[ Page 1319 ]

CONTENTS

Speaker's ruling

Columbia River treaty document not a breach of privilege — 1319

Routine proceedings

Oral Questions

Leasing of office space. Mr. Bennett — 1319

Studies into expansion of existing oil-refining capacity. Mr. D.A. Anderson — 1320

Government intervention in CKLG picketing. Mr. Wallace — 1321

BCGEU wage increases. Mr. Phillips — 1322

Committee of Supply: Department of Education estimates

On vote 38.

Ms. Brown — 1323

Mr. Schroeder — 1325

Mr. D.A. Anderson — 1328

Mr. Wallace — 1332

Mr. Lewis — 1337

Hon. Mrs. Dailly — 1340

Mrs. Jordan — 1343

Mr. McClelland — 1348

Mr. Gibson — 1349

Hon. Mrs. Dailly — 1354

Mr. Chabot — 1355

Hon. Mr. Barrett — 1356

Mr. McGeer — 1357

Hon. Mr. Barrett — 1358

Appendix — 1360

TUESDAY, APRIL 15, 1974

The House met at 2 p.m.

Prayers.

MR. G.S. WALLACE (Oak Bay): Mr. Speaker, I would like the House to welcome one of our Conservative friends from the Province of Alberta. We have visiting with us in the Speaker's gallery Mr. and Mrs. Frank Appleby. Mr. Appleby is the MLA in the Alberta House for the riding of Athabaska. I would ask the House to give them a welcome.

HON. P.F. YOUNG (Minister of Consumer Services): Mr. Speaker, visiting Victoria today — and I believe they may have just arrived in the public gallery — is a group from the Golden Age Club of the Jewish Community Centre in Vancouver. I would ask the House to welcome them and I hope they have a wonderful day in Victoria.

HON. W.S. KING (Minister of Labour): Mr. Speaker, we have in the gallery today a group of trade unionists from the Amalgamated Transit union who are visiting Victoria. I would ask the House to extend a warm welcome to them. Also, Mr. Speaker, we have visiting us today the mayor of Revelstoke and the city administrator, His Worship Mayor Parker and Mr. Bill Euerby. I would ask the House to welcome them.

MR. H.A. CURTIS (Saanich and the Islands): Mr. Speaker, thank you. In the Members' gallery today is Mrs. Mary Backlund of Galiano Island in the Saanich and the Islands constituency. Mrs. Backlund is a member of the pioneer Georgeson family and known to many British Columbia coastal people. Mrs. Backlund is also the retired B.C. director of the national executive of the Media Club of Canada and was formerly associated for many years with the Canadian Women's Press Club. In spite of visits to the Legislature over a good number of years, I believe this is the first occasion she has been introduced to the Members. I would ask them to welcome her.

MR. G.F. GIBSON (North Vancouver–Capilano): Mr. Speaker, we have in the gallery today 17 girl guides from North Vancouver accompanied by their leaders, Mrs. Junkin, Mrs. McSorley and Mrs. Hardy. I ask the House to make them welcome.

HON. W.L. HARTLEY (Minister of Public Works): Mr. Speaker, later this afternoon we will be joined in the gallery by a group of status and non-status Indians who have been taking an upgrading course (Band Economic Development Training). They are with their leader/teacher and associate, Marie Shuter and Blair Harvey. I ask you to welcome them.

HON. D. BARRETT (Premier): I have been informed that somewhere in the gallery a visitor is present who requires our best behaviour. I have just had a note to tell me that my mother is here today and I ask the House to behave itself accordingly.

MR. SPEAKER: I thought that would apply to you. (Laughter.)

AN HON. MEMBER: Welcome back, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: Thank you. Hon. Members, while I was away something happened. (Laughter.) Apparently the Hon. Member for West Vancouver–Howe Sound (Mr. L.A. Williams) tabled a document that had been circulated and asked whether or not it constituted a breach of privilege. The document had already been referred to me by the Hon. Member. It appears that it has been circulated for some time and that in its present situation it would not constitute an urgent matter that would require setting aside the normal business of the House.

If anyone felt that they wished to take up the question as a point of privilege, it would have to be by notice of motion owing to the two basic rules that always apply. First, does the matter affect the capacity of the Member so far as his functions in the Legislature are concerned? I cannot see that it does.

Secondly, it's not an urgent matter because it has been apparently in existence for quite some time in a variety of publications. Therefore it would not satisfy those two basic rules that we have used over the years in determining whether the ordinary business should be set aside. I would so advise the House.

Oral questions.

LEASING OF OFFICE SPACE

MR. W.R. BENNETT (Leader of the Opposition): Mr. Speaker, to the Minister of Public Works. Could the Minister confirm to the House that his department has leased 4,025 square feet of office space located at 10575 and 10579 King George Highway for a five-year period on a triple net basis?

HON. MR. HARTLEY: Mr. Speaker, the answer to the first part of the question is no. I'll take the balance as notice.

MR. BENNETT: Supplemental. Could the Minister also, when he reports to the House, advise us of the question he took as notice and said he would report to the House on of March 21, regarding the Oxford Building in Prince George, which is in a similar rental condition as these premises?

HON. MR. HARTLEY: Mr. Speaker, I believe if

[ Page 1320 ]

the Member will check that question he'll find that I stated that if he would provide us with certain information I'd reply. As yet, that information has not been tabled.

MR. BENNETT: I did provide you.... Oh, cut it out!

STUDIES INTO EXPANSION OF
EXISTING OIL-REFINING CAPACITY

MR. D.A. ANDERSON (Victoria): To the Premier and Minister of Finance. Following along the questions of yesterday in which the Premier and Minister of Finance indicated that in two respects the press release of April 9 — subject: "B.C. to Build a Petroleum Refinery" — was indeed wrong, and his statement that the government of British Columbia will build a petroleum refinery and the supply will come from Alberta, may I ask him whether the government did a study on the relative cost per barrel of expanding existing refinery capacity in British Columbia before making their decision regarding a new refinery?

HON. D. BARRETT (Premier): Mr. Speaker, I welcome that question, even though it's bordered on policy. I want to tell the House that we are deeply concerned about the central location of oil refinery capacity in a deeply populated urban centre in Burrard Inlet. Also, expansion would mean the expansion of those facilities that were planned before we came into government. Since that time it would be the only outlet for a captured market for a number of oil companies. There is no commitment to build in Surrey. If there is any danger to urban health, we will move to a location where that danger is at a minimum. But I will not head a government that is forced to continue a policy of expansion of oil refineries that exist in heavily populated areas already.

MR. D.A. ANDERSON: A supplementary, Mr. Speaker. In the response to my question, the Premier managed to forget the question, which was whether or not there had been a study done prior to him making his decision. Also, perhaps, if he wished to comment, would he comment on what steps have been taken to correct the press release issued on April 9, which was indeed wrong in two respects, as we found out in question period yesterday?

HON. MR. BARRETT: Mr. Speaker, I cannot help the Member in correcting his impressions of what he reads. He finds everything wrong no matter what he picks up. There will not be an oil refinery unless we have oil. I made that statement yesterday. I thought that that basic logic would have permeated his limited skills in analyzing basic requirements. If you can't have oil, you don't have an oil refinery. That is a basic policy of this government.

MR. D.A. ANDERSON: Mr. Speaker, I wonder whether or not the Premier in question period would like to address himself to some of the questions that have been addressed to him.

HON. MR. BARRETT: Not when those questions are accusations.

MR. D.A. ANDERSON: I would ask him first to consider the question that I asked him regarding the study done on the cost of increasing existing capacity that we have at the present time. The second question I would address to him is whether he will take steps to make sure that the press releases which state flatly that refinery crude will come from Alberta, which turn out to be questionable, or at least inaccurate in accordance with what we've been told yesterday, are in turn not repeated in the future.

HON. MR. BARRETT: Mr. Speaker, I cannot help that Member's misinterpretations in question period or any other time.

Interjections.

MR. D.A. ANDERSON: Repeating the question I asked the first time I got up: has there been a study done on the costs per barrel of increasing existing capacity as opposed to the new construction which the Premier has talked about?

HON. MR. BARRETT: Many studies, Mr. Speaker, not the least of which is the avoidance of major expansion in the urban areas in Burrard Inlet.

MR. R.H. McCLELLAND (Langley): Supplementary. I'd just like to ask the Premier whether he could tell the House whether the Environment and Land Use Committee secretariat, or any other study that the government has in its hands, has recommended that a refinery not be built on the lower mainland or that a refinery, if built, should be built in Merritt.

HON. MR. BARRETT: Mr. Speaker, we are looking at a number of possible sites. Some irresponsible persons are making announcements on decisions that have not yet been made. If the Environment and Land Use Committee and Pollution Control Board recommend against the site, we will not build on that site. It is as simple as that.

MR. McCLELLAND: Well, has it happened?

[ Page 1321 ]

HON. MR. BARRETT: That hasn't happened yet because no decision has been made on a site. The studies are underway. Some are complete, but all studies are not yet completed. Some people are playing politics, and I regret that, even when my mother is here.

AN HON. MEMBER: When will you announce it?

MR. McCLELLAND: Just one quick supplementary, Mr. Speaker. Yesterday in question period the Premier said that it was — I think his term was "shocking" — that we should be opposing this refinery before all the studies were in. I think it is shocking and I would like to ask the Premier why we are buying land in Surrey before the studies are done, and telling the people that we are buying that land for a refinery.

HON. MR. BARRETT: No one is telling anyone that we are buying land for a refinery.

MR. McCLELLAND: You are!

HON. MR. BARRETT: We've picked up options, Mr. Member. You are the one who is telling them that they are buying it for a refinery.

MR. McCLELLAND: So are the people who are picking up the options.

HON. MR. BARRETT: Mr. Speaker, in answer to a question, I ask the Member a question: would he apologize for misleading people?

MR. McCLELLAND: Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the Premier to apologize for misleading this House.

HON. MR. BARRETT: Oh!

MR. McCLELLAND: The people who are buying that property are telling the people that property is being optioned for a possible oil refinery.

HON. MR. BARRETT: Oh, "possible."

MR. McCLELLAND: It's as simple as that; no other reason.

HON. MR. BARRETT: Mr. Speaker, I am glad that the Member has now corrected his statement...

MR. McCLELLAND: Oh, come on.

HON. MR. BARRETT: ...that they are optioning land for a possible refinery.

MR. BENNETT: What else?

HON. MR. BARRETT: What else? You have been going around saying: "Will the Premier tell the House that you have been buying land for a refinery?" five lines later in Hansard he says,"...for a possible refinery." Now his next question will be: "Is it a possible purchase for a possible refinery on a possible answer?" You're impossible, Mr. Member.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. Could we get on with this question period?

MR. McCLELLAND: One more question to the Premier. No one has answered this question: if the government decides not to build a refinery...

HON. MR. BARRETT: If, if, if.

MR. McCLELLAND: ...in Surrey, will it drop the options and return that land to private ownership?

HON. MR. BARRETT: If the sun goes down tonight, it will come up tomorrow morning, Mr. Member. You have reduced your argument to accusations...

MR. McCLELLAND: Your mother just left in disgust.

HON. MR. BARRETT: ...shocking questions and if, if, if. You go into your riding and make one statement then you come into the House and say if, if, if.

MR. McCLELLAND: Oh, come on.

HON. MR. BARRETT: No decision has been made for Surrey or any other location.

MR. McCLELLAND: You're sick.

HON. MR. BARRETT: No decision will be made until all studies are completed.

GOVERNMENT INTERVENTION
IN CKLG PICKETING

MR. WALLACE: Mr. Speaker, I would like to change the subject. I seem to get that job each time in question period, to get on to a new subject. I would like to ask the Minister of Labour, who is rubbing his eyes awake: In light of the Minister's constant and strenuous efforts to keep the government neutral in labour-management disputes, has the Minister considered seeking a cease-and-desist order to be applied to the Minister of Human Resources (Hon.

[ Page 1322 ]

Mr. Levi) to prevent his continuing picketing of radio station CKLG? (Laughter.)

HON. MR. KING: Mr. Speaker, I think we have yet to see any government agency apply for a cease-and-desist order in a labour dispute between private parties. I certainly take the view that labour legislation, and certainly any policy that I advocate, was not designed to restrict or regulate the activities of MLAs in their decision as to how they choose to represent their constituents. So long as those activities are confined to their personal representations in the ridings, and are not purported to reflect government policy in any way, I see nothing in which to involve the Department of Labour. I am sure the Member for Oak Bay would object strenuously if I came up with any initiative to limit or regulate his activities in the riding of Oak Bay.

MR. WALLACE: I ask the Minister, then, whether the Minister of Human Resources, in his picketing activities, was clearly representing the voters in his riding. He is described as being a CUPE member and a duly authorized business agent of the local. I would suggest that there is a frightening conflict of interest if these descriptions are correct. Could the Minister tell me if, in fact, the Minister of Human Resources was clearly acting as a representative of the voters in the riding he represents?

HON. MR. KING: Mr. Speaker, the point is that labour legislation is designed to regulate the framework of bargaining and picketing activities between trade unions and industry. It is not designed to regulate the political activities of Members of this House. If it were so, perhaps the Member for Oak Bay might have been prohibited from walking on the picket line in the case of the famous Sandringham dispute, as I understand he did.

MR. WALLACE: No, I didn't.

HON. MR. KING: I wouldn't presume to intervene or to extend labour legislation to those kinds of activities. As far as the Minister being responsible to his constituents, that is a question for him and his constituents to a judge. Presumably, that will take place at the appropriate time — when the Premier makes the decision.

MR. WALLACE: Well, for the record, I did not walk the picket line at Sandringham Hospital.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Shame! (Laughter.)

MR. WALLACE: See, you can't win in here.

HON. G.R. LEA (Minister of Highways): That's what we wanted to hear.

MR. SPEAKER: I wish the Hon. Member would confine his questions to the Member responsible in this case. If you're questioning the actions of another Member of the House, that's the Member the question should go to.

MR. WALLACE: I'm questioning the whole concept of cabinet responsibility, and the Minister is referring to the Minister of Human Resources as though there were no potential conflict of interest. My final supplementary was to ask if the Minister has ever made any recommendations to cabinet regarding guidelines which should be offered to all the Members of this House in giving them some guidance and advice as to their proper role and their conduct in this kind of very sensitive labour-management situation.

HON. MR. KING: Well, Mr. Speaker, I happen to belong to a trade union myself. And being the Minister directly responsible for industrial relations in this province, I would not involve myself in a dispute because that would certainly jeopardize my impartiality in terms of regulating and administering the Department of Labour, in my view. But surely the Members of this Legislature, who have been duly elected by the people of British Columbia, are mature enough in their political judgment that they can discern for themselves what is a responsible type of conduct to participate in at the constituency level. I would not presume to impose any guidelines to this House. I think that would be presumptuous and a bit snobbish, quite frankly. I can only hope that the Members are mature enough and responsible enough to recognize their own obligations.

BCGEU WAGE INCREASES

MR. D.M. PHILLIPS (South Peace River): Mr. Speaker, I would like to direct my question to the Provincial Secretary. Would the Minister confirm that the total cost of wage increases given to B.C. civil servants this will amount to approximately $60 million?

HON. E. HALL (Provincial Secretary): Yes, that would be the minimum figure that would be applicable to the 13 components of the B.C. Government Employees' Union.

MR. PHILLIPS: Did the Minister also say that these increases given this year will not be repeated again?

HON. MR. HALL: I'm not going to get involved in that kind of Perry Mason questioning, Mr. Speaker.

[ Page 1323 ]

MRS. P. JORDAN (North Okanagan): You have a responsibility to answer questions.

MR. PHILLIPS: He was quoted in the paper....

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please! I think that that statement was made in the House, so you're really asking him if he made a statement in the House. We certainly have our own Hansard.

MR. PHILLIPS: A further supplementary, Mr. Speaker, to the same Minister. Would the Minister advise us why in the salary contingencies in the estimates before us there are exactly $80,553,499 for salary raises in the coming year if the last raise, which the Minister said was a catch-up and wouldn't occur again, was only $60 million? We have $20 million more in the estimates before us.

HON. MR. HALL: The Member is confusing fiscal years 1975/7 and 1976/7 — the agreements which cover parts of one year and parts of another. I can't help him in his ignorance.

MRS. JORDAN: Did you get a course in arrogance over Easter?

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please.

Orders of the day.

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

ESTIMATES: DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
(continued)

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

On the amendment.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I would remind the committee that there is an amendment before the committee at this time on vote 38, so that is the item of discussion.

MS. R. BROWN (Vancouver-Burrard): I would like to rise to speak against this amendment, and certainly to support the Minister and the job that she's been trying to do in this department. I think, Mr. Chairman, when we think about the department that the Minister inherited and the really bad shape that it was in, it's amazing that she's been able to get anything out of that department at all. Certainly she should be congratulated on what she has tried to do in this very short period of time with it.

There are a couple of areas, Mr. Chairman, that I would specifically like to speak about in terms of this amendment because I think that really the amendment was introduced to stop us from talking about the department and the kinds of real changes that we'd like to see in education in this department.

What I'd like to talk about are the kinds of problems that the department is having, certainly in the Vancouver-Burrard area, with the children who are entering the school system where English is not their first language. I realize that the department is doing everything it can in terms of helping the schools to implement programmes on behalf of these children, and I wonder whether the Minister would tell us what kind of cooperation she's getting from the department of immigration in the federal government with this programme that she's trying to implement.

Most of the financing for this should be coming from the Department of Immigration, from Mr. André's' department; and certainly the submissions that parents are making to the Minister and making to us as the MLAs for that riding should be going to the Department of Immigration. Nonetheless, I know that the Minister is trying to work through the school system and, certainly, the school board is trying to work with these children. I would like the Minister to tell us what kind of cooperation she's getting, financial or otherwise, from the Department of Immigration in Ottawa.

Like the Member for Vancouver South (Mrs. Webster) I, too, would like to compliment the Minister on the programme for senior citizens, which was implemented at the University of British Columbia, and to ask whether any efforts are being made to expand and encourage this programme into some of the junior colleges around the province as well as to Simon Fraser and some of the other universities — the University of Victoria, for example.

I know that the Department of Education is looking into the whole business of textbook stereotyping on the basis of sex and, certainly, race and ethnic origin. I attended a conference this weekend in Windsor, Ontario — St. Clair College. At that conference a resolution was passed to go to the Department of Education in Ontario asking that all textbooks presently being used in the schools that had any stereotyping in them, either because of race or ethnic origin or sex, should be pulled off of the shelves — should be taken out of the schools immediately rather than waiting for a study to be completed and for new textbooks to be used to replace them.

I'm wondering whether the Minister has thought about this, whether the department would be willing to implement such a proposal — that we not wait until the study is completed; but as soon as any of these textbooks are brought to the attention of the department, the textbooks should be pulled right away.

