[ Page 1515 ]

CONTENTS

Routine proceedings

Committee of Supply: Department of Education estimates

On vote 39.

Mr. Schroeder –– 1515

Hon. Mrs. Dailly –– 1515

Mr. L.A. Williams –– 1515

Mr. Wallace –– 1517

Hon. Mrs. Dailly –– 1520

Mr. Phillips –– 1523

Mr. Schroeder (amendment) –– 1530

Mrs. Jordan –– 1531

Hon. Mr. Barrett –– 1534

Mr. Bennett –– 1536

Mr. Fraser –– 1538

Mr. Wallace –– 1541

Mr. McGeer –– 1543

Mr. L.A. Williams –– 1546

Mr. Curtis –– 1548

Division on amendment –– 1548

Mr. McGeer –– 1548

Hon. Mrs. Dailly –– 1549

Mr. L.A. Williams –– 1549

Mr. Smith –– 1549

Mr. Fraser –– 1552

Division on motion that the committee rise –– 1554

Mr. Fraser –– 1554

Hon. Mrs. Dailly –– 1554

Mrs. Jordan –– 1555

On vote 40.

Mr. Morrison –– 1562

Hon. Mrs. Dailly –– 1562

On vote 41.

Mrs. L.A. Williams –– 1562

Hon. Mrs. Dailly –– 1563

Mr. L.A. Williams –– 1563

Hon. Mrs. Dailly –– 1563

Mr. Morrison –– 1563

On vote 43.

Mr. Morrison –– 1563

Hon. Mrs. Dailly –– 1563

On vote –– 44.

Mr. Morrison –– 1564

Hon. Mrs. Dailly –– 1564

On vote 45.

Mr. Bennett –– 1564

Hon. Mrs. Dailly –– 1564

Mr. McGeer –– 1565

Hon. Mrs. Dailly –– 1565

Mr. Richter –– 1565

Hon. Mrs. Dailly –– 1566

Mr. Morrison –– 1566

Hon. Mrs. Dailly –– 1566

Mr. D.A. Anderson –– 1566

Hon. Mrs. Dailly –– 1566

Mr. McGeer –– 1566

Hon. Mrs. Dailly –– 1567

Mr. Morrison –– 1567

Hon. Mrs. Dailly –– 1567

Mr. Phillips –– 1568

Hon. Mrs. Dailly –– 1568

On vote 46.

Mr. Bennett –– 1568

Hon. Mrs. Dailly –– 1568

Mr. Fraser –– 1568

Hon. Mrs. Dailly –– 1568

Mr. Morrison –– 1569

Hon. Mrs. Dailly –– 1569

Mr. McGeer –– 1569

Hon. Mrs. Dailly –– 1569

Mr. L.A. Williams –– 1569

Hon. Mrs. Dailly –– 1569

Division on vote 46 –– 1569

On vote 47.

Mr. Smith –– 1570

Hon. Mrs. Dailly –– 1570

On vote 48.

Mr. Morrison –– 1570

Hon. Mrs. Dailly –– 1570

Point of order

Tabling of documents quoted in committee. Hon. Mr. Strachan –– 1570

Mr. McGeer –– 1570

Mr. Speaker –– 1570

Mr. McGeer –– 1571

Hon. Mr. Strachan –– 1571

Mr. McGeer –– 1571

Mr. Speaker –– 1571

Hon. Mr. Strachan –– 1572

FRIDAY, MARCH 22, 1974.

The House met at 1:33 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. H.W. SCHROEDER (Chilliwack): I was waiting with bated breath to see whether or not I would have an answer to the questions as to what plan the Minister wishes to take on the reduction of class size and how she will determine, by what criteria will she determine, which school districts will receive first attention.

HON. E.E. DAILLY (Minister of Education): Mr. Chairman, to the Hon. Member, I spent about 10 minutes answering that question which was posed to me by another Member who happened to be in the House at the time. And you'll see the complete answer in Hansard.

MR. L.A. WILLIAMS (West Vancouver–Howe Sound): Mr. Chairman, we've listened to considerable debate concerning the Bremer affair. I'm sure there will be much more. I must say that it disturbs me, the way this debate has developed.

I think it is all summed up quite clearly, Mr. Chairman, in a press statement that the Hon. Minister of Education released on January 12 following the Premier's clear indication on television that Mr. Bremer was finished. The Hon. Minister said at that time that before she went to Montreal for a meeting of the Council of Ministers, "the Premier and myself reviewed the present status of the education commission and came to a number of mutual conclusions on which I will elaborate shortly."

Based upon earlier debates in this House we understand perfectly clearly what the Minister meant when she said "mutual conclusions". They're the same kind of mutual conclusions that members of the Egg Marketing Board reached with the Premier when they were in his office.

It is quite obvious, Mr. Chairman, that the person who is really running the Department of Education is now, as it was under the previous administration, the Minister of Finance and the Premier of the province.

He runs the department, he calls the tune. The Minister of Education is allowed to play some little games with regard to education in this province, but when proposals are put forward which will result in the possibility of increased cost to the provincial government, increased cost to the taxpayers, the Minister of Finance pulls the reins tight and the Department of Education responds accordingly.

It is for this reason that we had the Minister suggesting to boards of school trustees throughout the province certain changes that she was initiating in regard to the department's view on board expenditures — this whole question of class size, pupil-teacher ratio, things that encouraged the boards of school trustees and the teachers in the province to believe that the winds of change were really blowing in Victoria.

But the actions of the Premier with respect to Mr. Bremer and the actions of the Premier with respect to the Department of Finance are also the direct cause for the Hon. Minister of Education to come forth with the statement that the school boards in the Province of British Columbia were being irresponsible with respect to financial matters.

She'd been told by the Minister of Finance, and no doubt by other members of the Treasury Board, exactly how far the government was prepared to let her go in making changes in education in British Columbia.

We have, then, Mr. Chairman, come to this. That the Minister of Education who criticized so well and offered such hope when she was in opposition, finds herself in the position, just as previous Ministers of Education have found themselves, of being unable to do the things that need to be done either from lack of talent or the support that is required from the Department of Finance. And that is where we stand today.

The Minister of Education is every bit as much of a flop as Mr. Bremer was. To suggest that she didn't receive anything from him during the course of the months that he was engaged as commissioner, in light of what the Hon. First Member for Vancouver–Point Grey (Mr. McGeer) disclosed to the House earlier today, is difficult to accept, particularly when what she produces, with her whole department behind her, is what we received on Wednesday, the incompetent document "Directions for Change."

For 18 months we've gone no place. Any changes there have been have been ad hoc in order to put out small brush fires which might have been burning here, or to repay political promises that the government made during the August 1972 elections.

It is disappointing that the Minister has performed so badly, to us in this House and to all those people in the Province of British Columbia who really hoped for something better. Well, we have come to this. We have wasted 18 months, and if we come to "Directions for Change" as being the starting point, then perhaps the Minister would address herself to

[ Page 1516 ]

responding to some questions on that point.

On January 12 when she confirmed the Premier's hatchet job on Mr. Bremer she said in her press statement:

"I have reached the decision that technical change in this province and that educational change in this province can now best be served by having the newly reconstructed Department responsible for an evaluation and recommendations to me for new directions in education in this province."

Then, as the Minister so often does, she translates those words so that everyone will clearly understand, and she goes on:

"This means that the department must work closely and regularly with interested public groups and citizens, department personnel must now move out and relate directly with groups re educational needs far more often than has been done in the past. Consultation and discussion with interested groups must take place before any evaluation and recommendations are made to me by the department."

The question then is: would the Minister please indicate to what extent officials of her department have been moving out from Victoria, relating directly to groups regarding educational needs in the province? Will she please indicate or identify the personnel in the department who are carrying out this responsibility?

With what groups are they meeting? Has she received any reports, formal or informal, from those departmental officials, and does she see arising from these any early steps to provide solutions for the problems which she enunciated in the White Paper?

Specifically, has she received from her departmental officials any indication of the steps that must be taken in order to relieve the problems which are facing the students in this province in regard to failure rates, non-attendance, the resolution of conflicts in the system?

Would she also indicate to what extent her personnel in her department are picking up the load that was carried by the commission, the university task force, the Fraser Valley task force, which I assume must have done its job because the Minister has made an announcement with regard to a community college in that area? The college task force, we've had a report in this regard. Who in the department is doing this? Where, in the estimates which we are debating today, do we find these personnel who can be relieved from their other responsibilities in the department to undertake this community communications programme and then to come back and design and submit to the Minister for her consideration solutions to those problems?

In particular, I would like to know what programme if any the Department of Education will enunciate to the government for further developments of our community college system. We have what appears to be a very excellent working paper on the community college in British Columbia entitled "Towards The Learning Community." When are we going to see any of the recommendations in this working paper acted upon? How long will the people in the community need to wait before they will see results of departmental action?

In connection with the community college programme, would the Minister indicate whether or not she believes that the college system is, or can become, a viable alternative to enlarging our present universities or establishing new universities in this province? Is the community college to be allowed to assume an ever-expanding role in the post-secondary educational field, thereby encroaching on areas which have been traditionally those of universities? Or will they move along on a parallel course with universities, allowing universities to expand?

If they are to undertake responsibilities which traditionally — I don't say properly — but which traditionally have been those of universities, will they, for purposes of financing, be taken out of the responsibility of local school districts altogether and financed from general revenues as is properly the case with those post-secondary institutions of general provincial value?

If that is to occur, as I sincerely hope it will, will community colleges be faced with the same challenge that faces universities today, as posed by the Hon. Minister of Finance when he introduced his budget? Namely, that if they want more money, they're going to have to come to the government with new, imaginative programmes. I can only assume that what is new and imaginative is whatever happens to catch the fancy of the Premier and the cabinet, and falls within the narrow confines of what that elite group considers to be appropriate for educational advance in the Province of British Columbia.

To the Hon. Minister of Education: is it her view and is it supported by the people of her department that the financing of universities and senior post-secondary institutions in British Columbia is to continue along those lines with meagre annual financial allocations and the promise that if somehow or other the Minister of Finance can be convinced that something more should be provided, additional funds will be available?

Does the Minister recognize the impossibility of budgeting for major post-secondary institutions without a clear indication of the amounts of money to be made available and the demands which the Department of Education and the government place upon those institutions?

I hope the Minister, in spite of the criticism that quite properly has been laid at her feet these past two

[ Page 1517 ]

days, recognizing what faces her and those interested in education, will be candid with the committee and let us know exactly where she and her department stand in respect to the need and the fulfillment of the need for educational change.

The Minister in announcing the White Paper said it was going to take time. Well, let's forget the past 18 months. It's another generation of students maybe who have suffered. How long? How much longer must we wait before we see any positive result?

MR. G.S. WALLACE (Oak Bay): I'd just like to carry on for a few moments on the theme of the university situation. Again we appear to have meetings taking place after the budget has been decided for universities, as was the case with the school boards, in that the three presidents met with the Premier, I understand, the other day.

Again I have to make the point, Mr. Chairman, that we seem to be attempting to debate estimates of departments where we really only have a part of the picture. In other words, the theme of the government seems to be: keep them short of money until they scream, then when they scream, we'll have a meeting and see if we can patch up the situation.

It seems to me very regrettable that the government and particularly the Department of Education should not have a definitive position of providing a reasonable amount of money, not only to the universities — I'm going to talk about them in particular — but to the school system.

We've heard a lot of debate this morning about supplementary warrants and the fact that certain areas are fast-growing areas and require special consideration and so on. But the question really is: should not that special consideration have been taken into account prior to us reaching this point where we've completed the budget debate and where we're now attempting to find out how the money is to be spent on education and trying to find out those areas where there's not enough money and those areas in which more money will be made available?

I just had a letter today from the University of Victoria. I'd like to quote part of it. The letter is calling for an emergency meeting of the Faculty Association at the University of Victoria. The letter is from Mr. John Downing who's the president of the Faculty Association. I think there are some reasonable statements in here that the House should know about. He says:

"You will by now have received President Farquhar's announcement of the salaries for 1974-75. The hard fact is that the basic increase is likely to reach 10 per cent by the start of the salary year. There we are getting a 2 per cent cut in our real income. (Merit payments cannot be taken into account in this as they intended for merit.) This reduction compounds an unfortunate salary situation created in the '73-74 year by the 5 per cent general increment compared to an 8 per cent inflationary increase."

The letter goes on to make some more general observations. But the important point, I think, that has to be looked at is at the bottom of the page, there the president of the Faculty Association states:

"Since this is the second year in succession that we have received an inadequate budget from the government, it is clear that our working conditions are deteriorating and standards of scholarship and teaching at our university are being placed in danger.

"There is also the possibility that student enrolment might drop from the more direct cause of higher tuition fees, should the universities in this province be forced to raise them because of inadequate government grants."

That's one university. I've had communications, as I'm sure all Members of the opposition have had, from all three universities. They tell the same tale. I think that the Premier who has made statements and who has commented on university financing in the budget debate hasn't completely realized the significance of some of his statements.

In particular, Mr. Chairman, there is this statement that as with the school boards who approach the Minister of Education after the session's over looking for supplementary warrants, there will also be the same sort of approach acceptable by the universities: namely, that if they complain loudly and long, and perhaps if they come up with new programmes, they'll get more money.

To refer for a moment, Mr. Chairman, just to the University of British Columbia, which is the oldest university of the three — if we could use the word "old" in that term... it isn't really old, but it happens to be the one that started first in the province — we have clear, documented proof that they're still trying to teach students in substandard buildings and old army huts.

Here's just one statistic, in passing: the Statistics Canada index for non-residential building costs increased 34 per cent from 1968 to 1973. It is quite clear that the capital grants have not been large enough to enable the universities to put up new buildings. We talked about the plans for new buildings at UBC during the budget debate, in particular in the faculty of applied science.

The fact is that because UBC has been operating for longer than the other two universities, they certainly need replacement of these older facilities, and everyone in this chamber knows the cost of construction these days. As I say, the only hope which the universities appear to have is to provide, in the Premier's statement,"innovative programmes."

[ Page 1518 ]

This, I think, is the proposal which has the furthest reaching consequences. It immediately places in doubt the autonomy of universities and their ability to remain free of political control.

Now there are many aspects of the universities which are debatable and where there is some difference of opinion, but I think it is generally recognized that it would be most undesirable to have universities subject to the whim of any of us as politicians, whether we're in power or out of power. I'm glad that the Premier agrees and it may well be that the Premier's statement that he would indeed provide more money for the universities...

HON. D. BARRETT (Premier): That's right.

MR. WALLACE: ...will not be so apparently dependent only on his judgment as to what is a good innovative programme.

Mr. Chairman, I think it's rather important — it puts another aspect of the record straight — that in one of the debates, I think in the budget debate, the Premier made a great appeal that universities be open all the year round.

There could be a — I think he called it a quarterly system. He quoted what he stated were Ford Foundation research figures. I understand that at the time the Premier said: "If there were a 25 per cent increase in students, there would only be about a 10 per cent increase in faculty, and this would be a more economic use of facilities and personnel." I may not have the figure exact.

This piece of research was first quoted, I understand, in the 1962 edition of the Saturday Review with respect to Antioch College, which I understand is a small liberal arts private college with less than 2,000 students. Just to put the whole matter in context, Mr. Chairman, this is a college where the emphasis is on teaching rather than research.

Another interesting item about that particular college is that the students — half of them — are compelled to attend during the summer term. They have no choice. In order to make the system work they are compelled to attend.

HON. MR. BARRETT: It's one of the best universities in North America.

MR. WALLACE: It certainly is a well-recognized university. I'm not for a moment suggesting it isn't, Mr. Premier. I made some enquiry, and it is indeed; it has a high reputation. But I'm saying it is a small liberal arts college with a relatively small enrolment and there is compulsion involved. Some of the students have to go in the summer months whether they like to go or not, and I'm just trying to make the point that in....

HON. MR. BARRETT: They don't have to go there if they don't want to.

MR. WALLACE: No, that's true, but if they choose to go to that university, they have not the free choice as to what parts of the year they go, and in this province, as the Premier well knows, many of our students have to work in the summer months to raise the money to pay for their university education in the other months.

This matter is not just simply one of saying,"Well, let's use the facilities all the year round," because, as I say, many of the students in this province and in Canada very much need the summer months to earn money in order to attend the university under the present system. It isn't really quite that simple just to say that we'll save money and make better use of personnel if we adopt the kind of system that was outlined for Antioch College.

On the subject of universities, Mr. Chairman, we understand that the Minister is preparing a new universities Act, or at least there will be amendments to the existing one, I understand. We've already had the paper on university governments which is preliminary findings from a study of the situation. I've talked to various people in the university field who feel that this should certainly go before the standing committee of the House on education before finally being put into legislative form.

So I would like to ask the Minister today: how close are we to finalizing the recommendations for amending the Universities Act, and will she, in fact, put the recommendations before the standing committee of the House on education to get the widest possible involvement of the public and the students and teachers in responding to these proposals?

We all pay lip service — I hope it's more than lip service — but we all talk in this House about having open government and giving the individual citizen access to the people who write the legislation. It would seem to me that in an area as expensive and as important as university education, when we're about to amend the Act, possibly in very significant ways, that before it is put into legislative form, the standing committee of this Legislature on education should have an opportunity to hold hearings and study the recommendations.

For example, this preliminary report of the Committee on University Government seems quite convinced on the need for a university council which would coordinate university planning and prevent overlapping and duplication of service, and provide overall better economy in the financing of universities. I know that this exists in certain other provinces. It certainly exists in the United Kingdom.

I feel that these are such basic and important changes that they should really get the widest

[ Page 1519 ]

possible exposure publicly before the final decisions are made and put into legislative form.

The whole problem of the present financing has not yet been answered, Mr. Chairman, and I wonder, before we terminate the debate on the Minister's salary, whether she or the Premier would care to make a statement about the outcome of his meeting with the three presidents. Is there to be any more money made available, as I tried to point out with regard to this letter from the faculty president at UVic?

The outcome may well be that the university has to increase the tuition fees paid by the student in order to close the gap between their operating expenses and the government grants. This is a pretty serious situation to be facing. I don't think that it is really the wish of this government that the student should have to consider paying higher tuition fees at a time of inflation, where their basic costs just to live and be clothed and meet their essential needs, is going up all the time. It isn't in any way easier to obtain employment during the summer months for all the students. Now I'd like quickly to touch on another matter which has taken a lot of my time.

I wonder if we could finally, please, Mr. Chairman, get an answer from either the Minister of Education or the Premier, or both. I'm referring to a question of individual right; I'm referring to the case of Mr. G.C. Johnston who was dismissed for cause by the school board of North Vancouver in 1969. I think it was — I'm not certain of the month — but I think it was January or June...June of 1969. I've got a whole file of correspondence and material here, but I won't go through the whole thing.

Very briefly, this teacher was dismissed apparently for cause because of three unsatisfactory reports from principals of the schools where he had worked.

As I say, Mr. Chairman, it is a long file; I will try to make it very brief. The fact of the matter is: the board of reference came to the conclusion that he had been dismissed for cause, although, in fact, subsequent events showed that two of the three so-called unsatisfactory reports were anything but. And certainly didn't provide the strength of criticism to justify a man losing his job, and, again, rather like Mr. Bremer, having his professional integrity questioned.

At any rate, from that date in 1969 to this date in 1974 this man has been attempting to obtain justice in this province. He has not received reasonable justice, to which any person in this province is entitled when in fact his livelihood and his reputation is being seriously damaged.

The board of reference stated that it was not responsible for its decisions once it had made a decision, and according to the legislation at that time his only recourse was to the Council of Public Instruction. This man has spent three or four years trying to find out if the Council of Public Instruction ever actually met to confirm the decision of the board of reference. And if it met, was there a quorum and did in fact the government of the day...? At this time we are talking about the former administration. Let's be plain that the person dealing with it at that time was not the present Minister.

But at that time this man who had lost his job and who had been maligned as being an inadequate teacher and who was trying to clear his name, or at least obtain a fair hearing, could not ascertain if, in fact, the Council of Public Instruction had duly met its responsibility under the Public Schools Act and held a meeting. Or had they in some inadequate and illegal way simply confirmed the decision of the board of reference?

For the following two or three years this Mr. Johnston has been dealing with government trying to find out whether or not he was granted his reasonable rights as a professional teacher under the Public Schools Act.

The evidence suggested that the Council of Public Instruction did not, in fact, exert its legal role and that the decision had been made by cabinet. Again, Mr. Johnston doesn't know that for sure. But when the new government came to power — and this is where I'm on much firmer ground with presenting the case, Mr. Chairman — Mr. Johnston wrote to Premier Barrett and asked him to pursue this matter further, because this man naturally, like Mr. Bremer, can't find another job all that easily when he's already been dismissed from the job he was in.

Here again I have to stress that when professional people get heaved out of a job, and seem to have no recourse to clearing their name, they can have tremendous difficulty obtaining further employment.

From this time this government came to power, Mr. Chairman, the matter, which is documented, has been shuffled back and forth between the Minister of Education and the Premier, then back to the Minister of Education.

I believe the Minister of Education felt because the decision had been made by the executive council that it really should not be decided by her. Had the decision been made by the Council of Public Instruction, the present Minister would have been willing to consider it.

To cut a very long story short, on this man's appeal for fair play and a just hearing, the buck has been passed back and forth between the Minister of Education and the Premier. Finally this man decided to leave Canada and go back to New Zealand where he, I believe, took some of his original education and training.

I just feel that here is a situation where all the provisions of the Public Schools Act to try and protect a teacher who might be unjustly dismissed have not been put into play. It's now almost six years

[ Page 1520 ]

since this teacher was dismissed. There is a sheaf of correspondence between the individual teacher and the government — the former government and this government.

I wonder if the Minister of Education can tell us whether Mr. Johnston can expect to have his case finalized in a way that will assure that he's received justice in what we consider to be a just society where the individual has his day in court, and if, in fact, he is penalized or in any way has his reputation coloured that he has every right to have access to all the means of appeal. And real access, not something where the Council of Public Instruction in some shoddy or superficial way simply rubber stamps the decision of a previous body, namely the board of reference.

The other matter I would just like to touch on is the great concern that has been expressed to me by various vocational segments of the population, particularly the practical nurses, on the decision that the Department of Education and the Department of Labour should co-operate in the whole area of apprenticeship training. For example, the Minister has stated that she's interested in work experience, and this also will involve the Department of Labour.

I know that in Alberta students who spend maybe half a day in school and half a day in a work situation are regarded as employees of the Department of Education. They don't receive any pay for their work, but the Department of Labour exempts them from the minimum wage, and the students are also covered by Workmen's Compensation.

I think this certainly makes education much more meaningful for many students if they can combine work in the classroom with work in the very surroundings where they might one day be employed. Of course, this necessitates a longer period of time in the classroom for that kind of student, compared to the normal school year. But apparently in Alberta, Mr. Chairman, they do at least issue a certificate to the student who has completed this kind of training, stating the level of achievement of the student. Then that student may have the opportunity to complete his or her training at the college level.

I wonder to what extent there are problems with the trade union movement in this attempt to provide work experience to these students. Apparently in Alberta it's quite clear that this is no attempt to provide cheap labour or to replace bona fide employees with students getting work experience.

But I think there is apprehension about the proposed degree to which the Department of Education and the Department of Labour are getting together in what many people consider are essentially educational matters and not labour matters. I've had a fair bit of correspondence from some of the people in the vocational fields who might be quite markedly affected by this proposal for the two departments to work together.

Certainly, one of the interpretations placed on this news release, which was December 18, 1973 under the signatures of both Ministers, was that under the plan the Labour Department will identify manpower training needs in the province, and meet those needs by taking time responsibility for the development of pre-apprenticeship and journeyman upgrading.

I think the Minister should perhaps clarify for the concern of many people just exactly what will be the respective responsibilities of her department as compared with the Labour Department.

I can see the sense, Mr. Chairman, in trying to define the need that exists for certain types of people in certain types of jobs — certain skills — and perhaps this can certainly be more efficiently done through the Manpower Division of the Department of Labour. But is it not clearly the responsibility of the Department of Education to define the content, to supervise the skill of the teachers, the curriculum, the courses?

It seems to me that when education and labour get together in this particular field, the number who might be admitted and the degree to which education — the educational needs of the situation — is taken over by the labour situation and the tendency of the Department of Labour perhaps to respond unduly to the demands of unions who may want to control the market, or control the number of people being trained and so on, there's a real danger of there being a conflict of interests.

When the Department of Labour becomes this intimately involved in educational matters, there is concern being expressed by many of the students and the present teachers in these vocational fields. I think this is another area that the Minister should explain to the House.

HON. MRS. DAILLY: First of all, I'd like to deal with some of the questions from the Member for West Vancouver–Howe Sound (Mr. L.A. Williams). He was asking, Mr. Chairman, since the role of the commissioner is no longer with us, how the department was fulfilling its obligations to work with the community and evaluate and make recommendations and assist the public in the development of programmes, et cetera.

One definite example of that is that we had a very successful meeting with the Deputy Minister of Education, Mr. Fleming; and Miss Reid from our department went to Powell River recently and had excellent meetings with the school board and citizens' groups there who had shown an interest in moving into some innovative co-operative programmes with the citizens and the school board and the teachers. They had an excellent couple of days there, at least one of them did.

All reports I have were excellent, that they were very pleased to have people from the department

[ Page 1521 ]

come out and actively participate with them. That's just one example. As you realize, we've just started to do this.

Another example of the other Members of the department.... By the way, it's interesting between you and your seatmate, Mr. Member: one suggests that we have too many people in the department hierarchy, so-called, and you are questioning whether perhaps we have enough to do this work. Our personnel at the moment has not changed at all. We have just the same number, as you can see by the report, as we had last year. We certainly will have to increase our staff so that we can relieve some of our own officials if they are to move out. The work still has to continue here.

In the meantime, I want to take this opportunity to thank all the department officials who have really been carrying very heavy loads, by accepting speaking engagements all over the Province of British Columbia and by meeting with groups and delegations as well as carrying on the regular departmental work. I want to thank them here and now because they're working exceptionally hard, and, in all fairness to them, they must get more help.

