[ Page 3817 ]

CONTENTS

Routine proceedings

Mineral Act (Bill 73) Hon. Mr. Chabot.

Introduction and first reading –– 3817

Oral questions

Surrey Dodge Ltd. ICBC claim. Mr. Cocke –– 3817

Committee of Supply: Ministry of Education estimates.

On vote 158.

Hon. Mr. McGeer –– 3821

Mr. Cocke –– 3825

Mr. Gibson –– 3828

Mrs. Dailly –– 3829

Mr-Wallace –– 3832

Mr. Cocke –– 3835

Hon. Mr. McGeer –– 3839

Ms. Brown –– 3841

Mr. Levi –– 3849

The House met at 2 p.m.

Prayers.

MR. E.N. VEITCH (Burnaby-Willingdon): Mr. Speaker, seated in the gallery this afternoon from that great institute of learning, the British Columbia Institute of Technology, are Mr. John Scott, Mr. Allan Walker and Mr. Bob Seines, and I would like this House to bid them welcome.

HON. J.A. NIELSEN (Minister of the Environment): Mr. Speaker, I have three guests in the gallery today: Mrs. Shirley Kovits, of Victoria; and Mr. and Mrs. Jimmy Green, from Lancaster, Ontario. I'd like the House to welcome them.

MRS. B.B. WALLACE (Cowichan-Malahat): Mr. Speaker, I too have three guests in the gallery today. I would like the House to join me in welcoming the chairman of School District 65, Mr. Alan Hussey, his wife, Mary, and her mother who is visiting them from England.

MR. D.F. LOCKSTEAD (Mackenzie): We have in the gallery today a very good friend of mine and a constituent from the Sunshine Coast, Mr. Henry Hall, I might add, Mr. Speaker, that today is Mr. Hall's birthday. I ask the House to join me in welcome.

Introduction of bills.

MINERAL ACT

Hon. Mr. Chabot presents a message from His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor: a bill intituled Mineral Act.

Bill 73 introduced, read a first time and ordered to be placed on orders of the day for second reading at the next sitting of the House after today.

Oral questions.

SURREY DODGE LTD. ICBC CLAIM

MR. D.G. COCKE (New Westminster): Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Education, who is in charge of ICBC. With respect to claim No. 1961075, Surrey Dodge Ltd., can the minister explain why a claim was paid on a vehicle that was never seen by an adjuster of ICBC? The vehicle was sold on March 11,1976, and the claim was not made until March 25,1976, some two weeks later.

HON. P.L. McGEER (Minister of Education): Mr. Speaker, I would be pleased to take that question as notice. Again, I can't allege, as in the past, whether the facts set forward by the member are correct or incorrect,

While I am on my feet, Mr. Speaker, may I answer questions that were posed to me yesterday? I took a question from the member for New Westminster with regard to this same claim in which he stated that as of March 25,1976, it had still not been paid. The member's question was: why was the claim entertained?

Mr. Speaker, I have already filed documents with the House showing that the premium had been paid to ICBC.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. D. BARRETT (Leader of the Opposition): By whom?

HON. MR. McGEER: I now confirm this with a memo from Mr. R. Blackburn, vice-president of general insurance. This is what his memo says: "The above policy was issued by the general insurance division for the period from June 2,1975, to June 2,1976. It covers unlicensed vehicles owned by the insured. Due to the strike which occurred in 1975, this policy was not typed and issued until October 24,1975. It appeared on the agent's November statement and was paid to the corporation by the agent in February, 1976."

Mr. Speaker, that brings me to

MR. A.B. MACDONALD (Vancouver East): Eight months after the accident!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. The hon. Minister of Education has the floor.

HON. MR. McGEER: That's absolutely correct, Mr. Speaker.

Nonetheless, I took from that member as notice a further question, and he refers to the document filed with the House. The second member for Vancouver East (Mr. -Barrett) , the Leader of the Opposition, asked: "Don't you read the documents you file?" Mr. Speaker, I would pose that same question to both members from Vancouver East because the document I filed with the House stated that ...

AN HON. MEMBER: They can't read.

HON. MR. McGEER: ... the premium was paid to ICBC by the agent. It was the impression that Surrey Dodge had not reimbursed the agent, but that, Mr. Speaker, is between Surrey Dodge and the agent ...

[ Page 3818 ]

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

HON. MR. McGEER: . and that's of no consequence ...

MR. MACDONALD: They never paid.

HON. MR. McGEER: .. to the legal position of the corporation.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Ohhh!

HON. MR. MeGEER: Indeed, Mr. Speaker, had the corporation attempted to deduct anything that might or might not have been owing to the agent You must recognize that the documents you produced in the House, which were stolen documents, had no knowledge.

AN HON. MEMBER: Stolen?

HON. MR. McGEER: Of course they were stolen.

Interjections.

HON. MR. McGEER: That's between Surrey Dodge and the agent. It's of no consequence at all to the legal position of the corporation with respect to the claim. The first member for Vancouver East (Mr. Macdonald) also asked if it was a policy to pay claims when the premium had not been paid, or was it just in special cases?

Mr. Speaker, the policy with respect to such matters is the same now as it was under the NDP. 1 would like to review that policy. It's by memo, which again I will file with the House. It is from the general manager and it confirms the impression which I had when I gave an off-the-top opinion to the House yesterday. i

MR. G.R. LEA (Prince Rupert): Off the top of what?

HON. MR. MeGEER: This is the general procedure; Mr. Speaker, and it is the same procedure that was pursued by the NDP.

MR. COCKE: How come he's taking the whole question period?

HON. MR. MeGEER: Mr. Speaker, with your indulgence I am answering a specific question asked by the member for Vancouver East.

MR. COCKE: He's trying to block the question period.

Interjections.

MR. SPEAKER: One moment, please. The hon. first member for Vancouver East is on his feet on a point of order.

MR. MACDONALD: We're glad to have this explanation that has been released to the press and we want to ask questions on it. This should not be taken out of question time; otherwise the minister is abusing the question period.

Interjections.

MR. SPEAKER: All the members are aware of the suggestions regarding question period. It's not for the Speaker to determine whether the answer given in question period is too long or not. I think this up to the minister and the members.

HON. MR. McGEER: Mr. Speaker, I wish the members opposite would not ask questions if they don't wish to have the answers.

1 think, Mr. Speaker, there's some value to reviewing the policy of the NDP with respect to these matters. They didn't seem to understand it when they were in office and don't seem to understand it now.

The purchase, Mr. Speaker, of Autoplan insurance is on a cash basis, whether through an agent or through the motor-vehicle branch, except where provision is , made for financing through the corporation.

If the payment is NSF or if there's a default, the corporation will take the following action. First, the insured is sent a billing letter, indicating that his cheque has been dishonoured or that he's in default under the finance plan. Second, if collection is unsuccessful through the first letter, a second letter -demand for payment - is sent in which the insured has 30 days to make payment. Third, if this demand for payment is unsuccessful, the superintendent informs the insured that the insurance, licence plates and documents must be surrendered.

MR. COCKE: Mr. Chairman, on a point of order. That is a matter of public record. Incidentally, the minister is abusing the question period as follows: he's reading instructions on Autoplan, and the discussion that we are having in this House is on a general insurance plan - no relationship whatsoever. It's an abuse of this question period.

MR. LEA: 'On the same point of order. A few moments ago, Mr. Speaker, you said that the Chair has really no way of determining how long or how short an answer should be. It's a matter of interpretation, which you don't feel the Chair should be qualified to do.

Mr question is: how. come when questions are asked, you can ascertain in your own mind whether

[ Page 3819 ]

they're facetious or not facetious but, in this manner, you have no idea whatsoever? It seems rather strange to me, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: Replying to the hon. member for Prince Rupert, the decision as to whether questions put to the hon. ministers are in order or out of order is according to the rules of parliament and the several dozen rules that apply to question period. I've said before that ministers replying to questions have the right to reply in question period or outside of it, and I'll repeat that in answering a question the minister should make the answer as concise as possible, taking in mind the type of information that has been asked for.

MR. LEA: True. That's why we want to debate Motion 13 on the order paper.

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. member, you are now out of order.

MS. R. BROWN (Vancouver-Burrard): On a point of order. Mr. Speaker, if may draw your attention to your own ruling where you cited from May, 16th edition, page 363, you said that the answers should be confined to points contained in the question and there should be only additions to make the answer intelligible. Now the Minister of Education responsible for ICBC is contravening your own ruling of a previous date and I think he should be called to order.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear!

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. Minister of Education, if the information you are giving to the House is of such nature that it's public knowledge and can be obtained other places, then I'd ask that you conclude your explanation and reply as quickly as possible.

HON. MR. McGEER: Mr. Speaker, may 1 first of all respond to points of order and then finish the answer to the question.

Interjections.

HON. MR. McGEER: Nothing is more difficult, Mr. Speaker, than to answer a question that's been asked in the House, and we've had points of order from the member for New Westminster, the member for Prince Rupert and the member for Vancouver-Burrard, all interpreting the question from the member for Vancouver East. May 1 read the question from the member for Vancouver East so that you'll understand the answer I'm giving?

MR. SPEAKER: Please do.

HON. MR. MeGEER: The question that the member for Vancouver East asked yesterday, which 1 took as notice, is: "Is there a policy to pay claims when the premium has not been paid, or is it just in very special cases?" It's that question I'm answering, Mr. Speaker.

MR. E.O. BARNES (Vancouver Centre): The answer is yes or no.

Interjections.

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. first member for Vancouver East, are you on a point of order?

MR. MACDONALD: Mr. Speaker, the minister knows very well we're talking about general insurance for unlicensed cars on a dealer's lot. He's answering something about decals. It's ridiculous.

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. member, that is not a point of order and the hon. member well knows it.

Hon. member, the minister yielded the floor on what was said to be a point of order. I've asked the minister in his reply to stick strictly to the question that was asked and 1 believe that if 1 feel as 1 listen that it's not in line with what question was posed, I'll advise the minister accordingly.

HON. MR. McGEER: Mr. Speaker, the question as it appeared in Hansard had nothing to do with general insurance premiums or cars sitting on the lot. It was: "Do you pay claims when the premium's not been paid?" I'm proceeding, if I may and if it's the wish of the opposition, to answer that question.

Interjections.

HON. MR. McGEER: 1 wish, Mr. Speaker, the members wouldn't ask questions they don't want answered.

Interjections.

HON. MR. MeGEER: Well, is it wrong, Mr. Speaker, to answer questions in the House?

Interjections.

MR. SPEAKER: Please proceed with your answer, hon. member.

Interjections,

HON. MR. McGEER: Mr. Speaker, if 1 may proceed with the indulgence of the questioner and those who interpreted the question, the sheriff - and this is step 4, if anybody can remember the first

[ Page 3820 ]

three - proceeds to physically remove the plates.

This is the key point I was hoping to get to some time ago, Mr. Speaker. Until the plates are physically removed from the vehicle, the compulsory coverage is in force, but should the corporation be notified of a claim, the amount of any outstanding premium would be deducted from the amount of the claim. The adjuster checks with head office and in most cases they're able to recover the premium before the claim is paid.

May I file the document, Mr. Speaker?

MR. SPEAKER: Following completion of question period, hon. member.

MR. COCKE: On a supplementary, I would ask the minister to recheck some of the times that he gave us and also to recheck some of the information we gave him. Just so that the minister can understand what we're talking about, Mr. Speaker, I'd like to read you a letter, without prejudice....

SOME HON. MEMBERS: No! Order!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. I'm trying to listen to the member for New Westminster. He has a supplemental question to the hon. minister.

MR. COCKE: Mr. Speaker, there's no way this supplemental question can be at all intelligible to the minister unless he hears my letter.

SOME HON. MEMBER: Oh, oh!

MR. COCKE: The letter is written to Mr. R. Richard Hudgins, the secretary-treasurer of Surrey Dodge. It's re claim number 1961075, dated June 25,1975. He says:

"We have now had an opportunity to review all the documentation that you supplied relative to the above claim. We note that the loss occurred in late June, but the corporation's first notification of the claim was on March 25,1976, when you personally attended at a claim centre and were interviewed by Mrs. C, Swingler. Repairs to the Mustang appear to have commenced in mid-November, with the vehicle subsequently being sold on March 11,1976."

Incidentally, that's two weeks earlier.

"The corporation has had no opportunity to inspect the damages sustained to this unit when it was stolen from your lot, and as the vehicle is no longer in your possession, the problem is further complicated.

"We would refer you to section 9, regulation 1, pursuant to the Automobile Insurance Act, and in particular sections 948 and 949, which point out the onus an insurant has in reporting claims to the corporation, involving first-party claims. None of these conditions have been complied with by Surrey Dodge, and it is our opinion that as a result our position has been severely prejudiced.

---Under the circumstances we cannot consider any indemnity under your dealer's policy. Please govern yourself accordingly. Yours truly, D. Vatesi, Claims Supervisor, ICBC." How do you repair a car you can't find?

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. members, the bell terminated the question period. Does the hon. minister wish to file documents?

HON. MR. MeGEER: 1 wish to answer the question, Mr. Speaker, if 1 may.

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. minister, 1 believe that if you wish to reply to the hon. member for New Westminster it would be proper to do it tomorrow, either in the question period or following it; or ask leave to reply at the moment.

Interjections.

MR. COCKE: Yes, Mr. Speaker, 1 ask leave to file that letter.

AN HON. MEMBER: Where did you steal it?

Leave granted.

MR. G.S. WALLACE (Oak Bay): 1 ask leave to call Motion 14 on the order paper. This seems a most appropriate day to consider that motion.

HON. G.S. GARDOM (Attorney-General): It will be called very shortly, MR. Member. (Laughter.)

MR. WALLACE: A point of order.

MR. SPEAKER: The point of order, hon member....

HON. MR. GARDOM: It's not a point of order.

MR. SPEAKER: In just replying to your point of order, hon. member for ~Oak Bay, 1 do not perceive that Motion 14 on the order paper is in the hon. member's name. It would be proper, if it was, for him to ask leave. Is it in the hon. member for Oak Bay's name?

[ Page 3821 ]

MR. WALLACE: I wasn't trying to be funny; I'm dead serious!

AN HON. MEMBER: Tell him what it is.

MR. SPEAKER: In that case, hon. member - I didn't realize it was in your name - that was a proper point of order.

MR. WALLACE: Do you know which one I'm talking about?

MR. SPEAKER: One moment, please.

MR. MACDONALD: Mr. Speaker, the point of order - I put it to the Chair and the Attorney-General - is that the motion was set down for Tuesday. Why now, when it was urgent on Friday, is it not called on Tuesday?

HON. MR. GARDOM: You're referring to a different motion.

MR. MACDONALD: No, I'm talking about the motion in respect to the three members; that's the one I'm asking for.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please.

HON. MR. GARDOM: The motion will be called very shortly.

AN HON. MEMBER: Today?

HON. MR. GARDOM: Very shortly~.

MR. BARRETT: On a point of order: Mr. Speaker, the member for Oak Bay (Mr. Wallace) asked leave of the House to call a motion standing in his name on the order paper. Leave was not requested from the House.

Interjections.

HON. MR. GARDOM: Yes, I know,

MR. BARRETT: You felt so guilty, Garde, you jumped up on any....

MR. SPEAKER: Returning to the hon. member for Oak Bay, I apologize, hon. member. Motion 14 is in the name of the hon. member for Oak Bay. Shall leave be granted?

Leave not granted.

MR. BARRETT: Mr. Speaker, I ask leave of the

House for the umpteenth time to call Motion 13, dealing with the Speaker, standing in my name on the order paper.

Leave not granted.

Orders of the day.