While I'm talking about textbooks, Mr. Chairman,

[ Page 1324 ]

I'm wondering whether the Minister could also tell us whether a decided effort is being made on behalf of her department to use textbooks which are published and written by Canadians and, specifically, by people in British Columbia. I know that this year, for example, a number of research projects and a number of projects are being conducted by groups around the province about women in the history of British Columbia. I want to know whether the department is interested in publishing any of these books on behalf of these groups, whether they're encouraging the school boards to use these textbooks or not, or whether we're still relying primarily on getting our textbooks from other countries — specifically from the United States.

The report which was made on culture to the government recommended that our artists and poets and creative people be encouraged to enter into the schools, not just into the community schools but into all the schools, in an attempt to deal with the cultural needs of the students in the school at the same time that we're dealing with their educational needs. Although I realize that these kinds of decisions have to be made at the school board level, I'm wondering whether the department is doing anything to encourage the school boards and, certainly, to encourage individual schools to Dow artists and dancers and creative people into the schools to work with the children at that level.

I know, for example, that the community school of Bayview in my own riding certainly is doing this and that the programme is being paid for primarily by individuals — small business people — in the area. But I'm wondering whether any kind of attempt is being made to encourage this — certainly in terms of planning for the development, the opening up of the north — whether this is being taken into account, too, in terms of planning the schools and the educational needs of the students who will be moving into those areas.

One of the specific concerns that keeps cropping up has to do with the business of student loans. Now there are two separate areas of student loans that I'm a little bit concerned about. One has to do with the needs of the sole-support parents who are trying, while they are still on welfare, to go through the university programme, for example. I realize that the Department of Education takes the attitude that they are not responsible for supporting them...primarily they are women, but sometimes they are men. They're not supposed to be responsible for supporting them while they are going through the university system. At the same time, the Department of Human Resources has rules that say that once they become students they are no longer eligible for social assistance.

It really seems to me that if we are concerned about people being able to support themselves and become independent, both the Department of Education and the Department of Human Resources should get together and try to work out some kind of formula to encourage these parents, and certainly to encourage these students while they are trying to get their training — so that they can get off of welfare.

One of the major roadblocks in this, I know, has to do with the way the whole system is funded from Ottawa. The Minister who is responsible for education in Ottawa does not see this, certainly, as part of the responsibility. But I would very much like the Minister of Education, in cooperation with the Minister of Human Resources, to once again appeal to this Minister in terms of changing the rules so it will be possible for those sole-support parents who are trying to go through university to get off welfare — that they will get, maybe, two sets of assistance. They will be eligible for student loans and eligible for welfare at the same time while they are going through university.

The other area has to do with a statement which is put out by the services branch. Again, the reason why I am bringing this up, of course, has to do with the fact that because of this amendment on the floor, it is going to be very difficult for us to get around to dealing primarily with the matters in this department. Certainly, in speaking against the amendment I would like to bring to the attention of the Minister that these are the kinds of things we would like to discuss as soon as the amendment has been dealt with.

Anyway, the students' services branch issued a statement which said that all students should be expected to contribute to their educational expenses, and this is the reason why the student loan is set up the way it is. I am very much in support of this except, for example, at a university like Simon Fraser which is on the semester system, what happens to a student who would like to attend for three semesters, and therefore has no opportunity to work? Do the same kind of rules apply to that student? I have before me a number of letters from such students who are trying to get their education completed as quickly as possible. They have signed up for all three semesters at the university and find that they cannot get financial assistance because they have not been working and therefore not contributing anything to their financial needs.

The very last thing I'd like to speak about under this amendment, and the reason why I am speaking against the amendment, is that it is preventing us from talking about curriculum content and the kinds of things we would like to see included in this and encouraged by your department.

I was very pleased that the Minister of Consumer Services (Hon. Ms. Young), for example, has implemented a programme which includes consumer education. I know from my own experience, from my daughter's experience in her school, that there is now

[ Page 1325 ]

being given a course on labour education in that secondary school.

I would like to find out from the Minister whether any of the school districts are presently looking at the business of including socialist education in their curriculum. If there are any such school districts, what kind of material would the Department of Education have to offer to schools which would be interested in including courses in socialist education in their curriculum? What kind of rules would around who should go into the schools and who can go into the schools to give such a course?

In closing, Mr. Chairman, I would also like to thank the Minister for the kinds of decisions that she is making around the Jericho Hill School, and to say that I am very much in support of what she is trying to do and speaking very strongly against this amendment to the motion.

MR. H.W. SCHROEDER (Chilliwack): We closed last evening at the supper hour in the middle of a statement, and I would like to complete that statement, then go on to another area.

It's a little difficult, Mr. Chairman, with time being set at exactly 30 minutes. It's like doing a television show in a series — you have to sort of come to a conclusion at the end of 30 minutes and if you aren't at the conclusion in 30 minutes, then maybe you've got to tune in the next day for the next serial.

We were discussing the reasons that were cited, the defences that were given, by the Minister. The very fact that the Minister has become exceedingly defensive about her department is reason for us to believe that she herself believes that there has been a slowness — I am being kind — there has been a slowness of the department to respond to change. She has cited as some very real reasons the stubbornness of the bureaucracy, or that it's difficult to get a huge bureaucracy to respond readily to change. She has also cited that it requires, perhaps, more time than she has been allotted. We went into this last evening and I am just recapping so that I can flow smoothly into this second section.

She cited not only time but also lack of funds. You'll remember, Mr. Chairman, that last evening this was the subject we were on. She said that if and when economic conditions improved, we can resort to the plans — for instance, the plan to further reduce teacher-pupil ratio, and perhaps the plan to reduce taxes for education from owner-occupied residences and from farmlands.

She further cited as reason for slowness to change the fact that there was not enough help from supporting staff. As a matter of fact, I remember her saying yesterday that when she acquired her position as Minister she had in one department — I think it was the department involved in capital expenditure for school construction — only four in the personnel division and that that certainly was not enough to help to support the kind of changes that she will admit, and that we will readily admit, needed to take place.

I think that we should not only take a look at the reasons that can be cited — sort of motherhood reasons — for slowness or stubbornness of change. I think that we should also look perhaps at some of the reasons that the department is looking to the Minister for. This has been well canvassed, and we've talked about this in the House on other occasions: the department is looking to the Minister for the direction in which the change is to go. I think that we must all believe that the Minister does have some changes in mind, some directional changes, changes in this area, changes in area B, changes in area C. If she doesn't have them, I suggested 10 areas yesterday — areas that were ready, ripe for change. Yet the department seems to be looking for direction from the Minister.

I could use as an example, perhaps, the research department who were confused, frustrated, in their terms of reference. Either the terms of reference weren't explicit enough or they were not explained to the satisfaction of the research department. Nonetheless, the direction in which they were to go was not fully understood by the research department. If it had been, they would have moved in the direction in which the change was to take place, as directed by the Minister. They could have come up, I am sure — because they had the ability — with the conclusions and the research that the Minister would find acceptable. But, no, not being given definitive, decisive direction, the whole department floundered. As a result, the Minister has had to contribute to one of the reasons she has cited for slowness of change; she has had to contribute to that — remember that No. 4 was: "We don't have enough help" — she has had to fire even the help she had. Withdraw the word "fire" because it wasn't really firing. They were suspended. She has had to suspend the very help that she was looking to enact the change that was needed in the department.

If anything needs to be drawn to the attention of the Minister, it is that the department is looking to her for leadership. That's the way the structure should be. It could be that the reverse is true and that the Minister's looking to the Deputy for leadership. Nonetheless, in a proper organization, as he did say in a press release in 1974, he is looking for leadership in the department.

Madam Minister, to you through the Chairman, I would like to encourage you not to be afraid of making decisions. I know you're afraid of failure. I know that failure is not a thing that is easy to cope with; it's not easy to deal with, and yet, let's face it: it's a fact of life. Therefore you know that somebody has to make the decision. Someone has to blow the

[ Page 1326 ]

whistle to start the race. Someone has to say: "This is the way we're going to do it." I would like to encourage the Minister to be decisive. Give direction. Show leadership. Show courage. No question about the fact that you have it, but show it in your department. Give the department whatever competence you have, and be a manager in your own department.

I think, in being as helpful as I would wish to be, that these are the areas I would like for you to take into consideration, because they're well intended. There is no reason why you shouldn't be the best Minister of Education that this province has ever had. The plaudits are here in this room. It's too bad that the same plaudits don't come from every segment of society out beyond these four walls. But, by all means, take the management position of your department, because they are looking to you for leadership.

Let's move over to an area that, for lack of a better word, we may call literacy — literacy in our educational department, literacy in our schools, literacy of those who have graduated through our schools.

I was happy to see the announcement from the department that says: "We're going to apply some tests to certain segments of the pupil population" — certainly representative segments — "to see whether or not literacy is a problem." The Minister has already cited it as one of three leading problems in the province.

I have here a copy of a report that gives us the results of the last such test that was applied to education in the province. The test was taken in June of 1973, and although I don't have the exact date of its reporting, it would have naturally been subsequent to that date. The date on it is June, 1973, at which time the data already lead to the conclusion that although the norms of British Columbia education were well above United States norms a decade ago — a decade at that time would have been 1963 — the B.C. median has fallen to three months below the American norm in spelling, and one year below the American norm in the other five language sub-tests.

This report came in, in 1973. I know that the Minister is aware of it because it comes directly from her department. It comes out of what used to be the research and standards branch. By June this year it will be two years since these tests were taken. I know that the Minister is aware that literacy is and was a problem — has been for two years — and I find it a little amazing that we need to take yet another test before we are going to take some action in this regard.

I read the Minister's speech to the B.C. Teachers Federation towards the end of March that we could expect, certainly within a couple of weeks, that these tests would be ready and be available, that they would be phase 1 of a testing programme. I am glad to hear that these tests are actually going to be available. Phase 2 is to happen later on this year.

I also noticed that in this same report that comes from the department, in which the data was analyzed from these tests, there are reasons stated for the decline in the basic language skills. The reasons cited are changes in curriculum. Changes in curriculum immediately affect basic literacy — that is the conclusion of this report. Yet in the last few years, certainly in the last couple of years of even the previous administration, it was thought to be the in thing to promote innovation, not realizing what the cost would be — not in terms of dollars, but in terms of literacy.

As a result, the tests of 1973 as compared with just a decade ago showed that not only did we deteriorate but that we once led on the continent, we now, in 1973, were lagging on the continent. Changes in curriculum; innovation, perhaps, even in the methods of teaching that curriculum. Yet the Minister said that one of the reasons why education had deteriorated to its new low by 1972 was the lack of innovation.

There are other reasons cited. One of them is very obvious, perhaps — high levels of immigration. Decreasing proportions of special classes and increases in social promotion are other reasons.

I was interested in the fourth reason given as a decline in the basic language skills, and that is movement from a more structured to a less structured type of classroom organization. It is strange that they would come to this conclusion, that the kind of structure in a classroom would have something to do with basic language skills.

So I went to various periodicals, various news releases, various opinions of people from other parts of Canada, Britain and the United States to see what would lead us to a proper conclusion that would say that just because you changed the structure in a classroom it would affect basic skills, particularly when the report says that a moving to a less structured type has an adverse effect on literacy.

What happens to the proponents of the open classroom? What happens to the concept of changing it from a classroom, which is a sort of a concept of four walls, to a "teaching area"? What happens to the idea of the open university, to which the Minister subscribed upon taking office back in 1972? What happens to the idea of a college without walls, of which we have an experiment in my own area, the Chilliwack and Abbotsford area? Here we have the movement from a structured to a less structured type of organization that affects basic literacy skills.

Before I develop the material I have under No. 4, I want to mention No. 5 in passing: that a decline in pupil production of written material and continuous classroom evaluation has affected basic skills

[ Page 1327 ]

adversely. The report seems to say that not only was there not enough written material required of the students, but also there was not enough continuous evaluation. Perhaps the tests to which we have had to resort now to find out where we are in literacy may well have been the tests we should have had all along so that we knew what our literacy level was before a crisis occurred.

Let's look at some of the material that, perhaps, would lead us to say less structuring, permissiveness, in the structure of education leads to illiteracy. I don't like the word "illiteracy"...but certainly a depreciation of literacy.

I notice that there is an abundance of material in our own dailies, in our own weeklies, of various people stressing a return...and I would appreciate that whenever a crisis occurs there can be an overreaction. The Minister has already stated that in no way does she intend to allow the pendulum to swing all the way back so that we will have only a stress on the basics and let innovation pass us by for the next couple of years.

I know that in the number of articles that refer to various authorities, and some authorities only in the fact that they are parents of students, there is a pressure to return to the basics. This pressure certainly is an indication that we need to return to the structured system to which the population had grown accustomed and in which they believe, and in which they think literacy can be restored.

I think perhaps a not so obvious enemy of literacy is the introduction, the spawning, of a greater permissiveness within our educational system. For instance, here's a report out of eastern Canada, a speech made by David McKenzie who was the headmaster at Brentwood College. He expresses his opinion this way, referring to the permissive philosophy:

"It cannot lead to academic excellence. It cannot result in athletic attainment. Permissiveness cannot achieve worthwhile results in the area of fine arts, or choir, or drama, or debate, or orchestra because all of these activities require a characteristic which seems to be an anathema to the modern progressive, and that is the word 'discipline.'"

The reference to the word "discipline" here is mental discipline, as referred to the disciplines of medicine, the disciplines of philosophy and so on and so forth.
He said:

"The permissives, who have the extraordinary effrontery to class themselves as progressives have twisted the term discipline, which means not oppressiveness, but self-sacrifice; not brutality, but mutual respect and affection.

"They talk of freedom when they mean licence; of allowing students to make their own decisions, when they really mean relinquishing their own professional responsibilities. They speak of democracy and forget that a democratic society is only workable when its members have had long years of training and experience and have come to respect law and order, and to give support and loyalty to those they themselves have elected."

This is McKenzie's opinion and it relates to permissiveness as it affects literacy: academic achievement or excellence cannot be the result of a permissive philosophy.

So, Mr. McKenzie says, to the Minister: make sure that although you, perhaps, do not allow the pendulum to swing all the way back to only an emphasis on basics, nonetheless let us pay strict attention to basics, and not only look at innovation. Another voice that, perhaps, comes from the private school area says simply this:

"Frankly, I am worried about our maintained education. I don't agree with permissiveness. I don't believe the adult teacher has any reason to apologize for himself.

"English parents are opting out. They are being told they have no right to guide their children. A parent in the state system has no choice or say as to which school his child goes to, and to get around this and to get to the top-level state schools, he moves to a better environment. Consequently, he is still getting education by payment."

Here is another speaker, Fred Shaw, the headmaster of Kings College in Wimbledon. He is afraid of the permissiveness that has crept into education, particularly in this country. Perhaps we should look at his opinions before they become of even more major proportions in our own country. In Britain someone has said that inadequate literacy — that's a kind of way of saying "illiteracy," isn't it? — is the result of unqualified teachers. At first I would say that would be unfair, particularly if we wish to superimpose this thought on our British Columbia education scene.

I agree with the Minister when she says that we have, undoubtedly, an educational staff of teachers, instructors and professors of whom we are definitely proud. They are excellent. They are, perhaps, unsurpassed in their excellence when we compare them with any other area, certainly in our own country and, in many instances, abroad.

Therefore, I wouldn't want to say that in British Columbia inadequate literacy is necessarily the result of unqualified teachers. But in reading this particular statement I think that it needs to be said that in British Columbia we should also have some tests, perhaps more adequate than the ones we have, Madam Minister, that would ensure that we do not have unqualified teachers. We must have, as the

[ Page 1328 ]

Minister has already said, more in-service training. We should have a greater enrichment of teacher training. This would give every teacher an opportunity to upgrade themselves in the art of teaching — and it is an art. However, we must somehow or other also ensure that our system rids itself of those who are doing an unqualified job of teaching.

[Mr. D'Arcy in the chair.]

I think I've mentioned it here in the House before, but I find it rather amazing that out of the now over 23,000 teachers in the province, we have as few as three in a given year being repulsed by the system because of lack of qualification. If this is really all the unqualified teachers we have in the system, then we have a beautiful and adequate system indeed. However, if only three are excluded when in fact we should have, perhaps, 103 excluded, then our system of evaluation for our teachers needs upgrading. There again I think that we shall not, should not, cannot...and I must insist that we do not allow a permissive attitude toward qualification of teachers.

I notice that in eastern Canada there is a flood of enrolment to remedial schools, schools which traditionally take a stand opposed to innovation only for innovation's sake — certainly, permissiveness. There is a school in Toronto, The Toronto Learning Centre, which was the brainchild of two special educationists. Parents who have been dissatisfied with their own school system in the Province of Ontario are angry. They feel they can't fight the system alone. They are hostile and still intimidated, not knowing really which way to turn. They don't know whom to approach. As a result, there is a flood of inquiries and a flood of enrolment that comes to remedial schools.

I think this should say something to us in British Columbia. If permissiveness is rejected even by the parents who wish to enrol their students in school, then perhaps we should eliminate that permissiveness in our own school system.

I would like to have as soon as possible a copy of the test that is going to be applied, both the one that is ready now, and the one that will be ready in August or September. I would like a copy immediately, or as soon as possible, at least, to see whether or not the evaluation is taking place not only in the three R's, but that the evaluation is taking place in these other areas of permissiveness.

There are still some other professors, for example, Professor Malcolm MacGregor, who say that schools are not doing the job. He says that we have got to return to the three R's, the good, old-fashioned values, and the classroom where the teacher is the boss. This is the opinion of Professor MacGregor. He says that it is necessary now for the university to organize classes in remedial English to teach people to speak in their own tongue.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I interrupt the Member to note that his green light is on.

MR. SCHROEDER: Thank you.

The old discipline is disappearing from our schools. In its place is something called "permissiveness."

I have referred to a number of opinions. I have scads more — if I can use that word. I have much more material that leads to the indication that there is permissiveness within our school society. I would insist that the Minister consider this as a priority in trying to restructure the educational system which will return literacy to our province.

MR. D.A. ANDERSON (Victoria): Mr. Chairman, like the previous speaker, I am restricted to the 30-minute rule, and there are many things I would like to discuss. One thing he didn't mention is, of course, that we now have a schedule which puts us probably at the end of any discussion of education at 6 o'clock. So we're faced with two schedules: one is personal, and this is probably the last chance I'll have to speak; the second is, of course, that the estimates will probably terminate, to all intents and purposes, in less than three hours time.

Therefore, rather than go through the notes I have here on educational financing in British Columbia, rather than go through the material I have from teachers and others dealing with teacher qualifications, stress fatigue of teachers and the sexism in the schools referred to by the first speaker of the day, I will return to a subject which I discussed yesterday, namely the question of the research and development division.

