[ Page 2813 ]

CONTENTS

Routine proceedings

West Kootenay Schools Collective Bargaining Assistance Act (Bill 46) Hon. Mr. Williams.

Introduction and first reading –– 2813

West Kootenay Schools Collective Bargaining Assistance Act (Bill 46) Second reading.

Hon. Mr. Williams –– 2818

Mr. Barrett –– 2822

Mr. Stephens –– 2827

Hon. Mr. Chabot –– 2829

Mr. Macdonald –– 2831

Ms. Sanford –– 2834

Mr. Strongman –– 2838

Mr. Cocke –– 2840

Hon. Mr. Hewitt –– 2843

Mr. Gibson –– 2845

Hon. Mr. McGeer –– 2847

Hon. Mr. Bennett –– 2851

Mr. D'Arcy –– 2852

Mr. Haddad –– 2857

Mr. Nicolson –– 2857

The House met at 10 a.m.

Prayers.

MS. SANFORD: Mr. Speaker, I would like to introduce to the Legislature this morning Gerry Stoney, who is the president of the New Democratic Party of British Columbia, and Jim Kinnaird, who is the newly elected president of the B.C. Federation of Labour, accompanied by a number of his officers.

There are also representatives here from CUPE this morning, as well as other trade unions, and I would ask the House to make them all welcome.

MR. LLOYD: Mr. Speaker, we have three visitors this morning from the spruce capital and the pulp capital of the world, three visitors from Prince George: Mr. Jim Potter, Mr. Don Frood and Mr. Van Scofield. I would ask the House to join me in bidding them welcome.

MR. BARRETT: Mr. Speaker, I would ask leave of the House to move a motion that this House congratulate Mr. Edward Richard Schreyer on his appointment as Governor-General and express to him our hope that his term of office will see great accomplishments for Canadian unity and for the well-being of all Canadians.

Leave granted.

On the motion.

HON. MR. BENNETT: Mr. Speaker, this side of the House as well joins with all members, I am sure, and all British Columbians, in congratulating our new Governor-General, or Governor-General designate, and wishing him and giving him every encouragement in this very important undertaking in this time in our country's history. He has a very distinct opportunity to be a part of bringing our country together at this difficult time and, as such, we wish him well and we offer our best wishes for his success. I look forward to renewing an acquaintanceship I was happy enough to make when Mr. Schreyer was leader of the government in Manitoba when I had some opportunity to attend conferences with him and enjoyed, I hope, his friendship. Certainly he has my respect.

MR. GIBSON: Mr. Speaker, I would like to associate my party with the motion of the Leader of the Opposition. Mr. Schreyer is an outstanding Canadian, and he comes to us as Governor-General at what may be the most crucial occupancy of the position since 1867, in terms of the problems and opportunities of Canada. I, and I know all the House, wish him well.

MR. SPEAKER: Mr. Speaker, I can do no better than to simply associate myself with the remarks of the three previous speakers, and to say that we certainly have a young and vigorous appointment. I think that's very appropriate for the time of our history.

MR. BARRETT: Mr. Speaker, in closing the debate I would like to say that I appreciate the words of the Premier and the leader of the Conservative Party and the leader 'of the Liberal Party. I think it was, frankly, courageous of the Prime Minister to recommend Mr. Schreyer's name as the Governor-General of Canada. I think it was wise of Her Majesty the Queen to accept the recommendation, and I think it will be a good omen for all Canadians. For the first time we have someone not from what was considered traditionally the mainstream of the two major parties; now we have someone from the third major party, which is a good foundation for the development of Canadian unity.

I want to thank the former Governor-General for the tremendous public service he gave the people of this country, in the best tradition. I know that the Premier and Mr. Schreyer did develop a personal friendship, just as other politicians, regardless of party, develop the kind of personal friendship and attitude of co-operation that is necessary to keep this country together.

I want to thank the federal government and especially the Prime Minister, and I want to thank all Canadians for understanding that this move is a major step forward in recognizing all the forces that helped build this country, and will go a long way to keep this country together.

Motion approved.

MR. BARRETT: I ask leave to move a motion that this House express regret to the people and the government of Israel on the death of Golda Meir, an outstanding world citizen.

Leave granted.

On the motion.

MR. BARRETT: Mr. Speaker, the world has lost an outstanding spokesperson on the death of Mrs. Meir. I know that every member of the House shares with me this moment of regret. We

[ Page 2814 ]

wish the people of Israel well at this very crucial time, as well as the people of Egypt.

HON. MR. BENNETT: Mr. Speaker, we join in supporting the motion, and I would say in this case, as in other cases, messages have already gone from the government to the appropriate sources, and I can join in the remarks with the Leader of the Opposition.

MR. GIBSON: As well as the government, the Legislature should be associated with these things, and I am very glad to do so, for my part.

MR. STEPHENS: Once again, Mr. Speaker, I identify myself with the statements of my colleagues.

MR. SPEAKER: Hearing no further debate, the motion is that this House express regrets to the people and government of Israel on the death of Golda Meir, an outstanding world citizen.

Motion approved.

introduction of bills.

WEST KOOTENAY SCHOOLS COLLECTIVE

BARGAINING ASSISTANCE ACT

Hon. Mr. Williams presents a message from His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor: a bill intituled West Kootenay Schools Collective Bargaining Assistance Act.

Bill 46 introduced and read a first time.

HON. MR. WILLIAMS: Mr. Speaker, the bill which accompanies the message which is now being introduced to this House deals with a matter pertaining to the operation of the educational system....

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

Mr. Minister, we will have to determine whether or not this is to be taken as a ministerial statement, because it is unusual to have debate on the bill in first reading.

HON. MR. WILLIAMS: Mr. Speaker, it was not for the purposes of debate. But in view of the subject matter of the bill, it is the view of the government that it is an urgent matter and under standing order 81, we are requesting that the bill pass through all stages of the House in one day.

The bill, as I say, touches upon matters pertaining to the educational institutions in the West Kootenays, those which are within the school districts....

MR. KING: On a point of order. Mr. Speaker, it is permissible for the minister to make a statement with leave of the House, I understand, but I do not think it is appropriate for the minister to refer to the bill, or the need for it, until such time as the House has had., an opportunity to have in their possession t he bill, and to study the same.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. I take the point of order well, and I have asked for clarification. A ministerial statement does not require leave, and therefore I have accepted the statement as a ministerial statement, and will protect the rights of the parties in the House to reply in kind.

MR. BARRETT: How is it possible to be in order when the minister and yourself have the only copies of the bill, and we have no knowledge of what he's referring to?

I appreciate there's a recess. My understanding is that a recess comes before any remarks, as is traditional, so we know what we are talking about. It's like Moses handing down the tablets to the House with no participation, at this point. I'm sure, Mr. Speaker, that even that reference would be appropriate.

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. members, in order for the Chair to determine whether or not urgency even exists, there must first of all be a proposal of urgency. Therefore I'm accepting a ministerial statement to perhaps give some guidance, because I do not even know under what instrument this bill is going to proceed. If it's going to proceed under standing order 81, then, of course, the Speaker himself would like to look at the bill, certainly, to see its contents and determine its urgency.

MR. BARRETT: Mr. Speaker, we would like the same privilege. We have not in any way impeded the normal process of the introduction of a bill and a recess that can and should follow. It is the House that must determine the emergency, and there has been no opposition at this point, in terms of introducing the bill to that point. I think we should follow the normal traditional form and have the bill introduced without statement. We accept that; we've given leave. We'd like to see the bill, and then come back and get on with the business of the House.

MR. SPEAKER: Would it be permitted now that we listen to the conclusion, at least, of the

[ Page 2815 ]

ministerial statement? I will protect the rights of all hon. members to reply in kind.

HON. MR. WILLIAMS: Mr. Speaker, on the question of the point of order, it is for you to decide whether there is urgency. It is my intention to urge to you to grant a recess so that all members of the House can consider the bi-11, as well as yourself, sir, and that during that period you may then consider the remarks which I make about urgency.

I don't intend to deal with the specific subject matter of the bill, except to say that it does deal with the educational institutions of the West Kootenays. They are now in their seventh week of partial or incomplete operation, and there is a serious situation affecting the students in that area. The bill deals with that matter and it should be resolved, in the government's view, as quickly as possible.

MR. SPEAKER: Is there any recommendation with regard to ... ?

HON. MR. WILLIAMS: Mr. Speaker, I would urge you to consider granting a recess while the bill can be distributed. I am advised by the House Leader that in discussion with the Whips, an hour's recess at this time is indicated and that there will be a half hour also at lunch.

MR. SPEAKER: Thank you, Mr. Minister. Any reply?

Hon. members, for the distribution of the bill -- I think all hon. members would like to have the bill in hand -- I would declare a short.... It has passed first reading. We have put the question.

HON. MR. WILLIAMS: Yes.

MR. SPEAKER: I would declare a recess. The recommended time of an hour seems suitable to me, and therefore I declare a recess for one hour.

The House took recess at 10:25 a.m.

The House resumed at 11:54 a.m.

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. members, let me explain at the outset, and give you my apologies for having been delayed at the starting of the session after this recess. I thought that it would be advisable for me, at least, to have in my hand before I came to the Chair the transcript of what transpired in the House this morning. I had to wait a little longer than I expected. I hope I am forgiven.

On the matter of the urgency of the bill that is presently before us, I gave an undertaking to the members of the House that I would give an opportunity for reply. I would be very pleased if any reply of this nature could be given to me before I give you my decision, so that at least the decision would be given in the light of all contributions which members may wish to make. I would give opportunity for that at this time.

MR. KING: Mr. Speaker, in considering the motion to convene the Legislature to deal with an Emergency situation, I would recommend, sir, that you take into consideration the fact that the Employees involved in a dispute in the Kootenay school district have this morning returned to work. The lockout alone still remains, as I understand it. I would suggest and put to you, Mr. Speaker, that once a commitment was obtained from the union to lift their strike, the way was open to the Minister of Labour and to the Premier of the province to prevail upon the school boards, x-which are public agencies funded by the government of British Columbia, to accept their responsibility and to lift the lockout to allow the children to return to school.

I suggest to you that no proper decision can be made with respect to assessing the need for this session of the Legislature, nor indeed the question as to whether or not it is a proper emergency, until the House knows whether or not the Minister of Labour, his agents or the Premier, after receiving the advice from the union yesterday afternoon at 2 o'clock, announced by the Leader of the Opposition, that they have suspended their strike, contacted the school boards involved, or the union, to determine whether or not it was possible to regain a resumption of services in the West Kootenay schools without the need of convening this Legislature to intervene.

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. member, with great respect, the kind of reply that I need is not the urgency for this session, but the urgency which pertains to the bill itself, and perhaps some of the conditions surrounding that. Perhaps you could just remember that as you proceed.

MR. KING: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The point I am trying to make is that the only way that the bill itself can deal with an emergency would be with the lack of any other alternative for resolving a situation which has, indeed, been an emergency for 42 long days. What we are suggesting is that the House has evidence and information now that the way, [illegible]

[ Page 2816 ]

open through normal government processes to restore those schools to full operation without the necessity of convening this House.

Mr. Speaker, the rules of this House and the provisions for emergency sessions and emergency debates should never be calculated or manipulated to serve the political interests of the government party. In light of the fact that the employees have assumed their responsibilities and recognized the dire circumstances of thousands of children who are having their educational opportunity interrupted, and have this morning returned to work, it was incumbent upon the Minister of Labour and the Premier to contact the other party and try to obtain from them a similar demonstration of responsibility.

Mr. Speaker, I charge that neither the Minister of Labour nor the Premier made any attempt at further negotiations, and therefore they have manipulated this situation so that the emergency is only one of political expedience for the government.

MR. GIBSON: Mr. Speaker, standing order 81, as Your Honour is fully aware, is a very strong power which overrides the normal protections of this chamber and its members for due and deliberate study and consideration of legislation, and gives authority to compress the whole matter within a space of one day. That section, I would maintain, is intended to apply to genuinely urgent matters. I think it could be a question of debate as to whether the main substance of most of the sections of the bill are, in fact, an hour by hour emergency, or whether, having waited seven weeks, they could wait another day, but I won't address myself to that. I want to address myself solely to the question of clause 11. 1 would suggest, Sir, that clause No. 11 should be excluded from the application....

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please, hon. member. What the member is suggesting may well have merit. However, I'm taking advice now on whether or not the bill itself has urgency in it. My responsibility is to determine whether an urgency does exist in the bill, and the circumstances surrounding the bill. I would appreciate assistance in that regard.

MR. GIBSON: I'm trying to tell you one place where it certainly does not exist.

MR. SPEAKER Please proceed.

MR. GIBSON: Mr. Speaker, I would suggest that whatever your finding, and this may assist you in your finding, as to whether or not standing order 81 applies to the rest of the bill, I would direct your attention to page 477 of May, 18th edition, which gives some examples of occasions when a Speaker may exclude clauses from a bill. I would say that there is an analogous power to exclude clauses from the operation of an extraordinary standing order. Section 11 of the bill is clearly not urgent, as is exemplified by section 12, which makes it clear it is a proclamation section.

The words of the Minister of Labour to some of the press after the earlier part of our gathering today indicated, and I do not in any way want to misrepresent his words, and I did not copy then down verbatim, so he might wish to clarify or amend anything I say, and Your Honour may wish to listen to one of the tapes if the press would be so kind as to make them available.... But the burden of the minister's words was that with respect to the additional powers to be conferred in the Emergency Services Disputes Act by section 11, the government intended to carry out an examination of the need in other areas, but was putting it in the bill at this time. He went on to indicate that if research indicated the proclamation of this section to be appropriate, it would be proclaimed, and if research indicated that it would not be appropriate, it would not be proclaimed. It seems to me that is a clear lack of urgency, Mr. Speaker. It's a "shoot first and ask questions later" attitude. It's asking this Legislature to debate on an emergency basis without time for proper consideration, a matter which is of importance and scope far beyond the title of the bill, the title of the bill being West Kootenay Schools Collective Bargaining Assistance Act. Therefore I would represent to you, Sir, that should you wish to rule that the rest of the bill comes within the scope of standing order 81, that at least clause 11 does not, and it should be severed and debated -- even at this session, should the minister so wish -- in a way that would admit a more careful examination.

MR. SPEAKER: I will seek to incorporate the contributions made by the two hon. members following the recess into my considerable deliberation during the recess.

It is incumbent upon the Speaker in this instance to determine whether or not urgency does exist. It is not so much incumbent to determine whether or not urgency exists in every section, as to determine whether urgency exists in the bill per se. It may well be that certain sections would not qualify if considered by themselves. However, it is in the

[ Page 2817 ]

hands of the House to determine whether those sections would qualify or whether or not those sections indeed should be defeated at a time which is provided in debate and, hopefully, even later today. The committee stage is provided for exactly that reason.

In trying to determine whether or not urgency exists in the circumstances surrounding the bill, I would have to accept the contribution of the member for Revelstoke-Slocan (Mr. King) who says that indeed urgency has existed for 42 days and has not abated to this point. The contribution was also made -- and I don't have the transcript before me, but it seems to me that it was made by the member for Revelstoke Slocan - that perhaps thousands of children were being affected. I would also have to accept the contribution of the administration itself which apparently deemed the situation to be emergent enough to call this session together, perhaps at some inconvenience to some and, at least to my knowledge, at severe inconvenience to one member to be here today.

I would have to find, hon. members, that urgency does exist. Standing order 81 provides that either urgency or extraordinary conditions must exist. The word "extraordinary" leaves a lot to be debated, as it is a wide scope of word, and therefore I would suggest that under urgency alone my decision would be that the bill does qualify for the purposes of standing order 81. That is my decision.

MR. KING: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker, I just wanted to clarify your quoting-of my dissertation and my suggestion that an emergency had existed for 42 days prior to the circumstance of the union lifting the picket line. My dissertation was to the effect that that emergency no longer exists.

MR. SPEAKER: Thank you, hon. member. I did not wish at all to mislead the House. I could have put into the phrase the fact that since.... As I understand it from other contributions, the lockout still exists. I have no knowledge except what was given to me here today that the lockout still exists. Therefore whatever urgency did exist has not abated.

MR. GIBSON: Now that Your Honour has made the ruling that urgency does exist on certain parts of the subject matter of the bill, could I ask you specifically to take under advisement the question of severing off that portion of the bill for separate consideration of that portion of the bill where urgency clearly does not exist? You mentioned the administration so demonstrated by the words of the minister himself.

MR. SPEAKER: Yes. The power to do that is vested in the Chair. I would be reticent to exercise that particular power, because of the emergent situation of this particular debate. Therefore I would like the House to deal with that. The matter has been raised at the appropriate times provided for in May, as the member well knows. Then, at the committee stage when this particular section canes up for debate, and when amendments can be made in the first place, I would suggest would be the ideal place to deal with that particular question.

MR. GIBSON: Mr. Speaker, as Your Honour says, you do have the undoubted power to make that severance. The difficulty with waiting until the regular committee stage is that the usual protection afforded this House and its members of time for advice and deliberation in matters of a non-emergency nature is removed from us if this matter is not severed from this bill and considered in the separate and usual way. A non-emergency matter of such importance deserves that kind of protection and consideration. If it simply remains with the bill through to committee stage, there is no way that that can be had. There is no way that the members can seek advice from the outside in any meaningful way, and so on.

MR. SPEAKER: I find the proposal very interesting. However, it follows logically that if severance were to be put in place in this particular section, it could well be -- and the Chair is not aware -- that other sections of the same bill might fall into the same category, and severance might be suggested for any number of sections. Therefore I would think that the best wisdom I could pass on to the House is that the House is competent, and therefore is able to deal with this situation, and that the opportunity will be here to deal with it.

MR. KING: Mr. Speaker, in the absence of any government explanation of any initiatives that have been taken in light of the union's decision to return to work, I must regretfully challenge your ruling that this in fact constitutes an emergency.

MR. SPEAKER: I think that all members are aware that a particular discretionary decision of the Chair is not subject to appeal. Therefore, if the member wishes to appeal, he would have to find some instrument by which to do that.

MR. KING: Mr. Speaker, I challenge your

[ Page 2818 ]

response to my request for a challenge to your ruling.

MR. SPEAKER: As I understand the situation, hon. members, the challenge is to the ruling that the Chair has the discretion to make decisions without challenge.

Shall the Chair be sustained?

Mr. Speaker's ruling sustained on the following division:

YEAS - 32

NAYS -- 18

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

HON. MR. WILLIAMS: Mr. Speaker, in light of your distinguished ruling, I move that second reading of Bill 46 be considered today.

Motion approved.

HON. MR. GARDOM: Second reading of Bill 46, Mr. Speaker.

WEST KOOTENAY SCHOOLS COLLECTIVE

BARGAINING ASSISTANCE ACT

HON. MR. WILLIAMS: In rising to move second reading of Bill 46, may I say at the outset that I listened very carefully to the remarks of the member for Revelstoke-Slocan (Mr. King) concerning the present situation surrounding the industrial dispute affecting the educational institutions in the West Kootenays and, frankly, I was surprised.

We have had in that area, for six and a half weeks, a strike at Selkirk College and a strike in the Nelson school district. We have had lockouts in the school districts of Castlegar, Grand Forks and Trail. As a result, the learning conditions deteriorated for 15,000 students in 56 elementary and secondary level schools, Selkirk College and the Kootenay School of Art because of the dispute with respect to the resolution of collective agreements affecting about 250 non-teaching staff in the institutions. It is true, or at least it is reported to me as being true, that this morning the union saw fit to lift its strike at Selkirk College and at Nelson. But, that being the case, the lockout nonetheless continued in the school districts of Castlegar, Grand Forks and Trail, and was imposed at Selkirk College.

Now what surprises me about what the member for Revelstoke-Slocan says is that while he admits that an emergency has existed in that area for some 40 days, he suggests that the simple act on the part of the union -- for which they are to be commended -- of lifting their strike is, in itself, sufficient to remove the emergency and to reduce the urgency of the legislation which is before you today. What startles me most, I suppose, is that the member, who was Minister of Labour and highly regarded in this province, seems to have forgotten that in industrial disputes there are two parties who have their own personal interests in each of these disputes, and he seems to have also forgotten that there are other parties who can be affected, not by the actions of one or the other, but by the actions of both.

Yesterday I was advised by Mr. Mercer, a senior provincial official of the Canadian Union of Public Employees of British Columbia, that his union was prepared to end its strike if the employer was prepared to lift the lockout; and if the parties were prepared to resume collective bargaining; and if the Minister of Labour would appoint into the collective bargaining process a high-level mediator. It was also his request that I communicate the union's position to the employers. This was done.

At 11 o'clock last evening I had not heard from the employers and I so advised Mr. Mercer. And although I was in.... Well, perhaps to be absolutely correct -- I see the member shaking his head -- one of the senior officials of the ministry so advised Mr. Mercer. I remained in my office for some considerable hours following 11 o'clock and no response was received from the employer. That is the situation.

It may be suggested by the member that more should have been done. But I assume that he is

[ Page 2819 ]

also aware that throughout Monday and Tuesday extended meetings took place between me and the parties, at which, as a matter of fact, the method of resolution proposed by the union was also proposed to them and to the Employer, and rejected by both. The fact that there has been a change in the attitude of the union is, as I said earlier, commendable. But it does not remove the urgency by that act alone, nor does it remove the urgency of this bill.

Free collective bargaining is the process by which disputes between employers and trade unions bargaining on behalf of their employees are resolved in this jurisdiction. That is the position which this government takes and will continue to take. The legislation in this province dealing with labour relations matters supports that view, and the services of the Ministry of Labour are made available where necessary to assist the parties in that process. It is, I think, a matter of record and something which should be highly regarded that in this province the process of free collective bargaining has functioned and is functioning today. Statistics collected by the ministry disclose that throughout the past two years more than 95 per cent of all collective agreements have been negotiated and settled through that process without work stoppage. Would that it were that the record had always been such.

