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CONTENTS

Routine proceedings

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

Mr. Nicolson I –– 2861

Mr. Stupich –– 2863

Mrs. Dailly –– 2867

Mr. Skelly –– 2869

Mr. Lockstead –– 2872

Mr. Kerster –– 2873

Ms. Brown –– 2873

Hon. Mr. Fraser –– 2881

Mr. Levi –– 2882

Hon. Mrs. McCarthy –– 2887

Mr. Barber –– 2889

W - Kahl 2893

Mr. Barnes –– 2894

Mrs. Wallace –– 2896

Mr. King –– 2898

Hon. Mr. Williams –– 2907

Division on second reading –– 2910

West Kootenay Schools Collective Bargaining Assistance Act (Bill 46) Committee stage.

On section 4.

Mr. King 6. 2910

Hon. Mr. Williams –– 2911

Ms. Sanford 6 –– 2912

Division –– 2913

On section 5.

Hon. Mr. Williams (amendment) 6 –– 2913

On section 9.

Mr. Stephens –– 2913

Hon. Mr. Williams –– 2913

On section 11 amendment.

Hon. Mr. Williams –– 2914

W King –– 2914

on section 11 as amended.

Ms. Sanford –– 2914

Mrs. Dailly –– 2915

Mr. King –– 2915

Hon. Mr. Williams –– 2916

Division –– 2916

Report and third reading –– 2917

Royal Assent –– 2917

Presenting reports.

Protection of Privacy Act, 1974,1975,1976,1977. Hon. Mr. Gardom –– 2917

The House met at 7 p.m.

Orders of the day.

HON. MR. GARDOM: Adjourned debate on second reading of Bill 46.

WEST KOOTENAY SCHOOLS

COLLECTIVE BARGAINING ASSISTANCE ACT

(continued)

MR. NICOLSON: Before adjournment I had pointed out that the Minister of Education (Hon. Mr. McGeer) had made several statements and, in fact, the Minister of Education's whole attitude toward the collective bargaining process is such that even today charges are pending against him before the Labour Relations Board for unfair labour practices. That one should even get himself into a position where he would be accused when he is in a responsible position, I think, tells us something of the hidden agenda of some of the members over on that side of the House.

We heard in this debate today not just de bate about the legislation before us, but what we were really hearing was debate concerning amendments to the Public Schools Act, which really wasn't even before us. We were hearing debate about bringing CUPE employees under the same legislation as teachers. I should think that at a time like this, if we had any sensitivity toward the very delicate nature of things which are not going to be completely solved by any kind of legislation in this House, we would realize that to discuss things such as this at this time is inappropriate, dangerous, and it precludes the restoration of a co-operative spirit between management and labour in the school districts in the West Kootenay.

Mr. Speaker, as both a teacher and a parent in the West Kootenay, I regard the work and the service performed by the Canadian Union of Public Employees as a very valuable service and as a service which is very often not appreciated. But as a teacher, I have had opportunity to realize that some children, perhaps, through whatever circumstances in the home, perhaps our philosophy toward education, perhaps the example that is set for them by adults and by the media, are not the best behaved. School bus drivers are expected to safely transport 70 or maybe more children from one place to another, to maintain discipline while driving and to be responsible for the safety of those children. School employees are often left the very thankless task of cleaning intentionally clogged toilets which are fouled in the most scatological manner. Well, you perhaps haven't been in a school.

I am saying that they have performed very dutifully many thankless tasks. In the future, by the very nature of the type of legislation by which we compel them back to work, if they are at all familiar with the circumstances under which people have to work, I cannot be confident and I cannot be optimistic that the level of service will be restored to that which existed prior to this dispute arising. It is for that reason also that I say that this legislation goes too far, that extraneous elements are being introduced which I do not believe were there at the insistence of, but rather over the objections of the Minister of Labour (Hon. Mr. Williams) .

Mr. Speaker, boards, as I said, serve an often thankless role, an often unappreciated role. They give a great deal of their time and service, but they have been gradually worked into a more and more untenable position. Here, too, are press releases which I think outline the effect and the ultimate outcome of the minister's remarks of December 15 1976, and his more recent remarks to the UBCM convention. Here is a response from a newly elected trustee here in Victoria: "The Provincial $1 Million Added To Local Tax Bill -- Copout By B.C." This is attributed to Mr. Mott:

"'The provincial government will-11 probably point with pride to its savings in education while taxpayers make up the difference, I a newly elected greater Victoria school trustee said Tuesday. Winfield Mott told members of the Torquay Elementary Parents Association that the provincial government's latest changes to the education finance formula will probably add $1 million to the load borne by greater Victoria property owners next year. 'While I believe that local taxpayers should shoulder some of the costs for education, the present direction can only be described as a copout by the provincial government. The provincial government is continuing to unload the cost of education onto the backs of property taxpayers of B.C. Perhaps it's time to let the province get off our backs."'

I thoroughly commend this newly elected trustee for speaking out.

I also would commend the president of the B.C. School Trustees Association who pointed out that:

"Recently B.C. school boards have become upset with criticism from McGeer and municipal councils that their budgets are increasing unnecessarily while student

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enrolment is dropping. They are angry with the charges...."

MR. SPEAKER: I trust the hon. member will soon show how this relates to the bill before us.

MR. NICOLSON: Yes, Mr. Speaker, I will very shortly.

"They are angry with the charges because the provincial government has decreased its share of education costs, placing a greater burden on the taxpayers."

Here are two trustee spokesmen pointing out their sense of frustration for being unfairly maligned in terms of their fiscal integrity and fiscal responsibility. This government, and that Minister of Education in particular, have made no effort to take responsibility for a major thrust of education finance from provincial government coffers and consolidated revenue to local property taxation. As I outlined in the situation in Nelson, the provincial government in 1975 was taking 57.7 per cent share of that tax load and now only takes 34 per cent.

That is in a district which has lower than the average school budget per pupil, in spite of the fact that it has a higher than average assessment. It is a responsible school board, Mr. Speaker, but they have seen fit.... In order to try to respond as they think this provincial government wants then to respond, they have seen fit to take upon themselves the suggestion of the BCSTA, and, no doubt, the suggestion emanating from the Minister of Education, to use a labour relations association and form a certified bargaining agency. Certified bargaining has been a problem in the two disputes in the East and West Kootenays. There is no remedy for that in this legislation.

The minister has brought the essential services Act into this legislation. He said outside of the House, but not inside the House -he was silent, really, on that section of the legislation -- that they were going to do a study on it and if they found that the Essential Services Disputes Act should apply, they would then proclaim it, but they would not necessarily proclaim section 11. 1 think that is totally unacceptable. But following that minister's logic, there should certainly be something in this legislation which is totally one-sided and which does not recognize that there were two parties to this impasse. There is nothing in this legislation that raps the wrists of school boards or the B.C. School Trustees Association, inasmuch as they have employed one of the legitimate rights of employers in this province, namely certified bargaining.

There is nothing in this legislation that seem.- to fix blame. This legislation fixes blame only on the side of the employees and not on the side of the employer. As I say, and as the minister said at the outset of his remarks, blame should be apportioned fairly between both parties. But it is not reflected in this legislation. I am convinced that the legislation was added to in the eleventh hour at the insistence of the Premier, after the Minister of Education won the day. Once again the Minister of Labour has eroded the base upon which he first assumed his office, and he is allowing, by degrees, his integrity and his usefulness as a Minister of Labour to be stripped away. It is time, I say, that that minister stood up to the Premier, stood up to the Minister of Education, and did something in this legislation which he knows full well could be done. We could serve the interests of the children, which have been overemphasized, because my children are in the school system and are suffering, but not suffering nearly so much as those at Selkirk College, the vocational school, the Kootenay School of Art and those other areas where the withdrawal of services is almost total.

My children are receiving four hours out of five of instruction per day. They are getting assignments that are being marked, corrected and supervised by their teachers. I would say that the teachers are taking on that heavier marking load and, in terms of the actual imparting of information to my children, I would, as a teacher, find it difficult to assess whether they have suffered or not. There is no doubt in my mind that scholarship students are placed in a very difficult position, and there is also no doubt in my mind that students at Selkirk College have been placed in an unbearable and untenable position.

If the minister wanted to protect the interests of these people, to ensure that after we take legislative action the full educational climate will be restored to normal, and the full relationship which had formerly existed, certainly in School District 7, between employer and employee -- which I feel has been a good one -- will be totally restored, then.... This compulsive type of legislation, with section 11, the sword of Damocles, will ham that situation. I feel that this piece of legislation, with all of the additions, is really political hostage-taking of the children of my school district in order to fulfil the very reactionary wishes of members in the mainstream of the Social Credit back bench. That is why I will be forced to vote against this. But let there be no mistake: I am not against

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the restoration of ....

AN HON. MEMBER: Copout!

MR. NICOLSON: Mr. Speaker, I have made no bones about this in public meetings. I made no bones the day I boarded a plane to come down for this debate, as to where I would stand on this legislation. I said that I would not vote for something that was compulsive, that went beyond the scope of the present dispute, but that I would vote for a lifting of the lockout, lifting of the strike, and restoration of an opportunity for free and collective bargaining. That is why I will be voting against this. Mr. Speaker, my conscience will certainly be clear. I hope the Minister of Labour can say the same.

MR. STUPICH: Mr. Speaker, I would like to join with my colleagues in welcoming to the cabinet the hon. member for Burnaby-Willingdon (Hon. Mr. Veitch) and the member for Skeena (Hon. Mr. Shelford) . Certainly their lot will improve as a result of that change. I wish I could feel as optimistic about the lot of the people of British Columbia. I doubt there will be any improvement for them as a result of the total cabinet changes. As a matter of fact, there will be no improvement as long as the same person occupies the Premier's chair. Some of my colleagues take some encouragement from the fact that the Premier has moved one seat farther down the row, but from where he sits, I would remind you, Mr. Speaker, he has simply moved one more seat to the right. I don't think that's good.

Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Education (Hon. Mr. McGeer) quoted from Hansard of a couple of years ago some remarks of mine when I was asking the unions to take some cognizance of the plight of the students in the Nanaimo school district, and asking them to consider returning to work. Mr. Speaker, I make no apology at all for doing that. I think the Minister of Education did well in referring to that particular dispute, and there are some other parallels that might be drawn between that dispute of some two and a half years ago and the one that currently exists in the West Kootenay area. With respect to the duration of the two disputes, the one in Nanaimo lasted 64 days -- just over nine weeks. The one in West Kootenay, I believe, is in its forty-third day. So from that point of view, at least, the one in the Nanaimo area was 50 per cent worse than the current situation in the West Kootenay district.

The Minister of Education at the time was asked to comment on the situation in Nanaimo.

I have a report from The Province of June 4,1976, and it would seem as though he hadn't given any thought at all to the fact that the students had been denied access to a greater or lesser degree for a period of some nine weeks. "Earlier in the day, when asked about the situation during question period McGeer had said the government might review its policy regarding the importance placed on the education of students." That, Mr. Speaker, was after a dispute that had lasted some nine weeks; now we're dealing with legislation responding to what is an Emergency when the time in which the schools have been in some sort of disarray, if you like, is just two thirds the length of time that the situation existed in Nanaimo.

What has the Minister of Education to say about the current situation? Does he view that as seriously, or more seriously or less seriously than he did the situation in Nanaimo? I remind you again that it is a much shorter dispute. I'm not trying to say it isn't serious because it's shorter, I'm simply saying that there is a parallel but there is a difference in the length of the disputes. "McGeer said he will ask cabinet" -- this is a quotation from the Express, November 29 -- "to have the Essential Services Disputes Act amended to include school workers if the strike lockout involving 250 non-teaching employees does not end within two weeks." That was less than two weeks ago, Mr. Speaker. The Minister of Education, looking at the Nanaimo situation that had gone on for nine weeks, thought it wasn't even important enough to think about until- he was asked by myself - As far as the Kootenay situation -- a shorter dispute -- is concerned, he thinks it's important enough to amend the essential services legislation. That was his opinion of that situation.

I did intervene in the Nanaimo situation. I intervened initially by writing to the chairman of the school board and by writing to the union president involved, asking if there was any way at all in which I could help bring the two parties together and try to get the schools reopened.

Intervention in the situation here in the Kootenay district. The Leader of the Opposition was asked -- and I saw the TV broadcast -- on a news broadcast what he would do about that situation if he were asked to intervene. His response was to the effect that the Minister of Labour should call the two parties together to a meeting in his office and try to get negotiations going. The very next item on that news broadcast was the Minister of Labour being interviewed and saying that he was calling the two parties together to a meeting

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in his office. Mr. Speaker, I wonder if the Minister of Labour had any intention at all of doing anything until the Leader of the Opposition suggested that that kind of meeting should take place. But I can only wonder.

With respect to the situation in Nanaimo, at my request such a meeting did take place. The Minister of Labour responded. He did invite the parties to a meeting in his office and the Minister of Labour responded to the suggestion from the Leader of the Opposition and had a meeting in his office of the parties in the West Kootenay dispute. So the situations are running quite parallel.

What about the union? Mr. Speaker, I wrote the two parties, as I said. To this day the school board has not acknowledged receipt of that letter. I think they weren't able to for reasons that I'm going to come to later on. But the union did respond. The union contacted me almost immediately, set up two separate meetings in my office when I met with members of their negotiating team, and they tried to bring me up to date to the extent that they were able to on negotiations. They had further meetings. They had one meeting of the strike committee and of executives of the three union locals involved. They invited me to attend that meeting. They invited me to take part in the discussions that went on at that meeting. That was the kind of response that I got from the union side of the bargaining table. There was no response from the employer's side at all.

What was the union's response to the intervention of the Leader of the Opposition? The Minister of Labour called them to his office, had a meeting, and the meeting failed. The Leader of the Opposition saw the Premier suggesting that it still wasn't too late to get something moving. The Leader of the Opposition asked the unions for a meeting, met with them at some length and got them to agree to certain conditions. He did get some movement. The union was responsible.

The Minister of Labour told us today that his office received a phone call from a representative of the unions saying that in the event three conditions were met, and he listed the conditions, the union was prepared to resume work. The Minister of Labour did not tell us that he tried to get the union to budge from that position at all. He told us there were preconditions on both sides of the bargaining table. He told us what the preconditions were from the employer's side of the bargaining table. I have a copy here of the Blues from today. I did take notes, but this is right from the Blues. "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." The Minister of Labour said that that was a precondition as early as Monday -- Monday or Tuesday, depending on which day he met with which side.

As far as the union in Nanaimo is concerned, when the union in Nanaimo was faced with the invitation on the part of the Minister of Labour to accept binding arbitration, to accept an industrial inquiry commissioner, the union responded positively. They invited me to their meetings when they discussed this. It wasn't an easy decision for them to make, but they met, they discussed it, and they invited me to meet with them and to take part in the negotiations so that I would know what was happening. These are a couple of quotations from leaders of two of the union locals involved. Mr. Mieras said he believes "every member of our union wanted to vote no to binding arbitration. This is no solution to our problems in Nanaimo, but we all know the children of Nanaimo have paid a high price, as have our members and the citizens of Nanaimo."

Stan Boshier, president of Local 401, said: "We are showing Nanaimo again that we are responsible. We have tried to tell the public what has been happening in this year's negotiations with the Mid-Island Public Employers Association. Now Allan Williams, the Labour minister, is telling you the association's attitude is so destructive to collective bargaining, it has to be taken out of its hands."

The union, Mr. Speaker, was responsible. The union responded positively to the request for binding arbitration in the Nanaimo situation. The union in the Kootenay situation, when they met with Mr. Barrett, when the importance of doing something about the situation there was put to them, again responded positively. Unfortunately, the same can't be said for the employers in the Nanaimo situation. As far as the employers were concerned, Nanaimo school board chairman Joe Keller, president of the MIPE association, said following the meeting his association had reaffirmed its willingness to accept as binding the decisions of the industrial inquiry commissioner. The CUPE representatives, however, would not agree to lift the pickets and return to work unless the employers' association satisfied a series of demands -- note the language, Mr. Speaker. This is the MIPE association saying that the

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workers had a series of demands, including some which had been repeatedly been presented in the course of negotiation. Because the workers were backing down on their agreement, were putting in new demands, there could be no agreement to go to binding arbitration. But, Mr. Speaker, this is the way that the Minister of Labour described those same demands. This is a quotation from him, as reported in the Free Press of June 8,1976: "1 feel progress was being made, but an impasse was reached when the employers refused to agree to a union request that its former contract be extended until such time as a new contract was signed" -- surely, Mr. Speaker, that's reasonable enough -- "and that there be no reprisals against the union by the employers or by the union against its own members or the staff of the employers for the conduct during the strike." That was the series of demands that the employers' organization was going to use as an excuse for not accepting binding arbitration. In my mind, Mr. Speaker, the employers' association was being quite irresponsible in that situation.

Now what about the Kootenay situation? We've seen that the employees were responsible. The employees did approach the Minister of Labour with preconditions. When it was further discussed with them, they did agree to go to work with only one condition, and that is that the lockout be lifted, and did, indeed, show up for work only to be met by the lockout situation. The employees were responsible. The employees did have concern for the children in those school districts involved. But what about the employers' organization?

Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Labour told us what the employer's precondition was. We found out later that maybe that wasn't a precondition at the time, but this is what he said during debate today, what the employer's precondition was. The Minister of Labour, during the course of his remarks, said that the union didn't offer enough. This, Mr. Speaker, is a quotation that I hope the Minister of Labour will explain when he's winding up second reading, and I hope he will say that he really should not have said it. I've taken it down from the Blues. I admit I'm not quoting the whole paragraph, but certainly the words in themselves are damning enough in my eyes: "this simple act on the part of the union, for which they are to be commended, of lifting their strike."

Mr. Speaker, for you or I to say that lifting a strike is a simple act for a union might be understandable, but for the Minister of Labour to say that workers giving up their right to strike is a simple act is something that in itself should call for the resignation of this Minister of Labour. Workers have fought, have bled and have died for the right to strike, yet this minister has the gall to stand up and say it's a simple act to give up their right to strike. Mr. Speaker, you wouldn't say that; I wouldn't say that; I don't think anyone else in this House would say that. I don't think even the most anti-union person in the province would say that, in the eyes of a trade unionist, giving up the right to strike is a simple act. Yet this Minister of Labour stood up and said it's a simple act. All they were doing was giving up their right to strike. What else did they have? There's no other weapon that workers have. They can sit, they can talk, but when it comes right down to it their last weapon is the right to strike, yet they were prepared to give this up, and they did give it up by reporting for work this morning. Yet the Minister of Labour said it was a simple act. When the workers in Nanaimo gave up their right to strike and accepted compulsory arbitration, they knew it wasn't a simple act.

I read from the press quotations to show how important those union leaders felt ums their right to strike, how much they knew they were throwing into the pot when they gave up their right to strike. The workers in the West Kootenay situation knew how important it was when they said they would give up their right to strike. For the Minister of Labour or for the Premier to suggest that they weren't really giving up anything, because they could start it all over later on, is simply ridiculous.

Who in their right mind would ever say that a union would take their workers out in a second strike after a relatively short period of renegotiation? Once they've agreed to go back to the bargaining table the strike is over. It takes a lot of provocation to get them out the first time. After they've been out for six or seven weeks, and back at work, to try to get them to go out again with no progress being shown would be almost impossible. The workers didn't offer a simple act. They gave up everything they had when they gave up the right to strike.

MR. BARRETT: Only to find that the school board and the government were playing games.

MR. STUPICH: To follow the parallels, public opinion worked in the Nanaimo situation. When the employers' association said that school work wasn't going to resume because they wanted more conditions or because the union was wanting too much when the union was asking

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for nothing, really, public opinion worked and the employers' association was obliged to go to the bargaining table and to take part in that negotiation.

Mr. Speaker, public opinion would have worked in the Kootenay situation. We know that the unions are ready to go to work. They told the Minister of Labour that they were ready to go to work, with only one condition: that the lockout be lifted. The Minister of Labour knew that, and everyone here know., Mr. Speaker, that the employers' association in West

Kootenay could not have kept those doors locked. Public opinion in that area would have insisted that the workers be allowed to return to work.

Mr. Speaker, there was only one person in the whole province who could keep those doors locked for one more day or two more days, and that was the Premier of the province. He was the only one who could have done it; he was the only one that did it. The workers were ready to go to work, the employers' group said that they were ready to go to work, and then a new condition was imposed by the Premier and work did not resume. The only one who wanted it not to be resumed was the Premier, because he wanted an excuse to call the Legislature together to tack on one more group of workers under the Essential Services Disputes Act. This was the excuse he needed, and this was the way he used us. This is the way he used the children of the West Kootenay school area.

The Minister of Labour didn't want to do this. The Minister of Labour is quoted in the Colonist of December 1. He said he would not request an emergency session of the Legislature under the Essential Services Act if agreement could not be reached. Asked how long he hoped to keep the representatives in Victoria: "For as long as it takes." Mr. Speaker, two days, and that was all there was to it. But here: "As long as it takes." He would keep them here as long as it takes to get agreement. "If the parties involved in the dispute do not listen, an industrial inquiry commissioner could be appointed, or a special mediator named. There are all kinds of solutions possible."

Mr. Speaker, this is what makes me think, as I suggested earlier, that the Minister of Labour never intended to do anything at all, that he reacted only when the Leader of the Opposition said that he should do something. He then did it, but there was no intention on the part of this government of that effort being successful. They didn't want this dispute to be settled. They wanted to have a special session of the Legislature so that they could amend the legislation.

[Mr. Rogers in the chair-]

The Premier said, during his speech, that the children of the Kootenay region need the attention of this Legislature. Mr. Speaker, that's not what they need. They need the schools reopened. The unions expressed their willingness to report for work this morning, and that information was given to the Minister of Labour. The school boards indicated their willingness to reopen the schools. This morning's Colonist quoted Mr. Gary Cleave: "Until this morning we were prepared to lift the lockout if CUPE lifted the strike"' -- the unions were prepared, and that was in this morning's Colonist -- "said BCSTA staff representative Gary Cleave. 'But the lifting of the lockout or the strike would be irrelevant now because Premier Bennett plans to call the Legislature into session'." Mr. Speaker, I suggest he planned it long ago. "He said the Labour minister had already made it clear the ending of the lockout and strike on the proposal relayed through Barrett by CUPE would not meet with conditions set down by the Premier." What conditions, Mr. Speaker? The one man who could and who did keep those schools closed today, and goodness know how much longer he'll keep them closed, is the one man who set the conditions that made sure those schools did not reopen. The Minister of Education asks: "Is it right to punish the children?" It is not right to punish the children, Mr. Speaker, and it is the Premier who is punishing the children in that area.

The Premier, in an aside, when the Leader of the Opposition was speaking, on hearing the Leader of the Opposition say that he started his intervention because he heard the Premier in a news broadcast at 10 o'clock in the morning, in a tone of incredulity said he was still at home at that time in the morning. Mr. Speaker, the Leader of the Opposition, by being at home at that time in the morning and by taking the action that he did, made it possible for the schools to be reopened within 22 hours of hearing that news broadcast.

The Premier, with his PR flacks, is a great jogger. He's a workaholic. He arrives early in the morning. Mr. Speaker, how much better off the children in the Kootenay school district would have been had the Premier gone on holiday after that news broadcast and left it to the Leader of the Opposition to get the schools reopened.

Mr. Speaker, it isn't right to punish the children. It is not right to punish the children of the West Kootenay area simply because the government wants to change the essential services legislation. It is not right for the

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Premier to use those children as pawns in a political game. We don't know what the end of the game is yet. We don't know where the game is going to end. Today it's to bring these groups in under this legislation. What will it be tomorrow? The legislation is intituled West Kootenay Schools Collective Bargaining Assistance Act, and then there's an afterthought, section 11, tacked on the end. We don't need the legislation to reopen the schools; all we need is for the Premier to take a few hours off and let the Leader of the Opposition get the situation resolved. We don't need section 11. It's waving a flag -- that's all it's doing, Mr. Speaker. It's warning the labour movement that if they sit back and take this from this government, from this Minister of Labour, from this Premier, then they deserve what they're going to get next.

Mr. Speaker, this is bad legislation. It's bad that it's being dealt with at this time; had it not been dealt with at this time the schools would have been reopened and the children would have been back where the Premier says he wants them and where the Minister of Education says he wants them. It's bad politics, Mr. Speaker, because surely the people of this province will see that this Premier will stoop to nothing in his effort to retain political power in this province.

MRS. DAILLY: Mr. Speaker, first I would like to offer my congratulations to my colleague from Burnaby (Hon. Mr. Veitch) who is now an hon. minister, and also my friend -- we argue all the time about wolves -- the new Minister of Agriculture (Hon. Mr. Shelford) . I'm sorry he's not here at this time, but anyway, our best wishes to both of them.

Mr. Speaker, I understand we're going to be here a considerable length of Lime yet -perhaps, Mr. Attorney-General (Hon. Mr. Gardom) , through midnight, anyway - and when I heard that news I couldn't help thinking that if we are going to burn the midnight oil in this Legislature, we should be dealing with something that is really important in this province, and something that could be handled by proper discussion in this House. That is the state of the economy, and the unemployment statistics in this province. I'm bringing this point up, Mr. Speaker, and I think it's quite relevant to the discussion on this bill....

Interjections

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, please, hon. members. if other members wish to speak in the debate, and I see many names on our division list that haven't been crossed off yet, they will be offered the standard opportunity to rise and be recognized. However, at this time the member for Burnaby North (Mrs. Dailly) has the floor. Would the members please allow her to continue without interruptions.

