[ Page 1285 ]

CONTENTS

An Act to Incorporate the Institute of Accredited Public Accountants of British Columbia (Bill 50). Mr. Cummings. Introduction and first reading — 1285

Bee Act (Bill 45). Hon. Mr. Stupich. Introduction and first reading — 1285

Oral Questions

Crisis in the beef industry. Mr. Bennett — 1285

Increased indemnity for MLAs. Mr. Wallace — 1286

Game management areas. Hon. Mr. Radford answers — 1287

Report on refinery by Thurber Consultants Ltd. Mr. McClelland — 1287

Guarantee on Alberta crude. Mr. D.A. Anderson — 1287

Possible strike of IBEW. Mr. Phillips — 1288

BCGEU wage settlements. Mr. McGeer — 1289

Committee of Supply:

Department of Education estimates

On vote 38.

Mr. Schroeder — 1289

Mr. Curtis — 1293

Hon. Mrs. Dailly — 1295

Mr. Wallace — 1299

Mr. D.A. Anderson — 1303

Hon. Mrs. Dailly — 1305

Mr. D.A. Anderson — 1305

Mr. McGeer — 1306

Mrs. Webster — 1309

Ms. Sanford — 1311

Mr. Fraser — 1313

Hon. Mrs. Dailly — 1314

Mr. Schroeder — 1315

MONDAY, APRIL 14, 1975

The House met at 2 p.m.

Prayers.

HON. W.S. KING (Minister of Labour): Mr. Speaker, we have visiting with us in the gallery today Val Berry and Dr. Jeff Battersby from the City of Revelstoke. I would ask the House to extend a warm welcome to them.

MS. R. BROWN (Vancouver-Burrard): Mr. Speaker, it gives me great pleasure to introduce to the House today a young man from the federal riding of Yorkton-Melville who would like to lead this very great party to government in Canada. It's probably the last time I will have the opportunity to say something nice about Lorne Nystrom, so I'd like the House to join me in saying welcome to Lorne Nystrom to the B.C. Legislature.

MR. G.B. GIBSON (North Vancouver-Capilano): Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to ask the House today to welcome two groups from North Vancouver: first of all, Mr. Wiranen, with a group of 30 students from St. Thomas Aquinas high school; secondly, the president of the North Vancouver–Capilano Liberal Association, Mr. Bob Butler, his wife Shirley and their family.

HON. D. BARRETT (Premier): Mr. Speaker, I would ask the House to welcome another group of government agents who are visiting Victoria to observe the Legislature in its usual normal practice: Mr. Doug Roberts from Revelstoke, Mr. Arnie Sherwood from Rossland, Mr. Doug Drew from Salmon Arm, Mr. Collison from Burns Lake, Mrs. Joanne James from Stewart, Mr. Ken Booth from Terrace, Mr. John Hornell from Ucluelet, Mr. Peter Block from Vancouver, Mr. Art Nelson from Vernon, Mr. Ken Weir from Williams Lake, Mr. George Brodie from Nelson, Mr. Roy Allen from Creston and Mr. Vic Gaspard from Powell River.

MR. R.H. McCLELLAND (Langley): Mr. Speaker, I'd like the House to welcome a group of students along with their teacher from Clearbrook Junior Secondary school in Clearbrook, B.C.

Introduction of bills.

AN ACT TO INCORPORATE
THE INSTITUTE OF ACCREDITED PUBLIC
ACCOUNTANTS OF BRITISH COLUMBIA

On a motion by Mr. Cummings, Bill 50, An Act to Incorporate the Institute of Accredited Public Accountants of British Columbia, introduced, read a first time and ordered to be referred to the Select Standing Committee on Standing Orders and Private Bills.

BEE ACT

On a motion by Hon. Mr. Stupich, Bill 45, Bee Act, introduced, read a first time and ordered to be placed on orders of the day for second reading at the next sitting of the House after today.

Oral questions.

CRISIS IN BEEF INDUSTRY

MR. W.R. BENNETT (South Okanagan): To the Minister of Agriculture: in view of the many difficulties being encountered by British Columbia beef producers this past winter and difficulties this spring, can the Minister advise the House what total sum has been offered to these beef producers under the farm income assurance programme?

HON. D.D. STUPICH (Minister of Agriculture): Negotiations are still going on, Mr. Speaker.

MR. BENNETT: Could the Minister confirm to the House that at a meeting held last Friday with the Minister, beef producers informed the Minister that they would require between $8 million and $9 million under this farm income assurance programme for 1974 alone?

HON. MR. STUPICH: Many figures were talked about at the meeting on Friday.

MR. D.A. ANDERSON (Victoria): Apart from the actual income guarantee, has the Minister any programme to assist beef producers due to the problems they are now encountering due to a very late spring and extremely high prices for hay?

HON. MR. STUPICH: I heard that I was going to be getting a request with respect to the hay problem in one area of the province — from one of the Members of the House, actually. I've had no communication from any of the cattlemen yet, but I do know there is a problem and I expect I'll be hearing a lot more about it. So far there is no programme.

MR. D.A. ANDERSON: Do I take the Minister's response as being that he would be quite willing to consider any programme brought forward by the cattlemen, specifically on this very immediate problem?

HON. MR. STUPICH: Mr. Speaker, usually it is

[ Page 1286 ]

not a case of them coming forward with a programme but coming forward for assistance. Then I consider whether or not a programme should be developed to meet the need at the time. I'll certainly look at it when it is brought before me officially.

MRS. P.J. JORDAN (North Okanagan): In light of the Minister's statement previously on income assurance, will the Minister confirm that when the cattlemen's negotiating committee suggested that on the basis of the agreed income assurance formula programme the cost would be approximately $15 million for the two years, the Minister then specifically stated that the province would not go for that amount of money?

HON. MR. STUPICH: Mr. Speaker, many things were said in that four-hour discussion; many figures were talked about. No decisions of any kind were made and no positive positions were adopted by either party. Negotiations are still going on.

MRS. JORDAN: Did the Minister say that? All I want to know is whether the Minister said that.

AN HON. MEMBER: Confirm it or deny it.

MRS. JORDAN: Or would the Minister confirm that he stated that the $7 million figure was based on a formula whereby the cattle industry represented 20 per cent of the total agricultural products in British Columbia? Did you say that? We just want to know if you said these things.

HON. MR. STUPICH: Mr. Speaker, I am not prepared to either confirm or deny that any one statement was made in the course of a four-hour discussion without repeating the whole discussion to put that statement in perspective.

MRS. JORDAN: Does the Minister have a new case of amnesia?

MR. H.A. CURTIS (Saanich and the Islands): It would appear that there is a very serious situation existing in the beef-producing industry in British Columbia. The Minister has told us that these negotiations are ongoing and he has declined to confirm or deny specific figures which were mentioned. How soon does he anticipate that this matter will be resolved, in view of the crisis in the industry?

HON. MR. STUPICH: Mr. Speaker, there is a crisis in the beef industry that is worldwide. It is rather interesting to note, I think, that it is just a year and a half since consumers were boycotting beef because it was so high in price; now the federal Minister of Agriculture (Hon. Mr. Whelan) is so pleased that people are buying this cheap beef. There is a crisis worldwide. There is a crisis in B.C. The cattlemen asked for a week to prepare a new position before coming back for further discussions. I was quite pleased to grant that, although I did point out that as far as the government is concerned, we are anxious to bring these negotiations to a successful conclusion. The cattlemen also are anxious.

MR. CURTIS: Supplemental to the Minister….

HON. D.G. COCKE (Minister of Health): Oh, come on.

MR. CURTIS: I'm sorry the questions annoy the Minister of Health. Has a ceiling been set by the government in terms of the total dollars that it could make available? If yes, what is that ceiling?

HON. MR. STUPICH: Mr. Speaker, that ceiling will be set by the House if we ever get to that point in estimates.

MRS. JORDAN: The Minister mentioned that the negotiating committee had gone away with a week to review their position and come back. Did the Minister advise the cattlemen's negotiating committee before they left that the model upon which they have been basing their negotiations was now changed? In other words, has the Minister introduced a new model upon which the income assurance programme for cattlemen would be based since the negotiations originally began? Did you advise them of this on Friday?

HON. MR. STUPICH: Both parties have changed their position. Negotiations started some months ago and no doubt there will be continual changes in position between the two parties until agreement has been reached.

INCREASED INDEMNITY FOR MLAs

MR. G.S. WALLACE (Oak Bay): Mr. Speaker, I'd like to change the direction of questioning to the Minister of Finance who spent last week in Ottawa and has his Tory blue shirt on today, I notice.

In the light of continuing severe inflation and in the light of his reported conversation behind closed doors with Prime Minister Trudeau, in which he confirms his rejection of wage and price control, is the Minister having discussions within his cabinet about an increase in remuneration to the MLAs in British Columbia?

HON. MR. BARRETT: Mr. Speaker, I've been all prepared for a question on gas prices, but for some reason the opposition is not asking me. I know they

[ Page 1287 ]

were very interested before I left for Ottawa, but now silence. I'm shocked.

Nonetheless, after our great victory on a new gas price, none of that money will be used to increase the indemnities of MLAs.

MR. WALLACE: In that case, is the Minister of Finance giving any consideration to introducing legislation which would give MLAs collective bargaining rights and the right to strike? (Laughter.)

HON. MR. BARRETT: Mr. Speaker, you can't have a strike unless you prove you've been working.

GAME MANAGEMENT AREAS

HON. J. RADFORD (Minister of Recreation and Conservation): Mr. Speaker, I too was reluctant to get up a little earlier; I thought the opposition may have more questions to direct to the Premier. However, in answer to a question from the Member for Columbia River last Thursday — it was in regard to the expansion of the 28 game management areas to 201 management units: can the Minister advise how these small units will be managed, and also, how will a hunter be able to identify which small unit he's in?

I'm glad to see that the Member is aware of this. I wasn't sure he would be up on this. However, Mr. Member, the areas will be managed to a greater degree than in the past. They will be broken down into smaller areas, as I've said. Also, the usual series of maps on resource regions and showing management units will be put into effect as always.

MR. J.R. CHABOT (Columbia River): Can the Minister tell me whether the game will be confined to the respective units, and will the game be tagged with the unit numbers?

HON. MR. RADFORD: I'm sure the Member is cognizant of the fact that our previous 28 game management areas consisted of very large areas. For example, Vancouver Island was one game management area. When we break it down into 15 areas, we will be able to manage the game more consistently through the areas they are in. For example, rather than basing game management in an area of northern Vancouver Island, which would be made applicable to south Vancouver Island, we can break it down and manage it more intensely.

MR. CHABOT: Just one short supplementary. How will the hunter identify which region he's in? Will there be assigned a conservation officer to inform him?

HON. MR. RADFORD: There will be the usual conservation officers. I might say, as you know, they have been greatly increased in number in the last two or three years.

REPORT ON REFINERY
BY THURBER CONSULTANTS LTD.

MR. McCLELLAND: Mr. Speaker, the Premier was worried about not getting any questions. I thought the Member for Oak Bay was asking a question about the increased price of gas when he talked about increased salaries for MLAs. (Laughter.)

Since the Premier made the announcement about the new proposal for a B.C. refinery, to cost some $350 million, would the Premier tell the House whether or not the government has received an environmental study for this proposed refinery — done for the government by Thurber Consultants Ltd. of Victoria?

HON. MR. BARRETT: We've asked for a number of studies, Mr. Member. When the studies are completed, they'll be available. What I find shocking is some individual MLAs running around attacking the project before the research has been completed. I find that shocking.

MR. McCLELLAND: Mr. Speaker, that isn't the question I asked.

HON. MR. BARRETT: Well, that's the answer I gave.

MR. McCLELLAND: I asked whether or not the government has received a study done by Thurber Consultants Ltd. of Victoria. I'd also like to ask the Premier if it's not true that Thurber Consultants Ltd. of Victoria was asked to do an environmental study, and whether or not the Thurber consultants were told to study only a site in the lower mainland and no other anywhere in British Columbia.

HON. MR. BARRETT: I don't know the answer to that.

MR. McCLELLAND: You don't know the answer to that?

HON. MR. BARRETT: Oh, I expect the B.C. Petroleum Corp. to make that advice to us.

GUARANTEE ON ALBERTA CRUDE

MR. D.A. ANDERSON: To the Minister of Finance and Premier: has the Premier and Minister of Finance received any written assurance from the Premier of Alberta, or the Minister responsible for energy matters in Alberta, or any other high official in Alberta, that we will have a guaranteed supply of

[ Page 1288 ]

crude from that province for the new refinery without cutting off existing refineries from their sources?

HON. MR. BARRETT: Mr. Member, the talks are proceeding with the proper Alberta authorities through the petroleum corporation.

MR. D.A. ANDERSON: I understand the answer is no, then.

HON. MR. BARRETT: It's not yes or no. Talks are proceeding. Do you want to help in this project, or are you against it? Talks are proceeding. That's what I said.

MR. D.A. ANDERSON: What I want to know is whether we have a guarantee.

HON. MR. BARRETT: I said that talks are proceeding.

MR. D.A. ANDERSON: Then we have no guarantee.

MR. McCLELLAND: Supplementary to the question by the Liberal leader, Mr. Speaker. I'd like to ask the Premier whether or not the government will cancel its plans for an oil refinery if a long-term commitment from Alberta for a supply of crude oil is not received in writing.

HON. MR. BARRETT: Mr. Speaker, let me announce to everybody some basic logic. If there's no oil, you can't have a refinery. I promise you that if we don't have oil we won't build a refinery.

MR. McCLELLAND: From Alberta? From Alberta, Mr. Speaker?

Interjections.

MR. P.L. McGEER (Vancouver–Point Grey): Mr. Speaker, did the Premier, when he made his public announcement in Ottawa with respect to this refinery, say that it would be using Alberta crude oil?

HON. MR. BARRETT: There is no way that we will be using oil from Alaska as rumoured — as I heard — in Ottawa. There is no way we will be using oil in Alaska. There's no way we will be using oil in Alaska. Now when I see the papers tomorrow and I don't see that correctly, then I'll know something's really wrong.

MR. McGEER: A supplementary, Mr. Speaker. May I ask the Premier the same question? Did he say in Ottawa…

HON. MR. BARRETT: There's no way we will use oil from Alaska.

MR. McGEER: …that he would be using Alberta oil for that refinery? I thought I heard him say that in Ottawa, Mr. Speaker.

HON. MR. BARRETT: There is no way we will be using oil from Alaska. We will be using oil, hopefully, from Alberta. Perhaps we'll find a big well in British Columbia. But we will not build an oil refinery unless we have oil to put in it.

MR. D.M. PHILLIPS (South Peace River): If it was hot air you were looking for you wouldn't have to look very far. I'd like to direct a question to the Minister of Lands, Forests and Water Resources.

HON. MR. BARRETT: How much will you sell it for?

Interjections.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. Order! I understand that the Hon. Member for Langley (Mr. McClelland) has a supplementary.

Would you defer to your colleague, please?

MR. McCLELLAND: I'd just like to ask the Premier whether or not the government has given any consideration to any crude oil source involving transportation of supplies on B.C. coastal waters, up or down.

HON. MR. BARRETT: The answer is no. No.

POSSIBLE STRIKE OF IBEW

MR. PHILLIPS: I'd like to direct a question to the Hon. Minister of Lands, Forests and Water Resources, who is also a director of B.C. Hydro. Would the Minister advise this House if the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers is in a legal position to strike against B.C. Hydro and Power Authority at this time? We don't want the lights out.

HON. R.A. WILLIAMS (Minister of Lands, Forests and Water Resources): It's my understanding, yes, Mr. Speaker.

AN HON. MEMBER: Oh, oh!

MR. PHILLIPS: Would the Minister advise the House if any contingency plans are being discussed with the union in case there is a legal strike?

