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CONTENTS

Routine proceedings

Budget debate (continued)

Mr. D.A. Anderson — 375

Mr. D.A. Anderson (amendment) — 383

Mr. L.A. Williams — 383

Mr. Wallace — 390

Mr. Gibson — 393

Hon. Mr. Lorimer — 395

Mr. Curtis — 396

Mr. McGeer — 397

Mr. Steves — 400

Mr. Schroeder — 400

Mr. Bennett — 402

Hon. R.A. Williams — 402

Division on amendment — 403

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 1974

The House met at 8.30 p.m.

Introduction of bills.

Orders of the day.

ON THE BUDGET

MR. D.A. ANDERSON (Victoria): Mr. Speaker, I was speaking before dinner on the problems facing the municipalities, in particular with respect to housing. I talked of the need to have provincial government assistance to the municipalities so that housing could be made available by the process of expanding the amount of serviced land available. This, I think, has been gone over fairly well. I would like to just finish up on municipalities and then touch on two subjects and yield the floor.

With respect to municipalities, other than housing, we have, of course, in the budget a $2 increase, which is a 6 per cent increase, much the same as last year. In fact, it is identical in amount to last year, and thoroughly inadequate to meet the needs of municipalities.

I have in my hand an editorial from the Province, dated April 18, 1969, and it talks of Mr. Bennett's "$3 insult." That was the year the other Mr. Bennett, the previous Mr. Bennett, the elder Mr. Bennett, gave $3 extra per capita to the municipalities, and everybody was hopping mad, including the NDP opposition.

The editorial reads, or part of it reads:

"In the last session of the provincial Legislature the government increased its per capita grant to municipal governments by $3 per head. It was, the Premier indicated, an act of great generosity."

It goes on to say:

"B.C. municipalities; some of them at least, badly need extra money. In common with municipal governments across Canada, they have spending requirements that far outstrip the revenue they can get from the limited tax source, and their requirements will continue to grow. Schools, urban renewal, planning, transportation, pollution control, social welfare — the whole range of urban problems and urban challenges — are going to come crowding in on Canada in the next two decades as it continues the trend which is making it one of the most highly urbanized areas of the world.

"To meet these challenges and to head off the enormous damage that could be done by bad planning and under-investment in a period of such rapid urban growth will require enlightened municipal leaders armed with the freedom to spend the money that they find to be necessary and on the priorities that they determine to be necessary."

But that is not what we have. He goes on to describe the $30 per person:

"The situation is not only insulting, it is absurd. It is the result of an archaic constitution that made Canada's cities the creatures of the provincial governments, and makes provincial thinking a key factor in the cities' approach to their own problems. Vancouver cannot build a bridge or a subway or a low-rental housing project or a school or a hospital or a freeway without the approval of the provincial government, either because the government has the legal control or because it has the money the city lacks.

"That is no way to run a country — a country where most people live in cities, where municipal governments in total now spend more than provincial governments do. Canada's cities and towns must be given the constitutional and the fiscal powers needed to meet their own destinies. After all, this is the 20th century, and it is the century of the city."

Five years later, there's no real change. We have $34 a head as opposed to $30. We have a Department of Municipal Affairs whose take of the provincial budget has declined. We have less ability than even previously to meet the requirements or urban living, and this government seems to feel that it is enough. Personally, I feel that this $2 per capita grant is just ridiculous. The municipal officials, who are essentially hard-working and responsible people, simply cannot operate on that basis. For example, this new government has brought in expenditures which are directly on the shoulders of the municipalities. In the election in North Vancouver-Capilano, advertising and carrying out of the registration probably cost $30,000 or $40,000, and this was to register people who knew they were eligible to vote. There have been changes in the Municipal Act concerning eligibility and one can assume that the costs for the municipalities in the future will be even greater — a new cost forced upon the municipalities by this government.

I'm glad to see in the gallery Mr. Jim Campbell, the Capital Regional Board chairman, and would like to quote from a statement by that fine gentleman about the forcing of extra costs on his municipality, or at least on the Capital Regional Board, by the Minister of Municipal Affairs (Hon. Mr. Lorimer).

Mr. Campbell, in a news release put out on February 6, which arrived on my desk, stated that it was going to cost a substantial increase in the mill rate of probably two points. He just feels it is wrong that the provincial government should be forcing these extra costs on the municipalities without proper

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consultation and without providing any extra funds to make it possible for them to meet the costs of the new bus system. I'm glad that we have extra buses — everyone is — but when the costs come right down on the municipalities, when they have no real decision in having these buses, I think the concern of Mr. Campbell is quite genuine and well-founded.

I would just like to quote a letter he wrote to the Minister that is quoted in this new release. He says: "I believe it would be useful to have some discussion on this matter, because I feel sure that without modification of the proposed financial arrangements, the urban components of the region will be highly resistant to the assumption of this responsibility" — in other words, the financial responsibility.

Well, I am glad that Mr. Campbell is in the gallery and I can tell him that I agree. He's right. The municipalities in a number of areas are getting new costs forced upon them. While others are disappearing, such as, for example, the reduction in welfare costs from 15 per cent back down to 10 per cent, where it was previously, still they have extra expenses which cannot be met within the financial framework in which they now find themselves.

The question of court costs. The Attorney-General (Hon. Mr. Macdonald) is looking as alert as ever. Perhaps Victoria and Vancouver will benefit from the decision to take over court costs, but many of the smaller municipalities, as he knows, perhaps unwisely collect more in fines than they spend on court costs. It is a source of revenue for itinerant politicians and others who travel through these communities. The taking over of the court system may well be of no benefit at all in the financial sense to these communities, although in the case of Victoria and Vancouver it may be something else.

The uncoordinated timetable of the Minister of Human Resources (Hon. Mr. Levi) has resulted in difficulties, Surrey, for example, is told it will have to wait six months before this financial burden, which has been taken off neighbouring communities, will be taken off their shoulders. Surrey, in my view, is being penalized in comparison with Vancouver, and I think it is grossly unfair.

As far as Victoria city itself is concerned, or I should say the Greater Victoria Capital Region, we have a Member of the government backbench, the only government Member from this area (Mr. Gorst) suggesting a new capital commission. It seemed to Members on this side of the House that he was certainly recommending himself for the position of head of this commission.

The fact is that we don't know whether the government is going to come forward with such a thing. We don't know who might be put at the head of it. We don't know what the situation might be. But it is time we had something cleared up in this area.

We have the government in this city buying land, and there was a question today in the House by another Member about purchases of land. We have the government bidding up the cost of land by being in the market, as they are in a substantial way, and yet we really are not sure what the Minister has in mind for Victoria, despite questions about the precinct concept, the Blanshard Street boundary concept, and all these things.

In my view the government had better decide quickly what it intends to do, if it intends to set up something similar to the National Capital Commission, and if it intends to set up a body which will override the provincial municipal governments. This suggestion has come forward from the government side. I would think that if they are going to do that let them come forward with such a body as soon as possible. Let's not continue the uncertainty in this area that we have because there is no way that the municipal councils can plan properly, there is no way Mr. Campbell and his fellow members of the capital region can plan properly when they don't know whether all their functions and many of their responsibilities will be wiped out by a stroke of the Minister of Municipal Affairs' pen.

MR. A.V. FRASER (Cariboo): They're going to force amalgamation.

AN HON. MEMBER: They're all happy.

HON. R.A. WILLIAMS (Minister of Lands, Forests and Water Resources): Especially Oak Bay.

MR. D.A. ANDERSON: Perhaps some of the cabinet Ministers living in Oak Bay have made some sweetheart deal with the municipality whereby they are going to take care of that area. I don't know whether they are happy or not.

AN HON. MEMBER: They don't all live on the waterfront. Just some of them.

MR. D.A. ANDERSON: Well, at this stage anyway, thanks to the Minister of Housing's (Hon. Mr. Nicolson's) speech they are all renovating their homes to make room for other families to move in, and I know that the Premier (Hon. Mr. Barrett) has had a little bit of building done.

AN HON. MEMBER: Wait till those condominiums go up on Wall Street.

MR. D.A. ANDERSON: We're looking forward to having that Esquimalt waterfront property advertised as a multiple dwelling for numerous children and dogs. We hope it will be soon, because surely if it is right for other people, Mr. Minister of Housing, you should start with your own cabinet. I trust that

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sooner or later you will quell the rumours that are floating around about your own intention to purchase property in Victoria.

Perhaps it's in the Uplands or Oak Bay; I'm not sure. But there is some worry in the Uplands area that you intend to move in and carve up the house that you have in mind. I think you should set people's minds at rest as soon as possible.

The government policy with respect to municipalities is simply to keep them in the same impossible financial bind they have been in for many years. At this stage, with the talk of urban development, with the talk of urban problems, it's one of the most difficult areas of government. They simply do not have the financial resources as a result of this new budget just as they did not have it before. They cannot properly fulfil their responsibilities. I would strongly urge the government to consider what the municipal officials are saying and revise their support for them.

We had the NDP candidates running municipally under the slogan of neighbourhood government. We had the Minister, days after many of their candidates lost on that slogan — and some won — go right in with amalgamation of two cities in the Interior. He completely threw out the very concept and slogan upon which his party had campaigned. It's time we had a little more clarification from the government as to what its plans are with respect to municipalities. We judge by the budget. We see the percentage going to the Municipal Affairs department dropping; we see the department assuming new responsibilities without the personnel; and we wonder why this situation exists.

I'd like to spend a short time on a subject which I think is particularly important at the present time and that is the government's approach to industry, the government's approach to the direction of our economy. It was said this budget was really no change from the previous budget. I believe even the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Bennett) made the statement that it was a Social Credit budget with more money in it than before.

But in this budget we see a change in direction of the government. We see formalized in a number of areas some of the purchases of companies, some of the establishment of Crown corporations by this government.

Mr. Speaker, it's not my purpose here to simply be critical of this on the grounds that one is free-enterprise and the other is socialism, We know full well that the previous government purchased B.C. Electric and attempted to purchase it at a price which the courts thought thoroughly unfair. We know there are Crown corporations in existence federally and provincially in every province. But the direction of this government is one of concern, and I trust that we won't oversimplify the arguments to the point where the true problems are being overlooked.

We have the government entering fields such as the forest industry and processing; we have the government entering into housing if the deal goes through, as I presume it will. We have the government entering a large number of areas which have traditionally been in the area of private industry. My hon. friend for Vancouver–Point Grey (Mr. McGeer) has listed these purchases, these takeovers.

When the government gets involved in an industry and when it creates a favoured and special position for itself, it is impossible for companies in competition to really compete on an equal basis. I know there has been some dispute as to whether or not the Member for Alberni (Mr. Skelly) or the Hon. Minister of Lands, Forests and Water Resources (Hon. R.A. Williams) was enunciating government policy. But if we take the Ocean Falls Corporation, they were exempted 200 articles of the Companies Act. This obviously puts them in a preferred position with respect to....

Interjections.

MR. D.A. ANDERSON: Well, I wonder whether the Attorney-General, who seems to doubt whether this gives them a special advantage, actually looked at the articles of the Companies Act which this company is exempted from. Does he realize that Ocean Falls does not have an auditing procedure? Does he understand that other companies have to have their books audited in the prescribed manner under the Companies Act but Ocean Falls is exempt? Does he realize that?

HON. D.G. COCKE (Minister of Health): The Auditor-General.

MR. D.A. ANDERSON: We don't have that person.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: The auditor-general of British Columbia.

MR. D.A. ANDERSON: Where is the auditor-general, Mr. Minister of Health? You talk so glibly about the auditor-general; where is he? Where is the bill that introduced such a man into our system?

HON. D. BARRETT (Premier): Maxwell Henderson.

MR. D.A. ANDERSON: Well, it's true that Maxwell Henderson is the federal Auditor-General and it's true he has a staff of 235 people. In this province we have nobody who takes his place and no staff to carry out those functions. In the case of Ocean Falls, you've exempted this company from any

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audit. Why?

Interjections.

MR. D.A. ANDERSON: Ocean Falls is exempted from sections 187, 188, 190, 191 and 192. This is possible public scrutiny of the corporation. Under section 192 of the Companies Act, for example, it's an offence to refuse to produce certain documents. Ocean Falls is exempt from this and its directors and its officers are placed above the law.

HON. R.A. WILLIAMS: We'll just give it to the Legislature; won't that do?

MR. D.A. ANDERSON: No, it won't do, Mr. Minister, because as you know full well, the opportunity for scrutiny at the time does not occur; it's only much later that we in the Legislature have this opportunity. So we have the case of Ocean Falls with respect to the Companies Act: it's placed in a superior position.

We know full well it's in a superior position with regard to financing. The company enjoys a special position; it's in an advantageous position vis-à-vis other companies in the industry. The result is, of course, that other companies will find it difficult, in difficult times, to compete against it. At the present time, sure, there is plenty of money; it's a profitable situation for the forest industry. But the situation we're faced with in so many companies is a preferred government position.

In another aspect of this, there's the case of Plateau Mills. There the Minister, who seems to think all is well, has placed a district forester on the board of a single company, Plateau Mills. How is it possible for the man who is responsible for making sure there is a fair and impartial treatment of the companies in the area, who often would be asking for confidential information which would be privileged vis-à-vis any other company, to fulfil his functions properly when he is responsible to you and to the owners of Plateau Mills, namely the public, for the profits of that company?

You cannot have a man in a regulatory role carrying out an operations function and expect to get away with it on a general basis. Sure there are exceptions; sure there are exceptional individuals, and this man is a very fine individual. But you're placing him in an impossible situation. Not only that, you're placing him in a position which no other civil servant should be placed in either.

HON. MR. BARRETT: Junior is looking better every minute.

MR. D.A. ANDERSON: Can-Cel has had difficulties with respect to pollution control. Once again, you have a preferred position for a government corporation with a special ear to the Minister who, of course, has his reputation bound up in Can-Cel, and who, I'm quite sure under the circumstances, would find it a little easier to be soft on Can-Cel as opposed to any other company.