MRS. DAILLY: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I know the minister -- of what now, I've forgotten, but it used to be Mines (Hon. Mr. Chabot) -doesn't want to hear about ' unemployment in this province, because he's ashamed of it. He knows that neither he nor his government have any policies to do anything about it, so the point, Mr. Speaker, is that instead we are confronted today with a bill that should never be placed before the members of this Legislature.

If this problem which has been confronting the people and the citizens of West Kootenay had been handled properly by the Minister of Education, by the Minister of Labour and by the Premier, we wouldn't have to be here tonight. I recall similar situations when the New Democratic Party was in government, and I recall my former colleague, when he was Minister of Labour, and myself having to sit down and meet with people together for a number of hours to try and bring a solution to similar problems. I think the thing that bothers most of us over on this side is that there seems to have been almost a contrived move here on behalf of the government not to settle this situation, Mr. Speaker.

It is quite obvious that the Premier of this province is looking for a major confrontation with labour in this province. He's looking for this confrontation, Mr. Speaker, because he believes that he can go to the people on this and make an issue out of it. Who, then, is making the children the pawns of politicians if not this Premier, who could have taken action with his ministers to have settled this before bringing it to the Legislature? So I accuse the Premier of looking for an issue where he can create a confrontation with labour in an attempt to convince the public that only he and his party alone can handle that situation. But the people of this province will not be fooled by this smokescreen which has been brought forward in this bill at this time.

More than half the cabinet is not here, Mr. Speaker, and yet they stood up this morning and we were informed that this is an emergency. Where are they? Mr. Speaker, I'm very pleased to see that the real villain of the piece in this matter is sitting across from me tonight -- the Minister of Education (Hon. Mr. McGeer) . The Minister of Education of this

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province, by his policies and his actions since he became minister, has helped bring about this situation today in the West Kootenays.

Mr. Speaker, this is not just political rhetoric when I say that, because I have clippings in front of me which back up what I an saying when I accuse that minister of bringing about a situation where he actually puts the school boards of this province and the unions in a confrontation scene. This minister and his government -- and he alone cannot take the blame, because obviously the rest of his colleagues have gone along with him -- have purposely since they came in made a concerted attempt to let the public think and believe that the school boards of this province are responsible for ever-increasing school costs, and that he and his government have nothing to do with the problems there; it is entirely the fault of the school boards.

Yet we just have to look at what has happened in the past three years since this government came in with this Minister of Education to realize that since they came in they have been building up a labour-management confrontation between school boards and their employees, because they have put more and more taxation on the local taxpayer, with the result that the school boards of this province have become almost frozen in making any positive moves in their districts. Then we are in this situation in the West Kootenays where the school boards were in such a state over the accusations made by this minister that "school boards are wasteful" and "that only the school boards that behave themselves like good little children will be treated well by this government." They are in a situation, Mr. Speaker, when it comes to bargaining with their employees that they know that if they give any extra money the minister will immediately turn around and blame them for being wasteful.

Since the Social Credit government came in they have transferred $160 million in school costs to local districts. Since they came in they have transferred $160 million onto the backs of the local taxpayer.

Interjection.

MRS. DAILLY: Someone is asking again why and whether I can relate this to the bill. I'm trying to make clear -- and I notice you have not called me out of order, Mr. Speaker -that this Minister of Education and his government, because of their fiscal policies, have placed boards such as the ones in the West Kootenays in a situation where they have to sit back and they are afraid to move and even discuss with their employees any possible increases.

This minister has not only done this fiscally, Mr. Speaker, but he has interfered in the bargaining process by making slanted statements referring, in his opinion, to the fact that it is the workers who are responsible for the strike in the Kootenays. It's unbelievable from a Minister of Education to interfere in the collective bargaining process. No wonder there are tensions in that district. Who are the citizens to believe? They not only are listening to the side of the school board and the side of the employees, but in comes the Minister of Education to inflame the situation. Yet that minister got up before supper and made his usual platitudes to this House: children must get back to school. If he is interested in the children of this province having good schooling, then I say he should resign and let someone take over the ministry who can understand the needs of the children in this province.

Mr. Speaker, I notice people are chuckling across there, but I can tell you that the handicapped children of this province who are suffering under this minister, and the local taxpayers in your own district, Mr. Member for Omineca (Mr. Kempf) , are not happy with the Ministry of Education and with the fiscal policies of your government, which you espouse.

It is interesting to note that there is going to be another 2 mill increase on the local taxpayer by that minister and by his government. It's interesting to note, as the minister happened to bring up this subject of private schools before supper, that a chairman of a Vancouver Island board, when she heard that the mill rate is going to be increased another 2 mills, said: "Well, after all, the Minister of Education, Dr. McGeer, must get his money for private schools somewhere."

MR. SKELLY: That's where he sends his own kids.

MRS. DAILLY: After all, if he sends his own children and has sent them to private schools and continually tells us how much better they are than the public schools, what else can you expect? Yet that same minister goes out and actually accuses the workers in the West Kootenay region of being at fault, and he's letting the school boards take the flak also for this whole situation which has developed in the West Kootenay. I think that minister should absolutely say nothing in a debate like this when he is one of the prime movers behind the scene that we're all faced with in the

[ Page 2869 ]

Kootenays today and this situation we're faced with tonight.

There is no question that the policies of the Minister of Education and the government have also pushed a situation in the West Kootenays which has not helped in this whole situation, and that is the whole matter of school boards gathering together and abrogating their responsibility to bargain locally. I suppose there is nothing wrong with boards. They have the right to attempt to do this. But if they want to avoid confrontation in their area, if they want to meet the needs of their local area, surely they can see that in many situations this simply will not work to the benefit of the district. We have a very positive example of what happened, again in the West Kootenay area, where one of the school boards, I understand, was ready to settle. However, they could not, because they were tied in to the B.C. School Trustees central office bargaining agency. In other words, those boards have abrogated their right to local bargaining and given away their right to a central body, meaning that there are no longer elected people handling the negotiations, but staff people.

These situations come about when boards become nervous; when they wash their hands of the whole bargaining process because they are afraid -- and that's quite natural -- to face the local taxpayer with increased costs. How much better to be able to put the blame in another area. This Minister of Education has helped create that scene.

So when we hear the Premier on his feet accusing the NDP of not being concerned about children, what about the situation where a board is willing to settle, and yet because they have caught themselves up in a larger group, they cannot settle? That means that those children in that particular area could have been back to school but for this somewhat misdirected effort on the part of the trustees to abrogate their rights to local bargaining. In a situation that becomes quite clear every day, it probably could have been settled if there had been more face-to-face contact.

I think the thing which concerns me primarily about this piece of legislation, and why I could not in all sincerity support it, is that by presenting this legislation to the House today, this government has tilted the scales of collective bargaining. They have tilted in favour of the employer, and that is inherent in this bill and in this legislation. Surely if we are ever going to have labour-management peace in this province -- and I know this was advocated so strongly by the former Minister of Labour -- we must keep those scales balanced evenly. I know that the Social Credit government is moving on this legislation tonight because they believe that out there they will gain voter approval, and perhaps they will. Let's face it, the whole matter of labour-management negotiations is very complicated. Most parents say, "Just get our kids back to school, " and you can understand that.

The tragedy of what this government is doing is that in an attempt to gain some short-term advantages and, hopefully, votes from the public, what they are really doing is setting in place the seeds for some very long-term, bad effects in the whole area of labour-management relationships. In this legislation they are prepared for a short-term gain to sell the whole province on an inevitable confrontation which could be far longer and far worse than anything we have seen in the West Kootenays this last few months. For the future of British Columbia it is short-sighted. It is the sort of thing that the public of B.C. in time will judge.

MR. SKELLY: I'd like to join with my colleagues on this side in also congratulating the new ministers who are appointed to cabinet. With respect to the member for Skeena (Hon. Mr. Shelford) , I know that he's had some personal experience from the farming point of view, and I know that he will be more acceptable to the agricultural community than the previous minister. I hope that he does as well as the former NDP minister, because if that's the case he'll be much more acceptable to the farm community.

Also I wish to congratulate the member for Burnaby-Willingdon (Hon. Mr. Veitch) , who is now responsible for small business. This has been a continuing problem in our area of Vancouver Island over the last little while. Hopefully he'll be much more approachable than his predecessor in that area. I look forward to co-operating with him to the benefit of my constituents.

I rise, of course, to object to this legislation, and also to object to the way that it was brought about. The Premier stood up in this House earlier today and said he couldn't understand, he found it incredible, that NDP members in this House would believe that the Socreds were involved in some kind of a conspiracy to cause problems with labour management relations in this province in order to precipitate the kind of legislation that we're dealing with now. To tell you the truth, Mr. Speaker, I came down to this special session of the Legislature with an open mind. We didn't know what type of legislation was Lo be presented, and we were prepared to deal with

[ Page 2870 ]

any legislation that was presented in an open-minded way, considering the problems that were being faced by these students and the educational institutions in the Kootenay area.

Also, that positive attitude was reinforced when the Leader of the Opposition took the initiative to bring the parties together and persuaded the unions involved in this dispute to take the courageous action of lifting their strike, in the hope that the employers in this case would lift the lockout and some progress would be made towards resolving this dispute and alleviating the emergency that existed, and possibly putting off the need to bring down emergency legislation like this. Because members on both sides of the House have stated that none of us likes to bring down this type of legislation. None of us likes to call the Legislature together in order to impose a solution in an area that really benefits more from free collective bargaining and a resolution of the issues freely between the parties involved.

So I felt very positive about the fact that the dispute may have been solved because of the progress made as a result of the activities by the Leader of the Opposition and the unions involved. Unfortunately it appears that something took place between last night, or yesterday morning, and this morning to harden up the employer's stance on this issue. As a result, we're dealing with a bill here that I really feel the government wanted to present anyway. There is no other reason for us being here. Progress has been made in the last 24 hours that any reasonable government would have taken as a step towards solution, would have called off the session of the Legislature and maximized the positive feelings that had been developed in the last 24 hours. Unfortunately the government didn't act that way. They hardened up their position in support of the employers and, we feel, in support of their attitude toward public sector organization and collective bargaining as a whole.

Mr. Speaker, we do believe -- and it has been made clearly evident to us -- that the Social Credit government and the Social Credit Party have precipitated disputes and hardened up disputes throughout the province in order to bring down this legislation which, piece by piece, has eliminated the right to collective bargaining in the public sector and is moving towards the elimination of the right to strike in the public sector.

It started in opposition, Mr. Speaker. You weren't here at the time. It was before your time. But there were some difficulties in the field of labour-management relations back in 1975 and those difficulties came out of a number of economic and social problems that were being experienced throughout the world. But the opposition of that day became involved in labour disputes happening throughout this province not, as the Leader of the Opposition has done recently, by trying to mediate between the parties involved in order to resolve those issues. I ask you, Mr. Speaker, what political benefit could possible accrue to the opposition by making it easier for the government by resolving labour-management disputes? 'What political benefit could possibly accrue to the opposition from doing that?

Those people, when they were in opposition, stirred up labour disputes in this province. I can recall when the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia was involved in a long strike situation. The Leader of the Opposition of the time, the present Premier, came down and headed a big car cavalcade in Port Alberni and hardened up issues on both sides to try to destroy any possibility for good feeling that would have moved in the direction of resolving that dispute.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Hon. member, one moment, please. We have allowed extremely wide-ranging debate on second reading of Bill 46, but the current line of your debate is so far off the scope that I would ask you to....

MR. SKELLY: Mr. Speaker, please let me try to relate to you how this relates to the Act.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: That's what I would appreciate. That would make it in order then.

MR. SKELLY: I'm saying that this is a party line and a government line which they have used time after time to further political ends and also to further their legislative ends, which are to bring in legislation such as we see in the sections after section 3 of this Act. They did it time after time. This type of extra parliamentary activity, getting involved in sabotaging activities outside of this Legislature.... When we were in government they were involved in extra parliamentary sabotage, and it showed their contempt for the kind of parliamentary, democratic proceedings that we have enjoyed in this province for a long time.

In the ferry strike, for example, Mr. Speaker, after the election, we were told by the people involved in that dispute that every time the corporation and its employees came close to an agreement, came close to resolving some of the issues that faced them and some of the difficult issues that they had trouble obtaining a meeting of minds on.... Whenever

[ Page 2871 ]

they came close to resolving those issues, the government stepped in and hardened up the corporation's line, hardened up the employer's line. "We will not settle." Statements made by ministers destroyed the possibility of a settlement being reached by free collective bargaining in the ferry dispute. It's what this government and this party has done time after time, whether in government or in opposition. I contrast that to what the present Leader of the Opposition has committed himself to and has been doing throughout this province. Even former Premier W.A.C. Bennett, in a bus drivers' dispute, offered to step in and help bring those two groups together in order to resolve the issues between them when the strike had gone on for weeks and weeks.

The same with the member for Nanaimo (Mr. Stupich) , when he pointed out in this House his activities in assisting to resolve the dispute between CUPE and the school districts in the Nanaimo area. His attitude was to step in and help to mediate the issues, not to try to create a situation of confrontation where the political result would be damaging to the government and damaging to society as a whole. It's been this government's position time after time to create confrontation to achieve their own political ends.

MR. SMITH: On a point of order, may I suggest to the hon. Speaker, and to the member who is presently occupying the floor, except for the fact that I interrupted him by a point of order, that we are on a bill called the West Kootenay Schools Collective Bargaining Assistance Act. The Leader of the Opposition can whine and howl all he likes, as he usually does, but, Mr. Speaker, the point of order is simply this: in second reading, the debate should be relevant to the bill. If the hon. member who wishes to continue the debate can keep his debate relevant, then I think we'll all listen to it. But it seems to me that there is a requirement in this House to keep the debate relevant to this bill that's before us.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Thank you, hon. member. Perhaps I could read from the section on relevancy in your standing orders. However, you I ve all suffered through many re-readings of that from the Chair in the past. I would caution members that we have strayed quite far away. It does seem that there was a slight recess between the last time I was in this chair and this time, and yet so little has charged, if anything at all. Perhaps it's deja vu and awfully repetitious, but we are getting an awfully long way off the scope of the debate, although both sides of the House have varied from the scope of the debate. I would appreciate it if the member would bring his remarks into relevance in the debate. Thank you for bringing, this matter to my attention.

MR. SKELLY: Mr. Speaker, as I'm trying to point out 4a response to a long speech made by the Premier on this issue, where he was stating how incredible it seemed that we believed this, I was just giving him some examples to make it more credible to him, although I'm sure he knows of his activities, and that rests on his conscience.

But, Mr. Speaker, the situation we're dealing with is a perfect example of how the present government is operating to create confrontation in order to bring down legislation like this. They had any number of opportunities between April of this year and the present time to resolve this issue. They had an opportunity within the last 24 hours, when one of the parties to this dispute decided they would give up their hard and fast position, and sacrifice the last argument which they as unions had left, the last bargaining strength they had left. They were willing to sacrifice that if the other side would make some concession as they had promised to do.

The government had an opportunity to take advantage of that concession and that movement on the part of the trade unions involved and talk to the school districts involved to try to bring them to the position where the dispute could be resolved outside of this

Legislative Assembly, which is where we would like to see these disputes resolved. In fact, they squelched that opportunity. They didn't want that opportunity. They were embarrassed, in fact, by that opportunity to resolve this dispute outside the Legislature because it would have deprived them of the opportunity to present sections 10, 11 and 12 of this Act, which is what they wanted to do in the first place. Their objective has been, every time, to bring in compulsory arbitration, which has never been brought in before, even under an emergency statute, and also to bring in a section which is totally unrelated to the West

Kootenay schools dispute -- section 11, which the Premier talks about as being a permanent and the Minister of Labour talks about as being a final solution to disputes of this type. It has nothing whatsoever, Mr. Speaker, to do with the West Kootenays dispute. What does an improvement district under the Water Act have to do with protecting the education of children in the West Kootenays?

What does that have to do ... ?

[ Page 2872 ]

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Perhaps clause-by-clause study would better be proceeded with in committee stage.

MR. SKELLY: Mr. Speaker, we were told by the Premier, by the Minister of Education, by any number of speakers on the government side who got up tonight, that if we vote against this statute we're depriving children of their right to education, we're causing health problems, stress problems, and all sorts of problems for handicapped kids who, because they have lost three or four weeks of school, are going to never recover from this [illegible]. Then, after they say that, they bring in section 11, where they bring improvement districts under the Essential Services Act. What does that have to do with the stress and the health problems of students in West Kootenay schools?

It only reconfirms our opinion that this bill and this dispute were precipitated by the government, that attitudes on both sides were hardened up by the government in order to bring down and slip in legislation which destroys the right of free collective bargaining in the public sector and deprives those public sector Employees of the right to strike, which they've enjoyed and which has been enjoyed in the private sector, as the member for Nanaimo (Mr. Stupich) stated, at the cost of lives and injury to many members in the trade union movement. We are depriving public sector employees of that right.

(Mr. Speaker in the chair.]

Mr. Speaker, because of this, because I represent an area where municipal employees are now at work and are now negotiating collective agreements with municipalities, regional districts and other local government bodies, because this section will be used as a club over their heads.... It will make it possible for the local governments to refuse to bargain in good faith, knowing that the minister has the power at any time to cane to their rescue, to club those unions into submission, to deprive them of their right to strike for a long period of time, and to remove that last strength which they have in bargaining with public sector employers.

The reason this bill was brought in was not to defend the children in the Kootenays, not to preserve their right to an education in the Kootenays. The reason this bill was brought in was to impose compulsory arbitration on public sector unions and to impose the Essential Services Disputes Act on all local governments. I have to oppose the bill, Mr. Speaker.

MR. LOCKSTEAD: Mr. Speaker, I'd like to say just a few words on this bill. A lot has been said already, and most of what has been said on this side of the House I concur with. But first of all, I would like to take this opportunity as well to congratulate the two new ministers who were appointed to the cabinet, as well as all the other ministers who have changed portfolios, some whom have added responsibilities and some who have had diminished responsibilities. I have known Mr. Veitch and the member for Skeena (Hon. Mr. Shelford) for some time, and I know that they will do a good job and they're going to need lots of luck. Believe me, they're going to need lots of luck.

Mr. Speaker, here we are debating a non-Emergency -- at least a situation in this province should be a non-emergency -- for if the government had been doing its homework, the children would have been back to school this morning. I think, by the mere process last night, late yesterday afternoon, the minister or the Premier could probably have made one telephone call into the Kootenay area and talked with the officials and the employers in this dispute, and the children would have been back to school under normal circumstances this morning. But that didn't happen, and here we are debating a nonemergency, when in fact we should be debating the economy of this province, because I think that's what people in this province want to hear about. We should be discussing job creation, we should be talking about the plight of the 120,000 people who are currently unemployed in this province -- not 105,000, but 120,000. Those are the issues we should be discussing. Instead, we're discussing what appears to be a political issue brought about by this present government.

What could the reasons be? Certainly it wasn't the Kootenay school district situation. That situation could have been resolved due to the good auspices and the work done by the leader of our party yesterday morning, and certainly by the co-operation of the unions involved. No, I think the reasons for this debate today are strictly political, and the reasons are that this government is prepared to take on labour. It's politically expedient at this time for governments to attack labour on all fronts. I want to tell you, Mr. Speaker, that this government is taking a deliberate tack of attacking labour in British Columbia, and I would like to remind that Premier and that government that there are at least 1.2 million working people in this province and every one of those working people are jeopardized by this legislation that we

[ Page 2873 ]

have before us today. And most of those working people, by the way, are voters.

There's no question in my mind that one of the reasons that the government wished to proceed with this legislation was to add this section 11, which covers municipalities, regional districts, improvement districts, water districts, et cetera, in spite of the fact that there are no major strikes of confrontations in the municipal sector at this time. I would not be a bit surprised, Mr. Speaker, to see us one of these days debating legislation curtailing free collective bargaining in the private sector as well. I think this government is capable of doing that, bringing in legislation of that nature. A government that can discuss openly and advocate so-called right-to-work laws will bring in legislation like that the first opportunity they get. There's no question about that.

I just want to close by suggesting, Mr. Speaker, that this government does not believe in free collective bargaining. They believe in collective bludgeoning. That's this government's attitude -- collective bludgeoning.

MR. KERSTER: Mr. Speaker, I rise very briefly to support Bill 46 -- not to lay blame on either party in the dispute, not to attack either labour or management, but to, say that both are to blame. It's really that plain and simple. It's too bad that it has carried on as long as it has. It's a matter of fact that the collective bargaining procedures have had the opportunity to perform, and because of the parties involved in the dispute, 50-50.... Say 60-40 on management if you want to blame somebody. Say 60-40 on labour if you want to blame somebody. But the fact of the matter is that both parties in that dispute have failed to use what a lot of people say is a very definite right. I agree with that, but they've failed to utilize it to anyone's benefit -only to the detriment of the school children in the West Kootenays.

I think, Mr. Speaker, that an awful lot of attention is being spent deriding section 11 of this bill, because, again, as the opposition has done so many times in the past, they recognize a problem and then they want to become part of it. They don't want to become part of a permanent solution to a problem. Now the member for Rossland-Trail (Mr. D'Arcy) in his remarks -- and I was really somewhat interested by his misinformation -- seemed to feel that the people in Rossland-Trail weren't really concerned about this type of a situation happening again and again and again, something that we here as responsible legislators should be here to try to prevent, and as soon as possible.

Mr. Speaker, . the Leader of the Conservative Party (Mr. Stephens) , when I suggest he's a responsible legislator, tells me to watch my language, so I'll withdraw that. But I just want to bring to the attention of this House the fact that I do think that there's considerable confusion in the mind of the member for Rossland-Trail. I'd like to try to correct it. I have in my hand over 2,000 signatures from people in Trail. These 2,000 people are not saying: "Hey, fellows, don't interfere in this thing." They're saying: "Let's get it on and get it settled and let's make sure that we don't allow this type of thing to happen again." And that's what section 11 of this bill does. That's what it does.

I want to read a portion of one of the letters here, just one line. It says: "But in the view of the present situation, we feel that something should be done to make sure that the education of our children is not interrupted again." That is the meat of section 11; that's what we're here to do. If we're going to be responsible as legislators in this House, we have to take a stand. We have to stand up and appreciate that fine, we're going to have big labour maybe awfully upset at us for this. We may have big business awfully upset at us for this. But no one single sector of our community is going to create this kind of a problem for children in this province, Mr. Speaker. That's really all I have to say, other than the fact that I think this thing has gone on long enough. We're really here to do a job. If we don't get on to it pretty quick, those young people aren't going to be back in school on Monday.

Now, Mr. Speaker, with leave, I'd like to table this petition.

Leave granted.

MS. BROWN: I would also like to associate myself with the congratulations to the two new members of the cabinet, and also to add.... The Premier is gone, but I wanted to thank him personally for removing the Minister of Municipal Affairs (Hon. Mr. Vander Zalm) from Human Resources. It's a request which I have made for a long time on behalf of everyone in receipt of his services in this province. I'm glad that the Premier finally came to understand the damage that that minister was doing, and took steps to move him into another portfolio, which I'm sure he will wreck in no time at all.

I don't know what to say about the new Minister of Human Resources (Hon. Mrs. McCarthy) . We are probably going from the fire into

[ Page 2874 ]

the fat, or the fat into the fire. I don't know, but I am certainly going to wait and give her a chance -- this is a congratulation that I'm giving -- before making any comment, except to say that I hope she realizes that she has to do more than smile in this particular portfolio.

The Minister of Education (Hon. Mr. McGeer) , who has to take full responsibility for the dilemma that we find ourselves in at this time, stood on the floor of the House this afternoon and assured us that this piece of legislation was introduced on behalf of the children of the province. I think that we should take a look at this government's record as far as it affects children. If they are planning on going to the voters, to the electorate, on the basis that they are doing something for children, introducing legislation to help children in this province, I think they are making a very serious mistake.

The Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Barrett) and other members of the opposition have talked about the Ministry of Education and its lack of services to handicapped children in this province. I would like to add to that some comments about the Minister of Health (Hon. Mr. McClelland) and the kind of absence of decent health services to children in this province.

Interjections.

MS. BROWN: I am in order. I'm talking about this piece of legislation which we have been told was introduced on behalf of the children.

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. member, if the member wishes to make a speech on how children have or have not been helped through Bill 46, it would be entirely in order, but we cannot accept an analysis of what the Minister of Health has done for children under this bill.

MS. BROWN: I an going to talk about the hypocrisy of the Minister of Education, the member from Vancouver South (Mr. Strongman) , the Premier and other members standing up and saying that this bill was introduced to assist the children of this province. This government has a record of ruthlessness as far as children are concerned. I'm simply trying to put it into its perspective and into its context that this government has never done anything for the children of this province. To say now that they are introducing this piece of legislation to assist the children of this province is not just hypocritical; it's just not so. I'm not accusing them of lying. I'm simply saying that it's just not so.

I'm not going to talk about the record of the Minister of Human Resources, because that would call for another filibuster, and I'm not prepared to go through that again. Certainly the record of this government, as demonstrated by the ex-Minister of Human Resources and his ministry, shows that we should look very carefully at any piece of legislation which we have been told has been introduced in order to assist the children of this province. The reality of the situation is that this government will use the children of this province, as it always has, for its own devices. This piece of legislation was simply introduced in order to get section 11 through. The whole thing was stage-managed. The exploitation of the children of this province continues. It continues as it has continued for the past three years, whether it is through the report which was just introduced by the United Way, which shows that most of the children of this province -- 50 per cent of the welfare roll is made up of children in the province -- are living way below the poverty line.