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

ESTIMATES: MINISTRY OF EDUCATION

On vote 158: minister's office, $133,168.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Hon. minister, may I ask you to wait just a moment. Usually at this juncture in committee there is a great exodus or influx - I haven't been able to determine which - of members. So if you will just wait until that has sort of subsided then we will proceed.

On vote 158, is it agreed that we proceed?

HON. MR. McGEER: I'm pleased that a sufficient number of MLAs have resisted your invitation so that we can retain a quorum, at least for the present, in the House. I'm slightly disappointed, of course, that for the second year in a row this vote didn't whistle right through without debate, and since the members last year were anxious to hear a little bit about the ministry's activities and since in previous debates in the Legislature I haven't had time to do an overview of some of the more important priorities that we have, I hope the House will indulge me for just a few minutes while I review some of that.

The Ministry of Education is one of the largest enterprises in British Columbia. It oversees 98 educational bodies, including school districts, colleges, universities and special institutions. There are 750,000 students served each year by 46,000 professional and support staff. The scale of operation of the ministry rivals the largest corporations in British Columbia in size and complexity.

We have been in the process this last year or so of reviewing policies in the Ministry of Education from top to bottom. A number of expanded programmes are already in force. We will have some legislation before the House before we adjourn this summer. The members will have an opportunity to debate in detail some of the specific recommendations that we will be making,

There is no question that reforms in our educational system are required. In our province, 40 per cent of the unemployed are under the age of 25. This is the age when physical energy is at its zenith, when ambition peaks and when enthusiasm abounds. It is also the age when modern skills, newly acquired

[ Page 3822 ]

from our educational system, should make an individual most saleable on the job market. The terrible problem is that too many of our graduates have no marketable skills. Unemployment is the major consequence. There are other side effects. Crime rates are the highest in this age group, principally among the unemployed. Drug abuse, vandalism and other anti-social acts spill out with the frustrations of being unable to find a job and a useful place in society.

Currently we have 55,000 students in our universities, colleges and provincial institutes. There are a further 155,000 in our high schools. All 2 10,000 of these people are potential members of our summer work force. Each year 40,000 of them permanently enter the work force. Those who leave our system with occupational skills have little difficulty finding work. The others have an extremely hard time. We have to address ourselves in our post-secondary system so that more of those leaving have a better chance of getting a job.

I should remind the members that the total cost of a year's unemployment is greater than all the expense of educating that youngster all the way through the school system. So the stakes are very high, particularly since only a small proportion of the total education for any student is directed toward the job skill area. It is this final phase where we make our major mistake in education in Canada. It is in this direction that we as members have to address our greatest efforts.

Just last week, Mr. Chairman, the federal government announced it was awarding British Columbia an additional $80 million for our post-secondary claims. This is in addition to $20 million awarded earlier this year when the federal government accepted our interpretation of how the regulations on the 15 per cent lift should be applied.

Mr. Chairman, I want to thank the federal government, particularly the Secretary of State, the Hon. John Roberts; the Hon. Ron Basford; Senator Ray Perrault and all of our British Columbia MPs who played such a large part in arranging this assistance for the province. I want them to know and I want you to know that our first priority for this money will be to use it in solving this problem of giving our students marketable skills and thus reduce this terrible problem we have of unemployment among our youth.

Mr. Chairman, the federal government was not obliged to recognize the claims of British Columbia. Indeed, I think they would not have been recognized if it hadn't been for the sympathetic support of the members I mentioned and others. This is because the bulk of money for post-secondary education had already been allotted. What these people were doing was giving every accommodation to British Columbia after the fact of disbursement of funds.

It's no secret that our province has received less per capita under the fiscal arrangements Act than any province in our country. Indeed, had the funds in the past 10 years been distributed on a per capita basis, British Columbia would have received already $300 million more in taxes paid by British Columbia citizens than it has under present circumstances. But the federal government isn't entirely to blame for this. As I've mentioned before in this House, our post-secondary system was so undeveloped at the time the fiscal arrangements Act was started in 1967, we simply didn't deserve the payments.

When the rearrangement came in 1972, and the big losses to British Columbia began to accrue, Victoria just didn't recognize the consequences of the interpretation being placed under regulations of the revised fiscal arrangements Act as it would apply to British Columbia. Therefore, this province bears more than a share of the responsibility for what happened.

AN HON. MEMBER: They blew it.

HON. MR. McGEER: Yes, mostly between 1972 and 1975. That's when the big losses occurred.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

HON. MR. McGEER: I can provide the members with spread sheets showing the payments across Canada and the extent to which British Columbia was fiscally handicapped during those years. But that's the past, and the important thing, and all 1 can say on behalf of the taxpayers and the students of British Columbia, is that we have paid a heavy penalty in this province. It's hurt us and it's hurt education badly. What we must ask of the federal government now, in expressing our appreciation for what certain members have done on our behalf, is to say: "We've paid our penalty. It's been a heavy one. What we want in British Columbia now is to be placed on an equal basis with all other provinces in the matter of disbursing these funds."

One could give many examples of denial of educational opportunity, but there's no clearer example one could give, and probably no better illustration of the problems that we have faced and will face in trying to expand educational opportunity, than what we listened to last week in debates just concluded with the Minister of Health (Hon. Mr. McClelland) .

1 refer, of course, to opportunities to enter the practice of medicine. In recent years, between 300 and 475 doctors per year have been licensed to practise medicine in this province. The numbers graduated from our medical school each year have been 80 - somewhere between 15 per cent and 25 per cent of the total. At the same time, only one applicant in 10 is accepted for medical school. Each

[ Page 3823 ]

year we turn down huge numbers of brilliant British Columbians who have met all of the qualifications to enter medical school and were they in any other part of Canada, or indeed most other countries in the world, they would have had that opportunity. Only in British Columbia would that denial take place because British Columbia offers the least opportunity for its citizens of any part of Canada to enter this profession.

In the initial throne speech of this government, the intention was announced to increase that opportunity. As a result of the action taken by the government, by 1985, some eight years from now, when the doctors from this expanded medical school will begin to come on stream - all 160 of them - we will then be graduating as many doctors as now each year leave the province, leave the practice of medicine, by attrition. In other words, they retire or go elsewhere. Eight years from now the number of doctors we graduate will equal the number who are dropping out each year in British Columbia now. By then, Mr. Chairman, I'm sure we will be registering each year many more doctors than we're registering in British Columbia today. I'm sure we will be accepting an even smaller percentage of the brilliant young natives of our province who apply to medical school.

Despite these fairly obvious facts, the government has been attacked just last week by the opposition, by the newspapers, by dissidents in the B.C. Medical Association, by The Medical Post, and even the head of the Irish, the British and the Canadian Medical Associations who came here to the city of Victoria to tell us that we shouldn't do such a thing.

Among those who attacked this plan just last week was the member for Vancouver Centre (Mr. Lauk) , himself a British Columbian who was given the opportunity through our educational system of entering the profession of law. In British Columbia there are about three-quarters as many lawyers as doctors, and yet there were no complaints when opportunities for students to enter law were increased. We now graduate four to five times as many lawyers in this province as doctors.

AN HON. MEMBER: Too many.

HON. MR. MeGEER: In other words, the opportunities are four to five times greater to enter the profession of law as medicine. Yet, as the Attorney-General (Hon. Mr. Gardom) has just pointed out, the career opportunities are far less. 1 leave it to the member for Vancouver Centre to reflect upon the fairness of the system and the remarks that he himself made which, in effect, would have denied opportunities for young British Columbians to enter medicine.

1 don't wish to reply to the many charges made about myself during the estimates of the Minister of Health (Hon. Mr. McClelland) . But I do say, Mr. Chairman, that the minister demonstrated the statesman he is by listening with what struck me as uncommon patience to a series of charges that were utterly false.

We have been actively engaged as a ministry - I speak of Education - as health professionals in the province. The Ministry of Education for the first time has made capital funds available for health education. Of course, one of the projects in which we are a partner with the Ministry of Health is the expansion of medical teaching and other health professional teaching in British Columbia. Because of the willingness of the ministry to put resources behind the development of health teaching facilities, we've been able to assure that the $28 million in health resources funds that had been locked up and depreciating all these years will finally be available to the citizens of British Columbia.

There will be $50 million expended for improved teaching and clinical improvements at the Vancouver General Hospital, St. Paul's Hospital, Shaughnessy Hospital, the Children's Hospital, as well as basic science laboratories and an acute hospital on the University of British Columbia campus. The government is following precisely the report of the Task Force on Medical Teaching Facilities received by the government in June, 1976. This report was agreed to unanimously by the official representatives of the Greater Vancouver Regional Hospital District, the Vancouver General Hospital, St. Paul's Hospital, Shaughnessy Hospital, the Children's Hospital, the B.C. Medical Association, the Ministry of Health, the University of British Columbia and the Ministry of Education. Representatives from the B.C. Medical Association were Dr. Leonard Fratkin and Dr. William Ibbott, and a member of the general public, Mr. A.C.L. Kelly, acted as chairman.

Never before, Mr. Chairman, had governments sought such wide consultation on a health or education matter and never before had there been unanimous agreement by so many competing interests for a course of action. Mr. Chairman, all people don't agree. All members of the Vancouver General Hospital don't accept the recommendation of their official representative. The hospital wars have been conducted in Vancouver for the past 20 years. That's why there has been no progress at all. One cannot expect after this history of division to have unanimous opinion. I do not see, Mr. Chairman, how it would have been possible for the Minister of Health or the Minister of Education or the government of British Columbia to have sought a wider consultation than that. All interested parties had their official representatives there. Mr. Chairman, there was not one single, dissenting voice.

What we must do now, because time is running out, is to slash all red tape in order to get the facilities

[ Page 3824 ]

built. A time limit was quite wisely placed by the federal government on the funds that it set aside for the teaching of health professions in 1966. The facilities must be completed, equipped and in operation by 1980. With good luck there will be no wastage.

As late as last week, Mr. Chairman, the member for North Vancouver-Capilano (Mr. Gibson) , in a speech which, I imagine, Mr. Chairman, will be read and re-read by historians in disbelief ...

MR. WALLACE: Like some of your old speeches!

HON. MR. McGEER:.. said:

I call on the health community in this province and the educational community to finally have the guts to stand up and say to this minister: "Stop this project."

The member for North Vancouver-Capilano also said:

It was a major, disgraceful misallocation of health funds in this province.

He said it was a "240-bed white elephant out at the University of British Columbia." Then he implied that it was some kind of a creation of the Minister of Education.

Interjections.

HON. MR. McGEER: He said it was.

Mr. Chairman, years later people will have to reflect on the words of that member and make judgments as to his wisdom and his ability to perceive the future as well as recognize opportunities for students and benefits to the public.

MR. G.F. GIBSON (North Vancouver-Capilano): I'm not as good at recognizing opportunities as you.

HON. MR. McGEER: Of course, the member has taken the Liberal Party in British Columbia to new lows, Mr. Chairman. I think probably his capability for looking into the future is perhaps reflected in that result.

The idea of a teaching hospital located on the University of British Columbia campus didn't originate with this government or this minister. It goes back to the first president of the University of British Columbia, who was himself a physician and who put forward that notion in 1913.

MR. WALLACE: Are you trying to say nothing has changed?

HON. MR. McGEER: Between 1946 and 1949....

MR. GIBSON: Where was the university located in 1913?

HON. MR. McGEER: The Sharpe and Thompson plan for the university, complete with a medical faculty, is there for the member to see. There is a complete plan of the campus drawn up. There was a competition, just like we had for this parliament building here.

Interjection.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please, hon. members. The minister has the floor.

HON. MR. McGEER: Unfortunately, the plan for that university was never implemented, but part of it is going to be. 1 think the members ought to know the length of history of this particular aspect of education in British Columbia.

Shortly after the war, a series of consultants were brought to British Columbia in the medical field, and each one of these recommended the founding of a hospital and medical complex on that campus. Mr. Chairman, the basic sciences were built in 1952, erected in a location which would allow for the future clinical facilities to be built.

The planning of the university hospital commenced in 1958. This Legislature in 1963 passed a University of British Columbia Health Sciences Centre Act in contemplation of that acute hospital finally being built.

In 1966, as a result of representations from the medical school in British Columbia, the federal government established a health resources fund for the purpose of constructing across this nation appropriate teaching facilities. Behind the concept at the University of British Columbia was the health sciences centre team. This is something which is not only accepted in British Columbia as an historic part of the teaching programme but something which is now accepted in many countries around the world and is being implemented by building the kind of integrated facilities that were conceived when the first medical buildings were put up on the University of British Columbia campus after the war.

1 don't wish to labour the members with details about how every single building that has been placed in that location was done with the concept of finally completing this health sciences complex. 1 just want to assure the members that the decision was made some 60 years ago. It has been implemented step by step, as funds became available, right up until the present time. Concepts have been developed here which have spread throughout the world as far as the teaching of health professionals is concerned. Yet this is the one area where it has not been done. It illustrates that prophets are without honour. 1 don't include myself among them. I'm just the Minister of Education at the appropriate time to complete something started many years ago.

[ Page 3825 ]

The members opposite are on record, probably the most infamous speech being made by the member for North Vancouver-Capilano (Mr. Gibson) . This will stay in history: the resistance, and the remarks made by the politicians, by the doubting Thomases in the press, in the medical profession, in The Medical Post, and so on. It will be judged in time. Mr. Chairman, I have every confidence that those in the future will regard this as the greatest opportunity that has been offered to students and to the public, who will ultimately benefit from their skills and discoveries.

MR. COCKE: Mr. Chairman, last year we were disappointed in the minister, who thought that he might let his vote drift through. I just honestly don't know how he ever could conceive of such a thing happening. But today he disappointed me again in that he got up and gave some very vicious, unfounded statements for his contribution to the record in this House.

Mr. Chairman, I was to deal with other aspects of education to begin with, but I feel that I have to deal now with some of the things that he's talked about. First, I certainly agree with him that the reform in education is long overdue. We look for very little reform, however, from a minister who is still going along on a 60-year-old plan that was hardly justified at the time and certainly is unjustified now. More about that in a few minutes.

Mr. Chairman, let me first deal with the $80 million. The addition of a federal contribution from Ottawa ... and we're supposed to stand here in our places and thank heaven for the following people: Thank heaven for Basford. Thank goodness for Perrault. Thank goodness for all our little Liberal friends down in Ottawa. Where were they when the old Socreds were in power? Do you know why we didn't have those post-secondary funds, Mr. Member for North Vancouver-Capilano? Because the old Socreds rejected them. That's the party that minister joined.

Then, Mr. Chairman, the audacity of that Minister of Education in suggesting that we blew it, when they've been blowing it for 17 years in this province, is just a little bit much to take, particularly from that minister, who has let ICBC be run by one of his colleagues from Coquitlam.

Mr. Chairman, I don't think that we have to revere at the feet of this sympathetic support. It was our just right. The minister knows it and the minister's support services know it. Mr. Chairman, between 1972 and 1975 let's look at the record. Just recently I have two press releases for us to compare. On July 12 the Minister of Education provided us with the following entertainment. "Education minister Dr. Pat McGeer called today's announcement by the federal government that British Columbia is to receive $80 million in back payments for post-secondary education a welcome conclusion to more than a year of hard negotiations."' Then the fireworks start to go off, and he goes on and talks about them.

Mr. Chairman, on the same day replying to this release came a news release from the B.C. School Trustees Association:

" 'We welcome the announcement that there will be $80 million in back federal payments for B.C. education, ' said Cliff Adkins, president of the B.C. School Trustees Association."

