[ Page 3851 ]

CONTENTS

Routine proceedings

Oral questions

Alleged irregularities in ICBC payments. Mr. Macdonald –– 3851

Studies of oil-spill hazards in Burrard inlet. Mr. Gibson –– 3853

Pharmacare decision concerning megavitamins. Mr. Wallace –– 3853

Possible problems with PREP. Ms. Brown –– 3853

Committee of Supply: Ministry of Education estimates.

On vote 158.

Mr. Cocke –– 3854

Hon. Mr. McGeer –– 3858

Mr. Wallace –– 3862

Mr. Gibson –– 3865

Hon. Mr. McGeer –– 3867

Mr. Barber –– 3870

Hon. Mr. McGeer –– 3874

Mr. King –– 3874

Hon. Mr. McGeer –– 3875

Ms. Brown –– 3875

Hon. Mr. McGeer –– 3878

Division on a motion that the committee rise and report progress –– 3879

On vote 15 8.

Ms. Sanford –– 3880

Mrs. Wallace –– 3881

The House met at 2 p.m.

Prayers.

MR. R.E. SKELLY (Alberni): I'd like the members to welcome a number of people in the gallery today. First of all, Mrs. Wendy Burns, a former schoolmate of mine and a former resident of New Westminster, is down here visiting with her family and neighbours.

I'd also like to introduce Alderman Walter Behn and Mrs. Behn, down from Port Alberni.

MR. J.J. KEMPF (Omineca): With us in the gallery this afternoon are three individuals from my constituency of Omineca who are down in Victoria today to meet with the hon. Minister of Human Resources to outline a most fantastic programme that they have initiated in Vanderhoof on behalf of the retarded children of that area. I would like the House to make them welcome. There's Eileen Kimball, Dave Salter and Ray Vickers.

MR. G.F. GIBSON (North Vancouver-Capilano): Mr. Speaker, in the gallery today is a good friend and constituent from North Vancouver-Capilano, Jane Burden, and I'd ask the House to make her welcome.

MR. SKELLY: Two more people here today are from the Vancouver People's Law School, which produced an excellent video programme on the Trident weapons system. As members know, there's a resolution- before us in the House which has not yet come up for debate. They are Elvira Lount, from the Vancouver People's Law School, and Gay Ludlow, from Triad Communications in Vancouver. I'd ask the members to make them welcome as well.

MS. K.E. SANFORD (Comox): I would like today to introduce to the House Mr. and Mrs. Pat Thomas and their two daughters, who have with them a guest from Montreal. This is her first visit to B.C. Her name is Helene Moreau. I would like the House to make them all welcome.

Oral questions.

ALLEGED IRREGULARITIES

IN ICBC PAYMENTS

MR. A.B. MACDONALD (Vancouver East): I have a question to the Premier in the absence of the two directors of ICBC. In the case of a claim by one Leslie Wood, No. 1958660, an accident of February 21,1976, of a 1975 Fort Bronco, if it is established that Wood lied to the ICBC and to the police in claiming that the car was stolen when, in fact, he had given the keys to one Hansford and both were high on drugs at the time of the accident, should that kind of claim be paid by ICBC?

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. members, perhaps now that the Minister of Education in charge of ICBC is present in the chamber, the hon. member for Vancouver East would like to repeat his question to the proper minister.

MR. MACDONALD: This question is to the Minister of Education regarding claim No. 1958660 of Leslie Wood, with which the minister will be familiar at this time. The accident was February 21,1976; it was a 1975 Fort Bronco. It is established to the satisfaction of ICBC and the police that Wood lied to both in saying that the car had been stolen when it went into an accident at the Pay 'N Save in Surrey, and there were good grounds to believe that both were high on drugs - the man who was supposed to have taken it, but had been given the keys - Hansford and Wood. Should that kind of claim be paid by ICBC?

MR. SPEAKER: I could, perhaps, comment that the hon. member for Vancouver East is asking the minister to comment on what would be a legal question and to give a legal opinion.

MR. MACDONALD: No, no. If a man [illegible], should he pay?

HON. P.L. McGEER (Minister of Education): The answer, Mr. Speaker, is certainly not, if the case could be defended in court.

While I am on my feet perhaps I could reply to questions asked by the member for New Westminster (Mr. Cocke) , who tabled a letter in the House with regard to a claim by Surrey Dodge. After question period I'll table documents in the House.

It was a stolen letter, Mr. Speaker. The interesting thing is that there was no copy of that letter in the files of ICBC. What there was in the files of ICBC, discovered this morning, was the original of that letter, returned undeliverable and unopened. I find it strange that the copy of the letter should have been removed from the file while the original was returned as undeliverable.

I will also file with the House, Mr. Speaker, at the end of question period an affidavit from Mr. Ronald Richard Hudgins to the effect that he reported the claim to ICBC not once but twice - once during the strike and once approximately one week after the strike was concluded - and was informed by somebody at the Surrey claim centre to go ahead and have the automobile fixed. Now unfortunately, no record of this is in the files of the ICBC claim centre.

[ Page 3852 ]

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

HON. MR. McGEER: Mr. Speaker, may I say finally that there is far more to this than meets the eye? At the present time a thorough investigation is taking place.

MR. D.G. COCKE (New Westminster): Mr. Speaker, I have another document indicating that this was the first claim made by Mr. Hudgins, and I will table that shortly.

The question is, Mr. Speaker: Doesn't the minister know that he's certainly being fed incorrect information?

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. member, one moment, please, before we continue further. This, I would remind all hon. members, is question period, in which we allow main questions and supplementals. It is not a case of debate or argument or engagement in the form of a supplemental question or a main question which in fact does not state any particular question at all but a point of view.

MR. MACDONALD: Incidentally, ICBC, in spite of the advice of its adjusters, never had a chance to defend that case in court.

To the Minister of Education: is it not also true that Mr. Winfield, who wrote the memorandum of December 16,1976, which the minister filed in this House, in which he said he was instructed to pay this and another claim - I refer to another supplementary - was interviewed in Victoria, I think it was, by high officials and refused to recant his statement, which is supported by the letter of Joe Morley, the chief claims officer, that indeed the instructions to settle both did come from Bortnick's office?

HON. MR. McGEER: Mr. Speaker, Mr. Winfield did attend my office in Victoria ...

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh!

HON. MR. McGEER: ... uninvited, and did explain to me, uninvited, and presented me with a letter, which I would be happy to table to the House, in which he presented his side of the story.

MR. D. BARRETT (Leader of the Opposition): His side of the story which you filed in this House.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please! Do you have any further supplementary question?

MR. MACDONALD: In regard to a claim of Leslie Wood, four days later on February 25,1976 - No. 1959443 - involving the same Ford Bronco, should that claim have been paid when Wood again lied to the corporation in that he claimed that he did not know who the hitchhiker was who was with him when the car went into the ditch on 72nd Street, when in fact the hitchhiker was the same Hansford who had been high on drugs with him on February 21 and there were grounds to believe there was intoxication at the time of that accident? Should it be paid in those circumstances?

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. first member for Vancouver East is engaging in the type of debate that could be argumentative as far as a question is concerned, strictly concerning the facts of the matter.

HON. MR. McGEER: Mr. Speaker, I can only refer to the documents I previously tabled in the House regarding the review of the case by the claims coverage committee. I haven't read the file. Obviously the member has some stolen documents. If he'd table them, perhaps we would have a chance to review them.

MR. BARRETT: You haven't read the file!

HON. MR. McGEER: Obviously you've got the file.

MR. MACDONALD: I have a supplementary. I asked the minister, in view of the payout of these two claims which I have referred to, in the total amount of $1,720.35 on August 20,1976, when Wood was the insured and the corporation had a judgment against Wood for $613.50, why was this not deducted from what went to the finance company, First Chartered, which can't possibly get more than the insured. Why was the amount of the judgment against the insured not deducted?

HON. MR. McGEER: Well, Mr. Speaker, I'm no lawyer and the member who asked the question is. So he, no doubt, knows the answer to the question, which lawyers tell me is that you cannot cross accounts and that it would have been illegal for the corporation to attempt to do so.

MR. MACDONALD: Oh, nonsense!

MR. BARRETT: I have a supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. The minister has informed the House that he did speak to Mr. Winfield about this case, and he has also informed the House that he hasn't read the file himself. Is the minister saying that he discussed this matter with Mr. Winfield without indeed referring to the file?

HON. MR. McGEER: Of course, Mr. Speaker,

[ Page 3853 ]

that's correct, and as I have explained to the House before, I have no intention of reviewing any files of ICBC; we have people who are paid to do that. Nor do I deal in stolen documents, Mr. Member.

MR. BARRETT: Why did you call Winfield over?

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please!

STUDIES OF OIL-SPILL HAZARDS

IN BURRARD INLET

MR. GIBSON: I have a question for the Minister of the Environment. Has the minister or the Environment and Land Use Committee started studies into the oil spill hazards which will be caused by the unprecedented tanker traffic into Burrard Inlet which will be caused by the plans of B.C. Hydro to oil-fire the Burrard thermal unit?

HON. J.A. NIELSEN (Minister of the Environment): Mr. Speaker, I'll take the question as notice. To my knowledge, that's not specifically on that most recent suggestion. So I will ask our people if indeed they have done any preliminary study for Burrard Inlet.

PHARMACARE DECISION

CONCERNING MEGAVITAMINS

MR. G.S. WALLACE (Oak Bay): Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Human Resources. With regard to Pharmacare, he had previously stated that the Pharmacare programme would be closely monitored to ensure that changes in the programme would not cause hardship. Can he tell the House if, as a result of his meeting with Dr. Hoffer on July 5, and in light of the earnest appeal by patients with multiple sclerosis seeking to have megavitamins provided by Pharmacare, any decisions have been taken subsequent to that meeting?

HON. W.N. VANDER ZALM (Minister of Human Resources): Mr. Speaker, the whole question of megavitamins and megavitamin therapy is being considered by Pharmacare. Certainly if it is deemed advisable that we proceed with some survey or indepth study then that will be the case. The meeting with Dr. Hoffer was most fruitful. He is certainly a very informed person on the usage and the advantages of vitamin therapy. Of course, the profession, as the hon. member knows, still has a great many questions about it. I think perhaps some study might be of benefit. This is now being considered.

MR. WALLACE: I have a supplementary question, Mr. Speaker. In view of the fact that at the annual convention of the B.C. Medical Association the minister's suggestion that a study be carried out received something less than a warm welcome by the profession, and since the medical profession through the centuries, like the rest of us, has made many mistakes, could I ask the minister if his decision about a study is being based on the fact that the medical profession has not accepted his invitation?

HON. MR. VANDER ZALM: No, Mr. Speaker. I think there might be some hope of the medical profession, through the association, participating in some manner in this study, which is a desire that I have and which I think would be of tremendous assistance. I think there is a hope that they will participate in some form.

MR. WALLACE: I have another supplementary, Mr. Speaker. Could I ask the minister if subsequent to that B.C. Medical Association convention the minister has submitted a definitive request to the profession, or is he about to submit a definitive request, requesting that a study would be in the best interest of all concerned? Have you made such a specific request, Mr. Minister, through you, Mr. Speaker?

HON. MR. VANDER ZALM: Mr. Speaker, I have had further meetings with a representative of the association. I think that certainly has been helpful. A request will be going to them after we have determined the best approach.

POSSIBLE PROBLEMS WITH PREP

MS. R. BROWN (Vancouver-Burrard): Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Human Resources. Is it true, Mr. Minister, that people who are being referred to the PREP programme are being turned away because of the volume of unemployment in the province as well as inadequate staff?

HON. MR. VANDER ZALM: I'm not sure that I understand the question, Mr. Speaker. I will answer on the basis that the question is: Are we able to cope with the number of referrals provided to the PREP people? May I say that PREP is very actively seeking out jobs, and certainly the records would indicate that each month they are fortunately locating more opportunities for disadvantaged people to become employed in the work force on a fairly permanent basis.

We certainly can't accommodate all of the requests, for a number of reasons. Sometimes, perhaps, the individuals are simply not employment ready; other times they may not be qualified for a particular job, since through PREP we have to seem credible in all respects and provide the employers with the people best able to perform the functions available in that particular position.

[ Page 3854 ]

All I can say - and I think the member knows it -is that I am grateful for the very positive response we're receiving. PREP is working; it's working great.

MR. MACDONALD: Mr. Speaker, I ask leave to table the documents that I referred to.

Leave granted.

HON. MR. McGEER: Mr. Speaker, I ask leave to table documents. Eventually we may get the whole file. (Laughter.)

Leave granted.

AN HON. MEMBER: Maybe you'll read it.

MR. MACDONALD: Mr. Speaker, may I ask....

MR. SPEAKER: One moment, please. For what purpose is the hon. member for Vancouver East on his feet?

MR. MACDONALD: I want to ask the Premier when Motion 15, a very important motion, will be called and whether the opposition will have any notice of calling that motion. Why hasn't it been called to date? It was set for yesterday.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please.

MR. MACDONALD: Will the Premier answer?

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. members, there are a number of motions on the order paper, as you well know.

MR. MACDONALD: Well, really, if they're playing politics with this one, which involves the status of three members of this assembly, then I want to know about it!

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please.

MR. GIBSON: Mr. Speaker, I would not have raised this point of order had resolution 15 been called. I draw Your Honour's attention to standing order 39, which is as follows:

"If anything should come in question touching the conduct of any member, or his right to hold his seat, he may make a statement and shall withdraw during the time the matter is in debate."

I would suggest, Your Honour, that that debate in fact began the minute the hon. Attorney-General (Hon. Mr. Gardom) moved resolution 15 in this House. At that time the proposition of the right of the members to retain their seats was put in question.

It seems to me it should be resolved at the earliest possible moment, which is now. I would ask Your Honour to take that under consideration in the context of standing order 39.

MR. SPEAKER: Speaking to the hon. member's point of order, I think you will recall, hon. member, as all of the members of the House will, that the hon. minister did not move the motion. He asked leave, which was refused. The motion now is on the order paper to be moved at any time after it has been on notice for two days.

MR. GIBSON: On the same point of order, Mr. Speaker, the point is that the right of the members to retain their seat in the House has been put in question by the placing of the motion on the order paper by the Attorney-General. Therefore standing order 39 applies.

HON. MR. McGEER: Even a Philadelphia lawyer couldn't read that into it.

MR. SPEAKER: With respect, I would advise the member that that would not be the conclusion the Chair would reach, but I'll check further into your point of order.

Orders of the day.

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

ESTIMATES: MINISTRY OF EDUCATION

(continued)

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

continued.

MR. COCKE: Mr. Chairman, we had a brief session on education yesterday and I agree with the Minister of Health (Hon. Mr. McClelland) that a good deal of the time yesterday was spent discussing health questions. This was not because the thoughts were introduced by the opposition, but by virtue of the fact that the minister (Hon. Mr. McGeer) , when giving his initial statement, spent almost three-quarters of his time talking about the university hospital, health care and the training of doctors. Incidentally, it was interesting to me that he did not talk about training nurses, paramedics, or any of the other very important people in health care. He just spoke about doctors. In any event, he was totally preoccupied with that situation.

However, Mr. Chairman, I want to go on. As you will recall, I was cut off by the light yesterday afternoon, right in mid-flight. At that time, I was talking about the trustees in our province and how

[ Page 3855 ]

they are feeling. I said, for example, that the present government are determined to provide - they say - a climate for volunteer activity. They're not really showing that in their response to the B.C. School Trustees Association when they requested grants to get people interested in running for school boards in their Operation Full Slate.

Mr. Chairman, there are many more things I'd like to bring to your attention around this issue. I would like to talk later on about the Jericho Hill School, but just for the moment I'd like to deal with this question of school boards and how they're feeling.

On March 2 in North Vancouver, we heard of a school board and the headline in North Vancouver at that time in the Times was: "School Boards Bypassed." This was a protest by the North Vancouver trustee. That trustee said in the past, I believe, any information of this kind that.... He's talking about schools rapidly becoming useless institutions. It was a question posed by a North Vancouver school board trustee, Don Burbridge.