The government reaction is a pretty clear indication that they realize this can take place. The speech of the Hon. Member for Alberni (Mr. Skelly) was probably discussed in caucus and they're disappointed it came out in public as it did. If government companies are given preferred positions, in tough times they will inevitably force other companies to the wall where the government can then pick them up at a reduced price.

I know it is a difficult concept to get across to the Minister of Lands, Forests and Water Resources, but the public has a right to be protected and to be protected against Crown corporations and public companies just as much as against private companies.

AN HON. MEMBER: Hear, hear!

MR. D.A. ANDERSON: They have a right to have the government, on behalf of all the people, carry out the regulatory function of government, holding the reins, making sure they impartially and fairly and swiftly administer these laws in the public interest. The public is short-changed and cheated when you get these special relationship positions where the government on one hand owns the company and on the other is in the position of regulating the public interest.

Certainly this government knows, from all its commitments over the years about B.C. Hydro, the need to regulate public enterprise properly. I don't believe we're going to get it in this province when we exempt corporation after corporation from the law of the land.

Another example is a pretty classic one because in this case the entire legislation was wiped out, and that was ICBC. Other companies engaged in insurance in British Columbia must obey the Insurance Act; they must obey the law. But there's one exception: ICBC. If ICBC doesn't have to fulfil the same requirements as the other companies involved, they're clearly in a special and advantageous position.

The question of discriminatory pricing comes up. ICBC is carrying out the type of pricing policy which, if carried out by a private corporation, would put the directors behind bars for two years: discriminatory pricing. It's discriminatory on the basis of previous contract which, under section 28 of the Insurance Act, simply should not be permitted. It's just as discriminatory to say that because some Members of this Legislature are of one colour skin and some are of another there will be pricing distinctions based on

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that particular and totally irrelevant distinction.

It's absurd that we have a situation, as we do at the present time, where the government not only condones discriminatory pricing but boasts about it in terms of the previous contract the person might have had with another company, now no longer offering insurance.

This is an important point. If you get companies in competition you will find that the government's regulatory role will be carried out. But if you get companies owned by the government, protected by the government, the public interest is not protected.

I'll give you an example of this, Mr. Speaker, another one: Today we heard the Minister of Education (Hon. Mrs. Dailly) say that they were taking the fire insurance premium costs off the school boards. I think that was a good suggestion. I understand it's going to alter some other financial provisions, but she made that point.

Now, in Saskatchewan, when they had a government corporation which had a monopoly, the insurance was handled by that corporation and the collegiates in Regina had to insure with the government corporation. When the government switched — I think it was '65 was the decision on this — the private companies were allowed to compete against the Saskatchewan Insurance Corporation. What happened was that the government's own corporation dropped its premium by 50 per cent; it halved its premium. Why? It halved it to meet the competition with the private companies. Still, three of those companies — there were seven involved — three of them were able to offer a cheaper rate than the government which was offering its insurance at half the price it had the year before. That's the type of situation you get into — where you have a monopoly, where it's not regulated, where the government operates it for its own benefit and not in the public interest. That's the situation that we are getting in this province.

I could go on at length on this, but I don't think it's properly understood by the government and perhaps not by the public at large. If we enter a situation where the government comes in as it's doing now, we destroy the regulatory function of government; we destroy the government as a protector of citizens' rights. There is simply no way that the government, on a general and consistent basis, will rule against its own companies. And this has been proved in so many socialist countries.

Mr. Speaker, I don't think we have socialism coming with the NDP so much as this type of state capitalism. Personally, I find it full of grief, full of problems, and I would like to see the government turn away from it. I do not see why it's necessary for this government to put purchase of pipeline shares, purchase of companies, ahead of the school children's education. It's their future, and they need money and they need help in this. Yet we have a government which is purchasing companies and shares in companies in preference to putting the money into education or any other area. I'm quite sure that on the government benches there are a fair number of people who agree with this concept.

Putting money into companies does nothing, as I mentioned earlier with respect to Dunhill, really does nothing to increase the net wealth of British Columbians, but it does make a difference to other government programmes. It makes a serious difference and I think it's time that the government realizes that giving their company the inside track and a special position, as they have, simply should not continue.

Mr. Speaker, I'd like to get on to the final section of my speech on education. We had, today, a speech by the Minister, and I thought she gave a good presentation. But she was in an impossible situation in terms of reassuring the parents who were in the audience, or in terms of reassuring the people on this side of the House. Basically she said she knew there were all sorts of problems; she realized that the money was not in the budget, but she said, "Don't worry, you can all come cap in hand, and programme by programme we will throw a few dollars in the tin cup that you rattle in front of us."

If this is a budget debate, I'd like to know where the Education department budget is when not only the Minister in her speech today, but the Premier himself, the Minister of Finance himself, when he spoke, said, "Look, this area of the budget is clearly inadequate; this area clearly won't work. We know you're going to have to come; we know you won't have enough money; we know we haven't done a proper job in planning next year's expenses in education. Therefore, I'm telling you beforehand, don't squeal too loudly yet. Squeal later, then perhaps you'll get a little extra."

We have a number of disquieting things, Mr. Speaker. We heard from the Premier that the student-teacher ratio is just great. Yet the Minister herself tabled a report of the Department of Education in this House not so long ago which said, and I'm reading from page E-132:

"The net pupil-teacher ratio remained almost exactly the same from June 1972 to June 1973. In June 1972 it was 22.88 students per teacher. In June 1973, it was 22.86. A difference of .02."

Mr. Speaker, that was the report that she tabled. Since then we've had other figures given to us — other figures attempting to prove that really it's not all that bad. Yet we have had the school trustees, we've had the teachers' association, we've had the information given to us that the situation is just as bad as has been described.

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This morning I met with a group of PTA-Home and School delegates, and they talked about class size. I'd like to quote from their brief about class size. This is the brief from J.W. Sexsmith Elementary School. The Member who introduced them earlier was our friend from Vancouver South (Mrs. Webster). On class size they said:

"We feel that no teacher should have any more than 25 pupils in a teaching classroom. Because of the new standards of individualization in our educational system, we feel the smaller classroom will accomplish this. At Sexsmith School the highest class count is our two grade five classes which have 37 pupils each. Our three grade seven classes have 33 pupils each, and our three grade six classes have 33 pupils each. In our primary grades, our classes are smaller. However, we have a definite language problem."

They have a language problem; they have a number of immigrant children, a fairly large number in the kindergarten and grade one classes of 89 pupils. Fifty-one of these pupils speak a language other than English at home; 45 of 51 pupils speak either Chinese or Punjabi.

We have a situation where the students who probably most need a small class, most need some assistance, perhaps a little special treatment because of a cultural as well as a language problem, are being penalized forever in the future because of the fact that they don't have a decent education at this level. It's simple for us; most of us here have English as our first language. It's simple for us to forget that if you take children from families from other parts of the world who speak a different language at home, you deprive them in the elementary grades of the type of education they should get, and they are disadvantaged from that day forward throughout time.

If anything can create the type of divisions within society based upon racial origin, it's the fact that these students start in our own system under such a substantial disadvantage. If people are concerned about racial equality and the brotherhood of man, surely we must realize that by taking immigrant children, placing them in classes which are far too large, having teachers who don't have the time to give them the individual instruction they need, we are definitely prejudicing their future and we are creating social problems for ourselves which will exist for decades hence.

[Mr. Liden in the chair.]

Mr. Speaker, the B.C. Teachers' Federation has given figures on average class size in B.C. I'd like to mention some of these because some of them are pretty surprising. They've done a survey and apparently the Minister's department does not have the information or at least has not been collecting the information. They put out a report called "Quality Indicators in Our Schools." It talks of an American study and it makes reference to the work done by the BCTF in making this applicable to Canada.

The report, which I have here, doesn't have a date on it so I can't identify it any more than by saying it is called "Quality Indicators in Our Schools" and it's put out by the BCTF. It talks about existing class size in British Columbia standing squarely as a roadblock preventing satisfaction of these elements of quality education.

The person who is being interviewed, a Mr. Olson who came to the BCTF summer conference at Naramata in '73, is a consultant, and he explains his study which is called "Indicators of Quality" which was researched into 28,000 classrooms in the U.S. As I say, the BCTF don't have the same type of study in Canada or in B.C., but they've been trying hard to apply these figures as carefully as they can. Olson points out:

"The point that is being made about class size is that as class size increases, the high-scoring instructional styles are dramatically reduced. One thing we can say is that class sizes automatically show a positive, almost perfect linear relationship with quality and process."

He goes on to point out that in B.C. 82.4 per cent of B.C.'s elementary classes are of poor quality. For 255,000 students in grades one to seven, only 33,917, or 13 per cent, are in quality class size situations of 25 or fewer students.

The study is no longer Olson's, it's now the BCTF's: "A BCTF survey shows that 1,500 classes in the province are in violation of the class-limit size of 36 students per teacher established by the 1973 Annual General Meeting." That study was done in October of '73, during this school year.

During the school year we had 1,500 classrooms where there were more than 36 kids. A BCTF survey which covered about 1,080 out of the 1,168 elementary schools in B.C. revealed that the average reduction in elementary classes for the last year was only 1.1 students per class, leaving the size of the average class in elementary schools at 29.4, a disgraceful standard.

A BCTF survey revealed that 21 school districts actually increased their class sizes this year. They ask how we could provide quality education under these conditions.

I look down the list: Vancouver is bad; central Okanagan is bad; North Vancouver is very bad as is West Vancouver — and there are plenty of others there. Vancouver is particularly unfortunate because the worst problems exist in the east end of Vancouver where the classroom size is even higher than the average in the city.

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It is not right or proper that this continue, especially since we're in the second NDP budget, especially since it's now a year-and-a-half since this government took office.

I've got other briefs from the north Surrey teachers, briefs from the school trustees, briefs from many school districts, including my own here in Victoria. There is a British Columbia Teachers' Federation brief on class size and pupil-teacher ratio which was given to the Minister back in November. The whole survey of the literature we've been given — and all of us have been given this material — indicates the situation is so slightly better than before as to be negligible.

The Minister, in her speech today, talked of a 21.5 student-teacher ratio. The figures were not qualified correctly in that this includes people who are not teaching; the teachers on that list are people who are in administration, people who are not actually involved in the school system, special teachers for music, violin — people of that nature who come into certain schools for certain classes.

The 21.5 ratio, she said, would be reduced by 1.5 per year. She nods her head in agreement with me. I approve of that; that's about a 7 per cent drop per year. It would take not $8 million, as previously calculated, but a minimum of $13 million extra per year with the possibility of going up to substantially higher than that. In the three-year period she is talking about we are basically talking of $36 million, at the absolutely lowest figure, to anything up to $80 million or even $90 million as the absolute upper figure.

You can't simply take the cost of teachers' salaries and say that's all the cost there is. You've got their pension plan costs; you've got training costs; you've the cost that results from more people actually in the schools.

What beats me is how we can talk about reduction in class size based on the total-student-to-total-teacher ratio without at the same time putting more money in the pot. It's ridiculous to say that this is going to come forward by way of special requests from school boards. It just proves that as far as education is concerned there is no budget here at all. It's the old squeaky-wheel theory; the people who come over here, yell the loudest, exert the most political pressure, have the best advocates, are the people who are going to get the money.

I have notes here galore about the Minister's speech and what will happen in cases such as Victoria where people have been responsible and voted for more money for the school system, as opposed to other areas which are less responsible. I have great concern as to the school boards which have done their level best to keep class size down and who have every likelihood of being penalized, if I heard the Minister's statements correctly.

The fact is that we simply don't have a policy at all. We have people coming cap-in-hand. I just ask you, Mr. Speaker: what would happen if every one of those 20-odd Ministers got up and made the same speech? "I'm not sure if this will do. In fact, I know it won't do; the budget is clearly wrong."

All the recreation and conservation people can come and scream at the Hon. Minister; all the people in Agriculture can come down and howl for extra funds from the Minister of Agriculture. We would be barricaded in this building with delegation after delegation after delegation out there screaming at us. There would be no budget at all. And as far as education is concerned, there is no budget at all.

AN HON. MEMBER: Bring back Brothers.

MR. D.A. ANDERSON: Well, it's true. I always thought Mr. Brothers was not the best of Ministers, and I still think the present Minister is substantially better. But I will say this: unless she's given the support she needs from the Premier, she really should resign.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Shame!

MR. D.A. ANDERSON: People call "shame," but I have a whole series of clippings and I can read them all. One of the greatest ones is the one that occurred in the early edition of the Sun when somebody phoned the Hon. Minister in Montreal. The first headline says, "Dailly Comes to Defence of Embattled School Czar." The next edition of the same paper which came out an hour later had Dailly saying, "Job of School Czar Ended."

We've had the Minister encouraging school boards to put forward better programmes. Rightly she has encouraged them to do so. When they did so she, of course, called them irresponsible. The school trustees were naturally hurt by that. I have here the clipping: "Dailly Hits Trustee Irresponsibility."

Interjection.

MR. D.A. ANDERSON: Well, if you don't like what the Minister said, Mr. Minister of Lands, Forests and Water Resources (Hon. R.A. Williams), I don't know. Perhaps it's your hand behind this that she's not getting the money she needs to carry out her department's expenditure programmes correctly.

We've got the Minister attacking the school trustees for doing precisely what she asked them to do. We have the Minister going to a teachers' meeting and asking for support in persuading the cabinet to give her the money she needed. This approach was pretty poor; it's a clear indication that the Minister of Finance did not have confidence in the Minister of Education. To sum it all up, he, of course, fired the

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one person who was put forward as a catalyst for change — namely, Mr. Bremer.

I'd like to say one or two words on Mr. Bremer. When he was appointed we questioned the appointment. We questioned it, we thought, responsibly. We asked what his qualifications were; we asked why a British Columbian had not been chosen. My hon. friend from Point Grey did this questioning and he got strips torn off him like nobody's business by the lady Minister who cut him down by saying that it was irresponsible, that it was a disservice to education to even question the qualifications or ask where the degrees came from. Questions like that were irresponsible; another word used was "disgusting;" "a disservice to education" was another phrase. Yet, we find in the Vancouver Sun, January 11, "Education Czar a Flop, Says Barrett." Then we have "Mrs. Dailly Coming to Defence of School Czar."

