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The House met at 2 p.m.

BUDGET DEBATE

MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable the Minister of Education.

HON. D.L. BROTHERS (Rossland-Trail): Mr. Speaker, as I take my place in this debate today, I want to first of all express my appreciation to the constituents of my area who have supported me for the fifth time in electing me as their representative for the Rossland-Trail riding.

During these years much has been accomplished in our area, and just last year alone, for example, we had the opportunity of opening a new Senior Citizens' Villa in Trail, which was sponsored jointly by the Kiwanis Club and the Rotary Club. In November of this year, I officiated at the opening of a new addition to the Castlegar Hospital, which cost $2,600,000, and it was only two weeks ago that I had the good fortune of representing my colleague, the Minister of Health Services and Hospital Insurance, at the official opening of two new wings onto the Trail Regional Hospital, which cost $2,500,000. At the present time, we are busy reconstructing the road between Trail and Castlegar and it is my hope that there will be another contract called on this section of highway this year.

However, not everything has been rosy in our district, because on the night of April 23rd of last year, our City of Trail suffered a major catastrophe in that there was a flash flood when the Trail Creek overflowed its banks, and did a tremendous amount of damage to the homes and to the citizens of Warfield and Trail. I flew to Trail the following morning, and after assessing the damage I flew back to Victoria here, and recommended to the Premier that this area be declared as a disaster area, and that the disaster fund, which the Premier had the foresight to set up in the last year's Legislature, that this be activated. The Premier immediately agreed, and he set up a committee consisting of Mr. Williston, Mr. Black and Mr. Wallace, the Deputy Provincial Secretary. This committee then set up a local advisory committee, which is headed up by Mr. R.G. Anderson, and at this time I would like to express my personal thanks to Mr. Anderson for the work that he did on this committee, and as well, very prominent people from our area served on this advisory committee, it also included the Mayor of Trail.

Assessors were immediately dispatched to Trail and they assessed the damages which came to over $1,000,000, and it will cost the City of Trail hundreds of thousands of dollars for the damages that Trail itself suffered, and before this creek is relocated.

The Premier suggested immediately that we set up a formula in such instances, that the Federal Government doesn't have a disaster fund, and it should have one. He suggested that in a case of a disaster area within the Province, that we set up a formula so that individuals in businesses, local businesses could be immediately looked after, and that the Provincial Government would assume 60 per cent of the cost if the Federal Government would assume 40 per cent of the cost, and the Premier said that we would put up the 60 per cent immediately that it was assessed. We argued with the Federal Government for weeks and months trying to get any kind of a commitment out of them. Finally they agreed to put up $200,000 which was less than 40 per cent. The Provincial Government put up $675,000 to assist the people of Trail in this regard. However, the question of damages to Trail itself, and the relocation of this creek still have to be argued out.

So that there was no question about it, I came back and spoke to the Premier in his capacity as Minister of Finance, and he agreed, that for the city and for relocation of the creek, that he would like to see a formula devised with the Federal Government, and agreed to assume 37½ per cent if the Federal Government would put up 37½, and the local community would only put up 25 per cent. We've been arguing now with the Federal Government ever since that time to come up with some sort of an answer. The Mayor of Trail and myself made a special trip to Ottawa to see the Honourable Arthur Laing, and got no satisfactory reply. We've been in correspondence with the Honourable Joe Green, and no satisfactory reply. While all this was going on I noticed with a great deal of interest that a Liberal Cabinet Minister from Manitoba, namely the Honourable James Richardson, had considerable success in having the Federal Government enter into a formula with the Province of Manitoba to help Winnipeg out with flood problems.

I think, Mr. Leader of the Liberal party, that you better get busy and start representing British Columbia, and that you get on the hot line to Ottawa. If you want to help the City of Trail and our area, you'll get on the line immediately to Ottawa and I call on the Federal Government right now to come to the assistance of Trail and British Columbia in this connection.

While I'm on my feet I would like to congratulate Mr. Sam Conkin of our area, who was one of the spark plugs to get a group going called the Kootenay Industrial Development Association, known locally as KIDA, and this group has banded together to see if they can bring some industry to our area. They have had great success in the West Kootenays getting the municipalities together and the local citizens together, and they have had great assistance and encouragement from the Industrial Development, Trade and Commerce Department here in Victoria, and thank you, Mr. Minister, and I'm hopeful that this group will meet with success in the coming year.

During 1969, we opened the Keenleyside Dam on the Arrow Lakes and held an official opening. Also, I've been working almost since I was elected as a member of this Legislature to protect the recreational area around Rossland, and it was only this year that the Minister of Recreation has agreed to the establishment of the Nancy Greene Winter Recreational Area, so that the loggers, the miners and the recreation people in that area, the sports people, can all work together in harmony, and I'm very proud of this accomplishment that this area will be preserved for recreation purposes forever.

Now turning to education. I think that as we stand here on the threshold of 1970, we can view the scene up to date and find that great accomplishments have been achieved over the last two decades, particularly in the decade of the 1960's. While all this has been going on, however, the cost of education has been rising alarmingly, and later on I'll discuss with you, Mr. Speaker, and members of the Legislature, how these costs are rising and what steps we are taking, trying to control them on behalf of the taxpayers of the Province, and to bring them within his ability to pay.

Of course, part of our problem in the Department of Education is the rapidly increasing school population with the influx of people into the Province. They bring their children with them, and immediately the parents call on us to find classroom space for them in new facilities and new

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schools. While all this has been going on we've had inflationary pressures building up, both as to costs and as to wages, and particularly in the cost of money.

Just for a comparison of school population and costs, I would like to refer you to some statistics here, that in 1960-61 the budget for education amounted to $73,000,000. In a period of ten years this has now increased, and now it's $362,000,000, an increase of 400 per cent. This is Provincial. In 1960, there were around 11,000 teachers in the public school systems, whereas in September 1969, there were almost 20,000 teachers, an increase of 68 per cent in the teaching force. In 1960 we had 316,000 pupils. Now we have 500,000 pupils, an increase of 58 per cent.

As a matter of fact, the cost of operating our schools is almost reaching staggering proportions. Today, it costs to operate the public schools in the Province, if you consider they are open 200 days of the year, almost $1,600,000 a day, whereas the cost in 1960 was $516,000 a day, and in 1952, $175,000 a day. In other words, to operate the public schools in the Province each day, is costing us three times as much as 1960, and ten times as much as in 1952.

Towards the end of 1969, as I said, we ran into great stresses and strains in the educational field because of the rising costs, particularly because of the rising costs of money, and as it was stated in the Throne Speech, we suggested to the school boards of the Province that while the cost of money was so high and there was no sign of it coming down, that they curtail their construction programme to essential classrooms only.

I would like to place before you a few of these statistics on cost and construction. In the last four years we have authorized $211,000,000 for school construction, which involved 4,504 classrooms and libraries. Also, there were 214 gymnasium and activity rooms. While some people will indicate that we did little or nothing last year in the way of school construction, may I inform you, Mr. Speaker, and the members of the House, that last year we authorized a record amount of school construction in the Province, amounting to over $66,000,000. Never such a record in our history. This involved 1,200 classrooms, libraries and 68 gymnasium and activity rooms.

Since the middle of November, when we suggested to school boards that they restrict some of this construction, we have authorized over $4,000,000 of new construction, and right now as I talk, there are at least six major schools under construction, and 453 classrooms being built right today.

Between November and now, we had Mr. Phillipson of our Department doing a study of school needs, essential classroom needs in the Province, and his instructions were to find out where the pressure areas were, to find out what the essential classroom needs were in each individual school district, and to make sure that the school districts were utilizing the space properly that they had available, and he had excellent response from the school districts, and he only provided the report to me last evening. In this report he has set out the essential classrooms that he feels should be constructed within the Province, and at the present time they are now processing referenda for school districts, which do not have the approval of the taxpayers to spend money for school construction, and for those school districts which have received approval of the taxpayers for construction, we will be processing these classrooms.

My feeling, Mr. Speaker, is that in these days of frightful high costs, that only essential work should be proceeded with, otherwise the taxpayers of the Province will be paying over and over again for the cost of this school construction, and they will be paying this high interest for many years to come, and I think that if we were to adopt any other course, that we would be acting irresponsibly.

While we have been studying these costs of school construction, we have been making a very careful study of the new means and methods of school construction itself, and at my instigation the B.C. School Trustees have set up a special committee under the chairmanship of Dr. Peter Oberlander. This committee is to study new methods and means of constructing schools, whether it be done by modular construction — that is to use the same doors and type of doors and windows, and door knobs and what not in the schools — or if you're not getting different standards whether it would mean having a systems construction. That is, mass constructions of schools, with a large construction company in Vancouver doing the work, and you could order a room, or you could order a wall, or you could order a roof, this sort of work — systems construction. I hope this committee will have this report in my hands by the end of March. I also want to know from this committee, if we can save costs by the use of this method, how it could be implemented in the Province.

Another Committee that was operational during the year was a committee headed up by a Mr. Les Canty of the Department of Education, and Mrs. Thompson, the president of the P.T.A., also was a member of that committee. They have filed a report with us on the better utilization of schools and school facilities and this report is in your hands, I instructed it to be sent out to you just recently. In line with the maximum joint use of school facilities, which has been talked about by the school trustees, by the teachers, and particularly by the ladies and gentlemen of the P.T.A., I propose to introduce an amendment to the Public Schools Act, which will allow for community participation in construction of facilities on school grounds.

While we are fighting this hard battle to keep down the costs of operating public schools, I have suggested to the school boards themselves that they could save costs of administration by amalgamation. During the year we looked at the situation in British Columbia and found that there were four unattached school districts in the Province, and in the process of the last several months we have attached three of these unattached districts to existing school districts, and the fourth one is in the process now of being attached to an organized school district. But I think, Mr. Speaker, that there are other ways that these very expensive administration costs can be minimized by school districts by amalgamation, and I am hoping that we can work together with the school trustees of the Province to bring other amalgamations into effect during the current year.

Another method that we are using to try to keep the operational expenses of schools from climbing so it's impossible for the taxpayer to absorb them, is by the use of the formula for operational costs; and from my observation this has worked very well. During the last year several school districts ran into some difficulty. The unit costs for 1969/70 was set at $11,960 per unit. For the year 70/71 it has been boosted to $12,990 which is an increase of 8.61 per cent. This is for operational costs.

I note with some interest that the Province of Alberta is adopting this formula for operating their schools within the Province, and this year they have set a flat increase of 6 per cent, and they're not going to allow any deviation from that figure. In our formula, if a school district wants to spend more than this sum of money, they can spend 10 per cent

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more than the basic formula. If they want to spend more than that, they can do so provided they can get the local taxpayer's approval, as he has to pay 100 per cent of the cost of it anyway. I have advised the school districts of the Province in December, that we anticipate and expect that this year that they will stay within 10 per cent of the programme, and if otherwise, they must get the consent of taxpayers in their district.

Now turning to the public school system itself, more changes occurred in the public school system in British Columbia in the decade of the 1960's than in the 88 prior years to that time. The Chant Royal Commission brought down its recommendations in 1960, and the public school system in British Columbia has changed radically since that time. These recommendations were meant to be a guide in changing education as well as retaining some of the existing features, and the report was interpreted in that light.

Now I've listed a series of changes in my written notes and I will forward them to the members of the Legislature so that they may be able to read what I've said about them, but some of these major changes were the former grade plan up to Grade 6, and then three years and three years, has been revised. Virtually every subject field in the course of education, in the curriculum, has been or is being revised. We've brought in vocational and technological fields of study into the public school system, recommendations regarding kindergartens were taken into account, school district boundaries have been changed, the length of the school day has been increased, the survey of the school libraries were made and now the libraries, in the jargon of the profession, are becoming resource learning centres of the school, the system of teacher certification has been changed, health service requirements in the school system have altered and also the schools are taking advantage of computing centres, and even some of the examination results are handled by computers today.

In recent days, in addition to the recommendations of the Chant Commission, there have been moves afoot in the school system to allow for more individualized instruction. The teaching of French in the school system — individual schools are now having programmes in the Grade 6 and Grade 7 levels. In addition, we have one school district in the Province where French is the language of instruction beginning in kindergarten and proceeding year by year. Also, the textbooks have been changed substantially in the Province. A new procedure for implementing curriculum change has been instituted. Major changes in examination procedures have been instituted. Reporting to parents has altered and great changes have occurred there.

While all this has been going on, and because of the influence of school trustees and teachers in the Province, British Columbia has been in the forefront of many innovations. The Dr. H.N. MacCorkindale Elementary School in Vancouver, for example, was one of the first experiments with the open area concept, and in fact rated a major write-up in the Reader's Digest. During the decade of the 60's, special classes were evolved for children suffering varying problems. Team teaching is also in vogue in several schools. Coquitlam is experimenting with a semester system, and as we enter into the 1970's, we propose to utilize some of the new technological advances, and intend to use educational television.

As we leave the 1960's, on observation we have the finest public school system in Canada, and one of the finest on the North American continent. We will continue to hold our place, our students are better educated, are more mature, and have better facilities than any other group of students in our history. As we proceed into the 1970's I anticipate and predict that the methods of instruction, the use of new equipment and facilities will continue to evolve and to improve.

I'd now like to turn to the post-secondary education system in the Province. In 1960 we had three vocational schools and by 1970, this year, with the completion of the Victoria Vocational School, we now have nine vocational schools in the Province and we have one under construction at Kamloops. The Institute of Technology at Burnaby has provided a completely new field of post-secondary education, a field which is now also being developed by our regional colleges in every part of the Province. These institutions, these vocational schools, have graduated thousands of young men and women into the business life of our Province.

During the course of this Session you have heard the Minister of Mines and Petroleum Resources indicate to you and to the House the tremendous development that will be taking place in our resource base industries in the Province in the next ten years. We'll need thousands upon thousands of technically skilled people and highly skilled craftsmen to take their place in British Columbia in this decade, and I think that, with the evolution in development of these technical schools through the 1960's, it's been a very important factor in our economic development, and I think that these developments will continue during the next decade, although I believe in a different form.

