalysis, he's cut off methadone and he's back into

that criminal cycle that I've described.

The Narcotic Addiction Foundation has in the past five or

six years been using drug-substitution treatment. This

is applied in two ways. One is blockage dosages. Massive

dosages are given the addict for the sole purpose of

alleviating the very painful withdrawal symptoms when one stops

using heroin. In addition, it blocks the desire for heroin by

creating a high similar to heroin highs. I think you know what

I'm talking about. The method, I understand, is presently being

discouraged because it's creating methadone addicts with

similar problems.

Secondly, you can use methadone for maintenance dosages

administered to just stem the withdrawal symptoms themselves

that I've just mentioned. This approach, I understand, is being

more emphasized.

I say that drug substitution by itself is not treatment.

Treatment is a dramatic and massive input of personal

psychotherapy, occupational therapy and follow-up care,

which is not to any real or serious extent being provided by

the Narcotic Addiction Foundation. Perhaps it is true that the

addict will always be susceptible to some form of drug

dependency. But there are other answers. Only Britain had the

courage as a nation to face up to these realities. We can learn

from their success in the clinical distribution of free or low-cost heroin in clinical situations, thereby cutting down

dramatically the black market traffic in this drug, and

thereby enabling addicts to lead in most cases an otherwise

normal life.

We can learn from their mistakes as well, Ms. Chairperson.

That is to say, heroin has a low tolerance level. If you take

heroin in small doses, over a period of time the withdrawal

symptoms will come unless you take it on an ever-increasing dosage. Methadone, on the other hand, has a

high tolerance, which means you can take methadone at a

maintenance level for an indefinite period of time. Britain is

only now getting into methadone treatment, to avoid the

problems that were raised by the learned First Member for

Vancouver–Point Grey (Mr. McGeer).

We can and must supplement this methadone programme with

full staff and facilities for resocialization of the addict and

make him a functional citizen in our community. If it is

necessary, we must provide him with heroin for maintenance

before putting him on to methadone. These are the things that

the Hon. Minister of Rehabitation and Social Improvement (Hon.

Mr. Levi) is talking about, not as described in the editorial

that I've named earlier in the Vancouver Sun which

sensationalizes the scare tactics that are being used.

[ Page 1196 ]

There are several agencies in the province which have been

fighting impossible financial and political barriers to deliver

this kind of follow-up care. They have been receiving

next to nothing from the governments until just recently. On

the other hand, the Narcotic Addiction Foundation has been

doing well.

I thought I'd run through it for you. Under drug dependency

for public health services last year, they received a vote of $100,000. From the B.C. Hospital Insurance Service they received

approximately $90,000. From the Provincial Secretary they

received $325,000 — I'm approximating 50 per cent of the

total grant to both alcohol and narcotics. From the Council on

Drugs, Alcohol and Tobacco, a total of $25,540 for various

projects. From the Medical Services Commission, $84,400. The

total from the province is $624,940 and they received much more

from the federal government — much more.

What's the answer? My friend from North Peace there who's

chatting, maybe if you have a moment, I'll give you the

answer.

AN HON. MEMBER: South Peace.

MR. LAUK : South Peace, I'm sorry. Here is the answer. Are

you ready for the answer? All right.

The Government must take a strong position expressing the

undesirability of the excessive use of all drugs, with the

objectives of this position being the prevention and treatment

of dependency on such drugs and the alleviation of the social

and health problems which result from such dependency.

Secondly, suggestions with which the governments can deal

are as follows:

(

a) the rehabilitation of those people who are dependent on

drugs, with the aim of returning the patient to his normal

function in the community within the limits of his potential so

that he may work productively and refrain from criminal and/or

antisocial activity;

(

b) to provide supervision or custodial care for those

persons who are drug dependent and for those persons whose

potential for rehabilitation is considered limited or so

limited that such care is indicated;

(

c) a positive public information programme should be planned

and implemented with the aim of promoting constructive life

styles.

I do not agree with negative programming emphasizing drugs

which, in my opinion, may encourage rather than discourage the

use of drugs. Such a programme should be continuing, subject to

constant evaluation and revision. Some examples are 30-second television ads promoting such positive activities

as skiing, chess, political participation.