When we asked questions on this, when we asked questions in the House, we were constantly being told he was doing precisely what he had been instructed to do. I believe that to be the case. If Bremer should have been fired, surely the Minister who put her whole reputation on the line with him should also go. I'm not saying this in any facetious sense. If the Minister of Education cannot get the funds from the Minister of Finance which are required for the school system, to honour NDP campaign promises, surely you should get another Minister in that cabinet.

I personally feel that she herself has done her best, and I don't think she has done a worse job than most people over in the cabinet benches. But she has clearly lost the confidence of the Minister of Finance. Under the circumstances, I cannot see how we can continue without a change. Again, it is a distasteful thing that it happens this way, but I fail to see why the school children of the province should be penalized for what is essentially a dispute between two Ministers in cabinet.

The education area is of tremendous importance. I hear someone out on my left from the NDP backbench shout, "It's a lot of garbage," but I think its tremendously important. A school year lost or a school year which is bad from the point of view of the child's education is never caught up. There's no way you can; there just isn't the time in human life to do it. If we start people off with a bad education, we're doing them a grave disservice and we're doing the province a great disservice. I think it is a tremendously important area. The suggestion that it is going to be hit or miss, completely ad hoc, people coming over here and putting a case to the Minister — some of whom are perhaps not skilled as debaters, not putting such a good case and not getting money.... That approach is the worst possible one when you're dealing with children's futures.

I cannot see that this government can claim that in this budget they have anything but failed in the case of education to put forward a budget which in any way meets the requirements of the primary and secondary schools.

The same is true of the universities. The increase of $10 million is already committed to increases in fixed costs and increases to the staff of universities, excluding the professional staff. It means that the possible increase is approximately 1 per cent.

I am going to leave to other Members of my caucus, who know universities better than I do, to go into the full figures of this, but we cannot continue, year after year, not to provide equivalent salaries to our university professors. We cannot continue, or they will go of course to other jobs — research jobs in federal or provincial institutions. They will go outside the country; they will go to other universities.

Now, perhaps the professors, in their brief, were arguing a little extravagantly, but they claim that there is only half-a-million dollars extra in that budget for salaries for professors. It means, Mr. Speaker, if I can put it in different terms, that despite the extra degrees, despite the extra time at school, the average professor at UBC will be well past 40 — about 42 — before his salary reaches the same salary he would be getting had he gone straight into education and been a secondary school teacher instead of a university professor. It means that up to that point they would be constantly below the level of secondary school teachers.

Now, it can be argued that doctorates and MAs are of little value. It can be argued that university itself is of little value or that it is doing the wrong thing. But it is pretty clear that if you set up a system where these people are paid in British Columbia substantially less than elsewhere, where they have approximately, at the present time, 1 per cent increases in sight, you are not going to get them to stay, and they are not going to be doing a good job if they do stay.

Let's face it, inflation has taken place. We know it, we are contributing to it in government, and there is no way that we can force a certain group, such as university professors, to bear the brunt, any more than last year or the year before last we could try and put it on the shoulders of the teachers in the secondary and primary schools. If $7 million of the $10 million is needed by the universities to continue the essential services at inflated prices, a further $2.5 million will be needed to provide for pay increases already bargained for with their staff. In other words these are fixed costs, and they have to receive the money that is available. But, Mr. Speaker, what is left is quite inadequate to give the faculty salary increases at all in line with inflation. There is only half-a-million dollars left, which is equivalent to a 1 per cent salary increase.

The Minister of Lands, Forests and Water

[ Page 383 ]

Resources (Hon. R.A. Williams) made some cracks the other day about moonlighting — consulting done by university people — and it is true that some are able to do that. But the bulk of your professors cannot — professors of biology or of English literature. There is no way they can moonlight, as perhaps the professor of economics or forestry or people such as that can moonlight or, I should say, take jobs outside. It is a real problem which you are ignoring, and if you continue to ignore it, the universities, both for teaching purposes and for research, will decline in relative terms to those of other provinces and other jurisdictions elsewhere.

Mr. Speaker, I've spoken about these three basic points — first the direction of the economy, second the total confusion in the municipal affairs field, aided by the efforts of the Minister of Housing to make things worse. I have talked of the fact that there is really no budget here whatsoever for education.

Therefore it is my reluctant duty to put forward an amendment to the motion that the words "that Mr. Speaker do now leave the chair for the House to go into Committee of Supply" be amended by adding the following words:

"But this House regrets that in the opinion of this House the Hon. Minister of Finance has failed to make adequate provision for the needs of cities and municipalities and for the needs of the educational system in the Province of British Columbia."

Seconded by the Hon. Member for West Vancouver–Howe Sound (Mr. L.A. Williams).

MR. L.A. WILLIAMS (West Vancouver–Howe Sound): Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to take my place in this budget debate, even though I do so as a seconder of this amendment to the motion.

Before I direct a few brief remarks — and I assure you that they will be brief, because I know that other Members of this House wish to participate in this debate — before I take my place to deal specifically with the budget and the amendment, I would like to place before you, Mr. Speaker, and Members of this House, a concern which I have out of circumstances which arose in this House this afternoon.

The Hon. Member for South Peace River (Mr. Phillips), during the course of his remarks, presented certain information to this assembly, the nature of which was unknown to me, the accuracy of which I trust is known to him. But in the course of those remarks he involved the names of four individuals specifically, and other groups in our society by generality.

I suggest to you, Mr. Speaker, that if that Hon. Member has factual information indicating that the laws of this province have been breached, then it is his responsibility, not only as a Member of this assembly, but as a citizen of this province, to place that information before our chief law enforcement officer, who is the Attorney-General (Hon. Mr. Macdonald).

I make no comment upon the accuracy of his remarks; that is for him to judge. But if we have come to the stage in our society when we can come under the privileges which we have in this House, and make remarks, accurate or inaccurate....

MR. D.E. SMITH (North Peace River): Point of order.

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

MR. SPEAKER: What is your point of order?

MR. SMITH: The point of order is simply this. The Member for South Peace River this afternoon, in concluding his remarks, indicated to the House and everyone who was assembled here that he would be moving a motion concerning the remark that he made that we should appoint a royal commission. This is the method that we could examine....

MR. SPEAKER: I think you are making a speech.

MR. SMITH: I'm not making a speech — I'm making a point of order. The point of order is that if that Member is prepared to get up and chastise the Member for South Peace River for acting in a correct manner, he is incorrect in what he is saying, because the Member did conclude his remarks by asking for a royal commission to be appointed in this province.

MR. L.A. WILLIAMS: Mr. Speaker, I thank the Hon. Member for North Peace River for those remarks as well. I am not chastising the Member for South Peace River at all. I am suggesting to all of the Members of this assembly that we have, with the privileges of this House, a true and solemn responsibility.

In this gallery of this House, we have people who will publish, and properly so, the remarks that we make here. If those remarks cause injury, perhaps inadvertently, then it is injury that we can never recompense. I think that we must concern ourselves in that regard when we take our places here.

So saying, Mr. Speaker, I would like to direct a few remarks — and as I said a few moments ago, I will be brief — in connection with the 23rd Social Credit budget. In 1972 the former Minister of Finance (Hon. Mr. Bennett) presented his 21st. Last year the present Minister of Finance (Hon. Mr. Barrett) was forced to present the Social Credit 22nd, and obviously this year the present Minister of Finance has chosen, of his own will, to present the 23rd Social Credit

[ Page 384 ]

budget. I compliment him on it.

We used to be baffled by Bennett — at least the people of this province were — with fantastic numbers. And now, I regret to say, we are bewildered by Barrett — truly bewildered by Barrett. I think it is a major disappointment to the people of this province that we are bewildered by this Minister of Finance, not only by the sleight of hand and fancy footwork that he has learned from his predecessor, but because this year, in what he has announced as the first socialist budget, he has denied the promise that he made to the people of this province when he took office in September, 1972.

I remember well the so-called mini-session that we had in the fall of 1972, and the changed atmosphere that was in this chamber, on both sides of the House. And I remember the same feeling in the spring of 1973. Mr. Speaker, in the spring of 1974, dealing with this budget, it is obvious that there is no change at all. And that is why the people of British Columbia are bewildered.

With Mincome and the programmes that this government put forward in those early days, there was real optimism in this province that with our fiscal resources this government was going to do something that had been promised year after year after year by the NDP in opposition, and by the other opposition parties as well.

But in 1974 it just hasn't happened. Just the numbers are bigger.

Mr. Speaker, I remember sitting in this House when the first $1 billion budget came down. The Minister of Finance of that day stood in that same place and announced that budget, and all of the Social Credit backbenchers pounded their desks in glee.

That was the $1 billion budget for the year ending March 31, 1970. And here we are, scarcely four years later, having the Minister of Finance (Hon. Mr. Barrett) stand in that same place and offer us a $2 billion budget — twice as much in four years. That's a rate of increase compounded at 17 per cent per year on the average.

[Mr. Dent in the chair.]

If that is to be the pattern we are to have with this government and this new Minister of Finance, what are you going to do in two years time, Mr. Speaker — and I say this to all the backbenchers — what are you going to do two years from now when the budget is over $3 billion? As one of the astute observers from the press gallery said a few days ago in the coffee shop — and this is a rhetorical question which I pose to you all — are you going to take off your clothes and dance in the street? Pounding the desk won't be good enough when you pass $3 billion in two more years.

The people are bewildered, because when they look at this budget, in spite of the large numbers, they say: "What's there for us, the people of British Columbia?" They recognize today as they have never recognized before that in spite of all the rhetoric, in spite of all the promises, it is the people of British Columbia who are providing these revenues in excess of $2 billion a year for this government to spend. They look at the compounding annual rate of increase and say: "In two years where are you going to get the $3 billion? And what are we going to get for it?"

Interjection.

MR. L.A. WILLIAMS: "How are you going to spend it?" the Member for Oak Bay (Mr. Wallace) says. Well, I wonder how you are going to spend it, because when we talk about aid for people we find that in education the percentage of the budget being expended this year is less than last year. In fact, on page 22 of the budget the Minister of Finance admits that very thing, and he admits it in Social Credit language. He says: "To ensure a properly planned education system that is responsible to the needs of a dynamic society" — that's Social Credit talk — "we're going to spend $567 million."

That is 76 per cent more than was spent five years ago. Seventy-six per cent more than five years ago, Mr. Speaker, and in four years their revenues have doubled. Why aren't we spending 100 per cent more than five years ago? We're not because the government is not fulfilling its promise to the people of this province to raise the revenues and to spend them for people services.

Public health services: the Minister of Health (Hon. Mr. Cocke) spoke the other day, and I commended the Minister of Health for the task he has done in a most difficult department; but on Public Health services we are spending a smaller percentage of the budget this year than last.

Mental Health services: a smaller percentage of the budget this year than last.

Highways: a smaller percentage of the budget this year than last.

Human Resources: this is where Mincome is. This is where we are looking after those disadvantaged people in our community. We're spending less of a percentage of the total expenditures this year than last.

How do you explain this to your constituents? Are you baffled by these figures as well?

Interjections.

MR. L.A. WILLIAMS: Your citizens, your constituents, are bewildered by them. The fact of the matter is, Mr. Speaker, that when it is fully

[ Page 385 ]

recognized that the majority of the revenues of this government in the forthcoming fiscal year are coming from the middle- and lower-income groups in our community, the message will come home to them loud and clear. The stenographers, the loggers, the truck drivers and the miners, the store clerks: they're the people who are bearing the burden of this budget and they are the ones who are being deprived of the services that they are entitled to expect from this government.

No wonder they are bewildered, because this is the socialist government that promised real services to people, to senior citizens.

The Member for Chilliwack (Mr. Schroeder) spoke the other day, and spoke very eloquently in connection with the senior citizens, and he pointed out to your government that in order for you to fulfil the promise you made to the senior citizens, Mincome right now should be $250 a month. There is nothing in the budget for them.

Then you've got that group just below the Mincome figure — the people who have just enough income of their own that they can't qualify for Mincome. They're in the grasp as well of increasing tax burdens resulting from increasing costs of living, even though the Minister of Finance promises that there will be no increase in tax rates.

You can't escape, if you are in that position, the impact of taxation as a direct consequence of inflation. Mr. Speaker, for these people what does this government offer? I suggest to you that it offers a slap across the mouth with the back of the government's hand.

The only reduction of tax of any significant consequence to the low-income and disadvantaged people in the Province of British Columbia is to remove the 5 per cent tax on second-hand clothing. That's what they are saying to the people of this province. If you want to go and buy second-hand jeans and second-hand shoes, then we'll take the 5 per cent tax off.

Interjections.

MR. L.A. WILLIAMS: What's wrong with the senior citizens and the disadvantaged people, those on low income, being able to buy new clothes tax-free?

MR. G.S. WALLACE (Oak Bay): Right on.

MR. L.A. WILLIAMS: What a sorry situation, this Minister of Finance...it was damnable that he would offer this tax relief to the people in British Columbia. "If you have to buy second-hand clothes, I won't charge you the 5 per cent tax." That's the relief. That's the kind of treatment for people that this budget promises to the people of this province.

Other Members have spoken at length with all the statistics. I don't want to get into the statistics because it is the statistics that bewilder the citizens of the Province of British Columbia. I listened last evening to the Hon. Member for Atlin (Mr. Calder) and it was one of the best speeches I've ever heard in this House, because he talked about northern development in real terms.

I'm sorry that the Minister of Industrial Development, Trade and Commerce (Hon. Mr. Lauk) couldn't have been here to listen, because he might have learned a lesson. Northern development is meaningless unless you look at northern development in the terms of people in the north.

MR. WALLACE: Right on.

MR. L.A. WILLIAMS: There is no point in talking about budgets of $2 billion-plus unless you think about the people who are paying the taxes and who expect to benefit from the services of the government.

MR. WALLACE: Right on.

MR. L.A. WILLIAMS: If you talk about $493,186,000 the average citizen loses touch altogether. What he wants to see is what the government is doing for him. All your talk about northern development means nothing unless you bring it down to concrete terms that the individual understands.