I'd like now to turn particularly to our regional colleges and vocational schools, I'll tell you. During the decade of the 1960's, Dr. Macdonald of the University of British Columbia prepared the Macdonald Report. In it he made a number of recommendations. At that time we had one public college, the Victoria College. We had a private college known as Notre Dame at Nelson. Among his recommendations, Dr. Macdonald recommended that we enter into the field of regional colleges and that they be established in the Province. The Provincial Government immediately adopted this report, and over the past several years has authorized the establishment of regional colleges in every comer of our Province, so that today over one-half of the student population is within commuting range of a regional college. We now have regional colleges at Vancouver in the Vancouver City College, Selkirk College near Castlegar, Capilano College on the North Shore, Okanagan College in that valley, the College of New Caledonia at Prince George, and Malaspina College at Nanaimo.

During this year I expect that there will be two new colleges coming into being, one in the Fraser Valley known as the Douglas College, which should have a very large population almost immediately — we anticipate between 1,200 and 1,500 students immediately. Also, I hope that there'll be a new regional college known as the Cariboo College with its headquarters at Kamloops. In the Throne Speech we indicated that we are carrying on negotiations with the Victoria School District regarding the creation of a new regional college on Southern Vancouver Island.

This concept of regional colleges, I think, is a very exciting one, because it combines academic programmes with technical programmes. We have found that there are a number of students who go to university, for example, and find out that it isn't what they really want and they become drop-outs, but with regional colleges students, are able to enter into the regional college on an academic programme,

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and if he finds that this is not to his liking he has the ability then to transfer over to a technical course or a vocational course. I believe that with the rapid development of our Province it's inevitable that more regional colleges will be coming into existence in the next decade.

Last year in my speech to the Legislature I indicated, from my observation, that there was a distinct relationship between vocational schools and the emerging regional colleges. Except for the case of the Vancouver City College, all of the regional colleges have begun to operate without any formal connection with a vocational school. We have discovered — I had a panel of experts set up to help me with this matter during the year — we discovered that there are a number of overlapping subjects, those being presently given in the vocational schools and those being given in the regional colleges very nearby, and a good example might be business courses, and we have recognized that in the future more and more overlapping will take place.

From time to time representations have been made to me that in the interest of economy and efficiency, that these two types of institutions should be combined in some sort of appropriate fashion, and particularly in the areas where these vocational schools and the regional colleges are close together. Therefore I intend now, Mr. Speaker, to announce the direction in which we intend to move this year. Effective April 1st, 1971, it will be our policy to combine, as far as we practically can do, the operations of the vocational schools with the adjacent regional colleges. In particular, we propose to meld the Nanaimo Vocational School with the Malaspina College. In Prince George our vocational school will become part of our New Caledonia College. The Kelowna Vocational School will become part of the Okanagan Regional College. In the Kootenays, the vocational school at Nelson would work in combination with a separate college, and in Kamloops we would expect to incorporate the new vocational school with the newly-emerging Cariboo College. For the time being we would propose to operate the vocational schools at Terrace, Dawson Creek, Burnaby and Victoria as we are at present, but our intentions would be to have these schools closely integrated with regional colleges. The B.C.I.T. would continue to function as a provincially operated institution.

Naturally, there will be some administrative consequences, and it's not our intention to place a heavier financial burden on the regional colleges or on their participating school boards. At the present time the Provincial Government is assuming 60 per cent of the operating and capital costs of the colleges, and it would not be our intention to upset this 60-40 sharing plan in any way. The regional vocational schools are presently financed from Federal and Provincial sources, as, for example, by the sale of services to the Federal Manpower Development, and these routes will remain open after the two institutions are brought together.

Naturally we feel that we will have to have reasonable assurances that these combined operations will be run in a financially fiscally responsible way, and as a means of accomplishing this rather difficult feat, we're going to propose the establishment of a budget and programme articulation procedure. This procedure would involve a mechanism for advance screening of contemplated changes by colleges, but with a minimum of intrusion to the proper responsibility of the college councils or of the academic and technical staffs. I hope to be able to work out this programme in the intervening year in collaboration with the college councils and with the personnel in the vocational schools, and I hope to be able to do this well in advance of the target date, April 1st, 1971.

We think that in the years of the 1960's that these vocational schools have done wonderful work in our Province, and from all standpoints have been an outstanding success. At the present time the enrolment in the various courses at these vocational schools is more than 21,000 in the last school year. I think with the development of British Columbia in these resource areas, that we're going to require more and more technicians and skilled people, and I think that our regional colleges will give every indication of being ready and able to make these significant contributions.

Now with the time left to me I'd like to turn to the field of the universities. As we entered the 1960's, the Province of British Columbia had only one university, U.B.C. In his report, Dr. Macdonald recommended to the Government that the college at Victoria become a university. He also recommended that the private college at Nelson, Notre Dame, be elevated to a university. The Government accepted these recommendations, and went even further by the construction of a new instant university on top of Burnaby Mountain known as Simon Fraser University. So that today we now have three public universities and one private university in the Province. These three public institutions have been carrying on their steady building programme, and this is to look after the continuing growth of the student population. Among things to note, Mr. Speaker, there is an additional $15,000,000 set aside this year for them to carry on with their construction projects.

I would like to quote a few statistics on grants being given to our Provincial institutions. In 1960-61 the operating grants and the capital grants combined amounted to $11,700,000. By 1965, this had increased to $30,000,000. By '68, $65,000,000. Last year it was $80,000,000, and this year there is an additional $12,000,000, making a total grant of $92,000,000 to our universities.

It was noted in the Throne Speech that in our public universities we have three new presidents. They were installed in office in 1969. As we enter the decade of the 1970's, I think the universities will be facing the problem of being irrelevant in the exciting years that lie ahead of us. In the last two years there has been great ferment in the university area which, from time to time, has erupted in noisy clashes in the major universities of the world. These confrontations have caused all university administrations to look at their policies, to review their objectives and aims, and I think that discussions will certainly be carried on in the future. But I feel that with the enlightened administration, with the new presidents we have in our universities, that they will continue to play a very prominent part, a very important role in the development of our Province during the next ten years.

I am sure that the honourable members of the Legislature are aware of the fact that there is an advisory board, the responsibility of which is for advising of the final allocation of this sum which is appropriated by the Legislature for the operation of the three public universities, and this year the sum being set aside for operation is $77,000,000. The work of this advisory board has not been easy. I want today to pay particular tribute to Dean Chant, who has served as the chairman of the advisory board since its inception. Dean Chant has been an outstanding British Columbian, certainly in education. He has asked to be relieved of this position because he is also a member of the academic board, and I have recognized that his wishes should be respected.

In view of the experiences of the advisory board of the

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past five years, and considering the nature of the problems that we'll be facing in the next decade, I have thought that we should have someone join the advisory board who has had public experience and private experience in the administration of public funds. I am particularly pleased to be able to announce today that the well-known chartered accountant and former mayor of Vancouver, W. C. Rathie, has agreed to accept this chairmanship.

In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, I want to say that great strides have been taken in all fields of education in the last decade. Students graduating from the public schools system, in particular from the vocational schools, the regional colleges, and the universities, are facing a very bright future with the rapid development that is taking place in our Province and in our economy. These students will be facing the best years of our Province which lie immediately before us. And we in the Department of Education are looking forward to the challenges of the decade of the 70's. Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: The Honourable Member for Burnaby North.

MRS. EILEEN E. DAILLY (Burnaby North): Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Just before I rose here I received a note from one of the page boys. I gather he thought that every time I speak I am going to mention something about page girls in this House, because he just handed me a list of names of 12 girls that he thinks would serve very well on the floor. I just hope that whoever is responsible, I am not quite sure, but whatever department is responsible, would give consideration to this.

Well, in taking my place in this year's Budget debate, I would first like to comment on the Budget as it applies to education. We have just heard the Honourable Minister of Education speak in this debate and once again, as of last year, we have heard basically just a recitation of statement of costs, statistics, and number of classrooms constructed, and percentage increases in education. At no time, this year, last year, or even the former Minister, have we had any enunciation of his Department's philosophy of education.

AN HON. MEMBER: Has he got one? Living from day to day.

MRS. DAILLY: And surely, Mr. Speaker, a Budget should be more than a statement of costs and sources of money. Surely a Budget should reflect in financial terms some philosophical commitment.

During the Throne Speech debate I referred to the empty life faced by citizens in British Columbia. No wonder, Mr. Speaker, we are facing an empty society in this Province when the very Cabinet Ministers responsible for managing and planning the affairs of this Province produce empty speeches.

AN HON. MEMBER: Like a Junior High essay.

MRS. DAILLY: Not only was the last speech devoid of content but we even had repeat announcements from the year before.

You know, the honourable Premier's Budget speech on Friday was no exception to this. Here in his concluding remarks, and I quote, "The careful allocation of this record $1,166,000,000 Budget will lay the foundations for continued orderly growth of this Province in the decade of the 70's." Now I ask you, what does this really tell the people of British Columbia? To my mind, it simply suggests a tendency to expand meaninglessly for its own sake. There is no policy here, there is no programme enunciated for the new post-industrial age which we are all going to be faced with.

Mr. Speaker, I find it most disturbing to see that the educational expenditures in this Budget actually show a percentage decrease over last year's Budget. How can this Government justify decrease in educational expenditures in a Province which has one of the fastest-growing student populations, as the Minister said, in Canada?

I am also greatly disturbed that this Government's policies with relation to Bill 86 and school construction are creating a second-rate classroom environment for the students and teachers of British Columbia. Now in March, 1968, the honourable the Attorney-General who was then Minister of Education, outlined to the House on the second reading of Bill 86, the major objectives of the new operating formula for financing schools, and I would just like to run through these objectives as he enunciated them. First, to bring the cost of the basic education programme reasonably into line with the actual operating expenses of school districts. Secondly, to provide meaningful guidelines to the school boards in the preparation of their budgets and thirdly, to simplify the calculation of the education formula and, at the same time, free the hands of the school trustees as much as possible in the administration of their affairs.

Now, these were the objectives that the then Minister of Education outlined to us. This was to be the purpose of this new Bill. Mr. Speaker, I contend that after two years of application, these objectives have not been achieved. For example, could one possibly say that the basic education programmes set by the Government fall reasonably into line with the actual operating costs of school districts, when we know already, Mr. Speaker, that out of 86 school districts in British Columbia, 50 — I think the figure is 49 — have found their 1970 budget has exceeded the 110 per cent ceiling? And you know it is very interesting to note, Mr. Speaker, that the percentages in excess of the 110 per cent factor actually vary from .09 per cent to 61.23 per cent. This certainly shows the great variety in needs in school districts across this Province, and it certainly points out that this formula is not making allowance for these great variety of needs.

What is going to happen to these boards if they are unable to gain approval for the spending of these overages? You know, I thought it was the understatement of the year when the honourable Minister just said, before he took his seat, that some boards have run into some difficulty. Let's examine some of the difficulties that boards have run into. In 1969, nine referendums on operating expenditures were conducted in this Province. Of these nine, seven failed to win the approval of the electorate. Three of these boards were advised unofficially that deficit financing would be in their best interest, and I would like to quote, I believe from the Colonist, from a statement made by James Campbell, President of the B.C. School Trustees Association, who said that seven B.C. School Boards, whose operating budgets were rejected last year in referendums, were allowed by the Government, after they were sworn to secrecy, to obtain extra funds through a form of deficit financing.

But, Mr. Speaker, aside from the point that this shows that this formula is not working, let's look at the most important thing of all, and that is, what effect does the operating referendum and the defeat of it, as we have seen,

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have on the classroom learning environment? In other words, what happens to the students in the classroom? Surely this is the important question. Well, let's look at two districts where referenda were defeated. The B.C. Teachers Federation sent a commission to two of these areas, Kitimat and Powell River, to see if the school operating referenda there last year damaged the quality of education in two of B.C.'s outstanding school districts, and I have chosen them — to the honourable Minister of Municipal Affairs — because these were two lighthouse districts, and I want to show you what has happened to them since the defeat of the referenda.

AN HON. MEMBER: Why were these chosen?

MRS. DAILLY: They made a three-day visit last month to Kitimat and Powell River, two of seven districts in the Province where money-raising referenda were defeated last spring. The referenda were the first of their kind held in B.C. and the only ones of their type in Canada. The Commission members found — it is obvious that the honourable Minister does not understand what the quality of education is all about, so I am going to explain.

AN HON. MEMBER: Living proof.

MRS. DAILLY: I think the honourable Minister will have her chance later on. I believe it is my time on the floor now, Mr. Speaker.

Many teachers had taken the referenda defeat as a direct slap at the value and the worth of the educational programme being offered, and a personal affront to their contributions to that programme. "Some of the joy has gone out of the job," said one Powell River teacher. The Commission found that Powell River's teaching force had been reduced by 23, the number of teachers' aides cut in half, and library and music staff reduced by 50 per cent. The number of remedial or special class teachers was reduced and the janitorial staff cut by one-third.

At Kitimat, they found five teachers were dropped, despite an increase of more than 200 students. Teachers' aides were eliminated. The proposed increase in teaching supplies budget was cancelled, and high school library services were cut. You know, it is quite obvious reading this, and from the reaction across the floor, Mr. Speaker, that this is the reason we are in this mess in education. The Government members have shown by their comments they do not appreciate what a good classroom learning environment is.

AN HON. MEMBER: They are slow learners.

MRS. DAILLY: The budget cutting simply reduced the quality of services offered in what had been two of the most progressive districts in British Columbia. Now, they admit they could find, the Commission could find no evidence that any of the services restricted or removed as a result of the budget cutting represented essential components of the school system. Now one of the commissioners admitted, he said, "Disaster hasn't struck the schools," and I gather this is all the Government is concerned with, that disaster does not hit the schools. We should be encouraged, however, we should be leading these districts because there is evidence, since the defeat of the referenda, of a slow rot in what were once leading districts.

Now, Mr. Speaker, again I would like to refer to the fact that these were lighthouse districts, and this Government, this Department of Education, at the present time does not fund any research for education. Where are the lighthouse and new programmes going to come from if they don't come from, the school board, and yet you are not giving them an opportunity to produce these programmes under your operating formula.

The referendum vote for school operating funds is wrong in principle and impractical in operation. The effect on orderly operation of the school system is disastrous. Denied stable, reliable tax revenues, boards are unable to budget with confidence. School boards can neither bring consistency nor continuity to their programme, and I'm sure the Government members must have talked to school trustees and realize the difficulty they are under in trying to plan ahead. Pupils cannot elect with confidence any particular programme of study, for failure of a referendum may at any time cause the selected programme to be deleted.

