Alberta Hansard — 24 March 1983, Afternoon sitting (14:30) (Legislature 20, Session 1)

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Alberta — Debates (Hansard)

March 24, 1983 ALBERTA HANSARD 265 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF ALBERTA Title: Thursday, March 24, 1983 2:30 p.m. [The House met at 2:30 p.m.] PRAYERS [Mr. Speaker in the Chair] head: TABLING RETURNS AND REPORTS MR. BRADLEY: Mr. Speaker, I'd like to table the 1982 annual report of the Environment Council of Alberta. MR. RUSSELL: Mr. Speaker, I'd like to table the second annual report of the Alberta Heritage Foundation for Medical Research. head: INTRODUCTION OF SPECIAL GUESTS MR. ALEXANDER: Mr.

Speaker, today it is my pleas ure to introduce to you, and through you to the Assem bly, four classes of grade 6 students, 96 in all, from Duggan elementary school, situated in the Edmonton Whitemud constituency. They're accompanied by their teachers Miss Linda Silisky, Miss Lily Ma, Mrs. Angie Klompas, and Mrs. Shelby Ries, and by their parent drivers Mrs. Dorothy Wilkins, Mrs. Jean Samis, Mrs. Myrna Poholka, Mrs. Judy Thorsteinson, and Mrs. Bon nie Mulder. The are seated in both the members and public galleries, and I ask them to stand and receive the traditional welcome of the Assembly. MR. APPLEBY: Mr.

Speaker, on behalf of the hon. Member for Stony Plain, who is unavoidably absent this afternoon, I'd like to introduce a group of 30 grade 6 students from St. Joseph Catholic school, in the town of Spruce Grove. They are accompanied by their leader Mrs. A. Gordey. I believe they also are in both galleries, and I would like them to stand and be welcomed by the Assembly. MRS. LeMESSURlER: Mr.

Speaker, I am pleased to introduce to you, and through you to members of this Assembly, two groups of students from the English as a second language department of the Alberta Vocational Centre in the constituency of Edmonton Centre. They are accompanied by their leaders Miss Elke Siebels and Miss Anne Marie Labrie. They are seated in both galleries, and I would like them to rise and receive the warm welcome of this Assembly. DR. BUCK: Mr. Speaker, I take great pleasure in intro ducing to you, and through you to members of the Assembly, a very distinguished dentist, Dr.

Dan Dan- chuk, a director of the Myotronics Institute of Canada. It's a new discipline of dentistry. He's accompanied by his support people, Karen McCaw, Linda Plamondon, Marie Kahlke, and Elaine Low. They are in the Speaker's gal lery, and I ask them to stand and be recognized by the House. head: ORAL QUESTION PERIOD Municipal Tax Assessments MR. NOTLEY: Mr. Speaker, I'd like to direct this ques tion to the hon. Minister of Utilities and Telecommunica tions. It's with respect to the grant-in-lieu payments by Alberta Government Telephones to municipalities in this province.

By way of explanation for the minister before putting the question, I've been advised that in the case of the MD of Fairview, there's been a decrease in the AGT assessment of 53 per cent; the MD of Athabasca, 45 per cent; and the assessment for the city of Edmonton has dropped from $48 million to $28 million. In view of the importance of the grant-in-lieu payments from Alberta Government Telephones to local govern ment institutions in this province, is the minister in a position to outline why there has been a very significant drop in the assessment on which the grant in lieu is based? MR. BOGLE: Mr.

Speaker, as the hon. member has rightly pointed out, it is an assessment matter. Therefore I refer it to the Minister of Municipal Affairs. MR. NOTLEY: Mr. Speaker, then I welcome the oppor tunity to redirect the question to the Minister of Munici pal Affairs, and look forward with interest to his response. In view of the importance of the grant in lieu from Alberta Government Telephones, particularly to the mu nicipal budgets of the three . . . MR. SPEAKER: [Inaudible] let's not repeat it. MR. KOZIAK: Mr.

Speaker, the assessment process, on which grants in lieu of taxes are also considered, involves an updating based on value. In the telecommunications area, there are two factors which affect assessments. The first is the unusual circumstances, I suppose. When in many other areas the cost of items is always rising, we've found that in the highly technological fields, particularly in telecommunications, the cost of certain equipment used by Alberta Government Telephones has not in creased to the same degree as other assessable property.

That's due to technological change and reduction in the cost of manufacturing some of this equipment. So based on the updated values, there has been a reduction in the value of the assessment of Alberta Government Tele phones equipment. Secondly, another aspect of the assessment includes usage. So although equipment may be in place, if it's not in fact being used it isn't subject to assessment. The combination of those two factors has resulted in a reduc tion of the assessed value of Alberta Government Tele phones property that would be subject to this grant all across the province. MR. NOTLEY: Mr.

Speaker, a supplementary question to the minister. In terms of the issue of assessment — determining what is an assessment base for a provincial utility on which grants in lieu are paid to municipal governments — is the minister telling the House that the entire burden of improvements in technology will be borne by the local government, in the sense that grants in lieu will dramatically drop in the case of several of the municipalities I cited: Fairview, from $1.2 million down to $560,000; Edmonton, from $48 million down to $28

266 ALBERTA HANSARD March 24, 1983 million. In the assessment procedure, is it in fact govern ment policy that local taxpayers will have to bear a higher burden because of the technological changes which may modify the assessment base of a provincial utility? MR. KOZIAK: Mr. Speaker, what I'm saying is that our goal in property taxation, and the assessment that leads up to setting the mill rate in that process, involves as good an attempt to be fair as we can give it.

To do so, of course, we take into account the actual value of property that is subject to taxation, so that the taxation across all the various categories of properties that may appear with in a municipality is fairly distributed, on the basis of value, amongst those various classifications of properties. It's not a question of shifting the burden to the municipal ity, as suggested by the hon. member. It is strictly a question of providing a fair valuation based on actual information that's provided to us on costs of the equip ment and the actual usage of that equipment. MR. NOTLEY: Mr.

Speaker, a supplementary question to the minister. What consideration has the government given to a transitional grant-in-lieu system where changes in valuation occur? We have the example of a cushioning of utility rates through the marketing agency. I raise this because we have some dramatic reductions in the assess ment base of Alberta Government Telephones, which is going to have a significant bearing on the municipalities affected.

Has any consideration been given to a transi tional grant-in-lieu payment, which would not result in a significant drop in payments by Alberta Government Tel ephones to the government of Alberta, in the form of a grant in lieu to municipalities affected? MR. KOZIAK: Mr. Speaker, although on first blush such a concept may appear to have some attraction, if we looked at that type of concept in greater detail, I think one would have to conclude that it would be difficult for the province to embark on such a program; for example, in the area of land. Land is assessed at 65 per cent of its market value.

Over the last period of years, we've had some dramatic increases in the market value of land. Now, in the last year or so, we've had some dramatic decreases in the value of land. Were we as a provincial government to guarantee a certain level within a munici pality, as suggested by the hon. Leader of the Opposition, that principle would probably be extended to every form of assessment that takes place within the municipality. That is not the role of the service we provide to munici palities through our assessment branch, in assisting them in developing the assessment of their properties. MR. NOTLEY: Mr.

Speaker, a supplementary question. Can the minister advise the Assembly whether either the Minister of Municipal Affairs or the Minister of Utilities and Telecommunications have had any discussions with the provincial assessor on this matter? Beyond Assess ment Appeal Board rights for local communities, what opportunities are available for municipalities who sud denly see their assessment dramatically cut, with a result ing increase upon local taxpayers? What discussions has the minister had on this matter with the provincial asses sor, and what advice can the minister give to local municipalities? MR.

KOZIAK: Mr. Speaker, my concern in this respect is that the assessment procedures have been accurately applied, and I have been assured that that is the case. One should not assume that the same situation described by the hon. Leader of the Opposition exists in every munici pality in the province, because in some cases the assess ment has increased through the process and in others it has decreased. So it is not a common example that appears across the province with every municipality.

If they question the assessment, the municipalities that might be concerned should raise it with the provincial assessor and follow what other appeal avenues are avail able to them. MR. SPEAKER: Might this be the final supplementary on this topic. MR. NOTLEY: Mr. Speaker, to either the hon. Minister of Utilities and Telecommunications or the Minister of Municipal Affairs. Has the government any information which can be shared with the Assembly today as to the cumulative impact of the assessment changes as a result of the February 9 letter with respect to Alberta Govern ment Telephone's valuation?

Has either minister any up- to-date information on the impact of provisions one, two, and three of that letter? These provisions are with respect to technological changes and the modification of the as sessment base caused by same. MR. BOGLE: Mr. Speaker, although my colleague the Minister of Municipal Affairs may have information on his desk today, rather than give a partial answer — and I could do that — I would rather take the question as notice and give the Assembly a complete answer tomor row morning. MR. SPEAKER: It is obviously a question of such parti cularity that it should be on the Order Paper. MR.

NOTLEY: Mr. Speaker, just as a matter of note, I observe that that will be on the Order Paper. MR. SPEAKER: There's been a great deal of representa tion in the series of questions of the hon. member, and it's been the same thing repeated. The difference keeps com ing back in each question. Today I have a fairly long list of members, and some ministers who've taken questions as notice. In a situation like that, we should adhere more closely to the ordinary rules of the question period. Budget MR. NOTLEY: Mr. Speaker, I'd like to direct the second question to either the Premier or the hon.

Government House Leader. It concerns a point of privilege which was raised a year ago in this House with respect to the lockup concerning the budget. Since the Speaker ruled a year ago that that was not a point of privilege, I will put to the Government House Leader or the Premier a question with respect to policy.

In view of the importance of an adequate understanding of the budget by all members of the House, but especially opposition members, what con sideration — and I direct this to the Premier — has been given to the policy followed by the federal government, allowing opposition members the same privileges as the press of having information before the speech is delivered? MR. LOUGHEED: Mr. Speaker, having been the Leader of the Opposition and not been in a situation where I

March 24, 1983 ALBERTA HANSARD 267 received that information in advance, I always took it as the practice in this Assembly that I'd have it on budget night and respond to it, as I normally did when I held that position, the following day. MR. NOTLEY: Mr. Speaker, a supplementary question to either the Premier or the Government House Leader.

As an opposition member having followed that course for the last 11 years and finding that it is not entirely perfect, what consideration has been given to following the prac tice of our federal colleagues of making available the opportunity for members from the opposition to enjoy the same privileges as members of the fourth estate? MR. SPEAKER: That is really a repetition of the first question. MR. NOTLEY: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order. With great respect, it is a direct question to the hon. Govern ment House Leader, as to whether or not any considera tion has been given. The hon.

Premier responded that in his days as opposition leader, he felt that was adequate. My question is whether or not there is now any consider ation, and I direct it to the Government House Leader. MR. SPEAKER: That is precisely the first question. MR. CRAWFORD: Very briefly, Mr. Speaker, no re view of this matter has been undertaken since last year, and no consideration has been given to that proposal in the meantime. Radio Telephones MR. ALGER: Mr. Speaker, may I direct this question to the hon. Minister of Utilities and Telecommunications.

What prompted Alberta Government Telephones to im pose a substantial charge for air time on all radio tele phone calls, and what can we do to rescind or stop this expensive attitude? MR. BOGLE: Mr. Speaker, the matter of air charges — either from one mobile phone to another, from a land- based phone to a mobile, or from a mobile to a land- based phone — was extensively reviewed by the Alberta Government Telephones Commission in the time frame of May-June 1982.

