[ Page 4071 ]

CONTENTS

Routine proceedings

The Gasoline Tax Act 1948 Amendment Act (Bill M 215) Mrs. Wallace

Introduction and first reading –– 4071

Presenting reports

Selection committee report on committee on privilege

Hon. Mrs. McCarthy –– 4071

Mr. King –– 4071

Mr. Gibson –– 4071

Mr. Barrett –– 4072

Hon. Mr. McClelland –– 4072

Mr. Macdonald –– 4075

Mr. Cocke –– 4075

Oral questions

Premier's constituency secretarial expenses. Mr. Lauk –– 4076

Holiday ferry traffic. Mr. Barber –– 4077

Restitution to crime victims. Mr. Gibson –– 4077

Future of lotteries. Mr. Wallace –– 4078

Four-litre milk carton ban. Mrs. Wallace –– 4078

Operation of canneries by natives. Mr. Stupich –– 4079

Prep programme applicants referred to Hotel Vancouver. Ms. Brown –– 4079

Committee of Supply: Ministry of Education estimates.

On vote 15 8.

Mr. Cocke –– 4079

Hon. Mr. McGeer –– 4080

Mr. Macdonald –– 4081

Mr. Wallace –– 4082

Hon. Mr. McGeer –– 4086

Mr. Gibson –– 4087

Hon. Mr. McGeer –– 4092

Mrs. Jordan –– 4095

Mr. Lauk –– 4097

Mr. Gibson –– 4098

Mr. Nicolson –– 4099

Mrs. Dailly –– 4101

Hon. Mr. McGeer –– 4101

Mr. Macdonald –– 4103

On vote 159.

Mrs. Dailly –– 4103

Hon. Mr. McGeer –– 4103

Ms. Sanford –– 4104

Mr. Wallace –– 4104

Hon. Mr. McGeer –– 4105

The House met at 2 p.m.

Prayers.

MR. D.F. LOCKSTEAD (Mackenzie): We have with us in the gallery today, Mr. Speaker, visitors from Chico, California, who are visiting and watching the British parliamentary system for the first time. They are Mr. and Mrs. Delbert Pitman, Kay Gubbins, Tom Gubbins, and Jean Pitman. I ask the House to join me in welcoming them.

MRS. B.B. WALLACE (Cowichan-Malahat): This is the day that the Wallace clan has decided to descend upon the Legislature.

MR. G.S. WALLACE (Oak Bay): Hear, hear! (Laughter.)

MRS. WALLACE: I would like the House to join me in welcoming my sister-in-law from Vancouver Centre, Mary Rogers; my niece from Vancouver-Point Grey, Heather Brewster; my daughter, Lynn, from Mica Creek; and last but not least, one of the smaller, younger members of the Wallace clan, my grandson, Jordan James Wallace Long.

Introduction of bills.

THE GASOLINE TAX ACT 1948

AMENDMENT ACT

On a motion by Mrs. Wallace, Bill M 215. The Gasoline Tax Act 1948 Amendment Act, introduced, read a first time and ordered to be placed on orders of the day for second reading at the next sitting of the House after today.

HON. G.M. McCARTHY (Provincial Secretary): Mr. Speaker, I have a report of the selection committee of the House that pursuant to the order of the House made on July 25, this committee named the following members: Messrs. Schroeder, Mair, Veitch, Lloyd, McClelland, Williams, Macdonald, Cocke, Gibson, G.S. Wallace and Davidson as a special committee to debate whether or not the hon. first member for Victoria (Hon. Mr. Bawlf) , or the hon. member for Boundary-Similkameen (Hon. Mr. Hewitt) , or the hon. member for Coquitlam (Mr. Kerster) has sat or voted in the Legislative Assembly when he was disqualified from so doing in consequence of his participation in the Union of B.C. Municipalities provincial housing study instituted by the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing and to which recent reference has been made in the Legislative Assembly, and to report its findings to this House; and that the special committee be authorized: (a) to commence sitting forthwith, and to sit during sittings of the Legislative Assembly and during any period during which the Legislative Assembly is adjourned; and (b) to request, if it deems necessary during its hearings, the opinion of a judge of the Supreme Court of British Columbia on any question of law; and be authorized and required to allow representations of any person by counsel on examination and cross-examination of witnesses; and that the above-named members be given notice forthwith of their appointment to the select committee and that this resolution be reported to this House.

MR. W.S. KING (Revelstoke-Slocan): Mr. Speaker, as a member of the House selection

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Order!

MR. SPEAKER: One moment, please. Are you on a point of order, hon. member?

MR. KING: Yes, I'm on a point of order. Mr. Speaker, I would point out that as a member of the selection committee, I notified the Provincial Secretary that the NDP caucus would not be participating in this committee.

Interjections.

MR. KING: Mr. Speaker, do I have the floor?

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. I'm listening to a point of order, or at least trying to listen to a point of order.

MR. KING: Mr. Speaker, the point of order is that the Provincial Secretary has no authority to use members of this caucus for appointment to a committee to which they have not given consent. Mr. Speaker, I would ask that you take under advisement the abuse of privilege of those members who have been arbitrarily named to this committee by the Provincial Secretary without either the consent of the caucus or the individuals involved.

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: Mr. Speaker, as the point of order was just raised and it had reference to my authority, may I say to you that I am reporting to the House, as the House has requested of the chairman of the select committee. I have so done, and I have followed the direction of this House, to which I am responsible as an hon. member of this House.

MR. G.F. GIBSON (North Vancouver-Capilano): I have a point of order, Mr. Speaker. My first point of order is to suggest that if there is indeed a report of

[ Page 4072 ]

the selection committee which recommends these specific names to the House, it must have been made at a meeting of the selection committee of which I was not given notice, because at no meeting which I attended were decisions made with respect to these particular names.

MR. G.V. LAUK (Vancouver Centre): This is a fraud.

MR. SPEAKER: The first member for Vancouver Centre will withdraw immediately the suggestion that this is a fraud.

MR. LAUK: Mr. Speaker, we have evidence before this Legislature that no such meeting was held to give this report. The report, therefore, is a fraud.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. member for Vancouver Centre did not have possession of the floor. He was interrupting the hon. member for North Vancouver-Capilano, who was on a point of order. Unfortunately for the hon. member for Vancouver Centre, I heard the remark. Now the hon. member will withdraw the imputation that this is a fraud.

MR. LAUK: Mr. Speaker, I'll withdraw the imputation that it's a fraud pending an explanation from the Provincial Secretary.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. member will unconditionally withdraw the imputation that this is a fraud.

MR. LAUK: I have withdrawn the statement fraud and I'm waiting for the Provincial Secretary to report to the Legislature.

MR. SPEAKER: Unconditionally, hon. member.

MR. LAUK: I just did.

MR. SPEAKER: Thank you, hon. member.

MR. GIBSON: Mr. Speaker, that was my first point of order: that if this is indeed a proper report of the committee of selection, then I think I have a grievance against the committee because I was never at such a meeting where these names were approved. I'd appreciate hearing from the Provincial Secretary when this meeting was held.

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: Mr. Speaker, I feel that I have a responsibility to report to the House since the question of illegality of the committee has been raised, if I may take a moment now

This committee which was charged with this responsibility, Mr. Speaker, has held three meetings on this particular committee. At the first meeting they were unable to come to any resolution because the members of the committee wished to confer with their separate caucus members.

Another meeting was held yesterday afternoon -quite late, at 5 o'clock - and there was a motion made at the meeting which carried three to two within the committee. The members of the committee then said that they would go back and confer once again with their caucuses before they could give the names of the committee members. At that time, it was confirmed and it was emphasized by me as chairman that following the meeting within this chamber for the photo-taking date that we all had in this chamber at 10 a.m., we would meet in my office to finalize the committee's work. Our committee met, as was confirmed by all members of that committee at the meeting yesterday, and two members of the committee did not show. The three members of the committee have brought you the report which is before the House today.

MR. KING: On a point of order, Mr. Chairman, I wish to note that my recollection of the meeting, supported by memos that I have in my possession, certainly indicates that I gave no undertaking to the meeting yesterday afternoon, which the Provincial Secretary referred to, to provide any names.

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: You did. Yes, you did.

MR. KING: I gave absolutely no undertaking after the Provincial Secretary and her colleagues, who were a majority on the selection committee, refused the request of the Liberal leader and myself that an opposition member serve as chairman of the committee and that there be equal numbers of members on that committee. I gave no undertaking to meet again.

MR. GIBSON: On a point of order. The Provincial Secretary has a recollection which is certainly at variance from mine as to when the committee was to meet again following our 5 o'clock meeting yesterday. My recollection - and it is a very clear one - is that at 10 o'clock this morning, members of the committee were to consult as to when we might meet again.

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: Ohhh, that's not true.

MR. GIBSON: No meeting was called, Mr. Chairman, and as evidence of that fact, I would say to you, sir, that on each of the previous meetings of the committee, I have had delivered to me by hand, as is proper, a piece of paper stating the time and place of any subject meeting. That was not done in this case and, of course, it's just further evidence that there was no certain date and time set for such a meeting.

[ Page 4073 ]

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: There was very definitely an understanding.

MR. GIBSON: To me, it is transparently clear that the Provincial Secretary, as chairman of the selection committee, is purporting to make a report to this House of a meeting that in fact was not properly constituted and will certainly not be recognized by me as such.

MR. D. BARRETT (Leader of the Opposition): On a point of order, the House Leader reported to me that this morning at 9:45 he caused to deliver to the Provincial Secretary's office a notice that no member from this caucus would be serving on that House committee.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. BARRETT: I refer you, sir, to standing order 69 (2): "It shall always be understood that no member who declares or decides against the principle of a bill, resolution or matter to be committed can be nominated on such committee." That notice was given on behalf of our party, and I submit to you, sir, that there has been a violation here of standing order 69 (2) when it was notified to the Provincial Secretary that in principle none of our members would serve and so did act under the instructions of standing order's to-give such notice.

I intend, Mr. Speaker, to discuss this matter further with my colleague, the member who has been named, the member for Vancouver East (Mr. Macdonald) , who did not give his permission, with the view of looking at a possible matter of privilege related to this standing order.

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. members, in replying to the hon. Leader of the Opposition with respect to standing order 69 (2) , it would be of some assistance to the Speaker if the hon. Leader of the Opposition could inform the Speaker as to the reasons and whether they were ever delivered to the committee, respecting the feelings of the particular members that were nominated. I think that would be of some assistance to the Chair in this particular instance.

I would further say, regarding the considerable number of points of order, which are really developing into a debate on the matter of the select standing committees and the special committees of the House, that it would seem the manner which was followed is no different, at least on the surface, from anything that I have heard so far, than a number of previous committees that were formed by the House, including a special select committee of the House to investigate a matter of breach of privilege by a former member of this Legislature.

At that time, the hon. Minister of Highways was under question by the members of this House. A committee was formed; selection was made on the basis of a report by the then Attorney-General, Hon. A.B. Macdonald, and the committee was so constituted. It would seem that at the moment, in this particular instance, we have a difference of opinion between the members who have been so nominated and the hon. Provincial Secretary, whose duty as chairman is to constitute such a committee.

I'm certainly prepared to take the matter under advisement, although it is my initial impression or feeling that the operation of a select committee of the House or a special select committee of the House is no different than any other committee of the House; and that the matters to be solved and dealt with in this particular instance would be dealt with and resolved by those people who hold positions within the selection committee, which was appointed very early this year.

If there is something that any member wishes to bring to the attention of the Speaker, or a particular reference which would show that this committee has powers or prerogative other than any other special committee or select committee or standing committee of the House, I'm sure I would look at that in arriving at a conclusion.

HON. R.H. McCLELLAND (Minister of Health): As a member of that selection committee, Mr. Speaker, I would like just to confirm that there was a clear understanding there would be a meeting held this morning, following the photograph that was taken in the Legislative Assembly. I find it understandable to know why the members didn't appear, because they were at a press conference announcing that they wouldn't serve their responsible positions in the House.

I would also like, Mr. Speaker, to ask you to take into consideration while you are looking at section 69 (2) , that the two members - the member from the New Democratic Party and the Liberal Leader - both attended two meetings of the selection committee and at that time proposed the makeup of the committee to study this matter of privilege. At that time, they were prepared to serve on a committee which was of their construction. Now I don't understand, Mr. Speaker, how they can apply section 69 (2) when they at one time didn't have the principle that they say they have now.

HON. K.R. MAIR (Minister of Consumer and Corporate Affairs): Movable principles.

MR. BARRETT: A point of order, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: I recognize the hon. Leader of the Opposition on a final point of order to be made at this particular time. Then I will consider the matter

[ Page 4074 ]

in due course.

MR. BARRETT: Mr. Speaker, I have no wish to present argument to refute argument given by the minister.

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. member, I think that is what's happening.

MR. BARRETT: Yes, you're quite correct and I agree.

Mr. Speaker, because of standing order 69 (2) , page 25, after a report to me I caused the member to notify the Provincial Secretary (Hon. Mrs. McCarthy) in writing, delivered by hand at 9:45 this morning, under section 2: "It shall always be understood that no member who declares or decides against the principle of a bill, resolution, or matter to be committed can be nominated on such committee."

We followed the standing order and we notified in writing. That is a matter of record. You have asked for a copy of that and, sir, I will have it delivered to your office. I understand that the Liberal leader (Mr. Gibson) may also have notified the Provincial Secretary, under the same standing order, in writing.

HON. MR. MAIR: Oh, just by coincidence.

MR. SPEAKER: In order to conclude the matter for the moment, may I suggest to the hon. Leader of the Opposition, to the hon. leader of the Liberal Party, who has addressed himself to this matter, and to the hon. Provincial Secretary, that any information that you feel is pertinent to the matter be placed in the hands of the Speaker as reasonably soon as it can be gathered so that I can look at the matter?

I want to reiterate what I said earlier. Unless there is something that someone can show which proves otherwise, the matters of the selection committee and the appointment of either a select special committee or a standing committee of the House are no different than the operations of the committees themselves. They're bound by the rules of the Legislature to solve those problems which come before them within the committee, and not in this chamber.

The hon. member for North Vancouver-Capilano indicates a point of privilege.

MR. GIBSON: Yes, Mr. Speaker. It must, as you know, be raised as soon as it is observed and so I am raising it now. My point of privilege is as follows: a purported report of a committee of which I am a member was made to this House a few minutes ago. My point of privilege is that I received no notice in proper form of the meeting at which that purported report was adopted. It is well established in a committee of selection as well that a written notice is sent around to prevent any ambiguity of the kind which hon. members opposite evidently believe occurred. In my mind there is no ambiguity, as there was no time and place certain for the meeting set, but leaving that aside, there was certainly no notice, which is the normal procedure of every committee of this House and of the selection committee. Since there was no notice, I say that that committee meeting was not duly constituted and therefore the report that was allegedly made to this House is, in fact, not a proper report. I would say that is a question of privilege and I am going to ask you to so rule.

MR. SPEAKER: Does the hon. Provincial Secretary wish to speak to the point of privilege?

MR. L. NICOLSON (Nelson-Creston): Don't lie your way out of it.

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: Mr. Speaker, on the matter raised....

HON. MR. MAIR: The member for Nelson-Creston clearly said: "Don't he your way out of it." I ask him to withdraw.

MR. SPEAKER: Did the hon. member utter such a phrase?

MR. NICOLSON: Yes, Mr. Speaker. I was cautioning the Provincial Secretary.

MR. SPEAKER: Then without equivocation the hon. member will withdraw that imputation, please.

MR. NICOLSON: I withdraw without imputation.

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: On speaking to the point of privilege raised by the hon. member for North Vancouver-Capilano, I would like to reiterate the method by which the select committee has called meetings at various times. As you know, I have been charged with the responsibility of chairing that committee and I have called it together this year and also, indeed, in the last legislative session of this House, sometimes by written notice and sometimes by verbal notice.

It just happened that we met twice yesterday on this particular committee. On the second meeting, we confirmed among the five members - and there are only five on the committee - that there would be a meeting following the photographic experience this morning which was to take place at 10 a.m. in this chamber. It was very clearly understood by the five members of the committee.

Now I would like to also say - and I want to add this because it had great reference to the point of privilege raised by the member for North

[ Page 4075 ]

Vancouver-Capilano (Mr. Gibson) - also within that meeting and in my remarks was embodied, and 1 would like to say it to the whole House, that hanging over the heads of three of our hon. members, our colleagues in this House, is a charge.

Interjections.

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: I suggested to the committee that we must meet at the earliest possible moment. Now that has reference to the point of privilege raised. We must meet at the earliest possible moment so that we would be fair to our colleagues in the House, whether they be opposition members or whether they be members of the government. And it is imperative....