However, he went on to say:

"The BCSTA has been fighting for this since 1973, when the association found out in Ottawa that B.C. was the only province in Canada that was not receiving 50 per cent funding for grade 12 or grade 13 from the federal government,

"Adkins said: 'We offer credit for this settlement ' " - and let's make this awfully clear - " ' to former Education minister Eileen Dailly for agreeing with BCSTA's concern and taking the first steps toward justice for B.C. education.' "

The Minister of Education, Mr. Chairman, stands in his place, takes all the credit and says that he has some influence down there with his friends. I wonder if they're friends. I wonder if any one of, those Liberals whom he was talking about would ever'even think of walking across the floor in their jurisdiction or in any other jurisdiction. I doubt it. I wonder about his friends.

"We're grateful to Education minister McGeer for concluding the work, " lie goes on to say. Mr. Chairman, I would have a good deal more respect for the Minister of Education if he would quit playing politics. He plays politics like some play cards. He just can't resist, in almost every statement and every time he gets up in the House. We saw him during question period, Mr. Chairman - the same old minister, the same old actor. I'm a little bit disappointed with his start today in his estimates.

Mr. Chairman, the Socreds - and they still call themselves Socreds over there - rejected that money, and I suggest to you that if some of those old Socreds were still here they'd still be rejecting it, as they would be burning books and other things that are helpful to education in their opinion. We forfeited federal sharing because of that party and it was the party that the now-Minister of Education walked across the floor to join. Shame should be on his head, rather than standing up here and applauding himself, patting himself on the back to the extent that he almost broke his arm. I was almost going to call the Minister of Health (Hon. Mr. McClelland) until I realized that he can't make a move without consulting with the *Minister of Education, so it wouldn't do much good. Even if he did break his arm, we'd have to call on the member for Oak Bay (Mr.

[ Page 3826 ]

Wallace) to look after his needs.

Interjection.

MR. COCKE: That's a prospect I never even thought of, Mr. Chairman. Now it's coursing through my mind.

AN HON. MEMBER: It's the first time anything went through there today.

MR. COCKE: Yes, that's okay. Mr. Chairman, they're laughing, but I suggest to you that the people in this province are not laughing at this kind of behaviour. Incidentally, there have been some other minor disputes between the ministry and the B.C. School Trustees Association around this money, this $80 million. It strikes me that when the minister got up today to say that he wants to use the money for vocational training to some extent, I'm sure that that's a great move and that's a good direction. But what the BCSTA is saying, in my view, is, don't overlook those areas of support of vocational training that are now available. It would seem that what the minister is going to do is suddenly plunk the $80 million into this area and therefore leave some opportunities that he could otherwise have to the wolves.

I would suggest that the BCSTA are right in saying that the money should be returned to the taxpayer if it isn't going to be used absolutely properly. If it's going to be used to replace funds that would otherwise be assisted by federal funds from Manpower and other areas, then you're better off to return it to the taxpayer.

So, Mr. Chairman, I hope that the minister concludes that he should take another look at his behaviour in this respect.

Another area, and I think we'll probably deal with this area in some detail ... I held off from the Minister of Health because I know he makes none of the decisions around the university hospital. But I just want to deal with one or two areas at the present time and we'll go into more detail later.

Yes, Mr. Chairman, the university graduates 80 doctors. B.C. has always been in a position where we have attracted more doctors, or virtually as many doctors as we need, to a point where B.C. is the most highly doctored province in Canada. I'm not suggesting that's not a good way to be. We looked at it when we took over government. We saw that nothing was happening - not a thing. Even the Socreds couldn't make up their minds within their midst.

I sat at this House, listened to Herb Capozzi give great speeches about, "let's build the university hospital on Shaughnessy site, " heard the now Minister of Education make his Bill Gibson speech, his Pat McGeer speech, because that's really where his heart is at - out there, near Wreck Beach. That speech was always: "Build the hospital on the university site because, after all, that's where we're training the doctors."

Well, we took a look at it, Mr. Chairman, and as I suggested to the House the other day, we went across Canada. You know, we knew this was a 60-year old idea. We knew they had built hospitals on university campuses all over the countryside, We knew, for instance, that they had built one in Sherbrooke, Quebec, and what a disaster it was; a disaster to the extent that the second most recent Deputy Minister of Health for Canada - and he was the one who constructed it; he was the one in charge - said it was the greatest mistake he had ever made in medicine. Those were his words - the greatest mistake he had ever made in medicine.

Then we have to look at McMaster in Hamilton. Again, it's a campus hospital. What does that campus hospital represent? That campus hospital represents 40 per cent occupancy. That means 60 per cent of that hospital is vacant.

Mr. Chairman, this is the fine success we have when we take hospitals away from people. Is there anything wrong with using what we had planned to use, what was in place, and what would have produced long before this suggestion of the Minister of Education? That was the B.C. Medical Centre. It would have produced the desired results - the co-ordination of activity of the teaching hospital with the university - and we would have had a number of teaching hospitals to use. There is no end to it if you can put it into that kind of an organization. Now we see the B.C. Medical Centre being buried.

Mr. Chairman, they've made a grave mistake. They suggest that eight years from now they will have heaven out at UBC. The heaven they suggest, Mr. Chairman, is going to be an elitist situation where there will be no real chance for complementary training such as you would have had under the system we had designed.

No, Mr. Chairman, I don't think they have taken a proper course at all, and then he stood up as he did, pontificated, and suggesting that the member for North Vancouver-Capilano (Mr. Gibson) had betrayed something or other when the member for North Vancouver-Capilano represents the real opinion. Mr. Chairman, we heard about task force reports and how we have all sorts of unanimous support. Go out and talk to the people. Get out of your ivory tower. Go and talk to the doctors. Go and talk to the doctors on staff at UBC. Go and talk to the nurses. Go and talk to anybody. They're disappointed.

Mr. Chairman, he spoke as though the Medical Centre concept wouldn't work. We know it would. It has worked elsewhere. In microcosm it's working right now in Quebec City. It's working all over where

[ Page 3827 ]

there are teaching hospitals some distance from the universities. You know, doctors and professors can actually ride in buses and drive cars from one place to the other and they can do that a lot more easily than you can get patients into a hospital that's way out in no man's land. That's Precisely what you're asking. You're going to have a low occupancy. You should be ashamed.

HON. MR. GARDOM: Whose estimates are we on?

MR. WALLACE: You're stealing our best lines, Dennis.

MR. COCKE: The Attorney-General (Hon. Mr. Gardom) asked whose estimates we are on. I want you to suggest to the Attorney-General that the minister took most of his time, most of his first 30 minutes, in discussing the university hospital.

Mr. Chairman, I think the Minister of Health (Hon. Mr. McClelland) has acted in a way that is counter-productive to the education and health prospects for B.C. I believe that right now we're seeing signs that Health and Education can't even get along within the government.

I suggest, Mr. Chairman, that we have a university hospital out there right now. The one that we will be seeing soon will be the "Health Hilton." We've got one out there and I must say that I'm not sure whether I'm glad that we went for it or not. Anyway, we have an extended-care hospital out there that was to be ready in January of this last year. It was ready late January, early February. They were even interviewing nurses at that time.

Interjection.

MR. COCKE: I wonder if you will just listen for a minute and maybe you'll learn something. Now that's going to be very difficult for you but you try real hard.

Mr. Chairman, it was to be open in January; it was ready to open in February. Why wasn't it opened? Well, I contend that it wasn't opened because there was a real fight between the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Education over who was going to pay the shot for the education aspect of that hospital. Health said: we're not paying more than our normal per diem, so we're not going to open it. We're not going to do anything with it. Education said: we're not coming through. There it sat until July 13, 14 or 15 - somewhere in there - when the Minister of Health (Hon. Mr. McClelland) said: "You better get that hospital open or I'm going to come over there and raise particular Cain." You speak too loudly; you got them shaking. So finally they opened that hospital.

Now they say they can't get staff. When they were interviewing for staff, they interviewed - I don't know how many - 20 or 30 people. They never even contacted them; they never went back on those interviews because they were in limbo. They should have got started but they didn't.

Mr. Chairman, I suggest that the Minister of Education (Hon. Mr. McGeer) has bitten off a lot by making this about-turn. They said they've had a lot of input; they've had a lot of study. They made the immediate announcement almost before the ink was dry on their cabinet minister's document. They made him minister, and then I contend that the now Premier had to pay off. There was a price tag for walking across the floor and that price tag was the university hospital.

MR. LEA: Because some day he wants to be the president. Is that it?

MR. COCKE: Oh, yes. When he wasn't here, and now he's here. I said to the Minister of Health (Hon. Mr. McClelland) , President Kenney's job is the most attractive job in British Columbia to that academic and he wants that place looking real fine, like an oasis, an academic oasis out there almost at Wreck Beach.

MR. LEA: I think he's just going to be going with Bernice.

MR. COCKE: Mr. Chairman, the culmination of the health resources fund that Judy LaMarsh set up in 1966, according to my recollection, should be 15 years. That's 1981. 1 won't split hairs. I think if you don't get the money pretty well spent toward the end of 1980, you are in real trouble. I think, Mr. Chairman, that the minister has put things behind by changing course again. That was our problem. From 1966 until 1972 it was just back and forth and back and forth and nothing happened. Then all of a sudden something was beginning to go, something was beginning to jell. Incidentally, the BCMC had access to all those health resources funds. They can be used for teaching either in hospital or at the university; it doesn't have to be on the university campus to have access to those funds.

Now, Mr. Chairman, I think the minister should rethink things. Let me give you a couple of quotes about all the support that the minister gets for his hospital:

Bill Jore was president of BCMA until just recently. Dr. Jore is quoted in regard to the university hospital on the campus: "I'm only too aware of the possible pitfalls both financially and clinically." That was to Pat Desjardins.

Here is a Province editorial, December 15,1976:

"It would be folly to build 240 acute-care beds at UBC if there is already a genuine

[ Page 3828 ]

surplus in this category. What seems to be most needed are extended-care beds for chronically sick patients, many of whom are in high-cost beds at the VGH and St. Paul's."

I suggest to you that what should in fact take place is that UBC should get their relationship with Vancouver General going again. Sure, those old beds at VGH should be replaced with good new teaching beds and plenty of teaching space - same thing with St. Paul's; same thing with Shaughnessy. If you need more help in that regard you've got the Lions Gate in North Vancouver, you've got the Burnaby General and you've also got the Columbian. There is no inhibition; there is no way that you could be restricted. But no, the minister says he only has eyes for UBC.

He wants to build an absolutely new facility, a monument to himself so that when he is president of that university he can stand back and say: "What a great boy am P" His Uncle Gerry did it when he built the city hall in Vancouver. It's a McGeer trait: you build a monument to yourself.

MR. LEA: His uncle did his own research.

MR. COCKE: Remember, it was the House that Gerry built, and now we've got the house that Pat built coming up. Mr. Chairman, let the minister think things over and come back with something just a little bit better in this respect. I will deal, at some length, with many of these issues but I would like to hear what the minister has to say and I would like to afford the member for North Vancouver-Capilano (Mr. Gibson) an opportunity to defend himself on this particular issue.

MR. GIBSON: I had no intention of participating in the debate this afternoon because I have a case of laryngitis.

HON. MR. GARDOM: Did you say yes or no in Ottawa?

MR. GIBSON: I was fighting for British Columbia, Mr. Attorney-General, but I'll say that after the excellent speech that I made in this House last week that the minister cited, I have to stand up and correct him in some particulars.

First of all, I thought it was a very lightweight opening, when we have 750,000 students in this province and 46,000 instructors, that the minister spent most of his remarks trying to justify his mistake out at UBC. It's a remarkable stand by the minister that he spends about two minutes about youth unemployment and advances the remarkable proposition that unemployment among young people is caused by faults in our education system. I had always thought that unemployment was caused by lack of jobs. It's the bankruptcy of economic development policies of this government that is the fundamental cause of unemployment in this province. Sure we need to increase the availability of job-skill training at the secondary level in our province, but the minister can't blame unemployment in this province on that.

Mr. Chairman, very briefly on the $80 million from Ottawa, I would like an assurance from the minister that he is going to pass through that portion of that S80 million funding that was obtained in respect of private institutions. I would suggest to the minister that those funds are trust funds. For example, in the case of Trinity Western College they were obtained on the basis that there were a certain number of students in those private institutions. The matching funds for moneys being expended by those private institutions are trust funds and they should be passed on. I would like to have that commitment when he stands up.

Now we move on to this incredible argument of the minister with respect to doctors and, particularly, the university hospital. Even if you buy his argument concerning the doctors, the question of how they are trained, how they are educated, and where they are educated is one that we have to address ourselves to. The teaching is better downtown, Mr. Chairman, and the federal health resources fund money could have been used downtown. It's a smokescreen to say it had to be out at UBC, and the minister knows that. It was for educational purposes wherever, not necessarily at UBC.

I had to laugh when he said that there wasn't one dissenting voice in the committee that studied the question of where that teaching hospital should go. The Greater Vancouver Regional Hospital District had their instruction, didn't they, Mr. Minister? The chairman of that committee had his instruction. Mr. Kelly knew where he was supposed to come out on that one. You know exactly what happened with the BCMA. There was confusion and dissent and enormous controversy within the profession. A large number of doctors in this province believe that they were not well represented on that committee. The official representatives did not represent the doctors well.

HON. R.H. McCLELLAND (Minister of Health): They had the president of their association.

MR. GIBSON: Dr. Ibbott wasn't president of their association at that time.

AN HON. MEMBER: Yes, he was.

MR. GIBSON: not at that time he wasn't. When the committee reported he was not. When it reported Dr. Jore was president. You should know that, Mr.

[ Page 3829 ]

Minister.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please, hon. members, The member for North Vancouver-Capilano is making his speech.

MR. GIBSON: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. With my voice I am not going to keep the floor much longer. What about the B.C. Health Association in this province? What do they have to say about the location of this teaching hospital? They say this: "The proposed university hospital offers students a questionable quality of medical experience and education and, in fact, is intended only to provide clinical research education for second-year students." That's what our Minister of Education is giving us. The B.C. Health Association says: "The proposed hospital will add acute-care beds to an area that already has enough, if not too many. Expenditures in this area will surely reduce the moneys available to fund the development of other forms of patient care - extended, intermediate, personal and home care." Some favour the minister was doing the education of medical people in this province.

Mr. Allan Kelly is quoted. He was asked in October if filling 240 acute-care beds at UBC would mean the elimination of 240 beds in other hospitals, He replied, "I would say in the end it will work out that way." Of course it will work out that way. There's only so much money available for hospital beds, teaching or not. The minister, by insisting on that white elephant out at UBC, is taking 240 beds away from other areas in the lower mainland that need them more, in return for giving the medical students a lower quality of educational experience and in order to put together the Pat McGeer memorial mistake, which is what it is. Listen to what else the BCHA says:

"One of the flaws in the proposed hospital is that it has a limited community to serve. It may well find itself well supplied with everything but the patients appropriate for teaching family medicine. The UBC campus is not the centre of a typical urban community" - I think that's putting it mildly - "and is inaccessible to many densely populated parts of the greater Vancouver are a. - And what's their And what's their conclusion?7e are too many "There are too many unanswered questions, too little evidence that this proposed hospital fits into the everyday realities of the health care industry in B.C."

Then, at a meeting of the Vancouver Board of Trade called to discuss the location of this teaching hospital . . . Dr. Graham Clay now speaking. He said: "Man~y clinical teachers are alarmed and convinced that the money to be spent at UBC could be put to better use by providing beds elsewhere." He points out that McGill, University of Toronto and Harvard do not have hospitals on campus, So apparently it is possible to attain at least some minimum medical educational achievement without a university hospital, if Harvard and McGill and U of T can do it. But, oh, no. The Minister of Education has to have his white elephant out there where he wants it. Dr. Clay says:

"The proposed 240-bed community hospital at UBC cannot teach 160 students and will not begin to meet the need. Each student needs 10 beds in order to gain experience. It would be more justifiable to put 160 students to work in the city, where the clinical action exists and the beds are located."

So, Mr. Chairman, I don't think a person needs to say a great deal more about this. The location of that teaching hospital is, at very best, questionable. But this minister, whose estimates we are on now, forced it through. You will recall the infamous statement he made when he said to the educational institutions: "I give you 60 days to put together a proposal or else maybe it'll go over to Victoria." That's political blackmail, Mr. Chairman, done by that minister. He knew what he wanted and, with consummate skill and arrogance and ruthlessness, he got it.

Well, maybe in political terms you have to compliment a man for something like that, but I'll tell you, when it wastes the resources of the people of British Columbia; when it misapplies the resources of the federal government; and when it steals acute-care beds from people in other parts of the lower mainland who need it, I say it's no good.

MR. LEA: I won't be very long and I don't think anybody else should be either because I don't think it matters a damn what we say or think or anybody else in this province - that minister will do exactly what he wants, when he wants. That's my speech.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. Hon. members, I think that perhaps temperate language would be more acceptable in this chamber.

MRS. E.E. DAILLY (Burnaby North): Well, listening to the opening remarks of the Minister of Education, which we've been awaiting a long time -here we are in the middle of summer, debating the Education estimates - and all we have heard from that minister was a dissertation on the need of doctors in this province, the new medical school and a cursory acknowledgment of the fact that students need more skills. He tied it in with the fact that if you give them the skills, the jobs will automatically follow, which, of course, we know is ludicrous. I happen to know a great many young men and women with marketable skills who can't find work in this province because of the government in which

[ Page 3830 ]

that minister apparently plays a very strong and powerful role. And yet he actually stands in the House today and suggests that all the problems of unemployment can be solved if we simply provide marketable skills.

No one denies the fact that the whole area of vocational training should be looked at. As time goes on in these estimates, we certainly hope that the minister is going to tell the trustees and the teachers and the students and the citizens just what his plans are. He seems to delight in dropping one shoe and keeping everyone else in the province waiting for the other shoe to drop. He's, playing games with us. He's been playing games since he became Minister of Education in this province. He played games with us here this afternoon.

He's minister of one of the largest corporations, you might say, in the province of British Columbia, and yet what did he do, Mr. Chairman? He never once mentioned the public school system. Is he announcing today that we are going to split our Education ministry? Is he now the minister of post-secondary? That's where his whole interest seems to have been since he became minister. He hasn't made one statement today on what's happening or what his policies are in the public school system. Now 1 know that as time goes on, he will have an opportunity. But it's a great disappointment, I'm sure, to the trustees and teacher representatives who are here today and to other citizens in the gallery, to have the Minister of Education for British Columbia spend most of his speech vindicating something which we know was simply built as a memorial to his own ego.

It has been a very disappointing performance, not only today but throughout his more than 18 months as minister. We have been waiting for something to happen in education. I recall the many debates in education when I was minister. 1 recall that minister saying: "Let's have no more commissions; let's have action." Well, we've been watching that minister. All I see are more commissions and studies. 1 hear a lot of talk.

In analysing what's happened in the Ministry of Education from kindergarten right through to university, 1 don't see anything new. Yet that minister has sounded off that he's going to bring about great changes in this province. Actually, all we see is a continuance of policy started under the NDP government. Very sadly we have found that some of the continuance of the NDP programmes have been aborted. That's particularly what 1 want to deal with just at this particular time, Mr. Chairman, because 1 know there are others who want to take part in the debate, and I'd like to come back later.

I'm talking particularly about the whole core curriculum programme. When this minister came into office, he quickly picked up the learning assessment programme which we had initiated, and the discussion of a core curriculum. But how he has aborted it! It is tragic because basically what he's done is for political kudos, Mr. Chairman. He has almost, 1 think, tried to con the public of British Columbia into the notion that he's going to bring about a complete change in the curriculum of the schools in the province of British Columbia.

After all this fine talk we finally receive from him a news bulletin announcing what has happened after all this talk and study. There's no new core curriculum. I think the public should be made aware of that here and now. 1 think the minister has a responsibility to tell them. There's nothing wrong with that, Mr. Chairman, because we always did have a core curriculum in place; we always did have a course of studies. It was there. And we were quite different from the province of Ontario which actually made the core subjects optional. This was never so in the province of British Columbia.

1 don't think the minister has levelled with the people of British Columbia. Instead, he's used it, as 1 said earlier, politically because he knows there is a mood out there - and it's very easy to whip up an anti-education, anti-teacher mood. Oh, the minister has delighted in working on this mood and whipping it up.

Yet when we stop and analyse it, who have become the victims of this minister's gameplaying with education? They are the students of this province who are still in a state of wondering what is going on with them. Are they going to be tested eternally every year? Are they going to be forced to take exams every year? The minister has left all this up in the air.

This was not the intention of the learning assessment programme which we initiated. The purpose, Mr. Chairman, was to find out very objectively how students were doing, and then to look at the curriculum and the goals of the curriculum and take it from there. Instead, this minister, who is responsible for his own statements -and, 1 may say, not his deputy and not some other members in his ministry who have gone out and very objectively, 1 think, tried to explain what the core curriculum is about - has followed along with the frenzy which can easily be built up out there and suggested that the schools need a complete change -in excellence, we need to work harder, there's too much absenteeism, et cetera, et cetera.

Yet in the final analysis, as I said a few minutes ago, he's produced a departmental news release which simply states that everything's set for September. What's set for September, Mr. Chairman? The goals! The goals are finally in place. There's no new core curriculum. It wasn't necessary, and 1 agree with that. But why hasn't this minister levelled with the public instead of playing his political games?

[ Page 3831 ]

The other thing he has done which 1 think is very, very tragic is that he has made the teachers the victims of this whole anti-education move, which is not a majority move in this province, Mr. Chairman. The majority of the people are satisfied with education. But this minister seems to delight in catering to the minority. In the statements this minister has made, it's quite clear that he keeps coming back to the need for excellence - in other words, pointing his finger at the teacher, particularly the English teacher. While he does this, it's most interesting to note that there's nothing to back up his statements. There's nothing that he's going to do to assist the English teachers of this province, if they are so terribly poor, as the minister may not have said in so many terms but certainly by innuendo. What is he going to do about it?

I do know in reading carefully through the learning assessment pamphlet which came out that we do find areas, particularly in grade 7 and some of the junior grades, where perhaps teachers have been placed in the classrooms to teach them English, which they were not properly trained for. 1 concede that. But let's not have these statements of the minister which simply put all the fault on the teachers.

Let's have from that minister something very concrete and positive to assist those teachers. Yet not once have 1 seen a press release from his ministry stating that they are going to assist in in-service training, financially, the school boards, and that they are perhaps going to look into the area of smaller classes in the English secondary classes, and that they are going to perhaps assist financially in teachers' aids. It is very easy to accuse the teachers and then sit back and do nothing to assist aids. It is very easy to accuse the teachers and then sit back and do nothing to assist them if there are any weak areas. publicly,

I'm very disappointed in this minister and his statements which he has made publicly, Mr. Chairman. Let's take another example: the English placement exams. What were they there for? They were there simply, Mr. Chairman - and 1 know you are aware of this because you are always very interested in education - so that it would assist the universities, when those students arrived from grade 12, knowing in what categories to place the students according to their ability in the English language. What happened? The minister again took it upon himself to use those results to cater to the anti-educational feeling in this province, which 1 reiterate is very much a minority group. He shouldn't have used those statistics from that English placement exam. For what purpose? For his own political edification. It has not helped the students and it has not helped the universities for the minister to get involved in that.

1 think that what has happened is that many of the grade 12 students in this province now are concerned. They are wondering: 9s this going to hold me back from getting into university?" He has created an unnecessary fear out there. He has also again, unnecessarily, pointed his finger at the English teachers of this province. He should stand up and apologize for doing this. How far can any minister go in pushing his own political fortunes ahead of the needs of the students and the teachers of this province?

I think the minister owes us an explanation for these extreme statements and innuendoes which he seems to delight in making. I notice that a member of his own ministry, who shall remain nameless, is no longer working there. It is very interesting to recall that that particular member actually, I believe, contradicted the minister in what the whole aim of the learning assessment programme and the core curriculum was to be about. It is very interesting. He was a very fine person, may I say.

I'd like to get back later on to the core curriculum and the learning assessment programme. I think the minister should stand up and tell us what his philosophy is about this. Does he just believe in creating an elitist group of students? He keeps talking, "excellence, excellence." We hear nothing else from this minister. He doesn't seem to be aware, Mr. Chairman, that every child learns according to his or her ability and level. I think if he had it his way, he would have us back to the good old days where everyone sits in rows and everyone learns the same thing at the same time. If you just don't make the grade that year you are failed - period. All research and statistics today show us that holding back a child in those early years does nothing but harm to the child.

I find it tragic to have to stand up here and go through these points which I made years ago when I was an educational critic. Hopefully we have seen a turn and a better understanding in the province by the teachers of this province and by the leadership of the educators in this province. This minister seems determined to take us right back again to cater to, as I say, a small, vocal minority in the province.

There is one other area I would like the minister to specifically answer. It is to do with his plans for the $80 million he has announced with so much fanfare.

We are pleased he has it. I won't go into anything else on that at this time. I do want to say to the minister that the trustees of this province are very concerned that you seem to be going again on Your own merry little way without any consultation with them. You have announced that you are going to move in on some kind of new, vocational programming, which seems , to suggest post-secondary. Quite rightly the trustees are saying: "Look, for years our school taxes have gone to support our schools. Here comes a time when you could alleviate to some extensive degree some of the taxes which we have had to put forward because of these problems which we have faced in prior years with the federal government, "

[ Page 3832 ]

You are not giving the citizens of this province any opportunity to receive some of this money to alleviate their tax burden. I think the minister owes it to the House.... If he is going to move into vocational training in the post-secondary field, then why doesn't he explore other means of getting the money? He knows there is Manpower money available and there are other sources,

Why not look to an alleviation of the very heavy school-tax burden which is placed on the people of this province? It is interesting to note that since this minister came into government the basic levy has risen considerably. I believe it is now up considerably, from about 26 mills to over 32 mills or more, I believe the basic mill rate is now 37. Since this minister came in we have had a jump like that.

As a matter of fact, what's happened is that the taxpayers of British Columbia now are paying almost on an average 55 per cent of all school taxes. This minister has just announced a windfall from the federal government, and yet he doesn't show any intention whatsoever to apply this to ease the burden of the local taxpayer. Instead, he's talking about some great plan he has for vocational training without enunciating to us what it's all about. I can assure you, if it's all for post-secondary, the school trustees of this province have a right to rise up and complain, and I can assure you they'll have a lot of support.

There are so many areas that this minister, I find, has been most disappointing in. He seems to be obsessed with post-secondary and particularly his medical school, which I guess is fine enough, Mr. Minister, but let's remember that there's a great sector of his ministry out there that he shows very little interest in, and when he does, Mr. Chairman, it's to handle it with extreme statements which are not helping the cause of education in this province.

MR. WALLACE: Mr. Chairman, this debate on education covers an enormous amount of issues and I just want to touch on one or two on this first occasion on which I speak in the debate, I feel initially obligated to respond somewhat to the introductory remarks by the minister. In particular, I wasn't sure if I really heard correctly - I've been trying to get a transcript of the minister's comments in Hansard, but they're not available as yet - but in his introductory remarks he seemed to be suggesting that we have high unemployment because of problems in our educational system. I can't read it back verbatim since I don't have the transcript - the minister can correct me if I'm wrong - but he made some comment to the effect that the 40,000 students who leave our high schools each year, provided they have skills, have no trouble getting jobs. As I say, those may not be the precise words, but the implication was very clear that the more education you get, the better chance you have of getting a job.

I just want to enlighten the minister as to what happens at least in the greater Victoria area where we have 10 per cent unemployment. I would like to quote from the statistics provided by Mr. Purdy, who is the manager of Manpower in Victoria. This is what Mr. Purdy says: "University of Victoria and local technical schools should stop adding to the unemployment problem by turning out a surplus of workers for jobs that don't exist." He said: "There are 130 unemployed teachers and 42 unemployed university instructors in Victoria at the present time." I'm quoting the month of February. "In addition, the unemployed list includes 62 trained social workers and 45 registered nurses." Now I would suggest that there are four groups of people that are very well educated, thank you. To suggest that the more education you have the better chance you have of being employed is really not in keeping with the facts. MR. Purdy went on to say: "The university is adding to the unemployment problem by continuing to churn out graduates for jobs that don't exist. He said he would raise the issue at a meeting with UVic officials."

As I mentioned, Mr. Chairman, we have about a 10 per cent rate of unemployment, which amounts to approximately 10,000 people in the greater Victoria area. Mr. Purdy went on to document the fact that in addition to the 279 professional workers, the list included 1,207 construction workers, 257 loggers, 166 sawmill employees, 204 cooks, 390 waiters and waitresses, 142 chambermaids, 64 bartenders, 154 stenographers and 156 bookkeepers. I wouldn't suggest that a stenographer or a bookkeeper is not a well-educated person. They've completed grade 12 and they've listened to their parents and the politicians and everybody else tell them that the best way to make their way in life is to get a basic education and make sure you get your grade 12. For the minister to stand up here this afternoon and say to the House - and through the House to the people of British Columbia - that their children's chances of unemployment are not serious if in fact they receive as much education as possible, particularly the 40,000 persons he remembered coming out of.... I think the figure was 40,000 and I stand to be corrected, but he was certainly referring to the high school students who graduate.

Mr. Purdy said that UVic and technical schools must begin to think in terms of restricting enrolment or the problem of jobless professionals and skilled workers would become worse. I don't want to belabour the point by quoting figures for intake and output of our universities, but since I recognize the difficulties of the situation and I recognize the minister's problem, all I'm asking is that we don't distort the fact that unemployment is not a problem for someone who has an education.

I heard enough about the days in Canada long

[ Page 3833 ]

before my time and I always hear pioneers referring to the Dirty Thirties. I understand that in these years in Canada, PhDs were lining up to sweep floors and wash dishes. I don't suggest it is anything new that we have many people with excellent education who are unemployed.

The minister, in my opinion, clearly left the impression that somehow or other those with education would not suffer unemployment. I just couldn't agree more with the HON. Liberal leader (Mr. Gibson) that unemployment is due to lack of jobs. It's not due to too much or too little education; it's due to lack of jobs. While economic problems nationally and internationally make the problem of job creation difficult, all I want to state very plainly in this debate is: let's not blame the unemployment problems of British Columbia and Canada on our education system. I still believe that anyone who wishes and is capable of reaching the highest degree of education should have that opportunity and should be encouraged to avail themselves of that opportunity. We should not teach doom and gloom or "what's the point of getting a grade 12 education or going to college if at the end of the line you can't get a job, " I find that a very negative, depressing and discouraging attitude that surfaces too often these days.

On this very point of educating people to a high degree with an apparent disregard for the jobs available, I think the medical manpower situation which the minister also referred to in his introductory comments deserves some response. I agree with the minister that it's very sad that so many young British Columbians who have attained the education which entitles them to enter medical school find it very difficult to obtain a medical education in British Columbia because of the limited number of places. But, Mr. Chairman, the high cost of any particular segment of professional education means that we cannot look at any one segment in isolation. However sympathetic we feel to the right of an individual to go into a medical school if he has the necessary qualifications, I think the very simplistic way in which the minister presented the argument today bears just a little further scrutiny.