For those that were not settled without work stoppage in the past two years, the eventual resolution of those remaining disputes, has been made possible with the efforts, skill and experience of the mediation officers made available to the parties by the ministry plus, in a few instances, the use of distinguished industrial relations people appointed as third parties into those disputes. But in the resolution of all those matters, whether there was a dispute or not, there has been one thread common to them all, and that was a willingness on the part of both parties in the negotiations to seek and achieve resolution through the collective bargaining process.

It is with some regret that I advise you, Mr. Speaker, that such has not been the case with respect to the bargaining, such as it is, between CUPE and the B.C. School Trustees Association, which is accredited as the bargaining agent for the employers in the five areas I have mentioned. These parties have been in a bargaining stance since April, 1978. Proposals were made and rejected; extensive mediation services have been provided without success. A strike was called in two of the units, a lockout in three, and the educational system was affected, and yet when I requested the assistant director of mediation services, Mr. Clark Gilmour, to give me an assessment of the issues between these parties in those five areas, I found following the assessment of three that nothing in the sense of meaningful collective bargaining had taken place. I am not casting criticism at one party or the other; I find from my examination into the matter, and that of the officials of the ministry, that each of them bears the blame.

Now while free collective bargaining is the process by which interest disputes are resolved in this province, a right which is extended to employers and trade unions in this province, it is not now, nor has it been in the past, considered acceptable for the parties to use that right without regard for the consequences which may befall others than the parties affected by the use of such rights. Most assuredly, it has not been found acceptable for such a situation to exist when those who are affected are innocent in any respect in the matters, and where those who are affected have no alternative to obtain the services which are denied as a result of work stoppages flowing from the inflexible, rigid application of those individual rights of the parties. This legislature, under this government and the previous government, and other legislatures have had occasion to intervene when the adherence to the rights perceived by the parties do have the effect of which I have made mention. Surely, Mr. Speaker, such is the case here.

When I met with the parties -- first the employer on Monday, secondly the union on Tuesday, and later with both parties from time to time -- it was made clear to me that each had preconditions which seriously interfered with the achievement of the goal of free collective bargaining. The Employer is represented by the British Columbia School Trustees Association, which is accredited under the laws of this province, for the five employer groups. It took the position that in the resolution of contract differences affecting the college and the four school districts, not until a memorandum of settlement was reached with respect to all five units would there be any contract signed, nor would the lockout be lifted. That was a precondition to settlement. For the union, it had a precondition, as well. It wouldn't go to the table and bargain unless the employer agreed that they would bargain with each individual unit separately, sign a separate agreement and lift the lockout in each of the five units, one by one. So its precondition was one of a precondition to bargaining.

So between these two positions, Mr. Speaker, you have the walls, the barriers erected by

[ Page 2820 ]

these parties which prevented them from getting to the issues, from getting to the table and doing anything which could be called meaningful collective bargaining. That's the reason for the strike and that's the reason for the lockout.

After hours of meetings earlier this week, both parties, as I say, remained rigid, inflexible in their attitudes. Having proposed to the parties a method -- one method -- by which the walls might be torn down and the matter brought to a conclusion, I was advised by the union representative that in rejecting the proposal, the union believed there was only one way of getting a settlement, and that was to continue the picketing, to continue the strike until the pressure had increased upon the employers to such a degree that they would be forced back to the table and into a settlement.

For the employers, strangely enough, the situation was not the same. In fact, they were unclear in their statements to me as to how they saw the matter being resolved. They did indicate, however, quite clearly that negotiation would be too costly to them and, therefore, that the negotiation method remained foreclosed.

Now were this a dispute between other groups, where the impact of the dispute would be felt directly by the employer and by the employees, perhaps such a situation might be acceptable -- perhaps. But in this case, Mr. Speaker, that was not the case. The impact of the strike and the lockout was felt directly, seriously by the students in the educational institutions in the West Kootenays. I was aware, through the officials of the Ministry of Education and through meetings with the teachers from Nelson and Trail, precisely how serious it was for those students. Above average students were seriously affected. Below average students were seriously affected. Students hoping to write scholarship examinations inside the next 30 days were probably in a position where their opportunities for success in those exams would be significantly diminished. The poor student who needs additional assistance in the school was unable to get it because of the timetable that was enforced upon the teaching staff through the disruption of the facilities of the school.

When I speak of the teachers, Mr. Speaker, I should say that they are entitled to the respect of the people in the West Kootenays, because in spite of this difficult dispute, they made the decision to continue to offer their services to ensure that the students got every opportunity for their education that could be made available. That continued unabated until in the latter part of the fifth and sixth week of the dispute, the picketing was escalated to such an extent that the teachers were concerned about what might occur to them, to the students and to the picketers if this situation were allowed to continue.

The teachers advised me and the Minister of Education (Hon. Mr. McGeer) , who was present at the same meeting, that the stresses that have been built up amongst the students in the educational system -- the stress they feel at home, the stresses they feel at school, the stress they feel because of the widespread newspaper, radio and television publicity which has been given to this particular dispute -- have had a serious effect upon those children. There is medical opinion from the West Kootenays that some of that stress is very, very serious for young children. I suppose only time will tell how lasting that stress may be upon them and the full effect it will have upon their educational careers.

So, Mr. Speaker, in those circumstances, when the rights of the parties as seen by them are exercised to an extent which impinges upon the rights of others, then I suggest it is appropriate for the government to act and for this Legislature to make known how it views such actions.

It is suggested that what has been done today was done for some political purpose. Well, I trust that when the members of the opposition have their opportunity in this debate, they will make it abundantly clear to the people in the West Kootenays and to the people through the length and breadth of this province precisely where they stand in these matters. Are they prepared to let two parties to an industrial dispute exercise their own individual, personal rights, employing such tactics as they may think appropriate for their own personal ends in such a way that school students in this province may have their health affected, may lose educational opportunity, may bring about stresses in the school system breakdowns in morale, drops in discipline and the loss of one, perhaps more than one, school year?

We have at Selkirk College some nurses and it is suggested that some of them may lose their entire year. We have a group of students from Selkirk College who are so distressed about this that with their limited funds they have hired a lawyer. They want to sue somebody. They're not quite sure who it is...

MS. BROWN: Sue the Premier.

[ Page 2821 ]

HON. MR. WILLIAMS: ... but that's how concerned they are. They think that their personal rights, their entitlement to education in British Columbia has been interfered with and that they have been damn ed as a result of this matter.

Interjection.

HON. MR. WILLIAMS: Yes, I noticed that the member for Point ... no, she doesn't come from Point Grey.

AN HON. MEMBER: Madan Runges.

HON. MR. WILLIAMS: Yes, the first member for Vancouver-Runges. She thinks it's funny. She suggests that the students are going to sue the Premier. Well, Mr. Speaker, I would suggest that if there is delay in the passage of this bill, if continued opportunity in the school system in the West Kootenays; is denied to these students, perhaps they might take a look at the Votes and Proceedings in this House and bring their action against those members who vote against this bill.

I heard the member for Revelstoke-Slocan (Mr. King) muttering as he usually does. I can see he is getting tuned up for his usual speech. I can tell you members, through you, Mr. Speaker, what it will be. He'll tell you all about the philosophy of industrial relations in this province. His philosophy will take about two and a half minutes and the rest of it will be spent in personal invective and diatribe against members of this side of the House. It's typical of the member. I just ask you to watch and note very carefully.

I was looking in Hansard the other day and I found a very interesting comment. A distinguished minister stood in this House and with a long and sad face said: "Mr. Speaker, it is regrettable that there is a need to bring this before the House and summon the House together for it. Collective bargaining has been working fairly well, and I think the Legislature should not be unduly gloomy over the fact that we, from time to time, may well have to meet to come to grips with a dispute that creates an emergency in this province."

AN HON. MEMBER: Author! Author!

HON. MR. WILLIAMS: Author? Well, that was said on August 9,1974, by the Hon. Mr. King, who is now the member for Revelstoke-Slocan. I'll tell you, Mr. Speaker, it sure is different in 1978.

Collective bargaining in British Columbia has been working tremendously in 1978. Those responsible trade union leaders and responsible employer representatives who are engaged in industrial relations have nothing to be gloomy about in this province. They've got everything to be proud about, and therefore it is a real tragedy that this House must be summoned today to come to grips with one particular dispute where these parties cannot put aside their own personal interests and get a solution to an agreement which has been staring them in the face for months. That's what the tragedy is.

I agree that from time to time we may well have to meet to come to grips with a dispute that creates an Emergency in this province. Mr. Speaker, we support the free collective bargaining process. We will do everything we can to encourage it. We'll supply every means we can to assist the parties to the dispute, but if those individuals don't carry out their responsibilities in the true meaning of free collective bargaining, then we will have no hesitation to bring this House together to deal with the settlement of those issues, and that's what Bill 46 does, Mr. Speaker. Forty eight hours from royal assent to this bill, whether the union has lifted its strike or not, that dispute will come to an end, the lockout will be gone, and so will the strike. They will be gone in such a way that there will be no resumption of that lockout or strike until those parties have a new collective agreement and that collective agreement has, in turn, expired. We will provide them with special mediation assistance to enable them to pursue the purposes of free collective bargaining, something they haven't done for eight months, and if that is not good enough, then we will use the ultimate weapon, which is compulsory binding arbitration on those parties.

MR. EAMES: The ultimate solution!

HON. MR. WILLIAMS: No, it wasn't the ultimate solution. As a matter of fact, Mr. King, when he spoke on the Essential Services Continuation Act in 1974, said he 'was bringing about a "final solution' to the problem -- and you know who said that one last.

Mr. Speaker, it is time for the members to stand up and be counted on this issue. We've been here before and, I suppose, in the fullness of our expectations, we will be here again to deal with some of these matters. But this is not to be seen as action by this government opposed to the trade union movement, or to the employers in this province, because they're doing their job with our assistance when it is required. We expect them

[ Page 2822 ]

to continue to do so, in the full knowledge and with the full knowledge of the people of the province of British Columbia that when they fail there is somebody else who is prepared to stand ready to help.

Mr. Speaker, I move second reading of Bill 46.

MR. BARRETT: Mr. Speaker, I want to inform you that I am not the designated speaker on behalf of our group, and I would just like to take five minutes and then go into the rest of my remarks after the members, after an exhausting morning, have the necessary recess so that their mental processes won't be strained too much with this unusual pressure and will allow them to continue with their work.

Mr. Speaker, I first of all want to congratulate the two new cabinet ministers. This is my first opportunity to do so. I am somewhat embarrassed to have to do this. The whole protocol of the House has been abandoned today. It has been the initiative of this side of the House to do the necessary protocol things, and on top of that they don t even welcome the two new cabinet ministers. But since I'm the Leader of the Opposition I might as well ruin that atmosphere by expressing my regrets to the more brilliant, younger, aggressive members who are still sitting in the back bench. Mr. Speaker, I want to say that the Premier's judgment has been negatively reflected by himself on his own position. He's the only one that's been moved down in the bench, and I think it's appropriate.

Mr. Speaker, before I go into the main burden of what I have to say, I must address myself just to a few remarks made by the Minister of Labour, a man who I'm sure would never attempt to mislead the House. So I would like to clarify what I think I heard him say, and what I understand to be the position of the opponents in this dispute. It was always my understanding that the position of the employers was that if the employees lifted the strike, they'd lift the lockout. That's right. As a matter of fact, I even saw a spokesperson of the employers' position interviewed on television as late as the evening of last night, saying that indeed was her position. But the minister, perhaps unfortunately, left the impression in this House that the position of the employer was that it would not only be just lifting the strike, but there would have to be a signed contract as well. That new condition only came about, Mr. Speaker, a matter of hours before we began to sit. That was never a condition before the union backed down.

If we are to believe these pious statements of the minister's concern for children.... I believed them yesterday when the Premier made those bleating comments that we must get the children back to work. I believed them and I went and told the unions that I thought that the Premier meant it, and that they should get those children back to school and the employees back to work. Yes, pupils work in school. Mr. Speaker, I find it most interesting if we believe those pleading, bleeding concerns about children, that I have yet to hear that the Minister of Labour has gone to the Minister of Education and spoken to him about the health effect, the loss of educational opportunity, the drop in discipline and the loss in time for the handicapped children of this province who have had services cut off by this government. There's not a member of this Legislature who has not had complaints about the cutback in services to handicapped children that will do damage for the rest of their lives, Mr. Speaker, so I find it somewhat cynical, hypocritical and unnecessary for the minister to lay that phony trip on us. You don't isolate children if you're worried. Tell that minister to restore services to handicapped children, and restore their stress quotient and their health needs.

Mr. Speaker, I don't want everybody to get worked up before lunch; it might affect our health and our work stress and our educational opportunity, so I move that we adjourn debate until the next sitting of the House, later today.

Hon. Mr. Gardom moves adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

The House adjourned at 12:59 p.m.

[ Page 2823 ]

The House met at 1:42 p.m.

HON. MR. GARDOM: Mr. Speaker, adjourned debate on second reading of Bill 46.

WEST KOOTENAY SCHOOLS COLLECTIVE

BARGAINING ASSISTANCE ACT

(continued)

MR. BARRETT: Mr. Speaker, I understand this is an Emergency situation. I guess then another emergency came up.

MR. MACDONALD: The emergency's disappeared.

MR. BARRETT: It disappeared a day ago.

I want to comment specifically on some quotes that I have here from the Minister of Labour. I wrote very quickly, and if I'm incorrect, then of course I'd appreciate the Minister of Labour saying that I was incorrect.

I did say that I heard the Minister of Labour say that the bargaining conditions by the trustees included a settled agreement. The Minister of Labour acknowledged that that was a position that was shifted as of Thursday, but up to that point the only public condition of a return to work that I had heard by the school trustees was that if the union would lift the strike, they would lift the lockout. That is indeed what I saw a spokesperson for the school board say on television just last night.

But then we discover that it wasn't the school board that was bringing in new conditions. As a matter of fact, Mr. Speaker, we found that according to the statements of the spokesperson for the school trustees, they were responding to conditions brought in by the Premier of the province. One reads this account in the newspapers where it says: "The trustees refused to accept the role of the heavy. 'Until this morning we were prepared to lift the lockout if the CUPE lifted the strike' " -- that, presumably, was this very morning, Friday December 8 -- "said BCSTA staff representative Gary Cleave. 'But the lifting of the lockout or the strike would be irrelevant now because Premier Bill Bennett plans to call the Legislature into session ."

What did the Premier say to the school trustees that brought about their change of position? Did they know something from the Premier or from the Minister of Labour that no one else knew? What was it that brought about the dramatic change after the union said that they would go back to work? At the very least, it was the meddling of the government, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, the unions charged their position. The Premier of this province pleaded to both sides to re-examine their position and to change their position. The unions' response to the Premier's challenge and request was to change their position, but the Premier didn't change his position. As a matter of fact, he only encouraged the employers to change theirs to a much stronger point. There's no emergency. All you were doing was uniting for a calculated time to bring in section 11, under the guise of any issue that came along during the day.

Mr. Speaker, another comment that the minister made was that he sat in his office and waited. I want to know if he had the lights on and if the door was open. He sat in the office and waited. Did he pick up the phone and call the school trustees and say: "I'm here in my office and I want to meet you in my office and I want to meet the unions in my office."? Did he do that? No! After he checked his lottery tickets, he left a light on and hoped something else would come up.

Mr. Speaker, there was no aggressive move made by the Minister of Labour after the union shifted its position to call those two representatives into his office and say: "Now that there's been a break, let's get on with it. Let's get on with negotiations." The union said publicly that they would welcome such negotiations. I challenge the Minister of Labour to tell the people of British Columbia why he didn't call the two parties into his office yesterday afternoon and last night, Mr. Speaker. He wasn't doing his duty -- or was he told by the Premier: "Don't bother any more -we I re going ahead anyway."?

As a matter of fact, I understood that one radio report said, quoting the Minister of Labour, that "it didn't matter whether the two sides got together or not, we were still going ahead with calling this session." Is that correct? Yes -- the minister nods his head. Then don't tell us in this House that you united in your office at nighttime for them to call you. They heard you say it wouldn't matter whether they called you or not. You already staked that position out on the air hours before. What's the point of your sitting in your office waiting for them to call if you told them: "It doesn't matter if you change your position, we're going into the House and we're going to have this legislation anyway."? What kind of a position is that for a Minister of Labour? You had your chance to explain why you didn't call them in. You left this House with the impression that you were available to

[ Page 2824 ]

hear from them, but before you said that you were available to hear from them, you let the whole world know, including both their sides, that it didn't matter if you heard from them or not, you were still going ahead with the legislation anyway.

Why aren't those schools open today? There's the reason right over there that those schools aren't open today.

You know, Mr. Minister, I find it incomprehensible that you could come into this House and try and plead that you were available to bring the sides together when you have just acknowledged that you told the press that whether the sides got together or not, you were still going ahead with this bill. Don't come in here and tell us a pious work-hard story about you being available in your office. What's the point of you being available in your office? You'd already made it clear that it didn't matter whether they contacted you or not.

What else do you avoid by unconscious omission in your comments in defending this bill? You didn't point out to this House that you knew that the union had changed its position. You knew that on Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday when you spoke to us about how you met with both sides, and how you had found that they were intransigent and they hadn't changed. Then you admit that yesterday you learned that the union had changed their position, that someone from your department as I understand -- you said it here in this House -- contacted someone from CUPE. Did you not say that you talked to Mr. Cramer or Mr -Mercer? Wasn't t that in the Blues today? Did I hear wrong? Was it one of your high officials or someone in your department? That's what you said.

He was in touch, through you, Mr. Speaker, with that high official from your office. You knew that the union had changed its position, that it was willing to lift the strike and go back to work. Once having heard that position from the union, I ask you to explain to the people of British Columbia why you didn't call the employers into your office immediately because the situation had changed.

[Mr. Rogers in the chair-]

It's no good to say you could not get a break on Monday, Mr. Speaker. It's no good to say you couldn't get a break on Tuesday. It's no good to say you couldn't get a break on Wednesday as the excuse why you didn't deal with the break that came on Thursday. You didn't want the break. Once you and this government had set the course to call this House back together and play what you saw to be a strong political hand, you were totally unprepared for one side to break their rigidity and respond to what was, perhaps, an unmeant public appeal by the Premier to back down and get those kids back to school. Because once the unions did shift their position, Mr. Speaker, once the unions did notify -- and the minister admits that he was aware of it -- once that position was shifted, the minister admits that he said: "I did say on the press it doesn't matter. We're going ahead with the legislation anyway." Then he says he was in his off ice with the lights on waiting to hear from somebody. There was no point in them contacting him. He had no desire whatsoever to solve this so-called emergency. He needed it to bring in this bill today.

You've got a lot of explaining to do to the trade union movement and the management in this province as to your lack of action in this dispute because it may, indeed, signal your absence in your role in future disputes depending on what you need for political. purposes dictated by the Premier of this province.

Yesterday before I left for work in my office I turned on the television and I saw the Premier of this province state this government's position on this dispute. During that statement -- and it was still over, Mr. Speaker -- the Premier of this province was asked a question in terms of "is there still time?" I heard him say to everybody in this province and the two sides in the dispute: "There is still time to avoid this, if they can get those children back to school." What the Premier of this province said was that his only concern was to get those children back to school. I believed him.

I went to the unions involved and said: "The Premier of this province has asked you to change your position to get those children back to school." It took me some while to convince the unions that they had a responsibility to change their position. They did change their position, and then once they changed their position, the whole atmosphere changed. The Premier charged his position through the Minister of Labour and said: "It doesn't matter; we're going to call the House anyway." The bluff was called. It was the intention of the government weeks ago to allow this dispute to come to this point so they would have a cover to bring in section 11, which is certainly not an emergency issue at this time.

Mr. Speaker, the one ingredient they did not expect was for the union to respond to what they believed was a true call from the Premier

[ Page 2825 ]

to change their position. Up to now no union had responded to such a call, so he figured it was safe to make that call based on the pious concern for the children of the province. If that pious concern were real, he would have responded to the union's change of position, and the Premier, as well as the Minister of Labour, would have made sure that those children were in school today.

Mr. Speaker, when he was asked about the union shifting its position, the Premier is quoted in the newspaper - and if I am correct and the newspaper is correct, I would welcome the Premier to change that -- "Well, they may have changed their position but they might go on strike again after Christmas." What kind of faith is that in the working people or the employing people of the province of British Columbia? What kind of attitude is that to display after making an appeal to both sides to change their position? One side does change their position and he said: "Well, I can't accept it. You've listened to my appeal but you might change your mind later on."

That is a statement by a person who is either cynical or doesn't trust the citizens of British Columbia when they gave a commitment. I think it's a little combination of both. I think there is an overtone of cynicism around Social Credit, and a basic mistrust of human beings, Mr. Speaker, a basic mistrust.

I believe that this has been a calculated, strategic programme by this government. The one thing they didn't expect is that one of the players in the game, as they set it out, changed their mind and challenged in response to the Premier's challenge: "Yes, we're willing to go back to work; yes, we want the children to go back to school; yes, we'll listen to the Premier's call; yes, we're ready to talk." once they changed their position you were mightily embarrassed and you scrambled for cover, and you've been scrambling for cover ever since.