This bill is another instance of this government using the children of this province. The Minister of Education, when he talked about the psychological damage that was being done to the children of this province, said that the bill was introduced because of his concern and the government's concern for them. As mentioned earlier, he didn't talk about the concern for the handicapped children who are thrown into the public school system, at the same time that he is cutting off the kind of funding that is needed to ensure that they get the kind of care that they need within the public school system. He's not talking about the funding to assist the autistic children in the school system, which is needed and which is being cut off by him. He's not talking about the cutoff in funding for special needs in his department.

Interjection.

MS. BROWN: I an discussing the Minister of Education.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. Hon. member, I think that the reason why so many interjections are taking place is that there is doubt in the House as to whether or not the remarks are relevant. Perhaps the hon. member would limit herself to what the bill does say rather than to what it does not say.

MS. BROWN: Mr. Speaker, the bill does not say anything whatsoever about being introduced on behalf of children. The Minister of Educa-

[ Page 2875 ]

tion who, because of his cutback in funding to the school boards, started the kind of vicious cycle which resulted in the dispute which is now before us and which we have been called back to deal with through this piece of legislation, told us that this bill was being introduced in order to assist children.

I'm merely trying to point out to you, Mr. Speaker, and to the other members of the House, that the Minister of Education has, through his own department and through his own policies, deliberately used and abused and misused the children of this province. Now he is trying to get us to believe that he is concerned about them. His only concern, as demonstrated through this bill, was to escalate and design a situation that would make it possible for his government to introduce an amendment to the Essential Services Disputes Act which is, in fact, anti-labour legislation.

In order to demonstrate that, Mr. Speaker, I'm just giving you some other examples of where the concern of the Ministry of Education for children has resulted in the cutback of services to children in the school system, the reduction of budgets, the starving of the school districts, the cutback of child-care services. In fact, Mr. Speaker, we find that the children of this province really are the victims of a ruthless and uncaring government. This piece of legislation is additional evidence of that fact because this piece of legislation was introduced for one purpose and for one purpose only. This piece of legislation is further exploitation of the children of this province. The Minister of Education (Hon. Mr. McGeer) , the Minister of Human Resources (Hon. Mrs. McCarthy) and the Minister of Health (Hon. Mr. McClelland) have demonstrated clearly that the only concern they ever had for children in this province is to exploit them. Bill 46 is a further example of the exploitation of the children of this province by that government over there.

The 15,000 children who are out of school in the Kootenays today need not be out of school. The workers returned to work. It was possible for those children to be in school today. They are not in school today because that government, Mr. Speaker, has decided once again, as it always has, to exploit the children of this province in its own interests. It has decided, as it has decided with every other vulnerable group in this community, that the way in which to get on with this job is to attack the most vulnerable ones among us. Certainly by using this piece of legislation, by standing in this House and shedding crocodile tears on behalf of the 15,000 children in the Kootenays who are not in school, by talking about the psychological damage being done to those children, Mr. Speaker, as the Minister of Education did in speaking on this piece of legislation, he is only demonstrating that he is prepared to go to any length, as his government is prepared to go to any length to introduce the kind of anti-labour legislation which their convention demands of them but which they have not had the guts to implement and to introduce in this House in a straightforward way.

The only thing in this piece of legislation which necessitated our being called to the Legislature today is section 11. That is the only thing in this piece of legislation. It has been said by various members of the- opposition, by the leaders of the opposition, by the Liberal member and by the member of the Conservative Party, that it was possible to settle this dispute. It was possible to get those 15,000 children back to school without calling this Legislature into session. What was not possible was to introduce an amendment to the Essential Services Disputes Act and ran it through this Legislature without using the children in this way.

So even though the settlement was imminent, even though it was possible, that government -- and I'm not blaming the Minister of Labour, because he only does what he is told to do; I am speaking about the Premier and that government, with the support of the Minister of Education who is the real power behind that throne -- introduced this piece of legislation for one reason and for one reason only.

Mr. Speaker, the Minister.of Education told us that if we Vote against this piece of legislation, we are voting against the children of this province. I want to tell you that there are many ways of voting against the children of this province and this government has explored and exploited every single one of those ways. Speaker, when you exploit parents, forcing them to work for substandard wages, making it impossible for them to meet the basic financial needs of their children, you are voting against the children of this province.

There is evidence from this report recently submitted by the United Way that that is precisely what that government has been doing since it came into power on December 11,1975. They have been voting against the children of this province, and Bill 46 is further evidence of their vote and their action against the children of this province.

Mr. Speaker, we tend to lose sight sometimes when we talk about labour disputes that we are talking about people, not just about inanimate

[ Page 2876 ]

objects. So I want to deal specifically with one group of people who have been caught up in this particular dispute. I am not now speaking about the children; I'll go back and speak about the children again.

I want to talk about the Selkirk staff, and here I am quoting the Castlegar News, Mr.Speaker, of November 30,1978. There was a letter published in the Castlegar News written to the editor. It talked about the clerical and service workers on the Selkirk staff and why they were a part of this dispute. The fact of the matter, Mr. Speaker, is that it pointed out that for the past 10 years 70 per cent of all of the clerical workers at that institution have been female workers and that they have been working for below average salaries -- that their salaries have not been keeping up with the salaries of other people in the community at large. What they are struggling for in that dispute is a living wage. They are saying that they are in favour of this struggle because they are in the unenviable position of being the lowest-paid college staff in the entire province: "The clerical staff at Selkirk College are in the unenviable position of being the lowest-paid college staff in the entire province and the BCSTA" that is the school trustees association "obviously wishes them to remain in this position." They are saying that they are agitating for a living wage.

These people are parents too. Some of these women on the clerical staff have children in the school system too. When we vote against them, we are also voting against the children in that system. It says that "a number of them are sole supporters of their families. They are single parents, and on the current wage offered by BCSTA they live below the national poverty line even though they are working." These are not people who are in receipt of welfare. These are not people who the previous Minister of Human Resources (Hon. Mr. Vander Zalm) could refer to as welfare bums. They are employed, Mr. Speaker. They are on the staff of Selkirk College, and despite the fact that they are working, they are below the national poverty line. When we vote against them -- if I can quote the words of the Minister of Education -- we are voting against the children of the province too. That is what we are doing. We often tend to forget when we talk about labour disputes that we are talking about people. We are not just talking about inanimate objects. So from time to time it is necessary for us to remind ourselves about some of the people who are under discussion.

They are saying.that they do not want 74 per cent of the workers at below the poverty line to remain there for yet another year. I know that the new Minister of Parks (Hon. Mr. Chabot) , who believes that parks are there for mining and that he has now got the opportunity to do all the mining in the parks that he's ever wanted to do and legitimately so because he has now been given that authority, is not interested in hearing about people who are living below the poverty line. He would like to be able to think that what we are talking about is big union and big management in some kind of confrontation with each other. I an quoting from a Castlegar paper, so apparently the information was made in that area and the person who wrote it was not run out of town, which is one reason, I guess, that we are lucky not to have that minister as Minister of Labour, although I think we are unfortunate to have him responsible for parks since we certainly value our parks.

Mr. Speaker, this bill is anti-union motivation by the government. It is motivated by a government that is prepared to sacrifice 15,000 school children and keep them out of schools in order to get its anti-union legislation through. It is introduced by a government which is prepared to continue exploiting those single-parent mothers at Selkirk College in order to get its anti-labour legislation through.

Mr. Speaker, the bill attacks the lowest paid people in our society who are lurking in the public sector. The majority of them are women, and thousands and thousands of them working in clerical jobs. By introducing section 11, what it is saying is that it is now extending the coverage of the Essential Services Disputes Act to cover every single affiliate union that has anything whatsoever to do either with municipalities, regional districts, improvement district corporations, as well as universities, colleges and provincial institutions. It has nothing to do with the West Kootenay Schools Collective Bargaining Assistance Act, nothing to do with it whatsoever. Section 11 has nothing to do with it. In fact, what the bill should have been called is an amendment. The real title of the bill is An Amendment to the Essential Services Disputes Act. That is the real title of the bill, but in its own cunning, Mr. Speaker, the government thought that by pretending it was dealing with the West Kootenays dispute, it could just sneak this in and get it through, and no one would be any the wiser for it.

Mr. Speaker, this bill also calls for compulsory arbitration. We're not surprised by that, of course, because this government has always made its position absolutely clear on that issue, that it believes in compulsory

[ Page 2877 ]

arbitration. And as we heard, the member for Omineca (Mr. Kempf) mentioned earlier this afternoon that this bill still doesn't go far enough. He says it's too little, Mr. Speaker. He believes that all workers, workers in the private sector as well as in the public sector, should be designated as essential services, and that he would certainly like to see the bill go even further than it is now. He speaks for a large segment of his party. He speaks for a large segment of his government. In fact, he is probably the only one over there who tells the truth about what they're seriously thinking about, whereas the Minister of Labour and the member for Dewdney (Mr. Mussallem) will make statements saying: "The time is not right. Let us wait until we are in government once more before we introduce this destructive legislation." The member for Omineca is not afraid to stand up and say that he is totally opposed to the collective bargaining process, that he is completely in support of compulsory arbitration.

MR. MUSSALLEM: On a point of order.

MS. BROWN: No, it's a point of privilege. He's interrupting.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. Hon. member, if it's a correction in the hon. member's speech, the customary time is to make that correction at the completion of the speech.

MR. MUSSALLEM: I understand that, Mr. Speaker. She impugned what I had said, which I did not say. That's a point of privilege that I rise at this time to correct.

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. Member, it's apparent to the Chair that it is a correction in a statement that the hon. member made in her speech, and the customary time is at the end of the speech. I trust the hon. member will respect that.

MR. MUSSALLEM: Is the Speaker saying that when things are quoted that I have not said, I should wait till after the speech is made?

MR. SPEAKER: That's the customary method in this House.

MR. MUSSALLEM: Well, it's a brand new custom, Mr. Speaker, but I trust it.

MR. SPEAKER: With great respect, customs have trouble being brand new.

MS. BROWN: Mr. Speaker, I accept the member for Dewdney's statement that I impugned what he said that he didn't say, and I'm not quite sure what that means. But in any event, I must confess that I too saw the televised convention and saw the member at the mike asking the delegates not to deal with right-to-work legislation at this time because it was not the correct time to do so, that they should wait. However, if that's not what the member meant, that's fine. I can understand that he has difficulty explaining himself sometimes. Anyway, "politically unwise" was his statement.

In any event, Mr. Speaker, there isn't any question whatsoever that if it is possible for that government through this legislation and succeeding legislation to wipe out collective bargaining, then it won't be necessary for them to introduce right-to-work legislation. They will in fact have achieved their ends without actually having to go through the whole process of introducing right-to-work legislation. In that regard, they would have carried out the wish of their convention without actually doing it in a straightforward and honest manner.

Mr. Speaker, section 11, as it extends, covers, as I've said before, a number of other unions aside from CUPE, and even though we are supposed to be dealing with CUPE, we find that by adding section 11 onto it, we are covering the carpenters' union, we're covering the Office and Technical Employees' Union, we're covering the operating engineers, we're covering things like the BCIT staff association. The IWA, the College Faculties Association and the Teamsters are covered. The minister has been very, very careful to just about pull everyone in that he can with this mess and that's what the legislation is all about.

It is hypocritical for the Premier and for the Minister of Education and the second member for Vancouver South (Mr. Strongman) to stand up on the floor of this House and to pretend that they're introducing legislation which has anything to do with children at all. It has absolutely nothing to do with the children at all. This is anti-labour legislation. It is anti-collective bargaining legislation. It is softening up the public and preparing them for right-to-work legislation. That's what it is, and the minister should have had the intestinal fortitude to make that fact absolutely clear, and not to call us back here, Mr. Speaker, under false pretences, and I'm not impugning the minister's motives when I say that.

I'm just saying that the government called us back here under false pretences. It was not necessary for us to come back here to settle

[ Page 2878 ]

that dispute, because the workers are back on the job. The employers wanted to lift their lockout, and again they were discouraged from doing so. At 7:30 or 8 o'clock this morning they were back on the job.

AN HON. MEMBER: Where?

MS. BROWN: Nelson, Grand Forks, you name it. In any event, the minister is asking us to name the places. It seems that he still hasn't at this point found out himself. Earlier, I think it was the Leader of the Opposition who quoted from the Premier's statement that he thought that public sector employees should be the lowest paid workers, that he certainly was in support of public sector employees not being as well paid as workers in the private sector. Of course, that state of affairs exists today. There are all kinds of figures which I can make available to the Minister of Labour, if he does not yet have these figures, to show that in the school districts in Saanich, as well as in Victoria and in Vancouver, the clerk-typists' wages do not compare with that of the private sector in these areas. In School District 63, for example, in Saanich they are paid $5.18 an hour; in School District 61 of Victoria, they are paid $5.13 an hour; in School District 85, Vancouver Island North, they are paid $4.98 an hour. You compare that with the private sector: in a contract for Local 1405 of Can-Cel, for example, the same clerk-typist is paid $8.66 an hour; or at MacMillan and Bloedel, the same clerk-typist is paid $6.73 an hour.

So the situation that the Premier is agitating for already exists. All that he is doing by introducing section 11 of this piece of legislation is to ensure that every single person, every single worker who works for any part of the public sector whatsoever is going to be forced to find themselves in the situation where they are going to be paid by the Premier's criteria of the lowest wage possible. They are going to have their right to collective bargaining taken away from them, and they are going to find that their income will begin to go down. In fact, the difference between the income of the public sector and the private sector is very real and certainly exists at this point.

In comparing the way in which this government treats disputes with that of the way in which the New Democratic Party did when it was government, when legislation was introduced it dealt with people in one dispute and tried to resolve that. There was never an instance where legislation was introduced which would have the kind of blanket effect that section 11 is having as it is attached to this bill.

With each exercise of government wage setting, the case for government's intervention as regards prices, rents, interest, salaries and professional fees, and so on, becomes more compelling. In this case, despite the workers' willingness to return voluntarily to work, and despite commitments made by the Minister of Labour, the Premier and the employers, we have another example of society saying to people that we will intervene in your private income-setting process, but we will not intervene in terms of prices and income, and in terms of creating some kind of a match.

I'm not sure how long governments, and this government in particular, will be able to get away with that kind of cynical interference, especially when they try to do it under the guise of working on behalf of the children of this province. I can't say too often that anyone whatsoever who could delude themselves into thinking that this government has ever cared for the children of this province need only take a close look at the Ministry of Human Resources as it was under the ex-Minister of Human Resources. They need only take a look at the cutoff in services to children. They need only take a look at the kinds of scapegoating statements made by that minister about people on welfare, despite the fact that more than 50 per cent of the people on welfare are children. They need only read the report....

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please, hon. member. I call the first member for Vancouver-Burrard to order. It is apparent that whenever the member wanders from the parameters of the bill, she has a tendency to incite almost a riot in the House. Therefore I would ask the hon. member please to limit the remarks to Bill 46. Please proceed.

MS. BROWN: Mr. Speaker, I hope you are not going to hold me responsible for the fact that the ex-Minister of Human Resources (Hon. Mr. Vander Zalm) has no control over his behaviour. Anyone who would dare to delude themselves into thinking that this government would introduce a piece of legislation to assist even one child in this province need only look at the record of the Ministry of Human Resources under the ex-Minister of Human Resources.

MR. SPEAKER: 1b the bill, please.

MS. BROWN: Destructive decisions, cut-off of services, legislation, scapegoating, Mr. Spea-

[ Page 2879 ]

ker -- that is the reason why that minister had to be removed. That is the reason why he has been put in charge of adults, because he was so destructive to the children of this province.

[Mr. Speaker rises.]

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. I would ask the member for the final time to restrict her remarks to the parameters of Bill 46; otherwise we'll have to take the measures provided for under standing orders. Please proceed.

[Mr. Speaker resumes his seat.]

MS. BROWN: Mr. Speaker, your threat has been well taken. In this particular bill I'm talking about the cynicism of the government far transcends that of the conventional variety, because when the working people involved said "We accept the commitment, " as they did, when they said that they would return to work, and when they actually did return to work, an agent of the employer said to them: "That is not what the Premier wants-" That was the result of it. The Premier and his government intervened to ensure that that strike was not settled, despite the fact that we've been told, with crocodile tears, that it's the 15,000 children in the Kootenays for whom the government is concerned while this piece of legislation was being introduced.

Mr. Speaker, the Premier did not want a peaceful, voluntary end to this dispute. That fact, anyway, is absolutely clear. No one over there is contradicting it, so it seems that certainly the government benches accept that too, despite all the declarations of concern for students that we've heard from the Minister of Education (Hon. Mr. McGeer) , from the Premier himself, and from the second member for Vancouver South (Mr. Strongman) . The Premier did not want those students to return to school, he does not care about their educational loss, and he does not care about the so-called psychological damage that the Minister of Education was telling us about. The Premier let it be known that he did not want that, he prevented the solution being arrived at, and in fact he insisted that the Minister of Labour go ahead with the drafting of this piece of legislation and that you, Mr. Speaker, continue in the process of calling the members of the Legislature back to the House today.

Mr. speaker, the Minister of Labour this morning said that he advised the union at 11 p.m. yesterday that the employers had refused to honour their commitment, and their decision to return to work, and that of the Premier. He went on to say that he continued his lonely vigil in his office waiting for word from the employers, hoping that they would give some kind of response to the employees' offer. The implication of those remarks was that despite the union's move, for which the minister congratulated them, it was too late for anything to be done. The implication was that even if the employers had recanted, and had contacted the minister sitting alone and lonely in his office after 11 o'clock last night, the government would still not have withdrawn its decision to introduce this piece of legislation which has in its section 11, which its main and primary process is, the destruction of the trade union movement.

I suggest, Mr. Speaker, that this government, and this Premier in particular, had decided long before -- long before he issued his ultimatum on TV, long before he made his gratuitous statement to the effect that it was not too late -- to go ahead with this bill, because he has decided to make this his issue in the upcoming election. I suggest that by mid-afternoon yesterday, at the very latest, this government and this Premier had decided to prolong this dispute.

The reason for his overwhelming desire to prolong the dispute, the reason the Premier was absolutely determined not to allow a peaceful and voluntary settlement, the reason why those students had to continue in those circumstances, and the reason why the Kootenays are thus compelled, along with those 15,000 children, to inherit a legacy of bitterness is that this Premier and his government are determined at all costs and any cost to put on this public display of union bashing. He has reckoned that therein lies the votes, and he does not care one iota, as he has never cared one iota for the students in the Kootenays or for any children anywhere in this province. I'm not going to repeat what I've said about taking a look at the record of that government as it affects children and as it is always affecting children.

If that is wrong, it will be very easy for the Premier to dispute this. All he has to do is to stand up before this House and affirm what his Minister of Labour has already implied. All he has to do is to contradict what the spokesperson for the employer said last night. She said that the Premier did not want the voluntary settlement offered yesterday by the Union. The Premier merely has to affirm to this House that his government did not make it known by mid-afternoon yesterday at the latest that he was proceeding on course come what may.

[ Page 2880 ]

Mr. Speaker, the Premier and his Minister of Labour were until yesterday at noon enjoying what they thought was a situation in which they could win. They could embarrass the unions. They could blame them for keeping the children out of school and they could introduce their anti-labour legislation at the same time. They were foiled in this by the very astute move on the part of the Leader of the Opposition. It is not a dilemma of cabinet ministers or of corporate lawyers or of land speculators. This dilemma that we are dealing with is a dilemma of wage earners and the poor. In this regard, I mentioned earlier that particular group of clerical workers at Selkirk College who, despite the fact that they are employed, are still earning less and are living below the national.poverty line.

HON. MR. WILLIAMS: They're not back to work yet.

MS. BROWN: Those women, while they were working -- as the sole support of their family -- were earning wages as clerical workers at Selkirk College, which placed them below the national poverty line. That's the reason that they went into dispute with the BCSTA. They were the lowest-paid workers, Mr. Speaker, in any educational institution in British Columbia.

- Speaker, caught on the one hand by price eases like the 5 per cent to 12 per cent which we have been told to expect next year on a loaf of bread, and on the other hand by a ruthless government that slices away at their earnings, their real earnings have declined to the 1976 level. If you notice, I was very, very careful not to introduce any extraneous material such as increases in ICBC rates and increases in hydro rates. I didn't talk about the fact that the rent ceilings have been taken off. There is an emergency before this House and before this society and that is it: the fact that inflation, over which these people have no control, is way ahead of their income and that they are locked in dispute at this time for a living wage. That's all that they are in dispute over.

Instead of grabbing an opportunity to deal with that, Mr. Speaker, the Premier and his government have used their dilemma, their untenable situation that they are in, to introduce anti-labour legislation and anticollective bargaining legislation. The government that lacks both inclination and courage to do anything about prices, rents and interest rates, to do anything at all about the costs that people have to bear, becomes instantly pious at any opportunity to slash at people's only capacity to fight back against those increases. The collective bargaining process is the only process that these workers have, Mr. Speaker, to try to get for themselves a decent wage so that they can deal with the inflationary spiral, most of which is created by this government itself in terms of its own increases.

Mr. Speaker, we have heard a lot today from the Minister of Education and from the Premier about the interests of children. I think we should hear some more. Are not the interests of these same children injured when private selfish decisions to greatly increase costs, Mr. Speaker, are introduced? What emergency legislation does the government have in mind to deal with those arbitrary increases in the cost of living? When interest rates for home purchases reach over 12 per cent and higher, depriving these children of a right to live in their own homes, what emergency legislation will the government be bringing down to deal with that? But even if this Premier's machinations of yesterday had not been exposed, the worm would sooner or later have turned, because despite this union's willingness to end their strike on the terms previously offered by the employer and the Premier, we are today adding to the already large group of people in this society who have nothing to lose and everything to gain from a massive extension of this state's capacity to intervene in the private economic decision-making process.

Mr. Speaker, the Premier may be right in his decision that there are votes to be had from union bashing. He may be right to take advantage of the general anti-union sentiment rampant in society today. Heaven knows, he needs every vote that he can get. I'm not talking about the polls because I do not know anything about them, Mr. Speaker, but this is what you will have to consider in the morning, after the night of gluttony. The case that the Minister of Labour made this morning was for public intervention against private decisionmaking. His words will be far more compelling, Mr. Speaker, in other contexts.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. Your time has expired, hon. member.

MS. BROWN: I was just winding up, Mr. Speaker. I am totally opposed to this piece of legislation.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. Minister of Highways. I would remind the hon. minister of the rule of relevancy. Please proceed.

[ Page 2881 ]

HON. MR. FRASER, : Mr. Speaker, there are a lot of thank yous going out, and I would like to thank all the members of the House for sending me condolences when I was ill. I haven't had the opportunity to be in the House since the end of May, so I thought I would take this opportunity now and tell you first of all that I feel fine and look forward to many years here yet.

I would like to publicly congratulate my colleagues, the Minister of Tourism and Small Business Development (Hon. Mr. Veitch) and the Minister of Agriculture (Hon. Mr. Shelford) , and welcome these very capable people. We can certainly give them lots of work.

The other reason that I took the opportunity to say a very few words tonight is that the press gallery is absolutely packed full and I knew we would get good coverage. I realize they've had hard work all fall and they have to have time off, but I'm pleased to see the big turnout with the press tonight.

Dealing with Bill 46, first of all I want to say that there has been a lot said about the Minister of Labour and the Minister of Education. I want to assure you that we on this side all have great confidence in the Minister of Labour and the Minister of Education. They're dedicated public servants, they certainly have had a lot of the load to pack on this legislation and they've done an excellent job, as far as I am concerned.

I would just like to say a thing or two about the Leader of the Opposition (Hr. Barrett) . That was a pretty weak excuse for opposition to legislation that I heard from him today. It amazed me because all fall, every chance he got on any public media, he was saying he wanted the House called. Well, the House was called, and he fell flat on his face. He's not even in his seat. Really he's arranging not to be here when the vote is taken, it appears to me.

There has been a lot said, Mr. Speaker, from the opposition that the government interfered, and this labour dispute was settled. Well, of course, Mr. Speaker, the facts of the matter are it wasn't settled. They have already had six and a half weeks to settle it, and they weren't even bargaining. Mr. Speaker, in the case of the union offering to go back to work, I understand they didn't go back to work because of the other side. But in any case, if it had happened, how long would that continue? They didn't have any agreement and therefore they could go back out again whenever they felt like it. This government wasn't going to stand for any more of that nonsense, because they've had lots of time to get an agreement and get on and get the schools back.

This bill says that, with its passage, the schools will open in 48 hours. It is the wish of this government that they get back and they are given their old agreement and they are under an agreement to keep on negotiating until they settle the dispute, but it ensures that the schools will stay open. So there is quite a difference, Mr. Speaker, between the government's attitude here and the statements that are being made on the other side of the House. It ensures continuing education for the victims of this dispute, which are the students. Regardless of what they say on the other side, they are definitely the victims. This government isn't going to allow that to continue any longer, even if the opposition, as they are saying, would certainly let it go on for I don't know how long.

The conditions for learning up there are impossible. I myself, and I an sure the members of the opposition, saw children in their classrooms with gloves on and heavy clothes on. How could you live and learn in an environment like that? Even the opposition must agree that that's an impossible and intolerable situation, and again this government is not going to allow that to go on any longer.

I would like at this point -- and it was touched on by somebody in the debate today -to congratulate the teachers that are carrying on under extreme circumstances there. They are under tough working conditions, and I think we should all give them full marks for what they have tried to do under very difficult conditions.