Medical manpower has been a big problem for many years. In large measure in British Columbia, our problem is not numbers but distribution of the doctors that are in practice in British Columbia. At the national level, let me just quote the federal minister himself as recently as the beginning of July this year. Mr. Lalonde spoke at a dinner in Quebec City and said:

" 'Eighteen hundred medical graduates are being turned out each year by the country's 16 medical schools. By adding immigration and subtracting emigration, death and retirement figures, the country faces a probable increase of about 1,200 physicians a year over the next decade. This is an annual increment of 2.7 per cent, but the population will increase at only 1.4 per cent. The result will be a rise in the number of doctors from one for every S70 people at present to one for every 47S people by 1986.'

"Mr. Lalonde said that the question of the number of doctors in Canada was to be discussed at a conference with his provincial counterparts. Some of the questions to be asked revolved around whether there were already enough doctors in Canada or too many. 'And yet, ' he said, 'any talk of a surplus was hard to understand by people in underserviced areas such as northern B.C. and the Gaspe.'"

So the figures are fairly clear, Mr. Chairman, that Canada and British Columbia as a whole have an adequate number of doctors, Therefore I think it's too simple to suggest that because British Columbia students have difficulty getting into medical school, the simple answer is just to build a larger medical school in British Columbia.

[Mr. Rogers in the chair.]

As the minister knows, the B.C. College of Physicians and Surgeons is very well aware of the problem, and has been for years, particularly regarding the poor distribution of doctors to remote areas. It has in fact set up a committee on medical manpower and that committee, among other suggestions, has asked if there is not the possibility that changes could be made in the numbers of entrants to other medical schools in other provinces so that British Columbia high school students, or pre-medical students, could have a greater chance of getting a medical education without this provincial B.C. expansion of facilities to add another 80 students per year at a time when national figures and statistics seem to point out, as Mr. Lalonde has said, that we can anticipate an increase of 1,200 doctors in Canada per year for the next decade.

The only substantial factor that I think might change that is the federal government's action already to drastically limit the immigration of doctors from other countries.

HON. MR. McGEER: Our relationship with the U.S. is the biggest one.

MR. WALLACE: I'm not sure what the minister is saying across the floor, Mr. Chairman, but I just want quickly to recite the figures for immigrant doctors to Canada for certain years. The trend becomes obvious very quickly: in 1969, there were 1,347 immigrant doctors to Canada; in 1973, it was reduced to 1,170; in 1975, it was 800; in 1976, it was 401, , and this

[ Page 3834 ]

year, the first quarter shows a 20 per cent drop compared to 1976. In other words, in 1977 there will probably be somewhere in the neighbourhood of 320 doctors as compared with 1,347 in 1969.

1 think another point, Mr. Chairman, that is all too loosely alluded to in the press and elsewhere is that the great majority of B.C. doctors have their education here, graduate here, and leave the province. This is not accurate either. It is important that when the minister talks about trying to meet the need for medical education of the sons and daughters of British Columbia residents we should also make very plain the fact that many medical graduates -Canadians with Canadian citizenship - register in B.C. every year and far outnumber the graduates we now produce from the UBC medical school.

In the year September 1,1975, to August 31,1976, Mr. Chairman, there was a total of 329 doctors registering for the first time in British Columbia. Out of that 329,220 were Canadian graduates and 66 were from UBC. In addition, there were 60 from the United Kingdom, 4 from the United States, 7 from South Africa, 5 from Australia and New Zealand, and 33 from other countries. So unless this minister, Mr. Chairman, suggests that there should be some negotiated mechanism with the federal government to limit the number of doctors entering British Columbia - and I don't refer just to limiting the number of immigrant doctors to Canada - I'm really interested to know what the minister suggests should be done about the approximately 154 Canadian graduates who came into B.C. between September 1,1975, and August 31,1976, who, plus the proposed 160 UBC graduates each year, will continue to increase the number of doctors in British Columbia faster than the population is increasing.

Now as I said, Mr. Chairman, nobody really disputes how desirable it would be for every young man or woman who has the qualifications to enter medical school to be able to do so. That's a very laudable goal. But I think the question that must be asked is: under the circumstances I have outlined, and considering the figures which speak for themselves, is it just that simple that this government, or any government in B.C., should simply say: "We're increasing our medical school from 80 to 160 and if that means we end up with just too many doctors, well, tough luck; they can go somewhere else"T

Of course, if they do take that option of going somewhere else it simply means that we have expended large capital sums to educate doctors who then find that they cannot become employed or self-employed within the province where they have been raised and given t heir education. I think the minister should answer that particular question. Can he tell us what he perceives, with the expansion of the medical school, to be the annual increase in the total number of doctors in British Columbia, let us say, over the next decade? As the minister well knows, the ratio of doctors to population in British Columbia is the lowest of anywhere in Canada, something of the order of one doctor to 500 people. If we double our output and if the figures for September, 1975, to August, 1976, are to be continued - namely, the registrations by doctors from other parts of Canada - what does the minister see as the annual increase in the total number of doctors in British Columbia, let us say, over the next 10 years?

The second question, Mr. Chairman: does the minister see the possibility that there has to be some kind of ceiling figure? Or is it simply a matter of ensuring that the greatest number of B.C. students can at least get into UBC? And if their increased output plus the other 160 or more Canadians who come into B.C. every year - if that steadily diminishes the ratio between population and doctor, does the minister see any danger that, for example, there will be a generation of medical care by physicians simply to make their existence economically viable? Because this is the accusation that's thrown at doctors already - that we have a concentration of doctors in the urban areas, and that they're there in larger number than the population really needs. In order to make a financial success of their practice, they have to generate work. The Minister of Health (Hon. Mr. McClelland) accuses them of indiscriminate use of laboratory tests; he accuses them of overdoing checkups on healthy people when we are trying to do preventive medicine and find signs of disease before even the patient himself knows that it's there. I am just asking the minister, without getting into the area of the cost of health services per se ... I am just saying that the more doctors you produce, it stands to reason that they in turn will be looking after a smaller number of patients, providing a more intense amount of scrutiny, testing, checking, et cetera, on that smaller number of patients. The end result, inevitably, has to be a continuing escalation of health-care costs.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Hon. member, if I could have your attention a moment, please. We are on the estimates of the Minister of Education. I appreciate that the expansion of the university teaching facilities and the field of medicine does come under his responsibility, but your line of debate is now considerably off the Ministry of Education and perhaps you would get back to vote 158.

MR. WALLACE: Mr. Chairman, I am sure that with your perception of one of the main functions of this Legislature, namely the judicious scrutiny of government spending of taxpayers' money, I would submit that the line of argument I am pursuing clearly suggests that a laudable goal of providing

[ Page 3835 ]

medical education for more young men and women in B.C. is worthwhile. But if it simply provides an excess of doctors who, in turn, lead to the excessive or unnecessary expenditure of public funds to justify their professional existence, then surely it's being very technical to suggest that where two fields such as education and health are so intimately related that we can't discuss them in an interrelated fashion in this debate. With the greatest of respect, I would go further and say that some of the latitude that is allowed to other speakers compared to the technical way in which you are trying to criticize me today is not very welcome.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Hon. member, I have listened very patiently to your debate and at one point you were discussing doctor-patient relationships which are considerably. . . . I think I have allowed you considerable latitude and I would therefore counsel you just this one time to....

MR. WALLACE: Mr. Chairman, would you care to recall when I ever mentioned the words doctor-patient relationship? I can't recall ever using those words once in my comments.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I will refer to you in the Blues tomorrow. Please continue on, hon. member.

MR. WALLACE: Mr. Chairman, I think the point has been raised by many well-intentioned sectors in our society in British Columbia, including the medical profession itself, the university, the news media and the people who pay the bills. It is the taxpayer who, sooner or later, puts up the funding to expand any kind of educational facilities in this province, including the proposed increase of educational facilities for medical students.

I would wonder if the minister can tell us specifically what particular discussions he has had with federal Manpower officials and/or Mr. Lalonde in regard to the proposed amount of increase from 80 to 160 medical students. Since the federal government shares in funding - we've heard about the $80 million that they've come up with for post-secondary education - could the minister tell us if at any time federal officials, dealing with this matter of producing more medical students in British Columbia, have given a firm commitment that whatever the increase is the cost sharing will be continued?

The minister has made great mention of the federal health sciences fund or whatever the precise title of the Act is, and the fact that we have to have the facilities built by 1981. But I would like to know whether in fact, in negotiating that federal funding for the increased size of the medical school, there has been any kind of note of restriction by the federal level in much the same way that Mr. Lalonde spoke about the education of medical students in Quebec City about three weeks ago.

It should be interesting to mention that Mr. Lalonde said quite clearly: "Our present number of doctors may already be quite adequate, and the implications of further increases, both with respect to costs for governments and with respect to your incomes, are quite obvious." He was speaking to a medical gathering. I'm more particularly interested in the first part of that statement than the second. In other words, Mr. Lalonde is sounding the note loud and clear that governments should be very concerned about spending money on educational facilities to turn out a larger number of doctors when, in his view and in the view of the federal government, there is already an adequate number and perhaps a more than adequate number of doctors available.

Since governments must be very seriously concerned about the substantial costs, could I ask the minister if at any time in discussions at the federal level regarding the expansion of the UBC medical school there has been any suggestion by Mr. Lalonde or others that the minister's proposal is excessive in that it should be either reduced in some way or phased in over a longer period of years, by which time it might be a little easier to Project the source of other medical graduates, including immigrants from overseas?

MR. COCKE: Mr. Chairman, there's no surprise in not hearing from the minister. He wants to wait for a while and digest some of the questions that have been asked, I guess, but I do think that since there's been such a variety he could have got up.

I had planned this afternoon to start out making a few references to what I see as a relatively new person looking at the whole education world. Having had years in opposition as the health critic and then some time in an administrative function in that regard, I find it just a little bit strange, of course, looking at this new world. I think sometimes when you're looking at a new world through relatively old eyes you can glean something. I certainly see today a real different world as far as education is concerned as opposed to yesterday. We see something that we never expected to see in the past, and that's declining school populations. We see something that we've always expected, and that's increasing expectations. Then we have that great conflict that's out there, and that's the conflict between the back-to-the-basics and the out-to-freer-and-opener education. I know the minister has walked a tightrope in this regard. He's tried very hard to satisfy the back-to-the-basics people, but then at the same time tried to prove to those that are relatively avant-garde that he also thinks in terms of the future. I sometimes hold in suspect some of his ways of doing business, but I

[ Page 3836 ]

think I can deal with some of that in a few minutes. I share the former minister's (Mrs. Dailly's) lack of enthusiasm for the fact that the minister really has not dealt in his opening statement with the public school system, one of his most important responsibilities. He dealt at great, length with the Minister of Health's (Hon. Mr. McClelland's) problems with respect to the university hospital. He dealt at some length with his great conquest of the federal government for the $80 million that was initiated by the former minister.

Basically if I see anything in the current world, it's back to kick the schools and the school teachers around a little bit. It's not something new; there always has to be a fall guy in a process that has been highly politicized over the years. 1 think that politicians have had for some time thoughts in their minds about reacting, and the present minister has shown that he can certainly react in some of his own behaviour. 1 watched him kick the school trustees around a little bit, not so much as to lose their entire support but just enough to get them angry. 1 watched him kick the teachers around. They're a little more vulnerable; they're not elected so therefore they can be kicked around to a greater extent. He's shown that he has that fine understanding of how far you can kick, and he's done that.

1 say the teachers right now are constantly on the firing line because of this situation that we're in. Our present direction under the minister, 1 would suggest, is for a centralized response instead of what should be a local response which can react to local needs and aspirations quickly, effectively and with some kind of understanding and ability to implement. Mr. Chairman, the minister should understand that this centralized bureaucracy takes more time to react by the time there's an issue and a final solution. You have to weave through so much that actually the solution comes far too late. Mr. Chairman, think in terms of issues at the public school level. Think how slowly a minister can react to the problems at that level but how quickly people right there in the community can react - and do react, if given their heads.

Mr. Chairman, 1 think what we're looking at here is a typical - it would seem in B.C. anyway - Liberal response. And why do 1 say that? 1 think the Liberals feel that they're born to govern. That's the way they feel. They're born to control. Mr. Chairman, let's just for a second compare the response of the Minister of Education to the response of that other well-known Liberal, the Minister of Human Resources (Hon. Mr. Vander Zalm) .

Mr. Chairman, what does the Minister of Human Resources want to do? He wants to bring all the power back to Victoria and get rid of those nasty resources boards.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Hon. member, we are discussing the estimates of the Minister of Education.

MR. COCKE: I get a little bit fed up when I use as an analogy or as a comparison....

Interjection.

MR. COCKE: Listen, member for Victoria (Hon. Mr. Bawlf) - oh, brave soul - why don't you get up in this House sometime and put your words on the record instead of sitting around and making little comments and snide remarks.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Hon. member, kindly address the Chair.

MR. COCKE: Mr. Chairman, I'll address the Chair hereinafter.

Mr. Chairman, I suggest to you that there is a commonality that I've expressed. "Get everything back here so that I got my hands firmly on the reins." Born to govern, born to control - something the Minister of Health doesn't quite understand. That's how come he lost all his impetus. Do you remember what a brave soul he was in opposition? Look at him now: backbench cabinet minister that can't even make a decision around a hospital.

Mr. Chairman, I suggest to you that as recently as July 6, the B.C. School Trustees Association newsletter showed their grave concern regarding their functions as expressed by senior members of the department who tend to indicate that the B.C. School Trustees Association's only function is to hire teachers and pay their salaries. "Don't you bother messing things up." After all, how can folks back home make decisions?

It is a real shame, and I share their concern. I share their concerns about this super-bureaucracy that that minister will build in the next few years or few months - hopefully months.

Mr. Chairman, I suggest to you that to provide those worried with a panacea, he showed real flair. A lot of people are worried about education right now and do you know what he did? He said: "Well, I can see some very good initials." We've got core - that really means core. Then we've got PLAP - that's the provincial learning assessments programme. That really means plap. So what did he do? Like a great circus, we saw them going out with all their new releases. It was the PR show of the century in education.

Mr. Chairman, we're seeing administration through press release. I want to deal with core and PLAP later, but all I want to suggest to you is that when the minister made his report the other day, his most recent news release, in which he indicated he had tremendous support out there and he was reacting to

[ Page 3837 ]

the people's wishes, I say to, him, nonsense! Everything that he's going to do this September in the school system has been laid down by February or March as surely as can be. There can be no change in the curriculum at this late stage, so what about the input? More nonsense, more PR from the greatest PR, banner-waving guy that we have on that side of the House.

Interjection.

MR. COCKE: No, the Provincial Secretary (Hon. Mrs. McCarthy) runs him a good second, Remember when he was the white knight, the Liberal Leader? Oh my! In those days, of course, he had a lot of the press with him because some of them were Liberal.

HON. MR. McGEER: I thought they were all NDP.

MR. COCKE: Anyway, Mr. Chairman, it has been suggested that many of our children are coming out of the school system inadequately trained. Well, I wouldn't be surprised that some are, but if they are, let me tell you what they are in my view. I'm the father of four grown-up kids and I've seen a lot of things happening in the school system over the years. I say that if they are inadequately trained, they're often the victims of fads. Where do these fads oftentimes come from? Right from the heart of the ministry, or the minister.

Oftentimes, Mr. Chairman, the reason for the inadequately trained people is the very fact that we are graduating a greater percentage - a greater percentage of the kids are actually getting through. Mr. Chairman, more than anything I suggest to you that if this is a fact, they're victims of the bureaucratic decisions of the past and, heaven only knows, in this province we've had many, many bureaucratic decisions from that old Socred government. Remember Dan Campbell - "music, art and all that baloney"? I sat in this House absolutely confounded when he made those kinds of statements - "all that baloney."