I'm not going to talk about a lot of these figures, but I want to talk about some. We've been promised a resource dividend. Mr. Speaker, I'm a little older than some of the Members of this House — not as old as some, but older than most.

Resource dividend. Shades of William Aberhart. This is a socialist policy? Bible Bill, he was the one who was going to give the dividend. This is straight Social Credit theory we're getting from these people across the floor.

MR. D.A. ANDERSON: The flat-earth crowd is back again.

HON. G.R., LEA (Minister of Highways): Why are they against it?

MR. L.A. WILLIAMS: Let's have John Tisdalle back here because he understands it.

MR. WALLACE: No, no, never. (Laughter.)

MR. L.A. WILLIAMS: Let's look at this so-called resource dividend. I suggest to you, Mr. Speaker, that the resource dividend is the biggest political flim-flam that has ever been foisted upon the people of British Columbia. It's not a resource dividend at all. The Government of the Province of British Columbia is

[ Page 386 ]

going to reach into general revenue, which comes from taxes, and give back each citizen $30. That's what it amounts to: $30 a year. How much a month?

MR. H.W. SCHROEDER (Chilliwack): $2.50 a month.

MR. L.A. WILLIAMS: You can't even buy a mickey for $2.50 a month. (Laughter.) That's what it means to the average citizen. Can you get a case of beer for $2.50? That's what it means to the average citizen.

Citizens of British Columbia, your government is giving you a resource dividend that won't allow you to buy a case of beer.

That's what it means in common, everyday, ordinary terms. But before you think about buying any part of a case of beer, let's look at some other things that are going to happen.

The Energy Commission of this province held hearings a few weeks ago by two private companies which distribute natural gas in this province. They have granted them certain increases in natural-gas rates in the distribution area. Now, you must all have recognized that one thing was missing. British Columbia Hydro hadn't made any application before the Energy Commission. I wonder why? Mr. Speaker, you know why. B.C. Hydro doesn't have to go before the Energy Commission if it wants to increase the price of natural gas. It's exempted. A special consideration given by the government, that government, to B.C. Hydro.

But let me tell you, Mr. Speaker, it's been said in this House before and I want there to be no doubts about it. The chairman of British Columbia Hydro has had on his desk for at least three weeks the recommended rate increases for natural gas distributed by that company, and those rate increases are as follows: an 80 per cent increase for industrial rates; 33 1/3 per cent increase for commercial rates; 15 per cent increase for residential rates.

The only reason that British Columbia Hydro and Power Authority has not announced those rate increases is because they're waiting for the playback as to whether or not the 15 per cent increase for residential natural-gas rates is going to create a political problem for that government. That's the reason.

But I was going to suggest to you what this means to the resource dividend. Commercial rates go up 33 1/3 per cent. If you happen to be a renter in an apartment building that is heated by natural gas and if your hot water is produced by natural gas, the increase in the commercial rates will cost you, per suite, $10 to $12 a year. So slightly more than a third of your resource dividend is going to go to B.C. Hydro right off the bat for hot water and heat.

That's your resource dividend from the natural gas which everybody knows belongs to the people of British Columbia, which is purchased by a British Columbia Crown corporation at the wellhead, transmitted down a pipeline and sold by another British Columbia Crown corporation in the lower mainland.

Interjection.

MR. L.A. WILLIAMS: They've gone up. But they've been allowed to go up 30 per cent, you see, by the Energy Commission. But here's the interesting thing. They had to go to the Energy Commission and convince the Energy Commission they were entitled to that kind of an increase because of what they were paying for the natural gas they buy from the British Columbia Crown corporation and their cost of distribution. But we don't have to have B.C. Hydro go through that kind of an examination, even though year after year prior to 1974 British Columbia Hydro has made excessive profits out of the sale of natural gas, even though the people of British Columbia buying gas from B.C. Hydro have paid higher rates than any place else on the North American continent.

That's the kind of resource dividend we're getting from our government and our Crown corporations.

AN HON. MEMBER: A resource rip-off.

MR. L.A. WILLIAMS: Mr. Speaker, a Member says a resource rip-off. I don't think that's a resource rip-off; I think it's even worse than that.

If a housewife were to come to the Minister of Consumer Services (Hon. Ms. Young) and tell her that she had gone into a supermarket and had found the prices were marked up on the same goods that were on the shelf the day before, the Minister of Consumer Services would be after that supermarket like you wouldn't believe. And rightly so. But are we going to hear from the Minister of Consumer Services when B.C. Hydro takes the same gas that has been coming down that pipeline month after month after month and marks it up 15 per cent to the residential user? Same gas. Are we going to hear that when it's marked up 33 1/3 per cent for the commercial consumer? Same gas. The industrial user; 80 per cent; same gas.

I hope the Minister of Consumer Services will dig in her heels here and say to her government, "Look, we can't have any of these marked-up prices. I won't stand for it in the supermarkets and I'm not going to stand for it in the Crown corporations either because that's what hurts the individual."

You may say, well, sure, those big industries can afford to pay 80 per cent more for their natural gas. Of course they can; no question about it. Increase it 200 per cent, a Member says. No problem at all; go ahead and increase the cost of natural gas. If you happen to be producing some product which is used

[ Page 387 ]

in the housing industry, add the increased cost onto the price of the product. And it will cost more to build a house. That's what happens.

So the resource dividend the government is giving to the Province of British Columbia from all resources is, in fact, a dividend that is going to be paid for out of the pocket of the individual consumer in the Province of British Columbia whether he buys gas or not.

MR. D.E. LEWIS (Shuswap): You don't believe that!

MR. L.A. WILLIAMS: You bet I believe it. Here's an entrepreneur. Here's a man who raises chickens and they produce eggs. He's no peanut-stand operator, Mr. Speaker; he's a true entrepreneur.

I want to deal with this resource dividend thing just one step further because the Hon. Minister of Lands, Forests and Water Resources treated us to a speech the other day that I could scarcely believe. He made a very good speech when he was talking about matters strictly within his department. But in the early part of his speech he was a little bit political and he got talking about the great benefits that were being derived from the expenditure of public moneys for the purchase of private corporations.

He didn't have the annual report from Can-Cel but he quoted the Province saying it was estimated there would be a profit of $12 million. If that's true, that's a pretty good job; no question about that. But then he went on to give other statistics, and you all applauded how well these Crown corporations were doing. You applaud too, because I'll come back to the Member for Shuswap (Mr. Lewis).

The annual sales of Ocean Falls were $18 million. Are you going to applaud that? The annual sales of Plateau Mills were $15 million. Next year's annual sales estimated for Kootenay Forest Products will be $18 million and Can-Cel's annual sales will be $200 million. Isn't that fantastic? No applause. Even the man who grows eggs....

MR. LEWIS: I don't grow them; the chickens do. (Laughter.)

MR. L.A. WILLIAMS: Even the man who owns the chickens who grow the eggs. (Laughter.) I'll correct that, Mr. Speaker, because I happen to know the Member very well, and I'll tell you this: even the man who is married to the woman who runs the hatchery that has the chickens which produce the eggs.... (Laughter.) Because I know who works for that family. (Laughter.) Even that man knows you can't tell anything from gross sales without costs, capital costs, operating expenses and debt charges. Finally you get down to that nasty little word: net income.

I use "net income" because I don't like to say "profit" in this House. That's a socialist word, as a Member on the other side of the House said the other day.

But even the Member for Shuswap who is in the egg business knows. The Minister of Lands, Forests and Water Resources (Hon. R.A. Williams) regaled us with these figures of gross sales and everybody applauded like mad. Well, Mr. Minister, I don't think we'd even let you run a peanut stand.

I don't think we'd even let you run a peanut stand because if you want to count the peanuts that go out without counting whatever it costs for you to buy them in the first place, and the cost of selling them in the second then we are in serious trouble with our resource industries. That's right, with our resource industries.

The fact of the matter is that all the millions of dollars that we've put into the acquisition of private rights and industry haven't produced as yet one nickel. Not one nickel — you should read the material, Mr. Minister of Public Works (Hon. Mr. Hartley); then you'll understand how much they put in.

The fact of the matter is, Mr. Speaker, that all the money that we have put in these private resource industries hasn't yet produced us one nickel, and we're not going to know when it does. This is something else that should alarm Members of this House. When we're considering this kind of budget, there's never going to be any item in here for how much Can-Cel produced for British Columbia, or Plateau Mills, or any of these other corporations that we have.

Resource dividends will continue to come, Mr. Speaker, from the pockets of the taxpayers of British Columbia. A straight political pay-off.

You know, the Conservatives in Ontario do it very well. I understand that they have a renter's grant which is much, much bigger than what we're promising in British Columbia. And do you know when it comes? About the 21st of December. A beautiful stroke of political genius.

I hope that our government doesn't at least make this mistake, because it is so obvious to the people of British Columbia what this government is doing with this budget, that if they try to make it a Christmas present too, I'm afraid it's going to dim the lights on all the trees.

Now, while it is perhaps humorous to speak of these serious matters in a light way, the fact of the matter is that the people of the Province of British Columbia are entitled to have from their government better response than they're getting in this budget. They've waited through 20 years of Social Credit, hoping that there would be some better response and they believed that this government was going to do something about it.

[ Page 388 ]

They gave the promise, but they failed. In two particular areas that we must deal with, because of the amendment which is now before the House, they have failed miserably — the treatment of cities, towns and municipalities, and their treatment of the educational system.

Now, dealing with education first, we have talked for years, and years, and years about education. There's arguments as to whether too much is being spent or not on this area of government activity. But as I said in this House three years ago when we talk about education and the system of education in this province, we aren't talking about this year's budget, or next year's budget, or indeed even the budget for the year after that. We're talking about the future of this province 10 and 20 years hence, which depends upon the young people of our province, some of whom aren't even in school today.

We as legislators, if we are only content to deal with this next 12 month fiscal period, fail ourselves, fail our province and fail the future generations that will come after us. If we can't raise up our eyes and see what the future demands, then we don't have any right to be on the floor of this assembly.

The Minister of Industrial Development, Trade and Commerce (Hon. Mr. Lauk) spoke the other day, and I have a lot of disagreements with him, but he recognizes where the future of this province lies.

He talked about northern development and how we must move into that part of our province, how much we must expand the industries, build new towns, new communities. But that all requires people with skill as well as endurance. The skill of those people will depend upon the educational system that we may start to provide for the students who will perhaps enter our schools five years from now.

There's no question that if we embark upon a programme at this very moment, if the Minister of Finance was to say, "I'll give you any amount of money you want," if we started to embark upon an amended educational system in this province, we wouldn't get it operating for at least five years.

So we're talking about the child just born, who will go into kindergarten or grade one five or six years from now. And it will be the fruits of that young boy or girl that will decide whether or not the dream of northern development and of the greatness of this province will in fact come true.

That's what concerns me when I learn that this year the percentage of the budget for education is less than last year. This is no progress. When are we going to start?

The big cry today is class size. I don't blame the B.C. Teachers' Federation for making this move because there's lots of justification for this clamour to reduce class sizes. But do you know that if you were to embark upon a reduced class size programme now, that one of the things you would have to do in many areas is to provide more classrooms? Because if you divide the number of children into smaller groups, you've got to put them someplace. You can't stack them one on top of the other. And do you also know that if you were to embark upon a substantially reduced class size, that you'd have to re-train some of our teachers?

You would also have to convince those who know what to do with a small class size that it was really happening. This is the problem with pupil-teacher ratio. It would take two or three years of reduced — significantly reduced — pupil-teacher ratios before the programme would begin to work in the schools, and any true benefit would be recognized.

So when I criticize this budget for its failure to treat education properly, I do so because recognizing these delays, to wait any longer is to place this province and its future in jeopardy. I don't think that we can stand or sit in this House and discharge our responsibilities if we recognize that by doing so, we may place the future of this province and of the young people in jeopardy.

The amendment also speaks of the inadequate fiscal treatment for municipalities. I'm only going to deal with one aspect of that, and it's a popular one. That's housing.

I'm sorry the Minister of Housing (Hon. Mr. Nicolson) is not here but that's not surprising. He's probably out in the corridor giving a message. Because when he made his speech in the House the other day outlining his proposals for housing plans for the Province of British Columbia, he didn't make much sense. I was pleased to read in the paper that he had gone out in the corridor giving a press conference in order to explain to the press gallery what he was really talking about and during that time he indicated that in subsequent days he would further elaborate on the housing programme.

The fact of the matter is, Mr. Speaker, quite simple, and the Minister doesn't seem to have recognized it. In order to build more housing units — and I don't care whether you like single family houses, duplexes, fourplexes, apartment buildings, or whatever it is — in order to build housing units, you've got to have land, you've got to have material, you've got to have carpenters, plumbers and electricians, and roofers, and concrete people, and men who know how to put them together and to get them on the site and go to work.

This Minister, with all of the money that he's been given in this budget is not one step closer to that goal than he was before the budget was announced. Not one step closer.

No proposals from him except that he's going to deal with the matter of serviced land. And that's what brings me to the question of municipal finance. The Hon. Member for Victoria (Mr. D.A. Anderson) in his remarks a few moments ago, talked about the

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problems of servicing land. I want to give you just a couple of brief examples.

In the Municipality of Surrey — and I picked this because it has been one of the fastest-growing municipalities — Surrey places what they call an impost charge on the developers of single family dwellings.

The cost of servicing land in Surrey comes down to about $3,000 per unit. But then you consider the impost charge. For each suite in the apartment building for park development the municipality charges $1,295. You add that. For water, and this is just to ensure that there is adequate pumping capacity, they add $150 per suite. For drainage they add $300 per suite. If you happen to be located on an arterial road, a main road, they charge you $200 per suite. But if it is a case where you require a non-arterial road — a municipal road to be built — they charge you $650 per suite.

All of those costs go on to the unit cost for an apartment building in the municipality of Surrey. Do you wonder that the cost of housing is high, because it is exactly the same cost for a single family home except in the case of park development, and they reduce the costs from $1,295 to $905.

