1978 Legislative Session: 3rd Session, 31st Parliament

HANSARD

The following electronic version is for informational purposes only.

The printed version remains the official version.

Official Report of

DEBATES OF THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY

(Hansard)

MONDAY, JUNE 19, 1978

Afternoon Sitting

[ Page

2397 ]

CONTENTS

Routine proceedings

Development Corporation of British Columbia Amendment Act, 1978 (Bill 21) Hon. Mr- Phillips.

Introduction and first reading –– 2397

Land Titles Act (Bill 30) Hon. Mr. Gardom.

Introduction and first reading –– 2397

Conveyancing and Law of Property Act (Bill 31) Hon. Mr. Gardom.

Introduction and first reading –– 2397

Execution Amendment Act, 1978 (Bill 32) Hon. Mr. Gardom.

Introduction and first reading –– 2397

Oral questions.

Human Resources minister's statement on Indians. Ms. Brown––

Rock fill in Cowichan Bay. Mrs. Wallace –– 2397

Proclamation of Citizens' Initiative Act. Mr. Gibson –– 2398

Human Resources minister's statement an Indians. Ms. Brown ––

Bennett vs. Rogers tennis match. Mr. Stephens –– 2398

School taxes. Mr. Barber –– 2399

Relocation of Beaver Creek Sawmills Ltd. Mr. Skelly –– 2399

Future telephone changes. Mr. Lockstead –– 2400

Finance Statutes Amendment Act, 1978 (Bill 11) Hon. Mr. Wolfe.

Introduction and first reading –– 2400

Forest Act (Bill 14) Second reading.

On the amendment.

Mrs. Dailly –– 2401

Mr. Lockstead –– 2403

Mr. Barber –– 2405

Mr. Levi –– 2411

Ms. Sanford –– 2417

Mr. Gibson –– 2418

Division an the amendment –– 2420

Mr. Skelly –– 2421

Mr. Haddad –– 2426

Mr. Lloyd –– 2428

Mrs. Wallace –– 2430

The House met at 2 p.m.

Prayers.

HON. MRS. McCARTHY : Mr. Speaker, we have visiting the House today special guests as part of our Captain James Gook bicentennial celebrations. They are the captains of the two Japanese sail training ships which are now docked at Ogden Point in Victoria and will be leaving us tomorrow to embark for the city of Vancouver, where they will be staying for the following five days.

I would like to ask the House to welcome the captains of these two beautiful ships, Captain Hiroshi Nakazawa of the Nippon Maru, and Captain Yoshuo Ichihara of the Kaiwo Maru.

Mr. Speaker, in addition, I would like to say that accompanying the two captains is Rear-Admiral Michael Martin, the commander of the Maritime Forces Pacific. We are very honoured in British Columbia that Rear-Admiral Martin is the head of our bicentennial nautical events committee and has done a remarkable job on behalf of all British Columbians.

So on this day, while the Nippon Maru and the Kaiwo Maru are here, 1 would like to welcome these two ships, their crews and the captains who are present with us today, and I would ask the House to join in that welcome.

HON. MR. WATERLAND : In the gallery today are two very old and dear family friends of mine, people who have known me since I was six years old. I would ask the House to please make welcome Margaret and Mac Knight.

Introduction of bills.

DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION OF

BRITISH COLUMBIA AMENDMENT ACT, 1978

On a motion by Hon. Mr. Phillips, Bill 21, Development Corporation of British Columbia Amendment Act, 1978, introduced, read a first time and ordered to be placed on orders of the day for second reading at the next sitting of the House after today.

LAND TITLES ACT

Hon. Mr. Gardom presents a message from His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor:

a bill intituled Land Titles Act.

Bill 30 introduced, read a first time and ordered to be placed on orders of the day for second reading at the next sitting of the

House after today.

CONVEYANCING AND LAW OF PROPERTY ACT

Hon. Mr. Gardom presents a message from His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor:

a bill intituled Conveyancing and Law of Property Act.

Bill 31 introduced, read a first time and ordered to be placed on orders of the day for second reading at the next sitting of the House after today.

EXECUTION AMENDMENT ACT, 1978

Hon. Mr. Gardoca presents a message from His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor: a bill intituled Execution Amendment Act, 1978.

Bill 32 introduced, read a first time and ordered to be placed on orders of the day for second reading at the next sitting of the House after today.

Oral questions.

HUMAN RESOURCES MINISTER'S

STATEMENT ON INDIANS

MS. BROWN : My question is directed to the Premier. On Friday last the Minister of Human Resources (Hon. Mr. Vander Zalm) made a statement to the effect that Indians should go back to the effect that Indians should go back to the reserves they came from. I wonder whether the Premier can tell me if the minister was announcing government policy.

HON. MR. BENNETT : I'm not sure that's the statement that was made, but the answer is no.

MS. BROWN : On a supplementary question, Mr. Speaker, in view of the

fact that that same statement was made by the member for North Okanagan (Mrs.

Jordan) to me, I'm wondering whether the Premier is thinking of suggesting

that the Minister of Human Resources go back where he came from.

ROCK FILL IN COWICHAN BAY

MRS. WALLACE : My question is for the Minister of the Environment, and again it relates to Cowichan Bay. I wonder whether or not the minister is aware that Westcan Terminals have been hauling rock fill onto the north side of the causeway in the area where the south port comes into the bay, and, if he is, whether or not this is being done under the terms of the order-in-council, or whether there has been

[ Page 2398 ]

any contact with his ministry regarding this.

HON. MR. NIELSEN : No, that hasn't been brought to my attention, but I'll certainly investigate and see if they are in violation of the order.

MRS. WALLACE : On a further question in connection with the Cowichan estuary, the minister indicated during question period, just before the bell rang a day or so ago, that he had issued the cease and desist order sometime prior to my raising the question. I wonder whether or not he would be good enough to give me the date of that original order, and whether or not he would be prepared to file it after question period in the House.

HON. MR. NIELSEN : The letter that I referred to was sent on May 17.

PROCLAMATION OF

CITIZENS' INITIATIVE ACT

MR. GIBSON : I have a question for the Premier. In a 1975 election pamphlet, "Bill Bennett Talks about People in Politics, " the Social Credit Party promised that among its first steps as government would be an emphasis on an important legislative idea known as the citizens' initiative. The pamphlet explains that under such legislation, government would be bound to permit open debate on any subject, like taxation or something like that, by petition of 10 per cent of the electorate. I would ask the Premier: did I miss something? Was this on, ' of the first steps of his govern ment?

HON. MR. BENNETT : Yes, Mr. Speaker, he missed something.

MR. GIBSON : I don't think I missed much if what it was was any act of the government in that direction. I would ask the Premier: even though it's too late now to be considered one of the first steps, would he now take action to proclaim into law the direct legislation Act, passed by this Legislature in 1919?

AN HON. MEMBER : It may be your last step.

HON. N[R. BENNETT : It's a matter of policy.

HUMAN RESOURCES MINISTER'S

STATEMENT OF INDIANS

MS. BROWN : Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Labour, who is responsible for Indian matters as well as the

Human Rights Commission. Can the minister tell me whether he was consulted before the Minister of Human Resources made a decision that Indians should go back where they came from, to the reservation?

MR. SPEAKER : Order, please. This is a question similar to one that was just asked a few moments ago.

MS. BROWN : No. It's a completely different question to a different minister.

MR. SPEAKER : Perhaps the member would rephrase the question to be acceptable.

MS. BROWN : Would the Minister of Labour, who is responsible for Indian matters as well as the Human Rights Commission, tell the House whether he was consulted by the Minister of Human Resources before he made his decision that Indians should return to the reservations they came from?

MR. SPEAKER : The question is in order.

BENNETT VS. ROGERS

TENNIS MATCH

MR. STEPHENS : My question is for the Premier, Mr. Speaker. I confess to being somewhat envious of his tennis skills and his tennis partners, but perhaps he could tell us what that tennis game cost the citizens of this province.'

HON. MR. BENNETT : Well, nothing, Mr. Speaker. While in Vancouver for government business, I took an hour and a half out to play tennis. I had a number of appointments, including the Seabus and others the next day. I'm certain that the Mayor of Vancouver being involved, there was an opportunity for the affairs of the province to be discussed at that time. I'm glad that the member for Oak Bay addresses himself to the serious topics of the day.

MR. SPEAKER : Before we move to a supplementary, hon. members, I would like to remind all members who are drafting questions that matters not officially connected with the government or parliament are not subject to question in question period. Perhaps at a different time?

MR. STEPHENS : I just wanted to ask the Premier if he would take an hour and a half out of his busy

schedule perhaps to go jogging with me, since I don't have a jet plane to go

[ Page 2399 ]

over and play with Ginger Rogers.

MR. SPEAKER : I think the question suggests its own answer.

HON. MR. BENNETT : I'm particular who I jog with.

SCHOOL TAXES

MR. BARBER : I have a question for the Attorney-General. The mayor of the township of Spallumcheen, whose jurisdiction has been hit by a 41 per cent increase in taxes due for education purposes this year, has been on record publicly as saying that he will not collect those taxes on behalf of the school district. My first question to the Attorney-General is: does he, as the chief law enforcement officer in this province, have the authority in law to order the collection of those property taxes for school purposes?

MR. SPEAKER : Are you asking a legal opinion?

MR. BARBER : No.

MR. SPEAKER : Well, perhaps the question could be phrased in another manner. Please proceed.

MR. BARBER : Well, perhaps he can answer that question by answering the second, which is: given that presumably he has the authority -the cabinet in law - to collect property taxes for school purposes, will he use that authority or has he done so already in order to compel the township of Spallumcheen to collect the property taxes for school purposes this year?

HON. MR. GARDOM ; It is a presumptive question, Mr. Speaker, but I would

anticipate that all of the elected representatives in the province of B.C. would

follow the law and would commend that they do so.

MR. BARBER : Has the Attorney-General or any of his colleagues, to his knowledge, taken action so far to assure that the township of Spallumcheen does in fact collect the school taxes for education purposes this year? Have you done anything to date?

HON. MR. GARDOM : I'll have to take the question on notice.

RELOCATION OF BEAVER CREEK SAWMILLS LTD.

MR. SKELLY : My question is to the Minister of Economic Development. I called his office this morning about the question. I've approached his ministry before with regard to assistance in relocating a sawmill in the Alberni valley, which has been ordered to shut down because of a land-use conflict. If this mill is not shut down by July 20, it will be fined $500 a day for every day it continues to operate. In view of the fact that the income of 20 families depends on the continued operation of the sawmill, will the minister take a personal responsibility to assist the owners of this mill, Beaver Creek Sawmills Ltd., to relocate to an appropriate site?

HON. MR. PHILLIPS : I want to thank the member for approaching my office on this question before question period. The people in my ministry have, indeed, a long time ago offered assistance to help this particular lumber mill in finding a new area in which to locate, and we have offered the full services.

But I understand that the owners of this lumber mill have not taken advantage of this and have decided they were not going to obey the local regional district zoning bylaw. 1 would suggest that, since this is really a regional district dispute, the member himself become involved in this and offer to give assistance to this gentleman in dealing with his regional district. As you know, some regional districts really don't care if there is economic development or not in the area.