What Provoked that discussion was a recent directive sent by the Minister of Education to the school district administration notifying it of a new testing programme compulsory for grades 4, 8 and 12. Trustee Burbridge took issue with the method the government used in sending the directive, and that's what motivated him to say in the past, I believe: "Any information of this kind has been sent to the school board. Are we to let the ministry bypass us in this way?" In other words, they are sending it directly to the minister's trustee superintendents in the field and not even informing the school board that it's occurring. Now if that isn't a bypass, Mr. Chairman, I'd like to know what it is. It's typical of the minister's lack of concern for those out there in the field who are more directly responsible for administering education than even himself.

The minister sits in his ivory tower and wants to have all the reins of power and not divest basic responsibility to the school boards. So, Mr. Chairman, he is building up a head of steam within the trustees' association. He's building up a head of steam within school boards generally that is going to be very difficult for him to deal with in the future. Now if the minister wants to outlaw school boards, if he wants to take away all of their responsibilities, let him stand in the House and say so. As I hinted yesterday afternoon, the trustees' own newsletter certainly indicates their total displeasure with a pronouncement from the ministry that the school board's function is to hire and fire staff and to care for buildings. There is nothing in that suggestion around curriculum, nothing in their responsibility to respond to local needs and local pressures. No, Mr. Chairman, this minister will totally annihilate the whole school board idea if he continues on in his present course.

Mr. Chairman, here is another account from The Peninsula Times in Sechelt. Let's see what they have to say. "The decision by Sechelt School District trustees not to administer a province-wide grade 4 mathematics exam here is meeting with resistance from Victoria." What did the minister say? What was his response? The Minister of Education, when questioned by a reporter last week about the board's decision, replied: "Don't worry, their grade 4s will take the tests." It goes on to say: "McGeer did not elaborate."

Mr. Chairman, 1 know what pressure he is under with ICBC, but there's not enough of the minister's time being taken up in consultation with both school boards and teachers. There is not enough of his time being taken up with consulting people who are most important in education. I think if the minister can't handle both - 1 suspect that he can't handle either -he should give up one responsibility or the other: either ICBC, which incidentally has an increasing bit of a burden, or his responsibility as Minister of Education. It's suffering.

I'd like to go on for a few minutes on finance. We had a note last spring, as 1 recall - another of the minister's press releases - and at that time the minister announced that education costs were up 10.9 per cent. He didn't go on to say, however, that the grants to school districts at the same point were only up 6.6 per cent in spite of budget requests for a 9.5 per cent increase. 1 would say that the reason for the disparity and the reason for the lack of discussing that disparity was the fact that the minister knew perfectly well that the local districts would have to pick up the difference. The local taxpayers continually pick up the difference in this particular area.

The minister, when he was in opposition, used to stand and scream: "Take that load off the backs of the local taxpayers." Now, Mr. Chairman, in a time when he could easily have assisted in taking that load off their backs, he did nothing about it. So this is no great credit to the minister at all.

There was no increase in the homeowner grant for people under 65 for the last two years. That was one of the areas where you were able to reduce the amount that was required for school and other taxes. There was no increase in the tenant grant at the same time. So they lost all around. The local taxpayer took a beating at the hands of this minister, who, when he was in opposition, was one of the most ardent critics of land taxing for education purposes.

Where is he now? He is, Mr. Chairman, where you would expect - right in the hands of his own government bottom-line policy. Divest yourselves of any expenses that are possible. Let other jurisdictions carry the load whenever possible. Bottom-line all the way. Mr. Chairman, 1 suspect that he has really done an about-turn, but I wonder if he was really saying

[ Page 3856 ]

what he thought before. These people are suspect. Were they enunciating what they really felt then or are they really showing their true feelings now? They're two kinds of people.

Mr. Chairman, I think our whole financing philosophy is archaic, and I think I can speak with a fair amount of authority on that. I know the former Minister of Finance is sitting beside me. I wish we had gone more quickly in a way to get away from our incremental budgeting system. But I note that these fine business minds across the way have not in any way altered that incremental system. The incremental system is useful. The old Socreds found it so useful that they kept it in place all the time they were in power, because it was a method of turning the tap on and off in the easiest way. When we formed the government, we found a system that only measured input. There was no planned programme budgeting or any of the other fancy systems that we've heard talked about.

I want to ask the minister if he, as a member of Treasury Board, and his government and his colleagues on Treasury Board are working on any kind of a system to measure something other than input. Is there going to be a programme-oriented system ultimately in either Education or in the other areas? We were working toward that direction, and I do hope that the present government is taking into consideration some of the thoughts that are available.

Naturally, one of our fears was the federal system of planned programme budgeting, which in a way has done a disservice to the concept. You see war there between ministries and therefore a very heavy drain on the treasury as a result. But there must be a way, Mr. Chairman, and I think there are people in the country who can assist us toward a better budgeting system.

Mr. Chairman, I think we all should agree that we get away from the tap-on, tap-off system. We saw the results of the tap off yesterday when we discussed in some detail what happened to the boundary school in North Vancouver. That's purely a school building freeze.

MR. GIBSON: Whose riding is that in?

MR. COCKE: That's in the riding of the Minister of Energy, Transport and Communications (Hon. Mr. Davis) .

MR. GIBSON: Has he done anything about it?

MR. COCKE: He sent along a flack and he said that he would bring it to the minister's attention. However, when I phoned yesterday nothing had been changed, so I would think that the minister is not that heavy with his colleague. Nothing has changed there. But this is the kind of thing that occurs. I charge that the Minister of Education has a school building freeze on right now and that his argument yesterday that it's within a mile of other schools.... He's talking about grades I to 3, and he's talking about a school that was built for 100 children, now is serving 320, and will be serving 340 this fall. Nothing more or less can account for that than the fact the minister has a freeze on building schools in this province. Even one of his colleagues agrees with him.

Mr. Chairman, I suggest that the local taxpayer in this province is in jeopardy. The local taxpayer has not had relief from his tax situation and beyond that, of all things, the local taxpayer's schools aren't being built. The local taxpayer's assistance from the ministry is totally inadequate. I suggest, Mr. Chairman, that it's time this minister got his nose out of ICBC - as long as he doesn't let the member for Coquitlam (Mr. Kerster) run it - and pays attention to his first responsibility. He is the Minister of Education, after all.

Mr. Chairman, it doesn't take much to get this minister's mind off his work. In the first place, he was totally preoccupied with the university hospital. Now he's totally preoccupied with his responsibility at ICBC. Meanwhile, what suffers? The most important area of all - education. The education of our children is the most important area that we can be talking about and I hope that the minister has some answers about this situation.

Mr. Chairman, I would just like briefly - and I have some other things I'm going to talk about later - to ask the minister a few questions about Jericho Hill School.

Mr. Chairman, first let me say that the minister, on June 10,1976, tabled some documents in the House on Jericho Hill School. They were studies around decentralization. I'd like to quote some of the things the minister has to say:

"For those parents who wish to continue the education of their children at Jericho Hill School, we've made it clear from the very beginning that that school would remain open and that those people would be permitted to continue to educate their children in that environment. The majority of the deaf children in B.C. are now being educated in their own communities and the results from that type of education, in the opinion of all the experts whom we've been able to martial to bear on this problem, are better. Now what we cannot guarantee is that jobs will continue to exist for all of the staff members who are now at Jericho in view of the declining population of that school."

Mr. Chairman, he talks about a declining population of that school. I can bring to your attention many reasons for the declining population of that school. What are people saying? Here's one

[ Page 3857 ]

good one:

"Jericho Hill School is in trouble. The powers that be in the Department of Education want to start decentralization of the programmes sending the deaf out to attend school in their own home school districts which, of course, we deaf adults, and experts in the field of deaf education, know won't work.

"We, the deaf, are given to understand that the department plans to then use the isolated buildings for the school of art. We've already lost one building, Tyler House, and a second is under renovation. We want to stop this."

Mr. Chairman, some of the letters I have regarding the conditions out there, in the midst of renovations, describe children in dormitories where there's plastic on the windows, a lack of bathroom facilities, and all the rest, Naturally they're able to reduce the numbers at Jericho Hill School. I am particularly interested in this subject because, you see, I had a niece and the parents of my little niece, who lived in Calgary, could not find - this is some years ago - an adequate facility.

Finally they found Jericho Hill School. They sent that child to Jericho Hill School; that child flowered. All her life she loved her family and wanted to be with them, but she loved it at Jericho Hill because she had people with whom she could communicate. For the first time in her life she had peers with exactly the same communication problem, and a large number of them - not the small number that you find in the community programme, but large enough numbers so that they could respond to one another and so they could socialize.

What happened to that child? That child, who is enormously handicapped, profoundly deaf, unable to function in society to that date, grew up and now teaches at the deaf university in the United States, Gallaudet College. She is really a participant in everything. She is a tremendously important person in our society who is able to give of herself because of what was given to her at Jericho Hill School. I think it is absolutely dreadful to see what I see going on at that school.

Mr. Chairman, decentralization of this particular problem is not correct. Now I am not suggesting that you should centralize to the extent that there is only one deaf school in B.C. I am suggesting, however, that we should have a centralized programme in areas of the province. What about Prince George, Kamloops and Vancouver?

Interjection.

MR. COCKE: You haven't got that and I am going to be dealing with that in a minute. The minister has said across the floor: "That's what we've got." I shall prove momentarily that it's not the case.

Mr. Chairman, there are somewhere between 200 and 300 profoundly deaf children in this province. It's very difficult to get the right number. One expert will tell you 200; another expert will tell you 300. But it doesn't really matter which it is. There's a significant number of profoundly deaf children in our province and we have to serve those children. I suggest to you one of the reasons for this minister's decentralized programme, which is to send them back to their school districts, is to dump the load for financing onto the school districts themselves. Make the school district pay the bill. Make the local taxpayers pay the bill as usual.

Mr. Chairman, I think it's unthinkable. They have taken kids out of there already who should not be out of there. They have made it uncomfortable in there for kids who should still be there but who are not by virtue of the fact that it is an uncomfortable place to be. It is death by attrition.

MR. GIBSON: They've made it hard to get in, too.

MR. COCKE: That's right, Where is the admissions committee?

I'd like to say this: it's death by attrition. They are going to make it so bad at Jericho that the parents are going to choose to send their children elsewhere.

AN HON. MEMBER: Why?

MR. COCKE: And why is that? I suggested why, and unless the minister has a very good reason other than the reason that I have suggested, it's just to dump the load - that is, the expense - on the local taxpayer as much as possible.

MR. GIBSON: He wants the real estate, too.

MR. COCKE: Mr. Chairman, I would wish that if the minister feels that it isn't a good idea to have deaf people in numbers so that they can socialize, then he should get in touch with Gallaudet College at Kendalgreen, Washington, and see what they think. Where are all his experts who are telling him, as he indicated in a recent press release, that the best way is decentralization? I agree with decentralization for virtually everything, but I don't agree with decentralization for this particular programme.

There are hardly any admissions and there is no admissions committee. If there is an admissions committee at Jericho, I want somebody to find it. I could not. And there certainly wasn't a few months ago when I checked. If they have set up an admissions committee, I want to hear about it. Mr. Chairman, this has become low priority in the Ministry of Education, and of all things it should be a high priority.

How much money are they saving? How much

[ Page 3858 ]

money are they saving with this new peculiar policy? I say that there has to be a service beyond that for those with a hearing impairment. Jericho has served that purpose because Jericho has been a fine school for those who have a multiple handicap, including deafness and blindness. I have nothing against the Vancouver school of fine arts. I want to see them get a location. I want to see them happy but I don't suggest for one second that I could possibly support downgrading of Jericho in favour of that particular programme.

Mr. Chairman, when Johnny doesn't learn to read and write and becomes emotionally unstable, who will be blamed under our present system? The poor old local school board again, if that's where he's had his training. Has the minister that kind of specialists' help that he can distribute those kinds of specialists to all the school, districts in the province? I suggest not, Mr. Chairman. I suggest that he has not that kind of help available in this province. The way you can get it together is to keep it together, and he's not doing that there.

I know that Jericho Hill students in the past have had a higher employment situation than the national average of kids graduating elsewhere. They have the highest results in terms of employment.

Mr. Chairman, I just want to review this because I think it is so important. The chance for interaction of kids in a smaller community.... Don't forget that just because you put them with a large community in a major school doesn't mean that their community is a larger community. Their community is a smaller community. They have a better chance to react in that smaller community.

MR. CHAIRMAN: You have two minutes.

MR. COCKE: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I should have started this earlier.

Just let me give you an example: in Richmond we have one boy and three girls; in Surrey You've got five young kids; in Maple Ridge you have four kids; in Chilliwack you have three girls and one boy in the community classes. That is what we are talking about. Those communities are too small for the children to interact. I suggest, Mr. Chairman, if we continue to go in this direction the minister is making an irrevocable mistake.

I suggest that the decision is a political one. I say that Kamloops is going well; I'll agree with that. For one thing, you've got experts up there and service for those children. But don't tell me that Richmond and Surrey and those other areas are going well. Prince George can go well, and I agree that Kamloops is going well because you have the backup people in the area.

Mr. Chairman, another thing, too, is that Jericho Hill School is close to what the minister has always been very fond of, and that is UBC. It is close to all those experts as well. If you want to do a little bit of research and a little bit of good work, don't move it out to UBC, but let the UBC people get involved. Keep it on its own campus.

No, Mr. Chairman, I think we're going down the wrong track on this. I suggest that Jericho needs to be improved, not torn down; I suggest that people should be attracted, not dissuaded from sending their children to Jericho Hill. I tell you, Mr. Chairman, if anything ever convinced me it was my own family experience with that school that nobody can tell me was wrong. I saw a person made into a very highly contributing person as a result of that school that that minister is trying to tear apart.

HON. MR. McGEER: Mr. Speaker, I will just try .and answer very quickly the points raised by the member. He talked about the trustees. I meet with them whenever they request. My door is open to the trustees just as it is to the B.C. Teachers Federation. The deputy has a meeting with both the trustees and the teachers on a regular basis once a month. Indeed, he has invited the trustees to attend personally, although so far they have only sent their officials.

When we correspond, we correspond usually with the secretary-treasurers of all the school districts. If the president of the local trustees' association would prefer to have the letters addressed to the president rather than the secretary-treasurer, that is quite agreeable with us. We would do it any way they preferred.

With respect to the provincial learning assessment programme, the member for Burnaby North (Mrs. Dailly) took a lot of credit for what she had started when she spoke. I don't begrudge that. We are just finally seeing that programme put in place fully. Therefore we are only following through on what that member herself was discussing yesterday. Yes, everybody in grades 4, 8 and 12 will be followed through, but that is our responsibility under the Public Schools Act and not something that can be determined at the local level.

There was that little bit of bucking in Sechelt. I find it interesting that the head of the school board there is a teacher in North Vancouver. Had he only pursued the policy of his own school district, it would have been unanimous instead of that one school district which, incidentally, changed its mind and decided they would administer the test.

With regard to finance, the Ministry of Education did far better in the budget this year than many other ministries of government. I thank my colleagues once again, as I have in the past, for being so considerate of the high priorities of education. We are experiencing considerable growth at the post-secondary level so it is only natural that the larger increases should go to those areas that are experiencing growth rather than

[ Page 3859 ]

in the K-to-12 programme where the population is j declining slightly.

So we've explained to local school districts that under circumstances where the district may even be shrinking in size - and certainly very, very few of them are growing - you can't expect your budget from the provincial government to grow at a more rapid pace than the overall budget of the ministry. We're already getting more than our share to cover those areas of education that are growing. Many ministries are actually experiencing a decline in their budget in order that Education could have so much. If under the circumstances of constant or declining growth a local school district expects their budget to grow faster than the provincial economy, then they're going to have to find their own sources of revenue to cover it.

This is nothing that comes as any mystery to them or to the House or to the province because I've explained it many times in the past. For that member, Mr. Chairman, I'll explain again: local school districts cannot expect their budgets to grow more rapidly than the provincial budget. It's a static or declining situation. Other aspects of education are growing, and therefore have to be served just in terms of the numbers that are looked after. There are many other ministries of the provincial government that have legitimate programmes on behalf of the people that will require attention. We are not limiting in any way what a local school district may wish to spend but they do have to look to their own sources of revenue.