We could have the Hon. Member for South Peace River (Mr. Phillips) get up and

say, "Hi, I'm a politician." It's a very positive lifestyle. Volunteer social

agencies, involvement in political groups, and so on. These ads should attach

glamour to the responsibility and co-operative social participation of life

rather than, failure or anti-social activity.

(

d) I recommend to the provincial government that the

prevention and treatment of drug dependency be recognized

mainly as a health-social problem, not as a legal one:

and to pressure the federal government into taking that

stand.

I recommend to the provincial government that there is

pressing need for the modification of existing federal and

provincial legislation with respect to it.

I recommend the use and improvement of present organizations

as set out in the commission that just reported last week.

I recommend — and this is the most immediate and

pressing problem, Mr. Chairman — that the provincial

government take steps to immediately establish a detoxification

centre or centres to care for drug-dependent persons

which would be available in all major centres and available to

all such persons from all areas of the province. These

detoxification centres would be staffed by social health teams.

They should emphasize the non-medical approach during

the detoxification process, and therefore social-health

teams should include social workers, non-professional

workers, volunteers, as well as, medical personnel.

It is only when we approach the problem from a rational

basis such as that, without using sensationalism or scare

tactics, will we be able to solve the tremendous epidemic with

which we are faced today.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I recognize the Hon. Minister of Health

Services and Hospital Insurance.

HON. MR. COCKE: Mr. Chairman, I must compliment that Member

for having done a great deal of research and work on his

subject. I further compliment him to indicate that he is quite

serious. I recognize his being serious because we had a

conference over here. The Minister of Rehabilitation and Social

Improvement (Hon. Mr. Levi) and my ministry got together and we

had a two-day meeting at the Empress on this whole

question of dependency. That Member came over and sat in and

listened with great interest to the whole discussion. So he is

really interested in this whole question.

We have some real problems here and I hope, personally, that

we can take the kind of steps that are necessary to prevent or

to reduce this tragedy in our society.

We are moving in the direction of detoxification centres

— no question about that. We are already negotiating in

one or two — areas. We are getting together with as many

informed people as we can to put together the kind of programme

that will help solve the problem. There is no final solution;

that's the one thing we know. But we are going to do our very

best.

As far as the need for legislation is concerned, Mr.

[ Page 1197 ]

Chairman, that's a matter with the Attorney General. I have

a particular feeling about the arrest of drug addicts and I'll

deal with that someday under the Attorney General's estimates,

or certainly in discussion.

Mr. Chairman, I'll yield to the Premier.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I recognize the Hon. Premier.

HON. MR. BARRETT: Mr. Chairman, I move the committee rise,

report progress, and ask leave to sit again.

Motion approved.

The House resumed; Mr. Speaker in the chair.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Speaker, the committee reports progress

and asks leave to sit again.

Leave granted.

HON. D. BARRETT (Premier): Mr. Speaker, I move we proceed to

public bills and orders.

MRS. JORDAN: I'd like to bring up a matter of urgent

public business and I recognize the procedure that is needed,

but I have been trying to do this under the Minister of

Health's vote.

I wonder, Mr. Speaker, if I could ask for an unanimous

consent of the House to bring this matter to the Minister of

Health's attention. I have already tried to contact the

Attorney General but he's not here.

MR. SPEAKER: On a point of order, Hon. Member. You can't

interrupt the proceedings unless you have the floor for a

particular matter on the order paper. If it is a matter of

urgent public importance it should have been raised at the time

prior to entering the orders of the day.

MRS. JORDAN: I have only just received a phone call. I have

been waiting all morning to speak to the Minister of

Health.

MR. SPEAKER: I suggest that you might discuss it in the hall

with the Member you wish to discuss it with. In the meantime we

have a motion for the House to proceed to public bills and

orders.

Motion approved.

LAND COMMISSION ACT

(continued)

HON. MR. BARRETT: Second reading of Bill No. 42, Mr.

Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: The Hon. Minister of Agriculture.

HON. D.D. STUPICH (Minister of Agriculture): , Thank you, Mr.

Chairman. I thought for a moment that the Hon. Member for South

Peace River (Mr. Phillips) was going to have the opportunity to speak first

in this debate.

First, earlier in this session — perhaps on two

occasions at least — my own personal position in whether

or not I should be bringing in such a bill has been raised.