This hasn't been said today probably because the House doesn't know it, but I would like to relate an experience or a fact that I know from this dispute. There is a class of nurses in the Selkirk College and along with their other education they have to have practical nursing experience as well. I am advised that they can't do that. The hospital management, where they take their practical training, have said that they are not welcome there while this dispute is on for the simple reason they are afraid it will create labour difficulties in the hospitals where they take their training. You know, nobody has said this but this dispute has a lot of implications and complications and this is just another one that hasn't been mentioned today. It is a shameful condition and this bill is going to clear up this disgraceful situation.

I will just close now, Mr. Speaker, but I would like to address my remarks to the MIA for Nelson-Creston (Mr. Nicolson) and the MLA for Rossland-Trail (Mr. D'Arcy) and say to them that as public servants they have sure

[ Page 2882 ]

let their people down. I'm sure that their views have been distorted by other things than it should have been, and I am quite amazed that public people would take that stand over a serious issue. I'm sure that the citizens of Nelson-Creston and Rossland-Trail will let them know when the time comes.

I would urge all MLAs to vote for this bill when it cones to a vote.

MR. LEVI: I'd like to welcome the ex-Minister of Public Works (Hon. Mr. Fraser) ; I don't know what he is now -- Highways. I'd like to welcome him because he is looking pretty good now, and I'd also like to take the opportunity to welcome the former Minister of Public Works, Bill Hartley, and his wife, who are sitting up in the gallery. He's just over your head there, Bill, so be careful.

[Mr. Rogers in the chair-]

I'd like to congratulate the two people that were promoted from the backbench to the cabinet, to commiserate with those that remained in the cabinet that were demoted, fired, rehired and replaced. It's always amazing to me the way premiers pick cabinets. I think what he did this time was to take all the pictures and throw them up in the air, and those that came down with the picture up stayed where they were and the rest, well, he just kind of picked it any old way.

I'd like to take the opportunity, now that the Minister of Labour has left, to .... Somebody must be taking notes for him. I would like him when he closes debate to be very specific about what he knows about what took place up in the Kootenays today as a result of people from the union going back to work. I think it is important, because he said this morning when he introduced the debate:

"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. That being the case, the lockout nonetheless continues in the school districts of Castlegar, Grand Forks and Trail, and was imposed at Selkirk College."

I think it is important that the minister be up to date. I'm only up to date as to what took place during the dinner hour, and I'm informed by my colleague from Trail that people went back to work at Nelson. They were asked to stay off for a while but then went back to work. The picket was lifted at Selkirk and they did not go back to work. At Castlegar, Trail and Grand Forks- they reported for work. They were told to go home and then later on were phoned to say that they should cane in to work. It hasn't been confirmed how many people actually went in. But that was the situation as reported to me at the dinner hour. I think it important that the Minister of Labour be up to date. I would be surprised, frankly, if he's not up to date. Or has he forgotten everything about the strike and all he wants to do now is to concern himself with pushing the bill through?

I don't agree with the people across the way that the only victims in this particular dispute were children. There are many, many victims in disputes when there are labour disputes. Not everybody is a student. Income is reduced, people in families suffer, businessmen suffer, everybody suffers. So I don't accept that the government somehow has to single out children as the only victim in this particular situation. It is never that way, and they are only doing this simply because it fits their own purpose. I am much more concerned about what the legislation means. I an thinking specifically now of section 11 and not the rest. Because in section 11 we get some indication of what the planning has been by this government for some time.

Last year when the Minister of Labour was introducing the Essential Services Disputes Act he went to some trouble to explain why he was doing it. In part of his speech he said: "It is the view of the government, and the intention is clearly expressed in this bill, to move to establish on a permanent basis an agency that will undertake a number of major tasks directed to the resolution of those basic root causes." He was talking about what was going on in the public sector. He went on to say: "More importantly, the agency will be in a position to consider, examine and recommend with respect to the root causes of the seeming inability of some elements in the public service to conclude a resolution of their differences. I'm not speaking only of the employees in those public services." In his speech he made reference to the way Ontario deals with legislation in respect to disputes in the education system. So exactly what they were going to do has been in the back of their minds for some time.

What are the implications of all this? At no time have any of the members on the other side stood up and talked with any real feeling about what the difficulties have been over the past 60 or 70 years in this province in establishing the trade union movement and in establishing the right to collective bargaining. We've come full circle in respect to Social Credit governments. In the '60s and early '70s we had nothing but confrontation around the

[ Page 2883 ]

issues of collective bargaining, the whole trade union movement and whether it was to exist or not. Here we are going into the '80s with the same kind of feeling by a Social Credit government that it's beginning to talk about the dismantling of the trade union movement. We talked about this last year. We talked about it when they amended the Labour Code. Who are we to believe? When we look at their convention we find that for three successive years in their convention there has been debate about introducing the right to work. This year, only because the Minister of Labour finally got to the mike and was able to cool them out, they lost it by a slim vote.

MR. DAVIDSON: Oh, nonsense!

MR. LEVI: Oh, nonsense! it was lost by a slim vote. That's a grass roots party that pays attention to its membership.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, please. I have some difficulty in relating your debate.

MR. LEVI: You do? I started out with section 11.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: However, when you are discussing the relative merits of discussions at political party conventions I have some difficulty with the West Kootenay Schools Collective Bargaining Assistance Act.

MR. LEVI: Mr. Speaker, may I point out to you that a section of this Act amends the Emergency Services Act? This Act does not deal.... Let's not kid ourselves. I hope the public doesn't make the same mistake, Mr. Speaker, with respect, that you just made. You are suggesting ....

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order, please. When you, hon. member, get into a discussion as to the finite details of political conventions, I have to question whether or not that is in order in our second reading. If you will relate this to the second reading -- which you normally do, I might add -- I would appreciate it.

MR. LEVI: You've raised an interesting point, and I'd like to go back on it. If the public believe that all that's in this bill is simply an order sending people back to work, then they are very sadly mistaken. There is a section in here which amends the legislation that was introduced last year, the Essential Services Disputes Act, and that is the very important part of this.

We know that with the numbers that the government has, they are going to pass the business of sending people back to work. What concerns us more is what they've got on the agenda in the future. Section 11 will only be brought in on proclamation. Then they are going to do some research to find out whether they need it. It's very difficult sometimes to believe what the minister says. Last year when he introduced the bill he made a great play about setting up an agency that was going to concern itself with doing research and looking into the problems that various unions and employers have in respect to how they can better improve the collective bargaining process.

I understand that three weeks ago they started to put this thing together. We passed the earlier bill in October, 1977. Here we are, 14 months later, with the minister telling us that they have just appointed the advisory board. hat are we looking forward to now? It took them 14 months to came to grips with the problem that last year he told us was so crucial we had to come into the House and have a special session, post facto, after the business of the ferry strike. Here we are with the same kind of thing going on in respect to what's going on in the Kootenays.

It is important that people understand what the implications are. Last year when the minister was introducing that part of the bill in section 11, he said that the attempt was Lo achieve a balance. He talked about balance last year in terms of the collective bargaining field. Now he's brought in something that's completely tipping the scales in the favour of the employer. If that minister is going to stand up and tell us that he believes in the collective bargaining process and that he's in favour of seeing unions continue, how is he going to explain that? That's not maintaining a balance. That's pursuing a course which people on that side have been bound that they were going to pursue since they've been in government, and even before they were in government.

The interesting thing to me is that surely they must have got some clues out there a month or six weeks ago that all was not well with their party, that their welfare bashing and their attempt at union bashing was not working and people were not supporting it. We had a kind of mini-election that didn't happen. We know why it didn't happen.

Why is it they're feeling so confident now, Mr. Speaker, that somehow they can come in and use this big stick? Why? Is this the last opportunity that they're going to have to try this out? Is this the last opportunity they're

[ Page 2884 ]

going to have to garner all those right-wing votes that are going over to the Conservatives? Is that why you're doing it? Has that got anything to do with the question of maintaining balance in the collective bargaining field? It doesn't.

The other issue that's implicit in what you're doing in this bill is that you're completely endorsing accreditation. You're the one that's said that you're prepared to take a look at it and evaluate it, but now you've come in with endorsement. Accreditation is there; that's what's happening. We've seen the kind of mess that can happen up in the Kootenays with accreditation. We have three or four school boards sitting down and voting on this school board's contract and that school board's contract, and a complete erosion of the rights of voters who elect trustees. As somebody so eloquently put it last night when we met with some of the people from up there, "People in Nelson did not elect trustees to make decisions in Trail, " and he's quite right.

This is the government that campaigned that they wanted freedom and decentralization, and here we have the essence of centralization: accreditation in the public sector, without any analysis to whether it can work. We know that it works in the private sector, but in the public sector, they've yet to produce the information, the data, the research as to how this thing has been working in the past. In spite of what took place in the lower mainland three or four weeks ago when the members of the unions, particularly from CUPE, went before the various municipal councils and argued their points against the people who were proposing accreditation and won the day, this minister is prepared to go forward in the face of all that reality and to bring in this.

Now he's not foolish, Mr. Speaker. He's not a foolish man. He is capable of evaluating situations. He's sat in the House for more than 12 years. One can only suggest that the reason that we're in this particular pickle is because for the third time that minister has had the ball taken out of his hands. The person who's calling the plays an this is the Premier, and he's doing it purely for political purposes. That minister's got more sense, and knows that to introduce this kind of legislation is going to develop the kind of confrontation that everybody talks about. Because if you think that the trade union movement is going to sit and lay back because of this, then you're all a bunch of idiots, and it's incredible that you could even think that way. Why the confrontation? One man somehow wants to make an effort to recoup, because six weeks ago he was told not only by the people, but by the pollsters and by his friends: "Go to the election and Barrett will be the Premier."

We're keen to make this an election issue if you want. I guess that's what you want to do.

You want to build support out there with the right wing, and somehow you think that that will carry you over the top. Well, it won't.

It won't because if any of you had attended the B.C. Federation of Labour, you'd have seen what was happening there. I've been going to those conventions for years, and there was a unanimity of opinion about the way they felt about accreditation: they are not going to roll over for this kind of legislation, and you can't expect them to. They didn't spend 70 years getting where they've got to have a government come in and with the stroke of a pen start to impose compulsory arbitration, which is such anathema to the trade union movement. That's what we're going to get, compulsory arbitration.

As my colleague for Alberni pointed out, what is going to happen with the existing negotiations that are going on now in various municipalities? What are they going to do?

They're going to lay back and say: "Oh, we don't have to worry. After all, if we don't want to meet what they want, we'll lay back.

Eventually the government will ' just proclaim it and that will be the way it will be."

AN HON. MEMBER: What about the kids?

MR. LEVI: Don't talk to me about the kids. I'm talking about a massive population and I'm looking down the road.

Interjections.

MR. LEVI: The only trouble with you is you're an ex-minister because you got fired by your boss. I got fired by the people.

"Talk about the kids." Do you think that the kids are the only people that get affected by strikes? That's the one you want to do. You want to walk in here and hold up the little babies and tell us: "These are the people you've got to worry about." You never worried for one day when you were the minister, not one day. Don't tell me about kids.

Mr. Speaker, we have a number of elements within this legislation that are serious. One of the reasons that we are debating the bill at length is because we've got to be able to get it across to the people out there that the elements that are involved are the compulsory arbitration aspect and the erosion of local power, and I'm talking about where trustees

[ Page 2885 ]

are giving up their power to make decisions to professionals in terms of the kind of bargaining unit that they've got. Is that the kind of thing that the new Minister of Municipal Affairs (Hon. Mr. Vander Zalm) is going to endorse? Is he going to endorse that? Yes, he probably is going to endorse it. That's something he's going to have to do. He's survived by the skin of his teeth and now he's going to have to do as he's told. Of course he's going to endorse it. He'll go to the UCBM and he'll speak to the trustees and he'll say: "Yes, this is a good piece of legislation." Well, we'll see whether that happens.

That's what's happening in the legislation. Donot let anybody kid themselves for one minute that we're simply sending people back to work up in the Kootenays. We are starting on the dangerous journey of dismantling what's good about the trade union movement and the collective bargaining process. That's what we're doing in this legislation. That's what's dangerous about it. That's why we have to stand up here and debate it till you people over there understand exactly what you're doing.

Let me read something. I want to read something, Mr. Speaker, in respect to the Trail area, because people have talked about how everyone feels. Let me read you an editorial that appeared in the Trail Daily Times on December 1. This is a paper that is not known to support the NDP, so presumably it supports the government. Let me just read this. It is headed up: "Big Brother Isn't the Desirable Solution." It says:

"Students have the right to an education. School employees have the right to strike. School boards have the right to bargain as a group and to lock out. Which right is more right?

"If you opt for the student's right, as we are inclined to do, you reduce the employee's and the board's rights to privileges which may be revoked in the public interest. But you must face the fact that the strikers and lockout are not going to accept this tamely."

This is what is being said in the Trail Daily Times to the people in Trail. Let me go on:

"The loss of legal rights, for whatever reason, must be guarded against or, as history proves, Orwellian bureaucracies pick them up and destroy them. Hail whoever.

"However, one of the fastest ways to lose a right is to abuse it. This gives Big Brother the excuse to declare 'it is a privilege, revoke it' or omit to reinstate it -- in the public interest, of course."

I'm not , going to read the whole one; I'm going towards the end. He goes on to the end to say:

"In the meantime, yes, the students suffer. Their right to an education has been reduced to a privilege -- not revoked, mind you, but suspended by the union-versus-management hassle. That's not fair to the students, and we urge the disputants to resolve their differences quickly in the interests of our young people. We also urge the disputants to work out a settlement locally before Big Brother takes on the responsibility and retains it until, we fear, education becomes a function of some future bureaucracy's thought police."

This is an editorial that was written in the paper in a climate where, as has been reported, there were some 5,000 signatures on a petition. But the editorial is written with some intent to get people to see both sides of the question and to point out the kind of problems that can exist if both disputants allow the government to step in.

I think it is fair that we should point out, Mr. Speaker, that we are simply not dealing here with a manager and his employees. We're dealing with a new concept -- the accreditation -- where we really, in fact, have a number of employees who have agreed to get together. They happen to represent different areas, different school boards. This is one of the differences between accreditation in the private sector, where you have similarities in trades, versus what you have in the public sector. These are the great difficulties. They are great difficulties, as has been pointed out, through the melding of contracts and the melding of jobs. So it is not as simple as the editorial says, as between an Employer and a manager, because in that particular dispute you had a number of employers who gave up their right, really, to make any kind of decision and gave it over to a professional group. We found a situation, in fact -- and I would like the minister to enlarge on this and perhaps answer it when he winds up the debate as to what actually takes place in this kind of situation. Do the members of the particular boards retain a right to disagree? Because they do not. If it says that there has to be a settlement in all five areas, then that's the way it has to be. We had that kind of situation up there where three of five of the boards were prepared to settle and that was it. But the professional says: "You can't do that; either all settle or there is nothing doing." That's one of the dangers of that process.

How do they get out of it? You can't get out

[ Page 2886 ]

of it. It is a centralized .... Yes, you can, but not at the time. You've got to make a formal application. But in the middle of bargaining you're going to get out of it? No, you're stuck. Right, Mr. Minister? You are stuck. You've got to go along with that. But the terrible thing about it is that the process does not work. It doesn't work! It was impressed upon people in the lower mainland area that most of the municipalities are not prepared Lo go along with it.

Yet we have the minister coming in here with a bill which is, in fact, going to impose this on all of the province. He says: "Once they have an opportunity to study it...." But we are worried about it. It is a proclamation bill; it can be brought in at any time. It can be brought in any time that you have trouble. Any time you look bad in terms of the polls and you've got to find some way of boosting your vote, you'll find a situation where you can bring it in and say: "See, we brought in the big stick."

Mr. Speaker, if we had days to look at this legislation before we brought it in, and if we had a process -- which we don't have in this House -- of putting bills before committees, we would be able to explore some of the incredible implications of this kind of legislation. But we don't, because the government in its unwisdom came in and said: "We've got an emergency." So they bring it in. Even you, Hr. Speaker, with respect, made something of a mistake when you pulled me up -- and I appreciate you've got to be relevant in debates. But it hadn't occurred to you that there are two elements in the bill: send them back to work; and then we're going to look down the road.

It's good to look down the road; I agree with that. Last year I didn't agree with his legislation, but then he told us that they were going to do a lot of research, set up an agency. That's worthwhile, but he didn't do it. He had no intention of doing it. You know, that was a face-saver last year after the ferry strike. This is another face-saver, but this is more dangerous. This is much more dangerous, because we've put it on the books. Mr. Minister, we've had an opportunity to see you pre-empted on three different occasions. You don't carry the ball; you just become the pass receiver. The Premier calls the shots. I suggest to you, Mr. Speaker, that every time we are going to have some possibility of that Premier thinking he's going to make some points in terms of the labour movement, he'll move quickly to proclaim these sections, and then we'll have trouble. Then we will really have trouble. We will have that kind of confrontation. The minister has indicated that it's not going to happen. Well, it's too late. If you pass this legislation, it's too late.

The labour movement is not going to believe that it's not going to happen. If you've got it on the books, you've got it on the books for a purpose, and that is where I think you've made an incredibly bad mistake in respect to your dealings with the trade union movement. You're not going to be believed when you stand up and talk about a balance in collective bargaining. Nobody is going to believe you any more, because the Employees are completely outweighed by the weight of this legislation. There's no way, because of the numbers, that we can even get them to reconsider this.

So if we were to say that they were reasonable people, they might do that, but they're not. They are hell bent to go to an election. They're going to need all the armoury they can get, and they think that this is going to be one of the big ones. What you've done with this piece of legislation is you've actually indicated to the trade union movement that you're going to take them on on the most serious issue that they are prepared to fight every bit of the way, and that's compulsory arbitration. it's been tried before. It didn't work, and now you're going to do it again. That's going to be one of the key confrontations -- compulsory arbitration. I'm amazed that somebody hasn't got up and discussed labour courts. Anything, but anything, to somehow attract that right-wing vote that's slipping away from them and being picked up by the Conservatives. How are they going to retain it? The more right wing the rhetoric, perhaps the better off you are. If the rhetoric doesn't work, you've got to do something that looks really tough, so you bring in this kind of legislation. It's a sad day for this province.

We've had many sad days with Bills 42 and 43 in the past. Then we had the mediation commission, then we had an attempt by an inept former Labour minister who wanted to do Bill 88, which directly resulted in the defeat of the government of which he was a member. I will say this, Mr. Speaker: this will bring your government down with an assuredness that you never expected.

The minister must explain to us what he has got in his mind. What does he see is going to happen with this legislation? Does he really think that the accreditation process works? Can he stand up with the full knowledge of what he knows has gone on up in the Kootenays and say, "Yes, it's something we endorse, " and make it happen all over the province? Will he

[ Page 2887 ]

tell us that? Because if he doesn't tell us when he winds up the debate, we're going to have to get it out of him when we get to the committee, anyway. Tell us where you stand.

I am in no way impressed with what the Premier or the Minister of Education said, because all they kept talking about was children. They didn't talk about the implications of this legislation, and that's what you've got to talk about, Mr. Minister, when you wind up the debate. He's got to tell us where he thinks this kind of legislation is going to take him, when he knows from having met with some representatives of the trade union movement that the accreditation thing in the public sector is anathema to them. He doesn't understand it, but he's been pressured constantly by certain elements in the community and his party to do it. He has an opportunity to stand up and be counted in terms of the future history of this province and in terms of labour legislation, but I doubt that he'll do it, because we've seen that three times before that, he's been tested and found wanting because he hasn't been able to stand up to that Premier.

Well, this is the most crucial one that he has to deal with. I would hope, Mr. Speaker, that we will have an opportunity, as we will when we get out of here, to go round this province and to tell people in every town exactly what took place in the Legislature here - today, what happened to the collective bargaining process, what's happening to the trade union movement, and what's going to happen to the future of people. Because while the government prefers to say that what's at stake are children, I'd like to remind you that in no way would any of us have the standard of living or the kind of lifestyle that we have in this province without the efforts of the trade union movement. But nobody over there says it. Why? Because somehow they would have some people believe that everybody that worked for a boss always got what they wanted. Well, they didn't. They had to fight for it, and they're going to have to fight for this, because if they lose this one, they're going to lose everything. Then we'll go back to the old free-for-all system, and then will somebody come into this Legislature and bleed for the little children?

All of a sudden they've found the light. They come in here and bleed for the little children. Is not it amazing? They bleed for the little children. If we were under a broader debate I could talk about what they did to wreck the day-care programme; that was for little children. They did not deal with the handicapped; that was for little children.

What do they do for the other children who leave school and can't find jobs?

Mr. Speaker, I'll come back to order because I'm going to wind up. The issues in this bill are crucial, so crucial that the members on this side of the House are going to be spending several weeks going around interpreting to people exactly what is going on here today. We're going to have to explain it to people who think that all we did down here today was to send people back to work in the Kootenays when, in fact, what they are trying to do is dismantle the trade union movement and the collective bargaining process, and introduce the one thing that we could not tolerate in the trade union movement. I talk about "we" because I was a member of the trade union movement. We cannot have compulsory arbitration.

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: Mr. Speaker, first, before I respond to some of the remarks that have been made by the hon. second member for Vancouver-Burrard (Mr. Levi) , I would like to add my congratulations to two of our colleagues on this side of the House - the Minister of Agriculture (Hon. Mr. Shelford) and the Minister of Tourism and Small Business Development (Hon. Mr. Veitch) - and to welcome them, to congratulate them, and to also offer my best wishes, as have all members of this House this evening or today.

I also would like to say how pleased I am to stand here today as the Minister of Human Resources, Mr. Speaker, and to say to you that I am very pleased that I am going to be able to make my comments in response to some comments that have been made by the members for Vancouver-Burrard. Sure, I'll stand here and talk about children. Sure, I'll stand here and talk about families. That's my responsibility. I'm here to take that responsibility and I'm proud to be able to do that.

I want to say something about the incredibly pious attitude that comes from the opposition when they talk about children, when they talk about families, when they talk about the poor people. It's always the prerogative of the NDP; there's no one else in the province that has any compassion, only the NDP. They would have you think that they have the monopoly an human kindness. Mr. Speaker, I'm going to tell you this right now: we wouldn't be sitting here this evening if it were that all people in this province are not very, very concerned about the welfare of the children of this province.

I would like to bring to the attention of the members of this House a statement in the Protection of Children Act, which says:

[ Page 2888 ]

" ... the provincial statute that provides for the legal authority of the superintendent of child welfare to intervene in the affairs of a family and, where necessary, to involve the provincial court when care of a child falls below the minimal acceptable standards of the community in which he lives, or where a chi-Id's life or health may be endangered by the actions or lack of action of his parents."

We're talking about a situation where the actions and the lack of action of not parents, but of a community and of a society, are interfering with the lives of the children who attend the schools in the Kootenays, and tonight that's what we are debating. If we see neglect, if we see young people and little children denied the right to education.... If that were to happen in a family we would use the Protection of Children Act and we would intervene with that family. We would go in and say that child deserves and has the right to education in the province of British Columbia and in our nation, and we would act. We have the legal authority to act and we have the motivation to make sure that child is not denied the right to education.

If you look further along the programmes of the Ministry of Human Resources, Mr. Speaker, you will see that we also have other legislation which protects the welfare of the young people of our province. We have the Children of Unmarried Parents Act. It says:

"This Act provides that any woman who is a mother within the definition of the Act may apply to the superintendent for advice and protection in any matter connected with her child or the birth of her child.' It goes on to say:

"Such services may include the counselling, financial assistance, appointment of legal counsel, assistance towards reaching agreement, and such services...."

MR. SPEAKER: May I interrupt? There is a point of order by the hon. first member for Vancouver-Burrard.

MS. BROWN: Mr. Speaker, can you tell me where the annual report for the Ministry of Human Resources is relevant to Bill 46? When I tried to show how the destruction of that government towards children had to do with Bill 46, 1 was ruled out of order, and now we have a reading of the annual report of the Ministry of Human Resources. Will you show me the relevancy of that to Bill 46, please? There is no Relevancy whatsoever.

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. member, I think that the

House would recall the time of debate of the hon. first member for Vancouver-Burrard and would perhaps say that leniency was stretched to its limit in that case. I will try to apply the same restrictions to the member who now has the floor.

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: Mr. Speaker, this isn't anything to be laughed about. You see, we have legislation in this province for the protection of the child. In the Children of Unmarried Parents Act, as I was saying before I was interrupted, these services may be necessary to ensure that the mother has all possible assistance -- and let me please emphasize this -- in planning for the child, the child's life, the child's education and the child's well-being.

Then, Mr. Speaker, you can address your thoughts to the objective of the ministry's programmes. You can address yourself to the other programmes such as the child adoption programme. The Adoption Act says: "Where the child's immediate family and relatives are no longer able, capable or willing to care for them and to ensure the social and legal requirements of the Adoption Act have been fulfilled. . . ."

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. On a point of order, the member for New Westminster.

MR. COCKE: Mr. Speaker, I would just seek your advice and ask whether or not this speech is relevant in any way, shape or form to Bill 46.

MR. SPEAKER: Thank you, hon. member. I would remind the hon. minister who now has the floor that we are on Bill 46. Please make all remarks relevant to the West Kootenay Schools Collective Bargaining Assistance Act and education.