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. minister, I must draw to your attention the fact that it would be improper to discuss what will really be the business of the committee, except perhaps to point it out in the way you have. If you have something further to add, please move on to that.

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: I appreciate that the point of privilege raised is one regarding time. I want this House to know that as the chairman of that committee, it lays heavily on my responsibility to make sure that that meeting is called at the nearest possible moment - which I did, Mr. Speaker. All members of the committee were well aware of the committee meeting. The committee meeting took place and there was a quorum, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: The member for Vancouver East on a second point of privilege.

MR. A.B. MACDONALD (Vancouver East): Well, my first, and a very short one. Mr. Speaker, my name should not have been used by the Provincial Secretary because I would not serve on that committee. I think it is the improper course for this House to follow. Secondly, I think that 69 (2) applies. My point of privilege is: I did not give my consent for my name to be used to anyone.

HON. W.R. BENNETT (Premier): Point of order, Mr. Speaker. Without commenting on the unusual situation of two members breathlessly rushing a message down to cancel a meeting that they claim they had no knowledge of, I would ask the Speaker....

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Order!

MR. SPEAKER: It would seem that it is fair to listen to points of order and points of privilege from some members and not from others. The Chair does not hold that opinion.

HON. MR. BENNETT: Mr. Speaker, I was just prefacing my point of order with the remark that it was indeed a coincidence that messages will be rushed, hand-delivered, 15 minutes before a meeting to say they won't attend the meeting because they don't know that it -was being called.

But my point of order, Mr. Speaker, is: with that very unusual coincidence and circumstance, is there an obligation - and this is the point I'd like to ask you to rule on - on elected representatives to carry out their mandate, either in the Legislature and on legislative committees, such as is on the ordinary citizen who is called upon to serve jury duty and must obey his or her responsibility as a juror?

Mr. Speaker, those are citizens who did not campaign for the job and are not paid for the job, but who carry that out the responsibility of sitting on a jury as part of being a citizen. Does this same responsibility then apply to an MLA who, having sought election, is elected to do three things: serve in this chamber; serve on committees which are an extension of this chamber; and to work for their constituents; or can they pick and choose when they feel like working because they can't get their own way?

MR. BARRETT: Order! It's the standing orders we go by. If you don't like the rules, change them.

MR. SPEAKER: One moment, please. The hon. member for New Westminster indicates a point of privilege.

MR. D.G. COCKE (New Westminster): Yes, Mr. Speaker, I have a point of privilege inasmuch as my name was mentioned as one of those names. Myname was mentioned, as the Premier indicates, as one of a jury that was to make a certain judgment. Mr. Speaker, since the Premier uses his time to do what he did, I'm suggesting there's no possible way I could appear on a jury of his pals. The verdict is already in with that jury. Mr. Speaker, under section 69 (2) 1 do not feel that my principles will permit me to serve on that committee.

Interjections.

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. members, the Chair has listened patiently to members. Would hon. members please take their seats? It must be obvious to all of the hon. members of this House that the Speaker now has possession of the floor.

Would the hon. members allow the Speaker to say this? I have listened to your points of order and your points of privilege and your debate, which you have interjected into points of order and points of

[ Page 4076 ]

privilege. I have given you an undertaking that even though I feel matters of a committee should be settled in committee, as the Speaker of the House I'll look into the matters which you have raised. I am not prepared to allow a debate as such to take place under the name of points of order or points of privilege. I will give an undertaking to this assembly that I'll look into the matter which has been raised this afternoon to see if, in fact, it is something the Speaker should rule on or if it is something that should be resolved within the committee and the committee of selection itself. That concludes the matter, hon. members.

MR. LAUK: Mr. Speaker, I listened carefully to the Premier's point of order. I listened carefully to what the Premier had to say and I did not know what point of order he was raising. Right after that, after he raised a number of objectionable statements, Mr. Speaker has....

MR. SPEAKER: What is your point of order, hon. member?

MR. LAUK: I'll repeat it. I was listening carefully to the point of order that the Premier had made, Mr. Speaker. He did not raise a point of order but made a debate. I was listening carefully to see if Mr. Speaker would interrupt him. He did not, but shortly after the Premier took his seat, Mr. Speaker cut off further comment on this issue. I think that should be pointed out and put on record.

MR. SPEAKER: And rightly so, hon. member. The Speaker is not prepared to listen to further debate on the matter.

MR. LAUK: What about jury tampering?

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. members, I have been patient to the extreme in allowing points from both sides of the House to be raised upon a matter which really is doubtful as to whether it should be before this House at all or not, but since it is, I give you my undertaking it will be taken into consideration. A report will come back to this House, and that concludes the discussion for this afternoon.

MR. KING: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, I believe it is the privilege of a member of this House to correct a statement or a course of action attributed to him if he finds fault with that. I rise to do so....

MR. SPEAKER: If we're to do that, then I presume that every member in this House could correct something that has been said either on a point of privilege or a point of order in the last 15 minutes.

MR. KING: Mr. Speaker, I confine this strictly to conduct that was attributed to me. I do not wish the record to improperly hold an undisputed allegation which I disagree with. The Minister of Health (Hon. Mr. McClelland) and the Provincial Secretary (Hon. Mrs. McCarthy) stated that it was clearly understood by me that there would be a meeting at 10 o'clock this morning. I completely deny that - that is untrue.

MR. SPEAKER: That, hon. member, I think is a correction that is well taken by the Chair.

MR. GIBSON: Under section 42 (l) , again correcting a misrepresentation and confining myself strictly to that, the Premier stated that the two letters, I presume, that were sent this morning to the Provincial Secretary made reference to cancelling a meeting that had been called. As far as my letter is concerned - I can't speak for the other one - my letter made no reference to any meeting whatsoever. That therefore was a misrepresentation.

Interjections.

MR. GIBSON: Mr. Speaker, I'm attempting to correct a misrepresentation which I hope was a simple misrepresentation and I don't really think we need this heckling from the government benches.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. May I make it abundantly clear to all of the members of this House, as I have said a few minutes ago, that if you have evidence to present to the Speaker respecting this matter - whether it be letters or communications or anything that will bear upon the matter that you have placed before me - you should deliver that information to my chamber so that it can be examined.

Oral questions.

PREMIER'S CONSTITUENCY

SECRETARIAL EXPENSES

MR. LAUK: To the Premier, Mr. Speaker: is the Premier's constituency secretarial expense paid on his behalf, as member for South Okanagan, directly to a person or persons involved, or rather to a company called Apex Financial Accounting Ltd. Drawer 730, Suite 101,346 Lawrence Avenue, Kelowna, the directors of which are R.J. Bennett of Westbank and David Dunn of Peachland, and in which the Premier holds 501/2 beneficial shares?

HON. MR. BENNETT: Mr. Speaker, this House makes allowances for constituency services both by person and by service within the constituency. My constituency is South Okanagan, in which this

[ Page 4077 ]

address is and this service is provided. Indeed it does collect the money on behalf of Mrs. Jan Duncan, my constituency secretary. The full allowance is paid to Mrs. Duncan, who is resident and maintains regular office hours in premises in the constituency. The reason the allowance is paid in this manner is that the constituency secretary that I have is subsidized in addition to that amount by the firm for which she's employed and also the space, telephones and other services for that constituency are all provided by that firm at no cost and, in effect, at cost to the firm.

As such, this was one way in which we could provide additional services beyond the amount that's provided by public purse. I would point out that I'm sure this House should be concerned that constituency allowances are paid to people that are actually in those constituencies and that are providing regular office hours in those constituencies, and that the firm to which they're paid is also located in that constituency.

HOLIDAY FERRY TRAFFIC

MR. C. BARBER (Victoria): My question is to the Minister of Transport, responsible for B.C. Ferries.

The minister may recall a major tie up and major delays in traffic at the Swartz Bay terminal of B.C. Ferries on the eve of the Dominion Day weekend holiday about a month ago.

I wish to advise the minister that this weekend is also a holiday, British Columbia Day. Can the minister tell the House how many extra vehicles are expected this weekend to leave at Swartz Bay and at other terminals in the province, what arrangements have been made for the extra traffic that is expected, and what extra sailings to accommodate the extra traffic have been arranged?

HON. J. DAVIS (Minister of Energy, Transport and Communications): Mr. Speaker, I'm not in a position to make a forecast about the weekend traffic. It certainly has been heavy. I can assure the hon. member, however, that all vessels operational within the fleet will be available on the weekend to carry the traffic.

RESTITUTION TO CRIME VICTIMS

MR. GIBSON: As the Attorney-General is no doubt aware, the power of a judge to order a criminal to pay restitution to his victim has been declared unconstitutional by the Manitoba Court of Appeal in the case of the Queen versus Zelensky, which is now going to the Supreme Court of Canada for final consideration.

I would ask the Attorney-General, in view of the great usefulness of these orders, whether he will join in the case in some way on behalf of British Columbia or, in the alternate, will he propose legislation under the property and civil rights head of the province to ensure the continuation of these very useful orders?

HON. G.B. GARDOM (Attorney-General): I very much agree with the hon. member's assessment of the usefulness of the orders. This was discussed at the recent meeting of the Attorneys-General in Toronto. I'll just have to take your question under advisement for this moment as to whether or not we have the competence to do that or whether it has been done.

MR. KING: Yesterday, I asked the Provincial Secretary a question with respect to a grant to the B.C. Olympic Committee. Did the Provincial Secretary or anyone representing her indicate in any way to the B.C. Olympic Committee which received the grant whom she wished to appoint as chaperones for the young athletes participating in the Olympic ceremonies?

MR. SPEAKER: I believe, hon. member, as I recall, the hon. Provincial Secretary took the question as notice yesterday.

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: Yes, Mr. Speaker, and I'm prepared to give the response to both the question today as well as yesterday's.

In answer to the hon. member for Revelstoke- Slocan, yesterday the question was asked: in 1976, when the provincial government granted official support to the British Columbia Olympic Committee for the Olympic flame ceremonies and for the 28 young athletes who represented British Columbia at these ceremonies, were there any conditions or stipulations attached to the grants?

In response, Mr. Speaker, I took the question as notice because it was a bit hazy as it went back some time. The answer to that question is that the funds the government donated to the British Columbia Olympic Committee were turned over directly to the Canadian Olympic Games organization, along with the funds collected by the private sector, and they were administered by the Canadian Olympic Games Association.

The only stipulations were that the funds be channelled into the sponsorship of the flame programme and the providing of hospitality and the hosting of visiting athletes, officials and delegates to the Olympic Games. As you remember, this is the first time that we have been able to be host to the world and we felt that was a worthy cause.

It was also stipulated that none of the funds raised in British Columbia would be used for the construction of facilities. In addition, today, the question is asked: did we indicate in any way as to who should chaperone? Did we impose any conditions?

[ Page 4078 ]

The B.C. Olympic fund committee recommended that MLAs accompany the B.C. contingent of flame bearers. We concurred with that recommendation, although the dollars and the funds were expended and were the responsibility of the Canadian Olympic Games Association to which all the funds went.

MR. KING: Could the Provincial Secretary tell me what the precise amount of the total grant was?

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: Well, $150,000 was given to the British Columbia Olympic Committee by the government; $100,000 of that came from the grants vote of my ministry; and $50,000 came from the Physical Fitness and Amateur Sport Fund.

MR. KING: Who on the B.C. Olympic Committee made the recommendation with respect to the chaperones?

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: The committee itself, Mr. Speaker, as I recall.

I should have added to the answer to the last question that the amount I spoke of as government funds was matched dollar for dollar by the private sector.

MR. KING: My question was who precisely of the B.C. Olympic Committee made the recommendation regarding the chaperones? I wonder, too, if the Provincial Secretary or anyone representing her discussed with the B.C. Olympic Committee the way in which expenses for the chaperones - the members for Vancouver South (Mr. Strongman and Mr. Rogers) and the member for Esquimalt (Mr. Kahl) -were to be paid.

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: No.

FUTURE OF LOTTERIES

MR. WALLACE: Mr. Speaker, I also have a question for the Provincial Secretary regarding the present publicity given to the matter of lotteries in Canada. Can the minister tell the House if the British Columbia government was represented in Quebec City on July 21 when provincial ministers responsible for lotteries met to discuss the future of the lotteries?

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: Mr. Speaker, I was invited as representative of the lottery fund here, as were all the provincial ministers across the country. The western ministers who, as you know, are part of the Western Canada Lottery Foundation decided that it was not necessary for us to attend at that time. We may have had a representative from my ministry; I would like to look into that because we considered sending someone as a watching brief. To be sure, I think I'll bring that answer back to the House.

MR. WALLACE: In light of subsequent statements by the Quebec finance minister, Mr. Parizeau, that Quebec is seeking to join in the provincial lottery system provided the provincial lotteries support Loto Canada, can the minister tell the House if in fact any decision has been reached by the B.C. government in response to the proposal by the Quebec minister?

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: Mr. Speaker, that would be a matter of policy. That request has not come formally to us as yet.

MR. WALLACE: Restricting it to the provincial scene for a moment, could I ask if the minister has made any decision regarding the date when profits from the provincial lottery will be available for medical research? What type of priorities have been set as to the kind of research that will be funded? In other words, will it be primary health-care research or research into the delivery of health services? Has such a decision been made and when will the money be available?

MR. SPEAKER: Could I just intervene for one quick moment and suggest to the hon. member that he asked about three supplemental questions in one statement?

MR. WALLACE: You just can't win in this House.

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: Mr. Speaker, I can answer all three at once. The responsibility for directing funds, other than what is now the responsibility of the lottery fund, really rests with the Legislature, because that has to be a change in legislation. So everything else will follow from that.

MR. WALLACE: A final supplementary. In view of the pressing need for the funds, can the minister give some commitment to the House that the necessary amendments will be forthcoming soon?

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: Yes, Mr. Speaker.

FOUR-LITRE MILK CARTON BAN

MRS. WALLACE: To the Minister of Agriculture: I would like to ask the hon. minister about a quotation from The Province on July 23, wherein the minister indicated that he believes in the sovereignty of the consumer and that the government "is not going to get involved in packaging." Will the minister indicate to the House whether or not he is willing to repeal the order-in-council which prohibited the four-litre milk carton?

[ Page 4079 ]

MS. R. BROWN (Vancouver-Burrard): The pouch-pack minister.

HON. J.J. HEWITT (Minister of Agriculture): The decision to go to the four-litre pouch pack was made in August, 1976 - the unanimous decision of the dairy council. The order-in-council was passed because of the conversion to metric and that is in place. I have stated to the newspaper and I think to the industry itself that it is a decision within the industry to resolve this problem.

OPERATION OF CANNERY

BY NATIVES

MR. D.D. STUPICH (Nanaimo): To the Minister of Finance: In a recent issue of B.C. Monday, he is quoted as saying that the Bums Lake Native Development Corporation is operating as a cannery. I wonder if he could give us some more information about this, which must be a recent development. I wonder whether it is indeed canning something or whether it intends to go into the canning business.

HON. E.M. WOLFE (Minister of Finance): Mr. Speaker, from the description made by the member I would say that that information is incorrect. I made no such statement.

PREP PROGRAMME APPLICANTS

REFERRED TO HOTEL VANCOUVER

MS. BROWN: To the Minister of Human Resources: Can the minister tell us whether any people who applied for employment under the PREP programme in Vancouver were sent to the Hotel Vancouver during this strike?

HON. W.N. VANDER ZALM (Minister of Human Resources): No, Mr. Speaker, I can't say. I'll check into it.

MS. BROWN: While he's checking into it, Mr. Speaker, could he also check to find out whether they were told about the existence of a labour dispute at the Hotel Vancouver when they were referred, there?

HON. MR. VANDER ZALM: Mr. Speaker, I don't even know if they were referred, but I'll check into it.

MR. COCKE: A question to the Minister of Consumer Services, or Consumer Affairs, or Consumer and Corporate Affairs. Corpulate.... No.

Mr. Speaker, the minister has been making statements from time to time about removing rent control, Recently he's made a statement about removing rent controls in s-some areas and not in others. Has the minister developed any kind of decision with respect to where he's going in this respect?

HON. MR. MAIR: Mr. Speaker, that is a question of government policy which will be made clear to this House, I want to assure the member, very shortly.

Orders of the day.

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

ESTIMATES: DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION

On vote 158: minister's office, $133, 16?