HON. R.A. WILLIAMS: There is a management position, Mr. Speaker.

[ Page 1289 ]

MR. PHILLIPS: The Minister is advising the House, then, that contingency plans are underway to keep the generators rolling in British Columbia?

HON. R.A. WILLIAMS: I think I answered the question.

BCGEU WAGE SETTLEMENTS

MR. McGEER: A question to the Provincial Secretary. With respect to the wage settlements in the public service soon to be announced by the Provincial Secretary, will these wage settlements be within the consensus guidelines recommended at the federal/provincial conference, and, particularly, will they be within the 33.3 per cent pay increase that will go to MPs?

HON. E. HALL (Provincial Secretary): Mr. Speaker, the settlements the Member referred to go back to settlements that were first signed before that federal/provincial conference. I expect that the percentage increases you'll all work out, using your slide-rules and your elementary knowledge of mathematics, will vary as much as the usual responses of the opposition to problems like this. I will be tabling — or at least filing with the House — the reports at close of business tonight. I want to assure the House that the average settlement conducted with the 13 components of the B.C. Government Employees Union is below the average for the last three months in the sector of British Columbia.

Orders of the day.

The House in Committee of Supply; Mr. G.H. Anderson in the chair.

ESTIMATES: DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION

On vote 38: Minister's office, $124,447.

MR. D.A. ANDERSON (Victoria): Mr. Chairman, a point of order and a question to the acting House Leader. We have now the Minister of Economic Development (Hon. Mr. Lauk) and the Minister of Agriculture (Hon. Mr. Stupich) in the House. Their estimates have been put aside. We are now dealing with yet another Minister. I wonder whether the Hon. Minister of Education and acting House Leader could inform us what the policy and practice will be for dealing with estimates. We are departing substantially from previous practice. We have Ministers here whose estimates are half-finished. I wonder whether she could tell us what the plans are.

HON. E.E. DAILLY (Minister of Education): Yes, very shortly. In fact, we hope before the end of this week we will have a schedule for all Members of the House which will outline the order in which all Ministers will be called.

Interjections.

HON. D. BARRETT (Premier): Every one will be called.

MR. D.A. ANDERSON: On the same point of order. The acting House Leader dealt with the question of how they will be called. Do I understand, therefore, that any Minister whose estimates have not been completed before the date or time for calling of the next Minister will simply have his estimates put aside?

HON. MRS. DAILLY: To the Hon. Member: we will be able to come back to them.

MR. D.M. PHILLIPS (South Peace River): On the same point of order: what will happen if the time limit, the closure rule that you brought into the House, is out and we don't have time to come back? Will the House Leader advise the House what will happen then?

HON. MRS. DAILLY: I believe you know the rules, and we will make every attempt to see that everyone has an opportunity.

MR. PHILLIPS: In other words, there is no way they will ever get debated. The end of freedom in this Legislature.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please.

MR. H.W. SCHROEDER (Chilliwack): "Educational change" was a phrase made very very popular by the present Minister of Education when she was in opposition. As a Matter of fact, in a 1972 issue of The Democrat the outline for change was laid down on paper and it says that the NDP government will establish a continuing education committee to work with the Minister and the Department of Education in making overall educational and policy changes. The big word — not only in the publishing of The Democrat but in the election platform — the big word upon this government taking power, was the word "change." Educational change.

I have quoted the Minister before as having said while she was in opposition that she believed not only was change possible but that change should be able to be effected just with the issuing of an edict. You just bring about a decision. You say "change will take place" and zap! change takes place just like that. She wasn't in office too many weeks until she came back with a different conclusion. She said: "Change doesn't happen as quickly as I first thought that it

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would."

The same changes that she was insisting on while she was in opposition and the same changes that she believed would happen overnight, she suddenly found almost impossible to effect.

The few questions that I want to ask in this first segment of time have to do with: Are there not enough areas of opportunity for change? Is there not enough need for change? Does the department not have the capacity for change? What is the now nearly three-year record of change in this department? What are the reasons for no change — the reasons cited and the real reasons? There are the areas I wish to cover in this first 30-minute segment. I trust to be finished by three minutes after 3 o'clock.

First of all, are there not enough areas in the department that provide an opportunity for change? I think Members on this side of the House would be the first to admit that change in an educational department is an ongoing process. I don't think that there is anyone in this party who would deny that on August 30, 1972, change was not necessary. I don't suppose you'll find anyone to deny that; just as we can go to that side of the House today and find no one who will say that the department is not in need of change today.

Here are the areas — I cite perhaps 10 areas — that provide fantastic opportunity for change. First of all, education basics, namely literacy. When you have universities, colleges, high schools, parents, industrialists, commercial enterprises and politicians all saying: "We have a shortage, an absence of literacy, in the province," then, surely, here is an area wide open to effect educational change — the area of basics — literacy, the three 'Rs' or whatever you like to call it so you can recognize it.

There's another area that provides an opportunity for change; it is options in curriculum. I believe that basic curricula shall, would and must be established by the department.

This basic curriculum should include all of those subjects which are acceptable and do not become an affront to any of the school districts within the province. This should be called "basic curriculum," and even in this basic there are plenty of opportunities for change. There should be options provided in the curriculum, but not at the expense of basic literacy. It seems to me that as I've had the opportunity to analyse the result of our educational system…. By the way, this is not only the result of the last two and a half years of our education department; this has happened over maybe the last 10 or 12 years. But as we analyse it, it appears that we have had so much of an emphasis on innovation and so great an emphasis on change that the basics are what has suffered.

There's a difference from what I read in the 1972 issue of The Democrat, whereby the previous administration is accused of being rather stagnant in its attitude towards change, and that innovation was almost a nonentity. That's what I get out of page 22 of The Democrat. The truth is, perhaps, that in those years we already had too much innovation and that more innovation, particularly in the basic curriculum, would only serve to inflame the already amazing level of illiteracy that we have in the province.

There's an area for educational change in the options of curriculum. There was a fantastic opportunity for this government to move into the area of decentralization, to ensure local autonomy. Yet here's an area with all of this opportunity for change, and we have seen movements in the opposite direction of decentralization, although that was the affirmed position of this party when it came to power.

There's another area for opportunity to effect changes, and that is in the area of local involvement. More and more in education the system is being directed from the top. More and more the decisions are made in the Minister's office — more often made in offices beneath the Minister's office — and imposed upon the system. Local involvement, an area where,we could have effected change, is an area where the people themselves, whose children are in the education system and whose children are in the education system and whose original responsibility it is for the education of those children, are suddenly feeling left out of the entire process. Here is an opportunity for change: local involvement.

The fifth area that I have listed is the changes that needed to be effected in the research area: the feeder system, the new ideas that should come in at the department level, new ideas that perhaps have been tested and tried in other areas, the experiments that have been carried out in other jurisdictions. These new concepts that could be fed into our system — here's an area of fantastic opportunity for change.

Then there was the area of special education. Special education is generally understood to refer to an area of education for the handicapped. But I believe that special education should be evolved into meaning education for all except those within the parentheses of what we call the norm. We should have special education for those who have learning disabilities, yes. But where is the special opportunity, the equal opportunity, for those whose capacity for learning if above and beyond that which we would call within the parentheses of the norm?

What about the exceptional children that are not exceptional in terms of their handicap as we have learned to know it but who are exceptional because of yet another handicap, excessive capacity for learning? These are the children who experience the greatest boredom in our educational system. These are the ones who have the greatest capacity not only for learning but also for any other field which they

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happen to choose. If, because of their boredom, Mr. Chairman, they choose an area that is counter-productive, even criminal, then they are just as adept and their capacity is just as great in that area as it is if, through education, we could direct that capacity into a productive channel.

There was a fantastic opportunity for change in this direction. Not only that, but the department stands as it does today with fallow ground in the area of enriched teacher-training. As a result of some decisions made by this department greater onus has been placed upon the teacher, particularly as it affects classroom discipline, and the teacher has not been given an enriched training course so that she or he understands and knows how to handle the new responsibilities that have been thrust upon him. Here is an opportunity for change — an enriched teacher-training programme.

One of the areas that seems to have been thrown into reckless abandon is an area which certainly this Minister should be concerned with and an area in which change must take place, and that is the area of educational cost.

There must be controlled costs. Costs cannot be allowed to skyrocket, to spiral, so that if they increase at their present rate they can be seen within a 10-year period of time to encompass all the revenue sources of the province. It would be a shame.

It is another shame that in costs, as uncontrolled as they happen to be in the year 1975, it has gotten to the place where the Minister of Education has had to say that, even though our revenue sources have increased by 50 per cent and instead of $2.1 billion we have a $3.2 billion expected revenue, in this year we have had to cut back on commitments that we have made — namely pupil-teacher ratio and the removal of taxation from residential and farm property. We have had to abandon both of those plans in a year in which we have got a 50 per cent increase in revenue. My word, if in this year we can't afford to carry out our plans, what kind of a year must we have before we can afford to carry out our reduction in pupil-teacher ratio? There is an area for change to be effected, Mr. Chairman, and it is in the area of controlled costs.

Another opportunity is the area of student responsibility and student self-discipline. One of the reasons for classroom boredom, one of the reasons for the dropout situation, one of the reasons why teachers are taking early retirement, one of the reasons for the lack-of-discipline climate in the classroom is one of an absence of a sense of student responsibility. Some people call it self-discipline, as though self-discipline is something that you learn by osmosis by the very fact that you are in a classroom, as if self-discipline is something that you learn just because you happen to be looking between the covers of a book or as if self-discipline is something that you acquire just because you walk through the doors of a public institution called "school." Self-discipline is something that is learned by practice, and that practice must first of all have been imposed upon that student. It is perhaps something that wasn't even desirable as far as that student was concerned in his learning process. Self-discipline doesn't happen by itself. Nonetheless, an opportunity for change in our Department of Education is this area of imparting responsibility to the student.

Another area of change that I have listed here is a change that would lead to financial equity between the rural and the urban components in our school districts.

Those are the areas in which changes could have been effected. Is there a need for this change at all? Just because the opportunity happens to be there is not enough reason to effect change, but is the need there? Let's take a look at that. I have seven evidences here that suggest the need is not only present but outstanding. This educational system is convulsive, and it begs for a change, looking for some way out. Is there some way that we can recover from the stage to which we have descended? That system itself is convulsive and it begs for a change.

The students are rebellious, and they beg for a change. How do they evidence this rebellion? They say that education as they see it now is not relevant. The courses that are left as an option to them do not lead to productive employment, and as a result they say: "What I have to study is something I'll never have to use." It's irrelevant and they rebel against it.

As a matter of fact, class attendance in our particular high schools is shocking. When students enrol and are given the understanding that their grades will not be affected until they have missed more than 10 classes, it is almost as if the system is issuing a licence for them not to attend classes. It's shocking then how the student, after having missed his 10 classes, still sees no reason why he should not get credit for his course. I know of one student, very, very close to me, who has missed 19 classes out of a mathematics course only because the student sees the course as irrelevant, non-challenging. Nineteen classes have been missed. Then there is an appeal to the classroom teacher, and the student comes away from the class with an A in the course.

The students are rebelling against the system and are begging for a change. Graduates are revealing an inadequacy and they insist on a change when 40 per cent cannot even successfully pass a basic literacy examination. They come away from it thoroughly frustrated and thoroughly embarrassed, and because of their embarrassment insist on some changes in our public schools system. Parents, on an increasing basis, are demanding alternatives. Whenever anyone insists on an alternative to whatever they have now, it already insists that they are not happy with what

[ Page 1292 ]

they now have. It should be more than a hint that change is needed when parents are increasingly demanding alternatives.

It would be a shame if our public school system would deteriorate just because we could not provide those alternatives within the system. There is a need for a change.

Teachers are frustrated. They express the need for change through their high salary demands. It's another way of saying: "I am unhappy with my position. I believe that somehow or other, if I was compensated to a greater degree, then maybe I could tolerate my position."

If you talk to them as individuals, there are very few who will deny that their level of earning is adequate. There are very few who will deny that perhaps they are in the upper echelons of earning in their own particular area. Yet year by year, don't you see it happen? And we are expecting it to happen again this year. Year by year they come, through their leaders, asking for even-increasing increases. As a result, what do we conclude? The teachers, through their frustrations, are begging for a change and seek in the most audible way to talk to the system about that change by requiring more from the system.

Supervisors, directors, departmental officials are all eagerly awaiting and expecting a refreshing change. Why? Because they are aware of the great need.

Society is rejecting the product of the present system to an increasing degree and declares them "unready" or "unfit" to take their place in society. As a result, there is no doubt of the need for change.

What about the capacity for change in this department? When this Minister first came to power, true to form, true to what she said she would do, she appointed the two commissions that were referred to in her platform — the two commissions on education, one of public education and the other on post-secondary education. Just one short question: where are they now? It was to be a continuing programme according to this, a continuing programme of education commissions. Where are they today? How long did they last? What has happened to the capacity for change within the department that was embodied in those two commissions? It's gone.

The next thing that happened was the appointment of the commissioner to handle those two commissions which was to provide the capacity for change. Where's the commissioner? He's gone. We've talked loud and long about it.

One of the other areas which would provide for a great capacity for change within the department was one of public input. Do you remember — that was the big word of 1973: input, input. We wanted input from the public. We wanted input from the teachers' federation, We wanted input from the school trustees' association. We created committees and made some long ballyhoo about it being the first time committees were to be operative and travel throughout the province. We were creating great capacity within the department for change, but where is that capacity today?

We said in 1974 that what we were going to do was to develop a separate department called R & D. We would develop this department so that the Education department would have a great capacity for change. That particular department was born in the fall of 1974. By Christmastime it was already shattered. By January it lay in ruins. The research department which was to provide the capacity for change no longer exists. Where is it now? I ask the Minister to tell us when she stands to her feet. What is our capacity for change today? Where is the research now?

She said in one of her releases that we have a number of researches — 11, I think — in other departments. gut their effectiveness is clearly cited for us in a later release in which she appoints Dr. Pedersen, whose responsibility it is — what, to add capacity to change? No — to find within the department somewhere by some magic that there should have been and had begun to be developed by the Minister is non-existent today.

There are other branches of research that can be utilized. The Educational Research Institute of British Columbia, which is an independent association, and should ever remain thus, is an arm that provides for capacity for change. All the task forces, the study groups, reflect some capacity for change.

Along came the White Paper. The White Paper was supposed to be the Messiah for the educational department; the coming Prince of Peace was supposed to be embodied in this little thing called the White Paper. Great capacity for change! Change again was the key word within the paper. However, of the five major directives given in the paper, two have been acted upon, three are the ones about which we are going to have serious questions during the discussion of these estimates.

AN HON. MEMBER: She left the room.

MR. SCHROEDER: She's no longer there. She is gone with the commission, the commissioners, with the research department. Our capacity for change today is less than it was on the day that this lady took this post. I am saying that if her dreams for change are to take place, there is going to have to be a reincarnation of the capacity for change.

I would like to talk about the record change, but my light is going to be green in just about a minute and a half. The record change is shocking, so much so that over this three years minus four months discipline in the classroom is diluted; teacher control

[ Page 1293 ]

is dissipated; school boards have been ostracized, called irresponsible; teachers have become disenchanted because the department has reneged on its promise in such things as class size, student-teacher ratio. Taxpayers are weighted down. They are disenchanted because the government has reneged on supposedly lessening tax burdens. Instead, mill rates have increased this year.

MR. CHAIRMAN: You are on your final two minutes, Mr. Member.

MR. SCHROEDER: Responsibility has been loaded heavily upon their shoulders — I've got a minute to go, right? — and the taxpayer, instead of having a lessening burden, is having an increased burden. As a result, what has happened? People from all around the province have asked for the ultimate in change. They have asked for the release of this Minister from her portfolio. Not only editors but also teachers, teachers' federation, school trustees' federations, parents, home and school and politicians have asked for the release of this Minister.