HON. MRS. McCARTHY: Mr. Speaker, I could, if I were not making the members of the opposition, who cry out in a way that sounds hollow tonight and today for the children of the province.... I could quote and read from the various Acts which come under the family and children's services of my ministry to show that that the province, the people, past governments and this government have, through the years, designed and used programmes for the betterment of the young people to protect them from the sort of thing that they are undergoing now in the closure of schools in the Kootenays. But I won't, Mr. Speaker, because they will continue to interrupt, because that's their political ploy.

[ Page 2889 ]

I want to say this to the House. The hon. second member for Vancouver-Burrard (Mr. Levi) says the victims are not all children. I agree with him. The victims are not all children. The victims are the parents, and the anguish that the parents are going through in the Kootenays -- not only the 5,000-plus that signed the petition that was tabled in the House today, but the many grandparents, the many relatives, the many members that didn't have an opportunity of a family to sign that petition.... Tonight I want all members of this House to think about those people in the Kootenays that don't have automobiles to drive their children, the poor people of the Kootenays. Those parents too are in anguish tonight.

I want you to think about a single-parent family, where the single parent has to work and the children, perhaps under the age to be left alone, are left alone while they go to work and they don't have transportation to take them to school. I'd like you to think again about the people who don't have a fancy automobile like the hon. member for Vancouver Centre. I'd like you to think about those people and all of the families in the Kootenays, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, the opposition seem to find this whole subject extremely comical. Let them go up to the Kootenays, face the parents and the children, and laugh in their faces, as you are laughing tonight. The hon. member said something about the next election. Go and laugh in the Kootenays. Go and laugh.

Mr. Speaker, it's not all just the children who are the victims; it is the families. It's especially those families who are on limited incomes. It's especially the children of the Kootenay school districts. It's really the future of those children, and it's the future of all of the children in every community of the province that could be shut down at any time. That's what we are talking about, Mr. Speaker, because I say to you that if we do not have the protection of our children's education in this province, we don't have the protection of the future of this province.

Mr. Speaker, I will vote against the opposition and for this bill.

MR. BARBER: Mr. Speaker, the new Minister of Human Resources (Hon. Mrs. McCarthy) certainly widened the scope of this debate. Unfortunately, she added nothing whatsoever to it, nothing at all, except the thought that we'd almost welcome Bill back in Human Resources, because at least his speeches were articulate, at least they made -- within the framework of some peculiar values -- some peculiar sense.

Maybe we should work a deal, eh? We should consider a trade.

AN HON. MEMBER: Your voice is cracking.

MR. BARBER: It's still cracking -- since I was 12.

We're debating, in fact, Mr. Speaker, two bills tonight. We're debating two bills parading themselves under one title. The government has really performed a kind of bait-and-switch operation here today, Mr. Speaker. They've baited the attention of the people with a remedy that was supposed to be applicable to an unfortunate dispute in several school districts in the West Kootenays. Once we got here they discovered they had switched.

Thanks to the energy and the wit of the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Barrett) , as of yesterday afternoon the avenue was open, the way was clear and the resolution of the labour management dispute in the West Kootenays was in sight. Thanks to what the former and soon-to-be Premier of this province has achieved, that dispute was well in hand and its resolution close.

The bait-and-switch operation, which in any other arena would be illegal, has been carried out by this group for another purpose, and that's the second bill. The two bills we are debating tonight are not just that represented by the title, a completely misleading title when you look at the real burden of the bill: the West Kootenay Schools Collective Bargaining Assistance Act. The heart of the bill, the engine of this bill, lies in section 11.

We are dealing with two bills, and we are also dealing with two motives. One of these motives has been stated by the government; it is stated in public. The other is covert and unstated. That also, I think, is part of the bait-and-switch operation that this group has tried to get away with in the province of British Columbia. The stated emphasis is to resolve a dispute in the West Kootenays. The covert Emphasis is by manipulation, by design, by certain intent, to create an atmosphere of hysteria and fear, an atmosphere of confrontation and hostility that will serve their political purposes in the next general election. That's the covert intent, that's the unstated intent -- and I'll get to that in a moment. I would remind the House that we are dealing With two bills here, and with two motives behind them.

I have tried for fully 12 hours to find one good thing to say about the government's performance or motives, its design or achieve ment, and I have finally found it. The good thing is that this calendar year is almost

[ Page 2890 ]

over, and very likely this will be the last significant blunder of the coalition in 1978. Hopefully it will be the last blunder of this Premier in 1978.

It is a fact of record not in dispute that the government has mishandled this entire confrontation in the West Kootenays; from the beginning. It was the Minister of Labour who confessed, by mistake, that he has had since April to bring the parties together. It's not as if this somehow grew up overnight. He confessed in his own remarks that since April, neglect and weakness on the part of that government led that dispute down the sorry path it took. Neglect and weakness on his own part requires us to realize that in April it was going screwy. Today, for the two motives I've described, some resolution is attempted on the floor of this House much, much too late.

This bill declares and defines the complete inadequacy of the Minister of Labour to do his job properly. He's had since April to do this job and he blew it. He's had other jobs to do and he's blown them too. It defines and describes the total philosophic inadequacy of that government to understand the principles of free collective bargaining -- not simply protect them, but extend them as ably as they could, so that their inherent fairness shall govern and shall fulfil the working lives of working people in this province. That is one of the great traditions of liberty that has been struggled for and in some measure obtained in this country. That measure of liberty called free collective bargaining should not merely be guarded by a good government -- any government -- but should be extended, and its principles applied more universally and more fairly.

This bill is an attempt to cover up the wide-scale inadequacy of that minister, who is no doubt in private life a very decent fellow -- I've had many people tell me so -- but who is in public life simply weak, indecisive, and in the case of this dispute, a flop, as this bill will most certainly be a flop in the remedy of the present dispute and in the anticipation of others yet to come.

This bill covers up the inadequacy of the Minister of Labour and it betrays the hand of the Premier. It exposes the hand of the Premier. It reveals more embarrassingly than they intended the second motive behind the bill itself. Now put yourself, will you, Mr. Speaker -- I know you might have wanted to at one time; I know you ran for the leadership -in the place of the Premier. Put yourself in the place of a Premier who's got as many troubles as this Premier has. He knows he's down in the polls. He would have gone this fall if he could have, but the polls told him not to. He had the writ of election all ready to go, but the polls told him not to. He had the writ of election all ready to go but the polls told him "don't go." Put yourself in the place of a Premier, the economic performance of whose government has been, to be charitable, disappointing. And what do you have to go to the people with? Put yourself in the place of a Premier who has done this to his newly reshuffled cabinet. It's amazing. He's going to go to the people with this? Not likely, and not quickly.

The Premier clearly is desperate for an issue that will allow his government to survive. So like the political meteorologist he hopes to be, up goes the finger in the air and he senses the winds that say: "The taxpayers are angry, unions are unpopular, union leaders are mistrusted, and if only I could find a way to mold and meld that into political support for my party, I might get re-elected." Clearly he recognizes that he could not get re-elected on the basis of the economic performance of his government. In economic development it has been so pitiful that he now has two ministers of economic development, one for small business and one for Japan, and that's where he is again. It has been so pitiful that he dare not go to the people on that record.

What can he go to the people with? Well, he hopes, no doubt, to go to the people with this piece of legislation and with this reminder. The Premier will tell us that he alone had the guts to stand up to the Unions. He alone had the guts to stand up to the trade union bosses. He alone had the guts to push through an angry yet predictable opposition a necessary and hopefully popular piece of legislation. That's what he wants to go to the people with, because he senses .... And the polls tell him so, don't they? We all read the same polls. We all read them. We all know what's in them. They tell us that in fact that kind of labour-bashing may be temporarily popular. But a government of judgment and foresight and wisdom, a government committed to that principle of liberty called free collective bargaining, would ignore those polls and that short-term gain, and would never have brought in a bill like this.

What they undermine in the long run are several important democratic principles. 'What they undermine by this bill is a gradual deepening appreciation on the part of both labour and management of their mutual responsibilities. How are they undermined by this , bill? Quite simply, the ability of the school trustees corporate and personal to negotiate,

[ Page 2891 ]

to be responsible, to use common sense, to reflect and to represent their own communities is diminished by this bill. That is one way in which that democratic principle is undermined by Bill 46. Secondly, that principle is also undermined when you create in the hearts of trade unionists the certain fear and suspicion that you are blackmailing them, that you are bullying them. And if you think you can get away with this much in your first term how much more must you think you could get away with in your second, should you be granted it?

What is created by this bill, Mr. Speaker? Only the worst of both worlds, only increasing suspicion and hostility to no good end end, except perhaps in the mind of the Premier, the good end of his personal re-election and that of his government. He may feel, in that endlessly important and basically religious debate about ends and means, that these ends justify his means. We propose that they don't.

We put ourselves in his place, and for three years quite literally so, and produced a Labour Code and produced a framework and an inherent fairness in the field of labour management relations that was the envy of many other jurisdictions in North America. It was produced by a man whom I admire personally tremendously, the member for Revelstoke-Slocan (Mr. King) , a man who had the guts to take on people in the trade union movement -- and that's hardly a secret -- and say: "Hold on, the job of a New Democrat government, is not simply to do what labour wants. The job of a New Democrat government is to make things fair for labour and management both." We put ourselves in the place of the Premier and for three and a half years worked toward one of the most fair and even-handed systems of bargaining that this province has ever known. And what do we have tonight? A bill that proposes to undermine it. To what end? Only the selfish political end of a government desperate for an election issue.

May I say it again? Even that coalition doesn't have the gall to go to the people on the basis of their economic performance. They wouldn't dare. Who would they trot out - the Minister of Economic Development (Hon. Mr. Phillips) or the Minister of Small Business Development (Hon. Mr. Veitch) ? Which one? Well, who 'Knows which one would be in town to do it? Who and what could they trot out to defend that record? Nothing at all. They have to go on issues that are fundamentally negative because they have no positive performance to take to the people, none at all, unless they consider the record of the worst Minister of Human Resources this province has ever seen to be somehow a positive record.

Did you see the Premier on television this evening, Mr. Speaker, over dinner time? Did you see him as he bullied and charged his way through the reporters down that hall when they asked him: "Are you going to call an election? Are you going to go to the people on this? Are you going to call a vote?" He slammed his way like a football -hero through then and said: "No, I won't do that, no, no. What are you asking me that for? No, I won't go." Even this normally medium-tempered Premier became evil tempered tonight in the face of the TV cameras that had exposed and embarrassed the whole strategy. It is now clearly understood, and thus the profound blunder of the government in proceeding to this bill, what's been going all along. There were two motives. One was to persuade the people that they were settling a strike that the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Barrett) in fact settled. The avenue opened the way clear, the unions giving up as much as they could possibly give up in order to resolve that dispute. Having done so, the government was forced thereby to debate the issue they did not want to debate, that represented by section 11 in this bill. Did the Minister of labour mention even once, when he opened debate on second reading of this bill, section 11, its contents, what it portended? He did? Have you read the Blues? I did at dinner. I don't find it there. You show me the page. You show rue anywhere, Dr. Minister, where he did that. Now it may have been in your speech notes for him to read, but he didn't read it.

Why was there no, shall we say, emphasis on this important part of the bill? Well, because the government does not want to debate it, does not want it heard, does not want it understood. They proposed in this bait-and-switch operation today to bring us in under one pretext and to deliver a quite different result. Well, they failed to get away with it and so the Premier goes charging down the hall, blundering through the reporters like he's blundered through the whole politics of this, saying: "No, no, no, I'm not going to call an election." Well, of course he has to deny it. What else could he say -- yes, he was all along and it was manipulated just like we know it was? He would never say such a thing -He may be that straightforward in the cabinet roan. One would be surprised were he so straightforward in public. He would never admit such a thing -

But what other reason can there be? Since April this government has had an opportunity to intervene positively and helpfully in this dispute and they failed to. Since April they have 'Known there was trouble and they ignored

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it. Since April they have realized the kids could be abused and they neglected it, until the moment when it served their political and partisan purposes to raise it here. Then they did so, and not a moment before. You have to ask: why the delay, why the hesitation, why the neglect? There can only be two reasons. Logic only allows two choices. One is that they didn't know any better, they were asleep, they didn't care, they didn't watch. For some reason of neglect and disinterest they simply didn't do the job. That's one reason, I suppose. Maybe that's the reason. Maybe we expect too much even of this coalition. Maybe that's the real reason.

But some who have been around longer than I -- and I'm familiar with what this group has done before to get into power and certainly what they've been doing in order to keep it -think there may be another reason. The Premier wants to bash trade unions because he thinks it's going to win votes, that's all. That's all, that's it, there is no more. That's the whole issue and this is the way to do it. This is the way he thinks he can get away with it.

This move, these two bills that we are debating under one title, create fear unnecessarily. It provokes confrontation unadvisedly. It provokes hostility foolishly and unnecessarily. When it does all of these things, you have to ask why. You have to ask whose interests are served. Is it the interest of the kids? No, they could all have gone back to the schools this morning. They could all have been there this morning, every one of them. The Premier had only to telephone last night the chairman of the board and five school districts and say: "This is the Premier. I'm told that the trade unions will go back tomorrow morning if you'll lift the lockout. I ask you to do so in the name of the people." And I promise you, they would have done it. No person representing any school district would have refused that request from the Premier, no matter who. No Premier should have denied the people that opportunity, but this Premier did. You have to ask why.

You have to ask whose interests are served. Clearly it was not the interests of the kids, or he would have been on the phone last night. He knew as of 2 o'clock that the workers were willing to go back. He would have done those things himself if he couldn't trust the Minister of Labour to do it. He would have done them himself, but did not, and you have to ask why. Was he waiting for a collect phone call? Was he waiting for someone to dial it for him? Didn't he hire Dan Campbell for that purpose? What's the reason he did not act, Mr. Speaker? What's the reason the Premier continued to ignore and defy his responsibility as Premier? The reason can only be this: he's not interested in resolving the West Kootenay dispute. He particularly didn't want it resolved before today, or he wouldn't have had an excuse to come here with section 11. He's not interested in resolving that dispute. He's had since April to do it, and he didn't. He didn't because his Minister of Labour is weak and bungling. He didn't do it, because he doesn't want to. Another purpose was served. Another scheme was manipulated.

This bill creates fear and imbalance and disproportion in labour-management relations unnecessarily. It provokes and adds to the spectre of accreditation as a bargaining principle. Accreditation within the private sector may from time to time and place to place be appropriate when required and when requested, and when it is so required and requested and achieved, who can object, who would stand in its way, who would fight it? No one at all. But the principle of accreditation in the public sector is a very different thing on several counts. What this bill does, in a simply stupid way, is pre-Empt what could have been an enlightened public debate, and an enlightened particular debate within the trade union movement and within management as well about the values, if any -- and there may well be some; I don't know -- of accreditation in the public sector.

This bill has pre-empted the possibility of a fair-minded debate. This bill has made it impossible for management or labour either to come now to fair and common ground about the nature and value, if any, of accredition in the public sector. Why has it done that and how? Through section 11. It takes away now, it pre-empts, it threatens proclamation -- a totally different and distinctly hostile means of resolving disputes in the public sector. So why should trade unionists bother any longer with any fair-minded debate about accredition, and why should management either? The issue has been taken from them by that coalition aver there, and they don't have it any more and they can't do it. That's what section 11 has achieved. Are you proud of it? Is that what you wanted? Is that the way you thought you would add to the maturity of labour management relations in this province? If it is, that is no maturity at all. It is in fact incredibly bad judgment.

It's an amazing thing that a minister would come forward with a bill, one section of which, like section 11, he says he will proclaim if subsequent research justifies it. That's absolutely amazing. What other bill proceeds like that? We will do these things.

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We will pass it in the Legislature and we will proclaim it if we think it's a good idea later on. We haven't studied it yet; we haven't done the research; we have not appointed a researcher; we don't know much about it, but we're going to put it in law anyway. What kind of political judgment is that? What sort of skills are those on the part of a minister or a Premier? What kind of a cabinet would take such a totally irrational and simply stupid approach to legislation? We'll create the section, we'll create the hostility, we'll inflame the tempers, and then we'll turn around and we'll study it for the first time. We'll test the wind some more, and when it's appropriate and timely we will proclaim section 11. Do you know when they are going to proclaim it? Two weeks before the Premier calls an election, when it will serve his purposes and when it will best Illustrate his design. That's when he'll call it.

There's no research in that except the research conducted by Goldfarb. That's the only research he's listening to. This Minister of Labour has had three years to research the principle of accreditation in the public sector. He's done nothing of the sort. Instead, he prances in with a bill and says: "Pass this section, and then later on I'll tell you if it's any good." But that's absurd. That Is simply absurd, asking us to endorse a piece of legislation when you yourself, M. Minister, cannot tell us whether or not it will be applied and whether or not it has any worth. You tell us you will study it, and then decide. What an idiot procedure!

In the old days, when he was a Liberal, he would have been embarrassed if anyone had proposed such a thing. He would have attacked it when he was in opposition. I wasn't around then, but I don t know if W.A.C. ever used to pull off that kind of a stunt. "Here, pass this, and then we'll study it and see if it's worthwhile." That's what the minister wants us to do with section 11. That's the second bill that we are, in fact, debating. On many counts this bill is ill advised; on many counts it is certainly ill timed; on many counts it does nothing but condemn the government by its own neglect in a particular dispute, and its own selfishness in a political arena. On many counts this bill gives that famous Big Brother a foot in the door that he does not want and shouldn't have. No Big Brother should have, through the power of this kind of state intervention, that foot in the door. This bill is objectionable on many counts. This bill will create for that government a legacy, a history, a tradition of anxiety, of hostility and of a warlike approach that need not exist in the field of labour-management relations. You inherited something a lot better; pass on something better as well.

MR. KAHL: May I take the opportunity first to congratulate two of my colleagues in the cabinet, the member for Burnaby Willingdon (Hon. Mr. Veitch) and the member for Skeena (Hon. Mr. Shelford) . Without placing a secondary feeling on the member for Burnaby Willingdon, I want to say publicly I'm particularly pleased to see the member for Skeena in the cabinet. He's an oldtimer, he's been here a long time, and has much good advice to give. I'm sure the people of the province will profit greatly from his being a cabinet member once again.

I rise to support Bill 46. It's rather interesting and very appalling, quite frankly, to see members on the opposite side of the House speaking against it, particularly two members from the area, when you consider the negative impact that the situation has had on the communities; when you consider the vocational programmes Selkirk College is no longer operating; when you consider that the Kootenay School of Art has been closed; when you consider that 70 per cent of the students are attempting to continue their programme without access to equipment and resources; when you consider approximately 50 per cent of the continuing education programmes of Castlegar and Nelson have been cancelled; when you consider programming at the David Thompson University Centre has ceased; when you consider that 25 per cent of the university transfer students have dropped out, and 75 per cent are considering other alternatives for the spring term. It's particularly distressing to note that the two members who are in those areas have little or no concern for the 15,000 students, the 10,000-odd families who were led by the strong hand of their colleagues on the other side, and not allowed that opportunity to speak, I'm sure, the way they wish.

I'm sure Bill 46 will be viewed by parents and students in those areas as our guarantee and our commitment that the schools will stay open, our guarantee that students will once again enjoy that basic right in the socialization process, and our guarantee that the negotiating process -- not related to education, quite frankly -- that has got in the busy of those pupils who want to learn will not deny innocent children their fundamental right under the Public Schools Act.

From a layman's point of view in looking at the legislation that exists -- not Bill 46, but what exists today -- I'm sure it is viewed as rather stupid, rattle-brained and a multi-

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million dollar mess. Simply put, Mr. Speaker, I'm sure many of the parents and students in the areas affected view this as a case of the individual being lost in the crowd. It is a case of bureaucratic bungling inside the school boards and unions, leaving out the very individual that the system was set up to serve.

As legislators, Mr. Speaker, we are entitled to ask: are the parents and the taxpayers getting their money's worth? To those on the opposite side who shovelled money out of the back of a truck it may seem rather blunt, but to those parents who are paying the bill for education, it is a very real concern. It is a very real concern that I can identify with as a parent, as a teacher and as a taxpayer. I believe it is time to face reality in the public sector. Those who pay the tax dollars on a continual basis and in good faith should receive a continual service in good faith. I believe it is time to admit that what works we should use and what fails we should forget.

MR. BARNES: I waited patiently to have an opportunity to stand before the assembly and contribute my remarks regarding Bill 46. 1 would like, though, before I begin to speak, to ask the House to join me in welcoming members of my family who are in the galleries this evening: Judith Roach, Craig Barnes and Neil Evans. It's quite a combination.

I'd like to pay a second respect to the attendance of the former Minister of Public Works, Mr. Bill Hartley, and his wife Marianne.

Finally, but not least, of course, I'd like to extend my congratulations, Mr. Speaker, to the newly appointed members who have been moved up from the back bench to upper berth seats on the sinking Titanic. I don't mean to cast any aspersions on that group over there but they are here because there is an emergency. It's not an emergency to get students back to school. The emergency is, really, that the Social Credit Party is running out of time. They are running out of time and they are desperate, as my colleague from Victoria pointed out.

Look at Dr. McGeer over there -- he's smiling. He's just waiting to see what's going to happen. Well, I'll only be up a couple of minutes because mostly everything that I wanted to say has been contributed. I'm only going to make a few observations about the implications of what we are experiencing today under the guise of an emergency session. I think it is fairly apparent and has been made quite apparent by the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Barrett) in uncovering the skulduggery that was taking place between the government and its friends in trying to create an issue around the question of sending students back to work in the East Kootenay area.

Mr. Speaker, what really is happening is that this government is trying to find an issue and in fact is going to force an issue even if it means running the risk of appearing to be like the coyote in the "Roadrunner" comic strip -- the guy who is always out trying to do some misdeed and getting caught in his own trap. Have you seen that character? So we have this trap all sprung, you see, but what happened is there is no call for a session except, as the member for Victoria pointed out, there is this little section 11 which is not really here to be debated today. It's in there but it's not really in there because it has to receive proclamation at some time in the future.

So why are we here? I'll tell you why we're here: because this government hasn't got time to wait until an issue matures, it's out trying to manufacture one. No one on this side of the House or probably anywhere in this province will deny that a dispute is just that. Difficulties are just that. In a democratic society when people get down to hard bargaining aver anything you're going to have disagreements and problems. Due process is the thing that keeps us all sticking with it. That's what keeps us from going at each other's throats.

But when you start forcing people by arbitration without participation, telling them they don't have any rights, when you just wipe away their privileges to participate and give them no clout, then you are forcing them to find other means and you are taking a step backwards.

This legislation is a discouragement to the democratic process. It suggests that some people have some rights and others don't have any. The public service is an honourable profession. It involves people from all walks of life: men, women, young people -- young aspirants, I should say, who are finishing in the school system that you are so concerned about -- people who look forward to being able to take part in this society as equal citizens. You are suggesting that if they work in the public service, if they have anything to do with education and all these other important services that we require, you lose your right to defend yourself and to get a fair shake in an economy that is supposedly for the people. You're afraid to trust their judgment and encourage them to participate democratically, and you don't suggest that they have any responsibility or concern for themselves

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and for other people.

This is a sinister attitude; it's negative Mr. Speaker, I would suggest that this government, in its desperation, is losing sight of the whole purpose of a free, democratic society. No one ever suggested that it was easy. I'm certainly not suggesting that it's easy. I don't suggest that there is no problem, but why not face the problem as it is? Why not call a regular session? Why come up with this charade about this emergency when there is no emergency? We made that quite clear last night. The people that you claim were an strike were trying to get into the schools, but you wouldn't open the doors.

There is no emergency. This legislation is after the fact. What we are talking about is your heavy-handed attempt to try and impose statism on people with no rights. This is just a beginning. What it is is a message bill to labour. This is a message to labour, and if they're listening, if they have any awareness of the steps that you are taking, they will know that this is going to be a trend. And you are caught. You look very poor on it because you did not have the guts to come out in the open and use this as an issue. You tried to slip in the back door by talking about putting the people in West Kootenay to work when, in fact, you haven't got the courage of your own convictions.

However, as I say, I realize that all the remarks in the world aren't to going change this government's determination to subdue people and to take advantage of people's fears. As the second member for Victoria (Mr. Barber) pointed out, they're pretty clever at calculating the mood of the people, and they are concerned about the polls. The Premier is afraid, but he is not too afraid to gamble on people's fears, and threaten them and use psychological warfare.

Unfortunately, Mr. Speaker, this is one of the times when government fails to do its job for the public. The public requires information, it requires leadership, it requires commitment on the part of those people who are representing the constitutional rights of all of us. It has to appear to be fair. But what this government is doing is losing sight of the importance of instilling in people a confidence in the democratic system. They are telling them that it doesn't work for them right not, "because we have to get elected." It is confusing people. You are pitting friends against friends, one professional group against the other, one municipality against the other, one group of trustee boards against the other, probably students against each other, even against their parents, and workers against workers. It is conquer and divide and confuse, when we all know that through co-operation and good will a lot can be accomplished, but you don't get that from this government.

The democratic system, Mr. Speaker, is a fragile thing. It is not something that, in fact, can withstand neglect and abuse, irresponsible behaviour and irresponsible legislation on the part of elected officials. It requires commitment, dedication and confidence in people's ability to participate. None of these things seem evident here.

I don't say this with anticipation of any brownie points for myself - well, maybe I should use some other colour; that's getting a little close - but any points for myself. But I would suggest that this initiative by the government, Mr. Speaker, is going to cause considerable disenchantment on the part of the labour movement. It is going to cause considerable disenchantment on the part of sincere democrats, people who really care about this system, people who have patience with the due process, patience with giving people a chance to participate, people who believe that everyone in this society has to have a real role to play and some real clout. You cannot be alienated and pushed further and further back by bureaucratic and centralized control over your lives. This type of alienation will destroy us and, of course, once we start that trend, we're going to destroy the whole concept of people helping themselves and having the will to live and the will to be part of society.