MR. COCKE: Mr. Chairman, I would hate after a non-confidence motion yesterday and having had some discussion around the whole question of the mishandling of ICBC claims not to suggest today that the minister has one more very important question to answer. And this is probably the most significant of all the questions that I am going to ask in this whole thing. Mr. Chairman, I want to allude to what the minister said yesterday. Gratuitously, in another part of the debate, the minister said as follows: "There is an elaborate system of cross-filing." He was talking in terms of payment of claims and premiums and so on. This is what he said: "Therefore if an individual writes bad cheques or owes money. , . " That's interesting, because I am not going to be talking about the money that was owed on a specific policy; I am going to be talking about money that was owed elsewhere in a moment. I just want to remind everybody of what the minister said. He said:

If an individual writes bad cheques or owes money, he doesn't get lost in the sense that you no longer have records of whether he has got funds due. If he has moved away from the province - he is just a drifter and he has gone somewhere else - then it is probably you will never catch up to that individual, but if he stays in British Columbia and he continues to hold a driver's licence, wishes to own an automobile and register it, and have it licensed and drive it, then it is there on the record that he owes money and, sooner or later, that individual will have to pay. So of those who remain in British Columbia, eventually the money they owe will be collected, but if a person defaulted on the finance plan and he has moved, well, the only way you can catch up to that person is to send somebody physically chasing him.

This is a first copy of the Blues, Mr. Chairman.

There are sheriffs and, if a person owes, then it is within the law that the licence plate should be physically collected by a sheriff. Somebody has got to go out and find him. Therefore there are people who owe money to the corporation but where it is not practical to collect either the licence plate or the money.

[ Page 4080 ]

Mr. Chairman, I am making a charge of favouritism and I am making a charge of abuse of administration in the case of Surrey Dodge. The member for Coquitlam (Mr. Kerster) knew that Surrey Dodge owed ICBC $2,500, or thereabouts, on another policy at that time - money that was long overdue.

AN HON. MEMBER: Give it to the police.

MR. COCKE: We should entitle this the "artful Surrey dodgers."

HON. L.A. WILLIAMS (Minister of Labour): How about the artful Nanaimo dodger?

MR. COCKE: Allan, you can do a lot better than that. I lose respect for you every time you start that kind of junk. That's right, and the Attorney-General, you know, with his smokescreens. Well, anyway, Mr. Chairman, let's pursue this matter. Wouldn't you like it if you could smoke this one out?

MR. G.R. LEA (Prince Rupert): I guess once you've lost your principles, you never get them back.

HON. MR. WILLIAMS: How else are you going to pay Bob Williams?

MR. LEA: It's better than taking a political payoff like you did.

MR. COCKE: Mr. Chairman, Surrey Dodge owed $2,500 to ICBC, or thereabouts; however, on another policy entirely - a fleet plan - that policy was long overdue, and yet ICBC paid Surrey Dodge $1,850 on a claim. You know, if I owed the government Whip (Mr. Mussallem) , for whom I have great respect, ' $2,000 - let's get this straight - an then we went into a business deal of some sort and it was decided that he owed me $2,500, is it likely that he would give me $2,500 and wait for the $2,000 that I owed him? Would that be a good business deal?

MR. MUSSALLEM: Sure.

MR. COCKE: Oh, he says, "sure." I'm going to go to Mussallem Motors, Mr. Chairman, and find out whether or not that kind of principle is followed in that dealership.

Mr. Chairman, if this is a businesslike government, why don't they follow simple business practices? Every day, in the case of the artful Surrey dodgers, we come up with something else that is not part of proper business practice.

Mr. Chairman, I want this today. I'm asking the Minister of Education, who suggested that he won't read the files, to table every file available with respect to Surrey Dodge in the Legislature at the earliest possible time. When he does, Mr. Chairman - and I'm not tabling anything today - you are going to find that what I have said is right bang on and there has been a claim paid for $1,850 to Surrey Dodge despite the fact that Surrey Dodge owed ICBC $2,500 at the same time. Now if that's business, Mr. Chairman, I want to know what kind of business we're looking at.

MR. LEA: Monkey business.

MR. COCKE: Mr. Chairman, one other thing. The Minister of Education has been running around, talking in terms of stolen documents. I finally found out what happened to those stolen documents. Mr. Chairman, ICBC sent to the Surrey claims centre two people, Jack Hunter and Barry Jackson, internal audit, who picked up the files on or about July 4 and took them to head office. There is not a file missing from the claims of those claims that we've been going over. I won't number them or name them right now, but everybody knows the four claims I'm talking about. They're all there.

So, Mr. Chairman, I suggest that the minister please get to the bottom of this thing. Every day it gets worse. If the minister would only read the files, would only see what's been going on around him.... If he's not involved, he surely should at least by now have read the files.

HON. P.L. McGEER (Minister of Education): Mr. Chairman, if Surrey Dodge owes money to ICBC for deferred fleet, they'll get nailed.

MR. COCKE: They're broke.

HON. MR. McGEER: If they've been paid a claim fraudulently, they'll be nailed both for the money and for the penalty of making a fraudulent claim.

The member knows, Mr. Chairman, because I've stated in the House, if he wishes to examine any claim file, it will be made available in public accounts, which is the remedy to pursue it. I will not table with the House a confidential claim'file, but I will make it available as vouchers are made available for examination. They're not tabled in the House. The ICBC officials may be questioned before public accounts.

I was astonished to learn, knowing the remedies that are available to the NDP and the other members of the opposition that have been available since the beginning of the session . and are available now, that when the public accounts committee met, the NDP never even raised the issue. It was left for the member for Coquitlam (Mr. Kerster) at the end of the meeting to ask that the ICBC officials appear to clear his name. Why was that, Mr. Chairman? It was because the NDP members didn't have the courage to refer this matter to public accounts, because they know

[ Page 4081 ]

that once they get the officials of ICBC there with the files their case is going to collapse.

Now, Mr. Chairman, I tell you this: you've got to be wary of what the NDP said. Why, only yesterday the Sun, Mr. Speaker, was printing in their newspaper two versions - the truthful version presented on this side of the House with respect to the RCMP investigations, and what the NDP said. The ink was barely dry on their papers before they had to retract it all and print the truth. That's what happens when you bring stolen documents in, half-truths and all the things that have been laid on the floor of this House. I have to go and get documents and find you wrong again and again and again.

I'll check this out, and perhaps this time, Mr. Member, you're right. But I'm not going to study those files, Mr. Chairman. What I'll do is make them available in the proper method, in the legal method and in the ethical method.

MR. MACDONALD: Mr. Chairman, I'm just going to overlook all that ranting and raving of the minister and just say quietly that this is one of the forums where this kind of thing should be exposed. I'll add to that that this minister, whenever you ask him a simple question, gets into ranting and raving about stolen documents and everything else except the facts that he's supposed to be dealing with. He is the minister who should be answering questions to this Committee of Supply on his estimates.

Interjection.

MR. MACDONALD: Now the minister says that, oh, it doesn't matter to him that Surrey Dodge owes $2,500.

Interjection.

MR. MACDONALD: You don't know. There's what we rightfully call....

HON. MR. McGEER: I won't accept anything you say on the floor of the House because you tell so many fibs.

Interjections.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please! Hon. members, may I just interrupt the committee? In committee, every member has an opportunity to speak. All he needs to do is stand in his place and be recognized. Interjections are not to be allowed by the Chair. It seems to me that interjection is not only out of order but far too prevalent in this chamber. Therefore the Chair is going to have to begin to speak to individual members. The first member for Vancouver East has the floor. May he continue?

MR. MACDONALD: Mr. Chairman, I don't mind those interjections.

The minister just finished saying he doesn't know.

HON. MR. McGEER: Of course I don't know.

MR. MACDONALD: Of course you don't know. I keep going like this. I used to be a minister myself. If I really got up after something had been raised by the opposition in a serious way and said: "I don't know whether Surrey Dodge owes $2,500 and we paid out $1,850 to them. I don't know ......

I said it yesterday and I'll say it again, and I'll say it throughout British Columbia: this is total irresponsibility on the part of the Minister of Education, contempt of parliament, and it's arrogance of the worst kind, with these things since last May being available to him, for him to come in here and say: "Oh, I don't know." Does he care, Mr. Chairman? Could I ask him that? Do you care, Mr. Minister, or is it all just a big joke?

The minister says: "Don't worry." If they owed this $2,500, which they do, on their fleet insurance since 1975. . . . What's that? Two years. You sure chase the backsides of the ordinary people of the province pretty hard when they owe money on their premiums. You don't pay their claims off when they are owing money-, as a matter of fact, you send the sheriff out after 30 days to pick up their decals and their plates. Mr. Chairman ' they certainly didn't do that for the member for Coquitlam's firm, Surrey Dodge. If that isn't favouritism and political interference, I don't know what it is.

But let me go on with this point. "Oh, they'll be nailed." Mr. Minister, you'll never get the money, because Surrey Dodge has a debenture outstanding to IAC in the New Westminster office where they still owe some $65,000. The member for Coquitlam is making payments, he told Mr. Webster on the radio, so I suppose we can believe him.... It's not character assassination to quote his own words, is it?

AN HON. MEMBER: Yes.

MR. MACDONALD: It is? That's character assassination.

Mr. Chairman, that money was just thrown away. You paid out $1,850, and Surrey Dodge owes ICBC $2,500 which you will never see. The minister knows it. The Chairman knows it. There was no attempt made to collect that $2,500 in arrears in premiums. It's just simply not the kind of treatment that the other citizens of this province receive, and that is political favouritism of the worst kind.

I suppose we should mention in passing again that Surrey Dodge didn't pay the premium either on the unlicensed policy. It was $450. They didn't pay the $450, they didn't pay the $2,500, and yet when the

[ Page 4082 ]

hon. member comes into the ICBC offices they get the bundle. Now there's no point in making a phony legal argument that ICBC had to pay the claim out in spite of the fact that the premiums were owing. There's not a businessman in this House.... Well, there's the member for Vancouver South sitting down there. I ask him whether his firm would pay out $1,850 to one client when at the same time that same client or customer owed his firm $2,500 which he might never see. I think the member for Vancouver South, who is a very good businessman, might stand up and say if he would do that.

MR. LAUK: No, he wouldn't stand up, but he wouldn't do it either.

MR. MACDONALD: No, he wouldn't do that. I put it to you, Mr. Chairman. If somebody owed you $2,500, and he came after you with a claim for $1,850 based upon a left front fender of a 1969 Mustang that was damaged, presumably, and then the transmission had been stolen out of it.... If I were going to go and steal a transmission I think I'd steal the car. It's like somebody offering you the hand of their daughter in marriage: I'd say you take the whole gal or you don't take anything. I can't understand that stolen transmission. How do you steal a transmission out of a car and not take the car? You have to have a set of pliers and tools of all kinds. I couldn't even get a transmission out of a car. I think I'd drive the whole darned thing away. I don't understand that stolen transmission. I'm not a mechanic.

Anyway, Mr. Chairman, the question I have asked you is a very simple one, and I am sure you are going to give the answer. If somebody owed you $2,500 for a year and a half or a couple of years and they came after you for $1,850, would you pay the $1,850 or say: "Well, gosh, let's apply it on what you owe me."? Mr. Chairman, will you answer that question?

MR. WALLACE: Mr. Chairman, I would like to ask a few questions on education. I remind the minister that under the pressure of the adjournment hour last night I asked about the possibility of a better deal for instructors who are employed by the correspondence branch of the Ministry of Education and who are receiving $4 an hour or thereabouts. They have had no wage increase since October, 1974. They have university degrees and academic teaching certificates and, indeed, are experts in their own field, and they are being very unfairly paid in relation to the service they provide and in comparison to other teachers in the education system. I won't repeat all the details at this time but I wonder if the minister would care to make a note and answer that question.

I would also like to follow up a question I asked the minister in the oral question period earlier this session regarding the attempts that he is making to eliminate the sex discrimination in our educational system and the ongoing stereotyping approach which is still all too prevalent in our system. I would just like to recall for the House that when I raised the matter in the Legislature some weeks ago, the minister said that he had received no letters in the mail protesting the sex discrimination in our schools.

I received a disturbing letter a few days later from a lady in North Vancouver. I just want to read a fragment from her letter, Mr. Chairman. She says:

"Dr. McGeer had informed us that he disregarded mail from the Vancouver Status of Women, as it is a special interest group. This to me is completely ridiculous, as I am a wife and mother of three children attending both elementary and high school, I am a taxpayer in this province and I've lived here for over 30 years. I feel that my views should count, regardless of the groups to which I belong. The eight women who visited the Legislature represented four women's organizations and the British Columbia Federation of Women, which has 54 member groups from all over the province. My organization has 160 members and a mailing list of approximately 300."

Mr. Chairman, I want to ask the minister whether in fact that is correct that he made that statement that he disregarded mail from the Vancouver Status of Women because they represent a special interest group. I don't believe that that's a very fair description of those women, and even if they were a so-called special interest group they're considering the special interests of 50 per cent of the population. It's kind of an amusing title, but even if they were, I consider that in politics, as elected representatives, we spend our time in large measure listening to "special interest groups." That's the essence of democracy -that this group or that group, however minority or majority it might be, has every right to come and express a point of view to whatever minister or whatever MLA, who may not be in the government. I find this comment that the minister is alleged to have made to be quite disturbing from the democratic point of view, never mind the issue being raised in regard to sex discrimination in our schools. I hope the minister would care to answer that question as to whether he said that and whether he believes they're a special interest group that he should disregard.

I would like to ask the minister, in regard to the whole subject of sex discrimination in our school system, what specifically is being done by persons on the minister's staff to initiate studies or implement the findings of already completed studies on this subject of sex discrimination in the schools, and what progress he can report.

We know that one lady by the name of Diane Crutchley was described as having taken on the role

[ Page 4083 ]

of liaison person between the ministry and groups who were seeking change, and I understand that that lady is about to take up another job outside the Ministry of Education altogether. Is someone replacing that person? Who is the replacement? What are the terms of reference of that new person in regard to ongoing study of the problems of sex discrimination in the schools? I would ask if the minister has any plans to revive the provincial advisory committee or, if that is not his wish, whether there is to be any alternative specific person or persons given the very clear responsibility to pursue studies in this matter and come up with recommendations as to how the discrimination can be eliminated. I would say that it seems reasonable to me that if the minister is interested in doing something of that nature the Status of Women group should be invited to participate in some capacity or other - advisory or otherwise.

I was very interested in something I came across by Laurie Johnson who wrote some material for women's studies. I think it's worth repeating an excerpt from that study. She says:

We teach that males are and should be aggressive, independent, unemotional, logical, adventurous and physically strong; that females are and should be responsive, passive, tactful, gentle, weak and in need of security. While few of us fit the stereotypes, we accept them as the conscious and unconscious models for appropriate sexual behaviour. Even when we rebel, we measure ourself against them.

"Changing patterns in marriage now involve men in the raising of children and in domestic chores and responsibilities. Similarly, women are often heads of households, either through divorce, separation, widowhood or by choosing to bear children out of wedlock. The work week is shorter and labour increasingly automated and alienating, yet we continue to raise boys to believe that their status and self-worth are measured by their job success and that a woman's task is purely child-rearing. We continue to raise girls to believe that marriage and child-rearing are their sole function and roles. The stereotypes, outmoded and unrealistic as they are, still persist in the media and in our minds.

As an example of that kind of thing, Mr. Chairman, I'd like to ask the minister a few questions specifically, as these matters are demonstrated in the greater Victoria area. I'm talking about a particular example on which we've had some bland reassurances in the past but which, in fact, as far as the greater Victoria area is concerned, are not very valid.

I'm talking about the situation where girls are given little or no encouragement or incentive to take industrial education and boys are given little or no opportunity or incentive to take part in home economics courses. I won't take the time of the House to go into a lot of detail but I've taken the trouble to find out what the situation is in about eight or nine of the schools in the greater Victoria area. The findings are quite clear that this kind of discrimination.... It's a little more subtle, perhaps, than discrimination. So often the answer is: "Well, if we find enough students to make a class worthwhile, yes, the girls can take industrial education and the boys can take home economics."

Let me quote an example where a parent called up to find out about the opportunities and was just told quite simply that girls are required to take home economics and boys are required to take industrial education.

At Oak Bay Junior Secondary in my riding a girl was denied the opportunity of taking industrial education or a second language and is being required to take home economics. A parent called up to find out about the situation and was told: "If enough girls want industrial education, a separate course can be set up for them, provided there are no complications with timetables and scheduling."

At Reynolds Junior and Senior Secondary, a teacher said: "If a child wants to do the nontraditional, he or she must really ask. Usually boys get no Foods in grade 8. If they want it for career purposes they have a better chance than if they are simply interested."

I don't want to spend too much time on that point, but I hope the minister doesn't just say: "Well, of course, this again is local autonomy." There has to be some leadership from the centre, Mr. Chairman -and I don't mean dictation. I don't expect the minister to dictate to the school boards, but I think the school boards themselves would be much more fulfilling in their own respective roles if there was some clear policy statement by the minister that he recognizes that some of this discrimination occurs and that he has a philosophical commitment to try and provide an educational system which is more in keeping with the times, more in keeping with many of the social changes that have been occurring that make it so much more important for us to forget some of these stereotyping roles whereby it was always considered that the male would be the aggressive breadwinner and the woman would be the passive homemaker and person who rears the children.