As a result, I have no alternative today but to make this motion: that the salary of the Hon. Minister of Education as provided for in vote 38, be reduced by $1. This is moved, and seconded by the Member for Saanich and the Islands (Mr. Curtis).

MR. CHAIRMAN: I declare the motion in order.

MR. H.A. CURTIS (Saanich and the Islands): I have a few remarks to make in supporting this amendment. There are so many matters relating to education upon which we can touch later or under other portions of the Department of Education vote.

In supporting the motion moved by the Hon. Member for Chilliwack, I must also refer to the absence of change (that is, any useful change) within the department under the direction of this Minister, and also refer to the fundamental issue of promises unfulfilled — promises advanced by the NDP so vocally, prior to the August, 1972, election, reiterated again and again following that party coming to power in 1972.

Mr. Chairman, it's a very sorry record, when one steps back and examines it — a very sorry record in the educational history of British Columbia of decisions reversed, of indecision on the part of this Minister and the government with which she is associated. Directions changed and changed and changed again. Vacuums created. Hirings in haste and firings in even greater haste. Firing by television, as we've spoken of from time to time. Commissions established, and then neutralized.

Yet what do we see in the 103rd annual report of the Department of Education, which was presented by this Minister just a short while ago after this session started? In the third paragraph of the statement from the covering letter of the Minister: "During the school year ended June 30, 1974, much major policy implementation did in fact take place." It sounds defensive, Mr. Chairman. To continue the quote at that paragraph: "All of it was designed to bring about a synthesis of the best in the established education system, with new concepts and practices that have developed in recent years." Words, not actions. Words, Mr. Chairman.

The Member for Chilliwack (Mr. Schroeder) spoke about capacity for change, and we heard this phrase so often from the Minister, both in this House and in her news releases. One short line in this report: "Another addition was a research and development division." End of quote. "Another addition was a research and development commission." We heard so much about the R & D group and how well they were going to function, how effectively they were going to tackle some new problems in education — some old problems as well — in British Columbia.

Even the B.C. Teachers Federation newsletter for March of this year, in a little box appearing on the front page of its publication, says:

"Education finance is in a mess.

"The government did not provide sufficient funds to maintain existing programmes, including teachers already hired to reduce the PTR in 1974-75; did not provide any money to, reduce the PTR in 1975-76."

The Minister has told us since this session started that that is not correct. I hope when she takes her place that she will carefully outline for us where that money is.

To continue the BCTF statement:

"Last year the government did tinker with board budgets, through supplementary grants with secret guidelines. This year the government has failed to give boards any indication of any tax relief through any one of these means — homeowner grants, tax rebates, supplementary grants. The result? If no further changes in final budgets are made and no supplementary grants are provided the following will occur:

"(a) districts with similar educational needs will have widely different pupil-teacher ratios;

"(b) districts with greater educational needs — i.e., isolated, small schools, with higher proportions of immigrant children or children from poor families — will frequently have higher pupil-teacher ratios than districts with less pressing needs;

"(c) mill rates will vary tremendously from district to district, increasing well beyond the 4.5 mills justified by inflation;

"(d) some districts will pay huge mill rate increases for no appreciable improvement in

[ Page 1294 ]

their school systems."

"Education finance is in a mess. What needs to be done by government? Provide money to maintain existing programmes, provide money to continue the PTR reduction, provide money to hold local mill rate increases below 5 mills."

That's not the opposition speaking, Mr. Chairman, in this Legislature. That is the British Columbia Teachers Federation, in the March, 1975, newsletter: a continuing indictment of this Minister's failure in the carrying out of her duties in the portfolio of Education.

The name of the game must be getting down to basics. I don't refer to reading, writing and arithmetic but getting down to the basics in education. And it would appear that the Minister, perhaps, in recent weeks may have come just slightly around to appreciate this fact, but perhaps too late for her own credibility in the teaching profession and in the community at large. From university professors to the school trustees to parents, that is the message, Mr. Chairman, to the Minister: get down to the basics. Improve the product which is sent out into the world after 12 or more years in our educational system.

I've heard this mentioned by a number within the school system. Are we getting value for our school tax dollars? But even more important, and I underline this point: are our students getting full value out of the system as it now exists? We think not. And it would appear from the comments of many parents and interested citizens that they also think not, that they doubt the effectiveness and the value of the total educational structure as presided over by this Minister.

Mr. Chairman, I would like to explore with you a fairly local example to determine the magnitude of education costs in British Columbia, and to do so as briefly as possible. The impact of inflation admitted, and the very strong possibility that we, the people, are not receiving full value for our school tax dollars, the comparison may be helpful to you.

The 1974 total operating budget for School District 61, that is the Greater Victoria School Board, the grand total, all up, everything included — $34,659,372. According to page D148 in the appendices of the 103rd annual report of the department, to which I referred earlier, that $34.6 million budget in one school district alone exceeds total provincial government expenditures for education just 20 years earlier — the 1954-55 school year with an amount then of $34,279,000. To repeat: one relatively major school district, No. 61, in the 1974 calendar year spent more than the entire province spent towards the cost of education just 20 years ago.

Then look at 1975. The anticipated total budget for great Victoria schools in 1975 — and it has to be an estimate at this point because all the figures are not yet available — will be between $39 million and $40 million. That's 1975, and it isn't that far short of the total government expenditure of just over $41 million in all school districts just 20 years earlier. That is in the school year of 1955-56.

Again, according to the Minister's annual report for the school year ending 1973-74, total net enrolment 20 years ago was 223,840. For the 1973-74 year, the school year net enrolment had grown by about two and a half times. Do you have that, Mr. Chairman? In 20 years, enrolment up by about two and a half times in this province. Government expenditure in the same 20-year period is more than 10 times, and that relates to the 1973-74 school year. Now, I don't know what the net enrolment is for the 1974-75 school year, but we're looking at a total provincial budget in these votes of $754 million, a provincial expenditure increase of more than 22 times the amount for 1954-55.

Now, I've heard about inflation but those figures are staggering. The increase for this fiscal year over the last, just about 36.2 per cent, I believe, is, I think, one reason why so many people are questioning. Are we receiving full value for our provincial education dollar? I emphasize "provincial dollar" because none of the comparisons I've used this afternoon relate to the property tax. They deal only with the provincial expense of 20 and 21 years ago and within the past two years. No reference to the local property tax.

So the time may well have arrived, when one considers these massive amounts of money, when we have to ask, regardless of the party in power or the party in opposition, if perhaps the portfolio of the Minister of Education hasn't reached the point where the job should be split into two parts. Certainly the dollars spent and the complexities of education have reached the point where a second Minister could be most helpful. The bureaucracy which we see evident in the department and in other departments of governments is huge compared to the relatively minor additional cost of a second Minister deal with education In other words, what I'm talking about — and perhaps the Minister will respond, although I'm sure she doesn't really care for the amendment which has been put forward — is a Minister of Education who would be assigned such things as curriculum, programmes, the relationship with the B.C. Teachers Federation and teachers, departmental staff; and then a second Minister given the assignment of — not in order of importance — locating new school sites, new construction, renovation of existing buildings, equipment and finance, and the financial relationship between the provincial Treasury and school boards or school districts.

As I said earlier, I think the need can be justified and the dual approach would work as long as the two Ministers, so appointed, were capable of working together effectively. It would appear that there is a

[ Page 1295 ]

problem, even in construction, to say nothing of the relationship between the existing department and teachers, administrative personnel and others.

I'd like to refer to the B.C. School Trustees Association release of March of this year, which is headed: "Problems in the Supply of Educational Facilities." I've read it several times. It very carefully sets out the 51 steps necessary from the time a school is first discussed until the building is accepted — that's step No. 50 — and final payments are made, step No. 51. There are 51 steps to build a school. Surely some of this red tape can be cut through. Surely it would be more effectively dealt with by a Minister who is in charge of this side of the educational system and not so involved with the total picture as this Minister has attempted to become.

I support the amendment with some regret because, as I've heard a number of people say — people in the teaching profession and the school boards, interested citizens — the Minister is a pleasant person. The Minister is a pleasant person. A number of people know that.

Interjection.

MR. CURTIS: She doesn't agree? She doesn't care for the platitude this afternoon, perhaps.

But we cannot, we simply cannot, let this vote pass without expressing very real and sincere disappointment.

HON. MRS. DAILLY: Mr. Chairman, it's rather difficult, really, to know where to start, because we've had so many misinterpretations of statements made by various groups in this province on education. Also, there has been very obvious display by both the speakers from the official opposition of a great lack of basic research on what has gone on in this province in education.

I'd like to start off with what I thought was most interesting. The official opposition spokesperson for education led off with a condemnation of the heavy centralized control which seems to be building up in this Department of Education. Yet, after making that statement, he did not give one specific example of this centralized control. If he has an opportunity to speak again, I would like to hear some specific examples instead of sweeping generalizations.

Then actually to have the Member from the Social Credit Party lead off with a criticism of this government for centralization is almost unbelievable. When we came into government, the very first thing we were faced with was to eliminate the heavy centralized control of the former government in education. Yet here we have that Member standing up stating that we are moving towards centralization, almost suggesting that the former government gave a free hand to the school boards.

Let us look at the record of the former government very quickly and what we have done since we came in, which will include a resume that I find necessary of some of the changes — some. I frankly do not have time to stand here…. I would need a whole day and maybe even an evening to run through the changes in education which have been brought in by this government. Yet they base their whole case on this amendment, I gather, primarily on the fact that there has been nothing happening in the department.

First of all, let us look at the basic things which had to be done by any government which followed the government that had been in power in this province for 20 years, and which slowly, slowly emasculated the school boards of this province from control over their own autonomy.

First of all, what did we have to do? We restored collective bargaining to the teachers of this province. The former government had selected the teachers alone, of all sectors of society, for a freeze.

Then the next step: we removed the operating referendums. The operating referendums, I believe, were the only ones we had in Canada at that time, and I think we still don't have any. This government imposed an operating referendum on the school boards of this province. I remember when I was in opposition the number of school board members who used to besiege our offices every day asking us to assist in getting this removed. There isn't one school trustee in this province today who would not support the removal of that.

Capital referendum: this government also moved in on the removal of capital referendums, not only for public schools but for colleges.

Decentralization: the matter of decentralization…. It's really ironic to listen to the Social Credit Members talk about this area. We have decentralized and are moving in on the whole area of the decentralization of curricula in this province. We are assisting the school boards and the teachers' associations to bring this about. But I do endorse the point made by one of the former speakers who, I believe, was simply quoting what I had said in the budget speech. I'm glad that you endorse it.

It is that we as a provincial Department of Education must maintain control over the basic core programmes. We have a responsibility in that area; we have taken that responsibility seriously. I give him due credit for pointing out, as the other Member did not in his remarks, that the whole area of where we stand today in functional skills is not something for which the blame should be placed on the present government. It has been built up right across Canada and the United States throughout the 1960s. Starting very shortly we intend to initiate a provincial survey of just where the students in this province are in the areas of the functional skills.

[ Page 1296 ]

Interjection.

HON. MRS. DAILLY: Right. We are moving on that directly.

Now let's talk some more about local control. Another area on which we moved in was to allow districts with student enrolments of over 20,000 to appoint local superintendents. This has been asked for for years of the former government. No action had ever been taken.

We have also gone further than that. I find it so absolutely unbelievable to hear the opposition talking about this increased heavy hand of centralization when every move we have taken has been to give the opportunity to the educational community, including the parents, to enter into decision-making at the local level. I have encouraged the school boards of this province to have the teachers sit in when the school board budgets are being prepared. Never once did I hear this encouragement being given by any former Ministers of Education under the former government.

I have come out strongly for the opportunity for teachers to sit in when the department review teams visit districts so that they can participate and understand what the departmental financial policies are.

When I was speaking to the B.C. Teachers Federation — and I have given you all a copy of that speech — I made the point that I was somewhat disconcerted at the BCTF newsletter from which the Member for Saanich and the Islands (Mr. Curtis) quoted with such delight. That letter has a great number of erroneous statements. We have already pointed out to the BCTF, and it will be pointed out in the future newsletter of our own, some of the grave misstatements in that. I think it is about time it was done.

The newsletter will be an educational newsletter…

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, yes!

HON. MRS. DAILLY: …and it will have information which should go out regarding not only financing but also educational programmes. For example, that newsletter….

Interjections.

HON. MRS. DAILLY: I'll tell you something: your government did so little in education, Madam, that they were afraid to put out any newsletter on education. You had nothing put out. Nothing.

Interjection.

HON. MRS. DAILLY: We are very proud of the fact…

Interjections.

AN HON. MEMBER: Let's have some discipline. Order!

HON. MRS. DAILLY: …that when we put out a newsletter it will have something positive to say about education.

MRS. JORDAN: Why don't you?

HON. MRS. DAILLY: Just out of interest, that particular newsletter, which was quoted by the Member for Saanich and the Islands, conceded that there were no funds to be provided for supplementary grants in any form at all this year, which, of course, is completely inaccurate. When I met with the teachers and the trustees I pointed out to them that there would be supplementary funds, as there always have been, even under the former government to a certain degree, because within the statutes of the Public Schools Act it allows for supplementary funds or grants-in-aid when the school mill rate could cause an unnecessary burden. That is what will happen again this year.

In a time of high costs — which the Member for Saanich and the Islands just ran through, his great concern about inflationary rises in education particularly — I pointed out to the school boards of the province that we all had to work together in a time when costs were escalating. I think that is simply something with which you yourself would have to agree, Mr. Member. You just made the statement yourself that you were concerned. Yet the interesting thing about the Member for Saanich and the Islands, when he makes that statement, is his solution. The only thing he can suggest is that we separate the portfolio into two Ministers, one handling education programmes and one handling finance. That was his great design for handling the problem of educational finance in this province.

MR. CURTIS: It's a suggestion.

HON. MRS. DAILLY: Well, when you take on the whole area of inflation and school finance, Mr. Member, we would expect you to come out with something a little more concrete and specific than that. The matter of education finance is under study in my department now. We accept the fact that the present school finance formula is not equitable in many areas and does need revision. There is no question about that. We are in the process of analyzing the whole present formula.

One statement made really did shock me. It was the statement, I believe, from the Member for Chilliwack (Mr. Schroeder), if I'm correct, who

[ Page 1297 ]

suggested that anyone who wants a higher salary is disenchanted with his job. I suppose, then, Mr. Member for Oak Bay (Mr. Wallace) must be demoralized with his job too because he was perhaps just suggesting that there should be a raise.

Really, I wonder if that's what the teachers of the province have said to you as their rationale for wanting a higher salary. I really question that, Mr. Member. If that is the basis for everyone in our sector of society wanting more wages, then everyone in this province is disenchanted with their work.

When we talk about the whole matter of changes, it has been suggested that nothing has happened in this department in the last three years — nothing at all. I think what you should really do is perhaps travel around the province and speak to some of the school boards and the teachers of this province directly and also the citizens so that you can run through with them some of the major changes which have come about in this province. When I visit with them, believe it or not, I receive not the hostility which seems to be so apparent in quotes from the press et cetera, but I have received, on the other hand, some very excellent positive applause for the accomplishments in the Department of Education.

As a matter of fact, even the former president of the B.C. Teachers Federation….

Interjection.

MRS. DAILLY: I don't think we need to talk to the press about education when it comes to positive achievements. Their job is to report. Period. But your job as a responsible Member…you should get out and find out just what is going on in the classrooms.