Now in Langley city there is an impost charge of $500. In Matsqui it is 10 per cent of the land costs. In Delta $750 per suite for an apartment. In Burnaby and Richmond there is none. Just to get the land serviced, with water, drainage and roads, plus the impost for parks, provides all these costs on a residential per-unit basis. Simply because due to the niggardly fiscal provisions for municipalities made by the former administration, and unfortunately continued by this administration, the municipalities must make these charges or else their particular communities will become slums.

The Minister of Industrial Development, Trade and Commerce, who is a Member from one of the major urban ridings in Vancouver, spoke last night about the problems that you find in the city of Vancouver, and how we have to make it a better place to live, with more open space and more parks. You know, this also applies in outlying municipalities. Surrey, Richmond and Delta are faced with the same problems, but they don't have the money to provide it, and they only have one tax base, and that is the land. The principal tax base, and the greatest demand, is for residential land, and in order to ensure that they have the moneys that will enable them to provide the communities in which people wish to live, they make these kind of charges.

When they make these kind of charges, the cost of the land goes up, and when you want to build an apartment block or a home, you have got to pay those costs, and you are going to finance those charges too. You have got to finance those charges during the time that the building is under construction and if it is a home, it is six months. You can't live in it, but you are going to pay the interest for half a year on these kinds of costs, and then after you move in, year after year after year.

But if the government, and the Department of Housing, and the Department of Municipal Affairs would move actively on these matters, to assist municipalities in the provision of these essential services, then we could ease the burden of costs on the land, and begin to get some sense out of our housing crisis. We would help the Minister of Housing to get on with his job.

The longer we delay the greater will be the crisis, the more of our people, young people.... I have a daughter who is going to get married in May. Already she and her fiancé are looking for a place to live. Already.

They signed up with one of those rental agencies, on the basis that you pay so much money, maybe they will give you a list of apartments with some that are available. The Member shakes her head. She's right. I know what the problem is, though I thought these young people should understand what the problems are, that are faced by tens, hundreds, thousands of our young people.

I told the House last fall of seeing a young man, a young woman, with the want ads, the classified sections of the paper and a handful of dimes in a telephone booth, trying to find accommodation advertised in the paper.

Those are the kind of people who are going to suffer. Those are the kind of people who should be entitled to expect aid from this kind of budget, and they are not getting it.

As the Hon. Member for Vancouver–Point Grey (Mr. McGeer) pointed out the other day, even when we are talking about a $2,172 million budget, we really know by careful examination that the Minister of Finance is going to have from this year and next year, another $700 million that he is not telling us about.

All of this fiscal strength is available to the Minister of Finance and his department. Why can't we get going? No wonder the people of British Columbia are bewildered at our inability, in one of the richest provinces of Canada, to really do a job for them, when they are footing the bill.

I suppose that in closing, Mr. Speaker, that I might share with you a thought that passed through my mind last weekend. An event occurred last Friday in Victoria, when the teachers came over and demonstrated in front of this building, expressing their concern about education. The Minister of Education (Hon. Mrs. Dailly) went out and spoke to them, with the Second Member for Victoria (Mr. D.A. Anderson), the second Member for Vancouver–Point Grey (Mr. Gardom) and other Members spoke to the teachers. The Minister of

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Finance (Hon. Mr. Barrett) didn't go out. He couldn't go out because he was pedaling on a bicycle. There were pictures in the paper of him taking exercise. He needs it. I don't criticize the Minister of Finance for that, because I think everyone should get himself in shape.

But the message is clear. The revenues of the Province of British Columbia under his control are fat and flabby, and they could be cut back by some proper tax reductions, and the body politic in British Columbia would be a lot more healthy.

By the same token, the expenditures that this government proposed to make could be given some muscle, and municipal affairs and education are two places to start. A two-fold thrust. Cut back on some of the revenues and reduce the taxes if need be and put some muscle in those expenditures, Mr. Speaker.

MR. WALLACE: Mr. Speaker, it is always very difficult to follow the Member for West Vancouver–Howe Sound.

MR. L.A. WILLIAMS: Couldn't you understand me?

MR. WALLACE: No, there is no difficulty at all in understanding you, Mr. Member, it is just difficult to match your pointed logic, your clear reasoning and the fact that in this case you are right on the mark. And he's a nice guy as well. I will try not to be repetitive.

AN HON. MEMBER: Quite a contrast to his first piece.

MR. WALLACE: Well, I spared myself that experience. But, Mr. Speaker, in supporting the amendment, and I'll speak particularly with respect to education, there is no question at all that the record shows very clearly two things. The first one from the BCTF brief in November 1973, and I quote from page 5: "We consider a significant reduction in class sizes and pupil-teacher ratio to be the single most important step your department and local school boards could take to improve the quality of our schools."

Point (2) on the record is that this was priority No. 1 in the educational platform put forward by the NDP government in the election of 1972. As recently as the by-election in North Vancouver-Capilano we had Diane Baigent repeating clearly in public more than once...

Interjection.

MR. WALLACE: You like my accent, eh? You didn't know I speak French.

...repeating clearly on more than one occasion that as recently as a few weeks ago in conference the NDP had repeated that their No. I priority in their educational policy was to reduce the number of pupils in the class.

I don't care how Members of the government care to bamboozle us, or try to bamboozle us and the public with figures, the fact is that any reduction in class size has been of the smallest degree as to be insignificant. Certainly the figures...one single statistic that I think is worth quoting is from the BCTF brief based on 1,080 schools out of 1,168 elementary schools which showed that the reduction was of the order of 0.7, lower than the 30.1 standard in effect six years ago in 1967.

I would submit that this is such an insignificant reduction as to be really of no convincing effect compared to the tremendous priority which the NDP attached to this particular element of education in their election platform. Certainly any of us who have sat in this House and listened to the Minister of Education (Hon. Mrs. Dailly) when she was in the opposition, and I'm sorry that she is not present in the House tonight, repeatedly she has, as an opposition Member, pointed out the extreme importance of reducing class size.

And I am glad, Mr. Speaker, that the Minister of Education has come back into the chamber, because in the clipping from the Vancouver Sun of January 16, 1974, she sounds very defensive in discussing, at a public meeting attended by 600 citizens, this whole question of the main priority which the NDP attaches to their educational programme. Like so many human beings when they are trying to defend their position, they look backwards, not forwards, and try to argue that while things are not what they might be, they are a great deal better than they used to be.

Mr. Speaker, I really don't feel that that is the tone or the theme which was developed by this government in its 1972 election. The theme was "elect us and we will give you better health services, we will look after the people in nursing homes, we will give you a better system of education, and we, above all, will reduce the number of pupils in each class."

The Minister of Education is quoted in the Sun of January 16 as saying: "When I started teaching in grade 2 I had 50 children, which was ridiculous. No teacher can handle 50 children adequately. You just keep them busy and they suffer for it. Of course no teacher has this situation today in British Columbia, but that's not to say the situation is desirable."

Mr. Speaker, that's a very mild, defensive, negative statement compared to the promise that this government made as a fundamental pillar on which it asked for the support of the voter in British Columbia in 1972.

There has been great discussion in this debate on the whole question of local school boards and

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whether or not these school boards have fulfilled their responsibility both to the taxpayer and to the students and children attending school in this province. I can't speak of any school board other than district 61 with which I do have some close association and information. In that school district, Mr. Speaker, the teachers, as is their right, negotiated a 10.8 per cent increase, which amounts to $1.95 million. But the school board of the Greater Victoria Capital Regional District unanimously decided on a budget which happened to be 122 per cent compared to the preceding year.

I'm sure that other school districts in this province came to the same considered conclusion. I can tell you, Mr. Speaker, that the Victoria School Board spent 12 hours in deliberation on the final budget presented to them, and they are composed of very responsible public spirited citizens whose sincerity cannot be questioned. When citizens of this calibre come forward with a budget which happens to be 122 per cent of last year's and other school boards in the province do the same, I just don't think it is fair and right that the Minister of Education should publicly chastise them and state that they are irresponsible.

The school board has no control whatever over the negotiated increase in teachers' salaries. The machinery is there; collective bargaining or arbitration, as the case might be, takes place. We are all aware of the example in Surrey where the mill rate to meet the budget, which was considered reasonable by the board of education, would go from 37 mills to 49 mills. We've heard the Minister of Education talk today that she would not want an unfair burden to fall on the taxpayers, and I'm glad this is how she views the situation. When the Surrey School Board decided that the burden on the taxpayers locally would be too heavy, they reduced the budget in such a way as to reduce it from the 49 mills to 42 mills. And we all know the consequence in terms of the educational system in Surrey which would eliminate department heads and vice-principals, and increase the pupil-teacher ratio from 21 pupils per teacher to 24.

The other consequence is that teachers become irate and demonstrative.

We heard the Minister state today that in the last year 1,400 teachers have been added to the system. I notice that the Minister was very careful to omit mention of how many pupils have been added to the system. She went further and said that class size is not a panacea — I would certainly agree with that — and related the whole matter properly to teacher training and the whole question of the particular teaching patterns of training and of implementation of teaching methods. I accept that. But, Mr. Speaker, the Minister went on to say that she was sending a questionnaire to school boards. I can't quote her exactly, but the notes I made said that she is seeking details from boards where local taxation rises above a reasonable level. Certainly the two words "reasonable level" are exactly what she stated.

This reminds me of the Premier's comment when he talked about exorbitantly high pupil-teacher ratios. We have this government waffling and weaseling around, talking about "reasonable levels" and "exorbitantly high" as though this was a new situation where they suddenly had a whole lot of investigation to do to find out the facts. That, Mr. Speaker, was not the attitude they took in the election campaign of 1972. Oh, no. Nor the stance which the NDP took when they sat down the chamber two years ago. Oh, no! They knew where the problem was; they knew what the solution was; and all it needed was more money. More money in the budget to reduce the number of pupils in a class.

Now, lo and behold, February, 1974, we find this afternoon that the Minister of Education says we have to have a questionnaire to find out where the number of pupils in the classroom rises above a "reasonable level." What is a reasonable level? I won't go back into the figures and facts of the BCTF brief. We don't need a great deal of information, more than already exists in this brief and in other areas.

Then, beyond this very unsatisfactory statement that the solution cannot be dealt with until we have questionnaires, we have the Minister saying that we must have a system of supplementary grants. Again, Mr. Speaker, I would suggest that all the information and the facts and the figures and the input from the teachers and the trustees has been available for some considerable length of time, and it's a shocking admission of inadequacy in the department that at this late stage in the game, after all the election promises, that we have to have a questionnaire to find out what the situation really is,

In fact, one might say in passing also, Mr. Speaker, that the Minister mentioned this afternoon, and again I haven't got the exact quote, but the words read something of the order that the educational department is an open department, moving through the province to listen to the people.

MR. LEWIS: Hear! Hear!

MR. WALLACE: Hear, hear, the Member says. Isn't that what Mr. Bremer was doing — moving through the province listening to the people? What kind of doubletalk are we getting in this House, Mr. Speaker, on education? One statement says that we're moving through the province listening to the people, and when a highly talented, educated person appointed for that very job fulfils his role and does his job, we find again that the promise of this government compared to the performance shows a striking discord.

But to return, Mr. Speaker, to the question of

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supplementary grants, I always thought that it was the established tradition of parliament that prior to the beginning of a session, each department came up with figures which truly represented the realistic figures which would be needed to meet with the demands of that department.

AN HON. MEMBER: That was the good old days.

MR. WALLACE: The Member says that was the good old days. I don't know whether it was the good old days or bad old days, but I always thought that that was something very fundamental to the whole question of parliamentary budgets, in the same way that we expect free speech to be basic to parliamentary debate. But we seem to be setting a new path, Mr. Speaker. We seem to be having a system whereby the opposition attempts to interpret a budget but, as soon as the legislators go home, one particular department with a very substantial share of the total budget starts a whole new system of bargaining with the school boards across the province.

Mr. Speaker, whether or not the opposition — the 17 opposition Members — were to vote for or against this budget, certainly in relation to education, it is a farce. Because the minute we go out of this chamber at the proroguing of this session, we have the Minister of Education (Hon. Mrs. Dailly) who will probably start wheeling and dealing to spend, I don't know how many millions of dollars, on a very arbitrary basis decided by the Minister behind closed doors.

Regardless of whether this government, with the figures we now have, is spending enough money or not enough money on education, regardless of that point, I think it is insulting, Mr. Speaker, that this government should ask us as opposition members to approve a certain amount of money, knowing very well that when we leave this chamber another very substantial fraction of money will be distributed in an arbitrary way on the decision of the Minister of Education. I have a strong feeling, Mr. Speaker, that it will be very much a matter of the squeaky wheel getting the grease. There's a certain inevitability about human nature that the person who screams and shouts loudest and longest gets the greatest degree of attention.

I think, Mr. Speaker, that regardless of my personal criticisms and the reasons I'm trying to put forward for these criticisms, we have the Minister's own confession in her own words. On December 5, when the Minister announced an increase in the value of the instructional unit from $15,520 to $16,900, she is on record as stating that this barely kept up with the costs of inflation.

Again I suggest that we have contradiction in statements by the Minister. On one hand she is saying that she is dedicated to reducing the number of pupils per class. On the other hand, she announces that the increased instructional unit value merely keeps up with inflation: the increased salary increases negotiated by the teachers; the fact that, on the average, school supplies have risen by something in the order of 15 to 20 per cent; the cost of fuel oil for heating school buildings and so on, and we needn't go over all that again. The fact is that on December 5, last year, the Minister out of her own mouth admitted the fact that she and her cabinet, and the government of this province, were not making enough money available for education.

We've also had the input from the B.C. Teachers' Federation who felt that in fair play and justice to different school districts, the obvious way of approaching the problem was not by this method of behind-the-door dealings and supplementary grants after the Legislature prorogued, but by raising the value of the instructional unit to a realistic level in keeping with the needs of the different school boards. There's nothing dramatic about that, Mr. Speaker.