The member asked whether we were converting to programme funding for local school districts. It's certainly something which has been considered by the ministry, but if you look at the line budget you will see that the main grant to school districts is just on a bulk-grant basis. Then they spend for their own programmes as they see fit.

We do have, of course, special programme funding for the French language policy, and I know that will be of very great interest to the member for North Vancouver-Capilano (Mr. Gibson) who has this passion for federal affairs, for national unity. It's the passion for national unity.

MR. WALLACE: You mean you're not concerned about it?

HON. MR. McGEER: We all have a passion for national unity, but of course it's a question which varies according to your political persuasion. The member for North Vancouver-Capilano has his orientation toward national unity and how to achieve it. He's a very strong supporter of the Prime Minister, having once served as one of his executive assistants. No doubt he'll be back serving the Prime Minister again. But that's not something which is the exclusive jurisdiction of the Prime Minister, nor are his policies necessarily the only policies that will be successful in achieving this great goal of all good Canadians, namely national unity. I don't want to digress here lest I be accused of filibustering my own estimates.

MR. WALLACE: Heaven forbid!

HON. MR. McGEER: But the member has his views, and it's fairly evident that they're not entirely shared by the people of British Columbia, as the results of the last election will attest.

MR. WALLACE: You do believe in national unity, Pat, do you?

HON. MR. McGEER: I think we all do, Mr. Member, but as I say....

Interjection.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. That would have to be done under the proper vote.

HON. MR. McGEER: I would have to point out that Tweedle-Dum and Tweedle-Dee, Mr. Chairman. I hope they will take that in the light spirit in which it's meant. Their national leaders both believe in this great goal of the Canadians to achieve national unity. In the House of Commons their national leaders don't sit quite as close together and they don't share quite the same views as to how this should be achieved. Indeed, if I interpret the speeches of these two gentlemen, I can tell you that they're a great deal farther apart in spirit than perhaps the two members who sit so close together now.

In any event, it is a digression. I was about to, I hope, say something that would be welcomed p particularly by the member for North Vancouver-Capilano, and that is that we're hoping that some of the school districts in British Columbia will offer French immersion programmes in order that our B.C. residents will be able to find their place on the national scene and be linguistically equipped to make that great federal contribution that's going to be so necessary in the future.

Now the member raised again today the question with respect to the Boundary community school. I thought I had answered that yesterday but I'll just go over it again briefly. There was a meeting in my office in which the Minister of Energy, Transport and Communications (Hon. Mr. Davis) , myself and representatives of the Boundary community school, the district of North Vancouver, the school board, and officials of the ministry met and discussed this question. Of course, as I explained yesterday, at issue was the large number of vacancies in the five schools that surrounded Boundary community school. It's

[ Page 3860 ]

not a question of people walking from the corner of the Boundary community school's schoolyard to some other school where there is a vacancy; it's a question of where you draw the line between the two jurisdictions.

This is simply a problem, Mr. Chairman, that has been encountered two or three times and which we're going to see very much more of in the future as populations decline and as schools become superfluous all over British Columbia. As they do, there are going to be some jurisdictional quarrels as to which school is going to get the students and which school will not.

The critical matter that needed to be decided at this particular meeting was whether the city of North Vancouver is going to open up an area which borders right on the school yard. If they do, then there's no question that sufficient population will come to that school to justify the complete expansion that they propose. If the representative from the city, rather than the district, had been there, we could have settled the question immediately. As it is, we'll be making a determination in a day or two.

The member said that there is a school freeze in British Columbia. Mr. Chairman, last year I approved $140 million worth of school construction. That is $40 million higher than the highest previous year in history. This is at a time when school populations are relatively constant. Now if that's a school freeze, I can tell you it's the hottest freeze in history. Obviously there is going to be a phase when you get caught up if the school population is constant and when it looks as though a number of schools are becoming surplus. We closed one in Victoria just last year. It's only reasonable to anticipate that that pace wouldn't be continued. Obviously we'd be gold-plating the washrooms if we were to continue at that rate. But I can assure the member that there's absolutely no freeze on, though you must have some common sense. Every little school wants to have something extra, whether the population is there to justify it or not. If we take a hard look at any project, like the Boundary School, it's merely on the basis of whether or not the students are going to be there to use the facilities after they're built.

Finally, the member referred to the Jericho Hill School. I want to say that few things have distressed me, as a minister, as much as the deaf wars that are continuing in that Jericho Hill School. I know that the former minister (Mrs. Dailly) had to listen to the deaf wars, too. I suspect they'll continue indefinitely. I look for no surcease or trace, but I do say that I very much admire and respect the people who we have in our own ministry for dealing with the problems of the handicapped. They are dedicated; they are extremely capable; they are experienced; they are specialists; they know their job; and they are the friends of the handicapped of British Columbia.

They are not necessarily the friends of the vested interests and, believe me, we have vested interests with respect to educating and looking after the communicatively impaired, just as with everything else. I've had the opportunity to visit some of the decentralized facilities in British Columbia and I can tell you that up in Prince George and Kamloops, which are two of the districts where we have classes for the deaf, we have absolutely superb facilities. The advantages of decentralization, I think, should be fairly obvious to all the members.

First of all, the youngsters are living in their own homes. They're not gathered together and being looked after by some matron or hard nurse; they're with their own families. That's the most important thing. It's part of the Berger commission report. You'll find it's going to apply to hospitals - any specialized facilities. You keep children in their homes. You don't take them out and gather them together at some centralized facility. It's better for the youngster to be able to live at home and for us to do everything we can to provide a facility so that he or she can live at home. That's the most important thing.

The second is that people who are deaf or blind have to make their adjustment and get by in society living among the majority of us who are fortunate enough to have hearing and vision. Therefore their adjustment to life is going to be very poor if they spend all their formulative years among other deaf or blind children. So whether we can accommodate them.... Yes, it's a little harder to be a deaf youngster in a school where the rest can hear, or where there are only a few deaf youngsters and everybody else can hear. But I can tell you, just to use Kamloops as an example of a school that I visited many of the youngsters have learned the deaf language and those who are deaf and those with hearing play together at recess. They play together and get along together. The principal of that school knows the sign language, just because the youngsters are present. They're going to make a much better contribution because they've already made the adjustment, they're happy, they're enjoying life, they're learning, and they're living at home - all of those things.

Those reasons are the important ones. I want to make it very clear, Mr. Chairman, that nobody in the provincial government begrudges spending, and spending generously, for these people. But if you look at a straight resource base, in a place like Jericho Hill School only 20 per cent of the money that's spent there is actually spent on teaching the youngsters. All the rest is in custodial care, which has really zero value to their adjustment in education. These are the reasons why you pursue a decentralized policy.

I would say for those who want to be partisan in

[ Page 3861 ]

this House on behalf of the vested interest.... There are some and I expect that it will continue. As we had last year from the member for North Vancouver-Capilano (Mr. Gibson) in several interviews in the paper, that sort of thing is going on.

But I ask any of you: if you really have the interest of these youngsters seriously at heart, before you embark upon these things go and visit one or two of these places where the job is really being done well, as it is in Kamloops and Prince George.

Now we've never said that we're going to close Jericho school, nor have we ever said that the decentralized programme will work for every single youngster. But where it will work for them, that's the policy that's been advised by very capable people in our own ministry, and the policy which is being implemented. I am a strong supporter of that policy.

It's not just because I'm the minister trying to defend the civil service. It's on the basis of personal visits which I undertook for a variety of reasons, not just because it's my responsibility. It's of interest to me as a human being and as a physician. But I'm a strong supporter of the policy of decentralization. I think i it's correct and it's going to continue regardless of the deaf wars.

MR. COCKE: Mr. Chairman, I guess I couldn't be more disappointed - not with the way the minister replied, but with the crack he made about the vested interest. The only vested interest I have in this programme is one that's gone by a long, long time ago. I haven't got a deaf child in my family other than the one who went through that school and was served. I have no connection with any of the associations.

HON. MR. McGEER: We're not getting complaints from the parents, you know. The parents aren't complaining; they're thanking us.

MR. COCKE: "The parents are thanking us." Let me tell you how the parents are thanking us. I'll go through some of the other things he said. Mr. Chairman, this is a letter to the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Barrett):

"I'm sure you're not aware of this but I certainly hope that heads will roll."

Now that's a little rough.

"But I was absolutely dumbfounded when I arrived at Jericho Hill School on Friday to pick up my child. Every window of the dorm of Lawrence Hall had been removed. The east, s west, north and south sides of this dorm had big sheets of plastic covering them with the odd piece of plywood stuck here and there to hold the plastic in place. All the thermostats were set at 80 degrees . . . "

This is, incidentally, in January.

but the temperature was 55. The children, aged from 6 to 12, were staying in there in those conditions.

"Yes, it's true they moved the little girls to the boys' dorm. Was it safe to do so? Why have they locked windows and doors and paid for watchmen and men when they shove plastic up in the middle of winter?"

I can go through this letter, but that's the kind of letters that I get. I don't know what the minister gets.

HON. MR. McGEER: Do you want me to explain that?

MR. COCKE: Yes, Mr. Chairman, the minister should explain that.

HON. MR. McGEER: Public Works were doing some renovations of the building.

MR. COCKE: Mr. Chairman, the minister can explain in his own good time. I'm very, very interested in his answer. He talked in terms of decentralization; he talks about Prince George and Kamloops. I agree that that's where children should be - as close to their homes as possible. But he begs the question when he says the children should live in their own homes. What happens to a child in Vanderhoof? He has to come in and live at Prince George. He's away. The home situation is not applicable to the child who lives any great distance from the school, wherever it might be.

Now the minister can't tell me that he's going to have programmes going in every little hamlet in this province. He can't.

Interjection.

MR. COCKE: Yes. Is it five? I have the number here. The number is absolutely ridiculous.

The minister doesn't understand the problem, Mr. Chairman. He talks about custodial care. That really annoys me. It's during those hours when those children are together that they learn to socialize, and that prepares them for the time when they're going to have to be independent.

But let me describe to you what somebody said. This is a letter to Hon. Pat McGeer. It's in reply to your letter of September 3 to the Western Canada Association of the Deaf. They're very, very critical of the minister's position and they're very critical of some of the minister's people in his department. Let me read a few lines from this letter:

"It is interesting to note that when he was the superintendent of Jericho Hill School . . That is, Mr. Walsh.

. . . he wrote a letter to parents in June, 1971, about the feasibility of local classes. He

[ Page 3862 ]

stated that those children will usually be hard of hearing rather than profoundly deaf, though some profoundly deaf children without standing lip-reading abilities can be educated in local schools. The tragedy to avoid is the lonely, little, bewildered deaf child desperately trying to get by in a totally unsuitable environment."

That's what I'm talking about: lonely, little, bewildered children in a totally unsuitable environment. I'm here to tell you that those five and six kids in Richmond and those four and five kids in other areas are lonely, little, bewildered children living in the wrong environment.

I'll never forget my niece and how much she loved her home, but how she loved to get back to that school so she could laugh and so she could talk. It was not custodial. She could talk with those other kids after hours. She had somebody that she could talk to all the time because they understood one another; they had the same problems.

I resent the vested interest. It's sure interesting to me that this same minister who is supporting Brentwood College, who's supporting Shawnigan Lake School, who's supporting St. George's, York House and a number of other live-in situations for children who are not in any way in need of assistance because of their disabilities can turn his back on children who should be together.

No, Mr. Chairman, he doesn't make sense, I suggest that those children need a little bit more thought from the minister. MR. Chairman, I think I've said all I want to say on this subject, because I feel very strongly about it. If the minister doesn't understand, that's on his head.

MR. WALLACE: Mr. Chairman, I'd like to change the subject. I don't want this to sound hysterical, but I want to ask the minister if there isn't a serious enough incidence of parents questioning the system enough that he should. immediately set about investigating the so-called guidance classes in the public school system.

I don't want to get into a debate on semantics, so before we go any further I would hope that whatever my comments withdraw from the minister, we stick to demonstrated fact, whatever terminology or fancy words I might quote from people who are defending a position which I think is very weak.

The education system in British Columbia has recently had a lot of focus on the need to return to basics and to have a modern, appropriate core curriculum. With that I heartily agree. I hope the minister produces just such a modern, appropriate core curriculum.

I've received letters not just from one school or one school district but from various parts of the province. In my view, if we can talk about prima facie cases, the evidence is there to suggest that in many school districts so-called guidance classes, which I understand are compulsory up to grade 11, are getting seriously off the track. They're invading the privacy of parents who are left in ignorance as to some of the questions that their children are being asked in these guidance classes to the extent that I sometimes wonder whether these classes and the staff responsible think they're running a school or a mental health clinic. So that I won't be accused of generalizing, exaggerating or being inaccurate, let me quote just one particular communication I had, dated March 22,1977, from a group of parents in Enderby. This particular group write to me:

"Enclosed you will find a questionnaire which was given to our students at the A.L. Fortune Secondary School in Enderby. As these types of questions are very hard to get hold of since they are kept from parents - and when we did approach the teacher about this questionnaire, she gave us another one - this one was finally secured and we have managed to erase the name of the student. This has to be done because we have found that most teachers are very hostile and miserable when a parent approaches them as to just what they are teaching. I myself have had problems with teachers as a result of my questioning, prodding and general concern about this.

"So it is very difficult for any parent to openly ridicule or question a teacher. Our children in school are then made subject to very nasty and mean innuendoes. All of a sudden, children of parents who question the school system and methods and the materials being used are 'problem children.'

"It would seem that if you're a parent who does question the professionals, then you are labelled a troublemaker, paranoid and radical. So you can see it is a very futile job and one that becomes increasingly worse as time goes on. So we do hope that this type of teaching will be discontinued."

I'll be reading from the material in a moment, Mr. Chairman, but to go on with this parent's letter:

"As you can see, these questions are prying, snooping and very definitely none of the teacher's business. One wonders, since they are apparently not marked on this, why then are they being asked those stupid questions? We don't know just how much this will help, but we do hope that it may bring some light to those sitting in very dark corners."

The particular material which this parent acquired and which had been used in this class in Enderby.... I'll just quickly read off the kinds of areas which the child is asked to respond to.

[ Page 3863 ]

Under the heading, "Success": "Do you believe that hard work leads to success and wealth? Is that kind of wealth worth striving for?"

Under the heading of "Happiness" - and this question is rather ironic for me to be saying today -it says: "Do you believe your father is happy in his job?" It's quite obvious that I've answered that question last week. Seriously, Mr. Chairman, this surely does leave a parent begging the question that their child in guidance classes should be asked this kind of question.

Under the heading of "Money": "Does your family have enough money?"

Next question: "What would be the ideal income for you?"

"How much do you realistically expect to make?"

I just want to be as quick as I can and give quick examples of a cross-section of the subjects. Mr. Chairman, you'll be very interested in this.

Under "Religion" the child is asked: "Is religion important to you? Do you find more spiritual benefit in nature or in fellowship than in going to church? Would it upset your parents if you married someone (a) from a different religion or (b) a different race?"

Now I could go on and on; there are four or five pages and many of the questions are of this nature, What I am wishing to know from the minister is, first of all, whether this kind of practice, regardless of the title you put on it or how many school districts are doing this - regardless of these arithmetical facts ... is he not concerned that there should be some more definitive outline of what the schools are supposed to be doing or not doing? I have exactly the same kind of communication from a parent in Nanaimo. They formed a group because of their concern about a programme in that district called "Steps to Maturity." They formed a Concerned Parents Committee. One of the persons who doesn't mind having his name attached is Dr. James Benoit, who has written to me at some length and asked me to raise this matter. I understand he sent the material to the minister and was given some general assurance that the matter was being looked into.

The point I am trying to make, Mr. Chairman, is that the degree to which this happens and the degree to which parents are having their privacy invaded are important enough so that this is an urgent matter. I am asking the minister if he's not going to do something about it, not at his convenience or not after he's looked after ICBC, but right now. Dr. Benoit makes the statement:

"A group of people called the Concerned Parents Committee have banded together to protest what they know is an obscure and ambiguous programme presently in use in this district. From our research into the publications, films and teaching exercises presently in use by the Steps to Maturity personnel, we have overwhelmingly concluded that it is a direct invasion of our home and religious principles."