Now, the former president (Mr. McFarland) of the B.C. Teachers' Federation called for my resignation over an internal firing, so-called — which was not actually a firing but a termination of appointment within my department. That was the reason for the call for my resignation. At the time I spoke to the Teachers Federation I suggested that I think they would be rather annoyed if I went publicly and demanded their president's resignation over what they did internally with their own personnel. Apparently that was received rather well by the majority of the teachers. Even in his speech to the convention he spent considerable time listing the areas of accomplishment by this Department of Education since they came into office.

Let's just take a few minutes and go through some of them. As I said, I really don't have the time to go through them all.

Pupil-teacher ratio. I found again rather interesting the way the two Members who just spoke brushed off the facts and said: "The money isn't forthcoming." As a matter of fact, one of them even made a statement that I have not provided in the finances to provide for existing teachers to be continued on. That is absolutely incorrect. When we go into details on the financing for this year's budget for public schools, it has been made quite clear to the school boards that they are in a financial position to keep on their existing staff. As a matter of fact some school boards of this province will be able to continue to reduce their pupil-teacher ratio.

Let me reiterate again: since we came into office it has dropped by three. It is one of the lowest pupil-teacher ratios in Canada. Here we have the Social Credit opposition saying that they are concerned about inflation, and at the same time one of their other Members is saying to me, "you must keep up your commitments," which means putting another 2,200 teachers into the classroom if we continue at the same pace this year. That doesn't just mean the salaries of those teachers; it also means the classrooms and all the auxiliary services. So you really must make up your mind. You can't make one statement asking us to keep up that full commitment immediately and then at the same time say: "We want you to be responsible and keep costs down."

HON. MR. BARRETT: They don't know what their position is.

MRS. DAILLY: Transportation budget. I was shocked when I came into office to find that a number of children, particularly in the northern regions, had to stand in the cold and wait for buses, but I was told that there was a rigid formula placed by the former government and it couldn't be changed. I asked to have that rigid formula changed and we put over $1.5 million into updating transportation grants.

Kindergartens. In all the school districts of this province, there are kindergartens. You never hear the opposition mentioning that. They should be ashamed. Of course, I can understand why they don't mention it. It is because the former government did not feel strongly enough about the kindergarten service to see that all children in this province could have access to it.

Community schools. We hear the Member for Chilliwack (Mr. Schroeder) saying that parents want to be involved. All right. We have brought in legislation in the whole area of community schools. That is not an answer in itself. Just building a community school does not mean community involvement. But what I have done is encouraged the school boards. I said to them that any school board in the province today which expresses concern about its power or its need to survive must involve parents and must set up advisory committees to the school board to ensure that as the years go along, even though they are composed of elected officials and are accountable and must make final decisions, the voice

[ Page 1298 ]

of the parent in the community has an opportunity to be heard in the decisions which are made.

The teachers pensions are now one of the best in Canada under this government.

Teacher training. I was interested to hear one of the Members who spoke saying that nothing has happened in teacher training and, since the strap was removed, what's happened.

First of all, we have set up a joint board on teacher education, which has community representatives on it so that the community for the first time — parents — can tell us what they feel about teacher training.

They have already made some very valid suggestions. They have asked that all teachers of this province should be trained before they come out not only in the matter of class management but also in the whole area of looking after a child with learning disabilities.

This new board is doing an excellent job, and that's where you get community involvement in teacher training.

There are going to be other changes in teacher-training programmes coming. We have, as you know, initiated the first internship programme in this province, which will be repeated again this summer at the University of Victoria.

We have encouraged through funding the matter of in-service training for teachers across the province.

In the matter of research and development it was questioned: what happens to it now? Where are the research and the innovative programmes going on? There are many going on, and we have the funds, as you will see in the research and development vote, so that we can encourage local….

AN HON. MEMBER: Ha!

HON. MRS. DAILLY: I hear somebody from the opposition saying, "Ha!" Do you know that when we came into office you were putting nothing, literally nothing, into research in this province? Nothing! This money will be to encourage local initiative in developing pilot programmes. The Member for Cariboo (Mr. Fraser) is aware that we have started in his area the first pilot project in Brûlé School so that we can bring children in his area back to their own home area so they don't have to spend hours and hours in a school bus. This is going to be financed, and has been financed, through pilot projects, and we are hoping to spread it across the province.

MR. D.E. LEWIS (Shuswap): How are you going to vote on that one?

HON. MRS. DAILLY: Strathcona environmental education programme: for the first time the Department of Education funded an environmental workshop to send teachers and students back to their own districts to participate in environmental education programmes.

If you look at the budget, you will see a considerable amount of money there for Indian education, which we believe very strongly should be encouraged. Our department has set up an Indian advisory committee to assist in the hiring of an Indian director for education to fill the vacancy left by the untimely death of George Wilson.

We have encouraged and have money in research and development to assist Indians who wish to encourage the teaching of their own native language, and we will be assisting again in the development of textbooks for native Indians.

Learning disabilities: we have the Chud report, which made some excellent recommendations which re now being acted upon. We are going to be setting p a full board in this province to assist in the whole area of children with learning disabilities. Once again we are financing the Jericho workshop in this area.

There are many exciting things going on in education in this province, and they are being done through the initiative of the communities themselves, individually, in the province through the teachers and through the school boards. But we are ready, within he Department of Education, to finance these requests for innovative programmes. We are also ready to give leadership. That is why you will find hat even though the research and development section at this time is not filled, you will find that here is also considerable increase suggested in that structuring sheet I have given you to increase our professional staff. I would like to make it clear that when we came into office we had far less professional people in the Department of Education than the Province of Prince Edward Island — professional people.

Most of the school boards of this province have more administrative staff, professional administrative staff, than the Department of Education. So when you are looking at those figures on restructuring and hiring new personnel, our emphasis there is on putting more professional people into the Department of Education, teachers who can go out into the field and assist the school boards and the teachers' associations.

I find it very interesting when we are being attacked on enlarging the Department of Education personnel, because if you want to come in and follow me around for a couple of days in the office, you would see that every day the demands on the Department of Education are increasing. People are writing to us, teachers' associations, colleges, school boards, parents, wanting assistance and asking for leadership and help from this department, asking us to send people out in the field to assist them. That is why we are building up personnel in the Department of Education: so that we can send more people out into the field. This is an essential thing.

[ Page 1299 ]

One particular area that was brought up was the area of the 5 I steps. I agree. Again, I don't want to make the excuse of saying that we inherited an antiquated structure, because we have been in two years now. Even though we did inherit a very rigid system and rigid control by the former government for capital approval, we have a responsibility to change that.

One of our problems has been that I inherited about four or five people in that whole area, when I came into office, who were to handle all the capital approvals for the whole province. I do not know how those people were able to function at all before. So that is one area where we have finally gained approval to increase staffing so that we can go out there and speed up the approvals.

We are also going to move on the reduction of a number of the steps which have been mentioned.

The whole area of the White Paper is interesting. You know, when it first came in it was ridiculed as being such a minute little piece of paper. The interesting thing is that ever since that paper's been out, the opposition has been saying to me: "When are you going to start acting on it?" Yet when they first had it in their hands, they said there was nothing to this paper. Now they are demanding action on it.

The other point is, and I want to make it quite clear: if you read that paper again, it says, "directions for change." It simply pointed out areas which should be analyzed and studied. It was not a mandate for change.

Who really knows what way educational change should go? This is the big problem, as I said earlier to you, which all Ministers of Education face across Canada and elsewhere. How do you decide what area of change is going to be for the benefit of all students? Certainly we have set up a number of commissions. I've tried various ways to do this. When you find one way is not going to bring in to you the input you need, then you must stop it and try to find a proper structure to give you the right input.

There are many people out there in this province who are ready to assist us in educational change. But I think we have to be very careful when we talk about educational reform, as I said to the British Columbia Teachers Federation recently, because when you talk reform the whole point is going to end up in: who is going to control public education finally? Who is going to control it?

I think that's something that all responsible Members of the opposition will give great thought to because we know there are so many communities out there who say: "We want this road to be taken into education," and others want you to take another road. So a Minister of Education who has to take final accountability for all change must ensure that no one elitist group or any specific group is trying to dictate change.

Even in 1928, as you'll see quoted in my speech, Walter Lippmann stated: "If I read the signs correctly, we are at the beginning of intense struggle for the control of public education." He said he saw too little like-mindedness between teachers and their fellow citizens for the schools to carry on their work with ease and openness. He said that it would probably be a constant struggle for whom is going to control education.

I said to the teachers that I agree, there will be a struggle. But I'm not as pessimistic as Walter Lippmann because I believe very strongly that if you operate on two basic principles, I think that we can move in orderly, rational educational change. One is: that system must be operationally flexible enough to meet the very needs of those for whom it was created. Secondly, that directions used to meet these needs must be undertaken on a partnership basis involving all those communities whose interests are directly affected. But we still get down to the fact that the local school board and here at this level, in the Legislature, and myself as Minister, are accountable to the public. That is our great responsibility.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Hon. Member, you are on your final two minutes.

HON. MRS. DAILLY: Therefore, I just want to emphasize that when the opposition does talk about lack of change…I have a tremendous amount of material in front of me. I've given each of you a copy of my speech to the teachers' federation which outlines some changes relative to teachers' status since we came in. I have almost volumes on the changes which have taken place, I just hope that the opposition would take time to do some research on the very positive changes that have taken place in the last three years.

MR. G.S. WALLACE (Oak Bay): Mr. Chairman, I think we should start off by saying that in estimates we zero in on the administrative responsibility of the Minister. On that basis I would have to say that in the light of recent events the administrative capacity of the Minister has been brought, very sadly, under question.

In the light of many events one can only be critical, and I will at the same time try to be fair. But it is not adequate for this Minister or any other Minister responsible to the public to take some of the actions which have been taken recently and try and shove it all under the rug as being a matter of internal administration. Even if it were only that, it is internal administration of the poorest kind. As members of the public, and as elected representatives of the public, we have every right to know a great deal more than we now know about the incredible hiring and

[ Page 1300 ]

firing that has gone on in this department in the last two and a half years.

A department that's spending $754 million in the coming year, a very large section of the budget…in that light and in the light of these recent events, I think we're entitled to ask a host of questions.

I personally am frequently accused of being not critical enough in politics and not being prepared to attack mistakes as I see them. That may or may not be a fair criticism, I don't know. But on this particular estimate of this Minister, I think I have every right to be extremely critical.

I'm sick and tired of hearing this government defend its own actions in the light of the former government. When you're trying to succeed after something that was a dead loss, it shouldn't be very difficult to be pretty good. I would say that in education this government is better than the last government. But, after all, when you make comparisons, try and compare yourself with something that was pretty reasonable to start with and not with the kind of anemic, half-dead, unimaginative policies we had before. The government of that day just looked upon education as a financial pain in the neck. So I just think it's about time we tried to debate the performance of this government, and certainly this department, on its own merits and not all these useless comparisons with a government that, thank goodness, is gone.

The Minister has chosen repeatedly not to answer certain questions through the media. That is her right of choice. But I think I should make one thing very plain: I expect the Minister to answer some pretty straight questions in this House.

I've heard a lot today about change. As my colleague on my right hand muttered, there's nothing more constant than change. We're living in a changing world. Surely if there's any system that has to modify and alter and change, it's our educational system. But whether the Minister likes it or not, what I hear when I go around the province seems to be a little different from what she's hearing.

The public feel somewhat betrayed by the educational performance of the Department of Education. I don't blame entirely the Minister. I think there are serious flaws within her department. The feeling I often have told to me is that dithering has been substituted for direction. Someone the other day said to me: "The best three words to sum up this department are 'dilly-dally Dailly."' And a series of hirings and firings with little or no explanation by what is reputed in this House to be an open government leaves the public and the taxpayers, the pupils, the teachers and the trustees all wondering what is going on in the Department of Education in Victoria. The question is just that simple.

It's frequently stated to me that the Minister is on the defensive and that there has been a lack of candour in explaining some of her recent actions which, she has stated in public, she has taken on the advice of her Deputy. When the Minister sat on this side of the House, she frequently made the commitment that she would change the system. When she became the Minister, various measures were set up, measures were taken, commissions set up to find out through research what changes might be advisable. I don't want to go back through the whole business of the five points and the White Paper. As the Minister mentioned, they've been gone over many times.

What I do want to zero in on without any doubt at all, however, are the two words "research and development." Presumably, when you look at a system as complicated as the educational system and consider that it might require change, surely one has to try and determine two things. What is in the system right now which is good and worth preserving and what is in the system that quite clearly should be changed? As far as any average individual looking from the sidelines would conclude, that's what research should be doing in education, as in any other field, whether it were medicine or highways or agriculture or any other department.

In trying to find out by research what is needed and what should be preserved, we've had the sorry succession of failures. We've had Mr. Bremer; we've had Dr. Knight. And, incredibly, not only these two leaders in research but apparently every single other member of the research staff was also considered somewhere along the line to either be inadequate or incompetent or in some way unsuitable to continue beyond the probationary period.

I don't think we should have a debate on the semantics of whether somebody was fired or dismissed or that their probation wasn't extended. What we're going to debate, I hope, is the fact that we have the incredible situation in a period of two years of a total of at least 10 highly competent professional educators, employed by this government to take on a very important task, and that somehow or other all 10 of them are failures. It's very, very difficult for the average citizen to understand.

It's been said — and the Minister may wish to expand on this — that, of course, in the case of Dr. Knight, he exceeded his powers. The only public explanation which the Minister has really given has said, or certainly implied, that Dr. Knight wanted to run the department or implement policy, and, of course, no one individual employed in this department could have this kind of authority. I agree. It would be ridiculous if one person somewhere in the Department of Education tried to exert that kind of unilateral power.

[Mr. D'Arcy in the chair.]

[ Page 1301 ]

But under the Public Service Commission "Position Vacant, " dated May 24, 1974, the duties of the position Dr. Knight assumed are defined very clearly. I would just like to read them into the record:

"…under general direction of the Deputy Minister, to be responsible for the overall administration and direction of major studies concerning all aspects of education within the province, including educational finance programmes, authority and responsibility, students' rights, administration and organization; to maintain contact and liaison with and participation by teachers, students, colleges, universities, school boards, BCTF, BCSTA, research organizations and the public; to work closely with departmental officials in co-ordinating activities; to develop a close understanding of all aspects of education within the province and formulate broad, new, innovative approaches; to make recommendations with respect to overall policy…."

I think maybe one should repeat that little phrase: "…formulate broad, new, innovative approaches and to make recommendations with respect to overall policy…."

"…new legislation, restructuring and the implementation of change…" — the implementation of change.

Interjection.

MR. WALLACE: Implementation, my friend, not recommendation. "…implementation of change in a co-ordinated and systematic fashion."

So let's get the record straight, for a start: Dr. Knight applied for that job on these terms; that was his job description, I ask anyone with any kind of an objective and fair mind at all to deny that he was given a very extensive, wide definition of his terms of reference. That last phrase says: "…the implementation of change in a co-ordinated and systematic fashion." Let's get that point straight right away. The impression has been generated in this public controversy that he went far beyond the job he was asked to do.

I would say this: if he did, the completely unfair way in which he has been castigated in public without the Minister giving some specific delineation of facts to back up her statement about a public servant, I think, is anything but reasonable and fair in the circumstances.

I might say in passing that I have a memo, which I won't take the trouble to read, from the Deputy Minister of Education to all associate Deputy Ministers and superintendents on June 10, 1974. If this kind of convoluted language with big words and long sentences is typical of the way communication goes on within the department, then God help our schools if this is the type of verbose, intricate language to be used in trying to teach our kids communication.

It seems to me that if within the system we can't highlight and give first priority to the importance of teaching communicative skills, then, indeed, our system is in trouble. This kind of very stiff and starchy language used in the memo has to be read two or three times to really understand what the purposes of research and development are going to be. The public could come to the conclusion that the researchers themselves weren't quite clear what on earth this was all about and what they were supposed to be doing.

At any rate, at this particular time I don't think we can overlook this very serious public concern about events within the department. I don't accept that they can be sloughed off as being so much an internal matter that we shouldn't be asking questions about it. I would like to ask some questions.

Does the Minister consider that the original aims and functions of the research and development project under Dr. Knight were poorly defined, or does she consider that they were quite adequately defined? Does the Minister — and equally important, does her Deputy, through her — really feel that they have a clear definition of what they were asking from research and development? Perhaps the Minister, in answering, could give us a specific outline of what they were seeking.

As I say, I don't want to take up the time of the House in reading this memo that went to the superintendents and Associate Deputy Ministers, but that kind of language makes it difficult for a very ordinary person like me to read that and, without a fair amount of re-reading, come to the conclusion as to what the situation is outlining and what is being asked.

The third question I would like to ask the Minister is: after starting the research and development project did the Minister have any apprehension about what the research was revealing? It's a great idea sometimes to go into research hoping that you'll find out some things, but it gets a little shocking when you find out some other things. As I've stated, Mr. Chairman, the job description of Dr. Knight seemed to me to be very extensive and it would be difficult to imagine how he could go beyond his terms of reference.

I think the fourth question would be, in light of the Minister's action towards Dr. Knight and the researchers: has the government had a fundamental change of mind and heart with regard to the extent and direction of change for the educational system in British Columbia? The Minister today, as at previous times, has quite correctly stated that change for the sake of change is no answer at all, and as a good conservative I couldn't agree more with that. The

[ Page 1302 ]

wisdom in education must surely He in preserving what is good and stable and well established as a positive virtue, and trying to find out the areas in which there should be change — whether it be mainly decentralization or greater involvement of all the groups and individuals concerned, or what. It can be many different directions although, with respect, Mr. Chairman, I don't think it solves very much to ask the questions without at least suggesting what each of us feels is the answer.

I would also say that I become a little impatient with people in the educational field using great big words. It then comes back to the subject of communication and understanding. We've talked about "collegiality." Now, how many people out of a hundred people on the street know what in heaven's name "collegiality" means? With respect to one of our eminent columnists, I think the reason he's probably an eminent columnist is that he has the tremendous facility to put in two or three words what other people take a long time to explain. And he says that means "letting the troops have a say." Collegiality! This is the kind of example within the Department of Education of the language and the long, convoluted, stilted sentences and so on. It just lacks the first prerequisite of any educational component: the facility to communicate and be understood. The department itself is doing an abysmal job of just that. That to me is priority No. 1. If in the classroom the teacher isn't communicating with the pupil and being understood and vice versa, then again I say no wonder our educational system is falling far short of its potential.

Question 5: has the Minister found that the reforms being proposed as a result of this in-depth study by the researchers are too radical and unacceptable to the government? This is another reason why, with respect, I suggest that the Minister just can't slough this off as an internal, departmental employer-employee situation. That is, again, one of the vital concerns that people have in the province as you talk to them: possibly change of some stable, sound, well-considered nature is required, but do we require radical change? Was one of the reasons that the Minister and the Deputy couldn't hit it off with the researchers the fact that their proposals were much too radical for the policies intended by this government? I think the Minister has to tell us that. I just do not think that the people of this province can be satisfied by being told that this is just a simple internal matter and that we've no business to ask the kind of questions I'm asking right now.

The Minister also this afternoon, earlier on, made a very valid retort to a criticism: "Don't just give me sweeping generalizations; give me facts." I'll give you some facts about the loss of public confidence that I'm talking about.

We have a weekly question that's asked and published in The Victorian newspaper. It's a different subject every week. Usually there's a split in the opinion of the people who are interviewed. But in The Victorian newspaper of January 22: "Today's question: Eileen Dailly has been the centre of controversy of late. Are you satisfied with her as the Minister of Education?"

Interjections.

MR. WALLACE: Now, doesn't that just show how the government is out of keeping and out of tune with the times? Of the six people interviewed, every single one of them felt that the Hon. Minister was a failure in her job. I think the people over there, Mr. Chairman, are a little biased.

AN HON. MEMBER: We'll put them on the streets pretty quick. They'll be on the streets.

HON. G.R. LEA (Minister of Highways): How many people were interviewed?

MR. WALLACE: Six.

HON. MR. LEA: How do you know?

AN HON. MEMBER: He saw it in the paper.

Interjection.

MR. WALLACE: That's a slanderous statement against the press, Mr. Minister. You are suggesting that they are slanting the news. Is that what you are suggesting?

Interjection.

MR. WALLACE: Oh, dear me, that's how your injection sounded to me, that perhaps you were casting some doubt about the honesty and integrity of the press.

HON. D. BARRETT (Premier): No!

MR. WALLACE: I would like to Minister at least to answer some of these questions. They are very straightforward and there should be no difficulty answering them.

I think the other question of discussing the administrative ability of the Minister…surely we have to look at the method by which the employment was terminated.

This is a government that strongly espouses balance between employer and employee and the protection of the employee's individual rights. I see the Minister of Labour (Hon. Mr. King) nodding his head furiously, and I knew he would. Well, let's say

[ Page 1303 ]

that the Minister of Labour is obviously in agreement with my statement that this government is immensely concerned about individuals' rights in the employment field.

AN HON. MEMBER: That's the only way we can tell he is awake.

MR. WALLACE: I just say that regardless of the justification for Dr. Knight's termination or the lack of justification, as the case may be, the method by which his job was terminated seems to me to have been incredibly clumsy and to be unfair and certainly unnecessary by a government such as this one which makes such strenuous assertions as to its respect for individual rights.

Maybe the Minister would like to deny the assertions that I'm about to make — that he was given four hours to clean up his desk and get out. He was given no reason for his dismissal and was told that he could not have the privilege of resigning. I hope the Deputy Minister is really listening because I don't like to waste my time repeating questions.

He was given four hours to clean his desk and get out. He was given no reason for his dismissal and he was told he didn't have the privilege of resigning. Would that not occur to you, Mr. Chairman, to be rather a strange attitude for an open government that claims to respect the rights and the dignity of the individual?

The Member for West Vancouver–Howe Sound (Mr. L.A. Williams) tells me that in this department of research and development it is an open-door government — they open the door and out you go, with no reason given and none of the normal courtesies that accompany dismissal.

You know, Mr. Chairman, I would like the Minister to answer or the Deputy Minister to tell the Minister: was it a fact that Dr. Knight was dismissed one day after he had been asked to develop a strategy for a conference between Washington and British Columbia? It is a fact that four days previous to his dismissal he had been asked to attend a conference in September as a departmental representative?

I have come to the conclusion that if this kind of thing was happening within the department, (1) there can't be much confidence among the department staff, and (2) his dismissal was perhaps much more abrupt than we have all been led to believe.

If it wasn't abrupt, I think it is base cynicism one would have to have that a man who is about to be dismissed two or three days later is being led up the garden path into believing that his work is satisfactory, that he is an acceptable member of the staff, that in fact he is being given departmental responsibility for conferences in different parts of the country.

I think that is a shameful situation, if at the time it was known within the department that Dr. Knight was unacceptable and was to be dismissed, that within two or three days of his dismissal he is being led up the garden path into assuming that he is being given continuing responsibility. I want that question answered, too.

Of course, if we have to talk about the final indignity to a person being dismissed, we find that eight days after his dismissal, he gets a letter from the Public Service Commission telling him that he has been appointed to an advisory position.

I just have to ask in the light of all these established facts — unless the Minister can prove otherwise — is it any wonder that the man in the street (and I didn't quote some of the responses from the man in the street) feels that the department is in a considerable degree of internal chaos and that we have, in the course of two years, 10 highly-qualified educators all being dismissed for minimal or no reason that the Minister chooses to state publicly?

The next question I'd like to ask the Minister is a very serious one. It relates to a statement made by Dr. Knight in his letter to the Premier outlining the rather strange appointment by the Public Service Commission after his dismissal.

The point I want to zero in on — and again I hope the Minister is listening to this specific point — because Dr. Knight says: "Funds which were approved by the Treasury Board for specific project work related to the White Paper were rechanneled by the Deputy Minister to cover deficits in other departmental areas."

MR. CHAIRMAN: I would like to remind the Member for Oak Bay that the green light is on.

MR. WALLACE: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'll be back.

Dr. Knight goes on to say: "Consequently, my division received neither approval of the Minister nor funds from the department to carry out the work as promised by the Minister to both the people of the province and the cabinet."

I'll end on that very serious note. Not only should we get more information about how the administrative work of the department is carried on in relation to normal rules that apply between employer and employee, but that last note — which is all I have time to ask right now — is that Dr. Knight even suggests that funds were rechanneled and used to cover deficits in other areas of the department. I hope the Minister might be kind enough to answer some of these very specific questions.

MR. D.A. ANDERSON: Perhaps before the Minister responds to some of the statements made and questions raised so far regarding the group of

[ Page 1304 ]

people who were in the research and development division, I might add a comment or two on this specific area.

This question was first raised by me in the Legislature when I questioned the Minister. When I first raised it, after a certain amount of equivocation she said that she had ended the practice because she could not tolerate the system which denied natural justice. She was right to do so, but it seems strange, however, in reference to this adherence to the fine principles of natural justice, that the members of the department's research and development division have not been allowed to benefit by those same noble sentiments.

In the B.C. public service — and I regret the Provincial Secretary (Hon. Mr. Hall) is not here because he can perhaps shed some light on this matter; I think he is involved somewhere — the probationer who is put on six-month terms normally is given a written assessment at the end of the first three months. If that written assessment of their work is satisfactory, at the end of the next three months — in other words at the end of the six-month probationary period — it is re-examined and they are then confirmed in their appointment.

If questions are raised about their competence, they are given a second report in a three-month period in which to demonstrate they can rectify the lack of performance in their probationary period.

That's what probation is all about, and probation has been shamefully misused in the present case we are talking of.

The treatment given Dr. Stanley Knight and his colleagues is far from this. I would like to know from the Minister if they were ever told at any time during their probationary period that their work was unsatisfactory. At the end of three months, did they get that report on the satisfactory or unsatisfactory nature of their work to date? It appears to me that all the indications are that the opposite was the case. They were not given any report at that time that their work was unsatisfactory, but they were fired unceremoniously. They were given no opportunity of following the grievance procedure laid out in the new Public Service Act, which the Members of the government boasted about when it came in, and they weren't able to follow that because the government cabinet Ministers had thwarted the wishes of this Legislature by failing to appoint members to the grievance board.

I don't think those are principles of natural justice. I just don't think that is in keeping with the Minister's statement when she replied to my question.

It seems to me that in the handling of this the Provincial Secretary has tried very hard to embarrass the Minister of Education, because it appears to me that the mishandling of Dr. Knight and his colleagues was something designed to embarrass her and leave some credence to the rumour going around that the Provincial Secretary is after the Minister's job.

I would like to ask a few more questions about harassment to which the members of the research and development section were subjected prior to their dismissal.

Interjection.

MR. D.A. ANDERSON: The Attorney-General (Hon. Mr. Macdonald) says that the Minister of Economic Development (Hon. Mr. Lauk) is after his job. When you were away he took it over, Mr. Minister. He had a great time. But back to Education. Despite the concern of the Attorney-General about the Minister of Economic Development and his efforts to take over the A-G's department Education.

On March 10, Hansard, page 493, I asked the Minister whether she had ordered or conducted an inquiry into the allegations of harassment by employees of the department who formerly served in the research and development division.

The Minister replied that she was satisfied: "There was no such harassment." Well, I don't know what she really means by harassment. One of the members of this particular group was on her way to a meeting in the Queen Charlotte Islands at that time, on February 26. She had travelled to Vancouver and was about to board a flight to the north, to the islands, when a telephone call was received ordering her to return to Victoria. As there was some confusion, she carried on with her flight, but she got to the other end and orders were again given that when she arrived in the islands she was to return home at once. She did.

She felt somewhat distraught. She wasn't too well the next day and she went to see her doctor and booked off sick. That was the day her colleagues were fired, and that night her dismissal notice was delivered to her by a deputy sheriff — shades of the wild west. They don't give them the opportunity of having the three-month probationers report. Then when they fire people, it's done by way of deputy sheriffs serving papers.

Well, that appears to me to be rather a strange example of natural justice and a rather curious example of lack of harassment. It appears to me that that is harassment.

So I would like to leave the Minister with a few specific questions. Was the performance of the research and development officers properly evaluated on the Public Service Commission forms? Are there any forms, any written records, of evaluation of those men and women? If they were evaluated in accordance with the public service practices, were they told at any time prior to their dismissal that their work was not satisfactory? Have any of them

[ Page 1305 ]

brought a complaint before the Public Service Commission alleging harassment in that department?

We feel that somehow or another the Minister seems to have got herself into a jam on this particular issue. I don't quite understand how. I don't know whether she hired these people originally, whether she put them in her department, whether she woke up after six months to discover that they were unfortunately right in the department doing the very thing that they'd been hired to do — namely, to ask questions and bring in reform — and that these questions and this reform were highly distasteful to the other Members of the department and therefore they were all slung out on the Minister's decision.

I would like to know — I don't know if the story will ever be told — about the involvement of the Provincial Secretary (Hon. Mr. Hall) in this. Why is it that the Provincial Secretary did not speak up on behalf of having these people treated like other civil servants are treated with respect to reports on competence and with respect to their probationary period?

As I mentioned, the normal practice, if there is an adverse report at the end of the six months, is to give that person three or four months to shape up. Failing that improvement, they are them dismissed — released, I should say. Fair enough, that's the standard practice. Why was it varied in this instance? At any time were they told that their performance was unsatisfactory, and was this put on the proper Public Service Commission board? That's the proper procedure. The procedures appear to have been ignored, and natural justice certainly appears to have been denied. I say this regardless of the political views, radicalism, conservatism or otherwise, of the people involved. Surely, as individuals in the civil service, they should be entitled to the protection of the normal rules and regulations and the normal approach.

HON. MRS. DAILLY: I would like to bring to the attention of the last two speakers that they do know that Dr. Knight and some of the other members of the research and development division — in fact, all five of them on one particular issue — are going to grievance. Now you have to make up your mind whether you believe in the grievance procedure taking place…. Or are you wanting us to have a grievance procedure debate right here in the House without the other people present…?

MR. WALLACE: They've got that choice.

HON. MRS. DAILLY: No, they have not, Mr. Member. If you would follow the papers, you would understand that they are going to grievance. Now do you think that we should open up this whole grievance procedure here on the floor of this House?

AN HON. MEMBER: Shame!

HON. MRS. DAILLY: I think it's unfair to those who are not even here. You are making statements which obviously have been given to you. You are in opposition and I can understand why you are using them. But surely the fair thing would be to wait until these people have their hearing before the public service grievance board. Then the people who have the grievance will be heard, all their arguments will be presented by those individuals and the department will present its arguments. You will all be made aware of the results. Now I think it is most unfair to want to go into this right here on the floor of this House.

MR. D.A. ANDERSON: The Minister comes up and talks about grievance. I remember when my colleague from Vancouver–Point Grey first questioned the appointment of Dr. Bremer. He was accused by this Minister because he simply asked how he was appointed. He was accused of great disservice to education in British Columbia. She constantly likes avoiding questions and attacking in this way when the questions are not to her liking.

Well, the fact of the matter is that there is a grievance procedure; but also in our estimates — and we are under estimates at the present time — we have thousands upon thousands of dollars put down there for research and development. Madam Minister, have I asked you about it? I've asked you three specific questions. I asked you whether or not these people, after three months, were given an evaluation on the proper Public Service Commission forms.

[Mr. G.H. Anderson in the chair.]

That is a fact — whether they had it or not — a straight fact which the revelation of in this House will not in one way or another affect their grievance before the board. The Minister is just copping out when she says: "Oh, there's a grievance going on. I can't tell you whether there was a report." It should be a public document at this stage, a report on their competence or otherwise after three months. She can't tell us if there was a report at the end of six months.

These are factual requests. It's not a request for opinion; it's a request for these reports. The Minister knows full well she's deliberately refusing to answer material which in no way affects the grievances of these people, and she's doing that at the present time by refusing to speak up. If she answers these questions it will not jeopardize the grievance procedure; it will simply inform the Members of this House something about the estimates and the money being put down here in the estimates for research and development at the present time — all these positions, of course, being unfilled.

[ Page 1306 ]

HON. MRS. DAILLY: It is my opinion that to answer those will jeopardize the grievance, and I do not intend to carry on any more in answering them.

MR. D.A. ANDERSON: …to the Minister, is a factual matter. Is she going to have it go to the grievance committee and then not let them know what she did? This is a fact which must come out. Whether it comes out here or there will not make one whit of difference to the grievance procedure, because it's the content which will determine whether their grievance is justified or not. The existence of such documents presented at this time, or information on their existence at this time, would not affect their grievance procedure. She's just refusing to carry out her responsibilities to this committee by refusing to answer questions of this nature.

MR. P.L. McGEER (Vancouver–Point Grey): Mr. Chairman, we have before us a motion to reduce the salary of the Minister of Education by a dollar.

Interjection.

MR. McGEER: You weren't in, Mr. Premier. Oh yes, the Member for Chilliwack (Mr. Schroeder) moved it; it was seconded by the Member for Saanich and the Islands (Mr. Curtis).

HON. MR. BARRETT: That defeats it right there — those two.

MR. McGEER: We don't know the outcome, but I find it pretty easy, Mr. Chairman, just on general principles to support motions to reduce the salaries of people on those Treasury benches by a dollar. One doesn't have to search one's conscience very hard to reach a decision of that kind.

HON. D.G. COCKE (Minister of Health): Where would you find a conscience, Pat?

MR. McGEER: We've had a lot of discussion about change, and I must say that I'm reminded of that old expression that the Premier knows so well: "Plus ça change, plus ça reste la même chose."

HON. MR. BARRETT: Your pronunciation is pretty bad.

MR. McGEER: I thought it was kind of good, Mr. Chairman. I'm not like Premier Lougheed — I'm not taking lessons in French as a non-candidate on the national scene. I'm just happy to rest on my high school French. The Premier knows that the high school French education in British Columbia is excellent. He was prepared to autograph the copy of the budget to the Member for North Vancouver–Capilano (Mr. Gibson) "Bonne chance!" He should have autographed a copy like that to the mayors of the cities and municipalities of British Columbia, though I don't think they have a bonne chance from that budget.

MR. A.V. FRASER (Cariboo): Trudeau doesn't want either you or the Premier.

MR. McGEER: The Premier had a good delegation down there — secretaries, press representatives, even opposition MLAs. I was one of them, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank the Member for Oak Bay (Mr. Wallace) for my trip down there…oh, the government too but it was only when the Member for Oak Bay found that he didn't have the funds to go that there was this instant change of policy. The Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Bennett) was in shape, supported by people who aren't friends, but acquaintances of the government. (Laughter.) I tell you, Mr. Chairman, the Members of the Liberal Party and the Conservative Party can't even form an acquaintanceship with their secretaries, so we were very grateful for the opportunity to hear what the Premier had to say.

But the people who had a lot at stake — the mayors of the cities and municipalities — weren't invited. There wasn't a word said about them. We were talking about who has a bonne chance in British Columbia, and I don't think that it's the mayors of the cities and municipalities, when it comes to a budgetary…. But we'll have a chance to discuss that more under the Minister of Economic Development (Hon. Mr. Lauk)…

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please! Could we return to the question under debate?

MR. McGEER: …the Attorney-General (Hon. Mr. Macdonald) and some of the bills that are before us.

Certainly, Mr. Chairman, the reason for supporting the motion to reduce the Minister's salary by a dollar can't be the budget of the Department of Education. This year it's up by almost 50 per cent. Now I'm not attacking that. It's certainly more than the MPs increase, and we know that's the benchmark by which we go.

So the budget of the Department of Education is adequate. At $750 million, that budget for education exceeds what was the total provincial budget only six or seven years ago.

The question now is not whether we have adequate funds in the Treasury of British Columbia for adequacy in educating our young people. The question is whether we are getting value for those dollars spent. I don't believe we're beginning to get the value for our educational dollar that we were getting only two or three years ago. We are spending

[ Page 1307 ]

more and getting less.

Just this spring the schools in the City of Victoria, second largest city in the province, for the second time in two years were crippled by a strike. The Second Member for Vancouver–Point Grey (Mr. Gardom) suggested that the parents of those children affected by the strike, and the property owners, had a case against the government as obligatory taxpayers for a system which is obliged to function and produce value for those tax dollars. Yet when it's crippled by strikes, that value is not being provided.

In the City of Vancouver this year there was a three-week strike which affected 17 out of 18 secondary schools and 20 out of 75 elementary schools.

In January to February, 1973, the Princeton school district was out. That year there was a 21-day closure in the Okanagan.

In the Kootenays — the East and West Kootenays — there was a four-week strike in 1974. There was a strike in the schools in January, 1975, in Nanaimo. A two-week strike in 1974 in Abbotsford. In February, 1974, there was a two-week rotational strike in the City of Vancouver.

In the past two years there have been something like 15 strikes against our school system, all brought about by maintenance workers of one kind or another, We've always believed that there should not be strikes in essential public services. These strikes should be settled by arbitration. At one time the idea of a strike in our school system, with the potential damage that it might do to the education of our students, was taken so seriously that for relatively trivial reasons people would not indulge in that kind of action against society. Attitudes have changed to the point where we will look forward to an increasing number of strikes in our school system in future years, no matter how much money is available, unless corrective action is taken.

When I was visiting Japan two years ago, one union involving the school system went on strike in one small area of Japan. The censure for that action by the people of Japan was almost unbelievable because they take the preparation of their youngsters very, very seriously in that country. They regard a closure of the educational system as a crime against society. That may be an extreme point of view for a much more permissive society such as our own, but I do think that we are going to have to take a very different attitude in the future than we have in the past toward closure of the school system.

I advocate compulsory arbitration to settle disputes in the school system because I think the education of our youngsters is important. It's clear from the budget that the government is prepared to provide the money to do the job well but the attitudes that have developed in connection with this increasing budget mean that neither the taxpayers nor the children are going to get the benefits they should from this adequacy of funding.

I think, too, that it should be noted that just this year for the first time there is a suggestion of these strikes spreading to our universities. Only today there was a note in the paper about a fear of disruption of examinations by workers at Simon Fraser University. Only shortly before that there was a similar threat to students at the University of British Columbia.

There is no way that you can pass students and give them their year if they are unable to write their examinations, or if for some reason the examinations are written at an inopportune time when they aren't prepared and they fail them when otherwise they might pass. Those students lose a full year of work as a result of that kind of action. I think it's too serious to be indulged in by this Legislature, and the time is now to begin taking appropriate action on behalf of the general public and our future generations.

Mr. Chairman, quite a lot was said this afternoon about research and educational change. As far as I can tell, it's all jargon speak. I haven't heard of a single important, original idea with respect to education coming out of that department since the Minister took over.

MR. LEWIS: Oh, shame!

MR. McGEER: Well, the Minister took her full allotment of time to give us ideas this afternoon. I must say it's the first time I've ever heard a Minister read a prepared text in response to a non-confidence motion that has just been presented on the floor.

HON. MRS. DAILLY: Mr. Chairman, on a point of order: I did not read a prepared text. I referred in my reply to a statement from a prepared text.

MR. McGEER: What the Minister is saying, Mr. Chairman, is that she was prepared for the non-confidence motion. I wouldn't have been surprised either. I would have brought in as much material as I could to read to the House if I had as little actual substance to go on.

I don't want my remarks to be misinterpreted, but I'm not sure that what we really need in research and development in education is a trampling once more of the ground that has been gone over so many times by people in the educational system itself. I believe, if we're going to have fresh air in this whole matter of revising the preparation of our youngsters for a modern society and a world of work, if our research and development shouldn't be conducted by people who are actually in the world of work.

The Minister has said so many times in this House that we must not have failures among our students in the educational system. The approach to having no

[ Page 1308 ]

failures, unfortunately, is to avoid the consequences of teaching dull material, irrelevant material, in a context of lack of discipline. You don't fail them, but they don't learn. I do agree, Mr. Chairman, that every youngster who goes through that system must be a success. But I see success in a different context. I see it as accomplishing one of two things: the preparation of that youngster for further education to a definite career, or to have that career education provided in the school itself so the youngster leaves prepared for a job.

The problem that we have in our system, as I see it, is that they go through the programme provided by that Department of Education and they are unfit for a job. When they go on to our universities and to our technical and vocational schools…. These are frequently underfunded in the very areas where jobs can be provided if the programmes are there.

If I can give an example, at the University of Victoria this year: the university has been forced to delay the opening of the school of social work, forced to delay the opening of the school of nursing, forced to delay the opening of the school of law.

AN HON. MEMBER: Why?

MR. McGEER: That's a very excellent question. Why? I don't know the answer why, but I think the Department of Education should.

If there is a shortage, Mr. Chairman, of people trained for jobs in this province, whether it is medicine, dentistry, dental hygiene, social work, law, or whatever else, the top priority in our educational dollar goes to providing the facilities for doing that preparatory work. How stupid, Mr. Chairman, to put higher priority than that to reducing the pupil-teacher ratio, to put more teachers sending those youngsters through the educational system for a time when they finish in which there will be jobs available because they aren't trained to take a job, while denying, on the other hand, funds to train as many doctors as are needed in this province, or lawyers or social workers or dentists or dental hygienists. I merely cite this, Mr. Chairman, to say that we are spending money on education but our values are mixed up; therefore those dollars are not doing the job.

It is for the Minister to set the priorities. If jobs are going begging because people aren't trained, and yet we're putting out huge amounts of money on reducing pupil-teacher ratios, desirable as it may be, if that is where the money is going and not where it can provide the jobs, then we are doing a disservice to society. You are responsible, Madam Minister.

I want to talk very briefly about a new concept in how we can get around this problem. I don't mean just shaking priorities up so that you put the dollars into things that will provide the jobs, but a completely new approach to finishing off our high school education. This is to develop our final years around career clusters.

For example, there should be in our high schools training for the operation of business machines and computers as one career cluster. Students should have an opportunity of concentrating on an area such as this without losing their opportunity to go into the academic stream.

I'm not talking about the old idea of taking one specific vocational area or technical area like auto mechanics. What I'm talking about is developing, as an option to some of the students, a comprehensive career cluster involving a series of professions and sub-professions in a general area so that the most successful ones, for example, in a health services cluster might go on to be psychiatrists or psychologists. Those at a lower scale, exposed to the same preparation, might go into community services of one kind or another. Definitely we need to have in the dental area people who are dental mechanics, dental hygienists and so on.

The time to start exposure of this kind is during the final years of high school. It's essential that it be done without impairing the youngsters' opportunity to go on to university or to go on to technical or vocational schools of a more specialized kind. The idea is to bring that student exposure and to have it done not by teachers who have gone through the standard educational system and can teach English and math and social studies and so on, but by people who are in the world of work and know the requirements of the youngsters who graduate from our school system in order for them to get a job in our society.

Mr. Chairman, I want to say that I'm not talking about an idea I thought up yesterday. This is something which has been going on in a number of areas of North America with extraordinary success for some years now. What it's attempting to do is focus on the inadequacy of our traditional educational system in providing useful skills for our graduating population. This cluster concept would mean that people who have difficulty, perhaps with math and physics, and have neither the inclination nor the finances to go on to universities or technical schools will, nevertheless, be able to leave our high schools not as the drifters they are today but as people prepared for useful jobs in our society. That's the kind of educational change that would, to me, begin to make some common sense.

A number of us, particularly the Second Member for Vancouver–Point Grey (Mr. Gardom), have for some time urged support by the Department of Education for schools separate from the government system. The concept that has been put forward is that it represents not only wise social policy but an economy to the government because these separate schools are run per pupil at a fraction of the cost to

[ Page 1309 ]

government of the regular school system.

To these two reasons I'd like to offer an additional one today in support of the concept of financial aid for separate schools in British Columbia. That's the simple need at this stage for us to have a little bit of competition to the provision of education in the school area. I'm talking about incentives to people to prove that in separate schools they can do a better job than the government. It isn't just a case of having an option available for the youngster in bad neighbourhoods, who lacks friends, to get into a milieu where he will do better. It's a question of frank and open competition.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Hon. Member, you're in your final two minutes.

MR. McGEER: The Member for Shuswap (Mr. Lewis) doesn't like that idea; he's against competition. But I'm for it, Mr. Chairman.

I think that if the challenge were thrown out to the citizens of British Columbia — prove that you can set up a school and do a better job than the government and our standard school system can do, and we'll offer you funds to do it — our educational system in British Columbia would begin to develop a little lustre that it is lacking now.

The barnacles are too thick, Mr. Chairman. The massive infusions of money have not done their job. Change is needed, but change of a very different kind than that suggested by the Minister.

AN HON. MEMBER: Hear, hear!

MRS. D. WEBSTER (Vancouver South): I'm very anxious to get into this debate because I don't see one argument that has been put forward today that would suggest that this Minister has not been doing a good job or ask for a vote of non-confidence in this Minister. I think it is simply disgraceful the type of arguments they are using. I would like to go through some of them.

The first Social Credit Member (Mr. Schroeder) who spoke suggested that the Minister was doing an inadequate job, that she was failing her department. He gave a long list of reasons. Let me say that when the Social Credit government was in for 20 years, they always had the Department of Education as a dual portfolio for some other Minister. That's how much they thought of education.

AN HON. MEMBER: Shame!

MRS. WEBSTER: They would have Labour and Education together as a dual portfolio for one Minister. They tried to cut down the amount of money that could be spent in the schools for school referenda. You've heard of this 108 per cent formula.

You've heard of this 108 per cent formula. You've heard, no doubt, Mr. Chairman, about the fact that teachers' salaries were frozen at a 6.5 per cent increase every year. Other areas of trades and professions were allowed to rise 12, 14, 15 per cent, but teachers were frozen at 6.5 per cent. They thought that was good supervision, good managing of the Department of Education. How many new ideas did the Social Credit ever bring into Education?

MR. LEWIS: None, none!

MRS. WEBSTER: I can't really understand them carrying on like that.

MRS. P.J. JORDAN (North Okanagan): Daisy, you're getting positively violent.

MRS. WEBSTER: The Member who seconded the motion suggested that the Education portfolio should be two portfolios because it was too heavy for one Minister. I don't think the two Members got together very well. The Social Credit group are getting very well known for not doing their research, or not doing it too well. Comments have been made in the papers before this about the type of research they have done, and here it is being exposed again. That is what Deputy Ministers are for, not for a department to be divided into two portfolios. I think they should know that much by this time. But, after all, some of them have not been in this House too long so they probably don't understand that.

MRS. JORDAN: How long have you been here?

MRS. WEBSTER: I would like to say also that when the First Member for Vancouver–Point Grey (Mr. McGeer) mentioned the CUPE strikes here and in Vancouver, was he trying to blame the Minister of Education for those strikes? Would he blame the milk board or the marketing boards for a strike of the retail, wholesale and general workers if they went on strike and the retail food stores were closed? Would they say it was the fault of the marketing boards? That's what the First Member for Vancouver–Point Grey was trying to say: because there is a strike of operational people — janitors, engineers, inside workers — it is the fault of the Department of Education and consequently the fault of the Minister of Education that there is limited supervision in the schools.