In the research and development section of the vote, we have sums of money there which were used for commission task force expenditures before; and out of these moneys we will also, hopefully when there are special research projects which can be given the leadership through the department, be able to use some of the funds there to bring in people to assist on maybe a temporary basis on special projects. Also, on these projects, the money can be used to help innovative programmes out there in the field.

You were concerned about the failure rates. Before I get on to that, I do want to say though, Mr. Member, that I felt part of your statements were certainly positive, but I was concerned when you seemed to suggest that because we just had one small report from me as Minister, you seemed to suggest the last 18 months there in the educational scene have been very dark months. I would consider that an insult to the teachers of this province, and it also shows that you really haven't moved around the schools of British Columbia if you think the whole scene out there is dark and that nothing's happening.

Just because I said we should examine the system and always ask ourselves, "Are all the students of this province getting their best educational needs served?" — at no time have I suggested the teachers of this province are not meeting many of those needs. I think that your implication — because I as Minister haven't brought in heavy legislation, or haven't brought in a paper earlier, or it wasn't produced earlier — means that everything out there is a disaster.

I must say again that if you just go and visit the schools of this province, you'll see that so many exciting things are going on there. Here again I want to congratulate the teachers and administrators who have been part of this and will continue to be part of this.

What we're really trying to say is that despite their best efforts, there are students out there who do need a better structure. Perhaps we have to look at whether the structure is really meeting their needs, because there are many students, as I say in the Paper, who are not surviving the school system and these are the ones we are concerned about.

So I just can't accept the fact that there have been 18 dark months. I don't think the teachers of British Columbia would accept that either.

Another point you made about alternate....

Interjection.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please! Would the Hon. Minister address the chair, please?

HON. MRS. DAILLY: You asked what we are doing about failure rates. I think that some of the alternative programmes which are springing up within the system are attempting to cope with this. We have a long way to go, not only in B.C. — this is true right across the North American continent — to find out why there are failures. But I'm not sure what you mean by failures: whether you mean the child who's a failure in meeting his social obligations to society, or whether you are talking about basic academic failure — probably both.

Human Resources has been an excellent help to the Department of Education in coordinating programmes with us to assist the drop-outs. My concern is that these programmes should be brought within the school system and not outside of it. This is what we are attempting to do.

The matter of the university task force: I think you asked about it and also the Member for Oak Bay (Mr. Wallace). The task force recommendations are fairly close to completion. I do think that there was an opportunity for many people to become involved in the recommendations. We are hopeful of course at the next session.... we are not only hopeful, we expect to have the legislation for the next session on the university task force.

Interjection.

HON. MRS. DAILLY: Not that particular one.

The Member for Oak Bay is very concerned about the political control because of the fact that the Minister of Education under this government and the Premier have actually seen fit to question what is going on in the universities. I don't consider that political interference.

As a matter of fact, we've had some excellent meetings with the university presidents. We've met

[ Page 1522 ]

with some of the faculty, the Confederation of Faculty Associations, and one thing that has come through is that under the former administration, the procedure that was followed — and some people have been saying, "Why not go back to the old days?" — was simply, as we all know, that one man made the decisions on the matter of the grants and simply said,"That's how much you get this year." There was no consultation or talk or discussion with the people involved.

Now what we're attempting to do is have meetings, and the Premier has met with the university presidents. The Premier and I met with them just recently. What we're simply saying to them is, surely we should all be able to talk about the goals of the universities; and are they meeting the needs of the community today?

We are not making an attempt to say to them: "You must put certain programmes on." We have a great respect for the autonomy of the universities but we also feel that as we are providing — you, the taxpayer, all of us — the majority of the funds for the universities, we certainly should have a right to question what is going on in the universities.

We have found, by and large, that the discussions we have had have been very positive. I did mention yesterday, and I'll repeat it again, that the Minister of Finance and I have agreed to consider the request from the three universities on their need for extra operating funds. It helps us and I think it helps them to be able to sit down and talk about those needs.

The decision we have promised them will have to be made very soon. As a matter of fact, I'll be getting the letter out to them shortly because I'm aware, Mr. Member, that they have to know what they're going to be able to do with their staff demands and their other needs.

So we feel that we can build up a good climate. I don't think that the present setup is good, frankly, and that is why we have this university task force to recommend changes. One of the areas that has been recommended, as you know, is the setting up of a university council, which I haven't heard anyone say that they did not agree with. It certainly is an area that probably will certainly be well considered for the legislation.

Through that university council, if it should come about, you would be able to have an opportunity to have some rational long-range planning done by people who are closely involved and would be working at it almost on a full-time basis. Therefore, government is prepared much better to understand the needs of the universities because, after all, we do need an input from a group that is working with it every day collectively between the three universities.

MR. L.A. WILLIAMS: How about the colleges?

HON. MRS. DAILLY: I forget now what your concern was about the colleges. I'll just listen to it again.

MR. L.A. WILLIAMS: Mr. Chairman, I asked the Minister what she proposed to do with the task force report "Toward The Learning Community" and how she saw the role of community colleges in the post-secondary educational system. Was it going to be supportive of the universities? Was it going to run along separately but parallel? When might we know what the department's policy would be?

HON. MRS. DAILLY: Well, as you know, the task force have just produced their first working paper. Now they're going to move around the community to get a feedback from it. I think it would be premature for me to comment on that at this time. We will have to wait and see what the results are after they move around the province and what reaction they get from it. Then, hopefully, legislation must follow fairly quickly in certain areas of college legislation needs.

The matter of Mr. Johnston. Since I came into office, we've received quite a number of requests from people who felt they had not been given proper due course of justice, et cetera, under the former government. I'm not blaming the government for that particularly because in many cases they did go through the due processes. It's only natural when a new government comes in for people to say, "How about giving us another chance?" So what we've had to do is take the cases and investigate them. We've had a number of them.

In Mr. Johnston's case we found he did have full process under the Public Schools Act at that time; the former government did give him his due process through the Act. Subsequently, we understand, he sued the Government of B.C. and the case failed for lack of prosecution. He certainly didn't go through with it.

At the moment we've put all the relevant data into the Attorney-General's department. I'll certainly make sure we get an up-to-date on it for the sake of Mr. Johnson and inform him.

MR. WALLACE: How about the Labour and Education?

HON. MRS. DAILLY: Labour and Education. There has been quite a bit of misinterpretation about this document signed by the Minister of Labour (Hon. Mr. King) and myself. Basically, the idea of the programme — and I think you agreed with the purpose of it — is to greatly improve the coordination and the delivery of manpower training programmes throughout British Columbia. The concern seems to be that Labour will be making inroads into education. I can assure you this cannot and will not happen.

[ Page 1523 ]

The university vocational branch under the Department of Labour and the Department of Education will simply work together from this point: Manpower under the Department of Labour says, "Look, we see the great need for so many welders at this particular time." Then they come to Education and say, "You mount the course in one of your colleges."

But before we mount the course, we have followed the same system as has been going on before we came into power. Industry, Labour and Education did have coordinating committees to sit down and help develop the programme which seems to make sense. Particularly if it's an industrial programme, we have the industrial people, the unions and the other two departments involved in drawing up the curriculum.

Once the curriculum is drawn up, Education takes over completely. It mounts the course; it decides where it's going to be put on; it runs the course. There is no inspection from Labour; it becomes entirely Education's job, which it should be. So I cannot see this as being a takeover by Labour. I think the co-operation we're trying to bring about will produce better programmes and more programmes for the young people in the vocational area.

MR. D.M. PHILLIPS (South Peace River): I'd just like to say a few words in this debate. The very fact that it's taking place on this Friday afternoon certainly throws another one of the myths out of the window that the Premier is trying to build up in the province. He says he has brought democracy into the Legislature.

It must be very difficult on some of the cabinet Ministers. I notice the Minister of Agriculture (Hon. Mr. Stupich) was dozing a short time ago after sitting three nights this week and then this afternoon. It must be very difficult on him; I know he has a large amount of work to do.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order!

MR. PHILLIPS: However, let's get back to education, Mr. Chairman.

I get the feeling that our new Minister of Education felt before being appointed to her present position that great sums of money were going to solve the problems which existed in the educational field in British Columbia.

Since she has been in the department she has found that great sums of money, regardless of how large the amount, is not going to solve the problems in education in British Columbia, or indeed in Canada or North America. There are similar problems that are prevalent not only in this jurisdiction but throughout the entire continent. I think she realized now the tremendous job she has in front of her.

I have to think that she has gone absolutely nowhere since taking office. She sort of reminds me of one of these toy cars you wind up and put on the floor. Every time it hits an obstacle it backs off and goes in another direction. That's the way the Minister has been going since she took office over 18 months ago. She would head off in a direction, but as soon as she ran into an obstacle she would back off and go in some other direction. She didn't really know where she was going, just like the car. As soon as she ran into something, then she would back off and go in another direction.

This is certainly evident by the number of task forces she has had. But I would like to discuss for just a moment, Mr. Chairman, a letter. It's not a letter; I guess it would be called an editorial by an interested citizen. As a matter of fact, I think my wife drew it to my attention some months ago.

It's called the "Voice of the People" and it's a teacher-training question. In this article there are some very interesting facts which I feel very strongly about myself. That's why I'm raising them this afternoon. It really has to do with what goes on inside the classroom, not the size of the classroom or the amount of teachers or the amount of money the teacher is being paid or the size of the classroom or the equipment in it.

This article tends to point out some of the various aspects between traditional and progressive education. It's written by a lady whom I feel is well-qualified to discuss such a subject. I would like to relay to the Minister some of the thoughts in this article because I think they are very relevant to the search that must be going on in the Minister's mind today.

This article is written by Frieda Price. Mrs. Price is the wife of a UBC professor and mother of seven children. She has had experience with educational systems in Canada, the USA and Europe. Maybe the Minister has read it; there are some very pertinent suggestions in this article.

"Some of us wonder where our Education Minister is seeking advice and whether she may, with the best of intentions, be moving us from bad to worse. Advocates of progressive methods have gained her ear and those of us who have enjoyed good, traditional education and want the same for our children have no alternative but to pay for private schools which are often not as good as the public schools we attended."

I would have to agree with this lady. I have one of my sons in a private school. I took him up to this private school and he said,"This is a fairly old building."

I said, "Well, you're leaving a million dollar-plus structure, one of the most modern educational institutions in all of western Canada, with high-paid teachers and all the modern equipment. You couldn't make it there."

[ Page 1524 ]

You have to ask yourself the question why. After three months in this private school this kid is completely changed, just absolutely, completely changed. You wouldn't know him as the same individual. There's a gymnasium there, but it's not near as nice as the gymnasium at the one in the school he left. The facilities are not nearly as modern. But what is the difference?

I feel it's the difference in the attitude in the teachers in that institution — completely different. There is some discipline in this school, Mr. Chairman. I think that's where it's at — I really do. Facilities do not make education. It's discipline and the willingness on behalf of the teachers.

You can go on and say that only rich kids go to these private schools. I wouldn't say that at all. What we are doing is not making facilities of this nature available to all of those who maybe need a little special attention.

I think, Mr. Chairman, through you to the Minister, that some of the promises that were made by her party to give financial support to these private schools certainly bear another looking at.

I don't think we can do away with our public school system, but if you recognize that there are pupils within the system who need special attention, I don't think you can get it all into one schoolhouse. In that schoolhouse you have one administration. They're within the system. I don't know what the actual cost would be if we ever got to the point where these children...many of them are probably teen-age boys who the school system just doesn't turn on. I know many of them in my own riding who have left school. They've gone out to work in the summer on these make-work programmes — either LIP or the Department of Highways. They make big money in the summertime and they go on unemployment in the wintertime. This to me is one of the worst things that could happen to these young people because they are on their way to ruining their lives.

As I say there are a large number of teen-age boys, and maybe girls too. I'm not as familiar with the girl problem, but I do know that there are a large number of teen-age boys who are being turned off by this permissiveness in our school system today. They go from the elementary school system into the junior high. There they are allowed to study when they want to, do what they want to and they're not used to it. Maybe teen-age boys just haven't grown or matured as much as teen-age girls have.

I'm on my fourth son going through this particular system, and it's turned all of them off. I think it's the permissiveness. Maybe as a parent I was too strict in the home; I should have been more permissive. But I think you're always going to run into these situations. This is what this lady is talking about when she's talking about the old traditional system, which I guess I was educated in, versus the progressive system.

I would like to quote just a few more lines from this article:

"It would be wise to find what was right in the former system and build on it, rather than destroy the system because of some weaknesses. A major weakness over the last 25 years has been in teacher training. Nowhere outside North America is so large a part of that training devoted to method and so little to knowledge of subject. When the teaching is good, children are seldom bored, but the teacher must know and love his subject in order to communicate enthusiasm to the class.

"In the secondary school years the young mind soaks up knowledge like a sponge and the imaginative response to mental stimulation is wonderful to see. It is not only that knowledge is stored, but the mind learns to care and creative talents developed."

The crux of this sentence is that the old system really couldn't have been all that bad. Why did we switch completely to the progressive type of college situation in our high schools?

I don't feel it's working, Mr. Chairman. I'd like to ask the Minister of Education if she feels it's working. Has it really been a success? Is it really accomplishing what it was intended to accomplish? Are additional amounts of money poured into our educational system really going to benefit or right the wrongs that are there?

When we're talking about the old traditional system where there was more discipline in the schools, I have another article here that was just recently published, as a matter of fact on March 21 in the Express. Similar thoughts to those of Mrs. Price are expressed by Dr. Maurice Shumiatcher, the renowned Canadian lawyer and author. As he says, he doesn't mind admitting that he's reactionary with Dr. Bremer, a reactionary. Was he getting close to solving or coming up with the solution to the problem that we have in education? As I said in the outset, Mr. Chairman, this problem doesn't exist just in the Province of British Columbia, I think it exists right across Canada. Maybe Dr. Bremer was on the right track; maybe we fired him just before the fact.

I would like to read from this article: "Watered Education Negates Excellence." In this article Dr. Shumiatcher says:

"The permissive area all started with Dr. Benjamin Spock and his bible of permissiveness, the widely used book, 'Baby and Child Care.' Spock persuaded parents that they didn't know anything about raising children and that they would have to leave it to the experts.

"The result has been that common sense has completely gone out the window and parents believe they must give the child what he wants

[ Page 1525 ]

when he wants it. Babies who 20 years ago bawled for their bottle of formula now bawl for a bottle of booze, a joint of grass, or a shot of heroin — instant satisfaction."

Maybe he's being a little harsh when he's saying that. I know the Minister won't agree with me, but I think you'll have to agree with me, Mr. Chairman, that discipline has gone from the school system. Our Minister of Education has heard me talk on this before and she knows my feelings on it. I'm not a specialist, certainly, in education. But here are two people, and there are many more parents around the province, who feel the same as I do. So as Mrs. Price says, why do we have to sort of scrap all things and go on to a completely new deal? There must have been some good in the education system before.

I want to go back for just a few moments to a couple of statements that our Minister of Education made just shortly after becoming the Minister of Education to see how she has carried through on some of the statements she has made. This article, dated September 22, is intituled: "Meet the New Educational Minister — A New Look for B.C. School System." It's written by Dan Mullin, the educational critic for The Province.

"A public school system whose graduates are self-confident and able to think for themselves is the ideal of Eileen Dailly, B.C.'s new Minister of Education. 'The province's school system places undue emphasis on getting good grades and prescribed courses of study,' Mrs. Dailly said in an interview today. She said she also believes too much stress is put on teaching subject matter at a time when rapid change renders much of what students learn obsolete by the time they are ready to enter the world of work. 'I'm not so concerned with what you learn but more with how you learn and how you are taught,' she says. 'That's not an original idea but it has impressed me.' "

There we go back to the situation, Mr. Chairman, where we are more concerned with the methods of teaching than we are with the actual subject matter. That's interesting because Mrs. Price has something to say on that, too. She feels that too much emphasis is being put on the methods and not enough on the actual subject matter of what is being taught.

However, with this statement the Minister went on and came into the fall session of the Legislature of October, 1972, and proceeded to change the legislation which was on the books.

This would release, in her estimation, more money for education. I think she actually believed that it was going to solve a lot of the problems of education, and that everything would be rosy. I think she honestly believed that piece of legislation which she revoked was going to solve the problems, was going to set everything back on an even keel and that her job would be practically finished.

I think now, Mr. Chairman, that the Minister of Education realizes this has not been the case; it has not been the case at all. Shortly after she realized she was going to have to do a complete and thorough study into what was going on in the classrooms, that is why the Minister of Education appointed Mr. Bremer — to do just that sort of a study.

I was interested to listen to the Minister last night state that Mr. Bremer had not brought in his report after being out in the field approximately nine months. However, when this man was appointed to this position, the terms of reference were very general and very broad, and there was no time limit whatsoever set as to when he should bring in his report. So, I don't think the man can be condemned for that.

As a matter of fact, I have in front of me a working paper on university governance in British Columbia which was prepared by the committee on university governance with John Bremer as the chairman. Yet, Mr. Chairman, the Minister of Education says that Mr. Bremer hadn't presented her with any reports. Certainly, this White Paper has more content in it than the White Paper submitted by the Minister of Education just a couple of days ago, and she had 18 months to prepare that.

Some of the speakers in this debate thus far, I think, have hit the nail on the head, Mr. Chairman, when they said that Mr. Bremer was reaching some conclusions as to improvements that could be made in education. And I think the reason Mr. Bremer was fired was because the Minister of Education didn't agree with some of the recommendations that he was bringing in.

I'd just like to read into the record a press release dated May 1, 1973, where the Minister of Education is discussing Mr. Bremer. I quote from the Department of Education release, No. 3373:

"The Minister of Education, the Hon. Eileen Dailly, today announced further progress on the organization of the commissions being set up under the leadership of John Bremer, the commissioner of education, to develop education in the province."

This is several months after he had been appointed.

"In clarifying the role of the commissioner, Mrs. Dailly said that he will advise the Minister in the formulation and evaluation of educational programmes and structures on the elementary, secondary and post-secondary levels.

"This will require the establishment of a communications network for the participation of people across the whole province, and through this network further public interest in and support for educational programmes and their solutions will be encouraged. In addition,

[ Page 1526 ]

the commissioner will direct the activities and studies of the commissions.

"In a joint statement, the Minister of Education and the commissioner detailed the first phase of the commission's work by announcing the creation of two advisory boards, each having about 20 members. These advisory boards will meet monthly under the chairmanship of the commission to consider educational problems and their priority, to discuss as fully as possible the educational needs of the province and the ways in which the commission's resources should be used.

"The first of these two boards, the general advisory board, will be made up of people speaking on behalf of the general public interests. It's members will come from all walks of life, all geographical areas, and bring with them a commitment and originality in thinking about education. The membership of this general advisory board is not yet complete and both the Minister and the commissioner urge people interested in volunteering their services to write John Bremer in the Department of Education, Victoria."

Then she goes on to list the members of the general advisory board.

What I'd like to know, Mr. Chairman, is: when Mr. Bremer retired — and I realize that the tenure of these commissioners on the board was terminated as of December 31 — but what happened? There must have been a lot of study and a lot of input. Certainly, there must have been a great deal of notes made from the hearings that these commissioners and Mr. Bremer had around the province. What happened to these?

HON. MRS. DAILLY: I never had any.

MR. PHILLIPS: You didn't have any. Mr. Chairman, to the Minister of Education, have you consulted with the people on this advisory board? They must have kept some notes; they must have come to some recommendation. After all, you were responsible along with Mr. Bremer for appointing these people to these boards. As I said, I realize the board was disbanded as of December 31, but surely to goodness if they spent some eight months travelling around the province listening to submissions, there must have been some concrete proposals. You must have been able to get some idea of what the general population and those interested in education in the Province of British Columbia were thinking.

Then there was the second board, the special advisory board, to be made up of people representing and speaking on behalf of institutions, organizations and fairly well-defined special interest groups such as Parent-Teacher Associations, students, the School Trustees' Association, the Teachers' Federation and the universities.

Then it goes on to list the number of people who are on this special advisory board.

There again, Mr. Chairman, I ask through you, to the Minister: with these people working for eight months, surely there must have been some deliberations, there must have been some principle rise to the surface, some advised action as to how to improve our educational system in British Columbia.

I would be very interested in hearing the Minister comment on what happened to these people. Did they just go back to their allotted positions before they were on the commission? They faded into nothing again.

They must have a tremendous amount to contribute because I'm sure, as I say, in sitting and listening and working on this commission, they must have something to contribute. Are they working with the new task force that you have established in your department, made up of members of the department?

I'd like, just for a moment, Mr. Chairman, to talk about finances in our Education department. The reason I say this is because I've stated before this afternoon that I felt the Minister of Education thought that if she had sufficient money, she was going to be able to solve the educational problems in British Columbia. I think she finally realized that she didn't have; that this wasn't the case.

She did a great deal of changing in the school financing. Here again, I'd like to quote from another release from her department on November 24, 1972. This would be after the legislation was changed. I'd like to quote from her in this article.

She announced that the specific restrictions prohibiting construction other than classrooms were being relaxed.

She stated that she had directed the establishment of a system of priorities governing approvals and that obviously basic accommodation for pupils would be at the head of the priority list.

"The personnel and services of the school planning branch will be increased to give greater assistance to boards, and the school building-manual would be completely revised.

" 'As we have already stated, we are planning changes in the entire system of operating and capital financing in education,' Mrs. Dailly said. 'However, there appears to be no reason to delay these changes until the financial system can be overhauled. I must stress, however, that today's announcement does not mean that the door is open to increases in capital expenditures. I hope that more systematic planning will make it possible to take advantage of every available economy in construction design methods. Only by doing so will we be able to achieve our goal of providing

[ Page 1527 ]

as far as possible a satisfactory learning environment throughout the schools of British Columbia. combined with an appreciation of responsibility to the taxpayers.' "

In that same article she tells the school boards that requests will be surveyed in two sessions each year, half the boards during the early part of the year and the other half, the latter part of the year.

" 'No approvals to secure referendum approval or to proceed with any projects will be issued until each survey is complete. By this approach,' said Mrs. Dailly, 'we will know each year the total sum that the school board financing authority will be required to raise to finance school capital expenditures.' "

Now, is this being carried on? Are you meeting with half the school boards in each half of the year? Are you discussing with them not only capital expenditures but their regular expenditures? Evidently not on their regular expenditures or we wouldn't be in the situation that we're in this year.

Is that the reason you gave for being in such a hurry to pass and take off the restriction on finance spending in October of '73?

I believe you gave that reason to the Hon. Member for West Vancouver–Howe Sound (Mr. L.A. Williams). In answer to a question to you, you stated that it was necessary to have this restriction removed so that the school boards could plan, because their budgets were coming up. And yet this year we find a complete negation of that idea because the school boards went out and did their financing, did their planning, and brought in their budgets, and you said they were $82 million too high. So this year you sort of negated the fact that you were going to allow the school boards to do planning and indeed to do five-year planning.

Shortly after becoming Minister, the Minister was presented with a White Paper by the B.C. Teachers' Federation. This is dated August, 1973. The teachers all are evidently happy now and are making submissions to the Minister of Education and, Mr. Chairman, the reason I bring this up is because in looking through this White Paper, which is entitled "Problems in Education Warranting Government Action," I was interested to leaf through this brochure and I took it at face value, "Problems in Education Warranting Government Action." But as I look through the contents of this brochure, Mr. Chairman, I find that I feel the teachers really thought that the biggest problem in the educational field was money, because what are they outlining as problems in education warranting government action, Mr. Chairman?

They have as number 1 for future consideration "curriculum". So this is a problem in education. But let's look at the rest of them. No. 2(a): The appointment of teachers; reports on teachers; interviews with school boards, committees; probation; review commissions; boards of reference; salary calculations; vacations. The majority of these items are dealing with the actual teachers' lot in dealing with the educational system.

Not really that much concern with the education of a child, but concern with the teacher himself. And I've nothing against this. This today seems to be the role — that everybody certainly wants to get all they can out of the system. This is sort of what is being bred into society today.

But if the teachers were really responsible wouldn't you think that their top priority would have been something to do with the problems which exist in our educational system instead of problems which they themselves seem to have? And for immediate action they are talking about membership — which would be membership in the BCTF — leave of absence for BCTF service, sick leave provisions and the scope for bargaining.

So all of these items...as I look through this file, Mr. Chairman, through you to the Minister, I get the feeling that again I say that money is not going to solve our problems in education. And I don't think that really paying the teachers in our province the money that they should ask for, regardless of what that might be, regardless of how much you name, regardless of what facilities you provide for them.... That is not going to solve the problem. That is not the number 1 problem.

I think we've got to take a look at what is going on in the classrooms, as I referred to originally in my talk. If this permissiveness, if this new progressive education is not turning out the type of students we want, if it is not doing a good job, if the students aren't taking advantage of it because it doesn't turn them on, there's where the change must come.

And maybe we should be looking at better education of the educator himself. Training the trainers we used to refer to it as. Because certainly it doesn't matter how high a teacher is paid, or what facility he has, if he doesn't have the sincere effort or if he doesn't have the sincere intent, desire to educate, or if he doesn't himself have the knowledge of how to cope with these problems, what to do. Then all the money in the world is not going to solve our educational problems.

As I said at the outset, Mr. Chairman, through you to the Minister, I think we should take a real, serious look at what is going on here in the private schools. If you don't want to support them financially, which I feel you should, I think you would be wise to go into some of the private schools that exist in this province and find out what methods they are using because I would say that certainly in the grades 8, 9, 10 and 11, and 12, most of the children who go to these schools have been a problem in the public school system, and the majority of the students that come out of these private schools have their problems

[ Page 1528 ]

solved. I think if you were to go in and find out the methods used, and maybe some of the teachers in the Department of Education system would not agree with what they find in these private schools. If they are getting the results, then they should speak for themselves. And certainly if you go into private schools you will find corporal punishment. You'll find discipline, Mr. Chairman. But I think the results speak for themselves regardless of what the Minister of Education feels.

This is what we have to go on, because it is the taxpayers' money that we are using.

Mr. Chairman, I would like to speak for just a few moments on a report that the Minister had done. It was supposed to bring in recommendations toward a system of adult education for northwestern Alberta and northeastern British Columbia. This survey was done by L.W. Downey Research Associates Limited of Edmonton, and was commissioned by the Alberta Department of Advanced Education and the British Columbia Department of Education. I felt that when this study was commissioned sometime last year that out of it would come some good, solid recommendations to assist in establishing better post-secondary education facilities in the Peace River area both in British Columbia and Alberta.