What is the weight of evidence that shows that this has been a thoughtful plan to do some bashing of public sector employees? What would you think of someone who would say such things as this? "Higher wages for government employees will increase the supply of applicants in the public sector. Finally, the bidding upwards of employee standards may become excessive and attract highly qualified talent which might be better employed in the private sector."

Mr. Speaker, who would go around saying that if we give better wages in the public sector, we might get more intelligent people working in the bureaucracy, and as a consequence, they should be not pulled out of the private sector; we want all the less qualified and the dummies to work for us at low wages? What an attitude! Who would say such a thing?

Well, I want to read this whole statement to you, and then I'll tell you who is the author of this statement and where it was said, and I want every single public servant worker in a jail, in a school, in a hospital, working with children, working with senior citizens, working in retirement homes, or planning highways, or delivering emergency services during floods, not to listen to this statement. All the 43,000 people who do a magnificent job of work in every department that the cabinet boasts about on behalf of the people of British Columbia, I don't want them to listen to what a certain politician thinks about them.

It The twin considerations of economic efficiency and equity provide some guidelines for appropriate public sector compensation. Economic efficiency requires that government jobs be given to those who perform satisfactorily at the lowest wage costs to their employers, the taxpayers. Higher public sector wages mean first that the government sector is more expensive and therefore that taxes or deficits must be higher than would otherwise be necessary."

That is, anybody who works for the government should subsidize that job just by the fact that they got it. Then the statement goes on to say:

"Second, higher wages for government employees will increase the supply of applicants for public sector employment. Finally, the bidding upwards of employee standards may become excessive and attract highly qualified talent which might be better employed in the private sector."

Don't apply to be a deputy minister. You're better off, if you've got talent, to go somewhere else, and we should design our wage policy to get that. And who is that by? That is the position of none other than Premier Bill Bennett, British Columbia's position given at the federal-provincial conference in February, 1978, Mr. Speaker. That is the declared position of the Premier of this province.

MS. BROWN: That explains the cabinet!

MR. BARRETT: That explains the cabinet? That's why some of the backbenchers didn't apply. They knew they weren't wanted, based on the Premier's philosophy, Mr. Speaker. "We don't want any talent around here; we only want the "yes" boys to be %tipped into line."

[ Page 2826 ]

That's your statement. It goes on again in other statements that echo the same sentiments. When you spoke at the federal-provincial conference, the same federal-provincial conference in February, 1978, the transcripts revealed your latitude towards public sector controls. You believed in section 11 all along, and you've just been waiting for the opportunity to attempt to bulldoze it through the House. You used the children in the West Kootenays as a political device for your own ends, and that's obvious, Mr. Speaker. That's obvious.

Mr. Speaker, if what I say was not correct, those students would be back in school today because the Minister of Labour would have been instructed to get the-in back in school today. Oh, foolish me, to have believed that our Premier, for once, was being sincere on television. Every political move is made and calculated based on polling public attitudes and his own political survival. Philosophy about concern for children! I've never yet seen him tap the wrist of the former Minister of Human Resources (Hon. Mr. Vander Zalm) about the fact that children are under tremendous emotional stress, tremendous health strains on inadequate diets caused by your welfare scales.

To use the words of the Minister of Labour, who has now found a new deep concern for children, I've never heard you admonish the Minister of Education for cutting off services to handicapped children to add to their stress and their damage and their health. It's a cold, calculating political move to use a labour dispute to wrap an emotional appeal around children to find an attitude...to approach bringing in a separate section that's got nothing to do with this bill to take on the union for political purposes.

Had the trade unions involved not stepped back from their strike position, none of this would have been revealed. But, Mr. Speaker, let me tell you, once the union said yes, we will lift our strike, the whole strategy of the government fell apart like a house of cards, and they've been running from the press, the television and statements ever since.

Mr. Speaker, on an important debate like this it is normal even for cameras to be in the House. A decision was made by the Speaker: no cameras in the House today. This is perhaps more important than budget day. I wonder if cameras will show up on budget day.

I don't want to be cynical, but I tell you every single calculated move by this government leaves me very little option other than to analyse their cynicism.

You've been caught, you've been embarrassed, but you have another feeling that you cannot overcome, and that is a matter between the government and its leader, and is a question of stubbornness.

It's three years from the day that this side of the House lost and that side won with such great promise and hope, as they said in their campaign speeches to the people of British Columbia, three years almost to the day. Every day they've been in office they've seen a gradual but continuous decline in their support from people who believe in them as a government.

We saw the Premier trying to fly an issue earlier this fall to call an election. We saw the Premier of this province trying a pious call about concern for children two days ago. We've seen the naked exposure of the cynicism of that position, when a responsible union abandoned its bargaining position -- unheard of in negotiated circumstances -- and said, "We will go back to work without a contract because of the Premier's appeal, " only to discover that the Premier was using them as political pawns, and he had no desire at all to see this matter resolved unless he brought this section 11 in under this bill.

Mr. Speaker, I charge the Premier of this province with failing to do his duty in following up after he made his commitment on television that all he wanted was those children to go back to school. I tell you that he failed to do his duty by ordering the Minister of Labour to order the school trustees and the union in his office right after the union said that they would lift their strike.

I tell you that the Premier of this province is derelict in his duty. He cynically used that statement on television, wrapped himself around the pious attitude of being concerned about children. When the chips were down, and they were challenged by the union, who responded to the Premier's statement, we found that it was just a hollow, pious position that he thought no one would call his bluff on.

I have said all along that in spite of the so-called opposition to right to work and destruction of collective bargaining from some speakers in Social Credit, the convention of Social Credit wants the destruction of the trade union movement. That may not be the Minister of Labour's position, but it is the position of significant numbers of Social Crediters and significant cabinet ministers. It's a pandering to this attitude that allows the kind of hypocrisy to develop for the Premier to stand up and say: "I'm only worried about the kids." Then the union says, "So are we, " and the Premier says, "You can't be; I'm

[ Page 2827 ]

the only one. You mind your own business."

Mr. Speaker, I tell you this. I have said all along that there has been a process and a procedure and a calculated basis of escalating hostility to separate groups in this province, trying desperately to find an election issue so they can avoid dealing with the real emergencies in British Columbia.

There are 105,000 unemployed in British Columbia; that's an emergency that warrants a debate. Food costs are up 22 per cent in one year; that's an emergency that warrants a debate. Home fuel and gasoline prices are going up again; that's an emergency that warrants a debate.

We have not been called to this House this fall. We are called on a Friday over an issue that has been deliberately set up by the government. When they had a chance to avoid it, they didn't avoid it. We come here for one day to pander to a political position, and we don't deal with the real emergencies that affect every single British Columbian who has worked so hard and struggled to make this great province what it is.

Mr. Speaker, I tell you there is one way to resolve this issue. The Premier has got to stop playing around with the voters of British Columbia like the Prime Minister is playing with the voters of Canada. He can't sniff up to an election and then back off, as he did over the ferry strike. He can't sniff up to an election and back off, as he did during this fall. He can't sniff up to an election and try to find an issue out of this and back of f -That's no way to run a government. I challenge the Premier of this province to put his-record on this issue and on every other issue, no matter what the outcome of the vote is today, because we intend to vote against this bill. Go to the people and let the people decide exactly what they think of the performance of this government.

MR. STEPHENS: I would also like to open my remarks by complimenting and congratulating the two cabinet ministers. I am very pleased to see some fresh faces in the cabinet. I might say that for those members of the back bench that the Leader of the Opposition described as the more brilliant, young and aggressive members, if they really are interested in finding a place in the cabinet, having lunch with me in the appropriate place is very effective. The only thing that I request is that I don't have to pay for the lunch. I think that's a fair request.

HON. MR. WATERLAND: You've stayed too long in the sun.

MR. STEPHENS: This man says that I've stayed too long in the sun. My goodness! Five days? Come on. It was going to be too long except for what is occurring here today.

I might say, Mr. Speaker, that perhaps if the presence of Mr. Fotheringham could be arranged at the same restaurant, I think I would be fair to perhaps charge a little extra for that. In any event, my congratulations go to both of the ministers, and I'm sure they're going to do an excellent job.

I am, Mr. Speaker, I think, probably a little frustrated and exasperated. I think those words probably express better than any the feelings of the people of British Columbia, not only in relation to this particular dispute but in relation to politics generally in this province. The performance that we've seen in the House here today is not unusual. It's a typical continuation of the problem that exists primarily in politics in this province.

We've seen the minister here stand up and be unable to conduct this debate without getting involved in personalities, and we've seen the Leader of the Opposition do precisely the same thing. I'm a little tired of it, quite frankly, and I'm sure that I speak on behalf of the people of this province when I say we're all a little wary of everything being done in this House as being referred to as being done purely for political purposes. There is all kinds of evidence to indicate that that is precisely what is going on here today on both sides.

Mr. Speaker, I get a little concerned when the minister stands before this House and pretends that he is gravely concerned that the rights of the two participants in this dispute are being used against the interests and the rights of other citizens of this province. What I an concerned about, and what I suggest this government should be more concerned about and what the opposition should be more concerned about, are the rights of the thousands and thousands of taxpayers of British Columbia who are picking up the tab for all of this nonsense. The problem with this legislation, although I am going to support it -- I can see no reason not to support it, because it really accomplishes very little other than putting the parties back to work temporarily -- is what are we going to do when this happens again? It will happen again.

The minister, Mr. Speaker, says that these people are abusing their rights, and he steps on the school districts and the school boards and says: "They are abusing their rights." This is very strange talk from this minister, from a government that not too long ago

[ Page 2828 ]

through its Minister of Education, primarily, condemned the school boards of this province for not holding the line on costs, saying: "You've got to be more careful. You've got to bargain harder. You've got to set stricter budgets." They forced the school boards of this province into a hard bargaining position. Then having done that, the minister comes here and says that the school boards are abusing their rights. That is nonsense and that is hypocritical.

Mr. Speaker, what this legislation should do, if this government had any courage at all, is it should put these workers in precisely the same position as the teachers of this province. If this government can tell us that the teachers of British Columbia should not go on strike because it's going to shut down the schools, then how can they allow this small group of workers to shut down the schools? Don't tell us that you believe in free collective bargaining. What you are saying is you believe in free collective bargaining for one group but not for the other. I say let's be consistent. What I say is not going to get any approval from this government or any approval from the official opposition.

This legislation, if it had any guts at all, would put an end to strikes within the school system once and for all so that we won't have to cane back here next year and go through all this again. I know what the minister is going to say. He is going to say: "Well, section 11 will take care of that." Well, section 11 will not take care of that. Section 11 may take care of it for 90 days plus 14, but it's not going to take care of the problem.

We get a little confused, Mr. Speaker, when we talk about rights. We talk about the right to strike; we're a little confused when we talk about that. The right that we have in this country is the right to hire people to go to work, the right to accept that job, and the right to quit and the right to withhold services. When you talk about the right to \, strike, what you're talking about is something that you, through legislation, have given to a certain group of people. But what you've forgotten when you do that is that you have stepped on the toes of the thousands of British Columbians who pick up the tax bill for all of this. What about these thousands of people? The Premier the other day made the reference that he's concerned about the taxpayers' dollars that the taxpayers are sending -- get that! -- are sending to the government. Taxpayers don't send money to the government. The government takes it off them against their will. The government strips that tax dollar off us without our consent, and uses it for a purpose which it presumes we support.

I think it's a fair presumption to say that we do support the school system, and that money, taxpayers' dollars, spent on the educational process is sound. But if that's the case, then those people who pick up that bill are entitled to have uninterrupted service. We're not talking about strikes in the private sector. We're talking about strikes in the public sector. And if you're going to take taxpayers' dollars from them against their will, and use it to provide services to them, then they are entitled to uninterrupted service. So don't come here when it becomes politically advantageous, after that strike and that service has been interrupted unfairly and unnecessarily and improperly for all these weeks, don't have the gall to come here, Mr. Minister, and tell this House that you're concerned about the rights of these students. Where was your concern before, and where will it be again next year?

This is not the only area where this is going to happen. You're going to be faced, as we have been faced in the past, with this problem time and time again, and we're going to be faced with it again. And in the end, no matter how you slice it, Mr. Speaker, some government someday is going to have the courage to do what the people of this province demand. That is that when money is taken from them, from the pay cheque that they earn by the sweat of their brow, then those people are entitled to have at least uninterrupted service for having that money taken off them. Don't come here at this late stage and say: "We suddenly believe in the free collective bargaining system." There is a clear distinction to be made between the free collective bargaining system in the public sector and in the private sector. It exists in the private sector; it's part of the free enterprise system; it always has been. The union movement flourished in a free enterprise system. But you cannot say that that kind of logic applies in the public sector.

Don't talk to me about free collective bargaining in the public sector. You can't say that on one hand and say that you're concerned about what you do with the taxpayers' dollars. People are entitled to uninterrupted service in the public sector, and I don't care whether it is the schools, and I don't care whether it is the government Employees or the teachers or any other part of the public sector. We are entitled to uninterrupted service. Now that does not mean, Mr. Speaker, that the people in these areas are not entitled to fair working conditions, and not entitled to fair income.

Look at the teachers. Without striking

[ Page 2829 ]

they've come from one of the poorest paid professions in this province to the top of the list, almost. They're doing just great. They've done it without strikes.

The minister says: "What's your suggestion?" What I'm saying to you, Mr. Minister, through the Speaker, is that my suggestion is that you recognize it is not necessary to have strikes in the public service to have good service. And if you need any wore evidence, take a look at the Post Office. I haven't seen any improvement in the service in the Post Office since it was given the so-called right to strike. I haven't seen the pride of the public service go up; I've seen it deteriorate.

You talk about freedoms, and freedom to bargain. What this country has right now is the freedom of the government to take money from people against their will, provide services for them, some of which it hasn't even asked for, and then allow those people who are being paid out of that public money to withhold the service on top of that. We must take a different approach. We need a formula. People can work out these problems, but the government should not be taken to the bargaining table. It is not government's job to bargain. It is government's job to govern and to lead. That's what we're doing. We're becoming simply a party in labour disputes, and these labour disputes are not being settled any way at all. So we have to have sessions like this, unnecessary sessions. And the essential services legislation - section 11 is not going to change it, Mr. Speaker. We fool ourselves. That's a band-aid. It's typical of the governments of the day, not just this one, but typical of the governments of the day of this country. A band-aid approach; solve it temporarily; hope it goes away until the election is over, until we regroup, hope we can hold power, and then we can band-aid our way through it again, while taxes go up, and while ministers yell at school boards for not holding the line, and then accuse them of breaching their public duty when they do hold the line. Nonsense! And if this government won't face it, obviously the opposition won't face it; the official opposition knows what side its bread is buttered on. It knows who it has to support. It knows where its funds come from in order to fight elections. But surely this government can do more than slap band-aids on everything that happens.

This is a relatively minor dispute, one which should never have occurred. Arid if you think, Mr. Minister, that you can solve every labour problem in this province simply by increasing the schedule at the end of the Act, by saying more and more and more and more things fall within the ambit of essential services.... Yes, that's what you are doing. That's all you're doing. You're just extending and extending and extending, and you are putting off the inevitable day when you're going to have to make that judgment.

So, Mr. Speaker, I will have to say that all this bill is going to do is accomplish what has already been accomplished, or which could have been accomplished today if we hadn't been here. It's going to put the people back to work and it is going to force them to settle their problems temporarily. But it will spring up again in another industry or another part of the public service, and you are going to be back here again doing the same thing. It's time to put your foot on it. It's time to take control. It's time to show some leadership.

[Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

Mr. Speaker, the problem of this government has been that it simply has felt that all it has to do is defend itself from the political left, beat the political left at its own game, polish up the apple that the political left put on the table, shine up their legislation, keep one step ahead of them. Meanwhile, that great vast majority of the people of this province, who have no representation in this House, the people who pick up the bill -- not the trade union leaders, and not big business that you two parties represent, but the working men and women, the homeowners of this province -- are the ones who are going to pick up the bill for this nonsense.

I say that this government has to show some leadership and some courage. I'll support this bill, of course, simply because it's not going to do any harm, but if you think you are solving the problem, Mr. Minister, I suggest 'you think again.

HON. MR. CHABOT: Mr. Speaker, I listened very attentively while the Leader of the Opposition spoke here a few moments ago. There was a lot of style in that performance; there was a lot of ranting and a lot of raving, but there was very little content. He made a series of hollow statements as well. He talked about the question that CUPE was going to remove the strike from the various schools in the West Kootenays, but he didn't say for what period of time they were prepared to remove the strike. He didn't say that the strike would be removed until such time as a collective agreement had been ratified. So I think that is one of the concerns and that is one of the reasons why this Emergency session has been called together, because there haven't

[ Page 2830 ]

been any clear, definitive positions taken by either side in this dispute. It is completely unresolved, because there haven't been statements by both sides indicating a willingness to bargain until such time as a collective agreement has been reached, during which time the schools will be open.

What this bill does, Mr. Speaker, is provide an orderly mechanism for negotiations to resume. Negotiations have been underway for some considerable time. It's my understanding that negotiations, prior to breakdown, had commenced in April of this year. That's a lengthy period of time in which to resolve a collective agreement. In fact, it should have been resolved without the necessity of the children of the West Kootenays being denied the opportunity of enjoying an education. I think that's the most tragic result of this unresolved dispute: the fact that 15,000 students in the West Kootenay have been denied an opportunity to have an education similar to those other schools that are functioning in the province. School Districts 9, 7, 11, 12, and Selkirk College and Kootenay School of Arts have had either limited education opportunities or been completely shut down.

It's had some very tragic results in the West Kootenays. It's resulted in a decline in attendance. It's affected the morale of the students. It's affected the morale of the teachers and of the parents as well.

You know, not too long ago, an author from Vancouver, Barry Broadfoot, wrote a book called The Ten Lost Years, which is a sad story of the trials and tribulations of the Depression. I hope that there won t be a book written about the one lost year in the West Kootenays.

Mr. Speaker, we know some of the problems that it's creating in the educational system of the West Kootenay at this time, but we won't know the absolute effects until later. How many of the students will fail because of this disruption in education? How many will refuse to repeat because they have failed? How many will give up? We might never know all those answers, Mr. Speaker, and that's the tragedy of this labour dispute.

I I'm rather surprised that the leader of the Liberal Party (Mr. Gibson) hasn't seen fit to speak in this debate. In view of the fact that he hasn't been prepared, I think it's incumbent upon me, Mr. Speaker, to enunciate the position of the Liberal party vis-à-vis this bill, because when the Labour Code of British Columbia was introduced in the fall of

1973.... I might say that at the time, despite the twisted statements of the Leader of the Opposition on the Jack Webster show when he indicated that the Social Credit opposition, the official opposition at the time, did not support the Labour Code of British Columbia, there is no record in this House that will suggest that is true, because we supported anything that would help to improve the labour climate in British Columbia. We felt that anything new, any attempt to improve the climate, we were prepared to support. We supported it, contrary to the blabbing of the Leader of the Opposition around the province.

MR. KING: Who enunciated the Liberal policy -- Allan Williams?

MR. CHABOT: Well, no, it was the Liberal policy and it had to do with a particular section which is relevant to this debate here, Mr. Speaker. It had to do with a particular section of the Labour Code of British Columbia, and it was section 73. Speaking on section 73, I'm not going to quote him entirely -- it's a good statement. He said: "I therefore, Mr. Chairman, would suggest....

MR. GIBSON: Who's speaking?

MR. CHABOT: D.A. Anderson from Victoria, former leader of the Liberal Party of British Columbia, at a time when they had five members. He said:

"I therefore, Mr. Chairman, would suggest that section 73 (1) be amended so we delete the whole thing and put in its place the following words: 'Where a dispute threatens an essential service, either party may apply by giving notice in writing to the minister and to the other party to resolve the matter by arbitration.' At the saw time, we set up and make it clear in our legislation that we are going to have machinery set up to settle essential services disputes without necessarily coming to the floor of the Legislature where passions are inflamed or, indeed, as in the case of Montreal, there may be bodily injury or death resulting from such a work stoppage and where the Emotional climate of the province is not conducive to a rational, dispassionate settlement of a dispute. We are serving notice by putting an amendment of the essential services at the request of either party and that this compulsory arbitration can be worked out beforehand dispassionately and reasonably between the two parties. They can set up a system so that if a crisis does occur, they will have at least established the framework and the machinery to settle and resolve it

[ Page 2831 ]

in the best possible way."

And that's the Liberal position as far as essential services are concerned, Mr. Speaker, and because of the great reluctance of the Leader of the Liberal Party, I thought I might try to establish his position in the event that he does not take his place in this debate.

MR. GIBSON: I'm going to quote your position on parks.

HON. MR. CHABOT: If the Leader of the Liberal Party is still a member of this Legislature when it's reconvened, Mr. Speaker, if he hasn't been dumped and if he isn't going into isolation, he'll have an opportunity to question me fully on statements I've made vis-à-vis my responsibilities as a minister.

MR. SPEAKER: But not during the debate on Bill 46, hon. member.

HON. MR. CHABOT: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker, I had a slight diversion here.

Now I'd like to speak about another subject, Mr. Speaker, of statements that were made here during the Collective Bargaining Continuation Act, Bill 146. It says this:

"I've said on many occasions publicly to the trade union movement and the management groups that no right is absolute, that every right that a citizen holds in this province must be tempered and weighed against the consequences of its exercise to the ultimate on innocent parties and on people directly involved."

HON. MR. MAIR: Who said that?

HON. MR. CHABOT: Well, If I get Lo that.

"We have never stated, although we adhere to collective bargaining principles, that there is an absolute right to indulge in economic warfare, which in many cases flattens and jeopardizes the basic safety, comfort and health of citizens of this province. We are not prepared to stand idly by and watch disputes of this nature wreak unjustified hardship on those directly involved, as well as those indirectly involved."