Mr. Chairman, many of his predecessors and successors showed their total lack of appreciation for education. Having seen all that history, having written a book on politics of our land, having that kind of an understanding, he still went over and joined them. Now he's part of it - part of an anachronism that has almost been swept away everywhere else in Canada. As a matter of fact, it really never got anywhere else in most of Canada, Mr. Chairman, now that minister is part of the anachronism that he criticized so vociferously.

Well, people in B.C. have reason to complain about education because under the Socreds traditionally there has been less and less local input. I suggest to you that it's going to become even less. That's why the school trustees are worried; that's why people interested in education are worried; that's why parents who really have an understanding of what education means and needs are worried. I suggest, Mr. Chairman, that what he's doing here is following the example of all the other ministers in human services within that government.

Let's give you one good example. A good example that I can suggest - if I can find it - would be the HELP organization, which is an affiliate of the Vancouver Association For Children With Learning Disabilities.

Mr. Chairman, they wrote this letter on February 3,1977, and I asked them whether they ever got any reply in kind. Or at least, have they had a reply that would satisfy even a part of their need? And to this date, nothing. They wrote to the Premier, and they said:

"Dear Premier:

"We wish to deplore the withdrawal by your administration of your financial support for our parent body, namely the Vancouver Association For Children With Learning Disabilities. It is our understanding that, despite repeated appeals to four different provincial government departments, your administration continues to deny minimal funding to the VACLD.

"We would like to go on record as stating that we view this policy as being incomprehensible, shortsighted, inefficient and insensitive."

And they're absolutely right.

You know, this government was elected suggesting that they were interested in putting volunteers to work. Everything they've done and every more they've made has been in direct contradiction to that kind of policy and that kind of direction. Another volunteer organization - people willing to spend hours and hours in self-sacrifice - is being denied assistance. The letter goes on to say:

"We regard this policy as being incomprehensible, because it emanates from a government which claims to be people-oriented. Yet it cannot provide funding for a non-profit, public-service organization which has as its prime objective the effective education of learning-disordered children.

That's pretty hard to take from that government. It's pretty hard to take when you consider they went around indicating that they were interested in assisting the people to assist themselves. Centralize. Do all your work from Victoria. Deification of the minister isn't good enough, I suggest. The letter goes on:

"We regard this policy as being shortsighted and inefficient because the assistance which

[ Page 3838 ]

could be rendered now in order to aid early diagnosis and recognition of learning disabilities would contribute to the prevention in later life of severe social and learning problems."

These problems get expensive; if you don't get them early they get very expensive. Mr. Chairman, they ignore that kind of prevention.

I suggest to you, Mr. Chairman, that the spendthrift approach on cures when often it's too late for cures, is certainly not good business. And again, this government was elected on a business ethic. They've proven pretty conclusively that they can't run any of their Crown corporations, except those which were so well established by the time they took control that they're running themselves. But aside from that, their record is just very bad.

Mr. Chairman, that government should recognize the grave need for prevention. 1 suggest, Mr. Chairman, that it's just examples like this - and there are so many examples like this - showing that there is no real concern for the grassroots; showing that there is no real concern in that government for problems at the local level and for some of the basic problems that they could prevent if they used their imagination.

I've got quite a different example, but again it's a local need that wasn't understood. I wonder if the minister remembers that I asked him a question in question period sometime ago. And the question had to do with the Boundary Community School in North Vancouver. Do you remember that name? When 1 asked the minister what they were doing withdrawing support for tenders that were being called that very day, the day I questioned, he said he'd never heard the name.

MR. LAUK: You're kidding. Would he say that?

MR. COCKE: He said he had never heard the name of it.

MR. LAUK: Was he telling the truth?

MR. COCKE: He didn't know what it was all about.

1 phoned the school later that day and they said 1 was the second member to phone that day.

MR. LAUK: Who was the first?

MR. COCKE: The Minister of Education phoned long before I asked the question. He didn't know the name of the school and he didn't know of the problem, yet he phoned the school. I just don't know why he would have phoned. the school. Unfortunately he didn't get through to the principal but he had put a call through to the principal who wasn't there.

MR. LAUK: We better bring back the strap for you.

MR. COCKE: Mr. Chairman, let me suggest to you what that was all about. This school was built in 1969. The government of the day was asked to add to the size of the school and they had agreed to go ahead with the plans. The original building was designed to accommodate 100 students from grades I to 3. You know how many students they now have in this school designed to accommodate 100 students? They have 320. There will be 340 this fall.

The staff room was designed for 10 members. It now has to accommodate 20 plus 75 volunteers. They have six portables at that school and the students come in and out of the playing field to use the washrooms. There is only one washroom for the girls and one for the boys.

This is a school with 320 children and looking forward to 340 this fall. They don't have a full-size gymnasium; that was part of the promise. The library is the least desirable in all of North Vancouver and the learning assistance centre, which is used by 42 students, is a small area off the library subject to numerous disturbances.

All they ask for is just a little bit of consideration How can they get consideration from this super-elitist bureaucracy?

They have no locked area for over $5,000 worth of audio-visual equipment, they say. Their present changing rooms off the gym are filled with stored material.

The project was allowed to go to final call - listen to this carefully, my colleagues - to tender before being cancelled. It went to final call to tender and then it was cancelled that day.

MR. LEA: It's hard to believe he is a humble man.

MR. COCKE: They incurred $28,000 in expenses for architectural fees and paid $60,000 for rent for portable units. There is no likely possibility that that area is going to go down in population. I'm talking about the Lynn Valley area. It is a young family area. It is going to go up in population and school population. This is not an area with a declining birth rate, they say. There are 25 new houses scheduled to be built one block from the school. Expansions were carried out over at Westover and Seymour Heights despite the fact that those are declining birth rate areas. There are numerous families with young families in the Lynn Valley housing co-op, That's your brainchild.

MR. LEA: He's a humble man.

MR. COCKE: Mr. Chairman, to keep the portables for another year is going to cost around $32,400. 1

[ Page 3839 ]

suggest that the minister, having had that question period, should now have responded to the obvious need in a community. He hasn't done so.

MR. LEA: He didn't level with you.

MR. COCKE: No, no - that can happen. You can forget that you have been given a number to call. I'm not going to make any suggestion such as that. I'm going to suggest that he should get on with getting things done at the community level.

MR. LAUK: He should go to confession.

MR. COCKE: Mr. Chairman, 1 want to give you another example. This is an example of his attempting to take away decision-making from the grassroots. Do you remember that the NDP government gave support to the B.C. School Trustees Association's "operation full slate"? They asked for very little money but they wanted to really get enthusiasm going in school board elections. They felt that if you have enough enthusiasm - and it's true -you improve the quality of the school board situation. 1 guess this government fears improving the quality because if they do then what do they have?

MR. LEA: Demands,

MR. COCKE: They have demands. They have people who are more difficult to deal with than some of the sheep they would prefer to deal with. That is not to suggest for one second that they have sheep now.

MR. CHAIRMAN: 1 draw your attention to the fact that the three-minute light is on.

MR. COCKE: 1 have lots and lots of time. I'll be up many, many more times.

I'd like to suggest, Mr. Chairman, just a few areas where this minister has a lot to learn. This area about the operation full slate, I think, is just as good an example as any. No, they don't want to assist anything at the grassroots. They don't want to get involved, as they should get involved, in seeing to it that we have the very best school boards and the most enthusiastic grassroots response to the education needs of our province.

HON. MR. McGEER: Mr. Chairman, perhaps 1 could just answer fairly quickly some of the questions that have been posed.

MR. LAUK: Will you tell the truth?

HON. MR. McGEER: Well, 1 won't follow your example - let me put it that way.

With respect to the Boundary Community School, Mr. Chairman, I did take as notice a question from the member for New Westminster, and since I haven't yet got the information that's required, I haven't been able to give a complete answer in the House. However, in the North Vancouver School District this past year there was a reduction of 1,000 students in the school population and an overall reduction if 835 in the elementary population.

The difficulty with the Boundary Community School, as perceived by Ministry of Education officials, is that there are five schools within a mile of the Boundary Community School and they have, by ministry calculations, 125 available spaces in them. It's this problem which I suspect will occur more and more in the province as school populations decline. Everybody competes for a declining population of students and one school would obviously like to have elaborate new facilities even though there are spaces available in the schools around. So you're going to have a lot of competition for a limited number of students.

We did meet with the parents from the Boundary Community School and with the mayor of the North Vancouver district and some other officials the other day. I never, by the way, telephoned the Boundary Community School. I don't know where the information came from, though possibly somebody from my office may have done so.

There is an area very close to the Boundary Community School which, if it opens up, would guarantee a sufficient population in that particular school.

AN HON. MEMBER: What do you think about 340 grades 3 and 4 kids?

HON. MR. McGEER: Well, I think there is agreement between the parents and the school district and the ministry that there isn't a population base now for 340 students. That's notwithstanding the vacancies in the school district around. But in any event, there is some vacant property directly behind the Boundary Community School which belongs to North Vancouver city. When we met, unfortunately, North Vancouver city were the one group of people that weren't represented, but if they do open up that area for city lots, then of course there will be a school population moving in there close to the Boundary Community School, which would certainly justify building the scale of addition that they had requested. Nobody complained about expansion of the Boundary Community School; it was merely a question of whether the size was justified, given the available population figures and the vacancies in the schools all around. But I'll answer that formally in the House as soon as we get the critical information from North Vancouver city.

[ Page 3840 ]

The member also asked why we weren't going after money from Ottawa. It was his position, I take it, that the money we have obtained from Ottawa should not be used for education, but should be used to decrease taxes. That's not our view. We intend with the additional money that we get from Ottawa: to improve educational opportunity in British Columbia, and I give that commitment to the House. We'll also go after all of the Manpower money that's available. That's an extra. We're getting as much as we possibly can now. :

As the member no doubt realizes, the money is available largely for retraining people in the work force who have been out of work for a year. As I explained in the opening remarks, Mr. Chairman, that period~'of a year if someone's unemployed, where earnings are lost, where perhaps unemployment insurance or perhaps social assistance is paid, the combination of that human wastage for a year equals the total amount that would be spent on an individual in all his years of education. So that's why we lay such stress on the final stages of a person's education, giving them that marketable skill. Of course, available jobs do vary according to the briskness of the economy, and British Columbia as a trading nation depends very much upon external markets.

Another way of looking at our unemployment problem is simply to say that there are too few employers and too many employees, and that part of what we should be doing, particularly at the more advanced levels of education, is teaching people not just to fill a job for somebody else, but to become employers in their own right, Very often if you have practical programmes in an area which is underserviced in the community and give people that little extra know how that will allow them to go out and earn for themselves and employ others, then you've turned out not just a worker but an employer. If one can improve on that, then of course it would do much to alleviate this structural unemployment problem that is particularly plaguing us at the present time, but has been part of British Columbia's picture for many years.

The member for Oak Bay (Mr. Wallace) is not in his seat at the present time but I can answer very quickly some of the questions he raised with regard to the supply of medical manpower. Mr. Chairman, it would be my view - a personal one - that we should attempt to become self-sufficient in supplying the doctors who are needed in this province. That's the only fair thing to do on behalf of British Columbians and it's the only wise thing to do, Mr. Chairman, in the way of bringing to the people of this province the kinds of medical skills that are most in need. We are turning away our very best and denying them the opportunity for medical education.

I don't believe the expansion that we have undertaken at the University of British Columbia at the present time is nearly adequate. Probably by the time those doctors come on stream we'll still be producing less than a third of our requirements. In other words, what we'll be doing is still offering two-thirds of the professional opportunities in British Columbia to people from elsewhere. I suspect in no other field has our performance been so bad and will have continued to be so bad.

Now what more can one say than that? I take it from the suggestions made by the member for Oak Bay that he really feels that the solution for British Columbia is to deny our young people opportunity. That's the way you cope with the medical manpower situation. But it's not that way at all. There are many methods that we can use, not just in medicine but in all our fields, to give opportunities to our young people. The problem we have today, whether it's coal miners, whether it's heavy-duty mechanics, whether it's high-power linemen, whether it's machinists or whatever, is that we have a long lineup of people. Any occupation, skill, trade or profession where there are good employment opportunities at the other end, we have a waiting list for people to get into those programmes, and the neck of the bottle is the educational system.

[Mr. Veitch in the chair.]

At the other end, if the demand is still there, then we bring in migrants from the United States, from the United Kingdom, from Europe and from other parts of Canada. We do this while we take our own and tell them: "No, you can't have that skill because our educational system won't provide it." Then you find that when the educational system responds and says: "By golly, we want to give you a chance; we want to expand your opportunities; we want to invest the money in you and your skills for the future, " we find people like the member f o r North Vancouver-Capilano (Mr. Gibson) and Oak Bay (Mr. Wallace) . Only last week the member for RossIand-Trail (Mr. D'Arcy) and now the member for New Westminster (Mr. Cocke) were all saying that's wrong. Well, I just simply disagree with them, Mr. Chairman. I think you do give opportunities to your young people.

The member for Burnaby North (Mrs. Dailly) asked about our programme on learning assessment. She said that she has heard nothing about it. We have a very active team out in the field now going over the results 'of. the assessment programme district by district, and going into it in some detail looking at the areas in their district that needs some help with a view to supplying the extra resources that will be required in any of the areas where deficiencies are identified.

Mr. Chairman, I think that's all on my list of

[ Page 3841 ]

questions to be answered.

MS. BROWN: Mr. Chairman, one of the aims outlined in the core curriculum under which our children would be learning says that the educational aim is to provide all students with the opportunity to develop their full potential as individuals and as members of society. I want to talk about two different groups of people whom, I think, not just the core curriculum but certainly the educational system is failing in terms of developing their potential.

The first group I want to talk about is the group of students for whom English is a second language. I know that I have raised this issue on a number of different occasions. The minister's position is that this is an immigration problem and that most of these students are immigrants. The bill should be footed by the federal government rather than by the provincial government.

I want to quote an editorial from The Province on Monday, May 2,1977, on this:

"It is all very well for B.C. Education minister Pat McGeer to say funding for extra English-language training for the children of immigrants is a federal problem because immigration is under its jurisdiction. But if those children are having difficulties in handling other subjects because of language, then it becomes a provincial problem and should be dealt with."

I want to question the minister specifically about the plans for increasing the funding to the school system throughout the province - not just Vancouver - for this particular group of students. We have the Canadian census here that shows the number of non-English-speaking families living in various parts of British Columbia. We find, for example, that 23.6 per cent of the families living in Castlegar are non-English speaking and 29.2 per cent of the families living in Grand Forks are non-English speaking. We also find that 20.3 per cent of the families living in Kitimat, 13 per cent of the families living in Prince George, 12 per cent of the families in Bums Lake, 16.8 per cent of the families living in Vancouver and 15.1 per cent of the families in Abbotsford are non-English speaking. And it goes on and on and on.

These families have children, and these children are supposed to, through our education system, have the opportunity to develop their full potential as individuals and members of society. The reality of the situation, Mr. Chairman, as the editorial in The Province goes on to state, is that "Vancouver is one of the centres in Canada where immigrants tend to concentrate."

The language-difficulty problem created by the children in the schools doesn't just affect the children in the schools; it affects the entire school. It affects even the English-speaking children in the school, those children for whom English is their first language. For the immigrant children it affects not just their learning but their social adjustment to the classroom.

According to the Vancouver school board an insufficient command of the language is one of the reasons why so many graduates of the school system - not just the immigrant student but graduates of the school system - fail the English-language tests at university. The editorial goes on to say that this may be an immigration problem as well as an education problem, and suggests that the two governments should come together and bear full responsibility for seeing that these children's needs are met.

