1983 Legislative Session: 1st Session, 33rd Parliament

Hansard

The following electronic version is for informational purposes only.

The printed version remains the official version.

Official Report of

DEBATES OF THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY

( Hansard )

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 24, 1983

Afternoon sitting

[ Page

1021 ]

CONTENTS

Routine Proceedings

Tabling Documents British Columbia Assessment Authority annual report, 1982.

Hon. Mr. Curtis –– 1021

Oral Questions

Increase in government spending. Mr. Howard –– 1021

Ministry of Finance first quarterly report. Mr. Stupich –– 1022

Absence of lottery funds statement in first quarterly report. Mr. Stupich –– 1022

Termination of community involvement program. Hon. Mrs. McCarthy replies –– 1023

Compensation for expropriation. Mr. Lauk –– 1023

Budget Debate

Mr. Ree –– 1024

Ms. Sanford –– 1025

Hon. Mr. Smith –– 1029

Mr. Mitchell –– 1032

Mr. Veitch –– 1035

Mr. Barrett –– 1038

Hon. Mr. Phillips –– 1043

Appendix –– 1045

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 24, 1983

The House met at 2:06 p.m.

Prayers.

MR. VEITCH: Mr. Speaker, in the members' gallery today is a

very good friend of mine, Mr. Larry Terrace, who is the western manager

for Constellation Assurance Co. I wish this House would welcome him.

MR. HOWARD: Mr. Speaker, I am sure the House will be

delighted to extend a warm welcome to Your Honour, who has been away

over the last few days due to illness. We're pleased to see you back.

MR. PELTON: Mr. Speaker, in your gallery today is a friend of

mine from Maple Ridge, Mrs. Betty Levens, who is a school trustee in

School District 42. She and her husband Stuart operate a small business

in Maple Ridge. With Betty today, visiting from Peterborough,

Cambridgeshire, England, is her sister, Audrey Hill, and her friend,

Betty May. I would ask the House to welcome them here.

MR. REYNOLDS: Mr. Speaker, some members of my family, and

some future members of my family, are in your gallery this afternoon,

and I'd like to introduce them to the House and have them made welcome.

My son, Paul, is here on vacation, and with him is his fiancee, Nicole

Ryan. Next to them is my younger son Robert. He's the little guy — six

foot five inches, 250 pounds and 15 years old. That's why Parks likes

him. Also with them is Miss Yvonne Johnson, who, I'm happy to say, will

become Mrs. Reynolds on December 3.

MR. PARKS: Mr. Speaker, in your gallery this afternoon we

have the family of the acting mayor for the district of Coquitlam. I

would ask the House to join with me in making welcome the family of His

Worship Bryan Robinson, his wife, Irmgard, and two of their children,

Sean and Dean.

MR. MOWAT: I'd like to introduce to the House and have the

House welcome Mr. Ross Beggs from Toronto, Ontario. Mr. Begg is an

outstanding Canadian in the field of rehabilitation counselling and

consultation. I'd ask the House to welcome Mr. Beggs.

Hon. Mr. Curtis tabled the annual report of the British Columbia Assessment Authority for the year ending December 31, 1982.

Oral Questions

INCREASE IN GOVERNMENT SPENDING

MR. HOWARD: I'd like to direct a question to the Minister of

Finance. I ask the minister if he will explain to the House if the

insertion of restated expenditure figures for the fiscal year 1982-83

in his budget was for the purpose of showing a fictitious increase of

12.3 percent in total government spending this year, when the actual

increase over last year's budget was 16.7 percent.

HON. MR. CURTIS: That member has indicated that a portion of a document

which is being debated in this chamber at this present time is fictitious. I

don't know that I can assist him further.

MR. HOWARD: To tell the truth would help.

MR. SPEAKER: The Chair at this point must ask the hon. member

for Skeena to withdraw the remark which had a clear connotation to the

Chair. I would ask the member to so do.

MR. HOWARD: No question, Mr. Speaker. If that connotation was thought to be in there, it was not intended that way.

HON. MR. CURTIS: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order....

MR. HOWARD: It was not intended, Mr. Speaker, to indicate that the minister does not tell the truth.

HON. MR. CURTIS: Withdraw, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: The Chair heard a withdrawal.

HON. MR. CURTIS: Mr. Speaker, if you heard a withdrawal of the imputation, then I accept your hearing.

[2:15]

MR. HOWARD: I'd like to ask another question of the Minister

of Finance. Can the minister confirm that the figures to which I

referred earlier were used to hide the fact that government spending

has increased by 85 percent, an average of over 21 percent per year

since this minister has become Minister of Finance?

HON. MR. CURTIS: Mr. Speaker, the budget document is being

debated by this House at the present time. Again the member, as is his

usual custom, uses phrases such as "hide," and the other statement

which he withdrew. If he has a point to make then I'm sure a member of

his caucus could make it in debate.

MR. HOWARD: If the minister had been attendant in the House

and had listened to the debate instead of being absent from it, he

would have heard that information put forward. That information was

advanced.

The minister's budget speech goes on to suggest that arbitrary

firings are "expected to reduce accommodation costs in 1983-84," that

is, payments to B.C. Buildings Corporation. Will the minister explain

why the budget estimates, insofar as payments to BCBC are concerned,

which corporation provides government accommodation, are not reduced,

but are increased by a staggering $18 million?

HON. MR. CURTIS: The adjective is relative in terms of

staggering on the total budget for the British Columbia Buildings

Corporation. As I recall the thrust of the budget document and the

statement, it is not a question of necessarily the reduction of B.C.

Buildings Corporation's budget, for which another minister is

responsible, but rather the ultimate saving in rental charges to

individual ministries and offices in government.

[ Page 1022 ]

MR. HOWARD: If that is the case, then I ask the minister

again. Perhaps he didn't listen to what I said. In the budget document

he said it is "expected to reduce accommodation costs in 1983-84,"

when in fact the estimates for payment to B.C. Buildings Corporation by

the government for accommodation is increased by $18 million. I'll

withdraw the "staggering" part, if that's offensive to the minister.

Can he explain to the House why, on the one hand, he said he expects it

to be reduced, and yet he presents information to the House which shows

that it has been increased?

HON. MR. CURTIS: Insofar as I'm concerned, there is no contradiction.

MR. HOWARD: I can understand that. If I were to explain fully my understanding of it, I'm sure the minister would feel offended.

In view of the minister's complete, absolute and abject failure to

control public spending since he took office, would the minister be

prepared to admit that he and his colleagues are the worst fiscal

managers in this province's history?

MR. SPEAKER: Clearly, hon. members, the question is grossly out of order.

MINISTRY OF FINANCE

FIRST QUARTERLY REPORT

MR. STUPICH: Mr. Speaker, the minister is touchy about words

today. But we'll see. If any of the words are offensive, I'll withdraw

those and leave the rest of the question.

I'd like to ask a question of the Minister of Finance. Has he

decided to make a statement in this House concerning the number of

glaring and significant omissions in the first quarterly financial

report released last Thursday?

HON. MR. CURTIS: Mr. Speaker, I would be assisted by the

member — who, unlike the other member, rarely has to resort to

offensive language in order to put his question across — if he would

refer at this point, or at some other point, to what he considers to be

glaring omissions, and I would attempt to deal with them.

MR. STUPICH: Mr. Speaker, the minister must have seen my notes.

Will the minister explain why he has failed or neglected to include

budget estimates for the first quarter of 1983-84 in the first

quarterly statement, a practice which conceals or withholds information

routinely reported on previous occasions?

HON. MR. CURTIS: No, I didn't see the member's notes, but I'm looking forward to the next question.

With respect to the omission to which he has referred, in view of

the fact that the budget was presented well into the first quarter of

this fiscal year, the usual inclusion of first quarter budgetary

figures would have been inappropriate. I explained that quite

thoroughly not in the House, Mr. Speaker, but at the time of presenting

it to the representatives of the press gallery.

MR. STUPICH: Mr. Speaker, to remind the minister, the budget was actually presented in the second quarter, not well into the first quarter.

I'm wondering why it would be inappropriate. Certainly it would be

possible, I should think. The budget must have been prepared well ahead

of July 7 and the information must have been available, so why would it

be inappropriate, given the certainty that the information was actually

available at the time the first quarterly report was printed?

HON. MR. CURTIS: No, Mr. Speaker. I think I've indicated in

this House, and certainly outside, that a number of revenue decisions

which would have impacted on the budget were not made until relatively

close to the presentation of the budget on July 7. I concede the point,

incidentally, with respect to the presentation of the budget in the

second quarter. But again, to the hon. member for Nanaimo, there were

several decisions which were not taken until relatively close to the

actual presentation of the budget. I did indicate earlier — and it was

the case — that a number of expenditure decisions had been taken

earlier on; but then, as the member and most members of the House would

know, the revenue measures which complete the budgetary process for any

fiscal year are about the last to be put in place.

MR. STUPICH: I think perhaps we will pursue this when we get to estimates — if we get to estimates.

Let's try another example. Will the minister explain why he has

neglected to include in this quarterly report a statement of special

purpose funds and accounts for the three months ending June 1983?

HON. MR. CURTIS: I believe I dealt with that when I made the presentation of the first quarterly report just last week.

MR. STUPICH: That's another item that perhaps was done while

I was representing the province of British Columbia in Manitoba. I was

the only one from the province of British Columbia at an otherwise

well-attended conference.

ABSENCE OF LOTTERY FUNDS

STATEMENT IN FIRST QUARTERLY REPORT

MR. STUPICH: May I ask a question of the Provincial Secretary

along the same lines. Among the items omitted from the special purpose

funds and accounts is a statement of the lottery funds. In view of the

widespread use of lottery funds by the Social Credit government as a

political slush fund — maybe I'd better leave out "slush" — for

political purposes during the election period, can the minister explain

his role in concealing this information?

MR. SPEAKER: The question, hon. member, is out of order. The

question must be a question, not an expression of opinion,

representation, argumentation or debate. The question fails on several

points.

MR. STUPICH: Will the Provincial Secretary explain why a

statement of the lottery funds was not included in the first quarterly

report, as is normally the case?

MR. SPEAKER: The question is in order.

[ Page

1023 ]

HON. MR. CHABOT: I'll take that question as notice and bring the

answer back to the member at the very earliest opportunity.

MR. STUPICH: My question is not supplementary because the

Provincial Secretary has taken it on notice. Since it was omitted, will

the minister give us an undertaking to make this information available

in a special report at some early date?

HON. MR. CHABOT: Yes, I'm prepared to take that into consideration.

TERMINATION OF

COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT PROGRAM

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: In the last few days I took as notice a

question regarding the community involvement program. The hon. first

member for Vancouver Centre (Mr. Barnes) raised the question as to

whether or not agreements between our Ministry of Human Resources and

those receiving the $50 for volunteer effort would be honoured. The

answer to the question is yes, they will be. I have instructed the

regional managers throughout the province to review any existing

agreements. Any agreements we have with any of our recipients will be

honoured, as will any that go beyond the stated policy of ending the

total program on August 31. They will be continued if they have an

agreement beyond that time. Thank you for the question.

COMPENSATION FOR EXPROPRIATION

MR. LAUK: I have a question to the same minister, who is in

charge of the advance light rapid transit system. Last Friday the

cabinet issued an order-in-council under the extraordinary powers of

expropriation which accompany the construction program. What provisions

has the minister made for the elderly and disabled tenants affected

under this order? Presently there is no compensation package to assist

them in their move or to find new accommodation. Many of the elderly

people with whom I've talked have lived in this neighbourhood for

generations.