Since the change occurred, there have been a number of inquiries to Alberta Government Tele phones, to my office, and I believe through some MLAs in this Assembly. Mr. Speaker, I think it's important that members of the Assembly keep in mind that about 60 per cent of all the mobile telephones in Canada are registered and located here in the province of Alberta. This is a matter of great importance to not only the commission but the govern ment of the province, acting as a trustee on behalf of the owners of our telephone system.

This matter will be thoroughly reviewed by the commission as one of a number of items which have been brought to our atten tion. I assume that review will take place in the time frame of April-May-June 1983. Public Works, Supply and Services Layoffs MR. MARTIN: Mr. Speaker, I'd like to direct this ques tion to the Premier. Would the Premier advise the Assembly if this government's policy is to encourage layoffs of provincial employees in this time of restraint? MR. LOUGHEED: Mr. Speaker, it is really a matter that I think is best answered in the focus of the budget tonight.

I prefer to take that question as notice or have the hon. member place it again tomorrow, after we have it within the focus of the budget. MR. MARTIN: A supplementary question. I redirect this to the Minister responsible for Personnel Administration. Specifically, can the minister advise the Assembly why 14 members of the accommodation services division of the Department of Public Works, Supply and Services have been given layoff notices as of March 31. I understand some other staff, both permanent and non-permanent, were given notice for July 1, 1983. MR. STEVENS: Mr. Speaker, I'll take that question as notice.

MR. MARTIN: Just one supplementary, then. I ask what the minister is doing as a result of the consultant's report, which I'm sure he's aware of, which indicated that the department has "incredible delays in projects," is bogged down in paperwork, and "cannot meet schedules"? MR. STEVENS: Perhaps my colleague wishes to consid er that question. MR. CHAMBERS: Mr. Speaker, I wonder if the Mem ber for Edmonton Norwood would mind repeating the question. MR.

MARTIN: I was talking about the layoffs, and I'm trying to determine whether this has something to do with the consultant's report dated December 1982, submitted by K. Mark. They had a number of responses. Just a few of the comments: "incredible delays in projects," bogged down in paperwork, "cannot meet schedules". I wonder what the minister is doing about this report? MR. CHAMBERS: Mr. Speaker, I don't necessarily ac cept the allegations just made, nor any particular report per se. MR. NOTLEY: You paid for it, Tom. MR.

CHAMBERS: My colleague did agree to take the question as notice, and I will certainly be happy to confer with him at such time as he responds. Agricultural Assistance MR. CLARK: Mr. Speaker, my question to the hon. Minister of Agriculture has to do with the very high debt load many of our farmers in all parts of the province are carrying today. I've been getting quite a few requests, especially from my area, that we should be taking a look at a policy they had in the 1930s of a moratorium on foreclosures. Could the minister advise the Assembly if he has received any requests in this regard?

If so, has he made any assessment of the value of this kind of a policy? MR. FJORDBOTTEN: Yes, Mr. Speaker, I've had the opportunity to assess it somewhat. I don't feel we would be supportive of that type of action, because it certainly would be inappropriate at this time. To start with, we don't feel it would salvage those who are in real difficulty. In fact, it could make borrowing even more difficult for producers in this province. Agriculture is very capital

268 ALBERTA HANSARD March 24, 1983 intensive today. If there's a moratorium put on by banks, it could hold up funds that might be available to produc ers and that might be required for such things as debt refinancing. We just feel it's very important today to have the banks very active in the lending field in agriculture. I don't believe they would be if there was a moratorium hanging over their heads. MR. CLARK: A supplementary, Mr. Speaker.

In that event, could the minister inform the Assembly if there are any programs in effect now through his department and ADC, or any new programs that he's looking at, that might help those farmers who are having difficulty with their mortgages? MR. FJORDBOTTEN: Mr. Speaker, I'd have to say that the Agricultural Development Corporation has always been extremely favorable to the farming community. We have to recognize that the Agricultural Development Corporation came into being to fill the gap there was in financing for agriculture.

They always have been, and will continue to be, very flexible in taking a number of actions that would be of assistance to agricultural producers in the province. Mr. Speaker, the banks have also shown flexibility, in that they've come out with a number of programs that I think really show us that they do recognize the impor tance of agriculture. They have such areas as flexible credit programs and special review programs that they carry out with producers. So I think everything that can be done is being done, Mr. Speaker. MR. NOTLEY: Mr. Speaker, a supplementary question to the hon. Minister of Agriculture.

Since the minister has rejected the concept of a moratorium, has there been any discussion with the directors of the Agricultural Development Corporation, with respect to placing em phasis on the consolidation of debt for those farmers who are now facing serious problems and where there seems to be a breakdown between conventional lending institu tions and the farmers? What initiatives, if any, has the department or the Agricultural Development Corpora tion taken to initiate programs that would prevent foreclosure? MR. FJORDBOTTEN: Mr.

Speaker, I've given the Ag ricultural Development Corporation direction to provide every assistance they can to anyone who finds himself in financial difficulty. Some of the alternatives they are looking at now, besides an ongoing review they always have of the programs, are refinancing arrears of some producers, postponement of payments; or in some cases it would take total refinancing to take care of that. Mr. Speaker, they're also co-operating with other lenders, with the banks, and working with them to try to put together a package that might assist them. We have 64 ADC loans officers out there.

There's also the agrologists who are part of Alberta Agriculture, and I believe the banks have 22 agrologists in the province. They're all working together to try to do everything they can to assist anyone finding themselves in financial difficulties. MR. NOTLEY: Mr. Speaker, a supplementary question, if I may, to the hon. Minister of Federal and Intergov ernmental Affairs. It's a two-part question. Has any re presentation been made to the government of Canada with respect to the private member's Bill with respect to farm foreclosures that is now before the House?

And has any representation been made to the federal government with respect to changes in the approach of Farm Credit, so that particular agency can zero in more clearly on the problems of debt consolidation for those farmers who are hard pressed by current financial problems? MR. HORSMAN: Mr. Speaker, the answer to the first question is no. With respect to the second question posed by the Leader of the Opposition, I suggest that my colleague the Minister of Agriculture might wish to take that question under advisement, relative to the lending policies of the federal government.

Of course, the De partment of Federal and Intergovernmental Affairs would co-operate with the Department of Agriculture should such representations be deemed proper and appropriate. MR. R. SPEAKER: Mr. Speaker, a supplementary ques tion. As of late, has the Premier had the opportunity to meet with representatives of the various lending institu tions with regard to how they're handling credit and the flexibility they supposedly now have in the system? MR.

LOUGHEED: I've had some meetings along those lines — not to the same extent as I had last June, because the June meetings held with the chartered banks were across-the-board in relation to Alberta generally. I've had some recent meetings on that particular point, to con tinue to urge the decision-makers involved to look at the strength, in the intermediate term, of the province of Alberta and its various enterprises and to be aware of the actions we're taking as well to support the economic recovery here in the province. MR. R. SPEAKER: Mr. Speaker, my question — I believe I'm next on the Order Paper.

Is that correct? MR. SPEAKER: Yes, but I think the hon. Member for Cypress has another supplementary to the question asked by the hon. Member for Drumheller. MR. HYLAND: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Has the Min ister of Agriculture or his department done any study — or is he doing any study — on what it would do to the remainder of the farmers, who are having a tough time trying to deal with the private lending institutions in refinancing, if this debt moratorium became effective? MR. FJORDBOTTEN: Yes, Mr. Speaker, we have looked at the concern there would be.

About the only way we can really look at it is to look at the number of dollars that are out now through the Agricultural Devel opment Corporation and the estimated financing of farmers and producers in this province. That's one of the reasons we came to the conclusion we did. Power Rates MR. R. SPEAKER: Mr. Speaker, my question is to the Minister of Utilities and Telecommunications, and possi bly the Attorney General, with regard to the Electrical Energy Marketing Agency we discussed yesterday.

I wonder if the minister could confirm that the Public Utilities Board gave TransAlta Utilities a 15 per cent increase for distribution of electricity to their own cus tomers, as well as a 50 per cent increase for the genera tion and transmission of power. The second part of the question is the one we didn't cover yesterday.

March 24, 1983 ALBERTA HANSARD 269 MR. CRAWFORD: Mr. Speaker, I would have to con sult the decision made by the board on the application in question, and provide the information to the hon. member. MR. R. SPEAKER: Mr. Speaker, a supplementary ques tion. As well, could the Attorney General confirm that the 50 per cent increase for the generation and transmis sion of electricity is what caused the increase in the wholesale price of utilities in the province of Alberta? MR. CRAWFORD: I take that as notice, Mr. Speaker. MR. BOGLE: Mr. Speaker, I might be able to supple ment my colleague on that matter.

As the matter relates to the Electrical Energy Marketing Agency, as the hon. member is aware, during the current 1982-83 fiscal year, full shielding is provided to users of TransAlta so that none of the impact of the agency will be felt by the customers in the TransAlta area. Therefore, any of the costs associated with the rates and the increased rates approved by the Public Utilities Board would be a direct result of input costs associated with the new plant which has just come on stream at Keephills and other associated costs with TransAlta. MR. R. SPEAKER: Mr.

Speaker, could the Attorney General confirm that the rate increases — both the 15 per cent and the 50 per cent rate increases — were granted on an interim basis by the PUB, and the hearings that will confirm these rates would be as of April 26 into early May of this year? MR. CRAWFORD: Mr. Speaker, I'm operating on the assumption that there's an existing board decision, be cause the hon. member is asking relatively specific ques tions in respect of it. I would have to review that and report back. Clover Bar Landfill Site DR. BUCK: Mr. Speaker, my question to the hon.

Minister of the Environment has to do with the proposed extension of the Clover Bar landfill site, the garbage site. Can the minister indicate if he or his department has had any consultation with the city of Edmonton as to the extension of the landfill site in the Clover Bar area? MR. BRADLEY: Mr. Speaker, I believe the city of Edmonton has had some consultation with the Depart ment of the Environment. I would like to apprize the hon. member of the process for applying for sanitary landfills and the normal re sponse mechanism by which the department fits into this.

The application by the municipal authorities should first go to the local health authority. Through a referral pro cess, the local health authority would then ask the De partment of the Environment for their advice. Our role in this matter would be to provide that advice to them. We have not received requests from the local health authority to provide them with a review of any proposed application. DR. BUCK: Mr. Speaker, a supplementary question. Mr. Minister, in 1975 there was a report done by the Alberta Research Council, recommending that no sanitary landfill sites go into the river flat area.

Can the minister indicate if that recommendation, or that policy, has been reversed by the Department of the Environment? MR. BRADLEY: Mr. Speaker, I'm not familiar with the document to which the hon. member refers. I would have to check it. DR. BUCK: Mr. Speaker, a supplementary question. Can the minister indicate if the Department of the Envi ronment has had any studies or consultations with the major centres, especially Edmonton and Calgary, as to the alternative of landfill garbage disposal, and looking at incineration?

Has the department done any studies, in consultation with these large municipalities, to go to in cineration rather than filling landfill sites? MR. BRADLEY: Mr. Speaker, not to my specific knowledge. I suspect such discussions have taken place. I'd have to check and report back. DR. BUCK: Mr. Speaker, a supplementary question. Can the minister indicate if there's been any consultation between the minister and his department and the 16 Edmonton MLAs, as to the application to place an extension to the Clover Bar landfill site? MR. BRADLEY: Mr.

Speaker, there has been some representation to me by area MLAs with regard to the siting of a landfill. DR. BUCK: Mr. Speaker, a short supplementary. Can the Minister of Municipal Affairs indicate if he has had anyone in his department looking at what happens to land values in an area when sites such as this are expanded? MR. KOZIAK: Mr. Speaker, I imagine the question is put from the point of view of assessment. I couldn't specifically state that there's a study on that.

