[ Page 1473 ]

CONTENTS

Night sitting

Routine proceedings

Committee of Supply: Department of Education estimates

On vote 39.

Mr. Wallace — 1473

Hon. Mrs. Dailly — 1482

Mr. McGeer — 1483

Mr. Gibson — 1486

THURSDAY, MARCH 21, 1974

The House met at 8:30 p.m.

Introduction of bills.

Orders of the day.

The House in Committee of Supply; Mr. Dent in the chair.

ESTIMATES:
DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION

(continued)

On vote 39: Minister's office, $77,408.

MR. G.S. WALLACE (Oak Bay): When this new government took over after August, 1972, there were in the minds of many people a feeling that there were fresh winds blowing through the corridors of the parliament buildings in Victoria.

MR. D.E. LEWIS (Shuswap): They were right.

MR. WALLACE: And they were right. As the Member says, that is the case. We had a statement from various departments that a fresh look and a review would be undertaken, as, for example, in the total field of the delivery of health services, and we had Dr. Foulkes appointed. We had a task force to look into the whole problem of crime and the criminal justice system, and it has done a fine job. And then we were told that in education there would be a commission to review the present delivery of education in this province, and a single commissioner was appointed.

It should be said at this point, Mr. Chairman, that that commissioner was only given the power to recommend. There was no operational power granted to the particular commissioner. As I said in an earlier debate, wide terms of reference were defined whereby the commissioner was to look at the whole system of education — elementary, secondary, university, continuing education.

Now here we are, 18 months later, and I think it's the duty of the opposition in this House to consider fairly and objectively the outcome of the particular fresh winds that were supposed to be blowing through the various departments of government. Tonight we talk particularly about the Department of Education.

The Minister has appealed for us to be constructive and positive, and I will try to be so. But before we get onto the positive side, I think it is only appropriate and correct that we should look at the negative side. We have the negative side in five simple pages entitled "The Public School System Directions for Change."

That's been called a White Paper, and I personally, with the greatest respect to the Minister, think that it's so white that it's colourless. It is vague; it is just motherhood and apple pie. It tells us nothing we don't already know. It outlines the diagnosis without giving any treatment. When one considers the effort, the hours, the money, the good will and the participation which have gone into the various studies, meetings in high schools, committee work, questionnaires, you name it, to come up 18 months later with this vague, unproductive document which has no positive suggestions, I think that the opposition would be failing very seriously in its duty if it were not highly critical and apparently negative in its criticism of this pamphlet.

The Minister herself has said that it should not be called a White Paper, and she's right. A White Paper, certainly in the British tradition of parliament, is usually an in-depth documentation of a well-researched study on some subject by experts, upon which the general lines of policy can reasonably be determined. This particular document, Mr. Chairman, uses the most general, motherhood types of statements.

"…major responsibility of the school system is to provide a measure of success for every student." From page 2: "…the system must be equitable in the provision of educational opportunity." Was there ever any other purpose in education or health services, or any other social service? Just because the former government didn't provide an equitable system, this is no blinding revelation in this document that suddenly we've found out that this is one of the basic purposes of the educational system. "Equitable in the provision of educational opportunity." Perhaps we'll finish up, by the time I get to the end of this, concluding that the world is round. Or maybe the Premier will quote Flat Earth John and tell me that everybody isn't agreed that the world is round.

HON. D. BARRETT (Premier): What's the Tory position?

MR. WALLACE: Oh, you'll get it in a minute, Mr. Premier.

HON. MR. BARRETT: I just want to know.

MR. WALLACE: You'll know what the Tory position is. Just hold your patience.

Further down on page 2: The system "should be redesigned in such a way that authority and responsibility are distributed more appropriately."

AN HON. MEMBER: Hear, hear!

MR. WALLACE: "Hear, hear!" the Minister says. And I say "Hear, hear!" too. I agree with that. But

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where is some recommendation or even some proposal for debate as to how it should be distributed more appropriately? What's the use of all these vague, general, motherhood statements? We'd all agreed on this — this is nothing new.

HON. MR. BARRETT: Tonight's meeting couldn't have gone very well.

MR. WALLACE: The Premier's getting impatient. I wouldn't want to go on quoting, as former Members have quoted today, from this pamphlet because the government, I'm sure, is embarrassed by such a flimsy, anemic statement of what we already know. The function of government in our modern society isn't to state the problem. The function is to tell us how we solve the problem in the concept of our modern society.

If there's a changing world, and indeed there is, then the function of government is to tell us how to deal with change. That's the modern challenge to every government, whether you're talking about education or highways or criminal justice or industrial trade and commerce or labour or any other department. It's not the purpose of government to tell us what the problems are — we all know what the problems are. The challenge to government is to show the leadership and the awareness of public feeling so that they can come up with the kind of solutions that people are seeking.

Mr. Chairman, there's been a great deal of talk that further study has to be done and that we've got to have another batch of questionnaires so we know what the people of Canada and the people of British Columbia expect of their educational system.

I would like to just introduce into the discussion a very interesting publication called "The Purposes of Education." That is the result of a survey by the Canadian Education Association. This was published as recently as September of last year, 1973, under the editor, who I understand is a very famous educator — Joseph Lorries.

The Hon. Minister might be interested to hear a little bit about it, and I don't mean to go into it in great detail, but this was a study which was carried out in all of the 10 provinces of Canada plus the Yukon.

The specific purpose of the inquiry was to ascertain what communities believe (1) to be and (2) ought to be the purposes of education at elementary and secondary schools. It is because of this document that I would like to ask the question as to why we need any more questionnaires or any more study groups.

This is a trans-Canada study which in total involved eight copies of the questionnaire going to 1,680 communities, and there was a 92 per cent response. So I think that we can reasonably say that this was a very fair appraisal of what communities all across Canada consider the educational system is and what it ought to be.

Mr. Chairman, the conclusions are very interesting. I will just quote a few: "Schools are, above all, places where one learns." That is pretty basic, I would say.

Interjection.

MR. WALLACE: Pretty basic, Cariboo! What do you say?

Really this is so basic that again — and I am not being facetious when I say it — there is no need for any more questionnaires. We are just gilding the lily when it comes to trying to say we don't know which direction to go because we don't have the information. The information is available. This was the second question on the questionnaire, and the answer was that,"Schools are, above all, places where one learns." Motherhood. "Their prime function is to convey knowledge and to develop reasoning power. Nevertheless attention should be given to wider aims, provided the resources allow."

Question No. 3.

"Education should aim at helping individuals to enjoy life more richly through the arts, and by fostering creativity. But perhaps this is only a secondary function of the school."

Question No. 5.

"Schools and education in general should certainly help students to get good jobs. But their vocational function, as well as their use in increasing social mobility, is strictly minor and secondary."

No. 6. I am just quoting the majority opinion in reply to these questions. This is the answer to question No. 6.

"Teachers are professionals and may be trusted, but classes are too large."

So what else is new? We have got all kinds of documentation, Mr. Chairman, which proves unquestionably in the eyes of parents and students, researchers and educationists and everybody else, that classes are too large. We don't need any more inquiry or questionnaires to find that out.

Question No. 7. The answer is very interesting, Mr. Chairman.

"There is no need to worry about discipline in schools, although perhaps there is some need for tightening up."

Question No. 8 — very interesting.

"There is almost unanimous agreement that Canadian studies should play an important part in the curriculum of every school in Canada. Implicit in this claim is the idea that young people should know more about their social and natural environment as a means of deepening their perceptions and enriching their

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lives."

Question No. 9.

"Examinations are not welcomed."

Well, they never were welcomed. What student ever welcomed an examination?

"Attention should be paid to personal qualities not easily evaluated by examinations."

No. 10. Here it is very interesting, Hon. Minister, through you, Mr. Chairman. This cross-Canada survey as recently as September, 1973, seems to contradict some of the platitudes that go around this chamber and go around the schools. The answer, the overwhelming answer, to No. 10 is that,

"Innovations and experiments are cautiously welcomed."

The Minister is always being badgered by everybody and his brother to be innovative and to experiment. I just suggest that this particular study, done in some depth in every province in Canada and the Yukon, suggests that innovations and experiments are "cautiously welcomed." Maybe there are more conservatives around the country than I had imagined.

Interjection.

MR. WALLACE: Oh, this isn't in your area, Roy. You go back to sleep.

No. 11.

"There is a strong feeling that authority, particularly over the inner life of schools, should be decentralized. Ordinary citizens and teachers should play a part in the formulation of policy."

We don't need any more studies or questionnaires or inquiries or task forces to find that out. It's all known. These are majority opinions expressed by a really valid cross-section of people all across Canada.

Then it mentions a few of the goals, and these goals represent some of the statements which the Minister herself has stated. "Curricula should be planned to allow maximum choice. Nevertheless a common core must be retained." That is where they use the words "common core," and that phrase is used by the Minister in her White Paper.

Sex education should be included in the normal curricula of schools. Anyway, many of the points…. The Minister of Health (Hon. Mr. Cocke) thinks I'm getting tedious, so I'll just wind up this part of my speech by saying that….

HON. R.M. STRACHAN (Minister of Transport and Communications): That's the best statement you've made so far.