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: The member would know that those properties that

are being expropriated through the B.C. Transit expropriation facilities....

That expropriation is probably the most favourable to the owner of any expropriation

proceedings ever put before anyone in this province. There are 17 parcels, which

are a small portion of the 235 properties affected in acquiring the land to

build the light rapid transit from Vancouver to New Westminster. Of those 17

parcels which we are trying to acquire, there are not too many that are multi-tenant,

as was indicated. I think there are five in total. Of those five it would be

up to our negotiators, as they have been so instructed, to work with the owners.

It would be the owners who would make compensation to their tenants, but that

arrangement and that negotiation is being brought to the attention of the owners

so it can be part of the compensation package which they will settle upon. In

other words, they will build in the moving of tenants or the disruption to tenants.

I have instructed our negotiators to use the fairest and the best negotiation

they possibly can in order to ease any of the problems that will arise from

an expropriation process.

MR. LAUK: I wonder if some information about the nature of

these negotiations could be provided to my office so that we can be of

some assistance. It is in our interest....

Interjections.

MR. LAUK: As the minister well knows, there are tenants that

are in a situation.... To leave it only in the hands of the landlord could

be interpreted as rather callous, unless the minister's indication is

that there will be built in, as part of the negotiation package, some

provision whereby these tenants can be dealt with. Could we have those

details?

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: I want to assure the member that all of

the best interests of those involved — because we are all serving the

same people — will be taken into consideration in the fairest

negotiations possible.

[2:30]

I want you to know that there are seven residential properties; I

may have given five as the number. They have a total of 13 tenants. Ten

are commercial properties; there are 13 tenants in total. Please let me

assure the hon. member that the very best interests of all of those

members will be taken into account, but I also want to tell him that

neither I nor he can be a part of that negotiation. I think we have to

trust those people whom we have ask to negotiate. They have my concerns

expressed that they be fair, and I don't want to interfere with the

negotiations.

There is a

schedule of appeal, and it is very well documented. I

know the member is familiar with the legislation, so I won't document

it here. It is a very fair expropriation procedure, giving interest,

giving appeal and giving that person who is involved in the

expropriation the fairest possible opportunity. May I just tell the

hon. member that I will convey his concerns to those who will be doing

the business of those negotiations.

Hon. Mr. Schroeder tabled answers to questions on the order paper.

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. members, prior to the opening of the

proceedings the member for Alberni advised the Chair that he would be

seeking the floor under standing order 35.

MR. SKELLY: Mr. Speaker, I rise under the provisions of

standing order 35 to seek leave to move adjournment of the House for

the purpose of discussing a definite matter of urgent public

importance. I have a brief statement and a motion to present to Your

Honour.

This government's hope for a producer-led recovery is the basis of a

harsh attack on everyone who works for a wage or salary in the province

of B.C. The government's policies have caused sharp, real declines in

wages and salary incomes by increasing taxes, restraining wages and

chopping income assistance. It has created unemployment through direct

firings, employment program cuts and a failure to stimulate consumer

demand in B.C. communities.

It now appears that the so-called producer-led recovery on which the

government had pinned its hopes is another illusion. Responsible

representatives of the forest industry in this province have expressed

alarm about the recent downturn in their primary markets. The

government's own B.C. Hydro load forecasts show an alarming picture of

the future of our resource industries, including forestry. The 11-year outlook

[ Page

1024 ]

is for no LNG plant, no new coal-mines, and declining growth in the forest industry.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. Hon. member, the Chair has more than patiently, I believe, waited for the matter to be discussed and....

MR. SKELLY: There are only two further lines, Mr. Speaker, to assist you in weighing the urgent nature of this proposal.

The Conference Board of Canada has now revised its forecast, as of

yesterday; it now says the B.C. lumber industry will slump the rest of

the year and decline next year. These developments are a serious blow

to the entire basis of the government's economic approach, and in view

of the seriousness of this matter, I have a motion to submit for the

consideration of the Chair.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. Hon. member.... Does the Minister of Forests seek the floor?

HON. MR. WATERLAND: Mr. Speaker, the member is canvassing

material that has been canvassed for these number of days in the budget

debate, and can be canvassed in days to come. He's completely out of

order making that type of speech under standing order 35.

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. members, the motion would not be read in

any case; it would be submitted. But I must advise that standing order

35 is very straightforward in its provisions, and also does not allow

for debate prior to raising the matter, which must be of urgent and

pressing nature.

Hon. members, without prejudice to the member, I will reserve

decision on this matter and bring a result of those decisions back to

the House at the earliest opportunity.

MR. NICOLSON: I ask leave to make an introduction, Mr. Speaker.

Leave granted.

MR. NICOLSON: Mr. Speaker, my long-distance vision not being

what it once was, I have sighted in the galleries a very good friend

from Nelson, Mr. Bill Lightfoot, and I would ask the House to make him

welcome.

Orders of the Day

ON THE BUDGET

(continued debate)

MR. REE: Mr. Speaker, I welcome you back to the chair. I trust you are feeling better than you were the last few days.

The government has been accused of not letting the public know

during the election campaign of its program, what its budget would be,

what its restraint program would be. This is a false impression that is

being created by the opposition. As far back as a year ago February

this government with courage initiated the compensation stabilization

plan. It was a first step towards government restraint, with respect to

trying to get the budget and finances of this province in line to where

the taxpayers of this province can afford it. Since that step the

program has been modified and improved.

We were accused of not providing financial information prior to the

election. But this government had issued its budget of last year. It

had issued first, second and third quarterly financial statements,

which all reflected what the net position would be at the end of the

fiscal year. The financial information was there. In other words, Mr.

Speaker, before the election this government did provide the populace

and the opposition, and everyone, with adequate and sufficient

information to know the financial position of the government.

During the election campaign we advocated a continuing policy

towards further restraint. We intended to go into the program that we

have brought forward in this session. We advised the voters that there

would be a restraint program. We advised them that hard decisions would

have to be made. We advised them that programs would have to be cut,

and that certain benefits that they were then receiving would have to

be withdrawn because there were not the funds within the province,

because of lack of employment, to maintain these benefits without

further debt.

Mr. Speaker, during that campaign we let the populace know that we

were going to be making hard decisions. We have been making hard

decisions, and I'm confident we're going to continue to make further

hard decisions, because we still have to get a further handle on the

finances of the government. The government has grown over a number of

years to a size the people cannot afford. It's part of the reason that

I originally ran for elected office four or five years ago. Prior to

that time I was practising law, and I had occasion at one time to

submit a prospectus to the Securities Commission for them to vet. One

of the observations of deficiencies I received from the chartered

accountant hired by the commission was that a certain comma should be a

semicolon. This is what government had gotten into. It had gotten to a

position where we were interfering with business; they were being the

guardians and holding the hands of people. Well, people know better for

themselves. They don't need government to look after them to that

extent. That is why we are into this restraint program now. That is why

there are public servants being laid off, because we don't need public

servants to tell people where they need a comma or semicolon in a

document.

This is maybe an exceptional incident, but it is very common

throughout the whole of government. We've promised to reduce the public

service by 25 percent. I'm led to believe there are some 40,000 public

servants in the aggregate. That would mean about 10,000 public

servants. Through attrition and through cancellation of various

programs and through the privatization of certain programs, there will

be about 10,000 fewer public servants, we hope, within the next year

than at the beginning of this year.

Mr. Speaker, in the private sector the cost of an employee is

roughly calculated as twice the employee's salary. If an employee is

earning $20,000 a year, the cost to the employer is roughly $40,000

when benefits, accommodation, supplies and other factors are taken into

consideration. If we took 10,000 employees with an average of $20,000

per year income.... Many of the public employees being laid off

were earning considerably in excess, and some were earning less. But if

we use an average figure of $20,000, that is a saving to the public of

$400 million. That is also a saving to the public equal to roughly 3 to

4 percent on a sales tax. If we did not remove those people from those

positions, if we did not cut the public sector back, we would be

looking at an

[ Page 1025 ]

additional 3 to 4 percent increase in sales tax. Each percent would

not generate the same as it would now, because the higher the tax the

less revenue is received per point. The public could not afford a 10 or 11 percent sales tax.

Then there are the other programs that we have cancelled or are

downsizing. If you add those additional moneys — we've got $400 million

on lost employees, in addition to the cancellation of programs — you

can visualize an additional $600 million. We're getting into another 6

percent sales tax. With those few figures I think it's easy to

understand the necessity for the cutback or downsizing of government.

We have been bombarded by the opposition and the media saying that

our program is not receiving acceptance by the public. A silent

minority out there does support this program.

AN HON. MEMBER: Majority.

MR. REE: Thank you, Mr. Member. A silent majority does

support this program, and if you look for it you can find this support.

It is there. The North Shore News recently did a survey as to support

for the government's restraint program, and of the 323 people surveyed,

between 59 and 60 percent were in favour of restraint, with 39 to 40

percent against. That's the answer from three out of each four people

asked. Interestingly, that is about the same percentage by which I won

the election in my constituency — about 60 percent of the voters. In

other words, we still have the support of the majority of the populace.

Those people voted us in to maintain restraint and to downsize

government, and that support is still out there.

Yesterday I received a copy of the British Columbia Chamber of

Commerce policy book for 1983-84 and I'd like to read two extracts from

it. One is their position on finance and taxation:

"The British Columbia Chamber of Commerce urges the

government of British Columbia to continue the process of encouraging

efficiency within ministries. We congratulate the government for

initiating the user-pay philosophy in some programs, and endorse the

extension of this policy. We are vitally concerned about the growth of

government expenditures. Only by reducing or holding the line on

expenditures may we expect a reduction in taxation. We support the

government on the current restraint program. We are concerned that

there be an equitable distribution of the burden of taxation between

the various sectors of our economy. While the burden should not fall

too heavily on individual taxpayers, the policy of taxing business, big

or small, must not be such as to drive entrepreneurs to other

jurisdictions. The B.C. Chamber of Commerce is interested not only in

an equitable distribution of the tax burden, but is also concerned

about the sum total of taxes collected and the efficient use of those

tax dollars. In that regard, we congratulate the government on the

steps it has taken to improve the areas of financial reporting and

administration."

[2:45]

That is the policy of the Chamber of Commerce. They also have a

position statement, with a recommendation on the provincial restraint

program, which I would also like to read:

"All levels of government, as a desirable social

policy, must endeavour to maintain expenditures with the tax revenues

collected from the citizens in order to preserve the integrity of the

economy and to reduce inflation. The provincial government has shown

leadership in announcing a restraint program to limit expenditures in

the provincial public sector. The private sector is already conducting

its own drastic restraint program through economic necessity.

"The British Columbia Chamber of Commerce urges the

continuation of the current restraint program by the provincial

government to limit expenditures in the public sector."

Those are just two isolated instances of support by the silent majority of this province.

Interjection.

MR. REE: Yes, silent majority. The individual members came out with that statement.

The restraint program is working. There is investor confidence in

this province. During the past week I have had the opportunity of

speaking to about four different architects from different

architectural firms. They advised me, Mr. Speaker, that they are

getting more business on their desks now than they had a year ago.

There are more people drawing up plans for building, both industrial

and residential, than they had a year ago. The restraint program is

working. There is incentive for industry within this province, and I

think recovery has started, as a result of the initiatives of this

government.