However, I imagine that transactions that would take place in an area that would be adjacent to, or in the close vicinity of, a landfill site would, through the normal appraisal fashion, provide advice as to that very issue. MR. SPEAKER: Yesterday, I believe there were four hon. ministers who wished to deal with questions which were taken as notice or to supplement information pre viously given in part. I propose now to call on those four hon. ministers, starting with the hon. Minister of Educa tion and then the hon. Minister of Agriculture. Computer Technology in Schools MR. KING: Mr.

Speaker, on Tuesday, I was asked by the hon. Member for Edmonton Norwood whether or not a discrepancy was indicated in the price of Bell & Howell microcomputers that had been purchased by Alberta Education. He referred to a per-unit cost of approximate ly $4,000 indicated in a contract of 1981, and a per-unit cost of $2,517 indicated in an Alberta Education news release of January 28, 1983. The short answer is that there is no discrepancy. The unit described in the contract contained a number of components, including a hardware package, a software package, a warranty package, and an in-service package.

In addition to that, Bell & Howell contracted to license and support 12 service centres located throughout the province. On the basis of experience in 1982, the De

270 ALBERTA HANSARD March 24, 1983 partment of Education decided that it would not impose that package, as such, on boards. For that reason, the so-called package was disassembled, and its hardware and software components were sold, and are being sold, sepa rately and individually. The selling price indicated in the news release of January 1983 represents the actual cost to the department as per the contract for a basic package that includes a microcomputer, a monitor, and a single disk drive. All 1,000 of those packages have been sold.

In addition to those having been sold, the other components have been sold, and are being sold, by the school book branch at a price in addition to that of $2,517. MR. MARTIN: A supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. There are reports that some 300 printers, 700 disk drive units, 700 integer basic cards, and 900 clock calendar cards are sitting unused in the school book branch warehouse. Can the minister advise what plans are in place for recovering the cost of the public investment in this equipment? MR. KING: Mr. Speaker, anything that's unsold is defi nitely sitting unused. That is correct.

My information is that there are 714 integer cards not yet sold, 909 clock calendar cards, 752 disk drives, and 314 printers, as well as some software. Nevertheless, we have an active sales program under way. We expect to sell the vast majority of those components before the end of the school year, and I'd invite the hon. member to check with me shortly. MR. MARTIN: A supplementary question. Can the min ister indicate why the government bought into a package system with two disk drives rather than one, as well as other special features, which appears to have been too much for most schools?

Was any market research done as to the extent of computing capabilities required by Alber ta schools? MR. KING: Yes, Mr. Speaker. The decision to buy the package indicated in the contract was based on the con viction of the department — and, I might add, the convic tion of the minister — that the use of microcomputers in Alberta's schools lags significantly behind the use of microcomputers in the community generally and particu larly in the business community.

That being the case, we were interested to offer a package that would provide the opportunity for teachers to engage in self-instruction or self-learning, and also to engage in courseware develop ment and to provide for courseware duplication. It was for that reason that we bought the configuration de scribed in the contract. I have the feeling that if I attempted to elaborate any more than that on the answer, you would comment. Unless there are supplementary questions, I'd be delight ed to pursue this with the hon. member outside the House. MR.

SPEAKER: Might I suggest we're getting into great detail here, and I'm just afraid that we're not going to reach three more ministers and the hon. Member for Lethbridge West, who wants to ask his first question. Might I suggest that instead of letting these items which the other hon. ministers have in mind get too old — of course, the question period is to deal with matters of some immediacy — we go on with those. If there are any further supplementaries, they might be put as main ques tions tomorrow if they're suitable for the question period. The hon. Minister of Agriculture, followed by the hon.

Minister of Transportation. Sour Gas MR. FJORDBOTTEN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Last Tuesday the hon. Leader of the Opposition asked me a question about whether or not the Department of Agri culture was doing any studies on the impact of gas, particularly on the sensitive soils, I believe he said, of the Peace River area. The answer is that the department officials participate on a number of committees with the Department of the Environment. Through the regional offices, we keep a watchful eye on anything that is happening and suggest or recommend areas of studies that might be done through Environment.

In this particular one you asked about, we are assisting with financial and laboratory support in projects mon itoring the change in soil pH that results from the cultiva tion and amendment of our soils, including changes in the pH levels in the areas of gas processing plants. But as the studies are commissioned by other departments, I don't have any further information than that. MR. NOTLEY: Mr. Speaker, a supplementary. MR. SPEAKER: Might we deal with the supplementaries tomorrow, or if there's time today. We have only five minutes left in the question period. The hon.

Minister of Transportation, followed by the hon. Minister of the Environment. PWA Boarding Passes MR. M. MOORE: Mr. Speaker, on Tuesday this week, the hon. Member for Clover Bar asked about the so- called PWA scratch-and-win ticket promotion. I think we've solved the mystery. The residents of Quebec are not eligible. According to Pacific Western Airlines officials, the reason is that Quebec legislation is very restrictive in running promotions, in that organizations doing so must post 3 per cent of the prizes with the Quebec lottery commission. In this instance, it would have cost PWA some $30,000 to comply.

Since residents of Quebec form a very small percentage of PWA's traffic and they do not operate in Quebec, it was decided to exclude Quebec residents. As well, I'm advised that other organizations such as Eastern Provin cial [Airways], which does operate in Quebec, have had to take the same approach in excluding Quebec residents. MR. SPEAKER: The hon. Minister of the Environment, followed by the hon. Member for Lethbridge West. MR. BRADLEY: Mr. Speaker, I have five questions which I would like to supplement today, if at all possible. MR. SPEAKER: Five questions?

Of course, it's impossi ble for the Chair to anticipate how long a minister's answer is going to be. If they are of that length, possibly the answers might be tabled. A question that requires that length of answer should be on the Order Paper, in which case the question would be tabled. MR. NOTLEY: Put it on the Order Paper, Fred. MR. BRADLEY: Mr. Speaker, I attempted to get on the

schedule of the House yesterday. Perhaps I could proceed

March 24, 1983 ALBERTA HANSARD 271 with some of the ones I can deal with quickly. I could file the others when I have them in a form that I could file. Environmental Impact Assessments MR. BRADLEY: On Monday I was asked a question with regard to an accord between the Department of the Environment and the Energy Resources Conservation Board. The purpose of that accord was to clarify internal administrative procedures between the department and the board with respect to environmental impact assess ments and hearings.

The main objective is to make the environmental impact assessment a part of the applica tion on energy projects that have a significant environ mental impact, and subject to the Energy Resources Conservation Board hearing process. The accord did not diminish the primary responsibility for environment im pact assessments. It clearly spells out that all environ mental impact assessments will be ordered by the Minis ter of the Environment. There was not a shared mandate.

Some three years have elapsed since the administrative procedures were agreed to, to resolve some co-ordination problems, and during this time guidelines have been is sued for filing environmental impact assessments upon the order of the Minister of the Environment. The accord has fulfilled its purpose and is no longer required. Gas Plant Monitoring MR. BRADLEY: I was also asked a question with regard to gas plant monitoring, in particular with regard to flaring gas. Flares at larger gas plants are by design necessary for the emergency release of sour or sweet gas.

Since they handle exceptionally large gas volumes, flow or emission rates testing is very difficult. Flaring is inter mittent and usually short-term. Sampling the sour gas going to flare or the sampling of the flare flame is hazardous and technically difficult. Since flaring is a significant short-term emission source, attempts have been made to study flare emissions at numerous gas plants or fields. The department has commissioned studies of plume rise from flares. A study called Field Study of Plume Rise and Thermal Radiation from Sour Gas Flares was done in June 1981.

Also, helicopter flare plume studies have been carried out in the vicinity of gas plants, and these were done by corpora tions. The Energy Resources Conservation Board, in its contract with the University of Windsor stack-sampling team, will attempt monitoring of flare stack emissions. A third question I was asked, again with regard to gas plant monitoring, particularly arising from a report called the Greenhill report, was in relation to winter monitoring.

The Greenhill report was on the human health effects of hydrogen sulphide and sulphur dioxide and, as such, it is not a reference document on ambient air monitoring. The report was written in 1978, and monitoring technology has advanced considerably since that time. The Greenhill report addressed the question of accidental releases and monitoring in those situations, rather than the question of normal gas plant monitoring. The required ambient gas plant monitors are set up in heated trailers and therefore are not subject to winter temperature problems.

The monitoring trailers around gas plants are subject to strict quality assurance require ments by the air quality branch division of pollution control branch, as spelled out in Air Monitoring Direc tive 81-1. In addition, incinerator stack emissions are continuously monitored. That deals with those three questions. On Tuesday, I was asked by the hon. Leader of the Opposition with regard to the Inverness gas plant. MR. NOTLEY: Are you going to read all five of them now, Fred? What's the policy here? MR. SPEAKER: I understood that the hon. minister was going to paraphrase his material briefly in each case.

I really wasn't expecting an answer of quite that length. We have come to the end of the allotted time for the question period. If the hon. minister might deal with the matter further, perhaps tomorrow or by way of tabling the information, and if the Assembly were to agree, I should like to recognize the hon. Member for Lethbridge West for a brief question and answer. HON. MEMBERS: Agreed. Natural Gas Rebates MR. GOGO: Mr. Speaker, I have a question to the Minister of Utilities and Telecommunications, which has some degree of urgency to several thousand senior citi zens in Lethbridge.

Regarding the $100 rebate to the senior citizens under the natural gas rebate program, is the minister's department experiencing difficulties result ing in those cheques not being mailed to Lethbridge? MR. BOGLE: Mr. Speaker, to date approximately 66,000 cheques for senior citizens under the special pro gram have been prepared and, in most cases, distributed. I believe in excess of 3,300 cheques have been processed for residents of the city of Lethbridge who qualify. As I understand it, Mr.

Speaker, the problem has occurred in that the Department of Utilities and Tele communications uses the Department of Municipal Af fairs' lists for property home-owners' grants, which are held in consultation with the municipalities. There were some discrepancies between the names on the list and some of the checking done by the department. It's my understanding that those matters have been clarified — or are almost all clarified — between officials of the city and the Department of Municipal Affairs and the De partment of Utilities and Telecommunications.

We can expect that the first cheques going out to residents of the city will go early next week, and the last cheques in the total program should be going out within the next two weeks. MR. GOGO: Mr. Speaker, in the interest of getting to the business of the House, a very short supplementary. There are several senior citizens who live in mobile homes. Could the minister advise whether the people who live in mobile homes, who would otherwise qualify, will receive these cheques? MR. BOGLE: Mr.

Speaker, under the Municipal Affairs program, senior citizens who live in their own mobile homes — but those mobile homes are located on pads within mobile-home parks, and therefore the pad is a rented piece of property — have the choice of either the renters' grant assistance or the home-owners' grant pro gram. They can't choose both. If the individual or indi viduals choose the renters' assistance program — and hon. members are aware that we increased that program substantially from the 1982 to the 1983 levels; it's now $1,000 — then they would not be eligible for the $100

272 ALBERTA HANSARD March 24, 1983 senior citizen home heating grant protection program. On the other hand, that senior citizen home heating grant program would be applicable to those seniors who have applied under the home-ownership category. So the choice is up to the senior, Mr. Speaker. ORDERS OF THE DAY MR. HORSMAN: Mr. Speaker, I move that the ques tions and motions for returns which are on the Order Paper today be held in their places. [Motion carried] MR. NOTLEY: Just this once, Jim. head: MOTIONS OTHER THAN GOVERNMENT MOTIONS 207. Moved by Mr. Notley:

Be it resolved that the Assembly approves of and endorses the principles enunciated in the document tabled in the Assembly on March 11, 1983, entitled Ethical Reflections on the Economic Crisis MR NOTLEY Mr. Speaker, in my view this particular document is a very important one. It deals with the views of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops It was released on January 5, 1983. I presume that most hon. members have had an opportunity to peruse the report in the two months prior to the opening of the Legislative Assembly. But in introducing the designated motion, Mr.