In this regard too, in the staff that the minister has employed in his ministry, a press release of April 28 this year mentions that two more women have joined the ranks of the Ministry of Education's superintendents. They are, I believe, according to the press release, only the second and third such persons to do so. I discussed this with some women who are in the education field and I was asked to ask the

[ Page 4084 ]

minister: "Why are there no directors of instruction in our system who are females? The director of instruction is a very key role in the various levels of administration.

While it is a sign of progress that some women are becoming superintendents, it may become increasingly difficult to find superintendents among the women in the ministry if in fact some of these lower positions are not first made available to women so that they can gain experience toward the day when they will be adequately experienced and trained to become superintendents.

Now I know this is not as simple as it sounds perhaps, because many women choose not to apply for these positions. The Provincial Secretary (Hon. Mrs. McCarthy) made that point when we raised this in an earlier debate, but one of the reasons the women do not apply is that past history suggests their chances of being appointed are slim. I think the minister, again by some public statement of philosophy, could perhaps convince school boards and others who have local autonomy to try and diminish the discrimination that applies against women seeking to be given these more senior positions.

The other area that I would like to get into very briefly, Mr. Chairman, is this area - philosophy, I guess, is a better word - regarding the type of education and the lack of structure which should exist in our system today. I've been approached by more than one teacher expressing serious concern at the doctrine, if that's the right word, promoted. by many educators who are believing in their own way, as they're entitled to do, that they have great ideas on educational reform. One of the teachers made the point that these reformers, like all missionaries or proponents of a new doctrine, are inclined to impose their doctrine on others. I've been asked to raise the issue and to ask the minister....

HON. MR. GARDOM: That's what Calvin did.

MR. WALLACE: Well, reform is good for society, Mr. Attorney-General, whether it's religious, educational or even political.

HON. MR. GARDOM: As long as it's done with rectitude.

MR. WALLACE: With rectitude.

HON. MR. GARDOM: Right!

MR. WALLACE: Mr. Chairman, many teachers who feel that some of the new direction is actually destructive of educational standards. The issue seems to be worth raising as to the merit of the new approach. I can best describe it in Victoria in these terms: the new doctrine is best typified by the school called Spectrum in Victoria which, apparently, is often contrasted with Victoria High School.

When Spectrum was being staffed, it was given out that teachers were hand-picked for the new school. This seemed to leave the impression that teachers at Vic High were moss-backs. The motto of Vic High, Mr. Chairman, has been for 100 years: "No reward without effort." And the reward of Spectrum, the motto of Spectrum - I'm not sure exactly what it is, but this teacher tells me that it should be: "I'm okay, you're okay, " based of course on the trendy concepts that all that matters is how a student feels about his own self-esteem. At Spectrum, the teachers are to be "student-oriented" which, of course, implies again that if you're not with the trend, you're subject-oriented. That seems pretty stupid to me because it would seem to me that neither one of these goals is mutually exclusive and that the best teacher is a combination of the person who is both student-oriented and subject-oriented.

At any rate, Mr. Chairman, the consequences of this clash of philosophies is worth mentioning. I want to read a little bit from a newsletter that went from Spectrum School to the parents last year. The report says:

"Many of our students have performed well and can be extremely proud of their achievements, but on the other hand a fair portion of our students have failed to devote themselves to their studies and, as a consequence, they have had an unsuccessful and sometimes tragic term."

Now this is from the principal to the parents of the kids in his school - the trendy, the permissive. "It's how you feel, fellows, that matters, not what you learn or how hard you work - just how you feel about yourself." And I'm quoting from this letter to the parents.

"Sixteen per cent of our students received incomplete grades while numerous others are in a border-line position. The grade 10 class especially is having difficulty assuming some of the responsibility for their education and many of them are in serious trouble. This disturbs us.

"One of the basic premises on which the school is founded is that all students can succeed in school if given a fair opportunity. Frankly, we are finding that in many cases, school just is not high on the student's list of priorities. As teachers, we idealistically consider an education as an extremely valuable asset. For many of the students, school and school activities appear to be far less important than we feel they should be. Put more bluntly, they simply don't care."

Mr. Chairman, I think you and anyone interested in education would be interested in another

[ Page 4085 ]

statement that this same principal made to the parents in the newsletter. He says:

"In my present frame of mind, I personally am tired of hearing the school system being criticized for failing our young people. I have never in my career seen a faculty collectively work for the good of students like Spectrum teachers during the past 18 months. They worked long beyond regular hours with the students and on curriculum plans, and have taken their students into both their homes and their hearts.

"My challenge at this point is to the students themselves and the parents. They must assume much of the responsibility for their education, and to expect less is unfair to the student. They must realize that no matter what has been their experience in the past, no magical process is going to improve their grades. Our standards are firm, and only honest effort from the student will lead to success."

I understand that subsequent to that date, Mr. Chairman, there was some very substantial changes made at Spectrum school. I understand that the same kind of approach which was attempted at Lambrick Park Secondary has shown that this rather relaxed, permissive, easy-going approach to education, particularly in our secondary schools, is just providing a lot of well-meaning, idealistic thinking but not very much that you can be proud of in terms of results in the performance of the students.

And worse than that, in one particular case that I am familiar with, a teacher who has 20 years of nothing but favourable records and high esteem among his colleagues, who objected to some of the trendy attitudes that were being introduced at the school, finished up with the first unfavourable report in his career and felt obligated to seek a transfer, not because he is any less capable or hard-working this year than he ever was but because he does not believe in this easy-going, "I'm okay, you're okay" approach to the educational system.

I just would like to know, Mr. Chairman, whether the minister is fully aware of this controversy within education. Again, I suppose his answer will be that local school boards can develop schools of this particular philosophy if they wish and that diversity is important, and I agree that it is. But when another option is developed and introduced and doesn't work, and you have this distressing kind of statement from the principal who says that the students simply don't care and that the parents are not aware of the responsibility they have to ensure that their children are putting in their effort at school, under these circumstances, is it right for the minister to sit back and say this is all a matter for the local autonomy of school boards?

I would like the minister to tell me what particular dialogue goes on between his ministry and school districts on this particular issue of educational philosophy, particularly the contrast between a more structured and disciplined system of education compared to this other more permissive and less structured system which apparently has been attempted with some disastrous results at at least one school. I might say that this school in Victoria costs something of the order of $7 million to build.

[Mr. Lank in the chair. ]

I am not in any way opposing the concept of building schools to a high standard, if the students turn up when they feel like it and study when they feel like it and tell the teacher to go to hell when they feel like it.... And that has happened. I can say that this was reported to me by no less than the teacher himself who was told to follow that direction. Now if this kind of philosophy is to be any sizeable part of our total school system, I think it is about time elected representatives in this province started to scream and shout pretty loud and long. I certainly don't want any of my kids to have that kind of system imposed on them. I certainly want to think that a teacher who believes in the former system should be penalized because they won't go along with the trendy attitudes of some educators.

I'm all for diversity and freedom of choice and all the other things that make up our basic democratic system. But you can't do it at the expense of either students who don't want this kind of system or students who can't flourish within that system because they don't conform. And I don't think teachers should be penalized because they are more attuned to the established system and to the more structured and more disciplined way of passing on their educational and teaching abilities to the students.

I did want to refer quickly to the other issue of student fees and the difficulties students are having this year because of the increased fees. I noticed that there was a meeting in Quebec City, Mr. Chairman, with the provincial Ministers of Education and the Secretary of State earlier on, in January of this year. I think the Minister of Education attended that meeting. Part of the report pointed out that there had been a dramatic increase in the failure rate of repayment of loans by students in the past year. I would like to know, in view of the economic hardships students are having these days, first of all, if the minister's department noticed any increase in British Columbia in the failure of students to repay loans. And because of the....

MR. CHAIRMAN: Would the hon. member please conclude?

[ Page 4086 ]

MR. WALLACE: Yes, Mr. Chairman.

MR. GIBSON: You might give reasons. Is this an arbitrary Chairman's decision?

MR. WALLACE: Has the minister become aware of this as being a problem in B.C., the failure of repayment of loans? Regardless of that, has the minister made any recommendations to change the basic conditions which would make it easier for students to obtain loans and easier conditions by which they could be repaid?

HON. MR. McGEER: I'll just deal with some of the matters raised by ... and I might say the Chair has an interesting flavour to it right at the moment, so I'll be very relevant and brief, Mr. Chairman.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Where's the section on attacks on the Chair?

HON. MR. McGEER: Mr. Chairman, the member asked, yesterday and again today, about the people in the correspondence division. There are 12 elementary markers on the payroll and their salary ranges from $1,422 to $1,623 a month. So they are reasonably well paid, I believe, for what they do. In addition, there are up to 92 secondary markers, that is, markers for secondary school work. They are not paid any hourly rate; they are paid on a piecework basis, which varies from 70 cents to $3.47 per paper. The reason why there aren't full-time people is because there is a great diversity of courses at the secondary level. For example, for Latin 12 you don't really have many papers, so it is impractical to keep people on the staff to do the marking. So 70 per cent of the total marking is done by these people who are paid on a per paper basis. The payroll for this is the equivalent of seven full-time people, which is $140,000 to $150,000 a year. The rates were raised two years ago by 6 per cent - very generous of us. There are no funds available for a raise in the current year but the director has been asked to recommend an increased rate schedule for the next fiscal year and we'll be making adjustments then.

MR. WALLACE: Another 6 per cent?

HON. MR. McGEER: I don't know whether it will be that great, but we will be giving an increase.

, the member asked about the Status of Women. I don't want to repeat things that I have said before to the first member for Vancouver-Burrard (Ms. Brown) , just so that we don't load Hansard any more than it's presently loaded. But the subject was brought up and I quite agree with the member that it is an important duty of ours to listen to points of view, whether they are minority or majority. As I explained to the member for Vancouver-Burrard, education is such a sensitive issue that you can't direct your whole system to satisfy one particular point of view. We try to keep a balanced direction within the ministry that will satisfy the majority of people. Of course, individuals can have very strong views that this or that is wrong with the system and they can come and be militant about something being done to adjust the system to their particular perceptions. While we do the best we can to accommodate the points of view, both with regard to their strength as well as their quantity, you can't go beyond what the general public is prepared to accept.

We have a full-time person within the curriculum development division who has a responsibility for rooting out any of these dreadful things that the member for Vancouver-Burrard is certain are hidden on virtually every page of our textbooks. It's an integral part of the activities of the ministry. We don't have full-time representatives from the Status of Women looking over the shoulders of the people who do that, or themselves participating actively in this exercise but, nevertheless, I want to assure the member that it is going on.

MR. WALLACE: Who is that person, Pat? Is it Jane or Dick?

HON. MR. McGEER: We haven't got a name, but I'll endeavour to find that out.

MR. GIBSON: But you have a person? There is a body with no name?

HON. MR. McGEER: Yes, that is my understanding. It is a turnover thing. We want to keep again a fresh....

MR. CHAIRMAN: Will the minister direct his remarks to the Chair, please?

HON. MR. McGEER: Yes, Mr. Chairman. We want to keep a broad point of view. We don't want anybody in that job to get stale. We want individuals with fresh dedication and zeal to come to this job every year because, as the member for Vancouver-Burrard knows, it takes a considerable amount of zeal to effect change in something where, whether you accept the fact or not, the majority of employees in the Ministry of Education, as it extends right through to the school level, are women. About 60 per cent of the teachers are women and, for all we know, there may be some terrible conspiracy against males because the majority of the teachers are females. But I will say that the ministry has, on two' occasions, sent out a very clear-cut anti-sexist policy statement with respect to girls in industrial education and boys in home economics.

[ Page 4087 ]

MR. WALLACE: Well, they didn't get the message.

HON. MR. McGEER: This has been issued twice and...

MR. WALLACE: Try again.

HON. MR. McGEER: .-on the strength of your assurance that it is getting nowhere, Mr. Member, we will issue it a third time.

MS. BROWN: It's the principals you have to get after. They're all males.

HON. MR. McGEER: Well, we've promoted two female principals this year to superintendents, so they weren't all male. I don't know whether those vacancies will be filled by males or females, but I think the member might give the ministry just a little bit of credit for progress since two female superintendents have been appointed during this past year.

Now I would be delighted to report similar lightning progress at the level of directors of instruction. Had they been appointed by the ministry, I'm sure we would be able to produce a quantitative result, but the directors of instruction are appointed by local boards and therefore we can't control it, though we can certainly drop broad hints. We would be pleased to pass on the strong feelings of the member for Oak Bay (Mr. Wallace) and the member for Vancouver-Burrard (Ms. Brown) indicating that it was unanimous support from both sexes for this approach.

Now the member talked for some time about Spectrum School in Victoria. I suppose it should be placed on the record that this school and the concept was opposed historically by the Ministry of Education. It was built by the Victoria School Board and, as the member knows, there is such a thing as local autonomy and school boards do go against the advice and wishes of the ministry. The way we have of approaching this problem is to go into this learning assessment programme which has not been received with universal glee. It has been accepted, in our opinion, by the majority of professionals out there in the system, but the B.C. Teachers Federation have been less than wild about it, I can tell you. There are many who resist this idea, not only that there should be a provincial learning assessment programme, but that there should be standard achievement testing commenced at the local level.

Any school board that wishes to know precisely how a school is doing only has to implement, at their own initiative, a standard achievement test and they can get the averages down the year, the month, and almost the day, of the students in any given school.

We have been strongly encouraging that standard achievement testing be adopted by school districts on a voluntary basis. We have this year instituted this English-language placement test which is another way in which we can develop hard data as to whether districts, and even individual schools within a district, are performing up to expectations. Again, this programme of the Ministry of Education is being accepted by the majority but being vigorously resisted by certain people who are against this whole business of assessment and examination.

It is something which distresses me because I think we should be testing. I think we should know precisely where we stand. I think it is possible to do that district by district, school by school, and when people are refusing to accept this, my attitude is: what are they afraid of? What are they trying to hide? It has been traditional, it has worked and, quite frankly, testing is part of the learning process. It is part of the discipline that goes with education, and so on.

So rather, Mr. Chairman, than elaborate further, let me stick to my original promise to be brief, lest I be accused by my colleagues of filibustering estimates.

MR. GIBSON: Before commenting on the minister's remarks, I want to make a few of my own.

HON. MR.'McGEER: I'll do the loans in a minute. I forgot that.

MR. GIBSON: He'll do the loans, and he will do the fishes after that. Oh, it was loans, not loaves. I'm sorry.

MR. WALLACE: Loaves and fishes would be handy around here.

MR. GIBSON: Mr. Chairman, there are a lot of people who make the educational system work in this province. I want to, at the outset of my remarks, pay a tribute to some of the retiring ones and some of the new ones.

Speaking, first of all, of the BCTF, I would like to pay a tribute to Bill Broadley. I think it's two years that he's had in that always-difficult position. I give my best wishes to his successor, Pat Grady, who, I think, has been in office for about a month or so now in official terms.

The same thing is correct on the other side of the street in the BCSTA - and again a tribute to Rendina Hamilton, who was head of that organization, and to the new president, Mr. Cliff Adkins, to whom I bid an especially warm congratulation because he comes from my own district of North Vancouver and serves on the district 44 board.

I think we should also pay a tribute to all the local

[ Page 4088 ]

teacher associations like the NVTA and like the district 44 board that I mentioned. I have in my hand here, for the benefit of Hansard, a sheaf of paper over one inch thick which is the agenda and background documentation from one meeting of one school board. These men and women all around the province give of their time generously - not just one evening a week but a great deal of time - being experts in particular schools as they are assigned among members of the board, traveling around, seeing parents. They do a tremendous job of work for the citizens of this province, and I think in the Legislature we ought to recognize that from time to time. It is local control at its best.

[Mr. Veitch in the chair.]

Mr. Chairman, education is possibly the most sacred duty of any society, aside possibly from the health of its young people. Education, of course, provides for the socialization of young people - and I assure Hon. members opposite that that has nothing to do with socialism - and the culturation and self-realization and production and all of the things that as a society we have to provide for in those that come after us. A lot of concerned parents and professionals are working in the area and doing generally, I would say, a very good job.

I just want to draw the minister's attention to what I perceive as three main problems, perhaps not of kind but of degree - but if so, of rather important degree. And those problems to me are that our educational system does not provide for education either early enough or intensively enough or practically enough - that is, enough practical experience.