MS. SANFORD: It's a little confusing now and again, Mr.

Speaker. Yesterday we had the Minister of Consumer and Corporate

Affairs (Hon. Mr. Hewitt) on 17 different points of order requesting

that he be given permission to speak. Then when the opposition

permitted him to speak, saying that we would give unanimous consent to

allow the ministers to speak, he didn't want to speak. The first list

says the Attorney-General (Hon. Mr. Smith) is to speak. Suddenly he's

not here when it's fine for him to speak.

The opposition have been trying day after day in this House to have

the government understand the error of their ways in terms of this

budget and the unpalatable package of bills they introduced on July 7.

That package, which includes this budget, is having a disastrous effect

on the people of this province. The back-benchers keep getting up one

after the other, trying to defend this budget. They say that the

chamber of commerce favours this budget. Yet every headline we see says

that the impact of this budget is indeed damaging, not only to the

people who are being adversely affected by the severe cut in services

but to the economy as well, because of the narrow, right-wing, extreme

approach taken by government since the election on May 5. We all saw

what they were up to as a result of the introduction of that budget

with its 26 accompanying bills.

We've been trying to convince the government that they're on the

wrong track, that they should withdraw not only all of those offensive

bills but this budget as well, and start all over again. We are in a

mess, Mr. Speaker. This government refuses, because of its narrow

approach — its right-wing, extreme approach — to pay notice to anyone

bringing to their attention the problems that this particular budget is

presenting. But there have been members on the government side get up

and defend the budget. Of course, that's what we all expect. Some of

them are sincere in what

[ Page 1026 ]

they are saying, Mr. Speaker, because they honestly believe, from

their right-wing perspective, that the budget introduced and the

direction that the government is headed are the right ones and that

they will, in fact, improve the situation in British Columbia. Some of

them actually believe that they have a solution in this budget, even

though everybody else out there — economists and leaders of various

types, whether they're in the Employers' Council, the trade unions or

wherever — is pointing out the error of their ways and the damaging

effect this has, not only on the people I've mentioned but on the

economy itself.

[Mr. Strachan in the chair.]

Mr. Speaker, some of them, when they get up to defend this budget,

are less comfortable in having to stand here and speak in defence of

this package. For instance, I've notice that the Minister of Human

Resources (Hon. Mrs. McCarthy) seems to be squirming a lot these days

as she has to try to defend what is happening. She gives me the

impression that she doesn't fully accept the budget, the package and

the direction that is being taken. I think the main reason she is not

accepting this package is that she's aware — she's probably more aware

than most of the people on the government side — of the political

backlash to this kind of budget and the political backlash that has

built up in opposition to the entire passage, including all those

bills. She recognizes that with the elimination of services such as the

child-abuse team and the closure of group homes, which were designed to

assist those sexually abused children to cope either in their homes or

in a foster-home situation.... They are very good programs. She is

beginning to recognize that the political backlash from eliminating

programs of that type is something that worries her. She's beginning to

recognize that it's not a good thing from a political viewpoint. She

recognizes that even such a minimum amount as $50 a month going to the

handicapped people, who are volunteering their services and in return

are given $50 a month, has been a valuable program in that it assists

those people to live with a little more dignity because they then have

a few more bucks in their pocket each month. It also raises the

self-esteem of those people because they feel they're making a valuable

contribution to society. That $50 a month has now been eliminated. It's

not just those people who are disabled who are lashing back politically

at that kind of move; it is everyone in the province who says that a

move such as that is a heartless move which cannot be supported in any

way, shape or form. Politically it's bad news when that kind of

backlash develops against the kinds of programs that this government

has decided to cut.

Most people recognize that severely mentally retarded people need a

lot of special care. When you eliminate funding for the program which

trains the volunteers who assist those mentally retarded people, then

people generally recognize that the move is a bad one, and they react

adversely politically. That's what worries the Minister of Human

Resources. She knows the value and the need for that post partum

counselling service; she recognizes that serious problems will develop

as a result of the elimination of that service. Time and time again

we've been told that one of the problems that develop with post-partum

depression is an increase in child abuse and even in suicide. It's a

valuable program which provides an excellent service in the province.

It's a much needed service. There is a political backlash from the

elimination of that program, and that's what worries the Minister of

Human Resources. That's why she's uneasy when trying to defend this

budget. That's why she squirms when she has to get up and try to answer

the questions posed to her about these various program cuts. She knows

that the transition houses have provided a great service for those

people who have been battered and have needed a place to go for some

security, comfort and assistance. She knows they provided a great

service.

AN HON. MEMBER: We're listening to you.

MS. SANFORD: I wish you would listen. Withdraw that budget. Withdraw those bills.

MR. MOWAT: Talk to your members....

MS. SANFORD: They've all been saying the same thing. It's you

people who aren't listening. Even though every one of my colleagues has

spoken time and time again.... In fact, they've been complaining

because we've been speaking too much in the House against this kind of

thing. The member is complaining that they are not listening to every

word. It's that government that's not listening. If those back-benchers

listened and spoke to that government, maybe we'd get some action and

get some sense of proportion back into this province in terms of the

political moves being made.

It's interesting to hear the back-benchers get up and brag about the

fact that there's been a 13 percent increase in the budget of the

Ministry of Human Resources.

AN HON. MEMBER: We're not bragging. It's a fact.

MS. SANFORD: They are very proud of the fact that there is this 13 percent increase.

Interjection.

MS. SANFORD: Oh, it's 13.9 percent. I have heard one after

the other saying that the fact that they've increased that budget by

that amount is very good.

I have just listed all the services that they have eliminated. If I

were a backbencher, I would not be getting up and bragging about a 13.9

percent increase in the Human Resources budget, because what it means

is that they have failed totally economically, and people have to go to

welfare for assistance because there's nothing else for them under this

government and the approach it's taking. Lay off more people; let them

go on UIC for a bit, and then on to welfare. That's why we need a 13.9

percent increase. Yet we have members of the back bench going on TV —

we even had a cabinet minister yesterday bragging about that 13.9

percent increase in the Ministry of Human Resources budget. That's the

last thing they should be bragging about because it illustrates the

total failure of this government.

[3:00]

We've heard many times — and we're getting it from various sources —

that the budget is a lie and that the figures and the material

presented to us by the government are in error. The credit union is a

fairly respected organization in the province; the credit union

economists from the B.C. Central Credit Union have told us that this

budget is grossly overestimated in terms of expenditure and grossly

underestimated in

[ Page 1027 ]

terms of expected revenues. So the figures that we are debating here

are in error. That's not what we can anticipate in this province. We

cannot anticipate the kind of deficit that the Minister of Finance is

predicting for next year because the figures on which the whole budget

is predicated are in error. The only back-bencher who has even dealt

with this is the MLA for North Vancouver–Seymour (Mr. Davis), who did

allow that there were probably some — I don't know if he said "errors"

— inaccuracies in terms of what the government was predicting as far as

revenues and expenditures are concerned. We know that the deficit at

the end of the fiscal year is not as great as the Minister of Finance

is telling us in his budget as of July 7, which as pointed by the MLA

for North Vancouver–Seymour is probably somewhat in error. So the

government is going to be able to say — in fact some of them are saying

it already — "Look! Our restraint program has worked. The deficit is

not as great. The measures that we have taken were really good for the

people of British Columbia after all. Look what good boys we are, We

have done a great job by bringing in this right-wing legislation and

extreme approach and by denying people who need assistance most the

basic assistance through the various programs that are being

eliminated...." I mentioned only a very few of those being

eliminated through centralization of authority and through elimination

of services such as the rentalsman and human rights, because they don't

want them. It's not part of their philosophy. It's not part of their

approach in terms of their own extreme right-wing viewpoint. They don't

want these things; they want centralization. In the name of restraint

they have brought in all these draconian measures which are so harmful

to people and to the economy.

We've spoken by the hour about this, and yet the government has

refused to move. It doesn't matter whom you talk to, who talks to them;

they still, as a government, are determined to stay on the course on

which they are embarked. The Premier ignores most of the advice that is

coming to him. He tells us he's going to continue on this course; he's

not going to be affected by any of the people who are raising their

concerns with him. What is he saying? The Employers' Council of British

Columbia has spoken out and said that they think he's on the wrong

course, that he's moved too quickly, and that the moves he is taking

are damaging the economy. The people who are involved with the trade

union movement, whether it's the B.C. Federation of Labour itself, or

the various trade unions speaking out, are saying that the approach is

wrong and that it is going to damage the economy. The economists — and

there are a number of them — are saying that he is on the wrong course,

that the approach that he's taking at this point is going to do more

damage than good. Even though you have the World Council of Churches

expressing concern about the dishonest approach of this government, the

Premier says: "We're going to continue. We're going to go on on the

course that we have set." Even though headline after headline says:

"Budget Hampers Economy," "Pay Curbs and Recession are Linked," "Rosy

Outlook Fades for B.C.," "Restraint is Part of the Problem Not the

Solution" — even though all of those things are coming in at this

stage, the Premier has said we are going to continue on the course that

we have established.

MRS. JOHNSTON: You're ignoring the positive headlines.

MS. SANFORD: Positive headlines like "Upturn Dying, Waterland Won't Concede"?

MRS, JOHNSTON: Positive headlines.

MS. SANFORD: I just picked one out. That's the next one I came to.

Mr. Speaker, it doesn't seem to matter. They are embarked on a

course based on a philosophic approach which is narrow, extreme and

very right-wing.

There was an

article recently in Monday Magazine , written by an

economist named Martin Levin, titled "Bill Bennett's Holy War." He says

this:

"First, let us clear away the smokescreen. What is

being done by the Socreds today has little to do with restraint and

even less with recovery..."

Are the Premier, the back bench or the government going to listen?

MRS. JOHNSTON: Do you believe that?

MS. SANFORD: Of course, it's very clear to anybody who looks

at the budget or the legislation for even two minutes that that's what

you’re about.

"...although these are convenient catchwords given the depressed state of the economy."

That's what Martin Levin is saying. It has nothing to do with

recovery or restraint. In fact, he says it has less to do with recovery

than with restraint.

"In keeping with Socred alliteration, what is being

done today in the name of restraint and recovery can better be

characterized as revenge: revenge for the alleged indignities suffered

by businessmen at the hands of bureaucrats, revenge against big

government and big unions. Revenge essentially against the twentieth

century."

How true. These people don't belong in this century, They're trying

to apply a philosophy and a policy that was thrown out the window a

century or more ago. You're trying to bring back an old idea that is

worn out and that doesn't work, and that does nothing other than harm

people and the economy. So many people are saying it. but they refuse

to listen. He says:

"To move us back to the nineteenth century when we

are nearing the end of the twentieth, the Social Credit government has

centralized power to an unprecedented degree in the hands of the

cabinet."

All in the name of restraint, It's dangerous. Martin Levin then goes on and says:

"It has profoundly eroded local government. It has

removed basic bargaining rights from the public sector unions. It has

radically undermined basic human rights protections.

"The actions by the government have the vindictive

cast that they do because the ideology they represent has been on the

losing side for most of this century."

And yet they insist on proceeding with this particular approach.

"The Socreds now are determined to wage holy war

against the twentieth-century interventionist government, against

modern restrictions on property rights, and ultimately against all the

opponents of free-market, free-wheeling business. The 'all-new

[ Page 1028 ]

political animal' the pundits have discovered is really a

century old, and even in the last century it was having its problems. For it

was the failings of rugged individualism and the market mechanism that gave

rise in the twentieth century to the managed economy, labour unions and the

welfare state."