Speaker, I do want to take a few moments to deal with those aspects of this report which my colleague and I feel are most important. Mr. Speaker, some would argue that the church has no place in discussing matters of economic direction, the social fall-out of economic direction; that you should render unto Caesar what is Caesar's and stay away totally from the political and economic aspects of the nation. I don't really believe that is a correct position for the church to take, Mr.

Speaker, nor do I think that many of the theologians today would argue that they can divorce the church from the great moral, social, and political issues of the time. There is a very close interrelationship between moral and spiritual issues on one hand, and social and economic issues on the other hand. [Mr. Appleby in the Chair] So what we have before the Assembly is an important document from a highly credible group, a document which I believe this Assembly has to seriously consider. It's perhaps important that this document is before the Assembly a few hours before the budget is presented.

I hope that the Ethical Reflections on the Economic Crisis were sentiments which the government took into consid eration in drafting the budget. We'll know whether that's true in a few hours' time. First of all I would argue that, for those who say the church has no business in commenting on social and economic issues, I differ strongly from that viewpoint. In the world in which we live, I do not think the mandate of the church can be so narrowly constructed that only the narrowest definition of spiritual concerns can be consid ered by the church. In addressing this issue, Mr.

Speaker, I realize that not all members of the Catholic church would endorse the statement of the bishops. I think that has to be said as a fair commentary. Not all members of the church to which my wife and I belong, would endorse the official position of the Anglican Church of Canada, for example. But I think what is significant is that in this document you have a major submission by the Catholic bishops on perhaps the most significant economic and social issue of the day, and that is unemployment. Mr.

Speaker, there are five major observations that the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops make in their report, which I commend to the attention of the Assem bly. For those who have had an opportunity to review the document, you'll find on page 2 that the very first obser vation is: First, unemployment rather than inflation, should be recognized as the number one problem to be tackled in overcoming the present crisis. The fact that some 1.5 million people are jobless constitutes a serious moral as well as economic crisis in this country.

While efforts should continually be made to curb wasteful spending, it is imperative that primary emphasis be placed on combatting unemployment. The other day in the House, Mr. Speaker, my colleague raised the question of what happens to the unemployed. There's the loss of income; I suppose that can be quanti fied in some way. But there is that additional loss, the feeling of being somehow — if not worthless, at least not contributing because one is out of work.

The desponden cy that creates, not only among the people who are unemployed, but the impact it has on their families, friends, and the community, cannot be ignored when one looks at the issue of unemployment. If one examines the simple economic aspects of unem ployment — we're advised that unemployment in Alberta today, even if we just took the official figures of approx imately 136,000 people, would represent lost production of $5.5 billion in goods and services in this province. But that doesn't really tell the whole story, Mr.

Speaker, because we all know that for every one of those 136,000 people who are officially out of work, there are additional numbers. We don't know how many. We have estimates which vary all the way from a marginal addition to the figures in The Globe and Mail Report on Business, which suggest that perhaps the truer rate is more than double our national unemployment rate of 12.7. I don't know whether The Globe and Mail is right, Mr. Speaker, but I do know that any time you have serious unemployment, the official figures only tell part of the story.

They don't tell the story about those people who have given up, who have walked the streets looking for work and have not found it, and somehow are not accounted for in the official statistics. Mr. Speaker, the Catholic bishops make the point that we must tackle unemployment from an economic point of view and from a social and moral point of view. I know there are some people who argue that inflation is our major problem. No question, inflation is a serious prob lem. But it seems to me that the third observation the bishops make — and I'd like to quote that, Mr.

Speaker: . . . a more balanced and equitable program should be developed for reducing and stemming the rate of inflation. This requires shifting the burden for wage controls to upper income earners and introducing controls on prices and new forms of taxes on invest ment income (e.g., dividends, interest). Mr. Speaker, I suppose there are two fundamental

March 24, 1983 ALBERTA HANSARD 273 points of view as to how we can get ourselves out of the economic mess we're in. We have the viewpoint of the supply-side economists, people who I think must be ad vising the Minister of Education when we buy 1,000 Bell and Howell computers at $4 million and sell them to the school boards at $2.5 million. Now we've got $1.5 million worth of equipment that we're going to have to flog somehow.

I would suggest that the hardware and soft ware business is going to be great if you're on the purchasing side because of this supply-side economics that the Department of Education has practised. You could argue that the supply-side approach will eventually even everything out; that as we create greater supplies of things, prices will drop; that as a result of greater dividends and earnings by the people who own industry, they'll be able to employ more, and everything will work itself out.

That was the theory argued very persuasively two years ago in the United States by the Republican Party and by President Reagan. It was the theory that was argued in 1979 by Margaret Thatcher in Great Britain. The only problem with that theory is that trickle-down economics don't really work. If we're going to get the economy back on the road to recovery, we have to emphasize getting dollars into the hands of ordinary men and women who consume, not in the broadest sense but especially within the jurisdiction, whether it be the province of Alberta or Canada.

The Catholic bishops make the point that if you're going to fight inflation, the place to start is with your higher income people — the people who have discretionary revenue — not the person who lives in Smoky Lake, shops in the Smoky Lake grocery store, goes to a re- staurant in Smoky Lake, and who may, eventually, once or twice a year get into Edmonton or Calgary. The vast majority of their purchases are within the province of Alberta.

If we want to deal with stemming inflation, we've got to zero in on the higher income people who have discre tionary income, where additional purchasing power may not stimulate any additional economic activity in this province. It may mean more money to travel abroad. It may mean imported English china instead of glassware produced in Medicine Hat. It's a substitution of items which are imported for goods which can be produced locally. Mr. Speaker, what the Catholic bishops are say ing is that if anybody has to bear the brunt of fighting inflation, let it be the high-income people.

Frankly, one of the things that I'm rather proud of — I don't know whether our budget's going to anticipate this tonight. The government of Manitoba has a very rigid policy. They're working out quite an amicable settlement with their public employees.

The higher income people are subject, if my memory serves me correct, to a 2 per cent increase, and cabinet ministers are not getting any increase at all — the Leader of the Opposition as well, I might add — in the year 1983-84, on the basis that the higher income earners in the public service should tighten their belts, but the lower income people should have an increase commensurate with both the need to increase purchasing power as well as the fact that it should be the high- not the low-income people who meet the burden of dealing with inflation. Mr.

Speaker, another point the Catholic bishops make that I think is extremely important is that an industrial strategy should be developed to create permanent and meaningful jobs for people in local communities. In 1971 this government won a good deal of support on the basis of decentralization. No member of this House, including the urban members on either the government or opposition side, opposed the principle of decentralization.

The Catholic bishops make the point that we need to develop jobs in the different areas, whether it be the Gaspé, Cape Breton Island, Newfoundland, northern Alberta, northern British Columbia, or the Yukon Terri tory. The emphasis should not be on megaprojects that force people to move. But as much as possible in a modern industrial society, the emphasis must be to shift our investment patterns in such a way that we can stimu late employment opportunities where people live. Mr.

Speaker, that's not a very radical suggestion, be cause we are dealing with the social and economic costs of exactly the reverse of that. Why do we have serious unemployment in our two major cities? I've heard hon. members from the government side stand and say: be cause we've got all these people who've come from other parts of the country.

The point the Catholic bishops are making is that while we in Alberta will welcome people wherever they come from in Canada, the fact of the matter is that people who migrate to this province out of desperation, as opposed to choice, are not good for the region, whether it be Newfoundland or Cape Breton Is land, nor is it good for Alberta. One of the reasons that we have significant unemploy ment in Alberta is that we have the holdover from the mega-development approach to our economy.

Because we had rapid, massive, boom-like development for a few years in the '70s, we became, if you like, the magnet that attracted Canadians from one end of the country to the other. And now we find that unemployment is growing very rapidly and we have a situation where, frankly, there aren't enough jobs. Mr. Speaker, the point the Catholic bishops are mak ing is that in an economic strategy for the country, surely we should be emphasizing the need to develop regional ized local job opportunities rather than shifting people to areas of boom.

Some of the arguments coming in the last few months from the federal government — as well as, I'm sorry to say, the thinking of many of our colleagues in this House — are that we can somehow stimulate economic activity if we get into yet another series of megaprojects. It's not the answer. It may make it good for politicians who can go and cut a ribbon and officially open a $2 billion or $3 billion project. But it is not the answer for the country, nor is it the answer for a province like Alberta. As I travel this province, I see the impact of unem ployment, which has hit this province in a very interesting way.

There are some parts of Alberta where unemploy ment is a very marginal factor. There are other areas in the province where it is devastating, where you find that businesses have closed down, where people have had to leave their homes, where real estate values have dropped dramatically, where you have very serious pockets of unemployment in this province. And I guess that's why I feel that the second proposal of the Catholic bishops is such a good one: . . . an industrial strategy should be developed to create permanent and meaningful jobs for people in local communities. Mr.

Speaker, the fourth major proposal of the bishops was that greater emphasis should be given to the goal of social responsibility in the current recession. This means that every effort must be made to curtail cut-backs in social services, maintain adequate health care and

274 ALBERTA HANSARD March 24, 1983 social security benefits, and above all, guarantee spe cial assistance for the unemployed, welfare recipi ents, the working poor and one-industry towns suff ering from plant shut-downs. I hope this government has taken that observation in mind in preparing the budget. I hope it has. I would hate to see this Assembly being given a budget tonight which contains higher medicare premiums and cutbacks in so cial services, whether it be cutting back the shelter allow ance for people on social assistance — Mr.

Speaker, it is morally wrong to attack the problems of this country on the backs of the poor. I think I made the observation during the Speech from the Throne debate that Roosevelt put it very well in the 1930s: we know that heedless self-interest is bad morals. We also know that it's bad economics. If we are going to fuel any kind of recovery in North America, Europe, or wherever one looks, it will be by getting money into the hands of consumers, the or dinary men and women who spend their money in their own locale. Trickle-down simply isn't going to work. Mr.

Speaker, if we find that governments, faced as they are with serious deficits, are in a situation where they say, well, we've got to cut our cloth — as the old saying goes — and we cut back on social services, health services, or welfare payments, the net result of those actions is that you not only create problems for the people who are dispossessed as a consequence; as an end result the inevi table consequence is more crime, more violence, more family breakdown, all the things my colleague alluded to the other day.

Not only is that inevitable as a result of cutting back on social services but, beyond that, even if one takes an accountant's balance sheet approach, what we are doing inevitably is shrinking purchasing power in the hands of people who must have it, if we are going to have any kind of economic recovery in this country. The fifth major proposal that the bishops bring for ward is that labour unions should be asked to play a more deci sive and responsible role in developing strategies for economic recovery and employment.

This requires the restoration of collective bargaining rights where they have been suspended, collaboration between unions and the unemployed and unorganized work ers, and assurances that labour unions will have an effective role in developing economic policies. Mr. Speaker, I don't think there is any doubt that when one looks at the world in which we live, no one has all the answers.

And after my years of observing the ups and downs of different economies, I would be the last person to suggest that there is one magic answer, whether it's supply-side economics as practised by the new right in the United States or, for that matter, social democracy as my colleague and I envisage it on the other side of the fence. But I think there are some things we can learn from other parts of the world.