Yesterday I raised this and the Minister simply said to me that she couldn't do a thing because there was a grievance procedure. Just a few moments ago a letter was delivered to my desk — a copy of a letter, I should say — signed by one Stanley B. Knight, addressed to Mrs. E. Dailly, Minister of Education, Legislature Building, Victoria.

In this letter the former head of the research and development division states that he "would not want the public or the House denied information or the opportunity for open debate about such an important issue as the current condition of the educational enterprise because of my grievance procedure."

His letter is detailed and factual, what I've been able to read of it. I'd like to just go through some of those things. I imagine the Minister is fully aware of what I'm talking about.

The letter is dated April 15, 62-4061 Larchwood Drive, Victoria, B.C.

"Dear Mrs. Dailly:

"It has come to my attention that debate in the Legislature related to education has been restricted by a concern for jeopardizing the

[ Page 1329 ]

grievance rights of myself and former members of the research development division. All of us are very grateful that the government is concerned that due process and natural justice should prevail.

"There are many people in our society who have a great deal of faith in democracy. However, they are finding themselves increasingly dismayed at how easily the democratic process can end with the markings of a ballot and the closing of a government's caucus door. If responsible government is to prevail then information must be provided to all the people."

That's precisely the point I made yesterday before I received this letter and knew that Dr. Knight did not want his grievance procedure to stand in the way of full discussion.

Dr. Knight goes on:

"I've always supported your public request for 'open and frank discussions' in order that everything will be 'perfectly clear.' What better place for the debate than the floor of the Legislature, where Members are protected by the privilege of the House, a great feature of the democratic process?

"On previous occasions, both in the House and in public gatherings, you have made accusations against ex-research and development workers that are incorrect and unsubstantiated. It is important that these charges be presented openly and accurately, free from half-truths and innuendos."

The letter goes on:

"Concern for educational problems in general, and the firing of the research and development workers specifically, has been expressed by a large majority of the population, not just a small minority of individuals as suggested by you and your government.

"This includes calls for your resignation and an in-depth inquiry into the management of the education department from many people. It includes the executive and members of the B.C. School Trustees Association, the B.C. Federation of Labour, the B.C. Teachers Federation, local NDP councils, local teachers' associations (including your own Burnaby riding), interest groups and private citizens.

"It is your government's democratic responsibility to present accurate information as quickly as possible to the Legislature and the people."

I agree. It's great for the government Members to get up and say: "This is the best Minister of Education we've ever had." (I'm not reading now, Mr. Chairman.) But it is, I believe, a fact that this is the first time that the resignation of the Minister has been requested by both the trustees and the teachers. We had a former Minister of Education by the name of one Mr. Brothers. While I thought — and I still feel — that he was worse than the present Minister, the record of the present Minister is amazing in terms of calls for resignation.

HON. E.E. DAILLY (Minister of Education): On a point of order, Mr. Chairman, I wish to point out that the statement made on resignation is inaccurate. I was never officially informed by the B.C. Teachers Federation representative assembly or convention that they had asked for my resignation. The resignation was asked for by the president. I think you would find the same thing applied also to the other major associations. I do wish that you would list that correctly.

MR. D.A. ANDERSON: Certainly I'll correct that and accept the Minister's statement. Her resignation call was from the presidents of the organizations — the heads of the organizations - that I referred to. Indeed, I don't think even my friend, or at least the previous Minister of Education, Mr. Brothers, was ever treated in the same way.

HON. MR. BARRETT: Shocking, isn't it?

MR. D.A. ANDERSON: Shocking, dreadful, as the Premier admits.

Page two of this letter — I'll continue, Mr. Chairman. I read it quickly and underlined a few things.

"Please feel free to bring up any topic related to the relationship between the operation of the research and development division and the Department of Education."

Please feel free, he says.

Interjection.

MR. D.A. ANDERSON: Mr. Premier, if you'd listen and if you will continue to listen, you will find out exactly what he's asking.

HON. MR. BARRETT: Oh, you're absurd.

MR. D.A. ANDERSON: He goes on and says:

"I have nothing to hide. Do not restrict yourself, your government or the opposition from any debate which you may think may jeopardize the status of the research and development grievance procedures."

Those are his words. He thinks it's important for education that it be discussed here, and, like myself, he rejects the feeble excuses yesterday that this somehow was a total bar from the public knowing what actually went on in the Department of

[ Page 1330 ]

Education and what went on in the research and development division.

HON. MR. BARRETT: Is he foregoing his appeal?

MR. D.A. ANDERSON:

"While employed in the Department of Education, I attempted to live by the terms of reference of my job description and discharge my duties with the greatest sense of responsibility and integrity. If you feel that you have some privileged information that needs to be tabled in the House, you have my permission to do so."

That's the statement of Stanley Knight.

"Possibly it could be the research and development paper on the formation of the White Paper study groups or developmental inquiry. Of interest would be the education programme paper which was rejected by the Minister, the Deputy, the superintendent of education programme and other senior officials.

"Why is it that you and all of the senior officials of the department believe that the social and economic factors in a community are not important when designing local school curricula or considering the organization and management of local school districts? Is it contrary to government policy to suggest that curricula of the schools is compartmentalized, biased, in many ways irrelevant and therefore should be seriously analysed for improvement?

"There are many other questions that should be discussed openly and frankly if the Legislature and the public are ever to understand the relationship between the R & D division and the educational policy of the government. And these are fundamental questions. For example:

"(1) Why do we have schools? Is it a violation of government policy to attempt to answer what used to be a traditional question in a contemporary manner? Is it a violation of government policy to analyse the relationship between education and labour?

"(2) Why are the literacy skill levels of our students dropping?" (That's a matter referred to by the previous speaker.) "Was the R & D group wrong in suggesting that for many of our youth the prospect of future unemployment was influencing their motivation for formal education? Were they wrong in designing a project that would attempt to determine if the erosion of literacy skills in our institutions was directly related to an indoctrination procedure and the historical failure of the schools to prepare people to live worthwhile and meaningful lives?

"(3) Were the R & D staff being unreasonable when they wrote their papers on grants and insisted that the Department of Education should not give funds to private or public institutions or agencies without first negotiating a contract or letter of agreement as to objectives, commitments, responsibilities and evaluation?

"(4) Is it unreasonable to suggest that accountability demands that the educational value of projects such as the Strathcona programme be determined prior to approval of funds in order that justification on the basis of post hoc analysis can be avoided?

"(5) What is the government's real policy on community participation? That's something we've heard a great deal about from the NDP. R & D argued that those people who are affected by decisions should be part of the decision-making process. Further, educational decisions made within a community should be based on the provision of all information to the community in order that an effective decision can be made. And why does the Minister insist on reports for consideration? Why did the department suggest in a memo to the superintendents that, when discussing community involvement in education, the superintendents should consider carefully the advisability of having parents in attendance? Why isn't it mandatory? Doesn't the government think that the citizens can function in a responsible manner? Why is the community participation model of the Department of Education based on an attitude of paternalism and benevolence?

"(6) Does the government support the shoddy management practices of the Department of Education, which includes" — and this is what I referred to yesterday, Madam Minister — "questionable hiring practices, illegal firings, intimidation of employees, the ransacking of desks, the seizing of records, use of security guards and, finally, bad advice to the Minister?

"(7) Who really runs the department?" That question has come up frequently in the last three years.

"(8) Was the research and development division really a scapegoat for no educational policy?

"(9) Is the White Paper the government's educational policy?"

If I can depart from this letter, Mr. Chairman, when the White Paper first came in, I had to ask the question to the Minister: is that the White Paper? I didn't know if it was a precis of it or a preface to an introductory text on education. I didn't really know

[ Page 1331 ]

what it was. And I couldn't tell by reading it. Anyway:

"(9) Is the White Paper the government's educational policy? Apparently the question is still relevant. Why are the job descriptions of the R & D staff directly related to the White Paper?

"(10) Why didn't the Deputy Minister of Education evaluate the work of the dismissed research officers in the usual manner by using the normal civil service commission evaluation form?"

Again, a question I put to you yesterday, Madam Minister: why was a letter of dismissal used with no personal consultation despite tremendous talk about this government's concern for civil servants, despite the procedures laid down by the civil service commission? I won't go into it done in the manner that it was done? Why were they denied their rights?

"(11) What policies were being constructed of implemented by the R & D staff? The Minister has been challenged to back up this public charge specifically. What did the R & D staff do that was incompatible with government policy? File the evidence. Present the information.

"(12) Explain how the research and development division functioned as an autonomous work group distinct work distinctly different from the other autonomous divisions in the Department of Education.

"(13) Tell the House why you had a research and development division for seven months, three weeks, and three days, and five hours.

"(14) Does the government have an educational policy?

"You have my full permission to discuss any of the above topics or other related information. I would not want to think the public or the House was denied information or the opportunity for open debate about such an important issue as the current condition of the educational enterprise because of my grievance procedure. I urge you to hold, in your own words, an 'open and frank debate' on the floor of the House."

That is the letter from Stanley Knight to the Minister. Copies were sent to: Mr. D. Barrett, Premier; Mr. W. Bennett, Leader of the Opposition; Mr. D. Anderson, Liberal leader; and Dr. S. Wallace, Conservative leader.

The questions I raised yesterday are all contained in there. There are other things as well, Madam Minister, but the questions I raised yesterday are all in there. It is perfectly clear that the excuse you gave — that you didn't want to jeopardize this man's and other people's rights in the grievance procedure — is, as far as he is concerned, a phony one. He wants information presented to this House. He wants his name cleared.

We've had the case before of John Bremer being attacked publicly and then material not being brought forward to back up those charges. You have the case of this man and his colleagues being fired in a most curious way, the implication being that something is wrong; fine for us now to perhaps understand better, but perhaps four or five years from now there it is shown on their record that their probationary period was terminated this way, it will reflect very much to their disadvantage. These people have been treated in a shabby, shoddy way by the Minister and by the department. There is every reason for information to be brought forward so the public, the Legislature, and indeed, even the government backbenchers can determine whether or not they were reasonably treated.

I said yesterday, I said today: I am not here defending or rejecting their political positions. I am not here worried about whether they are radicals or conservatives or anything of that nature. I am here worried about some of the fundamental questions on education they have raised. I am here worried about a procedure in handling civil servants which is arbitrary and thoroughly unfair.

Mr. Chairman, the estimates, on page 68, contain the vote for the budget for the research and development division. The Minister's estimates contain a budget for the research and development division. It is perfectly obvious that we should know, now that she has canned the division, to what purpose we are voting these moneys. We won't be voting them for the purpose in the book, according to what we know now. It is a clear case of us being asked to vote for moneys when the purpose for which the moneys are voted evaporated when these people were fired.

The fact is that there is even a wage increase for those people. There is even a promotion for Stanley Knight right in the budget! He goes up to level 4 from level 3, and yet we are told he is incompetent and no good. Yet when the budget was being drawn up, when the Education people were putting it together, they thought he was so good they were going to promote him and pay all his friends more, pay all the people who worked with him more. Now we are told somehow or another it is all a no-no.

I would like to know why in this publication, "The Department of Education, 1975", which was printed in January, 1975, we find so little reference to research and development, and why we find so little reference to the research and development division. Is it that this publication was prepared with the full knowledge that these people were going to be scuppered? Was this prepared after the budget, after a decision has been taken, and then the decision was later on, at the very last minute, put to the people

[ Page 1332 ]

concerned? Mr. Chairman, it is an important question.

They were fired, as I mentioned yesterday, most unceremoniously — a deputy sheriff delivering the paper firing one particular individual who was sick at the time. Why was it in the budget that they were thought good enough to pay more to, to promote, and in this document which came in January, you have references to them suppressed? Was there some plot in the department? Were they attempting to make these people scapegoats?

We all know the public is concerned about basic education, basic linguistic skills. We all know that they are concerned about the three R's. Has the Minister decided she is going to make scapegoats of these people? — arbitrarily, unfairly make scapegoats of them so the government can reverse itself and start looking small-c-conservative in the educational system.

MR. G.S. WALLACE (Oak Bay): Hey, watch it!

MR. D.A. ANDERSON: Is that the purpose? Were they simply hired to be fired? Were they used as scapegoats so that the NDP backbenchers, and the teachers who worked with the NDP in the last election and thought there would be progress and change, will indeed be disappointed and the finger of blame can be pointed to these particular people? Yet were they simply set up to be cut down in this way?

I don't know, Mr. Chairman, and I think it is time that this House found out. The Minister has a copy of that letter, undoubtedly. It is addressed to her, April 15 date. There are questions there in black and white. There are questions I put yesterday, which are in the Blues of Hansard. She can consult that. I would like to know. I would like to get some answers.

She is smiling happily now. She realizes, Mr. Chairman, that in just two and a half hours her estimates get pulled and she can always throw in a few backbenchers to stall some of that time. But the opposition want answers. We have a new system...and she is House leader, so I think it is appropriate that we say a word about this. She is House leader under a new system which destroys the effectiveness of estimates discussion because it does not allow us to get down to the nut problems, the nitty-gritty problems. It allows them to be avoided by the government putting the Minister's estimates on the shelf. We know that is what is happening. We find it curious — in fact, no longer curious — that as soon as we got to marketing boards the Minister of Agriculture's (Hon. Mr. Stupich's) estimates hit the shelf, We know full well there are changes which now make it impossible to get answers, even as we used to do. We now know it is impossible to go after a Minister or things in his estimates which are of real concern to the public of British Columbia. We know full well that the back bench can stall off any determined effort by the opposition to get facts from Ministers. We know that can be done now under the new rules and is being done, so no wonder she is smiling. But I think I should point that out and say that she is failing in her duty to education in the province, to the individuals concerned, who, I think, have served her loyally — I presume they did. Certainly they were not fired for disloyalty.

She is failing in her duty to teachers and to parents by not dealing with some of the major questions that there are. These are some of the questions. I raised some yesterday and some more came out of this letter which I had to read out fully because I just got it, as I mentioned, a few minutes ago.

I would like her to start answering because it is too simple to sweep things under the rug, as has been done with other Ministers to date. It is too simple for the New Dictatorial Party to ignore real questions in estimates now. It is just too easy, and we know it is. People in the gallery know it is. The press know it is. It is no longer possible to go after a Minister. It is no longer possible to do what you, yourself, Madam Minister, and the man sitting on your left (Hon. Mr. Barrett) did effectively under the previous administration.

I never thought the day would come when I would have to admit that the former Premier (Hon. Mr. Bennett), who at least allowed discussion — at four and five in the morning, but at least allowed discussion — had a better system than the New Dictatorial Party that is now in power.

I pose these questions. I am well within my time limit. I would like the Minister to stand up in the remainder of my time and give some answers.

MR. WALLACE: I raised some of these questions also yesterday, Mr. Chairman. I realize that it is going to be a waste of time to go over that ground again, but just at the outset I would say that I completely and totally reject the concept which the Minister outlined that we, in the opposition, do not have the right to raise the kind of questions which I raised yesterday in relation to evidence which suggests that something is far wrong within the internal administration of the Minister's department. I will just repeat, and then move on, that it is ridiculous to suggest that taxpayers who are putting up $754 million for education in this province don't have the right to question the internal administration of the department. I never heard such a ridiculous suggestion in my life. We are just a bunch of dummies if we are sitting on this side of the House....

AN HON. MEMBER: Oh?

MR. WALLACE: I said "if." That's a conditional word, Mr. Minister. If we are expected to sit here and

[ Page 1333 ]

agree to the spending of $754 million when we consider that there are some internal situations in the department as a result of which this government, whether it knows it or not, has lost public confidence in the field of education.

I have many other questions I would like to ask in that same area of the research and development branch, but it is obvious that the Minister isn't going to answer, and I think it would be a waste of my 30 minutes to pursue the matter again. But I think I could ask some questions, Mr. Chairman, that do not relate directly to the content of the grievance dispute.

If the Minister wouldn't mind listening to what I have to say, she might be able to give me an answer. I gather that at least the research and development committee existed for a certain length of time. I would like to know the cost of its operation up until the time it was terminated. That's a simple enough question.

Under the research and development committee functions, I believe that two committees were set up; one was a finance committee and one was entitled the "Right to Education Committee." With the abolition — or whatever word you might choose to use — regarding the research and development commission, I wonder what has happened to these two committees that were set up and who is chairing the finance committee, in particular.

I would like to know also, in the light of the Minister's comment yesterday that we shouldn't even be discussing this, what appointments will be made to the research and development commission in the meantime. Or is it a fact that since there is a grievance procedure pending, the Minister, in fact, is not in a position to appoint successors to Dr. Knight and his colleagues? If this is the case, how long will it be until we can expect to see the new research and development committee, or its successor, appointed?

Could the Minister tell us, in that regard, what the policy of her department is in regard to this particular division? As the former speaker mentioned, the status of the individual in charge has been raised from grade 3 to grade 4, which would seem to me to give the research and development branch even greater prestige, or this is surely a recognition by the Minister of the very important status of the research and development committee.

The most important question of all is that the budget under vote 44 outlines proposed expenditure of $2.3 million by a commission or committee that doesn't exist.

You know, Mr. Chairman, if you think that we ask a lot of questions on this side of the House, it's because some of them are pretty obvious. We've just realized that this group of highly educated and highly skilled professionals who were all turfed out of their jobs unceremoniously were allocated in vote 44 potential spending of $2.3 million. In the light of all these recent events, and the disappearance of said committee, I think it's a very legitimate question to ask who's going to spend the $2.3 million. Or will that $2.3 million not, in fact, now be spent because research and development can't continue in the absence of the people who were booted out of their jobs?

I do feel that we're absolutely entitled to ask the question that I asked yesterday and that the Liberal leader also asked: was the work of the researchers evaluated in the usual manner as applies to civil servants in the first three months of office and in the first six months of office? It's my understanding and my information that the Public Service Commission of this province is very disturbed at the techniques and procedures that were used by the Deputy Minister in his handling of this rather sordid and unhappy situation in the dismissal of these, as I say, highly professional experts in the field of education. I think it's reasonable to ask whether or not that kind of failure to evaluate.... Or if it was evaluated, it's very simple for the Minister to tell us. But if the work was not evaluated and the Deputy Minister took the decisions, which were approved by the Minister, then they were certainly setting a precedent which should make a whole lot of civil servants in this province shake in their boots, because the same could happen to them.

It's a little bit like some of the other situations I mentioned in this House earlier. This is very strange coming from a government which in large measure was elected because it promised a greater respect for the employment rights and, in fact, the rights of individual citizens in every area, whether it be related to employment or freedom of speech or discrimination with relation to sex — and a whole lot of other areas of human rights and individual rights which this government campaigned on so actively. I think that when we look at the sorry events within this department, one has to ask whether this government hasn't lost a great deal of the vision, or the espoused vision, which it presented to the voters back in 1972.