The brief, dated June of this year, outlines the fact that t h e concerned parents of the Ladysmith-Nanaimo district met with members of the school board and with Dr. Reynolds of Public Health to present their concerns regarding this programme. Of course, again, time doesn't allow me to go into all the specifics and I want to make a certain general statement, But the seven major areas in this programme of Steps to Maturity involve tremendous emphasis on feelings, value training, death and dying, communications workshop, qualifications of teachers and volunteers teaching this programme, sex education and finances.

I just want to emphasize again one or two fundamental points in relation to not only the invasion of parental privacy, but to the question -what are our schools supposed to be accomplishing? Nobody denies that there are many kids with emotional problems, many children with difficulties in adjustment and children with problems at home which impair their capacity to function at school. Nobody denies that and I don't deny the wisdom of having counselling available to children. What seems to me to be very unusual is the particular direction in which many of these programmes are oriented. I just quote as an example the situation in Nanaimo, where the parents emphasize the great amount of attention placed upon feelings as a guide to living. The purpose of the emphasis, according to these parents, seems to be to get the child to accept himself by accepting his feelings, whether they're good or bad, and to accept all feelings as being normal and okay for anybody to have.

The activity manual for kindergarten to grade 3 states that a child should be encouraged to express his resentments to the teacher and to the other students and that the discussion of such an individual's feelings should never be used to teach and manipulate children into appropriate ways of behaving. The continual emphasis upon feelings, especially in regard to the "circle-sharing sessions" in the small groups, places a child in a position where lie is almost forced to divulge his feelings and get them out into the open just for the sake of discussion. In many cases they would be feelings that a child might well be better off to keep to himself. And this goes on through many of these headings I have already mentioned, such as value training and material on death and dying, and it goes into some detail - and they are not the concern of the Nanaimo parents - about the qualifications of the teachers who are utilizing this kind of material.

There was another series of complaints brought forward by parents in Burnaby. I might just digress for a moment to say that I would like the minister to answer another question regarding ministry

[ Page 3864 ]

procedure, because I wrote to the two principals of the two schools concerned and they wrote back and told me that 1 would get a satisfactory answer from the superintendent. 1 got the most pedantic, circumlocutory answer from the superintendent. 1 am just wondering if, in this so-called free society, when 1 write and ask information from a principal of a school as an MLA, I am not entitled to get an answer from the principal, rather than being directed to his superior, the superintendent. You don't have to ask your deputy, Mr. Minister, and have a little muttering behind his elbow. Tell me. Do you believe that a principal should not answer when 1 ask a question as important as the invasion of privacy of parents?

I want to read into the record the kind of answer I got from the superintendent, as well as the answers from the principals. I'm not even disputing or arguing about the particular validity of this complaint in this situation. But 1 won't mention names at this point.

"Dear Sir:

"This is to acknowledge receipt of your letter of December 1,1976. In answer to your request 1 would like to refer you to the correspondence Dr. Froese, superintendent, Burnaby School District, made with you on November 30. 1 believe the information and the materials contained therein fulfil your request." There's no direct comment, opinion, suggestion, argument or criticism - nothing from the principal to whom I have written a two-page letter, including the letter of complaint from the parent. 1 get a very verbose letter full of big words from the superintendent which, in a sense, doesn't even deny the charge. It just says that things didn't happen in the manner that the parent alleged them to have happened. I won't take up the time to read the other principal's letter, which is basically the same, except that the second principal says: "If you are ever in this area and care to visit such and such a school, you will be more than welcome."

But I get a letter from the superintendent who says:

" In the first place 1 would want to ensure that no such instances as those cited by Mrs. X, the parent, occur in the manner that she alleges. Secondly, at the time when our schools are increasingly faced with emotional trauma, behaviour problems and an increasing number of students from disrupted and unstable home conditions, the demands upon our counselling and guidance staff are so severe that I would hope that positive and effective guidance counselling techniques not be compromised by misunderstanding and suspicion."

I'm not talking, Mr. Chairman, about the kids from disturbed homes. I'm talking about normal kids from normal homes like the one in Enderby. She didn't go looking for advice from a counsellor because she came from a disturbed home. She got asked whether her father was happy in his job. She's a normal, happy, healthy kid who is compelled to take guidance classes. Now where is the system going?

Furthermore, for the disturbed kids I have to ask the question: is our system an education system or is it a combined system of mental health and social corrections and all kinds of social services? That really is the nub of the question, Mr. Chairman. Just what does our system of education intend to try and fulfil in, admittedly, a more and more complicated world where there is more social breakdown and where there are family disruptions which affect the child's education? But is it the role of the school to try and solve these problems? Even if it were, should we not have a greater degree of control over the so-called guidance material that's being put before children who don't have emotional problems and whose parents are quite happy with the home situation and where the kids are perfectly adjusted? Why should guidance-class material be poking its nose into whether my kids think that their parents would be annoyed if they married someone of another faith or another colour?

I think that the school system, in regard to this particular subject of guidance, is seeking to accomplish a purpose which might be well worthwhile, but what I am suggesting is that school is not the vehicle. Secondly, if it is to be a vehicle of some kind, let's have it certain that the parents know the material the child will be exposed to and let's have parental consent. It is no different from the other issue we talked about the other day of medical records and the idea that some senior civil servant has the authority to provide medical records without consent of the person most affected by these records.

I could talk at great length about the material that has come across my desk in recent months. I'm just saying that the minister should determine, by a proper investigation - and now, not next month or next year - to what degree this kind of material is being used in a variety of school districts. Secondly, I would like to know whether or not there are adequate protections for the parents in being given access to the content of the material and the opportunity either to give or not to give written consent. Thirdly, to what degree, in the light of these points I have mentioned, does the minister feel that the qualifications and guidelines for those teachers who are given this responsibility are adequate? Are there any guidelines?

I think perhaps it is important enough that I should mention that many of the questions that were put in the questionnaire in the Burnaby case were rather similar and along the same lines as the one in Enderby that I quoted. Although the superintendent in Burnaby denies that they were posed in a certain manner - and let's not even get into arguing who is

[ Page 3865 ]

right on that - the superintendent sent me a copy of the material which the principal was using. Much of the material again seems to deal with feelings, developing a "self" concept, and seeing oneself as a beginning adult. There are questions under the heading "pupil interest inventory" about relationships. They cover such matters as whether or not the child likes his father and mother. What has all this to do with education? If some child has a problem in his or her parental relationship, should the school system consider that as one of its primary responsibilities?

I have also got communications here from North Vancouver, and I'm sure the Liberal leader probably received the same communication back in March of this year, where another parent found that her nine-year-old daughter was put into counselling sessions with disturbed children because her child was considered to be normal and could probably provide some kind of benefit to the disturbed children. The mother came to the conclusion that her child was some kind of guinea pig in what was called counselling but which, in some sense, seems to me to go far beyond that and involve medical ramifications, whether you want to call it psychotherapy or whatever.

[Mr. Veitch in the chair.]

This mother was not consulted ahead of time or given any opportunity to consider whether this was good, bad or otherwise for her child, even if it might benefit the disturbed children with whom she was put.

Here again, the rights of the parents, I think, are being seriously eroded. We talk about the importance of the individual having access to government information, and that's important enough, but I think it is a great deal more important, if we believe in individual rights in society, that parents should have some very clear assurance from this Minister of Education, or any Minister of Education, that where matters of the nature that I have been outlining for the House are concerned, the very least is that the parents should be consulted ahead of time and given the right to agree or disagree. I would suggest there is also a lack of opportunity for the parent to appeal whatever decisions have been made in providing this kind of guidance or counselling, or whatever it is to be called.

In the case of the North Vancouver situation, when the mother enquired she was told that this was an innovative counselling programme which her daughter was involved in, as I say, without any prior knowledge or consent. When she complained about so-called "group counselling, " the terminology was then changed to say it was a matter of teaching communication skills.

1 have other topics I would like to get into but I think this one is important enough in these two respects. Is the school system trying to fulfil a medical-social role when it's not even fulfilling its true educational role for a start? Otherwise we wouldn't have some of the other problems at the other end of the scale when kids leave high school or go to university and can't write an English exam. So the school system is not doing that very well anyway. Regardless of that, which is an issue in itself, is it spending time and energy and money trying to meet needs that are there? No one disputes that some needs exist related to social problems and home problems and so on, but is the school trying to solve that problem, which is more of a medical-social need?

Secondly, with regard to counselling per se, which is required and should be part of school services, is it being done with sufficient definition by the Ministry of Education as to guidelines, qualifications of the staff providing the counselling and the assurance to parents that they are adequately consulted, given a chance to become aware of the material that's being used and given the opportunity to give consent or not give consent?

MR. GIBSON: Mr. Chairman, I had planned to restrain myself from further intervention in this debate until my laryngitis abated but this minister exercises me so with the things that he says across the floor of this House that I have to stand up again.

You often learn a lot about members of the executive council by the way in which they use little words in passing. You recall when the Minister of Energy, Transport and Communications (Hon. Mr. Davis) referred to seniors joy-riding on the ferries. You recall some of the remarks of the Minister of Human Resources (Hon. Mr. Vander Zalm) . Well, today we have that kind of an internal slip of the tongue being a revelation by the Minister of Education when he gave us his contemptuous description of the concerned people of Jericho school talking about the "deaf wars." Those are the words he used - the "deaf wars."

These are people who are concerned enough about their children or about themselves to push this minister and his staff in ways that may be vexing and embarrassing to them, but to push them in terms of the problems of the people at Jericho Hill School. What does he refer to it as? "Deaf wars"! I think it says a lot about that minister, Mr. Chairman. I'll come back later on to this simplistic statement of his about Jericho Hill School because he's got entirely the wrong approach. The member for New Westminster (Mr. Cocke) has the right approach. It's a question of a community for people who have difficulties that some of us do not. The minister can see; the minister can hear-1 the minister can speak.

[ Page 3866 ]

MS. R. BROWN (Vancouver-Burrard): He can't understand.

MR. GIBSON: Yes, he can understand, Madam Member, when be talks about the deaf wars and when he talks about people who have the nerve to be concerned about these kinds of things.

Mr. Chairman, I'll come back to that when I have my notes in the House. Right now I want to talk about one of the most blatant cases of personal patronage that's been revealed in this House in many years. That is the question of the Torresan advertising contract for the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia, a contract with a value to the agency of something like $75,000. A contract was issued very recently by the board of directors without the recommendation of the management in a way that runs against government policy. I want to say first of all what government policy is, as reported in the information services review and recommendation prepared by David Brown, special adviser to the Premier, reporting in September of last year. The essence of it all had been - and very properly -competition in the award of advertising contracts for Crown departments, agencies and corporations.

I'll quote from the report:

"In recognition of the need to improve the level of sophistication and professionalism associated with the communication of government programmes, measures have been taken to encourage advertising agencies in the province to enter into competition for government accounts."

Later on in the report, Mr. Brown has something to say about tenure once a report has been awarded. I quote again: ". . . tenure on provincial government assignments be a three-year term subject to yearly performance appraisal." That was an industry recommendation, of which Mr. Brown says as follows:

"It is recommended that these industry proposals serve as a basis for the approach to advertising. The three-year tenure indicated will ensure that agencies do not hold on to accounts involving the use of public funds for a protracted period of time. But there should be an open competition at the end of this time rather than a simple decision to re-appoint."

Well, Mr. Chairman, in this case, not only was the three-year tenure not anything like achieved, not was the contract terminated for lack of performance after a review, nor was there an open competition. There was a simple appointment of one of the minister's pals.

AN HON. MEMBER: His brother-in-law?

MR. GIBSON: He's one of the minister's pals. I'll describe a bit more about him later.

Now let's consider if a new agency were to be appointed, how did Mr. Brown suggest that it should be done? First of all, he gives a number of criteria of which I will select some. He speaks of account lists. He says an agency is a reflection of the type of clients it services. I wish the minister would table a list of the clients serviced by the new advertising firm for the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia.

Mr. Brown mentions growth. He said: "While growth hides weaknesses as well as strength, a two- to five-year growth pattern reflects momentum and success and allows an agency to attract better people." Now, Mr. Chairman, the advertising programme of the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia is not a small programme. It is one of the major accounts in the province of British Columbia. Mr. Brown recommends that growth be looked at as criterion. How many people were members of the Torresan Advertising Agency at the time that contract was awarded? There were three: Mr. Torresan, a publicist and a secretary. That doesn't seem exactly to conform to the pattern of growth that is stated government policy out of the Premier's office.

Another criterion is strength in key service areas: "An agency needs to have strength in creative media account handling and research." In fact, Mr. Chairman, the agency which the minister has just brought in because his pal owns it and heads it up is an agency which has a publicist, which has a part-time writer, and which habitually in the past has contracted out most of its creative work. The criteria are not met.

So what has the history been of this particular business? The agency that last had the contract won it by competition last summer with eight other firms, properly following the process that the government had laid down - or was to lay down in one month -of competition, at the end of the first fiscal year that they were working, which is to say February 28. They continued and got four months into the current fiscal year. They served on multiple projects which were all ongoing and then, all of a sudden, it was chopped. The ICBC has given the excuse that they were simply changing projects - that the Torresan firm had been involved in another project and that these projects were completed, so they were just changing projects. That's absolute nonsense, Mr. Chairman. The fact of the matter is that the previous agency was deeply involved in continuing projects for the ICBC and they were chopped by the minister.

How was that done? It was done with no competition, which is a slap in the face both to ethics and to government policy. It was not done by management; it was done by the board of directors, advised and ordered by that minister, which is a slap in the face at the ethics of that corporation. Why was

[ Page 3867 ]

it done? Who is Ray Torresan? Well, now Ray Torresan is a nice enough guy. I know him. He is more popular than the minister. The minister, you may know, is not very popular with his caucus these days because of the trouble he's getting them into. He's about as popular as the kid whose mother had to tie a bone around his neck to get his dog to play with him. (Laughter.) He's caused that government more trouble in recent months than you can believe, and now he's into another one.

MR. G.R. LEA (Prince Rupert): Yes, that's because he's humble. He's just a humble guy trying to do a job.

MR. GIBSON: But Ray Torresan didn't get his work because he's a nice guy, Mr. Chairman.

AN HON. MEMBER: Let them eat bones. (Laughter.)

MR. GIBSON: He pulled a real boner this time. Ray Torresan is a nice guy, but that's not why he got the work. He got the work because he's an old pal of the minister. He got the work because he needed the work. That's a good enough reason, isn't it, with the unemployment in B.C.?

MR. W.S. KING (Revelstoke-Slocan): Jobs for the boys.

MR. GIBSON: It is not a good enough reason, but it's a good enough reason for this minister.

MR. LEA: Is he a son-in-law of anyone?

MR. GIBSON: Mr. Chairman, I say to you that this is an unusual cancellation of a contract which, under government policy, would have had over another year and a half to run unless the work was unsatisfactory. If the minister will stand up in this House and tell us the work is unsatisfactory, then we can get into that question, but failing that it would have had another year and a half to run under government policy. It's a contract that was changed without competition, which is government policy, when the previous contract holder has been in competition with eight other people, a contract that was changed without any recommendation from the management of ICBC. Mr. Chairman, I'll tell you what that is: it is rancid, stinking, personal patronage.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Hon. member, a more temperate use of words would perhaps be in order.

MR. GIBSON: Mr. Chairman, a more temperate sort of action on the part of that government would be more in order too, and that's exactly the point I'm trying to make.

That action alone is grounds alone for saying that that minister should be fired. He should be sent back to studying brains to learn that the average voter isn't quite as stupid as he thinks they are. This is a despicable action and I challenge him to stand up and defend any of these things in one scintilla.

HON. MR. McGEER: Mr. Chairman, I think the first thing I have to do is absolutely correct the record. Torresan agency has no contract with ICBC.

MR. GIBSON: Neither did the former person. You're shilly-shallying with words. They're the advertising agency.

HON. MR. McGEER: That's quite true - nor did Catton agencies. The member is correct in one thing, which is that in July of last year, nine agencies were asked to present to ICBC their expertise with respect to services they might be able to offer the corporation in the months and years ahead. Some agencies, and Torresan agency was among them, were asked to offer further submissions in September of last year. Of course, what is one agency's strength is another agency's weakness. On a month-to-month basis, the agency was hired by ICBC, particularly to do work as a result of the retirement of one of the public relations people in the corporation. It's quite true that that monthly arrangement was terminated and it's also true that the Catton agency was very disappointed that that arrangement was terminated. It was simply because ICBC no longer had need for the particular expertise of that agency. We have taken on no other agency, either for a large contract or on a month-to-month basis.

What has been done, Mr. Chairman, is that the Torresan agency has been asked to submit further creative work, which they have done, for the corporation. I can't tell you at this time the extent to which any of that might be used.

I want to make this quite clear, and I think perhaps it's time that a general statement was made, Mr. Chairman, because I've seen again and again columnists and newspaper efforts at scandal on behalf of ICBC, starting first with the towers, then with the insurance agents, then with the bodyshop operators and with all kinds of individuals that like to do business with ICBC. When it isn't quite as comfortable and as profitable as they like, then of course they go complaining to members and to the press.

But I can assure you that ICBC is a fairly tough organization to work for. We don't arrange generous contracts with anybody and we don't offer long-term contracts to advertising agencies. It's as simple as that, Mr. Chairman, and I think that the member has made many false charges this afternoon. This is just

[ Page 3868 ]

another one of the false charges that you see.

MR. GIBSON: Mr. Chairman, I would be glad if the minister would specify which charges he considers to be false.

HON. MR. McGEER: Well, that Torresan advertising agency has a contract with ICBC, that it was despicable patronage, that there's a $75,000 contract. All of these things are utterly false, Mr. Chairman. The Torresan advertising agency has no contract with ICBC. It was one of the nine firms that submitted its expertise to the corporation last year. I suppose we could ask every few months for nine agencies to offer to the corporation their strengths and weaknesses, and perhaps that will be done again. But it has been done in the past.

We're aware of what agencies have to offer. The advertising agency business is very competitive and I suppose winning contracts is a lucrative and desirable thing. But we've awarded no contracts in ICBC. I have no complaint about the work the Catton agency did. The members can judge whether the public relations for ICBC this past few months have been good or bad, but I will say this: the Catton agencies considered that they were the agency of record and for some reason thought they had a long-term contract, which they didn't. We have only hired any outfit on the basis of a month-to-month contract and that's all the Catton was hired for.

MR. GIBSON: Mr. Chairman, the minister is playing with words. The fact of the matter is that Ray Torresan is now the advertising agency of the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia. He says: "We've taken on no other agency." Those were his words.

I want to ask him this question. If the Torresan agency does about the same amount of work, even, say, half as much in the next 12 months as the previous agency did in the last 12 months, will the minister resign? If he answers that question with yes, I'll sit down right now, Mr. Chairman. He just has to yell that across the floor of the House.

I didn't say there was a contract worth $75,000. 1 said that the value of the work last year was $75,000. This minister, not uncharacteristically, has taken a set of words in the English language and rearranged them to suit his own convenience. He has gone to some pains not to answer the charges as to how this action of a Crown corporation deviated substantially from government advertising policy. I hope the Premier examines carefully the extent to which it has deviated and brings this minister back into line.

AN HON. MEMBER: He is the Premier.

MR. GIBSON: Sometimes it seems he is the Premier. 1 don't know.

Mr. Chairman, the minister can be assured that it's not on account of any representations. I can't say about the press, but 1 can say to this member that it's a case that the reports in the press have given such a clear expression that this whole business smells that I'm just very disappointed the minister would stand up in this House and try and cover his seeking to do a favour for a friend with smokescreens of arm-waving false charges.

The fact of the matter is that the minister has been caught in another one of his arrogant moves, perhaps to his astonishment or perhaps not. I don't know. A member of the press has blown the whistle and then he finds some grounds for surprise when members bring it up in this House.

HON. MR. McGEER: Mr. Speaker, 1 can only reiterate what I said before. I think the member is quite properly backing off. He's made false charges and he knows it. Once again, he's relying on a columnist who really has come to the defence of everybody who has had an objection with the corporation.

As 1 said, we went through it with the towers. 1 might add that in each of these instances the officials of the corporation were warned that if they didn't do certain things to keep people happy they were going to go to the press, and they find willing allies in the press. The towers have done it; the agents have done it. Sure, I'm fed up with it. But 1 again reiterate, as far as advertising agencies are concerned, the corporation listened to nine agencies a year ago, long before any government guidelines were issued. They selected one agency to do some work on a month-to-month basis, mostly because there's a vacancy within the corporation itself.

Now if the corporation seeks to take some creative work from some of the other presentations that were made at that time, then 1 would think the corporation is quite properly doing that. They might wish at some time to go through the same exercise of having 9, 12, 20 or 50 agencies doing the same thing. But what is the member suggesting: that every three or four months ICBC should have an open competition among 20 agencies? Clearly that's preposterous!

Mr. Chairman, I can only say once more that the corporation is going to be a very tough corporation to deal with. It's going to be fair. But I suspect all those who wish to do business with the corporation, and finding disappointment at not getting what they might consider to be a lucrative contract, will go and find a willing ear in the press about some scandal or other. We've been through it with the whole gamut of people who do business with ICBC and probably we will go through it all again. But 1 can just tell you this: the corporation is going to be tough but fair.

[ Page 3869 ]

Interjection.

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

MR. GIBSON: The minister asks what the member is suggesting. I'll tell you what the member is suggesting. He's suggesting that government policy be followed. The government policy says quite simply that where there is a case of a reappointment or not, there should be an open competition. That's very clear; that is government policy.

This minister, through his Crown corporation, through his board - not the management - has evaded that. He talks about agencies being upset if they don't get what they want out of the government. He implies that everything is on the up and up, and this is just a decision of the company. If that's the case, Mr. Chairman, I want to ask the minister whether he will submit to an impartial audit of this case by the Advertising Agency Association of British Columbia, who are the people who proposed the standards that the government has largely accepted in the Brown report. Surely he would be willing to submit this case to that council if he really thinks he has a case.

But he doesn't have a case, Mr. Chairman. It was patronage. The minister says this member is backing off. This member is not backing off one bit. The minister is backing off. I asked him to stand up in this House and say he will resign if the Torresan agency gets more than at least half what the last agency got in the next 12-month period. I asked him to do that. The minister backed off.

HON. MR. McGEER: Mr. Speaker, I wonder if the member would offer to resign right now if I said no.

MR. GIBSON: I'll sit down right now. You, of course, have the control of that within your own hands.

HON. MR. McGEER: Do you want to resign your seat? I'll make the bet.

MR. GIBSON: No, sir. It's you who has the control and you are the person who must give the answer. Will you answer that question? Will you resign?

MR. CHAIRMAN: Will you kindly address the Chair, hon. member?

MR. GIBSON: Mr. Chairman, this minister said: "Well, this isn't a very important appointment. It may or may not continue." I'm just saying, okay, put your money where your mouth is. If that's what you believe, if those are your intentions, then make that commitment to this Legislature or else stand convicted as a person who has indulged in a despicable act of personal patronage, as far as I'm concerned.

This minister has been wrong before, and sensationally wrong. Do you recall how we heard that ICBC wasn't going to make any money with those new rates? Remember that? Remember that some members of this House predicted that it might be even somewhere up close to $100 million in excess revenue that those new rates might bring in? And what was it - around $70 million to $75 million. The minister said: "Oh, pooh, pooh. There's nothing to that."

This minister, Mr. Chairman, as I've said before, is just arrogant enough to believe that what he does is right and what he does he can get away with. But I'm telling you, the people of British Columbia will only stand so much smell in their nostrils from this kind of patronage thing. This is one more thing this government has done.

HON. MR. McGEER: I just have one question for the member - I've given the answers - and that is: is he prepared to resign his seat if his charges are false? Answer that question.

MR. GIBSON: What part of it? That's a frivolous~ question. You be specific.

Interjection.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Please address the Chair. Order, please. Please, could we have a little more decorum in the House. I believe only one person can speak at a time, and I recognize the hon. Minister of Education replying to the hon. member for North Vancouver-Capilano.

HON. MR. McGEER: The member has made some charges, among them that there is a contract with the Torresan agency. I just say to him: is he prepared to resign if his charges are false?

MR. GIBSON: Mr. Chairman, I said there's an arrangement with the Torresan agency which the minister now plans to be of a continuing nature and which he is trying to tell this House is just a casual kind of thing that might go on or not. I asked him a very clear question. If the Torresan agency over the next 12 months makes at least half as much as the last agency made over the last 12 months, will he resign? He's backing off. That's because he knows he has every intention that the Torresan agency is the main agency of the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia. He is backing and filling and twisting and turning and doing his best to cover with a smokescreen the embarrassing situation he has been

[ Page 3870 ]

found in. But he is in that situation.

I asked him another question. Would he accept an audit by the Advertising Agency Association of British Columbia, the 25-member council which submitted the major recommendations with respect to an advertising agency code of ethics, which Mr. Brown accepted on behalf of the province of British Columbia, which now governs the departments of the province of British Columbia?

The minister didn't answer that question. Do you know why not? Because he knows that if he did, they would uncover just exactly what that situation was. So there we are. I state my charge; I repeat my charge: it is an appointment of patronage. The people of British Columbia know it, and I don't like it.

HON. MR. McGEER: Mr. Chairman, I can only say what I've said before, namely that the corporation interviewed some nine agencies a few months ago, long before those guidelines came out. The exercise he suggests has already been gone through by the corporation.

Now he's made charges. He says there's a contract, that Torresan agency is going to make thousands and thousands of dollars out of ICBC.

MR. GIBSON: I didn't say there was a contract.

HON. MR. McGEER: I merely say: is he prepared to resign his seat if those charges are false, which they are?

MR. CHAIRMAN: Just before we continue, we're here to discuss the administrative responsibilities of the Minister of Education, and that certainly refers to ICBC. However, it is not a debate as to whether one member will resign or one member will not resign. Kindly get down to the issues at hand, if you will. The Chair is not here to instruct you, hon. member, in that respect.

MR. GIBSON: Mr. Chairman, the minister is trying to make this whole thing turn on the question as to whether or not there is a contract. That's not the question. There is an arrangement. I'm asking the minister to tell this House that the arrangement is such that it will not lead to the Torresan agency being at least half as well remunerated as the last one was over the next 12 months, or else say that it will - one way or the other.

The real issue is whether or not that appointment is an appointment of patronage. I stand by that 100 per cent, and I'll meet the minister on any platform in this province to discuss it.

MS. BROWN: On this particular vote, my colleague from Victoria has convinced me that he has material to add, specifically dealing with the Torresan issue. He's asked that 1 defer to him and so I would like to defer to the second member for Victoria.

MR. C. BARBER (Victoria): May 1 thank my colleague from Burrard? 1 just have a few questions for the minister, who no doubt wishes at the moment there were a stranger in the House named Torresan.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order. Continue with your line of debate.

MR. BARBER: What was out of order, Mr. Chairman?

MR. CHAIRMAN: There are no strangers in this House at the present time other than the two representatives of the Ministry of Education. Please continue.

MR. BARBER: What 1 said, Mr. Chairman....

MR. CHAIRMAN: 1 understand what you said. Please continue.

MR. BARBER: 1 will. Mr. Chairman, I wonder if the Hon. minister would care to tell us about his relationship with Mr. Torresan over the years. I wonder if he might care to tell us about Mr. Torresan's work for the Non-Partisan Association, a civic organization in the city of Vancouver, and his own connection with the gentleman. And the minister might as well tell us....

MR. CHAIRMAN: Hon. member, we're discussing the administrative responsibilities of the Minister of Education, not the NPA or any other association.

MR. BARBER: Quite so, Mr. Chairman.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Please continue.

MR. BARBER: What I'm inquiring about is the historic relationship between this minister and, indeed, the Minister of Labour (Hon. Mr. Williams) and the Attorney-General (Hon. Mr. Gardom) .

MR. CHAIRMAN: We're discussing this minister, hon. member.

MR. BARBER: That's right.

MR. CHAIRMAN: 1 must ask you to confine your remarks to this minister.

MR. BARBER: My questions deal, Mr. Chairman, with the interesting personal relationship that appears to have developed over the years between Mr. Torresan who is now the beneficiary of at least one of

[ Page 3871 ]

ICBC's decisions, and the minister himself - and-, as an aside, two of his colleagues.

HON. MR. MeGEER: Do you want me to answer that?

MR. BARBER: I'll pursue it, if 1 may, with a couple of specific questions.

AN HON. MEMBER: Nepotism! Favouritism!

MR. BARBER: 1 wonder if the minister might specifically tell us whether or not....

AN HON. MEMBER: Patronage incarnate!

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. Your colleagues are interrupting you, Hon. member. Please continue.

MR. BARBER: 1 wonder if the minister might indicate whether or not he and, indeed, his former Liberal - now Socred - colleagues received in approximately the third week of September, 1975, a letter and some advice from Mr. Torresan about the defection process which was then in the process of occurring from the Liberal to the Social Credit parties of the day.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Hon. member, 1 fail to see where this has anything.... On a point of order, the member for Prince Rupert.

MR. G.R. LEA (Prince Rupert): 1 think it's quite within the jurisdiction of this committee to find out whether or not there has been patronage within the minister's jurisdiction. It's quite within order. And 1 believe that if any member of this House can prove that there is patronage, then it is within the jurisdiction of this committee to look at that. It is not out of order.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Hon. member, the Chair is not disputing that. We are merely asking that the present speaker relate his remarks to the present administrative duties of the Minister of Education and not to something that has happened that has nothing whatsoever to do with this vote, and 1 have so ordered.

MS. BROWN: He has made patronage part of his duties.

MR. BARBER: Mr. Chairman, my questions are about the relationship between the minister - indeed between the minister and a couple of his colleagues -and Mr. Torresan. It seem reasonable to me, when examining the allegations made by the hon. Liberal leader about the present relationship between the minister and Mr. Torresan - the minister in his role as being responsible for ICBC - to ask about the previous relationship. It is clear to any person who would look at it that the relationship has been continuing and abiding over a period of time. It is clear, when examining the charges, that it's reasonable to ask about the origins and the content of that. If there has been a relationship over a period of time, is it not logical to ask to what extent that relationship does apply at this time? And further, to what extent might that relationship be benefiting Mr. Torresan himself? So, Mr. Chairman, if it's permissible, my question is whether or not the minister recalls receiving - I'm informed it was in approximately the third week of September, 1975 -a letter and advice from Mr. Torresan of Torresan Rose Marketing Communications Ltd., with a copy to the then Leader of the Opposition, Mr. Bennett. The letter advised the then three Liberal members - the now Attorney-General, Minister of Labour and Minister of Education - about how they should get in touch with the Social Credit organization, and how, indeed, they might want to start campaigning with one Bill Bennett in the towns of Kamloops, Kelowna, Prince George, Terrace, Nanaimo and some other city, and appear on the same platform with him, thereby proving all the greater their conversion to Social Credit. If the minister recalls anything'like such advice and such a letter, I wonder if he would tell the House whether or not he accepted the advice. Did they join the Social Credit Party, Mr. Chairman? Maybe the minister could tell us.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Hon. member, anything that happened regarding the first member for Vancouver-Point Grey (Hon. Mr. McGeer) before this member became a minister of the Crown - the Minister of Education - is not relevant and I so order.

MR. W.S. KING (Revelstoke-Slocan): On a point of order, Mr. Chairman, in determining the relationship between a minister of the Crown and an organization which is bidding for rewards under his jurisdiction, it is quite permissible to explore that relationship. It has never been the practice of this House to restrict that line of debate to the current situation, but rather to determine what that relationship has been over a historic period of time. I appreciate the Chairman's concern, but there are those who would find that the Chair is bordering on interfering with the free debate in this House. I'm sure the Chair would not want to give that impression. This is an important matter in terms of determining the relationship that exists between the minister and an agency which has gained reward from the government by a decision of that minister. In terms of finding out whether or not there is anything

[ Page 3872 ]

illicit in terms of the relationship and the awarding of that contract, it's absolutely essential to explore the historic relationship of the two.

MR. G.V. LAUK (Vancouver Centre): I would like to reinforce the comments made by the member for Revelstoke-Slocan to the Chairman. There is no dispute in this committee, insofar as the minister has control over ICBC and has great power, particularly over the expenditures of his ministry and that very large Crown corporation, that opposition members are indeed entitled - I should say responsible - for bringing out any actions on the part of this minister that can be interpreted by the public as being patronage, mismanagement, favouritism or inequality of some kind and so on. That is the responsibility of the opposition.

I'll wait until the Clerk is finished. I'm not in the habit of speaking to the Chairman on a point of order while there is another conversation going on.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, hon. member. Just state your point of order.

MR. LAUK: If the Clerk is finished....

MR. CHAIRMAN: Hon. member, would you kindly state your point of order?

MR. LAUK: Mr. Chairman, 1 am about to state my point of order.

MR. J.J. KEMPF (Omineca): State it!

MR. CHAIRMAN: Please proceed, hon. member.

MR. LAUK: 1 appreciate that some of the Social Credit members are a little bit upset, and rightly so. I think they should be upset ...

MR. CHAIRMAN: Hon. member, 1 will caution all members of this House to allow the member to state his point of order.

MR. LAUK: ... because no other government in the history of this province has degraded public office to the extent that this government has!

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order!

MR. LAUK: No other government!

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, hon. member.

MR. LAUK: They should be upset!

MR. CHAIRMAN: Hon. member, take your seat, please.

[Mr. Chairman rises.]

Hon. member, you rose on a point of order, and the Chair is perfectly prepared to hear your point of order. Please continue on the point of order.

[Mr. Chairman resumes his seat.]

MR. KEMPF: Muckraker! Withdraw!

MS. BROWN: You're a disgrace!

MR. CHAIRMAN: 1 recognize the hon. first member for Vancouver Centre. Would the rest of the House please refrain?

MR. COCKE: You're in enough trouble now.

MR. LAUK: Mr. Chairman, we have a definite responsibility.... 1 don't know why the Clerk insists on doing that, Mr. Chairman. This is incredible. Thank you.

We have a definite responsibility to bring out these inconsistencies and these improper actions on the part of the minister. It is public knowledge that a contract was granted to a political and other kind of associate of the minister prior to his taking office. We have a responsibility to establish that relationship in this committee and then to demand answers and rectification, if possible, from that minister for his improper actions in granting this kind of patronage to his friends. That is our responsibility.

To say that that is not relevant in committee is saying that the opposition has no role to play in Committee of Supply. If there is anything that is relevant it is the actions of this minister insofar as he has power to grant a lucrative contract to a former or continuing political friend. That relationship stems back to 1975.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, hon. member. You are entering debate now.

MR. LAUK: No, I'm just saying that this is what the member is saying. It relates back to 1975 and that is what the hon. member for Victoria (Mr. Barber) is talking about, It relates farther back, but he is raising an issue. It is through a responsible procedure of the member for Victoria raising a step-by-step relationship....

MR. CHAIRMAN: Hon. member, you are entering into debate.

MR. LAUK: No, I'm not. It's through a responsible step-by-step proof before this committee that there was a relationship between that minister and this PR fellow....

[ Page 3873 ]

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, hon. member. The Chair rules that you are now entering into the debate and you are impinging upon your privileges in stating a point of order. I think you realize that.

MR. LAUK: I'm sure it would not be something that you would like to see in the public....

MR. CHAIRMAN: Hon. member, you are entering into debate,

MR. LAUK: No, I'm just pointing out to the minister, Mr. Chairman....

MR. CHAIRMAN: You are entering into debate, hon. member. Please state your point of order.

MR. LAUK: I'm sure, Mr. Chairman, that you would not like the public to say of the Chair in this committee that you are not allowing a full public disclosure of any alleged improper action on the part of the minister to come out in this committee. We can't have Committee of Supply in the corridors, Mr. Chairman-, we must have it in the committee itself.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, hon. member. Perhaps I could just quote to you from the 18th edition of Sir Erskine May, page 725. This alludes to general restrictions upon debate.

"Regarding the general conduct of debate on supply, " and I would like the hon. member to take cognizance of this, "it may be observed that remarks on the conduct of a servant of the state made on the estimate containing his salary must be restricted to his official conduct."

Interjections.

MR. CHAIRMAN: We're speaking about the official conduct. I would ask the hon. second member for Victoria to continue.

MR. BARBER: I'm happy to accept that advice, Mr. Chairman, and I'm happy to talk about the official conduct of this minister and to review the situation whereby the charges as were laid today by the hon. Liberal leader might indeed have some credence. As far as we can tell, Mr. Chairman, one of the reasons these charges have credence is because over a period of time this minister has enjoyed a political and personal relationship with Mr. Ray Torresan. It is a relationship that did not spring up overnight.

The charges laid today by the Liberal leader would be less credible, Mr. Chairman, if overnight somehow some kind of relationship was established which was then alleged to be beneficial in an improper way to Mr. Torresan. The fact and the truth and the evidence is, Mr. Chairman - about which I am now asking the minister some questions - that this relationship did not spring up overnight at all. It predates the 1975 election. Indeed, it predates the minister's membership in the Social Credit Party.

What I am suggesting, Mr. Chairman, is that the minister's responsibility for ICBC, when questioned in this particular way by the Liberal leader, demands of necessity an opportunity for the minister to answer some questions about his obvious relationship with Mr. Torresan. That relationship is present today. That relationship appears to have begun some time ago. In fairness to the minister, he should have an opportunity to discuss that relationship. In fairness to the minister he should have an opportunity to answer my questions. I wish, if I may, just briefly to put a few more questions. Because the topic has changed, I'll review, if I may, Mr. Chairman, the history of it.

It's clear that Mr. Torresan has done work for the Non-Partisan Association in Vancouver and, I'm told, for the right wing of the Liberal Party. It's clear that he worked on the campaign of the one-time mayor of Vancouver, Mr. Tom Campbell. It's also clear that he's done some work for the Social Credit Party, Mr. Chairman, and that work brings me to my present questions.

I'm asking the minister if he received in something like the third week of September, together with his colleagues - then Liberals - the now Minister of Labour (Hon. Mr. Williams) and the now Attorney-General (Hon. Mr. Gardom) , letter and advice from Mr. Ray Torresan informing them that in order to effect their participation in the Social Credit Party, they were well advised to appear with the then Leader of the Opposition (Hon. Mr. Bennett) in campaign trips taking place in Kamloops, Kelowna, Prince George, Terrace, Nanaimo and some other unspecified city. Indeed, Mr. Chairman, I asked the minister if he received advice then from Mr. Torresan, which presumably he followed - he joined the party and he's now in the cabinet - that these details were to be ironed out on September 29,1975, and the announcement was to be made on October 8,1975.

Indeed, Mr. Chairman, if it is the case that in those days, when it served his purposes, this minister was accepting political advice and instruction from Mr. Torresan - I'm informed that a copy of that letter went to the then Leader of the Opposition, the now Premier of the province - is it not possible, Mr. Chairman, that the relationship so obviously strong and directive in those days might be equally strong and directive today? They did arrange the defection; the meetings were held; they did cross over; they did join the government party - the then opposition party. Is it not reasonable to assume that a relationship with such a gentleman in those days, as strong and directive and powerful and influential as it was, might be equally strong and directive and

[ Page 3874 ]

powerful and influential today? That's a reasonable and rational question to ask, Mr. Chairman. If Mr. Torresan had all of that weight in those days, how much more weight does he have now? If when they were in opposition he could do all of this - write such letters, give such advice, and see it acted on -how much more advice does he give today? How much more influence does he possess today?

I'm asking, Mr. Chairman, if the minister would care to tell us about the origins of his relationship with Mr. Torresan and about the specifies of the advice which Mr. Torresan evidently once gave him regarding the timing and details of his defection to Social Credit together with his colleagues, the now Minister of Labour and the now Attorney-General.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Hon. member, I hate to interrupt you, but only as it relates to his administrative duties at this point in time. I'm sure you're aware of that.

MR. BARBER: Indeed, MR. Chairman, since becoming the Minister of Education has that minister held meetings of any sort with Mr. Torresan? If so, where were they? Were they to discuss this business? Were they to discuss these arrangements? Were they in his capacity as minister responsible for ICBC, or simply as an old friend and political crony? Were they social events across the table? Were they business meetings across a desk? What meetings, if any, has the minister had with Mr. Torresan since becoming responsible for ICBC? If such meetings were held, were these financial arrangements with ICBC discussed at any time? Would the minister care to answer these? If they kept minutes, would he care to table them in the House before we do? I'd be grateful if the minister would answer these questions about his relationship with Mr. Torresan.

HON. MR. MeGEER: Mr. Chairman, first of all, 1 want to reiterate what 1 have said before - namely, that no contract exists with the Torresan agency. 1 thought for a minute the member for Victoria (Mr. Barber) was going to draw attention to my old friendship and family relationship with the agency that is no longer engaged on a month-to-month basis with ICBC, the Catton advertising agency. We've known the Cattons for over 30 years and, indeed, Catton was the advertising agency for the Liberal Party in the 1972 election.

MR. BARBER: He's still a Liberal, and you're not.

HON. MR. McGEER: Naturally we have known the Catton family much longer than I've known Ray Torresan, but I don't think that would exclude any agency from doing professional work. The answer is yes, I've seen some of the creative work that Torresan has done in the past few weeks and I can't tell you whether or not the board will want to proceed at all. I can just say that it was the decision of the board to engage Catton for a period of months, they've asked for further work from Torresan, and that's it. There were nine agencies interviewed, and I myself didn't interview those nine agencies in July, 1976. That I can't really tell you what the individual presentations of the agencies were at that time. I simply didn't have time to go into it. The fact that I happen to know these people personally is certainly not going to influence the decision of the board of ICBC as to whether they do or do not get work. I don't think that Catton should have been disqualified from making a presentation to ICBC or working for some months because I personally knew him, nor should Torresan.

You referred to prior to the 1975 election, and we did have a meeting with Torresan. It may be that he arranged either the press conference for us or a public meeting we had before that - I can't recall which one. We had a public meeting in the Prince of Wales High School gym and Torresan was involved, I think, with one of those two events.

MR. BARBER: What I asked specifically, Mr. Chairman, was whether or not the minister personally or his representative have met with Mr. Torresan personally or with his representative to discuss the specific financial arrangements since becoming responsible for ICBC. I did not ask whether he considered other people, whether he's rejecting old Liberal friends who are still Liberals, but now that he's a Socred he won't pay them any attention anymore, I asked whether he or his representative had met with Mr. Torresan or his representative to discuss the specific details of the financial arrangement which, as outlined by the hon. Liberal leader and agreed to by the minister, now exists between the Torresan agency and ICBC.

HON. MR. McGEER: No financial arrangements, Mr. Chairman.

MS. BROWN: Mr. Chairman, again it seems I'm going to have to defer because I do not want to break the trend of this discussion, but I really want to go on after it.

MR. KING: I just have one or two brief questions for the minister, and I want to thank the first member for Burrard for deferring.

I'm interested in who made the decision to cancel the previous agency's services with ICBC and to retain on whatever basis the Torresan firm. From the minister's indication I gain the impression that it was the board of directors of ICBC rather than the management. The minister nods confirmation.

[ Page 3875 ]

My second question is: How does the minister square this approach with the public statements and the public posture that this government has been taking that Crown agencies are free from political intervention and control? It seems unusual to me that this kind of business decision would be made by a board of directors under the political chairmanship of the minister and the Attorney -General rather than.... I shouldn't say "chairmanship, " but it is certainly under their influence as politicians and cabinet ministers on that board of directors. Can the minister explain to the House why the board took that management function unto themselves rather than relying on the management of the British Columbia Insurance Corporation to make that kind of normal business decision?

HON. MR. McGEER: I can assure you, Mr. Chairman, that the board of ICBC, unlike under the NDP, is not a political board. The board makes up its own mind about all kinds of matters. I have also made clear to the members before that the board is not just icing on the cake or some kind of group that meets once a month and considers a few matters of broad policy and lets it go at that. The board of ICBC is very much a working board of very capable executives. Many of them have been working several days a week.

I'm happy to say that I'm able to put quite a lot of my time into education, unlike the early days. You can't believe the mess that was left behind by the NDP and that politically motivated board that they had. It was incompetency heaped on incompetency. We've had to appoint a non-political board of very competent people. Many of them have been working in the corporation two and three days a week. We had one man unfortunately on leave of absence or away from the corporation because he's been ill for the past two and a half months, which has placed an added strain on the other board members, but he was working full-time, or virtually that: four days plus a week. Board people have been very heavily engaged in helping to manage the corporation. It's been one of the strong reasons why the corporation was able to run far ahead of budget this past year.

Now the member for North Vancouver-Capilano (Mr. Gibson) claims credit for being able to predict what the financial status of the corporation would be. Perhaps since he's so good at predicting he could tell us how many people ahead of budget we'll be able to run in terms of management; perhaps he'll be able to tell us what the claims will be this coming year; perhaps he'll be able to tell us what the settlements will be with the towers and the bodyshops; perhaps he can even tell us what the contracts may be with people who may sell services to the corporation in the way of public relations. He knows all of these things. He therefore should be able to tell us what the statement is going to be at the end of the year.

But I can promise you this: no matter how good the crystal ball of the member for North Vancouver-Capilano, the rather stunning results of ICBC this past year - and 1 think they were perhaps holding a North American record for the turnaround of a corporation - did not come by accident. It came, Mr. Chairman, by very hard work on the part of an extremely competent board of directors who offered policy and management decisions, I can assure you, in a non-political way.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Ha!

HON. MR. MeGEER: The members here may do their best to drag politics into ICBC. 1 put it that way around because they deal every day in this House with stolen documents, having no conscience at all with respect to whether or not the charges that they pass are valid.

1 know that the member for Coquitlam (Mr. Kerster) ... I'm not saying that he was set up, but 1 find some of the circumstances surrounding the documents which have been stolen and which are being presented day by day in this House by the NDP rather strange. It forms an extremely suspicious pattern, Mr. Chairman. Either somebody is being set up or when they pay for their stolen documents they ought to pay enough to get the whole file.

AN HON. MEMBER: Quit while you're behind.

MS. BROWN: Really, it is incredible that the minister would stand there and accuse the opposition of bringing politics into ICBC. What does he think the member for Coquitlam did when he sat in somebody's office for six and a half hours trying to get ICBC to change its decision on policy and on a decision it had made? Did he think that was not bringing politics into ICBC? He says he's got more time to spend on education. Well, he'd better start spending some more time on ICBC because there are some really strange, smelly things going on inside ICBC, too. He's going to be hearing more about that. And just saying that the poor little member was set up - well, what a little babe in the woods! Somebody went out and laid a little, teeny, weeny, beenzy, weenzy trap for that tiny little baby in the wood over there. Well, if he hadn't been sitting in somebody's office for six and a half hours and if he hadn't been pressuring the corporation to change its decision on something, it wouldn't have mattered how many traps were set up for him. Do you want to know who set up that member's trap? He set it up himself. Nobody needs to set up a trap for that member. He makes his own traps and he walks into them. That's how clever he is. In any event, Mr. Chairman, I'm not going to be talking about ICBC. 1 have a couple of

[ Page 3876 ]

things to say about ICBC but not today.

Today I want to talk about education because I think that is certainly an area which the minister is supposed to be responsible for too. He tells us he has been putting more time into it.

Interjections.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. The hon. first member for Vancouver-Burrard has the floor.

MS. BROWN: I know, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate your. . . .

Interjection.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. May we have order in the committee, hon. members?

MS. BROWN: They're leaving so I think we will have some order, Mr. Chairman. Yesterday I raised a couple of issues and I know that the minister took copious notes on the questions which I raised, and so did his deputy. However, 6 o'clock arrived and there wasn't time for the minister to respond to the questions. So, very briefly, I am going to run over them again - and I am not going to be repetitious or whatever - just to remind the minister in case he has discarded his notes.