Those have developed, of course, under the capitalist system.

"It is instructive that John Stuart Mill, the most

famous liberal of his age, began as a laissez-faire liberal at the

beginning of the nineteenth century and ended as a kind of Social

Democrat by the time of his death in 1873.

"Perhaps we should go farther back and return to the

eighteenth century, to Adam Smith with his profound faith in the

marketplace, his active dislike of government and the primacy of

property rights, to truly understand this government. It is poor old

Smith who is being brought back from the dead in Victoria these days

and whose heart stimulates resonant beatings in the bosoms of our

Social Credit leadership. The ideological furnishings of the new

government are simply refurbished eighteenth century modern."

That is where they are: back at least a century, trying to convince

the people of the province that through centralization, through their

love of power here in Victoria, they are somehow going to bring us out

of a recession.

The Premier has responded to people like StatsCan, who say the

direction this government is taking is damaging the economy. The

Premier says: "StatsCan has an eastern bias, because here in B.C. we

are not relying on a consumer-stimulated recovery; we are relying on a

resource-stimulated recovery."

Interjection.

MS. SANFORD: That is what the Premier said.

So it doesn't really matter if you raise taxes and add these extra

burdens on the people of the province, because it is not consumer

spending that is going to bring us out of the recession anyway. That is

what the Premier is saying. It is not consumer spending that is going

to bring us out of the recession; it is the international markets and

the resource recovery. It therefore doesn't matter if we take an extra

$200 million out of the taxpayers' pockets, it doesn't matter if they

don't have that money to spend in the marketplace, because it's not

going to affect recovery anyway. It is the resource recovery that we

are looking for.

But then today the Conference Board of Canada said that in all

likelihood this resource recovery is not going to happen this year. The

Minister of Forests (Hon. Mr. Waterland) is gallantly trying to

say.... He won't concede that the Conference Board of Canada is

correct. He used the Conference Board of Canada's predictions a few

months ago, but he now says they are wrong.

Mr. Speaker, I draw your attention to the fact that there is no quorum in this Legislature.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Thank you, hon. member. The Chair will ring

the division bells, as is custom, and help to draw members who are in

the precincts. Time will be stopped and the member may take her place

until the quorum is established.

Please proceed hon. member.

MS. SANFORD: I see the Minister of Consumer and Corporate

Affairs (Hon. Mr. Hewitt) has arrived; maybe he would like to speak

now. Has he changed his mind? We are still ready to give permission,

Mr. Speaker, if he wants to speak in this debate.

[3:15]

The Premier has brushed off, dismissed, ignored all of the comments

made by economists, church leaders, the Employers' Council, trade

unionists, and those people involved in human rights. He has dismissed

all of the warnings. He has dismissed the StatsCan warnings. The

Conference Board of Canada has been dismissed, at least by the back

bench today, and the Minister of Forests too apparently has dismissed

it.

George Pedersson, a Vancouver economist, states that because the

government has taken this kind of action at this time, unemployment

will go up and inflation will be higher. That is what we can expect as

a result of the actions they are embarked upon. "Consumer spending will

be weaker, and the probability of labour strife has been increased

through the actions of this government." There is no doubt about that;

we all know about the kind of attitude they have adopted with respect

to bringing in a bill such as Bill 3, which allows them to fire without

cause.

The other thing that the Premier has done is to brush off the more

than 20,000 people who stood out here on the lawn, telling this

government they are on the wrong course, pleading with them in a very

quiet, reserved way to withdraw this budget, withdraw that legislation

and start all over again. The Premier just says, "Oh, I have more than

20,000 at my tea party." He can dismiss it, wave his hand, and it is no

concern of his whatsoever.

The Employers' Council doesn't seem to matter either; he has brushed

them off. He has brushed off Anglican Archbishop Douglas Hambridge, who

has said that we should have consultation. He said: "We should stop at

this point, took at the direction that we should take, work together

and not embark upon this program of confrontation that this particular

government has taken. John O'Neill, president of the B.C. conference of

the United Church.... Those are individual appeals made by church

leaders in this province saying: "You're wrong, you're wrong, you're

wrong." Bishop de Roo has been dismissed as a pinko. We all know that

the Provincial Secretary (Hon. Mr. Chabot) has dismissed him with a

wave of his hand.

What does it take? Why is it that those people in the back bench...?

The member for North Vancouver–Seymour (Mr. Davis) did allow that

this budget is inaccurate, that the figures that we are being presented

with are really not what they will be at the end of the fiscal year and

that the government probably should not have added taxes it has added

at this time — that 2 percent sales tax.

Interjection.

MS. SANFORD: He did.

None of them have dealt with what the B.C. Credit Union is saying.

Why is it that their economists are so wrong? Why is it that you can't

analyze what the credit union economists are saying about that budget,

and why is it that you can't say in this House why the credit union

economists are wrong?

MRS. JOHNSTON: He was an NDP candidate.

[ Page 1029 ]

MS. SANFORD: Oh, the credit union economist. Well, what about

the archbishop from the Anglican Church? What about the leader of the

conference of the United Church of Canada? What about the economist I

have quoted from today? What about the Employers' Council? What about

the trade union movement? What about all these people? They're simply

being ignored and dismissed by those people.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: What about the taxpayers?

MS. SANFORD: I'm glad they've raised that, Mr. Speaker. When

we asked this government how much money they were going to save by

these measures that they have adopted, the Minister of Finance (Hon.

Mr. Curtis) couldn't tell us. Do the back-benchers have figures about

how much money is going to be saved by this? Because I am telling you,

Mr. Speaker, it's going to cost the taxpayers far more money with the

kind of approach that they have taken through this budget and those

bills. We know that. It's going to cost more, but they have used this

catchword of "restraint" to implement a philosophy. I feel sorry for

those taxpayers, because it's going to cost them more. It hurts the

economy, it hurts people and it's going to cost the taxpayers more.

Interjections.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, please. One at a time. All members will come to order.

MS. SANFORD: As outrageous as the actions are that this

government has taken since the introduction of this budget and those

accompanying bills, the most outrageous is its decision to take

taxpayers' money to advertise their program and to try to sell that

rotten program through the airwaves and newspapers of this province.

It's most outrageous to take $50 away from those people who are willing

to volunteer their time and effort — the disabled and handicapped in

this province — take that $50 a month away and use that money to

advertise a program that they can't sell to anybody else in this

program. It's in the name of restraint. They're talking....

HON. A. FRASER: You're wasting taxpayers' money now with your

yack-yack.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I'd advise the hon. Minister of

Transportation and Highways not to make personal references to another

hon. member. That's most unparliamentary. And will the other members of

the House please come to order.

MS. SANFORD: We also know that they don't believe in

democracy. They would just as soon that we weren't here speaking at

all. They would just as soon that we just simply went away and accepted

all of this, even though we are elected to stand here and fight the

kinds of measures that we think are so harmful to the people, the

economy and the taxpayers of this province.

Interjections.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, please.

MS. SANFORD: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. They are unruly, aren't they'?

The B.C. Central Credit Union suggests that the overestimation of

expenditures by this government is between $170 million and $250

million. They also note that the anticipated revenues in this budget

year are understated by some $300 million to $400 million. The budget

is inaccurate. It's misleading. Why is it that those people are not

able to come to grips with those figures? Why is it they cannot at

least argue in this House that these figures are wrong? Why is it they

stand up one after the other and support this budget in the face of all

the opposition that's coming, and in the face of all the headlines that

say they're on the wrong track? Why is it they're so stubborn, that

they have such tunnel vision, that they are so right-wing and extreme

in their approach that they are determined to centralize that power, to

grab that power, using restraint as the excuse? It's not restraint.

It's not recovery. I have cited here today a number of economists who

say that that's the case. Statistics Canada says you're on the wrong

track. The Conference Board of Canada says you're on the wrong track.

And yet you people are determined to proceed.

Mr. Speaker, they keep trying to say that this program is going to

save the taxpayers money. Now they have to go out and sell this, using

taxpayers' money. They have to sell this concept to the people of B.C.

I don't think the people of B.C. are going to buy it at this stage. I

would like to again remind those back-benchers, who are always so

unruly, that we in the NDP warned the government three years ago about

their profligate spending, about the way in which they were wasting

taxpayers' money. We warned them time after time. We moved motion after

motion saying: "Cut down your expenses in the purchase of office

furniture, in ministerial travel. Cut down your purchase of these fancy

rugs and big armchairs. Cut down on advertising. Cut down on all these

things and save the taxpayers some money." You know what that

government did? They turned down every motion that we made to save the

taxpayers' money of this province. We told them that it was time to get

involved in restraint. We warned them years ago. Did they accept it?

This is all based on a philosophy that is unacceptable.

I say get off the backs of the poor in this province, withdraw this

budget, withdraw those bills, have some concern about recovery, have

some concern about the economy of this province. We're in a mess.

Withdraw it all and start all over again.

HON. MR. SMITH: I've listened to the member for Comox, with

whom I from time to time jointly represent a little island in that

constituency — and I try myself to make contributions to the recovery

of that island by spending a good deal of time...

MS. SANFORD: ...tearing down the lodge.

HON. MR. SMITH: And also by talking to economists and others

who are vacationing on that lovely island. I must say that I don't hear

the same kind of pessimistic, gloomy things that that member brought

before this House. I hear far more positive things than the member

does. But the member has every reason to be gloomy, of course, because

for four years she's going to have to sit on the other side of the

House and be in the critic's role. It's easier to be in the critic's

role

[ Page 1030 ]

than to try to do something about the problems that confront us — but it's much gloomier.

[Mr. Pelton in the chair.]

I don't know why the member couldn't have been a little more kind

and charitable about this budget, because it's one of the most

important documents in the history of this province. It's a budget for

restraint. It's a framework for economic reality. It's the harbinger of

government reductions and privatization, and through all these things a

blueprint for recovery.

[3:30]

Another thing we've heard is that there was no mandate. This budget

is the manifesto of the mandate to reduce the cost and the size of

government, and to free up the private sector to encourage it to

flourish — freer than it has been from the shackles of government

regulation, bereft of expanding technocratic tentacles and saved from

new and larger tax burdens. All of those things are put forth in this

budget, and the member knows that.

MS. BROWN: Who wrote that?

HON. MR. SMITH: I did. "Technocratic tentacles," Rosemary.

The Finance minister has preserved our essential social services in

this budget. He's accepted a limited, transient deficit and delivered

strong portents for the future. He's made it very clear that prosperity

has to be earned, that prosperity isn't just going to come, to happen,

to occur by hand wringing every time a government program is reduced.

Every time a program that has been found wanting is eliminated they

wring their hands and say: "Oh my goodness! You're reducing this

program. You're denying services to people. You're eliminating this

program that everyone has become hooked on, and you can't do so." Mr.

Speaker, they have opposed the reduction of every single program that

we proposed to eliminate, pare down or streamline.

It's true that during the heydays of the seventies and the early

eighties, when government revenues were strong, when resource taxation

was flowing, when sales abroad were excellent and the international

economic climate was good, government embarked on programs that it

wanted to get involved in. I think we were the first province in this

country to recognize — as we did in 1982 — that that era had ended,

that we had to change and reappraise our priorities. We had to look at

all these programs, evaluate them, and some good programs would be

terminated. We faced that fact and we've done that. On the other side

of the House and from the hustings, all they do is refight the election

and cry crocodile tears about the elimination of every single program —

nothing concrete.