I want to enter a quote here from Dr. Burton White who is head of Harvard University's pre-school project. Dr. White says the following:

"For us to think education begins when a child goes to first grade is grossly in error, Children start to learn long before they're six years old. They start to learn at birth, and by three it's pretty much all over."

He believes that the developing and learning capacities that will see a child through the rest of his life are pretty much set by age three. I underline that quote, Mr. Chairman, age three, because age three is long before our educational system as it's structured in this province has anything to do with the child. That is why I have been and continue to be an advocate of the educational system of this province becoming more deeply involved in day-care centres.

If my understanding of the minister's position is correct, he's always felt that that should be in Human Resources, which suggests that day-care centres are really a custodial function more than an educational function. But I think the quote that I just cited, if the minister agrees with that line of thinking, is rather convincing evidence to the contrary.

And so again, I made my annual plea that the Ministry of Education, realizing full well the financial implications of this, should become involved in education of children at a far earlier age. We've gone now to the routine instruction in kindergarten at age 5, and that was a step forward. But we have a good deal further to go before the educational system has an opportunity to work with the child at the time when their ability to learn and their approach to learning is being formed. If a child can enter grade I with the correct attitude, they will be a successful participant in this system all the way through, whatever direction they choose to go. If they enter with the wrong attitude, it matters not what their native ability may be. Much of it will be wasted. That attitude toward education is formed, as Dr. White says, before you're three. So that's my first comment on this system: it's not early enough.

At this point I want to make a particular representation on behalf of a constituent who had a problem with her son, who has been attending a day-care centre for well over a year, was progressing very well, is now aged 41/2 and was ready for entrance to kindergarten by most objective measures. Yet because of the bureaucratic timing - the age requirement for entering kindergarten - the child was denied that opportunity and perhaps denied a whole year of his life, in a sense, to be out in the world rather than locked into an educational system that he was ready to get through before. That to me is an inflexibility in our system that's very unfortunate. I'll send the minister a copy of this letter.

The second general concern I have with the system is that it's not hard enough; it's not intense enough. We do not ask enough of our young people in the school system. There are many people who say: "Well, you know, you're only a kid once. You've got to have time to have some fun, too." I agree with that, but this is also the time when you have the greatest potential for forming your abilities to meet the challenges of the world to come and to enjoy yourself in the world to come. That's the time when you learn. We can say all we like about adult education and retraining and that kind of thing, and it's wonderful that we should spend more money and time on it. But the time when you really learn and when you gain those fundamental skills that take you through life is during your school days. Those days, to me, Mr. Chairman, should be far fuller in terms of effort expanded and in terms of expectations from the student.

I say, too, that the educational experience as it is currently formulated in British Columbia is not practical enough. There is not enough relationship with the real world. I will not elaborate on that because we've heard the minister say that in his view

[ Page 4089 ]

the school year should in some way be broken up so that there could be more time out in the community. We've heard the hon. member for Vancouver South and the hon. member for Dewdney express similar sentiments as to the requirement of a practical relationship between the school world and the real world, so I'll simply make that point and pass on.

All of these comments relate to the average child. The special child is a whole different subject. I want to pay tribute to the remarks that have been made in this debate in that regard by the hon. member for Cowichan-Malahat (Mrs. Wallace) and the hon. member for North Okanagan (Mrs. Jordan) , both of whom have had something to say about the special attention that should be given to children with special problems or special abilities. The B.C. Council for Exceptional Children refers to "children with unusual learning needs": the physically, mentally and emotionally handicapped, the gifted, the learning disabled - all of which they say require special education. I say amen to that.

For those who are concerned with dollar bills, that kind of investment is even a good investment. The money you spend in the area of special education will not be lost. The alternate to spending it in the Ministry of Education is often to spend it in the Attorney-General's department in the corrections systems, and in the Human Resources ministry in welfare. The best investment that any government in any society can possibly make is in the realization of the fullest potential of every one of its children. In that regard I very much pay tribute to the statement of policy that was put forward by the Council for Exceptional Children. I just want to read a few of those statements into the record and give my concurrence with them:

1) All children without exception have the basic right to an education commensurate with their needs, interests and abilities.

2) The focus of education must be on the individual.

3) All educational provisions should follow the principle that each child should be placed in the least restrictive and least segregating experience possible.

4) Education in the broadest sense begins at birth and continues through the lifetime of the individual.

5) Parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children.

The council goes on in much greater detail to discuss the implications of these philosophical principles for policy implementation. The pamphlet, I know, is available to the minister so I will not go further in that area. There is much ground to be covered today. But I want to stress again to the committee the emphasis on the child as an individual. That means you're going to have to spend money on those children when you treat them as individuals. I suppose that is true of all children as they go through our schools, but it is particularly true of these so-called exceptional children who, in any given class or grade, may be few in numbers but great in need. As great as those needs may be in terms of resources that have to be applied to them, society will be amply repaid if those resources are indeed so applied.

Mr. Chairman, one particular kind of exceptional child who rightly receives a great deal of public sympathy is the child who is either deaf or blind. I will try not to be too critical in this area but I want to come back again to the minister's policy with respect to Jericho Hill School and the policy of so-called decentralization. One of the finest journalistic exponents of this particular situation has been Karen Crangall in a continuing series in the Sun. Here is what she writes in late June of this year:

"One year ago, parents of blind students predicted that the government's plan to integrate their children into the public school system would be a disaster. At the end of the first integrated year their fears have been realized. Visually impaired students have been forgotten, neglected and just plain ignored because the provincial Ministry of Education could not spare the time or the money to look after them properly."

That's a pretty serious charge, Mr. Chairman. It is a charge made by a knowledgeable person who has studied the area carefully. Similar charges are made by parents of deaf children. The problem again is: what happens to these children, be they visually impaired or hearing-imp aired, when they get out into the public school system, as is the minister's policy increasingly?

The theory that one can get out and live in a community is a very fine thing and should be pushed as far as it can go. But at the same time the minister has to understand the predicament of the young child who may be one of two or three hearing-impaired or visually impaired children in a school. The other one or two children may be separated by several grades from this particular child. They may be, let us say, profoundly deaf and live in a different world from the other children at the school. Alternately, if the minister says, "We don't send profoundly deaf children out from Jericho, " they may be very substantially hearing-impaired.

As the minister is aware, children can be cruel. Children can, from time to time, treat other children who are different in ways that perhaps don't feel cruel to them but have a very unfortunate impact on those on the receiving end.

The point I'm making is that to such children, the only opportunity to be a part of a society which can give them emotional aid and support is a society of peers, a society of people they can Eve among and say: "Those people are like me." It's not seeking to cut off links with the real world - I know the

[ Page 4090 ]

minister is anxious that these should be continued -but rather to have a place from which you start, a place from which you learn and draw emotional support from others who are like you. Jericho Hill School, with all its faults, has been that kind of home in the past to many people.

I'm trying not to be critical or controversial about this, but I want again to draw it to the minister's attention. I wish he would give some consideration to referring the whole question of treatment of exceptional children in our school system - not just Jericho Hill School - to the committee on education. It's one of the most challenging and potentially fruitful ones in our province today, I believe.

I'll move on briefly to the question of women in education, which has been canvassed very well, as always, by the first member for Vancouver-Burrard (Ms. Brown) and canvassed today by the member for Oak Bay (Mr. Wallace) . Mr. Chairman, I can't agree with the minister's remarks today when he said that you can't direct the whole educational system to one particular point of view. Of course you can, if that particular point of view happens to be one that society thinks is important. For example, we direct the whole of our educational system, I trust, to the concept that democratic institutions are the way in which we choose to run our society.

There is no reason why we cannot direct our whole educational institution to the concept that there should be equality of opportunity for men and women in our society. It seems to me just that simple. To do that, you can't just wave your arms and say: "All right, I agree with that policy." You have to have somebody there who is watching, studying and insisting that in every activity of the department, whether in curriculum, text, materials or administrative positions, the question of status of women be properly being taken into account. Mr. Minister, that is not going to be done by having what you call a "turnover position" where there is a new person in the job every year. That is only going to be done by persons with tenacity who can get in there and sink their teeth into the problem and hold onto it and shake it and not let it go until things gradually, year by year, get done.

MS. BROWN: Hear, hear!

MR. GIBSON: It's not just going to happen with a part-time person who, for all his/her zeal and energy, does not have the commitment over time to this very important problem. That's why I support the position of the Vancouver Status of Women in a news release of June 23 of this year on sexism in education.

They made four recommendations which I feel are reasonable: No. 1, that the minister make a public commitment stating that the elimination of sex discrimination from the schools of B.C. a priority issue. That should be an easy one to agree to.

Recommendation No. 2, that the commitment include a plan of action, a timetable and allocation of funds to ensure the plan is implemented, because without that, the first commitment is a platitude; it means nothing.

Recommendation No. 3, that the provincial advisory committee on sex discrimination be reinstated. We all know, Mr. Chairman, that its elimination was one of the big mistakes of this government.

Recommendation No. 4, that the contract position of special adviser to the minister be reinstated. That's that person; that's that co-ordinator who's in there every day watching what's going on. It is important that the minister should proceed in that direction.

I had some examples of some University of British Columbia committees in the gift-giving area in which a number of committees have hardly a woman on them, though there are many women among the list of donors, I might say, but very few women are on those committees which dispose of the donations. But I won't take time on that right now as I'm running out.

I'd like the minister to tell us what he could about the timing of the new Colleges Act, which has been expected momentarily in this Legislature for a number of months now. Then I'd like to get on to the subject of access to post-secondary education. As the minister is no doubt aware, the Universities Council of British Columbia set up a group called an ad hoc committee on accessibility. They reported in January, 1977, and they painted a picture, Mr. Chairman, of a society where people who start from a position of privilege end up in a position of privilege because they have been able to obtain access to education; and people who start without those privileges end up without those privileges not because of native ability but again because they have not got access.

AN HON. MEMBER: Level of expectations.

MR. GIBSON: The level of expectations has something to do with it, Mr. Member.

Some of the statements in this report, if they are looked at in a clear and close manner, are truly revolutionary in character. I think the government -and every government in Canada, since some of them apply across the country - would be well advised to take them rather seriously. Listen to this quote:

"It is demonstrable that the distribution of wealth and power in our society does not coincide with the distribution in the population of innate capabilities or of actual achievement as measured by standardized tests."

They go on to cite a table in which they correlate the characteristics of a son with the father's occupational status, and the grade correlation is very low. In other

[ Page 4091 ]

words, you seem reasonably likely to get good grades, independent of what your father does. The actual educational attainment correlation is very high. In other words, where you actually come out of the educational system has a great deal to do with who your father was and very little to do with what kind of grades you have been getting. Here's another quote:

"One of the major barriers to accessibility, perhaps the most awesome barrier, is that sense on the part of the prospective student, usually a member of an identifiable group with low participation rates, that the public institution -the school - has been established by and for somebody else and does not in any real sense belong to him, his family or community. This sense of being in an alien institution also makes it difficult for such students to stay in school, even when they do make the courageous step of entry.

"The privilege that the children of the well-to-do have and the have-nots do not is the ability to use their talents and powers within social institutions which they, their relatives, neighbours, friends and communities have created and maintained."

Well, what's the result of all this? The result of all this when we measure the outputs is as follows: first of all, they quote a study in Ontario which shows that:

, , Children whose family's income was in the top half of the income ladder and whose scores on aptitude tests were in the lower half, nearly three-quarters finished grade 13. At the same time, a smaller proportion of the high-ability, lower-class children actually completed grade 13 - 68 per cent.

"Among children who showed high ability on standardized tests and who are actually enrolled in college or university, 65 per cent were from upper-class families and 35 per cent from lower-class families. These are no different than the results of similar studies in the 1950s." In other words, there hasn't been much progress in this particular field. And it's a very important field if we really are going to call ourself a democracy with equality of opportunity.

Now here's some data from British Columbia. These are astonishing.

"If the students are grouped according to father's education, there's a marked difference in participation rates. Of those whose fathers were university graduates, 56 per cent continued to university or college, whereas those whose fathers finished less than grade eight were found to enroll only 16 per cent of the, time."

That's almost four to one.

"Similar differences were found if the grade 12 students are grouped according to father's occupation: fifty per cent of the children of professionals compared with 15 per cent of the children of miners, loggers, fishermen and farmers."

The conclusion in that paragraph:

"There is in British Columbia a clear denial of equal educational opportunity, a lack of access which is correlated with the socio-economic status of the potential student."

MR. LEA: He doesn't believe that.

MR. GIBSON: Well, I don't know if he believes;' or not, Mr. Member, but I tell you it's wrong. In a society which pretends to be, and I hope is, a democracy and pretends to offer, but does not offer, equality of opportunity it is intolerable. These kinds of numbers are wrong.

What about the regions of the country? It's not just a question of what your family background was; it's also a question of where you live in this province, too. I quote from the following, paragraph: "What this means is that a student from Terrace has about one-third the chance of going on to academic post-secondary education of a student from North Vancouver." I know that his government, as the previous one, is making some moves in that direction, but there is a tremendous gap to be overcome. I say it is a shame upon the face of our society, and a time bomb ticking away in our society, that these kinds of differences of access to education, when there is supposed to be equality of opportunity, can be allowed to exist.

Mr. Chairman, I want to ask the minister a little about this entertaining publication of his department entitled "Education Today." I would be very glad to know how much it costs. It is an entertaining publication to many people. For example, the advisory committee on the deaf and the blind at Jericho Hill School, in reading Education Today, learned that they had been terminated, so it does contain some news of interest. I also found in this particular edition, and I just took a random edition -this is February, 1977 - some lovely pictures of the minister. They are good pictures. I think they were probably posed; he's smiling. There's a nice one. He has a glass in his hand. I don't know what's in the glass and I won't speculate on that. There's another one of him addressing an interesting looking crowd of people ...

MR. LAUK: He has a roll of lifesavers.

MR. GIBSON: ... which seldom happens in the Legislature. Here's a nice picture of the Premier. You

[ Page 4092 ]

know, it's a funny thing. I have looked through here carefully for pictures of members of the opposition.

Interjection.

MR. GIBSON: Oh, there are some pictures of students in here, but the point I am trying to make is that this is a government mouthpiece. There is no column in here which says: "This is the legislative point of view on the educational system in the province of British Columbia." It's a straight government mouthpiece printed by money voted by this Legislature, and this Legislature has no vote in it.

MR. L. NICOLSON (Nelson-Creston): It's a Social Credit Party organ.

MR. GIBSON: And that's wrong.

MR. LAUK: It's disgusting.

MR. GIBSON: What is it, Mr. Member - an eight-page newspaper?

MR. LAUK: Yes.

MR. GIBSON: It's an eight-page newspaper. Set aside a page for the legislative response to what is going on in the Ministry of Education.

MR. LAUK: Do you see down here? It says: "Printed by Unity News."

MR. GIBSON: I want to say a word about school taxes because the performance of the minister in this regard has been just enormously unsatisfactory. The foundation rate is up almost 50 per cent since I entered this Legislature in 1974. The trends in my own School District 44 have shown the percentage of the total budget paid by the provincial government dropping from 49 per cent in 1972 down to 39 per cent last year, and I think probably one percentage point less in this particular year. This, Mr. Chairman, has been, for the last two years, under the jurisdiction of a minister whose whole education thrust ...

MR. CHAIRMAN: Three minutes, hon. member.

MR. GIBSON: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

... whose whole educational thrust during the time that he was, among other things, an education critic from this opposition side of the House, was that taxes should be removed from residential property as far as education is concerned. He has made zero move in that direction and, as a matter of fact, the portion borne by the local taxpayer is going up. When the predominant philosophy on property taxation in this province, and in this nation, I would say, has been that property should be taxes for services to property and not for services to people - and education is certainly a service to people - the minister simply can't justify that. He is going against everything he ever stood for in terms of this school taxation.

Mr. Chairman, I wish I had more time. I will just use the remaining minute or two to read into the record something that the minister said in this House earlier on this year. It was one of the most disgraceful statements made in this House and I want to give him a chance to repudiate it. He was talking about the division of powers in our country. He said:

"Let us have the provinces agree, in consultation with the federal government, on those powers and programmes on which complete consensus can b& found. Those properly belong with the national government. Then let us discover those policies and programmes on which there is not national agreement and place them securely in the hands of the provinces along with the fiscal powers that support them."

That, Mr. Chairman, is a straight recipe for the adoption of the separatist policy of the Parti Quebecois in this country. The minister, in saying that, was in effect advocating the adoption of that because the only thing the provinces can agree on unanimously would probably be giving to Ottawa the Department of Veterans Affairs, let's say. That is, in my mind, that minister adopting the stand of the Parti Quebecois. I say it's wrong. I have asked the Premier to repudiate him. The Premier has waffled on it. I ask him to repudiate those disgraceful words when he stands up today.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Your time has expired.