In fact, the educational system is failing a number of people in this community. One of the groups to which I specifically addressed myself to were the students in the school system who have English as a second language; and the second group to which I addressed myself were the women.

In raising the question about the students who are children of immigrants or who are immigrants themselves and for whom English is a second language, 40 per cent of the students registered presently in elementary and secondary schools in the Vancouver area fall into this category. I asked the minister what he would be doing in terms of putting increased funding into the educational system so that programmes could be developed to assist these particular students.

I have brought to the minister's attention the brief which was presented to him by the school trustees, in which they requested additional funding so that they could deal with the crisis which is presently in the school system because of the large number of students in the system for whom English is a second language. I am really very anxious that the minister should respond to this question. Is there going to be increased funding? What kind of programmes? Has there been any contact with the federal government in terms of the two levels of government splitting the funding for this particular area? The second issue which I raised was the whole business of the educational system failing women in our society. I dealt, in a very superficial way, I guess, with the fact that the minister had terminated the services of the advisory committee to the Ministry of Education on the Status of Women and had terminated the services of the special adviser on sexism in the schools, I asked whether the minister would be replacing these two -the advisory committee and the adviser - in any way. I brought to his attention the brief presented to him by the BCTF task force on women and also the brief with recommendations presented to him by the Vancouver Status of Women. I also brought to his attention the fact that a year after the March 22 march of the women in Victoria, another group of women had visited his ministry and at that time he had assured them that his ministry was going to be implementing material in the programmes to deal with the elimination of sex role stereotyping.

In addition, I want to bring to his attention a letter of May 10, which he wrote to Pearl Roberts, the assistant director, Status of Women programme, B.C. Teachers Federation, in which he said: "I take the position that the elimination of sex role stereotyping and sex discrimination should be an integral part of all ministry programmes."

I want to know if he would outline for me some of the ways in which the elimination of sex role stereotyping and sex discrimination has become an integral part of his ministry's programme. I don't need him to tell me what's happening in other ministries. Just deal specifically with his own.

While he is discussing that, Mr. Chairman, maybe he could tell us a little bit about Diana Crutchly. The Status of Women contact persons, I know, in the BCTF and a number of other groups have been trying to get from the minister some criteria, some outline of exactly what the responsibilities of Miss Crutchly are, some kind of discussion as to what she's supposed to be doing, to whom who's supposed to be reporting and whether she has any kind of consultant role with women's groups and with women in the community as well as with various teacher groups or any other education groups. It has just not been possible to get any kind of information from the ministry about the role of Miss Crutchly, the criteria, her frame of reference, her terms of employment or in any way to find out what it is that she's supposed to be doing.

Mr. Chairman, what I also brought out yesterday was the fact that one of the ways in which we measure the effectiveness of the educational system as it applies to women has to be in terms of employment. The latest employment statistics which come down indicate that the gap in employment and the gap in wages between males and females in Canada is widening. It is not getting narrow; it is not closing. In fact, it is taking the opposite direction and

[ Page 3877 ]

it is widening, a further indication that the educational system....

MR. KEMPF: Your statements are recycled.

MS. BROWN: The member for Omineca says my statements are recycled. Well, I'm going to continue recycling them until the situation of which I'm speaking changes.

AN HON. MEMBER: Hear, hear!

MS. BROWN: It really is as simple as that. I'm going to stand here estimate after estimate after estimate - precisely, Mr. Chairman - and say the same things over and over again until the conditions change. If the member for Omineca is seriously tired of the statements that I am making, then he had better start putting some pressure on the Minister of Education to get the situation changed, because that is the fastest way to shut me up. Change the situation.

[Mr. Schroeder in the chair.]

AN HON. MEMBER: Is that a promise?

MS. BROWN: That is a promise. It is a promise, Mr. Chairman. The next question is: will I resign? That's fine, if he wants to put that question too. But until the situation changes, he's going to hear this speech. So he may as well relax and enjoy it because it's here to stay until the situation changes. I'm not going to stop, Mr. Chairman, through you, until the situation changes.

Now in 1970, Mr. Chairman, seven years ago, the Royal Commission on the Status of Women was tabled in the federal House. At that time, certain recommendations were made which affected education in the provinces. Seven years later, here I find myself standing on my feet repeating those recommendations. They have not been implemented, and another recycled speech is on its way, Mr. Chairman. Seven years have gone by. Now I realize that it is quite possible that things move slowly and cautiously, and one has to think carefully before any major changes are made. But I think that seven years is long enough that some basic things should have been changed.

So I want to repeat to the minister that today, as seven years ago, two-thirds of the people on welfare in this province are women. Now that is a very clear indication that something is wrong in terms of their getting into the labour market and in , terms of their ensuring that they receive decent-paying jobs.

The minister himself, in his statement on his curriculum, has admitted that education is one of the tools which one uses to prepare for society in general and employment in particular. The educational system continues to fail women. As long as two-thirds of the people in receipt of welfare in this province are women, one has no alternative but to conclude that the educational system is continuing to fail them.

The other statistic that remains true today as it did seven years ago is that the higher educational qualifications go, the fewer women we find. Although everyone has access to elementary school, although everyone has access to high school, we find that once you get into post-graduate work, once you get into university, the percentage of women starts to decrease. You find in terms of people pursuing Masters' degrees in Canada that only 27 per cent of them are women and when you get to the doctorate level you're down to 12 per cent.

The educational system has to address itself to this. What is happening inside the educational system that makes it result in the falling off of the pursuit of higher education by women? It's part of the socialization process that starts in the kindergarten and in the elementary school.

Now the minister likes to talk about doubling the enrolment of students going into medical school. That's not where it starts. It starts long before that. I know that the medical school at UBC is one of the better ones when it comes to the enrolment of women in medical schools. Yes, it is. Raise your eyebrows, but it's true. He didn't even know that, Mr. Chairman. We've done a comparison across Canada and the situation of UBC is good. It's better than most, not because of any efforts on the Part of the minister but because the admissions committee of the UBC medical school is a good one. I know. My husband sits on it and I know they are doing a good job.

The other thing, Mr. Chairman, that we find is the role which is played by the adviser to the Ministry of Education in terms of the content of textbooks. It's still there. The textbooks are not being upgraded fast enough. We're finding that Dick and Jane are still going through the same old routine where Dick does everything and Jane sits around and watches. That is just not good enough. It's time! We've been saying, Mr. Chairman, again, since before 1970 that Jane is tired of watching the stupid things that Dick is continually doing and that, in fact, given the option in the textbooks, they could probably do it better if they did it together. I'm not saying that Jane should do and Dick should watch; I'm saying that they should do it together. But in any event, the content of the textbooks is where we still need a lot of changes.

The other thing that they brought out, if I can deal just briefly again with the textbook, is that the characteristics of the young children in the stories are still showing boys as being very brave, strong, resourceful and intelligent, and they are still showing

[ Page 3878 ]

the girls as passively sitting and watching and cheering them on. We're the cheerleaders of the world, and this is what the textbooks do in terms of socializing and indoctrinating our girl children.

It's time that the Ministry of Education dealt with this reality very seriously because the result of the system is that at the other end when the children graduate from school we find that it is the men who have the long-term plans for their employment. They are the ones who go into vocational training, who go into higher education, who plan to work for the rest of their lives. The woman, as in the case of Jane in the grade I and grade 2 readers, and as in the case of the women shown in all of the textbooks through elementary school and even through secondary school, take the attitude that work is not for them; that in fact they are going to get married and live happily ever after. This is despite the fact that we know that 40 per cent of the work force in British Columbia today is made up of women and that a large percentage of those women are married women.

The educational system is not addressing itself to the reality of today. It's Victorian; it's mid-Victorian; it's Edwardian; it's ante, post, and everything else. But it is not 20th century. It's not addressing itself to the world in which we live today. The recommendations made by the BCTF's committee on the status of women and the Vancouver Status of Women and various other women's groups in terms of how to make the educational system more relevant to women going through the system are recommendations that the minister should be addressing himself to and should be taking more seriously. When the minister tells us that he believes that this should be integrated and should be an integral part of the ministry's programmes, then he has to give us some concrete and clear demonstration as to how this is an integral part of the programme.

Before he stands up to respond to me, Mr. Chairman, I want to add that I know that the notice has gone out that the home economics courses should be integrated with the industrial arts, and that's great. That's a good first step and I want to congratulate him on that. But the basic attitude and philosophy of the educational system is one that has to change. I want the minister to outline for me some really concrete ways in which he's implementing the recommendations made to him by those two groups and the ways in which he is eliminating through his ministry sexual stereotyping in the textbooks and in the curriculum, and sex discrimination in the practices in the school as well as in the whole business of promotion and hiring in the school system.

HON. MR. McGEER: Mr. Chairman, I just want to deal very briefly with some of the matters raised by the member.

First of all, the English-as-a-second-language problem, particularly as it applies to the city of Vancouver - we recognize that it's a very major problem. I've raised the question at the last two Council of Ministers of Education meetings - one in Quebec city and one in Toronto - because, of course, Vancouver is one of the areas where heavy immigration occurs. New Canadians don't distribute themselves equally across Canada. Very few of them go to Ottawa, so that when the national Minister of Immigration makes a decision with regard to new Canadians, it heavily affects the city of Vancouver and certain particular areas in the city of Vancouver. I would rate teaching English to these new Canadians as the very top priority for the Vancouver School Board.

Now we don't programme funds so when the Vancouver School Board comes and says, "We have money for other things but we don't have enough money for this, " then it would of course imply that the Vancouver School Board does not recognize English as a second language as a top priority but is funding other things first and this last. So they don't have quite enough money to do the job in this respect but do have enough money to do things like have four vice-principals at John Oliver High School and vice-principals at elementary schools with over 350 population, and pay the district superintendent more than the Premier of the province. These are all matters of record, which I think says something about how the money is prioritized. But we don't attempt to prioritize the bulk funds that we give.

However, the federal government, I think, does have a particular obligation because this problem is consequent upon federal policy and that's why the federal government does do some programme funding in education, as with French. We were hoping that immersion courses would result along with that. But at the same time as they're trying to build national unity, to take care of the language problems of the citizens, it would be only appropriate for that special programme funding should come for English as a second language for new immigrants. Then it would particularly apply to cities like Vancouver and Toronto. Nonetheless we have given to the city of Vancouver no less than 95 special approvals for the particular programmes of English as a second language.

Now with respect to the vigorous briefs put forward by the Status of Women regarding sex stereotyping in curriculum and texts and so on and so on, we will have somebody working with Mr. Meredith this coming year. I can't give you the name of the person because he's away on vacation. Diana Crutchley, who had the responsibility last year, has returned to the school system.

MS. BROWN: Did you say he is away on vacation? Oh, Meredith.

[ Page 3879 ]

HON. MR. McGEER: Yes, Meredith is. He's head of it and whoever the person is will be working for him. But we know that the member will be very pleased that this past year two women superintendents have been appointed.

You know, you can talk a lot about the sex stereotyping and how the educational system is slanted towards the boys - that's the general tenor of the briefs that I get from the Status of Women - but really, something over 60 per cent of all our teachers in the educational system in British Columbia are women. They're the ones that are doing all the teaching every day. It seems to me that there it is right in the classroom.

MS. BROWN: He doesn't understand.

HON. MR. McGEER: I'm surprised, given the numerical superiority of women over men in the teaching system, that we're not getting female stereotyping rather than male, and that the men aren't rising up and making similar complaints. We like to accommodate points of view and we certainly like to correct obvious errors in the system, and the Status of Women have got a particular point of view, I can't honestly say that I believe it's widely shared.

When they came and presented their brief to me again and asked a list of questions - I'm not really sure whether they were demands or questions; anyway it was a list of proposals that were very firmly put - I made the point, and I think reasonably, that we would try and accommodate those things that they felt strongly about that were reasonably well shared by the public out there in the system. I said that while these were put forward as assertions that were widely held in the community I found it hard to accept that as hard data, because while the ministry gets 300 letters a day - except over independent schools where we just get box loads of them - I hadn't had a single letter during the past year that I knew of which expressed concern over the points that were being raised.

Well, immediately the member for Oak Bay (Mr. Wallace) produced a letter showing I was wrong. But who was the letter from? It was from these same people. Naturally I didn't include that letter because I think if there were just one from somebody else besides this particular group it would add force to their argument.

Nevertheless, we will have a woman working with Mr. Meredith, getting at the things that the member has raised. I know that she and the Status of Women won't relax in pressing all of the details of their particular t programme.

I just would like to point out one other area which may not be so small in the English-as-a-second language thrust that the government has at the present time. We are developing adult basic education programmes. We are anxious to use TV to get these across because we share the concern of the member that we have to get at the mothers, and many of them are tied to the home. The way to get at mothers in the home is through these adult basic education programmes through television. We think that is going to be a big programme in the future and it will do a lot to get at what the member is interested in. I can assure the member that we will listen very sympathetically to the elimination of any form of sexism and sex stereotyping in these adult educational programmes that are developed for TV.

MS. BROWN: Mr. Chairman, I hope the minister isn't telling us that he considers letters hard data. Surely the minister's experience in research goes beyond that. In fact, the hard data do exist. If he hasn't had access to it I'd be very happy to share the material that I have with him.

As recently as last night there was a programme on TV which gave some results of the Harry Satler poll on this same particular issue. The information is there. The Vancouver Status of Women is not speaking for a minority but it does express the views of the majority of people around.

As far as the question of most of the teachers in the schools being women goes, the question also is that most of the administrators and the decision-makers are men. The people who decide what is taught in the schools are males. Of course the women teachers themselves have been victims of the same socialization process of which they are now a part. It is a vicious circle that has been going on for a long time.

In any event, Mr. Chairman, I would like to move that the committee rise, report progress and ask leave to sit again.

Motion negatived on the following division:

YEAS - 19

NAYS - 23

[ Page 3880 ]

Mr. Barrett requests that leave be asked to record the division in the Journals of the House.

MS. SANFORD: I think that the minister's opening remarks the other day, when he was introducing the discussion on the estimates of the Ministry of Education, displayed very well his elitist attitude toward public education in this province, because he did not even mention once the words "public education" or "public school system."

There are 500,000 kids - I'm expressing my dismay this afternoon on their behalf because they were not recognized by the Minister of Education when he introduced his estimates. I think, Mr. Chairman, that the minister should not only have spent time during that introduction talking about the public school system, but he should have indicated how he intends to expand that system so that those kids who are now under the age of five will get the recognition that they should have from this minister.

I've raised this issue before. I have suggested that the Minister of Education - and this was last year under his estimates - should take an interest and should make some initiatives so that the kids who are now under the age of five have access to education in this province.

The minister at that time indicated that he would not take that initiative and that he was in no position to take that interest. But I think that the minister recognizes how valuable it is if children, at a very early age, have access to trained teachers and have proper facilities and equipment, so that they can begin their education while they're very young. I think he recognizes that if that happens, those kids will be more likely to succeed in subsequent years in the school system.

Now I think that the minister has had time to look at this question. He certainly has had briefs from the teachers' association, from those who have been involved in teaching kids at a very young age and who appealed to him to say that he's the one who should be taking that lead.

At the present time, there are so many various ways in which people can become teachers of pre-school kids. They have a variety of programmes and courses, none of them co-ordinated. They can obtain training of almost any type and of various durations and suddenly become accredited, or at least authorized, to teach in pre-school situations. All they get then is a letter from the committee, which is made up of three departments - from those who are involved in community care facilities licensing. That board simply prepares for them a letter which says: "You are now qualified to teach children under the age of five."

It seems to me that the minister should be making efforts or taking initiatives at this time to ensure that there is proper training for those teachers; to ensure that there are rules and regulations with respect to what kind of facilities those kids are put into, what kind of equipment should be made available to them; to ensure that those teachers should not be paid any less than the other teachers who are now teaching in the school system; and to ensure that the kids who to to those schools have the same kind of educational opportunities that are now made available to kids between kindergarten and grade 12.