Now what is the reality of the situation in Vancouver? The last report published by the Vancouver school board of trustees for 1976 says that English was a second language for 28.3 per cent of all students in the Vancouver school system. In fact, the percentage for elementary students was higher; it was 33 per cent. For secondary students it was 20.7 per cent. It said: "A recent survey of grade 4 students showed that 42 per cent of them had English as a second language and needed to be in the 'English as a second language' category for the school." With the increase in the total school population, this percentage was actually about 40 per cent overall.

The Vancouver school trustees appealed to the Minister of Education in 1975 and asked for some funding to deal with this phenomenon. At that time they thought that they needed approximately $4 million, split between federal and provincial governments. In fact, they ended up with approximately $1.3 million which was borne by the various levels of government. This figure really fell far short of what they saw as their needs in terms of their budget.

The brief they presented to the minister went on to say that the children come in at various ages; they come in from various cultures, they come in with varying educational standards. A number of them suffer with the trauma we refer to as culture shock. It talks about educational lag, and it talks about a different native language. "The influx of students for whom English is not a first language is of such a magnitude, " the brief goes on to say, "as to have serious implications, requiring changes in the total educational programme in Vancouver, such as school organization, curriculum and materials, retraining personnel, planning and community services." That was the point at which it asked for the $4.73 million.

In its 1977 budget, it's asking for an additional $2.9 million dollars. Again, it recognizes that this programme has to be funded by both levels of government but feels very strongly that the minister at the provincial level is abrogating his duties when he states that it is a federal expense. In fact, the

[ Page 3842 ]

provincial government should now be taking a more active role in this particular area.

Unfortunately, one of the spin-offs of this influx of immigrant students into the school system - that is, students who do not speak English as their first language - is the development of an increase in racial tension among the students in the school. With this in mind, the B.C. Teachers Federation prepared, as you know, a slide-show presentation to be used in the school system. It wasn't very flattering to the people of British Columbia, but it was accurate, and a number of schools in the system availed themselves of it. It did not, however, have the support of the school trustees and has since been withdrawn.

However, they offered some suggestions to the Ministry of Education. Maybe the minister will be able to respond in terms of whether or not he has implemented any of these suggestions.

1) An awareness campaign among teachers, students and parents that there is racial and cultural discrimination in the school was necessary.

2) Curriculum projects that convey a greater understanding of minority and native cultures was important. I notice in the core curriculum outline goal (j): "To develop knowledge and understanding of the cultural and physical heritage of the world." This is one of the criteria outlined.

3) It pointed out there was a need for an improvement in school libraries so that they reflect the cultures and interests of all students.

4) There was a need for teacher in-service programmes focusing on racism.

5) There was a need for drastic upgrading of services to students who come from homes where English is not the spoken language.

6) There was a need for provision of translation services in the schools for immigrant children.

7) Programmes that provide closer ties between home and schools - such as, for example, people of different cultural backgrounds being available and used through the system as a resource - was also indicated.

8) They ask for affirmative action programmes to ensure more equitable opportunity for hiring minority people in education, as well as promoting them.

9) They ask for funds to allow school districts to provide second- and third language programmes where there is a desire in the community for such programmes.

10) They suggested that there needed to be improvement in pre-service training to ensure that teachers have skills to teach in multicultural communities.

Maybe in responding to my questions, Mr. Chairman, the minister will be able to say whether he has implemented any of these recommendations and to what extent.

In his announcement about the $80 million which is now coming to the province for post-secondary education, the minister said that the money was available to the Ministry of Education in this fiscal year and would be directed to meet programme needs where there is the greatest demand - in the area of programmes providing people with marketable skills. I would like to suggest, Mr. Chairman, that funding for students who speak English as a second language in terms of increasing their knowledge of English would seem to be one of the criteria that would be met by this $80 million. I know it's for post-secondary education, but I'm asking my question anyway. I know the school board from Vancouver has asked for $4 million. I'm wondering whether the minister has any plans to send any of this $80 million in that particular direction.

The second group of people about whom I'd like to speak at this time are the women. Again I want to remind you of the reason given for the core curriculum and its goal - that of providing all students with an opportunity to develop their full potential as individuals and as members of society. To state it again, the educational system is not doing this. It is not meeting this particular goal - certainly not for the girl students in the school system - and the core curriculum is going to make that even more difficult, but I'll talk about the core curriculum at a different time..

On July 8, the Vancouver Status of Women wrote to the hon. minister, Mr. Pat McGeer, and at that time submitted to him a list of questions. I know he's been very busy and has not had an opportunity to answer those questions so I thought, Mr. Chairman, that I would avail myself of the opportunity of putting the questions to him again. If he would like to answer them I would see to it that the Hansard with his responses gets to the Status of Women.

Mr. Chairman, the first question is: there is no accountability when you say that the elimination of sex-role stereotyping and sex discrimination is an integral part of the ministry's programme. We want to know how you are addressing this problem and what methods are being used. I notice it's the deputy minister who is here and listening. That's good, because in fact it's the deputy minister who has been doing all of the work in this particular area. At all of the meetings with the advisory committee, the deputy minister is the only one who has been present. Maybe if he doesn't want to speak through the minister, he might even be able to slip me some responses himself.

Question No. 2: in a recent circular dated 29/4/77, regarding provincial curriculum consultants, Mr. Phillipson indicated: "Among the functions envisaged will be those connected with the elimination of sex discrimination and sex-role stereotyping." Question: who has been selected for this position? Question:

[ Page 3843 ]

what are the terms of reference for this position? Question: will this person be able to initiate action? We would like to request a meeting with this person in October.

The third question involves a Ministry of Education news release dated February 4,1976, which mentioned that a guide book for teachers and counsellors on ways and means of avoiding sex discrimination was being prepared. Julia Golden also made recommendations regarding counselling and guidance. I'm sure the minister has forgotten who Julia Golden is, Mr. Chairman, but she used to be the adviser to his ministry on sex discrimination.

Question: has the guide book been completed? Second question: what is being done with the recommendation? And again, we would like to arrange a time to meet with Jim Carter to discuss our concerns about guidance and counselling practices.

I'm sorry, Mr. Chairman. There is a sexist bug tickling my throat.

(4) Women's studies has been designated a locally developed course by the ministry. Regional workshops were held throughout the province this year to provide in-service training for teachers in the field of business education, German, earth sciences and maths. We believe that special incentive money should have been provided for women's studies as well. Our information is that the minister pays the cost of substitutes for a resource team - the cost of transportation, meals and hotel accommodations for the resource team and the cost of duplicating materials. Question: is such money available from the ministry for in-service training? And second, will there be money available for women's studies in-service training?

(5) Jim Bennett gave us a paper dealing with the integration of home economics and industrial education. Question: has this information gone out in an official manner?

(6) There is a dearth of material at the elementary school level showing women in a positive and contributive manner. At present there are four little books entitled, Women at Work, series 1, and these are on the prescribed list. Will series 2 and series 3 be available for teachers to use this September? Are series 2 and series 3 planned?

(7) We stated in our meeting the need for more information and dialogue with the minister regarding this matter. (a) We would like to receive any circulars, directives and press releases which should aid in this process, and (b) We would be willing to serve on advisory panels as experts in this field.

Now this letter, as I've said, Mr. Chairman, through you, went out on July 8, and 1 think the women at the Vancouver Status of Women would appreciate a response from the minister to those questions. In any event. Mr. Chairman, they have designed a core curriculum programme for the minister and in the latest issue of Kinesis, their newspaper, they've outlined first their goals. "What the minister should be learning: Goal A: that which must be learned: (a) to define the term 'sexism.'---

1 understand that in their meeting with the minister he confessed that he didn't know what sexism was and really couldn't define it.

"A (2) To read, identify and understand written material which is sexist.

"A (3) To write neatly and legibly terms of reference for the consultant who is 'taking care of sexism within the ministry.'

"A (4) To listen to a short presentation by women's groups recognizing the main ideas being presented about sexism in education, and

"A (5) To recognize and count letters of complaint.

Now the Vancouver Status of Women would appreciate it, when the minister completes goal A of the core curriculum, if he would submit his responses to them and they would prepare goal B for him. Hopefully that will be out in the next issue of their Kinesis. This is the whole business of sexism, and the difficulties which we are having with the Ministry of Education, Mr. Chairman, as you know, go back to 1976 when the position of special adviser to the Ministry of Education on sexism ... her services were terminated by the minister. At that time, the minister indicated that he would be integrating into the entire programme of his ministry the whole business of dealing with sexism in the schools and in learning and whatever.

Well, it's now 1977. We're almost at the end of July and we find that still the problem has not been dealt with. So the B.C. Teachers Federation prepared a proposal to the Ministry of Education to assist in improving the status of women. The preamble goes something like this:

"An egalitarian society begins with the education system. Studies have documented that discrimination against female teachers and students exists at all levels of our education system. It is clear that females are given second-class opportunities. Over the past five years many problem areas have been identified and possible solutions have been presented to the Ministry of Education. A special adviser to the former Minister of Education worked closely with the provincial advisory committee on sex discrimination and had begun the long process toward equalizing educational opportunities.-

There isn't any question about the discrimination that exists or about the damage that it does to women in our society. The latest release of figures in terms of employment which came out of the Ministry of Labour for Canada indicated that in fact the salary gap between men and women is widening; it's not

[ Page 3844 ]

getting any smaller. The employment gap is widening; it's not getting any smaller. We have to look at the educational system because, as outlined in your core curriculum proposal, this is where the individual develops his or her full potential to become a member of society in a productive way or in any other way in which the minister wants to look at it. In any event, a number of recommendations were submitted to the minister at this time. In order to continue the work of eliminating sex discrimination from public education in British Columbia it is recommended that:

"l) The Ministry of Education make a public commitment, stating that the elimination of sex discrimination from the schools of British Columbia is a priority issue;

"2) This commitment include a plan of action, a timetable and the allocation of funds to ensure that the plan is implemented;

"3) The provincial advisory committee on sex discrimination in public education be reinstated;

"4) The contract position of special adviser to the Minister of Education on sex discrimination be renewed."

MR. GIBSON: Who would it be, though?

MS. BROWN: I asked him about that earlier and we should get into that again, I think. The recommendations continue as follows:

"5) The development of non-sexist books and material be encouraged;

"6) The selection of all non-sexist books and material follow the guidelines outlined in equal treatment of the sexes;

"7) Non-sexist books and materials distributed to all schools throughout the province and in service related to these matters be provided;

"8) , A women's studies course be promoted as part of the provincial curriculum;

"9) Existing-, curriculum be modified to reflect the contribution of women to society;

"10) Policy be developed that ensures all courses, programmes, activities and clubs be open to all students regardless of sex, race or religion-,

"10 Integrated physical activity programmes focusing on lifetime physical fitness skills be provided for all students."

Just as an aside, Mr. Chairman, this business of physical fitness, I think, is something that needs to be seriously looked at on behalf of the mate students as well as the female students. Action B.C. reports that the students in our school system are in rotten shape. They are in worse shape than the politicians, and that is bad enough, I'll tell you.

MR. LAUK: That's a terrible thing to say.

MR. L.B. KAHL (Esquimalt): Don't speak for everybody.

MS. BROWN: 1 wouldn't dare, Mr. Chairman, because 1 don't think it would be acceptable information on this floor if one had to speak for the physical condition of the politicians, including that member who is not in his scat and heckling.

Interjections.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please, hon. members.

MS. BROWN: I'm in good shape, Mr. Member. Action B.C. told me that they ran a survey on some grade 12 kids and found that at 17 they were living in the bodies of 42-year-olds. There you have it. The physical fitness thing is serious.

To carry on:

"12) Teacher training in institutions should offer courses in sex-role stereotyping in education and all student teachers be required to take such courses;

" 13) In-service courses to acquaint teachers with the damaging effects of sex discrimination be mandatory for all teachers, librarians, counsellors and administrators;

"14) An affirmative action programme to equalize hiring and promotional opportunities for women as well as men be enacted - more women in secondary administration, and more men in elementary, and in the private sector." On June 23, Mr. Chairman, a year after the march on the B.C. Legislature by the women of the province, the women returned and had a meeting with the Minister of Education in an attempt to see whether in the 12 months that had passed anything had changed. They issued a press release at that time which seemed to indicate that very little, if anything, had happened. The press release stated that they were still finding that the education system, the second most influential institution in our society, continues to perpetuate inequality between the sexes. The release pointed out that children are still channelled into outdated sex roles, women's contributions are ignored or ridiculed in textbooks and the curriculum is overwhelmingly male biased. Most of the decision-makers are still male. Counselling practices do not prepare female students to think realistically about their future. The stereotyped roles and expectations assigned to students because of their sex no longer reflect the real world.

It points out that in the real world, Mr. Chairman, women constitute 40 per cent of the labour force and

[ Page 3845 ]

are earning 55 per cent less than men, even in the same jobs. In fact, we are still concentrated in low-paying job ghettos of the clerical and service sector. In reality, almost every girl in the current schooling system will work between 25 and 35 years of her life. The educational system is still not taking that into account.

MR. CHAIRMAN: One minute, hon. member.

MS. BROWN: I can't believe that I have been going for 30 minutes. Everyone's been listening so breathlessly, Mr. Chairman. But that's okay, because I will be getting up again.

I know that the minister has all of my questions itemized and is going to respond to them on behalf of the Vancouver Status of Women, on behalf of the B.C. Teachers Federation and certainly on behalf of the students who are going to live under his core curriculum.

Just very briefly in closing, Mr. Chairman, I want to say that the minister, in a letter on April 13, assured Pearl Roberts, the assistant director, Status of Women programme, that plans were being formulated to facilitate information of exchange and women's studies courses and that in fact his department was working very hard in the whole area of integrating the changing status of women into the educational system. What I am really trying to get from the minister are some answers as to how that is being done and to find out how much and to what extent he is implementing the recommendations being made to him.

In terms of the first assignment that he has under the core programme, I want to define the term "sexism." Sexism is an attitude, action or institution of structure which subordinates a person or group because of their sex. Sexism is an assignment of roles in society on the basis of sex. Sexism can be individual, cultural or institutional. Sexism can be intentional or unintentional. I think the minister should write those definitions out 100 times until he gets a clear and full understanding of the true meaning of that term.

MR. LEVI: Earlier on this afternoon, Mr. Chairman, the minister made direct mention of the unemployment situation. He has, so he says, some solutions about how this might be tackled. One of the things that he did say was that a role for education would be teaching people to become employers in their own right.

When he said this, I was wondering of what relevance that could possibly be to the fact that at the moment in British Columbia we have about 100,000 unemployed. I'd like to deal specifically with the younger group, the 16- to 25-year-olds -there are about 40,000 of those - and what we see down the road for those people or people like them. They are 40 per cent of the unemployment. We have about 100,000 unemployed in the province.

1 think it's important to look at this particular age group because 1 do want to make reference to the study that was done by the Secretary of State which is entitled: "Some Characteristics of Post-Secondary Students in Canada.--- It was a long study and had a large sample. They had a sample of almost 100,000 people aged 18 to 25. Of these, 65,000 were from the university area, and about 35,000 people were in the colleges. They were able to use about 60,000 of the responses, which is a pretty good return and would give the study, 1 think, quite a bit of relevance.

Now in that situation they were looking at a range of things dealing with why young people go to university and what they do there. Before I get into the report, 1 just want to recap, if I can, some of the reasons the minister gave earlier, Mr. Chairman, as to why we need to have people go to university and why in fact people do go to university.

It's true that we need to have a continuing body of well-trained people who are available. One of the things that always concerned me about the educational system is that we do not have a planning process whereby there's the kind of integration between labour needs generally in the country and what the universities are turning out. 1 can recall about eight or nine years ago visiting with two.... One is presently a member of this House, the member for Burnaby North (Mrs. Dailly) , and a former member for Vancouver-Burrard who is now a judge. We were part of a small subcommittee that went around talking to the various university faculties, associations and to the presidents. In meeting with one president, we asked him what lie thought about the idea of having a really integrated planning idea whereby the universities would really plug into the needs of the community and not specifically the needs that the students expressed they wanted to do.