Three years ago, as a member of an Alberta delegation of members of the Legislature, I had the opportunity to go to three countries in western Europe: the Federal Republic of West Germany, Sweden, and Great Britain. In those three countries I think we saw why it is that the bishops are right when they say there should be collabo ration between labor, management, and government. In the Federal Republic of Germany we had a situation where labor was not looked upon as an enemy, where labor was part of the process, I remember going to one of the large firms, the Bayer aspirin company.

I think they had some 30.000 or 40.000 employees. It was a very interesting day to go through that plant. But one of the things that was most impressive was the recognition by this great international corporation that the workers had a role — not just being patted on the head and saying, isn't it nice to see you. They had a role in work and safety matters; they had a role on the board of the international company. They were considered part of the process by which that company made fundamental corporate decisions. Mr.

Speaker, in Sweden we again found that the whole process of working with management and labor had made it possible for companies to sometimes make some very difficult decisions that required pay pauses in order to become more competitive. But because workers were part of the decision-making process, it was possible to make those decisions. That's not always a magical solu tion. West Germany has problems; so does Sweden. But, considering their resource base, in both cases they have fewer problems than we do, sitting on top of some of the greatest resources ever given to any people.

The other country is Great Britain. Here we had the old approach of continual confrontation between man agement and labor. Labor was on this side; management was on this side. The net result of that sort of approach — which, I'm sorry to say, North America has borrowed to a large extent — was that it wasn't possible to sit down as reasonable people and work out a strategy that made sense to both the people who owned the industry, wheth er it be the government or private owners, and the people who worked in the industry.

What the Catholic bishops are saying is that if we're going to get out of this mess, we're going to have to work together. That means that any strategy for recovery must involve the trade union movement. It may be that the trade union movement is not the most popular group of people, especially in a House of right-of-centre politi cians.

But the fact of the matter is that regardless of what Gallup poll ratings one may find and how popular the unions are or aren't, they have economic power which can only be utilized effectively if they are part of the process of recovery, not set aside and considered part of an eternal opposition which can never be integrated into the body of Canadian economic management. So, Mr. Speaker, I believe that this particular docu ment — some have criticized it; some have said it's not practical enough.

Like a lot of moral documents that have been developed by people others have criticized for not being practical enough, I suspect that this document will be remembered long after some of us — whether of the right, left, or middle of the road — are forgotten. It's a document that provides people in this country with some hope. I'd like to close, Mr.

Speaker, by saying as honestly as I can to members of the Assembly that at a time when you have 140,000 people out of work and you have the enormous social dislocation and consequences of that unemployment, it is important to give people some hope, some light at the end of what is now a very dark tunnel for families where both breadwinners have lost their jobs and where the only income is either unemployment insur ance, which will run out, or welfare.

I suggest that in this document there is the basis for an approach that could bring together federal and provincial governments, bring together labor and management, and bring together Canadians, whatever their religious outlook, economic position, or occupational situation, wherever they live in the country: bring us together on a common program that could give some hope to Canadians. For that reason,

March 24, 1983 ALBERTA HANSARD 275 I commend this document to my colleagues in the Assembly this afternoon. MR. ALEXANDER: Mr. Speaker, I would like to speak to Motion 207 and, in doing so, I would like to draw particular attention to the wording of the motion, which says:

Be it resolved that the Assembly approves of and endorses the principles enunciated in the document . . . Ethical Reflections on the Economic Crisis. I find it interesting, as a sidelight, that the hon. Leader of the Opposition didn't get to the principles; he only spoke of the policies. I'm a bit surprised at that, since the policies have been rather badly mauled in public in the last couple of months, and I would have thought there would be some attempt to draw some attention to the principles.

I think the motion presents a challenge to discuss the principles, because that's what attracts us onto the higher ground of morality, which has been mentioned here a number of times. This of course makes the matter sensi tive, complex, and makes us very cautious about stepping on someone's toes. It brings to mind the Gordian knot. Gordius, the ancient king of Phrygia — whom you may remember, if you're a history buff — once tied his wagon to a post with an horrendously complex knot. Whoever could undo it, he decreed, would be the next king of Asia. No one could.

However, an ancient ancestor of mine, Alexander of Macedonia, whose other title I refrain from mentioning for reasons of modesty, solved the problem. He drew his sword and slashed the knot in half. The rest is history. Since the Sergeant-at-Arms would be unlikely to loan me his sword in this Assembly, I shall thus have to attempt to unravel the knot. In tabling the bishops' paper, entitled Ethical Reflec tions on the Economic Crisis, the hon. members have confronted us with principles and policies which are based on Marxist, romantic socialism. Mr.

Speaker, I will contend that this philosophy is bankrupt economically, socially, and morally. This paper is an excellent illustra tion of all those qualities. I am opposed to it no matter who proposes it: Catholic bishops, Anglican bishops, World Council of Churches, Baptists, the NDP, Liberals, or anyone else. Thus I want to make myself eminently clear that my remarks are made to the paper, not to Catholics. As I've read this discussion over the last few months, it is interesting to me that it is quite possible to discredit this paper on all grounds by quoting only Catholic sources.

The context of discussion was set by the Leader of the Opposition, whose challenges I repeat by reading from Hansard. I recall that the remarks he just made sounded very much like a rerun of what he said last week. Let me refresh your memory: I suggest, Mr. Speaker, that long after the people of Alberta have forgotten most of us who sit in this Legislature today, this particular document is going to be a major work the people will study in the years ahead. The irony of that statement is that it may well be true, like Galileo's being forced to recant.

"There are times when people of moral conviction," he said, "can have an impact far greater than might be apparent at the time". Let us try to see what the value of moral conviction is in economic and social considera tions. He further said: no matter how we may dismiss the conclusions with sophistry, these must be assessed in provincial legislatures. Let us look for the sophistry. And we're in the provincial Legislature. He concluded by say ing: "the bishops' report has been set aside by the front and middle benches across the way". Why not? They're busy.

Let me deal with the policies first and then concentrate on the principles, which are the more crucial failing of the two, in my view. The paper does present five positions, which you've just heard. Let me deal with them as they appear. First off, as has been said a little earlier, "unem ployment rather than inflation should be recognized as the number one problem to be tackled in overcoming the present crisis". This of course is a widely held objective. However, it fails to make the crucial distinction as to who does the employing.

Additional government spending for job creation and unemployment insurance, for example, fuels inflation. Inflation is itself, apart from all its other bad effects, a major cause of unemployment. Inflation misdirects capital, as we have just seen. Trying to cure unemployment by adopting policies which promote infla tion is like trying to put out a fire by pouring gasoline on it. Inflation ultimately leads to ruination. In the long run, in the best interests of the downtrodden, inflation must be avoided like the economic disease that it is.

Inflation is a vicious attack on the aged, the poor, and on those who remain unemployed. It must be stopped. Thus it is crucial that the private sector create employment. The bishops didn't mention that. Second, an industrial strategy should be developed to create permanent and meaningful jobs for people in local communities . . . It should include emphasis on in creased production, creation of new labour intensive industries for basic needs, and measures to ensure job security for workers. Let me repeat the heart of that: industrial strategy to create a labor-intensive economy based in local communi ties.

I could describe that as an omnibus clause, I guess, which suggests more central planning whose thrust, in my view, would be to repeal the industrial revolution. To be sure, the bishops are correct in seeing such things as computers, microchips, and the new industry of robotics as threats to employment. What they should have said, of course, is threats to particular employment opportunities.

We must never lose sight of the fact that we owe most of our jobs to just such past innovations — as airplanes, trains, automobiles, spinning mills, et cetera — and that these were also condemned, when they were first intro duced, on the grounds of creating unemployment. We must also not lose sight of the fact that technology usually benefits the poor relatively more than the rich. In many cases, the economic effect is to bring pleasures enjoyed only by the rich to the middle and lower income ranges as well.

The rich don't benefit much from things like washing machines, dryers, vacuum cleaners, dishwa shers, modern stoves, and television. They already had all the household servants they wanted, and entertainment. Likewise, technological changes concerning sanitation, home heating, food, clothing, and so on, have benefited the poor, relatively, far more than the rich. These benefits are not labor intensive, but they are useful. Third, the paper says: . . . a more balanced and equitable program should be developed for reducing and stemming the rate of inflation.

This requires shifting the burden for wage controls to upper income earners and introducing controls on prices and new forms of taxes on invest ment income (e.g., dividends, interest). What a surprise. Wage and price controls — remember

276 ALBERTA HANSARD March 24, 1983 those? What was the hon. Leader of the Opposition's line, the best one in the session so far, about "turkeys voting for early Christmas"? I like that one. Inflation is, of course, caused by excessive money creation on the part of central banking authorities, and thus only a change in monetary policy, along with disciplined fiscal policy, can put an end to inflation.

According to the Fraser Institute study, The Illusion of Wage and Price Controls: Moreover, controls bring a host of other social and economic ills, like black markets, shortages, lineups, rationing, and general disrespect for the law. Wages and prices are signalling and rationing devices in the market. When government controls them, they can no longer play that role. Wage and price controls are an economic form of arterial sclerosis, disabling if not fatal. Fourth policy: . . . greater emphasis should be given to the goal of social responsibility in the current recession.

This means that every effort must be made to curtail cut-backs in social services, maintain adequate health care and social security benefits, and above all, guarantee special assistance for the unemployed, wel fare recipients, the working poor and one-industry towns suffering from plant shut-downs. Let's talk about social responsibility. How can one give greater emphasis to unemployment insurance, welfare, child allowances, medicare, free education, minimum wage laws, job retraining, home maintenance grants, in terest shielding subsidies, and 40 other programs that I've counted?

How much social responsibility can there be? My social conscience, Mr. Speaker, is completely at rest insofar as our social support system is concerned. It is articulated to help the unemployed, the poor, and the underprivileged far beyond Karl Marx's wildest dreams. Social conscience for the working poor in one-industry towns, they say. How about the Janbar shingle mill, albeit in British Columbia, where employees have defied an International Woodworkers order and gone back to work at lower than union scale. At least, the guaranteed rate of pay is lower than union scale.

The workers can earn up to union scale by increased productivity. Did you ever hear such a neanderthal idea? In discussing their reasons for approaching the mill owner with an offer to work for less, the employees indicated that their unem ployment insurance benefits had run out, and they were damned if they were going to go on welfare. Well, the happy ending to this story is that the mill, shut down in June 1981 during a strike which produced a 15 per cent pay increase, is now operating again.

The ironic note on social responsibility is this: the IWA union charges that the mill is being run illegally and is filing a complaint with the labor relations board. At the same time, the former union members, now working, have applied to the same labor relations board for decertifica tion. That's how you cope with shut-downs in one- industry towns. Personally, I like the workers' style. Fifth policy, the paper claims: . . . labour unions should be asked to play a more decisive and responsible role in developing strategies for economic recovery and employment. Hopefully not like the illustration I just cited.

Let me rely further on quotes, because of the sensitivity of the subject. According to Lady Barbara Wooten, who is a Labour Peer in the U.K. House of Lords: It is the business of a union to be anti-social: the members would have a just grievance if their officials and committees ceased to put sectional interests first. The view of unions held by most Canadians is that of the long-suffering underdog struggling valiantly against overwhelming odds to improve the wages and working conditions of all employees. The statement of Lady Wooten paints a rather different picture.

To be sure, in this view, union leaders can still be counted upon to improve the employment package for their own member ship. We must realize that the poor, the afflicted, the oppressed — those at the very bottom of the economic pyramid — are unlikely to be involved as union members. To put it another way: We should take pause before entrusting the welfare of the economically downtrodden to the tender mer cies of organized labour leaders. Example two: consider the traditional opposition of union leaders to allowing prison inmates to work on jobs which would train them for life outside.