I'd like to start by saying that I have an interest in

farmland. I want it to be perfectly clear to everyone. I have a

total of 14 acres, acreage that I own along with my sister

— the original family farm. We hold it in trust for the

six members of the family. That is my only personal interest in

any farmland. Certainly Mr. Speaker, I want to assure you now

that I have absolutely no intention of subdividing or allowing

that land to be subdivided.

I say this in part to put my position clearly before the

Members so that they know something about it before they speak.

Partly also, Mr. Speaker, if anyone else feels that they wish

to make similar statements about their own holdings or what

they wish to do with land that they have, then they too should

have the opportunity in this debate to tell us something about

what they are doing now — not what they did 10 years ago,

20 years ago, or any other time — but their position

right at this point in time.

I don't think there is any question, Mr. Speaker, that there

is recognition of the need for legislation such as this. Other

Members have spoken on this and have agreed that there is a

need. The community generally, even when the community

expresses concern about the legislation in the form that is

before us, recognizes a need. It is not the first time that

such need has been recognized however, Mr. Speaker.

Recently a publication was made available to me it's

available to everyone. It was drawn to my attention by the

editor of that publication. Looking through this briefly

yesterday evening, I noted that people were concerned, some

4,000 years ago not about land zoning, but about the abuse of

land particularly suited for agricultural production.

So this is absolutely, in no way at all a new concern of

people. The world population was much smaller then; the world

itself was thought to be much smaller. But as much as 4,000

years ago we know that people were concerned about the very

problem that we are starting to discuss at length in this

Legislature today.

If I an read briefly from the sixth British Columbia Natural

Resources Conference:

"From the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United

Nations comes the disturbing statement that between 1945 and 1950, despite the

best efforts of farmers with advanced technology at their disposal, food production

could not keep pace with population increase in the world."

[ Page 1198 ]

And that, Mr. Speaker, was 25 years ago.

"A 9 per cent increase in production did not keep pace with the 15 per cent increase in population.

"To bring this situation into focus for this continent, it can be noted that in the U.S. today there are

6,000 more mouths to feed each morning."

May I remind you, Mr. Speaker, that these figures are 25

years old. For Canada the corresponding increase is about 700,

in British Columbia our daily population jump has averaged

nearly 100 over the past 10 years, and certainly it has

increased much since that date.

So we recognize, I think, that world population is

increasing rapidly and is still increasing rapidly. We

recognize and we agree, I'm sure, that the land suitable for

agricultural production is limited. We are not making any more

of it. We may be finding more of it, and through advances in

technology we may be increasing the acreage that can be used

for food production, but there is a very definite limit to the

amount that can be so utilized.

Reading in the same report, Dr. Warren, one of the panelists

from UBC said, "Public interest, human welfare and good

management require that all land owners or lessees of land and

water, public or private, care for soil and water under their

control in a manner that will ensure that future generations

may derive from them full enjoyment and benefit."

Mr. Speaker, we are concerned today not only with the people

who are here today, but with future generations. When we do

something to farmland that cannot be undone, then we are paying

absolutely no attention at all to generations that are coming

after us.

Reading still further from this report, I am now quoting

from a representative from the UBCM who at the time was the

reeve of Surrey municipality. He is speaking about some land

that was earmarked for industrial use in Surrey: "On this land,

so earmarked, the owner is told that he cannot build a house"

— we're told that the legislation before us stops people

from building houses — "or otherwise construct except for

heavy industry."

Very limited use existed long ago, Mr. Speaker. The idea that

people should control land use is not a new one — 4,000

years old if you like. But even in the present day it is talked

about at length in this report of the sixth British Columbia

Natural Resources Conference.

This one is from the fourth British Columbia Natural

Resources Conference report a couple of years earlier. On page

15, just reading briefly, it says:

"In spite of the fact that only 2¼ million acres of agricultural

land have actually been mapped," — this is in British Columbia in 1951 — "it

is obvious that the areas of arable land are distinctly limited, "

No need to repeat that; it is definitely limited. I think

there can be no argument that the areas are definitely

limited.

"This fact, combined with the rapidly increasing world

population and the fact that readily accessible agricultural

lands throughout the world are well-nigh dissipated,

leads to the conclusion that the retention for agricultural use

of all lands suitable for crop production and grazing must be

accepted as a basic principle."