Now I ask, Mr. Speaker, why should education alone, among public services in this Province, be subjected to the jeopardy of budget control by a direct referendum? Surely this places education at the bottom of the list of public priorities by this Government. Now, Mr. Speaker, once again, as I did last year, I'm going to call on the honourable Minister of Education to remove this principle of the operating referendum from the school finance formula.

In the Premier's speech on Friday he stated emphatically that there was no school freeze in this Province, and yet on November 18, 1969, the acting Minister of Education announced a freeze on school construction except on an emergency basis. Indications were at that time that essential school construction would be accommodated through emergency statutory provisions. However, and I now quote from the B.C. School Trustees' brief, "Subsequent discussions with the Minister of Education and his officials have led us to believe that such is not the case, and that referendum may still have to, be held, prior to construction of essential accommodation." The brief goes on to say, "We suggest that the proposed capital referendum, frozen on November 18th, represent the honest and the accurate forecast of essential capital needs of school districts, and they have been projected by elected public representatives within the framework of Provincially approved standards."

Mr. Speaker, they go on to make the point that even if the cancelled referenda were allowed to go ahead tomorrow, many of the urgently needed projects could not now be completed by September, 1970. And this is the problem that we are faced with. It's well enough for the Minister to stand up and announce that so many funds will be released. The point is, it is too late now for most districts to get their construction under way for school enrolment in September, Now, how has this freeze affected some of our school districts? I thought we could take, for example, the district of Kelowna, where the honourable Premier resides. I have here a press release issued from the Kelowna District Teachers Association regarding the referendum situation in the Kelowna district and I'd like to read from it. They start off by saying that the referendum position in Kelowna district is bad. First they say, "We do not have sufficient classroom space to serve present needs. We now have one secondary school, Dr. Knox, on shift for the second consecutive year. There is every indication that all five of the district secondary schools will face a shift situation next year." All five — the district of Kelowna.

AN HON. MEMBER: Who's their M.L.A.?

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MRS. DAILLY: Yes, who's their M.L.A.? A recent study of the Central Okanagan, prepared by Professor Wiseman of the University of British Columbia, states that the Kelowna area will increase, the population, at the staggering rate of 125.2 per cent, and what allowance has been made for this? In the elementary field our school district has — this is in Kelowna — 127 classrooms which have more than 35 students each. Now research has shown that it's in the earliest years that are the most critical years, and these are the years where whatever happens to a child it will affect his whole future development and, "If the School Board," to go on quoting from this press release, "is unable to plan and prepare the needed space and equipment for our children's initial seven years, the child's development will be seriously hampered. At the present time, Kelowna school board has had a new secondary school planned since prior to May, 1968. The citizens of School District No. 23 approved the necessary expenditures at that time — 1968, May. Since then the local board has met a continuing and prolonged series of delays and cut-backs that must indeed be frustrating for these devoted public servants." And that's the situation in the District of Kelowna. The M.L.A. is the honourable Premier who has announced there is no school freeze in the Province. Then, of course, we've heard comments before on the District of Coquitlam which, being a very fastgrowing area, is having great difficulties, and it is not being assisted by the Government. When the Coquitlam School Board approached the Government with their construction plans, the Planning Department approved their projects all as essential, but they obviously didn't get past the Treasury bench. I think we'd all be very interested, this is to the honourable Minister of Education, to have tabled a copy of the report of your Planning Department. The Coquitlam School District expects an increase of 2,500 students this coming September, and they simply cannot get their schools constructed by September. This means again they are going to face swing shifts of approximately 3,500 students this coming September.

Now the Municipality of Delta — and I was very pleased to see that the honourable member, who is now checking his facts with the Minister of Education, is going to follow me.

AN HON. MEMBER: Where's he going to follow you?

MRS. DAILLY: I don't know, I'm wondering where he's going to follow, he hasn't anywhere to go really. I think we'll all be awaiting anxiously to hear his explanation of why there is no freeze in Delta, because here are the figures I have about the honourable member's own riding.

The Municipality of Delta asked for a projected 71 classrooms. They were cut down to 47, and they're still awaiting approval to construct these. This means swing shift for Delta in September, and I wonder what the M.L.A. for Delta, as a former teacher, feels about this, because surely he is aware of the problems which can arise from swing shifts, particularly in his own area of Delta where there are so many working mothers.

What happens to these swing shift children who spend, because of being put on swing shift, a great part of their day at home when their mothers are working? It completely upsets the whole household. These children are left to roam because the mother obviously cannot make arrangements, we have so few day care centres available. Now while these mothers are working, the social consequences of swing shifts can be very serious to the children. You know, Mr. Speaker, it's bad enough, it's bad enough to deny the children of this Province the essential classrooms to learn in, but let us remember that the curtailment which this Government has imposed in many districts of school libraries, activity rooms, lab and research facilities is also denying them the right to a quality education.

AN HON. MEMBER: Tells them to play outside.

MRS. DAILLY: We have only to look at The Colonist of two days ago, the headlines, "Oak Bay Council Demands Funds Released for Schools. Oak Bay Council, angered by reports of unsanitary washroom facilities, inadequate heating plant, and a serious fire hazard, voted Monday to begin pressuring the Education Department to release funds and allow construction of a permanent annex at the school, allow construction as approved in a 1966 referendum. ‘It’s deplorable that in 1970, conditions like this should exist in a place like Oak Bay, said Mayor Frances Elford," and she goes on to describe the obsolete wash basins, water closets, etc. The parents produced a petition to the Council, and in the petition they said there is no library in this school, which has qualified for a library for at least 20 years.

AN HON. MEMBER: Good heavens. In Oak Bay?

MRS. DAILLY: Mayor Elford explained that at present the library books are scattered throughout the classrooms, but an order for 1,800 additional books will soon be arriving, and no facilities will be available for them. "All the ills of this school would be cured by the building of this annex, which has been approved by the electorate," said Mayor Elford.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to now point out once again that I've tried to list the problems which the school construction policy of this Government and their operational finance formula are creating for the children of this Province, and unless drastic immediate changes are made we are going to continue to create a second-rate learning environment in British Columbia schools.

I would like to turn now briefly, because I realize we have another opportunity to speak on this in the Educational estimates, but I would like to turn briefly to higher education. At least 70 per cent of the students who graduate from our high schools are going to have to go on, want to go on, and will need to, to some form of higher education, and I'm very concerned, Mr. Speaker, that this Government, through its lack of a financial commitment to higher education, is creating a situation whereby a great number of these students who desire to move on will find no classroom to enter.

U.B.C. has just announced a restriction in enrolment. Simon Fraser last year turned away over 200 students from the Faculty of Education because of lack of facilities. The regional colleges are slowly, painfully, coming into being — far too slowly because of the inadequate legislation, ineffective legislation, which this Government has imposed with regard to the establishment of regional colleges. You know I just was in Ontario recently, and in talking to people in Education there, they were amazed when they found out that we still used property tax for regional colleges. They asked me, "Why, isn't it just another form of higher education?" Far more capital and operating funds are needed to be injected into a post-secondary school network than this Government seems prepared to put forth and, Mr. Speaker, not only are funds being denied, but we have the ludicrous

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situation today where operating estimates for the three public universities are announced in one package. Meanwhile the three universities have no idea what each will receive until the grant is sliced up. Last year they did not know until June.

Such a policy is not only highly arbitrary, not allowing for collective consultation with the three universities to assess their needs, but it restricts their yearly planning. All we've heard from the Minister in respect to this today is a change in the chairman of the present structured commission. We were hoping to hear that there would be changes entirely in the whole structure of university grants and how they are allotted.

Mr. Speaker, although I have devoted the major portion of this speech to education, there are other aspects of this year's Provincial Budget which cause me concern. One of the most condemning features of this Budget is the appropriation for housing under the Minister of Municipal Affairs' Estimates, $5,000,000 for housing and urban renewal, exactly the same as last year, and not even half of that spent last year. Here we are in this Province of British Columbia facing year after year a housing crisis, and this Government year after year fails to take any needed action. Why, the Province of Alberta has just recently placed $8,000,000 alone into land assembly on the outskirts of Edmonton. Already, Mr. Speaker, this has had the effect of bringing down the price of lots in the City of Edmonton, but this Government sits back and waits for local initiative to solve the problem. Mr. Speaker, local initiative alone cannot solve this housing crisis. This Government must step in and take immediate action, because by your negligence in this area you are promoting poverty, and social ills for thousands of citizens in this Province. You know, I get very tired at the prattling across the Floor about "We believe in the family unit." "Everyone should have their own home," but by your own no-action policies in the housing field you're breaking up many family units in this Province. And you're also denying many of our senior citizens the right to live their remaining years in dignity and peace.

You know, I was reading a copy of the Senior Citizens Newspaper, and it was sent to me by a senior citizen who was somewhat concerned about the counseling set-up, which I believe the Minister without Portfolio has set up for senior citizens. They had just read about the cost of transporting these people to meet together to talk about counseling senior citizens. Now I'm not knocking the idea, but may I say to the honourable Minister, first let's fulfill the basic needs of our senior citizens. Let's give them proper housing, let's help them with the cost of drugs, and I don't think you're going to need to have so many counseling problems.

Mr. Speaker, another shocking omission from this year's Budget is that there's no mention of a Government-planned programme in the construction or establishment of nursing home and intermediate care facilities. Like everything else, it's very patchy. We hear that some intermediate care facility is being built, but there's no over-all plan enunciated. Increasing Government contributions to private nursing homes is certainly not solving the problem; for many of our senior citizens who need such care are not on welfare, and they find that all their funds are depleted paying the rates in nursing homes, and then they, too, end up on welfare. When is this Government going to come out with a programme similar to other Provinces, for a three-level patient care, which would include the intermediate care programme? There is nothing in this Budget Speech to suggest that this Government has any concrete plans in this direction, and this is a pretty sorry thing to have to go back to our constituencies and tell these old people, who have to go into nursing homes, that we see nothing in the future out of this Budget to help them in this area.

Mr. Speaker, another area where this Government has been justly condemned is in the care of the emotionally disturbed child and the lack of facilities in this Province. Last year, just prior to the election, the new Youth Development Centre, known as The Maples, on the grounds of the Burnaby Health Centre, was rushed into opening just prior to the election. This $3,000,000 building will ultimately house 75 children. Now I realize it provides other services to the community around. When I visited it in early Janaury, with two other M.L.A.s — and I know that the Ministers across there, many of them have visited it — I was most impressed with the supervisor and the staff of The Maples. But I was not impressed with the building. The building has obviously been designed along precisely the same lines as the Willingdon School for Girls. You know, Mr. Speaker I often wondered how much consultation ever takes place between the Public Works Department and those who are actually going to have to work and live in these buildings.

AN HON. MEMBER: He's asleep right now.

MRS. DAILLY: The end results never appear to be a product of any consultation. For example, here is an example. Private counseling rooms where these emotionally disturbed children are taken individually for counseling, have been built right next door to the woodworking and metal shop room. And, Mr. Speaker, although this expensive building has produced excellent space and facilities, the vocational shop room for the place has no equipment. They have the shop but no equipment, which is indeed frustrating for the supervisor who has a programme, but can't use it in this beautiful building because there is no equipment. Mr. Speaker, this Government has taken one large, clumsy step to provide treatment for emotionally disturbed children, and I would like to suggest that the present building, as it now exists on the Burnaby Health Centre grounds, be turned into a training centre for workers and teachers of emotionally disturbed children. This is what we need. The building would be admirably suited for this. And, at the same time, the Government would immediately set up a network throughout this Province of smaller, less expensive homes f or disturbed children.

Mr. Speaker, this week in the House a member labelled the Government, the Social Credit Government, as a Conservative Government. I contend, Mr. Speaker, that the Social Credit Government in British Columbia doesn't even deserve that label. For this Budget clearly shows that it has been produced by a Government empty of policies and programmes for the 70's a Government that has produced a billion dollar budget, yet it has failed to meet the basic needs of many of the citizens of this Province.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The Honourable Member for Delta.

MR. ROBERT WENMAN (Delta): Mr. Speaker, for the first time in the history of mankind society has accepted the obligation and extended the privilege and right of higher education on a mass basis. I think many members of this House will be able to remember back to their fathers and their grandfathers, to a time when even a Grade 8 education seemed adequate for most people, and it wasn't too many

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years ago that this changed and Grade 10, or junior matriculation, seemed to be a good goal. About the time of the Second World War we were looking toward the objective of everyone trying to achieve a Grade 12 standard, and during the last few years universities have started a rapid expansion, and senior matriculation in today's world is a relatively insignificant goal.

During the last ten years, first university degrees have become commonplace, and we talk of regional colleges, vocational and technical schools and at least 14 years of basic minimum educational requirements. We go even further than that. We talk in terms of continuous education. We talk in terms of formal and informal education continuing throughout the entire life of man. More and more adults return for further formal regrading uptraining or enrichment. Each year we teach more students in school, more years, at a higher cost per student.

While we have found that as the level of education has risen, productivity has risen, and thereby our standard of living. It would seem that, of late, educational costs have over-accelerated in relationship to productivity and might well consume more than the entire productivity that it could possibly create. The rapid accelerating extension of educational services and costs is spiraling at an unprecedented rate, and it seems it is bound on a collision course with the slowdown in the western economy.

In the United States it was recently reported that bond redemptions exceeded sales by $122,000,000 last month for the fourteenth straight month of decline, even after interest rates were raised. This year the Canadian Government will have to refinance $2,000,000,000 worth of bonds. Interest rates are too high. Money is too tight. It seems unlikely that a strong bond market will develop in the next few months.

You know, I would have to say of the member from Burnaby's speech — and I am sorry she has stepped out — but I would have to say you know, like many women, she certainly knows how to spend money but unfortunately she didn't…. I would say that while she put her finger on some of the problems which almost any member of this House could identify, she did fail to come up with the solution. You know, anyone can identify those problems, anyone can tell us how to spend money, but you, Mr. Leader of the Opposition, have never told us how to make it either. And that is the problem with you, and that is the problem. The people of this Province know, I know the people of this Province know that you don't know what a dollar bill is, and they have no confidence in you, and it is this lack of confidence that is the reason you are the Opposition and will continue to be the same.