Numerous stud ies have shown that recidivism rates could be dramatical ly reduced were convicts allowed meaningful work behind bars. The unions have adamantly refused this to occur and have had the political muscle to see that prisoners, in this year of Our Lord 1983, are still precluded from work which would compete with unionized labor. Again I quote: The union argument that there is only so much work to be done, and that if prisoners do some of it there will be less left for union members, is economically non-sensible and morally unacceptable. That's enough social responsibility.

Having surveyed the five policies, let us look at the principles which, as I said, the hon. leader opposite failed to do. The first principle endorsed by the bishops speaks of the priority of labor over capital: ". . . labour, not capital, must be given priority in the development of an economy based on justice." The dignity of human labor must take "prec edence over capital and technology". This principle, to say the least, is fraught with difficul ties. It suggests that the dignity or rights of human beings can be set off against inanimate matter: machines and capital goods.

This, of course, could never be so, since capital per se can have no rights or dignity at all. Surely the only sensible

interpretation of the principle is that the rights of employees, human beings who have not saved money and invested it, shall take precedence over capita lists, human beings who have. At this moment there are in the world struggling business owners with zero or negative profits, forced to pay high union wage scales. This is not a hypothetical situation, since in 1982 there were 30,367 Canadian bankruptcies, personal and busi ness. How many do you think were union members? How many do you think were owners of capital?

According to the principle of the priority of labor, one should always take the part of the rich laborer in this case, even over the bankrupt capital owner. The principle of priority of labor over capital has no moral relevance except from a Marxist point of view. Marx, of course, requires the labor/capital division to be a moral one. Capital, in and of itself, necessarily exploits labor, which is to say, people who employ others necessarily exploit them. As our socialist opposition has so frequently noted in this session, there are 136,000 unemployed in Alberta.

If we were to translate this into the language of the bishops' paper, we would have to read this as 136,000 unexploited in Alberta. As the throne speech indicated, this government is try ing to encourage exploiters to put these unexploited back into a condition of exploitation, to us known as work. Should this sophistry be taken literally and to its logical conclusion, capital and technology would be converted to

March 24, 1983 ALBERTA HANSARD 277 immediate consumption purposes, like eating your seed corn, which would tend to drive the poor and the rich as well back toward, well, the third world. One can hardly exercise a preferential option for the poor by advocating policies which lead to general impoverishment. Lastly, someone had the temerity to ask of the bishops' paper: what of the capital intensity of the churches themselves? Should those majestic cathedrals, houses of worship, and real estate be sold off in an attempt to increase labor intensity? Heaven forbid. [interjection] Thank you. Somebody's awake.

The paper bemoans a renewed emphasis on what it calls "the survival of the fittest", which it then calls the "supreme law of economics". Now survival of the fittest is well-known social Darwinism, beloved by clerics but be fuddling to economists. The phrase belongs in biology, if indeed it belongs anywhere, but when superimposed on economics, results in extinction of rational thought, espe cially in a mixed economy dominated by state capitalism.

For example, one could hardly call the Dome Petro leums, the Massey-Fergusons, the Maislins of this world "fittest", but they do seem to survive, courtesy of the taxpayer we are told, if necessary. As for the supreme law of economics, this is clearly a misfit linkage of the mystical and absolute with what is commonly referred to as the dismal science. This attempt to elevate social Darwinism to supremacy in economics should make even John Kenneth Galbraith shudder, although I wouldn't count on that. The paper declares that in this survival of the fittest process, "the weak are eliminated".

The anti-market bias is clear in the idea of the weak being eliminated. Yes, that's what the paper says, "eliminated". According to this charge, the free market place is like a jungle where the strong kill and eat the weak, and only the strong survive. People who advocate such an economic system are certainly in violation of first principles. It could even be described as immoral. That no one supports such a scheme, of course, is inconsequential. Marxists have a way of making their own straw men. I have already described our elaborate system for pro tecting the weak, as did the throne speech.

I will not restate what should be obvious. Mr. Speaker, the third principle the paper endorses is called the "equitable dis tribution of wealth and power among people and re gions". Possibly they had in mind the model of the national energy program, though they didn't say so spe cifically. More likely they refer to the egalitarian ideal of wealth redistribution, which is the socialist's mechanism for evening things out. As Bill Buckley described it, it is A getting together with B to determine what they will take away from C to give to D. As a concept and as a policy, redistribution is a dismal failure.

Bertrand De Jouvenel dealt with it some 30 years ago in his book The Ethics of Redistribution. To sum marize and oversimplify, he said redistribution never suc ceeds in its goal to elevate the poor but rather produces a more widespread reduction of wealth for everyone; se condly, it transfers power to the government, which acts as the transfer agent, the latter becoming in the process so costly as to negate all the deemed benefits. Mr. Speaker, I think he was right. [Mr. Speaker in the Chair] The bishops' paper further spies a deepening "moral disorder" in the values and priorities of our society.

So do I; so do others. Many questions have arisen on the moral authority of the paper tabled by the opposition. Ponder this as a moral question, if you will: the dialectic of Marx proceeds toward atheistic materialism as a declared goal. Now that goal is clearly in place and in sight for a great many contemporary societies. What does this suggest to hon. members about moral authority? What moral impli cations have hon. members observed in atheistic materia lism of modern socialist states? Solzhenitsyn anyone? Secondly, Marx claimed that religion is the opiate of the people.

Given that, I'm not very much surprised that some Marxists conceal themselves as social democrats. The question occurs to me, why are there Marxist bi shops? Why, indeed, are there socialist churchmen of any persuasion? It is a mystery to me. In fact, it raises the question: was Marx right in this matter? The third moral question that I feel is raised in these principles: what in fact is the morality of perpetuating class warfare, particularly class warfare in a welfare state such as I earlier described?

Keeping in mind that romant ic socialism can only exist where class warfare exists, I leave that moral question with you. These principles raise another question. Who in fact endorses these principles and policy? Well, support from high places seems to me to be distinctly thin. Five federal Liberal backbenchers, all Catholic MPs, opposed the paper, calling, in the process, on the authority of the French philosopher Jacques Maritain, of Pascal, and of Pope John Paul II.

According to them, in the papal encyclical Laborem Exercens, on which this paper was partly based, the Pope has expressed the view that on matters of technological, economic, and political changes in the world, "it is not the Church's responsibility to make a scientific analysis of the possible impact of such changes on humanity". It seems to me that's what the paper did. The Pope further adds: "The Church is to call to mind the dignity and rights of workers where these are vio lated." Does that sound to you like a call for socialist revolution? It doesn't to me.

Another source points out that the encyclical quoted in this paper was aimed pri marily at the restraints on free labor associations in communist countries. The question then is raised, what moral authority? Whose moral authority: that of the Pope or that of the bishops? It can't be both. On Tuesday this week, Roman Catholic bishops de cided — in fact, I think they've decided now — whether their churches would replace rhetoric with action in the fight for social and economic change. Pressure is mount ing from the Canadian Labour Congress for greater church involvement.

The problem, however, is that the heart of the plan will be an effort to build support for the New Democratic Party as the only viable solution to the country's woes. If the church becomes more involved, it would run afoul of the Pope, who recently reiterated a long-standing policy forbidding church officials from ac tively engaging in partisan politics. It is small wonder that this paper has been discredited by economists. It has also been disowned by Cardinal Carter of Toronto. The document, an awkward blend of socialist dogma and atavistic Catholicism, was swiftly re jected by Toronto's Cardinal Carter.

He said: we are not experts in economics; getting into details of economic policy is ridiculous. I've seen two quotes. The other one said: risky. To me it doesn't matter, because they're both right. Catholic scholar Michael Novak, professor of religion at Syracuse University in the U.S., a very eloquent Catho lic writer has said:

278 ALBERTA HANSARD March 24, 1983 The ideal of the new socialist man is commonly materialistic, anti-religious, and totalistic. Looking merely at the concentration of authority from tradi tionalism to socialism is not so long a step. He went on to add: Clarity about what works is a religious im perative if you believe the hungry should be fed and the poor uplifted. I suggest that this paper is afflicted by no such clarity.

The Pope, speaking to the bishops of South America two years ago and in Central America a month ago, was approached by an activist bishop of the Marxist persua sion in Nicaragua to kiss the Pope's ring. The Pope instead — I don't know whether you saw this little vig nette on television — wagged his finger at the bishop and said: enough activism; get right with the church. As to the principles which we have had enunciated and which are contained in this motion, who are we to be lieve: the Pope or the bishops' paper? I do not think it is possible to endorse both.

The bishops undoubtedly tried to do their best, but they failed to meet the requirements of economic reality. I cannot concede them either social or moral authority on the basis of this paper. The social ist opposition has done its best to legitimize Marxist formulations in this debate by concealing its philosophi cal bankruptcy under a mantle of clerical authority. Well, it fails in that requirement also.

I trust the constituents of Edmonton Whitemud and members of this House will agree that in this debate I have at least tried to do what was required, to disabuse the opposition of any idea they might have had about getting away with such a dismal exercise. Since these principles and policies have already failed the world over through history, wisdom leaves us no choice but to defeat Motion 207. [Two members rose] MR. SPEAKER: I believe the hon. Member for Edmon ton Norwood caught the Chair's eye first. MR. MARTIN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I will be brief.

I believe the debate ends at 4:30, so I'll have to be brief after that long, boring speech from the hon. Member for Edmonton Whitemud. I would like to point out a couple of matters, if I could. [interjections] We're dealing in economics; I think it is a very serious issue. We sat and listened when a lot of things were directed at us, and we would demand the same respect on a very important issue. First of all, some people have felt — I believe, the Member for St. Albert — that we were trying to take advantage of the bishops' paper.

I would agree with both speakers that the bishops are not doing it in a partisan political sense. What they've tried to do is to throw out ideas. For example, what they're asking is for people to consider these issues as we are today: Furthermore, all peoples of good will in local and regional communities throughout the country must be encouraged to coordinate their efforts to develop and implement such strategies.

As a step in this direction, we again call on local Christian communi ties to become actively involved in the six-point plan of action outlined in the message of the Canadian bishops on Unemployment: The Human Costs. We recognize that these proposals run counter to some current policies or strategies advanced by both governments and corporations. We are also aware of the limited perspectives and excessive demands of some labour unions. To be certain, the issues are complex; there are no simple or magical solutions.

Yet, from the standpoint of the Church's social teachings, we firmly believe that present economic realities reveal a "moral disorder" in our society. As pastors, we have a responsibility to raise some of the fundamental social and ethical issues pertaining to the economic order. In so doing, we expect that there will be considerable discussion and debate within the Christian community itself on these issues. Indeed, we hope that the following reflections will help to explain our concerns and contribute to the current public debate about the economy. My point, Mr. Speaker . . . . MR. SPEAKER: Order please.

I realize that there has been considerable latitude in regard to reading, especially for members speaking in the Assembly for the first time. But I should perhaps repeat a principle that I think is known to all members, but sometimes perhaps we over look it. That is, in this House the provision for debate is by members of the Assembly. When we read long, argumentative statements by people who are not mem bers of the Assembly, that is a different kind of debate, which perhaps I should not be chairing; I'm supposed to be chairing members' debates.

And it is really out of order because those people are not entitled to debate in this Assembly, howsoever valid their observations may be. MR. NOTLEY: Mr. Speaker, I'd like to raise one brief point of order. Basically I think that observation is cor rect, but I think that when one is dealing with a resolu tion that applies specifically to a document, it is certainly reasonable to cite that document in order to make one's arguments. I would agree that if it were a case of just reading the document verbatim, then the Speaker would be perfectly correct.