Now, Mr. Speaker, which Socred made that statement? Was it the member for Omineca (Mr. Kempf) ?

MR. KEMPF: Never!

HON. MR. CHABOT: No, Mr. Speaker, it wasn't a Socred that made that statement; it was Hon. Mr. King, former Minister of Labour of British Columbia. That is his attitude toward essential services. That's his attitude toward labour disputes that affect directly or indirectly the people in this province.

Mr. Speaker, in the area I represent in the province, part of the East Kootenay, there has been a lengthy lockout there that has lasted approximately three months, starting August I this year, and one which has been of tremendous frustration to the students, the parents and, I'm sure, the union reps and the school boards involved. But in all the meetings I've had -- and I've had several with parents in that region -- they were most anxious for the government to intervene in the resolution of that dispute. I'm gratified that it wasn't necessary for the government to get involved in that dispute and that the free collective bargaining process did come to a resolution of that problem.

But I was reminded on numerous occasions, Mr. Speaker, by the parents that schools in British Columbia should be deemed to be essential services. I was reminded also that the resolution of that dispute -- regardless of how -- would not satisfy those parents in that area. They wanted to see the government take some outright action to ensure that there would not be a repetition of that disruptive dispute there. Mr. Speaker, we find that we were fortunate in some respects, even though it was very disruptive to the students and the parents. We were fortunate that we weren't faced with the winter conditions they are faced with in the West Kootenays.

Mr. Speaker, it is important that this bill be passed. It is a bill which I support. It is one which by its passage, I hope, will afford an opportunity to the students of the West Kootenays to commence school again on Monday next.

MR. MACDONALD: Am I allowed to recognize those two new ministers over there, Mr. Speaker, without being out of order? I'd say hello, but it's kind of sad that we have to say hello at this date to our fellow members of the Legislature. We have a Premier who calls us into an emergency session at this time of the year, in December, and with all the problems of the province of British Columbia there has been no fall session, while unemployment has piled up and while the inflation has crept up on the ordinary people.

The Minister of Lands, Parks and Housing

(Hon. Mr. Chabot) has been talking about what this government has done to improve the climate, he said, of labour relations in the province of British Columbia. You know, out

[ Page 2832 ]

there in the Kootenays and all throughout this province of British Columbia there are real human problems in terms of increasing prices, taxes and charges on working families who cannot make both ends meet. That is your contribution, is it, Mr. Minister, to improving the labour climate in the province of British Columbia -- to make the load so intolerable on the ordinary people of this province of British Columbia that you're going to have outbreaks of this kind? The kinds of policies you have been pursuing are a direct cause of industrial unrest.

We are called back and we are told it's an emergency, Mr. Speaker, when we know full well that the Minister of Labour could easily have solved this problem yesterday. No question about it!

HON. MR. WILLIAMS: Quote your sources.

MR. MACDONALD: I quote your own speech. I quote your own words -- that you sat in your office, that you did not reconvene a meeting of the parties that you'd had on Monday and Tuesday last when a new, dramatic opening break was given to you to effect a settlement. You didn't do it. Mr. Speaker, the hon. minister didn't do it. Why? Because as a result of the initiative of the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Barrett) in making possible a breakthrough of this impasse, and negotiations resuming, and a contract with good, hopeful conditions being signed as a result of his initiative, you were determined that you would block any settlement. That's political spite. There is no reason whatsoever why a Minister of Labour worthy of the name should sit in his office and not reconvene a meeting of the parties when a dramatic change had taken place in the situation. Mr. Speaker, that minister didn't even get on the phone; he had a senior official do it, and he stood by and waited for a word.

What really happened last night to confirm the trustees in the change of position whereby even though the union had withdrawn its pickets and was ready to go to work, the trustees refused? What really happened in the middle of the night? We know that the Premier did not want a settlement. We know that the Premier wanted to push this legislation through so that he could introduce section 11, which is a gratuitous, broad swipe at the rights of labour in this province. It is the major part of this bill that we are called into emergency session to discuss. We are supposed to discuss that without the time limits, under rule 83, even by stages, and run it right through. It has nothing to do with the dispute in the West Kootenays. It is another gratuitous attempt to whittle away the rights of labour -- nickel and dime those rights of labour away.

Why was that section introduced? I don't see this government for one minute moving against the privileged international companies. I see the Premier ruining down to Ottawa and saying that British Columbia supports that the Canadian people should pay the international oil companies the Arab price for oil, which was $3 a barrel just a little while ago, and which has now gone up to $13, with the company profits never higher. The Premier fuels that particular fire of inflation, which means higher home heating bills for the people working in the West Kootenays and throughout all of this province, and which means higher gasoline prices.

You have a government across there that doesn't give a darn for what's happening to the working people of this province. How can you expect them to do other than try to defend the rights of their family to take home a paycheque that will make ends meet? That's what they are doing. How can you do other than expect that that will happen? You've added to inflation in this province in the last three years on a scale which is simply unbelievable. Instead of giving us some kind of relief, or instead of calling back the Legislature into session, the Premier goes off and he says that what Canada needs is an expanded new Senate -a big, new Canadian Senate with greater powers, appointed by the provincial government so that, I suppose, he could put Dan Campbell and other people in that Senate. I don t want to joke about the thing.

I really think that nothing has contributed to the problems of this province like the inflation that this government has foisted upon ordinary people, piling up surpluses in the Crown corporations -- aver $500 million in reserves in ICBC -- and then charging the people who are out on strike in the West Kootenays with another increase in their automobile insurance premiums. They have to drive. They come from distances, and they go to the school or wherever they do their work, and they have to drive. You just add another $30 on them, with those reserves being built up. You say you are not the authors of of the problems of the province of British Columbia. When have you ever touched the vested interests or the privileged groups in this province? This government has been like a mother to them.

HON. MR. HEWITT: When are you going to deal with the bill?

[ Page 2833 ]

MR. MACDONALD: I'm dealing with the so-called improved climate of labour relations that the last minister spoke about. I'm saying that no government in three years' time has ever caused more problems for the working people of this province than that Social Credit government.

There has been no comparable period in the history of any province in Canada where the rates of taxation and service and tolls and charges and oil prices and the whole bunch have gone up so dramatically and ruthlessly as they have under this government in the past three years. When you got a chance to settle this dispute -- when the Minister of Labour only had to call those people into his office, and the children would have been back at school today -- they said: "No, we've gone far enough that we'll take this opportunity to give labour section ll, " and nickel and dime away the rights of labour -- not by one fell swoop of the knife, but little by little, leading up to right-to-work legislation. Oh, they won't do it with the surgeon's knife, they won't do it boldly and frankly, but they'll do it little by little. Those are the people who have to defend their living standards in the times that we are living through and with the kind of government that is being provided opposite as they've never had to defend them before. That's the bill.

Section 11 is the biggest part of this bill. It has nothing to do with the emergency in the West Kootenays. Nothing at all! And yet you snuck that in. We are being asked as a Legislature to rubber-stamp that kind of a section without proper debate and without advance notice. We got the bill this morning. What it means in effect is that you are applying essential services legislation to the whole of the public sector, and you are doing that just as a little section at the end of this bill.

The Liberal leader was quite right, you know. Whatever you may do, surely that should have been. debated with time, and under the rules of the Legislature, where you give notice and you proceed stage by stage from day to day. I think this is a sad day to see this kind of thing happening in the province of British Columbia. I think it is the stubbornness of one man that is really responsible for it, and I blame the Premier in that respect. It's quite obvious he's interfered in these negotiations, and said: "This thing is going ahead anyway; love said so." I don't think he gives a darn for collective bargaining, and I don't think he gives a darn for the living standards of the working people of this province of British Columbia. He's just determined to enforce on this province the kind of labour legislation he wants, little by little, bit by bit. If they cared really for the students in this dispute, the students would be back in school today.

This opposition wasn't responsible for the 42 days, and we're not responsible for today; the Minister of Labour is, and the Minister of Labour last night took his instructions from the Premier of the province of British Columbia, and that Premier said: "Stonewall. We don't want a settlement. I want section 11. I'm going to have section 11, and I'm the Premier, and I call the ministers in and I give them 20-minute interviews, starting at 11 o'clock on Sunday morning, one after the other like this." He's training the cabinet, as he said once that he'd train this Legislature, and he's trying to train the people of B.C. If there is an emergency in this province, and we're told there is, Mr. Speaker, that emergency is sitting in the Premier's chair.

MR. KEMPF: Before getting into debate on Bill 469 1 too would like to congratulate all of my colleagues in their new positions in cabinet, and in particular the two new cabinet ministers, the member for Burnaby-Willingdon (Hon. Mr. Veitch) and the member for Skeena (Hon. Mr. Shelford) . I'm sure that the addition of one additional northern member to cabinet will be well recognized.

I stand in my place today to speak strongly on BI-11 46, but in so doing -- and I will probably raise wonderment on both sides of the floor -- I feel within me that it is too little, too late for thousands of students in four of our province's school districts and Selkirk College, some of whom have lost complete semesters and, in some cases, as it was said earlier, complete years -- possibly more than one year -- because of yet another ridiculous work stoppage in this province. It's too late for those students to regain in this school year that which they have lost, because once again in our society, due to a labour-management dispute, a third party had to suffer.

I ask the question here today: when are we going to learn in this province that we can no longer in our interdependent society afford the luxury of such disputes? Because such disputes and stoppages, whether they be strikes or lockouts, hurt many more than just those who are directly involved. In this case, involving CUPE and school boards, it has hurt thousands of students. In the case of other situations, such as, for instance, the Gibralter Mine strike and lockout now in its fifth month, it has hurt not only the 400-odd workers and their families in Williams Lake, 200

[ Page 2834 ]

of whom have had to move away and look elsewhere for jobs in order to feed their families, but, in addition, four times that many of our citizens who are indirectly dependent on that particular operation for at least part of their livelihood.

This dispute in the West Kootenays is just another indication of the need in this province of British Columbia for some control over these kinds of goings on. Our people want it, and they expect responsible government to give it to them, and I agree with them. The time has passed when responsible government can ignore them in this need. I said it's too late, and I mean it. We should have had the intestinal fortitude in this Legislature to do it six weeks ago. In fact, had this Legislature heeded the words which I uttered some months ago when speaking in favour of the Essential Services Dispute Act, all this here today could have been avoided. All this cost to the taxpayer of this province for the calling of a special session of the Legislature could have been avoided. I called at that time, and I call here again today, for legislation which will allow government to designate not only those in the public sector, but also those in the private sector as essential services in this province. We are all British Columbians; work stoppages and wage and tax losses affect all of us. Therefore none of us can be considered above the rest.

I have also said of this bill before us today that it is too little; I believe that also. As I travel throughout the length and breadth of not only my constituency of Omineca, but of this province, I get the distinct feeling that the mood is changing. There is more initiative amongst our citizens; they do not want to be out of work. They want, in fact, to be on the job, to provide a secure situation for themselves and their families. They have learned full well, Mr. Speaker, that to be locked out or on strike doesn't provide them with the standard of living to which they are accustomed. The wives and the families no longer want that type of insecurity, the type of insecurity which labour disputes inevitably bring. The workers of this province want security, the type of security that only continual operation can bring.

The Leader of the Opposition can get up, as he did before the B.C. Federation of Labour convention and as he did again here today, and try desperately to put the fear of God into workers in this province by saying that the Social Credit Party will surely do in the labour movement in this province by bringing in right-to-work. Well, Mr. Speaker, I give the workers and all of the people of this province of ours more credit than that. They know the path on which labour-management relations have been treading in the last few years, and they know it has not been right. They know full well that this path has gained them nothing but financial hardship after months, in many cases, of very bitter dispute. They want a change. They want leadership and direction which will take them from this disastrous non-initiative path. They want legislation such as Bill 46.

You laugh, Mr. Member. That is precisely what this bill will do. It may be too little and too late, hon. members, but at least it is a step in the right direction. Mr. Speaker, I believe that the majority of the people in this province, whatever rhetoric the Leader of the Opposition wants to spout, want this government and want this kind of legislation. We are here to lead. Let us get on with the job of leading. Let us give back to students of the West Kootenays their education. Let us give Bill 46 swift passage.

MS. SANFORD: I would like to add my congratulations to the newly appointed members to the cabinet.

Last night I was watching George Dobie being interviewed on CKVIJ, channel 13, out of Vancouver. Most of the members of the Legislature will recognize that George Dobie is an experienced observer of the labour scene in this province, and has for a number of years analysed and commented on what has been happening in labour relations. He was a guest on the programme last night and was asked the question: "In view of the fact that the unions have agreed to go back to work, why is the Legislature then being recalled in order to discuss legislation?" George Dobie said in response to that question: "It's hardly understandable." I have to concur with Mr. Dobie's assessment -- it's hardly understandable. It was not until I had a look at Bill 46 that the whole thing became very clear. I'm sure that Mr. Dobie at this stage will understand now why we are sitting in the Legislature today.

Mr. Dobie correctly analysed that there had been a major breakthrough in terms of the dispute that we are supposedly here to discuss. Mr. Dobie recognized that if the Minister of Labour last night had made a phone call to the two parties involved, got them into his office instead of sitting there all by himself, quietly waiting for something to happen.... If he had taken the initiative, if he had made a move, those kids would be back in the schools today in the West Kootenays. He knew that, Mr. Speaker. But what Mr. Dobie did not know was that this bill contains section 11, and that

[ Page 2835 ]

this government had been waiting for an opportunity to bring in this kind of hammer, as far as the public service of the province is concerned.

I contend, Mr. Speaker, that the Minister of Labour is being strongarmed into bringing in this piece of legislation today. I personally feel that he does not want to be responsible for piloting this bill through the Legislature. I think that the Premier is giving the orders, and the Premier is saying to the Minister of Labour: "Now is our chance. Now we can bring in the hammer that we've been looking for. Now is our opportunity to bring in this kind of legislation which affects so many employees throughout this province."

Mr. Speaker, the minister can't stand up to the Premier, and on several occasions he has been forced into a position of taking responsibility for something in this Legislature that he has done very reluctantly. I'm just wondering, at this stage, whether or not the minister is going to be able to stand up to the pressures that are coming from the Social Credit Party with respect to right-to-work legislation. I have serious doubts, at this stage, based on the legislation that has been brought into the House today, whether, in fact, the minister is going to withstand the pressure from his colleagues and from the members of that party that he adopted some three years ago.

Mr. Speaker, it was just last week that the Minister of Labour was quoted as saying that he did not intend to intervene in the dispute. He was quoted in the Express of December 1,1978: "Williams indicated the provincial government would be reluctant to legislate the strikers, members of the Canadian Union of Public Employees, back to work." He was reluctant, and it would be done with great trepidation.

All right. Now interestingly enough, Mr. Speaker, on the very same day, in the Nelson Daily News, December 1, we have another minister making a comment on this dispute. This person who is being interviewed at this stage is the Minister of Education (Hon. Mr. McGeer) . Asked what he intended to do, "McGeer said a special session of parliament could be called to legislate an end to the protracted labour dispute, and 'I still intend to do that'." It's that anti-labour Minister of Education who has been exerting influence on the Premier as well, to ensure that the Minister of Labour today would bring in this piece of legislation which deals not only with the Kootenay situation, a situation that could have been dealt with very easily last night by the minister himself, but which brings in this heavy club against the trade union movement of the province today, those of then that are in the public sector, and others, and I'll get on to that.

[Mr. Rogers in the chair-]

Mr. Speaker, the last-ditch ef fort made by the Minister of Labour earlier this week in calling the Two sides together.... And that was done as a result, or at least partially as a result, of the request of the Leader of the Opposition, who suggested that it was time the Minister of Labour took some action and called them together. Until then, the Minister of Labour had shown very little personal interest in this dispute. The Minister of Labour did not make any attempt before the strike or the lockout took place to call those parties together or to talk to them. He'd no interest in the situation at that time.

He must have known what kind of havoc the strike-lockout would create up in that area. He must have known how many students would be affected. He must have known how far apart the two groups were in trying to reach an agreement. He must have known that there had been virtually no progress made, and it , us at that time that the minister should have initially got involved and taken some action.

Mr. Speaker, this week the minister did call them together. He failed to get any agreement from the two parties. Based on the kind of legislation that we see before us today, based on the statement made by the Minister of Education, based on the fact that the Premier of this province is in deep trouble with the electorate and is looking for an issue on which he can gain some political points, I wonder at this stage how sincere the minister was in trying to reach an agreement between the two parties earlier this week. I wonder particularly since he made no move last night, after the major breakthrough had been made. Mr. Speaker, the minister has failed in resolving that dispute in any way, shape or form. And it was up to the Leader of the Opposition to get the commitment yesterday from the unions involved that they would, in fact, drop their strike and return to work. It was a courageous move by those representatives of those unions, and I certainly commend them for attempting to resolve this, attempting to get the school children back at school, and attempting to again get back to the negotiating table.

Free collective bargaining is a part of a free society. The member for Omineca (Mr. Kempf) over there does not want free collective bargaining. He made that very clear in

[ Page 2836 ]

his remarks just a few moments ago. Mr. Speaker, through this bill today, Bill 46, this government is denying the rights of a large group of workers to enjoy the rights of free collective bargaining as outlined in the Labour Code. You are denying it. Mr. Speaker, the Labour Code itself has all the provisions that are necessary for the free collective bargaining process to take place.

The Minister of Labour indicated earlier that collective bargaining in this province has been going very well. By this kind of legislation which is applied against so many workers in the province at this time, that process is virtually denied, because when employers know that the government will step in, will apply the Essential Services Disputes Act, will then postpone the whole process for 90 days, and then an additional 14 days if necessary, they are not going to be interested in sitting down and arriving at a negotiated settlement with their employees. They're going to sit back. They're not going to be interested. They're not going to follow the steps in the Labour Code as would be normally followed under the free collective bargaining process. The Minister of Labour knows that, and this is a direct interference with that process, and as such is a direct interference in what is a free society.

I have to question at this stage, in view of the sweeping provisions in Bill 46, how much concern they have for a free society. You know, many of their actions over the last three years have indicated that they don't have that much concern. They've dragged their feet on a number of occasions in terms of appointing a board of inquiry to protect the basic human rights of people in the province. They don't want decision-making at local levels. They want to dictate everything. They're not interested in the work that could have been done by community resource boards. Decision-making at that level is not for them, Mr. Speaker. They want to make it all here in Victoria.

I think that there are a lot of people who are sitting on the government side of the House Who are not interested in making free collective bargaining work in this province. They're not interested in that, because it'll give them a greater push, and greater support, to work towards the introduction in this Legislature of right-to-work legislation. I suspect that some of them are quite happy down there today about the introduction of this kind of legislation. I think that they're quite happy that the minister last night did not take the initiative to ensure an end to the dispute in the Kootenays. I'm sure that many of them are quite happy to see the free collective bargaining process further eroded by Bill 46 in the hopes that they can push more strenuously for the introduction of right-to-work legislation. Based on the fact that the Minister of Labour today has knuckled under to this kind of legislation, I would suggest that he might knuckle under to right to-work legislation when it's being pushed at him from his own colleagues, within his own cabinet, within his own backbench, and within his own adopted party. Mr. Speaker, I think that the government itself is largely to blame for the problems that arose in the West Kootenays. The government itself.

First of all, we have the Minister of Education (Hon. Mr. McGeer) who, without hesitation, does his bargaining in public. He makes statements which, if I were Minister of Labour, would certainly make me cringe. He interferes directly with the collective bargaining process through public statements time and time again. He is the one, Mr. Speaker, who is making comments about keeping down the salaries of public employees. He makes comments such as this one which comes from the Colonist: "The ministry plans no major increases in salary among its own employees and the government plans to keep the lid on taxes or perhaps even reduce them." The second part of that statement is a joke, isn't it?

The Minister of Education, because he has foisted back on the taxpayers the load for paying for education costs in this province, is making it very, very difficult for school boards to provide the services and to negotiate, even, with their employees. The Minister of Education, Science and Technology is the one who is saying: "We will reward those school boards who are able to keep down their costs. We will reward them." I don't know if he's going to give them a gold star or what he is going to do, but he is going to reward then for keeping down their costs. When the Minister of Education is offering rewards for these school boards who are going to keep down their costs-, - he is Implicitly saying that he is going to penalize those who don't. Now that alone makes it very difficult for the school boards to bargain in good faith.

I had an incident in my own constituency, Mr. Speaker, where the school board, under the pressure of the Minister of Education to keep down costs, decided that they would cut out school bus service and that students in the senior levels would have to walk three miles to school. This decision has caused a tremendous uproar in School District 71, with the result that the chairman of the board of school trustees was under such pressure that

[ Page 2837 ]

he decided not to run again as a representative on that school board.

But there is another aspect of the problem which, in my view, relates again directly back to the government. They must assume a good deal of the responsibility for the situation that developed in the West Kootenays: first of all, for the Minister of Education foisting the cost back on the taxpayers; secondly, for offering rewards for school boards that keep their costs down; thirdly, for negotiating in public, which he does on a regular basis.

The other thing relates to the whole question of accreditation. There is no doubt that because the five school boards in the area were accredited a major problem occurred in terms of getting down to the process of collective bargaining. Accreditation, Mr -Speaker, in the private sector has proved beneficial on many occasions, but in the public sector accreditation has not yet been accepted and it is not working. If the Minister of Labour had taken an interest early in this problem he could have seen what has been developing in terms of public sector bargaining under accreditation. It has not been working. The Minister of Labour, in my view, at this stage should take a whole long look at accreditation in the public service.

Why did the Minister of Labour not set up, under the legislation that was passed in 1977, the special advisory agency under the Essential Services Disputes Act? Why did it take the minister all of this time in order to get that agency going? The last time I checked with your department it had not been done.

Mr. Speaker, what concerns me about this legislation is that we can at this time expect that almost any union can be added to the schedule under the Essential Services Continuation Act. I have a copy of an editorial which appeared in the Kamloops Daily Sentinel of Friday, October 21,1977. This was just after Bill 92, the Essential Services Continuation Act, had been introduced into the Legislature. I think that the comments and opinions expressed by this editorial writer are worth reading into the record today:

"Bill 92 comes dangerously close to threatening the whole bargaining procedure as we know it today, both publicly and privately. For that reason, it should be either amended or killed." What we are doing instead is increasing the number of employers who are in the schedule. Quoting from the editorial:

"The Essential Services Disputes Act, as it stands, pertains principally to public sector workers and would affect as many as 100,000 in B.C. Basically the bill would add teeth to section 83 of the Labour Code, which currently gives government the right to suspend the right to strike where it can be shown that such a strike would create an immediate threat to life, health or safety."

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, please. Just before I ask the member to continue, could perhaps some of these private conversations be kept down to a somewhat lower limit? It's somewhat difficult to hear the speaker. Please continue.

MS. SANFORD: Bill 92 adds the clause, "Immediate and substantial threat to the economy and welfare of the province and its citizens, to the life, health or safety lists contained in section 73."

"If Bill 92 stopped there, it could be dismissed as a cosmetic piece of legislation aimed at teaching the ferry and railway workers a lesson while reassuring the public that the Social Credit government is ready to get tough in dealing with such work stoppages. But the bill in its very vagueness goes much further. That power would this bill have in the private see-tor? It can be argued that there is slight if any chance Bill 92 would be applied to the private sector. If you sit on the labour side of the bargaining table, however, it can be asked: where are the guarantees that it won't someday be applied?"

That editorial points out, I'm sire, the fear of the trade union movement in the province today. What is there to say, based on the moves this government has made in terms of labour legislation, that the IWA, that the steelworkers, that all of the employees now in the province, those who are involved in trade unionism won't be added to this list?

We already had a significant list to start out with. Now we have added another list. So far, they have been in the public sector or the members of Crown agencies. As this editorial pointed out well over a year ago, what is there to say that other unions are not going to be added to this list? What's going to happen when the IWA comes to negotiate this year? Can we be expected, if we are not sitting at that time, to be called back if there is a difficulty, if they do not reach a settlement -- called back to add the word "IWA!' to this particular schedule? I think the member for Omineca would be very happy if the provincial government decided to make such a move.

The editorial writer is correct. This bill comes dangerously close to threatening the

[ Page 2838 ]

whole bargaining procedure.

I don't agree with the leader of the Conservative Party (Mr. Stephens) , who suggests that it is a waste of time to call the Legislature together when in fact there is a threat to life, to limb, to safety. In those cases, I think that the Legislature must have the ultimate authority to ensure that workers go back to work. But it is also essential that those workers and those employers have the right to bargain in good faith without any 90-day provision or any other additional 14-day provision.

We must have faith in the collective bargaining process. The government today has shown that they have no faith in that process. When they show that they have no faith in the collective bargaining process I'm afraid we're in deep trouble in this province.

The Minister of Education I don't think has ever had any faith in the collective bargaining process. His comments over the years have certainly made me question that he has any hope whatsoever for free collective bargaining.

I'm afraid that what we are headed back to is the kind of anti-labour legislation that the previous Social Credit government was so famous for introducing. With that, Mr. Speaker, I think you are aware that with all of that anti-labour legislation we saw introduced by the previous government, we also saw increasing labour confrontation. It wasn't until we had the Labour Code in this province that we were able to reduce the number of conflicts. The minister proudly today spoke about the success of the collective bargaining process. Mr. Speaker, I would submit that the Minister of Labour today can thank the former Minister of Labour for that, because it is largely due to the Labour Code that he introduced when he was minister.

This kind of erosion of the free collective bargaining process is dangerous. The government is inviting confrontation over this kind of issue. But, Mr. Speaker, it's really the only issue that the government feels that it can make political points on at this point in time. They have adversely affected the people, financially and in almost every other way, to the extent where people feel alienated from government. They feel very dissatisfied with what has been happening to them. They're dissatisfied with the way that they have been treated by government, and government knows that. They've been reading the polls, Mr. Speaker. As a result, the only thing left for them at this stage to gain some political credibility is to attempt confrontation with labour. The previous Social Credit government did it and it's obvious that this government is headed along the same route.

I think they're making a serious mistake in this bill, Mr. Speaker, and I intend to oppose it.

MR. STRONGMAN: Before entering the debate, I would like to also lend my congratulations to the changes in the cabinet and also to the two new members who have been my colleagues now for some three years; not only my colleagues, but over the past three years they've become my friends. I personally wish them well in their new responsibility.

I rise in support of Bill 46. 1 don't think there's any question in anyone's mind about what my position may be. Today we've heard wide-ranging debate from all sides of the House. Just lately, though, we've heard debate on right-to-work legislation, taxes, public service accreditation, and some trustees problems in district 71 -- I could not quite follow the train of thought on why the member would bring that up. However, I don't think we can lose sight, Mr. Speaker, of the real reason why we're here today, and that's to defend the rights of some 15,000 students in the West Kootenays. Fifteen thousand children in the West Kootenays are without school service, or they're under the threat of losing that school service. As a legislator, citizen and parent, I believe it is essential that educational services not ever be interrupted, and certainly not by a party of some 250 people.

We're not here today to place the blame, and I don't think it's important. It's certainly not important to me. I don't think the people of the province really care who is at fault in this particular case. They wish a solution. It's my view that both parties are wrong. The collective bargaining system in this particular case has broken down and, unfortunately, there is only one loser, the children of the West Kootenays.

Mr. Speaker, I don't intend to go into detail on the conditions the teachers, students and parents have experienced, such as freezing schoolrooms, bus transportation gone awry, lack of hygienic conditions, turmoil caused by teachers and students crossing picket lines, especially in an area that is very well organized where the children of parents %to are themselves members of craft and trade unions are forcing themselves to cross picket lines to make sure that they get an education.

I don't think we can measure the damage that's done to poor students, those students who require six hours a day of tuition, who require extra help during the day just to keep

[ Page 2839 ]

up with their peer group. I don't think we can ever measure the difficulty that will be caused to those particular students by just a few weeks off like this. Average students who require just the ordinary input by the teaching staff for a full working day at the high-school level -- those students who are average and who get through high school and eventually can go on to other training, either in a university or a technical school.... We can't ignore the rights of the extraordinarily bright students, those students who wish to study for scholarship examinations which are coming up in a very short time. Those people are not getting the privileges that are given Lo all of the rest of the students in British Columbia.

For six weeks, 15,000 children have been without full educational service. I think it's intolerable and it's unacceptable. it shouldn't happen in the West Kootenays or in any other area of British Columbia. The children of this province and the children of all the provinces in Canada do not have a voice or an ability to change the laws of the land. But we, as legislators in this provincial government, have the ability and, indeed, the responsibility, to protect those children's rights. Hence we have Bill 46.

Before taking my seat I cannot help but make some remarks on the comments by the opposition, and especially the Leader of the Opposition, today in the House and for the last few days in the press. A political animal at all times, at the eleventh hour he jumps into the parade, tries to become the saviour, tries to place oil on water that is obviously raging. I think a better description is he tries to become a placebo. Collective bargaining began in April, 1978. Where was the Leader of the Opposition then? I think we could argue that he had....

Interjection.

MR. STRONGMAN: Mr. Speaker, I'm sorry, but some of the members of the opposition seem to be upset about my pronunciation.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Perhaps all members would restrain themselves until such time as they can participate in the debate. Please continue.

MR. STRONGMAN: All during the spring and summer collective bargaining went on. We didn't hear anything from the Leader of the Opposition and, in fact, perhaps that was the right position to take. Hopefully, collective bargaining would have been successful and we wouldn't have had the turmoil and upset that we have now in the West Kootenays. But where was he on October 17? "The Canadian Union of Public Employees served a 72-hour strike notice on four West Kootenay schools. CUPE, on that same day, rejected a two-) ear contract and proposed wage increases of 16 per cent."

On October 21: "Notice was served on 250 non-teaching employees by four school districts that they were locked out."

On October 26: "Union Strikes in Nelson College and Selkirk College." Where was the Leader of the Opposition then? Not a word was heard from him.

"The strike reduced teaching to two hours a day at most primary and secondary schools in the Nelson district, and it closed the Kootenay School of Art." Again, there was nothing from the Leader of the Opposition.

"Lockouts Occur, " on October 27, "at Trail, Castlegar and Grand Forks."

On November 3: "Selkirk College students respond to a strike and lockout situation with demonstrations, class boycotts and sit-ins." Where was the leader then? Nothing was heard of him.

"The students continue to cross picket lines in order to stage their sit-ins." Again, there was nothing from the Leader of the Opposition.

The Castlegar News reports that enrolment had dropped considerably in School District 9. That's on November 9.

Again on November 9: "Unheated classrooms, limited classes and the lack of district busing facilities are shown as unacceptable." There was nothing from the Leader of the Opposition then.

On November 28: "Roving picket action by Trail and Castlegar locals of CUPE shut down Trail Junior Secondary and Stanley Humphries Secondary Schools in Castlegar. This is the second day in succession that CUPE locals have shut down schools through picketing." Where was the Leader of the Opposition then? Not a word was to be heard.

On December 4: "Fifty-five hundred Trail citizens signed a petition demanding that the provincial cabinet take immediate action in the West Kootenay school district dispute. The group wants government to designate education as an essential service in order that CUPE, on strike, be legislated back to work."

I'll give you an answer to where the Leader of the Opposition was during that time, a seven-month framework: he was hiding in the wings, wringing his hands, praying for the situation to break down, waiting to make political hay, and at whose expense? I'll answer again: the 15,000 children in the West Kootenay school district. The immeasurable

[ Page 2840 ]

cost is on the shoulders of the students, the shoulders of the children of the West Kootenays -

I liken the Leader of the Opposition to a vulture floating with the wind, waiting to pounce, and at the fifty-ninth minute of the eleventh hour, he dives into the prey -- on December 6, some seven months after April. But in this case, as the vulture dives, the carrion doesn't happen to be management, doesn't happen to be labour; in this case, the carrion are the children of the West Kootenays.

Mr. Speaker, I support Bill 46. Never again should children or any citizen be deprived of essential services because of the actions of a few. It is obvious to me that those who do not support this bill are against the rights of children in British Columbia.

MR. COCKE: I didn't expect much from the second member for Vancouver South; I wasn't the least bit disappointed. Mr. Speaker, what was that member for Vancouver South talking about or does he even know the function of this legislature? I don't really think that he knows any more than the Minister of Municipal Affairs (Hon. Mr. Vander Zalm) and, believe me, that's nothing -- zero, nothing.

The Leader of the Opposition played a part when the government turned aver the responsibility for the work that should have been done to the Legislature. That is his responsibility. He did it then, and that was the appropriate time. I wonder, Mr. Speaker, when that Colour Your World man comes venturing over to Victoria on occasion.... Incidentally, we don't see too much of him. I'm on a committee with him. He's almost a stranger.

But the Leader of the Opposition - and this was the most insulting thing that member had to say -- was waiting for the situation to break down. What utter, complete, unmitigated nonsense!

Interjections.

MR. COCKE: I understand that you lost the job of liquor czar. Tough beans!

Anyway, Mr. Speaker, the Leader of the Opposition did not wait for anything to break down. He acted appropriately when this matter was consigned to the Legislature, and I think he did a first-class job, and that worries that gent. Mr. Speaker, it's so interesting to see children characterized as carrion by that member. The member has trouble with placebos and vultures, but in any event, I'm sure that the vultures are quite sweet, after eating all those placebos. I suggest, Mr. Speaker, that I don't like those kinds of insults, and I don't think people in this House should like those insults, any more than the kind of insult that I heard last night, when the member for Coquitlam (Mr. Kerster) , on an elevator in the Harbour Towers, insulted one of our women in our caucus, and called her a communist pig. I think that those kinds of things coming from that party are just enough to make one sick absolutely enough to make one sick.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, please. We're on the second reading of Bill 46, and while there has been some latitude allowed by the Chair, I think perhaps at this point it would be appropriate if we returned to the second reading of this bill.

MR. COCKE: Mr. Speaker, the real reason that we're talking about those 15,000 children and defending their rights is because that group and that member just don't understand that there was gross incompetence that t led to al 1 of this. All it took was one very quick discussion with the member for Vancouver East, the Leader of the Opposition, and things got back on the rails. The reason that we're here today is not to discuss the remainder of that bill that deals with the Kootenays; it's to discuss section 11 only. Of course people want a solution. They got that solution last night. The government had that solution in hand, and what did the government do with it? Not a thing. They just turned it around, and I'm sure that the phones were busy, instructing the trustees not to stop that lockout, because then it would have been a total loser for them and they couldn't have introduced section 11.

I think, Mr. Speaker, that what we have here is what we've been having ever since the advent of Social Credit in this province -- an attack on labour that follows an attack on labour, and that will be followed by another attack on labour. Nothing more, nothing less, Mr. Speaker. This government has absolutely no respect for the working people in this province. They have no respect for the working people and have never shown any respect for the working people. All they do is think in their own terms. Isn't it interesting, when you hear the car dealers and the Color Your World people enunciating their policy? Mr. Speaker, I left out probably a very important aspect of our economy -- those people running plant nurseries. Mr. Speaker, they went on with this for no other reason than the fact that they wanted to continue their attack on labour. Sure, this is the beginning of a campaign. This same group paid for a very expensive poll last fall, all set to go on

[ Page 2841 ]

Friday....

MR. LOEWEN: What did the figures say?

MR. COCKE: I didn't read that poll, but I'll tell you something -- you come on over and take me on.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hon. members, please.

MR. COCKE: Mr. Speaker, they paid for a very expensive poll, and the member for Burnaby Edmonds has just verified that that took place, because he talks about the figures in New Westminster. Mr. Speaker, when they found out that the poll wasn't as kind as they thought it might be, then they had to decide on other ways of doing business. So they created a straw man in the West Kootenays. I suspect that one of the saddest times this government has had was last night, when they found out they had a resolution, because they want this kind of an issue. They want to be seen as a government that can deal with labour problems. But the problem is, Mr. Speaker, they will continue to mire down labour management relations until we get to the impossible situation we were in a few years ago by their predecessor Social Credit government.

Mr. Speaker, there is no respect for a government like this in the trade union movement; and the trade union movement, Mr. Speaker, encompasses a great many people in this province, and should encompass a great many more, and would encompass a great many more for their own protection if, in fact, there was any kind of support from this government.

Mr. Speaker, there was a big fight going on. The Minister of Labour is not entirely uninformed in terms of what goes on in the labour management field. The Minister of Education

(Hon. Mr. McGeer) is totally uninformed in this area, as he is in so many others. Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Labour said on December 1 that no consideration has been given -that's only six or seven days ago -- to forcing an end to the West Kootenay schools labour dispute through legislation. That's the Minister of Labour. He said: "Such a step would only be contemplated with trepidation and would involve considering all aspects, including the unfavourable reaction from organized labour." He rejected school strike law, rejected it out of hand a short week ago.

Incidentally, using his kind of conclusions that we are getting today, that would have given the kids two weeks of school instead of one. Don't forget that if we resolve this problem by Monday, the kids are going to have four or five days back in school and then, courtesy of the Minister of Education, they're going to have the longest school winter break the kids have ever had in the history of British Columbia. He's going to send them back to school for a few days -- five, no more -because on the 15th they get out until January 2. So if there was a problem, then the problem was more critical a week ago, two weeks ago, three weeks ago, et cetera, et cetera. So it doesn't really make a lot of sense, until one reads the contrasting statement on November 29. "Education Minister Pat McGeer says he is considering asking the provincial cabinet to have schools in the West Kootenays declared an essential service if a month-old strike lockout is not settled within a couple of weeks."

He also said, after being told on December 1 that that was impossible because the Essential Services Disputes Act did not include that area, that he was going to recommend bringing back the Legislature in order to legislate these people back to work.

I suggest, Mr. Speaker, that what we have here is a very interesting conflict, a conflict between the Minister of Education and the Minister of Labour, who, I say, is semi informed. The Minister of Education is totally uninformed. Who won the fight? Who was on whose side? It strikes me that the Premier came dawn in favour of the Minister of Education and when you read the Act, you know he did. I have never seen a minister so totally, completely uncomfortable in all my born days as when I was watching the Minister of Labour debate this bill into second reading. I'll tell you why he was uncomfortable. He was uncomfortable by section 11. The rest of it he can live with. I've heard him talk that kind of right-wing compulsory arbitration stuff before. But he did not like the essential services, those broad, sweeping powers that he's vested on this government. He didn't like it. I'm sure he didn't like it. But the Minister of Education, old Cyclotron himself, that great $1.2 million benefactor to the University of B.C. from lotteries money, that minister won the fight and it's an unfortunate situation for this province.

[Mr. Speaker in the chair-]

We have all this kind of rubbish going on, but what does it mean to us? I say that the Premier has shown, by virtue of the fact that he has listened to the Minister of Education on this whole question, that he favours dictatorship as a way out, and dictatorship in

[ Page 2842 ]

perpetuity in terms of what that section 11 does. It's the hammer, Mr. Speaker, to put it euphemistically in these hallowed halls, the hammer that, Mr. Speaker, does a real job in alienating the trade union movement, in alienating anybody that's informed on matters of labour-management negotiations.

Interjection.

MR. COCKE: You see, you're just as insulting as your little friend from Coquitlam, equally insulting -- a little more intelligent but equally insulting. You know it and I know it. You know, I didn't say that you believed in jack boots. I might suspect it.

Mr. Speaker, what is next? I suggest to you that when I watched that convention on television, I was just glued to the set, and I watched my friend, the member for Dewdney, that loquacious member for Dewdney, and I listened to his arguments against right-to-work. What did he say to that convention? He said: "Folks, it would be very bad politics." Indeed it would, Mr. Member for Dewdney, but that was his only argument. His only argument was that it was bad policy. Sure, it's bad policy before an election. What are they going to do after an election with this kind of mentality, with the kind of mentality that it takes to bring in legislation that hammers people in a free society? For heaven's sake, this is the government that's supposed to represent freedom. I watched the seagull flapping all through the last election, and what did it denote? It wasn't a vulture, nor was it a placebo. Do you know what it was? It was freedom. Well, the freedom fighters deny freedom to people in this province. They will not let the democratic process work.

MR. LOEWEN: At the expense of little children.

MR. COCKE: Digger has spoken again. You know, most of those kids were going to school. I'm not suggesting that it's a comfortable situation. I am suggesting, however, that had there been proper utilization of services available, you could have seen an end to that situation. Nobody liked it, nobody at all.

Mr. Speaker, I suggest to you that all we need do in this situation today is look at a comparable situation not too long ago. Remember we were in here settling the ferries dispute after it was settled? Now we're in here settling another dispute after it's settled.

AN HON. MEMBER: Not true.

MR. COCKE: Nonsense! Mr. Speaker, this is an after-the-fact government, and I just think it's too bad. But I want to point out again and again and again that the private sector better beware, because with this kind of mentality, and with the potential of right-to-work legislation, that Madison Avenue con game, we can be in worse trouble than we're in now and, believe me, we are in desperate trouble.

There is an attack on workers. It's a car dealers' attack on workers. Mr. Speaker, I want to bring to your attention the fact that this government, who recognize free enterprise and say that it's the panacea, and it will take us through to the very end, it will create jobs.... Under the car dealers the free enterprise system has failed, because it has not produced the jobs. It has produced the need for that government to scapegoat wherever they can. They're scapegoating here. They're scapegoating in the old Ministry of Human Resources; I don't know what's going to happen in the new one. But every time they get an opportunity to use a scapegoat, they use it to take the people's eye off the ball. The people in this province should know that it's this government that's got us into the trouble. It's this government that was supposed to get us moving again, and where did they get us moving? Right straight down the drain.

Mr. Speaker, businesses are going broke, people are unemployed, and what are we doing this week? This week we're making government employees the fall guys. I don't know who it will be next week, but somebody's got to be the fall guy for that government. Somebody has to be in a position where the government can get the people to take their eyes off what's going on around them. I say to the government: take responsibility. Take the responsibility for having dragged B.C. into the depths of a depression, instead of .... You know something? I asked all those car dealers over there, Mr. Minister of Education: "How did you do in 1974 and 1975?" They all admitted that it was the best years in business that they had ever had, and it's been getting worse ever since.

No, sir, don't give us that. We had good times during the NDP. I'll never stand here and accept those kinds of stupid criticisms from the Minister of Health or the Minister of Education and Health, who hasn't really got that much self-respect.

Mr. Speaker, I suggest to that government: Why don't you get moving yourselves? Why don't you do some of the things that you promised in the last election campaign? Why don't you get B.C. moving again? You haven't got it started and three years are over. All we've moved is

[ Page 2843 ]

backward so far.

Interjection.

MR. COCKE: Oh, wait, I know you've spent money. I know you spend almost $1 million a year in the Premier's office and things like that. You even have to have a minister to cut red tape now, because you've created such a bureaucracy. But I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about getting B.C. moving, and then you won't have to pull all these kinds of little tricks to get the public's eye of exactly what's happening.

it's government workers now -- education workers particularly, but government workers across the board. It's not just the public schools, not just the universities, not just BUT and other institutions. It's all workers in municipalities and water districts who are subjected to this very, very bad piece of legislation.