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

I'd like to ask another question. The Minister said that she had carried out some investigation and found out that there was no problem regarding harassment. I'm glad the Deputy Minister's listening very carefully, taking notes, because I would like to ask whether, two weeks before the decision was taken to dismiss Dr. Knight, a grievance procedure had been launched against John Walsh on a charge of intimidation and unfair management practice, and that that grievance procedure is now at its second stage of consideration.

If that is the case, it really doesn't square with the

[ Page 1334 ]

Minister's statement that she looked into the situation and found that there was no evidence of harassment.

These are all straightforward questions, Mr. Chairman. I don't see how they could impinge at all upon the outcome of the actual hearing. We're not dealing with the content; we're dealing with establishing certain facts which I feel the Minister has a clear obligation to give to this House in response to questions. In leaving that subject, I think the Minister really cannot be considered blameless, even in the position which she took yesterday in answer to my questions. She said that she could make no comment since it would, in fact, prejudice the chances of Dr. Knight and others from receiving a fair hearing at the grievance-procedure hearing.

But you know, Mr. Chairman, the written word from a speech which the Minister made in Prince George shows quite clearly that the Minister has already taken a public position and has said that the reason these educators were dismissed was due to the fact that they were trying to write the departmental policy instead of following the recommendations which she considered had been spelled out in the terms of reference when Dr. Knight undertook employment with the government.

I'd like to quote from the Prince George Citizen newspaper, dated January 27, 1975:

"Mrs. Dailly told a meeting of the Northern Interior Branch of the B.C. School Trustees Association at Prince George that the basic conflict between her and Knight was the latter's assumption that he had a mandate to enact the government's White Paper on education change. The Minister said she had made it clear to the division that they did not have such a mandate and that the White Paper was for discussion on educational change. 'No director or superintendent can assume he has his own priorities, and that the department priorities are secondary. They cannot sit in isolation in their ivory towers and make decisions. It is essential before any major educational decision is made that all those directly affected by the decision can participate.'"

I agree with that. Nobody should be sitting in an ivory tower in any field of government research, divorced from the world that's going on around them and the people whom they're there to serve. All the point I'm making is that the Minister was being just a little holier-than-thou when she said, yesterday, that we shouldn't be debating this because it would compromise the people who had a grievance. If anything could have compromised them on that basis, it's right there in the Prince George Citizen on the date of January 27. So let's not play around with implications that we have no right to discuss this issue from this side of the House. It's a very hot, topical public issue — as, indeed, it should be.

I just want to try and cover a few fast points in the last 15 minutes that I have. It bothers me a great deal to read the Minister's speech to the B.C. Teachers Federation. The number of times the word "control" appears in that speech really has me worried, because, frankly, I don't think anybody's trying to control the educational system.

But I'd like to quote part of the Minister's speech. On page 6 of the printed copy which the Minister circulated, she said:

"We are in a period of intense struggle for the control of public education because of the fact that several levels of the educational community are frequently at odds as to the direction which educational reform should proceed."

And there's some other part of that paragraph less relevant, but she finishes up by saying:

"I find that the majority of teachers I have talked to are pleased with the idea of decentralization and the opportunity for more input into the programme and curricula of the schools." And that's good. "They are pleased with the idea that they have a right to participate in decision-making which affects them and their students, but in the final analysis they are not asking for control."

I agree. Later on, at the end of that speech the Minister finishes up by saying:

"I want to say, too, that you as teachers and administrators, and I as Minister, do not have an easy job." I agree with that, for sure. "We are in the centre of the struggle for control of public education.

"We are faced with the dilemma of maintaining a common public school system in a diverse, pluralistic society. But I do believe that if we can maintain a good working relationship, a partnership facing up to this dilemma, and not become threatened by it or defensive, we will be able to serve well the needs of the students in our care."

Now, everybody's shouting around me this afternoon that I'm naive and that I'm not aware of some struggle to control.

If this is such a deep division of opinion that the government considers that there is some bitter struggle for control — and I'm so naive as not to see where it is — I hope the Minister will get up and tell us who the adversaries are in this control struggle. The more you read of the Minister's statements, the more you get the impression that she's constantly fighting off some kind of palace revolt. I really don't know if the forces fighting for this control are within her department or without the department. What's the state of the battle right now? Maybe the Minister could tell us.

[ Page 1335 ]

But if there is to be one theme running through the Minister's keynote speech to the teachers, it was that theme that there's a battle for control. Well, I want to make it very plain that some measure of centralized control by the Minister, any Minister, is essential, if only to justify our responsibility to scrutinize the spending of the $754 million. So I don't disagree with some measure of centralized control, but as I said, yesterday, we're debating the administrative responsibility of the Minister, and I feel that that centralized authority is fully compatible with distribution of varying degrees of authority to the boards, the teachers and all those involved.

I'm wondering if the Minister isn't confusing the eagerness and willingness of various groups to be involved in education; if she's not confusing that very well-motivated wish with some fear that different groups are trying to take over her department. The Minister is shaking her head.

Let me read two of the questions she asks in her speech: "Which single community of interest will exercise control to the exclusion of others?" Now nobody in their right mind wants that to happen, and so if it's in danger of happening, maybe the Minister will tell us which group is the one trying to take over.

The second question is exactly the question which should be asked: "Can all the communities of interest integrate their forces for a combined attack on the common problem?" Surely to goodness that has to be the wise and reasonable aim of all of us who are interested in education. Again I have to ask the question: can the Minister expect that kind of harmony and integration to flourish among groups in the light of the way in which she has handled these recent problems with the very people who are supposed to be demonstrating alternatives for change? How can the Minister expect confidence and harmony and a commitment by teachers, parents, pupils, taxpayers and politicians to contribute to this appropriate change when the kind of actions taken by the Minister have been, to put it kindly, somewhat arbitrary?

I mentioned a moment ago the tremendously frequent use of the word "control" and the last sentence where the Minister states that everything should work out all right if we don't feel threatened, or if we're not defensive. I've come to the very sad conclusion that if there are two words that sum up the Minister of Education's attitude and her actions in the last few months, it's these two words. The Minister feels threatened, by what I don't know, and she's being very defensive.

I think that's a very serious charge for me to make, and I realize how serious a charge it is. I only make it after a great deal of consideration of all I've heard and read, and the debate I've listened to. If the Minister wishes to deny that charge, that she feels neither threatened nor defensive, why is it that she's not answering some of the questions I've asked, which could clarify the whole situation very quickly?

In my last few minutes, I'd like to touch quickly on one or two other points. First of all, I think that the Minister's posture during the recent strike of janitors in the greater Victoria area was nothing less than a disgrace. We're getting into society at a time....

Interjection.

MR. WALLACE: I'll tell you what I would do. That's right. I'll tell you.

Interjection.

MR. WALLACE: Oh Roy! Go back to sleep, Roy.

MR. R.T. CUMMINGS (Vancouver–Little Mountain): You woke me up.

MR. WALLACE: Sorry I woke you up.

We're in a society where, in my view, since you're asking my opinion, the Minister of Education has a responsibility to see that our children get the education system which is provided for in the Public Schools Act. I totally reject, and I'll go on rejecting regardless of political expediency or otherwise, this concept that the Minister of Education has to keep her hands off a bitter public controversy because it's essentially a labour dispute.

Of course it's essentially a labour dispute, but the Minister has a responsibility to maintain, as best she can under the circumstances, education for our children under the Public Schools Act.

The other day I extracted from the Minister of Human Resources (Hon. Mr. Levi) a clear confirmation that in his department certain alternatives were taken to ensure that the recipients of social welfare would continue to receive service during the strike of the CUPE workers. I think that was a wise and sound decision to find some alternative way in which recipients could receive the service they were entitled to under the law.

All I'm saying is, surely to goodness we can do the same thing with the education of our children. Are we to think and try and accept that 20 or 30 people not directly related to the education of our children in Victoria can bring the whole system to a halt? I'm saying — as I presented in a petition to this House — that there are alternative ways in which some educational services could have been provided without any element of strikebreaking.

It's really ironic and sad.... I have a clipping here from 1968 or 1969 — I won't waste time to find it — when this Minister spoke in this House as an opposition Member and pleaded with the government to get into the field of educational TV. Here we are in

[ Page 1336 ]

1975 with a strike on our hands in Victoria and a cablevision station that operates four hours a day. What did the Minister do to try and make use of that service during the strike when our kids were getting one-hour-a-day education? I've checked with the cablevision station, and my information is that no attempt was made whatever to use their facility.

Interjection.

MR. WALLACE: I'm talking about the Minister's responsibility. Here again, Mr. Chairman, we have the same kind of evasive answer from the Minister. I'm trying to make the point that, in our view, the responsibilities of the Minister are a little different from the offhand way in which the Minister takes her position.

Interjections.

MRS. D. WEBSTER (Vancouver South): It's the school board's responsibility.

MR. WALLACE: I'm telling you the views of many parents, and it isn't enough to slough off.... No, it isn't enough for the Minister to slough off the responsibility by saying it was all the school board's problem.

The essential issue here, in our view, is that the Minister is responsible for sustaining educational services as provided for in the Public Schools Act. While I'm not overlooking for one minute the difficulties of labour problems — I'm not overlooking that at all — I'm saying that if it was possible for one department of your government, namely the Department of Human Resources, to maintain services which otherwise would have been picketed — and they wouldn't have crossed picket lines — there were alternatives that could have been used. I think that in this respect the Minister was less than diligent in her duty to sustain these educational services in the greater Victoria area.

She keeps saying: "Well, the school board didn't ask." I'm saying that there are lots of areas of responsibility for government Ministers where they shouldn't need to wait to be asked. The greater good of the greater number, I thought, was a principle that was generally well established over the centuries in the democratic idea. For the Minister to shelter behind the fact that the school board didn't ask her if they could work out some alternative ... I suggest that she's sadly lacking in initiative.

They didn't ask for a mediator. They didn't say: "Keep your hands off." They said they didn't want a mediator.

HON. MRS. DAILLY: Scotty, I don't think you've actually talked to the school board on this.

MR. WALLACE: I beg your pardon?

HON. MRS. DAILLY: I don't think you've actually spoken to the board on this.

MR. WALLACE: I've spoken on three or four or five occasions at great length, Madam Minister. I would suggest that you withdraw that remark. I've spoken to Mr. Ross, the chairman of the school board, right through the dispute on three or four occasions at great length.

HON. MRS. DAILLY: Mr. Chairman, I'll certainly withdraw the remark. It's just interesting that the impressions of your talks with the school board completely differ from the ones that they gave to me.

MR. WALLACE: Well, if the Minister's so keen to justify that position, I hope she will get up and talk in more detail after I sit down, because she didn't do very well yesterday. You haven't done very well today in answering questions. We're getting a little fed up with the evasion....

Interjection.

MR. WALLACE: Oh, come on! She....

Interjection.

MR. WALLACE: Yes, I will have to sit down; under the new rules I'll have to sit down in three minutes whether I like it or not. Maybe that's what's wrong with this government. When the heat gets on to the government, they're taking refuge in a variety of techniques, including closure.

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

MR. WALLACE: I just want to finish with a comment on the whole question of functional literacy, so-called. It again raised the spectre of television. It seems to me that television is at one time the curse and the blessing in the educational field. It's a curse because our kids sit in front of cartoons and garbage of one kind or another, which distorts their discriminatory development and certainly takes time away that in former years would be used by reading books or by developing their reading and writing skills. Instead of that, our children get stuck — mine included, I'm sorry to say — in front of the TV screen and watch some of the most ridiculous rubbish. Yet at the same time TV offers a modern technique which, unfortunately, we're not using hardly at all — or to a degree which is really just scratching the surface of its real potential.

I hope that the Minister, who had already touched

[ Page 1337 ]

upon educational TV and has mentioned, I think, in her budget speech that we were getting into it shortly....

MR. CHAIRMAN: Excuse me, Hon. Member. Your light is now on; you have two minutes.

MR. WALLACE: What can a guy do in two minutes?

MRS. P.J. JORDAN (North Okanagan): Well, do you want to know?

MR. WALLACE: I wonder if the Minister is going to answer some of the questions I asked her, if she could also tell us, with some kind of greater detail than she mentioned in the budget speech, what the potential is, or what are the government plans in her department to really get into educational TV. Furthermore, could she tell us what, if any, methods of educational TV she envisages for the future to get around or to be available where the more normal and formal methods of education within the four walls of a classroom are not possible, as in the case of a strike, of which I am sure we will have others in the future?

MR. D.E. LEWIS (Shuswap): I think it is time that government Members are recognized. I think it is time that the people in British Columbia really know what the story is, instead of the story that the opposition is spreading around this province.

I would first like to say that I oppose the amendment, and I am proud to say that I do. The Minister of Education in this province is an energetic, hardworking, dedicated Minister. I would just like to say before I start that, in my view, she is a credit to Women's Year. She shows what can happen, the type of work that women are capable of, that they are capable of just as high quality work as men, and this Minister is performing it. I'll place her credentials any day with many other people in this province, including the Social Credit government, the past government.

It is surprising to me that the mover and seconder of this amendment are Social Credit Members. After living with Mr. Brothers, and after seeing the type of work and the lack of educational improvement in this province under Mr. Brothers, they have enough gall to stand up in this House and move an amendment against this very fine Minister.

The Member who was speaking prior to me mentioned that somebody was trying to take control. I said he was naive, and I say he is naive. If you don't think that Mr. MacFarlan was on a power kick last year, he's mistaken. Mr. MacFarlan didn't represent the feeling of the people throughout this province, and I say he didn't represent the feeling of the teachers throughout this province. I am very glad to see that we have a new president for the BCTF. I am looking forward to constructive work with the Minister to try to improve education in this province to what people in this province want; not what the opposition wants, not to what Mr. MacFarlan wants, but to what the people in the Province of British Columbia desire.

There have been many fine programmes instituted under this Minister in a very short two and a half years. She took over what I would say was a sinking ship, maybe even a sinking oil tanker. It was a disaster. I'm not blaming the people in the department. I'm blaming the initiative that was put forward by the past Minister and by the past government.

There has been co-ordination since this Minister took over. Education, Human Resources, Health, Labour and the Attorney-General's department work together now instead of working at crossroads, and you can see improvements throughout the province in many areas where they are working together.

They fail to mention the fact that kindergarten is now a part of the school system in this province. I live in a rural riding where people had to donate all of their own time; they had to bus the children to school, and they had to finance it totally, in most cases from their own pockets. I say this is a very progressive step by the Minister.

She took off the freeze on classroom construction and gym construction that was imposed by the past government, and they talk about progressive education. I would like to see progressive education in this province without proper schoolrooms! They thought there would be. Where were they going to learn?

She improved pupil-teacher ratio dramatically to one of the best in Canada. For the Conservative Member (Mr. Wallace) to stand up and use the strike in the Victoria area against the Minister ... I would like him to take a look at Conservative Ontario and what happened there last year, and the lengthy strike in that province.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. LEWIS: How much guts did the Conservatives have then? How much initiative did they have in television in trying to get the message across to the students?

There have been very innovative programmes under this Minister. I am going to zero in on just one area. There are many other areas, but in my time I don't have time to cover them.

In BCIT we have the very innovative programme under Industry Services. This programme was initiated in 1969 by the Socred government, and at that time they were really bog goers — one instructor for the whole of the province. One instructor and one course.

[ Page 1338 ]

That's innovation for you.

In 1972, when we took over, there was still one instructor, but 15 courses. One instructor was supposed to handle those 15 courses. There is no way that that instructor could cope with that type of workload.

Since we became the government there have been dramatic improvements in that area. In 1975 we now have 60 instructors, and those 60 instructors are working on 250 different courses throughout this province.

These causes, in my opinion, were highly innovative. They were job-creative courses working out in all parts of the province, not tying it into one central core like Vancouver or Victoria — all over the province these courses were initiated.

I would just like to name some of the programmes that were initiated under this very innovative department. In Highways, we have many courses throughout the province where they are working with highways. One of them is the technical math that is being taught throughout the province to many, many people who worked up through the lines to foreman without having the proper chance for education.

There are areas like Grand Forks where there are students involved, Fort St. John, Nelson, Golden, Penticton, Nanaimo, Vancouver, Kamloops, Prince George, Dawson Creek, Hope, Pouce Coupe, Vernon — just to name a few. These are very good programmes, programmes that are needed by the working people out in those areas.

MR. CHABOT: Who gave you that information?

MR. LEWIS: Who gave me that information? It is public information. If the opposition had enough initiative to go and look for it and see what is happening in the Department of Education...

They also worked with Seaforth Plastics. This company had a very bad fire in the last year, the men were put out of work. The industry services programme set up a working programme with Seaforth Plastics during the reconstruction period of their plant to train their employees, to upgrade their training. This was very, very important because Canada Manpower worked along with them and these people never lost their payroll during that time, yet they had a chance to go ahead and improve their skills. I say that this is a very good programme, the type of programme that should have been considered throughout this province throughout the years.

They also worked with Industry Services through BCIT. That's funded by the Department of Education in case you don't remember.

They're working with Oakalla Prison, with the inmates in the prison. They work with prisoners who can get out of the institution and take courses to upgrade their educational skills in this province. I think that this is a very much-needed area, an area that has been neglected throughout the past. Oakalla in particular was neglected because there weren't facilities in that institution where they could be trained.

In the Attorney-General's department, Industry Services is working in the court system in training deputy sheriffs, justices of the peace, court workers, and also, in the Institute of Court Management. I would just like to say right now that the service that this sheriffs' service is supplying in this province is going to be needing many, many hours of training. This is a programme where we have the training available right in the province. We have it available throughout the province. We have it available from BCIT through Industry Services.

Registered nurses — B.C. has the only programme for registered nurses for upgrading their skills. As everybody knows, if they are out of the nurse's occupation for five years, their licenses become invalid. BCIT has made this course available all across Canada. It is not just tied into B.C. It's available all across Canada. People are taking it in Sudbury, Ontario; Prince George, B.C.; Perry Sound, Ontario; Spruce Grove, Alberta — all across the country. Many, many people in B.C. use this very necessary training.

They have also been involved in native training programmes. In Bella Bella, they train natives there in hotel management for the hotel the Indian people are looking after. In Campbell River, they had a course there training Indian band managers. In Port Simpson, they trained the supervisory staff for the Port Simpson cannery.

All these programmes are directed towards people and are directed towards upgrading their skills so that they can compete in society. I think that most of the discussion in this Minister's estimates has been directed towards the classroom, but I say this is a very, very important happening out in society today, with adult education and the chance that BCIT and Industry Services are providing.

They also trained counselors for the mentally retarded workshops. They train them in how to work with the people and how to improve their skills and how to train those people in how to get along in society and enjoy life the same as the rest of us.