Mr. Speaker, there will be major cuts in spending for secondary and post-secondary education in the next Alberta budget, Education Minister for Alberta, the Honourable Robert Clark said. The Minister said further he is serious about a plan to place a 6 per cent limit on spending increases by school boards. He said it is the firm intention of the Government of Alberta to come to grips with the rising costs of school administration. In fact, I was pleased to hear our Minister say that the unit cost in British Columbia has not been held to a 6 per cent increase but it has been raised to 8.61 per cent during this year in British Columbia.

Premier Robarts of Ontario has stated that if educational costs continue to rise as they have, Ontario will be bankrupt within the next decade. Educational services must continue to expand, but educational costs will have to be curbed. I am going to give you some suggestions — thank you. I am coming to that a little further on, and they are very constructive suggestions. I hope you will take them, and try to implement them as I have. Educational services must continue to expand but, as I said, these two factors of expansion plus curbing do not have to be contradictory. For there are many ways of efficiency that are well-known, that have been well-known for several years, but I must say have not been put into effect. The taxpayer is not getting full value for his educational dollar. The Department of Education — and you know, the Minister of Education that we have right now, has worked hard and travelled throughout the Province, and his sincerity is known and respected by school boards throughout the Province.

AN HON. MEMBER: What's he done wrong then?

MR. WENMAN: The Department of Education must be more than a money-dispensing satellite of the Department of Finance. In the face of tight money and high interest rates I can understand the concern of the Minister of Finance and appreciate his call for restraint in spending. However, I think we as Canadians and British Columbians have accepted the fact that money is tight and will be in short supply, and the Department of Education should be providing stronger direction in more efficient ways of spending the money currently available.

The Education Department has, or should have, a broad and objective Provincial vantage-point from which it can draw many different efficiency ideas from the individual school boards throughout the Province and they, in turn, should be redistributing these to all the school boards for survey, scrutiny and implementation. I might say that one of these such school boards is Delta, and they have brought many fine ideas to the Department and some of these are being implemented, and that is good. Why is it that every individual school in British Columbia must be an architectural monument, with a seven per cent fee swelling the cost of its construction? Why are the schools open less than 200 our of 365 days per year?

AN HON. MEMBER: Ask the Minister.

MR. WENMAN: Why are some of our universities not used more fully? Why do we have continuous and constant studies on school construction and extended and multiple use of educational facilities, and all too seldom implement the recommendation? I think that the Minister has brought many new studies forward. I think this is fine, and I look forward to him implementing the recommendations that the Parent Teachers Association, the B.C.T.F., and other organizations have brought forward. But I think we must look at them and be prepared to react quickly and efficiently now, particularly on the school use programme.

I think a basic standard architectural plan should be established in the Province of British Columbia, for the construction of schools. Every year or so a team of teachers, architects, builders, and efficiency technicians could be asked to modify and update the plan to meet the changing needs of education. Surely at least five per cent could be saved by establishing such a standard plan. Of course, it is very simple, if there is a seven per cent architect's fee on every school and you can eliminate this, basically you should be able to cut by five per cent. A further ten per cent could well be saved through the prefabrication of standardized components, and this proposal also has been brought forward and how it might

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be implemented.

I am pleased to report to the Legislature that last year I talked on a subject called "Theme Schools," T-H-E-M-E standing for To Help Evolutionize Media Efficiency, the media being the programme and the facility. Basically, what this said, was to take school buildings and place them in the corners of parks, to take community auditoriums and place them adjacent to the schools, to take community libraries and place them adjacent to the schools in the corner of the park, and even, as we can afford them, swimming pools as well. I am pleased to say — the honourable member from Burnaby obviously wasn't in the House, because the Minister announced that he will be making amendment changes that will allow this kind of a programme. I think that is a great forward-stepping programme and I think we will all be looking forward to supporting it.

But you know, this idea of making the facility more efficient, this isn't a new idea. This just isn't happening in Delta, it is happening in many areas of the Province. But the problem is, once you have the efficient facility, the programme is not being modified to make use of it, and I have suggested a new kind of programme, a programme for the secondary school that would take the technical, vocational, and academic kind of courses, and start them at eight o'clock in the morning and run them from eight until 12 noon. Then at one o'clock in the afternoon we would start a human development type of course that would include music, drama, art, physical education, these subjects. By 12 o'clock in the afternoon we would be dispersing to all of the community the facilities instead of leaving these idle until four o'clock or five o'clock or six o'clock in the afternoon. We could bring in the community resource. You know, our whole idea of teaching is expanding, and we need to bring in specialists, we need to bring in special teachers in the field of music and drama and art and physical education. We need to make more important use of our community resource person, and this could be done and will be done if such a programme as Theme Schools is implemented. I am pleased to say that in Delta we have agreed to start to work, the school board has notified me that they are going to start to work towards the implementation of this plan…. Thank you, you just brought me to the next part of the point of the Theme School concept. Then if you have the academic, technical, and vocational programmes running in the morning from eight until 12, that means that at 12 o'clock in the afternoon you have a vacancy of all your academic and technical and vocational classrooms. At this point your secondary school becomes — and remember, this is your more efficient plant, because you have efficiency of facility as well, and a better facility — this, then becomes a regional college, starting at one o'clock or 12 o'clock in the afternoon.

You can have an overlapping — this would bring more and better kinds of teachers into our school districts, because you could have an overlapping of staff between the regional college concept and the high school. It would appeal to teachers, because it would help teachers bridge the gap between high school and regional college, and would help students make the gap in the same way. It would provide in the afternoon, by using the community facility, it would provide an individualized programme for each individual student, suiting his own needs. At the present time we take physical education, and the students have to — by the time the bell rings they change to get out on the playfield, they get out on the playfield, and by the time they get out on the playfield it is time to come back and have a shower and change for the next class These kind of subject matters do not fit in with an academic time-table, so we must take them and we must change them. Now what have we done? We have created a more efficient facility, a more efficient building, and a better programme for our young people in our schools. I think that this can be accomplished, I think that this will be accomplished, and this is the way of providing a better education for a better price.

The member for Burnaby has returned, and I think a lot of her. She found some weak points in the education system, but did you notice you forgot, and I'm sure when the Education estimates come, you're going to tell us, for each point that you make that's wrong, you're going to tell us how to right that, not just by pumping in more money, but give us new ideas on new programmes. You talk of educational philosophy. Tell me how the educational philosophy should change to meet these requirements. I'll be listening, I'll be listening. For the first year the honourable member came in she had a few of these ideas, and I'm sure she's going to return now, in her more responsible role as deputy leader, to a very constructive kind of criticism.

I am afraid that most of our P.T.A. ladies and gentlemen have had to return to the mainland, but I would just like to speak briefly about P.T.A's. You know we talk about involvement. The British Columbia Teachers' Federation produced an extremely fine document last year that I held up in the House, and in fact the document that I pulled these ideas from to make up the Theme School concept, and the basic theme was involvement, and it included community involvement. The teachers in this book told us how they wanted to bring the community into the schools. Well, one of the ways of bringing the community into the schools and involvement is the Parent Teachers' Association, and I think that we must encourage their participation philosophically. We must give them as well, allow them as well to participate on a financial basis as well. You know, traditionally, P.T.A's used to provide stoves in the staff room and all of these things, and every school had its strong P.T.A., because they had a philosophic goal to achieve through an understanding of teachers and parents for the benefit of children, and they also had a practical goal.

I was most disappointed, in my own constituency, to have one of my best P.T.A.'s, and that's the Prince Charles P.T.A., offer to the school board, they said, "We want to provide for elementary students some additional supplies that other schools don't have. We want to provide them with an extra 12 to 15 microscopes, and we've had a winter carnival and we've raised lots of money, and we want to spend it now." Do you know what the school board said to that? Unfortunately, the school board said, "Oh no, the Government should provide those things." I think that that's terrible. I think that there is a role for the P.T.A. to play, and when they come and offer to buy something extra for that school they should not be told, "Oh no," they should be told, "Oh yes," and congratulated for their efforts. I understand there was some discussion or some complaint here about the fact that one school would have something that another school doesn't have. Well, that's not a challenge to the school board to provide, it is a challenge to provide it, but it's also a challenge to the parents of the other school to get a Parent Teachers' Association going, become involved and provide that for that school as well. I think that's a healthy kind of competition and pride that should be encouraged in our school system and I hope, I feel certain this will happen for this school district as well. But the P.T.A. has the money.

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Let's most gladly congratulate them for it, and accept it, and build a better programme with their assistance.

I would like to speak briefly regarding the university. Dr. Bryce, Deputy Minister of National Revenue, my friends to the — do I say the left or the right, I'm not quite sure — my friends over here at any rate, the Liberal party, should know him well. He is an extremely well-respected gentleman and capable, and recently he has said the cost of university and college education alone in Canada will equal the country's total productive capacity by 1994 if current trends continue. It's not the level of British Columbia Government that is recognizing that educational costs have to be controlled, it's not the Government of Canada, it's governments in the entire western world. Because, the traditional sources of money that we have sought are no longer available. The bond market is in a state of virtual collapse in relationship to money available for schools, unless you pay a ridiculously high interest rate that responsible school boards would not want to do. In fact sometimes I wonder, you know, when we have so many school boards complaining about the raising of money, I wonder if they couldn't somehow take a little greater responsibility in raising some of this money themselves.

I would suggest to the Minister of Finance that maybe he should say to school boards, whatever money you can raise from bond sales within your own school community, because I've had P.T.A.'s phone me up and say we will put the money forward for bond issues, I think that he should say that whatever money you can raise in your own local community from your own people, he would match, in a grant, and let them go ahead with development. Let's give some incentives, financial incentives, back to our school boards.

Because of the cost of university education, many new efficiencies will have to be found in this field. I think that limitations should be put on enrolment at universities. We have some 40,000 students enrolled in our universities in British Columbia compared with 22,000 students in our technical and vocational schools. This ratio is all wrong. This is the wrong percentage altogether. This two to one ratio must, for a start, be reversed, because for every one professional job there are five technical-vocational jobs required in the Provincial labour force, but yet we have this heavy preponderance of young people in our universities. Not only must the universities be more selective in choosing the students that want to, need to, and can perform more adequately at the university, but high school teachers and parents must learn to channel their children, not only toward the university, but also toward the technical and vocational schools throughout our own Province.

We have highly over-evaluated and over-rated that piece of university paper, and anyone that doesn't have it or doesn't strive for it, is considered a second class citizen. We've got to change that situation. We've got to change that situation so people have pride in a certificate that they get from the vocational school and from the technical school, because they are every bit as valuable as any piece of paper, any educational piece of paper. In fact, in relationship to productivity I would almost say that they are more valuable, but they are certainly equally valuable, and we must encourage more young people into our technical and vocational schools, and in my opinion curb the amount of expenditure at our universities.

The university administration must make better use of existing plants. They should extend the university day, the university week and the university year. The university requires teachers and researchers but all teachers should not necessarily be researchers. More teachers should be teaching more and researching less during the main term. You know I can agree with a professor who tells me, "But I must research to live and to thrive and to teach," but remember, he is only teaching during a little more than a half of the year, and if he wants to research let him research in the off period. I think that would be a great idea. More teachers should be teaching more and researching less during the main, and researching during the extended lengthy spring and summer recess.

The taxpayer who subsidizes the students feel that he is not receiving full value for his tax dollar being spent at our universities, and the universities in turn have a responsibility to either be more efficient or, if they feel they are being efficient, let them come out and tell us and the community how they are being more efficient. It seemed to me that universities used to have a much closer relationship with communities, but they seem to be moving away. This is a suggestion and a discussion that I have gotten from other honourable members, and I think that the university community must go into the larger community and explain their programme and participate in that community. I think the public has a right to demand this, because he pays 72.2 per cent of the operating cost per student, compared with 23 per cent paid by the student, this is the proportion. We as taxpayers, the taxpayers of the Province of British Columbia, subsidize every university student to the tune of 72 per cent. In 1969/70 it is anticipated that the Government's share will increase to 76 per cent and student proportion of his cost will fall to 20 per cent.

The universities have an important job of communication and public relations between themselves and the taxpayer. It is certainly falling far short in this situation, and if it is not rectified soon, if the universities don't get into our communities soon, they will fall further behind and find public support turning to public contempt.

In the annual report, the Superintendent for Education in the Province states that there is a shortage of teachers in the area of commerce and music. I would suggest that the Department follow the recruitment method found so effective in vocational education, where tradesmen were found from among those actually practising in industry, you know, brought into our vocational, into our technical schools at the high school level. We went out and we found a mechanic working in the garage, and we took this mechanic and we gave him a crash course and we gave him a certificate, we gave him a certificate, and we let him teach. You know, it's not just the fact that the students are now receiving a real kind of practical kind of education in mechanics, in woodwork, this isn't the only by-product that this has brought. This has brought, somehow, a touch of reality, this has brought somehow a touch of reality tempering the staffs of our high schools, and I would say carpenters too, Mr. Member from Cowichan, they have brought many fine carpenters into our schools and they are acting as teachers, and they are acting as good teachers and good influences in our school society.

A similar programme is needed in music and commerce. Because we have a shortage in teachers here, we must take out professionals from the community, professionals who show a teaching aptitude, give them a permit for one or two years, and then if they prove successful as teachers, we should give them a permanent certificate that would allow them to remain in our schools. In the music and the commerce programmes, particularly the commerce pro-

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grammes, we have another problem, and that relates to the new programme, the result of the Chant Report, that is now graduating its fourth senior class. Unfortunately, the programme seems to be channeling the less and less and less academically talented children into the commercial programme, and I think that this needs to be changed. There needs to be added to the arts specialty, as well as a technical-commercial programme, we need an arts commercial specialty programme.

Teacher tenure is too secure, and programmes that will build or eliminate weak teachers should be established at all levels. The Nanaimo experiment in this field, and a co-related merit rating system, appears to be a right step in this direction. What they have done in Nanaimo is they have cut the length of the increments down, and are offering them to teachers who perform well. Other teachers are also helping weaker teachers. I think this is a good programme, but it will only remain good as long as every single teacher doesn't automatically get this merit increment. If every teacher automatically gets this merit increment, all it's going to do is add to costs, and I think that this is a very, very important factor. I think that after the first two, or three years of teaching — true that every year of experience adds something, but it doesn't add the same amount — and after the first two or three years of increments, any other increments should be given only on the basis of merit.