All the government has to do is call a recess now, put their Act together, come back here and say: "Okay, let's let this situation resolve itself. After all, the Leader of the Opposition did our work for us." We'll come back here whenever we should to discuss some reasonable legislation, not this kind of poppycock.

What are we here for? What are we doing over here?

HON. MR. MAIR: That's a good question.

MR. COCKE: That's right. I'll tell you, Mr. Speaker, like everybody else, I'm just a little bit embarrassed that I'm here.

HON. MR. MAIR: So you should be.

MR. COCKE: Just a little bit embarrassed that I'm here at this time. Not embarrassed, as the member for Kamloops (Hon. Mr. Mair) should be, but embarrassed because of the fact that we're discussing a piece of legislation that can do nothing but harm, and no good whatsoever.

HON. MR. HEWITT: Mr. Speaker, my remarks will be fairly brief. I think the Minister of Labour has presented very precisely the reasons for the House being called back into session, what we're attempting to do, and the concern that has been expressed by the Premier and other members of this party regarding the future of 15,000 school children in the West Kootenays.

I'm going to speak not so much on the content, you might say, of the bill, but more as an MLA from Boundary-Similkameen, which includes in my riding School District 12, the area that serves Grand Forks. I can tell you that my constituency office in the Okanagan has had a number of calls from parents who are concerned about their children, concerned about the length of time it has taken to achieve resolution on the matter of the labour-management dispute, and who have expressed opinions to me that it appears that nothing can be resolved, and we now look to government to take some action.

Grand Forks is a small community in my riding, not dissimilar to any of the other small communities throughout the West Kootenay area, in which a lot of those children who live in the countryside surrounding these communities require bus transportation. Distances are traveled, and they are affected, of course, by the weather as the winter comes upon us. It seems that there is one party that is suffering in this dispute, and that party, of course, is the children. I am concerned for the children in my riding -- the young people throughout the West Kootenay area who have not had the opportunity, because of this labour dispute, to receive the proper school instruction. There are 15,000 students affected by this, 56 schools that are only open part-time or closed. Those children are the future of this province. I don't care whether it's the West Kootenay today and whether its the East Kootenay tomorrow, or the Okanagan, but they are children and they are the future of this province. They have a right. We talk about right of free collective bargaining in this province. These children have a basic right. That right is the right of an education. It seems to me that those children, whether they be children in the public schools or in the secondary or senior secondary schools, or whether they are people being re-educated in colleges, are the pawns in the dispute that we are dealing with today. I think it is about time that some action was taken. That, of course, is why this House has been recalled into session.

The normal bargaining process, as it is known in the collective bargaining structure, has been exhausted. I believe it's three months prior to an end of a collective agreement that the parties are asked to get together. They've had the opportunity to back as far as April, 1978. 1 believe the contract had ended in June, 1978. There were no results from whatever conversations or discussions were had to that date. A mediator was involved, still with no resolution. In the end, as recently as Monday and Tuesday of this week, the Labour minister was involved in

[ Page 2844 ]

attempting to bring two parties, who are that far apart, together because of the concern that this government has, and I would say that every parent in this province has, over the the fact that children haven't got the opportunity of an education because of this labour management problem. But we were down to an impasse of personalities, in my opinion. The school boards will lift the lockout if the union goes back to work; the union will go back to work if the school board lifts the lockout. That is what I think the Minister of Labour conveyed to this assembly today -- an impasse.

I think everybody would probably agree with me that not one party is to blame. Both parties, I think, have to accept equal responsibility for that impasse. Nevertheless, it is an impasse and the only way, it appears, to resolve it is by legislation, which we are debating today.

I'm not going to debate whether the offer the school board made to the union was fair or that the union demands were realistic or not realistic. That's not the issue here, Mr. Speaker. The issue here is the rights of our children to have access to a proper education. I'm sure a lot of us have seen on TV those students facing picket lines. I'm sure a lot of us saw on TV those students with mitts on their hands trying to hold on to a pen in the school to take down notes as the teacher instructed them. I'm sure a lot of members of this assembly saw the mock death of education that the Selkirk College students put on in the Kootenays. That had to have an effect on a lot of parents and people in this province, to see young people trying to say to the parties involved -- and I would have to say to the government of this province - that it's time something was done.

I think, Mr. Speaker, as a parent I am upset, and I guess I'm a little bit ashamed that the students and the children are caught up in a wrangle between two adult organizations. Can you imagine what a seven-year-old child thinks when he is told he can't go to school because the school has been locked, or it is too cold for him to go to school? Can you imagine what a college student thinks who has got to face the world of employment and/or unemployment and figures that one way he can achieve success is to get a proper education? He is sitting there wondering whether or not he has lost one valuable year out of his life, and that education he's missing might be the difference between him working next year or the year after or not working. We can -- and I think we are -- dealing with this issue today. But we just must think about it, because it may be too late for some of those students who have been caught up in this impasse, this wrangle between the two organizations.

I would on those comments urge all school boards and unions involved in education that they must consider and they must think that their first priority, Mr. Speaker, is to the children's education. They have that responsibility to ensure that education centres -schools and colleges -- remain open in order that those children can get an education.

As government we received a petition of 5,500 names from the West Kootenay school district area. That is a pretty impressive number of people who are involved in trying to say to government: "Do something and do it now." They want this matter settled. What date? Monday -5,500 names.

It would be different, I think, if the employees were "mistreated" -- and I use the word mistreated in the sense of management labour disputes where it is a hardship on the employee. I don't think that's the issue, because when I look at what was said by a Mr. Pyke, national representative for CUPE.... Mr. Pyke was on Jack Webster's show and the issue, as I see it, in one of his comments is this -he is responding to Mr. Webster: "The heart of the problem is accreditation. The school board is not even allowed to speak for itself. They have a spokesman called the BCSTA because of accreditation and he does the talking." Mr. Speaker, it's an association of school districts that have got together and have a negotiator that has the expertise and the background information and research to deal with the professional negotiators on the union side.

I can speak from experience because I was a member of the OMMLRA, which is the Okanagan Mainline Municipal Labour Relations Association, the first accredited association of municipalities in this province. We found as elected officials that we needed somebody with research ability, with the expertise to understand the up-to-date problems of management labour relations. The union has that as well in their camp. So I feel that Mr. Pyke's statement saying: "The heart of the problem is accreditation The heart of the problem, ladies and gentlemen, isn't accreditation. The heart is the students in this province, and this is the reason, I think, that we must deal with this bill. We must pass it in order that these children can get back to school.

Mr. Pyke then goes on to say on the Jack Webster programme : "Everybody, of course, feels that the student is the wronged party. I disagree with that." That is Mr. Pyke's comment on the Jack Webster Show. I'm sorry, I

[ Page 2845 ]

can't agree with Mr. Pyke. The student is the wronged party. The child is the wronged party in this dispute, and I would think that Mr. Pyke could reconsider his comments that he made on that show. The wronged party, in my opinion, is the students of the West Kootenay area.

The member for Revelstoke-Slocan (Mr. King) spoke a little earlier concerning the bill. He's the former Minister of Labour, and I'd like to quote some of the comments that he made on Tuesday, October 7,1975, recorded in Hansard, regarding Bill 146. 1 think, Mr. Speaker, I could just as easily make these statements now. They could be originals from my mouth, as opposed to me repeating a comment that was made by the member for Revelstoke Slocan: "We are not prepared to stand idly by and watch disputes of this nature wreak unjustified hardship on those directly involved, as well as those indirectly involved."

The children, in this case, are indirectly involved, and the hardship that they are suffering, I would suggest to you, is far more of a hardship than the union employees and the school management people would suffer if they went back to work and allowed the normal process to take place and a settlement to be achieved, as opposed to locking the doors of schools to deprive our children of an education.

I will give you another quote from the same member:

"The Legislature is supreme. We have consistently said this over the years as a party. Yes, free collective bargaining; yes, the right to lock out and strike. But the abuse of those rights to the jeopardy of the citizens of the province will result in the Legislature being convened to deal with that emergent situation." Mr. Speaker, I suggest that those words the member for Revelstoke-Slocan uttered in 1975 can apply very directly to the situation we are faced with today, and I would suggest that in hearing those words, the former Minister of Labour could, or should, in all fairness, support this bill.

Mr. Speaker, this piece of legislation is one that, if you look at the title, relates to assistance. The fairness of the legislation is evident: equal treatment for both parties; a special mediator to be brought into place and given 30 days to assist the parties in resolving the problem; a board of arbitration if that fails; another 30 days, plus an extension, if it is necessary. There is every opportunity to settle the dispute in the normal collective bargaining way. This bill is an attempt to assist those parties but, at the same time, the bill is to ensure that our young people have the opportunity to obtain the education they so sorely need.

In closing, Mr. Speaker, I speak as a cabinet member ' I speak as an MLA for the riding of Boundary-Similkameen, and I speak as a parent. I support this bill, and I compliment the Minister of Labour on his efforts: first, his attempt to try and resolve the situation, the efforts he's gone through in the normal process, to the end when he met with both parties to attempt to get them to see the error of their ways; and secondly, bringing this bill before this House in order that we can resolve the matter so our young people will be able to return to school.

MR. GIBSON: Mr. Speaker, like others, I will commence by expressing my good wishes to the two new ministers. The new Minister of Tourism and Small Business Development (Hon. Mr. Veitch) was the hardworking and able chairman of the Crown corporations committee, and the new Minister of Agriculture (Hon. Mr. Shelford) is a colleague whom I have much admired over the years for his thoughts about reform of the rules of this Legislature, and fixed term elections, and things of that sort that we both believe in. I hope from inside the cabinet he'll have a lot of success in dealing with them.

I won't be too lengthy, especially since the Minister of Lands, Parks and Housing (Hon. Mr. Chabot) kindly presented the Liberal position on this matter to the House. It was formulated in a somewhat different time, but the principles remain over the years.

I listened very carefully to the Minister of Labour as he discussed sections I to 10 of the bill in his remarks to the chamber this afternoon. He did not deal at all, as far as I could see, Mr. Speaker, with the important matter of principle contained in sections 11 and 12. He dealt with that subject matter which is properly subsumed under the title, which is the West Kootenay Schools Collective Bargaining Assistance Act. That is why we were called to this session today, and something else has been added in, of which more later.

The minister discussed learning conditions for 15,000 students in, I thought, eloquent terms. I think that all in this chamber are agreed, and much of the debate today has centred around that. I don't think there is any need for debate. We are all concerned that this should be our central objective here.

The minister made the point that the lifting of the strike by CUPE does not remove the urgency of this legislation. I have to disagree with that to the extent that the strike

[ Page 2846 ]

actually is lifted or that the parties agree that all should go back to work. But in any event, this legislation may still be useful. The urgency may, at this point, be questionable in the sense that if everybody does go back to work for the time being, the problem is solved, but it still may be required down the line. So I do not object in those terms.

The minister went on to say that collective bargaining in this situation wasn't working, and there's no real sign that it's about to do so. I would point out to members of this House that if by chance it is about to do so, the bill provides for that. The parties are able to reach an agreement on their own, or with the services of a special mediator, and let US hope that that is in fact the way it will be resolved, because I think all of us would rather not see binding arbitration. But if it comes to that, then that's what the bill provides.

The minister went at some length into the issue of collective bargaining rights between parties, as between third-party rights in our society. Governments across Canada have been groping with this problem to deal with it in some kind of an institutional way, rather than the ad hoc way that occurs as today when we meet as a chamber, as when the Parliament of Canada meets to deal with CUPW, and so on. Those institutional means are gradually evolving, but in the meantime I think it must be ad hoc, and that's what we're doing today. The minister spoke of preconditions through the bargaining process which effectively at this stage precluded it going any further, and said that these actions that he's introduced to the House today were really necessary to break an impasse. The new Minister of Energy (Hon. Mr. Hewitt) spoke again of that word impasse.

Mr. Speaker, I can find a great deal of sympathy with all of these points made by the minister and with the perspective that he has on it. As a result of that, I can tell him that on second reading I intend to support this bill. But there was not one word from the minister about a very major part of this bill. I would say as well that in supporting it, it's a judgment call, because you could also take the position of the official opposition that things may be going back. Let's hope they work out. I'm willing to go along with the minister's judgment in this particular case.

There have been some other suggestions advanced during the course of the debate as to how the government might otherwise have gone. The Leader of the Conservative Party suggested that it would make more sense to place the non-teaching school workers under the Public Schools Act. He advocated that in terms of his concern for the taxpayer. Mr. Speaker, in terms of concern for the taxpayer, I think that would be a mistake. The Public Schools Act removes a very great deal of control from school boards in terms of salary matters, and this year I think we see something like a full two-thirds of the districts in arbitration -around that figure. I think we should seek to avoid, wherever possible, bargaining patterns where arbitration is the usual result.

I think one should introduce as little coercion into the collective bargaining process as is possible, and even then with the utmost reluctance, because when parties lose their responsibilities -- and the other side of the responsibility is the obligation that comes upon you if you have to take a strike or a lockout -- when they lose that incentive to deal with reality, I think that it lessens the usefulness of the collective bargaining situation. I disagree with the hon. Conservative leader that section 11 is not an important part of this bill. It is a very considerable move. Even the minister isn't sure about it. I'll quote his words on that later. But it's a very considerable move. To go further than that, as the Conservative Leader recommended, and put it into the Public Schools Act is, in my view, surely not the answer.

So after all this, I am prepared to agree with the minister on the West Kootenay situation, to agree that this House has an obligation and to vote for the bill on that basis. But I strongly suspect the Leader of the Opposition was correct in saying that the real purpose of this bill is to put through this House, on an urgency basis, the most important amendments to the Essential Services Disputes Act that are contained in section 11, and I cannot support that. It unquestionably needs further study, as the minister himself admits, a further study he may or may not proclaim. I think that was the real reason. The actions of the Premier would seem to indicate that when he gave an overnight ultimatum for the parties to reach a deal, when he must have known that that was impossible, because the bargaining committees weren't even in place. There were just representatives down here, but they weren't mandated to take action. It was an impossible ultimatum. What was the reason for that? It was to justify this bill, as far as I can see. They wanted to get this bill on the books.

What's the problem with section 11? There's a series of ads out now for one of the lotteries -- whether it's the Provincial or the Western Express I'm not sure -- in which a delightful woman is being interviewed and she

[ Page 2847 ]

explains why you should buy a ticket. She says: "If you don't buy a ticket you don't win. If you buy a ticket and you don't win, at least you've got a ticket." Well, the minister is saying: "If you pass a bill and you don't need it, at least you've got a bill." That's where section 11 is.

I want to read to you, and I have taken care to obtain the transcript of what the minister had to say to the press this morning about this famous section 11, which, as I say, expands very markedly the ambit of the Essential Services Disputes Act. Mr. Minister, you are shaking your head, but it expands it to municipal Employees currently not covered, to school board employees currently not covered, and to regional district employees currently not covered. I haven't done the arithmetic, but it is a very substantial percentage increase. The minister said: "What we have done at the particular time is provide for the expansion of the areas covered by the essential services legislation. If our research indicates that such should be done then it will be proclaimed. If our research indicates that it is not appropriate then we won't proclaim that section."

If the minister's research discovers that this section that this Legislature is being asked to pass is not appropriate, they won't proclaim it. I can't imagine who is doing the research, but I do know that it is incorrect to ask this Legislature to pass out that kind of a blank cheque. As I said earlier on, it's a shoot-first-and-ask-questions-later kind of thing. Either the minister is sure that that part of the bill is needed, or he should not be asking us to pass it, especially under emergency circumstances where there is not an opportunity to obtain appropriate public debate and public reaction back into this chamber.

One rather wonders how all of this was led up to because here I have a transcript of a press conference by the Premier. He was asked: "Would that be essential services or a special bill for this area?" He replied: "Education does not fall under the Essential Services Act. In this case it would be legislation aimed at this dispute." How about the addition? Here is the Premier speaking later on: "We are dealing with this particular dispute. It may be that the government may consider the example of the effect of this dispute and the government may have to consider for the future whether education should be made a part of the Essential Services Act." Well, the future came awfully quick, Mr. Speaker; it came just two days later at the time this bill was introduced in the House. The study hasn't been done yet.

Here is the minister himself on December 7, yesterday.

"Question: Does this point out a need for bringing education under the Essential Services Act?

"Minister: I don t believe that this one particular dispute is sufficient to indicate this as being the course of action which should follow, but we will be examining the impact of this and other disputes that there have been in the various school districts throughout the province to determine whether a pattern of practice is emerging on the part of accredited employers and the unions with whom they must deal. If that indicates some need for permanent legislative assistance, then we will consider it at that time."

That was yesterday. Mr. Speaker, I want to know what happened overnight that this section 11 was slipped into this bill. Or was it the intention all along? I can't believe it in view of the words in these press conferences. It is simply not justifiable. It is improper to ask this chamber in an emergency debate called to deal with a particular situation -which as I say, I support and shall support, namely the solution of the West Kootenay school problem -- to ask the Legislature under those circumstances to enter into and approve these far reaching amendments. I feel that I have no choice but to vote in favour of the bill in second reading, but I cannot support the manner in which those amendments are being brought forward.

HON. MR. McGEER: We have heard some interesting debate so far today on this very important principle that we face in British Columbia. There is a single issue involved -- only one. Mr. Speaker, there is only one value judgment to make. That value judgment is: how important are our children in this province?

There is little doubt that the dispute in the West Kootenays has done harm to the children of our province. I'm going to deal with that later. But I think it fair to point out to this assembly now and to the people of British Columbia that as a generality, there is no evidence that I am aware of -- none has been brought forward in this chamber today -to say that anything other than damage to children results every single time there is a disruption in school services. Whether that disruption takes place in British Columbia, elsewhere in Canada or in the United States, you can total up a trail of damage which has gone on and on and on, and will continue until legislatures and governments come to their

[ Page 2848 ]

senses.

The question here, Mr. Speaker, as elsewhere, is whether children should be the victims of industrial disputes. Our task, after all -- our overriding task -- is to protect the public interest, and surely the children deserve some particular attention for that public interest.

You know, earlier today we heard the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Barrett) talking in impassioned tones about the handicapped children of our province. He asked for more money. It's always easy to ask for more money for education. The demands can never be satisfied; there's never enough. But when it came right down to cases, as it did when he spoke and as it will today, was it the handicapped children he was really thinking of? Was it any kind of children? No, he's going to vote against the bill for the children. He's going to vote against that in the greater interest of the power of the union movement that he represents.

I'm glad that the leader of the Liberal Party (Mr. Gibson) , even though he deviated somewhat from traditional Liberal Party philosophy and policy - I'll go into that -and the leader of the Conservative Party (Mr. Stephens) are prepared to put the children of British Columbia first, even if the New Democratic Party is not prepared to do so.

Urgency does exist in this situation, as the Minister of Labour said. The urgency existed the day that this dispute started and the schools were affected. That didn't bother the Leader of the Opposition then. He thinks that the problem is solved now, because he had a little chat with the labour unions of this province and they decided after chatting with him to end their strike. That won't undo the damage. I ask this, Mr. Speaker: is it right that you punish the children, and then when you've punished them enough, you say an urgency exists?

Mr. Speaker, I want to quote from another member of this assembly who had this to say on a former occasion in this House:

"I have said on many occasions publicly to the trade union movement and management groups that no right is absolute, that every right that a citizen holds in this province must be tempered and weighed against the consequences of its exercise to the ultimate on innocent parties and on people directly involved."

I agree with those words, but where was the former Minister of Labour, the member for Revelstoke-Slocan (Mr. King) , when we really needed him? Where was he when the children of the province needed him, and where will he be today when this vote is taken? Because this is the time when that ultimate right has been exercised to damage our most precious asset, which is the children of British Columbia.

We've heard from many people, Mr. Speaker, on this issue. I know the members opposite, who are voting against the children today, have heard as well. But I think we should read into the record some of the commonsense statements that we've had from parents and public, who've seen at close hand the damage that occurs, because sometimes their way of expressing things is far more eloquent than what we can muster in debate in this House. I quote from one set of parents from Trail:

"I am not impressed with a government that will allow our children's education to take a back seat to a labour dispute. In a country that stresses education and is proud of its heritage, it is sad that the children are being used as pawns. The time has come for a good look at unions and the Canadian way of life ."

Well, that's what we're inspecting just a little bit with this bill and this dispute that the bill will attempt to settle. We're examining the values of British Columbia, and we're testing the Canadian way of life. I want to assure you, Mr. Speaker, that the view of the Canadian way of life and the British Columbia way of life as seen by the present government is very different from the members opposite. We wish to leave no doubt about where our sense of values lies.

We've heard from the Liberal leader, who's very satisfied to deal with this situation now, after the damage has been done. We heard very little from him while it was in the process of being done and accumulating. But, again, I want to read from a letter which makes it, I hope, a little bit clearer to the Liberal leader and the members opposite just exactly why there's an additional section to this bill. This mother said:

"As a parent of four children, one of them hoping to graduate this year, it is with real alarm that I see the labour dispute going into its second week here in Trail.

"As I wrote last year with the same despairing news, I can hardly believe that it is not a bad dream. Here it is happening again, the second time in one year.

"It seems incredible that in an area where people were put in prison for breaking the law for not sending their children to school, the schools are locked from our children, and the law does not help our children or their parents."

Mr. Speaker, this law is to help the children and their parents. It's to end a mockery,

[ Page 2849 ]

whereby parents were sent to Jail for not sending their children to the schools, and now because of the inadequate laws that presently rest on our legislative books, parents in that same area are not permitted to send their children to school because our laws leave them to be shut down.