In the report that I've just mentioned, they have looked at the options of students who are going to university. The actual questionnaire was sent out early in 1975 and completed sometime in 1975. In looking at the percentages of options that students went for, they're saying here that in the university sector the majority of students were registered in degrees in social sciences. "More than 130,000 students at all levels were in social science programmes." The second largest field of study was education with an enrolment of 166,000 students while the smallest was in fine and applied arts at 19,000. "Total students in the community college sector were more evenly distributed among the four major fields of study. The largest enrolment was in the non-medical technologies, with about 50,000, and the smallest enrolment in the health sciences, roughly 26,000 students."

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Now we heard the other day that the Minister of Health (Hon. Mr. McClelland) was very upset because they're having a tough time getting nurses for the new hospital at UBC. Now we see here that people are opting to go into general arts and spend four years getting a BA in general arts. Then they go out with a BA and into a job where they find that they're overqualified because they don't really need the BA to get it. Then they begin to wonder: well, if this is the case, what have they gone there for? Why do students go to university? What are they looking for?

The survey points out, dealing with the universities, that undergraduates were looking at five categories: broaden knowledge, employment prospects, income prospects, career advancement, and others. About 38 per cent of the people were in university to broaden their knowledge. Employment prospects same category, undergraduates at university 10 per cent were there for employment prospects; 6 per cent were there for income prospects; 30 per cent were there for career advancements. Okay, so we're looking really at a group of people - 30 to 35 per cent of the people in university are looking for career advancement. Then you have at least 35 to 38 per cent looking to broaden their knowledge, and only about 10 per cent looking for employment prospects.

Earlier, the minister was saying that we have to have this skilled body of people who are able to do some of the highly technical things that we have to do in our society today. But we find that the motivations for people going to university is somewhat different than what we are usually given to understand. There's a lot of people who are there to broaden their knowledge. Now I think we have to ask ourselves in this day and age, in terms of our society and in terms of finances and revenues, are we able to sustain 30 to 35 per cent of our student population in university who are there simply to broaden their knowledge?

We know that there are about 35 per cent there that are very serious about career advancement. But it becomes a worry I think ... it has to be a worry to the taxpayers, because more and more we're beginning to find out that it isn't that easy to go to university, to graduate, and then to get employment.

Earlier on this afternoon the member for Oak Bay read a letter from a Mr. Purdy. I just want to read from an article that was in the Times on May 19,1977. And it says:

" 'Canada is paying millions of dollars to American researchers while thousands of trained people who could do the work are unemployed in this country, ' said a former university lecturer Harold Sandstrom of Victoria. Manpower in Vancouver is searching for jobs for 27 librarians, I I of whom have Master's degrees; 39 university teachers, 18 with PhDs; 108 systems analysts and computer programmers; 38 public relations officers, four with Master's degrees; and any other number of professionals."

Now on the. other hand, Mr. Sandstrom said that when he made enquiries about what was going on, he was laid off during the cutback last year at the University of British Columbia, where he was a visiting lecturer while completing his doctorate in forestry. Now he is among nearly 4,000 highly trained professionals who are seeking work in this province. Meanwhile, lucrative research jobs are going south of the border. Now I started out by asking, Mr. Chairman: does the Ministry of Education have any plan that is integrated with Canada Manpower? Or is it through the Universities Council with Canada Manpower? Were they able to make suggestions over the next 5, 10 or 15 years about what they are going to require in terms of trained people over that next period at this time?

For instance, recently, before a standing committee of this House, we were given information by the chairman of the Universities Council to the effect that by 1981 we can look for a decline in university population. Well if we're going to get a decline in university population four years from now - this is the post-secondary population - in terms of enrolment, what is going to happen in terms of meeting the needs of the kind of trained people that we must have from the university? What kinds of plans are being made to make sure that when the decline in registration takes place, we don't suddenly find ourselves in the same position as we were almost 20 years ago in Canada? Suddenly somebody woke up one day and said: "Hey, do you know what? We don't have any PhDs in Canada, and if we don't get 800 or 900 in the next three or four years, we are going to be absolutely, completely dependent on the United States." Then there was a mad overnight rush in the early '60s and an incredibly broad PhD programme. Lo and behold, we wound up with a large number of PhDs.

Then, of course, we had that battle between the Canadian lecturers and teachers at universities versus the Americans. That was what brought Dr. Robin Matthews on the scene. He fought many battles in terms of this.

What's going to happen in 1981 when we see a specific decline in the graduates from universities? First of all the enrolment will go down, and then presumably later on, by 1982 or 1983 or 1984, we will find that the number of graduates is even less. Then we start examining the kind of people who are coming out and suddenly we find that we haven't done the proper planning and we are short of trained people. It is important for us to do some very adequate planning.

We've had a great deal of discussion in this country

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over the past 20 years, Mr. Chairman, with respect to vocational training and technical training. Fifteen years ago it was a big thing in this country when we started to do vocational training. We now have anywhere from 350,000 to 450,000 people in some kind of vocational training in the country. There have been some interesting studies done as to the effectiveness of these kinds of programmes. I remember in the late '60s some reports came out which were rather shattering. Only about 50 per cent of the people ever finished those courses and less than 20 per cent were ever able to get jobs in the particular training that they took at these vocational schools. We have in this province a big programme. A lot of young people are going through vocational training and a lot of young people are still unemployed, many of whom have completed vocational training. If, as the minister said earlier this afternoon, what we have to do in terms of the unemployment programme is to teach people to become their own employers, then we also better make sure that we have some kind of programme that is going to ensure that we spend our educational money properly and that we are turning out the kind of people that we need. That certainly doesn't seem to be the indication at the moment.

One of the interesting things that has taken place in terms of the unemployment figures which have come up recently in terms of Canada is that suddenly the large number of jobs that were available, even though there were large numbers of unemployed, has declined. It's somewhere in the neighbourhood of 40,000 unfilled jobs in this country. A year or eighteen months ago it was up to about 160,000. Well, presumably that indicates, to some extent, that some of the jobs have disappeared, but 1 think it also indicates that they have found sufficient number of trained people to fill those jobs. So that kind of situation where they needed trained people is now declining. It's a very, very tight market.

In terms of that tight market what kind of planning is taking place? It is my impression from talking to people that there isn't a great deal taking place in terms of looking at future needs. In terms of the general labour force what kind of technicians and specialists are we going to need down the road? Perhaps when the minister gets up he'll tell us whether there is, in fact, that kind of integrated planning going on in such a way that we know over the next 5, 10 or 15 years just where we're going.

Earlier on, Mr. Chairman, 1 made mention of the small committee that 1 was part of some years ago that went around talking to the university people. 1 am not aware that that kind of feeling has changed from what we experienced, but at that time they said to us: "Surely it has to be left up to the universities what we actually do in terms of the stress we put on various faculties and what people we turn out."

In fact, we got the argument that no government can invade the sacred territory of universities and tell them what to do. In those days they were sometimes glib enough to tell us: "What you have to do is give us the money and we'll make all the academic decisions; the government has no role in making these kinds of decisions."

Well, that was of no great surprise to us. We said there are certain categories of specialists who are needed. Consequently it's important that there is some planning done in this area.

Now in March of this year the minister was evidently in a very ebullient mood; he was being interviewed by The Ring, the University of Victoria magazine. He was asked a number of questions and one of the questions he was asked was: "In the final analysis isn't the taxpayer who is concerned about the growing list of unemployed people in BAs?- I really should send this over to the minister. It's not even English but it's in the magazine anyway. The general thrust of the question is: we've got a lot of BAs in the market and they're unemployed,

McGeer replied as follows:

"I think there is a taxpayers' concern but there's also concern on the part of the student. They go into a programme devoting four years of their lives, sacrificing income during that period, with an expectation that at the end of the road they're going to be in demand. If they find they are not in demand, they may be just a little disappointed at what they got out of their university career. They may transmit this disappointment to their younger brothers and sisters, nieces and nephews. So I don't know what the demand of the student will be in the future.

"All I can say as minister is that we are going to provide new alternatives for people; provide programmes in the interior, both academic and vocational; we're going to expand our professional and vocational programmes wherever we can identify demonstrated need for graduates and a line-up of students to get through the door. It's foolish for the educational system to be the neck in the bottle."

Now he used that phrase, I think, a little earlier this afternoon - "the neck in the bottle." He went on to talk about the kind of solutions he was thinking about, but he didn't really get into any specifics. I think that before he gets into specifics about the kind of training that he's going to implement, the kind of opportunities he's going to create, he might preface his remarks by telling us about the kind of planning that is going on. Some of the statement that he made towards the end is a little bit iffy. Some of it really depends on the students and if they are interested in that kind of thing.

Well, in looking at the federal report done in 1975

[ Page 3848 ]

and published last year, we must have some concern about the kinds of options that students are choosing and the kinds of "trained" people that we're turning out from university. We're told today that unless you have gone into a faculty where you are going to finish up with a Bachelor of Education or a Bachelor's degree in pharmacy or forestry, where there are - to a large extent - demands, then you have a much better chance of getting a job if you finish up with a Bachelor of Fine Arts or just a general BA. There has to be some concern about that because we have an increasingly broad enough adult-education programme that can take care of the 30 to 40 per cent of the people who have indicated in this survey - and these are people aged 18 to 25 -that they are there to broaden their knowledge.

I'm beginning to wonder, Mr. Chairman, whether we can afford the luxury of that kind of thing in terms of university. After all, if you go to university for one year it costs just over $4,000, of which your fee contribution might be a maximum of $600. Well, that's an enormous amount of money for the taxpayer to subsidize people in order to broaden their knowledge. Surely we're getting to the stage where what we have to have is an extremely broad plan on the needs that we have educationally. Other countries do it. We're not imposing, to any great extent, on the freedom of the universities if we do this.

We do face the reality that the large infusions of public money into the education system have ended. From here on in we're going to be looking, presumably, at giving the increment every year and fighting hard, 1 suppose, to keep it down below a certain level. At the same time, if we're looking for new programmes, it's going to happen at the expense of existing programmes which are probably considered, after some study, not to be as efficient as they should be. That's the only way we may bring some specific kind of change. We can also bring about some specific kind of change if we're a lot surer than certainly the minister indicates in this interview with the University of Victoria newspaper about what he specifically has in mind in order to remove the bottleneck. That is important.

The other question that I'd like the minister to respond to is: is he wedded to the idea of the K to 12 years in the public school system and then on to four years for a university degree? Have we not come to the stage, in terms of our development in society, that we have to look more closely at whether, in fact, to provide 12 or 13 years of public school education is within the realm of the financial possibilities,

Is it absolutely necessary for people to go to university for four years in order to get a BA when it has been demonstrated in various universities and colleges in the United States and England that you can cover the same and in some cases more ground in three years? What views are there in terms of that?

We're not looking for the cut-rate education programme. I'm not suggesting that at all. What I am talking about is: given the fact that we cannot continue to extract the kind of revenue we need to develop the programmes that many of our people -some of them, frankly, all too ivory-towered out of universities - think we should have, what we need are some very pragmatic views on how we are going to be able to fit the kind of educational programmes we need into the money that is available.

We have no indications in reviewing the statements made by the minister or the reports that have come out in respect to what kind of specific changes we can look for in the education system which may be different in terms of the amount of time people are going to spend, in their public school years and their university years, in school. What options would they have if there was an ever-broadening adult education programme? We know that there has been a very significant increase in the accessibility to university and colleges for people, and consequently more people are going back to school. That's fine. As I said earlier, if that is what 30 to 35 per cent of the present student population wants in Canada and they have said that what they are there for is to broaden their knowledge, then they should broaden their knowledge in some other way. Then, of course, we come to a very serious problem. If they are not at school or university, what are they going to do? We have the minister's plan to remove the bottleneck. I presume he has been talking to his friends in the department of commerce out at UBC. His plan is to have them create their own little enterprises. After all, it's a free enterprise government with some free enterprise ideas. So far we haven't seen any, but they keep talking a lot. The important thing is he wants to put everybody into their own little business.

MR. BARRETT: ICBC consultants on public relations.

MR. LEVI: While I haven't been in the House all the time the minister has been up this afternoon, I have been listening to him downstairs on the squawk box. I must say that I think he has tippy-toed around most of the statements that he has made this afternoon.

I was a little bit put off, frankly, when he spends most of his time talking about the university hospital. I thought that maybe the Minister of Health (Mr. McClelland) might have had a go at that, but that's ...

AN HON. MEMBER: That's not his department.

MR. LEVI: ... not the order of things in this government. They have a pecking order and it starts at the top.

[ Page 3849 ]

He has tippy-toed around some of the more specific issues. He has not been able to demonstrate to us any specific changes that he's brought about. We know, for instance, that he doesn't want to talk about the mill rates. I know that he doesn't want to talk about that. The mill rate has gone up with the highest percentage in the history of this province, but he doesn't talk about that. I can remember that when he was over on this side of the House, he'd practically dance on his desk if the mill rate inched up a little bit. This year it went up in the most incredible way and of course it's not a topic of conversation, Presumably it will be a little later on.

Perhaps the minister also would explain - because he's talked about consultation - what they've done. What this government is good at is that they consult a lot of people. It's somewhat selective. If they have joint House committees, they send out little invitations and say: "Dear Charlie, would you like to come and give us your views on the financial problems of British Columbia. But don't bring your wife, because it's just for you."

Now what I would like to know from the minister....

MR. BARRETT: He wants to move that the committee rise.

MR. LEVI: Who wants to move?

MR. BARRETT: Probably he's embarrassed; he's had enough.

MR. LEVI: You had enough, Bob?

HON. MR. McCLELLAND: Yes, I've had enough.

MR. LEVI: I haven't finished yet. You're going to get another two minutes whether you like it or not.

I'd just like to read the minister something from the....

HON. D.M. PHILLIPS (Minister of Economic Development): You're threatening us.

MR. LEVI: Oh, oh! ... from the coal mines.

MR. BARRETT: That proves that education is a failure. He went to grade 1.

MR. LEVI: I'd like to read the minister a short extract from the summary of minutes from the Vancouver school board for June 6,1977. There is a report from the management co-ordinating committee. It says: "Trustees Andrew, Brown, Fenwick, Glass and Pratt. They say this:

"Trustee Glass" - that's Pam Glass -"reported that she attended a meeting of the board of the Jericho Hill School for the Blind and was most surprised to learn that that was the last meeting of the board for that year. A Ministry of education publication reported that a new board will be appointed for children with impaired sight."

Now that's not the first time that some reference has been made in the minutes of the school board in Vancouver to the situation at Jericho. Every time You read about something relating to Jericho, it's something they've either read in the newspaper or they've had some information brought to them at the very last minute.

I know Pam Glass. If there were meetings and there was something to know, she would find out. But here she is - she says she's surprised. Now perhaps the minister will tell us what he's got in mind for Jericho. We read so many conflicting reports about exactly what is going to happen. Is it going to be turned into a super-elite training school or what is it going to be?

AN HON. MEMBER: It'll be moved to the university.

MR. LEVI: Well, I think they could build a ramp that would get them over to the Ministry of Education.

Mr. Chairman, I've just got the high sign.

The House resumed; Mr. Speaker in the Chair.

The committee, having reported progress, was granted leave to sit again.

Hon. Mr. McClelland moves adjournment of the House,

Motion approved.

Hon. Mr. Curtis tables disposal of Crown Lumber Ltd. document.

The House adjourned at 6 p.m.