AN HON. MEMBER: Determined by whom?

MR. WENMAN: Determined by the principal of the school. That's my next section here.

Schools and their administration are big business in British Columbia today. Most new schools represent a million dollar investment in plant, and run yearly payrolls of $300,000 to $400,000. Principals of these schools are the equivalent to top flight industrial executives, and they should be given and expected to play larger and more responsible roles within our school systems, just as corporate executives. One of these roles that they should be expected to play, Mr. Member, is they should be willing and able to adjudicate the merit and the ability of the teachers under them, just as any businessman adjudicates the ability of the people working for him. I think that in British Columbia we must remember that we have one of the finest educational systems in North America. I know that the young people in British Columbia are receiving an excellent education that can't really be found in the rest of Canada, and the reason for this is because we have the most highly qualified teachers in the Province of British Columbia of any province in Canada. Now, in so many cases, it's not the facility that the teacher is teaching in, but it's the quality of teacher, that will determine the quality of education that our young people receive.

I think that it's important to note that our educational system has produced the best qualified labour force in Canada. I think that the standard of education in British Columbia is very, very high, and very excellent, and is a credit not only to the Department of Education but to the school boards and the teachers throughout the Province of British Columbia. We have a small but capable Department of Education in Victoria as well, and I think we have an excellent Deputy Minister and staff. The only problem is that they are just swamped with an overload of work, in too crowded conditions.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to just speak briefly regarding drugs and young people. "He was found on a street corner in the city's west end Monday morning, screaming with pain and fear, the middle finger of his hands thrust deeply into his eye sockets. A witness described how a passerby tried to come to the young man's aid. The young man pulled a hand free from his eyeball and punched his rescuer. Again the young man tried to gouge in his eyes. When the ambulance attendants arrived the attendants found him bent over yelling. They were unable to pry his fingers loose from his eye sockets on the way to the hospital. His father said he was a bright, healthy, normal young man. His friend said he had tried marijuana and now decided to try something stronger." The young man has lost his sight. I believe it was Toronto.

You know, I have another excellent book here, an excellent publication that I would recommend to all of the members. This is called "The B.C. Teacher" This B.C. Teacher to me is representative of the kind of involvement teachers should have. It is non-political, it is non-political. It stays strictly to a professional approach. I commend it for this approach, and I commend it to your reading edification as well. But, in this particular book there is one sentence here that I rather like. It goes like this. "Drug is a four letter word, like love and hope, like dead."

Mr. Speaker, I am angry with those in places of high authority who say they don't know if marijuana is harmful and then contradict themselves by saying, but if marijuana isn't harmful it will be legalized. I think this is a disgraceful kind of statement. I am concerned because on one hand he says he doesn't know. Well if he doesn't know, he should stop there until he can make up his mind one way or the other whether he thinks it is harmful or isn't harmful, but if he doesn't know he shouldn't, by innuendoes, suggest that it is harmless. I am concerned because by so stating they are in effect condoning and encouraging the use of marijuana. In my opinion, and I'm not unhappy to say it and I have no qualms about saying it, marijuana is harmful. Marijuana is a negative influence on our society. The only factor left to determine is just how harmful is this marijuana? That's the only question. Now while it's true that one person may try it and it may seem to do no harm to him, you cannot deny that to some people it does harm, and if it does harm to one person we would have to say that it is harmful. And it does harm to many young people.

You know, you don't have to tell young people that marijuana is harmful. You just ask any student in high school today — ask your own sons and daughters — ask them today if they know of young people in their school that they have seen deteriorated through the use of marijuana, and I suggest that almost without failure they will tell you that they know of cases like this. You don't have to ask them, young people know. You don't have to tell young people marijuana is harmful.

Many young people have already fallen into the pit of drug abuse and rehabilitation programmes will have to be embarked upon. This drug drop-out minority, who all too often claim that they would reject and destroy the structures of our society, and talk long and loud of the new society they would build, too often stay too long and too close to the same structured sources of food, shelter, liquor and drugs in a most hypocritical and self-deluding fashion. Too often we try to find excuses for weaknesses, when instead we should be calling his bluff. Let's give his survival instincts an injection of practicality. Instead of sending pushers to the traditional gaols, I feel sure that for the same price or less we could make provision for supervised survival in a northern wilderness camp. Such a closeness to nature, reality, and

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work for survival, might well teach them some of the values that we have so far failed to do.

Young people want to, have to, and will make up their own individual decisions as whether to accept or reject marijuana and other readily available drugs. All we, as responsible adults, can do is to try to give them a sense of values, to try to show them that we have but one mind and one body and one life to live, and that this life is full of opportunity for them to contribute and participate in society. We can hope that by teaching them a sense of values this will have the effect of helping them reject the drug sub-culture that can and does destroy their minds, their bodies, and their future.

You know, Mr. Speaker, one of the things that disappointed me about the Budget was our own reaction. We seem somehow to have become so apathetic and so accustomed to balanced Budgets that we expect them, we expect them. We seem to be so accustomed to not increasing the taxes every year that we seem so unconcerned, we seem so apathetic about this, that we fail to realize what is actually happening around us. You know, if this were any other province in Canada, they would be all talking about the increase in taxes. They would all be condemning the Government for deficit financing. They would all be complaining about the money — the Budget, after all, is financial — they would be complaining about too much money spent in this area and this area and this area.

We are indeed fortunate in British Columbia to have a balanced Budget with no tax increases. Certainly this Budget is not just a Budget for the people of the Province today, but it is a Budget, it is a Budget that will build for the future and the young people of this Province for many, many decades to come. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The Honourable Member for Shuswap.

MR. W.F. JEFCOAT (Shuswap): Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It is certainly with a great sense of pride and satisfaction that I am able to take my place here today in the Budget debate. When we have a Budget such as we have, it certainly gives me a lot of satisfaction to know that without any increase in taxation we are able to meet the demands, the requirements of a growing population such as we have in British Columbia. A Budget like this, coming so shortly after an election, as was said here yesterday, this is truly an election Budget, and this again is an indication of where this Government is going, what they intend to do for their people, even though the Opposition don't like to be reminded of it.

Now we've just come through a very successful election on August 27th. I'm sure the Opposition won't agree with that statement but, however, this is the truth of the situation. The Liberals came back with a reduced majority. Someone asked me the other day what happened to the Liberals. Well, the only thing I can say is that they just did not get enough votes.

AN HON. MEMBER: Their bus broke down.

MR. JEFCOAT: Their bus broke down, or something broke down. I think the grape vine broke down, their correspondence channels, or something because even after all the money spent on bus tours — I'll admit that I would like to have had this trip around the Province, I'm sure it would have been very educational.

AN HON. MEMBER: You could have taken your family with you.

MR. JEFCOAT: Could I have taken my family? Well I think I could have in a bus the size of this and probably with a lot less expense than what went into this. However, the Liberals can see the handwriting on the wall. I'm sure that the man that ran in opposition to me will never do it again. He'll never do it again. No, he can't. I happen to know him a lot better than you do, my friend. I've spent thousands and thousands of dollars in that man's store over the years. I know him very well and he will never come back into the political realm, I'm sure of that.

AN HON. MEMBER: He's only a sucker once, he said.

MR. JEFCOAT: Yeah. He's….

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order please. Will the members please address the Chair.

MR. JEFCOAT: The N.D.P., Mr. Speaker, well, they came into my riding and they were just going to wallop things you know, they were going to raise it up and put a prop under it, you know. They — it was so easy — the signs — the roads were just plastered, the highways were just plastered red with signs up until a certain night. They even took the signs down out of yards, my signs out of yards, and so at a meeting this was brought up. Somebody asked me at a meeting, "What is happening to your signs, Mr. Jefcoat?" I said, "Well I, too, would like to know." These large signs were disappearing. One was right out in front of a house with the lights from this home right on it, right in the lawn upon poles. This question was asked in a four-party meeting. "What is happening to your signs?" I said, "I, too, would like to know what is happening." I said, "I wish you could answer this question." So after a couple of questions went by the board, a young fellow came to the mike in the back of the room and he said, "Mr. Jefcoat," he said, "I am in charge of the N.D.P. sign campaign. I know your signs are disappearing, but," he said, "how would you like to ask your own members?" Well now, if you can imagine such a foolish statement for anybody to make. Such a foolish statement. However, the N.D.P. party 'phoned this man and said, "You can take that sign down, you can take that sign down now," but we never did find my signs, they disappeared. However, this is beside the point. I didn't intend to speak on this.

Then on election day — this is the part that really, really bothered me. I've heard several members speak here today on the Election Act, and I think it's time that some amendments were made and some enforcements made. On election day, down by the arena where the voting was being done, four Liberal cars, or four cars with Liberal signs in all of the windows, backed up right by the door and locked their doors. These were people working at the tables in the arena in the polling booths. The N.D.P. did the same thing and they even defied the police. The police had to go down and order them off the grounds on election day.

But this is not the worst of it, Mr. Speaker. The Act reads that the intent, and so you can put up signs anywhere you want to put them except by a polling booth, as long as they are up before election day. But when outside cars, cars with people in who are not known to the community, on election day drive up and down the streets, park all around the streets on election day with signs saying, "Seventeen years is too

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much — elect an N.D.P. government today, elect an N.D.P. government today." I say, Mr. Speaker, that the intent was to dissuade people on election day, and they were violating and knew they were violating the laws of our country. They make no excuses, they have no hesitation in violating the laws of Canada, of British Columbia, the place that they claim that they are elected to serve the people of, and I think that this is a disgrace to the people.

You know, the N.D.P. people remind me of a fellow that was travelling in the deep south and he got a little bit off the road. He was going, so he thought, to a certain destination. This is what they've been doing over a number of years. Their destination has been for this side of the House for a number of years. They've boasted, "We're going across over there, next time we'll be over there, we'll be over there." But somehow or other they've been travelling for a long time. And, so, this person travelling in the deep south, he just couldn't seem to reach his destination, so he stopped alongside of the road and asked an elderly coloured gentleman. He said, "Sir, could you tell me where I am?" and the coloured man walked across the road and peering in the window of the car at him, he said, "There you is Mister, there you is." So he was kind of taken back, he didn't know just what to say. He went on down the road a ways further, but he didn't seem to be reaching his destination, just like the N.D.P. They just don't seem to be reaching that destination. So he stops and he asks a young coloured lad, and he thought he would be a little more discreet this time and not put himself in an awkward position, so he said, "Say Mister," he said, "could you tell me how to reach a certain place," and he named this place. "Oh yes suh, yes suh" he said, "you just go right on down the road and you make a right turn — no, no," he said, "you can't get through that way, the bridge is washed out." He said, "You're going to have to go back, Mister, and go around — no, no, no, " he said, "you just can't get that way either." He said, "Say Mister" he said, "you just can't get to where you is going from where you is." And this is the way with the N.D.P. party. They just can't get to where they is going from where they is.

AN HON. MEMBER: You don't know where you're going though.

MR. JEFCOAT: You have too many bridges washed out.

This Budget is truly representative of the progress of our Province, Mr. Speaker, but at the same time it admonishes a degree of warning and restraint in expenditures. We must be practical people. We must take the resources at hand and use them to the advantage of the people that we represent, but I say that this Budget is a grand Budget, but at the same time there is a certain amount of restraint. We must not have an inflationary, or advocate or advance inflationary measures.

The demand from our  public is for services, for more services, more schools, more hospitals, more roads, more of everything, more recreational facilities, and it is difficult, Mr. Speaker, to maintain a balanced Budget without increase in taxation. But that's what this Budget does. The only way, though, to meet these requirements, as a Budget, as was said here this afternoon, a Budget is simply dollars and cents — dollars coming in and dollars being spent for the amenities that the country requires. So in order to keep this, make this Budget a balanced Budget, the only way to meet these requirements without increased taxation is by the development of our natural resources, and in a fuller, much fuller degree.

Now this Budget allows for a 14 per cent increase in expenditures, and as I say, without any increase in taxation, and it's the second Budget that this Minister has brought down in excess of $1,000,000,000. But I would hope that to maintain a balanced Budget, that labour and management agreements can be reached so that there will be no delay in the monies coming in to meet the needs of this Budget and to truly make it a balanced Budget. Increases have been considered in every field of our economy to provide continuing services to people.

After all, Mr. Speaker, we are interested in the welfare of people, and that is truly what this Budget does in every field of endeavour. This Budget of $1,165,460,000 provides for increases in home-owner grants, extending of the home acquisition grant to old homes, a $500 grant for the purchase of old homes this year, plus a $1,000 last year on new homes, or a $5,000 second mortgage loan. This year this has been extended to older homes, older type homes, with a $500 grant or a $2,500 second mortgage loan, and I think that this is a great step forward to helping our young people, particularly, to own their own new homes.

We have increased hospital and medical facilities, and I would just like to say here, Mr. Speaker, that I think that our hospital and medical plan should be without criticism. It should be, I feel that it is the best plan, our medical plan and hospital plan are the best on the North American continent. I don't know where else you can go into a hospital for $1 a day. I don't know where else you can obtain the services of your physician, as you can in this country, without digging down in your pocket for hard actual cash. I have in mind at this time a certain elderly couple, the lady was buried the day I came down here, on the 20th of January, but for ten months this senior citizen had specialized care. She had a stroke, and then she had a very, very serious operation, a hemorrhage of the brain, and I am not just sure, but I think the hospital alone, ran into much over $3,000. When we can give this type of service for senior citizens, for the people of this Province, the people who have pioneered this Province, this country, when we can give this type of service to them, I think that we should be proud, proud people. However, there are many more fields of benefits that I could go into here, Mr. Speaker, but I'm sure that we an know what they are, and as there are other speakers, I am going to be as brief as I can this afternoon.