It's not an easy problem. I certainly don't suggest that it is. I was quite willing to come to this session and discuss the real problems that we all face. Certainly when we were government, Mr. Speaker, we had problems as well. No one is suggesting that it is a simple matter. But we faced these problem head on, not by disguising the problem and trying to sneak in the back door a section which, I think, they attached at.the end.

I would like you, Mr. Speaker, to tell me how you relate the West Kootenay problem, which involves some 15,000 students and the few hundred workers, with the move to include universities, colleges, provincial institutions, municipalities and even the district water corporations under the Water Act. I mean, it seems as though there is something else going an besides what we were called back for. You know, what is the government planning to do? The Minister of Education (Hon. Mr. McGeer) , what is he now? He's the new minister of something.

AN HON. MEMBER: Nuclear power.

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MR. BARNES: That's right -- research and whatever he is. He is suggesting that this bill is a final solution or an end-all type of legislation; that there'll be no future problems- Well, with that type of thinking, I wonder what else he has in mind. What's coming up next? Well, we've got the private schools. Private schools are part of our educational system and we're now spending money to support private schools. Does this now give the government the right to impose restrictions on their labour and management as well, their relations? What's going to happen there?

I would like to ask the Minister of Labour to explain the lack of initiative in his department for more work for his students in the summer. That's part of the concern for the welfare of students. What's happening in the economic field in terms of finding ways of including the people who are graduating from schools and universities, Mr. Speaker, in the labour force and the work force? What about their future? That's part of the continuity of the educational system. There's no relationship between what you're saying .... The new Minister of Human Resources (Hon. Mrs. McCarthy) was talking about their concern for children and their right to an education. What good is a right to an education if you're going to be alienated in the economy? Most of them are going to be on unemployment insurance anyway. We have over 100,000 of them, so what are you talking about? Where is your comprehensive plan? Show us your rationale for how it's going to start and how it's going to end in terms of something that will make sense and include everybody in the economy.

I think that what we have, Mr. Speaker, clearly is an attempt to disguise a very selfish, politically motivated effort to remain in government -- for what purpose, I'm not sure. But it's sad for us. We've been called back under the guise of an emergency situation which clearly has proven itself to be nothing but a charade. It's s not an emergency. Certainly the questions that we've been talking about, we're concerned about, and we want to participate. But you yourself ruled that this was an emergency session, and on the basis of what you yourself have said, Mr. Speaker, clearly this is not an emergency. The facts have shown that we could have had the workers back at work and everything would have been happening without this legislation. Had this legislation been directed strictly at the trustees, at the BCSTA, fine; then we would have been dealing with those who were locking out the workers. But this suggests that there are two parties involved; there's only one party involved. So you should have revised this, Mr. Speaker. Because of this reason, notwithstanding the other important points that you're raising, I certainly cannot support this legislation. I will be voting against it when the question is called.

MRS. WALLACE: Mr. Speaker, at the risk of being repetitious I'd like to congratulate the two new members in cabinet, and also to congratulate those reshuffled members on their new responsibilities. I guess when you reshuffle the deck you don't know how the hand is going to come out, and when you add a couple of new cards you don't know whether they're aces or jokers, but we'll find out as the session proceeds.

Mr. Speaker, the member for Nanaimo (Mr. Stupich) drew a very fine parallel between the situation with MlPEA, the Mid-Island Public Employees Association, and the situation that has now developed in the Kootenays. I would like, tonight, to take the Minister of Labour and the Minister of Education -- and I'm sorry the Minister of Education is not in the House -- a little further down memory lane on that MIPEA situation, because it was not just, the member for Nanaimo who was involved in that difficulty that occurred there, but it also washed over into my constituency, as the Minister of Labour will well remember. I think the Minister of Labour will recall that there was a delegation of some 50 parents, including the chief of the Indian tribe and representatives from various affected groups, who, as a result of my arranging an audience with the Minister of Education and the Minister of Labour, came and met with those two ministers here in these precincts.

I was amazed today, Mr. Speaker, to hear the Minister of Education stand in his place and proclaim loud and long his concern for the children in the Kootenays, because I recall very well when he listened to those parents and those interested people presenting the case at that meeting, that audience that gave to them. He got up and walked out and said there was nothing he could do and that it was not his concern. That was his attitude as far as the children's education in Nanaimo and Ladysmith went in 1976. 1 think it is nothing short of hypocritical to have that minister stand up here tonight and weep crocodile tears for the children in the Kootenays. It certainly reflects an entirely different approach than the approach that he demonstrated when the children in Ladysmith and in Nanaimo) were being kept out of school. He walked out of the meeting and said it was not his concern.

The Minister of Labour, on the other hand, took a different attitude, and I think the

[ Page 2897 ]

Minister of Labour will recall that within half an hour after he had met with that delegation, he called me to his office and told me that he had met all morning, prior to meeting with these parents, with representatives of MIPEA and representatives of the employers. They had told him there were no problems and he had believed them. He told me that he had been in contact with them, that he was meeting with them, that he was going to take some action. He took that action, Mr. Speaker, and within a matter of hours we had a mediator on the job and we had that problem resolved.

Now the House was in session at that time. If it took an Act of the Legislature to resolve that situation, he didn't even have to call a special session. He could have brought in a bill before the House, but he didn't need a bill. He resolved that situation. The situations were parallel, and yet the minister could act without a bill, even though the House was in session in the case of MIPEA.

I suggest, as has been suggested before, that this bill, the West Kootenay Schools Collective Bargaining Assistance Act, is badly named. It is, in effect, an amendment to the Essential Services Disputes Act. The relevant parts that relate to the Kootenay situation are unneeded and unrequired. They have no bearing, really, on the solution of that situation there. It's a problem that could be solved by that minister and this government, had they so desired to do, but they didn't, Mr. Speaker. They didn't take action. They let that problem go on and on -- not as long, mind you, as they let the Nanaimo problem and the Ladysmith problem go on, but they let it be prolonged and aggravated and took no concrete action. I suggest that there was a way to resolve that situation, as has been proved with the MIPEA situation. There was a way to resolve the problem without a special session of the Legislature.

No, Mr. Speaker, that is not really why we're here. The minister has been quoting from speeches of his predecessor when the former government met and was obliged to bring in legislation to overcome a problem that was facing the province, and he has quoted from the minister. I would like to quote from some of his remarks that he made in response to that previous minister. He called that bill It the Mini Taft-Hartley Bill"; Mr. Speaker, those were the terms he used to discuss that bill. He said it was going to destroy the collective bargaining process in British Columbia. He said: "What this bill has done is to drive one more nail into the coffin of free collective bargaining in British Columbia." That's what he said. He said it would destroy the collective bargaining process, that it was one more nail into the coffin.

(Mr. Rogers in the chair-]

He also went on to say that the collective bargaining system was being destroyed by the Labour Code. He's been the Minister of Labour now for some three years, and I suggest the labour peace that he has experienced is a direct result of that Labour Code. If he thought in 1975, when he made this remark about one more nail into the coffin of free collective bargaining, I suggest that what he is doing today is not a nail; it's more like a 10-inch spike.

The minister is very fond of talking about the balance. That balance is a direct result of that Labour Code, and the more he changes it, the more out of balance it becomes. He is proceeding to upset that balance to a point where we are going to find ourselves in British Columbia back in an era of constant labour strife. It doesn't take very much to upset a balance in a mechanism as delicate as that of the collective bargaining mechanism. It is a very complicated and very delicate process, and the changes that this minister is making are weighing the scales all the time in favour of management, to the point where the trade union movement in this province will have no alternative but to take some action that will not be in the best interests of this province.

I am concerned that we are here tonight under what are obviously false pretences. We are not here to debate whether or not the children in the Kootenays should or should not be in school, and whether or not we can do anything about it. Of course the children should be in school. No one on either side of this House has suggested that they should not be in school, that they should not have the opportunity provided for a good education, to have the same kind of opportunity that every other child has. No one in this House has suggested this. But what we have suggested is that as a result of what the leader of our party was able to accomplish, what the Minis--ter of Labour should have been able to accomplish months ago had he put his mind to it, those children should have been in school not only just today, but they should have been in school a month ago. There were ways that the minister could have moved. I don t think that he would admit to the fact that he was not able to do the job that the opposition leader has been able to do. He simply didn't try to do that job, and if he wasn't able to do it, then he has no business being the Minister of

[ Page 2898 ]

Labour.

That's the responsibility that's laid on the shoulders of the Minister of Labour, Mr. Speaker, and he has failed utterly in carrying out that responsibility. There is no reason that those children couldn't have been back in school long before this, and there is no reason to have a special session to get them back in school. What we're here for today is to do by one method what this government is afraid to do by another method. Mr. Speaker, there is more than one way to skin a cat, and that government is faced with a party that is very anxious to see some anti-labour legislation introduced into this province -- right to work, in fact. They're very' anxious to see that type of labour legislation introduced. But it would be a rather unpopular thing to bring in such a bill, outright, forthright and aboveboard.

No, Mr. Speaker, here in the middle of the night in this Legislature, in one day, we are trying to do by the back door what this government is afraid to do by the front door. We are trying to put through three readings of a bill in one day that is, in effect, an amendment to the Essential Services Disputes Act, and which will establish a foot in the door towards destroying collective bargaining. And I suggest, Mr. Speaker, that if you destroy collective bargaining effectively, you have just as effectively brought in right-to-work legislation. That's what this government is hoping to do with this legislation. They are wiping out the meaningfulness of collective bargaining, they are eroding the unions' ability to bargain, and as a result of that you are right down the road towards a right to-work type of economy. Because if you erode the right for collective bargaining, if you erode the power of the trade union movement -and you are doing it in the public service today -- before long you will be into the private sector, and we will be in a position where this government can say to the members of their party: "There is no need for right to-work legislation; we have effectively destroyed the trade union movement in British Columbia."

That's what this bill is all about. That's what we're being asked to vote on tonight. It's nothing to do with the emergency in the Kootenays. It's just a typical example of the way this government brings in things in an underhanded method. We've had several examples of this previously, Mr. Speaker, where we've had miscellaneous statutes introduced into this House on the last day of session, with very, very critical sections in them that have great bearing on the whole provincial scene.

Yet they're buried in a miscellaneous statute somewhere, and if it weren't for the opposition really watching and seeing what's in those statutes, they would go through unnoticed. This is the same kind of approach, Mr. Speaker, and it isn't worthy of a government of the province of British Columbia, and this bill should be defeated herewith.

MR. KING: I've been uniting patiently all day for my turn and listening keenly to all of the debate and the gems of wisdom that have flown back and forth across the House. I would like to acknowledge the new appointments to the cabinet also; the member for Skeena (Hon. Mr. Shelford) , who has been there before, I wish him well; and the large minister for small business (Hon. Mr. Veitch) , I wish him well also. I trust they find their jobs challenging and exciting. I have a hope, perhaps it's a vain one, that they can do something for the economic well-being of the people of this province.

Mr. Speaker, I have quite a lot to say. I know the hour is late and I'll try and be as brief as I can. But I was interested in the Minister of Labour's dissertation this morning, and I have to say that I was disappointed that he did not deal in a very comprehensive way at all either with the history of the particular dispute that we've been called back to deal with nor, indeed, with the object of the bill which he presented to the House.

I just briefly want to go through a few of the comments he made. He said: "The union saw fit to lift the strike this morning." I suppose that's technically true because, in fact the employees would not normally report for work until this morning. But it's not really true, because the union did announce yesterday afternoon at 4 o'clock that they, in fact, were prepared and intended to lift that picket line. That gave the minister ample time, in light of a major break in the dispute, to take action. He failed to do that, Mr. Speaker, and I guess some of my colleagues have outlined probable reasons why.

I was interested too in a statement he made. I've got the Blues here and I want to quote the minister accurately. He was tracing in a very thumb nail-sketch way his involvement with the parties. I quote on page 15-1 of the Blues:

"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

[ Page 2899 ]

negotiation method remained foreclosed." That's what the Minister of Labour told the House this morning, Mr. Speaker.

Other members have commented on the inadequacy and incompetence of the Minister of Labour as characterized by his conduct in this dispute. But I find it incomprehensible that the Minister of Labour -- a lawyer by profession -- is ignorant of the law which he administers. Mr. Speaker, section 6 of the Labour Code of British Columbia reads as follows, and I quote:

"Requirement to bargain in good faith in the province: no trade union or employer shall fail or refuse to bargain collectively in good faith in the province, and to make every reasonable effort to conclude a collective agreement. But where a trade union and the employer have concluded a collective agreement outside the province, such agreement is invalid in the province unless and until a majority of the employees in the province covered by the agreement ratify it."

This is an instruction in law which places an obligation on both of the parties to industrial relations to bargain in good faith and to attempt to conclude a collective agreement. The Minister of Labour blandly informs the House that the employers refused to bargain. These are the minister's words, Mr. Speaker: "They did indicate, however, quite clearly that negotiation would be too costly to then and therefore that the negotiation method remained foreclosed." Now is that plain enough for the minister? He was a party to the employer in this instance, thumbing his nose at the law which the minister is charged and responsible for administering.

Mr. Speaker, it's small wonder that we have conflict and very disruptive disputes in the province of British Columbia when the Minister of Labour is so inadequate in his job, when he fails to understand that he has an obligation to ensure that the law administered by his office is indeed respected and lived up to. He failed by his own admission, Mr. Speaker, to take that responsibility seriously. It was a very important matter with respect to this particular dispute. The trade union involved had just made a major concession and the employer thumbed their nose at the gesture by the union and thumbed their nose at the law and thumbed their nose at the minister, and he trots passively in here and says that "it is foreclosed; the Employer flaunted my law." He stands passively in the House and admits it. Shame on him! He's incompetent, Mr. Speaker, and he should be removed from office. Shame on him!

Mr. Speaker, I'm afraid that I must go into a bit of background of this dispute. I think it's necessary to expose the government's collusion with certain political hacks and extremists who wish to play to the right-wing vote through anti-labour legislation. I think the Premier ordered it. I think the Premier ordered that there be no settlement in this particular issue. I have trouble believing that the Minister of Labour is that incompetent.

I don't want to be personal with the minister, because the first thing he said this morning when he got up, before I'd even had a chance to speak in this House-he started anticipating what I would say. I want to tell you, Mr. Speaker, he hurt my feelings. I'm a sensitive man. When he said and forecast that I would get up and heap personal invective on him, I thought that was a terrible insult to make. I'm not that kind of person, even though at times the minister's conduct might invite that kind of response from members of the opposition. As much as I am gentle and tolerant, I also hate to disappoint the minister, so I'll try to temper my language and my thoughts in this matter against the need to characterize the minister's action in a fair and appropriate way.

I noticed the Minister of the Environment (Hon. Mr. Mair) in the House tonight, while his colleagues were protesting and pleading of their concern for the children of the West Kootenays, was sitting over there.... He must have sent out and signed about six boxes of Christmas cards tonight. I can only assume that he was directing those Christmas cards to all of those poor children in the West Kootenays that the government has been so concerned about. Is that what he was doing? What a kindly, gentle gesture, Mr. Speaker. Some emergency!

Mr. Speaker, I said it was necessary to go into a bit of background on this dispute. I'm going to tell you that the record is clear that this government has set out on a deliberate campaign, a deliberate policy of restricting and eroding the right of all Employees in the public sector, be they government employees or be they Employees of municipalities, school boards, hospitals and so on. That's a matter of record, Mr. Speaker.

I want to tell you that the Minister of Finance (Hon. Mr. Wolfe) was the first one to set the stage for this kind of approach. Here is the reference to the Minister of Finance's speech at Harrison Hot Springs, which was delivered....

MR. BARRETT: You've got lots of time, you're

[ Page 2900 ]

the designated speaker.

MR. KING: I'm in no rush. I know the members are patient.

"Comments on Ottawa's discussion paper on decontrols and British Columbia's programme for inflation control: a statement issued by the Hon. Evan Wolfe, Minister of Finance, Harrison Hot Springs, June 10,1977." On this occasion, Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Finance convened a meeting of employers in the public sector, employers not only of Crown corporations and agencies of the Crown, but employers from municipalities, from various public enterprises in the local communities. I want to read into the record a few of the things the minister said on that occasion. He said:

"Apart from bringing about a much more direct and accurate correlation of relationships between public and private sector wages, the new council is also intended to encourage the development of improved management skills in the public sector."

It was the Minister of Finance of the province of British Columbia convening a meeting and making a major address, notifying the employers that he's setting up a new management group to correlate their strategy for negotiating with working people and their trade unions. Do you understand that? Everybody's got it.

Mr. Speaker, it's a matter of record that the Minister of Finance funded this employers' organization with the taxpayers money of British Columbia. Public money was spent by the Minister of Finance to set up a management organization which at the exhortation of the minister was to hold the line on wages in the province of British Columbia. Let me read on to another part of his speech:

"If I may recap that, our government will move to implement a comprehensive, forward-looking programme to fight inflationary pressures which will include: a watchdog agency on market prices...."

Have you heard about them cutting back the prices of gas? Have you heard about them cutting back the prices of home heating fuel? Have you heard about them controlling grocery prices, which have inflated to the tune of 22 per cent in less than a year?

The other aspect of the objective: "leadership in ensuring that public sector compensation is in line with private sector; meetings with business and labour to talk about the realities facing this province." Now here's the Minister of Finance for the Province of British Columbia setting up this direction, this objective by the government, which is the funding agency for many of these public sector employers, and telling them what the direction will be -- setting up an institution for the education of management in more effectively dealing with trade unions at the bargaining table.

Mr. Speaker, what happened to the Labour Education Centre of British Columbia, which the New Democratic Party introduced when we were government? It had for its purpose the education of all people involved in industrial relations in this province, not just labour, not just management. Not just labour and not just management, but here's a government that went on record as caning down on the side of management. They not only directed management at what scale to bargain, as I will demonstrate later, but they funded this management group to be more effective in holding the line and depressing wages for working people in the public sector. That's the stated objective; it's a matter of record. And I defy the minister to deny it. He shakes his head in pallid frustration, but if he had any courage at all and any commitment to the role that he fills, he would fight this kind of initiative by his own government. It's an unwarranted interference in the regime of the Department of Labour when Finance involves itself in setting the stage for industrial relations, when Education involves itself, and pre-empts the objectives -- or what should be the objectives at least -- of the Department of Labour.

They set up the B.C. Council of Public Sector Employers, provided government funding. Now I do not know whether the Minister of Labour knows about this or not. I don't know where the Minister of Labour has been. But I want to tell you that Norman Olsen of B.C. Hydro knows something about it. And this is from the minutes of this B.C. Council of Public Sector Employers that received the government funding, and which was in fact conceived by the government. I wonder if the Minister of Labour gets their minutes, Mr. Speaker. Do you receive minutes from this organization, Mr. Minister?

Mr. Speaker, this anti-labour group, funded involuntarily by the taxpayers of British Columbia to suit the political whims of this reactionary government, reports on page 2 of their June 21,1978, issue a quote from Mr. Norman Olsen of B.C. Hydro. He says: "It's that kind of philosophy Olsen presented to the board meetings of the new council, which was originally announced last year by Finance Minister Evan Wolfe, as one of two moves to fill the gap after federal anti-inflation controls. The employers council has cane to pass with membership by public service agent-

[ Page 2901 ]

cies and councils which hire 200,000 workers or three-quarters of the people employed by provincial and municipal governments, but there has been no sign of the board that would control prices."

They set up the council that will control wages, but as Mr. Olsen observed, there's been no sign of the council that would have for its purpose the control of prices. So much for the protection of the consumers.

"Olsen has no idea why the government hasn't followed up with the prices board, even though that kind of shortcoming will fortify union arguments that controlling union wage demands is the real objective rather than controlling prices."

Isn't that cute? Isn't that cute! We want the government to look good politically, don't we?

"I don't know what has happened to that, " Olsen said, referring to the monitoring agency. "I guess that's a political decision." I guess it is, Mr. Speaker. I guess it is.

Mr. Minister, I quoted what I'm reading from....

Interjection.

MR. KING: Well, it's the B.C. Council of Public Sector Employers reference report, June 21,1978. That's what it is. If you haven't got one, Mr. Minister, I suggest that you consult with your colleague, the Minister of Finance, and perhaps he will deem to enlighten you on what his initiatives are which undercut and erode any opportunity for good industrial relations under your department. It's interesting.

So there we have the stage set, the government by their own initiative initiating a campaign to hold the wage line for public sector employees. And even funding for the first time, a government has cane down on the side of a party to industrial relations. They've come down on one side and they have actually spent public money, and they can no longer pretend by any stretch of the imagination that they perform the role of an impartial referee, after that kind of initiative. No longer. The minister's tainted; the minister's partisan; the minister is biased, proof positive. You've spent public funds to educate employers to be more effective in holding wages down in this province. It's all a matter of record. How can you claim to be even-handed and impartial in dealing with parties in the future? Not even a mention of spending one nickel to ensure that working people in the public sector can live above the poverty line. Not a thought to investing one dime of public money to better the lot of working people and unemployed people, and people who need retraining and upgrading. Shame on you! Where are your colleagues? Where are your colleagues?

Mr Speaker, I am the designated speaker, and if I go over the 40 minutes, and I'm starting to get warmed up and I may well do that, I hope you'll understand.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I appreciate that you're the designated speaker. Please proceed.

MR. KING: Mr. Speaker, after the Minister of Finance set that stage, we got the Premier in on the act. The Premier outlined what the government's position was on restraint on wage compensation to people in the public sector. Perhaps before I outline some of the gems that the Premier has put forward to the people....

Mr. Speaker, I'm talking about the backdrop against which the dispute in the West Kootenays is the direct result. Mr. Speaker, before I go on, I just want to tell you that the minister is quite a guy. He cane on television and he uttered a gem. You know, after he met for two days he finally gained the temerity to get involved with these parties to this dispute. After the Leader of the Opposition told him what to do, and after Jack Webster and his guests prodded him into reluctant and unwilling action, he finally called then down to his office as he was bid by the Leader of the Opposition, and after conferring with the parties for a couple of hours, for two whole days what a major concession by the minister! He came on television and he made this comment. "What we have here, " he announced to the public, "is a strike-lockout situation." That's what he said on television.

Mr. Speaker, for 42 days the people of the West Kootenays and the people of British Columbia were well aware that there was a strike-lockout situation in the West Kootenays, but the minister, with his unbelievable profundity came out with this remark that has to be a classic gem. "Yes, we have a strike lockout situation here. After calculated and considered involvement by my office, I've conferred with the parties and I've learned that we have a strike-lockout." That was great news to the children of the West Kootenay that the minister is so concerned about. Wonderful news. You know, what pale, pusillanimous, parsimony from that minister! My goodness! If that's the best he can do after spending two days with the parties, then I do not know what he's thinking of. I do not know how he conceives his job.

Then, not to be outdone, the Premier went on television last night, after he announced in

[ Page 2902 ]

very serious terms of great gravity that he had convened the Legislature -- too late, too late. You know what he said? He said: "I hope everyone deals with it in a mature fashion, and above all I hope that there'll be no political politics involved in the debate." Well, here we have the Minister of Labour and the Premier, vying for the most profound statement of our age, I guess. I wonder about these people, I really do. I wonder about them. It's not a laughing matter, Mr. Speaker, but when you see people so mired in hopelessness that they cannot came out with anything more intelligent than that, it really is a bit laughable.

Mr. Speaker, I outlined how the Minister of Finance had taken an initiative, funded the Employers' organization, provided for the education of that employers' organization, so they could keep down wages, curtail working conditions for people in the public sector. That's their mandate. That's their mandate. For goodness' sakes, cabinet ministers don't even know. They loaned them Al Keylock. The Minister of Finance loaned them Al Keylock. Maybe he was one of those public employees that the Premier had referred to as being too bright to be in the public service, so he loaned them to the employers.

The Premier made it clear where he was at. In his position paper presented at the federal-provincial conference in February, 1978, the Premier had this to say:

"For individual employee groups the pattern of settlement should be based on comparability with a like group in the private sector wherever possible. This principle should be applied in a reasonable way to ensure the rights of public employees to determine the particular conditions of their settlements through the process of collective bargaining. Where a like group is not readily available, public sector employers should be prepared to use market conditions to better gauge the rate of compensation that should be paid."

Just how he'll have the principle of comparability and full collective bargaining at one and the same time is something that I'm sure all professional industrial relations people, not only in British Columbia but in Canada, would like to learn from the Premier. I don't think he knew what he was talking about. He was simply on the same line as the Minister of Finance that wages were going to be held down by one method or another by a guideline issued by the government or by a new process of comparability which denies collective bargaining. I don't want the House to take my word for that. Let the House take the word of a man that I think is respected by every member of this House, certainly by every member of the industrial relations world in this province and throughout Canada -- a man that the Minister of Labour himself has indicated was the best thing that happened to industrial relations in British Columbia for many years. I refer to Paul Weiler. I %want to quote from a speech Paul Weiler made to the Men's Canadian Club in Vancouver on June 22,1978. Paul Weiler talked about public sector bargaining and he talked about particularly this issue of comparability. First of all, he talked about and diagnosed the problems with public sector collective bargaining. Then he said:

"That is the diagnosis of the supposed pathology of public sector bargaining. The prescriptions follow quite naturally.