They also are involved in the training of senior fireman officers throughout the province. They are working with the fish and wildlife conservation branch training officers.

They are also working in the area of new, legislation. When the Crown brings in new legislation, such as the sheriffs' services and many other changes which this progressive government has made since we have been elected, it also requires very trained people to take over these jobs. This is the type of work that the Industry Services has been performing through

[ Page 1339 ]

They are innovative programmes and yet the opposition will stand up in this House and say that this Minister hasn't moved in the area of education. This is just one of the areas.

In night schools in 1972, when we became the government, there was 2,000 students enrolled with BCIT in the Vancouver area. In 1975 there's 10,000 students who are enrolled there — adults who are upgrading their needs. There are courses available for cash register operators; they are working with the B.C. Ferry Authority in upgrading the employees there; they are training chief stewards, cash register operators, and they are even bar operators for the time when the Prince Rupert ferry has a bar on it.

These are all areas where the adults needed training, and often in the past these people came in from out of the province. They came from England, the United States, but through this service they are making jobs available to Canadians and British Columbians.

They are training bridge inspectors which both the highways department and the contractors are using extensively. These people are being given skills which were not available to them from a school in this area before. They have a course at the present time on avalanche stabilization and the effects of avalanches.

MR. J.R. CHABOT (Columbia River): That came under Highways.

MR. LEWIS: This is taught to people who come from ski resorts, wildlife branches, and the highways authority is also utilizing the information that is available from these people. You have to remember that these programmes are brought forward by the BCIT and Industry Services when there is a demand. They are not courses that have been here for years.

MR. CHABOT: Filibuster! Filibuster!

MR. LEWIS: Any time there is a need the service has been able to fill that need by bringing in instructors and training further instructors.

Now this just came at a good time — they are also teaching politicians how to handle themselves in front of TV cameras, and we can all use it.

MR. CHABOT: You should take it. You and Roy.

MR. LEWIS: Now that programme is available to the politicians and I would suggest that many of us take the opportunity and use it. Not just Roy and I. I can name a few down there.

They have also taught nurses in regard to operating nurses in the Kamloops area and in Vancouver. That's another area that was available in the province last year. They worked with CP Air last year in a training programme to staff the new 747 and the course was called "Avionics." That was a course where the radio technicians and electronic technicians could work together to take over new equipment that was installed on these planes. These were all very innovative programmes, all were introduced here in B.C. through BCIT and introduced through Industry Services.

They are presently working with a training programme at Kitimat. Alcan found themselves in a soft market this year for aluminum and 207 employees were to be laid off. Through the Department of Education, Canada Manpower and BCIT have initiated a programme where they will be training on the job....

HON. L.T. NIMSICK (Minister of Mines): That wasn't Bill 31 either.

MR. LEWIS: No, that wasn't Bill 3 1. These are all good things for the province the same as Bill 31 was. Bill 31 was a good bill. You just haven't realized the benefits from it yet.

The programme that was initiated at Kitimat was one of the first anywhere in Canada. It was a programme that saw that those 207 people were able to continue on a training course at full pay supported by the Department of Education and Canada Manpower.

I would like to thank Industry Services for working along with them and showing what can be done in the Department of Education and under this fine Minister in the Province of British Columbia.

There was also a programme instituted known as the sandwich programme in which they worked with Oakalla, Fish and Wildlife and various other departments and to give you an idea of how this programme works in Fish and Wildlife, they brought in the conservation officers throughout B.C., the ones who hadn't had a chance to upgrade their skills. They would spend one week at BCIT taking training in the classroom, then three months on the job. They would come back for one more week at BCIT, go back out in the field for three months again and then the last two weeks when they came back to the classrooms they worked with the Vancouver Police Academy in regard to law enforcement within their service.

After they had gone through this cycle they were granted a certificate which showed they were qualified in their area — and they truly were because they had been brought up to a par with other conservation officers who had been hired and trained recently.

They are also involved in a training programme in the province at the present time with 1,200 employees and they are upgrading the working skills of all of those employees. Now the company wishes to have its name left off the list because they realized

[ Page 1340 ]

in the past years they were negligent in not retraining. But, then, you also have to say that the opportunity wasn't there. Past governments didn't take the initiative in providing the type of services that have been available through BUT. I would like to thank the Minister for doing this at a time when we have high unemployment. It is a very positive step.

You know, when we took over as government in 1969, the whole of the industry services received $12,000. Oh, I'm sorry — we took over in '72.

MR. W.R. BENNETT (Leader of the Opposition): Now everybody is sorry.

MR. LEWIS: In 1969, $12,000 was spent towards upgrading adult education and skills. In 1975, we're spending $1.8 million, on this same programme. We've extended it throughout the province. We're giving people in all parts of the province a chance to keep up with what happens in the urban areas. I would just like to say that I have no hesitation in opposing this amendment. We have a fine Minister of Education. The opposition is being negative. They're looking for news coverage regardless of the cost of what it does to education. I think it's time they become a positive opposition, work with the Minister of Education for very good changes in this province.

HON. MRS. DAILLY: I've been waiting for the return of a number of people to the House, who have made some points earlier in the debate. Now I see some of them have returned, and I notice one has gone again — the Liberal leader. I'll just have to leave his questions for the time being. I notice the official opposition critic is here, as he is, I must say, most of the time. So I will start off with some of the points which he made.

He was questioning, and expressing his concern about changes which hadn't been made, and he felt that they were rather slow in coming about. Following that he went on to talk about the pupil-teacher ratio and the fact that, I suppose, there'd been a slowdown there. Then he mentioned the capital expense approval projects which apparently he felt should be speeded up, and I agree, and I talked about that yesterday. Then he mentioned finance, and the only point I want to make to the Hon. Member is does he consider those areas to be basic major educational change?

MR. H.W. SCHROEDER (Chilliwack): No.

HON. MRS. DAILLY: No. I'm glad to hear that, because I certainly don't either. They are areas that I think we all accept you need movement in, and I think that we have moved in those areas. We have had, as I said, to slow down somewhat on the pupil-teacher ratio, but we have a commitment to continue in that direction.

As far as finance, we do have our committee working on that now. I was just concerned, however, that the official opposition has to date, really, not spelled out for the people of the province, what they consider, to tell us what their party policies are for major educational change.

MR. LEWIS: Hear, hear.

HON. MRS. DAILLY: Because, you know, we get the same thing from the Conservative leader, and from the Liberal leader. I will give credit to the Member from the Social Credit Party who has certainly attempted to zero in on a number of issues — but this afternoon we have listened to the Conservative leader and the Liberal leader use up their time primarily on the whole matter of the one division of my department, and what happened in that division. Then, at the same time they complain that they are not having an opportunity to get into details in this department.

MR. D.A. ANDERSON: You answer the questions you want.

HON. MRS. DAILLY: I think it is most unfortunate, most irresponsible, actually, with a department the size of Education. I do not think you're doing justice to your constituents who send you here to spend your whole time on the one area and, may I say, to have the Hon. Member from Victoria stand up and spend most of his time on reading a letter which was handed to him today, almost becoming the advocate for this particular person when he's quite aware that the public grievance is going to take place — that that particular individual will have an opportunity to present his case there and so will the department.

Many of the questions you were asking answers for, I say again to you, will encroach on what will take place in that hearing.

Very specifically, however, the Hon. Member for Oak Bay (Mr. Wallace) did ask some specific questions about research and development, which I feel certainly can be answered here, and I want to make it quite clear that I am not a Minister who sits here and wants to evade answering questions.

MR. D.A. ANDERSON: Fourteen questions and not one of them answered.

HON. MRS. DAILLY: I will answer the questions when you provide responsible questions, and ones which any Minister can answer without encroaching on proper procedures which are going to take place.

Before we go on to the research and development questions asked by the Member for Oak Bay, I would

[ Page 1341 ]

like to go back to the Hon. Member for Chilliwack (Mr. Schroeder), who did make, I thought, some good points on the whole matter of literacy. It's obvious that he's concerned, and he's done a considerable amount of reading on this. The only point where I would disagree with you, Hon. Member, is when you seem to endorse the idea that literacy will be restored if we in this province will turn to more structured systems.

Maybe you have an opportunity to correct that, but you did suggest that the tests that you had looked at, the research that you had read, did suggest that in the less structured classrooms, illiteracy was down. In other words, then I would interpret that....

Interjection.

HON. MRS. DAILLY: Would you agree with that? Well, I would assume, since you used it, that you endorse that statement. My feeling is, of course, it's not so much the structure of the classrooms. We want to leave the freedom of the teacher in that area. It has been the unstructured programmes of the '60's.

Interjection.

HON. MRS. DAILLY: As one, right. Yes, that's one area, but I think you would agree with me that it was the unstructured programming, the looseness of the guidelines in curriculum which were given to the teachers of the '60's, which did leave a vacuum in the basic skill-teaching. You're quite right when you agree that we should do something about this, and I won't go over it again in the House. I've repeated it. We are planning our programme.

You did mention some concern about why we are having a questionnaire first, and I want to just reiterate that that is for the teachers to get their input on the areas that concern them, and then following that will be the actual testing procedure.

MR. SCHROEDER: Let's do it now.

MRS. DAILLY: Well, we are. We're starting right away on that one and then, immediately after that, we will try and move in to the testing, but I must tell you that, as you know, any preparation of such tests in the functional literacy area has to be done very skillfully and very carefully. That's why we're not able to produce them just overnight. But the members of my department, with assistance from teachers, et cetera, are working on them right now. I do think it's unfortunate when the term "permissive" is used because it has been misused to a great degree also.

I think we all have one concern, and that is as you said: to keep a balance, to build up the functional skills and, at the same time, create a school system where the student has an opportunity to use his creativity and imagination and, of course, become a good citizen. So it certainly can never be one-sided and I was glad to hear you say that you yourself become concerned at the thought of a backlash, Mr. Member, which I think we must all be very wary of — that we do not lose, as the Hon. Member for Oak Bay (Mr. Wallace) said, the good things; that we build on the good things of the past.

Maybe I've left something out, Mr. Member, that you asked me. That was all I had in my notes. There was the area that was brought up by the Member for Oak Bay on R and D. You asked some specific questions, Mr. Member. I'm just trying to find them here.

I think first of all you asked how much did it cost to date, and I just checked with my Deputy and my financial superintendent. We don't have that figure here now, but I'll see that you get it. They are not able to produce it right here at this moment.

You also expressed concern that the research and development personnel who had been there formerly and are no longer there.... You asked what had happened to the finance study. That finance study was already underway with an internal body from the department and it has now been expanded. I spoke on that in the budget debate. It has now been expanded with trustee and teacher representatives also. So the study on the whole matter of a more equitable financing system was started quite a while ago and is continuing.

The right to education is a very important one. It is moving along quite well. The Berger family law commission, as you know, also was studying this and one member from our department, one of the consultants from R and D who is still working as a consultant, worked on that committee with the Berger commission and together they have put in many hours for the production of a paper on the right to education which will be released shortly, So I can assure you that both the ones that you were concerned about are going on.

I was rather shocked may I say, Mr. Member for Oak Bay (Mr. Wallace), when you asked what's going to happen with that vote. Finally someone was looking at the votes in the book, you said, and there's this money, around $2 million for research and development, and there's no division. Now in the budget debate I explained I thought very carefully in detail what was happening in that area, and again I spoke on it since our estimates started. So, for the third time, I would like to repeat to the Hon. Member for Oak Bay that the bulk of the vote for research and development will be going to continue financing innovative programmes, which the bulk of the vote went for last year, and that's why it's expanded. There will be solid research done. We also have a great number of requests from individuals and groups

[ Page 1342 ]

across the province to finance innovative programmes.

We are working on a development in which we are putting money into the area of Vancouver East to look at the particular problems in that area as an example of a specific socio-economic area which may have specific problems; to see if the way we now hand out money for special education financing is really appropriate. We now spend close to $20 million on financing of special classes — not only special classes but supportive services — and we are rather concerned whether we are really getting — the question which was asked by one of the other Members — our money's worth in this area. When I say our money's worth, I mean: are the children benefiting from the money spent in this area?

I am very proud of the work done by the people in the supportive service department under Mr. Walsh, and he himself is initiating some studies on the whole matter of: is this money being spent in the most appropriate way?

But I do know that in the area of special services Mr. Walsh's division has made tremendous inroads in assisting young people with special learning difficulties. Right now his department is setting up meetings right across the province with parents, students and teachers to discuss this very vital area of children with learning disabilities.

So when you ask what is going on with community input, it's going on right now under the leadership of the personnel in my department.

I'm not sure if there was another question here that I've missed. You were asking about the cost, the expenditures.

MR. WALLACE: The appointment to succeed.

HON. MRS. DAILLY: Oh, yes. The appointment to succeed. I should go over this part again. I know there has been a question asked why Dr. Pederson was appointed from UVic. The whole idea of that appointment, along with three or four consultants, I think, has been explained already. The total cost of that study, I think, is roughly $25,000.

They should have their report in shortly, I hope, or within a month. It will be looking at and analyzing educational research done in other parts of Canada, and international research in other areas, other parts of the world. They will make a recommendation to our department on the best way to carry on the thrust of research and development for our department.

I admit quite candidly that our approach, in my opinion, was not producing in the way in which I had hoped. Now I am asking Dr. Pederson to present to us a comprehensive report on the best operations that he and his consultant have had an opportunity to study so that we can properly build up, if desired, a research and development section. He might recommend that it be in another form altogether, I don't know. We will await his report, and certainly it will be made available to the House.

But I want to assure the people of the province, as I already did in the budget speech, that this does not mean the end of research and development until this report comes in. Every day school boards are writing in asking for funding for some special programme which they feel would be of benefit to try out in their district, and these funding proposals are being carried out.

The native Indians of the province are asking for assistance, environmental programmes — the list is endless. As a matter of fact, I have with me a complete list of all the innovative projects which were funded last year, which I'm glad to make available to you if you're interested in studying them. And this is an ongoing thing.

You might ask who is vetting through all these proposals. It is being done under the Deputy Minister with a group of his management team at the present time — that is the vetting of the projects. When it comes to development, at this time many of the school boards of the province, and communities, are writing in and saying that they have a good development programme; will we finance it? And if we think it's worth financing, then opportunity is given to them to do so.

It's difficult to really reply to the Member for Victoria (Mr. D.A. Anderson) because he spent his whole time on research and development. I still find it shocking that with the budget portfolio this size that is how he chose to use his time.

Interjection.

HON. MRS. DAILLY: The very fact that the people involved in this, in reply to the Member for Victoria, are being given the opportunity for their due process before the grievance board .... I think you'd have to accept the fact that they are being given an opportunity of being treated in a proper manner. All this can be brought out at the time they have their hearings, but I do not think that the people of the province, or even the legislators here, are going to their time served well by holding that enquiry right here on the floor of this House.

In the matter of control, I was really disappointed in the Member for Oak Bay (Mr. Wallace) in that he seemed to have taken such a surface approach to that statement on who was going to control education. When the Member for Shuswap (Mr. Lewis) called out, I believe: "You are naive, Mr. Member, if you do not understand the point the Minister is making", I must say that, unfortunately, I feel that the Member for Oak Bay is unbelievably naive to ask that question.

[ Page 1343 ]

MR. WALLACE: If I'm naive, then tell me the answer. Tell me the answer.

HON. MRS. DAILLY: I don't think you get the point.

Who is going to control education? Everyone in the educational community, whether it be parents, teachers, any group of people who get together to talk education, has his own ideas on what direction education should go. Some of these groups may openly feel, and most of them so feel, that their ideas are right. Some become very strong, very vocal and very militant. Others do not; they are more or less the voiceless group. My concern is that no matter whether they're voiceless or whether they become militant, at no time can any government allow any minority group to have their ideas imposed upon the majority in education.

There are groups all over the province. You perhaps could even sit in your living room with a number of people in your own party and come out with very strong ideas on educational policy. But I don't think even the Conservative Party, Mr. Member, would want to run a campaign saying, "When we come in office it will be our Conservative ideas on education which will be imposed," any more than I feel that I have the right as Minister of Education representing the New Democratic Party to say that only the ideas of the New Democratic Party socialist government are going to be imposed upon this system.

We must listen to all the people. Every party must have a platform. But once you come in office, you look at your platform, you weigh it, you look at the majority of the citizens of this province, and some of your platform you know is acceptable. This is where you must use your own judgment. But to just come in....

MR. WALLACE: You just change your platform once you get in, is that it?

HON. MRS. DAILLY: You don't have to change your platform. In our party we have a democratic party convention in which everyone has an opportunity to partake in the discussion on the educational platform. Then it's up to the Minister of Education to speak at those conventions and to say whether she thinks something is workable or not. That's our responsibility. Then, finally, through those discussions we usually find that when the Minister actually has to make those decisions, they are based on what we hope are responsible decisions which reflect the majority of the citizens of the province.

All I'm explaining to you, Mr. Member, is that no one specific group can control education. I think you're naive to actually think that there are not groups in the province who, not maliciously but because they believe very strongly that their ideas are the only ideas, would attempt to control education. I think this must be very carefully guarded against.

MRS. JORDAN: Mr. Chairman, I was amazed and interested to hear the Minister say that she was shocked at some of the questions being asked by the Members of this House. In fact, she's behaving as if she's really in shock, and perhaps this is an answer to some of her problems and why she is making some of the non-decisions she is.

Madam Minister, if you think you are shocked by some of the questions that are being asked by the Members of this House, let me, on behalf of all the Members, assure you that there are teachers, parents and students in this province who are reeling from the shock of your administration and who, in fact, are having their concerns about your administration reflected through the questions in this House.

Speaking of shock, I was shocked myself when the Minister took to task the Hon. Member for Oak Bay (Mr. Wallace), who I'm not known to defend very often. But I think his question was, indeed, a legitimate one.

MR. WALLACE: There's a first time for everything.

MRS. JORDAN: Well, I need some aspirin and I want a prescription.

His question was, indeed, a legitimate one. For the Minister to stand up in this House and — if I quote her right — say that were he to be elected he would not advocate Conservative ideas being imposed in the educational system — I think probably he wouldn't — and then to say: "I, as Minister, would not dream of imposing NDP ideas in the educational system...." I wish to advise you that one of the most serious concerns in this province today of parents and many teachers and students is that under this Minister's jurisdiction this government has, in fact, set a snowball rolling on partisan education in this province. It's one of the very strong — along with many other — points for suggesting that there must be other means of financing educational systems in this province to counterbalance this strong partisan imposition that is being imposed by this Minister.

You know, Madam Minister, leaders are judged first by their leadership ability and their ability to make decisions, and secondly by the quality of the people they attract around them as advisers and employees. If we were to bring in a report card today, Madam Minister, we would see under "pass" or "failure" that this Minister has failed miserably. The comments would read: "Has tended to make emotional and partisan decisions detrimental to education in this province."