As a matter of fact, teenagers and students had to cross the picket lines in Victoria for two and a half months, Mr. Chairman — two and a half months — so that the students in the morning could pick up their homework from the various teachers and go home and do it. I know, because I know children who have done that whose parents have told me that those

[ Page 1310 ]

children do their homework very, very religiously and bring the work back the next day. They were glad when the schools opened. But don't blame that on the teachers; don't blame that on the Department of Education or on the Minister of Education, because that is not where the fault lies.

If he suggests that we are to outlaw strikes or that every time something comes along that it must go to arbitration before conciliation of any kind, then he's not aware of the democratic processes as they are today.

He mentions that in Japan it's illegal for schools to close or for strikes to interfere with the learning processes of the children. I would like to remind that Member — who happens not to be here right now, but I hope he reads it in Hansard later — that is not our type of democracy. I would like to stay with the type of democracy that we have in Canada because we live under a very free system, one of the freest systems in the world today.

Now I would like to say one or two things concerning some of the various innovations that have taken place. Certainly the Minister has made some mistakes. You know, the only people who make mistakes are those who do something. One reason why they cannot point to some of the mistakes that were made in the past administration by their Ministers of Education is because there was a do-nothing administration.

Universal kindergartens are compulsory in all districts. It's not compulsory for the children to attend, but they are there; they are available to the children.

Basic literacy skills are being observed and they are being attended to by this Ministry. The reason why they have come into notice right now is because examinations for senior high school students showed that their basic literacy skills were lacking. When did they start school? Did they start during the past two and a half years? No, my friends, they did not; they started during the last administration, nine, 10, 11 years ago. At that time basic literacy skills were already starting to fall apart, but because the Ministers had two portfolios, because they didn't have time to look into what was happening in education and were not too interested in what was happening in education, they let those literacy skills slip. They let any innovations, any changes, any research slip, and that's why it's the senior high school students who are suffering. It's not the beginners or the elementary school students.

In regard to pupil-teacher ratio, I spoke to ever so many teachers last fall concerning pupil-teacher ratio when I went to visit the schools and I found they were not unhappy with what was happening in that area. They were very pleased that the pupil-teacher ratio had been lowered. We had a delegation of teachers that came up here on PTA day and at that time, when, we spoke to them, they also conceded that because of the inflation, after the Minister had explained it to them, it was absolutely understandable that this programme had to be not curtailed, as suggested, but postponed for a year or two. Right now our pupil-teacher ratio is lower than anywhere else across Canada.

Construction costs are approved without referendum so that they don't have to go through the 51 steps that were mentioned. They can go almost immediately to the drawing board with plans for capital construction.

This Minister has also given autonomy to community colleges. She has given them their own boards of governors, has given BCIT and the universities their own boards of governors and student representation on those boards — something that's absolutely new.

She has innovated the universities council, which is an intermediary body between the government and the board of governors for the purpose of negotiations in regard to salaries and grants and things of that kind.

In the school for the deaf and blind, she has created the means of having two school boards, one for the deaf and one for the blind, so that both of these handicapped types of people can be looked after in their own way.

She has removed the discrimination in textbooks and in other ways from schools.

In regard to research, and development from research, one of the new programmes which the First Member for Vancouver–Point Grey (Mr. McGeer) mentioned he would like to see was school/work projects. In other words, students can — in some particular cases — work part of the time and go to school part of the time. It's almost like an apprenticeship type of job with school attached to it so they can go immediately into a job as soon as they have finished school.

Then they have special senior citizens' programmes, free programmes, at the university for senior citizens who desire to go back and take courses. They have found them exceedingly successful. Many of these senior citizens went on to take university courses in the winter.

I think one of the most successful areas in which this Minister has operated is in relation to better educational opportunities for our Indian people. The teacher-training programme has just been so exceedingly successful that far more Indian teachers are going into teacher education. As a matter of fact, I would like to read from the Nesika, the Indian newspaper, for March 1975:

"Indian Enrolment Up in B.C. Universities. This school year saw the highest enrolment of Indians at universities in British Columbia we've ever seen; 39 enrolled at UBC, plus the 51

[ Page 1311 ]

Indian students field-centred in native Indian teacher-education programme. Fifty-three students at the University of Victoria and eight Indian students at Simon Fraser University."

" Junior colleges are swelling their ranks with Indian students, but the actual number is difficult to determine. Semesters, college prep, Canada Manpower–sponsored programmes and the many temporary or non-credit courses being established make it difficult to count heads.

"Information indicates that upwards of 65 home-school co-ordinators are operating in B.C. this year; last year, 43. There are still no Indians in medicine, but there are five in law, many in social work, and one in dentistry."

When we had an MLAs day at UBC I talked to the Dean of Medicine and he said that he is very anxious to register Indian students in Medicine but the course is exceedingly expensive and long. They had one student in mind whom they thought would be able to handle the courses, but the trouble was that he was a young married Indian of about 29 years old and he had two young children. As the course was about 10 or 11 years in term, it would mean that he would be virtually unemployed during that time, even if they were able to finance him fully.

MRS. JORDAN: It's seven years.

MRS. WEBSTER: I stand corrected if it's seven years, but this is what I understood him to say.

However, whether it's seven years or whether it's 11 years, Mr. Chairman, it is a long course and it's expensive, particularly for a young man who has a wife and two children to support.

The Indians as an ethnic group have not too much money to start with, so it would mean that he would have to have special funding from other departments also. That is something they're still looking into. But they assured me that that was probably the only university area where there wasn't an Indian involved.

Of the Indians who are taking their teacher-training programme, there are four centres in British Columbia that are participating in the teacher-training programme, They are located in Terrace, Williams Lake, Kamloops and North Vancouver. The programme is for Indian people, either status or non-status. The programme attempts to build up on the cultural heritage of the students. This programme leads to standard teaching certificates after three years, and to full professional teaching certificates after four years.

This is a bulletin from the University of British Columbia: "This is not a watered-down programme. Completion standards are as high as those for regular students."

Students spend the first two years taking their professional courses in a school setting in a centre near their homes — that's one of these four centres. The general background or liberal arts courses are taken in the third year and majors are completed in the fourth year.

In regard to dental assistants programmes, emphasis is being placed on the areas where the Indians are probably the most densely populated. Prince Rupert, for instance, is going to get a dental clinic, and there are going to be travelling dental programmes able to train dental assistants so that something can be done to promote better dental health for Indian children. In the native Indian centres, besides preparing teachers, they are preparing texts; they are preparing something in relation to history and culture. Also in certain areas they are allowing them to teach in their own language.

These are innovations that have never been made before either here or in most parts of Canada. I know that some of this is going on in Denmark, where in Greenland they allow the Indians and the Eskimos to study in their own language. But we have not attempted that here.

I think that this Minister has done a terrific job in innovation, a terrific job in being sensitive to every area in her department. I see no reason why this motion should pass. Thank you.

MS. K. SANFORD (Comox): The Social Credit Party in the last two and a half years have done some pretty galling things in this House and have made some pretty outrageous statements. But one of the most galling things I have heard came this afternoon when the Social Credit Party moved a motion of non-confidence in this Minister. How ridiculous! How galling! That is about all I can say. With the record they have displayed in education over the years, they have the nerve to introduce a motion of non-confidence in this Minister. Ludicrous!

They talked about lack of decentralization and lack of change. I think that those two points have been dealt with adequately.

They also talked about the fact, or at least the assumption, that teachers are asking for salary raises because they are dissatisfied with the educational system. Have they forgotten how these teachers felt before August, 1972? Do you remember what it was like then when those teachers were struggling under Social Credit to get some recognition? I say they have a lot of gall in moving this motion. I am certainly not going to support it.

MRS. JORDAN: Oh, what a shock! You're not serious.

MS. SANFORD: One thing I would like to compliment the Minister on this afternoon is the interest she has shown in the whole concept of

[ Page 1312 ]

community colleges and the efforts she has made to promote community colleges in response to the request of people from across the province.

First of all, she established the advisory committee which made several recommendations to her — which, incidentally, the Minister has followed up. One of the recommendations was that a community college should be considered for northern Vancouver Island, including School District 71, Courtenay; 72, Campbell River; 85, the north island; 42 Powell River, and district 84, which is Vancouver Island west, including Gold River. As a result of the task force's recommendation on this, the Minister appointed a regional advisory committee consisting of representatives from those five school districts, who have worked very hard in the time since they were appointed to bring down quite a comprehensive report about the needs for a community college in northern Vancouver Island.

The committee had tremendous response from the general public. They have held meetings in various parts of the regions that are encompassed in this study and have come out with quite a voluminous report called: "The Regional Advisory Committee — North Island and Powell River Community College Study." It includes all kinds of statistics. I compliment the group on the job they have done on this. They mentioned who the major employers are; they mentioned the population; they mentioned school enrolment; they mentioned the interest that was shown, and they also compared the various other community college areas in the province with that of the north island.

For instance, in this report the committee points out that the Selkirk College region serves a population of about 61,000 people — it already is served by a university, a school of art and a vocational school — whereas the north island area, including Powell River, will service the needs for post-secondary education for over 90,000 people. Even Malaspina College at Nanaimo has in its region only 84,000 people — in other words, 6,000 fewer people than the area of northern Vancouver Island and Powell River.

The regional advisory committee has come out with some excellent recommendations. They do not want to see a university-type college established in the north end of the island with core facilities. They would rather see a programme using existing facilities throughout the region and focusing on particular interests of the various areas. We have some unique situations within the riding of Comox, at least, and with the emphasis on fishing, heavy industry, the air base and isolation in terms of logging camps throughout the riding, an innovative kind of programme can be introduced through the recommendations made by this advisory committee.

I was informed on the weekend that the school boards involved held a meeting on Friday night. They are following up immediately now that the report has been put in, and they had some discussions as to the possibilities of introducing courses as early as September of this year. I hope that the bylaws will be in place, that the Department of Education can look over the proposals made by the school boards, and that some courses will be able to start in, the north end of the island as early as September of this year.

There is one matter about which I have some concern. That relates directly to one of my children, who is a student in grade 6 up in the Courtenay area. She came home recently with an assignment to do a report on Korea and was showing me the work that she was doing and showing me also the book from which she was working. This is the book called The Story of Korea. It is published by von Nostrand Reinhold Ltd. and outlines the story of Korea for grade 6 students. This book, by the way, has been approved by the curriculum division. Although it is not a textbook, it is made available for students in the schools.

I went through this book and was somewhat disturbed by some of the statements that are made in here. As a result of that, I brought the book to the attention of the Minister and must compliment her on the fast action that she has taken in terms of having this particular textbook looked into.

I think it is important enough to raise here this afternoon some of the statements made in this book, which is approved for use within the B.C. schools system. I would like to refer to unit 7 within the book which is entitled "The Brave New Korea." It talks about the Korean War and the damage and destruction that occurred during that war and the attempts by the country to restore order and to have progress again in the country of Korea. I would like to quote from this book:

"South Koreans have worked hard to rebuild their country and to make it strong and free. Some call their progress a miracle. South Koreans have shaped a brave New Korea, a nation with an important standing among free nations of the world."

It also talks about the government and it mentions that Syngman Rhee was the first president who was elected of the new republic of South Korea. Again, I would like to quote from the book itself:

"This was the beginning of a free and independent government for South Korean people. In North Korea, where the government is called the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, the people are really ruled by a dictatorship."

The point that I would like to make this afternoon is that the kind of democracy that they have had in South Korea over the years has been in name only. It has been a nominal kind of democracy. To illustrate

[ Page 1313 ]

the point that I make, even though this textbook indicates that they have free, democratic elections and that they are a free country, I would like to say that it just doesn't square with the history and the facts of what has been happening there.

In Korea, and I'm talking now about October, 1972, we had the following happen: President Park proclaimed martial law; he dissolved the national assembly; he suspended all political activity; he introduced press censorship, closed all of the universities, and then revealed that he plans to be president indefinitely. That kind of action, the historic facts, just do not square with the impression that is left in this textbook for use in B.C. schools.

MRS. JORDAN: That sounds like what happened in Hungary.

MS. SANFORD: That could well be. The point I'm making is that the textbook just does not reflect what has been happening there.

There's a whole list of questionable activities in South Korea as it relates to a democratic system. To use the words "free democratic system" in the textbooks, I think, is open to question. As I say, I have brought this to the attention of the Minister and she has indicated that she is looking into it and will be making a report on it.

Again, I would like to compliment the Minister on the work she has done, express my particular thanks with regard to the development of regional colleges and put in my hope that the Minister will seriously consider introducing some college courses within Comox riding during this year. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

MR. A.V. FRASER (Cariboo): Mr. Chairman, I want to say a few words on the amendment to the motion before us, specifically to reduce the Minister's salary by one dollar. First of all, it isn't a great deal of money; that's one reason that I support the amendment. It just reduces the salary from $48,000 to $47,999 and I don't think that should upset the Minister a lot.

The other thing is what we are hearing out in the public in British Columbia. We in the opposition, obviously, are hearing a lot different from what the Minister is hearing. She said earlier in her remarks in the House that wherever she goes she hears nothing but praise. Well, wherever I go, it's exactly the opposite.

It is my opinion, Mr. Chairman, that the pupils, the teachers, the parents, the school boards and so on, are all very concerned about the direction of education in the Province of British Columbia today. The department has been referred to as the fire department, not the education department. I imagine that's because of the firing of Mr. Bremer on television by the Premier of the province — a most despicable act to say the least. Not the way to dispense with a senior adviser. Then, of course, more recently, the firing of Mr. Knight and his people.

Getting into the department itself, there have been approaches made to the Minister. There have been no changes made. I would like, first of all, to refer to construction — how you get a classroom built in this province. You have to go through 51 steps. Because of the red tape of the bureaucracy in Victoria 51 steps are required to get a classroom constructed. Believe me, this frustrates all people working for school boards and the school boards themselves. Of course, when finally after about two years of this mucking around they go and call for tenders to get the thing constructed, because of inflation they haven't got enough money. These are the things that are really bothering the citizens of the province. I don't know whether the Minister referred to this, but she certainly should be looking to a new formula to clear these projects so they can become reality a lot quicker than two years.

The other thing regarding construction of classrooms that I would like to point out is that the Minister has made public announcements that last year $90 million was approved for construction of classrooms and that this year probably over $100 million will be approved. That's all very fine, Mr. Chairman, but I would like to know how much was actually spent. I think there's a great deal of difference between what was approved and what was expended. I would suggest that if $90 million was approved last year, nothing like $90 million was actually spent in construction of classrooms. I'd like to hear the Minister clarify that point, because since the NDP have been government, they have not exceeded the high years of schoolroom construction that the prior administration had achieved. And this administration has been working with inflationary figures whereas the prior administration didn't have that problem. I really think that the Minister has not leveled, and should level during this debate, on how much was actually spent on school construction in 1974. I have never heard those figures, but I think there's a distinct difference between approval and actual expenditure.

The Minister did refer to this earlier — to the finance formula, how antiquated it is. Believe me, it is really antiquated. I was happy to hear the Minister say that they're taking a look at it. I hope that they don't have a task force working on the finance formula, and through the middle of this task force they're dispensed with on television or by other methods. In other words, I hope they proceed with the job and can come up with a modern-day finance formula, because it is not applicable in these inflationary times. The existing finance formula is now working hardships on rural school districts as

[ Page 1314 ]

compared to urban school districts.

I have the honour in my riding of having three school districts in the riding of Cariboo, but I want to deal with School District 27, the Cariboo-Chilcotin, with headquarters at Williams Lake. They have pointed out in a very good brief to the Minister — I hope she has read it…. I want to read from one section of it. a very short section, to show you what the real problem is with the finance formula, comparing rural as to urban school districts.