"I) First of all, there should be a ban on all strikes in the public sector. That is the key deviation from the private see-tor model of collective bargaining. That proposal is justified not simply because government strikes interrupt the flow of essential services to the general public, the innocent third party; it is also advocated because the strike instrument is believed to be too powerful a weapon for public sector unions operating in a political environment. Compulsory arbitration should be substituted instead as the means of resolving collective bargaining impasses between governments and their employees.

"2) Recently another proposal has Emerged for the control of public sector collective bargaining; legal guidelines for compensation increases in public sector settlements. Suppose it is true that there are no real economic limits to the level of government settlements and these in turn pose an attractive but inflationary target for private sector unions whose employees must operate in a competitive market. Public policy must then substitute an artificial form of restraint: maximum compensation limits based on a principle of comparability by which the public sector follows the private sector, all of which is assured by an external wage monitoring agency.

"When one steps back from these details and considers the broader drift of that policy analysis, it does have an appealing symmetry. Free collective bargaining is appropriate for the private sector, but collective bargaining in the public sector must be heavily controlled. Nor can there be any objection in principle to that kind of regulation. After all, we are living in

[ Page 2903 ]

an era in which a wide range of economic activity is subject to legal regulatory controls. Rates are set, rents are reviewed, consumers are protected, polluters are prohibited. Trade union leaders are in the vanguard of that movement. Surely no one can justify an absolute immunity for the world of collective bargaining."

So goes the rationale for that argument. To quote Weiler further:

"But there is an ad hominem argument. If it is good enough for business . then we should do it to the trade unions as well. The real question must be: is that kind of government intervention good enough for all of us? In the last little while we are finally starting to take a more tough-minded attitude to the supposed virtues of government regulation in many areas of economic life. We should put the same kind of uncomfortable questions to the proponents of these policies for public sector bargaining. Have they mistaken some passing fever for congenital defects in that process? Are the legal remedies likely to have unacceptable side effects? And we should start with a rather jaundiced view of the claim that we can cure the ailments of government bargaining simply by giving it a liberal dose of government regulation."

I don't 'Know whether he meant anything specific or tongue-in-cheek when he talked about that "liberal" dose of government regulation. I don't know what he knew about the history of his boss's political background at that time.

Let me quote just briefly further, and I'll move on. Weiler says:

"Let me deal first with the dubious feasibility of these proposed solutions. The traditional favourite, of course, is a ban on strikes by government employees and the substitution of compulsory arbitration. From an editorialist point of view, that is a motherhood proposal. Why not substitute the calm, rational atmosphere of judicial-type proceedings for crude economic warfare? The interesting fact is that after experiencing interest-dispute arbitration first hand, just about all of the participants -- not just the trade unionists, but also employers and even the highly paid neutrals -- have become disenchanted. The reason is quite simple: arbitration is simply too legal a process ever to come to grips with the delicate economic issues."

That's from the chairman of the Labour Relations Board, an outstanding practitioner of industrial relations in B.C. and Canada. He states what is the obvious in very eloquent language. I could go on. He does a job on the principle of comparability and points out that it is inadequate and ill-advised. Has the Minister of Labour not read that speech?

I wonder where the Minister of Labour got his advice. Mr. Speaker, I worked with many of the people in the Ministry of Labour. I know the deputy fairly well, I know most of the associate deputies fairly well, and I just don't believe that one of those people who are professional advisers to the minister advocated compulsory arbitration or advocated section 11 of the bill that is before the House today. I don't believe that they did. I would like the minister to comment on that point. I would like him to explain to the House where he gained the advice on the contents of the bill that is before the Legislature today.

I want to tell you, Mr. Speaker, that there is not a professional in major industrial relations in the province of British Columbia today who would go the direction of the bill put before this House by the minister. That is why I say that the bill is a political ploy. It flies in the face of the best professional knowledge and advice in terms of conducting industrial relations. It flies in the face of history and experience.

The minister is aware of the experience of Australia, where a regime of compulsory arbitration has existed for some years. The record shows, Mr. Speaker, that in Australia that nation has lost more man-days through labour disputes -- man-days that were lost by illegal action -- than Canada has lost through the exercise of legal work stoppages.

All this government is doing by removing the strike right from working people in the final analysis is putting those working people outside the law because history shows that if working people feel aggrieved enough and if their lot is in bad enough shape, they will strike and the law be damned. That's the history. That's the experience. So why are you putting British Columbia workers outside the law? That is no cure. History and the best advice prove it. This is a ploy and a direction to satisfy a right-wing political direction dictated by the Premier to satisfy sagging polls, Mr. Speaker. That's what it's for. I want to tell you that that's political politics of the worst kind, Mr. Premier, to use your term, because it's using people and their misery and their needs as a ploy for you to manipulate what you conceive to be a popular issue.

The Minister of Finance and the Premier have outlined their policy for restricting wages, and the Minister of Education got in on the

[ Page 2904 ]

act. Here are some random headlines:

"Wolf e Admits Probe of Civic School Budget Controls."

"Stand Toughening on Teachers' Pay. McGeer: 'Good for Taxpayers.' "

"Public Sector Controls Unfair, says Joe Morris."

"Administrators Plea for More Money Rebuffed. Education minister Pat McGeer Wednesday said his ministry has little sympathy for public school system administrators who say they don't make enough money."

"Teachers, Trustees Must Ask.... Dr. McGeer said Tuesday he is prepared to recommend to cabinet a new bargaining system for teacher contracts." It ends up by saying: "McGeer, just back from Europe, said he feels the 4 per cent wage increase offered teachers by the trustees is more in line with the provincial policy of restraint than the 10 to 12 per cent sought by the teachers."

Now is that a regard for collective bargaining? The minister's dictating what the level will be. The Minister of Finance is funding the employers to hold the line and to thumb their nose at collective bargaining, which is the give and take. The Minister of Education is squeezing the lemon dry in terms of funding to schools to meet negotiated wage demands.

Mr. Speaker, against that backdrop, the Minister of Labour was finally persuaded to call the parties in the West Kootenay dispute down to Victoria. He was persuaded for two reasons, not by his own initiative but by the initiative of the Leader of the Opposition and by the public outcry which was generated through Jack Webster's programme. The minister had them down here for two days. After remaining aloof from the dispute for 38 days he finally called the parties down here and met for two days. I want to know what he said to the parties. I'd like to know what the minister said to the parties when he had them in his office. He now says that the union, despite their promise of yesterday to lift their picket line and go back to work, would not go back. Is he calling the union a liar? Is he calling people that gave their commitment to lift their picket line and go back to work liars?

HON. MR. WILLIAMS: When did I say that?

MR. KING: You hollered it across the floor, Mr. Minister.

No one knows what he did when he called the parties down here. I do not know what he asked them to do. He explained that their positions were inflexible, and I understand that. I know it's not easy to move them. But I want to suggest to him, Mr. Speaker, that after the Leader of the Opposition got them to make a move, it indicated a major change. Once the union had made that announcement at 2 o'clock yesterday, the minister bad ample time to say: "Here's a major change in their positions and I'm going to call both parties in and find out in light of this if we cannot resolve this in a voluntary way." Now that's the least the minister could have done, and if the school board at that time said, "Look, despite the union lifting their picket line, we are not going to lift the lockout, " I suggest that he should have called the Premier in and had the Premier give them a hard message. That's all it took. My goodness, I cannot believe that a group of school trustees would thumb their nose at the opportunity to get those schools operating again. I cannot believe that. The minister, if he hasn't got the initiative and know how to get them to move from that position, is not worthy of his off ice. It's as simple as that.

Now once the union had moved, did he ask them if they'd go one step further and accept voluntary binding arbitration? Did he ask them if they'd accept an industrial inquiry commission? By his own admission, he had no contact with the union except to relay their message to the employers. Now that is not the conduct of someone interested in settling a dispute. Everyone knows it, and the minister knows it. It just doesn't work that way, believe me. It just does not work that way. If that kind of opening is left, and the Minister of Labour does not take the initiative to progress it and to put some pressure on the parties to move, then he is absolutely incompetent and he should be dismissed forthwith. It's as simple as that.

The government members can guffaw and they can howl like jackals, but I want to tell you that the business community out there and the trade union movement out there know this to be true. The people who are involved in industrial relations understand this, and if the minister simply ignored that loophole, that opening, then it indicates to me that he is not that dumb, surely. He had instructions from his boss not to get a settlement because he wanted to come In with this bill, with its all-embracing and its ham-handed power to curtail the rights of working people in the public sector, and to assuage the push of those extremist, right-wing people in the Social Credit Party that have been pushing for right to-work laws, and for some indication that this government is going to bend to their will. That's what it's all about. The Premier laughs his timid little smile. He's been

[ Page 2905 ]

playing a sly game, Mr. Speaker, of politics and it's come down around his ears, because he's exposed. Whether nor not he's going to brazen it out, I want to say that the people of British Columbia will understand this ploy. You've been a bit too smart by half, Mr. Premier.

Did the Minister of Labour go to the union and say: "Okay, now that you've pulled back, and you've agreed to open the schools, will you guarantee me that you won't reinstitute the strike?" He didn't do that. But he comes in here and says: "Oh, they might have started the strike again." It's absolutely unbelievable and incredible. There's no credibility left. That's obviously not true. That's obviously improper and the minister obviously was towing the mark for instructions issued to him by his political boss. His responsibility to the school children went out the window at the political whim of the Premier.

They come in here, Mr. Speaker, and they say they're concerned about children and the NDP is not. Well, that's hogwash. It doesn't matter what your political philosophy is, you're going to be concerned if anyone's education is interrupted. No citizen of British Columbia, whether involved in politics or not, wants to see people inconvenienced. Nobody wants to see safety and health jeopardized, or education jeopardized. But if that group is sincere... and we heard the provincial Minister of Human Resources (Hon. Mrs. McCarthy) , as she is now is -- she's going to instruct all the poor people in the province to put on a super-smile -- talk about how concerned she is for the children. She almost made me cry. And we heard the Minister of Labour and the Premier. Well, I want to ask where the Minister of Labour was a few weeks earlier, Mr. Speaker, when a lockout in the East Kootenay region of the interior had about the sane number of children out of school for 10 weeks -- not 42 days but a whole 10 weeks. He asks where the MLAs for that region were. Well, I'll tell you, Mr. Speaker. I was on the phone to the minister's office, but I didn't get him because he was out of the country.

Mr. Speaker, that dispute was a lockout. it went on 10 weeks. In the last two weeks of that dispute, after people had been phoning me and I advised them to send telegrams to the Minister of Labour and the Minister of Education, people in my own riding....

Interjection.

MR. KING: Yes, it was winter in the Kootenays, Mr. Premier.

Interjection.

MR. KING: He's says it's August, and the schools were closed. I want to tell you, Mr. Minister of Labour, you'd better go back to your office and ask your secretary to dig out the telegrams that were sent to you, with copies to myself, from the people of Argenta, the people of -Lardeau, the people of Kaslo and that whole Creston-Kaslo school area. There was ice and snow on the roads up there, yes, you're darned right, and they were having to drive their children not across town, but 40 and 50 miles to get them to school, because there was no bus service. And did that minis-ter intervene? No! Do you know why? Because Jack Webster never caught on to it. That's why. What we have here, for god's sake, is government by hotline, Mr. Speaker, government by hotline.

Where was the concern? Where were the heart-rending cries of emergency for those children who were deprived of school opportunities for 10 weeks? Could it be that because it was a lockout without a strike that this government would not dare to think of declaring an Emergency and curbing the employers' powers? It just ended a couple of weeks ago. It ended in November. He doesn't even know what's going on, for goodness' sakes. No wonder we've got problems. He says it was in the school holiday. You know, the man's incredible.

Now I want to tell you that in the last two weeks of that particular dispute, there were five settlements, Mr. Speaker. Five settlements were ratified by both sides -- that is the union and the Employer. But there were two of the members of the accredited group that had not signed, and they prevented those other five schools from opening and functioning because of the accreditation system. Mr. Speaker, I understand the system of accreditation as well as the minister does. It was on the books when I was minister. But I want to say that in light of the experience, and in light of submissions made by CUPE, I think it's incumbent upon the government to have a hard look at the regime of accreditation, and give some relief to the workers. Because certainly the bill that was introduced here today rests more heavily, and rides more heavily, on the rights of working people than it does on the rights of their employers.

I don't know where the Minister of Labour was in that particular dispute up there. When I phoned his office he wasn't in the country. I consulted with his deputy minister, one of his deputies, and I also consulted with some of the mediation officers, to try and assist

[ Page 2906 ]

in getting that dispute resolved. But, you know, it catches then out, Mr. Speaker, when they come in here claiming a dire emergency and that this bill had to be proceeded with despite the fact that there was a major break in negotiations, when they sat back and blithely ignored a dispute of longer duration just a few weeks ago. You know, that shows what the political game is. There can be no dispute about it. Where was the Minister of Labour then?

Now I want to Just talk a little bit.... I've been going quite a while. How long have I been going? An hour? I just want to talk a little bit about the bill. I'm not going to deal in a lengthy fashion with it, but I want to say what's wrong with it. Well, compulsory arbitration is wrong; I think I've already explained why. There are many references. I suggest to some of the back bench who think that compulsory arbitration is a sinecure, that it's a cure-all for industrial conflict, well, you're deluding yourself, you're inflaming the industrial relations scene, and you'll create more problems than you solve.

Interjection.

MR. KING: Well, perhaps you have belonged to more trade unions than I have. I don't really know what that proves, Mr. Speaker. Maybe the reason he belonged to so many was none of them would have him for very long. I don't know how or why he left them, but I have some ideas.

Mr. Speaker, there is a simple-minded mentality'today that takes the view that if we have a social problem we hit it with a stick and it will go away, that we've got to legislate dissent out of existence, that if there's something that's troublesome or inconvenient, we legislate it, we require them to go back to work, we use the heavy hand. When will they learn, Mr. Speaker, that human problems and social problems cannot be handled in that way? People will not lie down; people will not, in timid fashion, remain passive for that kind of roughshod treatment by this government or any other.

You know, Dr. Goebbels had his way of responding to dissent, and getting rid of political opponents, and making the trains run on time. I think that was Il Duce. That was Il Duce, but not too much difference - the same Fascist view.... I don't know if these people ever read anything or not, Mr. Speaker, but goodness knows history is crammed full of little tin dictators who tried to legislate people's rights away from them, their right to dissent and their right to take action, their right to demonstrate in public in social activity.

Interjection.

MR. KING: Is that your sole criterion? Are you simply here to respond to what the people are going to vote for? Is there no question of principle, of dedication to democracy?

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please, hon. members. Let's allow the member who has the floor to continue, please.

MR. KING: Mr. Speaker, I talked about that simple-minded mentality earlier on which wants to do away with everything by hitting it with a stick. That simple-minded mentality is manifesting itself abundantly here tonight, Mr. Speaker, and it's coming right from across the floor.

Mr. Speaker, the arbitration process is not going to work. It's been tried before. It's been characterized by people with more expertise than the Minister of Labour or I have, or any member of this House, as a failure. No review of accreditation to deal with the problems created for the unions. Yes, there are times when the government should intervene in disputes and take a firm stand.

My previous speeches were quoted quite a number of times today and I didn't mind that because it was the only intelligent debate heard from the government benches, Mr. Speaker. It was the only intelligent debate I heard. I don't mind being quoted by them. I just wish they'd learn something from those speeches, Mr. Speaker. But there are times -What we are suggesting is that if should only be as a last resort. It's like the strike right. The strike right occurs too often, and there are irresponsible people in the trade union movement who want to use the hammer all the time. But there are irresponsible people on the management side. The Minister of Labour knows that. He knows about all the employers that won't pay their employees' wage bills, and they have to be recovered through the Department of Labour. Somewhere to the tune of half a million dollars a year in wages are not paid to workers. Now that doesn't mean to say that all employers are rotten, but there are irresponsible people on both sides of the equation. Because that happens you don't seize it as the opportunity to use the hammer on the rights of all working people, and that's what's happening here tonight.

There are times when a government must intervene, and yes, to some extent it is a judgment call. Yes, it is. But it should be as a last resort, and it should be sincere. It

[ Page 2907 ]

should not be born out of political motivation, and that is what we are seeing here today.

I make no apologies for the intervention which I took in disputes. I did it very reluctantly and as a last resort. With respect to the last occasion, the parties were down in my office in Victoria aver a week. I didn't spend a couple of hours in two days trying to solve it. They were here for days on end. Now if the minister had demonstrated that kind of patience, that kind of real dedication to making the system work and moving them, and using his office, and they still hadn't made any gesture, then our response in this House might be quite different. But none of those things happened, Mr. Speaker. None of those things happened.

Emergencies that are identified by governments can result in abuse of power and dangerous excesses. That's the real danger when government calls emergency sessions, whether it be a war measures bill which takes away rights of people, or whether it be intervention in a labour dispute, or a response to any other emergency. Governments that are reactionary, government that has less than full respect for the democratic process and the civil rights of people could use those occasions to insidiously slide in other little muscle power that they want for political objectives. That's the danger, and it is incumbent on the opposition to be the watchdog in that kind of situation. That's the role we're playing, and we want Lo make the public aware today that there is an excess, and a dangerous one, contained in the bill that is before this House, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: The hon. minister closes debate.

HON. MR. WILLIAMS: Mr. Speaker, it has been an interesting 13 hours, and nothing could make it more interesting than to have it end, so far as the opposition debate is concerned, by the assembly being treated once more to the style of the member for Revelstoke-Slocan. He's improving with age. As a matter of fact, I sometimes wonder whether or not the member who sits to his right (Mr. Barrett) must be giving him lessons in clowning.

But I am glad to notice one thing: at the end of his remarks, when it was all over, he finally had to come clean. Yes, there are occasions when governments and Legislatures must act. There are irresponsible Employers and there are irresponsible unions. And when you get to those circumstances and the rights of the citizen is ignored -- as I said 13 hours ago when we started this debate -- then the Legislature must deal with the matter. That is where we are today.

In spite of all of the attempts on the part of the opposition to talk around this bill, to avoid the clear evidence of %hat was laid before them when I opened this debate, in spite of the clear evidence that has been available throughout the province during the course of this strike, the clear indication that the collective bargaining process had failed, that the parties were intransigent, that proceedings through the collective bargaining process could not produce resolution, in spite of all that evidence, they talk around the bill, avoid every way that they possibly can to face up to the fundamental question as to whether or not those private rights of individuals or groups are going to be able to stand in the way of the rights, in this case, of the students of an area of this province.

They talk about what the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Barrett) did, and how the union gave in, and how they've done this and how they've done that. The situation is shifting so much from hour to hour that it is impossible for anyone to know precisely %hat is taking place in the West Kootenays. This is how volatile this particular dispute is, and it has been volatile for weeks. But it is quite clear that there is one of the five groups at work today, and that is Nelson school district. Selkirk College is not, Trail is not, Castlegar is not, Grand Forks is not. It doesn't bother them. They think there is a settlement. And not only are they not working in those areas, but they aren't talking to each other either. There is no collective bargaining taking place. There are no meetings going on between the parties in spite of the offer of the union and the action taken by it in ending its strike situation in Nelson.

It is, however, Mr. Speaker, not the question only of the end of the strike which is important in this situation. It is for the workers the resolution of the issues which are preventing them from having their collective agreement. And it may be, as the member for Nelson-Creston (Mr. Nicolson) says, that one day we will come to look for blame, and it may be that if we look for blame in this case we would find more on the side of the Employers than on the side of the union, and in the next case more on the side of the union than on the side of the Employer. But what a vain exercise that would be when the fact of the matter is that the parties are so intransigent, so inflexible that they can't conclude their agreements, a work stoppage results and some-

[ Page 2908 ]

body else suffers. What point is there in fixing blame? So let's not concern ourselves with blame, and let's look at the legislation which you say you can't support.

It ends the strike and lockout, and if it has already ended that's fine. It requires them to recommence collective bargaining, and it provides assistance for them to do that. And they're given a time period so there will be no more foot-dragging after eight months on either side. But if they require more time than the 30 days, all that is required is for the mediator to request it. The Act makes it clear. But even after all of that these parties after this experience are still unable to bring themselves to their agreement with the assistance that they can be given, what do you do? Do you let them go back on strike and lockouts? Is that your solution? No. You have to make, a decision sometime, and we've made the decision. If they ever reach that stage -and I trust they do not -- it will be settled by compulsory arbitration. Now that's a terrible word to the trade union movement. What a terrible word it is! But you know, Mr. Speaker, we had a very difficult dispute in an educational institution in the interior, at Cariboo College, and it was settled. CUPE was the union. CUPE proposed the method for settlement, and do you know what it was? Compulsory arbitration -- the same union. So you see, when it serves their purpose it's okay, but when you get to a situation where after months and months and months of effort they can't resolve the difficulty and someone mentions binding arbitration, oh, that's no good.

You know, it has been used elsewhere. The member for Cowichan-Malahat (Mrs. Wallace) spoke and reminded me of her involvement -and I have to give her first remarks for her involvement -- in that difficult dispute in 1976 affecting the mid-Island group. I hope that we don't have the same experience soon. But let me remind her that after we had the meeting with the parents, and after we discussed the matter in my office, and I relayed to her what I had learned from the employers, it wasn't the appointment of a mediator that resolved that dispute shortly. No, I met with the unions, I met with the employers at length, I proposed to them that they have an industrial inquiry commission, I proposed that the recommendations of the commission be binding, and do you know what? That's what settled it. An industrial inquiry commission, and it was binding and they agreed to me that it be binding and the strike and the lockout ended with the assistance of the member for Nanaimo (Mr. 'Stupich) . And wasn't it a good idea? Wasn't it a good idea?

AN HON. MEMBER: We didn't need a bill to do it.

HON. MR. WILLIAMS: That's right, we didn't need a bill to do it. Mr. Speaker, you see, the member for Cowichan-Malahat and the member for Nanaimo drew this parallel between the West Kootenay situation and and the one in the mid Island. And I agree, that's what we did. Let me complete the parallel for you. I proposed to the Employers and the union in the West Kootenays an IIC. I proposed to them that they consent that the award be binding. I proposed to then that having done this they both go back to work, and they both turned it down. That's the difference; that's where the parallel ends. That's where the parallel ends, and that's why legislatures are called upon to act. That's where the parallel ends, and the legislature must act. And I suppose this is the situation.

The member for Revelstoke-Slocan (Mr. King) talked about the situation in the East Kootenays. It was a long strike in the East Kootenays; yes, it was. And the hon. Minister of Lands, Parks and Housing (Hon. Mr. Chabot) dealt with the same dispute in his remarks. Yes, it was a long dispute. Yes, I was away on my vacation when the member called. And yes, it was settled with the assistance of the senior officials of the ministry and the mediation service. That's the kind of assistance we want to provide. But you know there was one ingredient that the member for Revelstoke-Slocan didn't tell you about, and that is that the Employer and the trade union were acting responsibly. They wanted to settle. They were prepared to make the compromises and the adjustments necessary to conclude a settlement. That's what took place -but not in the West Kootenays.

There has been some interesting debate, however, this afternoon on one point, and I wish to touch upon it. That is the question of the accreditation of employers' organizations. It is provided for under the Labour Code. I'm glad that the member for Revelstoke-Slocan said we should be taking a look at it, because I want to tell you, Mr. Speaker, what I told the parties from the West Kootenays when I met with them -- not for a couple of hours, but for something like 12 hours altogether. At the end of those meetings, when I offered them what I considered to be the way out of their difficulty, I also told them that because of the experience that we had had in the Fast Kootenays, in the Okanagan and now in the West Kootenays, the Ministry of Labour had already undertaken an examination into the matters surrounding the accreditation of Employers'

[ Page 2909 ]

groups in the public sector. It should have been done perhaps a long fine ago, but nonetheless the need is clear, and we have these recent examples which raise questions as to the way in which this system functions. I'm not suggesting it's wrong, but we're going to find out whether or not there are practices taking place with regard to accredited employers' groups which perhaps should be adjusted.

At the same time let it also be clear that in the West Kootenays we have a number of locals of the same union -- CUPE. They joined together not in an accreditation, but with a single negotiator who holds a position as a national rep for the Canadian Union of Public Employees. This is the biggest union in Canada; it brags about the size of its research organization. it's tremendously powerful. They provide national representatives, professional negotiators, to work with the locals in the various areas throughout British Columbia and Canada, to assist them in the conduct of their bargaining and the operation of industrial relations in the particular region.

There are a number of them in British Columbia; there was one in the East Kootenays. He was able to solve their difficulty. There was one in the Okanagan; he was able to solve his difficulties. There is one in the West Kootenays, and he wasn't. It is no criticism of him. Maybe it was the employers' accredited group that made the difficulty. But it seems to me that if we're looking at the employers' accredited group, perhaps at the same time we should have some concerti about the manner in which professional negotiators for trade unions conduct themselves amongst the locals in this province as well. So that is one study that is going on, along with the other study, of which I have made mention before.

Now I want to talk about the famous section 11 in this bill just for a few moments. I have listened in amazement to the debates today from the official opposition. It is quite clear to me that they have not taken the time since October, 1977, to read and understand the essential services disputes legislation in this province. I know they didn't understand it when we debated it. They did everything they could to avoid debating that bill too. But even since then they haven't taken the time to read the legislation and understand it. I suspect that that failure is politically motivated. They do not want to understand it. They don't want to be in the position of having to speak rationally about that legislation. They would rather stand up and talk nonsense about the taking away of people's rights -- interfering with the collective bargaining process -- when, in fact, the essential services disputes legislation is designed to assist the collective bargaining process.