[ Page 1344 ]

Interjection.

MRS. JORDAN: Madam Minister, you're sitting next to one.

Interjection.

MRS. JORDAN: Madam Minister, if you cannot understand what we're talking about, if you have not been listening to the people of this province, if your question, "Tell me, tell me now," is a reflection of your very deepest understanding, then education is in an even more serious position in this province than we had anticipated. The matter of emotionalism was brought to your attention, Madam Minister, by myself when you first assumed office.

I pointed out to you and other Members pointed out to you that the responsibilities were very different from those as a Member at large or in the opposition, and that there was no room in this crucial area and field of education.... It is never an easy portfolio, because there are never best of times in education and there never will be or education won't be meeting its responsibilities. There has to be flexibility and responsibility within the field itself. But there is no room for hasty decisions, there is no room for partisan decisions. There is no room for payoffs to old political ties. There is no room for emotional decisions.

The Minister chose to ignore this advice. This is one of the reasons she is suffering the fate that she is today.

I would just mention in referring to the Minister and previous speakers (and I see he's left the House) that on behalf of the Minister, I take offence at the pitiful defence of this Minister by the Member for Shuswap (Mr. Lewis) when he tried to defend her very real problems and the very real problems of this province in education by hiding behind Women's Year. This Minister may be incompetent and she may have some other very glaring disabilities, such as the inability to make decisions, but she is not a quitter, and she is not one, I am sure, to hide behind any masquerade of Women's Year. I feel sure that she will stand up and take her lumps. I suggest that the Member for Shuswap issued an insult to all women in British Columbia. Women are prepared to stand on their own abilities and their own talents or fall on them, but we are not going to hide behind any paper Women's Year or any other papers.

I was also interested in the Member for Shuswap's condemnation of Mr. MacFarlan, the recent past president of the B.C. Teachers Federation ... and little short of saying, because of time, that this Member obviously stands for what he thinks his constituents will fall for. I find the fact that a short time ago, when sitting in opposition and when first as Minister, this Minister of Education and this party were staunch supporters of Mr. MacFarlan, and the fact that Mr. MacFarlan was a very staunch supporter of this party but because of the obligations that this Minister incurred and was unable to cut he now finds himself in the position to publicly receive acceptance for condemning this man, to be just another example of the unprincipled attitude that many of these Members take.

Madam Minister, I mentioned the concern that a leader is judged by his leadership abilities, and this has been canvassed very readily by many other Members. Because we as Members are now shocked to find that stateism is now creeping stronger, ever more strong, into this House, and we are limited in our debate....

HON. MRS. DAILLY: What is stateism?

MRS. JORDAN: The Minister says: "What is stateism?" I'll tell you, Madam Minister, and I'll tell you, Mr. Attorney-General (Hon. Mr. Macdonald), stateism is one of the things that is happening in this House where the state is all-supreme, where the concerns of the people of this province and the opinions of the elected representatives of the people of this province do not count. The actions of this government, in many ways that I won't go into at this moment because of lack of time, are clear evidence that this government, whether it's education, whether it's land, or whether it's justice, believes that the state is all-powerful and the state should rule and people and opinions and the people's opinions do not count.

We have seen this in education, Madam Minister. That is one of your problems. In this very debate, we see stateism. You, Madam Minister, are not hiding behind Women's Year, according to the reports today; you are hiding behind stateism and closure. This government and you as Minister of your department are unable or unwilling to stand up to the detailed and acute questioning of the public representatives in this province who want to know what you are doing, what your policy is, and how you are justifying the spending of $754 million of the taxpayers' money.

Mr. Chairman, I don't intend to go into the whole matter that has been well canvassed of the fired five, Mr. Bremer and other selected personnel, by this Minister, who have received the chop of another form of stateism, which shows just how this government looks upon labour-management relations. They talk one way, Mr. Chairman, but they act another when it comes to their own jurisdiction.

What does concern us and what does concern the public, Madam Minister, and the question which you have not answered, is: What is your procedure for selection? How did you hire these people and, furthermore, how do you intend to hire people in the future? You have ads running in the Sun, The

[ Page 1345 ]

Province, and nearly every paper in this province right now for people for your department at salaries up to $30,000 or $35,000 a year plus expenses. Madam Minister, how do we know these are not other Bremers? How do we know these are not other Knights? How do we know these are not going to suffer the same fate of the fired five?

Madam Minister, I asked you when you hired Mr. Bremer what you had done in the way of securing references on this gentleman. You didn't answer that question. You issued a press release which I have here and which I won't go into — it was November, 1972, a page long on Mr. Bremer's qualifications. I want to know how you are going to screen people you are hiring for your department. This has been asked before; I asked it the last session. My colleague, the critic of education, asked it yesterday, This Minister hasn't answered.

Madam Minister, I wrote about Mr. Bremer. I wrote to his training school, I wrote to the Philadelphia school, I wrote to friends of his. Anyone who did a research on this gentleman knew exactly how this gentleman was going to react and the type of ideas he was going to propose.

I don't choose to comment on whether those ideas are right or wrong. But either this Minister had no screening programme and hired this man on an emotional decision or for partisan reasons or because she has a political obligation, or in fact she is not capable of judging a person's qualifications. The background of this man is very typical of his behaviour that he undertook in British Columbia.

It's the same, Madam Minister, for the fired five and I won't go into their backgrounds. But they were all people employed in the educational field at qualified institutions in this country. Madam Minister, every one of them had a dossier for references. Why did you hire them? How are you going to assure this House that you are not going to make the same mistakes again?

This is nothing to do with their ability to appeal your firing or dismissal or suspension. But it is, Madam Minister, a question you must answer because we must know. The people of British Columbia must know how you are going about selecting these people for your department which is spending hundreds of thousands of dollars for committees. They must know how you are screening them and how we're going to be sure that we are not going to have this disastrous waste of money, and this absolutely devastating attack on people's reputations and professional careers that has taken place.

There is great concern, Madam Minister, because of this constant need on the part of the Minister to tell us through press releases, through speeches and public statements that: "I am the boss." That, Madam Minister, is a waste of time and it's a waste of taxpayers' money. When you set out to hire the various people we have discussed and many more, you also recorded in the newsletter of the B.C. Teachers Federation, Vol. 12, No. 4, December 1972, a number of points.

One of these was: "For the present the Minister stated she was attempting to establish an education policy first before creating a new finance policy." That was in 1972, Madam Minister, and this is now the spring of 1975 and we still have no educational policy in British Columbia. What we keep getting are mistakes after mistakes; fiascos after fiascos and constant reassurances that, in spite of this, the Minister is the boss.

It's not really of concern to the public who the boss of the department is. It is of ' concern to the public that education in British Columbia has some direction, that the people administering the core of education in terms of its formal application are responsible people and are doing a good job and have a reasonable degree of freedom from political influence and emotional decisions to do that job. What assurance are you going to give us that we're not going to have another year at $48,00 a year salary plus expenses, for you? That we are not going to have another year of emotional decisions or indecisions or hiring and firing?

[Mr. Kelly in the chair.]

It concerns me, Madam Minister, when I listen to you speak that you talk ever again of committees, studies, more committees. One of the major problems, it has been said, of people with a very high degree of education is that they know so much they can't make a decision. I would suggest to you, Madam Minister, that there is a danger of having so much information thrown at you that it is impossible to make a decision.

The Deputy Minister has said, and been quoted as saying that he "believes he has seen every conceivable approach and aspect of education discussed." But still no decisions. Yet he's been your Deputy Minister for over two years. You have been Minister for three years. I suggest that perhaps you might put the brakes on some of your interest in commissions and studies and get down to analyzing the information that is before you and make some positive decisions.

I don't want to give the impression that I don't respect this Minister as an individual, because certainly I do. I think when she took over as Minister of Education she had extremely high ideals and hopes for education. And it's regretful that whether it's circumstances, incompetence or political interference by her colleagues that this has not happened. But, Madam Minister, something must happen because we simply must have direction from your department and from you as Minister.

We are involved in a tin-cup approach to financing.

[ Page 1346 ]

The reading that I get is that if you are a school board that does your best and don't rattle the bones, then you get one form of financial assistance. But if you are a school board that is close to the Minister and have easy access to the Minister....

Interjection.

MRS. JORDAN: It came to me directly, Madam Minister, from a member of a school board within a reasonable distance, who said....

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order! Order!

HON. MRS. DAILLY: On a point of order. I would ask the Hon. Member to withdraw that suggestion that any particular school board has any influence with me.

AN HON. MEMBER: Hear, hear!

MRS. JORDAN: Madam Minister, I think you misinterpreted my statement. My concern and the concern of many educational people is how are these special grants being administered.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I would ask that you withdraw.

MRS. JORDAN: Can the Minister assure this House...?

MR. CHAIRMAN: Madam Member, would you sit down, please?

MRS. JORDAN: That's not unparliamentary.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Would you sit down please? Madam Member, I didn't....

MRS. JORDAN: Mr. Chairman, I am short of time because there is closure in force in this House, so I will withdraw.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Would you sit down, please?

MRS. JORDAN: I withdraw.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Then you may proceed.

MRS. JORDAN: The concern of the people and many school boards is that there is no known criteria for receiving special funds. We saw last year almost instantly the Education budget was passed in this House and debated by Members, that a group came over from one area on the lower mainland, camped on the main steps of the Parliament Buildings, and received a financial commitment. That's a very well-known example.

Without taking more time, I would suggest to you, Mr. Chairman, that there are many examples in this province, and there is much concern in this province right now that the Minister has not made clear what are the criteria, or what are the guidelines for all school districts to get the same type of treatment in terms of financial assistance.

I would like to ask you, Madam Minister, a number of other questions. I would like to make comments on various aspects of Education, but again we are facing closure, so I'll touch at the moment on a number of points very lightly. But I hope you will appreciate that in approaching them in a relatively undetailed way that this is a time element rather than a lack of concern about the subject.

One minor point is the hot lunch committee. In 1972, I believe it was, in the fall, the Minister named a committee to examine the necessity and the quality and the nutritional aspects of serving hot lunches in British Columbia. If I remember correctly, a lady by the name of Mrs. Laddie from Vernon, and Mrs. O'Neil from Salmon Arm were on the committee, and I stand to be corrected if this is not so, and I believe there was one man.

To my knowledge to this date no one has publicly heard about the hot lunch committee. My question is, are they still out to lunch, or has there been a report? What work have they done? What were the costs involved in that work, and what were their recommendations?

My next point, Madam Minister, which I've brought to your attention, and I have brought this to your attention before but never received an answer about the hot lunch committee. This is a small point. I've asked you about it. It was a commitment by the former Minister to investigate it, and you have consistently shunted it from side to side. That is this whole matter of the possible feasibility of deafness being an occupational hazard for music teachers, workshop teachers and others.

In workshops I know they wear ear muffs, but there has been nothing done in that area as far as music teachers are concerned. I have written to the Minister on many occasions. She has written to me back. She said she referred it here or there, but the essence to this date to my knowledge is that nothing has been done.

I offered the Minister the services of School District 22, with their consent. There are music teachers there who are aware of this concern and who would be willing to do anything they could to make some input. Because if, in fact, this is an occupational hazard, then there certainly must be adjustments in pension benefits and compensation benefits, as well as the fact that it may well be something that can be altered by band room, music room construction.

The next point that I would like to ask the Minister about is the review of the policy of land

[ Page 1347 ]

acquisition for school districts in relation to the fact that — and it was a policy of the former government, I'm well aware — they can only buy land that is essential for construction within a specific period of time. The problem arises where school boards may wish to buy three acres of land adjacent to a present small school, but in fact, because of the land freeze, that is a 10-acre parcel.

As the situation stands now, we've done it in our area and other MLAs have done it, it is a matter of juggling these land purchases so that if you do get it out of the land freeze, or even before, you have to get a party to buy the land on a companion basis. In other words, the school board buys three acres and an individual buys the other five acres at the same time. It is not always possible to get the best buyer right at that time. I recognize this needs reasonable regulations, but if the Minister, where this is a justified case, would permit the school board to buy the whole tract of land, then go through the procedure of getting it out of the land freeze, and then be free to sell the balance of the land within a reasonable period of time, I think she would find that in the long run we would cut land acquisition costs in some instances. Also, many school boards would find that they would get along with land acquisitions much more quickly than they have been able to in the past.

The next point that I would like to touch on, Madam Minister, without because of the time again, going into too much detail, you said you were working on a new finance policy, but I think there is a need right now for a change in the finance policy regarding renovation of other schools.

There are many schools in British Columbia which are really quite old in terms of number of years ago having been built. But basically they offer a good learning situation. They are sound in structure, but they do need renovations. Many of these renovations could be made in the way — providing the architects don't get too involved — that doesn't involve major shifting of walls, but does involve new lighting and sinks. In fact, there could be additions of rooms to that building, but also must be renovations within the building itself.

I think it is very worthy to want as many new buildings and up-to-date buildings as possible, but I also think there are many very compatible, happy, and very desirable learning situations that take place in an older building and are influenced by the fact that it is an environment of an older building.

I am sure the Minister has had the experience, as I have, of going into some schools which are really very old schools. I'll cite Beairsto School in Vernon. I think the Minister was there. Basically, it is a fine building. The classrooms are a reasonable size, the halls are wide, but for years the problem was lack of lighting and sinks and things like this.

Under the former administration, we had great difficulty getting money for it because of the formula. We did eventually. Today, that is an excellent school. The teachers are happy. The students are happy. They want a few more renovations but that school is offering a service as a facility and will do for many years to come.

We have a school in Vernon, Polsen School, down by the park, where we desperately need money to renovate the inside of the school. There are some minor renovations going on now but they are not really sufficient to meet the needs of the changes in that school. It needs new lighting. It needs a number of new things. It needs more capital assistance than is allowable now under the formula and in relation to the moneys available. I would urge the Minister to review this situation and make it more flexible and easier for school boards to get money for renovation of good, sound, older buildings.

I would like to ask the Minister about her thoughts on nursery schools, how she has brought kindergartens under the jurisdiction of the school boards on a compulsory basis. I would just briefly like to ask her if there is any intention on her part or the part of the department to move into the area of daycare of nursery schools and bring them into the realm of education and educational facilities.

The Minister of Human Resources (Hon. Mr. Levi) has been quoted as saying he thinks it is a dandy idea to have nursery schools in school buildings. I would disagree with him very strongly. I would hope that the Minister would. I think if we move to a system where we virtually institutionalize children from the age of three until 12, that we will compound the problems of restlessness and rebellion that we see evidenced in many teenagers from around 13 or 14.

I think a change of environment every few years is essential for all of us. Certainly, it is essential in the educational system. A child conceivably could go to schools within a three-block area from the age of three until 12. This, I believe, would be disastrous.

I believe that nursery schools are very necessary, in many instances are very desirable. But, they should be an environment entirely apart from an educational environment. They should be an environment that encourages and allows the child to be free and to be a child. I don't know that we have to be so all-fired in a hurry to educate our children from the womb to the tomb. It might well be that we have to recognize that if you can't be a child when you're a child, when can you be? If you start to be a child when you are 70, then you are senile. So why not look very strongly at a child's life?

Perhaps this is a fundamental right, for a child to be a child — for a child to be in a child's environment, not necessarily a learning environment. Just that magnificent, almost — I don't like to say "nothingness" — but it is, it is a cloud of really

[ Page 1348 ]

nothingness in terms of directions, in terms of direction, but it's a cloud of magnificence in terms of beauty and human freedom. It is something that probably all of us would secretly like to have many times in our life.

If we deprive children of this natural experience and this natural right, then I suggest we are doing a great disservice. I think we should not allow ourselves, nor should the Minister allow herself, or if she does, she must examine very carefully, to be swayed by one authority or another in terms of...

MR. CHAIRMAN: Hon. Member, you're on your last two minutes. The warning light has come on now.

MRS. JORDAN: ...momentarily, popular trend.

Education has many needs. Children have many needs. They've all been discussed and there are many more to be discussed.

But please, Madam Minister, give us your views on the right of a young child to just be a child.

Mr. Chairman, there were other things I wanted to talk about, the Okanagan Regional College. I wish the Minister would advise me. She knows what my questions are. I referred to them in the budget debate. It is with genuine regret that I support this amendment because the Minister has not shown the leadership, the Minister's administration has proven inadequate.

In the province there is fear, concern and frustration within the public, whether they are parents, teachers, or pupils. I would urge the Minister, I'd urge all Members, to support this amendment with a view to getting education onto a positive basis, to having an education Minister who will make decisions and whose claim to leadership is not press releases, but, in fact, deeds.

MR. R.H. McCLELLAND (Langley): Mr. Chairman, I'll only be a very few moments, but I did want to rise since this will probably be the last opportunity to rise in this House and support this amendment because of the efforts of the government to stifle the opportunity of the opposition to successfully debate and bring forward the concerns of the people of British Columbia during the estimates of the Ministers. Just as an aside, I think it's a cruel joke on democracy the way this government has moved to close the door on meaningful debate in the most important part of the parliamentary process, the discussion of Ministers' estimates.

In supporting this amendment to the motion, I just wish to express concern that the Minister of Education has wasted almost three years of chance for reform, chance for dialogue, chance for movement, chance for activity. The students of British Columbia are the big losers in this lack of direction for almost three years since this Minister has been in charge of the Education department. Unfortunately, like so many of the other Ministers in this government, this Minister of Education has become so mixed up in the development of a bureaucratic structure that she's lost sight of educational needs in British Columbia.

Members of the opposition on this side of the House warned this government that it would be in trouble if it insisted on making major moves for political purposes, making political appointments instead of appointments on the basis of need or on the basis of ability. Yet we see that the Minister had to take and destroy a whole department, the research and development department, because she did make those appointments initially for political purposes rather than on a basis any kind of ability, and because she made them in haste.

She opened the door, initially, to a group of radicals who apparently, at the time of their appointment, agreed with the Minister's philosophy on a number of occasions — school instruments for social change. But now the Minister, for one reason or another, was forced to back off. Perhaps, to her credit, because she learned finally that the people she appointed were more interested in political action than in education.

In the meantime, while all of this has been going on and the department has been floundering, the people of British Columbia have been waiting for something to happen.

The so-called White Paper that was delivered to this House with such a flurry was a farce. It was held out as some kind of a blueprint for the future. Instead, it was a blueprint for failure.

Mr. Chairman, the Minister made much about the new departments created in this government being a cause for the decline in the percentage of spending by Education. I find that argument by the Minister to be most impractical and certainly to have no relevancy to the facts as they are in British Columbia, because not only is the percentage of spending, as it compared to the total budget, down in British Columbia, but the amount of dollars is lacking — the total amount of dollars in school construction.