"In School District 27 there are presently 42 schools. In that school district there will be 44 in September of 1975. These schools are scattered throughout an area of approximately 25,000 square miles, and this is where the problem lies. Some of these schools are up to 200 miles over gravel road from Williams Lake, the district educational support-service centre."

Mr. Chairman, I hope you won't rule me out of order, but that's the fault of the Minister of Highways (Hon, Mr. Lea). He won't pave the road from Williams Lake to Bella Coola. He won't even gravel or grade it when he is supposed to. But it all adds up to the problem that it is an increased cost to a rural school district that is not acknowledged in the existing finance formula of the Department of Education.

"The problems of a rural school district are further complicated by the severe climatic conditions which exist through most of the school year. The implications for school district operating costs under such conditions were discussed in an earlier brief."

I just emphasize this fact, Mr. Chairman, for the Minister, because when she has said that they are looking at the finance formula, I think consideration should be given in a new finance formula that it be different for a rural school district than an urban school district. It's 25,000 square miles, 200 miles over gravel roads; and I would compare it with the school district in New Westminster, Mr. Chairman, which the Minister of defence represents. I'm sorry he is not here. He gets pretty jumpy when I mention his riding. But it's 25,000 square miles in School District 27 as compared to eight square miles in the school district in New Westminster. What a happy situation to have a school district so compact and with all of the services there, paved roads and so on, an ideal climate; yet the old finance formula — and we are still using it — exists the same in both areas.

Just a few other points, Mr. Chairman. The question period the other day was quite interesting. I think it was the Member for Saanich and the Islands (Mr. Curtis) who asked the Minister of Municipal Affairs (Hon. Mr. Lorimer) if he was going to amend the Municipal Act so they could take the lid off the mill rates. He replied that they were, and that is for general purposes.

Where you have a municipality you have a school mill rate as well as a general mill rate. In this School District 27 that I am talking about last year the mill rate was approximately 35 mills. And they are going to be announcing by April 20 that that mill rate is going to be 45 mills for education only. That is an increase of approximately 30 per cent just in the education portion of those people's tax bills.

Now, Mr. Chairman, I bring this out to show you the problems of an antiquated finance formula. This is a new government that was going to change all that. Yet nothing has changed; in fact, it gets worse.

Another thing in their platform said they would remove school taxes from residential property. Mr. Chairman, when school taxes advance in one year 30 per cent, I say that this party has broken another election promise. We are going to have higher taxes on residential property this year than we've even had in the history of British Columbia.

AN HON. MEMBER: Right on!

MR. FRASER: The budget we are discussing — including the Minister's salary here — is a lot of money: $754,200,000. It is the largest government spending department we have and rightly so. So it should be. It should have No. I priority.

I know the government doesn't like to hear this, Mr. Chairman, but we are dealing with a budget of $3.2 billion. The average of Education for the total budget over a number of years has been 30 per cent of the budget, and it has always been a priority item with prior governments. But you know, Mr. Chairman, with this huge budget for the overall picture as well as Education, this budget we have before us is 23 per cent of the total budget of British Columbia. That is why we are looking at 30 per cent in increases for residential properties in 1975, 30 per cent education taxes.

I say that these are things things that the Minister has failed to take action on and, for that reason, I certainly will be voting for the amendment to the motion before us. Thank you.

HON. MRS. DAILLY: A couple of points in reply to the last speaker.

Yes, you're quite right about the need for a new finance formula. We've talked about that before. When you refer to your hope it will continue and not be aborted, I'd like to draw your attention to the number of task forces which have been completed with positive results by this government to date. This one will also follow the same way.

The matter which is just your final note is your concern for the matter of school taxation as a percentage of the budget. I always find it interesting that the opposition never refers at all to the increased homeowner grant and to the resource dividend grant,

[ Page 1315 ]

which is going to make….

Interjections.

HON. MRS. DAILLY: There's no question about it, though. I think when you're speaking on commitments by this government to reduce taxation, they have made a commitment in putting through the resource dividend grant. The point you have made earlier today with the inflationary costs in education…. I think it's a credit to this government that combined with that, they have also been able to provide what I consider a very reasonable budget for the public schools of this province. I think that that, combined with the homeowner grant and resource dividend grant, in a time of inflation is certainly going to produce a better picture than we would have had under the policies of your former government — far better.

AN HON. MEMBER: No way.

HON. MRS. DAILLY: Also, we keep hearing that the percentage has gone down. I think we went through this argument last year in the same debate. You neglect, of course, to point out in referring to that — which I don't expect you to, but I find it necessary to — that we have of course new departments created, so naturally the percentage is going down — would have to go down.

Secondly, and I think very importantly, the fact is that this government has increased moneys in the other people-service areas, which include housing, far more than the past government ever put in to housing.

MR. PHILLIPS: You're a failure in housing.

HON. MRS. DAILLY: Also, Human Resources and Health have all had far greater input financially than ever before seen in this province — ever. Now you combine that with the fact that the teachers of this province at this very time, and the school boards, are saying we want more resource services. We alone in education cannot do everything, and that is why I say to the teachers of this province and the school boards that, of course, you can never give all that's wanted and expected, but the fact that increased moneys have gone into those other people-service departments will have a spin-off effect on the services which are provided to the school children of this province.

I'm very proud to belong to a government which puts the emphasis on integrated services to children — on health, human resources, housing — and then we an work together with education. Don't you agree that that's the route to go? We do.

MR. SCHROEDER: Yes, I have a few questions that relate to the competence of the Minister in regard to this business of providing classrooms. The release that came from her office said that 751…. I notice that the words following, Madam Minister, didn't say classrooms, but teaching areas. I wonder whether we've gone to a different definition of teaching areas, whether these are actual classroom areas, or whether or not these teaching areas could be — I hate to be suspicious — outdoor areas.

Nevertheless, I'm wondering, with 751 teaching areas and 2,000 approximately — give or take a few — new teachers put onto the teaching staff in order to bring the pupil-teacher ratio down to its present level of just below 20, how were these figures used in computation to give us this apparently advantageous position with the PTR? As the Minister well knows, we had an increase of 12,000 students over the year. The enrolment increased by 12,000, approximately. Given class sizes of, say, 30 students per class, this means that we would need either 400 classrooms or teaching areas to house the 12,000 increase in enrolment. That means that there were some 1,600 teachers who were added to the staffs of our school districts without a classroom or a teaching area to go to.

What kind of research, what kind of competence would the Minister cite that would give any credibility to this kind of thinking? Not only were these extra teachers hired, but they were made to be part of the education basic budget for this year. They were added to the basic budget rather than remaining in the special education category they were in in the year the teachers were hired. The question that comes automatically is: are we hiring teachers just so we can make an announcement that our PTR, which is based on full-time equivalent teachers…are we using the computation so that we can cite the advantage and bring our PTR down to 20 for political reasons, or do we really have the education of the children at heart? The Minister needs to tell us where these extra 1,600 teachers are teaching, if we were already short of classrooms before the Minister took over.

I think one of the Minister's disadvantages is that she has to listen most of the time to voices from within the department who necessarily say what she would like to hear. In listening to what the voices are saying outside of the department, I find that there is some real fear being expressed about whether or not this Minister is really in charge of her department. This is what precipitated this motion in the first place, Mr. Chairman.

The Minister has stated, both in this House and outside this House, that she needs to be in charge of her department. We fully agree. She has said in essence, although it's not a direct quotation, she is the boss in her department. And so she should be. But, the fact is that there are some severe questions

[ Page 1316 ]

about whether the Minister is in charge of her department.

Mr. W.J. McCordick, who is an executive director with the Ontario Association of Education, observes this as it relates to education across the country:

"It is difficult for elected or appointed officials to make decisions on education and to make decisions on how these decisions can best be made by moving logically and purposely through several predictable steps."

When you find out in his article why it is difficult to make these decisions in education, it is because he is cognizant of a power struggle which he sees as a rivalry among the various groups within the school system: teachers moving for a power position, administrators moving in a power position, trustees moving toward a power position, sometimes even students, says Mr. McCordick, and even ratepayers becoming highly organized.

It is difficult to make decisions in education; it is difficult to be in charge. I think that the Minister has become cognizant of this since taking over her department. Not only has she become cognizant of it, but the people within her department are. Let me quote, for instance, what one of the Deputies, Mr. Fleming, has to say. He says that in the time that he has been in his department, he has seen literally thousand of proposals. He says it is possible, perhaps, that every conceivable notion for educational change has been presented already. But Mr. Fleming says that what seems to be missing is some leadership. It needs somebody to be in charge, somebody to be the boss.

I would like to encourage the Minister to take charge of her department. In having moved this motion of non-confidence, it is not with some destructive intent that we move the motion. We would like to see the Minister in charge. The truth is that there are many evidences which point to the opposite. Here is the Deputy Minister wishing for some leadership.

Here is the release from the Minister's office. This happens to be on the release of the "fateful five," where the Minister says: "I wish to announce that on the recommendation of the Deputy Minister, and with my complete concurrence…." Do you remember reading that?

AN HON. MEMBER: Yes.

MR. SCHROEDER: I was wondering. As you take the statement, "I am the boss of my department," and superimpose that on that kind of a statement, do they add up?

AN HON. MEMBER: It's terrible.

MR. SCHROEDER: Does it sound like the Minister is in charge or does it sound like the Deputy Minister is in charge?

When the Minister says she's in charge of her department, which I wish were the truth, how does that jibe with the statement which she made after she learned about the firing of Mr. Bremer? She said: "Oh, I've just seen the newspaper and that's all I know about it."

AN HON. MEMBER: Oh, oh!

MR. SCHROEDER: I think I'll run that one by again.

AN HON. MEMBER: She should have watched TV.

MR. SCHROEDER: "I've just seen the newspaper and that's all I know about it."

Interjections.

MR. SCHROEDER: How does that jibe with the statement that says she is the boss of her department? I would think that someone who is in charge of the department would be in charge whether that department is going through successful moments or whether it's going through moments of adversity.

I think I can make this public…. By the way, the Minister chided me for being rather general in some of the statements. Some of those statements were purposely general because I knew that some of this material is before the courts just now. But I think this is public knowledge so I can use it.

This doesn't sound like the Minister is in charge through thick or thin, in sickness and in health, in adversity and in success. It says here: "When the failures are reported to Mrs. Dailly, she panics."

Interjections.

MR. SCHROEDER: I should have started that one with "Dearly beloved, we are gathered…." All right.

"When the failures are reported to Mrs. Dailly, she panics and abandons the policies in midstream, leaving the provincial education policies in…." — these are not my words; these are somebody else's words — "…leaving the policies in one hell of a mess."

Does that sound like somebody who's in charge of the department? It sounds as though here is a Minister who wishes, because she is part of the power struggle, to move into that position in the hierarchy where she can pretend that she's running the ship, but lo and behold, when it comes to the real test she panics and abandons the policies in midstream.

Here's a Minister who says that she doesn't believe in failure. She doesn't believe that we should let the

[ Page 1317 ]

students feel any sense of failure. I think the reason why this becomes a part of her philosophy in education is because she can scarcely cope with failures herself. The minute failures are reported to her, she panics and abandons policies in midstream.

We're wondering — the people of British Columbia are wondering — whether that isn't what's happened to the department under this Minister, whether she hasn't abandoned the department, because Mrs. Dailly, in Port Alberni, said: "Sure, not all the programmes have succeeded. Some programmes aimed at educational reform have succeeded while others have admittedly failed." In the light of these failures, she has panicked. It was in the light of this that we have had to move this motion of non-confidence.

Let's take a look at some of the reasons she has given when faced with failure. She cites the stubbornness of the bureaucracy, the stubbornness of the department, the stubbornness of a structure that she has inherited. It just won't move. Whenever something stagnates, whenever change becomes stalled, she says: "We can't do it because of the stubbornness of the bureaucracy."

The second reason she has given is: "We haven't had enough time."

HON. MR. BARRETT: Harvey, look at the time.

MR. SCHROEDER: Listen, Mr. Chairman, to you, Mr. Premier — I'll be through in a minute.

HON. MR. BARRETT: You were through a year ago. (Laughter.)

MR. SCHROEDER: She suggests that she hasn't had enough time. Yet while she was in opposition she expected that at the snap of a finger these changes should happen. Yet here she says that in nearly three years she hasn't had enough time.

She says the reason why these failures have occurred and the reason why changes have not taken place is because of the money: "When economic conditions improve…." Let me ask you, Mr. Premier, when you have an increase in income or revenue of 50 per cent in one year, how long are you going to have to wait to have a better economic condition than that?

HON. MR. BARRETT: I'll answer that. I'll answer you.

MR. SCHROEDER: You can't.

HON. MR. BARRETT: I'll answer that.

MR. SCHROEDER: If you can't carry through the expenditures which you have committed yourself to in a time when you have a 50 per cent increase in income, when in the ever-lovin', blue-eyed world is it going to be any better?

HON. MR. BARRETT: I'll answer it right now.

MR. SCHROEDER: Thank you.

HON. MR. BARRETT: Okay, sit down.

MR. SCHROEDER: Now the other reason the Minister cites….

HON. MRS. DAILLY: If you have a number of other reasons, would you like to leave them till tomorrow?

MR. SCHROEDER: I have other reasons.

The House resumed; Mr. Speaker in the chair.

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

Leave granted.

Presenting reports.

Hon. Mr. Hall tables documents relating to collective agreements signed with the Public Service of British Columbia.

Hon. Mr. Nicolson files an answer to question 58. (See appendix.)

Hon. Mrs. Dailly moves adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

The House adjourned at 5:59 p.m.

[ Page 1318 ]

APPENDIX

58     Mr. Bennett asked the Hon. the Minister of Housing the following questions:

With respect to the operations of the Housing Ministry or any of the corporations for which it is responsible —

1. From what company or companies, if any, has any lumber been purchased?

2. What, if any, has been the total cost of such purchases to the last available date?

The Hon. Lorne Nicolson replied as follows:

"1. For the year ended January 31, 1975, Dunhill Development Corporation Limited purchased lumber from Crown Lumber Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary, and Dick's Lumber and Building Supplies (1967) Limited.

"2. The purchase from Crown Lumber Limited was in the amount of $559,278 and from Dick's Lumber and Building Supplies in the amount of $66,087."

71     Mr. Curtis asked the Hon. the Provincial Secretary the following questions:

With respect to persons employed by the Provincial Government —

1. How many persons were employed by the Province but did not possess civil or Public Service status (a) on December 31, 1973, and (b) on December 31, 1974?

2. What are the names and positions of persons earning more than $1,000 per month or $12,000 per year appointed by Order in Council or otherwise engaged pursuant to contracts of at least 30 days, and in the employ of the Provincial Government, its agencies, or enterprises at the latest date for which information is available?

The Hon. Ernest Hall replied as follows:

"1. Records only available as of the following dates: (a) On October 31, 1973, 450; and (b) on October 31, 1974, 649.

"2. That, in his opinion, the reply should be in the form of a Return and that he had no objection to laying such Return upon the table of the House, and thereupon presented such Return."

88     Mr. Wallace asked the Hon. the Provincial Secretary the following questions:

1. Has the Provincial Government employed any United States citizens since October 1972?

2. If the answer to No. 1 is yes, (a) how many were employed during the period October to December 31, 1972, (b) bow many were employed during the calendar year 1973, (c) how many were employed during the calendar year 1974, (d) were arrangements for employment of these persons made through the Public Service Commission, and (e) what are the job titles of these persons?

3. If the answer to No. 2 (d) is no, on what basis were these persons employed?

The Hon. Ernest Hall replied as follows:

"l, 2, and 3. No record has been kept, therefore, the answer is unavailable."