So, Mr. Speaker, the facts are beyond dispute. If we look at the record, this government regarded it and stated it and promised it as a No. 1 priority in education, that it would reduce the number of pupils per teacher. We have the record which shows the Minister encouraged school boards to think that more money would definitely be available for all the various ways in which the educational system could be improved, including the reduction of the number of pupils per class, but then when we received the figures from the different school boards which totalled an increase of $82 million in the provincial budgets, we had the response from the Minister which has been quoted many times: namely that boards had to show more fiscal responsibility.

Well, I know this, Mr. Speaker, from the local situation in district 61 that that was a most unfair insult to the citizens who serve on the school board of district 61. I can't speak for Surrey or Kamloops or anywhere else, but I know very well the citizens who serve on the school in the district where I live, and they spend hours and days deliberating the responsibilities they have in this particular public duty, and when they come up with a budget that's 122 per cent of last year, they are being completely honest and sincere with themselves and with the citizens and the students and pupils of this area.

I think that in that one statement, perhaps, the Minister did more than in any other of her actions to lose the confidence of the trustees in this particular area. And judging by the demonstration from Surrey the other day, I can't imagine that she retains their confidence.

There has been too much waffling from the government benches on the matter of the fraction of the budget that is being devoted to education. As I have said before, we have phrases like "reasonable levels" and "exorbitantly high" and all kinds of

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escape hatches which the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Education are trying to devise to cover up the fact that this government has fallen far short of the promises it made to the parents and the students of this province in the 1972 election.

MR. G.H. ANDERSON: Where did that nice doctor go?

MR. WALLACE: On my left I hear someone saying where did the nice doctor go.

MR. L.A. WILLIAMS: He's still here.

MR. WALLACE: I don't know what the meaning of the word "nice" is exactly. But I'll tell you one thing, Mr. Speaker: I've got five children and one of the reasons I often supported that party down there and still supported them with votes in this House was that I believed that they said what they meant.

MR. D.A. ANDERSON: Watch your blood pressure.

MR. WALLACE: I'll watch my blood pressure! Don't you worry about my blood pressure!

I'm saying that these people over there are falling far short of many of the solid, well-intentioned promises which put them in power. People in this province believed when they heard them say that health and education were important and that the previous government had neglected it.

I'm just saying: Come clean with the people of British Columbia, admit that you've fallen short. When you have these vast surpluses give the same rise to elementary schools for the teachers — $30 million — when that's exactly the amount by which wages increased. Who are you trying to kid? You're not even covering the cost of inflation.

If the nice doctor went anywhere, he got pretty mad because I've often even been accused of being a socialist because I supported your ideas and your votes in this House. And as long as you continue to keep your promise on social reform, Mr. Speaker, I'll support you. But don't give us doubletalk and tell us at one time that you really are interested in the people and their education, and the students, and then come in and give us this kind of budget and wonder why we get mad.

MR. G.F. GIBSON (North Vancouver-Capilano): Mr. Speaker, in intervening briefly in this debate I'd like to talk first of all about education.

The characteristic of the budget as it applies to education has been and still is, but the facts aren't all out on the table. We understand from the Minister of Finance (Hon. Mr. Barrett) and from the Minister of Education (Hon. Mrs. Dailly) that the amount available — the inadequate amount available — will be increased in various ways. We aren't, first of all, given any kind of criteria as to how much more money might be available, as to exactly how it will be done. Later on, the House receives an intimation that in order to reduce class sizes, in the case when class sizes are manifestly too high, the Minister will consider making more funds available.

AN HON. MEMBER: Ad hoc.

MR. GIBSON: This has the transparently unfair result of discriminating against those school districts that had had the courage to bite the bullet and raise the taxes locally and already had made provision for reducing class size.

Today, if I understand it properly in the Minister's statement, she has moved the goal posts again. She said today that she'd compensate districts that had raised taxes to lower class sizes when those taxes were raised above a reasonable level. This is more unclear promises, more vaguery — if that's a word, like ad hockery....

AN HON. MEMBER: Gobbledygook is the word.

MR. GIBSON: I think the House is entitled to know what the Minister means by "reasonable level." Just how high does the school district have to raise its taxes in order to reduce class sizes after which the Crown will compensate that district? What are the limits? How high is up?

The Hon. Member for Oak Bay (Mr. Wallace) made an excellent statement in his just concluded talk. He said that this makes the education aspect of the budget a farce. And it does. It's asking for a blank cheque in education. This Legislature votes on the budget and then the government, by its own statement, is going to go away and do exactly what they want.

AN HON. MEMBER: Special warrants.

MR. GIBSON: Special warrants, a blank cheque. Talk about a Robin Hood budget; this is a call for a Sherwood Forest management licence. (Laughter.)

AN HON. MEMBER: Go back to Ottawa, you can print your own money there.

MR. GIBSON: The Minister of Finance, last week, adjourned the House for four days before bringing down the budget, and I wonder if now he shouldn't adjourn it for another four days and bring down an amended budget with something clear in it about education.

MR. H.A. CURTIS (Saanich and the Islands):

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They'd change it again next week.

MR. GIBSON: The Minister made an implication that teachers should get back into the classrooms because the class size ratio, of course, is much higher than the pupil-teacher ratio.

MR. J.H. GORST (Esquimalt): You've been around Art Laing too long.

MR. GIBSON: But what I wonder is where are these teachers going to be taken away from, and the duties they're already on. Now, should they have fewer rest periods? Should professional teachers be taken off counselling duties? Should professional teachers who are engaged in administration be taken out of administration, and people put into school administration who aren't teachers. And if those teachers leave those areas and go back into the classroom, who's going to replace them? Somebody else whom you're going to have to pay as well.

Unless you are prepared to be pretty specific about how this is going to happen, to me this is a will-of-the-wisp; this is a phony solution, it's not a real solution.

The Minister mentioned in her remarks this afternoon that the government is taking over the payment of insurance premiums from the school districts. One of my colleagues said earlier on that this is in one way an ICBC subsidy. But more than that, I'd ask the Minister, if I understand this correctly — it's at best a year or perhaps less than a one-year assistance to any given school district. Because if I understand rightly, the value of insurance as it applies to the cost of an instructional unit will be out the year after and, therefore, the benefit of this is strictly a one-shot deal.

The Minister mentioned that text book rental fees were gone. I congratulate her very much for that. I draw to her attention another item — generally speaking school supplies are sales tax exempt. A case where this doesn't happen is in home economics supplies which in the case of a family with several children in school.... I know one family in my riding gave me receipts to the amount of $30 that they had to pay for home economics supplies, and they had to pay sales tax on that. I would hope that the Minister might take that as a representation to look at in a subsequent budget.

AN HON. MEMBER: Right on.

MR. GIBSON: There was no mention in the budget, Mr. Speaker, of independent schools in British Columbia. Something like 23,000 children currently being educated completely at the expense of their parents who are paying taxes as well for the public schools.

MR. D.A. ANDERSON: Inequable.

MR. GIBSON: Mr. Speaker, to me it's not right that those people should pay double taxation. This is a subject that our party has taken a stand on for many years, and one I hope to come back to in the Ministers' estimates,

We're told by the Minister that 21.5 is the pupil-teacher ratio at the current time. Now, I don't know about other districts around the province, but I know that in my school district — district 44 — the class size, as distinct from the pupil-teacher ratio, is 30.2. On that basis I welcome very much the undertaking of the Minister that pupil-teacher ratios, which she said today would be reflected directly in class size reduction, will be reduced by 1.5 per year for the next three years.

A question I have for the Minister though is: Why can't we start now? Why can't the government guarantee that starting next September funds will be provided for the school districts of this province to reduce class sizes by that amount?

I'll speak very briefly about educational research, and I'll commend the Minister to an extent on that. The situation inside the government on educational research is a little bit confused. But outside the government, funds have been provided to the Educational Research Institute of British Columbia in considerably higher magnitude than in previous years. This is a good thing. I hope that the Minister will continue that line of expenditure because it's usual in most lines of human endeavour to have a research expenditure of several percentage points of the funds that are being used.

In the Province of British Columbia the funds that are going into educational research are probably one-tenth of 1 per cent. Even if we raised it 1per cent, just 1 per cent, that would be much under the usual average and we would be spending $5 million, which is what Ontario is spending on the Ontario Institute of Study of Education, which is perhaps the wrong way to approach it — too centralized. The route that the Educational Research Institute of B.C. is taking of a decentralized one is, I think, a better approach. The point is that the funding should be increased in that area.

Of course, this shouldn't be purely research because there is a lot of educational research being done on this continent. What is needed is more appreciation of the innovative projects around British Columbia. The institute is carrying on a registry of innovative projects around British Columbia. With evaluation and development, these kinds of benefits can be made available to school districts all over the province.

I will speak for a moment about municipal matters. The basic dilemma of the government here is that it is centralizing at the same time as it is talking

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about local control. That is because of the inevitable effect of the power of the purse. The government is holding all the purse strings and local revenue sources just aren't good enough to keep up with local needs.

Where are the local funds to come from to give the municipal councils the kind of autonomy they should have if we really believe in decentralized government? We have a couple of suggestions: How about full tax rates when the provincial government makes grants in lieu of taxes? How about the payment of full tax rates instead of — what is it — around 50 per cent for...? How about the British Columbia Railway which pays no taxes at all? — no property taxes.

In my riding if the British Columbia Railway paid normal taxes, that would be $250,000 to the District of North Vancouver. I think the BCR should pay those taxes.

On transportation: The GVRD is going to be asked to provide the equivalent of 2 mills on property. Where are they going to find this money? They have approached the government with constructive suggestions on revenue sources; they have talked about taxes on gasoline and that was denied. They even talked about a tax on electricity and that was denied.

There have been suggestions from the government that the municipalities might put an extra tax on water to pay for this transportation charge, or a tax on parking spaces which is probably a good idea, but won't yield enough revenue.

What it gets back to, I think, is the need to have a task force study into municipal financing. They can look at various methods across Canada and they will find some interesting things. They will find that Manitoba, in the middle of last year, tied their grants to municipalities to a percentage of total provincial revenues so that when provincial revenues go up now, automatically municipal revenues go up. This is the kind of thing we should be looking at in British Columbia if we really mean what we are saying about the importance of local government.

For these reasons, Mr. Speaker, I support the amendment as moved.

HON. J.G. LORIMER (Minister of Municipal Affairs): Mr. Speaker, I would, first of all, like to congratulate the opposition on their efforts in this debate. I know we used to look over the budget, and so on, and find the weak spots page after page after page, and find no problem in carrying on a very brisk debate of non-confidence.

I appreciate the fact that the opposition, in this straight debate, in this budget, have had a difficult time in finding soft spots. What their speeches have lacked in content, they have made it up in some fervour.

I can assure you that municipalities have never been so well off in the history of the province — never so well off; they have never been so happy. Year by year they will get happier and happier.

Interjection.

HON. MR. LORIMER: We've had a nice discussion tonight. I think probably everything has been said that you want to say.

Interjection.

HON. MR. LORIMER: Now that we have finished with the serious part (Laughter), I think we should probably get down to some facts.

I won't mention the homeowners grant — the grants that are paid by the province to the municipality for the benefit of the citizens. I won't mention that.

HON. MR. BARRETT: Don't mention that. Don't — no, don't mention that.

HON. MR. LORIMER: I won't mention this great new move of removing the school tax from land. I'm not going to mention that.

AN HON. MEMBER: No, don't mention that.

HON. MR. LORIMER: However, I would mention the fact that again this year, as in last year, the per capita grant has been increased.

HON. MR. BARRETT: Don't mention that.

HON. MR. LORIMER: I might point out for those of you who are new here that in 1970 there was no increase in the per capita grant; in 1971 there was no increase; in 1972 there was no increase.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. WALLACE: Always looking back, always looking back. Why don't you look forward?

HON. MR. LORIMER: In 1973, a great increase.

HON. MR. BARRETT: Don't mention that.

HON. MR. LORIMER: In '74, another increase and in '75, we'll have to wait and see.

MR. WALLACE: I wouldn't hold my breath.

HON. MR. LORIMER: I will just give you an even dozen reasons why I feel I am unable to support this motion — it was a nice motion.

We have been talking a lot about increases, and mentioning about percentages. Now, percentages are

[ Page 396 ]

not that great a thing to go by because with this budget when you talk about all these new great programmes that are in — that weren't in before — your percentages are going to vary somewhat.

However, the grants for municipal committees studying boundary changes have increased from $15,000 to $50,000 — an increase of 300 per cent.

A great number of municipalities have conducted enumerations for years and years and years. They paid for it all themselves, they didn't get any help. Now this year we are going to pay them half of the costs — $300,000 in the budget.

AN HON. MEMBER: How many municipalities?

HON. MR. LORIMER: Even more. Even more.

Annual grants to the 28 regional districts increased from $7,000 to $10,000 — 35 per cent. Ten cents per capita extra for every member in the regional districts who have their regional plans.

HON. MR. BARRETT: That's the trouble; you won't stick to the facts. (Laughter.)

HON. MR. LORIMER: Grants to assist regional districts to acquire refuse disposal sites — $100,000 brand new. Brand new — $100,000.

Welfare costs reduced from 15 per cent to 10 per cent. Millions of dollars, millions of dollars! Reduction of 33 1/3 per cent. Reduction of administration costs for Vancouver. Over $2 million in administration costs being paid by the province. Brand new.

MR. WALLACE: Not in Oak Bay.

MR. FRASER: What about the sticks?

MR. LIDEN: Go back to the sticks.

HON. MR. LORIMER: Number 9: these are just facts, just facts. We just deal with facts here.

MR. WALLACE: Always looking back. Look forward!

HON. MR. LORIMER: The great reduction to the municipalities in the new system of the taking over of the courts by the provinces — great savings of, probably, $5 million. I don't know what that percentage is.

Transit: Millions of dollars, millions of dollars going for transit. Services to municipalities.

MR. WALLACE: Not in Oak Bay.

HON. MR. LORIMER: Millions of dollars.

The mover of this motion, the Hon. Member for Victoria (Mr. D.A. Anderson)....

New services are coming into Victoria — millions of dollars coming into Victoria on transit. The Victoria fleet has been increased by about 20 per cent in one year. It will be increased by another 30 per cent next year.

Interjections.