I have heard, as I am sure the members opposite have heard, from the trade unions involved, CUPE and BCGEU, from school trustees, from thousands of parents, from college instructors. But, you know, there are two people that I never heard from in all of this, the two members from the area affected. We haven't heard from them today. I must say, I'd like to hear from them. If your party is muzzling you, and if you feel uncomfortable because the parents from your area are demanding action and you've been silenced by your party, please come over where you have the freedom to speak.

From another parent, in capitals at the end of the letter:

"PLEASE HELP. These children are our country's future representatives. What kind of government would allow tampering with these young people's lives, maybe taking another year out if they fail again?

"Last month the post office went on strike. The government wasted no time in legislating the posties back to work. Is a stupid. letter more important than our children's lives? Not on your life."

Here's another letter. Again, it's from a parent from Rossland: "I can't say who is right and who is wrong in this dispute, but I do know it is the children who suffer."

Here's another letter. I selected this one out of this many that Iove received. I know the NDP has heard from many parents. They've had little to say about the messages they've received in this debate, a lot to say about the union messages they received, but very little about what the parents have had to say. This is for the member for Burnaby North (Mrs. Dailly): "This has been the third time in five years that my children in this area have been unable to get proper schooling." She put her two children in the Catholic school. She didn't think it was as well equipped, " but it was still better than my children missing weeks and weeks of school."

Well, Mr. Speaker, I'm not going to go on and on giving individual representations as to how parents feel. The member for Nanaimo (Mr. Stupich) started to applaud in relief at that, and I'll have a word or two to say about his feelings at the time when his area was affected by a school strike. I will take one moment to read a letter from a physician in Trail, written to me in longhand on a Saturday morning, because of its urgency:

"The effect of school three days one week and two days the next week is devastating to discipline and morale. Not only is the poor-to-average student getting behind so he will never catch up, but the A students are overworking at home in an unsupervised way, suffering equally from not knowing where they are. There is an alarming increase in incidence of behaviour disorders, and in children with learning difficulties and psychological problems."

Well, Mr. Speaker, I would like to share with you and the members opposite a message from over 5,000 parents in Trail, a labouring town that sends an NDP representative to this Legislature, expressing their dismay over the fact that legislation does not exist to keep their schools open. I'd ask leave to table these signatures so that members who are going to vote against those parents, will have an opportunity to study what they had to say.

[Mr. Rogers in the chair.)

Mr. Speaker, this hasn't been the only dispute this year that has resulted in school closure. I have from the neighbouring area of the East Kootenays a further 1,500 names on the CUPE dispute that dragged on up there, and if the members think that this is an isolated occasion that need only be dealt with when at the last minute everybody decides they don't want any legislation, let them not be disillusioned, because this is a chronic sore in British Columbia, and one that isn't going to go away simply because we pass a piece of legislation that would end one dispute after the damage has been done. There are a further 1,500 names from another area, and I would ask leave to table those.

Leave granted.

HON. MR. MCGEER: This year there have been in British Columbia aver a million student days of school disruption in British Columbia in the Kootenays alone. Every year there have been disputes, and every year this Legislature has ignored the children and passed them all over. No more; you're correct. It's time that this government and all the elected representatives of the people stood up for the children of British Columbia.

I remember in 1976 when a dispute ravaged the school system of the mid Island. The member for Nanaimo at that time, over a dispute

[ Page 2850 ]

similar to the one we are discussing today, every bit as serious to the students involved, had this to say: "I think the effects on the community, and in particular on the students in that school district, the Importance of getting the schools re-opened fully for the limited time that is still available In the school year should outweigh the concerns the union has right now." Right on, Mr. Member, right on. Remember those words of yours in Hansard when you vote today, because the situation is precisely the same.

Why is it that we say damage has been done to the children of our province? Place yourself in their position in school. Place yourself in the position of the teachers. I'm proud of the teachers of those districts in the Kootenays that have soldiered on under the worst of conditions, trying to keep something going for their students. We should be very grateful for their dedication.

First of all, there's a shortened day, even for those that make it. It particularly hurts the slow learners who need to go flat out every single day, with all the help from the teachers and from their fellow students that they can get. The handicapped children that the Leader of the Opposition was championing so much earlier today -- they never catch up after one of these situations, never. Where is the heart of the Leader of the Opposition for those students in the Trail district today? He isn't even in his seat, Mr. Speaker. He spoke about them and then he ran out.

The attendance is irregular. What is a teacher supposed to do when one group of students show up one day and another group the next? How do they keep the group together and moving, and make some sense out of the class? Perhaps the member for Burnaby North (Mrs. Dailly) , when she tries to defend the situation, will explain how you teach in a classroom under those circumstances.

You must remember too, Mr. Speaker, the anxiety of the parents, expressed so eloquently in all of these letters. It must be difficult for the parents of a strong trade union family, who don't want their youngsters crossing a picket line, to have to decide: "Do I keep the youngster at home and impair the education and let that youngster fall farther and farther behind, or do I defy the union ethic and send them to school?" Perhaps the member for Revelstoke-Slocan (Mr. King) can give the parents of Trail an answer to that question.

What do we do about the youngsters who live 20 miles away from school and haven't got adequate transportation? Is it fair to them, relative to the others who only walk a block or two to school? Is that the kind of justice that the Liberal leader (Mr. Gibson) would like to see dispensed to the children of our province? But he's not in favour of solving these disputes for all time. No, he'll deviate from Liberal Party policy and waver around and just take the easy, short-term solution. Well, there was a day when there were more Liberals over there and policy was firmer, I can tell you that, Mr. Speaker.

What do we do -- and I would ask this of the member for Nelson-Creston (Mr. Nicolson) -with the high schools he taught in, that are on the semester system where the end of the semester is rapidly approaching and some may wish to write scholarship exams, having been cheated out of their teaching? He used to believe, before he was a member of the NDP, in the importance of scholarship and teaching the students, and yet his tongue has been tied through this whole dispute. Why? Because that party over there is captured by the trade union movement and can't act on behalf of the children of British Columbia, even when their members are school teachers.

Well, Mr. Speaker, I must say this: the Public Schools Act of British Columbia was established for the children of this province. It didn't contemplate the kinds of work stoppages that have become routine in British Columbia, five or six a year, each doing tremendous damage in their area, each caused by a relatively small number of employees, each involving only a minor portion of the total school budget, but having every bit as devastating an effect as if our Public Schools Act were not written in the fashion that it is to benefit the students, as if our Public Schools Act didn't give a damn for the students because no provision is made to protect in cases where employer and employee cannot get together.

Well, Mr. Speaker, the Labour Relations Act, introduced by the NDP, provided no protection for the children of British Columbia. It creates opportunities for a very few to do damage to a system that it was intended to protect through the Public Schools Act. Those opposite wonder why it is that the Minister of Labour would have brought in a provision responding to the pleas that he has received, that the Premier has received, that I have received, and that you have received, saying again and again and again what is happening in our schools is stupid, ridiculous and unforgivable, and to make those schools an essential service so that we can place the children of British Columbia where they belong: highest in our priorities, and riot the lowest.

[ Page 2851 ]

HON. MR. BENNETT: I'm not going to take long because much of the ground was covered earlier in debate by the Minister of Labour and by other speakers as to why we are here and who are the innocent victims of this dispute. At the outset of having this opportunity, I would take my chance to congratulate the new members of cabinet and welcome them to their responsibility to serve this province, as I am sure every legislator is willing to do at some time or other in his career. I wish them well and I know that they are ready to accept their challenge. I know all members wish them well because I'd hate to think that there are some people in this Legislature in this province that would hope for hard times for political advantage, and would not wish everyone well.

Mr. Speaker, this bill and the issue are very clear cut. The reason we are here, as the Minister of Labour and the Minister of Education and others from this side have said, is because the rights and the opportunities for the children in the Kootenay region need the attention of this assembly. They need the attention of this assembly because they have already lost many hours and weeks of instruction and learning which every child mu t have. Those of us who are parents know the difficulties which teenagers and others have just in learning under normal circumstances. It is difficult. Under the circumstances prevailing in the Kootenay region their abilities to learn are further impaired and hampered. As many have said and read, they may lose more than a few weeks; they may lose a whole year and they may lose more than that in the fullness of time. That is why we are here.

When we look at the children of the Kootenay and say that we are concerned about them now, shouldn't we be addressing ourselves to the problems of all British Columbian students and their ability to get an education now and in the future without interruption? Hasn't there been a commitment for many years in this province for which I've heard members from all sides of this House compliment the teachers and the education system because they had chosen to put the children first and not take the right to strike? That's been a condition that has existed in this province for many years.

If we accept that the teachers themselves recognize the children's right to an education and the difficulties they will have if it is withdrawn by them, shouldn't that exist and shouldn't that condition be extended to any group that could prevent the teachers from teaching and the children from learning and the parents from getting the opportunities for their young which they want, which we all want and which is the future of the country? Haven't we all said many times that the future of this country is in our youth, and haven't we said that their ability to develop this country and govern it will be in our ability to give them an education? Don't we feel that responsibility extends to not only just the children of the Kootenays but to the children of Vancouver, Victoria, the Okanagan or the north?

If we are concerned at seeing the disruption and the problems that were outlined in letters read by the Minister of Education.... If we had the time -- and was I willing to take the time -- I could read you many letters and recount many phone calls and discussions with parents who are concerned, with children who are concerned, and with teachers. Many of these people come from all walks of life; many of them are trade unionists. But before they are a member of a union they are a member of a family. Their responsibility is to their family and to their children. As such, that is the ultimate responsibility we have -- to the individuals in this society. From time to time we're going to have to stand up and look at groups.

I'm not saying who is right or wrong or if both are wrong in this dispute, but we're going to have to stand up and say: "Opportunity for our citizens." In this case, educational opportunity for our youth is more important to us than coming under the power or the pressure of any single pressure group in this province. Don't you realize that schools can be closed by having some services taken away that are delivered by municipalities, municipal governments, regional governments? Don't you know that they have the capability -- just as the teachers could have but have chosen not to have -- such as this dispute has, of shutting down the institutions of education in this province and taking away that opportunity of education, as it has been taken away here?

Haven't we learned from the number of cases where this has happened -- not only in our province, but where it has happened where there have been strikes by not only just those surrounding education but by those directly involved in it? Haven't we learned from the case studies of the individual -- that's what we're talking about, individuals -- that in those instances this should no longer exist? We have a greater responsibility to people.

Does not it point out that every party or every person that comes into this Legislature must owe their allegiance first not to this group or that power group or this set of people, but to the broader community -- the

[ Page 2852 ]

community that is made up of all of the individuals in this province -- and their collective right and opportunity to receive the services this government has been asked to provide? Education is one of them, and we could deal with others that deal with life and safety.

But today we want to talk about these children now and in the future. We don't want to, as the Minister of Education has read so eloquently from that letter.... "Haven't we learned?" She went through it last year, she's going through it this year, her family is going through it. Haven't we learned that we have a responsibility not to legislate against anyone, but isn't it darn well time we legislated for people?

I often wonder about the silly things and the silly events outside this chamber that surround an important opportunity to do the right thing for the people. I wonder at the people that mutter and run up and down the halls and say it's some gigantic plot of the Socreds to call an election. Well, let me assure you, if you're worried about that, you'll take your beating some other time. We've got a lot to do before we go to the people.

Let me say, Mr. Speaker, that if they're worried, if they've got to spread that there's some gigantic plot to bring in oppressive legislation onto the children, that's not it either. I listened to the Leader of the Opposition and I listened to other members from that side offer the most incredible statements or thoughts that they ascribe to this government and myself. I want to say that they're not only untrue, they are really more difficult to accept than some of the statements I heard from them during the last session, and that goes a long way because they are the most incredible statements I've heard. When you have no substance and when you have no reason to oppose legislation or take a chance to vote for someone, we get these incredible personal attacks, attacks on people and individuals, and snide remarks about members on this side of the House or people outside government, when in fact we have an opportunity to do the right thing and do it in a hurry. I'm not threatening the House, but I say I have a time schedule for the children in the Kootenays and I'd like to make sure that those institutions open, fully staffed and fully manned with all the facilities, Monday morning. I would never delay this House for a number of days so that opportunity will not exist.

Mr. Speaker, I support this legislation because I support the rights and opportunities, not only of the young in the Kootenays today, but of our young children in all parts of this province for ever and ever and ever, to get an education and do a job that some people seem incapable of tackling.

Mr. Speaker, I move adjournment of this debate to later in the day.

Interjections.

HON. MR. BENNETT: Mr. Speaker, I misread the clock. I thought it was 6 o'clock. I'm quite willing to withdraw my motion because there was an agreement, and I thought I was keeping the agreement of the 6 o'clock hour of adjournment that was agreed to.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Is it agreed that we proceed?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Agreed.

HON. MR. BENNETT: Mr. Speaker, let me just close. As I've said, I'm not willing to delay passage of this bill because I know time is of the essence and that other speakers, particularly speakers who have gone before me, like the Minister of Labour and the Minister of Education, have outlined very clearly the reasons for this bill and the reasons why we're legislating for the youth who are the future of this province. I urge members of this assembly, regardless of political persuasion, to support this legislation, to take this opportunity to vote for our youth, to vote for our future and, above all, to prove once and for all that no member of this Legislature comes in here with a commitment to some group that may be greater than their commitment to all the people.

MR. DARCY: I want to first of all welcome the two new members to the cabinet, but I'd also like to point out, without dealing with any personalities on that side of the House, new members or old members, that I think it's most distressing to know that while it costs perhaps $1 million a year to run the Premier's office and a couple of hundred grand to run each minister's office, we've had two new ministers added at a time when we're still telling the people of B.C. to tighten their belts. That's hardly the kind of restraint which I expected to see from this government.

I'm not going to reply in detail to some of the things that have been said recently across the way, but I am going to say this. I do think that while the Premier and the Minister of Education and others over there are piously talking about the plight of students and children in the West Kootenay -- and Lord knows,

[ Page 2853 ]

they have serious problems, and Lord knows, this has been a tragic situation and a tragic mismanagement of labour relations - the fact remains that I believe that it's the government and its speakers who are using the emotional nature and the problem of students and children in the West Kootenay to obscure the fact of what this bill is really doing.

I'd also like to make to make a point to the Minister of Education, since I see he is still in his seat, that I've been in close contact with some members of his staff since the inception of this dispute -- not the inception of the strike-lockout, but the since the inception of the dispute, which goes back a number of months. They've all been very cooperative and very helpful. In fact, I want to make the point that the district superintendent has co-operated. I've met with him and with principals, and we have arranged in some cases for the teachers to go to the students, because in many cases the students couldn't get to the teachers. So if the minister is suggesting that this particular member has not been in touch with educational authorities on this matter, I certainly want to correct that.

Also, these people have made the point constantly that it's their view that the Minister of Education should, correctly, not be involved in a labour dispute, but only the Ministry of Labour should be.

From there I want to turn to the Ministry of Labour. The Ministry of Labour people, the staff in this, have been extremely helpful all the way through. They have applied a number of professional mediators to this situation, and those mediators, I think, have attempted to do a good job, and they have attempted to get the parties who were involved in the dispute to treat their responsibilities in a mature way -- unfortunately, without success.

I find it most strange that the member for Vancouver South (Mr. Strongman) and the Minister of Education should be suggesting in this House that the member for Vancouver East should in fact be doing the Minister of Labour's job. Now I thought that the Minister of Labour was appointed to do just that. He was given a staff, a big office, a fairly healthy salary to be Minister of Labour. Now we find at the eleventh hour that one of the other members of this House, the second member for Vancouver East (Mr. Barrett) , was able to get one of the two parties to make a major concession at a time when no one else had been able to get either side to move one iota in six months. What do we hear from the govern-ment benches? We hear criticism of that member for Vancouver East because he didn't do it sooner. Well, that member was not the Minister of Labour. While I appreciate his efforts as soon as this House was called back into session, I want to make it very clear that those initiatives perhaps could have been taken by the Minister of Labour.

I see the minister is looking over here. It's possible he attempted that same thing -It's possible he made that same suggestion and had it turned down. I do know that he had discussions with both sides in the few days prior to this House being called into session.

I would note that the member across the way, the minister, got involved in this dispute in a direct way only six working days ago today. Now I'm not suggesting that he wasn't paying attention to the situation before that, or that he wasn't in regular contact with his staff in the mediation on it. I do know that he got involved a week ago today. I only know from the press reports, but I have it from the press reports that at no time did the Minister of Labour offer an industrial inquiry commissioner without strings attached. According to the media reports, two industrial inquiry commissioners were offered, one involving the striking situation and one involving the lockout situation, but there was a precondition attached that both sides had to accept the results. In plain English, the minister was not offering an industrial inquiry commissioner at all. He was offering an arbitration, pure and simple. He was calling it an IIC, but in fact it was an arbitration. Unlike the arbitration which applied to the teachers, it was an arbitration where he, and he alone, would have appointed the arbitrator.

I must differ with the member for North Vancouver-Capilano (Mr. Gibson) when he says that to enter into an arbitration situation involving education would be a major shift. I would suggest that if we look at the education employees in total, we'll see that the majority have already opted for arbitration some time ago, but it is an arbitration that has worked, even though there has been the occasional sore point over the years, because it has been a fair way of arbitrating. One side appointed one member of a board.... The B.C. School Trustees appointed one member, the teachers appointed one member, and the government, eventually, appointed a third member. That system has worked, with a few squeaks and rattles, very well over the last three years.

I would note that if we talk about money in this dispute.... This is why I can't understand why the minister did not opt for an industrial inquiry commissioner without strings attached. Perhaps the minister, at some point in this debate, will correct me on this, but to my knowledge, industrial inquiry

[ Page 2854 ]

commissioners' recommendations in the private or the public sector have invariably resulted in settlement. With little or no change in the original recommendations they have resulted in settlements. We know that here we are looking at one more week of regular school, and then a two-and-a-half -week break. I submit there was plenty of opportunity.

Providing now that the minister has finally gotten personally involved, or directly involved, with the combatants, instead of at an arm's-length relationship, there was time to appoint an IIC to have brought in recommendations and to have those recommendations, hopefully, accepted by the two sides. Certainly it was a guarantee that an IIC, as he called it -- in fact, it was an arbitrator -would be refused because the minister himself, according to press reports, put that precondition on it.

I think it just a little bit absurd, Mr. Speaker, when we have had the observation made that there was no real bargaining going on because both sides were insisting on preconditions, that both sides weren't moving, to have the minister come down and say: "I'm going to appoint an inquirer, but I'm only going to do it with preconditions." I think it was a guarantee that both sides were going to turn down that suggestion.

Mr. Speaker, I was rather interested in the remarks from the member for Oak Bay (Mr. Stephens) , because he said there was a difference in the public sector and the private sector. Well, I don't agree with all of his philosophies on it but he did make, I think, a very good point. That is that in the private sector, in an industrial or commercial sector, it's presumed that a strike or lockout has some kind of commercial effect on management. Presumably the pickets are a disincentive to business. The fact that a factory may not be running results in losses of production and loss of sales.

One of the tragic things about this is that in the public sector, as the member for Oak Bay pointed out, the money just keeps rolling in anyway. There is no loss of funding because there's a strike or a lockout in the public sector. The tax rates are set. The people have no choice but to continue to pay their school taxes, their property taxes, and any other taxes that are involved. And no wonder the public gets extremely annoyed about disputes within the public sector, because they don't even see any savings to them.

Mr. Speaker, I do believe that the minister and the Ministry of Labour should have taken initiatives in this dispute, if only to say to both parties: "Sit down and meet with each other. Stay in session eight hours a day, and don't come out of it until such time as you have a solution to this situation."

I'm wondering, Mr. Speaker, how many members in this House realize that since this dispute started -- and I gather the bargaining started way back this spring -- the school trustees and the college council in the West Kootenay area have never once met with their employees. Never once. No meeting has ever taken place between the elected and appointed trustees and college councillors. In fact, to my knowledge, they probably haven't even met with the union's hired gun. All they have met with.... They have sent their own hired gun, and there's nothing wrong with that. It's quite all right for an association to hire a professional, just as it is all right for a union to hire a professional. However, never once did the trustees, who are elected by the taxpayers and ratepayers of the Kootenays, meet to dis-cuss anything with their employees. Strangely enough, they were quite happy to meet and discuss things with the teachers, but not with their employees. The teachers make up the largest proportion, of course, of the school district budget.

The Minister of Education, in his remarks, suggested that some people on this side of the House were "captives" of the labour movement. Mr. Speaker, if we, on this side of the House, are opposing this bill, surely the Minister of Education must also think that we are captives of the B.C. School Trustees Association, because in the particular dispute that this bill purports to be dealing with -- in fact, I suggest it is dealing with something far deeper than that -- there are more people locked out than there are on strike.

Mr. Speaker, in the question of the East Kootenay area which the Minister of Education talked about, everybody was locked out. There was nobody on strike. So how the Minister of Education, the member for Vancouver-Point Grey, can suggest that people on this side of the House are somehow deeply involved with the labour movement when, in fact, this particular piece of legislation, in sheer numbers, deals far more with management at this time than labour, is somewhat beyond me -- unless, of course, the Minister of Education wasn't really talking about this bill at all, unless he was talking about the real guts of the bill, which is section 11, which deals with all public service employees, whether they work at the municipal water district, regional district, school board, college or university level anywhere in the province.

I certainly agree with all those people in the House who have got up and said that this

[ Page 2855 ]

bill has only peripherally to do with this disastrous situation in the West Kootenays, but that situation in the West Kootenays has been used by the government, and the children of the West Kootenays have been used by the government to deal with something that they all along have wanted to deal with and couldn't get a political handle on.