I don't know whether these figures have been brought forward before; perhaps they have, but it wouldn't hurt to bring them forward again. In 1968 the total cost of school construction in this province was something over $37 million; in 1969 it was $35 million; in 1970 it was over $45 million; in 1971 it was $51 million; in 1972 it was up to $55 million; but in 1973 it was down to $39 million. A sizable decrease in the total amount of money spent for school construction in British Columbia. Yet taxes are way, way up for the cost of education in this province.

Unless something drastic happens in a very short time, the taxpayers of this province are going to be

[ Page 1349 ]

paying the cruel price for the increased cost of the bureaucratic monster that has been created in this province.

For instance, in its provisional budget, Surrey is facing a 65 per cent increase in the school mill rate; 65 per cent in one year. The taxpayers have been kicked in the teeth by the Minister who promised that this government would remove the cost of education from property taxes. Not only have they removed it, but we are seeing a 65 per cent increase in one school district alone this year.

We've seen a crisis a month in education since this Minister took over. The Minister obviously hasn't been able to get control of her department. She has, on more than one occasion, first of all passed the buck to the school districts, who she termed irresponsible for doing what they were told to do by the Minister in the first instance, and then passed the buck to her staff, to whom she has abdicated her responsibilities.

The Member for Chilliwack (Mr. Schroeder) read this out in the House yesterday, but I think that it, too, bears repeating. The Minister, when announcing that she had destroyed the research and development department of her department, said that it was the recommendation of her Deputy Minister that led her to announce that the probationary terms of five research officers were being terminated. Yet, on the same hand, the Minister said in a speech not too long ago — just last week, as a matter of fact — to the British Columbia Teachers Federation that the final responsibility for new directions in education must rest with elected officials accountable to the public. By the same token, she tells us that it's her Deputy Minister who is running the department, not her.

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

The Minister yesterday, Mr. Chairman, said that all of the problems of education are going to be solved by putting out a newsletter. Her department is going to put out a newsletter. That's a typical solution on the part of this government. When in trouble, oil up the propaganda machine.

It should be a great publication if it's like any of the other publications we've seen come out by this government, and it's going to go, I'm sure, into great, glowing accounts about the Minister herself and her department. Certainly it won't have any substance about new directions or new policies, because there haven't been any. So it will have to be the typical NDP propaganda newsletter.

Interjection.

MR. McCLELLAND: Oh, I'm sure there won't be any opposition statements in the newsletter. It will be like the British Columbia Government News and the weekly release from the Premier's office.

Interjections.

MR. McCLELLAND: Well, the people of British Columbia will pay for it. That'll be more of the money that's being collected from the school districts which were told that they wouldn't have to pay for education any longer. Now they're going to pay for newsletters, with words by Peter McNelly, music by John Twigg and choreograph by Marc Eliesen.

Interjections.

MR. McCLELLAND: The Minister said yesterday that she's getting letters from teachers and parents and students asking for leadership. Well, that's what we're saying. All we want in this province is some leadership on behalf of the Education Minister, and we're not getting it. All we're asking for, too, is leadership and a few ideas from that Minister of Education, who has played a hoax on the students and parents in this province.

The Minister — and I would have hoped she would have explained a little further — I believe, said yesterday that the education department was moving on some new directions for Jericho School. I think that's what she said. I would like the Minister to stand up and tell us what directions those are and exactly what moves, beside the appointment of a board, or the approval of appointing a board to oversee the operations of the deaf and blind school, what else is being done?

Have the staff commitments been realized that are necessary to make sure that Jericho can operate on a meaningful basis? Are there still concerns in that school about the need for new direction, new staff, new opportunities for the children that are being cared for in that school? Exactly what is happening? I'm told that there's still an urgent concern among parents and teachers at the school that the government isn't moving fast enough. I'd like the Minister to tell us exactly where we're going in Jericho School.

Basically, when this Minister was appointed almost three years ago, she told the people of British Columbia that she had all the answers and that the educational problems in this province were going to disappear under the great shining leadership of the Education Minister and the NDP government. Now all we get is doubletalk — no action, no leadership and no ideas.

Interjection.

MR. G.F. GIBSON (North Vancouver–Capilano): Mr. Chairman, the worst fears of the opposition, at the time when the gag rule was introduced in this

[ Page 1350 ]

Legislature last year with respect to estimates, have been realized in the debate this afternoon. We have 40 minutes guaranteed time left on the Education estimates. That's all that's guaranteed on this schedule, this bombshell that was dropped in this House this afternoon.

Interjections.

MR. GIBSON: We had the Minister of that department standing up earlier on in this debate taking to task the leader of my party, the leader of the Conservative Party, the spokesman for the Social Credit, for having dared to choose subjects she didn't like to discuss; saying there was so little time left for the consideration of this $750 million department.

Mr. Chairman, that's right; there is so little time left. And that's wrong. It's a disgrace! That Minister should not say to responsible opposition spokesmen that they have to pick and choose between the many important things that should be discussed in this $750 million department. That is a wrong and improper choice.

Interjection.

MR. GIBSON: As for you, Mr. Member for Vancouver–Little Mountain (Mr. Cummings), you stand up and make a constructive contribution to this House, if you ever have one to make, or else be quiet.

Mr. Chairman, in this debate the Members of the government have been standing up, using time — the very limited time that's available, and which this Minister's cut off in her position as House Leader — and throwing marshmallows and garlands of flowers across the floor of this House at the Minister at a time when the estimates should be questioned, not just agreed with.

AN HON. MEMBER: Be brief.

MR. GIBSON: We have to be brief on a lot of things with only this 40 minutes left.

I want to say something to the Minister about the importance of a continuing and regular assessment of education in this province by an independent body responsible to her.

It is, as I said, a $750 million portfolio, but that's only the start of it; there are 500,000-plus students involved, 25,000 teachers — the most important single factor in the life and development of the greatest number of citizens of this province. I suggest to the Minister that this warrants a regular assessment device. I would commend to her something that you might call the educational council of B.C., or something like that, with representation from parents, from teachers, members of her department, university people — not too many, but enough to represent a good section of the community — that year after year would have an auditing and studying task in the important educational questions of this province, administrative and curriculum policy as well.

Now even with such a group set up, there's an initial job to be done: the job of finding out where we are and what's going on elsewhere. For the last couple of years we've been worrying, in education in this province, about solving the question of where should we go. I don't think we're at that stage yet. I don't think we can even yet answer the question about where we are right now and what's going on in other jurisdictions.

I notice in a press release dated April 11 of this year that the Minister announces a testing programme in language arts has been started around the province, and that this is the commencement of just this kind of an assessment of where-we-are-programme. I urge her strongly to continue that and expand it into every field of education in this province, and then do the same thing with what's happening in educational techniques in other parts of this nation. Then we will have the data base to say "where should we go?" As the Minister has said so often, education is not a business that you come into with a book full of fine theories and revolutionize; it's something that has to be changed, when it is changed, with great care. That means that we have to know where we're starting.

In this general question of assessment devices for the field of education, I want to commend to the Minister not just the possibility but the necessity of giving the education committee of this House a standing reference to hold hearings around this province every year, as extended as the committee should think necessary — some years, obviously, more than others — to take a sounding at a legislative level of the opinions of British Columbians about how things are going in the educational process. I would suggest to the Minister that would be a useful lightning rod for her, and a useful weather vane to tell her about public sentiment.

Now getting into specific issues of the department, I'd like to know a bit more from the Minister about this business of the research department.

I was surprised at this and I am indebted to the Hon. Member for Oak Bay (Mr. Wallace) for this thought, and I think it's a good thought. Earlier this afternoon the Minister said that the Pederson committee is to find out what a development department should be doing and how it should be constituted. I ask the Minister if that somehow isn't a little bit proof that the cart was put before the horse, because a development department and a research department was set up a year ago and now we have a committee telling us how it should be done. That seems to me a bit of an anomaly. I'd like some comment from the Minister on that.

[ Page 1351 ]

I'd like to ask the Minister about Ottawa financing for French language instruction in this province. I know in my own constituency, in School District No. 44, what was apparently going to be a promising French language teaching problem has apparently been truncated because the Ottawa programme, instead of supplying the 50 per cent of the cost that all of us thought was going to be supplied, is in fact only supplying 50 per cent of the first-year cost. After that, the additional charges are loaded on to the individual school districts, as I understand it, and the charges can mount very quickly.

I'd ask the Minister, if she would make representations to Ottawa, to say: "For goodness' sake, if you believe in the teaching of a second language across this country, that has to be a national responsibility. You should pay at least 50 per cent of the bill for that in British Columbia."

On the subject of finance and the pupil-teacher ratio. The essential question about this ratio relates to class size; that's the end product. I would ask the Minister how much the lowering of the pupil-teacher ratio is lowering class size. I say this with some concern because my understanding is that the number of new schoolrooms that have been provided doesn't come anywhere near equaling the number of new teachers. So how do these new teachers manage to actually form and teach new and smaller classes if they don't have the rooms to do it in? That puzzles me very much, so I question whether this enormous expenditure on the pupil-teacher ratio is really getting at our goal of lowering class sizes.

Still on the subject of finance, every school district in this province is very badly squeezed this year. In North Vancouver the estimate is that school taxes, as it's presently going, are going to be burnped up by 13 mills, which will be between $100 and $200 tax on the average householder in my riding. This is from a government, Mr. Chairman, that said: "We're going to take the tax off land for schools." So they burnped it up $40 this year, and then they raise the taxes a minimum of $100 because they aren't giving assistance to school districts. How can that be reconciled?

Now the Minister is going to say: "There will be supplementary grants." She's been saying that through this debate. But, Madam Minister, how much, when and how distributed? This is one of the concerns of the school districts last year — one of the concerns of the North Vancouver Teachers' Association. They say: "How can we do our planning for personnel or anything else when we don't know the formula? We don't know the secret list of criteria that determines how much goes here and how much goes there. We don't know the total amount that's going to be divided up." So if you don't have the numerator and you don't have the denominator, you have no chance of doing planning.

My school district has been attempting to get an appointment with the Minister for over a month now to talk to her about these issues. I ask her — I plead with her — to see them quickly and to give them the guidance that they have to have so that they'll know just how bad the news is for the taxpayers of North Vancouver.

My next topic under finance is one that has been mentioned in this House often before. It must be mentioned at every opportunity. It is an outrage to equity in the Province of British Columbia. I am talking about the question of aid to independent schools in this province, independent schools where parents decide, for one reason or another, that they want the children to have a choice of an alternative system of education and receive no financial support from any level of government, while at the same time paying their full share of taxes.

Mr. Chairman, one of the things that has puzzled me most in this House is how that party, which calls itself a party of the people, could allow such an injustice to continue that affects so many people in this province — at least 25,000 children. We have here a budget, an enormous budget, of $3 billion and more, and we can't find in it the $25 million — or even $5 million — to start to right that wrong.

We had some mysterious words from the Premier on that subject a little bit earlier. Maybe the Minister will clarify it for me. The Premier indicated that this task force that is to be set up may be able to look at all of the services to children. I just want to ask a very simple question; I asked it to the Premier and he never responded. The question is this: do the services to children that this committee is going to look at include the basic service of classroom teaching? Will that be within the ambit of this committee's study?

Next under finance: reform of the instructional unit. I'd like to hear from the Minister how this mysterious foundation rate is struck, because this is, in effect, what determines the percentage of the education budget that the province is going to pay, as opposed to the local taxpayer. How is that struck? Does it just come out of the air? It was raised, I think, by one mill this year. How's that number arrived at? The provincial share, unfortunately, of educational expenditures in this province is dropping; the local taxpayers' load is going up.

The instructional units should be modified by the size of the unit being dropped. I think it's currently 20 for a secondary class, 25 for a primary class. That's an anomaly, Mr. Chairman. Primary students deserve more care and attention than secondary students, if you have to make that priority, because this is where the whole learning process starts, where kids either learn to love the acquisition of an education in the broadest sense of that word, or where they come to hate it. That's why the size of the instructional unit at the primary level should be

[ Page 1352 ]

dropped from 25 to 20 and made equal with the secondary.

Finally, under the instructional unit, it should be adjusted for inflation on a current basis. It's currently lagging by over a year.

Interjection.

MR. GIBSON: Lagging by over a year.

Interjection.

MR. GIBSON: The Member for Dewdney (Mr. Rolston) says that 10 per cent is a good chunk. That may be the case, but school costs, I am told, have gone up by some 27 per cent; so it's not good enough.

Now under questions of administration, I would propose to the Minister first of all that she consider establishing some kind of provincial inspectorate for teaching standards and classroom performance. I know that this is a sensitive issue, and I know that it has to be addressed in close cooperation with the BCTF and the school boards, and I would think that it might be under the jurisdiction of a three-person board with perhaps one appointee from each of those bodies and one from the government, But the subject of classroom performance and teacher evaluation is one that has to be tackled in a more organized way than is presently done.

Next under administration, I suggest to the Minister that the time has come to allow more school districts to hire directly their chief executive officer. At the moment only school districts with a pupil population in excess of 20,000 are able to do this. North Vancouver is one of those fortunate school districts and it has worked very well there. At the time of the change-over they retained their old superintendent and now they have moved into hiring new superintendents and are very satisfied with the procedure. I suggest to the Minister that if we are talking about district autonomy one of the main conditions of autonomy is the right to hire your people. So I suggest to her that she should drop that threshold of the right to hire your own district superintendent for the school district by gradual stages, perhaps, starting at $15,000 or $10,000 and working towards the entire elimination of the provincial appointed district superintendent within the next five or 10 years.

Next I make a very brief plea, joining in the words of numerous Members of this House for the simplification of building programme approvals. They are now taking a year or longer for many projects in my own school district.

I want to say a word about curriculum. I would ask the Minister if she would, in her studies of the curriculum area, and appreciating that it is being decentralized, nevertheless encourage the various school districts to give a measured amount of attention to what I would call "citizenship skills." I am, thinking here particularly about training in economics, about which I sent the Minister a brochure of the Canadian Economic Educational Association a while ago, learning about British Columbia, our great province, and its people and its resources, and learning about government, not in any partisan way or not in any ideological way, but how you get access to government, how as a citizen you work with government and try have it work with you. I think that these citizenship functions are tremendously important. Within my short time limit I will content myself, at this stage, with that comment.

Now for some of the larger items of policy that fall within this department. The first issue I would like to discuss is how day care is going to relate to the public school system. We have seen over the past few years an extension of the kindergarten system in British Columbia to the point where it is virtually universal. I congratulate the Minister on that and I congratulate this government on that. It is very important to continue down into a younger and younger age organized instructional facilities, not in any way wishing to detract from the role of the parent, but rather to supplement it at an early age because it's my belief that children can learn at a much earlier age than six; indeed, our fastest period of learning is before the age of three. It's important for the school system to work with that practical fact. In that connection, I say to the Minister: what kind of thinking is going on to consider whether or not the whole system of day care which is developing in this province should be absorbed into the public school system. I would ask her to at least commence exploratory discussions with the Minister of Human Resources (Hon. Mr. Levi) on that subject.

Next I would suggest in the very controversial matter of class size a switch in emphasis for further funding from here on — away from the continual dropping of the teacher-pupil ratio and towards teaching aides in the sense of assistant teachers, in the sense of outside specialists brought in for particular purposes, in the sense of audiovisual and other teaching materials. I make that general policy suggestion as to the thrust of the new money that may become available in her department.

I would encourage the Minister to encourage school boards always in keeping with the developing local autonomy — or we hope it is developing — to push the idea of learning in the community as the students grow up, to push the idea that you can learn a lot if you can go out and be employed somewhere in a particular line of work and under a properly supervised programme for a month, then come back to the schools and then go back somewhere else.

This doesn't just relate to vocational training. It

[ Page 1353 ]

relates to all kinds of training, because work skills have to be learned by every member of our society, or should be learned by every member. They are the kind of complex but necessary things like getting along with others in a working environment, like learning how to show up for work on time; all of these things can be acquired by children if they go out and learn in the community as well as in the schools. I would stress again to the Minister the importance of kindergarten and primary education. This too, I submit, Mr. Chairman, should increasingly be a priority for the diversion of funds within the department. University is important; secondary education is important; but all of these things are for naught for those students who haven't in their early years learned to love the educational experience.

I would ask the Minister if she might tell us a little bit about her concept of the goal of education. That is a very large subject. I know the Minister can't even start to tackle that one before 6 o'clock so we will have to find some other way to bring this estimate back.

I would suggest to her a simple four-part goal system which would be something like the following:

1. Bringing out the best in the individual, every individual having different capabilities and different potential for growth. That is a challenge to any school system because school systems now, less so than in the past, but still are designed to operate with the average and the mass.
2. Citizenship skills, which I spoke of earlier.
3. Our cultural heritage in British Columbia, in Canada, in the western world — music, art, all of the things that go towards making life worthwhile for many people.
4. The concept of life skills — how you get along with others, how you have to access to information and continuing education as you go through life, how you get along with government; the many things that people need to operate in our increasingly complex and interdependent world.

I would commend to the Minister's attention what I consider to be an excellent formulation of goals for public education by the B.C. Home and School Federation in a brief to the Minister of November 26, 1974. I would like to endorse the eight major goals that they set forth there. I won't take the time of the House to read them at this stage.

Finally, under this question of education directions I would suggest to her and to parents and to school systems around this province that it is important to elicit from children and from students their maximum. It is important not to drive them more than they can take but to insist that they give their best, not for our benefit, not for society's benefit, but for their benefit. I suggest that attitude is one which should permeate the school system.

Mr. Chairman, I think I have about five minutes left and that is all I will be able to say on the subject of education at this time because I want to talk about something else. I want to talk about that component of the Minister's salary which relates to her being House Leader. I want to talk about an iniquitous document that was delivered to opposition MLAs this afternoon which proposes that for the next two weeks, from April 15 to April 29, there should be at each sitting a separate question discussed, a separate Minister's estimate. We would move tonight to the Attorney-General, and in two and a half hours we are expected to cover everything from petrochemicals and energy to rent control, to law reform, to whatever it might be, and so on and so on.

How can the House leader justify this, Mr. Chairman? Five speakers could take up all of that. Is that any way to deal with the Attorney-General's department? Of course it's not! Mr. Chairman, the government knows exactly what it is doing and the House Leader knows exactly what she is doing.

HON. L. NICOLSON (Minister of Housing): Don't waste your time.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Could we go back to the amendment under discussion, please?

MR. GIBSON: This is the Minister's responsibility, Mr. Chairman. I say that this alone, this document sent by the government Whip with the authority of the House Leader, is grounds for every Member of this House to vote to reduce that salary by $1.

AN HON. MEMBER: Hear, hear!

MR. GIBSON: It is one of the most shameful things I have ever seen.

MR. LEWIS: You should have been more responsible.