HON. MR. LORIMER: You know, a few years ago there was the question of the $1 per capita being earmarked for ambulance services. So when we take over the ambulance services costs, that's worth $1 per capita.

The diking tax: it moves from 10 per cent to 5 per cent. And the federal government will, no doubt, say zero per cent. Just in Richmond alone that accounts for $1.6 million — that's just in one municipality. A terrific increase.

That's an even dozen. I'll stop now; there are lots more. I appreciate the chore of the opposition in moving this motion. I think it was well done and I think that there were some interesting talks tonight.

MR. H.A. CURTIS (Saanich and the Islands): Mr. Speaker, I really can't believe what I just heard from the Minister of Municipal Affairs (Hon. Mr. Lorimer). It was the most incredible recital of non-events in terms of assistance to local government....

HON. MR. BARRETT: What have you got against diking?

MR. CURTIS: No, I've no objection to diking.

How far does the Minister have to reach to justify some of the points that have been missed in terms of local government and assistance to local government and the people who pay property taxes, whether owners or renters?

How high does he have to reach to drag out such things as $7,000 or $10,000 more for regional district grants? How quickly some of these Members who have served in local governments in the past have forgotten the problems. So very little has changed between the former government and this government.

HON. MR. BARRETT: Oh, nonsense!

MR. CURTIS: Well, you can say, "Oh, nonsense," Mr. Premier, or other words. Turn back to 1958. Shall we take them one at a time? Would you like to take them one at a time?

Okay, let's examine one of the later examples that the Minister of Municipal Affairs quoted, with respect to assistance to ambulances. I think, really, that the move toward standardization of ambulance service in British Columbia is a good one. But does the Minister really believe that those municipalities, those cities,

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who had their own high standard of ambulance service, were able to pay for it with that $1 per capita which was the subject of...?

HON. MR. BARRETT: Of course not. That's why we're picking it up.

MR. CURTIS: Well then, why did he drag it out, Mr. Speaker, as an example of another assistance to local government in British Columbia?

What about the Vancouver Province in a little item which appeared in the paper this morning? "Vancouver city seeks to pare $2 million off its 1974 budget." Just listen to the first couple of paragraphs:

"Almost $2 million must be cut from preliminary departmental requests if single-family homeowners' tax increases are to be held at 9 per cent, according to city finance director Peter Leckie."

That is not assistance to municipalities, Mr. Speaker. That is not assistance for local government.

We had a fine, sweet talk today for the Home and School Association from the Minister of Education (Hon. Mrs. Dailly). But really it glosses over so many shortcomings in education in British Columbia and so many promises which have not been kept or which have fallen short. Sweet talk, but not too much action!

The motion is a good one; it most certainly is, Mr. Speaker. The amendment is the one I'm speaking of; it is a good one. It shows that the great socialist dream in this province has popped. I have pleasure in supporting the amendment.

MR. P.L. McGEER (Vancouver–Point Grey): Mr. Speaker, I rise to support the amendment, more in sorrow than in anger. I had thought that this evening we might have heard a little more than trivialities and frivolity from the Minister of Municipal Affairs (Hon. Mr. Lorimer). I thought we might have heard some defence from the Minister of Education. I thought that the Premier and Finance Minister might have had something to say about the first non-confidence motion he's had to face, that it isn't just the Liberal Members and some of us in the opposition who are expressing that non-confidence today. It runs right throughout the province. It's not just because of the unnecessary attacks on a healthy economy, which seem to be a part and parcel of the socialist approach to our future.

What it is is a grave disappointment at promises unfulfilled. We shouldn't rake old ashes in this House. But it is difficult for some of us who are here and who heard the speeches of these Members when they were in opposition to hold our tongues at what has gone on when these same people assumed the high responsibility of cabinet office.

I want to remind some of those Members and the public of British Columbia of the things they said when the province's first $1 billion budget was brought down only five years ago. It was that year, Mr. Speaker, that the Minister of Municipal Affairs made his maiden address to this assembly. He was a newly elected alderman from Burnaby, a representative of the New Democratic Party from Burnaby and a champion of municipal rights.

In that maiden address he attacked the provincial government for its niggardly support of cities and municipalities. That year, as the Liberal leader has reminded everyone tonight, was the year the then administration, who loomed so evil in the eyes of that new Member and his socialist colleagues, increased the per capita grant to cities and municipalities by $3 — $3 on a $1 billion budget.

Now, Mr. Speaker, that Minister is telling us, to the applause of the Minister of Finance and the backbenchers who sit in this House, what a fantastic thing the government is doing for cities and municipalities when they give $2 on a $2 million budget. It's sick, Mr. Speaker. What must the people of this province think when record resources are available and that man they believed in 1969, on assuming office, should insult the cities and municipalities to the degree which he has done tonight? Talking about $35,000 going to $50,000! That sort of nonsense should have been beneath him and should have outraged and offended the backbenchers who sit in this House.

He applauded the ambulance benefit. And I suppose people who break a leg will get a break. But, Mr. Speaker, I can tell you this: when that Minister of Municipal Affairs stood up as a new Member in this House and gave a speech which was well believed for its sincerity, he was answered with the defence by the then Minister which should make that man ashamed of himself tonight.

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

Despite that better defence I can tell you this: the Social Crediters, who were never noted for the independence of their backbenchers, had among their Members people who had the courage to stand up and speak for the cities and municipalities, even if it meant some mild embarrassment for their cabinet colleagues. They knew there was some truth to what that Member said — how he let the people and the cities and municipalities down, and how he has made a mockery of the philosophy that his party espoused for so many years.

Mr. Speaker, all we can ask is: how much money is required by a socialist government before the cities and municipalities are going to get even the kind of break Social Credit gave them with a $1 billion budget?

The Minister in that same maiden address attacked the government because it failed, with the captive

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trust funds that it had, to permit the cities and municipalities to borrow on those trust funds as they had traditionally been able to do.

Since that time, the trust funds which the government now commands, which we don't discuss formally in this budget but which amount to well over $2 billion — a shadow budget, vital to the cities and municipalities prepared to discharge their responsibilities to the people they serve — have been totally and completely denied by this government. Of $950 million in Canada Pension Plan funds not one penny has gone to cities and municipalities.

What happened to that Minister's high ideals? They weren't high ideals at all, Mr. Speaker; it was outright, crass hypocrisy!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please! Would the Hon. Member withdraw that statement?

MR. McGEER: But, Mr. Speaker, how else...?

MR. SPEAKER: It is unparliamentary and it is so ruled.

MR. McGEER: He stood in this House and attacked the government for not giving money to cities and municipalities!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please, I have only one request to make, and that is that the Hon. Member withdraw an unparliamentary expression, found by Mr. Speaker Irwin in 1956, I believe it was, to be unparliamentary, and found to be so on a number of occasions since.

MR. McGEER: Mr. Speaker, it is not my practice to use unparliamentary language, as you know.

MR. SPEAKER: Then you'll be pleased to withdraw, I'm sure.

MR. McGEER: I'll happily withdraw any unparliamentary remark I made, and I shall seek your assistance, Mr. Speaker, in providing me with words, as my vocabulary is too limited for me to understand how you describe a Member who stands in his maiden speech, attacks the government for a policy, reaches high office and fails to fulfil the promise that he gave the people when he stood in opposition.

MR. SPEAKER: I have a complaint list for you, if you want it, of the words you can use.

MR. McGEER: Could you give me a hint or two, Mr. Speaker — just a hint? (Laughter). I have to leave this to the imagination of the assembly and the public, as my vocabulary obviously can't express my feelings tonight.

AN HON. MEMBER: Try some medical terms (Laughter.)

MR. McGEER: I'll resist the Premier's temptation for the moment, because there are other Ministers whose speeches I'd like to recall for you, if I may. The unfulfilled promise of the New Democratic Party isn't limited to one Minister; it runs deep through the cabinet benches.

That same year the Minister of Labour (Hon. Mr. King), then a new Member of this assembly — and I hope I'm not going to be found unparliamentary for quoting him — attacked the government for "betraying the people."

HON. MR. BARRETT: Oh, no!

MR. McGEER: Yes, he did, Mr. Speaker. And I'm sorry that the Premier's memory is so short.

HON. MR. BARRETT: What amendment are you on? This is Municipal Affairs, not Labour.

MR. McGEER: Exactly. And it's on education; it was on the matter of education and the finance formula that the Minister of Labour said the government had betrayed the people.

I daresay that this same Minister, when the vote comes on the budget, will find that he has not betrayed his Finance Minister when the percentage of our $2 billion budget that goes to education has, in fact, shrunk this year.

I only ask who it is who has betrayed the people of British Columbia — the government which then sat in power and made no pretenses at all about its policies on education, or the Minister of Labour, who then sat in opposition and harangued the government for betraying the people at a time when that government was giving more for education than this Finance Minister is prepared to give.

The present Minister of Transport (Hon. Mr. Strachan) was the lame-duck Leader of the Opposition that year. He'll recall well what he had to say.

HON. MR. BARRETT: You couldn't even tell the sex of a whale. (Laughter.)

MR. McGEER: What the Premier says is true. I don't think he could tell the sex of a rugby player. (Laughter.)

AN HON. MEMBER: Right on!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. Could we get back to the amendment and stay away from sex for a while?

[ Page 399 ]

MR. McGEER: I know that when it comes to education and municipal affairs — and I want to keep to the topic — this is not a sexy budget.

The present Minister of Transport that year, in attacking the school financing at a time when the former government was prepared to put up a larger portion of a $1 billion budget for that purpose, told the Legislature and the people that it was impossible for school trustees to sit down and plan for education. A good speech it was but, Mr. Speaker, the truth it wasn't.

That Minister of Transport and the Minister of Education (Hon. Mrs. Dailly) no sooner were in office than they accused the school trustees of irresponsibility. How far down those people went when they came to power, and how hollow those speeches now ring when you see what they're prepared to do, having held this prospect out to the people and then dashing their hopes with a budget which is not used for services for people, but for indulgences of the Minister of Lands, Forests and Water Resources (Hon. R.A. Williams) and all the other Ministers who want to spend the public's money buying up chicken farms, alfalfa-cubing plants....

HON. MR. BARRETT: Are you against that? Are you against alfalfa-cubing?

MR. McGEER: Newsprint, planing mills. How much more money that should be going for education and assistance to cities and municipalities, is going to be squandered on this helter-skelter programme of purchasing corporations?

HON. MR. BARRETT: You're against alfalfa-cubing.

MR. McGEER: Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Education that year of the billion dollar budget, when she was the spokesman for education for the opposition, attacked the government, because she said all it thought of was finance formulas. That's essentially all we heard from the Minister of Education today.

She said that a philosophy of education was what was important, and said that dollars spent on education brought a greater return to national income than anything else.

MR. WALLACE: That's right!

MR. McGEER: That's right, says the Conservative leader. And it is right. What was wrong was giving that Minister responsibility. Because the first thing she did, since she didn't have any philosophy on education, was to appoint an education commissioner. A tsar. And when it turned out that he did have a philosophy of education, she fired him.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: The Premier fired her. He fired him.

MR. McGEER: Indeed he did. But whether he fired the Minister of Education or her appointee, I disagree with the way the Minister of Finance did his job. Because nobody who has political responsibility should take someone who has faithfully pursued the mandate given by the government before the largest television audience in the province and humiliate them by a dismissal when they have been given no advance warning.

I've been a harsh critic of the former premier. I will continue to be. But I will say this about him. He defended those who supported him, and who he appointed. Never in 20 years did he stoop to that kind of public act.

AN HON. MEMBER: Let's talk about socialists.

MR. McGEER: We have record wealth in British Columbia. It should be clear to all the Members of the House and to the public of British Columbia that money does not guarantee performance. That spinning larger and larger numbers in front of the public doesn't produce progress. Somewhere along the line people have got to learn that performance means standing by one's word and supporting one's philosophy.

I suppose the time of disillusionment always arrives when people who have been expected to act in a fashion, different from their predecessors and in keeping with a philosophy of human betterment that went back to the founding members of their party and their philosophy, that that disillusionment would set in in practice.

No matter what the philosophy a government might have, when it takes the fantastic opportunities that had been provided by world economic conditions not of the making of that political party, or of any political party, and so misuses them as this budget has done, then that party should be removed from office.

But when it is compounded by a philosophy expounded by the same people who now take the responsibility for spending those funds, and supported in a way I am ashamed to say by the mindless applause of this large flaccid group of backbenchers — that's CBC pronunciation — and Mr. Speaker, you know I've encouraged those backbenchers. I had hopes for some of them. Tonight I look in vain, because the only speaker that we've had is the Minister for Municipal Affairs (Hon. Mr. Lorimer) putting on the worst performance — and that's saying something — that he's given in this

[ Page 400 ]

that's saying something — that he's given in this House.

He's always been better, Mr. Speaker. Always been better than tonight. This was his worst day.

HON. MR. MACDONALD: We know who we are.

MR. McGEER: When was he worse? It seems to me that the government has reached its lowest ebb. I can only hope that as the debate continues and we come to the individual estimates of these Ministers that somewhere there will be a speck of life in this back bench, that you will begin to see that it's your mandate as well as theirs. It's your philosophy as well as theirs. You shared the ideas they espoused, and it's every bit as much the responsibility of you as it is of them, to see that this Minister of Municipal Affairs, this Minister of Education and this Minister of Finance perform in accordance with that policy that you put forward when you won that election in 1972.

I intend to support this amendment, to say the same things that we have always said as Liberals in this House — that the massive resources of the province should be used first to benefit the people and secondly to benefit the whims in Crown corporations of whoever happens to sit in the cabinet benches on a particular day.

MR. H. STEVES (Richmond): I would like to rise as one who, I think, would be recognized in this House as a not-so-flaccid backbencher mentioned by the previous speaker. I would like to say that I am amazed at the tack taken by the opposition in this particular part of the debate and particularly the previous speaker who said he had hopes for the back bench.

I think some of us in the back bench of this party had hopes for him at one time as well as leader of a particular political party that I have heard about.