I would suggest that maybe the member himself might wish to involve himself in assisting this particular lumber mill in their fight with the regional district to rezone the land, on which this lumber mill is located, from industrial to residential.

MR. SKELLY : I have a supplementary question for the minister. I have been in touch with the regional district. There is a problem in the fact that the sawmill is surrounded by a residential area and the neighbours have complained - legitimately so. I understand that some of them vote for your party, in fact. I have been in touch with your ministry and they say that there is no bridge financing that can be made available to this particular sawmill operator. They referred him to the Federal Business Development Bank.

But, in fact, the minister has taken some initiative in helping other sawmill owners, who seem to have more money available than the owner of Beaver Greek Sawmills Ltd. I wonder if the minister would undertake to look into this situation a little more thoroughly and perhaps provide assistance. I'd hesitate to approach the Minister of Human Resources (Hon. Mr.

[ Page 2400 ]

Vander Zalm) on a question such as this, even though he may ultimately be responsible for providing grants to the people who will be done out of jobs. Would the minister undertake to take a more thorough look at this situation?

HON. MR. PHILLIPS : It could very well be that since that statement was made by my ministry.... We have, as you know, signed new agreements with the federal government and are offering further assistance to the great initiative of this department and this government in trying to assist industry in this province. There is a possibility that since these great initiatives were made this assistance would be available now. I'm positive now that if anything can be done, certainly it is available through this ministry and this government, which is always offering great assistance to small interests.

MR. SKELLY : All talk and no action!

MR. SPEAKER : I would refer the questioner to Beauchesne,

section 171 (s) .

FUTURE TELEPHONE

RATE CHANGES

MR. LOCKSTEAD : ]y question is to the Premier, who is also responsible for Energy, Transport and Communications. The CRTC, which regulates the B.C. Telephone Company, has announced in Ottawa major procedural changes to ensure that subscribers here will receive direct notices of any proposed changes in rates and services, and to require the company to compensate relevant public interest groups so they can research and present consumer briefs at rate hearings on an equal footing with the Telephone Company. My question is: as the province regulates Okanagan Telephone Company, a subsidiary of B.C.

Tel, has the minister taken any steps to see that the people living in the Okanagan are afforded the same protection by this government as the federal government is providing to customers of the parent B.C. Tel?

HON. MR. BENNETT : Since I took aver the administration, I haven't, but it may be that the ministry already had some opportunity for help within the communications department. I know from reviewing the ministry, taking aver the administration and visiting the premises, we do have a small but very active communications personnel. I'll take the rest of your question as notice.

FINANCE STATUTES AMENDMENT ACT, 1978

Hon. Mr. Wolfe presents a message from His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor:

a bill intituled Finance Statutes Amendment Act, 1978.

Bill 11 introduced, read a first time and ordered to be placed on orders of the day for second reading at the next sitting of the House after today.

MR. SPEAKER : Hon. members, on Friday last I undertook to research a matter raised by the member for Oak Bay (Mr. Stephens) , who sought to raise a matter under standing order 35 relative to , the property tax increases throughout the province. Since the member is present in the chamber, I will give him the decision at this time.

I note that during the past week the member has raised the same issue during oral question period on a number of occasions, and an examination of Hansard will reveal that the issue was discussed at some length during the debate on second reading of Bill 19, the Urban Transit Authority Act, which received second reading on June 12.

In the 16th edition of Sir Erskine May, page 370, it is pointed out that a motion under standing order 35 must involve an urgent matter of recent occurrence which has been raised without delay. A further reading of this citation will reveal that the fact that a grievance is continuing is not sufficient if it is not of a recent occurrence and, further, that if the matter is not raised at the earliest opportunity, it fails in urgency.

I am of the opinion that the subject of high taxation has a lengthy history and therefore is not, of itself, of recent history. In any event, it is obvious that it was not raised at the earliest opportunity and therefore the matter cannot be considered as urgent within the meaning of standing order 35.

Orders of the day.

HON. MR. WILLIAMS : Mr. Speaker, by leave, I move we proceed to public bills and orders.

Leave granted.

HON. MR. WILLIAMS : Adjourned debate on second reading of Bill 14.

FOREST ACT

(continued)

On the amendment.

[ Page 2401 ]

MRS. DAILLY : I'm taking my place in this debate to hoist this bill for six months....

HON. MR. CHABOT : It's about time.

MRS. DAILLY : Yes, I like to sit back and listen to the debate, Mr. Speaker. Then perhaps I'm able to pick up what is left out.

Mr. Speaker, I have listened to most of this debate and one of the basic reasons why I'm standing to take my place in this is certainly not the many fine speeches which have been made already by the opposition members on the reasons why they believe in hoisting this bill, but my wish to add one particular area of my own here which concerns me and is why I wish to see this bill hoisted. I was particularly concerned by the attitude of the Minister of Forests (Hon. Mr. Waterland) , whose responsibility, of course, it is to pilot this bill through the House.

Now the minister, when he first opened debate on this bill, spoke very briefly. He did not vindicate, to the many people in this province who have very serious concerns about this bill, why he was rushing it through. And then, when he did have an opportunity to speak during the hoist, he did; but, once again, he did nothing to alleviate the fears of many people in this province about the quick passage of one of the most major bills which this province has ever been confronted with. We're all aware that the whole economy of our province depends primarily on the forest industry.

For the minister to suggest that the debate over here has been a debate based on perhaps no knowledge whatsoever is an insult not only to the members in the opposition but to the many groups in the province who have been kind enough to express their concerns both to the minister and to the members of the opposition. Their concerns are based on a genuine desire to see the forest industry become more beneficial to this province, so the economy of the province will be able to surge forward. But there is very little in this bill that is giving this confidence to the people of the province, Mr. Speaker.

When the minister took his place in the hoist debate on Friday and suggested that the only reason for any opposition in this House - and reflection was made by this minister on opposition outside the House - was that there were certain self-interest groups outside who wanted to see the passage halted "because they hate logging in any event" - and he particularly made reference to women's groups in this province and to some environmental groups - that is a very pitiful, poor defence of his position in a debate. that should be a very important debate for all of us in this Legislature.

I am taking my place here because I feel that this minister has not alleviated any of the fears which have been expressed, not only by the opposition, but by so many groups out there who are not self-motivated, self interested groups. They're interested in the advancement of the economy of this province, and that is why they have a genuine concern over this bill.

Now the particular area which I wish to devote just a few moments to today is reforestation. In this bill the minister has, unfortunately, not given - and there are many of us who are concerned about this vital area - much hope that there is going to be any great change in policy in this area which will ensure a good harvest of our trees in this province for many generations to come.

I know we are dealing just with the hoist. But, in order to express my concern over the need for the hoist, I must point out some areas which are missing, generally, in this bill - in this area of reforestation. I hope that the minister will get up and give us some comfort, or at least let us know that he has listened to us and is willing to delay this bill, so some of these vital areas in this piece of legislation before the House at the present time can be addressed far more seriously and comprehensively than they have to date.

Some of these facts may have been said before in this House, but I do think they bear repeating. For every three trees being logged in British Columbia today, only one is being replaced or replanted. There are currently about eight million acres that require replanting in British Columbia, and this figure is getting larger every year. We spend 13 cents per acre on reforestation, while Weyerhaeuser in the United States spends $14 per acre - 109 times as much.

Now I'm mentioning these facts and the minister is looking somewhat disconcerted, and I hope he will get up and reassure us that this bill will be hoisted so that, he can alleviate these concerns which I'm expressing now. B.C., with its 130 million acres of forest, planted 73 million seedlings in 1976;

whereas Weyerhaeuser in the United States, with only six million acres, planted 185 million seedlings. In the last 10 years B.C. has planted one million acres. Even Brazil outstripped us during this period by planting four million acres.

We are not resting all the blame for this on this minister, who is relatively new in his portfolio in terms of years and decades. But the point that concerns us is that, unless he hoists this bill and shows that this bill is

[ Page 2402 ]

indeed going to look after the tree harvest of this province, there is no way that the members of the official opposition, representing so many concerned people in this province, can do anything but ask that this bill be hoisted. After all, if we do not have assurance about the future harvesting of the trees of this province - when, for the first time, we have a major piece of legislation before us that could give us this assurance - then we would certainly be remiss in our responsibility as members if we sat here and let this bill go through in its present form.

Almost 10 years ago, Mr. Orchard, the B.C. chief forester, publicly stated that the rate of harvesting exceeded the rate of reproduction on the coast by at least 10 per cent, and in the interior by 20 per cent. Several months ago the Creston district forester stated that mills in his area had five to six years' supply left, and similar word has come from Kelowna. As I said earlier, it has also been pointed out that B.C., with its 130 million acres of forests, has planted a minimum amount of seedlings. I want to repeat the comparison of the money spent by British Columbia, 13 cents per acre, with that of a United States firm, which spends $14 per acre.

The concern we have is that, in this bill before us, we have no assurance that this minister is coming to grips with this. As a matter of fact, when we look at the bill we note that instead of coming to grips with this serious problem of ensuring a good harvest for the coming generations in British Columbia, it now scraps the sustained-yield principle of forestry management, which ensures against over-cutting.

Interjection.

MRS. DAILLY : Now the minister just said: "Garbage." I'm really glad to hear that because, if he can get up and point out to us where in the bill this is not happening, I think it would be very important for him to take his position in this debate and do so. I can assure you that simply saying "garbage" does not give us and the people of British Columbia the assurance.

The terra "sustained yield" is neither mentioned nor defined in this legislation.

HON. MR. WATERLAND : Why don't you stop reading Bob Williams' notes?

MRS. DAILLY : The minister called across the floor: "That's Bob Williams' material." I'd like to point out that the person I'm quoting from at this moment is a Colonist reporter by the name of Stephen Hume. He also pointed out that, under this Act, forest companies are allowed to increase their cuts on all growth in anticipation of an improved new crop - a dangerous concept, because of the uncertainty during the decades of the second growth maturing.

Then, of course, we have had some excellent material and research presented, I think, to all MLAs from Paul George. He makes this point:

"The whole legislation can be viewed only as tragic because the forest industry affects the economic welfare of this whole province." Then speaking on this whole matter of our future harvest of trees, he has stated:

"Enlightened countries have established a refinement of the sustained-yield principle ensuring that the same sized crop will be harvested each year on an even-flow basis, thus providing a stable employment and a stable forest economy."

Mr. Speaker, this legislation, unless the minister can assure us differently,

does not give us hope that this will be followed. As he points out, the new

Act stated that allowable annual cuts would reflect the production capabilities

of mills. He went on to say: "Trees do not grow at a rate determined by

how fast men can build mills to process them."

Rather than confront the timber supply problem, Mr. Speaker, the new Act provides incentives for increased cutting at a time when we should be harvesting carefully the future of our province, which rests in our forest industry. This Act provides incentives for increased cutting and even penalizes those who do not cut enough. This will lead to a boom for several years at the expense of stable employment thereafter.

So in this whole area of reforestation, which I'm very concerned about, we have nothing from this minister and in this Act to give us an assurance that he too is concerned and his government is concerned about this. To give us some assurance, I would hope that the minister would hoist this Act so it can be rewritten, particularly in this vital area.