Mr. Speaker, it's quite true that over 5,000 people in the West Kootenays signed a petition asking for government action, but they wanted the correct action. They wanted meaningful action. They didn't want Bill 46 and section 11.

Mr. Speaker, the government has put itself in a dicey situation for evermore with this bill. We know now that through this bill they have taken all employers in the public sector completely off the hook. Nobody has to bargain in good faith at any time because they know that sooner or later, probably sooner, the government is going to come along and play God. Because any back-to-work bill, any lockout-lifting bill.... You can't just direct people back to work. You have to set up the machinery to resolve the issues that caused the dispute in the first place. In other words, you have to come down with decisions or cause decisions to be made which are going to resolve the dispute of disputes.

Mr. Speaker, how do we know what those resolutions are going to be over the next few years? Is the government of the day going to come in with generous settlements in election years and hard-nosed settlements in off years? We really have no knowledge or guarantee of that. All we know is that the government must bring in or cause to bring in settlements.

I know that the people in the public sector -- the employers -- are not incapable people. I know that they come from different political parties and I know that they all try and do a good job. I would suggest, though, that in this particular situation they have found themselves tied up by a bargaining system which is so clumsy that it has fully 10,000 of the 15,000 students who are affected by this dispute affected because of issues which don't even affect their jurisdiction, their school district. I'm wondering if the House is aware of that either.

One of the key issues, for instance, in the Nelson dispute involves bus drivers and clerical help. Bus drivers and clerical help, Mr. Speaker, are not even covered in the certification in the three districts which are locked out. They're not even covered in that certification. We have had statements from both sides that said: "Yes, in those three locked-out districts involving 10,000 of the 15,000 students, the two sides are only 10 cents apart." We have had statements to say: "Nobody considers 10 cents worth striking for." Yet those students are all idle. The minister has not told them to resolve that. That is how miniscule the issues are.

An engineer with Cominco Ltd. with a Sharp calculator worked out that if the Union in School District 11 were given everything that they were asking for, it would cost the homeowners in Rossland-Trail the great amount of 77 cents per year. That's what it would cost. They were hardly talking about money. We have 10,000 students idle for six weeks in the West Kootenays aver 10 cents an hour and 77 cents a year to the taxpayer. It's a clumsy bargaining system that the minister has not moved on.

I would agree that there are serious bargaining problems at Selkirk College and in the district of Nelson. But I would submit to this House that it is the ultimate tragedy that we are here today primarily because of the 10,000 students -- children of all ages -- who are idled on minor items simply because there was no way around an entirely all too clumsy and all too complex bargaining setup. Even the trustees, if they had wished to opt out of the accredited bargaining Unit, didn't even have that choice, because you can only do it in the third and fourth month of a collective agreement. We all know that that third and fourth month of a collective agreement, when and if it is signed, has already passed by. The minister, in my view, while his staff have been assistant and while he himself has taken a very strong personal interest in the past week, has not done what he could have done to get people back to the table and get a resolution.

Mr. Speaker, I don't believe there is any question about it that this piece of legislation, as I said earlier, is only peripherally to do with the West Kootenay dispute. It is primarily to do with the governments desire -- I'd say not necessarily that particular ministers desire, but the government's desire -- to enforce settlements on management and labour in the entire public sector in all of British Columbia.

Mr. Speaker, that may be their desire -- it may even be good politics at the moment, although I don't know about that -- but I do know that the government is going to have to live with this legislation and they're going to have to live with the settlements that they are either going to bring down or cause to be brought down by third parties to resolve disputes; settlements which inevitably, because they are not reached freely, are bound to create dissatisfaction and a good deal of

[ Page 2856 ]

hardship on one side or the other -- perhaps for the taxpayers, perhaps for the working people, perhaps for both. We don't know. I only know that the collective bargaining system sometimes does break down completely.

I'm not satisfied that everything was done in this particular case by the minister's office. I think everything was done by the staff of the Ministry of Education; everything was done that could be done by the minister's own staff in the Ministry of Labour. I do believe that the prestige of the minister's office, which is still prestigious, should have been used. It should have been used on the people in this dispute to get them to sit down in a meaningful way. Because as I said earlier, Mr. Speaker, not once to this date, as we sit here -- going back into negotiations in the early part of this year -- have the elected people in that organization sat down with their employees or with their employees' representatives. I find, as a citizen and as a taxpayer, as well as an MLA, that is a situation where once a dispute started it should not have been allowed to continue by the minister.

Mr. Speaker, I'm going to make some remarks briefly about accreditation. It has been suggested by some people in this House that, in fact, that is the real issue. I think that the matter of accreditation in school district disputes.... And it obviously is not working. I think it may work as long as a strike or lockout does not, in fact, occur, but I think that once a strike or lockout occurs, as we have seen both in the East and West Kootenay as well as in the municipal dispute in the Okanagan-Kamloops area, it really doesn't work very well.

Mr. Speaker, I think that one of the things that should be looked at is setting up a more workable way of handling disputes that involve public employees. It does not require every "i" to be dotted and every "t" to be crossed in every jurisdiction, even involving employees who are not even affected by the dispute, in order that an entire region doesn't get shut down over someone else's issue. I think the minister should have looked at that. He should have done something within his ministry to make the system work. He did nothing here. In my view, he did nothing last year in this regard, although he was personally involved. To my knowledge, he was not moving in that direction in the dispute involving the municipal employees. When something manifestly can be seen to be not working, special action and special attention has to be paid. I would have liked to have seen that happen.

Mr. Speaker, I mentioned earlier and I want to repeat again that the issues involving 10,000 of the locked-out students are so small that you can hardly put an evaluation on them. Yet they've been locked out. The issues are so small that even were they given everything they wanted, and we all know that in a negotiating situation neither side gets everything they want, it would have cost the taxpayers of the area less than $1 a year.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to think that this will be a lesson to everyone in this House that students and children should not be used by the government. I believe that students and children, unfortunately, have been used as well because of the dedication that the BCSTA has towards the present system of accredited bargaining and not some modification of it. I also believe that the employees have been used to a considerable degree because there is absolutely no loss of revenue for the jurisdictions involved -- none whatsoever. If we are to go, obviously, to some kind of compulsory setup, regardless of what the minister may be going to say in his windup remarks, we do know that right now through arbitration in the same area of the public service, the BCTF has already announced that some 27 of their locals have settled for an average of 8 per cent. On the average teacher's salary that's roughly a $1,700-a-year increase in a one-year contract. We know that the maximum again in what the union is asking for would result in an increased cost per employee of only $1,500. That's assuming they got everything they wanted.

So we see hardly a financial disincentive not to negotiate, hardly a financial disincentive not to settle, and yet we have the government dealing in arbitration. I suggest, Mr. Speaker, that arbitrated settlements, if they're tacked on to education as we've seen in arbitrations for the teaching sector, are likely to not necessarily result in fair settlements either way because there is no knowledge of what would have been arrived at through free collective bargaining.

I think as much as anyone in this House, certainly as much as anyone in the Kootenays, I have been distressed by the fact that for the second time within one year -- not the second time in two years, but the second time in one year -- there has been a serious disruption of education in the West Kootenay. I think it's especially tragic at the postsecondary level, where many of the people, particularly in the technologies, are in a position of losing their entire tuition and their entire year. Financially, the burden is very strenuous on the more expensive technolo-

[ Page 2857 ]

gies, such as the airline pilots.

However, Mr. Speaker, while I and thousands of other people in the Kootenays have wanted some positive action from government and from the Minister of Labour, the fact is that I don't believe that this is the kind of action that most people had in mind. They wanted a settlement with fair procedures and a fair settlement, and they wanted the schools operating as normal. There's no question that this bill is a lockout-lifting order and a back-to-work order. But no one, to my knowledge, was asking for the kind of all-encompassing, all sweeping measures that the government, using the cover of this bill, has applied to the entire province, to all of the public sector. Because of that -- part of this bill in particular, as well as the general philosophy that runs through it -- I will be opposing this Act.

MR. HADDAD: Before commencing, I would like to congratulate the two new ministers also. Having been sitting in the chair of one of these new ministers, I feel quite elated. I think maybe it might be my turn next. However, I would like to wish these two new ministers well. I'm sure that the Premier chose wisely and that they will do a good job.

It delights me, Mr. Speaker, to see that this entire House is finally interested in the Kootenays. It's not too often that so much discussion is focused on the best part of British Columbia -- the West Kootenays and the East Kootenays. We are the frontiers of British Columbia. We have Alberta right next door hoping to gobble us up, but we're sticking with British Columbia.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to support Bill 46, the West Kootenay Schools Collective Bargaining Assistance Act. I would like to tell the House the, various impressions of people in my constituency regarding the present problems in the West Kootenay school districts. We not too long ago in the East Kootenays went through the same problems, except this time it was a direct lockout by management. It went on and on and on. Finally the dispute was settled, but the citizens and the students were very unhappy about it.

I wish to support my stand regarding this bill by telling this House that the East Kootenay earlier this year had a similar experience with our schools and the union and management during the lockout. I received many phone calls every day from concerned citizens, and many more from students who were highly concerned with the interruption of their education. Mr. Speaker, we cannot allow our children in this province to be used as pawns in negotiations such as this.

During the dispute in my constituency of Kootenay and, indeed, the entire East Kootenay, students and concerned parents requested me to ask our government to immediately include the Canadian Union of Public Employees in the Essential Services Disputes Act. The wisdom shown by our Minister of Labour in the East Kootenay dispute showed that he was supportive of both the union and the employers. The weather at that time was mild, but tempers were flaring and the students were very upset with only receiving a partial education.

I remember several phone calls from students in their final high-school year who were very emotional regarding this prolonged unnecessary interruption to their education and the possibility of their having to repeat another year. I had phone calls from parents who were highly emotional in regard to the unnecessary interruption of their children's education. I not only had phone calls but I had letters.

During the East Kootenay negotiations of the union and the school board negotiating teams, and as I visited throughout the constituency of Kootenay, I found that 95 per cent of the people I talked to instructed me to ask our government to include all public Employees in the Essential Services Disputes Act. The citizens in my constituency are not only asking, Mr. Speaker, but they are demanding.

In conclusion, I would like to tell this House the feelings I received yesterday from citizens in Cranbrook. They were all: "Put an end to any possibility of lockouts and strikes in any government essential services." Mr. Speaker, the bill we are debating today, Bill 46, does just what most of the citizens in my constituency want and, I believe, what all citizens of British Columbia want. I say to every hon. member in this House: support Bill 46.

MR. NICOLSON: First of all, I'd like to congratulate the new minister who is present in the House. Nice going, Elwood.

Mr. Speaker, it is my full intention to speak very candidly to this bill. I don't know if I'm the only one affected, inasmuch as I have two children attending in the Nelson school district. I know the level of inconvenience to parents living in rural areas who must transport their children to and from school. I know the level of school services that are being offered, and I think that under these circumstances, for the majority of students, it is a high standard of education that is being offered. There are some very serious insurmountable problems in some situations

[ Page 2858 ]

where no education is really being offered in some aspects of the operations of Selkirk College in the vocational school, the Kootenay School of Art and David Thompson University Centre.

I have not sought to intervene in what is a delicate labour matter, but I have never refused to attend a meeting of concerned parents, to face, in some instances, a couple of hundred people and to also have present at that meeting trustees, members of CUPE and others. What I have seen is the way in which this whole situation tends to tear a community apart, and the ef forts that are made by some people to prevent meetings of this size from finding fault with one side or the other.

The member for Kootenay (Mr. Haddad) and the member for Rossland-Trail (Mr. D'Arcy) pointed out the situation which occurred and brought a little bit of light upon the situation which occurred in the East Kootenay this fall. That was purely a lockout situation, Mr. Speaker, and it is my recollection that that lockout started possibly in June and certainly in early summer.

AN HON. MEMBER: In August.

MR. NICOLSON: Okay, when there was nothing going on in school. So the workers over there suffered loss of their paycheque for over a month before their services were really missed in a crucial sort of way toward the delivery of the school system.

I'd like to point out, Mr. Speaker, that when school opened up, they opened up in some places one day a week, in the Creston-Kaslo School District 86, sending home learning packages. In other situations it was perhaps a couple of hours a week. I pointed out to parents that it was their right under the rules of-well, what used to be called rules of the Council of Public Instruction, under the regulations pursuant to the School Act, that the children receive certain minimum hours of work. It was rather surprising that when parents insisted upon full-time attendance in that dispute that was taking place in the month of September when the temperature was not one of the factors to be considered, they were able to accommodate and operate. Perhaps, indeed, the parent's insistence upon that operation for full time might have brought some pressure on boards and union to discuss this and to get back to negotiation. They did so, I believe, by having some separate talks, some of them signing separate memorandums of agreement. But, of course, the total agreement had to be predicated upon all districts settling. I think the final holdout was in the Fernie area.

The Minister of Education referred to this as the CUPE dispute in the East Kootenay. I'd like to point it out to him again that it was a lockout, a lockout which was initiated in the middle of summer and that when it was first brought about it was not directly and immediately affecting the educational situation.

In our own area, I think the Minister of Labour did outline somewhat fairly the preconditions, some of which was later clarified. But the preconditions had been set by the board and preconditions had been set by the union in the West Kootenay dispute and there was an impasse. When this Legislature was called together to deal with this on an emergency basis, it has always been my philosophy that we should deal with each and every one of these disputes on their individual merits; that we should look at the sanctity of free and collective bargaining; realize that the parties to these discussions are human beings and that human beings err just as we on both sides of this House err; that people can get locked into impossible situations and that intervention by the Legislature of the day is in order, and there is a better chance for that order of the Legislature being obeyed if it can be done in a co-operative way in the House and with the agreement of both sides.

One does not get the agreement of both sides in the Legislature by introducing amendments to pieces of legislation that are not relevant to this immediate dispute. I would say that had there not been a change in the union position and any eleventh hour development such as occurred yesterday, and had this legislation stopped basically at section 3 with a few of the little housekeeping things that follow, but excluding compulsory and binding arbitration, I would have supported a back-to-work lifting of lockout and strike, as I have supported this in this Legislature before. If I am privileged to serve another term, I would do so again, no doubt, because as human beings, we will get into these difficulties from time to time. But I an saying that this piece of legislation does not recognize the fact that it was the school boards that locked out over in the East Kootenays, and that the present situation is a combination of strike and lockout.

This piece of legislation has to be something that was promised, perhaps in the eleventh hour, to the B.C. School Trustees Association. I cannot, in any other way, explain why one of the trustees from my area said that the trustees' position had always been to lift the lockout if the union would

[ Page 2859 ]

lift the strike.

Interjection.

MR. NICOLSON: Well, her name is Nan Hendry, and she said it on television yesterday. And then, almost within hours -- in less than an hour, I suppose -- another member.... Nan Hendry, it has to be borne in mind, is the chairman of that Labour Relations Association, chairman of all of the trustees, of the accredited bargaining unit.

MR. COCKE: Chairperson.

MR. NICOLSON: Let's not bring that extraneous debate into this.

So, Mr. Speaker, one can only assume that this position was changed in the eleventh hour because some of them knew -- I don't say all of them knew, but somebody must have known -what the nature of this legislation was going to be. And look at it. Is there anything here, really, to which boards would object? I bargained, Mr. Speaker, with school boards under the school Act, which is, as some people here have explained, subject to final compulsory and binding arbitration.

School boards, and people who work as trustees, give a great deal of their time for token remuneration. They work very hard in the service of the people of this province, and of the children of this province. But I have noted that over the years there is one thing which most, and almost all, trustees seem to find distasteful, and that is the collective bargaining process, sitting down with their employees and having to bargain. The trend, since at least 1968, has been toward hiring professionals. And the first time that a professional negotiator was ever brought into School District 7 certainly wasn't from the teachers; it was brought in on behalf of the board.

The boards also have professional people on their staff. They have secretary- treasurers who would be capable of carrying on this type of duty. It has been because of the reluctance of board members to become involved and a shifting of the responsibility for negotiations that it has led, I think, to a very serious type of impasse. Yet there is nothing in here that would suggest to me that there is anything punitive for the boards. The boards would want this type of legislation. It is, I think, a rather simplistic thing when you have the thing held out for you that somewhere down the road if you don't negotiate honestly, openly and sincerely the government is going to be forced to invoke the Essential Services

Disputes Act - So this is going to be an impediment to free collective bargaining, particularly by the addition of section 11. It is an impediment, just as the trend has developed recently that virtually all collective agreements for the teachers are settled by compulsory and binding arbitration.

The Liberal leader today said that approximately two-thirds of the school districts are going to arbitration. Most of the other third are subject to satellite agreements which will be determined by the outcome of arbitrations in other districts. Mr. Speaker, we are seeing here a type of intervention which is going to preclude real collective bargaining taking place in the future. Boards will not shrink at this. I doubt that the president of the B.C. School Trustees Association has criticized this legislation, although I haven't had my ear to the radio all day. But I am sure, and I know, that there is concern throughout the labour movement and particularly from CUPE in this.

This legislation is one-sided. Yet the disputes that we are talking about .... If we were talking about finding fault and apportioning blame in the East and West Kootenay this year as to what has happened, I think we have to look at the fact that the East Kootenay was totally a lockout situation, and in the West Kootenay we have two units on strike and three units locked out. Surely w- have enough faith in human beings to believe that the rank and file of the unions are concerned -- and believe me, they are -- and that all of the trustees are now going to be or could have become concerned about the mess they have found themselves in. It would have sufficed that an order be given for the lifting of a strike and lockout; that a prestigious mediator be put in there; and that if all sides of this House could have risen unanimously to chastise both sides in this dispute rather than the government using the children of the school districts in the West Kootenay as political hostages to introduce more punitive legislation, more anti-labour legislation. If we could have risen here united responsibly with the legislation appropriate to the task, I would have supported a back-to-work type of legislation, had it been done not for political motive but purely out of concern for the situation which has occurred, recognizing the fact that human beings have gotten themselves into a Catch-22 situation and that government intervention is necessary, as it has been in the past, as it will be in the future. But quite frankly, this Legislature should be meeting. This should not be an emergency session. This should be maybe one bill that

[ Page 2860 ]

should have been brought in in a fall session with so many things to be done in this province, so many questions that should be asked in question period, and we could have been dealing with them.

I want to also apportion blame to the Minister of Education for setting a disruptive course in this province dating back to probably the day he was appointed. I quote from a press release from the Department of Education, December 1,1976:

"Education Minister Dr. Pat McGeer today announced that the estimated basic mill rate for school purposes in '77 has been set at 37.5 mills." We should be so lucky today that it would still be only 37.5 mills. He said:

"The increase in the basic mill rate for 1977 is the result of substantial increases in school district budgets during this year. Those increases took place despite a static school population and strong pleas by government to hold the line."

Back in 1976 the minister was putting pressure on school boards and starting to apportion blame to school boards, in terms of responsibility for increasing property taxes. More recently, last September, at the UBCM convention, we get headlines: "McGeer Offers Carrots For Tight School Budgets." The implication is that boards have been profligate; that board budgets have been increasing at some fantastic rate; that school boards have been irresponsible; and that the increase in property taxes has resulted from wanton spending on behalf of school boards. Therefore, of course, it would follow that school boards should bargain tougher, that they should not allow wage increases, and that they should work to hold the line.

Here's a publication from the Victoria school board. It says: "Are school boards fiscally irresponsible?" And its answer is: "Let the facts speak for themselves. Since 1975 the provincial budget has increased 45 per cent; school board budgets have increased by 40 per cent." It shows the increases.

I'd like to point out to this House just what has happened in School District 7. In 1975 provincial government grants to School District 7 amounted to $2.52 million, 57.7 per cent of the basic education programme of that district. That is the no-frills portion of the basic education programme of the district. The basic education programme reflects declining student enrolment.

In 1977 the government grant was only up to $2.73 million, now down to 43.2 per cent of the basic education budget. In 1978 the government grant to School District 7 was $2.296 million less than in 1975, 33.8 per cent of the budget.

Interjection.

MR. NICOLSON: There's a member who speaks out in favour of loading property-taxpayers with all of the cost of basic education from K-to-12 -- the member for Burnaby-Willingdon.

I want to point out why boards had to take such drastic measures as locking out all employees in the middle of summer, one of the contributing factors in the labour dispute in the West Kootenay. I've more or less outlined some of the history for Nelson.

We'll look at Grand Forks, one of the difficult districts. In 1975 the sharing of school district budgets as a percentage of the net budget financed by the province went from 63.27 per cent down to 56.61 per cent.

If we look at the way in which mill rates have been increasing due to declining provincial government support, in which the districts are actually getting even fewer dollars than they got back in 1975, we see that in School District 7, from 1975 to 1978, with increased assessments last year, the mill rate has increased from 42 to 49 mills due to the fact of the shifting of the educational burden; in Castlegar, from 36 to 45 mills; in Trail, from 40 to 48 mills; in Grand Forks, from 44 to 58.7 mills. On top of that, assessments have increased so that the total tax bill has increased even more considerably.

The average mill rate in 1972 was approximately 32 mills. It was that in about 1966; it was that in 1974. It wasn't until this bunch got in and started shifting the costs, through increasing the basic mill-rate levy, that the school tax increased so dramatically.

This government has been able to hide behind a smokescreen and has been able to blame school boards. Now some school boards are starting to speak out, and some newly elected trustees are also speaking out on this. I would just quote one newly elected trustee and even the president of the B.C. School Trustees Association. He talks about the shifting in cost. I think that I would prefer to discuss this after the adjournment, so I move adjournment of this debate until later today.

Motion approved.

Hon. Mr. Gardom moves adjournment of the House.

Motion approved.

The House adjourned at 6:02 p.m.