I would like to just go into my own area a little bit at this time, and try and not bore the people of the cities and so on, who may not be so conversant or interested, perhaps, in the rural areas as we who come from these areas are. Now in the Shuswap area we have a very diversified operation, in other words, agriculture, logging, a lot of lumbering industry, fruit industry, and so on. I think that dairying in the agricultural end of it is by far the leading sector of agriculture. Pure-bred stock raising is also very important in the area, there are quite a number of pure-bred cattle raised throughout the area. A year ago at the Kamloops Fat Stock and Beef Sale and Show, both for the Hereford and the Angus, reserved champions went to the people in my area. We have some of the finest cattle on the North American continent raised there, many of them are sold, even for export purposes, for breeding stock. Of course there is hay and grain, and the fruit industry. There is quite a lot of fruit in the area, although not nearly as extensive as what it is down the valley from Vernon south.

Also a new industry in the agricultural line that is increasing quite rapidly is horse-racing, and the part that I want to speak of is race horses. There are quite a number of

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race horse breeders throughout the area, and some of the best race horses in the world have been raised there, many of them going across Canada and south onto the tracks, and this industry is bringing considerable revenue into the area, as well as being a very pleasurable industry, as far as I'm concerned. I'm a horse lover. My horses don't happen to be in this bracket, they are just saddle horses, but this is quite an industry in our area.

Now the forest industry in the area has been, over many years, one of the leading revenue-producing industries. Some of the sawmills are undergoing extensive alterations right at this time to meet the economic requirements of their operations, and with a view to fuller utilization of the timber available, also keeping in mind more adequate pollution control measures. There's a new plywood plant, an $8,000,000 plywood plant being built right now at Armstrong. The sawmill there is being reconstructed, the burners are being rebuilt for better pollution control. Also, a large sawmill at Canoe, with a large plywood plant there, and this summer they are spending $1,600,000, and it is mostly going into the burner set-up for pollution control measures. There will be some enlargements. I understand that they filled in around the lake there. I forgot the amount of money they spent, but they hauled a lot of material in to fill up the edge of the lake, to expand their operations and so on. The other morning they got up and it was all disappeared into the lake, so I haven't heard if they found it or not. This may hold them up. They are putting in large expansions there to meet the demands.

A new particle board plant is also going in, in the Salmon Arm area. This is a very large development. The one building that was up, when I left home they were just putting the machinery in it, was 309 feet long, and almost the same width. It's only one of three buildings of this size, plus a sawmill complex mostly for the furniture components, and along with this will be one, and possibly two, furniture factories. This particle board plant is the second one, I believe, on the North American continent, not a chipboard, as you know today, but they will make furniture, furniture components, veneers and all of this. It's a finished product of very, very high calibre. The machinery has been brought over from Switzerland and Germany and, as I say, it is the second one of its kind on the North American continent. They will be using again much of the waste stuff from the sawmill operation, in other words they will be using the sawdust, the shavings from the planer mills, and they will be making chips themselves. They can use the chips that are presently made at the chipper plants, but they would have to re-process them to make use of them in this particle board. They will also make use of cottonwood, birch material throughout the area, any of this type of material for furniture components. With this complex, the furniture and the particle plant, they will employ some 200 to 300 people, when it is all in operation. It will be probably a couple of years before the furniture plant will be in. Also, there is a factory going in now to manufacture trailers, house trailers, ready-cut housing, etc., and they too will employ some 200 to 300 people when they are under full steam.

Then the safety fuse plant, I should maybe mention that. This is a plant that is moving from Quebec, because of unrests and so on down there. These people bought 700 acres of land to put this plant on. The plant does not, of course, cover anything like 700 acres of land, but for safety purposes they have large depots or deposit houses in the mountain, safety places covered over well with the mountain, so that nothing can get to the powder or the explosives whatsoever. They have a large complex and they will be employing something like 80 people, I believe it is.

So with these several industries coming into the area, along with what we have, it is certainly going to bring work for young people in the area. People are moving in to work instead of our young people moving out. People are moving in, and of course, this leads to more trouble in the line of pollution and the likes of that. We also have two new airstrips, one at Salmon Arm and one at Armstrong.

AN HON. MEMBER: More pollution.

MR. JEFCOAT: Well, maybe it's more pollution, but we seem to feel that these things are essential. The aeroplanes cause pollution, this is sure, but they are also a method and means of people in industry getting from one place to another in a hurry. So we have these two new airstrips, which will take quite large planes, especially the one at Salmon Arm, it is going to take almost any size plane when it is finished, it isn't entirely finished yet. They are using it for lighter planes but I hope this year that….

AN HON. MEMBER: Lear Jets?

MR. JEFCOAT: ….Well, I don't think the Lear Jets would get in there yet, they could get in, but they might not get out.

Pollution, I think, has been mentioned in this House more times, I believe, than any other subject this year. It is the prime issue of the day. With our increased population and industrial development expansion programme, it is imperative that prompt and aggressive action be taken to curb pollution. In the Shuswap area, water pollution requires the most urgent attention. We have many rivers and lakes which have not been polluted to anywhere near the danger point yet. There is no use to say there is no pollution, because there certainly is, where immediate action is necessary to ensure that these waters remain pure. Sewage treatment plants must be installed at once in the populated areas. Right now Enderby is putting in a pollution treatment plant there. Their sewage has been going directly into the river, but as legislation was passed last year, which you all know about, this cannot happen any longer. Before I left home the tiles were all piled around the town, and they are going right at it to put in a plant there as quickly as possible. Salmon Arm is the same way. They must put in a sewage disposal plant there and we must keep the pollutants out of these waters. Our population increase is such, and industry increase is such, that we must take every measure possible.

Now along with other industries, there is talk of a pulp plant coming somewhere in the interior. My contention is, or my thoughts are, I am not an expert on it by any means, but I do not feel that we have sufficient water in the area, or sufficient flow of water in the area, to warrant a pulp plant anywhere in that immediate vicinity. I think, if it was placed anywhere on the Shuswap River, I am sure that it would only create a settling pond for this plant, and we cannot have this because of the heavy tourist industry that we have. The tourist industry is the second largest industry in our part of the area, now it is third, I believe, in the Province, but speaking of the Shuswap it is the second largest industry and we must take every step, not only for the tourist but for our own people, to keep these waters clean and pure and do everything possible.

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We know that it is a recognized fact that at least 50 per cent of the air pollution comes from the cars that we drive. We are all guilty to a degree of pollution. There is no use you or I or anyone else pointing a finger at the other fellow. I'm saying that the responsibility is yours, that the responsibility is to each and, every one of us, and I would hope that legislation will be brought in by Ottawa that will coincide with legislation in each and every province, so that we can have some uniform type of controls for pollution across Canada. Some way of controlling this before it goes too far.

Now, Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate the Minister of Lands, Forests, and Water Resources for immediate action taken and also his staff this summer. People flocked into these areas up there, with a view of staking and leasing lake-shore properties. In one issue of the little Enderby paper alone, I think there were 28, and in another issue I believe it was 32 applications for lake-shore leases. Now, Mr. Speaker, half of these applications came from the City of Vancouver, or the area of Vancouver, and the other half from Calgary. Immediately that I saw this, I phoned the Minister and he immediately stopped any action there until we were able to assess this situation. I got a man to take his boat and we went up and spent a lot of time on the lake, looked the lake-shore all over, and I made recommendations to the Minister, which he accepted, and set these properties on the lake-shore aside for public use, particularly on, Mabel Lake, and mainly. Mabel Lake, for public use purposes. I think it is most essential we keep these lake-shores as free as we, can for public use, or to a very large degree for public use. Well, we want outsiders to come in, and I don't think there should be any fences put up to keep them out, or anything of this kind, but I don't think that we should allow them to come in and stake for all around our lake-shore, and keep our own people away from the lake. The people that have built on Crown lands in prior years, there is not much you can do about them, this is their property, it's the same as your home is yours.

Now, Mr. Speaker I would just like to say a few words about ambulance service. In the per capita grant there's allowance made to assist municipalities in ambulance service, but there is no allowance made in the rural areas. I think that something should be done, and I would recommend that perhaps, or would suggest that perhaps this could be placed in under the regional concept, and the grants could be made to the regional area to take care of ambulance service in rural areas, where they do not have municipalities, or perhaps they could take over all the ambulance service, as we have regional areas set up throughout the Province. But I think it is very unfair to expect a city or municipality to go out into the rural areas and furnish ambulance service with no reimbursement.

Another item, Mr. Speaker, is the Canadian Pacific Railway. Now we know that the Canadian Pacific were granted a charter in the early days. They were given large tracts of land and so on, in lieu of services to the people, and now they are doing everything within their power to remove all passenger service from the Canadian Pacific Railways across Canada, and I think this is a retrograde step. Surely there is some way that this can be all settled, and services can be rendered to the people of Canada. I know in my own area that the services as they have been, have not been very good. In other words, you couldn't get on the train between Revelstoke and Salmon Arm. If you live alongside of the railroad track, which many people that live, for instance, right in Sicamous, they have to watch the train go by, but if they want to get on it they have to come into Salmon Arm or into Revelstoke by car, and then have a car meet them in order to get home. So the services have not been good,

AN HON. MEMBER: They are rotten.

MR. JEFCOAT: ….but now they are wanting to remove any passenger service, and I think this is a most retrograde step, and steps should be taken to stop this.

Now, Mr. Speaker, today has been devoted thus far largely to schools. The Minister of Education has spent some time and the other speakers have both spent most of their time on schools and school problems. Now I have spoken in previous years here along lines of construction of public buildings. I have talked with the Minister of Public Works on several occasions, and I have spoken in previous years on the costs of constructing public buildings. I have said that plans for public buildings should be made available to anyone wanting to put up public buildings, — homes, schools, hospitals, etc. These plans should be on hand in the Department here somewhere, and they should be made available. Cut out so much of this expense of architects and so on.

I want at this time to give you a brief report on a school that was built in my area this summer, at Grindrod. The Minister of Education — I don't see him in the House — but he and some of his people were up at the opening of this school this winter, and I am sure that if you would ask him, they were very, very impressed with this school. This is a two-room school with library, storage room, and a large activity room and so on, and it is a beautiful school both inside and out. There are 7,900 square feet and this school was built at a cost of $84,530. This is a saving of over $30,000 over the conventional type school, over $30,000 saving. This school was built at a cost of $10.70 per square foot. $10.70 per square foot. This school, I think, will meet the requirements of any educational facilities necessary in the Province, and I would like to see something like this used for school construction. We have heard so much about the costs of school construction. I think that when any school board has the initiative to go out and put up an adequate school, a good school — it is a good school, there is nothing wrong with it, the activity room is standard for basketball or anything of this kind, with a stage, hardwood floors, it is really a lovely school — and when the school board has the initiative to go out and put up this type of school, spend the tax dollar in this way, I think that they are to be commended for it.

Now, in my opinion, we as elected representatives, whether we sit here in this House or in an elected school board, or whoever it is handling the public money, I think it is the responsibility of these people to try and cut costs, and this is one place that they could cut costs is in the construction of buildings. So I would commend anyone, or recommend that anyone go and look at this building, if you have any intentions of putting up any buildings of this type, because the cost per square foot, and I have this right from the Department was $10.70. The savings were largely in architects, a lot of it was in architects. Not entirely, I maybe shouldn't say largely, but a lot of it was in architects, a lot of it was in design, the round roof design. It is well finished inside, large high-ceilinged auditorium. The library is upstairs and this type of a roof lends well to an upstairs.

AN HON. MEMBER: What was the total building cost?

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MR. JEFCOAT: The total building cost was $84,530.

AN HON. MEMBER: We have a law in this Province that says no school, no building can be built for that amount without the engineers and architects.

MR. JEFCOAT: Okay. It was built under supervision of the people that contracted it, etc., and this was the cost, with a saving of $30,000. Now if you think this shouldn't be done, well, this is fine. I have said it was done, has been done, and the people saved $30,000 for an adequate school.

Well, Mr. Speaker, I think that at this time I will not take up more time of the House, except to say that this Budget is coming up to be voted on in a few days. I have studied this Budget and with all the goodies that are in it, the provisions that are made, I don't see how anyone can sit in this House and say, "I have been sent down here to represent the people in my area, and still stand up and vote against this Budget. I intend to support it.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: The Honourable Member for Oak Bay.

MR. G. SCOTT WALLACE (Oak Bay): Mr. Speaker, before I speak on the subject that I had originally planned, I feel there should be some comment made in regard to some of the discussion or some of the speech of the honourable member for Yale-Lillooet in yesterday's debate. I think the member is to be commended for many of the very valid issues which he raised in regard to the very broad and very difficult and very expensive matter of total health care, which is a phrase I would like to keep repeating and repeating and repeating. Total health care. I won't go into great detail on that particular subject today, because I would like to have the privilege of covering the subject in some detail during the Estimates of the Minister of Health. But some of the points which the honourable member raised yesterday, I think we should all be thinking about in the meantime. He raised such valid questions as, why does the hospital slow down at the weekend, why is there not a greater amount of medical investigation done on the patient before the patient enters hospital, is there some over-utilization of facilities — and I would agree that there is, and are we making efficient use of personnel whose education and experience is an expensive commodity to obtain? Therefore I think that this kind of question bears asking, and bears answering in some considerable depth.

I think the House should be reminded, and perhaps they do not know, that the Provincial Health Ministers and the Federal Health Minister set up what was called a task force to look into the whole system of delivery of health care services across Canada. The draft report of that inquiry is available and it will be published in total and complete form later on, but I can assure the honourable member from Yale-Lillooet that it contains a very searching analysis and a very thoughtful look at just many of the points he raised yesterday.

There are one or two points which I think, in fairness to all concerned, should be clarified regarding some of the statements which were made about the medical profession in British Columbia, and I would hasten to assure this House that while I am a doctor, I am also a citizen of British Columbia and a taxpayer, and I am not attempting to do other than bring factual information to this House. With due respect, Mr. Speaker, some of the figures quoted yesterday, without telling the whole story, can leave the House and the public with a very erroneous impression regarding the operation of Medicare today. In particular, the question of doctors' incomes was raised, and I would wish this House to know that the figures which are so frequently mentioned related to total payments to doctors, and that the reason the profession is hesitant about having figures released is that — and if you would be so polite as to allow me to finish the explanation — there is a perfectly reasonable attitude in this regard, that the gross figures bandied about bear no relation to the physician's net income, nor do they take into account the very great difference which some doctors have in providing the service compared to others. The figures are readily available if anyone wishes to confirm them, that if you compare the working of an anaesthetist to the practice of a pathologist, the overhead expenses for an anaesthetist run around 20 per cent, whereas for a pathologist and a radiologist it is closer to 80 per cent. I just feel in justice to all concerned, both the medical profession and the public, that when gross payment figures are published or made known in any way, that the whole picture should be told. What I am saying is that for an anaesthetist to have a net income of $25,000 he has to be paid $32,000, but for a pathologist to have the same amount, his gross payment would have to be $125,000, since he employs technicians and equipment and materials which are all included in the gross payments. Now I merely feel that this is putting the record straight….