The Hon. Member for Saanich (Mr. Curtis) talked about backbenchers and members of this government that had been a long time in municipal politics, asking if we had forgotten the problems we saw when we were in municipal politics. As one of those Members of the House that has been involved in municipal politics as an alderman for five years, I would like to say we have not forgotten these problems.

I have looked at this budget and examined it as to how it affects my riding, and I gave you a few figures when I was speaking the other day. The $2 per capita grant in my riding means around $120,000 for the people of my riding. The one-third welfare reduction means around $250,000 to the people. This is out of a total of $800,000 that they paid last year.

The diking tax that the Hon. Minister of Municipal Affairs mentioned for my riding — a reduction of $1.6 million — amounts to $25 per capita for the people of my riding.

The $30 renters' grant and $40 homeowners' grant increases mean about $1 million that will go directly to the citizens of my riding.

From the Community Recreation Fund about $400,000 goes to the people of my riding. We got that last year and we're embarking on another programme this year which we expect to get assistance from as well.

Housing: I mentioned the other day that about 5 per cent of the housing starts in B.C. were in my riding. I expect that an extensive amount of the funds for housing will probably be injected into there as well, because we have a lot of land available for land assembly and I expect we will have $3 million or $4 million from that fund as well.

Health and Human Resources: You know, the ambulance service that someone was just decrying here a minute ago.... I was on the health committee in my riding as an alderman for about five years. We were paying out subsidies of $130,000 a year to a private firm that then went around in turn and charged senior citizens, old folks and sick folks, about $26 or $30 to take them to the hospital when they were ill.

This means at least $150,000 for my riding, and I ask these people if they are going to vote against this budget, because I certainly am not.

MR. SCHROEDER: Mr. Speaker, I speak in support of the amendment. I have no other choice.

HON. MR. BARRETT: Under instructions!

MR. SCHROEDER: The reason why I must support the amendment is because of the Minister's own statement this afternoon, in a well-worded and well-read speech in which she said that she was concerned about equipping students for life in a rapidly changing society. So many times, Mr. Speaker, when we talk about education, the debate deteriorates to perhaps only two aspects of education; one of them inevitably is teachers' salaries and the other one is class size. And lest the House draw the conclusion that these are the only two factors in education quality, I would like to name a few others that I would have loved to have seen implemented in this year's budget. Unfortunately, with a budget that offers a smaller percentage of the budget as an allotment to education than in any other year, there is no way that we can see these factors implemented which would add to education quality.

What about teacher training — not only the initial training of teachers, but the continuing training of teachers? If we're going to equip our students in a rapidly changing society, then the teachers themselves are going to have to be equipped with teaching methods that are relevant to the classroom in a

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changing society. As a result, the teacher training is going to have to be a continuing education.

I don't see in the budget where it would be possible to have continuing teacher training, unless the teacher were supposed to pay for the entire cost of that training herself or himself. Certainly the educational facility where continuing education could be taught, the university campus, can expect no increase out of the budget. As a result, there is no way that they could absorb the extra cost of continuing teacher training.

There's another area we must consider in education quality, and that is teacher screening. I think it was the Minister herself who has said in this House in days gone by that not every person is naturally adept at teaching. Not every person is qualified to be a teacher. Not every person has the natural abilities or the natural equipment to teach. However, there is no screening process by which those who are incapable of teaching could be kept from believing that they would one day be instructors or teachers, and whereby they could be kept out of teacher training in the first place.

I don't say that we should be so discriminatory that we would say to someone, "You cannot teach regardless of how badly you wish, because in our opinion you are not capable of teaching." But I do believe that we should give individual persons an opportunity to do a self-evaluation. In that way they would serve as their own screening process. In that way we could be putting better teachers into the teacher market, and in that way we would be equipping students for life in a rapidly changing society.

Since the education budget doesn't give us any hope for increases, how in the world can we expect the funding for special education? How about the classes for those students who have learning disabilities — those kinds of classes where it would be impossible to have a student ratio of 20-to-1, but where the student-to-teacher ratio might be 5-to-1. How can there be any hope of this kind of education quality if we do not have the funds available in this budget?

I'd like to move on to another area, the whole question of teachers and administrators and principals. You talk in terms of decreasing the student-to-teacher ratio. One of the reasons the student-to-teacher ratio appears on paper to be 21.5-to-1 is because all of those people who are trained as teachers, but who are not necessarily doing teaching jobs, are computed together with the real teachers. So it looks on paper, Madam Member from Burrard (Ms. Brown), like the distribution is 21.5, when in actuality the numbers are more like, as we heard from a previous speaker, 30-to-1 or more like, in my constituency, 33- and 34-to-1 — in some schools 36-to-1.

I think that what we need to be thinking of is to train administrators as administrators. It needs to be determined whether or not administrators actually need to have classroom time. In the training of principals I would think, at least it would be my opinion, that the principal should work his way through the classroom and gain his appointment as a principal not only on the basis of whether he is the most popular one, or whether he has the most seniority, but whether he is capable of teaching.

I think that we should be thinking in terms of relieving our administrators of classroom time and letting them get to the business of administering.

I had a conversation with one of the principals, who is also the administrator, of one of the junior secondary schools in my constituency. He said, "Harv, it looks to me to be a waste of time for me to have completed four years of education beyond secondary education. Having gone through that process, and having gone through several years of summer-school teacher training, what's happened is that I am given the position of an administrator, and here I am counting tennis shoes and sweatshirts. What did I take all of that training for?"

It would seem by using that analysis, that maybe we should be training administrators to be administrators and let the teachers get back to the business of teaching.

Another reason why I must support this amendment is because of another subject in education that is much in discussion — this business of equal opportunity in education. Every student, regardless of whether he comes from a poor home or a medium-income home, or whether he comes from a rich home, should have the opportunity to take all of the courses that are available, that are offered, at the school where he attends.

Now, let's take Rosedale Junior Secondary School. They have a very, very good band programme, a very good music programme, a very good home economics programme. But if a student comes from a poor home, there is no way that he can partake of the band programme because he would have to pay $35 to rent an instrument. Coming from a poor home where they hardly have enough money, Mr. Member for Atlin (Mr. Calder), to pay their rent at the end of the month, how in the world are they going to find the $35 to be involved in a band programme? And yet, under equal opportunity, we have the responsibility to make this possible. That is why I would like to see an extension to this education budget, not a cutback, as we can see in this year's budget.

Another thing I want to just mention, because the time is fleeting, is this business of eliminating or abolishing the concept of competition in the classroom, Let the competition, say these philosophers, be only a person competing against his

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own record. This is not in keeping with the Minister's own words when she says she wishes to equip students for life in a rapidly changing society.

I have to tell you, Madam Minister, through you, Mr. Speaker, that if you do not train students to meet the competition in the classroom, when they graduate from that classroom and go out into a world that's real — not a world that's sheltered by socialist philosophy, but a world that's real — the competitions are also real.

They have to compete for boyfriends and girlfriends at first. They have to compete for recognition and they have to compete for jobs and they have to compete for existence. That's what the real world is like.

The socialist concept of this business of everybody as just a little entity, just a little cube that goes along an assembly line with a number on it and comes out looking just the same is a bunch of hogwash. There's competition out there in that real world, there's competition in this room, and there's competition right now for the budget in Education.

That's where the real world is at, and I decry any philosophy that says let's abolish competition in the classroom. I say bring it back, the quicker the better, along with more money so that we can equip the students for life in a rapidly changing society. I agree with you, Madam Minister (Hon. Mrs. Dailly), in that statement 100 percent. God bless you.

MR. W.R. BENNETT (Leader of the Opposition): Mr. Speaker, I don't want to prolong this debate tonight, but I think I would be remiss if I didn't reiterate a position I took the other day in regard to Education and its participation in the budget. And that is this.

Whether it is adjustments made in the Education and a change in policy requiring additional funds, I don't think it should be handled by special warrant but by amendments to the budget. It may be true that last year in your first budget the Minister of Education or the Minister of Finance may have underestimated the requirements and they required special warrants or orders-in-council, such as Nos. 238, 237, et cetera, requesting additional funds. But this year, particularly when they've indicated within the budget speech that they may be making adjustments, I believe this budget requires an amendment brought in.

I refer you to the Revised Statutes, section 25(3), where it says: "If, when the Legislature is not in session, an accident happens to a public work or building which requires immediate outlay for the repair thereof, or any other occasion arises in which an expenditure not foreseen or provided for by the Legislature is urgently and immediately required...."

It goes on, and I think it is under this statement "not foreseen."

Clearly, in the budget speech, where the Premier (Hon. Mr. Barrett) mentions that he is going to allow the Minister of Finance (Hon. Mr. Barrett) to make adjustments to the budget, these expenditures were foreseen and therefore the special warrant or order-in-council does not apply in this case. We should have an amendment brought in to this budget to allow for these expenditures.

I believe it is only good budgetary practice for the Legislature to be aware of all of the estimates relating to Education. I would refer further to the precedent, Mr. Speaker, in the Journals of the House, where budgets were amended before when they required additional funds. They were brought in by amendment in March, 1955, where "the Lieutenant-Governor transmits herewith amendments to the estimates." They were to do with votes for raising the amount of money to municipalities. Again in 1955 we had amendments brought in for the same reason.

So I would suggest that the proper budgetary practice, and from the Journals of the House and from the Revised Statutes, that orders-in-council do not apply — in this particular instance where the amounts were foreseen in the budget.

HON. R.A. WILLIAMS: The Hon. Minister of Municipal Affairs (Hon. Mr. Lorimer) went through a dozen items of improvements for the communities of this province and missed out many as well in the process — countless things that have been done in education that are a change from the narrow, bookkeeping procedures of the past which the Hon. Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Bennett) still seems to be trapped by as he announces in his small statement just now.

What have we done in terms of the administration of justice? We've removed that burden from the municipalities. With respect to welfare, we've cut by one-third what the former Member for South Okanagan (Hon. Mr. Bennett) increased, that that group voted for en masse, increasing the burden on the municipalities from 10 per cent to 15 per cent when he saw bad times coming. That was the kind of bookkeeping we got in the past from the former government.

What about the Greenbelt Protection Fund? We've said to the municipalities the greenbelt fund will be made available for acquiring land and for special projects in the regions and in the communities of the province on a joint basis with them.

We've heard from the Member for Vancouver–Point Grey what have we done in the City of Vancouver? Countless things. Just one: the Minister of Public Works' (Hon, Mr. Hartley) three-block project around the old courthouse, a $50 million oasis in the heart of the city. What was that

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old gang going to do? They were going to build another 50-storey monument to the former Premier. That's the kind of aid they were going to give the City of Vancouver in the past, instead of the kind of green space and open space and forward look communities should have.

What about other aids to the City of Vancouver? Granville Mall, where Crown corporations will be involved with the City of Vancouver in aiding the Granville Mall project.

What about the dikes, in addition, in special areas such as Boundary Bay. We'll see to it that all of Boundary Bay is available to the public in terms of access and that we won't have single-shot projects in the municipalities. There will be a public shoreline in that southern waterway.

Interjection.

HON. R.A. WILLIAMS: What about the Community Recreational Facilities Fund that is helping your riding and your riding and your riding and your riding? Twenty million dollars out of the Community Recreational Facilities Fund. What does the Member for Saanich and the Islands (Mr. Curtis) say? "Trivialities, non-events, " he says, when we are providing transit services to his community, to this community, to Esquimalt, to Nanaimo, to Vancouver, to Coquitlam, to Surrey, to Delta — places that had never had transit service before in this province because the former Premier of this province didn't even know the cities existed. He flew over the main urban parts of this province to the Palm Springs watering trough in the central Okanagan. That's what he did.

What about kindergartens? The same penurious attitude applied to kindergartens. Tens of thousands of children are going to kindergartens now at the urging of this Minister (Hon. Mrs. Dailly) and with new policies — aid never given from the former government.

What about the corporation tax benefits and tax holidays throughout the communities of this province that that group was always willing to live with, and weren't changed until this Minister came along? Communities like Prince George get substantial hundreds of thousands of dollars of new revenue because we said the pulp mills should pay the same rate at least as the homeowners in Prince George. Towns like Mackenzie benefited from the change in that policy. Castlegar, Kinnaird, Trail, Kimberley, Fraser Mills, some 20 towns in all that had had industrial free loaders inside their boundaries, and the freeloaders were ripped off their backs by this Minister.

Special grants to Kamloops, Kelowna, and, in addition, the communities have been told by the Minister that there are sources of new revenue within their boundaries. Communities like the City of Vancouver have chosen to date not to tap them. The central business district of Vancouver is a great potential new revenue area for the City of Vancouver and should be paying more of the bills in the City of Vancouver, and it is not. So there are these opportunities in the communities and they haven't taken them up.

This government, Mr. Speaker, has moved in an unprecedented way in this country on countless fronts. The only complaints we have had are mainly from the editorial writers of the newspapers, the Vancouver Sun and the Vancouver Province, who have decried the budget, not because it was so small, as the Leader of the Opposition suggests, but because it is inflationary, because helping the communities, helping the school districts and doing all the things we want to do they say is inflationary.

The Hon. Leader also said special warrants are a terrible thing to do, and quite improper. Clearly, when special warrants are needed and justified, this government won't be trapped by the patterns of the past government. We will see that the services needed are provided, unlike the former Member for South Okanagan.

MR. SPEAKER: There being no further debate, the question is that the following words be appended to the motion, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the chair for the House to go into Committee of Supply, " namely, "but this House regrets that, in the opinion of this House, the Hon. Minister of Finance has failed to make adequate provision for the needs of cities and municipalities and for the needs of the educational system in the Province of British Columbia."

Amendment negatived on the following division:

YEAS — 15

NAYS — 34

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Hon. Mr. Strachan moves adjournment of the debate.

Motion approved.

MR. D.M. PHILLIPS (South Peace River): Mr. Speaker, I ask leave of the House to table certain documents dealing with my talk this afternoon. One of these documents contains transcripts of most of the evidence which was submitted as public knowledge this morning and which I brought to the House this afternoon. Certain other documents deal with the Dunhill Corporation.

Leave granted.

Hon. Mr. Barrett moves adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

House adjourned at 12:04 a.m.