I'm going to speak about a few of the budget revenue measures with

which I'm reluctantly in agreement. I must say I find the tobacco tax a

very hard penalty for some of us in this House to bear. The member for

Mackenzie (Mr. Lockstead) and I have a particular thing about that. But

I don't mind paying more taxation for that purpose, nor do I mind

paying more taxes in the field of liquor. The increase in sales tax

from 6 to 7 percent is a general way of spreading tax burdens and is a

way that is not unduly hurtful or unfair on all levels of the economy,

including those levels of the economy where there is capital

development taking place, because much of the revenue from that tax

comes from major capital and equipment acquisitions. I think it's a

reasonably fair way to raise revenue.

I would have liked the opposition to propose to us some of the ways

in which they could see government being pared down, instead of always

making allusions to office furniture and things of that kind, as they

did during the last two or three sessions. I would have liked them to

have maybe pointed at one of their pet programs or something that they

put in place, of which they could say: "This one has now had its day.

The sunset has arrived and maybe we could cancel this or maybe we could

do it in a different way." But I have never heard them once — Mr.

Speaker, I don't know if you have in the three years we've been

debating this issue of restraint — propose the elimination of any

service of government or the reduction of any service level of

government.

MS. BROWN: Cancel the advertising. Give the $50 back to the disabled.

HON. MR. SMITH: The best form of advertising for this budget

is the negativism of the opposition in the face of every proposal

that's been made.

In this budget the Finance minister has had the good common sense to

basically preserve the health care system, the Human Resources system

and the justice system. This has been done in the face of very serious

economic restraints, but it has been done by making very good use of

holding the line on wages and by doing so without major reductions in

services. I know that in my ministry it is difficult to reduce levels

of expenditure where most of the activities are activities in which

there is growth and not reduction. To do so requires a great deal of

effort, care and reorganization.

Another thing that this budget recognizes and, indeed, lays out as a

very sensible blueprint is privatization. There is absolutely no

earthly reason why a number of functions that have been traditionally

provided inside government cannot be provided just as well — in fact,

even better — in the private sector and will flourish under

competition. I notice that the Finance minister has itemized a number

of those. I have not really heard in this House a very impressive

critique of the proposed privatizations. I see no reason why the lodge

and ski facilities cannot be operated by a private operator. I see no

reason why the Pacific Coach Lines routes cannot be taken up by private

carriers, very effectively. Greyhound and other private carriers can

carry out the major routes of Pacific Coach Lines in a very effective

way, just as they can with the service from downtown Victoria to

downtown Vancouver.

MR. REID: And save $7 million.

[Mr. Strachan in the chair.]

HON. MR. SMITH: A number of those programs that are meant for

privatization will be run in a considerably more inspired way under

competition than they are at the present time. They will also be run in

a competitive way on the basis of wages, because so many of these

activities have been constrained by very large public sector wage

increases. That has been another feature of our restraint program and

of the budget. The compensation stabilization program, which is going

to mean that in the public sector of this province the wage levels,

which are going to be held to increases of plus 5 and minus 5 percent,

depending on productivity, are not

[ Page 1031 ]

going to be the pacesetters any more, the north star and beacon for

the private sector, but instead are going to be models of restraint.

The private sector will find that it is leading, not following, the

public sector, which is the opposite, of course, of what happened

through most of the seventies.

That is the purpose of Bill 2 and Bill 3, and the purpose for the

changes in the compensation stabilization program. By highlighting

those purposes, the budget makes very clear the directions and

incentives to the private sector. It says that you can go out and

invest money and capital, and take risks and major strides to create

new employment, without looking at the government and saying that the

government is making it impossible for you to do business because the

government is setting wage levels too high; that government is

negotiating collective agreements that are irresponsible and that give

up management rights; that government at every level, whether it is a

Crown corporation or the province or a municipality or a school board,

has abdicated its management responsibilities and is setting an example

which has made it impossible for you in the private sector to compete

with the wages, and impossible for you to attract equivalent labour,

because the government has been the pacesetter.

That is not going to be the case any more in this province. The

government is now going to manage its labour relations, assume its

responsibilities, and negotiate collective agreements that reflect the

economic realities of the day and also preserve those few but important

rights which management requires in order to discharge its

responsibilities. Many of those rights were given up originally during

the period 1972 to 1975, when the most irresponsible public sector wage

settlements anywhere in the dominion of Canada were negotiated in this

province.

I have also been somewhat disappointed by the lack of any

philosophical base from the members opposite or any kind of

articulation of what I would consider to be the classic, clear position

of the NDP. I would have thought they would have achieved some sort of

position on these measures, instead of a general position of being

opposed to every single cut and reduction. At the same time they're

talking out of the other side of their mouth about believing in

restraint and in the economic use of resources, but they're against

every measure to achieve those things. I would have thought that they

would have returned to their honest philosophical base, that they would

have been consistent, that they would have said: "We think, gentlemen,

that you're going in the wrong direction. We think that you shouldn't

be holding the line. We think you should be priming the pump. We think

you should be spending money in tough times to create jobs." We would

have thought they might have been a little more honest with us and told

us that that was their true position.

MS. SANFORD: We spent all day yesterday talking about the diversification of the economy.

HON. MR. SMITH: No, no. What you talk about is the

diversification of the viewpoints on the other side of the House; you

don't talk about the diversification of the economy. You talk about

restoring every social service program that we're proposing to reduce.

You talk about borrowing billions of dollars to put people to work, and

then you talk about economies and restraint. You were found out during

the election campaign when your leader announced that he was going to

dismantle the restraint program. He told everybody what he was going to

do, and you were found out. You were also found out for proposing

policies to stimulate the economy that would have made Franklin Delano

Roosevelt's dog blush. Their policies would have brought back the NRA —

national recovery — and put people to work on municipal work-gangs.

Franklin Roosevelt's dog wouldn't have espoused policies like that.

Those policies were outmoded by 1940, but it's very interesting that

the real reactionaries, those that are mired in the past, are not the

people on this side of the House but are the NDP who are looking into

the rhetoric of Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1933 for some kind of

answers to the problems of the 1980s and the 1990s. They talk about us

as being....

Interjections.

HON. MR. SMITH: I am most amused when they consider that we

are somehow right-wing conservatives on this side of the House, because

the reactionaryism is really on the part of the NDP. There does not

seem to be an espousal of their position. I don't know who speaks for

them. I heard Ian Waddell speaking the other morning about provincial

issues. It is interesting that all the federal members are talking

about provincial issues these days. They're saying that in the Port

Moody by-election the issue is the provincial budget. When the

Conservatives win that by-election, I wonder if they'll say the same

thing: "It was because of provincial issues." Mr. Waddell and Nelson

Riis and others seem to be talking about provincial issues. They of

course are philosophical small-l liberals. The gentlemen opposite are

reactionaries, but there's no espousal of any kind of policy to meet

the economic needs or our alternative of restraint. Their answer to

restraint is to spend more and more money — shovel it out of the truck

and continue to create jobs by putting people to work on borrowed money.

[3:45]

You remember during the campaign, it was the poor beleaguered

Petroleum Corporation that was going to create the jobs and the wealth.

That corporation that tried to collect a little bit of money from the

sale of natural gas was going to borrow the money that was going to put

a few thousand people to work for six months on municipal chain-gangs.

That's how we were going to have our recovery. Boy, was that ever

imaginative. I'll tell you that it really stirred the viscera of the

people of my riding to think that they could get jobs in parks. That

policy even embarrassed Fella Roosevelt. That was their solution, along

with that wonderful mining policy, that blueprint for the future that

was going to set up new Crown corporations and new agencies to do

everything. That would have been their approach if they'd become

government.

My goodness, we'd have had a restraint program. You would have had

so many people coming in here from Regina and places east who had had

pink slips a year ago, all lining up to get work in Crown agencies. The

number of those agencies would have doubled and quadrupled. Can't you

see what we would have had? We would have had lumber exploration,

development agencies, lumber exploration agencies, marketing agencies

for timber, marketing agencies for coal, marketing agencies for

molybdenum. We'd have had marketing agencies for everything. Who would

have been serving on these agencies? The gentlemen from Regina and

other places who would have come out. Boy, would we ever have had

restraint. What I say to them is: "Rethink your policies.

[ Page 1032 ]

Don't listen to those small-l liberal federal MPs of yours who are

out here. Go back to your roots. If you're going to oppose us, oppose

us clearly and philosophically because you think that we should spend

more money, prime the pump, restore all these programs and you're

prepared to pay the price. Be clean with us."

MR. MITCHELL: When I listen to my good friend from Oak Bay, I

can't help but think that if he'd said some of these things when we

both appeared before Bill Ostler, the judge, his credibility would have

been so downgraded that he would never be allowed to appear in any

court. I think if we're going to discuss programs, the credibility of

the government should be straightforward and not a lot of rhetoric of

garbage. They just seem to open their mouths and anything that comes

out becomes the policy of the NDP. I think you, Mr. Speaker, will

realize that there's no such thing as socialist economics or capitalist

economics. The laws of economics are very basic. You can't create

wealth without resources and manpower and a need for a product.

It doesn't matter if it's a government enterprise or a private

enterprise. You must use the same laws of economics. The science of

economics is very basic. It's just like the science of making

gunpowder. If you make gunpowder in Canada, China or Australia, you

have to have the same ingredients. The basic science of making

gunpowder is identical to the science of economics. The reason we are

in the problem we are today is very simple. It's the mismanagement of

the Social Credit government for the last 30 years. The mismanagement

of this government has been so ridiculous. When historians look back

and see a province like British Columbia, one of the richest provinces

with all the resources we have, and when we look at the wealth we have

produced with our Hydro power and look at the horrible record of what

this government has done with it, we realize that we're in this problem

today because of that mismanagement. I think it all starts when we talk

on Hydro. It all started in the two-river policy of the previous Social

Credit government. When they produced the power from the Arrow Dam, or

when they held up the water via the Arrow Dam and the Columbia Dam, and

they produced the excess power on the American side, and when they had

the opportunity to bring that power back to British Columbia, the

previous Social Credit government sold it. They sold it for $600

million, but it cost the people of British Columbia $1.2 billion to

build those dams. This is the mismanagement of this government. And

they call that good government.

But what did the Americans do? Sure, they came into this little

Social Credit government, who had the resources of British Columbia,

and said: "We'll give you $600 million for the downstream benefits of

the power." But what did the Americans do with that power? They built

five aluminium companies with the power that we gave away for $600

million — five aluminium companies that could have been built in

British Columbia with that power that we gave away. Those jobs would

have been British Columbia jobs. The position that we're in

today.... What we were trying to say when we were debating the

amendment yesterday.... The problems that we're facing today are

because we have put all our eggs in one basket. We have not attempted

to diversify and create jobs in British Columbia.

It all started with.... When you look at the record of power.... When

you look down on the leadership — and I think the leadership should come from

the government.... We all agree money is needed when we're setting up new

business. When that money is available, what has been the record of this government?

Let's look at a few simple examples.

MRS. JOHNSTON: On May 5 the people said they liked what we were doing.

MR. MITCHELL: Mr. Speaker, you make sure before I sit down

that I don't forget to go through my notes and get on May 5. A

government should give some kind of leadership, and when there is money

available for investment, let's create new jobs.