(Question from an honourable member.

MR. WALLACE: We would be happy to have both published, and I would like to repeat, since the honourable member asks, that we are quite willing and happy to have the figures published if the whole story is told. But to compare a pathologist who may be paid in gross $125,000 with an anaesthetist who is paid $32,000 and assume, as the public may well do, that there is some glaring discrepancy and some vast difference in figures, I think it is only right that the profession should ask this privilege, that when the figures are published the whole story is told. Now, I don't wish to belabour this point, but there are other factors concerned, some of which the member for Yale-Lillooet mentioned yesterday in terms of the amount of training the doctors had or extra training, and the fact that, being self-employed, he has his own pension plan and fringe benefits to look after, and many other factors I don't wish to belabour that point.

The question of discipline of doctors was also raised, and I would assure the House that the very piece of paper which the honourable member showed in the House yesterday is part of the machinery in Medicare which we, on the medical side, in the medical profession, were very willing and happy to have distributed. This statement, which each patient receives, outlines for the patient the bill which was rendered on his or her behalf to the Medical Plan, and this provides a very effective way in which the patient, if he or she feels the bill is incorrect, can certainly question the situation.

It was also implied, and I stand to be corrected, but it was my understanding that the medical profession is overlooking the fact that some of its members may well be over-utilizing the medical care programme, and here again, I personally, as a taxpayer and a citizen, would not at any time shun facing the fact that a percentage may well be doing this. Nor would I think anyone could deny the fact that if we look at any segment of society there is always a percentage of individuals

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who abuse or over-use or prostitute their profession or their calling. While I do not in any way suggest that we excuse these doctors, nor do I think we should over-dramatize the situation by suggesting that they exist in large numbers. I feel that the figure which was published in today's press suggesting that 35 per cent of doctors overcharge, while I can't disprove it, I think that the honourable member, in courtesy to this House and to the profession, should have stated the origin of his statistics.

I would wish to repeat, Mr. Speaker, that as far as discipline of the medical profession in any field is concerned, it depends or relies on the College of Physicians and Surgeons in British Columbia, as it does in other provinces. I would assure the House, from personal experience, that the medical association — which as I have said already in the House, is not a legal body but an organization of doctors — that this body is, in fact, utilizing the data which comes from the computers of the Medical Care Commission to detect those doctors whose pattern of practice is way out of line. Arrangements were made last year, and the machinery is now in action, whereby doctors in this situation have the situation referred to the College of Physicians and Surgeons for the legal action. In this way I think that the House can be reasonably assured — experience will tell us more — but the fact is that the profession itself is aware of its responsibility to discipline those members of its profession who are definitely behaving in an unprofessional manner.

I omitted to mention one other simple factor in the question of these payments which were mentioned. One payment was said to be $200,000 and, again I would suggest that, Mr. Speaker, the origin of that figure and its validity should have been established by the honourable member. But be that as it may, again the payments from the Medical Care Commission are computed, in the case of clinics, very often under the name of the senior doctor of the clinic and that the total payment, in fact, broken down represents the money paid for all the doctors participating in the clinic, so that if there were ten doctors in the clinic, this $200,000 payment broken down will represent the income of several, maybe not ten, but a certain number of doctors.

The last thing I would wish to comment on in regard to yesterday's debate is that we must all, all of us, doctors and public alike, face the fact that when you make a service available to people it is inevitable — and it has been proven in every country where the medical services available are expanded — that the utilization of the service increases. This surely is human nature, and even more important, I would suggest that it is the whole purpose of making the services available, that people shall use them.

The question of preventive health was mentioned yesterday, and I couldn't agree more with the honourable member from Yale-Lillooet, that this must surely be the cornerstone of all our future planning. In this regard, the clinic method of practising medicine, whereby many doctors pool their resources and their experience and save time and energy in various ways, is very much on the increase in Canada, at any rate; but utilization by the patient and over-servicing by the physician are undoubtedly two very difficult and complicated factors in the whole picture of health care costs. I think this House should become aware, if it is not already aware that this, as the years go by, is likely to become an increasing problem rather than one which we can control, the main reason being, as I have stated, that not only do people use the service if it's available, but the quality and the quantity of effort expended per patient seems to increase rather than decrease. We have a vast array of new tests, investigations, and therapeutic measures which almost week by week come into vogue. Some of them prove to be futile, others prove to be extremely useful, and I would only say, in getting off this subject of the total cost of medical care, that we must at all times realize that controlling this problem is not the sole responsibility of the doctor, but a responsibility of each and every one of us, whether we are recipient or the donor of services.

Now, if I may make the speech I planned to make earlier.

My primary intention, in seeking to represent the voters of Oak Bay, was my interest in medical care and in the hope that I could play a part in developing better and more economic measures in the health and hospital area of service in the Greater Victoria area. The Budget figures reveal that for the coming fiscal year $293,000,000 will be spent on health services, which amounts to 25 per cent of the total Budget, and an increase of $40,000,000. I feel that, as I've said already, the money for total health care can be a bottomless pit, and there is no end to the money we could pour into services which would be well-intentioned in providing better care and more extensive care to each citizen. I feel that so big is the financial factor that we must constantly look at the methods we are presently employing to see whether they should not be applied in a more economic and more efficient manner.

Now, contrary to some of the comments on Monday, I have made myself informed about the change in hospital insurance in 1954, when the premium system was found to be less than effective, and the system was changed whereby a nominal charge of $1 a day for hospital beds was introduced. The Leader of the Opposition and the leader of the Liberal party became very worked up, I thought, about the subject of my suggesting that the nominal charge could still remain nominal but realistic if it were increased to $3 a day. The Leader of the Opposition told me that my philosophy was archaic, and it seemed to me that this matched his archaic and ill-informed concept of modern surgery, when he rambled on about saws and hammers and string.

MR. D. BARRETT: Do you use thread?

MR. WALLACE: We don't use string. That's gone out a long time ago. The honourable leader of the Liberal party rose up in righteous indignation, and puffed out his chest, and adopted a holier-than-thou attitude, and saying the Liberals wouldn't do a thing like that, that they would never "soak the sick" was the phrase that he used. Well, Mr. Speaker, I would just like to ask the honourable first member from Point Grey, what did the Liberals in Saskatchewan do in 1968? I have here the Hospital Administration Journal in Canada, Vol. 10, No. 5, May, 1968, which reports that utilization fees announced by the Liberal government will be $2.50 a day for the first 30 days, and $1.50 a day for the next 60 days. There will be a limit of 90 days on the charge.

AN HON. MEMBER: Shame.

MR. WALLACE: I should mention that they also introduced a $2 fee for house calls, and a $1.50 fee for office calls.

SOME HON. MEMBERS:…. Oh…. Oh…. Oh….

AN HON. MEMBER: He forgot to mention that.

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MR. WALLACE: Well, I'm pleased to hear the honourable member admit that they soaked the sick in Saskatchewan. I hope that's recorded on tape. It's certainly very gratifying, Mr. Speaker, to have the Liberal leader make such an open frank acceptance of the fact that the Liberals soaked the sick in Saskatchewan.

I think it's sort of reasonable to continue the quotation from the Journal on Hospital Administration, which says, "The Thompson Advisory Commission, which drafted the medical care plan for the former C.C.F. government, had recommended utilization fees in its report of 1959, and in other countries such as Britain, which is supposed to be the socialist Eden, Australia, and New Zealand, have brought in some type of utilization fees. Norway, Sweden and France require 20 per cent of the cost to be assumed by the beneficiaries." So, I would suggest that in some of these countries, in the Scandinavian countries, which tout socialism as being the be all and the end all, the answer to everyone's problems, I would suggest that if they're finding this philosophy in 1968, that I'm hardly archaic in my outlook.

AN HON. MEMBER: Rubbish!

MR. WALLACE: That's a good word. I'm glad some of our honourable colleagues are catching on to a useful heckling word.

If my suggestion of a $3 charge and its rejection by the honourable Premier proves one thing, I think it is….

AN HON. MEMBER: It proves you're wrong.

MR. WALLACE: No, I think, Mr. Speaker, I think it proves something even more important than the fact that I am wrong in the Premier's eyes. It demolishes the myth that the Premier tries to muzzle his backbenchers….

Oh. the needle's getting in, I can see the needle's getting in. I'm pretty good on needles.

I would also be so bold as to say, Mr. Speaker, that I think the Premier is wrong.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh…. Oh….

HON. W.A.C. BENNETT (Premier): And I defend the member's right to say it! (Applause)

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order!

MR. WALLACE: Mr. Speaker, I will listen very carefully to the comments of others in this House that I shouldn't press my luck.

The Social Credit Government, by providing subsidies to the lower income groups in the British Columbia Medical Plan, made it possible for all the citizens to obtain coverage at reasonable cost. So I feel that by providing hospital coverage and medical coverage, the Government protected individuals against what has previously been a very serious concern of many people being faced with very large hospital and medical bills. When I came to Canada in 1957 — this was to Ontario — and I made it in Ontario incidentally, I found that this was one of the subjects which people talked about most often, and I think that in the 13 years since then, every province in Canada has made tremendous strides, including British Columbia. Because of the planning for the British Columbia Medical Plan, the Government had the machinery available to move fairly smoothly into the National Medicare scheme on July 1, 1968.

I would further commend the Government for setting up Regional Hospital Boards in 1967, and by doing this, the Government created a more effective and a more realistic and a more co-ordinated manner of planning the expansion of further hospital facilities. For these very substantial advances in the health care of the people of British Columbia, I feel that the Social Credit Government deserves tremendous praise and credit.

However, in my opinion it is high time we took a second look, that famous second look, at the manner in which the whole spectrum of health services is provided in this Province. In my maiden speech I made the statement, and I propose to give some details today which I think validate the statement, and I hope that as long as I'm in this House I will always validate any facts and figures which I state. I've stated that the taxpayer's money is not being spent wisely or in the most economical manner, and I repeat that statement today.

The most obvious way, to me, in which expenditure on health services is being wasted, is in the operation of the acute hospital beds. So that there should be no misunderstanding on terminology, which I would admit has become increasingly complex over the years, the term acute bed refers to the bed required for a patient who is seriously ill or acutely ill, who requires the whole range of modern medical and physical facilities, as well as highly skilled nursing care around the clock. Since these beds require associated expensive equipment and expensive electrical, plumbing, and suction fixtures, the construction costs are inevitably high, in the order of $35,000 to $40,000 per bed. With such high construction costs, it becomes essential that those beds be occupied only by patients who are acutely ill.

The average length of stay in our acute hospitals is ten to 12 days, depending on the amount of surgery and the range of surgery done in the hospital, but it is usually the case that during the latter part of the patient's stay in hospital he does not require all the expensive facilities associated with an acute bed, nor the expensive and highly-skilled nursing care. So what I would suggest, and again I'm trying to convey to the House and to the public the same message that I conveyed in my campaign to become elected, that we need the post-acute bed urgently as a priority in my view. The post-acute bed can be constructed at approximately one-third of the cost of an acute bed. It can be utilized, it can be constructed in close proximity, or should be constructed in close proximity to the acute beds so that patients who do develop complications can rapidly be transferred.

In the post-acute ward there would be a cafeteria at which the patient would get his own meals, and this serves two very important functions. The minute a patient finds that he is up and around and serving himself meals, there is tremendous psychological value in that he realizes that he is definitely on the mend. The other factor, which is self-obvious, is that you are cutting down on the labour costs by not having staff carry the meals to the patient. I will be very blunt, Mr. Speaker, when I say that in Victoria, where I practise, I really become angered when I see ambulant patients, seated beside their acute bed, being served their meals by fairly high-paid staff and sometimes by registered nurses. And, my conclusion is that we are not really operating acute hospitals, we are operating hotels with very high-quality room service.

I feel that the provision of the post-acute beds in substantial numbers would greatly increase the rate of turnover in the acute beds, with a rapid reduction in our very long waiting lists. Once the backlog has been reduced, I am

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convinced that the precise number of new acute beds requiring to be constructed at $40,000 a bed, would prove to be much, much smaller than anyone has hereto suggested, and I would go further and suggest that the day will come when observers will say, "Well goodness me, why didn't we think of the post-acute bed long ago." The time is long overdue.

MR. BARRETT: Arthur Turner used to tell you about it years ago.

MR. WALLACE: I am acknowledging the fact that it is overdue, my friend.

MR. BARRETT: Good.

MR. WALLACE: I'm here in what I hope will be a constructive role, to try and bring about some of the changes which are so obviously necessary.

MR. BARRETT: You're not welcome across the floor.

MR. WALLACE: I don't care whether I'm welcome or unwelcome, Mr. Leader of the Opposition.

I think it should be recognized that with the much more rapid turnover in the acute beds, there will be an increased demand for ancillary services such as the operating room and the nursing staff in the active acute wards, and they will be turning over the patient at a much increased rate. I think it is only fair to point out that the decreased cost care in the post-acute beds will be somewhat evened out or balanced by the increased operating costs in the acute beds. Nevertheless, the most vital part of this whole argument is that if you are giving the appropriate type of care in the appropriate bed or type of bed, then in fact you are saving enormous capital costs by not continuing to construct more and more acute beds, when they are really not used for that purpose.

I am pleased that again in Victoria the St. Joseph's Hospital have been approved for 50 post-acute beds, and that the Bay Pavilion which has recently been vacated at the Royal Jubilee Hospital will be converted for use as a post-acute ward, and I feel certain that when we study the experience of these two 50-bed units, the value of this whole concept will soon be established.