It would show that there is going to be a commitment by that minister and his government to upgrade the provincial forest inventory to reflect the volumes accessible and economic quality, and that there will be a massive investment in planting and second-growth forestry to ensure that the future crops will be of high quantity and quality. This should include good research and analysis of practices in other countries which do have a successful second-growth industry. These are

[ Page 2403 ]

the things we're looking for, Mr. Speaker, and these are the things we have no assurance on. Yet this minister simply says: "Garbage."

I wonder if the minister knows if those who helped draft the bill have really read the

section on the whole area of reforestation as listed in the Pearse report. 1 just want to read two small paragraphs for the minister's edification from page 274, where Pearse suggests that:

"The central tenet of sustained-yield policy for the future should be the maintenance of forest land in a productive condition. This means, at the minimum, that provisions must be made to ensure the establishment of new crops on lands denuded by logging or fire."

He goes on in great detail about this, Mr. Speaker, which I will not take up at this time.

One final paragraph on this that I would like to read to the minister from Pearse states:

"It must be emphasized that the problem is not usually artificial reforestation or nothing, as most lands will eventually regenerate naturally. Artificial reforestation, in most instances, should be viewed as an investment designed to improve or hasten the next crop of timber. Thus it should be evaluated in terms of its cost and expected benefits. This implies setting priorities for areas requiring them with first consideration to those lands which cannot be expected to restock naturally.

"It is my impression that the current policy on reforestation is seriously deficient with respect to the attention given to the costs and benefits of alternative practices."

So I want to say again, 1r. Speaker, that we do not hold this minister responsible for all the past policies and, perhaps, neglects that it's taken the Pearse report to bring to light and which I'm sure anyone involved in forestry has been well aware of. Surely before he brings in a bill that's going to affect us for generations to come, in this vital area of harvesting our trees for the future, his bill should show the public and all of us here that he knows the importance of this, and there will be something in this bill, very strongly worded, to give us hope that this government accepts this.

No matter what governments will follow as the years go on, at least this Act will be here to give them a strong policy and a strong guide to ensure that the forests of B.C. will become the true economic lever for cod future of this province.

Mr. Speaker, there is going to be much further debate on second reading. There

is going to be much further debate in committee. I simply say to the minister

again: Will you listen, not only to the opposition, but to the many groups of

people out there who are beginning to realize the great areas of neglect in

this bill in this vital area? Will you listen? Will you slow down? Will you

accept the hoist? If you do, I'm sure that future generations of this province

will remember it.

MR. LOCKSTEAD : I thought the minister would care to reply to those very profound remarks and statements made by the member for Burnaby North. In terms of reforestation, the information contained in her remarks is of vital interest to every citizen of this province. I hope the minister will take the opportunity to reply in due course.

1, too, rise to support the motion to hoist the bill. I feel we should be giving the people of this province the opportunity to study the bill in depth and to be fully aware of the consequences of the bill that is now before this Legislature. That is only now starting to happen. I understand there were three paragraphs on it in The Vancouver Sun last week, so we are getting a lot of coverage.

I spoke on this bill during second reading and I won't reiterate all those arguments, but I will discuss a few of the items that are of major concern to me and to many of the independent loggers and manufacturers in my riding, as well as a lot of concerned citizens.

Before I do that, I want to read a paragraph or two from a letter I received this morning from the Sierra Club of British Columbia. I think it should be brought to the minister's attention that some of the remarks he made in this Legislature last Friday bear discussion for just a moment. The Sierra Club correspondence says:

11 'Accusations by Forest minister Tom Waterland that environmentalists and women I s groups hate logging are false and irresponsible, ' said Sierra Club regional conservation representatives in Victoria today. The Forests minister stated during the legislative debate Friday that opposition to the Forest Act was from people who hate logging."

May I interject just to say that most of us on this side of the House are very much aware of that government's attitude to environmentalists and fish and wildlife groups? We know very well that they look on these groups as just a long-haired bunch of freaks. That is

[ Page 2404 ]

not true. It's not so. In my view, these are people who are seriously concerned about the environmental aspect of this province and should not be referred to in the manner in which that minister referred to them in this Legislature.

It says in this correspondence that the Sierra Club is not opposed to logging. And this party is not opposed to logging and to the rational development of our resource. But we are discussing rational development; we're not discussing what's happening in this piece of legislation before us here today.

One of my main concerns is the alienation of this resource forever. If the minister had six months, he could discuss it with officials and with the industry. He could discuss the aspects of this bill with professional people. Give the minister six months so that he can understand his own bill that he has brought into this Legislature. It's very clear to us that the minister has brought in a bill that he does not understand. So let's have a six-month hoist and give the minister a chance to study it. If he can't comprehend what's in the bill, then I would suggest to the Premier that he change ministers.

In my view, George Haddad would be a fine Minister of Forests. He's a excellent fellow. He's concerned about the public.

A couple of other aspects that concern me in this bill are the secrecy clauses. Why should a government bring in a bill that contains the principle of secrecy? Why should the public not be allowed to know what the forest giants are doing, where the timber is being extracted, how much money is being paid in royalties on stumpage and how the timber is being used? I think the public has a right to know. I think that with a six-month hoist of this bill, the minister could possibly rethink that

section of the clause.

Another aspect that concerns me greatly in this bill is the threat to civil liberties. Can you imagine a threat to civil liberties in a Forest Act? There is a

Section 1n the Act,

section 150, which allows police officers or forest officers to go on people's property without warrants. Now that the minister knows what this

Section 1s all about, I think he will remove it. I'm sure that government would not want to infringe upon the civil liberties of our problem, would you, Mr. Minister?

One other aspect of this bill I do want to discuss so I can personally describe it when I'm back in my riding and other parts of this province. I've done a little research to back up the terms I am about to use. I know that they will be parliamentary because I've checked Stroudos Judicial Dictionary, volumes

I think it is the duty of every elected member, and certainly the people on the Treasury benches, to be totally and fully responsible to the people of this province in the best possible way. But if this Act passes in its present form, this government will be alienating the major resource of this province from the people of this province forever.

I would suggest to you that if that's not treason.... In time of conflict and war, if any citizen does any act against the state or the nation, that is treasonable, punishable by very severe punishment. Yet the government has the gall to come into this Legislature with a bill that will alienate forever our major resource to the multinational corporations who are not based in this country and who do not make the decisions in British Columbia, generally speaking, certainly in terms of the financial aspects of this.

Multinational companies take their profits out of this country and invest them in other countries all over the world the United States, Brazil, western Europe and those are profits made out of the sweat and blood of the people of this province.

Mr. Speaker, 1 charge the minister that this Act borders on treason. I hope that this minister will consider the hoist and react favourably to this motion.

MR. SPEAKER : Hon. member, before you take your place, I would draw your attention to the House of Commons debates of 1917,

chapter 2482. "Certain expressions which have caused the Chair to intervene from time to time are these...." and listed is charges of treason. Therefore I must ask the hon. member to withdraw that charge.

MR. LOCKSTEAD : Mr. Speaker, with all due respect, I did not charge the minister with treason. I said this Act was bordering on treason.

MR. SPEAKER : Hon. member, it seems to me that it is perilously close.

MR. LOCKSTEAD : Mr. Speaker, with all due respect, if you find the remark offensive, I withdraw.

[ Page 2405 ]

MR. SPEAKER : Please withdraw. It's going to help debate to no end.

MR. BARBER : In my own career in the House, this is the single bill to have the gravest implication for economic development of any that I have seen. It's a bill whose grave implications tell us something about this government's loyalties to the province it serves. It's a bill whose grave implications tell us something about their version of economic planning as a private enterprise government. It's a bill whose grave implications tell us something about the extent to which companies controlled in a nation other than our own have dangerous influence over the government itself.

Whenever a legislator attempts to deal with a bill which he, in conscience, views as having those grave implications, it is sometimes necessary and valuable to ask that the government award an unusual amount of time to debate those consequences. It is reasonable and fair to do so and it is, as I understand it, a long and honourable tradition that that happen.

That being the tradition, and this being the case, the official opposition has asked for a six-month hoist of the bill. We think there are some very good reasons for doing so. There are reasons which politically suggest it would wise to do so; there are reasons which economically advise that it would be wise to do so. There are some other reasons as well, and those are they which I propose to debate at this time.

Clearly, the forest industry itself is split and divided and in conflict on the merit and the principles of this bill. Clearly to us, responsible people from management and labour both, within certain elements of the forest industry, are asking for a delay, are asking for time, are asking for the famous second look for which Premier Bennett the first was so well and so properly known.

They are asking for a second look because, on first look, it doesn't look too good. They're asking for a second look because, on first look, they're worried, especially among those independents, entrepreneurs and people who genuinely and authentically believe in free enterprise. It looks like they are going to get squeezed out.

I suppose it is a somewhat unusual position that our opposition should be taking up the case of genuine free enterprise in this province but I, for one, am happy to do so. I am happy to do so on a number of counts, and they all suggest that delay would serve those counts as well.

I personally believe that in the forest industry this province would be better served to the greater extent that we have competition. I personally believe that the element of free enterprise, represented by people like the independent truck loggers, represented by people who, in my own constituency, have retired from a long and honourable career in the forest industry and have told me this in private, is something I am happy to stand for.

What they have told me is quite simply this: if you don't watch out, control aver the single most valuable and, happily, most renewable natural resource in the province will gradually fall into the hands of people whose fundamental loyalty, whose fundamental patriotism, does not lie vested in this province or even in this country.

I've met with people who have retired in my riding which, of course, has no TFLs, no PSYUs and only one mill - out on Gorge Road near my parents' home. They have told me that no matter what the political stripe of the government, any government concerned about the long-use planning and the long-range forecasting of economic needs in this province will be concerned about who owns the trees and who gets to use them.

Once more we see - and I've had it reflected by these people in my own riding - that if the greatest prudence and caution and care are not taken with that resource, we will see by the inevitable facts of economic life in a capitalist system that increasingly and aggrandizingly large corporations will become larger, and the small, genuinely free enterprises will be squeezed out.

Surely this is no surprise to any member of the government benches. Even to yourself, I suspect, Mr. Speaker, it's a well-recognized rule of life that in corporate North America the big tend to get bigger and the small tend to get smaller, with the one exception of those industries that operate on the fringe of new technology. Occasionally you see come along a new enterprise like Texas Instruments that starts with two men and a garage in a backyard. Those, however, valuable and important as they are, are the exceptions which -if you will pardon the clichéééé& - tend to confirm the rule.

If you look at the more established industries, in our country and that to the south of us, you will see that by and large concentrations of power and money simply serve to accumulate more power and more money. That is most certainly true in the steel industry; that's obviously true in the automobile industry; it's true in the transportation industry and, increasingly in our province, it is true in the forest industry.

[ Page 2406 ]

One doesn't have to be a New Democrat to point out the obvious danger of increased and uncontrollable corporate authority and financing and opportunity to do its business at its own whim and will. A great many people who are not New Democrats at all have pointed out the same dangers.

One of the reasons we ask for a delay is we see precisely that danger in this bill. One of the reasons that we ask for such a delay is others have seen the same dangers and have pointed out the same pitfalls.

You needn't take the word of a New Democrat that free enterprise is being threatened by this bill. You need only ask people - independent truck loggers and contractors in the business - whether or not they feel assured that this bill guarantees them security, guarantees their workers' jobs, guarantees their stockholders' profits, and guarantees their company's future. When you ask them in private, and increasingly when they discuss it in public, you will hear the same response: this bill does not protect free enterprise.

It protects private enterprise operating on a multinational scale, operating on a scale in such a fashion that we can see and observe the primary loyalties of those corporations are not to this province and our people.

What does it mean to a province whose economy basically is composed of trees and rocks and fish, such as our own is, to have half of that economy - those trees - controlled by eight or perhaps nine major corporations? What does it mean to our future as an independent people to have those eight or nine corporations, to a considerable extent, controlled beyond our own provincial and, in some cases, national borders?

What does it mean to our future as a free people when the most important decisions made about 50 cents of every revenue dollar in this province are made not in the province at all, but are made in other provinces across the country and, most dangerously of all, made in other nations whose flags are not our own?

What it means to me as a Canadian is that if we are not terribly careful, if we are not cautious and prudent, we will discover - as has happened in other countries - that fundamental, enduring control of the principal instruments of revenue generation is lost to us, and once it is lost they don't come back. Once those corporations, headquartered in New York City and Houston, Tokyo, Bonn and London, England, have taken authority, they do not return it lightly to the people from which it was taken.

What we observe is that this bill proposes to give to those multinational corporations a security of tenure, a level of control that they have not earned, do not deserve, probably do not require and most certainly should not have, if we believe, as a free people, that in this province we are perfectly capable of making decisions for ourselves and abiding by them.

As a Canadian who's concerned about losing control of industry to nor&Canadians, I ask for a six-month delay, because I want time for the people listening today, for the people observing the debate and studying the bill, people who are concerned about the outcome of it, to be able to ask the same fundamental questions to which we've addressed ourselves in analysing this bill from the beginning.

First of all, with any revenue bill of this magnitude, whose interests are being served? Having asked first of all %hose interests are being served and having concluded, as we do, that it's just possible that the interests being served here today are not those of genuine free enterprise, are not those of legitimate small business but, in fact, are those of multinational enterprise that isn't free at all but is rather private and selfish in every aspect, then we have to ask: is enough time being granted for the debate of a bill of such consequence? Whose interest is being served?

We would argue by every measure that only the interests of those corporations controlled and headquartered and owned elsewhere are served by this kind of bill.

Suppose just for a moment that the question is a fair one and that the answer I've just provided is an accurate one, then can you not suppose the following question is also fair? Whose interest is served by rushing this bill through the House? If the first question is fair, then so is the second. Whose interest is being served by a government that breaks its own promise - that promise being to give three months' study of the bill in this House - and instead in a month purports to push through a bill which they hope will be understood and which they believe will be supported by the people of this province?

Is it the interest of the government being served to deny this hoist? If so, what could the government possibly stand to benefit from such a denial of a perfectly honourable and traditional approach to a bill of this* grave consequence? If the government's interest is being served, then what is that interest? Well, we're not told because the minister won't tell us. We're not advised because no one in the cabinet and no one in the back bench has advised us either. We're not told because they know full well that if they told the truth, they would be embarrassed by its revelation.

[ Page 2407 ]

They're pushing the bill through at the end of a session when they hope we'll be out at the end of June or in mid-July at the very latest, in order to persuade the press gallery that isn't here, in order to persuade the people whom they choose to ignore, that this bill itself is of such character that it doesn't matter whether or not you rush it. They are attempting, by denying the hoist, by breaking their own promise, to illustrate thereby what they believe to be the reduced and the diminished consequence of this bill.

If they can persuade people that the bill should and could go through in a month, then surely the bill isn't sufficiently grave that it should be held over at all. Well, our point is precisely the opposite. The government is deliberately underwriting and understating the importance of this bill. They are deliberately misinforming the people about the gravity of this bill and deliberately attempting to understate the genuine economic and political significance of the move they've taken.

MR. SPEAKER : Order, please. Hon. member, I'll have to ask you to withdraw the phrase "deliberately misleading."

MR. BARBER : Well, I didn't attribute it to any minister or member of the government, but rather to the government generally. I withdraw it on your instruction.

MR. SPEAKER : Thank you, sir.

MR. BARBER : I believe it serves the purpose of this government if the people should be misled by whatever process about the nature of this bill. The bill is of inordinate complexity and detail; the bill is one of the most complicated, interrelated pieces of legislation that this House has seen for a number of years.

There is no reason why it should not be complicated - and I don't argue against that; there is no reason why it should not be detailed - and I don't argue against that either; there is no reason why the various sections of the bill shouldn't relate to other sections and why the complexity created thereby shouldn't be a proper or responsible approach - I don't object to that and I don't argue with it.

However, from the detail, the complexity and interrelationships of the bill, it's fair to ask whose interest is served by rushing this bill through and whose interest is served by denying the honourable, traditional request of the Legislature to delay its passage for six months in order that greater study and greater examination could take place.

[Mr. Rogers in the chair.]

Well, once again it's the same people in whose interest the bill was written whose interests are being served by refusing the six-month hoist. The multinationals who stand to benefit from this bill have been conspicuously silent on the question of a delay. It's our private information that they don't want to delay it at all. They don't want a fuss; they do not want noise; and most of all, they don't want the minister defending the bill too much, because they'd be embarrassed about that too.

They simply want the bill to go through as they wished it written; the bill has been tabled as they wished it written; its been amended as they wished it amended; and now it's being pushed through according to their timetable. Clearly the people whose interests are served by the bill itself will not also be served by a delay in the bill. It's a perfectly obvious, logical conundrum; you can't have it both ways. If you want the bill and you want it tomorrow, your interest is not served by delaying it for a week.

So you have to look at who is angry. You have to look at who is questioning. You have to look at who is asking for a temporary delay in the bill. When you look, you find out that it is not the multinationals who are asking for a delay; it is the independents. When you look, you find out that it's not the multinationals that are concerned about tenure provisions in the bill; it's the private entrepreneurs. When you look, you find out that it's not the multinationals concerned about control of the public resources; its those people who in this province have for generations been concerned about public control of resources who are raising those questions.

The multinationals are having their interests and their purposes served by this bill and this government. The fact of that is obvious. They are silent, they are still, they are uncomplaining. It is only the independents who are concerned; it's only those who genuinely believe in free enterprise who are raising the fuss. It's only those of us on this side of the House who are concerned about alienation of public lands, rights, tenures and resources who are raising those questions.

As an aside, it's fair to point out, in respect to certain backbenchers opposite, that, indeed, in caucus they have raised these questions about genuinely free enterprise under the Forest Act. I said last week in an aside what I want to say on record now. We on this side of the House conclude that the Forest Act might well not pass a free vote. If

[ Page 2408 ]

the government allowed a free vote on this bill, it might fail. They will not and cannot risk that kind of split. They will not and cannot be defeated on a bill like this because they owe too much to the forest companies whose interests are being served by this bill. They therefore will not and cannot risk a six-month delay because they're worried about what would happen if the public became sufficiently alerted in the next six months to realize just what is at stake here in this bill.

When you ask whose interest is being served, you have to come to the conclusion that only the multinationals who are silent and still and happy are having their interests served by this bill. We, therefore, find it most objectionable that this government, and in particular this minister, should find it necessary or valuable to push the bill through without proper study.

There are other reasons for delay and there are other reasons for a hoist. The principal attitude taken by government in this province toward resource development is something that should concern either major party that might one day form the government. The Liberal leader raised earlier and I want to add to a particular point that in my own judgment validates the need for a delay.

He argued, as has my colleague from Revelstoke-Slocan, that surely it is in the general interest of the forest industry to have adopted by this House a forest policy which both sides can live with. A prudent industry concerned about its future 20, 30 and 50 years hence must realize that the government will change one day. With any luck, it will change at the next election. A prudent industry surely realizes that it serves their real long-term interest to have supported in law and attitude a resource policy which both sides of the House, when in their turn in government, will be able to support and add to and complement.

One of the great dangers in this bill and one of the great reasons for asking for its delay is that at the moment the official opposition cannot in conscience support it. At the moment, it is entirely possible that we will be back in government. If that happens, we will see once again a profound shift in attitude in resource policy and, in particular, in forest policy, which business will then surely come to ask about and say: "Would it not have been better prior to the election that returned the New Democrats to have developed a forest policy that both the New Democrats and Socreds could be comfortable with? Is that not the more prudent course? Is that not the more reasonable objective?"

In a sense, our goals are not that dissimilar. Both sides of the House want jobs and job security. Both sides of the House want good economics and good economic development. Both sides of the House want a forest industry that flourishes and does well because, when it flourishes, so do we. That serves all of us very well indeed.

What concerns this side of the House and what prompts us to ask for a delay is the very real possibility that if we don't watch out, we will be granting to people whose loyalty and patriotism is not centred in this country, let alone this province. What we're concerned about is that companies whose shareholders are fundamentally centred in Chicago and New York and San Francisco and Los Angeles and Dallas and elsewhere will not view as their first goal the reinvestment of their profits here in this province from which the profits derive. The minister laughs. It's, I suppose, an indication of his usual level of comprehension of this kind of debate.

In Time magazine, which perhaps the minister reads - or at least the pictures - you can see a picture this week of a most remarkable enterprise established apparently by one man, Daniel K. Ludwig, which sees now floating down the Amazon River a pre-fab pulp mill built in Japan and shipped by barge across the Pacific Ocean to a plant which has been established by this particular entrepreneur in the softwood forests of Brazil. It's an amazing feat technologically. As a piece of engineering, it's a laudable event.

It's well known, at least on this side of the House, that MacMillan Bloedel has significant holdings and is increasing them in the softwood forests of the southern United States and Brazil. It's well known as a matter of obvious economic fact that MacMillan Bloedel, like any other company, will make its profits where it can and when it can. If it starts to suffer losses, it will cut those losses as quickly as it can. That's how the system works. If you support it, that's the conclusion you have to draw.

One of the great difficulties faced by our forest industry is that the growing time required to obtain maturity in timber is considerably longer in this province for reasons of terrain, topography and climate than it is in other countries, particularly in those to the south of us. That's obvious, but the conclusion, apparently, has escaped the minister. The conclusion that leads us to ask for a six-month delay is the conclusion that points out truthfully that if companies like MacMillan Bloedel, Crown Zellerbach and Pope

[ Page

2409 ]

and Talbot could even manage to invest elsewhere where the trees grow faster

and the return is quicker, then surely they'll do so. From their own point

of view, they would be well advised to do so.

The great danger to us is that after they've cut all the good timber - and Pearse points out how that's been happening - after they've taken the quick harvest and abandoned the long-run reinvestment, they will leave this province and make their new investments elsewhere. They have, in fact, been doing that. Their own annual reports tell us so. What concerns us is that if they generate the profits here and invest them elsewhere, the future of our own forest industry is, to that parallel extent, endangered.

What concerns us about this bill is that it will, in fact, encourage those industries, by the security of tenure that they are granted thereby, to become fat and lazy, to become slothful and careless, to rely on reports which are issued by their own companies and by their own bureaucrats to try and persuade the people that they're doing a good job when, in fact, they're not. The great danger is that if you allow industry to become fat and slothful and indolent, then the sharper industries will take over and they'll go, in fact, where the quicker profits are to be found.

Unfortunately for us, those quicker profits are no longer to be found in this province because the great stands of timber, the original stands, particularly on the coast, the ones which economically by the foot have the greatest value, are largely gone, and they won't come back for a great many years.

So we're stuck with the dual dilemma of preserving our own options as a province for future development in the forest industry and of seeing the companies presently located in this province discovering that their better interests are to be found elsewhere. This government can't have it both ways. We believe that it is at the very least a moral obligation of those companies that make profits here to reinvest them here. At the very'least, it's good business to require them to reinvest their profits here.

If you were dealing with a company owned in British Columbia, controlled by British Columbians and governed by Canadian and provincial tax laws, you might, in fact, be able to make that happen. But the great truth of it is that many of these eight or nine multinationals are not in majority owned or controlled by Canadian , and are not in majority owned or controlled by persons to whom Canadian and British Columbia tax law is applicable.

In fact, we've frequently seen that companies can play the old shell game and

transfer losses elsewhere against profits here and manage to avoid paying taxes

altogether. We've seen a shell game go on for years among the multinationals

that allows them to rip off people in Chile in the mining industry, to create

a paper loss on some mine in West Germany, and to attribute thereby a supposedly

real loss to the mining industry in British Columbia. Thus they can avoid paying

taxes here, avoid reinvesting here and avoid being accountable to the people

here. We say that that's a dangerous thing. No forest company should be

permitted - and, to say the least -should be encouraged to do that; no mining

company either. If they found a way to control the migratory habits of the fish,

we'd probably see those diverted as well. Fortunately they haven't figured

out how to do that yet, and at least we're not losing total control of that

one.

The forest industry will be encouraged by this bill to adopt slothful and indolent practices because they have guaranteed tenure that they don't deserve. No one in business should ever by guaranteed anything that they don't deserve, even a profit. That's how the private enterprise system works. Our friends opposite will always tell us: "You go in business and you stand the risk of going broke. That's fair and that's how it works." Sure enough, it is fair and that's how it works except under this bill, except for the forest industry.

Because when you give the guarantees of security and tenure that this bill provides, you do not encourage the greater effort, you encourage the lesser. When you give guarantees of security and tenure as provided by this bill, you do not encourage the more hard-nosed approach; you do not encourage the tougher bargaining; you do not encourage reinvestment here on the part of the industry whose profits are generated here. To the contrary, you encourage laziness and sloth throughout the industry.

Pearse is well and often reported in his own volumes on the subject that per man, the most efficient industries in forestry in British Columbia are the smaller operations. Per man, Sooke Forest Products in greater Victoria is more efficient than MacMillan Bloedel or Crown Zellerbach. Per man, Victoria Plywood is more efficient than Vancouver Plywood. Per man, the smaller entrepreneurs do a better job than the big ones do. By every ordinary measure the kind of free enterprise represented by Herschell Smith and Sooke Forest Products is to be more supported by this Legislature than is the lazy, fat enterprise represented by the multinationals.

[ Page 2410 ]

The problem is that the Herschell Smiths and others - the independents and all of them -are not helped at all by this bill. They're not encouraged to become more prosperous, more active and more able to employ people. To the contrary, they are denied in law the opportunity to participate fully and equitably in the development of the forest industry in this province. To the contrary, they are frozen out and will be frozen out all the more by the fat companies, whose fatness and laziness will be added to by this bill.

So we want time for those independents to more forcibly and more powerfully come to the conclusion which observers have been coming to in the last several weeks since the bill was tabled.

This bill is dangerous on a number of counts. It's dangerous because as Canadians we are losing control; it's dangerous because as British Columbians we most certainly will lose control; it's dangerous because those of us who believe in genuine free enterprise in the forest industry - and I do - see that that genuine free enterprise is jeopardized by a bill that grants tenure, security and all sorts of other happy and comfortable gifts to the fat enterprises that do not deserve them, that do not require them and should not have them.

This is a bill that serves the interests of big business and not small business. This is a bill that serves the interests of people who fly a foreign flag at their corporate headquarters. This is a bill that serves the interests of no one among the small loggers, the truck loggers and the independents in this province. Of the eight or nine major companies in this province, to a dangerously large extent their shareholders, their interests, their loyalties and their corporate connections are centred not in this province at all, but in the majority of cases in places back east and down south, and that's just completely unacceptable.

The minister no doubt - I heard him across the aisle - will say: B.C. Forest Products, Peter Bentley and the rest of them. That's right, there are a couple of exceptions. MacMillan Bloedel used to be one; it is no longer. Canfor may be one; it might not be much longer. The problem is that this bill will encourage reinvestment, but not in this province at all - in other jurisdictions elsewhere.

Why should the people of British Columbia have to suffer this kind of bill and that kind of approach? What have they done wrong to deserve losing their forests, perhaps forever? What grievous error did they make in this or any other year to see that flushed down the toilet will be control of their forests which is being taken from their hands? Why should they have to lose that? Why should they have to suffer that? The minister has made no case at all. On this side of the House we believe that the people of British Columbia are perfectly capable of owning and controlling their own natural resources.

They're capable of managing them, of planning them and of taking what was given to them naturally by grace - the fish, the rocks and the trees happened to be here - and turning those into enduring life-supporting systems of economy, of employment and of development.

We think the people of B.C. are capable of doing that for themselves. I've often made the case in this House in other debates that it has now been demonstrated that the workers at Kootenay Forest Products are capable of taking power into their own hands. Two of their number are capable of serving on the board of directors of KFP. Two of their number, Gary McCandlish and Klause Offerman, have done a splendid job demonstrating the principle that I'm arguing. Workers themselves are sensitive enough, informed enough and competent enough to handle the job of managing one small but successful aspect of the forest industry in British Columbia.

What happens when this bill comes in? What happens if the government pushes it through? What happens if our move to hoist the bill for six months is not granted? Every opportunity that should be created to demonstrate the great capacity of workers themselves, the great capacity of our own citizens themselves to plan these things, will be lost. We will see in contrast the companies whose primary loyalty is not to us but to others guaranteed security and tenure that they should not have and should not enjoy. We will see that the real private entrepreneurs are frozen out.

We will see that the opportunities for people to learn the most important lesson of this part of the 20th century, which is that they can control and manage their own economies, is being diminished.

So another of the reasons why a six-month hoist serves us is because we don't want people to draw the wrong conclusion from the apparent interest this government has in telling us that we can't manage our own affairs.

One of my colleagues, the member for Mackenzie (Mr. Lockstead) , as I recall, talked about the idea of a log marketing board and suggested the possibility that through a publicly controlled log marketing board we might better be able to ascertain the real value of and to assign to the best place the timber and the

[ Page 2411 ]

forest resources we've obtained in this province. One of my colleagues suggested that there may be a new instrument and a new means yet to be created to ensure that the long-term future we require and the long-term husbanding of our forest resources can be obtained. He has proposed another means of doing it. He has proposed something that perhaps should be found in the Forest Act, but is not. Another reason we want time to consider this bill is so that people like my colleague from Mackenzie and my colleague from Revelstoke-Slocan (Mr.

King) can propose reasonable, thoughtful and entirely practical alternatives to the kind of forest management this government appears to endorse, at least as we read the bill.

When we criticize their bill, it's fair for the government to say: "What would you do?" It's fair for the government to ask us what our options would be. It's a reasonable question to ask what our alternatives might be. We're prepared to debate some of those. We're not prepared to debate them in a rush. We're not prepared to debate them under the force of a government whose weight will command that sufficient time cannot be granted to such a debate.

We are prepared to debate them and will in the best way we can in the context of a bill that itself should be debated over a long period of time and not a rushed and a short one. So another of the reasons why we ask for a delay is that we want time to put forward our own options, our own choices and our own alternatives. We think they are reasonable. We studied them when we were in government, I am informed. Pearse talked about them in his reports I have read. This minister has never even once referred to them, I've observed.

That being the case, if there are alternatives worthy of study as to the kind of guarantee of tenure and the fat-cat enterprise - the fat and the lazy and the slothful enterprise - that will result, then what are they?

We're prepared to answer that question, but we are not prepared to do so under duress. We want thoughtful debate about those alternatives as well. A government that tries to push this bill through by Friday or a week Friday is not allowing proper time to discuss the other alternatives. A government that tries to push this bill through by the end of the month - the unspoken deadline that people seem to think the House is racing toward - is a government that is doing itself a disservice. These are alternatives that might perhaps be incorporated in your legislation.

But if you expect us to study a bill of this complexity and understand it and then, as well, to propose alternatives and move them, all in the space of two, three or four weeks, then you are being unrealistic and most unfair. If you expect that an opposition can, in a scientific and thoughtful way, put forward other choices, amend bills and provide other means for the people of British Columbia to control their own resources in the best way they can, and expect to do that by the end of June, you are asking something that is unreasonable and stupid and you shouldn't do it.

They probably don't want to hear the kinds of alternatives that we propose; certainly the minister doesn't. Did you hear the speech from my colleague? He talked about a log marketing board. There are some important new ideas in the field. There is important new technology that could be applied. There are important new instruments which, in other and more progressive jurisdictions, have been created and have succeeded that you should study and that, judging by this bill, you have ignored.

A six-month hoist is valuable and necessary. It's valuable because it allows time for greater study and greater contemplation of this bill; it's necessary because if it's not granted, we will see the province lose control of its own resources and we will see the province's industry increasingly fall into the fat, stubby, greasy fingers of people who live and own and work elsewhere and whose fat fingers have lost the suppleness and the drive and the energy because of a bill forced through this House by a coalition majority.

People whose industry should be lean and supple and quick and flexible, as our forest industry should be, will in fact be encouraged to become - let me say it once more - fat and indolent, Lo become fat and unenterprising, courtesy of forest management, Socred style.

For all of those reasons and more that will be drawn as the debate progresses, I would encourage the government to allow the hoist, to take the time and thereby to produce a better bill.

MR. LEVI : Mr. Speaker, the one thing that probably concerns me more than anything in the debate, particularly in relation to the hoist at the moment, is that I've been waiting for the debate to really take place in terms of what we hear from the opposition, and we haven't heard anything from the opposition.

HON. MR. WATERLAND : That's right, we haven't.

AN HON. MEMBER : For five days you've said nothing.

MR. LEVI : You're the opposition, as far as

[ Page 2412 ]

we're concerned aver here, and you've said nothing. We have a minister who gets up, makes a 10-minute presentation, and just as he closes he says this:

"In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, the principle of the 1978 Forest

Act is the attainment of better forest management through good licensing system

, fairness and incentives.

"I have received many letters regarding this Act, nearly all making the observation that the Act is" - and you must understand this, Mr. Speaker - "clearly written in simple and understandable language. That being the case, there is no need for me to delay the debate because the Act speaks for itself." That's what he said when he introduced the bill. At the same time he said that, he tabled a whole series of amendments to "clarify, " as he put it.

"We've got to clarify all of the problems that we have in the bill." And in order to do that, he also made available with the amendments a one-page, 8-by-11-inch statement, which clarified all of the complexities of the six and a half pages of amendments.

You know, you get the impression, Mr. Speaker, when you hear the minister talk - and he doesn't talk very frequently - that he's being programmed, that he really is not up to the job that he is supposed to be doing. That's one of the things that concerns us, and concerns us very much. That is why we are asking for a hoist on this bill: not only so that we can get more input from people in the industry and people in the community but also to get some better input than we've received up to now from the minister.

All we have heard from the minister when we introduced the amendment was a rather scurrilous attack on particular groups. For instance, he said that there are certain self-interest groups in this province who would like to see a hoisting of the legislation. "There are certain women's groups, the Telkwa Foundation, I understand the Sierra Club and the outdoor club - all these people would like to see it hoisted because they hate logging in any event."

You know, that's a most incredible statement coming from a minister who tells us that the bill is clear and that it is a clear statement. He accused us of not reading the bill. We've spent a great deal of time, probably more time than he's done, reading the bill.

I would refer the minister to a letter that he received from the Sierra Club. He got the letter on June 16,1978, from the Sierra Club. Now he said in his comments last week that they're a self-interest group and they want to see a hoisting of the bill. Quite obviously, he doesn't understand what the Sierra Club's position is any better than he understands the bill. Those are reasons why we've got to get this bill hoisted until he understands what is really going on.

He got a letter, Mr. Speaker, from the Sierra Club. He attacked them last week. He said they're a self-interest group and all they want to do is see a hoist of the bill. Well, let's see what it is they said, because they certainly didn't say that. He obviously doesn't read his mail. He probably has his executive assistant write all his speeches, and his executive assistant didn't read the mail anyway. They wrote to him on the 16th and they said:

"I enclose on behalf of the Sierra Club, the Federation of Mountain Clubs of B.C., the Federation of B.C. Naturalists and the Canadian Scientific Pollution and Environmental Control Society proposed amendments which we wish to call to your most serious attention during clause by clause reading of the Forest Act in Committee of the Whole.

"As you are aware, we firmly believe that you have a commitment to the people of British Columbia as minister and representative of your government to permit the people to know the nature and the intent of this proposed legislation before final passage."

That sounds like a self-interest group, does it? That's what the minister said last Friday. He didn't know what he was talking about. He just ripped off on a whole group of people. They go on to say: "We agree that adequate time and opportunity has taken place for a full and complete review of the facts to determine the manner of the new forest legislation...." They are not disagreeing with what he's saying, but he's attacking them. "However, to date the proposed legislation ignores significant and major recommendations resulting from the extensive preliminary input. We look forward to your action upon the amendment recommendations contained herein."

Mr. Speaker, part of the evaluation that we made in terms of moving an amendment to hoist was an evaluation as to whether the minister really understood the import of what he was doing. We had to be able, somehow, to read between the lines of his statement when he opened the debate, and there was very little there. There was very little substance whatsoever.

He made a statement in respect to the fairness of the legislation, but we don't think it is fair. He suggests that the bill is going to

[ Page 2413 ]

make it possible for free enterprise to flow even better than it was. Well, here it is again. The minister doesn't read his mail. He got a letter from the Truck Loggers' Association. Does he attack them? We don't know yet. Are they a self-interest group? Of course they're a self-interest group. They happen to have a small share of the logging industry and they are very concerned about what is going on. When they wrote to him they pointed out their concerns.

They said to him, on the second page: "This association was founded by timber owners more than 33 years ago to defend its members from the pressure of foreign monopoly taking aver public resources and the lack of wisdom of the government in protecting and enlarging it." They told him that. They were expressing their real concern about foreign domination of the industry. They said that's why they got together; they found it necessary to form an alliance between all of the small operators so that they could in turn protect themselves against foreign domination.

But he doesn't understand that, because he takes his orders from the Premier and the Premier takes his orders from the forest industry - that's quite clear.

They go on to say: "In that regard the new Forest Act is worse than the old, and we will redouble our efforts to oppose it." What's he going to do, attack them? A self-interest group? You bet they're interested - their whole livelihood is going down the drain with this bill. No regard whatsoever is shown for the small people in this bill at all - no regard whatsoever. We haven't heard him say one thing about this. Presumably it will take him a little longer than 10 minutes to sum up when we finally get back to the main amendment, Mr. Speaker. If his speech in this amendment is any indication, there is no hope out there for the Truck Loggers' Association -no hope whatsoever.

You know, he has said on a number of occasions, Mr. Speaker, that nobody understands the bill but himself, because there are a lot of people who are interested in the legislation who haven't said anything. We know that. We know that major corporations haven't said anything. They're quite happy with the bill; they wrote it. That was part of the political pay-off. That's why we want to stop the movement of this legislation; that's why we want people to take notice of this.

There are more important things happening in this province than the Premier dancing with Ginger Rogers. The whole major industry in this province has been enshrined in legislation, and has been put into the hands of the multinationals forever. And who is saying this? Not just the opposition is saying it; it's the Truck Loggers' Association that is saying it - they're concerned. There are a lot of people who need to say it and maybe they will be saying it.

But until those people are aware of the dangers of this legislation, it is our job to stand up in this Legislature, and to continually ask that this bill be hoisted. It's a time-honoured process. What we're attempting to do is gain time so that the public will become aware of what this minister is attempting to do, Mr. Speaker.

I do not think that he clearly understands it at all. He tells us that there was an opportunity after the Pearse commission report came down, when members of the Legislature, had they been doing their job, could have made an application to appear before the Forest Policy Advisory Committee. That's a whole new process in this Legislature. There used to be a time-honoured process in this Legislature when the standing committee on forestry would meet every year and concern itself with looking at various aspects of the industry.

It would occur to me that that minister might have given the function of examining the implications of the Pearse commission report in terms of legislative recommendations to the legislative committee. They could have met; they could have had their discussions. He could have tabled a White Paper on the legislation, a practice that some other ministers are doing. Then there would have been a long, fruitful discussion about just what was going on. All we've got is a minister who kept quiet for two and a half years.

He tables a bill in the House and makes a statement that there will be three months' opportunity to take a look at the bill. Now he's cutting that time short. He brings in some amendments, and there is an intent on the part of that government to push this legislation through before this House prorogues or adjourns.

The corridors are alive with rumours about when we are getting out of here. This is the key stumbling block: the Forest Act. That's the one that's got to get through. And what's the target date? Next week? Not the way that minister behaves in terms of information. We have been asked by numerous people in the community, Mr. Speaker, to ask the minister to delay this. We have taken that position and we agree with them, because we're worried about who manipulates the government and who manipulates the minister.

This is not a bill that one can say in all candour is a creation of the government; its a creation of the people who control the industry. Those are reasons again for the delay in this kind of legislation. We simply cannot go through a process of

[ Page 2414 ]

having the minister chattering across the floor with little off-the-cuff remarks based on his total contribution in this debate so far of less than 15 minutes.

You know, what signalled for us some of the real dangers of what was happening in terms of this legislation and why we were getting to the stage where we were going to have to see that it would be delayed was that, on the day that the legislation was introduced, the minister introduced to the House the former Minister of Lands and Forests (Mr. Williston) , who was sitting up in the gallery like the Godfather. The minister is trying to convince us that he had anything to do with the drawing up of this legislation. I don't think he had anything to do with this legislation.

All he has to do is to read the lines that they put in front of him, and he can't even do that adequately enough, in terms of being accurate.

All he can do is to attack the so-called self-interest groups, " as he characterizes them. He even attacked the women's groups - a vicious attack on the women's groups with absolutely no foundation whatsoever. He's got to the stage where he's got to attack little groups. I would say, Mr. Speaker, that if the minister is prepared to attack something, then he better attack the bill, take a look at it and see whether in fact he is carrying out his prescribed legislative authority as the Minister of Forests in terms of protecting the industry. Does he understand that?

Does he see his function as Minister of Forests as first of all making sure that the multinationals and the people that dominate the industry continue to get theirs? Is that his role? Certainly that's his role. He just reads his lines, that's all. He hasn't made one original contribution in this House in two and a half years in terms of the forest industry. He's got a lot to say about Korea and Japan but he has nothing to say about British Columbia. And now, in terms of the legislation that he brings in....

DEPUTY SPEAKER : Order, please, hon. member. I have listened to your debate for some time now, and it would seem to me that we were listening to the estimates of the minister. But we're really discussing an amendment. It's a motion that Bill 14 now be amended as follows: by striking out the word "now" and substituting the words "six months hence." So I would ask that you keep your debate relevant within the terms of the motion. Please continue.

MR. LEVI : It seems to me that the relevancy of the debate, which I have been alluding to all the time, relates to the fact that we have to be able to understand the intent of the minister in terms of introducing this legislation. I am suggesting to you that the reason for the hoist is that we do not understand that, that there is no confidence on the basis of what he has done in terms of the brief statements he has made. We are anxious about this legislation, as are many people in this province.

We don't want to return to the same process that existed for the last 50 or 60 years - certainly since 1912, when we started to get into the whole business of looking at the forest industry in terms of regulation. Those are the concerns. We have to also be able to look at whether in fact the minister understands the intent of the legislation. And it is my position that he does not; as much as he likes to tell us that he has some understanding, he does not. This legislation is fraught with danger if the minister doesn't understand it.

The only way that we have at this point in time is to seek - and continue to seek - a hoist of the bill, to put it over for six months until tie becomes more familiar with what is going on and until the public have some understanding of what is going on, until the multinationals, if they have got the intestinal fortitude, will make some comments about their feelings on the legislation. That is the importance of the debate on the hoist, Mr. Speaker.

It's a narrow kind of debate that we have to allude to, so we have to allude in many ways to the bill, to the person that is guiding the bill and to whether, in fact, he fully understands the impact of what he is doing. I am suggesting that that is the reason we have moved this amendment - he doesn't understand it and that's a very serious matter in this province.

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

We're still waiting to hear from the 12 or 15 members on the other side of House who have all sorts of activities in respect to the forest industry in their ridings. We haven't heard anything. We presumably will be hearing from some of the members. As their faces get a little redder and they get a little more embarrassed, they might get up and say something. We can see Kojak is already ready to jump up. I withdraw that remark; I think Telly Savalas would be very upset.

Mr. Speaker, we as legislators have very few vehicles of debate in which we can halt debate, in which we can put it off. We are using this time out of process to do it. This has happened on a number of occasions in this House. It's rarely successful but it does

[ Page 2415 ]

enable us to address ourselves to some very fundamental principles about the bill and about the difficulties that we see in terms of this particular bill, in terms of what is going to happen with the industry. As you have pointed out and as other speakers have pointed out we can't redebate all of the main motion; we have to take the narrow approach. The narrow approach in respect to this is that this House is not ready to be able to debate this bill any more than the public is able to understand it and to accept it. That is the important thing about this.

We've had discussions in this House and outside the House about whether the public really understand what it is. One can't get away from the feeling of a kind of conspiracy of silence that exists out there. We know very well that, within the industry itself, there are great discussions. What is sad is that there are no discussions in public. The reason it's sad is that we're talking about an industry whose resource basically belongs to the people.

Yet this bill treats the resource as though it belonged to a small group of very powerful operators, eight major companies who control most of the industry, and the minister sees his job as making sure that they get what they're entitled to. That's been the tradition in this province for the past 25 to 30 years -in terms of that group getting what they're entitled to.

Well, we have to ask the questions: what is the province entitled to? We've had great debates in the past and we're getting a new kind of debate about what people are concerned about in terms of revenues and taxes. Well, people have to be concerned about this industry. They have to be concerned about it because it's a wealthy industry; it creates better than 85,000 jobs a year; it's 50 per cent of the economic action in this province.

But that minister and that's a further reason for the hoist has not, in all of the years that he's been in the job, some two and a half years, addressed himself in any way to one clear policy question in respect to forestry in this province. This bill, he says, says it all in terms of government policy. That is something really incredible, when all we've heard is some 15 minutes of debate from him.

We talked before about self-interest. We have to have groups that speak out and that talk about it. Well, presumably the minister is aware of a recent statement that was made this afternoon by Jack Munro of the International Woodworkers and Dave O'Connor of the Truck Loggers' Association. They said: "Executives of our groups are scheduling meetings of our members to plan strategy to obtain an amendment to the new Forest Act." They already indicated that they were concerned about the bill when they sent the minister a letter on June 9.

They go on to say: "We are urging Premier Bennett to delay third reading until the fall session." This is from groups that the minister will probably characterize as self-interest groups - the major union in the forest industry and the truck loggers.

They go on to say: "Our studies, done independently, agree that Bill 14, as written, will not intensify degree of manufacture or expand production to provide jobs to replace those lost in modernization. It will not create new jobs. It will threaten existing jobs." Now we have two self-interest groups who have a major concern in this business studying where it's at in terms of work. That adds force and effect to the request that we have, Mr. Speaker, that there be delay in this bill.

Let me just read this again: "Our studies, done independently, agree that Bill 14, as written, will not intensify degree of manufacture or expand production to provide jobs to replace those lost in modernization. It will not create new jobs. It will threaten existing jobs." They go on to say: "Moreover, without amendment to Bill 14, there will not be a solid foundation of job security based on modern technology and assumed ability to compete in the world markets." It is the people who do the work who are making these statements.

"We want legislation that serves British Columbia and which does not give advantage, privilege and monopoly to foreign companies without assuming commitment to British Columbia. While it is unusual for a union and an employer group to join in opposing legislation, it underlines Bill 14 as bad law. Mr. Waterland misunderstands when he says opposition to it is partisan politics by rent-a-group protesters."

This is grassroots opposition from citizens, both Employers and workers, whose interests are threatened. That's one of the basic reasons for the need for the delay in this bill. Those groups out there, the truck loggers and the union, are a rent-a-group crowd, are they? Forty-odd thousand members -you call that a rent-a-group crowd? That's the group that's going to destroy you as a government. Rent-a-group crowd! Mr. Speaker, if he doesn't have a prepared statement in front of him, he tends to go off in a kind of halfcocked fashion and make all sorts of accusations. Here are two major components of the industry asking for a delay, and they have

[ Page 2416 ]

characterized this legislation as bad legislation.

We have been aware for some time, for several weeks since the legislation came down, that it is bad legislation. We have met with dozens of people about this and they have pointed out to us the dangers in terms of the continuing domination of the industry, of the failure to look at the implications of employment in the future, of the fact that the small people will be frozen out as they are nearly always frozen out. Now what does it take to get that minister to understand that this is bad legislation and we have to delay it? What does it take? Is it: going to take a massive protest on the front lawn?

Should people somehow come and ask their legislators to listen to them? He keeps harping back all the time -six years' time and here we want to have a delay and there's no more time.

It's not six years at all. The Pearse commission wasn't set up until 1975. It didn't hand down this report until 1976. Then he sets up a private group of people to have hearings on that kind of legislation and completely ignores the standing committee on forestry. Then lie comes into the House and tells everybody that it is a good piece of legislation. It's clear; it's full of clarity. Then he brings in six and a half pages of amendments. Then he attacks all of the self-interest groups.

There we have, in this statement that was issued by Jack Munro of the International Woodworkers and Dave O'Connor of the Truck Loggers' Association, their joint opinion, and not arrived at lightly either. After all, what is going to happen with the truck loggers? What happens to those people? Implicit in this statement that they have made is that they are taking on the large multinationals and saying: "We want our share of this too." What are the implications down the road for that kind of thing? They've come out and, to their credit, joined forces with the other group that has this significant interest in the forest industry.

All we've heard about in the debate up to now is the whole question of the domination by the multinationals. We've got two new entities in here now that have joined together and are saying to the minister: "This is bad law. You've got to hoist the bill. What is the hurry in terms of putting it through?" Is he telling us that his new deputy minister and his chief forester are ready to go at this very moment with all of the implementation on this legislation? Or would they be better off having six months more before it has to be implemented? Is that what he is telling us?

He's got a new staff. He's got a piece of legislation and, of course, we know the implications of this kind of legislation are nowhere nearly as serious as the implications of those regulations that get drawn up. As has been said, those regulations can turn a bill around. So we are constantly asking this minister to say something at the end of this debate on second reading - because he's already spoken his few innocent moments on the amendment - on just what is going to happen.

Say something; that's what we want to hear. We don't want to hear chippy remarks across the floor. We want to know what you, as the Minister of Forests, are going to do in respect to this bill. We want to be convinced that you understand it. I am suggesting, Mr. Speaker, that he doesn't.

The IWA says he doesn't understand it. The truck loggers say that he doesn't understand it. The environmental people say that he doesn't understand it. The only people who haven't said that he understands it are the people who wrote it for him. That's the industry. That's why we want the hoist on this bill, if for no other reason that the minister, in the final analysis, before we get to third reading, will have some understanding of this piece of legislation that he is bringing in.

You know, 30 or 40 years from now, if we're not able to stop this, if the industry still exists 30 or 40 years from now, they're going to refer back to this debate and historians are going to examine just exactly what took place in the debate. After all, who was in the Legislature? Who was saying things? All they will be able to come down to is that the minister dutifully came into the House, he read his lines, he sat quietly, resisted the opposition's demands for a hoist and the bill was passed into law. Then there were silent congratulations from the multinationals and the people who dominate the industry.

What would it be responsible for, as they say in this press statement? It will be responsible for a loss of jobs. It will be responsible for a reduction in the economic basis of this province. None of that has he ever discussed. He's never discussed that at all.

So, Mr. Speaker, I join in support of this amendment. We simply have to say to that minister that there is no rush. There has not been six years since the industry has been under study. It's only three years. The public part of that study has only taken place over the past two and a half months. If you want some time, if you're interested in doing it properly, give some word to the forestry committee. That can be part of the hoist

[ Page 2417 ]

period. If you're going to hoist it for six months, there is work for the standing committee on forestry to do.

What is remarkable is that, in the most serious piece of legislation that we will ever deal with in this Legislature in this parliament, he is not prepared to take the public with him. He tables the bill - no public statements, doesn't go around. That is necessary with this legislation. It is too important for it to just be passed over and passed through this legislation.

Mr. Speaker, we must get that minister to understand that a six-month hoist is absolutely essential if the economic future and the employment future of that industry is to be secured.

MS. SANFORD : Mr. Speaker, I want to speak in support of this amendment as well. I would like to say to the minister - through you -that if there is a great deal of opposition coming to his office, at least as much as is coming to the offices of those who sit on this side of the House, then it is no one's fault but the minister's. The minister did an absolutely inadequate job of explaining to the people of the province what he means by the legislation. Then he goes on to say that the legislation is very clear and it doesn't need any explanation. It stands on its own, he says. Well, Mr.

Speaker, because the minister has not been able to tell the public what he means by the bill and has been unwilling to listen to the concerns not only of those on this side of the House, but of the IWA, the Truck Loggers' Association and the independent contractors, and because he wants to bulldoze ahead with this piece of legislation, he finds that he's in some hot water out there with the public. Right now the public feels - and whether the minister wishes to contradict me on this or not is up to him - that this bill is a sellout to the major international corporations.

It is nobody's fault but the ministers if that is the

interpretation that is coming out. If the minister feels that that is not the

interpretation that should be put on it, that's the way it reads. That is what this bill is saying to all those people who are concerned enough to take the time to look at it and to study it.

Mr. Speaker, I am very critical of the minister's comments during the debate on this particular amendment. He had the gall to attack the MA for Revelstoke-Slocan (Mr. King) , who was the lead-off speaker for the official opposition on this bill, and the member for North Vancouver-Capilano (Mr. Gibson) . He attacked them, saying that they had not even bothered to read the bill. It is quite clear that the MIA who is sitting right down there in his seat right now has a great deal of understanding and knowledge about the forest industry.

And for the Minister of Forests, who has been unable to explain to anybody what this bill is about, to attack people like the member for North Vancouver-Capilano or the MLA for Revelstoke-Slocan by saying that they haven't even read the bill is indeed presumptuous.

Surely, now that we have been made aware this afternoon that a joint press release has been issued by the Truck Loggers' Association and the IWA calling for this bill to be held over for further scrutiny and for further amendment, we will get people on that side of the House - at least in the back bench - up on their feet saying: "Mr. Speaker, we must hoist this bill for six months." Up until now they thought it was just the opposition aver here speaking in opposition to Bill 14.

But surely now they are beginning to get enough feedback to recognize that this bill is a bad bill as it is written and that the minister has an obligation, the government has an obligation to hold it over so that everyone can have some input into the amendments which we think are very, very necessary, whether the minister thinks so or not.

We've heard the list of people who are asking that this bill be held over, and that list has been read into the record, I know, already - people like the Greater Victoria Environmental Centre, the Truck Loggers' Association and the United Fishermen. The Telkwa Foundation was mentioned the other day, and I should point out that I was very disappointed to see the MLA for Omineca laughing out loud when that particular name was mentioned. After all, they're all constituents in that area. He's laughing again, he thinks they are hilarious. They're all his constituents, Mr. Speaker, and let the record show that he laughs about them.

On the weekend I received communication from two more groups to add to the list that has already been read into the record. From my own area the C.I.P.C., which is the Community Action Action Planning Committee, from the Courtenay area, expressed their concern about the bill. This is a group that is concerned about developments in the Comox Valley, as well as the entire province. They have expressed their opposition to the bill going through at this stage. The Campbell River-Courtenay and district labour council has asked that the bill be held up for a full year, Mr. Speaker, because they feel that the bill is so complex, that the industry is so complex, that we

[ Page 2418 ]

cannot bulldoze ahead within a month of the introduction of the bill to bring in law which will affect everyone in the province. The Campbell River-Courtenay and district labour council is telling the minister that the bill provides for greater concentration of the forest industry into the hands of a few multinational companies. When group after group after group is putting this

interpretation on the bill, surely it behoves the government to hold back on the bill, to make necessary amendments if, in fact, that is not what this bill intends.

The minister has given an indication that we can't read the bill or we haven't read the bill, so he is obviously not putting that

interpretation on it, but that is what the bill is saying and that's why we're appealing to the minister to lift this bill for a period of six months.

(Mr. Veitch in the chair.]

The district labour council goes on to say that the bill fails to deal concretely with problem such as overcut, environment, waste and a lack of silviculture policy. These are the concerns of people in this province on the most important industry - our forest industry. There are only two groups, as I can see it

Mr. Speaker, who want this bill to go through at this time: the Council of

Forest Industries and that government over there. What is the rush? Maybe those

two are one and the same. That certainly has been suggested a number of times

since the introduction of this bill. Why don't we hold up the bill for six

months? Why not? The bill that's there now has been there since 1912. Surely

we can spend the additional six months, or even four months, for that matter,

looking into the ramifications of this particular piece of legislation before

we adopt it.

Mr. Speaker, I don't want the multinationals to exert complete control over our number one industry. That's what this bill is telling us right now. I don't want that to happen and the people of the province don't want that to happen.

AN HON. MEMBER : It's a sellout bill.

MS. SANFORD : The only way we can ensure that this sellout doesn't take place is to hold the bill over and make the necessary amendments that the people of the province want to see.

MR. GIBSON : Mr. Speaker, the amendment that we are addressing is an amendment to hoist the bill for six months. I had not intended to speak again at this stage of deliberations, but when I read the minister's remarks that he made on the hoist amendment on Friday, I was impelled to stand up and set a little bit of the record straight. In many ways it was a kind of pathetic little intervention. The minister stood up and said that members opposite hadn't read this bill, even though they've had it for five weeks. That was effectively what he said.

The minister knows I've read the bill; we sat around and discussed it for a few hours. The minister, I think, can take it as very definite that the hon. member for Revelstoke-Slocan (Mr. King) , the critic for the official opposition, has read the bill. I think he can assume that most of the members who've taken the trouble to speak on this bill have also taken the trouble to read it.

I don't really think that he adds to the level of debate in this province by trying to denigrate those who have the gall to stand up in this Legislature and question some of his policies. It was a pathetic little intervention, but it was pretty arrogant, too, Mr. Speaker, in my view. I do not think the minister did himself and this House any credit.

Then he went on to say that the amendments that he had presented were brief amendments, primarily for the purposes of clarification. Well, that's very interesting. Those brief amendments, as an hon. member said, covered six and a half pages and touched 38 sections of the bill, including, for example, what the industry people are calling the "CanCel amendment" - that very important change in deletion of

section 55. The minister knows that those are fairly important amendments, and I don't think he was giving correct information to the House.

Then he suggested to the press that the level of debate from the opposition has not been worth reporting. Well, that's a judgment for the press to make, but I'll tell you that the minister's contribution to this debate hasn't been worth reporting. Let me tell you some of the things that this minister has failed to do that one would expect a minister to do in bringing an important piece of legislation before this House and in bringing before this House a piece of legislation that closely touches 50 per cent of the economy of this province.

You would expect him to justify the legislation. You would expect him to say something about his intentions under his very broad cutoff powers and replacement powers with respect to regulation of tenures. You'd expect him to say something a little bit more definite about reforestation policy, which

[ Page 2419 ]

receives insufficient mention in the bill. As to these broad cutoff and replacement powers I mentioned, if I was a big company, Mr. Speaker, I'd be terrified of those powers. On the question of whether or not my annual allowable cut was more than I needed for my plants, even if I was happy enough with that for the moment I would say: What's going to happen down the road? How are these powers going to be used? Whether they like this minister or not, this minister is not going to be there forever. I hope he's not there for too long. I'd be worried about that if I was one of the big companies, and justly so.

The minister, I guess, has has seen the comments on the Forest Act sent to him by COFI and what they had to say about licence replacement terms. They say this:

I wouldn't go so far as to say they should be exactly the same as the original agreement, and Iove said quite the contrary - they should be related to the requirements of the conversion plan. But there is some entitlement to some kind of reasonable security based on reasonable performance. Failing that, you know what the situation is.

The minister of the day, when it comes time to roll over a replacement, has got any licence holder where he wants them, and he can squeeze just as hard as lie wants and extract whatever kind of concession he thinks is wise in the light of the day, be it for his government, for his party or, as we saw in one case in British Columbia, for himself personally. That is a very bad kind of power to have available to a minister of the Crown without some kind of review. The minister has not, in this bill, provided for any public review of those rollover and replacement sections for these licences.

I say that there is the most terrifying opportunity for corruption in this legislation that I have seen in any bill before this House for a very long time. We have been protected from this kind of thing in the past by the fundamental and basic honesty of the Forest Service. I'm sure that will always be there, but the temptation and the possibility of ministerial indiscretion is deeply embedded in this bill, and this minister has not said a word about that kind of problem to this House.

He has not sought to bring about a multipartisan agreement on this legislation. Something that surely the industry of this province is entitled to have is general agreement among the parties of this House as to the direction that forest legislation ought to go, because failing that they lack the one thing that the minister said they are entitled to, and that is security.

If the forest industry looks at the parties in this House and sees that all of the opposition parties are united in vociferous opposition to this particular bill and the policy embodied in it, what kind of security can they see for the future in terms of forest legislation? I say shame on the minister, because with very little amendment he could have gotten at least multiparty support, if not all-party support, and I say that would have been a very desirable thing to go after in this forest legislation.

In his remarks on the bill, brief and shallow as they were, the minister did not address the Employment effects coming forward in the forest industry of British Columbia -The 11,000 or so jobs that will be lost in the foreseeable future through necessary modernization. The bill tie is bringing us doesn't provide the kind of incentives and redistribution of the annual allowable cut to the efficient independents that will produce new jobs to replace those in the future.

Tonight I am talking to a high school graduation class in my constituency. High school graduates are interested to know where the jobs are going to come from for them in their future. When they see that the trends in this industry are for a decline in jobs rather than an increase, they have a right to ask why the legislation brought before this House doesn't address that question more effectively.

In his brief interventions in this debate, the minister has not spoken with respect to the allocation of cut on the coast. He has not even attempted to justify the fact that the eight major companies hold cutting rights to 80 per cent of the wood and yet have plants which use only 60 per cent of the total amount of wood. So beyond their requirements, they control a full one-third that the independents need and that the majors can use to continue their stranglehold on the coast market. The minister hasn't attempted to address that question, let alone justify it.

He hasn't addressed the fundamental question of just what kind of security is required for mill investment in terms of forest tenure. Some people can legitimately argue that you

[ Page 2420 ]

need 100 per cent; other people will say that you can get by with much less than that. Certainly you don't need more than that, but that's what exists at the moment on the coast. It's a fundamental question, and the minister hasn't even spoken about it.

He hasn't addressed the whole difficult problem of equity in dealing legislatively with previously alienated public rights that have been conferred on tenure holders. He just puts a

Section 1n the bill that excuses the Crown of any liability in that regard, but he hasn't discussed the philosophy behind it at all.

He's given no statement to this Legislature as to how and when he plans to use his deletion powers relating to undercut and reinventory. He's given no guidance on that at all. How on earth can we judge the policy in this bill when the minister doesn't tell us how he plans to use his very wide discretion?

He hasn't tabled the regulations. The regulations were supposed to be ready about the middle of this month. Where are they? These questions are fundamental to a proper discussion of how this bill is going to operate.

He has given tenure holders too much security in some ways and not enough in others. If security is needed for investment - and this is one of the ministers arguments - in the long run it's not here because of his enormous discretion. I think that the COFI memorandum that I read from illustrates that point perfectly well as far as the industry is concerned.

At the same time, he hasn't given the public the security of assuring them that the annual allowable cut will be fairly distributed and related to conversion facilities much more closely than it is now and the excess taken away and given to the efficient independents. I think this House is entitled to that kind of statement before we vote on this bill.

The basic reason for a hoist is to give time for the community to understand and to come to grips with this bill and with this long series of amendments introduced just as debate opened last week. Six months is the traditional time in this kind of a motion, but I don't think anybody is hung up on six months; they want to get it dealt with as quickly as possible. One thing is certain: there hasn't yet been time for public understanding. The minister can say that this has gone through a six-year debate and review process, and that may very well be.

But the public has only seen this bill for a few weeks and there is still a lack of understanding of it out in the community. There is a growing understanding, however.

I think that press release that the hon. second member for Burrard (Mr. Levi) read was some kind of a landmark in forest industry labour relations and forest industry relations generally - when the IWA and the Truck Loggers' Association can get on the same platform and agree on something of such fundamental importance to the forest industry in this province.

Let me read again a couple of those lines from a statement by Jack Munro of the IWA and Dave O'Connor of the Truck Loggers' Association:

. We are urging Premier Bennett to delay third reading until the fall session. Our studies done independently agree that Bill 14 as written will not intensify a degree of manufacture or expand production to provide jobs to replace those lost in modernization. It will not create new jobs; it will threaten existing jobs."

It's a very strong press release. It's a press release that is agreed to by the head of the IWA and the head of the Truck Loggers' Association. OOFI itself has some reservations, as described in that paragraph I read from the memorandum to the minister. Numerous other groups, names of which have been read out in this debate, have said: "Hold on for a bit. We want to have a closer look at it."

I point out again that we still do not have before us even draft regulations which would give us a better idea of the nuts and bolts of the bill. I say to the minister that he has not, in his intervention in this debate, justified the very important action he is asking this House to take in approving Bill 14. To gain further time for that kind of examination and for further reaction by British Columbians, I very much support this motion to suspend second reading of this bill for the time being.

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

Amendment negatived on the following division:

YEAS - 18

Macdonald

King

Stupich

Dailly

Cocke

Lea

Nicolson

Gibson

Stephens

Levi

Sanford

Skelly

D'Arcy

Lockstead

Barnes

Brown

Barber

Wallace

NAYS - 30

Waterland

Hewitt

McClelland

Williams

Mair

Bawlf

Nielsen

Davidson

Davis

[ Page 2421 ]

Haddad

Kempf

Kerster

Lloyd

McCarthy

Phillips

Gardom

Bennett

Wolfe

Chabot

Curtis

Calder

Shelford

Jordan

Smith

Bawtree

Rogers

Mussallem

Loewen

Veitch

Strongman

Division ordered to be recorded in the Journals of the House.

MR. SKELLY : I very much regret that the government opposite did not see fit to follow through on their promise to suspend consideration in the House of this bill for three months while the public had an opportunity to review it. But in any case, Mr. Speaker, the promises of Social Credit are history, and that particular promise is as well.

There are a number of concerns that I have about this bill and a number of concerns that I would like to discuss and mention briefly during the debate on the hoist. I mentioned those concerns briefly during the debate on the hoist. But I think it's worthwhile probably to go over them again in relation to the bill itself and to debate the principle of the bill itself.

I notice that the Minister of Forests, who has his back now to the opposition and has adopted that attitude right through the debate, is not listening to debate on principle on this bill. It's unfortunate that we have such a minister responsible for such an important department of government and such an important resource in the province. But I guess it is by design of the government that an inadequate minister be appointed to that department so that the industry can dominate the resource in the province rather than the government that should be responsible for the management of this, a common property resource.

But the first concern I would like to discuss is the concern of integrated management. It's a concern I mentioned briefly during the debate on the hoist. It's such an important concern that Dr. Pearse, in his report on his royal commission, devoted a whole

chapter to the question of resource planning and integrated resource management -chapter 19, for the edification of the minister. I would commend that

chapter for the minister's reading because it outlines the progress that provincial gov