1 don't think the minister has taken any initiative at all in spite of the fact that he has had briefs requesting that he look into this whole area and make some moves. Now is the time. Those kids are missing a golden opportunity if they are not given the same opportunity as the kids between kindergarten and grade 12. Here's a chance for all of the kids to have access to education in properly equipped facilities under properly trained teachers. I hope the minister will outline to us today that he is interested in this area and that he is taking some initiatives. It should be the Ministry of Education that takes the lead in this. I know there are three ministries involved at the moment, but I'm asking the minister to make a move so that the kids will benefit at a very, very young age.

One other thing I would like to bring to the minister's attention this afternoon relates to the north Island college, Mr. Chairman. The north Island college is a great concept and I would like to congratulate the previous Minister of Education who ensured that community colleges were made available throughout the province.

The people within my constituency were very pleased when they recognized that finally they would .have an opportunity within that north Island area to have access to college education. But unfortunately, Mr. Chairman, the North Island College has been plagued with problems in recent times. I personally have had complaints from students who have been attending the college, from parents of the kids who are at that college and from teachers who have been teaching at the North Island College. The parents were delighted that they were able to have their children stay at home while they got some college education. But they were concerned when they recognized that there were so many problems plaguing that college that their own kids' education was in jeopardy.

Students were complaining to me about teachers being shifted around halfway through the courses. They were complaining about a large number of teachers being brought in who were either American citizens or British subjects when there were qualified people in the area who could teach the courses that were being offered through the North Island College.

I have complaints from faculty members indicating

[ Page 3881 ]

that no faculty meetings were being held and the problems that were affecting everybody were not oven discussed. They certainly attempted to hold regular meetings and that was denied. We had petitions circulated throughout the constituency where people signed, asking the minister to hold an investigation into the whole administration and operation of the North Island College. The B.C. College Faculties Association was concerned. They have been into the area many times, talking to me and talking to people who also have been concerned about the operation and administration of the North Island College.

I talked to officials within the minister's department. I have talked to the chairman of the board up there. I have talked to the members of the faculty, students and parents. I wrote to the minister asking that an inquiry be held following up all of the petitions that the minister was receiving.

I think the minister has been very arrogant in his attitude toward the problems there, Mr. Chairman. For months and months and months he neglected to appoint positions that were vacant on the council. He did not follow the recommendation, even though he must have been aware of the serious problems of the North Island College, that a complete investigation be held into the whole operation. I know what the minister is going to say when he gets up, Mr. Chairman. He is going to say: "It is up to the college council itself. They can handle this." Or he'll say: "We've had officials and we had a meeting with the college council itself and things seem to be going on, and I suppose that the problems will be overcome."

Mr. Chairman, I think the minister realized that problem was in fact so serious that he should have stopped in and had that public inquiry because the whole North Island College concept was in danger of falling apart. It was falling apart at the scams. My only hope, Mr. Chairman, is that if problems again occur this September in the operation and administration of the North Island College, the minister will conduct an inquiry into the whole situation surrounding this college. I hope the minister will have some comments on those two specific issues.

MRS. B.B. WALLACE (Cowichan-Malahat): Mr. Chairman, I had not really intended to talk about Jericho Hill School but some of the remarks that were made earlier have just led me to make a few remarks of my own. The first thing relates to the remarks that were made by the member for New Westminster (Mr. Cocke) and responded to by the minister relative to the window being taken out of Jericho school.

I suggest, Mr. Chairman, that there is something wrong with the setting of precedents when we have the kind of money available in this government that can take perfectly good wood-frame windows out of a building and destroy them - break them up - and then not have funds to provide the kind of services that we should be providing for the deaf children of this province.

1 think that's a shameful disgrace. Something is wrong with our standards when we have supposedly a tight money situation, supposedly a situation where we're holding the line - we've been told so much about how this government has to cut back on expenditures - and yet they can take perfectly good wood-frame windows, break the glass, destroy the frames and put plastic in in the middle of winter until they can get some other windows in there. I think that's a disgrace. going on at Jericho that have been

At the same time that they're doing that, we have the same sort of things going on at Jericho that have been outlined in the Deaf Advocate. 1 would just like to ask the minister what he has done to correct some of these situations: doubling up of classes to offset a s h o r t a g c 0 f trained teachers; nine multiply-handicapped deaf children in one class; six teachers without warning and without time for preparation shifted to new programmes with new students and sometimes new methods of communication; no phys-ed teacher for the primary classes; no home-school co-ordination for senior students; no educational leadership; and no new principal until May or sometime this year - a long period of time.

1 understand that principal is there now. But those are the kind of short-comings in education for our deaf children when at the same time you're spending money to take out perfectly good windows and destroy them and put plastic in their place because you haven't other windows there available. There is something the matter, with the priorities, Mr. Chairman, when this kind of situation goes on.

The minister said in his remarks that his door is always open to the trustees of this province. Somehow the trustees don't seem to be getting that m e s sage, Mr. Minister, because certainly the complaints that I'm getting are that there is a new era developing. There is a lack of communication between the minister and the school trustees. There is a trend to having one sort of top-level meeting with one of the officials and that's it. The decisions are based on whatever comes out of that meeting. There is no interplay or reconsideration. Communication has to be two ways, Mr. Chairman. You can't just communicate in one direction; it has to be a two-way street. That minister, 1 doubt, recognizes that, Mr. Chairman.

There is one thing 1 would like to compliment the minister on, though, and that is the fact that in regard to Cedar Lodge in my constituency, where we've been having some rather bad problems in getting funding okayed for continuation of classes, his

[ Page 3882 ]

ministry has now agreed that funding is available. I want to thank the minister on behalf of my constituents, and on behalf of myself for the kind of financial support to Cedar Lodge.

However, I want to ask him how soon we're going to get some medical rooms in schools for the use of the public health nurses. There's not much point having public health nurses, Mr. Chairman, if we don't have any place for those public health nurses to work. I would urge the minister to ensure that there is some provision made to provide those facilities for the public health nurses in the schools.

The minister may say that this is a local school board decision, but the local school board, as that minister well knows, is pressured financially. When the cuts come in the provincial funding, then the school board is under pressure because it cannot increase the mill rate excessively. They're caught in the bind, Mr. Chairman, and the minister's well aware of that situation.

So I think that he has to look at some of these things that are really essential if we're going to do a good job in ensuring that our children come out of our educational system well equipped to meet the challenge of today's very demanding society.

I want to talk particularly, Mr. Chairman, about children with learning disabilities. This is a subject that is a very important one, I believe, because we have the challenge in our educational system of providing those children with learning disabilities with an opportunity to become self-sufficient citizens within society or to become a charge on society.

I think that is the challenge that that minister must look at, Mr. Chairman. He must look towards providing the kind of facilities, the kind of staffing, the kind of assistance, the kind of direction that will be of assistance to those children with learning disabilities.

It's estimated that approximately 15 per cent of all children do have some form of learning disability. This government has also made the estimate that they will provide one learning assistant per 450 students at the elementary level. But what is happening in my particular area, Mr. Chairman, is that there is not that kind of assistance available.

We have at present one learning-assistance teacher who is covering Bench, Cowichan Station and Elsie Miles. This is a total of 759 pupils - not 450 but 759. Another learning-assistance teacher is covering three and part of another school. There are 700 students there - not 450, but 700 students. Then we have one for Chemainus, Mount Branton and part of Cayuse - again, 685 students. And then there is another one for 567 students. All are very much above the 450 minimum which was established by this minister's own department, Mr. Chairman, and which in my personal opinion is still much too high.

But even so, he's not living up to his own commitments and those children are not getting the kind of assistance that they should be getting. There is a limit to the number of children that any one learning-assistance teacher can really help. Some of them have to have individual attention. Some of them may be taken in groups, but the groups cannot be large. If they're going to be productive, they've got to be at least 20 minutes in length and they have to be with some degree of regularity - at least three times a week. So there is no way that one assistant is going to be able to cope with 450 students. It's more like 30, if they're going to give adequate assistance.

What happens with these children with varying disabilities? They become very frustrated; they become discouraged. They decide that they are not really able to keep up. They turn into themselves. They are not outgoing; they lose their spontaneity. They become a real problem to the teachers because of that very frustration.

It's those children where we have the dropouts, and from the dropouts we get the juvenile delinquents. Yet, Mr. Chairman, we're getting 759 students and one learning assistant in my particular area. We should be aiming at a goal where every elementary school has a full-time learning assistant; at least that should be the start.

We need speech pathologists; we have to carry out speech therapy. That's very important, Mr. Chairman. To you or to me speech comes quite naturally; we don't have to think about how we form each word. But some children who are born with minor brain damage have to learn to say each letter and each word. They have to think about each particular syllable that they utter. It's something that is very, very difficult and it calls for a great deal of personal attention and specialized training. Yet we don't have these kind of people to help those children at an early age, before they become frustrated, withdrawn and not able to cope with the kind of programmes with which they're being presented.

We are getting some diagnostic programmes. That's true, Mr. Chairman, but there's not the follow-up. There's no facility there to follow up and see that the treatment is brought into effect. Those children are not only being deprived of a happy childhood due to the frustrations and the difficulties that they encounter because of the lack of assistance being available - the lack of qualified people to assist them - but they are a potential burden on tomorrow:s society because they are not going to become well-equipped and productive citizens.

1 talked about psychologists and therapeutic work. 1 want to talk a little bit about the alternative school and urge the minister to continue his support of that particular function - not only to continue it, but to expand on it, to make it available in other areas, to use the one in the Cowichan Valley as an example for the kind of assistance that can be there for young

[ Page 3883 ]

people who do not fit into the regular school system.

That school is an inspiration to visit. It's nothing like the structured sort of school that you ordinarily think of, Mr. Chairman. It's held in an old farmhouse in an area back in a wooded area with a lot of open space around it. The young people go there and they do their classes, their regular work part of the time.

The rest of the time they go out and work with machinery, cutting wood, looking after gardens, fences, all sorts of things. Those children are enthusiastic. They enjoy going to school, and it's a joy to attend that school to see what's happening in that situation.

What a difference from the frustrated, bored, seat-warmer that's left in the regular school system. But that school can only accommodate a maximum of 15 students, Mr. Chairman - a maximum of 15. There may be others in B.C. I'm sure there must be, but I don't know of any. There are none in the area to the north. That is an example that I strongly recommend to the minister and urge him to use his good offices to extend that type of alternative opportunity to the young people throughout the province. It's the kind of school that certainly can have joint funding, and I know there is some-joint funding in this one.

I am very disappointed to see that the Attorney-General's ministry has seen fit to drop out, because so many of the children that come into that school would have otherwise been on probation or have been in an institution somewhere as a result of some brush with the law. This is keeping them from getting a criminal record and it's turning them in a non-productive and crime-oriented direction. I think that school is witness to the kind of thing that can happen. I would urge the minister to pressure his colleagues to continue their support and to encourage the Attorney-General to renew his support to that school. I don't really care where the money comes from as long as it's there and in plentiful amount to provide an ample number of those alternate schools around the province.

I want to speak just a little bit about the native Indian children. They have a particular problem within our educational system, Mr. Chairman. Their history is not good in the educational system, and we're inclined to say: "Well, the Indians are different; it's their fault; they're not able to cope." I suggest that it is we who have not met the challenge. For 100 years we've been teaching them that they must accept their poverty and their hopelessness; that they must consider themselves to be inadequate.

Indian children coming into school are at a disadvantage, Mr. Chairman. They bring with them, when they first come in, that feeling of strangeness. They come from a different environment. In many instances, they are not familiar with the kind of environment that is prevalent in the school system.

They have not been, in many instances, exposed to the business of having bedtime stories read to them. The native people are more inclined to tell stories. They don't recognize the importance of reading. It's not important to them. There's not the same challenge. It's an entirely different culture, Mr. Chairman, and we haven't risen to that challenge. We've tried to fit them into the non-Indian pattern arid, when they don't fit, we say there's something wrong with the native Indian. I say to you, Mr. Chairman, and to the minister, that the problem is not with the native Indian; it is with the school system that fails to recognize that they are different and fails to accommodate that difference.

I would like to quote just briefly from an article that was in one of the teachers' magazines recently. It talks about the question raised by my colleague from Vancouver-Burrard (Ms. Brown) that the dialect that is spoken in Indian homes is often a non-standard English, or a tribal language, or a combination of the two. Consequently when an Indian child from a home that has few, if any, printed materials, who speaks a non-standard English, and who tends to be more observant than talkative is thrown into a new situation - into kindergarten or first grade - with standard-English-speaking, talkative, print-oriented, non-Indian children, and teachers who come from the same background, Mr. Chairman, with the same concepts and the same priorities, the easiest thing in the world to happen is to decide that child is an inferior child.

The article goes on at some length. It talks about the teacher. It says:

" A I m o s t inevitably the teacher unconsciously gravitates to those students whose enthusiastic, active responses match his or her own pattern of behaviour, whose feedback he or she can readily understand and derive gratification from. The Indian child, whose past experience has not trained him or her to respond in this manner, is confused and frustrated. Though he or she behaves in the manner that secures attention and acceptance in the home, in school he or she receives either negative or neutral feedback. Slowly the child begins to withdraw. This encourages the teacher to continue to reinforce the positive responses of the brighter pupils and gradually the child is shut out more and more."

I suggest that we must have some changes in the school system. We must discontinue a system that offers social success only at the expense of the Indian cultural integrity. We are going to have to accept our responsibility to offer a much broader scope in our content. We are going to have to be prepared to make some fundamental changes. We're going to have to build our school system around the genuine needs of those native Indian students if we are going to be

[ Page 3884 ]

successful in living in an integrated society with those native Indians.

I want to turn from that subject and mention just briefly the question of tuition. I would like to point out that that is something that has been much more detrimental to female students than it has to male students, because female students are the ones that historically have the greatest difficulty in getting together an income in the summer that is adequate to get them through the coming year.

I happen to know of one instance where there is a research project going on this summer into the forest industry here in British Columbia. The people who are operating this research project are doing it under a grant from the National Museum, but they are limited in paying only the minimum wage, and they're using summer students.

Now this is a job where they're going out into an old sawmill with the old bunkhouses, the old houses and the old structures, and they're doing a research job out in that sort of a situation relative to the types of construction and all those sort of things that were used back many, many years ago. The problem is, Mr. Chairman, that there were no male students prepared to take a job at the minimum wage.

Now they have been able to get some very good female students. Unfortunately, because of the very kind of thing that we perpetuate in our school system and in our education system, those female students have no construction knowledge. They couldn't tell a floor joist from a rafter because they've never been exposed to that kind of training, Mr. Chairman. So the first thing that these people who are running this project have to do is to train those young women in that very terminology. My point is, Mr. Chairman, that those young women are having to accept a minimum wage. As a result, when they come back to university and are faced with higher tuition, it's going to mean that many of the young people who don't go back to university because of that higher tuition are going to be the ones who are the female members of our society. The tuition increase has worked a handicap on women students in universities.

My colleague from Vancouver-Burrard has dealt extensively with the requests of the Status of Women relative to sexism in education and the minister has said he's going to make some strides in that direction. But when he says that it's only the Status of Women who are concerned about sexism in education, he's wrong, Mr. Chairman. People throughout this province in many organizations - many so-called "right-wing" organizations and status quo organizations - are concerned about sexism in the school texts. There's a stereotyping there; it's been there for years and years and it perpetuates a situation that is really not apropos to today's society. My colleague from Vancouver-Burrard has gone over this twice and there is no point really for my reiterating it.

There's one other point I'd like to make and that is that the child from a single-parent family is also under a handicap. They come into a school system and find the stories about Dick and Jane. Father got the car, and Mother packed the picnic lunch, and they all went to Grandfather's and Grandmothers. It's completely a foreign element to them because that's not their family concept; that's not how their family is. It puts them at a disadvantage. I think those are things, Mr. Chairman, that this minister should be giving due attention.

I have some remarks that I want to make about the core curriculum, but I notice that the House is very jumpy and hungry.

The House resumed; Mr. Speaker in the chair.

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

Divisions ordered to be recorded in the Journals of the House.

Hon. Mr. McClelland moves adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

The House adjourned at 5:57 p.m.