I would like to touch on another point, Mr. Speaker, to embrace this aspect of total health here, because we are abusing the acute beds in another manner by patients who are acutely ill in the first instance but who, in the course of time, never reach a stage where they can go home. Unfortunately, many of these patients don't reach the stage of chronic illness where they qualify for extended care at a $1 a day, and therefore we have a patient who is most unfortunate in the present situation to have what we call an intermediate degree of illness. The extended-care patient is defined, and I repeat, the extended-care patient is defined as a patient who is not in need of acute care, but does require, by reason of physical illness or disability, skilled 24-hours a day nursing services and continuing medical supervision. Now here again, I'll be perfectly blunt, there are many patients in our society who deserve financial support in getting the health care they need in this Province, but because they are not, or cannot be classified as acute patients, and they cannot be classified as extended-care patients, they are landed with the total responsibility, with the total financial responsibility for their care.

Now, I wouldn't obscure the fact that the programme to provide extended-care beds is on the increase. I would seek very eagerly to impress on this Government the urgency with which it must be pursued. The figures at the present time show that 1,585 extended-care beds have been built, there are 513 under construction, and there are almost 2,000 in the planning stage, and I would suggest that this is a good start on a problem which must be given the most urgent attention. While this assault on the problem is appreciated, I would like to quote a few statistics to show the serious economic implications, let alone the considerations of the patients' care and suffering.

I have a survey which was done in one of the lower mainland hospitals and this reveals that a total of 115 patients were treated in an acute hospital bed for 7,740 days, when in fact they should have been in the more appropriate type of facility, and the calculated difference in the cost between the acute bed and the extended bed, or intermediate bed, was $208,980. This is simply due to the fact, Mr. Speaker, that those patients, when they passed from the acute phase but never reached a state of health where they can return home, are kept on in the acute hospital bed with this kind of expenditure involved. The same kind of figures apply to the general hospitals in Victoria, and on one of them I have obtained figures which show that in 1969, 7,300 days, at $48.50 a day expended the sum of $353,000. Now I don't think it takes anybody any time to see that we are putting out vast sums of money in an uneconomical manner, and that the answer lies in this urgent need to create post-acute and extended-care beds. Only when this has been done, and only when this has been done can anyone give us an accurate assessment of how many new acute beds are required.

This step, I would suggest, Mr. Speaker, is only the first step in what must become a comprehensive programme to meet the needs of all the sick and disabled people in British Columbia. The concept of progressive patient care, which means providing the appropriate level of medical and nursing care for the appropriate need of the patient, must be the basis on which all projected health services are planned. In other words, the scope of hospital and nursing care available, must encompass all the levels of sickness, from the acutely ill patient down to post-acute and intermediate, to the patient who can, with appropriate nursing help, be cared for in the home. And I would repeat the phrase, total concept of care, which is not only the most fitting and useful and efficient, from the patient's point of view, but is certainly the most economical.

With respect, Mr. Speaker, I would have to disagree with the statement on page 31 of the Budget, and here again, with respect, I would disagree with the honourable Premier, which reads that, "The Government's policy of progressive patient care provides care for the whole range of patients' needs." With due respect, I would suggest that we have one tremendous gap in the coverage provided for the citizens, and that is for those requiring intermediate care which, at the present time, is usually provided in a nursing home, if the unfortunate patient can find such a nursing home.

There is no planning body at the present time responsible for ensuring that individuals in need of intermediate care can have access to the level of care appropriate to their need. The terms of the Regional Hospital Board cover only the acute, rehabilitative, and extended-care classification, and it would seem obvious, and I would recommend to this Government, that the planning responsibilities of the Regional Hospital Board be expanded to include all levels of care, requiring any

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kind of nursing supervision. The patients requiring intermediate care presently pay their own way to the tune of $300 a month, sometimes more, and the patients just above the social assistance level pay privately until their resources are used up, and they become dependent on social assistance. In my opinion, it is patently unjust that acute and extended-care patients receive Government subsidy, while the patient requiring intermediate care is totally responsible for the financing of his own care. I would ask that the Government, and I am hoping that these constructive ideas that I am putting forward, which I campaigned on, will not fall on deaf ears.

MR. McGEER: What about the extended-care patient, what….

MR. WALLACE: ….if you'd been listening, if the honourable member, the leader of the Liberal party had been listening, he would have heard me say that this is the first need, to get the extended bed.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order.

MR. WALLACE: Mr. Speaker, if I may continue, I would like to point out that in our neighbouring province, the Social Credit Government in Alberta has a system coverage for intermediate care. Great credit is due to the United Community Services of the Greater Vancouver area, who have looked into the situation and provided me with figures and an appraisal of that particular coverage. From studying that report, I feel that a similar programme is quite feasible in British Columbia.

In 1969 the Alberta Government spelled out the physical standards which a nursing home must meet to become a contract nursing home, and rates were established by the Government, and the latest figures I have might not be completely acceptable to the Opposition, but it is a step in the right direction, inasmuch as the patient pays $3 a day and the Government pays $5.25. These rates are established to cover operating and capital costs, and they are reviewed annually. Medical eligibility is established by an assessment committee, according to certain medical criteria, and there is also a residency requirement, that the individual must have resided for three consecutive years prior to application in the Province, or at any time in his life must have lived ten years in Alberta. I would submit that if the Government represented by the Social Credit party in Alberta can do it, then surely here is a challenge for the same Government to do it in British Columbia.

If the post-acute and extended-care beds are built, and if coverage were provided for patients requiring intermediate care, I am certain that there would be a drastic reduction in the waiting list for acute beds, or a corresponding decrease in the number of new acute beds required. With all due deference, Mr. Speaker, to the Opposition, I still feel that if the acute patient were paying $3 a day, the $7,000,000 which this would bring in would be a very substantial help in covering the cost of intermediate care.

The over-all philosophy behind this dissertation is based on two fundamental points. One, that the appropriate level of care be provided for the appropriate need of the patient. No more and no less. That every patient, whatever the level of care he requires, should receive financial assistance proportionate to the total cost of the care. If these proposals were accepted, each type of facility would be used precisely for its proper purpose in an economical manner with financial hardship to no one, and this, I feel, should be the basic intent of planning total health care.

Numerous other factors come into the economic functioning of general hospitals, and I would like to mention briefly one or two of these. It's very obvious, that with the high cost of in-patient care, the possibility of performing a greater scope of surgery on an out-patient basis should be studied, and in this regard, a well-organized out-patient service has been set in motion at the Royal Jubilee Hospital in Victoria. I would like to quote the figures which show that, on an average, 15 cases are operated on daily where the patient reports to the ward in the morning, has the surgery performed, and returns home in the evening, and as I said, there is an average of 15 cases per day, which represents 23 per cent of all the surgery done in the hospital, and this was in 1969. This represents a tremendous saving of in-hospital facilities and staffing costs, and I would suggest that all opportunities be taken for this Government to encourage and assist and promote information throughout the Province to every hospital as to the success of the programme at the Royal Jubilee.

Another pressing need which would relieve the acute bed situation, is the provision of Government assistance to expand the home-care programme. In the home-care programme, it means that nursing care would be made available in the home, and would have several very important values, inasmuch that this average length of stay, which is ten to 12 days, could possibly be reduced by one or two days, and remember we are talking about $45, $46, or $47 a day for the patient while he's in hospital. If the home-care programme were in action, the patient might, and I am sure could, return home at least one or two days sooner. Such programmes are operating in many other parts of Canada, such as Moose Jaw, Winnipeg, Port Arthur, to name but a few. I can assure this House, Mr. Speaker, from direct personal involvement over the last year or two, that a very eager and willing staff of nurses and professional help are poised and eager and willing to implement this service, or expand the service it already provides in the Greater Victoria area, but certainly does require a very minimal injection of Government money to get it going. As an example of what such a service can accomplish, let me state one more simple figure in relation to the Royal Jubilee Hospital in Victoria, that if the average stay could be reduced by just one single day, in a year this would mean that another 400 acute surgical patients could be accommodated,400 more patients in a year. I think this begins to give you some clear picture of the way in which our whole approach, our look at the total concept of care, must be reviewed urgently.

One particular aspect of home-care, which would save enormous amounts of money, relates to a classification of unfortunate people who have what we call chronic respiratory insufficiencies. This relates, I think perhaps the lay public would understand best the word emphysema, which is a type of chronic respiratory insufficiency. Most of these patients are intermittently ill, but many of them can be handled if the facilities and the professional help is coordinated in a home-care programme, and I would like to quote a paragraph from a publication which is written by a very eminent internist, Dr. Cherniak from Winnipeg, and one of his articles spells out what this programme can achieve. "During 1967 the total cost of the programme for 79 patients with chronic respiratory insufficiency was only $15,000. This amounts to $193.20 per patient per year, or

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53 cents per patient per day." And when you think of the $47 per day in hospital, this gives you a drastic realization of the money which is not being wisely spent. "In Winnipeg, the annual cost per patient would only have been adequate to cover four to five days in an acute hospital bed, seven to eight days in a chronic care bed, or 12 to 20 days in a nursing home."

And there is the very important aspect of the benefit to the patient, apart from the economic factor. Dr. Cherniak continues, "In addition, it is important to stress that the care of these patients was primarily centred around paramedical services rather than medical. This experience points out the important role which can be undertaken by paramedical personnel, and indicates that a programme such as this is an integral and essential component of the management of patients with chronic respiratory insufficiency. The home-care programme, with continued concentrated management, along with the provision of medical and paramedical personnel and, when indicated, mechanical aids, made prolonged stays in the hospital unnecessary and obviated otherwise necessary confinement in nursing homes or extended-care institutions." And the final sentence must never be overlooked, "The patient as well as his family appear to appreciate the opportunity for him to remain comfortable, and family appreciate the opportunity for him to remain in comfortable and familiar surroundings during the late phases of his illness." This emphasizes both the economic and personal factor, that the patient is happier and receives this total concept of care, which is not simply a matter of dollars and cents or of medication in case anyone still wishes to diminish the importance of the point regarding oxygen therapy for chronic respiratory insufficiency, I know personally of a patient in this Province who spent 218 days in an acute bed, the total hospital cost being $10,573, when in fact the only medical requirement was periodic oxygen therapy several times a day, and I inquired into the facts and the figures and can prove these and produce the statistics. The cost to give the patient this treatment at home would have been one-tenth of the hospital cost. How much longer is this economic madness to continue? Now if I can get off the subject of hospital beds for a moment and costs, I would appreciate the privilege, Mr. Speaker, of voicing concern in another area which I think has been glossed over rather lightly in public affairs, and this is the reaction of the public to certain information regarding medications and, in particular, the contraceptive pill. I would like to start these comments by quoting for you the circular which the Honourable John Munro sent to every doctor in Canada on the day that he banned cyclamates. It's too long to read it all but certainly read the valid and important parts. He says, "Let me repeat and emphasize the fact that there is no evidence that cyclamates have caused cancer or any other disease in humans. Four days ago, however, new evidence appeared that cyclamates produced tumours when fed to rats at very high levels for long periods of time. They developed tumours of the urinary bladder." He went on to state, "This is an extremely high dose that we're giving to the rats, 50 times higher than that which is accepted as safe for adults by the World Health Organization." He gave a further example by stating that a 150-pound man would have to consume approximately 500 eight-ounce bottles of cyclamate-containing soft drink each day during his entire life to consume the same dose of cyclamates. No tumors developed in rats given cyclamates at a dose equivalent, on a body weight basis, to 200 bottles of soft drink per day throughout the entire life span of a man. He ends with a delightful understatement. He says, "It is obvious, therefore, that the danger to humans from cyclamates is undoubtedly very small. Nevertheless, etc. etc., I have decided to phase out the use of cyclamates, as this course of action will afford the greatest protection to the health of the Canadian public."

The point I would like to make, Mr. Speaker, to this House, is that every day in life, each and every one of us is faced with a risk-benefit situation. When we drive home in our cars this evening, it's a very convenient way of getting home, but we just might be killed in an accident. But we don't, in a frenzy and in hysteria, turn round and ban cars. I feel that the action taken on cyclamates was a hysterical reaction, an over-reaction, which is not based, or I feel that it is based on statistics which, in my humble opinion, if we are going to apply this rule of thumb method, or these deductions are going to lead to this kind of action, then I would submit that there are many, many more medications and drugs in our environment which really, on the same basis and reasoning, should be banned.

I think that the action on cyclamates has spilled over to other areas in relation, for example, to the pill. In regard to the contraceptive pill — let me hasten to add this, that the statistics available have proven one definite complication of the contraceptive pill, and that complication is an increased tendency for women to have trouble with circulation of their veins, inflammation, phlebitis so-called, and the very serious condition of embolism, where a clot moves from the affected vein and lodges in another part of the body and can kill the patient, and has done. But the point is, that in the frenzy over the fact that this risk does exist, there has seemed to me to be almost a total disregard of the very tremendous benefits which the birth control pill has conferred on society. If one wishes to take another example, looking at the other side of the coin, aspirin, which any one of us can buy by the bucket load any time we wish, is a very dangerous drug. Aspirin causes in many people peptic ulcers, which frequently bleed or perforate and the patient can die and does, in fact, Statistics I looked up, in one year in Canada 500 people died, or 497 or 498, died from the complications of peptic ulcers, and in many of these patients, the medical publications show that aspirin is a contributory factor. I know of one child in this city where the mother, with every good intention because the child had a fever, gave the child aspirin, but unfortunately the child was not taking an adequate amount of fluid into the body, and subsequently died from kidney failure. Now I don't wish to raise a storm over aspirin, far from it. All I'm saying is that leaders in Provincial and Federal level in the health field should be very cautious and should try to show a greater degree of judgment, in my opinion, in encouraging the public to exaggerate the risks of a certain drug and at the same time pay little or no attention to the tremendous benefits. Coming from Mr. Munro, I find his attitude on cyclamates completely inexplicable, when the same man stated that if a substantial minority of the population smoked marijuana it should be made legal. This, to me, is just the opposite end of the scale of reasoning from his attitude on cyclamates, particularly when our knowledge of marijuana is so incomplete.

So in closing, Mr. Speaker, I would like to repeat the fact that I am here in what I hope is a purely constructive capacity, to bring forward positive proposals in the area in which I have had my education and experience, and I hope I will be measured as not falling short by refraining from many of the other areas that have been mentioned in debate.

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Thank you.

On the motion of the Hon. F.X. Richter, the debate was adjourned to the next sitting of the House.

The House adjourned at 5.42 p.m.