I must say, Mr. Chairman, that I was very disappointed with the report. I felt the report — I'm not condemning the people who made it up — but the report looked at the existing institutions, what their problems were. For instance, in Fairview the facilities are not being used. They have problems of expansion in Grande Prairie Regional College. They looked at the existing institutions and said, "This is what we must do to see that these institutions carry on," and instead of looking at what is needed in the area and saying,"Well, this is what we must do for the children of the area."

Because somebody put an agricultural school in Fairview and it is not being used by the students up there, I don't think we should take away the agricultural course out of the Dawson Creek Vocational School and put it over there at a time when they are thinking of spending millions of dollars to foster and improve agriculture in the Province of British Columbia. I don't think this is a problem at all.

Mr. Chairman, I'll tell the Minister, through you, that first of all I think in post-secondary educational facilities they must be geared to the economy of the province, and this is where I disagree with Mr. MacFarlan, president of the BCTF, where he feels that our educational system is strictly to teach children to go out into society to question and determine if society is doing right by them. I don't agree with that philosophy.

As I've said before, Mr. Chairman, if we are going to gear our post secondary educational facilities to the economy of the area, first of all we must know what the economy of the area is going to be. There's not much sense, for instance, of putting a mining course in advanced mining in the vocational school up north if indeed the mining in that area is going to fold up. And there is not much sense at the present time in teaching harness-making when horses are pretty well on the way out.

I'm trying to point out to you, Mr. Chairman, what I'm talking about. But in the northern part of British Columbia, both in the northwest and indeed the northeast, there are programmes on the books, there are agreements which are being worked out with Ottawa — and I refer to the DREE programme — which, when signed, would have a vast impact on the economy of both of those areas.

Now, if there are new industries going to develop in that area, such as coal mining, or if the forest industry is going to move ahead, or indeed if there is going to be a fantastic influx of tourism in the area, pipeline welders, for instance, are going to be needed. Those are the courses that we should be teaching, particularly in our technical schools and in our post-secondary education.

But it is pretty difficult, Mr. Chairman, to say what is required until you know what the economy of a given area is going to be. And I'm referring, of course, to courses other than the Arts. But I would like the Minister of Education to give me some indication of whether she is going to follow the recommendations of this report, if they are going to be dropped, or what we can expect. Is it going to be needed?

I'd also like to bring up a subject which I discussed a short time ago during the Attorney-General's estimates when I was referring to professional people in the north. Certainly, if the economies of both of those areas are going to grow, we're going to have a greater need for professionals in the north. I'm referring to doctors, lawyers, and dentists in particular.

As I have pointed out in this House before, I feel we should make some provision for students in that area to take aptitude tests and be given the opportunity with financial aid to come into our universities on the lower mainland. These are long courses all, and they're costly courses. The longer the number of years you have to spend attending the

[ Page 1529 ]

university in the lower mainland, the more transportation costs are and the longer boarding facilities have to be provided. I feel some method should be worked out whereby some deserving students in the north who have the IQ and who have the inclination could be taken into the universities each year. If it's necessary and you're going to loan the money, I feel they should be given a donation.

In that regard, to the Minister of Agriculture, the Yukon Territory and the North West Territories have excellent programmes. I'll just read you off a resume of educational assistance grants available to students in the Yukon Territory. They're further away but there is not that much difference in transportation costs. There shouldn't be any difference in living costs once they're here.

In the Yukon Territory:

"Any graduate of Yukon schools, if a Canadian citizen or other British subject, must have a residency requirement of two years. If a non-Canadian, it requires a three-year residency and a guarantee of two years after graduation."

In other words, they must go back into the Yukon Territory for two years after graduation.

"In the first year they receive a $600 grant and a $600 bursary, a total of $1,200. The second, and each year thereafter, they get a grant of $600 and a bursary of $400, or $1,000 a year. After the first year they require a second-class average to receive the bursary. The institutions that qualify are those listed by the federal government and the student loan application regulations."

As I say, the North West Territories have a more generous plan than the above.

We've talked about this in this Legislature. As a matter of fact, in one of the first speeches the Attorney-General made in this Legislature a year ago last spring, he stood up and said, "Yes, we want to provide in our educational system the opportunity for young men to come in who can become doctors and who will go back to the north country, and who will become dentists and lawyers and go back to the north country" This is why, Mr. Chairman, as I was pointing out the other day, before you get this faculty of law going at the University of Victoria let's make some provision now. The Attorney-General — and I think I could find it here in Hansard if I want to look — said,"We're going to do this." Would you deny it, Mr. Attorney-General? He says,"No — we're going to do this." Well, if we're going to do it, then let's get on with the job. Let the Minister stand on the floor of this Legislature this afternoon and announce to all of us here that she intends to do something. Tell us what your intentions are.

HON. A.B. MACDONALD (Attorney General): She already has.

MR. PHILLIPS: Well, I realize I'm a little hard of hearing once in a while, but I must have let that one slip by.

We're discussing dollars and cents. I would like to hear from some of the government backbenchers on this very issue, because I know their constituents are talking to them. It's needed in the Omineca riding, and it's needed in the riding of the Minister of Highways (Hon. Mr. Lea), and it's needed in the riding of the Member for Fort George (Mr. Nunweiler) and the Member for Atlin (Mr. Calder) — all of these northern ridings. The people in those areas developed this province so that the people in the lower mainland can afford these institutions, so that they can live in the lap of luxury.

Interjection.

MR. PHILLIPS: Certainly. If you're going to go ahead with the tremendous expansion of the development of the economy of northern British Columbia, you must make provision to assist the children of those families whom you expect to go into that area; you must make provision for those children to attend the colleges in the lower mainland. I refer to the University of Victoria, Simon Fraser and the University of British Columbia.

So far as the BCIT goes, I feel you should be moving to establish more detailed courses in the north for technical training. As I said, I would appreciate it if the Minister of Education would stand in this Legislature this afternoon and give us some indication of what she intends to do.

Unfortunately, this isn't going to solve the problem. As a matter of fact, I don't think the Minister has really solved any problems that existed in our educational system. As an administrator and as a politician I am very disappointed in the Minister of Education. I need to say that because she's a lovely person. But I don't think she has the ability to cope with the vast amounts of money that are needed in this department, that are being spent by this department, and the numerous problems that come up.

We see signs of the empire-building that goes on. She has removed the formula quality in spending among school boards in British Columbia, a formula which before guaranteed equal opportunity for educational facilities in all areas in the province. This has now been removed and, as has been mentioned here today, the school board with the financial facilities that can hire the sharpest salesman or the best liar to come to Victoria and to argue their case might be the school board that will be able to provide the best education for the pupils in that particular school board.

I don't necessarily refer to money for facilities, but I do refer to money to pay more highly qualified

[ Page 1530 ]

teachers, money to go out into the province and seek out those teachers who have been doing a better job in some particular school with some particular problem. Those school boards will be able to go to the Minister. Is she going to have the ability to say no? Is she going to have the strength to say no? Is she going to have the determination to say no?

If she's sold by these school boards who have much more ready access to her office, and I refer to those particularly around the Vancouver–lower mainland area, than do those in the Member for Omineca's (Mr. Kelly's) riding, the Member for Atlin's (Mr. Calder's) riding, the Member for Prince Rupert's (Hon. Mr. Lea's) riding, then there is going to indeed be further discrimination against education in our schools in the north.

We had a formula which eliminated that so that there would be equality of education, Mr. Chairman. What is going to happen now? It's been referred to as coming to Victoria with a tin cup in your hand, saying that if you have a programme that you can sell us that is good for your particular area, we will give you the money.

This isn't going to help education in all of the province and it isn't going to solve the problems that exist in education in British Columbia. As I've said before, Mr. Chairman, money won't solve the problems; neither will permissiveness in the school system solve the problem.

I posed some questions to the Minister and I would at this time like to have her comments.

MR. SCHROEDER: I was disappointed a few hours back to hear the response by the Minister which clearly gave the House the indication that she has swallowed, hook, line and sinker, the position dictated to her by the New Democratic convention in which she says there isn't a ray of hope for independent schools. It's another indication that she is afraid to take a position by herself. She follows the dictates of that convention to the letter, to the T, even when it comes to establishing policy.

The Premier has given some indication that he might not align himself 100 per cent with the policy that comes out of that convention, but I'm disappointed in this regard: this Minister fails to recognize the fact that in the independent schools system we have a total of 21,777 students. She fails to recognize that those schools could at a moment's notice decide that they could no longer operate, and they could dump — if I could use that expression — 21,777 students the day after tomorrow into the laps of the public schools system, and we would have an obligation to care for them. We wouldn't have any choice. We wouldn't have any choice because these people have paid their taxes, they have placed into the coffers of the.....

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please! I would like to remind the Member that you are repeating an argument that's already been canvassed.

MR. SCHROEDER: No sir, this has never been mentioned before. I hate to take issue with you but you're trying to squelch debate; that's what you're trying to do. I'm sorry.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I want to remind you that the question of independent schools has been canvassed.

MR. SCHROEDER: No, it has not, sir. This is the first time that these figures have been mentioned.

Interjections.

MR. CHAIRMAN: State your point of order.

MR. R.H. McCLELLAND (Langley): Mr. Chairman, I'd like you to give this House a definitive ruling on exactly when any one subject has been canvassed to the satisfaction of the House. I don't think that you know when a point has been canvassed, but I'd like you to try and tell us.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order! The Chair has the responsibility of carrying out the rules as they exist in this House, and it's in rule 43. You have the right to challenge the ruling of the Chair if you like. I recognize the Member for Chilliwack, and bear in mind that you're touching on an area that's been well canvassed.

MR. SCHROEDER: There'll be another area that will be well canvassed, my friend.

There could be 21,777 students dumped at a moment's notice on the public school system and the public school system would have an obligation to care for them and care for them immediately, because the parents of these students have already paid their share via the taxation process into the coffers that are responsible for the financing of the education of these children.

This government fails to recognize that the cost per student in the public school system at the elementary level is $681 per child. If you multiply the number of students by the cost per student, it should, figured properly, give you the total cost that this would mean to the public school system, should the private schools determine at a moment's notice to dump those students upon us — $14,830,137.

Now I think that the independent schools must know that they represent this direct saving to the public purse. They're not asking for full funding. They're just asking that it be recognized that they exist and that they are performing a service to the province. They are even forthright enough to tell us

[ Page 1531 ]

what their cost per student is. Their cost per student is $480 per student, and they would be delighted if we could recognize their existence to the extent that we would give them even a portion of their cost per student.

It seems to me that it only makes good, common, fiscal, financial sense that we should offer them some recognition and some funding, so that they can operate their school system as well.

I have to express a deep disappointment that this Minister has shut out hope completely for these schools for recognition or funding. This school system has expressed no confidence in this Minister because of her failure and her lack of ability to recognize the value to the province of their existence.

They are not the only ones that have expressed this lack of confidence. The B.C. school trustees, as I told you the other day, have expressed a lack of confidence. The B.C. Teachers' Federation has expressed a lack of confidence. The teachers who met on the steps have expressed a lack of confidence. The education authorities and university leaders have expressed lack of confidence. The industrial people have expressed a lack of confidence.

Lo and behold, even the editor of one of the fine dailies out of Vancouver expresses this lack of confidence in this department. The Premier has expressed his lack of confidence in this Minister. Her Deputy, who sits beside her, has expressed lack of leadership. John Bremer has expressed lack of confidence.

The Conservative Party has expressed lack of confidence. The Liberal Party has expressed their lack of confidence, and almost every Member sitting in this party have expressed their lack of confidence.

Mr. Chairman, I have no alternative but to move that the salary of the Hon. Minister of Education, as provided for in vote 39, be reduced by $1.

MRS. P.J. JORDAN (North Okanagan): Mr. Chairman, another lack of expression of confidence that isn't in the preliminary statements of my colleague is the lack of confidence expressed by this House this afternoon in this debate. We've seen no less than 10 Ministers absent from this House all afternoon with two Ministers asleep off and on — the Minister of Municipal Affairs (Hon. Mr. Lorimer) and the Minister of Agriculture (Hon. Mr. Stupich) — and the constant absence of the majority of the backbenchers of this government.

Mr. Chairman, if that doesn't express lack of confidence in this Minister by her own party, the elected representatives who work with her, then I don't know what other evidence we can have.

It is a tragedy, Mr. Chairman, that on this vital subject of education we stand here at 3:40 on a Friday afternoon for long hours — not that we mind working long hours — with no attendance on the part of the Ministers and no attendance on the part of the Members of the government side...

AN HON. MEMBER: Too big a majority.

MRS. JORDAN: ... debating a subject which has more than any other programme of this government demonstrated their waffle attitude and their inability to make decisions. They waffle from side to side, all because the Premier wants to have a holiday in Japan rather than tend to the people's business in British Columbia in relation to education.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I want to remind the Member that she is speaking on the amendment and should stay to that order.

MRS. JORDAN: Well, the Premier is expressing his lack of confidence in this Minister's estimates to come to full light under the eye of his colleague in the cabinet.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Will you speak to the amendment?

MRS. JORDAN: I am, Mr. Chairman.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The amendment deals with the Minister of Education, not the Premier.

MRS. JORDAN: Yes, and the lack of confidence that all in British Columbia have in the Minister of Education, Mr. Chairman. I suggest that the fact that the Premier brings on her vote at this time under these circumstances is further evidence of his lack of confidence in her and that he wishes to hide from full light and full view the inability of this Minister, no matter how much he may have wished to accomplish something, to accomplish anything in education in British Columbia.

The matter of Mr. Bremer has been canvassed for two days, Mr. Chairman, and all we got from the Minister basically was that she didn't like his style. I would ask this Minister, Mr. Chairman: did you investigate his style before you hired him?

Men are like tigers: they don't change their spots. (Laughter.) Mr. Bremer has certainly had a spotty career in British Columbia and I am sure he would like to change his stripes right now.

What is under question is: did that Minister get references on Mr. Bremer? Tell us, Madam Minister, who did you write to? Who did you talk to about Mr. Bremer? Who recommended him to you? This is where the core of the problem lies — was this Minister, in fact, capable of using taxpayers' money and personally selecting a tsar of education for British Columbia?

The evidence is here by her own statement that

[ Page 1532 ]

she, in fact, was not capable. Surely anyone in the position of hiring as important a figure as a commissioner of education would have analysed the programmes that were attributed to him as a success or a failure. They would have discussed with people who had been the subject of those programmes whether in fact the work was successful or a failure. They would have discussed with responsible people in many parts of the world whether in fact the task that she was setting out for this man was capable of being carried out by his capabilities.

I suggest, Mr. Chairman, that the Minister didn't do her homework, because the evidence is in the split that came and may well be in relationship to the fact that Mr. Bremer was not able to carry out his commitments.

One of the areas of concern has been this Minister's ability to string task forces around the Province of British Columbia in one moment and shred them the next. On this point, without repeating debate, I would ask the Minister of Education: where is the lunch bunch?

Some months ago this Minister of Education got up and announced in one of her flamboyant press conferences, which she enjoys and looks most attractive in, that she was setting up a commission to look into the matter of school lunches and hot lunches in British Columbia. She put Mrs. Len O'Neill in charge of it — a very fine lady and highly qualified as the wife of an ex-NDP candidate. She chose another school trustee, a highly competent trustee, Mrs. Heidi Lati, and other members. They were charged to spend taxpayers' dollars, they were given authority to investigate around the Province of British Columbia the desirability and feasibility of providing lunches in the school.

I would ask you, Mr. Chairman: where is this munch bunch? Are in fact the munch bunch still out to lunch? It appears they had a very good lunch, Mr. Minister, because few have seen hide nor hair of them. We would like to know, Madam Minister how much these people have been paid, if anything. When have they met? How long was the lunch you had with them? Six months? Eight months? Ten months? When are we going to hear a report from these people? Have they brought in a feasibility of providing apples in the school, which would be part of a lunch programme at this crucial time in the fruit industry? Have they advised you whether or not they have consulted with school boards around the province as to whether it is beneficial to the majority of school children in British Columbia to have hot lunches? In many areas we have a serious problem of undernourishment and overweight.

Why does the Minister set up this type of an extensive non-action programme when she could have discussed with each school board in their districts the advisability of establishing a lunch programme? I would ask her again: where is this lunch bunch? What have they been doing? It's just another area of silence in which the people of British Columbia can draw the conclusion that the Minister has not been able to meet her commitments.

Another area where the Minister has not been able to meet her commitments to the public is in the area of special assistance in establishing and solidifying small schools in rural areas. The Minister stood up in the constituency of Shuswap a year ago, Mr. Member, and advised that she strongly believed in not having children drive for long distances to attend school and that she felt there was a strong need in British Columbia to strengthen the positions of these non-metropolitan and non-municipal schools in terms of offering a steady basic programme and providing extra money so that they could develop programmes which were adaptable to their regions.

That is a very commendable thought, Mr. Chairman. Mind you, it was underway in British Columbia, but what did the Minister do? Did she build on her own commendable thought? Did she have the strength to make a decision and build on the programme that was already started in British Columbia? No way, Mr. Chairman! No way! We didn't hear anything for months and months and months.

Then on November 22, many months later, would you believe, Mr. Chairman, the courageous decision that the Minister of Education made in this area in which she had very definite, strong and commendable ideas? Did she announce that there would be extra funds available for these schools? Did she announce that there would be assistance for extra programmes? Did she encourage teachers to take part in these more rural programmes? No, Mr. Chairman, she announced that she would set up a task force. Some six months later when she made a definite statement she set up a task force.

Their terms of reference are unbelievable. She ordered the study as part of an attempt to resolve the difference in viewpoint in the future of smaller schools. She said:

"Although the programme is commendable, there is growing inclination on the part of parents to favour smaller, more intimate schools where pupils can avoid long bus rides and, in some cases, the necessity for living away from home part of the time."

Parents spoke loudly, the teachers have spoken loudly, trustees have spoken loudly and the Minister spoke loudly on this matter. As a matter of record, the opposition members have spoken loudly and firmly on this point. But no, she decided there might be some difficulty in getting a consensus and perhaps a little political risk, so she set up her task force to investigate the advisability of long bus trips to and from schools and the use of school dormitories. Then

[ Page 1533 ]

she ordered the investigation of the advantages and disadvantages of a programme she already favoured by her own commitment.

She not only reneged on her own statement, she not only set another expensive task force for the people of British Columbia, which has yet to bring in its report, but she didn't give the leadership and the assistance to those programmes that were already established in British Columbia.

In my own constituency of North Okanagan in the Village of Lumby we fought long and hard and solved many problems to get those children back from the Vernon Senior Secondary School into the Lumby high school. The first step with Grade 11 had been taken before you took office. Did the Minister continue to encourage them? No. It's been road block after road block on her part in spite of considerable assistance on the part of some of the Members of her department.

They have established one of the most unique forestry programmes in that school in North America. The debate ranged from whether it should be called Forestry 11E or Forestry 10E. What they needed was that Minister's support and a little extra financing. The people who have helped most of all are the local people in the forest industry and the staff of the Minister of Lands, Forests and Water Resources (Hon. R.A. Williams) without his knowledge.

They have established a practical programme which involves itself not in just theory but in the mill work and the harvesting work. They are learning forestry management in Grade 11, Mr. Chairman, a very applicable programme to their area which is going to maintain a relatively remote status for many years to come. But no help from the Minister of Education — another area where people who looked for a continuation of a good programme and who looked for assistance from the Minister on the basis of her own statements failed to receive any action on her part.

We have found that there's considerable concern about the Minister's failure in her ability to disentangle herself from political commitment. She has been accused, with considerable evidence, of trying to introduce a partisan political school system in British Columbia. This is putting added pressure on the need for assistance to separate schools by taxpayers who do not want to take part in a partisan political system. It is putting added pressure on students who wish to get out of the main public school system because of the partisan approach. It is putting pressure on educators to question in their own minds how long they can take part in a school system that is taking a partisan direction.

I won't go into all the lists. They're evidence; they've been repeated. But they don't cease when they're brought to the attention of the Minister; they continue going on and on and on. We see it at the regional college level; we see it at the school board level; we now see it at the university level. The parents of British Columbia want this Minister to meet her obligation and provide the right of every citizen in British Columbia to an open, non-political educational system in the province.

This Minister has failed to bolster the confidence of the school board and she has failed to meet their needs as they relate to each other around the province. It is clearly evident in the other debate that she is using them as a scapegoat for her own fiscal unawareness and the lack of confidence that has been demonstrated in her by the Premier.

She has, in financing, reduced the school boards of British Columbia to a position where for the first time they involve themselves in political lobbying. If she goes down in history in this area of not treating school districts equally and fairly, she will be the architect of a new game called "Board Bobbing for Education." They have to bob down to Victoria; they have no idea in pleading their case whether it is a programme acceptable to the Minister; they have no idea whether they are going to receive the same treatment as other school boards.

As a Member from the Interior, as the result of the Surrey teachers' lobby over here, I was in an absolute quandary, knowing the situation in our own school district, as to whether I was to go home as the responsible representative and say to the teachers and the school boards,"If you want to cut your budget, do. If you want to get fair treatment, go to Victoria and lobby." That is a tragedy in this province, Madam Minister.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order! I want to remind the Member that you address Ministers as the "Hon. Minister", not "Madam Minister." That is an incorrect term to use in this House. They are Hon. Members.

MRS. JORDAN: What is your authority on that statement, Mr. Chairman?

MR. CHAIRMAN: That's the rule of this House; that's the way they're supposed to be called. You are not to use that term.

MRS. JORDAN: Oh well, I've had the lash of the wet noodle on "Madam Minister." I'm sure, Mr. Chairman, that...

MR. CHAIRMAN: You know the correct term.

MRS. JORDAN: ...the Minister herself could care less whether she's called "Madam Minister", just as long as we don't call her "Madam".

MR. CHAIRMAN: You know the correct terms

[ Page 1534 ]

used in this House.

MRS. JORDAN: It doesn't really matter what we call her. It's not my intention to call her anything uncomplimentary.

It is my intention to point out to this Minister that there is no way we can support her in the efforts she has put forth so far in the educational field. It's with real regret on my part that I fully support this motion very much respecting this lady. Add up all around this province on the part of school trustees, on the part of teachers, on the part of parents, on the part of students, and on the part of the combined Members of the opposition, that this Minister has not been able to divorce herself from emotional decisions, as she must; she has not been able to live up to many of her own statements and commitments made through the media; and perhaps most tragic of all, she has not been able to meet a commitment to the students of this province.

HON. MR. BARRETT: What we are seeing this afternoon is a continuation of a deliberate and calculated plan by the opposition to attempt to do two things: (1) to sort itself out to find out which one of the groups is really the official opposition; (2) to attack every single Minister separately and, in effect, personally with the words,"We regret doing this," as a couch at the end of each speech.

This is the fourth Minister in a row we've dealt with on estimates and this is the fourth non-confidence motion we've had. These are all planned, calculated moves by the opposition; just an attempt, without examining policies, without examining programmes, to discredit the messenger rather than the message of this new government. It's an attempt by the opposition to attack individually each one of the cabinet Ministers and to crawl into a refuge of defining for themselves how they want to handle the fact that they can't really dispute the government's record so they want to attack the person rather than the record.

We have not had one valid discussion on any specific area of educational philosophy or any constructive suggestions except some areas mentioned by the Member for Dewdney (Mr. Rolston) and the Member for Chilliwack (Mr. Schroeder).

The Member for Chilliwack wanted to discuss separate schools. It has never been a political issue in this province. The former government was on record, forever saying, "The public purse for public education." Now, we hear the official opposition, the Social Credit Party, has adopted a policy....

Interjection.

HON. MR. BARRETT: Have you got a sick throat, Mr. Member? I know there's something wrong elsewhere but it's new that it's in your throat. There's a strange noise coming from your voice there and I can't understand that, Mr. Member. It sounds like a dying cat in that corner.

Interjections.

HON. MR. BARRETT: Mr. Chairman, if you could keep that yowling down a bit we could get on with the debate.

The Member did raise that question and it's a valid question, one that has been suppressed in terms of political debate in this province for too long. Too long.

When, I first became acquainted with the particular problem, my party was solid on the line and had a convention decision opposed to public funds for private education. So was the governing party. That left the debate out.

Now it has come back in. I think it's a valid debate, Mr. Member, and I'm glad you've raised it. Your party made a decision, as I understand it today, if you were giving your party's policy, if it is your party's policy....

Interjection.

HON. MR. BARRETT: Well, fine. I'm trying to get a rational debate around this point. It has been an emotional subject in this province for generations. All right.

Now with the loss of the former Premier (Hon. W.A.C. Bennett) from this House, it appears that the Social Credit Party has shifted its position. The Liberals traditionally had some plan in this area. It is a matter of fact that within our party this has been discussed at a number of conventions.

There is a traditional group of Christian socialists in our party who have advocated public funds for private education since 1933. The Christian Socialist group in our party has fought very hard for this point of view and still fights for it, as evidenced again by the Member for Dewdney (Mr. Rolston). And I hope that there will be continuing debate in the party. But I want to tell you this, Mr. Member, and as the Member for Kamloops (Mr. G.H. Anderson) said on the radio station: some individual members of the NDP in the House support public funds for private education, but they are willing to stay within the framework of their party and not chase votes on the basis of an issue. And I respect them for that.

I hope the debate continues in the party. I do not have the rigid discipline prejudices against it that the former Premier of this province had. I do not have those personally, and everybody knows what my sympathies are within the party. There's no question of that. But I want to make it perfectly clear that this is a democratic party and the Minister adheres to the

[ Page 1535 ]

directions that we say to the voter we're going to. Until the party itself resolves this debate, which has been going on since 1933, the Minister has the responsibility to state her position, and I respect her for that here in the House today.

But I will thank you, Mr. Member, for raising the issue in a way that had not been raised in this House for over 20 years, simply because the man who occupied this chair before me took an absolute position. He was blinded to any argument on this issue and yelled across the House in a famous speech, as I recall it: "Never, never, never any funds out of the public purse for private education. The public purse is for public education."

Now there's a shift. It's good for all of British Columbia that there's a shift, and it's good that this debate is taking place today. I welcome that debate, and it's good that this debate is taking place today. I welcome that debate.

Interjections.

HON. MR. BARRETT: No, I didn't instigate it, but I got up and welcomed the Member for raising it. Mr. Chairman, to hear that from that Member.... We couldn't even have this debate when his father sat in this chair.

All right, Mr. Member. Sure, we're the government and we've stated our position, and you've stated yours. The Liberals have had theirs on the record for years.

Interjection.

HON. MR. BARRETT: Well, it is on the record; the Minister put it on the record. Our party policy is known. Well, you know, Mr. Chairman, I find this a very interesting reaction by the opposition. They'd rather go back to the personal kinds of attacks that are associated with this amendment rather than dealing with abstracts or with policies in the education itself.

Interjections.

HON. MR. BARRETT: Oh, Mr. Chairman, they're nervous because they're trying to find out whether or not they're the official opposition or the Liberals are or the Tories are. That's what they're nervous about. But I can guarantee you this, Mr. Chairman....

Interjections.

HON. MR. BARRETT: Mr. Chairman, I can guarantee you this: they can always win in numbers against the Liberals on a Friday afternoon. Even the Tories can do that. We haven't seen some of the Liberal Members here for days, those tough freedom-fighters. But that's all right, Mr. Chairman; we read in the newspaper that it was the Socreds turn up to bat, but we're disappointed. They've struck out this afternoon.

Now in terms of this Minister's actions since she's been in office, have we had a school freeze since we've been in office? The answer is no. Have we had a construction freeze? The answer is no. We've spent more money on school sites and more money on school construction in the last two years and raised the increase rate higher than anything you did in many years past. In 1971-72 under the Socreds there was a 9.81 per cent increase in the budget. In 1972-73 it was 9.77 per cent. In the first budget under this Minister there was a 10.34 per cent increase in the school budget, and this year in her estimates there's a 13.78 per cent increase.

Interjections.

HON. MR. BARRETT: Ah, Mr. Chairman, I get a little upset to hear all this noise.

Interjections.

HON. MR. BARRETT: Ah, Mr. Chairman, there they are, they all fly up all over each other, and look what they're doing to each other's suits, Mr. Chairman. You know they just can't seem to get it together in the opposition. Who's running the show over there? Nobody seems to be leading that group. They're still vying for leadership to the point that the predecessor had to come down from Kelowna and bring down the strap that's left in B.C. and use it on the backbenchers.

Oh, he's up on his feet. Oh, there it is. There's an admission that daddy came down to whip the boys into line.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order! Order! Do you have a point of order?

MR. W.R. BENNETT (Leader of the Opposition): Yes. The Premier lied.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I beg your pardon?

MR. BENNETT: That statement was a lie.

HON. MR. BARRETT: You mean he wasn't down here?

MR. BENNETT: It's all right. I just want to....

HON. MR. BARRETT: Mr. Chairman, I have the floor; that's not a point of order.

MR. BENNETT: That's the point of it. That statement's a lie. I ask you to withdraw it.

[ Page 1536 ]

MR. BARRETT: It's an opinion. Are you nervous about my opinions?

MR. BENNETT: No, you didn't.... You said it happened.

HON. MR. BARRETT: You don't like my opinion that your daddy came down and whipped the boys into line?

MR. BENNETT: Not that — that it's characteristic for the Premier to lie.

HON. MR. BARRETT: Did your daddy come down and whip them into line?

MR. BENNETT: No.

HON. MR. BARRETT: He didn't? Okay, I withdraw.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order!

HON. MR. BARRETT: There's no point of order.

MR. BENNETT: Mr. Chairman, I brought up the point of order and I asked the Premier to withdraw it, because it's a lie.

HON. MR. BARRETT: Mr. Chairman, I accept the Member's word that his father did not come down to talk to the backbenchers and keep them in line. Is that what you're saying?

MR. BENNETT: That's fine.

HON. MR. BARRETT: I accept your word for that, Mr. Member. I'm glad you're running the show.

MR. BENNETT: That's a nice, high level of debate you're introducing again.

Interjections.

HON. MR. BARRETT: Mr. Chairman, I don't know why he's so nervous. I accept and I withdraw.

MRS. JORDAN: We don't like your approach.

HON. MR. BARRETT: Oh, Mr. Member, I withdraw.

There's absolutely nothing about this government you like. There was absolutely nothing left in British Columbia to like about your government; that's why you were thrown out of office. It's been a series of obstruction....

Interjections.

HON. MR. BARRETT: You see, they can't even restrain themselves in the House, Mr. Chairman. Could we have some order, please? Could we have some order?

They can't restrain themselves in the House, Mr. Chairman. It's been a deliberate attempt to stall, to keep this House from moving on its directions. And now we see the whole move by this government....

The last item that I'm going to mention now, Mr. Chairman, is the fact that under this new Minister 1,500 new teachers have been added in 18 months — almost 100 a month — under this Minister. Almost 100 a month.

Now I want to say that we can see through the tactics in terms of the internal struggle of those three groups. The sooner you get together as one party and find yourself a new leader, the sooner you'll be better off in getting some organization in this House, Mr. Chairman.

MR. BENNETT: Mr. Chairman, I'd like to bring this debate back to the motion and back to the issue, because if anybody introduced personalities in this House, it's the Premier.

I heard the Premier discuss that this issue of independent schools wasn't introduced by the Premier of the province before, and it wasn't introduced by the opposition before. Well, you never introduced it, Mr. Premier, either as opposition leader or as Premier, and it took a Member of our party to introduce it.

Don't sit there and try and revive old fights. I don't consider the position of the Social Credit Party hypocritical as suggested by you and your government. During this debate I consider our position part of....

Interjection.

MR. BENNETT: Well, at least I have one.

Interjections.

MR. BENNETT: I don't mind that as a criticism, because when I consider the alternative, Mr. Minister, I'd rather be on this wicket. I knew that you and I differed on many things, but I'm pleased to find out that I don't agree with you on that issue either.

I consider the position of our party part of a realization of deficiencies in the education system. These deficiencies were there when the Social Credit was government and they're there now. It's not hypocritical for us to realize that when our party was defeated part of that defeat was based upon the lack of response to the public in educational matters.

But it is hypocrisy for a government that rode to power on the backs of the BCTF and rode to power on the educational issue to continue that lack of

[ Page 1537 ]

action. That's what this motion is all about. And you, Mr. Premier, and your Minister, from your statements before, when you were opposition for 20 years — and you've been government for 18 months — and in all that time you should have developed a policy.

Here you are still groping and still turning out White Papers. You should have had a policy. Your criticism in opposition was hypocritical. Your action in government is hypocritical.

Now, Mr. Chairman, what we're talking about is not all of the directions of education; it's the lack of this government and this party who said they had the answers. They told the public they had the answers. They criticized the former government — and a lot of it justified criticism — for not providing leadership in education in this province. The public elected them expecting them to provide those answers in the way of leadership and programmes and action, and they haven't done it; and that's why we have introduced this motion.

I'd like to talk about independent schools, Mr. Premier. I'd like to talk because our party introduced it at our convention. That issue has been discussed at every annual convention every year and this year our party chose in convention — the largest political convention this province has seen with 1,500 voting delegates — and they voted in favour of aid to independent schools.

Interjection.

MR. BENNETT: Hang on, Mr. Lands and Forests Minister (Hon. R.A. Williams). Your tenure might be brief. Go back to your office. You don't contribute anything out there and you don't contribute anything in here.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Will the Hon. Member address the chair, please.

MR. BENNETT: Well, Mr. Chairman, if you would be fair and keep some of the people on the other side of the House in order, I would respect your decisions.

AN HON. MEMBER: Who holds the purse-strings — Daddy?

MR. BENNETT: I appreciate the Member for Vancouver–Little Mountain (Mr. Cumming) speaking up because most of the people of Vancouver–Little Mountain didn't know him when they voted for him and they haven't heard from him since. I would like some publicity for him because the more exposure he gets, the less votes he'll get next time.

Now, we would like to talk about independent schools. I don't see why, Mr. Chairman, the Minister can't introduce discussion not to provide funds to continue independent schools outside the system but to draw the circle larger and allow the flexibility of programmes on a local level that will allow those schools to maintain individual characteristics but in a larger school system.

Now, that should be possible. Token aid or partial aid is not the answer. If we believe in a free, public education and equality for all students, all children, it should be 100 per cent — not 40 per cent, not 60 per cent or 8 per cent. Why not look to developing a public school system, maintain that local control and local autonomy? Guarantee them school trustees on a ward system per pupil so that they will have the input into the school districts but allow them to function as independent schools within that system. Bring some of the characteristics, some of the things that the public school in B.C. seems to lack — those attitudes of discipline, those attitudes that those schools show both during school and during graduation that don't seem to be apparent in the product of our public schools.

I say this as a parent with four sons in public schools and with some of the attitudes that my sons show they would be better off in the independent schools of this province.

Also speaking to this amendment and the lack of action of this government, governments show their directives not only by their policies but by their budgets and the amount of money they allocate to education. This government has continued the policy related to the past government of starving education. Funds that have been allocated in this budget are not sufficient to maintain the existing programmes and the Minister admits this by announcing that on a tin-cup basis she will allow school districts to come one by one to argue for more funds.

If your school district happens to have a very persuasive trustee then you will get a good education. If you don't you will get a bad education and there won't be equality of education in this province. It depends on what you say and who you know in this government. That's not government policy and that's not good enough.

The provincial government through its education department has to have a policy that equally benefits all sections of this province. No one school district should lose its benefits by not being able to persuade you by either having NDP Members, or through the weight of whatever argument it takes to convince you, with their tin cup in hand, for those additional funds which you already admit aren't in this budget and aren't sufficient to maintain educational standards in this province.

That's the sort of vague reason why we support a motion of this nature.

It also appears, Madam Minister, in areas of problems in education in this province that there's no interrelation between the different levels of

[ Page 1538 ]

education. Through the public schools, through the vocational schools, the universities and even the technical school, there is no interrelation of discussion. Each area is going its own independent way. In many cases the product turned out by the public school system is not properly trained to operate within our university structure. There is no dialogue between the university and our public schools as to the type of training teachers need so that we can maintain the continuity of flow and discussion and so that we get a proper educational system in this province.

There are other areas that I am concerned about — that the junior high schools apparently do not work. Why not show some leadership in developing new structures within the grades 1 to 12? They are not working. It's been discussed that they are not working. Why not show some leadership?

This problem has been here. It's been discussed. These are the type of actions we expect from you. After 20 years of negative criticism in the opposition and saying you had alternatives and fighting an election on it, the public expected action and programmes from you from day one.

In 18 months and the fourth session of this Legislature, you haven't come up with new programmes but a white pamphlet saying you are going to continue discussion and, Madam Minister, I think that the Vancouver Province sums up, through its discussion of the Peter principle, exactly what is wrong with your lack of leadership.

I would like to quote from it. It relates to the Peter principle and it says:

"Faced with an important task, the competent employee simply begins it. The substituter may prefer to busy himself or herself with preliminary activities. He or she may confirm the need for action. The true substituter can never get enough advice. They may study alternative methods of doing whatever is to be done. The substituter will want to make sure that he chooses the most efficient course of action, no matter how long he may take to find it. He may obtain expert advice in order that the plan finally chosen may be effectively carried out. Committees will be formed and the question referred for study.

"Closely related to perpetual preparation is another symptom called the 'teeter-totter' syndrome. In the teeter-totter syndrome one sees a complete inability to make decisions appropriate to the sufferer's rank. An employee of this type can balance endlessly and minutely the pros and cons of a question but cannot come down on one side or the other.

"They will rationalize this immobility with grave illusions to the democratic process or taking the longer view..."

I think I have heard that in this discussion.

"...and often engages in the outward buck-pass which merely involves assembling a committee of the victim's peers and following the decision of the majority.

"A variant of this is the John Q. Public diversion: sending the paper to someone else who will conduct a survey to find out what the average citizen thinks about the matter."

They go on to quote.

"Eileen Dailly has been Minister of Education for 18 months. She has been charged with an extremely important task, the reform of the B.C. educational system to meet as well as possible the needs and problems of the '70s and I hope longer than the '70s.

"As yet, she has not begun it. With only a few notable exceptions, the banning of the strap, for instance, she has taken no decisions to effect basic changes in the schools. Instead, she has been continually preparing to effect such changes. She has confirmed the need for action in a dozen fields or more. She has obtained vast amounts of expert advice. At last count at least 10 task forces and study groups of one sort or the other has been set up. She has diverted most of the basic philosophical questions to John Q. Public."

Madam Minister, through you, Mr. Chairman, you were elected to give action and to provide leadership and you haven't done it and you have diverted all of the discussion back to the public when they expected you to provide this leadership.

We support this motion of non-confidence to reduce your salary.

MR. A.V. FRASER (Cariboo): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I rise to take my part in this debate on a vote of non-confidence in this Minister. I feel quite strongly about this in view of the fact that in my riding of Cariboo we have three school districts that are affected by the actions of the Department of Education. I want to contribute something to this discussion.

This Minister has really given no direction since she has taken over in 18 months other than to commission more studies, commissions and so on. The latest we have, of course, is the famous White Paper we have discussed and I would just like to quote something that was said about the White Paper in a paper this morning.

"When Mrs. Dailly promised a policy paper it was anticipated the government would set out its objectives with a clearly definite framework that can be positively discussed by the public. But we know as much about government thinking now as we did when the New Democratic Party took over, which is

[ Page 1539 ]

precisely nothing.

"There are no deadlines for these new discussions. No time frame for the implementation of recommendations. But the government will not be doing nothing. It will apparently bring in legislation as the discussions go along or when a policy on a specific issue presents itself, which looks like more of the bits-and-pieces legislation on education we've had up to now."

Mr. Chairman, that is exactly what this debate of non-confidence is all about. To bring in a White Paper with no answers after 18 months is certainly inexcusable and that's why the Members of the opposition and I'm pretty sure some members of the backbench, when this comes to a vote, will see the light.

We would like to hear more from the silent backbench. I realize a lot of them have busy schedules and they have to go home to tea parties and that but this is the place they should be.

Going into the finance end of education, I feel that this Minister has missed the boat completely.

In the last budget under the prior administration the Department of Education received 30 per cent of the total budget. We find this year in the budget we are debating that the share of education has dropped to 25 per cent.

Mr. Chairman, that's not all; the budget we're looking at, given by the Minister of Finance, is for $2 billion-and-some-200 million. I predict that budget will bring in at least $2.75 billion by the time we reach March 31, 1975. If we relate that back to where we are with education, we aren't going to get more than 20 per cent. The Minister of Education is not going to get more than 20 per cent of the total budget of this province. This is absolutely disgraceful.

I realize the Minister of Education is not a Member of the Treasury Board, but she is the Deputy Premier and I think she had better renew her relationship with the Minister of Finance and the Treasury Board because they have effectively shut her off. She is not getting her share of the funds that are so badly needed for all levels of education in this province.

At this point I would like to mention that the other reason I am voting for the motion of no confidence in this Minister is the statement she made to our good school boards all over this province a year ago giving them the opinion that they could budget for what they wanted, for what was needed. They went ahead and did so and when it came in in the fall she said that they would have to review this, cut back to the figure, I believe, of some $80 million or something because it was absolutely ridiculous and they were completely irresponsible.

I take these remarks very strongly. These local people serve long hours; they were led down the garden path and then chopped off at the pass. I resent this. This Minister can say what she likes, but that's the impression she left with all the school boards in this province. And that's just not good enough.

Another area of education I'd like to go into, Mr. Chairman, is where I strongly feel that we have two classes of education. I am referring now to the elementary and secondary levels in this province.

We have a fairly decent grade in all the urban areas of this province; it's apparently not too bad. But in the rural areas of this province you're making them all second-class citizens. They are not getting the share that they should.

I refer to a specific problem that the rural areas have — in the Interior, in the north, the east and the west Kootenays and so on — a problem which you do not have in an urban area to the degree that they have in a rural school district; I refer to school buses, the school busing system.

First of all, I'd like to congratulate the Department of Education and the Minister as they have recently increased the formula for the purchase of school buses. But where the rub comes is in the operational end of these buses, Mr. Chairman. I suggest to you: how can you run a school bus in the Interior or in the north with the same formula applying there as it does, say, in the New Westminster school district? There's just no comparison. Better winter tires are needed; a lot more winterizing is required, and they run....

HON. R.M. STRACHAN (Minister of Transport and Communications): There are no buses in New Westminster.

MR. FRASER: There they go again — they haven't any problem. But I'm trying to relate that in the Interior they do have; and it goes onto the cost of the local taxpayers.

Victoria will not contribute their share. And we've got too many fat cats on the lower mainland who don't know what they're talking about, making decisions for the people of this province — including the Minister of Transport over there, and he should know better.

He's got a great big fancy summer home up in my riding in the Cariboo. I hear his taxes have gone away up and I'm happy about that. He'll have to sell it probably. The Minister of Finance will get it. (Laughter.)

On the school bus situation, though, it is a serious item. They are not getting what they should. I would like, Mr. Chairman, through you, for the Hon. Minister to review the operation costs of school buses.

The other thing is that down in the lower mainland and other areas where they have buses, or require them, they run on paved roads at all times. In the Interior and in the north about 10 per cent of the mileage they run on is on paved roads; 90 per cent is on gravel, ice, snow and so on. It definitely is because of these conditions.... You know, the Minister of

[ Page 1540 ]

Highways (Hon. Mr. Lea) is to blame for that. He's not here, he's up in Prince Rupert plowing snow I think.

In any case, there's a wide discrepancy here. Victoria looks at the school bus operating deal the same for New Westminster...they haven't got buses — the same for Surrey as they do in the Interior of the province. I would like this looked into.

Just as an example, I'll show you what a problem it is: in the Interior in the riding of Cariboo the logging trucks go out at 4 o'clock in the morning; the next vehicle that goes on the side road is a school bus. The logging trucks are coming 65 miles an hour on glare ice, and they are all equipped with radio telephones. The school buses are on the same route, and they are not equipped with radio telephones. I suggest to you there's a high hazard because of this fact.

Mr. Chairman, they're not equipped with radio telephones because they can't steal the money out of the budget to supply them. The lives of school children are endangered every morning from October to April in the central Interior because of this with the winter conditions we have.

I think that's getting pretty small when they can put radio telephones in those buses but they have to jeopardize something in the curriculum in the elementary and secondary schools.

Mr. Chairman, it's all based back to the chintzy finance set-up that this Minister hasn't done anything about, and it applied before as well. With the amount of money that is rolling out of this government, not to have a small item like that which might save the lives of 40 or 50 school children some morning when a 100,000 lb. logging truck comes along at 60 miles an hour and because of the lack of a radio telephone the school bus doesn't know it's coming, is absolutely ridiculous.

Mr. Chairman, I'm voting in favour of the reduction in salary of this Minister. Since the election I think she has done an excellent job in looking after all the teachers' requirements and requests that they wanted when practically every teacher in the province knocked on doors for this party in 1972. The demands they made have been fulfilled completely, in my opinion, by this Minister. I refer to compulsory membership given back to the B.C. Teachers' Federation and salary increases galore.

I don't mind them having this. But what I'm going to point out here, Mr. Chairman, is that teachers got everything that they were promised by the socialists, but the people I'm interested in are the children, and they have got zilch up to this point! Absolutely nothing. And this Minister should hang her head in shame for it.

She first of all satisfied the election promises to the teachers; now she's starting to have White Papers to talk about the children. I think that's highly disgusting.

I would like to tell you, Mr. Chairman, as I said in the beginning of my remarks, that there are three school districts in the riding of Cariboo: School District 27 with headquarters at Williams Lake, recently named from the Williams Lake School District to Cariboo-Chilcotin; School District 28 in Quesnel in the north end; School District 30 with administrative headquarters at Ashcroft.

The Minister of Marbles over there.... Pardon me, Minister of Public Works (Hon. Mr. Hartley), Ashcroft is in his riding, but School District 30 goes quite a ways north into the Cariboo and covers Clinton and Cache Creek.

We have a large school population in all these districts. But one of the most vexing problems, Mr. Chairman, to the Minister — and I am referring to the rural students, not the ones in the towns in the Cariboo — is the fact that these children must leave home when they are at the age of 13 or 14 because the rural elementary school goes to grade 7. The odd school, I understand, is teaching grade 8.

For a child of 13 or 14 to have to leave home and live in one of the larger towns is quite an experience. The records in the Department of Education show that there are a lot of drop-outs in grade 8.

I suggest, Mr. Chairman, here's one of the reasons: this child goes into the town of Quesnel or Williams Lake or 100 Mile House where there is a high school, and they can't take it. They can't go along with the surroundings; they opt out, they go back home and that's the end of their education. I would like to say that this is the most upsetting thing to the rural residents in my riding, and I think any rural riding. It's upsetting not only to the pupil but also to the parents, and it also upsets family life.

I can't see why at least grade 9 or some level of secondary education could not be brought into the elementary schools in the rural areas. I realize that it all costs money and everything, but I think there are more values than money. Families are being broken up over this situation and I think that's a far more serious problem. It wouldn't cost that much money, in my opinion — probably a few extra buildings and a few extra teachers.

I understand, Mr. Chairman, that it's probably the teachers behind this. They say that the teacher that teaches, say, grade 9 won't go into a rural setting. I think that maybe they said this five years ago or 10 years ago. But I would suggest to the Minister to take another sounding because there has been a change of thinking in even the teachers. I think some of them now would love to go out to these rural areas.

While I'm on the rural area schools, they are in a bad state of disrepair, Mr. Chairman, and the educational environment is far from good. To give you an example, a maintenance man that has to do maintaining in New Westminster in the Minister of

[ Page 1541 ]

Health's riding, I think has eight square miles to look after.

Interjection.

MR. FRASER: Six, thank you. That helps my point that I'm going to make. The Cariboo-Chilcotin School District 27 is 23,000 square miles. The maintenance man, to do repairs at say Anahim Lake, has to drive 200 miles to look after the maintenance of the Anahim Lake school. You can see how much maintenance work is done when these conditions exist.

Again, we're right back to money. We should have more money for maintenance. Again, instead of proper maintenance going on in these buildings — I'm talking about major maintenance now — at the school at Anahim Lake, where the maintenance man has to drive 200 miles, he does it about once a year and he should be going there a lot more often than that. I only refer to that to point out that these buildings are in a state of disrepair because of a lack of funds over the years, and including the last 18 months.

I think that this only makes the people that live in a rural setting second-class citizens as far as the educational system's concerned. Mr. Chairman, I know that you're from a rural area. This is not right and just in our society today, particularly where we have an abundance of funds to look after these things.

As an example of rural to urban, the Cariboo-Chilcotin, as I mentioned, covers 23,000 square miles with approximately 7,600 pupils. New Westminster, in comparison, the Minister said was eight square miles in size, or rather he said six — my notes are eight — and it has 6,000-odd pupils. So naturally, with the smaller confined area and all with the same uniformity of a finance formula, who is going to get the better class of education? It should be obvious, Mr. Chairman, to the Minister, and I would like, as far as rural school districts are concerned, to have some different formula over and above to look after the remoteness of the area and their climatic conditions and so on. It's not fair for them to be in the position they're in now.

Another point, Mr. Chairman, I think has always gone on in the Department of Education. I might say that in the three school districts in the Cariboo that I know the best, we have a continuing enrolment. These are people moving into this riding steadily, and all the school boards have to set their budgets in March or April for the total year. Every year now in the Cariboo in the three school districts, come September there's a large increase in enrolment and there's no money. Surely somebody in the Department of Education could come up with some answers to these problems.

I think right now, today, Mr. Chairman, the school boards in this province — all of them, whether they be rural or urban — don't know where they're at. They have been told to come back if they're over in their budget and if they haven't got the funds they can get more funds. But this isn't any way to run the ship. These people don't know from month to month under this uncertain situation, let alone year by year.

I think it's time that all this dissatisfaction and uncertainty is cleared up. A formula should be spelled out if it has to be in this Legislature — I imagine it has — but the time is long past when we have to give them a lot more clear guidelines than they've had in the past and they've had up to the present time. I definitely am of the opinion that the formula is very unfair to all rural-oriented school districts, and I hope that I have made it clear to the Minister why I think this is so.

I don't think this Minister has given the direction that this large department deserves. We're looking at the budget of $560 million. The way that this Minister and the Premier of the province have talked, the final spending will probably end up at about $660 million. I don't think this Minister has ever had control of this department. She hasn't today. For that reason, I have to vote for the reduction of her salary.

Maybe the Minister could overcome that by admitting that the portfolio is too heavy for her, step aside, and become Minister of Women's Rights or something. I don't think any of us want to see this Minister out of the cabinet, but she wouldn't have the heavy responsibilities of the largest government spending department that this government has and prior governments have had.

MR. WALLACE: Mr. Chairman, in two speeches I've already touched on education — the budget speech and the speech last night. There are many reasons why I would support the amendment. In the budget speech I used a phrase that I was comparing the promise with the performance. Very briefly, I will just touch on some of the points that illustrate this tremendous disappointment in the performance as compared with the promise.

I quoted from the Minister's maiden speech in this House several years ago with the tremendous emphasis on class size and a greater attempt to individualize the attention which the teacher could give to the child. The Premier can wave his arms around and get as excited as he wants about the increased number of teachers in the province, but very up-to-date information was provided as recently as November, 1973, by this in-depth study of the BCTF. I'll just read into the record from page 3 of the BCTF brief entitled "Class Size and Pupil-Teacher Ratio":

"The class size now — or at least for September '72 — was only 0.7 lower than the

[ Page 1542 ]

30.1 standard in effect in 1967. Incredibly, in 1973, 21 districts in British Columbia actually increased the average size of their elementary classes over 1972 figures."

I don't want to get into a long harangue over statistics. I'm just quoting a study that was completed as recently as November, 1973. So I reject the Premier's dramatic announcement that more teachers are in the system. It so happens there are more pupils in the system too, and the ratio is the figure that has been quoted. This also points out that B.C. has the highest elementary and the third highest secondary class size in all of Canada. We're supposed to be a "have" province with lots of money, and we do have lots of money. Very quickly, I just say again that our priorities are not well chosen. With the money and the finances we have, we should have a much better record in terms of class size and the quality of education.

Next, I would talk of the Minister's apparent contradiction. As I said in earlier debate, she has espoused the cause of local autonomy, but when the chips are down and it's costing money, she has quite unfairly criticized the trustees of irresponsibility. I talked last night about the Bremer affair, and I'm certainly not satisfied with the explanation that was given.

Again, we have this strange contradiction, the press release which announced Mr. Bremer's appointment as the commissioner, lauded him to the heavens and described his enormous talent and his background in a variety of fields in education. I don't know if I have the press release right handy, but the fact was that the credits which she gave to him — I think rightly so — were very quickly contradicted within nine months or thereabouts. I find that very difficult to reconcile in my thinking. It seems to me that he is a highly able and talented person.

I might say also the point which he himself raised apparently in a press interview last night. He was under the impression that he had a three-year time span in which to come up with his final recommendations and that there was never any impression that there was some great haste to come up with a formal document within a few months. Furthermore, there's been some considerable waste of public money by the fact that the government has had to pay him for work which he will not now do.

I also touched on the general impression which emanates from the Department of Education that there's all kinds of studies and questionnaires and inquiries and hearings going on, but precious little action. I think the culmination of that criticism is certainly in the White Paper which the Minister published. I was rather amused by one commentator who said that the Minister should get the Kohoutek award for the non-event of the month.

Interestingly enough, from The Province newspaper of January 24, we have a headline here: "Due This Session Says Dailly; Major Education Outline Being Prepared." I'd just like to quote a few paragraphs by the writer, Dan Mullin. "Education Minister Eileen Dailly is preparing a policy paper in place of some legislative changes projected for the spring. Mrs. Dailly confirmed that a paper is being drafted for release during the session which opens January 31."

This is the key paragraph: "She said the document will set out government policy on a number of issues, including topics discussed this month by a committee of officials from her department, the BCTF (British Columbia Teachers Federation) and the B.C. School Trustees Association (BCSTA)." I'll miss out a paragraph which is not relevant. The next paragraph states: "The committee chaired by Deputy Minister Jack Fleming ended work abruptly Tuesday before completing a series of meetings scheduled for this month. BCTF and BCSTA officials indicated that the department cut short the talks and asked them to keep confidential plans for a policy paper."

This is a very substantial statement of what was to be a major policy announcement. While the Minister does not want us to be negative and I don't want to be negative either, the fact is that promise and performance are two very different things with that particular statement in January and this particular pamphlet we have presented to us as a White Paper.

In January, the newsletter of the B.C. Teachers Federation on the front page has a statement by the president, Jim McFarlan: "During the past three weeks there have been six meetings of the Minister's committee on changes in the Public Schools Act. The subjects under discussion included salary bargaining, teachers' certification, competency, learning conditions, a teachers' professional Act, and a number of related matters." Then he goes on to mention that the meetings have been discontinued. "The Minister has indicated that she will table a White Paper or policy statement in the House during the spring session. This is a more reasonable process which will ensure discussion by all members of the federation as well as by members of other organizations and the general public."

This is a good idea if they've got anything to discuss, but what can you discuss from this White Paper? It's just a series of generalities. The major aim of education is to produce for the student "a measure of success."

If that's a major declaration of policy, then I'm the man in the moon. It's rather like a doctor saying that the patient is sick and we're going to try and do something about it. But what are you going to do about it? Are you going to operate or are you going to give him pills? What's the treatment? As I said last night, the so-called White Paper defines five particular areas of problems but certainly offers no specific

[ Page 1543 ]

policy outline.

So I say again, with this department and with this Minister, when you compare promise with performance, you unfortunately have to come up with the conclusion that the Minister has fallen far short of her responsibilities. There appears to be a definite lack of direction. The Minister seems rather given to substantial changes of direction abruptly which does not inspire confidence — certainly not in my view and, I'm sure, not in the view of people in the educational field and the parents in this province.

To give some examples of changes of direction, here's a quotation in December from The Province newspaper, December 11, that she had changed her ideas about the reorganization of top officials.

"Education Minister Eileen Dailly acknowledged Monday that a reorganization of top officials in her department reflects a change in plans which she enunciated earlier for a separate post-secondary division.

"Mrs. Dailly had said she envisaged two Deputy Ministers, one for the kindergarten to grade 12 system, and one for colleges, universities and tertiary institutions. But in changes announced Friday, there is still one Deputy with overall responsibility, and below him are three Associate Deputy Ministers whose responsibilities span the system from kindergarten to post-graduate education."

Certainly, anybody is entitled to change their mind; I'm not disputing that. But it seems that it's just one long continuing change of mind. First of all, they'll have a commission. Then for some reason or another, after getting committed to paying somebody $50,000 to do it, there's a sudden change of mind or a change of attitude to the man who was supposed to be the Messiah for the educational system in this province and he gets fired.

We hear there shouldn't be one super-duper Deputy; there should be two or three with the responsibility spread among them. There's a change of mind there.

We hear that local autonomy is the in-thing and that the Minister deeply believes in it. But suddenly, when they try to implement it at the trustee level, they get all kinds of public castigation as to their irresponsibility.

So really, however hard you try to be positive in this House, there are times when this kind of negative argument has to be pointed out. The final point I would make is that there's a sad lack of appreciation of any Minister's responsibility in relation to this House. When we come to debate the budget, the figure should realistically relate to the service being provided. I know I'm repeating myself from the two previous speeches, but I think it is an insult to this House to come in with a budget which is meaningless.

If the school boards scream after we leave this Legislature, there are going to be supplementary warrants. The universities are afforded the privilege of meeting the Premier in his office, as they have done. "We're going to talk about it and we know it's urgent. Maybe next week we'll send them a letter and give them some more crumbs." As far as I'm concerned, that's not good enough for this department or any other department.

If this budget debate and our role as MLAs of opposition are to be meaningful and valid, the figures, the facts, the budgeting and how the money is going to be spent should be realistic. I really feel that it just doesn't make any sense at all. If the figure we've got here for school boards is $67 million and we walk out the door after the House prorogues, it might be doubled overnight for all I know. Then we have the school boards scrapping among themselves so that the squeaky wheel gets the grease. Well, I just don't think that's good enough. I hate to be repetitive, but I've tried to outline the reasons why I have no hesitation in backing this amendment.

MR. P.L. McGEER (Vancouver–Point Grey): It's been an interesting Friday afternoon. Any time the Socreds come out fighting like tigers for education, it's interesting.

I think our educational system in British Columbia is going to survive despite these debates and some of the things that have been going in the Minister's office. One thing which has been amply proved over the years is that our educational system in British Columbia is resilient. One thing that has been established is that we do not need a competent Minister of Education. I can't remember when we last had one. I've said "Bring Back Brothers" is the cry.

MR. WALLACE: Oh, no. Things are not that bad.

MR. McGEER: Maybe it isn't that bad. Maybe people will have second thoughts about that particular suggestion.

Interjection.

MR. McGEER: "Bring back Weir" somebody said. There's a thought because he was a great man, perhaps the most able Minister of Education we've ever had next to Henry Esson Young who was the man who served in the McBride government and then became Deputy Minister in the government after that.

HON. MR. STRACHAN: How about Hinchcliffe?

MR. McGEER: Yes, he was against education altogether. You remember he wanted to abolish free schools.

Interjection.

[ Page 1544 ]

MR. McGEER: No, that was Shelly and Austin Taylor. They met in a yacht out there in the harbour.

You know, we complained about the attitudes of the former Premier, who kept lecturing to us about protecting the interests of the taxpayer. We had people that were more right wing than he was on the subject of education in the past, and I quite agree with that. But at the same time, we've also had sprinkled in our path some very great figures, and I think it's probably due to the heritage of those people — and I include Dr. Weir among them — that we have an educational system that's so resilient and can withstand the assaults of the Ministers in recent years.

I appreciate, I must say, the new approach of Social Credit in supporting independent schools. I can recall being the first Member to raise this subject in the Legislature about 10 years ago. Mr. Chairman, you wouldn't believe it, but there was a fear at that time even to make a public suggestion that independent schools should receive some support.

I was coached by people from all sides of the House never to raise that subject publicly because it would result in my personal defeat.

A few years after that, the Second Member for Vancouver–Point Grey (Mr. Gardom) and the former Member for Vancouver Centre, Mr. Capozzi, had the courage to raise it and keep raising it in the House.

AN HON. MEMBER: They're not here any more.

MR. McGEER: They're not here any more but I doubt their defeat.... Well, the Second Member for Vancouver–Point Grey (Mr. Gardom) will be here long after you've gone, my friend.

The Member for Vancouver Centre was defeated, but not because of the stand he took on independent schools. I find it worthwhile that the Social Credit Party under its new leader is taking a firm and definite stand for support of those independent schools. It really represents remarkable progress.

I'm much less pleased with the attitude that the Premier has taken, because he's quite obviously teasing the Federation of Independent Schools. He knows quite well that the former Premier of the province, though he slammed the door shut firmly and continually on the independent schools by saying, "Never, never, never any support for the independent schools," he knew that the independent schools kept coming back, hoping against hope that they would be able to change that Premier's mind.

Interjection.

MR. McGEER: The Leader of the Opposition was continuing to encourage the people from the independent schools to lend their support to the New Democratic Party. Today as Premier he uses the excuse that the convention of his party has refused to endorse support for the independent schools, but he himself has been the first one to turn his back upon the conventions of that party when it suited his purposes.

I refer among other things to the points brought forward by the Second Member for Vancouver-Burrard (Ms. Brown) regarding the women's rights portfolio, supported by the people in the convention of the New Democratic Party but repudiated by the Premier.

Interjection.

MR. McGEER: Oh, yes he did. He said so. So the Premier does what he pleases and when it suits his purposes to lean on the convention decisions of the New Democratic Party, he does so. But you notice at the same time how he encourages the Federation of Independent Schools to keep coming to him, to keep supporting him, in the hopes that one day he might relent and change his mind.

I don't think the independent schools should be teased or fooled; I think they should understand that the Premier in his way is every bit as intransigent about support of the independent schools as was his predecessor.

But I certainly welcome the remarks of the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Bennett) because I think that ultimately it means, as Members of this House begin to swing behind what is manifestly a fair and proper thing to do, that we are going to have what is correct social policy and correct economic policy, which is to offer some support to these independent schools.

I don't claim, Mr. Chairman, to be the first one ever to suggest there should be public support of independent schools. I only say that when I first did this in the House about 10 years ago, people universally predicted before and after I made those statements that I would be defeated because of overwhelming public disfavour for this idea.

It turned out not to be true at all. The public, generous as it is in its attitude towards education, would completely support a government that saw this as the appropriate thing to do.

Mr. Chairman, I agree with some of the remarks made by the Member for Cariboo (Mr. Fraser). Teachers are happier now. They have been given as a group virtually everything that they asked for. There is no question that the teachers gave very generous support to the Minister and her cabinet colleagues in that last provincial election.

It is true what the Member for Cariboo said, that the Minister and her government have been far less interested in the children of British Columbia than they have been in the Teachers' Federation. That shows through in the policies that the government has established and brought forward.

[ Page 1545 ]

But, Mr. Chairman, I'm not certain that those deficiencies are in themselves sufficient grounds for a non-confidence motion in the Minister and the government. We've had incompetency in education before. That's routine. We have had a refusal to support independent schools. That's routine. We have had an indifference to the school children of British Columbia. That's routine.

What has not been routine, Mr. Chairman, and what makes the performance of this Minister deserving of the motion of non-confidence which is before the House now is the way she has performed to this House.

The Minister employed an education commissioner. She was supported by Members from all sides of the House and from the public for making that move. In mid-stream, the commissioner was fired — not by her action, but by the action of the Premier, who once again meddled in the affairs of a department. She gave as her reason, first of all, that he was usurping the field of government policy. When that reason was challenged, she gave as her reason: she didn't like his style.

When the commissioner himself appeared on television and explained what he was attempting to do, the Minister said she'd never heard of it before and the problem with the commissioner was that he had never given her a single piece of paper.

Mr. Chairman, I quote those words: "Not one piece of paper." That was only last night, Mr. Chairman. Now today we find out, first of all, that the Minister had given her a complete blueprint: secondly, that the commissioner had pleaded with her to establish a task force on the public school system and, thirdly, that he had offered his services to present her with a programme so that it would not appear as though she were meeting crises as they arrived on her desk.

The commissioner, despite the fact that he had been fired and had his professional reputation impugned, held his tongue on those matters. It was only when the Minister appeared last night and misled this House as to what the situation was that today he released those documents proving that the Minister failed to tell it like it is.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please! Was the Hon. Member suggesting that the Minister of Education was misleading the House?

MR. McGEER: I'm asking the Minister to stand up and explain how it could be that last night she said not a single piece of paper had been received and that man arrived today and released papers.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please! I would ask the Hon. Member if he was imputing an improper motive to the Minister.

MR. McGEER: Mr. Chairman....

MR. CHAIRMAN: I'm asking, if the Hon. Member was doing this, if he would withdraw the remark.

MR. McGEER: Mr. Chairman, wait a minute. I have asked the Minister of Education a question.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order!

MR. McGEER: Mr. Chairman, I'm repeating those questions. I'm asking the Minister to stand up and give her answers to this House this afternoon.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please! I'm just asking the Hon. Member if he's imputing an improper motive: that is, of misleading the House.

MR. McGEER: Mr. Chairman, the Minister said one thing last night. That was presented in this House this afternoon, and I'm saying: how can that be and will the Minister answer how it can be? I'm asking questions.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please! I'm asking the Hon. First Member for Vancouver–Point Grey if he is imputing an improper motive to the Minister: that is, of misleading the House. Are those the words you stated?

The Hon. Minister of Health (Hon. Mr. Cocke) on a point of order.

HON. D.G. COCKE (Minister of Health): Mr. Chairman, on a point of order. My point of order is as follows. It seems to be becoming habitual over there to call this side liars. That Member over there, and I'll resist this, but that Member over there says that this Minister was handed a complete blueprint. It would be so easy to say that he's a liar, but we resist that kind of thing. But that's the kind of habit that's going on over there, Mr. Chairman, and I hope that you will put that man back in his place as a proper debater in this House.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please! I would ask the Hon. First Member for Vancouver–Point Grey if he was imputing an improper motive to the Minister: that is, of misleading the House.

MR. McGEER: No, Mr. Chairman. What I am asking the Minister to do is to stand up and give an explanation, so I will not be led to an inevitable conclusion which comes from the facts as they have been presented so far.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

[ Page 1546 ]

MR. McGEER: The Minister can clear this up immediately.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order! We are concerned with the remarks that the Member said in the past, and I'm asking the Hon. Member to withdraw the remark. It is imputing an improper motive.

MR. McGEER: Mr. Chairman, if the Minister....

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please! Order! I think it is within the dignity of the House that you should withdraw remarks imputing an improper motive to the Minister.

MR. McGEER: I've already said I'm not. I'm asking a question.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order! Order, please! The matter can be resolved very easily by the Hon. Member by just saying that you did not....

MR. McGEER: No, Mr. Chairman, this matter can only be resolved by an answer from the Minister. I've asked the question. I asked her very respectfully to stand up and give an explanation.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please! I'm asking the Hon. Member if he was imputing an improper motive to the Minister: that is, of misleading the House.

MR. McGEER: Mr. Chairman, what I did today was to quote from the Minister's remarks last night, in which she said "not a single piece of paper." Then what I've done today is to say....

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please! Look, I'm not concerned with what the Minister said last night or today. I'm asking the Hon. Member whether or not he is imputing an improper motive to the Hon. Minister of Education: that is, of misleading the House. If you have, I would ask you to withdraw the remark.

MR. McGEER: I'm asking questions of the Minister. She can give a perfectly good explanation, if she has one, and I'll accept it.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I will ask the Member once more if he will withdraw the remark in which he said that the Minister of Education misled the House. Will you withdraw that remark?

MR. McGEER: Mr. Chairman, may I just modify it slightly?

Interjections.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order! I'm requesting an unqualified withdrawal of the remark that the Minister of Education misled the House.

MR. McGEER: Mr. Chairman, I make an unqualified withdrawal and say she "apparently misled" the House, and she can only clear it up by answering questions.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order! That is not satisfactory. I'm asking the Hon. Member to withdraw the imputation that the Minister misled the House.

MR. McGEER: I did. I said I withdrew it. She apparently misled the House.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I would accept the remark you make that you have withdrawn the remark.

MR. McGEER: I'm just qualifying it and saying she apparently misled the House because she said one thing last night and today she said otherwise.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please! Whether you said misled the House or apparently misled the House, the point is the same, and I would just ask the Member to withdraw.

MR. McGEER: No, no! There's a great difference. There's a great difference because the Minister may have some explanation. We certainly asked her that this morning. And there were no answers to the questions. And I ask her again now. If the Minister can explain it, Mr. Chairman, I would be the most pleased person in British Columbia.

Interjections.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

MR. McGEER: I'm not....

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please! I would just make one final point. I'm accepting the fact that the Hon. Member, the First Member for Vancouver–Point Grey, has withdrawn any imputations of improper conduct on the part of the Minister. You may proceed.

MR. McGEER: Now, what I might add, Mr. Chairman, is that if she doesn't answer these questions, then her conduct will be improper, and so far she has not answered them.

MR. L.A. WILLIAMS: On the amendment, Mr. Chairman. I just want to address myself briefly to the amendment. I was pleased this afternoon to have the official opposition move this amendment. It brought

[ Page 1547 ]

them all to the House. I couldn't understand why they had come but quite obviously they came to hear their leader speak, and that is something we should all applaud.

Interjections.

MR. L.A. WILLIAMS: Yes, I'll deal with his speech. However, the Hon. Member for Cariboo in his remarks I think unfairly criticized the teachers of this province. He tended to suggest by what he said that the teaching profession throughout British Columbia had knocked on doors for the NDP to ensure their election, and by that to criticize the teaching profession in this province.

The Member is wrong. The campaign carried on by the teachers in August, 1972, was to support in every constituency those candidates who had the best chance of beating Social Credit.

The wisdom of that campaign was disclosed here this afternoon in the remarks from the Member for South Okanagan (Mr. Bennett) when he stood in his place and denounced the educational policy of Social Credit as carried on over the past 20 years.

That is a significant step forward. He led us to believe firmly that under his leadership that party would never, ever again go back to the days that we all fought against before he came to this House.

We will never, ever go back to the days when these other Members, when they sat on the other side of the House with all of their cohorts, stood in their place, man and woman after man and woman, and criticized the teachers of the Province of British Columbia.

Let us never go back to that, because while we are discussing the competency of this Minister, let us not forget that the educational system in the Province of British Columbia, its success and its ability to do for the young people of British Columbia what it intends to do, depends upon teachers.

We can argue about policy in this House, we can talk about finance, we can support boards of school trustees in the work that they do, we can support Parent-Teacher Associations, but, Mr. Chairman, you are never going to have an educational system unless you have teachers in the classrooms. We must never forget that.

Indeed, Mr. Chairman, it is because we must never forget that, that I must vote for this amendment expressing want of confidence in that Minister. Yes, the teachers supported those New Democratic Members who are sitting in the House today. Yes, those teachers have apparently received from the government many of the changes they want to take place. But the teachers were not only thinking of themselves. They were thinking of the system of which they are an integral part, and it is that system which the Minister of Education has failed over the past 18 months. Failed miserably over the past 18 months.

The teachers in one of the school districts within my constituency, as well as working diligently within the school system, worked with their board of school trustees, worked with their citizens' committees, in an attempt to ensure that it is the best possible school district that the money available to them can produce.

They are critical of the actions taken by this Minister. I refer again to the Minister's claim that school trustees in this province have been irresponsible. Yet for the West Vancouver school district, with their interim budget going up by almost $2 million, it is noteworthy that all of the major items of increase in that school budget were due to the actions of this government and the requirements of the Minister.

What are the items that brought about the increase on the budget? Teachers aides, previously financed under LIP grants — now obligatory by direction from the Minister that they be financed within the school budget.

Capilano College grants — those Capilano College grants are under the control of the college council, not under the board of trustees at all. Replacement of supplies now charged to the parents in direct response to the Minister's regulation 30. Salary increases to teachers provided for under the Public Schools Act and settled by arbitration.

Class size improvements — an attempt on the part of this board of school trustees to aim at the provincial average as suggested by the Minister of Education. All the steps taken resulting in increases in that school district budget were taken either in accordance with legal requirements, or at the suggestion or direction of the Minister of Education. And yet they're called responsible.

The teachers in that school district in this particular respect are in full support of the board of trustees. And they deprecate the words of the Minister of Education. The West Vancouver Teachers' Association said — and I'm quoting a letter:

"We take strong exception to the Minister of Education's statement that boards were irresponsible in their budgets. We think our board has been most responsible in the way it handled the budget."

The teachers supported those candidates, New Democratic and others, who had the best chance of beating Social Credit. They've been let down by this Minister and they're still being let down.

In the matter of budgetary reform, two months ago the Minister of Education indicated that she was establishing a special study for us to consider the matter of educational finance. She was to be announcing a major study of school financing as reported in the press on January 14, 1974.

[ Page 1548 ]

When is it going to happen, Mr. Chairman? When is this major study of financing going to take place? Nothing's been done by this Minister in this regard. She has been unresponsive to demands made of her in this committee to indicate when she will begin to show the leadership that the Minister of Education owes to the department, to the public school system, to the teachers, to the students, to the parents and taxpayers of this province. Without those answers, without that clear indication of leadership we can have no confidence in that Minister.

MR. H.A. CURTIS (Saanich and the Islands): Mr. Chairman, I support the amendment. I do so with regret because in doing so...

HON. MR. MACDONALD: We heard there's a split in your caucus.

MR. CURTIS: ...in doing so I recognize that we're really saying that we have lost some more very valuable time with respect to education reform in the Province of British Columbia. The amount of time that we may take in this chamber, in this committee, is really not important — it's what is happening outside, and what in fact is not happening as a result of this Minister's indecisiveness and inability to come to grips with the problems that she inherited.

You've heard of "Dear John" letters, Mr. Chairman. Letters which I think have quite a history. There was one in the White Rock Sun which is pretty rough, pretty strong. But it indicates that it isn't just the Members of the opposition party here today, yesterday and last night, who are disappointed and disenchanted with this Minister's performance, or lack of performance rather, but the people of British Columbia who are interested in education.

"Dear John, you didn't do a bad job really. You tried to get us to listen to new ideas about our schools. You promoted citizen involvement in the public school process. You asked for ideas from everybody young and old on how to improve the system. You decided to lead us in forming new kinds of schools in B.C. and for that you were called a tsar by some who feared your innovations.

"Well John, now that Eileen has decided to end your work even before it began did she ever really know what she wanted you to do? We are without the active forum you began and that by itself is a loss. Because your probing and searching started us all thinking again about the institution we too often take for granted, that system we've all been through and almost instinctively distrust.

"We wish you well, sir, in your next job hoping against hope that Eileen will sooner or later devise a philosophy of education that isn't a dog's breakfast of contradictions."

The White Rock Sun, January 17.

And so for her contradictions, for her inability to come to grips with the issues in education, for her lack of direction and for her lack of decisiveness for the manner in which not only John Bremer was dismissed, but for the manner in which he was engaged — which is in my view a shocking example of poor administrative management — not setting up terms of reference, not setting up the guidelines, not telling the individual what he was required to do before he started the job and finding out so few months later that somehow it had all gone wrong — for all of those, but most disappointing of all, Mr. Chairman, for her promises of educational reform unfulfilled, I support the amendment.

Amendment negatived on the following division:

YEAS — 13

NAYS — 27

HON. MR. STRACHAN: I would ask that when you report to the Speaker you report a division was taken on vote 39 and ask that that vote be recorded in the Journals.

MR. McGEER: Several times I have asked the Minister of Education some very simple questions; direct, straightforward and relevant. They were with regard to statements she made last evening with respect to information she had received from the former commissioner of education, Mr. John Bremer.

There is a discrepancy between the statements she made last evening and the information which was released by Mr. Bremer, brought before the House this morning by myself. I ask the Minister once more to clear up that discrepancy by explaining that difference between herself and Mr. Bremer and to tell us whether she has had any further documents that we haven't heard about in this House.

[ Page 1549 ]

HON. MRS. DAILLY: I said last night following the revelation of a policy, or a blueprint as it was called, which I had never actually seen in that form, that certainly there had been informal discussions. But this is the first time I ever knew there was an actual blueprint of that discussion. That, of course, was one of the reasons for my concern and I would appreciate seeing the draft which you have there and I wonder if you could send it across. I think I asked for that last night.

Secondly, as far as pieces of paper, last night I said I had not received — I can't remember the actual words — papers. Of course, I am talking about policy papers.

Now apparently what you have on your desk, and I would appreciate seeing them, are memos and I think a few little sentences which were received once in a while. But I do not consider that a policy paper.

MR. L.A. WILLIAMS: Yesterday I asked the Minister a few questions concerning the number of teachers leaving the school system and the number employed each year and she asked if I was aware of the tables in the report, and of course I am.

This afternoon, earlier in the debate, the Minister gave the Premier some information which was current suggesting that in I don't know how many months, 1,500 teachers have come into the school system.

Can you bring us up to date on how many have left? Between September, 1970, and September, 1971, there were 1,967 teachers leaving the system and 2,667 came in. Between September, 1971, and 1972 there was... Mr. Chairman, can we have a little order? If the Minister would like to talk wouldn't it be better to go outside, do you think?

Between September of 1971 and 1972 there were 2,448 teachers left the system and only 1,960 came back in. Could you tell us between September, 1972, and September, 1973, the numbers that left the system and the numbers that came in?

MR. CHAIRMAN: It would seem more appropriate that this question should be brought up under vote 46. However, the Minister may wish to answer.

HON. MRS. DAILLY: Mr. Member, I have not the information here. I wonder if I can send it to you in a memo from my office. Would you accept that?

MR. L.A. WILLIAMS: Yes, I would, but I would like to ask one further question in that regard. With respect to teachers that leave the system, during any one period from September to September, does the department make any assessment of the reason that they leave — in other words, for retirement, to take other positions, marriage, pregnancy? Is there any breakdown of those figures?

HON. MRS. DAILLY: The school districts, of course, have them, and the department does compile them, but I don't have them here for you. We can get them to you.

MR. L.A. WILLIAMS: When you give me a report on the numbers, can you also give me an indication of how it is broken down? Thank you.

MR. D.E. SMITH (North Peace River): There are a few questions that I would like to address to the Minister in her salary vote. One of them has to do with a series of discussions that took place between the Minister and the representatives of the B.C. School Trustees Association.

As I understand it, a series of meetings took place at which the Minister had encouraged the executive officers of the B.C. School Trustees Association to meet the Minister and offer their suggestions as to the future educational policies in the Province of British Columbia and any other matters that they might wish to bring to the attention of the Minister.

Now, I could be incorrect, but I understand a series of meetings took place and then, for some unknown reason, the meetings were suddenly terminated. Discontinued. This was not the understanding of the B.C. School Trustees Association. At least, they had been given to understand and encouraged to think that these meetings would continue on a regular basis for some period of time.

It may be that the Minister is going to reply that because of the introduction of the White Paper that we've all talked about in the last couple of days, or the fact that it was about to be introduced, that there was no need for further talks or discussions with the B.C. School Trustees Association.

If that's her reply, I would suggest to her that nothing could be further from the truth. Because I have had the pleasure of meeting with the chairman of the B.C. School Trustees Association, and he felt that the meetings were very fruitful and that they should have been continued for a period of time so that they would have some idea as to the future policies of the Minister of Education and that she would have a better understanding of the position of the B.C. School Trustees Association on many of the problems in the field of education.

I would like to spend a few moments also talking about the introduction of kindergarten classes in all the schools of British Columbia. Now, I realize that the Minister has retracted her position slightly as to when these kindergarten classes will have to go into operation, when they should be operative in all schools throughout the province.

But I would like to bring to the attention of the Minister a problem that is mainly peculiar to rural areas, and that is that the introduction of

[ Page 1550 ]

kindergarten classes in all schools of the province created a great problem for them. The problem is one of transportation.

As the Minister well knows, these youngsters cannot, should not, be required to spend the same number of hours per day both getting to school, going to class, and going home from school. As a matter of fact, they have a shortened school day, which is understandable for children who are not yet six years old.

It does create a problem, though. I think the Chairman has probably experienced the problem in his own area of the province. That is, that the children of kindergarten age in the rural areas of the province are scattered out over wide areas. Because of busing problems, they cannot be included in the buses that take, say the grades 1 to 6, 7, 8, 10 or whatever grade level they happen to be gathering.

They cannot take the same buses at the same time in the morning and then wait for several hours until the bus runs are ready to take the children back home again. By the same token, because in many areas the number of children of kindergarten age are dispersed over a wide area of the province and throughout....

HON. MR. STRACHAN: Where are you going, Pat?

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please.

HON. MR. STRACHAN: Point of order, before the Hon. Member for Vancouver–Point Grey (Mr. McGeer) leaves the chamber, Mr. Chairman. Earlier today he held up a paper which has been a subject of some discussion in this House. I think under the rules of this House he should table that paper with the House. I'm asking he do that before he leaves for Vancouver.

AN HON. MEMBER: That's the queerest point of order I've ever heard, Mr. Chairman.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

HON. MR. STRACHAN: He's leaving for Vancouver and I'd like him to table it before he runs out.

MR. CHAIRMAN: You may not table in committee. I would recognize the Hon. Member for North Peace River.

Interjections.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please! Would the Hon. Member for North Peace River be seated for a moment?

Interjection.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I want to make the point to the Hon. First Member for Vancouver–Point Grey (Mr. McGeer) that I wish to recognize you first on the point of order before you spoke. Thank you. The Hon. Member for North Peace River may continue.

MR. SMITH: You're a very kind, considerate Chairman, and I know you're here to protect the best interests of all the Members of this House.

As I was saying before the interruption, there is a problem that the Minister must be aware of with respect to introducing kindergarten classes in the rural parts of British Columbia. The problem may not be as acute in the urban areas but it certainly creates very real problems in rural areas because of the limited numbers of children of that age group scattered over large areas. They must be accommodated and bused to school and away from school at hours different than the times that the regular classes are bused.

That's a problem I do not think the Minister has solved. I know she has given some consideration to extra busing in these areas of the province but I think she should realize that the increased cost will be substantial. It will probably mean that a special bus run will have to be laid on and it may take several buses to cover the entire busing area of a constituency such as my own to pick up 15, 20 or 30 children who happen to be of that age. I hope she'll have some solutions to that problem and that she will look at other programmes she wishes to introduce with respect to the impact it will have on the rural areas of the province as well as the impact it will have on the urban areas.

I'd also like to refer for a few minutes to the idea of advanced education in the northern part of British Columbia and refer specifically to the report from the Downey commission. It did a study on northwestern Alberta and northeastern British Columbia with respect to some sort of combined services for the two areas. I think the Minister is probably familiar or has seen a report prepared by the associated chambers of commerce of the B.C. Peace River district in which they point out some of the things they question with respect to....

Interjections.

MR. SMITH: What's the matter with you?

Interjection.

AN HON. MEMBER: Table it.

[ Page 1551 ]

MR. SMITH: It sounds like the back bench is getting restless; they probably want to go home. Too bad they didn't speak in the debate instead of saving all their comments for the hallways.

The report was prepared concerning advanced education in northern Alberta and northern British Columbia.

Interjections.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

MR. SMITH: I'd like to read just briefly from the report.

"L.W. Downey Research Associates of Edmonton, Ltd. was commissioned by the two concerned provincial governments to determine the most appropriate means to provide for the long-term development programmes and facilities in higher and further education for northwestern Alberta and northeastern B.C. with particular reference to organization, governance, coordination and funding."

This is a reasonable task for this commission to take on. But one of the things that becomes apparent since the report has been available is that most of the reference material and most of the subject matter in the report deals with northwestern Alberta and very little with the problems of British Columbia.

We know that in northwestern Alberta there is a community college at Grande Prairie and two other colleges in two other areas. One is a school at Fairview and there's one other school, a vocational type of school. It's a known fact that none of these institutions really have the student enrolment and population that they should have. Perhaps they're built on the basis of expansion and they hope that that expansion will take place. But it's interesting to note and compare those institutions with the vocational school in Dawson Creek. While it's a similar type of institution for advanced learning, it certainly has a better record for enrolment and for student cost than the ones operated in northwestern Alberta.

It would therefore seem to me that perhaps the Downey report was weighted in favour of the educational problems in the Province of Alberta rather than the educational problems in the northeastern part of the Province of British Columbia.

It's suggested in the report that the whole area would benefit greatly by the introduction of some combined facility, particularly by expanding and enlarging the faculty at Grande Prairie. I'd just like to suggest to the Minister that perhaps this particular aspect has been overplayed in that report and that we should pay closer attention to the faculty and the facilities available to us in Prince George which are presently in existence. The report suggests that it's a long way from northeastern British Columbia — and I'm now talking mainly of the North and South Peace School Districts — to Prince George. But by aircraft, it's certainly almost as quick as trying to travel to Alberta. With student fares, many children come back and forth between Prince George and their home ridings almost each and every weekend.

I do think we should look at the potential of the northeastern part of the province. I'm not sure in my own mind that a combined faculty with the Province of Alberta is the answer to the problem. Certainly we have a nucleus of an institution in Dawson Creek of a vocational-technical nature. Perhaps the thought should be given to expanding facilities that we have and make more use of them than to tie ourselves in with the Province of Alberta.

I know the Minister held talks with Alberta and, as a matter of fact, a few meetings in the north. I unfortunately received an invitation, Madam Minister, after the meetings were over, not before. I realize that I was out being a good MLA and travelling in my own constituency, but I felt a little unhappy that the notification of the meeting should come to me after the meetings were held instead of before.

I'd like to deal with just one other matter before I take my seat. That is one which I feel smacks of political interference, perhaps not by the Minister personally but at least by the executive council. That is with respect to the appointment of a representative on the board of directors of the College of New Caledonia in Prince George. As the Minister is well aware, one of the former representatives to that board was a Mr. J. Galt Wilson, a well-respected lawyer in Prince George. For some reason he was relieved of that position and replaced — both he and the vice-chairman, as a matter of fact — with two other appointments.

An order-in-council replaced college council chairman Wilson and vice-chairman Jean Kellet with John Guthry, vice-president of Northwood Pulp and Timber, Ltd. and Tag Morgenson, secretary of local 1424 of the Independent International Woodworkers of America.

I think that was an unfortunate choice, even if it could be considered non-political. I think it was unfortunate to take those two particular people off that board and replace them with two others. There was no need for it. And particularly it was unfortunate due to the fact that by bouncing Mr. Galt Wilson off that board and replacing him, he lost his right to be the president of the B.C. Colleges Association, because he no longer occupied a position on any regional college in the Province of British Columbia.

Interjections.

[ Page 1552 ]

MR. SMITH: Well, I understand from the people of that area that he was well liked and they felt he was doing a very good job as president. That's right. The only reason that he can suggest for his dismissal was the fact that he ran as a Conservative candidate in the last election, Madam Minister. Now surely to goodness there was some other reason, and if there wasn't, I think that's pretty low politics for the executive council to play, because he was a good man doing a good job. And by relieving him from his position on the board at New Caledonia College, you also wiped him out as president of the B.C. Colleges Association for his term of office.

AN HON. MEMBER: Shame, shame!

MR. SMITH: I say it is. I say it is, when the man was doing a good job.

It would have been different if the man had been asked to be relieved of his duties, or if he was leaving the area, or for some reason he felt the duties were too onerous and he could not continue them. But that type of politics is something that should not be condoned, and I would hope that the Minister would not see this sort of pattern repeated in other parts of the Province of British Columbia.

HON. MR. STRACHAN: Mr. Chairman, again I would ask the Member for Point Grey who referred to what he claimed was an official document early today to table that document in the House under the rules of parliament.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please! It is not possible to table documents in committee. On the point of order, the request must be given when we are sitting as the House.

HON. MR. STRACHAN: I just want the Hon. Member to know it's coming.

MR. FRASER: I made quite a few requests to the Minister this afternoon. I realize the Minister probably didn't have an opportunity to reply, but I would like particularly to hear her remarks regarding the cost of school busing and if the department is entertaining upgrading elementary schools to some degree of secondary education and to grade 9.

I have a letter here, Mr. Chairman, from a teacher who presently teaches in a school in a remote area of the Cariboo. She took the time to analyse some ills, as she calls them — what she thinks is wrong with our education system today. I'd like to put them on record in the House here.

"Number one, we do not have the democratic choice of the method or type of education we desire our children to have.

"Number two, the Province of British Columbia has no set basic standard of education throughout each grade or level; therefore the quality of education differs from area to area."

And I might say, Mr. Chairman, that this is certainly correct, and I feel that the Interior and the north have not had the opportunities that they deserve and we have a second-rate education system in that area because of other conditions I mentioned earlier. They only have so much with this flap formula that we are dealing with and have for some time, but this Minister hasn't changed it.

The pupil is the one that suffers because they happen to live in an area of the province where the climate is not as nice as it is on the lower mainland and Vancouver Island. I think it's about time that something different came up for the area.

The other observation that this teacher makes, Mr. Chairman, is that in her opinion the general education is too long. In other words, the school year is too long. I would have to say that that's what she means here and I was wondering again if the department is giving any thought to this.

The teacher also feels that we have too many highly specialized teachers. By that she means that we have a lot of teachers specializing in certain things, and they're not concerned about the overall education of the student and they're not even interested in the other parts of the education of the student to round out the total education for the student.

The other thing has come up here before, Mr. Chairman, and a different route, but this teacher says that discipline in our schools is poor. In fact, very bad. If there's any proof there of this — this is only one teacher, I agree — I wonder how many more teachers feel the same way. On that subject, with the withdrawal of the strap as a disciplinary measure, now apparently they let the violence go on in another direction where students are taking violent actions against teachers. That is a well-known fact. I wonder if the Minister's considered this side of that field.

This teacher also says that too many schools are being used for experimental purposes. I'm not so sure what the lady means here but I would think there are experiments going on that are probably upsetting the general curriculum.

Another observation this lady teacher has: physical education, a compulsory course, has become game oriented for a few students rather than physical development of each and every student in British Columbia. I think that's come up here before and something I'm sure the Department of Education, through the Minister, should be looking at.

The other observation that is given here: the

[ Page 1553 ]

communication of what schools are doing in British Columbia is very poor. In other words, there has to be an upgrading of the communications between schools and throughout the whole province.

The last observation the lady has: teachers' training is not practical. So, by that, we are apparently teaching our teachers theory and then they go into the classroom with theory and this is what our students are getting and they're not ready for the workaday world when they come out because they're not taught enough about it and they don't know about it.

Getting back into the lack of funds in this budget, which is certainly all part of the Minister of Education, I think I've talked a lot today about elementary and secondary level of education; but at the university level of education, when you see the votes, the operating grants to the universities in this budget before us has advanced from $100 million to $110 million. Mr. Chairman, this is disgraceful. When we have an inflation rate going on at all costs.... There's an indication here of a 10 per cent increase; well, I'm sure our inflation rate is beyond that or it's certainly going to be before we're finished by March 31, 1975. It means that the university staffs are going to have to cut back.

AN HON. MEMBER: Mr. Chairman, I draw your attention to the clock.

AN HON. MEMBER: Not on Friday.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please! I would point out to the Hon. Member that standing order No. 3 does not apply on Friday in the same manner that it does Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Therefore I would point out that, this being a new sitting, it is open-ended and therefore cannot be adjourned except by a motion.

MR. SMITH: Mr. Chairman, if you follow through on standing order No. 3 I submit that the regular sittings in the House on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday shall be from 2 o'clock in the afternoon until 6 o'clock and evening sittings from 8 o'clock until 11 unless otherwise ordered. But on Friday the House shall adjourn at 1 o'clock and shall stand adjourned unless otherwise ordered until the following Monday.

We adjourned at 12:30 and came back this afternoon. We are in a new session and I would submit the new session ends at 6 o'clock as in any other manner and that we would stand adjourned on that basis until next Monday.

HON. MR. STRACHAN: Speaking to the same point of order, Mr. Chairman, I think the standing orders are very, very clear. This House did adjourn, not at the normal time but at 12:30. By order of this House we came back at 1:30. There is absolutely no direction in the standing orders as to what happens after 1 p.m. on Friday. Only by a motion of this House can we either discontinue this particular committee sitting or discontinue the meeting of the House itself.

MR. CHAIRMAN: On the point of order, I would like to make the ruling from the Chair that this committee can only adjourn on a motion or when we come to the time of the next sitting, which would be 2 o'clock on Monday afternoon.

MR. McGEER: Did the Premier leave any indication what his wish to the House was before he left for rugby practice?

MR. CHAIRMAN: The Chair has no knowledge of that.

MR. FRASER: Mr. Chairman, when all these parliamentary experts are through, we'll get on with the business of the public.

MR. SMITH: Point of order. I've listened to your interpretation of the rule, and I don't think that your interpretation is any closer to correct than any that I've heard from our side of the House, Mr. Chairman. It would follow in normal practice of the House that if the rule itself is silent on a particular point, then you would refer back to the procedure and the circumstances outlined under ordinary days of business. I submit therefore that we should, when your attention is drawn to the clock on Friday afternoon at 6 o'clock, adjourn the House as pointed out in standing order No. 3.

MR. CHAIRMAN: On the point of order, my ruling would be that the standing orders are very explicit. In the absence of direction, the only way to resolve the thing is by motion in the committee. I would rule that the committee is still in session and it's still in order to continue on with further speakers.

MR. McGEER: As the Premier is gone for the weekend, I see no point in continuing. I move that the committee rise, report progress and ask leave to sit again.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. The Hon. Member for Cariboo has the floor.

MR. McGEER: Mr. Chairman, a motion to adjourn the committee can be ordered anytime and I ask you to put the question.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order. I would recognize the

[ Page 1554 ]

Hon. First Member for Vancouver–Point Grey (Mr. McGeer) if the Member for Cariboo (Mr. Fraser) takes his seat, but if the Member for Cariboo wishes to take his place again he may.

MR. McGEER: Mr. Chairman, I move that the committee rise, report progress and ask leave to sit again.

Motion negatived on the following division:

YEAS — 10

NAYS — 26

Interjection.

MR. FRASER: You better believe, Mr. Minister, I'm hungry. This is legislation by starvation but we'll go along with that.

I think when I got interfered with by my colleague I was talking about the inadequacy of operating moneys to universities. It's all through this budget, Mr. Chairman, and with no exception, with the grants to our universities, they're going to have to lay off some professors and cut back just when their enrolment has started to go up again. I think that's a very sad state of affairs. It might even affect the first Member for Vancouver–Point Grey (Mr. McGeer). I don't think the Minister would like to see that interfere with his work.

On the capital grants to universities, there's no increase at all in there, Mr. Chairman, because of inflation. In effect what it says is there'll be at least a minimum of 10 and possibly 15 per cent less money involved for them. So that means they're going backwards on the capital grant or the building of structures and so on.

I think that the department that concerns me most is the grants to school districts that show an advance of some $42 million.

But again, Mr. Chairman, with all the stresses and strains there are and the inadequacies in the system I can imagine the Minister will say: "I didn't get the money, and this is why we can't get innovations made in the system to get a better system."

I would refer, Mr. Chairman, to last year when there was an adjustment vote made of $12 million. Of course, that's not been redone this year and I can't see why.... I think that was a political move to set that out that way. I'm wondering why they don't either get a decent increase to grants for school districts in this budget, or if they don't want to put it in that figure, why they don't put it in an adjustment for a catch-up vote.

All in all, I would like to sit down and have specific answers from the Minister on the intentions or thoughts of bringing in the upgrading of the rural schools, and bringing a certain level of secondary education there so these people can keep their children at home until at least they have gotten through grade 9. The case is now that grade 7 and in some cases the grade eighters have to go into the larger centres where they get involved with the drug syndrome and everything else and it's a lot of trouble. It's upsetting to the parents and to the child and I think it's part of the parents and to the child and I think it's part of the reason for the drop-out rate at the grade 8 level.

The school busing costs are really a problem and I'm referring particularly to the operating costs. All the school boards in the Interior of this province are robbing from the curriculum money to operate this very needy service of school busing.

In my riding we have children getting on school buses at 6:30 in the morning to go to school. They don't return to their homes until 5 o'clock at night. Even children of kindergarten age are now involved. Believe me, this equipment has to be the best, and it isn't the best because of the lack of money. As I pointed out, they could have a lot more safety features in them than they have, and that's my concern. They haven't got them because of the lack of funding.

HON. MRS. DAILLY: The problem of trying to equalize those services. I am quite aware that people in the rural areas have for many years had to put up with services that certainly aren't sufficient as the ones you have in the urban ridings. However, I think that there have been honest attempts through the finance formula to create equalization factors to some degree.

We also have the problem of getting the teachers into those areas. We have the problem, as you say, of the long distances to do with transportation. Sometimes you can put in many more buses and it still doesn't solve the problem with the timing and the number of children involved.

I'll be quite honest with you. I don't have the answers for those questions you've asked at this time, except in the matter of the finance formula which is

[ Page 1555 ]

under revision. Perhaps something can be done if those moneys are needed to provide equal education. We realize that you do have to have an unequal distribution of the moneys.

MRS. JORDAN: Mr. Chairman, I was most interested in hearing the Minister speak just now. If I understood her correctly, while she had the finance formula under review she basically felt that it had been a very sincere attempt to try and equalize education throughout the province. I agree with her on that and it's nice to hear her admit it.

I hope that she's not going to let the needs of rural schools, particularly in an area where it was stated that they should expand, suffer from lack of funds while she reviews the formula which has been under review for 18 months already. That well may not come to a conclusion for another 18 months, if not two or three years, and by then it will be too late.

I mentioned earlier in another debate the opportunity there was for the Minister to meet her commitment that was made not only when she was in opposition but made publicly when she became Minister that she was most anxious to promote the return of students to the more rural areas where it was feasible. No one expects miracles.

Interjection.

MRS. JORDAN: Yes, I recognize that, Madam Minister, but it's not being done on a basis of any major advancement. I cited and will cite the cases that I have the honour to represent where there's been really no encouragement on your part to expand that programme and to meet with the commitment that you made, which was not only to return the students back to the Lumby area — and this is not a home base for a lot of them as many of them still come 30 and 40 miles by bus to attend the Lumby Senior Secondary School — but the need to offer variety in their curriculum and some innovation in their curriculum by projecting programmes which have a very definite relationship to the environment in which they live.

This was done by School District 22 and brought forth a programme that is unique in itself, and that is in forestry — 10-E or 11-E, whichever they've decided on. This was brought about by many interested people, not only within the framework of the teaching profession but also within the forestry, within private industry and the community itself. They did need some extra money and the programme is going ahead. But the Minister could have shown the concrete evidence in the belief of her own statements and in recognition of a programme that quite obviously is going to expand in British Columbia into more non-metropolitan areas just on the basis of our own environment and our own concern for it.

I would ask the Minister why, why, why did you renege on your statement which was made in the Shuswap constituency? I mentioned it was made there specifically because it's very close to the school board with whom we're dealing. Why didn't you offer more encouragement, and just some financial assistance so they could have got the programme off the ground the way they wanted to?

Mr. Chairman, it wasn't an elaborate programme, by any shape or means. It was a very basic, environmentally oriented programme. It gave young people who live in a logging and recreational area a real academic and practical insight into forestry management, not only in British Columbia but in the area in which they live.

The people there, Madam Minister, are very disappointed. I feel that had the Minister taken the time to look at the record of School District 22, that in itself would have reassured her that these people have been extremely responsible through the years. They've managed to keep the assessments right on the fringe of the provincial average.

If you look at the programmes that they have developed in School District 22, you will see that there has been a tremendous amount of innovation on a very balanced scale. They were among the first to innovate drama in the school. We had as our drama teacher a lady who probably had no more than a grade 9 formal education or the equivalent in Canada, but she is extremely talented in drama and is now the public appointment to the development of drama in the Province of British Columbia. She started this on a voluntary basis and eventually it was incorporated in the curriculum — a highly responsible move.

In the matter of environmental studies, School District 22 has been one of the most advanced, and I believe it has chosen the right route. In environmental studies, in my humble view, there are two approaches. One is the almost confrontation or adversary approach in which you challenge nature, and this is more simply put as the outward-bound approach. Or there is the sensitivity approach.

In the adversary approach — I think that these are incorporated in some of the schools — it's a relatively structured approach. I think the programme that the Minister of Recreation and Conservation (Hon. Mr. Radford) has announced for Goldstream appears, in my view — and I will certainly keep an open mind until I've had a chance to go and see it — much more of a structured programme than what I would like to see in the schools.

In the North Okanagan in School District 22 they've taken a sensitivity approach. They haven't brought in a lot of highly qualified academic specialists. They have utilized highly qualified and very sensitive life specialists.

These people, some of whom are on the teaching staff, some of whom are now in the school board

[ Page 1556 ]

office as advisers, are people who have made a lifetime of studying nature, and they've been able to stimulate by their sensitive approach an incredible interest in the eyes of our young people of learning to be sensitive to nature as well as learning to live with it and recognizing, of course, that there is a time when one has to cope with nature's challenges. I would hope that the Minister would take that programme into consideration as to how a school district has innovated extremely well and in a very responsible manner.

We have in the North Okanagan really a unique composition of areas for environmental study. The former administration worked very hard with the teachers and the school board in declaring an area out in one of the valleys just north of Lumby as an ecological area, and this is used very extensively by our students.

We have another unique area in the form of Swan Lake — so unique that it's quite conceivable that it could become part of an extension programme on the biology programmes of any one of the universities — and this has been utilized by the school. Hopefully, this area will become a wild fowl sanctuary officially in the very near future.

Then we have Cousins Bay which is soon to become a provincial park — another unique study area. Through your good efforts I hope, Madam Minister, we will have another example of uniqueness in our whole environmental study, which is the O'Keefe Range, which offers almost one of the last drybelt, dryland areas where you combine the sage and the dryland characteristics with some of the wetland, grassland marshes.

When you put this all together, you see a unique situation that has been involved and evolved not on the basis of a tremendous amount of financial cost, but on a sensitivity approach and on the initiative of the board through its own people.

This forestry programme in Lumby would have been a natural adjunct to this current programme as well as relating very directly to the interests of the students in that area, and would well have proved of interest to many adults who live in Lumby, who, when they heard about it, thought that they would like to go to school to take this particular programme.

It's extremely disappointing, Madam Minister, that you didn't do more. I recognize that you are looking at this programme and thinking of using Lumby and part of the pilot project, but it's too little too late. That's the problem in this whole vote — too little, too late. In education we can't afford to examine and re-examine. It's like the psychiatrist who goes into psychiatry to solve his own problems and ends up more confused than ever, because he gets so much information he can't sort it out and deal with the facts.

There are other areas in the province, Madam Minister, of which you are aware and to which you should be responding in relation to their wish to develop more variety in their curriculum in the less populated areas. It has to require more money. We all know that. The budget that we're debating in total is a budget that is quite capable of providing these additional funds, if the Minister had been concerned and if the Minister had really sat down and put on her fighting shirt when she was speaking to Treasury about what she really wanted to do in education.

When I look at the debate this afternoon and I recall the conduct of the Premier of this province and see his absence in the House I can be very sympathetic to the Minister, because we recognize that she has not only the problems that have been outlined, but she has another problem in the leadership of the province and in the financial leadership of this province.

Interjection.

MRS. JORDAN: Yes, he certainly did, Mr. Member for Shuswap (Mr. Lewis), say a disgraceful thing. We appreciate, Madam Minister, that while you stand in opposition together, it's come as a shock to you that the Minister of Finance does not listen about education and that you as Minister of Education have had the rug pulled out from under you in many instances by the empty chair that's here today.

Just on that point, we find it distressing that not only was the budget in education the financial fiasco that it is, but that the Premier of this province and the one man who could help provide the wherewithal for you to carry out some of your programmes, if you could make the decisions, isn't even here this afternoon listening to this debate.

HON. MR. STRACHAN: He was here all week listening to the same stuff — all week!

MRS. JORDAN: Well, if he doesn't like his job, why doesn't he resign?

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order! You're on vote 39 which is the estimates of the Minister of Education.

MRS. JORDAN: Yes, but on vote 39 we feel that the Premier and Minister of Finance of this province should be sitting in this chamber, not pouting down the halls.

HON. MR. STRACHAN: The previous Premier's (Hon. Mr. Bennett) seat was empty most of the time through all the estimates.

MRS. JORDAN: What have we got? Two Rip van

[ Page 1557 ]

Winkles over there? Did you just wake up?

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order!

MRS. JORDAN: Come on, Mr. Chairman, it's 1974 and it's your government, and you have the power, and you have the money, and you have the responsibility to undertake your obligation to the people under vote 39, Mr. Chairman, to the Minister of Education.

Mr. Chairman, there's concern in our school district about the financing this year. As I pointed out just briefly, School District 22 has consistently had a very responsible school board, with one exception possibly in the development of a very elaborate school on a clay bed which has caused problems. But I'm sure your department will touch for them. They are, Madam Minister, one of the group that you attacked so viciously, and it was vicious, because this school board....

Interjection.

MRS. JORDAN: Well, I have the figures that haven't been introduced. But, Mr. Chairman, the Attorney-General says this has been said a thousand times. This is the problem. This government is not sensitive to the people and the needs of the people in this province.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order! We're dealing with Vote 39.

MRS. JORDAN: The Attorney-General is tired and old and he's yawning and he wants to go home. Go on home; we're willing to stand here and try and bring some semblance of order to education in this province, even if you want to go to bed.

Interjection.

MRS. JORDAN: Well, we're not getting much competition from your side, Mr. Minister.

Interjection.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order! Will the Member for Vancouver–Point Grey take his seat? Will the Member for North Okanagan continue, please?

MRS. JORDAN: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Address yourself to the vote that's before us — vote 39 — and the Chair.

MRS. JORDAN: Yes, I am, Mr. Chairman. Oh, the Minister's gone now, Mr. Chairman,

MR. CHAIRMAN: Address yourself to the House and address yourself to the Chair.

MRS. JORDAN: Yes, Mr. Chairman. I would like to see the Minister listening to the debate, though.

HON. MR. COCKE: Nothing new to say, but I'll take notes.

MRS. JORDAN: Oh, why don't you go and settle the hospital strike?

AN HON. MEMBER: What strike?

MRS. JORDAN: That will be forceps on your tombstone, Mr. Minister of Health.

Interjection.

MRS. JORDAN: Well, I tell you, if it hadn't been for the efforts of the opposition, you never would have appointed that mediator.

Anyway, Mr. Chairman, back to vote 39 and the Minister of Education. In School District 22, this district that I've been describing — and I don't see any nods from the silent Member on the floor of this House that it isn't a responsible district — they sat down to budget this year and they came up with a budget which was approximately 5 per cent over what the Minister in her rapid turn-around said they could consider.

I was very disturbed when I heard the Minister slap the school boards down. I went to see them and asked them how they possibly could have been so irresponsible after all these years. We sat down and they said: "We haven't been irresponsible." You would be interested, I'm sure, Mr. Chairman, to know that of the 5 per cent overbudget, over 3 per cent of that 45 per cent was in teachers' wages. They haven't yet settled their negotiations — in fact, they haven't started them — with the allied services in the school district. So of their 5 per cent overbudget that made up part of the $82 million that the school boards said they needed, for which the Minister cut them up, over 3 per cent was the result of the Minister's own actions in relation to the Teachers' Federation of British Columbia.

I'm not commenting on whether or not the salary increase was justifiable, because I don't think that's under debate. What is under debate is: how could a Minister possibly initiate action in one area that resulted in another responsible area bringing in a deficit of 5 per cent, of which over 3 per cent was a result of the Minister's actions, and then turn around and call them irresponsible? Down here in Victoria we talked it over at the school board, and the only way they can bring that down is to get rid of some of their teachers and to cut back on their maintenance.

[ Page 1558 ]

Mr. Member, I'm sure, as you know, Mr. Chairman, at this time if you're going to save 2 per cent of your budget, you have to cut back on an extreme amount of maintenance, in light of the inflationary factors.

They want to know, Mr. Chairman, what is going to happen to their budget when the next wage settlement takes places, because there's also the inside staff, the executive staff, the administrative staff in the school board office whose increases will be predicated on the basis of the settlements made in both the teachers' negotiations and the allied workers in the school district.

It is this sort of action by the Minister, and this complete inability that is reflected consistently by this government to understand the practical application of financing, and to be able to understand exactly how their words have affected the budgets of everybody in British Columbia. The Deputy Minister, I'm sure, would be able to help the Minister make an adjustment.

But over this financial problem then comes an emotional problem, which has been created by the Minister herself, because she brought in a budget in which she outlined what her expenditures would be and what we are debating right now. We examined the budget; and as MLA of the area I went back to the school district and said, "It would appear that this is the budget for the year, and somehow you are going to have to cut back."

But the next thing we saw was the type of politics that this Minister seems to be allowing herself, which is pressure politics and party politics, and it was this pressure that caused the Minister to announce suddenly and rashly that she would be putting more money into education.

Yet, Mr. Chairman, we hadn't even finished debating her budget. We hadn't even got on to her budget, and she's announcing that she will increase the amount of her budget by a special warrant behind the green doors of the cabinet.

So what is an MLA to advise his school board when they see the Minister yield to political pressure? The first time she really ever had it she just collapsed like a puffball. Do we go home to our own school boards and say: "That's the type of government we've got in Victoria. Come on teachers; you want to do something for your school districts. You want to get your salaries, you want to make up that 3 per cent; then you've got to dig into your own pockets and march on Victoria, corner her on the steps of the Legislature and challenge her"?

Mr. Chairman, that's not the type of advice I want to be in a position to offer to our school board to consider. I feel that it is not the type of advice that the Minister of Education would want any MLA to offer to their school board. But the problem is that that is the situation, Mr. Chairman, in which school boards are today, and that's the situation in which every MLA is today, and it is a situation created by the Minister of Education.

Interjection.

MRS. JORDAN: I hope the Member for Kamloops (Mr. G.H. Anderson) has good, strong lungs, because you're going to be saying "aye" for a long, long time, Mr. Member — unless the Minister of Education will stand up and announce that she will expand all the formulas, on the basis of formula, on the grants in the Province of British Columbia, at least in keeping with inflationary factors, and to take care of those costly programmes which are the results of her own doing. That is certainly one point that the opposition are concerned about, and it's not just us; it's the public, the school boards, the parents and the students.

So, speaking for School District 22, I would ask you, Mr. Chairman, to pass on to the Minister the words that I believe our school board should hang firm, and I hope they will receive their money. And I would advise the Minister at this time that Vernon and North Okanagan and School District 22 is a very rapidly growing area, and unless we can get down to some planning and some good discussions, we're going to find ourselves in a position where we will be short of classrooms, we will be short of teachers, and we will be shortchanging the educational system in the area.

Speaking of the quality of the school board that I've had the privilege to work with for a number of years — and I don't see them all the time — they call me and we meet once or twice a year to go over the general overview. They're quite capable of standing on their own two feet. But they've been able to bring down our teacher-pupil ratio to 21.3. I would think this would speak well for the school district. The Minister might have been more responsive to their efforts to respond to her concerns for the children in the schools outside the more populated areas.

Mr. Chairman, I consistently discussed a problem with the department and with the Minister and on the floor of this House which is very small in proportion to the overall budget that we are discussing, and perhaps many of the overall concerns in education, but I think it is important. This is the matter of diminishing hearing.

It is becoming increasingly evident with teachers who are working in industrial arts shops and more particularly in the area of music. It would appear to an inexperienced eye that one of the problems is that we are developing soundproof, highly specialized practice rooms and band areas in order to protect the rest of the school, but in fact this is concentrating the density of sound for those teachers who are consistently in this environment.

I am sure the Minister herself, who was a teacher, can recall where wives of teachers who had been

[ Page 1559 ]

teaching band have laughed from time to time and have said how their husbands weren't with it for an hour after they got home, and they could never attract their attention. If you examine this, one of the reasons appears to be because they are not as sensitive to sound after being in this repercussion area for such a long period during the day.

It is not a proven aspect in the teacher's negotiating contract, and that's exactly what I am concerned about. I believe that the Minister should order, or request, a study in this area. Our own area of School District 22 would be an excellent site. I don't really mind where it is, but I know it is an acute problem there.

Examine this, and if in fact there is an occupational hazard in relation to teaching music and other relatively high-noise subjects — and especially as we move more and more into special rooms which are supposed to deaden the sound on the outside but, in fact, intensify some of the measures for those in the room — then there should be proper compensation for these people because they will be losing their hearing, if not completely, certainly in a diminishing way, through their occupation.

I would invite the Minister's comments on this and hopefully have from her today a commitment that she will look into this.

Madam Minister, there is another....

Interjections.

MRS. JORDAN: No, our school district is aware of it, and actually the teachers didn't bring it to the school board; I did. They were quite interested. What really needs to be done is some initiative from you or your department. This should be directly looked into and then we can set the whole action in motion. I appreciate the Minister's willingness to do this, and I'm sure the music teachers of British Columbia will be very appreciative too.

One of the problems that is concerning our area, Madam Minister, through you, Mr. Chairman (smile, Mr. Chairman) is whether in fact the Minister is going to initiate a programme that declined during her early administration to reduce this pupil ratio in B.C. They would like to know on what basis this is going to be done. They are concerned in our area, and I'm sure in many other areas, that by not bringing forth this information now, and bringing it forth in perhaps April or May, all the school boards will be dashing into the teacher market — if I may call it that — looking for teachers and this is going to create a lot of difficulties in the province.

They would like to know when, in fact, this is going to take place and on what basis, so they can start planning. For an area like ours, which is growing, they are likely to....

HON. MRS. DAILLY: Point of order, Mr. Chairman.

MR. CHAIRMAN: What is your point of order?

HON. MRS. DAILLY: To the Hon. Member, I already answered that question for several other Members in the House, and if you read Hansard you'll have the answer.

MRS. JORDAN: Did you relate it to School District 22?

HON. MRS. DAILLY: All school districts.

MRS. JORDAN: Well, they're quite concerned that all the rules don't apply all over the province to all the school districts. This is what the debate is about, Mr. Chairman.

Interjection.

MRS. JORDAN: Tin cup, cap in hand: it's tragic that we've moved into that area. In our area, Madam Minister, Hon. Minister, Mr. Chairman, we are concerned about capital financing for equipment. I wonder if the Minister of Health (Hon. Mr. Cocke) would wake up the Minister of Consumer Services (Hon. Ms. Young) for us, if you would be so kind.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order! You're supposed to be dealing with the management and administration of this department.

MRS. JORDAN: I'm sure the Minister of Consumer Services is very interested in education, Mr. Chairman. I just didn't want her to miss anything.

In the matter of equipment in older schools — and we have two or three in our area which are very sound schools, and they've done a study and they don't recommend that they be dismantled — there should be some funding in a rapidly growing area available for equipping these schools, providing some experimental areas where they might enter into a more open type of classroom situation where they can carry out some of their drama programmes and some of the other programmes that they are initiating.

Mr. Chairman, for four or five times now I've stood in my place about the whole situation regarding kindergartens. The Minister, regretfully I'm sure, made an emotional decision demanding that kindergartens — and announcing this in a press conference — would be mandatory in terms of being provided by every school district in British Columbia by September of 1973.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I'd like to remind the Hon.

[ Page 1560 ]

Member, if you're saying that you have repeated this three or four times, that you yourself are saying that you are being tedious and repetitious in bringing it up again.

MRS. JORDAN: I think, Mr. Chairman, you should stay awake; then you'll know what the debate is about.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order! We're dealing with vote 39, the management and administration of the Minister's department.

AN HON. MEMBER: Have some respect for the Chair.

MRS. JORDAN: I have respect for the Chair, Mr. Minister, the Chair.

At the time I cautioned you that this simply was not possible in terms of providing facilities for these students, in terms of transportation for these students to the schools, and that there would have to be extra money and long planning for busing, and that if the Minister wished it to take effect immediately, then there should be the option to utilize the current kindergarten programmes that were in operation in the various school districts.

Now the Minister had to withdraw her deadlines and found also that it was creating more problems. In our area we are constructing, but, Mr. Chairman, unless we can get some indication that there will be more financing available and some concrete indication of what type of financing there will be in the extra busing costs, it's very difficult for the school district to assure the parents that the programme will be in full operation by September of 1974.

Again, I'm sure many areas are in the same position as we where we have experienced, marvellous co-operation from the parents. They are pooling and trying to pool and they're trying to get the kindergartens operated. But they'd like to see more initiative in terms of giving the school boards more concrete information on what type of cost-sharing there will be in busing.

It's time for the Attorney-General to retire if he can't stay in the House and stay awake. Maybe if the Attorney-General listened to some of the concerns of the smaller areas of this province, he'd have a better chance in the next election.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order! We're dealing with education votes.

Interjection.

MRS. JORDAN: Well, why don't you go and talk to granny?

Interjection.

MRS. JORDAN: Well, I'm very proud of my grandmother.

Interjection.

MRS. JORDAN: Well, we don't make our grandmother work in our family. We look after her.

On this point, Mr. Chairman, we'd like a firmer commitment in terms of what dollars will be available for the increased busing costs, and also how one actually operates in terms of the increased buses that may well be needed.

Another subject I'd like to mention is this whole business of recreation and sports in both the community and the schools. I have felt for a long time, and spoken quite frankly about this on public platforms, that our emphasis is too much on the select team and not nearly enough on the involvement of the majority.

It shouldn't really matter whether a child has ability in sport and recreation. What does matter is whether he wants to participate, or whether he can be encouraged to participate.

You go into many communities and you find that often within the school — and very well meant I'm sure, but perhaps on the basis of training — that the physical education department is molded into a position where they are emphasizing excellence. The whole atmosphere in the school is lionization of the football hero, or the sport hero, and is little short of contempt for the poor fellow that's pigeon-toed and stumbles down the basketball court.

I would like to see — and I hope the Minister will comment on this when some comes back — more emphasis on the necessary equipment so that more school students and more people can take part in recreational activities in the school. I would like to see more emphasis on round-robin tournaments rather than the competitive knock-out types.

I was in Vernon not long ago and they had a round-robin basketball tournament. They had all the schools and they did have a cup. We all decided it was a shame there was a cup. That money should have gone towards buying one more basketball. If they wanted to have some sort of a reward system, then they should have had hot dogs and coke or apple juice for the students, so that the emphasis is on everybody playing, everybody balancing out in a point system, and everybody taking part in the rewards.

Certainly it's not only the way to a man's heart through his stomach, Mr. Chairman; it's often the way to a child's heart. I would hope that the Minister would encourage this type of development of recreation in our schools and help tone down the overemphasis on the few who are fortunate or are

[ Page 1561 ]

able, through hard work, to come out on top.

I certainly don't want to leave the impression that I'm opposed to teams and champion teams. I think there's a natural place and proper place in our society for it, but perhaps if a little less dotage went on those teams in terms of uniforms and a little more money went into the other area, we might even produce more champions if that's our ultimate aim.

I also would like to see more integration of community recreational people and the educational recreational people. It seems to me that it's not too remote to think in terms of a Wednesday morning 10 a.m. basketball round-robin between mothers and sons in the community. I'm sure there are many mothers in British Columbia who would far rather play a basketball game — having practised for this over a period of time — than go to the stereotyped keep-fit classes. Is there any reason why? Certainly I don't believe there is any reason that we can't much more integrate recreational activities of the community in the schools.

Why can't there be a combined physical education programme? Do peers always have to play with peers? Does grade 7 always have to play with grade 7? Wouldn't it be stimulating to alternate this, or incorporate a programme where maybe mothers, boys, sons, fathers...? A lot of fathers work afternoon shifts or night shifts, and they have a problem spending time with their children. What could be more reasonable and more interesting than letting them have an hour or a few hours in the morning, two or three times a week, with their children in recreation at school?

There's nothing greater in life when you're 13 than to beat the old man on the basketball court, is there, Mr. Chairman?

MR. CHAIRMAN: That's hardly relevant to this vote.

MRS. JORDAN: Oh, Mr. Chairman, I beg to differ. It's very relevant because this....

MR. CHAIRMAN: I'm asking you to make your discussion around the management and administration of the Minister's office.

MRS. JORDAN: That's exactly the point, Mr. Chairman, and that's the part of the educational programme....

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order! There is no reason to argue. Will you continue with your talk? If you're in order, I'll let you continue; if you do not, I'll tell you.

MRS. JORDAN: You are in the Chair.

MR. CHAIRMAN: That's right. If you're finished, I'll put ....

MRS. JORDAN: No, I'm not finished, but I wonder where the Minister of Education is.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I don't think that that's a reasonable question. You're supposed to be discussing....

MRS. JORDAN: It's not a reasonable question? Everybody in British Columbia wants to know where the Minister of Education is.

Back to my subject, Mr. Chairman, I'm not wishing to differ with you, but if we are going to evolve, as I believe we must, into a much more relaxed but useful recreation programme in our schools, we have to involve the community. This initiative must come from the Minister of Education because, historically, that is where the roadblock is.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I think you're getting into areas of legislation, which is also out of order, You're supposed to be dealing with the management and administration of that office.

MRS. JORDAN: I am, Mr. Chairman. This deals with management and administration of physical education in schools.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order! Would you continue with your talk? Don't argue with my ruling. If you want to challenge it, you can do it.

MRS. JORDAN: Mr. Chairman, I obey the Chair, not an "I." If you wish me to obey your ruling, then you suggest that I obey the Chair's ruling. Let's not discredit the tradition of parliament.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Don't argue with the Chair's ruling.

MRS. JORDAN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm pleased to accept the Chairman's ruling.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Proceed.

MRS. JORDAN: The use of physical education in our school system and the objective of physical education in our school system are going to be completely defeated in today's society if the Minister of Education doesn't take a new attitude and a much broader attitude and not have school physical education an isolated entity unto itself.

The Minister of Education should sit down and talk to the recreational people to break down some of the barriers that exist in many parts of the province. I would ask her if she would consider a

[ Page 1562 ]

joint programme where she would use community recreation people in the school system, and whether she would use physical education people in the community programme so that there's a concert of thinking, Mr. Chairman, and a concert of opportunity for school children to expand the amount of time they spend in actual recreation, expand the contacts that they make through recreation, not just with their peers but with their parents and with their community.

It's an adventuresome programme and it's a programme that's going to meet a great many barriers, but it's a programme that the Minister of Education could undertake which would reward her no end by just having more young people participating in more activities on a round-robin basis and in a much more relaxed and broad environment in terms of people.

Mr. Chairman, I thank you for your time and I hope that the Minister will consider some of my suggestions through the year.

Vote 39 approved.

On vote 40: general administration, $3,962,616.

MR. N.R. MORRISON (Victoria): Mr. Chairman, I would like to have a full explanation on vote 40 of item 007 — the amount of $100,000 for "advertising and publicity." I'd like that detailed, please.

HON. MRS. DAILLY: A fair proportion of that sum will be used for community college advertising. We have decided to put a considerable emphasis of publicity on that because of the fact that the community colleges do meet the needs, particularly of many of our young people who perhaps have left school in secondary school without completion of their grade 12. They have an opportunity to do that at the community college.

Also, as you know, it involves vocational training, which consider vital to many of our young people today. We feel it's very essential to acquaint all our citizens with the programmes offered in the community college because the government has committed itself to putting considerable sums of money, as you know, into the expansion of community college facilities. We feel it necessarily follows that we must acquaint through publicity the citizens of the province, relevant to that.

Also part of that publicity will be used when some of the task forces are moving around the province and they want to have public hearings. We want to assist them in their public hearings.

That's generally the intent we have at this time. Whether that whole vote will be expended or not, we're not sure. But we don't want to at any time find ourselves short of letting the citizens know what educational facilities are available.

[Mr. Dent in the chair.]

MR. MORRISON: Mr. Chairman, just to pursue that matter just a little further, is it really the intent to use then the newspaper media for that type of advertising rather that leaflets or handouts or things that are done through the schools?

HON. MRS. DAILLY: It'll be a combination — newspaper, radio and leaflets.

MR. MORRISON: The next question I'd like to ask then is on item 040. "National educational memberships," I see, is up slightly and I wonder if you could give us an indication of that.

HON. MRS. DAILLY: I believe one of the largest items in that is membership in the Council of Ministers association, which has gone up.

MR. MORRISON: The next one of course is 037, "purchase, preparation and survey of tests." I see that's up $20,000, which seems like a pretty sizeable amount.

HON. MRS. DAILLY: That's primarily because, as you know, we no longer have the grade 12 exams, but there is a great need out there for evaluation of the work done by the students. We have beefed up that departmental structure and we feel that we have a responsibility to provide material for evaluation — not necessarily examination material, but evaluation material.

Vote 40 approved.

On vote 41: provincial education media centre, $654,334.

MR. L.A. WILLIAMS: Mr. Chairman, could the Minister indicate whether the audio-visual services branch has now been superseded by the provincial education media centre? Have they been melded? From previous votes in previous years, it would appear that this vote 41 was formally in general administration and there was an audio-visual services branch which ran the media centre. Now, is the media centre being given the primacy?

HON. MRS. DAILLY: You're quite correct. We want to amalgamate it all under the media centre.

MR. L.A. WILLIAMS: Very well. Now, Mr. Chairman, looking at the report of 1972-73 with respect to the work carried on by the education media centre, it was indicated that the facilities of

[ Page 1563 ]

that centre consisted of a three-camera monochrome television studio (black-and-white), a mobile television unit, associated film and sound facilities and a duplication centre. I wonder if the Minister would indicate where this equipment is located. I assume it's in Victoria. I'd just like to know where this function is administered.

With regard to vote 41 specifically, it would appear that there are two course writers and one photographer. I seriously wonder whether or not the total budget of $654,000 can really function with a staff that appears to be so limited on the technical side. I admit that there is a productive expense item of $400,000, and a film service expenditure of $30,000, but could the Minister indicate whether or not they engage the production staff, studio facilities and equipment of other private film producers, either film or motion picture projection or television?

HON. MRS. DAILLY: First of all, as to the first part of your question, that studio is located on the BCIT campus. We intended to move the audio-visual facilities on Broadway near that centre. The studio itself can't be used, but we hope to set up an area adjacent to it so we can amalgamate them.

Most of the work being done there is video-taped. That's the type of work that's being done there, and if you have time to drop in, I think you'd find it quite interesting.

MR. L.A. WILLIAMS: Reports have come to me from various school boards, Mr. Chairman, dealing with the facilities that are available. It appears that while many school districts have equipment for purposes of audio-visual presentations, there seems to be some lack of uniformity in the kind of equipment used.

I wonder if the Minister could indicate whether or not this particular centre is attempting to bring about uniformity. If that is not the case, then the availability of all production for all the school districts is going to be interfered with, or else the centre is going to be involved in the duplication of some of its work in order to make its services available for all of the school districts.

I ask the Minister in that same respect whether or not the production of course material for any programme of educational TV that this government may undertake will be handled through her department and through this media centre. I appreciate that the Hon. Minister of Transport and Communications (Hon. Mr. Strachan) has engaged Mr. Clark to do some work, and I assume that is on the technical side, but I just would like to know whether or not the Department of Education will be responsible for, and concerning itself with, the content of any educational television programmes.

HON. MRS. DAILLY: The first part of your question: we are concerned about the duplication of school boards as related to what is going on in the BCIT studio production. That is one of the reasons we are just in the process of hiring a superintendent of communications for the department, so that whoever is appointed will help coordinate this throughout the whole province in the school districts.

They do have a transfer capability for the videotapes at BCIT, but we are concerned that there has been no overall coordination between the centre and what is going on in the school boards. Perhaps this is one of the reasons why the vote is as it is at this time and not a great increase. We're waiting for a superintendent of communications to discuss with the various school boards just what they are doing and see if we can pull it together. At the present time, frankly, there is very little coordination.

As far as what is going to be done in our department compared to what is going on in Transport and Communications, I understand their main work will be in the hardware and delivery, whereas our concern primarily will be in the programming. I would really feel that Education's responsibility is in the development of the programme. We hope that the Transport and Communications department will be able to help us in delivery.

MR. MORRISON: That temporary assistance item of $10,000: is that related in any way to the additional production expense? Are those people that are involved in production... Does the production expense not include personnel? I'd like a little better explanation on that production.

HON. MRS. DAILLY: They're involved in production.

MR. MORRISON: That's what the temporary people are for.

HON. MRS. DAILLY: That's right.

Vote 41 approved.

Vote 42: correspondence school, $801,464 — approved.

On vote 43: curriculum resources grants, $7,140,308.

MR. MORRISON: I notice that on 006 and 014 light and rent, they are now deleted. What facility was that that we are no longer renting?

HON. MRS. DAILLY: That would be the Esquimalt warehouse facility. It is now transferred to Public Works.

[ Page 1564 ]

MR. MORRISON: Entirely?

HON. MRS. DAILLY: Yes. Well, it means... We're still using it for our textbooks, but the light, heat and rent come under Public Works.

Vote 43 approved.

On vote 44: Jericho Hill School, $1,595,080.

MR. MORRISON: I wanted to ask a question on vote 44. In that pre-school hearing and visually impaired programme, I understand that is a vastly increased programme. Could you give us an explanation on that one, please? That is 018.

HON. MRS. DAILLY: Well, there has been an increased awareness of the importance of catching children with these impairments in the early years. I think the intent here is that it includes more personnel at Jericho itself, but it also includes a programme for visitation by personnel.

MR. MORRISON: To the schools?

HON. MRS. DAILLY: Yes, to the schools.

MR. MORRISON: It's not pre-school.

HON. MRS. DAILLY: That's right...no, this is pre-school, but it means visiting the homes, visiting probably the nursery schools and day-care centres, so that early help can be given. That is my understanding.

MR. MORRISON: Thank you. Could I also have some explanation again on that provision for catering? Have you changed the facility there?

HON. MRS. DAILLY: That is mainly for increased food costs.

MR. MORRISON: Food costs, not a change in facility.

HON. MRS. DAILLY: No.

Vote 44 approved.

On vote 45: post-secondary education and training, $193,082,000.