Let's look at the record in British Columbia. Let's take one simple

part of the economy, the retail end. Do you remember Fields, the

general store? There was a certain amount of a power grab: when Zellers

decided they had a lot of extra capital, what did they do? They went

out and bought the Fields stores. They escalated the value of those

shares and they bought Fields. Did it create one new job? They had

excess capital, they had profits to reinvest. But did the government

say: "If you have that kind of money, go out and invest it in other

companies that are going to create new jobs"? They bought out the

Fields stores. Zellers bought it out, then Hudson's Bay bought out

Zellers, and then the Thomson chain bought out Hudson's Bay.

That investment hasn't created one new job. All it has done is

create an additional cost every time you buy a pair of shoes. You are

paying indirectly for the cost of the capital, the money that went in

to create a bigger monopoly. If you are going to give leadership in

this country you are going to have to create new jobs, not build larger

and larger monopolies. This country believes in a free enterprise

system, but it doesn't believe in the construction of larger monopolies

that do not create new jobs; all they are creating is higher and higher

prices for the customer when they go into a store. This little rump

group keep on saying: "We must have more power. We must build a larger

and larger monopoly so they can raise the prices to the maximum." This

is the sort of leadership that this government did not give....

MR. REID: On a point of order, as a member of the back bench

I take exception to the reference to a "rump group." I would like the

hon. member to please withdraw those comments.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I don't find that unparliamentary, hon.

member, used in the context it was used in. I might point out that it

is used quite commonly in this House. I guess if it became excessive it

could become unparliamentary.

MR. MITCHELL: Some of the areas I have been known to go into

might call them the back end of a horse, but I won't say that. If they

want to be called behind, they are behind in a lot of progressive ideas

— very far behind in understanding the basic economic facts that are

facing this province.

[Mr. Pelton in the chair.]

Let's remember again, when we talk about our great resources....

This is the important part of this budget debate. We have to look at

the resources of this province and where they are going. We all know

what happened to Mac

[ Page 1033 ]

and Blo, one of the largest forest industries in this province. They have a

certain invested capital and on that invested capital there must be a return

from our resources. Those resources are based on the investment, but when that

particular company became a viable company there was a power struggle among

the shareholders. We all know what happened: stock that was selling for $30

or $32 a share all of a sudden became a commodity that was sold.... First

BCRIC got into it and started jacking up the price, and then Noranda moved in

and bought it for about $70 a share. So the investment from that company from

our resources had to produce a return on $70, not on the investment capital

of that particular company.

[4:00]

This is what is happening. If the money that Noranda had, or that

BCRIC had at the time when they had sold all their shares, had been put

into new industries in British Columbia, new job-producing companies

creating real jobs, as my friends across the way there would say, we

wouldn't have the unemployment that we have today. After 30 years of

Social Credit they are so locked in to building monopolies, and they

are not looking at producing jobs for the people of this province. This

is the leadership we have been suffering from.

The public are asking questions and they are coming to every one of

us. I don't think my office is the only one that people come into and

say: "Look, I've lost my job, I'm going to lose my house because I

can't make the mortgage payments on UIC, I can't make the mortgage

payments on welfare." And they don't want welfare or unemployment

insurance. I pay life insurance but I don't want to die. I'll pay that

life insurance until I'm 250 years of age; I'll be happy to pay it if

you can guarantee that I am going to live to be 250 years of age. The

vast majority of the unemployed do not want to collect UIC; they want

jobs. They feel they have a moral responsibility, as British Columbians

and as Canadians, to carry their share of producing all the products

that this community needs.

What do people do with the money? We're not looking at

government-run services; we're looking at this society, company or

country. When we go out and buy we pay a fee for service. What is a fee

for service? It can be called money or taxes. If we go to the hospital

and are treated there, we're paying a fee for service. Some of it is a

return from our income tax via grants from the federal government; some

of it is the money paid for hospital premiums; and some of it is our

user fee. When we go into that hospital we are paying a fee for

service. Granted, under our hospital plans versus the old days, we're

paying that fee for service before we need it. When I go into a store

and buy some lumber and nails I'm paying a fee for service, a fee that

is going to pay the lumber worker who cut the tree down, or the

millworker or the clerk in the store. When I buy something it's a fee

for service; it's money that I'm putting out.

In society, the community pays for everything. There's nothing given

free in this world. The fee that we're paying can be in the form of

taxes, money coming back from the federal government. It's a fee for

service. It comes out of my wages and is returned to the hospitals, and

it treats me when I'm ill. In the economics of the system it doesn't

matter if we pay it via the tax service, medical premiums or user fee;

we're paying for something that we get. It is ridiculous when you hear

this government.... I won't say that rump group of the government,

because I think the whole Social Credit government has the same

philosophy: that if we privatize something, or if we build a larger

monopoly, then it's different. That is ridiculous, because when I buy

something I'm paying for the cost of that production. It's a very

simple economic formula. When I go to the hospital and I'm sick and

they operate on me, I am saying that whatever I pay is an investment.

It's money well invested.

When you look through the budget and estimates and listen to the

speeches made by the government about how they're going to save money

by cutting out services.... They're going to cut out simple things

like the rentalsman. And then they're saying: "Yes, if you have any

complaints from your landlord you can take it to court." The cost of

going to court is going to make a lot of lawyers rich, but it's not

going to be a cheaper service to the person having a problem with his

landlord, or to a landlord who is having a problem with his tenant. So

you're paying a fee for that service, and you're going to pay a fee

that is a lot greater than under the present situation.

Under the present Minister of Finance (Hon. Mr. Curtis), this

government had an opportunity to provide low-cost housing, but he wiped

out the Housing Corporation when he was Minister of Municipal Affairs.

So the people who are really going to suffer are those who need

low-cost housing. This is the shortage. The only shortage of housing

today is in the market of those on low incomes, on fixed incomes, and

of those who cannot afford the $800 or $900 rent for apartments or

homes that are now in good supply. The vacancy rate for those in the

low-income housing group is still great. These are the people who are

going to suffer.

I had a phone call from one particular apartment just last week.

This particular apartment rented for $245 a month. They had just

received their 10 percent increase this year in May. The rent for that

apartment was $245 a month. The lady who was living in it died, so it

became vacant. The apartment was repainted, and the rent, which had

already been increased by 10 percent, went from $245 to $385. If

there's any appeal, you’re going to take it to court and you're going

to say that you're restricted to 10 percent. By the time you hire a

lawyer to fight it in the courts, it’s going to cost everyone in that

apartment more money than they can afford. That apartment has a

majority of senior citizens — constituents of mine — who are on fixed

incomes. They know that they are going to be faced with the same rent

increase in the near future.

I listened to all the members on that side of the House; they laugh

and giggle. They think it's funny that people who have worked all their

lives — everything they have is invested in their pension or in

annuities — are now going to have another $100 dragged out of their

pocketbooks to pay a landlord. They think that's funny. The problem

didn't start last week; it started when this government shut down the

Housing Corporation. It was not designed to build expensive apartments.

It was designed to provide sufficient low-cost housing for the citizens

of British Columbia.

I know the government laughs and giggles. They think this is great.

But the problems we are in today were caused by mismanagement of where

we're going and how we're going to get there.

The previous speaker, my good friend the Attorney-General (Hon. Mr.

Smith), said it was the NDP that said "borrow, borrow, borrow." It was

not the NDP that said "borrow, borrow, borrow." The NDP fought and

fought in this House against the ridiculous borrowing, the ridiculous

debt that this government has led us into. In the last seven years this

government has tripled the debt of this province; that's more

[ Page 1034 ]

than any other province in Canada. It was this government that stood

to a man — and a lady — when, last year and the year before, we went

through the budget and we said: "We are facing hard times."

I remember what the second member for Vancouver Centre (Mr. Lauk)

said in 1979, when he was speaking in Vancouver to the Young New

Democrats. "In the early eighties this country will be facing a

depression." The present Minister of Municipal Affairs (Hon. Mr.

Ritchie) used to get up when he sat in that — I won't say rump group —

back bench, and he laughed and ridiculed and said: "B.C. will never go

into a depression, because we have good leadership. We are going to

have nothing but prosperity." He laughed at and ridiculed this side of

the House because we said at that time there were going to be hard

times. And we believed him. And when we went through the budgets of

1981 and 1982, we cut out what we call the fat, the excess new

furniture — every ministry seemed to have nothing but new furniture

every year. We identified the waste for travel and advertising. We

brought this to the attention of the government. The first year we

identified — and we don't have the true figures the government has of

this restraint; we don't have the true facts and figures that are in

the budget — facts that were easily identified. In 1981 we identified

over $82 million of savings. We moved motion after motion in ministry

after ministry. We moved that we should identify this waste, we should

cut it out, we should save that money for a rainy day. But the

government — every one to a person — stood up and voted against those

amendments. Every one of them said that we were going to live this high

life forever.

[4:15]

The second year, I believe, we identified around $79 million. We

identified the waste that was going on in government. The ridiculous

part is that they all stood up and all voted against those amendments.

But at the same time they supported the Broadway Bobs and their trips

to New York. They supported cabinet ministers spending a week in

Arizona at the taxpayers' expense. Everyone in this House from the

government side supported the $2 million of taxpayers' money that was

wasted on giving a false impression to the people of this province with

the advertising that went on prior to the election. They all supported

that waste. They said that it was the NDP who didn't do their homework,

didn't do their research, didn't bring these problems to the attention

of the government, didn't bring it to the attention of the public. I

know they all voted for it, but they don't want to be reminded of it.

They don't want to be reminded that they voted against restraint. They

don't want to be reminded that they, as a government, wasted $2 million

of taxpayers' money for a lot of high-priced, slick advertising that

preceded the election.

Let's remember the good lady for Surrey — the first member for

Surrey (Mrs. Johnston) ; ladies first. She keeps on saying: "Let's talk

about May 5." I would like to talk about May 5. I think it's important

that we who have been elected look at where we are today, at the end of

August, debating a budget. Let's take that debate to the traditions of

parliament, the traditions of political democracy, and put it into its

proper perspective. Let's go back to the last time this House sat in

September, 1982. We had a special session that was hailed as a

job-creation session. We sat for 19 days in September. Then the House

was adjourned. Traditionally, in any parliament in Canada, under

British democracy, you have a parliament brought back in late January

or early February. At that time the government brings in a throne

speech, which shows where the government is going to go. The MLAs

discuss that speech. Then the budget comes in. The tradition of this

budget coming in, in late January or early February is that the budget

should come in and be passed before the end of the fiscal year on March

31. This debate that we are having today should have been held in

January, February and March. The 28 vicious bills, destructive of

British Columbia rights, should have been debated in January, February

and March. They should have been out in the open.

This government says: "We have an open government." This is when the

debate should have taken place. This is when the impact that's it is

going to have on this province should have been revealed. Then we

should have had the election on May 5, and we would have run that

election debating the bills, the legislation and the budget. The people

would have then voted and made their decision in the knowledge of what

was going to be facing them. If that knowledge had been brought out

prior to May 5, if we had lived within the traditions.... Mr.

Speaker, I know that you, as one who has worked in his lifetime within

the services, really believes there should be openness and traditions.

If this government had received a mandate, then I would have said that

they had a mandate. With the knowledge, the discussion and the debate

of what we're doing now, they would have had a mandate they could have

been proud of. But every one of them knows that if the truth had come

out prior to the election they would have been wiped out.