MR. WALLACE: I'm just trying to make the point, Mr. Minister of Highways, that let's get one aspect of this whole debate…. Minister of Transport and Communications, I beg your pardon. Whatever else we may feel in this chamber about education, it is simply not the case that we have to go around with another go-round of studies and inquiries and hearings and committees, task forces and questionnaires. The information is there.

Interjection.

MR. WALLACE: Yes, as the Member says, like another speech I made in this House, nobody has to prove that we need intermediate care.

Seriously, Mr. Chairman, I would just like to quote a little more.

"The overriding concern in Canada about educational aims and policies is the protection of the individual against the powerful influences of state and society."

It sounds as if the guy who wrote this is a pretty good conservative.

"Nothing is to be imposed. The rights of all must be cherished and protected, whatever their religion or mother tongue, or individual gifts. Complete and genuine respect for diversity and individuality is indeed the necessary condition for the maintenance of national unity.

"Secondly, the links with the past must be maintained, but not rejected. The tradition that the schools should go on as always teaching subjects of proven value, rather than aiming only at social adjustment, is not rejected.

"Thirdly, the full recognition of the cultural as well as political independence of Canada requires that more attention be paid to the entity that is Canada.

"Finally, the aims of education as expressed by great philosophers and thinkers of the western tradition are fully accepted in Canada. Growing attention is being paid to the ways that education could be used, not only to strengthen national cohesion, but to deepen the perception of nature and of society by young Canadians."

These opinions and feelings by many people all across the nation seem to me to make it very plain to any government the rather basic needs of an educational system in 1974. It may well be that certain administrative changes are more suitable in British Columbia than they are in Newfoundland. I would assume this to be the case.

But in terms of basic goals, in terms of the basic needs of students, and in terms of the overall goal we should have to make them aware of change, and able to adapt to change.

Surely there needs to be no further inquiry or research into such facts and opinions, which, as I say, I've heard stated in this debate already, and which

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have been quoted in a very learned study by the Canadian Education Association.

To return more specifically to British Columbia; and I don't want to belabour endlessly a subject which has been debated already today. But because of the very central and essential nature of the Education Commission which was set up, I feel that some comment must be made about the so-called Bremer affair.

AN HON. MEMBER: Who?

MR. WALLACE: Bremer.

HON. A.B. MACDONALD (Attorney-General): Who is that?

MR. WALLACE: Mr. John Bremer.

HON. MR. MACDONALD: Speak up.

MR. WALLACE: The Attorney-General is a little deaf tonight.

HON. MR. MACDONALD: No, I just don't recognize the name.

Interjection.

MR. WALLACE: Breemer, Bremer, I never asked him how he pronounced his name. But I think it's most unfair — I know the Member is not really serious — but I think it's most unfair to talk about "Bremer the dreamer." That is an insult to a very highly motivated and highly professional person. I've had the privilege of meeting Mr. Bremer, and discussing his views on education, and by no stretch of the imagination could you consider him to be either a dreamer or to be anything but very alert and well-informed about education in many parts of the world.

Mr. Chairman, as I say, I don't want to belabour it, but the fact is that he was given a task to carry out, a very responsible task, and he was subsequently dismissed.

I'm not going into this whole business of the Premier on television; I've already stated my position on that in the budget debate. The Premier's action was reprehensible and deserves a public apology, but I know we're not going to get it. I've asked for it once in the budget debate, and I'm not even going to ask for an apology tonight because I know the Premier will not give it. It is a sad situation that events followed the course they did, but let's look that over for a moment.

In the press release on January 12 entitled "Immediate Press Release," the Minister of Education states:

"In moving through the province last year, Mr. Bremer certainly stimulated public thinking on education, but also, unfortunately, in some statements did create some unrest and concern with certain groups who assumed, because of his role as a one-man commission, that these statements were predicting government policy."

This is the reason given for dismissing a highly capable and highly talented education commissioner: that his statements created unrest and concern and people might think that it reflected government policy.

All I say is if that was the case with Mr. Bremer, what about Dr. Foulkes? He was causing unrest and concern all the time, but he went on to finalize a voluminous report and nobody questioned, apparently. Perhaps we don't know the whole story, but as far as the public and the MLAs were concerned there was never any question of dismissing Dr. Foulkes. Yet exactly the same kind of disturbing statements, which might reflect policy in the health field, were made by him in the same way as such statements were made by Mr. Bremer.

In re-reading this press release, I think it's quite legitimate to say to yourself: is this really the reason why Mr. Bremer was dismissed?

It wasn't really the reason, because tonight we got the reason loud and clear on Channel 8. Oh, the news was interesting tonight, Mr. Chairman, you should have watched it. Loud and clear.

While I'm standing here criticizing this pointless motherhood–apple pie outline of the direction for education in this province, here we have Mr. Bremer on Channel 8 outlining, chapter and verse, the specific proposals which he had for the system of education in this province, and I'll give you some of these details in a moment, Mr. Chairman.

But what really opened and parted the veil was when Mr. Bremer was asked on television tonight what would be the consequence of his particular blueprint. "Oh," he said, "it would dismantle the Department of Education. It would reduce the staff by about 50 per cent." How would it do it? "Oh, it would be because it was decentralizing authority to the local areas and the regions."

MR. H.A. CURTIS (Saanich and the Islands): Oh, we can't have that.

MR. WALLACE: And of course we can't have that.

AN HON. MEMBER: Do you think that was why he was fired?

MR. WALLACE: Do I think that was why he was fired? Well, Mr. Member, first of all, I've given you the evidence. I feel like a prosecutor in court —

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maybe the Minister of Industrial Development, Trade and Commerce (Hon. Mr. Lauk) can come over and help me.

First of all, the evidence that was presented — that he talked too much and caused concern because he might be reflecting government policy — just seemed a little thin to me. But where the benefit of the doubt exists, it's fair to give it to the accused, and in this case the accused is a Minister of Education. Tonight, as fast as I could scribble down what he was saying on the television interview, we find a very specific detailed blueprint of the future for education in British Columbia on Channel 8. Just the details, Mr. Chairman.

We've complained that this document the Minister tabled is rather vacuous or lacking in specifics, but here we have Mr. Bremer tonight spelling it out the way he saw it.

What did Mr. Bremer think was the direction? The Member for Chilliwack (Mr. Schroeder) asked several times in his speech, "What is the direction? Where are we going in education?" So I'll just tell you, Mr. Member, exactly what Mr. Bremer thought we should be doing. Then we'll decide why Mr. Bremer was dismissed.

He considered that there should be approximately 12 regional community education boards in the province, and that we should have five separate pieces of legislation: one called the primary school Act which would deal with education up to grade 7; a second piece of legislation which would be called the secondary school Act which would deal with junior and senior secondary education and college education, and there would be a certain combination of these three components. Thirdly, there would be a tertiary education Act to deal with the universities, Fourthly, there would be a teacher training Act.

Now, Mr. Chairman, we've had many speeches from the Minister as to the great need for upgrading of teacher training. Apparently Mr. Bremer suggested specifically that there should be a separate teacher training Act to fulfill that very specific and vital need in the educational system.

HON. MR. MACDONALD: Suggested to who?

MR. WALLACE: To the Minister.

Interjection.

MR. WALLACE: I'm quoting the interview on television, Mr. Chairman.

Fifthly, there should be a continuing education Act. Again I think the record shows quite clearly that both sides of this House are most happy to promote and support continuing education. We're all agreed that education starts the day you breathe and finishes the day you die. That's one of the central principles of education: it never ceases.

The commissioner for education, who was so abruptly dismissed from his post on television by the Premier, suggested this fifth statute which would be the continuing education Act which would create an institute of continuing education.

As I say, Mr. Chairman, I think the key to the whole Bremer affair was revealed in what I thought was a most enlightening sentence. When he was asked what would be the effect of this new structure with the regional community boards in about 12 areas he said that it would greatly dismantle the Department of Education, and would in fact provide a much greater degree of administration and authority at the local level.

Right here in the Minister's White Paper is the statement that the basic combination should be teacher-pupil-parent at the local level. Furthermore, in terms of specific pieces of legislation relating to the age groups of the students concerned this plan is certainly much more in keeping with human development.

Since we've had many Members of the opposition ask: what is the direction for education; where are we going; what are the guidelines and the ground rules; what is the overall blueprint; when do we start; why is this document so vague and general and non-specified; and, of course, the other question, why was Mr. Bremer fired? — I think the Minister should certainly comment on the basic plan which Mr. Bremer outlined on Channel 8 tonight.

Apparently, in conjunction with that pattern of statutes, to separate certain grades, certain levels of education from others, we have to decide what would be the new role of the Department of Education. If you are going to achieve what the Minister says is desirable, namely decentralization, more authority and input to the teachers, the trustees, the pupils and the parents — and I thoroughly agree with that idea…. One of the basic principles of being a Conservative is to stay away from central government every chance you get and leave people to do their own thing at their local level. That's absolutely fundamental to everything that I believe in the political sphere.

I'm thoroughly in support of any concept that keeps the student out of the grip of bureaucrats and central government. That's just central to my whole belief. Again, it doesn't matter whether we're talking about health, or highways, or consumer affairs, or education, or social services. Just keep the individual out of the grip of the bureaucrats and let the local citizen do his own thing at the local level.

Of course, education costs a lot of money, and I will quickly recognize that there must be a measure of central control over the financing of education. But there again, Mr. Chairman, we've got this example of the Minister paying lip service to a certain

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principle, namely decentralization, more local autonomy — lip service. Then when the chips are down, holy smokes, does the central authority ever come out charging with a sabre and say,"No, no, no, no, no! We must cut you off!" We've had this example with the estimated….

Interjection.

MR. WALLACE: Oh Roy! I thought you had gone to sleep. Go back to sleep. You looked so peaceful a minute ago, in your red shirt.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Would the Hon. Member address the Chair, please?

MR. WALLACE: Yes, Mr. Chairman, but there's a gentleman across there that keeps waking up every now and again.

There must be a measure of fiscal control, but when the Minister encouraged local school boards to develop kindergartens, employ teacher aids and to use a variety of other facilities, then the bitter truth that such programmes cost money became obvious. Then she said: "Oh, no, no, no, no, no! You can't spend all that money. That's fiscal irresponsibility."

The point I'm really trying to make, Mr. Chairman, is that on the one hand we have the department and the Minister, and presumably the cabinet. Sometimes I wonder where the cabinet stands in all this mess. Is the cabinet split down the middle? Is that part of the problem — that some of the Ministers approve of what the Minister of Education is doing and others are considerably perturbed?

Interjection.

MR. WALLACE: Well, that's right. Mr. Minister of Public Works (Hon. Mr. Hartley) applauds. He says that they are split down the middle. That's very interesting. Public confession is good for the soul.

Interjection.

MR. WALLACE: There is this contradiction between what the Minister says is the policy of the department, and what in fact the Minister does when the crunch comes. When the crunch came a little while ago and school boards submitted provisional budgets with an increase of $82 million, suddenly all the rather grandiose approval of expansion of educational services didn't seem such a good idea because she very unfairly said that the trustees were being irresponsible in drawing up their budgets.

Now we find that the Minister espouses decentralization, more authority to the school boards, to the pupils, to the teachers in regard to curriculum and input at the local level, more participation by the students. All thoroughly sound and, in my opinion, an excellent idea. Now we discover from a news interview tonight that this was the kind of blueprint which the education commissioner had in fact proposed.

Interjection.

MR. WALLACE: The Attorney-General says he didn't say that. Well if he was busy working at very….

Interjection.

MR. WALLACE: I beg your pardon? The interview that I'm quoting was on television tonight. I don't think the man is dishonest. Are you suggesting that he's saying things on television that didn't happen? This was his proposal as education commissioner, the one single education commissioner.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please! Would the Hon. Member address the Chair?

MR. WALLACE: But, Mr. Chairman, you're having an awful trouble keeping these… He's not even in the Attorney-General's chair. He's interjecting from somebody else's chair, Mr. Chairman. It's you that's out of order, not me.

Interjections.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please! If any Hon. Member wishes to speak, he must speak from his own seat. I would ask the Hon. Members not to interrupt.

HON. W.L. HARTLEY (Minister of Public Works): Take a tranquilizer.

MR. WALLACE: Well, I don't need any tranquilizer, Mr. Minister of Public Works. You need something to wake you up, not put you to sleep. Mr. Chairman, if I didn't have so many interruptions, we wouldn't sit here so late at night.

The fact is that there is this paradox, or this contradiction, that the Minister talks about decentralization and doesn't follow through by her actions. She talks about more autonomy locally, and when the local school boards take initiatives and spend more money, she says they can't spend the money. You can't have it both ways! We're either going to have more local autonomy and do what you say, not what you pretend to believe, or let's have the facts and put some kind of ceiling on spending.

But then, of course, that would sound too much like the previous regime. That's what the Social

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Credit Party did when they were in power, put ceilings on spending. But this government is much I smarter politically. It doesn't put a ceiling on spending; it just says,"Go ahead and develop new programmes. We believe that you trustees are a great bunch of people, you're very responsible and you're informed." Then when they go ahead and draw up the new programmes and present the bill to the Minister, the Minister says,"Oh no, you can't spend all that money."

I just say let's have some — I hesitate to use the word — honesty, because you might ask me to withdraw it, Mr. Chairman, so I won't use the word honesty. I'll just say let's act as you say you believe. If you believe there should be more autonomy, prove that you can let the local school boards have more autonomy.

It's my feeling that the Department of Education al should function in a much greater degree as a consultant in the whole process of education. The department should be there to advise and assist and make suggestions and play a very supportive role in the education system, but should certainly not dictate in the way that has happened in the last several months.

If this is the decision of the department, the Minister and the cabinet, then let's be fair and let the a public and let the people in the teaching system know where they stand.

Right now, teachers and school boards and trustees are completely confused. There's such a contradiction between statement and action that they don't know where they're at, and I don't blame them. How could they be otherwise?

I don't want to go into a great deal of detail about class size and about pupil-teacher ratio; we've been over that and I think the point has been made very well: unquestionably, the larger the class size the more difficult it is for the child to be receptive to the teaching process.

But the Minister herself, when she made a statement that perhaps there would not be money to provide for a reduction in class size, also made the statement that a big problem was teacher training, and that teachers themselves were concerned about the training process and their ability to stay abreast of modern concepts and modern ideas in teaching. Again perhaps the Minister could answer — I notice the Attorney-General isn't even in somebody else's seat, Mr. Chairman; he has left the chamber all together — if there is any doubt about Mr. Bremer's role and his job as a commissioner.

He proposed an institute for teacher training run by a council which would lay down policy as to the function of that institute, and there would be lay and professional people on that council. He felt that there is a tremendous difference between the atmosphere in which the teacher is trained to teach and the actual environment in which they often finish up teaching. In other words, since many teachers go to smaller or rural areas and their training occurs in an urban atmosphere, a specific teacher-training centre would ideally meet the needs of teacher training.

The Minister has asked that we be positive, and I would like to just quickly touch on several points. Oh, before I do that, I think there's just one unanswered question in the whole Bremer affair. It is very simple question, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Bremer was abruptly dismissed and he is a man of high professional standing in his own profession. Now, whatever the reason for his dismissal, he has had his professional reputation very seriously damaged. Mr. Bremer, like the rest of us, if he loses his job he has to look for another job. When you go to look for another job, the potential employer ways asks you where your last job was and usually asks for a reference.

Now, I know, Mr. Chairman, this isn't news to anybody. I'm glad the Premier has come back into the chamber because he's the villain in the piece.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. WALLACE: Yes, he's the villain in the piece, and he knows it.

HON. MR. BARRETT: I haven't been to one of our secret meetings.

MR. WALLACE: Oh, the Premier can try all he can to put up smokescreens, but the Premier carried out a serious mistake when he said on television that Mr. Bremer had been a failure. The Premier knows that when Mr. Bremer goes to look for another job, he has to say where he worked before and has to try and produce references. How can you produce a reference when you've been dismissed by the most powerful employer in the whole province, the government of British Columbia?

Interjection.

MR. WALLACE: Oh, dear me, we've wakened you again. Well, we'll get you a pillow and maybe you'll be really comfortable.

This is a serious matter, Mr. Chairman, and the government can interject their smart comments and try and make everybody laugh, but this is not a laughing matter. I think if Mr. Bremer gets nothing else from this government, there should at least be some public statement which clarifies the fact that he as not professionally incompetent.

There seems to have been some difference of opinion as to whether he was fulfilling the particular role which this government had mapped out for him. That may be a legitimate difference of opinion. But

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I'm appealing to the Premier. It is not fair to label a professional man in public, on television, a failure without giving him some professional clearance. If it was an honest difference of opinion as to the attitude or to the particular approach to the function of commissioner, that's one thing. But to leave this man in public tagged a failure and a flop I think….

Interjection.

MR. WALLACE: Yes, here's somebody chipping away at my elbow here: "And all that money." The money isn't the factor. For a government that was s always criticizing Socreds for seeing everything in terms of dollar bills, here we have that same government tonight appearing to believe that because they pay off Mr. Bremer they've met their moral responsibilities. That is far from the truth. This man has had his professional standing seriously damaged by the public statements of the Premier.

I don't plan to go on saying any more about it. I've always considered that the Premier was a fair man. We may not see eye to eye

HON. MR. BARRETT: I've never attacked his professional status.

MR. WALLACE: You've never attacked his professional status but you've never cleared it either.

HON. MR. BARRETT: I tell you right now; I've never attacked his professional status.

MR. WALLACE: Well, would you care, Mr. Premier, perhaps when I sit down, to stand up and say publicly that you have never attacked his professional status?

HON. MR. BARRETT: I have never attacked his professional status.

MR. WALLACE: And that he, in fact, had difficulty that was not related to his professional ability as a commissioner.

HON. MR. BARRETT: I have never attacked his professional status, never.

Interjections.

HON. MR. BARRETT: We've never attacked his professional status.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order! The Hon. Member for Oak Bay.

MR. WALLACE: I was hoping the Premier would go that little bit further and just say that whatever led to his dismissal was not related to his professional ability.

HON. MR. BARRETT: That's what I said.

MR. WALLACE: You would be willing to say that outside this House?

HON. MR. BARRETT: Outside this chamber as well.

MR. WALLACE: Well, I really appreciate that statement, Mr. Chairman, because I think perhaps the Premier wasn't aware of the cloud hanging over Mr. Bremer's professional future.

HON. MR. BARRETT: We would never stand in he way of his seeking another job or getting another job. As a matter of fact, we would even write a reference for him about his professional competence. We would certainly do that.

MR. WALLACE: Well, I appreciate that.

Interjection.

MR. WALLACE: Okay. Let's get on to something positive.

We've talked about functional literacy. I think it is very interesting that we've gone back to what I know my parents always talked about, the three Rs: reading, writing, and arithmetic. I remember I once made a speech in this House on that and I was hooted as though that was sort of old-fashioned and archaic.

As I said earlier on, 40 per cent of the people in our jails are illiterate. One has to ask to what degree the failure of our educational system to make these people communicate in the most basic way of reading and writing, listening and speaking, led to their final incarceration in our jails.

There's been a great deal of discussion in this debate, and the Minister's White Paper talks about the failure of the system. But, Mr. Chairman, it takes two to tango. There's the system and there's the person who is receiving service from the system.

I was really fascinated to read an article just this day in The Vancouver Sun by a grade 12 student. The Premier would be very interested in this. This is a grade 12 student in Centennial Senior Secondary School in Coquitlam. I think this is very interesting because I feel so far in this debate the other side of the coin has been overlooked a little bit. I don't happen to think the total responsibility is in the system. Sure we should provide a good educational system, but what about the students? Should the student have no responsibility? Certainly. It's like this business we talked about in Consumer Services last night. Has the consumer no responsibility? Do you

[ Page 1481 ]

take the student by the hand and spoon-feed them education? Hasn't the student got some responsibility?

This student has the gall to write this:

"School is still a chore to me. Some days I have to force myself to go but gradually I'm breaking away from my 'conditioning' and realizing that school does have something to offer. I have a long way to go yet.

"By 'conditioning' I mean that we are given the impression by the media, fellow students and, yes, parents, that school is terrible, a chore, a prison, et cetera. You learn all sorts of little tricks such as how to miss classes, how to fake understanding and how to get by doing virtually nothing. You pass on your experiences to others and it gets to be a little game.

"Many kids can hardly wait to get out of high school; consequently they take only the courses that present no challenge to them.

"For some, going on to university represents a great social life, a chance to get married, a job that's uninteresting but pays great money and an opportunity to get away from home. Few students see university as a centre of ideas, challenges and greater understanding.

"The ideas the B.C. curriculum wants to get across are basically sound but the way they are presented is not."

Later on this same student states:

"There should be ground rules and deadlines but the student should be given the opportunity to discipline himself or herself into taking advantage of the course."

I just happen to think, Mr. Chairman, that that speaks worlds from the student's point of view. I think students had better find out that even after they're working in this world there are many, many jobs that are not very exciting and not very thrilling. If the feeling should be inculcated in our young people that education has to be one long thrill and excitement, and that when they go out in the workaday world every day's work is a real thrill, they've got a lot of finding out to do.

Does the auto worker on the assembly line who sits and handles the same automobile part 500 times a day find that anything but a chore? What about the switchboard operator trying to answer three telephone calls at the same time? Is that an exciting, thrilling occupation? What about the miner at the coalface? What about the typist bashing away at a typewriter? I think it's about time we got some realism into education also. If we are facing changes in the education system on the basis that the whole process of education has got to be one thrilling, exciting adventure, with no boring parts and no difficult parts for the student, then I think we're being very unrealistic.

I don't think that all the responsibility is on the school system or the Minister or the teacher. There's a very clear responsibility on the student. While I admit that in many ways the system should be improved and perhaps made more meaningful, I think it would be tragic if we created the impression that all the responsibility is on your shoulders or on the shoulders of the teacher.

The positive areas that we should be emphasizing, in my view, include flexibility of style. I think the Member for Dewdney (Mr. Rolston) touched on this this afternoon. I'm very interested to have looked at the situation in Victoria, where we have two elementary schools. One is entitled Sentinel, and this is the school where there's a greater degree of structure and discipline and obedience to the command of the teacher. The other one is called Sundance, and there the students amble around and seem to pretty well function as they see fit. I would suggest to the Hon. Minister, through you, Mr. Chairman, that there was an overflow of applicants for the less-structured school called Sundance. I forget the number, but parents started lining up at 4 o'clock in the morning or some of them slept on the steps of the school overnight so that their child would be assured of being enrolled in the less-structured system. There's also an overflow of applications at the Sentinel school.

I don't suggest that one or the other is the answer. The answer lies in the flexibility and the fact that every student does not respond to the same kind of learning environment. I would hope that the Minister would encourage school boards in every part of the province to diversify and provide this choice of style, not only at the elementary level but at the junior and senior secondary level also.

The Minister in her White Paper has talked about change. I think the most fundamental thing that any individual in the human race these days can learn is that the world is indeed changing rapidly around him. Surely one of the real challenges to the educational system is to teach the student to accept that change, day by day, is a very natural process of our present society. Since knowledge and information increases at a frightening pace, the other positive element we must try to instill in students is the inquiring mind. I think it is so important that each student weighs up both sides of any argument or statement and learns through an inquiring mind to make his or her own decisions.

We talk about flexibility. I think one of the tragedies of our educational system is that while we quite rightfully are concerned about the slow learner or the student with a learning problem, what are we doing for the gifted student? How are we maximizing the potential which the really bright child has who is two or three grades ahead of his chronological age? I've heard of many very bright students who drop out

[ Page 1482 ]

of school. The drop-out from school is not just the child or the student who's having difficulties and cannot make the grade; there are many drop-outs from school who are extremely gifted, intelligent, talented young students. I've seen more than a few of these same talented young men and women who finish up on the drug scene because their needs have been no more met in our school system than have been the needs of the slow learner.

So once again, when we talk about flexibility and the need to meet varying kinds of student requirement in the school system, let's try and practise what we preach and not just espouse a very worthwhile cause but provide some of the solutions.

Finally, Mr. Chairman, we've talked a great deal about the importance of education and the fact that students are the richest natural resource in this province or in any civilized country, We've talked a great deal about our timber and our mines and our coal and our fish and every other so-called natural resource, but the most valuable natural resource is unquestionably the growing generation, the young people, our children. While it's important to have many of the other facilities of government — the health services, the highways, the consumer services, recreation and conservation, you name it — it really is somewhat futile if we're not placing the highest value on our children, whose subsequent contribution to our society depends on the way in which they're educated.

To come back to a very solid fact, why is the standing committee on education not meeting during this session of the Legislature? What more important committee can there be? In fact, Mr. Chairman, if I might just digress for a moment, with your indulgence, the committee is designated the Select Standing Committee on Health, Education and Human Resources. It's a vast field.

If there's one committee, of all committees in this Legislature, which should function not only while we're sitting in the House but between sessions, it should be that committee with a tremendous responsibility to investigate the widest social well-being of the citizens of British Columbia. While I've criticized education per se, I wonder if the Minister could tell us why it is that the Select Standing Committee on Health, Education and Human Resources isn't even holding meetings.

One could be a little cynical, because we went around the province on the same committee merely confirming information that we already knew. I would certainly agree that if we're just about to go around the province again, in this case perhaps on an educational matter rather than a health matter, perhaps to document all the stuff that I've already described has been documented all across Canada, then I would certainly agree that there is no point in the committee functioning. I would hope that the Minister perhaps would not only answer some of the questions I've asked, but tell us what is the future goal or the immediate purpose of the standing committee on education in this House.

HON. E.E. DAILLY (Minister of Education): I would like to answer. The Member for Oak Bay (Mr. Wallace) always gives a most interesting and, on the whole, positive speech and I am always pleased to reply to him.

However, before we get on to the positive aspects, I will start with what appear to be negative aspects of his speech first. I think we will start first of all with the questions which he posed to me about Mr. Bremer.

First of all, before I start replying to you on your specific questions, I would like to make it quite clear that when I refer to Mr. Bremer here, I am only referring to him in his performance as commissioner. This is no relation at all to his professional competence as a professional educator. I stated it many times and I stated it in the press release at the termination of his appointment that I had great respect for the humanitarianism of Mr. Bremer and his general attitudes to trying to create a better school system. I said at the time that when it came to the operational style and his role as commissioner this is where we completely parted company. I do hope the House will appreciate that I am talking about Mr. Bremer's role as commissioner.

I found it very interesting tonight that when the Member for Scott Bay (laughter) stood up he had in his hand what appeared to be a counter document which was being held up in comparison to my White Paper. Obviously there was an implication here that one of the reasons that Mr. Bremer was no longer with us was because: "Here is what he had presented to you and you obviously did not wish to proceed with it."

The first point I want to make to the Members is that I would very much like to see that presentation because I have never seen it before. In the nine months that Mr. Bremer was commissioner I had asked him to go out and evaluate the system and report to me on an interim basis. I did not ask him for a big, long, formal royal commission report but I certainly did expect some interim recommendations, as I am sure you, Mr. Member, if you were the Minister, would wish to see something concrete coming forward. In the nine months, in reference to public schools, nothing was born. I have not even a piece of paper, Mr. Member, to show you what came to me from the commissioner on the public school system. Nothing.

I'm sure you would appreciate as Minister that if someone is going to continue in a role in which they are to advise and make recommendations to you, surely somewhere along the line you expect to receive

[ Page 1483 ]

something concrete to study. I had to make a decision, therefore. In all fairness to Mr. Bremer, his style of operation was to continue moving around, carrying on more discussions. I wasn't sure when I would ever see anything concrete presented to me, particularly on the public school system, so naturally I was very concerned about continuing this mode of operation. I am sure you would be also.

I find it very interesting that tonight, on a half-hour show on television, you have presented to you something that I never got presented in nine months. Very interesting. I hope you appreciate that I am somewhat disturbed, frankly, to have that brought up here in the House tonight with the implication that I have rejected something which I have never had presented to me.

Interjection.

HON. MRS. DAILLY: Somebody said "never had a chance to bring it in." I would think that in nine months one would expect something to be produced.

The Member was referring to the White Paper as being motherhood, apple pie and so on. I would like to point out to you that the White Paper may appear very minute with just five basic issues, but it is the first time I think in the Province of British Columbia that a government or a Minister has stated: "Here are the issues, as we see them, in this province educationally."

The interesting thing is that if I had come into the House this session with legislation in all those areas, which I hope you realize include school board reorganization, looking at new methods perhaps of teacher bargaining and changing the whole structure of the role between the professional teacher in the classroom and the administrator, I can just imagine the outcries from you people on the other side: "Have you consulted and let these people who have been involved in this great change be part of the change?" I can assure you that I don't intend to bring in that type of legislation without letting the teachers and the parents and the school board trustees be part of it. That is why I laid it out in those general issues.

It is interesting when I look at you in the opposition that many of you get on your feet and you say: "Where is the direction?" Then I wait and wait to hear from you. Now, you may say,"I'm not the Minister," but the interesting thing is that if the Minister comes in with specific directions at this time without proper preparation out there, then we are accused of being too heavy-handed.

It is also interesting to note that the Member for Oak Bay (Mr. Wallace) was back again with reference to the commissioner. In the last session there was a question from the Member for Oak Bay — Mr. Speaker, may I say that I don't think I need to be called lady Minister, just Minister of Education — if the comments made by the "single all-powerful commissioner into education" that schools are fading away represented the government's policy. The very thing that you attacked me for, or questioning in the press release, you were questioning here just a few months ago in this House. I consider that highly inconsistent.

I think I have explained to you that I have been greatly concerned about the stirring up out there with the public. I think it's good to have people interested in talking about education. That certainly was done. I gave Mr. Bremer credit in his initial work in setting up a number of meetings and having people talk about education. I don't want to repeat again what the basic problem was. In my opinion, it was complete lack of content and of recommendations.

I am not sure if there's another point you brought up that I haven't answered, Mr. Member. Have you got it there?

Oh, committees. I quite agree with you that the Select Standing Committee on Health, Education and Human Resources should be sitting and discussing education. I can assure you that that will be made available to you in the next few days.

MR. P.L. McGEER (Vancouver–Point Grey): Well, Mr. Chairman, I think there is a cry developing in education in British Columbia today: "Bring back Brothers!" (Laughter.)

HON. R.A. WILLIAMS (Minister of Lands, Forests and Water Resources): You can't say it with a straight face.

MR. McGEER: You bet I can, Mr. Chairman, because we have had a pretty sad display from the Minister tonight. It's very clear that she dismissed a man who was highly competent and did have some sort of a concept for education in British Columbia where this Minister has none. Five nothing points in a worthless White Paper. It's clear that the Minister fired a man who did have a concept of the change that should be taking place.

Mr. Chairman, may we explain it once more to the Minister? Apparently she never understood and still doesn't understand. This commissioner of education had the idea and has the idea that the educational system of the province should be preparing the students of the province for the workaday world in British Columbia. To do that, he felt that the secondary school system should be tied in with the community colleges and universities. In order to accomplish that, he felt that the administration of the educational system should be regionalized so it could fit in with these regional colleges whose mandate was to prepare the student for the workaday world and in so doing would make possible the reduction of the Department of Education staff by about 50 per cent.

[ Page 1484 ]

What he was proposing, Mr. Chairman, was to increase the efficiency of the Department of Education, reduce the cost to the taxpayer, improve the programme by tying it tightly to community colleges and universities, and make it relevant by appointing to the boards of those community colleges people who would be making use of the products of our educational system in the industries and services that they manage in the community.

Mr. Chairman, that makes sense, every last bit of that plan. It provides a far better education to the students than they're getting today, because they'll be learning the kinds of things that will be helpful to them tomorrow. It involves the citizens of British Columbia directly in the educational process in their own communities. It saves the taxpayers large amounts of money because it reduces the size of a department which we now judge to be overstaffed and under-performing.

The Minister tells us she was given no plan by this commissioner. Anybody who sat down and talked to him for 10 minutes, as the interviewer did on television this evening, would get the essence of a plan that has soared right over the Minister of Education's head.

HON. MRS. DAILLY: I wish I had been at that interview. I never had the chance.

MR. McGEER: She could have had the commissioner of education in at any time. Well, certainly, as I understand it, Mr. Chairman, she was to have the commissioner of education in several days after the Premier usurped her authority and fired this man on television.

I don't know whether the Premier had another of his attacks of foot-in-mouth disease and really didn't intend to do that. But the fact remains that he did achieve it. The Minister didn't know what was going on, because in the three-star edition she ran to his defence and in the four-star edition she agreed with the Premier. One telephone call in between completely changed the Minister's mind, and, I judge, cancelled the appointment that she'd made. Maybe at that appointment, if she didn't know what was going on in the field of education, she could have learned.

The Minister has continually asked rhetorically in this House for new concepts in education and she had it in her hands: something that would perhaps have made her name as a worthwhile Minister of Education instead of just an incompetent occupant of that office.

Mr. Chairman, what I'd like the Minister to do is not to tell us she didn't agree with his style. We can't have people in British Columbia coming to fill posts that depend on professional capacity, and on a mandate to do a job, if they feel they might be cut off in mid-stream over television for the reason that their style wasn't right.

Are we to ask every person who comes to British Columbia, Mr. Chairman,"How's your style"? How are we ever going to get anywhere in this province if every person who's here to do a professional job has to ask himself "Is my style right"? Style is the one thing that does not count; competency and performance do count.

When we have a Minister standing up and saying she dismissed the man because his style wasn't right, that does not reflect on the style of the man or his capability. It reflects on the style of the Minister and her capability.

In one day we've had two different ideas presented for educational change in British Columbia. One was imaginative, novel, contemporary, relevant and worthwhile. The other was a bunch of rubbish.

Mr. Chairman, two Ministers have asked me why he didn't submit it.

Mr. Chairman, I suggest to these Ministers and to the Minister of Education: admit you were wrong; take the man back, and in heaven's name let's get going again. We can set aside this White Paper, put it mercifully to rest, get a man who knows what he's doing on the job again, have him bring down that report and then bring in the legislation to back it up.

Interjections.

MR. McGEER: Mr. Chairman, could we have just a little bit of order from the Minister who has so much to say about every other Minister's portfolio? He can stand up and make a speech. When he's asked questions himself about his own portfolio, he either answers no or he takes it as notice. But he's sure got a lot to say about every other Minister's portfolio. He could enter into the debate and tell us what he thinks about education; he's an elected Member like all the rest of us.

Interjections.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order! Will the Member continue with his speech?

MR. McGEER: Mr. Chairman, I did raise questions about the commissioner's appointment when the Minister of Education first announced it. It was with respect to one particular aspect that has to do with higher education. What the commissioner did in his time was to apply himself diligently and imaginatively to those aspects of education where he had experience and where he had made his name. And I think his performance amply justified the initial confidence that the Minister had in him.

Universities are still another matter. Their future remains a more vexing problem under the New Democratic Party even than under Social Credit. I

[ Page 1485 ]

think there were….

Interjection.

MR. McGEER: I'm coming to that in a moment. I'd like the Social Credit Members to listen closely when I come to that part. I know this doesn't catch the imagination of Social Credit perhaps quite as much as the Bremer affair. But I can assure you that the future of our universities is not a bright one under present circumstances. It was not particularly bright under Social Credit.

For many years in the House I presented figures as to what the financial situation was with regard to our universities. In 1971-72, the last year that Social Credit was in power, British Columbia spent the least of any province in Canada per capita on post-secondary education, $56 — versus $62 in Prince Edward Island, $90 in Ontario and $108 in Alberta.

That's why we were in trouble under Social Credit. I think many people in our universities felt that things would be much better under a socialist government, because around the world socialists have developed a reputation of respect for the kinds of activities that go on in institutions of higher learning.

But this government has been a sad exception. The first budget that the Minister of Education brought down produced shock in the university system. It was the matter of press conferences by the leading administrators of our universities, who said that it was the smallest increase, both in dollars and percentage terms, since 1967-68, when the federal government withdrew from direct support of Canadian universities.

The second budget brought down by the Minister of Education produced even more pain, though perhaps not quite as much shock. Again, press conferences were given by our leading administrators, because the universities were once more being shackled by the NDP government.

The Premier called attention to a non-existent report, trying to justify his failure to provide an adequate budget in saying the problem was that these institutions were not used full-time, and therefore they were inefficient. It was impossible to find that report, because it didn't exist.

Next the Premier said there could be more money if they came along with the kind of programmes that he liked. With all the parsimony of the former Minister of Finance (Hon. Mr. Bennett), never once was there direct interference of the government in university affairs — never once in those 20 years of administration. While I consistently disagreed with the size of the budget, I always respected the Minister of Finance for the fact that he did not attempt to meddle.

Interjections.

MR. McGEER: The Minister of Lands, Forests and Water Resources (Hon. R.A. Williams) seems to think it is quite proper, as does the Premier and the Minister of Education. You think it is fine to meddle in university affairs on a political basis. I say that it is wrong.

Interjection.

MR. McGEER: That's what the Premier said.

Interjection.

MR. McGEER: I don't know how you interpret his words, but everybody else I've ever spoken to interprets them the same way: "Do it my way or you don't get any dough."

AN HON. MEMBER: Come with your tin cup.

HON. R.A. WILLIAMS: You should cross Cambie Street and see what the others say.

MR. McGEER: The Minister of Lands, Forests and Water Resources has made the equivalent of a speech this evening from his chair. He said, "Cross Cambie street." You know, for all the parsimony that this government has shown to the universities — and their budget everybody knows is inadequate — the Ministers are pretty quick to turn to the universities, that they aren't prepared to give financial support for students who will give help to future governments.

The Minister of Health (Hon. Mr. Cocke) turned very quickly to a medical man, a graduate of UBC, for his report. He didn't hesitate to seek help there. The Minister of Lands, Forests and Water Resources (Hon. R.A. Williams) didn't hesitate to seek help from the university for his consultation in Lands and Forests. He didn't hesitate to seek help from another university in the tangle that he's in on the Columbia River.

The Minister of Education didn't hesitate to go to universities for her commissioner, Mr. Bremer. The Minister of Labour (Hon. Mr. King) didn't hesitate to go to the University of Toronto for his Deputy in Labour. The Minister of Consumer Affairs (Hon. Ms. Young) didn't hesitate either. She went quickly to Osgoode Hall to get her Deputy.

Right through the whole of the NDP benches, when you want help you go directly to the universities that you are prepared to starve with your budget. Where would those people have been if other governments before you had not had the common sense, first of all, to give better support and, secondly, to keep their political hands off the university system?

That is how you get the people that you are going

[ Page 1486 ]

to need in the future. How many Deputies have been sought by the Ministers of the Crown, to keep them out of trouble, from law faculties? Yet the Minister of Education is unprepared to give an adequate budget to the University of Victoria to develop a new law faculty.

Interjection.

MR. McGEER: But that is not what the president of the university said.

Interjection.

MR. McGEER: It's fairly evident in the budget — cuts to the university. Oh, no, I am not going to enter into a semantic war. The message from the president of the University of Victoria came through loud and clear to the public, and don't you avoid it, Mr. Minister.

Interjection.

MR. McGEER: Mr. Chairman, the Minister of Health (Hon. Mr. Cocke) does not hesitate to go to the medical school graduates for help in getting his blueprint for the future in health education developed in this province. Yet the money isn't there to expand the medical school. We are turning away able people by the hundreds at UBC because of lack of funds for the medical school.

HON. R.A. WILLIAMS: Fiction.

MR. McGEER: Fiction, these Ministers say. The people you are getting in there to bail you out of trouble continually aren't fictional people. They are those who are presently on faculties of universities, and they are people who have been products of those universities in former times. If you have any respect at all for governments of the future and the needs of our society in the future, you are going to change your attitudes pretty sharply.

Now the Minister has asked for concrete suggestions. I want to make one with regard to the financing of our universities, because we have simply got to get it out of the bind that was started under Social Credit, and has been perpetuated to a more extreme degree by the New Democratic Party. That is simply to go to formula financing as they do in the Province of Ontario, the province that this year is spending $700 million in post-secondary education.

What's done in the province of Ontario should be done here in British Columbia. That is to take a formula basis for all of the students who are enrolled and rate them. For those who are in arts and science you give one unit of financial support; for those in engineering, three units; for those in medicine, five units; for those in graduate studies, six units.

Then you establish by appropriate negotiation what the value of one of those units is. In arriving at what the university budget is going to be, you just multiply the students in each category by the formula for a unit.

This way everyone knows what the budget is going to be. Proper planning then can take place. In these universities which cannot function properly today because of the hit-and-miss, piecemeal kind of budgeting started under the former government, and perpetuated under this government, that would begin to vanish and would be replaced by logic, continuity and consistency.

That is what we need for higher education in British Columbia, not the kind of meddling that goes on. "Bring in an innovative programme that we like and we'll give you a little more money. Come over and talk to us about it." That is no way to run politics, it is no way to run financing, and it is no way to run universities.

My advice to the Minister is to get out of that sort of thing altogether and get into the business of formula financing.

MR. G.F. GIBSON (North Vancouver–Capilano): On this perhaps most exciting subject in the estimate book, Mr. Chairman, because it deals with the creation of skilled and well-versed people in the Province of British Columbia, and because it deals with the disbursement of 25 per cent of our funds in this Legislature, it should be a happy and exciting debate. It has been a very depressing debate, Mr. Chairman.

HON. R.A. WILLIAMS: Especially after the last speaker.

MR. GIBSON: No, it hasn't been a depressing debate because of the quality of the speakers, Mr. Minister, through you, Mr. Chairman. It has been a depressing debate because of what the government has given the speakers to speak about.

Interjection.

MR. GIBSON: I'm going to do my best, Mr. Premier.

HON. MR. BARRETT: Well, you haven't shown any evidence of that yet.

MR. GIBSON: I'm talking slowly.

The Member for Dewdney (Mr. Rolston) said that the Legislature should compare policies. He said the opposition should get up and give its policies on education, and presumably the government should get up and give its policies on education. But, Mr.

[ Page 1487 ]

Member for Dewdney, the government hasn't done that. That's the problem; that's the difficulty we're having.

You talk about a "sense of wonder" in education. That's a good phrase and I'm going to come back to it later on. But the sense of wonder has to be that we're right where we were 18 months ago when this government said they were going to look for new directions in education. They appointed somebody to look for it, didn't find it, or they say they didn't find it. We have other accounts tonight that that commissioner apparently was coming up with some pretty interesting things, but couldn't find the direction as far as the government was concerned and now we're back to square one.

Education thinking should start out with a philosophy, Mr. Chairman. I want to say a little bit about my idea of what's the purpose of education.

It's not something that works in a vacuum; it's something that works with the whole of society. So the first job of education, as I see it, is to assist the non-formal kinds of education that people go through all of their lives — education that should come from the home, from all the various media, education from work experience and from the community. So that's its first job — to fit in in the public and formal sense with all of those private and informal kinds of education.

Its second role is to prepare a person for life as a human being, as a citizen, as a producer and as a consumer.

The third job of education is to be a valuable experience in itself because people spend a lot of time in formal education. They may leave school at grade 8, or they may leave school at the end of seven years of university, but at a minimum they are spending eight years there, and maybe spending twice that long. So it should have great value in its own, being an important segment of a person's life.

We can't look to the school system to do the kind of things the home should do, to be the primary inculcator of values. We can't even really expect the school to take the place of the home when the home environment breaks down, and that's why other departments of this government have to be so concerned about the home environment.

The home environment decides what must be the basic approach of the school to the child when he gets there. Is the child open or defensive? Is the child curious or bored? Is the child hard-working or lazy? Is the child considerate of others or boorish and self-centred? Those are different poles of possibilities. You get all kinds in the school system.

Then there is also the enormous impact of the media on the learning experience. I was glad to hear the Minister say that she thought more work should be done on educational TV and that a consultant has been engaged to look at least at the hardware aspects of that. I hope the Minister will be able to be more specific later on about the actual production side of what's been done in educational television, because exciting things are being done in other provinces.

In the role of the school in preparing the child for life, many Members may be familiar with a publication that's called The Whole Earth Catalogue. The slogan of that publication was "access to tools," because it was a catalogue of just about every marvelous kind of thing you can buy in this world that's useful. In a lot of ways that's what education should be; it should be access to tools.

The Hon. Member for Skeena (Mr. Dent), in a very fine example earlier on today, described the role of the schools in developing the potential of every individual. He described how different the individuals were in his school and yet how in different circumstances one route or another could bring out the best in all of them, because we're all different in talents, physical and mental abilities and interests and needs. The school has to give the students some idea of our cultural heritage as a human being — the arts and the sports, history, philosophy, the history of ideas — and give the students some introduction to relationships with other people.

Then there's the whole concept of citizenship training which the Minister mentioned in her document called a White Paper here. There's the concept of how we fit as citizens into our nation and our province and our region. What are the duties of a citizen? And what are some of the values that citizenship implies or should imply? To what extent, Madam Minister, through you, Mr. Chairman, should we expect the schools to instruct our young people in the stern virtues of honesty, hard work, dedication, co-operation and competition — as those two opposed forces work in our society, the importance of making a contribution to society, the importance of trust, the golden rule?

I suggest, Mr. Chairman, that the schools should have an important role in these things, even though based on the fundamentals of the home. Schools should impart to the students citizenship skills — skills which result from an understanding of government, and an understanding of the political system which is very different from the government, because the political system is how to gain access to the government.

Citizenship skills in the schools should include some basic familiarity with the principles of law, and in particular with economics, because governments are getting so much more deeply into our economy every day that they're making economic decisions of tremendous consequence to all of us. Governments, if they're democratic governments, make their decisions on economic questions in response to pressures from the electorate. If the pressures of the electorate are based on poor economic training, we'll get poor

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economic decisions out of governments. So I was very glad to see the emphasis of the Minister in her opening remarks on the need to do a lot more for economics in our public schools.

The schools, as has been discussed before, particularly in the estimates of the Minister of Consumer Services (Hon. Ms. Young), must give us all training as consumers, and as producers as well — what we can put into society and what we take out.

Finally schooling should be a valuable experience in itself. Here I come back to that "sense of wonder" that the Hon. Member for Dewdney spoke of — the joy of understanding and creating something with your mind or your hands, the joy of coming to know this world, a wonderful world with all its faults.

That collection of things is asking a lot from a school system. When you add to it the range of people that it has to do those things for — people that on the academic side range from spectacular to the not-so-spectacular, the same among what I would call the doers and achievers side, the salesmen or the tradesmen or the executives who have the same kind of range of talent, and all of those with particular problems of handicaps, by they mental, physical or emotional — it has to deal with a wide range of attitudes in children.

I was very disturbed to read last night some of the remarks of the former Dean Scarfe of the University of British Columbia. I don't know if the Minister saw them in The Vancouver Sun. Dean Scarfe is now dean emeritus. He's apparently been spending time sitting in classrooms in a dozen secondary schools in the greater Vancouver area, the article says. He's come back pretty disappointed. He's got awfully strong feelings, as I see it here, and they're feelings that I don't mind talking to my own children, two of whom are in secondary schools.

I would just like to quote some of the things he says and ask the Minister if they are an accurate reflection of the problems. He says, first of all, that there are lots of good teachers in our schools and people who know how to be good teachers, but that they aren't being permitted to do that. The basic reason he finds for that is because of the students. Indeed, the headline says "It's Impossible to Teach Hostile Students." He makes the specific statement:

"Twenty or 30 years ago it was much easier to teach a class of 40 children than it is now to teach a class of 20 or 25. This is due to the attitudes, outlooks, behaviour and values of young people in high school at the present time."

AN HON. MEMBER: Right on!

MR. GIBSON: "Right on," says the Hon. Member.

"Our permissive society has reared a generation of rude, arrogant, supercilious, selfish young people. They are the pleasure-seeking 'now' generation. The result is that there is an alarming increase in illiteracy and misinformation."

Well, these are pretty strong words. He finds that the burden for this — as everyone would have to agree, to the extent it's true — has to be placed in the home. He says:

"The malaise in the modern youth generation must to some degree be placed on the shoulders of young parents who abandon their children to TV or have simply neglected them.

"All young people need firm, kindly guidance and direction. They cannot learn self-discipline until they have understood the need for it, and this means many years of patient guidance, repeated suggestions and wise help in achieving it."

These are good words, that last paragraph.

I wonder to what extent the school system can help parents in understanding this and understanding the enormous role they have, and that television is just not good enough by itself to bring up children.

Later on he says:

"All good, up-to-date methods of teaching depend on willing collaboration between students and teachers. Such methods require good order and much self-discipline and responsibility."

And later he says:

"Young children are not able to make as wise decisions about academic or ethical matters as their parents or teachers. There is no way in which young people can have equal say in the decision-making process about education until they are granted the privilege of parliamentary vote. This does not mean that they have no say. All good teachers have always sought student opinion."

That is a particularly important statement in view of the movement to give students a much greater voice in the administration of schools and in the choice of programmes. I attach some importance to the fact that it was made by the man who was dean of education when I was at the University of British Columbia almost 20 years ago, and who I think retired only very recently — a man who has spanned a generation of educational training in British Columbia.

He concludes with an excellent paragraph that ought to be required reading for every student coming into a school. He says:

"Education is not acquired easily. There are few labour-saving devices that enable a person to escape the effort of thinking deeply for himself. There are no mechanical devices to keep us honest, frank and courteous.

"The idea of getting something for nothing

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does not work in school. Welfare may be provided for those who do not work, but education does not automatically become conferred on children in school without effort on their part.

"Society is at fault for not providing more education for parents and for providing too much freedom too soon for young people. There is such a thing as kindliness which is also consistently firm and wisely helpful.

"Children need more love, more care and more useful guidance in these days than they ever did in days gone by."

I think there are some useful words in there, Madam Minister, through you, Mr. Chairman, but there are also some very alarming words. I would much appreciate the comment of the Minister later on as to whether the situation in many of our secondary schools is really as bad as former Dean Scarfe indicated in his article, and also any comments that you might care to make on what I consider the extraordinarily great responsibility of parents in ensuring that the educational system works well and a duty that the school system should keep reminding parents of in very forceful ways throughout the educational career of their children.

I think that society has a duty to every student to allow and assist and even demand that they make the best of their potential and the best of their early lives.

The Minister made remarks earlier on about the much larger number of children in kindergarten. I commend her for this very highly, and for the expenditures she is making in that direction — for the work as well that's being done in continuing education, both at the college and university level and adult education.

I would like to speak just for a moment about the independent schools, and I hope the Minister might make some comment on this. I almost have to wonder if this isn't an area where there's an internal problem for the government party because it's a clear case of discrimination. It must make many of the Members of the government caucus very uncomfortable to feel that there is a case of double-taxation, and here's a case of not allowing people to go their own way in a decentralized way — which is what the government says it's about — even if they live up to centrally imposed standards about core areas of education.

Why is the government holding back on this, as the other parties in the province gradually move to the endorsation of the position — which is a position in effect in eight of the provinces of this country — that there should be financial aid for independent schools? According to the Federation of Independent School Associations there are 23,000 children in these independent schools, and it is a saving of something like $17 million to the public school system that they are in those independent schools.

Now isn't it right that we should foot some portion of that bill? I think it's right that we should, Mr. Chairman. How can the NDP discriminate on this? Do they think it's the rich kids in the independent schools? It's not. I don't understand this, and I hope the Minister might give us some explanation of the government philosophy behind the continued denial of legal recognition and financial assistance to independent schools. Access to accreditation and departmental services — I think that this is gradually being extended. But the financial assistance is important and critical.

I'd ask the Minister about her views as to what should be our teacher-training capability in British Columbia. I've heard estimates that out of the several thousand teachers we need — both for expansion of the school system and by virtue of retirement of existing teachers — at the moment we have a capacity to train something like one-third of the teachers we need.

Now it could be, depending on school population forecasts, that this is about the right level. It could be that our needs for continuing teacher training will fall in years to come. On the other hand it could be that our facilities need doubling if we are to train in British Columbia the kind of teachers we need for our population.

So I would ask the Minister if she has any forecasts in that regard, and also what she has in the way of school population forecasts. I refer again to the talk by the Hon. Member for Skeena (Mr. Dent) who mentioned that school populations were going down in some areas. I wonder what forecasts the Minister has by grade and by areas of the province as to what extent existing facilities are likely to become surplus and to what extent they are likely to be burgeoning in other parts of the province. If she could even give us an indication that this kind of planning is going ahead, that this kind of forecasting is going ahead, it would be comforting to know.

I'd like to ask the Minister her views about the differential importance of putting more funds into secondary schools or into primary schools. My own belief is that the emphasis, when one is talking about reduction of class sizes, should probably go on the primary side. In my own school district, No. 44, the class size at the primary level is currently above the secondary level, and the reduction emphasis is going on the elementary side. We're trying to knock it down by about two people per class — down from 30.2 to 28 this year.

Are we on the right track? I think we are, because I believe that these formative years are by far the most important in setting the attitude that the student has to education for the rest of their lives, and that attitude is what determines whether they will learn, more than will the facilities available to

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them, I think. An eager, questing mind is likely to learn in spite of impediments, and a switched-off student won't learn no matter what kind of facilities you provide for them.

Just on a small point, but one that is important to some people, I wonder if the Minister would use her influence with her colleague, the Minister of Finance, to have tax removed for school supplies used in home economics, which can be quite costly to some families that have a number of children in a home economics class. I know one mother in my riding says that she had to pay I think it was $40 for her group of girls for home economics supplies and had to pay tax on them, when generally school supplies shouldn't be taxed.

On the question of local control of the school system, the Minister indicated that one of the matters that might be up for review — I'll get on to the White Paper generally in a minute — was the question of the continuation of the school board system.

Interjection.

MR. GIBSON: Good. I'm glad, because I was going to ask the Minister to comment on that. I would very much hope that she might tell the House that the school board system is definitely going to be retained and local control strengthened.

I wonder if she might go on and suggest that local school boards might be given authority to appoint superintendents under the current level of, I think, 20,000 students. I wonder if this might not very wisely be lowered to 15,000 students or even 10,000 students. Once the superintendent is appointed by the local school board, then that superintendent becomes a servant of that board and not of the Department of Education, and they become concerned with the local area rather than with their promotion prospects in the overall school system of the province. So I would represent to the Minister that it's a good thing to lower that level. Certainly again in North Vancouver we are very happy now to have achieved that authority, even if the superintendent we had previously was an excellent man. That was the result of a happy accident rather than the system.

In the matter of local budgeting, the Minister is on record as saying that school districts that come in for class size assistance, that are causing their taxpayers to bear above a reasonable tax load because of that class-size reduction programme, will receive assistance. I asked the Minister a couple of weeks ago, and I'll ask her again, if she is now in a position to say what is a reasonable tax load. What is the increase above the previous year that becomes too great to be borne? At which point will the Minister expend supplementary assistance?

Will these things be spelled out specifically in future years? This is one of the things that concerns me most. Are school boards year after year going to have to come to Victoria, hat in hand, and say: "We hope we have made a good case this year. We hope we have made a good case for the exercise of your discretion "? You can't do planning on that basis, and there's always the fear on that basis, no matter how wise the allocations are, that the motivations aren't based 100 percent on merit.

If the Minister would spell out the criteria for class size assistance, that would be helpful.

In the existing circumstances, who would get the reward if there were two school districts and one of them decided that they would increase their taxes and go for a lower class size and the other school district decided that they wouldn't go for a lower class size but they would move up, say, some of their maintenance expenditures? If those two school districts come now to the Minister and say "We would both like more money," are they both going to get more money? If they do both get more money, are you going to somehow compensate the first school district that had the strength of purpose to go out and tax its citizens more in order to reduce those class sizes? Are they going to get the supplementary money that the other school district received because they went ahead with the maintenance and now they have the class size money too? In other words, I hope that those who were going in the lowering of class size direction won't find themselves penalized for that reason.

The Minister suggested earlier on that she didn't know what would be the cost of lowering the pupil-teacher ratio in 1974. I think she has estimated that in later years it will be around $8 million per point in the lowering of the student-teacher ratio. Surely the Minister has an estimate for 1974. I can't imagine an open-ended commitment. I can't imagine a conversation with the Minister of Finance that went something like "I would like to make a commitment to lower class sizes" and the Minister of Finance would say "How much will it cost?" and the Minister of Education would say "I have no idea" and the Minister of Finance would say "Fine, go ahead." That doesn't sound to me like something that would have happened. The Minister must have some estimate that would be helpful for the school boards.

I wonder as well if the Minister could give us any foresight at this time as to what might be the foundation mill rate. I've heard some estimates that the school assessment around the province might likely be up in the order of 25 per cent this year. I would presume then that the foundation mill rate will be lowered in some acceptable dimension, or else the school districts will end up paying a much higher percentage of their budget and the provincial government will end up paying less. Without asking for precise figures at the moment, I wonder if the

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Minister could reassure us that the foundation mill rate will in fact be lowered commensurately with these higher assessments.

I will make a representation on behalf of my own School District 44 because they've been working very hard on many matters, including class size. Their operating budget went up — in 1972 it was 9.8 per cent over 1971; up another 13.4 per cent in 1973; and in 1974 up 21.4 per cent.

That's political courage, Madam Minister — increasing taxes that way — because most of these increases come out of local taxes. That's why the proportion paid by the province is so important to us. It's gone from 43.8 per cent in 1970 to a high of 48.9 in 1972 back down to 45.6 this year. We hope that that ratio will be at least that high and hopefully higher next year. The foundation rate, of course, is terribly important in that.

Our salary bill in the School District of North Vancouver is up by over 12 per cent this year when fringes are considered. With the class size I mentioned that has been budgeted for from 30.2 down to 28, there is a lot of money being spent and a lot of help needed.

The district submitted an excellent brief to the Minister on December 13. That brief related both to class size financing and to certain assistance in the matter of capital programmes and schoolroom accommodation. I hope the Minister will be in a position to answer that brief very shortly.

Now we come to the subject of the White Paper, Mr. Chairman. I have to say that it is very brave of the Minister to table this White Paper at the time of her estimates. I really congratulate her for that. It has made it possible to have a much better debate on it than we otherwise could have.

I wonder who wrote the pamphlet. "Functionally literate" in here is defined as every person who must be able to read, write, compute, hear, understand and judge. I wonder if the author of this pamphlet was functionally literate. There's not a great deal of sense and guidance in it for any one. If Mr. Bremer was fired for making statements disturbing to the public, then the author of this should be fired for the same reason. It's got very few answers to questions and it's even missing a lot of the questions.

The Minister suggested earlier on that the House would be upset if she had come forward with specific legislation on all the topics. Of course the House would be, and very properly. That would be what I would call a Bill 31 approach to education and it would be wrong. But there should be some suggestions as to how to proceed in here.

A White Paper should do three things: It should provide a lot of data and be well-researched. It's not as if there hasn't been time. There have been at least 18 months and there have been task forces working on this and that. There are a lot of financial experts in the department who have a lot of data on the finance side, and there are curriculum experts on the curriculum side — pedagogical experts. I think that we would have waited a little longer for a detailed and well-researched White Paper, and we might still have some research supplement published to it. It would be a wonderful thing if that would happen, Madam Minister, through you, Mr. Chairman, because the first thing, as I say, a White Paper should do is provide data and this one doesn't.

It should be a document that people can read and go through and say: "Now I know the facts that I need to know to talk about this case."

The second thing it should do is provide options. This White Paper hasn't provided any options. Maybe we shouldn't call it a White Paper. It's printed on white paper, but that's the only similarity.

What's it say? It says,"The student has no means of resolving any conflict with the system; he must conform, leave voluntarily, or be suspended." Now there's a statement of more or less fact, Mr. Chairman. But then what happens after that?

A problem has been posed. Good. How is it to be solved? What are the different means available for the solution of this problem of the student relating to the system? Is the layman supposed to read this document?

I don't know how many copies it's been printed in, but I presume the ordinary citizen of British Columbia interested in education can get a copy of it. Are they supposed to read it and say,"Aha, well, now that's an interesting idea and I see three or four different ways that this can be improved"? Those three or four different ways should have been suggested in this document. And they still should be suggested. Perhaps the Minister will do that a little bit in this debate.

Here's another one: "The structure of the education system should be redesigned in such a way that authority and responsibility are distributed more appropriately, keeping in mind the principle and so on.

Now what does this mean, Mr. Chairman? Does this mean, for example, that we should elect principals? Is that the meaning of this? Does this mean that a professional association should have much more role in the appointment of teachers and the assignment of their duties? Does it mean that students should have a veto over the new principal? Just what does it mean? There are all kinds of ways and means that one could change the authority and responsibility structure, but unless the Minister spells those ways and means out for us and for the people interested in education in this province, we won't know what it is.

Under the question of finance, the White Paper mentions that "At the present time, the government is considering a number of changes in the methods by

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which revenue for education is raised and the methods for the disbursement of that revenue to the school districts." That's a very specific statement, Mr. Chairman. The government is considering a number of changes in the methods.

I wonder if the government would let us in on the secret, Mr. Chairman, of the number of changes they're considering. Just what are they? Financing, of course, is central to the problem of education, and how do you inject more general tax funds into the educational process without subverting local control? That's the critical problem of education financing.

And what are these means and ways that the government is considering — the "number of changes"? Maybe the Minister could describe some of those and maybe she could print a supplement to this White Paper that would give the options and the potential answers to the questions she has asked, because that's the second thing a White Paper should do.

The third thing a White Paper may or may not do is suggest directions. That's up to the government as to whether it wants to suggest directions at this point, but they should at least provide options to the people.

Then in the summary of the White Paper it notes that the Deputy Minister of Education, who is a very busy man just in the ordinary course of administering the department, "in addition to his operational responsibility for the department, will coordinate official responses to the Paper and work with special interest groups and delegations."

Now, Mr. Chairman, can the Deputy do this without help? Can he really do this and do his job in the department too? I would question it. So there's going to have to be some kind of structure set up to coordinate the responses to this White Paper and to go out and get the reaction and help the committees to go out and get the reaction from around the province.

It says, "The Minister of Education will provide the leadership for public discussion of the issues outlined in this Paper." But she can't be everywhere around this province. She has duties just like the Deputy has. So who's going to be full-time on this White Paper? What kind of a structure is going to be set up? It's important that whatever is set up should make sure that all of the representations in the briefs don't end up in a trunk or a filing cabinet somewhere in the department and not acted on, because that kind of consultation and participatory democracy is a sham and almost worse than none at all.

So I would ask the Minister if she would be able to comment on the structure that's going to follow up this White Paper. I wouldn't be surprised if it resembled very much another commission because all we've done is got rid of one and come up with the same questions that the first one was supposed to answer — and maybe never really had a chance to.

So I'd like the Minister to comment, if she would, on the ongoing structure as related to the White Paper.

The House resumed; Mr. Speaker in the chair.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Speaker, the committee reports progress and asks leave to sit again.

Leave granted.

Hon. Mr. Barrett moves adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

The House adjourned at 10:55 p.m.