Twenty-two years ago it was argued that this must be

accepted as a basic principle, and today I am asking you to

accept that as a basic principle.

Further on in this same report:

"We refer to the control of subdivision planning with a view

to assuring that the parcels of land are of such sizes and

shapes" — not just to save them for agriculture —

"that their greatest agricultural value is preserved and their

desirability, in some cases, as residential sites is

enhanced.

"The manner in which some subdivisions have been made in the

Fraser Valley demonstrates that little thought was given to the

general progress of the community or the function that

agricultural production must continue to perform."

So much for the conferences. They make very good reading; I

wish I had more time to read them. I will be reading further in

them — they're very interesting.

Clippings. This is not new in the Department of Agriculture.

Certainly the Members of the official Opposition will know that

the staff in the Department of Agriculture have been concerned

about this for years. Very concerned.

One of them has accumulated a supply of clippings of fairly

recent vintage. One on top, I see, refers to a speech made in

this Legislature in 1969 by the Minister of Agriculture of that

date in response to a speech from the other side of the House

that was made by the Member for Nanaimo:

"Shelford noted that in King County in Washington State more

than 100,000 acres of arable land were lost between 1954 and

1964, and that by 1985 it has been predicted that there will be

no arable land left in the state's Puget Sound area."

It is not a problem that is common only to B.C. or that

exists only in B.C. It is a problem that is world-wide.

Today we can't really do anything about what is happening in

the rest of the world but we can try to do something about what

has been happening in B.C. and try to chart a course for the

future.

A clipping dated October 19, 1971 from the New Westminster

Columbian, — "Delta Farmers Plead for Change to

Permit Selling Smaller Lots" had a comment from Alderman George

Turnbull:

"'Besides what the government'" — the government of that day — "'and the

B.C.

[ Page 1199 ]

Harbours Board had expropriated from Delta's farmland,' he said,

'60 to 70 per cent of the remainder was held by investors.' Turnbull said these

investors were speculating on the possibility of covering the land with homes

or industries."

And one of the questions, one of the comments, one of the

concerns has been that the farmers are being stopped from

selling their land at a profit.

Another clipping dated much more recently, March 7, 1973,

quoting Alderman Ed McKitka, talks of an example where two

acres were bought by a real estate firm from a farmer for

$12,000 and then resold for a parking lot at a price, Mr.

Speaker, of $150,000. The profit did not go to the farmer, Mr.

Speaker. I wonder where the concern is coming from.

Interjections by some Hon. Members.

HON. MR. STUPICH: But the farmer got only six. There is

clipping after clipping expressing the concern over what is

happening. This is an editorial from the Vancouver Sun , October

21, 197 1:

"In recent years the arable wonderland that is the estuary

of the Fraser has experienced rough treatment at the hands of

Wenman's government. If it had any protection from the land

speculators pursuing Conservation Minister Ken Kiernan's vision

of 'one massive urban block filling in from Point Grey to

Hope,' it was the Lower Mainland Regional Planning Board."

We've discussed the demise of that board on previous

occasions. It's the sort of thing that has been happening and

the sort of thing that we're concerned about.

One of the suggestions advanced by the immediately preceding

Minister of Agriculture (Mr. C.M. Shelford) was the purchase of

development rights. The suggestion was picked up by some

representatives of the agricultural industry and dropped by

other representatives of the agricultural industry:

"The executive board of the B.C. Federation of Agriculture

has said that B.C. agriculture Minister Cyril Shelford's

proposal for preserving farmland would be too costly and would

benefit only farmers in certain areas.

"By implication, what they are saying they want is a

programme that will benefit farmers all over the province, not

only those who are sitting in certain areas. The policy of

purchasing development rights, according to them, would benefit

only a few farmers. What the government must be concerned about

is a policy that will benefit all farmers."

Mr. Speaker, I've talked about the loss. The loss in the last 20 years has

averaged some 10,000 acres a year. Depending on where you are, the losses have

been: Prince George, 26,000 acres in 20 years; Vancouver Island, 65,000 acres

in 20 years; of greater concern even, the Fraser Valley, 57,000 acres in 20

years. In one area that is extremely important, the Okanagan, 15,000 acres and

continuing to go.

The land doesn't disappear — the land was lost to farm

production. I thought I made that clear.

Mr. Speaker, it's not just that the land is lost by planting

a bu