But I would think that all hon. members on either side of the House would have to be able to refer to the document from time to time because the motion before the House is specifically with respect to that document and whether or not the Legislature concurs. I simply say to you, sir, that my colleague, as did the other member who spoke before and I, for that matter, when I introduced the debate, referred to the document. I think that unless we do that, if we aren't able to refer to the document in question, there really isn't much point in having a debate on an issue such as this. MR.

SPEAKER: I didn't recognize the quotation as coming from the document. If it came from the docu ment, then obviously as the hon. Leader of Opposition says, if we're debating the document, it would seem to be quite appropriate that occasionally the document that is being debated might be quoted. I suppose if we really carried that to its ultimate, we'd be reading the whole document, and that would give me more difficulty. MR. MARTIN: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I was just reading a paragraph from it, and my point was that the bishops have asked — they know there's going to be debate about this — that it be brought out and people talk about it. The reason we brought it here is not because I agree totally — it's not an NDP paper — but they wanted it debated. And we thought, where better than the Legislative Assembly of Alberta to talk about

March 24, 1983 ALBERTA HANSARD 279 some of the moral problems as they see them in this particular thing. So I would point out to the Member for St. Albert that that's the way we are approaching it. I don't have much time, I guess — three or four minutes — but it was interesting to hear from the new right in Alberta. I'm not sure that name-calling about Marxists and all the rest of it was appropriate, and I will not go into that. I disagree totally with his economics, as he well knows. I think we could debate how you get out of a depression.

Certainly, if you look at Hansard at the time when people were taking about getting out of a depression, people of his ilk were talking in the House of Commons. They were called the Liberals and Conserva tives of the day. R.B. Bennett and Herbert Hoover were saying exactly the same things. I could almost quote them verbatim from the Member for Whitemud.

But rather than debating this particular issue because economics in this House will come up in the budget, the point we want to make and what I think the bishops were trying to do — they admitted they don't have all the answers; we admit we don't have all the answers. I can honestly tell you that the Member for Edmonton White- mud has very few answers. We're trying to say that we have a moral problem in these days. I pointed out what happens when you lay off people and you don't do anything about it and sit back and say, well, the private sector is going to look after us if we just wait long enough.

We've had examples of that across the world. We've had examples in this country, Mr. Speaker, where this has happened. It's not an economic theory we're talking about here; we're talking about people's lives. We're talking about what happens to people when they are laid off. The Member for Edmonton Whitemud does not seem to understand that. Instead of fancy theories and calling people Marxists, I think maybe he should come into my riding and see what actually happens to people when they're laid off. What we're trying to do in this House is bring about a debate to try to help people.

That's what we're elected [to do] as legislators. We may honestly disagree on policies, and I'm sure we will from time to time. That's what democracy is all about. But I think the previous member brought it down to a new low in terms of name-calling. I'm not going to refer back. We could use right-wing slogans back at him, but I doubt that would solve anything. I go back to what I was talking about. I'll conclude with the key point. For those people who weren't at my maiden speech the other night, I said that research has shown — I'd like to put this into the record, sir.

It's just a quick quote: for every 1 per cent rise in unemployment, 4.3 per cent more men and 2.3 per cent more women are admitted to state mental hospitals for the first time; 4.1 per cent more people commit suicide; 4 per cent more people are put in prison; 5.7 per cent more people are murdered; 1.9 per cent more people die from stress-related chronic ailments . . . My point is simply this: we do not have time to sit around and wait while people's lives are being affected. It is the mark of a government to do something for the people.

When you're dealing with people's lives now, it's not good enough to wait around for some right-wing theory that may come about 10 years from now. That's the position we will be taking in this Legislature. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. MR. OMAN: I move that we adjourn debate, Mr. Speaker. MR. SPEAKER: Does the Assembly agree? HON. MEMBERS: Agreed. MR. SPEAKER: I should mention some concern that I have with this motion. As far as I can recall, it's the first time we have discussed the validity of a large document. I don't know whether I've ever read anything in any par liamentary lore on that topic.

It seems to me that possibly that kind of motion may not be in order, especially since to identify the document, it may be necessary to quote from it at some length. Now I'm not suggesting — I see the frown on the hon. Leader of the Opposition, but it doesn't appall me one whit. There are all sorts of documents. We might — admittedly to put it to an extreme — discuss the validity of the Encyclopaedia Britannica.

It would seem to me that [interjections] I should have some regard for the time of the Assembly in a matter of this kind and especially when, in order to deal with the document effectively, it may be necessary to quote from it very extensively. Now I'm not saying that the motion is out of order. I'm expressing a concern about it. One of the reasons I'm expressing a concern is that conceivably there may be some ideas in the future for this Assembly to debate a variety of documents. Of course in such a case, the present example might be taken as a precedent. As I say, that causes me some difficulty.

It may be that on some occasion there may be an opportunity for the House leaders and myself or other members to discuss the thing, but I mention this only as a matter of record. Because if, on further consideration, it were found or even agreed that such a debate was not in order, then I would not want to be in a position of being bound by the present example as a precedent. MR. NOTLEY: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order. The Speaker suggested that I looked amazed, and I must confess I am flabbergasted with the concern expressed. Let me just outline, first of all, Mr.

Speaker, to you, in case it missed your observation in your busy work, that this was a comprehensive document. It was tabled in the House. The reason it was tabled in the House was a matter of courtesy to the members of the House, so that members would then be able to obtain the document before the debate proceeded. It wasn't a case of referring to a document that wasn't tabled in the Legislature before the debate. The tabling took place a few days ago; as a matter of fact, the second day of the House, if my memory serves me correctly. Secondly, Mr.

Speaker, we are not talking about a resolution here in the abstract. It is saying:

Be it resolved that the Assembly approves of and endorses the principles enunciated . . . Mr. Speaker, it seems to me that there should be no doubt that a motion of this kind would be in order. The Legislature may well decide that it doesn't agree with it. That's a decision of the Legislature. That is not your decision, sir, as the chairman of this Assembly. It is the decision of the Legislature, whether they like or don't like the principles. I would say to you, with the greatest respect, that considering the importance of a document which is being discussed throughout this country, the mere suggestion that this would not be in order, I find, with great respect,

280 ALBERTA HANSARD March 24, 1983 is simply an error on your part. I would say to you in my position as Leader of the Opposition, but I suspect shared by other colleagues in the House, that resolutions of this kind, whether they come from the government or the opposition, should be considered on their merits by the members, providing the courtesy of proper tabling is given so the people have access to the information. This sort of thing should be determined not by the Speaker at any time but by the members, on the merits debated in the House.

If we were talking about endorsing the information contained in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, that might be a different matter. But we are talking about the principles contained in a major document. Mr. Speaker, if that sort of proposition is not in order in this Legislative Assem bly, then I suggest to you that Beauchesne, as I under stand it, especially that privilege in Beauchesne that says, if there's any doubt at all in the Speaker's mind, it must be decided in favor of freedom of debate and discussion — Mr. Speaker, I don't think we should get into a long wrangle at this time.

It seems to me straightforward and self-evident that a motion like this is clearly in order. [interjection] MR. SPEAKER: Possibly interrupting the hon. Deputy Government House Leader, with respect, the hon. Leader of the Opposition is very, very seriously confusing the substance of what I have said. I have not purported to deal in any way with the validity of the document or of its principles. Whether a document is tabled or not has not the slightest bearing on whether or not it may be debata ble. Sure, it's a courtesy to give members copies; that's fine. But that's not an issue in any way at all.

I am looking at the document merely from a procedural point of view. While the hon. member is now citing for the second time in two days the question of freedom of speech and that doubts have to be resolved in favor of extended freedom, we have to remember that this House has a limited time to spend on its business, and a very extensive freedom of . . . AN HON. MEMBER: I beg your pardon, sir. MR. SPEAKER: Order please. A very extensive use of the freedom of speech by any member obviously limits that of other members, and it must be taken in context because of the limited time.

Furthermore there is no precedent, either in Beauchesne or anywhere else, that prevents a Speaker from expressing a doubt about something. Now the hon. Leader of the Opposition may not value that doubt in any way. He may think it should be dismissed with contempt or with any other kind of con sideration. But there is nothing wrong with that doubt being expressed. And that is all I did. I expressed a doubt as to whether this might be in order for the simple reason that I was concerned about where such a practice might lead, and whether or not I might find myself caught in an unwelcome precedent.

That's simply a matter of caution, of prudence. It doesn't deal in any way with the substance of the motion or the statement. MR. HORSMAN: Mr. Speaker, replying briefly on be half of the government to the point just raised, I must say that the government will take under consideration the concern expressed by the Speaker, not only with respect to motions which might be brought forward by members of the opposition but indeed members of the government, who place a number of motions on the Order Paper. The point that has been raised by you, Mr. Speaker, is cer tainly worth considering further.

Of course, we take note of the fact that in your comments you did not rule the motion out of order in any way and that in fact the comments you raised will lead to further reflection on the part of all members of the Assembly as to just how matters might be properly introduced for debate. With respect to the hon. Leader of the Opposition being flab bergasted, I think he flabbergasts much too easily. [interjections] DR. BUCK: Mr. Speaker, on the point of order. I take great difference with what you have just stated about the use of the House's time. Mr.

Speaker, I would like to remind you that this House sat just once last year, which left nine months that we could have used if it was required that the business of the House take that long. The motion that's been presented — members of the Assembly on the opposition side have the opportunity to designate a motion. We're not really arguing about that; it deals with problems that relate to Albertans and it's fully debatable. But, Mr. Speaker, to prejudge — we have been in session a little over two weeks, and already worrying about how much time we're going to take I think is highly presumptious.

There is one hour allowed for this debate every week, and it blows my mind, to be quite honest with you, Mr. Speaker, to say that we're going to be using too much time. Your ruling just flabbergasts me. MR. NOTLEY: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order if I may. MR. SPEAKER: There should be a limited debate on a point of order and, in fairness to the hon. Mernber for Edmonton Norwood, he has a Bill coming up for discus sion which we might have started on 10 minutes ago. I confess to having used up some of that time myself. First of all, I don't propose to debate this extensively. I'm simply expressing some concerns.

It's not for the Speaker to say when the House sits, but the Speaker has obvious duties with regard to the time of the House when it is sitting. For example, in dealing in a preliminary way with some questions of privilege, with emergency debate, and a number of other examples like that, the Speaker is given a preliminary jurisdiction for the precise purpose of en suring that the House's time, when it does sit, is not wasted. There is an added feature to this doubt that I have and that's all I'm expressing at the moment.

I'm not even suggesting that when this comes up on the Order Paper again — the debate having started — I would propose to interfere. What I'm saying should not be taken one bit beyond the actual words I am expressing, and that's what I'm afraid is being done here to a rather large extent. It's conceivable that a constituent or someone else might write a long letter of complaint, of debate, of argument, to an hon. member in the Assembly. So the hon. member introduces a motion saying he wants to have that letter debated.

Okay, that means that the person who wrote the letter is debating in the Assembly, because the whole thing can be read, you could take the allotted time for a speech — the hon. Leader of the Opposition has 90 minutes — and read a document in order that it might be debated. It is my respectful opinion that possibly — and I say this only by way of concern, not by way of a ruling — I

March 24, 1983 ALBERTA HANSARD 281 have a concern as to whether that is the kind of thing the House should spend its time on. It may be that there should be a point of order raised on it, and it should be dealt with on that basis: I'm simply mentioning that concern. I hope that we can now get on with debate on Bill No. 204. MR. NOTLEY: Before we do that, this refers directly to your comment when you brought this to the attention of members. You suggested that it might be appropriate to meet, I think you mentioned, [with] the Government House Leader, myself, and others.