They say wee "snuck in" section 11. For heaven's sake! It's so hard to find in this big bill! Section 11 -- why is it there? It is there because of the experience that we had in the East Kootenays, the experience we've had in the Okanagan and the experience we're having in the West Kootenays. We're wondering when we are going to require this in other educational areas in the province. So it includes municipalities as well, and regional districts and improvement districts. I'll tell you the reason for that, because it's also associated with the accreditation problem.

We had in the mid-Island a mix of employers: school districts, municipalities, a city, a college and a recreation commission all mixed together. We may one day need to use the essential services disputes legislation with respect to a group of employers such as that, and we don't want to be in a position of having to discriminate against one employer and another who happen to be joined together in an accredited organization. But, as I said it's under study. The Ministry of Education is developing statistics with respect to the impact on the learning conditions and on students of shutdowns in schools in this jurisdiction and elsewhere. We are also concerned, for the same reason, about the impact of industrial relations upon the educational system. Therefore it is logical that when we have this classic example of a breakdown in the system affecting education, we would bring this before the House for debate today. Yes, it is a proclamation bill. When we need it and when we are satisfied that it is required, it will be proclaimed. But you had your chance to debate it today under a classic circumstance. If we had had this legislation in place we wouldn't be here today debating the West Kootenay situation. We wouldn't be here debating the legislation, because we would have had the necessary tools to solve the problem affecting the students, and at the sane time have the additional tools necessary to assist the parties to resolve their dispute.

Let's put another myth to rest about this legislation as well: the myth about what it does, about this huge group of employees that it sweeps into its net. What nonsense! Again, they haven't read the bill. If you are a municipal employee you may be affected by this legislation, once it is proclaimed, if there is a threatened work stoppage and if all other things fail and if you happen to be involved

[ Page 2910 ]

in an occupation which is concerned with life, health and safety.

MR. KING: An economic production.

HON. MR. WILLIAMS: No, life, health and safety.

MR. KING: Nonsense!

HON. MR. WILLIAMS: Oh, the member for Revelstoke-Slocan laughs. I remember during the five-month strike in Trail, they weren't laughing when some person cut the valves off and they almost lost all the water supply in that city. That could have been stopped by legislation such as this.

MR. BARRETT: Tell people not to murder, and they won't murder? You can't legislate human behaviour.

HON. MR. WILLIAMS: Well, you see, Mr. Speaker, that just shows the level of intelligence which the hon. Leader of the Opposition brings to any debate on industrial relations. The fact of the matter is that if such legislation had been in place in the case of Trail, the workers in that particular unit would have been on the job.

MR. BARRETT: You don't even know your own legislation. The word "economic" is right in there, and you don't even know it.

MR. KING: Life-supporting services has been in the Labour Code since day one. What's the matter With you?

HON. MR. WILLIAMS: Why don't you read the whole section just once? Read a whole line of the bill and try to understand it. Your attention span is not that long. It's the provincial economy that's referred to.

MR. SPEAKER: May I interrupt the hon. minister just long enough to remind all hon. members that in the rules of our house one member at a time is allowed Lo speak. To the best of my recall, two of the major interrupters, if I may have their attention, have both had an opportunity to speak in this debate. Let us now hear the closing of the debate by the Minister of Labour.

HON. MR. WILLIAMS: Well, Mr. Speaker, it's been a long debate so far and we still have a little work to do. I don't want to embarrass the Leader of the Opposition and the member for Revelstoke-Slocan any longer. I just hope that perhaps in the time that's available to them they would take the legislation and address themselves to it.

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

Bill 46 read a second time and passed on the following division:

YEAS - 31

NAYS - 15

HON. MR. WILLIAMS: I move the bill be referred to a Committee of the Whole House now.

Motion approved.

WEST KOOTENAY SCHOOLS

COLLECTIVE BARGAINING ASSISTANCE ACT

The House in committee on Bill 46; Mr. Rogers in the chair.

Sections 1 to 3 inclusive approved.

On section 4.

MR. KING: I just want to comment briefly that as I indicated earlier, compulsory arbitration is not the only method of resolution to this dispute that is open to the minister. Indeed, as we indicated earlier, we do not think it was necessary to convene the Legislature, much less Introduce this kind of provision as the means of resolving the dispute. I think it sets a dangerous precedent whereby one or both of the parties to collective bar-

[ Page 2911 ]

gaining can now fail to bargain in good faith. If they have a problem with any of their own constituents and wish to avoid taking the responsibility for settlement, they can simply now hold out, secure in the knowledge that with this government, at least, compulsory arbitration is the mechanism that is going to be waiting down the line to resolve the dispute.

I want to ask the Minister of Labour specifically, since he failed to deal with the points raised by the opposition in his windup speech: did he call the trade union in after they had promised to lift their picket line and go back to work, and ask them at that time if they would be receptive to the possibility of voluntary binding arbitration or an industrial inquiry commission? They were alternatives that the minister had and, as far as I can determine, did not exercise. I want to know why. I want to know why he chose to charge ahead with compulsory arbitration when certainly it does not appear to be necessary.

HON. MR. WILLIAMS: Mr. Chairman, I think the member is a little bit confused with regard to the timing of the things that took place. The matters that he raises were before the union when I met with them on Tuesday. I said: ') o you have a method for getting out of this?" I proposed to them an ITC and I proposed that they agree and '-hey get binding, and that they go back to work, and I left them to consider it. When I came back after they had considered it for over an hour, they told me that they had concluded the only way to resolve it was the picket line and to increase the pressure.

When the union advised me through my officials yesterday afternoon that they would like to lift the strike if the employer would lift the lockout, and they would like to go back to the bargaining table, and they would like me to appoint a mediator, they also asked if I would please communicate that to the employer. It was Mr. Mercer who called my office. We finally got the employer somewhere between 5 and 6 and we placed the proposition before him - one of the employer's representatives. He said: "I'll have to call you back, " and he never did. That's where it really broke down, Mr. Chairman, through you, to the member. It's that sort of intransigence that I find so bothersome in this particular dispute - this rigidity. As I said to the member for Nelson Creston (Mr. Nicolson) , casting blame is no good.

That's the situation that faced me, and it was at that time that we were in the process of putting this legislation together. So if there's any impact, Mr. Member, of compulsory arbitration, I suspect that it is as much or more on the employer than it is on the union.

MR. KING: Mr. Chairman, the point is that once the union moved off their position and said: "Look, we'll remove our picket lines and we will in fact return to work tomorrow .... " I appreciate that at that point it was conditional upon the lockout being lifted, which is only common sense anyway, because the return to work is meaningless if the lockout is still in effect - But it seems to me, and I mean this sincerely, that the minister had an obligation at that time to say, "Hey, this is a major breakthrough, come on into the office, " to the union, and say: "Now look, you've lifted your picket line. You have no mechanism now on your own to force a settlement out of the employer. Surely you must now sit down with me and talk about a mechanism for resolving the dispute." That's only common sense, and it naturally follows.

And then to say that you made a call to the employer and he never called back.... My God, you're the Minister of Labour, and it seems to me that you had an obligation to get on that blower to those employers and say: "Get down to this office now. We have a breakthrough here and I expect movement from you now. The employees have demonstrated responsibility. I expect you to lift your lockout, and I expect you to sit in my office here and talk about a mechanism for resolving this in a voluntary way." That option was open, and that option was not pursued by the minister. That is the key point here which we object to, and I think it was a dereliction of duty. If the minister didn't perceive that, I'm appalled. If there was some other motive, if it was a direction from the Premier, I'm scandalized but I understand.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Just before I recognize the minister, the debate that's presently before the Chair is interesting and it relates to what has happened in the last few days, but it doesn't really relate to section 4. So perhaps with those words we can keep that in mind.

HON. MR. WILLIAMS: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I don't wish to prolong this debate. I'll only say that I did not fail in my responsibility in any respect, nor did I take any action or fail to take any action under the direction of the Premier or any other of my colleagues whatsoever. I may not have acted as you would have acted, but I consider that the steps that I took during all of Thursday afternoon dealing with this dispute, many of which matters have not been even raised on the floor

[ Page 2912 ]

of this House, were done in the interest of bringing about a resolution. And I don't have to disclose all of the secret matters that go on in my office any more than you did when you were minister, Mr. Member.

MS. SANFORD: Mr. Chairman, the minister indicated that he doesn't want to allocate blame to either party at this stage. But it seems to me that there is a clear place where the blame must be allocated in terms of not resolving this dispute yesterday.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please.

MS. SANFORD: Mr. Chairman, I'm relating this to section 4 as far as arbitration is concerned.

The minister had an obligation to talk to the union with respect to the possibility of arbitration....

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. The Minister of Education rises on a point of order.

HON. MR. McGEER: Neither this debate, Mr. Chairman, by the member who is currently on her feet, nor by the Minister of Labour, nor by the former Minister of Labour have anything at all to do with section 4. In view of the hour and the opportunity that there has been for generous debate, I would ask the members to keep strictly to the bill.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Your point is extremely well taken, hon. member. Section 4 is on a board of arbitration. It's a plain and quite simple section, and debate on what has transpired in the past few days in relation to discussions with the minister is not appropriate at this time.

On a point of order, the member for Revelstoke-Slocan.

MR. KING: Mr. Chairman, there are not that many sections that are going to be debated, and I hate to get into an exchange of points of order, but the proposition of a compulsory arbitration regime in this bill does, in fact, affect and weigh more heavily on one party than the other. Namely, it restricts the employees far more than it impacts on the employer. As such, we are debating the impact and the effect of compulsory arbitration. We have the right, I suggest, Mr. Chairman, to debate this and its impact and the alternatives that were available.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Well, hon. member, only within the very strict terms of what is described as section 4, because if we allow the wideranging debate Which would normally have taken place or did take place in second reading to take place once again in committee, then we destroy the whole purpose of going into committee on this thing in the first place. I am prepared to listen to debate on section 4, but not on discussions of other matters which aren't pertinent or relevant.

MS SANFORD: MR. Chairman, I would like to pose this question with respect to arbitration to the minister. Did the minister at any time yesterday following ... ?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Order!

MR. BARNES: What do you mean, "order"?

MS. SANFORD: This has to do, Mr. Chairman, with an arbitration board as outlined in section 4, and it's very relevant to this particular section....

MR. CHAIRMAN: Hon. members, order, please. The Chair cannot rule on calls for order or suggestions that the speaker is out of order unless the Chair has the opportunity to at least hear what the speaker wants to say. Now it may very well be that the speaker is out of order, but on the other hand I cannot prejudge what someone will say, so until such time as the member for Comox has made her statement I cannot rule on whether that is or is not in order. However, in view of all the warnings that have been given, I'm sure the member will do the best she can to remain in order.

MS. SANFORD: Mr. Chairman, I certainly will. I would submit, Mr. Chairman, that this section may well have been completely unnecessary if the minister yesterday had asked the unions whether or not they would consider the possibility of voluntary binding arbitration. The responsibility of the minister to contact the unions on that issue is one that he should have carried out, just as he should have carried out his responsibility as minister to ensure that the employers were brought into his office for further discussion on the breakthrough yesterday.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Hon. member, I'm sure you are well aware of the section which says we must not say statements by one method which we're prohibited from saying by another method. However, your points have been made.

Section 4 approved on the following division:

[ Page 2913 ]

YEAS - 30

NAYS -- 15

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

On section 5.

HON. MR. WILLIAMS: I move the amendment to section 5 which I have placed on the table, Mr. Chairman. By way of a brief explanation, section 5 deals with the duties of the board, which is to reach a decision on a new collective agreement. This amendment will make certain that the board does have the power to make its decision retroactive to the date of the expiry of the last contract.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Hon. members, I will read the amendment for those members who may not have received a copy of it. It is to section 5:

"By adding the following subsection (4): The decision of the board may provide that the renewed or revised collective agreement takes effect from any date after the expiration of the collective agreement extended under section 2 (2) (c) ."

Amendment approved.

Section 5 as amended approved.

Sections 6 to 8 inclusive approved.

On section 9.

MR. STEPHENS: Mr. Chairman, I would like to, in view of the minister's remarks that section 11 will not be proclaimed immediately, and in view of the last part of section 9, that is, 9 (4) (b) , which says upon the happening of certain events, "this Act ceases to apply to the parties and their collective agreements" ask the minister what will happen if the parties reach an agreement before he proclaims section 11. Is that the end of the Act? It is a very serious question and I think the minister would like to answer it.

HON. MR. WILLIAMS: That is the section which makes certain that as far as the parties are concerned, namely the union and the Employers in the West Kootenays, the Act does not repeat itself for them. It is applicable only to the resolution of this particular work stoppage and the renewal or revision of one collective agreement, and when that one expires doesn't repeat itself again. They are the only parties who are involved.

MR. STEPHENS: Yes, I understand that, Mr. Chairman, but that isn't the question. You see, 9 (4) (b) says, "On the happening of either of those two events, this Act ceases to apply to the parties and their collective agreements." That in effect is saying that this Act ceases to apply, period.

HON. MR. WILLIAMS: It says, "ceases to apply to the parties." Arid the parties are the unions and the employers and include where applicable the B.C. School Trustees Association as accredited bargaining agent for the employers. That's the ones in the West Kootenays, the only ones that are affected. So that extinguishes sections 1 to 9 and prevents it from repeating itself again. So we're not imposing forever a no-strike, no-lockout bar on these particular parties, nor are we imposing arbitration time after time after time.

MR. STEPHENS: Maybe I misunderstand the Act. To whom else does this Act apply other than those parties?

Interjection.

MR. STEPHENS: Yes, but it's not proclaimed. The Act only applies to the parties referred to in that section, is that not correct, Mr. Minister? If it applies to other parties, then perhaps the Act should be expanded, because look at the title of the Act.

HON. MR. WILLIAMS: I don't know how to respond to the member any more than I have. This particular statute will come to an end when all the agreements have been renewed and revised, and consequentially with the passage of this Act, the Essential Services Disputes Act is also amended and it will continue as

[ Page 2914 ]

any other statute does.

MR. STEPHENS: I'll try once more. It may be quite true that I may be misunderstanding the minister, but surely if the Act ceases to apply before section It is proclaimed, then section 11 will die with it.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Perhaps, hon. members, section 11 is an amendment to another Act.

MR. STEPHENS: Not till it's proclaimed.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Shall section 9 pass?

MR. COCKE: Mr. Chairman, I'd just like to make an observation on this section. It would seem that when there's one lawyer in a town, he's broke; but when two lawyers arrive in a town, they both get rich. We can see now why.

MR. CHAIRMAN: In view of the hour, I won't rule on whether or not that was in order.

Sections 9 and 10 approved.

On section 11.

HON. MR. WILLIAMS: Mr. Chairman, I have sent around this amendment to section 11. The effect of this amendment on the delivery of educational services also enables the Labour Relations Board in the appropriate case to designate those specific functions or services which may be associated with such disruption. It's a part of a general authority that the Labour Relations Board can have under section 8 of the Essential Services Disputes Act.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Hon. members, all members may not have been circulated the amendment, so if you would just care to follow with me I'll read it briefly, because it's very few lines.

It's to section 11 of Bill 46, by adding as section 11 (c) the following: by adding in sections 8 (c) , line 5 thereof, after the word (citizens) , the words "or substantial disruption in the delivery of educational services of the province." That is the amendment.

On the amendment.

MR. KING: There was some discussion about the proper understanding of this particular section that is being amended. The minister seemed to feel that it was restrictive, dangerous to life-supporting services. While that provision resides in this section - danger to life, health or safety - that was completely superfluous because that provision was also contained in the Labour Code.

But section (b) , the one before (c) here, says "an immediate and substantial threat to the economy and welfare of the province and its citizens." I want to say to the minister that that is as wide as the world; that's only subject to the judgment of the government of the day. To suggest that that is restrictive in any way is appalling. That's a matter of judgment, and the government is in the position to make that judgment and apply it. What we're doing with this amendment, which adds a section (c) , is expanding it still further to now read: "...or a substantial disruption in the delivery of educational services." I can conceive of no dispute that would reside outside the regime of this particular section.

Amendment approved.

On section 11 as amended.

MS. SANFORD: Now we come to the real reason that we are in session - that is this section 11. No matter what kind of convoluted, reaching arguments that the minister presented in second reading, we cannot avoid that, and that's why we're here. This section has been put in as an addendum to a bill which was brought down to deal with the labour dispute in the Kootenays. We needn't even have been here if the minister had carried out his duties yesterday. It is this section that is the reason that we are all sitting here at 10 after I on a Saturday morning.

This section indicates that the government has not learned a thing over the years. The previous social Credit government got involved in this kind of union bashing which this section represents. When they became desperate for issues they always turned to an issue such as the one which is represented here in section 11. This government is in very much the same position. They need this section for campaigning purposes. They've thrown out this wide net....

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. First, I would ask for some silence from the members who are not speaking, because it is difficult even to make myself heard. Hon. member, the principle of this bill has been discussed in second reading. We are in committee stage, only really dealing with the technical aspects. I would ask that you restrict your remarks in section 11 to the technical aspects of the bill.

MS. SANFORD: I think that the point that was made by the second member for Victoria (Mr.

[ Page 2915 ]

Barber) earlier is an accurate one, that what we are really discussing is two separate bills here. We have now reached this addendum, which is in effect a second bill. This section 11 is brought in for the political needs of this government. They have thrown out this net which includes municipalities, universities, colleges, provincial institutes, regional districts and improvement districts. All of those are included in this section 11, and all of those are needed to satisfy the political need that exists at this moment. They need this so that they can campaign and, hopefully, garner enough votes to get them re-elected. There is nothing else that they can campaign on at this stage. They need this section 11. They cannot campaign on getting the economy moving. They cannot campaign on reduction of taxes. They cannot campaign on the protection of the environment.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Hon. member, I'm sure you are well aware of the fact that you are out of order in this point, and I would draw your attention to that.

MS. SANFORD: Mr. Chairman, I just want to reiterate that it is this section 11, this addendum to a bill which deals with a specific dispute, that is the real reason that we are in session today.

MRS. DAILLY: I have a very quick question to the minister. Mr. Chairman, this is to the minister: all-embracing as this section appears to be, I think I should draw it to his attention, and perhaps find an answer to why you have left out - or the government, and particularly the Minister of Education - a group of schools which are now tax-supported. I'm referring to the private schools, the independent schools, of British Columbia, which now receive tax grants. You have every other educational institution in here which is tax supported. Why are the private schools of British Columbia not included in the schedule?

AN HON. MEMBER: You're out of order.

MRS. DAILLY: I would think it's in order, Mr. Chairman.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Hon. members, order, please. It is not for the Chair to involve itself in the discussion. However, we are only here to discuss what is in the bill and not what is not in the bill.

MR. KING: Mr. Chairman, I think the member for Burnaby North's question is a valid one, and is within the scope of the intent of the section. I think the minister should answer that; it is a very valid question. If the minister wants to appear even-handed in the application of the thing....

MR. CHAIRMAN: Hon. member, whether or not the minister wishes to appear even-handed, the Chairman has ruled. The ruling is that if something is not in the bill this is not the time to discuss whether it should have been included in the bill in the first place.

MR. KING: All right, Mr. Chairman, if we want to get highly technical at this time of night when we've had good co-operation thus far, there's a great deal to talk about in this section, and a great deal the minister has to answer for. We ask for a bit of co-operation from the minister to answer a valid point. Now either he will or we'll be here for a while.

Mr. Chairman, I have some questions on this section. I wonder why the minister found it necessary to apply these emergency provisions to disputes that do not exist. I wonder why the minister found it necessary to apply emergency provisions of a bill to unions working for municipalities, and there are a whole variety of them. There are the city workers. There are other CUPE unions that have nothing to do with the school boards; there are unions working for the water works. Some of them are operating engineers, some of them office and technical workers. Why did the minister find it necessary to provide or to apply emergency conditions to those unions that are not in dispute? Is he not prepared to wait until there is a dispute before he brings in this kind of emergency, [illegible] legislation? This is what I'd like to learn from the minister.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Perhaps before the member for Burnaby North begins speaking, I have seen such vacant spaces all evening and now, of course, the roar is becoming deafening. I would ask that the members, for the rest of this morning's sitting, try and keep it as quiet as possible.

MRS. DAILLY: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I understand that the minister did not hear my question, and that's why.... I simply was asking why private schools, which are now tax-supported institutions in this province, are not included in the schedule. Is it considered that they don't come under the category of providing essential services? If that is so, why are they therefore receiving tax money? But that's a supplementary. The

[ Page 2916 ]

first question basically is: why are they not included under this section?

HON. MR. WILLIAMS: I think it must be an oversight, Mr. Chairman. I'd be delighted to amend the bill to put it in, if the member would wish. I'd be quite happy to. Quite frankly, it was my understanding that we were to get a list of all educational institutions, and that this was it. So yes, sure, we'll write it, or do you want to write it? I'll be happy to amend it.

MRS. DAILLY: It's your bill. You write it.

MR. KING: Mr. Chairman, I would be happy if the minister would explain to the House why he found it necessary to include literally dozens of other unions and employer groups which are not now in dispute. This was billed as an emergency session of the Legislature; the title of the bill is West Kootenay Schools Collective Bargaining Assistance Act. Yet we find under section 11 colleges, universities, municipalities, regional districts, improvement districts, and corporations under the Water Act. Is the minister anticipating chaos in the bargaining realm in British Columbia, or is he simply demanding a "weapon, " as he put it earlier on in his discussions, in anticipation of possible disruption in these areas? What's his motivation for the broad inclusion of those groups? I'd appreciate knowing.

HON. MR. WILLIAMS: Mr. Chairman, I gave that answer when I closed second reading debate, and I don t know why I have to repeat it again. The member was in the House, and I gave the answer.

MR. KING: Well, Mr. Chairman, at that time, as I recall and understand the minister's comments, he was saying that it wasn't all that encompassing, and wasn't all that wide. Now Iove read the section for the minister. It says: "...by adding the following employers to the schedule: colleges and boards of school trustees, as defined in the Public Schools Act; universities as defined in the Universities Act...." Well, I can understand that. Those are the parties affected by the dispute that is before the House. But it goes further. It says: "...institutions as defined in the Colleges and Provincial Institutes Act; municipalities; regional districts; and improvement district corporations under the Water Act." Now there are garbage workers, there are probably carpenters, probably operating engineers -- a whole variety of unions hold certification in municipalities, a whole broad spectrum of unions. There must be literally dozens of them between the area of municipal government, regional districts and water works. I didn't hear any explanation from the Minister of Labour which would give any rationale for hauling in a large group of trade unions and employers where there's no apparent conflict.

AN HON. MEMBER: He covered that.

MR. KING: Well, that did he say? I think that if we're dealing with the section here, I'd like- an explanation. I think that's reasonable. I think that's what committee study of the bill is for. If the minister is not prepared to answer, all I can say is I can wait.

HON. MR. WILLIAM: Mr. Chairman, I'll answer it again, but this will be the last time.

We have, in some of the accredited employers' groups, strange mixes of employers: municipalities, school districts, regional districts, colleges, recreation commissions. This is certainly the case in the mid-Island, and we have the same kind of mix in the greater Victoria accredited group. In applying the Essential Services Disputes Act we want to be in a position of not discriminating against any one employer who may have bound himself together with other employers under an accreditation. That's the reason we take them all in, plus the fact that with respect to municipalities, they do provide some services which affect life, health and safety, and as the circumstances arise we would prefer to use the essential services disputes legislation, which is somewhat broader than what presently exists in the Code. Everyone, therefore, who is in this position of providing any of the essential services is treated exactly the same -one statute and they're all involved.

Section 11 as amended approved on the following division:

YEAS -- 29

[ Page 2917 ]

NAYS - 15

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

Section 12 approved.

Title approved.

HON. MR. WILLIAMS: Mr. Chairman, I move the committee rise and report the bill complete with amendments.

Motion approved.

The House resumed; Mr. Speaker in the chair.

Bill 46, West Kootenay Schools Collective Bargaining Assistance Act, reported complete with amendments.

Leave granted for divisions to be recorded in the Journals of the House.

MR. SPEAKER: When shall the bill be considered as reported?

HON. MR. WILLIAMS: Now, Mr. Speaker.

Leave granted.

MR. SPEAKER: When shall the bill be read a third time?

HON. MR. WILLIAMS: Now, Mr. Speaker.

Leave granted.

Bill 46, West Kootenay Schools Collective Bargaining Assistance Act, read a third time and passed.

MR. SPEAKER: Hon. members, His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor approaches the chamber. Shall we all rise?

His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor entered the chamber and took his place in the chair.

CLERK-ASSISTANT: West Kootenay Schools Collective Bargaining Assistance Act

CLERK OF THE HOUSE: In Her Majesty's name, His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor doth assent to this bill.

His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor retired from the chamber.

Presenting reports.

Ron. Mr. Gardom presented the reports of the Protection of Privacy Act, 1974,1975, 1976 and 1977.

HON. MR. CURTIS: Mr. Speaker, I move that the House at its rising do stand adjourned until it appears to the satisfaction of Mr. Speaker, after consultation with the govern ment, that the public interest requires that the House shall meet, or until Mr. Speaker may be advised by the government that it is desired to prorogue the third session of the 31st Parliament of the province of British Columbia. Mr. Speaker may give notice that he is so satisfied, or has been so advised, and thereupon the House shall meet at the time stated in such notice and shall transact its business as if it had been duly adjourned to that time, and in the event of Mr. Speaker being unable to act, owing to illness or other cause, the Deputy Speaker shall act in his stead for the purpose of this order.

Motion approved.

The House adjourned at 1:35 a.m.