Before you take your place, the Chair has no wish to interrupt a member while they're speaking. In reference to the College Act, I must inform you, as you're aware, that legislation or the need for legislation cannot be discussed in Committee of Supply.

HON. MR. McGEER: Mr. Chairman, I had no intention of violating the rules of the House.

I'd just like to quickly deal with the member for Oak Bay (Mr. Wallace) . I'm sorry he's left the House, but I might as well just answer this now. The matter of repayment of student loans: of course, that's a federal programme, Mr. Chairman, though it is administered at the provincial level. The federal government sets the rules on that, and our repayment record in British Columbia is quite comparable to that of other provinces.

The member for North Vancouver-Capilano (Mr. Gibson) asked that pre-school be put under the Ministry of Education. That's not the policy of the government. The policy of the government is to have

[ Page 4093 ]

that handled by Human Resources.

The member also raised the subject of handicapped children, which has been discussed on many occasions in the House. I've made clear again and again the policy of the provincial government, which is to decentralize wherever possible, in line with the general philosophy of the Berger report, but to maintain Jericho Hill School as a place for handling those youngsters whose education is best achieved in an institutional setting.

It has been difficult, Mr. Chairman, to have that policy correctly communicated with the public of British Columbia. I want to give one instance of this by reading into the record a letter sent to the editor of the Vancouver Province because it bears on the subject. The public of British Columbia never had an opportunity to be aware of its contents. "Dear Editor:" the letter says to the Vancouver Province. The letter, by the way, is written by the president-elect of the American Organization for Education of the Hearing Impaired - in other words, a North American authority:

"Recently I had the privilege of observing and serving as a consultant to programmes for the hearing impaired on the lower mainland as well as Prince George and Vancouver Island.

"While in British Columbia, I read a rather incredible article in The Province, May 27,1977, which was written by Suzanne Fournier. I feel that a number of gross inaccuracies in the article need to be corrected.

"First, I feel that Dr. Richard Brill must have been grossly misquoted in his telephone interview with The Province. 'Educators of the deaf are nine to one in favour of centralization of services, ' said Brell, 'and those who aren't in favour of it never worked with the deaf.'

"The Council on Education for the Deaf is comprised of the three major organizations serving hearing-impaired children of school age - ie. Alexander Graham Bell Association for the Deaf, Convention of American Instructors of the Deaf, and the Conference of Executives of American Schools for the Deaf. The executive committee of the Council of Education of the Deaf unanimously approved a resolution which states in part: 'Therefore, be it resolved that the Council on Education of the Deaf hereby signifies its commitment to the initiation, expansion and improvement of educational options in order to serve every hearing-imp aired child of school age in recognition of the right of every deaf or hard-of-hearing child of school age to have an appropriate, individualized educational programme, including such aspects as: (1) the educational setting, ranging from partial or full-time regular classroom placement to partial or full-time educational programmes offered in special classes in public, private day schools, or public, private residential schools.'

"I have personally observed the initiation and expansion of programme options in British Columbia as advocated by the Council on Education of the Deaf. It was my observation that the Ministry of Education is developing a continuum of service options for hearing-impaired children which follows the service-option array advocated by the major organizations serving hearing impaired children - ie. CAID, CEASD, AJBAD - through their collective voice, the Council on Education of the Deaf.

"It is laudable that the Ministry of Education is seeking to preserve the integr;tv of the family unit by enabling hearing-imp aired children to grow up as a part rather than apart from the rest of their family. Children learn about family life by growing up with their family and sharing in the fun, the pain, the laughter, the responsibilities and confrontations of family give and take. It is important to keep the child within his own home whenever possible.

"Some children will require institutionalization, and Jericho Hill will be available to serve them. Hearing-imp aired children are a diverse group. Some of them have greater degrees of hearing impairment than others. They differ greatly in such factors as intelligence, social maturity, communication ability, et cetera. In fact, the only common element is a hearing loss, and even that characteristic varies widely.

[Mr. Schroeder in the chair.]

"The Ministry of Education has developed a variety of placement options to meet the diversity of children's needs. Hearing-impaired children should not be all forced into a single, centralized placement any more than they should all be required to wear the same size shoe.

"The Ministry of Education has established an educational placement committee which has representation from the public and private sectors. Day residential, spoken language, sign language, et cetera, serve as groups. The committee is carefully examining the educational placements of B.C. children in order to determine the setting in which each child is best served.

"I observed the development of a systematic service delivery approach which is co-ordinating the available resources and developing new

[ Page 4094 ]

resources where there are service gaps. Regionalization is working well here in Texas. We have five large regions, each of which has a regional office with a regional superintendent who is responsible for the various programmes in the regions. We have some very sparsely-populated areas in the wide open spaces of Texas which are comparable to the light population density of the upper mainland. There are difficulties to be worked out with the implementation of regionalization as with any other service delivery arrangement.

"I am unaware of any recent trips which Dr. Brill made to visit programmes for the hearing-impaired in British Columbia which would have enabled him to have a first-hand look at your developing systems. It seems unlikely that blanket statements attributed to someone in California who has not seen your programmes would be given much credibility by The Province. I doubt that your reporter, Suzanne Fournier, would have open-heart surgery on the strength of a telephone conversation with a physician who had never seen her, the patient. The Province has apparently sought such sight-unseen expert advice for the hearing-imp aired children of British Columbia. I would certainly recommend that you interview Mr. John Anderson, the acting provincial co-ordinator for the hearing impaired, and objectively report the development of your system of service which is being designed to permit hearing-imp aired children in British Columbia to live their lives in as near-normal manner as possible. The British Columbia service system would serve as a model for all of Canada.

Sincerely yours,
Gary W. Nix,
Associate professor and director,
Education of the Hearing Impaired
President-elect, American Organization
for the Education of the Hearing
Impaired."

Now, Mr. Chairman, I ordinarily would not take the time of the House to read a detailed account of this sort from the No. I authority on the teaching and care of hearing-impaired children in North America except that it came completely unsolicited to our ministry and is the strongest kind of outside endorsation that you could have for the people who have put this programme forward. I think it very significant, Mr. Chairman, that this kind of testimony could come in to the Ministry of Education and yet be censored or hidden from the public through our media.

Again and again and again we have had destructive articles in the media; we have had destructive debates in this assembly when the facts have been clearly on the record as to what the Ministry of Education is doing and has been doing some time before I became the minister. But I think these continued attacks on civil servants and on the programmes that have been put forward which are recognized as a model for Canada and respected throughout North America are a disgrace to this Legislative Assembly.

I And the member for North Vancouver-Capilano (Mr. Gibson) is again and again and again standing up in this House, recommending things that would be rejected by every authority who knows anything about the subject.

Mr. Chairman, that brings me finally to a couple of other items raised by that same member in the same spirit. He talks about Education Today, and I can inform him that it is a widely read newspaper. We get many, many requests for it and many compliments. I can't add to the list of compliments those of the member for North *Vancouver-Capilano, and I make no apology nor any recommendation for the pictorial content.

It is a way, Mr. Chairman, of the policies of the Ministry of Education getting out to the 27,000 teachers who are in our system and where we have no other means of communicating with them as individuals but where they are interested in learning and are entitled to know what the policies of the Ministry of Education are. It is not the objective of that publication to do other than to inform the professionals in the system of the policies of the ministry. Under the Public, Schools Act, Mr. Chairman, there are responsibilities of the provincial government. The Legislature sets the legislation; they determine what the Public Schools Act shall say. It is the responsibility of the Ministry of Education to establish the policies and communicate those policies under the Act to the people who are influenced by them.

I might add, Mr. Chairman, that Education Today won an honourable mention award in a North American contest two months ago. Now I don't know whether it was the particular issue that was referred to by the member that won the honourable mention award, but it just goes to show the difference between objective assessment and the opinions of that member.

Now that brings me to the~ final remarks of the member with respect to Canadian unity and Confederation. The hon. member has. his views on Canadian unity and I have my views on Canadian unity. We know the orientation and point of view of that hon. member. He is a former junior staff member of the Prime Minister. His first attempt at elected office, I might say, was to be a representative elected to our national assembly, parliament, to serve that Prime Minister in an elected capacity. That effort failing, he did enter the electoral process at the

[ Page 4095 ]

provincial level. I suspect it will be a short sojourn in this assembly. The member has repeatedly indicated his sympathies lie in the federal parliament.

I'm certain that the member will be running in the next federal election, because that seems to be the trend of his remarks. I certainly think that if his opinion is to serve the federal Liberal Party, as expressed here in this provincial Legislative Assembly, then he's entitled to those opinions, because he's been elected by provincial electors. But to expect a provincial member of this assembly to accept the policies of the federal Liberal government and the formulae of the federal Liberal government is really to expect too much. We're not all servants of the Prime Minister of Canada, though we all respect him as the Prime Minister of our country. That doesn't mean to say we have to adhere to his policies or advocate them at every turn.

While the Prime Minister of Canada is the leader of the national government, at least for the present -and indeed the policies of he and his government will be the policies of our nation - it doesn't mean to say that every single citizen in our country must accept the policies of that Prime Minister or the people who are elected to serve with him as their policies, because people have different views, just as this member has different views on what should be done in the matter of educational policy here in British Columbia.

I will respect his views if he will respect mine, but I do not respect members who misquote people and who leave the confines of this assembly. Were I a less tolerant person than I am, I might have occasion to take stronger action than merely to respond in debate. The member has on many occasions misquoted my words in Hansard. I believe on one occasion, Mr. Chairman, he actually referred to remarks that I made as "subversive." Do you know what that means, Mr. Chairman?

AN HON. MEMBER: Seditious?

HON. MR. McGEER: Seditious. Yes, indeed - a libelous statement and one that I'm sure if it were taken to court would be found to be libelous and a defamation of character. I've said nothing subversive or seditious. What I have done, Mr. Chairman, is to advocate how to make a stronger and more united Canada.

The member may disagree with the opinion, but, Mr. Chairman, there's no excuse for any hon. member using words of the kind that member has used inside or outside this assembly. I can well understand, Mr. Chairman, how it is that the Liberal Party under his leadership is sinking to new depths in this century. I can well understand, Mr. Chairman, how he could step into the safest seat in Vancouver South and turn a certain victory to a defeat. I can well understand how he could go to North Vancouver-Capilano, which had the largest majority of any Liberal seat....

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please, hon. minister. Vote 158 has to do with the salary of the Minister of Education.

HON. MR. McGEER: Well, Mr. Chairman, I won't carry on in this vein. I was merely making some observations about the consequences of politics on national unity. Mr. Chairman, I can assure you that the members on this side of the House are not only recommending sound policies for Canadian unity, but they'll be implementing them and building a stronger country while this member is out making speeches on the hustings which will have no use to the citizens of this country.

MRS. P.J. JORDAN (North Okanagan): Speaking of tolerance, I think what I have to say is very relevant to this scene we've just witnessed, because we have three of the most learned and educated people in this Legislature involved in a disgraceful hassle of misrepresentation of words spoken by each other inside and outside the House.

My reason for standing up, Mr. Chairman, is to plead for the children of this province, to plead for the right of a child to be a child. I don't want to take long-term exception with the member for Nortlf Vancouver-Capilano, but while I hadn't intended to speak in this debate, I must now because of his comments in relation to the preschool child.

Mr. Chairman, I wonder why as highly educated adults or people who gain more educational opportunities than other people, we want to take the child out of the womb and shove it into a system, shove it into an institution, shove it into an educational training. I wonder, Mr. Chairman, what are the rights of a human being to be a child. There is the right to good health, there is the right to shelter, and certainly we believe there is a right to education, but is there not a right for a young child to just learn to be a human being, to experience the freedom that you can never experience again in your life until you enter your second childhood?

What is wrong with doodling and dawdling? Have you ever watched a young child who goes out into the backyard or wanders around the house and explores a blade of grass or a bug? I assume the bugs are outside. Have you ever seen a child... ?

MR. LAUK: Shall vote 158 pass?

MRS. JORDAN: Well, yes. The hon. member for Vancouver Centre is always trying to force closure on people who want to talk about something that relates to people. That member always wants to talk about the law. If he's so happy in the law, why doesn't he go back to his legal profession? This is the forum of

[ Page 4096 ]

people. I'm talking about the right of a child to be a child, to learn to be a human being, and to be free from pressures that we as adults want to impose upon them.

You know, there is a great deal of joy in jumping in and out of a washtub in your backyard with water and soap suds - I'm sure the hon. member's children have done the same thing. It disturbs me, as much as I realize the hon. member for Capilano's good intentions, to hear him quoting Dr. White or Dr. So-and-so or Dr. So-and-so, because I would suggest that in many areas the so-called peers of leaders of education for children have been some of the greatest destroyers of the children in our country. I would let you know, Mr. Chairman, I had the opportunity -our family did - to see our own son to go to Dr. Spock's experimental prime nursery school at the age of 3.

MR. LEA: Why did you send him?

MRS. JORDAN: Why did we send him? Because we were going to be the model parents that Dr. Spock told us we should be. Dr. Spock is probably one of the greatest disasters that happened to parents and children in this decade.

I think, Mr. Chairman, in thinking of trying to channel children at 2 and 3 and 4 into an educational system, that we are in danger of creating human beings that simply can't function without a system. I'll relate it to medicine, because I know that best. We have doctors coming to Canada from the English system because they didn't like practising in the system. Yet many of us who sat on that education and health and welfare committee that went around the province heard those very same refugees from the system express the fact that they couldn't function in our freer system that required more individual responsibility. They were advocating us in British Columbia to put in the very system that they had escaped from. I think there is a great danger in trying to put children into an educational system, into a routine of being up at 8 o'clock, out of the House by 9, into a bus, into a building, under a leader and out again at 12, of creating a human being that simply doesn't know the joy of being a child, the joy of a free spirit, the joy of falling on their knees once in a while, and of creating people who simply won't be able to function without a system around them. If we do so we will deprive ourselves in the future of a great deal of individuality, a great deal of imagination and many artistic and human contributions to our society.

Mr. Chairman, I think when we speak of this subject we have to look at the end result. If we channel children into schools, what sort of pressures are we putting on them that are going to show up later in terms of emotional disorders or physical disorders or the more common behavioural disorders that we diagnose quite regularly in our schools, when in fact it may not be a behavioural disorder but in fact may just be a frustration with the routine that has been imposed upon them since they were children of 3 and 4?

1 wonder how important it is to drag children away from a home environment. That home environment may not be our standards, but who are we to set everybody's standards for their home? Isn't there a right for a parent to assume the responsibility for their own home standards, physically and emotionally? Surely we must respect this.

Mr. Chairman, I realize that there are pressures on the House at this time and so I won't say all the things that I had intended to, but I would caution this House and certainly this Minister of Education to think very carefully before we start channelling children into programmes in the educational system at the ages of 2, 3, 4 and S. They may start as voluntary programmes, but voluntary programmes frequently become compulsory programmes. Mr. Chairman, I would suggest that we might be looking at this from tunnel vision and that perhaps the approach we should be taking is fostering a parent-child relationship at that age through recreational activities, through activities within churches or recreational opportunities in the community where the parent and the child do their exploring together. If there is a one-to-one relationship in a slightly organized way, let it be out in the area of studying nature or watching nature -picnics and this type of thing.

Mr. Chairman, as I say, I concluded my remarks more quickly than I intended, but I would hope this would not be interpreted as a criticism of what the member said but as a plea to this House and this minister and that member to not let ourselves fall into the trap of routine, to not look at this from a tunnel vision point of view. Let's really analyse what childhood is all about and what those rights are that we should be trying to protect for the child.

HON. MR. BENNETT: Mr. Chairman, I ask leave of the House to introduce two very important distinguished visitors from our neighbouring state of Washington.

MR. CHAIRMAN: We cannot grant leave in committee; however, by agreement we can.

HON. MR. BENNETT: Mr. Chairman, I'm very pleased to have the opportunity to announce to the Legislature that visiting with us today and on the floor of the House at this present time are the Speaker of the House of Representatives for the state of Washington, John Bagneriel, and the Senate majority leader for the State of Washington, Gordon

[ Page 4097 ]

L. Walgren.

These gentlemen are here as representatives of their assemblies and through them, the people of Washington, in a visit of great co-operation between the state of Washington and the province of British Columbia. They are here to set in motion the opportunities to have joint meetings of a committee of their joint Houses and a committee of this Legislature. As all members, I'm sure, are aware, earlier, in 1976, the joint Houses there passed Bill SCR7710 1, which set up the committee to hold such joint meetings with our Legislature. As such, this Legislature can meet on the very important discussions that must be held between a friendly state and a friendly province, but above all, between friendly people.