MR. BENNETT: I'd like to question the allocation to the universities and how this $10 million of that unallocated money will be utilized to meet requirements of universities. Many of the professors have been highly critical of the amounts that they have received, and their budgets have been set up equal to last year. I'd like an expansion of how this money is to be utilized by the Minister.

HON. MRS. DAILLY: Well, the $10 million increase has been allocated through an agreement between the three universities themselves. It works out that the division is now as follows: UBC, $68,856,000; Simon Fraser, $23,543,000; and UVic, $17,600,000. That is the allocation that has been drawn up by the bursars of the universities with the presidents.

MR. BENNETT: This amount, though, even with the $10 million increase, has been under question from the universities themselves because it does not allow for the salary increases they have to budget in advance for the universities. I'd like your comments on that.

HON. MRS. DAILLY: Well, I spoke earlier on that and mentioned that the university presidents had met with myself and the Premier and had expressed concern about that point. We have told them that we will consider providing extra sums of money to meet those increased staff faculty costs. And we will be sending a letter out to them, I hope in the next few days, announcing to them that increase.

Interjection.

HON. MRS. DAILLY: No, I don't think we made the commitment on whatever their staff increase. We asked them to give us a rough idea of what problems they'd have in that area, and then of course it is up to me to make the recommendations to Treasury Board for the amount that would be needed.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please! I would ask the Hon. Members to wait until they are recognized if they are a new speaker. I would recognize the Hon. Leader of the Opposition if he has a further question on the same matter.

MR. BENNETT: Yes, Mr. Chairman. I wonder if they could arrive at a figure to cover the increases, why these increases weren't discussed prior to the budget being presented in the House and why these figures could not have been in the budget in the first place rather than have them amended after they come into question now. Why could not these discussions have been prior to the budget?

HON. MRS. DAILLY: Well, there are two points there that we were uncertain of at the time. You know how early the estimates are prepared. There was a sudden raise in the enrolment, an unexpected rise in the universities. You know, they had leveled off and we didn't have those complete projections.

[ Page 1565 ]

Then also we did not have the projections on some of the faculty increases, so they were two quantities that weren't completely known to us at that time.

MR. BENNETT: Are you setting up new procedures then for discussion in advance with the universities so that next year we can get all the figures in the budget rather than have some unforeseen circumstances arising and having to amend the budget just after it has been presented?

HON. MRS. DAILLY: Yes, I quite agree with you. The procedure is inadequate, and we have discussed that with the university presidents. In fact, we want to try and work out a five-year implementation.

MR. McGEER: Mr. Chairman, that's the best news the Minister's given us in all these days of debate. I want to thank her for making the announcement that the universities would be relieved of the circumstance that they were placed in by the initial budget.

I'd like to follow up, if I may, on some remarks made by the Member for Cariboo (Mr. Fraser) in which he pointed out some of the difficulties that post-secondary students face in the remote regions of British Columbia, where opportunities are not given to the students to the same degree that they are in southern Vancouver Island or the lower mainland.

I'm disappointed, of course, that the Premier is unable to be with us this evening, because his financial decisions have such an important bearing on the Minister of Education's budget. But would the Minister tell us whether she thinks it is fair...

Interjection.

MR. McGEER: I thought it was rugby, not soccer. Maybe it's a social engagement. It's dark out this evening; rugby practice must be over.

Mr. Chairman, I'd like to ask the Minister whether she considers it fair that community colleges should be financed partially through property taxes while universities are financed entirely from the provincial Treasury.

The reason why I ask this is that the community colleges are the only post-secondary opportunities that are offered in most regions in British Columbia. Her own tabled document recommends that the province carry the full cost of these community colleges. I think, in fairness to the nether regions in British Columbia, that the total budget for community colleges should be carried out by the provincial government in the same fashion as the university budgets are carred.

I'd like the Minister's opinion on that.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please! Just on a point of order, the method of financing institutions is a matter for the Minister of Finance.

HON. MRS. DAILLY: I think he should realize, this Member, that I can't commit myself to government policy right here and now. That is something that would have to be discussed. As you know, the government has moved into 100 per cent capital costs for community colleges, and the rest will be up to government policy.

MR. McGEER: I just hope that it's reconsidered.

MR. F.X. RICHTER (Boundary-Similkameen): Mr. Chairman, I wonder if the Minister has given any consideration, in conjunction with the Minister of Agriculture (Hon. Mr. Stupich), towards establishing in vocational schools or regional colleges some form of agricultural courses.

I'm fully cognizant of the fact that she would not be able to establish all courses in agriculture in all vocational schools and all regional colleges, but perhaps those pertaining to a particular area. For instance, the South Okanagan and the Kootenay area could be accommodated in the present campuses — if you could call them campuses — of the regional college that serves the Osoyoos, Oliver, Penticton, Bridesville, Grand Forks area, by way of establishing a number of courses.

There could be courses pertaining to fruit, pertaining to ground crops and things of this nature that are pertinent to the area. For instance, in the vocational school at Dawson Creek we have a farriers course.

Now certainly you couldn't expect to start one of the same in each and every vocational school or each and every college. But there are facilities — and I've written to the Hon. Minister in this respect — that are vacant presently in the Village of Oliver, known as the St. Martins Hospital that could be put to very good use, for such a faculty — or even those other matters that pertain to the regional college. There are no buildings in the south end of the valley and it could be used to good advantage.

Now I believe it's available; I believe there are about three acres of land encompassed in the holdings there. Such nursery crops or greenhouse facilities, the growing of grapes, or the propagation of grape plants commensurate with the needs there: these are areas that I think should get some consideration.

I'd feel that it would be a very good area in which to do some exploration. Certainly it could be done through the Minister of Agriculture's field men who have a good knowledge of those requirements in each and every area, whether it happens to be Grand Forks or whether it happens to be in the West Kootenays.

I believe these things could be incorporated into...again I'm going to say regional programmes. When I say regional in this respect, I mean regional as

[ Page 1566 ]

far as the province is concerned. You could hardly have them at Selkirk and still have them in the Okanagan. I think you have to designate them and probably sort them out into less extensive faculties, but concentrated in particular forms of agriculture.

HON. MRS. DAILLY: Mr. Chairman, there has just been a report completed between the two departments, Education and Agriculture. Of course, it points out that there's been a shortage of students because of the poor farm economy. The future shows that the economy is reviving and there will no doubt be requests for facilities. We feel that it's best to provide those services in the community colleges, as you say, and not in one specific area. The Okanagan College would certainly be able to make use of that facility, and in Oliver, if the demand is there.

MR. MORRISON: I wonder if the Minister has received any representation from the universities as to their anticipated enrolments this fall and as to the increase, or whether they're levelling off again, and as to whether the operating grant would allow for any expansion in this possibly increased enrolment this fall.

One other question I would like to ask her: I understand that the UBC Faculty professors' salary ranges are at the moment slightly below even teachers teaching in the school system and that in order to bring their salary structure up to par, they would probably have to have somewhere in the neighbourhood of a 15 per cent increase to do so. I wonder, if the Minister had not received representation prior to this, why it was missed in the budget and what she proposes that they will do this fall.

HON. MR. DAILLY: Well, the first part of your question: yes, the universities do now predict an increase in enrolment — not as large as community colleges, about a 4 to 5 per cent increase. I announced, you know, that we're considering an extra grant because of these increased faculty costs and a slight increase of enrolment.

MR. D.A. ANDERSON (Victoria): Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the fact that the Minister has told us she's going to be writing letters and offering more money, but it makes the whole debate then on vote 45 irrelevant if we don't know what the figures are. The purpose of estimates is to discuss the figures put aside for various line-by-line expenditures. Apparently these figures are of no value whatsoever, because they're to be altered next week.

Now I wonder whether, to make some relevance from the debate we're having, she would like to indicate what the increases will be that she is going to put forward in her letter. After all, the purpose of estimates is estimate discussion here in the Legislature — to discuss public money being spent. If we don't have some idea what these letters are, we're really not doing our job.

I wonder whether she could perhaps give us ballpark figures if necessary, so at least we can go to our electors and say, "Well, we had some rough idea, even though we didn't have much of a clue, as to what the government planned on doing."

HON. MRS. DAILLY: The universities asked for around $4.8 million and as you know I have to make a recommendation to the Treasury Board. Until that is finalized I can't give you the figure. Now the way you're attacking this particular vote, do you want us to forget about altering it and leave it the way it is?

MR. CHAIRMAN: We're considering the vote before us, the amount of money that's indicated on the page before us.

MR. D.A. ANDERSON: Well, we have to consider these questions, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the fact that it has to go before Treasury, but the dilemma is this: perhaps we could wait until Treasury has been approached. I can't understand why Treasury hasn't been approached already.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order! We are considering vote 43. We have no power in committee to consider any moneys other than these.

MR. McGEER: I gather, Mr. Chairman, from what the Minister said that the recommendation to Treasury Board will be for $4.8 million.

HON. MRS. DAILLY: I did not say that. I said the universities had requested approximately that figure. What was going to be allotted I could not say until Treasury Board had decided.

MR. McGEER: Of course, we appreciate that, Madam Minister. We wouldn't want to predict what Treasury Board would do. But certainly it's very encouraging news and I would take it that that would be the figure. I would hope that that will be sufficient to permit the universities to give comparable increases to their faculty to what the teachers have received, which is about 10 per cent, plus those funds that are necessary for new programmes like the law school at the University of Victoria, and to supplement those programmes that are resulting from the increased university population.

Mr. Chairman, I asked her about equalizing opportunities around the province and the need for the budgets of the community colleges to be borne entirely by the provincial government.

[ Page 1567 ]

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please! These are matters involving legislation and we must consider the vote before us, vote 45, and the items contained in this vote.

MR. McGEER: You see, Mr. Chairman, we've already established that the grants to universities were inadequate and that the Minister is reconsidering the budget because she wants to make it adequate and she's going to increase it.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order! There is no consideration in this committee of any figures other than those which we have before us. We are voting on those figures and I would ask you to confine your remarks to these figures before us.

MR. McGEER: We can surely discuss in the line-by-line estimates whether the amounts that are indicated in this budget are adequate for the job.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order! No, that is not permitted. You may move a motion to reduce the vote, but you cannot propose to the committee that the vote be increased.

MR. McGEER: I'm not moving a motion, Mr. Chairman, I'm discussing the adequacy of the line-by-line expenditure.

MR. CHAIRMAN: It is a proper matter for budget debate to consider greater....

MR. D.A. ANDERSON: You can't line-by-line in budget.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Well, I would rule that we consider only the figures before us, and not any question of increases of these figures.

MR. McGEER: I'm considering what you can do with these figures. And I'd like to ask the Minister whether the budgeted amounts for community colleges would permit four-year institutions to be established because it's important that we break out of the southern Vancouver Island–lower mainland area for four-year degree granting institutions. What we want to have is a university in the Okanagan and I've introduced legislation to that, and I'd like to ask the Minister whether she contemplates....

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order! Order, please! I would consider any question of this nature improper because we're considering only the exact amounts before us, and no more. I would ask the Hon. Member to deal with the administrative aspects of the vote before us. We cannot begin to range into possible increases or possible legislation or anything of that nature. Just the vote before us.

MR. McGEER: I'm talking about possible legislation. I'm not talking about possible increases. Though the Minister has talked about that, I'm not talking about it. Right now, what I'm talking about is whether or not this item, the item that's under vote 45. Has the Minister got this book before her? Okay. Capital expenditure.

HON. MR. COCKE: Community colleges. She gave you the answer and it was no. (Laughter.)

MR. McGEER: Well, I don't think everybody heard that.

Interjections.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

MR. McGEER: You see the problem, Mr. Chairman. Something was said while you and I were discussing whether or not it was appropriate to ask the question. The Minister of Health (Hon. Mr. Cocke) said he heard the answer. I didn't hear it. In fact, I didn't even have an opportunity to ask the question before the Minister of Education said no. I want to ask the question, and I want to bear from the Minister what her answer is, which is whether or not we're going to get universities in British Columbia outside the lower mainland area?

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

HON. MRS. DAILLY: I don't mind answering that, Mr. Chairman. If we're discussing universities and the Member's asking about possible expansion of universities, and the answer at this time is no.

MR. McGEER: Thank you.

MR. MORRISON: Mr. Chairman, could I get a complete explanation on 030, that's the expenditure for fire protection and services grant re University of British Columbia, jumped to $360,000? What happened there?

HON. MRS. DAILLY: This has been traditionally in this vote. I must admit I've questioned this also. It's a traditional transfer from Lands and Forests and it's always come under this post-secondary vote.

MR. PHILLIPS: Why the increase?

HON. MRS. DAILLY: I beg your pardon?

MR. PHILLIPS: Why the increase, $360,000 increase?

[ Page 1568 ]

HON. MRS. DAILLY: I guess it's firefighting.

MR. PHILLIPS: It's got to be more than that.

HON. MRS. DAILLY: I suppose it is.

MR. PHILLIPS: It's got to be more than that.

HON. MRS. DAILLY: You want to know why there's that considerable increase?

AN HON. MEMBER: What increase? Where did this come from?

HON. MRS. DAILLY: I guess it wasn't adequate. I'll be quite honest — I don't know.

Interjections.

HON. MRS. DAILLY: According to the Minister, it's an expansion into three shifts.

MR. MORRISON: Well, if it is an expansion, is that in the university proper itself or does it cover the endowment areas, or where?

HON. MRS. DAILLY: Both.

MR. MORRISON: Completely covers that whole area?

AN HON. MEMBER: Three shifts.

MR. MORRISON: Does that include new equipment or just people?

HON. MRS. DAILLY: Mainly people.

MR. PHILLIPS: Under code number 030, Madam Minister, would you tell me is there sufficient money in that vote to cover whatever is going to happen in the north? You've intimated that the Dawson Creek vocational school could be turned into a community college. You've intimated there's room for another college in the northwestern portion of the province. I believe this is the vote that would be under.

HON. MRS. DAILLY: Well, our hope is that that will be extensive enough to cover it, but I really can't tell you at this time until we see the increase of students into that area in the post-secondary. It's hopeful that that will be enough to carry it.

MR. PHILLIPS: But the intention is to switch the vocational school at Dawson Creek into a community college?

HON. MRS. DAILLY: We haven't announced that policy yet. You're aware, Mr. Member, you and I were both up in Dawson Creek and I know that certainly seems to be the wish of the people in that area and I'm certainly giving that consideration.

Vote 45 approved.

On vote 46: grants to school districts, $331,500,000.

MR. BENNETT: I'd like to question the Minister whether the money that used to come from the federal government in way of LIP grants for student aids in the schools, when the province cancelled the school districts using that money, whether the money is found in these amounts to encourage this programme to continue?

HON. MRS. DAILLY: Yes. If the school boards have put it in their operating budgets, we pick it up on a shareable basis. It's up to the boards if they decide to place them in their budget, we will share.

MR. FRASER: I want to deal with vote 46, the grants to reduce local school taxation. There's no increase provided there at all — $80 million last year, $80 million this year. I think that we're all aware that local taxes are going to go up. From what I hear from school boards, an average of 10 mills throughout this province or 20 per cent on property taxation. I'm referring residentially now. In view of this vote standing still, it's unbelievable. And I'd like to know if the Minister is considering raising this amount with these special requests.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I would point out to the Hon. Member that this is a supply, not revenue.

HON. MRS. DAILLY: I think he's asking a valid question. He's saying it's staying the same, but I think he's quite aware there's another bill before the House which provides a sum of money in tax rebates, $15 million.

MR. FRASER: Just a moment. I'd just like to observe on that that yes, I'm fully aware of that and I wasn't referring to that, but that's only one segment of the community of British Columbia, a very small segment of the residential people. I say we've got real trouble ahead here in view of assessments which again we can't talk about, but everybody in this province is going to have a substantial increase unless this $80 million vote is increased $30 million or $40 million to taxes within line of last year plus inflation.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please! I would point out as I ruled before, we cannot discuss possible increases or recommend increases in committee but

[ Page 1569 ]

merely consider the amounts before us.

MR. MORRISON: I wasn't planning on doing that, Mr. Chairman. On 019, educational priorities grants, $8 million, could you give us a little more details on that? I know you haven't made an announcement on it.

HON. MRS. DAILLY: When we drew these estimates up last fall, I must admit at that time I was hopeful that in placing this under educational priorities, it would be more or less a signal to the boards that we hope they would use some of this grant for innovative programmes. But in view of the escalating costs the school boards have been faced with, and I accept that, I leave it up to them. We're not putting any strings on it. They can use that money throughout their basic grant without having to say it must be used for educational priority.

MR. MORRISON: That's just to pick up the shortfall, then, is it, of whatever their other programmes are now?

HON. MRS. DAILLY: Partly.

MR. McGEER: Mr. Chairman, I would like to ask why it is that an educational priorities grant was included under vote 46, in order to encourage school districts to bring in innovative programmes when a comparable grant was not included under vote 45.

Here, something quite definite has been placed in the budget for the primary and secondary educational system for innovative programmes. The Premier and the Minister of Finance, Education Minister, have made similar suggestions to the universities saying,"Come and see us." But there was no incentive grant of any kind, under universities or other post-secondary educational facilities. And I'd like the Minister to explain this double standard if she would.

HON. MRS. DAILLY: I think primarily it is because over a year ago we had talked to the universities about when they draw up their budgets for the coming year, which would be this one coming up, that they would look at attempting to put in innovative programmes. At that time we did not say that we would be providing specific supplementary grants. We were simply asking them when they drew programmes, perhaps discard some, and put in some innovative programmes.

So at that time it did not seem to us that it would be necessary to place it in the estimates.

MR. McGEER: Mr. Chairman, was a similar offer made to universities and post-secondary educational facilities in drawing up their budgets?

HON. MRS. DAILLY: Yes.

MR. McGEER: Could I ask the...?

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order please! I would point out to the Hon. Member that we are back into this thing about adjusting possible increases, and it's notably in a vote that's already been passed.

MR. McGEER: I think you're trying to make comparisons. We're not certain that we want to vote in favour of this vote 46. There's been a lot of criticism about the grants to school districts. Before we indicate how we're going to vote we really should ask questions as to whether the standards are the same in this particular vote as the one before.

The Minister said she made a similar offer to the universities, but one appears here with an $8 million code number and there's nothing in the others. We did have a visitation from the universities, but there's nothing in the suggestion of the Minister in increasing that particular vote that it was for a purpose like this. Perhaps she'd want to reconsider her position.

HON. MRS. DAILLY: Mr. Member, you've been in the House a long time, much longer than I have, and speaking on education for many years. You must know that the relationship between government and school boards and government and universities is quite different. I'm sure you're quite aware of that.

MR. L.A. WILLIAMS: In answer to the Hon. Member for North Vancouver–Capilano (Mr. Gibson) earlier today concerning the matter of assessments, the Minister gave what I thought was an unusual answer. Here we have an estimate of operating expense grants. We appreciate that the Department of Education or the Department of Finance will strike the fixed mill rate which school districts must levy in each of their areas.

This year we've had a very significant change in assessments, and that can result in the production of a great deal of additional revenue by way of taxation at the local level. I wonder if the Minister would indicate how this estimate was reached in light of those changing assessments, the exact amount of which is not known at this particular time.

HON. MRS. DAILLY: It was reached with discussions with the Department of Finance, using their statistics against ours with the school boards.

Vote 46 approved on the following division:

YEAS — 31

[ Page 1570 ]

NAYS — 3

MR. D.A. ANDERSON: I would ask that when you report to the Speaker, you report to him the division took place and ask that the division be recorded in the Journals of the House.

On vote 47: teachers' superannuation fund, $13,800,000.

MR. SMITH: Mr. Chairman, just a quick question of the Minister. I notice that the amount of money appropriated by this vote is up from $9.5 million to $13.8 million, a substantial increase. I really don't think that there's that great a percentage increase in the teaching staff in the Province of British Columbia. I'd just like to ask the Minister what the reason is for the very substantial increase when you take into consideration the number of teachers that we have this year compared to last.

HON. MRS. DAILLY: In 1974 the statutory contribution by the employer is 70 per cent of the employee's contributions. For seven months this will amount to $8,869,000. In 1975 the employer's percentage rises to 80 per cent, and for three months this will amount to $4,920,000.

Vote 47 approved.

Vote 48: night school grants and training programmes, $325,000.

MR. MORRISON: Mr. Chairman, I wonder if the Minister could give us an indication. All along we've heard of encouraging people to use the schools more, to have innovative programmes, and yet a night school programme shows no increase at all. There's obviously not much encouragement for the night schools.

HON. MRS. DAILLY: The basic reason for that is that the community colleges are increasingly picking up the night school programmes. You will find that many of the school boards now have turned over their night school programmes to the community colleges. So it isn't that there's a decrease in interest or activity. They're being done through the community colleges.

MR. PHILLIPS: I'd just like to ask: would this be considered a night school here? (Laughter.)

HON. MR. STRACHAN: I certainly hope the Hon. Member learned something.

Vote 48 approved.

Vote 49: Educational Development Research and Evaluation, $750,000 — approved.

The House resumed; Mr. Speaker in the chair.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Speaker, the committee reports resolutions, asks leave to sit again, and further reports that divisions took place in committee on the estimates of the Minister of Education and asks that these divisions be reordered in the Journals.

Leave granted.

HON. R.M. STRACHAN (Minister of Transport and Communications): Mr. Speaker, while the House was in committee the Hon. Member for Vancouver–Point Grey (Mr. McGeer) quoted from a document which purported to be an official document. I ask that he table the document with the House under the parliamentary rules.

MR. SPEAKER: Is the Hon. Member prepared to table the document?

MR. P.L. McGEER (Vancouver–Point Grey): Mr. Speaker, as the Minister well knows, I was quoting from no official document.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: I have one statement from an Hon. Minister saying it was an official document and I have a statement from the Hon. Member saying it was not an official document. The only thing I can do in ruling on the question of whether it's an official document and therefore must be by obligation tabled is to look at the document myself. At this hour I don't know what the House wants to do.

MR. McGEER: With every respect, Sir, no opposition Member has official documents. Only Minister's have them. May I quote, Mr. Speaker, for your benefit from May?

MR. SPEAKER: I have no knowledge of the matter in committee.

[ Page 1571 ]

MR. McGEER: Mr. Speaker, just a moment. I just want you to brief the Minister on the rules. May, 18th edition, explains that a private Member's action in handing a document to a Minister in support of arguments was ruled to be very irregular. The Minister during committee asked me to hand him a document which May says would be very irregular.

I have no objection at all, Mr. Speaker, to tabling a document. I merely want to point out to you that I am prevented by the rules of the House from doing so.

HON. MR. STRACHAN: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, I refer to page 135 of Beauchesne, fourth edition, 1958, which says:

"Official papers quoted during a debate should be laid on the table of the House. Mr. Patterson, Member of the electoral district of Essex, and Mr. Cockburn, Member of the electoral district of Northumberland, having in the course of the debate on a motion for an order of the House and the amendment thereto read extracts from certain official papers in their possession and relating to the question under consideration, Mr. MacKenzie raised the point of order that official papers, when cited by an Hon. Member, ought to be laid on the table of the House. Mr. Speaker ruled that the point of order was well taken."

Mr. Speaker, that Member waved a paper here. He claimed that it was a report that had been submitted to the Minister of Education. I demand that that document be tabled with this House.

MR. SPEAKER: I understand from the Hon. Member that he has no objection to tabling it. Is there any objection or isn't there?

MR. McGEER: Mr. Speaker, before we go on, I want to read from our parliamentary authority, May, because we're going to get something straightened out here this evening. Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, listen to the authority:

"A Minister of the Crown is not at liberty to read or quote from a dispatch or other state paper not before the House unless he be prepared to lay it upon the table."

Now, I'm not a Minister or the Crown, and I'm not quoting from a state paper. It says further in May, and I quote from page 421 of the 18th edition:

"Members not connected with the government have also cited documents in their possession, both public and private...."

Footnote (u) saying that to hand such a document to a Minister has been ruled by Speakers to be highly irregular.

Interjections.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. Let's hear the point of order please.

MR. McGEER:

"...which were not before the House: but though the House is equally unable to form a correct judgment from partial extracts, inconvenient latitude has sometimes been permitted, which it is doubtful whether any rule but that of good taste could have restrained."

Now, Mr. Speaker, what this ruling is saying is that a private Member is not at liberty to table documents before the House. I was not at liberty to table documents before the House. I was not at liberty to table that document before the House. It would have been in bad taste for me to hand it to a Minister.

Mr. Speaker, I will be pleased to table that document without asking for leave. But you must understand the precedent is here now that an opposition Member has the right at any time to table a document in this House without asking leave.

MR. SPEAKER: May I point out to the Hon. Member that he has stated that he was prepared to table the document. My question was whether he was prepared to do so. I am quite aware of page 421 of May. My question really is: is he prepared to table the document? If he isn't, he should state so and I would protect him because of page 421 of May. Now, if the Hon. Member is prepared to do so, I must, of course, under the rules ask for leave of the House that it be tabled. Is he prepared to have me ask leave of the House?

MR. McGEER: Mr. Speaker, I'm merely asking that you point out to the Minister, who improperly asked me for a document for his private use, that he did not know the rules of the House. I am quite prepared to place this document before the House.

It was released to the press, and I have no objection. But I think you should point out to that Member what the rules of the House are.

Now, I want to understand, Mr. Speaker, what your ruling is to be. By tabling this document, are opposition Members to have the right to table documents before this House at any time they wish to do so?

MR. SPEAKER: I think the rule is very clear in May, page 421. I think in view of that circumstance I would not force an Hon. Member who is not a member of the government to table a document except with leave of the House. That's why I inquired if he was prepared to produce the document with leave of the House. I still must, according to the rules, ask the House for leave, which I will do.

[ Page 1572 ]

Is that what you wish me to do?

MR. McGEER: Yes, it is, Mr. Speaker.

Leave not granted.

HON. MR. STRACHAN: Mr. Speaker, I want everybody to notice that this Member said it's around. Somebody said the press already have it. They are willing to give documents to the press that they are not willing to give to Members of this House.

Disgraceful!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please! There's really no point of order. I asked for leave and it was denied. That's the end of the matter.

Hon. Mrs. Dailly moves adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

The House adjourned at 8:06 p.m.