MR. REID: We offered them leadership.

MR. MITCHELL: When you talk about leadership you talk about

deception. The party that controls the government has deceived the

people for 30 years by saying.... We can go back to hydro. We gave

away our six-mill power that was developed in the Columbia River.

"We're going to get $600 million. Oh, look at all the money we're going

to have." It cost us $1.2 billion to produce it but we sold it for $600

million. We created five new aluminium plants in the States, and still

they say that was leadership. The same leadership that was not given by

this government in developing our resources and jobs in this province

has been the cause of the problems we're facing right now.

When it was revealed that we were going to have user fees in health,

the Minister of Health (Hon. Mr. Nielsen) denied it. He told our member

for New Westminster (Mr. Cocke) that he was a liar.

Interjections.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, please.

MR. MITCHELL: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It's an unruly group you have here.

I think it's important that we look at where we're at today. Where

are we going to go? The money in circulation in this province — and I

don't care if it's money from civil servants or money that is earned in

the private sector....

MRS. JOHNSTON: They're all people.

MR. MITCHELL: As the first member for Surrey says, they're

all people. When they spend that money it goes into the cash register

of a small business. When he looks at those dollar bills — $2, $5, $10

or $20 bills — he really can't tell

[ Page 1035 ]

whether that was a dollar earned by a nurse who works in a general

hospital, and she got that money via taxes, premiums or prepaid

medicine, or whether it was by a nurse who came in from a private

veterinary clinic where she got that dollar from a citizen who brought

his dog in to get a rabies shot; that dollar looks the same. The

important thing is that people are out there working, getting money,

and that the community — society as a whole — is paying for everything

that we receive.

As members in this House we have a responsibility which cannot be

frittered away, as it is in this House at times, coming in here and

debating.... We should have a debate that is constructive and

positive, a debate that is going to eventually create the opportunity

for every British Columbian to have a job. We shouldn't come in here

with a great lot of glee and laughter that we're going to wipe out

10,000 jobs here and 10,000 jobs somewhere else. When we are fighting

to preserve jobs and build new jobs and to build new industry, we get

nothing but ridicule, When leading members of the community like Bishop

Remi de Roo stand up and say that everyone has a right to a job, we

have one of the senior members for length of service in this Social

Credit government, the Provincial Secretary (Hon. Mr. Chabot), standing

up and saying: "Ah, he is a pinko." This is the approach that is wrong.

I think it is important that we look.... Are we, as 57 members,

going to debate the problems of British Columbia constructively? Are we

going to debate the future of this province or are we going to, like

certain members, get up and take a

section out of some freely

negotiated collective agreement and ridicule somebody because they have

in that collective agreement such things as health benefits, sickness

leave and maternity leave? Is this the constructive way that we are

going to debate the problems of this province, or are we going to look

at it in a real light? We are at a serious time in British Columbia. We

must accept our responsibilities and the honour that we have of being

elected, and it is not something to stay here and ridicule this

section

of the community or that

section of the community.

Constructive debate and new ideas are progress, but ridicule and

divisive attitudes are the voice of a bigot. I believe in full

employment and I support Remi de Roo and the churches of this province,

the working people, the trade unions, the small retired group who want

a sense of security. They want a right to be able to live in peace.

They don't want to have the fear that next week when the rentalsman is

wiped out their rent is going to jump $100 because there is a shortage

in low-cost housing. They don't want their standard of living tom down

because of the lack of leadership, the lack of compassion that I feel

this government is showing by the legislation they have brought in.

If this group had received a mandate, I would accept that mandate if

this debate had been done in the fall or in the early spring. I

remember back in the late forties I used to sit up in that House....

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Your time is up, hon. member.

MR. MITCHELL: Maybe I won't live to see full employment, but

I know it is going to come because people are going to be fighting for

it forever.

MR. VEITCH: Mr. Speaker, this is my maiden speech in the

House. I know the member from Esquimalt–Port Renfrew (Mr. Mitchell)

knows how hard it is to be a maiden for the second time. It is pretty

difficult.

I want to congratulate you, Mr. Speaker, and of course the elected

speaker of the House. I want to congratulate all of the hon. members

that have been elected to this assembly. I would like to congratulate

the people who ran and were not elected. I have a lot of time for

anyone no matter what political stripe, who stands up and lets their

views be laid out in the open before the people during an election, to

tell them what they stand for and then let the people make up their

minds.

[4:30]

My thoughts revert back to the member from Coquitlam Moody (Mr.

Rose), who said this is one of the strangest Houses he has ever seen.

Sometimes I think I agree with him. The last time I made a speech in

this House was in 1979, over on the other side. Sir, I am not lecturing

the House. I am merely lecturing to the House — but I don't believe the

debate has improved too much in that time. I believe it has become more

harsh and more vitriolic. Sometimes, in my opinion, there is far more

useless rhetoric than we have ever had before. For instance, the NDP

have been constantly telling us in this House that the government went

to the people without telling the full story and without the people of

British Columbia knowing what they stood for. Nothing could be further

from the truth. Anyone that wants to read my election material or

anyone that wants to look over it could see exactly what I stand for

and exactly that we stood for restraint and we are here today to bring

restraint to British Columbia.

[Mr. Strachan in the chair.]

Hon. members, governments are elected to govern; legislators are

elected to be the lawmakers in a province. Laws are not made on the

streets nor on the front lawn of the Legislature. They're made here in

this Legislature.

I have sat here in this Legislature day after day and heard us

called everything from "jackboots" to "fascists" to who knows what. I

would never in my life call the people on the other side of this House

"communists." They're not communists. Some of them are a little way-out

socialists, but they're not communists. I don't think it serves this

House or this country or this province to work in these extremes. I

think it's completely and absolutely wrong, and it lets down the very

people who elected you and brought you to this honourable chamber.

Everyone in this House is an eminent and honourable member. I'll

explain "eminent" to you. In my opinion, a person could be eminent

without being competent. That's the difference. I've found that out

here in the House from time to time.

In my mind, this place ought to be a forum for organized

information. There never before was a time when out on the street the

individual knew so much, just plain knew so much about what is going

on. What we need to do, in my opinion, is to translate some of that

information into understanding. That's what parliaments and

legislatures are all about. That's why we elect commoners from among

us, people no greater or smaller than ourselves, and send them to this

House to represent our views. We don't ask them to check their brains

at the door either. We don't ask them to always go back with a

plebiscite to the people. We say: "This is what we elected you for;

this is the type of program you had when you came in here, and we

expect you to carry it out. If we don't like you, we'll throw you out

at the next election." That's the way it is in a democracy.

[ Page 1036 ]

Unlike the NDP, I don't believe life is meant to be a bowl of

cherries; that somehow or other you turn on a tap and let the money

sift out of the public pocket, and it solves every whim, it helps

everybody and provides employment from conception to resurrection. I

don't believe that at all. I honestly believe that life sometimes is an

endurance test for all people, no matter what level of life or type of

employment that you're involved in. Someone was telling me the other

day about the Great Barrier Reef, using it as an analogy. He said that

on the inward side of the reef everything is calm. If you look around

you'll see hermit crabs and some little fish, and if you happen to get

out there and kick your feet, they'll slither out of the way, but

they're never too ambitious. On the other side are the great whales and

even some sharks, hon. members. Here is the activity, where the water

is the roughest and things the toughest. I think that's where people

are made or broken in society. For year after year in Canada, and

indeed in North America, we have been heading steadily down a road

which I sometimes think has no end — a road where we believe that every

good and perfect thing comes from the state, from the benevolence of

the public trough. I don't believe that at all.

To add to this organized thinking that I spoke of a while ago, I

would like to read, if I could, from an ancient historian who lived

some 200 years ago. He was a man of his times then, and I believe he is

a man of our times today. His name was Dr. Alexander Tyler and he lived

in 1775. One of his most famous writings was this: "A democracy cannot

exist as a permanent form of government; it can only exist until the

voters discover that they can vote themselves largess from the public

treasury." Tyler said that from that moment on, the majority would

always vote for the candidate promising the most benefits from the

public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over

loose fiscal policy; and it's always followed by a dictatorship. Tyler

continued:

"The average age of the world's greatest civilization

has been 200 years. These nations have progressed through this

sequence: from bondage to spiritual faith, from spiritual faith to

great courage, from courage to liberty, from liberty to abundance, from

abundance to selfishness, from selfishness to complacency, from

complacency to apathy, from apathy to dependency, and from dependency

back again to bondage."

I wonder how many times and how far down that road we've gone in

this country, and indeed in this province. That's the reason for this

budget: to arrest that slide, to arrest what Tyler spoke of over 200

years ago.

I'm sure at one time or another you've all heard of the term "drug

dependency," and I'm sure, Mr. Speaker, that you're familiar with the

fact that, for many of those who unfortunately become involved with

drugs, renewal is a very difficult task indeed. I think if we want to

understand the convulsions that our public life is going through at

this point in time we've got to coin a new phrase and put those

convulsions into modern-day perspective. The phrase that I think best

sums it up is "tax dependency." We have a terrible case of tax

dependency in this province, in North America and in the free world.

Our society, bit by bit, year by year, has followed the path of least

resistance, constantly looking for a quick fix of tax dollars from the

public purse to cure every possible ache and pain in society, and in

the process our society has developed a very bad case of tax dependency

with symptoms very close to drug dependency. It's hard to withdraw

from. The more we took the more we wanted, and the larger the dose we

needed to make us happy. The more taxes, the more we needed to go back

to the public trough, time after time, looking for that largess.

This analogy is illustrated by the strange philosophy in some of the

process that we've seen during recent weeks. I call it enlightened

self-interest in many cases. Many of those people believe that society

owes them perpetual employment, no matter whether society can afford to

keep them on the payroll or not. That's what's happening, and it's a

sad case. It not only happened in governments throughout the world,

but, to some degree, it's happened here in our own government,

shamefully so, over the past years. One of the reasons I ran in the

last election was that I believed the Premier and I believed what the

government was saying when they said they were going to come in with

restraint measures and arrest this problem. That's what we're debating

here today.

Mr. Speaker, over the past eight years or so that we've been in

government thousands and thousands of British Columbians have taken

advantage of programs that we have brought through this Legislature.

They have become so used to these programs and so tied to tax

dependency that they have become completely and absolutely numb. They

felt that there was no end to this pile of money and that this would go

on and on, no matter who was providing the input from the other side of

the funnel. It didn't seem to matter. We're dependent, and we're

involved at this point in time in withdrawal. I know that if you tell

some people in our society that government cannot afford these items,

that we don't have the dollars available to us, you'd better step back

very quickly and put on a pair of gloves, because you're in trouble. It

would be like putting your hand into a cage of wolverines. They're

still there, still looking for the tax dependency, and they're wanting

more and more from the public trough. It's a difficult case of

withdrawal.

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

The irrationality and hysteria which underlies so much of the

reaction to the restraint program by the press and various organized

groups to the restraint program is frankly frightening. It's not

frightening because they're standing out there in numbers, whatever

they happen to be; but the concept is frightening to me. I wonder: how

far down that road Tyler spoke of in 1775 have we gone, and can we

really arrest it and come back? I think the answer is yes, if we have

the will and the character, and I believe we have both in this assembly

if we'll simply address the problems and get away from the rhetoric. I

really believe that.