These are not meant to be instead of, but to complement the meetings that are traditionally held between the executive branches, that of Governor Rae, and that of the office of the Premier of British Columbia, where indeed, friendly relations are conducted. This type of meeting has been going on through many administrations. It is then with a great deal of friendship and with an eye to the future that I ask all members of this assembly to join me in welcoming the Speaker and the Senate majority leader, John Bagneriel and Gordon Walgren.

MR. KING: If I may have leave of the House also, Mr. Chairman, just to say on behalf of the official opposition that we certainly extend our most warm and cordial welcome to the Speaker and the majority leader from our neighbour, the state of Washington. I certainly believe that the custom of consultation and dialogue between our two provinces is a valuable one for both jurisdictions. I am pleased to say that our party really started this custom and I'm certainly very pleased that it's being followed through by subsequent administrations.

MR. GIBSON: Mr. Chairman, on behalf of my party, I'd like to welcome both our distinguished visitors from Washington state and, in particular, the business that brings them here. Our two legislatures had an excellent joint meeting a couple of years ago at Western Washington State College; I'm delighted to hear that it is a practice that may be revised and I wish them well in those talks.

MR. WALLACE: Mr. Chairman, as the Leader of a very significant minority in this province, I would like also to support the Premier in his comments regarding the importance of communication and dialogue, because there never was a time, even in the ecological field alone, when we need to know more about what the other is doing and planning to do between our neighbouring jurisdictions. I hope that there will be a continuing and an ever more harmonious degree of co-operation between British Columbia and the state of Washington. I very much wish to give you a warm welcome today.

MR. CHAIRMAN: For the benefit of our visiting guests, we are on the estimates of the Ministry of Education on Vote 158, and the first member for Vancouver Centre has the floor.

MR. LAUK: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The Premier neglected to introduce the new Deputy Provincial Secretary, Dan Campbell, who is on the floor.

Mr. Chairman, I'm one of those who are more concerned about the Minister of Education's eating habits than his views on national unity. I'm becoming alarmed, Mr. Chairman. In the last four days the man seems to have eaten 18 packages of Lifesavers and 16 chocolate bars. Now that's only a rumour....

MR. CHAIRMAN: Hon. member, Beauchesne Fourth edition says a personal attack by one member upon another is.... (Laughter.)

MR. LAUK: I am a little bit concerned.... I would have hoped you would have found that citation on personal attacks during the Minister of Education's remark because that's why I'm drawn to my feet.

I'm a little bit concerned that the minister would indulge on a personal attack on the member for North Vancouver-Capilano (Mr. Gibson) , and I think that the grievance between them has something to do with the history of the Liberal Party in 1975 and it has to do with the estimates today. I regret very much that the Minister of Education resorted to a personal attack on the member for North Vancouver-Capilano who has, as so many do, sacrificed a great deal of his personal time and his personal career to enter public life. He's done so and the people in the province of British Columbia should be thankful that he has.

Having said that, Mr. Chairman, I'm sorry that he entered on a personal attack against the hon. Liberal leader (Mr. Gibson) because I wanted to get up and chastise the hon. Liberal leader on a non-personal basis. I am a little tired of the demagoguery going on at the federal Liberal Party level. These important issues that are raised.... As I say, I'm more concerned with the minister eating too many candies than I am with his policy on separation or his policy on separation of powers between the provinces and the federal government. I do take issue with members of the Liberal Party and politicians traveling this country and pointing the finger at anybody who suggests any other kind of Confederation than we have today as being traitorous or subversive. I'm

[ Page 4098 ]

opposed to that point of view. I don't like that. That's demagoguery, and I reject it.

I think that the Minister of Education's choice of phrase when he was talking about the separation of powers between provinces and the federal government was unfortunate from a Crown minister. I don't want to sound too much like the Premier when I say that one of his ministers made another unfortunate statement, but it was nevertheless unfortunate. I don't think one can make a stronger statement legitimately, I must confess, because there is an argument to be made that the British North America Act was a good Act but since Mackenzie King it has never been implemented and has been entirely ignored. I think an argument has to be made for provincial rights. I, for one, do not want to stand up as a British Columbian and start arguing about provincial rights and have somebody come up from behind me and call me a subversive. I'm a fourth-generation British Columbian, and I don't want to be called a subversive when I suggest that my province needs a fairer shake at the bargaining table.

Where I think one should sensibly take issue with the Minister of Education's remarks is: (1) that we are alarmed they may represent the views of the British Columbia government; and (2) that they really are, it seems to me, the thoughts of a person who hasn't carefully considered the import of what he has said. I do identify with the minister's general hope -that is, that we bring a certain amount of provincial power back to the provincial jurisdiction, and that we very carefully analyse what centralized government has done to this country in terms of cost, in terms of a runaway civil service, and in terms of a remarkable arrogance and presumption on the part of the Prime Minister of this country. Not since Louis XIV have we heard the kind of remarks that have been made by a political leader.

MR. WALLACE: Well, vote for Joe Clark!

MR. LAUK: He says: "I am the state. I am Canada. Anyone attacking me or my idea of what Canada should be is a subversive." That, to me, is reprehensible. It should be totally rejected. It does nothing to add to the debate in this country at all; it detracts from it. It's an excuse to win the federal election on the part of the federal Liberals, pure and simple.

The second thing that I have to say is, as a Canadian citizen - not as a member of the New Democratic Party - what the press is doing to Joe Clark.... And I don't want to defend Joe Clark. He's not the most competent national leader in the history of Canada, there's no question about that. I used to think that the press was unfair to us, but taking Trudeau's side against Clark is something I can't sift. It bothers me considerably,

MR. CHAIRMAN: Hon. member, you're straying a long way from the vote.

MR. LAUK: I am straying, yes.

MR. WALLACE: I'm sure Joe would like the plug, nevertheless.

MR. LAUK: I just got a letter. This is a shocking attack. It says: "If you are a fourth-generation Canadian how come you are an honorary captain of the Polish air force?" (Laughter.) It's a racist attack and I won't tell you who sent it to me, Slim. (Laughter.)

HON. MR. WILLIAMS: I thought you were a corporal. (Laughter.)

MR. LAUK: Mr. Chairman, I did want to rise and make those comments and say that I am disappointed the minister would resort in desperation to a personal attack on an hon. member whom I consider to be a very valuable member of this Legislature, but with whom I disagree fundamentally on the sort of blind defence of Pierre Trudeau, the new Louis XIV of world politics.

MR. GIBSON: Mr. Chairman, I just want to briefly respond to the minister's remarks about me. Unlike the hon. first member for Vancouver Centre (Mr. Lauk) , I was not surprised to receive a personal attack from the minister. I assume that there perhaps lingers somewhere in his soul a small quantity of guilt about activities he may have been engaged in himself. He spoke of my first attempt at elective office....

MR. LAUK: Having regard for his soul, it would have to be a small quantity, wouldn't it?

MR. GIBSON: I still remember that minister's first attempt at elective office. I apologize to you, and to the committee, Mr. Chairman, to tell you that I worked very hard for him in a by-election in 1962, 1 think it was.

MR. LAUK: Nobody's perfect!

MR. GIBSON: I'll say in retrospect that it was one of the greatest mistakes of my life. He did eventually become the leader of my party and brought it from five seats to five seats. (Laughter.)

MR. WALLACE: I once worked for Peter Hyndman!

MR. GIBSON: He set it in a position so that it had a great deal of difficulty expanding from a fairly elitist lower mainland base that the minister very

[ Page 4099 ]

securely established with that kind of a reputation. It's been some time in attempting to remedy that.

That's why I made my remarks today about the need for 'access to secondary education where people with different backgrounds in our society don't have the same opportunity of going through the kind of elitist educational process that that minister did. I was interested that he didn't choose to respond to those things. I'll just say that I'm not surprised at his particular personal attack.

As to the minister's statements on national unity, can any reasonable person feel that a Canada that was constituted according to the minister's suggestion -that anything on which there was not national agreement would not appertain to the national government - would be any recognizable country to us? A country where there would be no national police force and no army? Mr. Levesque made it clear last week that they were going into the army business as well. A country where there would be no common currency, no common department of external affairs - a country, in short, where the policies of the Parti Quebecois would be instituted because that would be a thing on which unanimous agreement could not be achieved. Can they concede that that would be the kind of arrangement that would still be called Canada?

By all means, Mr. Chairman, let us be extraordinarily flexible in seeking ways to amend our Constitution. By all means, let us have a provincial government interested enough in it to send a political representative to an important conference like Destiny Canada, which this government didn't.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Hon. member, may I just remind you that the relevancy rule says that any debate made on a minister must be made on the estimate containing his salary and it must be restricted to his official conduct? I think the member knows this.

MR. GIBSON: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I was just winding up my remarks. Of course, his official conduct was the speech in the House which triggered all of this off and which I would have hoped he would have withdrawn. He's a proud man; he finds it difficult to do things of that kind. I will give him my sympathy in that particular regard.

MR. NICOLSON: Mr. Chairman, I'd like to bring this debate to very relevant and specific points. It would be very out of order of me if I were to let a few things in this vote go by unsaid.

It was about a year ago that I looked and was struck by one of the very significant passages in Politics in Paradise, and that was concerning the minister's work. It had to do with a comment on the educational system that he made at that time. He was working with a research team for Du Pont, I believe on an experimental project called Polymer F, later given a trade name of Delwin. He pointed out that jobs were created because of this chemical reaction which had occurred in a test tube in a small laboratory in Wilmington. That discovery itself flowed from the genius of a few men who, if they had grown up in British Columbia, might have been sawyers in a mill, clerks in a department store or taxi drivers in a small town. He was making the point that because of educational opportunities in the United States which were different from those in Canada, one Stephen Delnogari, a friend of his who achieved....

AN HON. MEMBER: "Delnogar."

MR. NICOLSON: "Delnogar." If people like to anglicize their name, that's good enough. My relatives shortened theirs from Christiano to Christian, too.

He achieved the breakthrough that allowed Delwin to be produced commercially. He is from a humble Italian immigrant family, no different from many families who came from British Columbia. Indeed, I guess, no different from my mother's family.

Mr. Chairman, it's rather appropriate to bring this to the minister's attention because he was addressed in an open letter which I received a copy of, and I would assume that it was probably sent to various newspapers, from a Dominic M. Colletti, on MPM programme, Pestology Centre, Simon Fraser University. It's a letter to Hon. Pat McGeer, B.C. Education minister, concerning NDU. He said:

"Dear Sir,

"I would like to further support the views expressed in recent letters to the Nelson Daily News from NDU graduate students regarding the quality of NDU education. I'm currently a graduate student in a masters programme at SFU, Burnaby, having completed a BSc in biology at NDU.

"I wish to openly state my objection to your recent attack on the credibility of my education at NDU. My experience has led me to conclude that my background at NDU has been equal to and in some respects superior in quality to that of many of my fellow students here at the coast. My training, particularly in taxonomy and scientific essay, term paper and thesis preparation, has been excellent at NDU compared to that of the others. I've obtained As in all graduate courses so far and often find myself aiding others in the preparation of term papers, et cetera. I have been asked by one of my professors to co-author a paper in the near future.

"Contrary to your statements regarding the teaching quality of NDU faculty, I've found

[ Page 4100 ]

instructors generally of no better ability at the coast."

He's not saying worse, but no better.

"I have only seen professors who have light enough teaching loads to allow them plenty of research time. Coupled with the availability of facilities and funds, this results in publications which boost prestige. That only is the truth of the matter.

"If your recent statements were intended as part of a rationale for closing NDU, be informed that your public credibility has been seriously lacking, as students such as myself have now indicated. Old NDU certainly deserves a thank you for a job well done. I'm particularly grateful in that NDU provided me with an alternative when I was not ready to be thrust out into the cold, cruel environment of the coast at the age of 18. Let's hear it from some other NDU grads."

For this particular individual, I know that was the case. He was a first-generation Canadian. In fact, I taught him in high school. This is a fantastic success story, and it is the type of thing that can occur when people have a small institution to which they can go and receive the kind of attention and the type of notice where they just aren't lost in the crowd, Mr. Chairman.

I would urge the minister to take some notice of this. It's never too late to start changing direction. For instance, I notice one of my colleagues today made a public apology and published it. He sent it out to the news media for remarks that had been made that affected a group of people. Whether they were misunderstood remarks or whatever, that person apologized. I think we all should, and we all have cause to from time to time.

I remember the remarks that were made by the minister; it was in a meeting. I must say I appreciated the efforts that were taken to invite me to be present at that meeting. But I heard the remarks and could scarcely believe my cars, in terms of intimating that students at NDU had been receiving something that was inferior. Because students had not flocked to Notre Dame University, there must be something inferior about the type of educational experience they were getting. I could only say to the minister that that was more because of uncertainty of the future and had really nothing to do with the type and quality of education.

This particular individual was an average high school student who worked hard and certainly had a handicap in terms of English language. Yet because there was this type of a facility, he was not lost in the shuffle. He says in his final line, with a little bit of tongue in cheek because he is now a mature person, that he was not ready to be thrust out into the cold, cruel environment of the coast at age 18. He's put it with a little bit of humour. But certainly I know, by knowing this individual, that it is a very true statement, no matter how he has put it. This particular individual is a source of pride to, I think, any teacher who has had anything to do with him in the school system. We're all so pleased for his success; we all wish him the greatest in the future.

Let it be known that today this cannot happen in British Columbia. The minister who talked about his colleague that he met in Wilmington and said that his colleague there might have ended up a sawyer or a clerk - well, there will be more people ending up on the green chain in the interior. I would even say people from Vancouver will be ending up as sawyers and as clerks and not ending up doing graduate studies in pestology at Simon Fraser University because of the lack of attention, probably, and the lack of personal involvement in the day-to-day affairs that had to be straightened out up there because of that lack of involvement. This is what has happened.

So the minister made his statement in his book and he talked about the Horatio Alger type of a story of a son of immigrant Italian parents who rose in the scientific world. Here is another case, and it certainly happened. It happened I suppose partly because of something the old Social Credit government did when they recognized Notre Dame University through the Notre Dame University Act.

I'm not going to comment on legislation; I'm just talking about the actions that have taken place right now with no legislation. There is no university. Phone for yourself, Mr. Chairman, if you like. They'll say this is a recorded message and this is the university centre but there is nothing going on. At a place where there should have been summer-session activities taking place this summer, there is nothing of an educational nature taking place.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I think the hon. member knows that any debate on the university itself might better take place under the bill that's on the order paper.

MR. NICOLSON: There will be full debate on Notre Dame and all aspects of it under that bill.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Any mention of it now is inappropriate.

MR. NICOLSON: Pardon?

MR. CHAIRMAN: Any mention of it now is not appropriate.

MR. NICOLSON: Okay. No, I am not doing that, Mr. Chairman. I am talking about things that have happened without any legislation being passed. These are the facts that have happened today. So I would just like to leave that with the minister - a statement

[ Page 4101 ]

in his book - and I think it might be very meaningful to him. As his friend meant a very great deal to him, this person means a very great deal to me and to many educators in the city of Nelson.

MRS. E.E. DAILLY (Burnaby North): Just before we move on to the minister's specific votes, since we have probably just arrived at the moment, I think perhaps the minister does owe it to the House to tell us something which he did not tell us when he opened his remarks on the estimates. That is, just what has he done in education, specifically, since he assumed office? Last night, it was interesting to hear the Premier attempt to defend this minister's performance. The Premier suggested that this minister had brought about many new policies in education since he has assumed office. Now perhaps the Premier knows something that the minister himself does not know about the Education ministry, because I'm still waiting - and many other people are, I think, Mr. Chairman - to hear specifically from this minister, particularly in the public school scene and even more, perhaps, in the secondary schools, what specific achievements and what specific policies are actually in place since this minister took office. I think we would all be interested in finally hearing, before we move on to his votes, these very specific policies which the Premier says have been brought about by this minister.

HON. MR. McGEER: Mr. Chairman, I'll resist the temptation to go into a lengthy recital of what has been going on in the Ministry of Education but I will be certain to add the member for Burnaby North to the subscription list for Education Today.

MRS. DAILLY: I've read it. I'm waiting. I've seen your picture.

HON. MR. McGEER: I'll be sure to send her double copies of all the various press releases that go out from the ministry.

MRS. DAILLY: I've got them all here.

HON. MR. McGEER: I wouldn't care to comment on how many, but they give a pretty good flow of the general development of policy. I would be happy to forward to the member the various reports of the field studies that we have had to give us the research background that we require for new legislation that will be introduced. I will also refrain from treading on the prerogatives of the House by discussing legislation that will be brought in later on this session. I might add that I am in danger of heckling from my colleagues, Madam Member, because they wouldn't want to have me accused of filibustering the estimates.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Ohhh.

MR. MACDONALD: One more harangue. Just one more harangue and we'll have a harangue-over.

HON. MR. McGEER: I'm glad the member for Vancouver East is a little less bilious today because he has been noted as one of the more cheerful members of the assembly, and yet this past year or two he has been particularly sour. I must say, Mr. Chairman, that when he was on his feet yesterday and he got into this impassioned account in typical defence-lawyer fashion of this detailed claim, it reminded me very much of the first time I saw the member perform. I have forgotten whether he was for Vancouver Burrard or Vancouver East in those days, but he has always lived in Point Grey or very close to it. In any event, it was the same kind of description. It was a legal case and I think it involved a character named Vang. In any event, I listened to this spellbound, because I am not a lawyer and to hear this kind of courtroom kind of presentation done in the Legislature was a fascinating thing. Each year the member was in opposition he developed the technique of bringing in some legal case and developing it in full flight on the floor of the House and people began to pay less and less attention to it. Then his style was completely interrupted during the time that he was the Attorney-General.

MRS. DAILLY: What a great answer.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Order!

HON. MR. McGEER: His tennis game deteriorated but he is regaining his old form. I thought yesterday he was back to where he was in 1963. 1 thought it was a fine display and he is in good humour again today.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Now back to the vote.

HON. MR. McGEER: Yes, Mr. Chairman. I am certainly not going to indulge in any harangues because the member for Burnaby North has given me an opportunity to describe some of the things the Ministry of Education has done and not to respond to documents that are tabled on the floor of the House, real or imaginary.

Mr. Chairman, let's start at the elementary level and work on up. That's the systematic way the member would ... and I'm sure her classes would have been extremely well organized.

MR. BARRETT: Oh, don't be patronizing.

HON. MR. McGEER: I'm not being patronizing.

[ Page 4102 ]

I'm going to, as I say, Mr. Chairman, try and give a simple account of the things the ministry is doing. As probably all members know, in the whole elementary and secondary level what we've been trying to develop is a standard core curriculum - not placing the education of our students in a straitjacket but, nevertheless, setting forward the standards that we expect to be reached in all schools in this province.

In order to do this, and to do it in a satisfactory method to all the consumers of the system, we went into the largest consultation, I think, ever in the history of British Columbia with the core curriculum document. This isn't the core curriculum itself, but establishes the standards and goals set by the ministry. There were something like 20,000 responses to that. These have been analysed with the help of the B.C. Research Council and, on the basis of that consensus, the core curriculum, right at this very moment, is being put together and will be in place in just a little over a month. So that's been quite a monumental task and it will have, we think, as much impact as anything that has been done in the primary and secondary school levels for the last generation.

Of course, Mr. Chairman, as the member knows, and as the B.C. Teachers Federation know, we're engaging in a provincial learning assessment programme. The early results of those assessment tests are now available and ministry officials have been going out, district by district, with the analysis of all of this and are now able to identify to some extent the areas of weakness by subject, by school, by geographical area, and, where necessary, remedial help is being supplied by the ministry.

In addition to this, we're encouraging - not insisting, but encouraging - local districts to go back to standard achievement testing so that they will know precisely how their school and their students stand with respect to North American averages. A number of districts are following the recommendations of the ministry and, I must say, where this programme has been instituted both the district and the ministry are very happy about it. When they find that their worst fears are not being realized and the students really are shaping up fairly well with regard to North American averages, they become so reassured that they are then enthusiasts for the system.

The member for Comox (Mrs. Sanford) should know that her district is embarked on such a programme.

We've commenced an English-language placement test, and while this has been to some extent controversial it has nevertheless revealed, in our opinion, some major weaknesses in the way English is being taught and learned in our secondary school system. While we've got an important second-language programme, i.e. French, we need to do a little bit of sprucing up on the first language,

English, and how it's taught in the schools. This has been revealed by our English-language placement test. As a result of that, there will be strengthening of our teaching programmes.

We'll be introducing new financial services throughout the province. We've had a study on the manner of handling funds as they're issued from the ministry to individual school districts. There's a tremendous amount of variation in the manner in which funds and the remuneration are administered. I think the nonteaching personnel in our consultant study were classified as 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and the bizarre, indicating the drift and the lack of standards that have been characteristic of the ministry for so long.

So we'll be providing, not in a legislative form or in the academic form, extensive data processing and financial services for every school district in the province.

Now moving from that to the colleges and institutes. Jointly with the Ministry of Labour we commissioned the board study and a lengthy report was made available to the public after it had been filed with our ministries. I've explained that there will be a colleges and institutes Act introduced which will bring sweeping reforms to our post-secondary system at the career and community college level. That will give opportunities that do not exist today for career and pre-employment training which we hope will go a long way to solve this tremendous unemployment problem that we have among the post-secondary students of this province.

I can't spend a great deal of time labouring that particular side of it, Mr. Chairman, because the House will have an opportunity to debate that when legislation is introduced. We've had the Winegard report on the delivery of post-secondary services to the interior of the province. While I can't discuss the Notre Dame problem because of legislation before the House, we had set up an interior co-ordinating council which will ensure that third- and fourth-year programmes are widely delivered to the areas of the province not served by. the coastal universities. So that council is in place. Something like $3 million has been set aside, and we're going to see a major advance in the delivery of university programmes to the interior regions of British Columbia.

At the post-secondary level universities we've introduced, as you know, a new system for financing capital expansion of our universities. The effects of that new legislation are underway at the present time so that we're going to see the major capital deficiencies in our universities and colleges corrected in the next little while. You can't throw a building up overnight and it takes a while to get a new financial system in train but we're going to see the effects of that beginning to develop now at an accelerating rate.

We commissioned the Gaudry report jointly between the Ministry of Economic Development and

[ Page 4103 ]

the Ministry of Education. As a result of that, there are going to be new graduate opportunities in British Columbia connected with the industrial future of British Columbia. We've announced the concept of Discovery Park, where graduate students will in future be able to work with high-technology industries on university campuses or at an industrial park which perhaps can be established somewhere in the lower mainland for those industries which nevertheless want to work with universities but which do not want to locate their actual research facilities on the university campus.

Mr. Chairman, I'm not going to use up my full half hour by giving the additional programmes or going into more detail with these, but I'd certainly be quite prepared to elaborate at length with the member. If she would care to visit my office or the ministry office, she is very welcome.

MR. MACDONALD: Mr. Chairman, I wasn't going to ask the minister a question but I guess I will now. He answered an oral question one day, saying this: In terms of the safe driver refund for non-blameworthy drivers under ICBC, if somebody was dissatisfied with the decision of the corporation they could go to the claims -committee. If they were still unsatisfied, they could go to court. Isn't that what the minister said? Did the minister say that in oral question period?

HON. MR. McGEER: I don't have the Blues, Mr. Chairman.

MR. MACDONALD: Well, Mr. Chairman, I'll tell you what he said. He said that you could appeal that kind of thing to court. The Attorney -General is interrupting me, and I'm telling him that this was another gem of misinformation that fell from the lips of this particular minister.

Interjection.

MR. MACDONALD: Oh, I remember very well what he said. He said: "If you've got a dispute and you're not given your refund, you can take it to court."

I want to tell you, Mr. Chairman, just so you know, this minister is a veritable mine of misinformation. Perfect confidence in everything he says. The words flow out, and he attacks his own colleagues when he was the turncoat. I'm surprised that the turncoat should attack the others, but he does.

I just want to warn you, Mr. Chairman, that everything this minister says is not verbatim; it isn't true.

Interjections.

MR. MACDONALD: Well, let the Attorney-General stand up and say whether that kind of thing can be taken to court. Say a young person doesn't get his discount because he's been judged blameworthy. I guess the Attorney-General doesn't know what I'm talking about. Maybe, maybe not.

Get up and say whether that Minister of Education gave a proper answer or not. Can you go to court, Mr. Minister, or can't you?

Interjection.

MR. MACDONALD: He doesn't know now.

You had full confidence when you gave the answer to the question a little while ago. Do you know? Can you take it to court?

HON. MR. McGEER: Mr. Member, I don't have the Blues from which the member is quoting; I don't have Hansard in front of me. He's a lawyer and I'm not. He would know when you should go to court. I'd say though....

MR. MACDONALD: You don't know.

Vote 158 approved.

On vote 159: administration and support services, $5,064, 827.

MRS. DAILLY: Mr. Chairman, to the minister, last year in this section on research and development the sum was allocated of $2,475, 090. 1 see the same sum is in the estimates in front of us now. My question to the minister, Mr. Chairman, is: would he give us a breakdown of how that almost $2.5 million was spent last year? Was it all spent? We note the same sum is in there again. It is of interest to the House to know on what this $2.5 million for research and development was spent and what you propose doing with this for the coming year.

HON. MR. McGEER: We spent $205,466.91 on the learning assessment programme-, $18,426 on post-secondary curriculum development; $30,098 on the commission on university education in the interior; $32,000 on educational policy development; $38,896 on the management review system; $211,388 on the financial planning study; $22,887 on the university research and teaching study; $12,180 on an administrative salary, study; $1,638 on the Colleges Act and facilities planning study; $15,665 on continuing community education policy; $27,152 on the learning resource systems; $1,769 on the articulation committee; $500 on non-public school financing committee; $25,849 on curriculum consultants; $92,724 on English placement tests; $35,000 on Indian education resource centre; $10,000

[ Page 4104 ]

on the Hamilton occupational projects; $21,562 on small secondary schools project; $150,000 on union catalogue of libraries. We had various contingencies amounting to $224,000. We spent $300,000 on the Educational Research Institute of B.C. Do you want me to go through all of these?

MRS. DAILLY: No, that's fine. Thank you. I have just one question. You went rather quickly and I could perhaps get it from the deputy minister later. There's no point in going through the whole thing now, but it is a considerable sum of money. I think I have the picture now of the areas in which it is being spent. There's just one quick question on it. I think there was something there to do with non-public.

HON. MR. McGEER: Five hundred dollars was spent on that. We had several study groups working on the development of the legislation which is before the House now.

MRS. DAILLY: Mr. Chairman, I note that the sum of money usually allocated for the national and interprovincial activities has been cut down. I just wonder if the minster could just very quickly give what areas of your participation nationally and interprovincially that you cut down.

HON. MR. McGEER: What we give nationally, Mr. Chairman, goes to the Council of Ministers of Education. Whatever our allocation was, it would have been prorated on the basis of what the council decided to give overall. The Canada Studies programme was cut by the council and so our proportion went down.

MRS. DAILLY: That's all I wanted to know.

MS. K.E. SANFORD (Comox): I was completely dissatisfied with the answer the minister gave very brusquely one evening in response to the questions that I was raising with respect to the training of preschool teachers - those teachers who are involved in teaching children who are under the age of 5. This has to do, Mr. Chairman, with the development of overall policy for the Ministry of Education.

MR. CHAIRMAN: That would have been under vote 15 8, hon. member.

MS. SANFORD: Well, it says, Mr. Chairman, that vote 159 provides for overall policy direction. That is what I'm concerned with under this particular vote.

MR. CHAIRMAN: As I understand it, hon. member, the minister's salary is traditionally the vote under which we usually discuss the general policies. This is the direction of that policy by the administrative departments, as I understand it.

MS. SANFORD: Yes, that's right.

HON. MR. McGEER: No money is spent on that programme from this vote.

MS. SANFORD: Well, I just wanted to raise this with respect to the policy direction that should be taken by this minister with respect to that training programme. To say it belongs in the Ministry of Human Resources is not good enough.

MR. WALLACE: Let me be sure we're talking about vote 159, which includes research and development division.

I would like to ask the minister about what I consider to be a very important matter, namely the fact that the former director of this department has reached agreement with the Minister of Education about his firing, and I'm talking about Dr. Knight. As the minister and everyone well knows, the research and development division was created in 1974 and the director, Dr. Knight, completed his six-month probationary period and was on staff, which was confirmed on December, 1974. He was fired in January, 1975. Now, Mr. Chairman, there are some very important questions to be asked, in my view. Not that they're so much the responsibility of this minister perhaps, since he wasn't there at the time this happened. But the government has subsequently reached an agreement with Dr. Knight as of June 29, this year. I don't wish to have a whole reinvestigation of the problem that arose at that time. Specifically, what I'd like to know is what chances are there that this kind of situation could arise again? What was wrong in the internal administration of the Ministry of Education that this whole sad situation could have developed and was allowed to develop? The tradition in this House is certainly not to castigate or blame civil servants and I've no wish to do that; I'm looking to the future rather than the past.

But the clippings that I have on file make it quite clear that at the time Dr. Knight was fired, the deputy Education minister of that day quite publicly admitted it was his decision for Dr. Knight to be fired. That servant of the government is still holding office in the Ministry of Education, and yet the ministry has turned around and reversed its official policy by giving Dr. Knight an honourable dismissal and, presumably, some financial settlement, and has cleared his professional reputation. If that was the just thing to do and the honourable thing to do, I'm glad it happened.

But without reflecting too much on the past, I would like t6 know how a situation like that could have arisen, where clearly the reason to dismiss someone with Dr. Knight's qualifications must surely

[ Page 4105 ]

have been fairly substantial, I would have thought. Surely we don't employ people with that kind of responsibility and background in their own professional field and then fire them so readily.

Secondly, if there was a substantial reason to fire him, how come it's taken over two years for Dr. Knight to get the just clearing of his professional reputation, together with, presumably, some financial settlement?

Thirdly, regardless of these mistakes of the past, can the minister tell me what changes have taken place within his ministry that assures him that this kind of very unfortunate situation is unlikely to happen again?

HON. MR. McGEER: Mr. Chairman, we can answer the last question easily. There's no division in the Ministry of Education at the present time, so there'll be no effort to hire somebody to....

MR. WALLACE: Or a similar person. It needn't be the....

HON. MR. McGEER: Well, Mr. Chairman, I wasn't the minister at the time. The gentleman and his staff came and went. If the former minister wishes to give explanation of it, that's fine, but people don't always work out. In this case the ministry judged that the individual and his staff were unsatisfactory, and dismissed him.

The matter was brought up in a court case. My position as minister was that we would take the case to court and that there would be no settlement beyond what would be the normal severance pay given to anybody in government who had served that long. The time was two months, so it was our decision that we would be prepared to give two months' pay because anybody who was fired or quit with that length of service would get that amount of remuneration. While the initial suggestion on the part of the plaintiff was much higher than that, that was finally accepted. There was a request that the person be allowed to give a retroactive letter of resignation, and I saw no reason shy that should be permitted. But it's counterproductive for everybody to go to court. The case was carried as far as examination for discovery, and at that stage a proposal was made for settlement. Since it fitted in with the government guidelines, that was acceptable to this ministry.

Now the gentleman concerned did come and give a press release here in Victoria in which, it seems to me, he made some extravagant claims. I would never had said this publicly if the question hadn't been asked, but the press conference given by that individual at the time of the settlement did not reflect the facts of the case.

MR. WALLACE: Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the minister's comments. I may not have made myself completely clear. I wasn't meaning to specifically relate my question only to the situation surrounding Dr. Knight, but the fact that within the ministry this kind of unfortunate, controversial kind of situation could arise which reflected, rightly or wrongly, on the capacity of the minister's office of that time to deal with this kind of situation suggested poor administration and a great deal of lack of communication within his own ministry - or her own ministry, at the time.

Does the minister feel confident that the inadequacies within the administration which led to this unfortunate public controversy have, as far as possible, been corrected? Secondly, on a specific point, Am I correct in understanding the minister when he says that the final financial settlement as of June this year was, in fact, the same financial settlement offered to Dr. Knight at the time he was initially dismissed?

HON. MR. McGEER: I can't say what he was initially offered, but I can say what present government policy is,

MR. MACDONALD: I can answer that. He was offered nothing.

HON. MR. McGEER: He was given more than he was offered at that time. I am sure the member for Vancouver East would understand that it's highly counterproductive and very costly for a ministry to go through a lengthy court case. Everybody loses in a court case, as you know. I hope that a situation like this won't recur but I must say that for any government everybody you hire doesn't work out. Perhaps we have been lucky.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Aye!

MR. WALLACE: Mr. Chairman, I get rather annoyed at all the people in this House who start trying to shut the particular question off at 6 o'clock. This is an important issue. I am sorry it is taking more time but I would....

HON. MR. GARDOM: Do you think you can do it in 16 seconds?

MR. WALLACE: No, I can't.

HON. MR. GARDOM. Then why don't you adjourn the debate, for crying out loud?

MR. WALLACE: I move that the committee rise and report resolutions.

The House resumed; Mr. Speaker in the chair.

[ Page 4106 ]

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

Hon. Mr. Gardom moves adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

The House adjourned at 6 p.m.