I want to make it clear, however, so that there be no precedent, that on behalf of myself and my colleague — the hon. Member for Clover Bar would have to discuss it with his colleague — we in no way would be able to participate in that sort of discussion. It is our view that . . . MR. SPEAKER: Order please. There's no need now to extend this rather extensive dealing with this matter. If the hon. leader, on whatever future occasion, wants to refuse to discuss a matter with the Speaker, that's his privilege.

He doesn't need to announce it in the House. head: PUBLIC BILLS AND ORDERS OTHER THAN GOVERNMENT BILLS AND ORDERS (Second Reading) Bill 204

An Act to Amend the Legislative Assembly Act MR. MARTIN: Mr. Speaker, I'd like to rise to bring in Bill 204, and believe it or not, we believe it is a non partisan Bill and shouldn't create too much acrimony. As you know, we went through a recent — you went through especially, Mr. Speaker, a very difficult time trying to decide who should be the official opposition when a group and a party, two parties, or whatever are tied. It seemed that the Act at the particular time did not satisfy who should be in this. As a result, Mr. Speaker, you were put in a very untenable position. I know the hon.

Member for Edmonton Clover Bar might disagree, but we think you made the right decision. We hope that by bringing this in as a private member's Bill, the government will take a look at this. Even if they want to redo it and bring in a new Act, pride of authorship is not important here. I think the government would also be looking at a Bill like this, Mr. Speaker. [Mr.

Purdy in the Chair] The other point I would make before I look at the major parts of the Bill: the reason we think this is important is that in our parliamentary democracy, just as surely as people elect the government, and as we know in Alberta they did overwhelmingly this last election . . [interjections] I thought I would get a pounding for that; thank you. As you are well aware, it is also just as important in our system that they elect Her Majesty's Loyal Opposi tion and the leader of that opposition. Both the govern ment and the opposition are crucial parts of our British parliamentary democracy.

This Bill is an attempt to de termine what goes into the Official Opposition, and I would refer you to 36.1(3). I'll just run through the major points quickly; it won't take a long time.

(3) For the purposes of subsection (2), the Speak er shall recognize (

a) the largest party or group sitting in opposi tion to the Government as the Official Opposi tion, and (

b) the member recognized by that party or group as being their leader, as the Leader of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition I think the key, though, is (4) that we're talking about If 2 or more parties or groups sitting in opposi tion to the Government have an equal number of members, and no other opposition party or group has a greater number of members, the Speaker shall recognize . . . This is exactly where we came in with this problem that Mr. Speaker had to go through before. What we're suggesting is: (

a) the party or group which received the larg est percentage of the popular vote in the immediately preceding provincial general elec tion as the Official Opposition . . . It seems to us that this, is the logical way to go, that just as the group or party that receives the largest percentage becomes the government, the party or group that has the second largest percentage of the popular vote should become the Official Opposition. For that matter, remem ber that the seats would determine it. I recognize that the percentage of the popular vote doesn't always indicate how many seats you're going to get.

But if there is a difference in number of seats, if it had been three to two in this case, then it is obvious who would have been the Official Opposition. But in cases where there is a tie, we think the popular vote — because it is the most democrat ic procedure we have in determining support for parties or groups across the province. And of course, going along with that is: (

b) the member recognized by that party or group as being their leader as the Leader of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition. Popular vote is defined in (

a) in the case of a party, the total of all votes cast in the provincial general election for all candidates endorsed by that party as official candidates of that party, and (

b) in the case of a group, the total of all votes cast in the provincial general election for the members elected to the Legislative Assembly and declaring themselves to be members of that group. And then we went through the section. Obviously in Alberta we've had problems with overwhelming victories; formerly, of course, the Social Credit government, and now the Conservative government. We've had fairly low numbers of opposition members, so we've lowered the number here, if you notice, to "recognized opposition party" means . . . (

i) holds more than 1 seat in the Legislative Assembly, and (ii) received at least 5% . . . which is the same as it was before . . . of the popular vote in the election immedi ately preceding the year in which the allowance . . . is to be paid. Mr. Speaker, I think the key that we moved there — the number is four seats. Because of Alberta politics, we're suggesting that it be one seat in the Legislative Assembly.

282 ALBERTA HANSARD March 24, 1983 I think that basically the Bill is simple and straightfor ward. I think this would clarify the position. It would not put Mr. Speaker in the difficult position he was in in the past. I mentioned before that pride of ownership is not important. If the government thinks it could come back with its own Bill and look at this matter — because we do think it is a serious matter — I think all members would agree. I make the point again that the Official Opposition is just as much a part of government as the government.

If we're having trouble with the Act, as we did this last time, I think it would be incumbent upon the government to take a look at what it could do to change it. I conclude by saying that it might be to their benefit to do this, because they might be shooting for the Official Opposition after the next election. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. MR. COOK: Mr. Speaker, I am going to really enjoy participating in the debate today on this little Bill. It's seemingly innocuous, but I think all hon. members should oppose it, and I'd like to outline why.

First of all, I think it's fairly evident that this Bill is self-serving, that this is just an attempt to try to make sure that the position the NDP now have had conferred upon them is more or less sanctified by the Legislature. I don't think that's necessary. The Speaker of our Assem bly has a great deal of respect both in this Legislature and outside, and he has provided us with a ruling that I think is eminently fair and workable. I want to get back to the concept that members in the New Democratic Party are recodifying a tradition of the British parliamentary system.

That works against the whole concept of the British parliamentary system, which works on a case-by-case basis, builds up, if you like, case law, tradition, and precedence, and on that basis provides guidance to us in a difficult or unusual circumstance. We do not want to go to a more rigid process, perhaps like our cousins to the south in the United States who have codified everything and occasionally find themselves in difficult circumstances, between a rock and a hard place. Mr. Speaker, I think this Bill has two deficiencies. It's rigid.

For example, it does not allow the concept of coalitions of independent members to work, because it would provide for basically two forms: more than one seat in the Assembly — it requires two seats — and a registered political party. What would happen in the case of three Independent members being elected, none of whom represents a political party, or two members, one representing a political party and one representing his constituents, and that's all? Mr. Speaker, this Bill is defi cient because it doesn't give us any guidance in that case. The fallback procedure, for the hon.

Member for Edmon ton Norwood, is to look at percentage of vote. And that's interesting. Can I make one wry observation? I would make it only in jest. I think the hon. member and his colleague are really trying to protect their position for the next provin cial election when the hon. members of the Independent coalition may have three members and they still have only two, or one. MR. MARTIN: Not Glengarry, though. MR. COOK: Certainly not Glengarry. We're going to work hard and make sure that seat remains firmly on the Tory side. Mr. Speaker, this Bill has the deficiency of being very, very rigid.

What the hon. member is trying to do is provide us with some guidance in a difficult or unusual circumstance, yet he has failed to do that in some other difficult and unusual circumstances which are not pro vided for in the Bill. So what he has really done is create some rigid new rules which we'll find difficult to apply in equally difficult circumstances.

I think it's better to leave the system as it is now, to leave it to the judgment of a distinguished parliamentarian like our Speaker, who has the ability to gather evidence and advice from a variety of sources inside the House and out and make a decision, and that decision, Mr. Speaker, is going to be referred to the House. And if it is so unfair as to be unacceptable, this Legislature has the ability to provide further guid ance to the Speaker.

In reading over the decision of our distinguished Speaker from Edmonton Meadowlark, it's very clear that the hon. gentleman has put a great deal of thought into the decision he provided for us on March 11. He reviewed precedents in a variety of other difficult circumstances, and went back to review the circumstances in the West minster Parliament. He reviewed the problems with some of our legislation. Mr. Speaker, I'd like to make one more observation.

Part 2,

section 5(2) of the Election Finances and Contributions Disclosures Act says that any political party that holds "a minimum of 3 seats in the Legislative Assembly" may be registered as a political party. In our Legislative Assembly Act, we say that a recognized oppo sition party means a party that "holds at least 4 seats in the Legislative Assembly". In the proposed Bill, we have the concept that we should have two members as being sufficient to designate a political party as a registered opposition party. We're playing with numbers. I think we should find some common number that goes through this.

If we're looking at amending the Legislative Assem bly Act, I think we should consider finding some standard. Then, Mr. Speaker, the question becomes: should the standard be two, three, or four? — those being the numbers before us; two in the NDP Bill, three in the Election Finances and Contributions Disclosure Act, and four in the Legislative Assembly Act. Frankly, all three are arbitrary, and I think we should consider them as such. I guess the case I'm trying to make is that this Bill is arbitrary; it's rigid.

It's also important to make the case that in other parliamentary systems, they're having difficult circum stances. I hate to use this example, but the National Socialists in Germany — we had in the Weimar Republic a difficult time of economic unrest, a difficulty where a huge number of third parties arose. It prevented the functioning of the parliamentary system in Germany in the 1930s. Mr. Speaker, the president of the Weimar Republic chose a Mr. Adolf Hitler to be chancellor of the government, of the Parliament, and did it on a very narrow basis.

I would like to think that we would not be bound by some rigid rules that are being proposed in the opposi tion's attempt to serve their own selfish interests right now, and that might put us in a difficult situation 30, 40, or 50 years down the road when some small, narrow group that represents an extreme point of view may be in this Assembly and may be with a variety of other small groups, all competing for some sort of status.

I would like to think that good judgment and reason would prevail in that kind of circumstance, not the narrow application of a rigid rule adopted in 1983 be cause the Member for Edmonton Norwood wants to sanctify a decision by our Speaker, who, I think, has

March 24, 1983 ALBERTA HANSARD 283 already presented us with a very good decision that will serve as a precedent, a guide, in future situations like this. But I don't think we want to start codifying an informal constitution that we have inherited from the British par liamentary system. I conclude, Mr. Speaker, by saying that this Bill should be rejected by the Assembly and that it is partisan in the sense that it tries to sanctify and serve selfishly the in terests of one small group in this Assembly whose posi tion was given some status in the Assembly.

But next time, I think we will find that with this kind of attitude, even the minimum number of two seats will be difficult to muster by that political party. I urge all hon. members to reject this Bill. MR. STROMBERG: Good afternoon, Mr. Speaker. In addressing Bill 204 and going through its contents, I believe the intent of the Bill is basically a concern that the present legislation to be recognized as an opposition party from four MLAs to two. That is the intent of the Bill. But I guess you have to look at what has happened in the past.

Going through some material that was sup plied to me, I find that the designation of an official opposition party has been on some pretty shaky ground and, at times, very controversial. I'll give you an example. There's a term we use down on the farm — the first time the fertilizer hit the fan was back in 1944, when three Independent members were elected to this Legislature. They were duly recognized as the Official Opposition. They in turn — Independent members — elected a leader from amongst themselves as Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition.

The second time there was a controversy was in 1959, when four opposition members were elected: one a lone Progressive Conservative, one a poor Liberal, one Inde pendent, and one Coalition member. Now if that isn't a sack full of wildcats! To try to get those four to agree on anything apparently was an impossibility. The Speaker got so frustrated and fed up with this

Document details

Collection	Alberta — Debates (Hansard)
Citation	19830324
Type	hansard
Volume / chapter	L20 S1 19830324 1430 01 han.pdf
Language	en
Format	json
Source	PROVINCIAL
Identifier	ef9bb4a4acabeb406bf3d01e1fab5113a4006804

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