I'd like to acquaint this House, if it has not already been done,

with some very shocking statistics from the provincial budget that was

introduced recently. According to Statistics Canada there were 43,458

direct employees of the provincial government in British Columbia in

1982. That sounds like a lot of people, but that's not the surprise.

The surprise is that those 43,458 people made up less than 15 percent

of the total British Columbia public sector at that time. The province

is accused of grabbing power and taking dictatorial action, but the

critics lack that realistic perspective. For restraint to be effective

in the public sector it has to go far beyond the confines of government

ministries, because even when you put all of them together you're only

talking about 15 percent

[ Page 1037 ]

of the public sector — of the totally direct tax-dependent employment sector in the province of British Columbia.

Comparisons are interesting. Direct and indirect employees of the

federal government in British Columbia in 1982 amounted to a further

51,643 public employees; in fact, the statistic for direct employees

of the federal government in British Columbia is within a couple of

hundred of the figure for the provincial government employees

themselves, The province has no jurisdiction, of course, over the

federal scene, and I suppose some restraint has been brought about by

their 6-and-5 program after they listened to the Premier last February.

Until that time they did nothing, and it just kept on growing and

growing.

Direct and indirect employees of municipalities accounted, in 1982,

for another 29,725 employees — a smaller number, but even then over 68

percent of the number of direct provincial employees employed in

British Columbia.

Another category to look at are the indirect provincial employees: employees

of Crown corporations, boards, commissions and so on, excluding, for the moment,

if we will, the fields of education and health. All of these various offshoots

of government added another 23,521 employees — a group just over 54 percent

of the size of the direct provincial government workers themselves. If this

were a telethon. Mr. Speaker, we'd have a lot of people around to help us.

I left the real shockers for the end because they relate to a very

important point that once again seems to get buried in the rhetoric we

hear relative to cutbacks. In the field of health care there were

69,354 public sector employees in British Columbia in 1982. The

comparable

number in education — and I think this is low, because I don't think

they take in all of the colleges and institutes and their offshoots —

was 77,500 people. The total of just those two figures is 146,854

people. That's well over three times the size of what we usually call

the public service in this province — or 337.92 percent, if anyone's

keeping track.

[4:45]

What does all this mean to us? For one thing, 75 to 80 percent of

the cost of providing health and education services to the public

represents the cost of wages, salaries and various benefits for those

employees in those sectors. Typically, teachers negotiated — before the

restraint process came into being — in the range of about 18 percent,

including their experience increments, and they received those

increases at that time. Needless to say, our province's civil servants

were not docked 18 percent of their pay in the same period, although

something very similar to that did happen in Quebec, which is a

socialist province, whether we want to believe it or not. At the same

time, however, because of the reality of world markets, over which we

have no control — to the Minister of Industry and Small Business

Development (Hon. Mr. Phillips) — as many as 38 percent of the IWA

forestry workers in this province received a 100 percent pay decrease

at the same time the teachers were receiving 18 percent. But nobody can

blame the teachers for receiving 18 percent, for trying to get a good

settlement before the recession hit with full force. All that we in

government are saying is this: there's a finite limit to what

government can afford. We've reached that limit now, and I think we far

exceeded it a long time ago.

If I had any complaints about this budget, it would be that we had

not gone far enough, early enough. Government has no money of its own;

there's no magic money tree. We simply go further and further down that

road that Tyler spoke about in 1775. We're competing in a world economy

with Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Korea, Singapore, West Germany — all

either eminent or rising industrial powers in the world — at the same

time as we still face the more traditional competition from the United

States, some now from Great Britain and lots of it from Australia. This

means that as a society we can't afford to rest on our laurels or, to

use my analogy, to confuse tax injections with real wealth generated by

new production. That's the only place we can get more money. The

government can't get money of its own volition without going to the

people, and if the people do not have money there's simply no place for

it to come from. That's the simple truth.

The grand total of the public sector employees in British Columbia,

excluding some of the few that we've talked about in post-secondary

education and some of these offshoots that we've not been able to

capture — joint boards and boards in some of these areas — in 1982 was

295,201: one out of every four British Columbians worked for the

provincial government. And we wonder how we cannot keep so many on and

how we cannot afford to pay them more, because 51 percent of the forest

industry, who pay most of the wages and taxes into government, are not

working and can't afford to keep sending money to government.

Many people, of course, have questioned the value of our job

creation initiatives such as British Columbia Place, rapid transit and

northeast coal, and have asked if we can afford to spend these dollars.

I'm not so much of a laissez-faire capitalist that I would say there is

not a place in government, because I believe there is a place in

government for these types of things and to bring initiatives for these

types of things onstream. I believe we did the right thing at the right

time.

In the context of the world economy, we have to ask ourselves if we

could afford to spend these dollars given the unemployment scene we

have in British Columbia at this time. We look to northeast coal. Where

would we be without the people we have working in northeast coal? Where

would we be without that sort of economic activity in our province at

this point in time?

One of the most important things I noticed about the last election.

Mr. Speaker, was the number of young people who voted for the Social

Credit Party. I was very surprised when I walked down the street and

talked with people and pounded on doors. A number of young people came

to our side and said: "I do not believe that I can be effectively

represented by the New Democratic Party, because they are not the

advocates of free enterprise in this province. I know governments have

grown too big." I believe that maybe Mr. Tyler was wrong. I believe the

youth of our province have seen the light and have come around to a

place where a lot of us who are middle-aged and beyond — where the

shadows are coming in from the east — have not quite seen that

particular light. Maybe it takes the youth to lead us out of this

dilemma, Mr. Speaker. Maybe they understand a heck of a lot of things.

But I believe they got the message, and I think they'll understand

what our Finance minister said when he spoke of the need to earn

prosperity. The only way we can ever have real prosperity in this

province is to earn it. People have said that we've made mistakes. I've

heard the opposition here say we've made mistake after mistake. They

say we've made a lot of mistakes with this restraint, these bills and

in this budget. Well, I accept those comments in this light, that we

have never had so darned much government to restrain before. It's

tremendous. How can you possibly go about it without making some

mistakes? We've literally reached the point where

[ Page 1038 ]

unrestrained benevolence is threatening to permanently disable our

long-term economic viability in this province, this country and this

world. And if we don't do something about it, we'll be in bad shape

again.

I believe our government has made one of the first — and in some

ways feeble — courageous steps towards straightening out this problem

of rescuing us from the abyss that is certainly ours if we do not do

something about it.

We've been called Machiavellian and everything else. Just shortly before closing, I'd like to quote from Micio Machiavelli:

"One should bear in mind that there is nothing more

difficult to execute nor more dubious of success, nor more dangerous to

administer than to introduce a new system of things. For he who

introduces it has all those who profit from the old system as his

enemies, and he has only lukewarm allies in those who might profit from

the new system."

That's one of the problems that we have. That's one of the problems

that any democratic government faces. But that ought not to deter us

from the fact that we were elected to government, we were elected on a

mandate of restraint and restrain we must. We must fulfil that mandate,

for to do other than that would be to go against those people in the

various ridings who sent us here.

The NDP can stand up and expound their theories until whatever time

they want. We've got lots of time in this House, Mr. Speaker. They can

keep on saying it. But the fact is that they were not elected as

government, and they were not elected on a program of restraint. This

government has to follow through with restraint because that is the

program that we were elected under. There is no other honest route for

us to take, and honest we are. There's nothing else.

What we need in this country and in this province is less rhetoric

about jackboots, fascists and communists and all these things that may

be hidden under the right or the left side of the bed. I don't really

care. What we need is a renewal of confidence. We need someone to push

the positive button. We need people who will go out and sell British

Columbia — yes, sell British Columbia, because we can have all of that

coal up there in the north, we can have the oil in Alberta, and we can

have all the gold. That's potentially valuable, Mr. Speaker, but it's

worthless until someone takes it and sells it. Then it becomes valuable

and then we employ people.

Governments, buyers, purchasers and those who invest all over the

world will not invest in a government that shows no care for its

financial restraint and no hold on the economy. They will simply not

trust you. One of the reasons that I ran for government is that I'm not

one of those guys who happens to think that society owes me a great

deal. It doesn't owe me very much. I owe society a lot.

Interjection.

MR. VEITCH: You're right on, Mr. Member, and I'll tell you

why. I've had the opportunity in this province and in this country to

be involved in business, to attend university and to be elected twice

to this chamber. I owe this province a lot; it doesn't owe me very

much. I'll tell you that right now.

MR. REID: Hear, hear! That's Dream Whip.

MR. VEITCH: With friends like this, who needs enemies?

What I do owe is a legacy to those who follow after us. We've been

entrusted with things, and the legacy is something we've been given

which we must build upon and pass on to the generations that follow. If

we fail to restrain ourselves now, I wonder how we'll be looked at by

history.

We're not involved in a collective in this province; we're involved

in a democracy. Democracy is carried out here in this Legislature. At

some point in time things have to be debated and then voted upon.

That's the way democracy is carried out. It's not carried out out

there. If the people didn't like what we talked about to them during

the election campaign, they would not have sent us here; they would

have sent you here instead. If people don't like us next time around,

they've got a choice. The choice is very clear in this province. It's

probably designed the way the British parliamentary system was designed

to work in the first place. There's a clear alternative: they can take

those who are interested in private initiative or they can take those

who are interested in state socialism. They'll have that opportunity

somewhere down the road; I don't know when — '86 or '87; who knows

when? I look forward to running for election to this Legislature at

that point in time on the programs of this government and on the budget

that this minister has brought forth. I support it 100 percent.

MR. BARRETT: Mr. Speaker, this opportunity for me to speak in

the twenty-second budget debate in which I've participated may indeed

be my last, but I would hope that after all these years my words would

be listened to with care by the government members, because today I've

decided to help them by asking a number of important questions. For

example, I want to ask the last member who spoke when he started

reading Machiavelli. Was it before, during or after the election

campaign? It's very important to know. If it was before, you were

looking at how to fib; if it was during, you were practising fibs; if

it was after, you're justifying the fibs. That's really where we are.

I was interested in listening to him quote Machiavelli; the most

difficult thing to do is to introduce something new; people are going

to react to it. I found that very interesting. They are introducing

something new. I want to refer to those wonderful statistics that the

member spoke of. He said that one in four were at the public payroll

trough: people like the first member for Vancouver–Point Grey (Hon. Mr.

McGeer), the university professor who is a laissez-faire capitalist if

there ever was one, yet he's been at the public trough his whole life,

according to your definition. What has he ever produced? What do

university professors produce? They know how to wear ascots; they know

how to switch political parties. But you're attacking the members of

your own group.

But what is more insidious is the "one in four." This is the change

that Machiavelli warned about, as you were telling this chamber. It's

simply economics under Social Credit. One in four are working in the

public sector. You're going to change that through this whole measure.

Do you know what they're going to change it to? Instead of one in four

working in the public sector they will now be on welfare or on

unemployment insurance Who's going to pay that bill?

[5:00]

Did it every occur to that member that when people are working they

have money in their pockets? They spend it in wise places and they

spend it in foolish places. Among the more foolish places are certain

hardware stores in the interior of British Columbia which must go

unnamed. But if they are

[ Page 1039 ]

getting a salary and taking that money and buying refrigerators and

stoves at that hardware store, that hardware store hires people, brings

in more goods and sells them. Under your new economic order, your new

Machiavellian approach, how are you going to sell fridges and stoves to

people on welfare? Who is going to be working to pay for those goods

and services?

It's all very simplistic, my dear friend, to go about laying o