MR. GIBSON: This chamber and the process that happens in this chamber and the right to question estimates is what the Members of that party fought for so long when they were over here. Then, when they get over there, as experts in the operation of this House, they introduce this kind of system which is just going to gut the opposition, which is going to pull our teeth and make us much, much less effective in the future.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Ohhh!

Interjections.

MR. GIBSON: The Attorney-General is on tonight and we get two and a half hours!

[ Page 1354 ]

HON. A.B. MACDONALD (Attorney-General): We'll have to come back.

MR. GIBSON: If he's got problems, one of the NDP backbenchers will stand up and fill the time. Then we don't see him again if there are problems.

AN HON. MEMBER: How much time is there left?

MR. GIBSON: How much time is there left? There are about 10 sittings left after this schedule runs out and you know it perfectly well, Mr. Attorney-General. The government has set up a railroad schedule here.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. GIBSON: They are going to make the trains run on time, Mr. Chairman. That's what they are going to do to this House.

They are going to do it on the grounds that they want to make sure everything gets discussed. Do you know what is wrong with that? Everything could be discussed if the rule obtained in this House, as it has for 100 years, that all the time that was necessary was available. When the opposition was finished discussing things, then was the time for a vote, not before.

It is because of that change that we have the situation where Members of this opposition were told this afternoon that they were talking about the wrong things, and they had to choose the things because the time just wasn't available. That's what's so shameful about this system in a House where we are paid to be full-time MLAs. There are only 55 of us. We can sit here all year, if necessary, to get through the detailed questioning of these Ministers.

The Minister of Economic Development (Hon. Mr. Lauk), Mr. Chairman, has....

MR. CHAIRMAN: It is the responsibilities of the Minister of Education that are under debate, her responsibilities as Minister of Education.

MR. GIBSON: She is the House Leader, Mr. Chairman. How else am I going to discuss the activities of the House Leader if I don't discuss them under the salary of the House Leader? I want to ask you that.

MR. CHAIRMAN: It is her salary as Minister of Education.

MR. GIBSON: She's House Leader. That's a responsibility assigned to this Minister.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Your blue light is on, Mr. Member. You have two minutes to wind up.

MR. GIBSON: Mr. Chairman, the wind-up we are seeing is the wind-up of the proper discussion of the business of the public of British Columbia; and that blue light is a symbol of that whole mess. I didn't think that I would see the day when that government, which brags about question period and Hansard and the regularization of the proceedings of this House, would bring in a measure which they know full well, because they are skilled in opposition, will reduce our effectiveness on this side of the House to a fraction of what it has been up to now.

Mr. Chairman, that government should be ashamed and the House Leader should be ashamed, and the opposition should make the strongest possible protest and carry it to the public and tell the public what that group has done, because the public has to know that the defender of the liberties of British Columbians is this chamber. When you get an activist government that is willing to use its power in virtually unlimited ways, you can't take away that essential check and balance.

Mr. Chairman, I say to you that this piece of paper we got this afternoon is disgusting, and I hope it will be withdrawn and that we'll never hear anything further of it again.

MR. CUMMINGS: A point of privilege.

MR. CHAIRMAN: What is your point of privilege?

MR. CUMMINGS: The Member for North Vancouver–Capilano (Mr. Gibson) in his speech said that there would be a 15 mill increase in his riding and that the average increase would be $200. That means the average home is assessed at $140,000. I wonder whether he's deliberately lied, exaggerated, or....

MR. CHAIRMAN: That is not a point of privilege. Mr. Member, you mustn't impute a motive to any Member of this House.

HON. MRS. DAILLY: Mr. Chairman, speaking as House Leader, the hours which have been given could adequately cover good responsible debate in this House. There is no question about it.

The second point I would like to make....

Interjections.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

Interjections.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

HON. MRS. DAILLY: The second point I would like to make, Mr. Chairman, is that practically every

[ Page 1355 ]

Legislature in Canada has some form of limitation on estimates; also the House of Commons in Ottawa, and also the House of Commons in Britain. The suggestion and the implication made by the last Member here is that this is an unheard-of thing and has never been done in any parliament in Canada. We completely dispute that.

You also have an opportunity, as was pointed out to you in the notice sent to you, to pick up on estimates after we have concluded the time. There will still be time to do it.

Interjections.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please.

HON. MRS. DAILLY: You have an opportunity to indulge in responsible debate, and we have given it to you.

Mr. Chairman, I wonder, in all fairness to those people who did ask me questions on Education, if I could answer them now, unless they want to carry on with that? Right, carry on — then you won't have a chance for the answers.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. WALLACE: We won't have a chance! It's closure!

MR. CHABOT: Mr. Chairman, I never thought we'd see the day when a Minister would suggest that we'd never an opportunity to further debate her estimates. It's shocking, despicable and unresponsible as far as I'm concerned.

The Minister had the audacity to stand here and say that this is what takes place in other Houses. I'll tell her what takes place in the Province of Quebec; certainly they have a 45-day limitation there on debate. But here's what takes place: at the Canadian regional conference of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association, this is what Mr. Blank had to say about their procedures in the Province of Quebec:

"I fully agree with what Mr. Chabot from British Columbia says and we do in our regulations have an escape valve. As a matter of fact, I think that perhaps I want to pat Quebec on the back; I think they've copied our system a little.

"For the benefit of those here who don't know our system in respect to debates on the study of the credits" — the estimates — "under our system, we have a limitation, but the limitation has a modification. Our limitation is 45 days of debate on the total credits with an extra proviso, because we usually have an Easter recess in the middle, that if a delay of more than five days occurs, then the count starts all over again.

"But to answer the particular problem of Mr. Chabot, we refer the estimates or the credits to a particular sub-committee or a committee to study that particular Ministry's estimates. Although there is the 45-day limit, each estimate must have been studied at least 10 hours. So if you run to 45 days and you find that certain Ministries have not had their estimates studied for 10 hours, then there is an extension so there is at least 10 hours debate on every Ministry. So we have that escape valve under our system to have the credits studied for a minimum of 10 hours."

We find here that under the Department of Education, $754 million, we're limited to seven hours. Over $ 100 million ....

Interjections.

MR. CHABOT: The Minister suggested just a few moments ago that we'd never come back to her estimates.

Interjections.

MR. CHABOT: Yes, you certainly did. You certainly implied that.

HON. MRS. DAILLY: I never said that.

MR. CHABOT: So we're limited to one hour of debate under the estimates of the Department of Education for $108 million an hour. It's an absolute disgrace that a parliament, a democracy, would see that kind of arbitrary, dictatorial imposition on a parliament. I never thought I'd see that day.

I sat on that committee and I attempted on that committee to ask them to accept the kind of regulations, the kind of direction and standing orders that exist in the Province of Quebec. But, oh, no, they wanted to ride roughshod over the parliaments of this country. They wanted to ride roughshod over parliamentary Tights in this province.

Furthermore, when you look at that dictatorial memo that was circulated just a few hours ago, they've virtually destroyed the historic sequence that has taken place in this parliament regarding debating the estimates in British Columbia. It's always been historical to go on in an alphabetical way with the exception, under certain circumstances, where a Minister is sick. But, no, we don't see that in this parliament. We see the jogging and the jigging around in the estimates and how they're going to be debated. We find that on the Attorney-General's department we will have a maximum of two and a half hours to debate $115 million.

[ Page 1356 ]

MR. D.M. PHILLIPS (South Peace River): There is $13 million worth of contingencies.

MR. CHABOT: We find on Human Resources, with an allocation of $516 million, a maximum of three and a half hours debate. We look at Highways, an allocation of $275 million, maximum debate two and a half hours. We find Public Works, $90 million allocated there, maximum debate two and a half hours. Talk about a dictatorial government with their dictatorial memos.

Now I wonder what the government's going to do the moment we have a vote of non-confidence against the Minister of Education, and rightly so. Is the government afraid to call that vote on the Minister of Education, on the amendment that we're debating at this time? Are they afraid? Are they going to allow full debate on that motion? That amendment was presented in good faith. I suggest that the government is frightened to call. Frightened.

It appears at the moment that even the Ministers don't have faith in the Minister of Education because they are unwilling to allow that amendment to be fully debated and voted on. It's quite obvious that there won't be a vote on that amendment which we have at the moment.

Interjection.

MR. CHABOT: The Member says there has to be.

HON. E. HALL (Provincial Secretary): Read your standing orders, Jim.

MR. PHILLIPS: Sure, you're the head of the dictators.

MR. CHABOT: When will it be called — after 134 hours and 35 minutes have elapsed in these estimates?

Interjections.

MR. CHABOT: No wonder the Members of this party walked out on this Legislature when these arbitrary, dictatorial regulations were imposed on this parliament. Absolutely disgraceful!

And they talk about being a people's government.

lnterjections.

MR. CHABOT: People's government. What does this government have to hide? Doesn't this government believe in allowing the Members full scrutiny of the estimates? Full debate? A hundred and thirty-five hours in 365 days. Absolutely disgraceful!

Interjections.

MR. CHABOT: Certainly they've said on numerous occasions that that was their justification for increasing the salary of MLAs. We're full-time Members; we should have the opportunity to fully debate the estimates. In that committee I was not opposed to the limitations being imposed on the debate during the throne debate or against the limitations being imposed on the debate during the throne debate or against the limitations put on the budget debate, nor on the bills. But where we have the responsibility as Members of the opposition to fully scrutinize the expenditure of $3.2 billion, we should have the full right to scrutinize those expenditures without these serious dictatorial limitations.

No, as time goes on, and as the government continuously intrudes into the marketplace, there's a further responsibility for Members to scrutinize the actions of that government, those corporations and those commissions. I think it's a sheer.... I think it's a shocking disgrace what we're seeing here today.

HON. D. BARRETT (Premier): I have been persuaded by the arguments from the Member of the opposition. I think that he has displayed an interest, as I understand his remarks in the committee, about the number of hours. I am suggesting, therefore, having listened to the Member for the opposition, that the opposition now prepare a schedule that is acceptable to them.

Interjections.

HON. MR. BARRETT: May I finish?

Interjections.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please.

HON. MR. BARRETT: I am persuaded that the opposition feels that it needs the opportunity to debate....

MR. PHILLIPS: You want us to put closure on ourselves; that's what you want us to do.

HON. MR. BARRETT: Mr. Chairman, if I could continue....

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please.

Interjections.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

HON. MR. BARRETT: Now I've thrown them into a tizzy by putting logic back on their own suggestion.

[ Page 1357 ]

Interjections.

HON. MR. BARRETT: If I may finish my suggestion.... Other legislatures have limits on the hours. Other legislatures have the rules of this House. Now what I'm saying is that if they're not happy with the schedule, I've asked the Whip to withdraw the schedule, and he's agreed to that. Now the opposition come to us and tell us what they want to debate, how many hours they want to spend on it, and what they don't want to.

Interjections.

HON. MR. BARRETT: All right, you agreed to that. There's a limit of 135 hours.

Interjections.

HON. MR. BARRETT: Ah, they don't like that. They don't like the same rules that Ottawa has. They don't like the same rules as Quebec. They're against those rules.

Interjections.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

HON. MR. BARRETT: I have noted that the group that is fighting for democracy is the one most willing to listen to the debate, rather than yell. I'm shocked that some people are yelling; but I don't want their names recorded because we just had an appeal for democracy — and all I hear is yelling.

MRS. JORDAN: How dare we fight for freedom — that's what you're saying.

HON. MR. BARRETT: Madam, you never even had a Hansard. You never had a question period. We sat through 24 hours at a time. Don't tell me your....

Interjections.

HON. MR. BARRETT: We have started debates at 2 o'clock in the morning, and that group remembers that nonsense.

What I'm suggesting is this....

Interjections.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

HON. MR. BARRETT: Please sir, don't be rude. It's not becoming of you.

I'm suggesting that since the opposition has shown this great concern about the use of the 135 hours, since it's a matter of deep concern to them that they spent a lot of time, as they chose it, on my estimates, with detailed information as they saw it.... Perhaps other saw it as a waste of time, but they spent 25 hours — a whole week — on my estimates.

MR. LEWIS: And two hours on the lone prairie.

HON. MR. BARRETT: I had the opportunity of discussing.... They wanted to know about the second world war. They wanted to know.... You asked me the questions and I answered. The Member appreciated my answers. It's right there in Hansard. He appreciated my answers, Now if you choose to ask questions about the second world war and all these other things, I'm obliged to respond. Now I throw the challenge to you. Let the public of British Columbia know it. There's about 70 hours left. You come back with a schedule you want, and we will accept the schedule. Any schedule that you bring....

Interjections.

HON. MR. BARRETT: No, the time limit stays.

Interjections.

HON. MR. BARRETT: Oh, you fellows have wasted all this time up to now. You've been hoisted on your own petard. You come up with a schedule — that's a challenge to you.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. P.L. McGEER (Vancouver–Point Grey): Mr. Chairman, I wonder if the Premier might consider some kind of a compromise here. There has been a rule passed against the objections of the opposition that the length of debate on estimates total no more than 135 hours. Now there is a schedule placed unilaterally by the government against the objections of the opposition. They have a tight schedule but there is no schedule, Mr. Minister, which is going to be acceptable to an opposition which wishes to test the competency of the Ministers in the traditional way on the floor of this House. If they can give an accounting of their performance here on the floor of the House, then we can accept, in a way, their capability to administer their departments when they are away from this House.

You've set up a system, Mr. Premier, which is a boomerang that will haunt the NDP in the days it will be in opposition. Those days are not too long away. So, Mr. Premier, in asking for a compromise, in a sense I am suggesting something that will be for the future good of your own party.

If we are unable to complete the estimates of a

[ Page 1358 ]

Minister, I would like to suggest that his estimates be referred to a select standing committee of this House for special study. It may be that we will have to consider in various committees three or four Ministers at once. This way we can limit the Committee of the Whole House to a certain number of hours without yielding the privilege that Members of this House have to hold a given Minister to total accountability. This can slither away here. The vote of confidence in the Minister of Education might never come, at least without full debate.

So, Mr. Premier, we only say that what you are doing here is emasculating what your party will most want in the future. You are sending your own party down the road to ruin. I ask you to change your ways now.

HON. MR. BARRETT: Mr. Member, I can't change rules on the floor of this House, but I'll tell you this.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

HON. MR. BARRETT: Now look, there are 135 hours. You say that if somebody is left over, you want committee time. I think that is a wise suggestion and one that should be entertained.

MR. D.A. ANDERSON: That's what we asked last year.

HON. MR. BARRETT: Now, just a minute. There is a committee of the Members. Go back. Pull something together, and then compromise. Let's look at it. In the meantime we will withdraw that schedule and consider your suggestion, but in the meantime you've got to come back in here and tell us what you want to do with the rest of the time. If you are not prepared to do that, you are making the whole thing a sham.

What is your schedule? Do you have a schedule? You don't have to have. Then you would be free, after you have stalled all through the estimates, to run around saying: "We never had a chance to discuss this Minister, we never had a chance to discuss that one." Some of you would go out and mislead the public saying you were closed on debate when that actually isn't true.

You have to assume some responsibility. If you are prepared to assume....

MR. D.A. ANDERSON: Scrap the 135.

HON. MR. BARRETT: Look, if you don't want to talk about it that way, that is fair enough. I expect a serious response to a serious proposal. That Member sat through what I sat through. You didn't. You have no understanding of the hostility...

Interjection.

HON. MR. BARRETT: ...just be quiet for a minute. ... the bitterness and hostility we went through under the former government.

MR. D.A. ANDERSON: Three years ago.

HON. MR. BARRETT: Oh, three years ago. Don't give me that stuff.

MR. D.A. ANDERSON: You've had three years to improve it and you haven't done it.

HON. MR. BARRETT: Look, we have had a time limit. The rules can be the same as other legislatures.

MR. D.A. ANDERSON: They're not.

HON. MR. BARRETT: You have abused your degree of responsibility. Do what you want to. If you don't want to compromise, fair enough. You don't want to. Fair enough.

MR. D.A. ANDERSON: Scrap 135 for a starter.

HON. MR. BARRETT: There is no way that we will go back to the archaic system ever again. I want you to stand up and say if you were ever government, you would lift the 135 hours.

MR. BENNETT: We would.

HON. MR. BARRETT: You would. That's good. I'm glad to hear that. No limits at all, eh? Is that your policy? No limits on debate on estimates. No sittings after 11 o'clock. Yes?

MRS. JORDAN: Oh, Chairman Mao, sit down!

HON. MR. BARRETT: No Hansard? No question period?

Interjection.

HON. MR. BARRETT: Come on. We know what your record is. That is a little bit of a skewer. I have to be forgiven that little bit.

Look, we'll consider your proposal.

MR. D.A. ANDERSON: Accept it.

HON. MR. BARRETT: But that schedule will stay until you come and say this is your schedule, and then we'll consider the committee one. If you are not prepared to do that, then you are not prepared to be responsible. Tell us what you want.

[ Page 1359 ]

MR. D.A. ANDERSON: Grow up!

The House resumed; Mr. Speaker in the chair.

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

Leave granted.

HON. E.E. DAILLY (Minister of Education): The order of business will be the Attorney-General this evening.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

Interjections.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. One at a time. I think the Minister behind you is on his feet.

HON. G.V. LAUK (Minister of Economic Development): Mr. Speaker, on the floor of the House during the very scintillating debate we had in committee, there were two gentlemen whom I wish to introduce to the House and ask the House to welcome: the president of Canadian Federation of Independent Business, Mr. John F. Bulloch from Toronto, and Mr. Robert G. Morrow, a director from Vancouver. I should explain that the Canadian Federation of Independent Business is an organization of small, independent businessmen across Canada with a membership of over 25,000. I am instructed that it's growing very rapidly. Could you greet these two gentlemen, please?

Hon. Mr. Nimsick files answers to questions. (See appendix.)

Hon. Mrs. Dailly moves adjournment of the House.

The House adjourned at 6:13 p.m.

[ Page 1360 ]

APPENDIX

52 Mr. Bennett asked the Hon. the Minister of Mines and Petroleum Resources the following question:

What was the total number of mineral claims staked within the Province of British Columbia in each of the years 1969 to 1974, inclusive?

The Hon. L. T. Nimsick replied as follows:

"Mineral claims staked for years shown: 1969, 84,665; 1970, 69,546; 1971, 57,778; 1972, 78,901; 1973, 35,659; 1974, 16,972."

142 Mr. Phillips asked the Hon. the Minister of Mines and Petroleum Resources the following question:

Will the Minister advise the details of competition for Crown petroleum and natural gas resources by stating the price per acre paid and the total bonus paid in all of the sales held in the years 1971, 1972, 1973, 1974, and to date in 1975?

The Hon. L. T. Nimsick replied as follows:

"The details of competition for Crown petroleum and natural gas resources requested are as follows: