This series contains administrative and subject files relating to natural resource development and environmental policies. Includes correspondence, memoranda, reports, briefs, etc.

In 1971 the Environment and Land Use Act (S.B.C. 1971, c. 17) established the Environmental and Land Use Committee (ELUC) as a committee of the Executive Council of British Columbia. The committee was to establish and recommend programs to increase public awareness of the environment, to ensure that environmental concerns were fully considered in the administration of land and resource development, and to make recommendations and reports to the Executive Council. The committee was empowered to conduct public inquiries, appoint technical committees, and hire experts, specialists and researchers. Although little else was done in 1971-1972, the foundation for a full-fledged committee of cabinet had been laid. One of the first actions of the New Democratic government, elected in September 1972, was to utilize the ELUC structure as the basis of a powerful decision-making body. In May 1973, Robert Williams, Minister of Lands, Forests and Water Resources formed the ELUC Secretariat headed by a Director with Deputy Minister status and consisting of three sections with a staff of over one hundred. The ELUC Secretariat was the first time in B.C.'s political history that a permanent staff served a committee of cabinet. The Secretariat conducted studies on economic development, made recommendations to cabinet on the rationalization of resource and land use policies and provided information directly to Ministers. By 1975, ELUC had a membership of nine out of a cabinet of nineteen and was the decision making core of the government as far as resource development was concerned. The work of the Secretariat was thus central to all resource and land use policies. After the formation of William Bennett's Social Credit government in 1975, a formal cabinet committee structure was initiated in all areas of policy. The Environment and Land Use Committee was not part of this structure and the newly formed Economic Development Committee took on the chief role in coordinating resource, environment, and land use policy. Although ELUC was still nominally a cabinet committee, its importance was greatly reduced. The Minister of Environment became the chairman of ELUC and the scope of the Secretariat was diminished. The Secretariat's staff was entirely absorbed by the Ministry of Environment and there were budget cuts. Despite this reduced role, ELUC and its Secretariat were still functioning as a vehicle for advice and recommendations for a coordinated resource development policy. For most of 1978, the members of ELUC were the Ministers of Environment, Agriculture, Economic Development, Forests, Health, Highways and Public Works, Mines and Petroleum Resources, and Recreation and Conservation. The role of the Secretariat was to conduct integrated resource development planning, policy and procedure studies, to implement impact assessments of major resource developments, and to advise on Agriculture Land Reserve matters.

Gerald Grattan McGeer was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba on January 6, 1888. Shortly afterwards, his parents, James and Emily McGeer, moved to Vancouver, where his father ran a dairy business in the Fairview district. McGeer attended school in Vancouver, leaving high school to apprentice as an iron moulder. When he completed his apprenticeship, he decided to become a lawyer. He articled as a law student in Vancouver and then attended Dalhousie University and was called to the bar of British Columbia in 1915. In 1917 he married Charlotte Spencer, the daughter of David Spencer of Victoria. They had two children, Michael and Patricia. In 1922 he was appointed King's Counsel. McGeer first ran for election in 1916, when he was elected Liberal Member of the Legislative Assembly [MLA] for Richmond electoral district. He did not run in 1920; between 1925 and 1930 he contested three federal elections unsuccessfully: Vancouver Centre in 1925, Vancouver North in 1926 and Fraser Valley in 1930. In 1933 he was elected MLA for Vancouver Burrard. He resigned from the legislature in September 1935 to run in the riding of Vancouver Burrard in the federal election of that year. He was successful, and was re-elected in the same riding in 1940. He sat until the dissolution of the nineteenth parliament and was appointed senator on June 9, 1945. McGeer was also active in civic politics, twice being elected mayor of Vancouver, in December 1934 for the years 1935 and 1936, and in December 1946 for the years 1947 and 1948. McGeer made a name for himself in the early 1920s as counsel for the government of British Columbia during the province's attempt to have freight rates equalized. In the 1930s, he became interested in economics and monetary reform and wrote a book, The Conquest of Poverty, and a number of pamphlets and articles on the subject. He died in Vancouver on August 11, 1947.

The records include correspondence, subject files, speeches, manuscripts, published material and clippings. The correspondence files, which cover the years 1927 to 1947, are arranged in four groups: letters filed chronologically; letters filed by the name of the sender; letters received as mayor, 1935 and 1946-1947; and letters relating to the McGeer family. The chronological group contains a number of letters relating to McGeer's interest in economic reform, including some from Maynard Keynes. The letters relating to the family consists mainly of letters of condolence written to Mrs. McGeer at the time of McGeer's death. Additional correspondence will also be found in the subject files, which are generally composed of memos, reports, clippings and letters.

About 300 photographs were transferred to Visual Records accession 198207-007. Cartographic records, including maps of the Ripple Rock area, were removed from Box 13, Folder 6 and transferred to the map collection, Map Accession M89-029, map registration numbers 24105B, 24106B, 24107A, 24108A, 24109A and24110A. A number of books and pamphlets received with the records were transferred to the Legislative Library, and a list of pamphlets is in volume 22, folder 7. The Legislative Library transferred some of these pamphlets back to the BC Archives in 1994 and 1996.

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Public affairs. Jack Webster's popular weekday morning talk show. Guests and topics for this episode are: Western Canada Steel; jobs; Mexican steel imports. John Wilson, President and CEO, Western Canada Steel; free trade; protectionism; 7% tariff on imports; Twig Island; melt shop; re-bar; Korea; Brazil; volunteer restraint agreement USA; losses; recycling. Borys Lessy, President CAIMAW Local 6; Ernie Bayer, Trustee, CAIMAW Local 6; Adolf rolling mill. Cathy Walker, Staff Representative, CAIMAW Local 6; dump steel. Jim Pasman, Acting Manager of Enforcement, Immigration Department of CEIC, BC and Yukon. Vera Radio, Executive Director, Mosaic Immigration Services non-profit society; refugees; immigration policy clamp down; waiting in the USA; process and procedure; landed immigrants; visas; transit visas; medical services; Vietnam; economic migrants; Turkey; Portugal; jobs. Otto Jelinek, Minister of State for Fitness and Amateur Sport; hockey; Soviet Union amateur hockey; reduction of tax burden; Sport Marketing Counsel for Amateur Sport, private sector support; 1988 Calgary Winter Olympic ticket sale scandal; International Ice Hockey Federation; Soviet counterpart’s joint appeal for better international officiating; doping and steroids policy, and random testing.